Chapter 9: Rescue
The sound of a hovercraft engine caught their attention just as they were finishing up their impromptu 'breakfast'. Jubilee stood, shading her eyes, looking at the horizon, searching for the source of the noise. "Logan! Look!"
He looked.
There was a small watercraft heading straight for them. Somewhat similar to the hovercrafts used back when Logan and Jubilee were both with the X-Men, but with a 22nd century twist; it ran on solar power and electricity, not gasoline or other liquid fuel substances. And as it came closer, Logan saw the figure behind the joystick-like controls of the boat. Carey.
She raised her voice above the sound of the engine. "When I get close get in! We can't linger, there are guards on my tail!" Jubilee sprang up and started wading out to deeper water. The watercraft wouldn't be able to come in close to the rocky shoreline, so they would have to go out to it. Logan followed her.
Carey steered the craft between two large rocks and maneuvered into the relatively calm pocket of water behind it. Jubilee gritted her teeth, grabbed Logan around the waist, and blasted off with her paffs. Not a long burst, just a short, controlled one that landed them safely in the back seat of the watercraft. "Hang on! Here we go!" Carey shouted unnecessarily over the sound of the wind. They did so, grabbing the backs of the front seats and hanging on for dear life as Carey swung the craft around in a tight arc and zoomed out of the mini lagoon formed by the two large rocks.
As soon as they got back out to open water, Jubilee saw what she meant. There were three speedboats closing in on them, and their little island, fast. And they were painted in the colors of the dictator's livery.
Carey slammed the guide sticks of heir smaller craft down, and the craft leaped forward. "I was heading out here when they ambushed me!" She called to Logan over the sound of the boat's engine. "I was trying to make like I was just out here for a pleasure ride, but they didn't buy it. All I could do was run for it."
Logan looked back. "They're gaining on us," he said grimly. "Can this thing go any faster?"
"No," Carey said grimly. "But now that you're here…" she gave him the guide sticks for the boat and slipped past him into the back seat. Raising her hands, she closed her eyes in concentration.
A wall of water rose between their boat and their pursuers. It towered over the pursuing boats, threatening to swamp them and capsize the smaller, lighter, faster craft on its downstroke. The men in those other boats, shouting frantically, tried to turn the wheels of their boats to avoid colliding with the wall of water, but for the boat in front, it was too late. It disappeared into that wall of water, and Carey collapsed it. The boat shattered under the weight of the water like matchsticks. Only a few pieces of the boat floated back to the surface; there were no survivors of the three men in the craft.
The other two boats, however, sped up, as if the death of their comrades had spurred them on. Carey raised her hands, preparatory to sending another wave out to them, when Jubilee stepped up beside her. "I'll take care of them," she said coolly. "I may be tired, but I can still take care of them. Get back to piloting the boat." She eyed their pursuers carefully, juggling a handful of plasmoids in each hand. Tossing them almost casually into the water, she called, "Logan, step on it! We don't want to be caught in the aftershock of the blast!" Logan responded by pushing the boat's speed up another notch, and the watercraft peeled away from the other boats, its engine whining in protest.
The other boats hit the exact spot where she had dropped the plasmoids…and she detonated them.
The effect was that of a stick of dynamite dropped in the water under the pursuing boats. Jubilee controlled the direction of the blasts upwards, punching in the hulls of the boats as if they were made of cardboard. Water sprayed up around the sides of the boats, actually carrying the boats upward off the surface of the water a short way before the energy from the blast dissipated and dropped them back into the water. Carey took the water that had been displaced by the blast and used it to flip the boats over, slamming it back down onto the surface of the water; and Jubilee threw a couple of plasmoids at them, sinking them.
There were no survivors.
Carey grinned victoriously as she headed back for the front of the boat, taking the guide sticks from Logan and throttling down the power gradually until they were floating peacefully on an expanse of blue ocean. "That was great! You can be on my team anytime. In fact, I might just ask him for the pair of you!"
Jubilee moved so fast Logan almost missed her sudden flurry. She had Carey pressed against the rail on the side of the boat, threatening her with a paff over her head, before Logan could react. "'Your team'," Jubilee enunciated with deliberate slowness. "'Ask him'. Who's 'him', and what team are you talking about?" She brought the glowing multi-colored ball of light closer to Carey's face.
"That would be me," said a male voice from the radio in the front of the boat. "Jubilee, Logan, please. Don't shoot the messenger. Carey was acting on my orders. Reluctantly, but she was acting on my orders."
