April 24th 2060 - 05:47 NZST
5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Thunderbirds are Go!
Kayo had just woken up after her first proper sleep since coming back to Tracy Island. The whole month of April was back to back missions and new leads on The Hood. It was only a few days ago when Alan had to go and save John from his old game code EOS, who was now John's assistant. She gets up and went over to the restroom to have a shower and get ready for the day.
As Kayo enters the mission control room on her way to get breakfast, Alan walks in looking very tired as he sits down on the couch. She thought it's a bit early for him but shrugged it off and heads downstairs.
"Alright so what's all..." Alan starts with a yawn but he pauses noticing Brains getting coffee from Max, "Brains? Is that a coffee maker?"
"I've engineered Max to produce 16 different types of hot beverages," Brains explains, "Still a little... over-extracted."
Then John calls in with a hologram of an asteroid in front of him, "You're looking at the Asteroid 21, Louticia, home of the Galvanna Mine. 20 minutes ago, an epic solar flare pretty much fried the station's electronics, just as it was drilling into the molten core. The resulting eruption pushed it into a collision course with the sun," John explains.
"It's all so tragic. That's my favourite asteroid," Brains says, upset.
Alan gives Brains a confused look, "You have a favourite asteroid?" Alan asks.
"Of course, Alan. Asteroids are extremely entertaining," Brains replies and Alan sighs.
"Hurrr... How many on board John?" Alan asks.
"Just one. It's a mostly automated operation. A computed response says that the miner is safe for now, but the next return transport won't get there in time," explains John, "We need to go pick him up. Are you cool with that?"
"Sure. With everyone else still helping with the tunnel fire in the Pyrenees, this'll be a solo mission," Alan replies.
"Not advisable. You'll need an extra set of hands if something goes wrong and that computed response sounds dodgy," Brains explains, "I'll gladly volunteer Max. He'll do great in the deserted, unforgiving, v-vacuum of space," he continues as Max starts to shake violently.
"Er... thanks Brains but I'll be fine solo," Alan says as Kayo re-enters the room and walks over to the launch chair and jumps over them landing in front of Alan.
"I'll go with you," Kayo says.
"Kayo! You will..." Alan says a trails off.
"Yes..." replies Kayo, unsure of Alan's reaction.
"I mean that's cool," says Alan, seeing the confusion on Kayo's face.
5... 4... 3...
"Want me to go over the launch procedure with you?" asks Alan.
"I've flown this before Alan. But if you want to give me your little presentation," Kayo replies.
"No, it's okay... we sure er... get going," Alan says, as his checks go red from embarrassment.
2... 1... Thunderbirds are Go!
"Thunderbird 3 is go!" Alan says and launches the craft and exits the earths atmosphere and heads towards the sun, "Wow."
"I know," replies Kayo.
"Oh. Oh, that? I see it all the time. No big deal," says Alan.
Then John calls in, "Thunderbird 3, your precise trajectory and optimum velocity have been calculated and loaded into the navigational cluster."
"Thanks, Thunderbird 5," replies Alan.
"Have a good flight," John says.
"You may have launched into orbit before but I'm pretty sure you've never done this," Alan says to Kayo, "3... 2... 1..." and activates the ion fusion engine to 65%.
April 23rd 2060 - 06:35 NZST
"Acceleration rate stable, intercept locked in," Alan says and he looks over at Kayo, "So, Zombie Apocalypse or Alien Storm?"
"Er... What are you talking about?" Kayo asks.
"Killing time. It's going to be pretty much autopilot until we get there. Don't you like games?" Alan replies.
"I've got better thing to do," Kayo says.
"Better than fighting zombies?" Alan asks, "What is all that?"
"Technical readouts of the asteroid mine. We should be prepared if something goes wrong," Kayo explains.
"This is a taxi mission. What could go wrong? Did I mention we have zombies?" asks Alan.
"Go ahead, conquer the undead," replies Kayo.
"Serious as always," Alan says and Kayo shakes her head at him.
"Really, Alan?" Kayo asks.
"I'm just saying," Alan replies.
"You say that as if it was a bad thing. I'm just thinking ahead," says Kayo.
"Well everyone did say you were the serious one out of us three," Alan says.
"Three?" asks Kayo.
"Fermat," Alan replies shortly.
"True. I still don't know why his line failed," Kayo says and sighs, "He was exactly like his father."
