One man. A man who is different. Chosen by
fate...caught up in Earth’s unwanted conflict with the Mysterons.
Determined...courageous...indestructible. His name: CAPTAIN SCARLET.
Captain Scarlet is indestructible. You are NOT.
Remember this. DO NOT TRY TO IMITATE HIM!!!
A Short Story Written By PARKER
GABRIEL
Based Upon The Format Developed By GERRY
ANDERSON
And SYLVIA ANDERSON
From Characters Created By SYLVIA
ANDERSON
The Spectrum
Organisation had been graced with the service, in the senior staff of its
command headquarters, the flying aircraft carrier called Cloudbase,
of the youngest full colonel in World Army Air Force history, who had also been
its top weapons expert before staging his own retirement to join Spectrum's
ranks. That former WAAF colonel, Paul Stephen Metcalfe, had delivered so
eloquent a valedictory speech upon his graduation from the West Point Military
Academy as “First Captain” of his class that its transcription remained
required reading for all cadets at the Point. But for most of his life, he had
been very mortal, and vulnerable to drunkenness--till, that was, before his
original incarnation had been killed and replaced with an exact likeness of him
that the Mysterons, an alien race of sapient discorporates
who knew the secret of reversing matter, had re-created after killing
him but before his actual death. Upon his being killed a second time,
the normal personality of his original self had resurfaced in his likeness, who
had been under Mysteron control for six hours, to reassert control. That
likeness had been left with the power of “retro-metabolism,” in that the matter
of his body reversed itself spontaneously whenever he was injured or even
killed, literally enabling him to come back from the dead if killed--and had
thus become virtually indestructible.
Captain Scarlet, as the Spectrum
Organisation now called Metcalfe, was now submitting with great reluctance to a
test of his retro-metabolic virtual indestructibility.
On that Tuesday, 7 July, 2071, the Chief
Medical Officer of Cloudbase, Dr. Edward Michael Wilkie, M.D., was conducting that particular test, which
was of Captain Scarlet's tolerance of liquor. One of
Captain Scarlet's fellow full captains in Spectrum, Wilkie was known within its ranks as Dr. Fawn. Not a heavy
drinker before joining Spectrum’s ranks, Captain Scarlet actually hated to
drink anything stronger than brewed beers, and even those rarely. But now here
he was in Dr. Fawn’s SickBay, drinking a whole
one-litre bottle of pure ethanol! It tasted horrid, and the retro-metabolic
human wondered if Dr. Fawn was literally trying to rot his gut with this stupid
experiment. But he dutifully drank the bottle’s contents dry, as he had been
ordered to, and let out a disgusted belch.
“Yuk!” he grumbled with a grimace of
distaste on his face, ten minutes later, as he allowed Dr. Fawn to take a
sample of his blood. “Even without denaturing, I wouldn’t want to have
to drink that bloody swill again.”
“If I'm right, after these tests are done
you won’t have to, Scarlet."
“Won’t have to WHAT?” a stern voice suddenly snapped from outside the SickBay.
It was Colonel White. His white-and-black
Spectrum radio-cap covered most of his straight white hair, and his blue eyes
radiated disapproval.
“I’ll have your commission for this,
Scarlet,” he went on. “Drinking on duty is a most serious offence! You of all
people should know that by now!”
“Not on duty, Colonel--in the line
OF duty!” Dr. Fawn broke in, no less displeased with Colonel White than the
Spectrum Commander-In-Chief, or CINCSPEC, was with Captain Scarlet. “I
ORDERED him to submit to these tests. They’re meant, first, to gauge his
tolerance of alcohol and second, determine once and for all whether he’s still
subject to intoxication.”
“I should
tell you, sir,” Captain Scarlet added, “that I submitted to the doctor’s tests
under protest. I don’t like to drink anything stronger than beer, and actually
prefer the strongest black coffee.”
He shuddered.
“I wish I could drink down some of that
right now; at least it’d taste a hell
of a lot better.”
“You’ll get that chance soon enough,
Scarlet,” Dr. Fawn reassured him. “The analysis of your blood is coming through
just now.” He studied the readings on the auto-analyser. “Hmm...just as I
thought. I can’t find any measurable alcohol in your bloodstream.”
“I still have a blood-alcohol content
of point double-oh?” Captain Scarlet was incredulous. “A full ten MINUTES after I drank a whole litre
of undiluted ethyl alcohol?”
“Why, I never in my born years...” Colonel
White gasped, his earlier fury spent in amazement.
“Not till now, at least,” Dr. Fawn noted to
the CINCSPEC. Then to Captain Scarlet, he went on, “I do believe I should
apologise to you for all this. Do you accept?”
“Yes, Doctor,” said the latter with a nod.
“I’ll go get that coffee now, if you don’t mind--it should kill that
rotten alcohol aftertaste.”
The physician shrugged. “My tests are all finished.
Be my guest.” He turned to the CINCSPEC. “I’ll be here if needed.”
Colonel White turned to go, responding as he
did, “Hopefully, you won’t be any time soon, not even to poke and prod
Scarlet.”
As Captain Scarlet picked up his radio-cap
and followed Colonel White out of the SickBay, both
suddenly heard a deep slow voice over the Cloudbase
speakers.
“This is the voice of the Mysterons.
We know that you can hear us, Earthmen, and we have not forgotten your
unprovoked attack. The Spectrum Organisation may claim higher moral standards
than most Earthmen, but the greatest injury its Commander-In-Chief has ever
suffered will ruin him and his organisation. Hear us, Earthmen, and take heed. Colonel White will be ruined by his greatest
injury.”
“I’ll have
one of the galley personnel bring that coffee to both of us,” Colonel White
said. “Let’s both report to the Control Room now.” His radio-cap mike lowered
in front of his mouth. “Lieutenant Green, yellow alert is now in
effect. I say again: yellow alert is now in effect.”
“S.I.G.,” was
the response from Lieutenant Green.
In the
Control Room, Captain Scarlet had tucked his radio-cap under his left arm and
now stood at attention in front of Colonel White’s semi-circular desk as the
CINCSPEC took his seat behind it. That done, Colonel White pulled off his own
radio-cap, stowed it beneath his desk, indicated two steaming coffees on a tray
mounted on it, and asked, “Do you have any idea where Blue is?”
“Yes, sir--a
very good one. He’s been in the galley since 05:00 hours this morning, and he’s
still there now; he helped its staff whip up that delicious breakfast we all
ate.” Both men referred to Captain Blue, Captain Scarlet’s
field partner. “When he volunteered for galley duty yesterday, he said he had a
special treat in mind for us.” As
he spoke, Captain Scarlet picked up his coffee. “A very special treat
indeed--Blue was as good as his word.”
Grinning, the
colonel remarked, “About the only part of breakfast Blue doesn’t do well is coffee; who brewed that?”
“I did.” This
from Lieutenant Green.
“Right...summon him to the Control Room; I have a better idea than I
want to have of exactly what the Mysterons are planning this time.” With that
Colonel White swigged his own coffee.
“S.I.G.” Then
Lieutenant Green turned to his own board. “Captain Blue, report to the Control
Room immediately.”
“S.I.G.,
Control,” came the responding voice with its faint hint of Bostonian accent.
“Does the
latest Mysteron threat have something to do with the circumstances under which
your wife died, Colonel?” Captain Scarlet asked after downing a prodigious
portion of his coffee.
