Chapter Three
The waiting was hard, but then wasn't it always? Tiny checked through the Phoenix's sensor logs. He ran all the in-flight diagnostics. He checked the presets - one to take the Phoenix into a steep dive, the second into a roaring climb; too often in the past there had been time to hit only a single button. And then, finally, he sat back in his chair and tried to ignore the impatient clacking of Keyop's bolas. The boy wasn't accustomed to this torment. He could barely last five minutes at a time before jumping up and prowling the cabin as if he expected to find some dangerous intruder.
Tiny let him. He didn't want to start a conversation. He didn't need Keyop to tell him what he already knew. Even as he ran through his usual tasks to distract himself from the frantic anxiety for their friends, there was an added distraction in his mind. Katie's blue eyes stared accusingly from his own reflection in the Phoenix's monitors. He heard her confusion and anger. He hated himself for leaving the job half done. It was all too easy to imagine her hurting as the hours passed. Leaving her without any explanation had been unfair. But what choice had he had? Why couldn't Spectra have waited another ten minutes? That was all it would have taken.
Katie's lover's link was in his hands now. He turned it over and over, gazing at it as if could provide an answer. On its side, even with its active transmitter circuits disabled, a soft pink light glowed. Katie had activated her link. She was telling him she loved him still. The blue light beside it remained dark, his own device failing to broadcast the reply. He longed to turn it on, to let her know he was thinking of her too, but perhaps it would be better this way. She had to know he was serious.
Ironic that the communicator he wished to hear - letting him know that his friends were safe - remained silent, while this constant reminder of his pain was persistently alive.
Tiny had almost forgotten about Keyop's presence until the boy gasped. Tiny looked up guiltily into Keyop's horrified eyes.
"A homing signal?" Keyop gasped, the words almost lost in a series of distressed warbles.
"It's not on!" Tiny snapped defensively. His hands curled around the device, cradling it gently as he shoved it into his pocket. He looked up, meeting the boy's wary expression with an angry frown. Did Keyop really think he was that stupid? "You know I wouldn't risk us all!"
Keyop visibly calmed, his half-extended wings settling around him. Tiny relaxed too, the tension draining from between them. Keyop trusted him after all, but there was sadness in his eyes now as he settled into the co-pilot's chair. "You couldn't leave her?" he guessed, the words coming out clearly for a change.
Tiny gave a helpless little laugh, trying to make light of it, but his young friend wasn't going to be so easily fooled. Tiny's facade crumbled, and he allowed the serious man inside to peer through. "She wouldn't let me go. She wants to know why." He paused, shaking his head. "I promised I'd tell her ... something ... tonight."
Instinctively, he glanced at the ship's chronometer. It was deep night now, back home - well past noon here in South-East Asia. Keyop followed his look, and again tossed his bolas nervously into the air. Whether the boy consciously intended to change the subject or not, he succeeded.
"It's been hours," he fretted.
The observation was enough. Enough dwelling on the insoluble. Tiny's attention snapped back to the other issue he'd been trying to avoid. He'd expected a call from Mark long ago - one way or another.
"Two hours, six minutes," Tiny told his young friend, the same anxiety on his own face. For Keyop's sake, he forced it behind his usual carefree mask. He reached out to pat the boy on the top of his brightly coloured helmet. "That's nothing, Keyop. You guys leave me sitting here for longer than this all the time."
Keyop warbled impatiently, drawing strength from Tiny's reassurance. "Huh, they're just having all the fun ..."
His voice cut off. In the sudden silence, the chiming of two wrist activators was very loud. Tiny reacted instantly, one hand reaching out to start an engine warm-up cycle, even as the other was raised towards his lips.
"Ears on!"
"Tiny!" Mark's voice was a low-voiced hiss. "Get out of there!" Even as he spoke, they heard startled shouts in the background, the sudden buzz of Princess's yo-yo weapon and the report of Jason's gun. Mark's next words were at full volume, shouted. "They know where you are!"
It was all the warning they had.
It took no more than a second for Tiny's hands to fall to their accustomed place on the controls. Rise, he coaxed his ship. The time for concealment was gone. All that mattered was getting off the ground as quickly as possible.
