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Even at Christmas, Cloudbase remained a working base. The colonel allowed some relaxation of the strict duty rotas
and rules, but the Angel Interceptors still had to be manned and the duty
officers ready to leave for any part of the world at a moment’s notice.
This year was no exception and indeed the base was on yellow alert due to a
rather obscure Mysteron threat that had been issued on Christmas Eve. “We the Mysterons will destroy fidelity
aboard Cloudbase to its ultimate destruction.”
The elite officers had puzzled over what it might mean for hours without much
success. Eventually the
colonel had given a base-wide speech commending everyone for the loyalty and
spirit of co-operation for which his command was justifiably renowned and urging
them to remain ‘steadfast at their posts’.
So Christmas Day was a rather tense affair, even though the personnel were
determined not to let the little matter of a Mysteron threat spoil all their
fun.
Yap, yap, yap.
Whirr… Click. Yap, yap, yap.
Whirr…
In the Amber Room, the assembled off-duty captains and Angel pilots laughed. Destiny clapped her hands in delight. “C’est
adorable,” she enthused, watching the slightly-less-than-life-size toy on
the floor as it cocked its head towards her voice and responded with another
series of yelps. Yap, yap, yap.
Rhapsody swooped down and picked it up, cuddling it to her heart with a smile.
“He is, isn’t he?”
“He?” Captain Blue asked. He was
leaning over the back of the couch where Symphony was sitting with her head
resting discreetly against his hand.
“Oh, yes,” Rhapsody replied and went on to explain.
“When I was a little girl, I had a dog just like him: a white West
Highland Terrier. I guess that’s
why Mummy sent him to me. She says
she saw him at a craft fair she went to with Aunt Lynne and thought immediately
of Quin and me. We went
everywhere together; you could say that he was my first boyfriend!”
“Hmm, maybe you ought to rephrase that,” Captain Scarlet suggested, with a
slight smile. “The Americans
already think the British are completely out to lunch, and the idea that we have
romantic liaisons with small, furry animals will go no way towards disabusing
them.”
“Oh, be quiet, Paul. I only meant
that Quin was my utterly devoted slave.”
“Something like you, in fact,” Captain Ochre chipped in, glancing at the
dark-haired Englishman with a mischievous grin.
Scarlet fought to suppress his amusement as he tried to glare at the facetious
mid-westerner.
“Well, I think he’s adorable…” Symphony Angel said.
“I wish I had one just like him.”
“Like
Paul?” Rhapsody glanced conspiratorially at Captain Blue.
“No!” her friend exclaimed, with a shriek of laughter. “I meant someone all soft and cuddly, absolutely gorgeous,
and slavishly devoted to me.”
“Tough call, Adam,” Ochre commented.
“Where’re you going to find one of those?”
This time Scarlet did chuckle.
“What shall you call him?” Harmony Angel asked, reaching out to stroke the small
dog in Rhapsody’s arms. “Tarquin; naturally.” “Tarquin?” Ochre blurted out in surprise.
“Yes, after my dog. He was
Berryhillfarm Tarquin of St Frevisse – Quin for short.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of name for a little dog,” Ochre said dubiously.
Rhapsody put the toy back on the floor and stood back from it. She crouched down and called:
“Come to Mummy, Tarquin!”
The dog’s head slipped sideways as it looked towards her. Yap, yap, yap.
It took a few jerky steps towards her, its tail wagging furiously, and then
jumped up and down yapping excitedly.
“That’s going to get on my nerves pretty quickly,” Blue muttered.
“It’s
so cute.” Symphony chided him, “You’re such a grouch, Adam. If you had any romance in your soul,
you’d buy me one too.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“I’m not. I want one.” She tilted
her head back and smiled up at him.
“I have a birthday coming soon…”
Even the vision of her face at this oddly inverted angle, smiling up at him
appealingly, wasn’t enough to convince Captain Blue. He rolled his eyes dismissively and stood up. Tarquin turned
towards the movement. Yap, yap, yap.
“And the same to you,” Blue retorted, amidst the general laughter of his
friends.
December 26th – which the Britons on the base called ‘Boxing Day’ to
the bewilderment of the Americans, who were, nevertheless, happy enough to
consider it a holiday – found Rhapsody and Destiny on duty in the Amber Room
with Melody manning Angel One on the deck above them.
Harmony was catching up on some sleep and Symphony was… well, she was
wherever Captain Blue was, doing whatever they did when they disappeared from
the public gaze.
