Crossover jollity
Jan. 21st, 2004 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielI just bought a pile of Blake's 7 zines from a friend who is emigrating soon. Among them is a B7/DS9 zine (Seas of God by Sharon Eckman) which I'm enjoying. Lots of Garak, as there should be.
I perpetrated a B7/DS9 crossover once, but I don't think I posted it in many places. So here it is.
Wholesale
A jolly bit of crossover fun for BR, HM, and anyone else enamoured of a certain EG...
I
It was not my intention, when embarking on this little adventure, to engage in egregious treachery - of course, it never is. But - as I have found myself saying far too frequently in recent years - one has to make the best of a bad situation.
The irony is that I had not wanted to work for Starfleet Intelligence in the first place. It was only increasing pressure from Sisko that persuaded me otherwise - and I should add that I considered the whole outfit well beneath my more subtle talents. I most certainly had not wanted this particular mission, taking me, as it did, deep into what I now had to consider hostile territory. Six weeks behind enemy lines was quite enough - even if it was a twisted sort of homecoming - and I was surprised at how glad I was to see the station registering on my shuttle's sensors.
Then, without any warning, the wormhole opened - like a gateway to the gods - something exploded, and everything went black.
I opened my eyes to a bright light, the most shocking headache, and not the faintest idea of where I was. I let out a deep sigh, and felt a twinge along my ribcage. Something had obviously been damaged, but I had no recollection of where or how. Then I heard movement next to me, the sound of a communication channel being opened, and a soft female voice said, 'Blake, he's conscious.'
Just in the range of my hearing I caught the response. 'I'll be right down, Cally.'
'Cally?' I'm sure it was my uncertainty in saying an unfamiliar name that allowed a faint tremor to creep into my voice, but I didn't like the sound of it nonetheless. I tried to sit up, but it seemed that I was pinned down. I tensed automatically. I do not particularly care to be held prisoner.
'Please, don't upset yourself. I promise you we will not keep you restrained for much longer.'
She leaned over me, and I caught a first glimpse of her. And then she startled me immensely. We do not mean you any harm, she - said?
A telepath? Where was I?
***
As is customary in any first encounter I have with a stranger, I avoided giving away as much information about myself as I possibly could. Blake was clearly a perceptive man, but he was not a natural questioner, and he obviously baulked at interrogating somebody injured. Consequently, I managed to evade even his most direct questions with ease, by appearing more disoriented than I actually was.
I did, however, manage to pick up quite a bit. As I recounted, in a faint voice, the sorry story of an ordinary tradesman out on a business trip whose shuttle had suddenly malfunctioned, I was able to learn that I was on board a ship called the Liberator, that it had a crew of five, that these people were human - to whom even the word 'Starfleet' was meaningless - and that this man had seen nothing like me before.
Humans who had not heard of Starfleet, and who did not recognize a Cardassian when they saw one? I had heard of people going back in time - could that be what had happened? Lost in thought, it was a few minutes before I realized that Blake was staring at me with undisguised amazement.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's just that... well...'
'I quite understand,' I said in the most unthreatening manner I could muster.
'Well,' he said, crisply back to business, 'We've got Orac - that's our computer - trying to work out what brought you here.'
'Some sort of temporal or spatial anomaly?' I hazarded.
Blake frowned. 'Doesn't sound very likely,' he said.
'Where I come from,' I replied, 'It happens all the time.'
***
True to her word, Cally released me from the restraints as soon as she had checked no damage would result from letting me sit up. I spent two more days in bed, at her insistence, and then put in my first appearance on the flight deck. The suspicion and even open hostility which greeted me from certain quarters should have put me on alert at once. I can only blame my disorientation and the fact that I was still recovering from what, it transpired, had been quite a serious concussion for my failure to register the significance of this reception sooner. These were paranoid people - and with good reason.
