Dislcaimer: Thunderbirds is the property of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, as well as Carlton and Universal. No profit is intended to be made from this story; it is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended, and none should be inferred. All original characters are the property of the author. This story should not be used or copied without the expressed written consent of the author.
A/N:I will apologize before-hand for the atrocious nature of my Malay. Internet translators are not what they should be, so although the words are correct I have no idea if the sentences make sense gramatically.
Diamonds to Ashes
Septemeber 2018
Night was beginning to fall on the Eastern half of the world, gradually transforming the vast continents and small island communities into glistening pockets of civilization. The delicate amber glow of the sun slowly vanished behind a line of tropical trees, bathing a large portion of the deep Malaysian jungle in twilight. As the daylight faded, the creatures of the evening began to awake, crawling forth from their burrows to taste the wind of another night.
Amongst the miles of trees and natural foliage, another creature slowly awakened from its slumber. Vast metallic arms rose in the air, while huge spotlights flared to life and bathed the darkness of the jungle in an intense neon glow. The Deforester groaned forward on metal treads, tearing down trees, grinding the wood to a pulp that it kept in the back of its hopper. Behind it followed a parade of workers, scraping at the ground with shovels in order to clear it completely for the digging that was soon to begin.
High up in the observation tower situated in the midst of the action, Kyrano Belagant could see clearly the entire operation as it unfolded. Though the forestry was taking place nearly a mile from the main mine pit and shaft, it was easily visible from such a height. The jungle was falling according to schedule, and the second pit would be dug as soon as the rain that had plagued the island passed. A subtle flinch ran across his face every time a tree fell to the Deforester, for as much as the clear-cutting was necessary, it pained Kyrano to see the natural habitat of the jungle stripped away for the sake of man.
Soon, though, the trees would be gone, and work could begin on the newest expansion of the Belagant Diamond mine. If things went as planned, the new tunnels would be dug in no more than a years time, and Kyrano would know for certain whether his brother's hunches about the diamonds were correct.
"Dear brother, is something the matter?"
Kyrano looked up at the words, spoken with a characteristic dryness that only his brother could manage in their common language of Malay. "Trangh, I find it strange that you find the need to ask me such a question."
The other man arched a dark eyebrow and shrugged. "I only ask because I worry, Kyrano. I wouldn't want you to suffer in silence."
The words were hollow in so many ways, for Kyrano had seen how much compassion his brother was truly capable of. It had been he who had suggested bulldozing the jungle, something that Kyrano both despised and was saddened by. Trangh obviously knew well enough what was troubling his brother, and the fact that he had even brought the topic up sharpened in Kyrano's mind how much their relationship had become strained of late.
Shaking his head slightly, Kyrano sighed and turned back to look out the window. Amongst the glow of the spotlights and the fading sun, he could see his own expression gazing back at him in the glass. The Malaysian skin tones inherit of his people, the dark hair that was shaved from the top of his head to fight off the heat, the piercing eyes that frightened him somewhat when he looked into them from a distance . . .
He was not that much different from his brother, Kyrano noted, in terms of appearance. Trangh, almost eight years his elder, shared the same eyes, the same hair, and though their faces were different – a discrepancy brought about by being only half-brothers – they were similar enough that there was no doubt that they were related. But that was where the similarities began and ended, for there was truly nothing else to link the two together except the bondage of blood.
Knowing that his brother was eyeing the back of his head, Kyrano intentionally kept his face to the window when he spoke. "I am worried about the terrain. If we are reckless with the cutting, the ground will become unstable. It is already softened from the rains, and I fear that we may encounter difficulties when digging. If we disturb too much bedrock we may risk loosing the main pit itself."
The sharp noise of Trangh's laughter dug at Kyrano's nerves. "There is nothing to fear. The crews are proceeding only as we have instructed."
Only as you have instructed. "Then I believe we have made a mistake."
"No! There is no mistake!"
Trangh's voice hinted at more than mere irritation. Indeed, Kyrano thought sadly, his brother had become more and more obsessed as the new diamonds had become more and more within reach. The trend worried the younger man, for he had on several occasions seen Trangh display true anger towards the workers for not working fast enough, and he feared that his brother would eventually do something that he would regret.
"If we lose the mine," Kyrano explained calmly, "then we will lose everything. What is a few weeks compared to our entire fortune?"
"I will not let this slip through my fingers!" The other man banged his fist violently against a nearby table, sending pencils and land schematics scattering about. "This venture will proceed as planned, without interruption. If the ground shows signs of weakening, then, only then, will I consider halting the project."
It was a fool's errand to object, Kyrano thought, just as the project was a fool's errand itself. There was no arguing with Trangh when he was angry. "Yes, brother."
There was just no use.
"You let him push you around too much," scolded Onaha Belagant, waving a spoon at her husband as she went about preparing the family meal. The woman's large eyes glared at Kyrano, accusing him even when her voice did not. She was a strong woman, both in body and in mind, something that the soft-spoken Kyrano both appreciated and admired tremendously. "Does Trangh think he owns the operation himself? He had better not, or one of these days I will have to deal with him myself."
"Onaha, there is not much to be done." Kyrano sighed wearily and wrapped his arms around his wife's broad shoulders. "Trangh is the foreman, and he has the final say for all projects at the mine. I sometimes wish that I could turn this entire organisation into the law, but then what would happen to us?"
