Chapter 10: The Clouds are Falling
Notes:
Thank you, amazing Soleil_Lumiere.
Chapter Text
"Coming up on sector 12 now, John, height 1000 FT as per recommended search and speed parameters. Sweep width 40 kilometres. Continuing down-sun obs. I can see the Faroes ahead, bearing nor-north-east."
"Confirmed. How's the fuel?"
"Discarding drop tank now."
Scott didn't feel a kick as the tank was discarded beneath him, its job done. The loud hum of the plane, the occasional rattle of the hood, of intermittent squalls; below, the sea a mass of gray with stationary flecks of white and behind him and to his left, the massive, brooding bank of a storm that seemed to bleed across the sky from west to south, a blackened arm swinging around towards him in a slow motion punch. His world was reduced and expanded to this; the tiny cockpit and the vast, empty miles of sea and sky that stretched beyond his sight, into dark and light oblivion.
"How's the scanner doing?"
Scott gave a mental shrug as he glanced again at its blankness.
"I can only guess it's working. There's nothing down there to show up onscreen. The range isn't good enough to pick up Thunderbird Two –" a pause, a weakness, before he continued- "on the seabed. We'll need to modify if they want me to search deeper. Four could be down there and I wouldn't find it unless it was on the surface."
John's voice, sonorous and strong but stripped of nuance in the old fashioned RT communication, brought the required re-focusing.
"You're looking for the escape pod. The scanner should pick that up without any problem."
"I know. Don't mind me, I'm being – woah!"
"Scott?"
"Contact! I've got something! Definitely got something. About 20 klicks off the coast of the Faroes. Definitely a hit on something."
His pulse was pounding. Hope like sickness filled his belly.
"I'm –woo, I'm tipping Agnes, trying to get a visual. It's below me, directly below, I'm bringing her round…"
A single shift of the joystick and one wing dipped to bring the plane into a smooth, elegant arc. His pilot's soul noted the ease of it even as his eyes raked the sea, sighting and dismissing a hundred little peaks in the waves that could be the thing the scanner picked up.
"Do you have a size?" John's voice was careful to hide his excitement. Scott knew when he was reining it in.
"Hard to say – scanner definition is pretty limited. But it's getting clearer as I get lower – looks to be rectangular. Maybe three metres square?"
Possible. So, so possible. Right size, maybe the right place. He found his throat was tight, clutched in a dizzy embrace of need and a desperate fear of disappointment.
Agnes continued in her gentle spiral downwards as his gaze moved ever more intently between the waves and the scanner. The object grew in the screen even as it remained obscured in the sea amongst the whitecaps. Without a scanner, he never would have noticed it.
"I'm at 500 FT. No visual yet."
Another sweetly aligned turn – another 100 feet lost in height. Now the frozen sea of 1000 FT looked to be moving, heaving beneath him in long, slow rolls. And something appeared, even as something died in his heart. It took him several agonising seconds for his throat to unclench enough to pass the news on.
"It's red and yellow. I repeat, it's red and yellow. GDF issue."
Thunderbird Two's escape pod was orange.
Silence on the RT as John gathered his steadfast courage once again.
"Confirmed, Scott. GDF issue." Another pause, kind enough to cover the anguish, then his voice came back in. "That's probably Drago Kasun."
"Yes." He heard the dullness in his own voice, and cursed himself for it. "Yes. That's – uh, that's great news, if he's in there. Can you contact him at all?"
Another wait, as he circled the bobbing escape pod below him.
"Negative."
Scott frowned.
"Is that the EMF interference?"
"I'm not sure. I'll try to contact the nearest island."
That would be Mykine, a mountainous green shape at the end of the string of islands that made up the Faroe archipelago. It looked at this height close enough to reach out and grab the pod.
"Scott, I have Captain Djurhuus on the comms, so apparently the EMF has dissipated enough that ordinary radio contact can be made."
That boded ill for Drago – unless his comms were knocked out by the attack.
It occurred to Scott that if the young pilot had survived the attack he had been in the pod in the ocean for more than sixty hours now, with no way of contacting help and no way of steering his pod towards land. The escape pods were designed to do little more than attract attention from the undoubted search and rescue that would be immediately put in place once a plane went down, and then maintain life while waiting. He would have been envisaging the map and knowing that the chances of him washing ashore on the only land in this area- minuscule against the vastness of the water – were effectively non-existent. He must have been floating in there as one floating in his own coffin, and the pang that shot through Scott at that realisation was galvanising.
Virgil and Gordon might be thinking the exact same thing right now.
"Does the captain have an old enough boat? Can he get out to him?"
A pause while the question was relayed, and then a chuckle from John.
"He says his grandfather's fishing boat's a hundred years old – old enough for you? The motor's the newest thing on it, and that's about thirty."
"Pre-terellium," Scott breathed. "That's awesome. Tell him to get out here as fast as he can. I'll maintain visual."
"Tell him yourself. EOS has the frequencies aligned."
"Thank you. Captain Djurhuus?"
"Hej, hello. This is Mykine SAR. Captain Rókur Djurhuus here. You have a retrieval?"
