The young man turned to Scott, held out his hand and simply said, "Allen".
Scott stretched out his own hand and met his in a handshake and simply
said, "Scott".
Allen said, "Pleased to meet you"
Holding his right arm straight out, palm up, Walt yelled to Bob, "Ok Bob, let's take up the slack first." Walt slowly waved his arm up and down indicating he wanted a slow lift. With a rattling of chains, the slack slowly disappeared into a taut straight line. When Walt saw this, his immediately changed his arm position to have the palm point outward towards Bob in a STOP command.
"Ok, Bob, you have taken up all the slack. Now very slowly, very carefully let's lift this sucker." said Walt. He was once again waving his arm slowly up and down. The men on either side of the chassis holding the chains, that would prevent side to side swinging, took up the slack of their charges. Allen bending over, hands on his knees and concentrating on the chassis said, "Jonny, you are going to need to hold your side. I can see the chassis is going to move away from you", he said to one of the chain holders.
With a loud moan, followed by grinding, everyone could see movement in the Mole. No one was taking a breath. The men manning the blocks looked ready to run a sprint race, each with a block in front of them ready to slide into place. The men on the side that Jeff and Doc were on leaned a bit against the chain they were holding. Jeff guessed that one of them must be the Jonny, Allen had spoken to.
Suddenly there was air between the chassis and the chocks that John had put into place earlier. The two 'block men' quickly launched themselves towards the chassis, pushing the smallest of the blocks under the chassis. They simultaneously shoved the blocks in the direction of the auger, jamming them under the chassis. The movement of the chassis was barely noticeable, but was happening none the less.
There was more loud grinding at the back end of the Mole. It rested heavily in the dent it had made when it landed against the side of the pod during the final throws of the crash. The Mole now bitterly complained against being forced to leave it's resting-place. It was fighting tooth and nail to stay put.
Everyone looked up when there was a loud "CHANK" from above as the chain repositioned itself around the backhoe bucket from the weight. But it held solidly. It wasn't going to give up a centimeter to the Mole.
Another loud groan came from the auger as it was being forced to move within the confines of the hole it made in the pod floor.
No one had taken a breath.
With a belch worthy of any world-class beer drinker, the back end of the Mole finally gave up it's position against the wall surrendering several inches to the backhoe. The two 'chain men' again launched themselves at the chassis with larger blocks, ramming them under the chassis.
Scott seeing that the timing was right, said to Allen, "NOW!"
The two men lunged at Virgil, grabbing any piece of clothing on his shoulder and pulled. They were expecting him to slide instantly from under the chassis because the pod floor, although presently dirty, is a polished surface. But there was hesitation. It lasted only a fraction of a second, however and once Virgil slipped free from under the chassis, they saw the cause of the hesitation. He was stuck to the pod floor from dried blood. They saw instantly that he had an injured artery somewhere on his torso, and quickly dragged him to the compression suit. They unceremoniously plopped him onto the suit and began to zip up his legs and arms. Doc, first put a pressure bandage over the wound with the arterial damage, then continued by putting heart monitors and other medical sensing devices in strategic locations around his chest. Once the suit is inflated you cannot take any readings unless the equipment is already attached before inflation.
Doc sat back on his haunches, and said, "ok, zip the rest of him up."
Virgil was now fully enclosed in the compression suit with only his head, hands and feet exposed. The Doc attached a small nozzle to the suit and pressed the button on the machine it was attached to. The suit inflated to the proper pressure within seconds. Doc disconnected the nozzle then took the wires that at the one end were attached to Virgil under the suit and attached them to a red box with dials, lights and monitors. As he plugged them it, it came to life with sound and movement. The people around recognized the sound of a heartbeat. Weak and fast. There arose a collective sigh followed by clapping from all the workers from town. He was alive!
Walt, who stopped Bob when he saw that the chassis had moved enough, took a deep breath. He didn't realize that he wasn't breathing through the entire episode.
Behind Doc was another backboard that Scott had brought in earlier from TB1 before they lifted the Mole. Scott and Allen lifted Virgil onto the backboard and strapped him on. As the two men went to lift Virgil, they were suddenly surround by several of the other men who wanted to help move the injured man out. With eight men carrying Virgil, he was as light as a feather. As the group approached TB1, Walt approached the crowd. "ok, guys, this is where you say good-bye." They were disappointed but no one complained. They all understood. Walt took the one end from Allen and spoke softly, "You done good, kid."