Vila was welcoming enough, but I recognize a fellow dissembler when I see one. The pilot, Jenna, made pointed remarks about the wisdom of allowing new arrivals free range about the ship; this seemed to upset Cally, which rather set me against Jenna. The third man, within two minutes of my arrival on the flight deck, started interrogating a small box - which I learnt was Orac - on how to 'get rid of me'. It seemed that Avon did not trust strangers - or, indeed, acquaintances - as a matter of principle.
I had been about a fortnight on board - and still Orac was no closer to understanding how I had got here and, more importantly, how to get me back - when it became apparent that something significant was shortly about to happen. Blake and Cally had spent several days closeted away together. Vila's alcohol consumption had been steadily increasing. Avon's temper became, if it were possible, shorter and less predictable.
Left to my own devices, I began exploring the Liberator; the strong room proved an interesting find - as did the extensive wardrobe - and it's always useful to know where to find the life capsules. One of the other benefits of my voyage of discovery was that I was able to piece together bits of overheard conversations - or, more usually, arguments - and I soon realized that Blake was planning some sort of mission, and somewhat amateurishly, by the sound of things. My own, unvoiced sympathies lay completely with Vila's more loudly expressed opinions; on the day big itself we sat side by side behind the teleport console while the other four played at heroes and heroines. I had to disguise my particularly quick operation of the teleport controls - which almost certainly saved Jenna's life - as a lucky guess as to which buttons would work. I saw little point in broadcasting the fact that I had already a firm grasp of the principles underlying Liberator's technology.
My 'lucky guess' made me something of a minor hero, particularly with Jenna, and certainly eradicated any lingering mistrust on her part. Neither Cally nor Blake had seen any reason not to trust me from the outset. But our little escapade left it clear to me that I needed more information about the situation on board the ship, and just exactly who it was Blake was fighting. There was one obvious source of information, and one obvious way of accessing it; nevertheless, getting Vila drunk proved more of a challenge than I had anticipated. We had more in common with each other than either of us would like to admit - we were both intelligent, evasive, frequently under-estimated, and desirous of remaining safely under the cover of our carefully constructed personas for as long as was reasonably possible. It took me the best part of a week after the mission to persuade him that I really was harmless and he could let down some of his guard.
By the end of our session together, I knew a great deal about Vila's opinions on life, the rest of the crew, theft as a vocation and - more pertinently - I had acquired a significant amount of background information on the Federation and Blake's rebellion. You cannot begin to imagine my dismay upon learning the full details of the political situation in this particular universe - and the unpromising part which my rescuers played in the picture.
It has been my observation that revolutionaries make better martyrs than victors. One almost suspects they prefer it that way. With the one - admittedly big - exception of the Bajoran Resistance, my experience of these sorts of disputes told me that, in general, bets should be placed on the galactic military dictatorship rather than the under-resourced but plucky freedom-fighter. I most certainly had no desire to remain in a front-row seat as this particular iteration of the good fight drew to its inevitably bloody conclusion. It was without doubt time to return as quickly as possible to somewhere which I could more easily - if not completely accurately - call 'home'. And I would be spending the interval manning the teleport with Vila.
II
Perhaps if I had not just heard Orac's conclusion that it could conceive of no way in which I could be returned to my own time and place, I might have been in a better frame of mind for the scene with Avon which immediately followed. And perhaps then I would have felt rather differently about the best course of action to take in order to protect my interests in my new and unwanted home.
I say 'scene' advisedly: throughout my time on the Liberator Avon had demonstrated a decided talent for insisting on his indifference to the people around him, and then generating situations in which he could declaim, perform, and generally conduct himself as if life were one dramatic incident after another. On this occasion he happened to intrude upon what was a particularly fraught moment for me, and his presence was less than welcome.
Orac's pronouncement left me in turmoil. Even after Tain died, even after the war started and Cardassia was occupied, I had kept alive in me a spark of hope that one day my exile would end and I would go home. It was one of the few things that had persuaded me to carry on as the years dragged by and I remained stranded on the station. But this news was devastating.
