We Can't Lose
The aftermath of 'The Thing with a Thousand Eyes' leaves Mark in a pensive mood.
This is a work of fan fiction based on the 1970s anime series 'Battle of the Planets' produced by Sandy Frank Associates, which was, in turn, based on Tatsunoko's 'Gatchaman'. Characters and situations are used without permission.
It's been an awfully long time since I wrote a BotP or Gatchaman story, so I hope I haven't lost the knack. I was rewatching a few episodes last week though, and was a little shocked by Anderson's decision to throw a victory parade at the end of 'The Thing with a Thousand Eyes'. I got to thinking and this was the result.
Any reviews, comments or suggestions for improvement, no matter how short would be welcome – honestly, you have no idea how frequently I check my email after posting a story, or how much pleasure I get from even two word reviews.
Going fiery with a damaged hull was a bad idea. We knew that before we did it. As the last flames died away, caressing the Phoenix's blistered skin in a parting gesture, Tiny already had us in a gradual, spiral descent. Looking around the cabin, I saw resignation rather than jubilation at our victory. We were exhausted, more eager for quiet and rest than the victory parade the Chief was talking about, but we couldn't turn for home just yet. We needed to land, assess the damage and make emergency repairs if necessary. I only hoped it was a quick job. We couldn't leave Riga, and her stricken capital city, behind us soon enough.
Tiny set us down in the ruins of a wide-open plaza, nodding in satisfaction as the landing struts made firm contact, but with eyes already distant in sympathy with his aircraft's pain. We clustered around him, reading the pilot's damage display for ourselves. Princess patted the big guy on the shoulder. He looked up, summoning a wan grin.
"That beast did a real number on our protective coating, guys. We can live with that, but we need to know if the hull-plates proper are breached." He looked wearily at his console, gesturing vaguely at some of the readouts. "We got heat spikes in places we shouldn't have when we went to Fiery Phoenix. If the flames got inside and caused damage… And we're gonna need to do some patching, otherwise… well, let's just say that re-entry is going to be a whole world of fun when we get home to Earth."
"That's one kind of 'fun' I can live without," Jason muttered, shaking his head.
I couldn't help agreeing, but my team, washed out from the pressures of the Fiery Phoenix, needed me strong. I didn't let my weariness show, putting a brisk tone in my voice that drew a dismayed look from Keyop and a disgusted one from Jason.
"Fast as we can, team."
We dropped to the ground through the Phoenix's nose-hatch, wary of crossing her chemical-scarred skin. My initial thought was to deploy my team at once, getting to work as soon as possible. The way Jason tensed, landing in a crouch and scanning his surroundings with wary eyes, convinced me otherwise. Mirroring his actions, careful to keep Tiny, Princess and Keyop between me and my alert second, I could see why this situation had Jason rattled.
From the flight deck of the Phoenix, towering a full three storeys above ground level, the plaza had looked wide open and deserted. To the east, the buildings fronting it had been all but flattened, leaving piles of rubble littered with the twisted remains of steel spars. The shops to our south and four-storey apartment buildings to the west were largely intact, but their windows gaped, empty of glass and devoid of any sign of life. On the north side of the plaza a church stood side-by-side with a large government building, both looming large against the grey sky.
It was silent, save for the small metallic sounds of the stricken Phoenix above us, and the occasional clink as fallen masonry settled. The rest of my team were poised and ready now, reacting to the situation just a few seconds slower than Jason and I. None of us were happy. This felt a lot like the killing ground the Phoenix barely escaped just a few hours before.
It was a long, tense moment before Jason glanced back in my direction with a small shrug. I gave the area one last careful sweep with my eyes before giving my verdict. There was no hint of metallic reflections from the broken windows, no movement, no sign of the hardware that had given us such a warm welcome before. Despite that, some niggling instinct was telling me that we weren't alone. There was a watchful feeling in the still air, but it was subtle enough that even I couldn't be sure I wasn't imagining it, and it didn't feel hostile.
I nodded my agreement with Jason's conclusion and there was a shift, my team moving out of battle readiness and once again letting some of their weariness show.
Princess sighed, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair back under her helmet. I followed her eyes to the south. The small shops there had once been exclusive boutiques, of the sort Princess loves to explore in happier times. Tiny took a step closer, returning her earlier comfort with a hand on her back.
"They'll soon rebuild," he told her, summoning up the carefree grin he used to ease our darker moods. "They'll have this cleaned up in no time."
"Don't think so," Keyop volunteered with a tired shake of his head. Princess nodded in agreement with our young team-mate.
Her gaze lingered for a long moment on a dirt-clouded window. A mannequin had fallen forward into it. Jagged shards of glass framed the white-gowned figure, blank-eyes staring out from behind a veil that billowed in the cool breeze. The wedding gown was dappled and discoloured. Mildew ate away at that emblem of lost hope. As soon as I saw it, I noticed the straggly grass growing through the rubble around us, the thick layers of dust.
