Triple Jeopardy – Chapter 07

Scott had to admit that this wasn't one of his better flights home.

He'd endured a couple of hours of lying in the bed in the infirmary, refusing to admit that he'd fallen asleep almost as soon as his head had touched the pillow – even though he was darn sure that his warder, Alan, had told every man and his dog on the International Rescue network that he'd been snoring the entire time.

Once he'd claimed his craft to himself, and before Thunderbird One had lifted off, Scott had peeked under his shirt to see the damage. It looked painful. And having felt the physical reaction of experiencing two literal breath-taking, out-of-control, sudden stops, Scott knew that it was.

He shifted in his seat. The chest strap that Virgil had complained would do nothing to save him in a crash, was aggravating the newly acquired set of bruises. No wonder he was feeling sore and out of sorts. Sore and out of sorts enough that no one had attempted to stop him from taking to the skies in Thunderbird One alone. Although he'd thought he'd heard mutterings about being hogtied and locked in the hold of Thunderbird Two. If Brains hadn't given him the all clear, he was convinced that he would have been set on by four determined brothers and restrained "for his own good."

But he was free of that now. Free and would soon be home to a good meal; some gentle, loosening, pain-reducing exercise; a shower; and his own bed…

Huh?! Proximity Alert? Was he really that tired and not on the ball that he'd missed something on his radar?

Those thoughts passed through Scott's brain without him realising it as he rolled clear of the craft that seemed to come out of nowhere.

He expected the mystery craft to continue on its way with an acknowledgment of the near miss that they'd just experienced, when he realised that it was turning…

And coming for him.

Desperate to get clear, Scott performed a U-turn.

The other craft also turned. Following close to Thunderbird One's tail.

Scott executed a perfect barrel roll, losing hundreds of metres in the process.

The other craft did the same.

Scott's reflexes were all that saved him from when something fired out of the mysterious craft's fuselage in his direction. "I'm under attack!"

He heard the confusion in Thunderbird Five's response. "Th-Thunderbird One? Please repeat."

"Thunderbird One is under attack. Unidentified craft is pursuing me."

"A-Are you sure they aren't just tr-trying to follow you to International R-Rescue's base?"

"Negative. Unidentified craft made a deliberate attempt to shoot me out of the sky. It only just missed."

"Y-You're, ah, being f-fired upon?"

"Affirmative. One shot so far."

"C-Can you recognise the un-i-identif-f…"

"Negative. I didn't get much of a glimpse of it, but it's unlike anything I've seen before…" Scott made a decision. "I'm putting balls to the wall and I'm going to outrun it…"

After the first disturbing announcement, Brains had begun transmitting his conversation with Scott beyond Thunderbird Five. Their voices were also being beamed to Tracy Island base and Thunderbird Two.

"Going to full power," Virgil announced.

They were all forced back into their seats.

"Lower VDUs, Virgil," John commanded, and visual display units dropped before himself and Alan and Gordon, enabling all three to receive digital and pictorial information from Thunderbird One.

Gordon peered over John's shoulder at the screen. "Where are they?"

John pointed, his finger tracking rapidly across the screen. "The speed they're travelling, Virgil, we'll never be able to catch up to them."

"They're not flying in a straight line, we are. If we keep heading in their general direction, we'll intercept them at some point."

John wasn't one hundred percent convinced that this was correct as he opened the communications link to Thunderbird Five. "John to Brains."

"Er, ah, J-J-John?"

It was clear that Brains was out of his depth. They had all trained at being the Space Monitor during a rescue; even a dramatic, life or death, rescue; but this was something new and the engineer was unprepared for it; his limited experience clearly shown in his exaggerated stutter.

"I'll communicate with Scott," John commanded. "Alan can monitor the radar for other air traffic and population centres. You can try to identify the craft. Once we know who's behind this attack, we may be able to stop it."

Everyone heard the relief in Brains' "F-A-B."

"What am I going to do?" Gordon asked.

It was Virgil who gave him the instruction. "Get into your wetsuit in case he has to ditch in the sea."

"F-A-B." Gordon ran from the cabin.

Alan peered around the side of his screen at Thunderbird Two's pilot. "What could he do? We don't have Thunderbird Four on board."

"We'd have to use the grabs to hold One on the surface long enough for him to board and get Scott to safety."

"That's assuming that we get there in time."

"Don't worry, we will…" Virgil said grimly. "We've got to."

