Resemblance to Sandy Franks' Battle of the Planets is remote but
intentional.
Scene One: The Chief's Office, Level ZZ Pacific Center
Keith found he was not the first to arrive in response to the Chief's
summons. Gamma Team's two technical specialist were already seated
on one of the five couches scattered round the big room. Princess, a
shapely blond with masses of curly hair caught back in a ponytail, and
Pidge, a redheaded freckled eleven year old, both dressed in colorful
T-shirts and jeans.
The Chief acknowledged his entrance with a nod but went on writing,
obviously he wasn't going to start til they were all there. Keith was
just settling himself on a second couch when the door opened again to
admit his second, Lance, wirery figure clad in dark blue and grey t-shirt
and black jeans. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Keith who shrugged
in return. Nearly five minutes passed before the fifth and final member
of Phoenix Force's Gamma Team arrived, red faced and breathless.
"Sorry!" Hunk panted, collapsing on the couch next to Pidge, "Was all
the way down in the hangers."
The Chief put down his pen, cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I have
some bad news."
Gamma Team exchanged uneay looks, what the Chief understated as 'bad'
would qualify as catastrophic in anybody else's book. They braced themselves
as he continued: "About an hour ago the liner Queen Margaret III was
destroyed by a missile of unknown origins killing all aboard, including
I'm sorry to say, our Dr. Danzig and her family."
Princess gasped, blue eyes begining to fill.
Pidge blurted, "Teri's dead?"
The Chief nodded, watching her sympathetically, said gently, "I'm
afraid so."
Pidge bit her lip hard, freckles standing out darkly on her pallid
face.
"For 'unknown origin' read Lucifor." said Lance grimly.
"Undoubtedly." Anderson agreed.
"You think Dr. Danzig was their target?" Keith asked, also eyeing
his little sister with concern.
"It seems the only possible explanation." the Chief replied.
"I'm sorry I don't buy it." Lance spoke up decisively. "No disrespect
intended but Dr. Danzig just wasn't important enough to justify that
kind of massive strike."
"Since when does Lucifor care about Human life?" Princess asked bitterly.
"Since never," he agreed calmly. "but they do care quite a lot about
conserving resources. Why use a missile to get Danzig when a Blackhawk
or Devilstar assassin would do the job cheaper?"
"C'mon! they wouldn't send an assassin after Danzig," Hunk protested,
"she was in support, for God's sake!"
"My point exactly." said Lance drily.
"You have an alternate explanation?" Keith inquired.
"As a matter of fact yes. I don't think it had anything to do with
Danzig. The ship was destroyed because it picked up something it shouldn't
have on radio or sonar -"
"Like a new base!" Princess cut in.
"They could use one," Keith mused, "the way we've been blowing them
lately."
Hunk, enthusiastically: "Let's go have a look!"
Five pairs of eyes swerved toward the Chief for permission. He nodded,
"Go ahead."
Scene Two: Bridge of the Phoenix Three
The bridge hummed as Gamma Team brought up their boards. Lance the Crow
at weapons, Princess the Swan and Pidge the Magpie side by side at
the Command Intelligence stations. Keith and Hunk took the command and
pilot positions. White birdstyles setting off their very different builds.
The lithely sleander Gyrfalcon gloved and booted in crimson, his wings
lined and collared in purple; and the massive Osprey brown gloved and
booted, with black collared, scarlet lined wings.
The lock filled and Hunk sent them out with a light shove from the
rockets, looked questioningly at Keith. "Going up?"
Gamma Leader shook his head. "It's not far, let's stay under."
The wrecksite was in fact barely six hundred miles south by south-east,
midway between the Fiji and Tonga Islands. The vast debris field bounded
by five large chunks of hull. Salvage remotes with long manipulator arms
and men in pressure armoured diving suits prowled the wreckage directed
by a hovering sub. The divers looked up as the Phoenix's shadow passed
over them, waved restrainedly.
"Jesus!" Hunk breathed, dipping a wing in response.
Princess began to drip silent tears onto her pink tunic.
