Spacewalking

<snip>
"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."
</snip>

"Great." Jamie said to himself, stood outside the bathrooms while Eve cleaned herself up. "I've spent all this time avoiding getting hit, only to now have to get it done to save my life anyway. Whoever heard of getting shot in order to live?"

He bashed on the door to the ladies, and called in. "I'm going to get tagged. See you wherever we end up." He said, and took off.

He ran for what felt like an hour, though if that was the case, everyone else was gone, and he was the only one left here, waiting to die by whatever nasty method whoever was attacking them chose. The ship creaked around him, and shuddered at the various impacts.

Then, the power died. Lights shut off everywhere, leaving not even the emergency lights active. There was virtual silence, the kind that drives an engineer crazy. No engine noises, no electrical whine. All was gone, apart from a red laser beam, roaming across the wall opposite.

"Ahha!" Jamie exclaimed to himself, as he raced to catch up with it. Another crunch sent him flying across the floor, thankfully towards it. He slid out into the beam of the laser, which fixed on him immediately, and was shortly followed by the squelching sound of goo hitting a fleshy target.

As far as he knew, everyone else was tagged already, and whatever else was going on was well in hand. He'd heard of no casualties on the crew, so whoever these mechs worked for wanted them alive.

More creaking, and the hull nearby cracked and split. He took one final breath and exhaled, then Jamie plunged out through the hole into space, curling up into a ball to conserve body heat, instinctually following procedure for vacuum survival. The movies never did it justice. Holding your breath kills you. It doesn't sound right, but it's true.

In his mind, everything slowed down. The cold, the silence... All he could hear was his own heartbeat and thoughts, not much comfort when, as far as he knew, everyone else had been dimensionally sidestepped by the anchors, and he was going to be left drifting in space for the second time in his life.

At least the first time, he'd had a cryo-stasis pod to make the journey easier. His life started flashing before his eyelids (he had his eyes closed, obviously). First girlfriends back on Earth, Space corps engineering training, the hymenoptera war, Fernandos. He expected it to stop then, but then saw images of his new friends and crew. A comforting thought, to have human friends again. Friends that may miss him if he died here today, friends that might not get their gadgets fixed when they broke.

Nah, Cass would be able to fix anything. Eve was starting to pick up some basic fixing abilities, even if she wasn't ready yet for full on engineering. They'd be ok without him...

<tag. A dimensional shift would be very appreciated about now, for what should be obvious reasons. Apologies for not posting in ages, no real excuse! Thought I'd take the opportunity to come back in with a bit of drama!>