15:27 International Rescue receive a distress call from a downed cargo plane.

15:51 Thunderbird One arrives on the scene and extracts the pilot from the wreckage

16:03 Thunderbird Two arrives to begin collecting and containing the toxic waste that made up the majority of the cargo.

16:35 One operative is tasked with locating the black box, that was scattered with the debris when the plane broke in two in mid-air.

16:39 The operative starts complaining about the difficulty of finding something so small in several square miles of dense and remote forest.

17:12

"Am I any closer?" John asked over the comms, as Alan studied the displays in front of him. He had the cargo inventory, specs of the plane, a weather map, a geological map and an overlay with blinking dots for each of his brothers and their machines. What he didn't have right now was the blinking light that indicated the piece of the crashed plane that would hold the black box.

"I'm not sure to be honest with you, the signal keeps fading in and out and shifting slightly." Alan could scream with frustration – after co-ordinating their arrival and formulating a plan to get all that toxic stuff out of this protected area safely this was meant to be the easy part. But the unusual geology was making him look like a fool.

"It must be damaged then. It can happen sometimes." John said unhappily, as he tramped through the undergrowth with no real hope of finding what he was after.

"Why don't you turn back, the airline can continue the search for it. Working out what went wrong isn't really our job anyway." Alan grimaced as he shifted in his seat. The blinking light that was John stopped for a moment and then started to angle back towards Thunderbird 2. Alan could hear the rustle and crackle as John negotiated his way through the dense patches of brush.

"Are the air lifts finished?" John asked so Alan pulled up yet another screen. John would probably have had all of these open at the same time, and he was trying his best but that was just too much information to deal with.

"Yep. Well, nearly. Scott is doing one now and we just have the last couple of crates that Virgil and Gordon will be bringing in." Alan reported, updating their 'percentage of cargo recovered' counter to 97%.

"And how are you doing?" When Alan didn't immediately reply John continued. "Come on, I know how much a broken bone can ache. Have you taken your pills recently?"

Alan gave a sigh at the unfairness of being the youngest and having all of his siblings feel it was their duty to constantly worry about him. He used a pencil from the desk to scratch at the inside of the cast that stretched from ankle to knee.

"Yes I have." The naggers. "I'm fine." The worry-worts. "It just aches a bit. I'm just..."

"Restless? Bored? Ready to be out in the field again?" Alan could hear the smile in John's voice even as he continued to rustle his way back to the others.

"Yes!" Alan exclaimed. He knew that this was a vital role, and that with him out action – out of physical action – it made sense for him and John to swap for a while. But he just wasn't made to sit still.

John chuckled. "Well maybe you won't be so careless next time you are doing a pick up off a mountain. For the record, I would much rather you were here, tramping through miles of forest, and I was up on 5, but needs must."

Alan endured the gentle chiding – and gentle it was compared to the dressing down he had had from Scott, while the plaster was still drying no less.

17:14

"Ow, Son of a..." John managed to supress the curse and his blinking position marker stopped. Alan rolled his eyes – he didn't know why everyone was so intent on not swearing in front of him, he wasn't a kid! Besides he knew what they meant anyway. Mostly.

"What's wrong now." So far John had moaned when he slipped down a small slope, caught his hand on a thorn and was startled by a large bird.

"I reached out to move this branch and a snake bit me. Damn, that smarts."

"You ok? What sort of snake?" Alan felt a stirring of unease.

"I don't know, the scaly kind." John snapped. Alan tried to not to take it personally: John didn't do well when out of his comfort zone of knowing everything.

Alan called up his screen that had information about the area, and moved to the column that had been largely ignored: the local fauna.

"I meant was it the dangerous kind?" He clarified.

"I have no idea, it wasn't wearing a badge. My hand does look kinda red though – almost like an allergic reaction." Except that John didn't have any allergies.

"Snakes, snakes, snakes." Alan muttered to himself as he narrowed the selection of animals to reptiles. There were quite a few in this part of the world so now they just had to play a game of 'guess the snake'.

"Was it a darker or lighter brown." Alan asked.

"Darker." Alan swiped the lighter ones off the screen and looked for the next most common distinguishing feature.

"Ermm... round head or pointed?"

"Pointed I guess. Ahhhh, Alan, my hand's gone kinda tingly, just … erm saying."

Shit. Alan dismissed a few more and added 'tingly' into the keyword search terms. That didn't help. Well it was hardly a scientific term.

"Did it have diamonds on it's head?"

"Yeah." More gone.

"What colour?"

"Sort of gold."

That left one. It had several words watermarked over the top. One side said 'endangered' and the other said 'deadly.' Shit, shit, shit.