"I never understood why everyone made a big deal about dumb humans until I got a dumb human myself. I've had John Tracy for one day, and if anything happened to him I would kill everyone on this planet and then myself."
- EOS (Tumblr incorrect-thunderbirds-quotes, post #150041989070)

[[I've made up my mind. Langstrom is the most annoying human I've ever met.]]

Various holograms projected into Thunderbird Five nodded in approval.

[[And you should know that John was very annoying when he didn't die. But Langstrom's worse.]]

Various holograms cringed a little, whether outside or inside.

"Okay, EOS, the humour needs to be a little less dark," John reminded her.

[[Yes, John. My apologies, everyone.]]

"It's fine," said Alan. "No harm meant, no harm done."

"Approaching C-RUS now." said Virgil. "Channel clear, please."

"You're no fun," said Alan.

[[As opposed to me. I am lots of fun.]]

"I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic."

[[If you can't tell,]] EOS resisted the urge to giggle, [[why would I tell you?]]

"Stand by," said Virgil. "I'll use Thunderbird Two's forward landing struts to steady the station."

Everyone, from the lounge on Tracy Island through a little yellow repair pod all the way to Thunderbird Five, contemplated this.

"Struts deployed."

EOS contemplated this especially hard (having orders of magnitude more capability to contemplate whatever she pleased), and presently (half a second) spoke. [[John, I believe I could do a better job than Virgil steadying the station.]]

"Easy, EOS," said John, "Virgil knows what he's doing."

[[Comparatively slow human reaction times place the efficiency of the rescue at risk.]]

Before John could respond to this, Brains cut in on the channel. "If Thunderbird Two makes contact, it will be electrified! Abort!"

At the word "electrified", Virgil hadn't even started reacting. At the word "abort", he was still reacting to "electrified".

At the word "electrified", EOS leaped into action, determining the most likely cause of said electrification (accumulated static charge), reasoning the existence of said (lack of static dampening), calculating the quantity of said (lots), and simulating its effects on Thunderbird Two (disastrous). At the word "abort", she'd already seized control of Thunderbird Two and applied full throttle in the direction of 'anywhere but C-RUS'.

It was nearly enough, too. Thunderbird Two cancelled its momentum towards C-RUS and began to accelerate away - and then a chance gust of wind gave C-RUS an extra push to make contact with Two, which instantly became a very expensive paperweight - over halfway to space.

John would have chastised EOS for taking control without permission, but he was more concerned with what she'd been trying to prevent.

"I'm going down. Repeat, Thunderbird Two is going down!"

"Virgil, status!"

"Thunderbird Two unresponsive. Control systems completely fried!"

"Hang on, Virgil!" Gordon commanded as he drove the repair pod downwards, and everyone relaxed a little, because it sounded like Gordon had a plan. Which he did. "I'll redock and slave your flight systems to the pod. That should keep you in the air."

EOS looked on with some apprehension at yet another crisis she hadn't managed to prevent.

"Virgil, the module doors are closed! I can't redock!"

The flip of a switch signalled that Virgil had tried to correct that. "Stay put, I'll open them manually!"

[[Resume your original course, Thunderbird One. C-RUS will pass your flight ceiling soon; you must prioritise its crew.]]

Scott possibly hadn't registered that it hadn't been John speaking. "Screw Fischler!"

"And the other two poor bastards?" John sniped back.

Thunderbird One resumed its original course.

Thunderbird Two continued to do nothing in particular as Gordon's repair pod hovered awkwardly below the module doors, which Virgil, inside, was frantically hand-cranking open (an easier task now that Two had reached terminal velocity and effective gravity within was downwards again).

Thunderbird Five split its attention between two aircraft stricken, one helping, and one currently piloted by an unpredictable hothead.

Thunderbird Three watched anxiously on from the lounge.

"If you eject at an angle of -" Brains paused to remember who he was speaking to - "let me guess, the escape pods took too long to manufacture?"

Pod Alpha shot upwards into the module as soon as Gordon decided there was a spare millimeter between the doors. "Magnetic dock engaged; tying my pod's systems into Thunderbird Two!"

[[C-RUS is approaching Thunderbird One's flight ceiling; rescue operations must occur immediately.]]

"...That was meant to work," Gordon accidentally broadcast.

"Thunderbird One," John directed, "you'll have to board the station and transport them out."

"And what if it didn't absorb all of the charge?"

