Friend or Foe

by Unknown Author

  A radical new scientific theory proposed that the moon had been created deliberately by the enigmatic Celestials back at the dawn of time, but Iron Man wasn’t quite ready to buy into that particular hypothesis; as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out on that one. He couldn’t dismiss the notion entirely, however. As an Avenger, he knew too well that powerful cosmic entities were at work in the universe.

  Thankfully, they were not after Galactus or the Grandmaster today. Judging from past experience, the Leader was dangerous enough. Iron Man located the Tycho crater with the quinjet’s radar tracking system and entered the correct coordinates into the navigational computer.

  “Better be on guard,” Cyclops suggested. He and Storm were strapped into the passenger seats directly behind Iron Man and the Vision. “Who knows what kind of defenses the Leader has? The closer we get, the more careful we should be.”

  Words to live by, Iron Man reflected. Like Captain America, Cyclops seemed strong on strategy. “Absolutely,” he agreed. “I don’t intend to be caught napping.”

  As if on cue, the Vision suddenly lifted his gaze from the control panel. “Attention,” he announced emotionlessly. “Sensors detect another spacecraft approaching at Mach 3.84. Coming into visual range now.”

  The android Avenger was not mistaken. Adrenalin rushed through Iron Man’s body as the vessel in question came into view, silhouetted against the white reflective surface of the moon itself. To his surprise, this Unidentified Flying Object was, no kidding, an actual flying saucer! Looking like two shallow soup bowls glued together at their brims, the streamlined silver spaceship glided silently toward them, despite no visible means of propulsion. Its outer rim, glowing with incandescent blue energy, spun clockwise around the saucer’s vertical axis. Although it was hard to judge distances against the unusually nearby moon, Iron Man estimated that the saucer was about one-and-a-half times larger than the quinjet. Not exactly an Imperial Star Destroyer, perhaps, but an impressive sight nonetheless.

  Gasps rose from the passenger area, proving that his fellow heroes could see the gleaming saucer as well. “Klaatu birada nikto!” the Beast exclaimed. “Where in the sainted name of Carl Sagan did that come from?”

  “The Tycho crater,” the Vision stated matter-of-factly, confirming Iron Man’s suspicions. Although none of the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s bluny spy photos had caught the craft’s image this clearly, the Golden Avenger had no doubt that they were looking at the same mystery UFO linked to the abductions of both Wanda and Rogue. Looks like the Beast’s calculations were right on-target.

  The saucer looked like an escapee from a 1950’s sci-fi movie, but Iron Man recognized the design immediately. “That’s a Skrull ship!” he said, eyes wide behind the slits in his helmet.

  This was an unexpected new wrinkle. The Skrulls, an aggressive and highly advanced race of alien shape-changers from the Andromeda Galaxy, had nursed hostile designs on Earth for many years, dating back to the earliest days of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Less than a year ago, in fact, a Skrull infiltrator had taken Captain America’s place for a time, until the real Cap escaped captivity to expose the hoax. The ongoing Skrull menace was a fact of life in the late twentieth century, but Iron Man had hardly expected to encounter them here and now.

  “Of course!” the Beast yelped, smacking his forehead with a fuzzy palm. “It all makes sense now. The malignant marionettes that attacked Wanda, and the mobile garments that accosted Rogue, were Skrulls in disguise. They altered their forms to elude detection, then beamed back to their spaceship with their unconscious captives. Besides allowing them to blend in with their surroundings prior to each ambush, their surreal masquerades served to thoroughly obfuscate any subsequent investigation of the kidnappings.” The Beast clucked his tongue in approval. “Ingenious, in a treacherous and machiavellian sort of way, that is.”

  A plausible scenario, Iron Man decided, which accounted for a number of unresolved loose ends. His mind rapidly switched gears, racing to accommodate this vital new data with his previous understanding of their mission. “I’m guessing that those phony X-Men who attacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier were Skrulls, too. Maybe even the same ones.”

  “But what have Skrulls to do with the Leader?” Storm asked, expressing aloud what the rest of them were thinking.

