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thundergirl007-writes · 2 months ago

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Captured - Part 6 (Deception)

Part of my shamelessly self indulgent crossover.

I decided to change to 3rd person POV for this scene. I shall go back and change the other parts to 3rd person too very soon. I normally write in 1st but somehow this felt a lot easier in 3rd XDD

I also want to dedicate this chapter to @lenle-g for putting up with me and my rambling, and to @janetm74 and @idontknowreallywhy who were helpful with a... suggestion for this chapter :)

Follow up from Part 5. Scott tracks down the missing Thunderbird Four and its pilot. Part 7 here.

POV: Scott

CW's: kidnapping/hostage situation, getting shot at.

AO3 link

I hope you enjoy!

For Scott Tracy, the last few days had been a headache to say the least.

The vanishing - for at this point, that seems to be what happened - of Gordon, Irena and Thunderbird Four had left a serious dent in the ability for International Rescue to function as an organisation. No underwater rescue capabilities meant that they had to leave those to the GDF (to the best of their abilities anyway).

And beyond that, the fact that two of their own were MIA was a serious downer on everyone. There was no evidence of life, but neither was there evidence of death either. Even an implosion at the bottom of the ocean - as extremely unlikely as it was - would have left evidence. The not knowing was the hard part, in any case.

Flying Thunderbird One over the Atlantic Ocean en route home from a rescue was the closest thing to a distraction he’s had since then.

“Thunderbird One!” John’s face suddenly appears on the hologram, alarm filled his features.

“What’s the matter, John?”

“I’ve just detected a blip, it’s from Thunderbird Four!” he announced, showing Scott the very same thing he was looking at from the satellite, “it’s very faint, but they won’t answer my hails. You’re closest to it right now -”

“I’m on my way!”

Scott didn’t need telling. He had already diverted course heading towards the Moroccan coast, where that tiny little blip was fading in and out on the map. All he could think about was that they were in trouble, what took them so long to appear like this?

A niggling feeling in the back of Scott’s mind crept up on him. The pair of them should have been nowhere near Morocco when they vanished, so what are they doing here?

As he approached the vicinity of the blip, he hit the radio on his control panel. “Come in, Thunderbird Four. Do you read me?” he asks, vision scouring the vast blueness below him.

But there was no response.

Thunderbird Four was designed to be visible against the dark backdrop of the ocean, so the fact that a literal yellow submarine seemed to be invisible was extremely concerning. The icon representing the Thunderbird on his map was still blipping, but he was getting closer, he knew it. The blips were a lot stronger, staying visible for a few extra seconds can mean everything.

But still, no one answered.

“Gordon, open your comms and answer me. For god’s sake, talk to me!” Scott all but shouted into the radio, hoping that someone would answer. Someone could hear him.

Almost instantaneously, his console made the most awful noise.

A rhythmic, ear piercing beep beep - beep beep.

“Huh?” Scott stared at his equipment, trying to figure out what this interference was, before something clicked in his head.

Morse code.

.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. .. -. . .-.-.-

A L L / F I N E .

Gordon. Gordon was communicating with him. Their comms must be down, but thank god he had rigged up something to communicate this to him.

The renewed hope in his heart was enough for him to try and communicate with them again. Maybe their comms were down, but they could still hear him.

“Gordon, if you can hear me, come to the surface. I’m here to get you.”

The reply came just as quickly.

… ..- .-. ..-. .- -.-. .. -. --. / -. --- .-- .-.-.-

S U R F A C I N G / N O W .

“John, I’ve managed to communicate with them, they’re going to surface.”

“F.A.B. Scott. I’ll have Virgil come to your location right away.”

“Now I just need to - he’s there!”

The sight of Thunderbird Four emerging from the depths of the ocean was a marvel to behold for the eldest Tracy. He could see it begin to make its way towards dry land for lack of a better term, whilst Scott looked for a landing site for his own Thunderbird.

Thunderbird Four seemed to be heading into what looked like some sort of old shipyard. It chugged its way in to an inlet whilst Scott managed to land his own Thunderbird Craft not far away.

