A Calculation of Entropy

Chapter 4

AN: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. You are awesome.

Rip's call had not come at a good time, although Sara didn't realise that until she looked up to see Zero Hour staring at her intently. They'd just watched the woman explain how to use the weapons she had delivered. Calgachos had talked proudly about the high quality of the local ore that she'd been given in payment for the weapons, and had apparently already taken delivery of. This was strange but made at least some slight sense as payment, although it was a mystery as to why she needed it from here. What made less sense was that the gold embroidery on her gown was glowing with a yellow light.

Zero Hour pointed at Sara.

"The woman, Queen Sara, speaks with demons. She is an agent of Rome," shouted Zero.

"Shit!" It was totally clear now that she knew Sara had been talking to someone on a radio that shouldn't have existed in this period.

"Take her and her companions," said Zero.

"I'm going to have to call you back," she said to Rip, and then turned to face their attackers.

"Boys," she said quietly, to Mick and Ray, as she pulled a knife and sword from their sheaths. "I really hope that you're ready to fight your way out of here. We need to grab those guns and get back to the Waverider."

"How about we just burn them and run?" said Mick, with insane eagerness. He drew his heat gun, and suddenly Sara was very glad that she'd let him bring it.

"I'm actually good with that," replied Ray, moving to stand at Sara's back and drawing his sword.

"No killing," said Sara.

Mick let a burst of fire out towards the ground and everyone took a step back from the trio. Sara twirled her sword experimentally. The laser rifles were tantalisingly close to being within range of Mick's gun.

"Rush them you idiots!" said Zero Hour, which was apparently all the urging they needed, because the Picts did exactly that.

"Morons," was Mick's only appraisal of the situation. He side stepped the first wave and opened fire. Suddenly the room was alight, especially the area where the futuristic weapons were sat. It looked like they wouldn't have to worry about them anymore, which meant that at least they'd managed to deal with one part of the mission.

Meanwhile Sara was now facing three rather irate tribesmen who wanted her blood. She kicked out, breaking the leg of the first one, and sending him tumbling to the ground. The other two she took on with the sword, catching both their blades, and a swift slice with the dagger to their belts. Both men were left with their pants around their ankles, and tripped over their own clothes.

Ray, who had wisely worn his Atom suit underneath his period costume, ditched his sword and opened fire with only enough power to push people back rather than injure them permanently. However, suddenly all three Legends found themselves hit by a strange blue light that threw them to the ground. Zero Hour stood over them.

"Finally, I get to meet you," said Zero. "You who have caused me so much pain and difficulty."

"It's in the job description, Lady," replied Mick, struggling to his feet. "Nothing personal."

Again, Sara noticed that the embroidery on her dress was glowing, but this time it was blue.

"Maybe you shouldn't be selling weapons to primitive people," chipped in Ray, as he too pushed himself to his feet. "Then we wouldn't have to come after you."

"You arrogant little plebs," said Zero. "You think you can take over where the Time Masters left off? Why would you even try? You're a joke. Hardly worth my effort, except for the delicious fun that I will have with you. And you will pay for what you did." She turned away, walking through the chaos as if it didn't exist. Her hands glowed with an inner blue light, that shoved anyone who came near her away. "He will pay," she added. "Him and her, they will both pay, but especially him."

Sara scrambled back into an upright position and was on her feet, running towards Zero. She could already feel the bruises forming on her back from where she'd hit the ground hard. Her sword was raised high above her head. "It was you, wasn't it? You made Rip sick."

She was about to bring the sword down on her quarry's head without giving her a moment to answer, but a bolt of blue light coming in her direction made her fling herself out of harm's way. She crashed to the ground again, looking up towards Zero as she walked out of the broch, framed in the light of the door.

Zero's mouth twitched into a smile. "I got what I came for. Tell your Captain to say hello to Lieutenant Coburn for me."

"Wait…" began Ray, but he was interrupted by the need to fight off another Pict.

"Who are you?" asked Sara, with anger. She didn't get an answer, as she also found herself under attack again and her sword was no longer in her hand. She tripped a female Pict on her way to stab Mick and then stood to pitch a male opponent over her shoulder, scooping her sword back up from the ground.

