A 'New Captain Scarlet' story
By Adam Blue
This is a story that’s mixed with the “Universal Soldier” movie franchise.
PART 2
Once Captains Scarlet and Blue were back at Skybase with the valuable cargo, Doctor Gold took the injections and started examining them.
In the meantime, Scarlet then went to check on Lieutenant Venta. He saw she was lying on her back on the bed, looking at him.
“Hello, Lieutenant. We managed to get as many of all your injections as we could. So you will be okay for quite a while. Until Doctor Gold can make a cure for you, that is.”
“ Good. I hoped Magna would stick to his word.”
“How’re you doing?”
“I’m ok. Bit tired, but not as much as I would be if I had been on a mission.”
“Good. I’ll come back later.”
“Okay, Captain,” she said turning over on to her left side.
Scarlet walked back to Sickbay, to see what Doctor Gold was doing.
“So, what you’re saying is that all of these ‘medicines’ have been tampered with?” asked Colonel White.
“Yes, Colonel,” Gold confirmed as he checked the results of his examination on his computer. “By the Mysterons.”
That gave White a jolt. “WHAT! How?”
“I’m not sure, but when I looked at the last sample, I saw a green glow. So I double-checked the rest of the samples that Doctor Magna brought with him when he came aboard Skybase. They were the same.”
Just as Colonel White was about to answer, Captain Scarlet walked in.
“Colonel White, is everything okay?” he asked, looking at both their very concerned faces.
“No, Captain, it’s not,” White answered. “Apparently, the Mysterons have tampered with Lieutenant Venta’s medicines.”
“What? You mean those Captain Blue and I just brought back from Egypt?”
“No… Those Doctor Magna brought onto Skybase in the first place,” Doctor Gold explained. “And that he gave to Lieutenant Venta before you left for Egypt.”
“Oh, great,” Scarlet replied. “So that means we’ve been played?”
“It would appear so.” White turned to Scarlet, feeling really worried. “Go and stay with Lieutenant Venta, Captain.”
“Sir,” Scarlet walked out of the room, in order to return back to Catharine.
“What will you do with these samples, Doctor?” White asked, turning to Gold. “Could we use them?”
“No, that would be too dangerous. We don’t know what they could do. I will have to destroy them, Colonel. There is no way I can copy these.” He shook his head. “And somehow, I have a feeling the samples we got for the Egyptian facility will be just as useless. Let’s hope I’m wrong.”
Scarlet walked into the brig with his hand by his gun and looked into the cell. He saw Catharine was sitting up, with her hands on her face.
“I’m not feeling too good, Captain,” she said, lifting her head. She removed her hands from her face. Scarlet saw her eyes were glowing green.
“Don’t move, Lieutenant!” he shouted, swiftly taking his gun out of his holster. Two guards rushed to join him. He was watching Catharine through the bars, as she was trying to get up, disobeying the order he had given her.
“I... don’t...” Then she collapsed, and her head banged on the floor. Scarlet lowered his cap microphone. “Sickbay! Get Doctor Gold in here!”
He barely heard the acknowledgement from the nurse who answered his call; his eyes fixed on Catharine, he saw her slowly turning her heard towards him and looking straight at him. She wasn’t unconscious, but it was just as if she couldn’t see him. The green glow in her eyes intensified.
She raised her head slightly, and her lips started to move to say something. A shiver crawled down Scarlet’s spine as the voice that came from her lips wasn’t hers at all, but an all too familiar voice that always gave him the chills whenever he heard it:
“THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. LIEUTENANT VENTA WILL DESTROY SKYBASE AND EVERYONE ON IT. WE HAVE GIVEN HER A NEW BODY. ONE THAT WILL NEVER DIE. YOUR TIME IS UP, EARTHMEN. THE MYSTERONS WILL NOT FAIL.”
Her head then went back onto the floor, in the same position as it was when she fell. Her eyes closed and she lay there completely still.
Doctor Gold came in with a bag and stood looking at Scarlet.
Scarlet explained the situation, and the message the Mysterons had spoken through her lips.
Doctor Gold shook his head and said, keeping a straight face: “Very friendly from the Mysterons’ part, Captain, and interesting. But I do need to go on and check her.”
“I’ll go in and stand with you, just in case,” Scarlet offered.
“Yes, please, Captain.”
