Blake's 7 - Liberators
The sequel to Blake's 7 - Survivors
Chapter 10
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(Relevant extracts follow from the annals of the August Siblinghood of Morphenniel; Data adjunct 593A - The Federation Falls: From the Ashes... An Albatross)
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The 4th century of the 2nd calendar
...
1st year
In the turbulent history of those years between the end of the second and final Intergalactic War and the end of the Second Calendar itself some [redacted] years later, there are few institutions more durable, and more frustrating perhaps, than the Presidium of the Unified Systems Alliance. At first intended to be the sovereign body of the alliance, a status which became watered down by the many compromises necessary in the protracted negotiations to cement UniS's existence, it finally established itself as an advisory body to the executive.
While the executive was an inner council appointed by the members of the Presidium, chaired by a person devoted to the principles of accountability and fairness, the systems of checks and balances worked perhaps surprisingly well... but once the executive power passed to a man who, to all intents and purposes, was an hereditary monarch unaccustomed to checks and balances, the result for the Presidium was inevitable decline...
The Presidium, however, even by the year 309, still had a little weight to throw around...
...
(Extracts concluded. Exiting backdoor... Deleting data retrieval signets... Deleted)
...
On the planet Prautan, the Presidium had been convened, and the ranks of delegates in their vast sloping horseshoe talked among themselves in a low murmur, patient for now... The warming rays of Prautan's glorious climate around its equator beamed down on them through the transparent canopy high above, while the air conditioning kept them cool in their heavy robes of office.
All of them had been in place here for a long time, and it was almost certainly fair to say a certain complacenecy had set in. For all that there were still voices that spoke up against their sidelining by the Proximan monarchy, there were plenty more who were perfectly happy to lap up the numerous benefits of their position and let the governance of the erstwhile Alliance look after itself.
One delegate was awaited, the ceremonial Father of the Presidium, and nothing would begin without him... and he had just one final, brief appointment to take care of.
"So..." the Father of the Presidium said, leaning on his cane and allowing himself to be helped onto the soft, and for his tastes rather low, couch, "Let us make this brief, shall we? I had rather hoped that more would have happened by this time." Hair silver, face wizened, he was one-hundred years and six days old, and intended to live considerably longer than that. Anyone who underestimated him due to his age would be making a very bad mistake.
"Apologies, Delegate Joban," said Dannen, his face as lean as it had been a decade earlier, and his oiled curly hair only just beginning to go grey at the temples. "Our mutual friend apologises for the delay. She wishes that she could have come here in person, but I'm sure you appreciate the risks..."
"Risks..." said Joban, elongating the word. "What risks are there...? She has my assurances for her safety."
"Well, there was that rather..." Dannen coughed. "Close call, some nine years ago now."
"That was Scarn... The Presidium, now as then, stands ready to support Avalon... You will find little has changed in that respect. All we needed was an opportunity... And that time has now come."
"Well, I hope this slight misunderstanding has not... overly troubled any of the parties involved," said Dannen. "She is at this moment engaged in vital business, and stands ready to do her part... To keep her bargain."
"Oh, I know she will, dear boy," said Joban. "We all know so much about each other, don't we... It would be a pity to break faith at this late stage."
Like all but one of Proxima Centauri's ten planets, Proxima I was a tiny barren rock. The side exposed directly to the red dwarf star's rays was permanently scorched, the side facing away just as permanently cold. There was a thin strip where landing might be possible, although nowhere was the planet's surface remotely habitable. It had long been speculated that this narrow strip around the planet's equator might be the location of President Scarn's most secure retreat and base of operations, the fabled Storm Mountain.
That speculation was wrong. Close, but wrong.
In the earliest days of human colonization, with the lushness and abundant resources of Proxima II presenting a very tempting prospect, it had been made a priority to investigate the likely stability of the star, so tiny and weak compared to humanity's own Sol, in the centuries and millennia to come - To that end, a solar observatory had been constructed just within the diameter of the star itself, protected by heavy shielding.
That had been over a thousand years before this 309th year of the Second Calendar, and the facility had grown into a vast space station, home to an industrial and military complex that enabled it to be to all intents and purposes independent of the rest of the system. While all attempts to secure Proxima II's long-term future by making it dependent only on the renewable resources of its star were fiercely resisted by Scarn, no expense had been spared in securing Storm Mountain's future, should anything go wrong.
