Blake's 7 - Liberators
The sequel to Blake's 7 - Survivors
Chapter 6
The Liberator
The first...
Eyes closed, Blake took a slightly shuddering breath, and then looked up and around the others assembled on the flight-deck. The first, she heard, or was it just felt...?
"First..." she began, and stopped. Only the first.
The others waited patiently. If there was an accusing quality to their gaze, it might only be in her imagination. "First of all..." she said, and halted again, collecting her thoughts. "First, I want to..."
She didn't know what she wanted to do. No, she did. She wanted to run, run as far and as fast as she could away from here. Away from the responsibility, away from the-
No... She made herself continue. They were waiting. "This was my fault," she said. "I want it to be clear to all of you that I fully acknowledge that." The others listened raptly as she calmly and rationally explained her position to them.
The others. All four of them.
Planetoid TNDM-1939
"Blake...! Blake...! Tell me this is all right...! This is the plan...?! Right?! The plan!"
The mud primitives worked with a practiced swiftness, and the strength of their muscles and sinews made resistance a futile gesture. Blake found herself dragged back out of the way of their preparations, back toward one of the bubbling pots of clay or mud, and held rigidly by two of the tribe as Juni was ruthlessly prepared to be the first of them to die. Blake found herself staring mutely at Juni's wide, terrified eyes, offering no answer to her demands for reassurance. Listening for Rissa's approach, or anything, however tenuous, that might offer some kind of hope, Blake was close to panic now.
She had never panicked. Not on Pelios, or Gauda Prime. Not at Galaxy city, or on Earth. Not in any of the hundred places since where she had faced danger. None of them had ever felt like this, none of them had been as overwhelming. They really were going to die.
Worse than that, she was going to have to watch Juni die before she met her own agonising fate at the hands of these creatures. And she could do nothing.
"Get off me...!" Juni writhed as the primitives bound her to the crude ladder, and felt the heat on her back, the heat of the growing fire in the pit. "Get-!" They tied a gag over her mouth to stifle her protests, and she screamed through it as the ladder was shifted round to face the pit and held precariously near the edge.
"No!" Blake cried, struggling uselessly, panic getting the better of her at last. "Juni...!"
"It wasn't just you," said Darvin from his position at the pilot's station. "We've all been reckless."
"Well, that's pretty generous of you, frankly..." Blake replied. "Considering you were the one who wanted to leave all of this and go and do something else entirely."
"Not generous," he countered. "It's the truth."
"You don't have to do this, Stev..." She looked up at him, something just a little reproachful in her expression. "It's not your role."
Rissa smiled, and gave herself over to it. The feeling, the joy... the strength battle gave her. The intoxicating rush of danger, the almost sexual release of swift action... Time seemed to slow as she let herself fall backwards, and felt the crackle of energy in the air above her arched torso as she dropped. Slapping the ground, she rolled and was quickly on her feet again, and firing without even aiming, firing where all her instincts judged her opponent to presently be...
Ha...! The fool had no training - he was exactly where he had been a moment ago! Her shot, glancing though it was - she had given him too much credit and assumed he would be on the move - dropped Mr Lim like a stone. Rissa moved on.
To find her original opponent, Mr Rist, blood seeping from his jaw where she had kicked him, pointing his gun at her. In tremendous pain though he was, it was his turn to smile.
"No, Darvin's got a point," said Caul, occupying the station slightly below and to Darvin's right. "You might lead us, but only because we consent to that. And you've never forced us into a mission. Any time anyone has had an objection, they've been talked round. No one went into this blind, and that includes-"
"-Thank you, Caul..." said Blake, in such a way as to leave him in no doubt he was to stop talking immediately, a tone and a look he recognised from their months working and living together on Flame. "Thank you."
Faal arrived, at his request and risky though it was, much nearer the primitive settlement than the first landing party. Getting his bearings swiftly, he started to make his way there at a brisk walk and as an afterthought, feeling the teleport bracelet chafe his narrow wrist, he activated it and quickly assured the others on the ship, "Down, and safe."
"Acknowledged, Faal," Darvin replied. "Report in at standard intervals."
