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A Captain Scarlet
and the Mysterons Multiverse Challenge Story
By Tiger Jackson
Life on Cloudbase
went on. After the funerals, there wasn’t a lot of time to grieve, not with the
certainty of another Mysteron attack constantly hanging over the Earth. But
there was time nonetheless.
Captain Blue spent many of his free hours in the Officers’ Lounge or on the
Promenade Deck, gazing out over the clouds, as if by watching long enough he
might see Symphony’s Interceptor winging back to Cloudbase. Back to him.
Today, Captain Scarlet joined him
at the window. A few days ago, Blue had told him about his proposal to Symphony.
She had promised him an answer when she returned from the Air Mach Conference.
“Adam,” Scarlet
said, speaking softly so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Adam. She loved you. You
know that.”
Blue nodded
slightly. “But would she have agreed to marry me? Let go of our differences?”
They stood in
silence for a long moment.
“I can’t help
wondering,” said Blue softly, “what might have happened if we’d been there, in
Chicago, instead of Moscow.” He clenched his fists.
“Do you blame me,
Adam? For identifying the wrong target?”
Captain Blue just
stared out the window. His jaw was tight. “If we hadn’t been in Moscow, if we’d
been here on Cloudbase when the reports started coming in from Chicago, the
Angels might have had a chance. The same chance you had.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember what
Captain Grey told us,” he said quietly. “The details he didn’t include in his
report. You know what I mean.”
Captain Scarlet knew
which details Blue meant. Grey and the other Spectrum agents had waited a long
time before deciding to approach the last two Angels. Both were lying still,
apparently dead, when Grey first saw them, then began to take deep breaths. Each
woman had multiple wounds, but the ones Grey could see were healing unnaturally
rapidly. Rhapsody had pleaded with him not to kill her and tried to get up
before she was killed with the Mysteron rifle. Symphony had cried and turned her
face away as the gun was trained on her. Her last words had been, “Tell Adam
I...” She had hesitated. Grey couldn’t allow her more time to act. He’d fired.
“If we’d been there,
we might have been able to argue for their capture instead of... instead of just
destroying them. I know Karen, my Karen – ” He stopped a moment then went
on, his voice thick with emotion. “I know she’d died long before and the woman
Grey killed was a replicant. But I can’t help wondering if maybe the Mysterons’
control might have been broken before she died. If maybe...”
“Adam, we know that
Mysteronised replicants can behave exactly like the originals. I’m told that
there was nothing unusual about my behaviour or Captain Brown’s for some hours
after... after the car wreck. I have no memory of what happened in those hours.
I was being controlled by the Mysterons even then.”
“But it didn’t last.
I... I killed you. Then you revived and you were free of the Mysterons. Grey
wasn’t sure whether Karen and Dianne were only pretending to be dead. They might
have died before he approached them and were returning to life. What if they
were like you? Free?”
Captain Scarlet
shook his head. “No other Mysteron victim has ever broken free. We still don’t
know why I did. I suppose it’s possible I’m not unique. But we’ll never know
about the Angels, Adam. It’s not worth thinking about.”
“‘Not worth thinking
about?’” Captain Blue’s face was growing hot but he turned a cold eye on his
companion. “Sometimes, Paul, I wonder if you miss Dianne.”
“Of course I do!”
said Scarlet, a little testily.
“You never show it.
Not in any way. Not when we were in Moscow and got the news of their deaths. Not
in Chicago. Not even at the funerals.” Blue’s voice quavered slightly. “That
famous British stiff-upper-lip. I never got the hang of it. My father did.”
Scarlet said
nothing. His heart ached for his fiancée, Rhapsody, as much as Blue’s did for
Symphony. But Captain Scarlet, a full-blooded Brit and the product of an
upper-class military family, had been raised to keep his feelings under control
and hidden, even from his closest friends. Sometimes, even from himself.
Captain Blue, on the
other hand, was a passionate man by nature and, like most Americans, more open
with his emotions. Whenever he was with Symphony, their love had filled the
room. And now . . .
Scarlet knew his
friend was suffering badly. And so, deep inside, was he.
