Fire and Water
As a rescue mission goes from bad to worse, the members of International Rescue realise the cost of their work, and its true value. A Thunderbirds (television universe) story, but with Stingray crossover.
This is my first Thunderbirds story, and I would appreciate honest criticism as much as I would praise. Do point out spelling, grammar and plot problems, by private message if you prefer. I apologise unreservedly in advance for any factual errors or misinterpretation of canon characters or situations on my part.
I also apologise for making this a crossover, albeit one very much from the Thunderbirds point of view. I needed a submarine, and Stingray was lurking comfortably in the background of the Thunderbirds universe. In the absence of any information on screen, I've assumed for the purposes of this story that the events of Stingray start a few years before and continue simultaneously with the events in Thunderbirds.
Above all, I hope you enjoy this. I'm not too proud to beg: feedback is vital to improving as a writer, and I know I have a long way to go, so please read and review.
Chapter 1
The flames were already leaping a hundred feet in the air as Scott swung Thunderbird One around for a landing. He gritted his teeth, keeping a death grip on the skittish craft's controls. Thermals buffeted him, the fire-driven wind gusting at unexpected times and in unexpected directions. Thunderbird One didn't have the mass or stability of her sister craft. She was the thoroughbred in the stable, designed for fast-response and rapid, precise manoeuvring. Today she felt like the unbroken colt at a rodeo.
It was a relief to get her on the ground, but Scott didn't waste time on the emotion. Before her engines had cycled down to standby, he was out of his seat and heading back into the bulk of his rocket-plane. His expression and movements were focused and intent, but hurried, knowing there was no time to lose. The inferno at the oil refinery was out of control. With one of its landing platforms already engulfed by flames and the second - suspended precariously on the low cliff-top above the refinery's offshore pipeline - overcrowded with evacuation helicopters, he'd been forced into a far from optimal touch-down location.
Scott eyed the rough track he'd landed on with dismay. Getting his mobile control unit to the scene would take most of the thirty minutes before Thunderbird Two arrived. For two cents he'd have forgone the formal set-up and kept One in the air to monitor and coordinate the situation from above. Unfortunately, one glance at the scene had told him that wasn't going to happen. Even if he could have held his Thunderbird steady against the updraft, John had reported that a dozen workers were trapped in the ruins of the control building. If International Rescue was going to locate them, they'd need the best sensors Brains could offer - and that meant using the MCU.
"This is Thunderbird One. Leaving to establish Mobile Control Unit."
"F.A.B., Scott," John's voice came through at once, ahead of their father's intake of breath by a millisecond, and Scott suppressed a smile. It was one of Jeff Tracy's niggling annoyances that John could beat him to a response simply because his messages only had to travel one way from Thunderbird Five rather than being relayed from Earth to the space station and back again. Gordon and Alan had a running wager on how long it would be before Jeff would admit that to his space-based son.
"On the scene in twenty-six minutes, Scott."
Virgil's voice forced his elder brother to concentrate. With the ease of long practice, he typed the sequence of buttons that would drop the MC unit and its small hover unit from the belly of the ship, and a second code that released the locks on the outer doors so he could join it on the ground.
A siren-adorned truck was already tearing up the path toward him and he spared the men aboard a quick smile as he locked the Thunderbird behind him. It pulled to a stop in the shadow of Thunderbird One's wings and Scott jumped up to the cab, standing for a moment on the broad, mud-streaked caterpillar tracks. He nodded down at his equipment.
"Here to give me a lift, fellas?"
The ride into the refinery was a journey into Dante's Inferno. Scott held an arm across his face, trying to protect his nose and mouth from the hot ash stinging his exposed skin. Even filtered through his sleeve, the air tasted thick and heavy. The heat of it had dried his throat into something approaching sandpaper and he coughed, struggling to draw breath so he could speak.
"I need to be close to the trapped men – and find somewhere I can talk to your controllers." He hesitated, momentarily light-headed. This wasn't good. The fire was intense enough even to suck the oxygen from the air. He forced himself to concentrate. "My people will need to know what's going on and that everyone's out of their way before I can give them instructions."
The driver nodded, drawing them to a halt beside a six storey building in the centre of the complex. Its central tower was flanked on either side by low two storey wings and Scott could see from here that while most of the building was intact and looked stable, the southern annex was in ruins. It must have taken the brunt of the blast when the pipeline running inland from the coastal refinery blew.
The driver coughed into the scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. "The bosses are still up in the tower." The man jumped down, turning to unhook the IR hover-sled from the back of the vehicle. Scott followed, grabbing the man's arm to attract his attention.
"I thought everyone had been given the order to evacuate!" he said sharply. His arm dropped away as the driver shrugged.
"This is a Tracy Industries plant, mister," he said with a hint of a smile creasing the skin around his eyes. "We look after our own. The guys up there won't leave until everyone's out." The smile faded as he saw the shocked and concerned look on Scott's face. His eyes returned to the caved-in southern wing and then to the fires visible in every direction. "If it were just the collapse we could get to them no problem."
"But with the fires moving so fast," Scott picked up the man's sentence where he left off, "you're not going to be in time." He clapped his hands, picking up the remote control for the hover-sled. "That's why you called International Rescue. Let's get this show on the road."
