Chapter Text
Koala Base, Australia, July 2090
Rose sat silently in her room, staring out of the window. The residential block wasn't exactly on the edge of the base, but even from this distance, one had a perfect view across the desert, as far as the eye could see. It held a certain tranquillity that the base, and Rose's life in general did not possess. It was capable of such serenity and calmness that Rose's heart almost cried out to join it and be part of the web of life that inhabited the golden wasteland. But that same calmness was equally capable of taking the life that sought it, with a cold-hearted efficiency that was so familiar to the officers in the camp. A lifetime spent fighting the good fight against an enemy able to defy nature itself was somewhat akin to spending a lifetime in the desert.
Rose's eyes were suddenly drawn to a plane flying low across the shimmering golden sea, coming in to land. As a military base, that in itself was not an uncommon sight, except that silver and blue planes bearing only two people rarely landed at a desert base at one in the morning, halfway through the night shift. The two men had obviously wanted to avoid detection, but by whom? The first of the two men was tall, with pale hair and a pale uniform colour. He strode straight past the grey clad lieutenant running to meet the new arrivals, and soon disappeared into the main building. The second was much darker and shorter. He has a quick discussion with the lieutenant, then looked around at the base. His eyes travelled across the surfaces of the buildings as if he was looking for something specific, and then halted at her window. She knew instantly that he recognised her, for her uniform colour more than the fact that he could see her face from that distance. There were only a few women stationed to Koala Base, and even then, Rose was the only one authorised to wear black. Rose stared back at the man, trying to work out where she knew him from. He looked away and also made his way to the main building. Rose watched him with interest, intrigued as to his identity. When he stepped into the dim lights lining the pathway, she could make out his curly salt-and-pepper hair and slightly darker skin. Upon adding a little more luminescence, Rose almost fell off of the windowsill in surprise. Her mind suddenly flashed back to a very early memory, of her singing with a thirty-two year old lieutenant about a recent mission. He'd had black hair then, as black as her own, and his hazel eyes shone with laughter. Rose's eyes fell upon the guitar in the corner of her room. She wandered over to it, and sat back on the windowsill, clutching her prized possession and strummed away, remembering the tune written by her friend all those years ago, when she herself had just started learning, taught by the bubbly communications officer. Rose was snapped out of her revere by a knock at the door.
"Just a second," Rose called out, depositing the guitar in the corner and hurdling the bed to grab a seemingly insignificant tube from the dresser. This was, in fact, an important part of Rose's uniform. She struggled to place the blasted things as she staggered to the door as a result of landing badly on her left foot. Upon opening the door, Rose realised that she need not have gone through all the trouble. Like most people on the base, the man knew the significance of Lady Rose Scarlett Metcalfe's whole name. The other four cadets, however, did not. They knew enough to know that she was highly ranked in Britain's social structure, and that she was the granddaughter of the famous General Metcalfe, but many people would even think to associate her mother's choice of name, Scarlett, with anything at all. What would give them reason to think that it meant she was Major Scarlet's daughter? Suddenly, Rose realised that the man at the door was speaking.
"Sir?"
Rose's question was brushed aside by her commanding officer.
"I said, I have a proposition for you. Now, can I come in before the other cadets see me?" Captain Plum's eyes twinkled mischievously as he observed the young cadet standing in the doorway. Rose stood aside to let the captain through and closed the door softly behind him. The captain removed his cap and stood in the middle of the small, sparsely furnished room.
"Um, h- have a seat sir," Rose stammered, gesturing to the two seats that she had in the room. "What kind of proposition do you have in mind?"
Plum sat down in the more comfortable looking chair and grimaced slightly. "Dear God," he exclaimed, "are all the chairs this uncomfortable where the cadets are allowed?"
Rose shook her head. "No, Sir. Those are very comfortable compared to the ones in the lounge and the men's dormitory."
Plum raised an eyebrow at the mention of the men's dorm, but decided not to ask. Instead, he chose to laugh softly at the cadet's nervousness. Somehow, he'd never thought of Rose Metcalfe as the nervous type. Now, everyone around her, yes. Even Plum had been nervous when he, as a junior captain, had met Rose for the first time, a little over three years ago. Her eyes were creepy; a kind of luminescent green surrounded by the kind of yellow you find only in highlighter pens. A spooky combination when first faced with it, but everyone got over it when they were faced with it every day, and they got to know the girl behind the eyes. Now the creepy part was seeing her with normally coloured eyes, if you counted blue eyes with dark hair as normal.
"You'll have to be more careful, Rose; one of your contacts has slipped. I can see the yellow," he teased.
"Damn," Rose cursed. "I really hate these things, Alex. I'd do anything to get rid of them."
