Disclaimer: see chapter one
AN: This chapter is set about two and a half months after the last one.
Chapter Four- All Shades of Red
The master alarm light flickered on in the control panel.
"Ben, what's going on?" Jeff called out in alarm as he flicked several switches on and off.
"We're coming in at the wrong trajectory. Just give me a few moments. I can fix this."
"We don't have a few moments, Ben." Jack warned, after analysing his readouts.
A loud pop was then heard.
"Bad luck guys. You're dead." The supervisor said impassively into the comm. link.
"If I had a dime for every time they said that, I would be the richest man on the planet. What went wrong, Ben?" Jeff asked, while resetting his controls.
"We came in too steep. WAY too steep." Ben ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. "I don't understand. The math is right. That trajectory should be fine."
"Maybe it's something else." Jack suggested. "Maybe the math is right, but we're missing something. I think we should run the simulator again."
Jeff nodded. "We've two weeks to figure and sort out the problem. We can do this. Mission Control, we're going to try this one more time. Start the simulator."
Alan sat on the carpet of his classroom, as it was Circle Time. Today in Circle Time, they were reading stories.
"Now, we all know that there is an important space trip happening in two weeks, don't we?" Alan's teacher said.
"Yes!" The class chorused back.
"To recognize that, we're going to be doing a lot of work on space over the next two weeks. Starting with reading time." Alan's teacher held up a picture book. "Today, we're reading Star Bright at Night."
"Settle down, settle down." Scott's physics teacher grumbled as he slammed the door shut behind him. "After slaving away all day and all night for the past week, I have managed to mark your assignments."
Babbled broke out over the class.
"I will not, however," Mr Clarkson raised his voice over the din. "Hand them out until you are all sitting silently. There will be no talking as I hand them out. Is that understood?"
The class nodded as one.
"Good. Well, out of a class this advanced, I was surprised to see that only three people managed to earn full marks."
"Who were they?" One voice eagerly called out.
"I'm not telling. But one wrote on Mercury Seven, while the other two wrote on the crew that colonised the moon." He handed out the assignments, and then shuffled around in his pile of papers. "I've forgotten your copy of the criteria for marking. I'll just go back and get them."
"I guess there are no prizes for guessing who got full marks." The class underachiever and intimidating bully called out, causing him to earn some disapproving looks. "I mean, come on! That must have been the easiest assignment for Tracy to complete. All he had to do was ask Daddy."
Scott froze in his seat, and listened to the jibes the underachiever was throwing at him.
"Sounds like someone's jealous. A bad case of sour grapes." Tom placed a warning and restraining hand on Scott's shoulder.
"Yeah. Talk about whining." Jack agreed.
"Daddy, can you tell me this? Can you tell me that so I don't have to do the work? He must have it so easy with a dad who's willing to tell him the answers and not let him work it out for himself." The underachiever carried on, unaware of the danger he had just put himself in. "His work can't be that good. Surely they would have taken nepotism into account."
Scott had had enough. Something inside of him snapped, and he saw all shades of red. Breaking past his best friend's restraining arm, Scott pinned the bully against the wall. "Don't ever," Scott threatened with menace in his voice. "Don't ever do cruel, inaccurate impersonations ever again. And another thing, don't talk and bad mouth things you don't know. For your information, I didn't do the famous Jeff Tracy and his lunar landing. So what you just said then was crap and wrong. Do you understand?"
There was no answer.
"I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Scott roared, breathing heavily in a futile attempt to calm himself down.
Unfortunately for Scott, Mr. Clarkson decided to waltz right back into his lab, just at that moment.
His eyes narrowed into slits at the sight he saw. "What is going on here?" He thundered.
Stunned, Scott released the bully, and pivoted on the spot to face an irate teacher.
"Tracy attacked me!" The bully lied. "I was just sitting here, and for no reason he attacked me." He eyed the class beadily, daring them to challenge his accusations. Everyone looked down, bar two people.
"That's not true!" Tom called out indignantly.
"Quiet, Mr. Riley."
"But it isn't!" Jack backed Tom up.
"Quiet, Mr. Swallow. I know what I saw. Report to the principal's office immediately. The pair of you. There will be serious repercussions for this."
Alan looked at his spacecraft model, made out of Lego, which was supposed to resemble Orbita 13, and burst into tears.
"Alan," his teacher cried out in alarm. "Whatever's the matter?"
"The door isn't opening." He sobbed. "Daddy won't be able to get out."
"What?" The teacher was puzzled by his comment.
