July 5th, 2064 - 11:14 NZST
A week after Kayo left for London and the Tracy Brothers were worried about Alan. He carried on his duties as usual but would be short and snappy. While his performance on rescues did increase, Scott knew his brother wasn't being healthy.
He goes in search for Alan. Typically, this would mean going straight to his room but as he opened the door, he realises it's empty. Scott sighs and walks back to his office where he finds Marion sitting on the desk reading some papers that he's left. With a small smile he slowly approaches her, who was unaware of Scott entering the room. Creeping up cautiously Scott then pounces on Marion who squeals, and they both go tumbling on the floor. Marion looks around to see Scott laughing on the floor next to her.
"You should've seen your face," Scott chuckles.
"Asshole," Marion mutters, and stands up, with papers still firmly in hand, "I was just reading on the latest report from Westminster."
Hearing this Scott stops laughing and helps Marion back to her feet, "What's going on?"
"Nothing important," Marion says and goes to exit the room, "You're stressed as it is, I don't need any more pressure put onto you. I'll handle it."
"Is she alright at least?" Scott asks as he watches Marion pause before opening the door and looking over her shoulder.
"She's doing well," Marion states and opens the door before disappearing. She walks down the corridor towards the lounge and takes a seat at Jeff Tracy's desk before reading more into the files. When Scott had entered the room, Marion only had a couple more pages of the report to go which were on an incident in Central Africa yesterday and what she read made her eyes widen in horror. "Oh sh—"
5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Thunderbirds are Go!
Downstairs in the dining room, Alan was sitting at the table with Virgil playing holo-chess. Nina was in the kitchen talking to Sally about going to the mainland for another shopping trip.
"That's it, Alan," Virgil smiles, "Try to think outside the box."
"Not that I don't appreciate the help," Alan glares, "But based on the board, I'd say maybe you need to think inside the box."
"The game isn't over yet," Virgil says and stands up and leans on the table as Alan moves one of his chess pieces.
"You're kidding, right?" Alan questions and removes one of Virgil's pieces off the board, "You just sacrificed your bishop."
"I didn't have a choice," Virgil exclaims, "You had me in a fork. Sometimes, to keep playing, we have to choose the least of a few bad options."
The emergency light then goes off in the downstairs area and the Thunderbird 5 pair appear on the holo-screen. "International Rescue," John states, "We have a situation."
"There's a distress call from Dr Travers at the colony of Mars," Ridley informs.
"What's happening?" Nina asks, after only hearing the last part of the conversation.
"They've got a runaway scientist," Ridley explains as Virgil, Alan and Nina enter the lounge where a bunch of papers were lying around on the floor.
"Plus, Captain Taylor," John adds, "Who went out to get him."
"Taylor took the last long-range rover," Ridley continues, "So they have no way to mount a rescue operation."
"What happened here?" Nina mutters and picks up the paper that was located on the desk and gasps silently before looking over to Alan.
"Sounds like they could use our help," Virgil responds to Ridley.
"Even at .25 the speed of light, will we get there in time?" Alan queries.
"If they ration their food and water, they should have a week, maybe more," John states.
"Then let the Mars colony know we're on our way," Virgil says and sits in Kayo's usual seat, "You can drive."
"Really?!" Alan scoffs but with a small smile appearing on his face, "Gee, thanks! It's my bloody ship!"
5
Alan and Virgil descend and to start getting suited up.
4
The pair are lifted on a crane from the bottom of the hanger into Thunderbird 3.
3
Thunderbird 3's blast door closes.
2
Alan and Virgil's chairs rolls up to the controls.
1
Thunderbird 3's rockets start up.
Thunderbirds are Go!
July 5th, 2064 - 11:21 NZST
Within moments of taking off, Thunderbird 3 exits Earth's atmosphere and starts to head in the direction of Mars.
"Firing ion fusion engines in three, two, one," Alan announces and sets Thunderbird 3 to 90% speed. Alan checks to route while Virgil starts to do the inflight checks to make sure that Thunderbird 3 is functioning properly. "It's been a while since we left Captain Taylor on Mars," he comments.
"Yeah, two years," Virgil states, "Maybe on a planet of just 200, he can finally remember people's names!"
"Hah!" Alan scoffs, "Ion fusion engines purring like a kitten. While you're back there, could you check the heat shield? It's the console on the wall."
