Disclaimer: again, I don't own. =)
I'll get things going in this chapter =P Thanks for reviews, they're greatly appreciated!
"It's in the Ural Mountains in the Southern range. According to the calls I re-… -stranded and abo-…-ing."
Jeff frowned. "John, could you repeat that? We only got bits and pieces." The screen in front of him pixilated and then returned John's puzzled face.
Up on Five, John frowned. The new communications network must be malfunctioning, he thought. But he was still receiving live updates from around the world. It seemed to be an isolated problem. He called the island and Brain's face appeared. "Y-y-yes, John" the scientist said.
"I'm having a problem with the communications, Brains. I can't get a clear message to or from Thunderbirds one and two. Could you contact them for me?"
Brains nodded. "H-h-h-wait a second, please." He said and contacted Jeff and the boys. "M-m-mr. Tracy, J-j-j- your son said he c-c-c- wasn't able to call you?"
Jeff nodded.
"The avalanche d-d-d-devastated a small village and s-s-s-a few tourists. A group of skiers are t-t-t-stranded on an l-l-ledge above the d-d-d-avalanche zone. S-s-s-similar buildups of snow a-a-a-have been detected on nearby mountains." Brains relayed and rattled off the coordinates of the disaster.
"Thanks, Brains. Do you think you could fix communications from the ground?"
Brains shook his head. "N-n-no, Mr. Tracy. I c-c-c-can go to t-t-t-t-five and f-f-f-correct the problem there."
Jeff nodded his agreement. "Have Fermat pilot, if that's possible."
"He'll be e-e-e-e-delighted, Mr. Tracy." Brains said.
Jeff smiled. "Good, I'll expect to hear from you as soon as the glitch is fixed. Jeff out."
…
Ash groaned quietly when her door opened. Light from the hallway shafted in. She blinked as she sat up. "Yes?"
"Aislinn, w-we h-h-h-need to go up t-to t-t-t-five to c-c-c-fix a communication problem. You'll be a-a-a-ok?" Brains asked.
"We? Fermat's going too?" she asked tiredly.
Brains nodded.
"Thanks for telling me, Brains. Have a good trip."
"We'll try, Miss. Tracy"
Brains closed the door and Ash resumed the exciting task of staring at her ceiling. She should be out there, with her family. But no, she was waaaay to delicate for that. She sighed in frustration. This line of thinking would get her nowhere.
She rolled over and grabbed the remote for her lights off her bed stand. Her lights turned on, illumining her room. She heard the sounds of Thunderbird three taking off and mentally berated herself. If you want in so much, why didn't you ask to go genius? "Mrrrhhhhh" she grumbled and walked over to her desk.
The smooth surface was covered by assorted half-done projects and random bits and pieces of useful implements. It was the one area that was never organized. She sifted through the papers until the smooth vellum of her most recent I-have-a-great-idea-so-I'll-start-it-now-and it'll-be-done-tomorrow project. It had been started almost three weeks ago.
She grabbed her pens, a ruler, and a clipboard and headed to her favorite inside chair. It was positioned so she could look out over the island. In the sunlight, her vision would be filled with brilliant greens and flashes of vibrant reds and blues as birds flitted through the leaves, but now the view was veiled by inky darkness. With a vague hope to loose herself in her work, she began the tedious task of copying writing into her finest calligraphy.
Outside, though, it was anything but calm. The storm that Ash had been caught in would seem a minor sprinkle compared to what was forming.
…
Jeff looked at his monitors with a slightly perplexed look. He sighed. Darn malfunctions. "You heard John, boys. Off to the Ural Mountains it is. The coordinates were entered and the course plotted and the Thunderbirds were off to Russia.
…
As soon as Three was hooked up to Five, Brains was out and ready to investigate the problem. John met him in the hallway.
"The whole network just crashed." John said with a calm façade. His furrowed brow and slightly damp hands gave away his nervousness, though. "We have no connection with earth."
Brains frowned. "Have you t-t-t-attempted to restart the s-s-s-network?"
John nodded. "It gives me an error signal and shuts down" he said "I'm trying to set up the system to forward all messages to the island."
"I'll do t-t-that. You can t-t-t-inform Fermat that we're going back." Brains instructed.
John nodded and ran off to go tell Fermat.
Brains hurried to the control center and expertly pressed the keys to forward all information. After many error messages and hurried code-entering, the scientist was satisfied that all essential information would be forwarded. John was just coming up the hallway to check his progress when Brains left the computers.
"I-i-i-it's done." He said simply.
John nodded and they both hurried back to Three.
…
Jeff frowned as they came in over the danger zone. "We're going in blind, so be careful. You see anything potentially dangerous, you notify everyone else. Understood?"
"FAB, Dad" his boys responded.
"Virgil, I want you to man Two and get the people off of the other red-zoned mountains. After they're put of the way, you can trigger the avalanche. Scott, you Alan and I will look for survivors in the snow. Gordon, you're to help Virgil." Jeff said. "Let's do this."