Unto the Breach, Chapter One

A vast luminous sphere of temporo-psionic flux had blinked into existence above Nottingham City Centre. Deep in that enemy-overrun war-zone, three crusaders named Phoenix, Kumiko and Phoenix Prime looked from where they were holed-up to gaze at the spectacle in awe. The winged schoolgirl Carrie, darting over battle-ravaged rooftops halfway to her destination, halted at a hover and gawped likewise. Every Solidity soldier stationed at ground-level was occupied the same way, for as far as these extraterrestrials were concerned, the unthinkable had happened. This swirling swelling ball of supernal energies had eaten a hole in their encirclement of giant robotic Future Fighters. A defensive barrier that the ageless wisdom of the Purplecoats themselves had pronounced impregnable now stood breached.

Nor did the Solidity’s leadership underestimate the scale of this crisis. All at once it was ominously clear they had boxed themselves into a corner. Boasting just one supply-line from their fleet in orbit, they suddenly found themselves in the unenviable position of holding a shopping-precinct or two against the rest of the world. Militarily it was a foregone conclusion. Time was all the Earthlings needed to muscle their way through.

Time, however, was the one factor still on the Solidity’s side. They did not seek to annex that small patch of land indefinitely, but rather only as long as it took them to turn it into the keystone they would tear out and so bring the whole of the planet crumbling down. Solidity chief Empress Ungus, watching from above, was organically rooted to her fungal flagship and thus to the enormous living tendrils that cascaded from it to bury themselves in the Earth’s surface with this very goal in mind. Unable to shift herself out of her stance, the monstrous female was shrieking and hissing orders for every legion to keep the humans back from these vital vines. As yet the gap in the Future Fighters was small, though it widened with each individual colossus swallowed up by the ever-expanding anomaly. Helicopters and jets had started ducking underneath its radiant south pole to streak into Solidity airspace, while a backed-up column of tanks pummelled busily at the opening. Their machine-guns and shells were making early inroads, but the narrow means of access had negated much of their destructive potential thus far, whilst the enemy was on compulsion to make Planet Earth pay for every square inch of gain.

A short distance away in the free city, somewhere below the remains of Nottingham Castle, Carmilla Neetkins and Degris were clattering down a stairwell to the subterranean boathouse. “There may have been one tiny part of my masterplan I didn’t quite think through,” Carmilla admitted as she hastened, “so any ideas on what to do about the massive ball of power that’s going to consume all creation if we let it, do feel free to share.”

“We know those things aren’t indestructible,” Degris said reassuringly. “Seen them shut down before. We shut down the last one.”

“Neetra shut it down,” Carmilla corrected him. “And Neetra’s not here, Degris.”

“That’s the bit I was hoping you weren’t going to bring up,” he replied, as together they reached an exit and came briefly to rest. There waiting anxiously for them were the two high-school students Guy and Lisa.

“Degris and I are shipping out,” Carmilla informed them. “With the Henry Martin inside the City Centre we can take the fight to the Solidity at last, and hopefully pull our people out of there while we’re at it. The pair of you need to stay behind and keep watch over the prisoners – just as long as…”

Her final four words were of considerably greater weight than any of their predecessors. Carmilla knew she would take no pleasure in completing the sentence, so was gladdened when she saw she did not have to. The looks of earnestness and contrition both teenagers returned spoke far more eloquently than Lisa’s murmurous but heartfelt: “You can trust us this time.”

“Then make me proud,” Carmilla told the two of them, her large brown eyes softly aglow. “Remember the last thing Steam taught you. And don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”

Back in the City Centre, Carmilla’s father James was leading five distinctly mismatched individuals at a headlong rate down the palisade of a mall, one side of which had been razed away wholesale to reveal rooftops and sky beyond. Keeping pace with the scientist were a clone of one of his other daughters, a boy from the Solidity’s galaxy, a mighty warrior made of rock, a man who had previously been one of their foes, and speeding along on caterpillar-treads a mobile life-support unit in which Dylan Cook of The Four Heroes lay.

“Talk aboot the very diversion we needed,” James remarked above the noise of pounding feet and the rapid clacking of Dylan’s tracks. “Oor girruls airing their differences followed by that chrono-telepathic disturbance popping up hae between them drawn the Solidity away frae the cave-entrance like we couldnae hae hoped. Noo if we can juist make it tae the foot o’ the Nottingham drill-hole and unseal the source o’ The Four Heroes’ powers wi’oot any more trouble, I might even be willing tae believe oor luck’s changed!”

The entrance to which he referred was drawing up on their right-hand side. “Come on, Flashtease, keep up!” the clone girl 4-H-N called out over her shoulder to the boy. He however had glimpsed something in the open panorama to the left, and its import to him was such that even as his companions hurried through the battered gateway that would take them underground, Flashtease skidded to a halt in a flurry of his short grey tunic to stand for precious seconds merely staring at the war.

