I don't own Thunderbirds.
Please let me know what you think.
The Mechanic's Reward.
"It looks alright from out here, I'll need to check the rest of the antenna," the man known as the Mechanic by the GDS and International Rescue spoke into the helmet radio, and he walked across the surface of Mars close to the dome covering the small colony.
He was out walking across the Martian soil. The communication equipment within the dome was playing out, and the Mechanic had volunteered to go out and take a look; it might be a mundane task, but at the same time it was enjoyable since he could take in the fantastic view. He had yearned for something like this for a long time.
The Mechanic's polarised head stared upwards as he studied the dome, made from reinforced materials. Everything of the Martian settlement was designed and built with great care and attention to detail; it needed to be considering the dangers of what would happen with explosive decompression.
The people here had been nervous about him being here, of course; while the Mechanic didn't really care about how people viewed him, his time on Tracy Island, where he had interacted frequently with the people of International Rescue although at first he had kept himself to himself and had needed to be dragged to meal times and games with the younger brothers, although Alan and Gordon could be annoying, although he had spent a lot of time with Scott and Virgil, who were both highly mature in their own way, had softened him and made him look more carefully at how he interacted with others and when he was allowed to come here, he had worked hard to make everyone trust him.
The Mechanic had been on Mars for seven months now. When he had constructed Earth's first Faster-than-Light engine, the T drive, the Mechanic had been at the height of his career and his work had attracted the attention of everyone, every major scientific institution imaginable. They were all clamouring for him to be a member of their respective institutions, but when the Hood tried stealing the Zero X space craft and it blasted out of space, everyone thought it was an explosion. The Hood took advantage of how everyone then shunned him, believing his work to be a failure and how his work had cost the life of a man many viewed as a hero, and the Mechanic had barely bothered to resist when the Hood had planted that implant which allowed him to take control every now and then.
But for years the Mechanic had been haunted by the failure, and then he discovered the truth.
The Hood's attempt to steal the T drive failed.
Jeff Tracy was alive, but stranded with dwindling resources out there in the Oort cloud.
It had taken him a while, but the Mechanic had come to believe International Rescue, and ever since he had helped Brains and the Tracy's rescue their father, Jeff, who had been launched into the Oort Cloud where he was stranded all this time, everyone remembered his work and he had been lucky when the GDS had worked with Brains to remove the implant in his head. It took the best part of three months, but luckily the Hood and the Chaos Crew were far away and couldn't affect him anymore. Once the implant was out (the operation had taken four hours to complete, and another month to recover from), the Mechanic found there were several offers open to him.
One of them was a position as Chief engineer on Mars.
The T-drive was being studied on Mars, and there was a plan to construct a small fleet of probes by both Mars and Earth to launch them into space and begin exploring the solar system and perhaps even beyond. The Mechanic had received offers from institutions on both planets, but he had had enough of Earth and so he had decided to go to Mars instead. He had been on the Red Planet ever since, helping in the construction of the small fleet of probes.
The general idea was they would be unmanned robotic probe ships which would be launched; everyone had learned from the mistake of launching Zero X; the temptation for criminals was just too high.
The Mechanic had no doubt in his mind the probes would be phase one. They would start charting and taking samples of various asteroids and planets within the solar system, preparing for the important people. Thanks to his expertise and his work ethic, the Martian segment of the exploration operation was well ahead of schedule…. So well ahead, the Mechanic had been splitting his time between Earth and Mars, where he helped them and taught their scientists and engineers on how to make the T-drive work properly.
While this type of work was mundane, the Mechanic looked forward to the day where he would walk on the planets.