Chapters "We've arrived, Colonel. Still waiting on what we're supposed to do , though."
You couldn't blame Scott Tracy for being impatient - anything he did had a high opportunity cost. As acting commander, and de facto chief pilot, of International Rescue, his time was very valuable, although still not as valuable as that of the craft he rode in. Thunderbird 1 could have been back at the island having any number of upgrades installed. Instead, it had carried eldest brother Scott, youngest brother Alan, and a pod in copter configuration (which had only just fit in the recovery bay) to a remote GDF airbase. Worse, Colonel Casey hadn't told them why - she'd just given them an equipment list and their marching orders.
"Hey Scott, that's the base commander out there. Is it just me or does he look kinda shifty?"
"Please don't say that to his face, Alan."
Right on cue, the radio projected Base Commander O'Shea's voice. "Thunderbird 1. Stay put. Time is of the essence." And he was gone again.
"I don't get it, Alan. Those sentences don't fit together."
"Yeah, he's up to someth-"
Any further discussion was cut off as proof emerged that someone was, in fact, up to something. Arrays of - well, the best description was 'glowy bent obelisks' - emerged from the ground, defining a hemisphere centred on Thunderbird 1's landing pad.
"What are those meant to be?!"
"If he's the Hood, I swear I'll-!"
A blinding flash, and Thunderbird 1 ceased to be.
In its current location, anyway. The sleek blue rocket plane flashed back into existence on a very similar landing pad, surrounded by very similar glowy tech - but with no airbase in sight.
"Oh cool, teleportation! Could be useful." Alan Tracy had a slight tendency to miss the forest for the trees at times.
"If it was teleportation, they could have just told us. I don't like any of this, Alan."
"Come on big bro, learn to appreciate a surprise."
"I'd rather my surprises didn't involve this kind of risk to Thunderbird 1. ...Where are we, anyway?"
This was clearly a question that John Tracy, space monitor, also wanted answers to. "Thunderbird 5 to Thunderbird 1. Please report your current position; I can't find you."
"Um, John, we don't know either."
"Basically what Alan said. The compass is working, but that's about it. I don't have a clue."
Answers to that question, at least, were soon to be forthcoming.
"GDF Tango base to Thunderbird 1. I trust you've arrived safely?"
"Tell us where we were meant to arrive, first."
"The locals should be with you soon. Follow their instructions. Don't go anywhere until then."
Tango base cut the line, leaving the International Rescue personnel unsettled and uneasy, Scott in particular. "He still didn't tell us where we were meant to end up... or where we have ended up. I don't like this one bit."
There were a couple of minutes of relative inactivity. Scott tried every trick he knew to troubleshoot Thunderbird 1's navigation system, while keeping the craft ready to leave as soon as the situation deteriorated (which he suspected it would). John, in geostationary orbit aboard Thunderbird 5, tried every scan he knew of to locate them. Alan, stuck in One's jumpseat, tried singing to pass the time, while glancing at the scenery for anything of interest. Apart from a few small buildings (none of which looked up to the GDF's usual construction standards), the landscape was bare and deserted.
Oh, hang on, splash of colour exiting a building. ...Wait, what. "Scott, I don't think we're in Kansas any more."
Scott, knowing better than to break the news that they never had been, looked up to see what had caught his brother's eye, and was shocked into a similarly (in)coherent state. The woman in GDF uniform was expected. The miniature pegasus in GDF uniform walking alongside her was most definitely not.
Neither Tracy had quite recovered by the time the two GDF staff approached.
"International Rescue? I'm Colonel Shreya Singh, GDF liasion to ...here. Spoiler alert, 'here' isn't Earth."
"I'm Scott, and this is Alan. Colonel Casey sent us - although she didn't give much in the way of detail."
Fortunately, Colonel Shreya had the answer to that, too. "And this is Wild Fire, my local counterpart."
"Hiya!" said the talking pony. "But could we cut to the chase, Colonel? We're wasting time."
Alan, to his credit, didn't make a quip about how they were actually burning time. Maybe because he was still shocked by the talking pony.
Scott was more eloquent. "Okay, still not sure about the whole talking ponies thing, but I can get used to that. What are we here for?"
