Blake's 7 - Liberators
The sequel to Blake's 7 - Survivors
Chapter 12
"I never thought to see you again," Lady Shilena Mekatir mused, looking up at the huge three-dimensional image of Kerr Avon's craggy face.
"And you probably won't," he replied.
"When we met before, I thought you just another of Blake's followers... But I followed your later exploits with interest. You really became much more than that, didn't you?"
"Or less, perhaps."
"You killed him... You killed Blake."
"True, but irrelevant," said Avon. "Shall we get to the point?"
"Yes, please. Why such elaborate methods...? With the means you clearly have, why not communicate with me directly, long before now...?"
"You weren't ready."
"What does that mean?" Lady Shilena fired a questioning look, one that promised much discussion later, to her aide. Doctor Lenta Guld, or whatever her name really was, said nothing, and her expression gave away just as little.
"The human race stands on a precipice..." said Avon. "And I think, once the full facts become clear to you, you will want to join in what must be done."
"Do you now...?"
"Your people represent the bulk of what's left of our species... And what's about to happen will decide what happens to that species... What its future will be... Whether it even has a future... All that depends on you..." His holographic image smiled broadly. "No pressure."
"How long...?" Fingers gripping the balcony's safety rail, Lady Shilena turned to Lenta Guld, the panoramic cityscape spread out before them disappearing from her notice.
"How long?"
"How long have I believed you were working for me... When you were actually his?"
"I have been working for Unified Systems since the day it was formed... That has never changed."
"To whom are you loyal...? Me? Scarn? Avon? Tell me, who?"
"Those are abstractions..."
"Now, you sound like him... Like Carnell."
"Please don't bracket me with that-"
"-Have you betrayed me? I can't quite decide."
"This is wasting time-"
"-How much time you have is up to me," said Lady Shilena, eyes narrowing. "You would do well to remember that."
"I won't forget."
"So tell me... How long?"
"He found me... Avon found me, not long after the war... On a refugee ship. He helped me... I think he saw something in me, something he could use... He gave me a past, created Lenta Guld, Doctor Guld, from nothing... Overnight, I had an identity, a place to be... I had never had that before in my whole life..."
"I see."
"You were part of it, even then, before it became clear how... We knew you would be the one."
"To do what?"
"Rule," Lenta Guld said simply. "Just that. Rule. When Scarn's tyranny is torn down, something else has to go in its place..."
"I'm an old woman..."
"Yet you've outlived many."
"I may outlive you, certainly..."
Lenta bowed slightly. "If that is how it has to be."
Lady Shilena's forbidding visage finally gave way to a faint smile. "You really aren't scared, are you...?"
Lenta's eyes glistened, and her voice broke a little as she continued. "I saw the Andromedans... What they did to Freedom City... I saw the end of everything, coming for us... What can be worse than that...? What is there that could scare me, after that?"
"Advise me. That's what you're here to do, so advise me... What would you have me do?"
"There's someone you must meet," said Lenta. "And if we don't make that happen now, it may be too late."
21 hours later...
Avalon's ship, deep space...
"All right," said Blake, turning from the screen. "Scarn's wife... What do we know?"
"What there is to know," said Grant. "He had her locked away for the last seven years... In the early days of his reign, she had almost as much power as him, in fact as far as entitlement to rule goes, she outranks him. But the Proximans don't hold with rule by women, not at the top at any rate..." Seeing the expression on his comrades' faces, he put up his hands as if to say Don't shoot the messenger.
"It's a good thing not everyone sees it that way," said Juni wryly.
"I'm not even sure the average Proximan does," said Avral. "But Scarn does, and that's what matters."
"Is her intervention likely to be good news?" asked Blake. "For us, that is."
"Anyone's guess," Grant replied. "Scarn let her go free, gave her all her power back, but somehow I think seven years of imprisonment might be worth holding a grudge over."
"Maybe all she needs is a chance to strike back at him," Juni suggested. "And that's what we're seeing right now."
"We know surprisingly little about her," said Avral. "Scarn's power derives from her, but that doesn't mean she necessarily approves of everything he's done."
"You said she almost had you executed," said Juni.
