2013.04.25 - Satellite Retrieval

It's later in the evening. Last vestiges of the sunset are fading from the purple clouds, causing the city skyline to sparkle more brightly than the stars beyond the clockface window beyond Oracle's bank of monitors and computer equipment. The remains of the superhacker's dinner -- Indian take-out -- sit in a styrofoam container to one side of her keyboard, a half-drained can of iced tea with a pink-tipped white straw just beyond it. 
The woman herself is leaned back in her chair, head tilted up as she goes through a series of data and information screens: telemetry from her hacked satellite net, grainy footage from various surveillance cams, pieced together from a bunch of different networks, and articles from a plethora of publications and websites that all seem to have come out in reaction to an odd celestial event some days ago. Truthfully, what she's really trying to do is fix corrupted feeds and put together a puzzle of data fragments into a more cohesive whole. She's been at it for days. (Of course.) 
Quite suddenly, she sits up. "Bingo." The crucial piece of information falls into place and her fingertips are dancing over the keys, calling up maps and confirming reports. "Sonuva... Oh, yeah. That's totally where it is..." 
Twisting in her chair, she reaches for a secondary keyboard and keys the com, lighting up the Oracle net. "Soooooooo..." she drawls into her headset mic, knowing at least one or two of her agents will doubtlessly hear. "Anyone up for a bit of hunting, tonight?" 
Lady Blackhawk is cleaning her guns and watching the Food Network when she hears the tinny, electronic voice come through. After a few moments, her characteristic drawl can be heard over the network. "I'm free, Skipper." And she doesn't keep the frequency for Oracle's 'calls' open unless she's good to fly, too. "How far an' how fast?" she asks- she'll need the right aircraft for the job, after all. Of course, Babs might have to end up pulling some strings if she needs anything faster than what Zinda presently has access too...
Sitting behind her console, Babs flashes a grin at Zinda's response. "Remember that so-called meteor shower the other night? The one that nearly fried my skynet?" She cursed pretty heavily about that. "I found a piece of it just across from Staten Island in Sandy Hook Bay. I think we should retrieve it. Find out just what was so blasted important about the damned thing as to precipitate the major throwdown I'm seeing on my screens here." 
Even as she hits release on her trasmitter to the Lady, she starts routing a text message through her Oracle vocalizer and bouncing it to hell and back in a quest to worm its way into a SHIELD alert station. They've had a whole lot of chatter about this sort of thing, lately, and she's willing to bet next week's income they'll want to know where it is, now. Perhaps there's a chance for a little quid-pro-quo here. 
The message she sends is simple: "You're looking in the wrong spot," followed by a reply address. 
Let's see who answers. 
Phil Coulson is at a SHIELD remote command center, a winnebago sized vehicle stuffed with as much communication, tracking and armament that can possibly be carried by the massive vehicle. He's currently looking over the shoulders of a couple of technicians, watching the video feeds of the remote searchers, all searching in central Monmouth County.
"Search block 12 cleared. Team three, move to grid 17," he says to the communications team, who relay his instructions to the boots on the ground. He rubs his face wearily, having chased this information for days now in a fruitless effort. 
He turns to pour himself another cup of black coffee from the tureen behind him, when an agent calls his attention to some message. He reads it, sips his coffee and gives the agent a jerk of the head so he can sit down. His fingers work swiftly as he types his reply: "Tell me where to look please." He looks up at the agent he just displaced. "What are you waiting for? Trace that ping! I want to know who hacked into our net."
"Mmmm hmmm. And I still say you would'a felt a /lot/ better about that problem if you'd taken me up on that offer." Before the femme-slash fans get all excited, Zinda's offer was bourbon and half of a red velvet cake, nothing more and nothing less. 
"I'll get the Citation X in the hangar, you get a flight plan cleared for me. On my way now." The clicking metal sound of magazines sliding into semi-automatic pistols can be heard over the line as Lady Blackhawk gets ready for a night out. Within minutes, she's in uniform and out the door.
"Will do," Babs says lightly to Lady Blackhawk. Indeed, despite the standard voice changer she employs -- just in case -- there's no mistaking the pleasure in her tone. She loves the chase. Sure, she loved it more when she could actually be a physical part of it, but she'll take what she can get. And she trusts LB to be able to handle herself in the field. "Flight plan's good to go. Let me know when you've got boots on the ground. And, keep your eyes open. If I've figured this out, others will, too. And don't be surprised when SHIELD shows up. They're eye-balls deep in a related investigation. This may help them, so I've sent them a message. I'm going to delay them a bit, though. I want to know what the damned thing really is before we blythely hand it over." 
