Chapter Text
Barely past dawn and while the first few rays of pinkish sunlight was shining through the wide window walls, International Rescue were greeted with an incident in Taiwan. It seemed to be a rock slide of some type, but Scott himself was still on his first coffee so some of the details were a little fuzzy.
Dad had taken his rightful place at his desk, while Virgil and Gordon swiftly dispatched in 2, for an extended session in the Excavator Pods. As the morning went on with that seemingly the only situation, Scott kept shooting glances to his beloved Lamp concealed elevator, a trait that didn’t escape Jeff’s notice.
“Itching to get back in the air?”
“Ahaha, like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Your brothers are doing fine, it’s just a time-consuming task. If something else crops up, you don’t want to have started further from base.” His grey eyes were firm, but a smile was creeping up.
“Yeah, I just.... might help speed it up.” And get away from the island and have an hour or two to clear my head, but he hoped that part wasn’t showing on his face.
He and John both honoured Casey’s request regarding the news about The Hood. Keeping it from Dad was getting harder by the hour, seeing how Mars was omnipresent in his mind now too. Part of why Scott had stayed in the lounge all morning was so he’d know as soon as Casey called. John had sped back up into TB5 the second he had woken up, enjoying his favoured lack of gravity and all the information he needed surrounding him.
“Why don’t you wake Alan up?” Jeff glanced at the clock on his desk. “It’s 11 thirty, he should be up by now.”
“He’s also a teenager,” Scott eased himself up anyway. “Probably sleeping off those candies.”
Alan was still asleep, on the floor, and dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing yesterday. On the plus side, a blanket and pillow were in mostly the right positions.
Scott nudged his shoulder a few times. “You better wake up, you’re late for work.”
Alan made some sort of mumbled acknowledgement and peeled his head up slightly. “Hey, Scott. I was having a weird dream just now. There was this giant guitar.... and uhh, some kinda Rock Snake dealies.”
“Cool, how ‘bout you tell us about it when you’ve had breakfast?”
“That’s all I ‘member.” Alan yawned and stretched, his gangly limbs sticking out in all directions.
“Fair, well, I’ll be in the den with Dad. Virgil and Gordon have already been called out.”
After hovering in the doorway long enough to be sure Alan wasn’t going to drop back off to sleep again, he made his way back down, just in time for Virgil’s portrait to beep as his hologram appeared.
“Things are just about wrapped up here,” He had some mud smeared on his uniform and there was a lot of chatter in the background not entirely muted by their comm technology. “We’ll be heading back just as soon as the GDF arrive.”
Dad frowned. “The GDF?”
Virgil nodded. “Yeah, there’s been signs that the initial slide was caused by sabotage, or at least extensive cost cutting, so they ought to have a look for themselves. But the important thing is that the people are ok.”
Scott flopped down on the sofa. “FAB, Virgil. Nice going out there.”
Dad spoke up from his desk, and for a horrible second Scott realised it may have seemed he was backseat Leading. But the moment passed after what Dad actually said.
“What’s the holdup with them? They should be there already if that were the case. They didn’t send me any information about this.”
They also hadn’t sent Scott any information, so it wasn’t as if they still hadn’t changed the forwarding details back to Jeff. He did have a suspicion he knew the cause for their delay, something John was the only other one privy to.
Virgil, however, hadn’t been in the kitchen last night. “Beats me, Dad. Guess they could be busy elsewhere?”
The portrait displaying Gordon also sprang to life at this point. He was still sitting in a Pod and was noticeably muddier than Virgil. “I’m thinking we should stop waiting for them. We’ve already sent ‘em the messages and John would've given them all the data we found. Not much point us sitting here and getting itchy from all the dirt that gets under your suit because someone said he had the rocks secure, didn’t he?”
Virgil shuffled on the spot, agitated. “I already said I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s fine, I’ll just use all the hot water up in the shower.”
Jeff’s hands went up. “Ok boys, come on home. I’ll see if I can get some answers from the GDF. Good job.”
They chorused FAB and blinked off at the same time. Scott looked over to John’s picture, which had been oddly quiet for what he was used to during missions. He wondered if Dad noticed the lack of his updates. But then, it had only been a matter of hours, now.
Alan shuffled his way into the kitchen, seemingly on autopilot with grogginess. A few minutes later, the sound of toast popping rang out. As much as the island’s living spaces were soundproofed for protection against rocket engines, the openness of the inner rooms meant Scott could hear Alan scraping blackened toast off with a knife into the sink. The toaster gauge getting constantly modified to suit many needs lead to this happening a lot and causing several minor squabbles.
Dad didn’t seem to notice though, too busy trying to contact the GDF and frowning harder each time no reply came.
Alan wandered in with his plate of already half eaten toast. “What’ve I missed?”