Avral shuddered slightly at the memory. "Someone did. I don't know exactly what she had to do with that."
"Well, whatever we're going to do," said Blake, "Best decide quickly... They're extending the transfer tube now."
UniS troopers advanced across the transfer tube in pairs and through the airlock one at a time before fanning out through the enemy ship, securing it section by section and accepting the surrender of Avalon's crew. The entire operation proceeded like a training exercise, to the relief and approval of the officers, but one enemy combatant proved elusive...
"Hurry up in there..." came the instructions from their ship, just to add to the pressure. "That ship is taking us with it into the neutronic storm... If we let it. Just grab every prisoner you can, grab all the data you can, and get out of there..."
"Understood," said the captain of the boarding party.
Barr half-ran, half-staggered, glancing behind her several times as she finally reached the aft-section... Her head was a monument to the concept of pain, waves of it pulsing and impacting her like a hammer to the back of her skull, with accompanying nausea. She couldn't and wouldn't, let herself be deflected from her goal, however, pursued as single-mindedly as anything in her long career as a mercenary and bounty-hunter.
Zee was gone... A brief and stealthy visit to the flight-deck, only just avoiding Del Grant and the others as they went aft, had told her that. Barr wasn't quite sure yet how that was going to affect her... The loss of her companion was something she had never in all these years contemplated, indeed if anything she had assumed that if a violent death was their fate they would almost certainly meet it together. Life without Zee was... a strange concept, one that she had to put from her mind to concentrate on the more pressing business of survival.
They were coming... Almost certainly, they would be nearby now and aware of the UniS force boarding the ship. Barr's mind raced, even as the pulsing agony pounded away at her concentration - There was only one hope...
"Here..." Juni finished distributing the teleport bracelets, Blake having bade her put their guns back down. No point, she had said. Offering resistance to the boarders was hardly an option at this stage. There may not even be a point to keeping the teleport bracelets, but it was worth a try and unlikely to get them shot out of hand.
Even so, surrendering was a tense affair, even after the officers of the boarding party had confirmed their identities. For the second time in as many days, Blake, Juni, Avral and Grant found themselves taken prisoner.
Former Earth administration ship London, deep space
"Caul... Can we talk...?"
On his way forward toward the flight-deck along one of London's corridors, Caul waited for Rissa to catch up, and turned to face her. He smiled, awkwardly. Try as he might, he still couldn't do it any other way, and Rissa stood looking at him for a long moment.
"There's something you're not telling me..." she said, folding her arms.
"I have to get to the flight-deck." He started to move, and was far from surprised when Rissa's arm shot out and blocked his way. He turned back to her, as her arms folded again.
"Yes, I know, so do I... It can wait a moment."
"I was getting the remote sensor drone ready for Darvin... He-"
"Talk to me properly, Caul... Can you do that? Real question, serious question... Can you do that?"
His eyes darted to and from her unblinking gaze, as he gathered the necessary words, and she waited patiently. "Of course. We're friends."
"I thought that, I was sure we were... But friends don't have secrets, Caul."
"Yes, they-" He stopped.
"I'm sorry to do this, I know this makes you very uncomfortable, but I have no choice-"
"I have to get to the flight-deck..."
"So do I."
"Friends keep secrets all the time." He met her gaze steadily, but not for long, and his eyes were soon darting away again.
"When have you had friends before, Caul... Before Blake and me and Darvin?"
There was a brief pause. "Haven't."
"So what are you comparing us with...? You are keeping something from me, I know you are... I've known it for a while, but now there's something else... I can read you very easily, you know... I read people, that's something I'm good at."
He came close to losing his temper. "If friends don't keep secrets, then...!"
"What...? Keep going."
"Then who are you...? Where are you from...?"
"... See, it's nice to get these things out in the open. Maybe you should ask Darvin."
"He keeps secrets."
She smiled, and looked away for a moment. "That he does... He's a good friend. The best." Looking back at him, she mused, "I'm not getting past those defences, am I...?" Her smile turned sad. "It's not going to happen." She started to turn away. "That's a pity..."
