Chapter Text
Alan Tracy was thoughtful on his way back to Tracy Island after dropping Josie off at the GDF airfield in Scotland, as she still had to collect her vehicle and drive home after her debriefing with them. The flight there had been conducted in almost total silence apart from a few pleasantries from his passenger and he had thought her to be slightly subdued.
“Are you going to be all right?” he’d asked her as they’d disembarked from the private jet on landing and he’d escorted her to the control room.
“I’ll be fine,” she’d said, but she’d sounded rather sad. “Thanks for patching me up, Alan.”
He nodded at her. “Well, as long as you’re sure, and don’t forget to get that dressing changed regularly,” Alan had replied shaking her hand. “Thank you for saving my brother. We really don’t know what we’d do without him. Perhaps we may see you again sometime in the future when we get some natural disaster calls. Goodbye.”
“Perhaps we might. Goodbye, Alan. Thanks for the lift. Tell Scott to look after himself. Safe flight home.” She’d turned and entered the control building, leaving him standing there for a few minutes before he’d turned on a heel and returned to his aircraft.
Josie too had had plenty of time to think on the flight back. She had recognised Jeff Tracy immediately—after all he was a legend—but had made no indication or reference to the fact; however she knew that Scott, being the eldest son of the world-famous astronaut was likely to become very important within Jeff’s company—if he wasn’t already. Thankfully Alan couldn’t see her face as she blushed when she realised she had had sex with the eldest playboy son of a multi-billionaire.
That hadn’t been the plan—far from it—but he had broken through the façade she held before her and she had told him the whole sorry story of her family and how she had caused her mother to die of a broken heart after losing both her son and her husband and Josie had broken down and sobbed her heart out as he encouraged her to let her feelings out. Then he’d told her a little about Bereznik and they realised they were both holding shields in front of them, hiding pain and somehow in the heat of the moment, it had started with a kiss and just escalated.
She frowned at what she had just thought. Was it right to refer to him as a playboy, now that she knew he and his brothers put their lives on the line every day to save lives? She realised that the playboy image was nothing more than a cover.
That being said, Scott could have the pick of practically any woman he wanted regardless and yet had said he wanted to see her again and had insisted on exchanging contact details. Why? I’m not rich, I have no important connections, I’m no one. Why me? Then she realised, she should ask him… if she could pluck up the courage, but he may just have been being polite and not follow through; she guessed time would tell.
She’d had to suffer through another debriefing this time with the GDF, but thankfully most of it concerned the takeover of the control centre by The Hood and his cronies and her part was relatively minor, so she eventually escaped and got a lift back to the lodge to collect her vehicle. The clean-up crew had done a good job on the building and she noted that any visitors would never have known what had gone on in there.
Josie gave a shudder. The memories were all still fresh in her mind; the good ones, and the bad ones—which were more persistent. Scott being tortured, almost drowned when The Hood’s mercenaries had held his head under the water in the bath. She wasn’t sure how many times they’d done that to him because she’d been half out of it after they’d thrown that sonic grenade into the room. They’d shot him in the leg as well, then subjected him to a cattle prod. That had been awful and she felt tears forming at the memory. He’d tried not to scream, but the pain they’d subjected him to had been excruciating and he couldn’t help himself
She savagely wiped away a tear. Bleeding, half-drowned, electrocuted and then, when they’d found out he didn’t have the current access codes to Tracy Island, The Hood had ordered him to be executed and to bring her to him. She shuddered at the memory, and Scott on hearing the news of his imminent death had simply stared up at his executioner; stared him right in the eyes and waited for death to claim him. Munson—that was the mercenary’s name—had smiled and pointed his gun at Scott’s heart and pulled the trigger, but all the delaying tactics and games Scott and she had played had bought them enough time and the GDF had let fly with their ammunition from outside. The heart shot hit Scott in the shoulder instead, but in the throes of death, Munson’s finger had kept jerking on the trigger and he’d emptied the magazine with wild shots as he’d collapsed and died and one had hit Josie, grazing her arm.
