Place by My Side
“What is the plan, May?” They were moving quickly down the hall to, what Jemma assumed, was the cargo hold. May had wasted no time, the second that Helen was functional they were moving again, however, Helen seemed okay with this.
It was interesting, most androids remove their emotions chip choosing instead to live a life unburdened by feelings and complexities and Jemma always assumed that Helen had done the same, however, she soon realized as the android suited up and chose her weapon, that Helen had always just been very good at controlling her emotions. Now, she was angry, Jemma could see the dangerous look in the normally kind and logical eyes and she was glad that Helen was on their side.
“We infiltrate and then we extrapolate. Fast and clean. Kill anyone who gets in our way.”
Jemma noticed how similar this plan was to her last plan, “Is that your favorite method?” She asked, a cheeky edge to her voice.
May actually smiled at her, then nodded her head forward as they entered the cargo bay. The captain went straight in but the younger woman stopped in the door way, the entire room (And it was a very large room, almost bigger than the bridge) was filled with people, Jemma assumed that they were Naht’Wunas, none of them looked as healthy as the crew did and they all had shaved heads.
They may have been called a small and weak army if not for the fact that they were all armed and had the look of revenge in their eyes.
Helen stood next to May and greeted the first to walk up to them. She was a dark woman with wide shoulders and a lined face. She came up and signed the words “We are ready.” It was only then that Jemma realized that she didn’t have a tongue.
May nodded and spoke, “Thank you for your offer to help. Half of you will need to stay here and man the bridge, the rest of you, follow me. Any questions?”
The leader signed quickly, “Why do we need to stay here? I thought my people would be taken to your ship?”
“You, of course are welcome to come with me but I thought you would prefer just to take this ship.”
“What about when the crew comes back?” She urged at May.
May’s expression didn’t change, “After we are done, I doubt there will be any left. Any questions?” She asked again. This time no one spoke. “Then Half of you follow me.” She ordered and then turned and walked back out the door, around fifty people following behind her obediently, along with Jemma and Helen.
They were nearly to the transport room when May turned her head and spoke to Jemma. “I need you to go back on The Calvary, I’m going to need you to ensure our way out.”
The librarian’s face scruntched up and she ran to try to catch up to the Captain who informed her of this and then kept walking. Jemma moved next to her, “I’m sorry, I thought I was going with you?”
“You don’t know anything about being in a fight, you barely know how to use a gun, you’ll be a vulnerability down there.”
They entered the transport room and May was currently messing with the controls of the transporter, paying little attention to the indignant librarian, “I know how to fight, well enough. And Nueh'nah can help with the Exit.”
May turned to her, “That’s not good enough.”
Jemma crossed her arms and blocked the Captain from moving forward, “Well, it will have to be because I’m not staying here while the rest of you fight to save them. I told Skye and I’ll tell you, Captain May, we’re going to win together or we’re going to die together. Period.”
Jemma half expected the captain to slap her but instead May’s lips thinned and she shook her head, “It’s your funeral. Just don't bring any of us down with you.” And then she moved around Jemma and stood on the transport pad.
Jemma smiled, proud of herself, and then she moved next to May, where Helen joined them a moment later.
She hoped beyond hope that they weren’t too late, in many ways she felt like this was her fault, that Skye would have gotten away free and clear if she had not been there. However, in reality, this entire thing was basically Skye’s fault since she was the one who kidnapped Jemma and not the other way around.
Jemma sighed and held her gun close, she had the distinct feeling that she had several years a head of her of pulling Skye out of situations that she created for herself. Jemma was okay with that, she was feeling strong, capable, she had never felt so powerful and it made her confident. Skye seemed to do that to her, even when she wasn’t there with her.
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Skye, Trip, Mack, and Ku’ut were loaded into containment pods almost the second that they arrived on the planet. It made Skye smug that they had affected Ward enough to make him this paranoid. Paranoid enough to contain then and put security around them.
Ku’ut wiggled and shrieked in her pod, the others stayed silent glaring at the guards that were pacing in front of their pods. Skye didn’t know what the other two were doing but she was watching their security force closely. Tracking their movements and habits and also their tools.
