Making Progress

Momentarily forgotten while Phi had her latest breakdown and Alex slurred drunkenly at Efof, Cass silently watched Jaxx flounce off into the riotously verdant undergrowth, closely followed by an irritated looking Jay
She had no idea how the hell the MACO had heard her comments when he was supposedly out cold, but it would seem as though she had made an enemy of him; which only made her regret not being more vituperative and giving him at least another few good hard kicks in the side of the head
Demon woman, indeed! - She was the nice one!

Sighing, she turned to walk back down the lakeshore to inspect the, by now, almost entirely submerged starbug, and to gaze out across at the lake beyond, taking in the gently swaying blue-green tree ferns, and the riot of unfamiliar and exotically scented alien foliage crowding its shores
With little idea of which hemisphere of the planet they were on, let alone their latitude, it was hard to accurately gauge what time of day it was; but judging by the mists hanging above the lake and the low position of the sun above the verdantly craggy mountains in the distance, Cass guessed that the local time was probably somewhere around seven or eight in morning, and while it was just pleasantly warm at the moment, she could tell by the intensity of the sun on her face, that the day would develop in time into a humid scorcher

The sudden cacophony of distant, raised voices made her start and turn to glance, with a faint smile, in the direction of their source - By the sound of it Jay was in the process of tearing a well-deserved strip off Jaxx as well
Good, she reflected - She was glad that he had sided with her on this, since Jaxx's recent behaviour had been as terrifying as it was unacceptable, and it was high time he was made aware of the likely consequences of his brutality

That said, she had to concede that Alex had been right about giving him another chance, although not quite in the way she had led him to believe
Sure, everyone else had given her a chance when Jay had wanted her off the Dwarf, but Jay had eventually conceded his mistake there, and, other than her saving Brittany’s life over three million years ago, she herself had done nothing wrong; whereas Jaxx, on the other hand, had proven how dangerous he was, time and time again, in just one week!
No, the real reason she had agreed with Alex was a largely private matter, insomuch as she had recently come to accept that if her compatriots’ opinions differed to hers, then she should at least have the humility to re-examine her own views, and not just assume that she was right and that she knew best; so, since it seemed that everyone else felt Jaxx merited another chance, she had realised that, even in spite of the flashback nightmares she kept having about the GELF’s being slaughtered, she should (temporarily at least) acquiesce to their judgement

Fishing one of her last nine cigs out and sparking it up, she turned back to look out over the lake and smoke in silence, contentedly contemplating the personal progress she felt had made, and revelling in having taken one step further away from being merely a duplicate of Brittany
It would be nice, she felt, if she could discuss this with someone, but the only person she truly felt she could talk to about that kind of shit, wasn’t really interested; and so, she despondently realised, she would probably have to be make do with being happy about it on her own

Ultimately, she sardonically reflected, Jaxx would probably just be a goit all over again and prove her right by necessitating his elimination, but still: She should enjoy this small victory over her own nature!

Something large disturbed the surface of the water out on lake before quickly submerging again, distracting her from her reverie and making her frown in consternation – Whatever that was had been big, and assuming it didn’t just eat pond weed, they had been lucky not to have encountered it during their disembarkation from the starbug
It also meant, she glumly realised, that there were to be no refreshing dips in the lake when it got hot later on

Turning to walk back to the others Cass was surprised to see that White Wolf had turned up, accompanied by some woman with purple hair
<snip>
Phi stared at Candy with puzzlement, recalling her new personnel file, "Wait, we're on a planet where the EM field are playing havoc with anything electrical, so why are you okay and their not?"
Candy looked scared for a moment, as she worried the jig might already be up, when the gargantuan hamster explained, "oh, I helped repair her after she nearly got destroyed by that Bloody beast of a Gelf. Candice doesn't work at all like they do. She can use energy conversion on a femtomite level to regenerate and function in just about every environment."
Candice threw up her hands and struck a showy pose and went, "Tada!". Unfortunately, she looked rather humorous in the California Gurls parody outfit she was still wearing from the her unfortunately science Lab transformation. Seeing everyone's reaction, she put her hands back down and shrugged noncommittally.
"But she doesn't look the same as..." Started Phi again.
"Okay, I didn't get everything quite right." said White Wolf with annoyance.
</snip>
“The femtotech’s interesting” Cass said as she stalked forward, narrowing her eyes appraisively at Candice “but the starbug’s drives were hardened against EMP, and yet they completely fried when they hit the field around this planet; the same with Bedge as well - and he’s military grade!”
She paused to take a last drag on her cig and to flick the butt away into the lake
“Whatever it is that’s in effect around this planet, it’s off the smegging scale; so even in spite of this construct’s more advanced technology, I’m afraid to say that I’m pretty sure it’s going to succumb in much the same way Bedge did”
Candice looked crestfallen as White Wolf irritably twitched his whiskers
“You don’t know that” he started brusquely “Candy’s auto-repair functionality will probably be able to compensate”
“Hey” Cass held up her hands “I’m happy to be proven wrong on this – It means that we can tap her for power and parts; but if you want my opinion, I reckon she’s slowly burning herself out and that she’ll wind up like Bedge in due course; so might it be best to just shut her down now, and minimise the damage?”
“You’re a real li’l ray of sunshine, ain’cha?” Alex slurred, clapping an overenthusiastically friendly arm around her shoulders
“Yeah, speaking of sunshine...” Cass twisted her way out of Solvay’s embrace, wincing at the smell of both him and his breath “I’d say that we’ve crashed in a tropical or sub-tropical zone, so since it’s going to get real hot here later on, we’re going to need to find shelter, fresh water and if possible something to eat while it’s still cool enough”
She paused to let the reality of her words sink in
“I don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but until we figure out how to get ourselves off this rock, we’re going to have to pull together” Cass continued, glancing around her companions “Now I know smeg all about jungle survival, so does anyone have any suggestions about where we start?”