Sorry to take so long! And many thanks for reviewing, Tikatu and Bee. =) My presentation at the seminar was a big success. Whew! Thank God that's over...

53: Fight For Survival

Nova Scotia, underground-

Above, people darted and scurried like ants. Running this way and that, they flailed for stable footing on a surface that cracked and buckled like shifting pack-ice and roared like a huge, calving glacier. Below them, matters were worse; in the same way that being inside a tiger's digestive tract is worse than trying to outrun it. Fewer options.

Alan followed Virgil's broad back and bobbing gold headlamp beam (his own having shorted out several minutes before). The world around them muttered and growled, straining against its electromagnetic bonds. John must have boosted the force-field's power, somehow… sacrificing time, maybe… because Alan's hairs were standing straight up, tipped with faint bluish sparks. His skin tingled, too.

Virgil seemed not to notice; or else, like the fighter he was, just shut all that out and kept going. Tough to do, when their shattered surroundings bowed and flexed with each rumbling tremor, barely held back by the force-field. Every once in awhile, parts of John's voice got through, but not often. Something had happened to the ground antenna, or else there was too much EM interference.

Still, that voice drew them onward; past grinding surfaces of iron-spiked concrete, around torn, dripping plane wreckage and seemingly bottomless chasms. Alan didn't think, because he couldn't. Just reacted, following Virgil and getting his suit un-snagged from the grasping claws of all that ragged, sharp metal. The helmet must've saved his life a hundred times, even if it did feel like his head was trapped in a bucket that someone kept banging with rocks.

Then the Earth heaved again, pinning him briefly. It happened in what was left of the connecting tunnel between the engine-test bunker and a smashed-up research lab. (A short-cut suggested by John.)

One of the cracked-in-a-million-pieces, force-field-bound walls pushed outward like a frog's throat, crunching Alan against what used to be maybe a floor. (Tiles, y'know? Black and white and spattered with red beneath all that dust.)

Someone was making a lot of noise in Alan's shrill voice. Yelling for help or something, because their legs were trapped and being rolled like clay snakes between two hard, shifting palms. But Virgil was holding tight to his arms. Not pulling, because their brother's fractured voice said: hold on and wait…going…try something.

Alan clung to Virgil, who would have pried those stone jaws apart with his bare hands if he'd had to. The noise was grinding, rumbling, yelling; pleas and gruff oaths and static, mixed with the ice-water calmness of John. Then, just a little, the force-field shifted; its flickering power withdrawn from everywhere else but the tunnel and Mole. The jaws' grip slackened just a bit. Just enough.

"Now," said John, and Virgil pulled hard, hauling his gasping young brother out of death's hand. But chunks started raining down all around them, released by a badly strained force-field.

Virgil abandoned the plasma cutter. He took up the injured woman again and half-dragged, half-carried Alan a hundred yards to the waiting Mole. That guy? The one who hadn't been injured? He ran out to help them with a metalized debris-blanket unfolded over his head like a silvery banner, covering them all when they met halfway.

They still got hit with falling rubble, but the blanket's weird fibers spread the shock all over its surface, turning savage punches into mere slaps. Ducking beneath its rippled and creaking material, they made it across those final few yards, got inside and then locked themselves down.

Alan would've helped drive, except that something was wrong and he couldn't sit without screaming like someone had knifed his whole spine. So he just stood, weight on one leg, holding onto the back of his chair. Bill (that was the guy's name) meanwhile did what Alan told him to; shutting the hatch and retracting the ramp, leaving Virgil to handle the drive controls.

Their drill started up on the first try, but it still felt like forever before they got moving. No choice but the surface. Nowhere to go but up, following the best route John could map for them.

Inside the grumbling, uphill-slanted cockpit, they kept their helmets on. Had to, with a civilian employee aboard. Alan hung on through a haze of pain, jerking motion and the rusted taste of his own blood, telling Bill what to do with the scanners and almost-dead force-field projector. Where to direct it, and stuff. When he couldn't talk because of muscle spasms, John took over. Better yet (being a frickin' genius) he had an idea.

Thinking quickly, the astronaut reconfigured their force-field so that it caught and deflected visible light rather than rubble and stone. The Mole didn't turn transparent, or anything, but incoming light rays were bounced off in ten-million strange, non-coherent directions. Yeah. Something broke out to the surface, but you couldn't tell what.

