Hour Ten

The following takes place between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.

5:00:08

Scott's arm intertwined through the ladder was the only thing keeping them from falling to their deaths. Megan's breath caught in her throat as she swung her arm away from Scott's neck and grabbed hold of one side of the ladder. She tried to look down and see what had happened, why Scott had almost fallen, but vertigo took over. Her head began to spin, her vision blurring. With her right hand, she tightened her hold around Scott's neck, knuckles turning white on her left as she gripped the ladder even harder.

The arm Scott had through the ladder began to slip.

Megan screamed. "Jeff! Jeff, can you hear me? Help us! Please!"

5:01:55

"Thunderbird One from Thunderbird Two!"

"I'm here, Virgil!"

"What's going on over there?"

"Best I can figure from Megan is they're slipping. I don't know why. Can you see from where you are?"

"Hang on." Virgil turned on 2's external camera and the video monitor on his control panel changed to the outside view. He zoomed the picture in and was able to see pretty good detail on what was going on below Thunderbird One.

"Jesus!"

"Virgil? What is it?"

"Scott doesn't look conscious, Dad! They're hanging on by a thread!"

"Dammit...and the reactor's fluctuating. I have to shut her down and switch to the conventional engines...and I have to do it fast!"

"Dad! You've got to get out of there! There are hostiles approaching and I can't get close enough to fire without hitting Scott and Megan!"

Jeff kicked the thrusters into gear and moved as quickly as he dared. Virgil swooped in behind him, guns blazing.

"Jeff! Help us! He's slipping, I—I can't hold him!"

"Did you hear that, Virgil?"

"Yeah, but...you can't set them down, shit, there's more coming in from the west!"

"This reactor is unstable, Virgil. I think there might be a leak. And if it is leaking when I switch over..."

Virgil heard Penelope gasp in dismay. "I know, Dad. I know. Dammit, get them out of there!"

"Virgil...I want you to try something. It's the only option we have left."

"What is it?"

"I want you to come in nose-to-nose and beneath me. You're going to have to catch Megan and Scott."

Virgil frowned. One false move and 1's VTOL could blow 2 all to hell.

Scott...oh, God...

"F.A.B., Dad."

Virg swooped down again as Thunderbird One left the area, letting his guns blast as many hostiles as he could. Damn, what were they, multiplying? No matter how many he got, it seemed there were always more to take their place.

He followed Thunderbird 1 and flew well over the top of her. He then slowed, switched to hover mode and turned until the two ships were facing each other. Thunderbird 2's VTOL rockets fired and he lowered her until the top of the cockpit was slightly below the bottom of the ladder.

From here he could see Megan had wrapped her legs around his brother. She clung to his neck with one arm, the ladder with the other. She looked up and saw him. He could read her lips.

HELP US

Hang on, Megan.

"I'm in place, Father."

"Get them off that ladder now!"

Please, God, let this work.

"Moving in."

He pushed Two forward slowly, her VTOLs still firing to keep her from stalling out. The panel behind him opened with the push of a button. He watched as Megan and Scott disappeared above his cockpit window.

Let me hold her steady. Just this once if no other time.

Thunderbird Two was beneath her quarry. He put her on auto-pilot to hover, rose from his seat and was under the hatch in the blink of an eye.

Thank God. They're right above me.

And from here, he could finally see exactly what was wrong with his brother.

Oh, my God!

"He's been shot!"

5:16:22

Megan looked down. "Virgil!" she cried. "Help!"

He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Megan! It's okay, you can let Scott go! I'll catch him!"

She nodded and reached up to where his arm was still threaded through the rungs. She tugged at it, but their combined weight meant it was stuck fast.

"I can't get him loose!" she yelled down. "His arm is stuck!"

Virgil disappeared for a moment. When he returned, it was on a platform that raised up until he was, for all intents and purposes, standing atop the hull of Thunderbird 2.

"Wait...if you're up here, who's flying that thing?"

"She's flying herself!" he yelled back. "Come on, jump down! I'll get you in and then I'll go after Scott!"

She saw Virgil's eyes follow something from where they hung down to the hull of the ship, but couldn't tell what he was looking at. The distance she had to drop, maybe?

"I—I can't, Virgil! I'm...I'm afraid of heights!"

Best to treat her like I'd treat Tin-Tin. Nice and smooth. Calm her down.

"Honey, don't worry about it, I'm right beneath you! I won't let you fall!"

Come on, Megan, I have to get Scott off there!

"Okay! I'm coming down!"

