What if...?
ALTERNATIVES
by CindyR
The earth shook violently, the explosion reverberating through the installation. Blake glanced behind him, and, in that timeless instant that precedes calamity, absorbed the frozen tableau. Gan still supported the steel door on his shoulders, his eyes wide with fear and the knowledge of impending death. The others had gone through to safety, only Blake remaining. Blake raised his eyes slightly as the ceiling began to give way, great cracks like lightning moving across its solid face. Gan was trapped, the steel door weighing too heavily on his shoulders to drop. Were he to release the door, it would fall quickly, catching his legs before he could step away. Step out first and the unbalanced burden would crush his shoulders and torso beneath. His only chance was to come out all at once. Impossible... or was it...
Reflex drove Blake forward to grasp the big man by the belt. Desperation strengthened the tremendous yank which pulled Gan from the steel-jawed trap and catapulted both men backwards at the very instant the ceiling came crashing down
Dust swirled, enveloping two still figures on the floor. Long moments passed before one finally stirred painfully, raising a hand to clear the dust from his face. Brown eyes peered sightlessly for a moment, awareness returning by degrees, and, with the awareness' alarm. Heart pounding, he scrambled to hands and knees, making his way slowly to the other body, shaking him roughly. "Gan! Gan, wake up!" No answer. "Gan?!" Slowly Gan opened his eyes, staring blearily at Blake. He shook his head slightly, propping himself upon one elbow. "Are you all right?
The big man grimaced as a wave of pain washed over him. "I think my arm is broken, and my legs ... I can't feel them at all. What about you?
Blake shifted experimentally. "Just bruised." He peered through the gloom. "We have to get out of here. Can you move at all?
The other man's reply was lost in the clatter of a beam being pushed aside, then the sound of someone struggling through the debris. "Blake! Blake, answer me!" Blake and Gan exchanged an amused look. Panic in the normally stoic computer expert was rare indeed. But then, Avon had shown a great deal more of his "human" side during the past couple of days than he had permitted to show during the previous eighteen months aboard Liberator
"Here, Avon," he called. He waited until the dark-haired man picked his way through the debris and kneeled at his side, "Gan is pinned. We have to free his legs."
Avon, visibly relieved, turned his attention to the trapped man, his mask of non-emotion snapping easily into place. "Can you move your legs? Are they broken?"
"Gan grimaced with the effort of movement, drawing a deep breath of relief. "They're not broken, but I can't move them. The ceiling..," He gestured at the large slab resting across his lower half, pinning him to the floor.
Blake felt under the rubble, locating the great beam that prevented the ceiling's weight from resting directly on the man s legs. "We'll have to move some of this before we can get the beam off. Where are the others?"
"They were farther down the corridor when the ceiling came down. I told them to wait."
Both men bent to the task of removing the loose rubble from the supporting beam, not looking up when two startled gasps heralded the arrival of Jenna and Vila, the two remaining members of the assault team.
"Vila, help us with this," Blake gasped through the dust. "Jenna, get ready to help Gan
The beam stood revealed at last and Vila joined surprising strength to that of the other two men. The beam groaned slightly, then rose inch by agonizing inch, finally lifting clear of the fragile human limbs beneath. "Hurry, Jenna, ~ Blake urged through gritted teeth. The woman fitted her arms around Gan and pulled with all her strength, assisting the big man to slide himself out. The support beam dropped heavily as the three men fell to their knees, gasping for breath.
Vila, having had the least to do, recovered first. "Gan -- your legs... can you move them?"
"He's going to have to," Avon snarled. "We have to get out of here." He climbed to his feet, wrapping an arm around the larger man's chest. "Come on, Gan. Get up."
With help, Gan struggled to unsteady feet, and leaning heavily on the two men, began to move.
The return trip was a nightmare for all of them. Emergency lighting cast an eerie red glow, uncomfortably reminiscent of a medieval hell. Supporting a man of Gan's stature was difficult at best, nearly impossible under present conditions, yet they managed to assist him across the uneven, rubble-strewn floor, forcibly manhandling him up the ladders leading to the upper world. At last, the final barrier was breached, and Blake and his crew breathed the clear, unpolluted air of the outside world, and finally the relative safety of open space.