About a minute earlier, a hulking drop-ship had bellied low over Nottingham. In its disembarkation bay was Lightning, one-time leader of The Flash Club who now ranked alongside Empress Ungus in the Solidity’s supreme triumvirate. A blond macho-man of muscular physique, clad in flowing cloak and white eye-mask, Lightning was accompanied by eight black-robed bulb-headed Nemsinod Robig androids each operating a different communications post. The bay doors were thrown wide, such that in the middle of the deck was a wide panel of empty space through which wind was rushing.

“Divide those regiments between Grog and Narkam – dispatch Ariol and Macos, covering fire – have Corapang and his marines standing by,” Lighting rapped out upon the Nemsinod Robigs, each of which droned computerized subservience in turn. “If another Future Fighter falls, we’re going to need a pincer movement. That Back Garden bag of compost. Pursuing her own little agendas with the humans. See what that’s cost us. Don’t assign the Merehpolaean brigade to Nimps and Du-Pell, I want one of my Generals on hand. Former Flash Club. Only ones I trust.”

Lightning had marched to the hatchway in the floor. “Solidity chief is travelling,” he added, and stepped directly into the slipstream.

That was what Flashtease saw as he stood and stared – the distant shape of he who had been his inspiration, chest and chin flung out and cape streaming above him as he rode the lurid diagonal sunlight shafts that slanted through the fumes of carnage. Lightning’s gleaming white boots smacked pavement while his clenched fist swung down, caving in an Earth-tank’s iron prow beneath it. With gritted teeth and bulging biceps he hefted the ruined vehicle over his head and hurled it at two of its fellows, loosing a fireball that engulfed all three.

Flashtease looked on with beating heart. That The Flash Club had joined the Solidity was relatively recent news to him, as he had already been on this strange new planet when it happened, and the awful revelation had come hard upon a host of other agonies this off-world visit had wrought. One by one Flashtease’s every belief and every source of happiness had been cruelly tainted, until all that he carried within him was troubling and wrong. However, as he gazed at Lightning now, yet another change came over a boy who had believed the values once worth fighting for to be lost. With one hand he was clutching the front of his tunic, and Flashtease knew that as long as his fallen idol wore the same yellow insignia that was emblazoned there, but one path remained. He took a last glance at the backs of his Terran friends as they quickly vanished among the stalagmites, then shot away in the opposite direction.

James and his small band of adventurers did not see Flashtease go. Nor did they see the three pairs of softly glowing red eyes that watched them from the shadows. Mucidor, triple-headed mushroom-monster loyal to Empress Ungus, had made himself first among the Solidity to spill the blood of Earth’s defenders. Now he had followed his unholy instincts to the cave-entrance in search of opportunities to do the same again. Behind his brawny shoulders the black flock of a demon-horde silently stirred. Each of Mucidor’s mouths uttered a different gargling proclamation of hideous intent, at which the vile creature and his hatchetmen set off hungrily into the darkness.

A Solidity long-range interceptor brooded on its landing gear out in the Martian desert, behind a ridge of red sand that concealed it from sight of the old abandoned mineral- processing mill below. Several such interplanetary pursuit-ships had broken through Mars’s orbital defences and on gaining sub-stratospheric altitudes fanned out across the crimson dunes, hunting a lone trio loyal to Earth whose resistance to the Solidity attack had emanated from this neighbouring world. A short few minutes ago, that chase came to an end. The crew of the interceptor now parked above the mill had run their prey down.

Two men were atop the ridge, looking down on the target unseen. He who hunkered on his lean hams was Zeldich, a warrior clad in jumpsuit and round black helmet whose belt and bandolier gleamed with edged weapons of alien design. A prior defeat at the hands of the Soldity’s opponents weighed heavy upon him, and he craved a rematch. Beside Zeldich, holding himself in magnificent posture, was one on whom youth and purity sat enthroned. The virile sinewy body hinted at immense strength, but from the golden locks and clear blue eyes shone only innocence and wholesome passion. He was more or less clad in what resembled an undersized blue shirt and a pair of extremely short shorts.

“There, Zeldich,” intoned the Adonis. “There stands one of our ilk. You see before you a fellow warrior born.”

The other cast his eye again over the distant figure of Bendigo, guarding the mill’s entrance and as yet unaware of the Solidity presence. “I do not sense that about him, Hangonel,” Zeldich confessed.

“Then you must trust my judgment,” Hangonel replied. “I claim the right of single combat.”

“Our code of honour grants it,” said Zeldich, inclining his helmeted head. “And I can but imagine what a clash of the titans it shall be.”

Behind them at the foot of the dune, the other members of their unit were disembarking down the interceptor’s gangplank. Hangonel steeled his considerable musculature and gazed on Bendigo again. A lifetime of devotion to the Prophecy and its teachings was now to be rewarded. He knew at last why destiny had brought him here.

END OF CHAPTER ONE