Better Men
A Thunderbirds 2086 story
All characters and situations are used without permission. 'Thunderbirds 2086' is the Americanised version of the 1983 Japanese animation 'Science Rescue Team TechnoVoyager'. Based on AP Films' series 'Thunderbirds', and made under license from ITC Entertainment, it follows the endeavours of a larger, government-sanctioned incarnation of International Rescue. Although opinion appears to be mixed on this, it could be interpreted as set in the same universe as the original 'Thunderbirds', and some time later (consistent with the 2026 date interpretation of that series). I thought I'd play on that idea a little.
This story is set shortly before young pilot Dylan Beyda takes responsibility for Thunderbird One, and his fellow cadet Kallan James for Thunderbird Four.
I have no idea how many people out there remember 'Thunderbirds 2086' and have only ever come across one other TB2086 story on this archive. I suspect the audience for this story is two people! I've had it on my disk for a couple of months now, ever since I watched what was available of the series on YouTube. I didn't really intend to post it. I'm not terribly cheery today though, and wasn't in the mood to work on anything else, so thought 'why not?'. I shall probably be regretting it within minutes!
As always, any comments would be welcome
.
"There it is!"
There was a thrill of excitement in Kallan's voice. Worried as he was, dangerous as this expedition might be, Cadet Dylan Beyda couldn't help but share it.
He moved to the prow of their boat, ducking under the ropes that braced its mast and anchored the sail. For a few seconds, the irony amused him. Their destination had once been home to the most advanced technology on the planet. Now, the only way past its defences, the only way to make an approach, was to leave computer guidance and other such novelties behind. Like others before them, the two IRO cadets had been forced to adopt the primitive techniques of centuries past.
The thought faded, swept away by the sight of the island ahead.
A volcano dominated it. Barren slopes rose from the ocean; a tiny speck of land in the vast expanse of water. They were still too far away for Dylan to see the buildings, to make out the low-lying ground. From here, though, the view was almost familiar. It was obvious now what had inspired Arcology, the artificial island that held the IRO's home base. That pyramidal megastructure was an echo of this past, an unspoken homage to the island in front of him.
"It looks so empty... so barren."
Kallan sounded a little melancholy. Dylan glanced over at his teammate and friend. Her body was pressed forward over the rail, her blonde hair whipped back from her face by the breeze. Eyes bright with emotion studied the volcanic mount ahead. Dylan reached out, squeezing her shoulder through the stiff fabric of her uniform.
"It might be now, but it hasn't always been." He dropped the hand from her back, reaching out instead to point to starboard. "Is that a bay? There might be somewhere there we can get ashore."
Kallan eyed it, and then nodded briskly.
"Take the rudder, Dylan. I'll sort out the rigging."
- xx -
It was sixty years since the Thunderbirds took to the skies, stunning the world and bringing hope to the hopeless. It was fifty since they vanished without a word, mysterious to the end. When they first appeared, International Rescue had been treated with cynical scepticism, their motives questioned at every opportunity. Even after their genuine philanthropy was accepted, it had quickly become taken for granted. If International Rescue didn't respond, if the Thunderbirds didn't come, people wanted to know why. And when they were gone for good? Only then did the jealousy and resentment slowly evolve into gratitude. Only then did media, politicians and common people alike begin to question why the heroism and selflessness of International Rescue had been needed in the first place... why it had taken a brave few to show the rest of humanity what it had the potential to be.
Dylan was raised on stories of International Rescue, as his parents and even grandparents had been. The movement to re-establish the near-mythical rescue team was gaining popular and political momentum even before he was born. He was just ten years old when a solar storm - and the resultant glitching of a satellite network no one even suspected existed - gave then-Colonel Simpson the inspiration and impetus he needed to make it a reality.
For as long as Dylan could remember, he'd wanted to be an operative in the International Rescue Organisation. This island, long hidden and protected by a secret legacy, was the reason he had that opportunity.
Not that many people knew that. The archive of video recordings and mission reports stored in the satellites had quickly become public, dramatised in vidcasts and studied in schools. The full identity of the long-gone heroes, the existence of an island still protected by a surveillance network capable of disrupting navigation and suppressing electronic records... those remained closely guarded government secrets even now.
It wasn't until Dylan was in his third year as a cadet that he first heard rumours of this place. By then the class had been whittled down from over a hundred students to just twenty-seven. Everyone who'd made it this far through the arduous training would work for the IRO in one role or another. Even as they vied to top their class, with all the possibilities that might open to them, they became aware that their tutors were treating them with more respect, that they were already considered part of the organisation.