Although the exigencies of my career had demanded a certain detachment from everyday society, Cardassians are not naturally solitary. Indeed, the lack of sufficiently challenging interaction was one of the more trying aspects of my banishment. Bajorans, of course, avoided talking to me if at all possible. Humans, with the intermittent exception of Dr Bashir, seemed to exist only on the most superficial of levels. It was only my occasional exchanges with Dukat, even filled, as they were, with mutual loathing and contempt, that constituted anything approaching decent conversation.
The thought that I was now trapped in permanent exile among humans with no chance of ever seeing my home again was most distressing. Even worse, this was a most unfriendly environment, and I had inadvertently fallen in with what I believed was likely to be the losing side. Quite apart from any sense of nostalgia for my own time and place, my current situation offended my pragmatic sensibilities.
Wrestling with my predicament, I had not heard Avon come in, and was startled when he spoke.
'I take it you've not had good news about your return home?'
I jumped slightly and looked up at him. 'No,' I said shortly.
'Pity.' He moved towards me and, with one of his ostentatiously choreographed movements, swept his arm across to take Orac's key and put it in his pocket.
'You seem to have been remarkably adept at exploring the capabilities of the Orac computer,' he said.
'I've often heard you say that it makes an excellent tool - '
'If you know how to use it. I find it striking that while, after nearly three years, several people in this crew have not managed that, you seem to have acquired the skill within the space of a few short weeks.'
'Well, I'm a quick learner - '
'I wonder what else you've learnt.'
I blinked at him. 'I beg your pardon?'
He came to stand up close to me, face to face. 'All that time you've spent on board the ship when the rest of us have been on Blake's futile little missions. All that time closeted away pouring drinks down Vila. How much do you know about the Liberator's systems now, Garak? How much information do you have about each one of us?'
'Really, I doubt that would prove the most entertaining or productive way to spend my time. Why should I care to find out information about any of you?'
'How about to sell us out to the Federation?'
'Well, what a marvellous idea!' I said. 'That hadn't even crossed my mind. Thank you for the suggestion.'
He glared at me furiously.
'I'm joking, of course,' I added.
'Were you? We don't know anything about you. You appear out of nowhere, ingratiate yourself on board, tell us nothing about yourself - '
'There really is very little to tell - '
'Whatever story of yours Blake has been foolish enough to believe, I think you're lying.'
I turned away from him. 'I don't have to listen to this - '
'Oh yes you do,' he shot back, and grabbed my arm. In retrospect, I think that even he would have agreed that he had made a mistake. I do not like being manhandled, and the combination of Avon's persistence and my own preoccupation was most unfortunate. I slid my hand into my inside jacket pocket, pulled him towards me and stabbed him, upwards, in the heart.
His eyes widened and he looked at me in disbelief. A rather banal expression, I thought, for one's last moments.
'No,' I repeated, 'I don't.'
Then I let go, and he slid to the ground, dead.
I looked down at the body. How desperately unprofessional, I thought. I could not remember the last time I had killed out of sheer exasperation, which is, I suppose, testimony to Avon's particularly infuriating nature. There are very good reasons why one plans one's executions with great care, not least the matter of the disposal of the corpse. Then there were the witnesses - Orac and Zen - to be silenced, the evidence to remove, the fabrication, if necessary, of an alibi... Really, this had the potential to turn into a most dreary state of affairs.
III
Avon's disappearance was met with no small degree of consternation on the part of my remaining fellow crew-mates. Gathered together on the flight deck, we mulled over what could have caused his sudden and unexpected departure. Vila was simultaneously relieved and taken aback. Jenna was of the opinion that Avon would not be missed, unlike the currency from the strong room which had apparently accompanied him in the life capsule (a nice touch on my part, I thought, bringing a certain verisimilitude to what were otherwise rather farcical proceedings). Cally and Blake seemed to take the matter very personally.