Amazing how emergency could become mundane. Oh, the thrill of the call and the pounding tension of placing his brothers' lives in danger would never fade away. But in the enclosed administration tower, with the conditioned air tasting only faintly of smoke, setting up the Mobile Control Unit felt almost routine. The two men here on the top floor had introduced themselves as the director of the refinery and its resource manager. Scott nodded, gave them his most reassuringly competent nod, and dismissed their names instantly from his memory. Truth be told, he found the occasional, half-glimpsed Tracy Industries insignia more distracting than the concern of the two middle managers.
There were times when he forgot he had a day job as his Dad's assistant in addition to his secret identity as International Rescue's field commander. He'd never been to this plant, or the dozen or so offshore drilling rigs it serviced. In the normal course of events, he probably would never have come here. Despite that, the man outside had robbed him of a little of his usual detachment. The driver had been right, although he'd never know it. The Tracy boys would look after their own.
Mobile Control came online with a purr of computer disks spinning up and a chiming test of half a dozen different buzzers and alarms. The cacophony came and went in a moment, almost unnoticed, lost in the sound of a dozen gas storage units exploding like a row of dominoes.
"The fire has reached sector five," the refinery's director noted and there was a tremor in his voice. Scott gritted his teeth, his eyes glued to his own screens. They were running out of time.
He'd worried that the control unit might have been damaged by the debris that had fallen around the tractor that brought him in. If so, there was no sign of it. The MCU responded smoothly to his commands, sending sensor impulses out both through open broadcast and along the building's wiring. It picked up the echoes and resonances, its advanced processors working overtime to build them into a three dimensional picture, even as John transmitted a blueprint of the building he was in to overlay them on.
Scott stared for a moment in disbelief at the mass of signals that the unit eventually settled on. With a quick flick of his controls, he rotated the image on two axes, trying to get a feel for the three dimensional layout of the place. The three blinking lights in the upper storeys had to be himself and the managers with him. The north wing appeared deserted, although a warning light signalled that smoke was percolating through it, the windows presumably smashed by the ongoing stream of concussions. That was fine. That was what he was expecting.
More concerning were the upwards of thirty signals in and around the south wing of the building.
"Your call only said a dozen men trapped!"
"That's what we think." The resource manager nodded, the motion a little too rapid and repeated a little too often. Scott made a mental note in his triage list, to be dealt with when there was time. The man was in shock. Nonetheless, the manager's eyes widened as he took in the detailed image on Scott's screen. He grabbed for a hand held radio before Scott had time to take in more than the basics of the situation.
"Emergency team one - there are people trapped in the south-west stairwell. Team two - are you still trying to get into the coffee room? Looks like you've got half a dozen folks in there."
The mass of blobs that had appeared to be clustered in the rubble of the building resolved themselves into a more coherent whole. He could make out three groups, each of half a dozen men, not trapped in the collapse, but moving across the face of it. As he watched one of the groups broke off, moving at a careful trot towards the south-western corner of the ruined building.
Scott nodded, a genuine smile lighting his face. He should have expected his Dad's firms to be more organised than most. "Nice to see a facility with an emergency plan of its own!"
His smile faded and he turned back to the monitor, frowning in concentration. The group of six men he guessed must be team three were grouped in front of the massive heat flare that engulfed the south-eastern corner. They must be fighting the fire back, giving their colleagues time. It wasn't going to be enough.
He gestured towards the screen, turning to the two managers. "These two people in the basement. It looks like the stairwells and corridors to that level have collapsed. Am I right?" He didn't wait for their assent. As the driver had said, they could get to most of their people, given the time. These two were International Rescue's. Leaning across the unit, Scott flipped the switch that linked him to his team.
"This is Mobile Control. Virgil, what's your ETA?"
"Approaching the danger zone now, Scott. Coming in to land in two minutes."
Scott nodded, his eyes instinctively going towards the windows. The great green mass of Thunderbird Two had rarely been a more welcome sight. The bulkiest ship of the Thunderbird fleet wallowed in the thick air, high enough for her engines not to fan the flames, low enough that the constantly changing fire-glow reflected from her flat belly.
"Great, Virge. Which pod did you bring?"
The calm voice of Thunderbird Two's pilot held a note of surprise as he answered. "Three, and I've got Alan and Gordon aboard. Isn't that what Dad told us?"
Scott rubbed the back of one hand across his eyes, trying to clear the gritty feeling.
"Guess I was wishing we had the Mole rather than the Firefly on this one. We've got some workers trapped in a sub-basement. We'll have to clear the fire back first and go down on foot."
"Yeah," Virgil's voice was distracted, and behind him, Scott could hear the voices of his younger brothers. He looked up again toward the windows, startled to see Thunderbird Two swinging back over the site in what, for the heavy craft, was a tight loop.
"Mobile Control to Thunderbird Two, is there a problem?"
"Ah, Scott." This time it was Gordon on the line and the anxiety in his voice put Scott immediately on alert. The perspiration already marking his brow turned cold. "You parked out east-aways, yes?"
"I ..." Swivelling his seat in front of the control unit, Scott turned to look out from his eighth floor vantage point towards the path he'd been driven down. The path now blocked by the series of gas explosions he'd barely noticed.
"Mobile Control," Virgil's voice was tight, the unease in it clearly audible. That was never a good sign. "I'm seeing flames surrounding your position in a three hundred and sixty degree circuit."
"And they're closing in." Alan sounded on the verge of panic, and Scott didn't need to see his face to know his bright blue eyes would be wide with fear. "Scott! You're trapped!"