Okay, tiny edit, toward the end. Couldn't resist. And thanks to Tikatu, A-5 and ED for their feedback. )
57: Regroup
Thunderbird 1, flying very high over Russia-
Scott had poured it on, after delivering the plane crash victims to Lhasa, but he was still too late to intercept or assist the kids; Alan, TinTin and Fermat were no longer in Siberia. Per Jeff Tracy's orders, they'd been airlifted to Moscow by the departing Russian heli-jets. Nothing for it but to follow, so Scott turned Thunderbird 1's nose westward, heading for the teeming city, and somewhat gentler climes. More or less alone, too, for Gordon had fallen asleep in the storage compartment, not even removing his gear, first.
On the way to Moscow, Scott learned that Virgil had come under attack, and that Alan had been severely injured in what turned out to be far more than a large-animal roundup.
Speaking with his exhausted father via comm-link, Scott detailed his own recent experiences, concluding with,
"I didn't pursue, Sir; too much danger to the passengers, if I were to involve myself in any kind of dogfight."
His father appeared to have stepped away from the desk. The view behind him was one of shadowy palms and pearly-moist, twittering dawn. The older man rubbed at a knot in the back of his neck.
"You did the right thing, Son. Civilians always come first. As for the flight data recorder, we'll return for it when conditions improve. Right now, frankly, it's not a priority. The timing of all these attacks is. (Thank you, Kyrano.)"
Jeff accepted a heavy ceramic mug from his off-camera manservant, sniffed appreciatively, then blew away the curling steam. Scott found himself swallowing hard, right along with his father. He could almost taste that coffee.
The elder Tracy's transmitted image drained the cup, and then held it out for a refill, taking what appeared to be a fresh croissant from a silver tray. Scott's stomach rumbled, hopefully not loudly enough to be picked up by the comm. Said Jeff,
"I have to assume that this was a coordinated effort to strike while our forces were divided."
Pausing to break and butter the croissant, he added,
"It's happened before, and I mean to be prepared if our assailants try again. From now on: one mission at a time, with at least three prime operatives present, and two 'Birds. Period. They've come close to nailing us twice, this way. If we let it happen again, we deserve everything we get."
On this point, Scott certainly agreed.
"Yes, Sir. The thing that bothers me, though, is that now we've got the Mars mission coming in hot. It's pretty well common knowledge that we defended Endurance's launch… so, if our 'friends' have any sense at all, Dad, they'll plan something at or just after John's arrival, knowing that we'll be gathered, and more or less where to strike."
From somewhere behind his father, a parrot screamed at the rising sun; rusty and shrill as a cockpit alarm.
"I'll admit that's a scenario I've been considering for some time, Son… and without turning up many solutions. All I can think of is to intercept Endurance on the moon, and sneak the astronauts home in Thunderbird 3. The ship itself can be retrieved at a safer date."
Scott had located a few sticks of chewing gum in the left armrest compartment of his seat. Cigarettes, too, although he'd quit smoking several years ago. He sighed, unwrapped the stale gum and placed it in his mouth, saying,
"My only issue with that, Dad, is that we've all been to the NASA get-togethers and family events. We'll be recognized immediately, and not just by the flight crew."
For a moment, Scott considered mentioning Cindy's news about John, but decided against it. To judge by his father's rumpled, careworn appearance, he had too much to worry about, already. No sense turning grey hairs white, if he could help it. Still…
"I did get a couple hundred emails from John, though, including some data he'd like sent in to Houston. Maybe you could find a way to pass it along without rousing suspicion, Dad?"
Jeff stretched until his joints cracked and his back popped.
"Roger…" (Huge yawn) "… that. Send me the data and I'll have it transmitted directly to Gene or Saul. Either one is knowledgeable enough about the situation to keep quiet on their source. Speaking of which… so she doesn't find out the hard way… you might want to inform your charming future wife that I just purchased enough WNN stock to gain a controlling interest…" (Another yawn) "…and that if she values her job, she's to back off of NASA. Understood?"
For some reason, this irritated Scott, and just when he'd begun feeling closer to his powerful father. The idea that Jeff Tracy now felt that he 'owned' Cindy was tough to swallow. Very quietly (almost drowned out by his own growling stomach and Thunderbird 1's engine noise) the fighter pilot said,
"She's a reporter, Dad. That's her job. She isn't wearing a collar and leash, and I don't order her around; I ask. And, something tells me that if you try taking that tack with Cindy, she'll just find herself another news agency or go online, and you'll have yourself an enemy right along with all that stock."
