10. Virgil – Warning
"Impact in one minute."
"I can see that!" Virgil growls. "You don't need to remind me."
John sounds like a computer – like he's auditioning for a role on Star Trek. Virgil fights with the turbulence, fights with the knowledge that if he doesn't do something quickly, the two people in the research station might die.
It's not a TV show. It's real. It's not like it is for John, sitting in his ivory and gold tower in the sky. All John can see are readouts and holograms and cute little symbols. For Virgil it's real and it's now – and the countdown to his death isn't helping matters.
"Virgil, pull up, now."
He isn't even going to bother responding to the cool tone, given like a military commander, detached and far-off, nowhere near the battle.
How John can stay so calm has always been a mystery to Virgil. Sweat drips down his neck and into the stiff collar of his uniform. It's cold and it's tangible and it's real – the hologram of John that pops up in his face, blue and surreal, is only one third of those things: cold
"Thunderbird Two, do you read me?"
Virgil flicks his eyes at his brother's hologram but says nothing. Because thirty seconds have passed and what he really doesn't need is John looming over him. Sometimes his brother is useful, full knowledge and data and readouts. Other times, though, he's not. He hangs there, bright and beautiful like a Christmas decoration, giving orders from twenty-two thousand miles away – but ultimately, has little use. Not in the here and now. Not in the cockpit where Virgil knows that if he times it just right, he can deploy the magnetic grips and yank that little escape pod out from between the rocks it's wedged between and –
"Twenty seconds to impact. Virgil, listen to me –"
He doesn't even sound worried. He's just matter-of-fact John. Sometimes it's like they're not even brothers – just colleagues, doing a job and –
"Virgil, I'm warningyou. If you don't start climbing I'm rerouting control of Two. I'll drag your ass out of there whether you fucking like it or not!"
The boulder that clips Two's starboard wing is one jolt. The other is the edge of sheer panic that has sliced through Virgil's ears. John's words are quick, terse, worried. John doesn't say things like that on a rescue. He doesn't swear. He doesn't try to wrangle control. He doesn't threaten.
And that's why Virgil breaks off his descent – slipping out of the narrow chasm just before Two strikes the rock face and shatters into a thousand little green stars.
There's static on the line for a moment. Virgil pulls Two out of the climb and tries to look everywhere but at the silver-blue hologram in front of him. John's tiny expression is taut, his eyes glittering and wide. Even in miniature, looking from the side of his eye, Virgil can see the rapid rise and fall of a holographic chest.
And then their gazes meet for a moment.
And then it's back to business. John's hologram starts flicking readouts and spouting data and telling him that the researchers are still okay – at least for now.
They don't talk about what just happened.
At least for now.