BANSHEE by TIYLAYA RATED FRT

When Alan starts hearing things on Thunderbird Five, John is naturally concerned. When John begins to share his brother's delusion... well, that's when he really gets worried.

Author’s Notes: Many thanks to both quiller and my long-suffering mother for proof-reading this story, which was the winner of the Tracy Island Writer's Forum 2010 Hallowe'en Challenge.

"You know what, John? Why don't you head on back home with Scott? You can owe me this month. I was kind of in the middle of something up here anyway."

Alan shifted from foot to foot, his hands hovering uncertainly over the nearest control panel. He wouldn't meet his older brother's eyes, and his voice had risen in pitch as the words poured out. He was quite clearly on edge, almost frightened. Even without the physical clues, though, John would still have stared at the younger man in mingled shock and concern.

"You're kidding!"

His conversations with Alan on changeover day tended towards a maximum of three sentences long. Whoever was coming up and whoever going down, they rarely got much further than 'Hello/Goodbye'. At most John and his brother might exchange a few comments on International Rescue business, but anything else waited for long-distance conversations, keeping Thunderbird Three's turnaround as rapid as possible. After a month of isolation, it was only natural to crave a swift journey home, and, however much Alan pretended otherwise, both astronauts were equally eager to check over their half-year home and get themselves settled when incoming.

Alan had never, in all the changeovers since International Rescue began, spontaneously offered to take a double shift. He'd never once looked so uncertain about heading down to Earth.

"Come on, Alan! Get a move on!" Scott's cheerful voice burst from their wrist-coms, breaking the uneasy silence. Alan took an automatic step towards the hatch before stopping, his expression torn as he looked back at his only blond brother. He still hadn't expanded on his initial offer, and, in fact, seemed at a loss for words of any kind.

John threw an exasperated glance towards the airlock and raised his wrist to his lips. "Give us a few minutes, Scott," he called back. Eyes still on Alan's huddled posture, he moved to the main console, glancing over the space station's status displays as he wracked his brain for an explanation. "Have you been arguing with Tin-Tin again?"

He knew at once that he was wide of the mark. Alan's relationship with Tin-Tin might be a roller-coaster ride for all the family to enjoy, but the anxiety in Alan's bright, blue eyes was not directed inwards, or back down toward the Island. It was focussed firmly on John.

John gave up on subtlety, fixing his younger brother with a direct look. "What's wrong, Alan?"

Stranded halfway between the environmental controls and the airlock hatch, Alan squirmed, breaking eye contact. He gave a deep sigh and then straightened his shoulders, raising his head to meet John's gaze with a curious mixture of defensiveness and defiance.

"John," he began a little hesitantly. "Do you believe in the supernatural?"

"Alan, I swear, if this is something Gordon's put you up to as a Halloween prank…"

Alan gave him an irritated look. "Halloween's a whole week away! I've been up here a full month already! Do you think Gordon could talk me into staying up here a minute longer than I had to? Do you think I'd offer for fun?"

John sighed, running a hand through his hair. "No," he said, calm in the face of his little brother's hot-tempered outburst. "I don't think that. Sit down, Alan. I want you to tell me everything."

"What's going on?" Scott sounded bewildered as he wandered through the airlock and onto Thunderbird Five's control deck ten minutes later. John barely glanced up, calling out a string of numbers and waiting for Alan to confirm them before looking over his shoulder at his elder brother.

"Alan and I were just checking a few systems and discussing how long it's been since we last did a full diagnostic. We were wondering if it's time for another."

Scott's eyes first widened and then narrowed. His piercing gaze swept around the curve of the room, taking in the flawless array of green lights, and he cocked his head to listen to the steady background of all's-well beeps and chimes. He gave his two younger brothers the same rapid assessment, hesitating on Alan, before turning a questioning look towards John.

"A full, two-man, twelve-hour, crawl through ventilation shafts and space walk around the station, diagnostic?"

"Uh-huh."

"The sort that Brains said we might need once every two years, at most, and which we did all of ten months ago?"

John met his eyes steadily. "That would be the one."

Scott folded his arms across his chest. The question 'why?' was written all over his face, but he pursed his lips, glancing again at Alan. John followed his gaze. Their younger brother had turned back towards the monitor nearby, making notes on a data-pad as he avoided Scott's eyes. Even so, the muscles of his back were taut beneath his uniform, and his first brief glimpse of their brother's face had been enough to tell Scott that Alan looked tired.

Scott shot a quick, questioning look back at John. He could only offer a shrug, a frown and a discouraging shake of his head in return. Given what Alan had just told him, he really didn't want their eldest brother to push this, but nor did he want their field commander to veto the proposed tests.

Scott sighed in confused frustration. "And you were planning on keeping me waiting in Thunderbird Three the whole twelve hours?"

"We thought you might want to head back home and come pick me up later?" Alan offered the comment as a suggestion, stealing a quick glance over his shoulder before turning back to the console.

Their brother's frown deepened. Arms still folded, he drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite arm. "You're sure this is necessary?" he asked John.

Now the senior space monitor was the one to hesitate. He shook his head. "Not really," he admitted. He met Alan's eyes reassuringly as his little brother threw a look of shocked betrayal back at him. "But given how much time Alan and I spend alone up here, I think it'll make everyone feel better if we're quite sure everything's as it should be."

Scott looked from one brother to the other.

"And that's all the explanation you're going to give me, isn't it?" he guessed. "No matter how often I ask." He sighed and sent a pensive glance toward the blue-green orb visible through the panoramic windows. "If Gordon has to fly my Thunderbird while I'm up here, I am going to make both of you truly regret this."

"Scott?"

"It will go faster if I help. You're going to need Thunderbird Three up here to monitor the space walk anyway."

"Scott, you don't have to…"

Scott's voice took on the firm tones that they had long since learnt not to argue with. "Can it, Alan. If you're not going to explain, don't even try to object. I've no idea what's got the two of you spooked, but if you think I'm going to leave either of you stranded up here while there's any question about the space station, you've got another think coming."

John grinned as Scott took control, dividing and assigning their duties. His older brother might be the least familiar with Thunderbird Five of the three men present, but John was more than willing to take a back seat. He still couldn't quite believe he'd volunteered them for this much work on the basis of so little. If anyone had to explain to their father just why three of his operatives would be tied up for the better part of a day, by all means let it be Scott.

Their eldest brother said nothing when the laborious, exhausting diagnostic process gave Thunderbird Five a flawless bill of health nine hours later. Even so, Scott was visibly peeved. The hard look he gave John before stepping into the airlock promised a detailed interrogation, but not before he'd returned home for food, sleep and a much-needed shower. Trailing his elder brother onto Thunderbird Three, Alan looked, if anything, more worried than when they'd started. John himself just felt a mild concern.

He hadn't really expected to find anything serious… not after the dozen or so major systems checks Alan had logged in the past week. He'd still hoped to find some minor, niggling problem that would explain what Alan thought he'd heard. Something they could fix to set his baby brother's mind to rest about leaving John up here alone.

That they hadn't rather limited John's options as he bade his brothers an awkward goodbye. Watching Thunderbird Three detach and turn for Earth, giving the correct radio responses by rote, John was left with only two logical possibilities. Either his little brother was going seriously nuts, or, as Alan vehemently asserted, International Rescue's space station – John's home for the next month – was haunted.

He was feeling somewhat more sanguine about the whole affair by the time Alan called the following evening. A quiet twenty-four hours in Thunderbird Five had worked its usual magic, relaxing him and restoring his nerves after a month in the friendly chaos of his family home. Awkward conversations with Scott and their father aside, John had almost been able to forget the surreal changeover.

"Alan," John offered his brother a brief smile and a rapid assessment. Alan looked better. A day of pampering from Tin-Tin and Grandma seemed to have restored most of the younger man's equilibrium. His eyes still showed a hint of anxiety, but there was more colour in his cheeks than there had been.

"Hey, Johnny." Alan gave John a half-embarrassed, half-concerned grin in return as the picture steadied. "Just thought I'd say hello."

John smiled back, more easily this time. He settled into his chair, blowing on the mug of coffee he'd left out of sight until sure it wasn't his grandmother calling. Reaching over, he dialled down the volume on the classical music playing through the station. Alan wouldn't hear it; Thunderbird Five's intelligent com filters allowed only the space monitor's voice through, but John wanted to give his little brother his full attention. His rather pink little brother.

"You're looking a lot, um… brighter," he laughed.

Alan shrugged, raising a self-conscious hand to his sun-kissed nose. "Scott had me reading technical reports by the pool all day. I think it's his version of 'light duties'." He grimaced, his expression a little defensive. "I kind of forgot the sun-block and, ah…"

"Fell asleep? You were looking tired yesterday," John suggested gently. "And we did work pretty hard on the diagnostic. You're due a little down time."

"That's more or less what Dad said." Alan flushed, looking down and away from the camera. "I… I just told him I'd been sleeping badly."

John hummed noncommittally. It was what he'd told their father too: that Alan seemed a bit over-tired and the diagnostic had been a precaution to reassure him rather than a necessity.

"I'm sure Tin-Tin will see to it you get plenty of rest," he suggested. He replayed that sentence in his head and chuckled, raising an eyebrow. "Or perhaps not."

"John!" Despite his shocked tone, Alan's face took on the unique expression of mingled pride, embarrassment, guilt, nonchalance and joyful disbelief at his own luck that it adopted whenever his brothers teased him about his girlfriend. John suppressed his laughter with an effort.

"So," he said, letting his little brother off the hook, "any plans for the rest of the month?"

Alan warmed to his subject as he described the adjustments he planned to make to his latest race car. John sat back in his chair, glad just to listen and nod at appropriate intervals. The sun was setting over the island, and the shadows lengthening behind Alan, when John's little brother finally turned the conversation back to Thunderbird Five.

"Well," Alan said, tone bright and relaxed. "Enough about me. How's it going up there?"

