The Way Forward
by Baker Lutgens
Part 6 of 12
About two hours after departure and a hundred of Vila's credits, Task stood and announced, "I'm going for a little recce. Locate the food dispensers, heads, things like that. I'll be back shortly." He palmed the door open and left.
Avon looked up from the bookscreen he had been entertaining himself with—Task's bookscreen—and commented, "A hundred credits? You always said you were good with cards, Vila."
"Good with marked cards. When you're good with those, you don't have to be good at actually playing the game." He gathered up the cards and began checking the math on the scorepad, a mournful expression on his face as he neared the bottom without finding any errors. Well, that was easy enough to fix—tap, tap, tap. Now he'd lost only fifty credits.
Avon put the bookscreen down and reached under the bunk, sliding open the door and pulling out the knapsacks. He began rummaging through one, checking the contents.
Vila watched for a few moments. "You didn't trust them."
"No. I wanted to make sure our 'personal belongings' got on board." He pulled a pocket comp out, closed the knapsack, and picked up the other knapsack, rummaging through it too. "A group as large as Avalon's? You know there has to be at least one Federation agent embedded. Probably also people from rival groups."
"Rival groups?"
"You didn't think the Rebellion was just one big, happy family, did you? They've all got their own ideas of how to run the Terran Federation after they gloriously overthrow the evil government. I'm sure they all picture themselves modestly agreeing to assume the role of People's Leader and governing the entire Federation with benevolence and wisdom." He pulled out another pocket comp and closed the knapsack.
"Bit of a cynic, aren't you?" Vila rolled his eyes heavenwards. "I can't believe I said that; you invented cynicism."
"Not at all. I just raised it to new heights."
"What have you got there?"
Avon handed one of the pocket comps to Vila. "I've been transmitting a simple pulse code to another pocket comp. Dayna is checking it every few hours for the signal. If the signal changes, she knows to contact Jenna for help. They can also be set as homing beam transmitters, using Jenna's covert frequency." He demonstrated to Vila how to access the menu for the signals, then put the pocket comps back in the knapsacks.
Vila began to look nervous. "You're expecting something, aren't you? Something more than just the general unfriendliness of the locals on Gauda Prime. You don't think some of Wrell's people are Federation agents, do you?" Nervousness was nudging panic.
"Calm down, Vila. I don't think it's very likely that any of Wrell's people are spies; I just think they all look too young and overconfident. Wrell struck me as overconfident too. He's probably never commanded anything other than a mobile commissary. I think we'd better be prepared to rely on ourselves." He pulled the guns and extra energy packs out of the knapsacks and started checking their charges.
"But we're supposed to stay on the ship, Avon! We're not supposed to go outside!" Panic was responding to Nervousness' nudges.
"We might not have a choice, Vila. I'm planning on staying on the ship too, but I want to be prepared just in case." He put the guns back in the knapsacks and tucked them back in the cabinet. Then he looked at Vila for a moment. He said quietly, "I'm sorry, Vila. I shouldn't have made you come. It was unfair." It's what Blake used to do to us. He was always ready to risk our lives for his Cause.
Vila's near-panic subsided a little in the face of one of Avon's rare, genuine apologies. It always made him feel guilty somehow, like he should be the one apologising. "No, forget it, Avon. You didn't make me come; I would have come anyway. I'll just make the best of it—"
The cabin door slid open, and Task came in. He sat on the other bunk and gave Avon and Vila a knowing look. "I'll bet you've been discussing the same thing I've been thinking since we boarded." He grinned, "Don't these folks all look a little young to you?"
"They are," Avon agreed.
"A little inexperienced, wouldn't you say?"
"Probably."
"That's what I've been thinking. I've been checking out the personnel while I've been checking out the facilities. And, yes, they're all young—confident, but young. Oh, and they're a little agog at having glimpsed the famous Kerr Avon. You might want to take a couple of strolls around the ship later so they can all bask in your glory."
Task returned to the main subject, "And since they're all so young and confident, I thought perhaps I should add a few things to our baggage." He began pulling guns and extra energy packs out of his jacket and handing them to Vila and Avon. Some knives came out next. "They've got extra camouflage suits; I'll get us some of those later."
