Disclaimer: The Thunderbirds do not belong to me. They are the intellectual and actual property of Gerry Anderson and his affiliates. Any original characters are a product of my imagination.

AN: I know, I know, I should be working on I'm No Superman, but it just doesn't want to come out right now, and I don't think there's any point in forcing it out. So I opened up a Word doco and this is what came out instead. Hope y'all enjoy.

The Night Goes On

Staying true to International Rescue's motto, they never give up, no matter what.

The bus trundled down winding road, headlamps illuminating the path ahead. On a dark, moonless night, it was the only light source on the otherwise isolated road that cut a swathe through the mountains. Cloud cover masked the constellations that would have otherwise decorated the sky.

"Teller, are we there yet?" a young child asked from inside the bus, face pressed up against the glass window.

"Not yet, Lizzie. We've got a ways to go. Now be quiet, you'll wake up Mum otherwise."

The girl, no more than seven years old, pouted and went back to staring out of the window. The bus ride through the mountains freaked her out, but as her brother and mother had repeatedly told her, it was the only way to get to the city. It was even more sinister at night, when she couldn't see over the trees, see the blue haze that was so characteristic of the mountain range the bus was travelling through. All Lizzie could see was the edge of the road – but it wasn't even that. If the bus driver inched to right, ever so slightly, they would smash their way through the crash barriers and plummet down into the depths below. Lizzie settled back into her seat. The possibility of a crash was just that; a possible event. There was no certainty that it would come to fruition. She had travelled this route in the daytime at least twice before, and nothing drastic had ever happened, so why should this trip be any different?

Try as she might, she just couldn't shake off her fears. Something that did not bode well for them was going to happen. She could feel it.


I need some matchsticks to prop my eyes open, he thought as he rubbed at his bleary eyes.

"Thunderbird Five calling Thunderbird Two. Come in, Thunderbird Two."

"Thunderbird Two receiving Thunderbird Five, loud and clear. What's up, John?"

From his seat on Thunderbird Five, John squinted at the picture of his brother on his video screen.

"You look like shit, Virg."

"Thanks, John," Virgil bitched sarcastically. "It's nice to talk to you too. What do you want."

More of a statement than a question.

"Thought you'd might like some company after that last rescue."

Virgil considered this. Gordon was down for the count in Thunderbird Four's pod (he would have been flying due to Virgil's fatigue, but Virgil had refused to surrender his seat as pilot of Two), and the chestnut haired pilot didn't know if Scott had even left the rescue sight – the Field Commander had explicitly told Virgil not to contact him, he would get in touch when he was leaving. Why, Virgil had no idea, but who was he to disregard his boss in such a manner?

"Yeah, I could do with that, if only to keep me awake."

"It wasn't a good one, was it, Virg?"

"No, it wasn't."

Why anyone would want to trap over seventy people in a leaking bathysphere and then pour accelerant and light it over the water to effectively hamper conventional rescue efforts was beyond him, but who knew what went on in the minds of twisted, psychopathic killers?

"You guys did your best, you know," John encouraged, despite knowing that it would make little to no difference to Virgil. Losing over half the rescuees was always viewed as a failure in their eyes. There was something that should have been done, that they should have been able to do. Gordon had done some spectacular work in Four, and had he not been there, it was a certainty that everyone else would have perished, but it wasn't enough.

"Well, the best wasn't good enough," Virgil spat out bitterly. He sighed, knowing that half of the driving force behind his outburst was guilt and sorrow for all the people they had lost and the other half was just unadulterated tiredness. "John, Scott's left the rescue site, hasn't he?"

John checked the tracking monitors. "Just left about a four and a half minutes ago. He'll be radioing in soon."

Sure enough, through the radio link, Virgil could hear the static of a broadcast streaming through Five's speakers, and he could just make out Scott's dejected tone. The eldest Tracy boy sounded about as tired as Virgil felt.