John schooled his face into a mysterious expression. "Quiet as the grave," he said in his spookiest voice.

He'd intended his comment as a kind of joke, expecting his little brother to launch into indignant protests at the ridicule, or just to laugh along. It fell flat. Any semblance of relaxation dropped away. Lines that John had noticed but dismissed as lingering tiredness tightened around Alan's eyes, and his lips thinned. His youngest brother's unhappy silence as much as his tense expression told John that Alan wasn't nearly as much improved as he'd thought. He sighed, realising how badly he'd misjudged Alan's carefree façade, and made his voice far gentler. "Relax, Al. I haven't heard a thing, and we checked for problems, remember?"

"I told you, John." Alan's expression was deadly earnest, the comfortable conversation of minutes before forgotten. "It only starts when the 'Birds are out on rescues."

John shook his head, his concerns of the previous day back with full force. He'd downplayed the situation in his communications with home for Alan's sake, convincing himself that his brother would be fine after a little rest. Now he wondered just how big a mistake he'd made. Perhaps he should give Scott another call…

"Look, Johnny." The flush on Alan's cheeks now had nothing to do with sunburn. His wide blue eyes conveyed an embarrassing amount of gratitude. "Thanks for not telling everyone about… about all this. They're going to think I've gone loopy. I really appreciate you not saying anything. You won't, will you? You're not going to tell anyone what I heard? They won't believe me."

Not for the first time, John cursed the ability all his brothers shared to guilt-trip him without even realising it.

"Alan, you're overtired, that's all. Scott doesn't need me to tell him that. Dad neither for that matter."

Alan sighed, his expression thoroughly miserable now he was no longer projecting a cheerful front. "I know you don't believe me either, John. But thanks, anyway. And, well, take care up there, okay? If you want to talk – after the next rescue, maybe – well, you know where to find me."

Forcing a smile he couldn't put his heart behind, John nodded.

"Will do!" he agreed. He hesitated, treading carefully. "And, Alan, if you want someone to talk to yourself… If you hear these… well, hear anything strange again… down there I mean… you'll call me too, won't you?"

"Alan honey! Dinner time!" Their grandmother's voice was about the last thing John wanted to hear at that moment. Alan barely had time to glance up at the screen with a nod before the bedroom door opened behind him, and Grandma bustled in. "Come along, Alan… Oh, John! I'm sorry to interrupt you, honey, but it's your dinnertime too, you know. Now you're going to look after yourself, aren't you, sweetheart? I don't want you coming home looking as peaky as your brother did…"

John smiled, agreeing with everything his grandmother said and watching as she herded his helpless little brother out of his own bedroom. The smile faded. He sat for several minutes, just staring at the blank screen of the deactivated com-link. When he looked up he let his eyes sweep the control deck, listening to the regular hums and beeps of his fully operational space station. He caught himself concentrating harder, straining to hear anything even slightly out of the ordinary. He shook his head, and then stood, shaking himself all over to relieve the tension.

Abandoning his mug and the dregs of his now-cold coffee, he headed for Thunderbird Five's observatory and an evening's stargazing. Alan would be all right. He'd just had a few bad dreams, the isolation of space aggravating the resulting anxiety. He'd be right as rain within a week, and it wasn't as if a little peace and quiet had ever bothered John. There was nothing to worry about.

He just wished he could understand why Alan was so convinced otherwise.

"Thunderbird Five from Thunderbird Two. Launch sequence complete. Requesting course confirmation and situation update."

"F.A.B., Virgil. Your course is already in Thunderbird Two's computer." John read out the numbers. Visible on the main screen in Thunderbird Five, Virgil glanced down at his course monitor. John waited until he looked up with a nod before going on. "Danger zone situation unchanged. Nineteen individuals, thirteen of them minors, trapped on a twenty-third storey roof. High winds are grounding rescue aircraft in the area and fanning the inferno. Local crews can't extinguish the fire, but are holding it below the fourteenth floor. Scott confirms that, by the way. He reckons they might lose another few floors, but the fire should still be well below roof level by the time you reach the site."

"ETA forty-six point five minutes," Virgil provided obligingly. John checked the feed from Mobile Control, unsurprised to find Scott already had a countdown timer set for Thunderbird Two, and hit a key sequence to confirm that the heavy aircraft was on schedule.

"So we'll be using the rescue capsule to winch them up?" That was Gordon, appearing at his elder brother's shoulder.

Virgil gave a non-committal grunt. "Too slow. They're holding the flames back, but the heat is still weakening the structure. It could go any time. We need to take them off more than three or four at a time, if we can."

Gordon mirrored John's frown. "How?"

"Scott's thinking about it," Virgil told them with the slightest shrug.

John couldn't help smiling. Virgil's confidence in their elder brother was boundless. It was one they all shared. He glanced over his consoles, checking for updates from the danger zone and interested to note that Scott was running technical calculations on the Mobile Control unit. In a well-practiced sweep, his eyes scanned the status displays for the two Thunderbirds and for the Island, each under constant surveillance from an array of dedicated transmitter/receivers on Thunderbird Five's main antenna mast. Scott's pale blue light and the symbol for an active Mobile Control both sheltered under Thunderbird One's distinctive icon, closer to the fire than John would have liked but forced into that decision by the close-packed buildings. Thunderbird Two was still mid-Pacific, the assigned sensor dish slewing fast to track her motion. The 'Bird's icon was lit with Virgil's yellow glow, Gordon's orange hovering beside it. A glance at the island's display showed the steady symbol for John's father in the office with Alan's white alongside.

"Dad's keeping Alan close."

John didn't mean to voice the observation aloud, and didn't realise he had until he saw Gordon and Virgil exchange worried looks. It had been a quiet five days since changeover. Alan had called three times, looking better rested and more relaxed on each occasion. He hadn't mentioned the haunting. He didn't need to. Despite an obvious improvement, John could see the lingering anxiety in Alan's eyes and hear it in his sometimes frenetic conversation.

Their other brothers hadn't missed it either. Virgil and Scott had pushed John hard, one making a subtle enquiry, the other a blunt demand, both keen to know what was troubling the family baby. Gordon had been more insistent still, calling daily, both worried about Alan and suspicious of his brothers' evasiveness. Against his better judgement but swayed by Alan's abject gratitude for his silence, John had pretended ignorance. None of their brothers believed him, but distance and John's ability to claim duties waiting made even Scott's gimlet gaze avoidable.

Now though, it wasn't John avoiding his brothers' eyes. Gordon was a little flushed, Virgil frowning. Neither of them looked at the camera feed.

John watched them, concern and frustration playing across his face. "Tell me," he demanded.

Virgil sighed, adjusting a few of his controls. "Gordon and Alan argued after dinner," he offered.

Gordon shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Hardly an argument. I asked Alan to help me with something and he exploded. The things he said were totally unfair!"

Virgil's lips quirked. "I don't know. Alan's hardly the first to suggest 'immature' and 'irresponsible' as descriptions."

Again Gordon shook his head in negation, both concerned and aggrieved. "I was talking about a few preparations for Halloween, not painting the 'Birds pink."

Virgil glanced back over his shoulder with a frown. "Is that all it was? I wasn't around for the start of it," he explained, turning back to John. "I think everyone on the island heard the second half…" His voice trailed off, his expression becoming tense. "John?"

John wasn't listening.

The noise began low, more of a vibration in the pit of his stomach than an actual sound. It was only when Gordon mentioned Halloween that, as if on cue, the low moan rippling through the air of the space station became audible as well as tangible. Thunderbird Five herself could have been groaning with pain. John bounced to his feet. He turned on the spot, his eyes running past the galaxy of green lights in search of the amber or red that would tell him where the problem lay. The boards remained defiantly clear.

A second murmur filled the air, seeming to come from all around and reflecting off every surface. John shuddered, his uniform cold and clammy against his skin.

"John? Thunderbird Five from Thunderbird Two: are you still receiving me?"

Unnerved, John looked up at the communications screen, a little startled to find both Virgil and Gordon watching him with concerned expressions.

"Did you hear that?"

Virgil blinked. "Hear what?" he asked, genuinely baffled. "John, is there a problem with the space station?"

It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.

John listened hard, suddenly acutely aware of the silence that lay beneath the everyday sounds of Thunderbird Five. He gave the status lights another quick inspection, forcing himself to be rational. The reminder of his little brother's problem had inspired a nervous reaction of his own. He was imagining things, letting Alan's nightmare become his own. He took a deep breath, listening. See? Nothing.

It comes and goes. Just when you think you imagined it, it comes back to show you you're wrong.

"Everything's fine," he told his brothers, keeping his voice even through long practice. "I was, ah, a bit distracted by checking on the danger zone." He glanced at the appropriate monitor, and stopped to give it a longer look. Scott was back in Thunderbird One, and looked for all the world as if he were prepping her for take-off. "I want to know what Scott's up to," he was able to say honestly.

Virgil checked one of his own displays and blinked, seeing the same warm-up sequence on Thunderbird One that John had noticed.

"Are you sure everything's okay up there, Johnny?" Gordon was less easily distracted, but he rocked a little on his feet as he spoke. Reaching for the back of Virgil's chair to steady himself, he glanced at his pilot in confusion.

Thunderbird Two was accelerating, adjusting her altitude and pushing a little past normal rescue speed towards the red-line pace that risked bringing forward the next engine overhaul. For a moment, John considered querying Virgil's decision, but all three of their brothers had long since stopped arguing with either Scott or Virgil in situations such as this. There was almost certainly a good reason for Virgil's actions, even if he couldn't have said himself what it was.

"Strap in, Gordon," Virgil ordered calmly.

Gordon hesitated, reluctant to step out of range of the com pick-up.

"John?"

John struggled to keep his face blank as a third moan split the air, higher pitched and a little louder than the one before. It could have been a woman wailing, or an animal in pain. Gordon remained oblivious.

