Betsy Braddock had been hanging back listening to Colonel Stuart and the hairless slave who called himself Vox Prime natter back and forth at each other like old ladies over a back garden fence. Kitty Pryde and Logan, standing next to her, were tensed, ready for battle, unsure what their enemies would do next, knowing only that they had just pledged to exterminate the entire human race.
It was all so very, very tiresome.
Betsy sighed, dropped her hands to her sides, and stepped forward.
“This has gone on quite long enough.”
She closed her eyes, and concentrated. The little mental pill she’d been formulating for the last few minutes was tricky to deliver, but once sent she knew that the Kh’thon would not be able to resist it. Or, at least, that’s what she hoped.
Kitty turned and looked at Betsy, who stood now with her head tilted slightly back face pointed directly at the towering alien figures, eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw set.
Then Kitty thought to look up at the Kh’thon, and all hell broke loose.
The seven towering aliens of the Collective began to writhe violently, their bodies thrashing back and forth, their tentacles and pincers and segmented limbs flailing in all directions. Though they uttered not a sound, Kitty could “hear” their telepathic cries of agony, which felt more like a kind of psychic pressure against her thoughts than anything intelligible, like when one feels rather than hears a high-pitched dog whistle, just beyond the range of sensation.
“Whoa,” Logan said, and glanced at Betsy with admiration.
“What the devil?” Colonel Stuart muttered, still gripping her pistol tightly, but allowing its barrel to slowly waver toward the ground.
Betsy let out a ragged breath. Opening her eyes, she turned and took in the questioning stares of her three companions.
“I’ve spent the last few minutes probing the mental defenses of the Kh’thon,” she explained casually. “Which, surprisingly, were virtually nonexistent. It was a matter of relative ease to design a telepathic virus capable of incapacitating them.”
“A virus?” Kitty glanced at the still-writhing aliens, and the confused, frightened humans who crouched beneath them, looking up at their masters in horror, unsure just what was happening. Kitty could only imagine that the servitors, so accustomed to receiving telepathic commands from their masters, weren’t used to hearing nothing but an unending telepathic scream of pain from the beings they viewed as living gods. “Like a computer virus?”
“Essentially,” Betsy said.
“But...” Colonel Stuart said, looking a little disappointed that she hadn’t been required to shoot at anything yet. “I thought these alien buggers were meant to be omnipotent and all.”
Betsy shrugged. “Just because the Kh’thon are utterly alien and unspeakably hideous doesn’t make them all-powerful. Right now, it feels to them as if their internal organs are being squeezed out the equivalent of a nostril. It’s hard to be all lordly when you’ve got that to contend with.” Betsy sniffed, and added, thoughtfully, “For what it’s worth, as unlike us as they are, their comprehension of pain doesn’t seem too terribly different from ours.”
While most of the human servants were still at loose ends, looking up in horror at their incapacitated masters, some of the guards were regaining their senses. Realizing that their masters were under attack, and that the terrestrials before them were responsible, they turned their attention to the colonel and the three X-Men, crystal weapons raised and ready.
“Okay,” Logan said with grim smile. “My turn.”
As the guards advanced, Logan exploded into motion, growling like a wild animal, laying about him on all sides with his adamantium claws. The guards were left unsure how to respond as their crystal weapons fell to shards in their hands after a single one of Logan’s swipe, and they were slow to recognize the animal fury glinting in his eyes.
“Finally,” Colonel Stuart said, raising her automatic pistol. “This is something I can understand.”
Tightening her finger on the trigger, she began laying down suppressing fire, as calmly and clinically as if she’d been at a target range.
Just then, a deafening boom sounded, like a thousand thunderclaps at once, and the room shook as if it had been hit by an earthquake.
“What the blazes?” Betsy said, barely managing to maintain her balance.
“Um, guys?” Kitty grabbed hold of Betsy’s elbow and motioned eagerly toward Logan and the colonel. “Have you forgotten about the entinelsay?”
Betsy turned and looked at Kitty as though she’d just sprouted antlers.
Kitty rolled her eyes toward the cowering human servitors and the still-twitching Kh’thon. Then, in a stage whisper, she said, “The Sentinels?” She sighed, dramatically. “The armada of giant robot mutant-killers being fired at the fleet like guided missiles. Those Sentinels?”
“Oh, dear,” Betsy said, her hand to her mouth.
“Come on. ” Exasperated, Kitty started off at a jog, dragging Betsy behind her. “Time to go!” she shouted at Logan and the colonel.
