Out Of Place
AN – Another early chapter drop! probably only half a dozen chapters left now. Thank you to all readers for sticking with this story, and particular LMC25 and islandsandstars for their continued support and lovely words of encouragement.
Disclaimer – I don't own Thunderbirds
Chapter Twenty Seven – Radio Silence
From his vantage point behind Virgil's shoulder, Scott watched the Andes coming into view below. Grey, forbidding peaks turned white with snow before their tips touched the sky. Already Thunderbird 2 was below the height of the highest peaks, skilfully negotiating the mountainous air currents to stay as low as possible to keep them out of the way of any sensors that may be operating.
"This is Thunderbird Shadow, come in Thunderbird 1 and Thunderbird 2."
Virgil leant forwards and pressed a button, bringing up holograms of both the other Scott and Kayo.
"What is it, Kayo?" The other Scott asked from where he was bringing Thunderbird 1 around on a similar course to Thunderbird 2.
"I've been looking around in stealth mode, Scott. The radio array itself is spread around a vast area, including several different peaks. But there seems to be a building that is the control point for the array in the middle of a large plateau. It has two entrances from what I can see, one from the plateau itself and one near the nearest road pass that seems to take you underneath the array."
"FAB Kayo," the holographic Scott replied. "I'll meet you on the plateau and we can see what is happening with this control tower. Virgil, you and your passengers should try to enter from the pass. Let's see if we can trap this so-called Black Phantom between us."
"FAB Scott." Kayo replied before her hologram disappeared.
"Good luck Scott," Virgil told his brother before also disconnecting the link and instead calling Lady Penelope.
"Hello Virgil, what can I do for you?"
"Hello Penelope. We're about to attempt a two prong approach to the satellite array to try to cut off any escape routes the Black Phantom may have. How are you getting on?"
"Reasonably well, Virgil. I've managed to locate a gentleman who I am reliably informed actually owns the PALMA."
"PALMA?" Alan asked from where he was stood next to Scott. Both of them plus Gordon were arranged standing behind Virgil, Tintin was the only passenger that had taken a seat although Max had also come along for the ride and was tinkering in a far corner.
"The PAtagonian Large Millimeter Array, more commonly known as PALMA." Penelope replied. "Originally built as a good faith collaboration between the Chilean and Argentinian governments but more recently it has been acquired by a Mr Hortenzo, who has wanted to turn it into a luxury resort of some type but has not been able to obtain the relevant permissions."
"It's a bit of a leap from luxury resort to evil lair." Gordon commented.
"I'm fairly certain Mr Hortenzo has no idea that the array is currently occupied. Either way, Parker and I are on our way to make his acquaintance so we will find out soon."
"OK Penelope, keep us informed." Virgil told her. "Good luck."
"You too, Virgil, Gordon and guests." Penelope's hologram smiled at them. "I am afraid we haven't been introduced, more's the pity, but it's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance however briefly."
Penelope's hologram winked away. Scott looked at Alan, who for once wasn't staring longingly at the place Lady Penelope had once been.
"Finally getting over your crush?"
"Oh very funny Scott." Alan rolled his eyes. "Say, isn't that the pass we're looking for?"
"So it is." Virgil pulled back on the engine controls, slowing Thunderbird 2 down. "And there's a sensible place for us to land. Get what you need, we're nearly there."
"Don't forget these devices!" Tintin called out, holding out some of the gadgets that she and Max had so carefully packed earlier. "We each need one, plus we need one for the Black Phantom."
"I'll take the one for him." Gordon offered, putting it carefully in a pocket on his belt. "Are we all ready?"
"I guess so." Scott looked down at his borrowed uniform. After accidentally absconding with Thunderbird 1 last time it had taken a lot of persuasion for the other Scott to lend him a uniform again, but he felt better with it on. It almost felt like an armour. Alan had also borrowed one from Scott as his counterpart was far too short. Tintin was the only one without a uniform, she had declared firmly that she would never fit into anything that Kayo owned and instead was wearing a simple top and trousers, dark in colour and easy to move in.
"Are you sure you want to come in, Tintin?" Alan asked her. His expression was nothing but concern, so she patted his arm.
"I'll be ok, Alan. I've got you all here to look after me. Let's not waste any more time."
Virgil led them off Thunderbird 2 and towards the doorway. It didn't take Max long to override the locking controls, and the door slid open with a hiss. Inside it was dark and forbidding, a roadway continuing under the mountain for an indeterminable distance.
"We're going to need a ride." Gordon said to Virgil, who flicked some controls on his wrist.