“I’m sure of
it, Scarlet,” was the response. “That is indeed the greatest injury I have ever
suffered. But how the Mysterons plan to use it to ruin me or Spectrum is what I
don’t know. Yet.”
“What can you
tell me about that experience, Colonel?”
“There’s not
much to say.” Colonel White’s voice was gloomy as he remembered the tragedy.
“At the approximate time I succeeded in cleansing the British section of the
Universal Secret Service of mole infiltration, my wife, who was almost four
months pregnant with the child who would then have been our first-born son,
went into labour over five months ahead of schedule and developed
pregnancy-related high blood pressure. One of the on-call obstetricians--I
don’t remember his name at this moment--was a notorious alcoholic. He had been
drinking heavily whilst on call, and he botched the suppression of her labour.
Instead of having her labour suppressed, she suffered a miscarriage, and that
caused a uterine haemorrhage that killed her.” He found he had to wipe a tear
from his right eye. “Today would have been our son’s twenty-first birthday had
he lived.” As he “chug-a-lugged” the last of his coffee, Captain Blue, out of
breath from running, entered the Control Room.
“Take it
easy, Blue,” the CINCSPEC went on. “Take your time and get your breath back.”
“You know, Colonel,”
was Captain Blue’s response, “at times like this I almost wish I had Captain Scarlet’s retro-metabolic powers.”
“YOU DON’T MEAN THAT!” Captain
Scarlet retorted in irritation. “You of all people should know what I lost to
gain those abilities.” With that he polished off the last of his own coffee.
Captain Blue
hung his head. For Captain Scarlet was right; he had indeed lost a great deal
to become a retro-metabolic human. He had lost the life of the original Captain
Scarlet, and physically he was a reversed-matter clone of the original.
“Besides,
Captain Blue, it’s another loss the Mysterons have threatened to take advantage
of to ruin me and Spectrum--the greatest injury I’ve ever suffered. In
particular, the death of my wife and my unborn son...whom she died
miscarrying.”
“Colonel, the
Mysterons could use many details of
that tragedy. Which do you think they will
use?”
“That,
Captain Blue, is what you and I will have to find out.” Then to the colonel,
Captain Scarlet went on to ask, “Where’s Captain Ochre? We may have need of his
investigative talents.”
“I’m afraid
he won’t be available. He’s on an assignment with the Spectrum Police which he
won’t be able to finish for at least two days. You two get under way--you’ll
have to proceed without him.”
“S.I.G.,”
responded both of the two younger men in unison.
Aboard a
Spectrum Passenger Jet, with Destiny, Symphony, and Rhapsody Angels as their
escorts, Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were on their way to the World Navy
base in London which Colonel White had once commanded.
“I hear the
colonel chewed you out for drinking on duty earlier this morning,” Captain
Blue, who was flying the SPJ, was remarking.
“Almost,”
Captain Scarlet, who was navigating, corrected, still indignant over the
incident. “If Dr. Fawn hadn’t pointed out that I was actually drinking in the
line of duty, I would have been chewed out. There are times when Dr. Fawn can be a
real pain, and this was one of them--he wanted to test my tolerance of
alcohol!”
“Well, at
least you weren’t ordered to gamble, like you were when the Mysterons tried to
destroy North America,” observed the New Englander. “Brilliant piece on
Mysteron psychology, though, including your references to why you think their
copies of us can’t get drunk.”
“Don’t
forget, Blue, I am a copy of one of
us. Besides, the best idea I have regarding how they may plan to use the
colonel’s tragedy against him or us is only a guess.”
“Be that as
it may, he thinks it best if we begin in London, where he headed up the World
Navy’s British section. But I’m damned if I know why.”
Captain
Scarlet said nothing. He already had several deep-rooted suspicions of his own,
and those had more to do with the circumstances of how Charles Gray had been widowed than he was ready to reveal to
Captain Blue just yet.
The possible
confirmation of Captain Scarlet’s suspicions might
have been found in a clinic located in Norwich, two hours by train from the
London World Navy base, which tended to landed-gentry patients. For inside it
were two of an obstetrician-gynaecologist who had just come under Mysteron
control, the one standing over the other. As the Mysterons needed to do to
re-create their exact likenesses of objects and/or people, the original was
dead.
The sign on
the door of the office read Dr. Oliver Watson, M.Sc., Obstetrician.
With the likeness of Dr.
Oliver Watson was a man outfitted entirely in black, with a pallid complexion
and sunken cheeks that heavy stubble emphasised. This man had once been known
to Spectrum as Captain Black. “Doctor Watson,” said he in the deep slow voice
of the Mysterons, “these are your instructions from the Mysterons.” And he went
on to describe what the Watson likeness had to do.
The SPJ had
landed at the World Navy base, and Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were both
off board. Captain Blue, in particular, was being viewed askance.
“They’re
still sore at me for having bombed Atlantica along
with Captain Ochre,” he said to Captain Scarlet. “And I don’t blame them. If I
were them I’d be sore at me too.”
“You’d both
been drugged,” the retro-metabolic human reminded his field partner. “You and
Ochre both thought you were doing something other than what you were really
doing.”
“That still
doesn’t make me feel any less guilty about it. Look at them.” Captain Blue
gestured around himself, to all the harsh glares and dirty looks that World
Navy personnel were throwing his way. “I may as well be Captain Black himself
for all the respect any of them are gonna give me.”
“For pity’s sake, Blue, it’s been three
years! Can’t you let it go?”
“I’m afraid
not. Not till they do, at least.”
The two made
their shared way to the administration building, where the offices of the flag
officer who now commanded the World Navy London Station, as it was officially
known, were located.
That flag
officer, a vice admiral named Edmond Willoughby, was not pleased at Captain
Blue’s arrival. “The main reason I’m not ordering you arrested for what you and
Captain Ochre did to Atlantica was why you two did it,” he said to Captain
Blue as the two Spectrum captains entered his office. “Your Colonel White has
explained to me that you and he were drugged, and that Captain Black had
apparently tricked you both--neither of you had any idea what you were really doing.”
“Admiral,
does the phrase ’statute of limitations’ mean anything?” asked Captain Scarlet
gently.
“More than
you seem to think, Captain Scarlet,” Willoughby conceded. “It’s an ancillary
reason for my not having ordered Blue’s arrest.”
“There are
two others,” Captain Blue said. “First, Colonel White already disciplined us
for it; second, our consciences. I’ve always felt rotten about the incident
since facing my memories of it.”
“Right--let’s
get down to business,” Captain Scarlet broke in. “Who did you ’inherit’ your
command of this station from?”
“One of the
best leaders this Navy ever knew--Fleet Admiral Charles Gray.”
Willoughby’s eyes were glowing as he remembered. “Made his reputation back when
the military was tyrannising the realm. He more than proved his mettle by
joining the rebellion against the junta and making his very first ship, the Inestimable, the flagship of his fleet.
Had a brilliant World Navy career ahead of him--too bad he retired after that
family tragedy he went through.”
“Was there
any doctor on call at that time?”
“We did have
a Dr. Oliver Watson serving at this station at about that time--an
obstetrician,” Willoughby said. “He maintains a private obstetrics clinic not
too many kilometres distant.”