Logan was having so much fun getting a bit of exercise in, he almost didn’t notice Kitty and Betsy leaving. Having made short work of the first batch of guards, he was pleased to discover that some of the others had found new reserves of courage, and were now mounting a spirited defense. Not that it would do them any good, of course. But it meant a little more entertainment.
Of course, now that the fleet was coming under attack, even that entertainment would have to be cut short.
But even as Logan started to turn away, there was a little voice deep inside him, a fierce little growl that said, Stay. Fight. Kill. That was the animal inside, Logan knew. And if he let the animal call the shots, he would have been dead a long time ago. It could be useful, letting it out of its cage now and again, but when the chips were down, it was the man who made all the difference.
“Hey, Colonel!” Logan shouted to the Royal Marine, who seemed to have a bit of that growling voice deep inside her as well. She had found cover, and was exchanging fire with a newly arrived squad of crystal-wielding guards. “I think our ride’s takin’ off!”
The colonel looked up, gave a curt nod, and then took off running, firing backward behind her with the automatic pistol without even aiming. Logan was impressed to see her shots splatting into the floor and walls in a tight cluster around the guards. Pretty good shooting.
As the colonel raced past him, she was ejecting a clip from her pistol, another in her free hand ready to ram home.
Coulda used one like her a time or two back in the old days, Logan thought admiringly. Then he made a final feint and lunge at the guards mounting a defense, and took off running after the others.
Kitty and Betsy were already strapped in and ready to roll when Alysande reached the space plane, and as Alysande was strapping into the pilot’s seat and running through the preflight warm-up sequence, the diminutive Canadian came barreling through the hatch.
“Hey,” Logan said, glancing toward the rear of the cabin. “Where’s the bald chick?”
Alysande spared the briefest of glances back to see that their Exemplar prisoner was indeed missing before returning to her task. The hatch swung shut, and the engines began to fire.
“Um, my fault, I’m afraid,” Betsy said, raising her hand like a schoolgirl admitting some minor infraction. “It appears that when I was busy with the Kh’thon, my concentration was disrupted and our prisoner was allowed to regain consciousness. With her telekinesis she made short work of the straps securing her, it would seem, and quickly made an exit.”
Logan settled into the copilot’s seat, looking at the control panel appraisingly. “Don’t think she dinked with the ship, do ya?”
“We’d better hope not,” Kitty said.
Alysande punched the ignition sequence, and the space plane began to vibrate, first gradually and then with increasing frequency. “It scarcely matters,” she said, over the rising pitch of the engine whine. “If she did, we’re dead. But there’s precious little we can do about it now.”
The engines reached their highest pitch, and then fired, blue flame gouting, and the space plane surged into motion.
As they cleared the hangar bay, the next wave of Sentinels slammed into the Fathership. Of all sizes, makes, and models, in all states of disrepair, the massive purple and gray robots, powerful rockets firing from their lower extremities, were pelting into the fleet on all sides.
“Oh, bugger,” Colonel Stuart said, as an enormous shape of purple and gray hove into view before them. She slammed her hands onto the control panel, and the space plane listed to one side, just far enough to miss a collision with the oddly shaped, long-armed Sentinel by inches.
“Hey,” Kitty said, leaning forward in her and trying to peer around the back of the pilot’s seat for a better vantage at the forward view-screen. “Was that just a giant gorilla?”
Logan stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth, and punched the view-screen controls. The angle reversed, and they were treated to a view of the Fathership behind them, which was now roiling in flames.
“Well,” he said casually, “I figure they know their defenses are down now.”
Hank sat at the controls of the Quinjet, with Doug in the second chair, trying to milk as much speed from the versatile craft as possible. Hank hoped to reach the alien city off Julienne Cay in time to provide some sort of assistance, but it was clear that whatever the outcome there, they would arrive far too late to have any sort of impact.
Rogue was in the back, fiddling with the communications gear. It was all standard Avengers issue, tied into the comm networks of SHIELD, the United States government, and any number of other highly classified frequencies.
“Hey, Hank,” she said, out of the corner of her mouth. “I been flippin’ the channels on your set back here, and so far every one of’m is showin’ the same blasted program. Here, take a look. You two’ll want to see this.”
Hank punched the autopilot controls, unbuckled his safety harness, and then climbed out of his seat to crouch in the narrow companionway, Doug following close behind.
