The image on the screen glimmered with lines of volcanic fire. Even from orbit the huge lava flows that burned through Ravine's main continents were visible, like great wounds in the dark sphere's flesh. Between the rivers of magma human beings had carved out a colony, with columns of huge armoured cubes embedded in the black rock of the planet's surface. The cubes locked together to form barriers against the near constant eruptions, their foundations secured with immensely powerful geo-anchors that pierced hundreds of meters into the crust.

But the volcanoes weren't the only source of fire on Ravine now.

Darien watched through glassy, red-rimmed eyes as the news report played out on the enormous tele-screen built into the wall of the front room in his apartment. Behind the image of the reporter, buildings burned and small dark figures scuttled back and forth, barely visible through the haze, despite the state of the art camera equipment the news-nets utilised.

"And you can see behind me," the man said, gesturing over his shoulder. "This factory complex was the latest target of the extremist factions operating within Karpa-Luna. While no specifics have been made available to us yet, it is believed an incendiary device was planted and detonated by remote in the base of the complex, causing a chain reaction that, as you can see, has engulfed the whole structure before emergency services could respond. The capital's security services have been on high alert since the early hours of the morning to keep the area clear of civilians. We have no report of casualties as yet..."

He turned away from the screen, trying not to listen. Instead Darien drowned out the voice by smashing a clenched fist into the punching bag that hung from the ceiling. He had a top of the line barrier generator in the far corner of the room, but there was something raw and cathartic about striking the coarse canvas of the bag.

He could, he supposed, have just turned the tele-screen off, but a little piece of him wanted - needed - to know what was going on outside the exile of his apartment. The other part of him wished he hadn't bothered, but it was too late for that. He knew all exactly what was fuelling the mayhem that spread through Ravine's cities like a virus.

His knuckles drove a divot into the punch bag as he swung again. The tension between Ravine's less-than-fortunate settlers and the colonial government had always been contentious, at best. Not long after Darien had left the planet, things had come to the brink of an outright civil war. The Colonial Navy managed to restore order with minimal bloodshed, and hammered out a fractionally more favourable deal for Ravine's agitators. Now it seemed that history was about to repeat itself. This time, however, Darien doubted things could be quelled so easily.

He hoped that he wouldn't have to find out.

Getting recruited by Blink had been the best thing that ever happened to him. In one sudden chain of events he went from a dead-end drug runner in Ravine's lava canals to someone who actually mattered. Gone were the fiery skies, scorched air and blood-soaked streets. Now he lived more than comfortably on a quiet little colony called Thracia, a tropical world whose densely clustered settlements jutted out of the humid forests, as though they were ruins that had been overgrown. Two suns bathed the world in a perpetual summer; a better place, perfect to counteract the hell he'd come from.

But the violent furnace he'd grown up in looked like it was trying to force its way back into his life. He remembered the fervour that had fuelled the conflict that marred his early days; remembered not comprehending the cause he'd been given to fight for.

He glanced back to the screen. The reporter was still talking but the gist of the story had been put across minutes ago. An extremist group operating in the heart of Ravine's capital city, Karpa-Luna, had managed to detonate a high yield incendiary mining charge on the lower floors of the factory building. While the superstructure had withstood the blast, fire-storms had raged through its halls and the casualty count was rising by the minute.

And Darien had a feeling he knew who was responsible. From the look of it, Ravine hadn't changed a whole lot since the Blink operatives had come to drag him out of it. The government couldn't, or wouldn't stand up to painful colonial tithe that left the whole planet virtually bankrupt. The terraforming was sub-par at best, leaving Ravine's settlers a raw enough deal in the first place, with partially poisonous atmospheric conditions that could only be counteracted by a steady supply of off-world medicines.

The medicines were expensive. Some bean-counter on an administrative rock, billions of miles from a relatable thought or breath, had calculated an increased tariff to offset this constant inflow of drugs. The result, predictably enough as far as Darien saw it, was a lot of angry people being taxed just to stay alive.

And when you ignored angry people, you only made them angrier. He'd been right in the middle of it when the planet had been on the precipice, hurled unwillingly into a conflict he barely understood. He was eleven years old when the movement against Ravine's weak, complacent government finally reared its defiant head.

A series of bombings, acts of sabotage, and outright murder blazed across the lava-locked cities for three bloody months. A month after that the Colonial Navy arrived in force, the enforcing hammer of the system that so many on Ravine's surface had grown to hate. But hate couldn't match the batteries of high-caliber cannon and platoons of heavily armed marines that put an end to the uprising.

When he joined Blink, Darien buried his past. He left a world of flame and fury behind, turning his natural talent and ferocity out into a galaxy that needed him. Now that world was reaching out to grab him again. He pulled his gaze from the burning factory, recognising every hallmark of another outpouring of downtrodden rage.

With a frustrated snort, he smashed a clenched fist into the punch bag again, relishing the scraping impact on his knuckles and the faint judder of pain that passed through his arm. Mercifully the news report came to an end, leaving Darien with the latest Sky-Jockey Grand Prix results droning in his apartment. He stumped through to the gleaming kitchen area, passing a hand over the water sensor in the sink and placing a bell-shaped glass under the resulting flow from the tap.

