“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. As it 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 you 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 the
y 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 sluice 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.”
Raza nodded grimly. “What is thy plan?” he asked.
“As long as it means we’re getting outta here, I’ll be a happy camper,” Rogue said, shivering. “I don’t like it down here one bit, girl.”
“You be okay, chere,” Gambit said, pulling her close. “Ol’ Remy, he here to protect you.”
“Time for that, later, Gambit. Let’s just get Scott and the others out of here, okay?” Warren said, and Jean silently thanked him.
“If the Guard is up there, we’re in for a hell of a fight,” she began. “But we better be prepared for it, because you know we’re not getting off planet without going up against them again. If they’re not there, on the other hand, this should all go pretty smoothly.
“Gambit, Rogue will lift you to where you can touch the ceiling. I need you to give it the biggest charge you’ve got …”
“Jean,” Gambit said, shaking his head. “You know I do whatever you say, but a charge like dat gonna drain me good. Be five, ten minutes fore I can fire up again.”
“Whatever it takes, Remy,” Jean said sincerely. “Rogue, you and Warren take the fight to the Shi’ar immediately. I don’t want a second wasted. If the Imperial Guard aren’t there, it’ll just be Deathbird’s personal sentries. Between the two of you, I don’t expect we’ll hit much resistance. If so, we’ll be right behind you.”
“Jean,” Kam-Lorr interrupted, using her name for the first time. “If these two meet more than mild resistance, we’ll be easy targets trying to climb up into the room.”
“You won’t have to climb, Kam-Lorr,” Jean said. The Kree rebel began to speak again, but Jean held up a hand.
“You’ll just have to trust me. We don’t have time for this,” she said. “It’s been dark outside for hours now. At dawn, they die. We can’t allow that. Everyone back down the tunnel ten feet, except for Gambit and Rogue.”
Rogue bent and Gambit stepped into her clasped hands. She boosted him to the ceiling and he laid both palms on the jagged stone. As many times as Jean saw mutants work their magic, use their special abilities, it never ceased to amaze her. First Gambit’s hands, and then the stone above them, began to glow with an orange light. That glow spread along the rock, ten feet on either side, to just in front of where Jean stood.
She had a moment to marvel at the trust Remy had placed in her. Rogue would not be badly hurt even if the entire building collapsed on her. But other than his power and his fighting prowess, Remy LeBeau was just a man. The fragments of the Great Hall’s floor would crush him to death. If Jean let that happen. Though he had always been tough to read, the trust Gambit placed in her spoke volumes for Jean about his place in the X-Men. He was one of them, now. No question.
“Dat’s it!” Gambit hissed, and Rogue pulled him down and lay on top of him, protecting him with her body. Jean didn’t take it as an insult, but as a gesture of Rogue’s love for Remy.
It wasn’t necessary, however. The ceiling exploded, blasting the Great Hall’s floor up into the room, and showering tons of stone down into the tunnel. Almost all of which Jean caught in a telekinetic net. She felt the weight in a nearly physical sense, and the strain was painful but far from the worst she had felt. With an enormously powerful psychic shove, Jean used her mind to push all of the debris to one side, making a graded ramp of crushed stone that the Kree rebels could use to enter the Great Hall.
Rogue and Archangel flew up through the hole the instant the debris was clear, and the rest of them followed on foot. Jean, Raza, and Kam-Lorr entered the Great Hall simultaneously, nearly twenty Kree rebels at their backs, and the room was already in chaos.
In the light of chandeliers powered by Shi’ar technology, Jean could see the grand balconies and stained glass windows of the Hall, which reminded her of nothing so much as the Catholic cathedrals she had seen on Earth. Deathbird’s throne sat on a dais on the uppermost balcony, so that no one in the room would be higher than she. Jean realized that the woman had been holding court. The Great Hall was filled with Shi’ar citizens and dozens of soldiers. Screams and shouts echoed throughout the room, and the citizens made for the exits.
Though she assumed that they were not far—not when an ego the size of Deathbird’s was holding court—Jean was extraordinarily relieved to see that Gladiator and the other Guard members were conspicuously absent. Archangel flashed through the upper reaches of the Hall, wing knives flashing out and taking down soldier an
d citizen alike. Jean felt a stab of sadness for Warren, knowing that he was not intentionally paralyzing the innocent citizens in the room. Archangel simply did not have enough control over his wings.
Rogue plowed through a small corps of soldiers who stood no chance against her. Kree rebels met Shi’ar soldiers in open combat, hand to hand where necessary. It was an incredible diversion, exactly what they needed. She did not want to chance using her powers in case Oracle was very close by, and she had to hope that she would be able to contact Scott using very little power, relying on their rapport.
Though the Shi’ar numbers were increasing, the Kree rebels seemed to be winning. They might even be able to hold the Great Hall if they could defeat those Shi’ar soldiers already in the room. There was only one problem.
Deathbird. She had stood, gape-mouthed, at the foot of her throne, stunned into inaction by the audacity of their attack. Jean had hoped the X-Men and Raza could sneak away, rescue Scott and the others and be back in time for the Kree rebels to retreat, which they would inevitably have to do.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Deathbird had seen them.
From her high seat, she looked down at Jean with hate in her eyes. She sputtered furiously, and Jean reveled in the tyrant’s surprise. She smiled up at Deathbird, and basked in the venom that dripped from her voice as Deathbird screamed, “You!”
“Kill her if you can!” Kam-Lorr shouted to his fellow rebels.
That’s our cue, X-Men, Jean thought, sending the message to Raza, Warren, Remy and Rogue. She no longer cared if Oracle sensed her presence. With Deathbird already aware of them, the Imperial Guard would be along any moment.
She led the others to a back stairwell that Kam-Lorr had shown them on the Capitol Building’s blueprints. It led down to the prison levels, which were a labyrinth of hallways and cells. But she knew that Cyclops was down there somewhere, with Corsair, Hepzibah, and Candide.
Scott, my love, Jean thought, putting all her strength and emotion into the telepathic message, where are you?
Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Page 19
