Arrival

Warping tortuously, the Time Gate howled open to deposit the Dwarfers on a low dais, surrounded on all sides by towering machinery of arcane and uncertain function.
The cold and dimly lit chamber the crew found themselves in was dominated by a high, vaulted ceiling, into which the machines twisted and arced, their upper reaches lost in gloomy darkness above. Everything seemed dilapidated and dirty; the floor and the arching, colonnaded walls, all seemingly constructed from the same grey-black metal, were rust streaked and caked in years of accumulated grime
Bright white circles of light thrummed into existence on the floor, each encircling and illuminating a single member of the crew before anyone could move, and imparting a weird, echoless closeness to the air inside the circles
“We’re in space” Cass observed, her voice sounding strangely flat and unfamiliar, as her eyes darted around her surroundings “This doesn’t feel like a planet”
“I've... Ow!” Jade recoiled in shock as she moved and hit something with her elbow, a bright blue flash of light shimmering away from the point of impact to briefly outline a cylinder of something surrounding her
"Forcefield" Jay poked the air in front of him, only to snatch his fingers back from the painful crackle of energy and light that danced across the surface of the field "Ideas people?"
Artemis pulled his psi-scanner out from within his robes
"Interesting..." he mused, his fingers jabbing at the device's controls as Cassandra, suddenly overcome fatigue, sank slowly to the floor
"Cass?" Jay frowned in concern "Are you okay?"
"I’ll be fine" she croaked, woozily raising an arm to inspect the 'suit's readout on her wrist "It'll be the drugs wearing off"
"No, I don't think so!" Artemis exclaimed proudly and paused to squint down at his psi-scanner's screen "There's some sort of airborne contaminant inside these forcefi... Oh my..."
"Hey, guys!" Katrina warned, a note of concern edging into her voice as she pointed at Jacky and Jade, who were both slowly sinking to the floor while Cass, weakened by her earlier nanite treatment, suddenly keeled over sideways, the circle of light beneath her winking out the instant she fell
"Smeg, we..." Jamie coughed, swaying slightly as the room swirled around him. He reached an arm out to steady himself, only to be rewarded with a jolt of pain from the forcefield "Smeg!"
A bright flash of light inside another couple of the tubes preceded Jaxx just stopping dead and Kenneth shuddering out of existence to leave only his light bee rattling to the floor
“Jaxx!” Evelina yelled in horror
"Screw this" Jay snarled and, gritting his teeth, hurled himself against the invisible field containing him, only to be flung back again in a bright flash of energy and light which immediately rendered him unconscious.
In spite of the remaining Dwarfer’s many and varied efforts to escape, each slowly succumbed to the gas over the course of the following minutes and, one by one, they all eventually lost consciousness



