"I TOLD you to stay away!"
"Who are you?!"
"I am The Mechanic. And if your Thunderbird comes any closer, I'll break it as well!"
"To The Mechanic - let me tell you who you're dealing with! We're International Rescue! You can't push us around. You can't tell us what to do! And you absolutely positively can't take our stuff!"
"No - let me tell you who you're dealing with. I'm The Mechanic. I take what I want, from who I want, whenever I want it!"
Scott would never forget the first time International Rescue encountered The Mechanic. Even now after a good few years, he could still remember first seeing the now reformed supervillain's hologram appear on the projector inside Thunderbird 1. Even as a hologram he'd been very intimidating. The voice-modulator made it even more frightening, and especially after what he'd done to Thunderbird 2 and later Thunderbirds 4 and 1, there was once a time where Scott would have gone to any lengths to put The Mechanic behind bars. Even when he had reformed and Brains had managed to free him from The Hood's control, Scott had remained untrusting of The Mechanic. But since The Mechanic had helped bring Jeff back from the Oort Cloud and later used his shrinking technology to help Gordon save Jeff from dying at The Hood's hands, he'd completely changed his attitude towards him. And seeing him encased in the large block of ice inside the Sidewinder escape unit cryotube made Scott feel bad for all the ill-feelings he'd once had.
Everyone was gathered around the cryotube to watch as Brains took the pieces of plyton out of the case and got ready.
"Do you think it'll work, Brains?" Scott asked, knowing the same question was on everyone's minds.
Brains paused before answering. "It h-has to, Scott," he said. "It just has t-to." He began to place the pieces of plyton on the ice. Once all were in place, he stepped back to see what would happen.
It took a little while to begin, but soon they began to notice that the plyton and the ice were starting to react to one another. The chemical reaction was underway and the ice was beginning to dissolve rather than melt. For the next fifteen minutes it continued to do so until eventually they began to see The Mechanic's body start to emerge for what was likely the first time since he'd first entered the capsule to escape before the Sidewinder had exploded.
Scott, Alan, Gordon, Kayo, Jeff, Grandma, Virgil and Hayley all stood in a semi-circle behind Brains and watched in silence as The Mechanic reappeared fully before them. His eyes were still closed and he made no movements despite no longer being encased in ice.
"It worked!" said Brains.
"Well done, Brains," said Jeff proudly. "Now, let's get him out of there."
"H-Help me get him out," said Brains.
Virgil and Scott moved forwards to do so. Together they helped Brains unfasten The Mechanic from the chair he was strapped to and then began to lift him out.
"Christ, he's heavy!" remarked Scott.
"You don't say," agreed Virgil.
"Really? Two strong guys like you can't lift one?" teased Gordon whilst Alan laughed.
Scott and Virgil scowled but Jeff prevented them from retorting. "Where do you want him, Brains?"
"Just over there on the lab table, p-please," said Brains, who was carrying The Mechanic's legs.
Together they placed The Mechanic on the table and the others gathered round.
"So what now?" asked Hayley.
"We n-need to check for any injuries or health problems he m-might be suffering," said Brains.
"He's been in there several months," agreed Grandma.
"But if he's been frozen in ice, surely he's fine?" asked Alan.
"It may have preserved his body, but inside there might be issues," said Kayo. "It's best to be sure."
"Maybe you shouldn't bother," remarked Gordon.
Everyone stared at him. "What do you mean?" asked Jeff.
"Well, look at him," said Gordon. "Can't you all tell he's not breathing?"
5!
4!
3!
2!
1!
"Thunderbirds Are Go!"
"THUNDERBOLTS"
GORDON did not appear to be wrong in his observation about The Mechanic. He was completely motionless and not moving.
Jeff placed his fingers on The Mechanic's neck and frowned. "I feel a pulse," he said. "It's faint but I can feel one."
Brains put a monitor onto The Mechanic's chest. Soon they began to receive data on the computer. It showed the heart rate, breathing and whether there were any injuries detected. But the data that came through was somewhat confusing. The Mechanic's chest was motionless suggesting he wasn't breathing and yet all of the data suggested that he was. But there were some figures that neither Brains nor Grandma could explain. For certain sections of The Mechanic's body, rather than giving them the info they needed, they found that they were getting 'Not Applicable' or 'Not Found'.
"What does all that mean?" Scott asked.
"Honestly, Scott, I have n-no clue," said Brains. "It's t-telling us for example that he does not have a stomach."
"That's ridiculous!" said Virgil. "We've seen him eat before. Of course he must have a stomach."
"Could it be that you placed a faulty monitor on him, Brains?" asked Jeff.
Brains scratched his chin. "M-Maybe," he said. "Perhaps I'd better try another, j-just to be sure."
