Phoenix Prime, Chapter Two

“The Next Four!” burst out 4-H-N, poising to spring on first sight of D’Carthage while Kral-it-Gor’s stone broadsword came up. “Quick, everyone, we’ve got to – ”

James put a hand on her small shoulder and his massive rocky arm.

“We all ken nobody gets ontae this side o’ the Solidity’s robots oot o’ choice,” he reminded them both. “We’re no’ under attack. Ye three are trapped in here juist the same as us, right?”

“Along with Kumiko,” Carrie agreed, somewhat awkwardly. “Um, I guess you’ve already noticed she’s here too?”

James nodded with resignation. “And I suppose we cannae fault the lass fuir wanting revenge on Phoenix Prime, even if her timing could be better,” he declared. “More tae the point, we cannae dae anything aboot that situation noo, except hope they all come oot o’ it in one piece. Meanwhile, their battle’s only going tae keep the Solidity distracted a few minutes at most. We need tae use that time pretty wisely, deciding what comes next fuir all o’ us.”

He looked again to Carrie.

“Ye and Kumiko are old friends o’ The Four Heroes,” said he. “Flashtease, I cannae claim tae know ye, but Phoenix and Dylan both spoke in yuir favour, and I havenae forgotten the time ye saved 4-H-N here frae a nasty fall on the castle grounds. So under any other circumstances I’d be the first tae suggest a guid old fashioned team-up as oor obvious way ahead…were it no’ fuir one problem.”

James settled his grim glare on D’Carthage.

“And that problem is ye, laddie,” he concluded heavily. “Ye may be calling yuirselves the Collective these days, but 4-H-N’s right – ye’re still Next Four as far as we’re concerned. It wasnae that lang ago she and I had tae come tae the rescue o’ Dylan and Phoenix when ye and yuir pal Steam were daeing yuir best tae run them off the road. But even more o’ an issue right noo is that oor whole mission tae save the warrld involves rectifying something that yuir leader seems tae hae wanted tae stay plain old unrectified. I’m casting aboot fuir one reason tae trust ye, juist one…but it isnae something I can find.”

“Then I’ll give you a reason,” then spoke up the little voice of Flashtease, who had been so reticent the others had almost forgotten he was there. “D’Carthage saved my life.”

Suddenly all eyes were on the freckled boy in the lightning-bolt tunic.

“It’s true,” Flashtease continued. “I don’t even know myself why he did it, but I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for D’Carthage. Back at the castle…”

He hesitated. It was occurring to Flashtease that this was the first time he had ever spoken to anybody about the events in question.

“Gala wanted to know where Dimension Borg was,” he went on quietly. “By then I was the only one there who could tell them. And I did. But that didn’t stop them from…”

These faltering words alone were enough for James and 4-H-N, who knew of the Next Four’s ways. A surge of righteous angry sympathy was rising in each one’s breast, and as was the compulsion to turn it directly on the Next Four’s present representative. But before they could do so, Flashtease’s blue eyes looked up from his hemline to fix both listeners with a gaze that was strong and true.

“D’Carthage gave me something in secret that I could use on Gala when…when we were at the end,” Flashtease told them, his voice almost steady. “I’ve no idea what it was, but it worked. It stopped her. He’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

By now, every wondering stare including Carrie’s was on the Next Four member.

“You’d better explain yourself, D’Carthage,” 4-H-N said softly.

That one had stood with typical courteousness all the while he was under discussion. Now he commenced:

“As to your quest, fair maid, I can but repeat what has been stated before – that it was through necessity not design that we of the Next Four caused for your caves to remain impassable. To the rest…”

A change was coming over D’Carthage, and his listeners were somewhat surprised to note that when the sparkling smiles and grandiose shows of bravado finally disappeared, it left him more handsome rather than less.

“Mayhap you know that in the Next Four’s first battle on present-day Earth, it was I who cost Gala her triumph,” D’Carthage went on. “Bested by Sword-Slicer in my arrogance, well might I have paid dear…were it not for the intervention of The Four Heroes. More than this mere trunk was freed from a slave’s chains that fateful night, you may be sure. My consciousness was liberated likewise, for only then did I learn of The Four Heroes’ cause and all that it truly imparts. Thus when another lay at Gala’s mercy as had I, what choice remained for me, one who had known your friends’ compassion and seen what it was?”