"We would manage."
"With what, Onaha? With what? Trangh gives us food. I give him work. You and Tin-Tin mean more to me than my morality. I could not live if I knew the two of you were suffering."
There was also a very important underlying issue –only Kyrano and Onaha knew that Kyrano was related to Trangh. Onaha generally never said anything about it, never went so far as to even mention the possibility remotely. That was much to Kyrano's satisfaction, for in many regards he wished that he were not related to Trangh at all. To anyone else involved, the two Belagant men were simply related by a distant bloodline, and nothing more. Even Tintin was unaware of the relation, assuming instead that Trangh was simply her father's co-worker and nothing more.
This time, however . . .
"And you are the scientist," Onaha insisted, though in a much softer tone. "You are his brother. Does that mean nothing to him? Does that mean nothing to you? What do you think, Kyrano? What does your mind tell you?"
"The jungle floor is weak. If too many of the trees are ripped up, the roots will die and the soil will lose its strength. I am truly worried that, with the rain, the ground will break if we try to dig. I do not think the ground here is truly suitable for a mine to begin with. It is a living death trap. I do not even know if this second pit is necessary. The main mine is showing only moderate profit, but Trangh seems convinced that we will find more if we relocate a mile to the east."
"Could he be correct?"
"There is no evidence of another kinderlite pipe in the area that he has begun to dig. The pipe that we have already is weak at best, and it is very likely that it is the only vein in the region carrying any form of diamonds."
"The nearby mountains, what about them?"
"This is the vein from the mountains. It has shifted over time."
Onaha nodded slowly, then replied, as if it was obvious, "Then you must tell him. He is your brother, Kyrano. He will listen to you!"
Those words were hollow comfort to Kyrano. He had tried so many times to tell Trangh, and so many times Trangh had simply shrugged it off and ignored his advice. But it was obvious from the diagrams and the radar readings that the ground all around the mining complex was beginning to weaken. The fault lines were everywhere, intersecting through the shafts and even under the main complex itself.
There was not simply a danger to the workers, but to all that kept residence in the area. The families of the workers were also at risk. Illegal workers, like himself, Kyrano thought sadly, many whom were trying to earn enough money to support their own families. Families that they cared about; families that they would do anything to protect.
But to act without his brother's consent, to bring the law of the land down upon the mine, would bring grief for more than just Trangh. It would bring persecution to those very men and women whose lives he feared for, those people who, along with him, worked daily for a means to survive. Those people, like him, who were slaved to the mine, who willingly risked the lives of their families - knowingly, much of the time - in order to allow them to live in the first place. It would bring disaster to them just as surely as a cave-in would.
How could he deny them the choice that they had made? How could he deny his own family the right to live, even if death was poised to fall from above, like a rock precariously balanced on a wood beam? No, to live for a moment was far better than not living at all. And in the small home that he and the other workers had carved from rock and earth, they were indeed very alive.
In a world that had wiped itself clean of the memory of their existence, they had nothing else. Though the circumstances that had brought Kyrano and his family to the mine differed from the stories of the other workers, they all shared one common connection: they were trapped by the earth, by their inability to find money elsewhere. They would work there, in the dark depths of the mine; and in the future, whether near or far, they would die there as well. This life was their blessing and their curse.
And yet, if the mine was truly in danger of collapse . . .
"Be ready," he finally whispered into his wife's ear, stroking her cheek gently with the back of his hand.
When Onaha finally spoke, it was with a great deal of doubt in her voice. "For what, Kyrano? I cannot prepare unless I know what to prepare for."
"Be ready to leave." He glanced down briefly at the ground, at the cracks created in the dirt floored kitchen by the running rainwater, and shuddered. "There may come a time when we have to run."
If it came down to that, if it looked as though the forest floor would fall away, then he could act; at that point, there would no longer be a mine to worry about. At that point the would only be concerned with the present, not with the future. For the moment, however, he could only sit and wait. It was the waiting, Kyrano thought, which was the hardest. It could be weeks or even months before anything happened. But if he knew Trangh as well as he thought he did, then the digging would begin before any exploratory work was even carried out in the new area.
Three months was all he gave it. Three months wait, then the digging, then he would find out whether he or his brother was correct.
December 2018
Taking a second look just to be sure, Kyrano confirmed his worst fears in his mind; the ground beneath the mine was becoming less stable by the minute. Another downpour of rain had closed down operations on the surface of the second pit, but digging still continued beneath the ground. The combination of that and the excess surface water was slowly shifting the bedrock, causing small tremors that were just noticeable on the seismograph scale. Though the digging had been proceeding for two weeks after nearly a four-month delay from the initial deforesting, the rock had shown no signs of becoming unstable before.
Lifting the grid paper in his hand, Kyrano carefully and painstakingly plotted the points of the tremors on the graph. What he saw did not surprise him.
It terrified him.
His initial thoughts were to run to his brother and tell him, but some inexplicable sense stopped him cold when he was halfway to the door. Instead, he turned back, sat down at the desk in his office, and picked up the phone.
Trangh would not listen, that much was fact, until the ground gave way directly below his feet. He was so blinded by the allurement of the diamonds that he cared no more for his own life than he did for the lives of his workers. But unlike his brother, Kyrano did care for those lives of those who worked with him, and he realised that it was up to him to avoid the situation.
