Talons

Chapter 17

Another dizzying, tumbling journey through the wormhole, and the Blackbird arrived over the switching station. Unfortunately, it was hardly alone. Cyclops had no idea how all these ground troops had managed to get out past them, but now the area was literally crawling with the King's Own, and more were coming out of the wormhole with every passing second. It was like looking at a sea of silver spiders.

"We need to cut off the power," Storm mumbled, wiping her sweating forehead. "We'll never get anywhere with more of them coming through."

"With that maelstrom you unleashed back there? Are you kidding?" Iceman asked, incredulous. "Nothing could make it through that!"

"So how do you explain all those troops coming out of the wormhole?" Logan growled.

Iceman was silent.

"It doesn't matter," Cyclops said cryptically. "If the talons spread out and go to ground, we'll never catch them all. We've got to cut the power and contain them, and we can't do that from in here."

Cyclops cleared his throat and wiped his mouth. Storm caught a faint smear of red on his lips. He turned to her.

"You up to flying this thing right now?" he asked her. "If we park it too close, it'll be a sitting duck for the rest of the invasion force."

Storm nodded and grabbed the controls, her eyes once again their normal blue. It would do no good to tell Cyclops to be careful, that he was starting to bleed again. He must have tasted the blood in his mouth. He knew already. She swung the Blackbird around as everyone gathered at the ramp.

"I'll take care of cutting the power," Cyclops told them. "Colossus and Logan, concentrate on heavy weaponry first. Try to go easy on the station itself. Iceman, start with the walls. Lots of them. If the talons want to go back through the wormhole, let them go, but nowhere else. Understand?"

They did. At Cyclops' order, Storm opened the ramp in mid-flight. Colossus dropped out first, before she had a chance to slow down. Iceman and Logan dropped out together, and Storm caught a glint of one of Iceman's patented slides as it formed. That left Cyclops. She slowed as much as she dared before he dropped out at the far end of the station. Storm retracted the ramp and pulled the jet up and around.

As the jet circled, Cyclops took aim at the main power lines, thick, highly charged cables that connected the switching station directly to one of the Indian Point power plants. With one sweeping blast, he sliced the lines clean, cutting off power to a large section of Westchester County. He turned around, expecting the wormhole to fade out of existence. It didn't. It was still there, stretching over the top of the rise, as powerful as ever. What was it Kotoko warned them? Given enough initial power, a wormhole could last practically forever?

Cyclops coughed again. The taste of blood was stronger now, and his chest was starting to feel heavy and congested. All that jerking around in the Blackbird must have opened something up again.

He clambered up the foothill, back to where his teammates were fighting. So long as he lasted as long as the wormhole, that was all that mattered.

:

The human/talon hybrid technology was something of a stretch for Kotoko to work on. The equipment was bulky and fragile at the same time. Fortunately, the only thing he had to do was reattach the sensors and change out a few burned parts. He made do with modules scavenged from one of the King's Own's battlesuits. He wasn't sure how long it would hold, but it should do for the simple hauling job the natives (humans, he reminded himself) needed done. And, perhaps, it would also hold long enough for the thing Kotoko himself needed done….

Teacher Xavier was working with the pilot, Isidro, preparing him for what he had to do. Isidro had been very nervous before. Now he was calm and relaxed, and the amplification suit was as ready as it was going to be. Kotoko took the time to fully integrate himself into his own hardsuit. Its protection wasn't complete, but it was better than naked skin.

Isidro slowly removed his borrowed X-man armor, stripping down to his underwear. He moved as a sleepwalker. Henry walked briskly into the hanger as Isidro was in mid-strip. He had an army-style pack on his back, laden with electronic equipment and tools.

"Since we're still here, I assume that Rogue was successful?" Xavier asked quietly.

Hank nodded. "We caught a glimpse of the fireball before the satellite moved out of range. However, the robots had already gotten clear of the rigs by then, and they run at a fair clip. We don't have much time."

Xavier eyed Hank warily. Hank wasn't telling the whole story. Unfortunately, he was right: they didn't have much time, certainly no time for Xavier to ask questions.

"Help Isidro into the cockpit, Henry," Xavier said. "He can't do it alone."

By then Isidro was kneeling into the open cockpit. Henry went over and carefully guided the police cadet into position. He did not resist in the slightest, allowing Hank to place him wherever he chose. The trance was so deep that he looked through Hank instead of at him. Finally Hank "plugged" Isidro in and placed the breathing mask over his face. Isidro gave a great sigh and his eyelids drooped, as a man who was dropping off into sleep. Hank closed the cockpit and added a secondary magnetic clasp to keep it closed. Then he stepped back, his hands subconsciously tightening on the straps of his backpack. If this didn't work, they were in a world of hurt.

There was no expected electronic hum, no whine or servos or gyros. The exo-suit soundlessly sat up, its head rotating 360 degrees in a sensor sweep.

Xavier could hear the overlay programming intruding on Isidro's thoughts. Scanning... scanning... not in reset area... presumed hostile....

No, Xavier overrode the commands. This is home base.

Isidro's psyche was confused. Two voices, saying two different things. Which was right? Xavier came forward and swung Isidro to see him.

Listen to me. You know me. You trust me.

Hank wasn't sure whether he was relieved or worried when the amplification suit stopped scanning and stood up. Hank looked back at the professor, whose entire world seemed to be restricted to this suit.

