Chapter 5
The completed cream in one hand and two pairs of socks in the other, Scott padded back into John's bedroom on Five. He'd left John, EOS, Lady P and Parker on a conference call with Colonel Casey- hashing out what targets the Hood could be after.
Though he'd usually be sitting in on something like that, right now Scott had to admit that dealing with multiple conversations was too much for him and he had to pare down what he was dealing with at any one time. If he was being honest, the day had caught up with him about two hours ago and he was only upright out of stubbornness and a healthy (?) dose of John's 'emergency only' stash of the cold brew coffee concentrate that Virgil made. John only ever used it sparingly- he wasn't a big caffeine drinker because it made his hands tremble just enough to make manipulating holograms more interesting than it had to be- but today classed as enough of an emergency that he fetched it and poured them both a dose to keep them going a bit longer.
Despite everything, Scott had to smile when he saw their littlest brother sprawled on his belly on the narrow bed and snoring faintly, having wriggled out from under the thick blankets at some point. He shook his head fondly and knelt down, taking Alan's left hand and resting it on his knee so he could generously slather it with the moisturising cream and then pull one of the socks over Alan's hand to keep the cream there long enough to soak in. He wasn't really worried about waking the youngest- while Virgil had earned his nickname of 'the Bear' for how deeply he 'hibernated' and general demeanour on waking, Alan was almost as bad- the kid practically coma'd when he was tired enough but unlike Virgil he was enough of a morning person to be chirpy once he was upright.
He'd finished his task and moved to the tiny bathroom to wash the greasy cream off his hands when John came looking for him.
"There you are." John pressed a cup of fruit juice into Scott's hands as soon as he'd finished cleaning up. "Virgil called- Kayo's suit is finished and she's launching any minute now, he's put together suits for you and Alan and Brains has almost got mine done, you should be able to take Alan back home in the next hour."
"Finally." Scott closed his eyes in relief, leaning back against the wall and sipping the drink slowly- his stomach was in knots from the stress and the caffeine, he had to drink slowly right now. "The GDF?" He asked carefully, dreading what this particular update might entail.
"Six of their ground transports lost power and crashed and two flyers fell out of the sky before they could land- one in Arizona, the other just north of New Delhi." Was the grim report. "A few injuries, some property damage, no deaths. All local authorities have their emergency and rescue teams on high alert."
"Thank goodness for that." Scott took another sip of juice to hide the sharp pang of confused emotions he was feeling- a tumult of guilt at not catching this sooner, relief that it could have been so much worse but wasn't, then another brand of guilt at feeling relief when people still got hurt and he couldn't do anything about it.
But John was much better at reading Scott than he liked to admit, especially up close and in person where he could see all the little twitches and shifts that holograms missed. "None of that, Scott." John frowned at him, arms crossed. "Stop it."
"None of what?" Scott tried to keep up the poker face, even though he knew John could see straight through him.
"That- guilt. Self blame." John scrubbed both hands over his face in an effort to draw his mind back into focus, then waved a hand in a careless gesture in his direction. "Ugh, words. All this, your fault, is not."
"Yes, Master Yoda." Scott intoned, knowing it would and pleased when it did get a brief flicker of a smile out of his weary brother.
"No sidetracking." John ordered, but there was no sharpness or rebuke in his tone. "I've been over the code back to front and inside out, the only way we could have picked this up any sooner was if the clock was set for something like five hours, not thirty. If that had happened we would have been picked up during testing, and that's if the GDF hadn't noticed it first."
"And if it was set for five as soon as the first vehicle had problems the GDF would have had time to stop all shipments of parts before the problem could be widespread enough to ground their whole fleet." Scott mused. "For the Hood's plan to work, Havoc had to make it a long time frame." Scott completed the thought and nodded his agreement with John's reasoning. "Speaking of grounding, you're coming with us on Three." He informed his brother in a tone that wasn't quite the Commander, but still didn't invite argument.
"What?" John blinked at him, surprised.
"Alan's still recovering, you're tired, I'm exhausted," Scott admitted, shamelessly using John's favourite tactics of citing flight hours whenever he hijacked One out from under him. "And I'm well into that flight hours emergency exemption the GDF made for us. Between you, me and Alan we'll have enough parts of a functioning astronaut to get Three safely back in her silo." Scott looked down and huffed a sigh, then looked back up at John. "I'm also finally mature enough to admit that when all this is over and 'later' happens, I'm going to need everyone in arms' reach to keep the freak-out minimal. Gordon will need you too. You know how we are about equipment failure."
John nodded slowly, he knew about 'later'- the habit they'd all gotten into of holding everything together until it was safe to let it all go at once. He also knew about the equipment failure phobia- there'd been a hiccup with the space elevator when it was being developed. The fall out had been…a thing.