“Holy ...” Hank said in a whisper.
“Um, guys?” Doug asked. “What are we looking at?” Rogue pointed at the bug in the bottom left comer of the screen. “Live feed from Starcore One.”
‘Which is ... ?”
“UN-sponsored solar observatory,” Hank answered. “Sits just outside the orbit of Mercury.”
“Um, that isn’t the sun.” Doug pointed at the screen. “Nope,” Rogue agreed. “But it’s dang near as bright, ain’t it?”
On the screen, a dozen small suns blazed, irregularly shaped, while wave after wave of Sentinels slammed into the ships of the Kh’thonic fleet. Earth’s moon could be seen in the distance, while the blue-green curve of Earth dominated the lower portion of the screen, which gave some idea of how large the conflagration really was. Dozens of the Kh’thonic ships were exploding soundlessly into flame, the light so bright it cast stark shadows on the surface of the distant moon. And each explosion seemed to ignite nearby ships, a rippling cascade effect, so that dozens of infernos became hundreds, perhaps even thousands. It was as though they were looking through a window into hell itself, spreading rapidly by the moment.
“Guys?” Doug leaned forward, eyes wide. “How many Sentinels are there, anyway?”
Hank shook his head, marveling himself. “Clearly more than we’d anticipated, no? A few orders of magnitude more, unless I miss my guess.”
Doug looked from Hank and Rogue to the bright flickering lights burning on the monitor, and then back
again. “This is going to do quite a bit more than destabilize their fleet, isn’t it?”
Hank’s smile slowly faded, and he nodded, his expression gone grave.
“Oh, yes,” he said after a considerable pause. “Most definitely.”
Scott thought the battle with the Exemplar almost lost, and with it all hope for humanity, when the Exemplar suddenly stopped fighting.
Kurt Wagner batnfed in from the far side of the alien city, his uniform ripped and tom, his lip split and bleeding. “What are they playing at, mein Freund?”
“I don’t know,” Scott said warily.
The Exemplar had been pounding away at the X-Men and their allies, seeming on the verge of victory. Then, something seemed to ripple through them, some communication passing quickly amongst the gathered army. And though none of the X-Men were able to hear this silent telepathic message, they were able quickly to discern its varied effects.
Some of the Exemplar began to weep openly. Some howled in pain. Some merely stood in mute shock, their eyes wide and unseeing, hands grasping empty air. None, though, seemed able to focus their energies on renewing their attack upon the X-Men and the escaped prisoners.
“Scott?” Lee said, drawing close and slipping her
hand into his. “You know I’ve seen some strange stuff before, but this right here is seriously freaking me out.”
By ones and twos, the other escaped prisoners found their way to Scott’s side, taking up a defensive position in a well-protected corner of the grand courtyard, eyeing their erstwhile opponents with confused, but watchful, expressions.
Peter Rasputin was busy helping to move the last of the injured, but once they were safely installed within the protective circle of mutants and human combatants, he came to stand beside his fellow X-Men.
The sun had just set, and its last dying rays painted the western horizon in swathes of pink orange, and red, the long nimbus clouds appearing as gray as old scars, like badly healed wounds across the sky. After the tumult of the last hours, the hue and cry of battle, the alien city was now strangely calm, the quiet marred only by the moaning sobs and occasional pained shouts of the Exemplar.
“My guess is that something bad has happened,” Peter said thoughtfully.
Scott had to stifle a chuckle, but couldn’t completely hide a thin smile as he glanced at the stalwart Russian at his side. Peter was perhaps no rocket scientist, but Scott could think of no one he’d rather have at his back.
‘Yeah, Peter,” Scott said, nodding. “I think you’re right.”
Invictus Prime, wild-eyed, flew down to the courtyard from one of the city’s high towers. He had vanished, moments before the fighting had been interrupted, and only now reappeared. But where before he had been composed and collected, a figure of emotionless precision and determination, he now seemed barely in control of his rage, white eyes darting, hands clenched in silver fists at his sides.
“Why do you desist!” he shouted at the other Exemplar, now scattered across the courtyard and the city beyond. “Do we not have a duty to perform? Do we . . . do we not still have purpose. We were instructed to rid the Earth of the scourge of humanity, and so we shall!”
“But for whom?” said a small voice, coming from the ground below him.
All eyes turned to see a pitiful figure standing near the entrance to one of the subterranean ramps. His face and chest were badly burned, his lips split, and the once-regal robes of purple he wore were now little more than tattered rags.
