ic Until You've Crossed

[Avenger Assembled]

August 1, 2014

Midnight Manor

5 AM

 

The ball of water smashed into the grounds of Midnight Manor like a tidal wave, water erupting outward and down as the artificial sphere produced by a hasty mass teleport collapsed under its own weight in a mini-tsunami. The water smashed

across the lawn and flooded the flower beds, smashed against the first floor windows on the north side (which were luckily closed) and flooded the pool. 

 

In the center of the vast wet spot on the completely drenched lawn, a bedragged Mark Lucas and Nina al-Darsah were crouched protectively over an unconscious, bloody woman in a torn blue and white outfit like something from a Victorian's painting of a Middle Eastern harem. She looked bad, like someone who'd been grabbed in a giant's fist, and was covered in blood.

 

"<-STEN TO ME!>" Nina was in the middle of screaming; the only water still standing the head-height inch-thick wall she was holding up between them and an invisible assailant. Her formal Socotran dress was ruined, even royal-made waterproof blue and white cloth torn to ribbons and hanging bedraggedly off her body, as if she'd been tossed into a waterfall and come out the other side. 

 

Mark wasn't panicking, really; he'd been in crises far worse than this, but as his soaking wet suit and tie erupted into his costume in a flash of light he was certainly far more focused than he usually was. "He's far away, and we have to get her to a hospital right now." He looked up, bloodstains on his hands from where it pooled on Fatima al-Darsah's skin like juice from a squeezed grape. "This is bad; I don't...I don't know how to fix this!" he said, a moment before he yelled "T-Midnight! Wander!"

 

Pacing around the scene, her eyes still out for danger that was thousands of miles away, the princess of Socotra kept moving. "It doesn't make any sense," said Nina desperately, pulling her hair loose so the black strands poured down, soaking wet, past her shoulders. "Why would he do this, why would he just..."

 

"Nina, please, I need you to help me with this!" Mark snapped. "I can't do this alone!" Torn out of her fugue by her boyfriend's urgency, not to  mention the crisis of the moment, the princess went to help tend the bleeding woman who twenty minutes earlier had called her Daughter...

[Gizmo]

Before Nina had finished turning back around to the bloodied woman Trevor Hunter was sprinting out the back door of the estate, a pen knife in one hand, a chocolate brown towel in the other and a belt covered in compartments draped over one bare shoulder. The young man hadn't delayed long enough to put on anything besides a pair of black silk boxers, pale skin over toned muscle in stark contrast with dark tousled hair and uncanny, clearly metahuman eyes. For all the al-Darsah princess had politely feigned ignorance of the connection between Mark's friends and his Liberty League allies this was no time for keeping up appearances.

"Erin's getting emergency kit from infirmary," he informed the abrupt arrivals tersely, leaving any questions about the situation for later. The pen knife quickly got the remnants of the injured woman's outfit out of the way while the towel handed to Nina kept pressure on the worst of the bleeding while Trevor accessed more precise tools from his belt and went to work with the brusque efficiency of a battlefield medic.

[Electra]

Hardly a minute later, Erin raced onto the sodden lawn as well, her feet barely splashing on the surface of the puddles. She was wearing a shirt that probably belonged to Trevor and a pair of faded Ocean Point Amusement Park shorts, her hair flattened to her head and a sleep crease still embedded in one cheek. Despite that, she was utterly alert as she opened the box and spread tools out for Trevor. "Ambulance?" she asked him, raising her communicator, then looked to Mark and Nina. "What happened?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"It was-" The two spoke at once, then Mark spoke louder, breaking through the impasse.

 

"This is Nina's mom." Her injuries were severe; deep bruises nearly everywhere under her dark skin, blood-shot eyes and shallow cuts in the skin that looked like they'd been torn open from the inside - an instant later and it was obvious she'd have been dead. "Fatima bint Antar al-Darsah." 

 

"That can't be right." It didn't sound like Nina believed her own words. "They, they told me that she had died, that she had gone back to Oman and she had died there after I was born...she must be one of those brainwashed SHADOW assassins!"

 

"We were at a party for Nina's brother when...this woman came in with some masked dancers. Real pretty, real Arabian Nights stuff." Mark rubbed his eyes. "Oh, man, I'm sorry, you guys, but the last thing I was thinking about before all this happened was making sure Nina didn't see me looking their way, you know? Anyway, she worked her way up to the main table, got close, and went for Typhoon with a serving knife."

