Out Of Place

AN – Hi all! Sorry to leave all the cliff-hangers... hopefully this makes up for it a bit! Thanks as always for the fantastic support. I'm getting a bit sad now that this one is nearly finished and my next project isn't a Thunderbirds one – but I will be back!

Disclaimer – I don't own Thunderbirds

Chapter Twenty Nine – Shoot!

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 dirt 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.

A shocked silence descended on the room. Even Havoc looked stunned as she watched the dust settle around the mountain that was definitely a different shape to the one it had been earlier. Kayo felt numb, all her specialist training deserted her in her horror. She'd seen many scary things during her time with International Rescue, but never such deliberate and wanton destruction.

She could hear a roaring sound in the distance, it took her a while to realise it was the sound of her own blood rushing into her ears. She was dimly aware of Scott lurching forwards, anger giving him extra speed. But she only really began focussing again once she realised that the Black Panther was holding Havoc, a gun held to her head.

"You don't want to do this." Scott said, his charge having been halted when the gun was produced. "Let Havoc go." If Kayo hadn't known him quite so well she wouldn't have detected the tremor in his voice, but whether it was from fear or anger she couldn't tell.

The Black Phantom tilted his head to one side curiously, the hand with the gun staying steady. "Who are you to tell me what I do and do not want to do?" He said, the slight accent he carried becoming clearer the longer they spoke to him.

"Put the gun down." Scott instructed, hands outstretched in a placating gesture. He knew better than to move forwards.

"I don't think I will. This ensures your compliance."

"What do you want from us?"

"I would like you to sit back down." The Phantom looked pointedly at the chair behind Scott, which Kayo now realised had been thrown over backwards when Scott had leapt from it.

"Ok, ok." Scott gingerly picked up the chair and sat back down in it. "Now will you let Havoc go?"

The Black Phantom laughed loudly. "You are so gullible. Why would I shoot her? She has proven particularly useful." He thrust Havoc away from him. She lost her balance and fell onto a table, propping herself up and twisting to face the Phantom.

"Oh, good one boss." She said with a weak chuckle. The hand that wasn't propping up her torso shook as it rested on the desk.

"After all, if I was really going to make a point why would I shoot her when I could shoot your companion?" The Black Phantom asked rhetorically, swinging the gun around. Kayo barely had time to register that the barrel was pointing directly at her when he pulled the trigger.

Something crashed into Kayo from the side, sending her hurtling to the floor. In the disruption Scott dashed from his chair and hid behind a desk. Kayo felt herself roughly pulled behind a second, where she got a chance to see her saviour. Alan's blue eyes shone brightly at her as he sat next to her, backs leant against the cover of the desk they were hiding behind.

"Hi!" He grinned with a smile before a volley of bullets had them ducking as the desk splintered, shards flying over their heads. As soon as the firing stopped, Alan leant around the edge of the desk and returned fire with his own weapon.

"Where did you get that?" Kayo asked him as he ducked behind the cover again.

"The GDF let me have it after I proved I was competent on their range." Alan replied with a cheeky grin. "Scott went ballistic, he hates me carrying weapons. But it's a good job I did!"

Again he leant out to fire, but by now the Black Phantom had hidden behind cover of his own. A noise to Kayo's right alerted her to the fact Alan hadn't come alone. Virgil and Gordon were crouched in the doorway out of the control room while the other Scott was beginning to make his way around the outside, gun firmly in his hand.

The other Scott obviously reached a place he was happy with as he stood behind a pillar and fired. Kayo, slightly rashly, peered around the edge of the desk to see what was happening. The Black Phantom turned to deal with the new threat posed by the other Scott, giving Alan a clear shot. It happened too quickly to see, one moment the Phantom was trading fire with Scott and the second he had gone down with a strangled cry.

The other Scott started forwards, cautiously attempting to reach the Black Phantom but keeping an eye on him just in case he was faking. Eventually he reached the tall man's side, reaching down to check on him.

"He's alive," he confirmed. "But I don't know how long he'll stay that way."

Kayo saw Virgil sending Gordon back down the corridor they had come from. A moment later, Tintin emerged with Max.

"You need to keep him alive!" She cried, having been appraised of the situation on her journey in.

Kayo stared up at the screen, still displaying the demolished mountain. "Penelope." She said loudly, causing Gordon to spin to her.

"What about Penelope?"

Kayo gestured up at the mountain. "She was on the mountain when he sent missiles at it!"

Gordon exchanged a worried look with Virgil. "The shockwave we heard." Virgil surmised. "Take the pod." Gordon shot off like a rocket towards the entrance.

"I'll go with him," Scott announced. "He might need help." Scott cast one last look at Alan, the other Scott and Tintin. "Are you going to be leaving?"

"We need to," Tintin replied. "We have to switch while the Phantom is still alive and once we start there will be about five minutes between each of us."

"Good luck and be careful." Scott told them before haring off after Gordon. Kayo would have gone too but Virgil stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.