Doctor Gold and Scarlet walked into the cell. Gold checked Catharine’s pulse; to him, it was fine.
“Hmm…”
“What is it, Doctor?” Scarlet asked.
“You said the Mysterons mentioned giving her a new body?”
“Yes…”
“Well… it is definitely a new body. You can already tell by the skin, which is the normal, pinkie colour and looks less... de-hydrated.” Gold stood up. “Let’s have her transferred into sickbay. I want to examine her carefully, do some blood tests… She could stay there, until she wakes up.”
“All right, Doctor. But I want guards watching her at all time. We ought not to take any chance.”
“Yes, good idea, Scarlet. We’ll put her in the observation room, then.”
Later on, Doctor Gold was looking at Lieutenant Venta’s new blood work when Colonel White walked in, with Captain Scarlet.
“I see she hasn’t woken up yet.”
“No, Colonel White,” Doctor Gold replied. “I’m not a hundred percent sure why.
“Could it be a trick, Colonel?”
Colonel White shook his head with uncertainty at Scarlet’s question; it was certainly a possibility he had to consider.
Just then, Lieutenant Green spoke through the comms: “I’m sorry, Colonel White, but Doctor Gold is needed in the medical room. Lieutenant Venta has awakened, and is apparently causing a few problems.”
“We will be right down.”
“S.I.G, Colonel.”
When Colonel White, Doctor Gold and Captain Scarlet arrived in sickbay, they saw through the observation window that Catharine was up and about in the room she had been locked in. She was kicking hard at the doors, trying to get out.
“Why am I locked in here!?” she yelled, her screams being heard through the
speakers. She then hit the doors again. “Let me out!”
Colonel White pressed the button from the communication panel. “Lieutenant Venta,” he called with an uncompromising voice, “I would demand that you calm yourself, and stop kicking those doors. Violence will get you nowhere. If you don’t calm yourself right now, I will have you transferred back to the brig immediately!”
“I just want to know what’s going on!” she replied desperately.
Colonel White’s voice softened somewhat. “We will explain everything. But you need to calm down. I won’t allow Doctor Gold to enter this room without your insurance that you will get a hold of yourself. Now, will you act like the officer you’re supposed to be?’
“Fine,” Catharine said. She sounded at the same time, defeated and tired. “Is it good news?”
White watched as she sat down on the side of her bed.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked, her voice trembling. “One minute I’m confused as to what a sound system is too... and then, it’s like my brain opens up and, letting everything back in, and I remember it all, all at once! It’s… It’s... too much! And I’m so confused and angry all the time – without knowing why!”
It was Doctor Gold who provided the answer, and he did so with a soothing voice: “Lieutenant, we discovered that the ‘medications’ that Doctor Magna gave you earlier had been tampered with.”
“Tampered?” she repeated. “By whom?”
White hesitated. “By the Mysterons, we believe.”
“That would explain all this... this change. The anger I feel all the time. Yes?”
“We have to be absolutely sure that you can keep control, Lieutenant,” White continued. “Can you?”
“I have too. I don’t want to let anything control me again,” she answered.
“And we need your complete cooperation,” White continued.
“Of course, sir.”
“Lieutenant Venta,” Gold asked politely. “Can I come in and make sure your vital signs are normal, now that you’re awake?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, shaking her head.
Suddenly, she sharply went down and she held it tight, screaming.
“ARRGGHH! What is going on in my head!?”
She fell to the floor, groaning, and sat there, not moving for a few seconds. Then, she collapsed onto her right side.
“I must go in and check on her,” Gold declared urgently. “She doesn’t look good at all.”
“Right, Doctor, go take a look at her, then. But you’re not entering in there alone. Guards, keep close to him.”
An hour later, Lieutenant Venta was still out cold in her guarded room, and Doctor Gold was in his lab, looking at the blood tests results in his office. Captain Scarlet was with him.
“Well, the Mysterons said the truth,” he spoke with some excitement.
“They did?” replied Scarlet.
“Yes, Captain. They had indeed given Lieutenant Venta a new body. They somehow ‘updated’ her DNA!”
“They have? How?” asked Scarlet.
“I don’t know how they have done it, but they have kept her human DNA with an upgrade so she can’t die. Like you.”
“Maybe they’re trying to show us they can do more, perhaps?” suggested Scarlet.
