Disclaimer: No. I don't own it. Of course, at this point, even if I did own AoS I wouldn't admit it or you'd all come and lynch me. :p

Thanks to my beta-reader Riley Holden/Colormeblue for their help. ^^

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light

By Alkeni

Chapter 4: The Break-In

Coulson's Office, The Playground

September 24th, 2014

It hadn't taken her long to figure out how she could get this information to Coulson without risking Grant. According to DC, one of her most useful talents - and she agreed with him there – was her ability to think outside the box. Look at things from an outsider's perspective. She was an agent now, but she hadn't gone to the Academy. Hadn't come to S.H.I.E.L.D. by the usual route.

Her laptop open on one hand and arm, Skye knocked lightly on the door to Director Coulson's office.

"Come in." Coulson said after a moment, and Skye opened the door, putting both hands on her laptop again and walked inside. Coulson looked up from the file he was reading. "Skye. Got something?"

"I think so. A theory, anyway. One of the things I've been working on – thinking about, mostly – was how Hydra could get in contact with its members over long distance without risking getting caught. I mean, they can't just say 'Hail Hydra' over the phone, right?"

"I'm sure they did that too, but I see your point." Coulson gestured for her to continue, so Skye did. "I was taking to Grant, just a couple days ago, and he mentioned those Quantum Key Distribution Frequencies S.H.I.E.L.D. used to talk between its bases. No one can crack those, listen in from the outside – not even me. But they weren't secure in-house. Anyone with clearance could get on them, so Hydra wouldn't use them, but it just hit me a couple days ago. There's a lot of noise between the frequencies." Skye put her laptop down on Coulson's desk, typing something in quickly, bringing up info on those frequencies and the white noise between them. Then she turned it so the Director could see her screen.

"Enough noise to hide messages in, if you're careful. I can think of half-a dozen ways to hide communications in this and make it look like just more white noise." Skye finished.

"But S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gone now." Coulson pointed out.

"But not those frequencies." Skye explained a little excitedly, as if she was showing off her achievement. Taking credit for the info Grant gave her wasn't exactly sitting with her perfectly, but it did need to be done, so... what the hell? "They're still there, and so is the white noise. It's a long shot, but maybe they're still using them. World governments still can't hack into those frequencies. Does the Playground have its own receiver?"

Coulson nodded. "It does." He pressed a few buttons on the phone on his desk. "Eric, I want you to activate the bases Quantum Key Distribution receiver. Start scanning the white noise for anything out of the ordinary." He looked back at her as he got off the phone.

"If this does pan out, then maybe we'll be able to listen in on Hydra's phone calls." Coulson observed. "Nice thinking."

"It'll be nice thinking if it actually turns out that I'm right." Skye told him. "I could be completely off base."

Coulson shook his head. "I don't think so. You've been having a lot of good hunches about this sort of thing the last few months. You've got good instincts for this." Skye suppressed a sigh of relief as he added the bit about instincts. The last thing she needed was DC starting to get suspicious about how she was able to be so consistently right. Usually she could pass it off as something she'd picked up from the web – some rumor of a rumor, or maybe from all the files they'd stolen from Cybertek, or something. But even discounting those, Skye was having a lot of guesses and hunches go right.

Maybe I should get something wrong soon, just to break the track record. She wasn't sure what. Maybe she could just... make something up. I dunno. We'll see. `

"I'm good at outside the box. It's why you brought me on the first place, way back when."

"True." Coulson agreed. "Turned out to be an even better decision than I thought it would be." He smiled. "I probably don't say it enough lately, what with how busy I've been, but you're doing great. You're progressing as a field agent even faster than I expected."

Skye smiled, basking in the compliment for a few moments, then replied: "Well, I have a great teacher."

"Ward's been a good SO for you, true, but he could be the world's worst SO and you could still be as good as you are now. You wanted this, so you earned it." He let out a sigh. "But I've got to get back to work. I'll let you know if-"

Eric Koenig's voice came out of the phone on Coulson's desk. "Director Coulson, we've – we've got something coming through in the white noise. It looks like it might be a message. Cleaning it up with one of Agent's Skye's programs now."

"Put it on the screen in my office." Coulson replied, and Skye turned to look at the screen. The message wasn't long. A white screen, then the words 'New Directive Incoming' with the skull and tentacle Hydra logo right beneath.

"Why does it have only one head again?" Skye muttered. She made a note to ask Grant if he had any idea why Hydra had such a ridiculous logo that didn't even fit its name. It was a freaking octopus!

