A/N: If you want to know more about chorine trifluoride and fluoroantimonic acid, look up 'SciShow, Five of the world's most dangerous chemicals' on Youtube. It's also where I got the idea for thioacetone in 'Decontamination'.

CW: Implied swearing

Chapter 9

As he worked his way down to the infirmary, Alan kept his fingers crossed that he'd be able to pull this off. This plan of his had 'should I be worried crazy' written all over it, and that was for the stuff before he made it into orbit, much less everything that was going to come after that point.

What had helped him put this scheme together were the things that he knew that he really shouldn't have known about. Once he'd actually deliberately combed through that particular knowledge bank, the number of things that he was 100% certain that he wasn't supposed to know about was actually kinda surprisingly high.

It was an advantage of being the youngest, smallest and having been taught how to sneak around (as well as a few other things) by Parker. When he really, really wanted to, he could get into all sorts of places unnoticed and people had all kinds of conversations nearby while he was tucked into his corner of the kitchen doing his school work. As long as he didn't make any sudden noises or movements they just forgot he was there.

Most of the things he knew were pretty benign - like how he knew that a tipsy John liked to sing boy band songs in the shower, that Scott had an old NASA hoodie of their dad's that he'd stuff with a pillow and cuddle when he really couldn't sleep, and the locations of two of Kayo's secret chocolate stashes.

There were also a bunch of other things that he knew about that weren't so benign.

For example he knew about the gun safes hidden in Scott and Gordon's rooms and exactly where to find them. He knew about the quite literal kill codes built into all the Thunderbirds- an instant self-destruct should they be stolen and all efforts to recover them fail. He also knew about the secret stashes of stim-shots.

Stim-shots were an idea that Gordon had brought home from his time in WASP- pre-loaded auto injectors with a potent chemical cocktail guaranteed to keep someone on their feet for a good six hours. They were designed to give someone enough time to get themselves out of harm's way and into a safe bolt hole before it wore off. From what he'd pieced together, Virgil and Grandma had been reluctant about making up their own version, but Scott, Kayo and Gordon had argued the need- with their job there would absolutely be times when they had to have something to keep them on their feet long enough to get the job done and get home.

Grandma had eventually allowed them to make up their slightly less potent version on two conditions: One- the stims were kept on Two and in the infirmary. Two- she and Virgil were the only ones who could unlock the drug safes that held them.

They all knew exactly what Scott would do if he had easy access to something like that.

Alan knew a few other things too. He knew about the Hood's threat- he hadn't been as asleep as they all thought. He also knew that he had to get the stim shots away from Scott and John before they remembered them- Big Bros #1 and #2 were on their absolute last legs, with the stims they'd be able to push through but without they'd have to stay put.

He also knew that now it was his turn to step up to the plate. With the GDF grounded, everyone else exhausted, grounded, away or unable to fly and their options limited, he couldn't sit on his hands and wait this time. He was rested, (mostly) recovered and ready.

With that in mind, Alan slipped into the infirmary and unlocked the storeroom that held their medical supplies. The five secured drug safes where they kept the top shelf stuff were at the very back of the storeroom and they were all palm-print access only… unless you had an AI you could sweet talk into helping you.

"EOS, you there?" Alan whispered into his communicator. This was going to be the first hurdle.

"I am." Her reply was almost instant as her icon popped up to hover over his wrist. "How can I assist you?"

"I have an idea on how to stop the Hood, but I need your help." In hushed, short sentences he explained to her about the stim shots, what he wanted to do and what he needed from her to accomplish it.

She queried a few points, he answered as best as he could, then she fell silent as she considered his plan for a long moment- long enough that Alan started to get twitchy. The more time this took, the higher the odds were that someone would notice he was gone and start looking for him.

"The Commander will be displeased with this course of action." She finally announced.

"Yep." Alan nodded his agreement. "But Scott's about ready to fall over, John's not far behind and Gordon doesn't have a suit. If Scott remembers the stims he's absolutely going to do something stupid like double dose himself, I just need one to get me over the line."

There was another long pause as she added his additional arguments to her calculations. Just as he was about to give up convincing her and resort to his 'can opener' she chirped "Very well" and the safe door popped open with a click.

"Thanks EOS." Alan scooped out the bundle of carefully labelled stim shots, quickly checked to make sure there were no more, then shut the door and hurried over to one of the benches that lined the wall of the main infirmary where he laid his spoils out for inspection. There it was! He set his aside for now and the rest went straight into the chute for the medical waste incinerator.

