Chapter 3: Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Worse.

Alan knew just as much about Thunderbird 5 as he did about his own bird, and the idea that someone was able to hack her was just insane. Even still, there were protocols in place just in case something like this happened. Alan pulled himself up to the control panel in the main room and punched a few buttons. When they failed to react he kicked the unit with his foot and then pounded it with his hand.

"Hm, John must have shut things down. I wonder why?" Alan pulled himself down to floor level, right in front of an access panel. Pulling the panel from the unit unveiled an organized mess of wires.

Alan reached in and felt around for a moment before deciding that he was not in the right spot. He pulled himself around the corner of the unit and pulled off another access panel. The same sight met him, but one exception. The bundles of wires were all bundled into a thicker rope and emerged from a single access point in the inner hull. Alan then preceded to pull off wall tiles, following the thick rope of wires. Slowly other small ropes came to run along side the first, but Alan continued to follow them until a final thick wire appeared next to the ones from the console.

Pumping his fist, Alan pulled out a knife from his belt and cut the banding that held the rope of wires together. Like a flower seeking out the sun the wires spread out and laid themselves open for Alan's inspection. Alan fished around the field of wires for the one that matched colors with the thick one. Carefully, Alan cut the black wire he had fished out of the rope and pulled it up for him to work with.

With his knife he cut a fine line around the insulation around the wire and pulled an inch of it away exposing the bare wire. He then cut the tethering around the larger wire and pulled it closer to the one he had just cut. Using his knife again he cut a slit a good several inches long down the thick wire exposing a bundle of smaller wire inside. Freeing one of the smaller wires from the bundle he cut it in half with a small snap of electricity and prepped it in the same way as the first wire.

"Alright, Alan, do it just like Virgil showed ya. True, he hadn't used live wires but there isn't much of a choice here, is there." He pulled the two wires to touching distance. One wire was dead and the other was crackling with power. His gloves should protect him from most of the electric shock he was about to feel, but he wasn't quite sure just how much they would protect him. However, if he wanted to get the computer up and running he needed to get some power to it, and there just wasn't time to go and find the shut off and repair the unit properly.

He looked around quickly to make sure he wasn't touching anything conductive and closed his eyes touching the two bare ends of wire together. There was a crackle and then the hum as the computer came back to life.

"Alright, now we know it works." Alan took in a deep breath. "Now to make the connection a bit more permanent."

He reached out with his fingers and as quickly as he could bent the two wires together. For a moment he thought he was safe, but then he felt a sharp pain run up his arm and the next thing he knew he was floating on the other side of the room, his muscles slowly relaxing. "Crap, that was way worse than I thought it would be."

Alan was breathing hard, there were still white spots in his vision and at least two fingers on his right hand were numb. He pushed himself off the wall and towards the display that was now showing him the last thing John had been working on.

John was the programer of the family. He could create new programs by the time the others had written out the first line of code. Alan was closely gaining on John in this area, but what he saw laid out before him was something even he had never seen before.

"What in the world were you up to?" Alan scanned the lines of code, stopping and looking very confusedly at the word 'kittens'. It was a minor program that managed the interior doors of the station, and Alan wasn't sure why John would have pulled that particular piece of programing up.

Alan started typing, looking deeper into the files available to him. He was able to trace the path of issues that had plagued Thunderbird 5 during the past week. They were random, not one issue was connected with the previous or the next. Alan could see now why they all thought it could be a hacker.

He pulled up the diagnostic on one of the milder problems, the toaster in the kitchen. Even on this small unimportant machine, Brains had set up limiters to keep it from getting too hot. Those limiters had been disabled, and not from Thunderbird 5. Alan brought up the hacking protocol to try and continue securing the systems on Thunderbird 5, but found that the protocol hadn't even been started.

Frowning he initiated the protocol, attempting to shut down systems before the hacker could access them even more. However in doing so something happened that Alan did not foresee. The console he was working on died, as well as the remaining lights in the room. He realized a moment too late that in patching the wiring into the electricity for the lights he had compromised the system. He pushed himself over to his patch job and jerked the wires apart in a splash of sparks.

There was now nothing else for him to do, with a hand on a bar just inside the door, Alan looked back into the dark control room and cursed his own stupidity and whoever it was doing this to them. He would never understand why there were people that hated them when all they wanted to do was save those who needed saved. He pushed himself back toward the memory room to find his brothers. He had reached out for a handle or something to push him forward when suddenly he was being pulled backwards. He reached out for anything to grab, but the moment he reached for it it was out of his reach. He scrambled to grasp anything he could as the only reasoning raced through his head, they had opened the airlocks. The pressure inside the station was racing out and taking anything it could with it, including Alan.