"She's running," she shouted, with a wave towards the door. She gave the briefest of glances back towards her teammates and noted that they were holding their own. She ran outside just in time to see two flying robots swoop down and pick up Zero Hour, as if they were hawks picking up prey. Zero had obviously arranged for a ride back to her ship.

Ray and Mick tumbled out of the broch behind her, and stopped for a second to take in the sight of Zero being carried away, blinking in the light.

"That's unexpected," said Ray. "I'll follow her."

"No," said Sara. "Too many witnesses, wait until we're outside the fort. Come on, we know where her ship is." She ran towards the nearest gate out of the fort.

She glanced back to check that Mick and Ray were both following her and found them hot on her heels. They pushed through the throng of people around the gate, with Mick moving forwards and shamelessly using his bulk to clear them a passage. No one seemed inclined to try to stop them. She supposed that she looked quite the sight with her sword in one hand and knife in the other, running at full pelt with her hair flying out behind her.

Once outside the fort, she realised that they would have been able to work out where the ship was even without Rip's directions. Firestorm was currently fighting off a small platoon of flying robots, whilst the Waverider was picking its shots carefully to avoid hitting their team mate, as more robots swarmed around it. Occasionally Firestorm would withdraw completely so that they were underneath the Waverider and the ship would let rip with all guns blazing. Stray shots revealed a camouflaged ship behind the robots.

"Firestorm, Waverider, you've got Zero coming your way and she's got some kind of energy weapon," said Sara.

"Quite frankly, that would be the least of our problems right at this moment," came a familiar, but rather snarky reply. "We are somewhat outnumbered and neither the Waverider, nor Firestorm can continue to take this kind of fire for much longer." There was the sound of something breaking over the com link.

Sara could see that Zero was flying down towards her ship and that a few of the robots had broken off to form a guard around her, protecting her from incoming fire.

"Ray?" asked Sara. "I think we should be good now."

"On it," said Ray, powering up his suit and flying down towards the fight.

Sara and Mick followed him at a dead run, but could only watch as Zero disappeared into her ship and then the robots began to withdraw too.

"What the hell?" she asked. The Legends took down a few more of the robots, but by then the ship was engaging engines, lifting up, and speeding away. There was a small flash of light as the ship jumped into the timestream.

"Damn it!" shouted Sara.

"Gideon, track them," said Rip, followed by a coughing fit. Sparks flew around the bridge. The Waverider had taken considerable damage. Rip was also once again feeling terrible. The painkillers that Gideon had given him earlier seemed to be wearing off and it was too hot and he couldn't stop the occasional shiver running through his body. He rubbed sweat out of his eyes.

"Yes, Captain," said Gideon. "Although that may be difficult. They appear to have some kind of temporal interference device similar to the one used by the Pilgrim."

"Do the best you can and then plot us a new course to follow them," said Rip.

"Captain, you are not well enough to survive another time jump," said Gideon.

"Just do as I ask, Gideon," said Rip, allowing the annoyance to creep into his tone. He set the Waverider down on the ground gently, but had to stop to cough again before issuing his next order. "Let me know as soon as the team are on board, and initiate repairs."

"Yes, Captain. There is something else that you should be aware of," said Gideon.

"And what would that be?" asked Rip, resigned to a further lecture.

"I was able to identify the ship when the hatch was open, breaching their cloak. The identity signal belonged to the Helios," said Gideon.

Rip was momentarily stunned, and took his hands away from the Waverider's controls. "The Helios… Let's see, her AI was, er, Godiva? I assume you followed protocol?"

"Yes, Captain. I attempted to make contact. However, something was wrong," said Gideon.

"I had rather assumed that, but go on," said Rip.

"Godiva was not herself," said Gideon.

"Not herself?" asked Rip. "You're going to need to be more specific, Gideon."

"If she were a human, then I would suggest that she was suffering from dementia," said the AI, using her most serious tone.

Rip's forehead creased into a perplexed look. "I didn't think that was possible."

"She did not remember me," said Gideon, "despite the fact that we have communicated on a number of occasions."

