Hydra's Lair

Chapter 6

It had been two months since Kasey had started training and it had been the toughest few weeks of her life at first as she had tried catching up to James but finally with some extra training she’d caught up with him and was now finding the sparring and exercises much easier. On the bad side though Lance and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hadn’t joined them, though they hadn’t been killed yet ether. Today she was going on her first mission with James and the Winter Soldier himself, all she knew was they were after something important they were looking for and bringing it back for their boss.

            “Ready to go?” Kasey asked as she saw James walk up to their jet.

            “As I’ll ever be.” James muttered.

            “What’s wrong? You’re usually so upbeat.”

            “Nothing…” James sighed and looked up at her.

            “Is it your uncle being with us?”

            “No. Do you know where we’re going though?”

            Kasey nodded. “Red Skull’s destroyed base, why?”

            “A lot of HYDRA agents died there at the hands of Captain America and the U.S. army.” With that James walked off into the jet, his expression masking his fear and unease.

            Kasey took a seat and watched as Ward talked with another agent about the mission before going off, he wouldn’t be coming and had already told them that he had a different mission to go on. Finally the four other agents joining them got into the jet, followed by none other than the Winter Soldier himself. He didn’t speak to them but gazed at them critically as if he could see their every strength and every weakness they had.

            “Ready for take off?” One of the agents asked them.

            “Yeah.” Kasey replied when it was obvious no one else was going to speak.

            The jet took off smoothly and soon they were all trapped on a jet for a long flight to their destination. James stayed silent throughout the trip, he didn’t like where they were going, he always tried to avoid places where a lot of people had died; not because the place gave him the creeps… the inhabitants did.

            “What’s the plan for when we get there?” Kasey asked.

            “Find object we’ve been sent to retrieve, you’ll know what it is when you see it, and get out.” Bucky spoke up. “We shouldn’t meet any resistance but if we do stay back and let me do my thing.”

            “Right.” She looked at his metal arm and inwardly shuddered at the thought of getting attack by that.

            “Why did we come?” James spoke up softly. “We aren’t fully trained.”

            “You need field experience.”

            After that they went back into silence, Kasey was used to it now, HYDRA agents loved to stay in their own thoughts… well those that still could control their minds, some of them apparently had been put under hypnosis where they were forced to ‘comply’. She was just glad she had joined willingly and that Ward had been kind enough to convince his boss to keep her original saviors alive, still captured, but alive and un-brainwashed. She didn’t even realize she had dozed off until James shook her awake and said the one sentence that would begin her first mission.

            “We just landed, time to go.”