"We need someone to take care of the Hood when he gets back."

Kayo didn't like it, but she saw the sense in Virgil's words. Instead she made her way over to Havoc, who was still looking shell-shocked by the turn of events. Kayo clapped some handcuffs on Havoc and pulled her over to a chair by the door and cuffed her to that as well.

"You have some explaining to do to the GDF."

Havoc raised an eyebrow. "I don't think I'm the only one. Who are they?" Havoc nodded towards Tintin, who was reconfiguring one of the terminals with Max's help.

"Isn't it obvious?" Kayo asked. "They are us. It wasn't just himself that the Hood transferred between dimensions."

Havoc's jaw dropped. "But… how?"

Kayo shrugged. "Hell if I know. But apparently other me is far smarter than I could ever be." She indicated Tintin. "She's managed to find a way to get them all home and our family back."

They fell silent, just watching the room. The other Scott and Alan were helping Virgil, who had his medical bag out and was busy tending to the Black Phantom. Tintin and Max were still working with the computers, although Tintin's cry of triumph suggested she'd achieved something.

"Come in Thunderbird 2."

Gordon's image flickered in and out in front of the main screen but eventually stabilised. "You managed to get some communications going?"

"Yes, I boosted the receivers using the technology already in place in the control room" Tintin confirmed. "But I couldn't reach Lady Penelope."

"No, us neither." Scott now appeared in the image. "We're close to the exit of the site and have some communications now."

Tintin frowned as she continued to work. "I'm trying to see if I can use the radio array to help to locate Lady Penelope."

Virgil looked up from where he was attaching an intravenous fluid to the Phantom, Alan holding up the bag rigidly. The irony of Alan working to save the life of the man who he had caused to be injured in the first place wasn't lost on Kayo. "He isn't going to last much longer, Tintin."

"I can't abandon Lady Penelope." The girl replied stubbornly. "We're International Rescue, rescuing people is what we do."

Virgil obviously had no answer to that as he returned his attentions to the dying man.

There was a tense silence for a few moments as they all worked hard at their respective tasks, except Havoc who sat sullenly watching what was going on.

"I've got her!" Tintin exclaimed suddenly. "Or at least, I've got the car. Come in Thunderbird 1, I've found FAB 1."

"Where?" Scott demanded from his customary pilot seat.

"Approximately three miles away from you." Tintin told him as she ran calculations. "Bearing one hundred and thirty degrees. It's on its roof, so only the dark underside is showing in a small gully."

"FAB," Scott disappeared.

"That's strange," Tintin muttered as she continued to run scans.

"What is?" Kayo asked, worried about a further trap.

"It's just… if they were driving on the road and the mountain came down on them, I would have expected the car to be swept away, impacted from above and taking a different route. It looks as though it was above the blast somehow and has been flipped in the air."

"FAB 1 can fly," Kayo told her. "If they saw the danger and tried to get out of the way, then they might have been flying."

"It can fly?" Tintin seemed shocked for a moment. "Well, that would probably explain it. I can't get a good enough view to find out if they are ok though."

There was a tense silence while they waited to hear from Gordon or Scott to find out what had happened to their friends. In the meantime, Tintin continued to do something with the computers, eventually changing a setting that caused every machine in the room to light up and all the overhead lights in the corridors connecting to the control room kick into gear. In the distance Kayo could hear a humming noise start up.

"What was that?"

"I've powered on the full radio array." Tintin explained. "I think I can use it to boost the signal power to the other dimension, send a message through. We need to find out if they are able to do the switch now too." She flicked her eyes over to where Virgil was beginning to stand up away from the Phantom. "It looks as though we might be the ones to dictate the timing."

The hologram crackling into life distracted them all for a moment. Scott appeared, looking worn.

"We've found them. Both Lady Penelope and Parker are alive, they must have tried to get away. The car wasn't crushed by debris, which saved their lives. But they are injured, Gordon is going to take them straight to hospital while I come back to help you. Their Mr Hortenzo, the plant for the Black Phantom, doesn't seem to have been so lucky. We haven't found him yet but according to Parker he panicked and flung himself out of the car when he saw the missiles. With the amount of destruction here I'm not sure how he could possibly have survived."

"OK Scott," Virgil replied, the de-facto leader with none of his brothers present. "Thanks for letting us know, we'll see you in a bit. Tintin is just trying to contact the other dimension now to arrange the switch back."

"FAB Virgil. I'll be on my way as soon as Penelope and Parker are secure in Thunderbird 2." Scott winked out of existence again. The other Scott was now standing behind Tintin.

"How are you getting on?" He asked her.

"Nearly there…" she hit a few more buttons. "And we're connected."

"Thanks Tintin." Scott moved over to an old fashioned microphone and spoke directly into it. "This is Thunderbird 1 calling base, come in base."

For a long moment there was a static crackle. Kayo was just about beginning to think that there wasn't anyone going to answer on the far end, when a faint voice came through.

"This is base. It's good to hear from you, son."