Noisy Running, Chapter Two

It took more than a bumpy ride to deter Dylan’s faction. No sooner were dented doors still than they were thrown or kicked open, and the Alliance’s finest were beating feet towards the oblong of architecture shadowing these alleys. He and she both had calculated fuel reserves without consultation or even much recognition they were doing it, and their light-fingered friend had had every reason to aim where he’d done. He wasn’t going to leave Target Harbour without completing that operation first. They had time. Not much, but they had it.

The port’s courtyard passed in a blur. As such facilities went it was a veritable yoghurt-stand, boasting only one bay. In other words, no need to ask for directions. Hitting the stairs brought Dylan and Phoenix to where they had to be.

There sat their pride and joy, tarnished from mistreatment but warming up obediently, ever-faithful even in its ignorance it had fallen into the wrong hands. This more than anything else so far raised the rightful owners’ wrath. Do what you liked to them, but if you were planning to pervert and disrespect their inventions, watch out.

The ramp was down, spent fuel-hoses littered the deck, and marching onboard was one whose identity need be guessed at no more.

Not that either hero, and Phoenix perhaps in particular, could call to mind a reunion they’d have looked for less.

Head like a water-butt, build like a nineteenth-century brick aquifer.

No mistaking those rippling muscles.

Moltron.

There wasn’t a great deal of catching-up on what that one had been doing since Drenthis. Rather, within a heartbeat fluidic cannonballs were splashing explosively about the hangar, to dislodge oil-drums and topple iron gantries like oaks. Dylan and Phoenix pitched at once into the water-fight, his barrage of metallic fragments working in tandem with her gauntlet-rays, but their old foe had been halfway up the gangplank to begin with. In living proof that even the galaxy’s biggest lunkhead knew better than to tangle with one of The Four Heroes unless he had to, Moltron backed his bulk steadily inside and battened down as soon as he could. Amid a gale of swirling backwash the interceptor began to rise.

Phoenix held fire and commenced running that way, head lowered, her lithe form in its scarlet encasement a pounding solid recapitulation of Moltron’s liquidity. Dylan likewise checked his debris-storm, and held.

Magenta lights pulsated.

Whereat Dylan’s creation held too.

It wasn’t that the sleek silver craft didn’t buck and bend, nor strive for the letterbox-like open wall of the loading-bay which let out onto Target Harbour skies. As if protesting it should by now be gliding smoothly on an unobstructed flight-path all ready for its rockets, the well-named Star-Fighter was fighting for every inch. Yet an invisible tether stronger than any scrapyard chain bound fuselage and thruster alike to the clenched fist of he who stood firm, in what would momentarily be the afterburners’ fiery path. For Moltron was gunning the engine hard, and Phoenix still had distance to close, and the double black hollows gaping back at Dylan by now encircled more than specks of flame. Our hero set his jaw.

Too many risky plays just lately. It was getting to be a habit.

Dylan could feel the heat of the jets falling on his face. Come on, hon.

Phoenix’s final strides were bounds, preparatory to a jump at whose apex she triggered her neon wings and soared. Gripping the exterior handle of the interceptor’s nearest emergency-hatchway, Phoenix tucked into a gymnastic swing whose momentum unhooked the latch. From a smooth red circle she straightened to a streak and slipped neatly in, sealing the airlock behind her.

Dual fireballs bubbling at Dylan were just about to burst. He let go and leapt, as an inferno ripped across the decking.

Our hero couldn’t but think of spring-loaded toys you launched with the push of a button. True, no other of Dylan’s had struck up such a din as that of his largest and most expensive to date, its prow tilted to so steep an angle that its tailfins sparked screaming down the runway. Nevertheless, both in pace and elegance of motion the Star Fighter Mark II’s take-off was of a piece with any achieved by its smaller plastic siblings. If, Dylan added to himself, they’d all failed the safety standards test.

It blammed into hyperspace, demolishing the top corners of a dozen apartment blocks, and then there was only the drab opacity of a Target Harbour morning.

