Blake's 7 ficlet, When the Water is Too Deep, Cally 'n' Travis, PG
disclaimer: not mine
genre: post-episode, au, angst
characters: Cally, Travis
rating: PG
length: barely 500 words
set: Post-Blake
notes: sigh. I'm through Blake's 7 as audio files now. I don't know what I'll listen to at work tomorrow. Also, as always, I blame redstarrobot.
When the Water is Too Deep
by ALC Punk!
They're on Penumbra when the news of the Gauda Prime Massacre reaches them. It's been more than a week since the Federation raided the planet, killing hundreds of criminals. Names like Blake, Cauder, Avon, Vila, and Mellenby float through the articles and messages. Sometimes, they're in bold. Blake and Avon get top billing on a scandal mag from Trion.
The newswires can't get enough of this further evidence that the Federation is out of control. And yet, no one seems to care. Pacified and happy, the people of the Federation merely consider such things to be necessary.
Ignorance and savagery have no place in the new regime.
Cally ignores the news, finishing the job and feeling a surge of vicious satisfaction as the pylene refinery goes up in smoke and flame.
One more planet half-freed from the Federation's grip.
-=-
Travis finds Cally in a bar. She missed the rendezvous and he'd gone looking, half-guessing why she'd disappeared.
Stepping inside, he finds a room of tense people, waiting for the pin to drop. The security services are on the look-out for the resistance team that took out the refinery. But their reports list five people, none of whom match the real perpetrators. Cally's at the bar, a bottle next to one hand.
"Drowning your sorrows?"
Perhaps he should have tried something less derisive.
Cally's voice snarls through his mind, ripping it into pieces with barely-restrained emotion.
GET OUT.
The words reverberate through the collective consciousness of the room, shattering the air as the men and women react. They rush the door, and Travis hugs the wall to avoid them, determined not to be swept away.
Out.
When they're gone, he straightens his shirt and leans into the wall, eyes hooded as he watches her.
"Our contact is going to leave us behind."
A glass shatters the against the wall next to him, but he doesn't flinch. There's a piece of glass in his cheek now, but showing weakness would ruin the moment.
"I can leave without you, if you'd rather be arrested for disturbing the peace."
"Yes." Cally tips her head back, swallowing from the bottle too-fast. She coughs a moment later, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.
Travis considers doing just that, but decides with a cynical sigh that if he did, she'd get shot, and the next job wouldn't go half as well without her. He might not like admitting it, but she was useful to his plans.
"I see you're drowning yourself appropriately," he mutters with deep sarcasm before taking the bottle from her.
"Don't presume--" she stops, eyes glittering with anger and other emotions Travis doesn't want to know about.
"I presume nothing. Shall we go?"
Travis finds her fist in his gut a moment later, and makes a sound not unlike a deflating balloon.
Cally takes the bottle back as he bends a little. "In a moment." She raises the bottle, "To the ones I've lost."
"You lost them long before Gauda Prime."
The bottle shatters against the mirror behind the bar, drowning out Cally's snarled reply.
-=-
Cally continues on her crusade, because it's the only thing she knows. The Federation is still corrupt, still destroying people with every planet it absorbs. It doesn't matter that she's the last, that it's potentially futile.
She has to try. Usually, she even succeeds.
-f
genre: post-episode, au, angst
characters: Cally, Travis
rating: PG
length: barely 500 words
set: Post-Blake
notes: sigh. I'm through Blake's 7 as audio files now. I don't know what I'll listen to at work tomorrow. Also, as always, I blame redstarrobot.
When the Water is Too Deep
by ALC Punk!
They're on Penumbra when the news of the Gauda Prime Massacre reaches them. It's been more than a week since the Federation raided the planet, killing hundreds of criminals. Names like Blake, Cauder, Avon, Vila, and Mellenby float through the articles and messages. Sometimes, they're in bold. Blake and Avon get top billing on a scandal mag from Trion.
The newswires can't get enough of this further evidence that the Federation is out of control. And yet, no one seems to care. Pacified and happy, the people of the Federation merely consider such things to be necessary.
Ignorance and savagery have no place in the new regime.
Cally ignores the news, finishing the job and feeling a surge of vicious satisfaction as the pylene refinery goes up in smoke and flame.
One more planet half-freed from the Federation's grip.
-=-
Travis finds Cally in a bar. She missed the rendezvous and he'd gone looking, half-guessing why she'd disappeared.
Stepping inside, he finds a room of tense people, waiting for the pin to drop. The security services are on the look-out for the resistance team that took out the refinery. But their reports list five people, none of whom match the real perpetrators. Cally's at the bar, a bottle next to one hand.
"Drowning your sorrows?"
Perhaps he should have tried something less derisive.
Cally's voice snarls through his mind, ripping it into pieces with barely-restrained emotion.
GET OUT.
The words reverberate through the collective consciousness of the room, shattering the air as the men and women react. They rush the door, and Travis hugs the wall to avoid them, determined not to be swept away.
Out.
When they're gone, he straightens his shirt and leans into the wall, eyes hooded as he watches her.
"Our contact is going to leave us behind."
A glass shatters the against the wall next to him, but he doesn't flinch. There's a piece of glass in his cheek now, but showing weakness would ruin the moment.
"I can leave without you, if you'd rather be arrested for disturbing the peace."
"Yes." Cally tips her head back, swallowing from the bottle too-fast. She coughs a moment later, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.
Travis considers doing just that, but decides with a cynical sigh that if he did, she'd get shot, and the next job wouldn't go half as well without her. He might not like admitting it, but she was useful to his plans.
"I see you're drowning yourself appropriately," he mutters with deep sarcasm before taking the bottle from her.
"Don't presume--" she stops, eyes glittering with anger and other emotions Travis doesn't want to know about.
"I presume nothing. Shall we go?"
Travis finds her fist in his gut a moment later, and makes a sound not unlike a deflating balloon.
Cally takes the bottle back as he bends a little. "In a moment." She raises the bottle, "To the ones I've lost."
"You lost them long before Gauda Prime."
The bottle shatters against the mirror behind the bar, drowning out Cally's snarled reply.
-=-
Cally continues on her crusade, because it's the only thing she knows. The Federation is still corrupt, still destroying people with every planet it absorbs. It doesn't matter that she's the last, that it's potentially futile.
She has to try. Usually, she even succeeds.
-f