V "A Time to Fight" Author Unknown V Annual 1986 (World International Publishing Ltd.)

Elizabeth is kidnapped by some two-bit crooks who hope to trade her to Diana.

Story Summary

The story opens with a little girl clutching her pet rabbit, lost in a Visitor-blasted neighborhood. Elizabeth is also in the neighborhood on a mission and she stops to comfort the child. Just then, four Visitor troopers arrive with weapons drawn. They recognize Elizabeth and plan to turn her over to Diana. One of the soldiers grabs the rabbit and hangs it over his gaping maw, about to eat it, when Elizabeth's anger triggers her telekinetic powers and sends the four troopers flying through the air. More Visitors approach in a transport, but Kyle shows up on his motorcycle to rescue the two (and the rabbit) and they race down the road.

Nearby, a liquor store is being robbed by two low-grade crooks. The two escape with a third accomplice driving a car, while the liquor store owner's wife shoots at them with her husband's .25 Colt Junior. As the car speeds away, she finally hits a rear tire and the car skids off the side of the road, hitting Kyle and his passengers on his motorcycle.

Later, Kyle stumbles into resistance HQ with the little girl. The girl's parents are there, luckily, and the family is reunited. Kyle explains to the rest what happened and that the hoods in the car took Elizabeth hostage to a condo near the beach where they are waiting to work a deal with Diana for the starchild.

The resistance quickly makes rescue plans and heads out. The rescue is successful, despite Visitor interference. Meanwhile, the liquor store owner and his wife also decide to join the resistance. 

THE END

Didja Know?

This story appeared in the British V Annual 1986, a kids book of short stories, articles and games all about V.

Didja Notice? 

Page 22 mentions that Jacob came to the U.S. with his parents from Warsaw, Poland at the end of WWII. Possibly, this is meant to invoke comparison between the resistance war against the Visitors and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April-May 1943, in which the Jewish residents of Warsaw fought German occupying troops for almost a month before the ghetto was virtually destroyed by the German troops.

Also on page 22, the crook Donny pulls a long drag from the broken neck of a liquor bottle. That's a good way to swallow a piece of glass!

On page 23, Donny refers to the Visitor occupation as the "iguana invasion".

On page 24, Julie is chairing a discussion among resistance members on how to make best use of a recently acquired skyfighter. Do they really need to have a discussion about what to do with a single recently acquired skyfighter? They've acquired many of them over the course of numerous stories; they should simply have one more to add to their fleet (see "City on the Edge" which depicts the old movie ranch in the Santa Monica mountains which they use as a hangar and repair facility for captured skyfighters).

On page 26, Visitor patrols suddenly cut off both ends of the street as resistance members attempt to escape. But how did the Visitors know they were there? Possibly they are troops sent by Diana to meet up with Donny and Carl who had hopes of trading Elizabeth to her for some reward, and they happened to arrive in the middle of the fight/escape between the two thugs and the resistance rescue team.