Once again, it's been a while. I really don't know how you weekly posters do it, hat's off to you. But it's spring break now! (I've been ready for spring break since finals at the end of January...) I've got a ton of time on my hands and the plot bunnies are working overtime, so here's the result of all of that, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Tracy boys or their Thunderbirds, and I'm not pretending to. I'm not making any money by posting this.

Floodswept

Chapter One- Change in Priority

It was a deathly fierce battle. Many of the King's men were captured or killed, and his Queen was long dead. The enemy forces swarmed into his territory completely unchecked. The King's last remaining men coiled around him, each ready to give his life for the crown. A cunning Black Knight saw a weakness in their defense and exploited it, viciously running his sword through a Bishop before turning his weapon toward the King.

"Check!" Gordon exclaimed, snatching the bishop off the board.

"Darn it, again? I really should've seen that coming." Alan stared down at the chess pieces, searching for a weak point in Gordon's strategy. He really was losing spectacularly.

Gordon shook his head. "You're only prolonging the inevitable, Alan."

"Hey, everybody likes an underdog."

"No offense, Alan. But 'underdog' is just another word for 'loser'."

Alan opened his mouth to respond, but was thankfully saved from having to come up with a witty comeback when John's hologram blinked to life above the table.

Alan and Gordon stood up, staring expectantly at John, waiting for the familiar alarm to sound. But when John simply said "Hi, guys." instead of "We have a situation." their faces broke into grins.

"Hey, Johnny, how you been?" Gordon asked his big brother.

John smiled a greeting. "Kind of bored, actually. It's pretty quiet out there today, so I thought I'd call in and see what you guys are up to."

Alan gasped in mock shock. "Wait, so you're telling me that you don't have to recalibrate your semi-axle quadrilateral sub-systems? Or integrate your fractalization code into the baritone info-command-break?"

John raised an eyebrow. "Alan, you're just saying words."

"Missing the point, John." Gordon said in a singsong voice.

Alan crossed his arms. "Besides missions, we haven't heard from you in two days, John." His scolding tone reminded Gordon very much of Scott, but it was to be expected. Alan knew better than most how space could detach a person from the world below, and he did his best to keep John in check.

John sighed. "I know, you're right. I need to call more. I just had a lot of upgrades to install. I've been testing how our scanners perform in relation to different sediments. I thought Brains and I had designed them to take accurate readings despite almost any geological composition on Earth, but, obviously the Trinity mission proved that's not-"

Gordon clicked his tongue. "No excuses, Johnny boy. You can't be working on your sediment scanner thingie all the time. Imagine what Scott and Virgil would say."

The wall on the far side of the room slid open and Virgil and Scott stepped out of the hidden passenger elevator.

John grinned at the timing. "Speak of the devil. Hey, Scott. Hi, Virge."

"John!" The two brothers said in unison.

"Why didn't you two tell us John was calling?" Virgil asked Alan and Gordon.

Scott ruffled Alan's hair. "Yeah, trying to keep him for yourselves, are you?"

Smiling, Alan swatted Scott's hand away. "You only had a few repairs to do, I knew you'd be up here soon. Y'know, eventually."

"Sure, but who knows if John would even still be on the line?" Virgil asked with a pointed look at John.

John's smile turned apologetic. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry I've been a little out of touch recently."

"'Out of touch'?" Scott repeated. "Honestly, John, apart from official business, we haven't heard from you in two days."

"And don't say you've been busy." Virgil said, picking up the argument. "You can't possibly be working every moment of every day. No excuses, John."

From behind them, Alan and Gordon glanced at each other, then simultaneously broke into laughter. Scott raised an eyebrow. "So, what about this is funny?"

Alan morphed his laugh into a cough while Gordon cleared his throat, quickly trying to school his face, but ending up with a grin regardless. "It's just that's exactly what we told him. 'No excuses' and everything."

"He's right, it was almost word for word, and there is absolutely no need for me to sit through the same lecture twice…" John frowned as he trailed off, his holographic form looking down at a control panel outside of the others' view.

A worry line creased Scott's brow. "John? What's wrong?"

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing wrong, really. Just strange. EOS just picked up a call, it's originating from somewhere in Trinity."

"The town we helped out with the mudslide at that mine the other day? Is it another emergency?" Virgil asked.

"Not from what I can tell. They used the normal communications line, not the emergency channel."

Alan shrugged. "Maybe they just called to say thanks."

"Whatever the reason, now I'm curious." Scott said. "Transfer the call over, John."

A few swipes on his screen and holograms of EOS and a woman appeared next to John's. The woman had black hair and tanned skin and seemed to be agitated, obviously having argued with the AI.

"Thank you, EOS, we'll take it from here." John said quickly, before EOS could say something to upset the woman even more.

EOS sighed, red lights flashing. "If you say so, John." Her hologram blinked out of sight. John would have to have another talk with her about people skills.

Gordon frowned thoughtfully at the woman's hologram. He was sure he'd seen her before.

"You've reached International Rescue." Scott said "Are you reporting an emergency?"

"I'm not sure if you would consider it an emergency, but I couldn't think of anyone else who might be willing to help."

"Help with what, miss?" Virgil asked.

"Perhaps I should begin again. My name is Dr. Avira Burrell-"

Gordon snapped his fingers, suddenly remembering. "Of course- Dr. Burrell! You're the ecologist that called in that wildfire in Nevada a couple months back." Expressions of recollection flashed across his brother's faces and a silent "oooooh" penetrated the room.

"Yes, that's right." Dr. Burrell said, a bit surprised they'd remembered her. "I'm a member of the Wildlife Research and Protection Guild. I'm on assignment here in Trinity and my team and I discovered a logjam in the river holding back a dangerous amount of water collected from last week's storm and snowmelt from the mountains. When the dam breaks it will flood the entire valley. But if we can dig out channels to divert the water flow we can greatly decrease the impact of the floods."