The change (as the Mole's drill went from cutting through dense, shifting concrete and steel to rock and then soil) was something you felt through the soles of your boots and your locked, aching hands and clenched teeth. The noise went from scream to whine and then beautiful, no-resistance whirr. She leveled out a little, too, making it easier for Alan to stand and hold on.

After a quick, panting second, Virgil opened the view screen shields. Light streamed in, but no images, because John's altered force-field screwed up their receiving capacity and comm system, too. Go ahead, though… Ask Alan to list his complaints, just then. He'd have hauled off and punched you.

Because the ground had stopped lurching, Virgil could tell Bill and Alan to open the hatch and extend the Mole's boarding ramp. Thanks to the weakened force-field, it looked like they were surrounded by bright, shifting fog with nauseating pulses of ground, sea and sky floating through. Slivers of hesitant people, too; coming just close enough to call out,

"Hullo? Red Cross, here. Someone inside?"

"International Rescue," Alan responded, supporting himself on the threshold. "We, uh… we got... got some victims in here that need help."

There were wave noises and gull screams, too; mixed with a distinct sea-smell and the sharp turpentine reek of snapped evergreens. (Feeling suffocated, Alan had opened his helmet's filtration system.) Up front, Virgil turned to Bill, saying wearily,

"Listen, if you wouldn't mind helping out a little longer, we can get these folks unloaded and into the right hands."

Bill had wiped most of the dust and grime off his face, but his smile lines and forehead creases were still caked with the stuff. He nodded and said,

"On it, Boss. Lead the way."

(They'd worked together before, y'know? And Bill wasn't stupid.)

Together, the two men got the Mole's injured cargo offloaded, handing them gently to the waiting rescue-team medics. Alan wanted to help, but his left leg had stopped talking to him, and his hips were knotted and girdled with fire. He had all he could handle just not to fall down, okay?

Enough to be thankful for, just to find himself still alive and back on the surface. At least… until he remembered Gordon and Scott.

XXX

Thunderbird 2-

Alarms shrilled and lights flared; stall warning. She was ascending too steeply and Gordon knew it. The impellers lost their grip on the ground as Thunderbird 2's angle climbed toward ninety degrees.

Desperately, he seized and wrenched the engine controls and aft steering rockets; his mind a white-hot rote checklist. The giant green Bird nosed over a little, slewing sideways and down. Losing altitude again, she scythed half an acre of trees, ripping another lifting leg clean out of its moorings. An awful, snapping and shrieking noise filled his head and the cockpit. Sounded like the end of the world.

Gordon was flung against the instrument panel and then his right armrest. Should have been hurt, but he wasn't much feeling anything. Too busy. Through the main view screen, he could see splintered trunks, the shuddering ridge and a claw-slash of vivid blue sky.

Then Thunderbird 2 ground and slid over another few acres of tree-line; like belly-flopping onto an upturned wire scrub-brush. It sounded and felt as if millions of cats were stropping their claws across the hull. Then she broke free and rose again, trailing ragged branches and spinning, warped legs.

Safe? Maybe… Below her, the ground convulsed like it wanted to die. Half of that sparkling ridgeline collapsed with a volcanic roar. Left behind, the pod fell into the Mole's rapidly caving tunnel. Just fell in, with a booming, metallic groan. Overhead, around and through the barely-saved Bird, winds howled and buffeted.

Inside the cockpit he heard another strange noise. At first, Gordon couldn't tell what was causing it. Then he recognized his own harsh, grunted panting. His hands were shaking, too. He had to cross both arms on his chest and clamp his hands, hard, between torso and opposite arm to regain some kind of stability. That, and a couple Hail Marys...

A few minutes later, John called. John, not Scott. Took him awhile to process this fact, and what it might mean.

"Thunderbird 2, Island Base. Thunderbird 2, how do you read? Repeat, Thunderbird 2 from Island Base. Do you copy?"

"Yeah… Copy, Base. Right here, more or less in one piece," Gordon replied, pressing the status update switch (though it wasn't necessary; John and their father certainly knew what had happened, already).

"You okay, Son?" Jeff's voice cut in, worriedly.

"Could be better, Dad," Gordon admitted. "She's, uh… stabilized at a thousand feet, but I've lost the pod and two legs."

"What about you? Are you hurt, Gordon?" his father demanded.

"I'm… I dunno, Dad. Hard to say. Give me a minute to take it all in… Scott and the Mole, though? How's everyone else?"

…And how the h3ll was he supposed to collect Virgil and Alan, now?