Jeff saw that Walt was going into TB1, but at this point in the rescue he was sure Walt had learned a lot more about International Rescue than any other person not purposely privvied to the information. Doc was also going inside, but he needed Doc with Virgil to monitor all the equipment he had attached to his son.
After depositing Virgil on the first aid bed and securing him, Walt turned and left, not looking around, not asking questions, he just left. Jeff was still outside when Walt appeared. Walt shook his hand and said, "I will meet you at the hospital. Don't worry about here. I will clear everyone out and assign one of my men to stand guard over your Thunderbird here." Walt saw the puzzlement in Jeff's eyes. "I not only own the grain store, but I'm also the Chief of Police." Recognition entered Jeff's face, "thus the reference to 'Chief' when Doc asked you to get the backboard." Walt just winked. "Now get that young man outa here!!"
Jeff climbed aboard TB1. Scott had already gone through his pre-flight startup and was ready to take off. He stated over the loudspeaker, "Please clear the area." Then over the intercom to the sickbay, "Doc, strap in".
With a roar, TB1 was off. Scott radioed the hospital asking for the parking lot to be cleared. What he heard back surprised him. "Would using our helipad work for you?" came the response from the hospital. Hesitant for a moment, not thinking that a hospital way out here would even have a heliport, he answered "yes, that would work just fine." The hosptial volunteered more information, "We will have a gurney waiting for you with several of our emergency room team members. Can you give us any information about the patient now?"
Scott changed to internal communications to the sick bay. "Doc, I have the hospital on the line, can you update them on Virgil's condition? Just push the button labeled OUTCOM2." Doc looked up at the intercom and saw the button. Before he pushed it, he said, "Ok Scott, I got it." He pushed the button and said, "This is Doc Amos".
"Oh hi Doc, this is Emily, who y'all bringing in?"
"Hi Em" replied Doc. "I got a real bad one here. He was crushed under heavy machinery. I have him in the suit. We know he has a bleeder in the lower left quadrant of his abdomen, I put a pressure bandage on him, but had him in the suit before we did any more examination. His BP is high obviously because he has the suit on, thankfully he still has a BP. Heartrate is rapid and shallow. Let me see..." Doc looked at the monitor, "his heartrate is 172 and thready. His breathing is rapid and wet sounding, and since I know he already has broken ribs my bet is that he has a pneumothorax. I suspect a broken pelvis just by the nature of the way he was pinned. He also looks to have a broken cheekbone, so we will need a plastic surgeon on hand to take a look at his face. Hey is Dr. Benson around today? He is the best vascular man I know and would probably be the best bet to finding and fixing the bleeder he has in his abdomen".
"Doc, you are so in luck today, Bill Benson is here already. He worked on another young man who had a broken left arm. His brachial artery was damaged, so he had to go in and repair it. Hey and get this Amos, he was from International Rescue! Do you believe it, we got one of their operatives in here! Wonder what they were doing around here?" Emily said excitedly.
Doc said, "Well, hold onto your corset Em, you're getting another one. And, it's not me that's lucky today, it's this young fella."
"Holy Moly!" Doc said. Emily answered with a concerned, "What?!"
"We are already here!" exclaimed Doc, "We should have been in flight another 20 minutes if we went by helicopter. Boy this bird is fast."
"Bird? Did you say bird?, Emily asked unbelievingly. "Don't be telling me you are in one of their Thunderbirds Doc?! Are you?! WOW, I can't wait for you to tell me all about it!"
Scott set the vertical thrusters on and came to a smooth landing on the helipad. And as promised, there by the door stood several people next to a gurney, which seemed to contain several piece of monitoring equipment.
Walt, Allen and the rest of the townsfolk all stood back out of the way as TB1 fired her retros and blasted off. When Scott switched her to forward flight he gave it all she got. The people standing on the ground just stood in awe as the sleek silver bird whisked out of site within seconds. Walt could hear one of the guys saying, "Gee, I wonder how fast she can go?"
Walt turned to Allen, "You did well in there asking Doc to move aside. You are really starting to think on your toes. How would you like to guard this Thunderbird?"
