Lost and Found
A Battle of the Planets Story
This story is based on characters and situations based on the 1970s anime series 'Battle of the Planets' (produced by Sandy Frank Entertainment) which was in turn derived from the series 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman' (created by Tatsunoko Productions). Characters are used without permission, and not for profit.
This story started as a fairly straightforward tale about Tiny, and evolved into a much more extensive discussion of his early years than I intended. I have attempted to remain consistent with cannon, but apologise for any slips. Where I have gone beyond cannon, the results are my interpretation of what we learn in the series, and are not intended to reflect anyone's views but my own.
There's very little violence in this one, although there are a couple of dangerous situations.
Many thanks to Catherine for agreeing to beta this for me. Any remaining faults are, of course, mine. I'm still thinking about possible changes in response to comments from the BotP Yahoo group but decided to post this unchanged for now. Comments or suggestions would be very welcome
The steady drip, drip, drip of water roused him first. He felt the angular buttons of the control console pressing against his face, and, with an effort, pushed himself away from it. He fell backwards into his chair, his head thrown back against the rest, his eyes still shut. Every muscle seemed to ache, every sense jangled with disorientation. Concussion, he realised, as his temples began to throb. Something had happened, and he was concussed. The self-diagnosis helped, a little. It gave him a solid fact on which he could start to construct some sort of world map. It was a foundation, albeit a lone and unsteady one. His muscular arms rippled as his fists clenched and unclenched automatically. He realised he was expecting to feel something in his hands, to feel ... controls. Yes, that was it: the controls of the Phoenix. The memory was another building block, another clue as to where he was and why. His ship! The beautiful and graceful craft that was part of his soul had been wounded. He had felt her crying out to him, and had known that he could not save her. But he had kept his hands on the controls nonetheless, guiding and reassuring her as if she were a living creature that could sense his love. He remembered ... he remembered struggling with her in her overburdened and scarcely controlled flight, forcing her to obey him. He remembered knowing that there was no other course. It had been her life or the lives of thousands. Even concussed - with the fragmentary memories falling slowly into his mind like the dripping water he could still hear - he knew that there had been no choice at all. Water had rushed up at them; a hard black wall, not the usual warm embrace that welcomed them home. And then there had been darkness.
He was flying a kite - a complex construction of flaps and tiers and tails - when he first noticed the other boy watching. For a while Tiny watched him in return, sneaking the occasional glance from the corner of his eye. The spectator appeared to be nine or ten years old - about Tiny's own age - and now he came to think of it, the newcomer was familiar. Shoulder length brown hair framed a slender face and two of the most intelligent blue eyes Tiny had ever seen. The steady gaze from those eyes was the key that enabled Tiny to identify him. He had felt that look on him, studying and assessing him, from the moment the teacher walked him into his classroom.
He had met this boy's eyes that first day in this hateful new school, and not known quite how to read what he saw there. There was sympathy, of course, but he was becoming inured to the pity he saw in faces all around him. After all, no one could pretend that they didn't know why he had arrived unannounced and mid-term. This school was run for the benefit of military orphans; the government trying to salve their consciences by providing nothing but the best for the children of their glorious heroes. It didn't seem to matter that many might never have been orphaned if that same government had been a little wiser in its tactics, or more foresighted in its training, or given more thought to shelter for their military's civilian dependents.
All that would have to change - and soon, if the rumours were true. Something was coming, something big that was only spoken of in horrified whispers. Tiny had heard them, of course, but they mattered little to a ten-year-old who had just had his world taken away from him.
He had hated the idea of coming here, of leaving Captain Jack and his wife - the loving old couple who cared for him while his parents were on active service. He hated that sympathy in this boy's eyes too, but was intrigued by the challenge that accompanied it. It was not a hostile expression. It was an expression which said: 'I see strength in you. Do you have the courage to find it?'
Then the teacher moved him forward, with a firm hand in the small of his back, and the eye contact had been broken. He hadn't spoken to the other boy, hadn't spoken to anyone much in the three days since he got here. He had been lost and confused by the steady parade of new names and faces. A few of the kids in his class had tried to talk to him, but he had hidden behind a facade of near-idiocy. He had always been 'big', as Captain Jack euphemistically described it. He had found early on that he could crush an object as easily as pick it up. He'd learnt to be cautious, and too many people were ready to believe that behind his slow and careful movements lay a slow mind. They called him 'Tiny' and laughed, believing he wouldn't understand the sarcasm of their taunt. He had ignored them, secure in the knowledge that his parents and Captain Jack at least knew better. When he made no protest, the name had stuck, and he'd used it to strengthen the mask that got him out of all kinds of work and trouble. But nothing could get him out of this.
The teacher had introduced him as 'Tiny', accepting it as nothing more than a nickname, but the boys had picked up on it quickly enough. They used it on their clearly dim new classmate like the jibe it was. Small wonder that he'd taken the first opportunity to get away, even for a few minutes. It took only a little planning to sneak out with his kite after dinner - desperate to get a few breaths of fresh air. The school had been positioned on the sea-coast through some old-fashioned notion that the salty spume would be 'bracing' for the boys. For Tiny, it was simply the smell of 'home'.
But now - as the sea breeze blew inshore, rising in thermals above the sun-baked cliffs and sending his kite soaring - Tiny's attempt at finding sanctuary had failed. He'd been followed by the quiet young man who had challenged him without words.
"I know you're watching me," the other boy called suddenly. Tiny started, tugging involuntarily on the kite's strings. His precious bamboo and canvas construction bucked, turned on end and stalled. For a moment it seemed frozen against the twilight sky, and then, inevitably, it began to tumble. It plummeted groundwards, and Tiny knew with sickening certainty that it would crash. He pulled at the two control paddles with determination and total concentration, remembering all that his dad had taught him, but - realistically - this was a two man kite. No one had the skill to manipulate both sets of controls independently but simultaneously. He gasped when he felt one of the control handles being lifted from his hands. Instinctively, he tried to hold on to it, but the other boy - still breathing hard from closing the fifteen metre gap between them in instants - gave him a look of calm certainly. "Let me help save it."
Tiny released the handle, concentrating on his own controls. Within seconds, the kite steadied, the other boy's firm tugs stabilising the craft overall while Tiny worked the more complex cords to adjust flaps and correct the kite's flight angle. Finally, Tiny gasped in relief, before shaking with anger.
"You ... you idiot!" he shouted.
The other boy didn't take his eyes off the kite, concentrating on the controls he still held. "I'm sorry," he said simply, but there was genuine regret in his tone, not the sarcasm Tiny had expected. "I didn't mean to startle you." He glanced sideways. "I'm Mark," he added. "I guess you've had a lot of new names to remember lately, Tiny."
His own name brought back all Tiny's resentment. Carefully, he snatched back the kite's controls. Mark backed off a few steps, his expressive eyes confused. The slender boy looked up at the kite again, clearly deciding to try a different tack.
"That's a cool kite - I wonder what it's like to be up there, so free and soaring on the warm air. It must be wonderful."
Tiny stole a startled look at him, wondering how the other boy could echo his own feelings so closely. But no, no one could know what it felt like to be Tiny, not even some other military brat.
"Leave me alone," he said shortly. "You'll get in a heap of trouble, being out of the dorm this late."
Mark shook his head, a slight smile playing around his lips. "Don't worry, Jason's running interference - for both of us. He thinks I'll owe him, but we get one another out of scrapes often enough that I figure we're even."