*** Gan's injuries were painful but not serious. A short period in the medical unit knitted the bones in his arm, and the tissue regenerator removed the heavy bruising from his legs. After a brief rest period, the crew assembled themselves on the flight deck for debriefing.
"'What a farce that was, Blake." Avon's cool, mocking tones brought a slight flush to the rebel's cheeks. He had been forced to endure the man's sarcastic abuse for the past several hours and was rapidly growing tired of it; yet he accepted it with a weary resignation.
Still, even a saint had his breaking point, and Avon was rapidly approaching Blake's. The stress and disappointments of the past day, combined with Avon's foul mood, threatened to ignite his already volatile temper. "All right, Avon" he retorted it clipped tones, "I was wrong. Does it make you happy to hear me say that?"
The other waved one hand scornfully. "Not being killed makes me happy. Blake, you are a fool if you think you can ask us to continue to risk our lives for your blasted eternal Cause after this debacle of yours."
"No one is asking you to do anything, Avon. Including stay."
Hard brown eyes met glittering black ones in a contest of wills, neither willing to back down, neither willing to bend. Finally, it was Cally who could stand no more. "Enough, both of you!" she snapped. As one, two pairs of eyes turned toward her in stunned surprise, "It is over. We have survived, and gained valuable information."
Avon looked skeptical, but Blake nodded slowly, wearily. "Yes, true. The Federation can no longer use that installation as bait. We've notified the Earth-based rebels and they'll spread the word about the truth behind Control Central. That is one trap the Federation will never be able to use again. And we've learned that a central computer complex does exist somewhere else. Travis admitted as much to us when he had us trapped. If we can find it...."
"If we can find it, you will be expecting us to go through this all over again. Are you so anxious to spend our lives like that?"
Blake's angry retort died before it was uttered. There was an unfamiliar, almost hesitant quality to Avon's harsh question that Blake had never heard before, and it gave him pause.
Blake's greatest talent had always been an intuitive understanding of the feelings and emotions of those around him. When before an audience, he could play those emotions like an instrument, blending, weaving, shaping the passions of the crowd into a musical harmony he could control and use. Now, that ability activated again, and, in a brilliant flash of perception, Blake suddenly saw - really saw - the man before him in a way he had not before. Saw him stripped of his defensive mechanisms, saw behind the protective walls the man had erected. Blake looked into Avon's eyes and understood.
"You're not a sacrifice, Avon." He looked around, briefly meeting the eyes of every member of his crew - first, Jenna's cool support, then Gan's trusting gaze. He moved on to Cally's warmth and Vila's merry twinkle, finally locking with the puzzled ebon eyes of his computer tech.
"You're not expendable and I'm not prepared to sacrifice any of you." Blake released Avon's eyes, rose to pace restlessly.
"Years ago I had my first taste of Federation oppression. A friend of mine - a good friend." He touched Avon with his gaze again, briefly, and a spark flashed between them, disconcerting the other man slightly. ".once made the mistake of falling in love with a Delta-grade woman."
Vila pricked up his ears at that. An Alpha in love with a Delta grade?
"Kirn fell as deeply in love as only the very young can. He wanted to marry her, but Federation policy forbids an Alpha to marry out of his level. Kirn was never one to just accept a bad situation. He began to speak out - loudly -- against the entire caste system. He was beginning to get a following, too - until he. disappeared."
He paused, and Cally, her eyes wide with sympathy, prodded him on. "Did you ever see him again?"
Blake nodded, "About a year later, I was watching a telecast of the coronation of the new President. I saw Kirn among the guards." Bitterly, "My best friend had been turned into a mutoid as an example for the rest of us. That was when I began to take a hard look around me, to see the oppression of thought, the lack of freedom, the abuse of the lower grades. I knew that something had to be done about the government. It was too corrupt, too intrinsically evil, to be allowed to continue as it was. That was when I joined the Freedom Party.
"You know what happened then. My companions died, my memory - my life - was erased. I lost everything - including my family.
"The Federation leaves nothing to chance. The family of a resister is likely to be sympathetic to the Cause, so they simply wipe out everyone: mother, brother, sister, everyone." The words, the memories, were bitter. They matched the expression on Blake's face, on the face of each person on the flight deck. Each had good reason to hate the Federation, to resent its very existence. Each had lost something or someone to the injustice and brutality of the existing government, and a wave of sympathy and anger filled the room. Blake permitted the raw emotions to subside before continuing.