'I can't believe he's gone,' Blake said, shaking his head. 'I mean, he'd threaten it all the time, but I just assumed that was part of the act.'
In contrast to Avon's characteristically dramatic departure, the news of my now permanent resident status paled somewhat into insignificance. 'Thank God we still have someone who knows his way around the computers,' Blake muttered in passing. Cally, with quiet generosity, commented that she understood how it felt to be exiled for good among aliens.
The low-key nature of my transition from guest to full crew-member troubled me not at all; indeed, it was a source of great satisfaction. Acceptance, trust - under different circumstances I could have felt quite at home. As it was, I wasn't fooling myself that my indiscretion would go undetected for much longer. I had bought myself only a little time; but I was fairly certain that it was enough.
***
The last time I had attempted an operation such as this, I was under the influence of psychotropic drugs. I prefer to think that it was the effect of these rather than any diminution in my own talent which led to my failure. Fieldwork - like tailoring - requires precision, concentration, and patience. Both careers had come to me naturally - the second, I admit, with great ambivalence on my part - but I had approached the first with an unconditional acceptance of its routines that bordered on the fanatical. By the time I became... unemployed, my skills had been honed to expert level. One does not forget one's core competencies easily (even if their main object of late has been to develop a maximally efficient way to cut cloth). As a result, this operation proved an overwhelming and most gratifying success.
Precision was required to monitor the movements of my targets. Concentration enabled me to master and then control the ship's systems in a matter of days. Patience was necessary to ensure I did not make my move too soon. One must add to this heady mix my own particular talent for persuasion; had I not been able to convince Orac that its best options for self-preservation lay elsewhere than with the current crew, I could not have made the necessary external contact undetected.
Those of us whose business is betrayal rarely allow ourselves the luxury of self-reflection, least of all while we are at work. With three of the crew securely imprisoned and shortly to awaken to mild nausea from the sedatives, I was beginning to feel I was on the home stretch. But taking out the final person proved not only the most difficult part of the process (she was, after all, the only one who was not an amateur), it also caused me a rare stab of remorse.
I came up behind her quite silently, as she crouched in the corridor, waiting to make her move on me. Within seconds I had her pinned on her back on the ground. She gazed back at me with caged, impotent rage.
'Why have you done this?' she whispered. 'We only ever wanted to help you.' We trusted you, she added, in my head, and I'm not sure that the fingerprints she left will ever be erased.
'I'm sorry, Cally,' I said, in a rare example of complete honesty. 'But I have to protect myself.' Then I smashed my fist across her face and she was unconscious. The Liberator was mine.
***
I issued instructions for the orbit to Zen, then put the final touches to the program on which I had been working. It had proven less difficult than I had anticipated to integrate some of the systems from my shuttle, and I now had a transporter which I could operate from the flight deck. Moreover, the addition of technology from another civilization had served to make the Liberator an even more attractive prize.
I put through a message on a secure channel, requesting permission to beam my guest over. The confirmation came through instantly. I operated the controls, and three figures coalesced in front of me. Two bodyguards, black-clad and helmeted; she, standing in front of them, was flawless in white silk.
'Supreme Commander,' I purred. 'You look quite divine.'
She cast her huge eyes hungrily around the flight deck, before settling them on me.
'Just one moment...' I murmured, and reached out to straighten one infinitesimally thin shoulder strap. I smoothed my hand down the dress, which now flowed perfectly from shoulder to hemline, then stood back to admire.
'Divine,' I breathed.
She raised one immaculate eyebrow, as if trying to decide whether I had overstepped the mark.
'The Liberator, Supreme Commander,' I reminded her, and gestured around me, at the flight deck, at the treasures and the captives beyond. Her price. Mine was exactly the same it had ever been. 'All yours.'
Her mouth twisted into a wide smile, perfect and predatory.
'Do you know,' she said, 'I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...'
