Pasta

In the wake of destroying the mech Artie had taken Tu’Vass back to the ISL and Jade had headed back to the medical department to see to South. That was, if he hadn’t managed to sort his own problems out first. When she got there, it was remarkably empty, and all of the renovations she had implemented were trashed. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there. There was a yellow post it stuck to the wall, she gingerly removed it and read the spidery scrawl. “Sorry about the mess. –Jamie”. Jade scowled and scrumpled up the note tossing it into a corner of assorted trash, before storming out towards her quarters.

Having encountered no mechs on the way, she risked tidying herself up. Sat on her bunk a short while later she picked up the small pasta-box, given to her what felt like so long ago by Alex. The small box had somehow become an anchor, reminding her of all that she had lost, all that she had gained in the previous months since coming out of stasis and crashing onto Fernando’s. One handed she ran a thumb along the crinkled pasta edges and the glitter, and smirked.

“What would you think about this eh?” She mused to the imaginary Alex Solvay and waved her stump uselessly around. She fumbled awkwardly with the clasp on the box, trying to get it open, but the fine dexterity eluded her as the box slipped in her one handed grip. She placed the tender end of her stump on the box to keep it still, leaning at an awkward angle and fumbled the clasp open. There was a thunderous noise as a mech crashed, what looked from the indentation like a fist, into her door. She jumped in surprise and the box and its memories went skittering across the floor towards the door in a shower of pasta and glitter.

Jade fell to the floor, gathering up the photographs, her engagement ring and the other small memories that she had placed in the box as the mech continued to crash into the door. She stuffed them safely into her bag and shouldered the pack squaring up to the door. The giant fist made it through the metal door and Jade suddenly lost her courage.

“Heh… Nope…” She muttered, seeing the mechanical fist the size of her head and its inbuilt plasma cutting torch retracting. She dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed as it burst through the door, smashing the remnants of the pasta box.

<snip>
“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’?”
</snip>

The mech vanished as the hiss of decompression howled through her quarters, casting anything not bolted down into a whirlwind of mismatched pressure. Jade fought the urge to scream and held her breath, clinging onto the bedpost as best she could.

<snip>
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..."
</snip>

The bulkhead door finally closed and Jade gasped in air like a fish out of water, but the mech was gone. She had no way to get gooped. She looked into the corridor at either end the bulkhead had slammed shut. She sank to her knees and burst into tears. This was it. She was going to die here. Alone. There was a hissing pop behind her as the time gate re-opened and a mech stepped through, turning, Jade heaved a sigh of relief as it held out one huge hand, a scattering of broken glittery pasta shapes. She reached out a hand, and placed it over the mangled pasta.

“Do it.” She said, looking the mech in the visor.

<snip>
“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.
</snip>

<Tag Locke!>