Wild Fire promptly provided one of the most coherent local briefings of all time. "The main wind generator at the Cloudsdale weather factory has been partially breached, creating a localised cyclone. It's trapped a lot of ponies in the building, and it's become strong enough that nobody can get in to shut it down. We'd call in Rainbow Dash, but she's off somewhere with the rest of the Elements; and the princesses are all at diplomatic events - we can't contact them."
Alan was by now recovered enough to notice an inconsistency. "Hang on, if they all have wings, can't they fly out?"
"A lot of them aren't pegasi." Wild Fire cringed slightly. "There was a scheduled tour."
Colonel Singh continued to Scott. "When Wild Fire informed me of the situation, it occurred to me that International Rescue would have the tools for dealing with an accident on this scale."
It was almost needless to say that Scott was convinced. "Strap in, Alan. We can ask questions in flight. For now, we've got a job for International Rescue!"
Author's Note
Wild Fire is an actual background pony , just by the way.
Thunderbird 1 flew through Equestrian airspace at a severely restricted speed, due to the high risk of mid-air collision. Even so, it took a mere fifteen minutes to reach Cloudsdale from the teleport pad, during which time Wild Fire (strapped securely into the other jumpseat) gave Scott and Alan a lightning primer on pegasus weather control ("That'd make a lot of things easier on Earth"), local government and culture ("So what happened to the Queen? ...touchy subject?"), and cloud cities ("I thought that was figurative!"). This was nowhere near enough to be prepared for seeing Cloudsdale, especially given the cloud city's precarious position at the centre of a cyclone.
Of course, this was more preparation than the herds of frightened ponies near the scene got, and there were very nearly major stampedes as a rocket plane made a dramatic appearance from the south, averted only by Wild Fire appearing from the hatch underneath and very loudly (with the aid of a borrowed megaphone) assuring everypony that everything would be just fine and if they could let the professionals do their job that would be great . With panic barely in check, Thunderbird 1's powerful weather radar gave Scott his first proper analysis of the task ahead, interrupted only by Wild Fire commenting that "it wasn't quite this bad when I left..."
"Alan, take the pod out and scope out the danger zone more closely. I'm going to land, power down, and see if I can't reassure the crowd."
"Wow, didn't know you were that much of a people person."
"...I'm not."
Questionable competencies aside, Scott landed his craft and prepared to play human damage control. Or maybe equine damage control, now that he thought about it.
Still, better me than Alan.
Fortunately for everyone involved, help was waiting at his landing site.
"Good morning, dear stranger. I'm Fleetfoot, local Wonderbolt commander."
"I'm Scott, from International Rescue."
"Before you ask, yes, we have tried to shut that thing down. It was just too strong by the time anyone called us."
"Apologies for having to ask, but how good are you?"
"I'm around the average, and I could about keep pace with you as you arrived over the crowd."
"Yikes. It's that bad up there?"
"Well, it looks like that thing you're flying has more wingpower behind it. I'd say you have more hope. Anyway, my apologies for having to ask, but ...what are you?"
"Uh... we call ourselves humans."
"Huh. Sounds familiar from somewhere. Anyway. Hey Wild Fire, pass the megaphone? ahem THIS IS SCOTT! HE'S A HUMAN! HE'S HERE TO HELP! There, that should deal with the crowd. It's always safer when the site is clear of civilians."
"That's exactly what I was going to say..."
"I get the feeling we'll get along fine."
Further discussion on what actually went on in a weather factory was interrupted by the return of Alan. "Couldn't work out much more, other than that it's slowly getting worse. I sent our data to John and he said it looks safe to go in, so might want to do less talking and more, y'know, fixing?"
Seeing the two pegasi don similar expressions, Scott decided that it probably was time to get moving. "Right. The idea is to locate the controls and turn the wind generator off?"
"If you do that, the cyclone should lose power, and we can clean it up from there."
"Alan, you think the pod can handle flying into that?"
"Uh, it should?"
"Great. I'd like one of you two, um, ponies to ride with me; you'll have a better idea of what to do inside than I will."
