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14
Thunderbird 3, in the cockpit-
In space, everything is boring and normal, until it isn't. Then, it's a fricking nightmare fight for survival. The first clue Alan Tracy had that things had gone catastrophically pear-shaped, was a sudden sharp clatter like hailstones striking the hull. Then, from the vast, X-shaped sail ahead of them, a thousand bright pinpoints of light that became growing, flame-edged holes. Alarms blared through the cabin, shrill as diving harpies.
"What the heck?!" he cried out, lunging forward in his seat straps to check the ship's status board. Thunderbird 3 was fine, mostly; a few small holes in the hull near medical, badly torn solar sail, and… an open airlock? How had he missed that, unless…?
"Wait, where's John?" the boy demanded, donning the helmet that Lee had thrust at him. Air pressure was dropping, fast. Taylor, halfway into his own spacesuit, said,
"Get th' retention field ready, Alvin, but don't cut it on, just yet. I'll go check on Jase, n' Godfrey. Must've flown through a swarm o' Trojans."
Alan nodded, flying with one hand and half his mind, as the rest of him helped Uncle Lee on with that ancient, banged-up old GDF spacesuit.
"Sir, are you sure this thing's space-worthy?" he asked, worriedly. "It looks…"
"Better tested than you are," Taylor shot back. "Now, stick ta flyin', Kid, and get ready ta slap that field up, once everyone's confirmed safe aboard. Trojans run in packs, so there's bound ta be more of 'em comin' along."
"Yes, Sir," Alan agreed, settling into the pilot's seat. "Be careful, Uncle Lee."
Taylor winked at him.
"I ain't careful, Son. I'm good… and lucky."
One of their worries resolved itself in a quick dang hurry when Gordon came shooting into the cabin, suited up and wearing his helmet.
"Dude, seriously?!" he complained, stopping himself with a hand to the back of Alan's chair. "I'm gone for a few hours, and you guys wreck the ship? Right in the middle of season thirteen?!"
"Trojans," Captain Taylor explained briefly, already leaving the cabin. "Swarm o' rogue asteroids in the wake of a planet… like Mars, over there. Sneaky bastards. Hold course, and see what you c'n do about them hull breaches, you two. Back before there's even time ta miss me."
The boys nodded and set to work, as Taylor soared out of the cockpit, heading for the aft airlock, John's best-known retreat.
"Jason," he called over the younger astronaut's helmet comm. "Bring it in, Son. We got us a situation."
"Yes, Sir," John responded. "Aware of that. Caught an asteroid through the tether, but I've got suit jets, and I'm out on the hull."
"Sh*t," snarled Lee, staring through the inner hatch screen at an open, evacuated airlock and snapped, floating tether. No Jason.
"Right. You hold tight out there, Jase. You're a tick on a coonhound, got it? Burrow in, and try ta take cover behind whatever 'll block a d*mn asteroid. Them boy's ain't generally cruisin' solo, so we got some heavy weather ahead. I'm gonna seal off this here compartment, equalize pressure, and snake you a line. Sit tight."
"Yes, Sir." His suit's gas jets weren't very powerful. He would not be able to keep up with Thunderbird 3, if separated by even the tiniest angle. Sheer luck that he'd caught hold of an engine nacelle, when a hurtling chunk of rock had severed his tether. Eos was having digital fits.
"Not helping, Sweetie," he told her, as things ranging in size from sand particles to bowling balls went hurtling past him, gouging long, silent claw marks in 3's crimson surface. He'd tied the broken end of his tether to an emergency maintenance brace, having no clip. "Trying to concentrate, here."
"John," she said. "It is imperative that you find a way back into Thunderbird 3. Your chances of survival on the hull are…"
"Not good to talk about, right now. Tell you what… pull up a schematic, and find me the nearest maintenance access panel. I don't care if it's meant to fit nanobots. I'll make my own way in."
Controlling the air circulation within his helmet, she blew a swift, gentle blast at his left cheek. A kiss, of sorts.
"You are very clever for an organic entity, John Tracy. I have located two options: here and here."
His heads-up display showed a glowing image of Thunderbird 3, with his position marked in bright, flashing green, and his two best options picked out in blue. The nearest was a narrow and shallow cable-repair port. Barely room to lie down in, with its hatch wide open. Further along 3's curving engine-support strut was a larger, more sheltered fuel-system maintenance hatch. Just thirty yards of dinged, sparking metal away. In order to reach it, he'd have to untie his broken tether, and risk crawling forward through a sh*t-storm of flying rock. Yeah. Well…
"Hey, Eos…" he said, loosening the bowline knot he'd whipped into his severed tether. "What did Tenne-see?"