It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors. Nothing on the diagnostics.

"Just concentrate on the rescue," John instructed, talking to his own sub-conscious at the same time. "I have greens across the board." He bit off the last words as the unearthly wail faded into welcome silence, and ran a frustrated hand through his blond hair. "But Gordo, lay off the Halloween jokes this year, okay?"

There was no time for his younger brother to respond. Virgil shot his passenger a glare and Gordon held up his hands in surrender, backing towards his seat. He was strapping in as a communications light lit on John's console.

"Thunderbird Five," he announced, and Virgil's voice overlapped with his, acknowledging the same call.

"The fire's spreading. This place is losing structural integrity fast." Scott sounded tense, but focused. "At this rate, I'm not sure it'll still be standing by the time Two arrives. I'm going to take Thunderbird One up and try using Brains' new dicetylene shells to make fire-breaks on floors eight, twelve, fifteen and sixteen."

"Watch the wind-tunnel effect between those buildings, Scott," Virgil cautioned. "Thunderbird One's going to be pretty hard to control in that gale."

Scott grunted an acknowledgement. "Just hurry it up a little, okay, Virg? John, I've left Mobile Control active to monitor the fire and this weather. Can you take that over for me? Virgil's right. This is going to be tricky."

John scooted his chair along the console, clearing a panel, logging in remotely to the Mobile Control unit and bringing up a duplicate of the information it displayed.

"F.A.B.," he reported. "All systems functioning." He glanced back towards his own monitors, checking that the scanner dish assigned to Scott could keep a high resolution sensor grid over both Thunderbird One and the Mobile Control unit simultaneously. Given their continuing proximity it wouldn't be a problem. "Be…" he faltered, startled into silence by another wail, higher pitched and more feminine than the last. He swallowed hard and spoke across it. "Be careful, Scott."

No one noticed his hesitation, lost as it was in the general chorus of similar wishes. Their father echoed him from Tracy Island, and John could hear his youngest brother urging Scott to caution. The radio link with Thunderbird One snapped closed, Scott needing all his concentration. John let his link with Thunderbird Two lapse as well. He glanced once more around the persistently green status lights and frowned, shaking his head.

Alan's voice lingered in his ears, not just from moments before, but from their hurried, hushed conversation while Scott waited in Thunderbird Three.

It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.

It comes and goes. Just when you think you imagined it, it comes back to show you you're wrong.

It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors. Nothing on the diagnostics.

It rises and falls like a child weeping, or a woman's lament.

The more desperate things become, the more urgent it is, wailing and moaning like some kind of banshee, a harbinger of doom.

I don't know what it wants, but it doesn't stop when the rescue is over. It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.

I think… I think it's a ghost, John. I think it's someone whose call we missed. Someone International Rescue couldn't help. Someone who wants to punish us. Or maybe just punish me.

John had taken three things away from the conversation: that Alan was overtired; that he had an overactive imagination; and that growing up under Tin-Tin and Kyrano's influence had given the family baby a more lyrical turn of phrase than John had hitherto suspected. He hadn't expected to take away a set of auditory hallucinations of his own.

Thunderbird One's thrusters burst into life, registering on the 'Bird's status transmission, the Mobile Control unit and Thunderbird Five's own sensors. For the moment at least, the ghastly moan seemed to have abated. Now though, John found himself straining to hear any sign of its return. Scowling, he pulled a pair of soundproofed headphones from a hook on the wall and plugged them into the inter-Thunderbird com-channel, shutting out everything but calls from his family and a full-blown alert signal. Usually he'd multi-task, listening to the local emergency services and keeping an ear open for new emergencies while monitoring the rescue itself. Today, his brothers needed his full concentration, and nothing, least of all a figment of his youngest brother's imagination, was going to stop him doing his duty.

"Fire break is holding on the sixteenth floor, but the blaze is out of control everywhere below that," Scott's summary was grim but briskly efficient. "The building's picked up a measurable list to the south-south-east and I'm reading movement in the stronger gusts of wind. The metal framework could give way at any time. You can't put any weight on it, Virg."

"And with these gusts, the rescue capsule would blow near-horizontal out behind us," Virgil sighed. "Even if there was time for half a dozen trips."

Thunderbird Two was less than two minutes from the danger zone. They were rapidly reaching the point where someone needed to come up with a plan. John, sitting alone in Thunderbird Five, attached to the console by the short cord of his headphones, feeling restricted and frustrated as he wracked his brains for a solution, hoped that their big brother wasn't going to disappoint.

Scott must already be hearing Thunderbird Two's powerful engines above the howl of the gale. The complex audio filters that prevented cross-talk and feedback in Thunderbird Five's com-network suppressed it, but John could imagine the sound nonetheless. He'd been out with Scott in Thunderbird One only once, but the relief he'd felt on realising that the larger 'Bird had finally caught them up was indescribable. When he'd mentioned that to Scott, his elder brother had just smiled a knowing smile, admitting nothing.

Hold on… Grinning in sudden realisation, John wrenched the headphones both from his ears and from the console socket and listened. The eerie sound had subsided for a moment, although Alan's warning that it would return echoed in his ears. The reminder of Thunderbird Five's filters had just made that prospect a little less unnerving. No wonder Virgil and Gordon hadn't heard the moaning that so unsettled their brother, and no wonder the monitor logs Alan searched had remained equally deaf to it. Both the space station's com-system and her activity record were tuned specifically to detect human voices, cutting out all and any background noises. John had known that. Hell, Alan knew it too. It was a measure of how disconcertingly human the source-less wail had been that neither thought to apply their knowledge.

It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors, Alan said.

Well if that one thing could be explained, then everything else could be.

The desperate moan that rippled through the air could almost have been a response to his thoughts. John raised his chin defiantly, looking around the control room. Not a ghost. Not a vengeful spectre. Nothing but a malfunction to be traced and dealt with when the rescue was over and done with. Unwilling to be restricted by the headphones, John forced the issue out of his mind and refocused on the readout from his sensor grid.

"All right, Virgil, this is how we're going to work it." Reliable as ever. Scott's voice lost its anxious edge, becoming cool and calm. "I want you to lower the pod."

"Of course!"

A few brief exchanges were all Scott and Virgil needed to refine a plan that only gradually became clear to their bemused brothers. While none of the pods was designed to be lowered on cables beneath their mother craft, all were fitted with the cable retrieval system designed for Pod Four. Virgil would have to set down on the roof of a neighbouring high-rise, in lieu of any flat ground in the downtown area, and leave Thunderbird Two's pod behind when she took off, before retrieving it seconds later. Suspended beneath the Bird on thick steel hawsers, secured by the strongest electromagnetic clamps Brains could devise, it was technically possible for a pod to open its ramp-like door.

Gordon was already making his way back into the pod when Thunderbird Five picked up a signal from his wrist-com to Virgil's console in Two's cockpit. The younger man's expression was harried to say the least.

"So let me get this clear, Virg: Scott's asking you to hover in a howling gale, in a craft with compromised aerodynamics, supporting a substantial, autonomously-moving weight with – let me just emphasise here – me inside, putting its ramp down on the burning roof, without crushing our rescuees and without resting any weight on the building?"

"Yep."

John couldn't help but grin at the concise answer. There was a hint of tightness around Virgil's eyes, but for the most part John's two pilot brothers were wrapped in the calm that derived from total confidence in their Thunderbirds, their own abilities and each other's. Gordon could use a measure of that calm right now. The picture from his wrist-com shifted and blurred as he strapped into one of the Pod's jump-seats.

"Can you do this, Virgil?"

"Yep." Virgil chuckled. "Relax, Gordon. Scott's bringing Thunderbird One up to spot for us. He'll tell you when to open the pod door, and you can talk me through any fine adjustments from there." His tone became serious. "Just make sure you've got your safety line secured before you open the door, okay? You know you said John's quiff makes him look like he's been standing in a wind tunnel? You're about to find out what that feels like. To say it's a bit breezy up here would be an understatement."

"F.A.B." Gordon's response was resigned rather than enthusiastic.

This time John's smile was less amused, filing away the insult for future attention before turning back to the Mobile Control readouts. His brothers seemed to forget that while they were in a danger zone, even wrist-com or intra-Thunderbird communications were processed and recorded by Thunderbird Five. Alan and John had long since agreed not to remind them. They'd learnt far more about their brothers that way than Scott, Virgil and Gordon could ever imagine.

"Back a foot, Virgil." Tension rang through Scott's instruction. "Drop down just a little – six inches maybe."

John winced, unable to imagine controlling Thunderbird Two with anywhere near that precision and praying that his brother was up to the challenge. His eyes stayed glued to the screen in front of him, afraid to look away for even the few seconds it took to check Mobile Control. He'd tapped into the pod cameras before Virgil was even in position. He rather wished he hadn't.

Listening to Gordon edge forward onto the lowered pod door, a twenty-storey drop in front of and all around him, was nerve-wracking enough. Watching his wind-whipped younger brother haul the rescuees over the two-foot step from roof to airborne ramp was downright terrifying. More than half of them were children, and Gordon would have to step to the very edge, reaching down for the teenage kids or pulling as they were boosted up to him, before escorting each up the steep ramp and into the safety of the pod itself. It was faster than using the rescue capsule, but still painfully slow, and growing more dangerous with each passing second as the tilt of the roof increased and the ramp was slicked by soot-laden rain.

"Gordon, you've got to get a move on." It was doubtful whether Gordon even heard Scott's exhortations. "That building's going to go any second."

John glanced at the display beside him, feeling a chill as he read the numbers there. "Mobile Control measures building tilt at nineteen degrees from vertical." His pilot brothers, manoeuvring their Thunderbirds around the tower block, could hardly be unaware of the fact, but John relayed the information nonetheless. "Approaching critical!"