“What manner
of patients does he treat since getting drummed out?” asked Captain Blue.
“Those private clinics are not cheap to maintain.”
“His patients
can afford him without medical insurance. And he insists on being paid in
cash.”
“So he isn’t
exactly that moral or honest,” said Captain Scarlet. “How would you describe
most of his patients?”
“Watson won’t deal with the World Armed
Forces at all,” Willoughby noted. “His patients are local ’Sloane
Rangers.’”
Captain Scarlet remarked, “Those would
certainly be rich enough to pay him. Where’s his clinic located?”
“In Norwich, Captains.” The flag officer
gave them the specific information.
Five minutes later, Captain Scarlet and
Captain Blue were leaving the World Navy London Station in a Spectrum Patrol
Saloon Car, or SSC, bound for Norwich.
“I’ll requisition an SPV whilst you go to
Watson’s Norwich clinic,” Captain Scarlet, who was driving, was saying. “See if
you can’t find out more information about Colonel White’s family tragedy. And
proceed on the assumption that Oliver Watson himself is in the hands of the
Mysterons.”
“That isn’t gonna
be easy,” Captain Blue noted. “We don’t know who worked for Watson, and for all
we know, they may ALL be Mysterons by
now.”
“Take that chance--it’s all we’ve got.”
“S.I.G.--the
next SPV location should be just over that rise. We’ll split up there.”
The SSC, sure
enough, made its way over the rise Captain Blue had mentioned--to come within
sight of an almost-abandoned farm with two dilapidated barns.
Captain
Scarlet got out and walked over to the house. There he grasped a brass
door-knocker and struck it thrice.
“Requisitioning SPV Eight-Zero-Six-Six,” he said to the plain-looking,
dowdily-outfitted young woman who came to, and opened, the door.
“Identification?” was her response.
The
retro-metabolic human unzipped the lower front pocket of his scarlet tunic,
pulled out and unfolded his official identity card, then presented it to her,
saying, “Captain Scarlet, Spectrum.”
The woman
held the card to a light in the door jamb just above the doorknob location.
Then she stepped back inside the door and tapped a wall just inside the
doorway. As she was handing Captain Scarlet’s
identity card back to him, one of the two barns collapsed completely, revealing
SPV 8066. Satisfied, Captain Scarlet walked away from the house towards the
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle whilst Captain Blue waited in the SSC.
“Be careful,”
called out the latter to his field partner as he got behind the wheel of the
SSC.
Using his
identity card, Captain Scarlet accessed the SPV door and strapped himself into
the seat of the tank-like vehicle. Within minutes, he was driving the SPV along
the motorway, but in a direction opposite Captain Blue’s. His course was one
that he had decided Colonel White should determine.
Hence, he
engaged the SPV’s on-board radio and said, “Scarlet
to Control--have requisitioned SPV 8066 and am awaiting instructions.”
“Report,”
Colonel White’s voice said crisply.
“That
obstetrician you hold responsible for killing both your wife and unborn son is
named Doctor Oliver Watson. He maintains a private clinic in Norwich, where
I’ve sent Blue for more information on your specific case.”
“Thanks for
the reminder, however unpleasant that memory may be. Is there anything more?”
“Both Blue
and I are convinced that Watson is a Mysteron. Sir, if that’s true, at which
locations could he cause you, and us, the most trouble?”
“There are
many where he could,” Colonel White remarked. “However, since Watson probably
hates me for having apparently ruined his World Navy career, offhand, I can
think of only one where he definitely would--Spectrum Headquarters London. Is
that where you’re heading?”
“I was going
to wait for your orders before I went anywhere in particular.”
“You’ve got
them now. Get to Spectrum Headquarters London straightaway, and make sure you
get there before Watson does if you
possibly can.”
“S.I.G.,” was
Captain Scarlet’s acknowledgment.
The Mysteron
likeness of Dr. Oliver Watson heard the voice of his re-creators inside his
mind, as Captain Black spoke to him mind-to-mind.
“Doctor
Watson,” said the former Spectrum agent directly into the Watson likeness’s
mind, “this is Captain Black, relaying instructions from the Mysterons. We will
take over Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle Eight-Six-Zero-Two for your usage, rigging
it to explode upon frontal impact, and provide a duplicate of Colonel White’s
uniform for you to wear. You will be seen by Spectrum personnel to have stolen
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle Eight-Six-Zero-Two from its place of concealment, and
they will mistake you for Colonel White. Then, you will drive to Spectrum
Headquarters London and use the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle to blow it to pieces,
leading other Earthmen to believe that Colonel White has destroyed the London
headquarters of his own organisation. In this way, we will cause Colonel White
to be ruined by his greatest injury.”
The Watson
likeness ran a hand through his straight white hair and said, “I know what I
must do.” Then he added, “The Mysteron instructions will be carried out.”
At an
automotive petrol station, an attendant was writing an entry in the station’s
supply inventory log. Suddenly the attendant smelled smoke and just barely had
time to flee before a dummy supply shed four metres behind the station exploded
and caught fire.
Twin green
rings of light swept the burning shed, then traced a spot a metre outside the
blast radius to bring the shed and its contents under Mysteron control.
Captain Black
and the Dr. Watson likeness, fifteen metres distant, watched.
Captain Blue
was in the Norwich clinic Dr. Oliver Watson had operated. Having used his
Spectrum ID to get inside, he had reached the doctor’s file cabinet and was on
the verge of breaking into it.
“And just
what do you think you’re doing there, mister?” a female voice suddenly asked
from directly behind him as the muzzle of a gun barrel was shoved into his
back.
Quickly
holding up his hands, Captain Blue snapped, “Wondering exactly who in the hell
you think you are, interfering with an official Spectrum investigation.”
“I’m the one
asking the questions here--anyone could be a Mysteron phony,”
the woman shot back. “Now turn around real nice and slow and keep your hands up
where I can see ’em.”
Visibly
irritated, Captain Blue did as he had been told.
“Now I mean
to unzip and open the lower left pocket of your tunic and fish out whatever’s inside
it,” the woman went on. “Almost anyone who’s determined enough can forge
Spectrum ID; the real thing has a few security details that can’t be
duplicated.”
“I know about
those details, lady--my Spectrum ID card is genuine!” Captain Blue protested.
“I’m sure you
think it is,” the woman remarked. “But I can’t take any chances.”
She reached
for his tunic pocket and pulled the zipper open, the muzzle of the pistol she
held never straying from his chest. That done, she carefully pulled out his identity
card, still keeping the pistol trained on him. Eyes and gun muzzle still on
Captain Blue, she brought the card over to a holographic scanner under which
she held it. A green light winked on.
“Your ID card
seems to be in order,” the woman added as she handed Captain Blue’s
identification card back to him, using her free hand to do so. “But there’s one
foolproof test I still have yet to run. Stand up against the wall.”
“Come
on--take it easy, lady,” urged the visibly irritated Captain Blue, in grudging
compliance with the woman’s demand, as she herself slowly backed up towards the
shelves, still never lowering either the gun or her gaze. There, she pulled
down a camera-like device with a red finish.
“This uses
x-rays, and if you’re one of them it should give me a photograph of you in
black and white.” She brought the device to her eyes, taking care to keep
Captain Blue at gunpoint as she did, and depressed one of two buttons on it.
