Gifted (22 page)

Brand had her hand to her ear, activating her comm device. “Fury. It’s Brand,” she said briskly. “Total evac
now
. Five hundred yard minimum.”

Cyclops was starting to feel truly irritated that he kept asking questions without getting any answers. “What’s going on? What’s he gonna do?”

“He’s gonna leave,” said Brand tersely.

“The girl’s still inside,” said Cyclops. He started to move in the direction of the building, with the others following.

Brand stepped into their path. “You won’t be able to rescue her if you’re dead, and if you don’t give this area some distance immediately—”

Abruptly, the ground began to rumble beneath their feet. The X-Men exchanged glances of alarm as Brand started to run. “She’s right! Fall back for the moment!” called out Cyclops. Not seeing any other option, the team charged after Brand, reasoning—not incorrectly—that she would know which way to go to avoid whatever was coming.

The Beast, loping along, easily caught up with Brand. “
What’s he got under there?!”

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“
His ship!”
Brand called to him as she continued to sprint.
“There were natural caverns, formations under Benetech! His ship’s FTL drive warps space around it, so he was able to land it in there by basically warping right into it!”

“Why isn’t he doing that now?”

“It’s ion powered! He needs to build up an energy supply of solar ions to fire up the warp, get it online!”

People poured out of Benetech now, the incredible vibrations causing entire sections of the building to crack apart and fall within. Fury and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents emerged, a number of them carrying fallen, unconscious mutants slung over their shoulders or cradled in their arms. Some of the mutants were helping others of their kind, and a few were even carrying downed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Then a vast area of the ground began to pulsate, to bulge, as something subterranean pushed upward from beneath. The quaking continued, increasing in violence until even the most sure-footed of mutants were having trouble remaining upright.

Then the ground exploded, clods of dirt and rock flying upwards. People ducked and shielded their heads from the debris. The sounds of powerful engines were still muffled but growing louder and clearer by the second.

The top of the ship appeared, a dome—the cockpit or bridge—ringed with a series of viewports, and moments later the rest emerged, tearing up the ground, sending tons of dirt scattering in all directions. It was shaped like a pyramid, with twin engines roaring beneath, propelling it skyward.

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Fury had drawn near Brand as they watched the ship start to angle toward the heavens.

“You were gonna brief me on this, I’m sure,” Fury said with dry annoyance.

She ignored the implied criticism. “Can you bring him down?”

“With what we have on hand? Not a chance.”

“He’s got the bloody serum, people!” said Emma, sensing an opportunity. “We hit him with the jet and blow it all to smoking pieces—him, the research and the ‘cure.’”

“There’s a girl in there with him,” Kitty reminded her.

Doctor Rao said, “You have to help her—!”

“Thoughts, people?” said Beast. “Because I’m thinking another ten seconds and he and the girl are gone.”

“No.” It was Colossus, his voice rumbling like thunder. “He doesn’t get away with this, and with her.” Then he looked to Wolverine, and immediately it was obvious to all that the two of them were on the same wavelength.

“You feeling rested up, Petey?”

“I am strong.”

Wolverine nodded. It was all he needed to hear. “If that’s the case, then I got just two words for you, bub.”

“Fastball special?” said Colossus.

“Just like old times.”

Instantly the metal sheathing that was Peter’s greatest offensive and defensive weapon slid into place. Seconds later, the armor-clad mutant picked up Wolverine, who flattened out his body, arms forward like a swimmer caught in mid-racing dive. Or, more accurately, like a human
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javelin. The “fastball special” was the first combined combat tactic that the two of them had ever developed. “Oldie but goodie,” murmured Wolverine, and then Colossus drew back his arm slightly and hurled Wolverine skyward.

“You really
have
kept in shape,” Emma said with admiration and even a bit of contemplation.

Colossus’ aim could not have been more perfect.

Cyclops and the others watched as Wolverine speared upward, his arms outstretched, his claws extended. The ship started to build up speed. For a moment it looked as if the acceleration was going to cause Wolverine to miss it clean, which would result in a very frustrating and bruising landing. But Wolverine had just enough speed to bang into the side of the ship. He jammed the claws of his right hand into the hull and dangled there for a moment, getting his bearings.

