The Return Read online

  “And then Mags entered the picture,” Logan said, his voice low but level, “feah, I remember that day, alright.” Scott glanced back at Logan, but only nodded. Then he turned to Kitty and continued. “Magneto just... he just raised up this strange, deserted city from the bottom of the ocean, a mile off the shore of the atoll, and used it as his base for a while, trying to terrorize the nations of the world into recognizing his authority.” He paused, then said, “You remember the city, don’t you, Kitty? We stayed their briefly, a few years back.”

  “Oh,” Kitty said sarcastically, “you mean that strange alien city in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. I thought you were talking about some other alien city.” She treated Scott to her most withering stare. “My mistake.” Scott smiled slightly, and shrugged. “That’s right, of course,” he said, apologetically. ‘You were with us on that mission, weren’t you? I’m sorry, Kitty, I sometimes forget just how long you’ve been with us—” Scott paused, and then added quickly, “With the X-Men, I mean. I still think of you as the ‘new kid,’ but you’ve been around for years.”

  “And there’s a lot more ‘new kids,’ these days,” Kitty said. “One whole wing of the mansion is full of them.” “Heck,” Logan put in, “feels like Rogue just got here yesterday, but she’s an old campaigner by now.”

  “It must be some strange inverse of dog years or something,” Kitty said. “Except that it’s not seven for every one, but the other way around.”

  “Time flies when you’re busy saving the world,” Scott said.

  In the passenger seats behind them, Logan began to chuckle loudly

  “What?” Kitty asked.

  “Yes, Logan,” Scott said, glancing back over his shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

  ‘You and Mags,” Logan said, still chuckling. “The same woman took a liking to both of you?”

  ‘Yeah?” Scott’s eyes narrowed behind his ruby quartz glasses. “What about it?”

  “Well,” Logan said, pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, “there’s just no accounting for taste, now, is there?” Scott was about to answer, his teeth bared, when a ping from the instrumentation caught Kitty’s attention.

  “Hey, you guys,” Kitty said, leaning over and studying the digital readout. “I’ve located the GPS transponder of Lee’s ship, the Arcadia. It’s anchored about a mile off the shore of something called Julienne Cay.” “Gripes,” muttered Logan under his breath. “What?” Kitty said, looking from Scott to Logan and back.

  “Remember that atoll I was telling you about?” Scott said, his hands tightening on the controls. “That’s Julienne Cay.”

  “So that means ...” Kitty said, realization dawning. “That means that Lee’s in that alien city.”

  “Her message said something about ‘others,’” Kitty said. “But I thought the city was deserted.”

  Behind her, Logan said simply, “Not anymore.”

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  4

  They were only minutes away from their destination when the Blackbird’s proximity alarms went off klaxons blaring.

  “What the devil?” Scott glanced at the instrumentation, and saw the telltales of another craft coming in fast. He gritted his teeth, tightening his grip on the controls. “Hold on.”

  Kitty gasped as Scott sent the plane into a tight roll, veering off to port just as the other craft shot past them. And just in case there was any doubt as to the newcomer’s intentions, tracer fire raked across the nose of the Blackbird, only narrowly missing puncturing the hull.

  “We’re under attack,” Scott said, unlocking the Blackbird’s weapons systems.

  “Gee, Cyke,” Logan said with a sneer, “you think?” “I didn’t get a good look at it, but it must be that UFO Lee mentioned.”

  “I don’t think so, Scott,” Kitty said, holding a set of headphones to her ears, working the Blackbird’s communications controls. “I’m monitoring radio frequencies, and I’m pretty sure that bogey is local.”

  To illustrate her point, Kitty reached over and toggled on the plane’s loudspeakers.

  . . repeat, this is Colonel Alysande Stuart, of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, to unidentified craft. You are entering British airspace without clearance, and should you proceed on your present heading you will be shot down.”