Rip didn't like the sound of that. AIs like Gideon were robust and something desperate must have happened to the Helios for it to effect Godiva in such a way. However, Rip was now remembering that the Helios had been the last ship to pursue the only suspect they had for Zero Hour's real identity – Calliope Dane. That seemed like a very big coincidence and definitely required further investigation.

"What about her Captain?" he asked. "The last I heard the Helios was Captain Hera Meaden's ship."

"Godiva was unable to give me any name other than Zero Hour as her Captain," said Gideon.

"So somehow Zero got hold of a Time Master ship," speculated Rip. "Which would make sense if the AI is malfunctioning and none of her safeguards are working."

"Indeed, Captain," said Gideon. "Also, the team are back on board."

Rip tapped a finger on the console. They needed to follow Zero, otherwise they risked losing the trail again. However, another jump so close to the previous one would be even less pleasant than before and could very well result in his death. Just to underline that, a moment of vertigo left him grabbing for the console to help him maintain his balance even though he was sat still. He closed his eyes and waited for the attack to pass.

"Rip?" asked an urgent voice. It was Jax, the first of his crew to make it to the bridge, and now rather urgently checking his pulse with two fingers at his neck and his eyes on his wristwatch. "Hey, man, you shouldn't even be up."

"I'm fine," he managed, finally leaning back in his seat and looking up at Jax. He was breathing hard, but doing his best to act as normally as he could.

"Yeah, that's why you're white as a sheet and sweating buckets," replied Jax, looking up from his watch. "Gideon, ready the medbay."

"Of course, Mr Jackson."

"That will not be necessary, Gideon, I don't need the services of medbay," said Rip, dismissively, "we have an escaped arms dealer to locate. Now, perhaps we could get back to work?"

"Your pulse is racing and you're sat still. Even I know that isn't good."

"I just need some sleep," said Rip, coughing into his hand.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that one either." Jax lifted the restraining bar on Rip's seat, and offered him a hand up. Rip gave him an annoyed look, his meaning clear – he did not need help.

Jax put his head on one side. "Yeah, go on, give it a try on your own. If you can make it to the parlour, I'll leave you alone."

It was then that Sara, Ray, Martin and Mick entered the bridge, clearly discussing what had just happened. The conversation stopped when they saw Jax and Rip.

"What's going on?" asked Sara, looking at Rip with suspicion.

"He's refusing to go back to the medbay," said Jax.

"Rip, you look like crap. Go back to the medbay, get Gideon to give you the good drugs, and sleep this off. We're not going anywhere until we can locate Zero again," said Sara.

"Well, we might want to park the ship somewhere less suspicious," said Ray. "I mean the locals did just see us have a battle with a bunch of ATOM robots."

"Good point," said Sara. "Okay, we're going to move the ship, but other than that, we're not going anywhere."

"Actually, I have been tracking Zero's ship," said Rip, ignoring Jax's frustrated look. "And there's something you all need to know about it."

"We're not going to like this, are we?" asked Ray.

"It's not an unexpected development," replied Rip, trying to suppress another bout of coughing and failing. He waved off Jax's help as the jarring movement triggered his vertigo again and he wobbled in his chair. He had to grab hold of the side to steady himself, but succeeded in not overbalancing.

"Get to the point," said Mick.

"The ship that Zero is using was part of the Time Master fleet. It's the Helios. Gideon tells me that the AI, Godiva is still present but malfunctioning. How Zero got hold of it… well, your guess is as good as mine at this point," finished Rip.

"So, she has all the firepower and time travel capabilities of a ship like the Waverider?" asked Sara.

"Yes," said Rip. "Although a malfunctioning AI might slow her down a little. Which, I suppose, is something. The Helios was the last ship to attempt to capture Calliope Dane, which I can't help but feel is something more than just a coincidence."

"Yeah, well, Zero isn't Calliope Dane," said Sara. "She's some kind of cyborg metahuman or something."

"Interesting," said Rip. "And how did you come to discover this?" He had his suspicions about how the mission had been conducted and the damage to the timeline which would be the inevitable result.

"The blue glowing eyes gave it away," said Mick.

"Yeah, and half her face was made of metal," added Ray.

"And she had a weird robe with a kind of glowing circuit board pattern embroidered on it," added Sara. "I think it's what gave us away. It glowed when we used our radios."

