Just behind them he could see the body of their mother, slumped against the wall like one of Tala’s discarded dolls, one hand outstretched towards her daughters, as though she were trying to reach them. The blood that stained the wall above her was so vivid in the flickering light from the fire, so red. It was as though it were the only colour left in the world, everything else was constructed in drab blacks and grubby whites. Tears stung the corners of Kodyn’s eyes. He felt like screaming until his throat was ragged and raw, until all the breath had been ejected from his lungs, all the life expelled from his body.
That’s when he saw his gun. It was lying a few metres away, exactly where he had dropped it, half-hidden behind a pile of fallen masonry.
Kodyn kicked away from the wall and fell forward, one hand reaching towards the gun, the other clawing at the empty air, desperately trying to hold on to something, anything, that would halt his fall.
The tall trooper struck out at him again, this time fetching him a good whack on the base of his skull with the butt of his laser rifle, and Kodyn went down.
The last thing that Kodyn heard were his young daughters’ screams as the Federation troopers dragged them out of the ruined building and into the bitter night air. Then something hit him a second time and Kodyn tumbled down into darkness.
PART ONE
Ghosts
CHAPTER ONE
The flight deck seemed different without Gan: emptier, somehow incomplete.
Vila Restal had spent a great deal of his time since Gan’s death trying to make up his mind whether it was worth sticking around on the Liberator anymore. Sure, he liked Blake, there was no doubt about that, even trusted him still—well, up to a point—but he couldn’t help feeling that things had suddenly and irrevocably changed.
For a start he didn’t feel safe anymore, not without Gan watching his back. Whatever the situation, he was a good man to have on your side, even with the limiter implant in his head. Vila had always said that a man like Olag Gan was worth his weight in Ephesian fire-gems.
Or, at least, he had been. Before he’d got himself killed at the Central Control back on Earth.
Correction: before Blake had got him killed.
By rights none of them should have stuck with Blake after that. Once they were aboard the Liberator again, and heading for the outer systems with the Earth at their backs, they should have divided up the fortune—the one Jenna had discovered, on the lower decks, behind the security door at the farthest end of the bulkhead—and gone their separate ways. No-one would have blamed them; in fact it would have probably been for the best.
Vila craned his neck, peering back over his shoulder at the empty navigation control module where Gan always sat.
They were supposed to be indestructible, weren’t they? A lone voice shouting in the darkness, unable to be silenced…or something along those lines. That was the story being told in the outer colonies, at any rate. Trouble was, the crew of the Liberator had been hearing it for so long now they’d started to believe it themselves. Especially Blake. And now they’d paid a terrible price for their arrogance.
An oval panel on the far wall flickered suddenly to life: a myriad of pale lights chasing one another across its smooth, convex surface. The voice that accompanied it was cold and expressionless, almost a parody of the human voices that currently inhabited the spaceship.
‘INFORMATION,’ Zen announced to the almost empty flight deck. ‘LIBERATOR IS NOW IN FIXED ORBIT 1,000 SPACIALS ABOVE SURFACE OF PLANET GERISS II, AND OUT OF RANGE OF FEDERATION OUTPOST SCANNING SYSTEMS.’
Vila looked up slowly, as though registering the presence of the ship’s computer for the first time. ‘So what?’ he shrugged, flicking idly at the control panel in front of him. ‘They’ll find us eventually and kill us one by one, just like poor old Gan. Sitting out here won’t make much difference. You mark my words, Zen, this is the beginning of the end for us all.’