Only one of them had a personal alarm system, the head guard, and he kept that on his hip. If anything were to happen he would just have to push a button and most of the O’Nahn army that was in the building would come running. However, the rest of them would have to go to the wall to switch the alarm on. That was Skye’s way in.
Getting out of containment pods were a nearly impossible science, but a science that her mother had taught her from a very young age. Not only had May figured that it would just be a handy thing for Skye to know but she taught it to her for safety reasons, one never knew who could be lurking in the universe waiting to kidnap someone, especially children, and they would often put them into a containment pod similar to the ones that they were currently trapped in.
However, it didn’t matter how much practice a person had had when escaping the pods, they were unpredictable and difficult to beat. Their wiring was sensitive and would lock down the whole device if it even for a moment thought it was being tampered with. It was a delicate and somewhat random job. There was no guarantee that a person could get out even if they had a system.
Skye watched the guards carefully while she used her right hand to pull apart a piece of the pod and begin tampering with the wires. She tried to make it look like she just had her arm at the side and every time a guard glanced at her she would glare and stop moving her fingers.
She had been working diligently for almost five hours, she knew this because the guards would be rotated every one hour. Finally she had got to the point where it was either going to fail or it was going to work. If it did work she had no way of telling the others what she was planning and she would just have to trust that they would know what they needed to do.
She pulled out a wire and squeezed her eyes shut, this was it. The light at the top of the pod went out and the pod whirred a few more times before it died and the door clicked open.
Her eyes snapped open and she flew out of her pod, grabbing the leader and shoving him up against Trip’s pod. She pulled the alarm off of his belt and threw it away, knocking him out with one final hit and then opening the others’ pods in one fell swoop.
The other four guards yelled and ran for the other wall. Skye pulled the gun up and shot and stunned three of them, their bodies falling to the floor with a anticlimactic thud. She was going to throw the gun at the other one but before she could even attempt that Ku’ut was on top of him, incapacitating them in a much more brutal way than Skye.
Skye walked over the bodies of the guards and pistol-whipped them one by one to make sure that they were unconscience. Without a word she pulled their guns off of them and threw them to her small group. Mack’s mouth was open in shock.
She grinned and patted him on the arm, “I’ll teach it to you if we ever get out of this.” Then she motioned for them to help her move the bodies. They stuffed them into the pods with very little grace and locked them inside, there were only four pods so two of them had to share.
“We have fifteen minutes before the next rotation comes in, then all hells going to break loose.” Skye informed them, looking at the watch on her wrist that she had stolen from one of their victims.
“I say we get the hell outta here.” Mack said, already heading for the door, Ku’ut was right behind them as they looked around the corner to check if anyone was out side the room, the next room was empty so they moved forward.
Trip and Skye were behind them and Trip patted Skye on the back with a grin, “That was seriously impressive back there, I hope you know that.”
She smiled, “Thanks, I always thought mom was paranoid when she used to put me in those things and train me to get out, now I understand.”
“Well, when we get out of here you can thank her.” Skye nodded and they headed out, incredibly careful not to raise any suspicion.
The palace at the capitol of O’Nah was massive and it went nearly sixteen floors underneath the ground, holding many secret and less than friendly activities happening just underneath the peoples feet. Skye and her group were on floor -11 and they had a long way to go before they even hit the ground floor.
When they were on floor -2 Skye looked over at Trip critically, “It’s been well over fifteen minutes and no alarms have gone off, why not?”
Trip shook his head but Ku’ut made the action of an animal getting caught in a trap,
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She was hesitant to move on but Trip urged her forward, “We won’t know until we get up to the top, we might as well try to get out.”
She nodded and moved forward, the inactivity that they were experiencing was puting her more on edge than if they had encountered enemies on their journey upwards. They should have been hearing the army come in by now but the whole place seemed almost empty save for a few of the random civilians working and they just went around them.
“Okay we’re here, now this is where it’s going to get bad, once we get outside we need to split up, meet up at one spot later and then we can start getting off the planet.” Skye explained to them, crouching just inside the door that led to the first floor of the palace, this place would be a massive mixture of security, officals and civillians. A lot of people with a lot of power, money, and probably some very scary looking guns.
