Then a speakerphone announcement echoed through the factory and outside, "10 minutes and counting to detonation. Fight for Hydra, for Herr Schmidt, fight for honor. All hail Hydra!", and Sweet gulped, "Please tell me that it is Mole playing a prank.", before hearing faint explosions of generators and furnaces.
Steve replied, "Don't think so, Sweet. We better hurry as this factory is a huge place!", as the mind washed Hydra troopers kept shooting and all, and then a shout of pain as another trooper fell near them, and Sweet moved quickly behind more cover to grab the corpse's long gun and handgun, grabbing a bullet belt, and moved back to Steve, "You take the extra handgun. I will carry the belt and the long gun!", as the announcement counted down, "9 minutes to detonation.".
"Planning to go down with the ship; these bastards are loyal, I'll give them that.", Sweet said as Steve nodded. "Yeah, nothing but automatons.", Steve sighed as they ducked under another few shots. "Come on, we should be close to Bucky and then we'll all get the hell out of here. At least they'll do most of the job for us this way!".
They kept going as they shot back at the Hydra troopers, with Steve using his shield here and there, snapping necks and receiving it from the wall or the bridge corners as the factory became more and more destructive with fire and explosions everywhere as the announcement kept counting down as they ran down the steel sidewalk, before seeing a huge gap between the steel sidewalk and the collapsed stairs, to the other side of the sidewalk, that not even as Captain America, Steve can't jump it.
"Shit!", Sweet shouted, "We can't jump this!", as Steve searched around before hearing Bucky's voice, "Steve, up here!", and they looked up to see a y-shaped steel balcony, with Bucky tying a series of chains and rope to the railing of the current sidewalk he's on, throwing it over, to dangle in the middle between the steel sidewalk and the steel sidewalks/stairs that is already blocked by fire to the control tower, "Jump and grab it, climb!".
Steve replied, "You go first, Sweet! Bucky got you! Go!", not even in the mood to argue, and Sweet nodded as he took a few steps back, taking a deep breath, and ran off the edge of the destroyed sidewalk, jumping high, grabbing the lifeline, swinging madly as he went to climb.
"That's it!", Bucky encouraged before he heard creaking and breaking noises as another explosion happened nearby, "Crap, this platform isn't gonna hold much longer! Climb, man, climb!".
Sweet grunted as he climbed faster and faster as Steve watched, and finally, Sweet made it with Bucky's help, helping him into the platform and pushing him to the other platform of the y-shaped balcony, "Come on, Steve, your turn!".
As Steve was about to run and jump, another explosion shook the earth, and the platform with the makeshift rope was about to break, Sweet shouted, "Bucky, run!", and Bucky ran to his platform just before the first platform with the rope fell, breaking free as Bucky and Sweet panted, with Steve shouting, "Go, I will find another way!".
"We ain't leaving ya, Steve, you lunkhead!", Bucky shouted back, and Steve was about to order in his Captain voice when an amused, calm voice replied, "My, my, such in a predicament you are, Captain America...", causing the others to look over, with Steve shocked and surprised to see the face behind the man who ruined Abraham's former life.
He replied, "Johann Schmidt.", with a narrowed set of eyes, and Schmidt smiled, "Oh, so you know of me...I'm very touched, Captain, but unfortunately, we must be going.", as Dr. Zola is behind him.
"Enjoy my gift to you, Captain.", Schmidt smiled as the announcement kept counting, "5 minutes and counting to detonation.", and Steve was upset, torn between getting Schmidt for he had ruined Abraham's former life, and getting out of here like heck, as Schmidt saluted and left with Dr. Zola, separating soon, with a command not to get his car scratched as he gave Zola the keys, and heading for a private bomber bunker plane.
Sweet shouted, "Steve, forget him, come on!", and Steve saw fire everywhere, smoke and everything as the factory shook further, looking around for a way out before seeing the rafters holding another balcony of stairs and such to the outside, far up, and he angled his shield, throwing it at the weakening holdings of the balcony, and as Sweet grabbed the shield, the balcony came down, falling, and with a deep breath, and taking a few steps back, Steve then ran, and then jumped, intending to use the falling balcony just at the right moment to use as a large stepping stone to jump again to the duo.
Steve timed it almost right... though he came a foot short and ended up catching himself on the platform, holding for dear life as Sweet and Bucky grabbed hold of his arms.
"Come on, we're not letting you go out by just a simple fall...", Bucky told him as Steve chuckled, "Not exactly a noble way to go, that's for sure..."
Sweet replied, "Peggy'd kill me if she knew this part.", as they helped him come up into the platform, and they heard the announcement count down, "3 minutes to detonation.", and Steve replied, "Let's get out of here!", as they ran, looking at Bucky, "Please tell me that you ordered the others and Mole to get into the woods!".