Alan twisted so he could see where he was going and spotted a sturdy pipe along the wall. He reached out for it, grabbing it with his right hand and then slipping his left hand behind it as his body was flung around the corner. His right hand slipped from the bar, but his left was stuck, causing his arm to bend around the tight corner, breaking the bones within. White hot pain reverberated though Alan's arm, as his cry of anguish got caught in his throat and black and white dots appeared in his vision.

He blinked, he was not going to pass out. He needed to get to his brothers. His brothers. He reached up with his good hand and hit the insignia on his sash.

"Virgil, John, are you there?" Alan shook his head demanding his body to deal with the pain.

—

Virgil had pulled his brother's body into the next main compartment, the med bay. There was still water floating in the area, but it wasn't enough to cause them any trouble. However Virgil couldn't resist a small smile at the annoyance on John's face when he couldn't fix a simple water leak. Though, as it turned out, it hadn't been a simple water leak and this was turning out not to be a simple ride home.

Virgil positioned his brother so he was floating over one of the beds. It was silly, it really didn't matter where he was floating, but somehow it seemed like the thing to do. He reached over to a nearby cabinet and pulled out the top drawer. Inside was some supplies that could help him right then. He grabbed an arm brace and gently maneuvered the left arm with the broken collar bone into it—the less it moved around the better. He then grabbed a bandage and wrapped it around John's right wrist and then used the rest to strap both of his arms to his torso so they wouldn't wave around and get even more damaged.

He then made his way over to another emergency cabinet and collected another helmet and oxygen cartridge. He took off the oxygen mask and replaced it with the helmet and then ejected the used cartridge and replaced it with the new one.

The helmets and their suits both had oxygen supplies, and both of John's had run out. They aren't meant to last long—the only exception was when Gordon went underwater, his suit was equipped with a rebreather that made it's own breathable air—so when John had to be outside for a fair amount of time, or away from the station at all, he had the exosuit which had a much larger supply of oxygen onboard.

With John fixed up Virgil looked at the time on his wrist computer—it had been way longer than five minutes. Where was Alan? He looked both ways down the corridor but there was no sign of Alan from either direction.

Virgil knew the proper thing to do would be to get John back onto Thunderbird 3 and then to come back and hunt down Alan. The problem being he wasn't sure he could get John to Thunderbird 3, let alone making his way back across that void to find Alan. Now that John's immediate issues were taken care of Virgil could no longer ignore the dizziness or the strange sounds coming from his stomach.

"Alright, John, looks like you're going to have to stay here for the moment." Virgil patted his little brother on the shoulder. "I promise I'll be back with Alan—whether he likes it or not."

Using some of the larger bandages Virgil tied John down to the bed just in case the station started dance once again. He then made his way around the ring to the primary command center.

He was half way there when all hell broke loose. He was just about to grab a hand hold when he shot forward. His hand jammed into the handle and Virgil felt a crunch. His hand was jerked just as hard out of it and he pulled it to his chest. He was able to land on the side of one of the doors that could be used to close off sections of the ring. He took a moment to see if he could move his fingers, but didn't have much luck—it was broken more than likely.

It wasn't the first time he had broken his hand—and probably not the last—and was able to deal with the pain fairly easily. His stomach on the other hand was causing him bigger pains. Plus there were more pressing matters. He looked down and made a calculated jump, landing on the next doorway.

It was easy to guess that the airlocks had been compromised, but the rush of atmosphere—and anything not bolted down—flying by him at least gave him a sense of gravity even if there really wasn't any. This was going to be like repelling into a pit, only this one was bottomless.

Virgil loaded a cartridge into his repelling gun and aimed it for a pipe not far away. He fired and the cable caught. He jumped and his shoulder jerked as he came to an abrupt stop, but otherwise no harm was done. He had just retracted the line and attached himself to the hand hold when his insignia lit up and Alan's voice shakily called his name.

"Virgil? John? Are you there?"

"Alan! Where are you?" Worry seeped into his bones at the sound of his brother's voice.

"I'm in the entrance of the tube to the comm sphere." Alan's voice was softer than usual and very thick sounding.

"What is wrong? Are you hurt?"

"My hand is caught. Arm broken." He laughed softly. "Plus electric shock."

"Electric shock, how the hell—" Virgil shook his head. "Never mind. Can you get your arm free? And can you get back to Thunderbird 3 on your own?"