The Phoenix responded instantly to his instructions, her engines loud in the sudden silence. But something was wrong. He knew that a second before the engines cut out with a bone-shaking cough. Keyop gasped, his eyes wide as the ship rocked back onto her landing struts. He leaned forward, scanning the ship's status readouts.
"We're overheating! How ...?"
Tiny nodded grimly, trying to assess for himself whether any actual damage had been done to the engines or whether the safety cut-outs had worked in time. "The engine air intakes are blocked," he explained curtly.
Giving up on the engines, he brought the external monitors up on the main screens. The tree line was no more than a few meters from the Phoenix's perimeter and the ship's stubby wings blocked the cameras from having a clear view of the dense forest. Even so, now that he was looking for them, the dark green outlines of camouflaged Spectrans were clearly visible lurking in the trees. Perhaps they had backtracked along the path the others had taken. Perhaps they had seen the Phoenix's arrival despite his best efforts. It hardly mattered now. Tiny's fists clenched around the Phoenix's non-responsive controls. He had let Spectrans sneak-up on him and compromise his ship before even noticing. What kind of G-Force member was he?
Keyop gave an uncertain warble. "Stupid place to stand," he noted, gesturing towards the Spectrans on screen, but the tension in Tiny's posture undermined his confidence.
Tiny raised a green-gloved hand to rub his suddenly aching head. "Huh, if we could turn our full exhausts on them or manoeuvre the ship, sure. But that's not going to happen if the engines won't even cycle!" Tiny struggled not to show his alarm. He tried to think clearly past the fog that seemed to have clouded his mind. There must be something he could do, but if there was, it was escaping him. "We're sitting ducks here. And the minute we step outside..."
Keyop's response was a worried series of chirps, any words lost in his anxious vocalisations. Tiny turned to face his young friend, concerned more for Keyop than himself even now. The boy was pale, looking about as good as Tiny felt. Guilt gnawed at the older man. If it hadn't been for him, Keyop wouldn't be here now, but as it was ...
The grin spread slowly across Tiny's face. That was right - Keyop was here! Tiny turned back to his control console with a new determination.
"Get going, Keyop! I'm going to drop the G-4." Tiny cut off his young friend's protest with a one handed shove that all but pushed him out of his chair. "You can chase off the Spectrans, and use your tools to clear whatever's in the intakes!"
Keyop's wide mouth split into a fierce grin to match Tiny's own. His chest swelled with pride. "I'll do it!" he promised, jumping to his feet.
The motion was a little too fast. The blood drained from the boy's already-pale face, and he swayed dangerously. Instinct overrode confusion as Tiny reached out in time to steady him. Weakly, Keyop tried to laugh.
"Got a bit of a headache," he confessed.
Tiny stared at him, struggling to focus past the throbbing in his own cranium. Slowly, he raised horrified eyes to the air vents above their heads, only now seeing the tell-tale curls of mist.
By then, of course, it was too late.
"Tiny?" Mark's voice was sharp, carrying a familiar undercurrent of tension. "Tiny, wake up!"
Tiny stirred, wishing for nothing more than a few more minutes of rest. In the last few weeks he had grown accustomed to waking gently from pleasant dreams of Katie's embrace. Now there was no such comfort. He shifted in his seat, one hand coming up to rub the side of his neck. It had developed a crick, the nagging ache vying with the unpleasant dryness in his mouth for the right to disturb his sleep.
"Tiny!"
"Go 'way, Mark," he mumbled.
"Tiny, you've got to tell us what's wrong with the Phoenix!"
The Phoenix? Beneath the throbbing of his own pulse, Tiny could hear the steady hum of his best girl in smooth flight. Distant memory stirred. Tiny's eyes squeezed tightly shut, his cheeks flushing. If he'd fallen asleep on the Phoenix again, he didn't want to know about it. How could he face the others...? Others. Hmm, surely there'd been someone else with him.
