Blake thought about this for a while, waiting for the ache in his chest to subside. ‘I imagine it was hatred,’ he said eventually.
‘Don’t confuse hatred with indifference.’
‘You mask your indifference very badly.’
Blake glanced sidelong at Avon, to gauge his reaction. Avon continued to stare impassively out into the blackness beyond the edge of the galaxy, and his expression gave nothing away.
‘Were you sincere in what you said, Avon?’
That seemed to get his attention. He stopped looking into the distance, and started looking at Blake. After what seemed to Blake like a long time thinking, Avon said: ‘I made you a promise. You know me well enough to understand what that means.’ He was studying Blake for a reaction. ‘We’ve pulled back for a short while to let the auto-repair systems do their work.’
Perhaps Avon thought he was questioning his strategy, not his motives. Blake nodded at the vista through the viewing portal. ‘I’ve been watching the battle from here. Those aren’t Federation ships. They can’t be.’
Avon nodded agreement. ‘The nearest Federation squadron is overdue. That jumble of ships you see are from the nearest frontier planets, Blake. They’ve rallied to the cause. That must… please you.’
Blake made a dismissive gesture with his uninjured arm. ‘They didn’t need me to do that.’
‘It’s not always about you.’
Blake decided to let that one go. He was still pondering what Avon had told him about those distant ships. Pinpoints of light, flaring up like distant dying stars. But in truth, they were ships dying. People dying. ‘They can’t think that they could possibly survive an onslaught like this.’
‘And we did?’
Blake wasn’t sure from Avon’s tone whether he thought Liberator and her crew could survive or not. Certainly not on their own. And here, before his eyes, was an ad hoc flotilla of humans – civilians, to be precise – putting themselves in the line of fire. Another flare of distant light told the story of another death. Bigger than the other explosions. Was that a mining vessel? A cruiser? How many had perished?
‘Look at them, Avon. They’re prepared to fight to the death against an alien invasion.’ Blake had finally acknowledged what was puzzling him. ‘Why didn’t they do this when their own kind threatened them? Why didn’t they rise up against the Federation?’ It made him baffled. It made him angry. ‘When we needed them?’
‘When you needed them,’ said Avon.
‘And soon,’ continued Blake, his voice rising in the quiet room, ‘they’ll be fighting alongside the Federation. Strange allies.’
He heaved a deep breath. His heart was racing. In the sudden silence of the room, the clock’s tick sounded louder than ever.
‘The people you choose as allies don’t have to be your friends,’ Avon told him quietly. ‘They just have to be the enemy of your enemy.’
For a while they stood in silence, and watched the changing patterns of lights in the far distance. The ebb and flow of control in a far-off struggle. Blake itched to be involved again. But he’d made his agreement with Avon. And he was still struggling with his injuries.
‘I told you that I’ve always trusted you, Avon. And I meant it.’
‘I expect you to keep your promise,’ replied Avon. ‘It would be a mistake to betray me.’
They stood in silence. After several minutes, Avon pointed through the view port at something far up and to their left. ‘Look over there.’
‘Where? Ah…’
Orange-red points of light, grouped in threes to form triangles that arrowed towards the conflict.
‘A familiar formation,’ said Avon. ‘One we’ve previously tried very hard to avoid.’
It was a detachment of pursuit ships. Odd how reassuring it was to see them on this occasion, Blake reflected. ‘Our strange allies are starting to arrive.’ He noticed that Avon’s foot was moving, almost tapping the floor in anticipation. He clearly wanted to be elsewhere.
‘When Liberator‘s auto-repairs are complete, Blake, we’ll join them.’
The sound of the intercom chime was loud and unexpected. Cally’s worried voice filtered into the quiet of the room. ‘Avon? Where are you? There are Federation ships arriving.’
Avon had already moved swiftly over to the intercom. ‘Yes, all right. We’ve seen them.’
There was a short pause on the other end before Cally asked: ‘We?’
‘I’m coming back now,’ Avon said.
‘Avon, what did you –?’
