Before his time – later than you think

C3

Good news: Steve had clothes fit for the climate. He wasn't freezing at the moment. He had food (for now). There were bound to be maps around somewhere.

Bad news: Steve was alone at the base. There was no actual heating at the base. The food supply was limited. He had no idea where he was or how to get away from here.

Plan: Find a map. Find transport to the front (somewhere in Europe). Pack any and all rations possible. Find a commanding officer. Go win the war.

Easy.

"Sir. We have a report from Greenland. Apparently they have found some kind of aircraft." Coulson looked up from the computer screen.

"An aircraft?" The agent held out the report and Phil accepted it, leafing through it. "What model and country?"

"We don't know yet sir. It isn't a standard model, specialists are on their way as we speak."

"Who?"

"Agent Pennyworth and Agent Jenkins, sir." Coulson nodded, leafed through the report again.

"It's old?"

"Yes sir. The ones who found it said it appeared from under the ice." Coulson made a humming noise.

"Keep me updated."

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed." The agent left.

Steve went over the base again, this time searching for clues and leads, papers or stray reports, anything really to know which direction he should go. He needed to know the date and how long he'd been gone as well, but that was less important than getting back. Anything he found would probably be a bit old anyway in a base that had been abandoned like this, but it was his best shot at the moment.

Finally he ended up in the control room again. Laying his finds at the large table there, lining up the things he could use and what he would need.

He had found a map, old, worn and stained, for sure, but then Steve had worked with worse. Not much worse, but enough that he was glad for it. It showed his current position, a small mark on place in what looked like a wasteland, but there was what looked like a village or small town to the south and a bit east.

Upernavik, where there seemed to be some kind of landing pad for planes and the like. Hopefully there would be some kind of transport and information there. It looked like it would take a few days to get to there, but it would be better than slowly starving to death where he was now. Besides he would not be able to help anyone by staying here.

Beside the map Steve's scavenging had garnered him a backpack that only needed minimal fixing, a second pair of socks, and a gun.

The gun only had one clip, but that was more than Steve had hoped for. Disassembling and putting it back together was a challenge, as it was a model Steve hadn't seen before, but that was ok. He'd worked with new or unusual models before and it had worked out alright.

Steve had to admit he was a bit disappointed that he hadn't found any papers, any information was valuable at this point, but he would make do until he reached the town.

The chain from the ship went into the bag, as did the map and all the food that would fit. He had to leave a small amount of the stuff so he left what would make it the longest without going bad. He never knew if someone else would need it. Finally he stuffed a blanket into the bag, making it hard to close, but the blanket would be needed outside the base. For sleeping on and bandages in a worst-case scenario.

Checking his equipment again Steve prepared to leave again shield strapped tightly to his arm, as he didn't want to place it under the bag or the coat where he wouldn't be able to use it. While it hadn't helped much with the bear, it had proven its worth many times in battle. So if anyone tried shooting at him he would be prepared.

The gun went into his belt, holstered at his right side and ready for use. The knife went into the left boot. Taking a deep breath, Steve rolled his shoulders and looked round the room one last time. He nodded to himself and left. The war would wait for no man.

"So what do you think we'll find?" Agent Anton Jenkins asked his partner.

"Some plane from Sweden or something."

"But why would it be here? Don't you think it'll be a plane out on a special op? An undercover mission to save the world? Oh! I know, experimental warfare. Robotics! Nano-fiber and high-tech equipment! Or! OR! ALIENS! Nick! What if it's aliens?!"

"Calm down Jenkins. It's probably just a plane that got of course. …and it's Nickolas"

"Really, you think so? But it's not a standard model. Not even close from the report."

"Probably just a new model. You know the crowd never know their stuff."

"…But that's so boring and it was supposed to be old."

"Yeah? How many times have we done this before?"

"…Thirty-seven."

"And how many times was it a new or unusual model?"

"…Thirty-seven."

"So the chance of it being something unknown is really, really low. I say we get to it, have a look, confirm the model and get back in time for dinner."

"Fine. But the age!"

"Probably just from a test flight or something."

"But-"

"Sirs?" A voice interrupted. "We're here."

"Thank you." Jenkins smiled at the man while Nickolas Pennyworth just nodded and got out of the Snowmobile, a tracked vehicle developed for transport in climates with deep snow. This one was dual tracked and could carry up to seven people, two at the front and five in the back.

Climbing out after Pennyworth, or Nickolas to a lucky few, Anton Jenkins made faces at his partners back. The wind was like a hit in the face when he stepped out, howling and throwing snow around. Veils of snow was lifted by the wind here and there, moving the snow around and making it hard to distinguish the shape of their surroundings.