  Good question, Iron Man thought. Had the Skrulls entered into an alliance with the Leader? Or had they been mistaken about the Leader’s involvement all along? Perhaps the infamous gamma-spawned mastermind really was dead after all, just as the world had been led to believe.

  Many provocative possibilities came to mind, but now was not the time to sort them out, not with the Skrull spaceship bearing down on them. Spinning like a glow-in-the-dark buzzsaw, it approached the quinjet at a 90 degree angle to the quinjet’s own plane of orientation. “Evasive maneuvers!” Cap ordered, and Iron Man veered the quinjet away from the path of the incoming saucer. Seventy thousand feet above the moon’s surface, he reasoned, was no place to play chicken.

  For a second, the Skrull saucer dropped out of sight, but Iron Man knew shaking the saucer wasn’t going to be that easy. “The enemy vessel is adjusting its trajectory to intercept us,” the Vision reported dutifully. “And accelerating.”

  This could get bad, Iron Man realized. As part of their United Nation charter, the Avengers carried no offensive weapons on their aircrafts. The quinjet was protected by repulsor screens, but how long could those hold up against whatever futuristic firepower the Skrull ship was packing? Not for a second did he think the flying saucer was pursuing them with peaceful intentions.

  “Vision, take over the helm,” he instructed. His gauntlets disengaged from the control panel as the syn-thezoid transferred all key navigational functions to his own station. Unclamping his seatbelts, Iron Man rose from the pilot’s chair. The lack of gravity made his armor feel much lighter than usual, and he magnetized his boots to keep from floating off the floor of the cockpit. Have to make it to the airlock, he thought urgently. Of all the heroes aboard the quinjet, he was the only one fully equipped to fight in deep space.

  The Skrull ship zipped across the front window, firing a bright green beam that barely missed the fleeing quinjet. The Vision executed a flawless Immelmann turn that carried them out of the line of fire, at least for a few more moments. What was that ray? Iron Man wondered. A high-intensity laser? A particle beam? Skrull technology was millions of years ahead of human engineering, so the possibilities were frighteningly endless.

  Moving as swiftly as he could, the Golden Avenger made his way through the passenger area toward the emergency airlock at the rear of the jet. Peering out through one of the starboard portholes, he saw the Skrull saucer coming after them, once more flying perpendicular to the quinjet’s horizon. Must figure they present a thinner target that way, he guessed; possibly the Skrulls didn’t realize the other ship was unarmed. Maybe that will buy us a little more time.

  The quinjet yawed sharply to the right to evade its spinning pursuer. His magnetized boots kept Iron Man from falling outright, but the sudden change in direction caused him to stumble to one side, almost slamming his iron-plated shoulder into Captain America’s head. Luckily, Cap’s lightning-fast reflexes had not been dulled by zero-gravity; he brought his shield up just in time to block the blow. “Oops! Sorry ’bout that,” Iron Man apologized.

  “No problem,” Cap assured him. “Get out there and teach those Skrulls whose moon that is.” He flashed Iron Man a courageous smile. “Last I heard, Colonel Armstrong claimed that rock for Earth.”

  Cap’s confidence was inspiring. “You bet,” Iron Man said, hurrying toward the airlock while the Vision piloted the quinjet through a dizzying series of loops and curves. Iron Man spotted Bruce Banner near the back, looking distinctly green. Mere nausea, brought on by the wild ride, or was the stress and excitement releasing his inner Hulk? Iron Man hoped for the former; the last thing they needed now was for the Hulk to throw a fit.

  He had j
ust reached the entrance of the airlock when their luck ran out. A blinding flash of green struck the quinjet on its port side. Iron Man held his breath, waiting anxiously to see if the ship’s magnetic force field, and dense vibranium shielding, would be enough to prevent a catastrophic hull breach. He crossed armored fingers while an eerie viridescent radiance flooded the passenger compartment.

  The results were far different than he had anticipated, even in his worst imaginings. Instead of the sudden, violent onset of explosive decompression, nothing happened at all—except that the strange green glow seemed to, converge on Wolverine, outlining his seated form in a shimmering halo from head to foot. “What the—?” he grunted in surprise, before the light disappeared completely, taking Wolverine with it.