"I'm-"
She turned back. "-Are you looking forward to getting back to the others...? To Blake... and Juni..." Sensing she had found a weak spot, as intended, she continued. "I'm sorry, I really didn't get you at first... Now, I think I do." He started to gather a reply, but before he could, she reached up to run a finger down his cheek. "It would have been good... Better than good. But I got it wrong..."
She turned away and continued toward the flight-deck, and after a moment Caul followed. "Juni's lucky," Rissa said casually. "But then, she got you right away."
Barr kicked out several times at the hatch of the storage locker, each blow precipitating an excruciating wave of agony in her skull, till finally it fell to the deck with a clatter, and she fell after it, rolling as she hit the hard metal deck. After lying there for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like a minute, she stood and opened her eyes.
A quick search told her what she already expected to find... She was alone on the ship. The boarding party had hurriedly seized her people, and Grant and his people, and evacuated. On arriving at the flight-deck, it became clear that hadn't included the dead.
Zee's sightless eyes stared up at her as she entered, and she returned their impassive gaze for a while, trembling slightly. "Sorry," said Barr. "It all went wrong, didn't it?" She crouched down, and placed her own cloak over her partner's body to hide those accusing eyes. "This wasn't how it was supposed to be... Obviously."
A quick check of the instruments told her that the ship had made it through the heart of the neutronic storm with releatively little damage - She had made it, shielded and to some extent protected from the buffeting by the confines of the storage locker, and now she was alone on the ship.
Alone.
Then the proximity detector sounded, and she hurried to relevant panel to find out what she could. The readings on the approaching vessel came in, and she breathed out with relief. Not an enemy, not this time...
She hurried, as best she could in the state she was in, to the airlock, just in time to greet the new arrivals... Familiar figures, mercs like her and Zee, some of them colleagues of old. Barr gave a faint smile at the sight of them, ashen-faced.
"Good to see you..." she said, sounding as exhausted as she felt.
"What happened...?" asked the leader of the boarding party.
"I'll tell you... I'll tell you it all... But first-" She felt the tiny impact, the sudden if fleeting sharp pain, and looked down at the dart in her arm... Then the warm wave of drowsiness passing through her body, the sudden weakness in her legs. One of the arrivals caught her before her body could hit the floor.
"Yes, that's right... We don't want her damaged," said the leader of the boarding party with a faint smirk on her face. "Bring the other one as well."
"Are you sure...? The signs indicated she's probably dead."
A shrug. "Bring her anyway... She may be of some use. You never know."
"Thank you for coming," said Darvin as they joined him on the flight-deck. "Shall we...?" Recognising the implicit criticism, Caul hurried to take over from Tam Nivri at the pilot's position, while Rissa stood next to her captain.
"Don't be like that, boss..." she said, brushing imaginary dirt off the shoulder of his tunic while ignoring the accumulated and encrusted filth from Abisian's surface that stained the entire garment. "You know you can rely on us... Me and Caul." She stared him out playfully.
"Whatever," Darvin replied, looking at her a little askance. "Caul, that drone all right?"
"Ready to launch... Now." Activating the launch, Caul adjusted the viewer so they could see the object, tiny against London's bulk, shooting off into space to their rear.
"Pursuing vessels?" Darvin turned to where Nivri was now leaning over another console.
"Still pursuing," said Nivri, turning to him. "But then, we expected that, didn't we?"
"Probe's in range," said Caul, a little sooner than Darvin had hoped he would - They were obviously gaining.
"How many?"
"A moment..." Caul's face was ashen as he turned to face Darvin. "It's not a few ships as we thought... They're coming after us in force..." Responding to an alert, he turned back to the viewer. "They just destroyed the probe."
"What did we get before they did that?"
"Thirty ships," said Nivri, as the probe's findings displayed on his console. "That is, thirty in range... The probe was just extending its parameters for another scan when they killed it." His cheeks filled with breath and then deflated as he exhaled with a long sigh. "That's that, then."
"So more than thirty..."
"Maybe a lot more," said Nivri. "I'm out of ideas."
"Navigation computer...?"
"On line," said Caul. "It was trying to make contact with Earth Adminstration, that's why it was so slow, but I finally got it to stop."
