Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing. It's a great deal of fun to write.

7

Tracy Island, that same evening-

Virgil had bounded to his feet at Scott's launch order, more than ready for a little genuine action. Remote-flying airships wasn't the same thing, at all. With a quick thumbs-up for Brains and a hug for Grandma, he loped to a certain picture on the wall, then turned around and stepped back onto a pressure sensitive pad. When it detected his weight, the picture unlocked and began to pivot, tilting him backward onto a long track. Down he slid, being dressed and shod by the busy launch droids. The entire process took less than five minutes, and ended with Virgil swinging athletically into Thunderbird 2. Grandma had seen him off with a quick kiss and one of her special "care packages", which he'd had to grip in his mouth, all the way down.

Now, after landing on the deck of his Bird with the fluid power of a leopard, Virgil hauled shut the boarding hatch. He waited for it to clang and latch before tossing Grandma's latest "burnt offering" onto the growing pile in Thunderbird 2's auxiliary tool bin. Then, he strode up front, allowing the tune in his head to burst forth as song.

Vaulted into his seat, strapped in, pulled down on the yoke release, and then fired up his big girl's engines. The entire cockpit rang with his voice as a line of pods ground along beneath the giant cargo lifter, stopping this time at number 2. Reaching a crescendo and holding his note, Virgil triggered 'descent and capture'. He felt his girl settle onto the pod, then clamp down and lock it solidly into place, timing the end of his song to match that final, resounding CLANG!

"V- Very nice, Virgil," said Brains' holo, as Grandma applauded in the background. "And n- next time, we promise to 'call you by your name'… but Scott is on his, ah… his w- way to the microwave focus sight, and he is n- not noted for his copious p- patience with delay, no matter how, ah… how tuneful."

"I hear and obey," Virgil grinned, feeling right with the world, despite the hair gel situation. (He was running short, again, and without gel, his straight dark hair would flop over like John's. Emma might think it was cute… she'd seen him in the morning with his hair hanging down in his face… but, no. Just, no.)

The hangar door rumbled out of the way, letting in a flood of tropical air and warm sea breezes. Let the other guys have space, and weird alien landscapes; Virgil Tracy had everything he wanted right here on Earth. (Except maybe hair gel… had to plan a stop for that, somewhere along the way… and maybe sneak in a visit with Kraft.)

"Ready to roll, Big Girl?" he asked aloud, throttling up. His Bird responded with the low, bass rumble of her taxi engines, then began gliding forward, as floodlights caressed her emerald skin. Moments later, they were out of the hangar's fluorescent lighting and back under the starry sky, with nothing but night and the ocean ahead of them.

Triggering his launch ramp and powering those massive Pratt and Whitney engines up to a howl, Virgil began belting out the chorus, again.

("Well, I'll hang around as long as you will let me;

And I never minded standing in the rain….

"Oh, you don't have to call me darlin'… Darlin'!

You never even called me by my naaaaaaame!")

And then, he was airborne, again, watching the horizon first tilt, and then drop away beneath him.

"Thunderbird 2 is go!" he called out, feeling pretty d*mn good.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Venus, bang in the midst of Cleopatra Patera-

He'd finally reached the big, hulking soil conditioner. Almost collided with it, actually, as that sulphuric tidal wave gale attempted to grind him against the pitted metal like a bug on a fast-moving windshield. But a fortunately timed leap carried him just over the tracked, oval mecha and down to the other side. There, he was out of the wind, and about ankle deep in sticky-hot granite. Took a second to free himself… really was just like walking on dense, sucking, super-hot mud… and then turned his attention to that badly carked droid.

"Hi, there," said John, placing a gloved hand against the conditioner's corroded armor plating. "What's a nice bot like you, doing in a dump like this?"

It was Eos who answered him, though; sounding torn between worry for him, and concern for the troubled machine.

"It can hear you, John, but has lost most function and battery power, calling to base for help."

