0 comments/ 6469 views/ 1 favorites X-Men: Italy, Sicily, France+Spain By: StonedAsia Disclaimer: Characters portrayed in the following are not mine and I did not create them. * Italy, Sicily, France and Spain, all round England and back again: They christened the starship "Old Faithful". Pieces of the left rotary axle had disintegrated when the homeworld imploded, causing a hundred and thirty percent burn in the starboard engines and tilting the ship off-axis. The Chapman-Jouguet shock-wave that levelled many of the celestial neighbours also helped propel the X-Men's ride out of Skrull territories and back to Milky Way nearspace. In the interim of stasis, the ship lost life-support two decks beneath Habitation and due to a faulty stasis coil let what food remained on board desiccate three years ahead of reanimation. Reaching the Oort cloud, a rogue comet pockmarked the port nacelle, crippling the ship and prolonging the journey time further. When the X-Men awoke, two million kilometres from Earth, they found the calculations for absolute trajectory had been too precise anyway, and had arrived ahead of schedule, despite sustained setbacks in exterior damage. On Earth, the United Nations was preparing to hand over sovereignty of Genosha to Magneto whom, unknown to them was in pitched battle attempting to damage the ambient magnetosphere. Hopes were raised at the prospect of saving Joseph's life, halting Magneto's designs and preventing global blackmail. The outcome was decidedly different. Reaching the Terminator, the starship was repulsed by an electromagnetic wave fusing the drive plate and further damaging the stasis coils. Plunged back into deep sleep with no autopilot, Old Faithful drifted out past the Kuiper Belt, life-support failing and with little hope of reanimation for those on board. The saving grace came in the form of continuing breakdown. A spark in the stasis coils gave Storm's booth the overdue green light, ejecting her limp body onto the cold deck of starboard Habitation and sending sensory shock hurtling through her mind. Freezing and confused, she wondered Command initiating atmo warm-up and running inventory. To her chagrin, food was not plentiful. Although oxygen could last a further four weeks in real-time, bearings and survival tactics were required in order for her to get all of them anywhere other than nowhere. She decided to wake significant others, believing two or more heads better than one, and hoping quite honestly for some company in a cold ghost ship. Kurt, Kitty, Peter and Logan were her first choices, Xavier, a moment considered. Suffering from severe mental depression at the memory of a planet of Skrulls vanishing, he was probably the last person to take counsel from but being the single telepath on board and in possession of a celestial-spanning psychic form it seemed the logical thing to do. However when Xavier was released from suspended animation and body functions nominal he wouldn't wake up. The read-outs from the medical unit although cryptic and based in another language, were encouraging. Consciousness just wouldn't return to him. Storm had a great many doubts from ship-wide systemic damage but being the optimist held a meeting with the four who could walk and talk. 'My friends, we are some distance from Earth. Our options for food are restricted to synthetic recreation and our air will run down in a matter of weeks. The portside engines are damaged and we have few tools and Skrull starship operational knowledge to affect a cohesive repair. The stasis booths are faulty and unpredictable at best and the communications array is broadcasting a frequency to homeward-bound Skrull carriers -- not the direction we wish to go in. To make matters worse, Professor Xavier is comatose and does not seem inclined to wake any time soon.' She made an apex of her hands on the round table, low-level white light casting shadow. 'I am open to suggestions.' They sat in the ready room adjacent to command, auxiliary keeping the ship on its last thrusters and every so often bathing them in a red wash of alert light. Grim faces, stubbled, bleary-eyed and hungry stared across the smooth tabletop surface at one another, prep-screens and status consoles registering commands in characters none recognised. The air was stale, and piles of dust lay in random patterns like claymores. As the stasis coils had become increasingly defective, pockets of the ship were spasmodically subjected to real-time; particles of history floating in and out of suspended animation. The exact opposite was now occurring, albeit over an area of the ship none wandered into and to only small locales when it did, but the effect as Storm saw it was one of torture and ironically -- because she was leading the group and just had to be here of all places with them -- claustrophobia. Space travel was always a haunting mode of transport for her: cooped-up corridors, metal reflections, "ambient lighting" that was more fake than any lawn nightlight and an increased susceptibility to catching sickness through air recycling and worst of all the detachment from outside influences. Not people, or places or the absence of a phone; the total excommunication from freedom. The freedom of air in the atmosphere, the nitrogen, the carbon dioxide, the negative ions, the rain, the static up high, the cumulus mediocris, the glaze of the sun's rays. It was also a bias toward Earth air, not the mixture of recycled pure filtering through cavities and ducts and the bowels of the ship not affected by decaying technology. 