Cara looked out across the assembled throng. She had to admit, she was impressed with the size of the gathering and what it represented. The Core Systems Empire had put a lot of effort into this achievement. All those different planets, governments, races – bitter enemies – setting aside their differences to build something greater.
There had been sacrifices. Or rather, they had sacrificed people, when required, to make this happen. They were good at that – ‘doing what needed to be done’.
Well, so was the Alliance.
So was she.
Cara gripped the detonator one last time. “For you, Dad,” she whispered.
The sun was motionless in the white sky; a merciless whip of fire lashing him and the desolate mountainside into dessicated ruin. He had lost track of how long he'd been forcing his exhausted, burning body up the slope. Long enough to know that the path always looked the same in either direction. There was no summit, no base. No salvation.
* * *
I couldn't help laughing wryly at their latest prank. They'd harnessed Jonno to an inclined travelator under a huge lamp, and his glazed eyes told me there was more.
"You bastards have given him those hallucinogens again, haven't you?"
The alley stank of piss and hatred. Not that this mattered to Dietrich - it was familiar enough. His quarry, although dimly lit, was clearly a lone woman. She turned to face him as he reached her.
Not with the expected rictus of fear, though - nor the pleading that would just spur him on. An ebony cascade around her face; love and sorrow in her eyes. The most distant of memories stirred. Only then did he realise she had appeared in a dead end.
The alley stank of piss and hatred, and Dietrich wanted no part of this alien place.
They were closing fast; both Carson and I were scared.
Directing the microdrones against our pursuers was commanding all my attention - so, whilst he was inexperienced, I'd given Carson the job of communicating our coordinates to the Extraction Picket. It would briefly open a wormhole on us as it flashed past the planet, completing our escape.
The gaping disc appeared fifty metres away. There was no chance we would get there before it closed.
"We're in a gravity well!" I screamed. "Did you account for the time dilation?"
The blank look on his face made me reach for his throat.