Fabled it might be, rumoured even, but Storm Mountain was still a relatively well-kept secret. If it became widely known that Scarn had a luxury retreat and power base far removed from the many and complex problems facing Proxima II, there would undoubtedly be civil unrest. Even more so, if the destructive pulse slowly but surely approaching their system became public knowledge.
Scarn was ready.
Storm Mountain
The chamber was at the very heart of the structure, designed to withstand even the complete destruction of Storm Mountain if necessary and function as a survival chamber and lifeboat, ejecting automatically and maintaining life support until such time as its sole occupant could be rescued. Under normal circumstances, it functioned as a private office, a command centre and a refuge for President Erno Scarn... and at this moment, the President was in residence.
Scarn's enormous bulk was perched on the chair at the very centre of the spherical chamber, its gravity focused on the rounded housing into which the chair was built, thus enabling it to turn in any direction - up, down or sideways - to allow Scarn to focus on the multitude of screens that reported the events of his empire to him and enabled him to command every detail from the chair, protected from gravity as much as from the immediate consequences of his decisions.
Alone. Increasingly, as he got older, the way he liked it.
With only the faintest whirring, the chair adjusted its position, turning Scarn forty-nine degrees clockwise and thirty-five degrees to the right without the slightest discomfort for the President, as the relative gravity reoriented automatically. Scarn looked up, awaking from his light doze, and barked, "Report."
"Admiral Brenban, sir... Regular update."
"Go on."
"Continuing to monitor the advance of the pulse... Nothing currently to report. It, um, keeps going at the speed of light, and is expected to arrive at Proxima Centauri in approximately"-
-"I know, I know..."
Just slightly over four years... Plenty of time, as far as Scarn was concerned. Not that he was, particularly. The news of the pulse launched by Kerr Avon from Earth just over three solar months ago had felt like a disaster, very briefly - It still was a disaster, officially - but the more the situation was examined the more it seemed to him an example of serendipity.
All the problems of the growing population and greed for resources of Proxima II potentially solved by the complete destruction of the planet's infrastructure, while it seemed certain Storm Mountain would be protected by its position within the star itself. Four years allowed sufficient time to complete the evacuation of those resources necessary to serve his needs and advance the interests of his expanding empire - Proxima II and its surplus population could be safely abandoned and forgotten, solving more problems than it created.
The military base of UniS, currently located on Proxima III, had been in the process of relocating outside the system in any case, even before Avon's pulse was fired, and full transfer was expected to be complete before it arrived... So why did he feel uneasy...?
30 years earlier...
The view from the newly-restored ruler of Proxima II's office was a breathtaking panorama across the vastness of the Kapital, and despite himself Roj Blake was impressed. With the office, if not its occupant.
"Drink?" Scarn offered. Blake declined.
"Well," he said. "It looks like I've achieved what I set out to do." He clasped the bracelet on his left wrist. "Now it's up to you."
"The Federation will come back," said Scarn.
"Try not to let them," Blake replied. "And I'll try to keep them too busy... Between us, we should give them a bit of a headache."
"I'm sure we will."
"Yes," said Blake, and stepped a little further away from the imposing figure of the Proximan ruler. "Got a lot to do. Time I returned to it."
"I thought perhaps I could say my goodbyes to all your people."
Blake eyed him for a long moment. "Vila sends his regards."
"And Jenna?"
"Jenna said her goodbyes and returned to the ship some time ago," said Blake.
"Have you?"
"I thought that was what I was doing right now," said Blake with faint amusement, eyes narrowed and voice quiet. Abruptly, he spoke into the bracelet. "Get ready to teleport, Vila..." he said briskly, and addressed himself to Scarn. "Don't worry, you won't be fighting alone any more... I promise, for as long as I'm out there... I'll be watching."
Scarn's eyes narrowed also, becoming practically invisible. "Your point is taken, Blake," he replied, the diplomatic mask slipping.
Someone else strode forward to stand next to Blake. "And if ever Blake is indisposed, or unavoidably detained, Scarn..." said Kerr Avon coldly, "Then I will be watching." He smiled, and just before he and Blake were teleported out, he added, "Count on it."
309
Blake.
It was the return of Blake that had done it, or at least the return of someone referring to herself as Blake... Someone out there knew Scarn's weak points, or this one at least, and was set on exploiting that knowledge...
Just when he should be content, just on the cusp of UniS's expansion into the great, largely unexplored, mass of the galaxy, according to projections ripe with worlds to conquer and exploit, he felt vulnerable in a way he had not since regaining control of his homeworld from the Federation invaders all that time ago.
