Another short one, owing to lots of travel, today. Thanks Echo, Whirlgirl and "Guest", for reading and reviewing. They're not mine, but I love them anyway. :)

12

Tracy Island, coming in hot-

Virgil lined up with that glistening, white-foamed runway, and slowly began to descend. Through yoke, foot-pedals and viewscreen, he could feel his Bird laboring; felt unusual drag from her torn belly and battered port wing. Had to fight the urge to fire his malfunctioning VTOL rockets, which would only have flipped her right over. The ocean grew closer beneath him, until he could see his Bird's shadow gliding across the lacy green breakers. And there, so close that he could feel safety and welcome dangling ahead like a lure, was home.

Watching the altimeter with one eye, he gauged his descent with the other. Saw a miraculous fifty extra feet of runway extending over the sunlit ocean and muttered,

"Brains, I could kiss you…"

His breathing was controlled, his heartbeat steady, if rapid, but all he could think about was his girl; how she was struggling to make it those last few hundred yards to safety. Virgil had no ejection seat, but he wouldn't have used it, if he had. He'd see her through this, right to the end.

1000 feet… 800… 500… and then he flared up, raising the cargo-lifter's broad nose to kill a little more airspeed before touching down. The tail section hit hard, dragged through a fountaining ocean of foam. Then the rest of her struck and slid; bouncing upward once with the booming shriek of stressed metal. She hit again, sliding forward and beginning to fish-tail through all that deep, white foam.

The damaged port wing caught on something, and Thunderbird 2 started spinning. One of the VTOL rockets tore, spilling fuel like heart's blood as she careened off the runway and onto hard, stony ground. Sparks flared, and fire erupted. Alarms blared through the smoky cockpit. The noise was like an earthquake and a giant coin-sorting machine, combined. He was flung about in his seat straps until something struck him, and then the world went utterly silent and dark.

Meanwhile, Scott had roared out of the hangar in one of the Fireflies, pushing the tracked, bladed vehicle as fast as she would go. Driving like a maniac, he plowed through the foam and off the runway, to where Thunderbird 2 lay cracked and smoldering at the end of a long, ragged gash in the ground.

"Hang on, Virge… we're coming!" Scott shouted aloud. Dad raced along beside him in a powered green exo-suit, leaving deep footprints in the lava-rock surface. The wreck was a bad one. Even in the Firefly's sealed cab, Scott caught the reek of spilt fuel and billowing smoke.

Wanted… desperately needed… to get there faster, but she'd slid so far! About a dozen small brush fires had started, despite the foam. Scott powered right past the burning foliage and crushed palm trunks, breaking up obstacles with Firefly's big, neutronium-steel blade. Then they were there, at the tilted, sparking mess that was Thunderbird 2.

The emergency cockpit access hatch, marked "RESCUE" in red, was canted almost out of sight, and terribly close to that burning VTOL rocket. Scott triggered Firefly's rear-mounted water and foam cannons, aiming a long stream of flame-retardant fluid at the torn, blazing engine. Beside him, Jeff shouted through his helmet comm,

"Son, lift that blade higher!"

Scott nodded and pulled a lever on his instrument panel, raising the steel alloy blade almost into his water jet. Using the exo-suit's power, Colonel Tracy took hold of the blade with metal-cased fingers and swung himself up. The suit was new tech, for him, but he'd always exceled at on the job training.

"Get closer!" he yelled, over the creak of settling metal, the hissing pop of damaged wiring, and growing flame-roar.

"Yes, Sir!"

Scott gunned Firefly's engine, completely ignoring her danger/ proximity lights. Jeff, braced on the dozer blade, gauged his distance, took a deep breath, and leapt. The exo-suit's mighty muscles propelled him up through the air and onto the hull, right beside the Bird's charred, peeling "2". Digging in with metal fingers and boot grapples, Jeff clung like a fly.

"Keep the fire down!" he called, starting to climb. "I'm going in after him!"