Jubilee frowned, looked at Logan. Logan frowned too. That voice…
And then a craft 'uncloaked' right in front of their boat. It had been hovering apparently in midair, cloaked and unseen, probably watching the whole fight. It was one of the small personal carriers, the kind that rich people used to shuttle back and forth over the Earth's oceans. It could seat six people, and had almost all the comforts of 'home'; the rich liked having everything they wanted at their fingertips. Some things never changed. What did make this craft different was the prow bristling with self-defense armament; guns, huge laser cannons, other kinds of energy weapons and a few primitive projectile weapons. They looked out of place on the sleek, silvery personal craft, but Jubilee ignored all of that as she continued to hold Carey hostage against the rail, her eyes narrowed.
"She was acting on my orders," the voice said again. "So she shouldn't be held accountable for what happened. Come on, Jubilee…or should I call you Nightshade now? And 'Patch'. Come on in, and we'll talk." A hatch in the side of the personal aircraft opened up, and a tall, heavily muscled figure with a shock of silver hair and one glowing cybernetic eye stood in the opening.
Jubilee released Carey, and stared, mouth opening and closing several times before she could get a word out. "Nate?" she finally got out. "Nathan Summers?"
"In the flesh," said Cable, smiling a bit at Jubilee and Logan's discomfiture. "Currently leader of the X-Men. I've had an eye toward recruiting you both for the new team for the last several years, that's why Carey was sent to you, Logan. I tried to send someone after you, Jubilee…but he's only managed to get superficially close to you. Technology might have advanced the last hundred years or so, but the government's paranoia is still the same." He held out a hand. "Come on. Come aboard."
Jubilee made the jump from the watercraft to the hovering aircraft easily, followed by Logan and Carey. "Carey. Any more pursuers?" Cable asked easily.
"None," Carey said. "But we might not want to linger. Just blast the craft and let's go. I want a hot shower and something to eat. I've been following Logan's signal since last night and I'm tired."
Nate stepped over and pressed a button on the control panel. "We're cloaked. They won't find us. Now, Logan, Jubilee…"
"Nightshade," Jubilee said quickly, firmly.
"…Nightshade," Cable said. "Look. The dictator's guards know you were on that island. They just didn't know where. With the damage trail you left behind, it would be pretty easy to convince anyone that the chase ended in a boat wreck and all three of you perished; Carey, the assassin known as 'Patch', and the government assassin named 'Nightshade.' It's a chance for the two of you to cut ties with your lives and come back and rejoin the X-Men, such as we are, now. I'd love to give you some time to think it over, but this is probably the only chance we're going to get to fake your deaths and give you the opportunity to start over. Instead of killing for money, come back to working for the 'good guys'. What do you say?"
Logan swallowed hard. Return to the X-Men, run with the team, not under Scott, but his son, Nathan. Logan respected Nathan more than he respected Scott. Scott might have been a good leader and tactician, but Logan hadn't really liked him personally. He had no such reservations about Nate.
And really, what did he have back in Madripoor? Kathy's grandfather had been his friend since he'd left the X-Men after the incident with Jubilee all those years ago. Then her father, and when she had come along, Kathy herself. Which was why he'd gotten her a job keeping bar for him. She knew he was unusually 'long lived', she knew he had secrets and that he could come and go at any time. She'd never take it for granted that he'd died in a boat accident; but she would act as though he had, out of a sense of discretion. And since he never knew what might happen on a mission, he'd left a living will stating that Kathy would own the bar if anything happened to him. So she would take over. And when things had died down a little, if a letter came from overseas telling her that everything wasn't the way it seemed and to continue depositing half the profits from the bar into Logan's account, she would do just that, and be discreet about it.
He shrugged. "I will if Jubes will," he said.
Jubilee was torn. Not that she was particularly fond of her 'job'; but there were other things to consider. Her technologic enhancements needed to be maintained regularly, or she would die; she didn't have the know-how to do it. The only people who knew how to work with her enhancements were back at CyberTech; Carl and Tom. And the lab full of equipment was, as far as she knew, unique in the world. The mansion wouldn't have the equipment necessary to maintain her nanites or the cybernetic organs. And her friends, Tom and Carl…what would happen to them? Would they be able to keep their jobs with Cybertech? Or would they be dismissed? She didn't want to cause them any problems with her sudden 'defection'.
"I'm going to have to decline," she said at last. "I'm sorry, Nate, Logan, I'd like to, but…There are people whose jobs and lives revolve around my nanites and my techno-organic enhancements. I can't afford to be selfish about this, as much as I'd like to. If I left they'd be out of jobs…and anyway, I don't think you have any nanotech specialists on the team who could charge my nanites and maintain my cybernetic organs."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "Tom and Carl? Your handlers?" he remembered her mentioning those names. Then he flushed. Of course. Jubilee was a beautiful young woman. Why shouldn't she have some long-term relationships? And of course she wouldn't want to leave her boyfriend behind for him and the X-Men. What was he thinking?