His father stared at Scott across comm screen and continents, but didn't quite stare him down. In defense of his absent fiancée, for the very first time, Scott Tracy stood his ground.
"My response to that would have to be: no, Sir."
Jeff blinked, then took another swig from the coffee mug to buy himself a little think time.
"I see," he said, after a very long, very chilly pause. "We'll table the matter for further discussion, Scott, at a more appropriate occasion. Meanwhile, you've got a mission to fly, and I'm due at a videoconference with my attorneys. Collect the kids, and return to base. Tracy, out."
The comm screen went dark, leaving Scott alone in a twilit cockpit, surprised by how very shaken he felt. He was 28 years old, and for the first time in his adult life Scott Tracy had disagreed with his father, and backed him down.
He sat there waiting for lightning to strike; like a native who'd thrown a spear at his jeweled idol and shouted, 'You're nothing but stone!'
Decked in a blue flight suit rather than shell beads and a loin cloth, Scott was every bit as awed by his own boldness. All at once, he switched to autopilot and turned to the comm's pull-out keyboard.
Log onto InterplaNet… Endurance main comm… and…
'Hey, Little Brother,' he typed, and then stopped short; thinking. Nodding to himself, Scott hit a series of backspace and delete commands. New message:
'Hey, John. Status report?'
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Moscow, Prince Igor Army Base-
Gordon awoke just before touchdown, feeling a good bit less muddled. Coming forward, he strapped himself into the passenger seat for landing.
Night had fallen, and they now flew over a sprawling city nearly buried alive in snow. Between most buildings, Gordon had heard, the Muscovites had simply dug themselves tunnels. Better than braving the weather, he supposed, glad himself to be thoroughly warm and re-pressurized.
Granted clearance, Thunderbird 1 landed upon a newly plowed VTOL pad. Flipping switches with one hand and typing up his flight log with the other, Scott said,
"It's going to be another turn and burn, Gordon; we get 'em and go. Da… I don't want our forces scattered, with the Red Path (and God knows who else) out there gunning for us."
He had good reason to be concerned. Not five minutes earlier, the terrorist group had issued a statement picked up by every major network. Over a background of hissing static, a digitally altered voice had claimed,
"Havoc has been unleashed across the globe, unleashed upon those who cling to the atom and the spark… Neither World Governance nor International Rescue shall stay the righteous wrath of a hungry and crowded people, nor put an end to what will come… Follow not the Knights of Chaos and Technology, for they are doomed to fall, dragged to their ruin by a fiery chariot from on high… You are warned."
"Three stops past Barking and halfway t' Middlesex," had been Gordon's response… but he, too, was worried.
The Red Path and its mysterious leader weren't just violent and backward, they were evidently quite mad. Just now, though he wanted very much to return to Madrid (and Anika Peralta), even Gordon had to admit that retreating to base was the wiser course.
Tugging at his wrinkled blue uniform, Gordon unstrapped, accepted a stick of chewing gum by way of dinner, and then climbed stiffly to his feet. He'd have started off at once, but Scott seized his right shoulder.
"Together," his brother said, very firmly. "It's bad enough that there are only two of us. Let's not compound the problem by splitting up."
Although, as it happened, they weren't allowed the choice. Scott and Gordon Tracy were met on the flood-lit tarmac by an assortment of high ranking Army officers and government officials. The scowling men arrived by limousine, with a clipboard full of release forms, an airlift-rescue bill, and an aura of bureaucratic stubbornness second only to that of the jobsworths at a US consulate.
Scott accepted the bill with a deep sigh (into the hundreds of thousands, it ran) and then began marking his 'X' on the signature lines of three separate illegal alien release forms. Gordon, meanwhile, went off under escort to retrieve his brother, TinTin and Fermat.
A short ride to the base hospital ensued (and in quite the flash vehicle, but Gordon preferred his own sturdy Jeep, or Thunderbird 4). Gordon's Russian was nearly up to par with his French… meaning that he had very little to say to his smiling escort, a dark haired young officer in smartly-cut khakis.
Their limousine passed from the airfield into a short tunnel, replacing star-flecked sky with fluorescent strips and cracked tile. Its tyres bumped over small joists in the tunnel floor (and how, Gordon wondered, was Virgil getting on? Or Alan and the other kids, for that matter?).
Tired as he was, the amplified engine noises and rhythmic thumping might have sent Gordon to sleep, but the tunnel opened suddenly into a subterranean roundabout, and thence to the hospital's underground car-park.