Scott didn’t need convincing to make his way immediately towards the craft, running over to find out just how badly hurt he’s going to find his brother. He was picturing blood, broken bones, exhaustion. He was imagining the potential consequences of dehydration, of just… everything that could have gone wrong in the last two days.

The airlock to the rear of the craft opens as Scott is still on approach, and a familiar figure steps out.

His blond, second youngest brother stepped out, and from the looks of it, keeping the pressure off his left leg. When he looked up at Scott, his face positively beamed “Scott!”

Scott felt his blood run cold. Something seemed off, for some reason. But he pushed that feeling to the side as he closed the distance between them.

“Gordon, are you alright?” he asked, watching Gordon hobble closer to him, his uniform practically shredded in a few places. Whatever happened must have been bad.

He winced as he came to a stop, “yeah bro. Well, the leg’s got some trouble. But I’m okay now!”

There was something about his smile. Something seemed… off, about it. It seemed bigger than it usually is. It sent a chill down his spine, enough to stop him from reaching out and pulling his missing brother into the embrace he had been imagining for the past two days.

“What happened? Where have you been?” he managed to ask, looking him up and down.

Gordon’s left sleeve was torn from the elbow down, and the right one was dotted with tears in the fabric, with an enormous hole on the shoulder where his insignia would normally rest. His re-breather was busted and there was blood seeping through the fabric of the leg he was limping on, but there didn’t look to be an actual entry or exit on both the fabric or his flesh. And also, why does he look taller than before?

“Stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a cave in. Lots of interference, my console basically broke apart,” the brother gestured towards the parked Thunderbird, “I needed help, but couldn’t radio anyone.”

I needed help, he says.

“… Gordon, where’s Irena?” he asked. Scott had noticed she didn’t disembark with him, even though she was very much on board with him when he left the island.

His face twitched as he turned back to face the elder of the two. A small thing, but Scott caught it.

“I had to leave her where I was, she got injured pretty bad. I figured once Thunderbird Two arrives we can go back and get her.”

Something is wrong. Scott has no idea what, but there’s a definite possibility that this is not Gordon Tracy standing in front of him. He can’t put his finger on it for certain, but this is some extremely out of character behavior for the squid kid. Leaving someone behind in a Danger Zone with no consideration for their survival?

That’s not the Gordon Tracy he knows. Or if it is, something is completely wrong with him.

Thinking quickly, Scott takes a step backwards as he asks, “Gordon, how many fish are in your tank back at the island?”

The brother furrows his brows at him, “What’s gotten into you, Scott? There’s twelve. Now come on, I - we need some help.”

“… you’re not Gordon.”

Scott stands firm, his suspicions confirmed by the faux confusion in his brother’s voice. There’s not twelve fish in that tank, there’s none, because Gordon himself had decided to change the habitat to something more suited to the local water life, and was in the process of making that happen. The old fish were given to an aquarium to be taken care of. Gordon would know something like that.

“Uh, Scott, I think I’d know whether I am not Gordon,” he rolls his eyes before gesturing for him to follow, “come on, bro. Irena needs rescuing!”

Scott presses the button on his comms, broadcasting to John on Thunderbird Five. He needs some extra eyes on this situation, and he figured thousands of miles above the earth is a definite way to safely do just that.

“You are not Gordon. Tell me, who are you and where is Gordon?” he changes his stance to a fighting one. It was not in Scott’s style to handle situations like this, but whoever was in front of him was impersonating his brother. That means that Gordon is incapacitated somewhere. And for that, Scott means business.

The normally smiling blond in front of him laughed. Somehow it sounded alien, Gordon has never laughed like that before. It was deeper, malevolent rather than mischievous, sickening as opposed to sincere. The smile seemed wider, serving only to shatter what was before now, a somewhat convincing facsimile of Gordon Tracy.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” he grinned, pulling out a remote and pressing a switch, and instantly there was a change. The twisted grin that was using Gordon’s face as a mask dissolved into the Hood’s, the messy mop of blond hair vanished to a bald scalp, the chestnut brown eyes giving way to a bright greenish gold. The way all the features that made Gordon Gordon simply melted into someone else was disconcerting, to say the least.

