#desert sands

[liminally-spaced]

[bigsoftmarshmallow]

Yo! I just had a thought!

The Gerudo may have unique glass-making techniques involving lightning magic to make fulgurite. I mean, those who have lightning magic. Because you can melt sand by running electricity through it. My guess would be that they could do this by holding a gold rod or some sort of golden shaping tools to form the sand as it melts.

In fact… It might even be part of how Gerudo lightning mages learn to control their lightning magic.

Also, what sort of minerals are in the sand of the Gerudo Desert, do you think? Because depending on if the sand contains metals, then the kind would result in various colors. Like, iron, manganese, chromium oxide, cobalt, copper, nickel, ect. Though, even if it doesn't, those things could easily be added.

I also wouldn't be surprised if one skilled in infusion magic could use sand with iron impurities & amber grains to make glass that's had the symbolic connection that iron has to durability & amber's symbolic connection to preservation magically enhanced so as to create those special bottles that adventurers all go so crazy for. Ya know, the ones that don't break & their contents never spoil?

And, considering how rare those bottles seem to be, I wouldn't be surprised if it could make quite the mint.

Im gunna admit! I did research into making glass out of desert sand, and apparently desert sand is TERRIBLE for making glass! Apparently the sand is too fine to make good glass? Which... Thats normal desert sand. It could be that the Gerudo Desert has larger, courser sand.

Other than that, though, I have no idea what minerals could be in the sand. Depending what's in the sand would have an outcome on color and strength/design on the glass, me thinks.

I like the bottles that the fairies love. Apparently fairies love them so much they just jump right in. Wonder if they are made from Gerudo sands?

[biology-geology-beaches-india]

The Science Research Notebooks of S. Sunkavally, p 756.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Desert Sands: Part 5

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Scott, John, Alan, Virgil, Gordon

Back with another section, just to prove I’m still alive.  RL is throwing me through several loops and with uni just around the corner I’m a bit too busy freaking out about that for my muses to want to work, apparently (it’s hardly my first degree but apparently that’s not stopping them from shutting down).  I have some backlog to post, still, but at least for now the days of near-daily updates are over.  Hopefully once I get into the swing of uni my muses will come back...

<<<Part 4

Alan reached across him to place the first cool pack on Scott’s forehead, and they were rewarded with another groan and flutter of eyelashes.

“Scott?” John tried again, aware of Alan echoing the name.  “Are you with us?”

His lips moved slowly, but no sound came out.

“Come on, Scott,” Alan pleaded, placing a second pack by his neck. Whether it was Alan’s words or the pack, John wasn’t sure, but blue eyes opened a crack.

Scott didn’t look at either of them; his eyes were so clouded and unlike their usual vibrant hue that John suspected he was barely awake, and probably entirely unaware of his surroundings.  Still, it was a sign of life, and he renewed his attempts to remove as much of Scott’s uniform as possible.

“No, no, Scott!”  He paused and looked back up at Alan, who had paused in packing a cool pack under Scott’s left armpit to pat his brother’s face lightly.  “Stay awake!”

Scott rolled his head away from the stimulation, his groan sounding more like a moan of protest than an unconscious sound, and John abandoned the half-cut uniform at the hip to join Alan.

“Scott?” he called, cupping his brother’s face in his hands and wincing at the clammy skin.  “Can you hear me?”  He turned to Alan briefly.  “Keep going with the packs.”  The teenager nodded, his face troubled, and John saw him carefully place one over the broken collarbone before returning his attention to Scott, who was still making small, half-conscious noises of the protesting variety and closing his eyes again.  “No you don’t, Scott.  Keep those eyes open.”  It took a couple more pats, but Scott responded, opening his eyes again.  They were slightly clearer, a hopeful sign that awareness was returning to him, and John took the chance to accept a bottle of clean water from Alan and gently wash the worst of the blood from his face, looking for the source.

That got more of a reaction from Scott, who rolled his head into the cool stream.  John caught his chin and kept him still before he put his mouth and nose into the water.

“Easy, Scott,” he soothed, finding a nasty cut above his left eye and carefully bathing it with water to wash out any foreign objects.