The words and the logo vanished and were replaced with an image of a familiar looking man, wearing military dress blues. General Talbott, the jackass who had tried to imprison them at Providence Base.

"What does Hydra want with him?" Not that Skye wanted him dead or whatever. He hadn't been that much of an ass to merit that.

"Kill or capture, almost certainly." Coulson replied. "Find Agents Hartley and May. Tell them I want them up here." Coulson sighed. "We have a general to save." Skye nodded, seeing more information appear next to the man's picture on the screen. Including the word 'extraction'. Capture it was, then.

Departure Room, the Playground

September 24th, 2014

Tricking Talbott into giving them his prints had been far easier than it should have been. But then, fingerprint scanners that could fit into the bottom of a chair's armrests was not exactly common tech, Ward was pretty sure. Getting his authentication had been even easier, and just about as simple as Ward expected.

The uniform he was wearing was a change of pace. It wasn't the first time he'd worn US military garb, but he didn't do it often. The government had a habit of getting touchy if S.H.I.E.L.D. impersonated it's personnel.

"Once you're in the base, I'll fly the cloaked quinjet in and land as close as I can." May explained. "Once you have the package, get out there as soon as you can and I'll decloak long enough for you to get on board."

"There's not a lot of room for delay here." Ward told them, grabbing a pistol and slipping it into a holster. "We don't know what Creel might try to pull there, and we don't know if he'll have any backup. But the priority is getting that 0-8-4 – whatever it is – away from that base so Hydra can't get it." He looked over to Skye. "Did you track the location?"

"Got it." Skye nodded, closing her laptop. "It's a small facility near the Pentagon. From the outside, you'd never think they were hiding our tech there. We're ready to go."

"We have a small logic question." Hunter drawled, walking towards them. He crossed his arms over his chest as he asked it: "Why?"

Why what? Why are we going for the package? Why are we taking a jet out? You've got to be more specific than that, Hunter.

"Why are we going in?" The mercenary clarified. Before Ward could answer with the 'orders', explanation, Hartley cut in.

"Look, we trust Coulson's judgment." The other specialist clarified, ignoring Hunter's interjection of 'We do?' "But Talbott's not a bad guy. And last I checked, the US government is one of the lesser evils." Not when they have a man like my brother in an influential spot. Senator Christian Ward had recently been promoted to Chair of the Armed Services Committee – and that was in addition to influential spots on the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Oversight Committees. Simple survival instincts had forced Ward to keep tabs on his monster of an older brother the last ten years, ever since he'd returned to civilization, and every time Christian made a political advancement, Ward was...

Well, troubled would be an understatement. Ward knew what he himself was – what he had been during his time in Hydra. But Christian was a thousand times worse than anything he could have ever been.

"So what if they've got this weapon in a locked box? And now they've ... absorbing man in a locked box too? It's not so bad." Hartley finished with a shrug.

"She's got a point." Mack said from the far end of the room. "Does seem a safe a place to keep him as any."

"But they have no idea what they're dealing with." Skye pointed out.

"They have worse than no idea." Ward clarified. "They think they've caught him, locked up and problem solved. With his powers, that won't stop a guy like Creel. And as long as he and that weapon are on the same base, there's too much of a risk that Hydra will get it."

"Is that risk big enough to send every field agent we've got on hand into a secure military compound?" Hartley countered, and it wasn't like she didn't have a point. If this went sideways, S.H.I.E.L.D. would lose a huge chunk of its mobile manpower.

"Guarded by the same people who have been hunting us for months." Mack supplied.

"Belly of the beast." Idaho agreed.

"That weapon is dangerous enough to risk it." Coulson said, walking into the room. "It was confiscated from Hydra at the end of World War Two in the first place, and it left a trail of bodies behind it. I'm not letting modern Hydra pick up where they left off." Ward watched him stand by May. "This is a make or break moment. Either we stop Hydra from getting this, or they might just have everything they need to pick up where the left off when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell."

Frankly, Ward thought Coulson was exaggerating. Yes, this weapon was dangerous, that much he could guess. But it was just one weapon. Still, the orders were to get it, and this plan might just work.

"All right then. This or nothing." Hartley agreed. "We've got almost everything. Where's our trojan horse?"

"Should be here any moment." Ward confirmed. Indeed, he watched Skye's gaze move to see another new arrival right behind Coulson.

"General." The hacker commented with a smile, and Ward spared a small smirk at Trip's reply:

"Girl you know I make this look good." Ward turned and nodded at Trip.

