Captain Scarlet
Adventures
Disclaimer: All rights reserved. This is a fanfic collection of stories adapted from Captain Scarlet comic strips.
Two Thousand Ruthless Criminals
The wall of green sea folded. Countless tons of water fell, spread exploded and foamed over the stern deck of the ten-acre fishing platform. This was the eye of a Pacific storm. There was no sky between the towering wave crests, and the cascades of rain and spume rattled the deck and stung the flesh of men as if they had been hit by grapeshot. There was very little light, although it was noon, just enough for the stern deck officer to see one of the small boats swinging in its davits like a shop sign.
"Stern deck damage team..secure number twelve!" he spoke sharply into the small microphone.
A few moments later five men in yellow survival suits hauled themselves hand over hand along the nylon deck lines towards the davit. Trapped water slopped around their ankles. Three times before they reached the dangling boat, green water rushed across the deck, foaming around their waists. The small powerboat swung hard against the davits as the men reached it. One man grabbed its gunwale to hold it steady and called the others to help. They had seen another green wave tumbling like an avalanche across the deck and were hugging the life-lines to save themselves. The water hit the man and the powerboat, battering them out to the lee, swirling, swamping and burying them. The floating platform rose slowly. The men on the life-lines looked at the empty davits, the empty pulley blocks and the shreds of rope flapping and cracking in the gale. Man and boat had gone. Frank Osborne died, but his death in that sea had been noticed by that evil intelligence, the Mysterons. They took Frank Osborne, restored him to life and set him back upon the deck. He looked and spoke like Frank Osborne, but he thought and acted as his eerie masters willed - as a Mysteron agent.
Frank Osborne was ordered to the sickbay for a medical check. The check was detailed and thorough, and he was left alone on the couch when the doctor and the male orderly both went into the annexe to consult the computerised symptom analyser. Frank Osborne rose from the couch, lifted a pint jar of ether from the dispensary shelf and stepped silently out into the companionway. Three doors along he knew he would come to a cabin crammed with electronic apparatus.
This was the control unit of the platform's steering system. Osborne emptied the ether about the room. The fluid vaporised swiftly in the warm air, which fast became unbreathable. Osborne felt for a pair of wires that linked two sections of the complicated apparatus! He pulled them. They tore from their connections with an electrical spark. The ether exploded, the room shattered. Fire alarms clanged, and the fire fighting teams ran to their positions. One officer rushed to check the steering systems room from where the fire alarm had originated, but he found it normal.
He reported, "False alarm!"
The Mysterons had destroyed the complex system and re-created it so that it would obey their will, their commands alone. The doctor checked on Frank Osborne. He was lying on the couch, just as he had left him.
"This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know you can hear us, Earthmen. Tonight the western coast of America will be a region of fear and terror. We shall release two thousand ruthless criminals upon you. We shall be avenged!"
The Mysteron threat was transmitted over Cloudbase's internal speakers. Sitting at his desk in the control room, Colonel White and his young Lieutenant operative pondered the impending threat. The Mysterons always cryptically issued their threats.
"How are they going to do it, Colonel?" asked Green
"That's exactly what I want you to ask your computers, Lieutenant Green." replied the Colonel,
"Very good, sir, but there is very little information to go on, so far," replied the Spectrum lieutenant, as he propelled his chair from one end to the other of the glass and printed-circuit complex that was the mechanical grain of Spectrum, the world security organisation engaged in mortal battle with the Mysteron menace.
"Check on all confinement centres in the Western States of America."
"There's nothing, Sir," the young officer from Trinidad replied, glancing up from the computer. "There's no prison with more than two hundred occupants, and to release two thousand men would entail at least fifteen separate prison break-out operations."
The Colonel frowned and leaned his elbows on his circular desk.
"That doesn't fit the usual methods employed by the Mysterons. They usually strike utilizing one single operation. Check wider, lieutenant."
"Here's something, colonel," Green called. "The Oregon Banks fishing platform has reported steering difficulties... and it is in a force ten gale."
"The Oregon Banks platform," said Colonel White. "That's a floating prison colony engaged in sea harvesting. And you say it's adrift?"
Lieutenant Green nodded.
"Then, that's it! Despatch the Angels on a search and report mission to the area get Captains Scarlet and Blue up here!"
Colonel White's first order was passed to the Amber Room and within seconds three high-speed delta-wing aircraft had been fired from the flight deck of Cloudbase. The three girl pilots formed a tight arrowhead formation and turned on a supersonic course to the north Pacific Ocean.
"Harmony Angel from Melody Ange. I have a blip reading on bearing seven seven two... it could be what we're searching for, honey!"
"Melody from Harmony...close and verify visually... Symphony Angel orbit with me at five thousand feet."
The powerful aircraft manoeuvred according to instructions. Before long Melody reported that she had found the huge fishing raft. It was rolling in the cross-currents on the edge of the gale. News of the girl's find was reported to Spectrum control in Cloudbase. Colonel White permitted himself a grim smile. Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue stepped out of the elevator and approached the Colonel's white circular desk.
"This is the one," he said sourly to Captain Scarlet. "That fishing platform houses two thousand hardened violent criminals, each one a menace to law-abiding society. This is why they are sent to work on that fish harvesting platform so that they can be employed on productive work, whilst under maximum security conditions."
