Directions

“How the hell is this under control?” Jay demanded “We’ve got multiple hostiles all over the ship”

“Nobody’s dead yet” Cass snapped “and if it wasn’t for my modifications to the drive and what’s left of the shields, we’d be fucking inundated”

She bad temperedly jabbed at a few controls on the console in front of her and scowled up at the resulting data feeds scrolling, upwards, on the stations monitors.

“I’m heading out there” Jay said, drawing his pistol as he moved towards the door “I can’t leave them to be picked off one by one”

“Are you fuck”

Slapping his palm against the door access pane, Jay turned to Cass “You’ll be fine here with that... thing” he nodded towards one of her hulking, heavily armed robots, lurking in the corner. He hammered the access controls again “Come on”

“No”

“Cass” he rounded on her “Open this door”

“I don’t need the distraction of having to keep you safe as well”

“Damn it” Jay spat as he span away from her “Holly – Command override zero nine zero. Chrysler, Jay. Open this fucking door!”

“I’m sorry, Jay” Holly bobbed into view on the main monitors “I’m afraid I can’t do that”

“You what!?”

“I’m not letting you out, Jay” Cass called as she slid her hands over the command desks controls, her unblinking eyes absorbing the live date schematics “Holly – patch eighteen to twenty-five. Deploy reserve two eighty. Mitigate thirteen and fifty-six”

“Fucks sake” Jay yelled in frustration “They’re being picked off, one by one with temporal anchors”

“We’re superluminal and the disruption field will keep them safe” Cass countered, not looking away from her work “The anchors won’t work”

“You know as well as I, that as soon as they hit the drives, everyone’s going to be hauled in by Brittany”

“Yeah, but this isn’t the STCP” Cass glanced across at him, briefly meeting his gaze “The gate signature’s all wrong – This is why some of them are getting through”

“Then who the hell are they?” Jay stalked back towards her, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Dunno. They’re from somewhere near the neutron star that Holly pinpointed – Does it ring any bells?”

Jay’s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the location data that flared up at Cassandra’s behest on a nearby monitor “No” he shook his head “It’s nowhere near anywhere I’ve been”

“I’m almost tempted to accept the invite and throw Brittany off our scent by jumping back a million years... Fuck!”

Concerned, Jay glanced sharply at her “What?”

“Jamie, Eve” Cass barked “Not that way. Back and to the right – No the other right” she shook her head in irritation “Fucks sake”

The sound of remote gunfire echoed through the speakers and around the Drive Room.

“Cass” Jay said urgently “I have got to go”

A couple of micro-time gates fizzed and popped in the air around before one finally yawned open, across the other side of the room, hanging mid-air between them and the main monitors.

“Sort that fucker out first!” Cass pointed through the gate towards the heavily armoured mechanoid raising a blaster to aim towards them...





Who: Jamie, Eve, Brett, Ransom, Penny
Where: Outside the MACO lab

Their feet thundering against the deck plates, the Dwarfers slid around the corner and continued their pell-mell flight, away down the corridor, temporal anchor rounds zipping overhead to burst off the ceiling.

Ahead of them, one of Cassandra’s hulking, three metre high war machines, thumped into view at the next intersection and raised one of its arms to target its plasma cannon down the corridor.

“Whoa crap” Jamie slid to a panicked halt, the others doing likewise and quickly looking up and down the walkway, between the robot and another one of the time anchors wielding mechanoids, at either end.

“What the hell is that thing!?” Ransom demanded, a note of panic in his voice

“One of Cassandra’s toys” Jamie yelled, hauling open a service hatch “Everybody in here!”

With a fusillade of temporal anchors bursting around them, the Dwarfers each dived through the service hatch into the darkness beyond, just as the corridor behind them lit up with light and searing plasma.

Crouched together in the darkness Ransom broke the breathless silence that followed “What are we standing in?”


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Right, let’s get this show back on the road
The plan (as Max correctly guessed) is to get hit with a temporal anchor so we can all be whisked off for a jaunt through time and meet whoever sent these mechanoids after us.

We don’t give prizes out very often here on Blue Dwarf, but I’m offering one now for the funniest post where someone gets gooped. Split the characters up and handle it individually if you like, or do a joint post together - whatever’s good for you. Just make us laugh.
After you’re all done the winner will get the prize and then we’ll move on – how’s that for you?

Johnny Styles – welcome aboard – lets have you involved by getting gunged with a time anchor as well - any questions, you know where I am :)

Everyone else - over to you...
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