A rather worn rag doll wearing a crude copy of Pidge's birdstyle;
jade green helmet and wings over orange tunic, white gloves and boots,
was propped on a corner of her board. She picked it up and hugged it close.
Lance, very quietly: "If you got to go that's the way, sudden and total."
Keith glanced over his shoulder at the girls, said gently: "They would
never have known what hit them."
"Now all we gotta do is find out why." Lance muttered.
Princess took a deep breath, wiped her eyes with a gold gloved hand
and addressed herself to her scanners. Pidge tucked G6 under her arm and
followed suit.
They spiralled out from the wreck, scanning with instruments and eyes,
The Pacific floor was relatively shallow here, jagged with volcanic and
coral outcroppings perfect for hiding a submarine base.
Minutes crawled past in intent silence.
Princess, begining to sound tired: "Negative." readjusted scanners for
the next sector.
"Ditto." echoed Pidge, on sonar.
Lance frowned darkly at his targeting board.
Keith leaned forward bringing his eyes closer to the front screen
searching the coral crannies, thickets of sea plants, roaming fish and
crustaceans for signs of disturbance. Lucifor could shield against sensors
and sonar, camouflage against eyeball search, but dislocated sea life
would still give them away.
"This is all wrong!" Lance snapped suddenly, swinging around. Light
slid bluely over his black helmet and wings. "We're looking for something
obvious, something ordinary comercial equipment could pick up."
"They could have hidden it since." Princess argued, swivelling to face
him her white a glowing contrast to his darkness.
"Or abandoned the project altogether." said Hunk, "That'd be the smart
thing to do."
"Zoltar isn't that smart." Pidge objected.
"You know how bullheaded he can be." Keith agreed, "He just hates to
give up on a plan." looked again at the screens, "still, no signs of recent
upheaval out there."
Pidge, impatiently: "Maybe Lance is wrong, maybe they *were* after
Dr. Danzig after all."
Hunk disagreed. "Naw, he's right, she just wasn't that important."
Lance directed his frown at the forward screens: "Unless she was
working on some new project we don't know about..." he said doubtfully.
"*I'd* know." said Princess.
"Round and round...." said Hunk despairingly.
Princess reached under her helmet to tuck an errant whips of hair
back into place. "Maybe there was no reason, maybe somebody just ran amuck
with the missile controls -"
She was interupted by a high, attention grabbing, whistle from
communications. "Mayday! Mayday! FNS Salvage Three under attack!
Co-ordinates --"
Hunk didn't need the co-ordinates, they'd passed over them not quite a
half hour ago. He helmed the Phoenix round in a near impossible loop
and headed back to the QMIII wrecksite.
They found it overrun with crab-tanks. Shattered remotes and one or
two bodies lay among the debris but the majority of the divers had
apparently made it to the precarious cover of the largest chunk of
wreckage but had no weapons to repell the crabs methodically tearing
their refuge apart. The sub was down with tanks crawling all over it,
busily ripping away hull plates.
"Where in Hell did they come from?" Hunk demanded.
"Hell is where they're going." Lance corrected coolly, indigo gloved
hands dancing over his weapons panel.
"Pidge, relieve those divers!" Keith snapped. "Princess with me, we'll
take care of the sub. Lance, lay down covering fire!"
"I'll get the buggers," the gunner answered briskly, as the three dashed
for the lift.
Scene Three: Skirmish in the QMIII Debris Field
Keith felt the Phoenix quiver under the recoil from a full spread
of bird missiles, then the pod opened and the Swancycle blasted towards
the downed sub. Lance's covering fire had been effective, smashed crab
tanks and fragments thereof mingled with the QMIII's wreckage but
reinforcements were already surging forward over the remains of their
predeccessors.
*Where are those things coming from?* He tightened his grip around
Princess' slight waist as the cycle slalomed madly through an obstacle
course of active and inactive crabs. Heavy pincers clanked uselessly against
the clearsteel shield enclosing them.