“I think of her
every day, Adam,” he admitted sotto voce. “Right after we returned from
Moscow, I went to her quarters to find some strands of her hair. At the funeral,
Dianne’s father returned her engagement ring to me. I braided the strands of
hair I’d found and twined the braid around her ring, then threaded it on a
chain. In my heart, I know Dianne is gone forever, but several times, on the
Promenade Deck, I’ve smelled her perfume, the one I bought for her the last time
we were on holiday together in Paris. And every time, I automatically look
around, expecting – hoping – to see her.
And then I feel her ring against my chest, and I remember...” His voice
thickened. He cleared his throat and continued. “There’s a new French lieutenant
who wears that scent. She noticed my attraction to it, even asked my opinion of
it.” He paused again as he swallowed hard. “I could only say it was haunting.”
Now Captain Blue
noticed how taut his friend’s jawline was, the muscles twitching ever so
slightly as he controlled himself with iron training.
Neither man said
anything for a while.
“Paul, I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean what I said before, about...”
“I’ve already
forgotten it.”
Captain Blue nodded
and resumed watching the sky. He sighed. “I’ll be all right. I know I have to
deal with the empty space in my own heart. I’m just looking for some kind of
sign, something to fill the emptiness. Something to tell me she’s . . . I don’t
know, out there waiting for me, perhaps. Something.”
Scarlet nodded but
he was still deeply concerned that Blue might be becoming obsessed. He needed
something to distract him.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Peach
hoped her jaw had not dropped noticeably as the new pilots lined up beside the
SPJ, each carrying two or three pieces of luggage.
Recalling her duty,
she cleared her throat. “Welcome to Cloudbase. I’m Lieutenant Peach. You can
leave your bags here; they’ll be taken up to your quarters. Now, if you’ll
follow me, I’ll take you to meet our commanding officer, Colonel White.”
* * * * *
“Colonel White? The
new pilots are here.” Lieutenant Green sounded awed.
The colonel looked
up as the women, clad in white-and-gold flight suits, each with a helmet tucked
under her arm, lined up in front of him and stood at formal attention. He rose
to his feet. “At ease.”
The tall, blue-eyed
platinum blonde nodded curtly. “Colonel White, may I present the Cherubim and
Seraphim.”
The colonel raised
an eyebrow fractionally but said nothing.
She continued, “I’m
Tiffany Seraph, squadron leader.”
The colonel’s eyes
flicked over the gold fittings on the young woman’s flight suit. They were a
brighter yellow than those the other women wore and glittered in the light. The
clear panels of her helmet sparkled. He wasn’t a betting man, yet he would have
wagered that the gold was genuine and what should have been steelglass was
actually crystal.
Tiffany pointed to
the amber-eyed woman standing at the far end of the line, who immediately
dropped her helmet on the colonel’s desk, breaking two of the signal lights.
“Sorry, sir!” she
stammered, trying to grab her helmet as it rolled down the slope, depressing
several buttons as it went. The rainbow disappeared from the screen behind the
desk, replaced by a picture of a tall, curly-haired man with an impossibly long
scarf talking to a Dalek. The desk began to rotate back and forth. Chairs rose
and fell behind the women.
“Calamity Seraph,
get a grip!” snapped Tiffany.
“I’m trying; it’s
just so slippery – got it!” She dived over the colonel’s desk, slamming down
half the buttons and snapping off a mic with her elbow as she seized her quarry.
Clutching the helmet tightly, Calamity stood up straight again, pushed her
light-brown hair away from her face, and beamed at the colonel.
Tiffany rolled her
eyes. She pointed to the next woman, another blonde, who had a dreamy, far-away
look in her brown eyes. “Eccentricity Seraph, my wing second.”
Eccentricity shifted
her weight slightly and flung an arm out as if she were addressing an audience.
“Before Him come the choirs of angels, with ev’ry principality and pow’r; the
Cherubim with many eyes, and wingèd Seraphim, who veil their faces as they shout
exultingly the hymn. Alleluia!” she intoned grandly.
“Eccentricity,
you’re on-duty! Leave the histrionics till later!” barked Tiffany.