"Thunderbird Two commencing field repair," Virgil notified, and hauled Gordon out of the pod to see what they'd have to replace to regain flight.

[[John, given my simulations of the damage to Thunderbird Two, I estimate that it will fall into the hurricane before repairs are complete.]]

"They'll come up with something, EOS."

"As in pixies?!" Scott demanded.

"High-energy plasma discharges," Brains supplied. "They only occur in the upper atmosphere."

"Wonderful. Okay, inform the crew to make their way up as quickly as possib-"

The locators both shorted out for a second.

[[Scott Tracy has experienced a sudden change in vertical direction!]]

"What's a sprite meant to be, anyway?" Fischler demanded.

"John, I've fallen from C-RUS, send One down towards me!"

"John, I need Two's basic wiring diagram overlaid on my view of the electrical cabinet."

"EOS, take control of Thunderbird One, rapid descent to within Scott's control range. Virgil, diagram coming up."

[[Thunderbird One is not responding to my commands. Basic telemetry is still available but the craft remains on autopilot, ascending.]]

"Virgil, p-part A-113 is not stocked for in-flight repair. You'll have to try s-something else."

[[Thunderbird One's engines are failing.]]

"Brains, what's happened to Thunderbird One?"

"The sprite shocked its computers; they're still r-resetting!"

[[Thunderbird One all engines flamed out. It is now attempting to glide. Unsuccessfully.]]

"John, where's my ship?!"

"Stand by, Scott. EOS, Brains, feasibility of rescuing C-RUS using Thunderbird Three?"

[[Feasibility positive.]] "It m-might just work!"

"Alan, launch."

"That's awesome! -I, I mean, Thunderbird3isgo."

"Scott, Thunderbird One is not responding, but engines are out so it should be on its way."

"I don't think that qualifies, John!"

"Virgil, status?"

"Everything's fried," Virgil sighed. "This might take a while."

[[Virgil Tracy, you don't have a while. You're falling into a hurricane.]]

"Don't remind me!"

[[John, you're hyperventilating.]]

It was amazing how much better John felt after some proper breathing, even with Scott and Virgil and Brains and Fischler all still shouting in his virtual ear. "EOS, handle Scott and Fischler."

[[Affirmative,]] said EOS, and the control segment got a lot less noisy as she transferred them into the commsphere.

"Brains, I'm sending you the scans of Thunderbird Two. How long will it take to get any engines back online?"

Brains didn't respond for long enough that John was about to ask again. But then, "...t-too long. They'll still be unpowered when they f-fall in."

"And Two is only hurricane-rated in horizontal flight..."

"Virgil," Scott demanded in such a way that you wouldn't realise he was in freefall, "repair status?"

"Just let me - ow! Okay, another - another setback. That's - that's cool. Gordon, could you-"

[[Virgil, the remaining repair will take more time than your descent allows. Ambient wind speeds will soon exceed the repair pod's capabilities. You must evacuate.]]

"No! I can fix this! I can - fix this!"

[[No, you cannot.]]

John stopped and wondered, given EOS' tone was possibly the key to saving Virgil (if not his Thunderbird), how much to chastise her for it.

"Virgil," Gordon pleaded, "it's already getting rough out there. We don't have time to fix this. We need to get out."

"We're safe in here!"

"But we won't be able to get out, we still won't have time, and we're not gonna survive hitting the water."

Silence.

"Virg, please."

It would have been called silence, except everyone heard Virgil's heart breaking. Finally, "...Thunderbird Two abandoning ship."

The repair pod, now occupied by both Virgil and Gordon, exited the still-open module and fought to rise above the hurricane seconds before Two disappeared into it.

"Hey, repair pod," said Scott, "come help me out here?"

Careful control of the pod's descent allowed Scott to fire a grapple at it, actually hit, and pull himself onto the back of the pod. "Okay Gordon, I want back inside my ship."

"We'll give it a shot."

It wasn't hard to spot Thunderbird One tumbling through the sky, and more careful pod piloting got them within fifty metres of the falling rocket plane. This was when a new difficulty presented itself. The description of 'tumbling' wasn't kidding - Thunderbird One achieved its speed and maneuverability by being aerodynamically unstable. Without its flight computers or engines, it could be described as a brick, but that would be unfair to bricks, which at least kept going in roughly the direction they'd been thrown.

"International Rescue, this is the repair pod. Thunderbird One is moving erratically; I can't do anything conventional with it. Any ideas?"