"Shield's nominal," Virgil notes and he floats over to the console, "Radiation buffers at 98%."
"Oof!" Alan says, "You know a lot about space flight for a sky pilot."
"What can I say?" Virgil replies and takes a seat next to Alan again, "All of Dad's drills must have paid off. Remember how he used to get us up at 05:00 just to run contingency scenarios?"
"Not... really," Alan sighs.
"Oh," Virgil pauses realising his mistake, "You never did those."
"What..." Alan starts but stops to formulate a question, "What was he like?"
"Dad?" Virgil questions, "You know!"
"I don't, actually," Alan sighs, "With me being at boarding school most of the time and only spending maybe 4 weeks with him a year, I'm starting to forget him."
"Alan, I..." Virgil begins.
"You know," Alan continues, "Sometimes I felt like the unwanted child. I was treated differently from everyone else as International Rescue suddenly existed."
"Alan, you know that's not true," Virgil informs.
"Maybe deep down I know that, but I was born into this, you and the others weren't," Alan states, "I mean Scott went into the Air Force, you were an artist, Gordon had joined WASP and John was working at NASA. Me, well, International Rescue." Alan pauses and looks out the front of Thunderbird 3. Virgil goes to open his mouth to say something but then realises he doesn't know how to respond to Alan. Alan lets out another sigh, "That's why I'm partly still angry at Kayo. She was the only one I could really understand other than Fermat. And the fact that she was willing to move to London so quickly was shocking if anything."
"Well," Virgil starts, "Have you considered that maybe she wanted to spend some time with Lady Penelope? You know how much they get along, maybe she wanted some... I dunno, girl time with her female best friend."
"Possibly," Alan sighs and looks back at Virgil, "Could you tell me some things about Dad?"
"Well, he always wore this pink flamingo shirt," Virgil chuckles.
"Really?" Alan smiles.
"It was horrible!" Virgil laughs and Alan joins in, "And he made pancakes every Sunday. You could always smell his aftershave down the hall!"
"I remember that!" Alan laughs briefly before looking over to his brother again, "Virgil, do you ever like... think about whatever happened to Dad, happening to you?"
"Not during missions," Virgil admits, "But when we're at home and I'm sitting down in the lounge with Nina smuggled into my side, yeah, I get scared. But that's the job, it's the life that the pair of us chose and I trust her with my life, and she does the same. The reason being when someone sends out an SOS, they deserve to know somebody's out there, listening."
The pair fall into a comfortable silence and continue on their course towards the red planet.
July 5th, 2064 - 13:04 NZST
Thunderbird 3 arrives in the Marian atmosphere and Alan contacts the colony to inform them of their arrival on the planet. After a few moments, Alan manages to reach Dr Travers who informs them of the situation.
"Professor Karim is a brilliant man," Travers explains, "But misguided. He believes there may be microbes living in the underground caverns of Mars."
"And what do you believe?" Virgil asks."
"About life on Mars?" Travers questions, surprised, "We've sent drones over the whole planet, if it was here, we'd probably know it by now. And there's one other thing, I'm sorry to make this any harder for you, but we've got a sandstorm moving in. A big one."
"We always like a challenge," Virgil jokes, "We'll find your men, Dr Travers."
"Good luck and thank you," Travers smiles and signs off. Moments later an alarm goes off inside Thunderbird 3 and Alan looks to his left to see the sandstorm fast approaching. Reacting quickly, he grabs the controls and starts to get Thunderbird 3 into a suitable position to get hit by the storm. In a few moments, Thunderbird 3 is engulfed in the storms and Alan strains at the control, trying to keep his bird steady and he goes towards the co-ordinates that Dr Travers had just sent through to Virgil.
"She wasn't kidding!" Alan strains, "This is some storm! Gah! We need tow cables!"
"On it," Virgil calls and turns to the grasping arm controls and deploys them. Once they were in position, he pulls a leaver next to him and fires a cable towards the ground and the wire tenses indicating there was some sort of connection with the surface which the pair couldn't see in the red mist of the sandstorm.
"Deploy the second!" Alan cries.