Destiny was writing a letter to her parents to thank them for their generous
Christmas gifts and Rhapsody was curled up on the couch with Tarquin beside her,
lost in the pages of the latest romantic blockbuster she’d received for
Christmas. She turned the page. Yap, yap, yap.
“Sssh…” she whispered absent mindedly.
Destiny looked up and smiled.
“He wants you to pay to him more attention than to that book,” she teased.
Rhapsody grinned and sat up, closing the book. Yap, yap, yap.
“You know,” she confided, “I think I might have to start agreeing with Captain
Blue; the noise could get a little bit irritating.
Last night, when I came off duty, Paul dropped by… just to wish me ‘Merry
Christmas’,” Rhapsody explained, blushing slightly. Destiny nodded understandingly, and
didn’t believe a word of it. “Well,
every time he tried to ki…move… Tarquin barked at him.”
She grinned. “He got rather
cross and in the end he dropped a pillow on top of him.” Destiny
smiled and said sympathetically, "He must have found it frustrant
making love to his jolie petite amie while the little dog was making the
barks to you at the same moments."
“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that,” Rhapsody hastened to assure her. “He’d just dropped by, as I said.”
“Of course, I understand.” She fell
silent and Rhapsody thought the conversation was over, so she was surprised when
Destiny continued, “Perhaps you might ask Captain Ochre if he could make a
closed switch for Tarquin, or Captain Magenta if he could make the sharpness of
the motion sensors less. Then Paul
would not have to expel him to beneath the pillows…”
“That’s a good idea, Juliette. I do
adore Tarquin, but he can be a little
bit annoying. I’m sure Rick would
be able to work something out – even if he had to ask Patrick to re-program the
sensors.” She smiled and swept the
little toy into her embrace. “I’d
hate to have to put Tarquin away in a cupboard, because he is such a cutie;
aren’t you, Quin?” Yap, yap, yap.
Later that day the robo-vac came into the Amber Room on its routine sweep of the
floor. Rhapsody and Destiny were
busy checking system back-up reports on their Angel Jets and barely noted its
appearance. Tarquin was on the
floor in the middle of the circular seating where Rhapsody had left him.
The robo-vac, humming quietly, started to traverse the floor. Yap, yap, yap.
The Angels turned and laughed to see the toy backing away from the approaching
machine.
“He does not like it,” Destiny chuckled. Yap, yap, yap.
Rhapsody started to go to collect the toy dog, intending to remove it from the
path of the vacuum cleaner.
Suddenly, the robo-vac issued a screech and started spinning wildly, careering
across the floor.
Tarquin went berserk. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap,
yap. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap.
“Oh, hush,” Rhapsody said, stooping to pick him up.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed as her fingers touched the toy. “I just got a shock.” She jumped up a step as the robo-vac
banged into her boots and careered off again.
Destiny joined her. “Are you all
right, Rhapsody?”
“Hmm, it was just static, I think.”
She examined her toy carefully. “I
don’t think the vac hit him or made him short-circuit.
How could it?” Yap, yap, yap.
Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap.
“Be quiet, you daft animal…” she pleaded as Tarquin continued to yelp.
The robo-vac was still emitting a high pitch tone and the lights in the Amber
Room flickered on, started to dim and then flared to full brightness. The music centre on one of the wall
units clicked on, deafeningly loud, and cut out before Destiny could reach it to
turn it off. The TV screen lit up and
skipped from channel to channel until Rhapsody, who had put Tarquin down on the
floor, turned that off.
The Angels exchanged bewildered glances.
The base tannoy crackled into life.
“Control to Amber Room: can you hear me,
Angels?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Green,” Rhapsody replied. Yap, yap, yap.
Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap. “Come in, Amber
Room…” Green’s voice
sounded concerned. “We have a systems’ warning light. Come in, Amber Room…”
“He does not hear you,” Destiny said, going to adjust the settings of the
intercom. “It is not broken,” she
added, frowning. “The dials are all
showing the correct settings. What
can be happening?” She reached out
and put on her pilot helmet.
“Destiny Angel to Lieutenant Green, do you hear me?” Yap, yap, yap.
Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap.
Destiny glared at her companion.
“Please, make the toy to be quiet, Rhapsody,” she ordered, her voice betraying
her exasperation.
“I’ll try,” she replied and bent down to pick Tarquin up again.
The robo-vac made a charge towards her, making her lose her balance and knocking
her back onto the step. Yap, yap, yap.
The door to the Amber Room slid open and, as two technicians started to hurry
into the room, it snapped shut again, trapping one man’s leg as he stumbled back
to avoid it.