"Normally it is impossible to escape from a platform floating in the ocean," said Scarlet. "But now the Mysterons have taken a hand to make it possible."
"And think of the trouble that will be caused if two thousand desperate men are suddenly released on the West Coast. There will be violence and mayhem. Honest citizens will live in fear. Police and civil authorities will be stretched to the limit in rounding up that number of criminals. Some may never be recaptured."
"Are the warders still in charge?" asked Captain Blue. Colonel White snorted.
"That's anybody's guess now," he said. "The last radio signal from the platform reported an outbreak on one of the lower level detention decks. It appears that a maximum security warder was overpowered. Before the culprit could be apprehended he managed to release a whole group of prisoners. Since then there has been silence."
Scarlet thought hard for the last few seconds. He spoke sharply.
"It's my hunch that as yet there are only one or two Mysteron agents aboard that platform and that they have Mysteronised only part of the machinery, the steering control. There would have been no need to take over the entire construction. It would be a spectacular thing to do, and would certainly have been noticed."
"Okay, so how does that hunch help us? The platform is still nearing the West Coast with two thousand desperate men aboard," White said.
"I've thought of a plan," Scarlet replied. "It is a dangerous one that only I can undertake. My objective will be to reach the Mysteronised steering control computers and not only cut them out of the platform's circuitry but also cut them entirely from the vessel itself. The Mysterons can re-create anything that has been destroyed, but they can do nothing if it has merely been removed."
The Colonel approved his idea and the two Spectrum men dashed for the elevator, taking it down towards the hangar deck.
The Spectrum helicopter skimmed the crests of the heaving waves. The central fury of the storm had passed, but the aftermath still troubled and tossed the deep green waters at zero altitudes. Thin white crusts of salt already stained the underside of the aircraft. There was the ever-present danger that an extra-large wave would rise and break, catching the aircraft and drag it out of the air. They first glimpsed the huge platform rising out of the sea half a mile away. They saw little more than its massive outline and glistening superstructure before high waves and a squall blocked all sight. Captain Blue adjusted his course. As he did so he glanced at his co-agent Captain Scarlet.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Ready!"
Captain Blue flew the helicopter in fast. The fishing platform was in sight again, towering fifty feet above wave height. He hovered alongside, a few feet above a porthole, matching the rise and fall of the platform. He looked at Captain Scarlet who was standing in the open hatch, two metal cylinders strapped to his back and other equipment buckled around his waist. Scarlet jumped. He felt cold winds catch and buffet him. He thrust out the magnetic clamps he held in each hand. They clanged and dragged as they made contact with the side of the platform's hull, and suddenly they held firm. Scarlet brought his legs against the metal plating, and similar pads on his knees and toes held tight. The helicopter drew away and was soon lost from sight. It had been seen from the upper deck, and faces peered down from the rail towards Scarlet. He had now released his hands from their magnetic pads and was using a blow-torch to cut open the frame of the pod hole.
It took only seconds, and Captain Scarlet began to scramble through the opening. Two of the convicts on the upper deck ran shouting to others. There was disbelief and argument among the men on the deck. The convicts had no leader and no knowledge of the more intricate workings of the platform. It was some time before they realised that the intruder had broken into the navigation systems MOM. They rushed to the lowest deck in a pack and hammered on the door. It was sealed. Captain Scarlet had fused the door to the jambs with quick dabs of his blow-torch. He had already cut half of a large circle in the floor and removed a few of the deck plates to reveal a couple of large metal ribs and the outer hull plates. The pounding of fists on the door changed to the clang of hammers and tools. Captain Scarlet worked on it. He cut through the hull plates and glimpsed the moving waves below. A great disc of metal fell into the sea. Scarlet clutched at one of the computer cabinets which controlled the navigation of the huge raft and dragged it towards the hole. Wires and a cable connecting it to other units stretched. The cabinet toppled through the hole. The cable snapped with a flash and the grey box fell fifty feet towards the water. Other cabinets followed in rapid succession, plunging into the turbulent sea.
"Now," he thought. "This platform can drift uncontrolled on the wide ocean, giving the authorities time to put a force onboard to restore Order."
He smiled, stepped through the hole, and hit the waves just over a second later. Scarlet floated for half a minute, his survival suit keeping out the biting cold of the water. He looked up as the great shadow of the platform passed away from him, and the beating rotors of the helicopter took their place. Two minutes later he was back in the flying machine beside Captain Blue. The machine soared high away from the waves, and to the east, there was the dark heavy line of the American continent.
"I didn't realise we were so close to land," said Scarlet.
"The platform was travelling at a steady twenty-five knots all the time you were aboard," replied Blue. " Within another hour it will run aground at Los Toros Bay. I've just heard a Navy report that the platform is now caught up in an in-shore current. Those convicts will make landfall now, despite what you have done."
Scarlet looked grim.
"And at least one of them has been Mysteronised," he said. "But what else could we do. Let's hope he can be spotted and eliminated before he causes more trouble."
"Yes," agreed Blue. "You've managed to give the authorities time to organise a reception committee for the prisoners. There's still a chance we can foil the Mysteron plan."
"Maybe." nodded Scarlet. "It will be touch and go whether all those desperate men can be captured."
He sighed deeply. When were they ever going to defeat the Mysterons? That was one question that only the future could answer...if there was to be a future for Earth!
END