What Cass did next

Who: Cassandra
Where: In recently vacated quarters
When: During the security drill
Cass jerked awake at the sound of the battle station alarms and rolled over in
bed, blearily fumbling for the alarm clock for a moment before giving up when
she groggily remembered where she actually was.
With a groan, she sat up and swung her legs out of bed onto the cold floor,
resting her elbows on her knees and hanging her head
"Lights" she snapped grumpily "...and switch that smegging alarm off"
The alarm ceased abruptly and the lights flickered reluctantly to life,
illuminating the by now untidy room that she had commandeered when she had moved
in a week and a half ago after the anarchy on the cargo decks began to get way
out of hand
Things were very different down there amongst the underworld community now that
many of the old faces were either dead or unaccounted for after the fiasco on
the Mime prison planet; this had led to a shifting in the balance of power,
followed by a frantic and bloody land grab as the remaining underworld powers
scrambled to capitalise on their sudden good fortune
Even Le Souteneur had apparently vanished, his old strip club having reopened in
the meantime under the management of Lilith his former accountant in new
premises with the new (and only slightly less offensive) moniker of "The Velvet
Fist"
Not that Cass had actually set foot in the new place; she had been too busy by
far
Shivering slightly, she groped around on the floor for the dead woman's dressing
gown, and shrugged her way into the stupid pink thing before she got up and
moped across the room towards the junk strewn table in the middle of the room
Pink had never been her colour, but it seemed as if Amy Salvesen, the dead
crewmember whose room she had moved into, had been mad for the damn colour: Pink
dressing gown, pink fluffy teddy bears, pink bedding, pink t-shirts with `Hug
me' emblazoned in pink on them, pink, pink, pink...
The woman had obviously been utterly insane, and as such, Cass consoled herself
that at least some good had come from her involvement in killing so many of the
ships compliment; besides, she reflected as she snatched her cigs up from the
table and sparked one up, beggars couldn't be choosers: Ms Salvesen's savings
had been providing her a comfortable enough living while she had been working on
her project, so she really shouldn't complain
Trailing smoke, Cass trudged around to the other side of the table, shook a
handheld computer out from under a few carelessly discarded circuit boards and
flicked it on, jabbing her fingers over the display, cig drooping from her
pursed lips as she scrutinised the readout
All good.
The viruses and ancillary systems were all performing wonderfully; and that trip
she had made out to the science labs the other night had paid off nicely too -
Things were actually going well for a change!
Working in silence, Cass reviewed her twisted labyrinth of systems for twenty
minutes or so, before the sounds of gunfire and screaming in the corridor
outside broke her concentration
"Hol?" she murmured, piping an encrypted semaphore out to feed in a minor
adjustment via some of the subsumed slaves
"Alright dude" Holly swam to life on the rooms main monitor
"What was with that alarm earlier? Anything I need to be concerned about?"
"Alarm? Oh, that!? Nah. That's just your common or garden security drill. The
chief figured that while we're sat beside a star that's about to go supernova it
would be a great time to kick off a simulated Krylon atta-"
"We're next to a smegging supernova!?" Cass screeched, slapping the handheld
back down onto the table "Who the smeg thought that navigating us near one of
those would ever have been a good idea!?"
"In the Captains defence, it's not technically a supernova yet; and there were
these scientists that needed rescuing too..."
"Smegging hell, why couldn't he have just ignored their distress beacon like any
sane person would have done, and not endangered my, I mean, * all our* lives?"
"Dunno" Holly smiled beatifically, "You'll have to ask him that one yourself.
He's back onboard now"
"Well, I can't say how thrilled I am to hear that our glorious leader hasn't
managed to get himself flash fried in a savage bust of neutrinos..."
The ship shuddered slightly as it slipped through the artificial wormhole away
from the nova
"Thank smeg for that. I take it we're not all dying today after all" Cass
grated, picking up the handheld again and paging through the recent dialogues
that had been flagged up as potentially interesting
<snip>
"Look. You made Alota cry!"
Queen Brittany's face melted and she went all gooey. "Oh, poor little darling!"
She said. "I'm sorry Seymour. But it's so boring here on Mollopod."
"You should have thought about that before you became their Queen." Seymour
said, and closed the connection with Brittany so that he could go see Alota.
</snip>
Cass touched the controls to listen to that bit again
"...I'm sorry Seymour. But it's so boring here on Mollopod."
Cass hit pause
"That might come in useful" she murmured, a slow smile creeping across her lips
<snip>
Jay picked up the microphone and his voice came over the speakers throughout the
ship. "We are now docked at Fourth Base, none of the crew are permitted to go
aboard. I repeat do not go aboard."
</snip>
"Fourth Base? Hol... Isn't Fourth Base the home of the infamous Flesh Pits of
Fourth Base?"
"That's right dude" Holly flickered back to life on the main monitor "Here's
what the astro-journal says about the old place: Fourth base is a class two
facility orbiting Eroticon VI, home of the famous Eccentrica Gallumbits. Notable
local attractions include: The infamous Flesh Pits of Fourth Base, The Zero-G
Fun Hole, and the unbelievable experience of Total Immersive Talk; or if none of
that grabs your fancy, you could always relax and pit your wits on the Floating
Electrostatic Chess Ring, or the F.El.Ch.R as it's known locally"
"Gosh" Cass ran her fingers through her hair "Sounds too good to miss"
"Yeah. It's even got a crèche if you want to leave the kids for a bit: Jubblies"
"Great... What can I...?" Cass trailed off into silence, her brow furrowing in
thought for a moment "Ha. Got it!"
She dug down through a few menus on the handheld, mapping and sampling Queen
Brittany before engaging the comms channel
"Holly, put me through to the Fourth Base Hilton, please..."
<tbc/>