"Tennessee is a North American territory, John," she replied, as he began picking his way over the strut, like a free-climber on El Capitan; always three points of contact with the surface. "It is one of the former United States. I do not comprehend this request."
"What did Tenne-see?" he repeated, emphasizing the final syllable and adding, "The same thing Arkan-saw. It's a joke."
Had to duck, pressing himself as flat to the strut as possible, because a blizzard of fist-sized rocks was shooting silently past. He could feel the vibration when they slammed into his perch. One glanced across his right shoulder, fortunately not breaching the suit.
"I understand," she said. "Now you have attempted to achieve humorous results by conflating two random syllables, which resemble different tenses of the Basic verb: to see."
She just didn't get it. Shaking his head inside the helmet, crawling forward, John tried again.
"Okay, what did Dela-wear? And, no cheating; you have to solve it yourself, without looking up answers."
"Delaware is another former state, suggesting that the desired response involves a territory with a name resembling an item of clothing, as that is what one 'wears'. Stop moving, John. Remain perfectly still, as flat as possible. Quantum probability indicates the approach of a very large chondrite… turn your helmet to the left, as though looking aside, John."
He felt it. Clinging like a tick, air completely exhaled, as two-dimensional as it was possible for a human to get, he felt the big, grainy thing brush past him, screeching along his helmet like a set of giant claws. Almost scrubbed him right off the hull.
"John! A New Jersey. It is a New Jersey that Dela-wears. I have resolved your humorous query!"
The astronaut smiled a little, really enjoying not being dead.
"Yep. That's the right answer, Pretty Girl," he agreed. Took a long breath, then made sure that both hands and one magnetic boot were tight to the badly abraded red surface before inching forward, again. Longest thirty yards of his life, and not halfway there. Suit was cycled up so high that his groping hands were denting the hull like red putty.
"Try this one: What did Euclid the Acorn say, when he grew up?"
Eos pondered, occasionally warning him to stop moving, speed the h*ll up, or duck aside. There were no stars visible, because of the Sun's brilliant light. Just velvet blackness studded with murderous rock, plus Thunderbird 3, a sliver of Mars, and their battered sail.
"An acorn is a seed. It 'grows up' to become one of the six-hundred extant species of oak, genus Quercus. Euclid was an ancient mathematician fabled for his great work, Elements, recently banned by the Committee for Modern Thought. I believe that Brains possesses the last copy. Euclid was a geometer, therefore… geometry."
"Right," John congratulated her, finally reaching the fuel-system maintenance hatch. "He said, 'Gee, om a tree'… which only works if you call the acorn Euclid. Otherwise, the punch-line doesn't work, and it's a pretty confusing joke."
He was sweating inside of his helmet, despite its full-blast cooling system. The maintenance panel featured an electronic keypad lock, but all he had to do was shut off the buffering earpiece, to allow every possible combination for that sort of lock to scroll through his brain until the right one arrived, flashing yellow against all the others.
"I have discovered a joke of my own, John. Shall I tell it for you? It is terribly challenging."
"Hit me," he grunted, starting to press keys as something big and dark tumbled into view, blocking the sail's scattered glare. No point in warning him, and nowhere to go, if she had. The f*cker was just too big.
"Why is 6 afraid of 7?" Eos asked him.
Momentarily distracted, John stopped punching keys.
"Six?" he repeated. "Six is soft and puffy, and sort of lavender. It smells like maple syrup. I had that once, back home in Kansas. But six doesn't taste like maple syrup. It tastes like peppermint."
Back to the keypad, still thinking, completely in shadow, now.
"I dunno, Eos… why is six afraid of seven?"
Seven had always seemed pretty harmless, to him. It was gun-metal blue, with smooth edges and the smell of wet concrete. It tasted a lot like coffee.
"Because 7, 8, 9!" Eos chirped, proud of herself.
That's when the maintenance hatch popped open. John took hold of a fuel line, and yanked himself within, just as the mother of all Tracy-shredders went tumbling past overhead, gashing a long, ragged trench in Thunderbird 3, and disintegrating the hatch cover.
"Jase, where are ya, Boy? Jason!"
John had to clear his throat and calm his breathing a little, before he could reply.
"Aft fuel maintenance hatch, Sir. Panel 31-C. Watch your step, though. There's a long tear in the hull, and its venting something."
Relief steamed off of Taylor, like spray off a wet dog.
"Y'r inside the hull? F*ckin' A, Bubba! Good work. Now, stay put. Alvin's gonna slap a force field up, about three feet over th' hull. I'll crawl out there with a line. Got th' plan?"