"Yeah, well… Thunderbirds are go, and all that. I'll see what I can do. Let's have a look, here…"

The maintenance access panel had been helpfully placed at the rear, up a short, flaking ladder just over the treated soil outflow tube. John climbed up, saying,

"Probably just the doovalacky, or the left-handed framistat."

"I am not familiar with those terms, John."

He pulled out a multi-tool, adjusted its setting after a judicious squint at the bolts on this model, then got the panel popped off in less than ten seconds.

"Make a h*ll of a car thief," he congratulated himself, adding, "That's because they're not real words. I was making like a shade-tree mechanic. It's a joke, Eos."

By this time, he'd set up a containment field to defend the bot's internals from the solar system's most psychotically murderous atmosphere.

"I see…" Eos chirped. "You were attempting to derive humor by emulating the speech of one who conceals his own ignorance through the use of confusing terminology. This is considered amusing?"

John shot the voice in his helmet an exasperated, sidelong look.

"Not when you put it that way, no. Now, shut up a minute, Woman. I'm busy."

She began humming, which wasn't much better, but at least he liked the tune. The mech's insides were in much better shape than its plating; packed with oily systems and drive belts. The problem was easy to spot, once he'd halfway wriggled inside. Big d*mn rock, jamming the gears of its crushing apparatus.

"Bit off more than you could chew, huh, Fella?" he commented, adjusting power to his environment suit, which was beginning to smolder at the seams. "Just need to work this thing on out of there… urf… stuck pretty tight… do me a favor, and don't start the crush-y, grind-y thing, until I'm out of here, okay?"

As John reached further inside for a better grip on the jammed rock, Eos stopped humming to say,

"It… he hears you, John, and agrees to allow safe departure, before resuming work. Also, he says 'thank you'."

"Awesome. Think I've… just… about…got it!"

More or less. He actually cracked the lodged stone in half, trying to work it free, but, hey… same difference. The giant gear teeth started to snap shut, but then froze, allowing John to pull his arms and upper torso out of danger. Reminded him of the Hunter, a little, but much less hostile. He gave the mech's engine housing a friendly pat.

"That's one problem solved, but you still need a jump-start. Hang on, I know a guy."

Bringing his right hand up, John tapped at the wandering red dot on his wrist comm. Switching partly to old German, he said,

"Okay, Buddy… let's see what you can do. Remember, we're repairing things, not destroying them. Reparieren, Jaeger!"

A flash of red light shot from his wrist comm to the stalled mecha's electrical system, drawing power from the violence outside, to recharge its battery. More than that, red energy flickered and dashed through the soil conditioner's interior, making many swift, subtle changes.

"Umm… gute, I think. But let's seal this guy up, and get the h*ll out of Dodge, Jaeger. Customer's on the clock, and I've got a plane to catch."

He could feel and hear the mech's engines purr back to life. John smiled as he shoved himself out of the maintenance hatch and back onto the ladder. Three minutes to go, and so…

He got the maintenance panel back into place, then hopped off the ladder and waved at the bot, which flashed its lights in response. Then, the astronaut picked an area of ground at its sheltered lee side, and began stamping a pattern onto the gummy rock with his boots.

"John, what are you doing?" Eos demanded, completely perplexed.

"Carving my initials, what else? Fifty years from now, when there's a park here, imagine their shock and delight to find 'J.M.T.' right in the middle. And, before you say anything, not a waste of time. The shuttle won't be back for another minute and fifteen seconds. I could carve a fricking monument!"

Eos produced an extremely un-lady-like snort, but assisted by placing lines on his helmet's heads-up display, showing him where to stamp next.

"Actually, John… in twelve-hundred of the nearest alternate universes, you proceed to trip, crack your face plate, and die of simultaneous acid burns, thermal shock and asphyxiation."

"Stop it with the odds," John told her, getting that final initial and period. "I hate odds. Anyway… in how many do I live?"

"All of the ones in which I am present to stop you from turning an ankle on that rock, there."