“-n.”  Scott’s next moan almost sounded like an attempt at speech, but for all his multilingual fluency, John couldn’t decipher it.  That wasn’t particularly unusual with semi-conscious individuals – John had heard Scott himself returning to consciousness with incoherent sounds over the comms before – but it gave him hope that Scott might not have been fully unconscious the entire time.  After all, the raised shoulder restraints implied that Scott had got himself out of his chair.  Whether that was before or after the head injury was another matter entirely, but that was a consideration for later.

At some point Alan had reclaimed the cutting tool and was continuing the task of stripping off the flight suit, leaving Scott in just his underwear and revealing a multitude of bruises.  John checked the scan’s results again, just to double check that no internal injuries had been flagged up.  They hadn’t, but Scott was still going to be sore for some time until he healed.

It was still too hot inside Thunderbird One, but they had nowhere better to move to and John watched anxiously as the medical scanner recorded Scott’s temperature inch up to one oh five.  The cooling packs were slowing the increase, but doing little to stop it. They did, at least, seem to be helping Scott remain semi-conscious as he made another nonsensical noise.

“We’ll have you out of here soon,” John reassured him, placing some gauze over the gash and securing it in place with medical tape.  They could do a better job later, but it would at least keep it clean until Thunderbird Two arrived.  “Alan, how far out are they?”

A roar of engines answered him before Alan could, and Virgil appeared over the red comm.

“We’re coming in to land now; how is he?”

“Broken collarbone, minor head injury and a temperature of one oh five,” John reported.  “He’s semi-conscious but I don’t know if he’s aware of his surroundings or just responding to the stimulus of the cooling packs.  We can’t cool him down, though; Thunderbird One’s temperature regulator is offline and it’s baking hot in here.”

“Can he be moved?”  Thunderbird One juddered slightly as Thunderbird Two landed beside her, and Virgil’s hologram went through the motions of leaving his seat and heading for the module.

“We’ll need a stretcher,” John sighed.  “I don’t think his shoulder should be moved more than necessary, but I don’t know how you’ll get back out of the dorsal hatch with a stretcher.”

“Thunderbird One’s already unable to fly, more damage won’t make a difference,” Virgil pointed out.  The idea of cutting up one of their Thunderbirds made John wince, but Virgil was right – Thunderbird One was already disabled, and they had to get Scott out as soon as they could.  “Scans put Alan and two other life signs in the cockpit?”

“We’re under the pilot seat,” John confirmed.

“Under it?”  Footsteps echoed through the hull of Thunderbird One as someone – presumably Virgil – walked over the top.

“It looks like Scott tried to get out,” John explained.  “The harness is up and we found him on the floor.”

There was a familiar grumble at that as Virgil presumably once again had some choice words to mutter about idiotic brothers making themselves worse under his breath.  “Okay, stay where you are.  I’m cutting a way in.”

The high-pitched whine of a laser started up as the communication dropped, and John glanced back to see a glowing red spot several paces back at the side of the fuselage.  Scott made another noise of distress as metal clanged down and sunlight streamed in through the new hole in Thunderbird One, silhouetting Virgil and Gordon’s outlines before the last brothers made their way inside.  Gordon was towing the stretcher, but hung back as Virgil nudged Alan out of the way and joined John by Scott’s head.

“Scott, can you hear me?” he asked, leaning over to plant himself in front of hazed blue eyes and extracting a penlight from his toolbelt, which he shined into them.  Scott sluggishly attempted to turn his head away, making more noises of complaint, but Virgil cupped his chin and held him still.  His pupil constricted slowly, confirming John’s fears of a concussion, and Virgil put the penlight away again.  “Scott?”

“Vrrr.”

“Okay, let’s get you out of this heat,” Virgil decided.  “Gordon, get that stretcher over here.”  Knowing that his brothers had far better experience dealing with extraction, John backed off and let his aquanaut brother take his place. He found Alan and watched from beside his youngest brother as Virgil manipulated Scott’s right arm into a sling before gently sliding their eldest brother onto the hover stretcher Gordon had laid down.  “John, Alan, go on ahead.  There isn’t room for four of us to move the stretcher in here.”

Alan hesitated, but it was true that there was very little room to manoeuvre inside Thunderbird One, and a single nudge from John had him scrambling out of the hole in her side.  Thunderbird Two was settled only a few feet away, front hatch lowered, and they headed for it, waiting in the shade beneath the green ‘bird for Virgil and Gordon to emerge with Scott’s stretcher.

