It was approaching the middle of the afternoon, local time, and the sun bore down on them from behind, sending long shadows angling across the pure white sands of the atoll as they walked inland. All three X-Men—Scott, Kurt, and Peter—were dressed for action in their uniforms, and carried nothing with them but the small handheld device that Scott had tucked into his belt. The Blackbird, its hatch securely closed, idled silently on the waves, anchored in place, the autopilot at ready.
“Let’s go,” Scott said, setting off for the tree line. “And keep out of sight. If they spot us, this’ll all have been for nothing.”
“Splendid motivational tactics, Scott.” Kurt smiled, showing razor-sharp canines. “Perhaps you should do a lecture tour, hmm?”
Peter smiled, but Scott said nothing, plowing into the underground, a man on a mission.
A short while later, they reached the opposite shore, keeping well hidden behind the trees and underground, peering at the alien city from cover.
“Are you sure this is going to work, Scott?”
“What are you worried about, Peter?” Kurt laughed, mirthlessly. “I’m the one that’s got to do all the heavy lifting here, nicht wahr?”
Peter shook his head, far from convinced. Hank McCoy had drawn up their plan of attack that morning, around the kitchen table in the Xavier mansion. It was simple and straightforward, but for all that he was a simple man, who preferred matters straightforward whenever possible, Peter had long since learned that the circuitous and devious was often the more effective strategy. That was one of the things he admired about Logan and Kurt. Even Katya, to some extent, had a penchant for approaching a problem from strange angles, of doing what was least expected, at the most unlikely moment, and turning it to her advantage.
That was not Peter’s way. He was a farmer, not a strategist. If there was a stump in the path of your plow, you didn’t change the plow’s course to account for it. You simply pulled up the stump and got on with business.
The problem was, of course, that few problems in life were solved as simply as was a stump in the path of a plow. Would that they were. Then men like Peter would run the world, making sensible, straightforward decisions, ones that required no contemplation or additional scrutiny. But this was not that world.
In this instance, the problem was a simple one. There was an impenetrable dome surrounding the alien city, and they needed to penetrate it. Peter’s solution, were it up to him, would be simply to punch a hole in the dome. Which, of course, was not possible; or, at least, not directly.
The hallmark of Hank’s plan was its simplicity. They would poke a hole in the dome, it was true. But where Hank’s plan differed from Peter’s simpler approach was in where they would punch it.
Hank had theorized that it was unlikely that the invaders, these Kh’thon would have the energy resources necessary to maintain a completely impenetrable level of force at all points on the dome at all times. Therefore, he reasoned, there must be some mechanism that redirected the energy as needed. A concentrated, persistent attack on one point, then, would necessitate a momentary weakening of other points. That was were the Blackbird came in.
Scott had already programmed the attack patterns into the autopilot. Once he sent the signal with the remote device on his belt, the Blackbird would lift off, circle around to the north at a considerable distance, and then approach the alien city from the east. Then, as soon as it was in range, the Blackbird would concentrate its fire on a single point, pouring out a maelstrom of firepower for a span of several minutes.
When the attack reached its peak, at the moment when Hank theorized that the opposite side of the dome would be at its weakest, the X-Men would make their move.
“I’m not so sure about this.” Kurt narrowed his yellow eyes, rapping on the trunk of a palm tree with his knuckles.
“We’ve been over the math, Kurt,” Scott said, a hint of impatience underlying his words. “It’s well within your tolerances.”
“Well, Scott,” Kurt said, his tone sharp, “it isn’t my tolerances that concern me.”
The distance from the shore of the atoll to the edge of the alien city was no more than a mile. Kurt could easily teleport twice that distance... if he was traveling alone. But the plan called for him to teleport himself and both his fellow X-Men. The strain of displacing himself and two others, considering their respective masses, would leave all three of them feeling weakened and profoundly ill on their arrival. It would likely be some minutes before they’d be in a position to move.
