Thomas and Friends: New Frontiers

by The Blue EM2

Chapter 11-Brute Strength and Force

The Moonbows soon realised something, given that this large diesel was looking at them. It soon became obvious to all three of them of the course of action they must take in order to escape with the box with the paper in it.

Izzy was the one who said it. "RUN!"

And run they did. They scarpered to another train which was sitting nearby and was fortuitously facing the other way. There was no way the train they'd arrived on would be able to reverse down the line at any sort of speed. Aurora was the first onboard, and got the control system and mechanisms fired up in preparation for movement. "This might take a few moments, so hang on!"

"I don't think we have a few moments!" Isaac shouted. "That diesel is now following us!"

Izzy's radio then crackled. "Hello, Izzy," said a familiar voice. "You might want to look up."

A helicopter had just buzzed into position overhead, and leaning out of it was none other than Sprout Cloverleaf. "How did you survive the explosion at the steelworks?" Izzy asked.

"I wasn't in the building at the time," Sprout smirked. "Now then, give me the box or else they fall off the side of the train! Nothing could survive a fall of this height."

Izzy saw Hitch and Misty, bound, and about to be pushed over the edge. "Don't give it to them!" Misty shouted.

Izzy got out of the cab and nodded to her father. She climbed up without the box, and clambered onto the roof of the locomotive just as it began to move away. The engine roared as she decided to confront Sprout directly. "Give me my friends back!" she shouted.

"Well then, you'll have to give me the box, won't you?" Sprout replied.

Izzy smiled. "I'll give you something better. NOW!"

Just then, something slammed into the chopper, knocking off the rear rotor. "I've lost all control!" the pilot radioed.

Hitch and Misty jumped on the cue, and as they dropped something became clear. "What happens if we hit the ground?" Misty asked.

"The fall isn't the fatal bit," Hitch replied. "The landing usually is."

Luckily, it wasn't to be their end. Their fall was suddenly broken by a pair of mattresses that had been put there quickly by Aurora.

"I can see where Izzy gets her resourcefulness from!" Hitch said, as the pair made their way back over to the train.

The chopper continued to spin about wildly, and flew off in a random direction. "This isn't the last you'll see of me!" Sprout shouted. "The box will be mine, and we shall rule this world the way we are meant to! It shall be your ult-"

"Sir, is it possible if we could less monologing?" the pilot asked.

As the heavy iron train got underway, the now five man team opened the box and looked at the contents inside. They were pieces of paper, as previously established, and Izzy got the scanner and satellite laptop set up to send them to Argyle.

---

Argyle finally had the video call set up. He waited for the connection to finish, but then at last the familiar face of Firelight appeared on the screen.

Or rather an extreme closeup of his left eye. "Hello Argyle!" he said. "How are things?"

"You're sitting rather close to the camera," Argyle replied. "You wouldn't mind backing up a little bit?"

Firelight laughed. "Oh, sorry. I'm not entirely used to the new webcams the department requires us to use." He scooted the chair back, revealing his full face to the camera. "So, how has your globetrotting trip gone so far? Found anything exciting?"

"We travelled through mountains, got shot at by a chopper, and found a box on top of a mountain. Inside the box were some pieces of paper with numbers on them. I was wondering if you could take a look?"

"Of course!" Firelight replied, and took a closer look. "Hmmm. Interesting. If these scans are showing what they think they do... then I have absolutely no idea what any of this means. It's a series of random numbers and letters, it seems. A code, perhaps? Number codes are notoriously hard to crack."

Argyle sighed. "Well, thanks for helping Firelight."

Suddenly, another caller popped into frame. "Hi Argyle! Hey Sunny! How are things?"

"Oh, hi Izzy!" Sunny said. "How are things in Australia?"

"Oh, they've been crazy," Izzy said. "We got fired upon by people and we just rescued Hitch and Izzy! What could be in these boxes that they want them this badly?"

"Beats me," Sunny replied.

"Do remember this is an important call, not a social call," Argyle patiently, but firmly, reminded them. He glanced back to Firelight. "As I was saying-"

"Wait," Firelight said. "Did Izzy say boxes? Did these boxes have paper in them?"

"Yes," Izzy replied. "What a funny coincidence. I'll send the scans through now."

A few minutes later and the scans arrived on the monitor, which Argyle forwarded to Firelight. After a few moments, they got their reply. "I've tried fitting the numbers together," he explained. "And it's very good news indeed. I have found out they are coordinates to a place!"

"As opposed to what else?" Argyle asked. "Can you get a sense of where it's meant to be?"

"Unfortunately, no," Firelight answered. "There are critical digits missing, which I suspect was done on purpose to prevent those who didn't have all three pieces of paper from actually figuring out where the objects were located. We need a third set in order to locate where the object is."

Goldie looked over. "Well, the Havens have been oddly quiet for the last few days. Maybe we should contact them and find out where they are up to?"

"Great idea!" Argyle said. "Sunny, can you get either Pipp or Zipp on the line? Pipp's most likely to answer her phone, isn't she?"

"Probably," Sunny replied, and set the dial tone running on her device.