  “Logan!” Storm cried out, but it was too late. Wolverine had vanished, leaving an empty seat behind. Still clamped in place, his safety belt and shoulder strap floated above the seat cushions, as though protecting an invisible passenger.

  One down, eight more to go, Iron Man thought grimly. Was that the Skrulls’ battle plan, to beam them away one by one, just like they had Wanda and Rogue? He had no fear that Wolverine had simply been disintegrated; there were more efficient ways to kill them all if that was what was desired. In his gut, he knew that the tough Canadian X-Man had been beamed aboard the Skrull saucer. Obviously, the quinjet’s repulsor screens were no match for the enemy’s teleportation ray.

  His fellow X-Men stared in horror at Wolverine’s vacated seat, but Banner had a different reaction. “That was the Leader’s trans-mat ray, all right. I’d recognize it anywhere.” Banner’s voice sounded deeper, more guttural than before. His face had an unmistakably greenish cast, and his borrowed sweater, which had been a few sizes too large before, was now stretched tightly against an expanding chest. He slammed a clenched list into his other meaty paw. “I knew that good-for-nothing head case wasn’t dead. I knew it!”

  Here comes the Hulk, Iron Man thought glumly, but he couldn’t afford to worry about that now. He had to get outside, before another X-Man or Avenger went the way of Wolverine. He hastily spun the wheel that opened the airlock and stepped into the pressurized chamber inside; While he waited for the inner door to relock, he performed a quick check on his armor’s built-in life support systems. Airtight seals slid into place within his mouth slit and eyepieces. He took a few deep breaths to activate the automatic rebreather in his helmet. Interior heating units prepared his armor for the deadly cold of space. In theory, he could survive the vacuum indefinitely, unlike any of his comrades. Even the Hulk needed to breathe.

  What about Iceman? he wondered briefly as the thought occurred to him. Did the youthful mutant require oxygen in his ice form? Iron Man pondered the question for a second, then realized that, without any ambient moisture to draw upon, Iceman’s offensive capabilities would be severely limited in space, even if he was able to endure the harsh conditions.

  “It’s up to me,” he murmured. Making sure the door to the passenger compartment was completely sealed, he evacuated the atmosphere from the airlock chamber, returning it to the quinjet’s reserve air supply. But before he could press the release button on the outer door, another flash of light lit the interior of the quinjet, visible to Iron Man through a transparent window in the inner door. “Blast!” he swore. The Skrulls had scored another hit.

  This time the flash was red, not green, and the effect entirely different. A powerful shockwave rattled the quinjet, only partially ameliorated by the aircraft’s defensive shields. Sparks flared from a short-circuited control panel next to the outer door, tiny white-hot embers spraying out in all directions rather than falling to the floor. Charred computer chips and bits of circuitry floated freely within the confines of the sealed chamber. That was no trans-mat ray, Iron Man realized. They’ve broken out the heavy artillery.

  The Skrulls were playing for keeps now, but why? Iron Man was puzzled by the abrupt change in tactics. Why would the Skrulls, working in tandem with the Leader, want to capture Wolverine, but obliterate the rest of them ? Maybe if I knew why they snatched Wanda and Rogue in the first place, he mused, I might have some clue as to what the big picture was—and why they grabbed Wolverine.

  One thing for sure, he wasn’t going to find out by standing around in an airlock while a bunch of trigger-happy Skrulls took pot shots at his ship. With the automated controls fried by the Skrull energy blast, Iron Man was forced to open the outer door manually. Transistorized servomotors amplified the strength of his armored fingers as he released the emergency clamp, then tugged the thick steel door open. Anxious to engage the enemy, he ignited his boot jets even as the heavy steel door slid away. “Geronimo!” he shouted, flying clear of the quinjet under his own power.