"Underground pods coming up. Tintin, Max, you ride with me. The rest go with Gordon."
The sight of the configurable vehicles coming out of the pod caused the three who weren't familiar with them to stand and gape in awe.
"These are… configurable for whichever rescue you do?" Tintin asked excitedly.
"Sure," Virgil told her as he helped her into her seat. "I mean, Brains designed them so we have to know what the options are, but we're able to choose what we need when we get to a rescue location."
"Brains would love this! Can you tell me…" That was all the other three heard as the roof of the pod slid forwards and cut off sound. They could see that Tintin was still talking excitedly though, her hands gesturing emphatically. Scott shook his head with a smile.
"Well gentlemen, shall we?" Gordon asked, gesturing to the second vehicle. Scott and Alan both climbed in although it was tight with all three of them in there. "Here we go," Gordon commented, hitting the throttle and beginning to drive underneath the mountain. "Let's see what this place has in store for us."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Kayo jumped out of Thunderbird Shadow, landing cat-like and quiet on her feet. She quickly ran to the side of the radio array control centre, making sure there were no cameras in her way. She sorely missed John's long range reconnaissance but was happy enough with her own scans to tell her there weren't any eyes on her. Either the cameras were very well hidden or else the Black Phantom was so confident that he wouldn't be found that he didn't actually use any. She hoped it was the latter.
A distant roar indicated that Thunderbird 1 had arrived. But it stayed distant, explained by Scott suddenly appearing with his jet pack, spinning through the air at speed.
"Having fun?" Kayo asked sarcastically.
Scott at least looked a little sheepish. "I didn't want to bring Thunderbird 1 too close. She's hovering below the edge of the plateau."
Kayo nodded in agreement before turning to the building. "What do you think, straight in the front entrance?"
Scott shrugged. "Worth a try!"
To Kayo's surprise the door wasn't locked, she and Scott managed to duck in through the opening easily and quietly. Inside was a corridor leading to some stairs, small control rooms leading off it to each side. These were empty and the dust suggested they hadn't been used for a long time so the pair of them headed down the stairs.
One floor down, there was some movement in a room that appeared to house computer servers. These were powered up and were humming quietly, masking the sound of Scott and Kayo's footsteps as they went to see who was down here.
A flash of purple gave it away, but Havoc and Fuse weren't being discrete with their volume either as they loudly debated amongst themselves.
"I'm just saying," Fuse was stating, from where he was sat on an old office chair with one arm cradled to his chest in a sling. "We didn't sign up for this sort of thing, that's all."
"We signed up for chaos, this is gonna make chaos. Why you suddenly got cold feet?" Havoc was buried underneath a computer terminal, connecting various wires. From Kayo's viewpoint as she crouched behind one of the server racks she couldn't see what Havoc was doing and Fuse had her back to her. Their voices carried clearly though.
"Chaos, yeah." Fuse was saying. "But this… this is going beyond chaos, innit? The stuff he's talking about doing, that's gonna hurt people. A lot of people."
"Hence the chaos." Havoc snapped impatiently. "It's gonna wear down International Rescue, keep them off our backs while we do the deals. We're gonna be rich Fuse when we get our share. What did the Hood offer us, hm? A bit of mayhem, sure. But the Phantom has offered us money, good money. We just gotta keep our end of the bargain up."
While Havoc was talking, Kayo could see Scott creeping along the other end of the server rack. He gestured quickly to her, she nodded and dashed across the aisle, coming at Havoc from the opposite end of the rack.
"I don't want money earned like this." Fuse was saying, stubbornly sticking to his topic.
Havoc put down her multi tool and sighed exasperatedly. "It's just for a bit, then the Hood will come and take us over to this other world he's found. We'll have so much advanced tech, we'll practically be gods! Won't that be worth it?"
"But then why didn't he take us the first time? I ain't so sure he's coming back for us."
Havoc swung out from below the terminal and was about to reply, when she stopped and looked around.
"Have you been keeping lookout?"
"What?" Fuse asked, confused.
"Shhh!" Havoc hissed, but it was too late. Kayo barrelled into her, knocking her down and pinning her there. Fuse moved to help her but was stopped by a strong hand grasping his uninjured arm.
"Not so fast," Scott told him. "Where do you think you'll be able to get to?"
"Do something!" Havoc cried, squirming as she tried to get free.
"Uh…" Fuse hesitated, but one look at Scott's stern expression had him cowering back in his seat. Havoc let out a scream of frustration and, finally bucking off Kayo, scrambled to her feet and sprinted from the room.