“Vox Septimus,” Lee said in a voice barely above a whisper, her hand before her mouth, eyes wide.
Scott looked over at her, and then to the burned figure approaching with slow, painful steps.
“Invictus Prime,” the servitor went on, his voice strained but clear, “this one is assured that you Exemplar might well win your battle against those gathered here in the city of Dis.” He pointed a finger at the escaped prisoners in their defensive comer, his eye lingering for a moment on Lee. “But without the Kh’thon and the fleet, you could never subdue an entire world of such beings. They are too many, these humans, and have resources of strength beyond what you might suppose possible.”
Lee leaned close to Scott and whispered in his ear. ‘“Without the Kh’thon’?”
“Yeah,” Scott said in a low voice. “I noticed that, too.”
He began to step forward, opening his mouth, but Kurt put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“No, mein Freund. Let us see how this plays out.” Invictus Prime, trembling with rage, drifted downward until his feet were floating just above the level of Vox Septimus’s head.
“But they are degenerates!” Invictus Prime pointed toward Scott and the others, his eyes on Vox Septimus. “And yet they could still defeat you in time.”
“Then we will fight and die!” Invictus Prime’s voice boomed, and here and there around the courtyard some of the Exemplar began to nod, while others averted their eyes, still weeping.
“Again this one asks,” Vox Septimus replied in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “for whom?” He began to turn slowly in a circle, taking in the other Exemplar gathering around, while from hidden doorways and passages other unaugmented servitors began to appear, listening intently. “All of you, this one would know. Without masters to serve, what use is a servant?”
Vox Septimus stopped, and he and the others all looked to Invictus Prime, some with defiance, some with expectation.
But Invictus Prime merely opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and then seemed to deflate. He drifted down slowly, by inches, his feet coming ever nearer the ground.
“I... I am not certain.”
Vox Septimus turned to face the escaped prisoners. “This one has such admiration for these people.” He glanced at Invictus Prime and then pointed at Lee and Scott, standing hand in hand. “Look how they work together, protecting one another, with no thought to their clade or class. They are simply .human, and that is enough.”
Lee swallowed hard. Before Scott could stop her, she pulled away, and took several steps forward.
“Vox Septimus,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I... you shouldn’t think that everyone on Earth is . . .” She glanced back at Scott, then to Frank and Paolo, who stood on either side of Kurt Wagner. “Yes, it’s true,” she turned back around and looked from Vox Septimus to Invictus Prime and back. “We do work together. There are those on Earth who think that mutants and humans—augmented and unaugmented—cannot live together, but I like to think that there are fewer of them every day.” She glanced back at Frank and smiled slightly. “And more of us.”
Vox Septimus smiled, as best he could with his face and neck burned and split, and took a step forward.
“There is so much this one would learn from you. There is so much you could teach us.”
“Teach us?!” Invictus Prime bellowed. He pointed an accusatory silver finger at Scott and the others. “These are barely above animals, nothing more than feral degenerates left to breed unattended. There is no place even for an unaugmented in such company.”
Vox Septimus’s eyes widened, and he looked over at
Invictus Prime, who now hovered just inches above the ground.
“So the Exemplar contends that this one belongs at his side, and not with these ‘degenerates’?”
Invictus Prime’s mouth opened in shock, “Of... of course,” the Exemplar said, as though amazed anyone could have considered otherwise. “Augmented or not, we are servitors of our departed masters, bred for a purpose. This is no fit home for such as we.”
Vox Septimus looked at the Exemplar for a long moment. Then he glanced at Lee, and turned to address the assembled servitors, Exemplar and unaugmented alike.
“Then perhaps there is still a purpose for this one... for all of us ... after all.”
Invictus Prime regarded him, silver lip curled. “And what is that?”
“To find a fit home.”
It was not until later that Scott Summers was to learn the full details of all that had happened. It was clear that Hank McCoy’s plan to use the Sentinels as weapons had worked, but what Scott couldn’t have known was that it worked far better even than Hank had hoped. In the wave after wave of Sentinel bombardment, a good many of the ships in the Kh’thon fleet were destroyed utterly, and many more besides fatally crippled. The Kh’thon themselves, the inhuman creatures seen as living gods by their human slaves, had never been too many in number, only some dozens of them in the entire fleet, ruled by their seven-member Collective. The destruction of so many vessels, while taking a crippling toll on the population of human slaves, had an even more devastating impact on the Kh’thon, concentrated as they were in only a handful of ships. When the Sentinel barrage was complete, all of those vessels had been completely destroyed, including the Fathership itself There were no survivors.