Virgil didn't acknowledge directly, but John could hear uneasiness in his voice. "These gusts are getting harder to predict. If one knocks me into the building…"

"He's down to the last two, Virg." Scott had kept up a running commentary from the hovering Thunderbird One for most of the rescue, describing what was happening out of sight below Virgil's own Thunderbird. "Adults. One's pulling himself up onto the ramp now. Gordon's helping."

"Up? How much clearance have I got?"

"Inches." Scott's wince was audible. "Bottom edge of the ramp's at chest height, but you can't go any lower, Virg. The way that building's tilting, the top edge will clip the pod floor."

An alarm from Mobile Control made John jump, choking as he realised he'd forgotten to breathe.

"Twenty degrees! Reading tremors in the building frame. It's going! Now!"

His cry of warning rose above a banshee wail that shuddered through the air of Thunderbird Five, dragging fingernails down the blackboard of John's soul. He couldn't help himself, he glanced up and behind him, eyes searching for the source of the sound.

That split second of distraction was long enough for everything to change.

"Gordon!" The alarm in Scott's voice dragged John's eyes back to the video feed and brought his heart to his mouth. There was an unfamiliar man sprawled on the ramp, fingers buried in its deep ridges as turbulence made the camera jump and jerk. Other rescuees called for him to hold on, themselves clinging to safety rails on the pod wall or the cables Gordon had rigged up across the open door. More frightening was what John couldn't see. Where before the steeply-tilted roof had been visible beyond the edge of the ramp, now there was no sign of it. And no sign of Gordon either.

Thunderbird Five cried out again, the renewed sound all the more alarming after nearly twenty minutes of respite.

The more desperate things become, the more urgent it is, wailing and moaning… a harbinger of doom.

Mobile Control's alarms blended with an ethereal moan that seemed to promise a torment of anguish and pain. John's horrified eyes scanned seismic readings that told of a building toppling, shockwaves rippling outwards as ruthless gravity brought it crashing to the ground.

Both Thunderbirds were putting on height, fleeing flying debris.

"Virgil. Building ninety yards to your ten o'clock. Put the pod down on the roof. Slowly. Very slowly. Watch this wind. Be ready to stop and hold station if I tell you."

"Scott?" Virgil's voice was as clipped and urgent as Scott's, even as he manoeuvred. Two's camera angles were set up to view the pod from strut-height. With it suspended on cables twice that far below him, he couldn't see… couldn't know…

"Gordon went off the edge of the ramp." Scott took a deep breath and John felt his own chest tighten with disbelief until his eldest brother went on. "He's hanging from his safety line below the pod. He's got a hold of the last rescuee. You've got another man on the ramp door. Not looking too stable. John, override the pod controls; bring it up to horizontal, carefully."

John breathed. His fingers trembled as he followed his instructions. The pod door rose, straining under its own weight until it extended on a level with the pod floor rather than tilting down toward the ground below. The man clinging there, white-faced and crying with fear, didn't release his death-grip on the ramp floor. At least now, if he did, he wouldn't be looking at an inevitable, two hundred foot, one-way trip.

Another cry split the air of Thunderbird Five, a woman's voice rising in fear or lamentation. John knew he should stick to his resolve and ignore it. Instead it tightened his grip on the edge of his console. He was too tense to dismiss the sound out of hand, feeling it speak to his own anxiety.

"Scott, count me in." Thunderbird Two hovered over the neighbouring building. Virgil had an instinctive grasp of his own 'Bird's clearances, but with the Pod suspended on cables below the main frame, with Gordon hanging precariously above a lethal drop…

"Okay, Virg. Pod base is thirty feet above the roof. You need to be a few feet forward or you're going to hit that access hatch… Okay. That's got it. Twenty-five feet... Twenty... Slowly, Virg! Fifteen… Ten... Hold it! Gordon's down. Hold it there, Virgil, still as you can. He's undoing his harness. Right! Gordon and the other guy are clear from under the pod. Let her down, Virgil. Drop the lines and get clear."

The camera view shuddered as the pod touched down on the flat-roofed building. John let out a shuddering sigh of his own, and ordered the ramp to lower once again. The ghost-white man clinging there lost his grip, taken by surprise by the unexpected movement. He rolled down the ramp, the video feed catching his expressions change: first to one of blind terror and then a bowel-loosening relief when he found himself caught by a blue-clad figure who crouched beside him. Gordon helped him to his feet, his rescued companion taking the shaken man's other side.

John's little brother was pale as he mounted the pod ramp, but the smile he showed his huddle of terrified rescuees was full of the easy self-confidence John loved to see. The space monitor relayed the feed from the pod's audio pick-up to Virgil and Scott, knowing that his brothers would be as relieved as he was to hear Gordon's voice. The young man accepted gratitude with a dignified restraint, comforting and reassuring. Several minutes passed as Gordon looked over the two men he'd pulled off the roof last. It was longer still before he eased back from the huddle of frightened children, his initial assessment completed even as he teased them out of their shock with deliberately bad jokes. His usual casual drawl returned as the tension level dropped.

"Sorry about the drama, folks. Didn't mean to scare you. Just let me get you all settled, and this baby buttoned up, and then Thunderbird Two will pick us up and give us all a lift to somewhere more comfortable. I'm sure you've all had more than enough of hanging around on rooftops for today!"

"Gordon, Thunderbird Two." Virgil was the epitome of professional calm, but there was a concerned note in his voice that only his brothers would pick up on. "Ready for pod retrieval on your signal."

Gordon's wrist came up, a close-up image of his face replacing the pod camera feed. "F.A.B., Virg. Give me a minute. The guy on the ramp strained his shoulder, and the rest probably need a good checking over, but don't worry." Gordon looked directly down into his watch, giving a lop-sided grin. "Everyone down here's in pretty good shape, considering."

Gordon would be bruised and sore, no doubt, but the grin had been genuine and John knew his younger brother well enough to be sure he wasn't hiding anything serious. Just the sight of that cheerful expression brought a relieved smile to his space-borne brother's face. John turned back to the selection of local hospitals he'd already pre-loaded into Virgil's navigation console. With a sigh of gratitude, he demoted the specialist burns clinic and the one with expertise in physical trauma in favour of a general hospital with the large emergency room best suited to assessing shock and treating minor injuries.

He sat back from his console, feeling aches pull at his own muscles. He might not see the physical side of rescues, but the tension he felt and the strength-sapping adrenaline backwash were just as real. The spectre of his nightmare coming true, of a lost brother, withdrew slowly, leaving him shaky. But that wasn't the only spectre haunting him.

An eerie shriek echoed through Thunderbird Five, speaking to John through the soles of his feet and vibrating in his very bones. A second rose almost at once, higher pitched and somehow more urgent.

It doesn't stop when the rescue is over. It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.

He'd convinced himself earlier that this was a mere figment, a malfunction to be tracked down when the rescue was over. Perhaps it was the high emotion of the moment, but he found himself less certain. There was an urgency and intensity to his Thunderbird's cries that had John deeply uneasy.

He forced himself to think over what Alan had told him, boiling it down to the key points:

It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.

It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down.

It's just not there when I look for it.

A new shriek filled the air

I think it's someone whose call we missed. Someone who wants to punish us.

No. He had to stick to the facts. There had to be an explanation. Something on Thunderbird Five that maintenance checks would miss. It seemed impossible. By definition, the full diagnostic activated every system the space station had, checking each of them in turn.

In turn…

What if it wasn't one thing? John stood, stepping back into the centre of the room and looking around him, trying to get a feel for his Thunderbird as a single, vibrant creature. What if this ghostly presence arose from some combination of factors, a coincidence that just wouldn't occur unless the other Thunderbirds were in flight?

If so, the root of the problem was almost certainly something that had changed recently – since his last rotation on the station. John nodded to himself. That gave him a starting point.

Crossing the room, he pulled up the engineering logs, running a hand through his blond hair as he scrolled back past an impressive array of systems tests and towards the origin of the problem. He glanced over the records, refamiliarising himself with the two minor upgrades that Brains installed at the start of Alan's last shift. He didn't really need to. Both the new running machine in the gym and the upgrade to Five's antenna-mounted radio receivers had come under close scrutiny during the diagnostic a week ago. Each had been tested and double-tested – one by one.

Shaking his head, John studied the plans for the exercise machine for a few seconds before dismissing them, unable to imagine any circumstances where the progress of a rescue would affect the device. He lingered over the blueprints for the antenna upgrade, his fingers tracing the mechanisms on the screen.

"John? Come in, Thunderbird Five!" The call jerked John's attention away from the problem in hand. There was a note in Scott's voice that suggested he'd been trying to do that for a while. Suddenly tense, chiding himself for becoming distracted before the all-clear, John ran his eyes swiftly across the status displays for Thunderbirds One and Two, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

"Thunderbird Five. Problem, Scott?"

"I asked if Mobile Control had any damage. Several minutes ago."

Scott was already swinging Thunderbird One's nose around, descending vertically into the chasm between buildings. The Mobile Control unit had been out of the line of fire when the building collapsed. Even so, Scott had to hover over it for a few seconds, looking for gaps amidst the scattered debris to place his landing struts.

"John… Virgil told me you were distracted earlier too. Is something wrong?"

John hesitated. He'd resolved not to bother his brothers. He'd been planning to wait until they were en-route back to Base and make use of that two hour window to track down the problem. He was about to feed Scott something approaching a credible excuse when the familiar banshee wail vibrated the air around him, jerking his head up, sending shivers down his spine and changing his mind in a split second. He couldn't wait any longer

"Ah, nothing serious." Despite his efforts, his voice trembled a little. "Mobile Control looks fine from here. Look, can you and Virg finish up without me? I need to run a few diagnostic checks."

He'd intended to make the enquiry casual. He wasn't entirely surprised when Scott's rescue-trained instincts snapped to attention.

"More checks? John, what's going on up there? Are you in any danger? Tell me!"