He managed one gulp before turning and stopping dead. His eyes narrowed at the object sitting on the arm of the couch. A cold feeling of dread settled in Darien's stomach when he saw the Blink comm bracelet pulsing its soft, tepid blue.

"Screen off," he growled. Instantly the machine responded to his voice-print and went dead, leaving him in silence. A sense of inevitability descended on him. He might've known that Ravine's troubles would put him back on the radar.

Placing the water down on the counter-top, he took the bracelet through to the small block-shaped room that he'd converted into an entertainment lounge. Another enormous screen dominated one wall, positioned opposite a broad lounger that could seat four people with ease. Directly in front of him in the left corner sat his desk, and it was here that he slumped reluctantly into place. Taking a steadying breath, he thumbed the comm bracelet's link and his screen flashed into life.

The image that appeared on it filled him with a rush of dread, nostalgia and anger. Smith - Smith Eighteen, to be exact - Blink's enigmatic taskmaster, sat behind the desk of his inner sanctum, safely ensconced in the armoured stud of Blink Station Alpha, billions of miles from where Darien currently sat. The close-clipped blonde hair and grey suit, along with a set of small spectacles: he hadn't changed.

"Darien," Smith began simply, inclining his head.

A derisive smile slid across Darien's face. "That's it? After all this time that's all you've got to say to me?"

"I'm not here to reminisce - I'm here because it's time to lift your suspension."

Without thinking, he glanced back towards the front room. "Is that a fact?"

"Yes." Smith picked up a glass from off-shot, and took a dainty sip. "I suspect you already know why."

"Ravine?"

"Precisely."

"I see the locals have found their backbones again," he grated.

"Yes, courageous." The contempt was think in Smith's voice. "Setting off a bomb and murdering a group of unarmed factory workers."

Darien's mouth twisted into a thoughtful grimace. He didn't condone what the bomber had done, but he could grasp their motivations well enough. Out on the edge of nowhere, with no-one looking after them, they'd taken matters into their own hands, no matter what that meant.

"Okay," he said after a moment. "So there are terrorists on Ravine. What else is new?"

"This goes considerably deeper than one or two misguided individuals with an axe to grind, Darien."

"So what's the real situation?"

"Orders of magnitude worse that you'll see on the news vids."

Darien folded his arms, leaning back in his seat. "The navy's trying to keep a lid on this again? Doesn't look like they did a very good job of it."

"That wasn't possible in this case."

"So, more trouble than last time?"

"Much more."

Suddenly Smith's image disappeared from the screen, replaced by a fuzzy, low resolution video of a dark silhouette; a man gesticulating wildly against a backdrop of steaming factories. What little audio there was didn't reveal much, but Darien could make out the loud peaks of a powerful male voice, fighting to be heard. Gathered before the figure stood several dozen other barely discernible human shapes.

The video ran for perhaps ten seconds before flickering out, and Smith's face appeared on the view screen again. His expression was grim.

"We have yet to identify the individual in this vid," he explained. "But what we do know is that he is inciting this rebellion. This man has single-handedly managed to unify the disparate groups across Ravine into a potentially dangerous fighting force. Whole regiments of the local planetary militia are openly declaring their intention to oppose colonial rule. Whole factory districts are going on strike - those that refuse are subjected to the kinds of attacks you've just seen on your news feed. All of it centres on this man."

Pressing his lips tightly together in thought, Darien let his mind run through the implications. When he'd last been on Ravine the revolt had been a directionless mess, easily brought under control. If the rebellious inhabitants really had found themselves a figurehead who could harness and direct all that raw anger, it could be incredibly dangerous.

But Darien didn't want to go back to Ravine. Not now, not ever. "Why does this involve Blink?" he asked. "It was a problem for the colonial government then. It's their problem now. Blink's not part of the military."

"In theory, you're correct. In practice, if they ask for our assistance I can hardly refuse." He made a vague gesture to his surroundings. "And I would suggest it is our problem. If a real war breaks out on Ravine, an awful lot of innocent people are going to suffer for it. Having access to Blink teams will dramatically increase the options available to the peacekeeping force."

"Peacekeeping force?" Darien shook his head grimly. "So there's already a military response before this war's even started."

"We hope it won't come a full-blown military crack down," Smith told him, and to his credit, he sounded like he meant it. "But all eventualities must be accounted for. The involvement of you, and our teams, might help avert an all out war."

"But why me? There are plenty of people who'd kill to be involved in this mission and I'm not one of them."

Smith's expression darkened. "You know why, Darien. You know Ravine. You know the cities, the gangs; the politics."

"That was years ago."

"Little has changed in that regard. The grievances remain as they have since we recruited you. You're the only operative we have that really knows what it's like down there. We - I - need your insight."

"And if I don't want to get involved in a civil war?" He folded his arms, glaring at the figure on the screen. "Leaving Ravine was the best thing that's ever happened to me. If the government can't strike a deal with these people, it's not my responsibility to fix it."

"I'm afraid that's where you're wrong, Darien." A sly smile stretched across Smith's face. "I'll make it as simple as I can for you. Either come back for this mission, or don't come back at all."

Then he reached forward and terminated the transmission.