"Scott Tracy of International Rescue here. Yes, I have a retrieval, an escape pod, in Search Area 1. I am circling the site now. Do you have visual?"
"I have you on scanner, International Rescue. SAR boat on standby. Will be on site in fifteen minutes."
"Negative, Captain. As explained to you, we want you to use the oldest boat you have. Nothing newer than twenty years."
"You want me to use my old fishing boat?"
The confusion in the captain's voice was clear, and understandable.
"Confirmed, Mykine SAR. Nothing with terellium can be allowed into the area. Repeat, nothing with terellium can be allowed into area."
"Understood." It wasn't, Scott knew that, but the captain had the precise and calm tone of a man well-used to acting upon directions in an emergency situation. Scott found himself nodding in recognition of a shared practicality. Details could be explained later; a person needed rescuing, and that was all that mattered. "Kom her, Rannvá. My wife, Captain Rannvá Torven, will take over SAR comms."
"Received and understood."
Scott brought his eyes up to the horizon and the steadily increasing storm clouds that were inexorably coming towards him and the helpless pod below.
"Captain, we need all speed."
"Ja. Weather alert is in place. Don't worry, Thunderbird, the Tor Friði will get out there in plenty of time."
Scott started at the use of 'Thunderbird'. Clearly, Rókur Djurhuus knew about International Rescue – not at all surprising, given their mutual fields of assisting those in need of help. But there was something in the Islander's voice that spoke of familiarity, and he racked his brain to think of a rescue in this area that might have seen them crossing paths.
He watched as a small dot detached itself from the island and began traversing the sea, travelling all too slowly for his liking. Every now and then a spume of white burst upwards as the old boat hit a large wave and ploughed through it, and he realised that the little fishing boat was actually making fair speed through heavy seas.
"Uh – Scott?" John, sounding concerned enough that the emotion transcended the limitations of the radio. "That storm front to your left is travelling at some speed. You really need to leave the area as soon as you can."
"Negative, John. I'm here until Captain Djurhuus gets the escape pod. He's not in a SAR vessel, if he's relying on visibility -"
"Scott, his scanner will lock onto it. He said it's a fishing boat – it will have a fish scanner he can use."
Of course.
"Thanks, John. I didn't think of that. I'd like to stay until the pod is retrieved though. It looks like Captain Djurhuus will be reaching it in the next few minutes."
A sigh from space like the heavens were huffing at him.
"Understood. Once the escape pod's secure, you'll have to fly due east then south. The storm's coming up from the southwest – if you try to fly directly back to base you'll hit it. Or you could fly to the Vágar airport at Vatnsoyar. Wait it out? You know – take the safe option, for once?"
Scott grinned. "Where's the fun in that? No. I'll get back to base. They'll have a new drop tank for me."
Another long, slow turn, but this time, a gust of wind caught him as he banked slowly north, and he felt the Spitfire lift and drop at its whim.
"Hell!" He worked furiously to gain height, as another gust skidded him sideways.
"Scott?"
"Not now!"
It was the advance party of the storm, the air being forced out by the shift in pressure, and it brought into play a whole new sensation of skittishness unlike anything he'd experienced in flight before. Modern jets and rockets had automatic stabilisers that constantly read the air currents around the aircraft and adjusted before the vagaries of temperature and pressure could affect the line of flight in open air. Didn't help when flying low in difficult terrain, of course. And holding a plane stable in poor conditions still demanded effort and skill because inertia no longer helped stability, but inside Thunderbird One Scott never had any doubts as to his 'bird's capacity to maintain structural integrity. This? This felt like being in a tin can in a rapids.
He climbed back to 1,000 FT, with the occasional boost from an updraft that jolted Agnes alarmingly. By the time he got there and levelled into a much longer turning circle, the little fishing boat had converged upon the escape pod in the water, far sooner than his pessimistic reckonings had imagined.
"Captain Torven?"
"Ja?"
"Any word from Captain Djurhuus?"
"Stand by, please."
Stand by. Two of his least favourite words. The fishing boat just seemed to be alongside the pod. At this height, he couldn't make out the details of what was happening, and it was beyond frustrating.
"John, has he got him? Is he alive? John?"
"Hold on, Scott – I think the captain has his hands full just now. I'll get EOS to patch you straight through to the boat, but you might need to hold on there."
Another delay, and in the pause Scott summoned up the bright young face of Drago Kasun, the pilot who knew as he did how to offer his own existence as ransom for friends and strangers alike. He remembered the humour, the lightness, the kind of bravery that needed no medals to shine in the darkest of times.
He wished.
"Scott, there's – "
Interference, a kind of screech and garble, as another voice cut across his brother's.
"Scott Tracy? Bloody hell. It's really Scott Tracy?"
"Drago Kasun!" It was as if another updraft had caught him and lifted him another thousand feet into the air. "Welcome back! It's damn good to hear your voice. Decided you weren't ready to be a real spook, huh?"
"Scott Tracy! Did you get the bastards, then?"
"Uh, negative, Drago. Long story. Still ongoing. You are one lucky son-of-a-gun."
