Gordon had no idea what the hell was happpening.
One minute TB3 launches, the next minute a submarine shows up on their radar, a little too late as there are strangers right at their front door already.
Gordon did the only thing he could, he got rid of the evidence of IR, operation cover-up began and he had to get Brains into hiding as soon as he could. He had no idea where any of the others were, Kyrano and Onaha and... oh god the kids, he hoped they were safe and already hiding from these guys.
Brains stopped him in his tracks as he was pushing the genius somewhere.
"Mr T-Tracy, wait. If these people know we are International R-Rescue, then they will know you are one of th-them. You m-must hide and leave m-me here." Brains said.
"Sorry Brains, not happening. You're all my repsonsibility right now and I'm not jumping ship." Gordon insisted.
Before Brains could reply, a thud was sounded outside the door- they were here now. The door opened violently and Gordon attacked the first person to enter hoping to take them by surprised. Too bad that it was a man much bigger and heavier than Gordon and he found himself dropping to the floor like a sack of rocks immediately. In a daze, he took in the scene; the man who took him down had picked up Brains by the collar. Gordon attempted to get up, only to be push back down onto his chest by the boot of a woman with flaming red hair.
"I wouldn't go anywhere if I were you." She smiled, as a third man stepped into his vision. bald and dressed in a crimson red robe.
"Who are you? Answer me!" Gordon demanded.
"You aren't in any position to demand anything of us. But now you have the honour of being part of our own demands." The robed man replied, smiling menacingly. The man glanced at the portraits, seemingly inmocent pictures of the family, minus Alan, but Gordon called that a blessing in disguise considering the events currently happening.
"Professor Hackenbacker?" The red haired woman began. Gordon hadn't realized that she took her boot off his back and was now terrorizing Brains who was forced to sit on the sofa. "We met at last year's conference on nanotechnology. I thought your thesis on neutrinos was extremely stimulating."
"Transom, concerntrate." The robed man said.
'Okay, her name is Transom, that's a start.' Gordon thought. He dared not to move, he suspected if he kept silent long enough he would find out all their names and be able to find out what they wanted.
Transom took out a device and scanned around the room, stopping at the desk as the beeping grew more rapid. "The control switch is here. Fingerprint recognition system."
The robed man turned to Brains. "Professor, please activate the control switch."
"N-n-n-no way." Brains said defiantly.
"Professor, I'm not sure you understand the situation." The robed man said. He gestured to the other man in the room, who then grabbed Gordon by his shirt and held a knife to his neck.
"Don't even think about it Brains." Gordon hissed through gritted teeth, trying his best not to move and touch the blade close to his skin.
"As I said before, you are not in any position to demand anything of us." The robed man said. His eyes suddenly started glowing and Gordon barely noticed the knife leaving his neck as pain exploded through his head. This strange man has powers? Just great!
"G-G-Gordon!" Brains stuttered, looking ready to attack the robed man.
"Activate the control switch, professor."
"Don't, Brains!" Gordon said, looking ready to pass out.
"I'm sorry Mr T-Tracy." Brains said as he placed his hand in the scanner. The pain stopped but Gordon, losing his balance and strength, fell back onto the floor, gasping heavily.
The scenery around them changed, and the portraits changed to the boys and Jeff all wearing their IR uniforms, and the desk switching out for a large control panel.
"Wonderful." The robed man smiled as he and the other two strangers stepped onto the control panel. "Now we begin."
While Tracy Island was being invaded, TB3 had begun docking sequence into TB5. They recieved a transmittion from John as they were closing in, him begging them to hurry up because the systems were all failing on him.
It was grim how panicked he sounded, he was meant to be the calm and level-headed brother.
"We're almost there John, hang on." Jeff said.
"Docking sequence in 3... 2... 1. Docking sequence complete. Tunnel hatch secure." Scott said.
"Emergency packs boys, let's move!" Jeff said.
They couldn't get out their seats and into 5 fast enough.
When they opened the air lock, they instantly saw that it was a lot worse than they thought. No brother in sight, there was just a mess of wires and half the lights were hanging off the ceiling and sending showers of sparks everywhere.
"John, where are you?" Scott called out, grabbing a fire extinguisher and tackling some of the bigger flames.
The constant thrum of the broken Thunderbird was interrupted by coughing, and Virgil saw movement under a pile of rubble that used to be part of the ceiling above the control panel. Somehow when John was sending out his transmittion to 3, the ceiling must have collapsed on him.
"John!" Jeff exclaimed, instantly moving to check his sons vitals as Virgil and Scott moved the debris off him gently but quickly.
"Boy am I glad to see you guys." John gasped, attempting to move but being in too much pain to be able to.
