X-Men Mission: Eric the Red: Into The Storm

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The X-Men arrive to meet their contact, and find the situation might be far worse than they suspected.



The island north-east of Tanahbala, off the west coast of Northern Sumatra was virtually an atoll, marked only by several clusters of concrete pillboxes, three burnt shells of what had once been small buildings prefabricated from corrugated tin sheets and masonry blocks, and a landingstrip too small for all but the smallest of aircraft to use. In the coastal waters around the island, a mid-sized fishing boat bobbed gently in the waves, buffeting for a moment in the wake of the Blackbird's VTOL jets as it landed on the runway. A man sat patiently in front of one of the ruined buildings, watching the dark clouds that swirled, seeing the storms brew on the horizon and sweep the ocean.

It would be a bad one, and soon.

The rear of the plane opened, and the X-Men were greeted to a gust of warm humid air, laced heavily with the smell of salt water. It was still weeks away from when the weather would truly climb into inhospitable heat, and the gales lashed the island lightly, with the promise of more. Garrison was the first down the ramp, calling out to the man in Mandarin, using the code phrase that Christopher Summers had given them. It would be hard to mistake the X-Men for anything but what they were, but Summers survived in one of the world's most dangerous environments by being cautious, and no one second guessed him.

At the greeting, the man walked over, also speaking in rapid fire Mandarin. {{You speak excellent Mandarin.}}

{{Only sufficient, I am afraid. I am told that you also speak Hindi. You are a well educated man.}}

{{Hindi is a difficult language. It presents many challenges for the new student.}}

{{I would welcome instruction.}}

The man let out a breath, and addressed the rest of the X-Men in mildly accented English. "Good. Summers said that you people were clever. You'll need it. My name is Wu Koy Huang, but you can call me David." He was obviously a product of a Hong Kong school. He hefted a case up and motioned them towards a folding table he'd set up off to one side of the strip. "Come with me. We don't have a lot of time."

"Always in a flamin' hurry." Logan grumbled as he walked down the ramp. He kept both eyes and his nose peeled for anything that didn't seem like it should belong on this piece-of-shit island. So far, all this meant is that he got a nosefull of salt water, diesel fumes, and bird shit.

"Feels like a taifu." he noted mildly as he made his way over to where Gar and "David" were setting up camp.

Not far behind came Ororo, her skin prickling both from the humidity and the brewing storm, which sat on the edges of her senses and called for her full attention. She ignored it, pushing aside the elemental concerns and focusing instead on the man that was their contact and main source of information about the situation.

"My team is ready to help however we can. But the more information you can supply us with the better armed we will be should we need to interfere," she told him.

Marie was the last off the plane as she'd been checking some panels on the Blackbird while the rest of the team made their way down the ramp. Thinking about the briefing before the mission, Marie shuddered. Slavery. The word just made her skin crawl. She was anxious to get the details and get this mission done, but that was generally a sign that a mission was going to have more bumps than you wanted.

Shiro followed Ororo and Garrison, but made the (probably correct) decision to remain silent. Slavery and manipulation of mutants against their wills were themes with the X-Men, but encountering them over and over again did nothing to lessen the fury they generated, and he had nothing to say that would contribute to the discussion. One of the eight rays on his power indicator was illuminated, and that alone said more than enough.

Likewise, Lil chose - wisely, she felt - to keep her mouth shut and listen to the big guns get down to business while adding her own flavor of 'imposing giantess' to the scenery. Her first mission away from New York was already proving to be more than she'd ever imagined. Sure, it wasn't the island getaway one would have hoped to find in the Pacific but it was vastly different from the snow-covered roads of Yellowknife. Green eyes moved from where Garrison and the others stood to Amara, offering her roommate and fellow trainee a little encouragement in the form of a half-smirk.

Amara had been keeping silent as well. This was also her first big adventure, so to speak, as a trainee, and what they were going into had kept her mind occupied for most of the trip. Not out of nervousness, as a surprise, but the kidnapping and slavery of people had touched a little bit of a nerve. She caught the smirk from Lil as her gaze wandered, and she offered the other blonde a tentative smile in return.

Kyle's uncharacteristic silence was the product of him trying to keep his temper in check. He'd been ill-tempered and jumpy since before they'd gotten on the 'Bird. He'd deliberately avoiding standing anywhere near Shiro - strangling your own teammate for being a prick wouldn't help the situation. "What the hell's a taifu?" He asked, half-guessing it meant 'big fucking storm', but not sure. "Tell me we're not walking into a fucking hurricane..."

"A tropical storm. Not as powerful as a proper typhoon, unless it suddenly picks up. The locals call those the 'Devil Winds'." David said, with a slight smile. It was an interesting collection of Americans, especially the extremely tall blonde woman. They would not be mistaken for local forces no matter what the conditions.

"I will try and be brief, but there is some history that you need to know. Chris Summers is part of a, well, local legend right now. Eric the Red was a pirate back at the time of the founding of Hong Kong. His legitimate trading house had collapsed, and he ended up preying on ships of the British East India company for many years. In these waters, he was considered not even to be human, believed to have made a deal with demons in order to become rich and successful." The man turned over a paper that had a couple of old articles photocopied on to it. "When he died, one of his men took over the name. Since then, Eric the Red hasn't been a name so much as an organization, passed from captain to captain for well over a hundred years. Associates, hiding places, secret accounts, and dossiers on local powers. Superstition is a powerful tool even in Madripoor, and many believe that Eric the Red is still the same man, proof of his demonic pact."

