His ruminations were interrupted by Archangel, who came in from the cockpit, leaving Raza and Ch'od to their usual copilot status. "Approaching stargate," he said. "Everyone get strapped in. Ch'od says we're in for a rocky ride."
"You seemed to be doing pretty well up there, Warren," Jean said, and Archangel smiled. Despite the shocking contrast between his blonde hair and eyebrows and his blue skin, he was still as handsome as the day he first joined the X-Men. He'd been through a lot, Cyclops knew. They all had. And they'd stuck together. He was lucky to have them.
The five X-Men in the Starjammer's main cabin strapped themselves into form-fitting seats, all of which faced forward, toward the closed door of the cockpit. Just as Cyclops snapped his belt in place, the ship seemed to pause a moment, as if it had been thrown straight up and was waiting that heartbeat before gravity took hold and brought it crashing down again. It was an eerie, almost nauseating feeling, but not nearly as bad as what came next.
The stargate had offered a moment of resistance, stalling the ship in place despite its thrusters. When that moment ended, the ship was not thrown but yanked forward with impossible strength and speed. The material of his seat seemed to fold around his back and shoulders, his neck and the back of his head, nearly bursting with the raw force of the stargate's pull against the gravity of real space they were exiting.
For a moment, he couldn't breathe. The lights in the Starjammer dimmed, then went out. A moment later auxiliary running lights cast a ghostly gloom across the cabin. The pressure relaxed gradually, though the sensation of speed did not lessen at all. It wasn't the first time Cyclops had passed through a stargate, but he didn't think he would ever be used to it. The speed was at once almost unnoticeable and terrifyingly disorienting.
"I don't know 'bout y'all," Rogue said with a nervous laugh, "but this ain't the kind of thing I'd like to do every day."
"You're not kidding," Archangel added. "At least we can be grateful that getting out isn't as hard as getting in."
"I hope that's true of this mission as a whole," Jean said. "With what Raza told us about an armada waiting in space around Hala, I'm not exactly feeling confident about our chances here."
The Stariammer's engines began to whine loudly as Ch'od fired the backward thrusters and the ship started to fight the stargate's natural velocity. Cyclops planted his feet firmly on the floor and held on tight, every muscle fighting the shattered momentum caused by the vessel's braking. They were getting ready to exit the stargate. It all seemed to have happened much faster than he remembered. Or perhaps the trip to Hala was simply shorter than the one to Chandilar, the Shi'ar throneworld.
"I wouldn't worry much about our arrival, Jean," Archangel said haltingly, the pressure of braking getting to him as much as it was the others. "After all, Ch'od's rigged the ship so that the moment we exit the stargate and enter Hala's orbit, we'll be cloaked from all detection. I think we're going to sail right through this mission and make it home in time for The X-Files."
Then the ship was traveling normally again. They began to unbuckle themselves as Raza emerged from the cockpit.
"Prepare thyselves, X-Men!" he said. "Ch'od shall place the Starjammer in cloaked, autonomous orbit, thus can we all teleport down without fear that she'll be discovered. But yon planet awaits, and whither .. "
A thundering crash boomed up the companionway from the cargo hold, and the auxiliary lights flickered several times.
"Shields!" Raza yelled, then turned back toward the cockpit.
"What was dat you say 'bout cloaking, 'angel?" Gambit asked sourly.
And with good reason. The Starjammer was under attack.
Chapter 5
Miles of green slipped by beneath the dark whisper of a plane that was the X-Men's Blackbird (so named because it was modeled after the SR-71 Blackbird jets). From the pilot's seat, the ground looked like nothing so much as a great quilt of brown, yellow, and green squares, with the occasional string of river, highway or mountain range snaking over its surface. The American Midwest held an extraordinary majesty from the air, where one could forget that the poisons of city industry and city life had long since begun to seep into rural life.
Where Dr. Henry P. McCoy could forget, just for a moment, that he was a member of that elite race known as homo sapiens superior, a mutant. With the claws, fangs and indisguisable blue fur that were the hallmarks of his mutation, of the genetic x-factor that made him the Beast, Hank McCoy would not have been able to walk a block in the Midwest without being the object of fear, revulsion, and hatred.
