A ‘Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons’ and ‘Thunderbirds’ crossover story

by Shades

Content warning: Blood and mind control.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Hazel Köhler for beta reading this story and to Hubby and Sineater on Archives of our Own for the technical support.

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Chapter 1

They could hear Scarlet long before they could see him- alternating between howling with pain or exploring the wider limits of his vocabulary to express his extreme displeasure with the events of the day. To be fair to him it had been going pretty well right up to the point the manufacturing plant they were in was encouraged to surrender to entropy, so the irritation was understandable.

Ochre, Scarlet and Blue had been investigating a probable Mysteron threat to a manufacturing plant halfway between Pittsburgh and Baltimore tasked with making temporary housing for disaster relief for the World Government. Nothing had really seemed to be out of place until Scarlet had suddenly staggered, a hand to his brow, and gasped ‘Mysterons!’. Blue had looked up, seen a flare of green light at the top of a support column and yanked the fire alarm seconds before the floor started rippling under their feet. They’d been separated and swept along by the stampede of panicking people and it was only when they got outside that Ochre and Blue, who’d been felled by a chunk of flying debris to the lower leg, realised that Scarlet had been left behind.

With Scarlet lost somewhere inside the rubble, Blue injured outside the rubble and equipped with only his bare hands and a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, Ochre had been very glad when International Rescue had turned up just as the dust started settling.

“Scarlet! We’re almost there!” Ochre called out, hot on the heels of the IR pilot Virgil as they squirmed through the collapsed building, following the signal of the little emergency beacon that Scarlet had managed to set off.

“Good!” the captain hollered back from his artificial cavern before going into a fresh cry of pain and extended bout of swearing.

“Just let me secure this.” Virgil held the Spectrum captain back as he shoved an extending support beam into place to shore up a broken concrete slab above them. “You’ve got a first aid kit?” he asked.

Ochre nodded and hefted the satchel he carried.

“I’ll do what I can to clear a path,” Virgil continued, wedging the support into place with a kick, “call out if you need a stretcher or cutting gear.”

With the slab secured, Virgil stepped back and let the captain go ahead into the chamber, as he’d asked earlier.

After ducking under a chunk of I-beam and sliding down into the cramped space, Ochre swore softly when he saw his friend’s condition so starkly illuminated by his flashlight- sprawled on the rubble with both legs pinned by debris, Scarlet was also impaled by three steel rebar rods that had punched through his back and out through the left side of his lower abdomen. “Oh, that’s bad.” Ochre grimaced as he knelt beside him and started to slice away the bloodied armour and clothing to get at the wound. “Scarlet, can you move?”

“I’m stuck, it’s trying to heal around the rebar!” Scarlet managed to get out in a hoarse whisper, a fresh wave of pain making him cry out and beat ineffectively at the rubble with his fists. “Rick, it hurts!”

Something broke a bit in Ochre at the pleading cry from someone who always seemed so strong, seeing the raw emotion and tears of pain cutting grooves in the thick concrete dust caking Paul’s face and hair. Blood was bubbling around the rebar and every time he took a breath it ripped open the wounds his body was diligently trying to heal. “Small wonder Blue always tries to be the one to find him afterwards,” the thought stole through Richard’s mind, “to spare the rest of us this.”

“I’ve got fifteen milligrams of morphine in the bag, how much do you want?” Ochre asked briskly, rummaging in his satchel for supplies as he planned how to get Scarlet out while keeping his secret. A Cloudbase medical helijet would be here soon, he hoped.

“All of it,” was the gasped response.

Ochre blinked and paused, his train of thought screeching to a halt. “But that would be….” he tried to protest.

“Please, Rick…” Paul grabbed Richard’s arm and looked at him with desperation in his eyes. “Getting me out is going to be even worse.”

“S.I.G.” Ochre grimaced, shoved his personal feelings aside to deal with later and pulled out the morphine ampoules and IV kit. “Let’s make you more comfortable.”

Scarlet drew in a quivering breath and shuddered as the first syringe was emptied into his veins by the light of the torch that Ochre had clamped between his cheek and shoulder, relaxed as the second followed it and went completely limp as the third syringe-full of morphine was flushed through with a fourth syringe of saline, blue eyes sliding shut. For a split second Rick thought he’d killed Paul with an overdose, then he held his bloodstained hand over Scarlet’s mouth and nose and felt the barest stirring of air. “No, he’s still breathing.”

Scooping up his used equipment and stuffing it back into the satchel, Ochre went back to the entrance of the cave where Virgil was busy with another support as the collapsed building above them creaked and groaned eerily. “You said you had cutting gear?” he asked. “We’re going to need that and a stretcher, it’s bad. I can get started on the cutting, you get more people to help carry him out.”

“F.A.B.” Virgil acknowledged and pulled a small object from his pocket. “This is a laser cutter,” he explained, pointing to the various components of the pen-shaped device. “On button, beam intensity, beam aperture. You’ll be okay getting him out?” he asked as he handed it over, giving the other man a curious, searching look.

“Yes, we’re trained for this,” Ochre lied smoothly. He had a fair idea of what to do so it wasn’t completely untrue- in addition to their training at Koala Base he’d watched firefighters and paramedics do extrications at car accidents plenty of times- he just had to get rid of Virgil for a bit.

“Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Virgil promised and started to clamber out of the rubble.

Ochre headed back to the chamber and set to work, pulling at the remains of Scarlet’s tunic with one hand just enough to get under him and cut off the rebar as close to Scarlet’s back as he could. The block of concrete on his legs was easy- two quick slices with the cutter sheared through the bits of rebar keeping it tangled with the rest of the debris and he could dump the block off to the side easily enough. The damage to Scarlet’s legs wasn’t nearly as bad as he feared. The left one was broken just below the knee, but the right was intact. A couple of bandages and a foam and aluminium splint from the satchel would deal to the leg, but the abdominal wound was much more complicated. “Should I pull these out…?” Rick wondered out loud as a half-remembered first aid lesson floated back to him- embedded objects had to stay put- but for Scarlet to heal they had to come out.

Erring on the side of ‘less complications later, he’s already healing’, Ochre tugged the bits of steel out. He couldn’t help the wince at the sucking sounds the steel made as it came out, then he washed the wounds as best he could and taped a thick dressing over the injury to hide it. Next he rolled Scarlet onto his side and did the same to cover the entry wound, figuring Scarlet would continue healing up and the last thing they needed was witnesses to retrometabolism’s weirdness.

He finished tying the splint into place just as Virgil, preceded by a bright yellow, hard plastic stretcher, entered the chamber with two firefighters. “I found some help, Urban Search and Rescue and emergency services have just arrived,” Virgil said as he glanced over Ochre’s handiwork. “What sort of injuries?” he asked as he and the firefighters manoeuvred the stretcher into position.

“Broken lower left leg, abdo and back wounds and lots of pain relief. Nothing spinal or head, everything else is fine, but that rubble above us doesn’t look stable, we need to get going.” Ochre handed the laser cutter back to Virgil as he reported, hoping to get them moving before Virgil or the firefighters could think to have a look at the injuries for themselves.

Working together, they manhandled the limp captain onto the stretcher and wrapped him in a thick blanket that the firefighters had brought with them before strapping him into place. Scarlet stirred and groaned at that, but thankfully he passed out again. Getting him out was hard- the machinery below had held up most of the debris, but there were gaps and crevices that could have swallowed any of them whole if they’d misstepped.

As they clambered through the rubble, Ochre couldn’t help the nagging feeling that something was off about all this. As far as he was concerned the Mysterons were very fond of the word ‘obliterated’- when they destroyed something it usually involved an explosion and turning that something into smoke, ashes and lots of little bits. The Spectrum Maximum Security building was one example that came to mind.

But today the building collapse had felt… slow… for lack of a better word, and the rubble was big- car and truck sized chunks that created a honeycomb of voids. “Like it was supposed to trap people…” Unbidden, the observation floated to the forefront of his mind. Ochre frowned as he mulled it over, but his train of thought was interrupted when one of the firefighters shouted ‘We’re almost out!’

They emerged into the deepening twilight with their burden. Floodlights had been set up, bathing the area in a harsh white light that made the shadows stand out like they’d been cut from black paper. Rescuers were pulling back from the ruins of the factory now that the last victim was out and the looming bulks of Thunderbirds One and Two at the far end of the carpark were reassuring sentinels silhouetted against the fading pink sunset. The evacuated factory staff had already been sent home just in case the building had any more surprises for them, so surprisingly few people were milling about.

To Ochre’s deep relief there was a Spectrum medical helijet parked off to the side with an Angel at the controls- Harmony, he thought, judging by her height and build. Fawn was there too, all but sitting on Blue to keep him in the back of the heli’ by the looks of things. The Boston officer had been left with a nasty open fracture in his leg, otherwise he would have been assisting in the search efforts.

The rescue team diverted to the heli’ at Ochre’s instruction and with ease born of practice they transferred Scarlet to the heli’s second stretcher so gently he barely twitched. “Thank you, all of you,” Ochre said, honestly grateful as he ushered them away from the heli’ as Fawn set to work. “Is there anything else we can do to assist? There’s a Spectrum team en route to secure the scene and start the investigation once it’s been cleared by your teams.”

“Can they bring some good coffee?” one of the firefighters asked cheekily. “The chief always gets the cheap stuff for the disaster unit.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ochre promised.

The two firefighters grinned at him and went on ahead with their reclaimed stretcher to the command centre that had been set up, but Virgil hung back. “I’ve been to a lot of building collapses,” he remarked with what initially appeared to be nonchalance, looking over the disaster zone with a practised eye. “You and your teammates did good work getting everyone out: aside from your colleague there was only one other person trapped and they were almost at the door when it happened.”

“Like I said, we train for this,” Ochre replied lightly, keeping up a relaxed facade as his brain raced ahead, wondering what the other man was getting at.

“And like I said, I’ve been to a lot of building collapses,” Virgil replied, turning to face Ochre fully and his expression becoming a frown. “The report we got said there was a gas line explosion and this factory is sitting on the biggest underground gas pipeline on the East Coast. Gas leaks are like fuel-air bombs- if it was a minor leak the building should have blown its guts out and sent debris in a half-mile radius at least,” Virgil said, waving a hand at the crumpled remains of the factory. “If this pipeline had a major leak there’d be nothing but a smoking crater and the shockwave would have flattened everything for two or three miles. Instead the building is pancaked: the main structural members collapsing in just like a controlled demolition. The only reason it’s not fully collapsed is the manufacturing plant machinery holding it up. And the timing is all strange. We got the call about an hour before we arrived, but when we touched down it looked like the building had only just collapsed. What gives here, Captain Ochre?”

“I can’t discuss that and you can’t ask me,” Ochre replied firmly.

“Why not?” a new voice broke in.

Ochre turned to see the other pilot, Scott, approaching him. “We’re under orders,” Ochre informed him. “We can’t discuss ongoing investigations.”

The IR field commander frowned at that, but he nodded. Late of the US Air Force, from what Ochre could remember of Spectrum’s very limited file on International Rescue, he understood orders. “Our head of intelligence just contacted me, she’s on her way here with some information your commander needs to know,” Scott explained, eyeing Ochre with a certain suspicion. “She doesn’t trust the local Spectrum office to take it seriously so she thought this was the perfect opportunity to pass it on.”

As Virgil turned away to talk to Scott, Ochre caught sight of the International Rescue insignia on his dusty sash and suddenly remembered the wording of the Mysteron threat... and Spectrum didn’t know anything about a gas line explosion or International Rescue being called. Green had only told him a medical heli’ and regular emergency services were enroute. “Virgil, the gas leak, how did you get the report?” Ochre interrupted, urgency colouring his voice.

“A radioed distress call to our monitoring station,” Virgil replied, somewhat confused as he looked back to Ochre. “Why?”

“Did the caller give their name?”

“Yes, he said his name was Conrad,” Scott butted in, his brow marked by a deep frown. “Why?”

“We need to go, this is a trap!” Ochre ordered. “The threat we got said ‘the hand which helps the world shall be cut off at the wrist.’ We thought it meant this manufacturing plant for the World Government’s ‘Hand Up’ housing program but I can’t think of a better way to cripple International Rescue,” Ochre said, pointing to their helping hand insignia and counting the five items out on his fingers, “than by taking out two pilots, two vehicles and the head of intelligence. This was bait to bring you here! Take off now, I’ll tell Fire and USAR!”

“But…” Scott tried to protest, but Ochre ran roughshod over him.

“You don’t have authority to order an evac, I do. Move!” Ochre snapped, pointing in the direction of their aircraft. “I’ll get them out, go! I’m the expendable one here, you’re not. Go, that’s an order!”

The two IR operatives exchanged glances and reluctantly ran to their craft. Ochre hollered to Harmony to take off and ran to the command post to order them to evacuate as well.

Gunshots rang out just as he approached the collection of vehicles and he stopped short, using the bulk of one of the support vehicles for cover as his hand dipped for his pistol. Six people lay dead on the ground in front of the fire service command truck and he glimpsed at least two more bodies inside the truck, including the two firefighters who had helped him earlier. A barrel-chested, craggy faced man in a fire chief uniform looked over at Ochre with dead eyes as he dropped his spent pistol. “A shame, Earthman,” he intoned. “I was about to advise a third person had been detected deep in the factory. But killing you will also serve the purposes of the Mysterons.” Smoke started pouring from his collar and Ochre sprinted away, hoping against hope he would be fast enough.

He could hear the whine of the helijet spooling up to take off. This was promptly drowned out by the roar of two sets of engines, then Thunderbird One swooped in above him, a rope ladder hanging from her underbelly. Ochre jumped and latched onto it, clinging for dear life as the craft swept low over the rumpled landscape. Behind them the detonation was a powerful CRRRACCCK and orange light lit up the area in a short lived artificial day as the vehicles in the command centre blew up.

All three craft aimed their noses at a large, empty carpark beside another factory some miles away. Scott’s deft piloting allowed Ochre to simply step down from the ladder before One pivoted and slipped sideways to land at a safe distance. His RadioCap lost somewhere along the way, Ochre had to settle for waving at Harmony’s approaching heli’ to signal he was okay before picking a spot and sitting on the ground before either his rubbery legs or the looming adrenaline crash took the decision to sit away from him. That had been close.

Hydraulics whined somewhere off to his left and Scott emerged from his Thunderbird. Ochre wasn’t sure if he was angry, frightened or both as he marched towards him. “Captain Ochre, explain,” Scott ordered, full military body language on show with his mouth set in a line, arms crossed, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. The almost involuntary glance up at Thunderbird Two’s cockpit told Ochre the real reason for Scott’s agitation- he wasn’t so much worried for himself, but for his colleague.

As he formed his reply, Ochre realised Scott’s open concern and protectiveness actually reminded him a lot of the Scarlet he’d gotten to know at Koala Base, before the Mysterons got to him and the shutters had come down. Paul still cared just as much but he didn’t display it so openly now- the smiles had faded, his temper had gotten shorter and he’d retreated into himself. It had taken a long time for the shutters to start to come back up, to the point there was a minor celebration amongst the captains when he’d started teasing and cracking jokes again.

“The Mysterons got the fire chief, he shot everyone else just as I got there,” Ochre replied evenly from his spot on the ground, using the same tactics he used on Scarlet when the British officer got his nose out of joint about something- anger met by a void defeated itself, so he didn’t rise to the bait. “He was going to lure one or both of you back into the rubble with a false report of someone else in there and then trigger a bomb on his person,” he continued. “My guess, he was probably aiming to be in the factory with you so he could set off the gas line with the device and blow up your Thunderbirds at the same time. We weren’t supposed to be there but we would have been useful collateral damage.” He wasn’t going to admit the man was the device until he had White’s express permission. “He must have realised his cover was blown and decided to kill everyone there and detonate anyway in the hopes of doing as much damage as possible.”

“Why International Rescue?” came the next question in a classic voice of command, the shoulders squaring back in the blue uniform, but there was a brittleness behind the brass. “We’re strictly neutral, no affiliations with any government or military organisation.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Ochre belatedly remembered the other part of the file. “Scott and at least two of International Rescue are suspected to be brothers.” Ochre couldn’t decide if it was brave or stupid. He and the others had a hard enough time doing their jobs as a group of colleagues and friends, he couldn’t imagine the dangers that IR faced and that some of them were brothers boggled him. “They don’t care. The Mysterons don’t want to just kill people, they want to hurt people and make people suffer. The more they can hurt, the better,” was his blunt reply to Scott.

In the background he could see that the heli’ had landed not too far from the Thunderbirds and Fawn was hurrying towards him with a medical bag in hand.

“Look, I’m about to get dragged off by our doc for a once over.” Ochre extended the verbal olive branch. “Get your head of intelligence to meet us here and once I get away from the doc I’ll get on the line to our commander and see what I can tell you. I’m not being difficult on purpose- there’s standing orders. I’ve got to talk to him first.”

“Understood.” Scott nodded slowly and walked towards Thunderbird Two to give Fawn and Ochre some privacy and to presumably speak to his colleague and their head of intelligence, his brow once again knitted in thought.

0o0o0

Almost an hour later the conference was held in the back of the helijet that Melody had flown down with Grey, a portable videophone and a clean uniform for Ochre. Harmony had taken off as soon as Melody was en route, taking Fawn, Scarlet and Blue back to Cloudbase to recover.

Ochre had been surprised but kept his mouth shut when a pink Rolls Royce had shown up- the promised head of intelligence being none other than Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward. He shouldn’t have been surprised though: he shared a base with Rhapsody- also a Lady and also a secret agent. The most unlikely people could always be counted on to do something unexpected.

Once the link to Cloudbase was secure and the introductions had been made, Colonel White opened the meeting by addressing what he knew would be the first question. “International Rescue should be safe now, Lady Penelope, gentlemen,” he told them. “By their own code of warfare, once an attack has been defeated the Mysterons move on to a different target. I still urge caution, however - while I believe this threat is over they may have other plans waiting in the wings and their attempt is not yet complete. The Mysterons have also been known to deliberately aim to cause collateral damage that your people could be caught up in.”

“That is useful to know, Colonel White, but I am sure you can guess what my next question must be,” Lady Penelope responded, seated in one of the jump seats in the back of the helijet and comporting herself with every ounce of her station. “From our own sources we are already aware that the Mysterons are not a terrorist group as Spectrum has allowed most of the world to believe, but are instead an alien intelligence bent on destruction. International Rescue needs to know how to protect itself. That someone such as a chief in the fire service could be coerced or suborned by the Mysterons is of great concern to us.” The two IR pilots behind her weren’t quite looming but they were very close to it. This had been aimed squarely at their family and closest friends and neither of them looked ready to back down until they had a satisfactory answer.

“A certain mutual acquaintance has vouched for you with the World President,” Colonel White advised her. “I cannot reveal all the details, but I have been authorised to give you the relevant information. This can only be communicated amongst your highest level staff and is not for general dissemination.”

At that comment Ochre caught Grey’s eye and mouthed “Who?” Grey shook his head and mouthed “Later” in reply. Ochre nodded, but frowned slightly at the information that Lady Penelope possessed. He was very sure that the Colonel would be sending out hunting parties for whoever had let slip to IR about the true nature of the Mysterons as soon as the call was over. Neutral rescue organisation or not, they shouldn’t have known about that.

“Through means currently unknown to us, the Mysterons have the ability to first destroy or kill and then create an exact likeness of an object, vehicle or person, occasionally with alterations made to their physical form for the purpose of their mission- such as the fire chief. From Ochre’s initial report he was reconstructed to be a living bomb. We’ve seen this before,” White explained to Lady Penelope and the two IR operatives. “A replicant is under the direct control of the Mysterons and will carry out their instructions no matter what. We have discovered that human replicants are impervious to x-ray and vulnerable to extremely high voltage electricity.” He paused, clearly weighing up how to phrase the next statement. “For his own safety, I will reveal that we have a former replicant amongst our operatives. All I will say is that your pilots have met him today and I can assure you his trustworthiness has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“I can assure you this information will be kept closely guarded,” Lady Penelope promised. “And now I have certain information for you, Colonel White.” She opened her handbag and plucked out a photograph, holding it where it would be picked up by the camera. “I understand one of these gentlemen is a person of interest to Spectrum.”

The photo was a shot of two men standing in a park beside a small fountain. The taller man, dark haired and pale under the sunlight, had a briefcase by his feet and was talking with a man with heavy eyebrows, an olive complexion and a hat pulled low over his head.

“The gentleman with the hat is a criminal we know as The Hood,” Lady Penelope explained. “I believe the gentleman with the briefcase is known to you as Captain Black.”

“He is indeed,” Colonel White replied, eyes narrowed in consideration. “May I ask the provenance of this image?”

“I have an extensive network,” Penelope began. “We have been following a lead on The Hood for a number of weeks when he had a meeting in Central Park yesterday morning with Captain Black. This information alone would have been worrying, but when taken together with the threat made against International Rescue by the Mysterons, I am deeply concerned.”

“As am I.” White nodded slowly. “Is there any indication of what might have been in the briefcase?” he asked.

“My agent believes it was payment. The two conferred for quite some time, The Hood gave a thick document wallet to Captain Black and received the briefcase in return. My agent attempted to listen in, but the sound of the fountain masked their conversation.” Penelope handed the photo to Ochre and folded her hands in her lap, as unruffled as if she had been discussing the weather.

Colonel White glanced away for a moment, hands steepled before his face and frowning as he considered the information. “The Hood meets with Black, presumably gives him information, and the next day there is a threat against International Rescue, coupled with a faked distress call,” he mused out loud. “You would consider the information in the distress call to be sufficient to require International Rescue’s involvement?” He directed the question to Scott, standing just behind Lady Penelope.

“Well, yes,” Scott replied after a moment’s startled pause. “It’s not anything we haven’t attended before. Virgil?” He looked at Virgil for input.

“Scott’s right,” Virgil nodded his agreement. “We’ve been to at least three similar call outs, it seemed completely genuine to us.”

“Then it seems that the threat against your organisation may not be finished yet,” White scowled. “I know I cannot ask you to not attend calls for aid, but I urge extreme caution and advise having Spectrum agents accompany your operatives for the foreseeable future,” he advised.

None of the Spectrum staff present missed the momentary flicker of ‘Uh oh’ on the two IR pilots’ faces. “We’d have to clear anything like that with our commander,” was Scott’s diplomatic reply. “Secrecy is critical for our organisation. Under normal circumstances it would be a flat out no, but these aren’t normal circumstances.”

“It is a sensible suggestion, considering this is an unknown threat. Perhaps a recess is in order?” Penelope glanced between Scott and Colonel White. “I will brief International Rescue’s commander and see about having the two of you discuss the matter directly.”

“Thank you, Lady Penelope, gentlemen.” Colonel White nodded first to her, then the pilots, and ended the call.

Penelope rose from her seat and turned to Scott. “Perhaps we should have this conversation in Thunderbird One?” she suggested.

“Agreed.” Scott offered his arm to assist her out of the helijet and walked her across to the privacy of his Thunderbird to contact their home base, while Virgil lingered in the helijet.

“This Captain Black fellow, what’s the deal?” Virgil asked, looking between the captains and Melody. “I know he used to be Spectrum and he was on the Mars expedition, our comms officer was keeping close tabs on that one.”

Ochre glanced at the other two, got their nods and decided to be as honest as he could. They needed to earn some credibility with IR if they were going to have a chance at protecting them. “He was the one who made the call to your monitoring station. He used to be one of ours, Cloudbase 2IC in fact.” Ochre sat down, took his ’cap off and ran a hand through his hair. “We’re not sure what happened to him on Mars,” he admitted as he replaced his ’cap. “Their ship returned to Earth and the next thing we know he vanishes. A while later we found out he’s now the Mysterons’ principal agent, doing their bidding.”

“He was a good man, oversaw all our training,” Melody chimed in, “even had a hand in selecting and recruiting most of us.”

“The replicant your commander mentioned, he was talking about that Scarlet fellow, right?” Virgil asked shrewdly, watching all three of them carefully. “It explains why you insisted on going in after him.”

“Yeah,” Ochre nodded, preemptively changing the conversation to focus on Scarlet-the-person before it could be about Scarlet-the-replicant. “I think you’d like him if you met him under better conditions. Scott reminds me of him.”

“Really?” Virgil looked sceptical, head tilted and one eyebrow raised.

“Protective streak as long as your arm, stubborn streak as long as your leg and a temper, especially if you mess with his people.” Ochre grinned tiredly. “Sounds familiar?”

“Ha! Yes, actually,” Virgil chuckled. “We’d better not leave them alone in the same room, they’ll either kill each other or they’ll become best friends and start swapping notes.”

“Please avoid that,” Grey put his two cents in from his post, leaning against the interior wall of the helijet with arms crossed over his chest. “The last thing we need is a more protective Scarlet.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Virgil asked next, eyeing the captains in particular. “He looked pretty badly hurt from what I saw, but none of you seem worried about him.”

“We have very good medical facilities back on base.” Ochre consoled himself that it wasn’t quite a lie, discussing retrometabolism outside of those who needed to know was extremely forbidden. “Doctor Fawn and his team know what they’re doing.”

“Okay, so how are you doing?” Virgil turned those surprisingly perceptive eyes to scrutinise Ochre next. “You’ve had quite a day- a mission gone sideways, a rescue, two of your friends down, a heck of a close call and it doesn’t sound like your day’s done just yet.”

“I’m used to it. Nature of the job,” Ochre replied calmly with a half shrug. “What about you?” He turned the question back on Virgil in the semi-interrogation they were conducting on each other. “I’m guessing you don’t normally get people trying to attack you or blow you up.”

“We’ve all been shot down or shot at before, it’s less unusual than we’d like.” Virgil also shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s pretty normal for our missions to go sideways at some point though. Almost getting blown up every now and again is par for the course for us.”

“Maybe, but I’m betting it’s usually not intentionally,” Grey jumped in. “That Hood character, what’s his deal?”

“He wants our Thunderbirds and he’ll do whatever it takes to get his hands on them,” was the simple reply. “None of us want to find out what he’ll do with our technology. He’s got leads into all sorts of illegal mining, industrial espionage and sabotage, black market trading, waste dumping, weaponry, you name it. If you want a reason for our secrecy, he’s at the top of our list.”