Plum was slightly taken aback by Rose's use of his first name, but he didn't mind. It meant that she had relaxed enough for him to tell her about his plan.
"What are you up to?" Rose asked, almost accusingly. He stared at her, an expression of total innocence on his slightly sunburned face. Rose returned the stare, odd-eyed like a cat - one blue on white, the contact, the other green on yellow. A curved piece of plastic, completely opaque, now rested on the tip of her finger. "You haven't looked so mischievous since you first suggested the Cloudbase panto to General White."
Plum laughed at the memory, and Rose giggled too. They had conspired, in December 2084 to bring the Christmas spirit to Cloudbase with a pantomime. Between them, they brought the idea to then-Colonel White, got scripts, enlisted officers as actors and organised the entire operation from start to finish. Rose had even starred as Cinderella, being the youngest female, and the one with the most spare time. Everyone had enjoyed the panto immensely, and the volunteers for Christmas duty doubled in number. Even Rose's grandparents had visited that year. The panto had been an annual occurrence since then, even following the setback of Plum's reassignment as Commander of Koala Base last August. The success of Cinderella had quickly brought Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Snow White to the remote outpost.
"Well, it's a similar suggestion, really. Another kind of play. And you did just say you'd do anything to be rid of the contacts."
Rose's bright eyes widened at the suggestion. The only reason she wore the blasted things on a Spectrum base was because the other cadets didn't know about her heritage yet. In three months, the original forty-six cadets had been reduced to just five, and they had just now moved on to the most classified information Spectrum had to offer. Those five would learn Spectrum's secrets, and then be commissioned as full lieutenants. The other forty-one had returned to their home countries and had probably already been instated as corporals. Rose was one of those secrets, kept for almost eighteen years from all but those who needed to know.
.oOo.
"Cadets," Captain Plum snapped. "There are reports of Mysteron activity on this base." He looked around in satisfaction as his five cadets glanced nervously at each other, even young Metcalfe.
"Since you have completed your Mysteron training, and you only have a week of training left anyway, we thought that this should be your first mission, whilst your training is still fresh in your mind, and to prove yourselves to the bosses upstairs. They're not convinced that you will be ready for commissioning in a week. I intend for you to prove otherwise.
"I am authorising the use of firearms against this intruder, and the use of any force necessary to neutralise the threat. However, you are not - I repeat, NOT – authorised to carry any anti-Mysteron weapons. Use your radio to contact either myself or Captain Orange to dispose of the agent fully.
"Assignments – Koenig, Ivanisovic, Wylde, you are to search the main complex: Griffiths, Metcalfe, you two search the research department. Leave no stone unturned. Collect equipment from me. Dismissed."
Rose was quite pleased with her assignment. The research department was quite large, she thought as she trudged towards Plum, who gave her a sly wink. She flashed him a rare grin as she collected her equipment, the large, cumbersome Mysteron detector, the pistol that fit snugly into the holster on the thigh of the black uniform pants, and the radio that clipped neatly onto her belt. The research department should keep Griffiths busy for some time. She was also glad that she had been partnered with Aaron Griffiths, the Trinidadian cadet. Rose had known his Uncle Seymour her entire life, and the two cadets had hit off right away.
An hour later, the research department was almost finished. It was hard because people kept switching rooms, and the two cadets kept having to backtrack to find people. Finally, it was just Captain Yellow and his aide Lieutenant Cyan to go. Rose already knew that they would be negative. Griffiths had just taken a short break to contact the others, and was joking with Koenig about approaching the senior officers. Something had obviously made him think, because he suddenly dropped his portable radio and snapped a shot of Rose. Unsurprisingly, he drew his pistol upon seeing the picture. Rose gulped. Now was the time to prove that all the time spent on pantomimes hadn't been wasted.
"So you have found me, Earthman." Rose startled herself with her 'scary Mysteron' voice. It was surprisingly realistic. "It does not matter. Soon your defences will crumble as our Spectrum operatives reveal themselves. The War of Nerves will end as it was destined to." Rose's tirade of Mysteron psychobabble was cut short as a bullet from Griffiths' gun severed her spinal cord at her waist. She dropped like a lead weight to the floor of the empty lab.
Rose laughed maniacally. She couldn't stop now. Keep up the act.
"By the time your electron rifle gets here, I will be gone, and you will be dead. You see, you forget something, Aaron Griffiths…" Rose drew her own gun, with no intention of actually using it. She aimed it at the older cadet, but he didn't give her a chance of pulling the trigger and put another bullet through her heart.
Déjà vu, she thought.
The last thing Rose heard before dying was "Mysteron agent confirmed as Cadet Metcalfe…"
.oOo.
Rose awoke with a start. Blinking to clear her vision, she saw Captain Green standing over her, smiling. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he said.