“One...two...three...four...five. There--that should do it.” She then depressed
the second button, and a sheet of developed printed film emerged from the
device. She held it up.
“Well, what’s
it say?” Captain Blue asked, his lack of patience growing.
The woman
allowed herself to smile, handed the sheet of developed printed film over to
him, and finally lowered her gun. “Negative--you’re no Mysteron, whatever else
you are.”
“I could have told you that!” Captain Blue snapped as he sat
down. “That’s a Mysteron detector you used on me--are you with Spectrum?”
Unlocked from the heavy pressure of the woman’s glare, he was finally able to
get a good look at her. She was black, and indeed, she reminded him very much
of Melody Angel, except that her black hair was visibly shorter in length than
that of the former WAAF flight lieutenant and that she appeared to be
marginally but visibly older.
“Dr. Jessica
Christie Logan, M.D., at your service, Captain Blue,” the woman said, not
answering his question. “I was one of Dr. Oliver Watson’s junior partners in
this clinic.”
Since his
time was limited, Captain Blue decided not to pursue the question, asking her
instead, “What can you tell me about him?” As he spoke, he placed the Mysteron
detector photo, which showed an x-ray of both his own head and some of the
workings of his radio-cap, on the desk.
“He was far
from warm and fuzzy, I can tell you that--more like cool and distant. When I
came here across the pond from Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I’d gotten my M.D.
at the age of twenty, I didn’t really have a medical specialty to speak of;
once I joined his staff, I was as much a general women’s practitioner as an
obstetrician and gynaecologist. Since, as I’ve said, he was cool and distant, I had to provide the warmth and
fuzziness that his patients needed more than half the damned time. And they all needed a LOT of it!”
“Did he have
any close friends?”
“Not a one.
What he had was one enemy--complained about him non-stop, in fact. Fella by the name of Charlie Gray.
Beats me who the hell he was; Dr.
Watson wouldn’t say. I think he might’a been some
sailor or other.”
“What grudge
did HE have against this Charlie Gray?”
“Guy blamed
him for screwing up his career,” Logan explained. “Got it into his thick skull that
Watson was responsible for his wife losing a kid and going belly-up.”
“What do you
mean, going belly-up?”
“Died losing
a miscarried boy.”
Captain Blue
said nothing else about that. He knew the story of how Colonel White’s late
wife had died, miscarrying their unborn son, at the hands of a drunken
obstetrician-gynaecologist. Still, he had to know more.
Hence he
asked aloud, “Did Watson drink?”
“Like a
damned fish!” Logan spat. “Used to keep his booze in the used bottles of
sterile irrigation water--favoured vodka because it looks like water. Trouble
was, he drank too well! Most of the
time, you couldn’t tell whether he was plastered without a damned blood test; coulda passed field sobriety tests on the road--just
barely.”
Captain Blue’s
complexion turned pale-coloured with fury. If Oliver Watson had been that way
when he was alive, then what did the Mysterons have in mind for their likeness
of him, who couldn’t get drunk any more than Captain Scarlet could, which was
not at all?
Aloud he
said, controlling his anger with an effort, “Be all that as it may, would it be
too much for you to help me look through Watson’s records? That was what I was
trying to do when you confronted me.”
“Not at all.
Which ones in particular are you looking for?”
“The ones
relating to this Charlie Gray. The ’Charlie’ is
obviously a nickname for ’Charles,’ so let’s start there.”
(S.I.G., Captain Blue, Logan thought.)
Aloud she said, “You check the paper files, like you looked like you were doing
when I caught you; I’ll check the computer files.”
“I’ll need a
key to the paper files,” Captain Blue said. “You have one?”
“Here you
are.” Logan tossed him a ring of keys. “Mine is marked with tape.”
Catching the
ring of keys deftly, Captain Blue hunted through them and located the key Logan
had indicated. As he was using it to open the file cabinet, Logan typed on a
computer keyboard.
But what she
typed into the computer was NO search for any records relating to anyone named
Charles Gray. Instead, on her screen could be read, Doc 1C-CW. CB present--orders? This
meant Doctor First Captain to Colonel
White. Captain Blue is present--orders?
Then came
another message, a response that Logan had not typed. Co-op. CB sent by CS. This meant Co-operate. Captain Blue was sent by Captain Scarlet.
Logan typed
SIG in response. Then she did search for the records relating to the man she
knew as Colonel White. She called up the name “Gray,
Charles.” The computer screen showed a complete history of Charles Gray’s life and career, and that history had what, to
Logan, was an alarming punctuation. It read Destroy the tyrant who destroyed
me. It was hand-written; Watson had obviously used a graphics tablet to
write it directly into the computer. She hard-copied the entire file and gave
its contents to Captain Blue when he walked over--with his arms full of file
folders.
“You’re gonna have to reclaim your keys,” he said, obviously having
a great deal of difficulty holding the ring of keys in the fingers of his left
hand.
“Here.” Logan
pulled the keys out of Captain Blue’s hand.
Less than a
minute later, after Captain Blue had driven the SSC away, Logan pulled off her
lab coat and a pair of white trousers.
Just outside
the Norfolk county limits, a man outfitted in a Spectrum uniform with white
tunic, white-and-black radio-cap, and white boots had shot and killed the
attendant at the automotive petrol station, where the original shed had by now
burned out. He was now driving along the motorway towards London, at breakneck
speed, in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle. Captain Blue, though he had seen the
attack, had been too late to do anything about it, and he was horrified at what
he now saw. (My God, he thought, that
can’t be Colonel White, can it?) He promptly activated the mike of his own
radio-cap and snapped, “Blue to Control--come in, Colonel White.”
“White
here--go ahead, Captain Blue,” came the gratifying response.
“Colonel
White, are you still on Cloudbase?”
“Why wouldn’t
I be?”
“Well, you’re
not gonna believe this, but I just saw you steal an
SPV from one of its hiding places and drive off at full throttle.”
“You saw ME?”
“Yeah...but I
think I may be cracking up from our having been too busy of late. Wonder if Dr.
Fawn could make a determination?”
“Oh, my God.”
Colonel White was aghast. He had forgotten that neither Captain Scarlet nor
Captain Blue had the slightest idea what Oliver Watson looked like. Come to
think of it, he himself had not seen the obstetrician-gynaecologist in years,
and no longer remembered Watson’s appearance himself. If only he had given
better instructions, or even a briefing about Captain Blue, to Dr. Lime...
Aloud he went
on, “I’m going down there. I’ll leave Captain Grey in command of Cloudbase, and Dr. Fawn will join me.”
“S.I.G.--it’ll be a relief to see the real you.”
“Likewise.”
Breaking contact, Colonel White snapped, “Lieutenant Green, summon Captain Grey
to the Control Room to take command of Cloudbase and
have Dr. Fawn meet me at the SPJ hangar.”
“S.I.G.,”
Lieutenant Green said in an almost perfunctory voice. Then, more crisply, he
went on, “Dr. Fawn, report to the SPJ hangar to rendezvous with Colonel White.
Captain Grey, report to Control to take temporary command of Cloudbase.”
Two distinct
“S.I.G.’s” answered him.
In Norfolk,
after Captain Blue had gone, a black woman outfitted in a Spectrum uniform
whose radio-cap, tunic, and boots were all bright yellow-green in colour came
upon the same petrol station. She was horrified to find it a shambles.