The same might be true of New York or L.A., he realized, but somehow it seemed worse when the magnificence of nature surrounded him. Perhaps because in the city there were so many other eccentric and frightful things happening at all times, while in the country, he could almost understand the feelings of so-called "normal" people toward mutants. Almost. If he ever reached the moment when he could completely comprehend their bigotry, that would be the day he retired from society all together.
A red light popped into life on the control panel, accompanied by a high-pitched beep, alerting him to an incoming call on the Blackbird's vid-comm unit. While the Blackbird was loaded with as much high-tech as they could fit into her innards, the size of his hands and length of his claws made Hank's preferences for the control panel decidedly low-tech. To answer the call, he flipped a green toggle switch just to the left of the vid-comm screen. The picture snapped to life: a split-screen viewwith Professor Xavier on one side and Valerie Cooper on the other. A three way link-up that Hank hadn't been expecting.
"Professor. Valerie. Has our strategy been modified?" the Beast asked, concerned creasing his furred brow.
"Hank, Valerie and I have been talking and I know how cautious you and Ororo are, but I just wanted to emphasize how delicately this must be played," Xavier said.
The Beast watched the image of Xavier onscreen. They had known one another for a long time, and Hank had learned to read the man fairly well.
"What is it, Charles?" he finally asked. "I appreciate that we're confronted with a lot of unknowns here, but that isn't what's perturbing you, is it?"
"I'm afraid the knowns are more my concern at the moment, Hank," Xavier answered. "Valerie, will you tell Hank what you told me, please?"
The woman was all business as she told him of her concerns, of the immediate problems they would face even before the one they had set off to confront. Hank appreciated Valerie's directness, especially in this time of crisis.
"What I'm really getting at," Valerie said, "is that you can almost certainly expect federal troops at the scene when you arrive. I'd hoped you would get there first but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. I've no idea how they'll react to your presence, so just watch your step."
"I don't comprehend, Valerie," the Beast replied. "If the government sanctioned your preliminary contact with the Professor, why can't we merely say that he apprised us of the predicament?"
"That would be the logical thing to do, Hank," she said grimly. "But we're not dealing with logic, or rationality here. We're dealing with a man to whom hate is sustenance. Or have you forgotten how much Gyrich hates you all?"
"Gyrich," the Beast repeated, lips curling back in distaste. "The man simply can't wait to be king. Who expired and left him in dominion?"
"The director has placed him in charge of this operation," Valerie said with obvious remorse.
"Valerie,"Xavier interjected, her name itself a question, "you have still yet to tell me who the director of Operation: Wideawake is."
There was a silence on the three way call, which was quickly interrupted by the cockpit door clanking open behind Hank. The Iceman, Bobby Drake, poked his head in and, as was his way, started jabbering immediately.
"Hey, Hank, any room up here?" he asked. "A few more minutes with Mr. Depressing Bishop and I think I'll ... "
"Just a moment, Robert," the Beast said quietly, and Iceman fell silent.
"I'm sorry, Cha
rles," Valerie said at last. "There are some things that just aren't worth the price that is put on them. This is one of those things. Believe me when I say you don't need to know. It isn't important who the figurehead is, only the arms and weapons are your concern."
"Do you truly fear for your mortality, Val?" Hank asked before he could stop himself.
"There was a time, when I first gained high-level clearance, that I basked in the glory of secrets, and thought how silly and paranoid people were about the government," she said. "I've grown up a lot since then."
"Thank you for your help, Valerie," Xavier said.
"I do what I can, Charles. Always," she said. "As for you and your team, Hank, all I can say is watch your asses out there. Just because the dog never bit before, doesn't mean it won't."
In a blip, Valerie disappeared from the screen and all they could see was the chiseled features and gleaming bald pate of Charles Xavier.
"Keep me posted, Hank," Xavier said.
"Roger that," the Beast replied, and signed off, leaning back in the pilot's seat and letting out a heavy sigh with a breath he hadn't been aware of holding.
