Blake’s 7: Warship

by Peter Anghelides

  Blake’s 7

  Warship

  Peter Anghelides

  BIG FINISH

  For June Summerfield

  First published in February 2013

  by Big Finish Productions Ltd

  PO Box 1127, Maidenhead, SL6 3LW

  www.bigfinish.com

  Blake’s 7 Producer for Big Finish: David Richardson

  Executive Producers for Big Finish: Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery

  Executive Editor for B7 Media: Andrew Mark Sewell

  Managing Editor: Jason Haigh-Ellery

  Production Editor: Xanna Eve Chown

  Cover design: Anthony Lamb

  Copyright © Peter Anghelides 2013

  The right of Peter Anghelides to be identified as the authors of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information retrieval system, without prior permission, in writing, from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Blake’s 7 ™ © B7 Enterprises Ltd 2013. All rights reserved.

  Blake’s 7 wordmark and logo are trademarks of B7 Enterprises Ltd and are used under license.

  Blake’s 7 ™ © B7 Enterprises Ltd 2013.

  Blake’s 7 television series pictures © BBC 2013 and used under licence.

  Based on the original television series Blake’s 7 created by Terry Nation.

  Dramatis Personae

  The Liberator and crew:

  Liberator: A powerful spacecraft that far exceeds anything known to Earth technology, it is equipped with neutron blaster weaponry, force wall defences, auto-repair systems, and a teleportation system. The main computer, Zen, is the speech interface to the ship’s systems, and coordinates navigation, battle computers, and information systems. The current crew discovered Liberator abandoned and drifting, apparently after a space war, and commandeered the vessel in their fight back against the Federation.

  Kerr Avon: A technical expert, particularly with computers, Avon’s attempt to embezzle millions from the Federation saw him imprisoned and exiled from Earth. He escaped to Liberator with Blake and Jenna, where his instinct for self-preservation meant that he became the most unwilling member of Blake’s team –perceived by the others as a man whose cold calculation is primarily self-serving. By the time they reach Star One, he has exacted a promise from Blake that control of the Liberator will be handed to Avon after they have completed this mission.

  Roj Blake: Once leader of the Freedom Party and a charismatic opponent of the Terran Federation, Blake was captured in a lethal ambush by Travis. When their attempt to brainwash him failed, the Federation trumped up charges to disgrace Blake and banish him from Earth. En route to the penal colony Cygnus Alpha, Blake escaped from the prison ship London, and commandeered the derelict Liberator. Since then, he has cajoled or bullied his reluctant outlaw crew in a renewed fight against their enemies – with fatal consequences for both sides. Blake has targeted the Federation’s facilities, rallied its enemies, and tracked down its Central Control system to Star One – where he had a final confrontation with his nemesis, Space Commander Travis.

  Cally: A telepath from the planet Auron, who can communicate her thoughts directly to others. Sole survivor of a guerrilla attack on a Federation facility, Cally has felt unable to return to her isolationist home world. Her mutual distrust of the Liberator crew mellowed, and her growing empathy has made her an instinctive medic. Lately, her loyalty to Blake has been sorely tested by his obsessive campaign to destroy Star One, no matter what the cost.

  Orac: A unique supercomputer created by Professor Ensor, and appropriated by the Liberator crew after his death. Orac can access anything that contains a Tarial Cell, also invented by the Professor and now a standard component in all modern computers. Orac shares many characteristics with Ensor, including a thirst for knowledge and an ill-tempered intolerance of anything perceived as less intelligent – including the Liberator crew.

  Vila Restal: A petty thief, a conjurer, but most of all an expert lockpick who can breach even the most complex security systems. Vila has been in trouble with the Federation since he was a juvenile. He was eventually exiled to Cygnus Alpha, but rescued from there with his friend Gan by Blake and brought aboard Liberator. He prefers to be lazy, even if that might look like cowardice, and has a weakness for drink and an eye for pretty women. Vila is smart enough to know that playing the fool can be a good way to stay safe. And safety is something he has thought about since Gan died in Blake’s abortive attack on a Federation facility.

  Jenna Stannis: A smuggler sentenced by the Federation to exile on the penal colony Cygnus Alpha. Jenna assisted Blake’s mutiny aboard the prison ship London and commandeered the Liberator. The ship’s name was taken from her thoughts when she first came aboard. Jenna’s expertise has made her the Liberator‘s principal pilot. Although she has some reservations about their fight against the Federation, Jenna is loyal to Blake.

  The Federation:

  Servalan: Supreme Commander of the Federation’s entire military organisation. Servalan is responsible for the brutal repression of all resistance, and has been charged with destroying Blake and his crew – though she wants to capture the Liberator for the Federation. In an organisation governed by men, Servalan is a rare, powerful woman who has exploited her seductive charm and amoral ruthlessness to fight her way to the top. She is prepared to use and discard anyone, including Travis. In the panic that ensued when Star One failed, a military coup sees her appointed as President of the Federation.

