(Ten)
Henry slept poorly in his new bed. He simply couldn't get comfortable with no back support and these rough smelly blankets. It didn't take long for him to join the others on the floor. Gambit was out cold, snoozing deeply, but it had always been easy for him to sleep anywhere. Henry remembered the time he saw Remy dozing comfortably in X-men's Blackbird jet while standing up. They had been on a horrible mission and none of them had slept in days. Remy wasn't a soldier and didn't know diddly about flying the plane so he just grabbed a ceiling strap and zonked out right on his feet. They were making their great escape in the middle of a fire fight, surrounded by enemy fighters, but the Cajun thief never flinched or woke. The kid was strange.
Henry looked next to him and saw that Logan was awake as well. He was lying on his back staring into the dim light of one of the wall torches, scratching his belly absently with one hand. He looked like he was worried, but it was more of a matter that he was relaxed and comfortable and really wanted a nice cigar right about now. He hadn't smoked one in a while because of this trip and was sorely missing them. Logan turned to him with a small smile. "Somethin' on yer mind, Blue?"
"Not really. Just hoping this all turns out well. I don't think I'd like to make this my permanent residence."
"That makes two of us. Why don'tcha try an get some sleep? It's gonna be a long day tomorrow."
Henry grunted and rolled over. He was far more comfortable on the floor and soon dropped off into a dreamless sleep.
They were collected the next morning just outside their door by Zekian. He was to give them a tour of the areas where they would hopefully be working soon. "I'll show you around some and then we'll start working with some of the strategists," he said.
Zekian led them first to the arsenal. This weapons dump consisted of several large caves that were stockpiled with many different kinds of weapons and military supplies. The area was heavily guarded and they had to keep checking in with the guards when they passed from one room to the next. Henry and Remy hung back a bit, they knew nothing of these things and let Logan handle this.
Zekian brought them into the first cave of the arsenal where they saw some crates that were neatly stacked against the back wall. Like everything else here, they were made of wood and had Dognan markings on them. Logan was allowed to open one and he was quite surprised to see some land mines and grenades. They were ancient and looked to be World War II issue, but no less dangerous for being so. Land mines were not something he had considered here and he wondered numbly if the pens had been booby trapped. He was glad they hadn't been there long enough to find out, but if they went back out into the ruins, they would have to be careful.
"Where did you get this stuff?" Wolverine asked, not caring for how old some of this stuff was. His extensive training in the art of war made him painfully aware that old ordinance like this could be far more dangerous than new.
Zekian was quick to answer Logan's question. "Our First Pilot, Fallen, is very resourceful. She has been known to raid the Dognan storerooms now and again and when she finds stuff like this, she brings it back to us for us to use. Where the Dognan get it, I can't imagine." Zekian moved on, pointing out other items of interest. "We have mostly swords and bows, but we do have some Dognan energy weapons."
"You'll need more than what I seen here ta fight a war," Logan advised. "Ya wanna beat these guys, you gotta have the same weapons they do or better."
"That won't be a problem. Fallen just received some information regarding a shipment of weapons to be delivered to one of their storage houses and she is planning a raid. If she is successful, it will vastly improve our inventory."
Zekian led them further in where they next saw some laser cannons and demolition supplies. Powdered TNT and sticks of dynamite were in small boxes carefully labeled. There were even some cubes of C4 left haphazardly about, making Logan's fingers twitch in nervous irritation. He knew just how dangerous that stuff was, it was worse than those land mines he'd seen earlier. These fools were going to blow themselves to bits and hand the Dognan their victory without the cat guys even knowing it.
Logan had received extensive training in explosives and special forces operations. He knew how to construct bombs and their timers. He knew best how to place them and keep his people out of harm's way and he had an idea he was going to be instrumental in anything these guys had planned. This type of warfare was something the Professor discouraged and Logan had never taught a class like that at the school, but he'd never forgotten what he himself had been taught.
Zekian pointed to the dynamite and plastic explosives. "We have these but we don't know how to use them. We were hoping maybe one of you might be able to teach us."
Logan grinned in anticipation, the first place he would start was how to keep that shit locked up. Casualties were supposed to happen during the war, not before it due to stupidity. "I can help ya there, no problem."
In the last cave, there were neat rows of swords stacked and bows hung. They were homemade and not the nice modern weapons like he'd seen back home. The only good thing about them was that there were a lot of them in case they fell apart.