After taking a moment to make sure he was alone, he double checked the instructions, almost completely shrugged out of his suit and pressed the business end of the auto injector into the meat of his thigh. There was a click as the needle buried itself into the muscle and the brief jab of pain was quickly smothered by what felt like the mother of all adrenaline kicks. The sudden rush made his head spin, his heartbeat thundered in his ears and it was like he'd been dropped in an ice bath the way his mind instantly cleared and his skin prickled and tingled. As soon as the initial effects subsided, the spent autoinjector went into the waste chute, his uniform went back on and he hurried out the door.

Phase one complete, Alan went to Three's silo, stopping by the workshop and one of their dangerous goods lockers along the way.

Time for phase two.

0o0o0

The rest of the family were clustered at the desk, partway through running a simulation with the data from the probe, when Alan's absence was finally noticed.

John was leaning over Scott's shoulder to tweak the variables of the simulator when he suddenly stopped and straightened up, alerted by some instinct honed by years of tracking each member of his family. "Where's Alan?" He asked, looking down into the conversation pit and seeing the abandoned blanket.

"What? He was there a moment ago…" Scott trailed off as a faint reverberation built up into a roar and Thunderbird Three lanced up into the pale blue sky. He stared at it for a second in open-mouthed shock, then hit the comms button on his bandolier. "Alan! What do you think you're doing?! Get back here!"

"No can do, Scott." Alan's voice came back to them, crisp and clear. "I've got a plan, it's a good one, but you're too tired and Gordon doesn't fit my suit so it's got to be me." His tone changed, Thunderbird Three becoming their little brother. "Scott, trust me, please?"

Scott wrestled with that question for a long moment, torn between the Commander who wanted to get the job done and save the world and the Big Brother who had come so very close to losing his Baby Brother today. Reluctantly he had to conclude that Alan was already up there, so he really only could say one thing. "Okay Thunderbird Three, but keep us updated."

"F.A.B."

0o0o0

Docking with Five went smoothly. Once the two Thunderbirds were securely locked into each other, Alan checked to make sure all his supplies were secured in the space-proof bag slung across his back and clambered out the cockpit hatch to sit on Three's hull. He'd have to leave her behind for this next bit, provided his hunch played out.

He tapped his radio, knowing that John and the others would absolutely be listening in and he couldn't give away too much in case they anticipated him and decided to try something- he knew his family well and they'd absolutely try and help. That or try stop him. Odds were probably 50/50 either way. "Okay EOS, phase two- show me where it is." Alan murmured.

"Searching…"

Alan worried his lower lip between his teeth as he waited, so much of his plan hung on this! But, he reassured himself, if anyone could find what he needed, it was EOS and Thunderbird Five.

Inside Thunderbird Five, EOS switched off all non-essential systems and spooled herself up to full capacity in preparation for what was to come- the required computer power was going to be immense.

One of John's first loves was the stars and he'd dedicated years to patiently teaching Five's computer everything he knew or could get his hands on about every stellar phenomenon that existed- how identify every fleck of light or spike of emissions, how to measure it, parse out it's secrets and distil it down to its component elements. Five knew the names, habits and characteristics of every single point of light within range of her sensors and telescopes and if she didn't know what something was, she had links into the computer banks of an observatory that did. Through Five, EOS reached out to them all with one question- what has behaved differently today?

A torrent of answers returned to her and she filtered through them all, looking for patterns of distortion along the same path that Global One endlessly trod in her orbit of the Earth. No matter how good the optical camouflage tech was, whenever there was movement there was always some glitch or delay in the bending of light, especially here in the clarity of space without the shimmers of rising heat, piercing rays of sunlight, dappling patterns of light and shadow and gusts of debris-laden wind that could hide such errors from the casual observer on Earth- especially when the vagaries of human vision were involved. Mechanical observers had a far greater level of precision and those were the ones she spoke to now.

Out of the sea of data, the answer she wanted finally floated to the surface.

"Here." EOS sent the location of the cloaked Chaos Cruiser to Alan's HUD and his grin was like the rising sun.

"I knew it!" He laughed in triumph. "There was absolutely no way they'd just set the charges and leave, they'd have to have someone standing by to keep an eye on things! Thanks EOS!"