"I can guide him," Xavier said, "but it will take constant tending. Kotoko, I will not be able to translate for you if you leave with Hank."

"I understand, Teacher Xavier," Kotoko replied. "But I will be more helpful there than back here."

"He's going with you, Henry," Xavier translated. "He wants to give whatever help he can. Remember; one click means yes, and two means no."

Henry nodded and pressed the stud to open the hanger doors. Kotoko crawled onto Isidro's vehicle and latched onto his back. Isidro knelt and extended both arms toward Henry.

"Hold on tight, Kotoko," Xavier warned as Isidro held Henry close to his chest. "This is going to be jarring."

The hanger doors above them were now open wide enough for Isidro to fit through. He tilted his head back, crouched, and leapt effortlessly through the opening. He landed on the still-moving doors, which were disguised as part of the basketball court. Judging by the sound, they'd have to do a little repair to the blacktop once this was all over. Isidro then took off running, the wind whistling through Hank's hair. Every pounding step reminded Hank vividly of the placement of each of his internal organs. About the time he thought he was going to fall apart, Isidro stopped, and Hank found himself staring at the battered trailer of a certain well-armed rig.

Isidro opened his arms enough to give Hank room to move, and Hank leapt to the ground, then immediately sprang to the cab itself. He glanced back to make sure that Kotoko hadn't fallen off somewhere in the middle of their flight. Kotoko was detaching himself from Isidro's back, apparently none the worse for wear, though he was talking up a storm.

Probably giving Isidro hell for that little jaunt, Hank thought as he flung open the passenger door. I know I'm going to be feeling it for a few days.

He ripped out a few of the rig's panels to assess the extent of the damage. It was as he feared. Storm could let loose with a lot of voltage when she desired, and the wiring was a melted mass of plastic and metal. Utterly useless. He backed out of the cab and shucked off his pack. Fortunately, he had planned for this little contingency….

:

Colossus came rocketing out of the Blackbird and slammed into a large vehicle that was either a troop transport or a tank. The solid nature of the armor told him tank, but the way it slid told him it wasn't in full contact with the ground. Was it some kind of hovercraft?

Colossus leapt to the ground, kicked a startled talon out of the way, and picked the tank up over his head. His ears rung with a roaring sound that came from under the tank, and he felt a terrible pressure bearing down on him. Whatever repulsion drive this thing used to keep off of the ground was still active, and lethally so. Colossus threw the tank away before the pressure could increase. It impacted on the side of the nearest foothill, crushing talons underneath and burying itself deep in the ground.

Wait a minute! Colossus thought. I'm not that strong! There's a hollow space there!

The talons coordinated their fire on him. It hurt a little bit, like a magnifying glass and hot sunlight. He picked up a nearby talon and swung it around his head. The others now gave him a respectable berth. That berth widened considerably when he tossed his ungainly "throwing star" into a mass of its brethren.

Iceman had put up dozens of walls in his attempts to keep the talons fenced in. He made the hills slick and icy so they couldn't roll. But that damned wormhole was still open, and the King's Own still poured through. Logan fought beside him, guarding his back. Another blast hit Iceman in the shoulder, reducing his armor to slush. He cried out and fell to the ground to avoid a follow-up shot. From behind him lanced out Cyclops' familiar red beam, and a talon that had gotten too close for comfort found itself careening over the heads of its fellows.

"Cyc, I thought you were gonna shut off the power!" Logan shouted as he sliced into another talon.

"I did!" Cyclops shouted back.

"Doesn't seem to have helped much!"

"No, it doesn't, does it?"

"You seen Petey around?"

Before Cyclops could say "no", a large vehicle went sailing over their heads. Talons spilled out of it as it went: it had been a troop transport. It flew into the wormhole and vanished.

"Never mind," Logan added.

:

"Isidro, I need you to detach the cab from the trailer, then turn the trailer over until the missiles are pointing straight up," Hank requested. "We'll need a lot of angle for the missiles to clear the trees."

Isidro knelt by the fifth wheel and brutally wrenched trailer from cab. An involved, tedious job took barely a second, though it wasn't easily reversed. He rolled the trailer over once, then again, taking great pains to keep it all from impacting too hard on the ground. From his pack Hank pulled out something that looked like an old style, bulky laptop, plugged its cables into some seemingly random access port in the trailer, and turned it on.

"I'd have you cross your fingers, Kotoko, but I don't think that's going to work," Hank told him with a nervous smile. "I just hope at least a few of these missiles have survived the beating they took the other night."

The screen showed a very basic, overhead line drawing of the missiles in their tubes, showing up as a flat grid with circles in each square. As Hank's "laptop" accessed each missile's diagnostic program, the circles would fill in white for acceptable or be crossed out for unacceptable. Half of the flight systems were labeled unacceptable. That left more than enough for what they needed to do. He flipped open his radio.

"All right, Katherine, I've got the estimated coordinates of the robots' location, based on their speed."

"That's not gonna be all that precise," Kitty's voice spoke over the radio. "You could be off by fifteen feet."

Hank gave a wry smile. "Trust me, my dear. That's well within range for ground zero. Just let me know when the road is clear."

"Clear?"

"Yes, we can't let these missiles loose with other cars in the area.

Her next words came out more as a hushed whisper. "Hank, I can't see the road anymore. The satellite's completely out of range now."

Hank's blood ran cold.

To be continued….