Especially now that the Hood was in Gordon's damaged International Rescue drysuit. A horrifying prospect. If the Hood has his uniform, then where exactly is he?

Scott’s instinct was to run over and punch him, his face as he looked up at the eldest Tracy was mocking him, he was sure of it. He had stolen Gordon’s face for this. Nothing would have given him a greater satisfaction than to wipe that smile off his face, but the one thing stopping him was the presence of someone still inside the Thunderbird. Someone armed, that he could just make out.

“Where’s Gordon?” he asked, “where’s Irena? What have you done with them?!”

The Hood held his hand over his heart in a theatrical manner, just over Gordon's bright yellow sash, “why, you wound me with your accusations, Tracy. I have done nothing to your brother. He is alive.”

“Where is he then?!”

“Isn’t that just the million dollar question. We all want things in this world, the question is what exactly is all this worth to you?”

“You are messing with the wrong man here, Hood. If you do not tell me where they are right now -“

“Oh, if you wanted to get down to brass tacks, you really should have just said.”

The villain reached into the pocket on the sash, and pulled something out, before tossing it on the ground at Scott’s feet. He tentatively bent down to pick them up, and recognised them instantly.

Roughly cut out, they were the insignias from the uniforms belonging to Gordon and Irena. Gordon’s, the ever obvious Thunderbird Four silhouetted in yellow. Irena’s, a simple IR in green and blue.

For the Hood to have cut these off of their uniforms means that the pair are in trouble, and have been all this time.

“I am here merely as an… intermediary, Tracy. I know where your brother is, but I do not have the keys to his chains, as it were. Instead, I come offering the terms for his release.” He fiddles with the cuff of his shirt, almost disinterested in the fact that he seems to be acting as a messenger boy for someone else.

“Where is he?”

He rolls his eyes, “learn to ask a different question, boy. You have some new recruits in your organisation, do you not? Well, a friend of mine would like to speak to one of them.”

“One of them?”

“I believe you know her as Angel?”

The Hood raises an eyebrow as he asks the question, leaving Scott confused as to how he could possibly know who she is.

And more to the point, who this friend was that wants to speak with her.

“What about her? Who wants to see her?”

The malevolent smirk returned to the man’s lips, raising his voice for just a moment, “your man in the sky is listening to this, isn’t he? Well, I suggest he looks into who the Crown Princess of Kosmos is.”

The way he says the title, an arrogance dripping from his voice, a sign that he’s rather enjoying the confusion he’s directing my way.

“And as for my associate, he is offering an exchange - he will release your secondary operative upon the Princess’ return to her home country. If she does not, well…” he looks away with a shrug.

Irena. He’s talking about Irena. But what does Angel have to do with the Crown Princess? Why does he need to speak with her and kidnap two people in order to make that happen?

“… John, did you hear that?”

“I did, EOS is looking in to it now.”

“What about Gordon?” Scott asked once more. The Hood only mentioned Irena so far, so what’s the catch here?

“Oh, he’s a completely separate exchange. You turn your Thunderbird machines over to me, and I shall release him.”

Scott couldn’t help but scoff at the demand, “why am I not surprised. I still want to see him though.”

“All in good time, Tracy. I suggest you think hard about how much you care about your machines than your precious brother.”

The Hood turns around on the spot, back towards Thunderbird Four. It looked foreign before with the faux Gordon stepping out of the craft, it looks more foreign now with the Hood out of disguise stepping inside Gordon’s ship -!

“You come back here, Hood, we aren’t done!”

Instead of an answer, the armed man in Thunderbird Four with the Hood leaned out of the airlock and aimed his weapon at Scott, giving him a split second to drop to the ground for cover before he discharged the weapon.

A blinding flash and a bang erupted around him, and by the time the dust cleared, the Hood was already making his getaway.

Thunderbird Four was submerging back into the ocean.

Scott scrambled back to his feet, and as he turned around to hoof it towards Thunderbird One, he saw the one who shot at him had the same idea, darting towards his ship, parked a few hundred meters back there..

