The Thunderbirds pipeline is a slippery one

SO

Derek and Mark did originally work together

Derek head of offworld mining company so he needed contact of both someone who can get his people and machines up there, that being Mark, and someone who can understand the geology, that being Grace

Grace has been working with Derek the longest, helping to analyse borehole cuttings from astroids, to aid in Derek's work, where these two were originally dating, Derek used that pretty much as a control, and Grace being nieve didn't know if this was love or not

In rolls in Mark, both talked, and Mark was interested in the Graces knowledge, as you know engineering landing rockets on astroids need to understand what's underneath, so they talked hell of a lot

Derek, of course hid his jealousy between these two as he can still use them, which he did

The completion of hope station took place, the pinicle of Anderson techs greatest achievements

A few months before the global conflict, on there way up to hope station, both Derek and Mark were hit by a stealth mine

Mark took on a forarm break, ribs bruised and pride damaged, and Derek had his leg broken, for a few months of recovery, was unsuccessful and made his leg lame

Mark canceled all flights up to the station, due to the risk too great for anyone including himself

The global conflict now at its peak, and Derek wanted to push Mark to create weapons, which Mark stood against, this intern forced Mark to stop working alongside green industry's withdrawing aid and support, and Derek backed off into his own development of rockets with (stolen) designs from Mark

Before the Anderson crew disasters, they avoided eachother, best they could, Mark apologised for yelling at Derek, and Derek kept the two sides showing that he was okay, while the other was plotting to get his revenge on Mark

This, after the death of Jeff Tracy, a year later, Derek knew Mark was going to be on the Anderson Station (renamed after the conflict from hope station) and now he just had to watch the trap set, and hopefully watch Mark and the crew die on the rig

A man who had everything, the wife and family he wanted, the ties the credibility, the name, the money the people

Gone, and he had to wait for Anderson tech to crumble

But Derek wasn't counting on two things