Hunter, Prey
By Sapphire
Disclaimer in part 1
Chapter 1 – Underwater Discovery"Is this the location?"
John Tracy checked the display of the device he was holding and nodded.
"Just the spot, Gordon. We're exactly above it. Stop the boat."
His brother Gordon complied and cut off the engine. He then peered over the side into the water below.
"I can't see anything," he said, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. "Not that I expect to. It's three hundred feet to the bottom here."
John didn't ask how it was that his brother knew exactly the depth of the ocean here. Gordon was an aquanaut by nature. Sometimes John suspected he was more at home in the water than on land. In the twelve years since the family had settled on Tracy Island, the copper-haired man had explored every reef, underwater cave and crevice that was to be found in and around the island. He knew the ocean here as well as the back of his hand.
"Care to speculate on what we're going to find?" he asked his younger brother.
Gordon frowned. "No idea really. The proximity detectors couldn't make heads or tails of the data. Only thing clear was that it was coming from above somewhere. Could be a meteorite or the toilet seat from an abandoned space station for all I know. Only way to find out is to go down."
This morning, the proximity alarm systems from Tracy Island had spotted a small object moving in fast from overhead, only to disappear in the ocean less than a mile away from the island. Normally an object so small wouldn't have warranted a closer investigation. However, two days ago, another object similar in size had arrived, pretty much in the same spot. So it was decided that Gordon, as their resident aquanaut, and John who was for a change on the island while Alan, their youngest brother, was pulling a shift on Thunderbird 5, were sent to investigate.
They just couldn't risk that it was something that might compromise the security and the secrecy of the island.
And Tracy Island held a secret. A rather big secret, actually. Unbeknownst to most of the rest of the world, Tracy Island, which looked on the outside like the eccentric get-away of billionaire Jeff Tracy and his five sons, was in fact the hidden headquarters of International Rescue, an organization dedicated to saving lives all over the planet.
IR was in possession of some of the world's most advanced machinery. Several organisations and individuals around the globe would like nothing better than to get their hands on the machines that were at the heart of International Rescue: the Thunderbirds. But Jeff Tracy was adamant that they were only used to help and never to hurt, so he had built a huge smoke screen to protect them. Hiding the fact that Tracy Island was more than it seemed to be was but the first step in that smoke screen.
John pulled on his wetsuit and flippers while Gordon went once more over their other diving equipment, checking each part thoroughly. After finishing the checks to his satisfaction, he helped John to slip his tank on, before donning his own.
"Ready?" he asked, testing the communication system in their masks.
"I'm ready," John replied, sitting down at the edge of the boat.
"Gordon to Scott Tracy. We are ready."
Scott, their oldest brother, was monitoring the mission from their father's office on the island. Jeff Tracy himself was at a meeting in Taiwan together with Virgil, the last of the brothers, and had left the island and the running of International Rescue in his oldest son's capable hands. After two years of operations, he finally had learned to ease up a little, much to the relief of all his sons.
"FAB. You two be careful," came their brother's voice from speakers built into their diving masks.
"Aren't we always?"
"Yeah, sure, you are," Scott teased back, but then let it go. Scott could be a little bit too overprotective at times. It was part and parcel of being the oldest of five healthy and very active brothers, especially after their mother had died thirteen years ago. His younger brothers had long accepted Scott's mother-henning, though that didn't mean they wouldn't tease him about it once in a while.
The two brothers grinned at each other, then simultaneously dropped backwards over the railing of the boat into the water. The got their bearings and started to swim downwards, following the diving line Gordon had dropped earlier.
As always when John was diving, it was driven home to him how much the world under water resembled the world in space. By nature, both were hostile to humans, requiring special equipment to survive. The smallest mistake could spell disaster. But at the same time, both worlds had an odd beauty – a tranquillity – that was not to be found in the area above water and below outer space.
Silently, he followed Gordon down. At a hundred feet, the light from above began to fade, so they switched on the strong lights attached to their diving masks. Everything had lost its colour by now; even Gordon's bright yellow diving suit had dulled to a pale grey. Thanks to their advanced equipment, there was no need to adjust for the increasing pressure as they went down, so they made good time.
After a short while, they reached the bottom where the anchor of the diving line sat. Gordon stopped, waving his light beam around. The ground down here was pretty desolate. No natural light reached it, and so no plants were growing. All there was was sand and rocks and occasionally a silver fish flitting by.
John stopped next to Gordon, pulling out the tracking device he had used earlier. He tapped his brother on the shoulder to get his attention.
"Gordon, it must be somewhere over there." John pointed in the direction of some large boulders to their left.
"Okay, let's check it out. Scott, we're heading in a southern direction."
"FAB," came Scott's reply, muffled through the mask's speaker.
As they passed the boulders, a new light started to blink on John's tracker.
"Wow," he called out. "Got something."
"What is it?" Gordon asked as he floated above his brother, trying to get a glimpse of the display.
"Give me a moment." John pushed a couple of buttons. "That's strange," he muttered more to himself.
"What do you see, John?" Scott's voice asked.
"The tracker detects metal, but the alloy is something it can't make sense of."
"Maybe it's a meteorite after all," Gordon offered.
John shook his head, but then realizing that Scott wouldn't be able to see him, spoke, "No. If it were a meteorite, I'd detect more iron. The composition here is all wrong."
"Well, I guess we'll find out when we get closer." Gordon, having noted the direction John had been pointing the tracker, swam off. After a moment, John followed him only to almost swim into his younger brother when he stopped in front of him.
The beams of his mask's light caught a brief reflection, so he aimed his head there.
"What's this?" John asked, perplexed.
In the light's glare, they saw an object obviously made of metal. Less than a yard across, it was more or less oval shaped, with a square box attached to one end. The surface was smooth, with no obvious openings in it.
"John, Gordon, what have you found?"
"I have no idea, Scott," John replied to the voice in his mask. He proceeded to describe the strange object, as he swam around it, flashing his camera for further reference later.
"It looks kinda like a toy space ship," Gordon cut in. "See, that box there could be the engine and the round bit is for the traveller." Gordon had swum down to the ground and now stood more or less next to the object, holding his position with easy waves of his hands.
"What would a toy space ship do here?" John asked.
"No idea. I just said it looks like one. It's probably something totally different. It's too small for a real space ship anyway."
"It's certainly not a design I've seen before," John said. Considering that John knew more about any kind of spacecraft and satellite than most people learned in a lifetime, this was saying something.
"You think we can take it back to the island?" Gordon asked next.
"It's the only way if we want to find out what it is," John replied. "What do you think?"
Gordon considered the situation in front of him, then proposed his plan. "Easiest would be to put that thing into a net, then blow a balloon. Unless it's much heavier than it looks, it will go up to the surface no problem."
John nodded. "Okay, let's do it."
He pulled a package from the back of his belt and opened it, pulling out a net made out of a thin but extremely strong fibre. He then moved closer to the object lying on the ocean floor, preparing to pull the net around and under it, so his brother would be able to attach the balloon he was readying.
He had no warning whatsoever about what was to come next. The moment his fingertips touched the strange object, the whole surface seemed to ripple for a second in the reflection of his mask lights.
Then, without any sound, it exploded.
tbc