9AN: Inspired by a conversation between myself and gumnut-logic, who was screening 'Impact' at the time…and inspired me to do the same. Thanks, Nutty!
Untethered
Sometimes you just have to let go...and if you're lucky, someone's there to catch you.
So it wasn't one of Captain Ridley O'Bannon's better ideas, racing along the length of her station without following proper safety protocol for going EVA. Although truth to tell, she didn't know what else she could have done, since the threat of a comet with a rocket engine attached to it smashing into her brand new space station didn't exactly qualify as standard operating procedure.
Really, she thought, flinging herself hand over hand as fast as she could propel herself while trying to keep her feet from flying up over her head, she'd like to get her hands around the throat of the idiot who cooked up this little scheme. Better yet, she'd like to strap them to the exterior of the station and let Sol broil them to a crisp, or just kick them out the airlock and space their stupid ass.
No time for such thoughts, though. Now she needed to make sure she reached the manual control for the thruster before Global One was pummeled into dinnerware.
"Just like...climbing a set...of monkey bars," she panted to no one in particular.
The voice in her ear was dry, unamused, and so beautifully nerdy that she wanted to reach through the comm and kiss him. "Yeah, if the set of monkey bars is over twenty-two thousand miles high."
If she'd had the breath, she'd have laughed. "John, don't help."
Hand over hand over hand, and she was running out of road. Well, this should be interesting, she thought, only half aware that she spoke the words aloud. One corner of her brain was whirling like a dynamo, wondering what John must think as he listened to her mutter to herself. The other three corners were analyzing the spinning vanes on the thruster assembly; they reminded her of something...New York. What? No, something in New York...an old-fashioned department store. The door. The revolving door.
Like that antiquated ingress, she just had to time it right. A good strong push and she was off, arms straining, flying like Superman with the blue and green of Earth below her. Look Ma, no hands…
The shadows engulfed her as she slipped between the vanes, and she couldn't help a little thrill of accomplishment. John didn't have to watch me get splattered all over the hull, awesome. She was almost there, just had to grab the handrail and-
"Wh-where's the handrail?" she blurted, staring at the bare walkway and recalling at just the wrong moment that unlike Thunderbird Five, Global One had been built by the lowest bidder. Dread seized her by the throat; in a few seconds she was going to be nothing but a frozen stain of blood on metal, and John had a front row seat. "This was a-"
No, she couldn't do that to him. The thought cut through her growing panic and she grabbed for a handhold, any handhold, ending up snagging herself like a dandelion seed on a piece of the telecommunications array. The impact of throwing her arms around the post pushed a yelp out of her, and the world shifted dizzily as the post, never meant to take even her slight weight, bent to dangle her over the steppes of Russia.
John's voice snapped in her ear, and she clung to it as tightly as she was gripping the array. "I've lost visual. Ridley, where are you? Do. You. Copy?"
She forced herself to take a breath, then another, but her voice still broke when she said his name. "I'm here, John." I'm still here, please don't lose me John…
Willing herself to move, she abandoned her precarious perch and swam back up to the station's thruster housing. The handrails were back (thank you design team, about time), so once again she flung herself toward the goal and reached for the switch. Arms trembling and chest heaving, she reached the switch and gave it a good satisfying whack. Global One shuddered in the vacuum, and her view of Earth began to slide. "It's working," she groaned over the comm, daring to lay her head down for just a moment. She even patted the metal. Good space station.
John's voice was in her ear again, only this time, it had lost its stone-cold edge. "Ridley! Watch out!"
The near-panic in his voice lit her spent muscles on fire, and she had only a split second to glance up and see the comet's nucleus blotting out the Earth, a tiny flash of red clinging like a mosquito to the craggy surface. The impacts of the stray boulders were soundless, but her brain filled them in with clunks and pings and clangs as they hit the station and sent a bank of solar panels the size of an American football field sailing toward her.
Like a flyswatter, she thought, and I'm the fly.
The panels were meant to be light and flexible, but they still hurt when they hit her on their way toward open space. In the blink of an eye, she was stuck fast, the edges of the panels digging into her belly and spine. Weightless they might be, but the panels were huge, and they drove the breath from her with a grunt. "John, I can't move."