But Avon had already disconnected. He switched off the intercom completely, just as he’d found it when he’d first arrived. Blake wondered if that was because Avon didn’t want Cally to call back, or because he was going to leave Blake alone and undisturbed.
The door hummed open, and the sounds of the ship began to permeate the room once more.
There was something else, thought Blake. Despite everything about his body language that spoke of his intention to leave, Avon still lingered by the doorway.
‘Why did you really come here, Avon?’ Blake turned his back on the window. ‘What do you need me to do?’
Avon laughed. Maybe he’d known Blake would work it out before he made his intentions plain. ‘There is a planetoid almost within teleport distance. Orac thinks there is a small chance that it conceals a Federation weapons system.’
Blake didn’t reply. He’d wanted Avon to tell him specifically. To ask him.
‘The others are needed on Liberator,’ smiled Avon. ‘But you are…’
‘Expendable?’
‘Available.’
Blake waited just long enough for Avon’s smile to waver. ‘All right. Enough observing. I can make myself… available for duty.’ He took a couple of steps towards Avon, wondering whether he should offer his hand to formalise the agreement. The effort made his wound ache again, and he stifled a groan.
‘Do you need anything?’ Avon asked him, cool and calm.
‘Just get me to the teleport,’ said Blake.
He strode past Avon as confidently as he felt able, determined to be the first out of the room.
Chapter 7
Taking Sides
Cally was quietly furious with Avon. He had not been prepared to let her investigate this mysterious planetoid, and had left the flight deck with merely a cryptic comment. He wouldn’t trust her to take the initiative, but was equally unwilling to explain what he was doing.
‘Zen, where is Avon at the moment?’
‘THAT INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE.’
Cally scowled. ‘Which room in Liberator did I just connect to on the intercom?’
‘THAT INFORMATION MAY NOT BE PROVIDED.’
‘May not be…?’ She tried to hold her temper.
‘When Avon doesn’t want to be tracked down,’ Vila observed mildly, ‘there’s no point in trying.’ He put his hands behind his head and relaxed into his flight seat. ‘Let him get on with it. We’re safe enough here.’
‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ Jenna said. She was reviewing systems status. ‘Those aliens haven’t gone away. We’ll be back in the fray soon enough.’
‘Putting ourselves in harm’s way,’ he said.
Jenna tutted at him. ‘Going to the rescue of that flotilla from the frontier worlds. And the Federation fleet is due at any minute.’
Vila closed his eyes. ‘Now might be a good time for a nap, then.’
‘Orac, where is Avon?’ asked Cally.
‘You’re wasting your time.’ Vila hadn’t even opened his eyes. ‘Avon took Orac’s key. As usual.’
Cally felt her frustration boiling over. Jenna was busy, Vila didn’t care, and even Zen seemed to be in league with Avon. The only way she was going to track him down was to go and look for him herself.
She pondered her recent conversation with Avon over the intercom. It was plain from his incautious comment that he was working with someone else. And it didn’t take a head count around the flight deck to work
out that person must be Blake. Who ought to be concentrating on recovering from his injuries.
Without a further word to the others, Cally left for the medical unit.
* * *
Blake set off at a rapid pace as soon as he left the observation deck. Avon stayed a step or two behind him – he didn’t want to put more pressure on the injured man than Blake was already putting on himself. Let him prove to his own satisfaction he was ready for this mission, Avon decided. Besides, Avon wasn’t entirely sure Blake was up to it.
Once or twice, Blake took a wrong turning. Avon allowed him make the correction without comment, and studiously avoided meeting his eye whenever he looked across at him to check for a reaction. What conversation they had was stilted, and Blake seemed to reserve his strength for the effort of walking rather than talking.
Blake would need all his energy to survive down on the planetoid. From what Zen had discovered about Megiddo, the surface was freezing. So en route to the teleport area, they took a short detour into the stores, to obtain and unpack a thermal suit. The medipack could not fit inside it, and so Avon helped him carefully into the suit, conscious that pulling the one-piece over Blake’s torso and shoulders must be extremely painful.
