Centrifugal force kept his feet on the clear ground. Below him, stars glimmered, winking in the darkness. As he walked, the gravity ring turned. Then there was green and blue beneath him. It was calm, serene, with swirls of white cloud swarming over the ragged bulk of Asia.

Then the serenity was broken.

"Mayday! Mayday!"

John's ears tuned to the cry and he picked up the pace, jogging to the holographic globe in the gravity ring's control centre. A little yellow icon was blinking over the Pacific - an impending plane crash. Nothing unusual - but when he realised exactly where the plane was going down, his blood ran cold. Are you serious?

Delicate hands dancing over the controls, John tried to patch a holo call through. All the craft would accept was audio.

"This is International Rescue," he said. "We've received your transmission."

"Alan! Thank God."

John logged the name. Curious.

"We're going down! Send -"

Before John could respond, the airwaves were filled with the sickening crunch of metal and then... Nothing. The comm. line went dead. John's brows drew together.

"Hello? Are you there?"

Still nothing but silence. And on the holographic globe, the little icon now turned red. Now a bona fide crash - right in the spot where his father's plane had been seen last.

Mouth dry, John reached for the communicator on his sash and activated the link to the island. The light painted his fingertips white.

"International Rescue," he said. "We have a situation."

~oOo~

This wasn't the way things were supposed to be. All he could feel was pain. It was throbbing in his head, searing along every bone and sinew in his body. Jaws of metal tore at his pale skin, the steering yoke was somewhere between his ribs, and he was cold, cold, cold.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't lift his head, nor shift his body round to see what was left behind him. He couldn't even open his eyes - and even if he could, they were of no use. His glasses had been sacrificed to the sea.

Lyra... Elijah...

Maybe they were already dead. Maybe he was, too.

~oOo~

"There she is," Virgil said as he brought Two in close to the crash site.

The craft was small. The fuselage was still intact but the wings were scattered to the waves. Virgil squinted as he swung Two around. Beside him, Gordon stood on his tiptoes, glancing out the cockpit window.

"It looks kinda old," Gordon said. "Almost an antique. Maybe that's why it went down."

John's voice sounded through the cockpit comm.

"Whether it's old or not," he said, "there's at least one person trapped down there and we need to get them out."

Gordon hopped onto the lift that would deliver him down to the module bay.

"I'm on my way," he said.

With a nod, he started to descend.

In moments, he was in the cargo module. But he didn't head for Four's cockpit. In fact, Four wasn't even there. Instead, he grabbed his helmet, clicking it into place, and waited for the drop. His stomach didn't even jolt when the module hit the water, for the landing was cushioned by Brains' ingenious designs.

"Opening module door," Virgil's voice sounded through his helmet speakers.

The brightness of the afternoon sun spilled into the module and, forlorn and floating in the water nearby, was the shattered remains of the downed aircraft. Gordon jogged to the left wall of the module and grabbed what he needed.

"I've got the cable," he said, hooking the magnetic line to his sash. "Off I go."

Without any further waiting, Gordon took a running leap off the end of the lowered door and sliced through the churning surface of the sea like a merman. Behind him, the reel of cable unfurled, whirring and spinning as he swam.

It didn't take long for him to reach the fuselage. He surfaced and unhooked the line from his sash, jamming it against the metal side of the plane. With a clunk, it activated, and it was tethered safely to the module.

"The line's attached," Gordon said. He pressed his face close to the cracked but intact cockpit glass. "There are one, two adults and - holy guppies, there's a kid in here."

Gordon's chest tightened as the child turned its face to him.

"What's their status?" Virgil asked.

"The two adults are unconscious," Gordon said. "But the kid-"

The young girl's eyes widened when they locked with his. Gordon choked on his breath, nearly losing his footing on the jagged stump where a wing had once been.

"Christ. John, do you have something to tell us?" Gordon asked. "Because this kid is your double."

Inside the cockpit, the little girl was screaming. She was writhing against her restraints and reaching for him, long blond hair breaking free from a braid - and dipped in blood.

"Focus, Gordon," Virgil said. "You've attached the cable. Now I need you to be the rudder as I reel you in."

"Understood," Gordon said, tearing his eyes from the child.

Pulse racing and brain afire with questions, he clambered around to the opposite side of the fuselage. The girl's bright blue eyes followed him. Her lips were still parted in a scream.

"Take us in, Thunderbird Two," Gordon said.

Slow and steady so as not to damage the crashed aircraft further, Virgil pulled the cable in, Gordon operating as a guide to bring it in safe and straight.