Somehow, Scott's urgency made John's shapeless fears seem all the more ridiculous. He flushed, embarrassed.

"Don't you think I'd have shouted for Al to come get me if I was? Relax, Scott. I need to track something down, that's all."

Scott's tone softened. He was still worried, but the edge left his voice. "All right. I'll liaise with the locals and get this one shut down. You do whatever you have to. But, John, I'm bringing Three up there the minute I get home, and you're telling me everything, okay? I'll bring Alan. Brains too, if you want him. Whatever's bothering the two of you, we'll get to the bottom of it."

John sighed, realising the visit was inevitable. "With any luck, I'll have this sorted long before you get back."

Another shriek made John's ears ring.

It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.

I think it's someone we couldn't help. Someone who wants to punish us.

It certainly felt that way. The cries were coming closer together now, as if bewailing the successful rescue. John's sense of the ridiculous faded away. He needed to get moving.

"Either way, I guess I owe Alan an apology. Five out."

Access to the antenna pylon wasn't easy. Even the small part of it that was kept pressurised – the electronics room that sat at the very base of the space station – wasn't designed for frequent visits. John twisted as he eased down through the floor hatch, careful not to knock the oxygen cylinder and mask he carried at his hip. The thin skin-tight sheath of a pressure suit clung to his skin, both it and the breathing mask standard gear for working this close to the outer skin of Thunderbird Five. The suit and mask wouldn't be enough to save John from a full hull breach, but they might give him time to get back to heat and atmosphere if he encountered a slow leak, or came face to face with the constant spectre of micrometeorite damage.

His feet searched blindly for the top rung of the access ladder, his vision blocked by the narrow opening and the two-foot depth of steel bulkhead that separated the station's main living and working area from his destination. He took a moment to stabilise himself as he stepped onto the ladder, and climbed down a few steps before reaching up to ease the heavy circular hatch down above his head. It closed with an ominous clang, automatically checking its own seals. John couldn't quite stop himself shuddering as the echoes faded, painfully aware that these outlying regions of the station didn't have close to the amount of shielding the living quarters had. He was outside the space station's main bulkheads here, in a thin-walled room nestled between the top struts of the long antenna support mast. It was technically safe, but felt horribly exposed.

The work space was narrow, cramped and lined with electronics. Its four corners were defined by pillars, each easily three feet thick and extending from ceiling to floor. Below his feet, John knew, those pillars stretched onwards, becoming the tapering vertical spars of a three hundred foot long antenna support structure. At the far end, where they met in a narrow point, the pylon supported emitters for the space station's magnetic and gravitational field generators. Along its length it carried a dizzying array of radio dishes, dipoles and linear antennae, each mounted with its own receiver and individually articulated to track both ground-based signals and International Rescue's constellation of communications satellites.

At any one time, half a dozen dishes could be moving in different directions, slowly trailing their targets across the vault of the heavens. And when the Thunderbirds were in the air? Then the system was stretched to its limits, the largest, most sensitive receivers individually tasked to follow each 'Bird in their lightning-fast supersonic flight.

It was those dishes that had recently been modified, the receivers at their foci replaced with a heavier model. John had worked alongside Brains and Alan, installing the new systems before leaving his little brother in charge of the space station. He'd checked, tested and remounted each dish just a week before, with Scott and Alan lending a hand. He'd never stopped to think how different elements of the system might interact when in full operation.

The unearthly protests had faded a few minutes before. John felt a pressure between his shoulder blades nonetheless, his shaken nerves populating the silence with a watchful presence. He kept his eyes ahead of him, focussed on his task as he made an inspection tour of the room. By far the larger part of him insisted that the ghastly noises had a physical origin and he had to be looking at it. He resolutely ignored the small internal voice that insisted he'd find another, far less rational, source watching his progress if he turned fast enough to catch it unawares.

"Base calling John Tracy. Come in, John."

John had left the space station's speaker system tuned to the inter-Thunderbird com-channel, listening to the chatter as Virgil landed at the hospital and Scott closed down Mobile Control. Short of an emergency call overriding it, that reassuring murmur was all he'd hear from the wall speakers until he got back to the control room and reset them. Jeff Tracy's voice emerged from John's wrist-com instead, picked up and relayed on to him by the space station. John winced, wondering how long his father had spent calling on Thunderbird Five's frequency before making his call more direct.

"John Tracy. Reading you, Base."

His father's head and shoulders appeared on the tiny screen. A familiar frown furrowed Jeff Tracy's brow.

"Scott tells me you're having trouble, son."

John heard the unspoken question in his father's gruff rumble.

"Not really, sir. Just a bit of a distraction. I'm trying to track down some mechanical crosstalk in the antenna array."

"The antenna array…?"

Jeff glanced to one side, distracted himself by the interjection. With the camera focus tight on their father, John couldn't see his little brother, but the anxious edge was back in Alan's voice.

"I don't understand… I told you… John, did you hear…?"

John cut his brother off ruthlessly, not prepared to have this discussion with their father there in the room. "We'll talk about it later, okay, Al? I don't want to stay down here longer than I have to. Dad, I don't think it's a serious problem. Just something I want to get to the bottom of."

"Hmm."

His father studied him. Wrist still raised, John worked on single-handed, giving each system in turn a standard inspection in preparation for the more novel tests he was devising. It was several long seconds before his father nodded in reluctant agreement.

"Okay, John. If you're sure. I'll have Brains stand by in case you need him. You'll let us know if you run into problems?"

"Of course, Father."

"Dad, I ought to go up there."

Alan's unhappy tone didn't go unnoticed. Again Jeff hesitated, humming quietly under his breath, before sighing.

"Maybe later, Alan. John can manage for now. John? Be careful, son. Base, out."

Silence closed in as the signal ended. The inter-Thunderbird channel was quiet, both Scott and Virgil taking a few minutes for respite and silent thought now their 'Birds were back in the air and headed home. The hum and clicks of Thunderbird Five's own systems were muted down here in her depths, stifled by thick metal walls and layers of insulation. The stillness crept into John's mind, and he kept his movements slow and cautious, glancing up from time to time to check his Thunderbird's status on the room's main display screen. Every shift or rustle of clothing seemed magnified by the silence, so much so that he started to regret even the slight sounds of his own breathing.

His ears strained, listening hard for any hint of the ghastly sounds that had haunted him since the rescue began. Alan had promised him they'd return, and that they'd not let up until the Thunderbirds were safely settled in their hangars. He had to be sure though – he couldn't test for an effect that was already gone.

It almost came as a relief when a low grumble of sound filled the room. Quickly, John scanned the displays, fixing the relative positions of the different antennae in his mind. Thunderbird One was pacing her slower sister, the dishes assigned to them moving in tandem. The receiver John kept fixed on Base was stationary, as were the two he had aligned to a threatening storm in India and a worryingly intense war-game in the North Pacific. It was the dish assigned to International Rescue's London agent that had just come to life, slewing at a measurable rate. Whatever Lady Penelope was up to in the cold pre-dawn light, Thunderbird Five would watch over her, tracking FAB1 as it barrelled along near-silent motorways.

If FAB1 had been the only vehicle on the move there wouldn't have been a problem. If the two airborne Thunderbirds continued to share a flight plan, moving at what – for them – was a fairly sedate pace, it almost certainly wouldn't get any worse. But with two 'Birds going that way, and the Rolls Royce going this, with the stationary antennae aligned just so, and the heavier receivers slowing everything down and changing the system's resonant frequency…

John crossed the room towards its far-left corner. Squeezing between two banks of LED-flashing electronics, he reached out and laid his palm flat against the cahelium-steel girder. He'd expected to feel satisfied or maybe even a little disappointed. Instead he felt an overwhelming relief as the dense metal trembled beneath his hand. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cool surface and breathing deeply. Reason had won out over superstition.

The world made sense again.

The pillar throbbed. Another groan split the air and he knew that, carried through the space station's superstructure, magnified by her hollow shell and resonating in the air pockets between here and the control room, this vibration could account for every wail, every howl he'd experienced since the Thunderbirds first took flight.

Even so, it was in John's nature to test the phenomenon. Worming his way back to the control panels, he pulled up the single, skeleton-thin chair the room boasted. With a deft dance of fingers across keyboard, he retasked a set of the weaker, low fidelity antennae to watch over his family, giving himself total control over the heavier dish array. Then he called up a view of the world below, looking down on the whole of humanity. A Fireflash caught his eye, carrying weary passengers from night-dark London towards the bright afternoon sunshine of the West Coast. John set one of his dishes to chase it across the North Atlantic, and a second to track the World Navy's Sentinel, on patrol against pirate gangs harassing the African coast. He picked out a monorail for the third, weaving its way through Europe at speeds unimaginable just a hundred years before.

That was enough. Again he got the howl he was expecting, this time higher pitched as the antennae's movement resonated through the hull. He moved around the room, feeling the vibration with his hand, and checking each piece of equipment for its effects. Another adjustment and the frequency changed, the vibrations moving from the support girder on his left to the one behind him.

It was twenty minutes before John sat back with a satisfied sigh, confident now that he could predict the pattern of vibration for any given configuration of dishes. Already he'd started to think through options for solving the problem. He'd need to talk to Brains, and most likely get Thunderbird Three up here to monitor a spacewalk. They'd have to look at the slewing mechanisms and weight balance, come up with some way to break the resonance. For now he simply took the dish array off-line, making sure that the remaining antenna systems were double-tasked to cover for any loss of signal. Then he waited, every sense on alert, just in case he was wrong and the persistent disquiet still tensing the back of his neck had some foundation in fact.

Nothing.

Sighing, John pushed himself to his feet, glancing at the Thunderbird's systems readout to check all was well with his neglected space station. He ought to get back to the control room and bring his family up to speed. More than that, his body was craving freedom after so long squeezed into a pressure suit, not to mention working in the cramped antenna room. A quick call back to Base, a bite to eat and he'd hit Thunderbird Five's gym and get the kinks worked out.

