Hi, Guys. =) Me, again. Édited.

17

Thunderbird 5, in high orbit over distant Tracy Island-

After all this, his boring desk job at WorldGov HQ would seem like a haven of peace, with or without Chancellor Shaw's machinations. All around him, the space station was going nuts; its power repeatedly shutting off and restarting, every thirty seconds, or so. It had also been placed in cleansing mode, causing hordes of small maintenance bots to zip from their bays, mindlessly cleaning whatever got in their path.

In the meantime, Jeff had three… make that four… major emergencies to handle, back there on Earth. And yes, okay. Maybe John could have done it all better. But then, John didn't have an obnoxious, smart-ass AI fighting him, every Goddam step of the way.

Fortunately, Jeff had helped to design and build Thunderbird 5. He knew all of the 'Oh, sh*t' cut-off codes, and just when to use them.

Maneuvering his way across that big, noisy dome, Jeff sailed over to the station's main control panel. Like the rest of Thunderbird 5, the board had been lighting up and blinking off again, like a cheap neon bar sign.

"Move!" snapped the Colonel, batting aside three of those industriously-scrubbing maintenance bots. They tumbled off to drift away in midair, brushes still whirring, trailing bubbles and fluid like smoke. Jeff nearly electrocuted himself in his haste to enter the reset code on a sloppy-wet keypad. One more thing never to mention, ever.

Anyhow, a little charge never hurt anyone… very much. Jeff clenched and extended burnt fingers, briefly; getting the feeling back into his hand. Then he set back to work, pressing his right palm to the scanner.

'ACCESS DENIED', boomed the station's control system, delivering another brief jolt.

"What?!" Jeff blurted. He was beginning to get angry, which wasn't safe, at all. "I helped design every piece of equipment on this Goddam floating scrap-heap! Override, protocol 51!"

That was his ultimate weapon; one that would take control of any Bird, regardless of pilot, or locked onboard system. He hadn't used it around Eos, because she might have been able to circumvent the command. She'd vanished, though, leaving utter chaos in her wake.

"Override," repeated Jeff, once more pressing his hand to the scanner. All at once, with a series of sharp clicks and screeches, the station reset itself. Her lights quit flashing and dimming. The life support system ceased thumping on and off like a d*mn bellows. Even those madly-scrubbing robots stopped work on the instant, returning to their maintenance bays. Then, in a warm electronic voice, Thunderbird 5 said,

"Welcome, Jeff Tracy. Enter access code, now."

A computer-destruct sequence had started, in the event that he wasn't Jeff Tracy, and couldn't supply the right code. All part of the plan.

"That's more like it," grunted the Colonel, swinging himself a bit closer to the station's primary control panel. Hurriedly, he keyed in: 0423LUCY, using an actual, tactile keypad, not one of those holographic nightmares preferred by John and Brains. The keystrokes went in, another chime sounded, and then the station said,

"Access granted. Command?"

Jeff waited, still filled with fight and adrenaline. At length, (when nothing else went wrong for a full three minutes) he grunted,

"Show me complete situation reports on Kyoto Tower, Pacifica City, and Thunderbirds 1,2 and 4. Then, open a channel to Island Base."

"Command entered. Processing."

Seconds later, five glowing holo-globes flashed into existence around the Colonel, each one displaying an active danger zone. Jeff turned slowly in midair, switching his gaze from one ugly scene to the next.

Okay… sh*t. The situation was bad, to put it mildly. Scott's icon flickered and dimmed in the tower spaceport, which had sustained heavy damage from some sort of collision and detonation. Pacifica City appeared to be slipping into a trench, amid pillars of gouting black smoke. Gordon, too, was offline, having seemingly vanished along with his rescue sub. Meanwhile, Virgil appeared to be struggling just to keep Thunderbird 2 in the air, and Eos had blasted away like the loose cannon she was, doing God-alone-knew how much damage. Jeff felt his blood pressure spike.

On the plus side, Kayo was streaking for Japan in Thunderbird Shadow, and Lee was already halfway back from the Moon. If he hurried directly to Pacifica City, and Virgil inflated those emergency floats, eight-hundred lives still might be saved. As for Buddy and Ellie Pendergast… who knew? Alan would find them, if anyone could. His missing sons he did not permit himself to wonder about. The boys were Tracys. They knew what they were doing. Jeff had to have faith that hard training, crack skill and sheer, runs-in-the-family determination would keep his sons alive, and a step ahead of trouble.

"Island Base, from Thunderbird 5," he called out, after opening a channel to the desk. "This station is back online, and ready for action."