"Jason?" Tiny thought hard, remembering another boy in their class with light brown hair and an angular face. He and Mark had seemed to be friends, from what Tiny could recall of chance sightings of them. He hadn't paid much attention to the social groupings. It wasn't as if he was part of any of them.
"A friend of mine," Mark confirmed. He cocked his head to one side, thoughtfully. "Well, foster brother really, I suppose. We have the same guardian."
"Huh, why would he cover for me?" Tiny asked uncertainly.
"Because I asked him to," Mark shrugged.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I wanted to know why you're hiding, Tiny."
Again the name, again Tiny's frustration flared. The boy's knuckles tightened on the kite controls, and the handles gave a warning creak.
"Hiding? You found me easy enough."
Mark frowned, realisation dawning. "It's your name, isn't it? If you don't like it, why use it?"
Tiny shrugged. Resigned to the fact that his flying session had been interrupted, and wary as the last rays of the setting sun began to fade, he began wordlessly to reel in his kite. Mark took the second control paddle back without being asked, the two of them working in unison to furl the control cords neatly. Nonetheless, the second boy didn't stop pressing.
"You're not an idiot, Tiny. You wouldn't have got into the school if you were. You think quickly - the way you got that kite back under control proved that - and you're a lot more careful than you pretend to be." He gave another of those sideways, but probing, glances. "'Tiny' was part of that, wasn't it? Part of your act."
"Yeah," Tiny felt some gate open within him. At first he had been stunned by the question. No other kid his age had seen through his mask before, but Mark was an easy person to confide in. "Yeah, well sometimes it pays not to be too bright. Fights are generally more trouble than they're worth, and it puts the bullies off the scent, you know? Everyone back home thought I was just a big old fatso - too stupid and lazy to do any work. But my folks knew better. We used to laugh about it, knowing we had one up on them..."
His voice trailed off.
"And now they're gone. And the name's become an insult again?" Mark guessed, his blue eyes once again full of quiet sympathy. "Don't forget what your parents taught you. Take back the name, Tiny. It's yours - make it work for you."
The kite was just a few feet above them now, floating on the thermals that still rose from the cliff top. Mark gazed up at it, his expression sad. "My dad was a pilot - he loved flying, just like you do, Tiny. And just like me."
He suddenly grinned, as both he and Tiny reached up to snag the kite's bamboo frame at the same moment. "One day... one day you and I will be up there. We'll fly together, Tiny. Just see if we don't."
Tiny met his eyes across the kite, and returned the grin with one of his own - not the goofy smile he reserved for others, but a genuine smile of delighted anticipation. He had found his first friend.
The spinning sensation in his head was calming now. The sense that the floor was bucking under his feet eased, and he risked cracking his eyes open. He had expected light to spear through senses disrupted by his concussion. Somehow the darkness was worse. Had he fractured his skull? Had the pressure of some haemorrhage compressed his optic nerves? He chuckled to himself, and was relieved to hear the sound as clear and loud as the still-dripping water. If he was alert and self-aware enough to worry about such things, he probably wasn't as badly hurt as all that. All ship's power was dead, and there was no light coming in from outside. It was simply dark, and now new memories fell into place as he realised why. No wonder liquid was dripping off the inner hull like some primitive water torture. Even if by some miracle the Phoenix hadn't sprung a leak, the moisture in the air must be condensing as the heat was leached from her walls. Belatedly, his body realised how cold it had become, and he wrapped his cloak around himself in an effort to still his shivering. In the pitch blackness, he caressed the control panel of his wounded bird. They were far from the sunlit epipelagic zone that was the Phoenix's oceanic home. They were deep beneath even the twilight or midnight zones that she was equipped to explore. This was an abyssal deep, and worse - Tiny remembered glancing at the map in those last frantic minutes of flight, his destination already in mind. The deep ocean trench had looked like the solution he was searching for, but even then he had known that it would most likely also be his grave. The ship creaked around him, a scream of metal grating against metal, and he knew that somewhere in her structure, chill water was blasting through a newly made rent in the hull. The Phoenix had never been designed to tolerate the pressure at these depths. The vice-like grip of the chill waters would soon implode her completely. The best he could do would be to seal the main cabin, and hope that this reinforced room in the centre of the ship would survive a little longer than the rest. He tried to stand, ready to feel his way through the pitch darkness to the hatch, but swayed violently. He clutched at the chair, but his hand touched its metal back rather than padded front and, even through his uniform gloves, the cold burned. His head pounded with disorientation. His fingers flooded painfully with pins and needles as his circulation rushed to restore their warmth. Sinking to the floor, unable to see, able to hear nothing but the torment of the dripping water, he wondered if the concussion would kill him, or if he'd suffocate first, or drown, or simply freeze to death.
Tiny was almost thirteen, and two weeks from the end of another school year, when he got the letter from the chief. He'd fallen almost without thinking into Mark and Jason's habit of addressing their guardian that way. When he had finally got around to asking about it, he'd been told by Jason that Mark's father had referred to Anderson as 'Chief,' and had known better than to push the question any further. Back then, of course, Anderson had been head of military intelligence, with pilots directly under his command. In the years since, he had taken a step backwards, or perhaps sideways would be a better term. No one knew exactly what his new science organisation was going to entail - not even the government who had funded it. Or perhaps that was not quite true. Certainly Mark seemed to know something. And probably Jason did too, although it was always difficult to tell what lay behind Jason's sarcastic comments.
The intrigue over Anderson's plans had become a kind of standing joke between the three of them - Tiny making it plain that he knew something was up, the other boys denying it vehemently. Jason always looked annoyed when the matter came up, even though they never spoke of it above a whisper. Mark just looked amused, but then he'd always been better than Jason at hiding his emotions when he wanted to - despite those expressive eyes. In any case, Tiny knew enough not to spread rumours about Anderson's boys, or their guardian's plans.
He had spent three weeks at Anderson's country estate the summer of his eleventh birthday. By then Mark and Tiny had become fast friends, and Jason's initially wary reception had settled into a somewhat grudging acceptance. Tiny had been startled back then to realise that despite the pleasure of a long, hot summer with Captain Jack at the village, he had begun to miss both of them. The three of them were more alike than they, at their tender age and with the wariness of adolescent boys, were prepared to admit. All three felt isolated from their peers, all three had fast reflexes and even faster minds, and - as time passed, and rumours of probing attacks against the federation's outer planet began to circulate - all three had a growing urge to continue the work their parents had started in defence of their home.
Filled with pleasure at the thought of seeing his friends again, Tiny had been barely able to control his excitement when Anderson sent a helicopter to fetch him. He peered out of the vehicle's windows, marvelling at the fluffy white clouds that surrounded them, and then marvelling again at the size of Anderson's country house. The pilot had radioed for landing clearance, and then taken them down. Spying the figures waiting for him, Tiny had strained forward, scarcely listening to the pilot's warnings not to stretch his harness. Mark was there, and Jason, and a tall, moustachioed man who must be their guardian, and ... and ... a girl?
Tiny's spirits fell. He slumped back in his seat, his anticipation of three weeks of excitement and adventure fading. He had forgotten that Anderson had a third ward.
Nonetheless, he greeted Anderson politely, and swapped grins with the boys. Princess, he just stared at. Nothing in his life before now - the thickset women of his village, the all-male society of his school - had prepared him for this pretty and graceful young girl. At eleven, Tiny had been too young to think of girls as much more than an occasional irritant - until now. A year younger than him, Princess was already becoming sensitive to the looks she attracted from boys not much older. She disabused Tiny of any preconceptions he may or may not have entertained within two hours of his arrival on the estate. The demure demeanour and pretty dress she adopted for her guardian's benefit disappeared. Tiny's suggestion that she might want to stay behind as the boys went out on their bikes was met with an acrobatic drop kick that floored him, and led to a serious talk between Anderson and his wards that Tiny was embarrassed to have triggered.