 

"My father's armor is camouflage," Nina confessed. "His body is armored by the rigors of the sea, the knife...it cut his flesh but did not penetrate."

 

"We were outside on the balcony when it all happened. When we came back in, there was running and screaming, water and blood in the air..." Mark shook his head, his short blonde hair plastered to his head by all the water. "Nina's brother had...had Fatima up against the wall and had pulled off her veil, and Typhoon was holding himself together. I didn't know what to do at first," he admitted, "I mean, I won't let someone just be killed, but attempted murder is still murder."

 

"She said she had struck a blow for Socotran freedom and national liberation." Nina's dark eyes were very wide at the memory. "This...has happened before. In my childhood. But when she saw me, she gave this terrible howl and said...'Look what you've done! Look what you've done to her!' And so I demanded to know who this was who had struck a blow at my father and she said 'Don't you know your own mother, child?'"

 

"Typhoon told her he was sorry," Mark went on, taking up the story when Nina couldn't finish. "But that the penalty for killing a king was death. And so..." Mark shrugged, as ever reluctant to boast about his power. "well, we stopped him." 

 

"We don't even know what we did this for!" objected Nina. "For all we know she could be a Grue, or a shapeshifter, or any number of things! We-" 

 

"If you really thought that, babe, you wouldn't have helped," Mark said seriously. He looked over at Erin and Trevor as Nina leaned against him. "The whole family was there, or almost all. When I went for Typhoon, they all backed him up. There must have been...geez, it was like standing inside Hoover Dam. If Nina hadn't kept the water off us while I threw up a shield, I'd probably have gone through a skyscraper. As it was, we...we tore up the palace some, and hit the bay, and I got us here." 

[Gizmo]

Trevor silently went about his work while Mark and Nina related their story, focusing on his task. He was no doctor but fortunately for all of them he'd focused what medical training he did have on first aid and stabilization. Tightening a final bandage into place with a soft grunt, he answered Erin, "No ambulance. Yet." There were a lot of questions they simply wouldn't be able to answer yet and for now their would-be assassin's overall well being probably benefited from secrecy more than anything else. Gesturing for his girlfriend to take up the injured woman's feet, he lifted her from the middle of her back and shoulders, jostling her as little as possible. "Stable enough to treat here for now."

Pausing for a moment, he looked to Nina, crimson irises seeming to glow like embers against the onyx black of the rest of his eyes as they reflected the flight from the house. Finally he told her, "Did the right thing tonight, not the easy thing. Good job." Admittedly they'd all been placed in a rather extreme situation but the Hunter heir decided that she'd earned a measure of trust.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I didn't do anything," said Nina as she shook her head, defiantly forcing herself to meet Midnight's strange eyes. "The sea will cool my father's rage once the moment has passed." Her hands clenched briefly into fists, though, as she put an arm around Mark. "But he should just...just have listened to me." With their respective powers, it was easy enough to convey the injured woman into Midnight Manor - and soon Fatima bint Antar al-Darsah was stretched out on a bed in the Manor's small infirmary while Nina stood guard like a Socotran sunbird over its nest. She had let Mark change her clothes, but other than that she kept a vigil over her half-conscious mother as if she couldn't dare to do anything else. 

 

After a long moment once the IV had gone into her arm, Fatima opened her eyes and looked around - first at the faces of her hosts, and then laser-like up at her daughter. "<Look at you. A princess of mighty Socotra.>" 

 

Nina's eyes widened. "<I...no, if you are my mother, then you speak English!>" Switching to that language, she went on, "It was you who taught me! I remember because my father said that it was you who thought I should learn the language of our enemies!" 

 

Fatima coughed, hard, and spat up bloody water up into a towel that Mark provided. "You learned English so that you could see the world beyond the palace walls." She looked up at Nina, eyes bloodshot with broken capillaries. "But you were so little then, my small stormcloud. I remember a pretty little girl with curly black hair, who screamed like a banshee when she got no sweets." 

 

"...I like sweets," said Nina, her voice pulling tight for a moment. "But...how are you alive? How have you come to be here?" 

