Author's Note: This story was written for the 2014 Tracy Island Writers Forum 'Unusual Christmas' challenge. My thanks to Jaimi-Sam for the fantastic first run through which then led to me rewriting half the thing and turning it into what you see here.

99942 APOPHIS

There wasn't a whole lot in the universe that could excite John Tracy to the point of giddiness. The fact that NASA in conjunction with the World Space Agency had been able to blow apart the asteroid 99942 Apophis before it collided with Earth, did.

There wasn't a whole lot in the universe that could scare the pants off any Tracy. Finding out that a one-point-five kilometer chunk of Apophis was still headed straight for Earth, did.

There wasn't a whole lot besides rescues that could keep the Tracy family from enjoying their standard island Christmas, complete with enough food to feed several small countries. It being Christmas Day, the family should've been gathered in the Lounge to open gifts before sitting down to their holiday feast.

They weren't.

For today was the day that International Rescue was undertaking its largest rescue mission ever.

Rather than their villa being filled with the smells of a home-cooked Kansas-style Christmas meal in various stages of preparation, the Tracys and their extended family weren't really thinking about eating, let alone opening gifts. Six of them weren't on Tracy Island. They weren't even on the planet.

They were on what many people were calling a suicide mission.

While Jeff, Ruth, Tin-Tin and Kyrano huddled round the central communications console in Launch Control on Tracy Island, Brains and all five of Jeff's sons were aboard Thunderbird Five.

It had been six weeks since International Rescue had completed months' worth of anonymous meetings with NASA, the World Space Agency, the privately-owned Colicos Space Station and the Greene International Space Observatory, in addition to every major government of the world, and determined that thanks to those entities' efforts to blow the asteroid apart the first time, there was no way any of them could get a large enough vessel in orbit again, in the small window of time available.

They had the bombs; they just didn't have the ship.

The result? Only one thing in existence had the potential to save the Earth from the worst mass extinction event since the legendary comet that had supposedly killed off the dinosaurs…depending on whose theory you believed. Multiple countries supplied the nuclear devices, but the rest was up to Thunderbird Five – with Thunderbird Three's help – and they were almost in position.

Tensions were running high and tempers were running short as the ticking clock counted down to either the end or hope that there would be a future.

"We don't all have to be here," Scott said. "I'm ordering the rest of you into Thunderbird Three. I'll man the final orbital shift."

"The hell you will, she's my 'bird," John countered with a scowl.

Scott squared his jaw. "That's an order."

"Since we're facing Armageddon," John stated smoothly as he slid into the seat in front of Five's maneuvering thrusters, "you don't get to give me orders. Go."

"No way."

Virgil and Gordon exchanged glances.

"So that means you want us all to die." Alan spoke from the pilot's seat in Thunderbird Three. It'd been his 'bird that had done a lot of the pushing to get Five into her current position, and he had to be ready the moment John…or Scott, whichever…gave the mark for the final thrust toward the incoming remnant of Apophis.

John and Scott turned to stare at Alan on the viewscreen.

"If this works," Alan continued, "then Earth won't be hit. That means we'll have a home to go back to. So let's not be stupid, huh?"

"That's why the rest of you are getting on Three now!" Scott barked, moving to physically shove John out of the chair he'd strapped himself into.

A tussle. Several grunts. A few punches.

In the end, both men on the floor on their asses, nobody won.

The proximity alarm sounded.

"Helmets!" Scott yelled over the din. "Check the nuclear devices!"

Brains and all the brothers quickly put their helmets on and pressed the buttons on their sleeves that hermetically sealed them to their spacesuits. Brains then moved to the computer console to the right of Thruster Control. "Nuclear chain reaction green," he reported. "Detonators green. All devices online and functioning." He looked at Scott. "We're a go."

Thunderbird Five was loaded to the gills – every inch of her insides and a whole lot of her outside – with more nuclear devices than had ever been dropped, launched or otherwise unleashed anywhere on Earth or in space, by mankind. The governments of the world had provided both the bombs and the manpower to attach them to the gigantic space station.

It was, all scientists had concluded, the only way. And since neither Colicos nor Greene were in any way mobile other than their automatic orbit stabilization fields, Five was the only true possibility for success...wholly dependent on a maneuver IR had never before attempted, with Three docked and using her own rocket power to shove their communications hub out of its geosynchronous orbit.

They had but one chance to get it right.

John scrambled back to the chair, fingers gripping a joystick-like control protruding from the console in front of him. "Five," he stated evenly as Scott moved to stand behind him. He placed a hand on John's shoulder. "Four," John continued, eyes fixed, unblinking, on the monitor in front of him. Scott squeezed his shoulder, everyone watching as the trajectory of Apophis, the location of Five and the large circle representing Earth moved slightly, rapidly-changing numbers giving the velocity, precise coordinates and speed of all three.

"Please let this work," Virgil whispered, closing his eyes. How he hated being in space. How he loathed the idea of dying there.