"Good," said Darvin. "That's something, then."
"What about it then, boss...?" Rissa asked. "Just where do you go with a fleet of maniacs on your tail?"
"I've been giving that some thought..."
"No time like the present..."
"Set course, Caul..." Darvin turned to face the pilot's station. "For the Proxima system." The others all looked at him, agape.
""You sure about that, Stev...?" Nivri wondered. "Do we really need to make things worse for ourselves...?"
"They'd be mad to follow us, wouldn't they?"
"You know what, boss...?" said Rissa, "I really think they might actually be mad."
"Good," said Darvin, as Caul, who had made no comment, just got on with inputing their new course. "We've got our issues with UniS, and with the Children of Light... I think it's about time we introduced those two kids..." He looked around them. "I'm a matchmaker at heart."
His eyes flicked over to another area of the flight-deck, one where as far as the others were concerned, no one was there... and Tarna stood looking back at him with a faint smile to show that she, and only she, really understood.
Storm Mountain
The lifelike hologram of President Scarn sprung into being in the Sphere Chamber, startling both Vuun and Faal, still locked in their war of words and philosophies. "Well...?" Scarn demanded, his distraction obvious to both of them. "Will he do it?"
Vuun moved a little away from Faal and toward Scarn. "I need a little more time..."
"I have given you more than enough," said Scarn coldly. "Either he will provide what we need willingly, or you must take it from him by whatever means are necessary."
Vuun almost laughed, and ran a slender-fingered hand over his long face. "Yes... It doesn't really work like that-"
"-Make it work!"
Vuun turned to Faal, who had been listening with polite if detached interest, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him. "Well, brother... It seemes the pressure of time is now on us."
"On you, perhaps."
Scarn's eyes narrowed as he peered at Faal. "You know I will have you killed...? Cooperate, if you wish to continue living."
Faal did not answer, he just wandered around the chamber with the faintest of smiles on his face. Vuun turned back to Scarn. "He will cooperate, I assure-"
"Well?" Scarn addressed Faal only, aware where the real power lay now. "Do as you are bid," he ordered. "Or die... and your entire species with you."
Faal locked eyes with Vuun, for a long moment, thought it felt considerably longer to his batch-brother. Then his impassive gaze moved to Scarn. Wordlessly he moved around and held a long bony arm outstretched, pointed up toward the huge floating sphere. "Of course," he said, more to himself than to anyone else in the chamber. "It has to be this way."
Vuun moved to stand next to him, and held up his hand as well to point toward the sphere. "You will not regret it, Faal," he assured, his relief palpable. "You're not saving our lives, you're saving our species..." As he spoke, a stream of wispy green energy flowed from the surface of the sphere and met their outstretched fingers, pulsing and coalescing around them in waves unpredictable to anyone who watched... But not to them.
"No," Faal agreed. "I am not saving our lives." He glanced at Vuun. "And I have no regret."
Vuun looked concerned as he detected unusual patterns in the ripples of energy, and his eyes widened. "No..." he said. "Don't do this, brother... Don't do this..."
"Too late," said Faal, calmer than he had ever been. "It is done. You've given me complete access..."
"It was necessary," said Vuun, as if excusing himself - His glance flicked momentarily to the hologram of Scarn, to whom such excuses would be better directed. "It was the only way... Please don't. They'll kill us."
"Perhaps it's time," said Faal, and grinned broadly in an uncharacteristic gesture. "I feel you, Vuun... I'm getting your memories... I see... I finally understand..." He turned to face him again. "And I'm sorry..."
"Sorry..." Vuun was dazed now, and seemed unable to take his hand away from the stream of energy, as if the sphere was now feeding on him and refused to let him go.
"Sorry, yes," said Faal. "But I could never allow it... You know that."
"I was sure... you would come round."
"You deceived yourself... Once, you too would have done this, and gladly... It is the only way."
Scarn's hologram was suddenly standing much nearer to them. "Vuun!" the President demanded. "What's happening...? What has he done?!"
"He has..." Vuun took a shallow breath. "He is draining the station... Draining Storm Mountain... I had to give him access...! There was no other way!"
