Time is of the Essence
Thirty Minutes Later
The alien ship spotted in the upper atmosphere thirty minutes ago sliced through the air at speeds exceeding anything a man-made aircraft was capable of reaching. Monica had no trouble keeping up, though. Her main concern was staying off its radar. She was invisible to the visible spectrum, but there was no telling what kind of sensor technology the ship and its crew had at its disposal.
She stayed in the clouds below the ship. The fluffy white masses of tiny water droplets didn't hinder her view of the ship, so she was able to stay even more hidden in her pursuit.
Inside the ship, the crew was oblivious to Monica's presence. Even if they did know she was tailing them, they had much more important matters to worry about. Even though they arrived on Earth along with Ronan and the Kree, they weren't of the same race. Every member of the crew was a Luphomoid, a blue skinned alien race hailing from the Andromeda galaxy. They were sent to Earth for one reason, an infinity gem.
Thanos had gotten word that an infinity gem, besides the mind gem lost by Loki, was somewhere on the planet, and he wanted it before anyone else could get their hands on it. He sent Ronan for the mind gem – though, that quest had taken a back seat to Ronan's own personal mission – and he sent the Luphomoid's after the other gem.
Leading the Luphomoids was Thanos' own personal assassin and adopted daughter, the cyborg Nebula. Bred from birth to be a ruthless killing machine alongside her adoptive sister, Gamora, Nebula was the best choice to bring Thanos the infinity gem.
Even if she was his daughter, she dared not dream of what would happen if she came to him empty-handed, as Loki had. She was there when Thanos threatened Ronan with certain death if he failed again. There was no doubt in her mind that he could and would carry it out.
"Approaching the area where the gem was last seen, Nebula," one of the crewmen reported.
She nodded. "Prepare to land."
Five more minutes passed before Monica noticed the ship was beginning to descend. She started to report in to the others, but decided against it. First, she wanted to see exactly where the ship and the aliens were headed before deciding whether to call the others in or not. Despite what Coulson said, she didn't want to put the others in any unnecessary battles. They had enough on their plates as it was.
The ship descended quickly, piercing the veil of greyish-black storm clouds and landing in a clearing just at the opening of a vast forest. From the looks of it from her higher vantage point, it appeared that they were somewhere in Eastern Europe, if the architecture was anything to go by. There was a haggard looking village a few miles on the other side of the forest and the river near it.
The aliens wasted no time in filing out and heading into the forest.
Crap, I'm going to lose them. Monica knew that she had to keep a low altitude in order to keep track of them, but also knew that doing so risked her getting caught.
She opted to risk it. The aliens were too suspicious to play it careful. Switching to infrared, which was invisible to the naked eye – she hoped the same applied to these guys – she slowly lowered herself until she was almost touching the dead, pale green grass.
Nebula said something in her native tongue. The others nodded and fanned out, entering the forest at different points. She herself went in straight ahead.
It appeared that she was the leader, so Monica followed her. Nebula moved cautiously and quietly, but quickly; she was guarded in her movements. It reminded her of Natasha; she was always cognizant of her surroundings. In her hands were a pair of what looked night slightly bent nightsticks.
After fifteen minutes of seemingly aimless searching, Nebula suddenly stopped and touched her ear. A moment later, she spoke in her native tongue, then bolted to her left. With ease, Monica was able to follow her, but kept a short distance in case she was walking into a trap.
It wasn't a trap. Rather, it was a rundown mausoleum guarded by a pair of Doombots. Doombots?! We're in Latveria? Of course. That means that village up ahead is Doomstadt.
Whatever they were looking, Monica suddenly knew that it was trouble. Everything Doom had in in country was trouble. Even if he hadn't been seen in years.
With fluid speed that took the robots by surprised, Nebula jabbed them both with her nightsticks. Electricity jumped from the sticks into the Doombots, short-circuiting them until they collapsed in a heap. She kicked the stone slab covering the opening, reducing it to a cloud of dust and rubble. They slowly filed inside, Nebula taking point.
One of her subordinates detected that the gem was inside a mausoleum that was in the middle of a dead forest. There were several tombs inside, a few of which were broken into pieces. The ones that weren't were covered in a thick film dust. "Start looking. Search every crack. We don't leave until we find the infinity gem."
It was dark; the only light was whatever sunlight was filtering in through the treetops. While the others had to strain their eyes to make sure they searched as thoroughly as necessary, Nebula had no such trouble. She possessed a mechanical left eye, which allowed her to see in even pitch black darkness.
Every tomb they cracked open and sifted through thoroughly were filled with nothing but old, tattered clothes, worthless jewelry, and bones. No infinity gem. Assuming that whoever placed the gem inside the mausoleum knew of its power, they would have been much more careful in hiding it. She ordered her subordinates to search under the tombs.
As they destroyed the sacred burial places, she slowly walked around the perimeter of the room. The humans were much more intelligent than she wanted to give them credit for. How quickly they managed to thwart the Kree invasion was evidence of such. If they knew how powerful the time gem was, or even assumed that it was more valuable than anything they had ever encountered, they would do more than simply hide it under a tomb. No, that would have been too obvious.
Whoever hid the gem would have known that if someone was searching for it, they would search every inch until they found it. They would have to hidden it in a place where no one would think to look.
All the tombs were overturned. Nothing, as she suspected. Instead of getting frustrated, she continued to scan the perimeter. Her cyborg eye was much more keen than her biological one. It quickly picked up on several cracks; however they weren't anything more than cracks.
The massive cross that was stationed in front of the fore wall, however, was hollow. With no hesitation or consideration for the symbol's religious significance, Nebula broke it open. A bright orange light filled the tomb.