It was a long half minute before the bright green of Virgil’s baldric emerged into the blazing sunlight, and John noticed that a foil blanket had been loosely draped over the top of Scott, presumably to protect him from the sun as they hurried the short distance to the platform.  All five of them fit on, although it was a tight squeeze with the stretcher, and John couldn’t help the sigh of relief as they entered the blissfully cool cockpit of a Thunderbird with working aircon.

He was once again bundled out of the way as the hoverstretcher was attached to the ports at the rear of the cockpit and the foil blanket was whisked away. Alan edged forwards next to Gordon as the aquanaut kept talking to Scott, keeping up a steady stream of chatter even as he replaced the cooling packs Alan had applied with fresh ones, pausing for breath whenever Scott made a noise.  Virgil had busied himself with an IV, and was setting it up in Scott’s left arm.  John assumed it was to rehydrate him, and came up behind Alan to look at Scott’s face.

His eyes were still open, and to John’s delight they were no longer staring blankly at nothing, but sluggishly attempting to look around as Gordon finished replacing the old cool packs and kept packing any exposed skin with fresh ones. After a moment they met his and stopped.

“-on?”

That could almost have been an attempt at his name – or Gordon’s – and he stepped closer, Alan stumbling out of his way.

“Scott?” he asked again, resting his hand lightly on what little exposed skin he could reach between cool packs on his brother’s shoulder.  Scott blinked at him, and John could see his eyes clearing. A quick glance at the medical scanner’s data told him that his temperature was finally starting to fall.

“Whyrrere?”  Scott blinked again, and then to John’s delight attempted to sit up, left hand raising to his head.  Virgil was quick to put a stop to the movement, a large hand gently on his chest too difficult for their weakened brother to fight.

“Are you back with us, Scott?” their younger brother asked, guiding his arm back down.  “Don’t move.” John found himself the target of brown eyes.  “Don’t let him.”  He nodded in understanding, returning his attention to Scott as the man groaned.

“W’appened?”

“What do you remember?” John asked, as Virgil busied himself with more medical equipment.

“One sh’down,” Scott slurred, blue eyes fixed firmly on John.  The lack of any further attempts to move concerned him – it was well known that to keep an injured Scott in one place, restraints were often required.  “N’repon’ing. Gonna crssh.”

“You did crash,” John confirmed, letting Gordon move him to the side so he could clean and redress the head wound, to Scott’s disgruntlement.  “How are you feeling?”

Scott frowned, closing his eyes briefly, and Virgil nudged him.  “No sleeping, Scott.”

“N’sleeping,” Scott protested, opening his eyes again.  “Hot.  Cold.”

“That’s the heat exhaustion,” Virgil told him.  “We’re bringing your temperature down.  Once it’s below a hundred I’ll give you something for the pain.”

“Wha’ pain?” Scott groaned, and despite the situation they all managed to find a small smile.  Typical Scott.  “M’n’urting.”

“Sure you’re not,” Virgil humoured him.  “Well, as you’re ‘fine’, I’ll leave you in John’s hands while I get us ready to go home.  Come on, Gordon.  You, too, Alan.”

“’brrd One?” Scott asked suddenly, turning his head to watch them head back to the hatch and dislodging the cooling pack on his forehead.  John retrieved it and held it in position for him.

“They’ll get her home,” he promised.  “Relax, Scott.  We’ve got you.”

Scott looked back at him, brow furrowed underneath the cooling pack. Sensing that his big brother was about to try and get up again, John rested his palm on his chest in a mimicry of Virgil’s earlier action.  He wasn’t as strong as his younger brother, but with heat exhaustion and pain working against him, Scott was still unable to fight him and surrendered with a dark look.

“Whyyre you here?” he asked, and John shook his head fondly.

“Rescuing my brother,” he said, and Scott fixed him with a Look, glancing up meaningfully.  “Thunderbird Five lost your signal,” he admitted.  “I was more use down here.”

“And we will be having a discussion about your travel arrangements,” Virgil cut in, reappearing into the cockpit.  “Sit down and strap in while I get us in the air.”  John took one look at his older brother and fastened the straps to keep him from moving around before obeying, to Scott’s disgruntlement.

“My brrd?”

“We’re not leaving your girl behind, don’t worry,” Virgil assured him. “She’s a bit battered, but nothing Brains can’t handle once we get her home.”

