Cass: Back in the land of the living

"Wha!? Urh! Whaaaaaargh!"
Cass sat bolt upright, her eyes unfocussed and arms flailing wildly, fighting
off unseen assailants
"Ahhrgh! What!?" she scrambled backwards, colliding almost immediately with the
wall "Ow. Shit!"
"Back with us eh?"
"Wh..?" Cass gazed frantically around, finally beginning to take her
surroundings in
"Oh..." she muttered, slumping sideways to flop back down onto the bunk she was
on
Butler shot her a tight smile from across the room, turned the page of the book
he was holding and continued reading
With a groan, Cass pushed her throbbing head deeper into the pillow and took a
few deep breaths to try and collect the tatters of her composure
"What happened?" she murmured after a few minutes
"Dunno" Butler rumbled "Found you sprawled unconscious in a service corridor
about a half day ago; vitals all read fine, but you've been out cold until now.
Do you remember what happened?"
"Mmh. Not really..." Cass muttered "Lights went out, smacked on the head. Didn't
see or hear anyone coming..."
"You think someone might be onto you?"
"Dunno"
Cass rolled onto her back with a groan and rubbed her face with her hands
"Dunno..." she repeated "I'd have thought that if someone had been onto me, they
would probably have just killed me instead of knocking me out"
"Maybe a warning...?"
"Humph" Cass curled her lip "If it was... I take it you've got your weapons with
you?"
"Dumb question"
"Yeah, sorry" she sat up on the bunk and smiled apologetically "I'm worried
though; I've no idea what happened there, or if there are other forces at play
here, or..."
She ran a hand through her hair, her brow furrowed in thought
"Ok" she snapped decisively "Enough smegging around. I say we just go for it"
"We?" Butler raised his eyebrows
"Yeah, well, you know: Me. I mean I've got everything in place: The nanonics,
the hardware, most of Holly's idle processing power, the sample, a neurological
and even a physical back up of myself... I've triple checked everything... I
mean what could possibly go wrong?"
Butler grimaced
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know: Agonisingly disassembled protoplasm"
Cass hugged her knees to her chest and blew out a breath
"Yeah... It might go horribly wrong" she murmured quietly, lapsing into uneasy
silence
"Oh hey: Did I miss anything while I was unconscious?" she asked after a moment
with what Butler thought was somewhat forced vivaciousness
"I think we went through a wormhole and found the Red Dwarf"
Cass raised her eyebrows
"Wow. What are the chances of that?"
She sat in contemplative silence for a bit
"...I guess I'll have to try and take more of an interest in that kind of thing
in the future"
Butler smiled sadly
"You don't have to do this" he said
"No..." Cass stood and lurched unsteadily across the room to start powering up
the jury-rigged hardware piled on the table "I've got to do this"
Trailing cables back across the room, Butler watched as she performed the final
system integrations in silence before finally pulling a large glowing syringe
full of medical nanites out of a sock drawer and held it up to regard it, her
face bathed in an eerie green light.
"Think about your next actions very carefully" Butler rumbled
Cass just ignored him, took a deep breath and jammed the syringe into her thigh,
injecting the nanites
"I've got to do this" she repeated to him "It's my one and only really big shot
at something better than entertaining drunken perverts for the rest of what'll
undoubtedly be a miserably short life"
She looked at Butler and smiled weakly
"I've got about a half hour before these things start killing me. Fancy a beer?"
<tbc/>
<ooc>And I'm back. Sorry about the downtime - work pressures and all
that...</ooc>