He could hardly miss it, since she'd highlighted the thing on his heads-up display with a bright, blinking circle and stabbing red arrows. John stepped carefully sideways. Then he leaned over, picked it up, pinched a bit off the end, and heaved the sinister killer as far as he could, imagining that he intended to knock an annoying batter flat on his ass, with it. The stone sailed away in slow motion through dense, stinging air; was carried off by the wind.

"Not in my park," he snapped, just as the robot shuttle roared up.

It dropped him a line and harness, which was a good thing, considering that his now bone-white suit was beginning to char. Helmet glass had gone all pitted and streaky, too.

"John," said Eos, in her best not-really-nagging-but-sort-of voice, "I strongly recommend that you increase your speed to maximum."

"Funny… I was thinking the very same thing, Pretty Girl." Then, as he got that already fraying harness fastened, and was drawn up into the shuttle's bay doors, "See? Told you I could do it."

Couldn't talk for a minute or so after that, because he was being doused with a mixture of detergent and sodium hydroxide; filling the shuttle's hold with loud 'bangs' and a cloud of swirling fumes. He could hear, though, as Eos said,

"I wish I could kiss you."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 3, in low orbit around Venus-

Alan watched as Ishtar's robot shuttle came lancing out of those roiling, bile-yellow clouds. It was a mess; pitted, streaked and corroded from just two short encounters with the Venusian atmosphere. Hard to imagine that people would ever be able to colonize that death trap, but the terraforming specialists were hard at work, so… maybe?

"Shuttle IS-2 requesting permission to dock," chimed a pleasant, mechanized female voice.

"Permission granted, IS-2," replied Alan, doing his best to sound older. It freaked people out, sometimes, that he was only sixteen. He'd have got Gordon to speak for him, except that his athlete brother was in the middle of a smoking air-guitar riff, to something playing on his earbuds.

One nice thing about their brother, John… he was all the time finding and sending them pre-conflict music he'd salvaged from old, rescued devices. Games and videos, too. Sure, the stuff was illegal… but how could you let a whole world, a whole frickin' culture, just disappear? Scott pretended to be above all that, but he listened, too, while Virgil, Gordon and Alan openly ate the stuff up. They'd developed their own 'pre-conflict download' language of cool phrases, as a consequence.

Anyways, the shuttle's guidance-bot didn't get all worked up over Alan's squeaky voice. It simply maneuvered alongside, using jets of air and brief rocket burns.

Alan watched through one of the lateral cams, splitting the viewscreen to display the shuttle's approach. By this time, Captain Taylor had finished working his figures, and he'd come up to float behind Alan's seat, one hand on the headrest.

"Hummph," he snorted. "Things 're gone ta h*ll in a handbasket, when robots do all the flyin'! Never catch me lettin' a God-dang machine take over!"

"Yes, Sir," Alan agreed respectfully, making ready to deploy the airlock's docking collar. "Only, I think they don't get a lot of volunteers to fly down in all that." Meaning Venus.

"Hmmm… You may have a point there, Alvin… but I'd still rather fly, my own self. Bet Jason ain't too happy about it, neither."

"We'll find out in a second, Uncle Lee. He'll be back aboard, soon!"

By this point, IS-2 was snug alongside, having targeted and pulled up to the airlock. Alan deployed the docking collar, giving Ishtar's shuttle a place to park. He heard and felt a resounding THUNK, as the robot shuttle latched on. Then,

"Capture! Docking complete, IS-2. Good job!" Sure, it was only a robot, but everyone needed a boost, now and then; even mechanicals. Even Alans.

"Thank you, International Rescue. Your operative has completed the mission, and is now re-boarding your spacecraft. Planetary Director Singletary wishes to know if the operative is to be paid for services rendered."

Ishtar's slow-spinning ring had just crested the sunlit west limb of Venus. Alan wrinkled his short, freckled nose in thought.

