WARNING: rockslides, thunderstorms, descriptions of injury including blood.

The Very Noisy Night

The wind whipped up a frenzy around him, making the trees groan and the fabric of their tent rustle. A faint smell distant rain reached his nostrils. There was definitely a storm on the way. Scott shivered, shifting to a slightly more comfortable position. Although, the expectation for comfortable was pretty low, considering he sat in the mud with his back against a stray log. Virgil would kill him if he knew he was out here. But then, Virgil didn't have much awareness of anything right now – his head injury was seeing to that.

The thing was someone had to keep watch. Maybe he was being cynical, but nothing that had happened today felt accidental.

They'd been called out to rescue some hikers who had fallen down a sinkhole. Not a particularly big one, and really it wasn't the kind of thing they dealt with, but apparently local search and rescue were skittish about the area. John called it superstition. Scott called it reason to be cautious. After all, he still remembered uncovering the truth behind local superstitions had uncovered giant reptiles in the past. So, unwilling to take a chance, Scott decided a larger team would be safer – so in the end, all four earth-bound brothers attended. The coordinates were not easily reachable in any of their main crafts. Located in a dense forest at the bottom of a valley, there wasn't anywhere nearby to land. So, they found the best spot they could before switching to land pods and trekking over that way. It was slower, and more tedious, but it was the only option. So off they went, Scott and Alan in one pod and Virgil and Gordon in the other.

Only, when they'd reached the rescue zone, there was nobody there. Sure, there was a big old sinkhole in the middle of the forest, no arguments there. But it was empty. No life signs on their scanners, and nothing picked up by the drone they sent down. They asked John to double check the coordinates with the hikers, but he couldn't get through to them. Scott made the executive decision to return to Thunderbird Two. Alan had protested; what if there really was someone in trouble and they were just in the wrong place? They'd be leaving someone to die. But, as Scott reminded him, they weren't abandoning them, they were just regrouping. The kid still wasn't happy about it and hopped in the pod with Virgil by way of protest.

They were carefully picking their way back up towards the top of the valley when it happened. A deafening crack split through the air. For space of a breath or two, time seemed to slow down as Scott's brain connected the dots. He could pinpoint Gordon's realisation too, though his usual creative swearing was drowned out by a thunderous roar. His warning shout to Virgil and Alan was useless. The rockslide was on them before he could even finish his sentence.

The sound of the tent being unzipped behind him stirred Scott from his thoughts. He looked just in time to see Gordon shimmy out of the tiny gap and close it behind him.

'You should be sleeping,' Scott whispered as his brother came and sat beside him.

'I have,' Gordon replied. 'Your turn.'

He shivered again. That was concerning. If it had just been himself, he could have put it down to paranoia. A protective big brother instinct honed over the years that, maybe, on occasion was a little over the top. But if Gordon thought they needed to be keeping watch as well… well, then maybe Scott was right. Maybe it was no accident.

As if he could read his mind, Gordon said, 'I don't think it was the Chaos Crew.'

'No?' Scott raised an eyebrow. 'Why's that? This is exactly their M.O.'

'Two reasons.' He held up his fingers to count them off. 'One: the noise was all wrong. It sounded more to me like the detonator was buried – just in the right place so that we wouldn't see it but the explosion could still be controlled. Fuse is too haphazard to put that much thought into it, and Havoc's no explosives expert. Two: if it was them, they'd have attacked us by now. I think this is about our equipment, and gunning for a Thunderbird didn't work out so well for Havoc last time.'

'Good points. So, you think whoever did this is ransacking Two right now?'

'Possibly. It'd explain why they've not caught up to us yet. If they're even coming for us.'

'Unless they think we're dead,' Scott replied. 'They could be back at the island now, doing more damage.'

Gordon laughed humourlessly. 'You really think Kayo would let that happen? Or John for that matter?'

That was true. Scott tried to smile, but his brother's words reminded him of another concerning matter: the lack of contact from their space monitor. 'Do you think whoever did this put some kind of comms jammer in place? Remember how Virgil couldn't get in touch with us when the Luddites attacked London? Or the Hood's jamming bubble when he crashed Lady Penelope's auction.'

'I hadn't thought of that,' Gordon replied, a frown creasing his brow. 'But, I mean, all our equipment seems to be working, so…'

'So maybe something a little lower tech, or… or…' Scott shook his head. 'I don't know.'

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind picking up around them. Scott's body was starting to get stiff from the cold, despite the protective layers of his suit. The flickering glow of the heating cube in the tent behind them cast long shadows in the trees around them, and it was very tempting to dive back in and get himself warm. But the flip side was that even the slightest movement in those shadows had him on high alert. Someone had to keep watch.

'You know, I meant it when I said your turn,' Gordon said suddenly. 'You need rest too.'

'I'm fine,' Scott snapped.

'I never said you weren't, just that you needed sleep.'

'I'm keeping watch.'

'You know I have eyeballs too, right?'

'Gordon,' Scott warned.

