Late July, 2065-Thunderbird Five

John was bored.

Almost audible over the muted murmurs emitting from the speakers, Thunderbird Five's bank of perfectly timed world clocks ticked off the passing of yet another disaster-free day in a month with just one rescue. Looking out his viewport, John could see the world below looking unusually calm. Wispy swirls of weather patterns added to the tranquillity and were forecast to continue. Rarely run diagnostic programs showed even the most esoteric system at maximum efficiency. The consoles gleamed from their recent polish, and the air scrubbers, freshly tuned to catch every stray mote, hummed without hiccup. Computer and video games lost their appeal two days ago. Scrabble joined that list yesterday, and his long-distance chess match with Brains was doomed to checkmate in three moves. He couldn't focus on his astronomy journals, nor could he write a coherent sentence for his next book.

In other words, John was really bored.

Even his posture declared his ennui as he dropped into his chair, propped an elbow on the armrest, and braced his chin in his hand. "Deke, surf."

A disembodied voice with a decidedly Western drawl said, "Yes, sir."

Televid images blurred across the center screen, each lasting three or so seconds before moving to the next channel. He ignored them for the most part. They tended to give him a headache, especially when commercials appeared. The sound was a different matter. John leaned back, using skills honed from months on the station to listen as the audio clips blipped by. A phrase, a few garbled words came to full clarity then descended into verbal chaos before rising again, this time in a new tongue. He heard and understood almost every one. Finally, his ear caught a familiar name. He straightened suddenly.

"Deke, stop." The channel wasn't the one he wanted. "Reverse five." Jumping back five channels didn't produce the story he wanted. "Reverse one more."

Deke obeyed. A portrait of an older man with neat dark hair and silver at his temples came into sharp focus. The audio tuned in a split-second later.

"...identified as Dr. Heinrich Findelmeyer was found dead by the Castle of Aulencia, on the grounds of the European Space Astronomy Center, in Villafranca, Spain." The portrait became smaller and moved to a corner of the screen. The recorded shot of an ancient building filled the rest, revealing old gray stone streaked with rain. A man-shaped lump lay not entirely hidden by a yellow plastic blanket; a dark shoe poked out from the end nearest the camera. The morbidly perky announcer droned on. "Co-workers report seeing him last six days ago leaving the XMM-Newton Survey Archive at the University of Leicester, England on his way to the VILSPA in Spain. He was to arrive the next day, but failed to do so, alerting authorities in England, France, Spain, and his home country, Germany. His body was discovered early this morning by some sightseers visiting the castle ruins. No clues have been found as to his whereabouts over the past six days. Anyone with information should contact the Villafranca Police."

"Findelmeyer," John frowned, brows knitting together in thought. "I think I met him last year..." He moved the article to his right-hand screen. "Deke, search for any mention of Heinrich Findelmeyer."

"You got it, Boss."

Within nanoseconds John had a long list of hits, mostly recent news articles. He picked his favorite news source and began to read.

"Dr. Heinrich Findelmeyer, Physics and Astronomy department chair at University of Leicester, was found dead today in Spain. He was 65. He leaves behind a wife, two children, and four grandchildren.

A quiet but popular face on campus, he was known for his contributions in the area of X-ray astrophysics. Of particular note was his work on the Tousey Deep Space Array developed with the European Space Authority to detect and predict solar coronal mass ejections. Such ejections are associated with solar flares and their prediction may hold a key to circumventing the electromagnetic disruptions of major solar flares.

Findelmeyer began his career developing hardware shielding that would stand up against solar flares for the lunar colonization program and spent a year overseeing its installment in Lunar Station Armstrong. Upon his return to Earth, he finished his terminal degree in astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and becoming a teaching fellow at Leicester. He became department chair seven years ago."

"It doesn't make sense. Why murder?" John rubbed his freshly shaven chin. "He didn't have a lot of money; astronomers rarely make huge salaries. As I recall, he wasn't publishing much. He was more focused on the Tousey and teaching. Still, there's something familiar about this. Wish I could put my finger on it."

"Maybe this would help."

One title on the list jumped out in large type.

"What is happening to our star gazers?" John sat forward, interested. "Okay, show me." The article opened and John began to read it through. With each new paragraph, his sense of consternation and apprehension grew.

What is Happening to Our Star Gazers?

by Lorenzo Clerk.

What is happening to our leading astronomers? With an exciting astronomical event on the horizon, the sudden silencing of expert voices should warrant some kind of alarm. Yet it has not.

