9
London:
He'd allowed himself to become distracted. First the extortion threat had claimed his attention, then a squadron of heli-jets wandered too near to Thunderbird 2, and had to be ordered off. Worse yet, a long, vicious comm-argument took place between the shipping company, and explosives manufacturer, about whose fault this all was.
The local shipping rep kept demanding assurances that they'd not be held liable for damages to people and property, while the munitions firm maintained that they were certainly not to blame if their product performed as advertised; especially after its impulse-absorbent packing material was allowed to become waterlogged and useless.
Tired of the bickering, John simply switched them both off, turning his attention to the other part of the screen, just in time to spot serious trouble.
Brows drawing together, he leaned over and hit a few keys, murmuring,
"That's not good...,"
Someone appeared to be floating near the water sleds. Alone. The vehicles' on-board security systems were reporting an unexplained presence, but whose, John couldn't be sure without scanning the area. Concerned, he rubbed at the back of his neck. Who was out there? Scott or Gordon, maybe... But they would surely know better than to separate in the middle of a dangerous mission.
Not one of his brothers, then. A saboteur, or someone out to steal IR technology under the blanketing darkness and chaos. Question was, what to do about it? How could he fix things so that the escaping thief attracted immediate police attention?
Thinking furiously, John came up with a quick and dirty solution. The mysterious lurker had to have an ID chip; everyone did. He could write a virus, then have 5 flash it down through the nearest comm satellite on a micro-tight beam, corrupting the chip and labeling the guy a dangerous escaped mental patient, or (better yet) a disease vector. Worth a try, anyway.
"Alan!" He called, already typing lines of code.
"Yeah...?" His young brother came over, rather warily. He'd been serving as a go-between, relaying messages for the King (but mostly chatting up the princess, and staying out of John's way).
"Keep an eye on the monitors, for me," John ordered, without looking up. "I'm going to be busy for a few minutes."
Open water:
Several years before, Scott Tracy had ejected from his fighter after losing an engine and part of the tail assembly to a shoulder-fired missile. He'd ended up in hostile territory, crashing through the branches of an enormous fir tree, and tumbling down a steep, rocky hillside. With three broken ribs and a badly pulled neck muscle, he'd cut loose the parachute and headed for cover.
...And if injuries like that hadn't stopped him in Kazakhstan, a twisted back wasn't stopping him now, not when his brother was working alone in a hazardous shipwreck. Gritting his teeth, Scott pushed away from his water sled, and began swimming for the danger zone, following the hose like a roadmap.
Vindicator:
It was his own damn fault. Just about to begin spraying the neutralizer, Gordon spotted something floating in the hold. Another body; softer-edged grey against the hard, flat, whiteness of the stacked shipping crates.
It shouldn't have mattered, but for some reason it bothered Gordon terribly that the dead man was going to end up entombed in hardened foam, forever out of reach of grieving family and friends. He couldn't simply leave him there.
No big deal, Gordon reassured himself. He didn't have to touch the corpse, just grab hold of a sleeve, or something, haul him out through the hatch, then begin spraying. Simple.
Lighting up his pressure gauge for a quick glance at remaining air, Gordon draped the hose over a handy bracket, then set himself in motion toward the drowned sailor. Took a couple of attempts, actually, before he scraped up the nerve to seize hold, but he finally managed. Not as scarey as he'd expected, or as physically heavy. It was another kind of weight.
He turned in place, a slow, graceful barrel roll, then flicked a fin to head back to the open hatch. That's when he saw the broken bolt. Something... the gusting current, a curious fish, or just plain bad luck... tipped the bolt off of its resting place. He saw, in shades of grey-white sensor touch, its jaggedly snapped shaft, and rapid, twisting descent. It was going to strike a crate.
And Gordon moved. Still clinging to the dead man, he launched himself toward the abandoned hose, reaching it about a quarter-second before the heavy metal bolt struck its target. A violent twist both released the body to float out through the hatch, and turned Gordon to face the stack of shipping crates. The bolt struck with an oddly quiet, terribly final sound, like a small, flat chime. He pulled back the hose release lever just as a line of searing fire split open the first crate.
All hell broke savagely free, at once: sun-bright flare, violent pressure wave, roaring foam, the ear-splitting groan of crashing metal, and a crazed, end-over-end tumble that left him concussed and disoriented.