Kayo started to go after her, but Scott called her back. "We need to understand what's going on." He said, turning to Fuse. "What is this Black Phantom planning?"
Fuse rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand sheepishly. "I…er, that is I… um."
Kayo rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, we heard you say you weren't happy with it. You can help us stop it, but we need to understand what it is that he's planning."
Fuse took another few seconds to think, eyes darting around while he weighed up his options. But two on one and with a bad injury, he didn't really have a choice. He sighed and slumped in his seat.
"He's planning to reprogram the radio array to interfere with communications signals into orbit." Fuse explained. "He's going to cause a black out so that no ships in orbit, including yours, will be able to talk to each other or the Earth. They won't even be able to use their sensors. All systems will be wiped out."
"But that means that there will be no orbital control! No space ships have visual arrays anymore, they rely on sensors or are programmed from Earth. Without that link they'll collide or impact the Earth. Thousands of people would be at risk – could die!" Scott was horrified.
"We have to stop it." Kayo stated firmly.
"Here," Fuse held out something on a key chain. "This is the access key. I don't… I don't want to be a part of this anymore." He cut a sorry figure, sat with his arm in a sling on an old office chair, head hunched over. "But… be careful."
Kayo raised an eyebrow. "You are actually concerned about our safety?"
Fuse raised his gaze to meet hers. "You don't know what he's like. You think the Hood was bad? This guy is another level."
Scott wrapped some rope around Fuse, fastening him to the office chair. "You should be safe enough up here, but I can't risk you getting free and warning them. For all we know, you might have been lying to us."
Fuse didn't even try to argue, he just sighed and held out his good hand for Scott to fasten to the arm of the chair. "Just don't leave me here for too long?"
"We'll try not to," Kayo promised. "It depends on what happens down there though."
With one last pull on the cords, Scott was satisfied. He dropped a comm link in to Fuse's lap. "If something does happen, call for Eos. She'll get in touch with us."
"Eos, right." Seeing that Scott and Kayo were about to leave the server room, he called out after them. "Thanks, for this. And sorry."
Both Kayo and Scott paused, almost identical blank expressions on their faces. But though Kayo turned and walked out without acknowledging Fuse further, Scott gave him a curt nod before following.
Back in the hallway, Kayo stood undecided. "Which way?"
"Down." Scott chose decisively. "Everything points to the main site being underground and that's the way Havoc fled." Kayo couldn't find any flaw in his reasoning and they set off underground.
The whole site just seemed to be endless corridors and stairs as they delved deeper and deeper into the mountain. Logically, Scott knew it made sense as the alternate entranceway was significantly lower down the side of the mountain than the hut on the plateau that he and Kayo had entered, but in the dimly lit identical corridors the descent felt indeterminable.
Eventually they were interrupted by Scott's comms link flashing, Lady Penelope's symbols hovering above his wrist.
"Come in Lady Penelope," Scott instructed. The hologram that appeared flickered in and out, her mouth opening but no sound being received.
"We're too deep." Kayo sighed. "We're going to have to climb again to get better signal."
"You stay here, I'll go and see what Lady Penelope has to say." With an irritated huff, Scott began retracing his steps. About three floors up, he was rewarded by being able to hear Lady Penelope at last.
"Finally Scott! I despaired of ever being able to hear you. I haven't been able to reach Virgil either."
"Yeah, there must be a lot of rock over us now." Scott looked up at the low ceiling, suddenly the weight of the mountain above felt oppressive. "Virgil is entering from the base so he'd be under even more. What do you have for us, Lady Penelope?"
"I've been in touch with Mr Hortenzo, Scott. He's PALMA's current owner and he has been a veritable mine of information. Apparently the main control building, which I suspect is where you currently are, is over thirty floors deep and filled with offices for the researchers who first developed the station. Near the bottom is a large control room from which the radio array and whole facility can be controlled."
"That sounds like it's where we need to go then."
"Indeed. But Mr Hortenzo also has told me about a second site, in case of earthquake or similar disruption, where with the correct credentials we should be able to wrest control away from the main site. Parker and I are going to accompany Mr Hortenzo to this second site to try to shut the whole array down."
"FAB Penelope, good luck." Her hologram flickered out and Scott ran down the stairs to rejoin Kayo. "Penelope's trying to dial in to the array controls from a second site." He summarised.
"Well that would probably put a dent in the Phantom's plans." Kayo noted as they kept descending.
"We just need to make sure we can cause a big enough distraction so that she has time to do it." Scott instructed. "Not that we'll know, we're never going to get a signal down here."