John didn’t think Brains was going to be particularly pleased about constructing an entirely new sweep wing, especially not on top of replacing at least half the external panels and the entire electronics system, but said nothing. He was well aware that he was in for more than one lecture about the crippled space elevator, and with Thunderbird Shadow also in need of major repairs, keeping Brains sweet was going to be all but impossible.

Part 6>>>

[collectorsweekly]

Dessert Sands pottery, circa 1950s - 1970s.

[casualmakeupaddiction]

From my February 2017 Boxycharm... two Makeup Geek eyeshadows, and a small Z Palette!!!

Bitten & Desert Sands

Boxycharm, you done good this month. Other items will be featured in posts here, so I’ll just focus on these three.

1 - I never have enough empty space in my magnetic palettes. I just bought two large ones on Amazon and luckily have most of that space still empty. I, ahem, tend to buy new eyeshadow pans in large quantities at a time (but not all that frequently), so space disappears fast. Thus, I never tend to buy small palettes. Why bother - they’re small! But on the other hand, they’re awfully convenient, cos you can stick your favorite few shades in there if you need a portable small palette! 

2 - Makeup Geek!!!! Great quality, great price, and the creator came from YouTube and she seems so sweet! Alas, I already had these two shades, so I can’t say I’m psyched to have duplicates. I *should* give them away, but most of my friends aren’t as into makeup as I am haha. Plus, maybe having them in this tiny palette will inspire me to use them more, because they aren’t in a huge palette on my bookshelf! Now I want to see if I could make a look using only these two colors - opinions?

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[tsarisfanfiction]

Desert Sands: Part 1

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Scott, John, Alan, Virgil, Gordon, Kayo, EOS

I decided to keep throwing this fic out in chunks.  Partly because it’s too long for a single tumblr post, and partly because I thought it was nearly finished but I’m beginning to suspect it’s not as nearly finished as I thought.

<<<Prologue

“John, contact has been lost with Thunderbird One.”

EOS’s words didn’t register. Alan had just found another stealth mine amongst his junk and was taking a lovely little space walk over to a ticking bomb to deactivate it.  Finding the kill code for this particular mine would at least be nothing like the first time – following ‘proper procedures’, International Rescue via Lady Penelope had got hold of the paperwork for every single stealth mine and it was a quick case of John scanning the database for the right one – but it wasn’t something John wanted to be distracted from.  Not while his youngest brother was sitting by a live bomb.

Needless to say, John was very careful to make sure he read out the correct numbers, and watched Alan’s holographic figure for any indication that something was wrong, only relaxing once the young astronaut was back in Thunderbird Three and the mine registered as deactivated on both Thunderbirds’ scanners.

“John.”

“Sorry, EOS,” he sighed, leaning back from the database and letting Zero-G cradle him.  “Could you repeat that?”

“Contact has been lost with Thunderbird One.”

“What?”

All relaxation in Zero-G was promptly forgotten as John yanked himself back upright and towards the large holographic model of Earth.  The green, yellow and grey icons of Thunderbirds Two, Four and Shadow flashed up alongside the pointer labelled ‘IR’, indicating that they were still on Tracy Island, as they should be.  Away in England, FAB1’s pink icon stayed steady in London.

The blue icon of Thunderbird One was nowhere to be seen.  John switched the display from Thunderbirds to operatives, and his heart sank when Scott’s remained absent.  Suit telemetry readings were offline, and attempts to call either Thunderbird One or Scott’s communicator both ended in a red no signal symbol that didn’t belong anywhere near Thunderbird Five’s powerful network.

“Alan, go home,” he said, cutting through meaningless chatter from the teenager as he coasted along, picking up more random junk.

“John?”

“I need to concentrate on something else right now so I can’t help you disarm the mines,” he explained as he attempted to boost the signal, hoping that Alan would accept the excuse and call an end to his junk gathering.

“Is there a rescue?” Alan was a fantastic operative, but he was also a teenager.

“No,” John told him. “At least I hope not,” he muttered under his breath as his attempts to boost the signal failed and all connections to Thunderbird One or her pilot remained firmly offline.

“Then why?”

“Just… go home, Alan,” he sighed.  “Please.”

Alan didn’t respond, and John hoped that meant he was obeying.  He couldn’t check – doing that meant turning away from his Earth map, and right now Scott’s position was more important.

“EOS, show me Thunderbird One’s last known position, and the last data received from both Thunderbird One and Scott’s telemetry.”

