Blake's 7: Criminal Intent

by Trevor Baxendale

  There had to be something more.

  The Federation punished the weak and rewarded the strong. Travis knew that. He regarded it as a basic tenet of any successful civilisation, the natural order of evolution refined and developed into a system of governance. It was pure, it was robust, it was admirable in every respect. The Federation, and thereby the human race as a whole, had prospered throughout the galaxy because of it. Every day more of the Outer Planets agreed to join the Federation. They saw the wisdom of it only too clearly. Where there was confusion or disagreement, the Federation brought clarity and conformity. Those malcontents (and there were always a few) who criticised this inexorable and natural expansion called it ‘annexation’, or even ‘conquest’. But Travis knew that such emotive phrases were always the first resort of the politically naïve and the morally inept.

  Not that politics as such really interested him. His career in the Space Command was a testimony to the kind of selfless devotion to the Federation that Travis considered his de facto basic duty. Some mistook this outright dedication to securing the Federation’s position as the supreme influence across the galaxy as blind servitude. It was anything but.

  He knew all about the penal ships that transported criminals and undesirables around the galaxy. He gazed at the computer data on the York, and the personnel files on its crew. Garran, Norton and Zola were undistinguished, dead-end career officers in the Civil Administration. The girl, Zola, had some ambition to be considered for Space Command but Travis thought this was an unlikely prospect. There was nothing in her personnel file or career record so far to indicate the higher IQ required, nor anything like what Travis liked to refer to as the killer instinct – the ability to make hard decisions in tough circumstances.

  He examined the prison ship’s destination profile: the Kylon system was nothing special. The prison planet there was the usual barren rock the Federation used to dump its unwanted human waste. It didn’t even warrant a full name – just the planetary designator K5. But the fact that the York was now passing through the Zotral system indicated that the flight crew had decided to take an unauthorised detour from the programmed star charts en route to K5.

  Travis’s lips turned down in distaste. He hated the term unauthorised. The crew would be punished for that transgression accordingly, but he did wonder if this divergence from the course program might be indicative of something more serious than a desire to shorten the flight time to K5: could one of the crew be a traitor? It would be easy for one of them to murder the other two and pilot the transporter to a quiet corner of space to rendezvous with Blake. But the idea was not a convincing one. Traitors were weeded out of Federation security details very quickly via a series of psychometric profiling scans and by the use of more old-fashioned, reliable methods such as informants. There were rewards for reporting insurgent activity, and it was rare, very rare indeed, for a rogue officer to progress to any kind of meaningful duty.

  Perhaps there was a clue to be found in the ship’s manifest. Four pods with a total cargo of eighty prisoners. He tapped a command into the screen and the computer streamed the details of every prisoner on board the York. Names, personal history and crimes. Half of them were little more than undesirables – thieves and fraudsters and political malcontents. Political malcontents were the most despised variety of criminal for Travis. But Delta-Grade prisoners were nothing important – not even for Blake, surely. There were hundreds of these lowest of the low, and in Travis’s opinion the Federation was being mercifully indulgent in consigning them to life on a penal colony.

  The manifest listed only sixty prisoners. There were some higher-grade miscreants – actual crimos – but there should have been eighty felons in total. Twenty in each of the four pods. So there was one entire pod empty – or was there?

  The manifest for Pod One had an Alpha Zed security rating. A cargo of Delta and Beta offenders and then an Alpha Zed was most curious.

  ‘Computer,’ Travis said, ‘I want full access to the Alpha Zed manifest for the penal transporter York.’

  ‘State your security clearance,’ replied the computer automatically.

  ‘Space Commander Travis, service number Alpha 15105, security clearance code Epsilon.’

  ‘Clearance granted.’ The computer chittered for a few seconds and then the screen filled with the details of the hidden cargo manifest in Pod One.

  Travis stared at it for a long moment, and, although he showed no outward sign of perturbation, he was aware that his mouth had suddenly turned dry and he could feel the quickening pulse of blood in his skull.