He wasn't the only one who'd felt a thrill of exhilaration when their social history tutor had confirmed that. He could remember the awed silence as the class watched confidential reports flashing across the screen. For the first time, they were able to put names to the faces in the familiar vid records. For the first time, they realised that what now took hundreds of people and a supportive government had first been achieved by a single, determined family.
"They didn't want publicity. Even at the end, they chose to preserve their anonymity. They didn't want the people they left behind to live under a shadow. They didn't want the island to become a new Mecca for people in search of International Rescue. Their base is long gone, the island itself dangerous and too radioactive for long-term occupation. After all they achieved, they would be horrified to know people had been hurt trying to find them in the ruins of their home - and that would happen, sooner or later, if the truth spread. For the sake of their legacy, the IRO chooses to preserve their secrecy." The tutor paused, his eyes playing across the class. Did Dylan imagine the momentary pause as they lingered on him and the smart, attractive young woman sitting beside him? "No one's set foot on the island for decades, except... I've heard that the members of the lead team visited there when the IRO was first formed. Acknowledging the debt they owed. A pilgrimage, if you will."
- xx -
It had been a strange thing for the otherwise matter-of-fact and law-abiding tutor to say. It wasn't until two months later, when he and Kallan learnt what the tutor must already have known, that Dylan began to understand.
Finding out he'd been tapped for the newly re-formed primary rescue team - only the third such group since IRO was founded - was the fulfilment of a life's dream. Even as the reality of it sunk in though, he'd realised that he had a duty to perform. He couldn't remember now whether it was Kallan or him that first voiced the need for this trip. They'd both known it was inevitable.
Shallow water splashed under Dylan's uniform boots. He waded through it, hauling the boat's line behind him and tying it off on a charred post. He half-expected the carbonised wood to give way. In fact, he more than half-expected the entire jetty to collapse the moment it took any weight. Surprised to find it holding, he turned to help Kallan down into the shallows. They waded up the beach beside the ruined structure, trusting it with their boat, not with their lives.
Kallan became quiet after they first saw the shell of the house. It was blackened, half-buried. Whatever firestorm had ravaged this place, well over twenty-five years ago according to the science teams who'd first assessed the island, it had left little behind. Dylan was expecting the devastation, but he was still shocked as he led the way up the path.
The building had been an elegant home once, that was obvious. Now it was a rough heap of wreckage, punctuated by twisted girders and broken spars. In front of it, a sinkhole vanished into the depths of the island. Dylan stared into the deep darkness, a midnight shadow against the blackened ground, and wondered why they'd come.
"There's nothing."
"Dylan?"
"There's nothing here. Nothing to answer the big questions... Why they did it. How they found the strength to go on through thick and thin. What drove them day by day."
Kallan nodded. She took a step towards Dylan and he settled a comforting arm around her shoulders. Her long, blond hair brushed the sleeve of his uniform, her head held high even as she leaned a little into his comfort. They both gazed into the abyss that must one have been a Thunderbird's hanger.
"I always wondered who they were," she admitted quietly. "Not just their names, but who they really were. Behind the uniform."
Dylan nodded. His gave his friend's shoulders a final squeeze and then stepped back.
"What's our radiation tolerance?" he asked, with a sudden frown.
Kallan echoed his nod, pulling a professional demeanour into place as she checked the tags on both her own uniform and Dylan's.
"Well above background, but not critical. We wouldn't want to stay here more than a day or two. A few hours won't hurt us."
Dylan sighed, rubbing a hand across his brow. It left a smear of black soot, picked up from the charred jetty. He felt the grittiness under his fingertips and rubbed at the patch, probably doing no more than spreading it.
"Well, after the work it took to get here, I guess we might as well look around."
- xx -
"Dylan, over here!"
Dylan glanced at his watch. His shoulder-length black hair swung around his face as shook his head, not in negation but in concern. The path Kallan had spotted, leading around behind the house and up the slope of the volcano, was intriguing. Even so, he made a token effort.
"We've been here two hours already, Kallan. We ought to get back."
Kallan reached down to the radiation tag on her chest, tilting it up so she could check the reassuring colour. When she looked up, she didn't bother to speak, just gave Dylan a knowing look. He made a show of frowning towards the bay and the boat, taking a step towards the downhill path. He heard a surprised sound behind him a moment before he stopped and turned back. Kallan frowned in mock indignation and Dylan grinned at his fellow cadet, waving her on ahead of him. There'd never been any question, and Kallan knew it.