"When I was told finally about my family... The only thing that kept me going was my hatred for the people who did this to me, the desire to destroy, finally and forever, the base corruption that permeates every corner of the Federation." Blake's eyes flashed dangerously and his voice rang with unsuppressed passion.
The rest were listening spellbound to his speech, even Avon was entrapped in the web of Blake's conviction. This was a Blake they rarely saw: the charismatic, passionate leader, whose power to sway entire populations had made him one of the most famous - and hunted - men in the galaxy.
He seemed to come back to himself, suddenly remembering the people he was with. "That hatred kept me going for a long time when I thought I had lost everything else. What I didn't realize was that during these last eighteen months I was gaining something even more important to me than revenge."
Again Blake met the eyes of each of his friends, punctuating his next words with projected wealth of emotion. "You have all become very dear to me during this time, and that proved to me that I was still capable of feeling something besides loss and hatred, that I was still capable of caring. I may have lost one family to the Federation, but I have been given more than any man has a right to ask for: another family. And I think it's time you know how I feel." This statement fell like a raindrop into the pool of emotional tension within the room. The ripples spread slowly, washing over each man and woman, causing a resonance within them.
Cally, always empathically attuned to her friends, stepped forward first, her warmth modifying the charged atmosphere into something more comfortable and tolerable. "My people have rejected me for daring to become involved in the problems of otherworlders. My companions have long been gone, yet I, too, feel that I have gained a new family in the rest of you, and I count myself privileged because of it. Vila squirmed in embarrassment, but looked happy nonetheless, whereas Jenna, not an emotionally demonstrative person, contented herself with a pleased smile.
Only Avon held himself rigid against the circle of emotional light encompassing the others. His voice rang cold and carefully controlled. "Very pretty speeches, both of you. But your pretty words change nothing, Blake." He left the flight deck quickly, leaving behind the oddest impression that he wasn't so much storming out as he was escaping.
Blake stared after him and there, within the warm circle of his friends, felt unaccountably depressed.
***
ALTERNATIVES
by CindyR
The earth shook violently, the explosion reverberating through the installation. Blake glanced behind him, and, in that timeless instant that precedes calamity, absorbed the frozen tableau. Gan still supported the steel door on his shoulders, his eyes wide with fear and the knowledge of impending death. The others had gone through to safety, only Blake remaining. Blake raised his eyes slightly as the ceiling began to give way, great cracks like lightning moving across its solid face. Gan was trapped, the steel door weighing too heavily on his shoulders to drop. Were he to release the door, it would fall quickly, catching his legs before he could step away. Step out first and the unbalanced burden would crush his shoulders and torso beneath. His only chance was to come out all at once. Impossible... or was it...
Reflex drove Blake forward to grasp the big man by the belt. Desperation strengthened the tremendous yank which pulled Gan from the steel-jawed trap and catapulted both men backwards at the very instant the ceiling came crashing down
Dust swirled, enveloping two still figures on the floor. Long moments passed before one finally stirred painfully, raising a hand to clear the dust from his face. Brown eyes peered sightlessly for a moment, awareness returning by degrees, and, with the awareness' alarm. Heart pounding, he scrambled to hands and knees, making his way slowly to the other body, shaking him roughly. "Gan! Gan, wake up!" No answer. "Gan?!" Slowly Gan opened his eyes, staring blearily at Blake. He shook his head slightly, propping himself upon one elbow. "Are you all right?
The big man grimaced as a wave of pain washed over him. "I think my arm is broken, and my legs ... I can't feel them at all. What about you?
Blake shifted experimentally. "Just bruised." He peered through the gloom. "We have to get out of here. Can you move at all?
The other man's reply was lost in the clatter of a beam being pushed aside, then the sound of someone struggling through the debris. "Blake! Blake, answer me!" Blake and Gan exchanged an amused look. Panic in the normally stoic computer expert was rare indeed. But then, Avon had shown a great deal more of his "human" side during the past couple of days than he had permitted to show during the previous eighteen months aboard Liberator
"Here, Avon," he called. He waited until the dark-haired man picked his way through the debris and kneeled at his side, "Gan is pinned. We have to free his legs."