Kurt could only teleport to a place he’d seen before. And while he’d visited the strange city years before, with the rest of the X-Men, the only locale he could bring to mind with any clarity was a sort of artificial grotto or pool near the city’s center. There was a long, irregularly shaped body of water, lined with varicolored stones, beneath a towering statue of some inhuman creature, a man and a woman draped in postures of worshipfulness at its feet. The image of the place had stuck with Kurt all this time, since he’d never been able to puzzle out just what the relationship between the creature and the humans was—were they slaves, pets, supplicants, or worse?
This was to be their destination, then. Provided Hank’s theory was correct. If it wasn’t... ?
Kurt tried not to think about that.
Scott held the remote in his hands, tracking its miniature readouts and tells carefully. It had been close to ten minutes since he’d sent the Blackbird’s autopilot the signal to begin, and if all was proceeding according to the plans he’d input, the attack should begin at any minute.
“Um, friends?” Peter began, uneasily. He shuffled nervously from foot to foot, kicking up little clouds of sand, his expression that of a child worried about an impending visit to the dentist. “Just what will happen if Hank’s theory isn’t correct?”
Scott pursed his lips, but didn’t answer, preferring instead to concentrate his attention on the remote.
Beside him, Kurt sighed heavily. “Mein Freund, if Hank’s theory is incorrect, and the force field is active when we attempt to traverse it, then we will most likely be repelled, pushed back into the under dimension through which my teleports take me.”
“Then we will simply teleport back here?” Peter asked hopefully.
Kurt shook his head. “Displacing as much mass as you and Scott combined represent, I won’t be able to ’port for another few minutes. But the dimension to which we’ll be shunted is a timeless limbo, in which there is no perception of the passage of one moment to the next. Though we will never realize it, frozen always in that single instant, we’ll be stranded in that sunless void forever.”
Peter shuddered, but Scott shook his head sharply. He tucked the remote back into his belt.
“That’s not happening.”
Scott reached out, and took Kurt’s hand in his. It so resembled a pantomime of an affectionate gesture that Kurt had to stifle a laugh.
“Come on,” Scott continued. “It’s time to go.”
Kurt nodded once. Holding Scott’s hand with his left, Kurt took Peter’s hand with his right.
“Okay, gentlemen,” Kurt said with a sly smile. “I will see you on the other side.” He paused, and then added, “And if I don’t happen to see you again, allow me to say what a pleasure it has been knowing you both.”
“And I you, tovarisch.” Peter smiled sheepishly, and it looked for an instant as though he might begin to cry.
“Come on, you old women,” Scott said with a bravado he clearly didn’t feel. “We’re not getting any younger.”
Bamf.
Bamf.
Kurt had miscalculated, but only slightly. They arrived a few feet in the air. And while he and Scott fell unceremoniously onto the hard, unforgiving stone at the pool’s edge, Peter plunged with a huge splash and spray into the clear blue waters themselves, sinking like a stone.
No one could have faulted Kurt for that. It was otherwise a flawless bit of teleportation.
Nor, to be fair, could
he be faulted for the fact that they were, to a man, exhausted, haggard, and ill, able to do little more than lift their heads and moan. He had warned them, after all.
And if anyone was to blame for the fact that they’d teleported in, in full view of the quartet of Exemplar who lounged at the water’s edge only a few short yards away, it wasn’t Kurt. But then, by that point, the determination of blame was farthest from anyone’s mind.
34
Once, when she was a girl, Lee Forrester had gone with her mom and dad to the stockyards. It was during the All-Florida Championship Rodeo in Arcadia. In later years, looking back on it, she could never quite understand why her parents had opted to take their precocious daughter on a road trip halfway to Tampa, to attend a rodeo, of all things. But in all the years that followed, Lee had never been able to forget the image of the stockyards, of the cattle herded into pens, seeming either resigned to their fates or else so numb from fear and shock as to make no difference. They lowed, on occasion, dispiritedly, but put up no active resistance.