Vila fought with his reemerging panic. He looked at the gun Task handed him and glanced quickly at the cabinet under Avon's bunk. That decided Avon. He opened the cabinet and pulled out their knapsacks. Emptying the contents on his bunk so Task could see, he said, "We were a little nervous too."
Tarrant awoke feeling better than he had in days. It was amazing what—he checked his watch—ten hours? of sleep could do. He stretched lazily and started digging through his tiny closet for a clean jumpsuit. After a quick trip to the base mess, he would look for Dayna and see what she could offer in the way of weapons practice.
He heard some banging when he was nearly to the ramp and followed it back to the cargo hold. Dase was supervising a couple of contructioneers as they moved about partitioning off a portion of the hold. "What's going on, Dase? Some special cargo?"
"Hi, Tarrant." She lowered her voice, "A very special cargo. Cap says we won't be coming back here for a while, and she wants to get Lissa's and Dev's families out with us. We're going to take them to the United Planets of Teal. Lissa has family there, and they'll get everyone settled in. A couple of others too, maybe. Between you and me, I don't think Cap ever had much confidence in Horizon's usefulness as a base for us."
"I'd agree. I don't believe much thought went into selecting it, but I don't suppose there was much choice at the time."
"Not for Avalon, but we're not rebels. We have more choices."
"Thankfully. I'll see you later. I've got some things I need to do on base." He sketched a goodbye and left.
Dayna will have to go with us, he thought as headed for the armoury instead of the mess hall. And Vila . . . and Avon. It was a small ship. It would be difficult for them to avoid each other now. Get over it, Del.
After some confusion he was finally compelled to ask directions to the armoury. They weren't much better than the directions Dase had given him for the Performance Under Pressure test, and he was half expecting to find a storage compartment when he palmed open the third door on the left.
Dayna, Jenna, and a man he didn't know looked around at him.
"Tarrant!" Dayna cried and embraced him lightly. "I've missed you." She added under her breath, "How was it?"
"Good," he murmured as she took his hand and led him over to where Jenna was sitting at the computer console. "What's going on here?"
"We were correct to suspect something wrong with the weapons Pendle was selling us," Jenna said. "Feld," the man nodded at Tarrant, "and Dayna have found that everything he sold me was defective. And it doesn't end there. Most of my shipments from Rabern, Kale, Halfrin, and Aber were bad too. It seems some of Pendle's 'peers' were working for the same boss, whoever that is."
"What can I do to help?" Tarrant asked.
Dayna started to answer when Jenna said, "You can start getting good with a hand gun. I have a feeling we're going to need all the help we can get."
"Right," Dayna agreed, opening a gun locker and pulling out a small, but powerful looking, gun. "This one can be set to range from 'light stun' all the way up to 'kill.' You can also adjust the spread of the bolt with this. I imagine you'll want a wide spread until you regain accuracy. Just remember if you have it set on 'kill' and 'wide,' it will drain the power sooner." She set it on light stun and handed it to him. "There's a target room through that door," she pointed. "You'll love the target."
He did. It was a fairly good portrait of Servalan. This was going to be satisfying. He'd wanted to nail her since they had met up on Virn last year.
Tarrant had practised for about an hour when he judged that Feld must be gone. He wanted to talk to Jenna and Dayna about getting away from Horizon and didn't want to cause a general panic amongst the base personnel.
Good, just Jenna and Dayna. "Captain, Dase told me you want to get away from Horizon for a while," he said.
"That's right. Even if we weren't followed all the way here, just plotting our general direction could have given someone a good idea of where to look for us. There's nothing else out here besides Horizon. It's only a matter of time before the Federation finds the base anyway. There has to be at least one spy in that collection of camp followers outside the base, and there's no protection here apart from three small, obsolete military craft—two, now that one has gone to Gauda Prime."
Tarrant's head jerked around. "Gauda Prime?"
Jenna looked both exasperated and worried. "Avon and Vila went back to get Orac."
"Avon's fit?"
Dayna answered, "No, but he was determined to go anyway. You know what he's like, Tarrant."
Yeah, I know what he's like, thought Tarrant. I never met a more stubborn person in my life. "And Vila went with him? Yes, of course Vila went with him. What am I saying?" He turned back to Jenna, "You're cutting ties with the rebels?"
