History

Where: The beach
When: About half an hour after South turned up


Flickering firelight cast the Dwarfer's in soft hues of red and gold.
"Three million years..." South mused, slowly shaking his head in wonder, as he looked out at the unfamiliar constellations beyond the diamond glass domes.
"It's not so bad" Jay shrugged "We get to bum around the galaxy – and you don't even notice the isolation after a while"
He elected not to mention that they spent most of their lives in almost constant peril on a barely habitable rusk bucket; figuring that it was probably best to break these things gently to the man.
Glancing at Cass, sat hunched in silence, next to him, he leaned over and gently nudged her with his shoulder "Are you okay?"
"Not really" she murmured
"What's up?"
Leaning in close, she kept her voice low, in order to avoid being overheard by any of the others, all sat chatting happily, all around them "We're going to have to ship out, aren't we?"
Jay grimaced but nodded silently.
"How long do you think we've got?" he asked, after a moment.
"Look at you two, having your little tête-à-tête" Jade jokingly called over "There'll be time enough for your canoodling later–" she petered out as she caught sight of their expressions "What?"
"Nothing" Cass said automatically, suddenly acutely aware of everyone's eyes on her.
"No, go on" Jade was having none of it "I know you both too well. What is it?"
"We..." Cass shifted uncomfortably. She didn't want to do it like this.
"We were discussing when we should leave" Jay came to her rescue.
"Oh, come on!" Jade protested amid a chorus of disbelief "I only just got out of the infirmary – How soon were you thinking?"
"I'm sorry," Cass soothed "but it needs to be as soon as we can"
"Whoa!" Jaxx's brow was furrowed with the colossal effort of trying to keep up with what was going on "Like, why dude?"
"Brittany" Jay said simply; this one word prompting Jade to close her eyes and slowly shake her head.
"Now, wait just a minute" Ransom said, sharply "Who or what is Brittany?"
"She's one of the most dangerous entities in the history of the universe" Cass drew her legs up, defensively, in front of her "She's the clandestine head of the Space Time Continuum Police, and also both my progenitor and an ancient, and much more unpleasant version of me"
"You're kidding me?" Ransom was incredulous.
"Cass has a somewhat ...unusual history" Jay explained, his choice of words eliciting a humourless laugh from her "She's a copy; a fork of the woman who went on to become Brittany"
"I don't like being discussed like this" Cass grumbled "I'm more than that"
"Yeah, we know" Jay coiled an arm around her shoulders to give her a supportive squeeze "You are so much more"
"I still don't understand" South frowned "Why do we have to leave?"
"Because, the sort of temporal fuck up that catapulted you all the way out here, won't have gone unnoticed" Cass retorted "When Brittany manages to zero in on where and when it happened, if she finds us here, she'll sterilise this entire system"
"What!?" Brett was aghast "Why?"
"The STCP exist to keep history running smoothly" Jay explained "It's their job is to prevent the sort of paradoxes that could destroy our reality; the trouble is that we're all kinda... wrapped up in them"
"...Oh" South looked shaken
"The paradoxes are concealing us from Brittany" Cass interjected "We could be anywhere in space or time because of them"
"It's a very long story," she continued "but the Blue Dwarf and its crew have been causing trouble for the STCP for years now.
"Phil and Jay, for example, are considered as omega level threats; White Wolf is responsible for a pan-dimensional civilisation, which takes active measures against Brittany; and with me, it's just personal.
"Brittany nearly killed Jay a while back, and in exchange for the nanites to save his life, I wound up conscripted into the STCP for six months; after which I used their technology against them, to engineer dozens of paradoxes to protect and conceal us, when I escaped.
"I was hoping for a lifetime, free of Brittany; and the fact that we haven't already had one or more of the Host turn up, proves that the paradoxes are still holding; but we desperately need to get the hell out of here, as quickly as we can"
"I think that about covers it" Jay looked between the crew and newcomers, in the flickering firelight "Any questions?"
Brett hesitantly raised his hand "Can I go back into stasis?"
This made Jay grin "Where would be the fun in that?"
"Do you have a time drive to escape with?" South asked
"I kinda burned the last one out, creating a monster of a paradox" Jay admitted
"As far as Brittany is concerned, our temporal and physical location is irrelevant" Cass retorted, impatiently "The paradox structure temporally conceals us; as do the modifications I've instructed Holly to make to our shield and engine signatures - all we need to do, is just not be here, by the time anything turns up to investigate"
"The only thing we need worry about is food" Jay reminded everyone.
Twisting, Cass leaned behind her to retrieve her terminal from her beach bag. Activating the holographic display as she straightened, she placed the device flat on the sand and pointed up, into the map projected in the wavering firelight.
"There are tons of food, kept down here, in stasis, in the resort's service levels. We need to get as much as we can, up out of stasis and onto the Starbug before the STCP turn up.
"Our main problem is that before Tara died, she infected a load of the automated systems down there; so almost everything is going to want to kill us" she paused and looked between the last humans left in the universe "I've a few ideas, but let's hear yours first..."

<tag>
Okay, let's get the ball rolling
I've intentionally left things vague about what’s down there, so feel free to go crazy, throwing problems and solutions out for everyone to pitch in with some quick fire posts about how we're going to get a few tons of food out of stasis on the service levels, and onto the Starbug before something nasty turns up
After everyone’s had their say, we’ll cobble things together into a vaguely coherent plan and then wing it from there :-)
</tag>