Disclaimer: AU to X3! Not making any money from this. Corrinth owns Stifle and Vixen, Blaze is mine, Marvel retains all rights to all other characters, all knowledge of US military comes from watching Stargate SG1!
Above and Beyond: Scene 10"I found Iceman, Beast and Jubilee," Stifle called form the other side of the room. "Want me to remove the drips?"
"Go for it," Wolverine growled, not looking up from Ororo as she lay before him, "Sorry Stormy." With gritted teeth he placed the two wire ends on Ororo's bare neck. The jolt jerked her clear of the trolley as Logan snatched the wires away again. For a moment that was Storm's only reaction. Then she took a great shuddering breath and her eyes blinked wide open. She gaped like a fish, unable to focus her eyes or form any words. Logan grasped her flailing hand in his and squeezed it tight. "Easy, Storm, easy," he told her reassuringly. "It's me, you're gonna be alright. Just rest, take deep breaths and you'll be fine."
"Lo…Logan?" Ororo stuttered.
"Yeah, I'm right here 'Ro. Rest first, I'll explain everything later," Logan said aloud. Telepathically he spoke to Vixen, #Can you talk to her whilst I wake the others?#
#Of course,# Ilehana replied.
"Logan, you'd best come look at this," Stifle announced, "I've found Cyclops."
"Don't tell me someone shaved him before I could get to him," grumbled Wolverine as he extracted his hand from Storm's and went to Stifle. He rued the joke somewhat when his eyes fell on the broken body of Scott Summers.
"All of them have injuries," Stifle reported softly. "Jubilee is black and blue, Beast's fur is scorched in places, Iceman's taken a beating and he has a broken leg that's not been treated. None of them even compare to this though."
Logan crouched down next to Cyclops' trolley at eye level with the other man's hands. Every finger had been dislocated and in the lack of treatment his hands had swollen red, black and blue. His face had been more or less pulverised and he lay awkwardly as though all was not well with his spine. Logan stood again and looked at Stifle, "Can you relocate his fingers if I hold him down?"
"Yes," Stifle nodded, and swallowed. She could do it; she'd just rather not be responsible for inflicting that much pain on Scott.
"#Ilehana can you help out?#" Logan spoke aloud to involve Stifle in the request. Vixen likewise addressed her reply to both of the waiting X-Men.
#I'll do my best, but he will wake up as you do this. The pain will be too much for the drugs.#
"Here goes nothing," Stifle said as she picked up Cyclops' hand, trapping his forearm between her upper arm and her side. With her back to Cyclops she tentatively explored the damaged joints as Logan put his weight on Cyclops' chest to keep him still. "Sorry Scott," Stifle whispered, and with a sharp tweak put the bone back into its socket. Logan had to put a hand over Scott's mouth as the proud team leader of the X-Men screamed.
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Whilst Mystique contented herself with driving the powerful and massive feat of engineering that was the ship back towards shore, Gambit paced the bridge. Through the great glass observation window he could see the rain-lashed foredeck and lightning snaking across the sky. Water trickled down the window from static bead of rain to static bead of rain, distorting the world beyond. How long this was going to take was anybodies guess.
"What's going on? Where is everyone?" a voice asked in the doorway.
"The storm's caused a feedback on some of the navigation equipment," Mystique replied in the shape and voice of the senior officer she'd dispatched earlier. "I sent a crew to check the relay tower, make sure its not been struck by lightning. Its pretty wild out there tonight."
"There's engineers on board for that, you should have…" whatever Kincaid's man thought Mystique should have done, she never found out. Gambit sneaked up silently from behind and grabbed the man's head, twisting it sharply until his neck audibly broke. Remy deposited the body in the side room with the others, and then grimly turned back to Mystique. "It getting' kinda full in there," Gambit shut the door with a thunk.
"Casualties of war," Mystique replied coolly, back in her own form again. "Its us or them."
"You really do believe dat, don't you?" asked Gambit.
"I believe in surviving," Mystique replied. "Everything else is of little importance to me. And you, Gambit, you're not so far from following in my footsteps. What kind of X-Man are you to murder a man without giving him a chance to fight back?"
"What about friends, family?" Gambit responded to her question with one of his own, attack with counter-attack. He wasn't about to bare his soul to this woman. "Surviving pretty damn meaningless if you ain't got nothing to live for."
Mystique went silent, her mind wandering to a time gone by. A time when she had felt a child growing inside of her, and later held in her arms. Had she felt alive then? Had her life held meaning? Or was that thudding in her otherwise desiccated heart just a replay of the adrenaline thrumming through her veins as she ran for her life, the child wrapped in a blanket and cradled to her chest? They could tear her apart, but they would not have her baby…Falling, he was falling, what had she done? No, he was alive, and worse than that he was with the X-Men. Her son…
"Mystique?" Gambit was worried about the vague expression on Mystique's face. "If you gonna go loco maybe you do it after we get the ship to port, oui?"
"I'm fine," Mystique snapped. Gambit stepped away again, raising his hands placating. He went to check the radio, just to give him something to do. When this is all over, he swore, I t'ink I'll bring this li'l conversation up with the Professor. I sure as Hell don't understand it.
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The office, when Blaze eventually got there, was in darkness. Her fingers found the light switch almost as soon as she'd shut and locked the door behind her. The room was about eight paces square, with a desk in the middle and bookshelves behind under an American flag. The desk was bolted down against rough weather, and the books were boxed in behind glass doors with locks. Blaze hadn't thought Kincaid looked like a literary man, which would explain the pristine lack of fingerprints on the crystalline glass.
Sitting down in Kincaid's leather chair, Blaze pulled his laptop out of the desk draw. It came on as she opened it, asking for a username and password in a pop-up box with a military logo. So Kincaid didn't even trust his own men. That was good to know. Blaze closed the laptop again and turned it over, looking for a USB port. The encrypted memory stick was Bobby's invention, and Blaze had faith the military defence mechanisms would fall short of stopping it.
Sure enough, when she opened the laptop the pop-up flickered, and then disappeared. The wireless network loaded and Kincaid's shortcuts mottled the desktop with its military logo embossed on it in blue and red. Flicking through a few files, Blaze soon realised there was too much information here to get through by herself. Time to call up reinforcements.