Fleetfoot volunteered (contrary to popular belief, you had to be well-qualified in weather manipulation to get anywhere near the Wonderbolts Academy). After managing to strap her in (the harness in the pod's back seat was less forgiving than the jumpseat on One), Scott and passenger rose into the air on four rotors to take the sting out of the storm.
Unfortunately, there was even more sting than expected.
"This isn't good!" Scott noted from the front seat as another gust buffeted the pod.
"It's not supposed to be this strong yet!" Fleetfoot agreed from the back seat. "What do we do?"
"What International Rescue always does: push on anyway!"
"Are you crazy?!"
"Probably, but that's never stopped us!"
Alan took the opportunity to observe from the safety of the ground that "Actually, it's stopped me a lot. Now Scott, on the other hand - I remember this one time in the Arctic-"
"Oh, like you can talk, Mister Must-Touch-Halley's-Comet!"
Fleetfoot began to wonder How does this organisation get anything done with all this bickering? , before remembering that she and Spitfire disagreed almost as often. She made a mental note to ask what a hal-ee's comet was meant to be.
Scott just pushed up the throttles and steered through the raging clouds as best he could.
A minute or so later, he still hadn't made any noticeable progress, and was unsettled enough that he called Alan to ask if he'd actually made any progress.
"Yeah, you've made it another thirty metres, and for the fifth time I haven't touched your precious flight controls!"
Oops, thought Scott, maybe I'm being a bit possessive of One. Then Thirty metres in a minute? That's hardly- and was cut off by a bang and a lurch that never stopped. His instinctive pilot's responses brought the pod to heel (mostly), and a quick look at the instrument panel revealed that something had crippled one of the turbofans. "Gaah! Turbofan three is dead, I can't stay in here!"
"At these wind speeds, not a chance! Gonna have to stop for once, big bro."
Scott Tracy could be described as stubborn, and capable of ignoring people around him reaching their breaking points, but he at least knew his breaking point, and got on with his equipment. Faced with both deserting him at once in the midst of a cyclone, he turned around and left - he might be IR-brand crazy, but that didn't mean he had a death wish.
Most of a minute later, he spoke again. "We've made it out, but this is getting really fierce. I'm going to have to take Thunderbird 1 in there."
Observers of Thunderbird 1's original entrance to the scene, polled at this instant, would have rated this plan much more likely to be successful than the one with the "dinky little yellow thing".
"-and then I said, 'Oatmeal? Are you crazy -?'"
Equestria's most effective crowd-control mechanism stopped working as she realised that everypony else was staring at something in shock, and promptly copied them.
Fleetfoot felt like she was in the Dizzitron all over again, just with more non-rotational movement. In the seat in front, Scott fought to control the suddenly-unresponsive Thunderbird 1 as it cartwheeled away from Cloudsdale. "Rrrrgh, come on! "
"Scott, I can't help!" Alan unhelpfully contributed over the radio. "You're moving away too fast! I can't catch you!"
Scott was already 'in the zone' and heard none of it. What's happening? No thrust on the port side - okay, engines surging, airflow must have been interrupted somehow. Wings stalling. Got to regain control! Need thrust. Afterburners on starboard exhaust. Decrease port power to clear stall. Thrust imbalance causing port yaw; rudders to full starboard. Not enough. Can't decrease power yet. Port engine stall clear, throttle up. Aerofoil stall cleared. Altitude warning? VTOLs on. Yaw cleared. Flight stable; afterburners off, reset rudders. Full stop, need to get my bearings.
Within about eight seconds, he'd regained control of Thunderbird 1 - no mean feat from a one-per-second spin, and all the more impressive to Fleetfoot when she looked down through the canopy and saw the ground right there . He'd do well on the Dizzitron.
"It's only getting worse up there." Alan, having been left with the pod's instruments, provided situation updates as Scott employed the inertial navigation system to get him back to Cloudsdale. "I don't think you'll be able to try that again - the winds are just too fierce now."
"And if I'm reading this right," pitched in Wild Fire, "even the worsening is worsening."
"Looks that way from here." Scott could now see Cloudsdale again. He wouldn't have said it was possible for the situation to look worse than when he was last outside, but look worse it somehow did. "How long do you think we have?"