  “Um,” Kitty said, setting down the headphones, and turning to Scott. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Britain quite a bit that way?” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ,

  “The Brits used to have an empire the sun never set on, pun’kin,” Logan said. “Don’t be too surprised they hung onto one or two bits of it.”

  Scott kept one hand on the controls and used the other to set the headphones on his head, and switch the microphone on.

  “This is Scott Summers, piloting private aircraft X-ray Alpha Victor out of Salem Center, New York, bound for Julienne Cay. This is a rescue operation. Over.”

  A moment’s silence followed.

  “Permission to approach denied. Proceed back along your previous course or you will be shot down.”

  Logan growled, rubbing his knuckles, but Kitty waved him quiet.

  “On what authority?” Scott demanded, trying to retain his composure.

  “On the authority of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” came the answer. “These waters, and airspace, are part of the British Virgin Islands, and as such are under the jurisdiction of the British Crown. No unauthorized craft or personnel are permitted to approach.”

  In a voice barely above a whisper, Kitty said, “Just what are they doing down there, anyway?”

  “Askin’ for a world of hurt,” Logan growled, teeth bared.

  “Look, Colonel Whatever-your-name is,” Scott said, his voice raising, “I’ve got friends down there who’ve called for help, and I’m landing this plane, whether you like it or not.”

  After a momentary pause, the reply came. “Then you leave me no choice. Lieutenant, prepare to ...” Without warning, the voice on the other end of the radio broke off

  Scott looked over at Kitty, confused. “Where’d they go?”

  Kitty checked the radio instrumentation and shook her head. “They’re still there, and we’re still receiving.” Faintly, over the speakers, they could hear low voices muttering.

  “Sounds like somebody had a dissenting opinion,” Kitty said.

  “Very well!” The voice on the radio returned, sounding exasperated. “Private aircraft X-ray Alpha Victor. You have permission to land. Our fighter jet will act as escort. Follow him on the approach vector. However, if you deviate from that course, or your people step one inch out of line once you’re on the ground, I’ll order my men to open fire.”

  Then the transmission ended, and the radio bled static.

  “Well, you heard the lady,” Logan said. “So land already?”

  “Lady?” Kitty said, turning around in her seat. “You think that was a woman?”

  Logan retracted his claws back into his forearms, and then reached up to tug at one earlobe. “I’ve got pretty good bearin’, kiddo. That was a woman, no doubt about it.”

  “Oh,” Kitty said, turning back around in her seat.

  Scott watched as the British fighter jet approached on a heading parallel to theirs, the pilot giving him a thumbs-up.

  “Don’t let that relax you any, though,” Logan said guardedly. ‘You know as well as me that a skirt can pull a trigger just as easy as anyone else.”

  5

  Colonel Alysande Stuart stood on the sandy beach of the atoll, looking across the waters at the unknown. Only a mile or so of unbroken sea separated her from the strange alien city that grew from the calm waters of the Sargasso like some sort of nightmarish tumor. The towers and obelisks and other protuberances that marked the city’s skyline were all of strange angles, of uncomfortably organic shapes
and curves, and Alysande could not shake the sensation that as she was looking at them, they were looking back.

  A short distance off, one of her men was on the radio with the fighter pilot, guiding the interloping aircraft down to an amphibious landing. When it had finished, the fighter would return to the carrier group, and to the HMS Valiant, her base of operations, only a few dozen miles away. If circumstances demanded, Alysande could have an aerial strike force overhead in a matter of moments. But what circumstances those might be, she hadn’t a clue.

  This isn’t what I signed on for, she thought, regarding the alien city. Not by half

  A short distance off, the man in the plain black suit finished up his conversation with his distant masters, and shut his satellite phone down. Then, with the same unctuous smile that had been maddening Alysande all morning, he made his way back down the beach toward her.

  “Downing Street is quite pleased with how you’ve handled matters so far, Colonel Stuart,” the man said, still smiling. “I’ll make sure your superiors get a full report.” “And what of your shadowy superiors, Mr. Raphael? What does the RCX have to say about all of this?”