"Ready?"

"Ready to break into an Air Force Base and steal advanced tech before a guy who can turn himself into metal to go bulletproof?" Trip chuckled.

"When you put it like that..." Ward nodded. "Point taken. Let's go. Coulson will be on Comms."

Air Force Containment Facility, D.C.

September 24th, 2014

To be honest, Skye was a little surprised they'd been able to bluff their way onto the base so well. Sure, the plan had been solid and she'd known she could pull of her part of it, but still. Breaking into a US military base shouldn't be so easy, especially when it held advanced tech and prisoners like Creel.

Okay, I suppose easy isn't the right word for it. We did have to kidnap a general and get his fingerprints to pull this off. And put together a voice synthesizer that could turn what DC said into Talbott's words perfectly.

But now they were inside the warehouse, and only had to find a needle in a haystack. Just how much stuff are they keeping locked in here? Are they even going to try to figure out how this stuff works? Skye wondered just how much alien and advanced technology was going to sit here, unused, unexamined. Fitz would probably have a fit if he realized they were just letting all this stuff – some of which he probably helped design – go to waste.

"Keep the truck running in case we have to run and May can't land the quinjet." Ward ordered Idaho.

"Got it."

"Needle in a haystack." Hartley vocalized Skye's thoughts as she too looked over the rows and rows of shelves holding boxes, each shelf easily like... three Skyes tall, if not more. "Turns out I was not exaggerating."

Wait, I'm a unit of measurement now? Skye shook her head. The point still stood.

"Let's get moving." Grant ordered tersely, all business. "Pick a row and look for the 0-8-4." Skye nodded and moved into one of the rows of shelves, checking every box she could, trying her best to stay aware of her surroundings as she did so. There could be guards inside this building too, as well as outside of it.

Skye's eyes lit on a box that looked like theirs – she let out an annoyed sigh when she saw the numbers on it – 138. Not the one they wanted. She kept moving. And moving. Just how many boxes were there in this place.

She was about to turn down another row and check them when she heard Hartley's voice over the comms. "I have the 0-8-4. Repeat, I've got the damn thing. Southwest side." Skye started moving towards the other agent's location immediately.

"Skye and Hunter, meet with Hartley and get the box to the back exit. Trip, Idaho, with me." Grant's voice came over the comms. "We're going to make sure the airfield behind us is clear. May, are you hearing this?"

"I am. I'm on my way. I'll be there in two minutes." May replied. "Be ready."

Skye was closing in on Hartley when she heard the other agent start crying out in pain – no, not just pain, agony. Racing around the corner, Skye turned into the row to see the agent kneeling on the ground, almost doubled over, a strange silvery-looking object in her hand, the hand itself looking all... dry and cracked and- something.

And then there was Creel. Bare-chested, half his torso looked like it was made from the same metal the shelves were. But he was backing away from Hartley as she cried in pain. Skye drew her ICER and fired futiley at the man, running towards them – Creel turned and ran, though she guessed it was more from whatever was happening to the agent than from her ineffectual shots.

"I'm with Hartley. She's got the 0-8-4... it's doing something to her. We've got to get her and it out of here." Even as she reached her, Lance Hunter came out from behind more shelves, firing as uselessly as she had at Creel.

"What the hell is happening?" Hunter crouched by his teammate, trying to get a look at the strange gray stonelike looking stubstance crawling up her hand.

"I can't let go!" Hartley managed to get out between gasps – near sobs really – of agony that were bad enough to set Skye to wincing.

And if things weren't bad enough, the alarm started going. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. They were this close to everything going FUBAR now.

Even as the alarm blared in her ears, her eyes were drawn to the object in Hartley's hand. It was... she couldn't place it, but it seemed familiar. Even more so when she saw strange... lines and circles start to form on it, looking almost like writing. They jogged something in her memory, as if she'd seen them before, but she couldn't remember when or how.

Not the time to worry about this.

Hunter started to reach for the object, but Hartley pushed him back with her empty hand. "Don't touch it, just stay away."

"They'll be on us any second. We have to get to the quinjet." It would be a tight fit to get them all in there, but they could do it. Skye kept a watch for soldiers while Hunter started to help her to her feet. "Now!" Skye said. Hunter was half-carrying Hartley, but they finally started to move, even as soldiers started firing on their position.

"Grant, tell me May's landed with the jet!" Skye barked into the comms.

"She has, but Creel's decided to get between us and it! Idaho is down!" Grant replied, shouting into her ear. "Do you still have it!?"

