Roads

By Rel Fexive

Disclaimer: I don't own Farscape or the characters. Imagine the hilarity if I did!

Summary: Regrets, commitment, conflict and resolve.

CHAPTER DIMO

I began to regret my decision the microt I had made it. I had set myself on the same path as them, one that put me completely at odds with practically every other Peacekeeper I would meet from that moment on, including my closest comrades. But what else could I do? I could not deny that I was sympathetic to their cause, in principle at least. And so signing up to their movement of resistance seemed inevitable. Unavoidable.

It was the offer of a purpose to my life that was the most enticing. To feel that what you did every day had real meaning. Time would tell how true that was.

We left the bodies where they were but took their equipment, the easily taken items at least; weapons and the like. The sort of thing rebels would grab and run with. Needless to say, I did not take part. I did not want to, considering the circumstances, but it was also that I was not permitted to. Despite my recent pledge of allegiance, they did not yet entirely trust me.

That done, it was back to the hoversled. We all climbed back aboard and set off again.

"Where are we headed?" I asked Polen, who was watching over me again.

"Spaceport," she replied, brushing hair out of her eyes. "There's a ship ready to take our charges somewhere safer. By now our contacts in the Carrier overhead should've worked in a sensor blind for it so they can get away."

"And we are going to do what?" Already it was we.

"Cover their exfil," the woman shrugged.

We watched the terrain go past for a time. Maybe half an arn, maybe less.

"You'll get used to it eventually," Polen said, interrupting my thoughts of my impending imprisonment and torture. "It's very liberating, actually."

I frowned. "Liberating?"

"Peacekeeper life is regimented, every aspect strictly controlled by custom and tradition far more than by mere laws," Polen began to explain. "Who you can interact with, who you can talk to, who you can recreate with. Friendships and the like are all but forbidden, we are only allowed to have comrades, no attachments." She looked sour. "It might work when we are in the field, but any other time it can be… undesirable. So many of us who join the movement are more… free-thinking."

"Free-thinking?" I asked. "You mean you rebel by having friends?"

"Friends, yes," Polen nodded. "And allies. And lovers. And mates."

"Mates?" It sounded… strange to say it. An alien idea. But then, every Peacekeeper was inured against making that kind of attachment. Sexual energies and attraction were directed into recreating, and children were created literally to order, to fill the ranks. No one forged the kind of attachment required to become mates. It simply was not done.

"I've heard it can be…." Polen seemed to be searching for the right word. "Satisfying," she finished at last, nodding, having found the word she was looking for. I just looked at her sceptically. She shrugged. "That's what I've heard. Don't know the truth of it myself."

"If you've finished gossiping," Rhedd broke in, "you need to get prepared." He threw a helmet to Polen, and then another to me. He paused a moment before reluctantly passing me a pulse rifle. I checked it quickly: fully loaded and charged. "Careful where you point it," he told me. I took the comment for the warning it was.

"What's the plan?" I asked him.

"We get close to the port using the buildings as cover," Rhedd explained, "then offload and cover their retreat on foot. Should be fine as long as no one got too close behind them, which was what the whole fake trail tactic was about."

"It won't be that easy, you know," I told him. He snorted.

"Of course not," he replied, "but it's nice to dream." He pulled his helmet on, and Polen and I did the same. The comms crackled to life.

"Port perimeter in ten microns," Lan announced.

I checked over my gear one last time. The others did the same.

We were ready.

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We passed two rings of patrols before we entered the city proper. Whatever wide-ranging authorisation Lan carried, it got us past every question they asked us. Then we lost ourselves in the streets and avoided all the attention we could.

It was slow going. We all kept a lookout for anyone and anything that might see us; patrols, aircraft overhead, tenacious locals who had not moved out after orbital bombardment that had levelled half the city. Our path seemed without direction, but the overall bearing was dictated by the lieutenant.

We had one near miss. The sled had to be slammed through a broken wall to get inside the ruined building beyond in order to hide from a particularly insistent and curious air raft, almost overflowing with black-armoured troops. It was a nervous three microns as we waited for them to decide if there was anything worth investigating, until the dwindling hum of engines told us their answer was in the negative.