Allen's eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "Really! Awesome! You know I do!"
Walt continued, "Well you have been on the force, what, 3 years now? You have shown to be very trustworthy and enthusiastic in your work. I think I can trust you not to nosey around inside and sell International Rescue's secrets, right? I will alternate shifts with you. Maybe Jerry will take a few hours too. I have no idea how long this duty will last, I don't know when they will start salvage operations. Or if they plan on sending in their own men to guard it. I don't know how large their organization is."
"That's ok" Allen enthusiastically answered.
"Listen, I'm going to head to the hospital now, but I will be back to relieve you for dinner and let you pick up a few items for camping out here. You'll be ok?"
"Allen replied, "Sure thing. Let me know how they are going at the hospital?"
Walt replied, "Be back in a couple of hours." He looked up and figured that there may be about another ½ hour of daylight left. They were lucky, it would have been more difficult to rescue that trapped man using the spotlights."
He looked around and the others were busy loading up the backhoe, the front- end loaders and all the other equipment that they brought out with them. A couple of guys were jerry-rigging the one truck with spare chains to be towed behind another as it hasn't been able to start since moving the cement blocks. When a cloud of dust indicated that just about everyone was gone, Walt climbed in his Jeep, waved to Allen and headed for the hospital.
Allen went into the pod, checked to make sure no one was in there and left. He then went up the hill, into the tunnel that entered TB2 through the window. He used his flashlight to fan the area, making a mental note where items were and were not. He was trying to be very careful to not actually look at individual items, as he wanted Walt to be proud of him. He was not going to steal secrets but he wanted to make sure there was no one left over to sneak into this baby. He turned to leave and he saw a nice large thick metal plate on the floor. He went over to it and tried to pick it up. Gawd, this sucker was heavy. It won't fit through the hole the diggers made. But it would make such a good "door". But he could just chuck it out the huge hole in the back. With the pod gone, he could just drop it out. With a groan and a good old fashioned heave-ho, he lifted the metal plate up and pushed it along it's narrow side to the hole. All he had to do was tip it over and gravity would do the rest. And over it went!
He suddenly felt ill when instead of hearing a soft thunk as it hit the sandy soil, there was a thunderous clunk of metal on metal. He carefully looked over the ragged edges of the hole and realized with horror that it went INTO the pod! Damn! He quickly exited the tunnel and headed down to the pod. He hoped that whatever damage it did was not noticed beyond all the other damage done to the pod from the crash and subsequent rescue. There was a huge dent in the floor, but nothing more. He doesn't think anyone would notice next to all the other damage inside the pod. At least he hopes no one will notice! He went over to where Scott left the handtruck and picked it up. He wrangled the metal plate onto it and headed outside down the ramp of the pod. He looked at the 10 foot or so drop and opted to just let it go. He held onto the truck, but dumped the plate. There was the soft thud he had originally anticipated. He lowered the truck off the pod ramp and then jumped down himself. He looked at the plate, then at the steep hill. At the plate, then at the steep hill. Oh well, he didn't have anything better to do than try to figure out how to get that thing up on the hill.
He sat thinking for a minute then decided to take some of the extra rope that was lying around, tied it around the corners of the plate then took the free end up the hill with him. There was just enough rope to reach the top without lifting the plate. He secured himself with the rope that he used to climb the hill, dug his heels in and started to pull the plate up. It got stuck at the bottom and he almost had to climb all the way back down to unstick it when it finally gave in. Once it was at an angle, it slid up the hill more easily than he expected. One last heave and he had it on top of the hill. He dragged it over top of the tunnel leading into TB2 and plunked it on top. He then removed the ropes and buried the edges in dirt so that if anyone did try to get in, they would be using a lot of valuable time just trying to get the tunnel open. Hopefully he would catch them by then. He sat exhausted. It has been one physically exhausting day. From his vantage point he looked down at the pod. He wished he could close it. But without the remote that Scott had, he was out of luck. He would just have to park his truck right next to it and hope that he would catch anyone that tried to get inside there. He slid down the hill half on his feet, half on his butt. When he reached the bottom, he dusted himself off, got into his truck and pulled it over to the pod door. The last of the colors of sunset was disappearing. He stretched himself out on a couple of blankets in the bed of his pickup and relaxed, thinking about today's events and wondering how the two International Rescue men were doing.