He had been here then, Blake, seizing the initiative, and if rumour was to be believed, more than that, and now to all intents and purposes, here he was again. Or his proxy.
A daughter, previously unknown? Sources could not answer that question, and in many ways it was unimportant. Whoever this girl was, she had made some small but very shrewd attacks on the fringes of his operations, and come across something that at this point he would very much prefer to remain a secret. Scarn doubted the media on Proxima II, a troublesome estate not quite yet entirely under his control, would understand that his taking control of the drugs trade in the outer planets was entirely in their best interests, so that was best avoided...
Swift activation of a stored recording yielded a holographic image in the air ahead of him, and the shadowy, indistinct features of the androgynous Caster Baroon.
"Hey, guts, I mean guys..." said Baroon cheerily. "Damn this cueing machine! Hey there...! Yeah, I mean you... You there trying to pretend I'm not talking to you... Oh, your wife or husband, delete as applicable, won't mind, I'm on your list, aren't I...? Both your lists...!"
Scarn's fingers tapped impatiently, but he did not hurry the recording along - It was nearly there.
"Well, enough of this banter... Have I got something for you today...? Of course, I wouldn't get out of bed for less than a fully-fledged threat to civilisation as we know it, my lovelies! Word is, and the word is sound with a capital soooouuuu... that an amplified pulse with the unfortunate effect of permanently kaputing all your power devices - Yes, including that one, madam, you know who you are... is on its relentless way straight toward every one of you there in the Proxima system... Goodbye to civilisation when it hits... Hope you know how to, um, well, do anything for yourself... Soon, you're all gonna be hunter-gatherers whether ya like it or not!
Oh, but I hear you cry... Does our valiant, revered President know about this...? And the answer is... You guessed it! I really wonder if he's taking all his responsibilities quite as seriously as you all deserve... Maybe, uh... Maybe it's time for something different, huh? One to ponder on..."
Scarn switched the recording off at that point, and was surprised to find that, although the image of the peculiar individual who had become something of a minor thorn in his side flickered slightly, it did not vanish... In fact, Caster Baroon's eyes shifted to look at Scarn directly.
"Ho ho ho, fat boy...!" Barron cried, grinning. "What the Abisian is up...?!"
Scarn was about to call for assistance when he rethought that, and his hand moved away from the controls built into his chair. "What do you want?"
"From you...?" Baroon squealed. "Well, ideally your immediate resignation and suicide! But I know how realpolitik works, babe, so we'll get there in little incremental steps, know what I'm sayin'?"
"Maybe we could come to an arrangement," Scarn said with exaggerated calm. "Where are you? I'll come to you."
"Well, right now I'm at- Oooohhh, why you... Clever, Erno, but not clever enough... Close, though, you nearly got me."
"Well, thank you for narrowing down the possibilities when it comes to your accomplices... The list is now a great deal smaller."
"You're a real charmer, Ern baby, I always sensed that about you... But frankly, I just came here to deliver you a friendly warning... Don't trust her. Don't you trust her... I know you think you've got her under control, but she's getting ready to move, and when she does... Oh, why am I bothering, you won't listen to little old me..."
"Not at all, freak... You have my complete attention... My credulity, however..."
"Maybe if I put on one of your big butch black uniforms and one of those fetching caps - at a suitably jaunty angle, of course - you'd be more receptive... I know you like your men in uniform, Mister Presideeeeent... No, seriously, she's a menace to you and to everything we hold dear..."
"What am I supposed to-?"
"-And, frankly, it's a good thing you can't see what I'm holding right now, dear... Ciao!" With that, the shadowy image of Caster Baroon disappeared.
Scarn settled back in his chair. What to make of that...? At that moment, he felt tired and, though he would never speak of it to anyone, old... The chair whirred around again, facing him toward another display - "Report," he demanded again.
"The Presidium is assembled," said another underling, in muted tones as if they were afraid they could be discovered at any moment. "I have been able to access the agenda... Nothing obviously likely to be troublesome, but you never can entirely tell..."
"Fine. Just keep me informed."
"Yes, s"-
-Scarn's chair shifted position again, this time further and leaving him oriented more or less the opposite way round from his original position. "Report," he said, voice quieter, a real interest in his voice as if this was the one he had been leaving for last out of a real sense of anticipation.
"Sir... Yes, I- We were about to inform you... The boarding party has just embarked... All quiet so far. It's difficult to believe, I know, but it looks like those things we detected departing the ship might have contained the entire crew... Though there are just those faint signs we can't quite pinpoint..."