She shook her head firmly, trying to force the memory out of her mind. If anyone had told her she was going to hit a most handsome man with her vehicle in a raging blizzard, who turned out to be the pilot of Thunderbird One and that she would then go on to save his life, she’d have died laughing in hysterics. It sounded so utterly ridiculous and fantastical… but it had been true. Every single part.
Josie shook her head again and concentrated on driving back to the control centre. The blizzard had stopped and the temperature had risen, but it was still a dangerous drive despite her crawling along with the tyre chains on.
Eventually she arrived back, then collected the rest of her stuff from her locker. Technically speaking she wasn’t a member of the GDF, but she did do some work for them, usually during natural disasters and as an advisor during rescues. She pulled her padd from her locker and logged in with a fingerprint. There were several messages, but one stuck out amongst them all: ARE YOU HOME YET? SCOTT.
She had to smile and sat down to compose a reply. NOT YET. JUST FINISHED DEBRIEF. HEADING HOME NOW. SHOULD TAKE ME 8 HOURS OR SO. BY THE WAY… YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU ARE THE MOST HANDSOME OF THE BROTHERS. JOSIE.
She could see that devastatingly handsome dimpled smile in her mind as she imagined him reading that last sentence. He’d probably be unbearable around his other brothers for a week. She was just about to put her padd away when it pinged again. TOLD YOU SO! 😁 SAFE JOURNEY. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU GET HOME. SCOTT.
She ignored the rest of the emails, shut her padd, placed it in her bag, but just as she was about to escape and leave for home a klaxon went off and Josie’s head dropped in weariness. Now what?
“Dr Welles, you’re needed for a briefing! Natural disaster, we need your expertise. Something about an impending volcanic eruption in Java.”
Josie closed her eyes, took a deep breath and pulled herself together, already knowing what was to be the likely outcome. Road transport cut off, no runways, they would need vertical take-off and landing craft, but she wouldn’t know for certain until she got the details.
Major Carter nodded at her and motioned her towards the briefing room, where she sat and listened to the information available.
Earthquakes have been gradually increasing over the past few weeks and are now beginning to swarm.
“How deep are the epicentres?” Josie asked.
“According to preliminary reports, between three to eight miles.”
“Shit!” Josie mumbled. Shallow earthquakes tended to cause far more damage as the shockwaves still kept a lot of their energy due to the short distance they had to travel to the surface, so it wouldn’t take a very large one to perhaps set the eruption off, cause a side to collapse, like had happened at Mt St Helens way back in 1980.
“It’s pretty sparsely populated at the site, but there are quite a few Hindu temples and other tourist attractions and a few villages scattered around the volcano, and because we don’t know the direction of the blast, it’s a lot of work to clear everyone out of the area.
“Which volcano is it?”
“Mt Semeru. We are mobilising the VTOL transporters, even though we’re awaiting photos to come through. I’m sorry to have to send you back out straight away, but this is a major emergency.”
Josie thought for a few seconds, trying to remember other volcanoes in the area. “What about Mt Bromo or Batok? If Semeru is thinking of blowing, they could join the show.”
“Sympathetic vibrations, but nothing significant.”
“We may need assistance from International Rescue,” she muttered half to herself, shocked when her heart rate jumped, but wondered if they would be in attendance. She continued to listen as the brief continued and finished after half an hour.
The GDF had packed a bag of clothes and supplies for her, a plane was being prepped and a heli-jet was waiting to take her across to Lossiemouth to board a transport to Java. The station was primarily a quick reaction one, but the transport was currently on its way there for the pickup.
Carter had apologised and told her that she would probably be able to grab some shut eye on the transporter. Josie grabbed the bag, clambered onto the heli-jet and collapsed in the nearest seat. She almost dozed off right there and then, and probably had, because it felt like the next second someone was shaking her awake again.