"Yeah. Wow. I really thought I – yeah, bugger that, we can chat later. I don't know what you're flying but you better head out of here. I'll buy you a beer when we get back."
"FAB. Tracy out."
He banked Agnes into a turn towards the east, and at once he felt the effect of the wind, hurtling him on his way ahead of the storm's path. It took all his concentration to bring her level and find his compass bearing. The lowering sun shot light beneath the bank of cloud to spotlight ahead of him even as he flew towards the evening's darkness. It would be a race to get home in daylight.
And as he eased the revs out, as he rejoiced in the speed and gutsiness of his little plane, he took an ill-judged second to wonder why he had signed off with FAB to Drago Kasun, a man he had only met once before. The answer was as swift as it was painful.
Because he reminded him of Virgil's looks. Because he reminded him of Gordon's spirit.
And for a second time, Scott experienced the bitter sweetness of bearing witness to a happy rescue that nonetheless scored his soul with a child's' insistent cries of, "Not fair!"
Enough.
There was a job to do, and he had a plane to fly in tricky conditions. Time to celebrate publicly and continue worrying privately when he got back.
He hit fifty kilometres east and turned southwards. For over half an hour there was nothing but sky, sea, and a Spitfire. A rescue behind him. On another day, he would call himself happy.
"Scott, you should be seeing a small island off to your right. That's Rona. Also known as North Rona, for reasons best known to the Scots. You need to start looping out south east now. That should give you a clear flight path back to base without connecting with the storm."
"Got it. Rona. Why is that familiar?"
John chuckled. "Took me a while to remember, too. I think you killed their lighthouse back in the Bereznik Emergency?"
Scott joined him in laughing. "Oh, yeah. I remember now. I think the Scottish Government put it that way in their bill. I was so mad with them I didn't even notice the wording until someone pointed it out to me."
"Let's face it, you don't expect a sense of humour from governments."
He passed the distant island, a long, mostly low land mass looking bright in the last rays of the soon to be swallowed sun.
"They ever fix that lighthouse?"
"I don't know. Want me to find out?"
"No, don't worry." Scott eyed the island as he flew by. "I could always buzz it and look for myself. I have time, don't I?"
"Uh – I would strongly recommend against that. Your fuel and the light – "
"Yeah, okay. I know. I'll be good. Have you told the GDF they've got their boy back yet?"
"Yes, I did. There are some very happy people waiting for you to get wheels down."
"I bet." Scott wriggled his shoulders, suddenly badly wanting to be back at base. The finding of Drago, joyous as it was, had obscured the other undeniable outcome of the day. There was no sign of the escape pod or Thunderbird Four south of the Faroes in the North Atlantic near the crash site. It was one thing to fly home to a warm welcome for an unexpected find; it was another to face the people who meant so much to him and tell them that he'd failed in the way it personally counted most.
He left Rona Island far to his rear, and headed on his lonely path south.
*** **** **** **** *****
Kayo took the news of Drago's survival as if it was a charge of electricity to her innermost being. Something in the way her shoulders straightened told Scott all he needed to know. All of them were bowing beneath this pressure, the act of keeping grief at arm's length by sheer strength of will, but Kayo never stopped in her planning, her strategizing, her continuous focus on the 'what ifs'. It was both nature and duty, but neither could shield her from the emotional wear of hopes dashed and hurts received. Scott knew it, as a commander. He knew just how much she had needed this boost.
She stepped back from the hug she'd given him as he came back into their shared bedroom.
"I choose to see it as an omen. We gave up on Drago, and he survived. So will Virgil and Gordon."
"No one's giving up on Virgil and Gordon!" Grandma, from Tracy Island, looking older than she ever had but no less determined, with Alan next to her. John's avatar watched from beside them both, together but at this exact moment 4,000 kilometres apart. Penelope and Parker were waiting in the room with Kayo, meaning the tiny room was hopelessly crowded.
Scott nodded, finding a smile, tired but true.
"That's right, Grandma. We've just begun to search. Right, John?"
He expected a swift affirmation from John, but his brother refused to look up at him. Instead, there was a pause, just long enough to become ugly, before Alan jumped in.
"Damn right! No one can tell me this Dragon guy is better than International Rescue. I bet Gordon's kicking ass in Thunderbird Four, and Virgil's kicking his ass for not doing it the proper way."
Lady Penelope, seated in Colonel Massey's small armchair, looked downwards at her hands, folded and still in her lap, and said nothing.
It was up to Scott to pick up Alan's comments.
"Can you imagine? Those two cooped up together for days? Virgil will need a week-long meditation retreat just to recalibrate."
"Ha-ha. Yeah. You better believe it."
There was something in Alan's voice that made Scott look a little more closely at his youngest brother. Alan looked tired, but then, they all did. He had the extra strain of not being able to do anything directly to assist in the search and rescue, and Scott knew how that would play on him. And, of course, he was closest to Gordon. Scott wasn't any kind of therapist, and he didn't tend towards analysis beyond the needs of his family and the mission, but this one wasn't too hard to figure out. Maybe the thought of someone as young and carefree as he was disappearing – a euphemism, but he was exhausted, he'd take it- threatened Alan's ideas about the immortality that was the assumed birthright of the very young.