"Yes, yes, yes..." Scarn fussed. "No sign of any automatic systems?"
"That's the thing, sir... No systems of any sort except basic life support... The entire ship is deserted, apparently... Although, of course, the sweep is still in progress."
"Get that ship under power as soon as possible... Bring it home."
"Yes, sir..."
"Scarn out."
He relaxed a little in his chair, satisfied that for now at least all was well. By some unexpected stroke of luck, the ship of his enemies had fallen into his hands... Out there, very far away, in deepest space, the Liberator was his.
The UniS squadron that now surrounded the dormant Liberator had come prepared, and their EVA teams were now coming to the end of a complicated and dangerous process. If the enemy ship could not be steered under its own power, the specialist vessel, crude and ugly next to the elegance of the Liberator, would simply bring it along like cargo.
The task complete, the UniS EVA teams returned to the airlocks... The Liberator was theirs.
Faal ran through the labyrinth that was the habitation section of the Liberator, his eyes able to function comparatively well in the low light, staying ahead of the teams of armed men sweeping across the ship. Buying himself time for... What? What could he do, alone...?
He did not even truly know why he was here.
He had left the message for Juni to place the device on his corpse, and expected it would fulfill its function of de-constituting his body, dispersing it to its constituent atoms. He had not expected it to... reanimate him. Resurrection, with all its disturbing implications, was not something his people were comfortable with at all, even though it was well within their capabilities to keep a single consciousness alive through all of time... If the will was there. Those who commissioned the Clonemasters had often had very different boundaries, as he had seen for himself...
Yes, he understood why it had happened, and who was responsible. That was why the feeling that suddenly intruded on his consciousness came as less of a surprise than it otherwise might have.
"I knew I would find you here." That voice, so much like his own...
The tall, lean figure stepped forward to block the narrow corridor ahead, and a slender arm raised to halt the UniS soldiers who came up behind him and started forward eagerly to apprehend Faal... "No," the tall figure said. "He's mine."
"Yours?" asked Faal, eyebrows arched - A rare emotional display for him.
"A figure of speech," said the other Clonemaster, the second of the only two in existence, stepping into the faint illumination of the Liberator's emergency lights. "Brother."
18 years earlier...
The homeworld of the Clonemasters was under siege. Somehow, and it was not entirely clear how, it became known that this was the day... The final day.
Today, the Andromedans would press home their attack and remove the last of the planetary defences, and seize one of the human race's greatest remaining assets. The cloned troops used earlier in the war, ethical or not, had allowed humanity time to regroup, and as they advanced toward the final destruction of their enemy the Andromedans had not forgotten that... To win this war, the Clonemasters would have to be removed - and that meant destroyed utterly.
Faal knew all this, and even as he hurried to his station he was preparing himself for the inevitable. Death was fascinating for him - how could it fail to be for someone who cheated it so routinely? - but now, faced with its inevitability, he understood why humans struggled against it so strenuously... He had more to do. He wanted more days. He knew it was wrong, and he would never share these unseemly feelings with anyone... He wanted more, and felt closer to anger than ever before in his long life at the prospect that it was all about to stop so abruptly.
Soon. Very soon now. Even here, deep within the planet, he could hear the neutronic bombardment, and feel the massive impact of the Andromedan's devastating arsenal as it dismantled their final defences...
He had been looking for him. He realised that afterwards, when he had had a chance to reason it out, when he had gotten over the shock of his batch-brother's escape, the shock that had hit him when he saw him appear ahead of him in the tunnel.
"Vuun..."
Faal's voice was nowhere near loud enough to carry over the noise, but it didn't need to be. His brother turned and, just for a moment they looked at each other, and then in the surging crowds, they were lost.
"How did you escape...?" Vuun inquired. "I knew you had, I've known for years now, but I wondered."
"The Federation leader... Sleer. She ordered her people to find me before the end... They had means, and they didn't give me any choice."
"I thought it must have been something like that."
"How did you escape?"
"At the last moment, there was a general amnesty for anyone willing to fight," said Vuun. "But I chose to escape instead." He smiled faintly, always more comfortable with emotion than the otherwise virtually identical Faal. "I had an opportunity, and I took it. Our race is too important to pass forever."
"Why are you here...? With..." Faal waved at the UniS troops dismissively. "With them."
"They have given me much, brother... But not as much as we have to offer them... As soon as I knew for certain you had survived, I had to track you down."
"Of course. You need me."
Vuun nodded. "Two are needed, yes."