"Yes, Sir! Be careful!"

Scott kept himself from going crazy by focusing on the job at hand: stop the fire, keep Thunderbird 2's rockets from exploding, save Virgil. He swept the water stream back and forth, concentrating on the worst of those fuel spills, which glowed bright, searing red in his heads-up display.

Above him, Jeff clambered up the side of 2's hull, one hand- and foothold at a time. His goal, the rescue access hatch, was maybe thirty feet away, over the crumpled port wing and burning VTOL rocket. Gasping, grunting, kicking and clawing, he got there. Nearly knocked himself unconscious, once, putting out a fire on his own shoulder, but managed to shake the stars out of his head, and keep moving. Reaching the hatch, he dispensed with formalities and just ripped the thing loose in a shower of popping rivets and shredded metal. Flung it away like a frisbee and then leapt inside.

The deck was tilted at nearly forty degrees, the short passage filled with smoke, and slick with sprinkler fluid.

"Virgil!" Jeff shouted, using the helmet to amplify his voice. "Hang on, Son! I'm coming!"

He heard faint coughing, and lunged forward, clinging to the braces; his feet slipping and scrabbling in slippery foam. Water blasted through the torn hatchway in torrents, nearly tearing him loose of the bulkhead.

"Scott! Less water!" he growled, eyes locked on the cockpit's emergency hatch, only ten short feet away. A silhouette was just visible amid the smoke and sprinkler streams. Big, slightly hunched over, carrying something. Virgil.

"Here… right here, Dad!"

Jeff unlocked his exo-suit's tether and unspooled a few inches to clip it onto a bulkhead brace. Then he threw caution away like old socks, and plunged downslope, after his injured son.

Surfing the tilted deck with one hand on the tether lock, Jeff reached his boy, locking the tether just as their hands clasped. Virgil had a big dark bruise on his forehead and a bloodied left eye. One arm was clutched tightly around himself, holding some sort of plastic bag. The other had been pulling him slowly along the bulkhead, one pained, grunting step at a time. It was this arm that Jeff seized, shouting,

"Gotcha!"

Then he reversed feed on the tether… or tried to. Actually, hit the wrong button, and sent them plunging a few feet into the cockpit, but, hey… new tech, old colonel. He got it right, eventually, and let the reel's powerful little motor do most of the work. Couldn't think of anything to say besides,

"Hey, Son. How are you?"

To which Virgil, coughing and wincing, replied,

"Fine, Sir. Thanks for asking."

Then, like a bad first date, they were out of stuff to talk about. The straining tether reel hauled them slowly forward, drawing them as far as the clip he'd planted. Moving fast, Jeff got a mechanized arm around Virgil, unclipped his tether, and grunted,

"Hold tight, Son… we're jumping for it. One… two… three!"

And then Jeff sprang for daylight, triggering the full might of those armored legs, and denting the passage.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Titan, at the stranded emergency pod-

They'd gotten back in one piece with their tucker and swag, loading what they could in the pod, and stacking the rest outside in the dim, reeking cold. There would be no nightfall that year on this side of Titan, so that was one less concern. The pod's solar collectors weren't receiving much light from the distant Sun, but every little bit meant that much more warmth, filtered air and recycled water. A few weeks longer to live. He had a plan B, did Buddy… one that he'd not bring forth unless things went very far south, indeed. He loved Ellie more than his own life, was the point, and he'd do anything at all to buy her a chance at survival.

As his wife sealed the hatch and hit "cabin refresh" to top it back up with breathable air, Buddy lifted his faceplate and made a last, cheerful comment for the camera.

"Whoo-eee! Smells like a dunny, in here! Fresh, ripe methane, straight from the source! Right-O! Back inside, and safe as houses, with tucker to spare! Don't touch that comm settin', Mate! Next up, fine dinin' out here in Bourke's Arse, Titan!" Winking broadly, he added, "We'll see what the little lady c'n come up with, usin' nuthin' but survival packs! A real lark, eh, Ellie?"