As they came down the next set of stairs they could see that the corridor was beginning to change, with more headroom and better lights.
"What are the chances that we're nearly at the control room?" Scott whispered to Kayo. They started to sidle along the edge of the corridor instead of running down the middle. One more flight of stairs and instead of a corridor they came face to face with a set of sliding doors.
"This is it." Scott whispered, although Kayo pressed a finger to her lips and glared at him. Scott rolled his eyes at her, reaching forwards to press a button to open the doors. To their surprise, the double doors opened with a hiss to show a walkway. Scott tiptoed forwards, waving for Kayo to wait behind. It was her turn to roll her eyes, moving forwards as he did. When he glared at her she simply shrugged back before walking out ahead of him. Over protective big brothers.
They found themselves standing on a walkway over a large room full of electronic equipment. The space, at least three times as deep as the corridors they had been traversing to this point, glowed and hummed with electronic activity as various processors worked hard. Large screens on the opposite side to the wall the walkway ran along were displaying visuals of a mountain scene, but neither Scott nor Kayo could recognise it. They started to creep along the walkway towards metal stairs that ran down to the floor of the control room, carefully trying to avoid being seen by either of the room's two occupants.
Havoc was perched on a table, unusually silent and sullen as she gazed up at the screens. It looked as though she had been told to stay put and sit quietly, totally in contrast to her insubordinate nature. But, despite making sure that they kept one eye on her, she wasn't the concern for Scott and Kayo.
The second figure in the room stood in the centre, hands folded neatly behind his back as he stared up at the screens. He was a tall man, probably as tall as Scott, but also heavy set. The intensity with which he was watching the screens was obvious even from behind.
Kayo and Scott continued to creep down, slowly taking the stairs until they reached the floor of the control room. Scott wasn't really sure what the plan was now, other than to get close enough to find out what the Black Phantom planned.
Either way, it was soon rendered pointless as the Black Phantom turned with a smile.
"Ah, our guests have arrived. Please, do take a seat International Rescue. The show is about to begin."
The man had a large brow, flattened nose and a heavy countenance. His hair was think and dark, similar to Virgil's but in an old fashioned side-swept style. His eyes were malicious and although he smiled at them there was menace behind it.
Havoc looked positively gleeful to see them now, but one look from the Black Phantom glued her to her perch.
"You aren't going to sample my hospitality?" The Phantom asked, gesturing to a pair of seats set up in front of the large screens. "I am afraid I must insist." On saying that, he pulled out a gun and pointed it towards them. Immediately Scott raised his hands.
"Steady on there, you don't need to threaten us with that."
"I might not need to, but I want to." The gun waved them towards the chairs. "Please, or we will miss the action."
Scott and Kayo reluctantly sat down in the chairs. They were solid, hard chairs similar to those that are found in waiting rooms or meeting rooms. They forced the occupant to sit upright, not that it was an issue as both Scott and Kayo were coiled so tightly that they sat ramrod straight on the edge of the seats.
Once they had complied, the Black Phantom turned his back to them and watched the screen again. "Ah, here we are." On the mountain in the view a familiar pink Rolls Royce meandered up the mountain road. Both Scott and Kayo gasped, almost holding their breath as they watched it's slowly progress.
"A friend of mine, Mr Hortenzo, agreed to masquerade as the owner of this little facility here. He knew just enough details to be particularly convincing, I understand. Of course, the back-up site he is currently leading your agent to is pure fabrication."
"What are you planning?" Scott asked, worry and anger fighting for dominance in his tone.
"Why, annihilation, of course. You have been putting a spanner in my plans, International Rescue. I was hoping to distract you with a large scale emergency but instead you turn up here, asking difficult questions and poking your noses into my business."
"Annihilation?!" Kayo gasped, looking at the image of the Rolls Royce. Even from here they could see the passengers in the car, two crammed into the back and one driving.
"He's bluffing." Scott stated firmly. "He can't do anything without risking his own man."
"It will be a shame to lose Mr Hortenzo..." the Black Phantom mused, as though thinking it over. "Ah well, the rewards will be worth it."
He pressed a button on a controller he was holding. For a moment nothing happened, but then in the screen a flashing blur could be seen, just before the mountain in front of them exploded in a mass of dust and debris.
"No!" Cried Scott, leaping out of his seat only to be forced back into it as the shockwave passed through the control centre. Kayo sat with her hands clasped to her mouth, tears forming in her eyes. Both watched the screen as the dust slowly settled, but there was no sign of the pink car or Lady Penelope anywhere.