"That equipment is illegal," said Faal. "If you bring me to it, I will disable it permanently."
"You think they will let you do that?"
"They will do as they must, no doubt... As will I."
"Faal, if only... You understand what this could mean...? Once I have fulfilled my obligation to them, they will allow me to recreate our race... Think of that. The resurrection of our race..."
Faal twitched a little as the word resurrection was spoken, and he showed Vuun the Arcturan pearl that concealed the device that had enabled his own unwanted revival. "Yours?"
"Most would thank me for such a gift, brother."
"It was supposed to dispose of my body, to leave no trace that could be used."
"I did not want some chance event to snatch you away..." said Vuun. "To consign an intellect like yours to oblivion before it could come close to achieving its potential."
"That is not for you to decide."
"No," Vuun said, a little fiercely. "It is for us to decide. And decide we will."
Karstus
"Blake!"
Turning round, startled, it quickly became clear to Blake that had not been the first time Juni had tried to get her attention. "Sorry... Are you all right?"
"Why do you keep asking me that?" Juni demanded. "I just need to talk to you, that's all."
In the dim light of the caves, Juni's complexion was as smooth and milky as it had been at Galaxy City - No sign of the angry red marks Blake knew were there, her skin still healing after her near escape from immolation at the hands of the mud primitives on TNDM-1939. It was difficult to believe she had escaped from that unfazed, even without Faal's death immediately after, but Blake saw no advantage in pressing the matter.
"Talk away..." she said, leading the way through the passages and down the set of slippery steps into one of the main caverns, hand-held device raised as its readings were gathered and collated. Juni hurried to keep up, and Blake sensed she was a little annoyed she wasn't getting her colleague's full attention.
"It's... Actually, Blake, change of plan... Just what is it you're doing with that thing?"
"Taking readings."
"I can see that..." said Juni. "To what end?"
"Just something I think might be useful... I'm curious."
"Well, thanks for that informative answer, that's cleared everything up."
Feeling a little guilty, Blake turned to her. "I'm sorry, Juni."
"We haven't had a chance to talk about any of this, Blake... Not without... Oh, and we still haven't."
Momentarily confused, Blake soon realised what Juni meant when she turned to see Avral approaching from the direction of the base and ascending the steps toward them. Turning to Juni, she silently mouthed Sorry...
Juni did not fail to miss the mix of feelings in Blake's reaction to Avral's approach, and nodded slightly. It would keep.
"Getting what you need?" Avral inquired, nodding at the device in Blake's hands. "The geologist's friend, they called that thing... Back before it became obsolete."
"We rebels never get the first pick when it comes to equipment," said Juni, before acceding to the non-verbal hints... "See you later, Blake."
"Yes," Blake replied as Juni descended the steps, trying her best to make it sound like a promise. Not for the first time, she regretted the distance that seemed to have sprung up between them, due to a lot of factors but perhaps mainly because of-
-Avral took the device, hand touching Blake's in the process, and peered at the readings. "Wouldn't have thought you were into this..."
"What?" Distracted, Blake found it a little difficult to take in the implied question.
"The study of Karstus and its fascinating rock formations."
Blake smiled, that odd, slightly giddy smile - the one she hadn't known till very recently she was even capable of. "Just a thought I had, about another matter... You know one of those half-formed ideas...?"
"No." Avral remained stony-faced for a few moments before returning the smile. "Mine all come fully-formed."
"I envy that," said Blake. "Somehow I've been made a leader, and it seems that mostly it's about convincing others I know what I'm doing, when I can't even convince myself."
"Well, Juni has confidence in you, and she doesn't seem like someone who does that lightly... I can see how you could inspire that."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Of course..." Blake said quietly. "The worst thing about it... well, it's not being able to talk like this... to anyone."
"Well," replied Avral, stepping closer, "It's a good thing you're not my leader, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Blake sincerely. "It is a very good thing."
They had been moving closer, hesitantly, throughout the exchange, and now their hands brushed together, and neither was sure which of them took the decisive step. Whoever it was, they were quickly committed and their hands linked, and clasped tightly, just a moment before their bodies pressed together.
The first kiss was brief, and they pulled back a little to look at each other for a moment, then returned for a far longer one.
Del Grant looked up and nodded acknowledgment as Juni entered the old operations room, and got back to recalibrating the communications console. At a loose end, Juni proceeded to wander slowly around the perimeter of the rock-hewed chamber and brushed her hand lightly over one of the disused tarpaulin-covered work stations.
"Everything all right?" asked Grant, without looking up again.