Rose groaned at the bad pun. "That's not funny, Seymour." Rose moved her right hand to stop the 'retrometabolism clock' she'd been given a couple of years ago, the device that measured how long a particular recovery took, when suddenly Green snapped "Hold it." Rose was startled and froze as ordered. What was wrong?
Green's face disappeared from view for a moment. When he returned, he looked somewhat grim. "I was right."
"What? I don't understand."
Green shook his head. "You don't have any sensation in your feet yet," he explained.
Rose blinked in surprise, and then realised that he was right. "How could you tell," she asked, intrigued that he had noticed before she had.
"You didn't sit up right away. That's normally the first thing you do, trust me. I've done enough death watches in my time." Rose knew that Green wasn't just talking about her.
"Death watches?" asked a curious voice, remarkably similar to Green's.
Rose propped herself up on her elbows to look at Aaron properly. He blanched and backed up a step, not easy to do in the confined space of the SPJ's cabin. Rose turned to face Green.
"You've taken my contacts out," she accused, even though she was relieved to have that out in the open. Not that she would have been able to keep it a secret after that little drama any longer.
"I did promise!" called Plum's voice from the cockpit.
"A little warning would have been nice," she teased, shaking her head in amusement. "Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, death watches." Rose turned back to Aaron and fixed her bright eyes on him, so that he had to face the situation. He was now seated next to Kristian Koenig, the German cadet, who had turned a rather sickly colour. Rose doubted that it was due to travel sickness, and opted to ignore his understandable reaction for the time being. Their little demonstration of retrometabolism appeared to have been very successful.
"Death watch – a very sick Cloudbase in-joke. It refers to the old practice of…"
"I know what a death watch is, Metcalfe," snapped Aaron, as his uncle crossed the small cabin and helped Rose to sit up.
Rose held up her suddenly free hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Anyway, it's used on Cloudbase in reference to watching over a retrometabolic during a death."
The other cadets looked shocked. Absolutely gobsmacked would have been a more accurate assessment. Having just learned about Mysteron powers, they were understandably wary of Rose, and surprised about the officers' acceptance of her as she was.
"How many of you are there?" Rudolph Ivanisovic, the Russian, had obviously asked the right question, because the mood in the cabin changed in an instant.
"Ah," Green said, "I think it's time for the final briefing." These words didn't seem to register with the other cadets. As far as they knew, the commissioning wasn't for another week, but Rose had sussed it straight away. When Plum had mentioned Cloudbase last night, she knew that the Irish captain had been having them on all along. There was no other reason they would be going to Cloudbase. However, Green's words had obviously been paid heed by someone, because a tall, blond figure emerged from the cockpit. Rose's face lit up.
"Ada-, sorry, Colonel." Rose's slip had not gone unnoticed.
"Don't worry, cadet. We all make mistakes in the beginning. Even I did. But don't let it happen again." Colonel Blue wasn't really reprimanding her, but he was right. She shouldn't be making mistakes like that, especially on duty. No one could really blame her, though. Rose had lived her entire life in Spectrum. Her father was Major Scarlet, Spectrum's number one field agent, and a replicant of the Mysterons, making Rose, technically, half-Mysteron herself. Like Scarlet, who was a clone, Rose could return from the dead. He had also passed on a rather interesting gene, latent in himself, but manifesting in Rose on her thirteenth birthday, just after her first death. That was what had scared Griffiths, the only outwardly sign of her Mysteron genetics.
Rose's bright eyes swept across her fellow cadets. They were, for the most part paying attention to Colonel Blue as he explained the Mysteronisation process and about Spectrum's own Mysterons. But every now and then, one of the four flicked his eyes towards the girl lying on the stretcher nervously, as if she would get up and do exactly what Blue was telling them about. Ivanisovic still looked slightly green, an understandable reaction considering that Rose had literally risen from the dead. Koenig kept eyeing her suspiciously as if she was going to start shooting green rings from her impossibly coloured eyes. Rose considered this course of action for a second, just to scare them senseless, but thought better of it in light of present company. Blue might not take the joke too well, at the moment. Robert Wylde, the British cadet was desperately trying not to stare out of courtesy, and was, for the most part succeeding. Aaron Griffiths looked totally shell-shocked and stared alternately at Rose and his uncle. Aaron had always thought that Green was still a WASP communications expert. Rose had never contradicted this belief, and was now rather amused to see Aaron's reaction to the truth.
Rose turned her attention back to her godfather's lecture, only to find that she needn't have bothered – it was about her and Major Scarlet. Since Rose had hacked the Spectrum computers years ago, she'd had access to the 'Rainbow' clearance material for some time now, not that she didn't already know most of it anyway.
She closed her eyes sleepily and drifted off into a regenerative sleep.