But Wolverine was hardly safe. Indeed, he was in greater jeopardy than ever. The ship was still heading toward space, perhaps even a jump into some sort of faster-than-light warp. Any sane person would realize he was overmatched. Any sane person would cut his losses, release his hold on the ship, and go into free-fall, trusting his natural healing power to kick in and manage to repair his broken body after landing.

But none of that really applied to Wolverine, because he was the best there was at what he did.

And what he did was act totally insane. Especially when it came to children being threatened and kidnapped.

So he brought his left arm around, shoved those claws into the ship’s hull, and started pulling himself arm over arm over the top of the
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ship, toward the viewing ports and cockpit. Because Wolverine would rather end up as a suffocated, shriveled corpse floating somewhere in the depths of space, than give up.

TILDIE
sat crouched in the far corner of the ship’s bridge, bathed in pale red light. She kept whispering the same thing, over and over: “Wanna wake up now. Wanna wake up now.”

“Is that what you think?” said Ord, seated at the controls. He was watching with relief as the ground receded far below him. “That you’re sleeping? Dreaming? Having a waking nightmare? How utterly amusing.”

The plan had seemed simplicity itself: Ord would, in conjunction with the human scientists, finish research on the cure and administer it to Earth’s mutant population. Getting rid of all their powers would effectively “neuter” them so they would provide no threat to the BreakWorld. Meanwhile Ord himself would destroy the more determined and organized mutants, such as the X-Men, either with the cure—as he had with that annoying flying boy—or through simple brute strength.

But matters had not gone exactly according to plan. The X-Men had proven far too unwilling to die, and now his alliance with Agent Brand had been revealed. That annoying Nick Fury—about whom Brand had had very little positive to say other than that, “If Fury finds out about this we are positively screwed”—knew everything about their activities.

But all was not a total loss, thanks to his acquisition of the sobbing girl behind him. She was a bargaining chip, one that would prove useful
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in dealing with the Earth people. In that respect, Ord had caught a lucky break. There were very few races in the galaxy whose members would willingly give up an advantage, or hesitate to take action, for the life of a single miserable child. Yet that was what Ord had stumbled upon.

“Did the Doctor tell you there would be no more nightmares, little one?” he said in a conversational tone. He glanced backward and saw her give the slightest, timid nod. “Did you always know she was lying?”

Once again a tiny nod. Good. The girl had more brains than he’d credited her with.

“Good. Because there
will
be nightmares,” he assured her. “I will make the Earth an endless, shrieking blackness.” He smiled then, and fortunately his back was to her because his smile was a terrible thing to see, and Tildie already had enough nightmarish images to live with. “They probably think I’m returning to my homeworld, but they could not be more wrong. There are other places on this world where I can safely hide and wait for my opportunity. And the first thing I will attend to, once they have forgotten about me, is the mutants. I have my ‘cure’ now, and as long as I have you, they’ll wait just long enough for me to—”

The viewing port directly in front of Ord shattered and a curled fist stabbed forward with the speed and ferocity of a serpent. Ord cried out in alarm. It was an involuntary reaction, but it cost him dearly as the fist plunged deep inside his mouth.

Wolverine extended his upper torso into the cockpit, snarling upside down into Ord’s face. His fist pressed against the back of Ord’s mouth. “You bite, I’ll heal. I pop my claws, you won’t.
Land
.”

Ord took a moment, then grunted his acquiescence. He reversed
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the thruster, and in a slow, graceful arc the ship started to angle back toward Benetech.

“That’s it. Thaaaat’s it,” said Wolverine. “Nice and easy on the controls there. We all want a smooth landing, don’t we?” Ord grunted again and Wolverine raised his voice slightly. “Tildie? You still with me over there, kid? He didn’t hurt you none, did he?” The child made no answer, her eyes wide with terror. “You got nothing to be afraid of, kid. I know I look scary, but I’m one of the good guys—”

Then Ord hit the braking thrusters.

