Revolutionaries are always criminals, at one point in time or another.

Over half a decade ago when Darien had been running the lava canals, Kyros Bakirtzis had been the closest thing to a mentor that existed in the criminal underworld of Ravine. A few years older and a few years harder with it, the wily youth had cut his way a few rungs up into the position of a supervisor among the lower echelons. He ran his own barge, carrying everything from weapons and medical supplies to booze and pornography.

At the time Darien didn't appreciate how Kyros differed from the other canal-runners. Cared a little more; killed a little less. He managed it without standing out too much. If someone shorted a payment he'd break a finger instead of an arm. For him violence was an occasionally necessary task rather than a preferred means of enforcement.

He hadn't appreciated how lucky he'd been to be crewing Kyros's barge, not until the day their boss, Caspok, took exception to some of the young man's lenient practices and decided to show him how a real canal runner ran their ship. Big armoured goons with bigger guns took over the barge for a brutal week, during which Darien learned what it really meant to hate someone.

He could still feel the bone-cracking impact of the brute's fist against his jaw on that fateful day, their boss venting his spleen at Darien's hesitation to pitch a rival gang member over the rails and to certain death. Kyros showed how different he was by trying to stop the beatings; trying to reason with Caspok and ease the suffering of the young canal runners under his command. For his trouble he'd been shot and sent tumbling into Ravine's lava flows.

And therein lay the problem. The man sitting in front of him wasn't supposed to be alive.

"Kyros?" Darien finally managed, tilting his head slightly to one side as he scrutinized his one time comrade. "You really are Kyros Bakirtzis?"

"In the flesh."

"But you... you died."

Kyros smirked. "I guess death isn't the setback it used to be, huh?"

"No, no, I saw it," he said, still struggling to wrap his brain around what he was witnessing. "Caspok shot you! You went over the side!"

"That much is true."

"But ... how?"

"A lot of luck, I have to say." Kyros smirked and puffed mischievously on his cigarette. "The old barges we used to run? They had big outriggers. If Caspok had a brain cell between his ears he'd have known that and shot me over the stern."

"I don't get it."

"I might have gone over the side with a bullet in my chest, but I never hit the lava." There was an almost impish glee in the young man's voice as he spoke. "Landed on one of the outriggers and managed to get a hold of it before I slid off and got burned to a cinder."

"But those things are half in the lava flows!"

"Like I said – a lot of luck. Found a safe spot where I didn't get much more than splashes washing out of the flow. Stayed there for... space I don't know how long to be honest. Then moved along the rigger onto the underhull before we docked."

Darien's eyes widened in amazement. "We pulled in to Thretz ... with you underneath us?"

"More or less." Kyros shrugged. "Waited for the shift change at the dock and managed to sneak out to the town. Being the nice guy might've gotten me shot, but it also kept me alive after. The doctor in Thretz dug out the bullet, treated the burns, stitched me up and sent me on my way, no questions asked."

"And so you left?" A simmer of anger flashed across Darien's face. "You left us with that bastard?!"

The amusement faded from Kyros's face at that. "I couldn't come back, Darien, not right away. I was in a bad way even after the doc patched me up. I had to get out, lay low. I'm sorry that you got stuck with him but it took a long time for me to get back into living after that."

"Those were the worst years of my life-,"

"Those years are well and truly behind you now though, aren't they?" Kyros snapped, eyes narrowing as he tapped out ash from his cigarette onto the floor. "I always wondered what happened to you, Darien. The boys told me the rumours of you getting scooped up; taken off world somewhere. I thought you were dead and they'd just made it up to make me feel better. Didn't expect you to come back here as a colonial attack dog."

"Well I didn't expect to find you alive and trying to start a war."

He frowned; took another drag of his cigarette. Then he gestured to the empty chair. "Sit down."

Moving warily forward, Darien approached the table and in a slow, deliberate motion pulled the Bocklor handgun free from his coat. He saw Kyros's shoulders tense for the smallest instant, but the tension melted away when Darien laid the weapon down on the table. Then he eased himself down into the solid metal of the chair and forced himself to relax into it. Looking at Kyros he felt a lot of things right now, but he didn't really feel like he was in any danger.

The whole thing still seemed like a fever dream, a ghost from his past returning to lead a rebellion. Darien exhaled a heavy breath and nodded.

"Okay, Kyros. You asked me to come here and here I am."

