Jan sat on the edge of his gently swaying hammock, hunched over, sweat cooling on his skin. He thumbed the corners of the photograph cradled in his hands.

I know her.

He read those three words scrawled across the back of the photograph, as though if only he could scrutinise them hard enough, more information might somehow be revealed.

I know her.

The implication of those words had been enough to occupy his every waking thought. He had done his best to absorb himself in his duties the day before, but it was menial, repetitive work and his mind kept circling back to them, trapped in some torturous, recursive loop. He found himself wondering whether she was safe, where she might be, what she would look like after all these years and then asking those same questions again and again in lieu of any available answers. When night came and Jan finally lay down they only grew more urgent. He had never allowed himself to even hope that his daughter might still be alive; better that than have to imagine her caged like an animal. Sleep had not come easy despite his exhaustion, and when it did it was fractured, punctuated by nightmares of villages burning and riot-armoured Arco troops.

A small part of him still didn’t dare believe those words. They had been written by the Dyn, Jan was sure of it – but could he trust it? With a sickening realisation he knew he would interrogate the hostage at the first opportunity. Jan recognised this was a terrible idea for any number of reasons, yet such concerns were somehow immaterial, paling in comparison to that single overriding imperative. He had to know.

The harsh dawn klaxon dragged Jan from his reverie. He packed his hammock away but didn’t join the others for breakfast. Instead he climbed up to the open deck, seeking one final moment of solitude before the coming day, the final day of the Revolution.

Dynic life died back near the coast. The alien flora couldn’t cope with the salt-laden air that blew in off the ocean. It was clear and fresh, like nothing he had ever experienced. Jan breathed deeply, focusing on the sensation of the crawler rocking beneath him and the breeze on his skin.

A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Seems I’m not the only one in a reflective mood,’ Christo remarked.

Jan smiled faintly, his mind elsewhere. Christo seemed to understand. Something in his demeanour changed and without saying another word he moved next to Jan, standing more still and silent than Jan had known. In that instant, he was not Christo as the histories would remember him. He was diminished, somehow.

‘This is what makes it all worthwhile. The chance to breathe free under an open sky,’ Christo said at length.

Jan looked into the open sky and saw a faint glint. The Dyn ships were low enough to be visible in daylight.

‘But first we’ve got to try and breathe free underwater?’

‘Not me, my place is up here. Now it’s time for Aurelie to complete the mission.’

‘But you want me to go down in that can? It doesn’t look safe at all.’

‘Oh, it’s far from safe. But up here, things will be no better. The scouts inform me the coast is nothing like the maps depict,’ Christo said, an edge of concern creeping into his voice. ‘Old impactor strike apparently. We’re going to be completely exposed in that bay – can’t just roll right down to the sea.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Jan expectantly. Christo laughed.

‘Oh, we’re more or less out of plan now. End of the line and all that. We get the bathyscaphe into the sea – that’s all. Help Pao and the other engineers get it down when we get there.’

Jan nodded, but Christo was already striding away.

The crawler reached the coast just moments later and Jan was confronted by a scene more alien than any he had ever seen. The world fell away and beyond the ocean, devoid of any sign of life, stretched out to infinity. There was a jolt as the crawler’s titanic brakes finally engaged, its prow coming to rest barely ten metres from the cliff edge. The Revolution had run out of land to flee across.

An improvised crane was set up on the cliff edge to lower people and equipment, whilst others abseiled down. Jan was one of the last to descend, riding the rickety improvised platform down to the ground with the bulk of the bathyscaphe, still incomplete beneath a tarpaulin. A beach had gathered in the bight and sloped away into the sea, where the waves beat against the shore, throwing up arcs of dirty grey spray.

He scanned the sky instinctively. There was an edge to everyone’s interactions, a growing fear at being cornered without shelter and hemmed in by unforgiving walls of rock at the edge of the world. Yet they had seen nothing since the flight from the outskirts of Fifteen and reconnaissance reliably informed them the Arco troops that followed did so at a respectful distance – half a day’s drive at least. Shapes circled above, but they were gulls, not aircraft.

It all seemed too easy; that was what worried them.

Aurelie stepped lightly off the platform behind Jan, appearing as if from nowhere. Wordlessly she helped him and the others detach the platform from the crane and secure it to a makeshift sled.

As he fumbled with one of the clasps he suddenly became aware that she was studying him. He glanced up, straight-faced, meeting her gaze. Jan busied himself checking the bathyscaphe was secured and the moment passed without comment. It took a dozen of them to drag the sled laboriously down the beach.