The Kh’thon were extinct.
Only a handful of ships in the fleet were still space-
worthy, and these busied themselves collecting the scattered survivors who had been lucky enough to escape the destruction of the other craft, now derelict or destroyed. These few ships, along with the several hundred mutant Exemplar and human servitors on the surface of the planet below, were all that remained of the once mighty Kh’thon fleet.
Scott and Lee stood atop a high terrace overlooking the city of Dis, as the late afternoon sun dipped toward the horizon. It had taken a night and most of a day, but as they watched the last of the invaders gather, the Exemplar shuffling with eyes downcast, the human servitors running back and forth between the unearthly towers of the city on final errands. If the news that reached Scott and Lee in recent hours was to be believed, this was the scene the world over, as the former slaves of the Kh’thon gathered together, their strange metal ships imblossoming, becoming sleek and unbroken curves again, and then ascending, leaving the Earth as quickly as they had come.
The repairs and restorations following the invasion’s damage would, of course, take much longer to address, and some wounds would be long in healing, but thankfully loss of life had been kept to a minimum and the danger, for the moment had passed.
Even so, Scott had been less than pleased that Lee had refused to return to the mainland with the first round of freed prisoners, insisting instead that she stay in Dis at his side to help oversee the prisoners’ evacuation. As Lee had put it, the Arcadia was her boat to do with as she wished, and if she preferred to give Paolo the helm and her spot on the deck to a refugee, that was a captain’s privilege.
Only a bare handful of prisoners remained. Kurt and Peter had been ferrying them to the mainland in the Blackbird, and Hank had taken as many as the cramped cabin of the Quinjet would allow. In a short while, the Blackbird would appear once more in the skies over the alien city, now no longer encased in a dome of coruscating energy, and with Lee, Scott, and the few remaining prisoners onboard, there would be no human presence left.
By that time, Scott figured, the last of the invaders would be taking to the skies as well, and the city of Dis would be left as deserted as it had been, all these long millennia.
“Scott, I wanted to tell you ...”
Lee’s words were interrupted by the chiming of Scott’s satellite phone. Mouthing a silent apology, he pulled it from his belt and held it to his ear.
“Scott, it’s Hank,” came the voice from the speaker, laced with static. “We’ve just dropped off the young Hellions at the Massachusetts Academy, and the rest of us are about to touch down back at Xavier’s. I wanted to let you know that we’ve just got word from Jean and the others. They’re fine, and should be back in Manhattan by the time you return.”
Scott felt a pang of guilt, hearing Jean’s name. He mumbled thanks into the phone, and then rang off
“Everything okay?” Lee asked with genuine concern.
Scott forced a smile and nodded. Where was this guilt coming from? He’d not done anything to cause remorse. Jean was the woman that he loved, he knew that.
So why did he feel so comfortable standing here beside Lee?
“Look,” Lee said, pointing. Scott following her finger, and saw that Vox Septimus, now in a fresh set of robes, was ambling toward them.
Could it be, Scott wondered, nothing more than the fact that danger can draw people together? And the end of the world, even more so? After all, he and Lee had first bonded over the death of her father, and then grown even closer when cast up on the shores of a deserted island. It was something of a pattern in Scott’s life, he realized, finding love in the face of impending apocalypse.
But the end of the world had been averted, hadn’t it? And that meant they’d have to return to their normal lives, their normal relationships, and these crisis connections, however intense, would have to be put aside.
Vox Septimus had slowly climbed the steps to the ' terrace, and approached the pair.
“The servants of the Kh’thon you see before you are the last to remain in Dis, and the last to remain on your world, and these few will be leaving shortly.”
Lee shuffled her feet, conflicting emotions playing out across her face. Scott knew that she’d feared for her life when a prisoner of this man, and yet she’d come to care for him, in a strange way, as well.
“Vox?” she said, at length. “Are you really sure you want to leave? There might be some way your people could remain here, if only...” She trailed off, as if realizing how unlikely it was that the nations of Earth would welcome the survivors of a former invasion fleet, however contrite.
“No.” Vox Septimus shook his head, smiling sadly. “The ships of the fleet are the only ones such as this one has ever known. This one’s fellow servitors doubtless feel the same.”
