None of his sims have simulated the exit procedure from the interior of a cargo plane's cockpit while said cargo plane is in freefall.
Thankfully it doesn't take much theory to know that he needs to get the hell out of the cockpit, and then out of the damn plane. The forces at play are dizzying, both in theory and in reality, because the plane has started into a corkscrew dive, plummeting towards the sea below. John's already dizzy from the impact with the back of the cockpit, the way his head within its helmet had snapped back as he'd been thrown towards the rear of the plane. He at least seems to be dizzy in the opposite direction to the plane's native spin, so that's something. It almost cancels out. And it's put him closer to where he needs to be, as he peels himself off the back wall, hauls himself towards the cockpit door, the reinforced servos in the joints of his exosuit helping him to overcome the immensity of the G-Force, as he powers his wings back on.
Overhead, looking upward through the cockpit door, he can see the blown open hatch at the back of the plane and the infinity of bright blue freedom beyond it. The interior of the plane is dark, cavernous, a hollow space of bare metal, confining and claustrophobic. When he'd gotten aboard, the cargo bay had been filled with miscellaneous black crates, and now it's apparent what they had contained. Even in those first few moments, he'd gotten the sense that something was wrong, and wished he could've had more intel. Should've trusted his instincts.
Neither here nor there, at this point. At least he's got a straight vertical shot up and clear of the plane. As he pulls himself up through the doorway, John manages to find purchase on the bulkhead, levers himself to his feet, unfolding long limbs with the assistance of the exosuit. The suit is haptically controlled, and so flexing his back changes the positioning of his wings, and he extends his hands to wrap his fingers around the dual joysticks that control his thrusters. There's also a secondary switch for his comms, and he toggles this on, announcing, "Thunderbird One, I'm about ready to bail out of this thing. Am I clear?"
"Negative, John, there's about two dozen mechs out here, and they'll tear you apart. Kayo's en route. She'll be here in fifteen minutes. Stay where you are until I can—"
Where John is is in the belly of a cargo plane, spiraling towards the Coral Sea, and while he hasn't ever coded a simulation to match this exact scenario, he's still pretty sure that this is not really a situation in which one stays put. He's got maybe two minutes, tops, until splashdown, and that's presuming that the plane isn't rigged with any other nasty surprises. "…Until you can do what, exactly?"
"Until I can clean up out here!" There's a slight strain of effort in Scott's voice, the one that goes along with him throwing his Thunderbird through its paces, that sort of tactile physicality that John just doesn't share with TB5. He's not quite there yet with the exosuit, either, despite the intimacy of its very existence, and despite the fact that it's going to be the thing that saves him from crashing into the ocean aboard a falling jet plane.
There's an implication in Scott's answer, and it takes John by surprise, because it's not something he ever would've expected from his brother. In fact, it's something he'd have considered a stark impossibility, if it weren't for the situation they're currently facing.
It's a question they've all been asked, something they've all been offered, a choice they'd each had to make for themselves. Scott had made his own preferences loudly and clearly apparent, but even so, he hadn't done anything further to exert his will upon any of his brothers' choices. He'd left The Decision up to each of them.
So John has a question to ask, because the answer to it will change what exactly he does next. He's still hesitant, a little bit uncertain as he asks, "…did you take the upgrade to Protocol Theta?"
There's immediate hostility in the beat of his elder brother's silence, offense taken. And then, though by now John doesn't need the answer, a heated and empathic, "No. No way in hell, John."
And that settles it. John flexes his shoulders again, and engages his controls. "Well," he answers, bending his knees just slightly as he feels the jets at his back whine into life. There's already a countdown to launch running at the back of his mind, and in a second or so he'll be out there in the same deep blue as his brother, facing the same external threat. "I did."
And he launches himself out the back of the plane and into the fray.
As far as Scott knows, Gordon did, Alan didn't. Kayo already had, ever since their first run in with the Mechanic. He hadn't been sure about Virgil or John, but he would've bet no for both of them.
Theta is a weapons upgrade.
TB1 is not—and never will be—a weapon, but after what had happened with TB4 and the Mariana Trench, after the TV-21 and TB3—there'd been a family meeting, though it hadn't been called by a member of the family.
Well. Not a member by blood, anyway.
Brains had insisted that they all be there, and their grandmother too, probably for the benefit of her sage advice and wisdom, but also probably because he'd gone to her with the idea in the first place, to get her approval. It had been late and everyone had been tired, emotionally and physically. There'd been the uncomfortably prescient sense that what they'd gone through was only the start of worse to come. And Brains had brought up the Theta Protocol.
The most fiendishly clever aspect of the Mechanic's mechs is the fact that the weapons best capable of disabling them are some of the most illegal in the world. A simple electromagnetic pulse would make short, effortless work of any of his drones, but their usage is staunchly forbidden by the World Council.
It's still what Brains had offered. He'd put it in simple, purely practical terms, and said that the best defenses in the world could only go so far, and that this would be the only time and the only situation in which he would offer them the option to arm themselves. He'd put it on the table, and left it to the five of them to make their choices, said that they could each get back to him privately, and no one else ever need know what option they'd taken. Kayo had, rather darkly, hinted that it might be best if they kept their choices to themselves unless it became absolutely necessary. Plausible deniability.