In little under an hour, as far as he could tell, the entire structure of the main mines would collapse. The entire main pit would fall into the shafts, killing the men on the surface and burying the men below. The secondary pit, closed down because of the rain, was already showing signs of collapsing, as were the corridors connecting it and the main shaft. It would likely take at least an hour to simply evacuate the more remote tunnels near the new digging, but if he could gather the men into the main underground complex . . .
They might have a fighting chance.
The phone rang once in his ear, then twice, until a voice finally answered.
"Main complex. Manager speaking."
"This is Kyrano," he whispered, looking about to see if his brother had somehow entered the room. "Listen very carefully to what I have to say. The lives of every man under your control will depend on it."
Onaha knew what to do as soon as the warning siren began to blare. Dropping the pot of food that she carried in her arms, she ran to the single bedroom that the family shared, with the intent of waking her daughter. The young girl, her eyes closed, slumbered peacefully on her parent's bed, completely unaware of the danger around her.
"Tin-Tin!" Shaking the child on the shoulder, Onaha prayed that her daughter would wake soon and that they could be on their way. "Tin-Tin, child, wake up!"
"Mom?" A bleary eye poked open, revealing large brown pupils. The girl of nearly thirteen years sat up suddenly. "What's happening?"
"Gather your things," Onaha urged, taking no time to help her daughter off the bed. Instead, she made haste to pack as many things as she could in a small suitcase, throwing in enough clothing and garments to see the family safely to the nearest port city. There was food already packed in the family jeep, a luxury that the Belagants were afforded simply because of their position in the mining hierarchy. "We must leave for the city immediately."
Tin-Tin gave a quiet yawn and stretched her arms. "Where's Dad?"
"Hurry!" The older woman scolded, finally taking time out to grab her daughter and pull her to her feet. "Take only what you need."
The danger of the situation seemed to finally sink in, for the girl's face became serious and she immediately ran to her corner of the room to gather her things. "When are we leaving?"
"As soon as we can."
"What happened?"
Thinking it best to tell her daughter, who had always been such a strong-hearted girl, Onaha sighed and replied, "The mine is going to collapse. Your father is trying to help those workers who are trapped."
Tin-Tin's eyes went wide, and her hand went unconsciously to her mouth. "But he could be-"
"He will be fine," Onaha snapped, trying to convince herself of the same thing that she had just told her daughter. "We must worry about us now. We must be ready for him at the garage. If he does not come, then we must leave without him."
He will be fine, the older woman repeated over and over again in her head. He will be fine. They will stop the cave in, perhaps, or maybe Trangh will come to terms and give his help to clearing the shafts.
Then it happened, ever so slightly that Onaha barely felt it until it happened again. A small tremor shook through the ground, shaking dirt and rattling the floor enough that she understood what was happening.
Time was of the essence.
"Hurry, Tin-Tin!" There was no hope of hiding the frantic tone in her voice. "Hurry!"
The evacuation was well under way, with the lower tunnels already mostly cleared to those closer to the surface. Kyrano helped in any way he could, carrying tired workers to the upper mine shafts or giving out water to those who were dehydrated from the heat that was quickly building in the mine. It was then that he felt the first tremor, a soft ground shake that rattled the overhead lights and turned the heads of nearly every man in his vicinity.
It became eerily clear at that exact moment what was about to happen. Grabbing hold of the nearest steel railing, Kyrano yelled, "Quake!" at the tope of his lungs and braced himself for the impact. On cue, the ground lurched suddenly to the side as the surface rock shifted itself and resettled even closer to the actual shaft itself. The pressures had to be enormous, and the ground too weak, for so much rock to be shifting so much without the aid of a seismic plate.
Steadying himself, Kyrano took a deep breath and willed his heart to calm down. It was past the point of saving the mine – it was very obvious that the ground was going to give way, very likely while people were still underground. While he was still underground, Kyrano realised with a shock. There was no way for him to reach the surface while hundreds of workers waited for the elevator to come down again. Already panic was ensuing, the noise level rising as the men tried desperately to escape into the upper shaft.
Pushing through the throng of workers who were now trying to crush into the elevator, which had finally reappeared, Kyrano arrived at the only dispatch phone on the level. A quick call to the Belagant apartment brought him some form of relief, for the call went unanswered, suggesting that Tin-Tin and Onaha had already relocated to a safe position.
A thought came to mind, and Kyrano quickly dialled in the number for mine's black market correspondent at the nearby port city. The phone rang once, then twice, then was finally answered by a quick talking man.
"Hello, Mie speaking. The boss is out right now, but until he returns I can assist you. What do you-"
"Enough, Mie! I have no time for this."
"Kyrano?" The voice on the other end sounded very unsure. "Kyrano, is that you? Your reception is terrible! Find a better phone. Are you sure you aren't being traced?"
"I can't find a better phone!" The sharp tones in Kyrano's voice were more than enough to grab the other man's instant attention. "There has been an accident at the mine."
"What do you mean, accident?"
"The ground is giving way! The entire area is about to collapse. Can you send someone to help bring our people to safety?" The ground shook again, more violently, and Kyrano knew that time was running out. "Mie, we are not all going to get out. Even if the mine does not completely fall in, we will still be trapped under ground."