"My sympathies are still with the Rebellion, but I can't give my life over to it entirely." She looked thoughtful for a moment. I truly tried to, Blake. "Besides, someone's going to start putting all our faces together and come up with several million credits. I think it's time we left."
"But," Dayna bit her lip, "I need to wait until Avon and Vila come back." The others looked at her questioningly. "I'm their safety net. Avon knew Avalon wouldn't permit contact with Base during their mission, and he didn't have much confidence in Wrell's people to get them back safely. He's been transmitting simple status signals to me. Just pulse codes, but enough to know if they're all right or not. He said if something went wrong to find you, Jenna. You'd know what to do."
"It's all right, Dayna. I wouldn't abandon them, though I had thought to get Lissa's and Dev's families to Teal and come back for Avon and Vila. I thought that would give Avon more time to take advantage of the medical facilities here," Jenna explained.
They grew silent, thinking furiously. Tarrant spoke first, "Could we leave the families here temporarily and start towards Gauda Prime? That way we would be close if there's trouble, and the families might be safer. Still," he paused, thinking out loud, "Gauda Prime is one of the most dangerous places I've ever been, in the air or on the ground. I'm not sure we'd be able to help Avon and Vila if they were in trouble on the surface. We might not make it down intact ourselves. We didn't the last time." When I lost Avon's ship for him—and caused him to kill his friend, he added silently.
"Tarrant!" Dayna protested. "We can't just leave them there!"
"I won't, Dayna. But maybe I can find some other way to get there that doesn't involve dragging everyone along with me and getting shot down," he explained.
"I know a perfect way to do it," Jenna smiled at them. "If you go in transmitting merchant's credentials, they'll welcome you with open arms."
"Could you do that somehow?" Dayna asked Tarrant.
"I'll have to get myself onto a merchant ship," he glanced at his empty sleeve, "somehow."
Youth. Jenna's smile broadened. She waited. Slowly Dayna and Tarrant registered comprehension. "You two have been thinking outside the law for too long," Jenna laughed. "I've got genuine merchant's credentials. I've been there several times. And I can find a legitimate cargo to take in and justify taking passengers out."
Dayna was delighted, "We're fixed then. What do you need me to do?"
"The Lady will be ready to leave tomorrow. You collect your belongings and take them to the ship now so that you can be ready to leave any time. You too, Tarrant. I'll go talk to the Brins and the Devrils and tell them that they'll have more time to get their families ready. Then I'll make arrangements for a cargo to take into Gauda Prime."
"I've already moved my things onto the ship," Tarrant explained. "I'll stay here and get in more target practice. I may be needing it."
"I'll get going. Dayna, when you take your belongings to the Lady, Dase will give you a locator so we can reach you when we're ready to go."
As soon as the door slid shut behind Jenna, Dayna pulled open a cabinet and took out a duffel.
"You've got your things here?" Tarrant asked.
"No, but we're going to need these." She began picking up and examining handguns, selecting several and tucking them into the bag with extra energy cells. Then she started sorting through various other devices on the shelves, selecting some at random and adding them to her collection. When the bag couldn't hold any more, she hoisted it up on her shoulder. Too heavy. "Here, take this to the ship now," she told Tarrant.
"But they're not ours," he protested half heartedly.
"They are now. Nobody's paid me for any of my work here. I've been testing and repairing weapons for five weeks now. They owe me. When you drop them at the ship, bring back that locator for me. Then you can stay and practice some more while I get everything out of my cabin. I'll come back and keep testing Jenna's gun shipments so everything will look normal." She saw the question on his face. You're not devious enough, Tarrant. "Jenna wouldn't want anyone to notice us doing anything out of the ordinary. I've been testing weapons, I'll keep on testing weapons until we're ready to leave. Now go on."
Tarrant left, trying to look as though the bag didn't weigh much, and Dayna grabbed some pocket comps and started downloading Avon's programmes.
Jenna wasn't really surprised to find the Brins and the Devrils ready to go. They were spacers' families, and they were used to living spare and leaving at a moment's notice. What did surprise her a little was their insistence on leaving Horizon now and not waiting for the Lady to return from Gauda Prime. Apparently Lissa and Dev were more nervous than she was about spending any more time on the rebel base. Better let Dase know those additional cabins needed to be ready now.