Scott couldn't even remember when his own youthful assumptions were burned away from him.
"You playing nice with Brains, Alan?"
"Oh, Brains. Man, that guy just doesn't know when to quit. He's back in his lab, doing his nerd stuff with one hand, barf bag in the other. I keep telling him to get some rest."
"You're doing a good job, Al. Not easy, waiting it out."
For just a second, two, the pep drained from Alan's face, and for that brief moment Scott saw his true state of mind.
Desperate.
His little brother was desperate, and it just about broke Scott's heart.
"But hey – Agnes is going great!" Hard work this, being cheer leader when all he wanted to do was flake out face first on the bed. He hadn't even stopped for a shower yet, his GDF flying suit sweaty and hot on his body. "Tomorrow I'm taking her up past the Faroes, into the Norwegian Sea. That's where they'll be. The current's gonna take them that way, and I've left the scanner with the tech guys here, see if they can't boost her to read at a greater depth."
"I know you're all doing everything you can," Grandma Tracy said, and it sounded like condescension. Scott resisted the urge to snap.
"You know it. John mentioned Vágar airport to me. You know, that's not a bad idea. I could fly out to there and base my operations from the Faroes."
"And how would you fuel the plane?" Lady Penelope, quiet and to the point, as ever. "There's no way to get fuel to the Faroes. Unless they have a supply they're not telling anyone about?"
"Oh." Scott scrubbed at his face, trying to relieve his fatigue. "I guess you're right. Just thought it might save some search time."
At last, John raised his eyes to look at Scott.
"We have to talk."
"Talk? Fine. About what?"
"About the search."
The hair rose on the back of Scott's neck.
"What about it?"
Before John could answer, there was a knock at the door. Kayo reached over to open it.
"Ah. Good. Everyone's here." It was Colonel Casey, who seemed to have shared Kayo's bolt of energy. She was smiling, and gestured broadly to an assistant behind her, who squeezed in carrying a basket of delicacies and wine. "Voted for by the Lossiemouth Social Club, in recognition of your outstanding efforts in finding our stray pilot."
"That's very kind of them. Please thank them for me." Scott saw the mouth, but read the eyes. His defensiveness hitched another notch higher.
"Will do." Casey ushered her assistant back out the door, and then closed it behind her. "You have made some friends for life here, Scott."
"That's nice." He narrowed his eyes. "What's going on?"
"Dispensing with pleasantries? Fair enough." She turned to face him. "After discussing the situation with the World Council, my superiors, and your brother, I've come to formally request that you shift your operations tomorrow into the North Sea."
Scott frowned. He caught the faces in front of him; Grandma and Alan knew nothing, neither did Kayo. Penelope was in on whatever this was.
And John –
"The North Sea? You think that's where my brothers have gone?"
Colonel Casey lifted an eyebrow.
"It's - possible. It's always possible."
"But that's all?" It was getting difficult to keep the sneer from his voice. "Then, forgive me, but I'll keep searching the North Atlantic."
"You misunderstand. We have decided that finding your brothers is no longer the first priority, or indeed the chief objective. Please – hear me out." This in response to the way Scott's face had twisted into a snarl and his hands into fists.
"I really don't think we have anything to discuss. My brothers are my first and only priority. Anything that doesn't accord with that can take a flying jump."
"Your brothers remain a priority, of course, but strategically going after them is not our best option."
"It's my best option!"
"Scott."
His voice low, his face full of pain, John's single use of his name brought his rage to a focal point.
"What, John? What? You agree with this?"
John closed his mouth firmly, for several seconds, before finally saying, "Yes, I do."
"I can't be hearing this." Scott raised both hands to his head. "I must be going crazy. Hey, sorry Grandma, guess we are giving up on our boys after all."
"Scott! Knock it off." There was anguish there, but Scott was in no mood to acknowledge it. "No one's giving up on them. But think about it. Just stop and think. How much of the search area can you really cover, by yourself?"
"I don't know! More than I would cover if, oh I don't know, I gave up and went looking for something else!"
"And what else would you be looking for? Huh?" So rare for John to be challenging him like this, but the rawness, the pain told Scott how far his brother had gone down this path alone. "Why do you think we're asking this?"
"The sub." It was Alan, looking stricken. "You want him to find the sub."
It took a full five seconds of silence for the idea to flow through his mind, setting off the pinball machine that constituted his operations mode.
"You want a search and destroy mission."
Colonel Casey inclined her head.
"We do. We think that your plane is the best chance we have of taking out the Regency's sub."
Scott finished the thought. "Allowing for a full scale search and rescue mission to be deployed once the threat is neutralised."
It made sense. It made perfect sense in every way but the one he wanted.
"That could take days," he countered. "I'm not leaving my brothers trapped in an escape pod or Thunderbird Four for one day longer than I have to."
"We may be able to help you narrow it down." Colonel Casey nodded to John, who took up the task again.
