Walk

<snip>
Jade walked over to the bug, the long flowing cotton trousers and long sleeved top catching slightly in the breeze. 
"You OK?" Cass asked, raising an eyebrow. In response, Jade picked up the other open beer and drank about half of it in one go. 
"Yeah." Jade said, sitting heavily in the chair opposite Cass. "So, where did you want to walk?" She asked.
</snip>

"Dunno really" Cass shrugged and fumbled her terminal out from one of the side pockets of her shorts to tap away at the screen "There are some of those old ruins about three kilometres away; want to check them out?"
Jade wrinkled her nose. Three kilometres sounded a long way when they were meant to be relaxing
"We’d walk along the beach for about two thirds of that" Cass said, twisting to proffer her a view of the terminal's screen
"Yeah, go on then" Jade chugged the rest of her beer and stood "You ready?"
"One sec..." Cass issued a few commands via her terminal and clambered to her feet as a high pitched hydraulic whine grated through the Starbug "There. Done"
Idly wondering what that had been about, Jade turned to make her way outside with Cass following closely behind, the two women pausing only to grab another beer each before strolling down the main access ramp, and out into the brilliantly bright sunshine
"Are those things really necessary?" Jade frowned at the three insectile robots that were clambering out of the Starbug's now open cargo bay. They were a familiar enough sight on the Dwarf, but here, amid this tranquil paradise, the dog-sized monstrosities looked obscenely out of place 
Cass gave her a look "Do you really trust Holly's sensor array?"
"Yeah, alright; point made..."

Flanked by the three robots, skittering protectively around them, the two women walked at a leisurely pace; strolling onto the beach and past where Artemis and the others were playing with his tribe of 'kids' in the sand, before wandering down towards the sea where they paddled in the warm waters as they made their way around the gentle sweep of the bay towards the headland some kilometres distant
Amongst enjoyable company, the conversation flowed easily and before long the other beers had been drunk, and Cass was leading Jade into the humid shade of the undergrowth crowding in at the edge of the beach
"So what are we going to do about Jaxx?" Jade finally asked the question she’d been mulling over for the past twenty minutes
"How odd you should mention that so soon after chatting to Eve..."
"Well I'd rather get the whole sorry mess sorted out" Jade persisted "What were your thoughts?" 
"Honestly?" Cass glanced back at her friend as she pushed through the undergrowth "I don’t know. I wanted to deactivate him and Jay wanted him restored into his old body. We compromised on restricting him to his quarters which, on balance, I think was the best thing to do"
Coming to a stop, she turned to face Jade and slid her sunglasses up into her hair like an Alice band, while her robots tip-tapped through the undergrowth around them
"It might not be very fair,” she continued “but at least this way we get a bit of breathing space - We’ve got time to examine the issues from different angles" 
"That doesn't really answer my question"
Cass shrugged and shook her head
"I don't know Jade; what can we do?" she asked "After Vegas, I thought Jaxx was beginning to integrate and become a useful member of the team; but his actions on Umajo have squandered all of that, and now he's back to square one as the vile killer that I had nightmares about for weeks after he turned up"
"That's what it is with you and him, isn't it?" 
Shaking her head, Cass turned and continued walking
"You weren’t there when he slaughtered all those GELF’s" she scowled in distaste at the memory as Jade fell into step beside her “They were shape shifters. They all looked like Kat and I, and... Urgh...”
She turned to glance at her friend again “I've seen some bad shit in my time” Cass continued “but that was butchery and fucking cannibalism for the sake of it. I couldn’t get the smell of blood out of my hair for a week”
“Anyway,” she continued “needless to say, that got him off to a rocky start with me; and matters weren't improved by him attacking Jay in one of his psychotic feeding frenzies”
“Yes, but he’s changed since then, hasn’t he?” Jade said carefully
“Just as well really. The way he was carrying on, we’d probably have had to kill him in self-defence” Cass paused to duck beneath a low hanging branch that Jade at only five feet tall was able to just stroll under “I’ll admit that he’s been better since then, but on Umajo...” she shook her head “I get that he and Eve still had their control collars, but there were ways and means... He wound up proving that he’s nothing but a killer”
“Eve told me that he did it all just to protect her” 
“Huh” Cass wrinkled her nose “Is her life somehow worth more than all those miners?”
Jade was quiet for a moment while she considered her response 
“What would Jay’s life be worth to you?” she asked eventually
“That was a really fucking cheap shot” 
“You can deny it as much as you like Cass,” Jade said gently “but I’ve seen the way you still look at him when you think nobody’s looking. What would his life be worth to you?”
For a moment, Jade worried whether she might have overstepped the mark when Cass stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face her, wearing an angry expression; but she seemed to sag after a moment's silence and she slowly shook her head
“That's a fair point” she conceded in a low voice
Turning, Cass continued walking, Jade falling into step alongside her 
“Of course," Cass grumbled "you know that I’m going to have to stop looking at Jay now?”
Jade clapped a friendly arm around her shoulders and pulled her close “I wouldn’t worry” she smiled “He does the same when you’re not looking”
Cass gave a humorless laugh and lapsed into a reflective quiescence, leaving the two women walking on in silence for a moment until the trees suddenly widened out into a clearing
“Whoa" Cass slid her sunglasses back over her eyes against the bright sunshine "Look at that!”

<tag> What’s there?</tag>