“You think Magenta might have some intel about him?” Grey directed that at Ochre.

“Worth asking. Five bucks says the Colonel’s already talking to him,” Ochre wagered.

“Mm.” Grey nodded, arms crossed and drumming the fingers of his right hand against his arm as he mulled over the situation.

In the meantime, Melody had peered out the open door of the helijet to stare at the Thunderbirds with undisguised interest, then ducked back in to look at Virgil. “Say, you thirsty? I’ve got some water here,” she asked, rummaging in the back for the supplies kept there.

“That’d be great, actually.” Virgil accepted the bottle of water she passed him and took a seat. “Thanks.”

Ochre suppressed the flicker of jealousy at the attention Magnolia was giving Virgil as the two started talking, reminding himself that one, they weren’t officially going out, just mutually interested, and two, the Angels had been trained to do exactly this. People tended to talk more easily and freely with the beautiful Angels than with the captains and the five women were skilled in small talk and genial conversations to draw out more than what people intended to give away. Besides, the guy was International Rescue, getting a chance to talk to one of them wasn’t something that anyone would pass up.

He leaned out the side door of the heli’ to get a look at the two Thunderbirds while Melody chatted with Virgil. He’d seen photos of models that some enterprising types had kitbashed together from eyewitness reports, but to see the two main vehicles in person was something else. Ochre half-smiled to himself, Adam would have loved to have had a chance to get this close to Thunderbird One without the distraction of a broken leg. If he were here the former test pilot would be itching to get a good look at the rocket-plane and grill Scott on how his aircraft handled.

Speaking of whom, Scott appeared from the belly of his Thunderbird, escorting Lady Penelope. He brought her to her car, spoke with her for a moment before her driver took over escort duties, and walked over to the helijet as the Rolls Royce smoothly pulled away. As he got closer, Ochre noted his carefully neutral expression. “That’s the face of someone who’s either passing on news that he doesn’t agree with, just got chewed out or both,” Rick mused to himself as he ducked back into the heli’ and warned the rest “Scott’s on his way back.”

“So what’s the news, Scott?” Virgil asked as Scott hauled himself up and into the helijet.

“Our commander refuses to allow Spectrum staff anywhere near our vehicles or our base,” Scott reported crisply, maintaining a strictly professional tone. “He doesn’t believe that Spectrum can be trusted to ‘not go poking around’ because you’re an intelligence organisation.”

“But you explained the threat and the danger the Mysterons pose to you?” Ochre frowned, perplexed. Surely that was enough?

“I did, and Lady Penelope did too.” Scott frowned for a moment, then regained his professional neutrality. “Our commander’s made his decision and come up with a plan. Our communications officer has already gotten in touch with your Lieutenant Green and relayed it to Colonel White: we’re going into lock down and leaving as much as we can to local authorities. If we get something that really needs us, he’ll alert Lieutenant Green, we’ll meet your people at the danger zone and go from there. Lady P is putting her people on high alert so we can get a heads up if there’s something in the works.”

“Sounds pretty cumbersome to me,” Grey opinioned. “I get you can’t just shut up shop, people still need you, but…”

“Like I said, it’s not my call to make but the decision is final,” Scott cut him off, then sighed with no small amount of frustration. “Sorry, I’m just the messenger. We had to tell him about your guy, the former replicant, and he wasn’t happy about the chances of him being near us. He doesn’t trust Spectrum and he really doesn’t trust your officer.” He looked at Virgil. “We have to get back to base, he’s called an urgent meeting- all hands, including Rescue Five, Lady P was at least able to get him to agree to that.”

“F.A.B.” Virgil nodded and got to his feet. “Thanks for the water,” he said as he went to the door, taking the bottle with him. Ochre had half-hoped he’d leave it behind so they could test for DNA and confirm his identity, but evidently he was wise to that.

The three Spectrum staff leaned out the heli’ side door to watch as the IR pilots boarded their ships and took off, Thunderbird Two waggling her wings in farewell before vanishing into the night with a flare of her engines.

“So...flip a coin for who gets to call the Old Man?” Ochre asked Grey as they stowed the videophone and Melody started the pre-checks. He pulled a coin from his vest pocket. “Call it?”

“Nope.” Grey shook his head. “Knowing you, that’s probably one of your trick coins and with Scarlet and Blue down you’re lead agent for the mission. Besides, I’m co-piloting, so that leaves you free to concentrate on the call.” Brad was not a little bit smug as he took his place beside Melody.

Ochre grumbled, pocketed the coin and strapped in for take off. This was not going to be a pleasant conversation with the colonel.

Chapter 2

Her white hull shimmering under the glow of the full moon, Cloudbase was quiescent for the moment, but despite the apparent lack of activity she never really slept. High in the control room, Lieutenant Green had the night watch and Grey was on the radar station, watching and listening to everything around her. On deck, Rhapsody had Angel One and though the hubbub had reduced, Medical still hummed with activity as the doctors and nurses worked to restore Blue and Scarlet to full health.

The colonel had called a meeting as soon as Melody’s helijet landed. After the briefing from Ochre, Melody and Grey, the conclusion the colonel had drawn had been short, succinct and to the point: they had to find a way to locate International Rescue before the Mysterons could, ‘if only to save them from their own pig-headedness’ had been White’s growled statement.

It was Green’s private conclusion that without even saying a word directly to him, the mysterious commander of International Rescue had pushed the colonel’s buttons in a way that only the insufferable General Ward of Frost Line Command could. He and all the captains present had stayed well out of Colonel White’s path as the older man restlessly paced the length of the control room in his growing frustration at their lack of progress as ideas were ventured and scuppered one by one.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could figure out how to call International Rescue, but finding them was an entirely different matter. Their security protocols were air-tight and through their selfless work they’d earned ample good will to ensure silence and co-operation from almost every group they interacted with. Even organisations that wanted to find out IR’s secrets (and were willing to face the political fallout to do so) had their investigations stymied and sabotaged by employees with a conscience and access to shredders, magnets and alibis.

To cut to the chase, they’d hit a metaphorical brick wall within minutes.

But then Green had fielded a call from an unexpected source- Lady Penelope. She didn’t provide them with locations or names, but she did advise of an oblique suggestion she’d made to Scott before parting ways with him and offered an insight into the characters of the young men who flew the magnificent Thunderbirds.

The meeting had broken up shortly afterwards, orders were sent to all Spectrum bases to be on the alert for the next attack and officers were dispatched hither and yon (duty posts, bed or the Room of Sleep for the most part). With no other options for now, Spectrum settled in to impatiently wait for the next development.

And wait they did, as minutes ticked by into hours.

Then the call came in, shortly after midnight and audio only.

Lieutenant Green opened the channel with surprise- if he was honest, from his take of the report he hadn’t really expected the call to come at all, much less so soon.

He listened to the message carefully, jotting down the instructions with care. When the call was complete he alerted the colonel and passed the message on to Ochre- as per the colonel’s orders he’d been on standby in the Officers’ Lounge after a quick Room of Sleep session in anticipation of someone at IR reaching out to them. Ochre plotted the given coordinates on a map then went to the hangar, making a quick stop by Medical first.

0o0o0

Roughly an hour later Ochre landed the helijet on one of the innumerable specks of land that dotted the South Pacific. It could have been a double for any of the desert islands so beloved of comics and movies- black rocks, white coral beaches and a little thatch of greenery in the middle with a half dozen coconut palms swaying in the night breeze. He shut down the aircraft and walked towards the cove he’d spotted in the moonlight.

The distinctive shape he’d seen from the sky was indeed Thunderbird Four, parked on the beach so the two International Rescue operatives could disembark without getting too wet. He easily recognised Scott in the golden light of the electric lantern they’d set up on a convenient boulder. The younger man next to him he couldn’t identify, but considering how they’d gotten there, Ochre presumed he was the submarine’s principal pilot.

“Captain Ochre,” Scott nodded to him in greeting. “This is Gordon,” he said by way of introduction.

“Hi,” Ochre greeted them, noting the way the younger man measured him up and let Scott take the lead. “Has your commander changed his mind?” he asked, directing the question to both of them.

“No,” was Scott’s short answer. He gave a frustrated noise and sat on one of two broken sections of tree trunk that they must have dragged down for the purpose, indicating for the other two to take seats. “Our commander...” Scott began, frowned and tried again, “...well, long story short is we’ve been shot down, threatened or failed by the different militaries of the world often enough that he doesn’t trust most uniforms. He refuses to believe that the Mysterons are as dangerous as Spectrum says and blames your people for starting all this and dragging the rest of the world into it.”

“The two of us are ex-military,” Gordon took up the narrative, seated beside Scott. “We’ve got enough friends still in uniform who can back up what you said, as well as Lady P’s report. Short version, us field operatives believe you when you say they’re dangerous.”

“So what brings us out here tonight?” Ochre asked. “I get the idea that this isn’t exactly an official meeting.”

“How dangerous and how powerful are the Mysterons?” was the blunt question from Scott. “If we’re going to change his mind we need something more concrete than what we got from Colonel White and the hearsay we’ve collected.”

“Understood.” Ochre turned and waved his passenger into the light.

Captain Scarlet strode out of the darkness and came to sit beside Ochre. Technically he should have still been on medical stand down, but Ochre had made a good case for his presence and Fawn had reluctantly agreed. Scarlet wasn’t entirely happy to be here- he hated anything that had a whiff of being a carnival exhibit wheeled out for the crowds- but he’d seen the need and consented.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Scarlet greeted them. “Please pass on my thanks to Virgil for getting me out of there.”

To Scott’s credit he only had a momentary flicker of shock before he got his expression under control again. “How?” It wasn’t a question but a demand. “Virgil said you were in a really bad way. Not even our medical equipment can heal injuries that quickly, and we’ve got some of the best.”

“The Mysterons killed me and recreated me to use me as a weapon, but they lost control of me. I’ve been left with the ability to occasionally sense the Mysteron presence at work and heal even fatal injuries in a matter of hours,” Scarlet explained quietly. “It’s called retrometabolism. Most, if not all, of their agents have it- no matter how many times they’re taken down, unless it’s with a Mysteron gun, electricity or complete obliteration, they will get back up again.”

“Can I see?” Scott asked next, gesturing towards Scarlet’s abdomen where the worst injuries had been. “Virgil told me about the wound.”

Scarlet frowned faintly but nodded, understanding that Scott needed proof. He stood, unzipped his tunic and pulled up his undershirt to show the unblemished skin underneath.

“Incredible.” Scott shook his head as Scarlet righted his uniform and sat down again. “It’s almost too fantastic to believe.”

“Hard not to when the evidence is right there,” Gordon quipped. “I could do with a bit of that retrometabolism some days.”

“You don’t want it. Trust me,” was Scarlet’s quick reply.

“The Mysterons can take control of vehicles, impersonate radio calls, or interfere with a vehicle’s critical functions,” Ochre smoothly jumped in and explained. “Do you remember when the Asian Republic Director General’s plane crashed in London?”

“Yeah, the news said it was terrorists who took control of the passenger plane.” Gordon frowned. “Was that the Mysterons?”

“Yes.” Scarlet nodded. “They destroyed the original DT-19, made a copy of the aircraft and flew it remotely. When we tried to stop them they somehow disabled the weapons systems of my vehicle. I had to ram the plane.”

“They like causing car accidents and plane crashes. It seems to be the most convenient method for them to get someone for an agent.” Ochre took up the conversation, flicking a glance at Scarlet when the British officer flinched slightly- he usually did if someone mentioned car accidents shortly after he’d had a recovery, something about it always refreshed his memories of his crash.

“We’d better park Rescue Three in that case,” Gordon was commenting to Scott. “He’s going to love that, you’d better be the one to tell him.”

“Gee, thanks,” was the dry reply.

“Just doing my duty, field commander,” was Gordon’s innocent remark, the broad grin belaying his tone.

“Any break in contact or coverage, any disruption in telemetry, it’s safer to assume the Mysterons have acted and replaced someone, especially if they were on their own,” Ochre continued, quietly filing away the quip about ‘Rescue Three’ and ‘parking’ for later. “They can’t deal with wreckage or bodies easily, so they do things like cause avalanches or send cars into ravines or rivers to hide the evidence.”

Scott’s beeping watch interrupted them and he walked a few steps away to have a hushed conversation.

“What’s your deal with car accidents?” Gordon asked curiously, looking at Scarlet. “I saw you flinch.”

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” was Scarlet’s reply, a quirk of his lips softening it from a retort to an observation. He was surprised Gordon had picked up on his twitch though, Gordon was clearly more observant than he’d given him credit for.

Gordon shrugged languidly. “It saves time. We usually don’t have much of that on a rescue.”

“Fair.” Scarlet nodded and accepted that answer. “It was how they killed me and Captain Brown, my partner that day. He was also replicated, but turned into a living bomb like the fire chief.”

“Ouch, yeah, that makes sense,” Gordon winced, muttering something that sounded like ‘Great Neptune’ under his breath.

Scott walked back towards them. “Ten minute warning from Rescue Five,” he told Gordon. “He can’t cover for us much longer.”

“F.A.B.” Gordon nodded as he stood and brushed himself off. “Guess we’ll probably see you out there.” He waved off a lazy salute to the two Spectrum captains and walked to his submarine, presumably to start up launch procedures.

“We’ll try again with our commander,” Scott promised. “Here,” he handed a slip of paper to Ochre, “this is the frequency and encryption key to a channel our comms officer has set aside for Spectrum to contact us on directly, our commander doesn’t know about it.”

“If we get anything, we’ll call,” Ochre said as he stood and reached out to take the paper.

“We’re all going to need to be careful and patient. The Mysterons have already proved that they are being more cunning than normal,” Scarlet advised as he also stood up. “This may be a protracted threat.”

“Understood.” Scott nodded as Four came to life behind him. “We’ll be in touch if we manage to change his mind.” He tossed off a casual salute and turned to clamber up into the sub’s top hatch.

0o0o0

When they got back to Tracy Island, Scott and Gordon quickly docked Thunderbird Four back in her pod, changed out of their uniforms and snuck back inside the villa, breathing a sigh of relief when they got in and saw that their father wasn’t lying in wait for them. John, yanked down from his space station, (the one concession that Lady Penelope had been able to get Jeff to agree to) had been successful in keeping him from noticing their departure.

Yawning, Gordon made a bee-line for his room, but Scott could see the light was still on in Virgil’s studio and let himself in. He wanted to see the progress on the project that Virgil had set himself as soon as their meeting had finished and they’d consolidated the events of the day and what scant information they had about the Mysterons.

“How are the sketches coming?” Scott asked as he leaned over the back of Virgil’s chair to get a look over his shoulder at the drawing he was working on.

“Almost there,” was the distracted response as Virgil used his thumb to smear a pencil line into the shading that he wanted. A few more strokes of a brown pencil, one last line to firm up the shape of the nose and he settled back with a nod of satisfaction. Captain Ochre’s face stared back at them from the sketch pad, a small frown of thought marking his brow.

“That’s him perfectly,” Scott said as Virgil sprayed the picture with a sealant to protect it, waited for it to dry, then carefully tore it out of the sketch book and set it on the desk along with the portraits and sketches of other Spectrum officers that he’d already drawn.

The first sketches he’d made were just that- quick ‘still life’ drawings of how Virgil remembered different people from the brief look that he’d gotten of them: the petite Asian woman at the controls of her helijet and the doctor crouched by Captain Blue who was lying on a stretcher, deep lines in his face from the pain of his broken leg. Scarlet was also pictured on a stretcher with a blanket drawn up to his chest, eyes closed and unconscious, his features less clear due to the concrete dust he’d been coated in. Colonel White was a head and shoulders only drawing while Grey, Ochre, and Melody were all portrayed with a head and shoulders shot and a full body drawing.

“Those Spectrum folks are just as paranoid as we are about photos,” Scott remarked- their external cameras had shown only fogged images of the Spectrum staff and Brains had declared it must have been some sort of photo jammer- “but I bet they weren’t banking on you being an artist. Good work, Virgil.”

“Do you think they’re detailed enough for the photo recognition program?” Virgil asked as he looked over his handiwork.

“I don’t see why not, the first pilot and the doctor might be a little tricky, but the others, sure.” Scott nodded. “Let’s get these down to Brains and Tin Tin in the morning and see what happens.”

“Gotcha.” Virgil stretched in his chair and let out a jaw-cracking yawn. “I’m going to bed,” he declared. “See you in the morning, Scott.”

“See you in the morning.”

0o0o0

At the same time, in the ancient temple he had claimed deep in the jungles of Malaysia, The Hood lounged indolently in the large armchair that dominated the ‘office’ area of the richly appointed apartment that he had constructed. The newsreels had been full of the latest headline- all variations on the theme of ‘International Rescue’s narrow escape, Spectrum states ‘no comment’ on reports of their involvement’.

“Bah,” he sneered and muted the television as the talking heads prattled on. “So, the much vaunted ‘Mysterons’ have also fallen foul of the accursed luck of International Rescue.” Silken robes rustled around him as he rose and strode to one of the narrow windows, leaning against the carved stone as he gazed out at the lush jungle. “I had hoped that with the destruction of at least some of them, I would be able to pluck the rest at my leisure. But no, not yet. Perhaps their next attempt shall be more fruitful.”

He turned his thoughts inward and smirked to himself. He had given the Mysteron agent much information and been paid well for it, but he’d kept back the most valuable nugget of data for himself- the location of Tracy Island. He knew of the Mysterons’ propensity for large scale damage and that simply did not accommodate his plans. He wanted that island paradise and all its treasures for himself. If their plan had succeeded, while the loss of two of the Thunderbirds would have been a blow, it would have paved the way for capturing the other three, Tracy Island and the records held there. Such a prize would have more than made up for the loss of two craft. If he had the chance to also capture Brains and his half-brother’s daughter, well that would only sweeten his victory.

The Hood turned, his gaze going towards the heart of the temple where his half-brother’s image stood in its gilded pavilion. Should he demand Kyrano inform him of goings on at Tracy Island? No, not yet. There would be time for that later, he decided. Right now, he had other proverbial irons in the fire that needed tending to.

0o0o0

In the morning and after a hasty breakfast, Virgil carried his stack of sketches down to Brains’ lab, trailed by Scott and a curious Gordon. When they got there they found that their resident genius was absent, working with John in the machine shop to try to build their own versions of the Mysteron detector and Mysteron gun from the tidbits of information that they’d scraped together. Instead, Tin Tin was waiting for them at one of the computer banks.

“Good morning boys. Please, let me see those.” Tin Tin held out her hands for the pile of paper.

“Let me know if they’re not clear enough for the scanner,” Virgil said as he passed over the sheaf. “I might be able to refine some of the features.”

“Let us give the computer and John’s program a chance to look at them first,” she told him fondly, knowing how much of a perfectionist Virgil was. She laid the drawings out on a table, then from the computer bank swung out the arm that held the lens of the scanner and the accompanying table with clips to keep a picture flat. “We can always make adjustments later,” Tin Tin went on as she slipped the first drawing into place and turned the dials to bring the image into sharp focus before setting the computer to work.

John had written the image search-and-destroy program years ago- teaching the computer how to connect to every publicly available photo archive and back-door its way into a few non-publicly available ones. It’d initially been used to find and scrub as many images of them as possible from the public record before they started International Rescue, but with the ‘delete’ function disabled it made for a great photo-recognition program.

While she worked the controls and scanned the next drawing, Gordon walked around to the other side of the table and peered at the rest of the sketches. “I know that guy.” Gordon tapped the image of Captain Grey. “I’m not sure where from, but I know him.”

“Maybe this’ll help.” Virgil leaned forward and used his hands to block out the Spectrum cap and tunic on the head and shoulders shot, removing the distraction of the uniform so that Gordon could only see the face.

“Yeah, I think that does…” Gordon frowned, head tilted to one side. “...I’ve got it!” He snapped his fingers and hurried off. He returned a few minutes later with a stack of WASP yearbooks, set them on a handy bench and started rapidly flicking through them. “He was in the same year as Troy but a different squad, I’m sure of it,” Gordon muttered as he closed one book, checked the spine of another, set it aside and opened a third. Finally he found what he was looking for- a graduating class photo- and stabbed his finger at one of the figures on the top right of the photo. “Here, that’s him, I’m sure- B. Holden. He took one of the early Stingray subs out and it sank, some sort of mechanical failure. Last I heard he ended up on desk duty somewhere in Marineville.”

“Let me see what the computer thinks.” Tin Tin carefully scooped up the book and placed it under the lens of the scanner. She manipulated the controls with delicate movements of her fingers until the slightly grainy colour image was centred. Lights flickered, the computer captured the data in its memory banks, then it spat out a result on the screen. “An 86% match, we’d know for sure with a better quality image,” she reported.

“How about the others?” Scott asked- during Gordon’s absence Tin Tin had already scanned the other drawings and run them through the sophisticated program.

“We have a 95% match on Colonel White- Sir Charles Gray and 74% on Melody Angel- Magnolia Jones. Their doctor is a 65% match to Doctor Edward Wilkie, he designed the new auto-nurse we have in the infirmary. Captain Blue is a 79% match to Adam Svenson,” Tin Tin reported after rifling through the file she was assembling.

“Svenson? Like the business SvenCorp?” Scott asked, surprised.

“Yes, he’s the eldest son,” Tin Tin nodded. “He was also part of the World Aeronautical Society.”

“Dad’s going to find that interesting, he’s got a meeting with John Svenson next week about a charity he’s drumming up interest in,” was Gordon’s remark, the aquanaut collecting up his yearbooks and setting them out of the way.

“Anyone else?” Scott crossed his arms and leaned back against a handy bench.

She took a moment to consult the computer screen. “The computer wasn’t able to find anything above a 50% match on the other pilot, her face isn’t clear enough, and it’s still running a search on Captain Scarlet. It returned a 54% match on Captain Ochre- World Police Commander Richard Fraser, but he’s been dead for years,” she told the three brothers.

“Mm, assassination, wasn’t it?” was Scott’s distracted question.

“Yes it was. So tragic,” Tin Tin sighed and shook her head. “People were saying he could have done so much good, but he’d made so many enemies.”

Scott didn’t reply, busy frowning at the floor as he thought. Finally he lifted his head and spoke. “Virgil, Tin Tin, good work on the drawings. When you’ve got the file finished, take it all up to Dad and show him. Gordon, you and me need to talk,” he said, waving for Gordon to follow him out of the room.

0o0o0

When they delivered the completed dossier, Jeff, as Gordon had predicted, had found the link between Captain Blue and SvenCorp of great interest. Files had been sent for, calls were made and little by little other fragments of data began to filter back as Jeff used his connections and the connections of others to build on the information he’d been presented with.

Morning turned to mid-morning with no sign of Scott or Gordon. Usually the smell of coffee and cake at ten would lure in everyone, but with Brains and John also not present- still busy in the workshop- their absence went unremarked on.

It was when mid-morning turned to lunchtime and they still hadn’t appeared that Jeff took notice. “Where are Scott and Gordon?” he asked as he helped himself to a couple of sandwiches from the trolley that Kyrano had wheeled into the main room.

“I’m not sure,” Virgil replied honestly. “Scott said he needed to talk to Gordon and that’s the last I saw of them.” He picked up a plate and loaded it with sandwiches and a bowl of cut fruit. “I’ll take this down to Brains and John, maybe they’ve seen them.”

“Good idea,” Jeff nodded absently, taking his plate back to his desk to continue working on the dossier.

Down in the workshop, Virgil found Brains and John elbow-deep in diagrams and theorems. He managed to distract them long enough to put food into their hands (he knew from experience that if he left the plate there they’d forget it) and found out from them that they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the missing two brothers all day. Mystified, he tried their watches, but all he got was a ‘Sorry, busy at the moment’ from Scott and no answer from Gordon.

The day had turned to mid afternoon by the time the two brothers returned. Virgil had migrated back up to the main room of the villa, getting in some practice time on the piano, when Scott and Gordon entered the room and placed themselves before their father’s desk.

“Uh oh.” Virgil sized up the situation quickly, leaving off his scales to turn and watch. That was USAF Captain Tracy and WASP Lieutenant-Commander Tracy, not Scott and Gordon. If they met NASA Commander Tracy they might get through this unscathed, but this had a high potential for fireworks if CEO Jeff Tracy disagreed with what they were going to tell him- Scott was their father’s son and he’d come by his temper honestly. Their mother’s temperament was more dominant in Gordon, but he hadn’t made his rank without learning to tap into his paternal side when it was required.

“Sir.” Scott was standing straight, shoulders back and hands loosely clasped behind him, standing easy in parade rest. Gordon stood next to him, mirroring his posture. “Gordon and I have been discussing the situation and we’ve come to a conclusion.”

“And what is your conclusion?” Jeff asked, his cadence seemingly unconsciously slipping into ‘Mission Commander receiving a briefing’ mode in response to his sons’ military bearing.

“We’re in trouble,” was Scott’s blunt reply. “We can deal with people trying to kill us- Zombites, Bereznik, thieves and terrorists, The Hood, it’s happened plenty of times now, but these aren’t people. These are alien beings who don’t want to just kill us, they want to destroy us and everything we stand for.”

“We have zero frame of reference for dealing with them.” Gordon took up the briefing. “Tactics, weapons, identification, all of it, we’re having to start from scratch. Brains says it’s going to take more time to develop the tech we need and time is something we don’t have right now. We need the experts, we need Spectrum. We can lean on them for their expertise and when it’s over, part ways.”

“No.” Jeff stood up, his hands planted on the desk and expression set in a dark glower. “I’ve made my decision and that’s final.”

“No, sir, you made your decision, but we have just as big a stake in this, maybe bigger,” Scott retorted. “We’re the field agents, we’re out there- vulnerable and exposed.”

“Scott…!” Jeff started, but Gordon cut him off.

“When was the last time you got shot at, sir?” was the Lieutenant-Commander’s question, delivered with an uncharacteristic coolness. “Yesterday the Mysterons came far too close to killing Scott, Virgil, Lady Penelope and Parker. If it hadn’t been for Captain Ochre making the connection in time it might have worked. It’s our necks on the line, our voices should get equal volume and we’re saying we want the experts.”