"The GDF has been sending drones repeatedly into the North Sea, each one entering from different directions. Based on the time and position of their destruction, I've calculated the weapon range on this thing to be about 40 klicks – and by triangulating each drone attack, I have a search area of not much more than 80 square kilometres. Given it is actually significantly closer to base than where you've been searching, that's eminently doable."
"Doable."
"Yes."
Lady Penelope made a small sound, and turned her head away. Kayo's eyes were wide, intense and upset but calculating the odds nonetheless. Grandma had one hand raised against her mouth. Alan – Alan's eyes were glistening.
"Alan?"
His kid brother made a kind of hand flap in an attempt to wave away the emotion everyone could see. "I guess I just thought you might – I kinda hoped – I thought maybe, tomorrow would be the day you'd…" He blew out his breath, wobbly. "No. But I mean, yeah. Cool, huh. That's – that's cool. You got bombs on Agnes?"
Scott quirked an eyebrow to Colonel Casey.
"As a matter of fact, we're fitting them right now. Only 100 kilos each, but they carry the new Corazon 12 explosives. Pack a hell of a charge, and perfect for depth work."
They were fitting them now. Scott never stood a chance.
He nodded, and turned to leave.
"Scott?"
"John, why don't you continue coordinating everything with Colonel Casey. You seem to have it all covered."
"Where are you going?"
Scott glanced at everyone in the room, and his smile was a bitter one.
"I'm going to take a shower. Then I'm going to have a beer for Drago Kasun. By then I'm going to hope you've all cleared out and I can get some sleep. I've got a big day tomorrow, killing people. Oh, and thanks Colonel Casey, for reminding me why I left the military in the first place."
It wasn't satisfying, nothing about this brought him any kind of satisfaction, and later he would berate himself for leaving when Alan still needed to talk. But for now it was the best he could manage, and as he stepped into the shower and turned it on, full and hot, he lent his arms against the tiles, braced his legs, and put his head beneath the jets to let the thundering of the water cover the thundering of the storm, inside and out.
**** ***** ***** ****** *****
The simple, but not obvious, truth was this; Scott had only twice before knowingly fired at a human being.
From the formation of the World Council in 2040 until the mid-2050s, no major wars occurred. Minor conflicts still happened, of course; as long as human beings could sharpen a length of wood into a spear, people would find ways of killing each other over the myriad reasons they'd found to do so in the past millennia. But in terms of nation versus nation, bloc versus bloc, the World Council found ways to negotiate and obfuscate and ingratiate and mediate, until disgruntled parties subsided and non-aggression pacts re-emerged, dented but intact.
That was until a genius and a nationalist sociopath combined forces in Bereznik, and the bombing of nearby cities and dams and ports recommenced.
The bombing was always done with drones, but drones with a sophistication decades beyond the rest of the world's capacities. Drones that could register and lock onto missiles sent to thwart them; drones with smart technology that allowed them to respond to the myriad ways the World Council and the GDF tried to defend against them, the AI directing each one capable of assessing threats and initiating strategies to a level at least equal and often superior to the best human pilots.
The carnage was horrific.
Until the World Council turned to squadrons like Scott's, equipped with jet fighters built to turn on a dime and pilots trained to fly by instinct, neural transmitters reacting to the flicker of a gaze in sending the craft into defensive spirals and attacking rolls. He and his comrades took to fighting the drones in mid-air, and winning enough that the terrible losses of pilots and machines somehow balanced the deadly books to the point that Bereznik sued for a ceasefire – but not before Bereznik sent up their own human fighters in a last ditch attempt to stave off defeat, and not before Scott twice fired his rockets at human flown planes only to see them hurtle, burning, into the ground so far below that the final burst of flame upon impact looked like a child's careless dot on a misty map.
For some, the anonymity of modern aerial warfare meant that rationalisation could disperse the nightmares; distance could wash their hands.
For Scott, the pain and the guilt and the revulsion at what he had been forced to do left him scarred and bitter. When his father reminded him of his altruistic plans for a rescue organisation, one that existed only to save others, it took several months before Scott didn't feel as if his presence in the planning room tainted everything his father was trying to achieve.
And now he was, knowingly and deliberately, heading out to do the same thing to another group of people.
That they were dangerous, fatally so, he would not deny. That their thinking was the worst kind of zealotry, and deeply misguided, again, was not something he would ever argue.
But that they could be put to death for it – and that Scott would be the executioner – that, Scott resisted, even as he was strapped into his seat, even as the Coffman spluttered the Spitfire into life, even as he took off and flew north to where his brother John had neatly corralled them, ready for the axe they didn't know was coming.
In International Rescue there was an unspoken motto that each of them inscribed in their heart and lived by, daily. My life for theirs. No one spoke of self-sacrifice, or noble purpose, or greater good, yadda yadda. But that was the principle, the price, that each one of his brothers agreed to.
My life for theirs.
But not this time.
This time, it was your life for theirs. The unnamed people in the submarine somewhere below him in exchange for Virgil and Gordon, and it was John and Penelope and Colonel Casey who brokered that deal, Scott the enforcer who collected on its deadly terms.
He felt ill. Acknowledged that, dismissed it, as the nose came up and Agnes roared into the sky – for once, one without the intermittent rain that had bedevilled him yesterday.
