B7

The Way Back - The Reason

Prompt: Bad Timing





Tarrant had expected to find Blake dead.  He had been issued three companies of troopers to quell the dissidents and although at such short notice, the administration would not expect a clean job, they would not expect any survivors either.





Damn Blake and damn Foster too, he thought bitterly.  Of course Blake’s escape was not truly a problem for the administration; mind-wipes had proved effective in Blake’s previous history.  No doubt that would the route taken again.  However, Tarrant’s cover had been exposed and it was unlikely he could re-infiltrate.  The other cells would hear rumours of his involvement long before any psycho-surgeons could perform even a standard mind-wipe. 


That made him just about redundant within the administration.  A limping ex-soldier known to rebels was of very little use.  Of course it was unlikely the administration would do anything to him, he was not important enough.


But still.





Damn Blake.  If only he had given the signal to attack whilst Blake was still talking to Foster, before Blake wondered off and innocently eluded the troopers.  But he had held back, what if Blake refused to join?  It had looked promising; his disgust at the Outsiders, the disbelief in his eyes when Foster bluntly broke the news about his brother and sister.  If Blake didn’t rejoin, if the mind-implants had worked that well, well wasn’t there a chance that he, Tarrant, could present Blake to the administration, as one of their own?  What a prize that would have been.


Damn timing.  He should have kept his eyes on the original target and let be.





What Dev Tarrant would never understand, could never comprehend, was that Blake had had no inclination of ‘re’-joining.  In fact, if some bastard hadn’t given orders to gun down Foster and his otherwise peaceful dissidents whilst he was watching, Blake would never have given the rebels another thought.