The silence stretched for a long moment, tensioned like a piano wire. Virgil found he was holding his breath; he couldn’t remember the last time that anyone had disagreed this strongly with one of their father’s edicts when he laid down the law on a situation.

Jeff looked between his eldest and second youngest sons, jaw clenched and a muscle jumping in his cheek, but they didn’t flinch, Tracy-brand stubbornness lending strength to their resolve. If anything, Scott hardened his stance in response, eyes narrowing and weight shifting from ‘standing easy’ to ‘at attention’.

“They have a point, Dad.” Virgil found himself speaking up, knowing that he needed to say something before someone lost their temper and set off the proverbial powder keg. “There’s no harm meeting their people somewhere on neutral ground, away from the base, and finding out more about what they have to say.”

“They already know Lady P is involved with us, her sheep farm in Australia would be ideal,” Gordon chimed in. “It’s familiar territory for us, unfamiliar for them. It gives us an automatic upper hand,” he added, knowing how his father’s mind worked and how having an edge would appeal to him. “Spectrum would already be here if they had any clue about who we really are, but they’re not, that’s another advantage we have. And what about that file, what does it say about them and their commander? Their character I mean, not just names and dates and education.”

Jeff frowned, mulling it over. He flipped the dossier back open and started flicking through it again. Scott slowly relaxed his stance as Jeff did so, and the tension in the room dissipated.

“Thank you, Gordon,” Virgil silently directed towards the fourth son. Gordon had a knack for disarming things and his skill at strategy wasn’t reserved for only the chess board.

“You make a good point,” Jeff said at last as he closed the thick dossier. “Everything we have seems to indicate that these are good, principled people.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk as he pondered. “Very well. I’ll contact Penny and ask if we can use her farm for a meeting. If we get the okay, I want only the people they’ve already met to go, there’s no sense in giving them more faces to put names to. I’ll be in touch via an audio only call.”

“I want to bring Gordon with us, Father,” Scott instantly requested. “He’s our weapons master- anything about tactics or weapons, it’s best if he hears it first hand.”

“Agreed.” Jeff nodded and took his seat. Reaching out, he pressed the button to contact Lady Penelope.

Chapter 3

As the early afternoon sun streamed in the portholes and observation tubes, Colonel White leaned back in his chair and absently tapped his pen against the edge of his desk as he pondered the reports before him.

Magenta had been busy turning over proverbial rocks ever since he’d learned The Hood was involved in yesterday’s attack but he’d returned no results so far- in the captain’s own words, The Hood was a ghost, and a vengeful one at that. Anyone who failed to deliver, shorted The Hood on a deal or betrayed him usually ended up messily dead or left to take the fall. Even the chattiest of Magenta’s contacts clammed up when that name was dropped. Grey was down in the archives again, combing through the scant reports and files on International Rescue held by Spectrum and other agencies to see if he could glean anything that had been missed or overlooked last night. In the meantime the colonel had just finished re-reading Ochre and Scarlet’s joint report on the meeting last night- though it hadn’t advanced their cause by much, it gave him a shred of hope that perhaps they’d be able to find a way through this mess before the Mysterons could make another attempt against International Rescue.

He glanced up as the main door to the control room chimed for attention, Green answered it, then turned to him and announced “Rhapsody Angel is here, sir.”

“Good, send her in,” White ordered, setting the files aside and pressing a button to raise one of the stools.

A moment later the Angel approached the control desk, placing her helmet on the floor before taking a seat. “You wished to speak to me, sir?” she enquired politely.

“Yes,” Colonel White nodded. “I know I cannot ask you to betray confidences, but considering that you know Lady Penelope well enough to vouch for her to the World President and that you trust her with information critical to Captain Scarlet’s safety, I wish to ask a few questions.”

“Of course, Colonel. I will answer as best as I can,” Rhapsody answered.

“If asked, would Lady Penelope divulge further information about International Rescue?” Colonel White asked, hoping that perhaps another angle of attack might prove fruitful. “Could she be convinced that we can be trusted with the location of their base of operations or how to find them?”

“No, sir,” was the instant reply, accompanied by a shake of her head. “Trust is Lady Penelope’s stock in trade. She has her position with International Rescue because she has earned that trust, and she fiercely guards what she has been trusted with.” Rhapsody paused for a moment to think. “If I know Lady Penelope she will already be working on International Rescue’s commander, nudging him to cooperate with us. She may contact us again for more information; if she does I would strongly recommend giving her whatever she needs.” A faint smile tugged at her lips before she got her expression back into a professional mien. “Lady Penelope is well accustomed to, ah, handling, strong personalities, shall we say, without them noticing her doing so.”

“Very diplomatically put,” was White’s response, his amusement tinting his words. “Would she respond if she were to be asked for advice on ‘handling’ the commander?” he asked next.

Rhapsody pondered the question for a moment. “I’m not certain,” she frowned faintly. “I can relay the question to her, but she may not deem it appropriate to answer.”

“Contact her about it, immediately,” he instructed. “I’ll take all and any advice on this. Dismissed.”

“Yes sir.” Rhapsody nodded as she rose to leave, while at the same time Green announced Captain Scarlet’s arrival.

White pretended to not notice as the Angel and the captain let the backs of their hands brush as they passed each other on the walkway. The two of them were very discreet in their affection while on-duty, but as the American phrase went, he’d been around the block a few times- very few things escaped him.

“Good to see you up and about again, Captain,” was the remark he made as Scarlet took the recently vacated seat.

“Thank you, sir.” Scarlet nodded to him. “Has there been any word yet from the other bases or from International Rescue, sir?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Ill at ease, Colonel White shifted his weight to lean an elbow on his desk, his other hand drumming out a slow beat. “I’m not certain which concerns me more, the silence from International Rescue, the silence from our other bases or the silence from the Mysterons,” he admitted. “They seem to be taking ‘War of Nerves’ quite literally this time.”

“International Rescue may yet come around,” Scarlet tried to encourage. “Scott and Gordon took the threat seriously, and Virgil seems to as well- Ochre did say he was asking intelligent questions about the situation.”

“Mm, we can but hope,” was White’s distracted response.

“Colonel White!” Lieutenant Green interrupted, his excitement bleeding through. “I’m receiving a hail on the frequency International Rescue gave us!”

“Put it on speaker, Lieutenant,” White instructed as he sat up straight.

A man’s voice came over the radio. “International Rescue calling Spectrum Cloudbase, Cloudbase please respond.”

“Cloudbase receiving you, go ahead, International Rescue,” Colonel White replied crisply.

“Cloudbase, we want to meet your representatives about the current situation,” came the reply. “Specifically to discuss tactics, technology and strategy. These are the coordinates for the meeting.” He rattled off a string of numbers that Green quickly inputted into the computer.

“Coordinates received. Confirm, Northern Territory, Australia?” Green queried when the computer returned the result.

“Confirmed. What ETA will your people arrive? Any aircraft will need VTOL or equivalent.”

Green quickly plotted a course, calculated it against the speed of one of their helicopters, added a half hour to assemble whoever was going and glanced at the colonel for his approval once he had the numbers. When he got the nod, Green replied with “Our ETA is approximately ninety eight, that’s nine eight minutes. Aircraft will be Spectrum helijet and three Angel Interceptors as escort.”

“Copy that,” was the reply. “Our representatives will meet yours there in approximately nine eight minutes. International Rescue out.”

White immediately reached for the intercom on his desk. “Colonel White to Doctor Fawn.”

“Fawn here.” The reply came after a moment’s pause.

“Doctor, is Captain Blue cleared for light duties?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Good, he’s needed,” the colonel interrupted. “Send him to the hangar,” he ordered, then cut the connection. “Lieutenant, have Ochre and Grey report to the hangar and have a helicopter assigned.”

“S.I.G.”

White glanced over at Scarlet to issue his orders, saw the tightening around Scarlet’s eyes and moved to head off the protest he could see brewing. “Captain Blue is the diplomatic one out of the five of you and you’ll need all the diplomacy and tact you can get with their bullheaded commander. Fawn has cleared him for light duties and the continued operation of International Rescue is worth the risk. The Mysterons cannot be allowed to win this fight,” he declared, his tone brooking no opposition as he continued. “Take Blue, Grey, Ochre, a detector and Mysteron gun. Let them look, explain how they work, but don’t let those devices out of your sight. Understood?” he instructed, knowing that if he wasn’t told directly, Scarlet would likely attempt to contrive a way to leave Blue on the base.

There was a heartbeat’s pause as Scarlet decided if he wanted to start a fight over this, then reluctantly concluded that the colonel was right and Blue would agree. This wasn’t a hill to die on, but he still wasn’t happy about it. “Understood, sir,” he replied, crisp and coolly professional in his tone. “Am I dismissed?”

“Dismissed.”

0o0o0

Grey and Ochre were already outside the hangar doors by the time Scarlet got there- he’d stopped off at the armoury for the equipment and then went to the captains’ deck to pick up his and Blue’s grab-bags- the colour coded backpacks they all had with a change of clothes, coat, a wash kit, thermos flask, water bottle and ration bars. “What’s the update?” Grey asked as he approached.

“International Rescue contacted us,” Scarlet reported as he set down his burden. “They want to meet us to get more information about tactics and what not. I’m hoping we can convince them to let us do our jobs.” He took the slip of paper that Green had given him with the map coordinates out of his pocket and handed it to Ochre. “You’re flying, Green says we have heli’ B-39 and an Angel escort.”

The other two nodded, knowing what that meant- the Angels weren’t there primarily for the captains’ safety, but to get some protection up for International Rescue.

“Just us three?” Ochre asked.

“No, Blue is coming too. The Colonel says we’ll need his diplomacy,” was Scarlet’s response, glancing back down the corridor as he did so to see if he could spot the officer.

“But didn’t Blue break his leg?” Grey frowned. “I know Fawn’s tech is good but…”

“Doctor Fawn has cleared him for light duties and Colonel White feels the need outweighs the risks.” Scarlet’s clipped and business-like response spoke volumes about his opinions on the matter.

The sound of approaching footsteps accompanied by a clicking interrupted them. Blue was making his way slowly towards them, a brace clamped over his right trouser leg and boot and supporting his weight with a crutch in his right hand.

“So we’re calling you Captain Hopalong now?” Ochre immediately teased to diffuse the tension.

“Watch it, I might be running slower but my aim is still good,” Blue warned good-naturedly, then got onto business. “Green updated me while Fawn was fitting the brace, I’m up to speed.”

“Well then, shall we?” Ochre invited, bending down to scoop up the detector while Grey took the Mysteron gun and Scarlet took his and Blue’s backpacks. “Scarlet, you’re navigator, Blue and Grey, you’re in the back.”

0o0o0

Eighty seven minutes later, Ochre banked the helijet and took a wide swing over a landscape dotted with trees and waving grass to bring them over a cluster of buildings, the rather out of place forms of Thunderbirds One and Two parked behind a large barn. “That looks like the right place,” Ochre concluded as he circled, checking for any hazards like power lines, trees or loose debris before he committed to landing anywhere.

“Yes, the two Thunderbirds do give it away somewhat,” was Scarlet’s dry remark, heavy with sarcasm.

“Ouch, friendly fire much?” Ochre flicked a glance at him as he picked a landing spot and started to descend. “What’s with the mood?”

“Sorry, Ochre, I didn’t mean to snap.” There was a sigh and a long pause before Scarlet continued. “I don’t like this,” he admitted. “I’d be happier on our own territory, but we’re out here, isolated, on someone else’s turf that we haven’t had a chance to sweep through, and Blue isn’t at full strength yet. If something happens…”

“You’ll pick him up and run and we’ll cover you two,” Ochre interrupted. “If you get called away, me or Brad are going to all but glue ourselves to Adam’s side. I don’t like any of this either, but risk is part and parcel of the job,” he said, finishing shutting down the heli’ and turning to face Paul fully. “You’re not the only one who’s worried, Paul. Leave some room for us too, deal?”

Feeling rightfully chastised, Paul nodded. “Deal.”

They waited for the dust to settle before making a move to get out of the helijet, Scarlet and Ochre getting out first before opening the side door to let out their passengers. The dry heat was like standing in front of an oven on full blast and all four of them were glad that this meeting would be inside- the year of training at Koala Base had made them all very grateful for the wonders of air conditioning.

“Come along, old chap,” Scarlet teased as he helped Blue down and out of the helijet.

“I’ll show you old,” Blue growled at him, leaning on the heli and making a half-hearted jab in his direction with the crutch.

The other two gathered the equipment and chuckled at the banter, then the sound of a door opening caught everyone’s attention.

Scott was coming out to meet them, kicking up puffs of dry orange-brown dust as he walked. “You made good time,” he said as he approached. “We’ve got everything set up in the house.”

Just then the Angels appeared out of the clouds on their perimeter sweep, sunlight flashing off the canopies as they circled the area and drawing an appreciative whistle from Scott. “I’d love to get a closer look at those jets.” Scott shaded his eyes with his hand and craned his neck to get a look at the Interceptors as they swooped overhead. “They’re beautiful.”

“Keep that talk up and the girls might just let you get close enough to do just that.” Ochre suggested, grinning. Above them, one Angel stayed close to orbit the main cluster of buildings while the other two peeled off to patrol the wider area.

“ ‘The girls’?” Scott asked curiously as he brought his attention back down to ground level and turned to lead them to the house.

“Yeah, the Angel pilots are all women,” Ochre told him, pacing him as they walked. “Who’s up there right now?” he asked, directing it behind him to the other captains.

“Melody, Rhapsody and Harmony,” Blue supplied, picking his way carefully.

“Huh,” Scott remarked, surprised. “I thought Melody and Harmony just piloted your helicopters. I’ll have to tell one of our engineers about that. She’d love to fly something bigger than our civvie planes and we’d all like her to learn, but our commander says it’d be ‘unladylike and inappropriate for a young woman’.”

The four Spectrum captains looked at each other and smothered their amusement to varying degrees of success. “I would pay to watch someone tell the Angels that they’re being ‘unladylike and inappropriate’,” Ochre grinned as Scott opened the door to let them in. “Depending on what mood the girls are in, they might even survive the experience.”

Inside the tastefully decorated main room of the house, the cool air was an instant relief.

“Welcome, gentlemen. You can put your equipment on the coffee table for now.” In a tan safari suit with a frothy scarf of pale pink silk decorating her throat, Lady Penelope greeted them from her seat beside an inactive videophone. She had made it perfectly clear when Jeff had contacted her that if there was to be a meeting at her house, that she was to be present. Penelope languidly turned and looked to her butler. “Parker, tea for our guests, if you please. Ah,” she admonished Gordon and Virgil, spying them about to abandon their teacups in favour of the new technology. “Tea first, gentlemen. Everything stops for tea in my house.”

Sensing the Spectrum officers behind him were about to baulk, Scott sotto-voiced advised them “Better do as she says- her house, her rules.”

“S.I.G.” Ochre spoke for them all, mentally adjusting where exactly he guesstimated Lady Penelope stood in the IR hierarchy if she could wield this kind of power.

The captains found seats and accepted the tea that Parker brought around for them. The conversation over tea could have been stilted and uncomfortable, but Lady Penelope was a skilled hostess and soon had everyone at ease- making the introductions, ensuring that Captain Blue was indeed comfortable in the armchair he’d picked and politely enquiring about his leg, then engaging in desultory conversation about neutral topics. The moment the clock chimed four thirty, she set down her teacup and announced “Well, to work then. Parker? Please call International Rescue’s commander.”

“Yes, m’lady.” Parker nodded and turned to activate the ‘phone. As he did so Blue carefully stood and traded seats with Ochre so he was closer to the ‘phone and could take point on the conversation.

The ‘phone came to life but the screen remained dark as an older man’s voice issued from the speakers. “Good afternoon, Mr Adam Svenson.”

The captains stiffened imperceptibly and glanced at each other with the same thought running through their minds: the Old Man was going to go nuclear when he heard about this.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir,” Blue neatly deflected with only a split second of hesitation.

“I’m very sure you do, Mr Svenson. While we haven’t identified Captain Ochre yet, your companions are WAAF Colonel Paul Metcalfe and WASP Commander Bradley Holden.” The smugness and ‘gotcha’ were only barely lurking under the surface, IR’s commander clearly feeling that he had the upper hand here.

Blue hid his smirk behind a poker face as the unseen speaker’s voice suddenly clicked and a glance at Scott- ignoring the blue International Rescue uniform and imagining a dark business suit instead- confirmed his suspicions. He knew he’d heard that voice somewhere before; for once sitting in on tedious business meetings with his father had paid off. “I can’t confirm anything, Commander Jefferson Tracy, so why don’t we just keep to the names we’ve given?” was his bland reply as several suspicions clicked into place. Checkmate.

“How…?” Scott was so startled he forgot himself, the other two controlling their surprise to varying degrees. Lady Penelope, who’d reclaimed her cup, sipped her tea and said nothing.

“You’re almost your father’s carbon copy,” Blue pointed out. “And I knew I’d heard your voice somewhere,” he continued, directing his attention back to the concealed Tracy patriarch. “How about we get to business?” Blue offered the graceful way out.

Disconcerted by how quickly they’d been shifted onto an even playing field, Jeff decided to activate the video option on his ‘phone. Brains, John and Tin Tin were watching the feed down in the lab, but their end was audio only- they’d be able to jump in with any questions on the technical aspects of things but remain safely anonymous. “Agreed, Captain,” he nodded, hands laced on his desk. “So, how does someone go about finding and stopping a Mysteron?”

Chapter 4

They made good progress from there.

After giving a quick run down of the most common Mysteron tactics that they were aware of and an explanation of retrometabolism, Blue yielded the floor to Grey- who was more mechanically minded than he- for an explanation of the detector and Mysteron gun.

Parker moved an empty tea trolley into range of the videophone to put the equipment onto and Blue relocated out of the way, towards the back of the room to give Grey the room to open up the Mysteron detector and gun and display their inner workings for the still unseen engineers Brains and Tin-Tin and the electronics expert John. Gordon was quick to get a closer look as well, standing and going over to the trolley to see better.

While Grey and Gordon worked on the devices, Lady Penelope and Virgil cornered Ochre for an information gathering session on Captain Black. Meanwhile Scarlet stuck close to Blue and Scott posted himself next to the two of them, intending to pick their brains on some things as he kept an ear and eye on the different conversations happening in the room. But before he could ask any questions, Scarlet caught Scott’s attention and indicated the machine pistol at his hip. “May I see that?” he asked curiously.

“Sure.” Scott handed the gun over butt first. “Blue cartridges are needle darts, yellow is stun gas, red is bullets,” he explained, tapping the red and yellow ones tucked into their pouches on his belt. He’d changed them over before entering the house- Lady P had opinions about the boys wandering about with the lethal cartridges loaded while in her house.

Scarlet took it carefully, testing the heft of the gun and feel of the grip before aiming it at the floor to check the sights. “Range?” he asked as he investigated the mechanism that let them eject the cartridges, popping it out and back in.

“About 90 yards, depending on wind conditions.”

“Very nice.” Scarlet handed it back butt first. “I’d like to nick that idea of interchangeable cartridges, if I may. We only have lethal options, I can think of a few times having a less than lethal option on hand would have been useful.”

“Yes, it would,” Blue chimed in, giving Scarlet an amused look. “Next time I’d like to know in advance that it’s not going to be bullets.”

“I said I was sorry about that,” Scarlet groused at him in what was obviously a long-running argument between the two of them. “Besides, I was obeying orders, you weren’t.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Blue teased with a grin.

“Shut up.” Scarlet cuffed his shoulder, but his smirk turned it from a rebuke into banter.

Beep Beep

Everyone looked up at the tone, conversations stopping mid word, then one of the pictures on the wall vanished to be replaced by a live image of a man with a sweep of platinum blond hair.

“What is it, John?” Scott asked, expression intent as he stood up straight, his mind working quickly as he analysed the situation. John wasn’t in uniform so he had to still be on the island, probably using the base’s communications systems to link into Five remotely and call them. For him to break their security protocols and use a live video link meant this was bad.

“Sorry to interrupt but this is serious ,” John began without preamble. He hit an out of sight button and his image was replaced with a map. “We’ve just gotten a call. It’s an old underground salt mine in Langera, India, right next to the border with Kashmir. Initial reports say there was an explosion and eight workers are trapped,” he explained, a light indicating the area of concern. “The problem is that the mine is now being used to store nuclear waste and the collapse has opened up a previously unknown waterway that feeds into a local aquifer that supplies both regions and part of Pakistan. If the mine completely collapses, it’ll release untold amounts of nuclear sludge into the local water table. It’ll be an unprecedented disaster- ecologically, socially, financially and politically.”

“It’s a trap,” was Scarlet’s immediate and blunt assessment as he looked around the group. “Tailor-made to draw in International Rescue.”

“I know, but we can’t ignore this. If we refuse to respond and the mine collapses, the fall-out will destroy International Rescue’s reputation, no one will trust us again and we’ll have to live with this for the rest of our lives. It’ll fulfil their threat just as effectively as killing us or destroying our equipment,” John replied before anyone else had a chance to respond. “It’s a cunning move- we’re in a Catch-22.”

“So we go.” Scott looked grim.

“And we’re going with you,” Grey declared as he quickly reassembled the detector and Mysteron gun. “You run the rescue, we’ll watch your backs.”

The Tracy brothers all swung their attention to the Tracy patriarch, awaiting his judgement on the matter.

Jeff leaned his elbows on his desk, hands clasped before his face as he brooded over the situation, his glance flitting over his sons and the Spectrum officers. “Scott, take Thunderbird One, find a safe landing point and establish a base of operations. Virgil, Gordon, come back to base and pick up the Mole and the radiation suits, then meet Scott at the danger zone. The rest of you,” he looked to the Spectrum captains, “will need to take your own aircraft there.”

“Captain Blue,” Ochre glanced at Blue’s leg and gave him an apologetic look, “you have to go back to base.”

“Understood. You’ll need a jet to get to India.” Blue nodded and thought for a moment. “The closest SPJ is at Darwin International Airport. If you drop me off there, someone from Cloudbase will be able to pick me up later.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Penelope cut in, handing her teacup to Parker for a refill. “You gentlemen have a mission to attend to, Parker and I shall drive Captain Blue to the airport. If you were to radio ahead I’m sure your Colonel White will have arrangements well in hand by the time we arrive. I will not have a guest left hanging about at the airport if I can do something about it.” She saw the polite refusal being prepared and headed it off with a firm “I must insist.”

She sensed more than saw Virgil giving Captain Blue the signal to let her have her way and concealed her smile behind her teacup. Though charity and hospitality were her primary motives, she did have an ulterior one: the car ride would be the perfect opportunity to obliquely question him about his colleague Captain Scarlet, of whom her former protégé Lady Dianne was so very enamoured. While she was certain that Dianne would pick well for herself, she preferred to make quite sure of such things.

Blue glanced at his companions first, then nodded. “All right, thank you, Lady Penelope,” he acquiesced.

“Sir,” Ochre was looking at Jeff while Grey and Scarlet had a hushed conversation behind him, the microphones on their caps down, “one of us should go along with Scott in Thunderbird One as a bodyguard.”

“Absolutely not!” Jeff didn’t quite snap, but it was pretty close to it. “I refuse to compromise International Rescue’s security any further.”

If Ochre hadn’t been watching for it, he would have missed the narrow-eyed glance that Jeff flicked over his shoulder at Scarlet. Thankfully, the British captain was distracted by the conversation he was having with Green. Ochre didn’t want to know how Paul would have reacted to that.

“Their aircraft won’t be able to keep up with either of the Thunderbirds,” Virgil pointed out, but before Jeff could reply, Scarlet finished his conversation and stepped into theirs.

“No, but the Angels can,” he spoke up. “Rhapsody Angel just refuelled, she can rendezvous with Thunderbird One en route and she is skilled in close protection work. The other two can do the same with Thunderbird Two once they’ve refuelled.”

“A marvellous idea!” Lady Penelope chimed in before Jeff could make a comment about a woman guarding his son. “John dear, is there a landing strip near the danger zone?”

“There isn’t a landing strip,” John’s voice issued from his screen and another point was highlighted on the map. “But there’s an access road with a 300m long straight. I was going to send Scott there anyway, it’s the only place big enough for Thunderbird One to land. Will that work, Captain Ochre?”

“Yes, the Interceptors all have an equivalent to Short Landing and Take Off capability,” Ochre nodded, ever so slightly turning his head and winking at Penelope to acknowledge her actions. “It’s too short for one of our passenger jets so we’ll have to land elsewhere and swap into an SPV when we’re closer.”

“Then it’s arranged,” Penelope announced with some measure of satisfaction. “International Rescue’s secrecy is maintained, but you boys will still be protected. Isn’t that perfect, Jeff?”

Neatly caught and trapped, Jeff could only nod his reluctant agreement. “Yes, Penny,” was his gruff response to her, then he turned his attention back to his sons. “You have your orders,” he told them, trying to maintain his dignity in the face of his authority being neatly sidestepped. “Thunderbirds are go,” he ordered, then cut the call from his end. John’s link also blinked out a moment later.

“Here’s the radio frequency for the Angels,” Grey handed a slip of paper to Scott and Virgil. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“F.A.B.” Scott nodded, then looked to his brothers. “Come on, fellas, let’s go.”

Chapter 5

Crossing the Australian coast and maintaining cruising speed for fuel economy, Scott heard the ping of his radar moments before his radio crackled for attention. “Rhapsody Angel to Thunderbird One,” A female voice with a cut glass British accent sounded over the speaker. “I am approaching from your three o’clock.”

“Thunderbird One to Rhapsody Angel, copy, approaching from my three o’clock,” Scott confirmed, throttling back so the Interceptor could keep up. It’d eat more fuel than he’d like, but he had plenty in the tank.

“No need to reduce speed on my account, Thunderbird One,” she immediately told him, a tinge of amusement colouring her voice.

“Noted, Rhapsody Angel.” Scott half smiled to himself and throttled up again, hearing the muffled roar of the other aircraft’s engines as she paced him. A glance out his starboard viewport showed the Interceptor, close enough that he could make out the features of the red-headed pilot. “ETA to danger zone is thirty eight minutes, that’s three eight minutes. Have you been briefed on the landing area?”

