Search for a Sister, Chapter Three

Dylan and Phoenix landed the ship on an asteroid deep in the belt, and with 4-H-N struck out on foot along the rough road that wound its way to Scientooth’s old arena and lair. Hillsides of scrap loomed on either side, beneath nebula-stain and the cold glinting stars. 4-H-N was in a fresh uniform, and Phoenix perhaps was remembering the pitched battle last time they both traversed this route, for she in turn had not neglected to don her backpack.

Their destination lay ahead. Twin rocket-ship nosecones that formed an entrance-arch to the grotesque gladiatorial pit were still there, corroding away through the passage of time. Likewise the rest of Scientooth’s dilapidated laboratory-complex more or less stood, a campus of bulkheads and salvaged generators rambling off into junkyard shadows. Directly in our heroes’ path however, parked between them and all this, was something new.

New in Nebula Seven, of course, meant made of old parts. Nevertheless, the tooled corners of this cottage-sized obstruction were sharp, its bolts were tight without having rusted in place, and care had clearly been taken to root out relatively fresh armour-plating. With caution the trio advanced, and on drawing close enough to read what was painted above the gate of this miniature fortress, Phoenix and Dylan halted.

Quietly they joined hands again. It was Phoenix’s Prime’s self-taught scientist’s scrawl, legible and indeed unmistakable to those who loved her.

THE KRAL-IT-GOR MEMORIAL SECURITY LODGE

Phoenix Prime had always been a little eccentric, and apparently was growing more so. Yet what a thing was loneliness, that through it a hunk of steel and tin out in the bleakest corner of the galaxy might share the name of a long-lost friend. Phoenix was blinking back tears.

“Why me?” she begged of the universe in a whisper. “Why ze circumstances zat led me, among millions, to family and friends and adventure and love, and she to zis?”

Dylan squeezed her hand.

“Joe may have talked a lot though the years about figuring out fate and destiny, hon,” said he. “But do you really think he’s any closer to that, even now? Look at the blame he’s been sharing out lately, because of people doing things he decided long ago weren’t what The Four Heroes should be about. Like me making a recovery, and you getting me there. And all the while, he can’t see it comes down to blaming himself over what happened between him and Gala. Poor guy,” added Dylan, thinking sadly of his own long-lost friend.

“The difference,” he then continued to Phoenix, “is that what you’re beating yourself up about is something you had no control over. Don’t forget protecting the innocent, babe. Don’t forget saving the day. That’s what The Four Heroes stood for, not blame. Joe may have forgotten it, but promise me you never will.”

“Um,” piped up 4-H-N from over Phoenix’s shoulder.

The girl had been glancing about, and fidgeting even more than usual, ever since they started. Phoenix rolled her eyes and turned.

“We are all on edge, ma soeur,” she began. “But – ”

Then there was a deafening crash, as the Kral-it-Gor Memorial Security Lodge unfolded its east and west wings and elbowed these into the surrounding ravine like enormous arms.

Amid flying metallic detritus Dylan and the sisters stumbled back, while foundations became a matching pair of knees and proceeded to heave the body of the building skyward. What had resembled a bell-tower on the roof was rotating from side to side, surveying the battleground, a helmeted head. As if in homage to the original Kral-it-Gor this perambulatory posthouse selected from the nearest heap a sizeable piece of star-freighter prow, to swing like a broadsword in the literal vice of its grip.

Phoenix unfurled her fluorescent feathers as a single dash altered the landscape.

4-H-N, who since her ablutions had been tensed like a spring at the opposite end of its life-cycle to those that were scattered about, needed nothing more. She was well aware such a bruiser would have had difficulty fitting in a ventilation shaft, and most likely no especial weakness for shower-scenes. Nevertheless, in some obscure way the imposition of its galvanized thighs was key to galvanizing hers in turn. These quivered into motion and threw 4-H-N forth.

Remnants of iron valley boomed to rest amid dust-clouds as the Security Lodge stomped, mashing away at the mountains on either side. Phoenix was airborne and her aim as deadly as ever, but it was doubtful photon rays from her gauntlet would make much difference to bulwarks like those.

A plunge from the glaive brought 4-H-N to her senses at halfway height on the left-hand incline. She’d made good progress scrambling there, but when every last foothold of junk was jerked from underneath her soles, her resultant state of free-fall took her mind off plans to wrestle the aggressor single-handed to the ground.

Which was no bad thing, reflected 4-H-N as she tumbled headfirst.

On the opposite side of the path the slope dropped steeply and to a far greater distance down. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t thought at all. That was the problem.

It had been the Drenthis feeling.

4-H-N flipped herself mid-plummet so now at least she was pointing in the right direction. There were advantages to having learned to fly a week or so after taking your first steps, and one was that you’d always be as much in your element surrounded by nothingness as walking along the road. Now 4-H-N scanned the downpour of old mechanical components which accompanied her on her wild slide, searching for one that would – ah, there it was. As if she was back on the flight-simulator, she steered herself at the piece of engine-cowling which in size and shape was akin to a large wash-basin broken in half.