No answer. No snap in her ear, no stay right there I'm coming to get you, nothing. "John?" she gasped. "Are you there? John?" Please be there, please-
A hand gloved in textured blue dropped into her field of vision. She followed the hand up to an arm sheathed in scarred yellow metal, and further still into a pair of turquoise eyes under a precise flick of red-gold hair. "We have to stop meeting like this," he quipped, a precious line of worry between his perfect ginger eyebrows. "Come on."
And with that, Captain Ridley O'Bannon became the latest person to be assisted by International Rescue. Now she knew how all of the others they helped every day felt: In the moment when John's hand touched hers, life became exquisitely sweet. Without a doubt, she knew she would be able to recall this moment-the bright splash of of John's uniform and jetpack, the huge pregnant fullness of Earth swirling below, the taste of pure oxygen in her mouth-with crystal clarity for the rest of her life.
"First one back to Thunderbird Five wins," he muttered, and Ridley couldn't help but feel a little like Lois Lane with her hand clutched tightly in that of her own personal Superman. Together, they stepped off her crippled station and rocketed toward safety.
-Or they would have, except the station continued to be pelted with debris broken off from the comet. John tugged her along, nearly pulling her arm out of the socket, but she didn't care just as long as he didn't let go.
"John," said a new voice in her ear, "there's another w-wave of debris heading your way!"
He ducked and dodged, and all Ridley could do was hold on with both hands as she trailed behind him like a banner. "We know!" he yelled, flicking his wings left and right like some modern-day Icarus. A particularly sharp dodge pulled an inarticulate noise of fear and protest from her, but he didn't stop their wild capering ride toward the spinning vanes on the station's other arm.
The vanes were just ahead. All they had to do was play the revolving door game, and they'd be-
A stray rock slammed into John, spinning him away from her. Ridley grabbed for him, but he careened too far out of reach. Helpless to do anything but watch, she clung to one of the blocky two-story-high blades as he pinballed through the impromptu obstacle course of speeding debris and cold, unforgiving metal.
He came to save me, she thought, searching the shadows for a flash of blue and yellow. He came to save me and he's going to die.
No. The panic disappeared, replaced by a cold certainty: It was her turn to rescue him.
She ignored his pained grunts as he bounced and rolled, and with the ease of plucking a ripe peach from a tree, she reached out and grabbed him. Instantly his wild yawing and pitching ceased, and she could feel him trembling in her arms beneath the wingsuit. No time, no time, don't think, just keep climbing-
Finally they gained the high ground where TB5's mooring collar was locked to to her station, and as one they turned just in time to see the bulk of the comet's nucleus tumble past. It had been so, so close, and Ridley let herself feel the nearness of that near-miss for just a moment before pushing it aside.
She was still trembling a little from the adrenaline singing through her own veins when he turned to her with incredulity writ large on his face. "Did I just see Thunderbird Three sticking out of that comet?" he asked, in a please-tell-me-I'm-not-suffering-from-oxygen-depletion tone. She knew it was a (largely) rhetorical question, as she was sure he knew exactly where his brothers were and what they were doing at all times, but she could only nod in agreement: He had indeed seen the same tiny flash of bright red against the dirty black behemoth.
They stood together, watching breathlessly as the comet began to glow the lurid red-orange of re-entry, and she slipped her hand into his, knowing that his brothers were aboard that craft. Any second, the comet would begin to break up, and the red craft would simply wink out of existence.
The richly accented voice was back, urgency in every syllable. "Y-yes, and they just gained the upper edge of the atmosphere."
Another voice, this one a whipcrack of command: "Virgil! Alan! Disengage! The comet's starting to burn up!"
"Whaddya mean, 'starting to?'" Alan's voice, high and shrill. Belatedly, Ridley remembered that he was just a kid. What was he, seventeen?
Yet another voice cut in, taut as a steel wire: This must be Virgil. "We just reached the center of the comet nucleus, I'm inserting the explosives!"
Ridley looked over at John; his eyes were locked onto the spinning bulk of dirty ice, his fingers twitching as if trying to call invisible windows from the air. She clung to his hand, every fiber of her being holding tight to the hope that they would make it, that they would pull off this crazy miracle and still live to tell the tale.