He halted a moment, and then concluded to James:

“Your mission, erudite one, to return to this world that same cause…depend upon it I understand what it is you strive for.”

A long hush followed. It ended when James looked about him.

“We’re gonnae hae company soon enough, so it’s time we were awa’,” he announced, and the glance he briefly let fall on D’Carthage confirmed that henceforth he too was at least conditionally included in that. “We cannae catch up wi’ the girruls, but there’s one o’ us wha can get to whaur they’re going if they survive the Solidity and each other. Carrie, lass, that’s ye. When team Phoenix get tae the foot o’ the Nottingham Drill-hole, they’re gonnae need tae know aboot this change o’ plans.”

“Fastest pair of polka-dot knickers in the business,” Carrie assured him, and sped off leaving a few stray feathers bobbing in her wake.

The remaining ground-based fivesome, having first checked carefully that the coast was clear, made their cautious way out of the car-park and into the war-torn ruins of what had once been a busy city street, keeping Dylan in his trundling life-support apparatus ever safely shielded between them. Sheltering beneath the crags of wrecked bars and shops they proceeded, watchful for Solidity patrols, Kral-it-Gor ready with his enormous sword and secretly thankful to be back in a situation he could comprehend at last.

Flashtease meanwhile fell into step beside D’Carthage. The boy was feeling quite different after just a few words spoken aloud on the subject of his ordeal at Nottingham Castle, and he was pleased to note that none of the change was for the worse. Smiling up at D’Carthage, Flashtease said: “I had been wondering. So you helped me because of what The Four Heroes once did for you, huh?”

“There was that,” D’Carthage owned freely. “And also I have a son of around your age,” he then added, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather.

Solidity supply-ships passing between the fungus-fleet and the ground troops were an everyday occurrence that went unremarked at the best of times, and if there was something a little too innocuous about the beaten-down spacedust-smeared haulage scow that skulked along the periphery of the Future Fighter ring before silently sinking out of sight amidst derelict war-torn warehouses close to the Nottingham Drill-hole, then the unexpected appearance of three fighting-mad females prevented the lookouts from noticing. Thus did Planet Earth remain oblivious to the visitation of Space-Screamer, perhaps above all because the self-proclaimed monarch of his home galaxy was the very last personage one would expect to travel in such a proletarian way.

Thin and superb, clad in magnificent fur-trimmed jumpsuit of blood-red and black, Space-Screamer strode down the disembarkation ramp attended on by his four-strong robotic entourage Steelstreak, Cyclotor, Audio-Wave and Drilldome. From the scow’s cavernous belly meanwhile a machine the size of a small Terran house was steadily lowering. It was a galactic trans-mat unit, capable of beaming a chunk of this world all the way to the other side of the universe. From it stretched two enormous hoses, each ending in a mighty clamp, which Drilldome and Audio-Wave were hefting.

Space-Screamer looked over the shady environs with malevolent anticipation. “Once the thing is secure inside my dominions, Dimension Borg’s meddling can be undone at our leisure,” he proclaimed. “For now, there is but one priority – to tear out the subterranean heart of this miserable city, before those fools overhead destroy it along with the world. Then, when I have wrested from my prize its every darkest secret and bent its incalculable potential to my will, the Solidity will learn just how fast it outlived its usefulness. And I alone shall rule our galaxy once more.”

He had told his elite guards all of this on several prior occasions, but they were programmed to listen with rapt attention every time he broke into a monologue. Space-Screamer flipped a switch, and the trans-mat unit including its hoses shimmered and melted to invisibility as a cloaking mechanism came online. Thus would the apparatus remain undetectable to all but those who happened to bump into it.

“Neither the Solidity nor the humans will know we were ever here until it’s too late,” gloated Space-Screamer. “For by the time they do, The Four Heroes’ cause and the source of their powers will be mine!”

END OF CHAPTER TWO