It wouldn't be long now.
Chapter 12
The sun still burned bright over Rala, but in the cold, moist darkness of the tunnels, lit only by flickering torches, Jean Grey found it hard to remember, even to imagine, the sun shining high in the sky. They were in a cavern, apparently just one of the many safe houses used by the Kree rebels. As long as they were able to keep the Shi'ar from discovering the tunnels and caverns that existed beneath Kree-Lar and its suburbs, the cavern would be safe.
Which was, sadly, the subject of some controversy at the moment.
"I have given the Terrans my word!" Kam-Lorr shouted, his face flushed with the heat of argument. It was impossible not to hear the discussion, as no attempt was made to keep quiet. Obviously, Kam-Lorr's fellow rebel leaders did not care one whit about whether the X-Men heard their disparaging remarks or not.
"You may have given your word, Kam-Lorr, but we have not!" a slim, pink-skinned Kree woman said evenly. "These Terrans may be noble, as you say. They may have the best of intentions, but we cannot jeopardize the entire rebellion for the sake of a few lives."
Jean stopped listening. Not because she was offended or disgusted, but because, despite the prejudice the Kree had for Terrans, she knew that their arguments were sound. Kam-Lorr was a man of honor. But honor could be a dangerous thing. What was the saying? "Pride goeth before a fall." There was something to that.
Yes, Jean understood the arguments against the rebels helping her and the other X-Men to rescue Scott and the others. But when it came right down to it, she didn't care. She was selfish and she knew it. If it were anyone else, maybe she would have felt different. But it wasn't anyone else. It was Scott Summers, the only .man she had ever loved. And if it meant risking the entire rebellion, if it meant risking war between the Shi'ar Empire and Earth ... well, none of it mattered.
Scott mattered. That was all.
Jean had been a self-conscious teenager, made even more so by the appearance of her psi powers. She'd been luckier than most, though. Her parents were loving, intelligent people, who'd sought help for their daughter and themselves. That help had come in the form of Charles Xavier. Xavier had promised to give Jean the best education she could hope to receive, while simultaneously teaching her to deal with her mutant abilities and to be proud of who and what she was.
In retrospect, it was wonderful. At the time, however, the day she arrived at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters-as it had then been called-was the most terrifying day of her life. A new life at a new school, a boarding school for that matter, with none of her family or old friends around; no wonder she'd been scared.
But her fear had not lasted long. Professor Xavier had intimidated her at first, but he was so kind that she warmed to him quickly. And the other students, well, that was even easier. There had been only four other kids there, and they were all boys. Jean wasn't conceited enough to consider herself beautiful, though it had been said of her frequently. It didn't matter at Xavier's School though. She was the only girl in class, and so of course she was the most beautiful girl in the school. Hank, Bobby, and especially Warren, fell all over themselves to make her feel welcome.
Not Scott Summers, though. Sure, he was nice enough. But Jean had never met a boy as handsome and as shy as Scott. That first semester was the happiest, most innocent time she could remember. Though Warren had pursued her, all Jean could think about was Scott. She'd had dreams about him, about kissing him. As often as she could, she would ask him to study with her just so she could breathe the same air as Scott.
It was silly. It was romantic. It was love. It had seemed like forever to her as she waited for Scott to show some sign that he cared for her in return. But even at that age, though she'd been terrified he did not care for her as she did for her, Jean had sensed that he loved her in return. She would never have used her psi powers to steal the truth from his mind, but there was something between them already, a precursor to the mental rapport they now shared, that told her she need only be patient. That Scott would come around.
Years had passed. They had weathered crisis after crisis together, and apart. In that time, their love had only grown. They had become more than partners, more than lovers. Scott Summers and Jean Grey were two people with one soul.
Jean smiled. The concept sounded corny, even as it echoed through her mind. But it was true nevertheless. She could not survive without Scott, any more than she could survive without a soul.
