Far away from Earth, A clunky, clumsy-looking space station sat in geo-stationary orbit on the dark side of the moon, above the ruined remains of what had once been Captain Lee Taylor's moon base.

The Space-Station Belagant was a huge, atypical design, something like a giant's closed fist, in unending, unforgiving black. Not designed for streamlined travel, it had taken its time reaching its current position. It had to a trained eye at least, originally been built as a long-haul space ship, perhaps for the purpose of colonization, and had been bought, stolen or commandeered by the Hood for his own purposes and adapted for its current role.

The Hood himself had stood, still and silent for the last couple of hours, watching an emergency news feed on the Solar-TV channel, the channel that piped all the news updates out into the solar-system, and filled inter-planetary travellers' screens with B-Movie re-runs in between the news slots.

His mouth had become a thinner and thinner line, as it became clear that yet again International Rescue had come out on top.

The Control room crew kept their silence as they watched Theodore Andropolous sign off the air, and someone snapped off the feed. They could almost feel the heat radiating from the Hood, as his very obvious fury boiled; but the Hood himself said nothing. He stared at the blank screen, an inscrutable expression on his face, then he turned and left the room.

"Engineering crew to meet me at airlock three. Now." He barked as the door closed behind him. For a second, no one moved, as they all started to breathe again. Then there was a sudden scramble to obey his order.

At airlock three, a crew of five men and a woman in red space-suits were waiting for him.

"My new rocket, Thunderbird Three is docked here waiting for me. Search her thoroughly, and perform a complete check on all her systems. I want to take her on a test run, get to know her controls before I put her to use."

"Sir."

The Hood remained where he was. He had no desire to get his hands dirty, and these people knew their job. He had hand-picked every member of his crew this time, and he had a hold over every single one of them. He had the means to ensure that every single man and woman on this station would remain loyal to him…unless they preferred the notion of life imprisonment, or worse.

He waited for some time, keeping his patience under tight control until there were sounds of a loud commotion, and the airlock doors opened once again.

Four of his men came through the door, and held firmly in their grips were two young men in civilian clothing.

The Hood's face darkened when he saw Alan.

"I've seen you before. International Rescue! Again! Why are you people so difficult to shake off?"

His eyes ranged between the two, noting the younger of the two looked very young. Mid-teens perhaps? The other was somewhat older, perhaps in his mid-twenties. But there was something familiar about him too. The Hood never forgot a face. Then it came to him. He nodded slowly.

"I remember now. Lady Penelope's `friend' who attended her fund-raising party after winning a ticket at work? I admit you were a stranger to me then, but it is surely no coincidence that here you are again accompanying a member of International Rescue."

John struggled vainly, but his captors held him in a vice-like grip.

"Keep still or you'll regret it!" one of them muttered in his ear. The Hood leaned in closer to John, taking him in in seemingly every detail.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a family friend, that's all."

"You're another of Jeff's sons, aren't you? How many of you are there? Well, you will be overjoyed to know that Lady Penelope and her GDF friend successfully managed to overturn my little enterprise in Australia, largely due to the two incompetents I had working for me there. Your brothers and my niece will be perfectly safe to go about their rescuing without interference from the authorities."

Alan and John exchanged a glance of barely concealed relief. That meant that they were free, no more threat of arrest or prison hanging over their heads. They would be able to go back home and try to recover from the strain of the past few days. Except...International Rescue had one missing ship and two missing members. Unable to stop himself, John struggled again, grinding his heel into the big toe of one of his captors and driving his elbow into the stomach of the other. If they could escape…

His captors retaliated instantly, one punching him viciously in the belly, whilst the other aimed a heavy boot hard into the back of John's left knee. He felt it break, and both his legs buckled, and then the red-head was on the floor, dazed and shaking in pain.

"No!" Alan screamed, pulling and struggling in his attempts to get free to help his brother. "John!"

"We told you to keep still!"

The last thing Alan saw was an angry face close to his own, then he felt as though his entire ribcage had exploded, before the world went completely black.

When consciousness returned, it was with such pain Alan could never have believed was possible. He felt himself whimpering, unable to stop the tears of agony. It was a good two minutes before he was able to get a grip on himself, take a deep, painful breath and look around.

They were in what Alan took to be a crews' quarters, small and cramped, with two bunks, stripped of their blankets and sheets. John had been dumped on the floor just inside the door. His eyes were closed, and he looked to be breathing raggedly.

Unable because of the pain to sit himself up, Alan rolled himself off the bunk he was sprawled across and landed on his knees on the floor with a thump that jarred his injured body and made him scream out loud. Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself to his brother's side, and paled at what he found.

John was sort of conscious, but seemed barely aware of where he was, very confused and out of it. His skin was cold and clammy. Worriedly, Alan pressed his hand against his brother's neck, checking his pulse. The ultra-rapid pulse made Alan blench. John's pulse was racing at 115 beats per minute. He raised his shirt and saw the bruising across John's abdomen. He touched it and pressed lightly, feeling it hard beneath his fingers. John moaned and curled himself up, trying somehow to avoid Alan's probing fingers.