Nebula laughed. "These humans think they're clever." She was handed an elongated tube, which she used to pluck the infinity gem from its resting place without subjecting herself to its uncanny power. She pulled it out with a small tug. The light emanating from its core was blinding. She quickly sealed it away. "Let's get out of here. Leave Ronan to his vendetta. Our work here is done."
A blinding orange light erupted from the mausoleum. Whatever the aliens were looking for, they had found it. Whatever they found, it wasn't good. A sinking feeling settled in her chest. Could it be? If it was an infinity gem, there was no way in hell she was letting them leave the forest, much less take it back to Thanos.
The aliens filed out one by one, Nebula again at the fore. Monica immediately noticed that she had an elongated tube in her hand, one that she didn't have when she went in.
Monica shifted into her human form and fired a beam of light to knock the tube out of her hand. It landed somewhere out of sight.
"What the—?!" Nebula snarled and narrowed her eyes at Monica. "A human!" she hissed. "Kill her!" The crew, ten in total, charged Monica brandishing wicked looking energy swords and large rifles.
Even though she was outnumbered ten-to-one, Monica remained unconcerned with the aliens moving her way. That was mainly because they were moving at a snail's pace. Even in her human form, she was still vastly faster than them.
The first reached her and swung his sword at her head. She ducked under him and blasted him in the chest, sending him flying into a pair of oncoming assailants. Two more tried to attack her from behind, but she moved out of the way with plenty of time to think about how she was going to take care of them. By the time she gave it plenty of thought and decided, they had moved maybe a few inches. A pair of blasts rendered them unconscious, followed by three more for the three moving in from her left.
Six down in a matter of seconds. She couldn't believe that she actually considered calling in the others for backup. Don't want to waste too much time on these losers. For the four remaining, a wide angle beam engulfed them and left them laying in a wide crater.
"Now, then," she started.
Nebula, slack-jawed from watching her team of elite Luphomoid warriors be dispatched in seconds by a human, growled and pulled out both of her tasers. "Damn you, human! DIE!" She roared and lunged at Monica, tasers first.
Monica casually sidestepped her.
Nebula rolled to her feet and launched a furious volley. She was one of the most feared assassins in the universe. Whenever she attacked someone intending to kill, that person died in moments. This wasn't going to be one of those times.
No matter how she attacked, from what angle, or how fast, Nebula couldn't lay a finger on her. Monica dipped, ducked, and dodged out of the way easily enough, but slowly enough to make Nebula think that she was going to tag her, only to move out of the way at the last moment.
"Be still!" She roared and slammed her sticks into the ground, sending a wave of electricity coursing through the dirt toward Monica.
She couldn't dive back to avoid it, so she jumped up. Which was exactly what Nebula wanted her to do.
She fired off a roundhouse kick at the exact moment Monica jumped up, so that she wouldn't be able to dodge again. She was right; Monica appeared to be unable to dodge.
The kick passed right through her.
"Huh?!"
"Science lesson, chrome-dome. The electromagnetic spectrum is intangible, and so am I. Name's Monica." She remained floating in midair, even as Nebula futilely continued her assault. "Or Spectrum, if you're nasty." She blasted her once, hitting her in the chest and leaving her laying in a small crater.
"Well, then. Oh!" She had nearly forgotten the very reason she attacked them in the first place. She flew over to where she saw the tube land. "Aha." She found it lying in the grass, partially submerged in a small puddle of water. Picking it up, she opened it, only to find that it was empty. "What the hell?"
She knew for a fact that she witnessed a bright orange flash of light illuminate the entire mausoleum, which meant that the aliens had found something. Unless they had it hidden on one of them. "Maybe they didn't find anything." She shrugged and called in Coulson to have him pick up the extraterrestrial treasure hunters.
In the meantime, she decided to search each of the aliens to make sure they didn't have anything of interest on them. The grunts had nothing on them. Nebula, on the other hand, had a few things. While curiosity begged her to play with them for a bit and maybe even ascertain what they were, her better judgment knew that messing around with alien technology was a bad idea.
Before long, a pair of quinjets landed a few feet away, along with a larger vessel. Instead of the eagle insignia belonging to SHIELD, the three air-crafts were branded by a bold black circle pierced by a black sword. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. "SWORD?"
The lead agent that exited first nodded. "Agent Paulletz. Are the extraterrestrials incapacitated?"
She gave one of them a kick to make sure. He didn't move. "I'd say so."
"Alright, then. We'll take it from here."
"Well, they had some loot on them. Guess I should leave it with you." She handed him the three small devices she found on Nebula. "Be careful with that stuff. Who knows what they can do."
"I know. This isn't our first rodeo." With that, he nodded and turned away to oversee the cleanup.
Not even a thank you. Jerk. With a shake of her head, Monica streaked into the sky. As she passed over the forest, she noticed that there was another SWORD crew securing the aliens' ship. With nothing more for her to do, she headed back for the Sanctorum. "Spectrum to base, all clear. I thought the aliens found something at some gravesight, but I guess not. SWORD is here now taking them in, so I'm heading back."
It was Sam who answered. =Roger that, Monica. Cap and a lot of the others already left for the inhuman settlement. There aren't many of us left here.=
She didn't think to commit those coordinates to memory, so she didn't know where they were, outside of somewhere in the Himalayas. She did, however, remember the location of the other alien ship. "Hey, there's another ship that needs to be checked out. I'll bet pennyI have that that's where the captured inhumans are."
=We got a spare quinjet. We'll meet you there.=
"Roger that." On a dime, Monica changed direction and streaked toward the second alien ship.