...And what they found there
“Captain, Sir, with all due respect, you have no reason to hold us here.” Skye pleded with the officer on the other side of the bars. “My pilot declared an emergency. He couldn’t give the code because he too busy keeping us from dying. Is this really necessary?”
“Orders are orders.” The man said “If you really are a soldier, you’d know that.”
“How long are you gonna hold us?” Daisy asked.
“Until ordered to do otherwise.”
“If someone ordered you to jump off a bridge or eat your gun would you do it?”Fitz asked again
“Of course, if those are my orders.” He then left.
“Sitting in dank basement jail cell and I don’t have my harmonica.” Scott muttered
“Don’t start.” Daisy threw back at him. “Do you even know how to play any instruments anyway?”
“That’s not… OK I can play ONE song on the guitar.”
“Can we not, please?” Jemma asked.
“Whose’s got what?” Daisy asked “Stick of gum? A bobby pin?”
“Why don’t you try taking out a wall?” Jemma asked.
Daisy looked it over “I think I’d bring the whole building down on top of us.”
“Yeah, this doesn’t look very solid.” Fitz added “Not very well maintained”
“So, like I said, who’s got what in their pockets?”
Most of the other’s had left their stuff on the Zephyr, but Scott had his phone. A phone he’d mentioned in passing earlier contained a limited remote control interface for the plane.
“No cell phones means no signal, which means this is limited to a wifi link. Which won’t work in here, we’re too far from the plane and wifi doesn’t like cinderblocks and cement.”
Skye, meanwhile, just paced back and forth with an angry look on her face. The others left her to it less she bit someone’s head off.
“Maybe she could wear a hole to china and get us out of here” Scott joked
“China isn’t…”
“Don’t care, Fitz” Scott quipped “And people say I ramble”
Sometime later, the drone of a propeller driven aircraft sounded the arrival of another plane. The captain came back in the room.
“Lt Skye Simmons?” He asked. Skye ran the bars of their cell “Are you going to let us out now?” she asked him.
“You are out of uniform, Lt. Simmons.” A new voice said, with a distinct Texas drawl.
“Director Garret!” Skye cried out.
In to the room stepped a dark shadow from the SHIELD agent’s pasts. John Garret, the man known to them as “The Clairvoyant”. He was wearing the uniform of a two star Air Force general.
“What’s with all the yelling, you’re usually not this happy to see me.”
“I’m sorry sir, I’ve just had a rough few days.”
“You’re AWOL solider. I expect better than this from you.”
“Sir, I can explain.”
“Yes you will young lady.” He replied sternly. “Let her out” he told the guard before turning to an SSR officer next to him “Take her back to base for court marshal and then arrange transport to Fort Leavenworth.”
“What about the rest of them, Sir?” The captain asked
“Ehh.. shoot’em. Throw their bodies back on that abomination they came on and use it as target practice. The less anyone sees the better. ”
The response drew shouts from the four but the Director wasn’t going to hear it and started to leave
“But…” Skye said. THAT got his attention.
“But?” Garret asked, turning back to Skye. “But? Did you just say ‘But’ to me? Did you just question a superior officer? This isn’t like you at all Skye.”
“Sir, please, I can explain, just, please, don’t hurt them. They were only trying to help me. I’m begging you. Just let them go home.”
“Now you’re begging me? I was worried this day would come. I guess this is for the better. Zebra… Waterfall… Chessboard…”
“Daisy,” Scott said as Skye went sort of cross-eyed “I think it’s time we make a scene…”
“You read my mind.”
As the guard unlocked the door to remove Skye, Daisy and Scott used their combined powers to knock it off its hinges and throw the three men into the wall, knocking them all out. Fitz grabbed the guard’s rifle while Daisy and Scott stole the officer’s side arms.
“Let’s get a move on” Daisy said, while grabbing her dazed doppelganger by the arm “You’re coming with us”
Skye was almost limp at this point.