"Duuuuuude!" Bobby said in his best surfer-speak. "That Cooper babe is such a downer, man."
"Utterly," Hank agreed, smiling again at his old friend's ability to make light of anything and get away with it.
"Seriously, Hank, what's up with that?" Bobby asked as he dropped down into the co-pilot's seat, strapped in and ran a finger over the instruments, checking that they were all functioning correctly. "What's got the Prof and Val so spooked?"
"It appears as though we have unfortunately entered into a contest to see who can best resolve the developing situation with the Sentinels. Acontest that may forthwith evolve into a conflict, as the other contestant is none other than Henry Peter Gyrich," the Beast said unhappily.
"Oh, great!" Bobby said, holding a hand to his belly. "There goes my lunch. Just talking about that guy could ruin anybody's day."
"A flawless exemplar of our tax dollars toiling vigorously," Hank said, and they both laughed. As little as he would have liked to admit it, Hank knew that there had always been people like Gyrich in government, and there likely always would.
They were quiet for several minutes after that, the way old friends can sit together silently without feeling the pressure of having to keep a conversation going. Both had built reputations as wiseguys over the years, the Abbott and Costello of the mutant set. They were constantly 'on.' But there was never a need for that when it was just the two of them.
There had been a time when it would have been the three of them, including Warren Worthington, now called Archangel. He was just the Angel way back when, and maybe they were the Three Stooges instead of a vaudeville duo. But things had changed. Warren's natural mutant wings had been destroyed and later replaced with his lethal artificial ones by one of their deadliest enemies. The Angel's mind had changed with his body, putting a distance between him and his old friends that was only now beginning to dissipate.
As he sat there in comfortable silence with Bobby, Hank felt that distance from Warren acutely. A low wispy spider's web of clouds hung above them, but the sun shone brightly in the cockpit and the sky was a pure, icy blue where it was free of that webbing. Several thousand feet down, a passenger jet was flying a similar path, but they passed it as if it were in reverse.
"It's never going to get any better, is it Hank?" Bobby said suddenly, without looking away from the sky outside the window.
"What isn't?" Hank asked, but he thought he knew already.
"All of it," Bobby answered, his tone filled with an uncharacteristic gravity and maturity, as well as a resignation that surprised Hank. "I mean, I know we're not fighting for the here and now, that we're fighting for the future, for our children. But that's part of it, too.
"I mean, God, other than Scott and Jean, none of us can sustain a relationship for more than a year, so chances are, most of us aren't likely to have children to begin with."
Hank didn't know what to say, and so he said nothing. Bobby was right, but there was so much more to it than his frustration would allow him to consider. Finally, Bobby looked over at him, raised eyebrows in place of an actual shrug. His body had filled out from the time he'd joined the X-Men as a teenager. These days he was muscular and fit. But Hank figured that tousled brown hair and open, genuinely handsome features would make him look like a college boy forever.
"Say something, Hank," Bobby said, giving vent to a exhalation that was half sigh and half laugh. "Usually I can't get you to shut up."
"We didn't request this existence, Bobby," Hank said finally. "You're correct about that. We didn't ask to encounter one catastrophe after another, to be the focus of the world's malice and repugnance, and the attacks of mutants with perverted priorities."
"You can say that again," Bobby nodded. "It keeps getting worse, Hank, that's what I'm saying. In the old days, it all seemed like this big adventure, Huck Finn meets James Bond or something. But people have died, Hank. Thunderbird, Doug Ramsey, Candy Sothem, Illyana. The whole Phoenix thing is part of it, and everything that's happened to, well, to Warren ... "
"I was pondering that as well," Hank admitted, realizing finally that what had been bothering him had also been eating at Bobby. "But I believe he's improving, don't you? Not so reserved?"
"Maybe," Bobby said, flopping back against the leather co-pilot's seat. "But I have this fear that he'll never be the same, that all the days we have behind us-as original X-Men, as members of the Defenders and the Champions, even just as friends, period-that everything we built in those days is just crumbling down around us. Warren is just part of it."