Nearing the settlement, Faal crouched in hiding and his best to assess the situation. He was no military man, but he was determined to help his companions get out of this situation safely. Whatever it took.
His brow furrowed, an extreme emotional response for him. It looked like that goal would be very difficult to attain.
It was an indirect intervention that spared Rissa the shot Rist fired at her, as some of the mud primitives' mates and children came running for cover at the approach of... What, exactly...? Crouching down after almost casually kicking the gun from Rist's now-fragile hand, Rissa cuffed him with her hand to incapacitate him, then turned to face the oncoming threat.
Faal!
Rissa bounded up and almost hugged him, before remembering that wasn't his style and bumping against him peculiarly instead. "Faal! Welcome to the field!"
"Thank you," he replied, not sure what else to say.
"So sorry to interrupt this touching reunion," gasped Mr Lim, getting back on his feet - Rissa peered at the end of her gun. "Does this thing work?!" she demanded.
She threw it with precise savagery at her opponent, and it struck Lim on the side of the head just as his gun fired. Rissa dropped to the ground again, feeling a peculiar sensation she suspected might be the blast passing uncomfortably close to her, much closer than before. In her tumble, she took Faal down with her, and the two were momentarily tangled before she managed to extricate herself.
"Faal...? You all right?"
He did not respond immediately, but with a slightly pained look on his face he nodded and accepted her hand to help him up - The Clonemaster was somewhat heavier than she would ever expect him to be given his slender form.
She rushed over to make sure Rist and Lim were properly incapacitated this time, and removed both their guns, removing the cartridges from one and putting it in her pouch for later study. The other she hefted, feeling the weight and finding it to her liking.
"Blake might want to question these two," she said to Faal, who was still looking somewhat winded, and then her eyes widened as she stared up at the column of smoke rising from the other side of the settlement. "Blake!"
"-Oh, what does it matter...?" On the flight-deck, Rissa slammed her hand on the side of the couch she was sitting on. "No, that's not what I meant to say... It matters, of course it does. But we all knew the risks, and we all took them anyway."
Her outburst was followed by several moments of silence, awkward yet pregnant, as if a fragile bubble had been broken, and now... Anything could be said and done.
"Juni..." Blake murmured quietly, trying once again to resist the implacable grip of her two attendants, as her friend was angled down on her ladder toward the rising flames. Juni's head turned to the side, her eyes closed against the intense heat, and she squirmed against the heavy rope. Blake looked around desperately, hope ebbing away...
"Get that fucking thing out of there...!" Rissa screamed, and fired a shot uncomfortably close to one of the mud primitives. As they hesitated, her face became very grim and she shot one of them point-blank with her captured gun, calmly watching the creature writhe in agony as its displaced internal organs failed one by one. She turned toward Blake. "And let her go!"
Faal arrived too, staggering a little as he approached, as if losing his footing on the rough ground, and helped Blake remove the ladder from its position facing into the fire pit and out to safety. Lowering it carefully to the ground, they grabbed the nearest sharp implements they could find and started cutting Juni free.
"Juni...?" said Blake. "What do you say?"
Juni looked up, as if returning from somewhere else, a long way away. "He... He trusted you. We all did." If the others were expecting her to add anything to that, they were to be disappointed.
Blake appeared to think that over for a few moments. "I think that's what it comes down to... I took a risk. Not only with my own life, but also with every one of yours. Juni... I... Especially yours, as it turned out. I'm sorry about what happened to you. I'm sorry about what nearly..."
"Rissa said we knew the risks, and she's right."
"I thought the risk was warranted, and I thought it would all work out fine, just as it has always done up to now. I was wrong."
"Yes," said Juni, although there was no recrimination in her tone. No emotion of any sort, in fact. Caul tried to meet her eye, but she avoided looking directly at any of them.
He sat back, fingers of both hands entwined so tight no blood reached them, and he withdrew from the discussion to a private internal one of his own as he tried to process what any of this meant after today. What else was going to change, apart from that empty station...? He looked again, briefly, at Juni, rather than at the empty station which was on everyone else's mind.