"Can't you see I'm fucking trying!" Virgil yells and fires the second cable. It makes contact with the ground and Alan regains controls of Thunderbird 3 letting out a sigh of relief. He turns his craft upright and positions it between the town support cables to keep the weight of Thunderbird 3 down. As soon as Thunderbird 3 makes contact with the ground, the pair make their way to the cargo hold where Alan had stored one of the red pods to send them down into the caves of Mars. Alan flicks a switch turning on the lights in the cargo bay, illuminating the red pod. Going over to the holo-pad in the corner, he selects the new option which causes the machinery in the cargo hold to get to work. The pod has several pieces of equipment that attaches to it.
"Let's get out there," Virgil says turning to Alan, "Space pod configured."
"Dragonfly Pod is go," Alan says and opens the cargo doors of Thunderbird 3 and flies the pod out of the entrance as soon as it was wide enough and extends the wings. "Woo hoo! We're flying over Mars! This is so cool!"
"Alan we literally just did the same in Thunderbird 3," Virgil comments.
"Way to kill my mood bro," Alan chuckles as a gust of wind hits the side of the pod sending it upside down.
"Oh, shit! Right side up! Right side up!" Virgil yells.
"I've got it! Stabilizing thrusters," Alan informs.
"Thanks," Virgil breathes and indicates over to his left, "Taylor's last known location was over that way." Alan nods and changes his course to fly in a westward putting the pod in more of a risk in getting caught in the crosswinds. As a result, Alan puts all of his focus in trying to keep the pod steady while Virgil concentrates in trying to find any life signals or even the rovers.
"Anything?" Alan asks after a few minutes with only the noise of the wind and the scanning sound coming from Virgil's wrist controller.
"There!" Virgil states as there's a beep. Those are their rovers."
In the thick mist of the sand flying around everywhere, Alan just makes out the two rovers and starts to fly towards them only to see the wind pick up again. The wind speed is so great that it picks the two rovers up and they start to fly towards him instead.
"Motherfu—" Alan starts and quickly ducks to avoid them, "You know, I don't think this planet likes us very much." Near to where to rovers launch from Alan sees a cavern and dives the dragonfly pod straight down knowing that the missing men were probably down there.
"There's a tunnel at the bottom of this cavern. That's probably where they..." Virgil starts but stops when he sees a yellow warning appear on the console, "WATCH OUT!"
"Agh!" Alan cries as he sees that a large rock has fallen down the cavern and is rapidly approaching them. He moves the pod against the wall of the cavern and watches as the rock goes flying past them and into the darkness below. "This cavern is in bad shape. I'm surprised it's still standing." They reach the bottom of the cavern and Virgil unbuckles himself from the seat.
"I'll go EVA to see if I can make contact with Taylor," Virgil says and opens the hatch at the top of the pod and goes round the back to put his suit on. "Exo-suit complete. Let me move some of these out of the way." He indicates to the wall of rock that they come across as Alan falls Virgil closely in the pod. After removing a few rocks, Virgil makes an entrance big enough for both him and Alan to make their way through. "Captain Taylor?" Virgil asks after seeing a figure in a white astronaut suit.
"Albert! Vincent!" Taylor calls to the pair, "In kind of a tight spot."
"We'll get to your trouble with names later," Virgil jokes to lighten the mood, "What's the situation?"
"I'm trapped!" Professor Karim calls from the floor, "And my suit... the captain's been holding it shut."
"We could move the rock," Virgil suggests.
"Moving that rock is going to tear this hole wide open," Taylor declares, "His suit would decompress."
"There's plenty of time to get him inside the pod," Alan shrugs, "You can drive him out and we'll climb on the back."
"That could work," Taylor ponders, "Yeah, I like it."
"FAB, Alan," Virgil nods, "Let's move this."
"Alan?" Taylor mumbles to himself, "That's right."
Virgil then uses the exo-suit to start to lift the rock and Alan helps with some assistance. Just then, a rumbling comes from the tunnel and the sound of falling rocks. This is shortly followed by a crash and spark of electricity. Alan and Virgil turn around just as a dust cloud erupts from the tunnel entrance. Once cleared Virgil inspects the damage.
"What was that?" Alan asks.
"The pod," Virgil growls, "It's crushed."
"Ugh!" Alan sighs, "Planet Mars definitely hates us."
"Well, I'm glad you're here, boys," Taylor comments, "I just wish it were rosier. As soon as we move this rock, the air in his suit will leak out."
"We have nano-glue," Alan suggests, "We could try that."
"It's not designed to be used on space suits," Virgil states, "It would be like encasing him in concrete."