That was how it was in the prison to which Lee and her crew had been brought. Though instead of cattle, placidly awaiting their fate, these were men and women, some of them super-heroes.
This would not do.
Lee approached the three Xavier students first. Even though she’d never met them, they would, at least, have friends in common.
Magneto had told her about these three, and their classmates. She couldn’t remember their names, but she could remember their code names. And, on reflection, she supposed that in the world in which superheroes moved, that was as it should be.
One, the slight Scots girl with the bright red hair, whose somewhat mousy appearance did not hint at the fire she carried within, went by the code name of Wolfsbane. Though one would never guess it to look at her in this guise, this young girl possessed the ability to turn into a full-grown wolf able to stop at transitional states along the way: a werewolf.
Another, a normally angry young Brazilian, with dark skin and short, wavy black hair, went by the code name of Sunspot. Though at five feet tall he was only a couple of inches taller than the red-haired Scots girl, this intense young man was capable of storing solar energy for long periods of time, and then converting it into superhuman levels of physical strength.
Finally, there was the determined Native American girl, who accessorized the yellow-and-black Xavier uniform with a silver-and-turquoise belt and fringed moccasin boots, who answered to the code name Mirage. This resourceful young woman, the oldest of the three, possessed the uncanny ability of creating lifelike three-dimensional images drawn from the minds of herself and others.
At the moment, though, none of the three appeared particularly fiery, or angry, or determined. Each seemed just as listless as all the other prisoners who wore the silver collars, like cattle resigned to their fates.
It was up to Lee to change all that.
None of the three resisted as Lee dragged them together to a fairly empty space at the side of the chamber. The room into which they had all been ushered, which had already held some dozen or more regular men and women, was large, the walls, floor, and ceiling featureless and unbroken. Once they had been ushered through the aperture in the wall, the silvery material of the wall had flowed back over the opening, sealing it up. But, more importantly, the prisoners had been left alone, without any manner of guard.
It was possible that their captors were watching, even now, whether through some sort of hidden cameras or perhaps through a section of the wall that could act like a two-way mirror. But for the moment, Lee had to assume that they’d been left to their own devices, at least until their captors once more had a use for them, or until they arrived with more prisoners.
If Lee was able to set her plan in motion, though, the prisoners would be ready when the door opened once more.
Next, Lee approached the Japanese hero, Sunfire. He sat slumped against the curved wall, his eyes on the middle distance, his mouth hanging slightly open. Neither she nor any of the Xavier students had met Sunfire before, but she had seen footage of him a few years before, from his first appearance in Manhattan, to his later action as the national hero of Japan. Sunfire’s mutant ability was to ionize matter into superheated plasma, like the flames on the surface of the sun itself. This plasma could be fired in bolts at will, or used to create heated air currents around his body, allowing him to fly. Both were powers that, if Lee’s plan were to come to fruition, would prove useful.
Finally, Lee approached the two students from the Massachusetts Academy, the Hellions. Xavier’s students were helpful in identifying who the two were, and what their capacities were.
One, a young Arab of Moroccan origins, was codenamed Jetstream. He possessed the ability to produce large amounts of energy, which he used to propel himself through the air like a rocket.
The other, a tall Native American, went by the code name Thunderbird. His abilities were simply stated, and easily understood. He was very fast, and very, very strong.
It was clear that there was animosity between the Xavier students and their rivals from the Massachusetts Academy, though Lee could not fail to notice the significant glances that Mirage and Thunderbird exchanged, even in their subdued states. Lee could not say whether there was a history between the two, or whether both simply wished that there were.
Now that she’d been able to get the attention of the six mutants, she gathered them together, along with her crewmen, and outlined her plan.
35
As they wended their way through the corridors and chambers of the Fathership, it seemed to Kitty less like an interstellar space craft, and more like some unearthly, foreboding catacombs, as though they were not hanging in space between the Earth and her moon, but instead deep underground in a network of tombs and oubliettes. The atmosphere, though breathable, was oppressive, and from time to time Kitty would shiver as a chill ran down her spine.
