Kidnapping of Skye

Kidnapping of Skye
Previous	Ambush at the Outdoor Theater
Concurrent	Attack on Providence
Next	Infiltration into Cybertek Corporate Headquarters
War	HYDRA Uprising
Date	Spring 2014
Location	Providence, Ontario, Canada Los Angeles, California
Result (Outcome)	Phil Coulson rescues Skye from HYDRA, although they manage to obtain the research on GH.325 from Coulson's Team Hard Drive.
Combatants
HYDRA
Skye
Commanders
Grant Ward Deathlok
Skye
Casualties
-
-

"Gonna be honest with you, Hill, I'm having a pretty bad day. So if I were you, I would get the hell out of my way."
"Give up Skye and we'll talk about it."
"Yeah, that's not happening."

―Grant Ward and Maria Hill^[src]

The Kidnapping of Skye was a mission tasked to Grant Ward by John Garrett, in order to force into decrypting Coulson's Team Hard Drive and obtain the research on the GH.325 drug.

Background

"She programmed it to erase all data if anyone other than her attempts to access it."
"Of course she did."
"In case it fell into the wrong hands, I guess."
"You know what that means, Romeo?"

―Raina, Grant Ward and John Garrett^[src]

In the early moments of the HYDRA Uprising, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Skye uploaded all the sensitive information gathered by Phil Coulson and his team on an encrypted hard drive, which she later entrusted to Grant Ward, unaware that he actually was a HYDRA sleeper agent. Ward handed over the hard drive to John Garrett and Raina so that they could access information about the GH.325, but the drive turned out to be impossible to decrypt without Skye, prompting Garrett to send Ward back to rejoin his team, who had found refuge at the secret Providence base.

Claiming that he was still loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., Ward was able to pass the Lie Detector test imposed by Eric Koenig, but knew that his cover could be endangered if Koenig and Skye kept investigating on HYDRA's actions. As he was alone in the base with Skye and Koenig due to the rest of the team having left to find Blackout, Ward murdered Koenig. He then convinced Skye that they should leave Providence using the Bus to unlock the hard drive, as its decryption could only be achieved at a precise location. However, unbeknownst to Ward, Skye had found Koenig's body, and thus knew that he belonged to HYDRA.

Kidnapping

Skye and Grant Ward at Ruthie's Skillet

"You think I don't wanna watch him suffer?"
"Not suffer, die. Garrett doesn't think you're gonna let that happen."
"He's a murderer."
"Yes, he is. Are you?"

―Skye and Deathlok^[src]

Playing a delicate game, Skye pretended to Grant Ward that the hard drive could only be decrypted at Ruthie's Skillet in Los Angeles, the diner where she had first met Mike Peterson, and that it would take more than an hour. Although disenchanted by this news, Ward agreed to let Skye work at her pace. Unbeknownst to him, however, Skye used her computer to report him to the authorities as a dangerous fugitive, thus causing several LAPD officers to slowly approach de diner.

Grant Ward is nearly arrested by the LAPD

As he noticed that the officers were clearing the diner, Ward attempted to convince Skye to leave, but Skye, whose speech towards Ward had become increasingly hostile, refused and revealed that she was the one who had contacted the authorities. The officers then proceeded to arrest both of them, with Skye warning them that Ward was armed, but Ward was able to take down all three officers present at the diner. Taking advantage of the confusion, Skye took her laptop and fled the diner. She went to two other officers waiting outside and begged them to take her away. However, they were shot and wounded by Ward as well.

Deathlok attacks Skye

Skye took the officers' car and drove away, managing to leave Ward behind her. However, she encountered Deathlok shortly afterwards, who jumped on the car and broke the front window, grabbing Skye by the throat to capture her. As a result, Skye was taken back to the Bus for interrogation. Working under John Garrett's instructions, Deathlok granted Ward five minutes to persuade Skye to give him the procedure to unlock the drive. However, Skye expressed nothing but utter disgust towards Ward, completely rejecting her former mentor, who she called a Nazi, and refused to give him the information he needed.

Deathlok threatens to kill Grant Ward

Due to Ward's failure, Deathlok took the interrogation to the next level, ignoring Skye's plea to make him side with her, which was impossible for Deathlok on the account that his son was under threat of HYDRA and that Deathlok himself could be instantly and remotely killed by Garrett. In order to force Skye to come around, Deathlok fired a Heart Stopper at Ward to cause a heart attack, knowing that Skye would not allow someone to be killed because of her, even if that someone was Ward.

Phil Coulson sneaks onto the Bus

Indeed, after a few seconds, Skye gave up and agreed to unlock the drive for Ward and Deathlok, causing Deathlok to end the heart attack on Ward. She revealed that the decryption of the hard drive could only be achieved at a certain altitude, meaning that the Bus had to be taken off. Before taking off, however, Ward was confronted by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill, who exchanged a few taunts with Ward. This enabled Phil Coulson to have enough time to sneak inside the Bus before the plane went in the air.

Phil Coulson and Skye escape with L.O.L.A.

Once inside the Bus, Coulson quickly made it to the containment room, where he found and released Skye. As she warned him about Deathlok's presence on the plane as well, the cyborg appeared, forcing Coulson and Skye to flee to the cargo ramp. There, Coulson opened the ramp and ordered Skye to get on his car L.O.L.A.. While they ended under fire from both Deathlok and Ward, they were able to propel the car out of the sky, and although the thrusters experienced some malfunctions, the car eventually safely landed, thus achieving Skye's rescue from HYDRA.

Aftermath

"I left them a little present when I decrypted the drive."

―Skye^[src]

Although Skye had been rescued from HYDRA, she had had no other choice but to effectively decrypt the hard drive, thus giving HYDRA extensive knowledge on various subjects handled by Coulson's Team during their S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, including the GH.325. As a result, Raina and her team of scientists were later able to synthetise a vial of GH.325 to help Garrett recover from his declining health.

However, Skye also revealed to her team that she had used her time working on the hard drive to elaborate a method based on a Trojan horse which would help them track down HYDRA's moves. Skye would later be able to deploy her method on a computer at the Barbershop Headquarters, which would in turn reveal the location of the Cybertek Manufacturing Facility where the last battle between Coulson's team and John Garrett would be fought.