Destruction

<snip>
“Easy” he smiled at Cass. “Though we need proper weapons..” he tossed the bazookoid to the floor.
The laser landed on the pressurised canister that stored the time-anchor good, splitting it and sending the goop squirting out, all over Jay and Cass.
“Ah.” Jay said. “Probably could have saved all that trouble and just let them shoot us in the first place eh?”
</snip>

“Yeah, nice going Ace” Cass smeared a blob of purple gunge off her cheek and flicked it away “Real smooth”

“Aw, come on – It was an accident”

Smiling wryly, she shot him a sideways glance “You look like you’ve been given a purple pearl necklace”

“Ew”

“C’mere” Cass reached a hand up and smudged some goop away from the side of his mouth “I can’t take you seriously”

“Huh” Jay grumped, irritably shrugging her off to try and clean his own face and neck “At least I don’t look like I’ve been –”

He was interrupted by a colossal impact which violently rocked the ship, pitching them both off balance. Stumbling forward into Cass, Jay inadvertently shouldered her up against the bulkhead behind her.

“Ow. Shit” she elbowed him away, trailing fronds of purple gunge between them, and pushed herself away from the wall, wincing and rubbing the back of her head “Ow”

“Holly?” Jay raised his voice “What the hell was that?” he turned back to Cass and grimaced “Sorry”

“It’s Brittany” she said bleakly

“Orrite dudes” Holly fuzzed and crackled on a nearby monitor “I –”

The screen went dead

“We’ve lost the front third of the ship” Cass had extracted her terminal from her pocket and was staring, white faced, down at the screen.

“What!?”

“The front third of the ship has been utterly destroyed... There’s something out there – maybe one of the Host?”

“What the fuck is the ‘Host’?”

Another strike thundered through the ship, making the lights buzz and flicker overhead.

“That was the drives” Cass yelled above the noise “We’re completely fucked. The disruption field’s down, so the anchors will be active in around thirty seconds”

“Shit” Jay spat, hurriedly pulling out his communicator “Heads up everyone. The time anchors are going live. Anyone not already tagged needs one sharpish – The way things are looking, they're the only way we’re going to survive this”

Holly flickered onto Cassandra’s terminal as the scattered members of the crew each called in their acknowledgement “Orrite mate”

“Alright Hol” Cass murmured.

“It’s not looking good is it?” the AI wavered on the screen.

“Nope”

“I reckon that hit something important,” his image warped and twisted on the screen “I feel all peculiar”

“Hol...” Cassandra’s brow furrowed “It wasn’t meant to be like this”

Yet another strike tore into the Dwarf; this one plunging the ship into inky darkness.

Holly juddered on the terminal’s screen, the single source of illumination in the corridor “D’ya want some toast?” he asked, hopefully, before abruptly fizzing away into static, gone forever.

They heard the next impact as well as felt it; a rumbling shriek of tortured metal in the distance. The Dwarf being torn apart.

“Fucking hell, Jay...” Cass was terrified

Unsure of what to say to her, he reached for her hand as the corridor was suddenly illuminated with a flickering, gloomy light, heralding the arrival of a couple of time gates.

Jay grinned and just had time to say “See you on the other side” before they were both hauled into the gates.



<tbc>
Yep - the Dwarf just got destroyed...
Second part coming later on
</tbc>