"Nah… he gets an allowance, same as the rest of us. Just send his reward to the IR non-profit rescue fund, and it'll go toward saving others, sometime. Um… and send lots of frozen pizzas to Thunderbird 5. He likes those. Only, no mushrooms, okay?"

"Message received and passed on, International Rescue. Planetary Director Singletary offers his thanks, and sends best wishes for a speedy and safe journey."

"Okay, you too!" said Alan, smiling broadly. No school for months (because… oops… he'd forgotten to register for the next set of lessons) talking to robots and flying in space. Could this day get any better? "See you next time, IS-2!"

Then, to the airlock, once Ishtar's shuttle had decoupled and jetted away,

"Hey, Bro! Welcome back! You okay? How was Venus? Did you bring me anything? Is the mech repaired?"

He heard a brief, gusty sigh. Then,

"Hi. Thanks. Fine. Hot. Sort of. Yes… and I'm going to need to decontaminate, for a while. Venus, um… lingers. Suit's about shot, but I packed a spare."

Naturally, Alan zeroed in on the single most salient point in his brother's short speech.

"What do you mean 'sort of', John? What did you bring me?"

"Nothing, if you keep pestering. Now, start that de-con, please. I'm going to lose the suit before it melts right down to my skin, but the fumes are still pretty strong in here, and I can't open a window. That would be bad. Tell Brains that we need to upgrade future models for acid environments."

"Will do, Bro. Sit tight, and we'll get you cleaned up. I've got the pump recycling the air for you, too. Need anything else?"

"A double cheeseburger would be nice… or, you know, some towels."

Captain Taylor had already started on back, pushing himself along against handy surfaces.

"De-con wipes and an oxygen mask, comin' right up," he promised, his eyebrows forming a stern, intent line over those keen, blue-grey eyes. "Hang in there, Jase."

Up in the cockpit, Alan shook his head sadly.

"No can do on the cheeseburger, I'm afraid, John… but we've got plenty of Grandma's cookies, and I might be able to pry one of Gordon's celery crunch sticks away from him."

"Keep your hands off my stash!" Gordon growled, coming out of his music trance and heading after Lee. Over one shoulder, he added, "It's got to last all the way to Titan and back, plus save some for Buddy and Ellie. He can have my share of the cookies!"

For some reason, the offer did not enthuse John, who was actually pretty busy with peeling out of that disintegrating suit and trying not to dissolve. Alan kept a constant fresh recycle on the airlock, but a chemical scan of the outflow revealed its contents to be dangerously acidic, so he hit 'organic de-con' again and again, trying to raise that pH before John got more than a cosmetic chemical peel.

"Hey, here's an idea, Big Bro," Alan suggested brightly. "How 'bout no more Venus, like, ever. Okay?"

"Sounds good to me," John replied, apparently fighting a yawn. Either he was bored, or else really exhausted, and Alan voted for tired-about-to-crash.

"Um… listen, John. My scans say that it's coming from the suit, which is too far gone to decontaminate safely. I'm gonna have to space that thing… but we need to get you out of the airlock, first. Super-quick, when I open the inner hatch, you book it into 3, then I'll purge the lock, and you can finish wiping off, inside. Uncle Lee and Gordon are standing by with supplies for you. Sound like a plan, Bro?"

"Yeah. That'll work. Thanks, Al."

Alan smiled. Earning a nickname meant that he was doing all right.

"On three. Get yourself into position. One… two… three!"

He hit the inner hatch release, and then cheated by raising lock pressure, so that John was pretty much blasted inside. Snapped the hatch shut before that blizzard of contaminated suit shreds could follow and waited to get the all-clear from Gordon. Then, Alan purged the airlock, sending the last bits of Venus' malice shrieking out into space. Mission accomplished.

XXXXXXXXXX

London, on a chilly, late afternoon-

Kayo put the unused camera away with seeming boredom, actually strolling a few steps before touching Penelope's arm and murmuring,

"You go on ahead, Penny… I've got a strong lead to follow."