Not on my watch.

The man was fast, in addition to the head start he had on Scott, and had already almost made it to the underside of the craft. Scott’s mind raced, and before he registered it, he was using the remote piloting device on his wrist to activate the jets. The man, suitably alarmed, briefly stopped.

That’s all he needs.

Those few seconds were enough for Thunderbird One to gain just the tiniest bit of height from the ground and shoot towards him, allowing him to smoothly jump back into the pilot’s seat.

“John, I’m going after him, I need you to keep your eye on Thunderbird Four’s position -“

Scott was barely listening for any kind of response. He scoured the water again, and was just able to see the yellow ship making its way out into the inescapable vastness. Thunderbird Four was already some distance below the surface, but at least he had visual contact.

Thunderbird Four was technically the slowest of the craft. It’s incredibly fast compared to other aquatic vessels like those used by the GDF, and certainly has made it out to sea some distance by this point. But compared to Thunderbird One - the beast designed for speed above anything else - it was too slow.

The only thing the Hood had was the ability to dive far below the surface. Far enough and Scott would not only lose visual contact, but the faint blip of the ship on his scanners.

Scott’s only chance was to play hook a duck with a submerged vessel.

Pulling out the magnetic grapple controls, Scott was dead focused on the targeting reticule on his monitor. The red circle lining up over the tiny signal of Thunderbird Four lapping beneath the waves. He only really has one chance. If the Hood realises what he’s up to, he can go too deep, thus losing any opportunity to catch him like this.

The computer beeps in the affirmative. Target locked on.

He all but slams on the button, and the grapple line is fired down into the ocean blue. He can all but feel the magnet make contact with Thunderbird Four. He’s locked on. There’s very little the Hood can do to free the craft from the magnet.

“Hood, I will not let you take that ship. Surrender your control of it now.”

Scott’s voice boomed out onto the multi frequency radio broadcaster. There’s no way the Hood didn’t receive this transmission. There’s also no way he doesn’t know that Scott is tugging on him like a tow boat captain would, keeping his little charge close.

Thunderbird Four was still moving, still trying to pull away from Scott’s iron grip, but its movement was slow and labored compared to the jet setting it was attempting to do.

Something emerged from the back of the ship, ejected out of the back it looked like one of the dry tubes. Shooting its way through the waves and away from Thunderbird Four’s position. The GPS signal for the tube zooms off Scott’s screen, but the ship itself doesn’t stop trying to fight his grip, if the ship was truly without a pilot - in this case, the Hood himself - then the fail safe kicks in and the engines cut out, grinding it to a halt.

A trick, Scott assumes. This has to be a trick, a distraction. The Hood is still in Thunderbird Four. He wants Scott to think that he’s evacuated.

It won’t work.

Suddenly the radio crackles to life.

“Quite the tenacious one, aren’t you?” the Hood growls through the intercom, “does this ship really mean more to you than Gordon does, Scott?”

“Not at all, I’m not falling for your deception here, surrender Thunderbird Four, now!”

The laugh that returns to him sends a chill down his spine. “Tell me, how long do you think he has in that little box?”

The dry tubes have their own rudimentary life support system built in. They also have a small engine designed to fixate onto a beacon and make their way to it before surfacing there. The supply of nitrogen and oxygen air would normally last up to an hour, thanks to Brains’ design, allowing any casualties to survive long enough for pickup.

If Gordon really is in one of those things, then he should have plenty of time for Virgil to arrive and collect him whilst Scott deals with Thunderbird Four.

“I will be back for him, Hood. That thing is giving off a GPS signal that we can track. We’ll get him.”

All the same… why would he release Gordon like this? He said he’d only return him if he got all the Thunderbirds. But so far, he only has Thunderbird Four, which isn’t going to be in his possession for long if Scott has anything to do with it.

The laugh returns. “Are you sure he’ll last long enough for you to ‘just come back’ to him?”

