Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

All in all, it had been a successful mission. One of Scott's favourites, too; the ones he could do solo, with no requirement to put any of his brothers in harms' way. It was rare to not need the assistance of Thunderbird Two and her cargo – whatever it might be for that mission – but this had been one such simple, easy mission where a couple of drones and a single high-tensile cable had been enough to put the world to rights. No need for Virgil to get out of bed.

And if Scott was enjoying his flight home in blissful silence, John busy directing Alan's latest space junk collecting adventure closely with all available scanners working to full capacity to detect more stealth mines (so maybe they'd had a bit of a scare that one time, although Alan never complained), well, that was his own business. Silence was hard to get in the Tracy family. Five brothers living in close quarters, even if one was usually only holographic, did not lend itself to extended periods of quiet, and that was before Grandma, Brains' experiments and MAX were added to the equation. Not to mention, of course, International Rescue itself.

So when his silence was rudely interrupted by, well, actual silence and the juddering of a Thunderbird in freefall, Scott was not best pleased. He was also a little panicked, although that was a confession he'd take to the grave.

His grave was rushing up to meet him with alarming speed. Beneath his feet, the pale yellow sands of the Sahara were looming closer and closer as Thunderbird One was enslaved by gravity.

Panic was shoved aside to deal with later as instincts and training kicked in. There was no sign of anything that should have been able to stop the Thunderbird's engines mid-flight, but the hows and whys could be also dealt with later, alongside the panic, as Scott threw the entire system into a hard reset.

Nothing.

Panic came knocking again and Scott once more shoved it away viciously, judging by eye how much longer he had until collision if he couldn't get any of the engines working and gauging it to be not enough to risk leaving his pilot chair to get at the additional systems on board. A crash landing it was going to be, then.

Manual backups existed in all of the Thunderbirds, Brains' paranoia unable to let a single craft out for service unless it had multiple ways to protect its passengers. It was those that Scott switched to, flaps and rudders more suited to baby's first plane than the high tech Thunderbird, but a last resort as he shoved his helmet on his head and dragged at the controls to raise her nose.

If she landed nose-first, he'd never survive. Not at these speeds.

Wings extended agonisingly slowly, seeking to create more drag as he kicked the flaps into an airbrake. Gravity fought against him, determined to force the red nose of his 'bird into the ground, and if he had any thinking room to spare he'd have found a new appreciation for John's dislike of it. Pulling back with all his strength, and with his instruments all haywire, he watched the approaching ground rise towards him and prayed it would be enough.

TAG did a good job remaking the classic TB2 crash from Terror In New York City, but they tragically missed TB1′s own crash from The Uninvited… I couldn't let that stand. I haven't finished writing this fic yet, so updates will likely be sporadic as I'm also working on several other TAG works.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari