The Back Post of Death

<Snip>
Jamie was getting a bit baffled. "I learned it on Fernandos. It's easier than climbing a ladder..." He said, shrugging.
"If you must do it that way, at least put a sign up to warn people... You could give someone a heart attack appearing from the ceiling like that... And don't expect me to put you back together, humpty."
Then, Phi walked off. Jamie stood watching her leave for a minute, before looking confused again. "Humpty?" he asked no one in particular.
</Snip>

Plisken was walking down the corridor, having left Boyd, who seemed a little too loud for this early in the day, to the mercy of Artemis. Phi was walking up towards him; a strange burning in her eyes erupted when she caught sight of him. Had Jamie down something?
“Hi Phi,” said Plisken, trying to control his new voice, “Ho-“
A sharp hand crossed his face.
A seething red pain began to throb on his cheek, the print of an angry hand tattooed on his face.
“Don’t die on me again!” shouted Phi, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to cascade down her cheeks. Without giving Plisken time to explain, she stalked off, dropping a small disc at Plisken’s feet. Plisken tried to go after her but she turned and disappeared into the labyrinth of corridors and walkways.

<Snip>

“Okay everyone” Jay gazed out at the assembled crew standing all around him in the canteen “As I’m sure you all know, Jaxx’s mind is still trapped in skutter eighty six's body, and despite several creative and probably illegal suggestions put forward by Artemis, Doctor Black assures me that his best chance for any sort of recovery, lies in some sort of biomechanical interface that’ll compensate for the damaged parts of his brain; now that's a highly specialised cybertech job, so we’re going to need Cass back with us”
He paused to pick the time drive up from where it lay on the table beside him
“I’ve set this drive to jump us into Hertfordshire 1794, where we should gate in, in a remote spot at around midday on June the fourth. Now Hertfordshire’s a pretty big place so it’ll probably take a few days to find Cass; but all being well, we should be back her only a few moments after we set off
"I know that many of you are here as a personal favour to me, so it’s only fair that I let you know there's every chance that this'll be dangerous" Jay continued "So if any one of you wants to back out and remain behind, this is your last chance; neither I nor anyone else here will think any less of you"
Nobody said anything for a breathless moment until Katrina broke the silence by clearing her throat
"I think we're set, Jay" she nodded as she unslung and readied her pulse rifle "Let's do this"
"Last chance?" Jay asked, his eyes searching the faces of each of the assembled crew
"Oh, get on with it" Katrina chided
</Snip>

Trips through time were not something that was wholly alien to our old adventurer. Being under the command of Brittany in his earlier years had forced him into some things that occasionally involved altering the time lines slightly. Or drastically. Or completely erasing them. But everything had turned out for the best.
The solid ground of a dusty wine cellar replaced the cool metal floors of the Refectory. There was a slight chill in the air, it wrapped around Plisken’s womanly frame, his tight jumpsuit doing little to stave of the cold. A glint in the corner of his eye caught something, however. While the others were busy securing the area and scanning, like any good away team would do, Plisken streched out a femine hand and grasped the neck of a fine looking wine bottle, the deep red liquid tightly wrapped in a clear glass and decorated with a label that had browned with time.

<Snip>
“That’d be my doing” a modulated voice rang out, making everyone start and wheel to train their weapons on the decloaking figure that shimmered into existence beside one of the pillars supporting the ceiling
“Cass?” Jay frowned after a moment as the cloaking field finally dissipated to reveal a tall, slim woman in one of the STCP’s pitch black, figure hugging nanosuits.
</Snip>

“Cass?!” said Plisken in exclamation, a mouthful of fine red wine spraying from his mouth and dowsing the little Jaxx skutter. Thankfully, he seemed rather occupied with scanning the area. Jaxx seemed to have made the best of his current predicament. Plisken shrugged his shoulders: I guess not everyone has an AI Ex-Wife living in an impossible cupboard wife a spare body.

<Snip>
The door at the top of the stairs down into the cellars burst open to reveal a tall, thin, balding man carrying an oil lantern and a stout cudgel
“The cellars!” he shouted and began hurrying down the steps
</Snip>

Plisken instinctively raised his old and battered bolt-action rifle, the same one that had occupied him on the Dwarfers little jaunt on Fernando’s and Abydosha. But before he could look to Cass for a nod or a shake of the head, Jaxx had picked up a rock, which was strange considering they were in a cellar of a house, and had thrown it, rather accurately, which was also strange considering he was a skutter and probably shouldn’t have had been able to get much force behind the rock with his limited strength in the neck joints, and into the bald man’s crotch. The oil lamp which had been clutched tightly in the bald man’s hand dropped to the floor as his hands went to protect his crotch from any further harm. The lamp smashed to the ground, the glass easily breaking under its own weight and gravity. The cellar, which had at first appeared to be made of stone, turned out to be made of very dry and very flammable wood which quickly began to blaze in a crackling bonfire. But before Plisken could turn to join in with the Jaxx slamming, the small skutter led the group through a tunnel to an old coal mine.
“Who has a coal mine in their cellar?” asked Plisken but nobody really seemed to be listening.
The old man in a woman’s body glanced back into the cellar before heading out. The fire had started quickly and there appeared to be more wine bottles than had previously been thought as a strong smell of burning wine filled his senses, the foul smell pushing him further into the coal mine, the what he had thought to be the last bottle of wine clutched in his hand.

