Shooting Star
A Battle of the Planets vignette
A flash of memory from Princess's past. Set at the end of 'Attack of the Space Terrapin'.
This vignette is based on characters and situations from the animated series 'Battle of the Planets', produced by Sandy Frank Entertainment, which was in turn based on the anime series 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman', produced by Tatsunoko productions. Characters are used without permission.
Feedback - either positive, or constructively negative - is always welcome.
I can't remember how old I was. Three? Maybe four? Not much older certainly, but not much younger either. A petite little girl, huddled up in a bubblegum-pink parka.
A tired, grumpy little girl. Annoyed at being taken out of my bed so late, unable or unwilling to take in the reasons for it.
But my mother was there, and nothing could be very wrong when my mother was there. She rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and stroked my cheek until I was giggling and squirming in her arms. She turned then, gazing upwards and lifting me so that I could see what she saw.
I'd never been driven this far from the city centre at night. I'd never seen the sky this midnight black, or seen the Milky Way undulating through the starscape like a ribbon of light. And, as I watched, clinging to my mother, a spark of light seemed to break free of the rest, seemed to fall towards us.
Mama pointed at it, her voice the merest breath in my ear. "Look, Princess. A shooting star means you can make a wish!"
I remember my breath catching, and I squeezed my eyes closed and wished what every child does - that this moment would never end.
Mama rocked me slightly, and my eyes opened. She pointed again, and now I saw a second streak of light, and a third. At first I think I was pleased - goody, more wishes - but then I looked again at the stars falling from the sky, and now I began to wail.
And Mama hugged me and held me so close that I could feel her chest rising and falling. She asked what was wrong, and whether I'd hurt myself, and I looked at her and didn't have the words. I couldn't tell her that I was crying because the sky was falling, changing, and would never be the same again. I couldn't tell her that I was crying because the world out there was so big, and I was so very, very small.
But Mama wiped my tears away with her hands, and murmured to me that everything was all right. She reached out, and I looked along the length of her arm as she closed her hand around the core of the meteor storm. For a moment, as she clenched her fist, I saw the glow of a fireball behind it, and then she pulled her hand back in towards us.
"Close your eyes, Princess." And then she brought her closed hand down to me and I felt the warmth of it as, with her hand still holding mine, we tucked the star into my pocket. Her voice was very soft, barely a whisper in my ear. "A shooting star for you, Princess. A shooting star of your very own, so you always have something to wish on."
I don't remember much about the day they told me my mother wasn't coming back, but I remember shoving my hand deep into my pocket, unable to see or feel it, but knowing that the star was still there. I held it tightly, and wished that she would walk through the door.
She didn't, of course, but it was just that little bit easier to accept, holding her invisible, intangible gift to me.
I don't know how I didn't lose faith. But, as I learned over the years that followed, she'd given me something to believe in. When the war with Spectra loomed over us, I looked up into the night sky and I knew that it was big, and dangerous, and utterly terrifying. But I knew too that it was magnificent, beautiful and that somewhere out there were stars to dream on, as well as those to be dreaded.
I believe that still. That the vastness of the universe is nothing to be scared of. That our future lies out there in the stars as much as it does here on Earth.
It pains me that a new generation of children will look into the sky, and their mothers wont be able to tell them that everything's all right. Their mothers won't be able to give them hope, as my mother did.
So, I guess it's up to me.
I'll admit it, I was frightened when Mark ordered us to try the Fiery Phoenix. None of us were sure it would work. After all, this is a matter of life and death, not something that we could test in training. But now I feel the gestalt slamming into place, washing away my thoughts, and mingling our memories. Flames dance in front of my eyes, bursting around us as the Spectran mecha's inferno mingles with the birthing fire of the Phoenix herself.
We break free, relief rushing through our primal mind. We soar, dancing in the night sky. And, somewhere deep inside the gestalt, part of us - the part that clings to 'I' - hopes that children are looking up at us, seeing us as a streak of flame against the night sky. Seeing us as something to believe in.
I have become their shooting star.
The End