'Do you know you've got a black mark on your forehead?' Ororo licked her finger and rubbed above the eyebrow. 'Thank you Kitten.' 'So basically what you're sayin' is: we're in a royal jam, an' if we don't get our act together, we can kiss our lungs n' stomachs goodbye, right?' 'Yes.' Logan reached into the pocket of his flightsuit and pulled out a cheap cigar. 'Starting with that.' Ororo said. He put it back. 'Go over the problems again? We have only one engine running?' Kurt asked. 'Not exactly, but good enough,' she replied 'the Nacelle took a hit from some local astronomical body, I don't know what. The readout from the main drive computer indicates a purely mechanical malfunction, a driver for the core material out of joint. I reconnoitred the area, but engineering is quite large compared to the other decks, and I must admit I was cold and somewhat lost. My natural temperate defence is not in tune in a contained atmosphere such as this, and time was of the essence.' 'Why?' 'I did not know what I was doing. Anything moved or toyed with might further the problems faced already.' 'I may have been a rudimentary mechanic during my original tenure, but Ororo,' Kurt said 'what makes you think I will understand any better than you? All the instructions and scripture and directions are written in Skrull.' She held up her hands. 'I have nothing to go on but faith, my friends. You were the resident mechanic for the blackbird and danger room some years ago, and I daresay time spent in Excalibur furthered that expertise, did it not? It is for that reason alone that I place you in charge of the engines Kurt.' 'If anyone can figger out how ta get the ticker runnin' again elf it'd be you.' 'Ja, well, that is a lot of faith in my abilities.' 'Whatever you do'll be enough for us.' Logan gave his shoulder a hug. 'And the rest of our duties, Ororo? What of them?' Peter asked. She sighed and scratched her scalp. 'There are several scenarios otherwise involved, X-Men. Xavier under the influence of his own mental coma, this does not help matters. The communications array is signalling a looped message. I assume it is a mayday hail.' 'Yeah, I read it myself.' Kitty said. 'The Skrull homeworld is dead. Nothing we did or did not do would have changed that, it was inevitable. A beacon to ghosts does us little help while we are stranded on the edge of the solar system. We need to turn the array around and broadcast a mayday in English.' 'I can do that.' Kitty said. 'I absorbed a fraction of Skrull speech and phrasing before we left. I can decipher any encrypted messages the satellite is shooting back and try to send our position to Earth.' 'The rest of the X-Men might pick it up!' Peter said. 'If not, we might contact the Avengers or even Reed Richards.' 'Yeah, but one problem in that it might take longer for the broadcast to get from here to there and then for them to get there to here than we have air for. They might get here and we're all suffocated.' 'Then we just go into suspended animation again, katzchen.' 'No,' Ororo said 'the stasis booths are also part of the problem. When I could not revive Charles, I tried to place him back into the booth and the readings were positive, but when I checked the actual effect -- the fog and the light that comes on inside the booth -- neither were functioning correctly. I have a terrible feeling that the entire system has been compromised by whatever fault awoke me.' 'Serendipity.' 'Yes, and --' 'Well we gotta get Gambit and Marrow outta there now!' 'No, Logan, I understand that the booths cannot reset themselves. I looked in upon each of you whilst you were in hibernation and all the readings were correct.' 'If they were correct, how come you woke at all?' Kurt asked. 'I... don't know.' She felt very tired indeed. 'Would any of you like refreshment?' 'Perhaps,' Kitty mused 'if the reason those dust piles and decaying food and everything exist because of loss of stasis in-transit, (and now the ship is "awake" the reverse is happening in the decks beneath us); isn't it entirely possible that a pocket of non-stasis occurred inside your booth while we were adrift and it's just blind luck that you woke up when you did?' 'Possibly. The work of the Goddess, even out in space. Though it shouldn't happen in a contained booth...' 'C'mon, if your goddess has her hands dirty in this why're we stuck out in here in the dark at all?' 'Wolverine, you are not helping.' Peter said flatly. 'The point is: we shall leave the others in the state in which they are at because our air is restricted and I am not sure how long the power cells for the synthetic food processor will last. We have one month's air.' 'That's loadsa time.' 