"Kyrano, I-"
The phone went dead suddenly. Slowly, Kyrano followed the arm whose finger lay on the connecting receiver, until he met the eyes of his brother.
Incredulous, Kyrano gasped, "You! Trangh, what the hell are you trying to do?"
"We need no help," the other man replied calmly, in a voice that struck Kyrano as bordering on that of a madman. "If we call in the authorities, we will be forced to give up this mine."
"Yes!" Kyrano agreed, pleased that his brother at least saw some sense, yet at the same time infuriated that he still could not see all of the truth. "Yes Trangh, we will lose the mine. We will be punished for it, but at least we will still be alive. It is not safe anymore! I told you that from the very beginning, when we began the new digging, but you did not listen. We cannot keep it, Trangh. The entire structure is about to collapse. Someone in the port will surely notice anyway."
"No!" Red fury crept onto Trangh's face, and he shook his head violently from side to side. "No, I will not give up the diamonds."
"There are no damn diamonds, Trangh, only death!" Why couldn't the man see reason? Though stubborn, he had never been so far beyond Kyrano's reach before. "This whole mine is a tomb of the dead, and we knew it when we began! We did not even need the second shaft to collapse the ground. It was happening on its own, a natural process that we decided to ignore. A natural process that I chose to ignore because of you! Because of the other workers, because we have no choice but to work in this pit to keep our families alive! Try to understand that, Trangh. I am your brother. Do you not care about me?"
A flicker of something – realisation, perhaps – flashed across the older man's face, and he slowly relaxed his fists. "I will go to the lower tunnels. Down to the new digging."
"No!" Lunging forward, Kyrano caught his half-brother by the arm and spun him around as the man turned to leave. "No, you are walking into hell!"
"Then I will go to hell!" With a strength that Kyrano had never seen before, Trangh grabbed his arm back and flung his brother to the ground. Kyrano hit hard and skidded into the wall, his head connecting painfully with the bedrock. "There are diamonds there, Kyrano. Remember that when your family is begging on the streets or dying in a prison cell. I will be rich, and you will be nothing at all."
"Trangh!"
The final words that escaped the man's mouth, before he turned a corner into the depths of the mine, stabbed deep into Kyrano's soul. "You've always been nothing. Without me, you will become that again. Revel in your victory, dear brother, for it is all you have left."
Saving his breath, Kyrano simply let his head fall to his chest, a feeling of dread rising in him as he contemplated his half-brother's actions. He truly did not know what Trangh thought to accomplish in the lower mines, for it was obvious to anyone in his right mind that there was no escape from the secondary shafts that had already caved in. But maybe Trangh really was mad with loss of his fortune. Maybe he would be expecting the cavern to fall in around him, or for someone to come in and find him.
But there would be no salvation for Trangh Belagant.
As he looked around at the chaos, Kyrano came to terms with a second revelation – there would likely be no salvation for him, either.
You are nothing, Kyrano. You should have broken the silence. You should have taken your family and run. Anything would have been better than this.
The language, a tongue that suggested a location in the Pacific, was one that John Tracy was reasonably familiar with. Though he was only slightly familiar with the Malaysian dialect, he was able to discern enough without the help of the computer to know that something was amiss. The man on the phone line, which John was tapping into, spoke in rapid and hurried syllables. A quick search pinpointed the call somewhere on the coast of East Malaysia, and the recipient of the call was the local aid organization.
" - tidak baik!"
Bad, John thought, echoing the phrase around in his mind.
"Tapi anda mesti tolong!"
But you must help.
"Antarabangsa-"
International.
There it was. It was only one word, one simple spoken word cut off by some comm static, but it was said with such emphasis that John did not doubt the man's intentions. If they were at that point, then they truly were desperate.
"International Rescue!"
There it came again, only spoken in a broken English tongue. Some things were universal, apparently, International Rescue finally being one of them.
Keying the alert, John quickly set to work pinpointing the location that the man might be speaking about. If they were lucky, they would be able to arrive in time to help.
A third and a fourth quake had collapsed a great portion of the cavern's roof, cutting off all access to the elevator. Instead of rioting, the men had become strangely silent as if they were suddenly in acceptance of their fate. Some stood by and simply stared with glazed over eyes. Others spoke to their comrades. Some prayed.
Kyrano tried to remember the last thing that he had said to his daughter, Tin-Tin, and realised that it had been a simple bedtime wish the night before. Of all the things that he might have left her with, he had left her with something useless. Loving, perhaps, but useless. There had been no words of wisdom to follow later in life, no consolations, no promises of hope or salvation.
The air was becoming tighter as the oxygen slowly was used up, and Kyrano found it harder and harder to breathe. He could see the same horror dawning on the faces of those around him, as their cheeks turned red and their speech became laboured gasping. It was so difficult to take a breath, the pain in his chest so piercing.
Aware that the ground was again rumbling, Kyrano prepared himself for the end, hoping that it might come swiftly so that he would not be forced to suffocate to death on the floor of the cursed mine. How he wanted to die somewhere else, on the surface, between the trees that he had grown up with as a child before he had travelled abroad to school, only to return to the land and the mine that would be his grave.