If he didn't analyse others, he was even less inclined to trawl through his own motivations, but even so the truth of it all was clear enough to him. He was ill not because of the thought of what he was about to do. He felt physically sick because he knew, reluctantly but profoundly, that he agreed with the strategy. Alternatives just didn't exist, and not taking this opportunity would condemn his brothers to die somewhere out in this infernal sea, this callous ocean. No: the bitter truth was he simply didn't want it to be him who saw it through.
Sanity, as defined by a single uninterrupted night's sleep or the ability not to shake at a sudden noise, was as hard-won as the truce. The Bereznik Emergency lasted less than twelve months. Scott's own battles lasted three years, and still flared after a particularly dangerous rescue. To go back to that dark place, to pick up the burden of five, ten, twenty souls in the submarine – that thought made him dry-mouthed, twisted in his guts, kept the hand on the throttle clenched hard to stop a preparatory shake.
But the alternative was also clear, and one he couldn't countenance. Who would take his place? A young pilot, idealistic, courageous, happy to risk his or her life in a rickety antique aircraft to rescue his brothers? A boy like Alan, a girl like Kayo, dragged into the shadow world of Scott's own trauma? Unthinkable. Unconscionable. And unnecessary, because Scott was here, and if the damage was still fresh, well, maybe that just meant he was qualified to cope with it.
The sea today was a patchwork, shifting blues and grays following the clouds above. Six days since John had contacted him with news that Thunderbird Two was missing, and for the first time, Scott's whole focus was not on finding his brothers. He checked the scanner and the fuel gauge, calculated distance and trajectory, and gave his soul over to the gods of war.
"Bearing nor-noreast. Coming up on designated area."
"Confirmed, Scott."
The scanner stayed dark. John's voice sounded impersonal, more distant than the reality of space and planetary position dictated. Scott had not forgiven him, because the hypocrisy of such an act was not in his nature; but the lack of confessional clarity between them meant that John was distant and Scott was alone. Perhaps it was good, in a way; perhaps the reminder that he was very much on his own was no bad thing in when going in to battle.
Scott moved his right hand over to the release levers for the two bombs he was carrying. He knew what the Corazon 12 could do. The latest of the pure fusion weapons, with negligible radiation and neutron damage but massive explosive force. A ten kilo bomb could release the energy of twenty tonnes of TNT; a 100 kilo bomb would lift a sub out of the water. All well and good; but the truth was, he'd never dropped a bomb in his life. Bomb aiming from a fast flying, manually controlled aircraft like a Spitfire was a learned skill, and he only had two chances to get it right before needing to return for re-arming. If he missed by a large margin and the sub escaped damage, they would likely run deep and silent as fast as they could out of the area. The chance to find them, to stop them, would be gone for now, and the delay could have terrible consequences for his lost brothers.
He'd fired grappling hooks forward of Thunderbird One when the computer targeting failed, he'd aimed and delivered climbing ropes and safety harnesses and magnetic clamps under all kinds of pressure and conditions. He could do this.
A banking turn as he began to quarter the area identified by John. Optimum search height at his speed of 220 knots was 1,000FT, but the scanner was now configured to give him a better depth range, and he could afford to take her up a little. He settled at 1200FT and dropped into cruise mode, every nerve straining for the moment when the scanner would come to life and show him what he half hoped, half dreaded to find.
That it happened on the first pass was astonishing.
"Uh – John? Are you getting this?"
Nothing but static. Under the invisible cloud of the lingering effects of the concentrated EMF use in this specific area, both the sub and his little Spitfire would pass undetected. He spared a thought for how John would feel, unable to see or hear what was happening. Now, Scott truly was alone, and he brought everything he had to focus on the shape in the scanner, a long, thin shape that shimmered in the low pixel density of his equipment but was clear enough to identify.
He brought Agnes up and around, keeping the shape in the centre of the scanner's screen, losing height in a series of sharper turns. At 400FT he could see it, maybe twenty feet below the surface, looking for all the world like a giant shark gliding along with deadly intent. Seeing it brought a flush of something like rage through Scott's body; this was the thing that brought down Thunderbird Two. This was the machine, this housed the people, who killed two pilots and imperilled 15 others, who almost took Drago Kasun's life.
This was the monster who kept Grandma awake in silent terror, who put that look of desperation on Alan's face. Who took Gordon's happy laugh and Virgil's quiet smile away from him, from all of them.
"Come on, Agnes," he muttered, "come on, girl."
He didn't know if they would be watching for him – if they had scanning equipment immune to their own weapons' effects, if they were even now firing their anti-energy weapon at the blip on their radars, and wondering why he didn't just disappear as so many others had done. The thought of their puzzlement, maybe even alarm, gave him a second of satisfaction, before he brought the plane around to face north at 250FT and began his first bombing run.
He knew he would have to bring her up fast the moment he released the bombs. He knew he had to imagine the trajectory, allow for the speed of his plane versus the weight of the bomb. The wings wobbled a little, responding to the unsettled air above the waves. He knew he only had two complete attempts at this.