His station. Faal's station. It seemed to loom above them all accusingly.
Faal helped Juni at first as they all half-staggered, half-ran back to the centre of the settlement, but to her surprise, Juni found herself supporting Faal before they got there. She peered at him, wondering what was wrong, and he murmured a quick reassurance.
"I hurt myself back there," he said. "That is all. I will recover."
"We'll get you to the medical unit as soon as we're back on board," said Juni. "Make sure you're all right."
He actually gave a faint smile - Faal did - at that, and briefly and gently touched her face with its faint red weals from the heat of the fire. Appreciating the irony.
As they passed the abandoned manufactory, Blake and Rissa gathered up as many of the blue capsules as they could, and whatever else was easily portable. They all turned as the regrouped mud primitives approached in a spread out line, enveloping them. Hurriedly, as they closed in, Rissa passed out the spare bracelets she had been carrying.
"Darvin..." Blake called into her bracelet. "Teleport... Really quite urgently!"
"Orac..." Darvin's voice crackled. "Teleport now!"
They appeared in the teleport bay and, not pausing for a moment, Blake rushed to the flight-deck. With his old military discipline asserting itself automatically, Darvin quickly barked his report. "One ship, Blake. Planet hopper. It landed close to the settlement and they sent an armed party."
"I hope they're well-armed," Blake mused. "For their sake." She looked over at Caul. "Destroy it."
Caul stared at his panel. "Confirm order," he said.
"The ship. I want you to destroy it."
"Strand them there?" asked Darvin.
"Yes," said Blake, as Caul obeyed and fired the Liberator's ship to surface weapons and destroyed the smugglers' ship on TNDM-1939's surface. He sat back and shot a questioning look over at her.
Recognising she owed them an explanation, Blake offered one. "We have what we need. After what we've seen down there, I don't think I'll lose any sleep over the fate of that scum."
"Did you leave them all there...?" asked Rissa, who had just emerged from the corridor leading to the teleport bay. "Hardcore."
Blake shot a look at her that might have been a little regretful. "Glad you approve."
"Couldn't approve more, boss," said Rissa. "What's next?"
"Next?" Blake pondered. "Next, we get cleaned up and change clothes."
"Sorry, Blake..." said Rissa, downcast. "I meant to capture one of them so you could interrogate him, but then there was the whole Juni on fire thing and I got distracted."
"It's all right," said Blake with a faint smile. "You did well, Rissa. And, for the record, thanks for saving my life... All our lives."
Rissa looked confused, but also a little touched. "Whenever, wherever, boss."
"And after that?" asked Darvin as Blake and Rissa departed the flight-deck.
"Get us underway, please, Stev..." Blake called back as she ascended the stairs. "Then we'll talk."
Mr Rist struggled back to consciousness fitfully, finally starting awake when he felt himself being dragged to his feet by the immensely strong callused hands of his mud primitive allies. "What...?" he murmured. "Where...? Lim...! Where are you...? Lim?"
He saw Lim soon enough, being lashed to some sort of frame and swiftly covered with a thick layer of molten clay, several of the primitives splashing it on him in waves, skillfully managing to avoid burning or scalding themselves in the process. Lim screamed, startled awake by the touch of the first of the viscous boiling fluid. Behind him, waiting, the now fiercely burning fire, and Rist's mind went numb as he realised what was happening.
"What...?" he demanded of the nearest of them, the blank face unreadable under the layer of dried mud. But we're allies... What are you?" He saw then that they were throwing the remaining blue capsules in the fire, and all the associated paraphernalia of the manufactory with it. A sign from above that their gods were angry...? Destroying it all to appease them...? These thoughts and others flitted listlessly through Rist's mind as he contemplated his short, pain-filled future.
Perched on the edge of the diagnostic chair, studying the readouts intently, Faal's expression of solemn concentration did not change for so much as a moment. It did slip, however, if only momentarily, when he noticed there was someone standing in the hatchway, and again when he realised who it was.
"Juni," he said.
"I've come to see if you need any help."
"No, thank you." She did not immediately leave, and he was glad of that. He searched for something to say, anything, to keep her there, as for whatever reason he found he could not face being alone at this moment. "You are recovered," he said at last.
