xxix. IT'S CHEWBACCA!

"Hands in the air!" One of the guards yells.

I know I should be terrified—since we were outnumbered and held at gunpoint—but I couldn't help laughing. The guards raised an eyebrow at me.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" He demands. "You realize this is a gun, right?"

He was extremely hairy; Chewbacca's stunt double seemed to have found work after the Star Wars franchise on this ship.

I gesture to the one who harbored an extremely hairy face.

"How is it possible to grow that much hair? Somebody call National Geographic because I just found Bigfoot."

The guards look at me, flabbergasted. Ace deadpans me as if to say 'Seriously? Right now?' I give Ace a sheepish look.

"Seriously, how can your face afford its own fur coat?"

The guards, rightfully annoyed, direct their attention to Ace. "Who are you people?"

"We come in peace. We're the CIA," Ace responds.

"You're lying," the head guard sneers.

"Well I did lie about the come in peace part," Ace casually says.

King Kong and his goons lunge at us. Quickly, Ace pushes me out the way of a flying bullet sent by Sasquatch himself while pulling out his own guns. All our bullets are rubber to ensure that we don't kill a civilian.

Or in that hairy man's case, an endangered species.

Our backs press against a container as a metal rain of bullets hit the other side. Ace takes out another magazine and reloads.

"Stay here," he instructs.

Swiftly, he fires both of his guns to stun two men into dropping their weapons. He fires a third time, squarely landing on a hand, and makes the hairy man yell out in pain.

I don't listen to Ace's warning to stay behind. In a strange way, I wanted to prove myself, so my gun fires recklessly into the scene.

One of my bullets hits a man in the chest and stuns him immediately.

"Did you see that?" I exclaim, "I finally hit someone!"

Ace tears away the last man's weapon from his hand. All of them now were unarmed. Ace then jumps into the scene. Weaponless, he could overpower even five men.

The guards circle him, closing on him with fear, after seeing what he was able to do. Chewbacca finally throws the first punch.

Ace dodges, flipping the guard over his shoulder, and hits him with a stun gun. Three guards cautiously ram into him. Ace moves like water, swiftly, but attacks like fire. The two guards simutaneously fall while being shocked into unconciousness. The third one is tripped by Ace and falls to the ground.

The last guard stares at us. "This is my first day," he whimpers.

"Sorry kid," Ace says.

Ace proceeds to hit him with the stun gun.

I grab the a string of keys from the belt of the unconscious security guard. And and I run towards the central operating crane to throw the transport carrier overseas. We didn't have much longer before backup would come to defend the ship from the distress signal sent out. One by one, I try the keys on the ignition.

"Could you hurry up?" Ace simmers.

"Shut up before I hit you with the stun gun," I flare.

Finally, the engine roars to life. The guards realize this and start running towards the control room instead of trying to fend off Skye, Xavier, and Chase.

"Shit. Okay Cupcake, you're going to have to operate this," Ace states. "I'm going to make sure no civilians interfere."

I've never operated a crane, but I'm pretty good at the claw machine, so how difficult could this really be?

My eyes scan the surroundings for the right container. From this elevated perspective, I can practically see everything on the ship; Chase is trying his goddamn best to not get shot, Skye is tasing people left and right, and Xavier is fighting while eating a sandwich.

The container with weapons inside is far on the northeast, second from the top. There it is.

I guide the lever onto where the container is and slowly pull it down. Just as the crane swings to clasp around the first container, a bullet flies through the window and almost hits me.

Down below, Ace tackles the man who shot at me to the floor. My flinch causes the container to drop almost directly ontop of Chase.

The sound of heavy metal hitting the floor reverberates like a small seismic wave.

"Hey can you maybe, you know, not try to squish us?" Chase fumes into the earpiece.

"I'm trying my best goddamnit," I yell.

I stumble up again. Slowly, I position the crane again, this time getting the right container. The crane groans under the weight of 500 military weapons. Carefully, I release the container into the ocean.

"I'm going to cut off the lights!" I shout.

"Meet us by the South exit, there are boats there," Ace affirms.

Darkness swallows the entire ship. Under the shadows of night, I find the others by the emergency boats. We enter one; Chase and Ace get on the two different sides and start to lower us into the waters.

Rocky torrents throw us around as we hit the waters. Ships belonging to the Coast Guard whirled through the North side, heroically, albeit unnecessarily, coming to the rescue of the distress call.

"Alcohol?" I ask.

"Alcohol," Ace nods.

~

Booze is a lot like people; it's beautiful, no matter the shape, size, or color it comes in.

You can quote me on that.

But for once, I didn't want to drink the shots that were coming my way. My mind was too preoccupied with Thirteen's warning. It was strange that the Director didn't even let me attempt to hack the USB. Ace literally kidnapped me for this team specifically for my cryptography skills, so why not use them?

I hatched a plan to not steal, but borrow the USB from the CIA just long enough to figure out what was on it. If there was a way I could stall both the agency and Thirteen long enough, I could kill Thirteen myself before he has a chance to hurt my family.

The biggest obstacle in my plan was Ace. If I snuck out tonight while he was sober, I'd be caught for sure. Unfortunately, regular alcohol didn't seem to affect him much.

As for Skye, who doesn't drink, I'll make up a lie for her later. My plan was currently to pretend to be drunk long enough for her to leave me alone, then sneak out my window. 

"Five shots of absinthe please," I say to the bartender.

"Absinthe? That's 130 proof. Stay safe," the bartender cautions. She nonetheless had a wicked grin on her face as if she was ready to be entertained by our drunk asses.

I bring back the tray of shots to our table. Five green glasses sat before us, one for Chase and Xavier, one for me, and two for Ace. If this wasn't going to get Ace hammered, nothing will. Mine wasn't real alcohol, of course. I swapped out my glass for dyed water. Drunk me did not need to make an appearance tonight while I broke into CIA headquarters.

Skye takes a waft of the green liquid and winces. "Uhh what is this? Cyanide? Stay safe guys."

"Absinthe. People say you're supposed to see fairies after drinking it," I beam.

"Are you sure this is safe? We might have another mission tomor—" Ace starts.

I cut him off. "All I hear is fear, Blackwell."

Ace narrows his golden eyes in my direction. Of course, the way you can get Ace to do anything was not through threats, but to insult his pride.

"Bottoms up," I grin.

Octavia: "Vote to see a drunk Ace."