"Cap, we've got two of the cabins built. They're just starting on the third," Dase greeted her.
Jenna moved close and kept her voice low, "Everybody's going to have to get cozy, Dase. We don't have time for a third."
"It's probably just as well. I'm getting a little uncomfortable here myself."
"Why, did something happen?" Jenna asked quickly.
"No, but there's two dockworkers I don't like the looks of. They're not here now, so I can't point them out to you. I've never seen them before, and they don't seem to be very productive, for docking bay workers," Dase explained.
"You didn't let them on the ship, did you? No, of course you didn't," Jenna corrected herself.
"The only ones I let on the ship were Ben and Jerrell. They're good guys. Who's coming?"
"Dayna Mellanby—"
"Already here."
"And the Brins and the Devrils," Jenna finished.
"I've put Dayna in one of the new cabins, and Gilley can share with me. The Brins can share Lissa's cabin, and Cully and Linn can sort themselves out between the other new cabin and Dev's."
"I'll tell Dayna to stay on the ship, and then I'll find Tarrant. Can we be ready to go that quickly?"
"We're ready now," Dase replied.
Jenna found Tarrant practising in the armoury. "Come on, Tarrant, we're leaving now."
"So soon? I thought we were going to keep testing weapons to keep up appearances."
"I got nervous. I don't want to wait and see if something goes wrong for Avon and Vila. I have a feeling it will."
Tarrant followed her through to the inspection room and opened a cabinet to put away the gun he'd been using. He thought again and slipped it down into a thigh pocket instead. "Why do you think something's going to happen?"
"Because Dase said she saw a couple of dockworkers that made her nervous. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she said they didn't act quite right. Don't hurry, look casual." She smiled pleasantly at a passerby in demonstration.
She continued, sotto voce, "I've talked with the Brins and the Devrils. They're uneasy too. They'll be coming with us now instead of waiting. Do you need to get anything else on base?"
"No. Everything I have is on the ship." He smiled and nodded at a passerby. "Where's Dayna?"
"Already on board."
"Does Avalon know we're leaving?"
"I told her yesterday that I'd be leaving soon, just not when. She doesn't know about Dayna and the families. And she doesn't need to," Jenna added.
"Won't someone remark on the families leaving?"
"No, we sometimes take them on short holiday trips. No-one should think enough about it to tell Avalon. Hopefully if anyone's spotted Dayna boarding, they'll think she's going on holiday too."
"How are we going to get Avon and Vila? If the mission goes okay, they'll be heading back here while we're flying in circles. We can't just chase them down and board them in space."
Jenna smiled as though she'd enjoy doing just that. "A little too much like piracy? I certainly wouldn't be getting any more business from Avalon, would I? If they get back here, I'll contact them and tell Vila to get the two of them off the base. They can 'borrow' a surface vehicle and get far enough away that we can land and pick them up without being seen."
They reached the docking bay. Jenna motioned Tarrant to slow down and hang back. She nodded at a man and two adolescents, a boy and a girl, approaching the ramp. "The Devrils. Let them get out of sight before we board. A 'crowd' would draw attention."
Tarrant had never spaced with children. He was glad these weren't small. "Is it really fair to children? This kind of life, I mean."
"Is London Dome fair to children? Or anywhere else in the Federation? If there's a place that's 'fair' to children, I haven't found it yet. Not in the Federation anyway. I'm still planning on taking them to Teal as soon as we can. It's outside the Federation, for now at least. These two are lucky to be alive. Their parents were killed five years ago. I think the mother was Earn's sister. They didn't have any other family, and the Devrils wanted the children, so it's been happy for everyone. They're smart kids; they know when to help and when to keep out of the way. Let's go."
Lissa and Dev were prepping their stations for departure when Jenna and Tarrant reached the flightdeck. Another man, introduced as Arne Brin, was working at the ship's computer with Dayna. She was displaying items on one of her pocket comps for him, and he was punching keys rapidly.
Jenna sat down and keyed the intercom, "Dase, are you ready to go?"
"Ready, Cap."
"Everyone else?"
"Aye, Captain."
"Arne?"
"What I'm doing here won't interfere. You can go any time." He turned back to the computer.
"Let's get out of here," Jenna said.