He went to bed that night in an unfamiliar room, feeling alone and upset. He woke up to find the incident 'forgotten,' and from that moment his circle of friends had expanded from two to three - Princess joining them dare for dare, prank for prank, scrape for scrape. Jason was often the instigator of their mischief, Mark the planner and director of it. Princess seemed to play a more complex role, oscillating between the voice of reason and a willing accomplice. Certainly she was the most devious of the group, often finding ways to adapt whatever they found to further their plans. Tiny himself fell naturally and contentedly into the role of a follower, offering a strong shoulder where it was needed, rapidly becoming the firm and reliable foundation stone on which Mark laid his plans.
The end of that stay had come as a shock, but not so much of one as discovering two weeks later that he had been signed up for the same after-school martial arts training as Mark and Jason. At first he had protested, knowing that his parents' legacy provided for his schooling, but little more besides. He had been floored when Mark told him that Anderson was paying for this little luxury.
"The chief thought you might find it useful later," Mark had said with a mysterious little smile.
Jason had smirked, his sarcastic demeanour strengthening now they were back at school. "Perhaps he thought you'd need it next time you come visiting with Princess home."
After that, Tiny had spent some time every holiday at the Anderson estate, gradually getting to know the chief as more than just some distant and busy figure. His wards themselves saw little of him, although it seemed to Tiny that Anderson made an effort when they were home, speaking to them - and to Tiny - as if getting to know them was as important as the vital work he hinted at.
He'd worried at first that he was an intruder in their home. Now, two years after that first glorious summer, Tiny had become comfortable there, and felt that the others were comfortable with him. But nothing had prepared him for this letter.
Alone in his dorm, Tiny read and reread the words, wondering if Mark and Jason knew about this. His eyes returned to the top line, checking that it was really addressed to him. Always before his correspondence - first with his parents, and later Captain Jack - had been that of a child. He had written about his activities and anxieties, and read nothing but similar anecdotes and reassurance in return. Never before had a letter addressed him as a man. His fingers tensed, the paper scrunching between them before he released it. He squared his shoulders, and flushed slightly as he realised that his shirt was straining over his ever more muscular physique. If this letter was written to him as an adult, then he would read it and react to it as an adult would.
Phrases leapt out of the paper at him:
'... have spoken to Captain Jack Coulson and, while he is willing to permit such an action in your better interest, the final decision must be yours.'
'... While you would again be part of a military family, it is my hope to prepare you more thoroughly ...'
'... in due course, may present you with an opportunity to serve your planet in a manner which I cannot lay down on paper.'
'... must understand that my wards are privy to information that cannot and must not fall into the hands of our enemies.'
'... grave decision to place in the hands of one so young, but I believe ...'
But he shook those words aside, his eyes going again to the key paragraph - to the invitation that shook him.
"I believe that in the last three years you have grown close to my wards, and come to understand and share both my desire to serve our planet, and theirs. You have shown yourself to be able and intelligent, and have potential far beyond any role which would seem open to you given your current circumstances. You are aware that I am not an overtly affectionate man, and I know that at times my actions and decisions seem harsh and distant. Nonetheless, I would count it an honour if you would permit me to adopt the role of your legal guardian."
Tiny drew the thin, expensive paper to his chest, and felt a tear roll down one cheek. He thought of his parents, already somewhat hazy in his mind's eye. He thought of Captain Jack and his wife, providing for him, caring for him, but struggling to motivate or stimulate him in the way he knew he needed. Despite his longing to see them again, some treacherous part of him had been dreading the tedious weeks of gutting fish or mending nets before he could escape again to the Anderson estate. He looked again at the paper. He would reread every word, consider the implications of Anderson's broad hints - the chief's tone demanded no less of him - but already he knew what his answer would be. He stood, carefully tucking the paper into his pocket, and took his first step on a new path.
He lay still for a long time in the darkness. Despair left him apathetic, unable to see any hope for salvation, unwilling to expend any energy in a wasted attempt to attain it. A trickle of ice-cold water against his cheek jerked him back to full consciousness, and, momentarily at least, free of his shocked daze. Had the chief wasted so much effort on him for this? Had he betrayed everyone's trust? No, he was stronger than that. Every other day of his life, every trial, triumph and disaster, had been leading to this. If this was the day he died then he would face it bravely, not like some child crying in the dark. He was still disorientated, his bearings in the cabin lost now. Closing his eyes helped a little, letting him imagine this whole thing as a blindfolded training exercise rather than the nightmare it truly was. He struggled upright, and this time his sense of balance felt a little better. He reached out, carefully testing the air in front of him until he felt something under his hand. The computer console leeched the warmth from his hands, but he probed it, feeling out the pattern of switches, buttons and levers with numbing fingers. For a moment he was confused, but then realisation dawned and he performed the necessary mental flip. Princess's console. 'Seen' from beside the commander's chair, it had been upside down, not easily matching any of the ship's schematics. He smiled, taking two steps to his side, and reaching out at shoulder height. The emergency locker's electronic sensors were dark and dormant, but the recessed chest slid forward at his firm tug. A blanket lay on the top of the pile, and working by touch alone, he moved the soft fabric aside to hang over the side of the chest. He needed to get past it without losing track of his only protection against the cold. Finally, his groping fingers closed on the object he was seeking and he gave a heartfelt sigh of gratitude and relief. Even through his closed eyelids the activation of the emergency flashlight was an actinic glare of painful intensity. Suddenly dizzy once again, he gripped the side of the locker chest, distantly grateful that he was holding the frigid metal through the blanket rather than directly. Slowly, the pattern of lights that had burst across his retinal nerves began to fade into the steady pink glow of closed eyelids, illuminated from behind. He pointed the flashlight awkwardly towards the floor, and squinted into the penumbra that surrounded that painfully bright spot. Even here in the reinforced cabin, the pressures of the crash had been felt. Wall panels bowed inwards, or hung at crazy angles from the warped bulkheads behind them. Only the chairs and consoles, secured to the decking with sufficient strength to remain unmoved by timewarp or transmutation, seemed unaffected. Forcing himself to maintain concentration, he followed the trickle of liquid that had roused him with his eyes. Light glinted on its surface, revealing its source - a warped panel that came to a jagged point from which water dripped. Condensation, he realised with relief. Even if the rest of the ship was flooded, the cabin wasn't leaking water just yet. But it would do soon, unless ... unless he sealed the watertight bulkheads! He smiled in triumph at the feat of memory. His smile faded. Without any power aboard ship, the bulkheads would have to be hand-cranked one at a time. His vision swam once again, and he knew that his arms would hold only a shadow of their usual strength. But just because he preferred not to fight, that didn't make him a quitter. Keeping the torch pointed at the floor, well aside from his destination, he stumbled towards the first lever.
Tiny took his time in replying to the letter. He gave it a full week's thought, and in that week, his conversations with Mark and Jason became stilted and rather forced. None of them mentioned Anderson's invitation, but there was soon little doubt in Tiny's mind that both boys knew about it.
Jason was never as openly close to them in term time as he felt able to be in the vacations. Just as Tiny had thrown up his shell of ponderous ignorance, Jason constructed a taciturn mask which he held up to the world. Occasionally the warmer, happier boy of the summer weeks would peek through. Most of the time though, he seemed cold - almost indifferent to his friends when they were in public view. It was unsettling and confusing. The bond Jason and Mark shared was deep and unspoken, but Tiny was never quite sure where he fit into that picture. He could accept a little distance from the quiet but impulsive boy.
