Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Read online

  Cyclops nodded.

  “Excellent, then it is done,” Storm said. “An even split: Iceman, Beast, Wolverine and Bishop with me; Gambit, Rogue, Jean and Warren with Cyclops.” She turned to the Beast. “Hank, Bobby, fire up the Blackbird. We dustoff in five minutes.”

  Cyclops watched the ‘home team,’ as he had started to think of them, prepared for their mission, even as his ‘away team’ gathered round. Professor Xavier began to glide toward them, but Cyclops realized there was far more to their plan than merely making a decision. He scanned the room for Ch’od and Raza, uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t even noticed their withdrawing from the debate. Finally, he saw them, conversing quietly at the base of the long entry ramp of the ship. He signaled to them, and the two aliens walked back to where the remaining X-Men stood with their benefactor.

  “How is the ship?” he asked.

  “You people have done an excellent job,” Ch’od said happily. “She’s as ready to fly as the day I first laid eyes on her.”

  “She wast a vile monstrosity when thine eyes first lay upon her!” Raza snapped, and Cyclops was glad to see that the pair were back to themselves again.

  “Still,” Raza continued, “I suppose she shall suffice for the nonce. At least to get in. It may be that we shall all die trying to leave Hala, if we doth survive even that long.”

  “You always this glum, fella?” Rogue asked.

  “He de life of de party, Rogue,” Gambit said, one eyebrow arched.

  “In fact,” Jean said, “compared to his usual demeanor, I’d say Raza was almost effusive today.”

  “If I was a little less friendly,” Ch’od said happily, “I’m sure Raza would not be quite so angry. But I cannot help myself. It’s my nature.”

  “That’s what I keep trying to tell them,” Warren said, but barely cracked a smile at his own humor.

  “Scott,” Professor Xavier said, “could I have a moment, please, before you depart?”

  “Certainly, sir,” Cyclops answered, but already his mind was consumed by the journey ahead, and thoughts of what might lie at the other side of the stargate.

  He took a few steps away from the rest of the team, and Xavier glided at his side.

  Believe me when I say I understand your feelings here, Scott, the Professor began. Yet I know how you get in times of personal crisis. Often you try to deal with such things yourself and I know you’ll be tempted to cut the others, particularly Jean and Warren, out of the picture, to keep your pain to yourself. But you need them, Scott, and not merely as backup.

  I know that, Professor, Scott responded mentally. Though he had no psi abilities himself, Xavier could read as well as project thoughts. It’s just that, well, I already feel as if I’m endangering all of their lives for my own reasons. It’s not …

  They go where they will, Scott, the Professor interrupted, and Cyclops knew from his tone that the subject was closed. He hoped Xavier wasn’t too frustrated with him.

  “We must avoid an incident between Deathbird and Lilandra at all costs,” the Professor said aloud. “You won’t have any backup out there.”

  “Do we ever, Charles?” Jean asked as she came closer, and Xavier merely raised his hands in defeat.

  * * *

  THE Blackbird had long since fired her engines and shot into the western sky toward Colorado. As the Starjammer performed its vertical liftoff, then began her journey in earnest, metal shrieking as she climbed ever higher into the sky, Charles Xavier shot an errant thought out into the void of space after them.

  Godspeed, my X-Men. Come home safe.

  FOUR

  IN the galactic region known by Terrans as the Greater Magellanic Cloud lay the Pama planetary system. Once upon a time, the planet Hala was the jewel of the Pama System, the proudest of planets, the center of an extraordinary empire. Entropy destroys all things, but in the case of Hala, destruction was not left to nature and time. The Kree homeworld was, instead, undone by its own leader, the artificial life form known as the Supreme Intelligence.

  That wondrous being conducted a terrible experiment with its own people, manipulating their war with the Shi’ar so their most hated enemy would use the dreaded nega-bomb against them. More than twenty-nine billion Kree lost their lives, and many of those who lived underwent startling, often terrifying, sometimes fatal mutations. Exactly as the Supreme Intelligence had planned.

