#marooned

“...uuuhhhh….” 

Even before he could get his eyes open, even before the fuzzy sensation fully faded and he knew where his body was, something about the sound of his own voice had the alarm bells ringing at full volume. 

That alarm had Jeff clawing his way back into consciousness. It was like he was fighting his way up through layer upon layer of wet blankets, but he finally got to the surface, forced his eyes open… and was met with a yoke and a half-dark console, gaping holes showing where different electronics had been neatly excised. 

“What…” Jeff pulled himself together and sat up to take stock of himself and get a proper look at his surroundings. That he was wearing his uniform finally registered - which explained the alarm bells, he hadn’t been wearing a uniform before and hearing his voice bouncing back to him from the inside of a helmet was a big difference. ‘I was… where was I? I was on the Island… was there a rescue?’ It made sense, but the big blank spot in his memory and the lack of a headache to explain it wasn’t lending credence to that theory. ‘Okay, pull it together Tracy, run the numbers. Where am I? In space. What ship is this?’ 

There was enough illumination from the interior lights that he was able to get a decent look at the cockpit. ‘Mid-sized long-haul freighter…but it’s new… not a junker…’ That discrepancy had more alarm bells echoing through the lingering fog. Why would a new freighter be missing electronics? 

Wondering why his mouth tasted like a sewer, Jeff fumbled for the comms point on his baldric and croaked out “Thunderbird Five, come in.”

Nothing. Not even the click of an open radio link.

Frowning, he tried again, using his chin to hit the button for the secondary radio in the helmet.  “Thunderbird Five, do you read?”  

Nothing. 

There was a veritable chorus of alarm bells going off now. Jeff unbuckled himself, pushed himself out of the seat… and saw the note on the glass of the viewport in front of him. 

He was reaching to grab it when he realised there was something outside: a powder-blue ship with an almost avian look to it, drifting against a backdrop of lumpy asteroids and a deep black that went on forever.  

The Zero-XL. 

It was just as beautiful as the first time he’d seen her, but she didn’t have the Thunderbirds locked into her this time… and as he watched, light bloomed around the stern and he realised the ship was powering up for a jump. 

“NO!” Jeff slammed a hand against the glass, but it was futile as the energies reached their peak and the Zero-XL vanished into nothingness. 

His heart thundering in his ears, hoping, praying, begging, that this was all some sort of nightmare or someone’s sick idea of a joke, Jeff snatched the note off the portal. 

Two lines were inscribed on the paper in a hand he didn’t recognise: ‘You did not appreciate the gift you were given: a second chance. It has now been revoked.’ 

The paper crumpled in his fist as Jeff swung from left to right, taking in the control panel and the labels next to the gaps in it: Communications. Navigation. Engineering. All gone. 

But he didn’t need navigation or anything else to know exactly where he was. 

Back in the Oort Cloud. 

Marooned.