"Draining...? To where?!"
The Liberator, dwarfed by the vastness of Storm Mountain's gleaming shell, was dormant, the tiny vessels and extra-vehicular parties investigating its hull... Until, suddenly, it was no longer dormant. Powering up, it began moving almost immediately, oblivious and unconcerned at the carnage it caused as the space-suited investigators were flung into the void and the support vessels sent spiralling out of control.
"CONFIRMED," said Zen, his voice echoing throughout the empty vessel.
Proxima II
The UniS troopers, uncertain now as they had been throughout the journey as to the status of their prisoners, handed them over gratefully to Lady Shilena Mekatir's elite personal guards - Marched through the corridors of the palace, Blake, Grant, Avral and Juni were just as uncertain. These captors, unlike the previous ones, had treated them well, apparently under strict orders to do so.
What kind of trap was this precisely?
"Blake."
There was what sounded like a hint of a question in Lady Shilena's voice as she sat behind her desk and took in the sight of her somewhat bedraggled prisoners. The four of them shifted, looking at each other and at Lenta Guld standing behind and slightly to Lady Shilena's right. Was she unsure which one of them Blake was?
Blake stepped forward, slowly and carefully so as not to alarm the guards unduly. "That's me."
There was a long pause as Lady Shilena studied the young woman standing before her. The long face with big dark-eyes, the mop of dark curly hair... Could it be...?
"I knew Roj Blake..." she said finally. "For a short time, at least." Another pause. "What are you to him?"
"No relation." Blake smiled. "I find the name useful... At times. Less so at others."
Lady Shilena smiled too, and that placed Blake even more on her guard than she was already. "I can see how that would be so, yes."
Grant stepped forward, just as carefully as Blake had. "Madame," he began, "I am Del Grant-"
"-Yes, I'm aware of that," said Lady Shilena, still looking at Blake. "Be quiet, please."
With a rueful glance at Avral, Grant stepped back as commanded, and Lady Shilena seemed to notice Avral for the first time.
"How nice to see you again, my dear... I perceive you're afraid, but you needn't be... Not unduly. Your planned execution was not my doing, nor was the unfortunate treatment you were subject to beforehand."
"Thank you," said Avral with a hint of bitterness. "That makes up for everything."
"Nor was your being caught," the First Lady went on. "You had already been identified, my dear... You really thought I had recognised you in some supernatural fashion...? No, look to the deficiencies within your own organisation for the real reason you were captured." She looked pointedly at Grant, and he quickly looked away. "No, I just wanted to speak with you before my husband's forces had their sport."
"And there was nothing you could do...?" Juni said that, with a slightly mocking tone, and Lady Shilena's cold gaze shifted to her.
"Oh, this one's afraid of nothing," she said, just as mockingly. "But then, I know your pedigree, my dear, so that doesn't surprise me at all... Not at all." Her eyes passed over the whole group. "What am I to make of you...?" she pondered. "What am I to make of you?"
"You were going to make a charred skeleton and lots of carbonised dust of me," said Avral hurriedly, a faint quaver of anger and fear in her voice. "Is that not still the plan?"
Lady Shilena rolled her eyes, and addressed her reply to Del Grant. "The young never listen... Is that your experience too...?" To all of them, she said, "What part of not my doing wasn't clear, eh...?"
"All Scarn's fault, then...?" asked Blake. "That's convenient."
"We have a mutual acquaintance," said Lady Shilena abruptly. "But I'll come back to that... You'll notice, my dear," she said to Avral, "The absence of something very prevalent when you were last here... Take a moment to think, I'm not rushing you."
Avral flushed slightly as they all stared at her. Finally, she realised what she was supposed to say. "The guards."
"Well done... My husband's elite guards... No longer here. My own have taken over, and by all accounts proved their own elite status rather better than his. I am in charge here now. As it should be."
"You're in charge," mused Blake. "So, now everything's all right, and you want us rebels to just stand down... because nice people are in power now and we're no longer needed." She smiled. "Do I understand the situation?"
"I realise we've only just met, Blake dear, but do I truly strike you as nice?"