Slowly she shimmied down Scott's still-limp form until she was about ten feet above Virgil's head...as far down as she could get.

"Come on, Megan! Drop!"

She closed her eyes and let go.

Virgil watched her falling toward him. His arms stretched out.

Like a scene from a movie, she landed perfectly in place, barely upsetting his stance.

"How'd you do that?"

"Practice," he grinned. "Now, hang on."

He barked some command into his watch and the panel they were standing on lowered into the cockpit.

"Strap yourself into one of those passenger seats," he said. "I've got to go after Scott."

"But how? You can't reach him that high up."

Ignoring her, Virgil hit a button on 2's control panel. "Thunderbird One, switch to my comm. On my signal, have Penny release the ladder."

"F.A.B."

Virgil returned to the moving panel. "Stay right there," he ordered, pointing at where she was already strapped in.

Megan nodded, resisting the urge to bite her nails.

Virgil waited until the panel was flush with the hull again before moving. One had moved back slightly, so he positioned himself directly beneath the ladder. He raised his watch to his face.

"Okay, Dad. Let it go!"

"Penny, release the ladder!"

Virgil's body tensed.

Suddenly the ladder...and Scott...began plummeting toward him.

He caught Scott, but the fifty or so feet of ladder from above skittered off 2's slippery hull and tumbled over the side. Virgil knelt with Scott, trying desperately to untangle his brother's arm from the now-twisted ladder.

"Come on, come on."

Shit, this isn't going fast enough.

"Dad, you're clear!" he said into the watch. "Get out of here!"

"F.A.B."

He heard the rear thrusters kick in and felt the heat of her engines as she roared away.

God, Dad...Penny...what if One's reactor is already too unstable...what if...

Can't think about that now. Have to save Scott.

He heard the sound before he felt the impact. Something came screaming toward Thunderbird Two. When it exploded near her tail, she rocked.

There was nothing for Virgil to hold onto.

Nothing at all.

5:28:20

"Goddammit," John said softly as he looked down at the ground for the umpteenth time. "They have to know I'm up here. I mean, they caught Khai and he had a rope."

Esunge stirred, but didn't wake.

"And then there's you," he said, shifting the boy's weight in his arms. "It wasn't my idea to take you, but...I can't very well leave you here on the roof, can I?"

John shook his head and headed for the corner of the roof.

There's only so long I can stay up here. Eventually they'll find me.

He stared down at the stone beneath his bare feet. Stared because it felt...uneven somehow. He looked closer. Then he got down and one knee and looked even closer.

"What's this?"

His finger traced the outline of one particularly large rectangular chunk of the roof.

It doesn't seem to fit with the others.

John frowned as he gave the area a once-over.

Doesn't look like anything around here except an out-of-place rock.

Suddenly one of the panels he'd opened earlier around the perimeter of the open roof began to move. He rose to his feet as a rope started unraveling down over the edge of the opening.

The panels.

John looked down at the stone beneath his feet.

The panels!

He ran across the roof, scampering up the dome to the small digital keyboard he'd popped out earlier. Kneeling before it, his face fell.

Chinese. Even if one of these button combinations does open that stone over there, how'm I going to figure out which one it is?

The rope nearby stopped unraveling. He heard shouts from below and suddenly the winch started turning in the opposite direction...pulling whomever was at the other end up.

Shit!

John gasped. Why...why the hell did he feel like he was about to be struck by lightning?

John, hear me.

Well, that certainly wasn't Gordon.

Kyrano?

Yes. You must listen. View the panel as numbered keys one through nine.

Okay, this is weird. But I'll go with it.

John shrugged.

Like I have a choice right now.

One through three, bottom row. Seven through nine, top. Understood?

Yes.

Key the following sequence: four, four, two, seven, nine, nine.

John pressed the buttons in the order he'd been told. There was a loud scraping sound from the corner of the roof.

It's working!

Yes. It is an escape route.

Thanks, Kyrano.

John ran to the corner. He could hear a voice...getting closer...it was Ebony.

The stone moved so slowly.

Ebony's voice came closer.

And closer.

John held his breath.

"John Tracy!"

The stone wasn't quite open all the way.

Holding the baby tight, he squeezed between the stone and the roof.

Please don't let us fall.

5:38:23

It had happened so fast. Too fast.

Scott, the ladder and Virgil all slid over the side of Thunderbird Two...right onto her wing. The auto-stabilizer kept her from crashing to the ground, but Virgil's head slammed into the hard metal of the wing, rendering him unconscious. Scott slid to the edge. 2 flailed a bit, and Scott's body looked as though it might just tumble over the side.