  So that was Servalan’s game – and a very dangerous game it was, too.

  She had brought Kilus Kroe into play.

  TWENTY

  ‘Kilus Kroe?’ repeated Jenna. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Cally said. She was sitting in the teleport bay, her face streaked with sweat and a smear of blood on her cheek.

  Jenna handed her a drink, but she waved it away. Jenna could smell the gunsmoke on Cally’s clothes, which was familiar enough, but the haunted look in her friend’s eyes was something new.

  ‘He looked like a prisoner,’ Cally said. ‘He came out of Pod One, but he had mutoids with him. They opened fire, shooting indiscriminately. It was a massacre.’

  ‘It’s lucky I was able to pull you out of there.’

  Jenna had heard the garbled cry for help and activated the teleport instantly. Cally had materialised in a fighting crouch, distressed and angry. The others had not been caught in the teleport field, and every attempt since to bring them back had failed.

  ‘But what about the others?’ Cally said. ‘I definitely saw Avon go down. I don’t know if he was shot, but I’m thinking now that he must have been.’

  ‘And Blake?’

  Cally looked up at her fiercely. ‘Jenna, it was chaos. There was gunfire and smoke and bodies everywhere. I’ve been in firefights before, we all have – but this was slaughter.’

  ‘I’ll keep trying the communicators,’ Jenna crossed to the teleport console and hit a switch. ‘Blake? Avon? This is the Liberator. Come in.’ There was nothing on the channel but static. Jenna cycled through the other channels. ‘Vila? Gan?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Cally said. She stood up and looked at her teleport bracelet. ‘I’ll have to go back.’

  ‘No you won’t. That would be suicide. There’s no way you’re going back there until we know what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘We’re dealing with a massacre!’

  Jenna pushed Cally gently back down. ‘Exactly. Flinging ourselves blindly back into the middle of it won’t achieve anything. If I know Blake or any of the others they’ll find a way to make contact.’

  ‘If they can.’

  ‘If they can.’ Jenna thought for a moment. ‘We’ll see what Zen can tell us about this Kilus Kroe person. Then we’ll decide what to do.’

  *

  Travis switched off the computer and sat back to think. The name Kilus Kroe seemed to echo inside his head. Had either of the mutoids turned to look, they might have registered a flicker of concern in the Space Commander’s right eye. But then he turned his head fractionally and any trace of anxiety disappeared. The look in his eye now was the more habitual icy resolve.

  ‘Increase speed,’ Travis said calmly.

  Kiera turned to look at him. ‘Sir – safety parameters indicate that the ship cannot maintain speeds in excess of Time Distort Nine without incurring damage to the propulsor engines.’

  ‘Increase speed,’ Travis repeated.

  The mutoid returned to her station. Her hands moved obediently across the controls. The ship’s interior lighting lowered as more power was diverted to the engines and the spacecraft leaped faster through the trackless void between the stars. The remaining two pursuit ships fell behind, and their pilots called in to check for orders.

  ‘Space Commander Travis,’ crackled one concerned voice over the communications link. It was Captain Xos. She was a good offi
cer, one of the best that had been assigned to Travis in recent times. Her words were slightly garbled by the increasing distance between the two ships. ‘We cannot match your speed, sir.’

  ‘Divert all non-essential power into the impulse boosters,’ Travis ordered. ‘That should increase your overall speed.’

  ‘Sir, it’s impossible. Not without wrecking the ship.’

  ‘It’s a risk I’m willing to take, Captain Xos. Are you?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Nothing can be achieved without risk, Xos.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Travis out.’

  Kiera turned in her chair again. ‘Sir. Auxiliary power overloads are affecting the gravitic compensators. If we continue at this speed we will lose artificial gravity in twenty-three minutes.’

  ‘Decrease the gravity setting to two-thirds Earth normal,’ Travis ordered. ‘The differential will allow us a little more time. We can all live with being a little lighter on our feet, Kiera.’