"It could have been something that detected radio waves, or even just electrical signals," said Ray. "It could even just have been some kind of antenna for her cyborg computer components. I'd need to get hold of it and take a closer look to be sure."

"Please tell me that you at least destroyed the weapons," said Rip.

"Yes, and you're welcome," said Mick, with a gleam in his eye. "I also burnt the remains of the robot army for you."

"And did the settlement of Durno survive it?"

"Don't worry, we were careful," said Sara. "They may need a new thatch for their broch though."

Rip sighed, and coughed. "Gideon, please check who won the battle of Mons Graupius."

"The Romans, Captain, commanded by Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola. The victory was decisive. There are no records of either side using technologically superior weapons."

"See?" said Sara, smugly.

"Yes, well done, but we still didn't capture Zero," pointed out Rip. "And given that she's currently making it very hard to track her, we'll probably have to wait for another aberration to appear before we can work out where she's gone."

"In which case, you might as well go and get some rest while we look for it," said Sara. "And that cough of yours sounds terrible."

"Come on, Rip, you're just being stubborn now," said Jax, offering his hand again. "At least go back to your quarters and get some sleep."

"Or we could get Mick to carry you there again," suggested Ray, with a mischievous smile.

Rip gave his entire crew an annoyed look, before resigning himself to doing what they wanted with a shake of his head. "Well, I suppose since we have time… I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."

He took the hand that Jax offered and got to his feet as naturally as he could manage. He might feel terrible but the rest of the crew didn't need to know that. He couldn't quite ignore the fact that his legs felt like rubber and at any moment the floor wanted to pitch him sideways. He shut his eyes and Jax's grip tightened on him.

He felt Jax throw his arm over his shoulder and then someone was doing the same on the other side. From the height, he decided that it was Ray.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back to medbay?" asked Ray.

"Definitely. It's just 'flu exacerbated by a time jump…" murmured Rip, as they walked him off the bridge. "I just need some rest. In my own bed."

"Whatever you say, man," said Jax, clearly somewhat sceptical.

It felt like it was a long walk back to his quarters, and he had rarely been so pleased to sink down onto his bed. Or to be more precise, he was deposited on his bed by Jax and Ray. His energy had pretty much given out at that point.

"Hey, take your painkillers," said Jax. "They'll help you sleep."

Rip took the pills that were offered and drank the glass of water that was held out towards him. "Thank you."

"Just get some rest and feel better," said Jax.

"Get Gideon to call us if you need anything," added Ray.

Rip curled himself up in the blankets and fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

"Gideon, what are the chances of us being able to actually track Zero?" asked Sara, taking her seat at the navigation console.

"Not terribly good, Ms Lance," replied Gideon. "I was able to track them partially and Captain Hunter asked me to plot an appropriate course but I don't believe it will take us to our target's location."

"Okay, scrap that then. We're not jumping anywhere for a few days, no matter what Rip says. I'm not putting him through another jump like that. Find us a quiet place that we can move the ship to and hole up for a few days while we plan our next move."

"Of course, Ms Lance," said Gideon. "There is a rather scenic uninhabited glen a few miles to our northwest."

"Sounds perfect," said Sara, powering up the engines and lifting the Waverider up into the air. She steered the ship to the location that Gideon had pinpointed for them, and set the ship down again. She'd found that she quite enjoyed flying, at least under normal circumstances. It wasn't quite so much fun when you knew that you had a Time Pirate on your tail or the only reason you were doing it was because Gideon was offline. Or even when you knew that a time jump would probably make the Captain of the ship you were flying very ill indeed but you had to chase down a temporal arms dealer, who you then failed to capture. Sara was feeling just a little guilty about that.

Rip had looked terrible when they'd returned. If anything, he looked worse than earlier, and she really should have made him go back to the medbay, but she didn't have the heart. He clearly disliked the place and she wasn't surprised by that. Rip liked his privacy and medbay didn't afford much of that. He kept himself to himself, and wasn't very forthcoming with personal details unless he really couldn't help it. Not only that, because Gideon's technology was so advanced, it was rare to spend more than a day receiving medical care on the Waverider, but Rip had now spent roughly five days stuck in medbay over the last week, which had to be frustrating for him. Being ill was never fun, being this ill was a special kind of misery.