"Already ahead of you, Steve. This is going to be a swell of a sight when this place explodes!", Bucky replied back as Sweet gave the shield to Steve, and they found the end of the factory, with Steve seeing stairs, as the factory shook further and deeper. Steve used the shield as a slide on the stair railing as the three men jumped into the underside, very snug, but workable.
They came down, using gravity to slide the stair corners and such, and saw a slumped dead Hydra trooper on a running yet stuck motorcycle with a sidecar, and Bucky laughed, "That's our ticket out!", as they landed with a thud besides the motorcycle, with Steve flipping up the shield, donning it on the front of the motorcycle as Sweet landed into the sidecar, with Steve grabbing the corpse, throwing him out, as he then took the front seat, with Bucky sitting behind him, and with a roar, the motorcycle revved out as the announcement kept counting, "1 minute and counting to detonation.".
"Try not to fall off...", Steve teased as Bucky rolled his eyes before Steve kicked the clutch and the motorbike roared to life and started to speed away. "Come on, come on...", Bucky whispered as they drove faster and faster away from the complex.
Sweet shouted, "There!", pointing to a boulder hill of rocks deep within the forest, seeing Mole waving at them, gesturing for them to go around, and Steve revved faster than ever before, turning in a sharp turn, around the edge of the boulder hill, seeing hundreds of men freed from being prisoners of all the cages, and in the production lines in the factory they can find including the prison yard, "Duck and cover, now!", commanding in his Captain voice as he braked to a screeching stop.
Mole landed besides them as the freed men got down, covering their heads and ears, as then in the next five seconds, a great, massive explosion came, piercing the air, and visible enough for Italy to see, along with the distant German patrols.
After a few moments, when the noise and all started to settle down, everyone took a deep breath and relaxed for the moment. "Well, pretty sure everyone in the region practically knows we're here now...", Bucky admitted.
"We're gonna need to figure out where we can get a good area for the others to pick us up.", Steve explained. "If there's a small airfield anywhere around here, we can quickly seize and occupy it for a few hours, call for Audrey to pick us up.".
Mole replied, "What about radio receptor Peggy gave you?", and Steve blinked in surprise as he forgot that he had it in his pocket, and he pulled it out, wincing as it was destroyed, "Damn it, must have damaged it when I was caught by the ledge of the balcony. And with the remaining German patrols as this is occupied German land still, I think we better help the Italian portion of the men get back home to Italy and such, if the Italian squadrons hasn't seen the smoke of the explosion already yet. Luckily, we're near the border, Peggy and Audrey will forgive us if we take a while once we organize our share of French and American men, to survive the trip back to Toulouse while we get all of this German land spot taken back to our occupation.".
One of the freed men replied, "We will fight those Nazi patrols of those bastards and free this area, and have Italy have freedom with our Italian comrades here!", and everybody agreed, cheering as they held up their taken guns and such.
Bucky chuckled, "Well, Steve, you heard them...Heck, I bet Phillips will appreciate the extra land taken back to France and Italy from those Nazi and Hydra bastards, and we Americans can help more further in, as other places, like Algeria and Morocco is already being cleaned up.".
"Keep pushing on the borders of the Reich and the gate will eventually collapse.", Steve said as he sighed. "Shame the terrain still makes things difficult. Coming up through Italy, Southern France and the Alps is all mountains; not to mention the vast rivers...", he shook his head once more. "Sorry; just thinking that we're still not fully seeing through the end of this war, but it'll end sooner or later, with us winning; I feel very confident about that.".
Mole replied, "What are we waiting for? I'm gonna help!", before digging in a flash into a tunnel, and Bucky replied, "Let's not linger around.", with a grin.
And so, it took a week to coordinate with Italian commanders of the squadrons who saw the smoke of the explosion, and Mole's incredible tunnel echolocation of German patrols in all directions, except for the north direction of the Alps and Germany, with the freed 100 Italian prisoners making campaigns to scourge out all the minor German occupations, heading home to their friends and family, while telling the story of Captain America and his Howling Commandos that consisted of him, Bucky, Sweet, Mole, and a couple of others who asked to help out with being the demolitions expert and the information hacker, leading the freed French and American soldiers on a march with stolen tanks, motorcycles, trucks, and weapons from the German patrols and camps, and the destroyed factory as they took care of on the way, taking the land occupation back, heading home to Toulouse Base, while passing on the word via towns and such who cheered at seeing the march of at least 200 people.
In Toulouse Base, unknowing of the incoming return appearance of the march soon as it was a misty, foggy day upon the end of the week, Phillips slammed his phone on the set, glaring at Peggy and Audrey, "You two are extremely lucky that I got Allies all over France. Got news that the Hydra factory is taken care of, and that people came out alive, on our side, that is.".
