Hi, guys. Bit rough, will edit. It's been quite a day, but at least I've discovered "Flight Aware"... Thank you, Bow Echo, Tikatu, Creative Girl, Thunderbird Shadow, Susan and Akimakel, for reading and reviewing. I am tremendously grateful for you. Edited more! =)

14

Tracy Island, on a wild and windy tropical night-

Insight number one: body cams were not helpful, when everything was going crazy at once, and you were too far away from your brothers to help. Insight B: The New Crew had trouble sitting still and just watching, as Scott, Virgil and Gordon plunged into terrible danger. They'd lunged forward, reflexively reaching for those holo-vid scenes, trying to pull their friends and mentors out of danger. Didn't work, of course, so… rather than face those awful video feeds alone… Jan, Cody, Caleb and Josh came over to the desk.

Not that Alan was having any better luck. With John still missing, Brains downstairs building a transport device of his own, and Dad fighting to take control of a fritzing Thunderbird 5, he and Piper were on their own (and way out of their depth).

Grandma could have helped, except that about ten minutes earlier, she and Zara had loudly pretended to 'find' Charlie. ("There y' are, ya rascal! Inta th' tub, right this minute!") They could not appear on family holo-cam without him. So, yeah… for the moment, no help from the island's coolest head.

On the bright side, though they gathered close, to peer past him at those flickering body-cam images, the 'Thunder-kids' didn't ask questions or make much noise. Just watched, expecting miracles. At one point, Caleb Gonzalez… Gordon's skinny, freckled alternate… mumbled,

"Going down to the lab, Guys. I, uh… could maybe help Mr. Brain with his new transporter."

Alan barely noticed. Too busy.

"Uh-huh," he replied, nodding assent without turning around. He hated like heck to call for help, but the sudden flash and static on Scott's cam, that weird glow over Gordon's, and the cuss-filled darkness from Virgil's didn't leave him with much choice. Didn't mean he had to bother Colonel Casey, though. Hitting the family all-call button, Alan pled,

"Kayo, Uncle Lee… John, if you can hear me… we got three major situations developing. Need you guys back, like, now."

Zara had emerged from the bathroom, where Grandma was still making all the usual "bath-battle" noises. Worried and rather damp, the pretty blonde girl came to join Alan's audience.

"Mrs. Tracy will be along very shortly," she informed them all. "Just as soon as wee Charles is tucked up safe and dry in his bed."

"Uh-huh, thanks," was the only response she got. Zara didn't ask about Gordon, though her big blue eyes kept drifting to Thunderbird 4's cam feed.

Elsewhere, Kayo was first to reply to Al's all-call. Still wouldn't turn on her body-cam, though.

"Island Base, from Thunderbird Shadow. I'm on my way, Alan," she told him.

"Copy that, thanks, Kayo," Alan blurted, adding, hopefully, "ETA?"

"Thirty minutes, give or take. I've been, erm… busy." (Kayo-code for breaking and entering, for a good cause.)

He didn't ask where she was. Probably better not to know; for him and the GDF.

"Okay, just… hurry, alright? We've got trouble in Kyoto and Pacifica City. Whichever you could reach first, if you're closer there, than you are to the Island…"

"I'll see what I can do," his sister replied, still being cagey as heck. "Let you know what I find, once I'm onsite. Send me the danger zone coordinates."

Alan did so, just as Captain Taylor called in with,

"You boys need a hand, down there, Alvin?"

He was out on the Moon, performing scheduled maintenance on "Alphy", but family came first, always.

"Yessir! I'm going to launch, just as soon as Grandma can take my place at the desk. Dad's sorta busy, still…"

"It's under control, Alan," snapped the Colonel, who hated to seem like he needed help. His son might have believed him; only his voice kept blinking in and out, as the station repeatedly shut down and restarted itself. Off in the background, Al could hear cleaning bots and detergent jets, churning away like mad. Having been through it with Eos, himself, Alan winced.

"Yessir. Understood, Sir."

On the bright side, help was on its way, if only his brothers could hold out a little longer. It was around that time, that they got a wisp of a signal from John.

XXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 2, plunging straight for the dark Pacific-

Power outage, that was all. He'd been through it a thousand times in Sim; twice before, in real life. He could handle this.

