The hazy purple twilight of twin setting suns cast its reflection clear across the boundless lake of Planet Battenberg, bathing Pembo in its tranquil glow and casting her an endless shadow. Gabe knew he'd find her there, it's where she always went when she was thinking.
The fine orange sand that radiated it's sweet smelling heat during the week long day, now shimmered a dusty pink against the glistening purple of the lake.
She'd never looked more beautiful.
Gabe had been following her around like a helpless puppy ever since the afterparty. Once Susan effectively declared war on Abaddon, Pembo knew they'd never be safe within the fleet again. So Gabe brought her to the safest place he could think of.
It was strange at first for Gabe, returning to the place he last spoke with Professor Dawkins. Gabe often thought of that moment: how fragile he looked, how much sadness and longing filled his voice as he stared out to the endless horizon wishing he could start again; wishing he could have chosen another path. Dawkins knew just how dangerous Abaddon was and what he was capable of, perhaps more so than Pembo.
She had been on the receiving end of this treatment once before and knew exactly what was coming. First it was trial by media and then, once they'd dragged every aspect of your life through the mud for so long that people could barely stand to hear your name, then came the assassins. No outrage from the public, no enquiry, no question of justice, just relief that they didn't have to hear your name anymore. She had seen too many people disappear that way, too many close friends and family.
Work converting the caves into Justice For Earth's new headquarters commenced as soon as they landed. Jaibles was in his element, devising new technology to optimise their operation and generally creating a nuisance of himself, while Gabe, on the other hand, threw himself into strategising: without Susan, how do you eliminate a threat like Abaddon without angering God and ruining their chances of Paradise? -The fact that this meant he had to spend every day with Pembo was purely coincidental - at least that's what he told himself.
Sure it was a lie but what could he do? They were now public enemy number one. The full weight of Abaddon's Military force were looking for any excuse to come crashing down on them, which made this Pembo's last chance to put things right. Justice For Earth wasn't a hobby or a job for her, it was the last bastion of her old life, the weapon she forged out of the dying embers of her parents' memory after Abaddon burned it to the ground. So asking her out for a coffee didn't exactly feel appropriate.
Yet she occupied all his waking thoughts. Even his nightmares had stopped. If Gabe was being honest, she terrified him because she represented the one thing he never thought he'd ever have again.
Hope.
Gabe was already committed to bringing down Abaddon and EDEN for what they did to him, but suddenly, he found building a sustainable future now mattered; ending this war before it began now mattered; everything mattered more when he was around her and maybe, just maybe, he had stumbled on a way to make that happen.
'Deep in thought again?' said Gabe walking across the edge of the sandy bank and shattering the still reflection of the dead water, sending a million diamond encrusted ripples out towards the horizon.
'How can we know if Jäger's trustworthy?'
'We can't,' he replied.
Jäger Yamagotchi, son and heir to the YAMA Pharmaceutical fortune, and the man who took Gabe's position as Pilot of the SS YAMA had made contact with Gabe through a mutual acquaintance about a week ago. Abaddon had pushed the Corporate shuttles too far, he had stolen 50% of their company just to leave Earth and now he'd alienated them from the fleet with this attack on Susan and the Champions. Jäger and his dad wanted out, but feared the repercussions of publicly turning their back on him, so they came to Gabe offering information that could permanently weaken Abaddon's hold on the fleet.
'His story checks out. His dad is part of Abaddon's inner circle of corporate advisors and the YAMA is even docked next to Abaddon One. It's feasible they would have access to that level of information and it's feasible the Yamagotchi's would be cutthroat enough to sell out Abaddon to ensure a greater return on profits in the new world.'
'Exactly. When something is too good to be true, it usually is. I want to continue keeping him out of the loop. I don't want him used in the operation and I don't want him knowing where our base is. Not until we're sure he can be trusted.'
'Easily done,' replied Gabe crouching down to feel the cold wet sand in his hands and breathe in the faint scent of marzipan. 'The only question is when do we attack? For the fourth day running, we've reported yet another swell of recruits to the cause. It seems the longer he keeps attacking us on the news, the stronger we grow.'