Like Tiny, I'd assumed that the devastation here in Riga's capital city was recent – the result of Spectra's latest incursion. This brought home what I'd known intellectually: that while Earth was still reeling from its introduction to the battle of the planets, Riga had been suffering Spectra's ruthless depredations for decades already.
I echoed Princess's sigh before I could think about it.
My team looked at me, and I deployed them with brief hand gestures, Jason to the nose, Princess and Keyop to survey the wings, while Tiny looked over the bulk of the fuselage. I took the tail myself, unable to resist the urge to check my jet for damage. Even as I worked though, I kept my eyes open and my senses alert, knowing that on the other side of our huge aircraft, Jason would be keeping a lookout too.
That's why I wasn't surprised when I rounded the Phoenix's man-high landing gear twenty minutes later to find him waiting for me. I'd been listening to the movements in the rubble for some time, straining my ears to pick up the whispered arguments going on just out of sight. Jason cocked his head as I appeared, gesturing out towards the port wing where Keyop was still studying each hull panel in turn. I turned in that direction, focusing my sensitive hearing on the rubble pile just beyond our wing tip.
"There are only five of them." The voice was male, probably in its twenties or thirties, its tone unhappy but determined. "And this one's not too big. I say we take them before they get reinforcements."
"They're fighters." Again male, older, just as angry, but with more caution in his voice.
"We can take them," the first voice urged in a harsh whisper. "We can't let these Spectran bastards walk all over us. We can't go on like this."
"Just keep down." That was a woman, sounding exhausted and strained. "Let them go. Please. Don't get yourself killed."
"Spectran bastards!"
Jason raised an eyebrow at me, his lips pursed.
"They don't know who we are?" I couldn't help but feel a little insulted. I'm pretty sure there's no one on Earth who wouldn't be able to name G-Force on sight. Even here on Riga, I was used to moving in military and political circles where we were well known. Jason gave a brief bark of laughter.
"When do you reckon these folks last saw a television, Mark?" he asked quietly. "We're just another bunch of weirdos in fancy dress as far as they're concerned."
"How long have they been out here?" I wondered, not expecting a reply to my rhetorical question. Jason's expression was neutral, but the hard look in his eyes suggested that he was feeling the same dismay I was. We knew Riga had been through hard times. The presence of the humanitarian mission and Federation survey teams confirmed that. It was one thing to know it, quite another to see it ourselves. Shaking my head, I frowned. "Well, we can't fight them."
Jason shrugged. "Common sense might win the argument yet."
I gave him a wry look. We both knew better than to trust to that. Jason tensed, the cynical amusement vanishing. I saw the problem at the same moment. The arguing adults probably hadn't even noticed the two children creeping away. Keyop was already aware of the boys, his eyes still studying the wing, but his entire body language angled towards tracking their movements. He didn't look up until the young kids were just a couple of metres away.
"Hello!" My team-mate's cheery greeting was hidden somewhere in the middle of his usual burbling speech. The burst of sound startled the younger of the two boys. He backed up quickly, letting out a cry as he tumbled backwards over one of the many debris piles littering the area.
Keyop reacted at once, at the boy's side and lifting him to his feet faster than human eyes could follow. Jason and I were there a moment later, less worried about the fallen child than the ragged crowd emerging from the ruins in response to his distress. They muttered and pressed forward as the elder boy tried to pull his little brother away, small fists pounding against a startled Keyop's back. The younger child was struggling against from Keyop's attempts to help him too, face pale with terror as he tried to escape our Swallow's supportive hold.
"Let him go!" someone shouted, and the group stirred uneasily, the atmosphere tense, almost ugly in tone.
"Calm down." I kept my voice level, my eyes on the crowd, not on Keyop and the struggling boys. "We're G-Force. From Earth. We're here to help."
The distrust in the air was palpable.
"We don't know that." I recognised the voice of the young agitator from before. "Just leave us alone! We don't need any 'help' from you!"
"Get out of here! Go away!" The murmur rose into a shout, a chorus of anger and fear from a people who had learnt not to trust any outsiders. How long had they been here, living in the ruins? How long since they'd seen an authority figure they could trust, who would give them the assistance they so obviously needed.
"Don't hurt them. Please, just go on your way and don't hurt anyone."
A woman had hurried forward, sweeping the crying boy out of Keyop's arms and into a tight, one-armed embrace. Her other arm held a third, much smaller child against her chest. The young toddler looked washed out and pale. One small leg hung down limply against his mother's waist, crudely splinted and bandaged.
"We can help."