*******
May 2001
"I've abandoned my first love and run off with an older man."
In other news, I think I have just managed to get rid of the headache that's been plaguing me since Saturday. Go me!
I perpetrated a B7/DS9 crossover once, but I don't think I posted it in many places. So here it is.
Wholesale
A jolly bit of crossover fun for BR, HM, and anyone else enamoured of a certain EG...
It was not my intention, when embarking on this little adventure, to engage in egregious treachery - of course, it never is. But - as I have found myself saying far too frequently in recent years - one has to make the best of a bad situation.
The irony is that I had not wanted to work for Starfleet Intelligence in the first place. It was only increasing pressure from Sisko that persuaded me otherwise - and I should add that I considered the whole outfit well beneath my more subtle talents. I most certainly had not wanted this particular mission, taking me, as it did, deep into what I now had to consider hostile territory. Six weeks behind enemy lines was quite enough - even if it was a twisted sort of homecoming - and I was surprised at how glad I was to see the station registering on my shuttle's sensors.
Then, without any warning, the wormhole opened - like a gateway to the gods - something exploded, and everything went black.
I opened my eyes to a bright light, the most shocking headache, and not the faintest idea of where I was. I let out a deep sigh, and felt a twinge along my ribcage. Something had obviously been damaged, but I had no recollection of where or how. Then I heard movement next to me, the sound of a communication channel being opened, and a soft female voice said, 'Blake, he's conscious.'
Just in the range of my hearing I caught the response. 'I'll be right down, Cally.'
'Cally?' I'm sure it was my uncertainty in saying an unfamiliar name that allowed a faint tremor to creep into my voice, but I didn't like the sound of it nonetheless. I tried to sit up, but it seemed that I was pinned down. I tensed automatically. I do not particularly care to be held prisoner.
'Please, don't upset yourself. I promise you we will not keep you restrained for much longer.'
She leaned over me, and I caught a first glimpse of her. And then she startled me immensely. We do not mean you any harm, she - said?
A telepath? Where was I?
***
As is customary in any first encounter I have with a stranger, I avoided giving away as much information about myself as I possibly could. Blake was clearly a perceptive man, but he was not a natural questioner, and he obviously baulked at interrogating somebody injured. Consequently, I managed to evade even his most direct questions with ease, by appearing more disoriented than I actually was.
I did, however, manage to pick up quite a bit. As I recounted, in a faint voice, the sorry story of an ordinary tradesman out on a business trip whose shuttle had suddenly malfunctioned, I was able to learn that I was on board a ship called the Liberator, that it had a crew of five, that these people were human - to whom even the word 'Starfleet' was meaningless - and that this man had seen nothing like me before.
Humans who had not heard of Starfleet, and who did not recognize a Cardassian when they saw one? I had heard of people going back in time - could that be what had happened? Lost in thought, it was a few minutes before I realized that Blake was staring at me with undisguised amazement.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's just that... well...'
'I quite understand,' I said in the most unthreatening manner I could muster.
'Well,' he said, crisply back to business, 'We've got Orac - that's our computer - trying to work out what brought you here.'
'Some sort of temporal or spatial anomaly?' I hazarded.
Blake frowned. 'Doesn't sound very likely,' he said.
'Where I come from,' I replied, 'It happens all the time.'
***
True to her word, Cally released me from the restraints as soon as she had checked no damage would result from letting me sit up. I spent two more days in bed, at her insistence, and then put in my first appearance on the flight deck. The suspicion and even open hostility which greeted me from certain quarters should have put me on alert at once. I can only blame my disorientation and the fact that I was still recovering from what, it transpired, had been quite a serious concussion for my failure to register the significance of this reception sooner. These were paranoid people - and with good reason.