  The silence of the void was deafening. All he could hear was his ov/n breathing and the sound of his artificial heart pumping rhythmically inside his chest. He took a few seconds to orient himself, the great swollen moon hanging above him, the familiar blue globe of the Earth receding into the distance beneath his feet. What a view! he thought, momentarily awestruck despite the urgency of the situation. Diaphanous clouds veiled the familiar continents and oceans of Terra, while the looming satellite more than dwarfed the fullest moon ever seen from Earth. The famous Mare Tranquillitatis alone, where Apollo 11 touched down decades ago, seemed larger and more imposing than any of Earth’s seven seas. All a matter of perspective, I guess.

  He quickly located the Skrull saucer, spinning through space after the quinjet. Rather than retreating back toward Earth, the Vision piloted the Avengers’ airship around the moon, clearly keeping in mind their ultimate objective. They had come too far to turn back now, not while their teammates remained prisoners upon the moon and within the enemy saucer.

  Using his boot jets as retro rockets, the Golden Avenger accelerated toward the Skrull ship. Before he came within firing range, however, the saucer unleashed another blistering salvo of crimson energy. The deadly ray rocked the quinjet, simultaneously burning away some of the outer heat shields. Having designed the quinjet himself, with a little help from T’Challa’s Wak-anda Design Group, Iron Man knew the besieged vessel couldn’t take much more abuse of that order. If nothing else, I need to draw the Skrulls ’ fire away from the others.

  Activating his armor’s communications array, he broadcast a warning on every frequency the Skrulls had ever used in the past: “Attention, Skrull vessel. This is Iron Man, representing the Avengers and the planet Earth. You are instructed to call off your attack at once.”

  Iron Man had yet to meet a Skrull who couldn’t understand English, but his hail elicited no response. Where is Lt. Uhura now that I need her? he thought, setting his comm unit to repeat his warning at five second intervals. Let’s see if I can get their attention.

  Repulsor beams blasted from his gauntlets, blazing through the vacuum to strike the energized ring propelling the Skrull saucer. Scintillating flashes of azure energy flared to life where his beams intersected the saucer’s own protective force field, but Iron Man couldn’t tell if his repulsors had inflicted any serious damage on the alien spaceship. To his frustration, it didn’t look like it, even after he raised the power of the force beams to their upper limits. A coruscating carpet of sparks raced over the polished exterior of the saucer, and he fired up his chest projector as well, adding a high-temperature thermal beam to the barrage striking against the formerly unidentified flying object. “Leave my friends alone, you pointy-eared reptiles!” he muttered under his breath. “Why don’t you take on somebody who can fight back!”

  The realization that Wolverine was probably aboard the alien vessel hampered Iron Man, making him reluctant to let loose with the biggest guns in his arsenal, most notably his incredibly destructive pulse bolts. He couldn’t risk destroying the saucer while Wolverine was still a prisoner of the Skrulls. But would he be able to save the quinjet, and everyone aboard it, without going all out against the saucer? He might not have any choice.

  The
combined repulsors and heat ray must have had some effect, since the Skrull saucer abruptly broke off its pursuit of the imperiled quinjet and veered toward Iron Man instead. Spinning through the void, the saucer came after him, throwing off luciferous bolts of crimson fire. That’s right, the armored Avenger thought. Come and get me.

  Infinitely more maneuverable than the much larger spacecraft, Iron Man zigzagged through space, skillfully dodging the Skrulls’ energy bursts. To further confound his alien hunters, he released a stream of metallic foil confetti from a tubular cache in his armor. With any luck, the ferrous shavings would interfere with the Skrulls’ targeting sensors, even though he did experience a twinge of irrational guilt at littering the pristine emptiness of space like this. Who knew, perhaps the moon’s meager gravity would someday pull the bits of foil down to its cratered surface, to the confusion of future lunar geologists.

  A small price to pay for survival, he decided, rocketing through space a few leagues ahead of the former UFO. Within seconds, however, the saucer was gaining on him. A spear of crimson energy came dangerously close to Iron Man, missing him by less than a yard. At first he thought the Skrulls had accelerated drastically, then his own speedometer display, projected directly onto his retina, reported that, no, it was he who was slowing down.