It was the unspoken, almost subliminal, barrier that appeared between him and Mark that upset Tiny more. Over two days, Mark's expression of half-concealed anticipation faded into one of poorly-hidden concern. Tiny carried the letter, and his carefully composed response to it, in his breast pocket and wondered himself what he was waiting for. He couldn't put it into words until the Friday morning when Mark broke into a grin. The slender boy leaned across the chemistry work bench they shared, and spoke in a reassuring whisper. "You know, I just worked out that it doesn't matter. Whatever you decide, we'll still be friends. Just let anyone try stopping us!"
Tiny had grinned back, feeling a weight lifted from him. This was what he had unknowingly needed - the knowledge that he was wanted for himself, not as part of some masterplan of the chief's. He had begun to see his life as some huge child's puzzle, pieces being moved and twisted beyond his control. Without being asked, Mark had provided the final piece of the jigsaw. Tiny posted his response that lunchtime.
He was on the same cliff top where Mark had first found him, his kite riding the dawn breezes, when they came looking the next morning. Mark's expression was one of delight, as if he'd never had a moment's doubt about the outcome, but it was Jason's expression of relief that Tiny noticed.
"You had us going for a minute there, big guy!" Jason snapped, giving him a half-mocking punch on one arm. Tiny rocked with the half-hearted blow, knowing that he deserved it for putting them through the last week. Nonetheless he crossed one leg in front of the other, as if leaning nonchalantly against a post, and tried to look casual, even as he kept a careful hold of his kite's controls.
"I didn't know you cared, Jase."
Mark spoke with a rueful smile.
"Well, you were a little unfair. Princess has been writing every day to ask what you were thinking - until the chief called us by vid-phone this morning."
"Princess knew about this?" Tiny asked with a pang of guilt.
Jason smiled his fleeting and seldom seen smile. "Her school finishes a few weeks before ours so she's at home. She wheedled what was bothering the chief out of him in less than a day."
Tiny grinned, imagining Princess twisting Anderson around her little finger. At twelve years old, she was still young enough to play the 'little girl' card. In another year or two, she would have to rethink her strategy - and probably back off entirely, at least where Anderson was concerned. Tiny already guessed that she had other plans for the still-unsuspecting Mark.
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to get an offer like this every day." His smile broadened. "Besides, if I stayed with Captain Jack much longer I was going to eat him out of house and home." It was one aspect of his slow and lazy mask that he didn't have to feign. "I reckon the chief can afford a decent chef or two!"
"Ooh, Tiny has a new poppa - will he buy you a nice big kite?" A new voice broke into their conversation, taunting and dripping with saccharine sarcasm.
The three of them turned, and Tiny felt the kite's control cords go slack as it stalled and began to fall. Without looking, he twitched a few of the cords, redirecting the fall into a smooth glide - not so much preventing the descent as averting the crash that would have followed it. After years of practise, the action was instinctual, the skill innate, and he kicked himself for displaying it in front of these others.
There were eight or nine boys there, and he recognised the gang. Teenage boys could be brutal, striking out against the uncertainties and anxieties of adolescence. It was simply his bad fortune to share a dorm with some of the biggest bullies in the school. Usually he checked to ensure that everyone was well asleep, or otherwise occupied, before escaping the school grounds to indulge his love of flying. He knew well enough that flying a kite was not something to which a boy his age could readily admit, but he loved the sense of freedom that came with it - and he clung to the memories of doing this with his father all those years ago.
Today, in his excitement, he had been careless. He had stuffed Anderson's letter under his pillow, knowing that he no longer needed to carry it with him, and pulled his bundle of canvas and wooden slats from his trunk. He hadn't noticed another boy watching him, but someone must have, for them to have discovered his changed circumstances and found him so quickly. He forced his expression to remain calm. He'd always found the best way of avoiding the bully's worst attentions was simply to pretend not to understand them. It amused them, and more often than not, they lost interest in whatever violence they had in mind.
"The kite I've got already flies pretty well," he said cheerfully. "That's good enough for me."
"I don't know what Anderson wants with him," one of the boys told another in a meant-to-be-overheard aside. "I guess the mighty science chief is looking for test subjects."
"Hey, back off." The order came from Jason, stepping forward with a look of determination on his face. Mark hesitated a moment longer, before moving to Tiny's other side in a mirror of Jason's action. For a moment, Tiny froze in amazement. Since their first conversation, Mark hadn't tried to intervene in the minor disputes that arose from time to time around Tiny, trusting him to handle them himself. Tiny wracked his brains to try and remember how Jason would have reacted before today - it just felt wrong to have the other boy intervene simply because of their new legal connection.
It was a shock to realise that Jason's unsympathetic mask had kept them far enough apart during term time that this situation had never arisen. Or perhaps that wasn't true. Suddenly Tiny remembered a dozen incidents, violence diverted by a low-voiced and well placed sarcastic comment, or by a loud clatter that directed a teacher's attention towards them. Jason had always been there for him, Tiny realised, as supportive as Mark in his own, less demonstrative, way. And now the situation had made their affiliation overt.
The other boys seemed startled too, but their leader rallied quickly. "I might have known you'd stick up for this loser, Mark. But, Jason, I didn't think you cared about anyone. Least of all Tiny."
He made the word 'cared' sound like a weakness to be scorned, and 'Tiny' was voiced like the insult it was. Tiny saw Jason's back tense, and knew that he was fuming.
"Jase," Mark warned quietly, but he was too late. Jason ploughed into the aggressors in a blur of kicks and sharp blows. Mark sighed resignedly before wading in after him. Tiny stared in bemusement, then glanced behind him. The kite had settled smoothly to the ground as he had intended. Shrugging, he dropped the control paddles, and followed his friends.
It was a while before the dust settled, and when it had, only the three of them were left standing. Jason peered at a whimpering, white-faced boy with a rather startled sense of achievement. "I think I broke his arm," he confessed.
His glow of satisfaction had faded before Anderson arrived. Their guardian looked down at the three, still somewhat dishevelled, young men with an expression of cold fury. His eyes picked out Mark, who met his gaze with a defiant stare, and then slid onwards. Mark looked surprised, clearly expecting to be called to account, but it was Jason on whom Anderson's wrath fell. The boy didn't meet Anderson's eyes, but kept his gaze averted as if afraid their guardian could read his guilt in his eyes. Perhaps he could have, certainly he read Jason's reaction like a book.
"And what, precisely, did you think you were doing?"
"They were teasing Tiny, chief," Jason protested. "I wasn't going to let them hurt him."
"And it didn't occur to you that Tiny is nearly twice as strong as you are, and very nearly as skilled in martial arts?"
Jason looked up, clearly startled.
"Jason, Jason, Jason." Anderson shook his head, his expression softening a little. "I'm glad you and Mark were prepared to stand up for Tiny. I've seen the boys you attacked," he raised a hand to stop Mark from arguing, "or who attacked you, and - quite frankly - I'm impressed. But haven't I taught you that knowing the strengths of your team is as important as knowing your own strength? You could have handled them, couldn't you, Tiny?"
Caught in the headlights, Tiny stuttered.
"I don't know, chief," he said finally, earning him a grateful look from Jason. "They were awful big."