Vila was welcoming enough, but I recognize a fellow dissembler when I see one. The pilot, Jenna, made pointed remarks about the wisdom of allowing new arrivals free range about the ship; this seemed to upset Cally, which rather set me against Jenna. The third man, within two minutes of my arrival on the flight deck, started interrogating a small box - which I learnt was Orac - on how to 'get rid of me'. It seemed that Avon did not trust strangers - or, indeed, acquaintances - as a matter of principle.
I had been about a fortnight on board - and still Orac was no closer to understanding how I had got here and, more importantly, how to get me back - when it became apparent that something significant was shortly about to happen. Blake and Cally had spent several days closeted away together. Vila's alcohol consumption had been steadily increasing. Avon's temper became, if it were possible, shorter and less predictable.
Left to my own devices, I began exploring the Liberator; the strong room proved an interesting find - as did the extensive wardrobe - and it's always useful to know where to find the life capsules. One of the other benefits of my voyage of discovery was that I was able to piece together bits of overheard conversations - or, more usually, arguments - and I soon realized that Blake was planning some sort of mission, and somewhat amateurishly, by the sound of things. My own, unvoiced sympathies lay completely with Vila's more loudly expressed opinions; on the day big itself we sat side by side behind the teleport console while the other four played at heroes and heroines. I had to disguise my particularly quick operation of the teleport controls - which almost certainly saved Jenna's life - as a lucky guess as to which buttons would work. I saw little point in broadcasting the fact that I had already a firm grasp of the principles underlying Liberator's technology.
My 'lucky guess' made me something of a minor hero, particularly with Jenna, and certainly eradicated any lingering mistrust on her part. Neither Cally nor Blake had seen any reason not to trust me from the outset. But our little escapade left it clear to me that I needed more information about the situation on board the ship, and just exactly who it was Blake was fighting. There was one obvious source of information, and one obvious way of accessing it; nevertheless, getting Vila drunk proved more of a challenge than I had anticipated. We had more in common with each other than either of us would like to admit - we were both intelligent, evasive, frequently under-estimated, and desirous of remaining safely under the cover of our carefully constructed personas for as long as was reasonably possible. It took me the best part of a week after the mission to persuade him that I really was harmless and he could let down some of his guard.
By the end of our session together, I knew a great deal about Vila's opinions on life, the rest of the crew, theft as a vocation and - more pertinently - I had acquired a significant amount of background information on the Federation and Blake's rebellion. You cannot begin to imagine my dismay upon learning the full details of the political situation in this particular universe - and the unpromising part which my rescuers played in the picture.
It has been my observation that revolutionaries make better martyrs than victors. One almost suspects they prefer it that way. With the one - admittedly big - exception of the Bajoran Resistance, my experience of these sorts of disputes told me that, in general, bets should be placed on the galactic military dictatorship rather than the under-resourced but plucky freedom-fighter. I most certainly had no desire to remain in a front-row seat as this particular iteration of the good fight drew to its inevitably bloody conclusion. It was without doubt time to return as quickly as possible to somewhere which I could more easily - if not completely accurately - call 'home'. And I would be spending the interval manning the teleport with Vila.
Perhaps if I had not just heard Orac's conclusion that it could conceive of no way in which I could be returned to my own time and place, I might have been in a better frame of mind for the scene with Avon which immediately followed. And perhaps then I would have felt rather differently about the best course of action to take in order to protect my interests in my new and unwanted home.
I say 'scene' advisedly: throughout my time on the Liberator Avon had demonstrated a decided talent for insisting on his indifference to the people around him, and then generating situations in which he could declaim, perform, and generally conduct himself as if life were one dramatic incident after another. On this occasion he happened to intrude upon what was a particularly fraught moment for me, and his presence was less than welcome.
Orac's pronouncement left me in turmoil. Even after Tain died, even after the war started and Cardassia was occupied, I had kept alive in me a spark of hope that one day my exile would end and I would go home. It was one of the few things that had persuaded me to carry on as the years dragged by and I remained stranded on the station. But this news was devastating.