The wire-taut voice was back. "Setting the energy yield-check! Locking the detonator-and check! Okay, we're ready to rock n' roll!"
"This is us, leaving!" the kid shouted. "-Except the grappling arms won't retract!"
"What?!"
"I'm not thrilled about it myself!"
The red craft glowed like a beacon as it streaked by, and Ridley's heart was in her throat as that whipcrack voice broke in desperation. "Thunderbird Three, do you read me? Thunderbird Three-" Her eyes welled and the scene blurred into a mass of inky black and hot red.
"Virgil," the voice whispered, impossibly soft. "Alan."
She didn't dare look up at John now, unwilling to see grief written there. She winced as he gripped her hand hard, nearly crushing her fingers as the comet tore itself to pieces in a silent cataclysm of orange flame. Her heart dropped to somewhere around her knees as she searched the angry cloud for any sign of the rocket.
A crop of relieved sighs echoed in her ears, and she found herself sagging against John. For a moment he did the same, and they held each other upright, scarcely daring to believe that the bit of ruby red metal streaking past them was indeed the intact form of Thunderbird Three and not some fiery bit of broken fuselage. "Much better," said a rich baritone, and Ridley realized that was the voice of the demolition man, now relaxed into its normal register.
"Ya gonna blow that up, or what?" the kid snapped.
The baritone's voice was full of pure satisfaction. "F A B."
The resulting explosion was the best fireworks show she'd ever seen.
OoOoOoOoOoO
She almost didn't believe they'd survived, but then her boots locked onto the magnetized floor of the mooring claw, and she turned to look up into John's face. She'd never realized how tall he was; those incredible eyes gazed down at her from at least six inches above hers. He smiled, and suddenly she was weak all over. "You up for another game of handball?" he asked, his color high under a whisper-light sprinkling of freckles, and she knew that he, too, needed to burn off some adrenaline.
"I thought you'd never ask," she replied.
"You're not gonna let me win this time, are you?"
"Not a chance."
He held her hand all the way back to the station.
OoOoOoOoOoO
As soon as they docked, she let him go so he could get his rig back to its proper spot in the universe. Above her, EOS'2zwszcamera swung to follow him on a track, and Ridley jumped back to avoid getting smacked on the top of her fishbowl. She stood and watched him go (wow, he had a beautiful ass), then consulted her O2 sensor before unlatching her helmet with a hiss of breaking seals. Ridley stayed where she was for a handful of heartbeats, eyes closed, breathing in the smells of warm electronics and bland plastic and the lingering traces of coffee. This is what safety smells like, she thought, taking in another lungful of the heady stuff.
With barely a ripple, the station gave a sigh and the view outside the gravity ring changed as Global One began to fall away. Ridley pressed her nose against the glass, watching her station drift into the distance, a cloud of black soot obscuring the now-quiet thruster nozzle. The massive engine had been built for the sole purpose of course correction in the unlikely event that G1 ever drifted, but today it had served an unintended purpose: Saving its own life and that of its captain. Her groan slid up into a whine; writing up the incident report was going to be an absolute nightmare.
"It actually doesn't look too bad," said a voice in her ear, and she jumped-or would have, had there been gravity. As it was, she gasped and flailed, and turned to see John hovering sans helmet at her elbow. His brows flexed back into their adorable worried swoop. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I've never been more okay than I am right at this second. "Just the last of the adrenaline." She turned to look back at Global One, which was now little more than a gleam of metal and a smudge of smoke in the distance. "How in the world am I going to explain this to the GDF?"
John crossed his arms and smirked. "Just mention one name: Langstrom Fischler. That'll say it all."
Ridley cocked an eyebrow at him. "Who the hell is Langstrom Fischler?"
"He calls himself an inventor, but all he invents is trouble. He calls himself a philanthropist too, but since everything he does harms humanity rather than helps it, I'd say that's definitely a misnomer." John shook his head. "This isn't the first time we've tangled with him. Did you ever hear of the CIRRUS project?"
"A high altitude weather research station, yes." Her frown deepened. "Do I even want to know?"