Instantly a blue line appeared, tracking Thunderbird One from the danger zone in the Swiss Alps down across to the Sahara Desert, where it promptly vanished.  Scott’s telemetry told him nothing.  His big brother had been relaxed, no sign of raised blood pressure or other indicators of stress.  There was absolutely no cause for alarm, except for the fact that both flight suit and Thunderbird had cut off at the same time.

The airlock hissed unexpectedly, and John’s head jerked to look over at it.  Alan floated over to him, and a glance out of the gravity ring showed Thunderbird Three docked to her sister.

“What’s wrong, John?” his brother asked, gracefully coming to a halt next to him and frowning at the data. “Is this Scott’s flight path?” Big blue eyes filled with concern, and John really wished Alan had done as he was told.  Being the reassuring big brother was much easier via hologram. “Has something happened?”

“I don’t know,” John admitted.  “EOS lost Thunderbird One’s signal suddenly, and Scott’s telemetry went offline at the same time.”

“Could they have entered a dead spot?” Alan asked, peering at the data suspiciously.  “Scott’s suit data suggests he’s fine.”

John shook his head.

“Thunderbird Five doesn’t have dead spots, Alan,” he reminded him.  “I boosted the signal just in case, but there’s still nothing.”

“What about satellite footage?”  John shook his head.

“We don’t have visual on this part of the Sahara Desert.  It’s not populated enough to justify an IR satellite, and even the GDF don’t look too closely at the middle of deserts.”

“So what are we going to do?  I can take Three-”

“The only place you’re taking Three is back home,” John interrupted firmly. “She isn’t designed for sustained atmospheric flight and I am absolutely not sending you into the middle of the Sahara in her.”

Alan deflated, and John sighed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders awkwardly for a moment.

“But what if something happened?” the blond asked, staring at the unhelpful map in front of them.

“We don’t know that anything has,” John pointed out.  “But I’ll get Kayo to check it out.  Alan, you and EOS keep an eye out for any signs of Scott while I make the call.”

“F.A.B.”  Alan didn’t sound happy, but then again John wasn’t happy, either.  Thunderbirds and brothers weren’t supposed to just vanish from Thunderbird Five’s sensors.

Ordinarily, if he just wanted Kayo, he’d catch her on her private channel and she’d slip away from his brothers, leaving them none the wiser.  However, telling Kayo and not the rest of his family now would leave him with two very unhappy younger brothers when they found out, and neither Virgil nor Gordon were high on his list of people to offend. With a sigh, he reached for the link to the den.

Virgil was there, tickling ivories in a mish-mash fashion John recognised as his brother in a composing mood.  Guilt at interrupting him during that had long since faded – disasters did not wait for Virgil’s muse to finish what it was doing, just like they never waited for John to reach a convenient point in a book or piece of coding – but something unpleasant coiled in his stomach this time.  Then again, this wasn’t a normal interruption.

Kayo was curled up like a cat in her launch seat, flicking through a book, and it was her John focused on.

“We’ve got a situation,” he said, skipping his usual pleasantries when he made contact for non-rescue conversation.  Then again, this might be a rescue.

Instantly the piano silenced, Virgil abandoning the instrument to approach the den.

“Do we need Gordon?” he asked, and John nodded.  Before he could say anything else, Virgil was heading for the stairs, and John let him go.  He needed Kayo first – Thunderbird Two couldn’t do anything until they located Scott, and hopefully wouldn’t be needed at all.

“Give me the brief in the sky,” his sister said, reaching to activate her launch chute.

“Wait,” he interrupted.  “It’s not a rescue, I hope.”  Bright eyes narrowed, and he felt the force of her curiosity even through the hologram. “I’ve lost contact with Scott and Thunderbird One.  Thunderbird Five can’t pick up either of their signals.”

“I’m on it,” she said, sinking into the floor.  “Send me his last known position and I’ll track him down.”

“There’s a possibility that it’s just a blip in the system and that nothing’s wrong,” he felt compelled to inform her, setting up a secondary relay to her wrist comm even as the flight data was sent straight to Thunderbird Shadow. “There’s no sign anything was wrong until we lost his signal.”

“I still don’t like it,” she said, and he heard the hum of the motorcycle indicating she was in her cockpit.  “Thunderbird Shadow out.”