Under its rim 4-H-N tucked her toes.

Not that anything would ever replace Micro-Mallet. Even doing this gave her a pang.

Better an aching heart though, than an aching everything when she splatted. Surfing to where the avalanche was at its most uproarious, 4-H-N crested its stream and proceeded rattling and rumbling to ride it out.

Dylan, dodging the conduits and capacitors which still thudded from on high, strove to stay ahead of the giant and scale one of the last remaining uplands.

He was going to need a clear shot.

From above Phoenix continued to rain photon on the brute, ineffectually, her teeth set, seeing it was all she could do to protect her love on his desperate course.

Far below them both, 4-H-N had sailed the Niagara of nuts and bolts and now heeled her board to a scraping halt atop ball-bearing whitewater, tunic-skirts whipping once from the turn.

“Dylan, what are you doing?” she wailed.

That one hauled himself at last to nebula skies and rose upright. The hunkering sentinel came about, hefting its huge sword.

Dylan as if in counterstrike put one outstretched palm before him.

A magenta light rippled, and a faceless visage locked with a dark-eyed stare.

That was all.

Throwing down its weapon so that every rusty rivet in the vicinity trembled, the Kral-it-Gor Memorial Security Lodge obediently reverted to building-mode.

For all that 4-H-N railed at Dylan for his gamble, and Phoenix even more so, he fended off their objections with indefatigable good humour and reminders that his calculated rashness had yielded the answer to the question that brought them there. Because the girls were quite right. It would have been no trouble at all for Phoenix Prime to set the off-switch in a little box of Four Heroes-proof stone. That she hadn’t done so was good news. It indicated friends and family still meant just that to Phoenix Prime. Why else would she have left a guardian tailor-made to keep away every uninvited guest in the cosmos but them?

Even Phoenix, despite her wrath, conceded the logic of this.

And among the many pluses, Dylan went on, was that if Phoenix Prime had no objection to their company taking a look at her work, it presumably meant she wasn’t breeding mutant Mini-Flashes to send against them. The one remaining mystery in fact was what she had been getting up to lately, if not that. So her sisters and Dylan, having received as good as an invitation to go and find out, decided they wouldn’t be discourteous.

To the old laboratory-complex they trooped, passing first through the Security Lodge, which this time sat there quiet and let them.

Gazing on his second array of antiquated technology that same quarter-phase, Dylan could but conclude that in certain respects his love was indeed a carbon-copy of Phoenix Prime. Both had a remarkable capacity for making do. No doubt this central lab and its many adjoining sub-sections had at one time teemed with experiment, but more than that was beyond even our hero to say. Phoenix Prime had evidently drafted such equipment as had lain to hand, and rigged it in ways known only to her. Phoenix however was able at least to confirm what it had not been used for.

“Nothing of ze Rock-Men or ze Energy-Warp,” she declared.

It did Dylan good to hear her own as much. “Still a jigsaw, though,” said he. “And unfortunately we need Phoenix Prime to tell us what the picture is.”

“Maybe not,” came 4-H-N’s reply.

Her clean knickers were preceding her into the room, due to the manner in which she walked, backwards and stooping double to tow a heavy something from out of one of the secondary compartments. It looked like a lifesize metal mannequin of a girl 4-H-N’s age. At length the living one laid her strange contemporary down, resting her head on the dust-dune their dragging passage had raised. She was a sight both sweet and sad, smuts of tarnish on her sleepy cheeks, aluminium petticoats prettily disarrayed. The teased-out tips of her foil hairstyle were leaf-spring coils designed to flip.

There was no need for anyone to say anything. Besides Kral-it-Gor, Phoenix Prime had made a go of being friends with just one other.

4-H-N’s discovery made perfect sense, insofar as the Security Lodge did too.

It was a Robo-Petunia.

“Power-cells all but dead,” reported Dylan, after holding out a hand over her. “If they go, so do her memory-banks. Better see if we can patch her up, before – ”

A noise was coming from outside. They all heard it at the same time.

Rocket-thrusters.

Their rocket-thrusters.

The three of them whirled about and were off at once, bursting from the laboratory and through the gatehouse again and back along the track, but the din had swelled as much as it was going to and all knew it was hopeless. Dylan’s high-speed interceptors lived up to their name, the Mark II even more than the first. If they had a hijacker on their hands, that party would be well on his way by now.

4-H-N had known. She’d been sure of it ever since the shower. Why, oh why, had she been so stupid as to breathe nothing of her fears to Phoenix or Dylan?

For the forcefield-cage was finest Grindotron, escape-proof, and moreover its occupant could scarcely be accused of boasting the intelligence to pilot a ship.

Which meant there’d been someone else onboard all along.

A stowaway.

Highly skilled at negotiating the ventilation-ducts. Especially when there was something he wanted to see.

4-H-N had known. But she’d said nothing, and now it was too late.

Our heroes hit the landing-site to glimpse twin dots of fire dwindling unto green-washed blackness. There went their precious prisoner and their one means of making it home.

“We have got to start taking better care of those,” said Dylan.

TO BE CONTINUED