<Snip>
"Get down!" Jay barked, as Dwarfers hit the deck. Cass pulled Jade to the ground, there was a glassy smash as the torch bulb fractured and popped at the sudden impact with the ground. Jade yelped as her lifeline went out and the inferno raged harmlessly overhead before receding back. She curled up into a ball in the pitch darkness and shook with fear.
"He's going to get me. He's going to find me." She gasped breaths of air in raspy gasps, the darkness pressing in around her like a heavy smothering blanket.
"I think she's got one of those parasites." Jaxx86 mused.
"Then we should leave her here. We can't risk compromise this early on." Eve said, a hand resting on Jaxx86's head
</Snip>

Plisken turned in shock to this new found brutality in Eve. In a single instant, his entire perception of the dreadlock clad girl had flipped from the caring young thing to a bitter and brutal soldier. This was further reinforced when Plisken took the time to look at the girls clothing, decked to the nines in a MACO armour suit. When had she become like this? But then Plisken thought back to his own past, and he had done some worse things then.

<Snip>
There was a cracking noise, and a sloppy wet shaking. The tunnel became illuminated by a small florescent tube. Everyone turned to look. Alex shrugged- he had his backpack with him. Unknown to most, they had been from his planned trip back to Fernando's. He sighed; he was going to have to restock.
"What?" He grumped at the others, bending down and placing a hand on Jade's shoulder. "We ain't leavin' her."
Jade flinched away from the touch, with a small whimper. The light filtered through the gaps in her protective ball and she snaked a hand out and gripped the glowing stick in a vice like grip.
"Come on, what's up Doc?" Jay said, inadvertently sniggering at his own joke. Katrina elbowed him sharply in the ribs and also bent down to look at the Doctor.
"She doesn't look like she has a brain spider." Kat said, looking over the back of Jade's neck, assuming that's how the critters got in. Alex shivered at the thought of a spider in his brain.
"I can pick her up on the Psi-Scanner." Artie said, brandishing the device wildly. "Although if she is infected it would give me a prime opportunity to..."
"Not now Artie." Jay said, "Besides, I'd rather you didn't do anything rash in a coal mine that is about to catch fire." Jay said, massaging his temples. The whole plan was already going wrong.
"Hmm, true. I owe it to the woman to observe best practice after all. Perhaps once we are outside?" He mused, looking through his own kit and trying to devise something that would extract a tennis ball sized chunk of brain without killing the host. Jade was only vaguely aware of the conversation, fixated as she was on the small yellow-green light of the glow stick.
"Come on." Alex urged, looping an arm under hers and lifting her to her feet.
"Yeah... Outside. If you want Artie..." She kept her grip on the glow stick, refusing to let Alex take it off her. Her focus on the light, her mind a little... over stressed... by the whole pitch black tunnel thing.
"Anyone else want to have an attack of the crazies?" Cass growled, "No? Good. Let’s go." She gestured onwards to the group and stalked off onwards.
</Snip>

A LITTLE WHILE LATER

Plisken walked over to Cass, who was sitting at a table alone in the corner of the empty tavern. In his hand, he still proudly held the bottle of wine saved from the cellar of the house.
“I don’t believe we’ve had time to meet,” she said without turning.
Plisken gave a half-hearted laugh, “You’d been surprised.”
He pulled up a chair opposite Cass, a warm smile gleaming on his face. The twisted face of confusion crept up on Cass but then quickly faded as she put together the small movements and accents in the voice.
“Plisken?”
“Hmm, at least I still hope so,” joked Plisken as he poured Cass a glass of wine, helping himself to one as well.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Plisken took a gulp of wine before talking, “I died.”
“Ha, you died saving the rest of the crew in that game?”
“Yeah, I guess you’d know about that by now. Nice failsafe by the way. Came in very useful.”
Cass gave a modest shrug and muttered something about it being child’s play.
“Your new body is very… different,” she said, taking in the dramatic change in Plisken’s appearance, “To be able to do something this complicated should have taken, well, me.”
“Yes, my Ex-Wife gave it to me as a sick joke.”
“Your Ex-Wife?”
“Yeah, she lives in a small cottage next to my ship in a cupboard on deck 16.”
“Of course she does,” laughed Cass. Plisken joined in as he thought on the strangeness of his life.
“So what happened to your own body?”
“Oh, I think it’s safe.”

MEANWHILE
The door to Stasis pod 64 was ripped open and clashed to the ground. Several heavily armed men wearing no insignia roughly lifted Plisken’s limp and lifeless body out of the booth and into the corridor.
“This is Alpha of Epsilon 3, the package is secure.”

MEANWHILE
Plisken sat at the bar of tavern, a couple of empty wine glasses littering the floor around him. Cass had since gone to bed, saying something about sharing a bed with Jade. Plisken had decided that it would probably be best to not share a bed with someone. His recent predicament would make it awkward to be in any bed and he did not wish to be on his own. In his hand he played with a small disc while he drank deeply from a wine bottle. He would pass out and wake up the net morning on the bar stool, hunched over a bowl of dry coffee.