-F-A-B-

Back on Tracy Island, Jeff was equally grim as he made a radio call. "International Rescue calling Lady Penelope."

Lady Penelope's face appeared in place of her more static portrait. "Lady Penelope speaking. What may I do for you, Jeff?"

"Thunderbird One's under weapons attack." When Lady Penelope showed no response to his news, Jeff continued. "Scott hasn't been able to recognise the attacker, nor identify the plane. The fact that it's managing to keep pace with One makes me wonder… Could it be Whitney's?"

Lady Penelope's face hardened. "Unfortunately, Jeff, there is every possibility that it is. It is why I wished to visit Tracy Island; to inform you all of the latest developments, or at least those that I am aware of. My initial reason to visit was to inform you all that my sources had found evidence that Whitney's aeroplane had been completed and was airworthy. I delayed my flight when I received further information; a rumour; that the aeroplane had been stolen by person or persons unknown."

"Unknown?" Jeff's caterpillar eyebrows drew closer. "Do you have any suspicions as to who they are, and why they wanted Whitney's plane?"

"I have my suspicions, yes, but they are unfounded suspicions as I have no evidence to support my theory. As to why they wanted the aeroplane, that is as unknown as to why they would want to shoot Thunderbird One out of the sky…"

-F-A-B-

"Scott," John was saying, "it's John."

"Receiving."

"I'm taking control of communications. Alan's on radar and he'll tell you if there's any approaching traffic. Brains is finding out what he can about the craft. Is there anything you can tell us?"

"Only that I'm almost at maximum speed and trying every trick I can think of to lose him, and he's sticking to One like glue. Either the pilot's as good as me, or else there is no pilot."

"It's a drone?"

"One way to find out. I'm gonna punch her to the max and I'm going vertical."

"What about the G-Forces?"

"I'll be eyeballs in, remember? And if the G-Forces are going to affect me, they'll definitely affect that other plane's pilot – if it has one… Alan!"

"Yes, Scott."

"If necessary, I want you to steer One."

"F-A-B, but you'll have to give John and me a second to switch seats."

"Be quick."

Alan and John were, Alan sliding along the from his chair to the neighbouring one as John dashed around the back of the screens.

They settled into their new positions just as Gordon, dressed in his wetsuit, arrived back on the flight-deck in time to see the seat exchange. "What's the action?" He claimed the seat next to John; closest to the exit.

"Scott's going to try to shake the plane off vertically," John told him. "He's going to apply maximum G's and hope that there's another pilot in the other plane and that they'll have to pull out."

"Do we know who it is yet?"

"No."

"Is it Whitney?"

There was silence for a second. None of Gordon's brothers had considered this as an option. They'd all been too engrossed in trying to save the endangered Thunderbird One.

Alan slid a joystick out from underneath his VDU and entering a code into the keyboard. This wasn't a sophisticated system, more akin to the original computer games, but he was confident that he could pilot Thunderbird One safely without endangering his brother's life.

…He hoped. "I'm ready, Scott."

"Good," Scott responded. "Hold her steady for a minute while I put the oxygen mask on."

It was a bare two seconds later when he was back on the radio, his voice slightly distorted by the mask covering his face. "Okay," he told all who were listening. "I've got her."

"Do you want to put on a g-suit first?"

"No time. I'll have to rely on exercises to keep my blood where's it's meant to be."

"Understood." Feeling the changes in its feedback, Alan loosened his grip on the joystick, but didn't let go.

"Ascending in five… four… three… two… Now!" Scott pulled back on his side sticks and Thunderbird One's nose pointed towards the sky.

Alan felt the changes to the vibrations feeding back through the joystick. "Two Gs."

"How're you feeling, Thunderbird One?" John queried, figuring that whilst Scott was under the strains of such a high-risk manoeuvre, he'd prefer the reassurance of formality.

"Okay…"

"Three Gs."

"I think we got a photo of the other craft when you started the climb. Brains is checking it out now."

"Four Gs."

Your tail's still on you, and you're approaching forty thousand metres, Thunderbird One."

"Going into horizontal downward spin. Get ready, Alan."

Alan tightened his grip. "Ready." He felt the angle of the joystick change – forward and to the side. "Six Gs. Seven… Eight… Ten… Ten plus…" There was another change to the feedback through the controller. A lessening of resistance. "He's gone."

This wasn't a comment that Scott was out of control, rather that, if he hadn't lost consciousness, he was close to doing so.

