It took at least an hour before their ground transportation came into view.

By that time, Joey was confident his lungs had frozen solid, for how little his breathing in and out was taking in air. His lungs could barely expand inside his chest, choosing instead to ache in suffering from the cold. He felt the freezing wind gnaw on his sides as his boots crunched into the ice and his shoulders swung in unison with Lincoln and Daisy.

There was a pause as Daisy knelt into the ice and compared the area in front of them to the downloaded scan of the region. A thin line glared red on Daisy's laptop. Blinking stiff eyelashes, Lincoln spotted and pointed out what looked like a dark path connecting thin bridges of ice. They were staring at a crevasse, deep fractures in the ice. Almost invisible with the bridging ice on top. Far deeper than wide. Far more dangerous than they appeared. Not for the first time, Daisy was glad she could rely on her laptop.

Daisy took longer than she needed to look over the data. In truth, she worried about her role as leader.

She glanced back over her shoulder. Joey was kicking his boots against the hard ice. Lincoln was arcing sparks against his gloved fingers. If her senses hadn't been numbed from the cold she was sure she'd smell the awful charring. Lincoln needed a new idle habit. They hadn't been a team all that long and were still figuring each other out. Except….Lincoln. They had started to figure themselves out a while before. Daisy felt like she and him could be more together. She shook her head. Couldn't think that. Not during a mission.

She consulted her screen again and stuck out her hand and gestured due east. The team shifted and began walking parallel to the crevasse, until it eventually vanished under the terrain and they could safely cross over.

"If May pulls one more barrel roll I swear I'll-"

Zephyr One tilted dramatically as it engaged in yet another aerial maneuver. The unfortunate Fitz was thrown against the narrow hallway walls.

"I wish I didn't design this so I could insult the awful practicality," he grumbled, staggering towards the weapons control station in the back.

Static crackled over Fitz's head.

"Fitz! We could use some return fire!" May yelled urgently.

Another vicious tilt had Fitz muttering under his breath, "There'll be return fire when you stop flying the airship like one of those fangled fighter jets!"

He stumbled into the control area. A quick check showed all the missiles had already been armed from the cockpit. He took a seat in the chair and turned on the weapons targeting system.

He whistled as the targeting display lit up like a Christmas tree.

"We're in for a bad time."

"You could say that again." May commented darkly.

"WOOOO!"

The team raced along the relatively flat surface in an arrowhead-like formation. In the ten minutes they had traveled by snowmobile it felt like they had covered far more ground than their two hour trek. They had warmed up a little in the container and eaten some more of the energy bars Simmons had packed. "Science tastes delicious." Lincoln had remarked.

Of the three, Joey perhaps had been the most excited for the snowmobiles. He had had a thing for motorcycles in his civilian life. "How much of a difference could there be?"

Starting the vehicles had been no problem. They all easily slung their well-insulated frames over the seats and revved up the engines. Daisy herself felt reinvigorated with the wind speeding against her mask, pressing against her body. The cold hardly bothered her now. If Donnie was out here they'd find him.

Behind them, the air drop container was broadcasting its successful opening and retrieval at high frequency. It was in optimal position for Zephyr One to pick up on when the storm winds died down, and Daisy hoped that small bit of communication back on the strong antennae would work. Her laptop lacked the strength for direct communication through these conditions, and if the conditions lasted, her team would have to find their way back here.

"Any word?"

The simple question was enough to make the Giyera fear for his life. He'd go clean after this job he told himself. Find some straight and narrow job where his powers would still be appreciated. He'd had enough of answering to powerful and terrifying people. If the word person could even apply to whom he was speaking with.

Giyera's fear was primal. There was no human opponent that could match both his decades of combat experience, and months of telekinesis. And yet Giyera knew that if he moved anything more than his mouth he would be dead before the historical rifle mounted on the wall could shift and fire into his superior's skull.

"Our scanners can't get through the weather properly, but our knowledge suggests SHIELD can't either."

"So send a team to the ground to recover the boy first."

"They've been mining for weeks. And we had a clear, cloaked shot from 400 feet away. None of our teams want to challenge them."

Silence. Giyera thought he could hear a small stir.

"Not even you?"

The agent bit his lip. The entire time he'd been talking to the back of a high leather executive chair. There was a desk separating the two in the moderately ornate though dim lighted room. The shadow from the chair was covered the desk and all the way up to the doorway behind him in grim lighting. He wondered if it was intentional.

Giyera got bolder with indignation, "We don't have the resources. Getting that squadron to go rogue itself ate up any influence we might have had!"

He wondered if he had gone too far. He could almost hear the deliberation in every word as the voice from the chair considered.

"Make the influence."