The Blackbird broke out of hyper speed to find itself in the middle of a meteor shower. Scott instantly activated the manual controls. He looked back towards Kurt who was checking his instruments, to make sure that they were in the right location.
"What’s going on?" asked Pietro.
"This is the place," said Kurt.
"Yeah, but no Albutgon," added Kitty.
"I don’t understand," said Pietro.
"It’s been… destroyed," said Jean.
"What? How?" asked Pietro.
"Destroyed… by the Empire," said Storm.
Suddenly, the proximity alarm went off. Scott looked up and found and noticed something moving outside. "I don’t believe it. A fighter! I’m going after it."
"Do you think it followed us?" asked Pietro.
"No, it’s a short range fighter. That means, there’s a mother-ship or base nearby," said Scott. He turned to Kurt. "Jam its transmissions. I don’t want it telling anyone we’re here. It looks like it’s heading for that moon over there."
"That’s no moon," corrected Storm. "It’s a space station… it’s Asteroid M."
"Okay, full reverse!" cried Jean.
"Too late!" said Kitty. "We’re caught in the tractor beam! It’s pulling us in!"
"Can’t you do something?!" said Pietro.
"Sorry, kid, but there’s nothing else we can do," said Scott. He stood up, and his visor glowed once. "But, I’m not going down without a fight."
Storm stood up and grabbed Scott’s shoulder. He paused and looked at Storm. "I believe I may have an alternative," she said.
Captain Daniels smiled as a subordinate came to him with a message. Captain Daniels dismissed the subordinate and turned to face Admiral Darkholme and Lord Magneto with a smile. "Excellent news," reported Daniels. "It seems that we have captured the same freighter that eluded our forces at Mutoone."
"Excellent, Captain," said Admiral Darkholme. "Dispatch storm troopers to the hanger." Captain Daniels nodded and left his superiors. Admiral Darkholme turned to Lord Magneto. "It seems that we have them now. The Princess’s messengers are bound to be aboard that ship."
"We shall see," said Lord Magneto. He turned and led Admiral Darkholme to the hanger. Upon their arrival, Lord Magneto made his way towards Captain Daniels. "Any sign of the messengers and the rest of the crew?"
"No sir," said Captain Daniels. "It seems that they jettisoned the escape pods. According to the hip logs, the crew abandoned ship shortly after take off."
Lord Magneto turned away from Captain Daniels to examine the ship. "I sense a familiar presence, as well as one I haven’t felt before. One that is very strong." Lord Magneto turned around to face Captain Daniels. "Strip the ship apart. I want it searched properly."
"Of course, Lord Magneto," said Captain Daniels. Both Magneto and Admiral Darkholme turned and left the hanger. Captain Daniels called to his men. "Get a scanning crew aboard this vessel and search it properly." With in a few seconds, about four storm troopers came to the Blackbird’s ramp. Two were carrying pulse rifles and the others were carrying scanning devices.
The pair with the scanning devices came aboard the ship and began looking through out the room. They walked through the corridors. For a moment, they each heard a chime, but it quickly faded. They looked at each other and moved on. Just before they stepped out view, they each felt an optic blast hit them in their backs, knocking them unconscious.
"Good idea using Jean’s telepathy to fool the guards into thinking they didn’t see our mutant signatures on their scanners," said Scott to Storm. Scott then ran towards the port door. "Hey you guys," he called. "We could use a little help up here." The two storm troopers below turned and made their way aboard the ship. The came aboard and saw Scott, standing there. They raised their weapons at him, and he raised his hand.
Before they knew it, their weapons were pulled from their hands by some unknown force. They’re weapons floated over into the hands of Jean, who glanced at them smiling. Then, out of no where, Kurt materialized out of thin air above one of the troopers. He landed on him, knocking him out. Kitty phased through the ceiling of the ship, and delivered a kick to the base of the other soldier’s neck, knocking him out as well.
A few minutes later, four storm troopers exited the Blackbird with several prisoners: Kurt, Storm, Lance and Roberto. The attendant in the booth saw the prisoners being escorted towards him. He ran to open the door and felt a rifle blast hit him in the chest. The attendant fell to the floor unconscious. The storm troopers rushed the prisoners into the room and shut the door behind them.