So, in the end, whatever the Kree rebels decided did not matter. She would rescue Scott from Deathbird's dungeon or die trying. Though she didn't think it would come to that. Jean fully expected that even if the other rebel leaders didn't support him, Kam-Lorr would at the very least help them into the Capitol Building. She and Scott had counted on that when they had hatched their plan.
The part of her psi powers that was instinctive, almost involuntary, sensed a familiar thought pattern nearby.
"Hello, Warren," she whispered without turning. It was an ability that had often spooked those who hadn't known her for long. But she and Warren went back to the very beginning, when he had been simply called the Angel. and Jean had embraced the embarrassing codename of Marvel Girl. Even then, though, Warren had never spooked easily.
"Jean, we need to talk," he said in a hushed voice.
He dropped lightly down beside her to sit comfortably, legs crossed. She gazed on his pretty-boy handsome features, so strangely altered since he had become Archangel. He had always been every girl's dream: young, fabulously wealthy, sweet, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous.
Warren had the kind of body that women not only admired, but envied. At six feet tall, and as muscular as he was, he should have weighed at least two hundred pounds. Yet, even with the organic metal wings that lay flat and heavy in their contracted state on his back, Archangel barely tipped the scales to one hundred and fifty. At puberty, his body had begun to mutate, but the wings he had grown were only part of it. His entire structure was adapted for flight. His bones were hollow, and he had less body fat than Sylvester Stallone on his best day.
His skin was blue now, the sky blue of his eyes, but there was no hiding it. Sure enough, Warren was without a doubt what Jean would call a babe. But, despite what Warren may have once felt for her, and despite the fact that she was and always had been attracted to him, there was only one man for Jean Grey. In fact, Jean believed that Warren, Hank, and Bobby, the other original X-Men, loved Scott—in their own way—almost as much as she did.
The X-Men were a family, new and old. They were loyal to Professor Xavier, to the dream; and to each other. But Jean, Archangel, Beast, and Iceman were also loyal to Scott Summers. Hank and Bobby were back on Earth, but Jean knew that Warren would follow Scott's lead, no matter the cost.
"Jean?" Warren asked, and she realized she had been staring at him, at those ice-blue, Paul Newman eyes.
"We'll be going in a moment, Warren," she said. "Kam-Lorr's not going to let us go alone, but we've got to be careful. We can't have him sacrificing himself or his people for us, and the rebellion won't back his action, not for us anyway."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a precog as well as a telepath and telekinetic," Warren mused. "So what now? I mean, as long as Kam-Lorr can deliver on his promises, as long as he gives us blueprints for the Capitol Building, why can't we just go in ourselves?"
Jean smiled. Typical Warren.
"We can if we have to," she answered. "But with the Guard on Hala, I'd like a little diversion, and some cover for our escape."
Warren nodded.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, eyes wandering from his handsome face to the ghostly flickering on the cool cavern walls. It occurred to her that it had been fortunate Storm was not able to come along on this mission. With her claustrophobia, the tunnels would have driven her mad. Asit was, Jean felt cramped and skittish.
"Raza will do whatever it takes to save Corsair and Hepzibah," Warren said. "He'll follow our lead. But
with Scott captured, I wonder if we can count on Gambit and Rogue in a pinch. I know you said that you and Scott planned for him to be taken captive, and the way the Imperial Guard was holding back, I can't imagine them taking Cyclops unless he let them, but I'm afraid I still don't understand the point of it."
"And if you don't," Jean sighed, "it's a safe bet Gambit and Rogue won't either."
Warren raised his eyebrows, blond slashes of hair that looked out of place on his blue skin. He tilted his head, the expression on his face one that was familiar to Jean from their years of friendship. You said it, not me.
"Despite the mental barriers all of the X-Men are trained to erect, I've been cautious because I don't want Oracle picking up the plan," she said, then smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, Warren, there isn't much of one. You know that Scott and I share a mental rapport. In close enough range, it should be undetectable, even by a psi as adept as Oracle."
"I'm an idiot," Warren said, chuckling softly. "You and Scott arranged for him to be captured so your rapport would lead you right to him, and hopefully, Corsair and the others as well. That answers that question. But I have another one for you. What happens after that?"