But the second monitor scan showed them the exact same things as the previous one. Brains was up all through the night near The Mechanic. He took both monitors apart and went over them with his magnifying apparatus. But he could find absolutely nothing wrong with them. The Mechanic remained stable. And in the morning, Grandma did some tests of her own. She took a blood sample, which proved to be clear. She pulled up his eyelids and shone a light in. The pupils reacted fine. Neither she nor Brains could come up with an answer as to why their monitors weren't showing all the data.
"I'm afraid for once I d-don't have an answer," Brains told the others whilst gathered in the lounge. "It's like there's some k-kind of interference around his body that is preventing us from g-getting a full scan."
"What sort of interference?" asked Jeff.
"Again, I wish I knew, Mr T-Tracy," said Brains. "But n-neither MAX nor Braman have been able to figure it out."
"Then we have ourselves a medical mystery," said Scott.
"Could we get a doctor to come in and take a look in case they come up with an answer?" suggested Kayo.
"May I remind you, dear, that whilst I may be retired, I am still a qualified Doctor," said Grandma. "If Brains and myself can't figure out an answer, I highly doubt anyone else will be able to."
"So what do we do?" asked Virgil. "Wait for him to wake up and tell us?"
"That's all we c-can do, Virgil," said Brains. "Although…I have n-no idea when he'll wake up."
"If he wakes up," Alan whispered to Gordon who nodded quietly in agreement.
A beeping sound announced John was calling from Thunderbird 5. "Sorry to interrupt, guys, but we have a situation."
"What have you got, John?" asked Jeff.
"A distress call from the Sikorsky Space-Station currently over Siberia," said John. "They've suffered some kind of explosion and its pushed them out of orbit. They're in danger of floating out into deep space unless they get pushed back into the correct place."
"A job for Thunderbird 3 then," said Jeff. He turned to his youngest son. "Alan, you're up."
Alan punched the air with delight. "Hell, yeah!" he said. "Thunderbird 3 is GO!"
Virgil and Hayley vacated the chairs so that Alan could sit there instead. The seats were lowered into the floor and Alan began his suit-up procedure in the underground changing rooms on the way to Thunderbird 3. Soon he was in his uniform and being lifted up to the hatch in the side of the giant red rocket and entered through it. The arm retracted and the hatch closed as Alan's seat moved him into position at the control panel. The blast shield swivelled round to seat it off from the rest of the cavern and everything was set.
5! 4! 3! 2! 1!
Thunderbird 3's three massively powerful chemical rockets roared into life and it was pushed upwards out through the top of the silo behind the roundhouse. Alan pushed the boosters to full and zoomed away from Tracy Island towards space.
Hayley's time on Tracy Island had finally come to an end. She really wished she could stay to be able to see The Mechanic wake up from his coma. But without them knowing what was wrong with him, let alone when or if he would wake up, she needed to see her family in England before returning to her duties with the GDF. Her little return to the W.A.S.P. had already meant she'd been away longer than Colonel Jennings had originally granted her to have.
Virgil watched sadly from the doorway of his bedroom as Hayley packed her bag. "I wish you didn't have to go," he said.
Hayley felt the same. "I know, love," she replied. "But I do have a duty to the GDF as well. Given that Colonel Jennings has changed her attitude, I'd rather not push my luck."
"But how long will it be before we can see each other again?" asked Virgil. "It was several months last time. I really don't want it to be so long again."
Hayley put a t-shirt in her bag and stopped. She then came over and put her arms around his waist. "It is hard, hun. Believe it, it really is," she said. "I wish I could spend so much more time with you. I guess that is the price we pay for being in the professions we have."
Virgil sighed. "What do we have to do to get you to live here permanently?" he asked.
Hayley thought about that. Then she smirked. "That…is for you to figure out," she said. She gave him a peck on the cheek and then went back to her packing, leaving Virgil to try and think about what she could mean.
John watched his instruments anxiously as it showed the situation of the Sikorsky Space-Station. It had fully broken free of the Earth's orbit following the explosion. "Thunderbird 3, the situation is getting critical," he said. "The oxygen tanks are leaking. You'll need to seal the leak first before getting it back into orbit."
"F-A-B, Thunderbird 5," Alan acknowledged. "Piece of cake."
From his position in the cockpit, Alan could make out the shape of the large Russian Space-Station in the distance. Several shards of debris were floating all around it as jets of leaking oxygen escaped from the tanks.
"I have a visual on the station," Alan said to John. "How many are aboard?"
"Around eight," said John. "They're safe for now and all accounted for. But we can't let them lose too much oxygen or they'll pass out. And I don't need to tell you what will happen after that."
"You sure don't," agreed Alan with a grimace. "Okay, I'm making my approach. Sikorsky Station, this is Thunderbird 3. Hang tight. I'll have your oxygen fixed and back in orbit in no time."