"It can't be a human pilot." John frowned at the radar screen before him. "That plane hasn't lost so much as a metre. There's no way that a normal human being could withstand those unexpected g-forces without some loss of control. It must be a remote-controlled drone."

"Heat-seeking?" Virgil queried.

"It's possible."

Gordon, looking over his brother's shoulder, saw an image of an aeroplane flash up. "Is that it?"

"Guess so."

"Looks like a witch's broomstick."

Alan was frowning at the screen, his knuckles white on the joystick as he fought to keep the out of sight rocket plane under control. "Scott's been subjected to eleven Gs for long enough. I'm levelling out."

"F-A-B."

"I-I've analysed the photo, and a second when S-Scott made the turn," they heard Brains say.

"And…" Virgil asked.

"Unless s-someone has come up with a similar design, it's Terrance Whitney's."

"When you saw the design specs, did you see any weaknesses we could use?"

"Negative."

Everyone on board Thunderbird Two, along with those back at Tracy Island and on Thunderbird Five, heard a gasp for breath.

"You back with us, Scott?" John checked.

"Ah… Yeah…?"

"Take your time," Alan advised. "I've got her. Let me know when you're ready to take over."

In an effort to stop his big brother from attempting to regain control of his aircraft before then, John spoke up. "Brains thinks it's Whitney's plane."

"Would… make sense… No other craft could match… One."

"And no other pilot could match you. We think it's a drone."

"A drone?" They could hear Scott snap back to attention. He must have flung his oxygen mask away as when he next spoke, his voice was clearer. "So, there's nothing stopping me from bringing it down?"

"Aside from the fact that it's behind you: nothing."

"Then find me the nearest uninhabited land mass, John. Something with a bit of height."

"I wonder why it hasn't tried to shoot again?" Virgil mused, as John acknowledged his new task. "It's that close, Scott's as good as a sitting duck."

"Probably didn't want to risk getting caught in the fallout," Gordon theorised.

"But if it's a drone, why would that matter? No one would get hurt. Why try to shoot him down once and only once?"

"As a warning?"

"It deliberately missed?"

"Who knows. How close are we?"

"Roughly two thousand kilometres away."

"So, quarter of an hour till we get there… Depending on where Scott leads it to."

"I've found you an island, Scott," John was saying, as he sent the coordinates to the pilots of Thunderbirds One and Two. "What are you going to do?"

Two's passengers saw the angle of the sun shift as Virgil changed their flight path to the new heading.

"Do what you always do when you've got something disgusting stuck to you." Scott told his brother. "Scrape it off. But I can't let whoever's piloting it know our plans, so I'm going to try and shake it off the more conventional way before taking it on a little joyride. Let's see how good its braking systems are."

Alan, maintaining a relaxed grip on the joystick, felt its vibrations change as Thunderbird One climbed again. "Careful, Scott! You must be approaching stall speed!"

"If I am, then it is too."

"We don't know what its stall speed is! Don't fall into the coffin corner."

"Don't worry about me, Alan."

Gordon, upon hearing that last comment, rolled his eyes at John. They both knew, and they knew that Scott knew, that it was almost impossible not to worry. The trick was not to reveal that worry to anyone… Especially Thunderbird One's pilot.

But the fact that Scott was so close to Thunderbird One's aerodynamic ceiling was a concern. This was the point where a fixed-wing aircraft slowed until it was no longer able to sustain lift. Once you reached that point, and the aeroplane started falling, the likelihood of structural failure increased as the pilot attempted to pull out of the resultant dive. Brains had dozens of charts scattered around the aerial-Thunderbirds' hangars, and many of them rose up to a peak where the Thunderbirds' stall speed met the maximum altitude attainable by the craft for its weight. It was the area beneath this peak that was the colloquially known "coffin corner" Two's was lower than Thunderbird One's, since the transporter was heavier and unable to gain as much height as her lighter, more aerodynamic sister craft.

But that didn't mean that Scott wasn't flying close to the theoretical limits of Thunderbird One.

And Brains knew this better than almost anyone. Now that they were almost certain that they knew the rogue aircraft's designer, he'd been poring over the specs that he'd saved (against Terrance Whitney's wishes), trying to find the aeroplane's weaknesses. Now he had two screens open, one the drone's own air speed and altitude graph, and the other with an overall plan of the craft. It showed a sleek jet; like a pencil-thin version of the Concorde from a century earlier.

But now he was studying the Whitney craft's "coffin corner". "Thunderbird Five to John."