"Keyop!" Tiny's eyes snapped open. He jerked upright in his seat and barely suppressed a gasp of pain as the light stabbed into his still-aching head. Mark steadied him, a hand on his shoulder. Tiny looked up into his Commander's face, and was shocked at the fatigue he saw there. He smiled tiredly. "Hey, you got us out of there! Sorry, Commander."
Mark turned away, hiding his expression in shadows. From behind them, Tiny heard Jason's wry laugh.
"We didn't get you out, Tiny." Jason's tones were tense and self-deprecating. "They got us too!"
"What?" Tiny turned his seat so he could peer back towards Jason. The tall man was leaning over Princess and Keyop, his dark wings almost obscuring their still forms from view. Seemingly reassured by what he found, Jason looked up.
"They must have spotted us following the wyrm straight off," Jason snapped bitterly. "They were just giving us time to get ourselves deep in their territory. We didn't see a soul until we were spying on their control room. Then they jumped us as soon as Mark tried to warn you!" He nodded towards Mark. "The Commander and I just woke up ourselves."
Princess stirred as he spoke, raising her head with a quiet groan. Mark murmured a reassurance to her, before turning back to Jason. "Keyop?"
"He'll be alright, but the kid'll be groggy for a while." Jason smiled down at their friend's slight form. "He got a good lungful of knockout gas."
Mark nodded. He frowned, his blue eyes shadowed with confusion. "Okay, we're all safe. Good." He paused meaningfully. "So does anyone know how we got back on the Phoenix?"
"Not a clue," Jason shrugged. "But somehow I doubt Zoltar set us free out of the goodness of his heart!"
"I was expecting torture," Mark admitted frankly. "They could have torn the Phoenix apart."
Princess shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "He knew he couldn't keep hold of us for long, not here on Earth. The Chief knew where we were. Perhaps if we were on a Spectran planet they'd have had time ..."
Tiny barely heard the words. He was staring at his control readouts, trying to interpret the data. Far below them, the vibrant green of a tropical rainforest moved smoothly past. He closed his eyes, listening to his ship's song, and frowned. There was a stutter to the rhythm of her engines, a slight misfiring that would reduce her efficiency by a few percent, but then what could they expect after a near burnout caused by blocked intakes? Even so, it seemed unlikely that so slight a problem had alarmed the commander. A quick glance behind him showed Tiny that of the consoles in the cabin, his was the only one still active. He turned back to his readouts with determination. Even though designed for a crew of five, this was a one man ship to fly. Most of the major systems were channelled through his desk. Mark had asked what was wrong with the Phoenix; it was his job to find the answer ... if he could only find the question first.
His vision was still a little blurred from the knockout gas, and to judge by the cautious way Jason was moving, he wasn't alone in that. Still, the Phoenix's autopilot couldn't be expected to keep her in the air forever. He reached out tentatively, flicking the autopilot off and bracing himself for the slight resistance of active control levers.
"Oh, this is not good." His quiet murmur cut through the speculation in the cabin. Mark slid back into the co-pilot's seat as Tiny cautiously tested the rest of his controls.
"I wanted to land us and take stock," Mark told him tensely. "I couldn't get her to turn."
"Nah," Tiny's mouth was dry now with more than the aftertaste of sleeping gas. "You wouldn't have. We're still on autopilot, Mark. Locked on course. Someone's blocked us out of navigation."
"You mean the Phoenix is out of control?" Jason demanded, coming forward and leaning over Tiny's shoulder as if he could make sense of anything there.
"Oh no," Tiny told him bitterly. "The ship's perfectly under control. Just not ours!"
Zoltar's voice shook them out of their confusion. In the seat beside Tiny, Mark tensed, his spine becoming rigid. Tiny himself didn't bother to look up at the communications screens. He knew what he would see there: Zoltar's purple-masked face leering through a snowstorm of interference.
"Ah, G-Force. It appears that you are finally awake."
Oblivious of Tiny's commands, the Phoenix broke out of her circular holding pattern, turning in a steep bank to head inland.
Zoltar's plump limps thinned slightly in a self-satisfied smile.
"I would have hated you to have missed this."