The response Alan got wasn't quite what he expected. "Тебе потребовалось достаточно времени, чтобы добраться сюда!"
"Errrrrrr…I'm gonna pretend I understood that," he said.
"Is your universal translator switched on?" asked John.
Alan checked the control panel. "Ah…oops," he said. "My bad." He flicked the switch, turning the translator on. "Sorry, guys. I'm gonna-"
"Alan, wait a second!" John interrupted. "I'm picking up two unidentified contacts heading towards you and the station."
"What kind of contacts?" asked Alan.
"Unsure," said John. "Trying to identify them but aren't able to do so. They're about to cross your path. Do you see anything?"
Alan looked out of the cockpit windows to the right and would have fallen out of his chair if he didn't have the safety-harness over him. "HUH?!"
Two identical objects were heading across the path of Thunderbird 3 in the direction of the Sikorsky Station. They looked like large metal robotic spacesuits with arms and legs. They were chunky. They looked powerful. But it was the colours that made Alan bring Thunderbird 3 to a dead stop. One was painted red and the other was grey. They began to fly around the Sikorsky, much to the surprise of the cosmonauts inside. The grey one went up to the oxygen tanks and used some kind of special sealing glue to cover the crack and stop any more oxygen leaking out. The red one went around the back and used its powerful thrusters to start holding the station in place and stop it from drifting any further. Then once the grey one had finished sealing the tanks, it zipped underneath the station to join the red one on the other side. It two fired extra powerful thrusters that were located in the backs of them and together they slowly pushed the space-station back towards its correct position.
"Thunderbird 3, what's going on?" John asked.
"No idea, John," said Alan. "But whoever these guys are, they're trying to take our job! I'm gonna help speed this up!"
Thunderbird 3 began to move forwards when suddenly three more metallic flying suits appeared. One was blue, one was green and the third was yellow. The green and yellow ones headed straight for the station whilst the blue one stopped to hover directly in the path of Thunderbird 3 causing Alan to bring it to a stop again. He could now see the shape more clearly. It looked like a suit of armour known as a Hulkbuster that he'd seen in a movie only instead of being red and gold it was blue and dark grey. "Do not interfere," a robotic voice said dangerously over the radio before hurting off to join the other four. The three that turned up joined the red and grey ones in pushing the Sikorsky Space-Station back into orbit. The yellow and green ones flew over to then push back on the other side in order to keep it in place.
Soon the space-station was safely back in orbit with the Russian cosmonauts cheering and thanking the mysterious rescuers. All the while Alan was watching speechless from Thunderbird 3 whilst John observed via Thunderbird 3's hull-mounted cameras.
The five armour-suits then left the Sikorsky Station and flew over to hover in a perfect line-up across the front of Thunderbird 3. Alan and John were able to get better looks at them now. And it was only now that they noticed what was written on the chest plates. The blue suit had T1 on it. The green had T2. The red had T3. The yellow had T4 and the grey one had T5. four of them waved or saluted and then moved away to head back towards Earth. T1 stayed behind and looked directly at Alan who stared unblinking and confused back at it.
"Let me tell you this once, little Thunderbird," the robotic voice said. "You and your fellow pilots and ships are no longer required. Let the Thunderbolts do the saving from now on."
Alan almost threw up in his mouth. He tried to speak but the T1 moved out of sight to follow the others back towards Earth. Eventually Alan found his voice and almost exploded at John. "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" he yelled.
John, looking just as disgusted as Alan was, spoke much more calmly. "I don't know, Alan," he said. "But I do know this. I'd say International Rescue has a situation! And this is only the start…"
John wasn't wrong. By the time the evening news reports were broadcast around the world, the Thunderbolts had become public knowledge. The saving of the Sikorsky Space-Station as it turned out was only one of many rescues that they'd actually managed to pull off that day, and in every case, nearly all had been over within less than thirty minutes, which wasn't something even International Rescue had been able to achieve before.
Scott stared at one of the many news reports on a tablet. "The Thunderbolts Save The World?!" he said. "Dad, who the heck are these guys?"
"Honestly no idea, son," Jeff replied. He was watching another news report on the hologram TV on his desk. "But they've certainly made a name for themselves, that's for sure."
"But they've copied our style, Mr Tracy!" said Kayo, who was checking yet another report on a tablet. "And they're taking our work!"
"Sure they haven't come up with anything original," agreed Jeff. "But these people, whoever they are, have saved lives. And that's what counts." He turned off the TV and got up to leave the lounge whilst Kayo and Scott were left behind.
They looked at each other, both had been quick to notice how unconcerned Jeff had sounded when he'd spoken. But they could both tell things weren't right with him.
"Your father is worried, Scott," said Kayo. "And upset, despite what he said."
"He's not alone," agreed Scott. "We all are, Kayo." He looked back at the report he'd been reading. "I just want to know who the hell these people are."