Doc Sherwood
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Cycles, Chapter Three
Heroes they were. If Dylan and his command had ever been called upon to prove it, they did so in the second or two when each of the six saw with absolute clarity what route lay ahead for them now. They could neither prevail nor flee, but still, not one among them entertained for an instant any notion of throwing themselves on Harbin’s non-existent mercy. They would fight, until they could fight no more. Even in the absence of hope, that much honour they might yet do the reverend quartet they had striven in vain to save.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Issues, Chapter One
It was the sort of situation that really required name-tags, or better yet, convenient captions somehow superimposed over the veritable double splash-page of a scene. Such scattered rectangles for easy reference hanging inexplicably unsupported in space would have been much appreciated by the two warlike factions facing off, neither of which boasted a member who had the identities of all the others absolutely down.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Heroes' Reunion
Dylan Cook of The Four Heroes was back. That same dark hair and same warm smile greeted the first well-wishers in an opulent observation-lounge attached to Prof’s sanatorium, Phoenix standing proud by the side of her love. One genius Grindo’s medical ministrations had restored to Dylan even the use of his legs, where Earth-technology would have been unable to do so, such that he walked strongly and without so much as a limp as he moved through the waiting-room shaking hands and embracing again and again. There was laughter, and many tears. To the ever-modest Prof Dylan did his best to express thanks for which mere speech could barely suffice, while James, Carmilla and Flashtease bestowed on their old friend the most joyous of welcomes home in return. Even Flashshadow, who had never met Dylan, murmurously faltered out something unintelligible but no doubt in keeping with the spirit of this happy time.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Cycles, Chapter Two
Harbin’s contrivance towered above the tribal trappings from whose midst it had been raised, turning Dylan’s vehicles to tiny toys as they slewed to a stop at its foot. It was not a dome, though it was easy to see how it might have been mistaken for one.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Cycles, Chapter One
They hit the road as one, churning stone-strewn flatland to a dust-storm behind them as the Grindotron freighter which had dropped them there climbed back for the stratosphere. Dylan, letting his massive rig’s six-wheel suspension take the strain of landing with barely a check in its stride, powered on to assume the head of the convoy with unspoken determination and purpose. Flanking him on either side his company skimmed above the dusty disordered planet-crust, Phoenix in her streamlined star-fighter, the two Mini-Flashes astride their rocket-bikes, and 4-H-N surfing upright on her robot companion Micro-Mallet.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Decency
Considerably more of Schiss-Zazz’s physique than anyone might have wished to see hung at rest above the maximum-security cell-deck. His lithe muscular bare arms and legs were robustly manacled and splayed. Forcefield balls began at his wrists and englobed both hands like giant glowing balloons, lending additional assurance that the deadly shears Schiss-Zazz wore would not be put to use.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Code, Chapter Four
Outside of the Junkyard Belts the nebula’s green glow receded, such that the slab of stone that was the Neetkins sisters’ rendezvous-point with the alliance sat against blackest space. The only illumination came of harsh sodium-lamps mounted on the Toothfire prison-ship, which idled fortress-like with bulkheads suggestive of forbidding iron walls. In and out of a white groundfog brewing from its rocket-engines a handful of Mini-Flash assistants scurried busily, but most of the reception-committee were Vernderernders. These, shaped like huge scavenging birds made of motorcycle pipes and rods, hunched their numerous glinting bodies upright atop rocky perches and surveyed the scene in cold motionless satisfaction.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Code, Chapter Three
Phoenix Prime’s burning hand was aimed once more at Scientooth’s throne on high. “So,” commenced her clone Phoenix, to the solitary unprotected mechanism which sat therein. “Zat is what you would ’ave us do, while my loved one lies ’elpless on ze life-support? Zat is ’ow you occupy our time, when all we ask is your aid?”
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Code, Chapter Two
Moltron, a brawny humanoid whose rippling musculature glistened like slick liquid, was first among Scientooth’s bodyguards to stomp growling forth and begin swatting at the Neetkins sisters with heavy hammer-blows. After taking a fall or two courtesy of this powerhouse our heroines were quick to serve out the counterattacks, which knocked Moltron down only for him to rise again each time. Nor did this thick-headed aggressor confine himself to fisticuffs, for at intervals his whole torso would burst open in a tidal barrage that ripped across the stage and cast all four girls spinning at once. Sometimes in addition he would mutate his hand into a huge amorphous cocoon which swelled and swallowed Neetkinses without warning, at which Moltron would adopt swaggering postures and raise his enveloped victim above his head to apply a squeeze before flinging the prisoner aside.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Code, Chapter One
The whole thing was like something out of a computer game, if you asked Carmilla Neetkins about it. Maybe that was only to be expected when you and your three sisters went into battle against a computer, or maybe Carmilla had just spent too much time hanging round arcades in her teenage vampire days. But right from the start, she pictured their Grindo starship in full profile on a side-scrolling screen as Scientooth’s high-speed interceptors, ignoring all hails for a peaceful conference, brought herself and her sisters crashing aground somewhere deep in the Junkyard Belts of Nebula Seven. An introductory sequence straight out of the sixteen-bit era, though Carmilla was aware she was starting to sound like he whose life they had ventured here to save.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Castle Jaw
It was a square expanse of overgrown grass like some neglected park, hemmed in by tall reverse-sides of surrounding buildings which one of the suns was at present throwing into shade. Alien weeds and herbs rambled unchecked, and from the centre of the meadow jutted a few broken stubs of wall which clearly belonged to a very different era. Even the noise from the city beyond seemed somehow subdued. One or two dusty rays from the nearer sun slanted across the scene.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