The ship was adrift and on-coordinates as Moltron rose from the pilot’s chair. Might have looked the deadest stretch of deep space in the sector, but Moltron knew otherwise, and he’d left himself time to get safely away. He hulked for the elevator and shot it smoothly down to the cargo-hold, where the escape-pods were.

Nice piece of Grindo mech, this. Seemed a bit of a waste. Moltron could have made a little extra on the side, shifting it to the right people.

Still, you didn’t want to get a name for that sort of thing. Instructions were instructions, and his had been emphatic on leaving not a trace. A galactic mercenary couldn’t afford to play too fast and loose in peacetime. Like any self-respecting person of business, Moltron had to consider where his next job was coming from.

He stomped straight past the forcefield-cage and the funny-looking beastie inside. It was nothing to do with Moltron what those were all about. His next stop was the Rings of Xandreth, to put a little of his paycheck towards replenishing a lot of his liquid mass. So bye-bye, beastie. Nothing personal. Hope what you’ve got coming puts a smile on that nasty face.

And so it went. Wasn’t such a bad life really, philosophized Moltron. Not as long as you –

He started suddenly and turned.

A crimson-clad fury was charging down upon him.

Phoenix whipped though the full one-eighty and jumped, folding herself in the middle so she bashed Moltron with the part she hoped he was expecting least. She had no illusions about besting him in straight sets. Last time it had taken four Neetkins sisters to bring this brute down. One alone might hope to prevail only through piling it on, which here for Phoenix meant digging her heel into that barrel of a breast even as Moltron blundered back, while throwing her other leg high to hook what neck there was with her knee.

Swinging the rest of herself up after it, Phoenix gripped with both thighs and squeezed. She was in the mood to pop Moltron’s head between them like a bubble.

Even with momentum it was like trying to topple a water-tower. What were Moltron’s foundations made of? Worse still, Phoenix had forgotten the thing he could do with his hand. That giant globule enveloped her, plucking her loose, and a second later she was halfway across the cargo-hold. Righting herself mid-flight she landed on her feet.

Moltron’s torso exploded and most of it was headed her way. Phoenix, triggering her light-shield, raised her arm.

The barrage bowled that limb clear over her head and threw the rest of her after it. Subsequent to her earlier conversation with Dylan, Phoenix couldn’t help feeling a little like a schoolgirl. One who’d decided to pit her netball skills against the all-nations rugby team.

She hit the deck, hard this time, but was up again next breath and taking aim with her other gauntlet. This time the whole of Moltron blew apart, so the rays sang through emptiness encircled by the thrashing ambit he’d become. Then this whirlpool made landfall and a riptide raged over the floor, punishing Phoenix with lashing breakers at every angle she faced.

He’d been leaving. It wasn’t that Phoenix hadn’t seen that. He’d been on his way to the escape-pods.

A great frothing frond impacted on her bodice, all but doubling her up.

She could have let him leave.

The backs of her legs took such a furl that she gasped aloud.

Yes, she cared about the creature in the cage. Yes, she’d been the same as it once. But Moltron hadn’t been mistreating it. He’d been on his way to the escape-pods.

There was no picking him off with photon as long as he stayed in this state. Phoenix had traded in her gym skirt for King Canute’s sodden gown, and the inevitable Moltron ultimately cast her asunder once more. Nevertheless, that which had impelled Phoenix to this most unscientific frontal assault also commanded she make like her namesake, though every tendon by now cried out. Between Phoenix and 4-H-N were family resemblances of which neither knew, and what the latter secretly called her Drenthis feeling was one.

Moltron had been there, working for Scientooth, the day Phoenix made a mistake for which she’d been judged ever after.

Yet nobody judged Moltron.

She’d boil him to a scummy mist though she perished in the attempt.

Moltron resumed his humanoid shape, desperate. There wasn’t time for this. The little fleshy had no idea what was about to become of her ship, and although she didn’t stand a chance in single combat, she wouldn’t stay down. The rate they were going, she’d delay the pair of them to their doom.

Couldn’t have that.

So instead of sticking with the inundation tactics, Moltron reached for the control-board behind him and switched off the forcefield.

TO BE CONTINUED