  The survivors lived, for the most part, on the ravaged surface of what remained of Hala. Only the capital city, Kree-Lar, had been rebuilt to any semblance of its former glory, and then only to trumpet the superiority of their savage new Viceroy, Deathbird of the Shi’ar royal house of Neramani. In time, many had begun to overlook the betrayal of the Supreme Intelligence, to ignore the proof that the Shi’ar had been manipulated. None of that mattered, when they lived as serfs on a world controlled by a tyrant.

  The gleaming spires of the new capitol building stretched higher than anything else still standing on Hala. It was a beautiful sight, but one hard to appreciate in light of the poverty, disease, and squalor outside the gates. The new capitol had been built on the remains of the old, the centuries-old foundation still solid. Deep beneath the surface of the planet was the dungeon of Hala, which held more prisoners now under Deathbird than they ever had during the height of the Kree Empire.

  Four of Deathbird’s most elite soldiers guarded the approach to the cell where three condemned prisoners awaited their execution. Two more stood immediately outside the door to the cell. One, recently promoted to the elite corps, winced as yet another piercing wail of agony escaped the cell.

  The screaming continued.

  * * *

  CANDIDE stopped screaming. Mercifully, she had fallen unconscious and now hung limply from the metal cylinders which entrapped her hands. The top of her head, her eyes and the bridge of her nose were covered by a copper colored metal helmet, the function of which was simple: to destroy her will, and her mind if necessary.

  “Enough, Deathbird!” Corsair snapped, straining against the cylinders which paralyzed both hands and feet, a torture in itself. “If Candide had anything to tell you, surely you would have heard it by now.”

  Deathbird put one hand against the wall and leaned close to Candide’s face. With the talons of her other hand, she plucked the helmet from the smuggler’s head and turned slowly toward Corsair. Her golden skin and white eyes, with the extraordinary markings around them, combined with the mauve feathers that grew from her head and spread around her shoulders like human hair, ought to have made her beautiful.

  Instead, they made her more horrible. Deathbird was a genetic throwback, even among her own people. The Shi’ar had characteristics of both Earth mammals and birds, but as a race they had lost their wings to evolution. Deathbird had been born with wings intact under her arms and lethal talons at the end of each finger.

  But those things were not what made her so terrifying. It was as simple as the cast of her face, the sickly light in her eyes. At different times Corsair had thought her purely evil, then completely insane. He had finally realized that she was a combination of both. Her mere presence sickened and unnerved him.

  But he’d be damned if he’d let her know that.

  “If you’re going to kill us, lady, why don’t you do it and get it over with?” he snarled.

  Their torturer floated lithely across the room, smiling at Corsair, a predator sighting her prey.

  “Away from him, stay, little bird!” Hepzibah growled, and Corsair turned his head hard to the right to get a good look at his lover. She’d been born on Tryl’sart, under Shi’ar Imperial rule, spent some time in prison on Alsibar, where Corsair had first met her.

  The Shi’ar Emperor D’Ken, the long dead brother of Lilandra and Deathbird, had destroyed Corsair’s life as Major Christopher Summers, had murdered his wife, Kate. D’Ken ordered Corsair imprisoned on Alsibar not long after that. It was there, cowed and broken, that he had met the Starjammers. Ch’od’s entire race had been wiped
out by the Shi’ar; Raza was a prisoner of his own people; and, taunted and tortured by the guards, Hepzibah … Hepzibah was simply beautiful.

  With their courage as example, and his attraction to Hepzibah growing, Corsair rebuilt his sense of self, his pride. Heartened by their presence, he regained his humanity. He aided the trio in their escape, and eventually, became their leader. And Hepzibah’s lover.

  Like all members of the Mephisitoid race, Hepzibah resembled nothing so much as a humanoid cat, with the colors of a skunk. Most human males would shrink in horror at the sight of her, but Corsair could only see her beauty and grace.

  And now her pain.

  Deathbird lashed out with the talons of her left hand and slashed Hepzibah’s arm, drawing blood and a hiss from the female’s mouth.

