On the other hand, he really didn't relish the thought of dying. He had a plan, of course. He was too good a pilot not to have a plan. It was dangerous, almost ridiculously so. If anyone had suggested to him even days earlier that he might attempt such a feat, he would have laughed heartily and honestly. But he would rather take his chances with his own skills, take his life into his own hands, than offer himself up as target practice for ground-to-air gunners and armada captains all bucking for a promotion.
Even as Ch'od considered again the lunacy of his plan, the Starjammer slipped between two battle cruisers and into open space just shy of the high, thin layer of clouds that marked Hala's outer atmosphere.
"It really ought to work," Ch'od said aloud.
There was a loud chittering noise behind him, and he allowed himself a moment to turn and face his longtime companion, Cr+eeee. The small, mammalian creature had his long tail straight up in distress. His head turned slightly, and he brought one foot up to itch the gentle curve of his proboscis. Cr+eeee stared at him, still chittering in his own, unintelligible language. There was no mistaking his message. Cr+eeee thought that his old friend had gone entirely mad.
"I'm sorry, my friend," Ch'od responded, though he really could not understand Cr+eeee's words. "I wish you were not with me now. In that way, I could make this decision only for myself, and not endanger you as well. Sadly, there is no other choice for me. I hope you understand."
Cr+eeee's eyes closed and he nodded, slowly, in resignation.
Ch'od turned back to the view of Hala that presented itself before him.
"It really ought to work," he said again, and he knew it was true. He had calculated to the most radical decimal the location of the Capitol Building. The hyper drive was burning hot, but the warp engines were offline. By firing the hyperbumers, he ought to be able to both draw and divert attention. Planetary sensors would pick him up immediately, but they would see the trace energies of the hyperdrive kicked up to full thrust, and automatically assume the ship was gone.
That should give him at least one full minute before they realized the Starjammer was still within the planet's atmosphere. Their disbelief would carry him for several more minutes, and even after that, it would take a few minutes to actually find him.
It should work. With the warp engines down, he'd be on hyperbum, but never make the jump. The trick was going to be pulling the Starjammer out of hyperburn before it hit the surface of the planet, with gravity working against him. If he couldn't do that, and he wasn't at all sure that he could, then the Starjammer would be obliterated, and he along with it. But if he didn't go in after them, the others were as good as dead. Ch'od preferred death to the knowledge that he had abandoned his friends, his family.
The fins on his head and forearms folded back against his scales, an instinctive reaction to danger. He had not prayed since he was a child, buthe said a silent prayer to the gods of Timor, his home planet. The fingers of his right hand found the control panel and he snapped a glowing yellow switch, the safety on the hyperdrive, which now lit up red. Beneath it was a green button that would kick the Starjammer into hyperburn.
Ch'od checked his coordinates one, final time.
"It should work," he told himself again.
Then he hit the button.
• • •
Above the massive doors to the Great Hall was a huge octagonal window in a swirling spider web of frame, Deathbird rose above the melee, holding one of the two-and-a-half-foot javelin-quills that she was so expert at wielding. Her wings were attached to her wrists, forcing her to use her arms in flight. Yet she had so mastered the art of it that she was able to hurl the javelin, spin into a dive and then glide back to her previous height. And her weapon found its mark.
A Kree warrior let loose her final battle cry, and Archangel winced at the keening wail that followed.
Deathbird wore twin armbands which housed eight-inch quills that, once removed, telescoped to four times that length. Her talons could score steel, and Warren didn't want to even think about what they might do to human flesh. In strength and endurance, she was his superior by far. But Archangel didn't think she was much faster than he was.
It didn't matter, though. None of it. If they were going to get off Hala, somebody had to take Deathbird down. With Rogue and Gladiator a natural match-up, that left Deathbird for him.
Archangel was terrified. Not of Deathbird, despite her savagery and greater power. No, Warren Worthington was afraid of himself. When his natural, mutant wings had been destroyed, and Apocalypse had given him bio-organic replacements, had significantly changed him, it was not the act of a Samaritan. Apocalypse had been creating an engine of death, a killing machine. Warren had struggled for a long time to be certain he would never become what Apocalypse had envisioned.