Anderson sighed, shaking his head. "Well, we can finish this discussion later. Mark, Jason, go get your things, and gather up Tiny's too. Make sure you don't leave anything, you're not coming back here."
Jason paled. "We haven't been ...?"
"Expelled?" Anderson shook his head, "No, but I think it's time we made other arrangements for your education. I had hoped to give all three of you another year of normal schooling, but perhaps your ... energy would be better channelled elsewhere." Mark and Jason both nodded, their eyes shining. "Now, Tiny, you and I are going to go for a walk along the cliffs, where it's nice and quiet. It's time I told you the whole of what you're letting yourself in for - while there's still time to back out."
The last bulkhead wedged shut with a final-sounding clunk. He released the handle with a sigh of relief, unwrapping the blanket from around it. Folding the increasingly stiff fabric into a four-layered pad, he laid it against the metal wall and then rested his forehead against it. Even through the insulation, the coolness felt good, soothing away some of his headache. Sweat from his exertions cooled across his chest and back, leaving him shivering convulsively, but his fingers and toes seemed to be burning, almost as if they were resting in some parallel dimension where the Phoenix was burning to death, and not slowly freezing into a solid block of ice. Of course, he thought in light-headed confusion, water couldn't freeze at this kind of pressure. The temperature would just keep falling as the Phoenix lost her residual warmth to the planet's great heat sink. Then the Phoenix would be locked in perpetual night, a fluid as deadly and lifeless as the dark vacuum of space. In a moment of clarity, he caught his thoughts rambling. Ah, hyperthermia, he thought with a kind of grim satisfaction. After all, if you're going to die anyway, why not go the whole hog? But he'd promised himself that he would fight this - he meant to go out as a member of G-Force should do, raging against the fall of night. G-Force had been trained for emergencies, prepared for them. What was he meant to do? The icy coldness of his torso and the fire in his extremities focused his attention on temperature. Heat, warmth, core temperature. Of course! Hot fluids. There was a self-heating flask in the emergency kit. He forced himself to lift his head away from the bulkhead, and threw the blanket around his shoulders with a clumsy motion. He lined up on the emergency kit, and thrust himself away from the wall, staggering forward, but feeling as if he were floating in the weightlessness of freefall. However he got there, he didn't remember the journey as he all but fell into the locker, groping with numb hands. When he saw the flask, it took an effort of will to make his fingers close around it, and even then he only knew they had done so by watching them move. He used his teeth to break the seal on the flask, and didn't even try to give it the shake that the manual specified. The trembling of his arms was probably agitating the fluid quite enough. He watched the shaking of his own limbs with a kind of detached fascination. The motion was curiously hypnotic, not quite periodic but with a chaotic element that defied analysis or prediction. Lost in fascination, it was the smell that roused him. That most powerful and primitive of senses took hold of his hindbrain, shook it, and bypassed rational thought entirely. He was sipping down the self-heating broth before he was aware of it, not caring that it was burning his throat and lighting a fire in his stomach to rival those in his limbs. Finally though, the last drops fell onto lips cracked with cold, and the flask tumbled from his numb fingers. He sank into the nearest chair, curling his legs to his chest and attempting to wrap what he could of the blanket around him. He knew that stopping still was probably a bad idea, but in his agony and disorientation, with his body struggling to cope with all he had done to it, there seemed little option.
"Good, Princess!" Their explosives instructor nodded in approval at Princess's improvised timer. They gathered around, studying it. Tiny shook his head in a moment of amused reflection. He was fourteen years old, and already he had gone beyond the realm of off-the-shelf detonators and into the unexplored territory of home terrorism. Come to that, how many fourteen-year-olds could say they had an 'explosives instructor' in the first place?
It had been a wonderful, dizzying, terrifying year. The four of them had been trained, groomed and educated to within an inch of their lives. As a small child, Tiny had convinced his teachers that he was simple and they had let him work at his own pace, never noticing that the books he read between working on assignments were carefully re-covered mathematics and aerodynamics texts far in advance of his age. At the school, the teachers had not been fooled by Tiny's act. They had demanded more of him, bringing him up to speed in the subjects he had neglected, but inevitably holding him back in the areas that interested him most - in his dream of flight. But he had never been so thoroughly tested as he was every day since this training began.
When Anderson first explained his vision of an elite team, on that windy, isolated cliff top, Tiny had scarcely taken it in. His mind had reeled away from the concept of an alien race of unrelenting maleficence and need, even now preparing their attack. He had barely comprehended the concept of implants and transmutations that Anderson was sure would give his team the edge they needed. But he had understood that he was being offered an opportunity that he had never dreamed of, and that he would face challenges he had never imagined. He had known from Anderson's letter that something big was brewing, and that it was something in which he would be involved. But the scale of the endeavour was nothing short of breathtaking. This was his chance to save the world his parents had given their lives for. He had known immediately that, despite the dangers that Anderson was careful to outline, nothing could keep him away from it.
Curiously though, that first summer had not been the rush of activity that Tiny had expected, or even the relaxed pleasure of previous vacations. Anderson had wanted to give them one last summer of childhood, and never mind that he had been preparing them in subtle ways for years already. Mark and Jason had already known their destiny, Tiny had accepted his entirely, and so it wasn't from the rapidly maturing young men that a constant stream of arguments arose, but rather from Princess.
She protested from that first day that she should be given the same training as the boys. She insisted that she didn't need to go back to school and had no plan for her life other than fighting for her world. She tried to cajole, and then she tried to plead. When that failed, she turned to cold logic. She pointed to her academic grades, easily the match of Jason or Tiny. She pointed to her physical education results - the result of long years of hard exercise - and to the fact that, even if Anderson had only started her martial arts lessons to keep her on an equal footing with her foster brothers, she now outranked them in two of the five disciplines they studied.
Time and again, Anderson heard her out without listening, shook his head and sent her out to play. Eventually, Mark - the only one of them with whom Anderson seemed prepared to discuss his decisions - intervened. Anderson smiled at his championing of Princess, and told Mark that she didn't understand what she was asking, and would lose interest in the project when she returned to school. Mark came out of that interview as amused as he was frustrated. He told Princess that she had been hoist on her own petard. For years she had worked on convincing the chief that she was nothing more than a pretty, innocent child. Well, it seemed he had believed her.
Only Anderson was surprised when Princess, packed off to school with three science organisation security staff to escort her there, turned up on foot at their front door a week later. She looked travel-weary and rumpled. The pretty dresses she had worn for their guardian's benefit were gone, replaced by slacks and a tight-fitting T-shirt that followed the developing lines of her body. She had waited on the doorstep for Anderson, hastily summoned from a meeting, to greet her. He had stared at her, astounded, with the three boys standing in silent awe behind him. The twelve-year-old girl had raised her head defiantly.
"I may be a woman," she said firmly, with a maturity beyond her years. "But I am not a little girl. I know that it will be dangerous, but I know why it's worth the risk. And I can offer as much to this team as anyone else in that room."
Anderson had closed his open mouth, and set his lips in a firm line. He had studied her for a long moment. Then he swung the door wide. "Come on in, Princess."
She had hovered uncertainly on the doorstep. "And?"
"And I suppose I'd better get our designers thinking again on the issue of uniforms. It was one of the few things we had believed resolved, but I don't think the ones we have planned for the boys will suit you."
They plunged into their new lessons almost immediately after that. Information came at them from every direction; they learnt new skills and new ways of thinking. At the same time though, Anderson didn't neglect their basic education. It seemed ridiculous to be studying history and geography one minute and advanced fighting technique, hand-eye coordination and explosives theory the next. Later perhaps they would come to understand that even the subjects that seemed less relevant added to their understanding of humanity and of the world around them.