Vila thought perhaps Wrell's people—Wrell's Raiders, as Avon had begun calling them unkindly—might like to bask in a little reflected glory, so he sought them out for some friendly card games.
"Hello there! I'm Vila Restal. Mind if I join you?"
The Raiders moved around on the benches to make room for him. "Please do, sir," the pretty blonde specialist invited. Vila was no fool; he sat beside her.
"Just call me Vila," he told them. "What do you folks do for entertainment around here?"
"We've been playing Aces Over. Would you care to play, si—Vila?" the freckled specialist corrected himself.
"I don't think I've played that before. How does it go?"
Twenty minutes later, Vila had lost just enough to keep them hungry and talkative. He didn't need marked cards with this bunch; they were terrible players. "Where did you get your training?" he asked, frowning at his hand.
The black haired specialist answered, "On Horizon. We joined the Rebellion from different places and met on Horizon when we were sent there for training. Sub-commander Chelsin trained us. He was in the Federation military for a short time before he joined Avalon." He discarded one card and drew another, rearranging the cards in his hand.
Pretty Blonde picked up the card and discarded one of her own. "Where did you get your training, Vila?"
"Training? Oh, I never had any formal training. Mine was strictly practical." Vila unwisely discarded two cards and drew two more. "I met Avon when we led a mutiny on a Federation high security ship. They were taking us to a maximum security facility." There was no need to tell them Blake had led the mutiny with a handful of common criminals and that Vila accidentally helped quell it by getting confused and dropping his gun at a crucial moment. Besides, he never dropped guns anymore.
"We were on the run for eight years, striking at the Federation, obtaining funds for the Rebellion, breaking people out of Federation custody. You know the sort of thing. That's how I met Avalon. We got her out of an interrogation facility on an ice planet.
"Mind you, it wasn't all the Rebellion. We also helped other folks in trouble. Restored President Sarkoff of Lindor; terminated Cancer, the famous assassin; interrupted the drug trade at Space City." No need to mention he was staggering around the Liberator thoroughly drunk and uselessly hungover throughout the Space City operation. "Have any of you ever been on Gauda Prime before?"
"Sub-commander Chelsin has, but none of the rest of us. What's it like?" Freckles asked.
"Very pretty to look at, very deadly to deal with," Vila answered.
Blackie rearranged his hand and discarded. "Didn't you have a local woman with you there?"
Vila suddenly felt very sad and very sorry for these inexperienced kids. "Yes, she was a native of Gauda Prime, and she'd grown up in that deadly place. It still got her in the end. Keep that in mind. The planet itself isn't the problem; it's the nasty characters that have overrun it. They'll kill you in an instant and enjoy it."
Pretty Blonde laid down her hand for display. "This one's mine, boys."
The rest of them groaned and tossed down their cards. Pretty Blonde started gathering them up. "Another hand?"
Vila stood. "Too rich for me. You're all too good for this old man. I need to be getting back to Avon anyway. He may be needing my help. I'll play you again after the mission's over." He paused at the door, "Remember what I said: Gauda Prime will try to kill you. Be careful."
Jenna tapped her fingers nervously on the flight console, then stopped and looked at them. She returned her hand to her lap. She'd once snapped at Cally for doing that. Mostly she tried not to think of Cally. Vila had told her, in fits and starts, how Cally had died. When you're young, you don't think about how easily friends could die. When you're older, you don't want to.
She thought about how terrible it would be to lose Avon or Vila, her only friends left from those days on the Liberator. The finest ship in the galaxy, and hers to fly. Somehow that seemed to her to have been the most important, the best, part of her life. She couldn't bear to lose those two. It would hurt more than Blake, she decided.
They were two hours out from Lylas, where they were going to pick up a cargo of entertainment media for Gauda Prime. Ordinarily it was a profitable cargo: compact, with a high value. She could have turned a nice profit on Gauda Prime—people there were desperate for new entertainment materials. But this time she was going to have to pay a high price for getting the cargo on such short notice, more than she would get for it on Gauda Prime. She'd have to dip into her reserves to refuel.
She glanced around and smiled when Gilley Devril stepped through the door carefully, carrying a cup tray with three sealed mugs nestled in it. "I brought coffee, everyone."