John’s holographic figure appears on his monitor alongside the Hood’s gloating face, the restrained horror only coming through in his voice, “Scott! I am detecting a life sign on board that dry tube, but there’s something wrong with it!”

A pit forms in the bottom of Scott’s stomach. What did he do to that dry tube before sending it out into the abyss?

“A fitting end to such a career, don’t you think?” he smirks, golden eyes glaring up at him, “a burial at sea, his final moments in a tiny metal coffin.”

This can’t be real. It… it can’t be!

“Scott, Virgil is too far away from your position and that life sign is getting weaker. If you wait, I don’t think he’ll survive!” John all but yells down the intercom.

Without a second of hesitation, he retracts the grapple, spins around in the air and starts tracking that signal, abandoning the submarine in favour of this slither of a chance, hoping to whatever almighty still exists that this is not some sick trick.

We can get Thunderbird Four later. We can’t get another Gordon, he tells himself as he darts off in the opposite direction to the Hood.

It takes him barely a minute to track down the tube, just barely below the surface. It’s still trying to make its way to whatever beacon the Hood programmed into it, but the longer it takes to catch, the quicker its life support drains. And if the Hood has somehow reduced its life supporting capabilities…

Scott re-aims the grapple at the tube, a much quicker task to accomplish with a stronger GPS signal to lock on to, and fires. He tries to see the figure through the tiny viewer in the lid of the box. There is someone in there, but whether it is Gordon he can’t tell at this stage.

That time taken between fishing Gordon out of the ocean and finding a safe landing spot felt like a lifetime. He needed to get that thing open, Gordon has minutes if it isn’t already too late to save him. The life support will still be running down, even when not in the water anymore.

When he found a vast expanse of dry land, Scott brought his ship down as quickly as he could, releasing the grapple as he all but dove out towards the coffin that his brother was trapped in.

He unclicks the latches and opens up the lid. There’s an enormous hissssssssssssssss as the lack of air is suddenly replaced by an abundance of it.

And inside is Gordon.

Part 7 here!

#abi writes #angel/tag crossover #scott tracy

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mariacallous · 10 months ago

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Four days, 10 witnesses, and dozens of exhibits in the US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation hearing on the Titan submersible implosion have made public a flood of information about the doomed vessel’s design and operation. But one thing the hearings have not yet explained is why the submersible suddenly failed on a sightseeing trip to the Titanic in June 2023, nor who might shoulder the blame for the deaths of its five crew.

Here’s what we know going into the second and final week of hearings, and some key unanswered questions.

The Two Sides of Stockton Rush

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who died piloting the Titan, took the bulk of the blame during the hearing’s first two days. Tony Nissen, former director of engineering, characterized Rush as someone who made critical decisions based on speed and cost, changing his mind on a daily basis. Nissen said that Rush eventually fired him over his insistence on scrapping the Titan’s first carbon fiber hull on safety grounds.

David Lochridge, a former director of marine operations for OceanGate, then testified that Rush had once made piloting errors on the company’s first submersible during a dive to the wreck of the Andrea Doria, panicked, and threw its controller at Lochridge’s head. “He would blame everything on everyone else,” said Lochridge. “It was bullying.”

Lochridge said that several critical components had even been assembled using parts from a home improvement store at Rush’s direction. When Lochridge made a whistleblower complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after being fired for raising multiple safety concerns, Rush retaliated by suing him and his wife for breach of contract and fraud.

Rush did have his defenders. Renata Rojas, who traveled on several OceanGate expeditions, called Rush “very fair” and flatly denied Lochridge’s account of the Andrea Doria confrontation. Fred Hagen, another paying passenger, lauded Rush as a brilliant man who made a conscious effort to maintain a culture of safety in a high-risk environment.

“It wasn’t supposed to be safe,” he told the panel. “It was supposed to be a thrilling adventure.”