A groggy chirrup from Keyop sent a well-concealed wave of relief through all of them. The boy rubbed at unfocused eyes, glancing up at the screen with open contempt. "What does big-ears want now?"
Mark smiled tightly, but raised a white-gloved hand to quieten him. G-Force wasn't in a position to taunt, not this time.
"Miss what, Zoltar?"
"Why, the demise of G-Force and all it stands for, of course," the Spectran exclaimed, raising a hand to his chest and affecting surprise that Mark would even ask. His humour died away and his voice became cold. "After this, your precious Chief Anderson will never threaten the mighty Spectra again."
"We're not that easy to get rid of, Zoltar!" Jason snapped, rising from his seat and taking a threatening step forward.
"Even if we were, the Chief would never give up," Princess added. "Anderson will always find others to step into our place."
"Oh, I think he might have a little trouble ... when it's discovered that G-Force not surrendered, but willingly desecrated a major temple!"
Mark gripped the edge of his console, half standing in his seat.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. Zoltar's laughter was the commander's only reply. Mark stared at the image on the screen as it faded into static. "What do you mean?" he shouted.
"Ah, Commander?" Tiny had been flicking through the ship's exterior sensors on his own screens. The process was slow, each viewpoint taking a full second longer than normal to come up. Now he directed the image from behind and above them onto the main screen. "I think you need to see this."
"What the ...?" Jason demanded, his voice dying away in confusion. He turned back to his sensor display and thumped it angrily when he found it dormant.
The two Spectran mini-mechas flanked the Phoenix, hovering in a neat V-shaped formation. Instinctively, the G-Force members braced themselves for an attack, but the alien craft held their positions with ominous stillness.
"Don't understand," Keyop admitted, his voice still thick with sleep.
Mark stood, pacing the tight confines of the cabin, avoiding Princess's outstretched hand, and Jason's inquiring look. "Think how this looks to anyone outside," he grated eventually.
Princess gasped, raising a hand to her face. "We're leading a Spectran attack force?"
Mark shook his head, not denying her conclusion but impatient with the discussion.
"Princess, Jason, get our sensors and weapons back online!" He glanced at Keyop, but the boy was still struggling to keep his eyes open and his head from nodding to the console. Mark's gaze slid across him and his commands continued without hesitation. "Tiny, tell me where we're going. And then sort out navigation. We need to get the Phoenix back under control."
Jason and Princess acknowledged Mark's orders with quick nods. Tiny stared at his own console as they turned back to theirs, hating himself for being the one to end their optimism. But it was his duty to report what his readouts showed, and concealing the truth wasn't going to get them out of trouble any sooner.
"Mark, that's not going to happen."
He felt the team freeze, chilled by the certainty in his voice. Tiny looked up at them with despair in his green eyes.
"This isn't a hardware problem that we can just work around. Zoltar's controlling the ship's mainframe. He's the one controlling our weapons, navigation, everything. When we call up an image on the viewscreen, he's letting us do it. That's what's causing the delay. And short of pulling the plug on the Phoenix's computer system and resetting to factory protocols, I don't see a way to break free."
Mark was staring, open-mouthed. Tiny felt himself flushing slightly, aware that he seldom made so long a speech while they were on a mission. But no one understood the Phoenix's systems like him, and everyone on the team knew it.
"How?" Princess gasped.
"Some sort of virus?" Keyop suggested muzzily.
Tiny nodded, aware that his own grasp of computer systems was not quite all it could be. "Probably. They had time while we were out to infect the Phoenix. If they've been working on preparing this for a while, waiting for the opportunity ..."
"How doesn't matter." Mark's announcement cut through the chatter. The Commander's shock had faded, or perhaps merely been suppressed by the necessity of the moment. He had rallied and the determination was back in his voice. "If it was something our computer's firewall or antivirals could handle, we wouldn't be talking about it. Since it isn't, there's not much point in talking about it anyway. We need to find alternatives."
He sank turned his own chair to face the front, clearly deep in thought, and the rest of the team followed his example, falling silent to concentrate on assessing alternate scenarios. Tiny prodded cautiously at his own controls, never sure which commands would be obeyed and which wouldn't. He was hardly surprised though when his query to the autopilot returned an answer at once. Zoltar had gloated about their imminent demise. He had no intention of concealing their pre-programmed destination.
