Hi, again! Many thanks to Bow Echo, Tikatu, Whirl Girl and Elsa Jay, for their reviews and encouragement. As far as "world building" and AUs are concerned, it's not intentional. The story writes itself, and I just go where it takes me. Don't mean to go off on a tangent, or anything, really. =)
2
Gran Roca Ranch, at the house, on that same chilly evening-
Another time, she might have grumped about staying inside to help with the food and fixings, but Kayo actually liked hanging around Grandma and Penny. The two women's conversation yielded great insight on how to be female in this swamp of testosterone. So, she offered only token resistance, then listened and learnt all she could. There was an art to all this, it seemed, for men were often vexatious and stubborn; following their hearts and their stomachs straight to the altar, or ruin.
Full of advice, and pondering secrets, Kayo had just handed Alan his cake, when all at once she was… something had… It was all gone. Destroyed. Darkness and cold, hard stone crushed against her. Pain flared, air nearly spent, and gritty with dust. Couldn't move, hardly think. Only, need help. Now, she sensed, come help.
In the grip of sudden, terrible anguish and total panic, the girl lashed out with her mind, seizing all those around her but Max. The robot, she simply shut down, kicking out at his under-carriage power switch. Next, blind, shrieking urgency drove her to force all the others downstairs to the hangar, and Thunderbird 2. Maybe they tried to fight back, but against the might of a despairing Kyrano, there was no defense; not when their captor knew each of their minds like her own hip pocket.
She couldn't release them, couldn't stop from driving her family into uniform and onto the cargo lifter, for the pain, rage and terror inside of her head came from somewhere… someone… else. Even Eos was blocked from preventing her actions, that night.
Kayo could feel sharp, heavy stone digging into her ribcage and sides. Felt the air growing sour and dank all around her. Could sense minds flicking out nearby, like candles. Ruthlessly, the girl forced her family and friends to obey her; making Virgil launch Thunderbird 2, and fly them due south at blistering, ruinous speeds.
Her body and part of her mind occupied the copilot's seat. The rest of her was slowly dying of crush and suffocation beneath many tons of dark stone. Needing speed, she gouged at Virgil's defenseless mind, as one might flog a faltering horse, making him redline his Bird's mighty engines.
She felt Grandma and John starting to rally, once, when another far-off death shook her control for a moment. Had to blast the old woman unconscious and temporarily disconnect her brother's higher brain functions, clawing her own palms bloody and raw in the process. No time to explain, or apologize. Only yield to that fierce, burning need.
When they got there, the volcano was a smoking ruin; one side caved in like a dented tin can. Thunderbird 2 came in hot, and all but crashed to the rocky, dark ground, skidding to a stop just shy of the mountainside. She ended her slide nose down, grey ocean at her back, a bull-dozed rampart of dirt and rock heaped up before her. It was a very rough landing, but Tanusha gave them no time to recover. Instead, she marched everyone out into the pale and frigid Antarctic light, and forced them all to start heaving rock.
The pain and compulsion were still worse, here. She could sense a few remaining survivors. Led Virgil, Gordon and John (the strongest) right to them. But so much time had already passed…
Like zombies, her family and friends shifted rock, as Tanusha lent strength to those trapped below, and Nikorr did all that he could to hold up a mountain. It was too late for most of them, though.
XXXXXXXXXXX
The hive ship, by this time, quite far away-
In his quarters, Kane pulled free of the scanner feed, grunting in pleasant surprise. Not being a stupid young man, he'd left a few spy-drones in place around the Kyranos' demolished Antarctic stronghold. Just in case any roaches were to scuttle free of their collapsing lair, you understand. He hadn't expected a gift like this one, however.
As the data cable withdrew from his body like an amoebic pseudopod, the tattooed cyborg got to his feet. He was large; part machine, part augmented human, all tyrant. His mostly-shaven head was fitted with a breath mask and goggles, leaving only those hard, amber eyes to glare outward. His muscular body was armoured and shot through with circuitry, making him instant master of any machinery which came within range.
All around him, Ship buzzed, clicked and hummed, sounding fit and strong after their recent battle. Sentinel had been incorporated, was being negotiated with. All Kane needed now, was an AI capable of running his joined systems, freeing the cyborg to fight and to rule. Nice of the Tracys to prove so accommodating.
Amused, he stretched to full length like a cat, feeling his muscles grow taut, and internal components sliding like pistons. To no one in particular, the Mechanic said,
"Know why heroes don't live very long? They keep making the d*mndest, weak-ass mistakes." Then, louder, "Ilya!"
"Yes, Sir?" came the boy's quick response, transmitted to Kane by one of his hovering drones.
"Course change. Listen…"
XXXXXXXXXXX
Antarctica, on distant and frozen Ross Island-
Funnily enough, Captain Taylor was the first to break free. He'd tripped on a shattered drone, and dropped a large rock on his foot. It was the pain, maybe, that caused him to slip Kayo's weakening grasp. Whatever, the astronaut woke from nightmare to find himself blinking in weak, pallid sunlight, and freezing his ass off, in the most God-forsaken landscape he'd seen since Mars and the Moon. "Cold", "bleak" and "barren" did not begin to describe it. Although "fish-stinking rock in the middle of nowhere" came close.
Confused, he looked around; saw a grey, ice-flecked ocean, high clouds, a shattered volcano, and the Tracys, struggling along like a row of stone-toting ants. Uh-huh. The h*ll with that. Rubbing at an emperor-sized headache, Lee stomped over to the nearest zombie and slapped his face.
"Godfrey, wake up!" he demanded, seizing the kid's shoulders and shaking him, hard. "Sumthin' ain't right."
…which was putting it mildly. (But he hated to over-react. Jeff and his brood did tend to attract tribulations; some worse than others.) The sandy-blond swimmer rocked back and forth in his grip for a second or two, then came to himself, and shook free.
"Huh? Uncle Lee? What's… what're… where are we?!"
"H*ll if I know, kid. M' dang GPS appears ta be busted. Somewheres cold, an' pretty far south, I'd say, judgin' by the lay o' that sun. Never mind where. Real problem's why. Come help me snap th' rest o' this crew outta their fit, and then we'll go scare up some answers."
"Yessir," said Gordon, whose muscles ached exactly as though he'd been shifting a mountain of rock. Together, they began freeing mind-slaves; working their way through Jeff, Alan, Parker and Scott. The trouble with questions, though, was sometimes, you didn't much like what you'd learned.