Crash
“Really? I’m never going to be able to find anything in here anymore.” The Captain glanced around the newly cleaned command center. Jemma had cleaned not only the surfaces but also every nook and crany that could be cleaned.
Three days. Three days on the tiny, noismaking, death trap of a ship that was “The hula Girl”, Jemma spent three days, biding her time and only mopeing sometimes. She spent a lot of time with Helen, talking and cleaning the command center. The other half of the time she was holding a tool box for the Captain while she attempted without luck to keep the ship in working order, it was her own version of revenge to watch her struggle.
They were so close O-Nah, only one more night until they were close enough to see if they could dock and then she would be free of this whole situation and never have to come back to space ever again.
“Really? I’m never going to be able to find anything in here anymore.” The Captain glanced around the newly cleaned command center. Jemma had cleaned not only the surfaces but also every nook and crany that could be cleaned.
“Please, it’s organized now and that stink is gone.” Jemma stood next to one of the consoles on the right side, crossing her arms.
Skye sniffed the air, “Fair enough.” Then she sat down at the main console and flipped a few switches. Jemma examined her closely, something was off about the way the captain looked today.
“Did you do your hair today?” Jemma asked, coming closer to the captain’s mane of long brown lochs,
The captain twisted a peice of her hair between her finger tips and smiled, “Yes I did, you like it?” She wiggled her eyebrows at Jemma, who huffed and backed away obstinatly.
“It looks nice, is all I’m saying and it doesn’t have greese in it so that’s certainly a plus.”
Skye chuckled, “Aw, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me since you’ve got here, I feel all warm and tingly inside.”
Jemma rolled her eyes. Their quipping was cut off by Alecta’s voice crackling through the intercom, “Ship approaching at maximum speed.”
Helen entered the room soon after; she seemed nervous.
“A ship?” Skye looked around confused, “There shouldn’t be any ships out here, do we know it? Put it on screen.” She hit a few buttons and turned a few knobs.
“Yes. It’s “The Avenger””
The blood drained out of Skye’s face and she fell over onto her hands, “Oh no.. Shit!” She cursed and kicked the wall, running her hands through her hair in distress.
“The “Avenger”? What is that?” Jemma moved forward to try to see something but none of the screens held an explanation. Skye didn’t answer and instead continued to freak out, moving around the cabin and pulling things out of the walls.
“What is going on?!” Jemma tried again, this time Helen put a hand on her arm and was about to say something when Alecta broke through again and they all jumped.
“Video transmission requested, Captain.” Skye said another string of curse words and kicked a few more pieces of the ship. She stopped suddenly and sat back down, breathing out forcefully.
She glanced behind her, “Dr. Simmons, do you mind going outside the door? I don’t want anyone seeing you.”
“Who would see me? Who is that, are they from the government?” Jemma pleaded, hope beginning to bubble up in her chest.
“These guys are definitely not from any government, they’re pirates.”
“Oh.,” Jemma sighed, and then she edged her way out, Helen giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as she left the room.
“Put them through, Alecta.” Skye plastered on a fake smile, and an image appeared on the middle screen, the Black Widow was sitting comfortably in her velvet captain’s chair, she smiled kindly through the screen but it still made Skye’s stomach churn.
“Hey Sailor.” The Widow greeted, her name was well earned given that she despite her casual demeanor and tone Skye had the feeling that she was being viewed for eating.
Skye chuckled humourlessly, her discomfort evident in her demeanor. “Natasha, how are you doing?” She asked lamely.
The Widow continued to smile and ignore the question, “I’m going to skip to the point here, I need your passenger.” She ordered, right off the bat.
The Black Widow had more experience, not even counting her impressive armada, and if she were in the Ship that Skye commanded she would have been just as confident and just as terrifying as she was now. However one of the things that made her so deadly was that she never underestimated a target and despite her marally askew career, she treated those who interacted with her, with exactly the amount of respect they deserved.
Skye’s eyes became focused. She held her ground. “I don’t have a passenger, Natasha and you can’t have my loot.”
The Black Widow sighed, a mixture of pity and disapointment in her features as she leaned closer to the screen. “Darling, I have state of the art scanners equiped on my ship,so despite your attempt to cloak I can see there are three people on board your little ship, one of those is an android. She won’t be harmed, I know that’s as important to you as it was to your mother.”
“Why would a hostage I picked up randomly during a raid matter to you?” Skye moved past the quick pang of embarresment from being caught red handed in a lie. Lying was what pirates did, Natasha probably expected the exact response she got, however, Skye knew she was better than that.
“A favor. For an old friend.”
“You don’t do favors, Widow.” Skye puffed her chest out, still holding her ground in the convernsation.