At this speed and height he closed on the sub so fast that before he could react he'd blown the first run. Abysmally.
He roared over the spot, past the sub seconds faster than he was prepared to be.
"Shit!" He pulled the stick back, lifting her up and over and swinging away to his right, an unexpected burst of sunlight glinting on the hood before disappearing again as he flattened her out. He overshot by a full kilometre before looping back and around for the second pass.
This time he doubled his height before settling in for the bombing run.
It made it easier to keep her level, and gave him a few seconds' extra time as he approached the target. But still the spot in his targeting sights sped towards him, and still his hand twitched on the release, the rush and bump of the craft and the burr of the engine bringing urgency and the edge of control-loss to him.
The lines converged – and passed.
A second overshoot.
"Dammit!" Another long swing around, another revving of the engines as he banked right. "Okay, you idiot. Enough fooling around. You've got this."
The sub begin to change direction.
They were aware of him. They may have been attacking him, to no effect. But they were definitely shifting their heading and beginning to dive.
He tipped downwards, dropping height again to bore in at an angle, too fast to think, all instinct. His hand triggered the release before he had time to register the fact, and then he was wrenching the joystick back, back and the engines were roaring as he headed almost straight up.
The explosion, when it came, felt like a kick in the backside by a giant, ornery mule. The Spitfire's tail swung out and the whole body of his plane lifted upwards and sideways. He risked a quick look; the site was a massive, churning cauldron of white, and even in the few seconds he watched, he saw the black shape of the sub suddenly burst onto the surface.
Struggling, he brought the nose of the Spitfire down, breaking her wayward climb. His heart was thundering in his chest, and he reached up to wipe nervous sweat from his eyes. Each breath was harsh, echoing in his headset, the kind of tell that gave away exactly how much this was costing him. He blew one out, hard, and took in a deeper one as he swung southwards to assess what he'd done.
And met cruel disappointment.
The submarine was intact.
Well to the side of the boiling, bubbling water, the sub looked sleek and black and deadly. Judging by its position now, he'd missed it by a hundred metres.
He let his head drop back, teeth grinding. When someone was depending on him, he could find the strength to hide chagrin, fiercely quell self-disgust and doubt. But alone, with everything depending on him and only his own inadequacies in play, it was all too easy to let his fear and exhaustion ride his mood.
"Come on, come on, come on! God, Scooter, get in the game!"
Had to do better.
He circled south before turning north, pushing the plane as fast as she'd go, bringing her back for the final run. Dropped low again, but not as low as the last time, and as he came in straightened her, kept her level and steady, watching the targeting lines converge.
And then, shockingly, something hit him.
Something punched him, hard, in the shoulder, hard enough to set him back against the metal.
Nothing hurt – there was just incomprehension.
Something had punched him.
And then he was aware of rushing air, screeching through the undercarriage, and he realised there was a hole in the floor of the cockpit, jagged, bewildering. The sea, hundreds of metres below, appeared in the gap in the metal, and his eye was taken by the sight of it, and by his leg right above it, soaked in deepest red.
"Oh."
Without thinking he pulled the plane's nose up, away from the punching, and another thump cannoned into the rear undercarriage.
Rallying his brain through the nothingness that invaded it was hard, but it happened, with abrupt clarity.
They were firing at him. The plane was damaged. He was damaged. The smell of hot oil filled the cockpit. The smell of blood.
He looked at his fuel gauge. Steady. The fuel tanks weren't hit. Brakes – he tried to work the brake lever, but his right hand didn't want to work, wouldn't leave the stick.
Oh. Shoulder, right.
A dropping of his eyes down to his chest, and he saw his flying suit top as soaked as his pants leg.
Oh.
So - wounded. Badly. Sub still intact. One failed pass completed, one bomb left.
The thoughts were staccato, black and red flashes across his mind, without emotion or context, barely holding meaning.
Check the gauge – nothing. No brakes.
And now, the pain, great shuddering waves of it, leaving him gasping, incapable. Didn't want to make a noise, didn't want to start to spiral into the scream that lay waiting for him at the base of his spine, his belly.
Somehow, he pushed the stick forward, brought her nose down to the level again.
He wasn't sure of his direction. Lost it. Lost the submarine. Lost everything. Everything.
No – no, he knew where the sun was. Behind him, and he was heading north. Blew his bombing run. Blew a hole in the plane. In him. Two holes.
He needed to get her back, get himself back. He promised the old man. Break off now and get home. Swing out wide, wide, away from whatever weapon they had down there. Dip the nose down lower and there, bristling on the top of the submarine, the spiked silhouette of guns swivelling to follow him. But if he gained height and went wide, he'd be safe, safe from those guns, he'd get home.
The thought came and went, dying without regret.
Couldn't leave Virgil. Couldn't leave Gordon.
Have to bring her back to come up from the south with the sun – but it was hard, so hard, to think and to do. Just – just turn around. Just straight over the top from the north, down low. They would shoot at him, they would tear him apart, but he had one more bomb and he could do this, could stop them, could make it count.