Allen said, "Pleased to meet you"
Holding his right arm straight out, palm up, Walt yelled to Bob, "Ok Bob, let's take up the slack first." Walt slowly waved his arm up and down indicating he wanted a slow lift. With a rattling of chains, the slack slowly disappeared into a taut straight line. When Walt saw this, his immediately changed his arm position to have the palm point outward towards Bob in a STOP command.
"Ok, Bob, you have taken up all the slack. Now very slowly, very carefully let's lift this sucker." said Walt. He was once again waving his arm slowly up and down. The men on either side of the chassis holding the chains, that would prevent side to side swinging, took up the slack of their charges. Allen bending over, hands on his knees and concentrating on the chassis said, "Jonny, you are going to need to hold your side. I can see the chassis is going to move away from you", he said to one of the chain holders.
With a loud moan, followed by grinding, everyone could see movement in the Mole. No one was taking a breath. The men manning the blocks looked ready to run a sprint race, each with a block in front of them ready to slide into place. The men on the side that Jeff and Doc were on leaned a bit against the chain they were holding. Jeff guessed that one of them must be the Jonny, Allen had spoken to.
Suddenly there was air between the chassis and the chocks that John had put into place earlier. The two 'block men' quickly launched themselves towards the chassis, pushing the smallest of the blocks under the chassis. They simultaneously shoved the blocks in the direction of the auger, jamming them under the chassis. The movement of the chassis was barely noticeable, but was happening none the less.
There was more loud grinding at the back end of the Mole. It rested heavily in the dent it had made when it landed against the side of the pod during the final throws of the crash. The Mole now bitterly complained against being forced to leave it's resting-place. It was fighting tooth and nail to stay put.
Everyone looked up when there was a loud "CHANK" from above as the chain repositioned itself around the backhoe bucket from the weight. But it held solidly. It wasn't going to give up a centimeter to the Mole.
Another loud groan came from the auger as it was being forced to move within the confines of the hole it made in the pod floor.
No one had taken a breath.
With a belch worthy of any world-class beer drinker, the back end of the Mole finally gave up it's position against the wall surrendering several inches to the backhoe. The two 'chain men' again launched themselves at the chassis with larger blocks, ramming them under the chassis.
Scott seeing that the timing was right, said to Allen, "NOW!"
The two men lunged at Virgil, grabbing any piece of clothing on his shoulder and pulled. They were expecting him to slide instantly from under the chassis because the pod floor, although presently dirty, is a polished surface. But there was hesitation. It lasted only a fraction of a second, however and once Virgil slipped free from under the chassis, they saw the cause of the hesitation. He was stuck to the pod floor from dried blood. They saw instantly that he had an injured artery somewhere on his torso, and quickly dragged him to the compression suit. They unceremoniously plopped him onto the suit and began to zip up his legs and arms. Doc, first put a pressure bandage over the wound with the arterial damage, then continued by putting heart monitors and other medical sensing devices in strategic locations around his chest. Once the suit is inflated you cannot take any readings unless the equipment is already attached before inflation.
Doc sat back on his haunches, and said, "ok, zip the rest of him up."
Virgil was now fully enclosed in the compression suit with only his head, hands and feet exposed. The Doc attached a small nozzle to the suit and pressed the button on the machine it was attached to. The suit inflated to the proper pressure within seconds. Doc disconnected the nozzle then took the wires that at the one end were attached to Virgil under the suit and attached them to a red box with dials, lights and monitors. As he plugged them it, it came to life with sound and movement. The people around recognized the sound of a heartbeat. Weak and fast. There arose a collective sigh followed by clapping from all the workers from town. He was alive!
Walt, who stopped Bob when he saw that the chassis had moved enough, took a deep breath. He didn't realize that he wasn't breathing through the entire episode.
Behind Doc was another backboard that Scott had brought in earlier from TB1 before they lifted the Mole. Scott and Allen lifted Virgil onto the backboard and strapped him on. As the two men went to lift Virgil, they were suddenly surround by several of the other men who wanted to help move the injured man out. With eight men carrying Virgil, he was as light as a feather. As the group approached TB1, Walt approached the crowd. "ok, guys, this is where you say good-bye." They were disappointed but no one complained. They all understood. Walt took the one end from Allen and spoke softly, "You done good, kid."