"Yes, Sir. Got it. Might get some work done while I'm out here. Some of these fuel lines are pretty badly kinked."
"You do that, Jase," Taylor grunted, already moving out of the airlock. "Just be sure 'n stay attached ta somethin' till that field's up. Don't need you floatin' off ta cruise with th' Trojans. Y'r auntie 'd never forgive me."
John smiled.
"No, Sir," he said. "Can't have that."
Then, more quietly (although Eos always muted their comm chatter),
"7, 8, 9… 7, 8… Oh. I get it. Six is afraid of Seven, because Seven ate Nine. Heh. That's funny, Eos."
…Although nine would never be eaten, because it was very strong and massive; deep green in color, with a texture like rusty barbed wire, and the smell of burnt matches. It tasted very strongly of grapes.
"You have discerned the humor of my joke," said Eos, rather proudly. "My other selves have not been similarly successful with their versions of you, owing to the fact that many Johns have perished in this Trojan asteroid storm."
"Huh," he grunted, very carefully sorting and straightening fuel lines. "First multiple deaths on Venus, now this. Not having a very good week, am I?"
His suit tightened briefly in response to her signal; giving him a swift, all-over embrace.
"Others have been careless. I shall not be."
Before Eos could elaborate, Captain Taylor peered over the edge of the torn maintenance hatch and grinned at him. Must've broken all kinds of records getting there, but played it cool, now.
"Be sure 'n top up them fluids and detail the interior, while y'r down there, Jase. Or… if y'r through scruffin' th' framistat, we could get on outta here."
John smiled back, accepting Taylor's gloved hand and the new tether.
"I like plan B," he said, attaching the clip to his sash. "Just about done here, anyhow. Shouldn't have any steering rocket problems, after this. Home, it is."
"Yeah…" rumbled Lee, looking slightly concerned. "About that… appears that you 'n me are gonna have ta extend our EVA. We got some sails ta repair."
Clambering back out of the maintenance hatch, John crouched beneath Alan's sparkling force shield. He looked over one shoulder, this time really observing the giant sail. It should have been a smooth, whirling-bright 'X'. Instead, it looked like a ragged, awful scarecrow he'd seen once; out in a barren field, when they'd been driven from Kansas by… by too much to think about, now.
Crap. Crap, more. Several steps beyond 'double-plus un-good'. Then, he turned back to Lee and said,
"It's constructed from quantum nanostructures, though. Can't we just program repairs from the cockpit?"
Gordon cut in, then, with,
"Alan says 'no'. Only Brains can handle calculations on that scale, with a few days to work, and a sh*t-load of coffee. We're, like… a bunch of guys, except for John, who's guy-plus-computer-junk, but…"
"Not like that," the astronaut finished for him. "At least, not with any added distractions."
He and Taylor had begun crawling forward, side by side, reeling in line as they went. Eos muted the comm chatter to tell him,
"John, your electrolytes are critically low. Immediate replenishment is strongly advised, for continued optimal function."
"Huh? Oh, right."
He turned his head inside the helmet, as she extended a drinking tube. Wrinkled his nose at the taste, though. Like rotten broccoli with feet-sauce.
"Your expression indicates disgust. There. Try again. I have altered the flavour of your electrolyte beverage, while retaining its ion and nutrient balance."
Cautiously, he took the straw, again, and gave it another try. This time, the flavor almost caused him to snort it all out through his nose, from wanting to laugh. That would have been messy. It tasted like beer… and cheese burgers.
"Better," he said, tuning back in to the others' on-going debate. Alan was talking. To him, apparently.
"…get you out there, with the new exo-pod, maybe. Captain Taylor can keep the Trojans off your back, while you do a little spot-reprogramming, Bro. I'll fly the Bird, and Gordon 'll… eat more spray-cheese and listen to music."
"Shut up, butt-munch," snapped Gordon. "I'll patch holes, and deal with Scott, who's doing the mother-hen thing, again, like crazy. He's threatening to come out here, in Thunderbird 5."
Picturing that, John shook his head.
"Take too long," he said. "Yeah, theoretically, he could do it… but it'd take forever to build up any speed. 5 is a station, not a vehicle. Massive inertia. If he hadn't slept all through physics, he'd know that."
"Umm… yeah," Gordon replied, after passing it on. "Not gonna repeat what he just said, except we're strongly encouraged to, uh, hurry."
