Issue 1 Downtime

All was peaceful aboard the Nova Corps cruiser as they traveled for days. So it wasn't without a little surprise that the ship suddenly made a hard course-change, veering off to one side and accelerating noticeably.

Val certainly noticed the change in direction as she was walking down a corridor, briefly losing her balance.

"Where in Odin's name are we going now?!"

"I don't know." Rachel said.

Cal sighed as he listened to them. "Hang on," he said. Hal, interface with public announcement system. Get us a look at what's going on.

Code: Select all

Acknowledged.  Patching announcement feed.

Even Cal was rather surprised when the projection of a Nova centurion head appeared in midair. The blue-skinned female (Kree?) was already speaking. "-turions, it is critical that you pay attention at this time. Priority 1 distress call has been receieved at the bearings patched into the navigational systems. Signal identification: Shi'ar, registering as the shuttle Illustrius Talon. Distress call registering two-point-six four galactic standard hours ago at top priority. Projected possibility of survivors will decrease to zero within point-three standard hours. Your vessel's structural integrity must be increased by four percent before initiating a gravometric warp point."

"Another emergency?" Bobby asked, looking about.

The blue head turned toward Bobby. "It is our job, after all, human."

"Hey, it's not like we are busy here, Mister Centurion. How can we help?" he replied, a little shocked the Nova would take notice of his quip.

"Aside from not assuming everything's a man? You should hold on. The Centurions will be opening a warp point in about three minutes, and as good as they are at their jobs they aren't exactly used to doing this. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

"Well then buckle up kids!" Kevin chimed in, "Wait... does this thing even have seatbelts?"

"Anything to occupy my mind," melody said quietly from the entrance of the room as she walked in to join the others.

"The hell's going on now?" Daniel asked, coming through the door behind Melody.

"We are answering a Shi'ar distress call." Ashlie informs him from off to the side where she had been sitting motionlessly for who knows how long.

"Fuck the Shi'ar," Daniel muttered.

"More Shi'ar. Great."

Bobby was in an equally bad mood.

They didn't have much time to consider the matter. There was a flash outside the ship, as three centurions converged on one point, channeling their energies between them. Space seemed to ripple, then explode into a huge tear that opened like a portal in front of them.

The ride was, indeed, bumpy, but was also brief. Soon they would find their ship drifting as it recovered from the transport and waited for the corpsmen that had opened the gate to return to it.

Ahead, though, there was a ship. A ship that, while it was obviously a drifting wreck now, seemed familiar.

Melody stumbled and fell into Daniel during the tumble of transport. "Awesome," she sighed. "We get to rescue the assholes who got us out here in the first place."

Daniel caught her, bracing them upright with one arm against the wall. "Oh, the hell we will," Daniel growled, glaring daggers out the viewport, "If those pricks are still alive, they're going to regret it pretty quick here."

Kevin furrowed his brow for a very brief moment as he looked out at the wreck before it clicked in his scruffy little head.

"No... Mira..." he said worriedly. She was, of course, the Phoenix and probably fine, but he looked about to rush for the bridge anyway.

"Cool it," Cal said to Kevin. "Nothing we can do until they do their thing anyway, it's not like you can just run out in hard vaccuum. They'll be bringing anyone alive in... that way," Cal said, consulting the maps of the ship he'd downloaded and pointing up one corridor.

"But, but..." he argued futilely before sighing, "Right... that way then..."

"So, want to welcome them on board, the pissed off Earthen way?"

"I knew there was a reason I hung out with you," Melody smirked at Daniel, cracking her knuckles as he helped her steady herself.

Bobby Bowen wrote:"So, want to welcome them on board, the pissed off Earthen way?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea."

Close to the airlock, the X-Men would hear quiet arguing.

"I don't care what it looks like, I'm telling you, this isn't right. Skrulls can't DO this!"

"That's not what it looks like, Philo."

"Are you ultrastupid? You know the briefings. I- oh sprock it. Worldmind, confirm?"

"Confirmed, skrulls cannot hold a shape like this after death. Something is off here."

"see?"

Entering the area, the X-Men would see what looked like a giant rock. On closer inspection, though, the outcroppings on it weren't just chunks of rock, but stumps of arms, legs, and a Skrull head bearing an agonized expression.

"Sweet tap-dancing monkey Christ... What. The fuck. Is that?" Kevin said right after entering, recoiling at the sight.

"Now that is one really dead skrull."

Bobby whistled at the sight, moving to get closer for an up close examination.

That was when a frantic pounding came from inside the volkswagon-sized rock that might have once been a Skrull.

"Woah.. It's apparently a giant kinder egg.." Bobby uged everyone to back up, as he reformed his arms into an axe and crowbar.

After a few moments to ensure everyone was clear, he attempted to crack the rock.

"Are...we sure we want to open it?" Melody asked hesitantly.

"It'd be a good idea." Rachel put in.

Bobby began poking and prying.

The poking and prying didn't accomplish a hell of a lot on a rock that had withstood space for a while, but the Nova Corpsmen assisted and helped crack it open enough that Bobby could pry it the rest of the way.

Inside, suffering from exposure that even their shapeshifting couldn't cope with completely, were two skrulls, now gasping for air as they spilled out into the room. "This is the weirdest patrol we've ever been on," one of the Centurions muttered.

"Can we stuff them back in the rock, and toss them out the airlock?" Bobby suggested, only joking a little.

"No," Daniel growled, pushing past them and grabbing one of the Skrulls by the throat, lifting him off the ground. "WHERE IS SHE!" he snarled, his body faintly glowing orange as he held the Skrull up in the air.

"You better tell him. Fire is a bad way to go, after being in space for so long."

Bobby smirked, shifting his form to look more Skrull-like, with the distinctive chin ridges.

The Nova Centurions, on the other hand, had other ideas. Two of them rushed Daniel, and while he tried to fight them off, Philo focused a gravometric beam on him that pinned him to the deck, letting the skrull fall to the ground. "All right, does anyone else have any ultra-funny ideas?" he snapped at the X-Men.

The Skrull, meanwhile, clutched his throat while his companion managed to croak out words. "Attacked," he rasped. "Enormous... golden ship. Took... Phoenix... took... our hope..."

With that, the skrull lost consciousness.

"Their hope? Oh fuck them," Kevin said, glaring at the Skrulls.

"not much hope left, then."

Bobby went to check on Daniel, before turning to the Nova Corpsmen.

"So, we' re going after her, right?"

"Kid, we don't know who they are, what direction they went, or what they were doing here. Until we have more to work with, we've got our patrol to keep up with," Fractur rumbled.

"Oh, come on! You Nova Corps badasses must have some sort of psychic interrogator on this junker somewhere! Let's use it on these guys. This is the Phoenix, after all! And she's a friend, to boot!"