It didn’t help. He’d sent them into the field hundreds of times, and still he felt the need to be there with them. Despite his great power, his inability to walk almost always made him a liability in the field. But that knowledge didn’t help either. Nothing could keep him from worrying.
A rhythmic buzz began to sound in the study, and Xavier brightened.
“Hello, Lilandra,” he said, even as the holographic image of his lover shimmered to life in the center of the study.
“Charles, my love,” Lilandra acknowledged.
Though she was galaxies distant, Lilandra’s Imperial Insta-Link provided a three dimensional image. The lustre of her skin, her proud stance, and her every curve were perfectly communicated to his senses. It made his yearning for her a truly painful ache.
Charles Xavier had never been very good at relationships. He had, in fact, been accused of having found the perfect lover in Lilandra specifically because of her distance. Their responsibilities kept them apart, his to the X-Men and Earth’s mutant population, and hers to the entire Shi’ar Empire. Perhaps it was better that way, in a sense, for they relished whatever little time they did have together. There was, however, a fundamental melancholy to their romance that he found impossible to overcome, for they both feared that distance and destiny would tear them apart.
“I have done all I can, my love,” she said in despair. “Deathbird is aware of the X-Men’s presence on Hala, and has set the Imperial Guard after them.”
“The Guard?” he exclaimed. “But …”
“There is nothing I can do, Charles. She is within her rights,” Lilandra explained. “Corsair and the others will be executed at midday tomorrow. I only pray that the X-Men do not share their fate.”
“I … thank you, Lilandra,” Xavier said. No other words would come.
“Charles,” she said tentatively. “I know that your obligations are as important in their way as are my own …”
“But you want to know when I might visit the Imperium again as your Royal Consort, since we both know Shi’ar business won’t bring you to Earth any time soon,” he finished for her, smiling slightly. “Ah, my love, don’t I wish I could simply think of it and be at your side. Or just as nicely, have real time to take a vacation from all of this with the confidence that things wouldn’t fall apart in my absence.
“But you know what happened the last time I left Earth for a prolonged period,” he continued. “The problem was multiplied geometrically. If the X-Men had been heading to Chandilar instead of to Hala, I would have accompanied them no matter the consequences. As it stands, Lilandra, I just don’t know when well see one another again.”
“I could send a ship at any time, you know,” she urged. “Only say the word, and we could be …”
“You know it isn’t that easy,” he said sadly. “Why make it more difficult for both of us?”
“You’re correct, of course, Charles. I apologize. I will let you know if I have news,” she said, and blinked out of existence, leaving behind a void that began to leech the hope from Charles Xavier’s heart.
Little more than a minute had passed before the image of Val Cooper’s face, much larger than life, burst onto the vid-screen in the study.
“Cooper to Xavier,” she said in a hushed voice. “It’s urgent, Charles, where the hell are you?”
He paused a moment before responding, still not recovered from the painful conversation with Lilandra. “Xavier!” Cooper hissed.
Having eschewed his hover-chair this afternoon for the more conventional steel wheelchair, Xavier used his hands to push himself into view.
“What is it, Valerie?” he asked, though the look on her face filled him with dread as he anticipated her answer.
“It’s Gyrich, of course,” she said softly. “He’s ordered his toy soldiers to capture the X-Men, or terminate them with prejudice. He’s going to claim they’re responsible for the Colora—”
Cooper’s image disappeared from the screen as Xavier disconnected the call. Immediately, he punched in the four digit code that would give him emergency communication with the X-Men. Dead air was the only response. He punched the code in twice more with the same result. The fourth time was the charm. It rang twice, and then connected.
All Xavier could hear was the hiss of static.
* * *
“BISHOP, no!” Storm shouted.
Iceman looked over at them just in time to see Bishop take aim at Colonel Tomko with his plasma rifle. He reacted instinctively, raising both hands and simply willing the moisture in the air to freeze into a solid block of ice around Bishop’s weapon and hands. It didn’t stop Bishop from firing, but when he did, the rifle exploded in his hands, throwing him back half a dozen feet. He landed, angry but unhurt, on his butt.
