The Girls From Space, Chapter Ten

Many tales were told of the aftermath to that great battle on Limb Four. Most began with Mini-Flash Meek, and how before the eyes of those still standing she had lifted out of Harbin’s sphere and vanished, as her Special Program sisters from some faraway place restored her freedom like Earth-girls tossing an unwanted goldfish back into the stream. Where exactly Mini-Flash Meek ended up was more than anyone knew, but as she had fled The Flash Club and chosen not to join either 4-H-N or Joe, this solution was presumably the one she was happiest with.

Then it was said that Grindotron warships had proceeded to fill the sky, bursting into being like fireworks as they had done at the Arch of Titus. With nothing to show for his pains but an unoccupied forcefield-ball, and no power left with which to face the robot armies even now arriving, The Foretold One fled empty-handed. Joe’s Special Program trio were likewise safe.

Storm-Sky, who by this point had regained consciousness, later opined to Miss Love that it was perhaps for the best that the three members of The Four Heroes and Phoenix had been exhausted themselves, and pressed for time. So much still lay unresolved between them that it must surely have intruded on any lengthy reunion. As it was however, with Mona and two adult Flashes in need of medical attention, and neither Dylan nor Phoenix averse to a check-up themselves, Alliance priorities were clear enough as the Grindo evacuation-ships began to touch down. Joe and Neetra had added in agreement that their girls had had a trying day, and as soon have seen them home to bed before it was very much later.

So it had come to pass that instead of protracted Prophecy debates and well-worn recriminations, sister had merely hugged sister at last. Neetra and Phoenix, the first twins. And as Joe and Dylan stood by, was old familiar mutual respect beginning to reassert itself over the pain of a friendship which by comparison was only lately sundered? Did Phoenix too look on Joe with the first stirrings of forgiveness, now that they had stood together again and some of what she had blamed him for was soothed? It was, Storm-Sky said once more, perhaps for the best that all had happened so. And he looked most thoughtful as he said it.

Miss Love had insisted on taking charge of Storm-Sky the moment he returned to Flash Club Headquarters, and hadn’t left his side from his visit to the medical bay to seeing him safely into his quarters. He wasn’t in such bad shape however, and this he demonstrated by dimming the lights.

“The younger generation, Miss Love,” Storm-Sky concluded fondly to the well-named one in his embrace. “What are we to do with them? Doubtless they imagine they invented even this.”

4-H-N and Mini-Flash Bobbypins meanwhile, despite the merrymaking that had resumed all around them as if there had been no interruption, were snoozing on one of the rec-room couches fast in each other’s arms. Bobbypins had never heard of John Masefield, but she couldn’t have agreed more with 4-H-N that there was nothing like a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick was over. One of the pair perchance revisited the Floating City that night. It had certainly been an occasion for considering alternative prospects to those afforded by the hard unbending road. Even Auntie Green, as she contentedly tended to Mona who was recuperating at the Flash Club stables with her assembled progeny solemn and still by her side, thought a little more charitably of certain Earthling troublemakers than she had been wont to do, and possibly missed Lightning just a little less.

A spirit of detente reigned over the galaxy. In many a breast from which peace and hope had been absent too long, gladly these were ushered in and welcomed home again. Of the disparate players to have acted on Limb Four, many by now were snugly abed, while others lay at rest beneath luminous heavens and dwelled with thanks on all that had been. It was a tranquil time, tailor-made for the quietly contemplative, though there were one or two who swore that in the midst of their well-earned repose they somehow seemed almost to detect the distant sound of giggles and the ooh-wah, ooh-wahs of jaunty pop music, twinkling faintly to them from far-off forgotten stars.

If they did, then it was only the Mini-Flashes of 4-H-N’s Special Program Task Force, having the last laugh.

THE END