"You are welcome." EOS replied, satisfied and pleased with herself. "I will continue to track the Cruiser and notify you of any changes."

"F.A.B." Alan stood and took out his hip thruster packs. Considering his target, this wasn't going to be his most accurate or graceful landing, but any landing you could walk away from was always a good one.

0o0o0

Feet up on the edge of the console, a very cold coffee on the floor and bored out of his skull, Fuse leaned back in his chair and idly flicked through the different movies on the tablet he'd smuggled up to keep himself entertained while watching Global One and the proximity charges. He couldn't even download a game to play or call Havoc to see how she was doing with her mission- the Cruiser was under total electronic emissions control with the camouflage up. There were absolutely transmissions in or out aside from the tiny waveband reserved for emergencies only. Fuse let out a groan and tossed the tablet away. Bomb-babysitting duty was so mind-numbing it was starting to hurt!

THUMP

The sudden noise of something smacking into the Cruiser's hull just about made him fall out of his seat and he started to his feet, going towards the front of the ship to investigate. What he saw made him stop short, rub his eyes and bink a few times, then peer out again just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "What the…?" Out of all the things that could have happened today, he absolutely would not have put money on 'the kid Tracy doing a 'bug on the windscreen' impression'. Baffled, he leaned forward to get a better look, killing the camouflage as he did so- as the kid peeled himself up off the glass and shifted to crouch he could see that he had something in his hand and the effects of the camo were blurring it.

Grinning like a mad lad, the kid cheerfully waved at him with his free hand and pointed to his helmet in the universal sign for 'turn your radio on'. Fuse did so. "What in the bleedin' hell are you doing?" He demanded, incredulous. The kid had to be insane!

"Hiya! I'm Alan." The Tracy chirped at him. "And my little friend here is a transparent aluminium box with thirty millilitres of fluoroantimonic acid." He turned the box to show him the label on the opaque container inside. "It's the most dangerous acid in the world- it eats glass like it's cotton candy and it'll tear through your bones to get the calcium! Oh, and I gave it a friend, there's fifty grams of C2 and a remote detonator in there too!" Still grinning, Alan took the backing off a glue pad stuck to one side of the box, pressed it to the windscreen, gave the box a little wiggle to make sure it would stay put, and sat back on his haunches to admire his handiwork. "And now it's stuck to your front viewport!" He cheerily informed Fuse.

"What would you do that for?!" Fuse demanded as he backed well away, feeling the blood draining from his face at the words. While he wasn't as educated in book smarts as Havoc, he'd given himself a pretty decent education in the more common dangerous stuff he might encounter on a job so he knew exactly how far he could push it when stealing things like alsterine and neutrazine. (That thing with the uranium at Shackelton was because he'd never had to lift that before.) But long story short, he had enough chemistry under his belt to know that this stuff was squarely on his 'even I'm not stupid enough to' list.

Alan was still crouched there, but the grin dropped from his face like it'd never existed, replaced by something ice cold and bleak. "Because you, your sister and your boss almost killed me today." He gave a little shrug. "My brothers and sister have a bit more practice at shrugging off stuff like that, but it's the first time for me and I'm kinda taking it personally."

"Uh, yeah, I getcha. Fair enough." Fuse swallowed hard because what on earth do you say to that when you're in space and the youngest nutjob from a family of nutjobs (and you almost killed him today!) has just stuck roughly two tablespoons of liquid destruction (with an explosive for company!) to the outside of your ship. The thought crossed his mind to take the Cruiser down and let re-entry burn it off, but the odds of the teflon acid container shattering and damaging the glass were way, way too high for his liking. You did not want damaged glass for a re-entry. "What do you want?"

"Tell me how to deactivate the proximity charges and leave without telling your boss." Was the simple answer. "Do that and I'll turn off the detonator. You should be able to scrape this," he tapped the box, "off with about twenty minutes of elbow grease and a knife. Just be gentle."

"Right… got it…" Fuse gulped again, tapped on the controls in front of him and brought up the electronic keys for the proximity charges. "Here's the code to temporarily turn them off. It's one by one, there's ten of them and it'll give you thirty seconds, but you have to get really close. I don't have the codes for deactivating them permanently or for the ones on the ship's power core though, only the boss has those." Hoping that'd be enough, he flicked them over and saw Alan nod as they appeared on his bracer computer.