"Angkor Wat," Tiny announced into the silence that permeated the cabin. Mark looked at him with dawning horror, and then mastered it, nodding silently.
The great temple complex at Angkor Wat. Sacred for a millennium, thronged with tourists from around the world. If the Phoenix was seen to lead a Spectran attack against the Buddhist temples, then not only would an entire world religion denounce G-Force and all its ilk, but almost every world government would rise up against the slaughter of their holidaying citizens. Zoltar hadn't been boasting when he claimed the whole world could turn against Anderson for this.
Jason cursed with a vehemence unaccustomed even for him. "One, two bird missiles in the middle of that, and the whole city will go down."
"Erm," Tiny closed his eyes briefly and then kept them locked ahead, avoiding his friends' eyes. "I think, in fact, that we're programmed to crash on it."
"Crash?"
"Great," Jason snapped. He gritted his teeth, forced to the admission. "Well, I hope inspiration is striking for someone, because I'm out of ideas."
"Tiny," Princess's voice was soft, attempting to reassure the others as much as herself with a semblance of calm. "You mentioned a computer reset? There must be a plug we can pull."
"In mid-flight?" The incredulous demand spilled out of Tiny before he could stop it.
"The Phoenix isn't really all that aerodynamic, Princess," Mark volunteered. "If her thrusters aren't perfectly balanced every moment, then her wings aren't going to keep her level."
"Or airborne," Jason added, shuddering as he remembered his own few attempts to fly the Phoenix - and that had been with computer control.
Tiny calmed himself enough to answer her question rather than merely protest against it. "There is an override switch - under Mark's console, in fact - but ... the computers will take half an hour to reboot from a total reset, and that's assuming the virus can be flushed by a reset anyhow. I can keep her balanced on thrusters for a few minutes, but that long? Forget it!"
"So manual control is an option? At least for a short while?" Mark demanded, sounding only half-inclined to believe him.
Tiny shrugged. He might be certain of few things in life, but his ability to fly the Phoenix was one of them. "For level flight, in calm weather, yeah. For a bit. Don't even think of asking me to land her."
The commander hesitated, disappointed but knowing that even that much was more than anyone else in the world could give him. "How long until we're there?"
Tiny peered at his functioning instruments, praying that their readout was reliable. "A few minutes. We're well into Cambodia already. Whatever we're going to do, it had better be fast, Commander."
Tiny could see Mark's mind working, filing this datum with all his others. The commander's blue eyes were dark with weariness, although whether that was the after-effects of the knockout drug or the knowledge of what was coming, Tiny couldn't be sure. Mark turned to Jason.
"I'm assuming we can't get to our self-destruct?" he asked simply.
Jason shrugged back. The tall man's expression was stoic. Save others first, then consider themselves. That had always been the G-Force way. "Doesn't look like it. Without the computer ..."
"Sixty seconds!" Tiny snapped. He hesitated, then straightened in his seat, suddenly determined. He'd hoped so badly for another option. But there was none. It was up to him now. "Mark, I need you and the others to get up to the bubble and jump clear before I do this. I told you I can't land her, and I'll need to take her up to full speed to get as much lift as possible." He winced, trying not to imagine what came afterwards. "Jumping out into that would be like hitting a brick wall."
The team stared at him.
"No," Keyop said simply.
"Everyone strap in," Mark ordered as if Tiny hadn't spoken. "This could get bumpy!"
Tiny glanced over at his commander with a kind of despair. And then they were out of time. Tiny felt the ship begin to descend, her flaps moving to shape the air around her.
"Mark, the master computer override! Pull it."
Mark undid his seatbelt in a moment, diving beneath the Commander's console and smashing the reinforced glass cover with a forceful blow from his elbow. The big, two handled lever was painted in yellow and red, surrounded by warning signs. He hesitated, still not sure that Tiny could take the strain of flying the Phoenix unaided, knowing there was no alternative. He pulled.