Synopsis
Peggy Carter and Howard Stark have gone to Moscow in 1952 to see Woodrow McCord who has found an alien artefact which Stark thinks is a beacon. Howard activated it and they were attacked by an alien spaceship. Now they're running away from it with their young companion Tania Belinskaya who leads them to a door.
Stark seems to drop the beacon and a young boy picks it up. The alien craft targets and destroys him.
But then he wakes up and it seems that last bit was a dream. He never dropped the beacon but he turned it off and the ship vanished. Tania led them to safety in this deserted building, and Woody has gone to find them some transport.
Tania switches the light on to reveal an underground testing place for large (rocket?) engines. She says her father helped design this and other places like it. The women leave Howard to goggle at the marvels while Peggy finds Tania some more practical clothing for the adventure they seem to be on.
But Carter really wants to grill Tania about who she really is. The teen confesses that she's not the official 'guide' who had been assigned to Peggy (which Peg figured out straightaway last issue). She wants their help rescuing her father who's been sent to a Gulag. Peggy says they can't interrupt their mission for that, but she'll do what she can later.
McCord returns with a truck. (Stark continues to declare that he can provide Woodrow with much better equipment, but McCord continues to not trust hi-tech. And he also doesn't trust Tania, or even Carter.)
On the way out of town they're faced with an armed roadblock, including a tank. Howard drives them through the barrier while Peggy shoots to wound the soldiers and Woody uses a futuristic cannon (1 of Stark's inventions it seems he did accept) to deal with the tank.
McCord takes them to a village where lives Pasha Antipov, the man he got the beacon from. There's no answer at his door, but Tania befriends an old woman who lives nearby. She invites them in and says Antipov hasn't been there for weeks.
Woody says Antipov told him about lights in the sky. The woman says Pasha gets confused about time. He could have meant the Sokhite-Alin meteorite of 1947. Stark mentions the 1908 Tunguska meteor. But McCord insists that when Pasha gave him the beacon he talked of a crashed 'ghost ship' that melted away and a witch of light who went into the forest.
The old woman says they'd be better off investigating the giant bear that is terrorising the village. Just then they see a large shadow outside the window. Woodrow dashes out and indeed sees a fairly big bear.
McCord pulls out another of Stark's guns, which fails to fire the 1st few times. But eventually he wounds the bear which runs off. Woody discards his coat to reveal an armoured flying harness and sets off in pursuit. When he catches up with it the bear speaks and turns into a skinny boy. He says his name is Milkhail Uriokovitch and claims to know what they're looking for.