Her face was a mask of shock as Tuc placed a hand on her shoulder and started to lead her away. My vision blurred as tears swarmed my eyes but I forced them down. I couldn’t lose control and make a mistake now. I needed to be ready to fight. I could feel that it was coming, my skin prickled with anxiety and expectation.

“Wait, no!” I heard Peggy shout from behind me.

I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid looking back at her, knowing that if I did, I wouldn’t want to risk leaving her. I heard Tuc grunt softly as he tried to hold her back before a gasp came from Peggy.

That made me turn, the fear that she’d somehow been hurt, but Tuc had just picked her up and slung her over his shoulder before starting to run towards the ship.

“I’ll get her into a suit and belted down then come back out, if I’m needed. Good luck, Aries. If anything happened, it was truly an honour working with you. I’m glad I met you,” Tuc said softly into my earpiece, shattering my fragile control over my tears.

I wish I could have responded but, with the Guardians so close to me, it wasn’t safe. I sucked in a shaky breath levelling my gaze at the Guardians before me. I hadn’t even really looked at them before but now that I did, I was a little surprised to see that they’d followed our requests and were not wearing helmets. They looked similar, with buzz cuts and bored expressions. Scars marred their faces, some almost as fresh as Peggy’s scars looked.

“Our side of the agreement has been met,” the slightly taller of the two said, their voice strangely detached.

“Of course, Captain Aries,” Elliot sneered in that same gruff voice as before. “Time to go.”

He nudged me forwards, seemingly uncaring, but there was worry hidden deep in his eyes.

I looked down, trying to look the part of someone who had been held captive for the last however long, and stepped forwards towards the Guardians.

“Hands out,” the other one shouted, their voice obnoxiously loud.

I forced myself to flinch away from them and slowly raised my hands.

Pad of thumb to the base of my little finger, I repeated to myself.

The world moved agonisingly slow as the Guardian reached behind their back for their cuffs then started to reach for my wrists.

The word ‘NOW’ appeared in red flashing letters before my eyes and I did as commanded, pressing my thumb to the trigger hard. A red countdown started on the screen as the Guardian’s hands came closer but I’d pushed the button too soon. I lunged forwards, wrapping my hands around the Guardian’s wrists, trying to dig my fingertips in so that the taser darts would pierce their armour. His eyes widened in confusion or possibly fear and they stumbled backwards but I clung on, forcing myself to grip them painfully hard.

The timer finally flashed green and I felt the gentle brush of movement across the inside of my fingers before the Guardian convulsed. I leapt back to avoid being crushed as they fell wordlessly to the ground.

The other Guardian jumped forwards too quickly and I barely had enough time to hold my thumb against the tip of my middle finger, swinging my arm out before the blades had even started to emerge. I slashed wildly, curling my fingers around the blades as they emerged just centimetres from the young-looking Guardian’s neck.

A gasp slipped out of their mouth as my blades sunk into their flesh, one quickly following the other in out of control swipes, and for a moment, they were motionless. Then, blood started to gush out of the red, gaping wounds. I froze, wanting to rush forwards and clasp my hands around the wounds until our Doctor could reach up, despite the Guardian not being on our side, but I couldn’t make myself move.

I’d never seen someone die right in front of me before. I’d seen videos of it, of course, they’d shown us in class, but it was different seeing it for real. The wet gurgling noises that came from the Guardian as they slowly slumped forwards, their hands clawing at their bisected throat, will haunt me forever.

Run! Cas screamed into my head, jolting me back into the present.

I looked at Elliot, fear pounding through me as even more Guardians poured out of the ship.

“Go!” he ordered firmly. “I’ll cover you.”

He pulled a long gun out of his trouser leg, snapping the barrel into place and activating the auto-shield. I stumbled backwards, pulling the dart phaser out of my stomach pocket.

“Aries, I’m going to activate your shield now. It’s in the back of your suit, don’t be alarmed,” Andy’s soft voice floated over my earpiece. “I want you to turn and run towards the ship, okay?”

I nodded, my eyes still wide and fixed on Elliot who was taking aim at the Guardians, before turning and sprinting back towards my ship. The shield sprang from my back, protecting me from stray bullets.

It felt wrong. I shouldn’t have run. We were taught to fight, not run. On the base, they always said that, if the mission is to fight, you should fight until you can’t fight anymore. The mission should have been to fight. I know that it was actually to get Peggy back but I feel like I could have done more. I should have.

The guns on the ship were warming up as I rushed towards it, feeling like a coward. Tuc was leaning around the door, a gun held in one hand, the other gesturing for me to hurry. I dived through the door, longing to rush to check on Peggy, but I forced myself to duck to one side of the door.

With a wave of my arm, I disengaged my shield before peeking back through the door. Elliot was slowly walking back towards us, angling his gun around his shield to keep firing at the Guardians.

I need to help, I realised, staring down at the tiny phaser in my hand.

It was tiny. Useless from that distance.

“Gun, I need a gun,” I muttered.

“Back of the ship, gun rack,” Tuc called over the clatter of gunfire.

I rushed towards the guns, once more thankful for my mods that let me hear him despite the almost painfully loud noise of the ship guns firing, and picked up a pulse rifle, ideal for the distance. I quickly poured the armour piercing bullets into the magazine before slotting it into the gun with a thunk.

Hurrying back to the door, I peered around it once more to check on Elliot. He was closer to the ship now but still not close enough. He needed more cover than we were giving, than we could give from where we were standing.

Fuck, I thought.

I looked between Elliot and us once more, the beginnings of an idea growing in my head. The main reason Elliot was taking so long to get back to us was because the Guardians were mostly aiming at him. A few were aiming at our ships and where they thought the engines might be but our shields and deflectors would protect it.

But… if someone were out there with him, they’d aim for them. He’d be able to move quicker. His shield was holding up pretty well…

“Tuc,” I shouted, waving my hand so that he would see me.

He ducked back behind the door, his eyes finding me.

“We need to go out there. We can use the shields and they’ll aim for us so he can run. Plus, we’ll be able to get clearer shots at them,” I said, waiting anxiously for his reply.

I could see his mind working furiously as he processed my plan.

“Alright. El, did you hear Aries’ plan?” he said, glancing around the door again.

A grunt came over my earpiece.

“They ain’t going to like it,” Elliot muttered, sounding breathless. “But I’m at risk of running out of ammo out here. Grab your guns and all the bullets you can get.”

I started running for the back of the ship before he even started talking, snapping ammo packs and weapons to my jumpsuit. I grabbed as many as I could, torn between not wanting to be weighed down but still wanting to have enough, before scrabbling at my back, trying to unclip my shield.

“Here,” Tuc said softly, removing it for me and holding it out for me. “If you attach it to your shoulder, there, it should pop up in front of you a little without you needed to hold it up at all.”

He tapped my shoulder to demonstrate and I quickly clipped it on, seeing the alert pop up from my eye mods to let me know it was properly attached.

“Okay,” I muttered quietly, more to myself than to Tuc before looking up at him. “Ready?”