"No, no, not like that," Jubilee said quickly, correctly surmising the reason for Logan's flush. "They're just friends. They're actually a couple. But they were hired especially for Project Nightshade. If I suddenly vanished…died…whatever, it would cause a lot of trouble for them. And I owe them a lot. They've been my only friends for…a long time now." She didn't want to think just how long. There had been other mutants involved with Project Nightshade, her team members, but even when they'd been alive she hadn't really been close to any of them.
The project heads had decided that distance between the team members was to be desired; if a mission suddenly 'went south' the rest of the team had to be able to get out fast. Even if it meant leaving someone behind. And it was easier to leave someone behind if there was no spirit of 'brotherhood' among them. In many ways, Jubilee had blamed the loss of her entire team on that; they hadn't had the close bond necessary to truly work as a seamless team; the kind of close bond she'd had with the X-Men.
In the confused welter of interrogations and debriefings after they had all died, she had told them why she thought they failed in their objective…and the higher-ups hadn't been pleased. It was Carl and Tom who, with their sympathy and support, had helped her recover emotionally from the grief and guilt associated with all those deaths; they had been there, had put her back together after the treatments and the intensive interrogations had shattered her mentally and emotionally, and helped her heal. She simply couldn't leave them hanging. So, "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I can't."
Nate looked disappointed. Logan shook his head. "I'll come," he said. "And Jubes…I hope you change your mind."
"Well, one out of two ain't bad," Nate said. "All right. Carey, vaporize that boat you all were on. We'll stop off at Jubilee's apartment in Washington and drop her off, then head up to the mansion. Got to get Logan settled in."
Jubilee gave him a watery smile. "I'm sorry, Nate," she said. "But I have a lot of people depending on me right now for their jobs, their livelihood. I can't just leave. Really."
Nate sighed. "I understand," he said quietly. "I don't agree; you volunteered for this project almost sixty years ago; you've done your bit for them; you don't owe anybody anything. But it's your decision to make." He led the way to the interior of the craft, away from the bright flash as their boat was destroyed, and opened up a slot in the wall. "In the meantime, here's something to eat. You have to be hungry. And there are some clean clothes in the drawers there if you want to change, and a sonic shower."
Jubilee sighed. "I'll take the sonic first. I'm still pretty full. I ate a pig, after all." She gave Logan a wicked grin as she grabbed a dark jumpsuit from the pile in the drawer and disappeared into the booth.
Nate looked quizzically at Logan. "Ate a pig?' Did she mean ate like a pig?"
"Nope." Logan grinned at Nate. "We ate wild pig this morning. Caught one on the island and killed it, then ate it." He grinned at the other man's look of distaste and sat down at the table with the snacks that Nate had put out for them.
Jubilee emerged from the sonic a few minutes later, her suit carefully folded up and wearing the jumpsuit she'd taken. She took a seat at the small table and nibbled daintily on an apple Nate tossed her as she listened to the two men catch up on what had been happening with the X-Men in the last hundred years or so. Still tired, she let her eyes drift closed.
She awakened as the personal craft set down, still cloaked, on the rooftop of her apartment building. She disembarked first, then hesitated. It seemed somehow rude, to just let them leave. Finally she blurted out "Want to come in? Just for a moment? Maybe some real coffee or something?"
"Coffee?" Nate perked. "The old-fashioned ground up coffee bean type coffee? Or the synthetic stuff they make now?"
Jubilee grinned. "The real stuff. I get an almost embarrassing amount of money from the government for what I do, and I splurge occasionally on luxuries. Like real coffee instead of the synthetic stuff, and cigars instead of the imitations."
Nate and Carey perked up. So did Logan. "Lead on."
She led the way into her apartment via the penthouse balcony door that led out to the rooftop…and stopped. There were voices coming from her bedroom. Cursing herself for being so lax as to leave her suit on the craft, she dropped to a fighting crouch and started to gather energy for a plasmoid buildup. Motioning the others to stay back, she advanced into her apartment carefully, inching along the wall, every sense alert. The voices started to move, and she pinpointed them as coming across her bedroom from the drawers. As the owner of the voice reached the door, she gathered herself, whipped around the doorframe, and paffed the intruder full in the face. Then she fired off a volley of paffs into the darkened room, hoping the sudden brightness would incapacitate the vision of the persons (there was more than one) in the room. Not enough to kill, but enough to stun. It was something she'd learned from Logan; shoot first, ask questions later.
The sound of groans assured her that whoever the intruder were, they were down. She wouldn't get any further trouble from them. She stepped into the room and snapped, "Lights on full." Light flooded her room.
She wasn't prepared for who she saw.