 

-

 

Meanwhile, across Freedom City, Blue Fox had been jolted awake by an emergency alert from a very impressive individual - Monsieur François Hollande, President of France. "Renarde Blue," he told her seriously once he'd given the code words that told her he was indeed speaking from Paris, "do you have access to a swift means of travel? There has been an incident in the waters of the Gulf of Aden. The Charles de Gaulle has been engaged by what appears to be members of the Socotran royal dynasty." 

[Electra]

While Trevor and Mark worked on the unexpected guest, Erin slipped downstairs and began activating the Manor's defensive systems. The alarms were all well and good, but if anyone figured out where Mark and Nina were, they could have an international incident barreling down on them anytime now. She killed the floodlights that had triggered with the alarms, but couldn't do much about the thousands of gallons of water puddling over the backyard. (Except double-check the sump pump system in the Manor, which she did.) While she worked, she flipped on a couple of the television monitors to BBC and Al Jazeera, wondering how newsworthy all of this had been. 

[April]

One thing that came with carrying on the legacy of one of France's great heroines was a reserve commission in the National Gendarmerie, specifically the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, a commission that could be activated at any moment and one that meant that, regardless of whether or not she had access to swift transport, Eve had to find a way.

She ran through a mental checklist of her options as she acknowledged President Hollande; she could fly there under her own power, but such a thing is mentally exhausting and it sounded like she'd have a fight on her hands from the moment she arrived. Her own private resources belonged to the Eve Martel identity, and revealing that sort of thing was risky (not to mention not nearly quick enough.) A third option did occur to her, she just hoped Trevor would forgive her for waking him.

--Midnight.--

It was a gentle mental feeler along their psychic bond, her choice of address an indicator of the nature of the "call."

--Pardon my interruption, could I borrow Redbird? She is the fastest mode of transport I know, besides Edge, and I need to get to the Gulf of Aden. The Charles de Gaulle is apparently under attack by Socotran royals, and my commission was activated to respond.--

[Gizmo]

--Sage. Hhn, Renarde. Sorry, distracted.-- Trevor's thoughts had an uncharacteristic ripple to them as he scrupulously washed blood off of his hands in the room next to the infirmary, which was probably too well furnished to be called a simple prep room but too sterile to count among the estates multiple bathrooms either. Closing his eyes and exhaling slowly, he calmed his mind back into the perfectly still but impossibly deep waters with which Eve was more familiar.

Listening to her request, the dark haired detective considered the new information. --Airport? Makes sense, unfortunately. Get you to the Gulf but going to want make a stop first.-- Quickly relating the events of the past few minutes over their telepathic link, he stepped quickly out of the room to find the only mode of transport Eve knew that was faster than Redbird to request his services.

[Avenger Assembled]

Trevor found Mark on his phone, or rather texting - shooting worried glances between Nina and her mother (who had now switched back to Soqotri), a little slowed down by the hand that was resting between Nina's shoulderblades. "It's lunchtime in Geneva, but a few people are in the office. The lines are jammed at Special Ops, but there's something happening on the news..." Sure enough, Erin could see the same things - CNN was reporting a freak storm cell had formed directly over the island of Socotra and then headed directly for the Arabian coastline, while one of Al Jazeera's 'embedded reporters' on Socotra had broadcast shaky iPhone images of what looked like fountains of water erupting from an already-damaged imperial palace (which from the fallen roof and damaged walls did indeed look like Mark had been going all out in it), gushing down on the streets below and into the harbor - just before the tiny nation's cellular networks and Internet had gone down thanks to government censorship. 

 

"They don't know anything yet. Sorry, babe." He looked over expectantly at Trevor, from the look in his eye hoping for some good news. 

[Gizmo]

Having found a moment to put on a pair of dark jeans, Trevor gave Nina and her mother a vaguely apologetic look as he cleared his throat faintly and stepped close enough to Mark to lower his already soft voice to a whisper. "Typhoon and family are attacking nuclear carrier in Arabian Sea. Need you to teleport Eve here; French President called in Renarde Bleue." He tapped two fingers to the side of his head to explain how he knew that before sparing another glance in the direction of Mark's girlfriend. "...can't let Typhoon capture the Charles de Gaulle." It wasn't a fair position in which to place either his friend nor Typhoon's daughter but the situation was what it was.