As they neared the sub the Swancycle's nose opened launching the
Swan-rockets. They wove through the water blasting away rows of mecha
clearing the hull. The cycle veered into the gaping hole in the sub's
side halted in the center of the flooded compartment, an engineering
space by appearances, Princess popped the shield.
Keith was careful to expell all the air in his lungs before sucking
in his first breath of seawater, cold and tingling. The four crabs already
occupying the section turned ponderously from their attack on the the
inner bulkhead to face the new threat. Quill darts are useless in a liquid
medium, Keith slipped the silvery cylinder of his Bo from his belt and
it promptly expanded to its full six foot length, thrumming subsonically.
Princess leveled an arm at the nearest tank, a bolt of pinkish energy
shot from her armlet expanding into a sizzling net than engulfed the
mecha. Circuits overloaded, sparking, as it seized up and crumbled
into a deactivated heap.
Keith struck aside the pincher reaching for him and stabbed the
tip of his Bo into the space where arm met body. The joint shattered
under the subsonic vibrations, pincer clunking uselessly to the deck.
He closed, slipping beneath a second grabbing pincer to strike directly
at the control center, then used the Bo to vault over the eratically
thrashing crab landing square on the back of the tank behind it. Keith
tucked a clutch of marble bombs into the joint between upper and lower
armour plates then pushed off, rolling into a ball as the mecha exploded
with a muffled whoosh, buffeting him with shockwaves.
He recovered, looked around. Princess was standing on the back of the
fourth crab, its carapace criss-crossed by scorch marks, examining the
bulkhead for damage. He dove down tapped her on the shoulder.
'Breeched but holding,' she handsigned, 'there's still air on the
other side.' pointed to bubbles leaking from cracks between the plates.
*They must have jacked up the pressure to keep the water out," Keith
reflected grimly, *which means we'll have the Bends to contend with
on top of everything else.* 'We've got to get inside, check on the
crews' condition.' he signed back.
'Then we'll have to go back outside and look for a functioning lock.'
she responded.
Pidge's spherical green and orange helico zipped towards the chunk
of hull sheltering the besieged divers. Lance's missiles had cleared
her way but naturally he hadn't dared get to close to the wreck itself
for fear of endangering the divers. Pidge would be unable to use explosives
for the same reason. She exuded a pair of manipulator arms, one tipped
with a laser-lance, the other with a rotating blade, and happily began
dismembering crab mecha.
"Salvage team this is Phoenix Force G4, do you read?" she said into
her com-pickup, neatly slicing a crab in half lengthwise with one arm
and cutting away the pincers of a second with the other.
"We read you, G4." said a relieved voice, "Boy are we ever glad
to see you folks!"
"Glad we were in the neighborhood." Pidge responded brightly, using
the disarmed crab to crack open the carapace of a comrade. "Do you
have wounded?"
"A few, nothing urgent."
Was that a grunt of disagreement?
"Did you see where they came from?" she asked, quartering a fourth
crab and simultaneously slicing up two more as they tried to attack.
"They seemed to pop out of the ground," the voice replied helplessly,
"suddenly they were just *there*!"
"From underground?" Pidge mused pensively as her helico made a little
hop, landing hard on the final crab tank and crushing it.
The lock's inner hatch swung open, Princess and Keith found themselves
facing a bristling semi-circle of gunbarrels held by strained but determined
looking men.
"Easy, we're friends." Keith said quickly, raising empty hands.
But muzzels and jaws alike were already dipping deckward as the sub's
crew took in the dripping birdstyles.
"Phoenix Force!" gasped a round eyed, older man with four gold stripes
on his sleeve.
"I'm Gamma Leader, The Gyrfalcon," Keith introduced himself briskly,
"and this is my Number Three, the Swan. What is your status, Captain?"
"We-we've lost hull integrity," he stammered, voice firming as he
continued, "four compartments flooded and five dead, three wounded
but stable."
"Can the sub be moved?" Keith asked.
"I don't think that'd be a good idea, sir." answered a second man
wearing engineering flashes. "Hull's likely to fall apart at the least
stress."