"Thanks, Gilley. Why don't you stay for a while and study the flightdeck systems?" Jenna suggested.
"Thank you, Captain Stannis. I'd appreciate that." She handed around the coffee and joined Dev at the navigator's console. They were soon murmuring questions and answers.
Jenna watched them, amused. She knew the coffee was more than just refreshments for the crew. Gilley wanted to fly someday. She was methodically working her way through the ship's systems, learning everything she could. Her brother was probably down in the engine room working on some worthwhile task assigned by Dase. He preferred the more mechanical aspects of the ship. Jenna enjoyed spacing with the children. They always took her out of herself.
"I can see why you'd want to stay on the Lady, Tarrant. It's a neat little ship, and the crew are super," Dayna was saying. They had squeezed into the galley for their first chance to talk since departure. "I have to ask though, have you made a decision about a prosthesis?"
"Yes, I'm going to need one. I can do an adequate job handling the ship with one arm, but I really need two if I want to fly. And I mean really fly. If it had been me instead of Captain Stannis on the flightdeck when we were attacked, I couldn't have done the things she was able to do with the ship. I'll be saving every credit I can get my hands on."
"Avon and Vila can probably find a way to help."
Tarrant's checks warmed, and he looked down into his coffee. "Yes, well, I don't think I could ask Avon to help."
"Why not? You can't stay angry with him forever, Tarrant."
He jerked his head up. "What?"
"I said you can't stay angry with him forever."
"I'm not angry with him. Why do you think that?"
"Because you wouldn't go see him in the medical unit," she said, puzzled. "Why didn't you go see him?"
"Because I figure Avon's glad to see the back of me forever."
"Why would he be? Did something happen that I don't know about?"
Tarrant was puzzled now too. "After I lost his ship for him? After four years of my smart-assed challenges to his authority?" He ducked his head again. "After Blake?"
"Blake? What did you have to do with Blake?"
"I screwed up. I misunderstood. I caused Avon to think Blake was betraying him and to kill him. Causing a man to kill his friend is about as bad as you can get, Dayna."
"Blake? . . . Tarrant, you don't know, do you?"
His head came up again. "Know what?"
"About Blake."
Puzzled, he shook his head mutely.
"You were right, Tarrant, Blake was betraying Avon. He was betraying everyone. The whole base was a set up for getting Avon. Blake was working for the Federation—possibly even Servalan," she added darkly.
He tried to assimilate what she was saying. "Does Avon know?"
"He does now. Vila told him. And I must say it made a difference in him. He didn't seem to really care whether he recovered or not until then. After Vila told him, he started acting like Avon again. That was a relief, I can tell you."
She got up to put her mug away in the autowash, saying, "Avon will be on this ship in a few days. You'll see, Tarrant; he's not angry with you. Look, I have to get back to work now. I'm improving the scatter guns, and I want them in good shape before we get to Gauda Prime. We may need them, in spite of Jenna's confidence in having merchant's credentials. I'll tell you some more about Blake later. You're not going to believe what a phony he was."
Tarrant sat staring for a few minutes after she'd gone. Blake was a traitor. He'd tried to kill or capture Avon for the Federation. Avon was so perverse he might still blame Tarrant for killing Blake—Tarrant had never understood Avon—but maybe he wouldn't blame Tarrant for Blake. Good, then. That just leaves my smart-assed behaviour and losing his ship for him. Avon's going to love me.
Prestell stuck his head through the door and hissed, "He's coming." The three mission specialists in the cabin waited and watched. Avon walked slowly past their door, looking neither left nor right, and continued down the corridor. His body guards were with him as usual.
When he was out of earshot, Freckles said knowingly, "He's going to give orders to the sub-commander or pilot." The others nodded wisely in agreement.
Prestell stuck his head through the door and hissed, "He's coming." The three mission specialists in the cabin waited and watched. Avon walked slowly past their door, looking neither left nor right, and continued down the corridor. His body guards were with him as usual. Prestell stuck his head through the door and hissed, "He's coming." The three mission specialists in the cabin waited and watched. Avon walked slowly past their door, looking neither left nor right, and continued down the corridor. His body guards were with him as usual. Prestell stuck his head through the door and hissed, "He's coming." The three mission specialists in the cabin waited and watched. Avon walked slowly past their door, looking neither left nor right, and continued down the corridor. His body guards were with him as usual."He doesn't look all that special, does he?" Blackie said. "Just from looking at him, you wouldn't think he single-handedly wiped out that turncoat Blake and three of his bodyguards would you?"