“What about Invictus Prime?” Scott asked guardedly. “He seemed pretty well disposed to the idea of remaining here ... once he cleared all the humans out of the way, of course.”
Vox Septimus pursed his lips and glanced back to where the last of the Exemplar were loading into the flower blossom shapes of the landing craft. Invictus Prime was nowhere to be seen. “Invictus Prime is not happy, but he is resigned. His siblings in the Exemplar class have no stomach for war with the Earth.”
As if in answer, the silvery shape of the Exemplar leader arced high overhead, skin glinting in the late afternoon sun, and then swooped down like a hawk diving for a mouse, stopping just short of where Scott and the others stood. He hovered in midair, regarding them coolly.
“The last of the landers will be leaving momentarily,” he announced in stentorian tones. “Vox Septimus, if you insist on lingering in conversation with feral degenerates, you’ll be left behind. No doubt you can amuse yourself into eternity with their base discourse.”
Lee ignored Invictus Prime, and reached a tentative hand out to Vox Septimus.
“Where will you go?” she asked.
Vox Septimus gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps we will simply roam among the stars for all the ages to come. Or perhaps we will search for a new home, one that need not be bought at the price of another sentient’s life.”
“Perhaps,” Invictus Prime rumbled. “But if we do not find one, and someday tire of our nomadic existence, then our fleet may still come back this way, and claim this little world as our birthright.”
Lee’s hands tightened into white knuckled fists at her side, but Scott laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“If you do,” Scott said, steel in his voice, “you’ll find us ready for you.”
A few short hours later, and fifteen hundred miles away, Kitty Pryde propped her feet up on the divan, and glanced around the day room of the Xavier mansion.
“I really want a cup of coffee,” she said wearily, “but the kitchen is way over there. Anybody want to carry me over there to get one?”
“Sugah,” Rogue said, sprawled out on the couch, “you are on your own. I ache in places I didn’t know I had.”
“Coffee would be good, though,” Hank mused, hands folded over his chest, eyes barely open. “We should look into that.”
The three X-Men sat motionless in silence for a long while. Then they glanced at Logan, who lay stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace, snoring loudly. “Yeah,” Kitty agreed. “We should.”
Tired as they were, though, exhausted and hungry, bruised and battered, they were whole. All of them had survived, and none had left anything behind that could not be replaced.
Most of the New Mutants were up in their rooms, only recently reunited with their classmates. Kitty knew there was little chance they’d be sleeping tonight, though, as tired as they were. They’d be up all night, recounting their adventures of the previous days to one another, story after story after story. Kitty was their age, more or less, but she couldn’t work up that kind of enthusiasm. She was young, but had already had experiences even the New Mutants couldn’t guess. Her place was down with the adults, recuperating.
Their quiet solace was interrupted by a chiming, loud and persistent.
“Can somebody get the phone?” Kitty moaned.
Nobody moved.
“Anybody?” she said in a slightly louder moan.
Hank opened his eyes a fraction, and glanced her way, while Rogue hid her eyes behind her arm.
“Okay, okay,” Kitty said, defeated, and with a groan shoved herself up into a sitting position. “I’ll get it.” Pushing up out of the chair with considerable effort, she crossed to the wall, where a communications array was disguised as an armoire. She swung open the doors of dark-stained wood, and revealed a large flat-panel LCD and keyboard.
“Oh,” she said dispiritedly after the screen came to life. “It’s you.”
“Delighted to see you as well, Miss Pryde.”
Hank found the will to move his legs, and came to stand beside Kitty.
“Colonel Stuart, I presume?” he said.
■ “Brigadier Stuart, actually,” replied the woman on the screen, perhaps a little sheepishly “The Royal
Marines have just given me a promotion, it seems. ‘In recognition of your contributions to the recent effort,’ they said. I’d have been happier with a bit of leave, myself.”
Kitty chuckled. “Well, try to get some rest, I guess.” “Yes, well,” Brigadier Stuart answered. “I wanted to call and let you know that I am ... grateful... for your contributions, as well.”
Kitty’s smile broadened. Is she thanking us?
“That said,” the brigadier went on, “I must reiterate that I meant every word I said to the Kh’thonic Collective about the dangers of mutants. We’ve enough to worry about with aliens invading from above, without having to contend with the possibilities of one of you lot secretly mind-controlling our elected officials, or setting up an independent mutant state or whatnot.” “Now, see here ...!” Hank began.