Small and dim, mostly, with many signs posted, all in fierce Cyrillic. Judging by the number of exclamation points, many of these posted statements began with,
"Don't,"
…carried on with,
"or else,"
…and finished up with a cheery,
"your carefully packaged remains."
Brilliant. Absolutely lovely spot to turn up an injured brother.
Gordon had a rule about hospitals: the further inside one had to venture to see a patient, the worse off he or she actually was. Also… they made him deeply uncomfortable, stirring matters to the surface that Gordon preferred to forget.
Striding along those antiseptic halls, he stuck closer to his escort than the man's own shadow, having got the sudden, dreadful notion that he'd be abandoned here. Thankfully, they soon afterward turned into the proper, fourth storey ward. His puzzled escort glanced frequently at a handwritten note… directions or some such… and questioned nearly all of the passing medical staff. At the entrance to what looked like intensive care, he engaged in a guttural, arm-waving exchange with an outraged doctor. Others began to gather, glancing from the combatants to Gordon and adding their own bit to the general debate. Of course, he could just have asked, pointed to his mussed uniform and said something like, 'International Rescue? Where?'
…But he wasn't much fond of doctors. Instead, Gordon slipped off, peering through one door after another until he spied a familiar figure. Granted, this was Russia, home to many blonds, but Gordon had a feeling, nevertheless.
He stepped from hallway to dim hospital room for a better look. Sure enough, Alan Tracy lay curled beneath white blankets on a bed of grey metal. There was a single, narrow window high in the concrete wall over his bed, too thickly coated with frost to see through.
His brother wasn't sheeted, and while an IV stand and bag were positioned by the sickbed, they'd already been disconnected. A good sign, surely, although Alan must be in a bad way to endure that clown-pocked hospital smock. He was lying on his left side, holding a folded pad against his head, and his eyes were closed. There was a trauma patch still affixed to his neck, pumping out surgical nanobots and shock meds. TinTin, or someone, had acted swiftly.
Gordon closed the gap between them in two hurried steps, dashing over cracked grey linoleum to the raised bedrail.
"Alan!" he scolded, "what're you doin' in bloody Moscow?"
The younger boy's eyes opened, one a bit wider than the other.
"Bleeding," he replied plaintively, lifting the pad a bit to display a shaven and stitched-up morass.
Gordon very, very gently patted his brother's shoulder.
"Eh," he scoffed, to cheer the boy up, "You looked worse after catchin' that surfboard in th' teeth, at Mentawis. Swallowed half on the spot, spat out the remainder. Now that was a sight. Remember?"
Alan actually laughed a bit, though he immediately regretted it.
"Ow… Quit making jokes, man. S' good to see you, though. Here to… check me out and go home?"
"Forms are bein' signed as we speak, mate, and I'll not leave th' room till you're cleared t' go."
Looking about the bleak room, Gordon pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat himself down (carefully, because his muscles were sore, and that groin bruise remained a source of sudden, blinding astonishment when changing positions). Doctor and escort poked their heads in, at one point, but seemed content enough to make a few comments and leave the IR agents in peace.
"So, let's have it, then," Gordon prompted, "Which creature of the, er… 'mythic past'... brought you low? And how are TinTin an' Fermat?"
Alan opened his blue eyes again, lifting the pad for a better look at his red-haired brother. Gordon was sitting kinda funny, he noticed.
"Fermat's a couple doors down, in the kiddy ward. TinTin told me. I saw her a minute ago when she left with Captain What's-his-Accentto see if the cafeteria's still open. They're okay, I guess… but you oughta ask them what happened, not me."
The pad went down again, like a trapdoor slamming shut. In a somewhat snuffly voice, Alan added,
"I was too busy getting my butt kicked by the dang Terminator to notice any, like, elephant rodeos or rescuing. TinTin and Fermat did all the work. Anyways, let's don't talk about that. How'd it go with you guys?"
One of the best things about Gordon was, once you got him started, he'd talk the sun out of the sky and back around again. All you had to do was tune in and out, look reasonably interested, and say something encouraging whenever he stopped for air.
Downed planes and force shields, avalanches and wounded victims, Alan saw it all played out against his closed lids. He smiled crookedly at his brother's enthusiastic descriptions, wincing when Gordon told about that armrest-to-the-crotch business (certainly explained why he was sitting that way…).
Until Scott showed up with TinTin and Fermat and a stack of X-ed release forms, Gordon kept him company. It was good to have a brother, but even better having a friend.
They departed Prince Igor Army Base less than an hour later, returning to the island to rest, heal up, debrief and plan…
While Endurance did her best, over the many long months, to get home.