Disclaimer: AU to X3! Not making any money from this. Corrinth owns Stifle and Vixen, Blaze is mine, Marvel retain all rights to all other characters, all knowledge of US military comes from watching Stargate SG1!
Above and Beyond: Scene 9This time they climbed down, all the way down as far as the ladder would go. Still they weren't close enough, so Blaze led them through more meandering corridors. More than once they had to backtrack and hide as they heard the sounds of military issue boots marching closer. Every time they escaped confrontation by the skin of their teeth, but all three of the X-Men knew they were walking on thin black ice. Soon their luck would surely run out. Reaching a door labelled X-359 on the ship's lowest levels, Blaze stopped and turned to her colleagues.
"Holding bay observation room," Blaze whispered, indicating to the door. "Can you two take it from here?"
"Where you goin'?" Logan grunted, "Missing Gumbo already?"
"Hardly," Blaze replied. "Mystique said the kids aren't here, but I'll bet Kincaid has records showing where they are and who they've got. His office is six levels up, so I need to get going."
"Take care," Stifle told her, offering Blaze a solid handshake. Blaze returned it in kind. Their working relationship had come a long way with all they'd been through, but it was only now Blaze saw a shadow of respect emerging in Stifle's cold grey eyes. Blaze left the other two outside the door and disappeared into another room down the corridor. Stifle looked over at Logan, "You ready for this?"
"Oh yeah," grunted Logan enthusiastically, "Just try an' keep up."
Rather than bother with the complications of the lock, Logan skewered the mechanism with his claws, and then kicked the door open. Five bewildered operatives looked around from their computer stations, utterly confused. In the dark and windowless observation room, the flashing red, green and orange displays reflected off Logan's lethal claws as he swiped through the air. He attacked fluidly, a majestic predator of pure muscle and adimantium. None of his victims even had time to scream. By the time Stifle entered the room it was all over.
"I thought Blaze said this was an observation room," queried Logan as Stifle shut the door behind her. "What are they observing in here, besides eBay?" He tried pressing a few buttons on a keyboard, but the monitor screen remained unresponsive. Stifle meanwhile strode across the room and placed her hand on the wall on the left-hand corner, diagonally opposite Logan. As Wolverine turned to watch, there was a whirring noise as a motor started up. Stifle raised an eyebrow in Logan's direction as a fifteen-foot by eight-foot section of the wall opposite the door rolled away.
"Do try and keep up Wolverine," Stifle drawled with stereotypical British sarcasm.
"What the?" Logan mouthed obscenities as he approached the one-way glass. Whilst the room they were in was darkened, the room beyond the glass window was lit with bright white neon strip lights. There, in a massive chamber like a warehouse in the belly of the ship, laid out in row after row of clinical benches attached to monitor banks and drips, were hundreds of comatose mutants.
"Death row for mutants," Stifle muttered prophetically, feeling cold fingers run up her spine as though someone walked over her grave. "Keeping us tranquillised, unable to defend ourselves, subject to who knows what kinds of torture and humiliation…"
"We gotta get down there," Logan decided, "Try and find the X-Men and see if we can't wake 'em…"
There was a crash that cut through Logan's words. Stifle had picked up a chair and pitched it forcefully through the window. Glass shattered everywhere, as the chair fell to thud on the floor of the holding bay far below. Logan looked at Stifle as though he'd just seen here for the first time, "Nice."
"Thanks," Dell accepted the compliment with a small grin. Barricading the observation deck door with another chair, the two X-Men climbed through the broken window. They lowered themselves by their arms as far as they could before letting go, and then dropped the last few metres. Again the X-Men barricaded the door leading to the rest of the ship. There were no military forces on sight. Instead the high-roofed chamber was eerily still.
I have been in more lively morgues than this, Stifle thought to herself. Her footsteps echoed off the hard, reflective floor. She walked between the rows and rows of unconscious mutants, looking from one side to the other with a motion that made the beads in her plaited hair clatter quietly. Except for the slight movement of the mutant's chests to indicate they were still breathing, they could have all been corpses.
"I found Storm," Logan called out from across the room. Dell looked up and came running over. Ororo looked terrible, her lips were chapped and bleeding and her skin looked tight and drawn across her fine features. The drip running into her arm contained a viscous yellow fluid that plopped annoyingly from the bag suspended like meat on a hook above the weather witch's head.
"How do you think we wake her up?" Stifle asked, unwilling to speak any louder than a whisper. The air in this place was tense and atmospheric, almost like it was repulsed by Logan's earlier shout.
"I've got no idea," Wolverine admitted, "I never went to med school."
#It's a good job I did then,# an amused sounding mind voice commented, to Logan's obvious delight.
"Ilehana?" the Vixen chuckled inside his head, who else had he been expecting? #Babe, you don't know how good it is to hear from you.#
#Of course I do, I am a telepath you know,# replied Ilehana from the sanctity of Cerebro.
#You know what I mean Ilehana,# Wolverine pushed.
#I do,# Vixen admitted in reply, before turning Logan's attention back to the matter at hand. #Is there a med chart anywhere?#
"Ilehana Xavier, the Vixen?" Stifle asked, not having been privy to the telepathic conversation.
"Yeah," Logan confirmed to both women. He picked up the clipboard and chart that hung on the end of the trolley and flipped over the brown top cover. His eyes scanned the contents, and whilst he didn't understand the scientific terminology he felt Ilehana's growing affirmation that she knew what to do. It felt good to be able to hand all decision making over to his partner, and knew now that it would all be all right.
#Thank you for your confidence, I just wish I was as infallible as you think Logan,# Vixen murmured softly. If anything the contact between them became shallower as if Vixen was pulling back to protect Logan's high esteem of her.
#Babe, I will happily massage your fragile ego and anything else you can think of, but later. Lets get this nightmare over with so I can come home already.# Vixen gave Logan a wolfish smile at his offer. Logan managed a small smile of his own, before he asked, #What do I do?#
#They need a sharp stimulus or stimuli. Is Blaze around? Heat might do it.#
#No, she's disappeared to get information from Kincaid's records.#
#That's important too. Never mind, we will have to manage without her. First things first, you need to unplug the drip, gently. Use the butterfly clip on the arm, I can remove the needles later, seeing as there is no easy way to tell from here what a hash job they have made of inserting them.#
"Go find the other X-Men," Logan instructed Stifle. "You know what they all look like?" Stifle nodded and left Ororo's side. Logan did as he was told and detached the drip from the butterfly clip. Checking Storm's pulse, which was steady, he then moved to the head of the bed. To Vixen he said, #I got an idea.#
He tugged the sensors off Storm's temples and neck, and the equipment flat-lined. With his claws, Logan sliced off the covering panel of a monitor. Claws away again, he loosened the wiring out of the back with dexterous fingers. Taking two wires between his finger and thumb he gave them a sharp tug, pulling them free of their soldered moorings. The bare ends of the wire sparked as he put the bits of metal together.
#That's a good idea,# Vixen approved, #Just a brief contact though Logan, I don't want anyone electrocuted.#
#Even Cyclops?#
#Especially Cyclops.#
#Can I at least shave his hair off before I wake him?#
#Maybe,# Ilehana replied democratically, #Try waking Storm first though. If anyone is resilient to electricity, it's her.#