Wearily she got out, walked across to the main runway, shook the hand of her escort and walked up the ramp which was currently accepting some further emergency supplies.
“Dr Welles, Captain James Cameron. Please, strap in. We’ll be taking off in about fifteen minutes.”
“Any chance I can stretch out, I am exhausted.”
“Once we’ve gained cruising height, we’ve a couple of bunks. Flying time just under six hours.” He escorted her to a seat closest to one of the bunks.
She stowed her luggage, sat down and strapped in. More GDF soldiers joined her and as the captain stated, fifteen minutes later they were in the air. As soon as they reached cruising height, Josie helped herself to one of the bunks and crashed out.
Again it felt like she’d only just closed her eyes when someone touched her arm to wake her up. Of course, it had to be the one the bullet had scraped and she muttered an exclamation and winced, her right hand immediately going to it to try and ease the throbbing.
“I’m sorry doctor, are you hurt?”
She realised it wasn’t the young woman’s fault. She sat up gingerly. “I got shot earlier,” she said simply. Obviously the report hadn’t filtered down yet for the young woman looked shocked and started to apologise profusely. “It’s okay, you weren’t to know. Have we arrived?”
The woman nodded. “We’re circling now, just trying to find a landing space. The monsoons are making it difficult to find a suitable landing point.
“Oh great…. First snow, now monsoons,” Josie muttered, knowing it was tiredness and exhaustion speaking.
“We’ll be sending up drones when it’s daylight to get a better picture. We need to know how much water is up in the caldera.”
Josie nodded. She got up and moved back to her seat and strapped herself in. The landing could be bumpy if the monsoon was in full swing.
It was because the rain was lashing down and there were both updrafts and downdrafts to contend with as they came in to land. She heaved a huge sigh. Here I go again, she thought, realising her exhaustion was making her irritable and bad tempered. Her language would probably be the next thing to go south.
Captain Cameron appeared by her side. “We’ve set up temporary accommodation in the Sumbermujur Primary School with some bunks, food etc. We’ll be moving out at first light, so I suggest you get some sleep.” He glanced at his watch. “Daylight is in four hours twenty-three minutes. The first thing we’ll do is drive out as far as we can and deploy some drones to get a better look…” He stopped as the whole plane shuddered and carried on shuddering for about twenty-five seconds.
“That’s not good,” Josie told him wearily.
“Come on Doc, I’ll escort you. Make sure you put on your waterproofs it’s throwing it down out there.”
Dawn was just breaking when Captain Cameron woke her up. “Sorry Doc, but thought you ought to know, we’re setting out in thirty minutes to launch the drones. We had another shock during the night, but you were totally out of it.”
Josie wiped a hand across her eyes and nodded. “Okay, I’m coming.” She sat up and pulled her boots back on then followed him into the lounge where a load of equipment, monitors, laptops, printers remote controls were all set up and ready to go. Someone got Josie a chair which she sat on, and someone else handed her a coffee and the rest of the officers and crew stood round and watched the monitors.
In the meantime, the World Geological Survey team had arrived to monitor the situation, taking regular readings from the seismographs and other equipment. As yet, no evacuation orders had been issued. That would come once the drones had done their work. The Koramil Armed Forces were put on alert, with the branches closest to Gunungsawar mobilised.
Josie checked with the survey team, who told her that it looked like the magma chamber was filling up, as there had been movement measured and pressure was beginning to increase slightly. Swarming was still consistent and hadn’t increased in volume or intensity so it looked like they still had time in hand. The one thing she did want the drones to check was the east-south-east side wall, as it looked like the weakest point and if that was the case, they were currently directly in the path of whatever may come their way!
The one road that went partially up the bottom part of the volcano was still in reasonable condition, so the GDF travelled to the most western point they could get and launched a couple of drones. The video feed was broadcast straight back to the field command and both Josie and the other geologists were gathered around the large screen.