The storm troopers removed their helmets. In the storm trooper suits were Scott, Jean, Pietro and Kitty. Jean grabbed Lance and pushed him over to the computer. "Can you use this to figure out a way to disable their tractor beam?" she asked. Lance sat down at the console and established a link between himself and the computer, and began searching the database.
Storm walked back towards the door. "Leave the tractor beam to me. Besides, there is something else that I must attend to." Storm looked over and saw Pietro ready to accompany her. "This is something that I must attend to alone." She stepped towards Pietro. "You must get the messengers out of this system safely and rendezvous with the Rebels, no matter what. Otherwise other worlds will be destroyed, just as Albutgon was. Believe in the X-Factor, Pietro." With that she opened the door and disappeared from view as it shut behind her.
Scott turned around and found Pietro standing next to the door. "Where’s Storm?" he asked.
"She went to take out the tractor beam," replied Pietro.
"Whoa! I don’t believe it," said Lance. Roberto walked over and looked at the screen.
"What is it?" asked Pietro.
"Lance found the Princess! She’s here!" said Roberto.
Pietro rushed over and looked at the console. "I’m going to rescue here," said Pietro. He started towards the door, and felt a hand grab his shoulder.
"Hold it small fry," said Scott. "We didn’t sign on for a rescue mission," he said. "Now, I think we should just wait here until Storm gets that tractor beam disabled."
"I don’t care," said Pietro. "I’m going to save her. Now, are you coming or not?" Scott stood still. But Jean walked past him and stood next to Pietro. Scott scoffed at the sight of betrayal. "She’s rich."
"The money is no good if I’m not alive to spend it," said Scott. Kurt and Kitty started walking towards Pietro as well.
"What’s wrong, Summers," prompted Jean, "chicken?"
Scott clenched his teeth. "One of these days, Grey you’re going to push me too far." Scott picked up some hand chains and tossed them to Kurt. "Put these on. We can make it up there with you as our prisoner." Kurt put the chains on his hands, while the others put the helmets on their heads.
"Uh, excuse me, Master Pietro, what do we do if the guards shoe up?" asked Roberto.
"Lock the door," answered Pietro.
"And pray they don’t have blasters," added Scott as the others headed out the door, leaving the two messengers of the Princess alone in the control room.
The lift opened and the four storm troopers escorted Kurt off the lift and towards the detention center. They arrived at the desk where two guards looked up and greeted them. "Hey, we got another prisoner here. Caught him on the ship we took in a few minutes ago," said Scott.
One of the guards looked over the desk at the prisoner, however what really got his attention was how short one of the storm troopers were. "Hey, you’re kinda short for to be storm trooper, aren’t you?" asked one of the guards.
"Uh… well, you see…." began Kitty. She tried to come up with an explanation, but she couldn’t think fast enough. The guards drew their weapons and had them trained on the Pietro and the Blackbird crew.
"All of you freeze!" said the other guard. "Get some security up here," he said turning to his friend.
Kurt took advantage of the moment of confusion and teleported out of sight. He disappeared from view and exploded into view behind the guards. He delivered a quick kick to one of the guards knocking him over the console. Scott reached down and punched the guard, knocking him out. The other guard was about to fire when Kurt reached up and wrapped his arms tightly around his neck. Kitty walked over and hit the guard in the face with the butt of her rifle. "Big surprises come in small packages," said Kitty as the guard slid unconsciously to the floor.
Jean turned to Kitty, Kurt and Pietro. "Okay, start searching the cells for the Princess," she said. The three nodded and started running down the hall, looking for Princess Wanda’s cell. Meanwhile, there was a chime on the intercom. Scott and Jean looked at each other for moment, and then turned their attention to the intercom.
Scott pressed it the button, and began speaking. "Uh, hello?" he said. Jean scoffed in disbelief as Scott shrugged.
"We’re detecting mutant signatures up there," said the voice over the intercom. "Is everything okay up there?"
"Uh, yeah, sure," said Scott. "Things couldn’t be better. How about down there?"
"Who is this? What’s your registry number?" said the voice again. Scott turned to Jean who shrugged. "I’m sending up a security team."