"The below-ground situation's still developing," replied John, very calmly. "In the meantime, we need you to head north and west about twelve hundred clicks to check on Scott. Thunderbird 1's still online and responding, but we've lost Mobil Command. Best speed, Gordon. I'll keep radar off your back and talk you through the course changes."

"Right."

Gordon nodded at a screen full of snowy, flickering static; wiping at the trail of blood which was threading and itching its way from the corner of his mouth and along his bruised chin.

"Fire away, John."

"Copy that, 2. Let's get some of those status lights and alarms dealt with. Start heading north, and hit the switches as I call them. 42A, upper right panel…"

Funny, how routine work and a steady voice could reset your insides, again. In the background, Gordon could hear Ricky crying, and Dad repeatedly hailing Scott.

'He's okay,' Gordon promised them silently. 'Just needs a lift, is all'.

Flying just above a toppled and quake-ravaged forest, the red-haired young pilot banked away north.

XXX

Elsewhere-

Warned by alarms, Scott had run, pelting flat out for the safety of Thunderbird 1. Then the ground shook and the cliff heaved drunkenly forward, simply coming apart in midair; rocks, trees, bird colony and all.

In the cove, seawater mounded up, forming a silvery and frothing dome maybe a hundred, hundred-and-fifty feet high. Twice that, around. There was a noise too loud to be fathomable. Then the rocky, uprooted cloud which had been a cliff cascaded down like a blizzard of boulders and wood, pitching Scott off his feet. For security reasons, he'd been wearing a helmet and camo-patterned survival suit.

Rocks tapped and then cracked against his reinforced helmet as Scott forced himself to all fours and then upright, again. Looked like a storm cloud, felt like dust, debris and crashing disaster. Rumbling, cascading boulders and whipping tree limbs. Water, too; a huge wave caught up and lifted Scott, who flailed wildly around for something stable to hang onto.

He rolled a few times through stuff that was too gritty and dark to be water, but supported him better than dirt. The survival suit, following one of its preprogrammed options, inflated itself and turned yellow; forming a sort of buoyant cocoon. He tumbled and swirled like a leaf on the rapids, bumping hard against rocks and pummeled by towering waves.

Time after time, shoved down by onslaughts of timber and mud. Again and again, bobbing back up to the air and smudged light. Moments like these, nobody said complete prayers. All Scott got out was the name of God and a few clutched-at saints. Bernard, right? Avalanches? For some reason, all he could think about. The noise and battering were constant; horrific.

The he popped upward one final time and stayed there, floating atop a logjam of mud and felled trees. His faceplate was too dirty and scratched-up to see through, at first, but Scott wiped at it with a gloved, shaking hand. (Not as easy as it sounds in a fully inflated survival suit on rough, debris-choked seawater.)

Overhead, gleaming like a needle through wheeling birds and clouds of billowing dust was Thunderbird 1, homing right in on his short-range suit beacon. She'd made it. Out of reach for the moment, but there.

His suit antenna was broken, or Scott would have called in. No problem, though, because Thunderbird 1 stayed put like a hovering signal flare. The others would find him. If… that is… they were in any condition to.

Scott Tracy wasn't the sort to just lie there and let himself be swept out to sea with half of a mountain. Thinking hard, he worked out a way to cut on and off his chest-mounted suit beacon; generating a laughably weak Morse code signal. Managed to speak to Gordon that way, before the gutted green oval of Thunderbird 2 roared into view.

'Down here,' he tapped.

2 cut off her engines, switching to impellers and steering rockets in order to nudge gently alongside Thunderbird 1. Stirred up a whirlwind of hissing and whispering dust in the process, kicking up fountains of muddy salt-spray.

'Have you in sight,' flashed back Thunderbird 2's few working running lights. 'Will lower basket.'

There weren't many prettier views than that giant green cargolifter, dropping her shimmering thread like a spider. Now, if only Virgil and Al were somehow okay…

XXX

Midworld-

Drehn hesitated, tilting his blond head back to examine that looming fortress of griffin- and raven-carved stone. Snakes of blown snow hissed and whipped at him, causing the drow's long hair to snap like those black and red banners. To Gawain, who'd somehow been made lord of Falkirk, he said,

"My kind doesn't usually tour such places, except as a lopped-off head, riding on the point of a spear."

There were many curved iron spikes on the battlements, meant for precisely that sort of dripping and grisly trophy. But Gawain just shook his own red (and well attached) head.

