Command

<snip>
The staff, who had been politely standing still all this time, returned to attacking.
</snip>

"There's too many" Katrina yelled over the sound of panicked gunfire as the hosts broke the line and the crew had to resort to hand to hand combat "We need to fall back"
“Yeehah!”
Cass wheeled in surprise as Jaxx shot past with Evelina perched on his (it’s?) back, whooping and gyrating her hips in what Cass hoped was merely a display of showman-like bravado, and not the indulgence of some bizarre robo-ovine fetish
“Die!” one of the infected screamed, jolting Cass from her bemused, car-crash fascination of Eve's antics, as a wild eyed, spittle-flecked man bore down on her, his outstretched hands reaching for her throat
The nanosuit kicked in, almost without her willing it, and Cass dodged to one side to let the momentum of man’s attack carry him on past her, while at the same time, she bought one of her pistols up to shoot her assailant in the back of the head
As the man’s corpse fell, twitching, to the floor, Cass turned, flicked her pistols onto full auto, and raised both guns to open up with a barrage of suppressing fire; her eyes seemingly focussed elsewhere as she swept the pistols across the room, scoring multiple hits and killing many of the hosts in a frenzied burst of gunfire, eliciting cries of shock and horror from some of her crewmates

The fight ended quickly after that, with the remaining hosts either fleeing or dying beneath the hail of rallying gunfire from the other Dwarfers; a deafening, smoky silence eventually asserting itself, punctuated by the moans of the injured and dying
"Well, that's me out of ammo" Cass grumbled
“What the fuck was that!?” Jay demanded of her
“What?” she asked defensively
“That... That thing with the guns!?”
“What thing?”
“I... You...” Jay spluttered “How the hell did you do that!? How!? Full auto - How did you not hit any of us!?”
Cass glanced up from slotting the guns back into their housings on her belt to meet his gaze
“Target assist” she shrugged
“And that’s it!?” Jay demanded incredulously
“Yup” Cass glanced away, nervously nipping her bottom lip between her teeth
“Six hundred years!” Jay shook his head “STCP tech was never that good”
“I have to suffer the ignominy of being Brittany’s progeny” Cass retorted peevishly “It’s a poor do if I can’t reap some of the benefits by way of decent technology”
“Anyway" she shook her head and turned to address everyone "Let’s clear out of here. If we make for the fair, we can lose ourselves in the crowds; and while we’re moving, we can perhaps make the most of the opportunity, and rig an antenna up to triangulate whatever's controlling the spiders
"Alex and Jamie" she continued "Can you guys have a scout around these stables, and see if you can find anything you can use to create an antenna and 'zhuzh' up Artie's scanner?
“And Jay: I think I saw a cart outside, behind those old outbuildings; can you harness it up to one of the horses, in the stable next door? – The sooner we’re off the better!”
Raising his eyebrows, Jay mutely nodded in astonishment
“Sure” he croaked, uncertain as to what had just happened there
Jade had mentioned that Cassandra had been a competent leader while he had been ill, and he’d always maintained that with a bit of combat training, she'd be a force to be reckoned with; but even having seen it with his own eyes, he found it hard to reconcile what he had just witnessed, with what her remembered of the girl that had needed rescuing with embarrassing regularity for almost as long as he'd known her
Maybe these six months away had been good for her?


With a couple of the other Dwarfers standing guard while Jay and Plisken harnessed the horse, Cass darted back into the coaching inn to emerge a few minutes later, busily lacing herself into in a clean dress that she had found from somewhere, and with the gun bag she had left up in her room, slung back over her shoulder
It took only a few minutes to get everyone loaded and before long, they were off at a gentle trot with Jay and Katrina sitting up at the front of the wagon, and everyone else crowded in the back, looking for all the world like a husband taking his wife and friends off for a day at the fair with their weird-looking sheep

Sat at the very back of the wagon next to Jade, Cass let her skirts and legs dangle off the end of the trailer as she mutely watched the summer countryside crawl past around her, while the boys busied themselves, arguing about the best way to rig up the proposed antenna
"So how have you been?" Jade asked, jolting Cass from her reverie
“Busy” she glanced across at the smaller woman next to her “It’s been pretty weird”
Pausing, Cass gazed out across the gently undulating countryside around them, and idly swung her feet
“Feels a bit weird being back with you all” she murmured distantly, and glanced back at Jade “Good to see you though” she smiled
“You too” the doctor grinned back “Think we’ll get that night out? It seems nice enough around here – Other than the hordes of infected hosts, that is...”
“Pfft” Cass sneered “No chance of a boozy do around here; women are expected to be docile, virtuous and above all, completely inferior – That kind of shit’s been driving me crazy for about a month now; I can’t wait to get out of here”
“And then what?” Jade smiled “You reckon you’ll be able to settle back into life on the Dwarf again?”
“Dunno” Cass said after a moment’s thought “I don’t even know if we’ll be able to get back”
“Wait, what?”
“That’s it!” Artemis cried, suddenly standing to wave his scanner around as Alex and Jamie struggled to keep pace with him, with the hastily improvised antenna they had wired into it
“It seems...” Artie continued “It seems that we have multiple signals, Mrs Jones!”
Cass rolled her eyes
“Miss” she grumbled under her breath “No one’s been lucky enough to marry me ” but Artemis didn’t seem to notice and instead continued excitedly waving his scanner around
“The first command node, if that’s what it is...” Artie frowned down at the readings “Hold that damn antenna still. The first node seems to be...” he lowered his scanner and pointed off, cross country “About three kilometres, that way!”
“Can you tell where the others are?” Cass asked, twisting to look at where he was pointing
“There’s only one other” Artie pointed away in a different direction “Eight kilometres over there!”
“Excellent!” Jay reined the horse in to come to a halt, and turned in his seat to regard everyone “Well done guys
“Now, I hate to get all Scooby Doo on you” he continued, to blank looks from the non-time travellers “but given that these things seem to be psychic, what do you reckon to splitting the team up and doing a coordinated attack to take both nodes out at once?”
“Yeah, that would make sense” Cass nodded “Otherwise the second one we move against will be much better defended, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve only got a few clips of ammo left”
“So...” Jay looked between their faces “What do you reckon?”


<tag>
Should we split the group? – Who’s with whom?
Where are these nodes located?
What are they?
How are they defended?
</tag>