Cass awoke some indeterminate time later to find she was laid in a sleeping pod, set in the wall of a starkly lit, cramped little room, with no obvious exits. The air tasted like it had been breathed too many times and smelled faintly of damp, which in all likelihood explained the patches of rust discolouring the grimy, battleship grey painted walls
The cell was only sparsely furnished with just a table and two chairs; the only other things in the room being a utilitarian looking sink and toilet, set against the wall at the far end of the room
Groaning and rolling over on the uncomfortably thin mattress, Cass stretched and only belatedly realised that her nanosuit had somehow been removed while she was unconscious, and that she was now dressed in a shapeless grey smock with numbers stencilled on the breast and a pair of similarly coloured, loose fitting trousers. There was also what felt like a solid ring of metal and plastic around her neck
The sounds of her stirring made a similarly attired Katrina poke her head out from the pod above to look down at her "You're awake" she observed coolly
“Yeah” Cass croaked, her fingers exploring the thing around her neck “Does this come off?”
“I don’t think so”
"Crap" Cass abandoned her efforts and let her hands fall to her sides “Where are we?”
"No idea" Katrina disappeared from view as she settled back in her bunk "I'm guessing this must be the ships brig or something" her voice drifted down from above “We’re locked in here”
“Figures” Cass groaned and swung her legs out of the pod to sit on the edge of the bed.
A pair of grey plimsolls awaited her feet on the floor, which she gratefully slipped on rather than chill her toes on the cold metal deck plate
Resting her elbows on her knees, Cass turned to glance up at Katrina and privately wondered at the stroke of bad luck that found them locked in the same room together. Still, she reasoned, maybe this could prove a good opportunity to pour oil on troubled waters
“How’re you doing?” she asked after a moment
Katrina barely glanced at her "I've been better" she folded her arms defensively
“I feel like crap myself”
Straightening with a painful grimace, Cass lifted her smock to inspect the blue-black bruises mottling her ribs on her left hand side. Someone had also removed the nice bra she had bought back in 2013, she glumly realised, and had replaced it with some tatty looking, grey article instead
Choosing not to dwell on the somewhat creepy implications of this, she let the smock fall and glanced back up at Katrina again
“How long do you reckon we’ve been here?” she asked
“No idea” the other woman shrugged sullenly “I woke maybe twenty minutes before you, but we could have been out for hours”
“Can’t have been too long,” Cass reasoned “I’m not feeling hungry”
Katrina just grunted in response and they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, leaving Cass to push herself up off the bed and pad across the room to investigate her reflection in the dirty mirror above the sink
The sight that greeted her wasn’t all that agreeable and she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the sight of herself, looking pale and washed out in baggy clothes that hung badly on her thin frame, and made her look ill
She teased at a few strands of her short hair with her fingertips, hoping in vain to improve matters, before turning away in disgust to eye Katrina, studiously avoiding her gaze, laid on her bed
Cass took a deep breath
“Kat?”
“Yeah?” Katrina’s blue eyes flicked to meet hers for an instant before almost immediately looking away
“I don’t want us to fall out” Cass began “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought over the last few days, and as soon as we make it back to the Dwarf, I've decided that I'm going to leave for good”
“Why?”
“Why not? You don’t need me around” Cass gestured helplessly “I... It’s no fun for me either, and I’ve developed a little self-respect while I've been away
“I’m dangerous to be around” she continued “It’s me that Brittany wants, and after Boyd... Look, I just don’t want to cause trouble for you and Jay, okay? – You don’t need me around”
Katrina’s expression softened and she shook her head “You don’t have leave” she murmured “I mean: What would you do? Where will you go?”
Cass shrugged and strolled across the room to perch herself on the edge of little table
“Dunno” she folded her arms and gave Kat a half smile “Keep running from Brittany? – There’s nothing for me on the Dwarf anymore”
“You have friends” Katrina said firmly
“How about us?” Cass asked hopefully “Are we still friends?”
“Yeah, of course we are Cass” Katrina grimaced and paused to draw a deep breath, which she sighed out as she slowly shook her head “This... It hasn’t been easy for me”
“It’s not been easy for anyone” Cass admitted “I didn’t want this. I've tried to maintain a little dignity, and do the right thing but...”
A claxon blared from an unseen speaker and the entire wall at the end of the cell suddenly slid upward into the ceiling to reveal two hulking mechanoids, looming in the dimly lit corridor outside. Both were clad with heavy ballistic shielding and each carried a power lance, which they held ready in their right hands
“Prisoner 97412J” one of them intoned “You will come with us”
Cass looked between the two mechanoids and then back to Katrina
“I think that means you” Katrina nodded towards the numbers stencilled on Cassandra’s smock shirt
“Wh...?” Cass tugged at her smock to frown down at the numbers
“Now!” the mechanoid on the left insisted
“Oh fuck off” Cass sneered dismissively “I’m not going anywhere until w... Aargh!”
She collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony, as the mechanoids both stepped forwards into the room, one brandishing its power lance in Katrina’s direction, almost daring her to make a move
“One mark,” the one on the right droned as a tiny light on Cassandra’s collar blinked on “Diligence and hard work will reduce your marks, disobedience will be punished”
“At ten marks” the other mechanoid warned “Your physical body dies”
“Prisoner 97412J” the other repeated “You will come with us”
“Yeah, okay” Cassandra gasped, pulling herself up with the aid of the table “Fuck’s sake...”

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Back over to Mike for one last post from him, and then normal service will be resumed
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