Broken

A Battle of the Planets vignette

Princess catches a glimpse of the world that she and the team aim to mend.

This vignette is based on characters and situations from the animated series 'Battle of the Planets', produced by Sandy Frank Entertainment, which was in turn based on the anime series 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman', produced by Tatsunoko productions. Characters are used without permission.

Feedback - either positive, or constructively negative - is always very welcome and eagerly anticipated.

Rubble shifted, the grinding of one cracked masonry block against another setting our teeth on edge. The Phoenix rocked, her left rear landing strut struggling to find a firm footing. With a roar of power, Tiny lifted us, drifting the ship no more than a yard to our right and yet settling her to the ground with barely a tremor.

None of us spoke to congratulate him on the tricky landing. This wasn't the time to revel in the marvels our team pulled off on a regular basis. This was the time to face their consequences.

I stood, moving with weary resignation to gather the medical gear and emergency kits. Mark watched me, for once nothing but tired pain in his eyes, and I returned his look with a businesslike nod. Keyop moved to help me, grateful anything to distract us while we waited for the dust the Phoenix had kicked up to settle. Jason and Tiny stayed in their seats for the moment, their eyes on their readouts. They'd share a drink at Jill's bar later, trying to soften the memories. Memories we were about to gather.

We hated missions like this.

We hated emerging from a Spectran mecha, aching and heartsick from the violence, only to face the devastation it left behind. Usually the Chief spared us the ordeal and ordered us home, but sometimes there was no alternative. Sometimes the mecha hit the hospitals first, or the radio systems, or even the bridges that united a community to the rest of the world. Sometimes there just wasn't a civilian authority to pick up the pieces.

Sometimes there was only us.

Mark looked up as the first jagged ruins emerged from the enveloping dust cloud. "All right. We have half an hour before emergency support catches up and reaches the town. We all know the procedure. Spread out. Help those you can."

There was silence as we each grabbed one of the packs Keyop and I'd pulled out of the lockers and rose into the bubble.

"Rendezvous in thirty-five minutes," Mark ordered as he spread his wings, and then he was gone, white wings lost in the murky air.

- x - x - x -

To call it a town was a kindness. Not a building taller than two storeys remained undamaged. The mecha had ravaged through the built up area, swiping to left and right as if the regularity of human construction offended it. Behind it, the alien machine had left a pattern of devastation that defied any attempt by the mind to impose order upon it. Walls bowed outwards or had collapsed inwards. Roofs were cracked like eggshells, or had been removed in their entirety. Some buildings were little more than rubble piles. Others seemed structurally intact but were illuminated from within by the first flickers of a fire that could engulf all that was left.

Thank God Zark got the warning out in time. Thank God most of the population reached their shelters.

But there are always a few people who won't take Zark seriously. Who don't accept the danger. Of course the worst won't happen. Not to them.

It was those I was searching for as I picked my way through the heaps of fallen debris. Placing my booted feet carefully, I paused to listen, detecting the faintest calls for help, lifting those I could reach clear, marking the position of those I couldn't for the rescue teams that would be here within minutes. Where buildings were on fire, I fought my way to the shelters underneath, letting the huddled inmates know that the first danger was passed and a new one threatened.

- x - x - x -

Minutes passed like years. Half an hour seemed gone in the blink of an eye.

I had acknowledged Mark's call to rendezvous when I noticed the little boy. There were people in the streets now, shell-shocked residents struggling to save what was left from the fires. In the distance we could hear a cacophony of sirens, and behind the glow of the fires I could see the lights of every kind of emergency vehicle.

Against this scene of bustling activity, the little boy stood as if lost in a world of his own. The dust on his face was streaked with tear tracks, and he looked down towards his feet with an expression of total devastation.

Knowing that the Phoenix was waiting, I still couldn't leave this child to cry alone. I moved towards him, and squatted in front of him, only now noticing that in one hand he held a length of slender rope. Its end was tired to the broken contraption at his feet. It was a simple enough toy, a horse mounted on a trolley with four small wheels. The kind of toy this boy - four? five years old? - might have been made by a doting parent or grandparent with more skill and love than money. Now the horse and trolley lay on their side, one wheel hanging loose from a snapped axel.

The child looked at me with the total trust toddlers reserve for adults.

"Horse is broken."

I nodded, reaching out to stroke a tear from the boy's cheek.

"Can you fix it?"

I sighed, and stood, about to shake my head and answer my commander's call. But then my eyes fell on the wooden wreckage of a shattered doorframe and the only thought in my head was 'why not?'.

With my gloves to protect me from splinters, it was simple enough to pull a slender strip of wood from the frame. A few strokes of my yo-yo's sharp edges were enough to smooth the cane and score it so I could snap it to the correct length. Pulling the broken length of axel from the trolley's frame, I slipped my rod into its place, screwing the wheels onto the cane and tapping them with my yo-yo until friction held them in place. Carefully, I lifted the horse upright. My axel was longer than the other, the wheels rattling at a slightly odd angle, but the horse ran smoothly at the child's tug on his rope.

"Come on," I said, taking the little boy's free hand. "Let's find someone to look after you, okay?"

He nodded, falling in beside me, and forcing me to shorten my stride to something closer to his. He looked about him as he walked, seeming to take in the litter of destruction with accepting eyes. I was handing him over to the first uniformed officer I found when he pulled his small hand out of mine and drew my eyes down to him.

His upturned face had a grave expression; tired, a little scared and very thoughtful.

"The world is broken."

I looked around me and couldn't help agreeing. A world which held Spectra - which held such callous disregard for the lives being destroyed - had to be broken.

"Yes, it is," I told him.

"Can you fix it?"

My communicator pulsed against my wrist, Mark managing to convey irritated impatience without even speaking. I gazed around me at the devastation, at the townspeople and emergency services working side-by-side to contain it. I looked up at the Phoenix towering above the surviving structures at the edge of town. And then I looked down at the child's horse and its makeshift repair. The axel was wonky, irregularities in the road's surface jerking the wooden toy in random directions. Not perfect, by any means, but it was the best I could do... and sometimes that had to be enough.

The boy was waiting for my reply, and the policeman was too, his dark eyes almost matching the child's in hope and trust.

"Yes," I told them simply. "Yes, I'm going to fix that too."

- x - x -

The End