As Coulson's message shows up on her screen, and her network starts leading his techs on a merry chase all over the globe and back again, she chuckles softly. Boy, are they going to be pissed at the ghost she plants for this one. She chuckles. "We might need to break out that bourbon when this is over," she tells her agent and friend.
Meanwhile, her fingers fly, typing a response to SHEILD. She sends partial coordinates, to start. THe first 2 digits. He'll be waiting 10 minutes for the full transmission. (Coincidentally, that's just about how long it will take Lady to get to where she needs to be. Go figure.) 
At the SHIELD command center, the techs work frantically, tracing the IP bounces of the message as fast as they can, chasing pings backwards through countries, satellites and ghost-IP's. Whoever is doing this hack is good. Possibly the best. They're only scoring a ping a minute, when ordinarily they'd have this joker tracked down in seconds. Phil frowns slightly at the delay as he sips his coffee, clearly disappointed in his team.
When the first set of co-ordinates come in, he says, "Put that latitude on the map and expand it." Another sip of coffee. "And get me a helicopter." He drums his fingers on the keyboard impatiently, and then types "Who are you, and where did you get this information?" in reply to the message.
"Chopper is ten out, Agent Coulson," says an Agent behind him. Coulson stands and heads to the armory section of the command center and gets out a tac vest and shotgun. The vest goes on over the black suit, and the shotgun is locked and loaded. "Get Security Team 2 on the line and get them ready to mobilize, we're going to need to be able to respond fast if this is some sort of trap."
Pfft, ten whole minutes, Babs? She's there in seven. "Now, what exactly am I looking for here, Skipper?" Lady Blackhawk asks. "Little green men? You know, you'd figure I'd have seen some'a those by now. This future of yours is just plain disappointin' in some ways."
"Look for space debris, Lady," Oracle tells her agent on the ground. "A piece of a satellite. It should resemble some sort of transmitter. Be careful, though. I don't know exactly what it was transmitting. All I know is that something knocked out most of the communication satellites square across the Eastern Seaboard." 
While she speaks, of course, SHIELD is scrambling -- ten minutes out. That's not a lot of lead time for Lady Blackhawk. And, frankly, it's about to be cut down at least in half. The sound of a high-pitched turbine echoes across the water, a black speedboat racing toward the shore. 
The Shield Technicians continue to try and do their best to track the signal, tracing Coulson's message back along it's ping path helping to get past some particularly tricky double routing that Oracle had set up in the main server in and out of China, their governmental overwatch on the internet aiding her in hiding her signal, even against SHIELD's best technology and team of agents.
Phil finishes his coffee, at least as much of it as he needs, down to half a cup and tosses it into a trash bin. One of the screen flashes for him. Zinda's flight plan pops up, intersecting the latitude line at a point on Sandy Hook bay. "Get me a scan of that area, enhanced." The techs work diligently. "Satellite-12 will be passing over the position in three minutes sir, it will give us our best look."
Phil leans over the communications officer, "Get Security Team two on the move to that location. Do not, I repeat do not abandon the search here, this could just be a ruse to draw us away from the real target at this point." He says "Get me the FAA information on that inbound flight while I'm waiting." He puts a bluetooth earpiece in while he waits for their response. "Where is that chopper?" An agent replies "Three minutes out, sir."
"Not seein' anything yet," comes Zinda's reply. "Buuuut I hear somethin'. Someone's on the water, an' I'm going to assume they ain't on a pleasure cruise. Gettin' closer too. Prob'ly got a few minutes before I have company." Pause. "Those SHIELD agents you said might be showin' up... you think you could maybe tell them not to kill the pretty blonde in the blue uniform if they get here an' I'm in the middle of a fracas?" It's not like she expects anyone to recognize her on sight. And then another pause. "Okay, tell them not to /try/ to kill me." Smirk.
Babs checks her own satellite read of the area. "That incoming bogey isn't SHIELD, Zind," she says, her pleasure turning into sharp alertness. "I don't know who it is, but stay sharp." 
And, indeed, the thugs that leap off the boat -- four of them all armed to the teeth in the finest of ex-Navy SEAL now turned mercenary traditions. 