He saw the looks and shook his head. "That's why it makes a useful cover. There's always been more than mere piracy involved in bringing people into the secret. During the First World War, it was a British captain that used it to raid shipping that was supporting German industries or bases. Fifty years ago, it was a Fukinese captain who went after drug smugglers. Today, it's human and mutant slavery. The name is a cover for going after much more powerful groups with the protection of anonymity. Unfortunately, we might have bitten off more than we can chew."

He pulled out another set of papers. "You are aware of the recent 'pledge of co-operation' between the Indonesian and Indian naval forces verses piracy and illegal activities in their waters? It's a cover. The US Sixth Fleet has been all but pushed back to the Western Indian Ocean, and as a result, India and Indonesia have essentially a free hand to operate on this side of Indochina. We discovered that the Indian navy has been capturing illegal slave ships, transporting young Indonesian mutants for various markets. Those ships are brought to India, and the children are supposedly returned to their families or placed by Indian agencies. It's a lie. The whole thing is a cover for Indonesia to ship mutants to India for their military programs. Since they are 'stopping slavery', the international community has no idea it's going on, and there's no proof that we can make public to change that. Chris decided that it would be the perfect time to dust off Eric the Red, and intercept the shipments before they could be taken by the Indian navy. Unfortunately, we made a mistake this time."

Ororo had to admit to being quite impressed by the idea - though it would not work everywhere, legend and myth were a powerful weapon in the right circumstances. Even if it didn't seem to have succeeded in this case. "You are up against slightly more powerful and better-funded foes this time around."

"Who happened to be at exactly the wrong place and the wrong time for us." David nodded and pulled out a map. "The Yos Sudarso was picked up by an Indian Naval squadron here, near the run from Banda Aceh to the Strait of Malacca. They forced Captain Sutra to turn south, forcing him between the mainland and Pulau Simeulue." David's finger traced the turns of the ship.

"One of our ships was able to meet with them and offload the children, and Captain Sutra took the Yos Sudarso back out to be picked up again by the Indians while the other ship escaped. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to lose them a second time, and he's come right into a storm in the reefs around Pulau Nias. His last transmission said he could maybe avoid contact for another day at best, and that one of his crew saw a man flying in the sky, searching for something. We think that India's mutant military group might be with the squadron." Huang said grimly. "If they capture Sutra, it'll blow the whole Eric the Red cover into the open, they'll destroy everyone involved and then nothing will be in place to stop the flow of kids from Indonesia to India. Here's his ship transponder code. You can use it to find his exact position. The ship is unimportant, but you have to get the Captain and his crew out of there safely."

"So we are to smuggle smugglers away from not one but two nations' militaries, which are supported by a powerful and well-trained mutant force." Shiro raised an eyebrow at the pirate. "What is known about these mutants?"

"Rumours were that they were involved in the virtual annexing of Sri Lanka by India. People are calling it a genocide." David said. "Past that, all we know are rumours. The only positive thing I can say is that the Indonesian Navy has given way to the Indians for the capture, so it will only be one major nation hunting you." He said with a kind of grim humour.

"They'll never know what hit 'em." Logan predicted as he fished a cigar out of an inside pocket, lit it, and stuck it in his mouth. "You just lay down the intel, we'll get the rest of it done." he said.

"So basically, you can't tell us anything about what we're about to be up against," Marie said with a shrug. She cast a glance in the trainees direction. It wasn't that the X-Men didn't often go up against situations where the details were lacking, but she preferred to know more rather than less when trainees were accompanying the team. "At least we'll be able to find the spot easily enough. Which we should probably do sooner rather than later."

Lil nodded in agreement. "I'm with her," she said, jerking her head towards Marie. "Sooner's better." The giantess wanted to get started. Too much sitting around, doing nothing but listening to the other was not what she'd signed up to do. Especially if slavery was involved and a storm was brewing.

Amara didn't really want to say much - she wasn't entirely sure she had much to contribute to be honest, but she'd been following the conversation closely and trying to memorise the details they were being given. She'd probably forget most of them later, but she was trying. But she did agree with Marie and Lil, if they didn't have any more information for them, they should really get moving.

"I'd hate this less if we knew who the hell we were gonna end up dealing with." Kyle grumbled. "Big ass storm, smugglers, who the fuck knows what else." At least if they had to deal with unknowns, with trainees, it was Lil, who wasn't really a trainee, and Amara who was, in Kyle's estimation, pretty-fucking-powerful, and not say, Laurie.

"Like they say, if my aunt had nuts, she would have been my uncle. Or my nutty aunt." Garrison said, not liking the situation any more than anyone else, but aware that regardless of the opposition, they would be going in anyway. David passed over the information to them.

"Please, try to get them clear. These men deserve better than a quiet execution for what they've risked." David said, before bidding them goodbye and heading for his own ship.

"All right," Ororo said in a clear voice as she turned to the gathered X-Men and trainees, obviously intent on quashing any doubts or indecision with immediate action. "We have our briefing, now let us begin our part. Logan, you and Amara will be working together. Kyle, stick with Lil. Shiro, with me..."