Anything That Can Go Wrong
“You’ve got to be kidding me...” Natasha was squatting down, waist deep in sewage water, she and Jack were the only ones down here and they were making their way, extremly slowly through the thick disgusting water. This was not what she had imagined when she took this job 3 hours ago.
She shined her light around the tunnel with an apparent grimace on her face, “What even is this place?”
Jack glanced behind to where she was following, they had the same air tight suit and oxygen helmet that Natasha was wearing on, except the helmet was not able to cover the thick mass of purple hair and strands were surrounding their face through the glass, “We’re in Pacis, some planet in the andromeda galaxy, apparently their defenses are low because of some civil war.”
They came to their first obstacle, discounting the sewage water that plagued their every step, it was a wall that covered the entirety of the tunnel, pushing the water into the branching path. Jack, inspected it for a moment, using their thumb and forefinger to measure something in their head. Natasha was curious as to what they were going to do.
Jack stuck a hand out, “Crowbar, please.”
Natasha thought for a moment, “Why don’t we just cut through it?” She asked, patting a laser in one of her pockets.
They sighed, “Just trust me here, you trust me right?”
“No.” She said blatently but she handed him the crowbar, a tool which must have been at least a hundred years old and from one of the original colonies. Since it was a tool that was even needed anymore.
Jack thanked her and continued to measure something in their head, a second later they were hitting the wall with the crowbar with all the grace of a rhino on skates. Natasha’s hands went to her ears as the pounding continued. A few moments later the wall crumbled and Jack stood to the side to admire their work.
Jack sighed, satisfied, “Here’s a tip, it’s always good to get out some nerves before you get to the delicate part.”
“That is if they didn’t hear us in the next freaking solar system.” She commented dryly.
Jack chuckled but continued down the tunnel, the sewer water following them down through the newly made hole.
“What are we getting in here anyway?”
Jack shrugged, “I.d.k, some soul stone or ancient artifact close to that. Fury’s been planning this one for months and he's got us coming up from underground into the vault. If we don’t die containing it, it should be a pretty sweet catch.”
“It better be worth treading five miles in sewage. And are you just saying that because I’m not allowed to know or are you really just that oblivious?”
Jack looked at her from under their purple hair and winked, “Hey, if you constantly worry about the little things you'll go crazy out here in the void.” They laughed maniacally.
Natasha smirked, “Wow, that seems legit coming from you.” She said with heavy sarcasm.
They continued down the tunnel of disgust for another hour until they came across a hidden door at the end, more like a sophisticated vault door. Natasha wouldn’t have even seen it if not for Jack as somehow they managed to scope it out like it was obvious.
The round vault wall was covered in layers upon layers of muck, moss, and tree roots, it took them a while just to cut through it to get to where they needed to be, when they had cleared it enough to see it, Jack took a step back and crossed their arms, “Alright.. I’ll hold the tool bag.”
They bent over and picked up the bag, pulling a laser out of it and some stethoscope like materials.
Natasha paused, “Excuse me?”
“You’ll want to be careful once you get in, the entire vault is motion, heat, and vibration sensitive. I think it might need DNA samples as well…” They said, looking off into space.
“You’re the engineer here, Jack!”
They didn’t respond but placed a sensor in the palm of her hand and watched her expectantly.
“Jack!” she tried again.
They snapped out of their trance, “What was that?”
“You’re the one who is trained to do this, why are you making me do this?”
They didn’t have to think about it for very long, “You need the practice, plus Fury wanted me to train you a bit on this mission…”
“I don’t think this is what he meant, Jack.:”
They shrugged, “It’s fine, are you worried?”
Natasha’s mouth dropped in disbelief and they continued, “Don’t be worried, it’s just a vault, plus I’ll take over once we get inside to get the item.”
Natasha sighed and looked down at the sensor in her hand, “Fine..”
Jack smiled, “Great. Now make sure to watch out for the self destruct feature in the vault.”