The vegetation on the island had regrown in the years since the firestorm. Rough brush and grasses flourished on the fertile volcanic soil and thick layer of ash. Here and there, more exotic species were scattered amongst them, presumably seeded from the gardens that once surrounded the house.
The path weaving between the bushes was one of very few that remained clear. It clung to the slope of the volcano, cutting in to form a narrow terrace just a couple of metres wide. Pausing for a moment as they climbed the hillside, Dylan dug at the ground with the reinforced toe of his boot. He was unsurprised to find a layer of well-laid gravel below the ash. Wherever the path led, it was clearly somewhere the long-vanished residents had intended to go.
Even so, he stepped carefully. The path might once have been safe and easy, protected by railings and built on secure foundations. Now it was eroded, and, in places, undercut by streambeds that must fill with run-off when it rained. There was no railing to protect Dylan and his companion from falling, only caution and the training that told them how to find safe footing, and when to hang back and test the ground ahead.
They were well above the level of the house when they came out onto a plateau on the hillside. Below them, they could see down into the gaping pit by the main house, and pick out sunlight glinting where the ash and dirt had flaked off its metal walls. To their left, another building had fallen into a circular mound of rubble. It must once have stood proudly overlooking the island. Now it was a ruin, presiding over a wrecked base.
That wasn't what caught their eyes.
In other, older parts of the world, the semi-circular arrangement of stones might have been the relic of some ancient civilisation. They were heavily weathered, their faces fractured by furnace heat and then worn by the acidic rains that had followed. If there'd ever been any carving on the five stone slabs, it was long since lost. Even so, the shape of those thin, flat markers was unmistakable.
Dylan's eyes slid across them, almost certain he could put names to the stones, picturing the strong young faces he'd seen in International Rescue's video archive.
Beside him, Kallan had taken a step forward. There was a clear area at the focus of the semi-circle, a slight depression in the barren grey ash. The ground around it was scuffed, and Dylan's eyes widened as he saw the distinctive imprint of an IRO uniform boot.
Frowning, Kallan crouched down. She swiped at the ground with her gloved hands, easily displacing the loose ash to reveal a smooth dark surface beneath. Dylan hurried to her side, joining her as she swept the thin covering of dust and ash from the face of a stone that lay just below the ground's surface.
Whether the horizontal slab was once a grave marker standing beside its fellows, or whether it had always been intended as a flat cover stone, it had clearly lain where they found it for a very long time. A ridge line ran around its perimeter, the ground all around a few centimetres higher. The dirt burying the stone must have been deeper once, protecting the markings on its surface from time and trials. Now it was no more than a light dusting, easily cleared by the two cadets, but lingering in the grooves of the deeply-carved words.
Dylan straightened and took a step back, looking down on the dusty granite slab. Kallan joined him, and he heard the breath catching in her throat as she read.
This was what, without ever quite realising it, they had come for.
Like the members of IRO's first lead team, like, he was sure, the members of the second and the teammates he and Kallan were yet to meet, Dylan gazed at the stone with awed respect and an unfamiliar sense of self-doubt.
"Oh, Dylan!" Kallan's voice was soft as she gave voice to his own fears. "How can we ever live up to that?"
"By doing what we can." Dylan's fears of inadequacy faded as he met his teammate's liquid eyes. The words seemed to come from nowhere, as if they echoed through this place and he were just repeating them. "By dedicating our lives to this. By doing out best, every day, to live by the principles they embodied."
He felt his uncertainties replaced by a deep-seated conviction. He reached out to tease a streak of grey soot from Kallan's hair.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We can't change that; death is part of life. But we can look it in the face and say 'not today, not here, not now'. We'll do the best we can - because someone has to. Because this world needs champions to show humanity what it's capable of."
Kallan dashed a tear from her eye before looking up, reaching out to brush the sooty mark from Dylan's brow.
"We'll do it," she agreed.
They stood in silence for a while longer, looking down at the epitaph, and across the ruins. They buried the stone before turning away, spreading the same thin layer of protective dirt across it that they'd found on their arrival. Then they left, returning with new resolve to Arcology and the organisation that had risen, phoenix-like from these flames.
The sun was setting, casting the island into silhouette against the night sky as they tacked out into the open ocean. Dylan's eyes lingered on the hidden island, watching it fade into the distance. He knew he'd never return, knew that he was one of the few people who would ever set foot on the scorched ground. He had no record of this expedition, no videos or photographs, but he'd never forget the five stones, and the sixth, with its simple sentiment.
Daunting as the carved words were, they also spoke of a defiant hope for the future, and laid down a challenge Dylan was determined to meet.
JEFF TRACY
HE MADE BETTER MEN OF US ALL
End.