“Are you out of your mind?” Bishop screamed at him. “We’ve got to get in there, don’t you see? The military is probably part of it themselves, you idiot!”
“Not too paranoid, eh Bish?” Iceman mocked, but Bishop’s words stung nevertheless. It was the great burden of his life that he was rarely sure of his actions. He didn’t know for certain that Bishop was wrong, only that firing first and asking questions later wasn’t the way the X-Men did business.
“Good move, kid,” Wolverine said in his low, rasping voice. “Though if ya coulda done it without blowin’ up Bishop’s weapon, I’d be more inclined to applaud.”
“It was the sole option, given the circumstances, Wolverine,” the Beast said, and Bobby silently thanked Hank for his support. It disturbed him though, that he had to wonder whether that support was genuine, or offered out of friendship.
“Colonel Tomko,” Storm shouted, still making no move to approach the soldiers, “we have come as allies, to prevent the Sentinels from being unleashed upon the world. In anyone’s hands. You would do well to utilize our skills.”
There was a long pause, and they could all see the colonel on some kind of communications rig. They waited, motionless, Storm glaring at Bishop from time to time to keep him in place. The soldiers’ weapons never wavered, though the tension must have begun to make their trigger fingers itch. Finally, Tomko dropped the comm rig.
“X-Men, I have my orders,” he called through his bullhorn. “You will surrender yourselves to our custody immediately, or you will be terminated. You have to the count of five to surrender.
“One,” he began.
“You think he can count all the way to five?” Iceman asked with forced amusement, attempting to ignore the nausea that rose in his stomach.
None of the others laughed.
“Two.”
“Bishop,” Storm said quietly. “They appear to be armed with plasma rather than projectile weapons.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Bishop answered, and Iceman realized what they were talking about. Bishop’s mutant ability was to absorb energy and channel it into destructive bursts through his hands. Traditional projectile weapons, which fired bullets of varying types, might harm or kill him. Plasma, or energy, weapons, would only serve to make him more powerful. That Storm had pointed this out could mean only one thing.
“Three.”
Iceman had expected nothing less.
“Gentlemen,” Storm said. “Please try not to do anyone irreparable damage. Are we ready?”
“Four.”
Iceman wasn’t ready. They had faced worse odds and come out on top. He had been training for years, honing his skills on this and three other teams over the years, perfecting the use of his powers. Still, he was just “Bobby,” the baby of the group though no longer the youngest X-Man. What were his powers compared to Jean’s or Rogue’s, even Scott’s or Storm’s? He didn’t have Hank’s genius, or Bishop’s experience as a field leader. Maybe he had a decent sense of humor, but that wasn’t much of an asset. In the end, he had his ice powers and he did the best he could with them.
That would have to be enough. But it didn’t mean he was ever really ready to face a situation like this.
“Five,” Colonel Tomko said, and paused. Bobby supposed he was hoping they would finally give in. They didn’t.
“Fire!”
There was a heartbeat when the only thing Iceman could hear was the chirping of crickets in the forest behind them. Then dozens of crackling bursts shredded the very fabric of the air around them and combined to imitate the roar of a catastrophic fire. As the sound of the plasma weapons discharging settled down to a generator drone that reminded Bobby of a dentist’s drill, the X-Men were already taking offensive action.
Iceman whipped up an ice wall behind them with his left hand and kept replenishing the wall as the soldiers blasted it away. With his right hand he fired hail, icicles, whatever he could think of to disarm as many soldiers as he could reach. The best he could do was try to see that the others didn’t get injured.
Storm whipped up a gale force wind that literally sucked the soldiers from the back of one of the transports and tossed them, none too gently, into the trees beyond. After that, half a dozen bolts of lightning struck the empty transport, which exploded in a blinding flash of heat. Her winds whisked the shrapnel away.