Didn't say a word about Eos, because GDF ears might be listening in. Just,

"Got a bug out of the system, up here, and I'm about to trace that signal."

"Understood, Thunderbird 5," came Ma's voice and silver-haired image. She looked and sounded pretty distracted, so Jeff kept it brief.

"Let you know, as soon as I've got something solid on the Pendergasts, and I'll help route the GDF rescue fleet, as well."

"Right," his mother responded, gazing at Jeff over her red-framed spectacles. Never once had Sally Tracy expressed doubt about the wisdom and safety of sending the boys out, mission after hair-raising mission. Now, she seemed shaken. "We'll keep ya posted from our end, too, Thunderbird 5. You take care up there, Jeffery."

"Yes, Ma," he responded, hoping like h*ll for a miracle.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

In transit-

She had split herself into a stream of high-energy data points. This was not ideal, because of the danger. Her packets might be diverted, blocked or absorbed, as Eos flashed from Thunderbirds 4 and 2, then followed that power surge outward. In all her five years of life, she had only left the station three times. On each occasion, she'd been safely housed within a mechanism. This was different. Wilder, and much less certain. Like a streak of invisible lightning, the AI rode along with that rocketing power, heading first upward and then, quite suddenly, ceasing to exist; utterly snuffed out between one terabyte and the next. Her last sentient thought, John's image.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Kyoto, Japan, in the Yamato Spaceport Tower-

He hadn't expected those highjacked security drones, which showed up on either side of him; pressing close. One pushed him into the other, and plucked at his right arm, as he was trying to rise from an unstable half-crouch. Scott flailed blindly at absolute silence and spark-shot darkness. Then, something stung him, right on the neck. Must've been quite some needle, because IR uniform textile was close to impenetrable.

Realizing that he'd been sedated, Scott tried to get up, meaning to press his wrist comm (missing) or run (couldn't; his legs had stopped working). Instead, he got a sickening, stomach-drop, falling sensation, and crashed hard against concrete. Should have hurt more than it did, but Scott was too drugged to feel much. Moments later he'd been trussed up, then lifted and carried away.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Manhattan, New York, at the top of a shattered building-

John slammed Buddy and Ellie flat to the deck, covering them as well as he could with his own battered body. Next triggered the "distort" feature on Brains' amazing formal wear. Not a perfect solution… all the thing did was jam electronic sensors… but better than nothing at all.

The explorers were exhausted and weak, but wise enough to keep quiet, as that buzzing and beeping, jointed-limb drone approached their location. John could hear the thing coming. Could feel its scanning sweeps, all through his wrist comm and illegal circuitry. Those pulses didn't hurt, exactly… just crackled; scrambling his thoughts all to h*ll and erasing a few recent memories. But he managed to hang onto the thought: Don't move. Not a sound.

Sensing something amiss, the big drone came closer, setting pebbles and slivers of glass bouncing and sliding across the cracked floor. Powerful lasers crisscrossed the air nearby, gouging smoldering lines in concrete and tile, and starting small fires. More scanning waves followed, as the people beneath him tried not to breathe, or dislodge any rubble.

They could have been sliced up like lunchmeat, only its aim was off. Refracted by… by something he'd done. It missed them completely, scoring on nothing but innocent stonework and glass.

Dimly sensing that someone was present and hidden from sight, the drone hovered awhile, like a many-eyed, floating grenade. He could see its shadow. Knew that, once triggered, the guard mech would summon many more of its vicious kind. For that reason, John held very still.

After a few tense heartbeats, the thing moved off, but not before firing a target beacon, marking their hiding place for destruction. Screaming like a bottle-rocket, the beacon struck the wall behind John and those pinned explorers, then drilled in and started to flash red and white.

John rolled off of the others once the drone returned to its regular beat. Was tired, hungry and sore all over, but still alive. Surprisingly, the woman… blonde, pretty… he'd think of her name in a minute… gave him a long hug and kissed his cheek.

"Thank you, Johnnie," she whispered. "That's more times y've saved our arses today than I c'n count. But, don't worry… once we've found that croc, an' we're outta here, Buddy an' me 'll make it right up t' you. Promise."

Buddy, that was it... Buddy and Ellie. Friends of… of Gordon. Friends of the family. A bit hesitantly, John returned her smile, and accepted half of a strawberry protein bar. Then it was time to get the h*ll out of Dodge, while he could still sort of think, and before that d*mn beacon summoned a mechanized wrecking crew. How, was another matter entirely, because no one escaped from a GDF quarantine zone. Especially New York.