"Scotty told me there was a fire. They couldn't get the door open. I don't want my daddy trapped in a fire." Alan sniffed, trying to control his tears. He may have only been six, but he was still a Tracy, and had a sense of pride and dignity which he had to maintain.
"Daddy'll burn." Alan picked up his model rocket, and tried to pull the door open again. "I don't want Daddy to die in a fire."
"Ssh. Alan, your Daddy won't burn in a fire. He'll land on the moon, collect five moon rocks, and come back to Earth. He'll be home before you know it." The teacher comforted him, hoping, like Scott, she wasn't telling the six year old a promise she couldn't keep.
Jeff rolled down his sleeve. "I'm glad that's over."
"Yeah," Ben commented. "You aren't too fond of needles, are you?"
"I can't believe they're making us do the blood tests again." Jack grumbled. "What was wrong with the first three sets they took?"
Jeff shrugged. "Don't look at me. I know about as much as you do on this one."
"They probably just want to confirm their results." Ben reassured them.
Jack sent a frosty glare down to Ben. "That's what the second and third sets of blood are for."
"Well, we'll know in half an hour. They'll have processed the blood by then." Jeff sighed, and stretched out in his chair. "I don't think I've ever felt this relaxed."
Ben's eyebrow quirked upwards. "Relaxed?"
"Yeah. I haven't heard any news from the school about the boys. Ne news is good news, right?"
"I guess."
Jeff's phone rang, and he leaned over to the table to answer it. He groaned when he saw the caller ID. "I jinxed myself with my last statement. It's the school."
Bracing himself for the worst, Jeff answered the phone. "Hello?"
Jeff's face tightened and his jaw clenched as he listened. "Right. I see. Thank you for letting me know." Jeff threw his phone back onto the table. "When I get back, I'm going to kill that boy!"
"What did Gordon do this time?" Ben asked tentatively, unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer.
"It's not Gordon," Jeff answered, surprising the pair. "It's Scott. He was… involved in a… altercation at school."
Scott slouched behind his desk, bored out of his brain. He was given a detention for his 'outrageous behaviour and misconduct' as the principal had so charmingly put it. A phone call had also been made to Jeff, and this would stick on his permanent school record. Great, as if detention wasn't bad enough.
Scott let his imagination wander. What would his dad be doing now? Which simulation would he be training in?
It had taken a while, but Scott had finally accepted his father's decision to travel into space. He didn't understand it, but he had accepted it.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Was it just him, or was the minute hand moving especially slowly toady?
'Great,' he thought sarcastically. 'I only have to endure two more hours of this torture, and then I get to have an absolutely delightful chat with my father. As if this day can get any worse.'
"You're kidding." Jeff deadpanned. "You got to be kidding. Of all the things you could have told me, it had to be that."
"Do you think this is something I would joke about?" Gene asked rhetorically.
"But it's OK." Jeff argued. "I know Jack and I have already had the chicken pox."
"You and Jack might have already had the chicken pox, but Ben Thinley hasn't." Gene looked down at the sheet in front of him. "Our test results indicate he'll catch them while he's up in space. We have no option but to pull him from the team."
Jeff sat up. "What? You can't pull him! We've learnt how to read each other's voices! We know when something's about to go wrong by the other person's body language and voice! We trust each other implicitly! You can't just take that away from us!"
"If you wait out for Ben, you will not be flying on Orbita 13, Jeff." Gene said. "It's your choice."
Jeff closed his eyes, and raked a hand through his mane of hair. "Pull him." He muttered. "Pull him off the team."
Gene nodded. "I'll send someone from medical personnel to tell him."
"No." Jeff contradicted. "I'll tell him. I'm commander. It's part of my job."
Ben sat in stunned silence. "I knew something was wrong when they started to run all those blood tests. I mean, I know they're in trouble if I get sick up there, but for crying out loud!"
Jeff looked Ben straight in the eye. "It was my decision, Ben. No-one else. Just me."
Ben jumped off his chair. "I'll talk to Gene. There must be some mistake. Maybe the medical staff should run the bloods again."
"Ben, it won't be much help." Jack said gently. "Gene's adamant that you don't fly with those test results."
A cloud of fury passed over Ben's face, and his eyes saw all shades of red. "Now listen up. I'm telling Gene exactly what I'm telling you now. I have never had the chicken pox. I will never have the chicken pox. I DO NOT have the chicken pox! Understand?"
Jeff glanced at Jack, as Ben stormed out of the room.
"I guess he didn't take it too well, then."
"Understatement of the century, Jack. Understatement of the century."
AN: please review.