“Absolutely not! Sir.”
Ward starts to complain directly, his attention turned towards Phil who is in deep thought already.
“We can’t send in someone that has zero training.”
Ward adds, making a valid point to his argument.
“Who said I don’t have any training?”
Skye asks, the attention turning towards the young hacker who lowers her phone.
“Do you really think I would live in a van without knowing how the defend myself?”
She adds, crossing her arms in the process. There is a determination in her eyes, a determination Melinda hasn’t seen before. But there was something else too and for some reason, it almost feels like Melinda has seen this mix before. But where and how, she can’t remember.
“And what if they come at you wit guns, huh? There is no way we can send her in, sir.”
Ward points out, turning his attention towards Phil.
“Simple, all I have is to disarm them.”
At Skye’s reply, attention is turned towards her. Determination in her eyes makes Melinda question once more who they have picked up.
“Melinda, check what she is able to do. Please.”
Phil finally speaks, his head turning to look at her, adding a please. Melinda can see that Ward isn’t happy about this, and she isn’t either. Melinda nods her heads however, considering Skye seems to have a problem with males and they still haven’t heard anything from Maria or Natasha, she is the best one to check what the hacker is able to do.
Moving from her spot, she walks directly towards Skye who lowers her head, placing her phone in her pocket. Nodding her head to signal the younger woman to follow her, Melinda hears how Ward starts to complain behind them once more.
Leading Skye down to the hangar, she points to the open space than still holds a sandbag hanging from the roof. Seeing that Skye takes the spot she pointed out, Melinda makes sure to get a gun. Returning to Skye, she place herself in front of the hacker, pointing the gun towards her.
“Now...”
Melinda starts to say, she didn’t get the chance to finish. In a speed Melinda haven’t seen in a long time. Blinking her eyes, Melinda looks at the gun, that she had been holding a second before, now being pointed towards her. Lifting her eyes to look at Skye, she can see that the young woman is keeping her face blank and hands steady.
“Well, seems like you do know this.”
Melinda says, looking at the gun once more. To her surprise, Skye turns it around to let Melinda take it back.
“One of my foster parents were competing in gun shooting and he thought it best that the kids knows how to handle them, just in case. And we were four girls living in the house so I can understand him, doesn’t mean that I like this sort of things.”
Skye starts to explain, surprising Melinda. She wasn’t expecting the young woman in front of her to give out information like this. But taking the gun back, Melinda nods her head.
“Are you completely sure you want to do this?”
Melinda finds herself ask, surprising herself just as much Skye.
“It will be hard, I can’t deny that. But as I said, FitzSimmons love the guy and this is the only way.”
Skye replied, turning to look at something in the distance. The emptiness in the girls eyes reminds Melinda almost of herself at one point, with a shake of her head, Melinda push that though away. There was only one person she would ever have thought was one of her own, and she hasn’t seen that young girl in years.
Now wasn’t the time to think about her past, what is needed now is to make sure the young girl will survive what is waiting her.
-X-X-X-X-
“Skye will walk in the front door. The only external access point to Quinn’s underground facility is from a beach cove. A two-man extraction team could slip in there, but it’s not easy. FitzSimmons.”
Phil starts to go over the plan he, Ward and FitzSimmons managed to come up with when she was testing Skye.
“The perimeter is surrounded by a 20-foot-high neodymium laser grid. Touch it and you’re toast.”
Fitz takes over the explanation, only for Phil to take over once more.
“Dead toast. The only way to disable the grid is to crack the system and trigger a reboot. This would give the team three seconds to cross of course, Quinn’s too smart to allow any wireless access on his property.”
“And that’s where I come in.”
Skye finally speaks, to Melinda’s surprise, her voice doesn’t quiver.
“Yes, working compact – holds up under x-ray.”
Simmons says, holding up a black compact, which Fitz takes from her hand and opens up.
“Desert rose to match your complexion. But... Oh, what’s this? A readout, okay? Turns green if you’re in close enough proximity to a computer to gain wireless access.”
Fitz explains how it works.
“When it does, you just drop this nearby and walk out. We’ll do the rest. Easy as pie.”
Simmons finish, taking the compact from Fitz once more to hand it over to Skye.
“Or it will be if you stick to the plan.”
Ward comments as he cocks the gun. Why he decides to do it just this moment is beyond Melinda and she can see that Skye movies a bit closer to her.
“Got it. Plan, green, drop, walk... pie.”
Skye repeats back, turning her attention to the compact in her hand. Moving from her position, she pulls Phil to the side.
“I don’t want to question your orders, sir.”
“Good.”
“But I’ve seen far more combat than I bargained for. This two-men extraction team? It’s exactly the kind of action I was hoping to avoid.”
“That’s why you’re not on it.”
Coulson tells her, making Melinda feel split about what is going on.