Jeff saw that Walt was going into TB1, but at this point in the rescue he was sure Walt had learned a lot more about International Rescue than any other person not purposely privvied to the information. Doc was also going inside, but he needed Doc with Virgil to monitor all the equipment he had attached to his son.
After depositing Virgil on the first aid bed and securing him, Walt turned and left, not looking around, not asking questions, he just left. Jeff was still outside when Walt appeared. Walt shook his hand and said, "I will meet you at the hospital. Don't worry about here. I will clear everyone out and assign one of my men to stand guard over your Thunderbird here." Walt saw the puzzlement in Jeff's eyes. "I not only own the grain store, but I'm also the Chief of Police." Recognition entered Jeff's face, "thus the reference to 'Chief' when Doc asked you to get the backboard." Walt just winked. "Now get that young man outa here!!"
Jeff climbed aboard TB1. Scott had already gone through his pre-flight startup and was ready to take off. He stated over the loudspeaker, "Please clear the area." Then over the intercom to the sickbay, "Doc, strap in".
With a roar, TB1 was off. Scott radioed the hospital asking for the parking lot to be cleared. What he heard back surprised him. "Would using our helipad work for you?" came the response from the hospital. Hesitant for a moment, not thinking that a hospital way out here would even have a heliport, he answered "yes, that would work just fine." The hosptial volunteered more information, "We will have a gurney waiting for you with several of our emergency room team members. Can you give us any information about the patient now?"
Scott changed to internal communications to the sick bay. "Doc, I have the hospital on the line, can you update them on Virgil's condition? Just push the button labeled OUTCOM2." Doc looked up at the intercom and saw the button. Before he pushed it, he said, "Ok Scott, I got it." He pushed the button and said, "This is Doc Amos".
"Oh hi Doc, this is Emily, who y'all bringing in?"
"Hi Em" replied Doc. "I got a real bad one here. He was crushed under heavy machinery. I have him in the suit. We know he has a bleeder in the lower left quadrant of his abdomen, I put a pressure bandage on him, but had him in the suit before we did any more examination. His BP is high obviously because he has the suit on, thankfully he still has a BP. Heartrate is rapid and shallow. Let me see..." Doc looked at the monitor, "his heartrate is 172 and thready. His breathing is rapid and wet sounding, and since I know he already has broken ribs my bet is that he has a pneumothorax. I suspect a broken pelvis just by the nature of the way he was pinned. He also looks to have a broken cheekbone, so we will need a plastic surgeon on hand to take a look at his face. Hey is Dr. Benson around today? He is the best vascular man I know and would probably be the best bet to finding and fixing the bleeder he has in his abdomen".
"Doc, you are so in luck today, Bill Benson is here already. He worked on another young man who had a broken left arm. His brachial artery was damaged, so he had to go in and repair it. Hey and get this Amos, he was from International Rescue! Do you believe it, we got one of their operatives in here! Wonder what they were doing around here?" Emily said excitedly.
Doc said, "Well, hold onto your corset Em, you're getting another one. And, it's not me that's lucky today, it's this young fella."
"Holy Moly!" Doc said. Emily answered with a concerned, "What?!"
"We are already here!" exclaimed Doc, "We should have been in flight another 20 minutes if we went by helicopter. Boy this bird is fast."
"Bird? Did you say bird?, Emily asked unbelievingly. "Don't be telling me you are in one of their Thunderbirds Doc?! Are you?! WOW, I can't wait for you to tell me all about it!"
Scott set the vertical thrusters on and came to a smooth landing on the helipad. And as promised, there by the door stood several people next to a gurney, which seemed to contain several piece of monitoring equipment.
Walt, Allen and the rest of the townsfolk all stood back out of the way as TB1 fired her retros and blasted off. When Scott switched her to forward flight he gave it all she got. The people standing on the ground just stood in awe as the sleek silver bird whisked out of site within seconds. Walt could hear one of the guys saying, "Gee, I wonder how fast she can go?"
Walt turned to Allen, "You did well in there asking Doc to move aside. You are really starting to think on your toes. How would you like to guard this Thunderbird?"
Allen's eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "Really! Awesome! You know I do!"
