Melodrama Attacks!

--- Snip ---
After several hours of riding the Dwarfers arrived on the outskirts of a small Haruk settlement. Cass found a combination of Haruk, Ssalan, unknown machines and human signatures on her datapad as she explained to Jay what she was seeing she asked;

“So Jay how do you want to do this?” Everyone else waited for Jay to come up with a plan as they waited patiently.
--- End Snip ---

Cass sat playing with the light bee, it was a custom bee, and Jay had asked her to fix it up after they had stopped to plan. Jay had recognised the workmanship on the little device, self-contained power, hard light... He thought it had been lost, the disk was corrupted and they’d ended up turning it off. He spoke up, quietly to Cass.

“You think you can get it working? The disk was corrupted…” He asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Yeah, the reader wasn’t syncing with the data input. I’ve seen it before. Manifesting in memory issues and behavioural oddities.” She handed the bee back to Jay. “That should do it. Although it’ll have reset to before the sync errors.” She smiled. Jay sat back down again and looked at the small part of the long distant past. It was a long time before he turned it on.

It hovered to about waist height before blurring into a haze of momentum, projecting the image faster than the eye could keep up, making it look real. Human and touchable.

“Where… Where am I? Last thing I remember was…” She frowned in concentration, her nose crinkled as she screwed up her face to think about it. Jay grinned, he had forgotten that she did that.

“I thought Justin was loaded into the bee?” Cass said, staring at the figure from the past.

“Yeah, this bee must have been in Phil’s pocket at some point before the Drive room crashed. He kept hold of it after…” Jay looked up at her as she interrupted.

“Justin? Pancake?!” Her hand flew to her forehead and her face fell into shock. “I died…” She shuddered looking around at the small group. “Where are…” She choked on the words, not wanting to think about it.

“You were turned into a smoothie by the Mollopods. It’s over 3,000,000 years since then pretty much everyone who isn't here is dead. We don’t have time for questions so can we just get on with it?” Cass said, glowering at Tara.

“I always knew you were trouble. What, did you stage a coup and take over getting everyone killed in the process?” Tara glowered back at Cass. Cass was about to retaliate when Jay stepped between them. “Ladies. Please. We have time for this later, don’t we?” The two women fell silent, but the tension was obvious. Jay sighed, it was going well so far, neither of them had tried to kill each other.

--- Not long after ---

Cass was seriously on edge, there were too many Haruk nearby. They had retreated to a safe distance to discuss how best to approach the mechanised hoards, even Fraxx said he couldn’t take them, even with his Calamar training. Jade walked over to Cass and placed a hand on her shoulder, Tara frowned.

“It’ll be ok.” Jade said, trying to comfort the obviously edgy Cass. There was the echoing cry of a panicked Haruk and then a hiss of plasma fire. Another one being executed.

“Best thing for them… Fuck…” Cass spat nervously, thinking Plisken was in there and may be next. Tara couldn’t help it, she scoffed a little at the attitude of the hopeless woman. Jade turned around and noticed the disapproving look.

“What’s wrong?” She asked casually.

“Oh just… You can be as nice as you want to her. She’ll stab you in the back as soon as you blink.” Tara said, thinking back to the times when she had patched up the victims of Cass's 'self survival instincts'. Cass fumed at the accusation, she got up to partake of some violence, but Jay got in the way.

“Tara, she’s not the same person anymore… Literally in fact…” He looked back at Cass, his eyes going soft and warm when he looked at her, his posture all but screaming the obvious to someone who’d known him as long as Tara had.

“Oh... My... God. You’re sleeping with her! Does Alota know?!” She demanded, looking Jay in the eye her voice hot and acusatory. This was now turning into a scene and those who weren’t involved in the melodrama were looking nervously towards the Haruk encampment.

“Look. You need to calm down. I know it’s a big shock, but we have bigger issues right now.” Jade said, her own frustration beginning to bubble up.

“You have no idea what it’s like do you? I’ve lost everyone! My family, my friends, my kids… Charlie…” She glared at the doctor in front of her.

“I do know. I lost people as well.” Jade said, making placating gestures.

“You have no idea! Vanessa, Rosette, Dean, Jenny, Hazel… Fuck even Trisees wasn’t all that bad deep down. Rufus thought so any way… All of them! All of the good people are gone. Dead! And you bring me back. You bring me back , here! To the end of god forsaken nowhere and tell me that people like Her and Justin survived!” Tara was shouting now, their hidden discussion by no doubt noticed now. Jade looked helplessly at Jay, hoping that he might know what to say, he noticed the look on his face. To him it was obvious that Tara’s memories were still slightly scrambled, gaps missing. He took her hands, thankful that she was hard light and looked her in the eye.

“Tara… Alota died.” He grit his teeth and swallowed, his jaw clenching against the anger and sorrow. “She was… It was…” He was mercifully spared the chance to say that it was her own daughter under Hymenoptera influence that had murdered Jay’s first wife as it was just then that the armed guard’s gate crashed the gathering.

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OOC - Sorry for jumping the gun and posting before my introduction, but I had to jump in whilst I had the chance! It's a bit 'history' heavy I know, but I don't know much about the recent plots...