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.
Above ground at around the same time a woman was dropping down from a two story window and landing clumsily on a balcony. The city was incredibly dark at night, even the homes and businesses did not help to light the way since the early curfew had been put into place.
The woman was wearing a long thick coat to shield herself from the cold night air of her home planet. She carried only a knapsack over her shoulder and a black scarf covering her neck and face.
Her hair was long, wild and messy as she moved crouched down over to the right side of the balcony. Her eyes darted everywhere, searching for guards or anyone that would try to stop her.
The brunette looked over the edge of the decorative fence to the ground below and she made a little whining noise. But she threw her leg over the side and held her breath, climbing carefully and tensely down the decorative fence.
She was nearly to the point where her foot would be able to reach the next level when a loud, scolding voice cried from above her, “Hey! Stop!”
She jumped and let go of the fence, despite her efforts to grab onto the next level balcony, her fingers just missed the edge and she went tumbling down into the garden below with a crack and a thud.
Alarms were beginning to sound around the palace and heavy footsteps could be heard on the floors above, soon the entire city would be crawling with guards and patrols.
The fleeing woman groaned and rolled herself out of one of the hedges, she was clutching at her wrist but the adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay, at least for the time being. She shook herself and looked around in a panic, she patted around her realizing that she had lost her bag.
She began to search the ground, the footsteps were coming closer and she began ripping away at the flowers and the bushes, her fingers came across the soft blue material of her bag and she grabbed it, not looking behind her as she ran.
On the ground where she landed, several of her items had fallen on the ground in her rush to leave. A minute later those items were trampled into the garden as patrols began piling out of the palace, looking for the escaped princess.
She ran through the city, keeping the map that she had memorized in her head so that she could know where to go, running at full speed through the darkened city. They would have shut off power to all modes of transport by now and alerted the citizens to detain her if they found her near their homes. At this point she was on her own.
She raced through the city without looking back, twenty minutes later she was running up on the docking zone of the city. It was the only place that was still awake at this time of day, with crew members of the various ships meandering around their ships as they dropped off supplies or picked up materials.
She slipped inside the door and drifted into the crowd. She only had a few minutes at best until the alarm reached this area and everything would be put on lock down, no matter the strain that it would put on their schedules.
People looked at her funny, but their were so many different types of individuals in this part of the capitol that most of them just shrugged and continued on their way. She did not know if she was imagining it but she felt like she could hear the guards coming after her and it just made her heart race faster.
The dock was lined with about fifty ships, this was a foreign docking center and her planet was not known for their intergalactic trading laws so they were pushed to the sides of the city limits, in an attempt to avoid contamination from foreign cultures and business practices. She stared at the different ships, most of them had their ramps down, and their security was relaxed but many of them had people moving in and out of the ship. She would get seen for sure.
She spotted a quiet ship in the corner, no one was coming in or out but its ramp was down, she headed for it and stopped at the bottom of the ramp. She noticed immediately the huge size of this ship and she concluded that it must be transporting ship parts or warp cores. Perfect for hiding in plain sight, she thought.
She didn’t see the name but she snuck aboard, disabling the sensors at the opening just like she had taught herself so that it would be more difficult to see that someone new had boarded.
It wasn’t a full proof plan but it would be able to help her get on board this ship. When she entered the large ship she moved through the halls, coming in contact with various people and species as she did, it was strange. They barely even noticed her presence.
One woman, with a shaved head and a large earring that took up half of her head stopped her and asked her, “Hey, are you one of Fury’s new projects?” She was a short and bulky woman with tan skin wearing nothing but baggy pants and suspenders on a bare torso.
She smiled shyly and nodded her head unsure of what was meant by that, she was about to continue on her way, tense and ready to run since she had begun to hear alarms from outside, it would be no time at all until this ship was stopped and searched.