It sounded like a statement, although it could also have been a question. Whatever it was, it made her advance into the room and over to the side of the chair.
"Are you sure?" she asked, despite knowing it was a strange thing to ask of someone like him. Her eyes moved automatically to what she could see of the readout, and if she objected to his moving the screen round a little to prevent that, she said nothing.
"Yes. This machine is quite efficient and highly advanced. It is designed to allow the patient to operate alone if required."
"It's not required, though. Is it?"
"I don't-"
"-You only need to ask if you want someone to be here with you. Stop placing barriers against us. Even me."
"Juni..."
"What, Faal...? Once and for all, what is it...? Tell me."
"You are her, you know. I only just realised, only very recently, that you doubt it."
"I am not her," Juni breathed. "I'm no longer me. I suppose that's the price for being here at all, isn't it? Alive and dead at the same time."
"You are wrong," he said. "I am sorry, I am so sorry, that I never explained it properly."
"She wouldn't let you. And I don't expect you to go against Servalan. She was kind to me- to Juni - but I have few illusions when it comes to her."
"That should never have prevented me... And I never feared Servalan, although it suited my interests to have her believe I did... It made her so much easier to deal with."
"I see." His face briefly creased in apparent agony, and Juni moved forward. "Are you all right?" she cried, alarmed.
He answered sheepishly. "I... On the planet, when I fell, I jarred my back. It will recover quickly... There is no permanent damage."
"Ah..." She glanced again at the screen, though it was turned away from her. "That's all that's wrong?"
"You were wrong, you know. You were quite wrong about that. She was never kind. Not to anyone, and not even to you. When she discovered you, it was too late for Servalan to produce offspring naturally, and other opportunities had been... prevented. I believe she saw something in you that day... A chance to perpetuate herself. One final opportunity."
"That didn't go so well..."
"No," he said with certainty.
"No wonder she wanted Juni cloned."
"She thought you would sate her loneliness..." he said. "And that may have been true. But you have never been truly like her, and you never will be."
Juni did not interrupt, listening in silence, eyes glistening, and Faal continued with what he needed to say.
"When I tell you I am sorry, I say it with absolute sincerity and without doubt of any sort," he said. "When I tell you that you are Juni, I am speaking with the same sincerity and precision, and as a scientist. The techniques used to create you are the most advanced I had at my disposal. Your brain was scanned twice, once two years before your death and again immediately after the crash, before you were pronounced dead, and the best possible master created... You are Juni, as much as the girl who died in that crash was. I told Servalan the opposite, but that was a lie."
She was barely able to reply. "But-"
"-You are not a copy. You are Juni."
"I'm sorry," said Darvin.
"What for?" asked Blake, genuinely confused, as they walked slowly along one of Liberator's hexagonal corridors on their way to the medical unit.
"I hoped we would be wrong, but all the evidence points the opposite way. Difficult as it is to believe, it looks like Avalon really is involved in all this."
"Profiting from illicit drugs?" pondered Blake. "Avalon...? I find it very hard to accept."
"I know. But look at it - the evidence keeps piling up. That cell of hers we encountered on station Z78, they were up to their-"
"-I know, and I know the serial numbers all match, and I know we have all the documents, and I know we have that video call recorded for posterity, and it checks out... And I know we have evidence of her accounts in the Unaligned banking system. I know. I know, all right. But it still feels wrong. Not just wrong, but highly convenient..."
"Convenient...?" pondered Darvin. "What are you thinking?"
"The same thing you are. The-"
They broke off as Juni passed them without even an acknowledgement, and Darvin raised his real hand with a single finger pointed back the way they had come and where Juni had just gone. "Was she...?"
"Crying...?" Blake looked pensive. "It seemed that way."
"A problem for Caul to solve?" Darvin suggested. Blake answered with a raised eyebrow. "Hey, you didn't think I noticed?"
"I had no idea how to even bring it up," she said.
"It was pretty obvious," he said. "I mean surprising, but obvious."
"Obvious enough for Rissa?"
