Jubilations

<snip>
"Ah good, you're awake"
The voice was gently familiar and so, as Cassandra's eyes flickered open, were the surroundings, although neither the owner of the voice or Osaka Castle Park in spring time were what she had expected
"We thought you'd like it here"
Blinking disconcertedly, Cass quickly scrambled upright
"Hiya sleepy-head" Brittany smiled
Cass frowned
"This is a dream, right?"
</snip>

"Sure" Brittany shrugged "If you like..."
Glancing around her surroundings, Cass took in the ancient beauty of the park and it's famous blossom trees, glumly wondering what had become of them all in the last three million years
"So how're things with you?" Brittany asked eventually
Cass shrugged
"Oh, you know..."
"Still alive, huh?"
"Yeah"
They both smiled at the shared joke and lapsed back into silence, regarding each other for a moment; it was Brittany who spoke first
"Congratulations on getting together with Jay" she offered
"I keep having to be rescued by him" Cass wrinkled her nose "I'm not a victim; it's beginning to piss me off!"
"We can well imagine" Brittany nodded sympathetically
“So what happened with you?” Cass asked, changing to a subject she was happier with
“Oh... Ruled for thousands of years, ushered in humanity's first golden age” Brittany smiled coyly “Stuff...”
“And what about that genocide I heard about?” Cass asked, meaning the Molopods “Did that happen?”
Brittany raised her eyebrows
“Which one was that?”
“So, the Molopods weren't the only ones?”
“Sure” Brittany shrugged “You can't build a interstellar empire without breaking a few eggs”
“I guess not” Cass murmured
“The Hymenoptera, for example, were one of the more annoying species We had to put down” Brittany continued, with a smug smirk “Tedious little smegs. Chrysler only killed the local hive mind before the STCP recruited him, but there were dozens of other hives spread out across of the galaxy; took the best part of a thousand years, but We liquidated each and every last one of them”
“Not that I blame you...” Cass said slowly “But that's how many billions?”
“Trillions” Brittany retorted “Trillions upon trillions of the sub-sentients; although there were more than few other expansionist species of a similar bent to our own after that, and hundreds of others that showed promise, but you needn't worry yourself about them; history is as We wish it”
Cass blew out a breath
“Who'd have guessed I'd have turned out to be a bona fide war criminal?”
“You'd have done it too” Brittany winked
“Yeah, but I haven't” Cass protested
“You just haven’t had the opportunity; the potential's within you...”
"Regardless" Cass scowled, waving her hand dismissively "You're just a product of my subconscious; stop making small talk"
"Oh, alright" Brittany grinned impishly at her "We don't have long anyway; you're in danger and all this is, tediously, having to happen in real time"
"Danger!?" Cass asked sharply
"Now, as much fun as it would be to intervene directly" Brittany continued, blithely ignoring her "It'll likely put you in even greater danger in the future, and that would be ...inconvenient"
She stood, leaving Cass looking up at her from where she still sat on the ground
"Two things..." Brittany said briskly "One: When you get a bit of time to yourself, you may want to construct a few Elimination Devices; and two: Try to stay together with Jay; he's worth the effort"
"Is that it?" Cass asked incredulously "Why don't you tell me something I don't already know, or that I couldn't actually figure out for myself!?"
"Because you wouldn't understand it, silly"
"And what's that meant to mean!?"
"We're just a product of your subconscious" Brittany smirked, holding her arms open expansively "Figure it out for yourself!"
"Smeg's sake..." Cass muttered with a shake of her head
"Hush now, Jay's going to need your help to get off this institute; go find him" Brittany soothed, absently stooping to tidy a stray lock of Cass' hair with a cool, thin hand "You'll wake in two, one..."
BANG
A sudden impact jarred Cass awake and flung her, screaming, across the room; her arms and legs flailing wildly until the Cyberparks safety mechanisms kicked in and restraining fields quickly hauled her momentum into check, ensuring that her impact with the opposite wall was merely jarring rather than fatal

As the fields lowered her safely down towards the floor, Cass belatedly realised the air in the room had the unmistakeable tang of smoke about it, and that a multitude of alarms were impotently blaring in some distant part of the institute
"Aw, what the smeg now!?" she groaned; her head was starting to hurt again
She strode across the room and tapped at the Cyberpark's cracked control panel, accessing the institutes system functions with the intention of trying to locate Jay, but what she saw on the readouts made her feel physically sick
Power and the other essentials, for the most part, still seemed to be online, the main reactors and secondary fail-safe systems being situated in the engineering section towards the bottom of the station; but the entire top third of the institute, including the Bridge, where Jay had most likely been, seemed to have been completely obliterated by whatever it was they had collided with, leaving the station spinning wildly away from the Dwarf
“Smeg” Cass croaked, her mouth dry
Taking a shaky breath, she tapped at the control panel, switching the display through to the security feeds to cycle through the cameras still left online, trying to trace Jay's most likely route to the bridge and to ascertain whether or not he was still alive
Tap. Fire. Tap. Debris. Tap. Fire. Tap. Dead. Tap. Escape pods...
“Oh hello...” Cass murmured, executing a couple of commands to arm the pods and override the aeons old system locks in seconds
Resuming her search for Jay, she carried on flicking through the security feeds, a sick feeling of worried anxiousness, gnawing at her insides
Tap. Empty corridor. Tap. Fire. Tap. Dead. Tap. Dead. Tap. Stairwell. Tap...
One of the external cameras showed a spinning view of the 'Dwarf, rapidly diminishing into the distance, framed by an expanding cloud of debris, but she clicked on to the next one without so much as a pause; she didn't give a rats arse about whether or not they had hit the damned thing, only that Jay was alright, but she was rapidly running out of hope
Tap. Smoke. Tap. Fire. Tap. Dead. Tap. Herself. Tap. Corridor. Tap. Jay
Her heart leaped – he was alive!
Frowning at the screen, trying to figure out which corridor he was in, she quickly turned away from the controls to slap the door access panel and dash out into the smoke filled passageways outside

A short sprint through the corridors, and they were in each others arms
“I thought you'd died” she chided, kissing him jubilantly “I'm so happy you're still with me”
“It'll take more that an impact like that to kill me” Jay grinned “Did I tell you about the time I was on...”
Cass kissed him again to shut him up
He broke it off a few seconds later, a look of concern on his face
“Are you alright?” he asked, indicating the injury Legion had given her “How's your head?”
Cass' lips quirked into a smile
“Never had any complaints” she said “How's yours?”
“I... There isn’t...” Jay blustered
Cass just kissed him again
“Later Sparky; I found and armed a few escape pods in engineering - we need to get out of here...”

It didn’t take too long to locate the escape pods, and before too long Cass and Jay were both safely ensconced inside one
“I really don’t like the way this station's spinning” Jay murmured, sealing the pods doors “Hard to say which direction we'll to be heading in once we eject”
“Who cares?” Cass said, pulling the straps on her seat restraints tight “We're alive; that's all that matters”
Jay shrugged
“True” he acknowledged, smacking the firing button and accelerating the pod out into space

<tag>Jay – so where are we heading to? - back to the Dwarf, or elsewhere?</tag>