"I love you, boys," came their father's voice through their helmets.

They could hear Tin-Tin's soft hitch of breath in the background.

"Three," John intoned, eyes glued to the monitor in front of him.

"All for one," Brains commented, moving to stand on John's right.

"Godspeed, International Rescue." The voice in their helmets had come from the head of NASA, Terry Hathaway. "Listening out."

John swallowed hard. "Two."

"Good luck, gentlemen," came the voice of World Space Agency president Benedict O'Lachlan.

"One."

John's hand moved quickly, expertly. He'd practiced this move a hundred times in the simulator on Earth. Didn't even have to look to see what he was doing. He knew this would work. And he'd been willing to die to prove it. He hadn't counted on his brothers or Brains insisting on being there with him.

"We almost lost you on Five once," Scott had said when John first proposed the seemingly preposterous idea for annihilating the piece of asteroid. "I'm not leaving you to die alone up there."

Which had turned into all the younger male island residents deciding every one of them was going to be part of this rescue, in spite of the fact that their father had pretty much turned purple yelling that there was no way in hell he was sending his entire family into the fray.

With five against one, Jeff had lost that argument.

Brains insisted he should be there, too. "I'm one of the family, after all," he'd told them by way of explanation. It'd been the first time he'd openly admitted to what Jeff and the others had been telling him all along. But the reason for it dampened the happiness they should've felt at hearing him say those words.

Now all they could do was wait. The Earth out the long row of viewing windows shifted as Five proceeded with the final in a series of movements she'd begun twelve hours earlier, to put her onto a direct collision course with Apophis.

"Orbital thruster boost from Three completed," Alan reported. "She's right in line just as we calculated."

"Confirmed," Brains stated as he manically checked, double-checked and triple-checked calculations, coordinates and reports.

Closer they came to the nondescript gray pock-marked rock that could so very easily end all life on the blue, brown, white and green cosmic marble that held so very much of it.

"Get ready, Alan."

"Ready."

"Final thrust, hang on," John warned.

Everyone grabbed for the nearest piece of equipment or chair and held on tightly.

"Now!"

They felt the force of Five being shoved forward by the combination of Three's powerful rockets and Five's own thrusters as they were kicked into full throttle. The space station's infrastructure groaned. Someone was breathing so hard they were practically panting.

"Prepare for separation!" Scott barked to Alan.

"FAB!"

Closer.

Closer.

"We did it! It's gonna hit!" John exclaimed. "Three, now!"

They ran for the autolock.

Scott got there first and hollered, "Alan, be ready!" into his helmet's microphone.

The door slid open like nothing at all was happening save for the standard monthly change of shift. Through it they bolted into the tube, beyond which lay the open nose of Thunderbird Three.

John checked his watch as the door hissed shut behind them. "She's going faster than we anticipated." He met Scott's eyes. "Two minutes to impact."

"Shit," Scott swore as the pressure equalized. Suddenly the airlock door separating them from their rocket slid open.

The men scrambled into Three. Not a word was spoken as Scott headed to join Alan in the cockpit, while the rest moved to strap themselves into launch position seats in the lounge further along.

Alan sealed Three's airlock and punched the disengage button. Scott slid into the copilot's seat and buckled his harness.

"Here goes nothing," Alan whispered, maneuvering his baby away from Five. It was no easy job considering both were now moving faster than Five herself had ever moved. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

"We need to go now," John said over the intercom, far too calmly.

He thinks we're going to die, Scott thought.

"Hold on everyone, this isn't gonna be pretty," Alan announced, and pressed the rocket boosters' button.

They fired.

A jolt that rattled the teeth and bones of every man aboard her. A shudder. A frightening thunk. Then, suddenly, Three was headed past Five toward deep space.

"Primary and Secondary viewers on," Alan announced, all concentration on flying his 'bird like she'd never flown before as he flicked a switch in front of him.

Those in the lounge and those in the cockpit watched. All breaths were held. Hearts were barely beating.

"Come on, come on," Brains muttered.

"Please," Gordon whispered.

Anxious faces in Tracy Island's Launch Control, and those aboard Thunderbird Three – along with millions upon millions of people on Earth who were seeing it via a live feed coming from the Greene International Space Station – watched, uncertain if this far-fetched idea was really going to work.

Five drifted forward peacefully, having no idea she was about to be sacrificed in an attempt to save nine-point-eight billion peoples' lives.

Then, she knew.

Her alarms wailed, deafening everyone in Thunderbird Three and slicing through the air on Tracy Island.

In a moment of sheer madness, John whispered, "She knows she's going to die."

That was when she and what was left of Apophis collided.

"Oh, my God!" slipped from Scott's lips as the mighty space station exploded. None of them had ever seen the like, from the brief but brilliant flashes as each bomb detonated to the almost physically painful reality of Five being torn to shreds even as Apophis, after the fifth detonation, fractured.

"It's not working," Virgil breathed, wide eyes glued to the screen.

"Biggest one's yet to come," Brains advised.