But Megan had thought fast. No, she was no pilot, but she'd seen which button Virgil had pushed to communicate with his father. She unstrapped herself from the passenger seat as soon as the plane stopped rocking. Rushing forward, she punched the button.

"Help! Jeff, can you hear me?"

"Megan? What are you doing on this line? Where's Virgil?"

"Something happened, he's up on top, he was bringing Scott in but we got hit by something, I don't know what and this thing tilted back and forth and now he's...I don't know, I'm scared, Jeff! I don't know what to do!"

"Okay, Megan," Jeff said, his voice suddenly a mask of calm. "Listen to me. Is Thunderbird 2 stable?"

"Yes. It's not rocking anymore, and we look like we're sitting in place up here."

"Okay, that's good, Megan. Did Virgil use the panel to go up onto the hull for Scott?"

"Yes, yes, the one that raises."

"Okay, there's a control button for that over near where the panel rests when it comes down. Do you see a series of yellow buttons?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Push the one on the left. That will bring the panel down. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes, I can. Hang on."

Megan went to the wall and pushed the button. Sure enough, the panel started coming down.

"Jeff, he's not on it! Neither is Scott! Where are they?"

"Megan, I can't come back there right now. If I don't get this engine switched soon, Penny and I are going to blow all to hell."

Megan gulped.

"Listen to me. I need you to do exactly what I tell you. These are my two oldest boys. I'm counting on you, Megan. Can you help me?"

She nodded, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't see her. "Yes," she said. "I'll do anything I can."

"Okay, step up onto the panel and press the second button from the right. It will take you up to the hull. I need you to tell me what you see when you get up there. You'll have to come back down to the cockpit to report."

"Okay."

She could hear the strain in his voice. She couldn't imagine his predicament. Her heart raced. She was terrified. Terrified of doing something wrong. Stepping onto the panel, she took a deep breath and pressed the second button.

Remembering not to look down was foremost on her mind. She looked around as her head broke even with the hull.

Wait a minute...where are they?

Megan turned in a complete circle. She couldn't see Scott or Virgil anywhere.

Then she heard it. Over the side.

Over the side?

A scraping sound. She took a tentative step, but the hull was slippery...that's when she saw the ground.

Oh, God. Oh, God, no.

"Scott!" she cried, her eyes shutting tight. "Scott! Virgil! Where are you?"

"M-Megan!" she heard from over the side.

Holy shit!

Megan got down on her belly and scooted over as far as she dared. With nothing to hold onto, and the ground seeming way too far away, her breath started coming fast.

Then she saw a hand.

"Scott!"

She reached out and grabbed it. There was another panel right next to her other hand. She had nothing to hold onto, no way to help pull Scott up without pulling herself right over the edge. She looked at the buttons. They were all yellow. Praying that International Rescue saw fit to use the same scheme on every panel, she pressed the first one.

As she'd hoped, the panel started descending into the cockpit. She grabbed the open edge of the hole it left, holding on for dear life as Scott struggled up, pulling mercilessly on her hand.

It felt like her arm was going to come clean out of its socket. She groaned at the pressure, but managed to get her legs over the opening, swinging them to give her leverage to pull Scott up bit by bit.

That's when the second missile hit.

5:56:53

"Jeff, what's happening?"

"I don't know, something's wrong back there with 2. I'm trying to talk Megan through it but she's scared to death."

"Well, it's not as if she does this sort of thing for a living."

"I do, Penny. And I'm scared enough for all of us."

She couldn't believe it. Jeff Tracy admitting fear?

"It's bad, isn't it?"

Jeff looked down at her as she took a seat below him and to his left.

"Penny, if there's a leak in this reactor, when I switch her over to the conventional fuel tanks, Thunderbird 1 won't make it."

Penny's eyes widened.

"We won't make it."

"Then you'd better do it quickly. I detest long good-byes."

"I wish you'd gone down the ladder with them, Penelope."

She rose from her seat and placed a hand on his leg. "Jeff, I'm your wife. If you go...I go. Never a question of that."

He smiled. The kind of smile that reaches your eyes. In spite of what was happening, he knew he was the luckiest man on Earth. "I love you, Penny."

"And I love you, Jeff. Now do it. I'm staying right here."

He nodded and took a deep breath. His finger hovered over the switch that would reroute power to come from the regular rocket fuel One carried instead of the nuclear reactor. An indicator light on the panel before him blinked in rapid succession.

Jeff took one last look at Penny...and flipped the switch.

5:59:58

5:59:59

6:00:00