Walking
through it, she found the attendant, from whom she had been planning to
requisition one of Spectrum’s numerous Pursuit Vehicles, dead, and the Pursuit
Vehicle whose custodian he had been, SPV 8602, missing. Alarmed, she activated
her radio-cap and called Cloudbase Control.
Back aboard Cloudbase, still unaware of what had transpired in Norfolk,
the colonel seized his radio-cap from beneath his desk and pulled it on. Then
he got out from behind his desk and stood at attention to await Captain Grey’s
arrival. That came within the minute. Captain Grey punctuated his arrival in
the Control Room with a smart salute, even though he was “uncovered,” since the
colonel was not.
“Relieving
you,” he said.
“Don’t run us
into any harsh weather whilst I’m gone, hmm?” The CINCSPEC grinned and returned
Captain Grey’s salute as he spoke.
“Easy for you
to say, sir,” cracked Captain Grey. “I’ll grant you, Lieutenant Green here may
be good, but even he can’t predict
the weather, much less control it.”
Pretending to
be miffed, Lieutenant Green retorted, “Who said I was planning to work out a
way to control the weather? The World
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a big enough job as it is, trying to
predict it!” But he could not keep a
straight face, and the three were soon laughing.
“Just keep
this base in one piece whilst I’m gone--and don’t allow it to become a rest
centre,” added the colonel.
“S.I.G.,”
Captain Grey said.
“Report from
just outside Norfolk,” Lieutenant Green suddenly broke in, alarmed at what he
had been told. “It says that an attempt Dr. Lime just made to requisition SPV
8602 failed because it had already been stolen.”
Captain
Grey’s mouth dropped open.
“That
dovetails with Blue’s report--have Lime requisition an SSC instead,” Colonel
White snapped. “I’m willing to deduce that it was Watson who stole that SPV,
probably disguised as me. And inform Lime--this is imperative--that under no
circumstances is Watson to be allowed to reach Spectrum Headquarters London!”
“S.I.G.” The
aide turned back to his board and relayed Colonel White’s order to Dr. Lime.
“Explanation?” was the crisp female response.
Lieutenant
Green said, “Watson may be a Mysteron.”
There was a brief
hesitation. But the only response to that was, “S.I.G.”
Colonel White
and Dr. Fawn, wearing their respective radio-caps, were aboard SPJ 196 within
ten minutes. Colonel White was actually flying the SPJ, with Dr. Fawn as his
passenger; Melody Angel was acting as navigator. Ahead of them was a single
escorting Angel Interceptor, with Harmony Angel at its controls. “White to
Spectrum HQ London--have an MSV available for me and Dr. Fawn the second we
land,” the CINCSPEC snapped.
“S.I.G.,” was
the response.
Then the
colonel switched channels. “Colonel White to Dr. Lime--how far are you from
London?”
“About twenty
kilometres, sir,” Dr. Lime answered in the crisp female voice that had spoken
to Lieutenant Green not ten minutes before. “I’m driving an SSC as you instructed.”
“Do you have
a fix on Watson’s position?”
“Uh...that’s
a negatory, Colonel. Holding site for SPV Eight Six
Zero Two is S.I.R.--I found its storage shed burned down and the attendant
dead.”
“Acknowledged,” the CINCSPEC said with a grimace. “Assume that the
Mysterons have taken over SPV 8602 and booby-trapped it for Watson’s benefit.”
“S.I.G.,” Dr.
Lime’s voice said. “Lime out.”
Turning to
Colonel White, Dr. Fawn said, “Were Watson’s alcoholism and its role in your wife’s
death the reasons you insisted that drinking on duty be a more serious offence
that it is in any other branch of the military?”
“Yes, they
had much to do with it, I’ll admit. But the rest of it is just plain common
sense. Who wants drunken personnel on duty when their being intoxicated can
cost lives?” The colonel bowed his head. “And lead to poor decisions, lapses in
judgment, or such? Damn it, Dr. Fawn, we’re at WAR!”
“So that’s
it. You’re trying to prevent someone else from experiencing what you did.”
“And enforce discipline at the same
time. Drunken personnel are sorely lacking in discipline, and in that
condition, they’re liable to make mistakes with delicate or potentially
dangerous procedures.”
Dr. Fawn
nodded slowly, sadly. “As Watson did trying to suppress your wife’s premature
labour.”
“Worst of all
for my wife, Ollie Watson was on call--and drinking on call or on duty is a
court-martial offence in the World Navy.”
“I begin to
understand you.”
Though that
called for a response, Colonel White had nothing to say.
Captain
Scarlet had reached the outer borders of the area containing the Spectrum
Organisation’s London Headquarters. He had debarked from SPV 8066, the SPV he
had requisitioned, not far from the perimeter that normally kept out
unauthorised personnel. He took stock of his surroundings. There was an
electrical sub-station, which carried electrical voltages high enough to
destroy him--or the Mysteron likeness of Dr. Oliver Watson.
There was the
main road that ran alongside the perimeter, but no sign yet of the Watson
likeness.
And, of
course, there were armed guards outfitted in Spectrum uniforms. The gray, white, and black colours of their uniforms, and the
lack of colour-coded piping, made it clear that none of these were senior
personnel. Only the red-finished Mysteron detectors hanging round their necks
gave any real colour to their uniforms. Captain Scarlet wondered how long it would
be before Captain Blue got there in the SSC he had been driving. His own SPV
was on the westbound side of the road, directly in front of Spectrum HQ London.
Some civilians were going about their businesses; more might be present later.
An SSC headed
eastbound down the road and passed his position at high speed, its driver not
stopping to acknowledge him. Captain Scarlet was amazed that what he had just
seen of the driver, who was black, was outfitted in a Spectrum uniform with
brilliant greenish colours, but was female. (I
don’t understand--has Lieutenant Green had a sex change without informing the
colonel, he thought?) Activating his radio-cap mike, he said aloud,
“Scarlet to Control--Lieutenant Green, do you copy?”
“Go ahead,
Scarlet,” came the Cloudbase communications officer’s
unmistakably male voice.
“Lieutenant,
I just saw a female Spectrum officer, outfitted in a uniform similar in colour
to yours, driving an SSC due east past my location.”
“That was Dr.
Lime, Scarlet,” Lieutenant Green explained. “She’s on assignment in Norwich.”
“Are you sure
she’s not in the hands of the Mysterons?” Captain Scarlet asked in alarm.
“Positive,”
was the response. “And we’re all just as positive that Dr. Oliver Watson is.”
“Well, I’m
waiting on Captain Blue now; he’s heading due west. How far is he from my
current position?”
“Approximately two minutes; he’s easily fifty kilometres ahead of SPV
8602’s current position.”
“S.I.G.”
“It may
interest you to know that both Colonel White and Dr. Fawn are on their way to
Spectrum HQ London--they left Cloudbase aboard SPJ
196 over ten minutes ago, after Captain Blue reported seeing SPV 8602 stolen
from its holding site by a man he thought might have been Colonel White.
They’ll requisition an MSV once they get there--unless they already are there.”
