Writing Meme - Blakes 7 Ficlets
jaxomsride2 gave me the prompt Blake's 7 Avon Changing Profession, and I wasn't sure if that meant just putting him into another profession from the start, or changing it after the start of the series.
So I did both. Two ficlets, one set in an alternate first episode, the last yet one more not very serious PGP after the last episode.
(Sorry, some knowledge of canon is probably needed to have any idea what I'm scribbling about, and the second one starts with a twenty-eight-or-so year old spoiler...)
A Day in the Life...
Sometimes, when life is really too quiet and solitary even for a Grade 1 computer technician with the salary to match, Kerr wonders if he might - just might - have made a mistake taking the offer. But not often.
He now works long hours in peace and quiet, in the top-security levels of the Dome, as the senior programmer in the Justice Department. True, the company he keeps is almost entirely mechanical, but that makes it more congenial than people. And out of hours, his private apartment is on the east, upper Alpha sector: tasteful, costly, minimalist. He lives alone, and rarely socialises so living alone is unlikely to change.
Kerr has no problem with it. He does not need people after all.
His work involves monitoring and overseeing the Judgement Machine, ensuring the evidence is correctly submitted or suppressed, and the proper verdicts are delivered; it is complex enough to absorb his attention, and he rarely notices the names and details on the programs he compiles.
The major case today was - well - unpleasant, but nothing special. A former political criminal by the name of Blake, accused and of course guilty of crimes against children. Condemned to Cygnus Alpha for life, or rather a living death. He would soon be forgotten by everyone.
As would the other, lesser case... but Kerr saw the data and felt oddly, distantly upset. The accused and of course guilty was a man he knew, a friend from before he'd taken this job, facing a sentence which he too could have faced...
No. Never.
Tynus. Lek Tynus. He remembers the light-eyed, sharp-faced man, always in company with a very lovely woman, Anni, Anna -? he can't recall, but it doesn't matter. His work at the time - the enormous, sprawling matter transmission project - had been mired in electronic dead ends and failure and blame.
He and Tynus and Anni, Anna, whatever her name was and her brother, they had all been friends of a sort, spent time together, talked of the future, of hopes, ambitions and stalled careers, before Tynus finally approached him about their quite dazzling, dangerous, massively alluring scheme. Three hundred million credits for the taking, they had said and yes, yes he had been tempted, by the money and by Anni, lovely lovely, clearly interested Anni. Or Anna.
He had not been not tempted enough. He'd taken the job with the Justice Department, and that had been the end of it for Kerr. A wise decision, it now seems, since the woman had been killed, and Tynus is also on his way to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha, in the same shipment out as the political criminal Blake.
A pity but after all, they were no longer friends. Kerr doesn't need friends.
Kerr doesn't need anyone at all.
Supposed To Be Dead
"You're supposed to be dead."
"Well now, so I am, Vila."
"You died on Gauda Prime. Everyone knows that you and Blake died at Gauda Prime. The Revolution made heroes of you after you and Blake died at Gauda Prime."
"And we serve them very well as dead heroes, don't we? The Revolution is over, the Federation is a pile of historical memories, and you made a fortune as a living hero.
"How is the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Tour progressing, by the way? Such an impressive guest list with you and Soolin, Dayna, Tarrant, Avalon, Tyce from Lindor, Kasabi's daughter, that odd little man Jarriere, even Brian the Revolutionary Spider..."
"It's terrific, everyone loves us, they even love Brian since he ate the old President. And everyone definitely loves the fleet of Liberator replicas, mini-Liberators, build-you-own-Liberators, Liberator toys, Liber... but that's not the point. The point is, we thought you and Blake were both dead. The entire galaxy thinks you're dead. The entire galaxy is running mad with Blake pictures from the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Tour, and Blake statues, and Blake viscasts, and Blake holo-souvenirs and Blake this and Blake that. And I guess he's not dead either?"
"Well done. No, he's not."
"There are Avon souvenirs too, you know. Not as many, and they don't look a bit like you."
"I am aware of that, and I can live with it."
"I guess you don't have much choice, do you? Being dead and all that. And you've got Orac, haven't you?"
"Oh yes, we most definitely have Orac."
"Wonderful. Just wonderful. Soolin and Dayna and Tarrant, they spent ages searching that forest on Gauda Prime for your rat in a box. And he wasn't there all the time, and you never let us know you weren't dead."
"It was... safer, shall we say? The Free Galaxy Council - how did you persuade them to elect you as a member, by the way? - does not need us, except as dead heroes."
"Wasn't my idea, was it? They couldn't have you and Blake, and they could the rest of us. You do know that the Council are going to want to use -"
"The Council are not going to find out, Vila."
"They're... not?"
"No. Blake and I are doing quite well in our new profession, and I want it kept that way."
"As professional dead heroes?"
