Last updated on 29th of August 2001
These are not currently avaiable.
by Peggy Hartsook
Roj Blake looked intently at each of his five crewmembers seated on the forward couch on flight deck of the Liberator. He sat in the middle, with Jenna on his right and Cally on his left. "I cannot stress this enough," he said earnestly, "no one is required to do anything this time. I don't know for sure if the claims of the people of Taurus Minor are true. There might not be any ancient lost technology and therefore, no need for our expertise."
"Our expertise?" Avon inquired sarcastically, from his place on Cally’s right.
"All right. Your expertise," Blake sighed, stroking Avon's ego as always. "But, remember, I am not forcing you to go. I can check it out myself and see if it’s worth anything."
"You don't sound too enthusiastic about this, Blake," Gan remarked.
"Frankly, I don’t think this will be worth our time." Blake frowned, having spent considerable time in research with ORAC.
"Then why go?" Jenna asked.
"Because there’s always a possibility I could be wrong," Blake replied grimly.
As usual, Avon took the shot. "There's a first. You admitting it".
"Ah, lay off it," Vila admonished, only verbalizing what the others had thought. He had prompt second thoughts however when Avon gave him a dark glare.
"In return," Blake continued, ignoring them both, "we'll find out just what this discovery is and have a potential new ally against the Federation."
by Linda Knights
"Avon!"
He ran toward the sound of his name and the sheer panic in the voice that had called it. It was an action that he would, had he been given time to think about it, not have done. Running into the unknown, in this situation, was almost surely the same as running into danger. But that degree of panic did not lend itself to considered thought.
Rounding the corner of the building, he instinctively ducked away from the danger that had to have inspired the scream, finding only Blake, not an enemy, waiting for him there. With a holt he came to a stop. He actually froze; an action he'd always thought physically impossible -- a writer's artificial device. It wasn't. In reality it was possible to just stand in one place without thought, without action, without emotion.
"Avon?"
Roj Blake wasn't a man who should either beg or bessech, Avon had decided that long ago. Yet, now, he was doing just that. "I'm here," Avon said calmly, a great deal calmer than he felt. "What happened?"
Blake was wedged tightly back into a corner, hands up, clutching at his eyes, weapon laying forgotten, discarded, at his feet. Blake's fingers were pressed tightly into eyes that, from Avon's point of view, were undamaged. Tears crept from beneath the tightly-closed lids, though, grainy tears. Pain transformed the man's features, aging him, weakening him. "Laser flashback, I think."
This was originally published in Something Unfriendly #1
(51 pgs) Full Color Photo Cover
by Linda Knights
It had been too near a thing this time.
Del Tarrant carefully didn't move. The pain that had burned like a laser probe up his left side and coursed through his chest for most of the last week was under control, for once, and he wasn't about to do anything that would upset that tenuous balance.
Without moving from his position in the medical unit's bed, he could see little more than five feet of unimpressive ceiling, but that was fine. For a little while longer he'd simply lay, enjoying the very fact that he could see anything at all.
"Is the pain coming back?" Cally asked as she rose from the computer terminal where she'd been working.
One of them had been in constant attendance since the accident. A further sign of how badly injured he'd been. "No, I'll be all right a little longer." Tarrant's voice was still a coarse whisper.
"There's no need to suffer." Cally gently brushed curly bangs back out of his eyes, feeling for a fever as she did, trusting her touch far more than all the machines at their disposal. "I could give you something..."
A twitch of his head in denial. "A little longer," he begged.
"Okay," she conceded. "I'll just be over at the desk if you need me."
Tarrant drew a careful breath. Yes, it had been rather too close a call for his comfort. He wasn't at all ready to surrender to the bliss of the drugs. Because every time he closed his eyes he saw -- again -- how near a thing it had been.
by Linda Knights
"Stay back!"
Blake froze in mid-step. His hand hung in mid-air, motioning for reason or perhaps for understanding, he couldn't now remember which. Neither mattered. The only thing that mattered was the frank insanity in Avon's wild eyes.
