Universal Rescue
Aaron T Izzard
Rescue at Sea
The sun was shining and the sky was a deep clear blue, another beautiful day on a familiar tropical island in the south pacific. The hidden base of International Rescue, so far undetected, outwardly the luxury home of billionaire ex-astronaut, Jeff Tracy and his family.
Said ex-astronaut was currently down in the underground laboratory with International rescue's engineer "Brains", preparing for yet another test of some new equipment for International Rescue. Dressed in a plum colored shirt and bright blue blazer, He walked up beside Brains removing a pair of glasses and began to examine the screens in front of him.
"Okay Brains, open Thunderbird 2 hanger" said Jeff.
"Right away Mr. Tracy" said Brains.
Above ground, under the Tracy Island Cliff house, a section of cliff face gradually lowered into the ground and a large metal door behind it began to swing down, as it did the colossal hanger within was exposed along with the giant green transport ship inside.
Presently a humming/buzzing sound could be heard, and an odd looking yellow craft came speeding out of the hanger along the runway beyond. Inside the cockpit of the craft, in a red leather pilot's seat, was a man in his late twenties with ginger hair, and wearing a blue duty uniform and cap, an orange sash and belt completed his outfit.
"Thunderbird 4 to control, have exited hanger, proceeding to launch ramp" said Gordon Tracy, aquanaut of Thunderbird 4.
"Okay Gordon, lowering launch ramp and you're clear to go" said Jeff over his Radio.
"Thunderbird 4, F.A.B." replied Gordon.
Thunderbirds 4 continued on it's coarse down the islands runway, eventually reaching the boat dock, the end of which was descending into the water forming a launch ramp for the midget submarine. With a mighty splash Thunderbird 4 hit the water nose first, and like a hydrofoil, the turbo jets that allowed it to glide down the runway, now carried the craft over the blue waters of the pacific.
"Control from Thunderbird 4, proceeding along coarse 0-9-6 magnetic" Said Gordon steering thunderbird 4 in the right direction.
"O... Okay Gordon, N... now to test your b...b... buoyancy compensators, t... take her down" Stuttered Brains.
"F.A.B. Brains, activating buoyancy compensators, beginning decent" said Gordon pushing forwards on the control column as he pulled down on a red leaver on his control consol.
Swiftly and steadily, Thunderbird 4 began to dive into the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, after reaching a suitable depth, Gordon pulled back on the steering column and Thunderbird 4 leveled out as she cruised above the seabed.
"Base from Thunderbird 4, test successful, the new B.C.S is working just fine, no snags so far, increasing speed to rate 3" Said Gordon.
Back in the lab.
"Well, looks like you've done it again Brains" said Jeff congratulating him.
"Well the early signs are certainly favorable, Mr. Tracy" said brains.
Meanwhile back beneath the blue waters of the Pacific, Gordon was enjoying himself immensely, it had been a while since his "bird" had been sent through her paces and was reveling in it, the new upgrades worked perfectly.
However as he was cruising across a rocky patch of the seabed, he noticed something of to his right.
"Say, that looks like a light" he said to himself.
It was indeed, a faint pink light that came from somewhere on his port side.
"Thunderbird 4 to base, I've found something, there's something on the sea bed not far from me, it looks like a light of some kind, I'm going in to investigate" he said.
"Take care Gordon" warned his father Jeff.
Thunderbird 4 steered over towards the light, as it did a light rail, an array of halogen bulbs arranged into a metal bar suspended in front of the craft on two arms, lit up producing a powerful beam of light that lit up the sea bed as it went. As he piloted thunderbird 4 closer to the light, the shape of a pink sphere became clearer to Gordon as he approached.
"I don't believe it" he said.
As Gordon drew his underwater craft closer, he could make out the shape of what looked like someone inside the pink globe.
"Thunderbird 4 to base, I've found something, it looks to be a small one manned diving sphere on the sea bed, there's no air or tow lines attached, and it looks like someone's trapped inside" said Gordon.
"Okay Gordon, see if they want any help, but be careful, they could be engaged in a top secret experiment down there" replied Jeff.
"F.A.B. father" Gordon acknowledged.
With the sphere now illuminated Gordon left the cabin and made his way to the airlock and readied to don his scuba diving gear.
"I thought this would be one test were I wouldn't be getting my feet wet" muttered Gordon as he closed the airlock and donned the facemask and bronze colored re-breather onto his back.
With a flourish of bubbles Gordon shot out the top of Thunderbird 4's airlock hatch, attached to the belt of his diving gear were various gadgets for use underwater. As he swam closer to the Pink colored sphere, he could make out a child inside it, maybe 11 or 12, at his approach the boy stood up giving a smile and waved, as if finding himself on the seabed was a regular occurrence.
"Brains this is Gordon, i can see them, it's a kid, young fella too, I'm gonna send him a message on the light-type" that said, he removed the Light type device from his belt off equipment.
The Light-type was a blue/grey colored device with a handle on the bottom for holding it, built into the base of the handle was a rotary switch for turning the screen on and off. On the front of the device was a ten to twelve inch screen, on the back of device was a series of white buttons each with a black letter. When some one typed a sentence on the device using the keyboard and turned the switch on the bottom, the screen would light up with the typed message.
Gordon worked to type a message out on the Light-type.
HELLO ARE YOU IN TROUBLE
The boy seemed to think for a moment, looked over and eventually nodded a yes in reply.
CAN YOU MOVE THIS SPHEAR
The boy nodded enthusiastically, proceeded to pick up his hamburger shaped backpack and proceeded to roll the Sphere around Gordon to demonstrate this.
"Well, at least he isn't stuck in place" he said to himself.
He typed onto the Light-type.