"Rescue craft should be arriving at any moment in response to your
Mayday." Princess said reassuringly.
Keith turned to look out a port. "Things seem to be settling down
out there." he observed, spoke into his bracelet, "G1 to G2, report."
"Looks like we got 'em," Lance replied with audible satisfaction.
"The only thing moving down there is a line of divers headed for the sub
....wait a minute, I don't see the G-4."
"G1 to G4!" Keith snapped, alarmed, "Where are you Magpie?"
The answer came back promptly, luckily for his blood pressure.
"Underground," his kid sister reported excitedly, "I've found where
the crabs came from."
Scene Four: Second Briefing; Chief Anderson's Office
"Just a standard transport container from the look of it," Pidge
explained, "covered by a few inches of sand. When they were ready the
crabs just popped the hatches and came pouring out." she looked and
sounded thoroughly pleased with herself, dispite the tongue lashing she'd
gotten from Keith, but still held G6, now in civvies like her mistress.
"Which means it must have been in place *before* the Queen Margaret
was attacked." Anderson observed.
"All those people murdered just to bait a trap for us." Keith agreed
bleakly.
"And a piss poor trap at that." Lance pointed out from his seat
on Pidge's left.
"Yeah," Hunk chimed in from the other end of the couch, "I mean
crab tanks? we can roll those things up with one arm tied behind our
backs!"
"And no live command crew to direct them." Princess added, frowning
as she combed her freshly washed hair, long curly strands tangling
around fingers and comb. "Zoltar's dumb, but not that dumb!"
Keith, next to her, nodded agreement. "No way he could have seriously
expected to take us out with a few hundred crab mechas on automatic!"
"Which means we still don't know his objective or understand his
strategy." the Chief mused. "Our next logical move is to try to locate
the base that launched the missile."
"Which is exactly what Zoltar expects us to do." Keith warned.
Anderson smiled. "I know, let's not disappoint him."
Zoltar by now was well acquainted with Phoenix Force's habit of testing
a trap by walking into it, possibly hoped to take advantage of it. The
Chief called in not just one back up, but two.
Alpha and Epsilon Teams joined Gamma in the briefing room, each
Team occupying its own couch. The five members of Gamma, the only ones
not in birdstyle, were glaring with rare unaminity at the Phoenix Force
Commander.
"Hold on, Mark," Keith growled, "This is *our* mission, remember?"
"You've had your fun," A2, the Condor, cut in, "give somebody else a
chance!"
"It's still your mission, Gamma Leader," Mark said smoothly, shooting
a dirty look at his second. "We're just the bait, Phoenix One is too juicy
a catch for Zoltar to pass on."
"So what are the rest of us, Space Drift?" Epsilon Leader, Marie the
Nightingale, asked drily.
Mark sighed. "I didn't mean it like that, Marie. You know how hierarchal
minded Lucifors are. *I* know Beta through Epsilon are every bit as good
as we are -"
"If not better!" Gamma and Epsilon Teams chorused predictably.
Mark grinned a little, finished: "but Zoltar's never caught on."
"So you're the bait -?" Keith prompted, not completely mollified
but willing to hear him out.
"And you're the fisherman." the Commander finished.
"And we are?" Marie wanted to know.
"Our ace in the hole." said Chief Anderson. "Zoltar might be expecting
one back-up, but not two."
Epsilon Team mulled that. Marie, her second, Dana the Gull; E3, Dancer
the Mockingbird; E4, Ari the Swift, Pidge's agemate and the only male
member of the Team; and the pilot of the Phoenix Five, Nova the Kestrel.
"So basically we just hang back and hope Lucifor grabs both Alpha
and Gamma?" Dana asked brightly.
Anderson nodded, hiding a smile in his moustache, "Exactly."
"Hope?" Lance wondered, arching an eyebrow.
"Nothing personal, G2," she shrugged, "I'd just like to see some
action."
Eyes rolled on all three couches.
"We'll try not to disappoint you, Dana." Mark told her.
Suddenly a status light on the Chief's desk went red, he stabbed the
com control. "Anderson, what's happened?"
