It all started about ten years ago while I was watching a documentary on TV about the Second World War. Of course when it came to the Battle Of Britain, the air battle fought in the skies over southern England in 1940, they quoted Winston Churchill’s famous speech. "Never in the field of human combat has so much been owed by so many to so few."
This simple phrase caught my imagination – who were the "few". About if instead of the "few" it was the "F.E.W" – It wasn’t long before the name "Free Earth Warriors" forced its way to the front of my mind. Great I had a name, now all I needed was an idea to hang around it. After several weeks I came up with a script for a comic about a band of mutant heroes that was, to be honest, far from original. It basically mixed ideas from 2000AD’s Strontium Dog series, with bits of the X-Men and the plot line from a Clint Eastwood war movie. I carried the script around in my briefcase so I could tinker with it at work (in my lunch hour of course <g>). Until the fateful day my car was broken into and my case stolen… the script had been hand written and I had no copies – a couple of months work had disappeared. (Lesson #1 – Make backup copies !!)
Jump forward a couple of years and one rainy Sunday afternoon I’m sat surfing the channels looking for a movie to watch when I come across "The Battle Of Britain". I sat transfixed, it had been years since I last saw the movie and had forgotten what a great piece of human drama it was, it tells the story of the struggle and sacrifice by concentrating on a few individuals. The lights went on in my head – The Free Earth Warriors – take it back to the original source – how about telling the story of The Battle Of Britain in a science fiction setting by concentrating on the members of one squadron of pilots. I’d found the backbone on which to hang my story.
Around this time I’d started to self-publish FCQ and was looking for the first original comic strip to add to the mix of interviews and reviews. Free Earth Warriors seemed like a possibility. I soon found an artist at the local comic mart and we set out to produce the strip. Free Earth Warriors made its debut in FCQ #3. In 1994
My original plan was to produce 12 installments of the story. A change in jobs meant that I didn’t have the time to produce FCQ anymore and the strip never got beyond two parts. After settling into the new job I took another crack at the story but decided this time to write it up as a proposal for a 12 issue maxi-series and send it out to the comics publishers. I put together a package with a 2-page overview concept, a 4-page breakdown of the plot for a full 12 issue run and a full 22 page script for the first issue. My first try was DC and the newly announced Helix science fiction line. About six months after submitting the package It was returned with a great covering letter from editor Stuart Moore that said it was a "good strong proposal" but that it didn’t fit into Helix’s publishing plans for the moment (a few months later DC closed the Helix imprint down anyway). Stuart also made a few suggestions on improving the story structure. Taking his advise I reworked some elements of the script and sent the package of to Dark Horse.
While the comics submission was languishing in the bowels of Dark Horse, I decided to take another crack at the story but this time as a screen play. Having tried my had at a couple of TV screen plays I thought I’d have a go at coming up with an original movie length screenplay. The first step was to produce a detailed movie treatment. As I started to work on this I realized that the comic was perhaps lacking in the human drama that had first inspired me to tell the story. So for the movie treatment I decided to change the focus of the story and concentrate more on the people and less on the grand gestures. The development of the Movie treatment has taken place over the last few years in the pages of the Comicopia APA.
As a taster of the FREE EARTH WARRIORS concept, here's a short story treatment of one of the story arcs I did several years ago and entered in a sci-fi magazines short-story competition.
Enjoy and let me know what you think of The Free Earth Warriors. - Alan.
"The Sun ! Watch for the Sun!"
The voice screamed in Cole’s ears as she glanced over her shoulder in frustration. Quickly snapping her head through 180 degrees to look over the other shoulder she saw - nothing.
"Damn !", she swore "Where the hell is she ?"
Forcing herself to look upwards through the filtered Plexiglas canopy of her fighter she saw it, a dim shadow hidden in the Star’s bright corona. As she squinted and strained to see, the shape grew bigger. The tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared into the heart of the stellar furnace ahead of her.
Then the shockwave hit her. Her small fighter bucked sharply down, as reflexes took control and she dropped the ship towards the comfort of the planetary atmosphere below.
Checking back over her shoulder she saw that the craft which had come out of the sun at her, now occupied the area of space she had just left.
"Idiot," she muttered to herself as shaking she leveled out her craft and waited.
"Cole." The voice was calm and measured now.
"Yes".
"Do you really think you have what it takes to be a part of my team ?"
Cole hesitated too long in answering. Sarah Mitchell expected the best from the pilots on her team, and she was going to let her know it. But instead of the shouting Cole expected, she heard only a calm voice ordering her back to the squadron’s base.
+++++++++
The young pilot and her squadron commander sat in silence facing each other across the floor of the ground transport as it bounced along, each lost in their own private thoughts.
"She’s torturing me, deliberately not saying anything. Her disapproval is so obvious. She thinks I’m not good enough for her precious Avon Squadron." Cole kept repeating to herself like a venomous mantra. The anger building within her.
The background noise stopped as the transport ground to a halt. Cole watched the retreating back of her commanding officer as it approached the dome. Stepping through the airlock she broke the seal on her helmet, shrugged it off, loosened her long hair and took a deep breath of clean re-cycled air.
