Well, Tarrant can hardly have been the only Federation defector and I thought it unlikely that they’d all be happily accepted by the rebels.
Valejo didn’t start out as a particularly sympathetic character in my head but I rather came to like him by the time I finished writing the story. I may have him back again.
Blake ended up with a rather larger part that I had in mind. He really wanted to have his long speech about the people working for the Federation believing they were doing the right thing.
This is another one that sat around almost finished for a long time while I dithered about the ending being too wishy-washy.Yeah I know it’s very close to being a ‘trapped in a cave’ story but if there hadn’t been some reason why Vila couldn’t stomp back to the ship it would have been a very short story. So teleport-malfunction or trapped-in-a-cave it was…