Josie picked up the radio and spoke into it. “Field command to drone op, I need you to look at the east-south-east side first, follow it all the way to the top, and then get us a good view of the caldera and the water level. I’ll instruct you where to go next after you’ve done that, over.”
“Drone ops to field command, copy that. Let me know if you require me to hover at any point, over.”
“Field command to drone ops, copy that, will do. Let me know once you’re in position to start the survey. Over.”
“Copy that, will do. Be about ten minutes. I’ll contact you when it’s in position. Out.”
Nine minutes later, comms kicked into life. “Drone ops to field command, commencing survey now. Please confirm video is being received, over.”
“Field command to drone ops, signal being received five-by-five. Please take the drone up slowly, over.”
“Copy that. Moving up now.”
The scientists all watched as the drone slowly moved up the side of the volcano, looking for any tell-tale signs. There appeared to be a definite bulge forming below the lower part of the side and Josie swore, pointing at the screen. “This looks like a possible weak spot. If the magma breaks through here, it will superheat the water and we’re going to finish up with a super-heated pyroclastic flow straight into this town. We won’t have enough time to evacuate everyone, due to the speed of travel. Do we agree we need to take a side-view of this bulge and calculate how much its risen to try and get some timescales?”
The other scientists nodded their approval.
Josie spoke into the radio again. “Field command to drone ops, slight change of plan. Please provide us with a side view of that east-south-east side before progressing to the top, over.”
The drone operator did as he was told, and the bulge was more clearly defined, along with a couple of small cracks.
“Oh shit!” one of the geologists exclaimed.
“Field command to drone ops, we’ve seen enough there, proceed to the caldera so we can see the water level, over.”
Once again the drone operator acknowledged and the video showed the view as the drone moved upwards, over the rim and to the caldera. It had been raining daily since the beginning of September and sometimes through the night. A small dome was seen poking through the water. Josie had seen more than enough.
She turned to her fellow scientists. “We need to evacuate now, before the swarming gets any worse,” she said.
“Agreed. The swarms are currently running at magnitude 1.3. If we hit a four or higher, I think we could be looking at a side collapse. If the magma chamber fills much more, then the trigger will only need to be a lower magnitude towards 3.”
“I’m going to see if they can get that drone down into the caldera a bit more and give us a closer look at the dome that’s forming. In the meantime…” She turned to Captain Cameron. “Captain, we need to evacuate this entire town, now. We’re just running calculations as to how long we think we’ve got, but it’s not an exact science. However it’s definitely looking like we’re going to get a lateral explosion and the resulting pyroclastic flow will be here in less than a minute. The other issue is Krajan behind us, that’s in the direct path as well, and a powerful lateral blast can easily travel 20 km. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.” She turned to the radio again. “Field command to drone ops. Can you get the drone down into the caldera and give us a closer look at the dome that’s forming, please? Over.”
“Copy that, will see how close I can get it. Out.”
The drone slowly made its way down into the caldera and circled the dome. There didn’t appear to be any cracks at least on the part they could see, which in a way was bad, because it meant it was plugged well and more likely to blow the bulging side face.
“I really have seen enough now,” Josie said wearily. “Field command to drone op. Thanks. Retrieve your drone and get out of there. We’re evacuating the entire town…” her voice trailed off as the ground shook for about ten seconds and everyone held their breath. Nothing else happened. “It’ll be all hands getting people out. They need to be moved either west or south. Now. Over.”
“Copy that. Retrieval in progress and we’ll be back in twenty. Out.”
Josie studied the satellite view of Semeru. “I’m worried about the town of Supiturang as well, the hospital sits just under half a mile from the previous flow.
“I’m calling International Rescue, see if they can help with the evac,” Cameron said moving away to another station and picking up a radio mike.
Again, Josie’s heart hammered. Jeez, get a grip Welles, now’s not the time or the place!
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