"Go ahead, Brains."

"Tell Scott that, theoretically anyway, there is no difference between the flight specifications of the drone and Thunderbird One. There is no perceivable difference between either ships', ah, flight tolerances."

"Thanks, Brains. I'll let him know… John to Thunderbird One."

"Thunderbird One."

"Message from Thunderbird Five. There is no difference in coffin corners between Thunderbird One and Whitney's plane."

"Understood. That was never the plan anyway. I've got your island on my radar."

"Be careful, Scott."

Scott didn't respond. There was nothing careful about what he had planned. Success would depend on whether he was as good a pilot as he thought he was. "Approaching island. Good call, John."

John accepted the congratulations with silence.

Scott didn't know why he wasn't already a pile of mangled wreckage at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, but he did know that he would probably only have one chance to make sure that unhappy event didn't occur… That was if he could execute his planned manoeuvre without turning himself into a pile of mangled wreckage on the side of an island peak.

"Scott," Virgil urged. "Don't do anything too hasty. "We're five point zero eight minutes out. It'll be two against one."

"Negative, Thunderbird Two, I'm not letting you get caught up in this battle. And we need to ensure that there's no way that this craft can terrorise anyone else. This is just another rescue, except this time we're going to stop the disaster before it happens."

"Scott…"

"Lining up for final approach. Wish me luck."

It was John who replied with the solitary "Good luck, Scott."

-F-A-B-

"What is he going to do, Jeff?"

"Whatever he can to get himself out of that situation, Penny."

"And that could be?"

"Without more information, I'm not sure. He requested an uninhabited island with a peak and said something about scraping Whitney's plane off, so I'm assuming that he's going to do a run close to the peak, and hope that the drone's controls will cause it to miscalculate and crash; or veer off to avoid a collision, giving him a chance to turn the tables and get on its tail; or else that the ground effect of the wingtip vortices will cause the plane to spin out."

"And trust that he is a good enough pilot, so the same does not happen to him."

Grandma had been listening in silence. "What are his chances, Jeff?"

Jeff Tracy looked up from the computer screens that showed the specifications of the attack craft, Thunderbird One's flight path, and the rest of the telemetry from his eldest son's aeroplane. He tried to reassure his mother with an easy smile. "Scott's the best pilot I know. If anyone can pull off this cra… ah, challenging stunt, it's him."

She folded her arms and stared him down "You were going to say: This crazy stunt. That didn't answer my question. What are his chances?"

"He wouldn't try it if he didn't think he had a strong chance of success."

"I know that, Jefferson, but what are his chances?"

Jeff glanced across to where Tin-Tin and Kyrano were huddled together on a sofa, listening to every word. Kyrano had his arm about her to comfort his daughter, but Jeff knew that Tin-Tin would be as strong as the rest of them if the worst happened.

"Jeff…?"

Jeff Tracy was saved from formulating an answer that would satisfy his mother, without making it obvious that he was trying to keep that worst from her, when they heard his son's final announcement.

"I'm going in."

-F-A-B-

"I'm going in."

Into where?

Scott Tracy sent Thunderbird One circling around in a vast loop, trying to keep his tail from guessing from his plan before he had the chance to put it into action. But he knew that for that plan to succeed; and by succeed he meant coming out the other side of it alive; he needed a long enough run to give him time to evaluate and line up his flight path.

Trusting that the split second that he'd given himself was enough, he made his final run.

His controls flew out of his hands.

His heart pounding against his ribcage, at first he thought that he had miscalculated and crashed, but the peak growing closer ahead of him in a dizzying spiral, told him otherwise.

As did the sirens that screamed and the robotic voice that blared: Impact! Impact!

It was more than a mere impact, Scott realised as he extended Thunderbird One's wings and fought against the forces that were causing the sandy beach, the palm trees, and the rocky mountain to spin up towards him. For some reason his pursuer had chosen that moment to fire at him again.

And this time it had intended to hit him…

-F-A-B-

"He's been hit!" Brains yelled.

All of Whitney's craft's schematics had been replaced by Thunderbird One's the moment that Thunderbird Five had received notification that her sister ship had lost most of her controls and was spinning towards the Earth. On the schematic diagram, alarming red symbols covered much of her tail unit.

"Calm down, Brains. We're nearly there."

"Virgil? But what can you do? Thunderbird Two's not as fast as One or Whitney's plane. Nor as manoeuvrable. You'll be a sitting duck."