He let her sign off, well aware that he needed to have a conversation with his brothers.  That didn’t mean he closed her transmission from his end, however.  The moment she found something – it was Kayo, he trusted her to find something – he wanted to know.

“Has Kayo gone on ahead?”  John’s attention returned to the den; Virgil had returned and was accompanied by a damp Gordon.  There was no point dancing around.

“I’ve lost Scott,” he said.  “Kayo’s going to his last known position now.”

“What you mean, you’ve lost Scott?” Virgil asked.  He was rigid, a mass of tense muscles that John knew meant fear, not anger.

“Exactly that,” he admitted.  “Scott and Thunderbird One’s telemetries both vanished at the same time.”  He pulled them up, letting the same sight in front of Alan materialise from the table in the centre of the den.  “Scott was over the Sahara Desert, not experiencing any issues, and then the signals disappeared.”

“Satellite imagery?” Gordon asked, and he shook his head.

“It’s a satellite blind spot.  I don’t have access to a detailed scan of the area.”

“Why don’t I take Thunderbird Three overhead to get one?” Alan butted in, and John turned his head to see his younger brother had floated over to join him. “If I fly low enough I’ll be able to get a high res image.”

“I thought I told you to keep an eye out for Scott reappearing,” he scolded, and Alan shrugged.

“EOS is doing that.  I have Thunderbird Three here, let me do something!”  John sighed.

“I told you, the only place you’re taking Thunderbird Three is home,” he reminded him.  “We don’t know what happened and I’m not sending you into the area.”

“You sent Kayo,” Alan sulked.

“Thunderbird Shadow is better equipped for the situation,” John pointed out. “At the altitude you’d need to fly at to get a high enough resolution, you’d be sub-orbital and Thunderbird Three isn’t designed for sustained sub-orbital flight.”

“What about Thunderbird Five?” Virgil asked, drawing his attention back to the holograms.  “Can you position overhead to scan yourself?”

John shook his head, gritting his teeth.

“There’s another space station in geostationary orbit between here and where I’d need to move to.  Thunderbird Five doesn’t have the manoeuvrability needed.”  He loved his Thunderbird, but when the pair of them were useless he cursed the limitations she had.

“Can’t you boost Thunderbird Three’s scanners so I wouldn’t need to go sub-orbital?” Alan asked, like a dog with a bone at the idea of scanning overhead. If he wasn’t already missing one brother with no explanation, John would probably have let him go, but as it was he was determined not to send another brother into danger until he at least knew what the danger was.

“I could do that,” EOS said, and John sent a tired glare at her nearest camera. It was the logical thing to do, of course.  Scott had been out of contact for too long – at the speed he was travelling before the telemetry was lost, he should have been just about arriving home.  Kayo was flying the exact course Scott was projected to have been taking, and if he’d been on that course she’d have called it in by now.  The steady dark grey of both Thunderbird Shadow and Kayo’s telemetry reassured him that she hadn’t also gone inexplicably dark.

It was almost certain at this point that Scott had got into trouble.  No satellite imagery had shown up the silver rocket, either, and there wasn’t much of the Earth that wasn’t covered by high resolution imagery.  Logic dictated that Thunderbird One had probably gone down, and with no working communications Scott wouldn’t be able to call for help.

If he survived, the cool detached voice in the back of his head pointed out.  At the speed Thunderbird One was going, a crash would have been fatal.

John ignored the voice.

“Stay in orbit,” he said out loud, unable to find a reason why Alan shouldn’t go with EOS helping him to scan.

“Thunderbird Two is launching as well,” Virgil said, and the twin looks of brown eyes from the two earth-bound brothers told John there was no point even trying to dissuade them.  “We’ll rendezvous with Kayo and Thunderbird Shadow.  Send me Scott’s last known position.”

John barely had to think to send the information to Thunderbird Two’s computer, half of his attention on Alan slipping out of the airlock, a drive in his hands that no doubt contained EOS.  No EOS meant he had to monitor everything by himself again, but John barely paid that a thought.  Thunderbird Three disengaged from Five, and John manipulated the data so that he had her route overlaying the map of Earth.

Below the red icon, although quickly left behind as Alan tore through space, was the green icon of Thunderbird Two, just leaving Tracy Island. Thunderbird Four was left alone, no use for a submarine in the middle of a desert, and just approaching the south-east Sahara was Thunderbird Shadow.

And then Thunderbird Shadow was gone.

Part 2>>>