Out of Place

AN – Well I realised I couldn't go for more than a couple of weeks without starting a new project, so here we go. The summary will be updated in the future – I don't want to put everything in it now because it will be spoilers! I hope you enjoy

Disclaimer – I don't own Thunderbirds

Chapter One – A situation

"Guys, we have a situation."

John's blue hologram materialised over the coffee table in the den. Alan sighed and put down the drink he'd just made, realising that as the only Tracy brother on the Island he was going to have to answer this one. Well the only conscious brother anyway, and given how many missions Virgil had been out on recently he wasn't going to go and wake up his big brother just so he could drink a lemonade in peace.

"Hey John, what's up?"

John looked around, clearly a bit disturbed to not find any of his other siblings. "Where is Virgil? And dad?"

"I think Virgil's actually catching up on some sleep during his downtime and dad had that doctors appointment, remember? One of his routine checkups." John nodded slowly, looking up at screens that Alan couldn't see but he would bet anything that John was verifying what he just said. Their father had been missing for eight long years, only to turn up in the Oort Cloud. He'd been back on Earth for a couple of months now but needed routine rehabilitation to get used to the gravity and atmosphere again.

"Anyhow, you're just left with yours truly." Alan leant back in his seat and gestured to himself. The youngest of the Tracy brothers, he wasn't often the first choice for rescue missions unless the mission involved space. Space was his speciality, a trained astronaut that had racked up numerous hours of zero-G despite being only eighteen. One of the perks of being a part of International Rescue.

"Well I'd need you anyway," John explained. "But I also needed to pick Brains's…well, brain."

Brains, real name Hiram Hackenbacker, was the engineer and scientist who had designed most of International Rescue's cutting edge craft. He was also a consultant for many rescue missions, where his expertise often meant the difference between success and failure.

"Are my ears burning?" An accented voice floated into the den and Brains appeared, followed by his trusty robot MAX. "Did I hear you ask for help?"

"You sure did," John confirmed. "I'm glad you're here, Brains. I've received a distress call from a distant ship, very faint but still there. Apparently they have been hit by something and are stranded, on a collision course with a large asteroid."

"I-I see. I'm n-not quite sure why you n-need my help so far, John."

"That's the thing Brains, apparently whatever struck them has become stuck to their hull and is interfering with their craft. It's also interfering with radio signals so I can't get clearer details. I need to know how we stop it."

John flashed up a broken image of the stricken spaceship. It was a large people transporter, the type used to create and develop the Mars colony.

"What is that doing up there?" Alan wondered out loud, noticing the rocks in the image which looked as though the transporter was in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

"No idea," John replied. "The messages I'm getting from the transporter are very rough, I could barely make out that they needed help. But there is no one else who could get there in time, Global One is undergoing a refit and has no personnel to spare and if a GDF craft launched from Earth they'd never make it."

"Y-you don't have a better picture?" Brains asked, peering through his glasses at the strange attachment on the side of the transporter.

"Sorry Brains, you've got all I have."

"Hm, I see. Well I guess t-there is no time to l-lose, better get going. Y-you'll need to c-come along too I think, John. It will need a couple of pairs of hands."

"Hey, worried I can't handle it?"

"N-not at all, A-Alan, but we will need someone to undo t-the quantum clamps while y-you prise the box casing l-loose."

"OK Brains, I'll get into the exosuit and meet you outside Thunderbird 5." John confirmed, before pausing and looking back at the "Wait a moment Brains… come along? You're coming too?"

"Oh yes," Brains confirmed as he sat in the second seat that took any co-pilot to Thunderbird 3. "As y-you don't have a better picture I'm g-going to have to come along t-to see it for m-myself. O-otherwise, I won't be able to h-help you disarm it." His words sounded more confident than he looked, a large gulp escaping him as the comfy armchairs sank into the floor and began racing below Tracy Island to reach the Thunderbird 3 launch bay.

Once they were in place, the red rocket took to space with a roar. Brains whimpered slightly whilst gripping the edges of his seat with white knuckled hands, while Alan just grinned at him.

"Aw come on Brains, we've done this loads by now."

"D-doesn't mean I have to l-like it," Brians muttered, screwing his eyes shut.

"If you really don't like it so much, maybe you could have sent MAX instead? Why did you come?"

"T-the box," Brians explained. "I d-don't like it, there w-was nothing about it that should have s-stopped a transporter unless it i-is sending a very strong interfering signal. A-and if it's sending that strong a signal, then it w-will likely interfere with any communications between Thunderbird 3 and Tracy Island. N-no, I had to come in p-person."

"Well ok Brains, just promise me you won't throw up in here again. It was a real pain to clean last time." Alan peered out of the windows towards the orbiting space station Thunderbird 5, which was the main communication hub for International Rescue and the place where John spent most of his time. His older brother was just about visible at the end of the station, wearing his space exosuit. "Hi John, just opening the doors now."

"FAB Alan." The figure flew towards them, passing below the nose of Thunderbird 3 and into the centre of the ship where an airlock had opened ready to receive him. In next to no time, John was in the compartment with them.

"Hey guys. We're headed over to the asteroid belt, Eos should be sending you the coordinates now."

"Yep, they're here. Buckle up, we're heading out." Alan twisted the controls, instinctively turning the rocket and engaging the thrusters.

Brains, having relinquished the co-pilot's seat as soon as John came on board, gulped again and grabbed hold of anything he could as the trio powered towards Mars and beyond.