“Affirmative, short straight on the access road,” Rhapsody confirmed, back to business. “Please confirm plan of action before landing, I will need to land first.”

“I’ll circle and scan first, see what we’re getting ourselves into,” Scott began. “If radiation levels are low, land and make contact with the local authorities. If high, back off and wait at a safe distance for Thunderbird Two and the radiation suits. Thunderbird Five will advise of a secondary landing area if we need it.”

“S.I.G.” Rhapsody acknowledged.

The Indian coastline flashed underneath them shortly afterwards, the two pilots crisply responding to the various air traffic controllers that reached out to them with requests for identification as the two supersonic aircraft flickered in and out of their radars. Finally they reached Langera and the coordinates that John had transmitted across. While Rhapsody stayed at altitude, Scott flicked open One’s long wings for low speed manoeuvring and descended to 200 feet above the mountain for a better look, opening a radio channel with both Rhapsody and Tracy Island.

“Thunderbird One to base and Rhapsody Angel, overflying danger zone now. There’s a macadam apron in front of the mine, it’s plenty big enough for Two to land directly outside once we get some vehicles moved,” he reported, a frown creasing his brow as he glanced over his various scopes. “Huh…that’s strange,” Scott commented as he banked and circled the area. “I’m not picking up any radiation spikes.”

“What do you mean, Scott?” his father’s gruff voice replied.

“Exactly that.” Scott came around for another pass, lowering another 50 feet. He could see people standing around the entrance to what had to be the mine and a couple of prefab buildings, and there were a few vehicles parked on the apron in front of the mine entrance… but something about the scene felt off to him. He’d been to plenty of disasters and very rarely were people so… unhurried, especially when a Thunderbird descended out of the sky. “Radiation levels match expected background levels for a nuclear dump. I can see maybe a dozen people and five vehicles near the entrance of the mine, but this doesn’t feel right. Has Thunderbird Five been able to contact them?”

“Affirmative Thunderbird One, they aren’t reporting anything different beyond their initial call for help,” Jeff replied, and there was a long pause as he considered what to do next. “Proceed with caution. Thunderbird Two is twenty four minutes behind you.”

“F.A.B.” Scott swung his ‘bird around and found the section of road that John had told them about, then changed channels. “Rhapsody Angel, you descend first and I’ll join you,” he instructed.

“Understood.”

Curious as to how she’d achieve it, Scott backed off and positioned himself to observe as the Interceptor lined up on the dusty strip of road. Like a bush pilot, she dropped in just before the straight and lowered her landing gear at the same time, pulled her nose up high and dumped velocity until she was just above stall speed- like a bird of prey flaring its wings before landing- and came to a stop within about half of the Interceptor’s length.

It made his own touchdown feel downright pedestrian as he swung One around, unfolded the landing legs and used the VTOL jets to come in just beside and slightly behind the Interceptor, clear of her jet wash and leaving her plenty of road if she needed to take off before he left. “Thunderbird One, now landed at the danger zone, will investigate and report back shortly,” he reported into his radio as he secured his Thunderbird and pocketed the longer range radio. He unbuckled himself, stood up to leave, paused, and swapped out his machine pistol cartridge for the lethal red one, just in case.

He emerged into the nippy mountain air just as Rhapsody climbed down from her jet, a white fleece-lined coat in hand and the canopy automatically sealing behind her. “Nice plane, very nice indeed,” he commented, giving the Interceptor a long, appreciative look and running his hand down the leading edge of one of the wings.

“Thank you, as is yours.” The redhead offered him a smile as she took off her helmet, rearranged her hair then put it back in place, glancing over his shoulder at Thunderbird One. She then looked up at the mine entrance, halfway up the mountain that reared above them to claw at the sky, then back down to him. “Scarlet and the others should be here in the next thirty five minutes,” she reported, “are you happy to proceed?”

“Damn, should have known,” a disappointed Scott ruefully concluded, making a note to turn off his usual instinct to flirt and charm. He’d gotten his hopes up on the flight over- very competent and confident fighter pilot plus beautiful woman was a combination that instantly secured his interest- but the way she’d said ‘Scarlet’ and not ‘Captain Scarlet’ told him he’d be fighting a losing battle if he even thought about trying to win her affections. “F.A.B.,” he nodded to her instead. “Are you armed?”

“I am.” Rhapsody turned slightly to show him the sleek pistol on her hip, then pulled on the coat to mostly cover it. She left her coat unbuttoned however, so that she could get to it easily.

“All right then, let’s go.” Scott nodded to her, all business as he led the way.

The trek up the road took about ten minutes too long in Dianne’s opinion, the two of them having to pause part way to catch their breath in the thin air. All the while the spot between her shoulder blades itched and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, every instinct she had telling her that this was off. By Scott’s body language she noted that he was uneasy as well, and as they walked she loosened her pistol in its holster just in case.

Finally they reached the open gates that delineated the entrance to the parking area in front of the repurposed salt mine. The two gate guards in khaki uniforms waved them in and someone else went running to one of the prefab buildings to summon whoever was in charge- which turned out to be a slim-built Indian man with a salt and pepper beard who introduced himself as Randeep, his turban and steel bracelet proclaiming his Sikh faith. Others started to crowd around them- the two gate guards, some workers and drivers judging by their coveralls and steel-toe boots and a man with a nervous disposition in a burn-spotted lab coat.

Dianne hung back and let Scott do his job as he liaised with Randeep and tried to get a timeline of events from him, instead turning her attention to scan the faces of the dozen-odd men milling about them. What she saw wasn’t what she expected- there was fear, but it was the wrong kind of fear. Her instincts were now screaming an alert and she carefully looked over the crowd once again, looking for patterns and outliers in their behaviour. Her gaze settled on one of the gate guards as the man moved closer and she saw it.

It was just a twitch, just a slight narrowing of hazel eyes that were harder than those of the men around him, of other eyes that flicked towards that man and the signs of nervousness that accompanied them- licking lips, sweat beading brows and fists clenched to hide the trembling. The guard stood differently to the others too, shoulders back and head erect while the other men were hunched and looked like they were trying to not attract notice. The guard was also ignoring her, his attention firmly fixed on the back of the blue uniformed figure just ahead of her and tracking every movement that Scott made.

Rhapsody processed all of this in an instant and acted the second she saw the guard’s hand creep towards the pistol on his belt. “Scott, down!” She roughly pushed him out of the line of fire, ripped the pistol out of her holster and fired twice, blood blossoming on the guard’s khaki uniform as he dropped.

People scattered, most of them screaming, but the foreman kept his head and yelled “Him, him!” pointing to the second guard who was trying to pull his snub-nosed revolver free from where it had caught on his holster. Dianne swung around and shot him too, a clean headshot that took him right between the eyes. She kicked the guns away from both corpses and stood over them with her sidearm in hand, waiting to see if they’d get up again.

Behind her she could hear Scott get back to his feet and Randeep start barking out orders in Hindi to the workers before running towards the mine entrance. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking around for any other attackers and never letting her glance settle in one place for too long.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Scott picked up his cap from where it’d fallen as he stood. “Any more of them?” he asked, his machine pistol now in hand.

“There are ten in the mine,” Randeep puffed as he jogged back to them. “We have this entrance closed now, they’re locked in, but there are two other entrances, lower on the mountain, they have disabled the remote controls on the doors,” he looked between the two of them as he made the report. “We do not know who they are, three of them spoke Hindi, but the others,” he shrugged helplessly, “I do not know what their language was.”

“Did they have any identifying marks, any insignia that you could see?” Scott asked, blue eyes intent.

“No, no, no, sir,” the foreman grimaced, “it was dark when they attacked us, they killed our guards, took machines into the mines and had us out here as human shields. Sir, we wanted to warn you, but they said they would kill us all if we did.”

“Is the nuclear waste compromised?” Scott asked next.

“No sir,” was the answer and all present momentarily closed their eyes in relief and thanked whoever was listening for that small mercy.

Dianne meanwhile searched the two dead men and came up with no identifying marks whatsoever- no tags, no IDs, no tattoos. To herself she noted that they still felt dead as well, but she’d want them checked with a detector first to be completely sure that they were going to stay down. “I can’t find anything on them,” she reported, glancing up at Scott.

Scott was about to reply when the ground shook underneath them in a series of muffled detonations that sent them staggering. Randeep grabbed for the radio on his belt and shouted into it as he found his feet back, then listened intently to the response. “They… they’ve sealed themselves in!” he exclaimed in shock. “The waste is still secure, but the entrances, they’re blocked! Who would do this?” he asked, looking between the two pilots. “They must be mad!”

“I’m not sure who they are, but I bet we’ll find out,” Scott answered, mouth set in a line. “Thunderbird Two is en route, we’ll need to make space for her and our equipment. Those trucks will need to be moved,” he ordered, pointing to the neat row of vehicles. “I’ll also need to see any maps you have available of the mine.”

“And these two will need to be secured,” Dianne added, indicating with her pistol to the two bodies. “Do you have an empty store room of some description? Something secure that can be locked from the outside?”

“Yes, yes, we do.” Randeep nodded to them and rapped out a series of orders to his men.

Rallied by their foreman, the workers quickly moved into action. While Scott and Rhapsody took the opportunity to update their respective organisations, the apron was cleared, the two bodies were unceremoniously rolled up in blankets and carried away and the man in the lab coat, introduced to them as Deepak, scurried off to return some minutes later with several rolls of paper. Scott considered asking for a truck to fetch his Mobile Control equipment, but with Two almost here and his lingering suspicion that there might be more attackers lying in wait, he judged it safer to stay put for now.

At last Thunderbird Two and the Angel escort appeared between the mountain peaks. While Two swooped in to land, the Interceptors swung wide to circle the area and Scott listened in as the other two pilots started radioing through what they could see- the long closed lower entrance and emergency exits were now blocked with rockfalls, but they couldn’t see any other signs of the mysterious attackers.

Virgil and Gordon emerged from Two a minute later, then together with Randeep, Deepak, Scott and Rhapsody they gathered in Randeep’s office and the maps were laid out on his desk.

“How many workers do you have, sir?” Virgil asked, leaning his hands on the desk as he scrutinised the maps.

“Fourteen still live, sir,” Randeep answered him, his grief colouring his voice. “They are all here.”

“I’m sorry,” Gordon told him simply. “We were told there’s a previously unknown waterway?” he asked.

“Yes, there is, the attackers did open that with their explosives,” the foreman clicked his tongue in a gesture of frustration. “The surveyors, I do not understand how they could have missed it! Blind, all of them!” He shuffled through the layers of maps until he found a side view that showed all the main levels of the mine. “Here, sir.” Randeep pointed to the main tunnel of level twelve, the last one, positioned towards the north. “The water is here, but the nuclear waste is stored on level eight, it is the biggest and widest main shaft.” He indicated the spot, then pointed to the bank of computers that lined one wall of his office. “I have some instrumentation here, it is still safe, but the water, it is rising.”

“Rate?” was the question from Virgil, the fingers of his right hand drumming out a rapid tempo on the battered desk as he considered the challenge facing them.

“I estimate we have four hours, maybe less,” Deepak squeaked out the words, anxiously twisting the collar of his lab coat in his hands.

Randeep glanced at his subordinate, sighed and looked at the three International Rescue men and the Spectrum woman in his office. “We are not fighters, we have no weapons, I am sorry we cannot help you with taking back our site.”

“We have backup coming, you’d best get your people out of here,” Scott advised, not unkindly. “Will you be able to get around our aircraft on the access road?”

“We will not leave, sir.” Randeep stood up straight. “This site is our responsibility, if the water cannot be stopped, you will need our help to remove as much of the waste as possible.”

Scott met Randeep’s gaze for a long moment, then nodded once. “Okay. But find somewhere safe to hunker down with your people, okay?”

“Understood, sir.” Randeep turned and swept out with Deepak in his wake, shouting to his staff as he did so.

“What are you thinking, Virgil?” Gordon looked at his brother as Virgil picked up a pencil and started sketching out something on the desk blotter, then flicked through the maps again until he found a topological map of the area.

“I don’t think we can stop the water, but if we can cut a diversion tunnel with the Mole just here,” Virgil drew an ‘X’ on the topographical map, “it should slow the water long enough for the authorities to remove the barrels of waste.”

“Good idea, Virgil. How long will you need to dig it?” Scott asked.

Virgil checked the distances and made a rough calculation on the blotter. “An hour at least, Brains checked the geological surveys while we were on our way over, this is all dense stuff around here,” he answered.

“What about the machines that Randeep said the attackers brought in?” Rhapsody queried. “I daresay we should find out what those are for first, and I can’t imagine they would have left themselves without any form of escape.”

“Agreed,” Scott nodded, then looked to Rhapsody. “Any update on when the Captains will be here?”

A deep throated roar of an engine and excited yelling from outside was the answer. “That would be them now, perfect timing.” Rhapsody smiled and pointed out the open door as a powder blue Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle rolled to a halt beside the building.

0o0o0

At roughly the same time, Captain Blue was feeling a sense of deep relief when the entrance for Darwin International Airport came into view.

The ride in FAB 1 was pleasant, enjoyable even, the massive car all but flying down the Outback roads and so smoothly he’d have thought he was in one of Spectrum’s hovercraft. On the surface, the conversation with Lady Penelope had been just as pleasant, but his own counter-spy background was screaming an alert that despite her innocuous questions she was after something- he just couldn’t figure out what. The mental effort of trying to keep one step ahead of her questioning was exhausting.

They must have had the car registered on some sort of list because the gate to the secure area of the airport opened automatically and the guard waved them through with barely a second look, and Adam directed them as close as he dared to Spectrum’s covert hangar. Parker found a place to stop the car, fetched Blue’s backpack from the trunk and came around to open the door, which Blue was exceedingly grateful for- his leg was starting to stiffen up and he wasn’t relishing the idea of trying to juggle the door, his crutch and an injured leg all at once.

“Thank you for the ride, Lady Penelope,” Captain Blue told her with genuine gratitude. “And if I may say, I am very glad that you’re on our side,” he continued, somewhat in awe of how she’d sidestepped Jeff like he was standing still and half wondering what would happen if she were ever in the same room as Colonel White. The Old Man had his tricks, but Penelope was one of the smoothest operators he’d seen in a while.

“How kind of you to say, Captain Blue.” The barest hint of a smile touched Penelope’s face, and if she’d been any less well-bred, she would have sounded smug. “I hope you have a safe trip.”

“Thank you, you too.” Blue nodded to her, extricated himself from the car with some help from Parker, slung his grab bag over his back before fitting his arm back into the crutch and started making his way down an alleyway between two buildings.

Intent on his destination and distracted by the ache in his leg, as he rounded a corner, Blue didn’t notice the tall, powerfully built figure that slipped up behind him with a cosh in hand.

Chapter 6

The Hood smirked down at the unconscious Captain Blue sprawled at his feet. He’d tracked Lady Penelope from her manor house to Darwin, but he’d lost her trail at the airport. He had been intending to intercept her upon her return, but seeing her drop off a Spectrum Colour Captain was too great an opportunity to pass up and he’d changed targets. He knew where he could find Penelope again, but he’d had very few opportunities to waylay one of Spectrum’s upper echelon officers. That he was somehow connected to International Rescue and their current operation only sweetened the deal.

He roughly dumped the limp captain into an empty crate that he’d already wrestled onto a flat deck trolley and put the lid on. With that complete, he reassumed his guise of an airport worker in worn grey overalls and a faded orange high viz vest, wheeling cargo to a waiting private plane.

0o0o0

The arrival of the three Spectrum Captains helped speed things along immensely. The two dead attackers were searched again and (to the relief of those in the know) the C-38 detector confirmed they were human. Randeep and his men made sure that the main door to the facility was sealed shut, while Ochre and Grey were dispatched to make sure the other entrances were also fully blocked off.

The first one definitely was- what had to be a three tonne boulder sitting in front of it, but as they approached the second, lower on the mountain, there was a movement of rocks that wasn’t rubble settling.

“Down!” Ochre hissed to Grey, both of them finding cover in the rugged mountain side. Rubble shifted, then a figure in a dark uniform pushed his way out. He blinked in the late afternoon sun, the light catching the unmistakable shape of a pistol in his hand. One or the other of them must have made some kind of movement because the man suddenly exclaimed in surprise and pointed the gun at them, but Ochre was faster on the draw. He drew a bead on the figure and fired twice, dropping him instantly.

Ochre waited a moment and when there was no further movement or outcry he carefully approached with Grey covering him. Ochre kicked away the gun by the limp hand and crouched to examine the body, recognising the gaudy black and gold uniform immediately. “Found one- Zombite,” Ochre reported into his ‘cap radio. “They’re a long way from the desert, what are they doing out here?”

“Scott says they’ve had a couple of run ins with them,” Scarlet relayed after a moment’s pause, presumably to confer with Scott. “They’re not exactly fond of International Rescue, and The Hood has worked with them on at least one occasion.”

“Think The Hood pointed Black in their direction?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Can you seal off the entrance?”

Ochre cast his eye over the area, considering the layout of the mountainside. “Negative, better get an Angel to use a missile to finish the job. We’ll drop our guy back in the hole, no sense in leaving him out here and accessible.” With the Mysterons involved, none of them would put it past them to take advantage of a body left out in the open and they weren’t sure at what sort of distance from the original a replicant could be made.

“S.I.G. I’ll update Cloudbase, tell Melody when you’re clear and she’ll finish the job,” Scarlet instructed. “Get back up to the site office, we almost have a plan together.”

“S.I.G.”

0o0o0

Up on Cloudbase, Colonel White flicked through the meagre file that they held on the Zombites, finding very little of use. They seemed to excel in subterranean bases, and after International Rescue destroyed the Pyramid of Khamandides it seemed that they’d gone to ground quite literally. While there were the occasional sightings, there was very little concrete information about them and nothing he could tactically use.

“Sir,” Green turned his chair to face the central desk, “Lieutenant Ivy at Darwin International Airport reports that Captain Blue has missed his check in by three quarters of an hour. He’s already begun a covert search and when he contacted airport security to check their cameras, Captain Blue was last seen approaching the concealed hangar. He turns a corner and vanishes. When a guard was sent to look, a crutch was found at that location. Ivy is requesting permission for a full scale overt search.”

“Permission granted.” Colonel White nodded, rapidly becoming concerned. What the devil could be going on now? “Have you started the trace on his communications equipment?”

“Yessir, the computer is still running, it’s a lot slower without an active transmission.” Green paused, one of the indicator lights of his control board flickering for attention. “Sir, there’s a call coming on Captain Blue’s radio.”

“Put it through.” Colonel White knew without a doubt that it wouldn’t be his officer on the other end of the line. As soon as the appropriate light on his desk flashed, he touched the microphone switch. “Cloudbase receiving you.”

“Ah, you must be the feared Colonel White of Spectrum.” A harsh, heavily accented voice rang out over the speakers. Green was already working his computer controls, fingers flying as he traced the location of the call.

“Yes, and you are?” White asked, a dangerous edge to his voice. He suspected what was about to come, but he knew he had to give Green as much time as possible to run the trace and that meant pandering to the man’s ego. The longer he could get him talking, the more rope it would be to hang him with.

“You may already know of me as The Hood,” was the arrogant declaration made in response.

“What have you done with my officer?”

“He is alive, for the moment.”

“What do you want?”

“Colonel White, I am a businessman. I propose a trade- your captain, alive and mostly unharmed…”

“In exchange for what?”

“I know your other officers are working with International Rescue right at this moment.” White could hear the smirk in The Hood’s voice. “Once you have foiled the Mysterons’ plot, tell them to capture the Thunderbirds and hand them over to me. If I do not hear from you in the next four hours on this frequency, I will leave this radio on and you can listen to your man as he drowns.”

The call abruptly cut into a hash of static.

“Lieutenant?” White looked at his subordinate, still furiously manipulating his controls as he followed the fading trail of the signal.

“One moment, sir…East Java, Indonesia, somewhere around Pantai Kuyon.” A press of a button and Green had the map up on the screen, a ring encircling an area of the coastline. “I was able to narrow it down to a four kilometre radius. It’s a moderately populated region, mostly catering to tourists.”

“What about this island?” White pointed to the screen. “Pulau Karangmalang?”

A couple of key-clicks, then “No permanent inhabitants according to the computer, sir.”

White turned the message from The Hood over in his mind, the timeframe and ‘drowns’ nagging at him. “Lieutenant, when is high tide in the area?”

“...in approximately four hours, sir,” was Green’s response, his voice showing his horror as he made the connection.

“Contact Spectrum Jakarta, have them mobilise every asset and search every inch of coastline in that area, he must have Captain Blue in some hidden cove, sea cave or boat shed if he is to drown in four hours,” White ordered. “Have Captain Magenta go there as well to organise the search.”

“Should they request help from the local police or coast guard?”

“No.” White frowned. “We can’t chance The Hood having informants amongst the local authorities, he’ll either move Captain Blue or kill him immediately. And do not inform the others, they need to focus on their mission.”

“S.I.G.”

0o0o0

“So what’s the plan?” Ochre asked as they gathered beside the bulk of Thunderbird Two, using her as a windbreak. The prefab office was too small to hold them all, so they’d relocated here.

“There’s two threats, so we’re going for a two-pronged approach,” Scott explained. “Virgil?”

“Randeep mentioned an old emergency tunnel just to the south of the mine, back from when it was an active salt mine.” Virgil laid a tattered and yellowed map across a convenient boulder. “The ground penetrating radar confirmed it’s been sealed off, but there’s enough voids that we might be able to get through there and deal with whatever machines the Zombites brought in.”

“While you take care of that,” Gordon spoke up, “I’m going to take the Mole and dig a drainage tunnel.”

“Won’t the water get into your machine?” Grey frowned, glancing at the transporter ship beside them.

“Nope, it’s completely airtight.”

“Handy,” Dianne murmured, absently tracing the path of the emergency exit through the mine. “It looks like it comes out into some sort of processing room?” She glanced up at the men. “What if it’s blocked?”

“We’ve got lasers, cutting torches, and failing that, det cord,” Scott explained with a grin. “There’s very few things we can’t make a door in.”

“Excellent.” Scarlet nodded his approval. “What about Randeep and his men?”

“There’s a convoy of local military and Spectrum assets about an hour out, if need be they’ll be able to escort them all to safety once the site is secured.” Grey jerked his thumb towards the largest of the buildings that ringed the macadam apron. “They’ve barricaded themselves in the kitchen. Even though the Zombites have sealed themselves in, it’s safest for them to stay inside for now.”

“Radiation?” Ochre asked, looking around the group.

“I’ve got a Geiger Counter with me, but Deepak said as long as the doors to the tunnels are sealed, it’s safe,” Virgil explained. “We’re not going to be able to bring rad suits with us, but there’s caches of them all through the facility.”

“Well then, shall we?” Dianne invited as she indicated in the general direction of the long-blocked entrance.

The three International Rescue pilots looked for a second like they were going to question her inclusion, but to a man they very wisely decided against doing so.

“I’ll get the Mole moving.” Gordon turned to access Thunderbird Two, when the two circling Interceptors above them suddenly changed their headings.

“Spectrum is red! Four incoming fighters from the north east!” Melody’s warning came over the Spectrum officers’ radios as the fighter jets swung around to meet the approaching craft. “Markings visible, Zombite aircraft.”

“We’ve got this, go!” Scarlet ordered Rhapsody, pointing down the mountainside to her aircraft.

“S.I.G.” She nodded, sparing him a quick smile before racing down the dry, dusty hillside.

Minutes later, the Interceptor screamed into the air as Rhapsody flew to join her sisters.

“Glad you could join us.” Melody’s voice was tight with anticipation as Rhapsody caught up with them.

“Cloudbase to all Angels, you are weapons free, repeat, you are weapons free, fire at will.” Green’s voice sounded over their radios.

“Copy that, Cloudbase, weapons free,” Melody answered for them all, “Angel Flight, let’s bring them down. Echelon formation, arm missiles. Confirm lock and fire on my mark.”

“S.I.G.” Harmony was cool as ever as she responded, keeping her position on Melody’s right.

“S.I.G.” Rhapsody pulled back and swung right to stay off Harmony’s right to complete the formation. She strained her eyes behind the amber-tinted flying goggles, picking out the dark coloured fighters with their underslung engine pod and strange, ring-shaped tail fin. “Missile lock confirmed,” she reported as the computer signalled it had found their opponents. The other Angels sang out the same at almost the same time, then at Melody’s order of ‘Fire!’ she hit the trigger and felt her Interceptor jolt a little as the two air-to-air missiles dropped from the anchor points on the wings and lanced out across the intervening space.

Clearly caught by surprise, one of the distant Zombite fighters turned into a fireball, the rest scattered, dropping flares and chaff as they scattered, twisting and turning in a surprisingly good display of airmanship.

“They’re quick on the turn, but their climb is rubbish,” Rhapsody radioed her observations across to the other Angels. She counted five smaller detonations as their missiles were lured away by the countermeasures, her Interceptor’s HUD helpfully re-designating the remaining bogeys on her radar.

“All missiles gone, break formation and watch your sixes,” Melody ordered. “I have Bogey Two.”

“Bogey One.” Never one to waste words while fighting, Harmony called her target and dove after the fleeing fighter.

“I have Bogey Three.” Rhapsody twisted through the air after her target, jinking and junking all across the sky as the nimble enemy fighter tried to shake her loose. She couldn’t help the grin as she chased her target, trying to get into range for the machine guns. This was the part of flying combat she loved the best- the test of her skills and her aircraft against someone else.

While she had four more missiles, there was no way she could use them in the middle of a dogfight, not with the chances of one of the heat seeking missiles locking onto a friendly target. Distantly, she heard Melody’s cucumber cool report of ‘Bogey Two destroyed’, Harmony’s report of taking a hit but still flying, then moments later Melody responding to Harmony and taking out the second fighter.

Finally she managed to get into range of the last Zombite and Rhapsody fired short spurts from the nose-mounted machine guns. “Come on, come on, just a little…” Dianne coaxed under her breath, trying to anticipate where the other fighter was going to go next…there! She jabbed her thumb down on the button and was rewarded by a spray of shrapnel and dark smoke from the Zombite fighter as it tumbled out of the sky and exploded well before it hit the ground.