"Probably not," John admitted. "Let's just stay everyone survived-including Fischler-thanks to International Rescue."
Now it was her turn to cross her arms over her hardsuit. "And he's the one who got the bright idea to attach a rocket to a comet?"
The space monitor rolled his eyes, making her heart do a ticklish flip. "He thought he could bring the comet to earth under a controlled descent and mine it for water."
Ridley felt her jaw drop open, but she couldn't make a single sound come out. She uncrossed her arms, holding up her hands in a gesture of I can't even.
"Yeah," John snorted. "That was pretty much our reaction as well."
"So I guess you had to come to his rescue yet again," Ridley said, not a question. "What, did you punch his frequent customer card, so if he racks up ten rescues he gets the 11th one free?"
Now John's grin was positively smug. "Actually, no, not this time. Turns out the GDF barred him from going into orbit-him personally, which was how he got around this. How's that for the mother of all loopholes?"
She made a rude noise. "Makes me fear for the continuation of us as a species. Any intelligent life out there is probably laughing their asses off at us."
"It certainly didn't amuse my team," he said grimly. "Thankfully we had boots on the ground to stop him from getting any more signals to his rocket."
"Bravo to that brave soul," Ridley said. "That saved our bacon for sure."
"I detect no presence of pork products," said a feminine voice, and Ridley couldn't help another, if smaller, startle. "Although I do see per the latest supply manifest that some were left aboard Global One in the provisioning locker."
Ridley stifled a laugh with a cough, afraid that if she began to laugh now, she might not ever stop. Damn near-death experiences. "John," she gasped, gesturing to the electronic monitor that stared her down with white lights sliding into pink.
"It's an expression, EOS," he soothed. "It means that due to Kayo's quick actions, we were able to direct events toward a more favorable outcome in a timely manner."
"I see." The lights blinked white again, the AI's embarrassment at being caught out with a gap in her knowledge seemingly mollified by this bit of data. "Were you going to reprise your exercise period with Captain O'Bannon?"
John shot Ridley a glance, a blush of his own bringing out those charming freckles again. "I was sort of joking, but how about it?"
Ridley grinned. "As long as I'm here, might as well." She felt her grin turn just a bit feral. "I hope you like the taste of polish, 'cause I'm gonna mop the floor with you. Again."
"Floor wax is toxic to humans," EOS rapped out. "And besides, using John's uniform as a mop would be terribly inefficient, especially while he is wearing it."
Ridley found out that she could crack up without cracking up, as John did an honest-to-goodness facepalm. "EOS, that's another-"
"I'm joking," she sing-songed. "The recreation area has been reset with the squash court interface. Have a pleasant rematch."
OoOoOoOoOoO
"She was-uh!-joking?" Ridley slammed the sparkling green ball toward John's unprotected goal, but he was his usual quick self and intercepted it. She let herself admire his lean frame as he swung one long arm and gracefully followed through, but she tended her goal and sent the ball spinning back to him.
"Uh! She-uhn-!-does that-oof!-every now and again," he huffed out, grinning when the ball sailed past her grasping hand and smacked the target.
Ridley had left her hardsuit in the crew quarters, but she was still clad from neck to toe in her arming bodysuit. She looked almost like a Tracy, she mused, except where John's suit was bright blue, hers was deep black. Hers amounted to little more than long underwear with a cable up the back to plug into her suit, where his had magnetic boots built in, as well as biometrics, temperature control, and other refinements, not to mention the tool belt-slash-life support apparatus slung across his taut torso. As she moved to retrieve the ball from where it hovered within the target's force field, she wondered idly how heavy his whole kit was. What was it made of; was it the neoprene it looked like, or was it some proprietary material his father had invented?
"She's amazing," Ridley said, spinning the ball on a fingertip-an easy feat in zero-g that she had never been able to duplicate dirtside. "And you say you created her by accident?"
He shrugged, looking just a bit abashed at his own skill. "Apparently so. She started life as a chess program on my dad's server when I was in college, and I guess she just followed me when I graduated." He gave himself a full-body shake, looking so much like a Golden Retriever that she let out a giggle. "I don't think about it too much, it sort of creeps me out."
