lyssie: (Default)
lyssie ([personal profile] lyssie) wrote2005-10-31 02:12 am

fic: Blake's 7, Season 4 AU.

Disclaimer: Not mine. rating: er.. 13+?
violence.
Fandom: Blake's 7.
Set: post-Terminal, season 4. AU.
Notes: slightly rough, but I'm off to bed shortly. And there's another section after this I still need to polish up.

Too Many Light Years Run
by ALC Punk!

The explosions have been filling the night sky for the last several minutes. Alarms are blaring all across the city, and federation troopers are mobilizing, starting a search for the perpetrators. Squad after squad fills the streets, searching for what they consider to be a troop of saboteurs, but is in reality, one slim figure in red leather.

Cally ducks around a corner, listening to the federation troopers running past. Her breath comes quickly (quicker than it used to, but she's getting old even if she doesn't accept it), and she fights with it, slowing it until there's nothing in the night air but the stench from the alley beneath her feet.

"Fancy meeting you here." The voice comes from out of nowhere, and she reacts faster than she used to.

Her blaster is pointed neatly into his face, "I always did like to surprise people."

"Still trying to rabble rouse?" Travis sneers, ignoring the barrel poking his nose.

Cally shrugs, "Something like that."

"Has the ennui, the endless idiocy gotten to you?"

"It got to you, didn't it?" She shoot back, absently lowering the gun. There's nothing to shoot, really.

"Blake's brand of rebellion was always a little... light."

"And yours was dark."

He shrugs, the movement silent, and she wonders if he's wearing leather or something coarser. "Your turn to buy the drinks."

"Is it?"

"Why not?"

Cally shrugs, heading back the way she'd come. "I wasn't planning on buying any drinks."

"You're on your own then."

"Yes." One piece of information she'll give up. She isn't sure why she's letting him fall into step with her. Doesn't want to analyse it (yet) either.

They're both silent, and she listens to the rest of the city, trying to discern where the boots of the Federation guards are. Far away from the both of them.

"Ground troopers never were particularly smart," Travis offers.

"Did they have to be to massacre thousands?"

"No."

If he caught the dig at his own war crimes, he doesn't show it. They're silent again until she stops in front of the building she raided less than an hour before. "This is my stop."

"Returning to the scene of the crime?"

"I'm an honest citizen, coming to gawk at the scene."

Travis snorts, "You're as honest as Blake was complicated."

"Is," she corrects absently.

"Oh, he's alive again is he?"

Deciding hanging around is pointless, now that the main crowd has dispersed, and the Federation troopers have the small fire under control, Cally turns away. "Is he ever dead?"

"Possibly." He falls into stop as she starts off.

The silence is almost companionable. Although there's still a part of her screaming that this is the man who once tortured her, who sold out the human race--who failed so miserably, he is on this backwater planet, chatting up failed revolutionaries. "Travis--"

"So, I hear it was your turn to die, this time." He interrupts.

Cally snorts, "You buy the drink."

"First round," he challenges.

"And the second."

"You sure you're not a lightweight?"

"Vila's the lightweight."

After several feet, he says softly, "Yes. I suppose he was."

Which is really all that can be said about Vila, Cally reflects as they approach the tavern. That, and that he knew a good wine. But usually only after he drank it.

"Are you following me?" She asks him three rounds later.

He looks up from making notes on a pad, stylus pausing its movement. "I was under the impression you were following me."

"Only if your ego allows it."

He snorts, "You're following this trail for the same reason I am."

"Am I?"

The single eye still active pins her. "What do you know about Pylene-50?"

"Only what's been passed around here and there: that Sleer commands its use, that it's a pacification drug--"

"That the federation are re-conquering thousands of worlds with barely the flicker of a gasp from the general populace."

"Yes."

He flicks the stylus at the pad, then picks up his glass. "They're winning again."

"Aren't they always?"

"Look, blowing up a few communications depots, bases, disrupting supply lines, it's all well and good--"

"You're planning a military campaign." She guesses. "Didn't you learn how badly that worked last time?"

"I'm planning it on my own, without alien help."

"This time."

"And Blake--" But here he cuts off abruptly, frowning, "Blake would have agreed with my reasons, if not my execution."

"Possibly." With a shrug, Cally picks up the last of her drink, sipping it. "But why consider ourselves with Blake at all? I have better plans for my time."

"Like the communications depot half a mile outside the city."

She doesn't answer.

Travis' lips curl into a sardonic smirk, "I've always liked blowing things up."

"Have you?"

"And after the explosion a few hours ago, you could use the backup."

"Backup is overrated."

"Maybe." He finishes a line, and caps the stylus, folding his pad into a pocket. "But you're buying this round, and I'm going to help you strike a blow for freedom."

"I could just shoot you."

"If you must."

Cally sets her glass down. "I don't trust you."

"You don't have to."

"Maybe."

He stands. "We've got about two more hours until sunrise, Cally. Let's go blow something up."

"All right."

-f-

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