Thank you so much for your interest in that story!
This chapter takes places during the episode "What they become".

Disclaimer: I still don't own Marvel.

Preparations

"The tunnel collapsed," Fitz quickly explained, making Xandra go pale.

"Fuck. And HYDRA has Raina and Skye and they are coming," the woman added.

"Alright, we will have to move soon," Coulson took over, "I believe May will get them out of the situation. Edvardson, go back up and try to reach them. They are supposed to come here, we will need backup. Fitzsimmons, run every test you can imagine on this tunnel, I want to know whether there is any chance we can get Mack out!"

Everyone nodded, starting with their tasks, which meant the Swedish woman hurried up the stairs again. Well, that was definitely enough cardio for one day! Bobbi followed her with the S.H.I.E.L.D. equipment, showing her how to call on the bus. The first few attemps were a failure, there was only a weird hissing sound, either the channel had been damaged or they had accidently switched on another frequency. Suddenly, it crackled.

"Can you hear me?" Xandra called, probably louder than necessary.

"Hey Kid, yes I can," a voice answered, definitely May. "They took Raina and Skye; and Ward promised Skye to bring her to her father," she informed them.

"We know. Coulson wants you to come here, too. There has been a situation with Mack. A tunnel collapsed..." the younger woman tried to report as neutrally as possible, "the rest of us is fine."

"Okay, stay there. We will come as quickly as possible," May agreed.

Of course Xandra had known about the speed quinjets and other S.H.I.E.L.D.-approved aircraft were able to do, but it still took her by surprise how quickly the other team arrived. They had parked the bus next to the quinjet, so all the remaining agents could meet to talk about the plan (if there was one). In a nutshell, this guy called Ward (whoever that was, but he was very unpopular with the team) had abducted Skye but apparently had his own agenda, even though he was part of HYDRA. He wanted her to meet her father because he had promised that before. Interesting. Then there was Raina, a woman who believed in aliens, and who had gone with this Ward-guy to find her destiny. Crazy. HYDRA new about the alien city and would probably reach out to Agent Morse's contact, so she should convince him to keep quiet. Necessary. Fitzsimmons should examine the tunnel system to help Mack. Kind of impossible. And Xandra herself felt absolutely useless.

She found Tripp and a friendly-looking, plump man hovering over some equipment in the bus. When her ears picked up the word "Howling Commando", she curiously came closer. The dark-skinned man smilingly gave her one of the gadgets.
"1945, cutting-edge technology."
Xandra smiled back, turning it in her hand.
"Stark Tech? Maybe... Yes, it is Stark Tech," she concluded after a moment.
"Electronics don't work there, we have seen it with the dwarves," Tripp explained.
"Therefore mechanical detonators for the bombs," the other man went on,"more would be better though ..."
"You want to bring the whole thing down?" Xandra asked.
"Yeah, you didn't know?"
"Nobody is telling me anything right now," she gave back, flicking her hair back for emphasis.

There was a short uncomfortable silence, before the shorter man went on, basically ignoring her. Apparently he deemed her unimportant and harmless enough, Xandra was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.
"Look Agent Tripp, these babies are great, but they have one big issue - you can't trigger them remotely," he said.
"But you also can't scramble them," Xandra argued, "which is important giving the algorithm that is still around. And, with all due respect, I doubt we have other options. So let's go on, where should they be placed?"
The stocky man sighed, but at least he gave her some attention now.
"Well, the obelisk is supposed to be here," the said, marking it on a map in front of them, "so if we place them around here... and here... and - "
"No,you have to place it further to the right, it is safer as we don't know what the statics will be, " Xandra corrected him absentmindedly, while already trying to commit the map to memory, just in case. This was a maze!