They heard the bone snap. The man
screamed and his companion dragged him back into the corridor as the door opened
again. Yap, yap, yap.
Overhead, the lights started to flash on and off, and the emergency launch
sirens started to wail.
“Sacre bleu,” Destiny breathed. “Regardez.” She pointed out of the window to the far
end of the runway where the Spectrafan was jerking up and down. The entrance door to the Angel launch
tubes opened and closed with a frenzied speed and from the deck above them they
saw Melody launch in Angel One.
“Destiny to Colonel White: S.I.R…
Spectrum is Red… there is something wrong with the electronics here…” Yap, yap, yap.
Yap, yap, yap.
Destiny turned on Rhapsody, who had managed to pick Tarquin up from the floor
and cover his eyes with her hand to deaden his sensors.
“This is the work of that dog!” she exclaimed. “He has made the electronics go awry and put us all in
danger.”
“No, he hasn’t – how could he have?
It’s just a little toy, Juliette.”
The door to the Amber Room was still opening and closing but they heard voices
and turned to see Captain Scarlet and Captain Magenta out in the corridor.
“Are you girls okay?” Scarlet
shouted.
“Yes; what’s happening?” Rhapsody called back.
Captain Magenta answered. “All over
the base the electronics have gone haywire.”
“This we see for our selfs,” Destiny interjected.
“We think it might be part of the Mysteron threat,” Magenta concluded.
When the door opened again, Scarlet stepped inside the Amber Room, with Magenta
close behind. “It is the fault of that toy.” Destiny turned and pointed an accusing
finger at Tarquin.
“It is not!” Rhapsody asserted.
“All things go awry when the dog begins to bark!”
“That doesn’t mean it is his fault!”
“That’s enough - put him down, Rhapsody,” Scarlet said sharply, before the
girls’ argument could get any more heated.
She met his gaze with a belligerent stare, on the verge of refusing to obey.
“I gave you an order, Rhapsody Angel,” Scarlet reminded her.
Slowly, she turned and put the little toy down on the floor again, moving away
behind him.
Tarquin stood motionless on the floor. The robo-vac, which until then had been
stationary, gave another high-pitched whine and started to race around the
floor. Yap, yap, yap.
Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap.
The lights flashed off and on and the TV sprang into life again and began to
flick through the channels, as the Amber Room door slammed shut.
“You see,” Destiny said, pointing again at the little dog. “He makes the robo go into madness and all the machines too.” Yap, yap, yap.
The vacuum stopped and the TV fell silent for a moment. Yap, yap, yap.
“This is what happened before,” Destiny said.
“And all things went badly.” Yap, yap, yap.
“It can’t be Tarquin; if it was him, why didn’t things start to happen when I
opened the box he came in?” Rhapsody cried.
Yap, yap, yap.
“We’ll find that out later,” Scarlet said, drawing his gun. “The Mysterons pick their own time to carry out their
threats. Right now, we have to stop
it before every electronic system on Cloudbase burns out.” Yap, yap, yap.
“No!” Rhapsody pleaded, but the captain was pitiless and he fired two bullets
into the toy. Tarquin leapt into
the air from the impact, and one leg snapped off.
The other three rotated back and forth with the sickening grinding of
damaged mechanisms. Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap. Yap. Y…ap Y…
As the glow went out of Tarquin’s eyes the robo-vac started humming, the door
behind them slammed closed again and the lights flickered on and off. The launch tube door slid open and the
pilots’ seats started to rise into the tubes before slamming back down. Out at the end of the runway, the
Spectrafan juddered to a halt in its descent and began to rise again. The TV and the radio blared into life.
The Tannoy crackled into life but Lieutenant Green’s voice was barely audible
through the static. “Amber Room… if you… hear me, medic … is on the way… injured
techni…, and Captain…arlet and…tain Magenta … to you. Spec… is red: remain where you are and …as soon as you
… the Control Room …”
It cut out again.
“Well, thank you both very much,” Rhapsody snapped, bending down to collect her
shattered toy. “You’ve destroyed my
property and it hasn’t solved the problem!”
“But, I don’t understand,” Destiny said, putting her hand to her forehead in an
elegant gesture of confusion.
“The little dog made the machines go wrongly.”
“Actually,” Captain Magenta said thoughtfully, “I have a feeling it isn’t the
dog that’s the problem. I mean,
this is a base-wide phenomenon and what do we have that has the run of the base
and yet we take next to no notice of them?”