But he hoped, more than anything he had ever hoped for, that his wife and daughter had managed to find a safe ground where they could escape the fate that was about to come to him. Yet, Kyrano felt that he deserved it, for he had – by not standing up to his brother and doing what should have been done – likely caused the deaths of at least a thousand other men that were about to be buried alive with him. It was the most acute form of punishment possible, a physical reincarnation of karma.
The world began to swim before his eyes. The flickering lights of the cavern turned into a barrage of swirling colour as the oxygen left the room. Kyrano was distantly aware of the wall breaking to his left, of the rock tumbling down onto the floor –
Then, quite suddenly, he found that he could breathe again. It was his ears that first alerted him to the presence of oxygen, for the soft hissing of an air purifier reverberated around the crumbling cavern.
Blinking hard and shaking his head, Kyrano picked himself up off the floor, only to find himself being helped to his feet by an unknown man – a foreigner, he saw – in a grey jump-suit with green stripes down the sleeves. There were words written down the sleeves as well, and Kyrano – experienced in English due to his education abroad – was able to read them quite clearly.
"Thunderbirds," he whispered, looking up into the calm face of a man that was young enough to be his son. "International Rescue?"
"Absolutely." The boy cracked a huge grin and hauled Kyrano the rest of the way upright. "You can speak English?"
His head still spinning from everything that had happened, Kyrano nodded and replied, "Yes, I am the co-owner of this mine."
The words struck a chord with the young man, whose eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. He sighed, ever so slightly as to not be noticeable except to the trained ears of Kyrano, and lightly tapped a headset that he wore around his ear.
"Control, this is Mole. I've located the trapped men, as well as the man who owns the mine."
"My brother is the other owner," Kyrano offered, feeling an odd mix of relief and worry pulse through his veins at the same moment. He had no idea why he told the man the secret between he and Trangh that had remained hidden for so many years, save for the reason that the younger man would likely never reveal it to anyone else. "He ran into the lower mines. I fear he is insane."
The International Rescue man nodded slowly then relayed the information carefully over the communicator. When he was finished, he turned back to Kyrano and beckoned him closer.
"We could use your help. We've dug a tunnel through a stable portion of the ground to this point and need someone to help lead groups of men up to the surface. Are you healthy enough to do this?"
"Of course," Kyrano replied, not caring whether he truly was or not. The miners – his miners, the men he had doomed – needed his help, and he intended to do something to try and right the wrong that he had done to them.
"Are you sure?" The other man did not look completely convinced.
Kyrano nodded, then gestured towards the wall. "How did you-"
"Digger," the man responded quickly, "I don't have time to explain it all right now. But it's a drilling machine. That should be good enough."
There was a sudden sound of crashing rock, and the rest of the wall gave way to reveal the glittering tip of a large diamond fitted drill head nearly twice the height of Kyrano. Nodding in appreciation of the machinery, Kyrano pointed towards the craft and added, "Do you have more men?"
Nodding, the foreigner pointed towards two figures that were emerging from the gloom. Both were taller than the young man who stood before Kyrano was. One was most definitely the others' senior by at least twenty years, while the other shared strikingly similar looks to the older man that suggested to Kyrano that they possibly could be blood relatives.
"We'll split into four groups. I'll take one, you'll take one, and one of the other men will take one."
"What about the drill?"
"The extra man will take it up once everyone is clear." The quiet manner in which the man made the comment suggested that they would not necessarily wait for the mine to completely clear. "Listen, we'll try and do the best that we can. But our seismologist is telling me that we only have twenty minutes at best. Once we pull Mole out, the wall will collapse back down, and there will be no exit."
Kyrano had no doubt that if the cavern were to go, then the International Rescue men would pull out and save only as many as they could. It made no sense to risk their machines in a situation that they could not completely win. It pained him to think that many of the men around him would still die, but the thought of salvation for a few allowed him to make his choice.
"Agreed." Accepting the hand that the man offered, Kyrano shook it and gave him a determined grimace. "Then let us begin."
Two minutes - that was how long John Tracy was giving them before the ground became too unstable to stand upon. It was three minutes longer than he had originally wanted to allow, but the steady stream of men pouring from the failing mine had stalled his decision. But there had to be a cut-off point, even if there were still people trapped below the ground.
He glanced briefly at the timer that ran on one of the many Thunderbird Five computer screens, grimaced, then turned back to the seismograph readings that he was receiving from the Mole's built in monitors.
One minute.
It was the one thing in the world that he truly hated - the responsibility of literally playing God for even a few moments. He held in his hands the lives of the men still trapped below the ground. They would live or die because of his choice. Some, of course, would die no matter what, but there were the few caught in the middle, the few who would have escaped if given a few more seconds.
Thirty seconds.
"How're you doing, Scott?"
"There's too many down here. We're never going to get them all out."
The seismograph display suddenly jumped, dropped, then jumped again in a series of quakes that grabbed John's attention immediately.
It was time.
"Scott, pull out. Grab as many as you can, shove them in the Mole, and get the hell out of there."
"John, are you sure?" Virgil's voice jumped into the conversation, sounding concerned despite his best efforts to hide his feelings.
"Pull out!" The words exploded from John's mouth, and he slammed the computer console in frustration. "Dammit, pull out!"
The readings on the seismograph suddenly jumped immensely. Over the radio, the sound of crashing rock could be heard. It continued for several minutes, until the only noise that could be heard was a soft static coming from the receiver itself. That cut out too as the computer compensated for the change in density and cover, leaving Thunderbird Five in an oddly surreal blanket of silence.