Bobby wanted to remind Storm of her admonition not to injure the soldiers, but thought better of it. Besides, he had more on his mind. A small band of soldiers had seen what he was doing, keeping the rear guard from moving in, and had begun to take aim directly at him. He had to defend himself, which left Hank, Wolverine, and Bishop undefended for the moment.
Which seemed fine by them.
Wolverine grabbed the nearest soldier and used him first as a shield and then as a battering ram as he took out a portion of the ground troops. The Beast dodged dozens of shots aimed at him, leaping over and diving under and finally landing on top of the troop transport. He grabbed Colonel Tomko and disappeared over the side before the colonel’s troops knew what was happening.
Bishop, on the other hand, simply walked arrogantly into the midst of the troops and dealt with them hand to hand. He staggered under the impact of their plasma blasts, but he kept moving. Iceman knew that when Bishop absorbed that much energy, his eyes glowed with red rage and power. The man must have been a fearsome sight up close. For a moment, Bobby almost felt sorry for the soldiers.
One of them unholstered a traditional sidearm pistol and pointed it at Bishop’s head. Despite the disdain that the man from the future had always shown him, Bobby didn’t hesitate a moment. He brought both hands around and froze the pistol to a block of ice in the man’s grip. Its weight made him fall to his knees.
Neglected, the ice wall behind him shattered into thousands of fragments, and nearly a dozen soldiers began their assault anew. Before he turned to deal with the threat, Bobby saw Wolverine take a hit, and Storm barely dodged one in the air. He knew Logan would recover, but if Hank or Ororo was hit … well, he couldn’t let that happen.
“Back off, jarheads!” he shouted. “We’re on your side!”
It began as a mental scream, but it built in his chest, adrenaline pumping, until it burst from his mouth like a savage war cry. The air around them became almost unbreathable as the Iceman ripped every ounce of moisture from it. This time his hands guided the waves of cold necessary to freeze the gathered moisture. In seconds, before they had any idea what was happening to them, the entire rear guard, eleven men in total, was buried up to their shoulders in a block of solid ice. They couldn’t even move their trigger fingers, and that was how Bobby wanted it.
“Way to go!” Wolverine called from a dozen yards distant. Only the scorched hole in his uniform gave any indication he had been hit. Iceman envied him his healing factor, and not for the first time.
“Attention!” a familiar voice called. “Attention!” Bobby looked up to see that Hank held the bullhorn in one hand and Colonel Tomko in the other.
“I believe the colonel has something he’d like to say,” the Beast announced. Then he handed the bullhorn to the colonel, being certain to keep the commanding officer’s body in front of his own.
“Listen closely, troops!” the colonel barked. “None of these muties leave here alive!”
Even from where he stood, fifty yards away, Bobby could see the look of astonishment on Hank’s face. He couldn’t help but smile. So much for that idea, old buddy, he thought. Still, they were winning. It would have gone a lot easier if they weren’t so concerned with the health of their opponents, but that was all part of wearing the white hats. As opposed to these guys, who more often than not, wore gray ones.
So it might take a little longer, ten minutes instead of three, but they’d have it all wrapped up in just a …
Then the tank rolled up. Bobby had forgotten about the tank, hidden as it had been behind the remaining troop transport. Wolverine kept tearing through soldiers and energy weapons, using remarkable self-restraint as far as Iceman was concerned. Storm was blowing a group of foot soldiers back into the woods, and they scurried away once they had lost their weapons. Beast was off-limits because he still had the colonel.
Bobby and Bishop were sitting ducks.
“We’re in serious ca-ca,” Iceman whispered, but forgot to laugh.
The turret swung around and the tank’s big gun pointed right at him. He was moving before he knew it, building an ice slide under his feet, the momentum of its construction carrying him up and away from the battle instantly, even as the tank fired.
Iceman heard the nostalgic zap of a backyard electric bug killer, magnified to a deafening decibel level. His ice slide shattered as the plasma blast struck, and he fell nearly forty feet to the ground amidst a landslide of frozen boulders. Frantic, he looked up to see if the thing was taking aim at him again.