They then moved on to the training areas where the Clansmen were taught how to fight. Remy and Beast perked up a bit here, both had given self defense classes back at the Mansion and were curious how the Clan trained their men. One room was as spacious and open as the ship hanger. To make it easy to see in the darkness, the room was lit with torches and biers burning every few feet. They could see large squads of men performing martial exercises in a neat and orderly way. Each squad had a handler or trainer who walked among them carrying large bull whips. The sound of cracking and lashing was constant and loud, these handlers showed no mercy and were obeyed without question. You learned or got beaten, those were your options.
Logan couldn't help but growl softly at the sight of it. While he didn't exactly disapprove of corporal punishment for a glaring offense, if they tried to use the whip on him, someone was going to be in for a nasty surprise. He would jam that thing so far up the handler's ass, he'd be shitting leather for a week.
"Those are Valentin's men," Zekian explained, obliviously noting Logan's interest without realizing the guy was pissed off. "They are the most highly trained and the most skilled. He rules them with an iron hand and they love him. He is the greatest hope of our people."
Zekian showed them another area with large cubicles and mirrors. Here men sparred with each other in hand to hand combat. Henry was surprised to see some of the men working with holograms. He never expected to see that kind of technology used here in this primitive place. The holograms were of very poor quality, not like what Fallen was using or the nice ones back home. They were solid like Seth had been, but had no details or faces.
"These are the where the newest men start out in their training," Zekian explained. "These holograms are poor though a while back we used to have some rather good ones. Siskan. But we had some trouble with them. One of them went crazy and thought it was real or something. It malfunctioned and killed some of the men. That's what happens when you take a pleasure program and convert it over for military use, I say," he said with a laugh. "I was one of the lucky few who got to try the pleasure programs out before they changed them all over. Quite wonderful, I tell you. Better than a real woman any day. She'd do anything you asked --- anything! Shame the Dognan killed off all the real Siskans who made those wonderful holograms. It would've been nice to have more of them. Worst thing the Clan ever did was dump all those programs. Who knows where they all went to?"
The X-men exchanged meaningful glances at each other. They now had an idea where one of them may have gone. Henry was immediately concerned at the idea of a Siskan hologram that went crazy and killed someone. When he looked back on it, Kimble and Seth's emotional instability could be a sign of some sort of damage. It certainly made no sense for Fallen to have chosen them to be like that, who would want a companion that argued back? If Fallen did indeed possess one of those Siskan holograms, she could be in danger. Unfortunately, at the moment they had no way of contacting her.
They were taken to where the alpha troops were working. If all went well, this would be where they were moved to next, to be with their own mutant kind. Here things were less formal since these men were used mainly for stealth and black ops. There were no handlers with whips here and for the first time, the X-men saw some women soldiers. As alphas, they were considered special and privileged since there were only a few of them. The ratio of human to mutant back home was less than half a percent of the normal population. In order to flood this barracks with alphas, the Dognan would have had to make many raids indeed.
The X-men were told that these alphas here worked closely with the Clansmen but since most of them came from off world like the X-men, they didn't share the Clan ideals of subjugating women. The skills of the women were too valuable for them to be beaten or wasted as servants. Here they were well dressed and fed, walking about as freely as any of the men. Henry noted with great interest that there were a couple of white skinned pilots. They, too, were treated as equals and seemed to belong here. None of the alphas or pilots here wore restraining devices of any kind.
Logan grinned when he caught a familiar scent and heard a sharp whistle from across the room. "Well, now this is sight for sore eyes!" he growled as their long lost friend Jacob came running over. Jacob was the one they had gone in search of when this whole weird adventure had begun. Logan held his hand out and Jacob took it, pumping it madly.
"My word! I never expected to see you guys here!" Jacob said, his grin wider than Logan's. Jacob was a medium sized man, blond and blue eyed. He was in the best physical condition Logan had seen him in and was obviously thriving in his new environment, bright and happy. Jacob's ability as a teleporter would make him very valuable here and it seemed that the Clan was smart enough to see that he was comfortable.
"Yeah, well. It wasn't exactly planned."
Jacob cocked his head. "Dognan express?"
"Got it in one."
"Yeah, we were lookin' for you, mon ami," Remy added. "Guess dem cat guys t'ought we were too good to pass up, neh?"
Jacob looked at Remy, saw his crimson eyes with recognition, and addressed him with a small sneer, "LeBeau."