As Lieutenant
Green was speaking, a Spectrum Maximum Security Vehicle, with its driver’s
cabin on the right side, had approached Captain Scarlet from the east. In the
driver’s seat was Dr. Fawn. Seeing the retro-metabolic human, he depressed a
button switch in the door. This opened a large side window mounted in the MSV
door, through which the doctor, upon seeing his patient standing near the SPV,
called out in a tone of less-than-appropriate familiarity, “G’day,
Scarlet!”
Captain
Scarlet, irritated, did not acknowledge his physician’s greeting immediately.
Addressing Lieutenant Green, he instead remarked, “They are indeed, Lieutenant,
and that they have. Thank you for the information.” At that moment, his tunic’s
epaulets flashed blue, and he heard Captain Blue’s voice in his radio-cap
speakers. “Blue to Scarlet--now heading westbound, towards Spectrum HQ London,”
it said. “Will rendezvous with you in less than half of one minute.”
Looking
eastward, Captain Scarlet saw the SSC approaching his position. “S.I.G.--I see
you now, Blue,” he said. “Scarlet out.” As he broke contact, he failed to
notice another SPV parking not too far from his own position. He did, however,
notice a dull ache that he had begun to feel in his sinuses.
The Watson
likeness had had trouble driving SPV 8602, even with the Mysteron takeover of
it that Captain Black had arranged, since he knew less about it than any
genuine member of Spectrum did. Hence he had driven it somewhat more slowly
than the usual motorway speed and been more defensive in his driving of it than
its capabilities usually permitted.
Captain Blue
was out of the SSC and had rendezvoused with Captain Scarlet.
“Dr. Fawn’s
in there,” he said to his regular field partner, jerking his left thumb towards
the MSV. “You look like hell.”
“Feel like it
too,” was the response. “My sinuses are achy.” But then a horrified expression
crossed Captain Blue’s face. Captain Scarlet was alarmed. “Captain Blue, are you
all right?” he went on to ask in concern. “You look like you’ve just seen a
ghost!”
“GOOD LORD!!”
As Captain
Scarlet turned round, two men approached him.
“Yes, Captain
Scarlet?” said one of them.
“What do you
want?” asked the other.
It was then
that Captain Scarlet saw, and realised, what had horrified Captain Blue so
much.
Colonel
White and the Mysteron likeness of the obstetrician-gynaecologist Dr. Oliver
Watson had virtually identical physiognomies!!
Worse yet, they spoke with virtually identical voices!!
But worst of all for Captain Scarlet, they were both outfitted in
virtually identical Spectrum uniforms!!
(No wonder Blue was so horrified to see “Colonel
White” here, Captain Scarlet gasped mentally! And no wonder he thought it was
Colonel White who stole that SPV!) Aloud he snapped, “All right, which one
of you is Colonel White?”
“Any other
stupid questions?” the man standing on Captain Scarlet’s
left snapped.
The man on
Captain Scarlet’s right spat, “Can’t you see how
obvious it is?”
“It is not obvious,” Captain Scarlet snarled
through clenched teeth. “You two may look and sound identical, but you’re not.
One of you is the CINCSPEC and my CO; the other killed my CO’s wife and unborn
son by botching the suppression of her labour less than halfway through her
pregnancy.” He shouted into the air, “Even without the Mysteron detector I have
in my SPV, I know something about the real Colonel White that only he and I
would know--something your copy of Oliver Watson wouldn’t! You have only so
much information about Colonel White--what do you think I’ll ask him?”
“Damn you,
Captain Scarlet, this is no time for games!” Captain Blue yelled at him. “If
you’ll just wait a minute, I’ll go get a Mysteron detector out of the MSV and
that way we’ll both know for sure!”
“Then go get
it, but let me ask them something. The Mysterons are not as infallible as they
want us to think, remember. All it’ll take is one question.”
Throwing up
his hands, Captain Blue sighed in exasperation. “Spectrum Is Green,” he
responded in visible frustration, emphasising the expanded acronym to indicate
he was agreeing under protest. “Ask your damned question--but it’d damned well
better be a good one.”
Satisfied,
the retro-metabolic human turned to face the two men, folding his arms with a
wide smile on his face. As he retrieved the Mysteron detector from the SSC, all
Captain Blue could do was stand and watch apprehensively.
“Admiral,”
Captain Scarlet asked both men, “what was the first warship you ever commanded
when you became a captain in the World Navy’s British section?”
As he trained
the Mysteron detector on the two men and shot the photo, Captain Blue regarded
the retro-metabolic human with a suspicious expression. All he could think of
was to wonder what the hell kind of bonkers question that was. The fact that
the Inestimable was the first warship
Captain Charles Gray had ever commanded in the World
Navy was not exactly classified information! Both men would be likely to know
it.
But the man
standing on Captain Scarlet’s left snapped angrily,
“Scarlet, stop calling me ’Admiral!’ That’s an order!”
“S.I.G.--sir!” With that Captain Scarlet levelled his pistol--and fired
it at the man standing on his right!
The one round he discharged grazed the shoulder of the other man, staining his
white tunic with blood.
In pain from
the sudden wound, the man whom Captain Scarlet had fired at grimaced, snarling,
“Wretched Earthman!!” He turned and fled towards the SPV he had parked
nearby.
“I--I don’t
believe it,” gasped the amazed Captain Blue, handing the photograph to Captain
Scarlet. “How--how did you know?” The
photograph from the detector showed two men side by side; the one man appeared
in a skeletal view whereas the view of the other appeared to be a monochrome
photo of Colonel White.
“The colonel
made Director of USS London after
Watson made that cock-up with his wife and their son--Watson never saw him again
after that happened and couldn’t possibly have known that Colonel White HATES
being called ’Admiral’ these days,” Captain Scarlet explained.
“Well, his
likeness definitely knows it now, Scarlet,” Colonel White chided. “Get into the
SPV you requisitioned and go after him.”
“S.I.G.,
Colonel White,” acknowledged Captain Scarlet with a smile as he re-boarded his
own SPV. Then to Captain Blue, he went on, “Do whatever he says we’ll need to
do.”
“S.I.G.,” was
the response. Then Captain Blue turned to the CINCSPEC. “Sir, let’s execute the
classic military manoeuvre known as getting the hell out of here.”
“Let’s,”
Colonel White echoed with a nod as Captain Scarlet drove his SPV eastbound in
apparent retreat. The two men ran for the MSV, and Captain Blue boarded the
operator’s cabin.
But as he got
behind the controls, he pointed out the windscreen and gasped, “Colonel!
Doctor! LOOK!” The CINCSPEC and Cloudbase’s Chief Medical Officer scrambled to the
windscreen and looked out through it. There they saw a pallid-faced man who now
stood near where the other SPV had been parked.
It was
Captain Black. Already the last person any of them expected to see there, the
Mysteron captive was outfitted in his all-black Spectrum uniform!
“Complete the
manoeuvre of getting us out of here, Blue,” Colonel White said. Activating his
own radio-cap mike, he went on, “White to Scarlet--do you have any plans?”
“Only
one--ram his SPV with mine in a head-on collision,” Captain Scarlet responded.
“Hopefully, it’ll also take out some power lines and destroy the Watson
likeness whilst he’s still outside Spectrum HQ London.”
“Scarlet, do
you mean to crash your SPV deliberately?”
“Yes, I do.
I’m gambling on Watson’s lack of knowledge of the SPV, and that he won’t be
able to eject in time, as I will.”