Fleetfoot's professional opinion was "about fifteen minutes".
"In case you hadn't noticed, big bro, we're all out of plans."
"Again... I knew we couldn't keep our record this clean forever, but I would have liked to start on a better note with a whole new planet... Still, I don't see anything else we can do."
"Yeah, we'd need a princess to save us now..."
Scott had the flash of inspiration this time. "...Wild Fire, was that hyperbole, or would a princess actually be able to stop this?"
"There's no hyperbole with the Princesses. One of them could. If they were here - but they aren't, and we can't tell them in time!"
"Don't be so sure. You said they were busy with diplomatic events - where's the closest one, and how fast could they get here if they found out?"
"Um, the closest would be Princess Luna in Griffonstone. She could teleport back here instantly, but we're still at least an overnight train away from there."
"We're International Rescue. We can do better than trains. Get in here, and give me a precise compass bearing!"
Wild Fire darted in and took the other jumpseat, as Alan passed on "Bearing nine-six degrees, almost due east; I say again, nine-six degrees."
Scott glanced at the clock. If the train traveled at about eighty kilometres per hour, then overnight was at least eight hundred kilometres. He had at least eight hundred kilometres to go in less than thirteen minutes. Easy as pie at Thunderbird 1's full speed (24000 km/h was 4000 km in ten minutes), but it just wasn't safe to go anywhere that fast, not with the skies full of pegasi and griffons and who knew what else. I know this thing's fast, but this is still gonna be close!
The trip east was comprised of the longest few minutes of Scott's life. He was relying on his piloting skill to make a fairly low-speed trip not take too long, for the sake of dozens of lives. His two passengers arguably had it worse, forced to sit and wait in jumpseats arguably not designed for them as the landscape below sailed past and the situation at Cloudsdale threatened to boil over.
About three minutes in, Alan checked in. "Repair pod to Thunderbird 1. The cyclone's behaving as we predicted - you still have ten minutes to get our help here."
"My navigator tells me we're passing over Manehatten, which means we're making good ground. ETA to Griffonstone, another four minutes." Scott put the figurative mic down. "I thought you said it'd be slower...?"
Wild Fire muttered something about the labyrinthine railroad layout. Fleetfoot clarified that "We estimated correctly - for a train . I didn't think of it at the time, which is silly because I have wings, but we don't need to follow the train line, so we can take a direct route."
"Everyone freezes up a bit their first time on a danger zone. First time Scotty took his 'bird out for real, he landed so hard the landing struts buckled!"
"Quiet Alan, or I'll tell them about your first supply run to Five."
Alan was quiet.
four minutes later
Scott pulled the main throttles back and brought Thunderbird 1 to a stop above Griffonstone (possibly a bit too close, but these were acceptable corners to cut on a rescue) and opened the recovery bay for good measure. "All right, both of you, out the door! We have six minutes left - find Princess Luna!"
"GREAT BEAST OF FIRE AND METAL, EXPLAIN THYSELF!"
Wild Fire managed to beat Alan's record for sheer unhelpfulness with a simple "Found her." Fleetfoot took the more productive approach and dived out to avert Luna's wrath. Scott felt it best to back off a bit in order to appear less provocative.
Both remaining occupants of the rocket plane watched anxiously as a fairly spirited discussion began between princess and Wonderbolt.
"Princess Luna has always been paranoid about mind control and so on," Wild Fire explained. "It makes sense after the Nightmare Moon thing."
Scott, still marvelling a bit at how, well, princessly the princess appeared, made a mental note to ask what that 'thing' was.
Fairly soon, Fleetfoot darted back and called out "Don't wait for us!" before she and Luna disappeared in a flash of light.
"Okay..." Scott's mind raced. "That looked a lot like the phenomenon that brought us here."
"I guess we head back. The princess will probably stay at Cloudsdale a while to coordinate cleanup."
"If she can stop the disaster."
Thunderbird 1 turned around and headed back for Cloudsdale.
Princess Luna flashed back into existence at the stricken city of Cloudsdale and got to work. While her shout of "INFORM US OF THY PREDICAMENT!" was certainly disruptive, it was also effective at both rallying the crowd (who were reaching despair by this point) and providing her with the information she needed (Fleetfoot bringing her up to speed quickly).