Destiny wrinkled her brow at him in puzzlement as he drew his gun and blasted
the now motionless robo-vac to smithereens.
The door thudded open and remained so.
The lights flickered and then switched off.
The launch tubes door slid closed.
“Control Room to Amber Room, your systems’
alerts have cleared. Please
identify what’s happened.” Captain Scarlet operated his radio cap. “Scarlet to Control; the problem is the
robo-vacs. Somehow they’re affecting the electronics.”
“S.I.G., Captain,” Colonel White responded.
“I’ll order them all to be rounded up and de-activated.”
With her head held high, Rhapsody swept past the three of them, with Tarquin in
her arms.
“I don’t think we’re very popular right now, Destiny,” Scarlet said, as they
watched the door slide closed behind the young Englishwoman.
“Hey, it was a genuine mistake, and an easy one to make,” Magenta said, poking
the remains of the shattered robo-vac with his boot. “We’ll have to investigate all the options for what caused
this interference first, of course, but after that I don’t see why Ochre and I
can’t repair her toy.”
“I’ll pay any costs you incur,” Scarlet offered, with a grateful smile. “Then Rick will certainly do the best job ever…” Magenta chuckled. “Who knows, you might even end up with a gold-plated dog.”
Captain Scarlet rolled his eyes as Destiny giggled.
In fairness to Captain Scarlet, the official report of the incident showed that
he had acted with the best of motives in destroying Tarquin. The situation with Cloudbase’s
electronics had been getting serious as all over the base circuits were starting
to short out. However,
the problems had dissipated once the robo-vacs had been rounded up and
decommissioned. The Chief Technician reported that
there was nothing that wasn’t repairable and that his personnel were working
round the clock to get the base back to full operational readiness. A detailed investigation by Captain
Magenta and Lieutenant Green into the incident showed that the frequency of the
integral computer-controlled signal that governed the actions of the individual
robot cleaners had been altered to a frequency that disrupted the main
electronic systems.
The vacuums had trundled innocently around Cloudbase as usual until that new
frequency signal had been triggered, whereupon they had disrupted all the other
systems, sending the base into electronic spasms of slamming doors and
malfunctioning equipment.
There was no evidence as to who, or what, had altered the frequency. Captain Magenta hypothesised that
it was the Mysterons or one of their agents, but they had reckoned without
Rhapsody’s Christmas present.
Tarquin’s radio frequency had blocked the Amber Room robo-vac’s and given
Magenta the clue he needed to counter the threat.
Freed from this interference the base’s main links had quickly resumed their
normal activities.
“So, Tarquin was a hero?” Rhapsody asked pointedly, at the conference held to
debrief everyone about the crushing of this latest threat.
Magenta smiled. “Yes, you could say
he was on the side of the Angels, at least.”
Colonel White saw Rhapsody’s lips purse with annoyance as she glanced at the
unduly penitent-looking Captain Scarlet.
The colonel knew more about their relationship than they liked to imagine and he
also knew that he couldn’t afford to have either of them functioning at less
than maximum efficiency. This
Mysteron threat was over with, but he expected they’d be up against another,
probably even more dangerous, one in less than no time.
He cleared his throat.
“Rhapsody Angel, may I, on behalf of Spectrum, apologise for the unnecessary
destruction of your property? I am
sure you realise that it was done in the heat of the moment, when we were trying
to protect the base from irreparable damage to its functional capabilities. However, in the light of the
mistake, I am happy to assign the task of repairing the… animal, to Captain
Ochre and Captain Magenta, with costs being born by Spectrum, naturally.”
Rhapsody blushed and then smiled at her commanding officer. “Thank you, sir.
I do understand why Tarquin was considered to be a risk and I thank you for your
offer of official resources to affect a repair.”
“Excellent. Please see the Chief Technician
for any material you might need, gentlemen; and make a start on the job as soon
as possible.”
Ochre and Magenta nodded in acknowledgement, while Captain Scarlet gave the
young Englishwoman a friendly smile and was delighted to receive one from her in
response.
White sighed and rustled his papers.
“Now, maybe we can get on to the final item on the agenda; the need for a new
contract and service level agreement for base-wide cleaning services.”
Yap, yap, yap. Yap, yap, yap.
“Shut up, mutt.” Yap, yap, yap.
There was a beep and the door to the workroom started to open. As Rhapsody Angel walked in, Captain
Ochre laid down his screwdriver and covered the dog with a rag. He looked at Rhapsody as she
hovered beside his work bench.
“How’s it going, Rick? I brought you some coffee,” she said, placing the thermal
mug on the edge of the workbench.