It felt strange to be hiding from our own people. But then, for that moment at least, every Peacekeeper was our enemy. I was still, understandably, uncomfortable with that reality. I knew the time was coming, though, when I would have to get used to it. And sooner rather than later.

All the way, Lan split his attention between our circuitous route and communicating with the group we were to meet up with.

"Our charges have made contact with the advance party," he announced after an arn of slow travel down rubble-strewn streets. I could tell our path had been a rough zigzag from one side of the city to the other, but that was about it. Most of the areas we had passed through had been either cheap residential or industrial in nature, areas less likely to still have anyone in them. "We will leave the sled soon and continue on foot to the meeting point."

Grunts and nods of acknowledgement followed his statement, as we made our final checks. Armour settled comfortably, equipment secured so as to make the least possible noise, weapons charged. Some of us checked others in the squad, testing armour and webbing points we could not see ourselves. It had the dual effect of ensuring we were as ready as we could be, and it helped to cement the squad bond as everyone looked out for their comrades. It almost made me feel a full member of the squad again.

Almost.

"Halt!" the lieutenant ordered suddenly. "Everyone out!" The sled jerked to a stop and the squad disembarked so quick it was like they did not cross the short intervening space between seat and ground. Eyes and weapon muzzles scanned the surroundings for threats.

Mission time. It was good not to be thinking about matters of galactic significance anymore, but to be thinking only of the potential dangers around us and how to react to them. Things could be so much simpler at times like that.

"Good," Lan murmured over the comms. "Move out, three fingers, fifty points post decca, local." We split into our assigned groups and started off along the bearing he had given us. I was in the middle group, or finger, with Lan, Ishanden and Rhedd, while our point group went ahead and the rest followed behind.

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Every step was a risk, every corner turned a hazard. We were as careful as we could possibly be, mostly to avoid announcing our presence to any Peacekeeper forces in the area. More than ever I felt as if the Command Carrier high above us was watching our every move and the weight of it's regard weighed heavily on my head.

We began to move into one of the better areas of the city, which also meant it was more damaged than those we had passed through before. The starport, our final destination, had seen much more bombardment than any other part of the city, barring military targets, though it had mostly been to clear the way for our own landing ships. Evidence of a certain amount of inaccuracy became more and more evident as we got closer; the surrounding structures had sustained more damage than those further away.

Lan brought us to a halt in view of the broken perimeter wall, then sent the point group on ahead.

"We find the target group," Lan instructed us, "then shadow their approach to the waiting ship." We settled in for a wait in the remains of some sort of shop, the produce long gone or rotted way to scraps. I was nominated for watch duty and crouched beside a broken window, eyes on one end of the street while Tenzac watched the other.

It began as a dot. It slowly grew larger and larger until a quick look through my scope revealed it was indeed a Marauder. More importantly, it was definitely heading our way rather than angling towards the port. It eventually came to a stop and hung overhead like some predatory monster of legend, turning leisurely one way and then the other as if sniffing out it's prey. Then it's engines growled to life and it flew off, almost grazing the shattered rooftops as it went.

A handful of microts later Edan came into sight, running across the street as fast as he could. He was breathing heavily as he entered the shop.

"Our evacuees have been spotted," he reported, gasping for breath. "Comm chatter confirms several patrols have been diverted into the grid for a search." He glanced upwards. "That Marauder was part of it, but only for a visual check." Lan nodded calmly.

"Send the order on the special channel," the lieutenant ordered. "Start the local jamming. The observer station will still be able to warn our contact on the Carrier when the escape ship lifts off by laser link." Behind him, Goran nodded, even though Lan could not see him, and I could just make out through his helmet visor that he appeared to be muttering to himself, no doubt sending the word out on some encrypted comms channel.

Lan looked around at us. "Let's go."

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The meeting place was in the ruins of a departure lounge. Rows of chairs and other furniture had been thrown everywhere by the explosions that had taken most of the roof off and reduced the ground outside to a field of ragged craters. A fire had torn through the wreckage at some point, splashing black smoke stains along the walls and floor in several places.