“S.I.G.,
then, Captain Scarlet. White out.” The CINCSPEC broke the connection with
Captain Scarlet as Captain Blue drove the MSV out of the potential impact
radius at such speed he actually made the tyres burn some of their rubber.
Emboldened at
Captain Scarlet’s apparent retreat, the Watson
likeness gunned the motor of his SPV and headed north, towards the perimeter of
Spectrum HQ London.
But he did
not get far before the other SPV, turning south, charged directly into his at
maximum speed. The noise of the SPVs’s engines caused
some curious civilians to stop dead in their tracks and “rubber-neck” towards
the potential impact site.
Alarmed, Captain
Blue drove the MSV close to the potential impact site, stopping it a scant
twenty metres distant. Then he leapt out of the cabin, grabbing a bullhorn from
inside the MSV, and ran to see if he could get the innocent bystanders out of
the way and to safety. As the crowd of civilians was gathering, the alarmed
Captain Blue found that he had to fire his Spectrum-issue pistol into the air
to frighten them off, hollering into the bullhorn as he did, “EVERYBODY
GET BACK!! GET BACK FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY!! THEY’RE GONNA BLOW!!”
It worked.
The civilians in the crowd screamed and rushed pell-mell in nearly all
directions, just to retreat from the crash that they now knew was inevitable.
The sound of
crunching metal was appalling to hear. Then came a thunderous explosion from
both SPVs as Captain Scarlet succeeded in ejecting
from his. Dr. Fawn cringed visibly in horror as he beheld the bloodied burned
body of the Mysteron survivor, now dangling in midair, drifting down near his
own position, and saw that Captain Blue’s uniform had caught fire too.
Captain Black
looked on in visible disappointment.
As his
injuries from the crash and the fire that had begun to consume the guts of his
SPV both overtook him, Captain Scarlet had pushed the SPV’s
ejection seat lever, igniting its explosive bolts. The sudden shock of those
bolts detonating, just as its high-octane fuel detonated as well, had stunned
him, in his weakened condition, into unconsciousness.
Grabbing each
of the two carbon-dioxide fire extinguishers and yanking out the pins that held
their discharging grips in safe position, Colonel White and Dr. Fawn both
leaped off board the MSV and scrambled over to Captain Blue’s position,
carrying the heavy extinguishers. Aiming the wide nozzles directly at the
Bostonian and upending the large tanks, they squeezed the discharging grips and
waved the large nozzles from side to side, soaking Captain Blue’s burning
uniform and blistering face with carbonic snow and cold gas.
Captain Blue
shivered visibly from the cold. “Scarlet!” he urged Dr. Fawn. “Get Scarlet!”
“Bloody ’ELL
no!” Dr. Fawn spat back. Under his breath, he hissed into Captain Blue’s right
ear, “Scarlet can retro-metabolise; you
CAN’T!”
That was when
the electrical sub-station weakened in the crash collapsed directly on top of
both burning SPVs. The sparking and flashing was
horrifying to see, even as the high electrical voltage destroyed the Watson
likeness. “If Scarlet’s to retro-metabolise, one of
us will have to make sure he doesn’t hit those live power wires as he lands,”
Dr. Fawn noted anxiously, grimacing at the blisters forming on Captain Blue’s
face.
“I’ll do
that,” said Colonel White. Still clutching his own fire extinguisher, the
CINCSPEC scrambled to where he was sure Captain Scarlet would land, then
discharged it to blast the falling body as far away from the lines as he could.
It was just
barely enough.
Captain
Scarlet touched ground scant centimetres from where the live wires had fallen and,
much to the relief of the other three men, the ejection parachute fluttered and
sank into a collapsed state in a direction opposite from the wires.
The impact
was just enough to revive him somewhat.
Captain Black
reached Captain Scarlet first. Though his current masters, the Mysterons, were
not about to allow him to act upon his concern for the protégé he had called
friend before they had taken him prisoner, he had already determined that on
this occasion, he would not take any hostile action against the one man who had
successfully escaped Mysteron control.
Again
struggling against loss of consciousness, Captain Scarlet watched Captain Black
approach him. It irritated the retro-metabolic human. “What are you waiting
for, Captain Black?” he demanded to know of the Mysteron captive. “Why not kill
me now and get it the hell over with?”
“Oh, no,
Captain Scarlet,” was Captain Black’s response, in the deep slow voice of the
Mysterons. “I will not kill you myself; that would be too easy. Rather, I will
merely watch as your own injuries claim your life.”
“And gloat?”
The injuries the Mysteron captive mentioned included a collapsed lung, from
which pain now made the retro-metabolic human wheeze. “Is this how your masters
get their kicks?”
“You have
drawn a mistaken conclusion about the Mysterons,” Captain Black corrected. “We
did not want this war any more than you did. But the unprovoked attack your
Zero-X Mission made on our Martian complex denied us a choice but to declare
it, and then fight it once we had.” Bitterness was audible in the deep slow
voice. “We take no more pleasure in this war than you Earthmen do. We pursue it
because we have a sense of justice, as your own speculative report on our
psychology to the Spectrum Research Centre correctly states.”
“What happens
now?” By now, Captain Scarlet was having trouble breathing.
“We will meet
again, Captain Scarlet. When you submit your next report to Colonel White, tell
him that this battle in our war of nerves against Earthmen is all over, that we
have failed...and that we will continue to take our revenge upon your people.
Our retaliation will be slow, but nonetheless effective. And even as the damage
we inflicted is done, so too will our next act of retaliation inflict a
crushing blow upon your world.”
His voice an
agonised gasp, Captain Scarlet responded with an effort few other men could
have possibly mustered, “And--we’ll--be there to--minimise the--the damage,
even as--as we were here--here to--minimise it this time.”
“I am sure of
it. Remember...I will return...so watch and beware.” As he spoke, Captain Black
came to attention and faded out, with his right hand snapped smartly to the
brim of his radio-cap in salute to his protégé turned enemy.
And Captain
Scarlet allowed himself to lose consciousness again as Dr. Fawn approached him.
“I’ll have
you back in my SickBay soon,” the physician said.
“Rest now.” He gestured to Captain Blue and Colonel White to come forwards and
help him.
Captain
Scarlet awoke in the Cloudbase SickBay,
six hours later, and underwent his fitness-for-duty examinations. The first
face he saw upon awakening, as was customary after his retro-metabolic
recoveries, was that of Dr. Fawn. But by the time the physician had completed
the examinations, he looked exhausted.
“You look
like hell,” noted the retro-metabolic human.
“Feel like it
too.”
“Well, look
at it this way--at least you got more time to observe my retro-metabolism in
action, and up close at that, than usual.”
“It was time I
hated taking advantage of, I’ll tell you that right now. How Captain Blue copes
with it is something I honestly don’t think I’ll ever understand.”
“There are
many times when even I don’t
understand how I cope with it,” Captain Blue’s voice said from just outside the
SickBay as he entered, motivating both Captain
Scarlet and Dr. Fawn to turn in his direction. Now standing side by side with
Colonel White, who had entered immediately behind him, he had showered and
switched to a fresh uniform.
Only the
freshly-treated burn scars on his face gave away the fact that he had even been
as close as he had gotten to the head-on collision of the two SPVs.