"Avon, what is it?" he questioned quietly, forcing himself to sound as normal as possible.
Jenna stood behind Blake, a hand up on the weapon's rack, undecided. Avon held a gun securely pointed at Blake -- so securely it was hard to sanction, even now, that he wasn't in complete control. And if he was in control then he deserved to be shot down like a rabid animal. But if he wasn't in control? If he really had slipped off into insanity? If this was neither his fault nor his choice, than she couldn't shoot him. Unless, of course, there was no other way to save Blake's life.
"Avon... please," Blake reasoned as he took a tentative step forward. "Whatever it is, we can talk it out."
Avon shook his head hard, once, as if trying desperately to clear away an unacceptable fog. His mouth opened but no words came out. He was hyperventilating, his complexion wavering wildly between the blood red of outrage and a pale, sickly white. Fine, but almost constant, muscle spasms racked his frame, leaving him shivering like a leaf in the wind. A tic spastically tensed the skin beneath his right eye.
by Peggy Hartsook
This was originally published in Power #1
The room was sumptuously decorated and comfortable, somewhat surprisingly given the rough nature of the inhabitants of this world and no one could have asked for a better place to sit down and wait. The over dressed woman in the evening gown however was not impressed. Commissioner Sleer ground her teeth in frustration. How dare these criminals keep her waiting; other people came and went about their business while she sat, like a beggar awaiting a handout. Beggar. Sleer rolled the word around in her mouth, inviting all the hate and bitterness it invoked. Everyday brought more names to her lists of people with whom she would even the score when the time was right.
Sleer glanced at the single guard she was permitted to bring along. The mutoid sat impassively beside her. The Commissioner wondered idly if anything ever bothered a mutoid, other than a disruption of the blood serum supply. She doubted it. Mutoids had no pride, no vanity and did not waste their time on vows of vengeance except at the command of their human bosses. But Sleer did not intend to waste time herself. After this was over, there would be retribution, she vowed for the hundredth time.
It was just one more aspect of a general situation that the Commissioner found intolerable. Ironic, how the demise of Blake, Avon and their miserable little rabble also coincided with the decline of her own fortunes. Commissioner Sleer had not been involved with the Gauda Prime operation; had not even known of it until after it occurred. Sleer still felt a surge of anger; she, who had invested so much time and effort, had been denied the final kill. And of course, the fools had bungled it: ORAC had never been recovered. Avon's final triumph, she thought bitterly.
This was originally published in Southern Seven #5
((53 pgs)) Full Color Photo Cover
by Linda Knights
He burned with the fire of a dozen concentrated suns. As he had burned for... as he had burned for just short of forever. Far over him, in the nether regions of a space that neither involved nor interested him, voices sounded.
"Orac?"
+There is no medically discernible change +
"His fever has been 104 degrees for over an hour, Blake. Much longer and there could well be brain damage."
"I'm aware of that, Cally. What do you purpose? The medical computer can tell us nothing. Orac can tell us nothing. I'm open to suggestions."
Avon had long since ceased to struggle against the paresis that gripped his body and mind. He floated uncomfortably in a sea of molten lava, burning, eternally burning. He listened apathetically to the voices pronouncing judgment and prognosis.
"Orac, anything?"
+The infection parasite is most definitely viral +
"Then why aren't any of the rest of us affected?"
"Shouldn't we just be thankful we weren't?"
"Vila, hush!"
+ The pathogen is body-type specific. It took an extremely specialized, and thus self-limiting, set of circumstances - both physically and historically - to make anyone susceptible to the illness +
"Specify."
+ The disease will affect only adult males who have spent the primary portion of their formative years on Earth or closeted within Earth-specific cultures. Moreover, the males affected can have never been afflicted with any of the beta-deviant diseases that harmlessly infect most children in those cultuers. +
"Prognosis?"
+ Without more information on the pathogen, a prognosis is difficult to determine to any high degree of probability +
"Well guess then!"