"No! Negative!" said Scott. "It’s not necessary!" He looked at Jean who shook her head. Frustrated, Scott took a step back and fired and optic blast at the intercom, disabling it. "Kurt, get a move on it! We’re gonna have company any second!"
Kitty ran down the hallway with her head phased through the wall. As she ran along, she looked into every cell. Eventually, she saw a young woman with long dark hair and a dress sitting in one of the cells. Kitty pulled her head out of the wall. "Hey Kurt, into this one!" she called.
Kurt disappeared in a cloud of brimstone, and reappeared inside the cell. Princess Wanda gave a small gasp at seeing him materialize out of nowhere. "Hey easy," said Kurt, "Trust me, the Fuzzy-man does not bite." He took out a small knife and cut the restraints on her straight jacket. "Hold on." Wanda wrapped her arms around Kurt, as he ported out of the cell and back into the hallway.
Pietro marveled as he saw Wanda. She looked at Pietro, and then at Kitty. "Who are you?"
"I’m Pietro Maximoff. I’m here to rescue you," said Pietro.
"Who?!" asked Wanda again.
"I’m here to rescue you," repeated Pietro. "Your messenger Lance, I found him. I’m here with Storm, the Weather Goddess."
"Storm is here?!" said Wanda.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of laser blasts flying over head. "Grey! Get that shield up!" cried Scott.
Jean used her telekinetic abilities to erect a shield that would protect them. "I can’t hold it that long! You’re going to have to think of something else!" said Jean.
Pietro, Kurt and Kitty were returning laser blasts with their rifles while Scott fired some optic blasts at the approaching guards. Suddenly, guards began firing from behind them. Scott and Kitty turned to fire in that direction while Kurt and Pietro held off the other guards. Jean tried to form her telekinetic shield into a telekinetic bubble, but the stress was starting to get to her. It wouldn’t be long before her shield collapsed.
Wanda shook her head in disbelief. "You call this a rescue?!"
"Hey, Don Quixote over hear is the brains of the operation," said Scott pointing towards Pietro.
Princess Wanda stood on her feet, and stretched her hands out. "What the hell are you doing?" asked Scott.
"Saving our asses," replied Wanda. Suddenly, light conduits above began to explode. The rifles in the guards’ hands began to fall to pieces. The panels on the wall began to tear themselves away from the wall and hurled themselves at the guards. "That’s not going to hold them long. Everybody, into the garbage chute!"
Jean lowered her telekinetic shield and pulled open the chute. Kitty kneeled down first, and stared inside. "Eww," she said as she slid on in. Wanda quickly follows as does Pietro. A new batch of guards show up armed with more weapons.
Kurt stares at the opening for a moment. Jean stares at Kurt while he sits their staring into the chute. "Move your blue furry ass already!" cried Jean. She took her foot and kicked Kurt down the chute. She then turned to Scott. "You go next."
Scott looked back at her. "Go on," he said. He turned around and looked her directly in the eyes. "I’m right behind you."
Jean looked back up at him. "You better be," she said. Jean quickly slid into the chute. Scott took a few more blasts at the oncoming soldiers before diving into the chute head first. He came out at the other end of the chute, crashing into a pile of sludge. He pulled himself up and watched as the filth slid down his suit. "Oh yeah, Princess, you really know how to plan an escape."
"Hey, if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead!" protested Wanda.
"Why you smug little…" began Scott.
"That’s enough!" said Pietro. He turned to face Kitty and Kurt. "Do you two think you can get us out of here?"
"That wouldn’t be a good idea," said Jean. "They can track our mutant signatures. By the time we all got out of here, they’d have a small army waiting for us. She turned to Kitty. "Can you contact Lance and Roberto from here?" Kitty pulled out a communicator she had.
"Ugh!" said Kitty. She turned her communicator upside down. "The system is fried."
"I’ve got mine," said Pietro. "I just hope it works." Suddenly, there was a loud clunk, and the sound of gears turning. Pietro looked as the walls starting pushing closer together. "Uh-oh." Pietro put the communicator to his mouth. "Lance! Roberto! Answer me, please!"
TO BE CONTINUED…