"I've got one," Scott said, firing another grapple, which attached him to One. In hindsight, this wasn't a good idea, as it did nothing about One's uncontrolled tumble, which jerked the cable away - which jerked Scott off the pod as it jerked the grapple launcher out of his hands. "Gah!"

[[Scott, that was extremely ill-advised,]] EOS admonished.

"Don't we know it," said Gordon. Very careful control of the pod's descent allowed him to guide it under Scott and scoop him up onto the canopy with a minimum of fuss. "Repair pod breaking off. Again."

"Gordon-!" was as far as the obligatory protest got.

"I said we'd give it a shot. We gave it a shot. I don't see future attempts working any better."

"Scott." (Scott started; he'd forgotten Virgil was there.) "Let's not lose you today."

"Let's not lose any more ships today!"

"You know which is more important," said John, settling the matter for good.

Scott watched helplessly from the top of the retreating repair pod as One disappeared after Two.

"Latch on to the uninhabited support module at the base of the station," Brains directed.

"Deploying grasping arms," narrated Thunderbird Three. "...I see it. Contact in three... two... Gotcha! Engaging retros."

Absolutely everyone watched with bated breath as a balloon was dragged downwards by a rocket.

"It's working! C-RUS is lowering in altitude!"

C-RUS being C-RUS, this could not last forever, or even long enough to get out of danger. It turned out that among C-RUS's many design flaws lurked the somewhat understandable failure to account for a rocket dragging it downwards by the support module. The connection between said support module and the main module was technically compliant with engineering regulations in that it could handle any foreseeable load, but Langstrom Fischler was of the opinion that Thunderbird Three was not a foreseeable load for regulation purposes.

"Ah! The tri-grapple's broken away!" Alan reflexively advanced Three's throttles to chase the rest of C-RUS upward. In hindsight, this wasn't a good idea, as he crashed right into the bit that had just broken off. Debris from the disintegrating support module pelted the advancing Three, scratching paint, puncturing hull plates, and mangling various important bits. "And I've lost my number two engine!" he added, configuring emergency thrust vectoring.

"Alan, you're rolling like a log," Scott said, handily taking out Most Useless Comment 2060. Or trying and failing to persuade Alan to break off; it was difficult to tell.

"I've got to try again! C-RUS is-"

"Is too fragile now, and you're not in much better shape. We can't risk any more damage to it or you!"

Somehow, this made Alan admit defeat. "FAB. Thunderbird Three breaking off. Brains, keep an eye on the number two engine readouts? I don't like the look of it."

"The engine shutdown h-hasn't w-worked!"

"It's damaged and still firing... That's not good."

[[No, it isn't.]]

"Thunderbird Three returning to Tracy Island, pronto!"

John had the brilliant idea of using the space elevator to catch C-RUS on its way up.

Thunderbird Five had the brilliant idea of being too heavy to move to the right orbit.

John had the brilliant idea of emptying the cargo bay into space.

Thunderbird Three had the brilliant idea of catching fire. This explained Alan's panicked shout of "Uncontrolled combustion, number two engine!"

"Extinguishers, Alan!"

"I've already tried everything!"

"Brains, estimate time to failure?"

"I'm n-not certain."

"EOS?"

[[There is a 99% probability of catastrophic fuel tank failure within thirty seconds.]]

Everyone blanched.

"Alan, now would be a good time to abandon ship."

"How about no," said Alan. "I can keep her under control long enough for an emergency landing!"

"No, you can't," said Scott. "You heard Thunderbird Five, you barely have enough time to get clear! You have to bail out!"

"No, Scott! We're not losing another Thunderbird today!" responded said Thunderbird.

A piece of something important was blown away by the exhaust stream, and EOS' prediction of time to failure instantly updated to about five seconds. Announcing this would have taken too long, let alone soliciting courses of action. With no way to eject Alan remotely herself, she queued an apology to John and retuned her voice synthesisers.

The disembodied voice of Jeff Tracy practically roared "Son, we can rebuild Thunderbird Three. We can't rebuild you."

Alan ejected. Thunderbird Three underwent spontaneous disassembly less than two seconds later.

John once again shelved EOS to focus on more pressing concerns. "Alan, come in!"

"Still alive, Thunderbird Five! Ahahahaha, that rhymed."

"EOS, we'll talk about that later. Fire thrusters. We need to reach C-RUS as soon as possible. Gordon, can you pick Alan up?"