Neither my team-mates nor I were surprised by Princess's quiet repetition of my statement. The crowd, oblivious to her near-silent arrival, let out startled yells of surprise. The elder boy edged in front of his mother and younger brothers, brave in his defence, but stepping warily to one side as he tried to keep track of Princess and Keyop both. Slipping past, Princess dropped into a crouch in front of the desperate mother, one hand hovering above the youngest child's broken leg. The woman shuffled backwards, pulling the small children with her, but Princess didn't seem to inspire the same fear in her that the rest of us did. Our Swan's gentle voice, her graceful movements and pastel-hued uniform inspired calm, if not trust.
Princess didn't try to close the gap. She held still, her compassionate eyes liquid behind her visor. "We have medical supplies."
I shifted, uncertain. We couldn't fight these desperate people, but nor could we afford to become entangled with them. Princess saw the movement. Her eyes flicked up towards me, looking for instructions, and I held still, trusting to her judgement. The baby needed help; his family and their community were almost as needy. While I wouldn't hesitate to leave if Spectra were pressing and we were needed elsewhere, I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight if we didn't at least make this effort.
"Please, just leave us in peace!"
The woman hunched over, calling her eldest child back, pushing her middle son behind her and wrapping both arms around the ailing toddler. It was clear that she wouldn't entrust her baby's care to anyone, and Princess backed off, rising from her crouch with a sigh of disappointment.
I signalled my team to back off, ready now to pull us back to the Phoenix. We'd offered to help, done our best. Now it was time to concentrate on our own situation. Our preliminary checks had confirmed that we weren't likely to drop out of the sky any time soon. We could stop at a Rigan military base for more thorough repairs…
"Wait!" The mother's cry cut across my thought process. Keyop had already fallen back to the wing-pod, Jason moving to cover him. I had taken a step to one side, giving Princess room to withdraw. Now Princess paused, white wings sweeping around her as she turned back with an enquiring look.
The woman staggered to her feet, a raggedly-dressed man coming forward to steady her and rest a hand on the elder boy's shoulder. She stared at us, frightened and surprised by her own audacity.
"Please… you said you could help... Food? Have you any food?"
"No." My firm statement was calm and made without hesitation. I felt the attention of my team on me. They knew that there were food supplies on the Phoenix. Enough for this family certainly, and probably enough for the whole group. There wouldn't be enough for the crowds that would gather within minutes, or the mob that would follow them. If there was one community in these ruins, then there were others, and news of a food source would spread faster than even G-Force could move. I put my regret in my voice, but allowed none of the guilt to show. "We can help a little with emergency medical care. I'm sorry. We have no food."
My wrist-com pulsed, flashing a signal from Tiny. 'Back-up imminent.'
I resisted the urge to look at it, trying to keep my surprise from showing. My eyes scanned the skies, expecting to see the vibrant scarlet of Colonel Cronus and his Red Rangers. Instead a low-pitched rumble of engines drew my eyes down and to the south-east. Two military personnel transports came into view, shaking and jumping as the tracked vehicles negotiated the rubble and the cracked road surface. I took a step to put myself between Princess, the crowd and the incoming vehicles. Jason and Keyop moved up behind us, poised and ready to react to any potential threat.
It wasn't until the transports drew to a halt and began to disgorge the ground soldiers they carried that the rest of the convoy appeared. The trucks were heavily laden, the emblem of the Earth-led humanitarian force displayed prominently on their sides. My silent thanks for my pilot's quick thinking were nothing to the cries of disbelief and desperate gratitude that rose around me.
"Food!" someone shouted, at the back of the ragged group. There was a mass movement, the crowd seeming to grow by the second as they surged towards the opposite side of the plaza. As I'd feared, even the hint of relief was enough to bring out the timid majority hiding in the rubble. They rushed towards the trucks, threatening to swarm them. The clearly-displayed weapons, shouts and occasional rough handling of the military escort were equal to the task, managing a situation G-Force couldn't have dealt with short of violence.
The father and eldest boy had gone with the crowd, calling for the rest of their family to stay back. The young mother turned to follow them with a desperation that defied reason. Her middle son, dragged around by her grip on his hand, tripped and again Keyop caught him, setting him on his feet.
"Plenty for all," he urged. "No hurry."
The woman paused, helping her child catch his balance. She hesitated, looking back at us.
"Do you know how long it's been since we saw a relief truck?" she asked, tears in her voice. "Thank you."
Princess smiled. "I'd let the first rush subside, if I were you. Just keep calm, ma'am, wait your turn, and someone there will be able to help you."
The woman nodded silently, her face drawn with the strain of far too long spent scraping for survival.
"You're from Earth, you said? You're still fighting Spectra? You've got to keep on with the fight. You can't afford to lose. Don't let this happen to your people."
She turned away before any of us could summon up an answer. It was a silent team that returned to the now-deserted Phoenix for the journey home.
