| For other uses, see Georgia (disambiguation) |
- "They plan to use the weapon in the next twenty-four hours to declare their independence from Russia and Georgia."
- ―Victoria Hand[src]
Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Formerly known as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, it was part of the Soviet Union from 1922 until declaring independence in 1991.
History[]
Russia-Georgia War[]
- "I was in Georgia during the incursion in '08."
- ―Grant Ward and Victoria Hand[src]
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling themselves the Republic of South Ossetia. Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to re-establish its control over the region by force. This crisis led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War and two other conflicts, in 2004 and 2008. The 2008 conflict led to the Russia–Georgia war, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian autonomous oblast.
During this conflict, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Grant Ward was sent to Georgia, and made several contacts in the area.[1]
Overkill Device[]
Arrival at Georgia[]
Phil Coulson and his team traveled to the Hub in order to deliver information collected by agent Shaw in Siberia, regarding a Clearance Level 8 classified mission, the disablement of a weapon called the Overkill Device that a separatist group in South Ossetia had built, intending to use it in the following 24 hours to declare their independence from Russia and Georgia.
S.H.I.E.L.D. put together a two-man team incursion to sneak the border between Georgia and South Ossetia, and disable the weapon, choosing Grant Ward for his previous experience in the area, and Leo Fitz for his ability to identify and dismantle the device on-site.
Ward and Fitz arrived at a bar near the Caucasus Mountains where Ward intended to reach his old contact Uri Dubrovsky to help them cross the border to South Ossetia. Fitz annoyed Ward telling him an anecdote that Fitz found very funny, but the nature of the mission made Ward feel that his teammate was not taking their mission very seriously.
Ward placed a Remote Beacon in a safe place to activate it once they disabled the Overkill Device, and entered the bar, asking for a drink for himself and for Dubrovsky. One of the men in the bar, Vladimi, told Ward that Dubrovsky was dead and pointed him with a gun, while other men surrounded Ward and Fitz.
Ward and Fitz were tied to chairs and waited until the mob boss arrived to the bar. Ward started to think about possible escape plans before the boss arrived, all of them involving scenarios with personal risks that Fitz would not be able to overcome. Marta, the local mob boss, arrived and questioned Ward about his relationship with Dubrovsky, as he was involved with separatists.
Ward tried to convince her to help them cross the border, as their intention was to stop the separatists. Marta didn't trust them, and as Vladimi was about to shoot Ward, Fitz used a Localized EMP Device to cause a blackout, making the people at the bar complain as they were watching a soccer match.
Fitz offered to repair the circuits, gaining the trust of Marta when doing it, as she even affectionately called him Mishka, little bear. The locals celebrated the return of electricity in time to see the match, and Marta invited Fitz to a drink before talking about how she could help them cross the border to South Ossetia.[1]
Crossing the Border[]
- "Two million rubles? We need to work on your negotiation skills."
"I thought they were like pesos. And anyway, you should be thanking me. I shorted the circuit breaker with my localized EMP when we were tied up."
"Really?"
"Yes, and my plan worked because we're over the border now, aren't we?" - ―Grant Ward and Leo Fitz[src]
Grant Ward and Leo Fitz got on a truck that was about to cross the border to South Ossetia, with Ward telling Fitz that they should work on his negotiation skills, given that Fitz offered an exorbitant amount of money for Marta's help in crossing the border, and Fitz revealed his role in causing the blackout to gain her trust, surprising Ward with his resourcefulness.
Suddenly, the truck stopped, and Ward intended to go out and check the situation when they heard gunshots. Ward managed to defeat the tree members of the border patrol that killed the driver of the truck, but told Fitz to run as more patrollers approached. They hid inside a large drainage pipe as the border patrol was looking for them using canine squads, spending the night there to avoid being caught.
Ward and Fitz wondered why S.H.I.E.L.D. would send them to a mission like that, and Fitz took out the sandwich Jemma Simmons prepared for him. Ward took the sandwich and threw it to the water with Fitz looking open-mouthed. Ward threw it to avoid being tracked by the dogs using the smell of the prosciutto, lecturing him that they were on a mission, not on a picnic. Fitz was outraged for Ward's behavior, but Ward silenced him due to the proximity of the patrols. Once they left, Ward clarified that the only thing he was doing was to take care him, just as Phil Coulson asked him to do.[1]
Overkill Facility[]
- "This is gonna take a while."
"You have ten minutes."
"I thought you'd say five." - ―Leo Fitz and Grant Ward[src]
Grant Ward and Leo Fitz lied on a road inside a MAG Pouch, waiting until a track appeared to infiltrate the compound where the Overkill Device was built. Once a truck passed over them, the MAG Pouch adhered itself to the underside of the truck.
Ward and Fitz managed to enter compound unnoticed, with Fitz using a device called the "Magic Window" to see through a wall and learn that two armed guards were waiting on the other side. Without Fitz noticing made a signal to the extraction team, but noticed that there was no extraction planned, as nobody answered his signal. Ward entered the room and defeated the guards, with Fitz starting to worry as he thought Ward was a third guard while watching through the Magic Window.
Fitz located the Overkill Device and quickly determined where its core was located, and that it had a system to amplify and direct the sound waves used to trigger munitions from a distance. Ward was not impressed by the looks of the device, as it didn't appeared capable of shooting down jets out of the sky, but Fitz told him that as with many other things, its looks can be deceiving. Fitz and Ward disarmed the outer casing, and Ward informed Fitz that he had ten minutes to disarm the device.
Ward asked Fitz to show him the final steps to disable the device, prompting him to leave. Fitz told him that they should stick to the extraction plan, but Ward confessed that there was not going to be an extraction plan, and that once the Overkill Device is disabled and the Remote Beacon he set before crossing the border is activated, they would be alone.
Fitz assured Ward that he was not a coward, he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent just like Ward. Ward tried to convince him that he had nothing to prove, as both he and Jemma Simmons knew that Fitz would have jumped out of the Bus to save her. Fitz answered that he was not proving anything, it is simply that before leaving, Phil Coulson asked him to take care of Ward, and that was what he was doing.
Both decided to stay and finish the mission together, and once Fitz disabled the device, Ward activated the beacon and the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams were authorized to start raiding the compound. An alarm was set before Ward and Fitz could leave, and Fitz quickly transformed the core of the Overkill Device into a handheld version and attacked the guards that were after them with it. As now the guards were unarmed, Ward fought against them, defeating many of them, and gaining Fitz's help to defeat the last one who had him cornered.
On the outside of the compound, a large group of guards ambushed Ward and Fitz, but the rest of their team arrived in the Bus to extract them, surprising both Ward and Fitz that, instead of an extraction team, what arrived was the Cavalry, that defeated the guards using the engines of the plane.[1]
Trivia[]
- Georgia contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. This conflict is referenced by Grant Ward, as he had previous experience in the area.
