“I try,” Cyclops said in response, and Rogue was warmed by their exchange. Though Jean was inside, the communications setup that linked them all reassured her that their resident psi would be on hand if anything went wrong. Not that it was likely to. The work had reached the point where it was almost boring.
“I feel like an egg fryin’ on the sidewalk in July,” Rogue said, then lapsed into silence as she watched Cyclops at work again.
His optic beam melted the metal edges of the hole together like a soldering iron. Rogue was reminded of the time Fred Dukes, a mutant who called himself the Blob, had bragged one too many times about his invulnerability. Nothing could hurt him, Dukes had boasted. Cyclops, usually the picture of calm, had used that tight focus beam to burn a hole right through Dukes’ shoulder. Far as she could tell, Cyclops had felt guilty about it later, but Rogue still chuckled as she remembered the look on the Blob’s face. Served him right.
When Cyclops finished, they moved on to the largest hull breach. Rogue did what she could, but when she was through the hole that remained, it was too large for Cyclops to simply weld closed. Rogue looked around the ship’s hull for something to use as a “band-aid,” but didn’t see anything immediately.
“Ch’od,” she said on her comm-unit. “I need somethin’ to patch this dang hole. Any ideas?”
“Give me just a minute, Rogue,” Ch’od said, and the sound of his voice made Rogue realize that all this time he and Raza had been working together in near absolute silence. After years as Starjammers together, it seemed they had reached the point where they functioned together as smoothly as clockwork without having to ever say anything.
That was the X-Men at their best. Apparently, the same applied to the Starjammers. No wonder, she thought, since both teams were led by men of the Summers clan. Even if she hadn’t been involved with Gambit, Cyclops would never have been Rogue’s type. Too squeaky clean, straight and narrow for her tastes. Yet those same traits made her admire him greatly.
“Now, Rogue, what was it you wanted?” Ch’od asked on the comm-link.
Rogue boosted herself up lightly to see where Ch’od had turned away from the warp drive to address her directly, though their voices did not carry in space. The Starjammer had two enormous “legs,” each of which ended with an engine well, similar to the turbines on a jet airplane. Those were the hyperburners, she knew, the Starjammer’s main propulsion system. With them out of commission, they were forced to rely on warp drive. She guessed that, with it fixed, they could warp into an appropriate navigational pattern, come out of warp just above Earth’s atmosphere, shut down the ship and let momentum take over.
If they could get the warp drive fixed.
Raza and Ch’od worked at the burnt and shattered casing of the warp system, further up on the starboard leg from where Rogue and Cyclops labored. While she and Ch’od spoke, Raza continued to work, a greenish glow from the broken casing reflected off the force field that covered his face.
“I got a major breach here, and I gotta patch it,” she repeated.
“That certainly is a problem,” Ch’od answered. “I’ll have a look.”
Ch’od pushed away from the ship in a movement calculated to bring him directly to where Rogue clung to the ship’s hull. As she watched him, her peripheral vision picked up movement beyond him. Raza’s head snapped back in a defensive motion as sparks flew from the drive system, alighting on his suit. He shook his head, obviously annoyed, and brushed them away. Rogue almost looked back at Ch’od then, her mind consumed with the need to finish with their repairs and get back inside the ship, to see if they could get home.
She didn’t turn away, however. Instead, she saw Raza lower his head once more over the shattered casing, only to draw it back again, more slowly this time.
“Sharra and Ky’thri,” Raza’s astonished voice whispered in Rogue’s ears.
“Raza?” Ch’od began, turning toward his friend clumsily, losing the careful control of his motion. “What is—”
The warp system seemed to explode in Raza’s face, blasting him backward as his tether snapped like a whip and slammed him against the ship’s hull. Simultaneously, blue flames shot from the engine well just behind Rogue and the ship began to spin with extraordinary speed. The misfiring of one half of the warp drive lasted only a moment, but it set the Starjammer moving like a maniac top, trailing Ch’od, Cyclops, and Rogue behind it—
—directly into the trail of the engine blast. Their tethers were incinerated immediately, and had they been wearing anything other than the Shi’ar pressure suits Corsair had given them, their bodies would have fared no better.