It was only a momentary diversion, but it was all Ord required. The thrusters fired in reverse, bringing the ship to the equivalent of a panic stop in midair. Tildie screamed and slid from the back of the cockpit to the front, thudding painfully against the underside of the console. Because Ord was belted in tightly and prepared, he was able to keep himself upright and back against the seat.

As for Wolverine, there were many rules that he was capable of ignoring, but the laws of physics were not among them. Objects in motion tended to stay in motion, and the violent stop propelled him forward, forcing his hand out of Ord’s mouth. His claws popped out a second too late to be of any use. An instant later, he was gone, propelled through the window and out of the ship.

“Hah!” shouted Ord. He looked out the shattered window and saw no sign of Wolverine. At the speed the mutant had been moving, he’d probably already hit the ground by now.

They were just above Benetech, and Ord could see the frustrated mutants helpless upon the ground. The last they would see of him would be the rear of his departing vessel, and they would know that—

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Something sliced across his forearm in a blur, and he screamed in pain. For a moment he thought it was Wolverine back from the dead, but he was wrong.

Ord, as it turned out, had not been completely immune to the effects of the sudden deceleration. He hadn’t realized that his spikedring weapon had come free of its holster and lodged under the control panel.

Tildie had extracted it.

She was standing not two feet away from him, gripping the weapon with both hands. She was neither trembling nor in panic. Holding a weapon seemed to give her some degree of confidence, a sense of control.

“No more nightmares,” she whispered.

“Put that down,” said Ord, “before you hurt yourself.”

He tried to grab the weapon, and she whipped it around. There was no artistry or combat style to her assault. But considering even a glancing blow could cut through his armor and to the bone, she didn’t have to be precise. If Ord had yanked his arm back a second later, she would have hacked off his hand.

This was insane. He had dispatched the X-Men with little to no difficulty, and he was being held at bay by a frantic child?

“Give me that!”
he roared, yanking clear his straps.

“No more nightmares!”
she screamed, right back at him. She came at him, swinging the vicious weapon back and forth like a scythe.

Ord backed up across the cockpit, slowly, trying to time Tildie’s swings. When he was sure he had it down, he swung a fast kick toward her. His timing was perfect, catching her on the downswing, and it
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knocked her on her side. She cried out, losing her grip on his weapon, and it clattered across the floor. He started to reach for it.

And that was when he lost control of the ship.

WOLVERINE
tumbled out the port window, cursing himself profusely for allowing himself to be distracted by the girl. Except it wasn’t really her fault; there was no point in blaming anyone but himself.

With a miles-long drop yawning beneath him, Wolverine twisted in midair in a movement that by any reasonable measure should have been impossible. He managed to sink his claws into the hull once more, but the ship was tilted nose-up, and this time he slid down the middle of the hull lengthwise. His claws gutted it like a trout, but the toes of his boots glanced helplessly off the slick surface. He couldn’t stop his downward slide.

He realized he was heading straight toward one of the thrusters. Powerful blasts of energy streamed out of it, keeping the ship in place in midair. Fortunately, thanks to the design of the ship, there was a ledge right above the thruster. Wolverine slid right toward the ledge and seconds later, his feet were braced against it.

Quickly, he sliced into the ship’s hull, effectively creating his own hatchway. The thruster roared all around him, nearly deafening, and there was an aroma of concentrated ozone, as if he were scrambling around within the center of a lightning storm. He eased his way into the very guts of the ship, cramped into a narrow utilities tube that was a latticework of circuitry and energy relays.

Wolverine wasn’t an engineer or an expert in alien technology.

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He was, however, extremely expert in being the monkey wrench in the works.

He started hacking away with his claws, accomplishing two things simultaneously: disrupting the energy flow through the circuitry, and carving himself a way into the vessel’s interior.

It took him only seconds to cut through what turned out to be the ceiling of a hallway, which he dropped into feet first. The ship was shuddering all around him. He could actually hear the mighty thrusters choking, practically eating themselves, as the energy relays tried to reroute themselves and failed. Knowing which direction the cockpit lay, he sprinted along the hallway, which was starting to tilt downward. The angle wasn’t sharp at first, but it was increasing dramatically.