But for now, there was no denying that their favourite lessons were the more applied subjects. And, explosives seemed to be Princess's special gift. She flushed at the instructor's praise, and flushed again when Anderson walked into the room and heard it. The chief's always stoic expression gave little indication of the pride that Tiny knew he must be feeling.
The explosives instructor was dismissed with a nod, and the four teenagers turned expectantly to their guardian. Mark stood a step in front of the others, Princess close behind him. Jason leaned against the nearest table in a show of false nonchalance. Tiny himself kept quiet, waiting for the penny to drop. Anderson seldom came to see them during the working week, except to sit in on their tactics and strategy tuition. He certainly never interrupted a lesson.
The chief nodded to them, motioning for them to sit down. He studied each of the group in turn.
"You've done well," he said at last. "And you form an effective team. But it's time you met your fifth member."
"Fifth...?" Mark exclaimed, as stunned as the rest of them.
Anderson ignored him, thumbing the room's intercom. "Send him in."
The door slid open, and a small child stood on its threshold, his lips trembling with confusion and uncertainty. Anderson held out a hand towards him, and the boy came forward to the chief's side. Anderson rested a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face the team.
"You have got to be kidding!" Jason burst out.
Tiny was less vehement, but he couldn't resist adding his protest. "The kid can't be more than eight years old, chief."
Mark hesitated. He folded his arms across his chest. "I'm sure you have your reasons, chief. But they'd better be good ones."
"This is Keyop," Anderson said simply. The boy looked up and gave a peculiar series of chirps and burbles that ended with his own name. The other children stared at him in bemusement. He shrank back against Anderson's legs, his expression timid.
Princess raised her hand to her mouth. "Oh, can't you see you're scaring him?" She went to her knees in front of him, the explosives expert of minutes ago forgotten, and raised a hand to her own chest. "I'm Princess, Keyop."
He looked up with bright eyes. "Princess?" he repeated.
She smiled, "That's right."
Suddenly, he returned her smile, easing away from Anderson.
The chief watched as Princess drew Keyop forward to sit beside her. The boy reached up to play with Princess's hair, curling its long strands between his fingers. Anderson stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Good. I knew the boy was a firm judge of character."
"But, chief ...!" Jason couldn't suppress his irritation any longer.
"What do you know of human genetic engineering?" Anderson asked suddenly, turning to him.
Jason frowned. "It's banned. Always has been."
"But I guess there's no reason why it shouldn't work," Mark added. He turned to stare at the boy. "After all, other mammals have been cloned, and even altered, in the past."
"You know that in the interests of our planet's security, some projects go beyond the bounds of conventional morality. The G-Force project is one of them. There are some who say I brainwashed you, and am abusing children by putting you through this training."
"Never!" Tiny protested. Anderson raised a hand for silence.
"I chose my team carefully. Each of you was mature enough to make a rational decision to join this project. I believe that you know what you are doing, and have always been careful not to push you beyond your abilities." He bowed his head, shaking it. "I would not have approved the project that created Keyop."
The boy looked up at his name, and Anderson shook his head again. Keyop went back to his silent perusal of Princess.
"He was created in a lab three years ago - and force-matured through the first five years of human development. He has had little human interaction. His language skills are underdeveloped, but his reaction times and non-verbal testing suggest that the project succeeded in its aims - to develop a human being of far above average mental abilities and physical strength. Keyop is young, but by the time your training is complete, four years from now, Keyop will be the equivalent of twelve years old and mature enough to be a valuable member of this team."
Mark frowned, his blue eyes confused. "Then why not bring him into the project in four years time, when he's old enough to decide for himself? What aren't you telling us, chief?"
Anderson looked discomforted, as if he hadn't expected Mark to see through him quite so easily. "It took all the influence I could bring to bear - all the resources of the G-Force project - to free Keyop from the laboratory where he was kept in total isolation. If I can't use him, I will be forced to return him. Team, I would not ask you to accept any team member that would compromise your efficiency, or your effectiveness. Since I first learned of his existence, I have had little doubt that Keyop belonged here."
Mark hesitated, looking around the group and accepting their nods or shrugs. The thought of any child growing up confined to a clinical lab was hard to accept. Whatever else Anderson could offer Keyop in life, he couldn't offer him a choice. Finally Mark nodded himself. "I'm sure you're right, chief. We'll keep an eye on him"
Anderson smiled, satisfied. "And now, G-Force you are complete."
He'd lost all feeling in his fingers and toes now. Oh, he could see them, in the slowly fading glow of the flashlight, but they didn't seem to be part of him any more. They were merely inert lumps of flesh connected to him in an abstract rather than physical sense. Sleep was creeping over him, offering him release from the discomfort and confusion of the world. He fought against it, trying to think of anything that might distract him. He fell into a martial arts meditation automatically. The chaotic regularity of the dripping water fed into the meditation, shaping its sequences. The patterns and rhythms of it required concentration, and left him feeling clearer and more alert. Sitting up a little straighter, he struggled to think rationally. He had sealed the cabin, done everything he could. With no power in the Phoenix and the rear sections flooded, there seemed to be few options. Nothing in the cabin could send out a signal, and any broadcast would be absorbed by the deep column of water that lay between him and daylight. Even his wrist activator lay silent, baffled by the frigid ocean. Still curled in his chair, he ran hooded eyes over the ship's control panels. They were dark and dormant, the Phoenix already slipping into the sleep that threatened to overwhelm him too. He wanted to reach out, to caress her consoles, but his limbs would not obey his commands and he knew he wouldn't have felt the touch in any case. He spoke aloud, his voice croaking and sounding surprisingly loud above the perpetual drip. "You and me, baby, we touched the stars. We were a good team, I guess. A good team."
The Phoenix soared through the skies, riding thermals and blasting through clouds like her mythological namesake. At her controls, Tiny revelled in the sensation. He had never dreamed that she would be so responsive, that such a large craft could be so beautifully free in the sky. Above them and to starboard, Mark was at the controls of his own plane. The small jet rolled, spiralling gracefully around the larger craft. Tiny grinned and returned the favour, turning in a neat loop-the-loop with Mark at its centre.
There was no hesitation in the action. A thousand simulations had prepared him for this moment - teaching him the capabilities of both his craft and Mark's long before either rolled out of their production hangers.
Anderson had protested when Mark announced that he wanted the Phoenix's maiden flight and the G-1's to be a joint effort, but Mark insisted. Tiny had grinned in anticipation, knowing that Mark remembered their first conversation. Oh, they'd been up on training flights, sometimes even at the same time, but they both knew that those didn't count. Those had been hasty flights in borrowed aircraft. This was different. The jets constructed in the science organisation's secret hangers were theirs and theirs alone. One day we'll fly together, Mark had promised - and six years later, further down the line than either of them had imagined possible, here they were.
In the end, the chief had yielded. Since their cerebronic augmentation the year before, Mark had more and more say over the running of the team. Suddenly G-Force was not just some abstract concept, but a living and breathing reality. At sixteen years of age, the boys were certainly skilled enough, even if barely old enough, to command the respect of their support teams - and, increasingly, that of their guardian too.
"No acrobatics," Anderson's voice came sharply through Tiny's wrist activator, and through Mark's too. "This is a test flight, and if the two of you plough into one another, you're not going to test anything but the impact reduction systems!"