  “You’re wasting your time, witch!” Corsair shouted. “You can say whatever you like to rationalize our deaths, but you’ll never get your confession.”

  “Fool,” Deathbird said with a shake of her head and the rustle of feathers, “I don’t need your confession to execute you for smuggling. What I want are your contacts with the Kree rebels. I want names, Corsair. Give me the leaders of this Kree insurgency, and perhaps I will be merciful to you and your female companions.”

  “Forget, you do, Deathbird,” Hepzibah said before Corsair could answer, “familiar, we are, with your so-called mercy.”

  “None of which means a damn thing,” Corsair added. “We don’t know anything about any Kree rebellion. Candide is a smuggler, pure and simple, selling to whomever is buying. Hepzibah and I came only to free her from your bizarre version of justice. Though I pity anyone living under your rule, I have no special love for the Kree, and no desire to lose my head for them.”

  Deathbird’s eyes narrowed and she glared at them both, ignoring the unconscious Candide. After a moment she sucked in air, as if she’d been holding her breath, then shrugged her shoulders in almost human fashion.

  “As you wish, Starjammers,” she said. “Continue your denials but you will neither convince nor dissuade me. I will have those names …”

  “Paranoid bitch,” Corsair interjected, exasperated.

  “Enough!” Deathbird barked, and backhanded him across the face with such force that she nearly broke his neck. Corsair was grateful she hadn’t used her talons. With that strength, she might have torn his face completely off.

  “It seems the torture must continue,” she said with mock sadness.

  “You may drive me mad, but that won’t get you the answers you’re looking for,” Corsair said.

  “Oh, but it isn’t your turn yet,” Deathbird replied, then reached out to clamp a hand on Hepzibah’s jaw while she lowered the copper helmet to the Mephisitoid’s head. Almost immediately, Hepzibah began to scream. Corsair had experienced the psionic torture of that device only once thus far, but that was enough to feel a terrible nausea at each shriek or whimper that issued from his lover’s mouth.

  Inside her mind, he knew, she was experiencing the worst physical and emotional torture that her own mind could conceive of. The thing tapped into both her imagination and her pain receptors to create false events and mingle them with actual pain.

  Deathbird merely smiled as he ground his teeth together, then made her way from the cell, the guards locking the door behind her. Hepzibah’s screams were loud enough that, just as the first tear slipped down Corsair’s cheek, Candide began to wake.

  The smuggler was a Shi’ar/Kree halfbreed, which for years had made her an outcast in two empires. Corsair had known her a long time, had once been a little sweet on her, but there had never been anything but friendship between them despite her great beauty. It occurred to him that, in most cases he’d seen, halfbreeds were generally more attractive than either of their parents’ races. A message of harmony, he might have thought if he wasn’t so cynical.

  Hepzibah howled again, and Corsair could not keep his mind off her any longer. There was nothing he could do for her. Whatever torture he might endure when that copper helmet was placed on his head, it could not be worse than listening to his lover, a strong and stubborn woman, cry out in agony. Deathbird knew that, of course. Corsair cursed her under his breath.

  “Corsair?” Candide asked tentatively, her pain obvious.

  He did his best to face her, despite the lack of mobility in his arms and legs. He thought it might help if he smiled, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  “I’m here, old friend,” he answered grimly. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, after all.”

  “What?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over Hepzibah’s cries.

  “God!” he shouted, ignoring Candide now, enraged by the surreal quality of his situation. “Enough now! Let her be!”

  It had been decades since he’d prayed, years since he’d even considered it. This was different. There would be no mercy from Deathbird, no mercy but the blade that would separate their heads from their necks. Corsair reached out with his mind, heart, and soul to Hepzibah, to the universe itself.

  He didn’t know whether it was mere fate, or some divine intervention, but Hepzibah finally succumbed, falling unconscious within her restraints. Just in case, he mumbled a soft thank you under his breath.

  “Why doesn’t she just kill us?” Candide asked quietly.