But sometimes he felt that bloodlust surge to the surface of his mind. More often than not, he felt the phantom twitch of muscles he no longer had, muscles that were now bio-organic steel. That twitch sent paralyzing wing-knives flying at the merest whim, even at a subconscious order. Controlling them took an intense concentration that he had not dared reveal to the other X-Men.
Though they would have accepted him no matter how he had changed, what Archangel had been through affected him so deeply that he could barely accept it himself. There was a new distance between himself and his old friends, and it was almost entirely his doing. He was healing, he knew. But he had been violated, and it would take some time to get over that.
At that moment, however, Warren felt more freedom than he had at any time since he had stopped being simply the Angel, and had become Archangel forever-more. Deathbird's cruelty freed him. No matter what the nobility of purpose behind a war, its results were always heinous. Deathbird reveled in atrocity. She thrived on the vile, obscene thing that the Kree homeworld had become, on the wretched lives of the people barely surviving there.
And now that they had dared to attack her, dared to act against her depravity, she butchered them, delighted by the carnage. Archangel believed that Deathbird was truly evil. Others might have called her insane, but in the time he had spent as a mental slave to Apocalypse, he came to know evil intimately. Insanity and evil, he believed, were inherently the same. One did not excuse the other.
Deathbird's perversity gave Archangel the freedom to explode. If she was the victor, the X-Men would die. Warren wasn't about to let that happen. No matter what it took, he was going to win.
She rose again, silhouetted against the artificial light streaming through the octagonal window from the square outside. Archangel could fly at, or at least very near, the speed of sound. There was no time for any of her sycophantic bootlicks to even call out a warning.
At top speed, he drove his right shoulder into Deathbird's belly, and together they shattered the spider web pattern of the window. Broken glass cascaded down into the square beneath them.
"You're sorely outmatched, X-Man," Deathbird snarled as she shook loose from Warren's grip, her strength outstripping his just as his speed eclipsed hers. That was his edge. And he had another. Her wings were attached, while his arms were free. He had to use those advantages, and his fury, or he would die.
They might all die.
• • •
There were a lot of things about his son that Corsair arrogantly assumed Scott had inherited from him. On the other hand, Scott was an optimist, and that was something Corsair had never been.
They burst into the Great Hall on a wave of vengeful fury. The Kree rebels shouted an uncommon welcome, testament to how badly they were losing the battle. Archangel exploded into the air and slammed into Deathbird, shattering a huge window and carrying both of them outside.
It felt good. But Corsair knew it wouldn't last. It couldn't. No matter how good a leader his son was, or how courageously they all fought, they were, very simply outmatched. Not by the Shi'ar troops, but by the Imperial Guard.
Yet, that was the story of Corsair's life. He was always a pragmati
st, perhaps even a pessimist. He'd gotten himself, and the Starjammers, into no-win situations dozens of times, and they were all still alive to tell of it. There was a reckless ferocity that overcame Christopher Summers when he expected to die. In a way, he thought that lady luck admired that in him, that she protected him when he abandoned all hope of survival, all concern for his own safety.
Either that, or he'd used up all his luck, and his number was definitely up.
"If we can keep the Guard busy, the Kree will have no problem with the Shi'ar shock troops that are left," Scott said, running beside him.
"Good plan, son," Corsair laughed. "Then who's going to cover our asses on the way out?"
Cyclops said nothing, but Corsair noticed a grim set to his jaw that was unsettling. In anyone else, he would have assumed the look and the silence meant he didn't expect to be able to get out. In Scott, Corsair figured it was just single-minded determination to save the Kree and everyone else as well. Corsair knew the Kree could not be saved. They had lost a war, and their conquerors were making their lives hell. They could fight back and fight back, but as long as they remained a conquered people, nothing the X-Men or Starjammers did would help.
But hey, Corsair wasn't about to burst his son's bubble. If they lived to see the sunrise, it would probably be because Cyclops never considered losing as an option.