“Specialist work is different from field work, believe me. When was the last time you-“
“Hall’s one of ours, and he’s in trouble. I need two men to get him out. Ward makes one. So that’s why I’m going in. You forget... I saw plenty of action with the Avengers.”
Coulson tells her, putting an end to their conversation as he turns back to the rest of the team.
“And you died.”
Melinda says in a low voice, from the corner of her eyes, she can see that Skye had moved towards her and there was a shift in her eyes.
-X-X-X-X-X-
“Who are you?”
The male voice coming over the intercom, makes Melinda look up.
“Oh, apologies for his manners. He knows very little English.”
A second male voice speaks and Melinda starts to wonder how Skye is holding up.
“Oh, that, uh, that’s... what... whatever. Skye.”
“Qasim Zaghul.”
The first male speaks once more and Melinda quickly looks through the files on the holo table, finally finding what she was looking for.
“He built half of Dubai, including the Arabian blade.”
Melinda tells Skye over the come system, listening how Skye repeats what she just told the young hacker.
“Wife’s name’s Nadrah. Twin sons.”
She then adds as Fitz walks into the room, with a bucket of popcorn, making Melinda rolls her eyes.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s good.”
Melinda and Simmons answer at the same time.
“The pleasure is mine. I could get used to this, people. It’s like Siri, if it worked.”
They hear Skye speak directly to them once more. So far, everything is going much better than Melinda would have expected.
“Well, well, well. Look who we have here?”
A female voice can be heard this time around, and Melinda gets ready to find out who Skye is speaking to this time around.
“Pepper Pots!”
Skye’s voice took an a much higher pitch than expected and Melinda can hear fear in her voice at this. Looking up, Melinda can see the surprise looks Simmons and Fitz goes one another.
“Did she just say...”
“Pepper Pots?”
They finish each others sentence and Melinda nods her head.
“What is a hacker doing here?”
They hear Pepper asks and Melinda gets a feeling this can either end very good or very badly.
“I was invited. Is it just you or is Mr Stark here too?”
Skye asks the question Melinda was wondering herself in this moment.
“He’s here somewhere.”
They hear Pepper ask and Melinda realises this is very bad for them.
“Skye, stall them as much as possible. I’m going to contact Coulson to see what he wants to do.”
Melinda orders the young woman before she switch the channel.
“Sir, we have a big problem.”
“Told you we couldn’t trust her.”
Ward quickly jumps in before Phil has a chance to ask what is wrong and Melinda rolls her eyes. Of course he would think Skye was betraying them so fast.
“Skye just run into Pepper Pots and she has confirmed that Tony Stark is around to.”
Melinda explain, deciding to ignore Ward for now. They could deal with him later on.
“Stark is there?”
Phil asks, surprise in his voice.
“Yes, what is our move sir?”
“This could work better for us, ask Skye to true and convince Stark to help her instead. Make sure you mention that she isn’t allowed to mention my name however.”
Phil tells her, and this order makes Melinda feels slightly better. Having Phil out of danger is the best for everyone.
“Right away, sir.”
Melinda informs him and switch the channel once more.
“Oh, look. If it isn’t my favourite hacker, or not. What are you doing in a place like this?”
She hears Stark saying as she switch and Melinda starts to wonder how Skye have meet this two people.
“Skye, listen carefully. You are allowed to tell them why you are there, and try to get Stark to help you. This way we won’t risk anything that can get the rest of the team in danger. You are however not allowed to tell them that Coulson is alive.”
Melinda tells Skye, her eyes slightly narrowed as she gives out the order. She can hear how Skye takes in a deep breath before starting to explain what is going on. Once she finished, there is a long silence and Melinda starts to wonder if Stark will even believe her.
“I’m in. I knew there was something going on here tonight, I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Now, what was the plan.”
They finally hear Stark ask and Melinda can hear how Simmons and Fitz let’s out sighs of relief. Switching to Phil and Ward once more, she is ready to tell them the good news, only to hear them arguing.
“You two can return back, Stark has agreed to help.”
Melinda interrupts the argument, not sure she wants to know what it’s about but has a feeling she will learn later on.
“Good, we are on our way.”
“I should say behind, someone needs to be in there to make sure Skye doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Ward says and Melinda rolls her eyes, and she is quite sure Phil is doing the same.
“She’s with Tony Stark right now, which means, Happy is around somewhere too. She will be fine for now and we can pick her up in a better location once she, Stark and Hall is out of danger.”
Phil says, making it clear that the argument is over. Shaking her head, Melinda gets the feeling that she will have to be the one picking up Skye. Switching back to keep track on the hacker, she can hear how she is in a conversation with Stark, Pepper and Quinn.
She really need to figure out why she is on the plane and what she is supposed to do, because if this is how things are going to go, she won’t just be the pilot. Maybe it was time to return back to field work, if not to make sure the kid and Phil is safe.
This thought makes Melinda freeze up, when did Skye’s safety become first priority to her?