'No, Logan, it's not.' Kitty replied. 'We would have to be travelling minimum... ten to twenty million kilometres an hour in order to be there not dead. Anything less and we couldn't make it. And that's taking into account our food would last that long.' 'How do we know that synthetic gizmo ain't gonna give up the ghost too?' 'We don't.' Ororo said. 'I can try my hand at the communications side, and Kurt,' he looked up 'if you need a translator for the drive information I could come down to see you two.' 'What happens Kitty,' Peter started 'if we lead Galactus to our home via the communications between us and the remnants of the Skrull planet?' 'Galactus has been to Earth before, hasn't he? Logan?' Kitty asked. 'Don't look at me, kid, I can't remember.' 'Storm?' '... Yes, Kitten. Yes he has. Do you not remember Logan?' She stared at him blankly. Logan shrugged and got out of his seat. 'Darlin', if I remembered everything I've seen over all my life, my brain'd be one giant squashed donut or somethin'...' He stretched. Kitty stood as well, catching Ororo's eye quickly. '...'kay. What are you going to do, Storm?' 'First -- Peter -- you should assist Nightcrawler; I have a feeling much of the problem in Engineering will require your physical prowess.' 'Hercules.' Kitty said. 'I on the other hand shall attempt to reorient the ship so that we are at least facing the right way.' 'How you gonna do that without the engines runnin'?' 'We are situated just in the interior of the Kuiper Belt -- the band of celestial debris in orbit between Pluto and the other outer solar system planets. From our position, we have been buffeted by asteroids into a very lazy orbit around Uranus, similar to the Centaur planetoids.' 'The what?' 'Not big enough to be planets, not small enough to be asteroids, and in no accompanying orbit of a planet.' Kitty stated. 'They're mainly constructed of ice, carbon, methanol... frozen liquids and dust collected via interstellar hoboism.' 'Thank you Kitten.' 'You're welcome!' 'If indeed we are in orbit then it is certainly an advantage to our situation.' Ororo pointed to the images received on the screen her side of the table. They each looked into the view. 'That I believe to be 60558 Echeclus. It holds a small tail, a coma, made of the same elements. They liquefy nearer the sun producing the streak in the sky, but at this distance I may be able to influence any particle winds, turning the ship on its side and possibly even creating positive inertia.' 'How positive we talking?' Logan asked. 'Without the engines to boost, I don't think the ship would hit Earth in a billion years. And I mean that literally.' Kitty said. Logan grunted, and stared out of a starboard viewport. Low light in the ship meant little to see outside, but as he strained his eyes brilliant little tiny dots of kaleidoscopic colour smiled back at him. Kurt watched from over his shoulder. It reminded him that from their miniscule perspective, the universe was vast and infinite, and simply validated the existence of god in all his complex glory; simultaneously proving the great uniqueness of humanity and their achievements whilst displaying how insignificant they were and how much distance there was for races to blossom and eventually share and become one. 'Quite the view? Not what we see when we stare at the bottom of a brew.' 'I don't know, elf. We're such a small thing anyway. If we don't all kill ourselves someone else prob'ly will. I don't need religion to iron that one out.' 'But you need religion to believe in the reformation of man.' 'No; a man turns his back on his hate the day he sees he's about to die. Most times they see it right before they die. They say there ain't no atheists in foxholes, but it ain't necessarily god they're looking at, it's their whole life. Everythin' from good to bad, all of it weighed up and them looking back down on themselves judging an' executing themselves. But people don't realise it right up until that moment. Once you seen enough men lookin' that way -- like you drowned their cat -- you know it takes right till the last second. The act committed, their life the forfeit.' 'You must find it very frustrating if you see them escape. If it cannot be you that executes them -- you, whom stands for those who cannot stand for themselves -- then how do you feel if they live to hate another day? That would make me very lonely, mein freund. If I didn't think man could see the error of his ways I would stop trying.' Logan about-faced and stared into Kurt's eyes. Deep yellow eyes of a demon. 'You feel that way when that mob was after you in Winzeldorf? All those pitchforks and torches they was branding? "Burn the evil outta him" they was shoutin', even the kids holding clubs and knives?' He gazed back at the approaching shimmering mass of Echeclus, colossal in the viewport. 'S'why the one who got away doesn't get away, elf. I never let one slip by.' Peter's great hand landed on Kurt's shoulder. 