+ If the anti-serum is not found and distilled within five hours there is a seventy percent chance Kerr Avon will die +
This was originally published in Something Unfriendly #2
(9 pgs)
by Linda Knights
She took a seat in the comfortable lounge area and peered across the gap betewen the two chairs at the circumspect subject of her interview. A year ago she'd have killed for the chance to talk to this man - and it would have probably taken that to get him here. Six months ago she'd have sworn on everything holy that it'd be an impossible interview to achieve. As short a time ago as last week she'd have been willing to bet that he'd have turned her down cold if she presented him with the chance. Very cold from the reports she'd been given.
Yet, here he sat.
by Linda Knights
There had, the first time, been all the classical reasons for submitting to his ministrations. They'd been alone, cold, and while neither would admit to it, extremely frightened. Death had so very nearly swept them up in its eternally cold embrace. It was not surprising that they'd ended in each other's arms.
More pleasing than the sheer sex - for that had been fevered and rather clumsy - had been the realization that, come morning, there had been no hint of regret or disgust on his face. He'd been very much his old self.
by Linda Knights
Blake looked up from the file. He’d been conscious, for some time, of a presence standing at his elbow. Now, unable - and unwilling - to tolerate the silent scrutiny a moment longer, he whirled... and found Avon.
The computer tech jumped almost guiltily, retreating a few steps and pretending a sudden interest in a jagged piece of metal on a console. His hand ran down the rough edge. “I can’t help wondering why this hasn’t repaired itself,” he mused out loud. “It would have seemed that, by now, Zen would have had ample time to have attended to something so minor.”
For a moment Blake considered accusing Avon of standing there and staring at him but the whole idea was so ludicrous that he immediately dropped it. Another of the crew, perhaps, but Avon? Obviously it had simply been his own active imagination. “Perhaps Zen has more important things to do then attend to something that is only a comfort measure.”
This is mislabeled as Waves upon a reflected surface in Linda's index.
by Linda Knights
The first thing Dayna noticed when she entered the room was that Avon was an untidy sleeper.
Under the circumstances it was a ludicrous thing to observe, but it was so unlike the picture of Kerr Avon that she'd been forming in her mind that it stopped her cold. She stood there, calmly analyzing the way his limbs were knotted into the sheets, the fine-muscle twitching that still troubled him, and, more over, the frown marring the marbled-perfection of his face.
Had he somehow sensed her entrance into his room and was troubled by it even in his sleep? Or did he always frown so, twitching into some nightmare that he had never spoken of - never shared? That seemed unfair. Avon's life was so difficult now that she wondered - often and to herself - how he made it through each day. To have to take that tension to bed with him was unbearably cruel.
"Avon?"
He jerked up at the sound of his name, instantly awake, an instinct trained, no doubt, by the rigors of his life. He came up in bed, still tangled in the sheets, and then, seeing who it was, he collapsed back with a muted groan.
"I'm sorry to disturb you like this," Dayna continued, uncomfortable both with the subject that she was going to have to broach, and with being here in his room. "But I just received a vis-communication's burst on open channel, and well..." She paused, stammering to a halt. "Avon, I think you'd better come, right now."
This was originally published in Gambit #2
by Linda Knights
"You're mad! Stark-raving mad!"
Avon seated himself on the rocky out-cropping and listened to the echoes of Tarrant's statement drift off on the gentle breeze. He'd fled - uncharacteristic by itself - leaving the others to whatever peace could conceivably be found within Xenon base. He'd ran, not sure where he'd end up, not even sure why he'd gone, knowing only that he couldn't face the damning accusation directly. For it was now beyond his ability to again deny the madness of which he'd been accused. He'd never developed mankind's apparently well-cultivated ability to ignore reality.
He wasn't even sure - now that he stopped to analyze contemplate it - how long he'd been consciously aware of his madness. Long enough certainly that the thought no longer affronted him. Long enough that none of the crew - none of his crew - had even raised a voice in his defense.