The Widow smiled, seeming unperturbed about what was going on, she laughed, “You’re right, of course, it’s a paid favor, a very well paid favor.”
“Since when have you been dealing with Morse? And why would she be making deals with the likes of us?”
“Skye, I'm doing this more as a favor to you than to Morse, the money is just a bonus. Let the girl go, Skye, she's more trouble than she's worth and you know as well as I do that Morse is ruthless.” Natasha explained calmly, her motherly tone was putting Skye on edge.
Skye knew that Natasha didn’t want to kill her, for her own safety, so knowing how the Widow worked, Skye would guess that the options were flexible depending whether or not she complied with what the Black Widow wanted. Before she could react, Natasha continued.
“I only want the girl, Skye, you can keep all the other spoils. We transport her over to my ship and you can go on your merry way.” Despite her friendly tone, her words dripped with venom.
“The only reason Morse would ask you for something like this was if she wanted me killed and she couldn’t legally do it herself.”
“Yes, she did want you, your crew, and everything you stole but I’m not going to give her that, I’m just taking the girl and telling her to get over it.”
The Black Widows patience knew no bounds but Skye’s was running very thin. She tapped on the side of the console a few times, seemingly thinking over the options. Behind her, Helen was silently gearing the ship up for a an escape. Rerouting auxillary power to the engine and holding the final command to switch the power.
“I can’t give her to you, Widow, her ransom will be even bigger than the reward your getting, I need her for leverage.”
“Skye, hand over Dr. Simmons.” The Black Widow ordered again, obviously giving Skye a second chance to reconsider. She was kind like that.”
“No.” Skye stated, officially locking in her decision.
Natasha sighed, and sat back in her chair, “I don’t want to have to do this, Skye, I respect you, and your mother.. But I do respect a woman who holds her ground, I’ll give you that. Good Luck.” Skye never doubted for a second that the Widow meant exactly what she said.
Skye nodded, a quick motion of acceptance before she looked up and smirked, “ Good thing I don’t need luck.” She ended the video and the screen went black. “Now Helen!”
The ship roared to life as the lights went out. “They're preparing to fire, Captain!”
Skye locked her seat, “Switch controls to manual. We used the last of our resources taking the Mockingbird, fighting the Avenger would be a death sentence for "The Hula Girl.”
“Running will be a death sentence as well, Captain.” The ship rocked harshly, causing anything that was not strapped down to be thrown violently. Helen wavered slightly, her titanium legs keeping her perfectly balenced. “Hit to starboard bowe, Captain, she’s trying to incapacitate us so that she can board.”
They were moving at beyond maximum speed, pushing the ship to her limits and still The Avenger was on her tail. Skye’s eyes were focused on the navigation panel as she moved through obstacles and attempted to dodge the missiles that the Avenger was firing at them.
The door slip open and Jemma fell through as another peice of the ship was hit, just barely missing vital engine parts. “What on earth is happening?” Jemma all but screamed as she tumbled to the floor, bracing herself on the edge of one of the right consoles so she wouldn’t slip underneath.
Skye grunted as she turned the ship sharply away from a near hit, “We’re being attacked by a ship that’s better than us in every way.” Skye said matter-of-factly.
Alecta began spouting off everything that was going wrong with the ship as parts fell off and certain junction boxes sparked on fire. “Bloody Hell..” Jemma struggled her way next to the captain, studying the navigation screen from over her shoulder.
Skye didn’t even seem to see her, “Helen, could you work on that?” She was refering to the fire starting in one of the back junctions. The android immedietly began to put fires out.
“Yeah it’s not good, you might wanna strap yourself in.”
Jemma ignored her request and continued staring over her shoulder, the ship sounded like it was being torn apart and the sounds of ripping metal was horribly apparent within the cabin of “The Hula Girl”.
Jemma pointed to something on the screen, “There! That planet with the four moons, we can use the gravity pull and hide in the planet’s atmosphere. It’s an old trick but it might work.”
Skye’s eyes got wide and she looked up at Jemma, “What? How could you know that?”
“Never mind that just go!”
Skye snapped her head back and headed in the direction of the unknown planet. Her face was scrunched up in concentration as she held on tightly to the controls.
“How is that going to help us if they just follow us in and kill us there?”
The Ship rocked wildly as they almost got hit again and another peice of the outer panels flew off into space and Jemma grabbed Skye’s shoulder for support.
“We can curve around and hide, it should confuse their sensors, here--” Jemma led Skye out of the chair and slipped in her place, grabbing on to the controls and setting her shoulders while the captain stumbled back, her mouth agape in shock.
“Uh!”