Virgil had had his engines torn out from beneath him in midflight, been forced into the choice between ditching his bird in the ocean or crash landing it on the island. Gordon had nearly been crushed to death inside his ship, then seen TB4 ripped in half in front of him. Scott had nearly been murdered alongside his baby brother, burned away to atoms by one of their own ships, turned against them.
He remembers being hazy and exhausted in that specific aftermath, but he'd still stood up in the middle of the lounge, and made some righteously principled declaration about his own personal opinion on the subject. He'd announced the legacy their father had left them didn't allow him to take this option, that they were better than to need to stoop to the Mechanic's level. That he hoped his brothers would give the implications of the prospect some serious consideration, because they would be opening a door they couldn't exactly close again—but also that he wouldn't stop them, whatever they felt was necessary.
Because he couldn't in good conscience forbid his brothers the option to defend themselves.
And even with a swarm of drones bouncing off the hull of his 'bird, even with electrical interference starting to threaten his control of his ship, Scott still feels his jaw set like stone as he watches a blur of blue and goldenrod yellow come rocketing upward up out of the back of the plane, and knows that his brother's made a choice he doesn't agree with.
It's particularly galling as John gets some altitude, and at distance makes an assessment of Scott's current situation. His voice crackles over the comm, almost disbelieving, "Oh boy. You're just in a hell of a lot of trouble, aren't you? Sit tight, Scotty."
"Don't call me Scotty," Scott snaps, for lack of anything better to say.
Because John's currently in possession of an illegal piece of weaponry—has been this entire time—and he's rocketing in Scott's direction, grim and determined and apparently spoiling for a fight. Only about twenty minutes ago, Scott had been condescending to him about his skills as a pilot. Now Scott's in trouble, knows it, didn't need it stated. Realistically, he should be glad that he's got his brother for backup, glad that John has options available. Practically, there are about two dozen murderously dangerous mechs teeming around his 'bird, damaging his shields in quick, glancing blows even as he tries to evade them, and he's going to be in pretty serious danger if someone doesn't do something.
But this is still the last possible situation in which he wants to engage the worst pilot in the family.
Well, of course he'd taken the upgrade.
Gordon had too, that was a given. Virgil was resolutely, intensely private about his choice, and wouldn't say one way or the other. Alan had quietly wanted John's opinion on what he should do, and it had been John's opinion that it wasn't something Alan was ever going to need, and he'd been glad to watch his little brother gratefully decline another too-grown-up responsibility.
And Scott had felt compelled to set an example in their father's absence. As the eldest, that's probably his prerogative. John's the second-eldest, and needs to follow no such standard. In fact, there's probably an argument to be made for the merits of devil's advocacy, for offering an alternative to Scott's take on things. For John, it had been the simple consideration of better safe than sorry, and the practical reality that he was also the least likely to ever need to usea weapons upgrade, such as it was. In his opinion, the differences between what they already had and what Brains was offering were academic, anyway. It's not like TB4 doesn't have a nose full of demo charges. It's not like TB2 isn't equipped with some of the most powerful industrial grade lasers on the planet. It's not like Scott wouldn't level a grapnel at the face of anyone who threatened one of his brothers and pull the trigger, if by doing so he could save a member of his family from harm. Not like their father wouldn't have either.
And further to that point, at least in this specific scenario, it's not like they'd be hurting anyone by defending themselves. The Mechanic weaponizes drones, has a suite of mechs that seem specifically designed to disable aircraft; their aircraft. He remote pilots everything, has nothing at risk and nothing to lose when he goes on the offensive. It's an unfair advantage, and not one John believed they could tolerate.
So, carefully constructed and cleverly hidden, his exosuit contains a mini EMP device. Short range, limited output, single use and disposable. Usable directionally or in a radial burst, with only enough power for a limit of two minutes. Very, very illegal. A last resort, in case of emergency.
The sky full of insectoid drones menacing his brother's Thunderbird seems like it constitutes an emergency.
And surprisingly, bringing today's efforts around full circle, it turns out that flying is a great deal easier when it's obviously an emergency than when it is demonstrably not. Weaving in and out and around Brains' preprogrammed drones in their own airspace while Scott tells him that he needs to make his turns a little tidier is one thing. Negotiating his way out of a falling cargo plane and into a sky full of hostile mechs is entirely another. Apparently there aresome actual merits to on the job training.
So John doesn't second-guess himself for a moment as he rockets a thousand, two thousand, three thousand feet upward, gets wellclear of the plane falling away below him in case it decides to explode, and up above the swarm of drones that fill the air around Thunderbird One. He wouldn't have predicted it, especially after being harangued all day about the finer aspects of his piloting ability, but there's a weird sense of anticipation building up, as he peers down and clinically assesses the mess Scott's gotten into.
It's worse than he'd expected.
John can't help but be a little bit dumbfounded by the fact that there'd been two dozen mechs lying in wait for them, and they just hadn't had any way to tell. He'd known there were drones, had assumed Scott was exaggerating, and hadn't expected more than a handful, but this is a swarm. If he and Scott held slightly less disparate philosophical positions about the weaponization of Thunderbirds, then the current situation would probably be a death sentence for one or both of them.
"Oh boy. You're just in a hell of a lot of trouble, aren't you? Sit tight, Scotty."
His brother's voice is taut, irritated and tense in his ear as he answers, "Don't call me *Scotty."
And John can't quite help a grin at that, as his hands tense around the controls again.