"Starjammers!" he shouted. "Titan is ours, now! Concentrate fire!"
Out of the comer of his eye, Corsair saw Candide wade into the Kree rebels and begin to whip them into a frenzy with her battle cries. He'd never seen her as a warrior, and now he realized he never really knew her at all. He only hoped that her hatred for the Shi'ar did not prevent her from leading the Kree into a strategic retreat.
Corsair was firing his blaster in a seemingly erratic pattern, creating an arc of cover fire in front of him. Two Shi'ar soldiers ran toward him, firing wildly as they attempted to duck within the arc of his fire.
Suddenly, he stopped firing. He took a moment, their weapon fire singing his hair. He lined up his shot, and took them down with two concentrated bursts from his sidearm. His erratic fire had been a lure, one he'd used many times before to instill false confidence in his enemies.
"C'mon guys," he said as he jumped over their fallen forms. "Would I have lived this long if I was really that bad a shot?"
"Die, faithless cur!" a voice shouted behind him.
Before Corsair could tum, he heard the pulse of blaster fire and the crackle of its impact. The Shi'ar soldier was already hitting the ground by the time he'd completed his turn, and Hepzibah stood over him, her weapon smoking.
"Learn to take cover, you must, if continue to live you wish," Hepzibah said.
"What fun would that be?" Corsair laughed, even as they turned to defend against other attackers. "You'd hate not having to worry about me, and not being able to rub it in that I need your backup. And I wouldn't have to pay you back with my own, personal services, later on."
Even as her sword flashed for a bloody close-quarters conflict, Hepzibah was laughing. She shared her lover's hopeless abandon in this struggle, as she had so often in the past. As she had that first time they met on the prison planet of Alsibar.
"Didst thou not issue a call to attack yon ogre, Titan?" Raza said as he joined his companions.
"We've been a little busy," Corsair responded.
"The Kree hath rendered aid unto us," Raza explained.
Corsair saw that he was right. Though Candide did seem to be leading the Kree in retreat, they were also drawing the concentrated response of the Shi'ar soldiers. The battle was splitting into two parts, the real war, and the elite one. One would affect the outcome of this battle, but the real war would go on.
He took a glance around, and was disheartened by what he saw. Cyclops and Rogue were double teaming Gladiator, but even with Rogue's strength and endurance, and Scott's optic beams, it was only a matter of time before Gladiator overwhelmed them. Gambit was dancing around Warstar, trying to keep out of range of C'Cil's hands and B'Nee's electrical charge. The Cajun was launching explosively charged debris at them every chance he had, but was not having much luck.
Then there was Jean. In many ways, Corsair considered her the most powerful member of the team. She was a superior psi-talent. Somehow, though, Oracle had gotten the drop on her. With Oracle on one side of her and Titan on the other, Jean spun wildly, lashing out at phantom sparring partners. Even as the Starjammers approached, Titan was reaching for Jean with one massive hand.
It didn't look good. But that was when the Starjammers were at their best. With Raza and Hepzibah at his side, Corsair opened fire on Titan.
"Starjammers attack!" he shouted.
Their three blasters on full, the Starjammers did not let up their assault. Titan slammed back against the balconies, which crumbled under his weight. He fell to the ground, flailing his arms in an attempt to fend off their blasts. Beaten, he began to shrink, but the Starjammers poured it on. Moments later, Corsair stood triumphantly above Titan, the point of his sword just nicking the flesh of the Guardsman's neck.
"Feel free to grow once more," Corsair said. "Though I would advise against it."
Hepzibah and Raza hefted the Guardsman to his feet, Corsair's sword still dangerously close. Then Hepzibah swung a roundhouse kick at Titan's temple, and the Guardsman went down, unconscious.
Corsair grinned. He didn't know how she'd been taken off guard, but Jean Grey would have no trouble with Oracle now that the distraction had been taken care of. The tide was turning.
"No!" he heard a male voice scream.
