Sacrifice - Part One

Jay looked at Cass. Cass looked back at Jay. They both shared the same look, both of them would volunteer for the other, neither wanting the other to suffer needlessly. Whilst they were having their stare-off, Jade looked around, she saw the cyborgs cowering at the back, their sad, scared whimpering as they clung to each other. Her mind was made up. Jamie would get the job done, it was only a temporary risk anyway, and she just had to stall for ten minutes.

“Take me.” She said, stepping forward towards the Braves.

“Good.” The first one snarled as the brute squad grabbed Jade and hauled her out of the cage.

“No!” Jay yelled, lunging for one of the Braves. He earned himself a black eye as the lizard elbowed him sharply in the face and carried on.

“Jade!” Cass yelled almost simultaneously. Snarling in fury as one of the guards pre-empted her attack and shoved her backwards.

“Don’t worry. Have faith. Holly won’t let them kill me.” She said with a smile as she was dragged away. As soon as she was out of sight she grimaced, the claw tipped hands were digging into her wrists and they were dragging her backwards making it hard to stay upright. She craned her neck to look where they were taking her, from what she could glimpse, it was the base of the pyramid. At that point, she began to panic.

***

“Damnit!” Cass said, slamming a fist into the cage bars and earning herself nothing but splinters and a worse mood.

“We can’t help now, we just have to wait for Jamie to do his thing.” Jay said, placing a hand on Cass’ shoulder and looking out across the landscape towards the temple, his face furrowed into a worried frown. She whirled on him about to accuse him of doing nothing, but stopped in her tracks.

“You…” She began, pointing at his head.

“Yeah, they got me, it’ll be a real shiner in a few hours.” Jay said, trying to avoid the temptation to rub the tender area and make it any worse.

“No… You have two heads.” Cass said, blinking slightly and rubbing her eyes, convinced her mind was playing tricks on her. Jay turned, and looked briefly like a dog chasing his own tail as he moved to try and see.

“Actually, unless Mr Chrysler has suddenly become one of the Zaphodians from Dimension ZZ9 plural Z Alpha then I highly doubt…” Kenneth paused. “Oh! You mean me don’t you Miss Jones?”

“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you help before?” Cass said, swatting the head off Jay’s shoulder. Rather than float, it tumbled slightly and glided to the floor with a thump.

“Well I encountered some SCTP agents and was rather badly wounded by one of their Xaser Shotguns. I managed to get to engineering and the ship crashed into Mr Chrysler’s head. I believe I was caught in his hair in passive mode over the last few days. All of my run-time has been devoted to repairs until a few moments ago.” Kenneth said, laying sideways on the floor. “It appears that not all of my systems are fully functional yet.” He frowned in concentration and the head bobbled slightly, levitating upwards to eye level. Jay looked at Kenneth as he bobbled about and then his eyes lit up.

“Hold on guys. I’ve got an idea.” He grinned and pulled Cass and Kenneth in closer and began whispering so the guards didn’t hear.

***

The shaman eyed Jade up and down as the Braves brought her in. When their grip loosened she pulled her arms free and glowered at them. They moved to grab her again, but the shaman held up a hand. He grabbed a handful of her red hair and sniffed deeply.

“She has fight. She has fire.” He prodded at her with a small blade and drew a drop of blood. She hissed in pain at the unexpectedness but held her ground, running would only get her killed, and all this stalling was good. Good for Jamie to get it done. The shaman made a thoughtful noise as his tongue whipped out and licked up the blood. Jade cringed as the lizard spit began to drip down her collar bone. “She is pure. She is untainted human. The Great One will surely bring back the light with her death.” He nodded and the Braves once again dragged Jade back.

“We will prepare her.” They said as outside sparks began to sputter from the ancient electrical systems in the emergency lighting.

“Quickly. He angers!” The shaman said, ushering the two forwards with the helpless prisoner between them. Jade looked up, seeing the sparking systems and grinned.

***

“So yes, I can keep up a rough appearance for a while, but it will drain my power reserves quite rapidly, especially with the amplification required Miss Jones.” Kenneth said, bobbing excitedly from left to right.

“That should do it.” Just remember the plan. You need to stay above her or else the amperage will kill her outright.” Cass said, tapping on her pad as the sparks began to sputter from the ceiling.

“Jamie must be in place.” Jay said, keeping an eye out from the cage door. “Coast is clear, you should have a run to the top without being seen of you go now.” He said, waving the AI head forwards.

“Do not fear. The surge will power me sufficiently for the operation, I will absorb it safely. Between that and the data from the Sovereign I can convince them.” Kenneth said, the holographic projection flickering before going out.

“Data? What data? Stick to the plan damnit!” Cass hissed as loud as she dared after him, but Kenneth was already on his way.

<TBC - I'll try to get this done, but don't expect part two this lunch time...>