[Electra]

Erin came back from the basement at a run, nearly clipping the automatic hidden door at the top of the stairs in her haste. The Midnight Manor was an engineering marvel, but parts of it hadn't been designed with super-speed in mind. She joined the others in the infirmary just as Trevor was explaining the situation to Mark. While she'd been downstairs she'd taken the time to change into her uniform, covering it with an oversized FCU sweatshirt that let it pass for leggings and concealed her bat entirely. 

 

"Things are looking rough in Socotra," she reported, "flooding in the streets, lots of damage to the palace. It doesn't look like anyone's cleaning it up at the moment." She glanced over at Nina, then looked to Mark and Trevor. "I've locked up the house, just in case we need to go out somewhere." 

[Avenger Assembled]

Nina stared at Trevor in disbelief, then her eyes widened when she saw the look of unhappy resolution on Mark's face that told her Trevor was telling the truth. "He wouldn't capture it. He would sink it." Nina looked from her mother to Mark, then at the others for a moment, before she stood up. "But why would he...never mind. Mark, dress me for war. I can't let you face my family alone, especially if they have all lost their minds today." She stood up, resplendent even in her rags and borrowed black bathrobe. "We will solve this problem together." 

 

"Together," agreed Mark, feeling a swell of pride in his girlfriend as she made the decision to stand with them against the forces of her father. Mark pointed at Nina and the air around her seemed to ripple before her clothes reshaped themselves - not into the long, confining black dress she'd been wearing when the day started, but something else - a black costume consisting of a pair of pants and a long sleeved tunic, with a black hood attached with pieces clipped together. "Will you be all right, Ms. Antar?" he asked Nina's mother, a serious look on his face. 

 

"I will be well in this bed if you return, but..." She looked at the others and said, "Typhoon has no quarrel with France. He knows I have been living in exile in Oman; he knows I could not have returned without help. He and his spawn have crossed the sea for revenge. If you stand against him, it will be war." 

 

"We're heroes," replied Mark, taking Nina's hand. "We don't start wars. We end them." And with that, he disappeared, leaving Nina behind for just a moment as he reappeared just a few feet away from Eve! 

[April]

"Damnit, Mark, never teleport into a lady's bedroom uninvited."

Eve quickly finished sealing the rest of her costume when Mark reappeared in her room, assuming the mantle of the Blue Fox. Her hood was still down, and her mask was resting on her bed, so Mark saw her brief look of consternation that immediately faded when she took stock of his appearance.

"You look like hell. I imagine Midnight has filled you in, but from the looks of things you already know. It will be helpful to have UNISON supporting the GIGN in this matter."

[Avenger Assembled]

"We should support you. After all, we started it," replied Mark with a crooked smile as he took Eve's hand. "Nina and I, that is, not-" 

 

"-UNISON," he finished as they arrived in the infirmary again. "There was an assassination attempt made against Typhoon." The princess, at her mother's side, gave Eve a tight little smile. "We stopped it, and rescued the assassin, who turned out to be Nina's mother. And after we made it here, something happened with Typhoon and the Charles De Gaulle." 

 

"It makes no sense that my father would simply go to war with the French Navy on a whim," said Nina as she rose to her feet, her gloved hand on her mother's "He has no reason to believe that...there was any connection to what happened today." 

[April]

The Blue Fox, with her mask off and hood down, inclined her head in a curt but polite greeting to Nina. She listened to Mark and his girlfriend for a moment then shook her head slightly.

"It doesn't matter what he does or does not believe at this point, Ms. al-Darsah. Socotra, in the eyes of the world, is a rogue nation with a super villain and dictator as the head of state. A head of state, with all his terrible power, along with other members of his family are--without a formal declaration of war--mounting an assault on what is considered the sovereign territory of the Republic, in short an act of terrorism."

Eve sighed and looked Nina in the eyes. Normally one very much in control of her outward display of emotion, Eve very much looked like she didn't want to say what she was about to.

"One of the options on the table, when a rogue state engages in an act of terrorism on French territory, is a nuclear first strike."

[Electra]

Erin's eyes widened at that, and she quickly stepped forward. "Nobody's seriously going to launch nuclear missiles over this, right? That would be..." insane, horrifying, a little prelude of apocalypse, it didn't take a psychic to watch the options play over her face before she chose one, "an extremely strong reaction to an isolated attack. But somebody needs to get out there and stop them so cooler heads can prevail." She looked at Eve. "So I know you're on deck for France, are any other national superheroes turning out, or should we come along and help out?" Superheroic jurisdiction was very far from Erin's specialty, perhaps one of the many reasons she'd been turned down for the Freedom League when she'd applied. 