To SHIELD, Oracle transmits again, ensuring they get Lady Blackhawk's flight path and her ID code. She knows the blue-uniformed bombshell is at least on speaking terms with the powerful government agency, so maybe that'll help cut her some slack. Across Coulson's monitor, her avatar -- the green glowing head -- appears, speaking. "My name is Oracle," she tells the agent. "And I am on your side. One of my operatives -- you know her as Lady Blackhawk -- is in the process of securing the area. Be advised, there are foreign agents on the ground from an as yet unidentified organization." A beat. "You might hurry." 
Phil Coulson curses and grabs his tablet. "Transfer priority one data to my tablet, get security team two moving *now*. Get me that satellite image on the go. Move it people, this isn't a drill!"
He bounds out of the command center and ducks down low to run to the chopper that's just setting down, his tablet in one hand and his shotgun in the other. He places the shotgun in the chopper just as it sets down, hops aboard and covers his ear, yelling "Get us moving, we have the co-ordinates!" 
The chopper lifts off and Coulson continues giving commands into his headset. "Get us a lockdown of all air traffic for five, no ten miles in all directions and re-route commericial traffic, on my authority." He looks at his tablet, just now giving him a feed of the area, the high speed motor boat and Zinda's aircraft closing in on the prize from different directions. The space wreckage centers and zooms in. 
"Oracle was right, Mobile Command, pull up search teams and have them move to co-ordinates, we need to set up a secure zone asap. Get me Air Force Command, I want an observation drone team dispatched to the area immediately. Get me any Coast Guard forces in the area as well."
One of his agents comes in over comms, telling him they'd tracked the signal. "It's... It's coming from SHIELD HQ, sir." The tech's voice in incredulous. "That doesn't matter now, we've got to move with speed. Clear this channel for all but command ranks and someone get me a channel to Lady Blackhawke!"
A sigh from Zinda as she sizes up her soon-to-be opponents. "Yeah, these ones sure as hell ain't friendly," she mutters. "And no chumps, either." She almost- /almost/ manages to hide the hint of /glee/ in her voice when she reports that to Oracle. It's been too long since she's been in the field like this. The denziens of Gotham's scummier dive bars will likely appreciate the drop in bar brawls for the next week or so, provided nothing gets her too fired up before the restlessness kicks in again. 
"Okay, boys," she says, gun held ready and level. "Just get back in the boat and you won't have to deal with the medical bills, alright?" She'd prefer just taking them all out the old-fashioned way, but the boss is big on the non-lethal action and all that. Of course, keeping them distracted so people who have the clearance for more lethal measures can get their shots lined up... that has to be kosher, even for a former Bat, right?
Oracle has no control over what SHIELD does. But, generally speaking, no. She's not keen on Lady Blackhawk setting the thugs up in a killzone. "Take them out before SHIELD does, if you can, Zind," she tells her friend. "I don't want any lives lost needlessly, if we can help it." Sorry, babe. Even in the chair (especially in the chair?) that's just the way she rolls. 
The thugs, however, have no such compunctions -- as the Lady is no doubt aware. "You're out numbered, honey," the apparent leader of the lot says to the gun-toting blonde bombshell. "Put your guns down and stand down. Then, maybe, we'll let you live." Probably not the solid offer it sounds like. "We just want the crispy critter over there. Let us have that, and it's all good." 
"Sarge," one of the others says quietly, looking up from a small piece of tech in his hand. "We got incoming. IFF reads SHIELD ID." 
'Sarge' raises his gun. "Now or never, honey." 
WHUP-WHUP-WHUP, the chopper zooms inbound. Agent Coulson continues to co-ordinate, an agent telling him they're working on a radio link to Zinda. Another agent chimes in his ear. "We've got the Commander of a Coast Guard cutter 12 miles out on the line sir." Telemetry shows inbound drones heading toward the target as well.
The radio crackles. "This is Commander Nevins of the USCG Finback, Cutter out of Cape May, how may we help you?" Phil responds. "We are forwarding telemetry to a location SHIELD needs secured, commander, our imaging systems are picking up a speed boat closing in on the location, and the occupants are are to be considered armed and dangerous. Also in the area is Lady Blackhawk, friendly in a blue aircraft. Make best possible speed to secure the area, SHIELD support is inbound and five minutes out." "Understood, SHIELD command, Nevins out."