"We have intruders, Doctor." the tense voice of Pacific Center's
C.O. responded. "Looks like they're heading for ISO levels -" he broke
off, then; "Attack reported on Q deck! Request permission to send in
security!"
"No." Mark put in sharply, "Phoenix Force Commander here, no disrespect
intended, General, but the infiltrators have to be either Blackhawks or
Devilstars, better leave them to us."
"Point taken, Commander." the General replied reluctantly. "There
has to be something my people can do!"
"Find their entry point!" Anderson ordered. "It's got to be somewhere
on the military levels, but be careful they might have left a guard to
secure their retreat."
"On it!" the General switched off.
"It's finally happened, Lucifor's finally found Pacific Center."
Keith said grimly.
"It's got to tie in somehow with the attack on the QMIII," A3, June
the Dove, reasoned, "but how?"
"Let's find 'em and ask." said Jason grinding a fist into his palm.
"Gamma, go down to Q deck and work your way up." Mark ordered, "Alpha
will work down from double Z." he turned to Marie, "There's got to be
a command and control sub hiding nearby -"
"We'll find it!" she replied. Epsilon Team snapped a salute and ran
for the lift in a blur of dark blue, white, red and silver wings.
Keith: "Gamma Team, Transmute!" The five of them glowed as their
t-shirts and jeans reshaped themselves into birdstyle, then they too
were throwing a salute to their Commander and the Chief and pounding
from the room.
"All right," Mark turned to his own Alpha Team, "split up, Keyop
stick with June, I want you two to concentrate on looking for signs
of sabotage."
Keyop: "Gotcha!"
June: Will do, Commander!"
He continued, "Remember, anybody you meet could be a Blackhawk or
Devilstar in disguise, watch your backs!"
Jason, impatiently: "Can we go already?"
Mark: "Go!"
Jason, June and Keyop: "Gone!" and they were, in a swirl of blue
and white wings.
Tiny lingered. "We're going to have to abandon Center aren't we?"
he asked uneasily.
"I don't see any alternative," Anderson answered quietly, standing
behind his desk, "even if we catch these saboteurs we'll never really
be able to trust this place again."
Mark bit back an impulsive protest. The Chief was right, as usual.
"Damn." said Tiny and headed off, Mark saluted Anderson and followed.
Scene Five: The Search, Bridge of the Phoenix Five/Lucifor Sub.
Phoenix Five emerged from launch bay and began to circle Pacific Center.
Dancer, at the command intelligence board: "Scanning for energy
signatures -"
Ari, chipping in his two cents: "Sonar clear."
Dancer, continuing: "for all the good it'll do, they're bound to be
shielded."
"If I were a Lucifor sneak sub where would I lurk?" Dana purred
to her targeting board.
Marie glanced back, lips quirked in amusement, "I agree with Dancer,
we won't find them with scanners. You've got the right idea, Number
Two, we've got to think like the enemy...what would we do?"
"Sneak in on stealth mode under cover of the regular traffic." Nova
replied promptly.
"Right," Marie agreed, "Ari, what ships have called in the last
three hours?"
He checked his board, replied. "Phoenix One, Phoenix Five, personnell
ferry from Phoenix Island and the supply ship from Samoa."
"Supply ship!" said Dana and Nova together.
"Our best choice." Marie agreed, "She'd have come in from the south-east,
quarter that quadrant, eyeball search."
All five members of Epsilon Team stared intently into their screens
or out the forward ports as the ship zig-zagged above the sea floor.
Nova, "Negative."
Dancer, "Ditto."
Dana, "Nothing, damn it!"
Ari, discouraged, "They must be camouflaged good."
Marie, crisply: "Another pass, lower."
A second search and a second round of negatives.
"Again," Marie ordered, "lower."
Nova shot a sidelong look at her leader but obeyed.
Third pass, again without result.
Dana, loosing patience: "Maybe they're not here!"
Marie, cool as the dark blue and mauve of her birdstyle: "They're
here." to Nova, "Again, lower."