  ‘Sir.’ She touched a series of controls and instantly Travis registered the slight release of gravity. It felt strangely refreshing, as if a very real and physical weight had been taken off his shoulders.

  ‘Relay the information to Captain Xos and the other ship,’ Travis said. ‘They may then be able to keep up without dying from anxiety.’

  ‘Already done, sir,’ Kiera announced.

  Travis smiled. ‘Are you trying to impress me, Kiera?’

  ‘I am doing my duty to the best of my abilities – as always.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’

  Kiera stood up stiffly from her flight station and took a step up onto the command podium. ‘Sir. Permission to ask a question?’

  Travis considered the mutoid carefully. Her eyes were as black and fathomless as deep space. Her skin was sickly pale, as were her lips, but the eyes were always dark and, unlike most of her kind, there was expression in them. She tried to suppress it, of course, but Travis knew it was there. Just beneath the surface.

  She waited patiently for his answer. Eventually he said, simply, ‘Granted.’

  ‘Why did you delay my court martial?’

  ‘I decided that you may still be of use,’ Travis said. ‘I’ve already told you that.’

  ‘With respect, sir, there are many other mutoids that you could have chosen for this mission.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And I was wondering…’

  ‘You were wondering? Now isn’t that a strange thing for a mutoid to do? To wonder? And what was it you were wondering, Kiera? Were you wondering “Why me?”’ Travis let the gaze of his natural eye travel down the mutoid’s black uniform, all the way down to her boots and back up again. His prosthetic, computerised eye examined her in greater detail, beneath the uniform, and beneath the pallid skin, right down to the modified organs and musculature that made her both more, and less, than human.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You fascinate me, Kiera. Mutoids are cold and lifeless creatures, pathetic in their way. The price they pay for any increases in physical efficiency seem too great. Mutoids may be better, faster, stronger than ordinary people. But they are not people. Each and every one of them has given up – sometimes willingly, sometimes not – any right to be thought of as a person. They become a thing. But you, Kiera… You are different.’

  ‘No, sir, I am not.’

  ‘Oh but you are. You see, Kiera, you are neither one thing nor the other. But let me make this very clear: I am not interested in mutoids, and nor am I interested in people. I am only interested in results. The mission is all that matters.’

  ‘Sir.’

  He could see that she didn’t understand; or else she was simply refusing to understand. Travis regarded her for a moment longer and then dismissed her with a flick of his bionic hand. He watched her step smoothly down from the command podium. Not for the first time, Travis tried to picture her as she once must have been, unmodified, human, her skin flushed with life and browned beneath the suns of alien planets. What had her hair been like? Her eyes? He could never know. Kiera herself would be unable, and perhaps unwilling, to recall her former existence. But did she ever wonder? Did she still look out at the blurring stars on the forward viewer and marvel at the beauty of the universe?

  Travis doubted it. Because the nature of the Federation’s starship drives warped time rather than space, the relativistic supra-light speeds attained allowed for interstellar travel. The magnitude of the achievement was not lost on Travis, but he refused to be overawed by the sight of entire constellations flickering past the pursuit ship’s viewports like mist in the wind. A solar gas cloud, the last fragments of a destroyed star spread across dozens of light years, flashed by in less time that it took to draw a breath.

  Travis was not impressed, but that was because he was a pragmatist. He dealt in absolutes, morally and physically. Time distortion to him was merely a functional method of getting from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  A mutoid, however, had no choice but to remain unimpressed. Any capacity for emotional responses had been either removed surgically or suppressed via drugs.

  ‘ETA Zotral System in ten point seven minutes – mark,’ announced Kiera.

  ‘Pursuit ship three has withdrawn from formation,’ reported the other mutoid pilot.

  ‘Why?’ Travis asked, his reverie broken.

  ‘Pilot reports a phasing error in the time distortion computations. The drive system will implode unless speed is reduced.’

  Travis clenched his bionic fist in anger. ‘The phasing computer should have been checked before the mission. Tell Captain Drodal to track the technician responsible for computer maintenance and have him demoted. No – have him court-martialled and deported to a penal colony.’