Jacob's greeting had all the warmth of a frigid arctic breeze. Even this far away from home, Remy's bad reputation had preceded him. He didn't know Jacob well, but this wasn't the first time he hadn't been well received by others he didn't really know. Remy nodded at him but said nothing more, silenced by Jacob's obvious dislike of him.
Henry gave Jacob a big blue squeeze, trying to divert Jacob's attention away from his less than beloved teammate. His physician's eye went right to work, grateful for once that the Clanspeople here wore so little. He noted as Logan had that Jacob seemed to be doing much better than he had in the past, but couldn't help himself but ask, "Are you well? We've all been very worried about you since you vanished."
"I'm fine. Never better."
"Yes, I can see that."
"They got you runnin' in hoops?" Logan grumbled. He still wasn't happy with their current situation and wanted a more reliable opinion of what things were like here.
Jacob shrugged casually and said honestly, "Not really. I wanted to join up after they dragged my ass out of the pens. One overnight stay in there was enough to convert me, thanks."
"You were there, too? It was pretty awful," Henry said.
"Yeah. Like I said I was there only one night before the Clan came and bailed me out. Did you guys meet that crazy pilot? Fallen? What a trip, man. That guy Kimble cracked me up."
"Yeah, we met 'em. What about Kimble?" Logan asked, curious.
Jacob laughed as he explained. "We got struck outside the hanger here, waiting for clearance? We had to wait a while and we were all bored so he's up there sittin' at his desk, smoking. He starts telling these hilarious dirty jokes. I mean, the guy never stopped. I've never known anybody who knew so many. I was crackin' up. It was great. I'd love to meet that guy for real some day, he was a riot."
Logan glanced at Henry. It seemed that Jacob didn't know Kimble and Seth weren't real, the illusion had been that perfect.
"Sounds like your experience was better than ours," Henry commented, not bothering to set his friend straight. It didn't matter what Kimble was or wasn't here. Henry went on to briefly detail their horrific adventure with Valentin, he wanted to hear what Jacob would have to say about it.
Jacob shook his head. "That sounds a little crazy, my friend. Valentin is a hard guy, yes, but I've never seen him do anything like that. He's actually pretty decent. He reminds me a lot of my drill instructor when I was in the army. He works just as hard as the rest of us and goes right into battle with us, no matter what. He never has us taking any risks he doesn't take for himself. I hope you join up with us. Then you'd see."
"We weren't exactly given a choice," Logan said. "We're here fer a while."
"Good. You'll see it's not so bad. The alpha squads get better privileges and quarters. I'm surprised they didn't take you here directly."
"Maybe they wanted to see if we would back out."
Jacob smiled. "I hope not. We could really use you guys, especially you," he said to Wolverine. "We need a guy who knows explosives."
"What's goin' on?"
"A big raid. It won't be for a while but we have to get ready. I think they want to blow up the main Dognan base just north of here. We take that out and they'll run with their tails tucked, I guarantee it."
Zekian cleared his throat and the reunion was over. The X-men followed him back to Cerebus' chamber and planning room. The strategists showed them what few plans they had and they and the X-men spent the rest of the day going over what could be done. It seemed the Clan had plenty of resources, they just weren't being used as effectively as they could be and the X-men were quick to point out ways they could improve. That one thing alone was worth having them there. Cerebus was pleased with the day's progress and told them they would be moved to the alpha quarters in a couple of days.
When they returned to their quarters, a package was waiting for them outside the door. Henry picked it up and brought it inside. He opened the bundle and saw three wrapped boxes, one for each of them. Gifts from Fallen, a note said. He opened his and was pleased to find four large books on various subjects. She had included a translator so he could read the different languages. Remy was given several packs of finely decorated Clan playing cards. Logan got a bottle of quality liquor and some cigars. 'Don't ask me where Seth found those...' her note said and Logan grunted with amusement.
Henry saw those with a groan. He had a low tolerance for tobacco smoke and things were bad enough already with all the torches around. The last thing he needed was cigar smoke added into the mix. "I hope you don't plan on smoking those in here."
"Nope," Logan grinned, lighting up.
Henry rolled his eyes. Yes, this was going to be a long trip indeed. He smiled when he saw that Fallen had also packed a small amount of fresh food for them. She clearly knew just how bad the dining was here and felt bad for them. They decided to eat sparingly and make it stretch. Who knew how long they were going to be stuck here?