"Well, whatever you do, hurry up, this hurts," Professor Karim mutters. The Tracy boys walk away and have a hushed conversation away from the Professor.
"Virg, what are we going to do?" Alan questions, "We have a limited air supply and a storm outside. If we don't get this guy out soon, he's a goner."
"There's always a way, Alan," Virgil replies.
"What do you think Dad would've done?" Alan asks.
"Think outside the box," Virgil mumbles to himself, looking over to the destroyed pod and wides his eyes with a smile, "Okay, I've got a plan. I'm going to seal myself, Captain Taylor and the professor inside this tunnel. The I'll fill the space with the air from our suits and the tanks from the pod. With a room full of air, we can move the rock and Professor Karim can breathe safely."
"That sounds great," Taylor says, "Right out of Jeff Tracy's playbook."
"That's where you come in, Alan," Virgil continues, "Once we're inside, it's up to you to drill your way down to us with Thunderbird 3."
"That's crazy," Professor Karim scoffs, "It'll never work."
"I don't think you're in much position to argue," Virgil glares back.
"He's got a point," Alan mumbles to Virgil, "Thunderbird 3's drill isn't designed for precision work. If I go too fast or too deep, I could crush all of you."
"The least of the bad options remember?" Virgil questions, "I don't like it better than you do but we have to try."
"FAB," Alan sighs and looks back at Professor Karim, "It's not like we have any better options."
Alan then walks over to the pod and starts to detach the air tanks that survived the crush of the rocks and carry them over the enclosed section of the tunnel where Taylor and Professor Karim were located. Virgil works on the opposite wall and encloses it as much as he can before releasing nano-glue at the face. When he finishes with that wall, he makes it over to the entrance he made earlier where Alan has just brought the last of the air tanks and makes his way to the exit again. Once through, Alan turns around to face Virgil as his brother traps himself inside the tunnel and starts to apply the nano-glue to that wall as well. Alan stares at the wall waiting to see if Virgil's plan is going to work or whether it is going to be a fatal mistake. He waits a few moments before calling through the wall.
"Well?" Alan asks. There's another pause before the sound of Virgil gasping and choking is heard through the wall causing Alan to become really alarmed. "Virgil!"
"Just messing with you, Alan," Virgil laughs, "Good news, we are officially the first three people to breathe Martian air without a space suit."
"Don't you ever fucking do that again to be Virgil!" Alan exclaims, "But that is awesome and freaky at the same time."
"Erm, Alan," Virgil calls, "You'd better hurry."
"And you'd better get that rock off Professor Karim," Alan calls back and starts to walk back down the tunnel, pulling up his wrist controller, "Now, I just need to summon my ride." With a beep, Alan's space hoverboard is released from the cargo bay on Thunderbird 3 and rockets down the cavern towards Alan. Once it reaches him, Alan jumps on boards and starts to make his way back out again. "Virgil, I know this is a serious situation and all," Alan starts as he dodges some more debris, "But I feel it's important to recognise that this moment, my life is really, really cool."
"All right," Virgil chuckles, "Try not to have too much fun!"
July 5th, 2064 - 14:46 NZST
Alan reaches Thunderbird 3 and makes a run for his seat. He closes the cargo bay doors and prepares to take off in some horrible weather conditions.
"Alan, have you got Thunderbird 3 in the air yet?" Virgil asks.
"I'm working on it," Alan states as he ignites the engines, "But Brains didn't exactly build this ship for Martian sandstorms." After a few seconds, Alan becomes confident that he has control of his bird and releases the grappling cables that were attached to the ground and retracts the grasping arms. He then flies Thunderbird 3 for a few seconds before locating the area on the surface that is directly above the enclosed space down in the cavern. Pulling out the grasping arms again and opening the nose cone on Thunderbird 3. When landed on the surface, he secures Thunderbird 3 again and attaches the cockpit to the nose piece at the front of Thunderbird 3 before starting to drill down.
The process starts off slowly, but he begins to make some ground. He brings up one of Brains' algorithms to calculate the time it would take to reach the cave and it estimated 15 minutes. Due to the compact nature of Martian rock, Alan is happy with this as it is rapid progress but suddenly strains as he tries to keep control of the drill. A couple of minutes go by before Virgil contacts Alan.
"Alan, how's that hole coming?" Virgil asks.