“We’ll carry her” Jemma said “ you two lead the way”
They ran out into the basement hallway and made it halfway up the stairs to the ground floor before an alarm started blaring.
“Never easy…” Scott muttered.
“Halt!” a soldier yelled out. He standing at the top of the stairs with three other guards.
Daisy held out her hand and gave them a blasting of her powers, knocking them back into the wall.
The team was halfway down the corridor when about five more soldiers came round a bend.
“Surrender now, this is your last chance.” One of them said.
“Oh please, you don’t look so tough.” Scott said, mocking them.
Suddenly, there was a noise in the air. It was faint to some, but to the five guards, it caused them to shake and tremble and caused Skye to double over in pain.
“What the hell is that” Daisy asked
“Some sort of ultrasonic frequency.” Fitz answered her.
The soldiers opened their eyes and the middle one smirked.
“You were warned.”
Daisy fired off a quake blast, but the man just shrugged it off.
“Ok, that’s not supposed to happen.”
“Plan B?” Scott asked.
“Do something!” Jemma yelled at them, more troops were coming up behind them, these with their guns drawn.
Scott flicked his wrists at the troops. They didn’t budge ether.
“I’m a bit scared at the moment.” Scott fussed “Can’t exactly focus.”
“Ready” a voice called.
The approaching troops raised their weapons
“Aim!”
Daisy jumped in front of the others
“NO! DAISY!” Scott screamed
“Fire!”
It all happened in an instant.
Daisy closed her eyes. She’d been shot before. She knew what to expect.
But nothing happened. No pain. Nothing. She opened her eyes.
The bullets just were hanging in mid air. Still spinning, but just floating there.
She turned around to see Scott, his hands extened, shaking with his teeth gritted.
“I can’t do this forever” He said, straining. “Get down!”
The others dropped to the floor, Scott letting the bullets go.
The sailed onward and struck the guards, killing them.
Daisy reached upwards and quaked the armed men down.
“Thanks for the backup.” She said to Scott as they got back to their feet.
“Any time.” He said, panting for breath. “Just not any time soon please.”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek and smiled before scouting ahead.
“On second thought…” Scott said to himself.
“Didn’t know you could do that.” Fitz said as Scott helped him and Jemma onto their feet.
“Neither did I”
“I thought you said you needed focus.” Jemma added.
“I think I had it.” Scott said, looking towards Daisy.
Finally, they reached the door to the airfield.
“Scott, how about some extraction?” Daisy asked as they ran outside,.
“Plane might not be airworthy on its main engines, but I can send it up into the clouds on her replusors where they won’t be able to see us.”
He pulled out his phone and accesses the remote controls for Zephyr Zero.
“It’s no good.” He yelled “All I’m getting back is garbled data. The flight computers are still all haywire. All I have is systems not tied into the FMS. I can arm its security system for now but that’s about it.”
They heard a rumble in the distance.
“Please tell me that’s not a tank.” Scott said.
As if fate was answering, an M4 Sherman tank rounded the corner of the building at the far end of the runway and started driving towards them.
“Yeah, that’s a Tank.” Daisy said “We’re gonna need to steal some wheels and get the heck out of here.”
Scott put on another one of his grins. “Not nessisarly.” He said.
He pressed another button, and a hatch on the underside of the plane opened, lowering out his car. With little noise, it raced to meet its owner.
“Everybody in!”
The group jumped in quickly and Scott floored it.
“What’s… what happened” Skye asked.
“Skye… You tell us. What the fuck was that?”Daisy asked angrily.
“I… I don’t… He never seemed like that before.” She said, her mind clearing.
“I mean…” Daisy started.
“She was out of it Daisy.” Jemma reminded her friend. “She’s not going to remember.”
“Best thing to do now is find a safe place to hide.” Scott said, looking at the looming machine in the rear view mirror. He flicked a switch on the dashboard “here’s a good one.”
The car’s own active camouflage system flickered to life.
“And you guys thought electric cars were only an environmental statement. They can’t see us and they can’t hear us.”