‘PLEASE RE-STATE PARAMETERS OF YOUR LAST INSTRUCTIONS.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ Vila snapped back. ‘Hold current position and bring the long range detectors online.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
On the forward viewscreen, the planet spun in the inky darkness like a vast, sparkling emerald, the occasional patch of wispy grey-white cloud fluttering across its surface. Vila eyed the scene disdainfully for a second or two, before adding, ‘And turn the screen off.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
The viewscreen blinked off obediently, leaving Vila with nothing but his brooding thoughts and sullen temper for company. For a while he let the steady thrum of the Liberator’s engines wash over him, clearing his head.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all, cutting his losses and jumping ship at the first available planet. Well, maybe not the first available planet, Vila mentally amended. It would have to have certain amenities if I was going to be spending the rest of my life there. Certain inbuilt luxuries, designed to make life just that little bit more tolerable. Like a gambling suite. And a bar. Oh, and girls, of course. Lots of girls. After all, ‘the rest of my life’ is such a long time, I’ll need the odd distraction or two.
Come to think of it, Vila had heard of this one place, outside the Federation, called Freedom City…
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you. You’re obviously very busy at the moment.’
The voice broke Vila’s concentration, shattering all his fantasies into tiny little pieces—just as it was getting interesting, too. With a sigh he opened his eyes and looked around. Jenna was standing at the entrance to the flight deck, hands on hips, her head cocked inquisitively to one side.
‘You are disturbing me, actually,’ Vila told her, annoyance flecking his voice. ‘I’ve got some important decisions to make and I need to think about them carefully.’
Jenna’s eyes narrowed. ‘Funny how you always snore when you’re thinking about important things.’
‘Since when did it become a crime for a man to have dreams? Aspirations?’ Vila asked quickly. ‘Is it too much to ask to want something better than this?’ And he flapped a hand at the flight deck around him.
Jenna slid into the pilot module and checked something on her instrument panel. ‘You won’t have anything if a flotilla of Federation attack ships sneak up on us.’ She looked up, a smile fluttering across her lips. ‘None of us will. We’d be too busy orbiting this planet in tiny little bits to care.’
‘Everything’s fine. Zen’s taking care of all that.’
‘But it still needs one of us to monitor the situation,’ Jenna said. ‘All it takes is for one momentary lapse of concentration, Vila, and we’ll all end up like…’ She trailed off.
Vila’s voice was barely audible above the background chatter of the computer systems. ‘Say it. Just like Gan.’ There was a genuine sadness in his voice; he really did miss his old friend. ‘You can’t tell me that this hasn’t changed things. Gan died because of Blake. Doesn’t that worry you, even a little?’
‘What worries me more is that you didn’t see this coming.’ Avon had appeared at the top of the steps that led down onto the flight deck, a large, semi-translucent rectangular box clutched in his hands.
He took the steps carefully, clutching the box tightly to his body, stopping as he drew level with the pilot module. He turned to look at Jenna. ‘That none of you saw this coming.’ He walked past her, placing the box on the console in front of Zen, then he half-turned, glancing sideways at Vila. ‘Just count yourself lucky that it was Gan that died back there on Earth and not you.’ Avon paused, then added with a smile, ‘although your turn may come sooner than you think. You’re all in this until the bitter end. Blake will see to that.’
‘And you’re just tagging along for the ride, I suppose?’ Jenna asked. ‘Tell me, Avon, if you hate Blake that much why are you still here?’
Avon pulled a small operating key from his tunic pocket and held it in the air between thumb and forefinger. ‘Staying with Blake has certain…advantages. For th
e moment, anyway.’
He slotted the key into a small recess on the top of the box and it immediate burst into life. Tiny lights fluttered within its depths as rows of vacuum-sealed memory processors began to hum with power. As the box began to glow with a pale, internal light, there was an odd, strangulated cough, as though the thing was trying to clear its electronic throat.
When Avon addressed the box, he did so without looking at it, as though he didn’t much care for it. ‘Orac, transfer all military communications beamed out of Centero in the last twenty-four hours to the main viewscreen, then decode.’ He paused, considering for a moment or two. ‘Prioritise all messages tagged Security Code Alpha One. Filter out anything that doesn’t contain the word Archangel.’
‘Might I remind you that my programme functions and capabilities extend infinitely further than as a mere communications device. Asking me to perform such tasks is not only an insult but also a complete waste of my time and talents.’ The supercomputer spoke in the clipped, almost waspishly curt manner of its creator, Professor Ensor, a brilliant man, but insufferably arrogant—a characteristic he’d instilled in his creation before he died.