"That's the key," Jean replied. "You're not an idiot, Warren. I'm sure you were just looking for a more complex plan, otherwise you would have figured it out immediately. Unfortunately, the rest of the plan is simple. Once we've found them, we free them and retreat."
"Sneak in and fight our way out?" Warren asked, eyes widening momentarily. "Oh, that's a beautiful plan."
"It was the best we could do on the spur of the moment," Jean said, looking away self-consciously. "We didn't expect the Imperial Guard to be here. They've complicated matters tremendously."
She stared at the stone floor of the cavern, at her crossed ankles, at her hands clasped in front of her. Warren's right hand came into view, and he clutched both of hers in reassurance. Jean looked up slowly. Warren's face was intense.
"Don't worry, Jean," he said confidently. "We're all getting out of here, all of us. The X-Men don't leave anybody behind. Not Scott, not his dad, not even that cantankerous girlfriend of Corsair's."
"Thank you, Warren," Jean whispered. "You know, after you lost your wings, when yon pushed us all away in your despair, I felt terrible for you. Then, when Apocalypse changed you, gave you those wings, when you came back to the X-Men as Archangel ... well, you were so different that I felt terrible for myself because I thought I had lost one of my best friends. You have no idea how happy it makes me to know I was wrong."
Warren smiled, and this time it was his turn to look away.
"Come on," he said then. "The hell with the rebels. Let's go get our friends and get off this godforsaken planet." .
Together, Jean and Warren stood and dusted themselves off. She saw that the conversation between Kam-Lorr and the others had broken up, and Kam-Lorr was walking toward the alcove where they stood. His face was grim with distress and determination, and the dull orange glimmer of torch light made him almost frightening to see.
"They have made their decision," Kam-Lorr said through gritted teeth. "They will not help."
Jean laid a hand on the Kree man's broad chest, and met his surprised look with one of understanding and compassion.
"It is what we expected, Kam-Lorr," she said. "But we are honored that you would try, that you would speak on behalf of Terrans at all."
Kam-Lorr opened his mouth and took a breath, about to respond, then blinked and let the breath out slowly.He nodded several times, almost imperceptibly.
"Come with me," the Kree said.
• • •
Kam-Lorr was as good as his word. He had shown the X-Men blueprints of the Capitol and its ancient lower levels. From there, it was not difficult to hatch a plan. The tunnel system they had been hiding themselves in led to an underground sewage network that was a part of the original building's foundations. Before that, however, it ran directly beneath the Great Hall of the Capitol Building.
The perfect place for a diversion.
They crept through the tunnel system for what seemed like miles but was probably not much more than half of one. Raza was at point with Kam-Lorr, and the Starjammer's cyborg parts shone dully in the torch light. Sword in one hand and new blaster in the other, Raza seemed to Jean to be extremely on edge. He was suspicious by nature. All the Starjammers were, even Scott's father, and Jean wondered if it was part of being a pirate and mercenary. Raza obviously suspected treachery, though he never spoke a word of it.
Jean and Warren were at the middle of the group of Kree rebels Kam-Lorr had gathered to aid them. There were perhaps eighteen, surely no more than that, and Jean recognized some of them from the meeting at the marketplace. She assumed that seeing the X-Men fight, seeing Cyclops captured, had made the Kree feel a certain kinship for the outworlders. Maybe it had been enough for them to realize that Candide, Corsair, Hepzibah, and now Cyclops, should not have to die for the sake of the rebellion.
Or maybe, and Jean could not discount this possibility, they simply wanted to rescue the prisoners before Deathbird tortured them enough to make them talk.
Either way, though, they were well armed and on the side of the X-Men. Their motivations were secondary.
At the rear of the pack, Gambit and Rogue had cleanup detail. They hung back to be certain the infiltrating group was not followed, and could not be flanked by enemies waiting in hiding. Jean didn't think Deathbird or her minions would have any idea how they would come. But if Hala's Shi'ar Viceroy wasn't completely insane, if she had learned anything from her previous confrontations with the X-Men, she was certain to know that they would be coming.