  “Oh, it’s just Raphael, Colonel,” he said, stopping just beyond arms reach, his hands tucked casually into his pants pockets. “And I’m obliged to remind you, of course, that I’m merely a simple servant of the crown. Even if such an organization as the RCX existed, there’d be no connection between it and myself” Alysande pursed her lips, biting back the answer that suggested itself

  “Ri-ight,” she said simply.

  She understood full well that the rank and file weren’t to know of the existence of the Resource Control Executive, but even any knowledge about the shadowy agency was on a strictly need-to-know basis, under the circumstances she herself surely needed to know.

  “With any luck, Colonel,” Raphael went on, “we’ll have this mess sorted in no time, and you and your men can get back to your little launch, yes?”

  Alysande bristled, holding her hands together behind her back to resist the temptation to throttle the little troll, and with a curt nod, said, “Yes, well...”

  As though the most cutting-edge space plane yet designed, the result of billions of pounds and countless hours of effort on the part of the British Rocket Group, was nothing more than a “little launch.”

  It was dumb luck that led Alysande to be in charge here, so far from home. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, to her way of thinking.

  Colonel Stuart had been sent to these waters to command a security detail, responsible for safeguarding the launch of an experimental spacecraft. The launch was to have taken place from a floating platform anchored off the coast of the tiny island of Tortola, and up until shortly before dawn that morning, everything had proceeded exactly according to plan.

  Then an unidentified object had appeared on their radar screens, moving impossibly fast, and touching down less than a hundred miles away from the launch site.

  "Without hesitation, Alysande had ordered the launch scrubbed, and immediately notified her superiors, while the boffins in the British Rocket Group shouted their demands that her orders be contravened and the launch continue.

  Following her superiors’ orders to hold position and wait for further instruction, Alysande spent the morning organizing her men into a search-and-rescue operation, should the need arise. Then, midmorning, a supersonic jet had boomed out of the east, and set down on the deck of Alysande’s command aircraft carrier. Besides the pilot, the jet had carried only one passenger, a squat little man, round and balding, wearing a black business suit. Wearing completely opaque wraparound sunglasses, he’d hopped down to the deck, extended his hand to Alysande, and introduced himself simply as “Raphael.”

  Alysande recognized a spook when she saw one, as did most of her men, who eyed the stranger warily.

  Raphael had presented his bona fides to Alysande when requested, a simple document printed on Downing Street stationery and bearing the personal signature of the prime minister and the head of the Ministry of Defense. However, though his paperwork practically granted him the latitude to buy and sell the whole carrier group at his whim, Raphael had insisted that he was present in a strictly advisory capacity, and that Colonel Stuart would retain operational authority in the area.

  That was quickly put to the test, though, a short while later, as Alysande prepared to order an interloping aircraft shot out of the sky.

  “Then you leave me no choice,” Alysande had said, when the pilot of the private plane had refused to break away. She turned to the officer at her side, who was in communication with the fighter pilot. “Lieutenant, prepare to...”

  “Colonel Stuart,” Raphael had said in a stage whisper. “A moment of your time?”

  Irritated, but knowing that the little troll had the authority to strip her of command if he so desired, Alysande had tossed the microphone to the lieutenant and stalked over to the man in black.

  “Colonel ...” Raphael began, and then tilted his head to one side. “May I call you Alysande?”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t,” she answered coolly. “Alysande,” he went on with a smile, “I hate to interfere with your duties—and you’re doing a superb job, let me state—but I feel compelled to point out that the gentleman to whom you’ve been speaking is not completely unknown to me.”

  ‘Yes?| Alysande raised an eyebrow, regarding the little man.

  “Which is not to say that I know him personally, of course,” Raphael continued, “but certain . . . elements ... of Her Majesty’s government have been aware of the activities of a Mr. Scott Summers, late of Salem Center, New "York for some time now.”