‘Personally I don’t care if you remind me of it or not,’ Avon told it, ‘as long as you transfer the messages to the screen while you’re doing it.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Orac replied irritably.
As the main viewscreen sprang into life Avon ordered Zen to bring the ship down to an orbital path of 800 spacials, hoping to use the planet’s ionosphere as a camouflage against long-range Federation detectors.
‘You’d better tell our illustrious leader to come to the flight deck,’ Avon said, once the Liberator’s retros had begun to manoeuvre them into a tighter orbit. ‘Thanks to Blake’s old friend Fleet Officer Tobin, I think I may have just found his next opportunity to get you all killed.’
*
‘It would help if I knew what I was looking at.’
Data flickered across the viewscreen in three neat columns; most of the information concerned itself with ship transponder frequencies, fleet positions and troop reassignment. All of it was good solid stuff, worth passing across to the separatist groups on the outer worlds, but so far Blake failed to see why Avon was making such a fuss about it.
‘And nothing strikes you as odd?’ Avon asked, pointing at the undulating data threads. ‘Look again, Blake. Training manoeuvres, military flight plans, cargo security details, all standard operational procedures and routine Federation intelligence. Yet everything up there on that screen was Alpha One security-coded using an encrypted cypher. Virtually impossible to break, unless you have one of these.’ He pointed across at Orac whose lights began to flash with barely contained annoyance.
There was a moment’s silence, then Blake’s forehead crumpled into an impatient frown. ‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense,’ he said. ‘I know you’re dying to tell us all.’
Jenna and Cally exchanged a smile.
‘Orac was able to filter out several strands of encoded data embedded within each of these messages,’ Avon said. ‘Strands purposefully hidden inside the data streams, and all containing the same word, used over and over again: Archangel. It would seem your friend, Tobin, was right’
Blake stopped pacing. ‘Archangel?’ There was something about that name that rang alarm bells somewhere at the back of his mind. It had been gnawing away at him ever since they’d received Tobin’s message twelve hours earlier. But where had he heard it before?
‘Does it mean something to you?’ Avon asked.
‘I’m not sure…’ Blake responded. ‘Maybe. Although there’s something I’m not quite seeing. Orac, what exactly is Archangel? Could it be some kind of weapon?’
‘It is possible,’ said Orac. ‘Although I have found no evidence so far to support this.’
‘So what have you found?’ Avon asked.
‘Archangel is the code name of a Federation project known only to those with the very highest level of security clearance.’ Orac said.
‘What sort of project?’ asked Blake.
‘I am continuing to search but a number of security firewalls are proving particularly problematic, even for me,’ said the computer. ‘All I can be certain of is that it was set up five years ago then shut down somewhat abruptly two years later. The order came directly from the President of the High Council himself.’
‘Things must have gone seriously wrong for the President himself to step in.’ Blake said. ‘Why was it stopped?’
‘I am unable to find a reason,’ said Orac. ‘There are gaps in the information that appear to have been made deliberately.’
‘Which would seem to imply that no one was supposed to know why it was stopped,’ said Blake.
‘Or that the project existed in the first place,’ said Avon. ‘That’s what makes it so intriguing—that of course, and the fact that these messages are recent. Which suggests that someone, somewhere is trying to start up the project again.’
‘Someone?’ said Cally. ‘I take it you mean outside the Federation?’
‘Or someone acting without the High Council’s authority,’ said Avon. ‘This “someone” is trying to start up the project again without drawing attention to themselves.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ said Cally. ‘Do we have any idea who was sending these messages?’
‘Or receiving them?’ Jenna added.
‘No,’ said Avon. ‘To both questions. I had Orac run a trace for any info-tags or serial idents on the strands, but there’s a hole in the data where they’ve been removed.’
‘Whoever it is, they’re certainly not taking any chances.’ Blake said. He folded his arms across his chest and stepped closer to the screen, peering intently at the flickering streams of data.