Skye snapped the door open and stood up brandishing her gun as if she were about to commit a heist, the others followed her lead. But they stopped just outside the door.
“What the hell...” Skye trailed off, she was looking at a beautiful and expansive room that would make any architect weep and it should have been bustling with people, the palace at O’Nah had hundreds maybe thousands of individuals come through it’s doors everyday but today it was a scattered mess of bodies.
“This isn’t right, what the hell’s going on?” Skye asked, moving her gun around, looking for someone, anyone to make sense of what was happening.
“It’s our lucky day is what it is.” Mack said, openly gleeful and he walked out into the middle of the crystal floors, looking around for something to prove him wrong. “Guys we’re home free!”
Ku’ut made a purring noise that sounded like a playful cat but Skye didn’t smile, she was looking down thinking hard, “What could have emptied this place so quickly...”
Mack grinned, “Maybe it’s a holiday. I don’t care but I’m not waiting around here to find out. That’s for sure.”
Trip put a hand on Skye’s shoulder, “He’s right, Skye, we need to go.”
She nodded, still worried, but she knew that this may be their only chance to get out but it still baffled her and concerned her, she knew all to well that luck like this was either fake or was actually something terrible in disguise.
They went through the side of the building, their entire way they never encountered anybody, Just bodies and quiet carnage. Without any obstacles to speak of they got out at an incredible speed and in no time flat they were exiting out of a side door into the light, cool air of Cin'es'Lah.
They ran forward through the gardens but Skye stopped halfway through them, people were piling out the other side of the building, they were panicked and yelling loudly. Skye noticed that none of them were security or from the Silver tongue.
She was about to move forward when a lone figure caught her eye, he was moving away from the crowd, his shoulders forward as he headed for the shuttle docking area. He glanced fearfully over his shoulder and Skye’s face burned with hate as she saw his face.
“Skye, what the hell? What are you doing?” They tried to see where she was staring but they saw nothing by the time he disappeared.
Skye looked at them slowly, her face hard and blank, she handed Trip her handheld that she had stolen from the guards, “You guys keep going, there’s something I have to do.”
Trip’s face dawned with realization, “Skye, no.” But she was already moving away from them before he could say anything else.
Mack sighed, “You see, it’s this shit that got us into this situation in the first place.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Trip moved forward,
“You just going to let her go?” Mack asked, because he knew that Trip had known her the longest.
Trip looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, “You wanna go after her?”
Mack didn’t say anything so they moved on, Ku’ut’s eyes were darting back and forth in a mixture of aggression and annoyance. They had gotten about a hundred feet away when they stopped dead at the sound of a gun clicking.
“Dr. Triplet?”
When they looked over they saw Jemma lowering her gun, Trip laughed in relief and ran to her. “Jemma, what the hell are you doing here?” He asked.
“I’m here to rescue you. What are you doing?”
Trip laughed, “We’re escaping. So you’re the cause of all of this?” He gestured to the general area, refering to the emptiness and the panic. But he stopped when Helen walked up behind the shorter woman, looing gruesome. “Oh, Yeah I guess you did..”
Jemma ignored him, “Where is Skye?”
He groaned, and pointed to the docking area “I think she went after Ward. I couldn’t stop her.”
Jemma didn’t ask any more questions and instead just headed off to where he was pointing, her gun up and at the ready.
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“WARD!”
Skye stood at the edge of the dock with her fists clenched at her side staring at Ward who was about to board his shuttle. He looked around slowly but intead of facing her, he just moved inside without a word.
“Ward, come out here and fight me face to face!” She screamed at him and the added just as loud, “Coward!”
A minute later he stepped out of his shuttle, a sneer over his features, “What did you call me?” He asked, his pride coming through.
She grinned wickedly at him, “I called you a coward, You’ll shoot me in the back but you don’t have the guts to fight me in a fair fight.”
He didn’t say anything but he stepped down slowly from the shuttle ramp and walked right up to Skye. She didn’t move as he faced her and spat out, “We’ll see about that.”
Then he drew his arm back for a punch but she blocked it, moving her leg around and knocking him to the ground in one movement, he twisted his body back up with professionally trained ease and he kicked at her; She ducked underneath it and landed a punch on his side.