Our evacuees were huddled in one corner, under the remaining section of roof, maybe twelve small figures accompanied by eight larger ones, all of them swathed in a combination of blankets and robes. Between them and us were three people in Peacekeeper armour, their helmets off. The way one of their number greeted Lan told me they were friends. That and the fact that the Vaerryn refugees were still alive.

I had seen other members of this other traitorous squad on our approach, covering the numerous entry routes to the area. Hopefully they had been very alert, watching out for Peacekeeper search parties. With all comms jammed throughout the whole spaceport, no one could listen in to anyone's communications, so visual communication by gestures was the only way to tell friend from foe on sight.

Even worse, it meant the Peacekeeper command group knew something was going on.

Both factors made things… tricky. For everyone. But much more so for double agents like us.

Only Lan and Goran went close to the evacuees. The rest of us were kept back for their security and ours. From where I was I could see the faces peeking out from under the blankets: the tired, scared faces of children who had seen too much horror, the equally exhausted faces of the adults, their fear better hidden for the sake of the young ones.

Lan and one of the adults talked for a time before reaching some kind of agreement. He held the robed figure's clenched fists in his hands in the acceptance ritual, placing the group of alien civilians under his command. Then he returned to join the rest of us.

"Four fingers," he whispered to us. "Point group, two and three on either side, four at the rear. Go." We hastened to obey as he gestured to the evacuees to move out, Polen and Edan leading; Lan, Goran and Tenzac on their hammond side; me, Ishanden and Saryn on the treblin; and Rhedd and Rokko bringing up the rear as usual.

Our expanded group spread out a little as we began to make our way between wrecked buildings. Polen and Edan would scout ahead, and the middle group would continue on when they indicated all was well. Rhedd and Rokko moved much more slowly, their attention fixed solely on the way we had come, alert for signs of stealthy pursuit, relying on the rest of us to spot an approach from the sides.

We saw no sign of anyone else for close to twenty microns, though we still remained as tense as we had ever been in a combat situation, partly from the fact that a patrol could come upon us almost without warning. Then a gesture from Tenzac made us all stop as still as statues. He had seen something.

Slowly we went down into a crouch, weapons facing outwards as we strained not to look just at the direction Tenzac was looking. We waited.

And waited.

Three microns passed before Tenzac indicated that it looked safe to continue. We did so very carefully, Lan and Saryn guiding the knot of Vaerryn with calming gestures. Needless to say, the rest of us were a lot less calm, our nerves jangling with the stress.

I could tell we were getting near to our destination when the sound of ship engines running at standby could clearly be heard echoing around the blocky structures of the spaceport surrounding us. Our movement slowed even further as it occurred to us that the area around the ship could be guarded by Peacekeepers who would be thinking, rightly, that it could be the destination for the aliens sneaking around in the vicinity. Though they almost certainly had no idea what use we intended for it.

Another moment of statue stillness arrived as someone from the point group gestured at us from cover before approaching. As they got closer I was able to recognise Polen. She went straight to the lieutenant and they had a quick talk. He nodded and tapped himself on the top of his helmet to get everyone's attention; then he gestured to Rhedd and myself to join him.

I quickly squeezed through the mass of Vaerryn children, trying not to look at them too closely as their eyes followed me, and joined the hammond group.

"A squad is guarding the ship," he whispered, confirming all our suspicions. "They have the pilots under guard." He looked hard at us. "We will have to take them out quickly, before any other units can get close enough to stop the ship taking off." He paused, thinking. "Wind your rifle straps around your upper arms," he ordered, stripping the strap from his own rifle quickly. "Tell everyone to do it. It's the best way to identify ourselves to each other." He Put his rifle down and set about tying his strap on. "Ishanden, Rhedd and Rokko will stay back with the Vaerryn. Get moving."

Polen, Rhedd and I returned to our groups and passed the order along. Soon we were all subtly marked, so if things got close and intense we would be able to avoid shooting each other. Hopefully it would not be so obvious that the other squad would catch on too quick. Once all was ready, Polen, who had moved to be in a position to see us and her point-mate, Edan, at the same time, gestured to us and movement continued.

When Lan decided we were close enough, he gestured to the evacuees and the three designated sentries directed them towards the cover of a mass transport vehicle. It had been burnt out but would still offer a good sanctuary for them while we cleared the way for them. Then the rest of us formed up with the lieutenant and we crept carefully in the direction of the noise of idling engines.