"This, We can handle." Her horn started glowing.
For an alicorn-mage of Princess Luna's power and skill, it was a simple matter to take the machine apart in such a way that anything dangerous vented straight downwards onto empty ground, aided greatly by having seen a basic diagram of precisely this machine on her desk the day before. Perhaps this is what is truly meant by 'serendipity'.
Thunderbird 1 had just crossed the Equestrian east coast when Alan got on the radio again (although nearly drowned out by celebratory sounds). "Scott! It worked! Whoever you sent did it! ...And more importantly, there are streamers everywhere!"
"Well, Alan, I'm told these ...Equestrians are a party-happy lot, and this sounds like an occasion for one."
"You don't understand, I just blinked and they were everywhere! I have so many questions!"
"So do I. But given that everyone's out of danger for the moment, I think we should hand over to the GDF and head back. You've been on duty too long, and that pod needs repair work."
" You broke the pod, and don't you forget it!"
"Thunderbird 1 to Thunderbird 5, mission complete. No further damage to any equipment, and Alan says the locals have the situation in hand."
"Acknowledged, Thunderbird 1. Now get back here on the double. Brains is itching to talk to you, and I think Colonel Casey has some apologies to make."
Author's Note
An epilogue may be made available by popular demand (i.e. I'll write it if people say they want it). Whether or not you want one, you probably got here because you read the whole fic. So, um, thanks. This is not quite my first fanfic, but it is my first one over 1100 words and my first one published under my own account on Fimfiction (I did a piece for someone's collab that got to 1067 words), so it feels a bit like my first one. But anyway, thanks for reading, etc.
"Thunderbird 5 to Thunderbird 1, what's your status?"
"Still here, I'm afraid. Plan A has failed; I'm going in with Thunderbird 1 as Plan B."
"..wasn't that Plan A?"
Scott's silence was telling.
"Scott! It should have been obvious that the pod wouldn't hold up to those conditions!"
"It was more suited to finding and manipulating the control panel!"
"In the wind conditions in there? Forget it! How bad is it?"
"Well, we didn't find the control panel-"
" How badly did you break the pod, Scott."
"...one turbofan's out."
"Better than I expected. But it still could have killed you! Be more careful with Thunderbird 1!"
"What's this about, John? Why the sudden protectiveness? I'm meant to do that."
"I do get concerned when International Rescue operatives randomly disappear from my scanners!"
More silence, as Scott forced the issue by saying nothing.
"...hell, I'm worried, Scott. At least when you pull this kind of thing on Earth I know that we'll probably find your body."
"...that kinda went morbid fast."
"Scott Carpenter Tracy, do you want to be the first human to die on another planet!"
Scott had nothing to say to that.
"Thought not. So act like it! We'd appreciate it if you actually came back after this. For everyone's sake."
John closed the connection, and Scott noted that perhaps he'd been pushing himself a bit hard lately. But could he keep up International Rescue's success record if he turned down the pressure?
Minutes later, it was time to force the issue. The cyclone just kept on growing - worse, it was growing exponentially. He wasn't an expert, so he deferred to Fleetfoot, who was.
"That's bad," was Fleetfoot's wisdom on the issue. "The generator's going to blow everything to pieces sooner or later, and that means it'll be sooner."
Great, so the clock's ticking even faster. Like there wasn't enough pressure on us already.
Still, constantly increasing pressure was the norm for IR, and Scott was used to looking like it didn't faze him that much, so he kept up appearances. After all, someone had to keep him calm, and it wasn't like anyone else was going to.
Certainly not Alan, who was wondering how on ~~Earth~~Wherever-this-was Fleetfoot got her name. Surely it should be Fleet hoof or something?
Scott and passenger rose into the air on four VTOLs to take the sting out of the storm. Scott, at least, felt better with the might of Thunderbird 1's engines behind him. Fleetfoot, having been given the ten-second explanation of jet engines, had trouble not cringing as jet exhaust ripped through even the most hardened clouds like a hot knife through butter. Better than the whole place being destroyed, though.