'The longer he keeps attacking Susan, the stronger we grow,' she corrected.
'Still no word?' he said wiping the sand from his hands.
'Nothing,' she said wearily, 'she's the final piece; the green light from God to end his miserable life without risking humanity's chance of finding a new home. We've never been so close yet so far away.'
The last rays of sun hit the glassy lake, transforming it into a shimmering turquoise mirror that reflected an infinity of stars. It was as if it opened up a portal to an alternate dimension. Just one small step forward and they could leave it all behind and start anew.
'She'll come through,' said Gabe absently.
'Well, I guess that's problem solved then,' she snarked, 'Let's just stand here and wait for her to magically appear because you "believe she'll come through". Christ, I hope you applied more than blind hope when looking into the validity of Jäger's intel, otherwise we're all screwed.'
'Hey!' laughed Gabe, 'blind hope is a new concept for me, let me enjoy it.'
'Oi Geezer!'
Gabe wheeled round to see Monkey bounding towards him, waving his arm for them to come over.
'I've brought a friend!'
Pembo pushed past Gabe to get a closer look at the woman in white satin, standing solemnly at the entrance to the cave.
'Susan?'
'Told you,' smirked Gabe.
Pembo rushed to the foot of the cave to embrace Susan, but stopped short when she saw her cold expression.
'It's good to see you again, Susan,' she said awkwardly.
'And you,' replied Susan pulling her sleeves over her hands.
'Listen, I'm sorry we never believed you about Alan back on Earth. Making Abaddon face justice was all I could think about. We should have taken you seriously, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now?'
'No,' sighed Susan, 'it is I who should apologise. I stood in your way and now, not a day goes by that I wish I hadn't. You warned me about Abaddon and I didn't listen.'
'Then let's go put things right, 'said Pembo embracing her. 'Come, we've been busy since the last time we met.'
Monkey put his arm around Gabe and beamed heartily at him.
'What's that big grin for?'
'Let's go find Jaibles and I'll tell you.'
The tunnels of Planet Battenberg were seemingly endless. They had used the shuttles four-man Rovers to initially explore how far into the planet they went, but had to turn back after two continuous days of travelling into the planet's core. As a hiding place, it was second to none: it was big enough to hide their fleet of shuttles and maddening enough for an intruder to search for days without finding them. All members had to carry a map and a radio with them all times.
Susan was led into brightly lit antichamber bustling with activity. She remembered how scared she felt the first time she met everyone under the tunnels of Waterloo. How far she'd come.
There was an audible hush as she approached. Wildcard removed a map from the wall and rolled it up with a disapproving glare towards her sister.
Pembo knew the importance of this moment and gathered everyone around.
'You all remember the Emissary to our Lord God Alan and one time member of Justice for Earth,' she said with a smile.
Susan curtseyed and met Wildcard's looks of suspicion.
'Susan can help us end this, forever. So I want you to bring her up to speed on the plan.'
'Are you sure you want to do this?' said Wildcard, 'I don't have to remind you how much of our time she wasted back on Earth.'
'We need her,' pacified Pembo before turning back to Susan.
'We had already established a network of comms across the fleet that was slowly building back our numbers. Our initial plan was to pick up where we left off on Earth and slowly turn the tide against him until we were strong enough to bring him down, but that all changed when we found ourselves an unexpected ally.'
Gabe stepped forward.
'I got word that the owner's son of my old company wanted to talk with me. YAMA Pharmaceuticals had, for a long time, been avid supporters of Abaddon. Mr Yamagotchi is part of Abaddon's inner circle and his son, Jäger Yamagotchi has become a fairly accomplished Champion. However, they know Abaddon's time is up and they want safe passage into the new world.'
'They know the location of the Serpentine Media broadcast shuttle,' said Pembo with fire in her eyes. 'The single access point to all of Abaddon's power and control of the fleet - his Achilles heel.'
Captain Bingram of the Broadwick jumped forward, his gentle face was still rosy cheeked and clean shaven. It was still the sort of face Susan would have wanted delivering bad news or caring for an elderly relative, regardless of how much tribal war paint that gentle face was covered in, or that he'd clearly scribbled the word 'death' in black marker pen on his own forehead.