With Blake suited up, they rounded the corner to the teleport area. Blake made an effort to remain upbeat, and explained to Avon he had every confidence that leaving him on board with the rest of the crew was the correct decision. As though, Avon reflected, it was actually Blake’s decision to make now. Let him think that, if it made things easier.
Blake slowed to a halt as they entered the room. He leaned heavily on the teleport control desk. ‘I know that you’ll look after them, Avon.’
‘I’m moved by your confidence in me.’ Avon wondered if Blake still had any strength left to make it to Megiddo. His face had turned a worryingly grey colour and his breathing was irregular. Perhaps the adrenaline shot he’d taken before suiting up was taking its time to kick in.
Avon picked up a teleport bracelet from the rack, and handed it to Blake. He wasn’t sure at this stage whether Blake had the energy or the inclination to get one for himself.
Blake slipped the bracelet around his wrist, and clicked it shut. ‘Have you worked out the destination coordinates?’
Avon reached behind him, and adjusted the teleport locator. It whined as the cross-hairs resolved on the display.
‘There.’ Avon indicated where the teleport was set. ‘It’s as close as I can get you to the entrance. You should turn up the dial on that suit. It’s going to be cold down there.’
Blake cranked up the control, and even seemed to relax a little as the heat began permeating his clothing. With a little grunt, he levered himself off the edge of the control desk, and walked slowly into the teleport area. ‘All right. I’m ready.’
‘Ready for what?’ asked a voice in the doorway.
It was Cally. She glared accusingly at Blake, and then favoured Avon with an even darker look. ‘Blake was not in the medical unit. I suspected something like this. Avon, you cannot let Blake take such a risk. Not in his condition.’
‘Can’t I be the judge of that?’ asked Blake, and squared his shoulders. The effect was somewhat undercut by his accompanying wince.
Avon dropped his eyes to the desk, and began to lock in the teleport coordinates. ‘He’s the only person we can spare, Cally.’
‘And I’m moved by Avon’s confidence in me,’ added Blake sarcastically. Cally tried to interrupt, but Blake forestalled her with a gesture. ‘No, don’t argue, Cally.’
Avon was astonished when Cally turned on her heel and left the room without another word. But he was even more surprised when she reappeared carrying a thermal suit. She was already pulling it on as she spoke. ‘I see you will not be persuaded.’
‘What are you doing, Cally?’ groaned Blake.
She smiled sweetly at him as she fastened the final clip on her suit.
‘I am going with you.’ She took a teleport bracelet from the rack, and awkwardly fitted it around the cuff of her thick glove. ‘Now, you should not argue with me, Blake.’
Avon and Blake exchanged resigned looks.
‘Very well,’ said Blake. He indicated the dial on Cally’s suit. ‘Turn that thing up. It’s going to be cold.’
Avon wasn’t yet convinced. ‘You can’t be spared to nursemaid him, Cally. We need everyone on board.’
‘Everyone?’ Blake’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
‘You cannot stop me, Avon.’ Cally wasn’t amused. ‘This is not your ship yet.’
‘Thank you for “yet”,’ said Avon.
‘I know that Liberator is what you want most of all,’ she said. ‘But my people have a saying, Avon –’
‘I was afraid they might.’
‘They say: Before you desire, you should deserve.’
Avon placed his hands palm-down on the counter. ‘I have a saying too: Blake can handle this alone.’
‘It’s her choice, Avon,’ Blake observed mildly.
Cally moved over to join Blake in the teleport area. ‘Avon, there will be no requirement for you to remain here on station.’
‘I have no intention of remaining here on station.’
Blake and Cally stood, side by side, in the teleport area. Their faces were turning pink as the thermal suits boosted their temperatures, in anticipation of Megiddo’s freezing conditions. They didn’t say a word. Avon wondered if he should let them turn lobster red before he made a decision.
Instead, he enabled the teleport activation switches on the desk before him. ‘Very well,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll teleport you both down. If for any reason Liberator has to leave the area, and the auto-repairs are complete, we will not wait for you. Either of you. We will be gone. Your ship will have sailed.’