"No, thankfully. We'll deal with that when it comes up, which hopefully will be never... What was I saying...?"
"You weren't. I was about to tell you how convenient all this is for President Scarn. We know the drug trade among the Unaligned, the outermost ones, the easiest to pick off, benefits him, and we know that Avalon's support has been increasing there. We know that for all his military strength, he still doesn't have the entire Presidium on his side."
"One day," said Darvin, "He'll just shut down the Presidium and end the pretence."
"Till he does," she insisted, "They're a problem, and why not plant a little doubt and suspicion to make things more difficult? After all, the thing Avalon has on her side more than anything is her reputation... Her reputation for utter incorruptibility... Her legend."
He looked at her without speaking for a few moments. "Persuasive..." he said. "But where's your evidence? We've got plenty for the other side, and some of it's not all that fakeable."
"So let's find out for sure," Blake said, somewhat excited, a smile beginning to spread across her face.
"What do you suggest?"
"We stop scurrying around the fringes of Avalon's organisation, and go straight for the heart of it. We go straight to Avalon herself, and if she really is guilty, we stop her."
"Stop her?"
"Yes. There's no indication she has anything to match the Liberator. If she did, she would be a proper threat to Scarn rather than an irritant."
"Bold, my friend."
"Why would we be anything else?" she demanded, just as they reached the medical unit. "We'll talk about it later..."
Faal was lying back on the diagnostic chair in its reclining position, completely still. They stood there for a few moments, uncertain.
"Should we wake him...?" Darvin asked. "Frankly, Blake, I don't want to hang around here any longer than necessary. I have... bad associations with places like this. Let's just find out how he is and go. He's a solitary type, he won't mind."
"That makes sense," Blake conceded with a faint smile. "I really think he was hurt a bit worse than he was admitting to down there, you know... Let's find out..."
"Check the diagnostic report," said Darvin, staying on the edges of the room. "There, it's still on the monitor..."
Blake paled as she read the report, and her glance flicked over to the prone form of Faal on the chair. "It says... No, Faal... No...!" She moved to him, and put her ear to his chest, listening. After a few moments, she said again, "No...!"
"What is it...?" Darvin demanded. "What?!"
"Multiple organ failure! That's what it says... He knew. Darvin, he knew! He was just waiting for us all to..." Blake ran a hand through her hair, trying to calm herself, and looked up at Darvin again helplessly.
"Faal..." Darvin breathed. "Why didn't he...?"
"He was waiting for us to leave him alone," she said. "He wanted to be alone to die." She gingerly touched the body's hand near the wrist. "He's cold," she said simply. "He's so cold, Stev..."
Darvin moved over to join her next to the body. "The last of the Clonemasters..." he said slowly, and not without a little deference.
Blake looked up at that, and it was a while before she spoke. "The last...?" she considered.
"Oh, this is all nonsense!" cried Rissa, losing her temper. "If Blake was putting us all in danger and choosing to avoid it herself, there might be a point to this. But she leads from the front and takes all the risks we do... More, sometimes."
"Well, thanks for that, Rissa, but-"
"-You want us all to forgive you," said Juni blankly, and for the first time looked Blake in the eye. "Don't you?"
"Juni," Darvin began. "I'm not sure-"
"-I suppose that's it," Blake admitted. "What this all boils down to. I try not to let any of you see my doubts, my fears... My insecurities... But I have them." She moistened dry lips, and said, "Can you? Forgive me?"
Juni frowned, just slightly. "That's what you don't understand. I can't forgive you, because I have nothing to forgive you for. The one you need absolution from, in order to continue this to the end...? It's you, Blake. It's always been you. And I'm afraid that may be impossible."
With that, Juni got down from her station and walked to and up the set of stairs, disappearing from view. Blake took a few moments before she spoke again, and none of the others preempted her.
"Juni... might be right. I don't know. Perhaps. But the fact is, Faal put his trust in me, and now Faal is dead." Why, at this moment, with Faal on her mind, could she not get the image of the long-dead Olag Gan, a man she had never even met, out of her head...?
The first to die.
No, she thought. No more of them. Never again.