Seven astronomers, representing various disciplines and from various countries, have disappeared under mysterious circumstances over the past three months. At least three of them have turned up, or their bodies have. Four others remain missing. Just today, the body of Dr. Heinrich Findelmeyer surfaced, left on the grounds of his last destination. These men and women are among our best and brightest when it comes to viewing and interpreting the data that streams in daily from the various orbital telescopes, land-based arrays and lunar observatories. So why are they disappearing? Can the police do anything to stop it?

The rest of the article recapped the who, what and where of the other six cases. Of the seven mentioned, John recognized five, including his friend, Tatiana Rafalko. She was still missing.

John brought his clenched fist down with a solid thump on the console. He rose, drifting over to the wide viewport. Outside, Earth hung there like an old friend but for once John wished he could see Russia instead of the wide expanse of the Pacific. He folded his arms, leaning on the sill.

"Where are you, moya padruga?"

Older than him by a few years, plump, dark-haired and dark-eyed Tatiana had been an exchange student when John was at Harvard. They had classes together and John, who was studying Russian, enjoyed having someone to converse with in that tongue. For her part, Tatiana was happy to have a companion who could explain American English idioms to her, sparing her a good deal of embarrassment. They often talked and studied over coffee and sometimes would take in Boston's many cultural offerings together. More than once they headed to South Boston to hear his sister play fiddle in an Irish pub. It would have been easy for them to become lovers, but Tatiana was engaged to marry and hadn't wanted to complicate matters with a short-term affair. Unfortunately, sometime during the eighteen months she was in the U.S., her fiancé decided he didn't quite feel the same and she returned to a severed engagement and a broken heart. She and John kept up their long-distance friendship (and their Scrabble games). He'd recently considered feeling his father out about making her an agent.

"I told you to be careful."

With a sigh, John glanced over to the ladder leading up to the astrodome. He considered trying to get some better images of the asteroids; the best telescope that money could buy was linked to another array farther out in space, making space photography easier. It had also brought that looming danger to his attention, both then and now. The idea that they were out there, still progressing on their silent march through the solar system, made him uneasy and antsy. He was usually good at waiting, but when it came to this? Sometimes the waiting got to him.

"Better check the probes' progress," he muttered to himself. He raised his voice. "Deke, initialize ping for probe location."

"Probe! Oh, probe! Where are you, probe? Pinging now." Deke's sing-song voice was accompanied by a laser beam arcing out into space, looking for the group of three dozen spherical probes that had been launched from Thunderbird Five three weeks ago. John rolled his eyes. Sometimes the new AI system – a copy of one used at Tracy Ventures headquarters and named for the Mercury program's Deke Slayton - got on his nerves.

"Got us a ping." The laser bounced off the first sphere, accepting data on the probe's whereabouts, then pinged the others, and on its return gave the AI the information it sought. "Calculating location fix now."

John glanced up at the ceiling where Deke's speakers were located. "Well?"

A chart came up on the main computer screen, the new location plotted on it. "Barely a quarter of the way to the rendezvous."

"The cameras won't be of any use just yet ... if they're of any use at all." He huffed out a breath, a quiet sound of frustration. "The only real way to do this is pay a visit, but Dad won't authorize that. Not yet, though it looks like Tellus Prime may be raising the ante. Penny thinks they were ultimately behind the whole explosive bracelet/plutonium store business, even though they'd have poisoned the ecosystem for miles around with the radioactive release." He shook his head. "If it was their work... man, are they stupid!"

With another sigh, he rolled his shoulders and stretched. He stood on tiptoe, hands reaching for the ceiling. "It's time for a break." Before heading to the galley on the floor below, he took a last thoughtful look at the article he had been reading.

"Deke, do a search and collate on the astronomers listed in this article, and then forward it on to Dad ... and Lady Penelope, too. I have a feeling that I might know why these people have been targeted. Maybe they can figure out who's doing the targeting."

"Gotcha, Boss. I'm on it."

Rolling his eyes upward as if in supplication then shrugging slightly, John made his way to the lift, muttering as he descended, "I suppose it's better than talking to myself, but if Dad insists I have an AI, why couldn't it have been a female?"


Author's note: The "explosive bracelet, plutonium store business" lines refers to the Thunderbirds episode, "30 Minutes After Noon". I think the story and the use of the Erdman gang might fall in with the stated objectives of the eco-terrorist group I've devised here. Most references to rescues taking place within the series are in first broadcast date order. "Deke" the AI (Artificial Intelligence) is inspired by Math Girl's quantum computer, Five, in her series of stories. "Deke" and his counterpart, "Wally", aren't quite that powerful.