Blake seemed amused. ‘Whose ship, Avon?’
Avon didn’t answer. He had already activated the teleport. Before his eyes, Blake and Cally rippled out of existence.
‘Goodbye, Blake,’ he said to the empty room. ‘And good luck.’
The words had barely left his lips before a howling alarm sounded throughout the Liberator, echoing and re-echoing down the corridors.
Avon leapt to his feet, looking around himself in apprehension. ‘What the hell is that?’
As if in answer, the intercom chimed, its insistent note cutting through the cacophony.
‘Avon?’ Vila’s panic was evident through the speaker. ‘Avon! Get back here! We’re under attack!’
Chapter 8
Cold Welcome
The surface of the planetoid was nothing that Cally had anticipated. Blake had been right about their preparation. Cally was shivering, despite the heat in her thermal suit. She fumbled awkwardly with its dial through the fingers of her thick gloves.
‘Are you all right, Blake?’ she shouted. Her words were snatched away by the howling wind even as she spoke them. She turned to see if he could see she was talking, but he was staring off into the distance. Or what distance there was – the marked curved of the horizon was barely visible through the sheets of water that swept across the pitted white surface of the planetoid. This lashing rain seemed to whip horizontally at them. The noise of the wind ebbed and flowed. It was oddly like the sound of a crowd, she thought.
She yelled again, just as Blake turned in her direction. His eyes were wide behind his goggles, and his lower face was masked, so it was hard to fully discern his expression. He pulled the scarf away from his mouth clumsily. Cally wondered why, until she saw him lift his teleport bracelet up to his mouth. The device chimed faintly beneath the continued shriek of the wind.
‘Down and safe,’ he said, then sighed in exasperation when he worked out that his voice was inaudible. His breath sparkled into condensation, before even that was blown away. ‘Down and safe,’ he yelled again. ‘And freezing!’
Cally leaned in closer to him, sheltering the teleport bracelet between their bodies in the hope they might hear the response better. The
re was no answer from Liberator.
‘Avon?’ shouted Blake. ‘Avon!’
Even with the volume cranked right up on the bracelet, Cally could only hear the faintest static crackle from it. ‘He said he would not remain on station,’ she shouted at Blake.
‘Or it may just be this storm,’ Blake replied. A huge shudder seemed to shake his whole body. ‘Oh, it’s worse than I’d expected. So cold it stings!’
Blake was stooped over. Was it his injuries, or was he just trying to compensate for the brutal, disorienting weather that swirled around them?
Cally tugged her scarf away from her mouth, and leaned in closer to Blake. ‘We have to get under cover.’
He nodded vigorously to emphasise his agreement. He positioned his face close to hers, so she could hear him better. ‘Avon managed to put us down close to an access shaft. You can see the hatch, over there?’
He pulled away from her, and made a broad, clear gesture to indicate what he was talking about. So, that was what he had been staring at when they first arrived.
A raised lump of rock jutted awkwardly from the surface of the planetoid, about forty metres from where they stood shivering. A curving line of smaller boulders led towards it, around a flat white expanse of ice and slush. Fixed into the rock was a stark round metal door, with an old-fashioned hatch wheel set in the middle. Even from here, it looked rusted.
Blake took a couple of steps towards it. Above the noise of the storm, Cally could hear an ominous cracking sound. A stark line appeared by Blake’s feet, tapering away from him towards the access hatch.
Cally tugged at Blake’s thermal suit. ‘Careful!’ she shouted. ‘The ice is breaking beneath you.’
Blake staggered away from the crack. He huddled close to Cally again so that they could hear each other better. ‘We must be too heavy for it.’
‘You must be too heavy for it,’ she teased him. ‘It was fine until you started walking.’
Cally thought of the information that Avon had been able to glean about Megiddo. Everything they had reviewed back on the Liberator flight deck. She remembered an image that illustrated the planetoid’s eccentric path through this sector. ‘Megiddo’s orbit has brought it back near its sun,’ she said to Blake. ‘The surface temperature has risen very quickly. That’s started to melt the ice.’
Blake’s 7: Warship Page 4