---

In South America, the team cheered as the final bridge was lowered into position. At long last, the exhausting work of rebuilding a railway line was done, and they could move forward at a reasonable pace.

"That's the first new bit of railway in these parts in quite a long time!" Lord Haven said, wiping his brow from the accumulated sweat.

"And it only took restarting the industrial revolution to pull it off," Zipp said. "I don't think Pipp is enjoying it, though."

"I'm gonna have so many bugs to wash out of my hair when all this is done!" Pipp replied. "#Hot, #Jungle, #CreepyCrawlies, #WouldNotRecommend..."

The other three momentarily tuned her out as they discussed the game plan. "I've just run the weight calculations," Lady Haven said. "With the equipment we have, we'd be wisest moving the train across in sections and then joining them together on the other side."

"Good idea," Lord Haven replied. "Zipp, you're up. Take the trucks attached to the front and push them into the nearby loop to be shunted."

Zipp nodded, and headed away to Charles to fire him up.

A few minutes passed, and after some uncoupling was done Charles began to push his heavy train over the gap. The bridge wasn't exactly the strongest of things, but then again it wasn't exactly designed to carry big express engines either. A small diesel was ideal, though. The locomotives rolled over the bridge with the trucks and eventually reached the other side, leaving them in the siding.

"Well, that wasn't too bad," Zipp said. "Good work, Charles."

"My genius got us through that one," the diesel replied. "Now let's see if Mrs Demanding can get her lot across."

Further back, Sophie had the job of moving the coaches across the gap. Pipp was pretty nervous... and hot. Both windows were down to increase air flow into the cab, and the bridge ahead looked shaky. She nervously opened the throttle as Sophie started to roll down the track.

They eventually reached the bridge. It wobbled a bit, and groaned slightly, but at long last they were safely over and on the other side.

On the other side, the train was reassembled, with the goods at the back and the two engines at the front coupled to the coaches. After that, the run was relatively easy, and they eventually reached the marked spot for the ascent to Huascaran.

"Wait, we're going hiking?" Pipp said.

"Looks that way," Zipp replied over the radio. "Besides, you could use the exercise."

"I heard that!"

"It's a bit far to walk, you two," Lord Haven pointed out. "The mountain is very high, and to start our ascent we'd need to walk a long way in the wrong direction."

"Instead, we have a faster method for getting up there," Lady Haven pointed out. "A helicopter, remember?"

Zoom looked to Thunder. "Get Purbeck 1 ready to fly up to the top of the mountain," she said. "We've got a long flight ahead of us."

Author's Note:

Another chapter down! Many sources of inspiration should become clear in this chapter. See if you can spot the TATMR reference.

The concluding section of the chapter is loosely inspired by the ending of Top Gear's Burma special, which features a nerve-wracking sequence of the trio driving their heavy lorries over a rickety bridge-which miraculously doesn't collapse.

Comments

[shining paladin]

awesome chapter mate keep it up can't wait for the next chapter

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

Luckily, it wasn't to be their end. Their fall was suddenly broken by a pair of mattresses that had been put there quickly by Aurora.

Good timing.

"Of course!" Firelight replied, and took a closer look. "Hmmm. Interesting. If these scans are showing what they think they do... then I have absolutely no idea what any of this means. It's a series of random numbers and letters, it seems. A code, perhaps? Number codes are notoriously hard to crack."

Well, looks like they got more figuring out to do.

"I'm gonna have so many bugs to wash out of my hair when all this is done!" Pipp replied. "#Hot, #Jungle, #CreepyCrawlies, #WouldNotRecommend..."

Welcome to the real world Pipp, you can't always get what you want.

[The Blue EM2]

11581558
Glad to hear. I'll keep this train running.

[The Blue EM2]

11581616
1. Indeed.

2. Every archeologist has this challenge. One team devoted their entire careers to cracking heiroglyphs, but got their big break with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

3. In the words of the Rolling Stones, 'I can't get no satisfaction'.

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

So, now our heroes have encountered the homicidal psychopathic clawed machine. And Sprout is once again subdued for the time being.

As for the TATMR reference, does it relate to those mattresses?

[The Blue EM2]

11581777
Quite correct, on both counts.

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11581840
It would've been interesting if those mattresses were bags of flour or even something else cushiony.

[The Blue EM2]

11581842
That could've been quite painful, but I get your point.

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11581920
True. Plus there's the mess of flour when you land on the bags. The giant "poff!" Once you land.

[The Blue EM2]

11581935
Not to mention the bag would probably burst from the weight of people landing on it. We'd then get a recreation of Flour Power.

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11582008
Indeed. And I think Hitch's uniform is dry clean only.

[The Blue EM2]

11582011
He didn't bring his dress uniform with him. This sort of terrain is MTP only.

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11582013
Oh.

[The Blue EM2]

11582017
Combat uniforms are, of course, designed to take a lot of punishment. (MTP stands for Multi Terrain Patterning, a camo pattern introduced by the British Army in 2010 and has since become standard across all three branches.)

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11582124
That is quite true on that matter.

[The Blue EM2]

11582126
Otherwise what would be the point of them?

[Thomlight Sparkle 1]

11582130
True, true.

[The Blue EM2]

11582134
That's the sentiment.