'Look –' Gordon sighed – 'I promise, I'll wake you up at the first sign of trouble. And it'll just be for an hour or two. But, Scott, you know I'm right. It feels like we're gonna have to fight our way out of this, and we both need to know that we're each well rested enough that we can have each other's backs. I can't fight if I'm trying to keep an eye on you as well as Alan and Virgil. So, please, make my life a little easier and just get a little bit of shuteye. Please.'

Growling, Scott stood up and brushed himself off. He hated to say it, but Gordon was right. To argue with him would be a waste of breath – he'd just spin it back on him again. This was what they were trained for. It was the one life experience that they shared that the other three would simply never get. As much as he wanted to protest, that well-trained soldier in him knew that, tactically speaking, sleeping now, while things were quiet, was the right move.

'One hour,' he conceded. 'No more.'

It had been two hours. Gordon smirked as he watched the last-minute tick over. Fair was fair – he'd only intended on getting an hour himself and he ended up sleeping for three. He blamed the heat cube. It made you drowsy, he swore.

But more than anything, he knew Scott needed the rest more than he let on. The lack of argument was telling enough, even if Gordon knew that, from a military standpoint, he was right. Sleeping in shifts was standard practice there; here it was also a kindness. Because here they were all hurting. Some more than others, granted.

When he and Scott had scrambled out of their relatively undamaged pod, the first thing they'd done was go in search of Virgil and Alan. The other pod was in bits, but thanks to Brains's wonderful engineering, it had done its main job of keeping those in it alive. Virgil was the worst off. His face was a mottled mess of purples and blues, and he'd definitely sustained a concussion. A deep cut on his thigh was gushing with blood, though miraculously no arteries had been hit. On top of that, his left shoulder was dislocated, and they suspected he'd cracked several ribs. Moving was agony for him, and he'd thrown up a few times for good measure as they limped away from the danger zone.

Somehow, Alan was only walking away with a tiny bump to the head and a broken arm. They wouldn't know until it was x-rayed, but Gordon thought it was probably broken in three places. At a guess, he'd need surgery when they got out of this. But once he'd gotten over the initial shock, Alan was a trooper as always. In fact, Gordon had put him to good use making sure Virgil woke up every few hours. He felt mean asking the kid to do it, but his reasons were three-fold. One: Virgil the bear was scarier when injured, but he was less likely to attack the baby of the group. Two: He'd been itching to do something to help because Scott hadn't let him help set up the tent (not that there was much to do anyway – you just threw the packet on the floor and it popped up). Like the rest of them, Alan liked to be useful. Three: Alan was not keeping watch. Not if this really was a targeted attack. Gordon wasn't prepared to put him in the firing line like that.

As for Scott, he hid it well, but Gordon had been watching him. Stiff movements and the way he held himself suggested cracked or bruised ribs. He'd admitted to a bump on the head when Alan spotted the bruising, but he wasn't concussed. Then there was the heavily disguised limp. Gordon had worked out that it was the right side that was bothering him, but he couldn't quite work out the injury. Possibly the knee, because he knew his brother had a weakness there from an old injury, but he couldn't be sure. That was another reason Gordon was letting him oversleep – as punishment for not being upfront about his condition.

Not that he could claim first prize for honesty either. Although, to be fair, no one had explicitly asked him if he'd been injured – they were more focused on Virgil, to be honest. And they were all going to fuss over Alan because that was just what they did. While there was this expectation that you had to watch Scott like a hawk in case he was hiding an injury, there was also an expectation of how Gordon would handle one. Because Gordon always, always, spoke up when he was hurt. The trick here was that he always told Virgil or John. Neither of them were options right now and, well, someone had to be okay.

Besides, it wasn't like he was hiding a broken bone or a severed limb or anything. He'd managed to escape a head injury because, unlike his brothers, he'd made a grab for his helmet the moment he knew they were going to be hit. But he'd wrenched his elbow and tweaked his back a bit. Neither injury was particularly debilitating though – he could handle the level of pain being thrown at him, especially with the aid of painkillers. He knew his body and he knew his limits. If he needed to, he could fight like this. Would he get in trouble for it? Yes. Was there the possibility that he could make things worse for himself? Yes. But he could do it.

That was the point. He could get by. So could Scott, with a little rest. Neither of them would be firing on all cylinders, but together, even at as little as fifty percent, they could do it. And they were both working on a little more than fifty percent. There were only a few hours of darkness left. They just had to hold out a little longer. As soon as it was light they could keep moving, put a little more distance between themselves and the danger zone, maybe get back to some kind of civilisation so they could call the GDF. They couldn't go back to Two, not when there was the possibility of it being picked apart by criminals. Gordon planned on advocating as much to Scott when he woke him up.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Gordon counted the seconds, judging the distance. When sky finally light up, he grinned. Fifteen seconds. That was longer than the last one. The storm was moving away from them – it had skirted around them, missing them entirely. Finally, some good news. At the next clap, he counted again. Fifteen seconds. A bright flash.

Gordon stiffened. There was a distant shadow through the trees. A human shadow.

As quietly as he could, he scrambled back into the tent. He smacked the heat cube to shut it off, plunging the tent into darkness. He barely had to shake Scott before his eyes opened.

'They're here,' he whispered.