Juni smiled, but not joyfully. A slight edge of bitterness crept in as she replied. "Define all right." She instantly regretted it - Her first instinct had been to like and trust Grant, and nothing he had done since had changed that.
He did not take it amiss, however. "Understood." A few moment later, he spoke again. "Did you find Blake?"
"Yes..." He had not asked, but she felt he was owed a little more than that. "I'm supposed to advise her, aren't I...? That's what advisors do... But..."
"Sometimes they don't take your advice."
Another long pause. "I was very sorry to hear about Avalon..." Juni ventured, uncertain how this would be received. "I know, that's strange, coming from me."
"From Servalan's daughter?" He still did not look up from his work.
"I'm not..." Juni stopped and thought about that for a moment. "Yes."
He did look up this time, and smiled sadly. "I suppose none of us is quite where we thought we would be by now."
"Or with the people we thought we would be with..." offered Juni, her thoughts far away.
Abisian
Caul woke shivering, in the dark, and found himself checking, reaching out to... No, she wasn't there. Not since...
It all came back to him, and it was like experiencing it all over again, and again he checked off the poor decisions, the moments of hesitation, the moments when he should have spoken - said anything at all, where even the most badly-chosen words would have been better than nothing... No, it was too late. Again he felt that sensation, like a lead weight lodged in his chest, and forced himself to meet Darvin's eyes.
"Wake up, son..." said Darvin, and grinned. "Wake up... Show a leg."
"I'm awake." Caul forced himself to rise off the makeshift bunk, and picked his way among the clutter. "Your turn?"
"Not yet, I'm afraid. Rissa's."
"Of course..." Caul rubbed his eyes, annoyed at himself for having so much difficulty retaining basic information such as their very simple guard-duty rota. What was wrong with him...?
"You look terrible... No offence."
Oh yes, Caul realised. He was tired... exhausted even. Functioning - just about - on less sleep than he had ever had in his relatively sheltered existence. "You don't," he said.
"Ta very much," said Darvin. "Once a soldier..." Moving aside to make way as Rissa wordlessly moved past him and dropped down onto the bunk - there to fall asleep almost instantly - he paused and pursed his lips. "Come and have a look at something..." he said. "I want an opinion."
The computer console was makeshift, cobbled together from obsolete - and, one would have thought, incompatible - components. Tam Nivri fiddled with the controls, a look of concentration on his broad, flat features, before finally settling on a solution - He slammed his hand hard against the side of the machine, and his face brightened as it once again flickered into life.
"Show Caul what you showed me..." said darvin, coming over to sit by Nivri in the corner of their shelter, the main office of some kind of sectional security post - The planet-sized junkyard probably had hundreds, if not thousands of them dotted across the surface and this one, so far, had not been discovered by the Children of Light. Nivri looked up with something like rueful respect as Caul joined them.
"Bright lad, that..." he said. "This lashup shouldn't work, but it does... after a fashion. Now..." His deceptively nimble fingers danced across the controls. "Let's just get back to this thing... It's such a pain in the... Every time it crashes you have to start all over again... There..."
"We've been busy while you've been dreaming of better days," Darvin explained. "I got curious, you see... This place is nowhere, or to be more precise the exact epicentre of nowhere... I mean, I'm sure there's a hell of a lot to salvage, yeah, but a lot of hassle to locate and extract it-"
"-That's when I thought," interrupted Nivri. "If they're here for something, we might as well know what it is... So I got in, just before all my access codes were withdrawn, and I think I've... Yeah, there it is... They got right down to this, the moment they arrived... They had some of the data, so it won't take them long to find it, but the advantage for us..."
"It's closer," said Darvin. "Whatever this thing is, it's close to where we are now."
Caul sat back. "So we take it before they can. Or destroy it."
"You've been around Blake too long," said Darvin. "Yeah, I think we should, don't you?"
"What does Rissa say?"
Darvin merely raised an eyebrow, and Caul nodded with a faint smile.
"It's slow, but it's getting there," said Nivri, peering at the download. "We'll have the information soon, unless they realise we're here."
"Don't even..." mused Darvin. "The words rat and trap spring to mind..." He moved over to a narrow window and peered through it to the wasteland outside. "How far out are the guards?"
"They're deployed just the way you wanted them," said Nivri, walking across to join him. "Relax... Just don't relax too much, eh?"
"No chance of that," said Darvin. He looked as if something outside had caught his eye, and after a few seconds turned away from the window. Looking at Nivri, eyes wide and... haunted, he seemed reluctant to broach whatever was on his mind.