Avon, visibly relieved, turned his attention to the trapped man, his mask of non-emotion snapping easily into place. "Can you move your legs? Are they broken?"
"Gan grimaced with the effort of movement, drawing a deep breath of relief. "They're not broken, but I can't move them. The ceiling..," He gestured at the large slab resting across his lower half, pinning him to the floor.
Blake felt under the rubble, locating the great beam that prevented the ceiling's weight from resting directly on the man s legs. "We'll have to move some of this before we can get the beam off. Where are the others?"
"They were farther down the corridor when the ceiling came down. I told them to wait."
Both men bent to the task of removing the loose rubble from the supporting beam, not looking up when two startled gasps heralded the arrival of Jenna and Vila, the two remaining members of the assault team.
"Vila, help us with this," Blake gasped through the dust. "Jenna, get ready to help Gan
The beam stood revealed at last and Vila joined surprising strength to that of the other two men. The beam groaned slightly, then rose inch by agonizing inch, finally lifting clear of the fragile human limbs beneath. "Hurry, Jenna, ~ Blake urged through gritted teeth. The woman fitted her arms around Gan and pulled with all her strength, assisting the big man to slide himself out. The support beam dropped heavily as the three men fell to their knees, gasping for breath.
Vila, having had the least to do, recovered first. "Gan -- your legs... can you move them?"
"He's going to have to," Avon snarled. "We have to get out of here." He climbed to his feet, wrapping an arm around the larger man's chest. "Come on, Gan. Get up."
With help, Gan struggled to unsteady feet, and leaning heavily on the two men, began to move.
The return trip was a nightmare for all of them. Emergency lighting cast an eerie red glow, uncomfortably reminiscent of a medieval hell. Supporting a man of Gan's stature was difficult at best, nearly impossible under present conditions, yet they managed to assist him across the uneven, rubble-strewn floor, forcibly manhandling him up the ladders leading to the upper world. At last, the final barrier was breached, and Blake and his crew breathed the clear, unpolluted air of the outside world, and finally the relative safety of open space.
*** Gan's injuries were painful but not serious. A short period in the medical unit knitted the bones in his arm, and the tissue regenerator removed the heavy bruising from his legs. After a brief rest period, the crew assembled themselves on the flight deck for debriefing.
"'What a farce that was, Blake." Avon's cool, mocking tones brought a slight flush to the rebel's cheeks. He had been forced to endure the man's sarcastic abuse for the past several hours and was rapidly growing tired of it; yet he accepted it with a weary resignation.
Still, even a saint had his breaking point, and Avon was rapidly approaching Blake's. The stress and disappointments of the past day, combined with Avon's foul mood, threatened to ignite his already volatile temper. "All right, Avon" he retorted it clipped tones, "I was wrong. Does it make you happy to hear me say that?"
The other waved one hand scornfully. "Not being killed makes me happy. Blake, you are a fool if you think you can ask us to continue to risk our lives for your blasted eternal Cause after this debacle of yours."
"No one is asking you to do anything, Avon. Including stay."
Hard brown eyes met glittering black ones in a contest of wills, neither willing to back down, neither willing to bend. Finally, it was Cally who could stand no more. "Enough, both of you!" she snapped. As one, two pairs of eyes turned toward her in stunned surprise, "It is over. We have survived, and gained valuable information."
Avon looked skeptical, but Blake nodded slowly, wearily. "Yes, true. The Federation can no longer use that installation as bait. We've notified the Earth-based rebels and they'll spread the word about the truth behind Control Central. That is one trap the Federation will never be able to use again. And we've learned that a central computer complex does exist somewhere else. Travis admitted as much to us when he had us trapped. If we can find it...."
"If we can find it, you will be expecting us to go through this all over again. Are you so anxious to spend our lives like that?"
Blake's angry retort died before it was uttered. There was an unfamiliar, almost hesitant quality to Avon's harsh question that Blake had never heard before, and it gave him pause.
Blake's greatest talent had always been an intuitive understanding of the feelings and emotions of those around him. When before an audience, he could play those emotions like an instrument, blending, weaving, shaping the passions of the crowd into a musical harmony he could control and use. Now, that ability activated again, and, in a brilliant flash of perception, Blake suddenly saw - really saw - the man before him in a way he had not before. Saw him stripped of his defensive mechanisms, saw behind the protective walls the man had erected. Blake looked into Avon's eyes and understood.