Phil says, "Patch me through to Lady Blackhawke." The tech complies and says in his ear, "You're live, sir." Phil says, "Lady Blackhawke, come in. Come in, Lady Blackhawke, this is SHIELD actual, en route to your location. Sit rep? Over." The chopper whirrs on, five minutes out and closing.
Zinda sighs, and lowers her weapon. "Alright, I ain't gettin' shot up for any trinkets- just don't get handsy," she relents- or, rather, pretends to relent. She drops the gun. When the men come to take her other weapons off her is when she'll start breaking noses and knocking heads. She really wishes playing on their underestimations didn't still work so damn well. It was a cliche even in /her/ day. But hey, drastic measures for the cause and all that. If she can knock them out before SHIELD shows up, she'll play possum.
Convieniently, her response to the mercenaries comes just in time to also respond to Coulson's message, letting him know what it is she's doing without giving away that she's speaking to anyone else.
It's inevitable, of course, that the thugs underestimate the blonde. Well. These ones do, anyway. The second group that emerge from a matching boat, however, might have more of a heads-up. And, you know... you'd think, with all the costumed vigilantes and other hero-types running around, the plainscothes guys would learn NOT to underestimate anyone in a slick-looking costume -- especially carrying weapons. Woman or not. Did none of them pass their threat assessment training? Really? 
Barbara zooms in with her satellite net, activating a live feed and piggybacking on the SHIELD imagery. "SHEILD, let me feed you a more up-to-date play-by-play, hmm?" She taps a couple of keys and gives Coulson a better view of what he and his fellows are facing. To both him and Zinda, she transmits "Switch to the following frequency. It'll prevent crosstalk." And let the goodguys talk with each other easier.
"Read," Zinda's voice can be heard, with crunchy impacts involving elbows, knees and boots meeting either very breakable or very tender places, "a goddamn," more sounds, "/history book,/" the last words are punctuated with a sound somewhere in between a pained grunt and a high-pitched squeeky whimper from one opponent. Then a couple splashing sounds; guns being tossed into the water. By the time SHIELD has a visual, she's down to just 'Sarge,' the other two either knocked out or in too much pain to keep fighting her. There's always /one/ that ends up being the real challenge.
Phil listens to the scary computer lady. "Switching over now." The chopper continues to close distance and Phil tracks his security team enroute in a second chopper. They're coming from Manhatten however and will be a few minutes behind Phil and the chopper. The additional cameras and satellite images are fed to Phil and he frowns. "Swing around to come in in front of them, so I can address them."
He rummages around in the gear stowed in the back of the Huey and finds a bullhorn. "We're almost there Zinda, just a few more seconds." He spots the World War II heroine taking out the thugs, and leans out of the chopper as it prepares to set him down on shore. 
The bullhorn amplifies his voice over the chopper blades. "This is Agent Coulson of SHIELD! Stand down, or you will be met with lethal force!" His tablet forgotten he shifts his shotgun into his right hand, unlocking the safety as his feet hit sand. He orders the chopper to interpose itself between the thugs and open water as he raises the bullhorn again. "I repeat, this is your final warning. SHIELD forces and US Military forces are on their way as we speak. Throw your weapons down and put your hands in the air!" the bullhorn crackles. He drops it to raise the shotgun to his shoulder.
Babs adjusts the view to track what's happening on the ground. The worst part about this, is that she can't do anything physically to help any of them. Not Zind, not Coulson. She can't even get a better look at that piece of technology. (She can, however, break into the SHIELD databanks, later, to find out exactly what it is. They'll be far more efficient about breaking it down than she could ever be in her one-woman shop.) 
Most of the thugs go down fairly quickly. Sarge, though, is a bit of a monster. Actually, a tear in his sleeve reveals his skin to be covered in a flexible organic weave of some sort that is evidently increasing his strength, stamina, and resistance to other forms of injury. 
Cheater. He's a cheater. 
He reaches out to attempt to trap Zind by pulling her close into his body and clamping hands around her neck and jaw -- threatening to wring her pretty little neck. 
"Oh, God damn it," Zinda grunts out through the grip on her throat. At the same moment, however, she's pulling another gun from- somewhere. Whether it's his, or one of hers is unclear. But she's fast with it, and she folds her arm over her waist to press the barrel into his gut and fire. She figures that mesh is covering it too- and hoping a bullet will still pack about as much of a punch as it would with a kevlar vest. Enough to put a guy down for a few seconds, at least. Not that she'd really care if he /didn't/ have the armor.
