5

Scott strode across the hangar boarding ramp and into Thunderbird 2's rear crew cabin, Cindy's warm caress still tingling on his skin and in his memory.

"Come back safe. I mean it!" She'd said, trying for tough, but mostly sounding worried.

"I will," he'd replied, as best he could around a flurry of urgent kisses. "Don't leave till I get back; I'll fly you to the city, myself."

"Okay," she'd smiled, and then they'd pulled apart, holding hands and backing away from each other until she was far out of reach.

Out of sorts and distracted, Scott went forward, entering the cockpit, only to find Gordon already strapped into the co-pilot's seat. The boy turned his head a bit at some small, frustrated noise Scott made. Spotting his older brother, he unbuckled and began to rise, saying,

"I'm sorry, Scott. I forgot you were...,"

"Forget it," his brother replied, waving him back down. "It's okay, Gordon. Really. You're the usual co-pilot. I'm just a passenger on this one."

Which bothered him more than he cared to admit. Giving Virgil a quick slap on the shoulder for luck, Scott strapped himself into a rear seat, tensing just a bit as the pitch of 2's engines rose from whine, to scream, to ground-shaking roar. Not that the noise troubled him, or the vibration, either. He just hated not being at the stick.

"Should have brought a book, or something," Scott sighed to himself, as the giant cargo lifter began rumbling slowly forward. Craning his neck, Scott watched through the windscreen as the hangar door dropped open, and Thunderbird 2's great, blunt nose pushed out into the brilliant tropical sunshine. The hinged palm trees fell away on either side of 2's short runway, making room for her stubby, forward-swept wings.

"Pardon me, Sir," he heard Gordon announce, sounding for all the world like a snappish flight attendant, "but the captain's turned on the 'no smoking' sign, so..."

"I am the captain," Virgil replied, as 2 came to a jolting halt over the launch ramp. A series of booming metallic clangs came next; huge chocks locking into place behind the cargo lifter's massive, 20-foot tires.

Now the launch ramp began to tilt, raising Thunderbird 2's nose until she sat at a 45 degree angle to the horizontal, ready to gather herself, and take to the sky.

Up in the cockpit, Virgil must have throttled forward, for the engines came fully awake, hurling great jets of nuclear fire against the ramp's blast shields. Scott's hands twitched a bit, as he mentally completed each step of the launch sequence right along with his brother.

Thunderbird 2 seemed almost to tense, then spring, catapulting up and off the launch ramp like a missile. Scott was ground backward against his seat, grunting and straining for each breath, as the force of 2's acceleration closed on him like a giant fist. Virgil, he thought blurrily, had to be pulling at least 7 'g's, maybe more. Gradually, the pressure eased, as Thunderbird 2 leveled out and banked off north. Not having anything better to do, Scott unstrapped and went forward, spending the remainder of the flight helping Gordon memorize the Vindicator 's interior layout. They wouldn't be able to bring a map, where they were going.

Further along, and much higher up, John cursed quietly as he fought to keep Thunderbird 1 level. In horizontal flight, she wanted to shimmy and buck like a sheet on a clothesline. The nose must have lifted fifty times, nearly triggering more stalls than he cared to count. Yet, Scott made it look so easy...!

The sometime astronaut and occasional author waited a bit to call in, his full concentration being occupied just then, keeping that silver pig in the sky. Finally, though, he hit the comm to his brothers.

"Thunderbird 2, from Thunderbird 1; off the ground, yet?"

Virgil came back with,

"Up and away, and under cover, Thunderbird 1. We're seven and one half minutes behind you, headed north-by-northeast on compass bearing 30 degrees, 27 minutes, 17 seconds..." And so on, to a hair-splitting degree that would have left most pilots cross-eyed and speechless.

"Right. I'll call ahead, keep the RAF posted on your approach. Fly safe."

Virgil smiled, visualizing John's fight with the stubborn rocket plane from his savagely grunted comments.

"You, too, John. See you in London."

"Yeah. Later."

Skittish as a nursing mare she might be, but Thunderbird 1 was also fast. The earth had flashed by not much quicker than this in orbit. John reached England in less than twenty minutes, finally getting the hang of flying Scott's Bird just about the time he dropped from Shadowbot's radar cover, and called in to London Heathrow.

Following instructions, he brought Thunderbird 1 down just south of the Thames, in a space that had been cleared for the re-creation of Vauxhall Gardens.

The sun had not yet risen, and Thunderbird 1split the chill, foggy night wide open; a lightning bolt with shrieking engines and flashing lights. Not that there wasn't activity aplenty. Hundreds of helicopters stitched their way across the sky from one staging area to the next, setting up for the waves of evacuees that would soon be airlifted to safety on the continent, and Ireland.

Before leaving his craft, John fetched Alan and the Mobile Control gear, then triggered Brains' latest security advance. With the flip of a switch, he cut on a webwork of micro-circuitry implanted in the Bird's hull.

All at once, light waves were seized in a powerful warping field, and bent around the craft rather than reflecting off it. Light from behind, beneath, and above was brought around to the viewer's eye, or camera lens, effectively rendering Thunderbird 1 invisible. People all over the staging area did puzzled double-takes as the great, sleek craft simply vanished before their eyes, leaving behind only a slightly distorted fuzziness. What they'd think when they saw two figures climb down out of apparent nothingness, John had no idea.

He unstrapped to rise, and got his sash caught on one of the safety buckles. John wasn't much accustomed to wearing an IR uniform, using holographic projections in the space station, and he found it particularly bothersome, now. When he de-planed with Alan a few moments later, it was with his sleeves rolled up, collar loosened, and without the damn sash.

They were met almost immediately, by the King..., and one other.