  ‘Sir.’

  As the mutoid sent the hyperspace signal to Drodal’s pursuit ship, Travis touched a control on his command station and told Kiera that he was downloading the mission file to her console. ‘Familiarise yourself with the specification and technical layout of the York and its cargo pods,’ he said. ‘It’s possible we may need to board the vessel at some point. Hostilities are likely.’

  Kiera glanced up from her console. ‘Is Blake there?’

  Travis allowed himself a smile. She was perceptive, despite everything. And she clearly knew what motivated her commanding officer. ‘I certainly hope so.’

  Kiera turned her attention back to the display screen before her as it filled with data.

  ‘You should acquaint yourself with the cargo manifest,’ Travis told her. ‘Every prisoner and guard.’

  Kiera touched a control and the data was streamed directly via a wireless neural link to her cybernetic brain interface. Within seconds she knew the vital details of every living being on board the York.

  Except one.

  She turned to face Travis with a strange look in her eyes. Travis struggled to identify it. Puzzlement? Interest? Anxiety? Not quite any of those.

  ‘The prisoner manifest for Pod One has been redacted,’ she said.

  ‘It’s classified information. All you need to know is that the occupant of that pod is the most dangerous man on board.’ Travis sat back and concentrated on the stars ahead. ‘Until I get there.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Liberator flight deck was quiet. The lighting was subdued. Zen had adopted a diurnal sequence for the ship’s systems to accommodate its human crew and now it was the early hours of a new false day.

  Cally sat at her flight station. She was utterly still, like a hunter awaiting its prey. Her face, lit only by the soft glow of the control arrays, appeared to float in the shadows like a ghost.

  ‘You’re tired,’ Jenna said.

  Cally’s eyes flicked from the sensor screens before her to the far side of the flight deck as Jenna stepped up onto the primary level. ‘I am all right. My Auron inheritance affords me greater stamina.’

  Jenna leaned against the console and yawned. ‘Lucky you. Anything?’


  ‘Nothing. No transmissions, no signal, no teleport response. It’s like they have just… ceased to exist.’

  Jenna rubbed hand across her tired eyes. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.’

  ‘It is a possibility we must consider.’

  ‘You’re very cold about it.’

  ‘I was a warrior, Jenna. We were trained to accept the death of comrades.’

  ‘Well I’m not buying it. They could have been captured. Taken prisoner. It is a prison ship, after all. So the raid went wrong, or there were more guards than we thought… maybe the mutoids were there as back-up.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve been on a ship like that,’ Jenna said gently. ‘It’s every man for himself. Anything could have happened. They might have been stripped of their guns and teleport bracelets. That would explain why there’s no transponder or teleport signal.’

  ‘And Kilus Kroe?’

  Jenna turned to Zen. ‘Still nothing on Kilus Kroe, Zen?’

  ‘ALL PUBLIC RECORDS RELATING TO THIS PERSON HAVE BEEN PURGED OR REDACTED.’

  ‘That can’t be a coincidence,’ Cally said.

  ‘I agree. Whatever is going on over there is entirely connected with Kilus Kroe. Are you sure that Federation trooper didn’t tell you anything more?’

  ‘Dort?’ Cally shook her head. ‘She seemed to think it was important. And it clearly was. The man’s name seemed to be a catalyst for fear throughout the prison ship.’

  Jenna looked at the scanner screen, where the prison ship looked like a tiny white speck against the huge ringed planet beyond. She bit her lip as she thought. What would Blake do now, if he were here?

  ‘Status update on the prisoner ship, please, Zen,’ she said finally.

  ‘FEDERATION TRANSPORT VESSEL STATUS UNCHANGED. DRIVE SYSTEM: NON-FUNCTIONAL. COMMUNICATIONS: NON-FUNCTIONAL. POWER SIGNATURE INDICATES LIFE-SUPPORT AND GENERAL SYSTEMS ONLINE.’

  ‘Do they have sensors?’

  ‘UNKNOWN.’