CAN YOU GET TO SPHERE TO SURFACE
The boy looked up and shook his head. 'NO'
Gordon thought for a moment.
WILL TOW SPHEAR TO SURFACE AND GET YOU OUT
BE READY
The boy took on a confident expression and Nodded.
With that Gordon began to make his way back to Thunderbird 4.
"Gordon to control, I've made contact, still have no idea what I'm dealing with but the kid's asked for help. I'm returning to Thunderbird 4 to take the sphere to the surface" he said over his Mask radio.
Jeff came over his headset radio.
"Do you need assistance out there Gordon?" Asked his father.
"Nah, Relax, I got this one handled" he said confidently.
"Okay Gordon but be careful" said Jeff.
"FAB" Gordon replied.
HE swam back down into the airlock of the rescue submersible, in moments he was back in the pilots chair, still wearing his wetsuit, he powered up Thunderbird 4s motors.
The yellow rescue submarine rose off the ocean floor and whirred towards the pink sphere, the light bar in front of the sub lowered and out of two of the holes in the nose of the craft, two arms telescoped out the front. Each of the arms ended in what looked like a metallic suction cup.
The submarine then slowly crept towards the sphere, and very carefully made contact with the sphere with a gentle bump. His instrument panel told him he had a good and solid hold on the sphere, he looked out of the viewing window of the craft at the boy and grinning gave him a thumbs up, the boy smiled and gave a thumbs up in return.
Powering up the main motors, Thunderbird 4 began to rise and gain speed as the light became brighter; Gordon was both relieved and concerned that the boy was so calm about the whole situation.
Soon enough with a flourish of bubbles from TB4s buoyancy compensators and Thunderbird 4 broke the surface with the sphere still attacked to its arms. He disembarked through the roof hatch of the Airlock, still donning his wetsuit; he carried a compact laser cutter slung over his shoulder.
"How ya, doing Kido, you doing okay in there?" he asked, firstly to see if the kid was okay and secondly to see if he could hear him.
Boy smiled at Gordon.
"I´m good" he said smiling up at Gordon.
Gordon just shook his head in disbelief, who was this kid and where did he come from.
"Need any help getting out of there kiddo?" Gordon asked smiling at the ridiculousness.
"NO I can manage," said the boy as he stood up strait, he then clapped his hands twice.
Instantly the sphere popped with a bang like a large party balloon, obviously the boy hadn´t thought very far ahead, because he plunged strait into the water below him. He bobbed back up floundering momentarily but in a brief moment clambered to one of the arms of the mini-sub.
Gordon chuckled and using one of the holes in the nose of the sub as a foot hole, and holding onto the arm with his hand. Gordon then reached forward towards the boy to help him up and out of the water.
"Here, let me give you a hand" He said taking the boy by the arm.
"Th…th…thanks," he said shivering as he climbed onto the sub with the aquanaut.
"Come on kiddo, let´s get you inside and dried off" he said take the boy by the shoulder as he helped him up to the airlock hatch.
"You okay now kiddo?" asked Gordon handing him a bottle of water from a ration pack.
"Yeah, lots, thanks again for the help Mr.?" asked they boy with a pale blue towel draped over his shoulders.
"You can call me Gordon, what´s your name kiddo," asked Gordon
"Steve, Steven Universe" said Steven beaming with pride.
Gordon grinned and chuckled at the boy's unusual name.
"Well I've save quite a few people, but I've never saved the Universe before" Joked Gordon.
The joked seemed to be just what was needed to lighten the mood about the current situation; he may have been a very long way from home, but at least he´d met someone willing to help. As Steven was about to thank Gordon a beeping came from one of the console speakers, Gordon rushed over to it and picking up his radio mike answered the call.
"Thunderbird 4 reading loud and clear" said Gordon.
"Gordon stand by Virgil is on his way to pick you up" came Jeff's voice over the radio.
"Distress call from the central united states; Virgil´s on his way to pick you and Thunderbird 4 up" Jeff explained.
"Understood Dad, Thunderbird 4 FAB" he said putting the radio mike back down.
"Sorry Steven looks like we´ll have to wait to get you home" he said turning to the boy.
"What was that about a distress call?" asked Steven.
"Oh just another day at the office, my Brother Virgil will be along to pick us up, but you have to promise to do exactly what we say" explained Gordon.
"Sir, yes SIR!" said Steven giving a salute.
Gordon chuckled.
"I better get changed won´t be a moment" he said.
Within minutes, the mighty International rescue Carrier ship, Thunderbird Two, had arrived to pick up Gordon (now donning his duty uniform) and his passenger Steven. The mighty green sip lowered it´s cargo pod (a section of the sip making up it´s center fuselage, and could be changed out to allow for the craft to carry different rescue equipment for different rescues) onto the water with four strong reinforced prehensile cables.
Once on the water, Pod 4s flap (a drawbridge like hatch on the front of the container) lowered and out of it´s opening came an extending launch ramp for Thunderbird 4, As Gordon piloted the submersible craft towards it´s hanger, a telescoping arm, ending in a magnetic claw, extended down the ramp. Once in position the claw grabbed the front of the craft, it was then hauled up the ramp and into the pod and secured buy several locking arms.
Steven watched the whole operation with great interest, he´d never seen anything this large and advanced before… well nothing this advanced and huge that was man made that is.
As he and Gordon disembarked, Steven saw two things at the back of the pod that looked like strange eight wheeled fire trucks, each had a number and letter, the first was F1 the second was F2, were they going to fight a fire?
He had so many questions to ask, like who where they? Were where they from? Did they like crying breakfast friends? Had they ever been to space?
All these and more, perhaps he could ask them on the way to this disaster, and maybe he could make friends with Gordon's brother Virgil too.