In the centre of the landing field was a civilian craft about the size of a Marauder. The rear ramp was down and facing us, three Vaerryn knelt beside it, hands on their heads, with four Peacekeepers, anonymous in their armour, standing over them. Four others were spread around in varying attitudes of alertness. Perhaps forty motras of open ground was between us and them, the furthest another fifty beyond them.

Lan gestured towards the group with a nod of his helmeted head and we carefully came out into view, so as not to make them reflexively blast us into pieces. They did react quickly, weapons coming to bear on us in less than a microt, but then there was a general relaxing as it became clear who we were. Or at least who we seemed to be.

"Identify yourselves," one of the three standing over the captured pilots grated, his rifle not quite pointed away from us. Saryn and I kept our attention on the way we had come, both to follow standard combat procedure and to keep a look out for anyone who might see our forthcoming treachery. The rest stood in a ragged line centred on Lan, waiting for his order to strike.

"Captain Loash," the lieutenant replied briskly, "Icarion Company. Cerka patrol. Situation?"

"Before the jamming we received word of a rebel group seeking to flee the planet, Captain," the other responded. "My patrol found this ship readying for take-off and secured the crew for interrogation." I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the pilots had not been taken easily; they had bruises and some other injuries that suggested they had already been questioned.

"Good, good," Lan nodded, then jerked his head towards the other Peacekeepers.

Two things happened simultaneously. Our squad opened fire on the patrol guarding the shuttle, and another patrol walked out into the open sixty motras beyond the shuttlecraft. Their reaction was predictable, with only the barest nanomoment of hesitation. What they thought was going on was anyone's guess.

The end result was that those in the original patrol who were furthest away avoided being killed immediately because the pulse fire from the second group pinned us down. Those closest were taken out in under three microts. Tenzac got down alongside the pilots and freed them from their restraints.

We had the cover of the ship, our opponents had the cover of the buildings they had passed through to reach the landing field. The situation quickly became static as each side tried to pick off the other as they became visible.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lan gesture back the way we had come.

"Covering fire in blue!" he warned us, 'blue' meaning twenty microts as always. Obviously something was going to happen, and once the allotted time had passed I saw what it was. The lieutenant had ordered our charges forwards to get them into the escape ship. So as the children and their protectors came into view we lay down a blizzard of pulse fire to keep the patrol's head's down.

"Incoming!" someone yelled, and there was a sudden, frantic scrabbling for cover at the same time as we tried to see what was coming. I spotted the grenade just as it landed alongside Lan's position where he crouched with Goran. The corporal spotted it the same moment I did and acted fast, pushing Lan aside and beginning to shield him with his body as it exploded with a roar and a bright flash.

Goran took almost the full blast. It shredded his armour with shrapnel and seemed to splatter his blood everywhere. His torn, smoking corpse collapsed on top of Lan, who seemed to have taken a lot of shrapnel in the legs. At the same time the pulse fire from our opponents intensified as they seemed about ready to begin a push out from cover towards us.

I pulled Goran aside, as he was clearly dead, and gave the lieutenant a quick look-over. His legs were badly injured but otherwise he seemed fine. I did not remove his helmet to check, since he had warned us about revealing exactly who was wearing our armour. It was possible we could be mistaken for Vaerryn rebels in disguise… if we were not looked at too closely.

There was another explosion close by. Only a handful of microts had passed since the first grenade, though it had seemed like arns. Without thinking I snatched a grenade from the corporal's body and activated it. The small flashing light on top of the slim cylinder hypnotised me for a microt before I shook my head and threw the grenade at the approaching soldiers.

My aim was good; it went off close to a staggered threesome of Peacekeepers, throwing them to the ground in a belch of smoke, fire and razor-sharp fragments. Then I aimed my rifle and made sure they would stay down. I knew we had to take them all out to prevent word of exactly what had happened getting back to our – their – commanders. If we were the only ones standing we could make up almost any story we wanted.

"Take them!" I yelled and the others were quick to comply. A few stray bolts of pulse fire flashed past and around us, one of them dropping one of the adult Vaerryn. The alien children began to scream, their high voices clearly audible even over the raging firefight around me, but Rokko and Ishanden kept them moving while Rhedd fired over their heads.