  “And what’s this man done that’s of interest to your lot?”

  “Well, Alysande, have you ever heard . . . that is to say”—Raphael looked to either side, almost comically, as though checking for eavesdroppers—“have you ever heard of an organization calling itself the ‘X-Men’?” Alysande had merely sneered, an expression of distaste passing quickly across her features like a cloud drifting over the face of the moon. “Mutants.”

  Now, a short while later, Alysande stood on the beach, waiting for this Summers and his companions to arrive. She was curious to find out what their connection to all of this business was. So far as Her Majesty’s government had been able to determine in recent hours, no one had ever sighted this strange alien city before this morning. It didn’t appear on any maps, surveys, or satellite surveillance photos. For all that, it appeared, at the outset, to be unspeakably old, or it might just as well have been built overnight. What connection the city had with the impossibly fast flying object of the early morning hours, no one could say, but no one doubted for an instant that a connection existed.

  So why was the leader of an international band of mutants—alternatively thought of as adventurers, heroes, or terrorists—flying here, and on this particular morning?

  This Mr. Summers knew something about all of this, Alysande was convinced. And in short order, he’d share what he knew. Or Summers would, in turn, know Colonel Stuart’s displeasure.

  6

  As Scott brought the Blackbird in for an amphibious landing, Logan tugged on a pair of leather gloves and settled his cowboy hat on his head. He glanced over at Kitty, who was perched nervously on the copilot’s seat, her mask in her hands.

  “Looks like we’re doin’ this one in civvies, darlin’,” Logan said, checking to make sure the three parallel slits cut into the backs of his gloves were lined up. “No reason to go in masked.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Kitty said, a little uneasily. “I still cling hopefully to the notion of a ‘secret identity,’ you know. If it gets out that a kid from Deerfield is traipsing around the Atlantic with British marines, it’s going to get a little difficult to explain to the folks.”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Logan said with a smile. “I’ve had to wipe out all manner of records and such, covering our tracks before, and I can do it again, if n
eed be.” Kitty replied with a halfhearted grin, and tucked her mask into the pocket of her bluejacket.

  “I suppose,” she said, shrugging. “At least my uniform passes as street clothes.” She gestured to her blue jacket, light blue tights and leggings. “I’m not sure what street your usual brown-and-tan getup would pass on.”

  “Kid,” Logan said, clamping a cigar butt between his teeth, “you obviously ain’t been on all the streets I have.”

  Scott swiveled the pilot’s chair around, having toggled the hatch open.

  “Be ready for anything, you two,” Scott said, stepping over to the slowly opening hatch. He wore a black sweater and jeans, his wide red glasses covering half his face. “We don’t know what to expect from these people.”

  “Relax, Cyke,” Logan said, coming to stand beside him. “Me and the Brits, we got a history. We won’t have any trouble at all.”

  The hatch swung all the way open as Kitty came to stand between them.

  “No sudden movements!” barked the marine standing just beyond the hatch, the barrel of his automatic rifle trained on them. Another half-dozen marines were at his side, their rifles likewise aimed and ready.

  “Gee, Logan,” Kitty said with a smirk. “The way you make friends, I don’t know why I should have worried.”

  The way Logan saw it, he was on his best behavior.

  Scott and Kitty probably didn’t see it that way, but they always did tend to overreact. As for the marines? Well, it was pretty clear what they thought.

  Logan had been the first to hit the ground, hopping down from the open hatch.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!” the young marine said.

  “You mean these hands?” Logan answered, raising his fists.

  “Lo-gan,” Kitty said, an imploring tone in her voice.

  “No talking,” the marine barked. “We’re to escort you to the colonel, but we’ve got orders to open fire if you refuse to follow our instructions.”

  “Look, bub,” Logan answered, treating the soldier to a humorless smile, “I’ll thank you not to wave that peashooter in my face, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oi!” the marine answered, advancing, jabbing his rifle only inches from Logan’s nose. “I said button it, you.”