With a burst of power, Rogue lashed out with her left arm at a silver flash of hull that whipped past her peripheral vision. She snagged the ship and, with her extraordinary strength, dug in to the Starjammer’s hull, hanging on for dear life as the ship continued to spin. It was already slowing, but it was all Rogue could do to keep from vomiting inside her helmet.
When she regained her equilibrium, though the ship still moved, she began to look around for the others. Raza was still tethered to the Starjammer, but his unmoving form was being towed along behind the ship as it turned. Rogue assumed the force of the explosion had knocked him unconscious. Anything else was unthinkable.
But what of Cyclops and Ch’od? As the ship’s rotation slowed further, nearing a stop, Rogue frantically searched for some sign of them. Her last image of them was that of the moment the warp engine blasted all three of them, destroying their lifelines. She had been lucky enough to grab hold of the vessel to keep from being shot out into space.
Now there was no sign of either of the others. Ch’od and Cyclops were, quite simply, gone.
FOUR
“BRACE yourselves, people,” Bishop said from the cockpit of the Blackbird. “We’ve just crossed into Manhattan.”
There were no more words. There didn’t have to be. The five X-Men on board the plane went on immediate alert. The Sentinels were supposed to guard the city’s perimeter, but Magneto had claimed all mutants would be allowed entry into this new “sanctuary” he had carved out of one of North America’s largest cities.
Question was, did that hospitality extend to the X-Men, or had the Sentinels been given specific programming to keep them out? They’d know in a minute, Wolverine thought. Some part of him hoped the answer was yes. If they were attacked upon entering Manhattan, they’d get down to the nitty gritty all the quicker.
That’s what he was here for. To fight. To win. The politics of it just bored him. It didn’t matter to Wolverine whether the government sanctioned their presence or not—and so far they’d had no word one way or the other. In any case, there was a job to be done, and the faster they got around to this latest fracas with Magneto, the better.
After what happened in Colorado, Wolverine was looking forward to throwing down with the Acolytes again. He didn’t want to think about the combined resources of Magneto and the Sentinels—one thing at a time.
There was no way he was going to let Magneto win. New York would turn into the tyrant’s private playground only over Wolverine’s dead body. If that was what it took, that’s what it took. As the tension grew aboard the Blackbird, he could feel the low growl building in his throat. Not loud enough for the others to hear, but loud enough for him to feel it in every fiber of his being.
“Well?” Iceman finally broke the silence. “Any sign of them?”
“No visuals,” the Beast said from the cockpit. “Bishop, have you got anything on radar?”
“Nothing,” Bishop answered. “Apparently we’re as welcome as the next mutant.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Storm cautioned. “Simply because we were not stopped at the ‘door’ doesn’t mean we are welcome. It could very well be that Magneto would rather have us in here, where he can keep an eye on us.”
“Then he’s a hell of a lot dumber than I gave ’im credit for up ’til now,” Wolverine snarled. “Magneto oughta know
better than to think he can cage the X-Men. I ain’t exactly a domesticated beast.”
“I, on the other hand, am entirely house-broken, thank you very much,” the Beast said from up front.
“Laugh it up, McCoy,” Wolverine said grimly. “It ain’t gonna be a party down there, though.”
“True enough, Logan,” the Beast acknowledged. “But humor is oftimes all that distinguishes man from savage animal. It serves me well as a reminder that I am, head to toe, human first. Mutant, second.”
“Ah, Hank,” Storm said wistfully, “if only the world could see that.”
They were quiet again, then, and Wolverine could not help thinking of Hank’s words. He was not without a sense of humor. In fact, he could be quite a practical joker in his own right, given the chance. But there was a time for that kind of thing, and as far as Wolverine was concerned, this wasn’t it. Still, if that was what the Beast needed to deal with the scenario, Logan figured he’d best leave his teammate to it. There were things he needed, ways he had to feel, to get by as well.