"So, Blink?"

"What?"

"Impressive." Kyros smiled. "I'm glad you made a little something of yourself, Darien. When I saw the security recordings at first I didn't really believe it. Once I got my head around it I knew I needed to talk to you, face to face, to make you understand a few things."

"I didn't come for a speech, Kyros," Darien replied flatly. "I'd love to be glad that you're alive but what the hell are you doing here? What are you trying to accomplish?"

"I'd have thought that'd be pretty obvious to you of all people."

"Oh, so because we ran the canals together six years ago you think you know me now?"

"I don't think you've changed all that much," Kyros shot back. "Otherwise you wouldn't have even bothered coming here to speak to me."

Darien's jaw tightened with annoyance. "It was a calculated risk. I'm here to try and talk some sense into you – to try and get you to stop the fighting so we can let people get back to their lives."

"Back to their lives?" A bitter chuckle slipped from Kyros's lips. "You really think that is something to fight for? A life on Ravine is worth less than anywhere else. Maybe if you hadn't abandoned your home so quickly you'd remember that."

"Home?" He shook his head in amazement. "This was never home."

"Well most people don't get the option of leaving hell."

"That is not my fault."

Kyros thumped a clenched fist against the table in frustration. "Don't you get it, Darien? Wouldn't you rather give people better options than living hell down here or praying to be spirited away by the same government that caused it?" He sighed, sucking a sharp draw from his cigarette. "What happened here is wrong – the government is wrong – and I don't understand how you can't see it."

"Don't patronise me. You think I don't wish things were fairer? You think I don't know the shit deal that gets heaped on this planet?" Darien snorted dismissively. "Let me tell you, Kyros, being in Blink I've seen a lot more than you ever will. I know better than you how unfair the galaxy can be sometimes, so don't preach to me about right and wrong."

"So that's it." Kyros threw up his hands with a despairing smile. "You just expect everything to go back to the way it was? 'Back in line good little citizens, queue up for your cancer and your drugs and drink the pain away like the little automatons that you are'. Not on your life."

"Damn it, Kyros, it doesn't have to be that way. You wanted the colonial government's attention? Well you've got it. We heard you."

"We?" He tutted, shaking his head. "Got their claws deep into you didn't they?"

"Are you going to listen to me or not?" Darien took the silence that followed as tacit assent. "If we stop this now you can get what you want. People all over this planet hear what you say and they agree with you, but that doesn't have to lead to a civil war. There are other ways-,"

"What other ways?" Kyros scoffed. "If that were true I wouldn't have to do what I'm doing now."

"You could walk into that puppet parliament in Karpa Luna," Darien continued, desperate to steer his old companion away from the course of all out war. "Look at what you've managed to do! As a fugitive you've shaken this planet to the core. Imagine what you could do if you had actual authority, power that the colonial government recognised."

"You think politics can solve this?" He shook his head. "You really think anyone listens to the dummy administration of a backwater like Ravine? You think other people haven't tried?" Kyros laughed again, more bitterness slipping into every word. "I'm sorry, Darien, but I think we're a little too far gone for that. If I stop now I'll be arrested and disappear into a little dark room to be interrogated for the rest of my days. And Ravine... Ravine will just carry on."

A sense of impotent anger swelled in Darien's chest and he slumped in his seat, folding his arms. "So why did you even ask me here? You said you wanted to negotiate but I'm not seeing anything from your side that sounds like a peace offering."

"Peace? Peace is easy, Darien. What I want isn't complicated."

"Then will you just tell me?!"

"You, and all the soldiers that came with you-," he made a vague gesture skyward. "You pack up and leave. You take your navy with you. You run away and explain to the illustrious government back on Earth that the people of Ravine have spoken. You tell them that we are due reparations, and tithe renegotiations and access to any and all emergency aid and development funds. You will explain to them that their best scientists, doctors and engineers will come out here and help us."

Kyros's voice grew in intensity with each syllable, burning with a fervour that chilled Darien's blood.

"They will give us the means to manufacture the medicines we need here," he continued. "Without having to beg for it from our masters so we can breathe our own damned air. And eventually we will fix what they did wrong on this planet – they will help us reterraform Ravine so that we don't need those medicines any more. We will be given the means to create a real army, a real security force and our own navy so we can enforce our own laws, without waiting for the jackboots from the stars to come stamping down to remind us of our place in the universe. And when the dust settles and the years have passed, and when Ravine no longer answers to bureaucrats hundred of billions of miles from our eyes and ears, that's when you'll see a peace that can last, Darien."