Jemma ignored her, her mouth was trembling but her eyes darted back and forth on the screen dodging and missing the Avenger’s attacks. Her fingers moved quickly through the controls, behind her Skye had her arms up in an apparently paused gesture of “What the fuck?”.
Skye glanced behind her at Helen, the android shrugged, “She is correct.”
Skye was about to complain again but one of the Avenger’s attcks hit the ship, causing it to veer to the left violently.
Jemma cried out but kept her hands firmly on the controls, not letting even the crackle of ship destract her from her mission. Skye fell to the side with the impact and was caught by Helen whose perfectly balenced frame barely wavered with the force of the impact.
“The cargo hold is on fire, it needs to be put out.” Jemma stated and Helen immedietly nodded with a quick, “I will put it out.”
Skye put her palm on the edge back of the chair, she obviously had questions but she would ask them if they made it out of this alive. She kept looking over at Jemma’s focused face, a ball of sweat fell down her temple and she kept licking her lips as her entire body shook.
“They’re not trying to destroy us, only incapacitate us.” Jemma mumbled to herself,
“Uh, Dr.Simmons...”
“I see it!”
“Yes and!?” Skye’s knuckles went white as she grasped tightly to the back of the chair, watching a torpedo move ever closer to their ship. It was moving too fast to out run, if it hit the ship point blank, there would be no other option but to let "The Avenger" take them.
There was nothing she could do but cringe and squeeze her eyes shut just as the torpedo was set to hit the ship. She felt them turn sharply, making her stumble to the side, the door opened and Helen rushed in just as an explosion to the side of the ship sent them all tumbling to the opposite side.
Skye caught Jemma just barely before she hit the metal floor. “Hold on!” Jemma cried as she stood back up and sat down at the console. They were about to reach the planet’s atmosphere and they were spiraling down at a incomprehensible speed.
The next few seconds seemed to be in slow motion as they hit the atmostphere with a jolt and began to drop. Helen pushed Skye down next to Jemma and proceeded to cover them both as panels and peices of the wall fell around them. Hot metal hit the side of Helens face but it only left a small burn mark and the android didn’t even flinch.
Skye was guessing it would only be another minute or so before they crashed head long into the planet’s surface. She took a deep breath and in the last few second’s she glanced up at her hostage, the woman’s eyes moved through the monitors which were saying exactly what Skye knew, that they were about to explode into nothingness.
Even in those last few seconds, however, Skye couldn’t take her eyes off of the other woman’s face, she thought as they went down that perhaps in another life things could have been different. Those strange thoughts one has before they're about to die.
Jemma screamed without warning and violently pulled the controls, the ship’s helm moved upwards just as they were about to hit the surface. The ship zoomed rapidly through the landscape of the unknown planet, taking out trees, rocks, and even some animals as it crashed through, leaving peices of "The Hula Girl" behind.
Inside, the small crew was bounced around the cabin like pinballs, luckily for Skye and Jemma’s frail human skeletons, Helen’s superior frame was taking most of the shock as she held onto the women with unrelenting strength.
They seemed to be bouncing like that forever, but finally, the ride stopped and everyone fell where they were and didn’t move. Helen got up 30 seconds later and inspected the other women who were groaning weakly. Skye was holding her neck tenderly and Jemma had her arms wrapped completly around her own body.
Helen’s scans didn’t find anything life threatenly, only a really bad case of whiplash and some shock but they were all alive. She tapped the captain’s arm, with nagging persistance. “Skye, we have crash landed on an unknown M class planet.”
Skye groaned, “ I was there when It happened, Helen.” She pulled herself up from the floor, reluctantly and limped to the now dead moniters.
“However, it does appear that we lost “The Avenger.”
The captain rubbed her head, “You know, now I’m thinking that Maybe the Black Widow wouldn’t have been that bad of a host.” Skye turned around, “Dr. Simmons? Are you alright.”
The hostage was just pulling herself off the floor, she glared at the captain in repsonse to her question and then leaned heavily on the wall, avoiding the sparking panels to her right. She lightly touched a raw part of her forhead where a small trickle of blood was falling beneath her hair.
Skye turned around, still dazed from the crash. She pulled open a bent panel and grabbed emergency medical supplies. She approuched the Doctor slowly. Jemma quickly glanced at her, a scowl still evident on her face but she pulled back her bangs allowing for the Captain to apply medicine and a bandaid to the small cut.
“I know this isn’t going to help, but I’m really sorry about all this?” Skye whispered to Jemma as she straightened out her bandageing job delicatly.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now, except get off this planet.”
Helen interjected, “Which will be a rather difficult task seeing as how the ship is completly broken, and we are stuck without communications.”
"Great." Skye said sarcastically.