"You hussy," she quipped. "Sowing seed and then blithely moving on. As my dear old dad said, 'it only takes once.'"
He arched an eyebrow. "Are you seriously calling me a deadbeat dad?"
"No-well, not now." She shoved the ball into his hands and pushed away into a loop-the-loop. "You seem to have learned the error of your ways."
"Yeah, it just took me threatening to space myself and destroy this station to get her to listen," he said, scowling at the shimmering surface of the ball. "So you're right: She is amazing."
Ridley swam back up, her lip between her teeth. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to be so flip. I'm just blown away by what you created without even trying."
One corner of his generous mouth curled into a wry grin. "So am I." He chucked the ball back at her. "Best four out of five?"
"You're on."
It was as if someone had flipped a switch in John Tracy, because in the next few moments, it became very clear that he was out to reclaim his title as Thunderbird Five's reigning squash champion. Back and forth they volleyed, sweat flying and chests heaving, exchanging few words beyond grunts of effort and the occasional "Ha!" of triumph when one of them scored a goal.
"Last set," John panted at long last, his tool belt floating to one side and his uniform unzipped to his collarbone. He shifted the ball from one hand to another, gauging her as she hovered a few feet away. "Winner take all."
Ridley pushed a damp curl from her forehead. "Come at me, boyo."
And so he did, advancing on her like a lithe blue panther, while she ducked and dodged and defended her goal. With a growl, she pushed off the side of the chamber for a zero-g tackle, arms outstretched and hands grasping for the ball just beyond her reach. He blinked furiously, and she grinned; he was blinded by his own sweat, and wouldn't see her coming.
"Wha-" His words were lost in a pained whuf of air as her shoulder plowed into his chest. Over and over they tumbled in a tangle of limbs, until they just hung there clinging to one another without the breath to continue.
John looked down at her, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked away the stinging sweat. He moistened his dry lips with a pale pink tongue, breath slowing back to normal as they hovered with the ball between them. Ridley felt her own breathing begin to slow, and stared up into eyes that seemed deeper than the Mariana Trench. A bead of sweat traced John's high cheekbone, but he didn't seem to notice.
"John," she whispered, wondering if he could hear the way her heart was pounding in her ears.
He smiled, wet his lips again, and tipped forward to kiss her.
His mouth, oh God, it was soft and strong all at once; if she'd been standing, she'd have collapsed to her knees under that gentle pressure. He exhaled against her lips, letting the ball float free, and she let herself be gathered into his arms while she slid her own around his waist and up his back. She arched, letting his mouth part from hers to linger on her jaw and down her neck, and her hands found the zipper on his suit. He gave a low groan as her fingers took the zipper down oh so slowly, her thumb pressing against his skin as the fabric parted.
"Oh, God," he breathed. "What are we doing?"
Now she was breathless again, but for an entirely different reason. "I don't know," she admitted, slipping her hand inside his suit to press against his alabaster belly. "But I sure wanna keep doing it."
His only answer was a chuckle from deep in his chest, and he broke away to take her hand and kiss her gloved knuckles. "You do realize that sex in zero-g only happens in pulp sci-fi novels, right?"
"The ones with the alien girls in fur bikinis brandishing ray guns on the cover?" She laughed. "Consider my horny teen years ruined." She tipped back to give him her best 'come hither' alien sex goddess look, and knew she'd failed utterly by how he spluttered out a laugh. "How about you show me how it really works, Mr. Tracy?"
The line of worry between his brows was back, and this time she leaned forward and kissed it. It was still there when she pulled away, and she felt her own brow crease in a frown. "What's wrong?"
"EOS...well, she can be a little...jealous."
Ridley snorted. "I noticed."
"And she's programmed to monitor the station."
"I gathered that."
"...the entire station."
Oh. Well- "We could ask her nicely to stay out of the crew compartment, couldn't we?" She raised an eyebrow. "Like parents locking the door to have a quickie while the kids watch TV."
He sighed. "She'll be curious."
"What, you haven't had The Talk with your daughter?" She tsked. "Shame on you."
He blushed beet-red. "It's...never come up in conversation before."
