Brittany

Unceremoniously dumped out of the time gate, Cass hit the floor with bone jarring force, leaving her winded and sprawled inelegantly on her back, as the gate spiralled closed above her.

All around her, other gates were similarly opening and closing here and there, depositing the handful of Dwarfers who had been lucky enough to survive the destruction.

Still wincing from the impact, Cass rolled over and pushed herself up, onto her knees to gaze dazedly around her surroundings.

The large, oval room they had arrived in seemed to be a meeting space of some sort. Decorated in gloomy hues and furnished with low tables and comfy chairs, the room was dominated by a long, curved, glassteel wall, offering a view of space outside; centre of which was a neutron star, its black surface dully illuminated by its surrounding photon sphere.

“Is the Dwarf gone?”

Cass twisted to look up at Jade and nodded mutely.

"I can't believe it. What are we going to do?"

"Dunno" Cass grunted as she clambered to her feet "We’ve lost everything. We're just lucky to be alive"

"What hit us? - Was it Brittany?"

"That's what I'd like to know" Jay said as he approached "You said something about the Host - What's that?"

"I don't really know what they are" Cass shrugged helplessly "I saw them a few times when I was with Brittany. They're just black spheres, about three hundred metres in diameter. They’re planet killers - Brittany fields them when she's not too bothered about subtlety"

"Why does she want us dead?" Artemis asked from nearby

"Best guess is for the damage we did to the time lines and that we're more trouble than we're worth" Jay said "I don't want the opportunity to ask her in person"

A klaxon sounded, ending any further discussion while the single door, set in the far wall of the room, hissed open to reveal a small party of humans beyond.

“What’s this?” Jay asked, warily eying the four identical women who filed into the room, each pushing grav-sleds ahead of them, laden with all manner of equipment.

A lone, simply dressed, black clad man followed the women in and gazed between the Dwarfers in silence for a moment before raising his hands to give them a slow round of applause.

“Very well done” his voice was deep and gravelly “You really are the most difficult people to get to meet”

Jay inclined his head “And you are?”

“Your new best friend, Mr Chrysler. I am Greyman”

“How do you know our names,” Cass asked suspiciously “and what makes you our friend?”

“My protégé, Plisken, has told me all about you” Greyman rumbled “I also know that Brittany is your enemy, and as such: the enemy of my enemy is my friend”

This made Cassandra’s lip curl “So what do you want from us?”

The women accompanying Greyman seemed stiffen at her less than respectful tone, but the man merely smiled and shook his head.
“It is such an honour to meet you Ms Jones. You too Dr Prichard” he nodded at Artemis before casting his gaze around the others and gesturing expansively “All of you. This is truly an honour.
“It’s taken me nearly two centuries to unpick the paradox chain surrounding you” he went on “Two centuries of almost ceaseless toil, to gain access to your particular closed time loop”

Eve frowned “What’s one of those?” she asked Jay in a loud stage whisper

“It’s paradox stuff” Jay explained quickly “The universe doesn’t end when you do something stupid like kill your parents before you were born; instead, you exist inside a separate timeline, which is like a dead region that other time travellers can’t access without a lot of hard work. We’ve got some real big ones covering us, which have been shielding us from the likes of the STCP”

“Oh... right” Eve said uncertainly.

“Eloquently put, Mr Chrysler” Greyman nodded.

He lapsed into silence for a moment to gaze past the Dwarfers at the neutron star looming large outside, a frown creasing his brow.

“What?” Jay glanced back over his shoulder

“It stirs...”

Cass rolled her eyes “Whatever that means. You didn’t answer my question” she said, pointedly.

“I was just coming to that” Grayman paused a moment, gathering his thoughts before continuing “Of all the time travellers of all the species throughout the entire history of this universe, you few are uniquely positioned to do what you’re going to do”

“And what’s that?” Jamie cut impatiently across his obvious hyperbole.

“You’re going to kill Brittany”

“You can fuck right off” Cass snapped above a chorus of disbelief and protest from the other Dwarfers “There’s no way we’re going to go toe to toe with that bitch. Just one of the Host completely fucked the Dwarf and I’ve seen dozens of the damn things before now. No fucking way”

Greyman held his hands up placatively “You don’t have all the facts”

“I don’t give a shit. Give us a time drive and we’re gone. I’ll make sure Brittany will never find us this time”

“That’s exactly what I want you to do”

“What the fuck–”

“Hold up” Jay interrupted; a hand on her shoulder. He nodded towards Greyman “Let’s hear this”

“Thank you, Mr Chrysler” the man’s smile quickly faded as a dull thump vibrated through the deck plates beneath their feet.

“What was that?” Brett demanded suspiciously.

“Our time is limited” Greyman clicked his fingers, propelling the four silent women forward, amongst the Dwarfers, each distributing the equipment they had bought in on the grav-sleds.
“Brittany is nothing more than a blight on this reality” he continued “The power she wields is absolutely unimaginable. From subtle manipulation of historical events to the genesis of entire galaxies – Nothing escapes her or rather it’s poisonous touch”

“It?” Cass queried, a cold knot beginning to form in the pit of her stomach

“It” Greyman repeated “At this point in time, the entity that you call Brittany, is approximately two million years old and it has not stood still. What began with the Molopod’s inadvertent combination of Miss Jones’s forbear and Queen Brittany, led in time to the Legion experiment and as a result, the integration of yet more minds into a greater gestalt consciousness”

“Holy shit” Artemis breathed

“An accurate appraisal” Greyman nodded “What happened after that is largely conjecture, but I believe that Brittany transcended her flesh, in the second half of her ten thousand year reign. You’re familiar with the concept of a Jupiter Brain?”