Although the exigencies of my career had demanded a certain detachment from everyday society, Cardassians are not naturally solitary. Indeed, the lack of sufficiently challenging interaction was one of the more trying aspects of my banishment. Bajorans, of course, avoided talking to me if at all possible. Humans, with the intermittent exception of Dr Bashir, seemed to exist only on the most superficial of levels. It was only my occasional exchanges with Dukat, even filled, as they were, with mutual loathing and contempt, that constituted anything approaching decent conversation.
The thought that I was now trapped in permanent exile among humans with no chance of ever seeing my home again was most distressing. Even worse, this was a most unfriendly environment, and I had inadvertently fallen in with what I believed was likely to be the losing side. Quite apart from any sense of nostalgia for my own time and place, my current situation offended my pragmatic sensibilities.
Wrestling with my predicament, I had not heard Avon come in, and was startled when he spoke.
'I take it you've not had good news about your return home?'
I jumped slightly and looked up at him. 'No,' I said shortly.
'Pity.' He moved towards me and, with one of his ostentatiously choreographed movements, swept his arm across to take Orac's key and put it in his pocket.
'You seem to have been remarkably adept at exploring the capabilities of the Orac computer,' he said.
'I've often heard you say that it makes an excellent tool - '
'If you know how to use it. I find it striking that while, after nearly three years, several people in this crew have not managed that, you seem to have acquired the skill within the space of a few short weeks.'
'Well, I'm a quick learner - '
'I wonder what else you've learnt.'
I blinked at him. 'I beg your pardon?'
He came to stand up close to me, face to face. 'All that time you've spent on board the ship when the rest of us have been on Blake's futile little missions. All that time closeted away pouring drinks down Vila. How much do you know about the Liberator's systems now, Garak? How much information do you have about each one of us?'
'Really, I doubt that would prove the most entertaining or productive way to spend my time. Why should I care to find out information about any of you?'
'How about to sell us out to the Federation?'
'Well, what a marvellous idea!' I said. 'That hadn't even crossed my mind. Thank you for the suggestion.'
He glared at me furiously.
'I'm joking, of course,' I added.
'Were you? We don't know anything about you. You appear out of nowhere, ingratiate yourself on board, tell us nothing about yourself - '
'There really is very little to tell - '
'Whatever story of yours Blake has been foolish enough to believe, I think you're lying.'
I turned away from him. 'I don't have to listen to this - '
'Oh yes you do,' he shot back, and grabbed my arm. In retrospect, I think that even he would have agreed that he had made a mistake. I do not like being manhandled, and the combination of Avon's persistence and my own preoccupation was most unfortunate. I slid my hand into my inside jacket pocket, pulled him towards me and stabbed him, upwards, in the heart.
His eyes widened and he looked at me in disbelief. A rather banal expression, I thought, for one's last moments.
'No,' I repeated, 'I don't.'
Then I let go, and he slid to the ground, dead.
I looked down at the body. How desperately unprofessional, I thought. I could not remember the last time I had killed out of sheer exasperation, which is, I suppose, testimony to Avon's particularly infuriating nature. There are very good reasons why one plans one's executions with great care, not least the matter of the disposal of the corpse. Then there were the witnesses - Orac and Zen - to be silenced, the evidence to remove, the fabrication, if necessary, of an alibi... Really, this had the potential to turn into a most dreary state of affairs.
Avon's disappearance was met with no small degree of consternation on the part of my remaining fellow crew-mates. Gathered together on the flight deck, we mulled over what could have caused his sudden and unexpected departure. Vila was simultaneously relieved and taken aback. Jenna was of the opinion that Avon would not be missed, unlike the currency from the strong room which had apparently accompanied him in the life capsule (a nice touch on my part, I thought, bringing a certain verisimilitude to what were otherwise rather farcical proceedings). Cally and Blake seemed to take the matter very personally.
'I can't believe he's gone,' Blake said, shaking his head. 'I mean, he'd threaten it all the time, but I just assumed that was part of the act.'