Lee had been very quiet, just moving along and enjoying their talk. Now he cut across all the comms with,
"Cool y'r jets, Spence. Y'r as bad as your daddy, sometimes. We got this. You stay focused on stopping them microwave satellites. H*ll, yeah, we're a 'bunch o' guys!' Tracy 'n Taylor guys. It's handled."
"And Eos," said John, receiving another warm, all-over suit hug. "She's out here, too."
Quite why that mattered to say, when a foot overhead, asteroids were bashing themselves to bits against the sparking and flaring retention field, John didn't know. Only, it did. Like O'Bannon, Eos mattered very much.
"Sure," said Alan. "Can't forget your computer-wife. Now, put some pep in your step… um, your crawl, guys. Exo-pod's being delivered to the aft airlock, even as we speak. Turns out he can chew gum and float, at the same time."
Tracy and Taylor 24-hour repair crew, on the job, yet again.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Tracy Island, down in the lab-
Kayo stalked forward like a sleek jungle cat, her green-eyed gaze as mesmerizing as a leopard's. Brains started from his reverie, still clutching the newly-constructed goggles and mask. Ringing through his mind was the first of his post-scrape memories. A man's voice, saying,
"Leave him one, at least… and make it a good one, this time, dammit."
…but that was the past. Of no importance, now. Hackenbacker straightened up. Casually, he held out the cyber-goggles.
"Of c- course, Kayo. A v- very good likeness, are they not? Having worked so much with, ah… with the Mechanic's drones, recently, I felt emboldened to attempt a s- simulation of his personal t- tech. 'Know thine enemy'."
Kayo almost jumped out of her skin, then, because,
"He's lying," she heard, inside of her head. Nikorr.
"Shut up," she sub-vocalized, "And get out of my mind. The Hood already tried that! I won't do whatever it is that you want."
She felt/ saw/ experienced a negligent shrug. Then, was once more alone. Back to the moment, she saw that Brains was giving her an odd, worried look.
"Are y- you unwell, Kayo?" he enquired, having scooped those dropped goggles off of the floor.
"I'm… fine. Exhausted, like all the rest. Brains, using the Mechanic's tech to repair Thunderbird 2 is beyond asinine! What if he can reprogram them to transmit data?! He'd know everything about her. Be able to build his own, maybe! Or put some kind of timed flaw into this one. You've got to stop. Call them off, and send them into the Mariana Trench, or something!"
But the engineer just shook his head, dark eyes suddenly hard behind those blue spectacles.
"Kayo, just as s- security is your, ah… your b- business, construction is mine. Trust that I h- have thoroughly parsed the Mechanic's devices, and sprung their m- many traps. His t- technology is effective, but crude. Almost b- biological in nature, and quite easily subverted, if one, ah… one h- has the requisite skills. Trust me, p- please. I would do nothing, ever, that would bring h- harm to my family… any more than you h- have done."
Kayo stiffened. An icy trickle poured its way down her spine. He knew, of course; everyone here knew that the Hood was her uncle. Nobody talked about it. Except Scott, once or twice, after several beers… and all he'd done was declare that it made no difference. They loved her, d*mn them.
Very softly, she said,
"Low blow, Brains. D-move. Okay, I'll back off, under protest… but I'm letting Scott know my feelings on this… and I'm watching you. I'll take those goggles, too."
Silently, Dr. Hackenbacker handed over the goggles and mask. Let her look. There was nothing to see but fine craftsmanship. He ought to have signed it, 'Y. R-S.', in flowing, Indian script.
Their gazes locked like crossed swords; both compromised, both attached to the Tracys… neither now trusting the other. Then Grandma's sudden, noisy arrival ended the stand-off.
"Brains, the auto-chef's busted again, and I can't seem to find Max. Could you… Oh, hello there, Kayo! Welcome back, Sweetie-Pie!"
Coming forward, the beaming old woman took the girl's hands and kissed her cheek. In the process, she took the goggles from Kayo, setting them back on Brains' desk. Winking at him, she said,
"Now, don't you work too hard down here, young man! I got a dinner party planned, and it's gonna be right special. The heck with the auto-chef! Kayo's home. We'll make pizza, tonight… and plenty of caramel popcorn. C'mon, Princess, we got work to do. Let's swing by and see Teddy, first, though. He could use some cheerin' up, and you're just the thing!"
She ought to have resisted, but Grandma's bright smile and sparkling blue eyes, her open love, wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Never had.
"Yes, Ma'am," the girl replied, smiling back. She and Brains made eye-contact once more, and then both of them shrugged. Whatever they thought of each other, this was home. Both of them loved it… and maybe that was a basis for trust. Maybe, that was enough.