“You mean to say they may have more tricks up their sleeve and they want to show off?”
At that moment, they heard a gunshot coming from just outside in the hall.
“Wait here, Doctor.” Scarlet took out his gun and walked towards the door. He opened it and peeked around the doorway to his left; he saw a guard lay motionless on the floor.
“Lieutenant Venta,” he told himself, looking to his right and back to the left again.
He went to the guard and checked for a pulse. He was still alive, and there was no bullet wound on him. He looked like he was unconscious.
His holster was empty, and there was no sign of Lieutenant Venta.
Behind him, he heard the sound of rushing feet; alerted by the gunshot, nurses were coming to see what was going on. Scarlet left them to take care of the guard and returned to Doctor Gold’s office.
“Lieutenant Venta got out?” Gold asked.
Scarlet nodded, before lowering his cap microphone to call Central Control.
“Colonel White, we have a problem,” he announced. “Lieutenant Venta escaped.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“Beats me, sir. She was in a sealed room, and under guard, but she managed to get out and knock him out before he could raise the alarm. If not for a gunshot we heard –”
“Gunshot? Is the guard okay?”
“Yes, sir, just unconscious. I’m figuring he tried to resist, and used his gun, before Lieutenant Venta knocked him. However, I didn’t see the gun.”
“The lieutenant must have it, then,” White realised. “She must be considered armed and dangerous. I’ll have Captain Blue and Captain Grey lead a squad of guards after her. You should join them, Captain.”
Yes, sir. Ah, and Doctor Gold made a surprising discovery about Lieutenant Venta.”
“Tell Doctor Gold to come discuss that with me at Central Control – and ask him to be escorted by a guard, as a safety measure
“ Yes, sir. Now we have to know where Lieutenant Venta may be off to.”
“A moment, Captain.” There were a few seconds of silence, and then, Scarlet heard the voice of Colonel White again: “Lieutenant Green just informed me. Cameras has spotted Lieutenant Venta as she was heading towards the engine room. That’s where Blue and Grey are heading now. You must stop her, Captain, at all costs.”
“Yes, sir.” Scarlet closed communication and turned to Doctor Gold. “You’ve been requested to Central Control, Doctor. I suggest you go there with an escort. Me, I’ll be joining the search for Lieutenant Venta.”
“Right, Captain. Just make sure you stop her. We don’t know what else the Mysterons have done to her.”
Five minutes later, Lieutenant Venta was met by Captains Scarlet, Blue, Grey and five security guards, who stood in front of the door leading to the engine room, determined to prevent her from gaining entry.
“Give it up, Lieutenant,” Blue requested, whilst pointing his gun at her head. “You won’t get passed us!”
“Are you quite sure, Captain?” she said with an evil-looking grin on her face.
“She’s under Mysteron control,” Blue said to Scarlet. “If she gets into the engine room, she might destroy Skybase.”
“Just stun her first, Adam.”
Blue nodded and fired at her. Again, it took two shots to bring her down. But not for long. Catharine got back up and Blue fired again. It did nothing but making her clench her fists and grit her teeth. She started to walk towards them.
With no other choice left, Scarlet gave the order to use bullets.
Scarlet, Blue, Grey, and the guards fired and at last, the rain of bullets brought her down.
Catharine was flat out on the floor. Scarlet put his arm up and walked slowly towards her. Suddenly, her body started to shake with violent convulsions, with seemingly no reason. Scarlet put his gun back in his holster and called for Blue to help hold her down while Grey used his cap microphone to call the medical centre and ask for Doctor Gold to come right away. When the doctor arrived, two medics pushing a rolling stretcher close behind, the convulsions had stopped and while she was still seemingly unconscious, Catharine looked like she was now having a bad dream. They watched as she tried to stop herself from thrashing her arms and legs.
As soon as Doctor Gold kneeled down by her side, she woke up screaming.
“It’s okay, Lieutenant,” he told her soothingly. “It’s okay.” He got a syringe out of his bag and readied with a drug that would knock her out.
Catharine shook her head in despair. Her face was showered with sweat, and her eyes were wide. “They all died in the fight!” she said, visibly in a shock. “The sickos killed them all... They didn’t care how... The soldiers… My friends… They were taken down because they were trying to protect the people in the village… Explosions, the smell of blood, the screams… It’s all coming back, Doctor.”