“I’ll never
understand how Blue copes with Scarlet’s
death-watches either, Doctor,” the CINCSPEC confessed. “But I do wish you’d send Scarlet to the room
of sleep when you release him. What’s more, I’m ordering you to invalid
yourself off duty and report to the room of sleep yourself. You look the worst
I’ve ever seen you since Scarlet became indestructible.”
Yawning, Dr.
Fawn turned to the young black woman, outfitted in colour-coded Spectrum
uniform, who had just entered the SickBay. “Take over
for me, Dr. Lime,” he said to her. “I won’t be available for a while.” Captain
Scarlet saw, from his sickbed, that her tunic and boots were green in colour,
but he also saw that their green colouration was visibly yellower
than that of Lieutenant Green’s. In addition, he realised, there was something
familiar about the woman Dr. Fawn had identified as Dr. Lime...some
half-remembered aspect of her physiognomy Captain Scarlet could not quite
place.
“S.I.G., Dr.
Fawn,” she responded. “The way you look now, I’d strap you to a bunk in the
room of sleep myself if the Colonel here didn’t frown on that kind of
treatment.”
The sound of
her voice completed the momentary puzzle in the mind of the former WAAF colonel and West
Point First Captain.
“Oh, my
God...Jessica, is that you? Here?”
“You know
her, Scarlet?” Colonel White asked in puzzlement.
“He sure
does, Colonel--and so do I,” Captain Blue broke in. “This is the doctor from
New Jersey my report mentioned, the one in Norwich who gave me such a hard time
at first when I was trying to get access to Watson’s records--Jessica Christie
Logan.”
“Talk about a
small world!” Captain Scarlet said as he rose from the bed, heading for the
room of sleep. “I knew her at Gibraltar Base, back when I headed up its Red
Berets Squadron! She’s a West Point First Captain too, just like me!”
“Not in the
same class, sir,” Dr. Lime, now unmasked as Dr. Jessica Christie Logan, M.D.,
clarified. “I graduated the Point the year you enrolled and joined the WAAF Med
Corps straight outta class. Needed seven years to
make colonel.”
Captain Blue
spat, “Scarlet, why the hell didn’t you tell me you knew her?”
“She and I
didn’t actually have occasion to meet during the mission,” Captain Scarlet
explained. “I only saw her from a distance, and I wondered if Green had had a
sex-change when I did.”
“Not likely,”
Dr. Fawn grinned.
“Who’d want
to perform it if he did?” Dr. Lime asked.
“Her
assignment was my idea, Blue,” explained the CINCSPEC. “Lime only started her
training at Koala Base two months after you and the other senior staff
graduated from yours.”
“And were you
really one of Dr. Watson’s junior
partners in his OB-GYN clinic?” Captain Blue asked Dr. Lime, still irritated.
“Yep--that
was my cover assignment,” was her response. “Not even Dr. Watson knew the true
story of who I really am.”
“Damn,” swore
Captain Blue, now annoyed with himself. “I should have realised you were a
member of Spectrum right off the bat--how else could you have gotten your hands
on a Mysteron detector?”
“This is all
well and good,” Captain Scarlet broke in, “but if you don’t mind, Dr. Lime, Dr.
Fawn and I are both due for time in the room of sleep. I can indulge my
post-recovery appetite later.”
“That should
give me time to talk to both of you two about how your failure to communicate
almost made it possible for the Mysterons to win this round of their war of
nerves.” This from Colonel White. “Captain Scarlet, Dr. Fawn--dismissed.”
As the
retro-metabolic human and his physician both made their ways out of Cloudbase’s SickBay, the colonel
turned on Captain Blue and Dr. Lime.
“Before I
allow either of you to resume your duties,” he went on, “there are some things
I want to make clear to both of you....”
Outside the SickBay, Captain Scarlet turned to Dr. Fawn with some
amusement.
“Didn’t see
that one coming, did you? Well, neither did I.”
“I know just
how Blue and Lime feel right about now,” Dr. Fawn said as he headed for the
room of sleep, with Captain Scarlet following close behind him. “Too bad Dr.
Lime isn’t regular Cloudbase staff yet; you’d probably
get along better with her than you sometimes do with me.”
“What with
Watson dead and his likeness destroyed, she has nowhere to go now but here. Odd
how things work out.”
Dr. Fawn said
nothing. He knew what Captain Scarlet meant.
AUTHOR’S REMARKS
1. The notion of Captain Scarlet’s tolerance
of ethanol not actually having been tested comes from “Differences,” written by
Kimberly Murphy and originally published in Power Star: The Imagination
Anthology, in which Dr. Fawn assumes that Captain Scarlet cannot get
drunk.
2. It was from a story that was first published on the net-site, Mary
J. Rudy’s “Room Of Amber,” that I drew the notion of Captain Blue making what
he calls “a pretty mean breakfast;” the date of the “special treat,” his
actually volunteering to help COOK such breakfast for the Cloudbase
staff, is 7 July. That date is the date of the approval of Spectrum’s
charter, three days before World President James Younger signed it. In the
year 2071, it will fall on a Tuesday. There are third-anniversary events
planned for 10 July, which will be a Friday that year; a future story of
mine, possibly to be submitted in December 2010, will chronicle a possible one
of those.
3. It
was only AFTER the story had received a beta-reading that I realised that I had
neglected to situate "Gray Admiral, White
Colonel" in a calendrical context, and when I
did, I decided to equate the date with that of the approval of the Spectrum
charter. For that, I thank both Hazel Kohler and Chris
Bishop. They, betwixt themselves, gave me the idea for the
explanation of the reason Captain Blue might volunteer to assist in
cooking breakfast for his fellow Cloudbase staffers.
4. The appearance and description of Dr. Lime are drawn from the way
Lieutenant Green is shown in the CGI version, whose continuity I neither have
followed nor will follow in any of my stories. I’ve drawn up a back-story for
Dr. Lime that's more extensive than the handful of clues I give here, and will
submit that to HQ before 31 July, 2010.
5. My preferred references to Colonel White as “the Colonel”
instead of as “the colonel,” though admittedly grammatically incorrect, are
intended to emphasise that he is the ONLY Colonel in the entire Spectrum
Organisation who is entitled to use that officer grade.
6. I make a passing reference to Sloane
Rangers being Dr. Oliver Watson's preferred patients; this particular term is most often applied to young women. Lady Diana
Spencer, prior to her marriage, was considered the archetypal Sloane. Wealth, and an upper-class social position, though
not necessarily an aristocratic one, is considered a pre-requisite for a Sloane. Sloanes are widely
derided and, no matter HOW high the educational standing they may have
achieved, they are generally regarded as dim-witted socialites. A typical
female Sloane may be called Victoria or Sophie, and,
before her marriage to a male Sloane, she
may be employed on a part-time basis in child-care or public relations. A
typical male Sloane may be called Ben or Toby,
and he may opt for work in the City or service in the Army. These are the kinds
of people whom Dr. Watson preferred to have as patients after he was cashiered
from the World Navy.
DISCLAIMER
Any offence to any individual which this story may commit is purely
accidental, and is apologised for in
advance--furthermore, any similarities of any characters to any actual persons
living or dead, or of any scenes described herein to any actual events
historical or contemporary, which may exist is purely coincidental.
(SIGNED)
Parker Gabriel.
PARKER GABRIEL’S OTHER CAPTAIN SCARLET RELATED WORKS
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