"Big ten, chief," Mark responded. He sounded suitably chastened, but there was an amused undertone that Tiny knew the chief couldn't miss. Anderson sighed audibly over the communicator, but said nothing. Mark would obey the command, even if he thought it unnecessary, and that was all that mattered.
"Yes, sir," Tiny added, a little more formally. He glanced across at the G-1. "Well, commander, shall we make a start on this test pattern?"
Mark veered off to the right, his manoeuvrable little craft turning in a tight arc. "Let's."
Tiny threw his total concentration into the series of manoeuvres, climbs, dives and accelerations that Anderson's robot 7-Zark-7 had outlined. Several miles off to the side, he knew that Mark was doing the same - testing the abilities of the aircraft on which their lives would depend. Finally though, the tests were complete, and Tiny was free once again to revel in the freedom of the skies. He allowed the Phoenix's flight to level off, and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head.
"You did good, baby," he told her as if she were one of the girls on whom he worked his devastating charm at the rare parties they got out to. "You and me are going to go a long way."
From the moment he had first seen this ship, sketched out in clinical blue lines on engineer's draft paper, he had known he was in love. Every curve of her body was beautiful, her hull sweeping gracefully from her pointed nose to her formidable engines. He had felt the potential in the designs, his trained eye picking out her aerodynamic surfaces and calculating power to weight ratios from the specifications spelled out around the diagram.
The designers who had handed him the plans watched nervously, not sure how to interpret his awed silence. They gave a collective sigh of relief when he looked up with a broad smile. "She's beautiful," Tiny told them. "But why are you showing me? Didn't the chief and his new robot, Zark, lay out the specs?" The engineers had given him a startled look. "You're going to be her pilot," one woman said simply, as if it explained everything. "She's going to be yours."
"Mine," Tiny had whispered, gazing down - delighted - at the plans.
Keyop had tugged at one corner, struggling to see, and Tiny had lowered the paper for his strange little brother to peruse. "Well, ours perhaps," he had admitted, but inside he savoured the word: 'mine.'
He had studied the plans for weeks, and after that he had input into every aspect of the Phoenix's construction, and a say in every small redesign. By the time she rolled out of the hanger, he felt as if he'd known her all his life. She was a part of him, his manipulation of her controls so instinctive that she seemed almost to respond to his thoughts themselves. To feel the wind under her wings was intoxicating.
"Hey, Tiny, wake up," Mark's voice came from his wrist activator, broadcast on a private channel between the two of them. Tiny started, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.
"Sorry, Mark. I guess I got a bit carried away."
"Just keep your mind on the job, Tiny," Mark chided gently. He switched to a general channel. "Want to try for a mid-air pick-up?"
"Not this time," Anderson intervened immediately. "Bring them home, Tiny, Mark."
"Aye, aye, chief," Mark confirmed reluctantly, with the same regret in his voice that Tiny was feeling. Tiny grinned at the view screen where he could just make out Mark's silhouette in the cockpit of his jet. Obviously he wasn't the only one who was getting carried away today.
Tiny circled once while Mark touched down on their isolated landing strip. The Phoenix followed, the minor vortices created by Mark's jet exhausts sending a scarcely noticeable ripple through the larger ship. The team was waiting for them when they taxied into the hanger, clustering first around Mark and then around Tiny when he joined them. Keyop was practically bouncing on the spot in his excitement, Princess reminding him that this was a serious occasion. Jason was leaning back against his parked car, his expression not jealous (as Tiny had half expected) but amused and reminiscent. Of course, Jason had got to play with his new toy almost a month before the rest of them - perhaps he felt the same affinity with his car that Tiny did with his ship.
"So how does the command ship handle, Tiny?" Jason asked as Princess and Keyop bombarded Mark with questions.
"Like a dream, Jason," Tiny told him with feeling. "Like a real dream."
"My jet too," Mark volunteered. He looked around at them with satisfaction. "We're getting there."
"So when do we get - out- there?" Keyop demanded with a warble. "Want to get into the fight!"
Jason reached out a hand to ruffle the boy's brown hair. "You'll get no argument from me there, little guy."
Mark sighed. "Our training program still has nine months to run. We have to learn the vehicle transmutations as well as our own. The chief's not going to send us out unless we're completely ready."
Jason smiled a small, sardonic smile, and his voice deepened in a gentle impression of Anderson. "It would be irresponsible to waste the resources."
Despite the attempt at humour, their shoulders fell. Tiny felt Mark's intelligent blue eyes studying each one of them in turn, evaluating their frustration and assessing their morale. He spoke firmly, and encouragingly.
"We're not going to help anyone if we get ourselves killed on our first assignment. Believe me, the chief isn't going to delay a minute longer than he thinks necessary. We're going to be the elite - and that means sacrificing our own desires to the needs of the team. We've waited this long to take the fight to Spectra, we can wait a few months longer. But when we're ready ..." He clenched his fists tightly, and looked gladly up at the Phoenix towering above them. "Spectra isn't going to know what hit it!"
Sometime in the last few minutes, he had stopped shivering, a warm glow spreading through his chest. He no longer noticed the cold. In a vague, abstract sense he knew that was a bad sign, but he was beyond caring now. He was lost in memories of the team. In a hazy way, he was glad the ship's coms were useless. They didn't need to see him like this. He was gladder still that they had escaped the same fate; he only hoped that they understood why he had to do it. Think well of me, team, he thought - too tired now to speak aloud. We sure gave Spectra a run for its money, didn't we? Well, we all knew it was too good to last. You'll build another Phoenix. He paused, smiling inwardly. And even a good looking guy like me can be replaced, I guess. The cold air was becoming thick and hard to breathe. The flashlight had begun to flicker now too. Tiny gazed blankly at it, trying to remember the battery life specs, and translating that in turn to a guess at how long he'd been trapped down here. The numbers swam in his head, refusing to work out or make any kind of sense. He gave up in confusion, finding even the effort involved in thinking exhausting. Even so, he knew that, if the battery had had time to run down, then his oxygen supply was probably pretty much exhausted too. Looked like it was going to be a race between asphyxiation and hypothermia after all. Through closed eyelids, he was aware of a distant but brilliant light filling his vision. He shifted slightly, too tired to move out of its beam. I guess this is it.
Tiny was eighteen years old, and had seen more destruction in the last year than he had imagined possible in a lifetime. He had lost track of the number of mechanical monsters that he and the Phoenix had confronted, or the number of times he had been left behind while the rest of the team fought on the ground.
He thumped his console in frustration, and immediately looked up with an apology. "Sorry, girl," he told his ship. "I guess you get as frustrated to be left out of the action as I do."
If the Phoenix had a view on the matter, she remained silent. Together they circled above the battle, keeping an eye on the mechanical monster below. He picked out Princess's wings and Keyop's amidst the green-uniformed spectra forces clustered at its feet. Of Jason and Mark there was no sign. Tiny sighed resignedly. They must be inside the thing - even if the Spectran vehicle took the air to flee, he wouldn't be able to attack it until he knew his team-mates were clear.
"Princess, behind you!" he warned, just in time to save her from the platoon of spectra goons creeping up under cover of the rubble piles. She somersaulted, coming down behind them and flattening three with one sweeping kick. Tiny grimaced, rubbing the back of his own head in sympathy as he remembered his own first encounter with the girl.
"Thanks, Tiny," she called, through his wrist activator.
"Sure thing, Princess. Just holler when you want a pickup."
He swung the Phoenix in another tight circle, concentrating for the moment on collecting as much sensor data as he could on their opponent. In form it resembled an enormous child, holding a lollipop. Tiny shook his head in exasperation. What? Did Zoltar think they were less likely to attack a childlike figure than some kind of insect? Did he honestly think they'd miss the fact that it was fifty feet tall, made of metal and had bright red glowing eyes?