[Gizmo]

"No one is launching missiles," Trevor cut in, his flat tone making it sound more like a decision he'd made than a prediction. "Of course we're going." He might have had a better grasp of the politics of international intercession than Erin but it had just as little effect on his decision making. He was hardly about to go back to bed while his best friends went off to get between two nations worth of metahumans regardless of who's toes he ended up stepping on in the process. "Dress myself," he told Mark. "Always mix up the belt pouches." He stepped out to do so and make a few predictably brief calls about Antar just in case.

[Avenger Assembled]

Though Nina shot Eve a look that would have shot daggers through a lesser woman, she fell silent as the heroes defended her people from even the threat of nuclear attack. When everyone was back together and dressed, Mark moved them a little away from Fatima's bedside. (Trevor's calls hadn't been able to get him much at this juncture - just that yes, Fatima bint Antar al-Darsah was listed as the seventh wife of Typhoon (and the picture on her Wikipedia article seemed to match the woman he'd seen, albeit aged); the former belly dancer had been the youngest of Typhoon's several wives upon their marriage and was the only one who (or so history had believed) had predeceased him of an unnamed cancer.)

 

"We'll be right back," he promised her as he took Nina's hand. "We're superheroes, we can handle this-" 

 

- 

 

They appeared in the middle of a war zone. It was all pitching seas and rain pouring down in gobbets from the sky, but that wasn't the worst of it by far! Mark had, quite naturally, put them down on the flight deck of the Charles de Gaulle (albeit luckily not in front of where planes took off); but he hadn't been expecting a conflict like this! They were near the control tower of the carrier, not far from its helicopter pad. Light missiles erupted from the carrier's flanks to strike against an armored figure in the sky with explosive results while jets screamed overhead in a desperate aerial battle against Socotran royalty; figures wearing their own battle armor that deployed clouds and waterspouts against the might of the Marine Nationale! Suddenly, the huge ship itself began to tilt noticeably - and a nearby helicopter, only half-battened down by its overworked crew, snapped free and began sliding down the deck towards the heroes! 

[Electra]

In the blink of an eye, Wander was racing past her friends, putting herself between them and the helicopter on the increasingly precarious deck. Jamming one foot against a tiedown anchor for leverage, she set her body and caught the helicopter by one skid, swinging it in a partial arc before bringing it to a stop. A ship the size of a carrier should not be tilting like this, she realized. But nothing about this situation was normal. "Edge! You've got to get Typhoon out of here!" she called. The other Socotrans could manipulate water, but without their leader and strongest asset, the royal family would be at much more of a disadvantage. She spat water, salt already stinging her eyes, and for a moment wished she had a mask like Midnight's. Or some scuba gear, if things got any worse. 

[Avenger Assembled]

The team went into action - Edge making his way up the tilting deck to try and blast Typhoon out of the sky, Blue Fox mentally contacting both the captain of the De Gaulle - and her sister, who was in the air over a nearby destroyer defending it from one of Nina's siblings, when suddenly the carrier's abrupt tilt stopped! Eve knew the reason why first. Her mind already linked with Captain Duval, she could clearly hear the radio message that the captain was receiving aboard the De Gaulle's storm-tossed bridge. 

 

"<-you have had your lesson! If you do not leave Socotran territorial waters within four hours, it shall be applied again!>" 

 

Of course, Typhoon's decision to evidently withdraw didn't necessarily apply to the French superheroes he and the al-Darsah family had been fighting - or for that matter the French naval personnel they'd been warring with! A controlled melee began in the air around the king of Socotra as the al-Darsah siblings, all of them in black costumes similar to Nina's, in the air made a tight circle around him, a full half-dozen of some of the most powerful hydrokinetics on the planet guarding the most powerful, all of them still locked in a struggle with the forces of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group and the air wing against them. 

 

"Crap! I can't hit him with everybody in the way!" Edge called to Wander and Midnight. "I might take out a jet!" He looked at Nina and pointed to the sky, calling. "Babe, this may be your moment!" 

 

"Until these people stop shooting at my family!" Nina called out, though for all her words she was already hovering in the air, her eyes an alarming blood-red as if she'd burst a vessel. Sure enough she and they were already attracting an armed crowd on deck. 