"I-I can't feel it, Virgil. My arm, it hurts. But my hand—"

Virgil ground his teeth and took a deep breath forcing himself not to get all emotional. Now was not the time." Hang in there squirt, I'm on my way."

There was no way to avoid it. He'd have to make two trips. John was still safe and secure in the med-bay, he could wait. Alan, on the other hand, could be shot out into space at any moment.

Virgil looked around, he was close to the access tunnel to the comm sphere, just one more controlled jump and he'd be there—but hey, this was something he was good at.

He aimed his gun at another hand hold on the wall and shot. It attached easily and Virgil jumped. He was halfway through his fall when he caught sight of Alan's blue hand stuck limply in a pipe when he heard a thump from somewhere. He landed on another doorway just as two large bent pieces of metal came flying around the curve of the wheel and around the corner, followed by a strangled yell from Alan.

Virgil swore loudly and flung himself around the corner. The vacuum was finally waining, but that turned out to be a bad thing.

Alan was pale, very pale. His hand was still caught in the piping, his arm bent forcefully around the corner. Bone was poking out of the skin, but had not torn through the thicker spacesuit. However, the front of his spacesuit was sliced open, air and blood leaking out fast. The sheets of metal that had flown past him had come inches from slicing his brother in half.

Now that the pressure was equalizing, space would finish what they had not. Virgil grabbed Alan's helmet with his good hand and looked him in the eyes. "Remember your training."

Alan nodded and Virgil could see the mist as he released his breath.

Satisfied, Virgil turned to his utility belt—honestly he felt like batman sometimes with the amount of stuff he carried with him—and pulled out a small roll of tape. Duct tape. Out of all the inventions and improvements through the years, this tape withstood the test of time. He wedged the roll under the forearm of his bad hand and picked at the edge with his gloved finger, wishing he could just pull it off and use his nail, but he finally got the edge up and pulled it. He haphazardly slapped it on the tear in Alan's suit and started wrapping it tightly around him, hoping it would provide enough pressure to help staunch the wound underneath.

He was having difficulties tearing the roll off when the whole space station shuttered and jerked around them. He didn't even have moment to ask what that was when he noticed it out the windows of the gravity ring—Thunderbird 3 had crashed into Thunderbird 5, or rather vice versa. He let go of the roll of tape and let it dangle next to Alan's robs, Virgil pulled Alan back to the corner so he could free his hand. Once at the right angle his hand slid out from under the pipe easily enough but left his arm at a very unnatural angle.

"Alan, don't go to sleep on me. You know the rules." Virgil glared at the pale face and scared blue eyes.

"Where's John?" Alan was taking slow uneven breaths.

"In the med-bay still, I hope. I'm not sure who's worse off, you or him." Virgil went to work using the duct tape to tape his broken arm to his side.

"Will he be okay?"

"Don't worry. This Earth man will save you two Space heads even if it kills me."

Alan grinned a little at that before he flinched as Virgil pulled on the tape.

"I've got to secure it, just bare with me."

"Virg—"

Virgil looked up to complain about the nickname to keep him talking, but instead he saw Alan gasping for air. He checked Alan's supply and found that it was completely empty. The rupture in his space suit had leaked what air he had had. Virgil grabbed him and pulled them both across the com sphere and to the exit they had come through.

The airlock was gaping open as he stopped on the edge of the ship. Thunderbird 3 was only about a thousand feet away now, but the stars started to spin in his vision. He had no choice though, both his brothers lives were now dependent on him getting back and forth to Thunderbird 3.

He took a deep breath, set his eyes on the spinning hull of the red rocket—the impact must have caused it to start spinning like that. There was the door, it was spinning away from the station. He jumped and the door opened for them, recognizing the signal from their suits and closed behind them once they were in.

As soon as Virgil was sure the room had pressurized he pulled Alan's helmet off. The boy was as pale as he had seen him yet and he wasn't breathing. Floating in zero G there was no easy way for Virgil to perform CPR, at least not all of it. He grabbed Alan's head and made sure his airway was clear, then pinching his nose he blew into his mouth. Releasing the kiss, he listened as the air exited and then blew again. He repeated this over and over.

"Come on, Alan!" Why wasn't it working? He's young, his heart should be okay, he wasn't without air for very—then it hit him. Electric shock. Alan had said he had had an electric shock. Virgil opened the hatch that led out of the cockpit and to the rest of the ship.

Thunderbird 3 was the largest ship they had, yet most of its space was used by the rockets and the cargo hold. What there was of a med-bay was really just the bunk area Alan used during long trips.

