Consequences and reprecussions, so to speak... And, yes, Brains hasgot some 'splainin to do. Thank you, as ever for the reviews, and I promise an ending, relatively soon (that '50' kind of hit me, all at once...)
50
Alan Tracy had leapt into rough waters before. Driven by desperation and foolish courage he'd grabbed a line and plunged into the frigid Chukchi Sea after Gordon, who'd been fighting a losing battle to keep two hypothermic submariners afloat and alive.
Then, Alan had jumped into danger with little preparation and less forethought. Now, with Thunderbird 2's forward rescue hatch open onto wild, disturbed water and strafing winds, he had a much clearer idea of what he was getting himself into. It looked crazy out there, and he very much wished that Gordon was along to joke around, and insult him. Somehow, his brother always seemed to turn this sort of white-knuckle mess into an adventure. A successful one. (Gordon's attitude was beginning to change, of course, but Alan hadn't really accepted that, yet.)
He'd donned a neoprene wetsuit and mask, and TinTin (also wet-suited, just in case) now helped him into a stout nylon drop harness. In the warm amber lighting of 2's winch compartment, her face was serene... and slightly unfamiliar. Before setting off, she'd calmly taken a pair of Grandma's cloth shears and slashed off her own thick, shining hair. Now her pert face was framed by a sort of wild pageboy, dark and chaotic as the weather.
A bulkhead comm crackled to life. Virgil called down over 2's rumbling vibration (his slight mumble telling Alan and TinTin that he'd lit a cigarette, and was speaking around it),
"Show time. I've picked up a few bursts from the pilots' locators, but nothing from their raft or emergency radio... something's messing with transmission and GPS reception, and the damn compass' gone crazy, so make it snappy, Alan, and stay focused, out there."
...Like he planned to pirouette all the way down, strumming a ukulele and singing 'Polly-Wolly Doodle'...! Virgil would never have said anything like that to Gordon, or 'Astro-Boy'! Alan was sure of it.
Brushing TinTin aside with an impatient gesture, the teenager hit the nearest comm button and snapped back,
"Dude, I'm on top of this! Fly your Bird, and let me worry about the drop, okay?"
Whatever Virgil Tracy may have thought in response, his comment was a thoroughly professional,
"FAB, Alan. It's all yours."
Darn skippy! Peering out through the hatch again, the boy could see murky, fifteen-foot swells, their white hair blown into long, ragged streamers by ferocious winds. Some hundred feet below, a nearly-swamped life raft spun and slid at the mercy of the churned-up sea, its occupants clinging desperately to straps and braces as they prayed for rescue. In the distance, the last traces of a cargo jet's guttering engine and tail assembly disappeared beneath the surface, sucking scattered parcels and bits of torn fuselage down with it.
TinTin made as if to kiss his cheek for luck, but Alan, who wanted to seem as tough and professional as Virgil sounded, effected not to notice. Instead, he turned away, checked the straps and buckles of his harness, and then jumped.
Once again came the stomach-lurching drop, the clawing wind, and mighty impact with green, angry water that first battered, then attempted to swallow him, whole and struggling. Kicking upward, Alan spat bitter sea water, rode a vast swell to its crest, spotted the lifeboat, and began swimming. Behind him, TinTin carefully lowered a half-inch steel wire hoist, attached to a multi-passenger rescue basket.
The little life raft, apparently damaged in the ditch and the hurried scramble for survival that followed it, was taking on water like a bath tub. Alan fought his way over, noting with half an eye that the sky looked odd, banded with swirling cloud, and almost bottle green.
He caught at the boat's rubber gunwale, spat more water, then reached for the rescue basket which Virgil's hair-fine precision placed right where it needed to be. (No small feat, considering that the pilot was doing alone what had been designed for two, back when Jeff and Brains had visualized a larger rescue force.)
The downed flight crew did their best to help, as Alan struggled to haul them out of the raft and into the basket, but they were groggy and slow, with little English. They got in his way more than anything else. Twice, Alan had to reprimand the co-pilot, who kept tugging feebly at the last guy in the boat, preventing proper attachment of his own safety harness. And meanwhile, the waves just kept right on getting bigger, some of them seeming to block the very sky. Thundering, crashing, shoving the basket away, then bringing it slamming back around like a crane's wrecking ball, the waves hammered at them repeatedly. But they were even bigger, further out.
Overhead, Virgil fought to maintain a stable hover in winds that alternately snatched and sheared, his head filled with calculations and music (Hall of the Mountain King, as it happened).
Thunderbird 2's impellers had carved a sort of tumbled depression in the water, which was full of dead and injured sea creatures, some of them really weird. There was stuff rising to the surface that Alan had never seen before, and didn't particularly want to make first-name contact with. Gordon might've been able to identify the toothy stuff, Alan just wanted it away.
At last, he got the Flight Engineer (Asian looking guy, least conscious of the three, with an eye swollen shut and what looked like a broken nose) strapped into the rescue basket.
Lifting a shaky arm, Alan climbed in and gave TinTin the hoist signal. The basket lifted, spinning crazily in midair. Beneath them, like the vanished cargo jet itself, the rubber raft swirled a bit, was upended by the casual malice of a rumbling wave, and went down. Swallowing hard, Alan clung to the wire, alternately staring up at TinTin's pale face, and out at the psychotic weather. What, he wondered, was going on?