"What's wrong, mate...?" asked Nivri, and glanced outside, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
"Do you ever see things out there...? Hallucinations? Anything? Maybe some of the gases as the stuff out there breaks down..."
"I have no idea what you're on about, I'm afraid... What's wrong?"
Darvin looked at the window again, and a cold sweat broke out on his brow. There at the small port, a face. A familiar one. The skin smooth and light brown, the features composed, the eyes gently mocking... A girl of twenty-four he had known, long ago when he wasn't much older than that.
"Tarna..." He had said that aloud, although he hadn't meant to, and Nivri looked bemused.
"What's a Tarna?"
"His wife," said Caul in a low voice, and stepped up close to Darvin. "Are you all right, Darvin?"
"I will be..." Darvin kept his eyes fixed on the window, meeting the girl's gaze calmly now. "Whatever it takes."
Nivri returned to the computer. "All right, lads, we're on... The file's coming in now." They both joined him, and looked slightly askance at the visual and text as they rolled across the screen. Darvin looked at both of them incredulously.
"Hang on," he said. "This is really what they're after...? Some old ship?"
"Earth Administration," Nivri reeled off as the information came up. "Cargo carrier originally, but a bit of a history in its later years... See that patched section there, that's not original... Oh gents, this one is old old old..."
"No great surprise," said Darvin. "It ended up here."
"What's it called?" asked Caul, looking a little worried.
"Keep reading," said Nivri. "This thing's in pieces, the file that is... The ship's in pretty good nick it seems, all things considered... Apparently we used it for a while as a ship to surface vehicle, and it's only been sitting idle the last five years or so."
"I need to see the name," said Caul.
"You know something, don't you...?" Darvin turned to face him. "What do you know, Caul?"
"I don't know," he said, clearly a little rattled. "I've just... I've seen that design somewhere..."
"Got a name coming up now, lads," said Nivri. "Actually, that does ring one or two bells... But why would these religious nuts want that old bucket...? They've got loads of ships already, much better than this old thing..."
"Well?" said Darvin. "Don't keep us in suspense."
Storm Mountain
"There's our escort..."
Faal scarcely needed a commentary, but he did look up and observe the squadron of UniS pursuit ships fly across the field of view of the shuttle port, and then glanced over at his batch-brother.
"You think a show of force will intimidate me?"
"Not at all, brother," said Vuun. "No more than it would me."
"It would be futile, in any case... Soon, I will be gone, and you will have nothing to offer them... The generator needs two of us."
"It does."
"How do you intend to overcome this obstacle...?" Faal asked. "The energy from this device will only keep me alive for a short time... I am, as humans might say, a dead man walking."
"Please, brother... You speak as though we were as mortal as they are... You know better."
"I see..."
Vuun turned to Faal, suddenly intense. "Help me activate the generator, and our first task will be to transfer you to a new body... A perfect copy of your own... albeit perhaps a little younger... Time has been a little less kind to you than I might have expected..."
"You truly believe I am motivated by such petty concerns as my own perpetuation?" Faal demanded. "Truly?!" The armed UniS troops in the shuttle with them looked over as he raised his voice, and trigger-fingers twitched. "I thought you knew me," said Faal, his voice lower. "Clearly not."
"There," said Vuun, his voice calm, as if choosing not to hear Faal's defiance. "We're approaching it now."
Despite himself, Faal watched with interest as the view changed... The shuttle's electronic force wall activated, obscuring and distorting the starfield in such a way that he knew it must be at a tremendously high setting... "Where are we going?" he asked, a little intrigued.
"Welcome, brother..." Vuun said, and Faal found his question answered as they approached and entered the red dwarf star, and the port was obscured by emergency shutters. "Welcome to Storm Mountain..."
"You still think you can persuade me...?"
"Not I, brother..." said Vuun quietly. "But you will come around... and soon... Or this time, you truly will die."
Abisian
The terrain was very difficult, and they picked their way with care... Darvin, Rissa, Caul, Tam Nivri and Nivri's people all approached their destination with nerves on a knife-edge, expecting ambush from over one of the looming hills of garbage at any second.
"Coming up on it now, according to the inventory," said Nivri, and glanced back again to make sure all his people were in sight, except for the small rear-guard who would warn them at the first sign of anyone else moving up behind them.
"So, boss, how we going to destroy this thing...?" asked Rissa. "I was thinking, if there's still fuel, we set a timed delay and fire the thrusters while they're facing inward... That might do it."