“Bogey Three, destroyed,” Dianne reported, bringing her fighter back towards the mine and looking around for the other two Angels.

“Well done, Angel Flight.” It was Colonel White’s voice on the radio this time. “Harmony, return to Cloudbase for repairs. Melody, Rhapsody, stay at your location, just in case the Zombites try again. We’ll have a Camelback refuelling aircraft there for you shortly.”

“S.I.G.”

“S.I.G.”

“S.I.G.” Rhapsody found and formed up again with Melody, and they both watched as Harmony waggled her wings in farewell and struck off towards Cloudbase. With a piece taken out of her fighter’s tail, she’d be more a liability than an asset should the Zombites send more fighters.

Tipping up on one wing to circle the mountain, Dianne watched the patch of colour that was the group of men moving down the steep flank of the mountain. “Be safe, darling.” She directed the thought to the fleck of red, then turned her attention back to the skies.

Chapter 7

They found the long-disused emergency exit after a good half hour of hunting through the area indicated on the old map, eventually finding the slab of metal that was the sealed door half buried behind some debris and scrubby bush. A few minutes of work cleared enough of it to let Virgil bring his laser cutter to bear, and not long after that a large piece of the pitted steel fell away with a ponderous groan and they were through into the foul-smelling passage. Puddles of rank water were dotted here and there and rats squeaked and fled as their flashlights cut through the dark. They were all glad of the respirators they now donned- the tight seal kept out the stink.

“We’ll take point and tail end,” Scarlet told the two IR pilots as he proceeded to move to the front of the group, pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other. He left the ‘our uniforms have bullet proofing, yours don’t’ unsaid for the moment as Ochre and Grey took up the rear.

Virgil and Scott shared a look at that- being protected and not the protectors was weird for them- but they went with it for now. “F.A.B.” was all that Scott said to that, ducking his head into the strap for the Geiger Counter and shouldering the bag of other supplies should anything else be blocking their way.

Surrounded by the echoing drips of water and the squelch and splashing of their own footsteps through the accumulated slime and rotten muck, they squeezed through the gaps in the fallen rocks and other debris and detritus that littered the tunnel. The laser cutter was again deployed to make quick work of the rusted locks that held shut two additional doors that barred their way, and at the sight of a very large spider Ochre was the first to quip he was really glad their uniforms had their trousers tucked into their boots- he didn’t want a repeat of what happened at Koala.

That had gotten a curious “So, what happened at ‘Koala’?” from Virgil and muted chuckles from the two other Spectrum officers.

“Let’s just say we learned about Huntsman spiders the hard way,” Grey responded quietly, but the smile was audible. “Buy us a round of drinks after this and we’ll tell you the story.”

“Deal.”

Shoulders, leverage and brute strength let them get past the last rocks that barred their way- ones that looked freshly fallen to their eyes, dislodged by the earlier explosions. The tunnel sloped slightly upwards now, becoming drier and the footing less hazardous. Finally they reached a thick, rivet-studded door that had various warnings written on it in Hindi and English and the familiar three ray sign of radiation hazard. Scarlet tried the handle and to his surprise he found it turned easily, the door swung open soundlessly and light spilled into the tunnel. He instantly stepped to the side of the doorway and clicked the safety off his pistol while the others flattened themselves against the walls.

Several tense moments passed, and when there were no bullets or shouts of alarm, Scarlet carefully eased himself around the doorway, Ochre right on his heels and Grey staying back to guard Scott and Virgil. The two officers reappeared after a moment, weapons still in hand but lowered. “No sign of anyone,” Scarlet reported. “I think we were very lucky just now.”

Virgil put down his kit and examined the hinges of the door curiously. “This is recent,” he said, pointing to the heavy coating of grease. “I think we just found the Zombite’s original escape route.”

“That guy we surprised was probably looking for another exit because this one had been blocked,” Ochre theorised, then looked at the senior officer. “How are we going to play this, Scarlet?”

“Carefully.” Scarlet thought for a moment, then pointed to a shadowed corner. “We’ll bring the det cord and Geiger counter with us, all the other equipment we’ll stash over there. Primary mission is recon, we need to know what they’re up to, and then sabotage whatever it is.”

That got a round of nods and after divesting themselves of the extra equipment they passed through the door and into the gutted remains of the processing room. It was well lit by yellow-tinted electric lamps strung across the bare rock ceiling and pieces of rotting machines were bolted to the walls and floors- all things too heavy or not valuable enough to remove when the mine had been repurposed into a radioactive waste dump. A path cleared from the door to the entranceway was further evidence that the Zombites had intended to leave through here.

Scott had the Geiger counter out at this point and everyone listened to the occasional click as it picked up charged particles. “...radiation is at expected levels, elevated but not dangerous. We’ll still need to scrub, change and take iodine after this, but it’ll be precautionary rather than critical,” Scott reported after a few moments, and everyone could breathe again. “The doors and airlocks leading to the dump sites must still be sealed.”

“That fits,” Virgil murmured his agreement, “these fellas aren’t suicidal, they’re survivors.”

Scarlet grunted his acknowledgement and slipped further ahead of the group, scouting out the way ahead. He leaned against the rusted skeleton of a conveyor belt and peered around the cavernous entrance to the processing room. The passage ahead was dimly lit and cathedral-like in its proportions- cut high and wide for trucks and diggers, the walls shimmered with dirty white fingers of salt deposits that had been squeezed between the grey stone of the mountain. The faint light left pools of darkness behind the support pillars that held up the roof, and sound bounced and rebounded all over the place- he could faintly detect the noises of people over the pervasive rumble of the air pipes that kept the place inhabitable, but there was no way he could pinpoint them.

Then Scarlet looked down and saw the ground had been marked by some kind of vehicle that had left deep and clear tread marks like those left by caterpillar tracks. “Here.” He waved the others over and pointed out the tracks.

“They seem to be going that way.” Scott nodded deeper into the mine, if the map on the far wall of the tunnel was any indication.

There was a brief pause as both groups updated their respective commanders, then Scarlet took point again. “Let’s go.” He led the way deeper into the guts of the mountain, the air becoming thicker and warmer as they descended. A locker perhaps thirty metres down should have yielded the rad suits they’d planned to borrow, but it hung empty.

No one liked that discovery.

The next sign of their enemy’s presence was a Zombite sentry at a junction between two tunnels. Without a rad suit but equipped with a respirator, he was leaning against a workstation that had been set up there, drowsing with his head down and arms crossed over his chest, a long-barreled rifle of some sort carelessly slung over his shoulder. Scarlet gestured for the rest to stay back as he holstered his sidearm and took advantage of the dim lighting to creep closer in a half crouch. A quick grab, a twist and the muffled crack of separating vertebra ensured that the sentry’s nap would be permanent, and the body was laid out of the way.

Scarlet led the way around the corner, still following the tracks, then came to a stop when he found his path blocked by a hulking thing that half-filled the tunnel. A quick circuit showed no one else was around as the others caught up to him.

“What is that?” Ochre eyeballed the haphazard looking device with deep suspicion. It was bleakly industrial looking, roughly van-sized and blocky. The inelegant machine hummed with activity, studded with lights, wires and tubing and had some sort of radar-dish looking thing embedded in the front face.

“Bad. That’s what.” Virgil frowned, stepping up to it to get a closer look. “It’s a harmonic mining rig, but it’s hooked up to some kind of amplifier. If it goes off, it could take the whole mountain down. No one uses them anymore because of how temperamental they are, just bumping one wrong could set it off once it’s active- it’s got a hair-trigger piezoelectric quartz mechanism- and controlling one of them is hard enough without this amplifier they’ve rigged up.”

“Can you break it?” Ochre asked, eyes narrowed as he assessed how to best attack the machine.

“I can disarm it, but that’s not the problem,” Virgil replied, crouching to remove an access panel at the base of the device. “These are used in pairs to find the resonant frequency of whatever rock strata they’re mining in, there’s another one somewhere. This thing is primed to go off any minute now, and I’ll bet the other one is too.”

Scarlet frowned and made a decision. “Virgil, can your engineers talk one of us through disarming one of these things?” he asked, looking first at the device, then at Virgil.

“Sure, just call up on the frequency that Scott gave you and John will put you through to Brains. Whoever it is will need steady hands,” Virgil said as he stood, backtracked to the workstation and grabbed a nearby tool box. He plucked out several items and put them in a bag, then brought everything back. “I’ll start on this one,” he said, handing the bag over to Scarlet. “These should do for whoever is disarming the other.” Virgil took the rest of the tools, laid down on his back and put the tools in his lap, then carefully squirmed his way inside the device, head first.

“Grey, Scott, stay here and guard Virgil.” Scarlet ordered, handing the bag of tools to Ochre. “We’ll find the other one. Ochre, you’ve got steadier hands than I do, you’ll have to disarm it.”

“S.I.G.” Ochre nodded and followed Scarlet deeper into the mines. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they jogged deeper into the mine, following the vehicle tracks that had brought in the first machine.

Perhaps after fifteen minutes at a steady pace, something caught Scarlet’s attention. “Look, just up ahead!” Scarlet indicated with his flashlight at a familiar looking blocky object wedged into a wider section of tunnel used to let vehicles going opposite directions get past each other. “That must be the other one. Give me your ’cap Ochre, I’ll get the radio link set up while you get the access panel off.”

Ochre nodded and handed off his RadioCap, then crouched to find the access panel. It came free with a little work and he positioned himself to wriggle inside as Scarlet fiddled with the settings on the inside of the ’cap to tune it to the International Rescue frequency. “Good to go,” Scarlet reported as he handed the ’cap back.

“Thanks.” Ochre put the ’cap upside down on his lap, there was no way he could get into this space with it still on his head, pressed the call button and started to work his way into the mining rig with the bag of tools clenched in his fist. “Captain Ochre to Thunderbird Five, do you copy?”

“Thunderbird Five here,” came the reply, “Virgil has briefed me on the situation. Are you in position?”

“Almost,” Ochre grunted as he twisted and half sat up inside the machine, glad of the armoured back of his tunic as he leaned against a sharp corner to best see the internal mechanisms of the device. “It’s a tight fit.”

“Are you sure you can do this?” John’s voice was tinny from the ’cap speakers.

“If I can paint the markings on a 1/1000th scale model jet, I can do this,” Ochre snapped back with some irritation. “Now put your guy on the line and tell me how to deactivate this thing!”

There was a crackle of static, and a new voice came on. “C-captain Ochre? This is Brains. I need you to listen c-carefully. D-do you see a -uh- rectangular box, palm-sized, with a r-ribbon wire connected to it?”

“I see it,” Ochre replied shortly, opening the bag of tools and hauling out a tiny Phillips screwdriver. “Do I open it?”

“Yes, but with extreme c-caution, do not b-bump the box or the -uh- wafers may t-touch and activate the mining rig.”

“Touch is bad. Got it.” He eased both arms into the space and set to work gingerly unscrewing the side panel. Inside, two thumbnail sized quartz wafers in three sided metallic cages were fastened top and bottom in the box. There was barely enough room between them to slide a piece of paper. “The box is open, Brains.”

“G-good. Now, very c-carefully, you need to remove the t-top cage, without contacting the bottom one.”

“S.I.G.”

The needle nosed clippers came next. With a little creative hand positioning Ochre had his tools in place. The tip of the screwdriver was threaded into the cage and braced in such a way to press up with his left hand and keep it secured while he worked the clippers in to slowly cut it off. He held his breath with every cut, hyper aware of every movement in his torso. When it was finally free, he slid it out and set it on a convenient clear spot of machinery. “Okay, top cage is off.”

“G-good.” There was a pause and a rustle of papers. “N-now, you n-need to remove the top crystal without breaking it o-or t-touching the bottom c-cage.”

“Can I wiggle it?” Ochre asked, frowning at the very, very small area he had to work in.

“I-if you are e-extremely careful.”

“S.I.G.” He blindly fished around in his tool kit and came up with a pair of needle nose pliers. Between this and the cutters it would have to do.

Ochre wedged his arms horizontally this time, his elbows braced against something unseen behind him to give himself the best angle of attack. A little fine work with the pliers and cutters to bend out the lip of the socket gave him a little more room, then he grasped the wafer with the pliers and gently started to rock it in its socket.

Just like when he was lined up on a target, his world became only what was in his field of view. The sweat beading his brow, how hot and close the air was becoming and the cramp starting to burn in his hunched up shoulders were all filtered out and ignored as he focused on the tiny movements in his fingertips.

A shout and a sudden sharp retort of gunfire outside would have made him jump if it wasn’t for the rock solid control he had over his body when he was in the zone like this.

The pressure he needed to use gradually changed, the movements became bigger, then the little crystal came loose. He held his breath as he rotated it and slid it free. “Brains, it’s out!” All around him the whine and hum of moving parts stuttered to a halt. “The machine is shutting down!”

“Well d-done!” Came the reply. “You can g-get out n-now, it’s safe.”

“S.I.G., thanks, Brains.” Ochre quickly collected all the bits in his ’cap and waggled a foot at Scarlet. “Pull me out!”

Firm hands grasped his ankles and he was dragged out by Scarlet. “Machine’s busted, time to go!” he told him, rolling to his feet.

“Good timing, I think they’re coming back.” Scarlet nodded in the direction of a crumpled figure in the now familiar uniform. “Let’s get back to the others.”

“S.I.G.”

Chapter 8

Deep under the mountain Gordon danced his fingers across the controls for the Mole and felt the massive machine move in response. A touch of a button here, a twist of a dial there, and he changed its trajectory by the fraction of a degree needed to avoid a thick band of what the scanners said was iron-dense rock. Cutting through that would have slowed him by at least twenty minutes. He cast his eye back over the screens for the sensors, considered the information on the display and programmed the adjustment that would get him back on track after this detour.

People were often surprised when they saw the results of the Mole’s work and how the giant digger could be so delicately manipulated with uncanny accuracy thanks to the technology onboard. Most folks didn’t realise how vital that precision was- if they couldn’t make such minor yet vital adjustments on the fly, they’d do far more harm than good in the precarious environments they sometimes found themselves in.

On the main screen Gordon saw that he was almost at his target depth- six feet shy of the waterway. Just a little bit more, then he’d stop the machine, back it up a little, get out and plant an explosive charge right at the tip of the cone-shaped hole that the Mole gouged out of the ground. It would be on a remote detonator and Brains had carefully calculated the amount of C4 so that it would fracture only a small area of rock- after all this work they didn’t want to go and undermine the entire mountain before the military could clear out all the waste.

He’d also picked his entry point very deliberately- the valley he’d started digging in was dry and well away from any settlements, so there was no chance of flooding out anyone living in the area. With any luck, in time the resulting new lakes and streams would revitalise the area and plants and wildlife would flourish with a new water source. “Wouldn’t that be just the perfect thing”, Gordon mused to himself, “what they intended to harm, doing something very, very good instead?”

He shook his head and got himself back on task. Once the charge was planted he’d get back into the Mole and get the hell out of Dodge- he didn’t want to linger here just in case the water did what water does and found a way through a hidden crack or fissure ahead of schedule. With the kind of pressure most underground waterways ran at, it’d turn the tunnel into a giant’s firehose and the Mole would get shot out like a cork from a champagne bottle.

Beep Beep

The computer announced that he’d reached his target depth, Gordon quickly killed power to the motors that spun the massive cutting face and stood up from the pilot’s chair. Time to put a major spike in the Zombites’ scheme.

0o0o0

At the same time up on Cloudbase, Colonel White was scowling at his watch. Just over two and a half hours had slipped past since The Hood’s call. There both was and was not any progress on the various things in motion. The team in India were certainly busy, but they were no closer to ending the threat of the Zombites. The military convoy had finally reached the site and were securing the wider area in preparation for moving the waste to safety, and Destiny and Symphony had flown out to relieve Rhapsody and Melody. Magenta’s most recent update from Indonesia had been dishearteningly brief- nothing yet. With all the coves, inlets and other features of the coastline, it was slow going.

“Lieutenant, any further information on the location of Captain Blue?” he asked, not looking up as the minute hand of the watch swept through the end of another cycle, bringing them that much closer to the deadline.

“No sir, with how remote the area is I can’t narrow it down any further without an active transmission to trace.” The report was crisp but delivered reluctantly. The younger man had been trying every trick in the book and inventing some new ones as he fought to try and coax something more localised out of the system. “Unless he calls us again, or Captain Blue activates his emergency beacon, we’re out of options.”

“Indeed.” White’s brow furrowed further. “We need more time...” was the muttered remark he made to himself, keenly aware of how quickly the deadline was approaching.

White shifted to rest his elbows on the edge of the desk, fingers steepled before his face as he tried to get into the mind of their enemy. The Hood’s end goal was clear- the Thunderbirds. Being a criminal out to steal technology well ahead of its time, and one greedy, daring and audacious enough to thumb his nose at Spectrum and try manipulate the Mysterons to get it, he had to have eyes on the scene- he’d be looking for and expecting a double-cross of some sort and having someone there would assist him in detecting one. If he was contacted on Blue’s radio, The Hood would keep things as brief as possible to avoid his location being pinpointed. To cap it all off, if they did deliver the Thunderbirds, he’d be expecting a trap.

That was the rub- The Hood was expecting treachery and deceit at every turn and he’d be prepared for it.

White sat back and stared at the various buttons on his desk as he considered what angle to take. It was a given that he’d need to contact the man and ask for more time- The Hood had to know that the mission in India was still in progress and that they couldn’t get into the Thunderbirds without the pilots.

When he called, The Hood would mock and sneer, but if he was a smart man, he’d agree to an extension. Captain Blue was the lynch pin of The Hood’s scheme- as long as he was alive, The Hood had leverage against Spectrum and his plans could proceed. If Blue died, The Hood lost his bargaining chip and he’d get the full weight of Spectrum’s attention on him, so it would be in his best interests to keep the captain breathing.

The colonel nodded to himself, satisfied with his reasoning. If he could play on The Hood’s greed and use the man’s arrogance and ambition to blind him, he could get the time he needed to get his pieces moving and prepare a nasty surprise of his own. But before he placed that call, he had a different one to make. He’d have to set the board carefully and that meant bringing in the other parties and sorting things out now.

“Lieutenant Green,” he raised his head as he called to the comms officer, “set up a three way call between myself, Lady Penelope and International Rescue, I want their commander on the line as soon as possible.”

“S.I.G.”

0o0o0

In a water-carved cave lit by a half a dozen gas lamps nailed to the walls, The Hood wrinkled his nose at the tang of salt and seaweed and the dank smell of wet rocks, but he knew he was safe here. The entrance to this particular sea cave was below the low-tide line and on a particularly rough and rugged stretch of coastline that discouraged fishing, so not even the locals knew about this place. He’d further reduced his odds of being spotted by bringing his captive here via a small submarine, now moored to an improvised dock on the far wall of the cave.

The first in a series of limestone caves that followed the course of a long-vanished stream, this cave was the smallest- the dry part was perhaps the size of two double decker buses side by side and the underwater entrance tunnel was twice that- and roughly half of it was consumed by the pool of water that hid the entrance to the outside world. The rest was a sloping stone shelf that he referred to as ‘the beach’, and a walkway between the sub dock and the next cave that would remain high and dry despite the tides.

He stepped down off the elevated path and picked his way carefully over the bare rock, slick with algae. Small shellfish crunched under his boots and tiny crabs scuttled away at his approach, but he ignored them as he walked towards his captive, bound to a wooden mooring post close to the water’s edge.

After seeing to a few matters elsewhere in the extensive system of caves, it was time to continue his interrogation attempts. Not a man to let the grass grow under his feet, The Hood wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to get valuable information on Spectrum. He knew of several people who would pay well for it.

Hearing him approach, the groggy captain raised his head and blinked, trying to shake out the cobwebs and peer through the uncertain light. “Who…?” he started, then froze when he recognised his captor.

“Ah, you are awake.” The Hood took in a deep breath as he drew his mind into knife-like focus. Controlling someone’s actions was relatively simple- it was how he’d gotten the man in and out of the submarine- but because of the nature of his powers, getting anything more than surface information out of someone that he didn’t have an immediate blood relation to was much harder, especially if they had any sort of interrogation resistance training or a strong enough will.

But like any interrogation, all it took was time and patience, and while he waited for the call from Colonel White, he had the time. “Now, my friend,” he smiled slowly, “I have questions for you.”

0o0o0

Meanwhile, down in the salt mine, the group of Spectrum and International Rescue agents had reconvened next to the first harmonic mining rig and were updating each other.

“The Zombites have to know we’re here,” Grey concluded, looking more grim than normal. “We heard the gunshot, they must have too.”

“It couldn’t be helped.” Scarlet grimaced, looking around the group. “We’re down three of them now, and Randeep said there were ten that he knew of.”

“What I want to know is what the other seven are up to,” Scott interjected. “We know they took the rad-suits, but we haven’t seen any of them wearing them.”

“That’s a good point,” Virgil chimed in. “And you said there wasn’t any sign of the vehicle they used?”

“None.” Ochre shook his head. “The tracks seemed to go further into the mine.”

“They have to be using it to do something else.” Scott frowned in thought as he puzzled through the problem. “A vehicle big enough and powerful enough to haul two of these things would be slow and awkward, especially in tunnels like these. If you were after a quick getaway, ditching the vehicle and going on foot would be faster.”

“Unless you’re carrying something- something heavy,” Virgil finished the thought, looking at his brother, his eyes wide. “They’re survivors, but Scott, from what you said after you encountered them, they’re opportunistic too.”

“You got that right, they could have just let me fly by but they went out of their way to shoot me down, and when you arrived they could have just used their little trap again, but they decided to fire missiles.” Scott looked around the group. “This is a nuke dump. There can be only one thing that they’re after.”

“Mole to Scott and Virgil,” Gordon’s voice crackled over the handheld radios that both IR pilots carried. “Charge planted and I’m out of the way, I’m ready to drain the river.”

“Finally something going according to plan,” Scott muttered before thumbing the ‘talk’ button. “F.A.B. We’re well above it on level six, blow it.”

“F.A.B.”

Chapter 9

“I don’t like it, Kyrano. I just don’t like it.” Jeff traced a finger over the tactical map of Pantai Kuyon, following the coastline.

The knowledge that his old friend Charles Gray was helming Spectrum hadn’t softened his attitude towards the organisation in the slightest- he knew Charlie. The three of them- he, Sam Shore and Charles- were all hardheaded men and in their younger days they’d locked antlers more than once over things, each convinced that he was in the right about whatever had gotten stuck in their craw. Charles in particular was like a terrier when it came to ferreting out secrets and lies- given a free hand he’d dart in, seize his target and have what he wanted in short order. Jeff liked Charlie’s tenacity a lot, it was a quality he admired in the man, except when it was pointed in the direction of his secrets.

When the conference call started (no visual on his end of course) it had been reassuring when Charles hadn’t used his name- the Spectrum Captains didn’t seem to have informed their commander of his identity. (He wasn’t going to bank on that though, and he had taken the precaution of using a voice modulator- there was no way he was going to get caught out twice by a keen ear.)

When Charles had finished updating them, Penny had been (to those who could read her) absolutely guilt-ridden that Captain Blue had been kidnapped practically under her nose and not a little incensed at The Hood’s audacity. She’d deftly usurped control of the conversation and Jeff was quickly reminded that the captain had originally been hurt responding to a threat directed at his family, and now Blue was in even more danger simply by associating with them. Shortly after that, Jeff found himself agreeing that he had a responsibility and obligation to help, considering the events of the other day and the risk that the other captains were putting themselves into alongside his boys. The next thing he knew, he was signing onto Charles’ plan

Jeff’s brow furrowed further as he turned the situation over in his mind. Before Penny had jumped in he had been intending to part ways with the Spectrum people as soon as the Langera mission wrapped up. Let them rescue their own man and deal with The Hood, it was about damn time the authorities did something about the criminal mastermind anyway. IR were a rescue organisation, not the police, stopping criminals wasn’t their job. It being outside their job was going to be the main reason he’d planned to give when he rejected the scheme that Charles had cooked up.

His actual, more deeply hidden reason, was that he wanted his sons well away from the Spectrum people- in his mind, they were also a threat.

Jeff would never admit to the nightmares that had him bolting upright in his bed some nights- the ‘what if’s’ of the Air Force and WASP luring Scott or Gordon away again, or Orbital Patrol ensnaring John or (more likely) Alan. Until a few days ago, Virgil was the only one that Jeff was sure wouldn’t get attracted to some sort of military group. But now, with the sorts of fellows in Spectrum, he wasn’t so sure about that any more.

Charlie had collected a fairly eclectic group and like any good leader he was always looking for new talent. Virgil was a brilliant all-rounder, a steadying presence and a natural with engineering and design- even without military training, he’d be a good addition to the team. And he could easily see the idea of Spectrum appealing to some of the other boys too.

He couldn’t let that happen. His sons had the ability to defend and look after themselves, he’d made sure of that, but they had danger come knocking on their doors often enough without them getting into or back into the habit of going out and looking for it. He knew his boys and their noses for trouble, he couldn’t trust any other organisation with their safety, not even one run by his old friend Charles.

A side thought occurred to him- one of these days he’d have to figure out how Penny had anticipated that he’d want to part ways as soon as possible and how she had so easily gotten three steps ahead of him. He’d only realised how neatly he’d been manoeuvred after the call had wrapped up.

Penny had been completely right with everything she’d said though, and he had to admit that he did have a debt to repay- and he always repaid his debts.

Jeff returned to contemplating the strategy that Charles had proposed, trying to poke holes in it. Charles’ plan was cunning, his plots always were, but Jeff was still suspicious- something didn’t sit right. His astronaut commander instincts were going off and he’d learned to listen to those the hard way.

“What is troubling you, Mister Tracy?” Kyrano asked as he placed a fresh coffee at his elbow.

“I feel like we’re missing something. Where are the Mysterons in all of this?” Jeff frowned as he thought out loud. “Last time they had an agent waiting to detonate, now they’re letting the Zombites do all the legwork and The Hood meddle with their plans?” Jeff put down the map and picked up the coffee instead, sitting back in his chair and cradling the cup in both hands. He stared out the open doors that led to the balcony, half listening to the distant crash of the waves on the shore far below the villa as he attacked the situation with his ferocious intellect. “All we can do is wait and see what they will do,” he finally said at length. “I don’t like this, not one bit.”