The tunnel began to narrow considerably, and the flickering light became even more haunting in such close confines. They were forced to walk single file, with jagged slate striated walls on either side and a floor that sloped slowly down. They were completely vulnerable, sitting ducks. If the Shi'ar knew the route they would be coming, now would have been the time for an ambush.
Jean searched the tunnel ahead and behind for hostile thoughts that weren't directed at the Shi'ar. She did not want to invade the privacy of the Kree soldiers who had offered their help, but she could take no chances. While she would not dare delve deeply into another's mind without permission, a light psi-scan of the unit revealed nothing. She had expected, at the very least, to find someone with hostility toward Kam-Lorr. Soldiers were always looking for promotions. But even that was absent. They were all focused on the mission, and that alone.
The ceiling lowered sharply as they walked, and soon all but the shortest of them was forced to move in a crouch. Jean heard water running. Fortunately, the tunnel had widened enough for two people to walk abreast, and she moved up through the unit until she was at Kam-Lorr's side.
"If that's the sewage network, haven't we gone too far?" she asked quietly, not wanting to spook him by using her telepathy.
"It isn't the sewage," he answered. "I've no idea what it is."
They moved forward even more cautiously after that. Fifty yards later, Raza rounded a corner, and swore as his feet splashed into water. Kam-Lorr knelt at his side with a torch, and Jean could see that the water was running fast and clear from a spring in the wall of the tunnel. As the tunnel continued to slope down, the water had flooded the area ahead of them.
"Ground water," Kam-Lorr whispered. "No way to tell how deep."
"I canst not swim well," Raza hissed. "But I wouldst prefer to drown than turn back."
"We've got to go on," Jean agreed. "A little water never hurt anyone."
They waded in, two by two, and though Kam-Lorr had said it was cold, Jean had no idea how cold. In moments, she was chilled to the bone, and her legs were numb to the spot on her upper thighs where the water reached, despite the double layer of her uniform.
Several moments later, when the water had reached her waist, she heard Gambit curse in French, somewhere in the flickering gloom behind her. Jean Grey smiled, but only for
a moment.
The water had reached the middle of her belly when the ground beneath her feet radically changed direction. It had been sloping down for several hundred yards, the last seventy or so filled with water. Suddenly the slope reversed, and the upward incline was steep enough that Jean had to reach out with her hands in an attempt to find purchase. A large hand found her wrist, and she looked up to see Kam-Lorr, smiling. It was a welcome change of demeanor on the Kree man. Jean smiled back as Kam-Lorr hauled her out of the water, which rushed away into an unseen lower level through a natural slice in the stone.
"The floor of this tunnel has sunk since last I was in it," Kam-Lorr said softly. "But we are back on the old track now. And almost under the Great Hall."
Jean nodded, and helped pull a pink-skinned Kree soldier out of the water. The man did not thank her, but Jean did not expect thanks. This was a war. Soldiers watched each other's backs, or died. There was no other way.
Kam-Lorr took point, examining the tunnel as he walked. Several minutes later, he stopped and ran his fingers over some markings etched into the wall above his head.
"We are here," he whispered to Jean. "The Great Hall is above us. I will have my soldiers blast the ceiling, but it will take time to climb up the rubble. We will be at a disadvantage."
"It's taken care of," Jean said.
Cyclops and Storm were co-leaders of the X-Men. But that did not mean that other members of the group were not capable of leadership. They had learned more than math, science, English and history at Xavier's school, and as members of the X-Men. Some of them had learned military history, strategy, and creative thinking.
X-Men, to me! Jean thought, and in moments, Gambit, Rogue, and Archangel were working their way up the tunnel to where she stood with Kam-Lorr and Raza.
"Canst thou tell, Jean Grey, if the Imperial Guard be in yon chamber above?" Raza asked.
"I can't telepathically scan the room, Raza," Jean admitted. "If Oracle is there, she would sense it immediately. It's all I have been able to do to shield us from detection until now."
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