But for Wolverine, those feelings were quite a bit more hostile.
“Central Park below, team,” Bishop said quietly. “Bobby, is that mini-Cerebro tracker functioning properly?” Storm asked.
Iceman picked up a small black metal and plastic unit that looked more like a hand held video game to Wolverine than any useful technology. Looks could be deceiving, however. In truth, it was a much smaller version of Cerebro, the computer that Professor Xavier used in the Institute’s efforts to find developing mutants and keep track of those they were already aware of.
“It’s lit up like a Christmas tree,” Iceman said, then turned the tracker unit so both Wolverine and Storm could see the green dots that filled the grid on its face. At the bottom of the grid were a group of dots that were enveloped in a red, warning glow.
“It can’t pinpoint Magneto specifically,” Iceman explained, “but it can point us in the right direction. From here, we go south.”
“The ol’ Canucklehead is right on your tail, Bobby,” Wolverine said, his voice even more guttural than usual. “Time to take Magneto down a peg. He’s gone way over the line this time.”
Retro-thrusters on the VTOL unit kicked in, and the Blackbird seemed to rise a moment as if cresting an ocean wave. Then the plane dropped. There was no hesitation, nothing gentle about it. The Blackbird wasn’t built as a comfort vessel. It was made for action. Wolverine admired that in people and things alike.
The quick-drop hatch opened out of the belly of the Blackbird, even before the plane touched down on Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. With the Beast at his side, Wolverine leaped from the hatch and landed in a crouch on the grass, which was buffeted by the Blackbird’s retros.
The whole park, Wolverine thought, was a lark, a foolish dream. There in the middle of the city, Central Park pretended to be peaceful countryside, just as the city dwellers pretended when they escaped to the park. It may have been a jungle at night, predators stalking the wood, but the falsehood of it insulted Wolverine. Even if his senses had not been so far superior to the average human’s, it would have been impossible not to smell the stench of the city infiltrating the park.
“Fire,” the Beast said as he touched down next to Wolverine.
“Got it,” Logan responded. “Southeast, less than half a mile.”
“Spread out,” Storm commanded from the air, even as Bishop piloted the Blackbird to a final stop in the park. “Logan, Hank, I can see flames from here. Scout one hundred yards south, and return. Bobby, do a perimeter check with me on flyover.”
Bishop emerged from the ship just as they were moving to comply with Storm’s orders.
“Bishop, lock the Blackbird up tight, all defenses armed,” she added. “It wouldn’t do to have our exit destroyed. All rendezvous back here in five minutes.”
It was a fast five minutes. Wolverine melted into the woods with predatory silence. He could hear the Beast off to the west, making little attempt to mask his passage. Hank might have the look of an animal, but that didn’t mean he had the primal instincts.
He moved in the direction of the fire, alert to any sign of offensive movement. It felt foolish, surreal. Manhattan island had suddenly become a war zone. Indeed, if all they found were masses of hysterical civilians, it wouldn’t surprise Wolverine at all. But there was a chance that they had been detected and that an ambush would be waiting. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
The fire filled his nostrils, though still several hundred yards away. Then he detected something else. Something human. It was a dense, sour smell, mixed with alcohol. Even before the homeless man cut and run from the brush up ahead, Logan had spotted him with nothing more than moonlight to see by. The poor man, perhaps fifty, took off like a startled deer. Though not nearly as quick, of course. It might have taken Wolverine twenty seconds to down a startled deer.
This guy took five.
Up close, he stank to high heaven, his odor so powerful Wolverine could barely smell the fire anymore.
“God, no, please, don’t kill me,” the man squealed. “Please, no, I ain’t got nothin’ in this world. I just don’t wanna die.”
“Stop squirming!” Wolverine snarled, bringing the man up to his full height by tugging on his loose shirtfront. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Relax, will ya? Stop jabbering!”