Walt continued, "Well you have been on the force, what, 3 years now? You have shown to be very trustworthy and enthusiastic in your work. I think I can trust you not to nosey around inside and sell International Rescue's secrets, right? I will alternate shifts with you. Maybe Jerry will take a few hours too. I have no idea how long this duty will last, I don't know when they will start salvage operations. Or if they plan on sending in their own men to guard it. I don't know how large their organization is."
"That's ok" Allen enthusiastically answered.
"Listen, I'm going to head to the hospital now, but I will be back to relieve you for dinner and let you pick up a few items for camping out here. You'll be ok?"
"Allen replied, "Sure thing. Let me know how they are going at the hospital?"
Walt replied, "Be back in a couple of hours." He looked up and figured that there may be about another ½ hour of daylight left. They were lucky, it would have been more difficult to rescue that trapped man using the spotlights."
He looked around and the others were busy loading up the backhoe, the front- end loaders and all the other equipment that they brought out with them. A couple of guys were jerry-rigging the one truck with spare chains to be towed behind another as it hasn't been able to start since moving the cement blocks. When a cloud of dust indicated that just about everyone was gone, Walt climbed in his Jeep, waved to Allen and headed for the hospital.
Allen went into the pod, checked to make sure no one was in there and left. He then went up the hill, into the tunnel that entered TB2 through the window. He used his flashlight to fan the area, making a mental note where items were and were not. He was trying to be very careful to not actually look at individual items, as he wanted Walt to be proud of him. He was not going to steal secrets but he wanted to make sure there was no one left over to sneak into this baby. He turned to leave and he saw a nice large thick metal plate on the floor. He went over to it and tried to pick it up. Gawd, this sucker was heavy. It won't fit through the hole the diggers made. But it would make such a good "door". But he could just chuck it out the huge hole in the back. With the pod gone, he could just drop it out. With a groan and a good old fashioned heave-ho, he lifted the metal plate up and pushed it along it's narrow side to the hole. All he had to do was tip it over and gravity would do the rest. And over it went!
He suddenly felt ill when instead of hearing a soft thunk as it hit the sandy soil, there was a thunderous clunk of metal on metal. He carefully looked over the ragged edges of the hole and realized with horror that it went INTO the pod! Damn! He quickly exited the tunnel and headed down to the pod. He hoped that whatever damage it did was not noticed beyond all the other damage done to the pod from the crash and subsequent rescue. There was a huge dent in the floor, but nothing more. He doesn't think anyone would notice next to all the other damage inside the pod. At least he hopes no one will notice! He went over to where Scott left the handtruck and picked it up. He wrangled the metal plate onto it and headed outside down the ramp of the pod. He looked at the 10 foot or so drop and opted to just let it go. He held onto the truck, but dumped the plate. There was the soft thud he had originally anticipated. He lowered the truck off the pod ramp and then jumped down himself. He looked at the plate, then at the steep hill. At the plate, then at the steep hill. Oh well, he didn't have anything better to do than try to figure out how to get that thing up on the hill.
He sat thinking for a minute then decided to take some of the extra rope that was lying around, tied it around the corners of the plate then took the free end up the hill with him. There was just enough rope to reach the top without lifting the plate. He secured himself with the rope that he used to climb the hill, dug his heels in and started to pull the plate up. It got stuck at the bottom and he almost had to climb all the way back down to unstick it when it finally gave in. Once it was at an angle, it slid up the hill more easily than he expected. One last heave and he had it on top of the hill. He dragged it over top of the tunnel leading into TB2 and plunked it on top. He then removed the ropes and buried the edges in dirt so that if anyone did try to get in, they would be using a lot of valuable time just trying to get the tunnel open. Hopefully he would catch them by then. He sat exhausted. It has been one physically exhausting day. From his vantage point he looked down at the pod. He wished he could close it. But without the remote that Scott had, he was out of luck. He would just have to park his truck right next to it and hope that he would catch anyone that tried to get inside there. He slid down the hill half on his feet, half on his butt. When he reached the bottom, he dusted himself off, got into his truck and pulled it over to the pod door. The last of the colors of sunset was disappearing. He stretched himself out on a couple of blankets in the bed of his pickup and relaxed, thinking about today's events and wondering how the two International Rescue men were doing.