"I know," Alan says.
"His accident is just like your father's," Kayo says.
"Except we know what happened to Fermat in my father's case Captain, well now Colonel Casey showed us footage from the Zero X," Alan says, "We weren't there."
"I guess," replies Kayo.
April 23rd 2060 - 07:12 NZST
Alan falls asleep while Kayo does some usual checks on Thunderbird 3. Then a beeping sound.
"Kayo, I'm t-transmitting the latest estimates. Even at your current speed, any delay would make rescue impossible," Brains explains.
"Hmm, that is cutting it close," Kayo says and reaches over to wake up Alan by, lifting one of her shoulder straps, "Alan, wake up. You need to see this."
"Ah, I'm not asleep," Alan says and clears his throat, "Ugh, gross. Space drool. I didn't get you did I?" he asks as Kayo shakes her head, "Latest telemetry?" Alan continues.
"Yeah, we're really cutting it close," Kayo says.
"No problem. We're only using 65% of the ion fusion engine's power. We'll just speed up a little," says Alan.
"A word of caution, Alan. Increasing your velocity will get you there faster, but it will also g-greatly c-complicate your deceleration sequence. I'm worried you'll use up all your fuel," explains Brains.
"Brains, it's me. I can handle it," says Alan and turns to Kayo, "You better strap back in."
April 23rd 2060 - 07:45 NZST
"Time to slow down," Alan says and contacts John to let him know of their position, "This is Thunderbird 3. Preparing for deceleration sequence," and as soon as Alan finishes his sentence they get hit with the solar flare that was coming towards them.
"Proton storm," says Kayo.
"Shit. Everything's going haywire. Now we've fucking lost main power," Alan manages to get out before losing connection to Thunderbird 5 and Tracy Island.
"Navigation controls aren't responding. Ah, everything is fucking dead. We can live without coms, but without navigation and propulsion, there's no way we're stopping. What happened back there?" Alan asks.
"We were hit with a massive solar flare," Kayo explains.
"Well, it's a good thing Brains designed the ship to withstand that amount of solar radiation," Alan says, "Otherwise, we would have just been microwaved."
"So, what now?" asks Kayo.
"I need to do a hard reset. We'll power back up and hope everything works," Alan says and works on it and then looks at his controls, "Let's see. And everything doesn't work. Kayo this is kinda bad. I need those engines to slow us down, otherwise we'll shoot right past the asteroid and into the sun along with it."
"Can it be fixed?" Kayo asks and Alan shrugs.
"I don't know," Alan says and he presses the coms button, "International Rescue, this is Thunderbird Three, do you copy?" but only gets static and tries the coms button again, "John, are you there? Kayo I don't know what to do."
"We're gonna be okay, Alan. Let's take it slow and remember your training," Kayo says.
"Yeah..." Alan says and then remembers something, "Yeah!" He sits his chair back and floats over to a control panel, "Okay, we need to get these covers off," he says.
Alan continues his attempt to repair the systems. Kayo holds a new module and looks out of the portal just to see them go flying past the asteroid, "Alan, we just flew past the asteroid."
"Okay, and me a new module," Alan says and she passes it to him.
"It's getting hot out there," Kayo says.
"Here goes nothing," Alan says and he puts the new module in and attempts to restart them. He taps his wrist controller which comes to life with a hologram of Thunderbird Three, "Ha-ha!"
"Yes!" cries Kayo.
"We've got navigation and propulsion," Alan says, "Strap in, I'm turning this thing around," and he activates the engines at just the right time to send them back in the direction of the asteroid.
"Okay. We've matched speed with the asteroid. It's a whole lot bigger up close," Alan says.
"We're still safe from the solar radiation. It's really the heat to worry about," Kayo says, "We need to get inside the asteroid. It should protect us from the heat."
Thunderbird 3 heads inside of the asteroid and finds the docking door also known as the front door due to the fact that it was the only was to get in, "Well, there's the front door. But we still don't have a working com channel. We can't even let him know we're here," Alan says.
"We could always go out and knock," Kayo laughs at her own joke but Alan gasps.
"That's exactly what we're gonna do!" Alan says.
"I was joking," says Kayo.
"I'm not," Alan says and Kayo shakes her head.
"Can you help me rig up some kind of electro-magnetic interference generator?" asks Alan.
"Sure, but what good will it do other than make their console squeal?" replies Kayo.