Phil Coulson moves forward, pretty spry for a guy his age, and clears Zinda to get a clear field of fire and starts pumping rounds into the downed thug. Gel-Slugs, designed to stun, rather than kill for now. Even if he's cheating, he could be valuable to SHIELD command. And the guys protection doesn't extend up to his head, at least not visibly either. Coulson pumps two rounds into the downed Thug's skull from about 15 feet. BAM! BAM! 
The sound of another chopper emerges at the edge of his hearing, the security strike team heading inbound. He raises the shotgun toward the second group of thugs and shouts, "Drop 'em! I said Drop 'em!" He chambers another shell for emphasis, waiting for their response.
The shell to his gut sends Sarge reeling. The gel-slugs to his face put him down for the count. His buddies, upon seeing their jacked-up commander taken out, aren't nearly so brave without him to inspire them. Pretty quickly, they lay down their weapons and surrender. 
None of them bare any identification that might link them to their employer. To make matters worse, their fingertips are, to a man, glassed over with some sort of organic compound that has obliterated their fingerprints. Of course, they can still be identified by DNA, likely as not, but it will take time. Who they are, who made them, what they want -- beyond the communication satellite fragment -- is a mystery. 
"Lady Blackhawk," Oracle says in her androgynous, digital voice over the shared comfreq, "are you okay?" The satellite feed suggests that she is, but Babs will feel better with vocal confirmation. "Tell me you've secured the area and your package, SHIELD." 
"If I wasn't bleeding," Zinda tells the agent while she pulls an honest-to-God fabric handkerchief from a pocket on the inside of her tunic out to soak up the trickle of blood. "I'd kiss you." There's a brief pause, then "yeah, I'm fine, Skipper. And for the record, if that one didn't have-" she looks down at him- "what look like the longjohns from Hell, I could'a taken him." Yeah, that's going to be repeated a few times this month over empty shot glasses.
Phil Coulson moves forward cautiously as the SHIELD forces move in, and he kicks the thugs weapon away from his hand and keeps them covered. "Ms. Lady Blackhawke, Thank you. Do you need medical attention? I have teams on the way."
The SHIELD chopper descends and spills forth a dozen agents who move in to assist with detaining the thugs. On the horizen, a coast guard cutter heaves into view, chugging steadily toward the beach. On their secured frequency, Coulson says, "Thank you Ladies, Orcale. SHIELD appreciates your assitance in this matter." The hacking of SHIELD's secure systems, not so much, but at least he's not director of counter-intelligence.
Once the last of the thugs is secured, Coulson lowers his shotgun and turns to Zinda. "Wow, Lady Blackhawke... It's... such an honor to meet you." He steps toward her and offers his hand. "I wish I had my Lady Blackhawke poster with me, I'd ask you to sign it for me," he gushes. "You're a real hero, Miss."
Yeah, Oracle's not likely going to be on the DirC-I's Christmas list any time soon. But, somehow, she can live with that. SHIELD has better resources for dealing with this sort of thing than she does. And, she's just confident enough to believe she can circumvent them later, if she needs to -- even while realizing this little stunt tonight probably means a whole whack of their best hackers and counter-hackers are going to be working overtime for weeks trying to resecure their networks to keep her out. 
It'll be a fun distraction, really. 
"Acknowledged, SHIELD," she replies. On a more personal note, "I'm glad you're okay, Lady. Drinks are on me, later." 
Just don't bring home any strays... or tails, okay? 
She'll get a full debriefing later. Before she breaks out the bourbon. 
Zinda waves a hand dismissively at Coulson, though whether it's to his offer of medical attention, or the fanboying, is unclear. "You just saved my ass, Zinda is fine," she says, and hesitates for a moment as she tries to figure out the logistics of getting her now blood-soaked gloves off to shake his hand while figuring out what to do with the hanky (it gets tucked into one of the gloves- though the thought of handing it to Coulson is there, briefly, but quickly beaten down by Southern manners). "A pleasure, Agent."
She leaves the way she came not long after, another flight plan cleared by Oracle.
SHIELD agents and technicians start pouring in from all directions, detaining thugs, and securing the area. A large tent goes up over the wreckage almost as fast as the thugs are stuffed into vans, and Coulson calls in to authorities to stand down from alert status. He surveyes the wreckage and tries to calculate how much paperwork he just generated for himself. "Someone get me some coffee!"
Category:Log