"Oh god, Johnny!"

Suddenly, Alan's own agony became unimportant. If he didn't get his big brother to a hospital fast, he was almost certainly going to die.

He touched his shoulder.

"John! Johnny, can you hear me? John!"

John let out an incoherent moan of pain, then half turned his head.

"Wha…wha…?"

"Johnny, it's me, Alan. You're hurt. Lie still."

"P. …feel sick…"

Alan closed his eyes briefly.

"I know how you feel, Johnny."

Alan crouched over his brother and held him in a firm grip until the spasms of sickness had passed, then making sure he was not going to vomit again, he checked John's airway and with difficulty, dragged himself to his feet.

John watched him from his position on the floor.

"Is the door locked?" he said with a slight gasp. Alan nodded and fished in his pocket and tutted in frustration.

"I should have put on my uniform like you said, John. I have stuff in my utility belt that could have got us through this door."

"I have to...it…Alan, I…"

John was struggling to get up, and Alan turned back and pushed him down again.

"No John, you have internal bleeding…looks like it's pretty bad too. Don't make it worse…"

"What did they do to you?" John managed to ask him in between the shudders of pain.

"…Feels like they've broken more of my ribs…it hurts a bit to breathe…not too bad but…"

John reached out a hand and feebly gestured Alan to sit down on the floor.

"Don't try to escape, Alan…we're both hurting badly…"

"But if we can get out of here, we could try to escape in Thunderbird Three…"

"And break the airlock? The Hood won't let it go so easily."

"Gotta get you to a hospital John, or you could…"

"For now, just focus on staying alive. Could you straighten my leg please? I'll try not to scream too loudly."

"There's nothing to splint it with…"

Alan took a breath, wincing at the pain, and looked around the room again, searching for something he could use to immobilize John's broken knee, but the room was bare. The only furniture being the bunks, which were made of metal and secured to the bulkhead. Defeated, Alan knelt gingerly by John's legs and gave his brother a glance.

"Ready?"

Gritting his teeth, John nodded. Alan slowly and as carefully as he could, straightened out John's leg, until the knee was as straight as possible. John gasped in agony and when it was over, he lay back on the floor, exhausted and in pain. Alan climbed back on to the bunk and scowled at the locked door, that was preventing him from getting his seriously injured brother to a hospital.

Then he remembered something. Something that would almost guarantee someone opening the door.

He and John had been hiding in the rocket's luggage locker, a room so small that with the two of them crammed inside it had felt smaller than his own shoes. He had been worried about their being up here in space without their space suits, but there was one thing Alan had always been careful to ensure he had a spare of.

His wrist-control unit.

His wrist-control gave him complete remote control over all of Thunderbird Three's systems. Brains, the genius, had made it so that it was sensitive to the wearer's own bio-rhythms, and therefore had to be specifically keyed in to it operator. In essence, it meant that it would only respond to Alan himself. Anyone else try it, and it would become nothing but a fancy-looking bracelet. He recalled he had put it on beneath his sweater, just above his elbow, where it was unlikely to be spotted.

He rolled his right sleeve up again and removed the armlet, and fixed it to his wrist at the right place. A quick flex of the wrist in a certain direction was all that was needed to activate it. He ran his hand gently over the smooth surface and called up the hologrid. Smiling grimly, Alan typed in a handful of commands, and then encryption. When he was done, he gently removed the device, and strapped it where it had been before, just above his elbow. Then he lay down on his back on the bunk, and succumbed to the agonizing pain in his stomach.

At airlock three, The Hood suitably clad in his space-suit, stepped into the large red rocket. He had been given a run-down of the main controls by the engineering team. They had even fired her engines briefly to make sure everything was in full working order. The Hood knew he would be quivering with excitement if he allowed himself the luxury of human frailties. He pressed the button to fire up the engines.

Nothing.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

Snarling with anger, he contacted the engineering team and the holographic face of the chief engineer appeared before him. To his annoyance, the engineer denied knowing anything about the problem. It had worked fine during testing. All the same, at the Hood's insistence, the engineer came back down and went over the controls again with his boss. The Hood was so annoyed that this time he was practically spitting out nails.

Still the engines refused to start.

"Did you check that this thing still has fuel in it?" the Hood asked, sarcastically. The engineer ignored the jibe and nodded.

"Plenty sir. There is nothing wrong with the controls here. We're simply…locked out."

The Hood rolled his eyes, the world angry insufficient to describe the way he was feeling right now.

"International Rescue's Alan Tracy. It's him. Somehow he has done this."

He strode out of the airlock and through the corridors of the station, a burning rage behind his eyes that kept all his people at a respectful distance.

"I promise you Alan Tracy, you will not defy me a second time!"