Ohh, but it was all slipping away from him, as if his body was sliding through that gaping hole, sliding down and down to the ice cold sea below, following the blood dropping steadily to the floor of the cockpit to mingle with the oil.
He needed…
"Five. John? John, Johnny, come in."
The sound of space in his ears, its seething rattle.
"Okay, John, maybe you can hear me. You can… can you? Just … coming in on final run, only one left, only one. John? You…"
The words – oh, no words, nothing that made any sense anymore. Just a feeling, a deep and sad emotion that was already following the blood, getting more and more distant, falling away.
Forget John, and comfort. None to be had. This was his task now. This was the only thing he had to do.
He banked south, into the sun.
With the nose down, he could see the guns come around to meet him. Light, pulses of it, and another bang in the tail. More light, but none of it mattered. He'd aim her like a missile if he had to, straight for the midsection of that vicious thing ahead of him, trust to momentum and inertia to get the job done. A promise to one man broken, promises born in his bones and shared blood kept.
Faster. Faster. Shrieking of the engines, banging of the cockpit floor and metal coming away, oil spraying upwards, but the tangents were closing, the target looming large in the windshield. Waiting, waiting, and there – there, it was gone, and he knew it was good. Almost too much, pulling back the stick, and the long, low swoop over the top of the sub was completely unplanned.
This time, the blast bucked underneath him and he rolled off it, letting the movement bring the plane in an arcing turn over the greening sea. The angle let him look, and he could see it, the result of his last effort, his last blow in the fight for his brothers.
The sub's back was broken. The line was all wrong, and the sea bubbled but this time it was streaked and gray with the black of oil.
More of him slid away, and this time there was nothing to hold onto it for.
The sub was finished, as a weapon. It couldn't submerge; he knew it, to a certainty. He didn't know if that meant they were beaten. It did mean the odds had shifted. This craft below needed major repairs to be functional, and there was no port within reach that they could seek with impunity. Chances were the next communication would be a call for help.
And maybe – maybe they had all survived to ask for it.
Something else left him, slipping down into the gap in the fuselage. Some other piece of him, some deep sinew tying him to the Earth.
It was getting easier to go.
Somewhere up above him, beyond the blue, John was planning and watching and listening.
Somewhere down below, Gordon and Virgil were waiting.
Somewhere over the horizon, Alan. Grandma.
So much effort to conjure them all, and somehow they all got mixed up, until it was Gordon's sorrow he remembered, Virgil's rare sharpness, Alan's petulance, John's pain. It wasn't what he wanted, how he wanted to capture them, but the world of his cockpit had opened up in the most fundamentally terminal way, and as it broke it took all the best of them, his brothers, his grandmother, his sister by choice.
Ahead was a dull gray line that spoke of coastline. He wanted, so badly, to bring Agnes home. She'd done everything asked of her, gallant and game, and he owed her more than this sodden death. But he wouldn't risk bringing her down anywhere his or her current status would threaten civilians. If he made it to Lossie, he would give it his all; but if he couldn't reach that, then the sea would take them, and he'd find Virgil and Gordon there. Where they'd been all along, while he tried so hard and so uselessly to resurrect them. He could admit that now.
"Scott? Come in. Come in, Scott."
Out from under the EMF cloud, but too late. John, you're too late.
"Scott? Can you hear me? Scott?"
The land was clear now. He could see individual houses. The lighthouse. Didn't he kill the lighthouse?
"Scott, it may be that your transmitter is down, but I'm guessing you can hear me? Are you okay? Can you tap on your headset, one for yes, two for no?"
"John."
Almost all he could manage, and it was enough. The change in John's tone was comical. A pause, and then, an impossible deepening.
"Scott, you're hurt."
"Yes."
And John didn't miss a beat, because he was just that good at what he did.
"I'm contacting Lossiemouth. They'll have all emergency response units on standby. You need to correct your course slightly, veer starboard, 15 degrees."
"Yes." A whisper, from far away.
"Scott, you're doing great. Just keep that course, you'll be over the base in two minutes. Two minutes, Scott, you can begin to drop revs."
"Yes."
"Good, good. That's great." John, so far away, with the whispers. "Scott, Scotty, you're with me, you're doing so well."
Too much of him gone through the fuselage. Nothing left to say goodbye.
"Scott, I'm right there. I'm right there with you. I'm gonna help you bring her home. Bring Agnes home, right? You help me bring her home."
Drop the revs. He said, drop the revs. John, here with him. Infinitely slow, infinitely painful, as he reached forward, as he closed the throttle down.
She was falling, Agnes, and he was falling with her.
"Look, Scott, you can see the lights, see the runway. Come on. Let's bring her down. Easy as you can, easy."
An afternoon, sun slanting through farmhouse windows. Kansas, and Virgil, so small, such big dark eyes, troubled and holding up a book, looking for help.
"It says the clouds are always falling. All the time. Even big fluffy ones. Culminating clouds. How can the clouds be falling, Scott?"
Because everything falls in the end, he should have said. Everything falls.
"Scott – they're saying you have to bring the nose up. Bring the nose up, Scott. Scott! Oh, god, please, please, Scotty, bring it up, bring the nose up –"
And that was all.