  Travis: A brutal Federation Space Commander appointed by Servalan to lead the capture of Blake and the Liberator. Travis previously encountered Blake on Earth, when he ambushed a group of Freedom Party rebels and slaughtered them after they had surrendered. In the attack, Blake severely wounded Travis – who required a cybernetic eye replacement, and a prosthetic limb which incorporated a laseron destroyer. Frustrated by his repeated failure to capture Blake, and Servalan’s flagrant manipulation, Travis eventually betrayed humanity by helping alien invaders to infiltrate the Star One facility. In a final confrontation, Travis shot Blake with his laseron destroyer. But Avon finished off Travis, who plunged to his death.

  CONTENTS

  Dramatis Personae

  Chapter 1 Fight or Flight Deck

  Chapter 2 First Contact

  Chapter 3 The Unknown Universe

  Chapter 4 Ragtag Army

  Chapter 5 Unknown Variables

  Chapter 6 Strange Allies

  Chapter 7 Taking Sides

  Chapter 8 Cold Welcome

  Chapter 9 All Mine

  Chapter 10 Beneath the Surface

  Chapter 11 Going Out With a Bang

  Chapter 12 Down and Unsafe

  Chapter 13 Facing the Enemy

  Chapter 14 Megiddo

  Chapter 15 Close Encounter

  Chapter 16 Blunt Instrument

  Chapter 17 Dropping the Pilot

  Chapter 18 Return to Danger

  Chapter 19 Suicide Run

  Chapter 20 Damage Control

  Chapter 21 Breaching the Barrier

  Chap
ter 22 Counter-Attack

  Chapter 23 Spoils of War

  Chapter 24 Abandon Ship

  Chapter 25 The Way Back

  Chapter 1

  Fight or Flight Deck

  Cally hesitated in the corridor. From here, she could listen to the sounds of the ship as its systems powered up. Back on the flight deck, the others were readying Liberator for the fight. For the confrontation with an alien battle fleet that loomed on the edge of this galaxy.

  Jenna was ordering the battle computers to calculate intercept courses and strike ranges. Vila had put up the radiation flare shields, and was clearing the neutron blasters for firing. And Avon…

  He’d sent Blake back to the medical unit, which left Avon in charge. That much was no surprise to Cally, at least. But what had astonished her was that Avon hadn’t used that opportunity to steer the ship away from danger. Instead, he’d made Blake a promise, a commitment to stay and fight. Behind the building thrum of the engines and the ticks of systems coming online, something niggled at the back of Cally’s mind. A mental itch she couldn’t quite scratch.

  The others could manage without her for a few minutes. She had to go to the medical unit.

  Cally continued down the corridor, determined to talk with Blake.

  Blake had told them they could deliver a death blow to the Federation. They would destroy the central command system used to subjugate hundreds of planets, that suppressed entire populations, that controlled every aspect of their lives. That’s why he’d brought the Liberator out here, to a nondescript planet circling an uncharted white dwarf star. He wanted to tear down Star One forever.

  It seemed their enemy Travis must have had the same idea. But for very different reasons. Travis knew Star One had another purpose. That it controlled a satellite minefield – a barrier between the Federation galaxy and the next. If the Liberator crew shut down those satellites, that alien battle fleet would swarm across the barrier and attack humanity. It was to be the former space commander’s insane revenge against his own kind, after the Federation had betrayed him. Travis didn’t care that his reprisal could cost the lives of millions… maybe billions of people. There would be no way back for him.

  Was that what was scratching at the back of Cally’s mind? Why she could sense voices whispering in her mind, probing, questioning, worrying? Perhaps it was her own conscience, her own anxiety about their actions. Blake’s actions. And before the battle began, before she joined the others in the fight, she needed to know.

  The door slid open, and light from the corridor spilled into the half-light of the medical unit. A figure stirred on the far side of the darkened room.

  Blake shielded his eyes awkwardly to work out who it was. ‘Cally?’

  She slipped into the room, and the door closed behind her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting.

  Blake half-rose from the bed, but subsided again with a pained groan. ‘You should be on the flight deck.’

  ‘And you should lie still.’ She moved across to his bed, and checked the readings on his monitors. His heart rate was rising, and the pain indicators had spiked. She adjusted the soma infusion, and eased Blake back down. ‘Do not try to get up. I saw you leave the flight deck, and came to check whether you were all right.’

  He grunted a short laugh. ‘I’ve had better days.’

  ‘But none so lucky. The shot from Travis’s gun missed your heart by a fraction.’ The monitor bleep subsided again, and she nodded with satisfaction. ‘Stay still. Let the machines do their work here. And let the rest of us do ours.’

  Blake sighed with exasperation. ‘But the alien fleet…?’

  Cally could see from his expression that he felt trapped. No, it was more than that. She sensed it in his mind. That was new, she thought. Unexpected.

  ‘What about that fleet?’ Blake insisted.

  Cally gestured for him to stay calm. ‘Several hundred ships are queuing at the hole in the satellite grid,’ she said. ‘Avon believes we can hold them until the Federation fleet arrives.’

  The monitor showed a fresh increase in Blake’s heart rate. ‘That could be hours!’

  ‘Then we will hold them for hours.’ Again, there was that chattering at the back of her mind, like a half-heard conversation from an adjacent room. ‘You already know that, don’t you, Blake?’