In contrast to Avon's characteristically dramatic departure, the news of my now permanent resident status paled somewhat into insignificance. 'Thank God we still have someone who knows his way around the computers,' Blake muttered in passing. Cally, with quiet generosity, commented that she understood how it felt to be exiled for good among aliens.
The low-key nature of my transition from guest to full crew-member troubled me not at all; indeed, it was a source of great satisfaction. Acceptance, trust - under different circumstances I could have felt quite at home. As it was, I wasn't fooling myself that my indiscretion would go undetected for much longer. I had bought myself only a little time; but I was fairly certain that it was enough.
***
The last time I had attempted an operation such as this, I was under the influence of psychotropic drugs. I prefer to think that it was the effect of these rather than any diminution in my own talent which led to my failure. Fieldwork - like tailoring - requires precision, concentration, and patience. Both careers had come to me naturally - the second, I admit, with great ambivalence on my part - but I had approached the first with an unconditional acceptance of its routines that bordered on the fanatical. By the time I became... unemployed, my skills had been honed to expert level. One does not forget one's core competencies easily (even if their main object of late has been to develop a maximally efficient way to cut cloth). As a result, this operation proved an overwhelming and most gratifying success.
Precision was required to monitor the movements of my targets. Concentration enabled me to master and then control the ship's systems in a matter of days. Patience was necessary to ensure I did not make my move too soon. One must add to this heady mix my own particular talent for persuasion; had I not been able to convince Orac that its best options for self-preservation lay elsewhere than with the current crew, I could not have made the necessary external contact undetected.
Those of us whose business is betrayal rarely allow ourselves the luxury of self-reflection, least of all while we are at work. With three of the crew securely imprisoned and shortly to awaken to mild nausea from the sedatives, I was beginning to feel I was on the home stretch. But taking out the final person proved not only the most difficult part of the process (she was, after all, the only one who was not an amateur), it also caused me a rare stab of remorse.
I came up behind her quite silently, as she crouched in the corridor, waiting to make her move on me. Within seconds I had her pinned on her back on the ground. She gazed back at me with caged, impotent rage.
'Why have you done this?' she whispered. 'We only ever wanted to help you.' We trusted you, she added, in my head, and I'm not sure that the fingerprints she left will ever be erased.
'I'm sorry, Cally,' I said, in a rare example of complete honesty. 'But I have to protect myself.' Then I smashed my fist across her face and she was unconscious. The Liberator was mine.
***
I issued instructions for the orbit to Zen, then put the final touches to the program on which I had been working. It had proven less difficult than I had anticipated to integrate some of the systems from my shuttle, and I now had a transporter which I could operate from the flight deck. Moreover, the addition of technology from another civilization had served to make the Liberator an even more attractive prize.
I put through a message on a secure channel, requesting permission to beam my guest over. The confirmation came through instantly. I operated the controls, and three figures coalesced in front of me. Two bodyguards, black-clad and helmeted; she, standing in front of them, was flawless in white silk.
'Supreme Commander,' I purred. 'You look quite divine.'
She cast her huge eyes hungrily around the flight deck, before settling them on me.
'Just one moment...' I murmured, and reached out to straighten one infinitesimally thin shoulder strap. I smoothed my hand down the dress, which now flowed perfectly from shoulder to hemline, then stood back to admire.
'Divine,' I breathed.
She raised one immaculate eyebrow, as if trying to decide whether I had overstepped the mark.
'The Liberator, Supreme Commander,' I reminded her, and gestured around me, at the flight deck, at the treasures and the captives beyond. Her price. Mine was exactly the same it had ever been. 'All yours.'
Her mouth twisted into a wide smile, perfect and predatory.
'Do you know,' she said, 'I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...'
*******
May 2001
"I've abandoned my first love and run off with an older man."
In other news, I think I have just managed to get rid of the headache that's been plaguing me since Saturday. Go me!