One thing Tracys never did was panic. Goddam waste of time, and dangerous, too. Instead of screaming for help, as his Bird spiraled tail-downward, Virgil got busy. Routing problems, he figured. That power surge had to have fried some circuits. There was another wiring system, though; meant to handle the rescue carrier's laser and sonic blaster attachments.

Thinking fast and fighting vertigo, Virgil shifted engine feed from primary circuits to 'appliance' network. Had to rip loose a panel, quick-strip a pair of wires with his teeth, and then pinch them together with one hand, but 2's engines received that restart signal, and roared back to sudden life. Almost, he lost his grip on the wires (performing a reflexive air-punch). Yeah… that would have been bad. Didn't happen, though; no matter what his body-cam showed.

Only just, he didn't crash. Helped that the ocean down below had caved itself into a bowl-shaped whirlpool, giving Virgil a scant hundred extra yards of clearance. All that seawater was going somewhere else, fast, which meant that it wasn't right under him. Undersea landslide, maybe?

Thunderbird 2's mighty engines lofted her up and out of that spiraling plunge, making the loudest, most beautiful music he'd ever heard. The entire aircraft shuddered with strain as she clawed her way upward, then back into level, safe flight. No cockpit lights or comm, and sh*t for instrumentation, but the body-cam was still working, and he had some steering.

"Okay… I'm okay," Virgil panted, unclenching by slow degrees. Managed to get those two wires twisted together, with a few savagely fast thumb-and-forefinger rubs. Cut himself in the process, but it had to be done. Too difficult to fly with just one hand. Heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute, but the only thought in his head, now, was for Gordon.

"Don't know if you can hear me, Kiddo, but it's all good, up here. Need your situation update, right the h*ll now."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 4, being swept along with a tidal wave of transported water-

That circle of bluish, wavery sky and snapped buildings was so close that only five minutes, maybe three, stood between Thunderbird 4 and a very long drop. No power, no steering, no comm, but…

"Chip?" Gordon said aloud, after cutting off his body cam.

"Yeah, Dad?" the boy asked, too sure of Gordon's awesomeness to be worried.

"Can you speed us up, relative to everything else? Make the water thicker, or something?"

Because what he chiefly needed was time, in order to fix whatever was wrong with the Seabird. Charlie nodded rapidly, eager to help. All at once, as the boy screwed up his face in concentration, Thunderbird 4 seemed to freeze in place; trapped like a fly in slowly hardening amber. Sounds changed, too, growing deeper and slower, like the thoughts of a wintery redwood forest.

Gordon smiled at his small, intent stowaway, reaching out to muss the boy's straight, light brown hair.

"Good work, Kiddo. My turn."

Unstrapping to rise, the aquanaut vaulted out of his seat and lunged aft. Spared half a thought upstairs, as he keyed open 4's mechanical access panel. Wires fried… connections shorted out… but nothing he couldn't fix. Hopefully, Virgil was in better shape, above, and was getting a similar time-bonus, if he needed it.

"Luck, Bro," Gordon murmured, before plunging into that access panel, almost up to his waist.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Kyoto, Japan, at around the same time-

Only thing was, Havok had more than one sort of bomb. There were the "crowd pleasers", meant to spread destruction and panic… and there was the "clear a path" sort, for when she needed a quick, flashy exit. Noise and smoke, mostly, with an ultra-bright cross-spectrum flare thrown in, to blind eyesight and sensors.

Thanks to that bloody stasis-patch, she'd popped straight from fight to chaos, but Fuse was safe, and he'd touch-scanned the transport disk. Schematics ought to sell for nearly as much as the machine, itself, Havok figured. That's why the girl was content just to summon their cloaked cruiser, and beat a hasty retreat.

Scott Tracy came charging into the demo chamber just as she flipped her "noisemaker" at the newly repaired transport disk. Heartbeat-and-a-half after that, the Chaos Cruiser smashed its way through the nearest window-wall, sending slivers of perma-glass flying in every direction. Havok would have liked to stay and see the look on Tracy's face… if he still had one… but a smart girl knew when to cut her losses and scarper. This was def one of those situations. Didn't mean she couldn't have a bit of fun, though.

"Better luck, next time, Hero!" Havok taunted, as Fuse leapt with her, into the Cruiser's open and waiting main hatch.