“Let’s get on with
the introductions, shall we?” interposed Colonel White calmly.
The two blonde
seraphs looked sulky. Eccentricity blushed. Tiffany also turned red, but Colonel
White didn’t think it was embarrassment as much as another emotion.
He turned his
attention to where the next woman stood. Or should have been standing. He saw
only empty space.
“Here, sir,” piped a
voice with an Irish lilt.
The colonel looked
down until he saw, beneath a mass of red hair, two sparkling green eyes that
were barely level with his desk. “And you are…?”
“Paucity Cherub.”
The colonel looked
at her for a long time, mentally measuring the distance from the seat of an
Interceptor downwards to the rudder pedals and upwards to the canopy. Then he
nodded, and turned his gaze to the tallest woman. She simply stared back at him.
“Well?”
“Well?” she echoed
blankly.
“You are?” he
prompted.
“Oh, uh...
Simplicity Cherub.” She smiled like a child who has come up with the right
answer to a difficult math problem.
Colonel White
couldn’t stop himself. “Cherub?”
Tiffany shrugged.
“Bit of a mental midget.”
The colonel felt the
first stirrings of a headache.
“Welcome to
Cloudbase, ladies. Lieutenant Peach will give you a tour of the base and show
you to your quarters.” He remained standing as they fell into line behind the
lieutenant and left the Control Room.
After they had gone,
Lieutenant Green swivelled his chair to face Colonel White. “Cherubim and
seraphim, sir? But don’t those words refer to…”
“The highest orders
of angels? Yes, Lieutenant.”
Green frowned.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Go ahead.”
“It doesn’t seem
right. They’re probably not half as good as our Angels but they’ve taken a name
that says they’re better!”
“We’ll have to see
if they can live up to it, won’t we.”
“Yes, sir. But sir
–” Green slumped, unsure of himself.
“We all miss the
Angels, Lieutenant,” the colonel prompted gently.
Green just nodded.
“You asked to speak
freely. I’m listening.”
“It’s just that – ”
He hesitated again before speaking in a rush. “Colonel, they weren’t even
specially chosen! We had to take them!”
It was true. White
recalled the meeting with the World President and other, carefully selected
leaders following the deaths of the Angels. The discussions had been heated but
they had all agreed that the public should not yet be told that a vital element
of the world’s defence system was gone, that Spectrum had been unprepared for
the loss of its elite pilots. Likewise, no call for new Angel candidates could
go out until it was seen that Spectrum was carrying on as always, pilots and
all. Temporary replacements were critically needed, but those selected would be
strictly temporary – there was no time to train them adequately and this could
not be treated as a learn-as-you-go situation. But the knowledge of Spectrum’s
vulnerability had to be restricted to as few people as possible – undoubtedly
the Mysterons would take advantage of it soon enough; widespread panic could
bring an attack even sooner. As Colonel White had expected, President Pemberton
had wanted to make beauty and political connections important criteria in
choosing the temporary pilots, although he had conceded that piloting experience
was an essential requirement. After much debating, arguing, and wrangling, a
very small pool of candidates, women related to the limited number of
need-to-know people, was agreed on.
But most of the
eligible candidates were uninterested in a temporary posting – they preferred to
apply for places in the new flight academy and seek permanent posts as new
Angels instead. In the end, there were few applicants for the temporary pilot
positions. In fact, there had been only five. Five names on paper.
And now they were
here on Cloudbase.
Green continued,
“And they adopted code names on their own! Their assigned code names are
in the files on your desk.”
“Do you think those
code names are more fitting than the ones they’ve chosen?” asked Colonel White.
Lieutenant Green
grimaced. “No, sir. Not at all.” He gestured to White’s desk. “Should I summon a
repair crew to see about the damage?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,”
replied the colonel, eyeing the tendril of smoke curling up from beneath a
control panel. “And quickly. Notify me when the repairs are complete. I’ll be in
my quarters.”
Colonel White
retrieved the pilots’ personnel files and strode towards the exit. He paused in
the doorway. “You might tell the chaplains about the Cherubim and Seraphim’s
arrival. Ask them to pray for us all.”
“S.I.G., sir.
S.I.G.”
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