Jax came back onto the bridge with Ray just as they were landing.

"You put him to bed?" she asked.

"Yeah, he's looking worse again," said Jax.

Ray was frowning. "I know the time jump set him back, but shouldn't he be shaking that off by now and back to how he was yesterday?"

Martin was shaking his head. "We don't know what to expect, I'm afraid. Captain Hunter doesn't seem to think this is unusual."

"But he could just be trying not to worry us," said Jax.

"Which is exactly the kind of idiotic thing he'd do," said Sara, getting out of the pilot's chair and coming over to the main console, where the others had gathered around the monitors. "Okay, so for the moment, Rip's out of commission, but we still need to find Zero Hour. What do we know?"

"Well, we know that she's not completely human," said Ray. "And we know she was paid in local ore. The question is, what's so special about it that she'd have to come her to get it?"

"Perhaps we should look at the geological make-up of the area," suggested Martin, tapping on the screen to bring up the relevant documents. He pulled up a map for everyone to view. "Mainly copper and silver mining by the looks of it. Very common. There doesn't appear to be anything particularly special here."

"Which isn't much help," said Jax.

"Something to ponder upon then," said Martin. "Did you get any idea of how much ore she took in payment?"

Sara shook her head. "The deal had been done by the time we got there and Calgachos just said that it was a fair amount."

"And we had bad guys to burn," pointed out Mick.

"We should look at Calliope Dane again. Rip seemed to think that even if she isn't Zero, she's connected to this somehow," said Sara. "All her weapons deals matched up with locations where we tracked aberrations caused by Zero."

"And the Helios was the last Time Master ship to attempt to capture her," said Ray. "It could be that something went wrong and Calliope captured the ship. It wouldn't be the first time a Time Pirate got the better of a Time Master."

"But then how did Zero get hold of it?" asked Jax. "And how did the AI get damaged? The camouflage grid wasn't working properly either, so something happened to the Helios."

"Maybe Calliope is actually Zero and she had her face altered or something?" suggested Ray.

"That doesn't explain her powers," said Sara.

"That's all very fascinating but not terribly helpful when it comes to finding Zero," said Martin.

"I think we need to go over Calliope Dane's file and work out if there are any locations that she had contacts in that Zero hasn't hit yet," said Sara. "In fact, I think I need to do that because Jax needs to help Gideon repair the ship, Martin and Ray still need to finish the anti-viral just in case we need it, and Mick…"

"…has beer to drink," stated the arsonist. "Call me when you need me to burn stuff again."

Mick left them to it, probably heading off to find the aforementioned beer. Sara just gave a roll of her eyes and went back to looking at the display.

"Are you sure that the anti-viral is the best use of our time?" asked Martin. "I doubt it would shorten Captain Hunter's illness by much at this point and none of us have come down with any symptoms."

Sara shook her head. "It isn't that. Zero said some things as she was making her escape."

"Like what?" asked Jax.

"That she'd make us pay for something that we did to her. That she'd make him pay, and I think she meant Rip. And then she told me to tell him to say hello to Lieutenant Coburn, whoever that is," said Sara.

"That does sound kind of ominous," said Ray.

"Yeah, so either we got lucky and Rip beat this thing, or it's not over yet," said Sara.

"And we never get lucky," said Ray, with a worried glance at the other Legends.

Sara had to agree.

Historical note: The only account of this period that we really have was written by Tacitus. It's part of the speech that he wrote for Calgachos to make to his troops before the battle of Mons Graupius that Rip misquotes to Savage in "River of Time". The Governor of Britain was Tacitus father in law, and he was trying to get in his good books so he made the account of the battle of Mons Graupius very flattering to the Romans. He was also quite scathing about the level of civilisation that the local tribes had. Archaeology suggests that Tacitus was overly harsh and the Picts weren't quite the savages he portrayed. They built structures and had hill forts. Brochs (round stone towers that appears in settlements from this period) are something of a mystery, one theory is that they were used as meeting places, but they could equally have just been grain stores.