Eve shook her head, hating feeling stupid in front of all these ‘eggheads’ “What’s that?”

“Convert something the size of Jupiter into a computer,” Cass said as another dull thud echoed through the space station “upload a consciousness or run an AI onto it – That’s a Jupiter Brain”

“Indeed” Greyman nodded

“So she became a J-Brain almost two million years ago” Jay asked “What’s happened since?”

“Given all the paradoxes I’ve had to unpick, this is mostly guesswork; but after that, there were the wormhole linked Jupiter nodes, the Matrioshka nodes, and...” he paused to eye the dead star outside “the Neutron nodes”

“What!?” Artemis exploded “Are you saying that’s Brittany!?”

“That’s part of Brittany”

“Fucking science almighty...” Artemis turned to gaze out at the star in wonder.

“It gets worse” Greyman rumbled “As we speak, titanic machines are preparing to inject Brittany into the Cauchy horizon of the black hole at the centre of your galaxy and, I suspect, communications have already been opened with a similar entity in Andromeda, in anticipation of their eventual merge in four billion years’ time”

Something fizzed and popped inside Artemis’s casing.

Jay shook his head “You can’t expect us to believe this shit – It would mean that Brittany could theoretically be part of the big crunch at the end of the universe; the singularity that enables time travel itself”

“That’s highly likely” Greyman agreed “I find it ironic that the STCP headquarters is in orbit around the organisations bête noir”

“But... if what you say is true,” Jade spoke up “why are we so close to that star? How are we allowed to be so close?”

“Similar to Mr MacIntyre,” Greyman said smoothly “I’m not from this dimension, so I have access to ultra-tech of my own. Until you arrived, Brittany wasn’t even aware that I was here”

Another thump reverberated through the station as he said this. He grimaced “That’s one of the Host, trying to get in – We have about three minutes”

Holding up his hands, he waited for the cries of shock and dismay to abate.

“Two minutes thirty” he continued “Listen to me very carefully.
“Brittany is attacking you because she knows what you are going to do. Prior to this you and the Blue Dwarf have been an integral part of her schemes, but now she has unpicked the paradoxes surrounding you (as have I), she realises the threat that you pose.”

This was too much for Cass “How are we meant to kill a fucking God?” she demanded

“You go back to the start. Kill her before she has chance to ascend”

“That will fuck reality”

“Not necessarily” Greyman shot back “The paradox chain you’re about to engineer should protect you and the universe will, in all likelihood, simply reboot around you”

“That’s horribly uncertain for my liking”

“Cass” Jay cut, irritably, across her “We don’t have enough time to discuss this shit. We either do this thing or Brittany kills us”

“Fine” she sighed.

“Good” Greyman smiled, albeit somewhat coldly “Your course of action is thus: In the first instance you need to change history. Big time. Brittany wants you dead and the more paradoxes you can create to conceal you, the better; they’ll both protect you and will, at the same time, bring her within reach of an assassination attempt.
“Now, I have no idea how you are going to kill her or when, but kill her you must and save the universe from this madness.
“To this end, I have provided you with equipment and supplies. Mr Chrysler has a time drive –”

“Heads up” Jamie yelled, pointing out at a brilliantly bright, white spot that was quickly forming on the surface of the neutron star “I think we’ve got trouble”

“Time to go” Jay activated the time drive, spinning up time gates beneath everyone’s feet “Emergency evac”




Spat out into a dimly lit, smoky saloon, Cass hit the floor at a run, only to stagger on an unfamiliar pair of heels and stumble down onto her hands and knees on the bare wooden floor.

Across the other side of the room, the music from the badly tuned piano being played in the corner, faltered and died.

“Are you okay missy?” an elderly man asked, nearby. The accent was American.

“The fuck?”

To the accompaniment of wolf whistles, Cass struggled unsteadily to her feet and gazed down in dismay at the horribly revealing saloon girl outfit that she was wearing. Evidently, this model of time drive supplied clothing for the era; this being, she guessed, 1800’s, Old West America.

Casting her gaze around the saloon, hoping to spot any of the other Dwarfers, angry shouting erupted at a nearby poker table, with accusations of cheating; which quickly escalated into the table being thrown aside and weapons suddenly being drawn.



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Well, there’s no point in doing things by halves is there? ;-P

We’re going to kill the most powerful entity in the universe and put an end to the STCP for good, but first we need to screw history up as much as we can to stop us being tracked down through time and summarily executed.

If you’ve any suggestions about any major historical events that could be “improved” Blue Dwarf-style, just fire us mods an email and we’ll stick it on the list.


Right now, we’re in America, sometime in the 1800’s

If I haven't tagged you, feel free to write yourself in

Is your character in the same saloon shootout that’s about to happen around Cass? – If not: where are they?

What major historical event can you think of to screw up in this era?

Over to you...
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