Hand dropping to his hip, checking for his emergency equipment with a habitual gesture, he stood and turned towards the access ladder.

It rises and falls like a child weeping, or a woman's lament.

The more desperate things become, the more urgent it is, wailing and moaning like some kind of banshee, a harbinger of doom.

The shriek was as loud as any he'd heard from the control deck, and as desolate. It froze his feet to the deck and the blood in his veins. His entire body shivered in primal fear, the sound speaking to his nervous system with no reference to higher thought processes.

A second wail rose, with a third and fourth overlapping it until the caterwaul seemed to rise from all around him. He swallowed hard, too unnerved by the sound to be surprised or disappointed. Forcing lead-weighted legs to move, he managed another step forward, before freezing again, this time anchored immovably in place.

I think… I think it's a ghost, John.

Alan had described a spectre that manifested entirely through sound. John had experienced the same, even thought he'd found its origin. Nothing had prepared him for the sight in front of him now.

I think it's someone whose call we missed. Someone International Rescue couldn't help.

The slender form was hardly even there, picked out by highlights of reflected light and a pearly white sheen that hung in the air. The breath caught in John's throat, and he held it, terrified that even an expelled breath would be enough to dispel the fragile image. The woman stood between him and the ladder that led back into Thunderbird Five's core, her outline scarcely visible but her presence undeniable.

Her face was lost in the play of light and shadows, her gaze fixed on John. Her hands were raised, but not clawing or grasping at the air. Rather, the woman's palms were turned outwards, in a gesture of rejection, or perhaps just trying to force John away. That was hardly necessary. John only realised he'd backed up when the metal chair frame hit the underside of his knees. He staggered a little, hands going out to catch him as he threatened to topple into one of the tightly packed equipment banks.

Someone who wants to punish us. Or maybe just punish me.

The blur of indistinct white in front of him changed. The woman raised a spectral hand, its fine, long fingers pointing to a computer screen on her right. Her features remained a tantalising blur, her eyes mere pinpoints of blue light glinting in the air. She stared at John, silent even as she begged for understanding, and for the first time he felt a little of his fear ease. There was something familiar about the ghostly presence… something from long ago. He stared back at her, caught in an impasse. She pointed again, the vehement gesture dragging John's eyes to the room's main screen just as it burst to life.

A new wail filled the air – not the irregular and forlorn cry of the spectre, but rather the more urgent pattern of Thunderbird Five's proximity alarm. The status display on the wall-mounted screen vanished and was replaced. The monitor flashed a red-bordered warning, its contents duplicated on every computer monitor and com-screen across the station. John had no more than a few seconds to take in its content, and knew he didn't have many seconds beyond that.

There was something he needed to say. Something his brother needed to know.

He hit the switch linking his wrist-com to Alan's, trusting his wailing Thunderbird to do her duty and connect the call.

"Not a punishment," he gasped. "A warning!"

And then the station's alarm choked into silence. Thunderbird Five shuddered, rocked time and again by repeated impacts. For a few precious moments, John thought his Thunderbird was weathering the storm, the worst past. Then a thunderous impact rang through the hull like a hammer striking a bell, followed by a second and a third, so close together that they merged into a rolling wall of sound. The wall became a floor. The lights flickered, died and flickered again, showing John the electronics box shaking loose from its mountings, a moment before it sent him crashing into dark oblivion.

John opened his eyes to a constellation of stars.

He lay still for a moment, enjoying the pretty colours, and trying to make sense of the patterns. A frown formed slowly, furrows creeping across his brow. Something didn't add up here. Familiar shapes were missing, the pattern of lights far too regular and the colours too vibrant, even here above the muting effects of Earth's atmosphere. He was accustomed to Betelgeuse's deep red, and the cool blue of Rigel, but surely he'd never seen such a sweep of amber and scarlet, or any star that shone with the verdant green scattered here and there in its midst.

He pushed up on one elbow, trying for a better view, and froze. Every nerve he possessed shrieked, the near-overload greying out his vision for a long moment before he fought his way back to consciousness.

Not stars. Lights. Status lights, almost all of them lit in vivid protest. He moved again, more cautiously this time, testing each muscle in turn before he tried anything more adventurous. His entire right side was agony, and he remembered slamming into the wall, dragged by the station's glitching gravity, before the entire world faded to black in his memory.

"What…?" The sound of his own voice thundered through an aching head.

He gritted his teeth. Thunderbird Five was his responsibility and it was pretty clear that his space station was as stricken as John himself. Lying here wasn't an option. He forced his right hand to clench and then unclench, pointed his toes and then tried to bend his ankle, fighting against the rapid swelling there.

It hurt. A lot. But John was a Tracy. He breathed through the pain, convincing himself that it was becoming a little more manageable with every repetition. On the plus side, nothing appeared to be broken, or if it was, the combination of swollen flesh and pressure suit held the bones more or less in place. On the other side of the balance sheet he racked up several serious sprains, more bruising than he wanted to imagine and a swollen gash at his brow-line that dripped blood into his eyes as soon as he raised his head.

"Got to… got to get up!"

His attempt to desensitise himself to the pain was working, at least to some extent. Agony still accompanied every movement and filled most of the long moments between, but he was no longer in immediate danger of passing out. He sat, cautiously and with a great deal of effort, pulling himself up against the nearest equipment rack and pausing there to assess the situation. Either he was seriously concussed or local gravity was now several degrees out of alignment with the deck beneath him. For the moment he'd leave the jury out on that one. Instead he surveyed what he could of his Thunderbird, frustrated to realise that most of the status lights he could see from where he sat related directly to the antenna grid. International Rescue's worldwide surveillance was pretty much entirely offline. That was too bad, but for the moment, it wasn't John's primary concern.

The space station's proximity detectors had given virtually no warning of the meteorite strike. He'd had bare moments to take in the alert's details before disaster struck. They were burned into his memory. Multiple components, each one too small to register on the long-range radar, none with enough metal content to trouble the magnetic field sensors, or enough mass to perturb the gravity monitor.

A stripped comet? Or a chondrite shattered by tidal forces as it plunged towards a fiery end in the atmosphere below? Whatever its origin, it had been Thunderbird Five's bad fortune to lie in the path of a shower of projectiles more than numerous enough to overwhelm her defences. Given Five's evident distress, listing gravity and the jolts he'd felt on impact, the debris cloud had almost certainly knocked the space station out of her stable orbit in its final few seconds before burning up. John would need all the karmic balance the Universe saw fit to provide if he were to avoid the same destructive fate.

"Get up, damn you!"

He cursed his own pain, and his snail-like rate of progress. He had to get up to the command deck, assess the situation and take control of whatever systems were still up and running. He had light and power. He needed to figure out the rest. He had a hard journey ahead of him first. He dreaded facing the access ladder, and others between the decks above, in his current bruised and shaken state. He didn't want to move, but it was not only his duty, it was his best chance at surviving this mess. He certainly didn't want to stay in this cramped and poorly-supplied room in the underbelly of the station for any longer than… he… had… to.

With two equipment banks for leverage, John had fought his way to something approaching upright. Now his thoughts trailed off into blank, unthinking disbelief. Leaning heavily against the steel girder to his left, he'd finally been able to see the room's main computer screen, and the station status readouts beside it.

"Pressure zero?"

Blinking the blood out of his eye and wiping what was left away with one sleeve, John tried to clear his vision, hoping he was mistaken. He shook his head, his shoulders slumping as he reread the monitor and found it unchanged.

Ironically, Thunderbird Five herself wasn't too badly damaged. Her reactor was still active, her mainframe ticking over and trying to assess the situation. True, her primary transmitters were off-line, together with half the communication filtering and relay sub-systems. The orbital control computer was wildly unhappy, the station's attitude jets unable to cope with the unexpected impulse. That wasn't good, but it wasn't imminently catastrophic. That much he could deal with, or rather manage for long enough to get some help up here. But pressure zero…

The station was open to vacuum, not just in one section but across a good eighty percent of her volume. John's readouts were partial, incomplete, but enough to let his suddenly adrenaline-cleared brain piece together the larger picture. The meteor swarm had peppered Five's skin with breaches, some of them terrifying in size, others tiny but too great in number for her overstretched auto-sealant to handle. A few pockets like this one survived – all vulnerable, all leaking atmosphere into the rest of the station. In more than one he saw readings that could only indicate fire, choking the air with smoke and fumes before the flames starved themselves of oxygen and died. If John had been on the lower levels, making his way up to the command centre… If he'd been in that room itself, or anywhere on the exposed upper deck…

This tiny room at the base of Thunderbird Five, with the four spars of the antenna mast bracing its walls and a solid bulkhead separating it from the rest of Five, was perhaps the most robust space in the entire station. Certainly it was the only one that remained close to airtight. John was safe, for the moment, but he was trapped, plain and simple. Nowhere to go. Nothing he could do.

A large part of him wanted to curl into a ball and hide from the pain wracking his body. He didn't. He couldn't give up now, could never give up. Not without shaming his family name and cursing his own weakness. He stayed propped against the equipment bank, trying to work out a next move.

"This is Base calling Thunderbird Five. Tracy Island calling Thunderbird Five – come in, John!"

John almost toppled in his urgency, raising his wrist, dismayed to find the com-device there inactive. It took him a moment to remember the wrist-com relay was amongst the systems off-line. He tried anyway, hoping he was wrong.

"John Tracy… receiving." The breath caught in his throat, choking off in a pained gasp. His watch remained dark. "Father? Father… I can hear you."

There was a long pause. John tried to time it, losing count of his own ragged breaths. He settled on simply 'too long'.

"Base to Thunderbird Five! Please respond!"

