Blink: Interdiction (Book 4)

01

The image on the screen glimmered with lines of volcanic fire. Even from orbit the huge lava flows that burned through Ravine's main continents were visible, like great wounds in the dark sphere's flesh. Between the rivers of magma human beings had carved out a colony, with columns of huge armoured cubes embedded in the black rock of the planet's surface. The cubes locked together to form barriers against the near constant eruptions, their foundations secured with immensely powerful geo-anchors that pierced hundreds of meters into the crust.

But the volcanoes weren't the only source of fire on Ravine now.

Darien watched through glassy, red-rimmed eyes as the news report played out on the enormous tele-screen built into the wall of the front room in his apartment. Behind the image of the reporter, buildings burned and small dark figures scuttled back and forth, barely visible through the haze, despite the state of the art camera equipment the news-nets utilised.

"And you can see behind me," the man said, gesturing over his shoulder. "This factory complex was the latest target of the extremist factions operating within Karpa-Luna. While no specifics have been made available to us yet, it is believed an incendiary device was planted and detonated by remote in the base of the complex, causing a chain reaction that, as you can see, has engulfed the whole structure before emergency services could respond. The capital's security services have been on high alert since the early hours of the morning to keep the area clear of civilians. We have no report of casualties as yet..."

He turned away from the screen, trying not to listen. Instead Darien drowned out the voice by smashing a clenched fist into the punching bag that hung from the ceiling. He had a top of the line barrier generator in the far corner of the room, but there was something raw and cathartic about striking the coarse canvas of the bag.

He could, he supposed, have just turned the tele-screen off, but a little piece of him wanted - needed - to know what was going on outside the exile of his apartment. The other part of him wished he hadn't bothered, but it was too late for that. He knew all exactly what was fuelling the mayhem that spread through Ravine's cities like a virus.

His knuckles drove a divot into the punch bag as he swung again. The tension between Ravine's less-than-fortunate settlers and the colonial government had always been contentious, at best. Not long after Darien had left the planet, things had come to the brink of an outright civil war. The Colonial Navy managed to restore order with minimal bloodshed, and hammered out a fractionally more favourable deal for Ravine's agitators. Now it seemed that history was about to repeat itself. This time, however, Darien doubted things could be quelled so easily.

He hoped that he wouldn't have to find out.

Getting recruited by Blink had been the best thing that ever happened to him. In one sudden chain of events he went from a dead-end drug runner in Ravine's lava canals to someone who actually mattered. Gone were the fiery skies, scorched air and blood-soaked streets. Now he lived more than comfortably on a quiet little colony called Thracia, a tropical world whose densely clustered settlements jutted out of the humid forests, as though they were ruins that had been overgrown. Two suns bathed the world in a perpetual summer; a better place, perfect to counteract the hell he'd come from.

But the violent furnace he'd grown up in looked like it was trying to force its way back into his life. He remembered the fervour that had fuelled the conflict that marred his early days; remembered not comprehending the cause he'd been given to fight for.

He glanced back to the screen. The reporter was still talking but the gist of the story had been put across minutes ago. An extremist group operating in the heart of Ravine's capital city, Karpa-Luna, had managed to detonate a high yield incendiary mining charge on the lower floors of the factory building. While the superstructure had withstood the blast, fire-storms had raged through its halls and the casualty count was rising by the minute.