"Hey, we couldn't let those that have worked hard for our cause left to rot in HYDRA's hands...", Audrey said, not frightful of Phillips in the slightest while Peggy was similar, though the slight fear in the back of her head that she would end up court Marshal'd and perhaps even arrested. "Those prisoners, a lot of them know Italy and now we've got some sure confidants that can report on any Axis movements in Italy since they're in debt.".
Audrey, without the crystal to halt her aging, has leapt to having a few more inches on her height, losing the remaining baby fat, and more oomph in her stature and hair length including her assets, and gained almost 2 years of age in the span of the week, having heaps of period time that was hell on her body, and today, it all stopped, almost like that was it, like the crystal was helping her catch up properly on the time she technically missed out on.
The base was told that Audrey had gotten double hit with a serious case of pneumonia and some accidental food that was past its time, giving her diarrhea, so, she was put into solitarily time, in a room, with Peggy visiting her, helping her through the process including finding clothes that fit the new Audrey. And now, people who know her like the rest of her mechanic buddies, were shocked to see the changes, and Audrey is even lovelier than ever, yet she is still a tomboy.
Peggy, it seemed like being distracted with Audrey, she never fell into the danger stress zone, and all, while enduring morning sickness nausea, and to her joy, while getting dressed in the solitarily room bathroom, she saw a prominent small belly bump of a curve, and she knew it wasn't a big deal to many women, but to her, it's a sign of hope as she still has some time of being in the danger zone of miscarriage, and since it was still small, her clothes hid it very well enough.
Phillips raised an eyebrow, "You make a good point, Ramirez, but you two deserve a grounding for disobeying my rules. I may have not ordered a rule about flying, but doing that, with a civilian of Howard Stark, and deep into German lines, hell, it was lucky that you didn't get hit greatly, and it was a miracle that you got Rogers, Barnes, and Mole in there alive!".
"Yes, sir...", Peggy nodded. Phillips sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "It still was a great risk you all took; next time, if you're going to pull something like that off, make sure it's sanctioned. Our boys are now landing in Sicily and Mussolini's regime is a house built on a pillar of salt and sand; either King Victory Emmanuel III is going to force Il Duce out of power, or the people will, but we can't do anything on a whim that might end up risking everything. Last thing we needed is HYDRA grabbing Stark's plane, for instance.".
Audrey snorted, "No worries about that. Stark took the plane up to Britain, saying something about finishing up his tech tour while helping out with the air siren tech. He may be narcissistic, but he ain't stupid.".
Phillips nodded, "Good. Still, can you two promise me not to pull anything like it ever again until it's necessary?", and Peggy replied, "I swear, General.", and Audrey nodded, "I promise, General.", before a warning bell sounded out.
Phillips got up, frowning, "Better not be an air raid again.", as they sprinted out of Phillips' office and the building itself, with Phillips calling out to an officer as there was no alarming signs of an air raid, "Soldier, what's going on?!".
"Something's happening at the gates, General! Gate Patrol radioed that it looks like people in the distance, but can't make out good, due to the fog and mist!", the officer shouted as he resumed running.
Phillips waited for a moment; before deciding, "Tell the troops to move into defensive positions but hold their fire. Don't shoot unless shot at first, got it?". The officer nodded, "Yes, sir!".
Phillips then looked at Audrey and Peggy, "Stay back at a reasonable distance behind the gates. I ain't having Rogers on my ass for losing you two on my watch!", and they nodded, "Yes, sir!", as they put their pistols on safety yet holding them securely, pulling them out steadily as they headed closer to the gates.
After several minutes, with a better view and gaining distance, the commander of the gate patrol shouted, "By Jove, it's Captain America and Sergeant Ranger Barnes! They're leading a march, and a long one at that!".
Phillips gave a sign of relief that he made the right call on that one; for all he knew, it could've been a HYDRA retaliation force that somehow snuck through the lines.
"Thank God...", Peggy said as Audrey chuckled. "What, you were worried he wasn't going to make it this time?", she teased.
Peggy replied, "No, because he has Bucky and Mole, and hopefully Sweet to look after him, through I'm going to berate him for not calling me with the radio receptor.", and Audrey smirked, "I'm sure he had a good reason. I hope Bucky recognizes me...", knowing that she is different now in looks somewhat, through her personality is still the same.
"After you punch his arm or slapping his face for making you worried?", Peggy teased back with a grin, and Audrey replied, "Still deciding on that, though I will do the final decision once I see his lucky, dumb, and handsome face.", with a scoff.
"Just make sure it's the right one...", Peggy teased back before they moved to join some of the troops who were practically swarming Steve and Bucky.
"Almost feels like we made it back to the states and are getting swarmed by folks wanting to buy war bonds...", Bucky chuckled as Steve nodded, "I suppose that's how it feels...".