As they were towed, Gordon caught a better glimpse of the two others in the cockpit. The blond pilot was slumped over the controls, contorted and bleeding. Further back, another man - red-headed and pale as milk - was hanging from his harness, blood pouring from one temple. And beside him, the girl was still screaming.

"Virg," Gordon said, "I think we're gonna need to tag out. These guys look to be in bad shape and you know more of that medical jazz than I do. I don't even know if I can move these guys."

As they were hefted into the body of the module, John's voice sounded through his helmet again.

"I'll route the medical data from your HUD to me," he said. "We'll triage together."

"The almighty voice from on-high," Gordon said. "Praise be!"

He received only a snort in reply.

The automated ramps brought them the rest in the way in. Bright white lights flickered on as Virgil keyed in the command to close the module door. As he did so, Gordon felt around for a mechanical release catch on the wreck's cockpit canopy. This thing looks old enough to have one - aha!

It unlatched with a clunk. As Gordon pulled it back, the girl's screams erupted from inside, explosive in tone and volume.

"Uncle Gordy!"

He froze. Did I hear that right?

She was sobbing, her face swollen with sorrow and fear.

"Help me, Uncle Gordy!" she cried. "Get Uncle Virgil, and Uncle Scottie. Dad's dead!"

Gordy, Scottie, Virgil... Dad? What the hell is happening here? Gordon thought. The pain in the little girl's face made his hands shake.

"Are you guys getting this?" he asked.

"Questions later, Gordon," Virgil said, the tone of his voice commanding. "Triage now."

Shaking the fuzz from his head, Gordon pressed the side of his helmet to activate the heads up display.

"John," he said. "You should be receiving telemetry now."

No answer. Gordon gritted his teeth.

"Thunderbird Five, respond!"

Like the snap of a whip, his older brother's voice sounded once again, but there was a tightness to the tone that had nothing to do with the helmet speakers.

"Receiving data now," John said.

Gordon moved his helmet over the casualties, but his gaze kept returning to the little girl.

The girl with John's face.

~oOo~

It was all very confusing. Far too confusing for any five year old girl. Worst of all, it was so unfair. Nothing was the way it should have been.

Firstly, she had thought Uncle Gordon had come to save them. Because that's what her uncles and her daddies did. That's what she would do when she was a grown up girl. Like Aunt Tin-Tin. But it wasn't Uncle Gordon - not really. He called himself Gordon and he swam like Gordon, but he wasn't. His hair was the wrong colour and his face wasn't scratchy enough. No. He wasn't her Uncle Gordy.

Secondly, he was too short. As he lifted her from the wreck, Lyra had noticed that she wasn't far enough from the ground. His arms were just as strong but he wasn't her Gordy. No way.

Thirdly, he looked scared. And her uncles never looked scared.

Apart from all of that, her daddies were hurt - not dead like she had thought, but hurt. Badly. And now she was sitting in a place she didn't know, with people she didn't know, drinking soda that she'd never had before.

At least she had a swirly straw.

"Are you enjoying that, honey?"

Lyra kept her head pointing down but flicked her gaze up at the old woman. She was as old as her grandpa but she wasn't. She didn't have a grandma - only a great-grandma. And she was about a hundred years old.

Dad told her not to talk to strangers but also not to be rude. And Lyra wasn't entirely sure if these people were strangers or not. So she responded - with as few words as possible.

"Yes, ma'am."

Dad always taught her to be polite, too.

"That's good."

They were sitting at a table in a glass-walled kitchen. Lyra's bare feet swung high above the pale tiles. The clothes they had given her were big. Really big. Stupid big. But the t-shirt she wore as a dress was soft and blue, so that was good.

And the soda was nice. Kind of appley.

"So do you remember any more about what happened?"

Keeping her lips pursed around the straw, Lyra shook her head.

"No, ma'am."

That was sort of a lie. And her daddies did tell her that lies were bad - and Grandpa hated them - but sometimes lies were okay. Or at least, they were sometimes easier. Saying the wind blew over a paper cup was easier than tattle-taleing on yourself and saying that you spilled it. Right now, it was easier to say she didn't remember - simply because she didn't want to remember.

Never. That was when she wanted to hear that tone from her daddy again.

"Brace!"

Feeling fat tears brim in the corners of her eyes, Lyra closed them, relinquished her grip on the soda and buried her face in her arms. Don't cry...

But then her daddy's voice appeared from thin air - Dad, not Dadai.

Lyra looked up again, her face burning. She saw a blue face hovering in the air. It was Dad -and yet it was not - not the way he should have been.

"Grandma, I'm just checking in -"

He didn't get to finish his sentence. It was cut off by Lyra's screams – and the sound of a soda can tipping over the edge of the table.