He set down the cup and tapped the appropriate button on his desk to connect him to the lab where John had the backup Mobile Control station. The family’s communications expert was busy wiring it into the Island’s communications array to improve the link to the control room of Thunderbird Five- they’d need the extra functionality if Charles’ plan was to work. “John?”

The reply was almost instant. “Yes, Father?”

“Get back on the line to Cloudbase, I want to talk with Colonel White as soon as he’s finished with The Hood.”

“F.A.B.”

0o0o0

If not for the unearthly glow to The Hood’s eyes and the strain in every line in Blue’s face, someone might have thought that Captain Blue and The Hood were engaged in some kind of staring contest as the criminal mastermind tried to force his way into Adam’s secrets and Adam resolutely battled to keep him out.

The ‘mind palace’ was a trick that Adam had learned years ago in a psychology elective back in his days at Harvard, and right now it was the only thing keeping The Hood out of his head.

In his mind’s eye he beheld it- a flawless black pearl, hovering in a round room lined with black velvet that swallowed up every ray of light. Contained within the pearl was everything that was him- everything beyond his rank and title of ‘Captain Blue’. Every mote of effort was bent towards maintaining that image of the pearl, perfect and lustrous, its smooth surface giving nothing for the other presence in his mind to grip onto and use to pry open the walls of the pearl that kept his secrets safe.

He was mildly astonished with how well he was able to keep that image locked in his imagination- during the class he’d barely been able to hold it for five minutes before something else distracted him. It appeared that actually fighting to keep someone out of your head was a marvellous way to force you to stay focused. “Damn it, I’m starting to think like how Paul talks. And he complains about my accent being contagious.”

Adam pulled his attention away from the brief moment of levity before he could lose his train of thought, returning his focus to keeping that pearl intact. It was beyond lucky that in his arrogance The Hood had given him a moment’s warning of what was to come and he’d hurriedly shoved the image into place. But he was weakening, he knew that, and it was getting harder and harder to keep the man out of his thoughts.

A beeping and light interrupted them both, drawing their attention back to the outside world. Blue caught the flashing white light of his epaulettes out of the corner of his vision- someone from Cloudbase was trying to contact him.

The Hood gave an irritated snort, then locked eyes with Adam again. “Sleep,” he sneeringly ordered, and Adam couldn’t resist the darkness that swept in at the command.

0o0o0

In the salt mine, the group were too far away to hear the explosion, but they did feel the faint jolt of the shockwave as it rumbled through the floor. Shortly afterwards the noise of the air pumps was supplemented by a different sound, a hollow rushing that echoed from far away.

“Sounds like the water’s draining,” Virgil nodded to himself, well pleased.

“Good. Now, to level eight,” Scarlet replied, glancing around the group, then at the map pinned to the wall to get his bearings. “Looks like the closest path from here is this way.” He traced a route, committing it to memory, then looked around the group. “Be on your guard, the Zombites certainly will be.”

A round of acknowledgments answered him and they formed up into one line, keeping close to the left-hand wall. Scarlet took point again, Scott and Virgil behind him and Grey and Ochre taking up the rear. They traversed the remaining distance of the tunnel with no issues, passing the occasional bit of detritus of human life as they went- a squat mine vehicle parked in a cut out, a helmet left on a chair beside a checkpoint, a small pile of cigarette butts in a secret smoking area, even some graffiti scratched into the wall.

They took a set of stairs down to Level Seven, taking a moment to pause and listen to the Geiger Counter to ensure that hadn’t changed before Ochre and Scarlet put their shoulders to the door and forced it open with the other three covering them just in case a trap had been laid. No one awaited them however, and they progressed further down the mine.

Not too far from the stairwell, they found another emergency locker, its doors hanging open. It was empty of its radiation suits, but this time the head coverings, gloves and boots had been left behind.

“I don’t get it.” Grey kicked at an abandoned boot and frowned behind his respirator, glancing up and down the cavernous tunnel in case it yielded any other clues. “Why did they only take parts of the rad suits?”

“...I might have an idea what they’re up to.” Scott crouched, picked up a glove and took it over to a nearby electric light to inspect the material. “These are low-rad suits, good for if there’s a scare or a low leak, or if the doors are opened for a new load of material,” he began, “but to actually handle the containers needs high-rad rating suits, like the ones we carry.” He looked around the group. “Think about it- your plan’s gone belly up, you’re locked into a mountain with a squad hunting you and there’s a superior force waiting just outside the doors, ready to pounce. Your only vehicle is big and slow- a perfect target.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this,” Scarlet nodded thoughtfully. “We thought they were going to steal the waste, but they have another purpose- using it for cover. They’ll load the vehicle with waste and ram the main doors. If people are wise enough to look before they shoot, they’ll back well off and the Zombites will be free to escape. They’re layering the rad suits to make their own version of a high-rad suit.”

Virgil took the glove from his brother, looked it over and shook his head. “It won’t work,” he declared. “You can’t effectively layer low rad suits into a high rad suit, especially if they’re leaving the helmets, boots and gloves off.” He tossed the glove back with the rest of the discarded items.

“I doubt they know that, and if their commanders know, I doubt they’d care,” was Ochre’s blunt observation, turning to keep an eye on their surroundings.

A flicker of white light and a beeping from Ochre’s comms gear forestalled any response to that and the officer half turned away to answer the hail. He listened, grimaced, turned back to the group and took his ‘cap off, fiddling with the buttons on the inside for a moment. “Colonel, I have you on speaker,” Ochre announced, the seriousness of his tone drawing everyone’s immediate attention.

“Very good. Captains, International Rescue operatives, there has been a development.” This far underground, White’s signal was laced with static, but still clear enough for them to hear him. “Captain Blue has been captured by The Hood.”

Scott happened to be looking at Scarlet as the Spectrum commander briefed them on what had happened to Captain Blue and informed them that a plan was in the works, but that they needed to focus on their current mission for now.

Despite the sulphur-hued light, the eldest Tracy could see Scarlet’s eyes widen in alarm at the news, the instinctive shift in the direction of the main entrance to the mine, then the reluctant agreement that the immediate threat had to be dealt with first. It was signalled by a deep breath and slow blink as Scarlet ruthlessly shoved his emotions out of the way, the proverbial shutters coming down.

When Scarlet’s eyes opened again, there was a harsh edge to his demeanour and he was not a little frightening as he set himself for the fight.

Looking at the other two, Scott could see the same transition taking place. For their sake, Scott hoped the Zombites had the sense to surrender. Scarlet, Grey and Ochre were not in the mood for anything that would delay things further.

Ochre’s next words confirmed his suspicions.

“Let’s wrap this up.” Ochre looked around the group. “We know where they have to be. Move it.”

Chapter 10

They made it through Level Seven without incident, but also without finding any more rad suit lockers that hadn’t already been raided.

Finally, just beside the stairwell door into Level Eight and to their great relief, they found a half-full cache…only to realise that there was a problem as they started to inventory what was left.

Virgil put the last bucket-like head covering with the matching silvery-white coveralls, overboots and gloves and grimaced. “There’s four complete nuke suits, but five of us,” he said as he looked around the group.

In the heavy silence that followed, Scarlet closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath through his nose, his lips pressed together into a thin line. “You four wear them. I’ll be fine,” he instructed as he opened his eyes again.

“But…” Scott started, worriedly glancing at Virgil- they both knew what radiation could do to a body. While the Geiger counter still showed tolerable levels, they had no idea what was waiting for them once they got to the waste dump proper.

“There’s who knows how many tonnes of nuclear waste on this level, an equally unknown number of lives at risk if any of it leaves this mine and we’re at a disadvantage as it is,” Scarlet didn’t quite snap, but he was close to it- clearly he wasn’t happy with the situation either. “It’ll be unpleasant but I shouldn’t get a lethal dose. Either way, I’ll recover far more easily than the rest of you. Take the damn suits.”

“...understood.” Scott nodded to him and started handing out the suits- he knew orders from a senior officer when he heard them. Sashes and gun belts were strapped on over the coveralls, equipment went into the voluminous pockets on the thighs and chest and once they were dressed and ready, Scarlet took the lead.

Moving more cautiously now, they followed the signs on the wall towards the vaults that held the waste. Slowly the mine became more modernised- better lighting, paved roadways, sensors and pressurised airlocks that necessitated a call to Randeep for the code to open them. They found the tracks of the Zombites’ transporter again, along with a collection of bodies dumped in a portacom cabin turned into an office- more guards who had been inside the facility when it was taken, and all of them long dead. The scattered remains of smoke grenades, flash bangs and numerous bullet casings explained how they had been overwhelmed.

Finally they came to the last corner before the massive steel door that blocked off access to where the nuclear waste was stored. Over the sounds of the air conditioning and hum of the arc lights they could hear the harsh cadences of the Zombite language. Carefully peering around the corner, they saw the Zombites’ vehicle backed up to the vault as bulky figures in silvery-white suits rigged chains to the door. The truck itself was a squat, ugly thing in gunmetal grey that looked like it’d been cobbled together from a half-track, a flatbed crane truck and the front end of a Unimog. The passage leading to the vault would have been a tight fit for the vehicle, but the wide foyer before the door was more than ample enough for them to turn the truck around and back it up.

The Zombite commander, or at least presumably so going by the red and gold collar that he wore over his layered rad suits, was standing on the cab of the vehicle, directing operations. He had his back to them, and that gave them a few moments of grace to study the scene.

“Looks like they’ve tried a few things to get in there, look at those scars.” Virgil indicated several scrapes and scorch marks on what they could see of the door.

“Mm, impact marks and explosives,” Scarlet agreed. “Ochre, what do you think? How should we approach this?”

A startled shout interrupted any reply that Ochre might have made and the five men had to lunge back and into cover as a hail of gunfire peppered the walls, kicking up sprays of razor sharp fragments of rock and salt that posed a danger of their own.

“I can’t get a good angle on them!” Ochre snarled in his frustration, trying to find a target. He started to move to the other wall for a better shot, but a bullet clipped the bulky head covering of his suit, sending it awry, and he had to duck back to right it so he could see.

Scarlet glanced over his companions, noting the way the light reflected off their rad suits and the way the head coverings and gloves made shooting significantly more difficult for both sides. He considered the problem facing them, then grinned tightly as he had an idea. “Scott, any chance you have a remote detonator for the det cord?”

“Sure, why?” Scott dug through the deep outer pockets of the rad suit to produce the ziplock bag of orange and black striped det cord from one pocket and a simple remote detonator from another.

“I’m going to open negotiations with them,” Scarlet responded as he pocketed his pistol, ditched his tunic and ‘cap to make himself less visible against the dark rock and took the items, cutting a length of about two feet from the coil of det cord before handing the rest back. “I’ll need some covering fire.”

“S.I.G.” Grey awkwardly checked his clip and got into position, the other three quickly following suit. “Ready on your mark.”

“S.I.G. On three.” Scarlet positioned himself for a sprint. “One, two, three!”

As soon as the others started firing, Scarlet darted out across the intervening space and rolled under the truck. Working as quickly as he could, Scarlet wrapped the det cord around the front axle of the converted truck, pressed in the detonator and scrambled out from underneath it, waving the remote over his head for the Zombites to see as he bolted for the corner that hid the rest of the team.

The Zombite commander, having sensibly taken cover behind the cab as soon as the shooting started, shouted something at his men and they stopped firing. “I see we are at an impasse, Spectrum.” Hetook off his head covering, turned and spat, as if the name of the organisation left a bad taste in his mouth. “What are your terms?”

“Surrender and you get to leave here alive, there’ll be a fair trial at The Hague and no harm will come to you or your men,” Scarlet called back as he quickly pulled his tunic and ‘cap back on- he wanted the Kevlar. “Surrender, answer my questions and if I’m happy with the information you get to leave through the exit we unblocked.”

“And if I do not like these options?”

“I blow up the truck.”

The sharp laugh in reply was dry and sardonic. “You bargain like one of my people, Spectrum.” Again he hawked and spat. “What are your questions?”

“Who put you up to this?” Scarlet demanded. “Who organised you, told you this location and put this plan together?”

“The plan was mine, Spectrum,” he didn’t spit this time, “but we were well paid for this and promised an opportunity to avenge ourselves by a man known to our friends as Agent 79. Others call him The Hood.”

Scarlet sensed Scott and Virgil tensing at that, but made no comment for now. “What about a man named Conrad Turner, or Black? Was he involved at all?”

There was a sharp hiss from the commander at that. “Yes, the -” he spoke a few rapid words in his own language and none of them sounded pleasant, “he was present when we met at our facility. The mine was his suggestion.”

“You have to realise that you and your men were set up,” Scarlet called back. “You saw both The Hood and Black, you were never meant to leave this place alive.”

“I know this now, we were assured that the high and mighty International Rescue would never lower themselves to cooperate with the likes of Spectrum.” He hawked and spat again.

Sotto-voiced, Scott observed to the others “If it hadn’t been for Penny changing our commander’s mind…” He let his voice trail off, not wanting to give voice to the possibilities.

“Is there anything else in store here in the mine or elsewhere?” Scarlet shouted next.

“Oh, The Hood is bound to have something in store, I know that slippery eel of a man,” the commander sneered. “But, ach, what is that little saying, that is neither here nor there now, what is here and now is you and your men and me and mine, and what we are all about to do now.”

“Your only way of making it out alive is to surrender, you know that. Throw down your weapons, come here with your hands on your heads and we’ll escort you out. I swear on my oath as a Spectrum Captain that no harm will come to you,” Scarlet promised, but hard-learned lessons had him and the others making sure their fingers were on the triggers of their guns.

There was a low conversation between the Zombites. Though the words were unclear, the tones weren’t and at least one person did not sound happy with what the commander was telling them. He snapped out a command, then switched back to English. “We surrender, Spectrum.”

“Leave your weapons where we can see them,” Scarlet ordered, peering around the corner.

“We shall.” The commander barked out a few more words, then jumped down from the back of the truck and with a great show he removed the clip from his rifle, cleared the chamber and placed it on the ground, followed by the pistol from his belt. He then took two steps forward, hands raised. One by one the rest of his men followed suit, and it was only when the last had stepped away from his weapons with hands raised that Scarlet led Grey and Ochre forward to take the Zombites prisoner, Scott and Virgil close behind them.

The three Spectrum officers spread out to corral the Zombites and herd them away from the truck while the IR pilots went to pick up the weapons.

Virgil was bending down to start collecting the rifles, having absently holstered his pistol to free up his hands, when he heard a sudden hiss of indrawn breath.

“International Rescue.” The commander snarled the words out, his voice heavy with hatred and malice and his eyes fixed on the sigil on Virgil’s yellow sash.

What happened next was in fact very fast, but adrenaline made everything happen in slow motion.

Virgil heard the distinctive click of a safety disengaging, straightened up and came face to face with the Zombite commander as he brought up a small handgun that he must have had concealed somewhere. The man sneered in triumph and snapped out one word: “Die!”

Virgil stiffened as the gun came level with his chest, eyes widening, then Scarlet was there, lunging to throw himself between the Zombite and Virgil.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Virgil heard each impact as the bullets slammed into Scarlet’s gut and the British officer’s groan as he clutched his stomach and crumpled. Barely a flicker of irritation crossed the commander’s face as he switched his aim back to Virgil.

Then to both of their surprise there was a hoarse shout and one of the other Zombites was lunging in, a length of chain in hand. He swung it expertly, smashing the heavy links across the commander’s head with the distinctive wet crunch of a breaking skull and the formerly triumphant Zombite was staggering back to collapse on the ground with that bonelessness particular to death.

The younger Zombite immediately dropped the chain and knelt with his hands behind his head. “No shoot, no shoot!” he begged in heavily accented English. “Surrender!”

While the others dealt with rounding up the six Zombites, binding their wrists and giving them all a very good frisking for weapons, Virgil knelt next to Scarlet, stunned that he was still alive. Using a knife that Scarlet produced from his boot, he opened the damaged tunic the rest of the way and pulled up the undershirt to see what the damage was. He was surprised to see a peppering of smaller wounds, not the bullet holes that he was expecting. “That looks like shrapnel damage, not bullets.”

Teeth gritted against the pain, Scarlet glanced at the gun that the Zombite commander had dropped, then down at his injuries. “...small calibre. Uniform mostly did the job for once, but he shot the zip.” Scarlet groaned out the words, pressing his hands against his injuries to stem the blood.

“Stay put, there’s an aid station nearby, I’ll get a med kit.”

“S.I.G.”

Virgil found what he needed and was back within minutes. The small device that he found containing an inhaled painkiller didn’t do much for Scarlet, but it helped Virgil feel better about it all as he dug out the bigger chunks of metal- his normally nimble fingers made clumsy by the thick gloves of the ‘suit- and washed out the wounds. A thick dressing, lots of medical tape, and he was tugging the bloodied undershirt back down.

While Virgil tended to Scarlet, Scott and Grey made sure the others didn’t get any bright ideas and tied them up, and Ochre quickly interrogated the Zombite who’d taken out the commander. A newly minted officer amongst the Zombites, he hadn’t approved of the plan in the first place and upon seeing the commander about to get the rest of them killed to fulfil his hunger for revenge, he had decided to take matters into his own hands.

Once the Zombites had all been tied up, Scott found a little transport buggy- effectively an overgrown golf cart with a trailer- and drove it over. There had been thoughts about taking the Zombites’ truck, but when they asked the young officer about it and was told it moved at a crawl, they’d elected to use something quicker if they could find it. Grey did take a moment to remove the explosives though, it would have been rude to leave them there.

The Zombites, all very co-operative, went into the trailer. Grey and Scott perched themselves on the back of the buggy with weapons in hand to keep an eye on them, Scarlet was laid across the back seat and Virgil drove with Ochre riding shotgun, just in case of any other surprises.

They took the main tunnels up, a much faster and easier route since they could use the switchbacks that linked the levels, and Ochre made a series of calls to update Cloudbase and the onsite local captain- Pewter- on the situation.

Just as they crossed onto Level Two, she contacted them with welcome news.

“Captain Ochre, this is Pewter. The main entrance is now unblocked and we have a decontamination station and iodine waiting for you. There’s a trauma kit waiting in the ‘clean’ area to replace Captain Scarlet’s dressings, your grab bags are there as well and Gordon has provided spare uniforms for Scott and Virgil.”

“Good work, Pewter.” Ochre made a mental note to write lots of nice stuff about Pewter in his report, she seemed to be well on top of things.

“Thank you sir, I’ll have a medevac helicopter enroute shortly, I’m just awaiting confirmation of which is available.”

“Negative, Pewter,” Ochre replied. “International Rescue have agreed to medevac Scarlet, we’ll be going along with them.” The cover story had been hastily agreed upon when they got a moment out of the Zombites’ earshot. It meant changing the plan, but they’d update the Colonel and Tracy Island as soon as it was safe to do so.

He could hear the surprise in the pause, then his radio crackled again.

“S.I.G., Captain Ochre. Pewter out.”

When they reached the now open main door, a group of Indian Army soldiers in rad suits were waiting to collect the Zombites- they’d also go through decon but only after the captains and IR had been through. Ochre and Grey handed them over with a firm reminder that they were Spectrum’s prisoners and to treat them properly until they could be handed over to Pewter’s care- they could see the soldiers’ simmering fury at what could have been under the former commander’s direction.

Finally they reached the brightly lit, long orange tunnel-tent backed up to the main entrance and were able to start the decontamination process with the aid of the yellow-suited attendants.

Anything hard like their weapons, boots, communicators and the RadioCaps were able to go through an automated device that would cleanse them, but anything soft went straight into large bins for disposal. Waving off the attendants, Ochre and Grey helped Scarlet with stripping and scrubbing, exchanging worried glances over his head when they saw that the hastily applied dressing was almost the same colour as his tunic- the wound was deeper than they’d first thought and the radiation exposure he had to have taken couldn’t be helping things.

Once they’d worked their way through the various stations to the far end of the tent, skin reddened and hair rough and tousled from the harsh chemicals, they put another bandage on Scarlet, dressed and downed the potassium iodide tablets that’d been left out for them. To a man they all gagged at the bitter taste of them, especially with only water to wash them down with, but it was a far better alternative to the various things that radiation could do.

“We need to get moving.” Scott looked at Scarlet, jaw set in a grim cast. The captain looked terrible- sitting on the floor of the tent he was pale and his head almost lolled on his shoulders. They’d put everything but the tunic on him- the dressings were a bulky lump under the black undershirt and the tunic would have been too uncomfortable. “Ready?” he asked as he turned to the rest of the group.

“As we’ll ever be.” Ochre nodded and picked up their things. “Come on, Scarlet, off your ass, there’s work to do.”

“Sod off, Ochre,” Scarlet mustered the energy to growl, standing with Grey and Virgil’s help and not objecting when they slung his arms around their necks and grabbed his waistband to help him stay upright.

The mine entrance was a hive of activity, now that the threat of the Zombites was eliminated. In a scene eerily reminiscent of the explosion that had started everything, large flood lights banished the night with harsh white light, and Thunderbird Two was a dark silhouette that blotted out the stars. Looking up, the blinking beacon lights of the Angels still in orbit high above the mine were a welcome sight.

Pewter, a slight Indian woman, tried to approach them, but was waved off by Grey who indicated towards Scarlet- bigger priority. She simply nodded briskly, turned and started shooing people further away from Thunderbird Two, at the same time sending a runner to open the gate so Scott could get down the access road to Thunderbird One.

“Ready for your acting debut?” Ochre murmured to Virgil and Scott. This was the tricky part of the plan- there was absolutely no way that The Hood didn’t have someone here to keep an eye on things, so they had to make it look like Spectrum was following along with The Hood’s demands. Just getting onto the ships wouldn’t be enough, they needed to make it look like the captains were taking the pilots captive in order to take their ships.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Scott quietly answered for both him and Virgil.

The changes the four of them made were subtle, but to the educated observer, they were there- Virgil did his best to not look at either Grey or Scarlet, licking his lips nervously and eyes darting this way and that. Ochre moved to walk a little too closely behind Scott’s left shoulder, like he was positioning himself to grab the pilot or press a gun into his back, his hand resting on his pistol. Scott did an excellent job of putting tension into his tall frame, lips pressed together in a thin line, and a hand hovering close to his machine pistol as if he wanted to grab it- but both his and Virgil’s guns and pouches were already empty of the colour-coded cartridges.

Standing by Thunderbird Two, Gordon did an excellent job of suddenly stiffening as Virgil, Scarlet and Grey approached, eyes wide and one hand drifting to his pistol, only for Virgil to shake his head slightly and warn him off. There was a slow nod from the aquanaut and he turned to open the hatch that would let them access Thunderbird Two.

Ochre and Scott paused just long enough to watch all four of them vanish inside the giant transport ship, then they made for the gates and down the mountainside to the waiting Thunderbird One.

“Will Scarlet be okay?” Scott breathed out the question when they were almost at One, barely moving his lips. Without knowing who was watching them and how they had to keep up the charade until they were safely inside.

“Eventually. Virgil said he’d be able to sleep on Two?” Ochre kept a close eye out for anyone paying too much attention to them as they made their way down the road, but no one made themselves obvious. “The main thing is to feed him afterwards, he’ll need to refuel himself.”

“Yeah, there’s living quarters and we’ve got plenty of supplies on Two.” As they reached Thunderbird One, Scott tapped the concealed button on his watch that told his ‘bird to unlock and lower the stairs for them. There was a mechanical click and the whine of hydraulics, then Ochre hustled him up the stairs.

As soon as they were inside and the hatch was sealed, both men let out a sigh of relief and Ochre handed over the cartridges he’d pocketed.

“Thanks,” Scott nodded to him as he put them back, then walked forwards to the pilot’s chair to start preflights, taking his handheld radio out of his pocket with his free hand at the same time. Their equipment was so heavily encrypted there was no way anyone could listen in and they’d have to already have some of their tech to even pick up that a transmission was in progress. “Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Two, everything okay there?”

“All set. Scarlet’s in the medbay with Gordon, Grey’s advised Cloudbase that we’re about to leave, I’ve updated base and pre-flight is complete,” Virgil reported. “Any idea where we’re going?”

“Nothing for sure, for now make your heading south east, towards the Bay of Bengal, we already know we have to go roughly that direction anyway and I want to get out of here,” Scott ordered. “Give me five to finish pre-flights and get the passenger seat ready for Ochre, then I’m good to go.”

“F.A.B.”

0o0o0

Several minutes later, everyone outside the mine stopped and stared as the two Thunderbirds roared into life and rose up into the sky, the incredible ships quickly swallowed up by the velvet darkness of night.

High above the mountain, the two Angels abruptly changed course to follow them.

A moment of watching in wonder was all anyone had to wonder at it as the officers quickly snapped their orders and got everyone back on task- the mine wasn’t going to empty itself after all.

One of the drivers of the trucks brought in to remove the nuclear waste ducked back into the cab of his vehicle and pulled a small but powerful communications unit out from under his seat. “Watchman to Agent 79, the Thunderbirds are departing, the Spectrum men are going with them, and it looked like International Rescue weren’t taking them willingly,” he muttered into the device.

The man on the other end answered him with a single word that was drawn out and savoured, dripping with dark triumph. “Excellent.”

0o0o0

Deep under Tracy Island, John sat at the controls of the listening post he’d constructed, a headset over his ears and a deep furrow of concentration on his brow. The powerful computers of Brains’ lab had been linked in to not only the scanners of Thunderbird Five, but the vast network operated by Spectrum. If he wanted to, he could listen to almost anything being transmitted across the world and triangulate onto it with almost pin-point accuracy, but right now there was only one thing that he wanted to hear- the signal from the spy that The Hood had to have in place to keep an eye on things.

He knew that far away, Lieutenant Green was also listening for the exact same thing, but John also knew that he wouldn’t be boasting to say that out of the two of them, he’d be the one to find it. This was his job and, quite simply, he was that good.