Virgil felt like maybe he should start praying.

Alan pushed Three as hard and fast as she'd go to get them far enough away to not be hit should everything go terribly wrong. Or even should everything go terribly right.

Finally the last bomb detonated. A mighty, silent explosion. Brief flare-ups before the lack of oxygen doused the fire. Bits and pieces of metal and rock flying every which way in a vacuum. Silent moments where nobody knew for sure what the outcome was.

Scott and Alan stared at the main viewscreen.

John, Brains, Gordon and Virgil stared at the secondary viewscreen.

Jeff, Tin-Tin, Ruth and Kyrano stared at Launch Control's giant flat-screen wall monitor.

"Did it break apart?" Ruth whispered, as though afraid that asking too loudly might jinx the outcome.

"Alan?" Tin-Tin said, more wishing she was in his arms than actually expecting him to respond.

Kyrano laid a hand palm-flat on his daughter's back as Jeff lifted his watch to his face. "Thunderbird Three from Base."

Scott and Alan looked down at their console's small video screen as their father's face materialized. "Dad," they both said.

"Did it work?" Jeff asked. Unspoken was, Or are we all going to die?

John's voice cut in. "It worked. Apophis is in pieces. The largest chunk is angling toward Venus."

"How far away from Earth's atmosphere?" Alan asked.

"A-About thirty degrees from initial trajectory," Brains interjected.

"Is that far enough?" Scott asked, voice barely concealing panic.

Because he was looking at his dad's face, thinking of his mother, wondering if everything they'd ever done since her death had been for naught thanks to some rogue space body with a vendetta against mankind.

He couldn't bear to fail. Not in this. Not in something that meant the lives of every man, woman, child, animal and plant on the planet. He knew that his entire family shared that sentiment.

"You said it needed to be thirty-two degrees, John!" Scott barked. "Is thirty enough?"

"I don't know," was John's quiet, resigned reply.

"Oh, God," Virgil said quietly, fear consuming his normally tranquil features.

"You tried, boys," Jeff stated, looking out at all of them via the various viewscreens. "If it didn't work…at least you tried."

"Dad…" Scott's voice trailed off.

Their eyes met.

"Look! Just look at that!" Gordon yelled, making everyone jump.

"What?" Scott asked, eyes moving back up to the main viewscreen.

Each and every one of them – along with millions of people on Earth – stared. Jaws dropped.

"That half-a-klick chunk just gained four degrees," Alan reported, voice betraying his disbelief. "She's diverting!"

"Oh, my God, it worked!" Virgil shouted, unstrapping himself and jumping to his feet. "John, Brains, Alan, you're geniuses!"

But John wasn't feeling like a genius. He was feeling like he'd just lost his best friend. He got to his feet and gave Virgil a small smile.

"Good one, man," Gordon said, clapping John on the back.

As Virgil and Gordon entered the elevator that would ferry them to the cockpit, Brains turned to look at a man who didn't seem quite as happy as he should.

"You, ah, know, John," he stated, getting John to look up at him, "we just saved the, ah, entire planet."

"Yeah," John acknowledged, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "But I'm gonna miss her."

"We'll build you a better one," Brains replied softly. "The world's governments agreed to pay for it if this, ah, worked, so you'll get everything you had a-and more."

John met his friend's eyes. Yes, his original Five was gone. But she'd died a heroic death, and he supposed for a piece of International Rescue equipment, that was the only way to go.

"Now, ah, come on. It's Christmas Day and there's, ah, even more reason to celebrate it this year."

John grinned as his thoughts strayed from the 'bird that was no more. "How much do you want to bet that Grandma's doing her damndest to figure out how to get a whole Christmas meal cooked in time for our return home?"

"I-I'm counting on it!"

John laughed as the two stepped into the elevator.

"You guys coming up for the ride back?" asked Scott via their wristwatches.

"On our way," John replied.

"Well done," Scott told him.

John felt the praise seep into his bones and finally allowed himself to breathe normally. "Thanks," he said, meeting his eldest brother's eyes as the elevator doors opened onto the cockpit.

The bits and pieces left of what had been labeled back in 2004 'Asteroid 99942 Apophis' were slowly moving away from Earth now, with only pebble and a couple boulder-sized chunks being projected by NASA to enter Earth's atmosphere within the next week. John calculated, after they'd gotten home and eaten their fill of a hastily-prepared meal that wasn't anything like their usual Christmas fare, that the point-five kilometer largest piece that was left of her would pass by Venus easily, and be on its way out of their solar system inside a week.

Christmases thereafter had a whole new meaning for the people of Earth. It wasn't just a religious or pagan or Hallmark or gift-giving or food-eating or Santa Claus holiday anymore.

It was the anniversary of the day that the entire population of Planet Earth found out they were going to have a future after all.

And this new lease on life was thanks to the bravery of a small group of men and women whose identities the world still didn't know, that called themselves International Rescue…and indeed had become the rescuers of the whole world.