  “She thinks we’re part of some Kree insurrection, that we can provide her with names,” he said, still astonished by the concept. “She’s insane. Most of the Kree hate the Starjammers as much as they do the Shi’ar or the Terrans. If we knew anything about the rebellion, doesn’t she think we’d tell her?”

  Corsair’s mind was swirling with pain and wonder, so at first it didn’t strike him as odd that Candide did not reply. After a moment, though, her silence became a distraction.

  “Candide?” he said. “Are you listening?”

  He turned to look at her, but Candide would not face him.

  “Candide?” he asked again.

  Finally, his old friend looked up, tears streaming down her face. And then, of course, he knew.

  * * *

  THOUGH he was far from unintelligent, Gladiator never aspired to become a ruler himself. His race were singularly powerful amongst their galactic neighbors, but he had been raised a loyal soldier to the Shi’ar Empire, just as all of his people had. Everything that defined him was wrapped up in his position, which at one time had seemed unattainable for a being not Shi’ar by birth. And yet, despite the odds, he had become Praetor of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

  It was testament to his loyalty to the throne and his objectivity that Gladiator had maintained his position throughout the despotic rule of D’Ken Neramani, the tyranny of Deathbird, and the relative peace and prosperity of Lilandra. Three vastly different leaders, all from the same family. Gladiator and the Guard had served them all. He was not dedicated to a single ruler, but to the empire itself. It was his life and his blood.

  Or so he told himself. There were times, however, in moments of what he would call weakness, that he would admit in his private thoughts that Lilandra was the best and rightful Majestrix of the Empire. At certain moments it was difficult to remain impartial. While Deathbird had been Majestrix he had served, had done his duty, but at his core Gladiator had been less than pleased.

  His duty brought him to Hala, into the court of Deathbird. A small part of him, a blasphemous voice in his head, wondered if accepting the position as Praetor was a wise choice. Though he had fought against them more often than he had fought by their side, he did not want to see the two Starjammers executed. But the law was the law. He was happy that, though she clearly had reservations about the sentence, Lilandra was not going to challenge Deathbird. It would be unwise and, in the eyes of many, unjust.

  Gladiator knew that his traveling to Hala as envoy, with Oracle, Starbolt, Titan and Warstar of the Imperial Guard, was Lilandra’s way of delaying the executions, and he was forced to wonder what she hoped to accomplish by such tactics. But he didn’t wonder long
. The conclusions he would invariably reach could be unhealthy for all involved.

  His heels clicked on the polished stone of the hallway, an honor guard to either side and the four Guards who had accompanied him bringing up the rear. They marched down a long hall where Deathbird’s men insisted that the rest of the envoy stay behind while he went ahead to meet with her. He would have liked to resist, but an order was an order. The Viceroy could order him to do anything she wished so long as it didn’t go against the Empire or the direct instructions of the Majestrix.

  At the door to Deathbird’s private aerie, the honor guard stood aside to let him pass and it hissed shut behind him. He scanned the room, the ingenious natural lighting and odd geometry, the cascade of feathers down one wall, and the diaphanous curtain that separated the foyer from an interior area. Deathbird was nowhere to be seen, but a moment later her voice floated to him from deeper in the room.

  “Dear Gladiator, do come inside,” she said.

  Wary of her, as he instructed all the Guard to be, Gladiator pushed his way through the curtain and stepped down one warmly appointed hall to a large chamber. Inside, Deathbird lounged on a chaise covered with white fur, sipping a blue liquid from a fluted glass.

  “At ease, good Praetor,” she said sweetly. “Enjoy a brief respite after your journey. Share a glass with me.”

  Gladiator almost laughed, but his training would not have allowed it under any circumstances. Still, it was both unnerving and amusing to see Deathbird attempting the role of seductress. There were many creatures in nature, Gladiator knew, that lured their mates to passion and death. He vowed to stay far away from the clutches of this one.

  “Greetings to Deathbird, Viceroy of Hala, sister to the Majestrix Lilandra Neramani, from her very august personage, the ruler of the many peoples of the Shi’ar Empire,” Gladiator said stiffly, making the formal introduction expected of him on behalf of the Majestrix.