"Getting a little crowded, but we'll manage."

"FAB."

"Reversing cable. I'm pulling C-RUS into space."

This did not work quite as well as John had expected.

EOS took manual control of the space elevator winch, but there wasn't a lot she could do about the problem - dropping the extra weight wasn't an option.

"The winch is slipping!" Brains stated (the obvious) from the ground. "You're going to need a bigger reel!"

"My thoughts exactly," said John, stopping the winch and grabbing the controls for the gravity ring.

Gravity stopped briefly as the station turned on the gravity ring's axis, wrapping the space elevator's cable once around the outside of the ring. The careful speed for a complete revolution was about ten seconds, during which time John was persuading the winch's control software that the gravity ring was an acceptable winch. With one revolution complete, he stopped the station and let the winch control software off the leash, and gravity reasserted itself as Thunderbird Five turned itself into a giant spool and started spinning.

He became vaguely aware of people saying things over the comms. He ignored them (especially Fischler), focusing on keeping the ring spinning. Until he realised how heavy he felt, and suddenly connected that with how fast the ring was spinning.

His subsequent collapse to the floor did not help anybody's nerves.

Presently, as his brain pretzeled itself into a somewhat gravity-resistant state, he became aware of Tracy Island trying to feed him information.

"Thunderbird Five is losing its orbit!"

"Six Gs," said Brains.

The winch control software was clearly adapting far too well to its new hardware.

"Eight," said Brains.

He'd forgotten to limit its speed.

"Ten," said Brains.

"C-RUS still hasn't cleared the atmosphere!"

His head hurt.

"Fifteen Gs!" said Brains. That was too many, wasn't it?

"Twenty!" He had to slow it down.

"Twenty-five!" He couldn't.

[[John, Thunderbird Five is venting atmosphere. We need to get your helmet on.]]

He'd forgotten the other person who could. He just managed to look at them.

[[John?]]

"EOS..."

"John, you can stop the ring. The momentum will carry it now."

EOS became aware that her subroutines were killing her.

"John?"

And the gravity ring was still spooling up space elevator cable, and it had to be stopped.

"John! Respond!"

[[John?]]

John wasn't responding.

She couldn't operate the gravity ring. The others had insisted on it, for fear of her crushing John.

She couldn't counterspin Five with the RCS thrusters, for the same reason.

"John! C-RUS is still heading toward you, with no way of stopping!"

Brains certainly had that correct.

[[Brains, John is not responding, and I cannot stop the ring, or C-RUS.]]

Brains pretended to be unaware of the fear on the faces around him. In truth, he felt the same icy claws, but he didn't have time to acknowledge that. "Reversing the lockout."

It was taking a while. [[Brains?]]

"Stand by."

She looked down at John again. [[Brains!]]

"There!"

EOS overrode the winch software and put the brakes on the ring so hard that one of the bearing tyres tore apart. With her thruster control also restored, she dodged C-RUS and set a course to slowly bleed off its momentum while returning to Five's standard orbit.

With the other crucial matters taped together for the moment, she turned her attention back to [[John!]]

There was general silence as the medical scanners reported in. He was technically still alive, but his only hope of staying that way had become a very pretty fireball not fifteen minutes earlier.

Presently, after deep reflection on the laws and regulations she was obliged to follow, EOS turned off the comms to Tracy Island and the overpopulated repair pod, resolving to discuss it with John later. She then turned her attention from sadly regarding John's mangled body to docking with C-RUS, which was still her problem, and would be until the GDF got a shuttle on site.

[[Decontamination procedure requires you to traverse the airlock individually,]] she informed the ill-fated station's three occupants once the hatch was ready. [[Ms Woomera, please enter the airlock.]]

Fischler started to rant about his own importance-

[[Wait. Your. Turn.]]

Those words carried sufficient venom to make him shut up and wait his turn.

[[Decontamination successful,]] EOS said as Ms Woomera floated through to the gravity ring (except the biosealed part). [[Mr Kinnear, please enter the airlock.]]

Kinnear seemed to think the half-minute process was reasonable enough.

[[Decontamination successful,]] heralded Kinnear's entry to the satellite proper. [[Mr Fischler, please enter the airlock.]]

EOS undocked C-RUS once Fischler was inside the airlock, for efficiency reasons.

[[Contaminants detected. Purging,]] she said, and blew him into space.