"Oh, so this will be the maiden flight of the twenty-two-thousand-mile-high club. I'm flattered." Ugh, Ree, that was lame! Lame! She took a breath and pulled back to fix him with a smile. "She's pretty precocious. I'm sure human relationships won't come as any surprise to her."
"Yeah, but like you said, I haven't broached the subject with her. I think that's only fair. If she were a human child-"
"If I were a human child," EOS broke in from everywhere and nowhere, "I would not have been able to observe your behavior for the last hour. I knew where this was going before you did."
Ridley laughed. "Let me guess: Probabilities and logical conclusions?"
"Yes. Also, I can read pheromone levels in human perspiration. You two have been flinging quite a lot of it around; it's all over the walls. I recommend you hydrate at least 1.5 litres each in the next few hours for optimum health." She paused. "I have also viewed all of the movies in the Lifetime movie archive." Another pause. "And hacked Gordon Tracy's digital Playboy subscription."
"EOS," John chided, as Ridley stifled a giggle. "Lifetime movies and Playboy photo spreads are not a true reflection of human sexual interaction."
"I am aware of that, John."
"Besides, they'll rot your logic pathways, so stop accessing them."
"Yes, John."
"And cancel my brother's subscription; he doesn't need to be looking at that stuff either."
"I have already done so."
"Good girl."
"So…" EOS apparently wasn't finished. "Am I being what is known as a 'cockblock'?"
"EOS!"
Ridley collapsed against the scandalized space dad in helpless laughter. "Yes, EOS," she gasped. "You most certainly are."
"Oh. I apologize. By all means, continue; I will confine my scans to the commsphere. Enjoy."
The tannoy overhead fell silent, and Ridley raised her face from the patch of bare skin between John's zippers to peer at the empty track overhead. "Is she gone?" she muttered.
"Yes. She's curious, but like we've been saying all afternoon, she's amazing. Even I don't know the full extent of her thought processes." He glanced down at Ridley, and she felt her heart flip again. "However, I believe I can guess at yours."
She smiled up at him. "Oh, I sure hope so."
OoOoOoOoOoO
For the next long while, Ridley put prying electronic eyes and Lifetime movies and little brothers and their smutty magazines out of her mind, and just focused on the beautiful redheaded man before her. They peeled off the sweaty fabric and sluiced off the salty remnants of their game (taking turns since the shower cubicle was built for one, more was the pity), then slipped into his quarters and embarked on an exercise period of a very different sort.
Once again, they panted, grunted, and groaned, riding a tide of sensation to ultimately wash up on a beach made of black sand and pure white stars. Spent, they lay against the gravity ring swaddled in an old farmhouse quilt against the cool scrubbed air, exchanging kisses and soft words while the Earth sailed beneath them.
"I ask again," John murmured into the back of her neck. "What are we doing?"
Ridley felt her cheeks warm, and she rolled to face him. "I don't know. What would you like for us to be doing, if anything?"
He considered her words for a long moment, giving her enough time to lose herself in the turquoise sea of his irises once more. "Today was...tough," he allowed.
"So you think this is just 'oh thank God I'm alive' sex?"
He tipped his head to the side. "Partly, maybe, but I'm with EOS; I think this has been coming for a while." He smiled down at her, winding a curl around his finger only to let it spring back against her forehead. She crossed her eyes to look at it, then blew a puff of air so that it settled among the other curls. "I was really scared there for a minute, Ree," he said quietly. "I thought I might lose you."
No, she did not have tears in her eyes, no her lips were not quivering, no her throat- "Except you didn't have me to lose."
John pursed his lips in an annoyed frown. "That's my fault. I won't make the same mistake twice."
Okay, so she did have tears in her eyes, because when they fell, he reached up to daub them away with his long, elegant fingers. "So this is a thing," she clarified. "You and me, we're a thing now."
He nodded. "We are-if you want us to be."
She pulled him down into a kiss. "Absolutely," she whispered against his cheek. "I'm all yours, spaceman."
"You're okay with having a relationship with a single dad?" She chuckled, and he pulled back to fix her with raised eyebrows. "I'm serious, she and I are a package deal."
Ridley pulled him down for another kiss, and she felt his arms go around her, deepening their embrace. "I'll take it lock, stock, and barrel," she murmured.
-End-