'Are we ready?' He asked. They left Command and made their way into the depths of the ship. By the time they got to Engineering, Kitty was already at the engine sector, fiddling with a bowl of mechanically separated synthsauce. It was viscous and mealy, much like porridge but tasting of an indistinct grainy moisture. She ate with a utensil in the shape of a flute, bathing the blowhole in the mixture and sucking it up. There was a single note along the length of the implement, Kitty finding that it did little to enhance the overall experience of sucking chickeney vomit through a straw in a cold climate. 'What is that hole under your finger for?' Peter asked, resting a harness of untested ex-Skrull repair tools against the sliding metal door. 'It varies the speed at which you chug the goo.' She made a whistling sound through it. 'What does it taste like?' He asked. Kitty thought for a moment. 'Like a battery hen farted into cottage cheese and left it out too long.' Kurt stared at the readout flashing in big red letters on the side of a wide pipe. It disappeared into the ceiling, bolted in place with huge screws, and listed at the top and bottom various yellow shapes, presumably warning of heat, explosion, hazard, all bad things. What followed on-screen was a thinly sketched outline of circuit boards and keypads to press and the order in which to a) find them and b) press them. A box appeared last thing, yellow and black stripes emanating from within. The sequence reset. Kurt wondered how long the few frames had been cycling for. With no attention paid they could assume it was non-lethal whatever the malfunction was, as the ship had been drifting for some time. Nothing Storm indicated led him to believe they were venting whatever this craft used for fuel, and through the metal doors opening out to the port engine control he could see no cascades, no spillages, no puddles or absence of floor where said substances could have corroded through to space. He wondered how long it would take for Earth to catch up to this level of automated design. 'Nothing is perfect Kurt.' Peter said making his way through the doors and toward the control booth inside. 'Except for Katya, of course.' She followed them in. 'Aw, shaddup Pete. Do you want to finish off my stodgy goop?' He looked at the bowl. 'No.' The port engine sector was a huge cavernous area, the same pipes Kurt had been observing the readouts on continuing up through here, hugged to the wall and trailing along the ceiling. He followed the path as it fed into a large piston the size of a house. Vapour was drawing from the top, and the movement of the piston, though loud, was undermined by the lack of frictionless contact. It grated on the downward swing, circling up to rotate all over again. A giant shining muscle. 'Look,' Kurt sighted 'the bulkhead behind the top of the piston is ballooning in. You see?' From a restricted viewpoint they could make out a cancerous bulge shrouded in darkness, a ripple in the outer hull having nudged the piston out of its moorings. Kitty perused the information in the control booth. 'It's running at seventy percent efficiency. Whatever caused that' she pointed with her voice raised 'has caused the ship to list and use up a third more fuel starboard side.' 'Can we hammer it back into shape? Affix the piston housing firmly? If our fuel is truly limited we cannot afford to end up flying in circles, chasing our tail.' 'Hah! Imagine... I don't see why not. Kurt, you'd have to get Peter up there with a piece of sheet metal and seal it in place while he flattens the whole area.' 'I'd have to be extra careful not to rupture the hull or we'd be sucked full blown into space.' Peter said. He walked over to a batch of crates, rummaged about and lifted several of the lids off, depositing them on the deck. 'It's very tight for space up there.' Kurt said. It looked enough for one person, and Colossus in metal form was mass enough for two. 'Have we got access to space suits and a bolt gun? I could always try from the outside.' The Russian said. They all looked at each other in inspiration. *** When Mikhail Rasputin enlisted in the Roskosmos, Peter was very jealous. Little of a dreamer amongst foreign lands and especially the vastness of space, the young farmer's son devoted most of his time to terrestrial fancies: those of art and culture -- what little access there was in remote Siberia -- and the care of his family. The Ust-Ordynski collective was Peter's home and landscape; golden meadows of barley and rye, vast mud-brown ploughed fields of potatoes and in the distance where the hills receded into mist acres of trees growing anew for the logging seasons. Often when he was young, his father would take Mikhail and he into Irkutsk, several times a year, and Peter could sketch out the coasts of Lake Baikal from far away while the head of the family bartered in the high street jewel traders for mineral deposits and flecks of gold and lead. X-Men: Italy, Sicily, France+Spain The day he lost the last of his family, Peter reconsidered his stance on life. The X-Men had become a burden, something his forthright morals could no longer support. He left to join Magneto, recognising the good aims within the bad decisions. Not that it mattered, for soon