‘What is this thing?’ hissed one, tugging at the tarpaulin.

‘It’s the weapon,’ offered another.

‘It’s need to know,’ said an engineer through gritted teeth, looking pointedly at Aurelie.

She paid them no heed, straightening the moment they’d rolled it down to the surf.

‘Anyone on guard duty or otherwise unassigned, go back to the crawler,’ she said, waving back to where it was parked, prow just visible over the lip of the cliff. ‘We need it manned, just in case. We should be on our way before then.’

‘And if they come?’

‘If they come we’ll be the first to die,’ somebody muttered from next to him. Aurelie’s expression didn’t waver.

‘If they come, you’re to hold them off for as long as possible. It’s a more defensible position than down here. You are in no more danger than the rest of us. We all have our part to play,’ she finished artlessly.

There was a brief pause, a moment where it almost seemed like the men would disobey, then they trudged back up the beach without another word. Jan wondered if he was supposed to follow, but Aurelie breezed past him without a sideways glance.

The revolutionaries maneuvered their handful of cars into a perimeter around the bathyscaphe, assembling makeshift barricades from empty fuel drums and assorted debris. Others dug shallow trenches in the shingle with shovels, or set up heavy weapons, machine-guns and mortars. Jan stood in the midst of this hive of activity and looked around.

What was it Aurelie had said? Just in case. But this wasn’t just precaution, this was staging. This was the backdrop for a last stand, a heroic but ultimately futile final battle, like the stories he’d loved as a child. What if that was all this had ever been? Christo had said it himself – his only legacy would be his memory. To such a man it didn’t ultimately matter whether he succeeded or not, so long as he had his noble death.

Jan had seen enough friends die as martyrs for the sake of someone else’s cause. He’d sworn he’d never make the same mistake, yet he so nearly had. He didn’t hold it against Christo, he didn’t doubt for a moment that the man was anything less than sincere, but they all had their own crusades to fight.

He found the Dyn hostage behind one of the cars, already unloaded and pinned down, momentarily forgotten. Doing his best to appear as though he had every right to be there, Jan walked over to it, fighting the instinctive fear and revulsion as he squatted down as close as he dared. It might be nothing more than a lie, but the note the Dyn had written for him couldn’t just be ignored. Not if it might lead back to Eva.

‘The message you sent me – what did you mean, you know of her? You know my daughter? You know where she is?’ he whispered urgently, the words spilling forth. Jan was well aware of how desperate he sounded, but he couldn’t help himself. Did the Dyn even understand him; could it even speak? Either way, he didn’t have much time.

‘I remember…’ the voice was muffled and seemed to emerge not from the Dyn’s mouth, but from somewhere within its neck. It sounded as though the alien was carefully piecing together every syllable. ‘Eva.’

Jan’s breath caught in his throat, struck dumb by the sheer impossibility before him. The alien couldn’t have heard that name spoken by him or anyone else. All it had seen was the picture.

‘I can trade. For mutual benefit,’ the Dyn continued.

‘I can’t release you – they’ll kill us both before we make it off the beach,’ Jan hissed, glancing over his shoulder.

‘Don’t want release… trade favours. Help me, and you will see her again.’

‘Help you how?’ Jan asked.

‘You will take me with you. Under the ocean.’ A sudden unease gripped Jan.

‘How can you possibly know about that?’ But the Dyn merely shook it’s head from side to side.

‘Answers later. When you have done what I ask.’

The creature was toying with him – it must know that such a request was impossible. He had no time for this. Jan reached for his dotbow.

‘Christo needs you alive and he needs you captive, but he never said he needed you whole. Do you understand?’ he snarled. ‘You don’t get to make demands.’

He slammed the dobtow down stock-first, deliberately missing the restrained limb of the Dyn prisoner by centimeters. Sibilant laughter emanated from deep within the creature’s throat. Like the voice it had an artificial, electronic quality. Not the Dyn’s true speech; the product of a device.

‘You cannot threaten me,’ it chided. ‘Not if you want to see your daughter.’ Jan raised the weapon again, to strike for real.

‘I will leave you here to die on this beach. Do you think they’re going to keep you alive a moment longer than necessary?’

It shook its head again in that same strange imitation of a human gesture. The synthetic voice, when it came, was as flat and impassive as ever.