‘Or is that what he wants us to think?’ The voice belonged to Vila.
It was the first time he’d spoken since Blake had arrived on the flight deck. He was sitting in the curved seating area in front of the flight modules dealing himself a dummy hand from a deck of Auron cards. Blake had assumed that he hadn’t been listening to their conversation.
‘He? You think this might be down to Travis?’ Blake asked.
Vila flipped over a yellow double six and threw it onto the table with a sigh. His hand was now at forty-four with mixed colours; he’d busted himself out of the game. He looked across at the viewscreen as he scooped the cards up off the table and returned them to the deck.
‘It’s exactly the kind of thing he would try, if you ask me,’ Vila said. ‘I know none of you are asking me.’ He glanced at Avon. ‘And most of you don’t even care what I have to say…’
Impatiently Jenna held up a hand, cutting him off. ‘Get to the point, Vila.’
‘The point is, Travis knows we’re listening. He even knows that Orac is capable of intercepting all communications in and out of Centero. Unpicking a few encrypted threads is child’s play to him.’ Vila stuffed the deck of cards into his pocket and shuffled over to the small group clustered around the main viewscreen. ‘He’s been on our backs for a while. Now Gan’s dead, he’ll be eager to finish the job.’
‘One down, five to go,’ Jenna remarked carelessly, regretting it the moment she saw the flash of pain and guilt in Blake’s eyes.
‘We’re no longer indestructible, Blake,’ Vila said. ‘The Federation know that now. And more importantly Travis knows it.’
As much as it pained him to admit it, Blake knew that Vila was probably right. Something like this was certainly Travis’s style: feed them false information too tempting to ignore, lure them to a set of predetermined co-ordinates, then ambush them with a fleet of Hunter-Killers. Unoriginal, yes, bordering on the unimaginative, but then Space Commanders weren’t exactly known for their imagination, only their ruthlessness and unswerving arrogance. It had to be Travis. This thing had his fingerprints all over it.
But Blake also knew that he really had no choice in the matter. They had to take the risk. What if his first inst
incts were correct and Archangel was some sort of new weapon? It wasn’t like the Federation hadn’t tried it before. In fact it hadn’t been long since they’d stumbled across a project known as Imipak—a weapon so lethal it could kill at exceptional distances. If Servalan still had possession of that they’d probably all be dead by now. He really wouldn’t put it past Space Command to restart the project again, especially now that the dust had settled.
Or perhaps it was some new type of brain-conditioning device? That would also make sense, particularly after all those disturbing stories Blake had heard recently, coming out of the new colonies.
No, they had to find out what Archangel meant and why the Federation was going to such extraordinary lengths to keep it hidden. It could mean saving thousands of innocent lives.
Archangel.
Something about the word still worried him, but he had no idea why. And that worried him all the more.
Archangel.
Damn it. Why did he feel so uncomfortable when he thought about that word? He couldn’t help thinking that something was staring him right in the face, something important. But what was it? What was he missing?
He took a long, slow breath before finally making up his mind. Blake turned away from the screen, away from the endless ebb and flow of data, and addressed the oval panel on the wall to his left.
‘Zen, how long would it take Liberator to reach the Dionysus platform on a direct course through the Cyrus Nebula, speed Standard by eight?’
Lights danced to and fro along the panel as Zen fed the information into the necessary systems. ‘AT REQUESTED SPEED AND COURSE IT WOULD TAKE LIBERATOR PRECISELY 14 HOURS AND 32 MINUTES TO REACH THE LEISURE FACILITY KNOWN AS DIONYSUS.’
Jenna sighed. ‘Is this really a good idea?’
‘Dionysus is a refuge for every known dissident leader and political activist in the quadrant. In fact, it’s the one place you can almost guarantee the Federation will be looking for us,’ Avon said. ‘So, why are we even taking the risk?’
‘Because Vila’s right, this could be a trap,’ Blake said.
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