Never been so glad to see the big, taciturn bugger. It'd come out of nowhere, angled high to port, smacked into Lord Terror like an angry bull – one of those special flying bulls necessary for this simile to work – and thrown him out towards our starboard side, where we couldn't really see him so well because of the angle.
The pilots stopped evading and put the nose down, making hay while Talos shone. We lost sight of them pretty soon, but we could see aerial explosions for a while. They were busy exchanging rockets and stuff.
Ian spread his hands. "We made it. Got to the airport, loaded the bottle onto a fast transporter, and off it went, flanked by RAF fighters. The Canadians did their thing and broke the anti-matter down into only fairly terrifying chunks.
"We lost Talos, though.
"None of us were there to see it, but an Army Gazelle recorded the fight from a safe distance. It's a pretty brutal fight. Talos tears into Terror's side, they tumble along in the air. The camera keeps losing them for a few seconds at a time, they're moving around so much. Weapons going off at point-blank range from both sides, whoever's doing the firing getting caught in the blast of their own weapons. They didn't care. Talos tore off Terror's arm. You can see it drop from five thousand feet, the gun on it still firing. Smoke. Lots of smoke. Flash of explosions."
He paused, his strange black eyes looking at nothing but the memory.
"Then there's a big bang. To this day, we don't know whether one of them fired something really heavyweight, or some bit of gear on one of them was finally so damaged it just blew up. Whatever happened, it hurt both of them. They fell apart from each other, and lost a few hundred feet.
"Terror recovers first. Fires his jets and decides he's had enough fun for one day. Heads up. Straight up. The bastard's able to get into space, and he's used that more than once to shake off pursuit. Off he goes, leaving a big oily smudge of smoke behind him, one arm down on the deal.
"Talos... not doing even as well as that. Falls a long way before it recovers. Even then, not flying well. Kept dropping and pulling up again. Headed north, north eastish. You see a glimmer on the tape and think it's the sun on its armour. Then you realise Talos is on fire. Limping away."
He looked at Nadiya, and smiled a little sadly. "The rest you know. Talos went missing, and when the recording of the fight was enhanced and we saw just how badly damaged it was, we thought, well, that was that.
"Seemed that way, too." He shook his head. "Hard when you don't get to say goodbye."
Nadiya nodded, not convinced he was only talking about Talos.
"And then," he slapped his knees, suddenly animated again, "just turns up one day, like nothing ever happened. The same, but different.
"'Where've you been, Talos?' 'Holiday.' A joke. Not much of a joke, but a joke. From Talos, who once launched teargas canisters into an illegal warehouse party and told the organisers to 'Surrender or die.'"
Nadiya smiled. Ian looked at her seriously. "That wasn't a joke. It was pointing a mini-gun at them at the time."
Nadiya stopped smiling. "I think I prefer the way Talos is now."
"So do we all. It was always on the cards it'd cross the line once too often and kill somebody, the way it was going."
"Where do you think it was all that time?"
Ian shrugged. "It's a good question, but one we don't ask in this gig. If a SpecT has their super-secret penthouse base, or a cave, or a warehouse, of a two-up, two-down in Wythenshawe, that's their business. I like to think Talos has some sort of, like, an underground bunker, all full of shiny floors and vaulted ceilings like it was designed by Ken Adam for a Bond movie. That would be brilliant." He nodded at the mass of black and white cloth on Nadiya's lap. "How's the needlework going?"
"All done! Want to see it?"
"Yeah. Why not? Tell you what, though, I'm gasping. I'll make more tea and see what's left in the biscuit barrel. You can change while I'm in the kitchen."
He collected their dirty cups and plates, and went to the kitchen, humming the Thunderbirds March under his breath.
Nadiya stood and took off her cardigan. She would leave her jeans and t-shirt on; if the new dress couldn't even accommodate those then there was no chance it would allow space for her body armour and she would have to let out the seams. It was a little more loligoth than her usual "Young Pioneers" dress, but she was okay with that. She had a sketchbook full of designs, and intended to fill a wardrobe with black, white, and red battledresses as a side-project. This one had black panels interspersed with chequerboard panels, chevrons on the sleeves (she was going to paint matching chevrons on a pair of biker boots), red lacing along the bodice seams, and red lace beneath the skirt's hem.
She walked around behind the sofa to give herself more space, and shrugged it on over her casual clothes. As her head popped out of the top of the dress, she realised she could use the transparent doors of Talos' lift as a makeshift mirror. She admired herself for a moment – the dress looked good on her – but then found her gaze rising up the empty lift shaft. She thought of Ian's story, and the pitiless engine of war Talos had been. Then she remembered Talos rising in that very lift not so long ago, a hand up in solemn self-deprecatory salute as they hummed its unofficial theme tune. Yes, she much preferred this version. She wondered what had happened in those wounded months, when the world had thought Talos destroyed.
Ian returned with a restocked tea tray. Nadiya graced him with a twirl of her new dress, finishing with a dainty curtsy, her chin resting upon an extended index finger.
Ian smiled. "You're gonna knock 'em dead, Kysla."
From the Deckchair of Jonathan L. Howard
Well, I hope you found all that pleasantly diverting.
You'd be quite right to think that some of the elements that you've just seen will be turning up in the regular issues. This is where I put on my scary Joker voice and say, It's all part of the plan.
During the writing of these four stories, I actually came up with several more ideas that didn't fit here either for tonal reasons or because they make use of continuity that isn't yet in place. They will either turn up next year, or wrapped into the ongoing series as subplots and asides. Still, the immediacy with which such new ideas occur to me illustrates the point that one of the extraordinary things about GOON SQUAD from my perspective is that I'm never stuck for material. I never really have to rack my brains for ideas, as they bubble out of my imagination with near indecent enthusiasm, falling over one another in their eagerness to be written. This special issue, for example, marks about the halfway mark for the initial one year experiment, and my only concern is finding time to write issues. New material and the necessary energy to commit ideas to prose are not a problem.
The cover of the GOON SQUAD 2014 Summer Special is by the disgracefully talented artist and animator Bri Raymond. I asked for a cover like the old “Beano” and “Dandy” summer specials of yesteryear, and she caught the vibe perfectly. You can find more of her work here: https://briraymond.daportfolio.com/
Thanks for reading, and may you have a good summer,
Jonathan L. Howard
Goon Squad 2014 Summer Special Page 6