[April]

Biting back a sharp comment--she seemed to be doing that a lot, when Nina was involved, Eve reflected--she instead focused her attention on the crowd she and her allies (and Nina) were gathering on the deck of the carrier. There was time, she hoped, to join her sister but there would be little opportunity to do anything good if they were detained.

--Stand down,-- Eve commanded mentally. Indicating first herself and then Edge, and from the way she was positioned though it was clear that she was supporting Midnight, Wander and Nina as well, she continued. --La Renarde Bleue, GIGN, Edge of UNISON. Get someone on the horn to start standing down our forces before this escalates too far.--

[Gizmo]

Stooping into a more stable crouch atop the listing carrier as they arrived, Midnight waited until he was sure Wander had the helicopter literally well in hand before turning his attention to the mayhem into which they'd teleported. His mask, with its built in goggles and breathing apparatus meant that the water flying everywhere impeded him less so than it might have but there was still so much to keep track of at once. --French ship, your call. Follow your lead,-- he telepathically deferred to Eve privately while he produced Redbird's silvery egg form from his jacket and scanned the planes parked atop deck. --Borrowing a Rafale.--

[Avenger Assembled]

With no risk of the team being crushed by a helicopter, with her boyfriend backing her up from below, with the French troops on their side and Midnight about to provide air support, Nina took to the sky to intercept her father and her siblings. Their conversation might have been too high to be overheard - except that Typhoon and his escorts approached close enough to the carrier that their shouts could be heard even over the gathering storm overhead. 

 

"WHY!" Nina demanded, and for all her fear of her father, darkly magnificent in blue-white armor that now showed significant battle-scarring from his fight with the French Navy, she was imperious as the princess she was when demanding answers from a king, her eyes red as blood as she confronted Typhoon himself. 

 

"Because these simpering FOOLS interfered with the application of Socotran justice!" He was still noticeably favoring the side he'd been stabbed in only a few hours earlier. "I am TYPHOON, the storm made flesh, and I shall fly where I will, be it over their fleet or anywhere else!" 

 

"What justice?!" Nina demanded, fists clenched in fury. "This is no kingly war of equals, this is a tyrant's tirade! You would do what, flood a nation because someone tried to kill you? Someone you once laid with and produced a-" 

 

"Keep your place, sister!" That was Kirogi, recognizable as the second-youngest, by his faint lisp and accented English - he'd adopted it while working for Japan's Imperial Resistance army. "None may question the will of Typhoon! Have you no honor left after you laid with that American dog?" 

 

"Careful, Kirogi," said Typhoon with a wave of his hand. "For your liasons have been no more pleasing in the eyes of Typhoon!" He looked at Nina and extended his hand. "Come join us again, daughter. You made a mistake once, but such errors can be rectified."

 

Nina hesitated, diplomacy from her father evidently something with which she was completely unfamiliar. "Why did my mother try to kill you?"

 

----

 

"I have a clear shot at Typhoon," Mark was saying over his commlink, the swaying of the deck having stopped now that the al-Darsahs had fallen into a defensive formation. "I'm not really a sniper, you guys," he was saying, perhaps a little too loudly if any of the floating hydrokinetics had super-hearing. "What do I do?" He couldn't have been more proud of his friends for coming with him - or his girl for standing up to the monster who'd tried to drown them both just a little while earlier. Don't listen to him, babe! he thought. He's evil! Look at his palace! Admittedly he'd been having a pretty good time there not that long ago, something that made an unpleasant feeling of guilt twist beneath his washboard stomach. 

 

--- 

 

"I don't know, child," said Typhoon baldly. "Now, will you stand with your family as we seek justice?" 

 

"I..." Nina extended a hand to her father for just a moment, then curled it into a fist again. "Father...You're lying!" 

[Electra]

"Try and stun him!" Erin suggested to Mark as she twisted a length of railing and used it to secure the helicopter she'd caught. "Or distract him so Nina can do something." She still wasn't certain about the motivations of the Socotran princess, but she at least seemed to be on their side tonight. With her burden lifted and the immediate danger on deck seemingly passed, she shielded her eyes aganst flying drops of water and looked at the tight defensive knot of Socotrans in the sky. "I'm only going after them as a last resort. I could make the jump, but I'm not super looking forward to getting lost at sea tonight if I can help it."