"You're not a sacrifice, Avon." He looked around, briefly meeting the eyes of every member of his crew - first, Jenna's cool support, then Gan's trusting gaze. He moved on to Cally's warmth and Vila's merry twinkle, finally locking with the puzzled ebon eyes of his computer tech.
"You're not expendable and I'm not prepared to sacrifice any of you." Blake released Avon's eyes, rose to pace restlessly.
"Years ago I had my first taste of Federation oppression. A friend of mine - a good friend." He touched Avon with his gaze again, briefly, and a spark flashed between them, disconcerting the other man slightly. ".once made the mistake of falling in love with a Delta-grade woman."
Vila pricked up his ears at that. An Alpha in love with a Delta grade?
"Kirn fell as deeply in love as only the very young can. He wanted to marry her, but Federation policy forbids an Alpha to marry out of his level. Kirn was never one to just accept a bad situation. He began to speak out - loudly -- against the entire caste system. He was beginning to get a following, too - until he. disappeared."
He paused, and Cally, her eyes wide with sympathy, prodded him on. "Did you ever see him again?"
Blake nodded, "About a year later, I was watching a telecast of the coronation of the new President. I saw Kirn among the guards." Bitterly, "My best friend had been turned into a mutoid as an example for the rest of us. That was when I began to take a hard look around me, to see the oppression of thought, the lack of freedom, the abuse of the lower grades. I knew that something had to be done about the government. It was too corrupt, too intrinsically evil, to be allowed to continue as it was. That was when I joined the Freedom Party.
"You know what happened then. My companions died, my memory - my life - was erased. I lost everything - including my family.
"The Federation leaves nothing to chance. The family of a resister is likely to be sympathetic to the Cause, so they simply wipe out everyone: mother, brother, sister, everyone." The words, the memories, were bitter. They matched the expression on Blake's face, on the face of each person on the flight deck. Each had good reason to hate the Federation, to resent its very existence. Each had lost something or someone to the injustice and brutality of the existing government, and a wave of sympathy and anger filled the room. Blake permitted the raw emotions to subside before continuing.
"When I was told finally about my family... The only thing that kept me going was my hatred for the people who did this to me, the desire to destroy, finally and forever, the base corruption that permeates every corner of the Federation." Blake's eyes flashed dangerously and his voice rang with unsuppressed passion.
The rest were listening spellbound to his speech, even Avon was entrapped in the web of Blake's conviction. This was a Blake they rarely saw: the charismatic, passionate leader, whose power to sway entire populations had made him one of the most famous - and hunted - men in the galaxy.
He seemed to come back to himself, suddenly remembering the people he was with. "That hatred kept me going for a long time when I thought I had lost everything else. What I didn't realize was that during these last eighteen months I was gaining something even more important to me than revenge."
Again Blake met the eyes of each of his friends, punctuating his next words with projected wealth of emotion. "You have all become very dear to me during this time, and that proved to me that I was still capable of feeling something besides loss and hatred, that I was still capable of caring. I may have lost one family to the Federation, but I have been given more than any man has a right to ask for: another family. And I think it's time you know how I feel." This statement fell like a raindrop into the pool of emotional tension within the room. The ripples spread slowly, washing over each man and woman, causing a resonance within them.
Cally, always empathically attuned to her friends, stepped forward first, her warmth modifying the charged atmosphere into something more comfortable and tolerable. "My people have rejected me for daring to become involved in the problems of otherworlders. My companions have long been gone, yet I, too, feel that I have gained a new family in the rest of you, and I count myself privileged because of it. Vila squirmed in embarrassment, but looked happy nonetheless, whereas Jenna, not an emotionally demonstrative person, contented herself with a pleased smile.
Only Avon held himself rigid against the circle of emotional light encompassing the others. His voice rang cold and carefully controlled. "Very pretty speeches, both of you. But your pretty words change nothing, Blake." He left the flight deck quickly, leaving behind the oddest impression that he wasn't so much storming out as he was escaping.
Blake stared after him and there, within the warm circle of his friends, felt unaccountably depressed.
***