The youngest Tracy tapped out some commands on his bracer and had a conversation with someone else at that point- Fuse could see his mouth moving, but didn't hear anything over the comms, then he looked back at Fuse and tossed off a jaunty two finger salute, the cheeky grin firmly back in place. "All checks out, deal's done." He tapped another control on his bracer and stood. "Bye!" With that he was gone, launching himself off the nose of the Cruiser and swooping away with the aid of his hip thrusters.

Fuse didn't dare let himself relax for a moment, not even when his scanners confirmed the Tracy gone. He shoved the Cruiser's nose around, aimed for an empty patch of space and fired the engines, intending to put a good whack of space between him and the madman before he even thought about prising the box off the Cruiser.

0o0o0

"Approaching Global One now." EOS informed Alan as he crossed the void between him and the massive shape of the space station. "Did you actually take fluoroantimonic acid and C2 explosives from the stores on Tracy Island?" She asked curiously.

"Hell no!" Alan chuckled. "Virgil would have absolutely skinned me alive if I was dumb enough to play around with that stuff or take it onboard Three. The detonator was a real one, just in case Fuse got a good look at it, but for the rest I just grabbed one of the empty containers that Brains hadn't gotten around to recycling yet and some silicone putty. Fuse didn't know the difference."

"I believe the appropriate response is 'remind me to never play poker with you'." EOS observed dryly, then returned to the task at hand. "You are approaching transmission range of the first proximity charge."

"Copy that." Alan reversed his hip thrusters to mostly kill his forward momentum and let himself drift by inches towards the first of the large rectangular boxes that were pacing Global One, an ominous escort that surrounded the sleek white and grey space station. "They're bigger than I thought." He said as he carefully brought himself into position. The thing was the size of FAB 1!

As he drew level with the access panel he wanted, Alan was very aware of every single movement he made. EOS' scans had shown the charges were set for mass and metal, that was the main reason why she'd approved of his crazy idea. He was the smallest and with his hip thrusters he had the greatest mobility with the least metal. Scott and John, equipped with jet pack and exo-pod, would have set them off ages ago.

It didn't stop him from having a lingering thought of 'what if we got it wrong' though.

"Okay, sending the code." He tapped out the command on his bracer and to his great relief the status lights on the side of the flying bomb blinked out. "Bomb deactivated, accessing guidance controls now." Alan opened the hatch and reached into the tangled mess of wires so that the AI could bounce through his suit systems and get at the bomb's primitive brain. "EOS, do your thing."

"Systems accessed, reprogramming complete." EOS replied after a moment. "Thrusters firing in ten seconds."

"Copy." Alan shut the access hatch and kicked off the bomb. "Moving to the next one."

Behind him, the proximity charge changed position with a puff of compressed gas, taking itself out of the formation to plunge down through the layers of the atmosphere and harmlessly burn up. One by one the other bombs peeled off to follow the same path until Global was at last free of her lethal escort.

"Proximity charges removed." Alan reported as he watched the last one turn itself into a shooting star. "Time for phase three."

0o0o0

Down on Tracy Island, Scott was staring at the map of near space that John had brought up for him, his eyes fixed on the little red icon that was their littlest brother. Checking the helpful sidebar with Alan's telemetry for the third time in as many minutes, he now understood why John was almost constantly monitoring their vitals- being stuck so very far away from the action and very limited in what he could do from here while someone else was in the thick of it was inducing a sense of helplessness that he could very happily do without, thank you very much. He was vaguely aware of the rest of the family gathered behind and around him, including a recently returned Virgil and Kayo, but his focus was glued onto the map and the conversation now starting between Alan and Fuse.

He hadn't known what fluoroantimonic acid was, but the strangled noise from Brains and Virgil's blurted 'What the f-!' cut short by Grandma's automatic swat across his shoulder was more than enough information for now. It was only the later conversation that Alan had faked it that let him start breathing again and their engineers regained a more healthy colour.

"...I think we've raised an actual madman..." The words slipped out of him without his consent as he sat with his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands.

John made a thoughtful noise as he reached over to 'borrow' access to one of Global's exterior cameras as Alan approached an access hatch that EOS had already hacked in preparation. "Well, it's understandable," was his comment, catching Scott's attention long enough to gesture at the family. "Look at who he's had to learn from."

"That's not helping!"

"Just be glad he's on our side." John would have said more, but the next sentence from Alan silenced them all.

"Okay, I'm in Global One, making my way to the power core now."