Scott glanced in the direction of the bedroom. "It really scared me, John." He admitted. "Holding Alan like that. Remember that spring when you saved that fledgeling robin the barn cat brought in?"
The second born nodded again, letting Scott speak without interruption. That particular barn cat, a half-wild tabby that occasionally ventured into the house, had brought her prize into the lounge and deposited it at their mother's feet. John had been there, and despite Lucille's sad declaration that it probably wouldn't make it, he'd been determined to save it. He'd found an old fanny pack and turned it into a makeshift nest that he wore across his chest, tucked under his shirt to keep the baby bird warm while he researched how to care for it. Once the information was collated he'd then unceremoniously tasked Scott with bird-warming duties while he built a proper incubator and sent Virgil off to find appropriate food.
Despite the odds the robin had made it, fluttering off into the trees after a couple of weeks of tender care. He didn't quite have a Disney moment of the bird fluttering back to greet him, but there was a robin around that was unusually comfortable being close to them.
"Holding Alan reminded me of that robin." Scott fidgeted with the half-empty cup. "Reminded me of Mom's nickname for him too- baby bird." He didn't mention all the other memories that this had brought up- the mountain, hypothermia again reaching out with icy fingers to try and snatch their littlest brother away from them. He didn't need to. John knew how he thought, and in this weird in-between place they were in- grounded, vulnerable, stuck between actions, waiting, oscillating between the mindsets of Thunderbird One and Scott, there were a lot of thoughts bouncing around inside his head.
Without a word John tugged him into another close hug, forehead pressed against Scott's and hands on his shoulders, grounding him and lending him some strength to keep going a little longer.
0o0o0
At the same time, Kayo was immersing herself in the feel of her Thunderbird around her- the thrum of her engines, the vibrations of the controls in her hands and the little bump of the sound barrier breaking as she chased the night back across the world to California, using the sensations to calm her racing thoughts by blotting out all but her goal- getting to the factory.
She'd alerted Rigby as soon as the finished suit was in her arms- he'd had to land his flier at a USAF airfield just outside of the city and had hitched a ride on, of all things, a military fire truck. He was still thirty minutes out, so she'd agreed to stand off and circle the perimeter until he arrived.
She felt a little smile tug at her lips at the strangeness of it all- Riggs and his fully armed team in one of those squat and blocky fire trucks that inhabited airports. She had to capture a holo of that for Alan, for whatever reason those particular fire trucks always struck him as funny.
The thought of Alan, up on Five, sobered her though. Since the first time she met him, she'd characterised him as a ray of sunshine in the family, full of love and ready with a grin or an invitation to play. That someone had hurt him, even though he wasn't the actual target… the idea swooping out of the sky like a hawk, picking up Havoc's muscle car Spoiler with Shadow's grips and dropping both it and her into the bay was remarkably tempting.
Kayo shook her head to dismiss the fantasy and put her attention back onto the task at hand. John had forwarded her the summary of the threat assessment he'd cooked up with Penelope and the others so she could run her eye over it. Top of the list had been their home- without GDF backup they were remarkably vulnerable if the Hood did decide to try for them again. She'd left Gordon to activate all of their storm and tsunami defences, locking down everything. EOS had taken direct control of their network- if Havoc or anyone else tried a cyber attack the AI was in enough of a temper to fry someone, potentially literally if someone linked in using cybernetic implants.
They'd left Casey to organise the defences of everything else- key depots and stockpiles of raw or processed material, gold, iridium, titanium, various fuels and the nuclear hot spots like Shackleton- all the Hood's favourite things to steal- valuable, transportable and utterly untraceable once sold on. The colonel was in a rare mood- Kayo could see the utter terror of a squad leader she'd been back in 2040, ruthlessly running roughshod over objectors as she shuffled resources around like a chess grandmaster.
Below her the Californian coastline finally came into view, glowing with light, and she activated her camouflage to blend in with the night. She streaked through the dark skies until her GPS alerted her she was over the factory. Kayo tipped her 'bird up on one wing to circle the facility- dark but for a scattering of security lights and the hallways in the tower of the office section that sat like a meerkat on watch above the flat roof of the factory itself. A press of a button and Shadow's sensors were reaching down to scan the area.
"Kayo to Rigby, I'm circling the factory now. No sign of Havoc or anyone else." She radioed, firmly settling herself into her task at hand.
"Copy that." Rigby's voice came back to her. "We're still…14 minutes away."
"Understood, I'll wait for you and update if anything changes." Kayo programmed the autopilot and settled in to wait with all the patience of a hunting cat, her Thunderbird scanning, rechecking and searching for the slightest trace of the presence of the Chaos Crew or their master.