"One word; Doorbell," Alan says and sends out the signal, "Remember when I was little and my dad would make us all practice Morse Code."
"You used to say it was the biggest waste of time in the universe," Kayo giggles.
"I never knew why his insisted we learn some ancient binary pulse code. Until now," Alan explains and as if on queue the door opens for them.
"How did you know...?" asks Kayo.
"To work on Galvanna mine you have to be space rated. Morse code is still a requirement," Alan says.
"And..." says Kayo.
"It was uh... in the readouts," Alan says, embarrassed and moves Thunderbird 3 down into the hanger.
"B-Boy, was I surprised to h-hear that M-M-Morse code, Alan and Kayo," a guy says.
"Who are you? And how do you know are names?" Kayo asks and gets ready for a fight.
"Yeah," says Alan.
"Y-You probably f-f-forgotten me s-since my ac-accident," the person continues.
"Uh, you know we just risked our lives to come and save you and we need to know who you are," Kayo says.
"I th-th-thought you knew," the guy continues and starts to walk out of the shadows.
"Who do you thing this person is?" whispers Kayo.
"I know as much as you do at this point," Alan replies.
"More c-confident now Alan," the guy says and exits the shadows.
"FERMAT!" cries Alan and Kayo and a beeping is heard.
October 2nd 2059 - 18:10 CET
"All crew accounted for," Kayo says.
"We've g-g-got to get b-back to Th-Thunderbird 2," Fermat cries.
"Hurry up!" calls Virgil.
"On it," replies Alan and he along with Kayo and Fermat send the grapples up to the module and get off the plane just before in crashed onto a field in France which also happened to have an un-exploded artillery shell from World War 1 which caused a massive explosion.
Completely unaware of what was going to happen, Fermat was still in the blast radius of the explosion.
"G-Guys help!" shouts Fermat as his grapple disconnects, 5,000 feet in the air.
"No!" shouts Alan as Fermat falls into the smoke of the explosion.
"Fuck!" calls Kayo, "Fermat do you cope?"
Silence...
April 23rd 2060 - 08:03 NZST
"Alan we've run out of time," Kayo says, "There's no way Thunderbird 3 can survive out there now."
"Are you fucking with me right now?" asks Alan.
"W-W-Wait, what d-d-do you mean?" Fermat asks.
"It's way too hot outside as we're too close to the sun," Alan
"We need a miracle," Kayo says and Alan looks over to Kayo and stairs at her, "Why are you looking at me like that?" Kayo says as her cheeks turn slightly pink.
"I think I may just have one," Alan says.
"What do you mean?" Kayo asks.
"All we need is a big enough kick to move this asteroid a few degrees," Alan says, "We'll slingshot around the sun. Instead of crashing into it."
"That would be i-impossibe. We d-d-don't have e-engines," Fermat says, "This is a rock in s-s-space."
"You do have explosives, don't you?" Kayo asks.
"E-Explosives? Oh, we d-do have those," Fermat says and leads them to another part of the asteroid which is filled with explosive canisters. Kayo and Alan enter led by Fermat who stops by a stack in the centre. Kayo looks at the stacks around the sides.
"They c-call th-these crackers. They'll s-s-split an asteroid in t-two if you put them in the w-wrong place," Fermat explains.
"But if we position them in the right place..." Kayo says.
"It'll give us the push we need," says Alan, as they push three carts to where they need. Afterwards they head to Thunderbird 3 to hide from the explosion. When the explosion goes off and the asteroid starts to slingshot around the sun.
April 23rd 2060 - 08:26 NZST
"Temperature readings are maxed out. If it weren't for the asteroid protecting us we'd be done for," explains Kayo as three make their way quickly into Thunderbird 3. Alan then sets off the explosives and the asteroid begins to move towards the sun, before going rounding it.
"W-We j-just wait it out then," says Fermat and looks over to Alan.
"Not exactly," Alan says.
"W-What do you m-mean?" Fermat asks.
"We have a slight problem..." Alan trails off.
Kayo is continuing to monitor the temperature gauge which is on red and bring out a map of the current trajectory of Thunderbird 3.
"Oh. That's not good. We're low on fuel and this asteroid is going in the wrong direction. Away from Earth," Kayo explains.
"And we don't have a working coms channel," Alan adds.
"S-Shit," Fermat says.