"It's stuck in Hartley's hand, and I think it's killing her. Yes, we have it!" Skye shouted back. "And we've got soldiers on our tail!" She saw the exit just ahead. The airfield would be right beyond it. She raised her gun and kicked the door open. Trip and Grant were crouched behind a pile of crates firing shots at Creel, who had transformed his torso and head to be all metal now, and was running towards them, an unconscious – or dead – Idaho just past him, lying on the ground. She couldn't tell from here if he was breathing or not.

"Ah!" Hartley cried out, falling and taking Hunter to the ground with her. When her hand holding the weapon hit the ground her...

Her fingers shattered, like a brittle rock, and the weapon went flying into the air. On instinct drilled into her by endless lessons from Grant, Skye reached for it, grabbing the weapon even as Hartley cried out for her not to.

Skye realized she was holding it a split second after her hand closed around it, and she tried to drop it, but before she could, the symbols on the item she'd seen moments before glowed a brilliant orange... and absolutely nothing happened to her arm. Still, before that could really register, Creel was on her – he'd turned one of his hands into the tar of the runway and hit her with it on the shoulder.

Letting out an involuntary cry of pain, Skye fell back and her grip on the silver object of death loosened. With his tarry hand, Creel snatched it from her grip and turned, running away from all of them. Skye struggled up and joined Trip and Grant's firing at him as he ran, but it was no use.

"Abort! Everyone to the quinjet!" Grant shouted. Skye wanted to protest, but really, they didn't have a chance. Skye helped Hunter lift Hartley up, carefully avoiding the gray... whatever that was still creeping up Hartley's arm, though slower, she thought. "May! Uncloak it, now!" Grant ordered. Skye was right behind him with Hunter and Hartley right behind her, the door into the warehouse opening behind them and airmen pouring out. bullet's whizzing by them -

The quinjet appeared right in front of Trip, who got onboard – Grant was about to get on when Skye felt a sudden impact on the back of her shoulder – the same shoulder that had just been punched by Creel.

Another cry of pain and Skye stumbled, tripping and almost landing flat on her face.

"Skye!" Grant turned, raising his gun and shooting at the soldiers as he ran towards her, ignoring Hunter and Hartley as they got into the quinjet.

Gritting her teeth against the pain – it wasn't as bad as two in the stomach, but it still fucking hurt – Skye lifted herself off the ground – but before she could stand, Grant was lifting her bodily and carrying her, bridal style as he ran onto the quinjet. They were in the air even before the back of it closed, and as she'd expected, it was a little cramped to fit them all in there.

Focusing on something other than the pain, Skye looked over everyone, doing a headcount. May was in the pilot's chair, and Trip was moving up to join her in the cockpit. Hunter and Hartley were in one set of chairs and then there was -

"Where's Idaho?" Skye got out. She barely heard her own voice over the roar of the quinjet's engines as they lifted off the ground.

"Dead." Trip had to shout to be heard. "Creel just – just about snapped him in half."

Dead. Someone on the team hadn't actually died before. Idaho wasn't on the team, from the Bus, but he was – he was one of them, an agent...

And now he was dead.

The engines started to quiet a little as they were nearly done climbing, and Skye was able to hear Hartley and Hunter's voices as Grant opened the first-aid kit.

"-if you don't cut it off, I'm not going to make it to the base or any hospital!" Skye focused on the combat knife in Hartley's hand that she was holding out to Hunter as Grant shifted her shirt around so he could get at the bullet wound in her shoulder. She had to bite her lip even harder as he started on it. "It's no big deal." Hartley continued. "You've seen what they can do with robotics these days."

They could do good work, but Skye could tell obvious bravado when she heard it. Hunter obviously could too, but he was playing along: "Probably be an upgrade." Even as the strange gray, brittle growth... thing started to creep over the elbow of her already ruined arm – three of her fingers had shattered – Hunter grabbed the knife and held it over her arm, hesitating – Skye lost track of the conversation for a second as forceps went into her shoulder and pulled the bullet out. And then Hunter was cutting into Hartley's arm just above the creeping greyness.

Hartley's cry of pain was bloodcurdling as the knife came out the other side of her arm and the destroyed appendage landed – and shattered – on the floor of the jet. As it landed, and Hunter quickly moved to stem the tide of blood, Skye felt bile rise in her throat – and then before she could stop herself, she was emptying her stomach on the floor.

Hydra had the weapon, and it was because Creel had taken it from her.

And then there was the larger question – why the hell hadn't it done to her what it had done to Hartley?