Kitty realized she’d felt this way before. Some time ago, and far away, when she walked through narrow streets and felt an inescapable chill in her bones, though the tropical sun was high and shining overhead.
“This is just like that city in the Bermuda Triangle,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Dis,” Betsy said, not turning around.
“What?” Kitty glanced over at the telepath, confused.
“The name of the city is Dis.” Betsy slowed, and turned to meet Kitty’s gaze. “Another fact I pulled from the memories of our Exemplar prisoner. Dis was one of seven major Kh’thon cities, scattered around the globe.
If the Kh’thon and their servants are successful, they plan to restore the other six as well.” She paused, and then added, “Once they’ve razed all human civilization to the ground, of course.”
“Naturally,” Kitty said.
“Another one up ahead, Bets,” Logan said, his voice low and even. He pointed a gloved finger at the turn in the corridor up ahead, where a green-robed servitor was just rounding the comer, carrying some sort of large tray in his hands.
“Already ‘heard’ him coming.” Betsy smiled, and tapped her left temple. “He won’t see or hear us.” “Marvelous,” Raphael said admiringly, looking at Betsy as though she were a choice cut of lamb hanging in a butcher’s window. “What I wouldn’t give for a few of you in my employ. ”
“No, thank you, Mr. Raphael,” Betsy answered, a slight sneer curling her lip. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t approve of the work requirements.” She paused, then added, icily, “Or of management.”
Kitty cracked a smile. She wouldn’t want to work for the spook, either. At the same time, she could understand why Raphael found the notion so appealing. Though the Fathership seemed almost deserted, by their standard, from time to time they came upon one of the Kh’thon’s servitors, whether singly or in some groups. When they did, with little apparent effort Betsy was able to cloud the servitors’ minds, creating a mental “blind spot” that prevented them from noticing the interlopers.
It was the next best thing to being invisible, without the awkward business of not being able to see your hand in front of your face.
“Are you quite certain you know where we’re going?” Colonel Stuart eyed the passing servitor warily, fingers wrapped tightly around the grip of her automatic pistol.
“More or less,” Betsy replied.
The servitor continued by, oblivious to Kitty and the others passing just a few feet away, heading in the opposite direction.
“I don’t like this,” Colonel Stuart answered, jaw set. “I don’t like this ship, this plan, or this whole bloody circumstance. Something is ... wrong.”
“Hey, it gives me the creeps, too,” Kitty objected, “but don’t take it out on Betsy.”
“Nah, she’s right, kiddo.” Logan was walking a few yards ahead, taking point. “Somethin’ ain’t normal in this joint. Smells are all mixed up”—he reached out a brushed a hand against the dark, oily material of the nearest wall and his finger tips came away wet—“and there’s some kinda weird buzz right on the edge of hearing. Making me queasy.”
“It’s not auditory,” Betsy said, eyes on the middle distance. “That buzz you’re perceiving—it’s psionic. Your brain just doesn’t know how to classify the input.” “What is it?” Kitty asked.
“A sense of wrongness.” Betsy closed her eyes momentarily, looking pained.
‘Yes, that’s it precisely.” Raphael snapped his fingers, his expression excited, as though Betsy had just answered a trivia question he’d been struggling to answer himself “A wrongness.”
“What is it?” Colonel Stuart asked.
“It’s the presence of the Kh’thon themselves, I believe.” Betsy opened her eyes, and turned to look at the others. “They communicate on telepathic wavelengths, and what we’re picking up is the psychic spillover of their conversations. But since they’re operating so far beyond the normal range of human mentation, it comes across to us as a kind of static.” She winced, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just be glad none of you has any sort of aptitude for psionics. What you’re getting is just a mild vibration of the ether. I assure you that the full impact of the interference is”—she blinked rapidly, and grimaced—“considerably more noisome.”
The Return Page 16