Corsair turned to see that nearly all of the Kree had retreated through the hole in the floor from which they had invaded. The Shi'ar soldiers were down to a mere half dozen or so. But the remaining Kree had no chance. It was one, lone Kree rebel, and he was not even defending himself. Instead, he was kneeling by the bloodied corpse of a fallen comrade.
"God, no," Corsair whispered to himself. "Candide!"
Chapter 17
Even combining their skills and powers, Cyclops and Rogue were only barely keeping Gladiator at bay. The Imperial Guard's Praetor would slam Rogue to the floor, or batter her against one of the crumbling balconies, and Cyclops would let loose with an optic blast that would, at best, disorient Gladiator. At worst, it simply focused his attention on Cyclops.
Scott dove out of the way of Gladiator's energy blast and scrambled for cover. Thankfully, Rogue recovered quickly. Before Gladiator could get to Cyclops, Rogue had grabbed Praetor by both legs and swung him, with every ounce of her strength, into the marble face of the second level balcony. It shattered on impact, and Scott had to dodge the falling debris. But for the moment, Gladiator was dazed.
But Starbolt was moving in.
"No more games, X-Men!" Cyclops shouted. "We've got to go, now. The only way to do that is to take the Guard down. Hard!"
Even as he shouted, Gladiator was rising to his feet in the second balcony. Rogue shot across his line of fire toward Starbolt, who blanketed her in his stellar energy. Rogue was not deterred. Once, she had stolen his power, and Cyclops knew she hated that aspect of her abilities. But the time for strategy was over. He'd said it, and apparently Rogue had taken it to heart.
In the center of the ruined Great Hall, high above the debris-strewn, cracked marble floor, Rogue and Starbolt clashed. More accurately, she jerked to a sudden stop just before barreling into him, and pummeled him in the face with one flashing fist. Starbolt's left cheek seemed to explode, not with blood, but with uncontrollable energy that strafed Rogue, and the barely recovered Gladiator. And then Starbolt fell to the floor of the Great Hall and lay still.
"Sharra and Ky'thri!" Gladiator cried, dazed once more by Starbolt's powers. "On my honor, X-Men, if Starbolt is dead, then so are you all!"
"None of this would be happening, Gladiator, if you would just sit down and shut up!" Cyclops shouted, and put all his will behind a massive optic blast which nailed Gladiator in the
chest and sent him crashing through the rear wall of the room.
He did not immediately emerge, and Cyclops had a moment to regret his words. If Starbolt was dead, the X-Men were not to blame. But they would grieve none-theless, for Starbolt, for the Imperial Guard, and for themselves. They had all once been allies, and the X-Men did not kill even their greatest enemies.
For the moment, perhaps not more than that, Gladiator was down. But he knew it wouldn't last. It couldn't. Eventually, Gladiator would beat them. Unless they had help.
Jean! Scott thought, mentally pushing her name out of his head. We could use a little help over here!
Even as he completed the thought, Cyclops turned to see Jean and Oracle facing off again. Corsair and the other Starjammers were pressing an attack against Titan, who looked very near beaten. Scott realized they were doing better than he'd thought. Still, though, there was Gladiator. And why had Jean not taken Oracle out of the fight already?
I'm on it, lover, her mental voice whispered in his brain. With her thoughts, his brain was filled with her feelings, her recent experiences, as if they were downloaded directly into his own memory and passion. Oracle had gotten the drop on Jean while Titan momentarily distracted her. It turned out the Guard's resident psi had indeed gotten more powerful. Oracle had been able to mentally manipulate Jean into seeing many multiples of herself and Titan, and though she knew most of them weren't real, she had had to guard against them just the same.
She would have broken out of it, given a few more moments. But those moments might have been costly. Fortunately, the Starjammers intervened. With Titan out of the picture, she had focused her psi abilities, pinpointed Oracle, and now ...
The two women stared at one another across a space of several yards. They were locked in a silent mental combat, but now that Jean had her focus back, it was no contest. She'd even been able to communicate with Scott during their clash. Oracle was sweating, her white face pinched with concentration, perhaps even pain. Indeed, the more he watched her, the more Cyclops realized that the Shi'ar woman was in severe pain.
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