"Honestly," said Blake, "I don't really know that much about you, and what little opinion I've heard is divided."
"My husband released me from house arrest because, strange as it may seem, and I don't know this for certain but I believe it to be true, he thought I was now the only one he could truly rely upon..." Her forbidding gaze was fixed on Blake once more. "He brought me back, my dear, to deal with you... And that is my intention. The definition of dealing with you is, I suspect, quite fixed in what it means, in President Scarn's mind... But I am more flexible."
"Oh, get on with it..." said Juni scathingly, and the others all looked askance at her. Aware of their reaction, she refused to back down. "You're good, you know... Oh, but of course you are, you know it already. I've seen this done before... You know where I came from, you know who raised me... I've seen this done before..." She moved forward toward the desk, as close as she believed the guards would allow her. "You knew the conclusion to all this before we stepped in here, and nothing we do or say will change it one bit. So why not just get to it?"
Taken aback, Lady Shilena nonetheless recovered quickly, and sat back in her chair. "Quite right, m-" She paused for a moment. "Juni. You're right in every sense. I do know, in the short term at least, what is to be done with you."
"Well, that's promising," said Blake, her eyes wandering to follow Lenta Guld as she moved off in response to an urgent gesture from one of her staff at the door, before returning to the First Lady. "You said we had a mutual acquaintance..."
"I also said I would come back to that."
"Oh, let's be spontaneous... We're all friends here...?" The questioning intonation was left hanging ominously. Blake looked away again as Lenta Guld returned.
"Something's happening," Lenta said urgently, leaning over the desk to talk quietly.
"I said there were to be no interruptions."
"I know."
"All right, tell me."
"Here?"
"Here."
"A report has just come through," Lenta said, her voice disbelieving the words she was saying. "It's a distress call, on all frequencies... From Storm Mountain."
Scarn's hologram staggered a little as it backed away, face reddening with the escalating rage of the ultimate megalomaniac. "Reverse it...!" he bellowed. "Reverse it now!"
"I can't," said Vuun quietly, unconcerned if Scarn could not hear him over the increasing cacophony in the Sphere Chamber. He spoke now only to Faal, failing to notice as the hologram vanished behind him. "They will never know," he told his batch-brother sadly. "They think you're dead already... They will never know you did this for them."
"Is that what you think...?" Faal stepped closer, and brought his arm back to his side - He had done all he could now, and it was too late to reverse what he had achieved. "I did this for you... brother."
"For me...?" Vuun was listless and infinitely sad, knowing now that all his dreams were gone. His race finally ended. "You did this... for me?"
"What you would have done... The real you."
"It's starting..." said Vuun, indicating Faal's exposed forearm. "The dissolution... Nothing can stop it now."
"I know." Faal looked at where Vuun had pointed, and saw the faint glow, saw, as no one but them could, the slow dispersal of the matter and energy that composed his body... Vuun was right. What had been delayed once could no longer be halted. "The rule of life," he acknowledged quietly and reverently.
Faal was dying. He smiled, and laughed long and loud as a tear rolled down Vuun's pale cheek.
Scarn came to in his survival chamber, enclosed in the cradling grip of his chair at the centre, and took a few moments to become used to being in his own body once more. He shook his head as if to clear it, just in time to begin receiving the urgent reports that immediately began to issue from the loudspeakers.
"Sir...! President Scarn...! I-! Presid- Report from-! President Scarn, sir...! The alien is moving off... Approaching perimeter of shield...! May be too late-! President Sc-!"
Scarn irritably shut off the reports, and issued a command of his own. "All troops to the Sphere Chamber..." he said sonorously. "Kill everything within... Repeat, kill everything!"
He sat back and took a rattling breath. Activating some controls on the arm of the survival chair, he said regretfully, "I am abandoning Storm Mountain."
"We have a moment," said Vuun quietly. "Before he sends his soldiers in here to kill both of us... That's if you don't disperse before that..." He looked up at Faal expectantly. "Anything to say?"
"No," said Faal. "I have done what I set out to do, and more beside. I am content."
"Content..." Vuun smiled bitterly. "Content."