She'd removed her own helmet by then, laughed, and threw his spare red beanie, nailing Buddy right on the face. Seemed like a good place to stop recording, so he switched off the camera and snatched up his second-best sacred hat. Then he commenced getting out of that stained, smelly space suit. A real chore in quarters as tight as these. It was a grunting, slow-motion ballet for two, in half the space of a walk-in closet.

"Like our first flat, innit, Luv?" he joked, adding, "Remember I said there weren't no chocolate bikkies in the wreckage, El?"

Sighing, Ellie nodded.

"No worries, Buddy. Choco's bad f'r my girlish figure, after all. Don't want t' be gettin' so fat, I can't squeeze into this ruddy spacesuit… Wait, why the grin? Buddie, you dag! Hand it over!"

For he was dangling a packet of (very cold) chocolate biscuits over her blonde head, and grinning like a shot fox.

"Give us a kiss, first… mwah! There you go. Don't I always come through f'r you, El?" A bit anxiously, at the end, there.

"Always," she agreed, breaking off half a precious chocolate biscuit to share with her husband. He cut that in half, then half, again, returning the rest to Ellie.

"A taste is as good as a meal, I always say! Besides… don't want t' spoil me appetite f'r this here vegemite, n' whatever else you magick up out of our new supplies."

He sat down on the pod's one, creaking seat, patting his lap for Ellie to settle down, too. Smiling, she snuggled in against him, wrapping one arm around his neck and placing the other hand softly against his chest.

"Mmm… brekkie might have to wait, Bud. Pure wrung out, I am."

"S' alright, Luv. I've got me spoonful o' vegemite, and a pretty lass on me lap. What more could I ask for, besides a schooner of the good stuff?"

Eyes closed, Ellie smiled. Then, in just a whisper, she said,

"Buddy… whatever arse-wit plan you've got t' save me by starvin' y'rself or sneakin' off while I'm asleep… it won't work. Anythin' happens to you, I'm next, understood? Together, or not at all. Bottom line, Mate."

His breath caught, and a guilty look crossed his plain, friendly face.

"Reckon," he said, whilst thinking, 'Not if I slap a stasis disk on you, first, Luv… then it's one last walkabout f'r Yours Truly, and you're safe inside, till help arrives.' But he didn't say so out loud. Just hugged her harder, feeling like a very fortunate man, indeed.

XXXXXXXXXX

Jakarta, in another, less corpse-filled hostel room-

He found the situation extremely diverting, following along on their decrypted comm, as Thunderbird 2 hit the dirt and then started to burn.

"That's fifty credits he owes me," the Mechanic muttered, though 'Brains' hadn't actually agreed to the bet; the little man was a Typical, and nobody cared what they wanted. At best, they were part of the scenery; at worst, annoying vermin. Sometimes prey. Horatio would do as he was told, and thank his tiny gods that he hadn't been killed, yet. So, fifty credits were soon deducted from the engineer's pay, because… who could stop him?

The Tracys, now… they still had the Hunter AI, which he very much needed, along with Sentinel, if his plans were to finally succeed. And that meant he had to be patient a little while longer, not interfering with them until Thunderbird 3 returned with his battle computer. Not ideal, but he could take it out on them, double, once he'd got what he wanted. Once the Earth had been purged, and he was on top of the pile.

It was as he was thinking these things, that the Mechanic received a message, himself; directly from Scotland. Directly from 'home'. Slowly, he shook his tattooed head. No. Not ready, yet.

Standing up so fast that he sent his chair crashing and bouncing to the floor, Kane began collecting his few personals. Stuffing a camo knapsack with foodstuffs, battery packs, weapons and the odd holo, the Mechanic touched a porn-laden video wall, erasing his record and bill. Then he left the building, vanishing out on the street amid glaring neon lights, toxic rain and huge, seething crowds.

'Come get me,' he challenged the head of his family. 'Cause I'm sure as h*ll not coming to you.'