"You recognize that your notoriety as a jovial, light-hearted fellow is in jeopardy, here, I trust?" Hank said, hoping to lift Bobby's spirits, and was unsurprised when he felt ice form tightly around his huge feet, freezing them to the floor of the cockpit.
"I'm being serious, here," Bobby said.
"Apparently not wholly," Hank replied and pulled one foot after another out of their frozen shackles, sending shards of ice tinkling to the metal floor. "In some ways, we are fighting a war on many fronts. Tragically, in war there is no time for luxury. Simultaneously, we are fortunate to have Charles Xavier to offer us such a distinct focus, an objective which is not merely valorous, but essential for the entire world. And we have one another, not just you and I, but all of the X-Men and our extended family."
"I love you too, furball," Bobby said with a chuckle, then he shook his head. "Sometimes it gets overwhelming, though. It's nice to be needed, believe me, but at the end of the day, does that really count for much?"
"What do you think?" Hank asked.
Bobby really, truly smiled at that, as if a cloud had passed across his face and was gone now.
"You're no psychiatrist, McCoy," Bobby said. "But I guess you're right. I guess it counts for something after all. It's enough, I suppose."
"It must be," Hank said quietly, and they fell back into that reflective silence, blue sky whipping by and sun shining warm on their faces.
• • •
Despite her wealth of experience, and the proud, almost regal air that combined with her white mane of hair and her height-she was nearly six feet tall-to make her heartstoppingly beautiful, Ororo Munroe was a young woman. She had to remind herself of this from time to time, because she thought of herself as having lived so long, done so much. She was wise enough to believe in her own wisdom. Jean had once said she had an "old soul," and perhaps that was true.
Then again, perhaps the woman she was today had been created by the many other lives she had led within her current lifespan. She had been orphaned as a child, left to fend for herself in the dirty streets of Cairo, Egypt, and became a thief. An excellent thief. As she grew older, she wandered the continent of Africa.
When she developed her mutant ability to control the weather, when she became Storm, she also became a goddess. For most women that was wishful
thinking, but for Ororo it was true. When Professor Xavier had approached her about joining the X-Men, she had become a deity for a small African tribe who called her "beautiful windrider." It was a name she cherished as she cherished the memories of Kenya and Tanzania, the grassy plains and the wide open sky.
The open sky most particularly. It was not until she was forced to confront the problem that she realized she was severely claustrophobic. Even now, sitting in the Blackbird, with the open sky only feet from her, she felt the walls closing in, the air rushing from her lungs. She fought it with every passing heartbeat. They had no idea what they might encounter when they arrived in Colorado, so it would be foolish of her to expend her energy by attempting to fly along with the plane. No matter how much she hated being inside it.
"You're a barrel o' laughs, Bish," Wolverine said caustically, then moved away from where he and Bishop had been talking and came toward Storm.
"I thought I was the life o' the party, 'Roro," he said as he dropped into the chair beside her, "but Bishop's got me beat, no contest."
"You cannot blame him, Logan," Storm said quietly. "He was born into a world where all of us had already died, where the word 'Sentinel' evoked the same horror as the word 'Nazi' does for us. The thought that whatever is happening in Colorado might set the world on course for that future must be terrifying for him."
"The thought don't make me jump for joy, either, but I get yer meanin'," Wolverine admitted.
Storm smiled. Of the "second generation" of X-Men, only she and Logan remained. John Proudstar was dead, and the others had all gone to other teams, or other ideologies. She cared deeply for them all, but there was a bond between herself and Logan that she would never have imagined when she first arrived at Xavier's mansion.
He had been more feral then, an angry man looking for a fight, and never happier than when he found one. These days, Wolverine was as dangerous as ever, but he had become a bit wiser himself. As for older, it was hard to tell. Other than his incredible senses, and his enhanced speed and agility, the gift he had received from the mutant x-factor in his genes had been invaluable, and unique. Wolverine had a healing factor that not only made him nearly impossible to kill because of how quickly wounds disappeared, but also slowed his aging tremendously.
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