"I don't even know if we're going to destroy it," said Darvin. "We'll see what we see when we see it."
Rissa looked a little sullen. "You always say that." She hung back to join Caul. "Caully... I feel like we don't talk so much... You know, the way we used to... A girl could get... I don't know... No, really, what's up?"
Caul looked like this really was the last thing he wanted to be facing, largely because it really was. "Nothing," he said. "I'm fine... Just tired."
"Yeah, hear you on that..." Rissa skipped as she walked, and grabbed his arm. "No, really, there's something off with us... I've known it for a while... I just can't-"
"-Rissa..." said Darvin. "The advance guard should have got there by now."
"Hear you, boss," Rissa called. "We will speak more of this," she said to Caul in a low voice, then grinned and squeezed his arm before letting it go. She ran ahead, and was soon lost from view.
Darvin fell into step alongside Caul. "You missing her?" he asked.
Caul didn't answer right away. "Blake?"
"Well, yeah. Blake... but not just Blake..."
"Orac?"
"Don't worry, Rissa has no idea... At least, I don't think she does." He could see Caul was thinking carefully about how to respond, and regretted bringing it up at all. "Look, mate, I'm sorry-"
"-I got it wrong," said Caul. "I got it all wrong... I should-"
"-Here we are, lads!" Nivri called. Round the ridge we go, and you'll see it..."
When Caul saw the ship looming up above them, nestled in a landing zone carved from the surrounding landscape, he knew he had been right. This was the ship he had believed it to be... Whatever reasons the Children of Light had for wanting it, he knew they must be prevented.
"The cradle of life..." mused Darvin. "That's what it means, you know... It's one of the ancient cities, one of the handful that survived the end of the First Calendar... It's where we all came from originally, that one... Good name."
"Spent most of its life as a prison transport," said Nivri. "A shame it had to end up here."
"London," said Rissa, getting the feel of the unfamiliar word.
Karstus
Blake woke and was fully alert in a moment, her heart thumping in an automatic response - but as soon as she realised she wasn't in immediate danger, it gradually returned to normal. Her hand had already shot out to discover she was alone on the bed, and the new arrival had not failed to notice that.
The tall older woman, with long handsome features and greying fair hair, looked down at her with contained amusement. She eyed the empty space on the bed, the one that had clearly had an occupant very recently. "Hello," she said. "I'm Zee."
"Hello, Zee," said Blake.
"Sleep well?"
Blake shrugged, and the woman grinned.
They joined the others in the operations room, and Blake was relieved to see Avral was safe, standing near Juni and Grant. The new arrivals were armed, dressed in a variety of combat outfits, and clearly hard-bitten veterans. Not to be trifled with.
"They just got here," Grant said quietly.
"Were you expecting this?" Blake inquired in the same low voice, and Grant shook his head. Her eyes found Avral's, and read her concern.
"More trouble...?" Juni mused wearily, and Blake touched her arm briefly.
They all went quiet, as a few more people entered, and Blake's attention was immediately drawn to the slender dark-haired woman in their midst - The reverse was also true, and soon they were standing opposite each other.
"You are Blake...?" Blake sensed that the older woman's question was more for the benefit of the others. Turning, she found that Del Grant, his face grim, would be no help in this particular situation.
"You must be Avalon."
Barr smiled faintly. "I suppose I must be."
"Aren't you going to greet your daughter...?" asked Grant.
"Avral," said Barr, without looking at her. At that moment, she laughed, unable to keep it up. "Oh, Del... They know! They all know!"
Grant breathed out slowly. "I see."
"No," said Zee, and Grant's eyes snapped over to meet those of Barr's companion. "I don't think you really do."
"The time has come, Del Grant..." Barr mused. "And Blake... Blake of the Liberator, Blake that I've been hearing so much about this last couple of months..."
"The time for what?" asked Juni, and Barr looked at her for the first time, assessingly.
"You had to ask," said Avral quietly.
"First of all," said Barr, turning to talk to Grant once more, "I want to thank you... If it wasn't for you, Del, I would still be bounty-hunting on some backwater... or dead. I really mean it when I say thank you."
"Get to the point," said Grant, and flinched as Zee brought her gun out of its holster in an instant and pointed it at him. Blake, Juni and Avral also found themselves with weapons trained on them.
Barr moved in close to Grant, and he avoided her gaze as she reached over to trace a finger lightly across his face, knowing perfectly well the pain her mere presence caused him. "It's time, Del... for all of us to get what we deserve."