John made it two steps forward and fell into the display screen he was trying to read. He pushed away from it with difficulty, still disorientated and fighting the misaligned gravity. He squinted until he found the readings he was searching for. He'd doubled up the antennae tracking his brothers, four separate receivers following the Thunderbirds and channelling the 'Bird-to-'Bird frequency over the station's passive speaker system. Three were gone – either knocked off-line or taken out entirely by the meteorite strike. The one that remained sufficed. It was on the inter-Thunderbird channel his father was calling, still broadcast across the ruined space station.

His brothers had to be hearing it too. Unlike John, they had the equipment to reply.

"Base, this is Thunderbird One." Scott sounded focused and alert, all the weariness that followed a rescue suppressed in favour of a more immediate concern. "What's wrong? I can't hear John answering…?"

"Scott, best speed." John's father hid his worry behind a brisk military demeanour, snapping out the order. "I want you back here as soon as possible."

"F.A.B." Scott's reply was equally efficient. "Revised ETA: twenty-six minutes." His voice softened as he went on. "Dad? I just tried a data-link with Thunderbird Five from here. Even if John's still down in the depths, that should open an automatic channel. I'm not getting anything from the space station."

Jeff Tracy sighed. "Nor are we, Scott. Alan thought he heard something from your brother, but now John's not responding."

John could have banged his head against the wall. He realised he'd slumped forward a little, his forehead resting against the cool surface of the screen and his eyes closing as he listened to his family. He didn't bother raising his head, or looking around. He'd inventoried this room item by item during the diagnostic a week before, and spent more than an hour in its cramped confines today. There was no microphone here, and no way to build one with the minimal toolkit he'd brought with him. The nearest equipment he could use to call for help lay half a deck away, across a vacuum his flimsy pressure suit and oxygen mask couldn't protect him from for more than a few seconds.

"You tried his wrist-com? If he's away from the main deck…" Gordon offered from Thunderbird Two.

"I tried his com, and signalled Thunderbird Five directly before changing to this channel, Gordon." Their father took a deep breath. "This could just be a communications glitch of some kind, boys. We've had them before…"

"Dad, he's in trouble! We've got to get up there!"

Alan's cry of alarm ratcheted the already tense atmosphere up a notch. John willed his father to listen, praying for rescue. Certainly Jeff Tracy sounded uneasy, but…

"Alan, it's only been a few minutes. I've got Brains running a test to see if he can access Thunderbird Five remotely, or pin down a problem at our end."

"Dad, we can't wait! Please, just set the lift going. I've got to get to Three! John needs me. There's something wrong. I've got to get up there!"

There were a few brief seconds of startled silence.

"Now, listen to me, son. We have no reason to assume John's in any immediate danger." They had no reason not to, but John could see his father's reasoning, even as he despaired of it. "With Brains working on this from one direction, and your brother from the other, we should have Thunderbird Five back on-line within minutes. Otherwise… we'll send Three when Scott gets back."

John couldn't help noticing their father hadn't said anything about who would be piloting. At the best of times, Alan hated inactivity and impotence, getting jumpy when forced to watch and wait, but right now he sounded on the edge of a panic attack. Dad was right beside him, and would be watching every nervous gesture. Even without seeing his little brother's wide blue eyes for himself, John was pretty sure Jeff Tracy must be worried about more than one of his sons. Their father wouldn't be keen to send his over-anxious youngest out of sight, let alone into the potentially lethal depths of space. He groaned, knowing that without his own insight into Alan's anxiety, he'd have agreed one hundred percent.

Scott seemed to agree too. Thunderbird One might be at emergency speed, but her pilot tried for reassurance.

"John's been having equipment problems of some kind all day. I guess it's not too much of a surprise if…"

"He said it was a warning!"

This time the family's shared moment of hesitation was frankly puzzled.

"Who said what was a warning?" Virgil asked blankly.

"John… I… Thunderbird Five…" Alan muttered, fading into incoherence. John couldn't blame him for struggling to articulate his fears. His own head still spun with the implications of what he'd seen, of what he'd experienced. Hell, his head was just spinning, period.

Jeff Tracy harrumphed, nonplussed by his son's attempt at an explanation. "Scott, what exactly did John tell you?"

"Ah, not a lot, to be honest, Father. Just that it was nothing serious and he'd be busy with a few systems checks." Scott hesitated. "And that he owed Alan an apology."

Alan's gasp and gulp for air was audible even across the vast gulf separating John from his family.

"Alan?" Virgil asked, an unusual degree of concern apparent in his soft voice.

"Thunderbird Five's haunted!"

Sinking to the ground beside the speaker, head resting against the wall below it, John groaned again.

"Uh, Al…?" Gordon started with obvious uncertainty.

"Five's haunted and I don't know who the ghost is or even if there's more than one of them, but all the noise just wouldn't stop and I thought it was a punishment, and I thought maybe I was just going crazy, but John heard it too, and he said it was a warning, and then everything went quiet, and now he's in trouble and we need to launch, now, Father!"

Strangely, Alan's voice grew stronger and more confident as he went on. John had drawn a brief and false comfort from his belief that the spectral voices could be explained scientifically. Alan just wanted an explanation of any kind – scientific or otherwise. John hadn't realised how afraid his little brother had been for his own sanity until he heard the uncertainty drop away from Alan's voice, and his confident determination return.

His shocked family only heard their youngest take a running leap over the edge of reason and plummet into the calm depths beyond.

Jeff was the first to break the silence.

"Scott?"

"I'm already flat out, Father. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Dad? Please!"

"Alan, I want you to sit down and… Alan? Alan, come back here…! Alan!"

"Umm… Dad?" Gordon asked over the open channel.

"He walked out on me." Their father didn't seem to believe it himself.

"Give him a few minutes to cool off and he'll be back," Virgil predicted. "He's just worried about John, Father. He won't stay away from the radio for long."

"Father, I don't think…" Scott trailed off.

"Agreed." Jeff sighed heavily. "Thunderbird Three is yours. Your brother's grounded."

"But what he was saying…?"

"Alan is not our main concern." Jeff's declaration cut across Gordon's worried question. "I'll send you grandmother to find him, but for now we need to establish… Ah, Brains. What's the situation?"

"Ah…" The young scientist was uncharacteristically hesitant in the face of a technical challenge. "I'm, ah, afraid the problem isn't at our end, Mr T-Tracy. I was able to use the systems here on the island to, ah, access our network of relay and m-monitor satellites. None of them are in contact with Thunderbird Five. We r-really need to investigate the s-s-situation on the s-station."

"ETA now twenty-one minutes, thirty seconds," Scott announced into the tense silence that followed.

John buried his face in his hands. Twenty-one minutes for Thunderbird One to reach Tracy Island, another fifteen to land her and make the transfer. Maybe an hour-twenty for an emergency approach to Thunderbird Five, and that was assuming Scott could push the less-familiar Thunderbird Three close to her limit. Add in fifteen, twenty minutes for his brother to locate and evacuate him. That was all he had to hold out if he was going to stand any chance of rescue. Barely more than two hours.

Slowly he raised his head, measuring the cramped room with his eyes, estimating how much space the equipment banks took up. Detailed calculations were beyond him, but a combination of astronaut's training and pure survival instinct told John it would be tight. Impossibly tight. At best he had another hour and a half before the air in here became unbreathable. The compact emergency oxygen cylinder still clipped to his belt might stretch that out for another half hour, but he'd need part of that to make a rapid transfer through the evacuated station. His mind wasn't working too well, but even in his current state, he could see that the numbers didn't add up.

John leaned back against the wall, facing up to the near-certainty that Scott would hurtle into space only to find his brother's asphyxiated corpse, stiffening as the cold of space seeped into its pallid flesh.

Already he could feel a chill, although whether that was the ambient temperature falling or his own body's shock response, he couldn't be sure. With most of the station open to vacuum, there was no way for the station's fusion generator to circulate its warmth to what little air remained. This place had to be losing heat far too quickly for comfort. He ought to pull himself into the centre of the room, away from the walls, and hope for at least a little thermal leakage from the still-flashing and red-lit equipment banks. He wasn't sure he could be bothered to make the effort.

He stayed propped against the wall under the speaker, taking comfort from the voices of his distant family.

"Brains, I want you to be ready to go with Scott… Hey! What's that?"

It was ironic that even now Thunderbird Five's main computer was ticking over, her processing algorithms firmly in place and filtering out the background noise John needed to set his father's question in context.

"It, ah, sounds like…"

"Thunderbird Three!" Jeff Tracy interrupted Brains with a startled cry.

"What?"

"Dad, you can't let him – "

"You mean he's actually launching?"

Scott, Gordon and Virgil sounded as lost as John felt. Their father ignored them all, his voice mingling anger with deep concern.

"Base to Thunderbird Three! Alan, answer me, boy!"

"Thunderbird Three now, ah, clear of the Round House," Brains reported. "C-climbing at better than escape velocity. On course for an intercept trajectory."

"Thunderbird Three, respond! Come in, Alan!"

"… but, Alan," Tin-Tin's voice came as a surprise to everyone, "I don't understand. Why shouldn't I answer your father?" She paused, listening to an inaudible reply and clicking her tongue in irritation before speaking more firmly. "Base from Thunderbird Three."

This time relief coloured the fury behind Jeff Tracy's words. "Tin-Tin? You're aboard Three?"

"I was working in Thunderbird Three's hangar, Mr Tracy. Alan said John was in trouble and I should get aboard."

"Well, John's sure got a problem, honey. We just don't know what kind yet. Tin-Tin, I want you to keep an eye on your course and stay in close touch with Base, okay?" John's father paused, his tone still tight with anger but becoming more cautious. "Alan?"

"Father." There was no panic at all in Alan's acknowledgement and no apology either. He spoke with the assurance familiar from countless rescue situations. "E.T.A at Thunderbird Five: one hour and ten minutes."