‘I am hostage because I am next in line. I am loved. Mother does not want to kill me. You love your daughter Eva. If you don’t want them to kill your daughter, you will need my help. We can… cooperate.’

‘You evil shit,’ Jan spat, struggling to get the words out. Yet he felt his arm go limp, letting the dotbow clatter to the ground.

The Dyn said nothing more. It’s head tilted side-on, it regarded him with a single bottomless pit of an eye, as though waiting for a proper answer. He was no closer to knowing than before. But what if Eva really was out there? Jan gulped, pushed his hair back from his eyes.

‘How can I know that you’re telling the truth?’ he asked. He already knew the answer.

‘You can’t,’ it said. Jan took a deep breath, willing himself to make another choice, but his mind was already made up.

‘Ok. I’ll do it,’ Jan whispered.

Just as he was standing a powerful blow caught him in the back of his legs, knocking them out from underneath him. He hit his head on the shingle as he fell.

‘Do what, wastelander?’ Tuva’s voice. She was on him in an instant, pinning his arms behind his back, forcing his head down into the shingle. The Dyn was as motionless as it had been when he’d found it. Slowly that black, pitiless eyelid shut.

‘Pao, I got him, get the others!’ she called.

‘I knew it! I knew you were up on the deck that night, I knew it!’ she continued, turning back to him. ‘Oh you are so dead.’ The other revolutionaries bound his arms and legs whilst Tuva looked on.

‘What did you and our mutual friend talk about then, huh?’ Jan knew better than to say anything. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one.

She rummaged through his pockets until she found the photograph. There was a moment of awful anticipation.

‘I know her… So that’s what it’s about. You were ready to betray your own species for an empty promise to see her again, right?’ She crouched down and holding it in front of Jan’s face, slowly tore the photo to shreds. She spread her hands theatrically, scattering the fragments over the stones. ‘That’ll teach me to never be too trusting.’

Laughing bitterly, she sauntered over to the Dyn and swung a kick at it’s head.

‘This even true, Zog? You dissected his daughter or something?’ The Dyn remained unresponsive. ‘You not talking either? Fine! Whatever, it’s not like it matters anyway. Let’s get you to Aurelie.’

Jan failed to hide his shock.

‘Yeah, I know right? Surprised me as well. She was the one who suggested I go find you. I don’t like her, I’m not sure I really trust her either but I tell you what, she’s sharp. You have to give her that.’

The revolutionaries dragged him roughly across the beach, throwing him to the ground at Aurelie’s feet.

‘Make him stand,’ she said. They did as they were told. She stood motionless, hands clasped behind her back, expression unreadable and desires unknowable. Give Tuva her way and she’d beat him to death. With Aurelie, Jan simply had no idea what to expect next. She was as alien to him as the Dyn were.

‘You have your own agenda, Jan. Under almost any other circumstances it would be an admirable one,’ Aurelie began softly. Her tone hardened again. ‘Here it’s just a liability.’

She was sentencing him. Desperately he cast his eyes around and wracked his brain for a plan of action.

‘We have all lost people. I have lost more than you can possibly imagine.’

She walked over to one of the crates and picked up a small handgun.

‘I gave you a chance, Jan. I gave you a choice…’

This time when she looked up at him there was genuine regret in those eyes. He watched her hands load the gun, moving with an automatic fluidity, faster than Jan would have thought possible. She raised the gun.

‘But you can’t be allowed to jeopardise the mission.’

‘Give me a final request, please,’ he pleaded. She acquiesced. ‘As I won’t live to see the Revolution, tell me, how do you plan to bring down the Dyn?’

She saw what he was doing immediately, but it was already too late. The revolutionaries that had gathered around them, drawn to the commotion, were muttering and exchanging quizzical looks with one another.

‘It’s not like there’s any risk of infiltrators reporting it all back to Arco now, right?’ Jan continued seizing on Aurelie’s hesitation. ‘What’s the bathyscaphe for? What’s so deep underwater? How’s everyone getting off this beach?’

A rising chorus of dissent threatened to drown Jan out. It was as if a spell had broken.

‘Enough!’ Aurelie shouted. She leveled the gun at his forehead. ‘He’s trying to turn us against each other. Jan, I -’

‘I get that,’ came Tuva’s voice from behind him. ‘Go ahead, shoot him, the bastard deserves it. But he has a point. What actually is the plan? We’ve all put our faith in you and Christo, we’ve fought for the cause. The least you can do is tell us what we’re doing here.’