He strapped Alan down in one of the beds and reached for the AED on the nearby wall.

Now, Virgil and Scott's uniforms had their zippers in the front, so if either of them needed a jump it would be easy enough to get the sticky pads of the AED where they were needed once the suits were unzipped. John and Alan however—and Gordon too—didn't have that ease of access because of the design of their suits. Instead Brains designed the suits to have internal connections that an AED could be connected to from the outside.

He connected the AED's cords to the ports on the outside of Alan's suit near his left shoulder and turned the machine on.

'no heartbeat—charging—clear.'

Virgil could hear the small k-thunk as the electrodes tried to jump start Alan's heart back into action.

'Continue CPR'

With Alan now strapped down Virgil was able to position himself above him and use the upper bunk as a brace as he tried to do chest compressions. It was difficult to switch between the chest compressions and breathing, so he just did the chest compressions—that being the most important. He continued pressing into his brother's chest, aggravating the broken arm tapped to it, only stopping when the machine told him to.

Two minutes.

Virgil continued to push on his chest, pumping his heart and forcing some air in and out of his lungs.

Four minutes.

The machine shocked him again.

Six minutes.

God he hoped John was still doing okay.

Eight minutes.

'Natural rhythm achieved.'

Virgil had his hands on Alan's chest ready to go again, but relaxed as the meaning of the words hit him. He pushed himself out from above him and reached for the oxygen mask, carefully placing it over his brother's head before checking to make sure everything was secure.

Alan was safe. Virgil had to go retrieve his other brother now—hopefully he was right where he had left him.

He grabbed his helmet and stuck it on again and opened the hatch. He had steadied the ship so it was no longer rolling around, but the auto pilot had been knocked out along with her comms. Virgil looked down at the void around him and his stomach lurched.

"Idiot!" Virgil mashed his eyes shut. He waited for a moment, swallowing and hoping it would help settle his stomach. Once he was sure he was not going to vomit he cracked his eyes open and stared straight at the airlock. He would not look anywhere else but there.

Tucking his injured hand into his sash he jumped. He held out his good hand to catch himself on his landing and luck was with him. His aim was good and he flew right through the door and into the space station.

He paused just inside the door, his yes smashed shut, internally commanding his stomach to settle down. It didn't work. He gagged and everything started spinning around him. He had already threw up all he had had in his stomach so nothing, thankfully, came up. He clung to the bar next to him and did his best to breath as his stomach tried to turn itself inside out. It took a few minutes, but it finally settled down.

Once he was sure it was over, he pushed himself away from the wall toward the gravity ring and his brother.

He could still feel his heart thumping in his chest as the bed came into view that he had tied John to. At first it looked empty and his heart was threatening to come out with the next round of gaging, but as he cleared the curve in the wheel he saw John floating just a ways off of the bed but still attached.

He pushed himself over to him and took him in his arms. Their helmets thumped together and Virgil could see the mist of breath on his brother's visor showing he was still there. He touched the controls on John's sash and brought up his stats. They were still doing good so there wasn't a huge hurry—only that he needed to get them Earth-side ASAP.

Virgil didn't encounter any problems as he pulled his brother back to the airlock. However, as he found himself standing on the thresh hold of the void his stomach started to once again roll. It didn't help that the two ships had floated farther apart and more of the blackness was between them.

Suddenly the little bit of confidence he had mustered was gone. His head was spinning, his gut churning. There was no way he'd make it. He pushed himself back a bit and away from the view, John still in his arms. He was going to need some help. His grappling hook wasn't long enough, and he wasn't sure how it would even work in zero G anyways.

He glanced around the airlock and his eyes landed on Alan's space board. He had forgotten that they had used it to get to the space station in the first place and was surprised it hadn't gotten sucked out with everything else—or maybe it had and it had come back on its own, he wouldn't have been surprised if Brains had put something like that in it. Either way it was there now and his only means of getting back to Thunderbird 3.

He kicked it a little and it came to life hovering next to his feet. He reached a foot over and his boot attached to it like a magnet. His other boot did the same but he had never been interested in learning how to fly the thing, so its controls were a bit of a mystery to him. He could see a small square where the toe of his boot rested so he lightly pushed down on it and the board moved forward—good easy enough. However the last thing he wanted was to push too hard go too fast and end up no where near where he needed to be.

He decided to use his grappling hook anyways and attached one end to the airlock and the other to his hip. He left the break off so it would reel out freely and with John still secure in his arms he touched on the peddle a little harder.