Faal felt strange, suddenly... Looking at his arm again, he watched as matter continued to dissolve from him at the same slow pace... But there was something else... A tingling, faint and strangely familiar, throughout his entire body... Of course...!
He ran a finger along the long tunic he wore... The tunic gifted him back at Galaxy City by... her. Just like her dresses, spun with aquicite. He smiled sadly. He could have escaped, thanks to her... Thanks to Servalan. If he wasn't already dead.
"Goodbye, brother," he said to Vuun, and the last thing he saw in the Sphere Chamber was Vuun's disbelieving face as the UniS troops stormed in behind him and immediately opened fire.
Faal was on the Liberator, in the teleport bay, the tingling sensation now fading. The familiar sound of the Liberator's systems, seeming louder than before as if his senses were enhanced by the process of dissolution. He moved forward and, feeling weak now, sought the support of the control desk. There he stayed as the wave of green energy passed over him, and his flesh and the supporting bones dissolved into their component particles.
The aquicite-laced tunic and trousers fell to the deck to reside with his empty boots.
"Avon...?" Blake was incredulous, and shot a glance at Juni to find her feeling much the same. "And I thought he had finished with us."
"Not while we're still a source of amusement," said Juni.
"Avon..." Avral said the name as if to hear how it sounded in her voice. "The man who killed Blake." She turned to Grant. "The man who-"
"-Yes," he said abruptly, and turned away as if not wanting them to see his expression. It was one thing to view Avon as a figure from the past, quite another to know he was here with them in the present and still having an effect on all their lives.
"Can we speak to him?" Blake asked Lady Shilena. Lenta Guld, however, was the one who answered.
"It... doesn't exactly work that way," she sort of explained. "He pretty much has control of communications between here and... where he is."
"And where is that?" Grant demanded, not for one moment expecting an answer.
"So what exactly happens now," asked Juni. "We're all rebels now, aren't we...?"
Lady Shilena's expression suggested she viewed that as impertinent, but after a moment she seemed to see the question as a valid one. "It's not for the first time," she said quietly.
She looked up as Lenta leaned forward over the desk again and spoke quietly in her ear. The others got the sense that something else was happening, and the First Lady's alarmed reaction did not disabuse them of that impression.
"Are you all right...?" With a moment before all hell broke loose around them again, Avral put her hand on Del Grant's shoulder.
"If you are," he replied, and they shared the faintest of smiles.
"Come with me, all of you," Lady Shilena commanded as she stood and swept around the desk on her way to the doors.
"Actually, I'll need a moment here, if that's all right..." said Lenta, clutching her earpiece. She took the lack of a reply as confirmation. "Juni...!"
Surprised to hear her name called, Juni turned, and the others hung back as well - The guards looked uncertain as to just what they were supposed to do. "Me...?" she asked uncertainly.
"Yes," said Lenta, businesslike as she pored over reports coming up on her monitors. "A couple of intelligence questions about Galaxy City... You're an asset now."
Blake and Juni looked at each other and, at length, seemed to see nothing wrong, and only a little bit suspicious, in the request. Blake touched her advisor's arm. "If anything happens to you, I'll blow this whole place up... You know I will."
"I know," said Juni, smiling.
The others left to follow Lady Shilena, and Juni moved over to join Lenta. Before she could say anything, Lenta took out her earpiece. "I lied," she said straightforwardly. "We have a communication waiting now... You all right to take it?"
"Me... Why does Avon want to talk to me?" Juni shrugged. "All right."
Lenta activated the holographic display, and swiftly exited, leaving Juni alone as the image formed above the desk and a face took shape. Juni breathed out slowly and audibly. "You..." she gasped.
"Hello, darling girl," said Servalan.
London hurtled through the outer reaches of the Proxima system, the forces of the Children of Light very close behind now, and space itself buckled and warped as the fleet reduced to sublight speed...
The forces of the Unified Systems fleet, such as could be gathered with the required urgency, gathered to intercept the invaders...
The Liberator emerged from the the star itself and shot outwards in a fiery plume towards its next destination...
Smirmishers from both sides opened fire as the UniS and Children of Light fleets reached each other.
The battle of Storm Mountain had begun.