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"You can't invent things if you're going around 'all worried about safety', now, can you?"
— Langstrom Fischler

CIR.R.U.S. (also known as CRUS, Climate Reasearch of the Upper Stratosphere) was a weather monitoring station featured in Skyhook. It was created by Fischler Industries, as a project of Langstrom Fischler.

Simply to save time and money, many safety features were left out of its construction; including static dampening plates, slow release valves and even escape pods. The downward pushing heliblades, used in conjunction with hydrogen filled balloons to keep the station in perfect balance, shorted out due to an electrical storm. This caused the weather station to rise up, which would inevitably cause the balloons to burst and the station to crash down to Earth. Luckily, John Tracy was checking in on the station during the time the heliblades stopped, as he was concerned about a nearby hurricane, so International Rescue were informed.

The Rescue of CIR.R.U.S.[]

The rescue operation was one of International Rescue's most chaotic and difficult. The station's lack of safety features and poor construction caused multiple problems with the organisation's efforts to save the crew of three, damaging two Thunderbirds and bringing another beyond its operational limit. Overall, four rescue attempts were made, with the last one succeeding just barely, thanks to an unlikely hero.

First, Virgil and Gordon Tracy arrived via Thunderbird 2, with Module 2 containing the Helipod. They attempted to fix the heliblades in midair, but after making mere contact with the station, Thunderbird 2 was zapped with, according to Brains, "100 lightning bolts" worth of energy, causing the controls within Thunderbird 2 to cease working. This forced Gordon to abandon the repair and slave Thunderbird 2's console to the Helipod's.

As Thunderbird 2 limped away, Scott Tracy arrived in Thunderbird 1. He boarded the station to try and evacuate the crew. Before he could even reach the door, a sprite hit the station and caused Scott to fall off, but he saved himself using the Grapple gun on his own ship. Saving himself wasted too much time, and the air soon became too thin for Thunderbird 1 to fly in.

Now higher than the sky, Alan Tracy was sent up in Thunderbird 3 to grab the station and bring it down to Earth again. Shortly after grabbing the heliblades, they broke off, and a chunk of metal from them destroyed one of Thunderbird 3's engines. With an engine lost, Thunderbird 3 was considered too fragile to try again, and had to make an emergency landing.

After more suggestions, and brief argument, and even a consideration of giving up, Brains and John Tracy simultaneously came up with the idea of using Thunderbird 5 to rescue the station using its space elevator. The plan was initially to lower the station to clear ground after grabbing it. Once the station was grabbed, the hurricane became so much bigger, that clear ground wasn't anywhere close. The plan was then changed: to haul CIR.R.U.S into space. This plan worked, but John was forced to use Thunderbird 5 itself as a spool. The high gravity caused by the velocity required very nearly killed John, and he barely managed to stop Thunderbird 5 from spinning once CIR.R.U.S. was safe.

Trivia[]

  • CIR.R.U.S broke the altitude duration record.
  • The rescue of the crew of CIR.R.U.S is also possibly the most difficult/complex on-screen rescue seen so far.
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