'Alright!' he bellowed, adjusting the spectacles that consistently slipped from the bridge of his nose. 'That's where I come in. After we feed Jäger the information that we're going to attack Abaddon's luxury shuttle, a small band of our fastest cruisers are going to draw out all his Military Police by actually attacking Abaddon's luxury shuttle!'
He smiled from ear to ear with an expression of wide-eyed expectation usually only seen on Labradors.
'A decoy, I assume,' said Susan looking towards Pembo.
'Exactly,' replied the commanding voice and strong, stubbled jaw of JJ.
Captain JJ of the Porlock. His shock of blonde hair and disarming blue eyes belied his dangerous past: Ex special forces, he was dishonourably discharged before resurfacing as a mercenary and gun runner in South America, when there was still a need for such things. They say his gunner, Nabley, was the brains of the operation, but no one ever got close enough to find out.
'I take the Porlock and a skeleton crew and locate the unmanned broadcast shuttle. We estimate it will take no longer than six minutes to activate the weapon and secure the broadcast tower.'
'The weapon?' Susan raised her eyebrow.
'I better take it from here, Treacle,' said Jaibles ruffling JJ's blonde hair, much to his annoyance.
'These chumps wanted to find a way of breaking into the Serpentine broadcast shuttle and extract a bloody great tower from the inside. Well, made no sense to me so I built a device that would make the job a lot easier. Essentially all spacecraft are airtight, right? Sealed like a bag of popcorn kernels, well, this device acts like a microwave - expanding all the atoms inside until the shuttle bursts open, spilling all it's hot buttery contents out into space for us to just pick out of the sky.'
Kali leaned against the wall and flicked back her hair: dyed pink and jagged across her smokey eyes. They were deeper and more jaded that Susan remembered: cavernous wells of pent up emotion, sinking deeper by each passing day as they held onto the horrors they'd seen just to survive this long. She was too young to have lived through so much.
'That's the point that I space walk into the wreckage, hook the broadcast tower to my unmarked shuttle, secure it and then hide it within the fleet. It will take me a week or two to configure the tower to our network, but once it's up, we'll have full operational access to transmit across all 'S News' platforms.'
Susan looked around at the cast of players as they fell silent. 'Then what?'
'Then we take his weapon and turn it against him,' glowed Pembo. 'Never again can his network go unchecked and do what he's doing to you right now. We expose him for what he is and stir up the overwhelming outrage for what he did to Earth, finally bringing him to justice.'
'You're only a few shuttles,' said Susan. 'How long can you seriously expect to distract his Military Police for?
Pembo smiled and lit up the room. 'Susan, we have over 250 thousand shuttles and crews at our disposal and counting.'
She watched with satisfaction as Susan's face dropped in amazement.
'The backlash against Abaddon has already begun and our numbers are growing in their thousands, but there are the potential for casualties: a lot of casualties, Susan, which is why we need your help in smoothing this over with God. We can't let this jeapordise the fleet's chance of redemption and Paradise. Susan, you can be the difference between this attack being a decoy to capture the S News tower or an actual effective attack to kidnap Abaddon and bring him to justice.'
Susan looked around at the operation they had built, the army they had amassed. With that at her disposal, no one would dare challenge her position ever again. Her hand rested briefly on her stomach.
Susan took it all in, the network, the resources - She had to make it hers.
'It won't work,' she said curtly. 'It's too slow, too ineffectual and Alan would never tolerate it.'
'Then stay with us and help come up with a more effective plan, before Abaddon does.'
'I already have one,' she lied, 'but time is of the essence, so if we do it, we do it my way. You hand over command to me and follow my orders completely and without question. Otherwise, I'll wait for Alan to return and do it alone.'
'No,' said Pembo. 'I have been after Abaddon my entire life, I have to be there when he goes down.'
'Then it's agreed?'
Pembo looked at each of her team. 'It's agreed,' she replied. 'What's your plan?'
'There is one thing Alan values above all things and we're going to give it to him by the gallon,' said Susan with fire in her eyes.
'Blood sacrifice.'