For a heart beat that seemed to stretch into eternity, John thought he had lost them. That one pulse of his heart throbbed in his chest, into his arms, even into his fingers as if trying to wash away the feeling of dread that was settling into his body. He wanted to fall over, wanted to collapse, but he found himself paralysed, unable to do anything but sit and hope.
"That was too close." Scott's voice suddenly broke out over the radio, and John groaned and fell back in his chair in relief.
"Are you guys all right?"
"Skinned a little, but otherwise uninjured."
"How's the tunnel?"
"Still upright. We took the Mole on a detour to give the guys on their way up time to get out. But the entrance into the shaft is sealed over. I think the whole main area collapsed in."
Taking a deep breath, John held it for a few seconds in an attempt to calm down, then let it out as slowly as he physically could. "How many are still down there?"
Scott was very slow in answering. "We pulled out over five-hundred," he finally replied at length. "Five hundred men that wouldn't be alive right now."
Five hundred - the number was almost surreal compared the amount of men that they normally saved. Yet, how many had been crushed to death under the rubble of the complex?
"How many, Scott?"
He truly didn't want to know, yet he always ended up asking all the same. It gave him a perverse inspiration for the next mission, the challenge of carrying out an impossible rescue with no casualties. It never happened that way, of course, but hope was better than the alternatives.
"How many?"
"Enough."
Weighing Scott's tone in his mind, John indirectly bit his lip and grimaced. As kind as he had tried to be, Scott had left the number up to John's imagination, and what he envisioned in his mind was not something that would let him sleep easily that night.
"We'll do better next time," he muttered absently to no one in particular. It was a false hope at best and a horrible lie at worst, but it was the best that he had to offer to the dead. "We'll do better."
It was an odd feeling, watching from a distance as Kyrano Belagant was finally reunited with his family. They had located the man's wife and child at a safe house a few miles removed from the mine and had immediately ferried him to the location as soon as he had been treated for the concussion that he had suffered.
Jeff felt a smile trying to come onto his lips, but it was not a pleased one. Instead, it spoke of a bittersweet feeling that he could not quite place.
"It's hard, isn't it?"
Turning to face his eldest son, Jeff grimaced sadly and nodded. "It sure is."
"It's a horrible feeling," Scott continued quietly, fumbling around with his headset absently. "To be jealous of someone for being happy."
So that was what it was, Jeff realised. It was the jealousy of a man who had never been reunited with the one who had been lost. It was a horrible feeling, Jeff realised, a horrible yet inexplicable emotion that ached ever so slightly inside his heart.
"It's human." The younger man smiled ever so slightly. "Isn't it? We're still human."
"I suppose."
The sound of a squealing girl interrupted their conversation, and both men turned to see Kyrano pick up his daughter in his arms and bring her to his chest. They looked so happy, Jeff thought, despite all that they had lost.
Despite all that they had lost.
"You're right." The admission was hard, but Jeff knew it to be true. "We're still human. But that means we still have the capability to be happy as well. We saved five-hundred people back there."
A tiny laugh escaped Scott's mouth. "That is something to be proud of. It's more than I would have thought possible, given the circumstances. It's too bad that we couldn't find his brother. Kyrano seems like a good man, unlike his brother who, by the sounds of it, kept him from acting sooner."
"That won't save him from persecution, though. It would take a miracle for his family to escape completely unscathed. He did have a choice in the matter, after all. He could have stood up to his brother in the first place."
"That's too bad. Most of them probably had no choice." Scott glanced at his father. "Not everyone lives in luxury. They were probably just able to make ends meet working at the mine. Kyrano probably didn't want to bring the authorities in prematurely in the situation that they would arrest everyone. If his brother had listened to him, maybe the entire disaster would have been averted without outside intervention."
That was too bad, Jeff thought, and he wondered if his son was correct. Kyrano's face had fallen when he had been told that Trangh had been buried in the mine somewhere, and yet Jeff thought he had detected in him a small glimmer of relief. He honestly didn't know what had happened between the two, or what had happened at the mine for that matter, but he wondered if some justice had been done by the older brother's death. Kyrano truly seemed to care about his family and his co-workers, and that care had placed him in an awkward and incriminating position.
"You can't save everyone, Scott," Jeff lamented, remembering a moment many years back when he had told the exact same thing to another of his sons. Many things had changed since then, and yet that adage had not.
In the background, Tin-Tin gave another squeal of delight and kissed her father gently on his cheek.
"I guess we just have to remember that."
The situation that Trangh Belagant found himself in was completely inexplicable. A good part of his mind had come to terms with the fact that scarce hours ago he had gone completely mad, and the other part had been ready to accept death as a punishment. But death had not come. He had stood blankly as rock had fallen about him, had closed his eyes and prepared for the darkness that had been expected. Darkness had fallen, as had the rock, but not in the way that he had envisioned.
So now he waited, surrounded by a ring of rock that was unbroken save for where he stood. He stared at the dirt and the roots, trying to puzzle through in his mind how the walls and roof had collapsed on every spot but where he had been. A dull throbbing pain thundered through his head, but he attributed it to accidentally catching a rock on the head and nothing more.