“Consider this call a courtesy,” the brigadier interrupted. “I’ve just received confirmation that Downing Street has accepted my proposal to create a tactical force of scientists and lateral thinkers, to anticipate, detect, and analyze the bizarre mysteries that lie beyond the fringes of man’s current knowledge. The next time alien invaders come calling, mankind won’t have to look to rogue elements like the X-Men for rescue, as the Weird Happenings Organization will stand ready to meet the challenge.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Rogue sneered, not getting up off her seat.
“I think I’ve heard enough, Kitty,” Hank said.
“Oh, I’ll not keep you any longer,” the brigadier answered. “I’m sure you’ve got plots and schemes of your own to consider. But I wonder, do any of you find it ironic that the Sentinels, which were designed to protect humanity against the threat of an army of mutants, were used for precisely that purpose? Except, this time, it was you lot yourselves who pulled the trigger?”
The screen went black as the connection dropped, and the three X-Men sat in silence, considering what the brigadier had said.
“Well,” Kitty said uneasily, “she’s a cast-iron witch, but she’s got a point.”
“Does she?” Hank said, unconvinced.
A long moment passed as silence fell over the room. “Hank?” Kitty finally said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. The whole thing about the Kh’thon being the original inhabitants of Earth, and genetically engineering mutants as their servants?”
“Do I think it’s true?” Hank raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah,” Kitty answered.
Hank took a deep breath and sighed. “There’s nothing in the fossil record that supports the Kh’thonic assertion. That said, there’s little evidence that disproves it, either. They clearly did have some presence on Earth in prehistoric times, as the city in the Bermuda Triangle proves, but whether they originated here or came here from elsewhere we may never know. And as for whether they had some demiurgic role in the genetic development of mankind, well...” Hank’s voice trailed off, and he ended with a half-hearted shrug.
“So you’re saying it’s a question of faith.”
Hank nodded. “Something like that.”
“So I can choose to believe that humans were originally the house pets of Lovecraftian monsters from outer space. Or I can chalk it up to more megalomani-acal ranting and get on with my life.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Gee,” Kitty said with a slight smile. “I wonder which one I’ll pick.”
Across the room, Logan snored loudly, which seemed the only appropriate response.
Hours later, Doug Ramsey sat down at the boathouse, looking out at the rippling black waters of Breakstone Lake. It was early morning, the still-dark moments before dawn, and he hadn’t slept at all.
“I was wondering where you were,” came a voice from behind him.
He looked up to see Betsy standing over him. She carried a cup of coffee in either hand, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“I... I just. . .” He looked away as Betsy sat down beside him gracefully. “I didn’t feel much like being around people, is all.”
Betsy held one of the mugs out to him. “And didn’t feel like sleeping, either, apparently.”
Doug took the mug without meeting her eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep again.” He paused, and then glanced at the stars glittering overhead. “I don’t guess I should be surprised, though. I understand the sleep of mass murderers is often troubled.”
Betsy widened her eyes at that. “Doug, what are you talking about?”
“What?” Doug asked, defensively. “Isn’t that what genocide is, after all? I was the one who launched the Sentinels, Betsy. I caused the extinction of an entire race ofbeings.”
“A race ofbeings who were prepared to send all of mankind to its grave!” Betsy countered.
Doug looked at her, a pained expression on his face. “Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t make it much easier to take.”
Betsy set her mug down on the planks of the dock, and put her hand on Doug’s knee. “You could just as easily say that I’m at fault, Doug. After all, I was the one who shut down the Kh’thon’s defenses, and paralyzed them so they couldn’t respond to the attack.”
“So, what? We’ve both got blood on our hands?”
Betsy frowned, but shook her head. “Perhaps. Or you could just as easily say that you and I share responsibility for humanity living to see another sunrise.”
Doug’s expression lightened for the briefest moment, and then fell. Looking away, he said, “I’m no hero, Betsy.”
Betsy reached over and put her hand beneath his jaw, turning his head around to face her. “No? You are an ordinary man, Doug, for all of your talents. But an ordinary man who does what is necessary in extraordinary circumstances.”
Betsy leaned in close, her face now only inches from his.
“If that does not make a hero, Doug, I don’t know what would.”
Doug managed a smile, looking into Betsy’s eyes. “Maybe,” he allowed reluctantly.
Betsy smiled. “Just maybe?”
“Yeah.” Doug’s grin widened. “Just maybe.”
The sun rose over Breakstone Lake. A new day was beginning.