"Well, I'm manoeuvring a drill the size of a dump truck into what's basically inches, so, slowly but fast for Mars," Alan explains.
"Got it," Virgil replies, "Do your best."
"FAB," Alan responds and whips the sweat on his forehead.
July 5th, 2064 - 14:53 NZST
"Virgil, can you hear me?" Alan asks, "I'm almost there."
"What?" Virgil mutters in response, "Alan, I'm having trouble focusing. I think the air's almost run out. I'm all fuzzy."
"Well, get your shit together, bro," Alan growls, not knowing about the rapid decrease in breathable air, "I need you for this."
"Come on, get up," Alan hears Virgil pant over the coms as he closes in on the roof of the tunnel, "On your feet, both of you. Taylor!" There's a pause before he hears his brother again, "Okay, what do you need?"
"I'm coming in now," Alan announces.
"Careful," Virgil says as the roof of the cave starts to collapse, "Careful."
"Steady," Alan mutters to himself and zooms in on the hologram scan to try and be as precise as possible when he enters the cave, "Steady."
"Okay," Virgil says, "Everybody get ready to breath out and don't hold your breath or your lungs will explode."
"Thank you," Professor Karim chuckles, "I'll never get that image out of my head."
"Nearly there!" Alan states and bursts through the roof, "Grab hold!" Alan monitors his screens and watches the three lifeforms grab onto the cable. Immediately, he starts to retract Thunderbird 3's drill back out and towards the surface to place the three men in the cargo hold. Only a few seconds later, the three men appear in the cargo hold.
"Oxygen!" Professor Karim cries, "Sweet mercy for oxygen."
July 5th, 2064 - 15:07 NZST
Alan proceeds to fly Thunderbird 3 towards the Mars colony and lands near the base. They provide Professor Karim with a backup suit so the group can make their way over to the colony by foot. When they get inside, they head straight to the commander centre and meet up with Dr Travers who greats everyone warmly.
"Thank you, International Rescue!" Travers smiles, shaking Virgil's hand.
"She said it, boys," Taylor comments, "I couldn't have done this one better myself."
"Coming from you, Captain," Virgil says turning to face his father's best friend, "That means a lot."
"People say I wrote the book on space survival, but the truth is, Jeff Tracy and I wrote it together," Taylor admits, "Your dad would be proud of what you did today."
"Wow," Virgil replies gobsmacked, "Thanks!"
"Alright, already," Taylor says with a smile nodding to Virgil, "Don't let it go to your head, Vinnie."
"Vinnie?" Alan smirks.
"I don't even bother correcting him anymore," Virgil whispers to his brother.
"Well, if you'll excuse me," Taylor states giving himself a quick sniff, "I've got a four-day old pair of space skivvies to peel myself out of."
"I did not need to hear that," Alan gags.
"Professor," Virgil says, "Shouldn't you get looked at by a medic?"
"In a minute, I want to see something first. Those probes I placed," Professor Karim states and places his data pad on the panel in front over him, "Come on, come on, come on, come on. It's not connecting."
"You know..." Virgil starts.
"I know," Professor Karim sighs in defeat, "You don't even have to say it. I know. The dream of life on Mars meant so much to me. But people almost got hurt today because of me. This was the last chance; the last one I was willing to give myself. I'm giving up on my dream."
"Hey..." Virgil trails and grabs onto Professor Karim's shoulder.
"There's no point in risking what you've got for a thing that will never come," Professor Karim says, "I see that now."
"Come on. let's get you checked out," Virgil says, "Maybe you'll come back, and things will have changed."
"Yeah," Professor Karim breathes, "Maybe." As the three walk away from the control panel the data pad flashes green for a brief second before going to red again. Maybe something was indeed out there, but what?
July 5th, 2064 - 06:34 BST
"Are you sure you're alright?" Marion asks.
"Yes, for the 1,000th time," the person in the bed next to her responds.
"Alright, I'm just going to grab some food," Nina says from the other side of the bed and looks over to Marion, "You coming?"
"I'll stay here for now," Marion nods and watches Nina leave. When the door closes again Marion looks back at the bed.
"Could you do me a favour?" the figure asks Marion, "Can you not let Alan know what's going on? I don't want him to stress too much."
"That's a big ask," Marion sighs, "But I'll do my best for you, Kayo."
"Thank you," Kayo replies before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.