Then she noticed Mitchell’s face.
The voice was like cold steel.
"You idiot. Even when I shout, you still don’t react. Do you think they will yell at you before they kill you ? You’re a danger to yourself and this team.
……………
Get out of my sight !"
Stunned, Cole stood staring at Mitchell as she marched back towards her quarters, until an arm snaked around her shoulders bringing with it comfort. She let her shoulder sag until her head nestled into the crook of the strong and familiar limb.
"Com’on Alex honey. Don’t let her get to you. She was tough on all of us to start with." Twisting round Alex Cole looked into the one good eye of Ra.
"It’s easy for you, you’ve been here since the war started, seen it all and done it all."
"Yeah, even got a metal eye and half my head rebuilt, because of it."
"Sorry, I didn’t mean…"
"There’s all kinds of experience kid. Not all of it will save your life," Ra nodded his head in the direction Mitchell had gone.
"But her advice might."
+++++++++++++
Sarah Mitchell flung her helmet into the closet, closely followed by the rest of her flight suit. Instinctively she reached for the bottle that rested on the shelf nearby, her hand grasped empty air. She had thrown it away months ago after the first battle, but still the old temptations were there.
Cursing she slumped into a chair and picked up a vidmag. Looking at it without reading it, she was soon asleep.
…..bzzz…..bzzz ….bzzz
The sound crept around the edge of her consciousness. Slowly she opened one eye and surveyed her quarters. Small, cramped and decorated in true military style. She smiled at the thought that the EDF must have commandeered the whole sector’s supply of gray pigmentation.
BZZZ
The alarm sounded louder. Damn she was getting sloppy.
"Yes", she snapped to the room in general.
"Sorry to disturb you but two fighters have left on a non-scheduled training flight" came a disembodied voice in return.
"Who ?" It was more of a command than a question.
"Ra and Cole"
+++++++++++
As the haze of the planet’s atmosphere gave way to the clear of space, Mitchell checked her instruments and vectored in on the position of her two squadron members.
"I have them" her wing-man confirmed.
"Confirmed" she replied. "We should be with them within ……."
The sentence hung unfinished between the two pilots.
Mitchell heard a quiet "My God" filter through her headset. But she was unable to look away from the scene in front of her.
Metal debris was moving through space towards them, moving at a speed that could only have been initiated by an explosion. The largest piece bore a scarred insignia, just about recognizable as that belonging to Avon Squadron.
"Ra ! Cole !" she called into her communicator. Silence was her only reply.
More debris sailed past her cockpit, some larger, but the majority smaller than the first they had encountered. Whatever had happened they were looking at massive destruction.
"1K to port, at 11 o’clock" her wingman called.
Twisting against her harness she saw them.
"I’ve got visual - thanks."
Hanging in space were the remains of her two squadron fighters. One was obviously the source of the debris they had encountered. All that remained was the cockpit area, the rest of the fighter had been blown into a million fragments. The canopy was smashed and the cockpit open to space. The pilot’s head lay at an angle it had never been designed to achieve.
The second fighter was stationary next to it. It’s body work bore the signs of heavy carbon scoring and major damage. It had obviously been in a major exchange of fire and judging from the position of some of the blast marks, its pilot had put it through some unorthodox maneuvers.
"Guard Dog," thought Mitchell, looking at the damaged fighter standing over its companions body.
Bringing her own craft alongside she could see the pilot was still alive and signing that the communications were out and that the engines were gone.
"Wing, bring the body back. I’ll tow the other one home."
++++++++++++++++++++
Home. That word had a hollow ring to it as Sara Mitchell looked around her. This was far from being home. It was physically distant from the bare apartment she called home. That stark empty space was many light years away, but it still tugged at her like a distant gravity well.
The office attached to her quarters was a gray as the living quarters, it was also an all too permanent reminder that with leadership came responsibilities beyond strapping herself into a fighter.
"Reports - I hate them. As if it’s not bad enough that I lose a member of my Squadron, I have to tell everyone about it."
A shadow fell across her desk, and she looked up at the pilot stood in front of her. The figure was disheveled, the flight suit bearing carbon score marks similar to those of the crippled fighter she had just escorted back. But these were from small electrical fires that must have flared briefly in the cockpit before the automatic suppressers cut in.
"Lucky they were working, the shape that craft was in." Mitchell thought gloomily to herself. Then she slowly raised her gaze up towards the pilot’s face.
"What the hell happened up there. You went out on an unauthorized flight."
"To get more training - you want the best don’t you ?" The reply was almost an accusation.
"But not dead pilots - What happened."
"The damn Lizards jumped us."
The pilot’s hand swung and a scarred helmet crashed down in front of Mitchell. On it she recognized the personal markings of the pilot’s dead companion, a mark she knew to be full of ancient symbolism. She had never asked it’s significance and now she wouldn’t get the chance.
"How ?"
"The Sun, they came out of the Sun. Ra didn’t stand a chance."
FREE EARTH WARRIORS and FCQ are Trademark and (c) Alan J. Porter - 1994 - 2005
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