The board took off and if Virgil hadn't been attached to it he would have been left behind for sure. It took no time for his grapple line to run out and it jerked him back causing them to do a flip and all he could see was the blackness. His stomach heaved and he did his best to cling to his brother as his body did its best to reject anything and everything that was still in his stomach.

Strings of spittle and stomach bile floated in his helmet as Virgil took deep breaths to try and calm down. However for some reason instead of it becoming easier to breath it was becoming harder. He glanced down at his own wrist computer and saw that he too was running out of air. He cursed himself for not refilling his own air when he was last on Thunderbird 3, but now was not the time.

He was starting to gasp for breath as he looked around for the red rocket that was his target . He could feel the tug of the cable as Thunderbird 5 continued to float out of control and take him farther from his target.

He finally found the rocket and was able to spin himself and John around to face it. There was oxygen on Thunderbird 5 so he could reel himself and John back in and refill their air and try again, but Virgil wasn't so sure he'd be able to get himself to try again so in a moment of panic he detached the line from his hip and stepped on the accelerator shooting them both forward.

The space board shot through the hatch and Virgil had just enough time to put himself between the wall and John before they hit. Stars were dancing in front of his eyes as the hatch closed and he struggled to remove his helmet. He gulped in the recycled air of the cabin and then fumbled with John's helmet tapping on his spacesuit to once again make sure he was okay.

He wasn't any worse, but hadn't improved any. Virgil forced himself to breath through his nose—his mouth clamped shut to keep anything else from coming up—as he pulled his brother back to the bunks. He strapped him in above Alan and connected him to another AED and some oxygen just in case. Then once he was sure his brothers were secure he made his way back to the cabin.

Thunderbird 3 had emergency protocols installed that would allow the ship to be either controlled from the ground, or automatically land should the pilot be unable to do so. Unfortunately, both of those protocols required a working communications system and Thunderbird 3's was destroyed—Virgil had seen the damage after the two space ships had collided.

There were several panels on the side of the ship that had been smashed in. He assumed one of those was communications since he had been unable to call down to the island and a quick check of the circuits in the cockpit showed that everything was fine on that side.

Alan or John—or even Scott for that matter—would have been able to go out and attempt to fix the issue, but Virgil was at his limit. His hand was throbbing—at least what wasn't already numb—his head was also pounding, his stomach was still trying to expel itself from his body, and even his good hand was shaking. He would have given everything to just be able to close his eyes and call it quits.

He couldn't though, nor would he ever. He needed to land Thunderbird 3 and get himself and his brothers safe home. However he knew he wasn't going to be able to do it completely on his own. He also couldn't just sit there and do nothing so he strapped himself in and started the engines. Thunderbird 3 was a difficult ship to fly one handed and he definitely missed his own bird, but he was able to maneuver the ship toward the Earth.

Now was going to be the tricky part.

They had decided early on that Virgil was probably never going to fly that particular bird, but Scott had made sure he had had plenty of time in the simulator just in case. So he knew what he needed to do, but without a computer to help—human or mechanical—there was a chance he'd mess it up.

The issue was the trajectory. Normally the ship would calculate it itself and give the pilot the answer, if there were complications that the ship could not account for they would just give a call into Brains as a back up. However with communications offline Virgil had neither to help him. He'd have to do the math on his own.

The trick with reentry is that you have to do it at the right angle. Too steep and the ship wouldn't be able to handle the turbulence and would break apart. Too shallow and you'd just bounce off and head off into deep space. Neither option sounded very good to Virgil so he ran the numbers though his head a few times.

The second trick was trying to keep himself alert during the whole thing. Once the ship had broken through the atmosphere he'd need to fire the retros to slow the ship down, if he couldn't they'd crash and everyone would die.

Virgil set his course and engaged the thrusters. The blackness of space was taken over by the blues, whites, and greens below him as the ship started to shake and shutter.

The shaking got worse as flames started to lick the outside of the haul and Virgil started to see dots in his vision. Then there was an explosion that sent the ship into very much the wrong angle. The damaged panels had no chance of surviving the reentry and Virgil cursed at himself for not taking that into consideration.

Virgil was struggling to keep the ship from going into a spin as his vision started to blur and more black dots appeared. Virgil shook his head, blinked, and squinted to keep his eyes focused on the instruments. With what felt like a pop the ship burst through the atmosphere.

Virgil felt the pressure leave him, his eyes were sending bolts of pain to his head, and his hand was now almost completely numb. He reached up and killed the engine, fired the retros, and set a course for Tracy Island. However he could fight it no longer and the dark abyss of space finally consumed him.