He grunted and held his torso. They circled around each other like two big cats ready to fight to the death. To call the following fight brutal would be to underestimate it, they were both trained and deadly in hand to hand combat. It was bloody and both of them were hit extremly hard.
However, by the time Ward had gained his footing enough to knock Skye down to the ground, stunning her and making her cry out in pain, he had already sustained broken ribs, a broken wrist and several knocked out teeth.
He grinned over her the best he could as she glared up at him, holding the back of her head where she had landed, he spit out blood onto the floor and was about to aim other punch when a bullet whizzed past his head and he ducked. Skye rolled away as well, getting to safety from the unknown attacker.
Ward spun around to face whoever tried to shoot him, he coughed, spitting out a tooth, “You again?”
Jemma was standing at the end of the dock her gun up and ready, she was alone but she was walking slowly closer. Skye squinted and then her mouth dropped open as she saw who it was, suddenly her heart dropped. “Jemma get out of here! He’s got a gun!”
The librarian only glanced at Skye but kept moving forward. Ward laughed and rolled his eyes, “You’re not going to shoot me, have you even shot a gun before, you crazy bitch?”
He chuckled again and reached for his side, Skye screamed, “Jemma no!” And then she looked away, not wanting to witness what was about to happen.
A shot rang out with a deafening force within the room and Skye grabbed her ears, crying. It was a long moment afterwards that she had the courage to look up and see the damage.
Jemma was still standing in the middle of the room with her gun raised up at the ready, her face was deathly and blank. Skye looked to the other side as Ward’s gun fell to the floor with a crack, the color had drained from his face and he had a look of utter shock on his features.
His hand went to the wound in his chest and he stumbled backwards his eyes wide and terrified.
It was Jemma’s turn to sneer, She put the gun back to her side, “Did you think I was kidding? I told you that if I ever saw you again, I would kill you.” She said calmly.
He stumbled backwards clutching his chest as the blood fell to the floor, He mouthed the word “You?” before he collapsed on the floor and his body fell limp and his eyes closed, blood still dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Jemma finally turned to Skye, her eyes wet and she dropped the gun on the floor, her lip quivered as she moved to where Skye was on the floor and she fell into the captains’s arms. “I wasn’t going to leave you!”
Skye wrapped her arms around the smaller woman, tears running down her face as she finally realized that she was safe. Jemma buried her face in the other woman’s neck and sobbed happily.
Skye pulled her away and kissed her, blood and tears making it wet and desperate, “Jemma Simmons you incredible thing you. I love you I love you so much.”
Jemma laughed and fell back into her arms, Skye held on to her and didn’t let her go for a long time. She closed her eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of being close to Jemma.
Skye only looked up a few minutes later when she heard footsteps coming towards them. Her mouth dropped and she pulled Jemma away. “My mother? You told my mother?” She cried.
Jermma laughed, “It was Alecta’s idea!” She defended herself.
May stood over them, smiling very lightly as she saw that her daughter was okay. Skye stood up and embraced her, May, who wasn’t much for hugs, hugged her back and stroked her hair sweetly.
When they broke the hug, May gave her a skeptical look, “This girl—“ She said, pointing to Simmons, “Came to my home, interrupted my meditation, has repeatedly sassed me and talked back to me and even went as far as to prevent me from helping you, saying, and I quote ‘Ward is mine.”
Skye grinned, “So you like her?”
May nodded, unable to keep from smiling as Jemma moved underneath Skye’s arm and hugged on to her middle. She blushed.
“So if you’re here,” Skye began, “Is there anything left of the city?”
May chuckle, “No.”
Skye turned to Jemma, holding on to her arms, “Jemma Simmons would you like to stay with me for a little longer?”
“Well, I did save your life, I think you owe me dinner at least.”
“Deal, I was thinking about a Martian Delux, I know this great place, I think you’d love.”
Jemma moved closer and May rolled her eyes and walked away, “Sounds lovely, as long as there’s still a place on your ship for me.”
Skye kissed her, wanting to make the moment last forever, “There’s always a place by my side for you Jemma Simmons.”