"Y've my word of honour, Sir Elf. So long as I live, Falkirk is home t' you. All of you."

Reassuring words… but the castle and its balefully glittering ward runes still made his flesh creep. Still, he had much to say to his mortal friend, not all of it good. So…

"Thank you," he said at last, falling in beside Gawain as the knight passed beneath an ice-fanged portcullis and into the dim stone gatehouse. Well defended establishment, Drehn noticed. D*mn well defended.

Just passing through the bent, two-level gatehouse, he, Glud and Voreig were the unwavering focus of many silent, crossbow wielding guardsmen. Not to mention the towering house carls, with their razor-tipped spears and notched axes. At Drehn's other side, Frodle trotted along with brisk taps of his staff, looking all about as though a fortress of mortals were new to him, too.

Ringing footsteps and growled orders sounded. Wind whistled and moaned. Out through another arched, metal-barred opening, then, and back into dazzling sunshine. They'd reached Falkirk's main bailey, and attracted more thanes; armed, mail-clad and scowling, wreathed in the mist of their own puffing breath.

Despite their new lord's evident ease with his visitors, the sight of a sorcerous elf, a staff-wielding scholar and two mighty half-orcs clearly alarmed them. Good time for a peace spell, maybe… though his magicks hadn't been quite so effective, lately.

The mixed-up thing which was partly Anelle extended a hand to him, then. Realizing that she was making a point about his general 'tameness', Drehn accepted her cold little hand and bowed slightly.

"My lady," he said, only a little bit mocking.

"Welcome to Falkirk," she replied, very softly, her illusion-green eyes roaming the faces around them, as though daring her kinsmen and servants to denounce the greeting.

There were many tense folk peering from the cracked-open doorways of huts and storerooms. Others, from high, narrow wind-eyes and arrow-slits. It was just about then that Blanchard and Chester came clattering forth from the stable; one having unbolted their stall door before the other could kick it to pieces. Allat circled overhead, still in bird-form. He looked like a raven, now, except for a very long, gold-feathered tail. On Voreig's broad shoulder he landed, croaking aloud.

Nearby, the colt first shied away from 'Anelle', hugged his Da, and then rattled and skidded right up against Grayling, who nuzzled him gently. Blanchard snuffed Gawain, pretending to graze on his friend's coppery hair before ambling over to greet Dapple and Grayling. There was much grunted and snorted horse-talk, then. Complaints about weather and forage, mostly. Bit of posing and attempted romance, as well… though Drehn's magicks kept the mare forever out of season (didn't stop Blanchard from hoping, however).

Gawain would have liked very much to speak with his newly found friends, but there was manorial business to attend to, first; including the swearing of a by-proxy oath to the High King's messenger. Bretnoth, himself, would have to approve the new lord's promotion, but all of that lay in the future. For now, Gawain heard the report of his various people, accepted their fealty… and wondered where, in Heaven's name, Gareth had got to.

This, it was, which led him to steal away to the high gallery around sunset; a place he recalled as a favourite of the (then) boy's. Sort of a stone colonnade, open on one side, it backed onto the family's private withdrawing room.

Bit further on, through a heavily warded door, the gallery opened onto a high, round tower built from massive blocks of tan sandstone. Gawain was tired and hungry. A headache had taken fiery residence behind his right eye. He wanted to see and speak with Anelle and the others. But work, and his "wife's" missing brother, prevented it. Halfway along the gallery, something strange happened.

One moment, he was stamping his booted feet to beat the sensation back into them, looking about and drawing his cloak bit closer. Next, everything disappeared but a very bright, eye-searing light. One doesn't become accustomed to the visitation of a deity. One endures.

Gawain's nerves curled and his skin prickled. The air was driven from his lungs as though he'd been savagely punched. Words were impossible, but he managed to think…

'Speak Your will, Sir. I'm listening.'

The voice came once again from within; pounding and surging with his own breath, blood and heartbeat. It said,

"Take these others and ride forth. You will meet with your fellow paladins, whom I have summoned. Through your bond with another-world self, you shall take them all and enter a place called 'Simulator Room'. There, the link between worlds may be found and attacked. The spirit of that place will attempt to prevent you from severing this link. Destroy her, and save Midworld. Obey."

When the reeling young knight blinked his way out from under that crushing presence, he found himself face to face with dark-haired Gareth, who was thoughtfully fingering the ivory hilt of a dagger.