Despite the worsening storm, the larger and more powerful craft had an easier time getting through most of it. Most. Naturally, the trouble started up again as it approached the centre. Scott compensated for the alarming windshear easily enough, but then it occurred to him: "Thunderbird 1 doesn't have any kind of grasping mechanism. How are we going to work the controls?"
His passenger remained silent, planning. Alan filled the void. "The grapple could do it, right?"
"That would involve opening the recovery bay, and I do not want to do that."
After a few seconds of furious thinking, both Tracys realised they were out of options. Scott left it to Alan to break the news, which he (Alan) did with his usual lack of tact. "Uh, Wild Fire, how upset would important people coughponies be if we had to destroy the generator?"
A few seconds of quiet consideration, and then "I do not believe the Princesses would be terribly reluctant to trade a wind generator for the lives of their little ponies."
"'Their little ponies'? That sounds so cheesy."
"Alan!" Scott arrested the conversation before it could commit any more lèse-majesté than it already had. This was not an easy feat while simultaneously holding an aircraft steady near a cyclone's eyewall. Then to Fleetfoot: "All right, new plan. What's the fastest way to destroy the generator without making the situation any worse?"
From Fleetfoot's jumpseat came the three deadly words: "I don't know."
"Well, that's not good," , Alan bitingly observed from the ground.
"Commander Fleetfoot," Wild Fire asked hesitantly, "how long have we got to come up with a plan?"
"From what I've seen, I think we have about, say, twenty minutes before the generator overloads." A flash of inspiration. "Okay, I've studied these generators, I know how they work. We used to stop miniature ones by punching holes in them. Your airship's prow looks sharp enough to make a hole; should we try that?"
It took Scott a moment to decipher the naval terms. Once he had, though: "Makes sense. If it might work, we might as well try it!"
Several dozen ponies cowered in various crevices of the factory as the wind got worse and worse.
A shining red spear - no, wait, blue, but red-tipped - shot through the wall as if thrown by Tirek and embedded itself in the side of the wind generator. Just as quickly, it was shot back again by the generator's pressurised inner workings.
"What was that?! "
"It's a feathering self-healing model! I had no idea this place had one!"
"Any other ideas?!"
"Try again, but with more power! The pressure inside pushes us out - stay in the gap and keep it from healing!"
Thunderbird 1 breached the generator chamber for a second try. This time, Scott steadily opened the throttles as they impacted, hoping to keep the hole in the generator plugged with his Thunderbird's body. With the engines running at emergency climb power, it seemed to be working.
"What now?"
"Stay put, it'll weaken eventually!"
So Thunderbird 1 stayed put, partially embedded in the generator, as the latter's self-healing began to realise the futility of functioning-
Technical explanation ahoy
Aircraft jet engines work primarily by drawing in air at the front, and pushing it out at the back - much faster. In forward flight, the aircraft's speed pushes the engines forward into the air they desire; when stationary, the engines must rely on their own suction power. Turbulent air in front of the engines, if severe enough, can override this suction power and leave the engines to suffocate without sufficient airflow; due to speed aiding this suction, it becomes easier to foil at lower velocities.
Thunderbird 1 was currently so far embedded into the malfunctioning wind generator at the centre of the cyclone consuming Cloudsdale that its port engine air intake was drawing from the generator's inner atmosphere. The main problem with this is that said inner atmosphere is quite turbulent, even in normal, safe operation. This particular aircraft had such overpowered engines that they could create their own suction to draw in normally unusable airflow - as they were currently doing - but this relies on the continued smooth operation of the engine.
As it began to appear to the craft's occupants that they might have finally succeeded, an engine on the port side suffered the engine equivalent of a hiccup. Normally, this is a non-event. With the situation as precarious as it was, this impaired the airflow to all engines on that side. This reduced the power of those engines, which further interrupted their airflow; and the situation spiralled out of control until, for a moment, there was no engine power on the port side. That moment was enough to be a disaster.
End technical explanation bad
Alan heard the alarm a second before he saw the cause - Thunderbird 1 hurtled end-over-end out of Cloudsdale and over the horizon.
"Scott! "