"I called Scott to let him know we were heading out," John informed Alan, his fingers flicking through the data on the screen as he pulled up everything he had on the stranded transporter. "He's going to stop by to pick dad up on the way home, then they will field the communications while we're out here. Eos is stepping in until they get back to Base."

"Eos? She isn't exactly a people person." Thunderbird 5's resident artificial intelligence was known to be very tetchy with humans, well all except for John. She seemed to have developed a fondness for John as her creator.

"She isn't exactly a person at all," John replied sardonically. "But she'll at least be able to triage the calls until someone else can take them." John continued to flip through data, eventually passing something over to Brains. "This is the latest information we've got, something is still interfering pretty badly with the signals."

"Hmm," Brains looked at the hologram on the tablet he was holding. "I s-still think it's the box itself that must be causing the interference. I've n-never seen anything like it. If we can, I'd like to get it back to the lab to look at it properly."

"If we can get it powered down, that shouldn't be a problem," John replied.

"Guys, we're not that far away now. So, plan of attack. John and I go down to the transporter, John detaches the box thing and I bring it back for Brains, we go home and hey presto."

"I'm a-afraid it won't be quite that easy," Brains told Alan. "There will be some q-quantum clamps that this screwdriver should manage to disrupt, but you're going to need to hold the lid back and scan the inside of the box while John is disengaging the clamps. B-be careful, if you release the clamps too soon it will fly shut." Brians directed the last comment at John, who frowned and nodded as he studied the points Brains had highlighted on the image.

"Then you send the scans to m-me, I tell you how to disengage and we r-remove the box safely from the transporter." Brains finished instructing Alan. "T-then it is hey p-presto and home. Hopefully."

"Yeah, if I'm not crushed like a sardine," Alan grumbled. "Hey, we're nearly here. This is Thunderbird 3 calling Starstreak 36 alpha. Are you receiving me?"

"Come…Thunder….receiving you…"

"The interference is still really bad and you're right Brains, it is coming from that box." John was using Thunderbird 3's sensors to get a better reading now that they were closer. Alan grimaced.

"Starstreak 36 alpha, this is Thunderbird 3. We're going to try to remove the object that's causing the interference, then you should be able to power yourself out of danger." He shook his head. "They probably haven't heard a word. Come on, let's get this thing off their ship."

Brains was looking at the large asteroid that was headed the way of the transporter, his face pale. "I…yes, that would s-seem a good idea."

John and Alan suited up, ready for the vacuum of space, before entering the airlock. Soon they were floating over to the transporter, using their hands to travel along the side of it until the strange box was reached.

Up close, it was about the size of a person. It was only about half a metre deep, stuck tightly on the ship somehow. The casing was connected to the underside by six large clamps that John started to scan.

"Whoa Brains, are you getting this?" Alan asked, moving around so that the camera in his mask would be able to show Brains the front of it. There were strange designs etched into the surface, and it looked almost as though it had been hewn from a larger sheet of metal and folded into the casing.

"I'm nearly there, Alan," John grunted, prising the quantum clamps apart using the tool Brains had given him but having to hold them apart using sheer strength. The clamps twitched, trying to close again but John held firm. Alan dived into the gap he'd made.

"Brains, I'm in. How do I shut this thing down?"

"Alan…..red….cut…. green…" Brains's voice was faint and almost impossible to decipher through the comms, despite how close he was in Thunderbird 3.

"Dammit," Alan swore. "I can't hear him. I'm going to try to boost the signal John."

"Do it quickly!" John's voice betrayed the effort he was making to hold the casing open.

"Brains, I've boosted the signal to max. You need to repeat your instruction."

"Cut…green wire…engage…"

"Right, green wire. OK." Alan looked at the complex system in front of him, picking out the green wire. With a shrug, he snipped it. For a moment, nothing happened. But then…Alan realised with a sinking feeling that he was looking at a dial. A dial that had started to flash up numbers. Numbers that were now counting down. "John, it's counting down – its some sort of bomb! We need to get out of here!"

Alan flew backwards just as John released the casing with a bang. "Go back to Thunderbird 3," John told him. "I'll try to contact the captain of the transporter, try to get the passengers off."

"FAB," Alan flew away, back to Thunderbird 3. John crawled up the side of the transporter, racing against time.

"Starstreak 36 alpha, do you copy?"

His comms crackled, but then a faint voice came through. "This is Captain Hodges of Starstreak 36 alpha, we can hear you now. What's going on out there?"

"We've tried too remove the box that's causing the interference but we've managed to start some kind of timer, you need to evacuate."

"No can do, the interference is stopping us opening bulkhead doors or ejecting the escape pods. Where is the box located?"

"Fourth bulkhead on starboard side."

"Copy." There was a moment of cracking silence. "All personnel are being advised to travel to front of transporter. It's a tight seal to the area you've described, so provided the blast isn't too big we should be safe. Let's hope that's enough."

"John!" Alan's voice sounded urgent, causing John to stare up at Thunderbird 3. "She's unresponsive, I can't come and pick you up! You need to get back here, now. There's no time!"

John started to fly back towards the space rocket, his exosuit thrusters opting and hissing intermittently as his line veered erratically. He was about halfway back to the relative safety of Thunderbird 3 when a light behind him had him turning around to see what was happening. The casing of the strange box had opened, revealing a bright white light. John had no warning or time to brace as the box flew apart, a pulse wave accompanied by a blinding light hurtling towards him and sending him spinning into space.