“Hang on to her, I’m going to sedate her down,” Doctor Gold said. As Blue and Scarlet kept her down, he gave her the injection. She was shaking and sweating, looking around, hearing gun shots in her head.
Then she slowly went back down and her eyes closed. Doctor Gold stood up.
“Okay, we’ll take her to sickbay now. I don’t think she’s under Mysterons’ control anymore.”
Scarlet and Blue nodded and moved away as the medics approach with the stretcher.
A few days later, in sickbay, when Catharine had woken up and was talking with Doctor Gold about what she had blurted out earlier, Colonel White walked in and listened. The young woman looked considerably calmer, and definitely looked like she wasn’t under the control of the Mysterons anymore.
“I’m starting to think losing those memories was a good idea, after all,” she said. “All I can hear were screams, gunshots. I could almost smell and taste the blood. I’m going to need a lot of help now, Doc. Now my memories are coming back. I need to understand things, as well. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that on my own.”
“You will not be alone, Lieutenant. I promise,” Colonel White said in a calming voice.
“How about my friends?” she asked in concern. “My old squad? Will they be okay too? Will somebody help them?”
“We already made sure of that,” Colonel White said. “From the reports we receive, they are fine at the moment, and doctors are working to find a way to help them. But it’ll be slower than it was for you, and somewhat different. But for now, it doesn’t sound like they all want to be what they are now, but… I guess that’s either that and being alive or nothing. I’m so sorry, Catharine.”
“I don’t blame them. What can they do in this life with those injections you have to rely on? It’s no life whatsoever.” Catharine looked at both men. “Will I be okay?”
“It will take time, Lieutenant,” Doctor Gold said. “The Mysterons fixed your body and your brain, so to speak. Your memories will now be able to come back without any drugs stopping them. In time, you will feel different emotions and feelings. You will become… ‘human again’.”
“You told me about the Mysterons, but you didn’t say how they ‘re-built’ my DNA. And how come I escaped from being under their control?”
“The thing that makes the most sense is that they copied your DNA and repaired it as in the way they understood the human DNA. Because you are basically dead, they didn’t need to kill you, so they just rebuilt you. And I believe that when Scarlet, Blue and the guards were firing at you, it was similar to what happened before you died. And that memory supplanted their control and you took back control.”
“What happens to me now?”
“Well, all your tests say you’re yourself again, and not a Mysteron, so Colonel White could well keep you onboard.”
“I hope so. I would have wanted to prove, for the first time, that I’m right for Spectrum. But I guess that, with all that happened, I have no chance of that anymore.”
Later on, in his office, Colonel White announced to Captain Scarlet all that he had learned in sickbay, while visiting Catharine Venta.
“So Doctor Gold confirms that she is no longer under Mysteron control,” said Scarlet, watching as the colonel looked out the window behind his desk. “Her returned memories seem to have put a stop to that, then.”
“Hmm... I hope he’s right. After all with her skills, we can’t afford to lose someone like her.” As Colonel White turned around, he said, “And now she is a bit like you, Scarlet. It might help you as well.”
“Me, Colonel?”
“Yes. I see how much you try and work out who or what you are, Captain, and I do worry about you. So perhaps, having onboard someone who has gone through the same experience might mean you’ll have someone to related with and with whom you can talk about it.”
Just then the lift came up and Lieutenant Venta came out with Doctor Gold, walking to Colonel White’s office.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” he welcomed her. “How are you?”
“I’m feeling a bit strange, sir. Trying to get used to the idea of not needing my injections anymore.” Catharine smiled awkwardly.
“Well, that is the good part. You can now live a more normal life. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. I want to ask a very important question, which may determine the rest of your life.”
“Sir?” she asked in confusion.
“I want to officially ask you if you’re interested in being a member of Spectrum.”
Catharine’s eyes lit up. This invitation was almost un-hoped for. She exchanged glances with Scarlet. He smiled and nodded at her, encouragingly.
“Yes, sir,” she replied eagerly. “Yes, I would!”
Colonel White smiled in turn and extended his hand to the young woman. “Congratulations, then. And welcome to Spectrum... Captain Rose.”
THE END
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This story was beta-read by the Spectrum Headquarters beta-reading panel.
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