"Hold on John, you could have a spinal injury, stay still, let me assess you." Virgil said, holding John on the floor gently by his seemingly uninjured shoulder. Virgil faltered a bit, John was lying in the worst possible position- face down so his breathing was obstructed, especially having had the ceiling crushing him onto the grated metal flooring. Yet Virgil couldn't move him unless he deemed it safe.
"Scott, take out the fires, try and get the systems online." Jeff commanded.
"FAB Dad, something about this isn't right though, don't you think?" Scott asked as he got on with his fathers commands.
"The supposed meteor strike? Definitely not caused by a meteor." Virgil said.
"We can discuss this later, can we move John?" Jeff asked.
"With great care, yes. I need another set of hands to push him over onto his back and I need a backboard to push him onto." Virgil requested.
"I got the backboard." Scott said, having spotted it on the wall and being closer to it than they were. He grabbed it and placed it next to Johns prone form, ready to help.
"Okay Dad, hold his head steady, Scott, on three, his shoulders. One... two... three!" Virgil said. Smoothly and with great practice, John was successfully laid on the board and strapped in.
"Isn't this a bit... excessive?" John asked, his voice more like a whisper.
"Don't start on me space boy." Virgil snapped in good humour. He knew John would be like this.
"What's the verdict?" Jeff asked as he watched Virgil place an oxygen mask over John's face.
"I suspect his spinal cord was jarred by impacting something in the initial blast. It's a miracle he dragged himself all the way over here to continue to try and make contact with us. We need to keep him still and restrained now, I'll monitor him to see if it improves enough to walk him off 3." Virgil said.
"Good job son. Scott, get the hatch open, we're returning to 3 now." Jeff commanded.
"I- I can't. The mechanism's jammed." Scott said, struggling with the door.
"Son, open the door." Jeff said.
"I can't, Dad! I lost control!" Scott said, stepping back.
"Indeed you have." Spoke a new voice in the room. The three men immediately looked towards the monitor, where the voice was coming from, and saw the worst sight they could have gone their lives without seeing- Tracy Island had been compromised.
"What-" Virgil started.
"As you can see, Thunderbird 5, I have taken over your facilities. You no longer have control over your operational systems." The robed man said. In the frame was Brains being held captive by red headed woman, and in the background they could see Gordon on the floor with a larger man standing above him. "Warm them up Transom."
"Increasing temperature to maximum." She replied, turning the dial.
Just then, the doors opened and two guards entered, throwing in Kyrano and Onaha, who struggled against their captors.
Kyrano recognised the man in the robe instantly. "You..."
The robed man's eyes turned yellow once again and Kyrano suddenly caught his head in his hands and fell to the floor in pain. This lasted a few seconds longer before the man ceased his torture and wavered slightly.
"Okay okay, you have our attention. Who are you?" Jeff asked.
"Oh how rude of me! You can call me the Hood. Now listen carefully, Mr Tracy, there will be no negotiation. I'm going to use the Thunderbirds to rob the worlds biggest banks, starting with the Bank of London. The worlds monetary system will be thrown into chaos and the Thunderbirds held accountable." The Hood explained.
"You'll never get away with it!" Scott shouted, just as Gordon exclaimed "Like hell!"
"Oh silly me to have forgotten about your dear brother here." The Hood said, smirking at the man still lying on the floor. With a flicker of eye contact between the Hood and the large man behind Gordon, said man kicked Gordon in the stomach, leaving Gordon reeling in intense pain, his eyes shut tight.
" Why the Thunderbirds?" Jeff asked, attempting to draw attention away from Gordon, whilst also giving Scott a warning brush of the hand out of view on the screen.
The Hood turned back to the monitor. "An eye for an eye, Mr Tracy."
"An eye for an eye?"
The Hood merely picked up Kyrano and pulled him in view of the screen. The latter made eye contact with Jeff. "I'm sorry Mr Tracy, I thought he was dead."
"Take them away." The Hood ordered his men.
Suddenly a sneeze could be heard above the office. The guys on Thunderbird 5 paled slightly- the vents above the office, the kids were there!
Brains moved quickly to pretend that the sneeze came from him, but the second one had drawn all their attention to the fact that someone else was listening into the conversation.
Gordon glimpsed a flash of blond along with two darker heads of hair and regretfully knew he had to make a split decision there and then. He glanced at Brains as all the attention turned to the vents, to see the scientist mouth the word "Go!" and thus his decision was made.
As the large man shot his hand up into the vent to grab one of the kids, Gordon was forced to endure hearing their panicked screams as he took the opportunity of no one watching him to open a secret panel in the floor and sliding into it, successfully escaping. He knew Alan would handle this, he would look after Fermat and Tin-Tin. They would get out of this situation and head straight for the silos, where they would be surrounded and armed with the machinery they definitely knew how to operate. They'd be fine, Gordon thought, as he clambered through the secret tunnels towards TB4's underwater entrance.
He'll most certainly meet up with them soon and get the hell off the island together.