"Virg, how long have you been on call?" John asked, jolting Virgil back to reality, as Virgil's mind had started to drift.

"Scott and I are both two hours away from the mandatory rest period, and we're borderline on the flight hour minimums. Gordon hasn't been out on as many rescues as us, so he's a viable member of the team for the next few days while Scott and I are off. That's why I'm not letting him fly; he needs as many hours saved up for use as possible."

"You guys better make it home fast, then," John said, glancing down at the tracking pad. His blond eyebrows quirked upwards, something Virgil didn't miss.

"Everything okay up there, Johnny?"

"Yeah, it's all good. I'm just surprised at how fast Scott's pushing One. He's chewing up those miles and he's about thirty minutes behind you. I've never seen him fly like this before."

"Well, he probably wants a shower, Dad will make him shave despite his protests, and he'll wolf down some food. I know I would; I haven't eaten a proper meal in almost two days. Those liquid packs Brains made for us were good to keep our energy levels up and sustained, but they're no substitute for the real thing."

"Amen to that, little brother." Out of his peripheral vision, John could see lights on his panels flashing. An emergency call was coming in. "Gotta go, Virgil. We've got a call coming through."

Virgil groaned.

"I'll let you know if you're needed, or if Scott can handle this on his own."

"FAB."

With another tired sigh, Virgil allowed the screen to dissolve into static as he deliberated between waking Gordon up or letting him sleep for a while. In the end, he decided that Gordon needed to come up to the cockpit to hear the briefing. Given the current stretch that they were on, it would definitely require the assistance of Two and her crew.

Roused from his catnap, Gordon eased his way into the cockpit, carrying two steaming mugs in his hand. Virgil gratefully accepted one of the mugs of coffee.

"You, Gordon," Virgil began, practically inhaling his beverage, "truly are –"

"God's gift to women and men alike?" Gordon quipped, cutting him off. "Yes, I already know that."

"And so modest too," Virgil added sourly before turning serious. "We've got a potential call out. I want you here for the briefing."

Gordon slurped from his coffee mug as he sat down in Two's co-pilot seat. "Want me to take over flying so that you can get some sleep?"

Virgil declined. "I may need you to drop us off and take Two to get Alan and swap pods, depending on the rescue. If it's a terrestrial one, Four's useless there."

Under normal circumstances, Gordon would have jumped to Thunderbird Four's defence, highlighting the importance of his machine, but this time he simply nodded his understanding.

"Okay, Virg," John broke back into conversation. "You're needed. A bus has overrun a road and has flipped onto its side down a cliff face. It's teetering on an embankment, and there's potential for the bus to slip off the embankment and crash into the ravine below."

Virgil glanced at Gordon. Gordon grimly nodded back before rising up from his chair and heading down to Thunderbird Four. As much as it pained him to do this, he understood Virgil's need for him to dismantle the carbon-fibre tethers Brains had designed from Thunderbird Four. With tensile strength that was four times greater than the tethers that conventional rescue services used, the carbon-fibre ropes could have been used as a stop-gap to secure the bus on the embankment while Gordon took Two back to base to collect the appropriate rescue gear.

"How many people on board, John?"

"Eighty four, including the driver. Seven babies and toddlers, and thirty kids under ten."

"Where are we headed?"

"Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. I've sent the coordinates to the navigation system, as well as some satellite pictures of the rescue site. Scott said that he'd need one of you to go back and switch Pod Four out with the heavy rescue kit and anchorage points to secure the bus."

Virgil glanced down at the satellite photos, swiping through each image with his finger. It was going to be a tough one, he knew. The terrain itself was a challenge, as there was no large piece of flat land that could accommodate Thunderbird Two's bulk safely. The demographics of the passengers on the bus also complicated things; rescues with kids were some of the most rewarding, yet some of the hardest rescues to carry out, simply because they could not predict how the kids would react to them.

"FAB, John. We're on our way." With that, Virgil broke the video link with John and re-corrected his course, flying on into the night.