  Cally pulled a chair over from the lab table, and sat beside the bed. She absently took Blake’s hand in hers. She wasn’t sure which of them the gesture was intended to comfort.

  ‘Are you all right, Cally?’

  She bit her lip. She had come here because there were things she wanted to know from Blake, not to answer his questions. But there were those voices at the tip of her consciousness again. Sensations. Emotions. Inarticulate to begin with, but slowly becoming more focused, turning into words.

  ‘There is something odd about this area of space, Blake. I feel as though my telepathic abilities are…’ She struggled to find the right words. ‘They’re enhanced. I can sense other thoughts.’

  ‘You can read people’s minds?’

  She smiled at Blake’s startled look. ‘Not exactly,’ she said, and patted his hand.

  Blake’s fingers squeezed hers reassuringly. ‘Intelligent guesswork, then?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She almost said more, but the strident chime of the intercom interrupted her.

  ‘Cally? Cally!’ Avon’s voice crackled over the audio. He evidently wasn’t in the mood for a long conversation. ‘Wherever you are, get back here. Now!’

  Blake released her hand. ‘You should go. Avon’s waiting. Sounds like leading the fight has gone to his head.’

  ‘What about you?’ she replied.

  ‘I’m still plugged in here.’ He nodded at the nearby equipment. The motion provoked a little wince of pain from him. ‘Like you said, I should let these medical units do their job.’

  ‘That is not what I meant, Blake.’ Cally studied his expression carefully. ‘Did leading the fight go to your head?’

  Blake didn’t disguise his surprise. ‘Cally?’

  ‘Before we went down to the planet,’ she said, ‘you did not answer my question. Would you have done it?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘Would you have risked the lives of so many by destroying Star One?’

  His heart rate was increasing again. The medical instruments suggested a surge of adrenaline, too. Cally didn’t need to read the display screens to tell that his breathing had become more ragged.

  ‘Is that what you really came here for?’ he snapped at her. ‘To ask me that?’

  The intercom interrupted again.

  ‘Cally, where the hell are you? Those alien ships are closing in.’ There was little doubt from Avon’s tone who he thought was in charge.

  She scraped her chair back, and crossed to the far wall. ‘I’m on my way,’ she said into the speaker, and switched off the intercom to deny Avon the chance to comment. ‘You and I will talk later, Blake.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About whether our reprisal could have cost the lives of so many innocent people.’

  Blake’s only reply was a non-committal grunt.

  Cally opened the door to leave. ‘In the meantime, perhaps Avon can hold back that oncoming fleet and save millions, instead.’

  Avon, she’d said. Across the room, in the harsh light spilling in from the corridor, she saw the disappointment in Blake’s eyes.

  * * *

  If anything, the flight deck was busier than when Cally had left it. Jenna sat in the pilot’s seat, and calibrated her controls in readiness for the oncoming attack. Vila fidgeted at his own console as he checked and rechecked the display, not quite ready to trust the readings. Zen’s flickering lights revealed that the Liberator systems were primed and active.

  Avon looked up from his own preparations, and watched Cally take her own familiar seat. ‘Nice of you to join us.’

  Cally ignored his sarcasm.
And perhaps there was something more, but the chatter in her subconscious made it hard to discern.

  Jenna’s look was easier to read. ‘Is Blake all right?’

  Cally nodded briefly. ‘But his condition is still dangerous.’

  ‘So is ours!’ said Vila. He prodded a display control, and stared in agitation at what it told him.

  ‘We’re ready for them,’ Avon said. He stepped calmly across to the main view screen. ‘Zen, zoom in on the gap in the defence zone. Display our projected intercept course.’

  ‘CONFIRMED.’

  Cally saw the screen dissolve and reform as it plotted the vectors. A principal red line curved across the image that represented the satellite grid around Star One. The Liberator‘s path had stopped in front of a gap in the defence zone. The trajectory of the enemy vessels indicated they were en route for the same position, a myriad red lines converging on a single point. The point where Liberator stood ready to confront them, alone.

  Avon nodded with grim satisfaction. ‘There they are.’

  ‘There’s hundreds of ships,’ wailed Vila. ‘Hundreds!’

  ‘What’s the outlook?’ asked Avon. For a moment, Cally thought he was talking to Vila, but his gaze had hardened on her. ‘Come on!’

  Cally was determined to remain composed, even as she realised how she’d only just returned to the flight deck in time. ‘One minute to strike range.’

  Vila was a lot less calm. ‘We can’t hold all of them.’

  ‘They can’t all come through that gap at once,’ Jenna said.

  Avon took his seat, and stared impassively at the main screen. ‘Stand by to fire.’

  ‘Avon,’ protested Vila, ‘this is stupid!’

  ‘When did that ever stop us?’ Avon’s outstretched finger hovered over the weaponry controls, though his eyes never left the screen. He was unnervingly calm, thought Cally. She wondered if any medical instruments would show he’d had a surge of adrenaline. Detect that his pulse had actually increased. Whether they could even find a heart.

  She could hear the tick of the computers. The hum of the engines. The sound of her own breathing. And faintly, in the background, a babble of distant voices.