"What ails you?" snapped the disinherited lordling.

Gawain shook his head. He felt rather burnt out and hollow inside. Not quite up to a fight.

"I… was out f'r a bit of air," he said, more to stall than anything else. Then, as Gareth stepped away from the column shadow which had partly hidden him, "Bein' as I've got t' leave f'r Rhees, soon… I'll need someone here, t' keep watch over Falkirk, whatever."

Gareth paused, but his expression wasn't receptive. At his heart, Gawain couldn't blame the fellow (who was older than he was, now, thanks to the time spent in Faerie). Unfortunately, others were far less disposed to be charitable.

Ghosts streamed in a phosphorescent green river through stonework and sky, visible only to Falkirk's new lord (to Frodle and Drehn as well, down below).

They swirled and howled soundlessly, reaching with glowing wisps for the bitter and vengeful young man. As running footsteps sounded on stone, and doors banged wide open, Gawain said,

"Gareth… I beg that you'll do nothin' rash. You stand in more danger than you realize."

"From your pet monsters?" sneered Gareth, in a voice twisted with rage.

"Nay. From Falkirk, herself. She cannot be mastered through force or treachery. You know this."

Then, as Drehn and Glud eased up behind him, dividing to stand at either side of their friend… as Sir Arnulf strode through the tower door, shaggy head lowered and axe at the ready…

"I've no wish t' fight or t' banish you, Gareth. I need you here, guardin' y'r parents and helpin' t' manage th' place in my absence."

The overmatched lordling's eyes narrowed. Rigid as a plank, he was… and closer to death than if he'd been a hundred years old and the food-taster of a particularly bestial king. The wind howled, with more than just natural voices. Stones shifted and creaked. In Arnulf's scarred, meaty hands, Emma gleamed wickedly, catching and splitting the light.

Then Anelle rushed forward. She came to her brother and placed a hand on his tensed and quivering arm.

"Gareth," she said, "Please stop this. The manor at Reinhold is yours… father said so! With all of its lands and chattels. And… and if a marriage is made with an heiress of substance…"

He shook her off, eyes still locked onto Gawain's.

"It would seem the whole world is against me," he said. "You've won everything, Gawain… My lands, fortress and family. But a thing which starts one way may end quite another; and the journey to Rhees is a long one. By all means, scurry to Bretnoth and answer his dog-whistle. I'll 'manage' things in your absence, just as you've asked."

Said Drehn, speaking once more in the language of far-off Tamar,

"Should I fry him? Takes three syllables and a flick of the wrist. Problem solved."

"No," responded his weary, red-haired friend, using the same foreign tongue. "Anelle's brother, he is. Quite dear to her, and the Lady Kait… if not to anyone else. Find a spell. Something. Anything… until Frodle can come up with a permanent means to sweeten him up."

Like he needed this, atop the rest of his piled, swaying troubles! From the corner of one eye, as Glud rumbled threateningly, Gawain saw their elven comrade gesture, slightly. They heard a faint popping sound and beheld a wash of pale corpse-light. When the manifestation ended, Gareth had frozen in place; alive, but petrified.

"You said anything," Drehn told them, a little defensively. "And he'll be all right again in about a day… give or take the odd muscle spasm."

Glud leaned forward to snuff at the petrified nobleman.

"Alive," he concurred. Then, tapping a crooked knuckle against Gareth's frowning, crystal-hard face, "but frozen, and safe from mischief."

Gawain sighed, too beset to feel much relief.

"Right. Bring him within, then. Sir Arnulf, I thank you f'r comin' so quickly."

The suppressed wolf-man shouldered his axe and then bowed.

"I've sworn t' protect and serve you and yours, Milord. That, I shall do, no matter the threat. If I may be bold, Sir… Gareth was right on one point. The road t' Rhees is long and dangerous. You'll have need of strong men and much magick."

Drehn, beside Gawain, cocked a silvery eyebrow.

"And… 'Pet monsters'?" he asked, hiding a hard-edged barb with his slight, mocking smile.

Arnulf's yellow eyes shifted to search the drow's face. Then, he said,

"A grim, pale world it would be, if not for monsters. What would a man test his strength upon, else?"

Drehn smiled privately, turning away to help Glud balance his shouldered load of quick-frozen lordling. He was starting to like the big house carl… which no doubt spoke badly for Arnulf. Said Gawain,

"Prepare y'r men, equipage and horses. We leave f'r Rhees in two days… Milady included."