Its shell seemed opaque to his sensors at first sight, but with little else to do, he had the time to find the force-shield frequency, synch his sensors with it, and get his first glance of the interior. He hummed to himself in satisfaction as Mark and Jason's locator beacons suddenly showed through, not far now from the vehicle's control room. They seemed to have the situation well under control - already the Spectrans were abandoning ship, running away from the fight rather than towards it. A few well placed blasts into the device's controls and it would be harmless.
Tiny's scan moved onwards, checking the location of the few remaining Spectrans. He frowned as his sensors reached the lollipop's round ball and found it looking suspiciously blank. At ten foot in diameter, it seemed unlikely that it was solid, but at the same time was too small to contain much of import. So why did it appear as an opaque spot on his sensors. Was that another force-shield? Why bother with two in one robot like that? "Getting hot down here!" Keyop's call burst from Tiny's wrist activator, dragging his attention back to the battle. The Spectrans fleeing from the now crippled robot had added to the crowd around Princess and Keyop, pressing them hard. Tiny turned the Phoenix and shed altitude quickly.
"I'll come down and cool things off for you," he told them.
The Phoenix's low altitude pass all but flattened the battlefield. The gale it dragged in its wake tossed rubble and Spectrans alike into the air. Only the two G-Force members, already flat on the ground before the Phoenix arrived, were able to react quickly. They jumped to their feet, ready to deal with the disorientated aggressors.
Even the immense figure of the robot trembled, the lollipop falling from its hands to impact the ground with a building-shaking thud. The few remaining Spectrans took one look at it, turned and ran, leaving Princess and Keyop looking on in bemusement. Some of them found vehicles in the ruins of this city suburb and clambered inside, heading off at top speed.
"Good work, Tiny," Mark's voice emerged from the wrist activator as the commander himself emerged from the enemy vehicle with Jason at his side. "You'd better follow those guys, and see they don't get up to any mischief before the defence force mops them up. We'll finish up around here before you get back."
"Big ten, commander," Tiny acknowledged, his hands already manipulating the appropriate controls. A thought made him hesitate. "Listen, Princess. You'd better get over and check out that lolly-thing. I couldn't get a decent scan of it, and those Spectra goons sure seemed scared."
"I'll do that," Princess promised, and even with his eyes locked on the spectra-laden vehicles below, Tiny found himself waiting for her to give the all clear.
Her gasp was clearly audible over the team's radio channel. "Mark, this thing's a neutron bomb!"
"They must have been planning to use it on the city," Jason muttered, his tone angry. They all shared his rage. A device which would wipe out the civilian population of a metropolis, leaving its buildings and resources unaffected, went beyond even Spectra's usual tactics.
Princess sounded sick.
"It must have been primed - the fall activated the timer. Mark, the blast radius of this thing is twenty miles or more. If it goes off here ..."
There was a moment of silence before Mark spoke.
"I'm open to ideas," the commander admitted. "Only the Phoenix could lift this, and we don't have time to rig up a carrying net."
Tiny moved at once, breaking off his pursuit of the Spectrans. Even as he turned the Phoenix in a screaming arc, her nose cone began to slide open. The ship's flight became rougher, the aerodynamics of Jason's G-2 not quite the equal of the Phoenix's usual profile.
"Tiny, what are you doing?" Mark demanded. Tiny didn't answer, not completely sure himself that this would work.
"Sorry, Jason," he muttered too quietly for the wrist activator to pick up. The emergency release did its work smoothly, detaching the G-2 and leaving the forward grapnel arms free. Tiny didn't turn to follow the car's precipitous descent, his attention focused on the task ahead.
"Hey! You jettisoned my car!" Jason's cry was anguished. "You jettisoned - my car- !"
"Yeah. Get down, team."
They dropped as the Phoenix approached them, barely ten feet from the ground. Tiny swept overhead, knowing he had to time this precisely. The grapnel arms caught the lollipop-bomb at the same moment that Tiny pulled back on the controls. The Phoenix's metal hull screamed with the stress of her sudden burden, and she fought for altitude, the bomb firmly attached to her nose.
Tiny knew in a moment that they would never make orbit as he had intended. The extra weight was dragging them downwards almost as quickly as they tried to climb. But perhaps downwards was an option too. In little more than a minute, the Phoenix had travelled more than fifty miles. There was ocean below him now, the deep blueness of the Pacific. On one of his minor monitors, relayed from Keyop's station, a map followed their position, presenting him with information and alternatives. He glanced at it, and saw what he needed at once. He angled his ship towards the nearest ocean trench, knowing that the water would absorb the neutron blast. In that dark and frigid deep there was no life to suffer for Spectra's greed.
"Tiny, what are you doing?" Mark demanded frantically.
"My job - you leave me up here for a reason, remember, Commander?" Tiny gritted his teeth as the Phoenix dived into the ocean with a shuddering impact. "Now shut up, Mark, and let me do what I'm paid for!"
The commander's response was lost in a static filled burst of interference. The wrist activators could deal with distance or ocean depth, but seldom both. From now on, he was on his own. He was more than five thousand metres below the surface, and navigating on sonar alone, when he released the neutron bomb into the trench.
The Phoenix protested again as Tiny tried to lower her steering flaps. After that frantic dive, it was a struggle to level her off, let alone turn her towards the surface.
"Come on, baby. Come on," Tiny muttered, but there was no time.
A kilometre of water, and the reinforced hull of the Phoenix, protected Tiny from the deadly effects of the neutron blast. Nothing could save him from the pressure wave that wrecked his beautiful ship and sent them both plummeting, following the fatal bomb into the abyss.
"Is he there?" "Is he still alive?" The voices were loud in the still waters. The rescue sub locked on to the upper surface of the wrecked Phoenix and edged forwards, trying to get a firm seal against her forward viewport. Below them the hull plates were cracked and buckled by the water pressure. Even the sub they were on creaked under the strain, and she was one of the few in the world theoretically capable of withstanding this depth. It had taken time to triangulate the point of the Phoenix's descent, and longer still to get the sub here. Now she edged forwards, her headlights piercing the darkness with narrow beams of light. One penetrated the viewport, illuminating the slumped figure within. "Just get us in there!" Finally they had a tight contact, and made short work of breaking through to the one chamber of the Phoenix that remained intact and pressurised. They tumbled through, wearing breathing masks themselves and shivering as they ran to his side. "Is he ...?" An anxious question. "He's still breathing. I think he's going to be all right, Jason! Oh, he'll be all right!" "Told you, Princess." "You keep your tweeting to yourself, Keyop! You were as worried as the rest of us, and you're using up air." "Sorry, Commander." The slumped figure twitched slightly as an oxygen mask was fitted to his face. Thermal blankets were piled around him, and he was carefully lifted out of his seat and towards the rescue sub. Eyes opened blearily, confused, looking up into the face of one of his rescuers. The tall man's eyes narrowed, some of his lost composure recovered now. "You jettisoned my car!" he accused. "We'll build you a new car," a second man promised. He looked around him. "We'll build a new Phoenix, too. We might even splash out on a brand new colour scheme for them." Relief was making them euphoric, and more than a touch silly. This second rescuer glanced fondly down at his burden. "Let's just get this big guy back to the surface. I don't know, sleeping on the job again!" Tiny smiled vaguely, relaxing in the arms of his family. "Thanks, team," he murmured quietly.
The End