After passing some more time with the men going over the equipment, the short agent, Koenig, as she found out, slowly seemed to warm up to her. Afterwards, Xandra went on roaming the bus on the search of something productive to do. She felt itchy and restless in a curious way she could not quite explain.
"You okay Love?" someone asked behind her.
"I don't know, actually. But thank you for asking," she answered, smiling at Lance.
"What about you?"
"Mack was a friend. This is hard, but I hope we can still save him. I mean, I don't know, I can't imagine Mack turning into such a zombie."
"I haven't seen it," Xandra admitted, "I was upstairs, trying to decrypt, I just came down ... "
Suddenly she felt herself in his arms, held tightly.
"You've picked hell of a first rodeo there, Love," he murmured against her hair.
"Seems like it," Xandra mumbled against his shoulder, not bothering to tell him that it was far from her first, she needed the comfort right now.
Then she pulled away.
"Can you look after Agent Morse? She seemed quite shaken and I feel she would not appreciate my company right now," Xandra mused.
"I will do that," he promised before turning away, mussing her hair in going.

"Great," she grumbled, now she looked like she had made out with someone in a broom closet while everyone else was working!
Slightly annoyed, she went searching for a bathroom to restyle ehr hair, at least she had something to do with that restless energy. Fitz and Simmons seemed to have disappeared, but she could hear Coulson's and May's voices from somewhere. The director was just contradicting his deputy's doubts about having done the right thing. Apparently, both had a lot of faith in Skye, hopefully it wasn't misplaced.

Time did not seem to move foreward, though the woman did not exactly know what she was waiting for. She recalled a line from one of her favourite movies - "I don't want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse." She hadn't fully understood it before. Now though, she did. The operations she had done so far had been more about collecting intel or, if there had been enemy contact, it had been in-and-out missions. Sure, things could go wrong, but it was all orderly within a framework. Now, there was no masterplan, it was messy. Her strategically thinking brain did not like that, she started making plans. And extraction plans. And contingency plans. But how could they be reliable if she did not get the necessary information?

Finally, the director called them all together and Fitzsimmons told the team about their plan: Hazard suits to protect and camouflage them, as their hypothesis was that the city was able to sense humans and therefore reacted. It sounded logical to Xandra, as logical as an alien city could be. Hopefully, it would work. According to May, her, Coulson and Tripp would place the bombs while Fitzsimmons would run things from the top. Hunter and Agent Morse were in the city, trying to sort out things with the contact person. After some minutes of debate (during which the young woman felt like a piece of furniture at IKEA because of the way they were talking about her), it was decided she would join the scientists. Xandra nodded happily, at least this time she would not have to fight the boss to be able to come along. Also, she wasn't very keen on the idea of going down into the tunnel system, so she was kind of glad it wasn't her who had to plant the detonators.
She was one of the last remaining team members standing around awkwardly after the others had already turned away doing something productive. Just when she turned around to leave as well, she heard Coulson mention "Theta Protocol" to Agent Koenig in a very low voice, apparently scared to be overheard. Xandra had to smile a little at the memory, working on it had been quite challenging and fun actually, even though she hoped it would never have to be activated. When the short man noticed that she was still standing there like a decorative plant, totally ignored until now, his eyes widened. Xandra only shrugged her shoulders.
"Theta Protocol is my baby, take care of it," she murmured as lowly as Coulson.
Then she sauntered off to see whether she could help Fitzsimmons, leaving the totally perplexed man and the slightly smirking director behind.

Just in that moment the director's phone rang and he put it on speaker. Apparently, Hunter and Morse had located a group of HYDRA agents in building that, after the map had been turned and enlarged by Agent Koenig, turned out to be on top of the chamber designed for the obelisk. Fitzsimmons were certain that, given that HYDRA very likely had S.H..E.L.D.'s plasma drill, HYDRA could get through the volcanic rock quite quickly, far more quickly than the team could afford. There were also no news from Skye and no option for two agents to get into the highly guarded building.

"Sit tight, we'll be there soon," were Coulson's last orders before ending the call.

Then he looked at the team.

"We will have to change the plan, May and I need to help Hunter and Morse to stop HYDRA from taking the shortcut! We put everything else the science-team might need in the quinjet, drop you off and then fly to meet the two a bit further away. Then we will go in as a second team. Understood? Great! Get ready!"

Thank you for reading!