"Well. If there is one thing I didn't miss, it is the darn cold."

"Don't be a pussy, its only just below thirty."

"Celsius! And I'm from England! Thirteen below is plenty, thank you very much." Jenkins could almost hear Nick rolling his eyes.

"…right." He shook his head." Let's just get it over with, shall we?"

"How long has she been up?" Jenkins turned to the guide.

"We found her this morning, couldn't have been long though. A week at the most."

"A week… isn't that, a bit long for no one to find a plane?"

"Not out here. There isn't exactly a lot of people around, less people who goes on tripps for the fun of it."

"Where is she then?" Jenkins couldn't see anything but the snow in the air and dumped in piles.

"Right this way." They were shown around one of the snow piles, only to realize it was a shipwreck halfway cowered in snow. There were obvious holes where the ship had been damaged and pieces were missing. Other places where the metal had been partly crushed or deformed.

"…"

"…" Pennyworth paged his com. "Sir. You might want to take a look at this."

The landscape was purely ice and snow as Steve walked. Sometimes the snow was packed and hard, making it possible for him to walk on top of it. Other times it would turn soft and he'd fall through the top layer and end up with his legs encased in it.

It took a long time to walk even a short distance. The sun sank below the horizon again as Steve walked. There were ridges in some places, deep chasms where he had to jump across else they force him to go around.

One of these were too wide where he came to it. He walked along it finally finding a part where the ice walls were close enough for him to jump across. Taking the knife in one hand and fastening the chain in the handle. Backing up and running Steve planted his foot a feet from the edge and pushed himself into the air.

Upper body landing on the flat of the ice and lower body hanging in the air Steve sank the knife into the ice. His right hand tried to find purchase to drag himself up. Rolling onto his back Steve took a moment to just breathe.

The stars were so much brighter here than they had ever been in Brooklyn, but as bright as they were the bands of purple and green swishing across the sky was what really caught his eyes.

Grabbing the bag Steve brought out the blanked and curled it around him, the soft material forming a barrier between him and the cold, hindering the ice from cooling him down too much. Eyes on the magnificent display he slowly fell asleep.

"What can you tell me, Jenkins, Pennyworth?" The senior agent gestured for them to have a seat. Jenkins threw himself down in the closest one.

"It's not a standard model, sir" Nickolas began, taking the other seat.

"Could be alien for all we know!" Jenkins smiled around his cookie, causing Nickolas to sigh.

"It really couldn't. The materials are all from earth from what we can tell, the-"

"But not the designs. They aren't like any other plane designs I've seen."

"I know, Jenkins, I was getting to that."

"You always take too long Nick." Nickolas just sighed and began anew. He'd done this to many times to not know where to stop arguing.

"As we were saying: the designs are of unknown origin, but the material is all from earth. The front of the ship has sustained heavy damage. Interestingly enough it seems the back end of the plane has suffered a lot of damage as well, but from our calculations it should not have been enough to take it out of the sky." Jenkins looked up from the cookie-plate.

"Tell him about the power source." Agent summers raised an eyebrow and Nickolas sighed again.

"The metal surrounding the plane has been sutured in some kind of energy, we tried determining where the energy had originated and found that the source must have been in the inner parts of the plane. It deviates from any and every human power source we know of. We also determined that it must have been shot down very recently-"

"Which it can't have been as it was under the ice." Jenkins broke in.

"So we tried gauging the how fast the parts lost saturation. The larger the pieces, the longer it took. At an estimate the plane has been down for thirty to a ninety years. It depends on how sutured the metal was. Ninety years for one hundred percent and thirty years for a minimum of thirty-two percent saturation, give or take twenty years."

"That is not a very close estimate."

"No." Nickolas shrugged. "We need more data to get a closer estimate, so-"

"So we want to enter the ship." Jenkins had put down the plate and was staring right at their handler.

An: Yay! Finally. This has been sitting half-finished on my laptop since I posted the last chapter. 8I Feels good to be done.

On another note I realized I put "winter of 39-40" in the last chapter. Problem is: Amerika didn't join the war until 1942 and Steve didn't enter until June 14 1943! So I fixed it. It says 43-44 now, sadly (not really) that winter wasn't as bad as the one 39-40. So the coldest it went that year was -17 C.

In 1939-40 it went down to -23 C (-10 F) which is a lot colder. Oh well.

Source for weather:

. /learning/library/archive-hidden-treasures/monthly-weather-report

2017-01-22 00:57