Titan’s Unusual Design and Development

Nissen made a credible defense of his initial design for the Titan, but several witnesses testified that it skirted, or simply ignored, accepted construction practices for submersibles. OceanGate tested only one scale model of the innovative carbon fiber hull and, despite it failing early under high pressures, proceeded straight to building a full-scale hull. Dave Dyer, an engineer at the University of Washington, testified that his lab stopped providing engineering support to OceanGate in 2016 after disagreements that included the company’s insistence on using glass control spheres that Dyer feared could explode at depth “as though a bomb had gone off.” Those spheres housed control electronics for the Titan’s thrusters.

Instead of scanning the first hull to look for defects or specifying a finite lifetime of dives, OceanGate relied on an unproven acoustic monitoring system to provide an early warning of failure. Lochridge called the Titan “an abomination” and its carbon fiber hull “disgusting.” Both he and Nissen said that they would not have dived in it.

After they left, the Titan was rebuilt with a new hull that was never tested to industry norms nor certified by an independent third-party agency. Patrick Lahey, CEO of submersible maker Triton Submarines, said that certifying a novel hull was not only possible but essential for safety.

“We were developing and certifying the deepest diving sub in the world at the same time they were developing this amateurish contraption,” he testified. “There was absolutely no reason they couldn’t have got it certified.”

A History of Troubled Titanic Missions

OceanGate’s first missions to the Titanic in 2021 were beset with problems, including the Titan’s forward titanium dome falling off after a dive, worrying readings on the acoustic monitoring system, and a thruster failing at 3,500 meters’ depth. One Coast Guard evidence slide showed 70 equipment issues requiring correction from the season’s dives. Things improved slightly the following year, with only 48 recorded issues. But these included dead batteries extending a mission from around seven to 27 hours, and the sub itself being damaged on recovery.

One dive in 2022 ended with a mysterious loud bang and cracking noise upon surfacing. Antonella Wilby, an OceanGate engineering contractor, was so worried about this bang she considered alerting OceanGate’s board of directors. She testified that another employee warned her that she risked being sued if she did so. “Anyone should feel free to speak up about safety without fear of retribution, and that is not at all what I saw,” she said. “I was entirely dismissed.”

On the Titan’s penultimate dive in 2023, contractor Tym Catterson admitted to failing to carry out a safety check; the Titan was left listing at a 45-degree angle for an hour, piling up those on board.

Conflicting Views on the Carbon Fiber Hull

There was conflicting testimony on the safety of the Titan’s unique carbon fiber hull. Dyer pointed out that carbon fiber could be a good fit for deep submersibles, and Nissen was adamant that computer modeling and the acoustic monitoring warning system meant that it could be used indefinitely. Lochridge, Catterson, and former HR director Bonnie Carl were all far more skeptical about the hull’s design and implementation. But all three acknowledged that they were not engineers.

Next week’s appearances by Nissen’s successor, Phil Brooks, more submersible engineers, and a carbon fiber expert from Boeing should address many of these questions. In particular, testimony next Wednesday from an engineer at the National Transportation Safety Board’s Materials Laboratory about the Titan’s wreckage may identify the physical cause of the implosion.

Where Was the Coast Guard?

At several points, investigators pointed out that the Titan should have been inspected by the US Coast Guard before carrying paying passengers. None of those questioned could say why it was not, despite OceanGate apparently contacting the Coast Guard on multiple occasions to provide notice of its underwater operations.

Lochridge also testified that OSHA had told him in 2018 that it had communicated his safety complaints to the Coast Guard. At least one of the five US Coast Guard witnesses being called next week is based in the Puget Sound, near OceanGate’s headquarters, and may be able to speak to this.

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Lockwood, who joined OceanGate’s board in 2013, is not on the witness list. Lochridge and Carl testified that Lockwood’s role was to provide oversight and smooth interactions with the Coast Guard.

Missing Witnesses

Nor is Lockwood the only notable absentee from the witness box. Multiple witnesses this week testified to the key roles of OceanGate employees, including Wendy Rush, Scott Griffith, and Neil McCurdy, in making crucial business, regulatory, and operational decisions throughout OceanGate’s history and on the day of the accident. None are being called to testify. Nor have any of the hulls’ manufacturers been called. The Coast Guard has not provided a reason for this other than to deny that it is because those witnesses would have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights to refuse to answer questions.

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