This story takes place at and around Uncanny X-Men (Volume 1) #345. It will use some of the original dialogue and narration, but also feature new aspects, and a new story. Please enjoy!
"Bishop! Deathbird!" Trish's voice crackled with intensity over the Shi'ari loudspeakers. "Better get up here quickly, kids!"
It took but a moment for the two to hurry back to the bridge, where the other X-Men had gathered.
"We've got ourselves a spatial anomaly that'd make Captain Picard's head spin!" Beast quipped as he frantically hit a button or two.
Joseph settled a quixotic look at Beast; he didn't get the reference. Before he could ask for an explanation - not that this was the time for it, Rogue spoke up, looking for answers to the real questions.
"That thing sure threw us f'r a loop, Beast. Any idea what it was?" she asked, as she turned her attention to a new, red flashing screen.
Even in alien ships, red clearly meant danger. Rogue started to type a command or two, but slowly; she had told him that all the X-Men had been given a crash course in Sh'iar language, but considering all the mess in her head, it was harder for her to translate whereas others were more automatic. She swiftly gave up, and stepped aside for the regal Sh'i'ari woman to take over.
"It was an energy signature." Deathbird clarified as she and Bishop made their way into the room. "We were caught in another vessel's wake."
"A wake?" Gambit asked, leveling her a grim look. "Y'know how bigga ship would t'be t'have dat kinda wake?"
"Lemme guess…" Beast mused as he tapped another button. "That big?" As if from nowhere the mammoth ship appears, dwarfing the Shi'ar spacecraft and passing at a mind-boggling speed. "You're not gonna believe this folks, but not only is that ship moving nearly at the speed of light, it appears it's using only partial thruster capacity!"
"Ya gotta be kiddin' betè!" Gambit exclaimed. "Dat ain't physically possible!"
"Oh, like I don't know that!" Beast cried back, exasperated. As if someone had to tell the Doctor Hank McCoy anything to do with physics less difficult than the quantum level.
"But where in the universe did it come from?" Joseph demanded. "And where is it going?"
"Sharra and Kythri preserve us! I know where that vessel is headed!"
The entire ship was rocking violently, making all aboard aware of the vacuum of space that loomed just beyond thin protective walls.
"Where, Deathbird?" Rogue asked as she was almost knocked off her feet and into Beast. She gripped the control panel, and used her own flight powers to keep her balance before settling back on the ground. "Where?"
"We are picking up the eddies of its transmissions, and it's plain to see, it's on the screen there, Rogue," Deathbird said pointing. "Its course is identical to ours, and it leads to one planet; Earth!"
Their cruiser tumbled end over end, incapable of escaping the larger ship's gravitational pull, all aboard can't help but wonder how much longer their craft can remain intact.
"Hank, can y'get this thing t'stop spinnin'?" Rogue called to her teammate as the group swayed back and forth. "Ah think Ah'm gonna be sick."
She stumbled into Joseph before springing away as if burned. Not for him, but for when his arms instinctively went to hold her. She couldn't let anyone get too close, she might absorb their powers and memories! Normally not one with a weak stomach, the artificial gravity was playing hell with her ability to remain upright, and she couldn't risk letting anyone else getting hurt because of her carelessness!
'Still don't blame you, cherie. Are you so certain we didn't reach for each other in dat wave?' A ghostly whisper echoed in her mind, as always, accompanied by a strange wave of panicked guilt and shame.
"Trying my big blue best, Rogue." he said, typing frantically. "Just hav-...want to see if I can get any closer to the stargate before that ship does!"
The silent message was chilling. If they didn't, they wouldn't make it.
"I have a bad feeling we may be too late, X-Man - look!" Deathbird cried, unable to deny stating the obvious as she pointed toward the viewscreen. The stargate was fracturing wildly, the energy sparking as their ships barreled towards it.
Trish Tilby cried out when she fell to the ground and gripped a chair's bolted leg as the ship continued its tight roll. Gambit managed to stagger over to her, and helped her get in the seat. He assisted with buckling her in, then in turn went to find one of his own, grunting with the exertion against the nauseating spiral.
Joseph looked around. Rogue was helping Bishop also find a chair, there was little else they could do but buckle in. Deathbird tucked herself into one, and swiveled it to try and type a few commands into a console. She didn't look to be succeeding. Beast was racing against the clock and losing. There was nothing that the team could do but pray wildly that Beast's gamble would pay off.
No one, but him. Joseph planted his feet, steadying himself with the alien hum of foreign metals all around him. 'Reverse polarities…' he thought to himself, raising both hands above his shoulders. He had to manage this carefully, delicately, and swiftly.
It would take a miracle.
'Harmonic resonance…find your places…' His lips moved over one word, repeatedly. "Implicitly…" he had said it to Rogue only hours before, when she asked him if he trusted her. And he did, oh stars above how he did. He trusted her with his very life. He trusted her with his heart, his mind, his soul.
He would be thrice damned to seven hellish pits before he let harm come to her. She had nearly died multiple times on this excursion already. The thought of her dying here and now brought him a fear and pain that invigorated him then, and spurred him on to do the impossible.
Crackling blue-white energy surrounded him as his powers took hold and bent the cosmos to his demands.
'Conductors…align…'
He pulled the gate's borders back together, using the explosive energies that tried to drive it apart into the power that the field that would send them home. The stress of the tailspin and gravitational pull of the greater object was causing the ship to tear apart.
'Retain…remain…'
He was juggling too much now; he couldn't maintain a superior force against a greater object while also holding his ship and the gate together. And feed the fracturing system further power to keep the whole desperate attempt on track. Someone cried out behind him. It sounded female.
'I. Have. To.' Joseph thought to himself, as his outstretched hands gripped an invisible bar. 'I must, no matter the consequences to myself, I will get th-her!-em safely through.'
The gate welded itself together, the light snapping brighter than a thousand solar flares.
Everyone cried out, including him.
Then nothing.