"As very much alive and, with Orac running the business, very rich entrepreneurs. After all... who do you think actually created and owns the rights... to the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Grand Tour?"
So I did both. Two ficlets, one set in an alternate first episode, the last yet one more not very serious PGP after the last episode.
(Sorry, some knowledge of canon is probably needed to have any idea what I'm scribbling about, and the second one starts with a twenty-eight-or-so year old spoiler...)
A Day in the Life...
Sometimes, when life is really too quiet and solitary even for a Grade 1 computer technician with the salary to match, Kerr wonders if he might - just might - have made a mistake taking the offer. But not often.
He now works long hours in peace and quiet, in the top-security levels of the Dome, as the senior programmer in the Justice Department. True, the company he keeps is almost entirely mechanical, but that makes it more congenial than people. And out of hours, his private apartment is on the east, upper Alpha sector: tasteful, costly, minimalist. He lives alone, and rarely socialises so living alone is unlikely to change.
Kerr has no problem with it. He does not need people after all.
His work involves monitoring and overseeing the Judgement Machine, ensuring the evidence is correctly submitted or suppressed, and the proper verdicts are delivered; it is complex enough to absorb his attention, and he rarely notices the names and details on the programs he compiles.
The major case today was - well - unpleasant, but nothing special. A former political criminal by the name of Blake, accused and of course guilty of crimes against children. Condemned to Cygnus Alpha for life, or rather a living death. He would soon be forgotten by everyone.
As would the other, lesser case... but Kerr saw the data and felt oddly, distantly upset. The accused and of course guilty was a man he knew, a friend from before he'd taken this job, facing a sentence which he too could have faced...
No. Never.
Tynus. Lek Tynus. He remembers the light-eyed, sharp-faced man, always in company with a very lovely woman, Anni, Anna -? he can't recall, but it doesn't matter. His work at the time - the enormous, sprawling matter transmission project - had been mired in electronic dead ends and failure and blame.
He and Tynus and Anni, Anna, whatever her name was and her brother, they had all been friends of a sort, spent time together, talked of the future, of hopes, ambitions and stalled careers, before Tynus finally approached him about their quite dazzling, dangerous, massively alluring scheme. Three hundred million credits for the taking, they had said and yes, yes he had been tempted, by the money and by Anni, lovely lovely, clearly interested Anni. Or Anna.
He had not been not tempted enough. He'd taken the job with the Justice Department, and that had been the end of it for Kerr. A wise decision, it now seems, since the woman had been killed, and Tynus is also on his way to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha, in the same shipment out as the political criminal Blake.
A pity but after all, they were no longer friends. Kerr doesn't need friends.
Kerr doesn't need anyone at all.
Supposed To Be Dead
"You're supposed to be dead."
"Well now, so I am, Vila."
"You died on Gauda Prime. Everyone knows that you and Blake died at Gauda Prime. The Revolution made heroes of you after you and Blake died at Gauda Prime."
"And we serve them very well as dead heroes, don't we? The Revolution is over, the Federation is a pile of historical memories, and you made a fortune as a living hero.
"How is the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Tour progressing, by the way? Such an impressive guest list with you and Soolin, Dayna, Tarrant, Avalon, Tyce from Lindor, Kasabi's daughter, that odd little man Jarriere, even Brian the Revolutionary Spider..."
"It's terrific, everyone loves us, they even love Brian since he ate the old President. And everyone definitely loves the fleet of Liberator replicas, mini-Liberators, build-you-own-Liberators, Liberator toys, Liber... but that's not the point. The point is, we thought you and Blake were both dead. The entire galaxy thinks you're dead. The entire galaxy is running mad with Blake pictures from the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Tour, and Blake statues, and Blake viscasts, and Blake holo-souvenirs and Blake this and Blake that. And I guess he's not dead either?"
"Well done. No, he's not."
"There are Avon souvenirs too, you know. Not as many, and they don't look a bit like you."
"I am aware of that, and I can live with it."
"I guess you don't have much choice, do you? Being dead and all that. And you've got Orac, haven't you?"
"Oh yes, we most definitely have Orac."
"Wonderful. Just wonderful. Soolin and Dayna and Tarrant, they spent ages searching that forest on Gauda Prime for your rat in a box. And he wasn't there all the time, and you never let us know you weren't dead."
"It was... safer, shall we say? The Free Galaxy Council - how did you persuade them to elect you as a member, by the way? - does not need us, except as dead heroes."
"Wasn't my idea, was it? They couldn't have you and Blake, and they could the rest of us. You do know that the Council are going to want to use -"
"The Council are not going to find out, Vila."
"They're... not?"
"No. Blake and I are doing quite well in our new profession, and I want it kept that way."
"As professional dead heroes?"
"As very much alive and, with Orac running the business, very rich entrepreneurs. After all... who do you think actually created and owns the rights... to the Heroes of the Free Galaxy Grand Tour?"