enough Magneto's absence drew forces beyond his control into power games and little meaning could be derived from the original intentions. Peter took to defending the weak and helpless as he always had, and eventually understood that no matter what Xavier said it was the dream and the attempt that made the difference. He had an obligation, super-powered or no, to leave the world a better place than he found it and all that he could do meant that his was the weight to bear. He was self-sacrificing and noble, understanding of the honour involved of not simply wearing an X on his shirt collar, but of the power creation had bestowed upon him. It did not make him god, nor did it make him devil. It made him who he needed to be in order to fill a hole in the world. There was too much evil, and not enough Rasputins to go around. Peter thought all of these thoughts as his magnetic boots thumped along the outer hull of Old Faithful. In his armoured form he was immune to the pressure effects of a vacuum, but as they were floating through an asteroid hotzone they knew it safer to dress accordingly. He felt as if he were wading through treacle, the lifelessness of his limbs swaying in vapour currents the same way wheat fields rippled following the path of wind. He approached the extremities of the ship, passing landing gear not fully retracted and aerials jutting out like spears in a mammoth's hide. The smoking mass of Echeclus was far away, but its size was breathtaking. Millennia of chipping and scraping and scarring had left it rounded, perfect pebble shape in the ocean of space. He thought how similar his close friends were. Hard knocks make them into the people they are today. But it was not always the case as his mind drifted back to his brother Mikhail, and the electricity behind those eyes, the tell of pain bending and fusing a man beyond recognition. The black canvas of space was beautiful, but a harsh realm. 'He's almost at the nacelle's outer hull. You can go if you want, Kitty. This is strictly a hands-on job.' Kitty left while Kurt was glossing over documentation and safety procedures posted on the control booth wall. In the upper decks, no-one observed the proximity alarm for the aft thruster cones bleeping. Ororo had been in Observation. The top of the ship had partitioned transparent domes, most likely constructed she thought from a compound similar to Plexiglas. Scientific and astronomical equipment was set into each dome, telescopes and aerials and charts lying in bundles ready to be used again. With no weapons on board, the ship was a short-range carrier, outfitted with all the necessary tools for salvage, rescue, mining and exploration. Standard issue craft for all measures in all situations, but primarily those with distances less than galaxy-spanning. Ororo supposed that was part of the problem. Due to it's mass, she had had poor luck in rotating the nose and bringing it even a kilometre toward Earthspace. A lack of elemental resources was the main problem; with no atmosphere present, she had nothing to work with. But the theory extended from a possibility of currying favour with particle winds floating in the icy depths of their asteroid surroundings. Not actual air currents to speak of, just a gravitational ebb and flow of heated gas and dust trails present in the auras of neighbouring debris. Ororo was able to visualise a basic matrix of energy between the rocks, coaxing movement with the barest pull of her fingers. The low-level of resultant motion was the best she could do. Asteroids were not the size of Earth, and their atmospheres constituted little of the same materials present in her home skies. Sweating and tense, her unshakable will finally broken by nature's refusal to kowtow, Ororo retired, kicking the telescopes and tripods and transistors over the floor. Immediately guilt-ridden and angry at her loss of control, she went to attend to Xavier. 'I tried Charles, but there is little to work with. I am afraid I have resigned myself to the efforts of others. Peter and Kurt shall succeed where my favour with the Goddess cannot.' She couldn't know that Charles was facing his own demons deep inside. His blackout was a symptom of the inner struggle diverting all surplus energies. Had he been awake to comfort her searching face and tell her so, he would have seen resolve not crumbling but stress and fear. 'Kurt? I've sealed the last of the hatches in place. I'm making my way back in.' Peter hailed, turning to approach the airlock. He took one last look at the black cosmos, imprinting the vista and gathering his magnetic equipment. The inertia Ororo had enticed brought the ship into a dense cluster of asteroids, and as Peter had his back turned an iceball blindsided him sending the stunned Russian end over end into space. 'Peter? Peter! Colossus!' Kurt yelled into the comm. 