There was a tone that he allowed into his voice at certain times. Wolverine wasn’t sure he liked the tone, or what it said about him, but it was there, and it worked. The homeless man responded immediately, and Wolverine finally got a good look at him. He wasn’t at all glad that he did. The man was shabby looking, his clothes stained and tattered, and he looked as though he hadn’t shaved or had his hair cut in a decade. He was sick. Smelled sick, now that Wolverine could scent anything beyond the man’s stink. But he wasn’t more than thirty.
He only moved like he was fifty.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, more softly, almost kindly, to the wide-eyed man, then let go of the poor soul’s shirt.
“But,” the man began, “you’re a mutie, aren’t—I mean, a mutant, aren’t you? You guys are takin’ over, that’s what Bernie says.”
“There are some mutants trying to take over the city,” Wolverine admitted. “We’re here to stop them. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything that could help us track ’em down.”
The homeless man suddenly snapped to attention, in a salute of surprising quality. A military man, then, maybe Gulf War. Not so long ago and already come to this. For a moment, Wolverine had to wonder if the guy would be better off with Magneto in charge.
“Yes sir,” the man said then, obviously disappointed to see that his salute had not been returned. “Me an’ Bernie were down right where that fire was, where the people burned down the toy store, you know, the one with all the letters? Well, we seen them muties … I mean, mutants … well, we seen ’em killing people. They’re gonna murder us all, man. That’s what Bernie says.”
“Where’s Bernie now?” Wolverine asked, surprised that he didn’t smell anyone else out in the Park.
“I don’t know,” the homeless man said, then lowered his head, ashamed. “I kind of, well, I ran away. To get help, see. That’s it, to get help. Only I didn’t find any.”
Wolverine put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and their eyes met. Despite his mad talk, there seemed to be some kind of awareness in there.
“Sure you did,” Wolverine said. “You found me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” the man happily agreed. “I ran to find help, and I found you.”
“What’s your name, bub?” Wolverine asked. “Jerry,” he answered. “Name’s Jerry. What’s yours?”
“Logan.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Logan,” Jerry said, sort of bouncing on the balls of his feet now that he’d made a new friend. “Mr. Logan, you going to want to look at that chopper now?”
“Chopper?”
“Yeah, the all-scr
unched-up one.”
* * *
THE X-Men stood around the news helicopter in silence. Jerry had led them there at his own request, but now Wolverine was wondering if that had been a mistake. The broadcast affiliate’s call letters had been stencilled on the side of the chopper, and the Beast recognized them immediately.
“Lord, no,” Hank said. “Trish?”
“There’s nobody inside,” Wolverine said quickly, sensing the Beast’s distress.
“There was a man,” Jerry insisted. “He jumped out right before it got crushed, at least that’s what he said.” Jerry hung back away from the X-Men slightly, and Wolverine couldn’t blame him. The man was clearly not in his right mind, and while the whole team looked fairly intimidating, Beast and Iceman were clearly non-human. And, after all, Jerry’s buddy Bernie had told him that the “muties” were going to kill him.
“What man?” the Beast asked. “Where did he go?”
“Walked right out of the park,” Jerry answered. “Said he was going to get out of the city.” Jerry snorted in derision, then added, “Yeah, I’m sure he made it, too.”
“Hank, we don’t know that Trish was covering this story,” Storm reasoned, but the Beast was having none of it.
“In the midst of this crisis, in the hour of need, with her notoriety on mutant issues, where else would she be, Ororo?” the Beast asked grimly. “Our relationship may have ended, but I still care for her very much.”
Wolverine couldn’t hold back any longer. They had wasted too much time. And the Beast deserved the truth.
“She was here, Hank,” Wolverine said. “I picked up her scent in the woods before, but I didn’t recognize it ’til we found the chopper.”
“See, buddy,” Iceman said with his usual enthusiasm. “She’s okay.”
“Just because she walked away from this disaster, doesn’t mean she’s okay,” Bishop chimed in. “We’re in the middle of a genocidal civil war, Drake. It isn’t that simple.”
Silence descended upon the group as Bishop’s words sank in. Far to one side, Iceman crossed the several steps to where Bishop stood and whispered, though not so low that Wolverine could not hear his words.
Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Page 33