Her tone was quiet and light, but her green eyes had grown very hard. Lady Penelope had seen that exact same expression from the Hood, over the barrel of a gun. Maintaining her sweet, slightly vapid smile, the young noblewoman hissed,

"But, Kayo… you are my chief character witness for our dear Scott and John. You simply must testify, or my case will fall to bits, and I shall be reduced to blackmail!"

Right. Only, Kayo was finding it difficult to focus on Penny's words, so powerful was her urge to hunt and pursue.

"You'll do fine. Just… get things started, and I'll arrive as soon as I've wrapped this up. It's important, Penny. Someone has a powerful, illegal mind scanner, and he's been using it on me. I've got to find out what's going on!"

She was already moving by that point, Penelope no more than a dim shadow in her consciousness. Having caught her quarry's trace, she could have followed him to h*ll and back. In fact, he seemed to glow like a torch ahead of her, striding amidst the crowding shadows of tourists and government types.

If Penny replied, Kayo didn't hear, and didn't care. All that mattered was finding her prey and pinning him down. Moving with speed and purpose, she slipped through the crowd like a ghost. Would have gone even faster, except for those ridiculous "dress-up clothes". D*mn Penny, for insisting she look "presentable"!

But he was moving quickly, too; making for the plaza's east entrance, where it opened onto the rebuilt New Town. The place was a warren, and always packed. Kayo kicked off the stupid girl shoes and increased her pace, not even feeling the ground.

She reached a broad marble archway, decorated with the flags of many lost nations, just two minutes after her quarry, but he was nowhere in sight. No matter. Kayo's senses were keener than normal, and included something that she'd never been able to explain, not even to Dad, or her brothers.

Quite simply, having got a fix on someone, she could sense their presence, no matter how well they thought themselves hidden. Ignoring all else, filtering sensory input through sheer, predatory instinct, Kayo found her man. He'd ducked into the back of a cheap souvenir shop, and stood there, as if awaiting her.

Clear through the pressboard wall of the shop, he glowed to her senses; triggering something inside of the girl. Had Kayo possessed claws, they would have been bared. Had she been covered in fur, it would all have been standing on end. She stalked… as the Mechanic had, back in ruined Edinburgh… toward her meat, her cornered prey.

Tore her blue jacket off, too, before slipping through the shop's broken back door; wanted nothing encumbering movement. If anyone else saw Kayo do this, they were smart enough to stay out of her way.

It was dark inside, and packed with leaking boxes of cheap, gimcrack jewelry and World Council flags. But she didn't need vision to see him. That weird feeling scraped at the front of her brain, again; like a nest of hornets where none ought to be.

"Stop that!" she snarled, fighting to block the sensation. "You can't control me with scanners or mind bombs!"

"Half-wit!" he spat, emerging from shadow like a mountain peak out of the fog. "Lap-dog! Why have you followed me?"

"Why were you trying to scan me?!" she countered, as they circled one another. He was young, she guessed; about her own age, dressed mostly in black.

"Idiot!" he responded, smooth and beautiful as a serpent… and every bit as trustworthy. His eyes, like hers, were green, and very, very hard. His hair was dark. "Can you truly be that ignorant… Tanusha?"

That needled her more than it should have done, because Kayo knew very little about herself, and her family.

"Who are you?!" she shot back, needing answers, and willing to fight him to get at them.

"No one who need concern you, lap-dog!"

"Stop calling me that! I'm… I'm a woman, a rescuer, and I'll beat the sh*t out of you, if you don't start opening up!"

He abruptly stopped the circling half-crouch, stood upright, and folded his arms.

"As if you could, half-blood. Very well, I am Nikorr Kyrano, but I will be sick if I hear the name from your mouth, so do not repeat it. I believe that we are cousins, of sorts."

Kayo had stopped moving now, too. A sudden surge of emotion flooded her to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her pony-tailed hair.

"Cousins…? Then, why do you hate me so much? Why all the insults? I… didn't know there was anyone left! Did the machines get your family, too?"