"No, we won't, because they won't be able to surprise us like they did Scott. Besides," Virgil's voice hardened at the memories. "Scott taught me a few tricks after my run in with the Sentinel. We'll be all right."

Brains wished he was as sure. Then he wondered if he should notify base. Then he realised that Jeff Tracy was listening in on their radio communications, and that he would have known that his eldest son was in major trouble…

Letting base know that anyone was in trouble became impossible when Thunderbird Five's systems went haywire. Thunderbird One's on-screen schematics swirled, fizzed, pixelated, and then disappeared. The many voices sending important and less important messages around the globe stuttered, screeched, and were silenced. The global positioning radar showed that the two aerial Thunderbirds flying over the Pacific Ocean were somewhere in the vicinity of Istanbul and Vancouver.

Brains leapt at the microphone. "Thunderbird Five calling Thunderbird Two!"

The only response was static. Then a disjointed. "T…bir… …wo. Thu…d W… dow… …peat… …nder… …s b…n shot d…"

Why had the Thunderbird Five's systems chosen that moment to break down? It didn't take Brains' immense power of analysis very long to come up with a solution. Somehow, upon the impact of crash landing, the auxiliary Mobile Control had been jolted into a semi-operational mode. The very bug that had confused communications during John's earlier testing, was disrupting everything now… At a time when Brains needed more than anything to know exactly what was going on …

-F-A-B-

Gordon would have been sitting on the edge of his seat, if Thunderbird Two's automatic adhesion hadn't sucked him back into it. "How long before we get there?"

"Point…" Virgil glanced at Two's chronometer, "two… five of a min… Hang on?"

"Hang on?" Gordon peered around the screen at Thunderbird Two's pilot. "Hang on to what?"

"Where's the broomstick going?"

"Huh?" Ignoring John's protests in between his unacknowledged pleas for Scott to respond, Gordon switched the monitor to show the scene outside.

The rogue aeroplane was a dot disappearing into the distance.

"Scott! Are you reading me, Thunderbird One?" John switched the monitor back to the scene below them.

Thunderbird One was down.

From this distance, most of her fuselage appeared to be intact and cradled by the large cushioning airbag that had deployed just before impact. But one of what remained of her tail fins was lying on the beach; a long, scoured out gouge leading from it to the downed craft. Her port wing was bent out of shape from where palm trees had been sliced in half by it, and her starboard wing was missing; presumably lying somewhere in the grove of trees on the rocket plane's right.

"Are you reading me, Scott? Come in, Thunderbird One!"

Gordon launched himself to his feet. "Lower me down. I can see how he is while you find a landing place."

Alan was just as quick in his dash to the elevator door. "I'm coming with you. I'm the medical officer."

As John hurried over to the controls that manipulated the elevator car, Virgil answered a radio call.

Or at least what sounded like an attempted radio call. "…d…b…d Fi… …ling Th…bir… …o!"

"Thunderbird Two," Virgil responded. "Thunderbird One's down." He stopped as a wave of static swamped the radio. "Repeat… Thunderbird One's been shot down." He glared at the radio. "What's wrong with this?"

"I think I know."

Turning in his seat, Virgil looked across to where John was controlling the elevator car's speed.

"It sounds like the communications fall-out we had when I was trying the auxiliary Mobile Control."

"Fall-out?!"

"Yeah. Something's wrong with the system and it was causing interference like this. I'd packed it away and had been working from Thunderbird One when Scott got into trouble last time. Maybe the landing switched it back on?"

"But, if it is the Mark II, why's it causing all this interference?"

"I don't know." John slowed the elevator car's rate of descent. "Once the lightning strike had fried the primary unit, I would have used the auxiliary unit in its place. But, as you can hear, it was unusable." He gave a quick nod over at Virgil's controls, as they both heard Gordon announce that they were leaving the elevator car. "What's your positioning systems' reading?"

Virgil turned back to his computer's readouts. "That we're at 27.9881 degrees north, 86.9250 degrees east." His eyes widened. "That's Mount Everest's coordinates! And the altimeter is saying that we're at six thousand metres… Everest is nearly nine thousand metres high."

"And I've only spooled out four hundred metres of rescue cage cable," John told him as he reeled that cable back in. "We'd better land ASAP so I can switch it off and we can contact Thunderbird Five and base. If Brains registered Thunderbird One being shot down and told Dad, they must be frantic by now."

Virgil turned back to his control yoke. "I only hope they're worrying unnecessarily…"

To be continued…