‘There’s a weapon, at the bottom of an ocean trench. A weapon that will help us bring down the firmament -’

‘Yeah I figured as much. But there’s room for what, half a dozen people on that thing? How’re the rest of us getting off this beach?’ Aurelie turned to Tuva, well aware that the crowd was swelling up behind her.

‘The Dynic hostage will be left on the surface, granting leverage to those not on the bathyscaphe. We’ll rendezvous at a pre-arranged, secure location.’

‘Lies!’ interrupted a new voice. ‘If the Dyn really are at risk, how long will one hostage really stave them off?’

‘You’re leaving us here to die!’ yelled another.

Aurelie raised the gun, firing it into the sky and in that instant the crowd lunged. She seemed to blur, lashing out at two men and sending them sprawling. She was fast, movements coordinated and effective, but there were simply too many of them. Jan, kneeling on the ground dazedly, barely spotted what happened next. Someone swung a rifle, catching her in the back of the head with the stock, sending her sprawling and within moments she was engulfed by the mob. He backpedalled frantically, landing hard on the shingle. More revolutionaries were dashing towards the brawl, trying to pull people away from Aurelie or each other. Someone yelled for help.

A second shot rang out.

‘Comrades!’ cried Christo, leaping down from the crane, flanked by two sentries. The mob withdrew, dissolving into its constituent parts. Aurelie stood, dusting herself down, dabbing tentatively at a cut on her head. She reached for her fallen handgun, raising it again.

‘Are we going to die?’ someone shouted to Christo; half angry, half plaintive.

Christo shrugged, as if the matter were of no consequence. He lowered the shotgun and walked slowly towards Aurelie, standing protectively to shield her, holding the shotgun low as if daring the crowd to approach closer.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Probably.’

‘You lying bastard -’ Pao replied, shoving his way through the crowd.

‘I never lied to any of you,’ Christo said with a knowing smile. ‘I think you all knew, on some level, just what lay at the end of this journey.

The mob seemed to deflate a little. Even Pao stopped his advance.

‘This is the last step,’ Christo boomed, his voice echoing off the cliffs. ‘This is the day of the Revolution! This is the day we end the Dynic occupation!’

‘Yes, they will come for us, but if we stand together, they will not stop us in the end. That is all that matters. The mission is all that matters. The rumours you have heard are true. We are launching the bathyscaphe and its crew to search for something hidden. A secret, buried half a dozen kilometers beneath the ocean and forgotten by time. I cannot hint at what, or how I know. But there are things on this aged, beautiful, battered world that are as far beyond the Dyn’s comprehension as the Dyn are beyond ours. We’re going to destroy them, pure and simple.’

There was a collective intake of breath. Even Jan raised himself up curiously.

‘When you joined me I made no pretense that the cause would not require sacrifice. So many have already sacrificed everything to get us where we are today, on the very cusp of smashing the firmament like glass. Today we look to the heavens and see that same scrawl of alien constellations we were born under, spelling subjugation, deprivation. But tomorrow, if we succeed, we will see nothing but infinite space. All this will be no more than a memory.’

Christo raised his hands in a gesture almost like prayer, and his voice became lower, less boisterous and more plaintive.

‘Can’t you feel the moment? Right now the world stands on a needlepoint, with every word and deed performed here echoing forever through history. Is it worth dying to set the world right? I say it is. And if it comes to that, I will be fighting beside you. But what good is a freedom fighter who isn’t free? So I ask for the last time, the same question I asked all of you – are you with me?’

There was an uncertain chorus that seemed to grow in confidence, a few defiant raised fists. It wasn’t the stirring cheer Christo had hoped for, but it was something solid and definite. The cynical part of Jan wondered if they hadn’t all already realised there was no hope of escape back up the cliffs. At least they’d forgotten about him, for the moment.

‘I think we’ve all stood around long enough,’ Christo said, demeanour shifting instantly as he holstered the shotgun. ‘Let’s get back to work.’

He frowned, noticing the crowd’s eyes drifting elsewhere, their lack of response.

Jan gaped up as the platform began descending from the cliff’s edge. Any thought that it might be a returning crewmember from the crawler disappeared as the platform descended, the figure astride it becoming distinct. The platform landed on the shingle in a silence broken only by the crashing of waves. The solitary figure was dressed in a long overcoat and had his hands raised above his head. He began walking calmly towards the gathered revolutionaries.

‘I surrender,’ said the ruler of the world.