Instinctively, she'd taken a small step forward, but Nikorr drew backward and spat on the ground at her feet.

"Why? Because you stink of them! That litter of mongrels you've attached yourself to! You don't even know how to speak or hear properly! Cannot respond to a greeting!"

Kayo hugged herself, then, all of her hunt-lust extinguished.

"I don't know what you're on about. The Tracys are my family," she whispered. "They took me in, when…"

"No!" he snapped. "They are quarter-breeds, at best; muddied, confused and pathetic! They've lost the way, and drawn you off, as well! Two of them came near to killing the previous Kyrano, and I will have blood for it, over your twitching corpse, if necessary!"

Kayo blinked. Part of her understood him completely. Most of her wanted to retch in a corner. Scott and John… in his hands?

"Not in a million years, on the best day of your snotty, arrogant life, you piece of sh*t!" she snarled back. "Come near my brothers and I'll break you in half!" Then, as a sudden thought occurred, "Are you the reason that the World Council's so hot to prosecute somebody?! Have you been manipulating them?!"

Nikorr cocked a straight, dark eyebrow, and gave her a deeply sarcastic slow-clap.

"Brava. It can be taught," he mocked. "Yes, Tanusha. I have been controlling that pack of gowned fools the 'typicals' bow to. A simple matter, as they are largely corrupt and terribly weak. That you… or they… would allow yourselves to be commanded by such vermin defies comprehension."

Progress. He'd stopped with the death threats, at least.

"We don't make our own laws," Kayo said stoutly. "That's just chaos."

Nikorr shook his head.

"Do you really believe that… or are you simply repeating their craven nonsense?" he jabbed.

Kayo's mouth opened, then shut again. She really, truly, did not know what to say. Nikorr's vivid green eyes narrowed, suddenly.

"A bargain, then. I will release my grip on the Council of Fools… and you will bring 'The Hood' and yourself to our stronghold, with 'Scott' and 'John'. They will face trial, our way… and you will rejoin your true family."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Union Jack, near Norfolk Island, on the Tasman Sea-

Lieutenant Kraft sat back from her comm, blinking rapidly. The news was, well… wow. She'd have called him, anyhow, but then her private line lit up from Thunderbird 2.

"What's up, Tracy?" she responded, after hitting the comm. Kraft was smiling with her whole face and her eager, forward-leaning posture.

Virgil's handsome image appeared on her screen, his brown eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Nothing much, Angel… just crossing the Ditch on my way to join Dad and Scott, saw you hanging around Norfolk, and thought: Hey, bet Union Jack's got an onboard store. You do, don't you?"

Becoming interested, now, in more than just his muscles and clefted chin, Kraft nodded.

"Sure do, Taz. Sells everything from ships' hats to soap-on-a-rope. What do you need?"

He leaned toward the comm pick-up, his end, lowering his voice a bit to say,

"Hair gel. I'm almost out. Since you guys are over by Norfolk, I figured I could fly over, ramp on down to the deck, and then remote-land Thunderbird 2 on the island while I shop and, um… other things."

Emma's smile broadened, as those big green eyes lit up her face.

"Other things, Mister? What makes you think that there's any of that on the duty schedule?"

He grinned at her, looking impossibly smug and attractive.

"Because you like me. I can tell," he boasted. "Can I come over?"

Kraft pretended to frown thoughtfully, flicking through the pages of an imaginary schedule.

"Well, let's see… suppose I can work you in, Tracy, as long as you're quick."

Virgil's grin got a whole lot wider, and a bit more wicked.

"Quick?" he teased. "Don't know about that. True artistry takes time, Woman… But I'll do my best to show support for our armed forces, the best way I know how."

"Jerk," Kraft snorted, fussing at her blondish-brown hair. "How soon can you be here?"

A deep, bass vibration thrummed clear through her vessel as something huge passed overhead, blocking the starry sky.

"Now," he told her. "I can be here, right now."