“I’m getting there,” he replied non-committally.
“Scarlet’s a dead shot and he was aiming to kill.”
“I do know what he did to Tarquin; I was there.”
She reached out and lifted the edge of the cloth. Yap, yap, yap.
“Oh, poor Tarquin; he’s all in
pieces.”
“The better to let me put them together again,” he said as positively as he
could. Yap, yap, yap.
“Oh, my poor Quin, don’t worry.
Uncle Rick will fix you, won’t you, Rick?”
Ochre gave her a pitying glance and replied, “Uncle
Rick will do his damnedest.” Yap, yap, yap.
“See? He knows you will!” Rhapsody smiled at the sceptical
mid-westerner. “While you’re at it,
Rick, can you fix it so he stops barking every time anything moves?” she
pleaded.
“I thought I was supposed to repair him, not remodel him? Okay,
okay: I can try, Di, but I can’t promise
anything. Mind you, I’ve already
had to peel back the coating to get to the electronics, so maybe Pat can do
something with the sensors or the sound box before I put it all back…”
“Don’t hurt him, Rick.”
He looked at her with a frown.
“Dianne, it is a toy,” he said. “It
doesn’t feel anything.”
“Oh, I know, but he’s real to me, Rick.
It’s like I have the real Tarquin back… I don’t like seeing him broken.” She
reached out and removed the rag. Yap, yap, yap, the
little dog said feebly, almost as if it was playing for sympathy.
Rhapsody sighed and stroked his head.
“Maybe I should just disable the voice box altogether?” Ochre suggested, rolling
his eyes. Yap, yap, yap.
“Oh, no; part of his charm is the way he barks when he sees me. It’s like he’s pleased I’m here.”
“It’s not very charming when he does it 24/7,” Ochre remarked ruefully. “And he does it to everyone. Even me, you know? Even though I’m being mean and cruel
while I fix him.”
She chuckled and looked happier than she had done since she entered the room. “I know you’ll do your best, Rick.” She bent down and kissed his cheek. “Tarquin couldn’t be in better
hands.”
“Yeah, Pat and I will do our best.”
“Thanks, Rick.”
“For you, Di: anything.”
“Twelfth Night: a night for lovers,” Scarlet said, as he slipped his arm around
Rhapsody’s shoulder. They’d had a
private supper together in her quarters and ambled out to stretch their legs on
the Promenade Deck before she had to go back on duty.
Now they were sitting on the bench overlooking the runway, where Symphony was on
duty in Angel One. Beside her, with
a bright-red, leather lead – a gift from the apologetic Captain Scarlet -
attached to his jaunty tartan collar, was the good as new Tarquin.
Captain Magenta had worked wonders on the motion sensors, refining them to react
differently to assorted sizes and shapes and adding a variety of vocal sounds to
Tarquin’s repertory, so that when Captain Blue had walked in front of the toy,
Tarquin had given a passable growl, which had made the tall American jump with
surprise and caused unbridled mirth amongst his friends.
Rhapsody snuggled into Scarlet’s embrace and said, “Twelfth Night isn’t
associated with lovers – not to my knowledge, anyway.”
“A-hah, that’s where you’re wrong,” he replied and cleared his throat to sing
softly:
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
She laughed.
“That’s cheating and, besides, I’m much older than ‘sweet and twenty’.” “Don’t be so pedantic. Have you never heard of poetic license? Give us a kiss, honey.” She turned in his embrace and raised her face towards
him. Scarlet’s dark head came closer to her beautiful face
and he closed his eyes ready to kiss her.
Just as his lips brushed hers he heard:
Grrrrrrrrrrrr…Yap, yap, yap…
Author’s
notes: I do not own any of the characters in this story – except for
the toy dog. ‘Captain Scarlet and
the Mysterons’ ™ belongs to Carlton International Media – I think. I know it doesn’t belong to me and I
hope that no one objects to my borrowing the series to play with. The characters and the ‘Scarlet Universe’ were devised by
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in the 1960s and brought to life by their skilled team
of programme-makers. Since then,
the series has entertained people for over 40 years – and will do for another
40, I expect! I found the drawing of ‘Tarquin’ on the Internet. The original is the one with the candy cane in its mouth, and that image says © Kim Niles 2007. It is such a cute drawing that I took the chance of hoping it would be okay to use it. My thanks go to Hazel Köhler for her impeccable beta-reading
against all the odds, and to Chris Bishop for the never-ending delight of her
website. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Marion Woods November 2009.
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