Our concerted effort got the rest of the evacuees safely into the cover of the ship. The engines were screaming with the urge to hurtle the shuttle up into the air and away from all the violence around it. Not many of the Peacekeeper patrol were left, and we had taken a number of casualties ourselves. It was time to end it.

"Advance!" I ordered at the top of my voice, and the others broke cover as the shuttle began to rise a little on it's skids. Tenzac nodded to me as the ramp closed; with Goran's death it was his job to ensure the ship followed the prearranged flight plan and reached the meeting point. That final duty done, I joined the remains of my squad and cleared out the last of the resistance.

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The ship had vanished into the sky by the time we were done. Goran and Rhedd were dead, and the rest of us sported various non-threatening injuries. And between those two extremes was Lieutenant Lan, inexorably moving from one state to other with none of us able to do anything about it.

"Hekka," he gurgled through clenched teeth. He had been laid back against a support pillar in one of the ruined buildings where we had taken shelter after we had 'failed to prevent rebels escaping'. They had managed to remain disguised long enough for their ambush to be successful. Or so our official reports would say. I approached the dying man and knelt down beside him.

"What is it?" I asked, and waited before he finished coughing. Shrapnel had flung itself deep inside his torso and mortally wounded him… he had less than half an arn, at best, and a painful time of it even through the painkillers. Once he was done hacking up blood, he reached up and grabbed hold of my armour harness.

"You did well," he whispered. "They'll give you time to consider… before they call on you again. Make the most of it… then things will get interesting." He grinned mirthlessly, his teeth stained with blood. A cough. "Serve our people. Do me proud."

"Who is in command here?" A loud, non-nonsense voice broke into the conversation. I stood and turned to look in it's direction. Through a hole in the wall I saw two squads of Peacekeepers had finally arrived, lead by an Officer, easily called in now that the jamming had been lifted. We had seen other patrols around the area the last quarter arn, but these were the first to approach us. The others, it seemed, had been sent merely to secure the area.

"I am," I replied, rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. "Sergeant Hekka, Alto company, Dovidar regiment." I glanced at Lan, and looked again when I saw that there was no longer anything to his stare but the position of his dead eyes. "Lieutenant Lan died from injuries sustained in the ambush," I continued tiredly.

"The rebel ambush?" the Officer asked, sounding disgusted. "When you let them escape in a ship you had secured?"

"My report will confirm my squad did all it could," I told him with a steely tone in my voice, "as did the others."

"I'm sure it will," the Peacekeeper sneered.

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"So what happened?"

I turned to look at Lena. Her chair was leant back against the wall of the mess, hands behind her head. Her expression was bland, casual, which meant she was trying her utmost not to attract attention by interrogating me too closely. I was still being watched closely, even three solar days after the supposed ambush. Someone higher up was looking for a scapegoat, and it seemed the dead Lan might not be enough.

I looked towards where Coress was fetching our drinks, much as any thirsty soldier might, but used the opportunity to take in the faces around the room. No one seemed to be taking any particular interest in us, although it was easy to become anonymous on a Command Carrier. Almost as easy as it was to become infamous.

"What do you mean? I asked my friend. And friend she was… but I could not tell her anything. I had no idea how she would take the truth. Turn me in instantly, probably. Perhaps… I could sound her out. See where her sensibilities lay. How deep her loyalties to the Peacekeepers were….

I laughed at myself. Already I'm thinking of recruiting others… I must be crazy. I could be dead before the end of the weeken, found guilty of treason; or quietly disappeared so the truth was not known. Or… I could be left alone, and then called upon by this resistance movement to help with some other mad scheme to overthrow the Peacekeepers one tiny step at a time.

"What is it?" Lena asked me, her eyes intent on me. She had obviously seen something of my internal dialogue in my expression.

"Nothing," I lied, another lie amongst so many gone before and many more to come. "Just thinking about the dead."

"The died doing their duty," she replied, the stock answer. Only their duty had been to something else, a cause she probably did not even suspect existed.

Would I one day die for that cause, my true allegiance unknown?

END