Resisting the urge to steal a portion, Scott instead shrugged slightly. “Things have pretty much wrapped up, except for the GDF not swooping in to check the scene out. But otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Heh, define ordinary.” Alan sank into his favoured sofa and then gave a start as John’s hologram sprang to life without warning.
“I’ve been in contact with the GDF,” John began without preamble, “and I’ve got Colonel Casey waiting on the line.”
Their father cut across before Scott could mentally prepare. “Ah, excellent. Patch her through, John.”
Maybe it was a trick of the bluish light, but it almost looked like John met eyes with Scott for the barest moment.
On the desk, Casey’s torso in miniature appeared.
“Good morning, Casey. Any progress on the situation in Taiwan?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t know, I’ve been tied up with something else, Jeff. That’s why I’m calling. There’s been a breakout at Parkmoor Scrubs, only one man got out but, well, you can probably guess who it was.”
A dark shadow crossed Jeff’s face. “The Hood.”
“Yes. We’ve been looking for him nonstop but we now have reason to believe he stole another rocket, this time one less grandiose than the Zero-X. Jeff... we think he’s on his way to Mars.”
The silence that followed only made the dull roar of the returning Thunderbird Two resonate louder, as if it was punctuating that statement.
Alan blurted out “B-but why?! The Hood doesn’t know about the crazy Martia--”
“Alan.” Jeff barked, eyes darting back to the image of Casey.
She gave a sigh, otherwise betraying little of her emotions. “My theory is, that while the world at large is pleased enough by your cover story, he knows you well enough to suspect something a little grander happened. Or thinks he does, anyway. In any case, he’s probably mostly there to salvage as much of the Zero-X as he can manage, now it’s unguarded.”
Except for that civilization it’s overlooking.
Scott cleared his throat. “So uh, if that’s where he’s going, what happens now? Do you have a squad of astronauts ready, or--?”
“The GDF will not be personally chasing him to Mars, nor do we ask International Rescue to. Spectrum have volunteered to handle it, so now it’s up to them.”
“I don’t like this, Casey.”
“Of course not, Jeff.”
“I don’t know I can trust this new lot. Who are they?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. It’s highly confidential, to say the least. What I can tell you is that I’ve been assured they’re sending their best man.”
Jeff scoffed. “By what metric? May as well tell us they’re using their longest piece of string.”
“In any case, Jeff, it’s out of our hands. Look, if there’s anything else I can tell you, I will, but... well, there’s so much to be straightened out here. I’m going to have to leave now.”
“Right. Thanks, Casey.”
The Holograms other than John’s floating avatar cut off, and Jeff’s head went in his hands with a groan. Alan opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to judge whether it was time to resume his indignant spiel from earlier.
Scott didn’t need to look at John’s projection, but he did anyway. The small nod he gave confirmed that Virgil and Gordon had been patched into the call from TB2′s cockpit, though clearly neither of them wanted to cut in.
Finally, breaking the heavy silence was Brains bustling in from his lab, closely followed by MAX. “T-this is terrible news! The Hood doesn’t understand how the Z-zero-X works at all!”
Alan seized his chance to jump in. “I know, right! He’s probably gonna crash it right into the Asteroid belt!”
Brains shook his head. “That’s a-actually one thing he won’t do. I’ve been analysing the data from your visit, and I can confirm that the Zero-X will not be able to take off without extensive work and d-dedicated specialist reconstruction procedures. No, the body of the craft is going n-nowhere. But the danger is, that the Hood will most likely try to e-extract the engine.”
“Oh, I see. That sounds like the sort of thing that would make a pretty big explosion, huh?”
“Alan, take this seriously,” their father muttered.
“Oh, uh, sorry.”
Brains conjured a simplistic hologram to illustrate his next sentence. “B-big is nothing compared to what would happen. The engines were designed to be able to reach d-deep space, but only went to Mars. That’s like walking down the street when you have the supplies to hike across a continent. A blast made by such p-powerful machinery would destroy Mars, and the fragments would shower into Earth. It’s an e-extinction level event waiting to happen!”
Jeff stood. “Brains, calm down.”
Scott was determined to stay level headed. “We don’t know that’s what The Hood has planned. Even he has some self preservation instinct, it’s possible he’s planning to take the schematics instead.”
John’s hands were ghosting over something only he could see. “Whatever he has in mind, the Spectrum people are fast. I can see a Fireball class ship en route now, and the fact I’m finding it this hard to identify anything else suggests it’s supposed to be that way.”
“Should I get in Thunderbird 3?” Alan asked, in a slightly smaller voice than before.
“No.” Jeff walked around his desk, and then stopped gazing out to the room at large with a frown still marking his face. “We’ve all heard Casey, it’s out of our hands now. We have to stand by in case anything develops - anywhere.”
A shrill alert sounded. John was talking with a panicked voice somewhere, before looking directly at Scott.
“Better get your ‘Bird ready.” He said.