All around him there was silence. The bedrock, having finished shifting, was likely forced into the position that it would be in for thousands of years. He was literally entombed in it, surrounded by a black and invisible barrier that he could touch but not see.
And his filthy half-brother had likely died in the ruins on the other side. The thought enraged Trangh, not for the loss of the other man whom he had hardly seen as anything but a tool to achieve his goal, but at the resurfacing pain of losing the entire mine. He had been so close to breaking the new shaft, so close to finding the diamonds –
As his fist connected with the rock wall, Trangh became distinctly aware of two things. First, the rock seemed suspiciously soft, as though he was crushing clay in his hands. But it was the second thing that grabbed his attention, forced him to feel around the flaking dust of the wall with his fingers. There it was – a little hard bit buried directly into the bedrock, a rock that was a different composition than the surrounding mine because it was made of magma.
It was the edge of the kinderlite, the magma tube that had carried the diamonds up from the pressures of the deep to the very surface of the world. And there were diamonds in it; he could feel them one of them on his palm, the harsh carbon rock digging in and cutting his flesh as he clenched his hands in growing rage.
There were diamonds in the shaft. If there was one, there were bound to be more. They had only found scant few in the actual second pit, but if they had only had time to thoroughly explore the connecting shafts and tunnels between the two pits . . .
But he was stuck there with them, unable to get out, unable to capitalise on his find, unable to rebuild and reopen the illegal mine in order to further his profit! Whether intentionally or not – intentionally, his mind screamed – Kyrano had left him to die. No one had come to find him, they had left him to be crushed in the ensuing cave in.
With a scream of the most pure and untamed rage, Trangh slammed his fist into the rock wall – only to realise with a start that he had somehow put his hand right through it. The rock crumbled around his wrist, turned to dust by a force that he did not understand but was beginning to recognize.
For as long as he could remember, Trangh had been blessed with the slightest ability of mind control. It had only been small before, had allowed him to occasionally sway the viewpoint of an opposing official, or to throw a man to the ground with more force than was generally needed. But what was happening before him –
The mental stress. That had to be it. The rage, the absolute indescribable fury had unlocked some portion of his mind. Or perhaps it had not even been the rage at all, but a survival instinct so strong that it had thrown boulders to the side and carved a tomb for him out of magma rock. Yet, it was the rage that unlocked it, gave him the strength to thrust again and again at the rock with his bare hands, pulling the wall down before him with only a trickle of blood down his palms from the scratching and digging edges of the raw diamonds.
The pain in his head grew, but Trangh shook it away and focused on his goal. If there were a hundred barriers between him and the surface, he would find his way out.
A thought came to mind, and Trangh ceased his efforts for a short time, instead refocusing his efforts on trying to find more of the diamonds. Somehow, some part of his mind could see the diamonds, the tiny specks buried with literally millions of tonnes of dirt. He willed them to come towards him, and ever so slowly the rocks miraculously dug a hole through the bedrock and fell into his palms. There were not many, but they were enough to provide him with ample funds when he finally escaped from the hell pit.
Satisfied with his find, Trangh resumed his tearing down of the barricades.
There was no concept of time in the pitch-black world of the mines. He did not know how many minutes he spent breaking the rock, how many hours he spent trying to quell the dull and aching pain in his head, stomach, and throat. It was meaningless. Only his goal, his survival, mattered, and Trangh refused to collapse to the ground. The constant anger in his thoughts steeled his mind, sharpening it to a point, eventually allowing him to break the rock with little or no physical effort at all. He still did not understand the power that was being unleashed – and he did not care.
With a final cry of effort, the man crashed his entire body into the wall before him, sending rock flying forward with incredible force. He stumbled out from the corridor into what seemed to be the main shaft, his feet catching on rocks that sent him sprawling forward on the dusty and broken surface of the mine.
Trangh lay prone on the ground for several long moments, taking long and laboured breaths in an attempt to gain the strength to stand back up. It was a monumental effort to even sit, but the task once again gave him some focus for the rage that was in his mind. As he pushed himself to his knees, his hand brushed briefly against a metallic object.
Startled, Trangh grasped around for it and finally felt his fingers lock around the steel handle of a mining lamp. He brought it up to his face, hoping that the light still held, and fumbled around for the switch with his free hand. At first, the lamp simply sparked, but Trangh refused to give in and flicked the switch again and again until a piercing white light blinded his eyes.
A graveyard, a slaughterhouse really, lay before him, rocks and bodies buried and shattered together by the natural and intruding forces of the Earth and jungle. Faces were marred; limbs were crushed by the weight of the surrounding dirt. But there, on the far wall where there should have been a good strong concrete barrier, there was a hole. It was half buried, to be sure, but there was a distinct hole where there should have been none at all.
There were too few bodies, part of Trangh's mind cried out, the cold-calculating part that always spoke reason to the rage and the anger of his other half. But the elevator was closed, unreachable. How could they have possibly escaped?
Through the wall.
Trangh ran his hands over the shattered edges of the concrete, and once again a feeling rose in him that he could neither quench nor control. Someone had come down to the mine with a drill, and had made a passageway for the miners to escape through. Someone had come to rescue the men.
Someone had left him to die on his own, alone in the darkest and foulest reaches of the mine.