The chatter on Spectrum and Indian Army frequencies might have been a distraction if he hadn’t already set up filters for them. A quick exchange on their own network was his brothers talking, organising things as they prepared to launch. John pressed the cuff of his headset to his ear, eyes closed to aid his concentration. If it was going to happen, it was going to be any minute now…there!

Long fingers flying across the controls, John followed the rogue signal, one that didn’t belong and shouldn’t have been there. He traced it as it bounced through transmitters and repeaters, over land and sea, then with a grin he found its destination. He touched a button that linked him to the speaker on Jeff’s desk, knowing that his father would still be awake. Jeff never, ever, went to bed before they came home if a mission was on.

“Father, I’ve got news,” John couldn’t help his grin. “The signal was short, but I’ve narrowed the recipient location down to the coastline between Pulau Karangmalang and Pulau Lumbung. Point of origin is from the north west corner of the apron,” he paused to recheck the satellite view of the mine and what the coordinates indicated, “about seven metres from the boundary fence.”

“Good work, John,” Jeff clearly was pleased. “Get that through to Spectrum, now.”

“F.A.B.”

Chapter 11

The Indian subcontinent was spangled with the yellow-white light of humanity at work, streamers and ribbons and clusters of it draped across the darkness as if a giant had been at play with handfuls of glitter. High above, the two Thunderbirds and their Angel escort passed over it all unmolested aside from the odd air traffic controller challenging them.

“All okay down here?” Grey asked as he ducked into the medbay tucked inside Thunderbird Two’s airframe, wanting to check on the occupants.

Scarlet was shirtless and laid out on the bed with a sterile sheet over his torso, eyes closed, an oxygen mask over his face and an IV line feeding into his left arm, and Gordon was bent over him. The aquanaut was wearing gloves, a mask and a surgical gown to keep things clean, using tweezers to pick out the last few bullet fragments and other bits and pieces that had stubbornly remained in the wound. He’d donned a set of surgical magnifying glasses to help find the last traces of debris and the tray of used swabs and dish of iodine showed the level of care he was taking.

To Brad’s surprise, Paul was unconscious- either he was worse off than he’d let on or Gordon must have been pretty convincing for Paul to allow himself to be knocked out and worked on by a stranger. “Or a combination of the two,” Brad mused to himself as he came closer, but not so close as to contaminate the area.

“One second.” Gordon glanced over at him, then turned his attention to a small screen set beside him. “Do you have the analysis back yet, Tin Tin?”

“Yes, it’s just a standard lead bullet,” a woman’s voice issued from the device, “you won’t need to take any special precautions, just make sure it’s clean.”

“F.A.B, and thanks.” Gordon hit the off switch with his elbow. “Sorry about that, just wanted to make sure that the Zombites weren’t using anything special in their weapons.” He nodded to a tiny fragment in a petri dish, loaded into some sort of device near the bed. “We know those fellas use some kind of weird fuel in their aircraft, so we figured we should check, just in case.”

“Understood,” Grey nodded. “Need a hand there?” he asked, seeing the neatly labelled cupboards and drawers holding more surgical gowns and other supplies. They’d all learned the basics of field medicine, including how to suture a wound.

“No, I’m just about done, but thanks for offering.” Gordon teased out a fragment of fabric and deposited it in the container of other bits and pieces. “Scarlet said to just clean and cover it and let him do his thing.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Grey found a cabinet to lean against and watched as Gordon gently dabbed one last iodine-soaked swab over the injured area, taped a large dressing over it and tidied up the equipment. When it appeared safe to approach, he found the cupboard labelled ‘Blankets’ and pulled out two of the cream coloured waffle-weave blankets that seemed to be a mandatory part of hospital bedding everywhere. When he got Gordon’s nod, he approached and tucked Scarlet in- the other officer didn’t even twitch, he was that deeply out- and found a stool to draw up beside the bed and park himself on.

At Gordon’s querying look Grey explained with a simple “We try to avoid leaving him out cold and on his own anywhere medical, it’s not his favourite place to be.”

There was a pause as Gordon read between the lines of that statement, then a “Gotcha” that was well steeped in understanding.

While Gordon put away the last bits and pieces, Grey watched him out of the corner of his eye and pondered. Back at the mine, when everything was being prepped, he’d noticed the way that Scott and Virgil had automatically picked up anything heavy before he could get to it and that they didn’t clap him on the back like they did each other. He’d also noticed how Gordon held his shoulders- a familiar kind of stiffness to them. The strongest clue was his voice- Grey had an ear for voices. Wanting confirmation of his suspicions, he quietly asked “Fish or squid?”- terminology the field staff at WASP used to identify amongst themselves. ‘Fish’ primarily manned the surface ships, ‘squids’ the subs.

Gordon blinked in surprise. “Squid,” he confirmed. “You?”

Something about how he asked it told Grey that this was a test of trust- remembering what had happened back at the farmhouse and the information that they’d managed to conjure up led him to make the answer of “Same.” Grey considered for a moment, then ventured further. “You’re the Tracy who was in the hydrofoil accident, right? I’m the Holden who was in the Stingray sinking.”

“I heard about that, glad you made it out.”

Hearing that was surprisingly encouraging, and a refreshing change from the usual responses when someone heard about his accident. “Thanks.” Grey paused again before he spoke- now it was time for the real question. “So, Tempest?” A WASP submariner’s opinion on Troy Tempest was a surprisingly divisive topic and many people had learned the hard way to figure out early which camp someone was in.

“Troy is an absolutely fantastic submariner,” Gordon nodded earnestly, “and I will absolutely knee-cap him if he comes anywhere near Tin Tin.”

“Great idea, I’ll hold him down for you,” Grey volunteered, grinning broadly.

0o0o0

Cloudbase was running dark as she crossed the Bismarck Sea, tucked alongside Papua New Guinea. Spotting the carrier was difficult at the best of times, but the Colonel didn’t want to take any chances tonight as they moved into position for the coming confrontation.

White stood in one of the observation tubes, resisting the desire to go to his quarters and take a shower after contacting The Hood to advise him that the Thunderbirds had been ‘captured’ by his officers. The exchange had been too brief to track him, but The Hood had finally given the coordinates for the meeting- as White had half suspected, the island of Pulau Karangmalang had been selected for the handover.

It had meant a hard choice, however. Magenta had had zero luck finding Blue, even though a narrowed down area had been provided by International Rescue. It was quite simply too late at night to search the rugged coastline- the combination of rocks, waves and darkness making it far too dangerous. Not even the local WASP commander could be enticed into conducting a search under such conditions. In addition, Scarlet’s injuries and the uncertainty over if he’d wake up in time necessitated more changes to their plan. With great reluctance, he’d pulled Magenta from the search and directed him to prepare an ambush at Pulau Karangmalang instead. Once they got Blue’s location out of The Hood, then they could redeploy to find him.

But something still nagged at him- in their earlier conversation, the commander of International Rescue had raised a valid point- where exactly were the Mysterons in all of this? To set something in motion and just let it run as it may, as if winding up a clockwork toy and putting it down to roam freely, was exceedingly uncharacteristic of their implacable foe. They far preferred to micromanage everything down to the last detail.

“I wonder…” White rubbed his chin as he pondered. “Perhaps The Hood is simply their dupe or catspaw here, and he will unwittingly provide the opening the Mysterons require to carry out their threat.” “Lieutenant Green,” White turned around to look towards where the younger man was waiting. “Contact Magenta, have him check all involved in his ambush with the C-38 and keep a close watch for anything untoward, I have a feeling that the Mysterons may be using The Hood.”

“Yessir.”

0o0o0

He’d been moved.

Blue groggily raised his head, half wondering what had disturbed him. Every muscle ached, and the generalised throbbing was a counterpoint to the pain of his still-healing leg. At least he’d been left with the brace, there was no way he’d have remained upright without it.

With a start he realised he wasn’t beside the water’s edge now, but pinioned at the end of the elevated walkway from the dock to the next cave. There was a section of crisscrossing bars that held it up here and he’d been bound to that with thick bands of duct tape around his chest. His arms had been pinned to his sides in the process, the tape wrapped around at his elbows- but his hands were now free.

Not that that really changed anything, an experimental grab told him he couldn’t get to the duct tape and he couldn’t reach far enough across himself to get at the beacon in his tunic pocket.

Feeling somewhat more lucid and functional, Adam glanced around, getting his bearings back. In the fickle light of the gas lamps, he could see that the tide was coming in. If he’d been left at the post, the water would have been halfway up his legs. Over here, his rough guesstimate gave him a couple more hours at least before the water reached him.

That was when he noticed a strange tugging at his trousers, and Adam looked down to see what it was. A crab, perhaps the size of his palm, was climbing up his left leg. More were starting to emerge from underneath rocks and rubbish that’d been left around, and Adam swallowed hard: he’d studied Amelia Earhart in high school. These weren’t coconut crabs, but crabs were crabs and he was far more helpless than he’d have liked to have been.

“Off!” He tried to kick his leg out to get rid of it, only to find his ankles had been taped too. A full body jerk only made the crab scuttle up and onto the bottom of his tunic. Blue changed tactics, straining at the duct tape to try to get some more wiggle room at his arms. Meanwhile, the crab picked at something on his tunic, then crept up a little higher. Blue watched it, trying to plan out how he could hit it with his chin or maybe crush it between his shoulder and cheek if it got that far… then his eyes widened when he realised what had drawn its limited attention- the shiny metal of the zips- and a wild hope arose when it edged towards the one on his tunic pocket.

“Come on… come on…. If you manage it I swear I’ll never eat crab legs again,” Blue murmured the words as he watched the crab investigate the zipper on his tunic pocket. He scarcely dared to breathe as the mottled orange crustacean pinched at the metal zip, then found the ring of the zipper pull. One yank, a second, then it was within the range of his fingers. “Yes! Sorry, buddy, but you’re in the way.” Blue got his hand under the crab’s body and flicked it away, then got the ring between his fingertips and pulled it the rest of the way over.

He awkwardly dug his hand into the pocket, fumbled through it and…there! He found the button beacon and eased it out. Pulling the safety tab involved pinning the beacon to his leg with his middle finger and pulling the tab with forefinger and thumb, but pressing the button was easy and it was safely in his trouser pocket moments later.

And none too soon, as it turned out.

Almost as one, the crabs froze, eyestalks and claws slowly waving, then scuttled for cover. Tied as he was to the walkway, Blue could feel the vibrations of heavy footsteps before he heard them, coming from the direction of the next cave. Acting quickly, because there was only one person who would be so brazenly approaching right now, Blue made himself sag as if he was still unconscious, keeping his breathing slow and steady.

The footsteps gradually increased in volume until he heard the clomping of military-style boots on the walkway. The Hood, and he knew it was him by the smell of incense that accompanied him, stopped and climbed down with a grunt. There was a pause and the crunch of small shellfish being crushed underfoot, then fingers tapped his cheek. A pause, and there was a brush over his eyelashes.

While Adam would have loved to whip his head around and take The Hood’s fingers off at the knuckles, it wouldn’t help right now, so he stayed still and didn’t react. It helped that he and the others had practised playing dead and not reacting for situations just like this.

“Hmm, still unconscious, I see,” The Hood muttered to himself. There was a shuffle and scrape as if he were turning to look at something, a speculative ‘thinking’ noise, then another of dismissal. “No, you can stay here, bringing you is too risky.”

“Okay, that’s interesting. Bring me where exactly, I wonder?”

But there was no elaboration on the matter as The Hood climbed back up the walkway and continued down to the dock.

Blue stayed perfectly still, ears straining for any clue. There were some unidentifiable noises, then the clang of a metal hatch shutting. He cracked an eye open and saw the submarine sink into the water, vanishing in a matter of moments.

When it finally appeared safe, Blue let out a breath and straightened up again, groaning as his leg protested anew. He shifted his weight as best as he could to his good leg, but it too objected. Help was coming though, he comforted himself. He could hold on for as long as he needed to, because help was coming.

Chapter 12

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ochre knew that if he dropped his professionalism for even a second, his grin would be ear to ear. He was in Thunderbird One! While he wasn’t as good a pilot as Blue- few people were- he absolutely was the bigger aircraft nerd, and the experience of getting to be inside the hybrid aircraft was surpassing his wildest dreams.

As they skirted the island of Sumatra, he finally plucked up his courage to ask about one of the many things that’d been bugging him. He was bubbling with questions, the majority of which he knew he’d get a ‘sorry, top secret’, but he figured it’d be safe enough to ask this one.

“Okay, so, I know I’m not supposed to ask questions about the Thunderbirds, but how the hell do you fly this thing without smacking into a mountain at Mach 5?” Ochre asked from the passenger seat behind and to the right of Scott’s chair. “There’s no windows!”

“I’ve got port and starboard viewports and cameras if I need to eyeball something, but she’s one hundred percent fly by instrument.” Scott glanced back at him and waved a hand at the various screens, dials and gauges on the bulkhead in front of him. “The tech’s different to what you’re used to, but I’ve got all the standard stuff- radar, airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, altimeter, turn coordinator, heading indicator, vertical speed indicator- plus maps with updating positioning. That and I can calculate speed and vectors in my head, so I can visualise my relative location.”

“Huh.” Ochre pondered that. It made sense to him- words weren’t his friend, thanks to the dyslexia, but he could make sense out of diagrams and numbers that baffled other people. “Guess that acts like a built-in anti-theft measure.”

“Yep.” Scott patted one of the controls fondly. “My girl was built for me, but I had to put over eight hundred hours in the sims before I could touch her.”

“I can see why.” Ochre nodded as he sat back in his chair with a new appreciation for what it took to be a Thunderbird and how dedicated Scott and his family were to the mission and vision of International Rescue. Then his radio beeped and his moment of reverie was over. He listened intently to the update from Cloudbase, acknowledged and cut the link. “Scott, we’ve had an update.”

0o0o0

Waking up was hard. He wasn’t at full health yet, but somewhere on the subconscious level Paul knew he had to be up and moving again as quickly as he could. However, while in that foggy place between asleep and awake he just couldn’t put his finger on why he had to get up. All he knew was that he was needed.

“Easy, Scarlet, just me.”

“That’s Brad. Brad’s here. He’ll know why I have to be awake.”

Paul cracked his eyes open, winced and hissed at the spear of light stabbing into his head, then tried again. A few blinks, his eyes remembered how to focus and an unfamiliar ceiling swam into view. “What…? Oh, that’s right, Thunderbird Two.”

“Want some coffee?” Brad asked from somewhere off to his right.

Coffee sounded like an excellent idea and Paul hoped the noises he made indicated this as he got himself into a sitting position with Brad’s help. A warm cup was placed into his hands and he downed about two thirds of it before the taste registered. While there was coffee involved, it also tasted like other things and the texture wasn’t what he expected in the slightest. As he peered at the caramel-coloured contents of the mug he knew he was making some sort of face because Brad barked out a rare laugh.

“Yes, it’s coffee, Gordon calls it ‘bulletproof coffee’,” Brad explained, his mirth quite evident. “Strong black coffee, unsalted butter and coconut oil. He says he lives off it when it’s a long rescue operation.”

Paul ran his tongue over his teeth and swallowed twice to clear the fatty residue out of his mouth, then spoke. “...I can see why. I’m starting to feel full already,” was his comment. He could also feel himself perking up as the deluge of calories hit his system, replenishing his depleted stores.

“Really? After just a couple of mouthfuls?” Brad was clearly impressed, he knew how hungry Paul could get after retrometabolism had done its work on him. “Huh, if it’s that effective we should take the recipe back to base. If anything it’ll keep Sickbay’s kitchen staff from complaining about trying to keep you fed.”

“Mm, agreed.” Scarlet finished off the rest. “And it’s faster than choking down some ration bars, though Fawn’s probably going to have something to say about it.”

“When doesn’t he?” Brad’s tone was fond and he smiled as he said it- they all appreciated Fawn’s efforts to keep them in one piece, even if they felt he did get a little carried away sometimes.

“True. What’s the latest?” Scarlet asked, setting the cup down on a handy table and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. A glance told him that they were alone in the medical bay and he was glad of that- while he liked Gordon, he was far more comfortable knowing that Brad had handled the watch.

Grey reached down, picked up the bundle that had been made of Scarlet’s tunic, undershirt, gun and ‘cap and handed it to him. “The Hood has set the location for the handover- an island, Pulau Karangmalang. Magenta’s going there now to prep an ambush. Green radioed just before you woke up- Blue’s emergency beacon was activated, we’ve got his location pinpointed.”

“Thank heavens for that.” Scarlet closed his eyes momentarily to give thanks to whoever was listening, then pulled his undershirt on. “Has the plan changed?”

“A-firm. We’re going to try and swing over the area where the beacon’s coming from and use the Thunderbirds’ scanners to see if there’s an opening somewhere. Overland, you’re getting out, underwater will be me and Gordon. Whoever’s left will go on to the rendezvous with The Hood.” Grey shifted restlessly. “Green said the Old Man thinks the Mysterons might use it as their opportunity to get at International Rescue again.”

“We’ve got a Mysteron gun?” Scarlet asked. He couldn’t recall if one had been brought onto the Thunderbirds before they left.

“Yup, Pewter made sure the gun and detector from our SPV were smuggled onto Two.”

“Ah, excellent.” Scarlet slid off the bed before putting on his tunic. This was a new one that he hadn’t broken in yet, those were always stiff and hard to put on while sitting down. “The Angels?”

“They’re staying with us, to complete the illusion of us taking the Thunderbirds.”

“Who’s with us now?” Scarlet asked as he zipped up the tunic and tugged to set it into place.

“Harmony and Destiny, Symphony and Rhapsody will take over in the next hour, and the base is moving into position to provide more support.”

Paul nodded to himself. The Old Man was being conservative with their air cover, which was understandable. They’d been on the go for hours by this point, criss-crossing the planet. Cycling out the pilots ensured they were as fresh as possible for whatever would happen next.

That thought led him to the next one and he took a look at Grey, noting his condition. “Have you had a rest and food yet?”

“Food yes, rest no. Gordon showed me where the racks are, so I’ll sack out for a bit once you’re sorted,” Grey explained. “Gordon and Virgil have been spelling each other at the controls.”

“Good. I’ll go up front while you take a rest,” Paul nodded. He wasn’t entirely happy about Ochre and Scott not getting a break, but he had confidence that they’d be able to manage.

“S.I.G.”

0o0o0

The night was deep by the time the four aircraft reached Java. Though it took longer, they’d crossed the Java Sea, threaded the gap between the islands of Bali and Lombok and turned west to follow the southern coastline.

In Two’s cockpit, both Spectrum officers were impressed by the efficiency of the IR operatives as they coordinated their actions with the Angels to make things look as natural as possible while hiding what they were actually up to. It looked like Thunderbird One was making a completely normal scouting approach across the landward side while Two followed in One’s wake and the Angels hung back to keep tabs on both aircraft. In actuality the two ships were hunting out where Captain Blue was being kept as they crossed the area where the beacon signal was coming from.

Finally enough data came back to build up a map of the area and Virgil called their attention to one of his screens. “Ground penetrating radar shows a cave system underneath the cliff.” Virgil ran his finger along the diagram on the screen of four bubble-like caves and a long tunnel leading out to sea. “It looks like the entrance is underwater, the tunnel’s about thirty metres long.”

“It’s a shame we don’t have pod four, that one has the SCUBA gear, but that’s swimmable in one breath.” Gordon moved to look out one of the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the water below. “Tide?”

“Still rising,” Virgil supplied after a moment poking at the computer. “There’s a small beach I can drop you off at.”

Grey cracked a grin. “Perfect. Time to get our feet wet, Gordon.”

“We can use the winch, it’s this way.” Gordon gestured for Grey to follow as he made for the door in the back of the cockpit.

Thunderbird Two hovered for as long as it took for the rescue harness to be lowered with Grey and Gordon in it, a fold in the coastline hiding their actions from the island, then Thunderbird Two was off again, roaring away into the night.

Waterproof flashlights in hand, the two men carefully clambered across the rocks to the location of the sea cave. Fortune had smiled on them for once and there was indeed a narrow beach just before the cliff, the sea life showing that the high tide didn’t reach all the way up to the sheer rock.

They shucked off what they didn’t need of their uniforms- shirts, caps, and Grey’s tunic- and stashed it all out of reach of the waves, but retained their weapons and waded into the surf. Treading water just before the flooded entrance, they started breathing deeply to purge the carbon dioxide from their bodies. At Gordon’s nod, they took one final gasp of air and ducked under the surface, swimming with smooth, economical movements.

Brad was pleased to note that the water was reasonably clear and the beams of their torches reached far enough for them to get a good look around as they swam up the wide, water-carved tunnel, checking for any sensors or other surprises as they swam. The water lightened as they approached the end of the tunnel and they both switched off their torches, relying on whatever light source was in the cave to guide them in as they swam the last stretch. Grey was starting to feel the urge to breathe as they entered what seemed to be the main cave.

While he wanted to get to the surface as quickly as possible and start looking for Blue, Grey knew better. They hugged the cave wall, then surfaced slowly, not wanting to risk any unnecessary splashing that could have alerted any sentries.

Communicating with WASP hand gestures, Grey took the lead and slowly made his way across to the floating dock that occupied one side of the cave. The cavernous space was filled with pools of shadows- oil lamps were certainly atmospheric, but terrible for lighting such a large space, and he noted in passing it didn’t look like they’d been filled for a while.

The darkness was both good and bad- it hid them, but it could also hide a lot of other things.

Every sense tuned to a knife-edge keenness, Grey climbed up onto the dock and shook the water out of his pistol. There was a beat, then Gordon did the same. Moving slowly across the walkway and all too aware of how the slightest sound would be amplified by the cave, they slipped across, pausing here and there to listen for any signs that they’d been detected. They found Adam within minutes, tied to the walkway and sagging against his bonds with the water lapping at his shins, but it was only when they were absolutely sure that this cave and the next one were abandoned that they climbed down to where he was.

“Blue, can you hear me?” Grey murmured, holstering his pistol so he could pull the knife from his boot while Gordon watched their backs.

“...mm?” Blue raised his head groggily, blinked and squinted. “...Grey…” Cracked lips moved slightly in a faint smile.

“Yep, that’s me, you hurt?” Brad was relieved, Adam could talk and recognised him, that was positive.

“...sore.”

“We’ll get you down in a minute, okay?” Brad studied the arrangement of the duct tape and where to cut first. A glance at Gordon confirmed what he suspected- there was no way they’d be able to swim out with Blue with no SCUBA gear, not with him in this state.

“...kay.”

It took some work and some creativity, Adam was shockingly weak, but between the two of them they got him freed, up onto the walkway and into the next cave- a dry and well lit space that had been set up as some sort of living quarters. To their relief, there was also a fairly extensive medical kit stashed in a corner and while Gordon set up an IV to start to counter the dehydration that Adam was clearly suffering from, Grey took out the handheld communicator he’d pocketed and contacted first Cloudbase, then Scarlet and Ochre with the update.

“We’re safe where we are for now, but Blue’s not really mobile and his leg really isn’t happy. I don’t want him swimming if we can avoid it,” Grey reported to his brothers in arms. “I’m going to look around for another exit and the Colonel is seeing if the local WASP unit has a sub small enough to come pick us up.”

“S.I.G. Push comes to shove, I’m sure we can requisition some SCUBA gear from somewhere and come get you.” That was Ochre.

“Affirmative.” Grey paused, looked again at Blue and tamped his temper back down. “Guys? Give him hell.”

Scarlet was the one who replied this time. “We most certainly shall.”

Going by the sound of Scarlet’s voice, the odds of The Hood getting out of this intact were exceedingly small. There were promises in his tone, and all of them boded extremely ill.

If he was a nicer person, Grey might have almost felt sorry for the man.

But tonight, he wasn’t feeling nice at all.

Chapter 13

The Thunderbirds were still en route when Magenta had almost wrapped up his survey of the area that’d been designated for the meeting. Pulau Karangmalang was actually two islands- the main one and a little pinnacle of rock at the northern tip. They’d managed to slip onto the main island without being detected and they’d carefully combed their way through it, searching out the lay of the land. The long slash of rock and trees was uninhabited, and aside from one large, rocky clearing in the middle of the island (the location for the meeting) and a bare area on the northern tip, the place was thick with foliage and covered in roots that threatened to trip the unwary.

Now they were in place around the middle clearing, waiting for the Thunderbirds to finish dropping off Grey and Gordon and come in to land.

“Sir, over here!” One of the local non-coded lieutenants, Malati, called across to Magenta in a hushed voice.

“What is it?” Magenta asked as he carefully made his way over.

“Look.” Crouched down and using his hand to shield his torch from any onlookers, Melati used the light to point to a dull olive disk of metal about the size of a dinner plate, partially covered with leaf litter. Between the colour, the leaves and the darkness it was almost invisible. “It looks like some sort of gas dispenser.”

“I think you’re right.” Magenta straightened up and called across to another one of his hastily assembled group, summoning one of their technical specialists. “Cahya, bring over that kit.”

The summoned officer came over with the satchel of scanners, detectors and other technology defeating equipment, swore roundly when he saw the device and wasted no time in getting the lid off. He plunged into his bag to bring out a chemical ‘sniffer’, ran it over the canister inside, swore again and turned to show Magenta the screen.

Magenta also swore when he saw the warning the chemical sniffer flashed up in lurid red, then touched his ‘Cap. “Magenta to Cloudbase and Captains Scarlet and Ochre. The Hood has planted sarin gas bombs at the meeting area. We’ve found one, there has to be more.”

“Can you disarm them?” Ochre asked, his voice tight with very understandable fear- sarin was a particularly nasty way to kill someone, to the point that using it was classed as a war crime.

A glance at Cahya, already snipping wires with a set of cutters, gave Pat the answer. “Yes, but I don’t know if we’re going to find them all in time.” Magenta grimaced as he said it. He knew exactly what was going to come next, all the Cloudbase officers did, and he promised himself to make it up to Paul later if (or more likely when, knowing how their lives worked) everything went pear-shaped.

“Captain Magenta, once you have disarmed as many as you can find, have your team back off to an area well upwind and evacuate.” That was Colonel White. “Captain Scarlet, you will meet The Hood and capture him, we have to know if there are other plots waiting to be sprung.”