The woman stopped her, with a smirk, “Cool, I’m Pua, what you so jumpy about?”
She was about to answer when Pua continued, “It’s safe here, here, take a map and chill, yeah?”
She handed Darcy a handheld holographic map, “Thank you—what about the searches?” she asked, fear coming through clearly in her voice.
Pua laughed, “They ain’t going to search us, kid, don’t worry about it.” She patted the runaway princess on the back and left her in the hallway.
Darcy read the map, it was extremely detailed and she found all the little hiding spots in the interior of the ship, used mostly for engineering checks and repairs. She climbed her way into one of the repair vents and finally stopped in a small room, a ladder going through the ship next to her.
She pulled her coat around her and she sighed, attempting to calm down slightly. They had not found her and no one here seemed to notice her presence, it must have been a rather large crew for no one to notice. This ship must have transported materials to all corners of the known universe. She was glad that she had chosen this ship and not one of the other smaller ones.
She prided herself on her good fortune and closed her eyes and attempted to fall asleep.
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Natasha and Jack were nearly into the interior when Fury’s angry voice surrounded the vault and Natasha and Jack’s entrance through the intercom, “Get your asses out of their, we’re compromised.” He said sharply.
Both of the robbers were startled, they were so close to getting inside, with Jack’s help, she had been able to get through the vaults defenses and she was just about to open their way in, then they would be facing their loot.
Jack moved to their communicator, “We’re about done here, Cap, three more minutes.”
They heard a sigh from the other side, “You have two.” He said and then it cracked off.
They began moving at twice the speed as they had been and Natasha pulled the large piece of metal out in a circular formation. She ducked underneath the opening and rushed inside, she was ready to get her prize but when she ran up to it her shoulders fell, “Jack, we have a problem.”
They jumped in behind her and began cursing along with an out of place laugh of amusement. Instead of something powerful and otherworldly, they were faced with what looked like a stuffed toy. Grey and old it was laid haphazardly in the container where their treasure should have been.
“You know, I think Fury’s losing his touch.” Jack said, rubbing their face.
Natasha moved past him and grabbed the toy off out of the container, “Or we’ve been double crossed, come on!”
"Yeah, or that."
The door to the vault crashed open and twenty guards flooded into the room just after the two pirates moved back into the sewer. They had an alternate route to take to get out, one which didn’t take nearly as long to get to.
They dashed through the sewage and darted up the ladder at the end of the tunnel. Natasha felt like crying when she took a breath of fresh air, but her joy didn’t last long as green lights were flashed into her eyes and the shouting, angry voices moved towards them.
Natasha closed her eyes as the chaos erupted and she flinched her arms in front of her face.
Just when she though she was about to either get captured or shot she felt the tingling sensation of the transporter and a moment later she was in the same position on the floor of one of the transporter rooms.
Both her and Jack took a deep breath and collapsed on the floor. No one seemed to care that they were there and the entire ship was bustling the crew running to their positions because apparently, they were taking off immediately.
Natasha groaned, “What the hell happened down there?”
Jack was about to speak when Fury’s entered the room, hands behind his back looking utterly terrifying as usual. This was the first time Natasha had seen him since he rescued her all those years ago.
“What happened was some political crisis fucked up our plan, we have to leave this area immediately. Did you get it?”
Jack attempted to stand up, “Well, I mean, we got something, but it wasn’t a magical rock of destiny or whatever..”
Fury held out a hand and Jack placed the stuffed toy in his hand. Fury looked at it silently.“We’ve been played.”
Then he walked away, taking the toy with him. He came back through the door before the other two would be able to get up, he tossed the toy at Natasha, “Here. Souvenir.”
Natasha sat back on the floor with a thud, the mysterious toy in her lap.
"Well--" Jack said looking down at her and offering a helping hand, "At least you learned the most important lesson to becoming a criminal."
"And what is that?" Natasha took their hand and let herself be helped up on her feet.
"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."