Scott frowned. "Dr. Burrell, I thought you said this wasn't an emergency."

"There aren't any residences in the danger zone," John told them, swiping his hand and pulling up satellite images of Trinity. "The town's built on high ground to avoid potential flooding from the mountains when the snow melts."

"Yes, this is true." Dr. Burrell said, speaking a bit faster now, as if she was worried they would deny her request now that they understood there were no human lives at risk. "But a flood of this scale would decimate Trinity's ecosystem. It could take years to recover."

"What if you rent equipment from the Connelly Mine?" Virgil asked, remembering the heavy duty equipment from the mudslide rescue.

"I've already asked. Connelly denied me out flat. He doesn't want anything to delay the reopening of his mine."

"Could you bring in equipment from somewhere else?" Gordon suggested.

"No, the WRPG doesn't have the funds. We've asked for permission to use some of the town's construction equipment, but since Trinity doesn't have any indigenous or endangered species they didn't want to take away from the storm rebuilding efforts. We thought you could help us." Dr. Burrell finished, an unsure expression on her face.

Scott sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Dr Burrell, you have to know that this is a very… unusual request."

"Scott-" Gordon began to protest, but his brother cut him off with a look.

"Send over any information you have on the situation, I'll talk it over with my team and decide whether or not to deploy." Scott finished. Dr. Burrell thanked him, saying she would send the rest of the details and ended the call.

Gordon sighed. "Don't say it, Scott."

"Our priority is people, Gordon."

Gordon threw his hands in the air. "I ask for one thing."

"I'm not happy about it either, Gordon, but we can't send Thunderbird 2 halfway around the world to dig trenches when she could be needed somewhere else."

"If we're called somewhere else we can just redeploy." Gordon argued. "For all it's resemblance to a giant green bathtub, Thunderbird 2 is still one of the fastest planes in the world."

"That is true." Virgil mumbled, frowning at the ground, deep in thought. His head suddenly snapped up, eyes glaring at Gordon. "About being one the fastest planes in the world, not the bathtub thing."

Alan chuckled. "I was about to say, Virge. I knew you weren't just gonna let that slide."

Virgil rolled his eyes, but returned to his original point. "There's still the issue with fuel though, and equipment. If we're called out to, say, a fire and we have a pod full of bulldozing equipment we're not going to be able to do much of anything anyway."

Gordon snapped his fingers. "What if I just take a Pod? We have half a dozen of the things anyway and I won't even need to take Two, I could just fly there in Tracy 1."

"But what if we need Thunderbird 4, Gordon?" John spoke up. "You're our only aquanaut."

Gordon crossed his arms, not budging. "Alan's been cross-training on Thunderbird 4 for a while now. If it's needed, he can pilot it." While Gordon definitely had more of an instinct for underwater rescues, as well years of experience on Alan, the fact of the matter was that TB4's controls and responses weren't all that dissimilar from his brother's rocket. Alan would be able to cover for Gordon, and he was always just a phone call away if his brothers needed his advice.

Alan blinked, astonished at his brother's willingness to give over his prized 'Bird. "Woah. You guys heard that too, right? I'm not hallucinating?" His brothers had always known that Gordon was a passionate advocate for wildlife protection, but he was really serious to give free rein of his Thunderbird over to his brothers, to Alan no less.

Despite knowing that his brothers often thought of him as the prankster, Gordon could be serious when the situation called for it. "Look guys, Dr. Burrell wasn't exaggerating. The floods really will destroy the entire ecosystem for years to come if we don't help out, and we've got the means so why shouldn't we?"

Scott sighed, running his hand through his hair again, and Gordon knew his brother had caved. "Alright, you can go." Scott said. "But I don't feel too good about sending you alone though. You won't have any backup, or a Thunderbird."

Gordon grinned, waving off his concerns. "Don't worry about it, Scotty. I am a trained professional you know."

"Besides, he won't be completely alone." John said. "I'll keep an eye on him."

Scott sighed, "Alright, I know when I'm beaten. John, go ahead and contact Dr. Burrell."

Dr. Burrell's hologram blinked to life again, an anxious expression on her face.

Gordon stepped forward. "Dr. Burrell? We'll be there in an hour."

~TB~

Persi Renari ran up to where her friends were standing, adjusting the hearing aid in her right ear as she went. She was on a camping trip with her brother Nico, their friends, Mae and JT, and JT's father, Mr. Trainer.

"Oh, here she comes now." Persi heard Mae say as she spotted her.

"Sorry, I'm so late." Persi said, grinning sheepishly as she walked up to them. "I overslept."

"It's fine, you're still not even the last one here." Nico said shrugging from where he'd taken a seat on the ground.

"That's right," Mae said, sighing. "We're still waiting on JT and Mr. Trainer, they went to get snacks almost fifteen minutes ago. We'll be lucky if the sun's still up by the time we get on the trail."

Persi waved off the exaggeration. "Here they come right now, and look, hours of daylight left."

"Sorry we took so long, the lines were crazy. I think half the people here come for the snack bar and not the hiking trails." JT said as he and his dad passed around water bottles and bags of trail mix.

Nico stood up sweeping dirt off his knees and shrugging his shoulder. "Well it is a 'luxury campground.'"

"Hey, that's a good thing, gang." Mr. Trainer said. "More forest for us. But we better move out. It's a long hike down into the valley, and I'd rather not have to cross back over the river in the dark."

Thanks so much for reading! Enjoy you're spring break, everyone!

Happy Good Friday!

Happy Passover!

Happy Easter!