It took two days to organise the victory parade Chief Anderson promised us. I sat in the back of an open-topped car, Tiny beside me, watching our team-mates in the car in front. Ticker-tape rained down on us. Cheering crowds surrounded the route to either side.
A group of children, escorted and marshalled by security personnel, pressed up to the side of the slow-moving cars. Usually Keyop would be hanging over the car door, reaching out to sign their autograph books and shake their hands. Today our young Swallow was more subdued, remembering the Rigan children who turned to flee from him. Princess leaned over, whispering in his ear, and Keyop rallied, drawing on all his acting skills to show the kids his usual enthusiastic mask.
Princess herself sat back, her shoulders rising and falling in a visible sigh. The cavalcade passed a strip mall. Princess's eyes locked on the fashion boutique there, her eyes tracking the mannequin in the window. Its bridal gown was pristine white, protected by a perfect sheet of clear glass. There was no dust, no rain-damage, but both Princess and I saw the dark mottle of decay nonetheless.
It was a relief to get to the end of the parade and away from the cheering crowds. Even so, our day wasn't over. The reception hall stood on an upper storey, a wall of windows giving a panoramic view across the city. Tiny took one look at the elaborate buffet spread out on long tables along the opposite wall and turned away, his lips set in a firm line. Jason leaned towards him, trying to take the edge of the situation with a gently ironic comment too soft for me to hear. Our Condor shows a heart of stone to the world at large. Spectra will never see the quiet concern behind his efforts to revive Tiny's flagging appetite these last few days.
A flurry of children rushed up to the food tables. A laughing woman followed her hungry sons, berating them with a smile as they overloaded plates almost too large for them to hold. Jason watched the group for a few seconds and then turned to join Tiny by the windows, his own appetite gone.
The Chief was introducing me to politicians and military officers from across the Intergalactic Federation. Some were familiar from previous gatherings of this kind, and we exchanged polite nods. Others, newly appointed, were too awed by my white wings and shaded visor to pay any attention to who was behind them. With those I didn't even try to put on a polite face, just waited patiently for them to get their fill of my presence and go away.
The Earth authorities were buoyant, celebrating this 'triumph' as if it were more than a minor victory in a pretty average encounter. The Rigan officials were quieter. They were here out of courtesy and in recognition of the partnership between our worlds, here because they couldn't afford to offend their most-powerful allies. They looked out across Earth's capital city with envious eyes, as unable to escape the comparisons with Riga's as my team and I. None of them were as hungry, as desperate, as the people on their streets, but at least they knew it.
Anderson was talking to Colonel Cronus, giving me a rare moment of rest between introductions. I edged away from the administrators and functionaries, aware of the Chief's eyes following me as I joined the rest of my quiet team. He'd noticed our withdrawal, even if no one else in the room had the least idea that anything was wrong. Or almost no one.
I felt Cronus join us before I turned to see him. His helmet and eye-shield made his expression as unreadable as ever, but there was a tense line to his jaw.
"I fly for Riga by my choice," he said softly, no preamble. "Because she was a beautiful planet once – a noble world whose people don't deserve what this war has brought them to." He shook his head. "I leave Riga behind me, fly to Earth and fight at your side, because I will not see another planet brought to the same pass. And, I'll admit, because this offence is also our defence. If Earth falls, then Riga will tumble after it into the abyss." He looked around him at the opulence of the reception hall, back at the buffet tables, out across the perfect city. Red-tinted light from the setting sun glittered off a thousand windows, tower blocks reaching tall and unbroken to the sky. "But it is hard sometimes. Hard to see what you still fight for, and what we must fight to reclaim." He gave me a grim smile. "All the more reason for the fight to go on, Mark."
I had no time to reply. President Kane bustled up at the head of a swarm of functionaries. The large man was in an expansive mood, buoyed by the exuberance of the parade and wrapped in a self-congratulatory mood. Despite Anderson's hard word, despite the President's initial scepticism and reluctant patronage, he still seems to take each of our victories as a personal success.
"Commander! Fine work, my boy! Fine work! With G-Force on our side, these incursions on Riga really are nothing to worry about. Soon be a thing of the past." He clapped an overly familiar hand to my back. "Honestly, Commander. It sometimes seems like you just can't lose."
I looked at my team, rallying them and calling them to attention with my eyes. They straightened up, reflecting my determination back at me.
"We can't lose," I echoed, and President Kane turned away, satisfied. Only G-Force and Colonel Cronus heard me as I went on. "No way, no how." I looked out across our capital city, across its bustling population, and raised my eyes to the sky. The first stars were starting to emerge from the twilight. One of them shone bright in Riga's skies, and others warmed the younger worlds that had joined our Federation. So many people, looking to us for hope and redemption. "We can't lose," I repeated. "We can't afford to."
The End