Alan and Kayo work on the ship a bit to fix the com channel. Kayo holds out a module for Alan.
"I'm an idiot," Alan says.
"Can you be more specific?" Kayo asks.
"My brother always say I make it look so easy. Like I don't even try. I think I started to believe them," Alan replies.
"None of this is your fault, Alan. It's a mission. Things do go wrong," Kayo explains.
"But I wasn't ready. Now we're probably gonna die," Alan says and Kayo puts her hand on his shoulder.
"Oh, don't say that. You've been through worse," Kayo says and puts her other hand on Alan's opposite shoulder forcing him to look at her, "You've saved so many lives including mine. When was the last time we didn't put our lives in danger?"
"But that doesn't change the fact that I've never been this far away from everybody. We're all alone out here. Brains, my brothers... they can't help us," Alan says.
"Look, Alan, I known you long enough to be certain that you don't need anybody's help. Those 18 years of knowing each other has taught me a lot," Kayo says and then puts in the last module, "That's the last module. Fire it up."
"It works!" Alan says and as everything starts to work again. They re-establish communications channel on board Thunderbird 3.
"Alan, Kayo, what a relief." John says as they appear in hologram form to find everyone in the mission deployment room.
"In case you were wondering, back side of the sun looks exactly the same as the front," Alan says trying to make a joke from the bad situation.
"We're monitoring your fuel situation," John says.
"Yeah, it could be better. We'll report back as soon as we have a solution," Alan says.
"FAB. Tracy Island out," John says.
"We've almost completed our orbit. Temperatures are dropping a little," Kayo says, "I think we made it through the worst, as far as the 'getting melted by the sun' part goes."
"I c-can't believe t-that they d-didn't n-noice me," Fermat says.
"We still don't have enough fuel to get back to Earth, though. We'll be stranded," Alan says.
"Don't worry you'll think of something," Kayo says.
"Just give me a minute," says Alan.
"If only we could get a little extra kick in the right direction," says Kayo, frustrated and looks over to Alan who was looking over to her with a weird expression on his face, "What?" Kayo asks.
"A kick. A kick! Fermat did we use all the crackers?" Alan asks.
"One left. F-F-For just in case," Fermat replies.
Alan calls Tracy Island to confirm their plan with them.
"Hey guys. I'm gonna try something, but it's a little crazy." Alan says.
"Alan Tracy crazy, or 'should I be worried' crazy?" Scott asks.
"R-Really S-S-Scott?" Fermat asks.
"FERMAT!" everyone cries.
"Son!" exclaims Brains
"Guys let's not get distracted," Alan says and explains the plan to them while Kayo positions that last cracker underneath Thunderbird 3. "We're sitting right on top of that last explosive charge. When it goes off it should shoot us from the asteroid like a cannonball. Along with our own engines that should give us enough velocity to get back to Earth."
"I've m-mapped your precise spin using telemetry data from Thunderbird 5," Brains explains, "I'm transmitting to you now the exact moment at which to launch. The margin of error will be less than one half second. You'll only get one shot at this."
"Otherwise we fly off in the wrong direction, I got it," Alan says.
When Kayo got back they get strap in and set the last explosive.
"Coming up on launch, we better strap in," Kayo says, "Here we go. Three... two... one..." At the exact moment needed, Alan pushes the Thrust Control lever to maximum. "Fire."
Thunderbird 3 takes off towards Earth causing Alan to sigh in relief. "It worked," he says, "We're heading in the right direction. With just enough fuel to get us home."
"ETA to Earth three hours," says Kayo
April 24th 2060 - 11:37 NZST
"We're all proud of you Alan," Scott says.
"No big deal. I wasn't worried at all," Alan says.
"That's a lie," Kayo says and Alan gives Kayo the look.
"Well I think I'm going to turn in," says Kayo, "I need a break."
"What at 11:40 in the morning?" Gordon says.
"Let her," says Virgil.
"What about Fermat?" Brains asks, only to receive a sad look from Alan.
"He didn't want to come back," Alan explains, "He just wants to have a private life away from International Rescue. A normal life."
Everyone looks at each other downcast but understood Fermat's reasoning. "I'll head back up," John says and walks away.
"I'm going to have a rest as well," Alan says and makes his way back to his room only to find Kayo sitting on his bed with a small smile on her face yet looking a little nervous.
"Do you mind?" Kayo asks.
Alan smiles, "Not at all."