Bobby blinked twice, to be certain he was actually seeing the scene that played itself out before him. Amidst the confusion of the battle, at the center of the crossfire, Bishop walked slowly but determinedly toward the oncoming tank. Its gun turret swiveled until it pointed directly at his chest, but Bishop continued forward. The moment reminded Bobby of the unforgettable confrontation between a tank and a student in China’s Tiananmen Square. With one major difference.
This time, the tank fired. Bishop was blasted backward with so much power that Bobby barely had time to erect an ice gutter in midair that caught him and slid him to the ground as if he’d been running a luge track.
“Bishop, you okay?” Iceman asked as he knelt by his fallen teammate.
Bishop smiled. He stood, eyes blazing with molten crimson fury, and rose to his feet. His clenched fists glowed with barely contained power, and Bobby stood back a few feet, just in case it was too much for him to control.
“I’m better than okay, Iceman,” Bishop laughed. “In fact, I’m grateful these morons don’t know any better than to provide me with all the power I need to obliterate their armored vehicle from the face of the Earth.”
Bishop brought his hands up, about to blast the tank. Above them, swooping toward the spot where they stood, Storm screamed for him to stop. Bobby was too stunned still to react. Luckily, he didn’t have to. Just as Bishop let loose with a burst of energy that rocked his body, the Beast slammed into him from the left side, taking him down hard. Bishop’s energy blast went wide, nearly vaporizing Storm, and instead decapitated half a dozen tree tops that crashed through lower limbs to the forest floor.
“Are you mad, Beast?” Bishop screamed as he got to his feet. “You could have been killed!”
“That’s the point entirely, Bishop,” Hank said, and finally Iceman’s senses came back and he realized what had happened. Or almost happened.
“You’re not supposed to kill anybody, remember, Bishop?” Bobby said.
Then he remembered the tank. He spun on one heel and saw that its turret was swinging around to target them.
“Can’t have that,” he mumbled to himself.
“Storm!” Iceman shouted. “I could really used some more moisture down here. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
He wasn’t certain, at first, if she had heard h
im. Then she raised her hands and called out a dimly heard command to the sky. In that moment, with her white hair whipping in the wind, and the way she managed to look statuesque despite the fact that she was doing nothing less miraculous than standing on air, Bobby understood why she had once been considered a goddess.
As the big gun leveled itself, trying to lock in on Hank, Bishop, and Iceman, it began to rain. It wasn’t a drizzle or even a squall, but a full-fledged downpour, the likes of which came perhaps once a decade and brought rivers over their banks in mere hours. It was everything Iceman could have asked for, and more. He wondered, even as he raised his hands, why he and Ororo had not truly used their powers in conjunction before.
Then he went quiet as he marveled at the effectiveness of the combination. The driving rain seemed to be sucked toward the tank as if it were a black hole, then froze on impact. In seconds, an impenetrable block of ice several yards thick surrounded the entire vehicle, save for the entry hatch on the top.
“Excellent work, Bobby,” the Beast said next to him. “The tank is useless, but the soldiers inside will have no trouble getting out.”
“That’s it, run, ya bozos, before the ol’ Canucklehead decides to take off the kid gloves,” Wolverine called after the remaining soldiers, who were retreating despite the verbal abuse being heaped upon them by their bullhorn wielding colonel.
“That guy ought to count himself lucky you let him go,” Bobby told Hank. “He just doesn’t know when to quit.”
“If you had to answer to Gyrich back home, you’d think twice about retreating as well, Robert,” the Beast replied, prompting a moment of silence in which Iceman almost felt badly for Colonel Tomko. It didn’t last long, though. After all, the guy had tried to kill them.
“Nice job, Drake,” Wolverine said as he approached, more jovial than Bobby had seen him in quite some time: “We oughta name you MVP o’ this little outing.”
Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Page 13