His voice echoed briefly in the small chamber, the tip of his cigarette glaring orange as he heaved in a steadying draw, as though the tirade had physically drained him. Smoke coiled around them and Darien could only sit, and stare, trying to sort through the idealistic deluge that had just been emptied onto him. He blinked and tried to figure out what to do with his hands, fidgeting awkwardly on his lap before settling on stuffing them into his pockets. Then he looked at Kyros, blowing out his cheeks as he formulated the words.

"Well," he said. "Is that all?"

"You want to know my price for putting an end to this? That's it."

Darien rubbed his eyes with one hand, a hollow sense of futility beginning to creep over him. "Kyros, you know that's impossible."

"It's not impossible!" Kyros yelled, and to Darien's shock he heard the crack of a sob in the back of the young man's voice. "They could do all of this and more if they wanted to, but they won't, will they? You know that, Darien. You know they could snap their fingers and right every wrong in the galaxy but they just won't do it. They're too busy hoarding and hoarding, building bigger skyscrapers and shinier luxury yachts. They're terraforming resort worlds and making pleasure planets while the people here choke on their own atmosphere!"

"Stop!" Darien gritted his teeth, willing away the bitter sting of truth that the rebel leader's words carried. "I am not against what you want for Ravine, for the people who live here, but I'm telling you what you are asking can't be done. No matter what I say when I go back, I cannot make that happen. You have to know that."

"Maybe I do know that." Kyros dragged a sleeve across his bloodshot eyes. "But I have to try because nothing else will work. Nothing else."

"Please – you don't have to demand it all." Darien leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "We can find some way to compromise. That's not impossible."

"Other people have tried to compromise before – you know that as well as I do." Kyros shook his head with grim finality. "I just want to help Ravine and this is the only way I can do it."

"Damn it, Kyros, I understand why you're doing this but if you keep doing down this path you won't help anyone. You're going to get these people killed!"

Kyros stiffened at that. A moment of silence passed as he let smoke trickle between his teeth, holding Darien's stare. When he finally spoke his voice was cold with rage.

"Let me ask you something. Do you know many people die on Ravine every year from complications due to the failed terraforming, from the gang violence, or just murdering each other for an extra dose of medicine?"

Darien shook his head.

"I'll spare you the math, but if you tally up the years it's a hell of a lot more than would die in any war here, I can promise you that." Kyros leaned back in his chair, his face a grim mask. "This can't continue, so I'm ending it, Darien, one way or another."

His shoulders sagged as he forced himself to accept the inevitable. Kyros was not going to back down – he simply had too much belief and had seen too much of Ravine to think otherwise. Merlynn was not going to back down either – he knew that with a chilling certainty.

And in that moment he knew war was coming to Ravine and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Sadness churned his stomach as he looked at Kyros, memories of their time on the canals flickering across his mind. When you tallied everything up, he was, deep down, a decent man, but twisted by the vicious hands of fate into something corrupted and dangerous. His eyes flickered to the Bocklor lying on the table in front of him.

They sat there for almost a full minute before Darien stood up. He felt like he'd been emptied, his legs unsteady beneath him. Exhaling long and slow, he reached forward and picked up the Bocklor.

And slid it back into its holster.

"I guess we're done here."

Kyros nodded and with heavy steps Darien turned and crossed the room, thumping a fist on the airlock three times. A few seconds later the mechanisms hissed into life and the door was hauled open.

He raised a foot to step out of the room before the voice arrested his progress.

"Whatever happens, Darien, it was good to see you again."

Darien stopped. Lowered his foot. He didn't know what to say. Under any other circumstance he would have returned the sentiment but here and now...? Kyros was the one who'd caused all this, who'd dragged him back to Ravine and dredged him through all his worst memories. For a moment he just stood there, wrestling with his thoughts and emotions, trying to decide what to do. Then he remembered something.

"Tell me one last thing," Darien said, looking back over his shoulder. "What happened to Caspok?"

"Caspok?" In a slow, twisting motion Kyros stubbed out his cigarette without breaking eye contact. "Caspok paid what he owed and more. I promise you that."

Darien nodded and smiled. "Good luck, Kyros."