Title: Fragments of the Past: Unification – Chapter 1

Author: JadeHeart

Located/Archived: If anyone would like it, please ask me first!

Creation Date: 1997

Fandom: Blakes 7

Rating: M

Warnings: mild violence/death

Timeline: 20 years post Blakes 7 TV series

Original Characters: The characters of Kerran, Veril, Calan, Zev and Regin are mine.

Summary: Searching for the truth can unlock the past and free your self. Sequel to Fragments of the Past.

Author's Notes: This is merely some thoughts about what could have been after the final of Blake's 7. The verse is also mine.

Disclaimer: I do not own the idea/outline of Blake's 7, this belongs to the original creators, nor am I making any profits from this.

Fragments of the past unite Come to form a whole

Pieces of what was collide

As the jigsaw of life unfolds

Chapter 1

Kerran strode purposefully down the street. She was not happy. Not happy to be here, or doing what she was doing, or working with the people she was working with. The thought of Vashal made her grimace. The man made her skin crawl, as few had ever done. He was slimy, devious, cruel and lewd. In other words, he made her sick. However she had needed the job, for she needed the money.

Her boots tapped loudly on the concrete beneath them. She frowned. She wanted to be rid of him, and quickly. At the tender age of 20 she had to be both wary, and also take risks. Del Grant had helped all he could, but the rest was up to her.

The first thing he had helped her obtain was her ship, with the assistance of a number of rebel contacts. They had got a good price for a small freighter – simple and more than adequate. A few modifications had modelled it to suit her purposes. Hidden compartments made it ideal for smuggling, and the engine had been boosted to give a little more power. Just enough to give her a chance to outrun a pursuit if she caught them unawares. She had been very happy with her purchase. The ship had also been equipped with covert weaponry – armaments an innocent freighter should not have, and shielded to escape scanner detection.

Her lips curled in a small smile of pleasure. Yes, she was happy with her ship. The only problem was her current cargo. That thought made the smile disappear and the frown return. How she despised Vashal! She mentally shook herself. Soon he would be gone and she couldn't afford to be picky, not yet.

She wished Del had come with her - at least he would have been good company, and, she privately acknowledged, she could have done with his expertise and knowledge. Since her decision to go off on her own, he had done nothing but support her. Oh, he had made a token attempt to talk her out of it, saying she was too young and needed more experience, but she had been adamant. For the past five years, she had been thinking towards that final day. She had to leave. She had cited a need to see the world, establish herself, stand on her own two feet, but they both knew it was more. She needed to find out the truth about the past – her past. Only then could she think about her future.

She hadn't had much luck yet. Not that she had been able to do a great deal. She couldn't just walk into a data bank and question it to get the answers she wanted. Certainly not when her father had been on the Federation's most wanted list. She had only been able to establish what sector the Scorpio was supposed to have last been seen, and the only other report had been of their deaths. She wanted to fill in that missing link, find out the truth.

By this time she had reached the spaceport. Her ship, Wasp, was on the far side. She began to thread her way through the few others there, stepping aside as a small ground vehicle loaded with cargo whizzed past. She was about to step out and continue when a movement out of the corner of her eye made her pause. She remained in the shadows and watched. Yes, there. A Federation trooper shifted restlessly where he hid. Quickly she glanced around, cautiously shifting her own position to scan the entire area. Sure enough, she spotted three other troopers, secreted away, obviously waiting.

She took a deep calming breath. They weren't necessarily there for her. Even as she thought that she knew in her guts they were. Her lips curled up in a silent snarl. She could guess who had sold her out – Vashal! So.

She noted again the troopers' positions. Four of them - how many more? she wondered. Perhaps they were relying on capturing her once she was at the ship. Would there be more troopers or were they relying on Vashal and his second to take her?

She tried to think it through calmly. Knowing Vashal and his inflated opinion of himself, she thought he would want the glory of the capture himself, not to mention any reward for apprehending a smuggler. He didn't know her other connections; she wasn't so foolish as to advertise that fact. So, she decided, Vashal and his mate would be waiting at the ship for her, supposedly with her money. They would keep her talking or overpower her, and then call the troopers for backup. How much time would they give her? Well, the longer she waited here, the more impatient he would become and the less time they would wait, so she had to make a decision, and now.

She took another breath. She would have to risk it - and moved out of the shadows and headed for her ship, forcing herself not to look towards the troopers or acknowledge their presence in any way, although her shoulders twitched. Perhaps she had guessed wrong. What if their orders were to shoot on sight? Unconsciously she twitched again, before calming herself. She had made her choice and now must follow it.