"Alan…" John could hear his father's frustration. Jeff Tracy had no choice whatsoever. Bringing Thunderbird Three back down to Earth and resetting her would cause far more delay than he could tolerate, even assuming he could talk Alan down or persuade Tin-Tin to wrest control away from him. Just having the able young woman aboard would have to be insurance enough. "Go find your brother. You and I will have words, son. Later."

Alan sighed. "Yes, sir."

"Alan? I don't understand."

"I'll explain later, Tin-Tin. John needs us. I know he does." Alan paused. "I'll call when I have news. Three out."

"Track him, Brains. Scott, Virgil, I want you boys home as soon as possible."

"F.A.B.," Scott acknowledged grimly, overlapping with Virgil's softer "Yes, Father."

There was no discussion after that, the inter-Thunderbird channel falling silent as each man worried for Alan and John both. No one heard John laughing, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes as the exertion sent pain shooting through his bruised back and chest. He took a deep breath and pushed himself up onto his knees, searching with his eyes for the small toolkit he'd brought down here. It was time he started using his head. Scott would have found the space monitor lifeless despite the best efforts of them both. Alan would find his brother fighting to survive.

Electronic components blurred, dancing in front of John as his vision wavered. He fumbled to catch them, unable to make his hands go where his eyes wanted, and realised he was giggling, his own incompetence striking him as hilarious. He frowned, muttering imprecations as he urged the mess of oscilloscopes, circuit boards and copper wire to remain still. His voice came from a long way away, fading into the distance. He seemed to be floating, disconnected from the increasingly unstable world around him.

He reached out again, knocking the blunt-nosed pliers he'd been using to the ground. They skittered along the tilting floor, ending up a long arm's stretch away. John bent down to retrieve them without thinking, and the breath hissed between his teeth as bruise-stiffened muscles spasmed, doubling his body over.

The endorphins helped. His mind cleared, just long enough for half-remembered warnings about euphoria to register. Cold-numbed fingers fumbled for the oxygen mask at his side, wrestling it into place over his tear-dampened cheeks and twisting the valve on the cylinder before slumping back in a gasping heap.

It took a while for his mind to begin to function. He chafed his hands together, anxious when the pressure barely registered. He'd stopped shivering minutes before, and realised that even stretching the air out as thin as he could, he was still in danger of freezing to death before his brother could reach him.

He'd set some of the more stable instruments around him meaningless but processor-heavy tasks, for the sake of the small amount of waste heat they generated. He couldn't do anything more – not without risking a fire that would foul the air and consume what little oxygen he had left. Taking a deep breath, he reduced the flow to his breathing mask as far as he dared, and made himself concentrate on the device he was building. He might lack the equipment to encode human speech, but he did have direct access to the receiver/transmitter array mounted on the antenna mast. If he could just tap the electronics and feed a modulated signal into the system…

Time had become meaningless. It might have been minutes or hours before he let his tools drop from numb fingers.

The signal wouldn't contain much information, but it would tell the rapidly-approaching Alan two things: that however bleak Five's condition appeared, his brother had survived the impact, and that he was somewhere with access to these systems. Alan was bright enough to reason the rest out for himself. He had to be.

John sank to the frigid metal deck, his head resting on folded arms. He didn't have the strength left for anything more.

Stillness and cold seeped into him. His eyes drifted closed. A small, sad smile played across his lips as the silence was broken, his Thunderbird's ethereal presence manifest for the first time since disaster struck. The wail that had lured him to this meagre refuge and held him here, that was driving Alan to a reckless and defiant rescue, softened now into a murmur of comfort. John flinched, feeling a hand stroke his cold-frosted cheek. He tilted his head, leaning into the gentle touch, and let the woman's soft voice sing him to sleep.

He ached all over. That fact registered before the sensation of cotton sheets beneath him, the warmth or the background murmur of Thunderbird Three's atmosphere processors. He twitched, desperate to move to a more comfortable position, but sure without trying that his stiff muscles and aching bones would protest any movement at all.

"John?" A soft hand on his brow, but warm this time, not the ghostly caress that lingered in his sensory memory. Another hand lifted his wrist, a familiar voice murmuring an apology when John whimpered in pain at the contact. "Alan, I think John is waking up."

Alan's reply was distorted by the intercom, channelled down from the pilot's cabin above. Even so John heard his little brother's relief.

"He is? That's great, Tin-Tin. Just let me…" There was a jolt that rippled through the frame of the Thunderbird, and all the way through John's limp body. "Right, I'll come straight down."

John dragged his eyes open, as much out of curiosity as anything else. What on Earth was his little brother doing?

He winced as light streamed through his cracked eyelids, unable to suppress his groan.

"John, can you hear me?"

"Tin-Tin?"

His vision cleared, a pair of relieved green eyes swimming into view. Tin-Tin smiled, her hand moving to rest lightly on his arm.

"Lie still, John, I'm going to give you something for the pain."

A sharp prick at his crook of elbow and sweet relief spread through John's body.

"Thanks, honey."

His eyes flickered closed, his breathing becoming deeper and steadier as he relaxed properly for the first time since the meteorite strike. He heard the descending note of Thunderbird Three's cabin lift, too sunk in a comfortable fog to react as Tin-Tin and Alan discussed his condition in low voices. He couldn't help feeling a vague regret when the lift once again rose towards the pilot's cabin. Obviously whatever Alan was up to couldn't wait for John to regain his coherence.

It must have been several minutes before he managed to drag his eyes open, determined to stay awake long enough to see his brother this time. He not only needed to talk to Alan, he dearly wanted to.

He wasn't expecting to look up into clear blue eyes, his little brother taking Tin-Tin's place at his side. Alan's face was pale, his expression bleak. Then he noticed John watching and a broad smile wiped the anxiety away.

"John!"

Alan's delight was infectious. Despite everything, the corners of John's mouth turned up.

"About time you got here."

Alan rolled his eyes. "I'm not the one who's been catching up on his beauty sleep for the last hour. You took your own sweet time waking up, Johnny."

John sighed, feeling his eyelids flicker despite his good intentions.

"Rough day," he murmured.

Alan's smile faltered. "Yeah."

Frowning, John forced his eyes wide. "Alan? It's okay."

Alan dropped a hand to his elder brother's shoulder and squeezed it. "I almost didn't get here in time, John." He stood, pacing the cabin for a few seconds, before turning back to the bed, his eyes suspiciously bright. "I thought… I thought I hadn't. But then I saw your signal… I had to cut my way in to get to you." His bark of laughter completely lacked humour. "Found just about the only hull-plate without a hole in it already." He stopped, just looking at John. "You were so cold."

"If you hadn't launched when you did…" John gave his head a little shake. "I owe you big time, little brother."

Maybe it was a reaction to his earnest tone, or maybe just Alan's natural resilience, but the younger man laughed, for real this time, dashing at his eyes with the back of one hand.

"Enough to put a word in for me with Dad?" he asked wryly. "Or would that be above and beyond the call of duty?"

John echoed his brother's laugh, a little breathy with exhaustion but moving better now the pain had subsided.

"Way beyond." He smiled at Alan's dismay, shifting on the bed and searching for a more comfortable position amidst the residual aches and pains. "Relax, Al. You did the right thing."

Alan raised a sceptical eyebrow, dropping back into the chair so his brother didn't have to strain to see him. "Uh-huh. And you think that's going to get me off the hook for stealing a Thunderbird?"

"Hmm. Parker can probably recommend a good lawyer." He realised his eyes had drifted shut and opened them again to find that pensive expression back on Alan's face. "What are you going to tell them?"

Alan shrugged, leaning forward to adjust the John's sheets. He paused, the cotton fabric crumpling in his fists as Thunderbird Three lurched again. Alan glanced up at the ceiling and back towards the lift, before shaking his head. John's eyes asked the question. His brother grunted.

"Orbital corrections." Alan sighed, reverting to John's earlier query. "Another half-hour to get the station stabilised. A couple of hours home. I've got time to think of something."

John smiled weakly. "And, besides, a few weeks of pampering on a funny farm will probably do us both good."

Both. It was only one word, but it froze Alan with his mouth open, the quick retort dying on his lips. John's little brother closed his mouth, swallowing hard. His shoulders slumped.

"You said… you said a warning?"

Alan's eyes never left his elder brother's face. It took everything John had to meet them. "I saw… something."

"She was watching over you." Alan blinked, looking away. "I'd come as fast as I could, but you were lying there… not moving, covered in frost. And she was kneeling beside you. Just an echo of light in the air."

"Alan?"

"I thought… but she looked up at me, and… and she smiled."

John didn't reply, just shared a long moment of silent contemplation with his brother. Alan broke it.

"Do you think maybe we'll…?"

"See her again?" John finished for him. "Or hear her?" He shook his head. "I hope we'll never need to."

He sighed, letting his head drop back and his eyes slide closed. He cranked them open again, taking in Alan's dissatisfied frown.

"So," he offered. "Antenna malfunction? Freaky vibrations disrupting sleep patterns?"

Alan grinned. "Hmm, tiredness and a little short-term confusion. I think I can carry that off."

John felt a weary smile spread across his face in return. "And if Gordon mentions Halloween again this year we paint his 'Bird pink."

Now Alan's grin turned predatory. "You're tired, Johnny. Not thinking straight. We can come up with something a whole lot more interesting than that."

Thunderbird Three lurched again, and this time Alan's frustrated glance towards the lift was rather more pronounced. John chuckled, his voice dropping to a mumble as sleep crept ever closer.

"Go rescue your Thunderbird, Al. And look after mine. Send Tin-Tin back down. She's prettier than you are anyway."

"Charming." Alan patted John's shoulder, turning for the lift-door. "Get some rest, John. We'll be on our way soon."

John didn't answer, already drifting. Eyes closed, he felt a woman's hand caress his cheek, a familiar voice murmuring reassurances.

He didn't stir when the lift door opened and Tin-Tin settled by his side. He slept, safe and protected, as Alan took them home.