"I heard it was five bodyguards," offered Pretty Blonde. "And that was after successfully evading entire fleets sent to hunt him for eight years. I heard he's a fantastic pilot."
"He also designed the major systems on that supership, Liberator," added Freckles.
"And disarmed a string of neutron bombs on Albion," Blackie said.
Avon and his "bodyguards" passed the doorway again on their way back to their cabin. Pretty Blonde watched him thoughtfully. She decided he was really quite handsome, if a little old. He must be at least forty-five.
It was their third promenade around the ship, Task walking beside Avon in case he got wobbly, and Vila bringing up the rear. Task had been willing to accept the walks as adequate therapy, much to Avon's relief, and they had been good cover for adding to their store of "personal items." The list should be complete after this walk. The crew were still somewhat in awe of "the Avenger of Gauda Prime"; Avon would have thought the novelty stale by now. He smiled at the irony. At one time the various Rebel factions had been united in holding up Blake as their beau ideal. Then they were united in cursing him as a traitor. Now the rebels undoubtedly believed Avon was their new champion. The irony was that Avon wasn't even a rebel.
They regained the sanctuary of their cabin, and Avon sat down gratefully. He had been standing and walking as much as possible when he was in their cabin–self-imposed extra therapy—and he was tired now. He watched Vila and Task pull items from their pockets. Task was almost as good a thief as Vila, and he could conceal larger items, being larger than Vila.
They now had nine guns, six knives, camouflage suits, night vision visors, extra large survival blankets, a third pocket comp, flavourless but lightweight concentrate cubes, collapsible water bottles and purification tablets, some lengths of rope, field medical packs, and two large knapsacks to replace the smaller ones Avon brought. Task was splitting their gear up amongst the two large knapsacks.
Their travels around the ship—and Vila's lamentable lack of talent with cards— had also confirmed their previous assessment of the crew and Wrell's people: young, confident, and too inexperienced to know just how very wrongly plans could go. With that in mind, the trio had acquainted themselves with the locations of the nearest life capsules and were careful to stay together. The capsules were designed to carry two combatants and their equipment comfortably. When no-one was around, they'd tested how to get the three of them and their equipment inside. It would be a tight fit, but they could manage. Avon had noted the emergency beacon frequency they used and programmed the pocket comps to track it.
Avon set one of the pocket comps to wake them in nine hours, about one hour before they were due to reach Gauda Prime. They wanted all the sleep time they could get.
"Avalon, Security Director Jethra is here to see you."
"Thank you, Riece. Send her—"
Jethra came through the door before she could finish. "We may have been compromised, Avalon.
"What happened?"
"We found two dockworkers, Samuels and Tomas, dead. Their bodies were left in a maintenance crawlway. They were stabbed, probably sometime yesterday."
"Yesterday? And no-one noticed their absence?" Avalon asked incredulously.
"They had no families, and they weren't due on shift until this morning. The dock foreman sent someone round to shake them out of bed about midmorning. He thought they'd tied one on last night and were sleeping it off. It wouldn't be the first time. He wasn't surprised that they weren't in their cabins. They've spent the night out before. People will be people, Avalon. Even rebels."
"How did they come to be found?"
"Routine maintenance on the solid fuel weight gauges."
Avalon sighed, "Couldn't it be a simple homicide?"
"Two people? If it were just one, I'd say that could be it. I'd be looking around for someone angry enough to kill. Those two lived their lives out in the open. If they'd made someone that angry, other people would have commented upon it. I figure they stumbled upon something suspicious."
Avalon got up and walked slowly around to the front of her desk to stand nearer Jethra. "I suppose until you find out who did it, there's no way to know if it was a Federation agent or another rebel group, is there?"
"No. Does it matter? Anyone who would murder to hide their activities means us harm, Avalon. And that someone is probably in contact with a whole group of people who mean us harm." Jethra placed her hand on Avalon's arm. "I don't think we have the luxury of conducting 'business as usual' while we investigate. We need to leave this place as soon as possible."