She reached the ship and keyed it open, walking up the ramp. Once out of sight, she raced for the flight deck, punched in some co-ordinates and readied for an emergency take-off. She would have one chance at this and about two minutes to do it. She then raced back to the cargo hold just in time to hear a booted step at the bottom of the ramp. She turned her back and pretended to be busy securing the area and trying to calm her harried breathing. As the steps grew louder, she turned as though to acknowledge them. Vashal and his mate approached. His face had an oily smile spread across it. Her hand itched to wipe it off – permanently - but instead she smiled cautiously herself.

"Well, my lovely lady, all is done and our transaction is completed."

She nodded, "So, where's my payment?" she asked.

"Ah, so mercenary." Vashal said smoothly.

She shrugged. "I've got to eat. And as you just said, our business is finished."

As they had been speaking Vashal and his man had separated, one to each side of her, trying to make her step closer to the ramp and turn her back to it. Something she was determined not to do.

"Look, Vashal. Just pay up so I can go. I don't like staying too long after dropping a shipment."

"Oh, you won't have to wait long, my dear." Vashal said, his eyes flicking to his subordinate.

Kerran saw the fugitive movement. "Hurry up then." she said, casually turning back to the tarp behind her, furtively keeping an eye on both men.

She saw Vashal's barely perceptible nod and the other's hand went for something under his jacket. Kerran was ahead of him. She slipped the gun from under the fold of the tarp where she had hidden it earlier and shot him at point blank range. She didn't wait to see him hit the deck, instead swinging to face the ramp and shot the first ascending Federation trooper, then grabbed Vashal and swung him in front of her as a shield and fired at the hold's electronic control panel, blowing it to pieces.

She felt the struggling Vashal jerk abruptly, then go limp. She dropped the dead body, its weight only a hindrance now. She fired a couple of more shots at the remaining troopers as the door came swishing down cutting them off, before turning to race back to the flight controls, knowing that the ramp would be automatically closing and the troopers would have to get off or be crushed. She punched in the prearranged code, the ship fired into life, and they left the planet far behind.

Kerran sighed. Made it. Just. That one was a little too close. How she wished she had a partner, someone she could trust. But she had no one. And whom could she trust with her past? She pushed herself to her feet, her limbs trembling slightly with reaction.

She walked back to the hold. The two men lay dead, blood seeping slowly onto the floor. She grimaced. That would have to be cleaned up also. She knelt by Vashal and frisked him. She withdrew an assortment of things and with surprise, turned up a large sum of Federation credits. She counted it carefully and it amounted to exactly what she was to have been paid.

She raised a brow as she regarded the dead man before her. Could she have been mistaken? Could Vashal have come to pay her what she was owed and not sold her out? She shook her head at the thought. No, she hadn't been mistaken. Either this money had been what Vashal had been paid by his contact for the delivered cargo, or it was what the Federation paid him for her capture. Vashal's companion yielded little else of value, some money and a couple of guns. The latter would be added to her small armoury, the former to her growing treasury. She then lugged both bodies to the waste disposal chamber. She opened the fail-safes and bundled them both in, closed and sealed it, before jettisoning them into space. That job was done.

She quickly swabbed the decking to remove the blood, before turning to the damaged control panel. She frowned at it darkly. It had been the only thing to do, the only thing she had been able to think of in the short space of time, but now she was faced with the task of trying to repair it. Upon closer inspection she finally gave up the idea. She didn't have enough knowledge about electronics to fix the extensive damage. She threw down the probe she had been using in disgust. She would just have to load and unload any future cargo through the secondary hatch, until she could get this repaired.

She went back to the flight deck and scanned her incoming messages. Most were just an automatic collection of data from the Federation. She ran her eyes down the list and then stopped to re-read one. It was under an old code that some rebel groups had used; she recalled it from her years with Del Grant. It requested a passenger pick-up, stating a very low risk operation, not a wanted person, just someone wishing to avoid the Federation and any trouble which may arise.

Kerran raised an eyebrow and thought - there was obviously some risk or the person would take normal flights. She pursed her lips and read it again. Should she take it? It didn't say what payment, it might not be worth her while. But still….an old rebel code was being used, they might have information she could use. Okay, and her fingers reached out to tap a reply. A confirmation came through almost immediately with where the pick-up was to take place. It wasn't far. Kerran adjusted the controls accordingly and then went to get some much needed rest.