The comms line went quiet and Gordon stood silent for a moment in a state of shock. Though it wasn't the first time that John has had to make emergency repairs to Thunderbird 5, his communications had never been out before. Gordon wandered what it would be like to be alone in the depths of space with just your own thoughts for company, and shuddered. But then again his thoughts were of much lower quality than John's, so maybe that was ok.

"What's the damage, Brains? Anything serious, apart from comms I mean." Virgil asked their resident engineer.

"I really can't say I'm afraid Virgil. Although the external communications are coming through to us here, so we will be able to pick up any distress calls, I'm getting no readings at all from the station itself. The full system diagnostics must be off line so John will have to work with the back ups."

"Then what do we do? Just wait? Should we call Alan and Scott?" Gordon was torn between sparing those two worry, and the need to share his own.

"I think we should – I know I would want to know." Virgil was right, of course, and Gordon was glad he was there to balance out his impulsivity.

They didn't have time to reach out to Thunderbird 3 before John was speaking again however.

"OK guys, we are going for a little explore. I think system diagnostics is just one thing that has been knocked off line by that surge, so I am going to inspect the damage. And you are coming with me."

"Good," said Brains, "That's a good plan. Most of the ships systems have some sort of relay in that area – I avoided it where possible but it's an essential element of the engineering I'm afraid – and that will be where any damage has been done."

"We call them while John is doing that" Gordon made the decision. "This is Tracy Island to Thunderbird 3 come in please".

"This is Thunderbird 3, what's up Gordon?" Alan's response was slightly delayed due to the distance involved, and he was obviously surprised to hear directly from base.

"There's been a bit of a situation on Thunderbird 5 and John doesn't have inbound communications right now. He does have outbound so he is talking to us, but we don't know much more than that – he's checking systems now."

Alan frowned "Thanks for letting us know, do you want us to come back?"

Gordon looked at Brains and Virgil who both shrugged "We don't really have any info at the moment, so stand by."

"FAB. I'll go tell Scott" Gordon grinned at his littlest brothers discomfort at the thought of giving the eldest bad news – he didn't always take it well.

"I've patched Thunderbird 3 into our comms, so they will be able to hear John too." Typical Brains, on the ball as always and Alan gave a nod of thanks as he came back to the cockpit with Scott in tow.

"Hmm, well there's definitely damage of some sort here, it smells like fried transistors." John was back. Brains started taking notes as John went through the litany of damaged and undamaged systems.

"Lets do this logically, one side to the other. Lighting, check, obviously because it is not dark. Heating, check. Inbound communication system. Definitely not check. But we guessed that already. Gravity ring. Check. Again obviously because I am not floating." Despite his concern Gordon found himself smiling at John's list, though he knew gravity and lights are still working it didn't stop him doing the check. Typical John: he was always so thorough.

"Outbound comms, check. It sure is good to know that you can hear me down there, rather than me just rambling to myself."

"We can hear you John" Virgil whispered. Gordon hated doing system checks: he found them boring and complicated in equal measure but he found that listening to someone else do them was even worse. He felt his anxiety levels rise at each system John looked at.

"Let's see, space elevator control" A whistle. "Not check. That is one nasty looking circuit board, put it on the list for a replacement please Brains. Central data core. Not check. Though this isn't as bad. The data – and EOS – will be OK but just not accessible right now. This is probably repairable, but I'm not sure I have the parts up here. Moving on, kitchen systems, all check. Next, CO2 scrubber." A slight pause "Not check."