A flicker of light caught his eye, a reflection of the dying light of the lamp on a pool of water that had drained in from the surrounding rock. Entranced, Trangh knelt down, looked into the pool, and saw a face that he did not know. The face that stared back at him was not the face that he remembered, but a haggard and pale one that seemed to be chiselled from the very forces that lay inside of him. Reaching up a shaking hand to his head, Trangh felt the small follicles of hair – that were showing signs of growing out again – fall into his fingers.
He looked old, he realised in horror, more than ten years older at least than he should have. The leering eyes, the worn cheekbones . . . he doubted that even Kyrano would recognize him.
The thought of his brother brought Trangh from his trance and infused in him an anger that he had never known. Of everything that had already been revealed to him, the unusual power running in his veins alone brought him hope . . . and now, he was cursed once again by the untapped power that had allowed him to escape from his grave.
That power, the power that was cursing him with a slow death, would be needed to allow him to completely escape the mine. As he tore through the rock wall, his mind sending boulders flying into the bodies of his deceased workers, Trangh Belagant settled on one thing. He was ruined, and likely would never operate a mine again, illegal or otherwise. The authorities would not let him. He would be charged for mismanagement, imprisoned, and be held responsible for the death of his men. He would probably be executed if the courts had their way.
But he had the diamonds in his pocket, and he carried within him something even more potent – a growing and burning hatred for the ones who had counted him as one of the dead. He still had his contacts. He could make it happen.
If he did nothing else in his life, in the miserable half-life that he had left before him, he would make them pay. And perhaps then, only then, would he consider himself satisfied.
A scream tore itself from Trangh's throat, and he hurled the final rock from the barricade into the opposite wall of the shaft, shattering the unbelievably large boulder into a thousand fine pieces. That was what he would do when he found the men responsible.
He would destroy them.
A/N: I need to take a brief moment to apologize to everyone that has been reading this story. A month and a half wait for the next chapter is a long time, and I feel I need to give some explanation. It's simple, really. In the past month or so I have finished two summer classes, have started working full time again, and have become excessively burnt out from three full semesters of university classes in a row. I haven't even put pen to paper this last month in any decent amount, and I'm only just starting to feel relaxed. As it is I will be quitting my current job at the end of July in order to try and locate my sanity again before school starts in September. If I can help it, the next chapter will not take that long to appear. Given that writing is my form of stress relief, I won't let "Winds" sit so long again without being touched. Thank you to everyone for waiting so patiently up until this point. And, because I am a workaholic, I have started work on the sequel, which is something that you all can hopefully look forward to when "Winds" is complete.
That's it for Trangh, ladies and gentlemen, at least in this story. I'll admit it, I really enjoyed writing him. It was both scary and fascinating to try and get into the mind of such a ruthless villain. There is so much more story that I could tell, but I think readers will be able to fill in the gaps themselves. My thanks go out to Ariel D for reading this over! As always, your comments were infinitely helpful. :)
Reviewers!
EwanJamieMcLaughlin - (blushes) Thank you! I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It's great to have another reader.
Rachie - Thank you so much for your kind words! It's great to see another new reader. Yes, I do try to keep a balance between humour and angst, because I think real life is like that most of the time. One second you laugh, the other you cry. :) I hope you liked this chapter just as much.
Math Girl - Yikes! I've heard a few stories like that now. :) You have my admiration. I think I would have hid in a closet rather than go to school the next day.
Antilles - I think it would total anyone's day. ;) And that's why he'll eventually be going on rotations - so he doesn't go space happy again.
Zeilfanaat - At least you managed to save Ch. 25 as a treat. ;) I'm glad to have you back, and I'm glad to see that you liked them all! And don't worry, I'll try and be reasonably quick with the next few chapters. :)
Moonlightbear - Indeed, it is a while to the movie. Don't worry, you'll find out what happens with that. I think way far ahead when I write. :) (And I had no idea what F.A.B meant for the longest time).
Andrewjameswilliams - Well, now you know I guess. :) Actually, it also explains Tintin in the movie. It seems that trauma and stress brings the power to a forefront, so her powers jumped exponentially when she was forced to hold back the flames from the T1 exhaust tunnel.
Marblez - Thank you! I'm so glad that you like this one. :)
Barb from Utah - You can really appreciate his day, then. :) I've had a few of them myself.
I'mpeckable - Whew, I'm glad to hear that someone has hair like that! I honestly wasn't 100 percent sure that hair could do that, so it's great to see that confirmed.
Ms. Imagine - Jeff's perspective was fun to write. :) And I've actually left the bit with the 'tea' to the reader's imagination. I'd love to write it, but I have to draw a line somewhere since I don't have time to write everything that I would like. So, feel free to let your imagination do what it wishes with it. ;)
Clairie - That's pretty much the reason why I wanted to do this chapter differently. I didn't want to fall into something that's pretty common in our fandom. Besides, I had fun writing John that way. :) Well, the next chapter isn't quite about Gordon. But that's coming up very very soon. Science lab? Well, you won't see it, but you'll read about it.
Assena - For Gordon, see above. ;) I love the ominous music, by the way. Actually, Gordon will be in the next chapter, so look for him there!
Catch next chapter, called "The Growing Family", where Alan meets Tintin, Gordon and Virgil meet a scorpion, and Jeff meets the future head on. Until then, FAB all!