"Any lower and we'll be scraping the barnacles off our belly." Ari
objected.
"Phoenix doesn't have barnacles." said Nova, pendantically.
The boy rolled his eyes. "Just an expression, Nova!"
They started their fourth pass.
Dana: "I get it! War of nerves, you're playing Chicken with them!"
Marie, smiling: "You got it."
"You figure sooner or later they'll break down and take a shot at us."
Nova frowned, "It'd be a stupid move on their part."
"Lucifors *are* stupid." said Dancer, inarguably.
"Sure are." agreed Ari, "Incoming!"
Marie: "Brace!" The Phoenix rocked under the impact of a double missile
strike. "Damage?"
"Minimal." Dancer reported.
Marie continued, "Dana, where'd they come from?"
"Gotcha!" said E2 happily, pinpointing the target and transferring
co-ordinates to Nova's nav. computer.
"We're likely to get another brace of missiles in our teeth." the
pilot warned, even as she turned the ship.
"Too close," Dana disagreed. "backwash would get 'em."
A blinding light filled the forward ports, "Lasers!" Nova snapped
hitting the shutter control.
"Won't do 'em a bit of good." Dana responded.
"I see them!" Ari said excitedly.
"Put her down, Nova." Marie ordered.
Phoenix five set down directly on top of the Lucifor ship with an audible
clink of hull against hull.
The Team adjourned to the lower deck, the belly hatch opened to reveal
a circle of greenish-grey metal. Nova set to work with a photon cutter.
When she'd finished Marie asked, "Ready?" four looks answered her.
"Open her up."
A grapple pulled the section of hull like a cork from a bottle.
Bullets fountained upward from the hole, streams of golden tracers
powdering the compartment's ceiling.
"Follow me!" said Marie, rolled herself into a ball protected by her
wings and dropped through the hatch. Uncoiled as she hit the sub's
deck in the middle of a ring of Green Goons and threw her tri-disk
neatly slicing away gun barrels as they tried to realine on her.
Dana struck like a bolt of white winged lightening, yellow boot
catching a Greenie right beneath the chin. She lit, drew and activated
her laser katana backslashing upward as his comrade tried to club her with
his rifle stock, slicing through arm and deep into the chest.
Nova swooped down like her raptor namesake, blood red wings spread
wide, bird pike twirling almost faster than the eye could follow in her
white gloved hands, mowing down a Greenie with each blade then reversing
over her shoulder to catch a third.
Dancer's silver lariat curled lazily down to encircle and crush,
pythonlike, two more Lucifors. Landing she gave it a little tug and it
came loose, the Greenies sliding into a boneless heap at her feet as she
calmly recoiled her lariat and hung it from her belt.
Ari elected to cling to the ceiling like a blue footed, scarlet winged
fly, scanning the deck below for any Greenies still on their feet.
For a moment it looked as if the girls hadn't left any for him, as per
usual, then he spotted a lone Lucifor making a break bowward and launched
himself in pursuit, skimming down the corridor with wings swept back
like a supersonic jets, finally overtaking his prey in the control
room. The cable of his morning star wrapping itself around the Greenie's
neck, snapping it, as the spiked head crushed the back of his skull.
"Gotcha." Ari said with satisfaction.
"And just in time." he looked back at Marie in suprise, she pointed
a mauve finger, "Look what he was heading for."
Ari did, eyes widening as they settled on the big red 'destruct' switch.
He gulped.
"Marie!" Dancer at another console. "Look at this!" she tapped at the
keys, threw back a silvery wing to wave a black gloved hand at the
overhead screen.
It lit up with a schematic of Pacific center itself, a red beacon signal
throbbing in its bowels.
Dana: "Oh no, a homing beacon!"
Marie, grimly: "So that's how they found us."
Nova, protesting: "Impossible, it've been detected!"
"Not this one," Dancer replied, "it's totally passive, just reflects
the scope's signal."
"But how did they plant it on us in the first place?" Dana demanded.
"That's what we're going to have to find out." said Marie.
Chapter Six