Avalon returned to her chair and sat down tiredly. "I know, Jethra, but we're short one ship and don't know when it will be back. We can't possibly get everyone out in two ships."
"It could be worse than that. We don't know about the integrity of the two ships we've got. Consider the places Samuels and Tomas were likely to have encountered suspicious activity, Avalon. Those ships can't leave until we're sure of them."
"All right. You get with the supervisors responsible for the docking facilities and ship maintenance, and the pilots. Let them know what's happened. They can get started inspecting the ships. Riece can meet with the other department heads. I'll try to get an audience with Ro and see if he can shelter some of our people temporarily."
"Right away," Jethra acknowledged. She turned back from the door. "You realize once we start with these meetings, whoever is responsible will know we're planning to flee."
"They probably know already, Jethra."
About two hours before Gauda Prime, the bustling and scurrying on the ship woke Avon and his companions. Vila checked the time and grumbled, "They should have had themselves ready to go all along, like we are. Why did they wait until now to do it, making such a fuss?"
Avon sat up and rubbed at his face. "They're young, Vila. They think they're invulnerable. Survival is still just a game to them."
Task was more awake. "Probably just as well to be early. It'll give us time to eat some more concentrates. And we'll keep eating as long as we have access to the stores on the ship. You never know when something could go wrong. They might get your computer back to the ship only to get us shot down on takeoff. So I'll get the concentrates, and you and Vila take advantage of the shower. After that, no more moving around, Avon. As of now, no therapy. I want you as fresh as possible at all times. I'll be right back."
No therapy. Avon had a little spring in his step as he got up. "Well, come on, Vila. Let's get cleaned up."
They were changing into fresh clothes when Task returned, arms and pockets full of concentrate paks. "I'll snag a shower, and you two start eating. Then we wait."
Vila picked up some paks. "What would you like, Avon? Roast chicken or chopped vegetables? I wonder why they bother chopping them when they're just going to mash them into paste anyway?"
"Does it matter? It all tastes the same. Give me one of each. I'll alternate."
The pile of empty concentrate paks had grown to a considerable size when they reached Gauda Prime airspace, which announced itself by bouncing and shaking the ship. Task dropped his pak and begin pulling the knapsacks out. "That's our cue!"
The ship shuddered again, harder. "What's going on!" Vila demanded, half standing.
"Sit down, Vila," Avon ordered. "I imagine we've made the acquaintance of the local patrol again." He lay down on his bunk and pulled the tabs for the safety web.
Task did the same. Vila threw himself into his bunk and pulled the tabs.
"I had a feeling something like this could happen," Task said.
"We're not firing back," Avon added. The ship shook violently and began vibrating slightly.
"Why not?" Vila shouted over the noise of rumbling.
"The guns have been sabotaged," Task shouted back. "When I was boarding, I noticed the crew were letting dock workers swarm all over this ship without supervision." Occasional deep clanging had begun.
"Can't they fix the guns, then?"
Avon joined the shouting contest, "It was probably done from the outside, where the crew can't reach them in flight."
Task unfastened his safety web. "Roll out onto the floor and stay there. Start crawling to the first life capsule on the left. I'll bring the knapsacks. Hurry!"
By the time they reached the capsule, there was smoke in the corridor. A loud klaxon was nearly rupturing their eardrums, and a panic-tinged voice was shouting through the intercom, "Abandon ship! Abandon ship!"
Vila nearly threw Avon into the capsule, and Task shoved Vila in after him. He threw the knapsacks in on top of Vila and wedged himself inside. "Everybody ready?"
"Yes!" Avon and Vila chorused.
"Let's go!" Task pulled the ejection handle.
Suddenly the noise and shaking stopped. They were free falling through space—unnoticed, they hoped. Vila was the only one who could see out of the tiny port. Gauda Prime looked awfully far away. "I hope this is a softer landing than the one I had during the War. I can't do with another broken arm."
Task reassured him, "It'll be softer. These capsules are designed to get troops down in a fit state to fight." Prophetically the capsule jolted and slowed its descent. "See, it'll get even slower the closer we get." He reached over and shut off the automatic homing beacon as Avon was raising his own hand to do it. "Let's not advertise." He pulled some concentrate paks out of his pockets and passed them around. "Dessert," he smiled.