There was a pause, then an “S.I.G.” from Scarlet.

“Good. Report in as soon as you can. Cloudbase out.”

Magenta drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out in a controlled, slow exhale. “Well, this just got more interesting,” he muttered to himself, then tapped his ‘Cap to contact the rest of his team. “Listen up, people, new plan.”

0o0o0

Belah Gaat felt well pleased with himself as he waited on the seafloor for the appointed hour, listening to the meditative thrum of his submarine’s systems. He’d been thrown several curve balls, but he’d handled each one well and put his own spin on things.

After the Mysterons’ failure at the factory, his original plan had been to simply facilitate the Zombites satisfying their need to avenge themselves on International Rescue, thereby fulfilling the needs of the Mysterons at the same time, and then he would help himself to the Thunderbirds afterwards. It was a beautifully simple plan that put him at minimal risk, and it had gone perfectly right until International Rescue went and allied themselves with Spectrum. Belah ground his teeth at that, he should have expected it, but no matter.

Now that the Zombites had failed to follow through on their boasting, he had been obliged to take a more direct hand in things. The old saying of ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself’ seemed to be apt at this moment.

“Speaking of taking care of things yourself…” His lip curled in a sneer as he considered the man currently tied up in the cave. Taking the captain had been on impulse- wounded and alone, he was an easier target than Lady Penelope- but he also represented an opportunity. While he hadn’t broken the man yet, that would only take a matter of time. White was a fool to think that he’d ever hand the captain back, not with the treasure trove of secrets that he could sense hidden away inside the American’s mind. He had initially thought he’d bring him along as bait, but it would have been too difficult to keep him alive without giving the game away.

Belah smiled slowly to himself. His trap was already set, his chemical suit was hidden under his battledress, and by the end of the night, the Thunderbirds would at last be his.

0o0o0

Standing at the back of Thunderbird Two’s cockpit with arms crossed over his chest, Scarlet was utterly still as he waited for the moment to act. He knew that this hyper focused state sometimes scared his fellow captains, but he needed the complete calm that it bestowed upon him. He had every possibility he could consider mapped out and prepared for, and should the worst happen, Cloudbase was nearby and the Angels would be ready to swoop in with Interceptors and the medical heli’.

He’d been surprised when a grave-faced Virgil had told him that they had a full decontamination unit and routinely carried all known antidotes/treatments for chemical weapons in the medical bay, but Virgil went on to explain that they’d been out to enough hazmat sites and weapon dumps that carrying precautions like that had been deemed wise.

“Okay, it looks like your guys have cleared out of the area,” Virgil announced as he guided the massive transporter in.

John and Green had worked their technological wizardry to let the Thunderbirds detect Spectrum comms equipment and map their locations so the two Thunderbirds didn’t accidentally land on anyone. They’d also finally figured out how to tie the two comms systems together so everyone could talk to each other as well as pipe the feed through to their respective control rooms.

“I’ve got chemical suits ready to go here in One. Virgil?” Scott radioed the question.

“Getting into mine as soon as we’re down, decon unit is prepped and ready,” Virgil replied. “Scarlet?”

“Ready.” Scarlet reached up to tap the buttons inside his ‘Cap that would turn off his shoulder epaulettes and have the audio only come into his left ear- he needed to hear any radio chatter, but he also had to be able to hear his surroundings. He also left the microphone down to keep the group radio link up- with any luck, between the darkness and how small it was, The Hood would miss it. As the aircraft touched down and the engines spooled down, he loosened his pistol in its holster. “Scarlet to all points, I’m going in now.”

0o0o0

On the small speck of rock and bush to the north of the main island of Pulau Karangmalang, Black ignored the two Angel Interceptors circling overhead, using night vision binoculars to observe the sail of a small submarine breaking the surface of the ink-dark sea. He continued his observations and it was only when the lone occupant clambered out onto the beach that he lowered the field glasses. Standing stock still, he waited as the Mysteron Collective ruminated on which plan of theirs would give the greatest effect.

Hubris was one of the Mysterons’ favourite human flaws, a fatal failing so easy to exploit. In his overwhelming pride, The Hood had thought that he could subvert the will of the Mysterons to serve his own ends and profit from their work. Such arrogance would not be permitted to go unpunished.

A plan decided upon, the Mysterons reached out through their conduit to make their will known. The flashes of green light at several of the disabled gas bombs were lost in the powerful white glow of the Thunderbirds’ landing lights as the two craft settled on the uneven ground of the island and shut down their engines.

As the last of the green lights faded and feeling well pleased with themselves, the Mysteron Collective directed their proxy to raise his field glasses so they could observe proceedings. Using The Hood’s own trap against him had a certain poetic justice to it, a concept that the Mysterons were extremely fond of employing in their War of Nerves against humanity.

Chapter 14

Scarlet took his time leaving Thunderbird Two, using it to give himself a chance to get a sense for the place and figure out the wind direction and strength. The warm night breeze that ruffled the hair on the back of his head was light and landward, southeast to northwest at his educated guess. “This clearing is on the eastern side of the island, Thunderbird One is west of me, Two is positioned south, and Magenta’s team are as far south as they can go and getting on their heli to get out of here. If I angle left towards the coastline, I should be able to stay upwind of anything.”

Painfully aware of exactly how clear a target he was- silhouetted against the Thunderbird’s interior lights- he descended from the pod ramp and walked forward until he was out under the nose of the Thunderbird and onto the rocky clearing, dotted here and there with the odd hardy shrub and a handful of dead trees.

“My night vision is rubbish right now, but hopefully The Hood’s will be too.” Scarlet hooked a thumb in his gun belt as he scanned the area for any sign of the man- be it sound, sight or smell of him.

“Ah, welcome, Captain. You must be Scarlet.”

The heavy accent was such a mish-mash it was obviously faked, but fake or not, it was good enough to disguise his country of origin. No accent would have covered the sneering superiority in his tone though.

“And you must be The Hood.” Scarlet had the man’s rough location identified before he’d finished speaking, but he couldn’t yet see the man against the pool of darkness that extended beyond the narrow reach of the lights. “Of course you’re where I want to be, it must be the safest spot. I bet your boat or what not is over there too, but I just don’t know if you’ve brought any friends,” was his thought to himself before he spoke again. “We’ve brought the Thunderbirds and three of the pilots.”

“Yes, so I see, so I see,” The Hood replied, sounding well pleased.

“Where is Captain Blue?” Scarlet knew full well where Adam was, but he couldn’t let on that The Hood had just lost his ace in the hole. The good news was that the featureless darkness was starting to resolve into more recognisable shapes as his eyes adapted. He wouldn’t have his full night vision, not with the ‘Birds’ lights still on, but with any luck it’d be enough to confirm if The Hood was alone or not.

“Safe. I will hand over your friend once I take possession of my new ships.”

“How do we know that you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Scarlet asked, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he was playing for time. “Come on, just a little bit more…”

“You do not. But as I told your colonel, I am a businessman. As long as you uphold your end of the deal, so shall I.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t choked on all those lies,” Scarlet mused to himself, recalling some of the information that Magenta had managed to dig up. “Very well. How are we to proceed?”

“You shall order your comrades to bring out the Thunderbird pilots and bring them here.” The Hood’s command was sharp, but there was an undertone to it that Scarlet just couldn’t describe beyond that it meant ‘bad intentions towards me’.

“Ah, so that’s the scheme, gas the lot of us in one fell swoop, hm? Bet you’ve got a haz-mat suit on so you can watch us all die, that seems to be your speed.”

Scarlet nodded and partially turned away, bringing his hand up as if to murmur orders into his microphone. All the while though, he was watching and waiting for the final confirmation that he needed. It was The Hood’s own impatience that betrayed him, a shift of weight from foot to foot that distinguished him from the dark shadow of the dead snag that had hidden him. “Gotcha.”

Finally sure of where he was and that the man was alone, Scarlet exploded into action. He ripped the pistol out of his holster as he moved diagonally at a sprint, aiming to put the sea at his back to cut off The Hood from whatever craft that had brought him here. Within heartbeats he was facing a bald man roughly as tall as he was, his bushy eyebrows raised in surprise at the weapon pointed at his nose. “Hold it right there, Hood,” Scarlet snarled out the command, holding his sidearm with both hands. “You’re under arrest.”

The Hood quickly regained his composure and glared at Scarlet. “Fool!” he sneered. “Now, you will obey me!” His eyes glowed as he exerted his will on the soldier before him.

Scarlet swayed on his feet at the oily feeling of someone else’s mind trying to overlay his own, inhaled sharply, shook himself and laughed - a derisive, dismissive sound- as the presence lost its grip and fell away. “Worse than you have tried and failed, Hood,” he spat the words out, the gun in his hands rock steady as he aimed it right between The Hood’s eyes. “Turn off the light show, or I’ll turn it off for you.”

“How are you resisting me?” The Hood staggered back in shock, but his eyes lost their eerie light.

“Like I said,” Scarlet’s voice was ice cold, “I’ve encountered worse than you. Ah!” He touched the trigger as he spied one of The Hood’s hands creeping to his thigh pocket. “Hands up. We know about your little gas bombs. Over there,” he nodded towards the centre of the clearing. “Move it, now.”

Obediently The Hood raised his hands and started shuffling over the uneven ground.

“Scarlet, I’m coming out to assist,” Ochre radioed.

“S.I…” Scarlet trailed off, feeling a sweat break out on his forehead and an ache start up behind his eyes. “Belay that, button up! Mysterons!”

Chapter 15

“Belay that, button up! Mysterons!”

High above in Cloudbase, White sat with elbows on his desk and hands interlaced. He ignored the hiss of indrawn breath from Green- a stone statue would have been more animated than the CIC of Spectrum in this moment.

White didn’t need to look to know that the medical helicopter was ready on the pad, Rhapsody at the controls and two flight nurses in the back suited up and ready to start treatment as soon as the skids hit the ground. Fawn had the decontamination stations set up in the hallway from the hangar and his team was prepared for receiving casualties.

Right now was the hard part- all the doing had been done and all that was left was to wait and see what the butcher’s bill would be.

0o0o0

“Belay that, button up! Mysterons!”

Jeff stood at his desk, hands braced on the blotter as he glowered at the speaker, a feeling of guilt at “I let myself be convinced to put my boys in danger” rolling through his head. But that thought was immediately counteracted by a second- if he hadn’t let his boys continue the mission they’d have defied him and gone anyway. These were his sons- after Captain Blue was kidnapped and then Captain Scarlet taking bullets for Virgil, there was a debt to pay and they absolutely would not shy away from paying that debt.

Beside him, John was muttering every exotic swear word he knew, arms wrapped around himself and toe tapping the floor in a rare display of agitation. Conversely, Kyrano was a serene presence at his other side, simply listening for now. Brains and Tin Tin were already in the infirmary, getting it ready just in case, and Jeff knew that the engineers would already be debating new upgrades to their equipment should something like this ever happen again. Alan was down in the hangar control booth, prepping the decontamination protocols for when his brothers came home.

But right now all they could do was wait to see how this played out.

0o0o0

Time slowed to a crawl as adrenaline kicked in.

Scarlet heard the faint, high pitched hiss of the gas dispensers and instinctively twisted to face the other way, into the wind that still drifted over the island.

“What? They’ve betrayed me?!” The Hood sounded shocked at the idea, spitting out the words as he reached behind his head to start to pull up the bright yellow plastic of a chemical suit.

“Hold it!” Scarlet snarled, shifting to level his pistol at the man. But the criminal mastermind was quicker than he’d expected- one hand whipped up to dig into the tendons of Scarlet’s wrist with savage strength while the other smacked the pistol out of his grip. His gun went spinning off into the darkness, but as The Hood turned and fled into the gloom, Scarlet pulled the knife out from under the back of his tunic and sent it whistling through the air after him. Scarlet was grimly pleased to hear a yelp of pain - even if it was just a minor wound, odds were high he’d just holed the man’s chem-suit. “Hopefully he’s just been hoisted on his own petard,” was Scarlet’s thought as he turned and fled towards Thunderbird Two.

He heard thrusters fire as Thunderbird One leapt up from the ground to avoid the blooming cloud of poisonous gas, In the meantime, Two lowered herself down over the closed pod and dropped a rescue strop. He lunged for the strop, looping his head and arms through the padded strap. “GO! GO!” he hollered into his microphone as soon as he was secure.

The sound of the Thunderbird taking off lived up to the name as they rapidly ascended into the night and fled the island for the safety of the mainland. It was just a short hop for the aircraft, going directly to the cliff above the beach they’d dropped Grey and Gordon at. The two Angels followed them, certainly living up to their name as they kept an eye on the situation from above.

When they reached solid ground, Virgil put Thunderbird Two into a hover and reeled him down first, then the two aircraft backed off to a safe distance just in case they were contaminated. Paul was extremely glad to hear the radio chatter between the two pilots as they scanned each other’s ships and got the all clear- somehow they’d managed to dodge the sarin and get away clean.

As the Thunderbirds landed, Scarlet picked out a convenient rock to sit on while he waited for the Tracys and Ochre to disembark. Today really was catching up to him, and he was very much looking forward to wrapping up this mission and getting everyone back to base, safe and sound.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move that fast!” Scott exclaimed as he walked over from his Thunderbird, Ochre close behind.

“Thanks, I really didn’t feel like adding ‘died from sarin gas’ to my bingo card,” was Scarlet’s response, coloured with wry humour. He ignored the worried, querying eyebrow that Scott gave Ochre and the muttered ‘no, he doesn’t actually have a bingo card’ from Rick- he knew from experience that the British sense of humour sometimes missed the mark with Yanks who weren’t used to it. He peeled himself up off the ground with a groan and rubbed his right wrist, feeling the itch of healing bruises where The Hood had grabbed him. “Let’s go find Blue, Grey and Gordon. I don’t know about you chaps, but today has been very long and I’d very much like to go home.”

“I hear you,” Scott nodded, plucking a handheld communicator from his pocket. “Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Four. Gordon, is there any other way down to you?”

“Affirmative, Thunderbird One,” Gordon’s voice was slightly tinny from the small handset. “It’s a series of caves, and there seems to be a doorway leading to the surface from the third cave, next to the one we’re currently in. It’s locked though, and we haven’t found anything that’ll get us through.”

“Lemme get back onto that ground penetrating radar,” Virgil spoke up. “We should be able to find it now that I can give the area a proper scan, and I’ve got plenty of det cord and some C-2 on board.”

“F.A.B, Virgil.” Scott nodded to his brother, then turned back to Scarlet. “What about The Hood?”

“He got away,” Scarlet grimaced. “I’m fairly certain I put a hole in his chemical suit with a knife, but I didn’t see the hit.”

“That guy’s got more lives than a cat,” was Scott’s grim answer to that. “We’ve seen him get buried alive, blown up, run off the road and more, but he’s turned up like a bad penny every time. We’ll let you fellas know if he shows his ugly mug again.”

“We’d appreciate that,” Ochre told Scott, sharing a brief but significant look with Scarlet as he spoke. “He’s made this one personal.” The subtext was clear- no one attacked one of theirs and got away with it.

“F.A.B.” Scott nodded sharply. “I’ll update my base while you two update yours.”

“S.I.G.” Ochre was already pulling his microphone down as he spoke.

0o0o0

It took less than half an hour to find the door embedded in the ground, cleverly concealed under a flat rock. It had a mechanism to raise and lower it- probably radio-controlled- but being in no mood to invest the necessary effort to crack the frequency, they used crowbars instead to get the rock out of the way. Carefully placed strings of C2- a low-yield plastique explosive- encouraged the steel door frame to relinquish its grip on the limestone that held it and they were into The Hood’s hideaway.

Virgil whistled as he swept his flashlight around the dark chamber, playing the beam over the haphazardly stacked crates stencilled with the names of dozens of different manufacturers and companies. “It’s like Aladdin’s Cave in here!”

“Mm, Spectrum Intelligence and local law enforcement are going to have a field day with all of this,” was Scarlet’s absent comment as he also checked over the area, looking for any unexpected surprises.

“Virgil, over here!” Gordon’s voice echoed from off to their right.

They followed the rough path through the boxes and crates to a smaller, better lit cave that was kitted out with a cooking area, a washing machine and other facilities. Blue was half-reclined on a pile of cushions, an IV still running into his arm and an empty juice bottle showed he’d been able to drink a little at least. Grey was sitting next to him and Gordon was busy re-splinting Blue’s leg.

“I see you found our damsel in distress,” Ochre teased as he approached. The look he got from Blue in return was flat and promised retribution while Gordon’s face lit up as he realised he’d found a kindred spirit.

Virgil sidled up to Grey. “Prankster?” he asked quietly, gesturing at Ochre.

“Yep.”

“Gordon’s ours. Do not leave them alone together.”

“S.I.G.”

Unaware of the exchange, Ochre put the teasing aside for the moment and crouched to look over Gordon’s handiwork. “Blue, you going to be able to walk on that leg?” he asked, frowning slightly as he considered the best way to get Adam up to the surface.

“With some help, sure,” Blue rasped.

“I’ll take care of that,” Scarlet declared, his tone one that didn’t invite disagreement. “Green said the heli’ would be down here shortly, you’ll be going straight into Medical for a check over.”

“Great.” Blue didn’t sound exactly enthused, but he was sensible enough to not disagree- while you had to know him to see it, now that the immediate threat was dealt with, he could tell that Scarlet was on the verge of having a very quiet freak out over what had happened.

“I’ll get our things from the beach,” Gordon said as he finished taping the splint into place and rose, grabbing a large plastic bag from the open medical kit he’d been rifling through. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“S.I.G.” Grey nodded to him as he left. “Give me your arm, Blue, looks like that IV can come out now.”

“What about the Mysterons?” Scott asked, looking between the four Spectrum officers. “Is this it from them?”

“That was three attempts and they tried to take out The Hood as well as the rest of us,” Scarlet looked to his brothers in arms and got their nods. “I think so. It’ll pay to still be careful going forwards, but I’d say you’re safe now.”

“Agreed. So, on to other matters.” Ochre stood and addressed the Tracys. “It’s going to make our report writing a hell of a lot easier if we can just forget you’re the Tracy family and if you can just forget all of our names. We still have to say something to the Old Man, but it’ll be verbal only, and he knows how to keep secrets.”

“What the brass doesn’t know they can’t get upset about?” Scott asked with a knowing grin.

“Exactly.”

“Seems like a fair trade to me,” Virgil chimed in. “Your identities will be safe with us.”

“Perfect.”

“Rhapsody Angel to Captains Scarlet, Blue, Ochre and Grey, I’m on approach now.” Rhapsody’s voice broke in.

“S.I.G., we’ll be out shortly,” Scarlet answered, then reached out to help Blue to his feet. “I’ll get Captain Hopalong upstairs if you two can do the debrief?” He grinned as he ignored the growl and cuff to his shoulder from Blue.

“Get going, we’ll be up shortly,” Grey chuckled, waving the two of them off.

“S.I.G.”

0o0o0

The debrief didn’t take long- mostly filling each other in on what had happened while the team was split up and sorting out logistics of tidying up the loose ends- the contaminated island being a rather large one. That Brains was concocting a neutralising agent for the sarin gas was welcome news to Spectrum and that Spectrum had already liaised with local authorities and WASP to get the area cordoned off had impressed International Rescue. In furtherance of that, Magenta was dispatched to Jakarta to hurry things along and coordinate resources from the World Government to manufacture and dispense the formula once Brains had finished testing it.

When the last calls had been placed, Scott volunteered to go find Scarlet and make sure the helicopter was ready to leave while Grey and Ochre grabbed the last of their personal effects from the Thunderbirds. He rounded the bulk of Thunderbird Two, stopped short when he spied what was happening beside the Spectrum helicopter and quickly stepped back into cover.

He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have seen that.

More specifically, he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have seen them.

Scarlet and Rhapsody were standing in the lee of the helicopter, arms around each other, eyes closed and foreheads touching in a close embrace that was somehow more intimate than a kiss would have been. It was a comforting gesture, one that spoke of reassurance, a deep love and of being anchored.

“Having seen what that guy goes through, I’m glad he’s got her and the other captains,” was Scott’s thought as he recalled how Scarlet had lunged in front of Virgil in the salt mine. The action had been so automatic it was obviously a habit for him to take the hits that someone else couldn’t. “I hate to interrupt them, but duty calls.” He took a breath and hoped he sounded believably oblivious as he called out, “Captain Scarlet? Where are you?” He waited a beat to give them a moment to compose themselves, then started walking around Two. “Ah, there you are.”

If he hadn’t seen what he had, he wouldn’t have imagined the two of them had anything but a professional relationship by how they now stood next to each other, an arm’s length apart.

“Everything all right?” Scarlet asked.

“Yes, just letting you know that Grey and Ochre will be here soon,” Scott replied.

“Good, I’ll be glad to get back to base.” Scarlet nodded, flicking a glance to the back of the helicopter where Blue was ensconced with the nurses.

“I hear ya, this has been a hell of a long day.” Scott looked between the two of them. “If you need us, you know how to get in touch.”

“The same.” Scarlet offered him a wry smile. “Though I do hope if we do meet again, it will be under less dire circumstances.”

“Ha! Same here.” Scott grinned back, then he did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. Clicking to attention, he offered them both a crisp salute. “An honour working with you and the others, Captain Scarlet, Rhapsody Angel.”

The two Spectrum officers also came to attention and returned the salute. “The same, Captain Tracy,” Scarlet replied for them both.

“And thank you for what you and your family do out there,” Rhapsody added. “People like International Rescue make what we do worth it.”

“You’re welcome,” Scott smiled. He half turned when he heard a scuff of a boot on rock and saw the rest of the group approaching. “C’mon, fellas,” he addressed his brothers. “Let’s go home.”

Epilogue

Three weeks later

“As soon as I get back to the hotel, this thing’s going straight into the nearest bin,” was Jeff Tracy’s sour thought. He had both hands wrapped around his empty coffee cup to keep himself from scratching at the fake salt-and-pepper beard currently glued to his face. Being famous had its drawbacks, which included the lengths they all had to go to to keep up their cover and have some privacy when out and about. While he’d have been happier if the pending meeting could have been a ‘phone call, this was a topic best discussed face to face. Since he wasn’t about to invite them to his island, and they weren’t going to invite him to their base, they met in the middle instead.

“Your coffee, sir.” The waiter glided into view with a laden tray and Jeff accepted the fresh cup with a nod and a smile. The Bookroom was a small, high end coffee shop and with its ‘cosy’ decor and the well-stocked bookshelves for patrons to peruse it made for the perfect spot for a quiet meeting. It was tucked away just inside Mason’s Avenue and almost directly across from the Guildhall in the City of London (which, Penelope had taken pains to inform him, was different to London City). He’d chosen a pair of faded oxblood leather wingback chairs towards the back and close to the wall, selecting for himself the one that had a clear view of both the front door and the kitchen door.

Which was why he almost leapt out of his skin when Charles suddenly and unexpectedly appeared from off to his right with a calm “Good afternoon, Jeff.”

“Charles.” Jeff wasn’t as successful as he would have liked to have been at concealing how startled he was. “Take a seat.”

The waiter reappearing with a tea set on a tray necessitated a pause, and once he’d left, Charles poured himself a cup. “An excellent choice of venue,” he said as he put the teapot back down.

“Thanks. So I take it we’re okay to talk here?” Jeff asked as he picked up his coffee and sipped it.

“We are.” Charles almost imperceptibly nodded to a group of four at the table in the middle of the room- two men with their backs to them- one blond and one dark haired- with two women, a blonde and a redhead. “My people have things well in hand.”

“Good.” Jeff let that hang for a moment. “Your people who were injured, are they okay?” It was polite to ask.

“They are indeed.” Charles picked up his cup but didn’t drink from it yet. “Blue wishes to pass on his thanks to your operative for coming after him.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that,” Jeff nodded and got down to business. “So, the elephants in the room- The Hood and those folks from outside the neighbourhood.”

“I can confirm that the ‘folks’,” an amused note coloured Charles’ tone at his foes being dubbed as such, “have lost interest and moved on to another target. As for The Hood,” he grimaced. “Once the area was safe- and that was a very clever concoction your engineer cooked up- we searched it with a fine toothed comb. There’s not a trace of him. WASP thought they’d detected a submersible of some sort in the area and we’ve spread the net, but it’s like he’s fallen off the face of the earth.”

“Ah hell.” Jeff tapped his first two fingers on his cup and sat back in his armchair, scowling at the stained surface of the coffee table between them. “When the boys told me what’d happened I’d hoped that’d be the last of him, but I’m not settling for anything less than seeing his body before I accept that he’s dead.”

“Even then, it may not yet be the end of him,” was White’s quiet response to that, mindful of the people around them.

“Yeah,” Jeff grimaced behind his beard. “I’ll tell Penny, she’s looking for him too.” He grinned at his old friend. “She hasn’t said it, she’s too much of a lady for that, but she’s taken his continued existence as a personal offence.”

“Then I wish her good hunting.” Charles was clearly amused by the news. “We shall pass on anything we learn. Though we do have our differences, I think we can both agree that The Hood is a threat to the world at large if he’ll collaborate with ‘the folks’.”

“You’ve got that right.” Jeff sipped his coffee as he considered what he was going to say next. It’d been the topic of several loud discussions on the Island, and he finally had to admit that there was no neutral ground on this one. “Charles, you’re right about our differences, but when it comes to world-ending stuff, you can count on us.” He passed his now empty cup from hand to hand. “My engineers have had some ideas, can we send them your way for your egg-heads to look over?”

“Why the change of heart?” Charles asked. He clearly had Jeff’s earlier recalcitrance in mind and was wanting more information before he would commit to anything.

“Because we can’t save people if there’s no people left to save,” was Jeff’s blunt answer. “Those out-of-towners… they’re toying with us, and I’ve never been one to stand by and let some bully swagger in and throw their weight around.”

“No, no, you have not,” was Charles’ response to that. He held out his hand. “We will certainly welcome all and any assistance you can give.”

Jeff took his hand and shook it firmly. “Just like old times, huh?” he asked with a grin. “All we need is to get Sam on board and we’ll be the Three Musketeers again.”

“Indeed.” White smiled faintly. “Now, what are these ideas your engineers have had?”