'Kitty come quick! Peter's been knocked off the outer hull!' Panicking, Peter searched for the deathly whisper of escaping air. His hands padded over parts of the suit, sweat gathering at his arms and back. Decompression was one of a series of death scenarios Peter particularly disliked, ever since Magneto had crushed the Leningrad military sub in the ocean depths. He felt the skin at his cheeks tingle, felt it being stretched in hairline precision as the blood sought to evacuate the confines of a fleshy blanket. He screamed down the microphone interface, useless HUD data streaming red and green at the sides of his glass helmet, but the voice was lost in nothingness, shooting into an icy cloud inches out of his gear. He felt his chest constrict, arms flailing like a giant marshmallow but having neither the sense nor spatial awareness to find the tear at the base of his neck. He could turn to steel form, but the size and added weight would split the spacesuit in two and without the magnetic boots and lead loads could simply float off forever. 'Peter! Hold on, I'm coming!' Kitty. Peter's sight was fading. The transmission spat and fuzzed as the glass cracked. Warning signs scrolled up and down. He wished he were back home, surrounded by the warm June waters of the Angara. Shrinking his fingers and toes and watching his sister jump in. A sharp pain made his chest tremble, and as the adrenaline boost ejected into space -- an intelligent Skrull lifesaver design -- his vision blurred and his mind went blank. A tug around the waist, the glass shattered, his skin exploded into the armoured form of Colossus, disintegrating the spacesuit. He roared silently and everything went white. *** 'He's coming round! Storm!' Peter cracked open his heavy metallic eyes, the skin resonating like wind chimes. He saw Kitty, eyes red, with her hands covering her mouth. She spluttered. Then Ororo and Kurt and a lay of hands. 'How are you feeling, mein freund?' He stared up at the operating theatre lights, scolding his confused brain. 'How long was I out for?' He asked, raising himself to sit on the side of the table. It bent under the weight. 'An hour or so. Goddess! You had us worried, little brother. If Kitty hadn't slipped out of the ship to get you...' Kitty sobbed. 'We would have named you a new addition to the heavenly bodies.' Kurt said. He prepared a needle from a canister at the workbench. Logan grinned and snorted. 'See? Didn't I tell ya.' Kurt stepped behind Peter and held up the canister of liquid. '...If you would change back, I'm going to give you this.' 'What is it?' 'It's a Skrull variantion on hyoscyamine. I think. I don't really know how to pronounce it.' 'It increases your heart rate and helps stabilise muscle spasm.' Kitty said, laughing. 'It'll also make you a little light-headed and probably make you go to the little Russian's room.' 'Ja, an overdose will, but we don't want to give that to Peter now do we?' The needle sank into Peter's neck, and he closed his eyes. The dizzy shapes of terror spun behind his eyes, distant dots of colour amassing to form the broken shards of his helmet. He opened them and met the neutered gaze of Ororo. 'What is it? What's wrong?' 'Did you feel anything while you were unconscious?' 'No.' They all looked at each other. 'There's no easy way to say it. After your repair work, the same rock cluster you were caught in struck one of the spires causing it to fall back in on itself. I'm not sure how, but part of the port side engine was struck from inside.' 'I don't understand.' 'There was a massive internal explosion and we have had to seal off Engineering for good. The boost has propelled us clear of the Kuiper Belt but we now have only one engine left to get us the next four billion kilometres home.' She looked finished. 'My friends... I'm sorry...' Kitty gave Kurt a hug. 'If nothing else goes wrong we might be able to make the distance, but given our odds so far...' 'I thought you didn't believe in odds, darlin'? Just the facts and the will of the gods.' 'You're right, Logan, of course; and we now have the advantage of distance from any interference of rock and ice. There is one other issue though.' 'What?' Kitty yelled. '...The explosion consumed a heavy amount of our remaining oxygen. I do not know how much we now have.' 'Can't we find out?' Kitty asked. 'The recycler was damaged in the blast. What we have here is what we have left.' So they held their breath. *** Days did not exist in space travel the way they do on Earth. Time was measured through solar days, or via Kitty's more accurate qualifier, when her eyes became heavy. Her breath was drawn out, her hair a mess, her limbs sagging and the soles of her feet red and aching. She had been in Operations, trying to rectify the locked communications array with Logan doing the leg-work. Her basic understanding of Skrull alphanumerics leant her some ease with reconfiguring the looped message to the homeworld and directing it back at Earth, but with no contacts already established in Houston or Moscow or anywhere else, the mayday wouldn't send. Logan had redirected the array, pushing the satellite a degree or so, adjusting to vague standards of declination set by Kitty's approximations, but even after that, she was still aiming for the moon in the hope the Kree might pick up. They didn't. But the message was sent regardless. As Logan was stepping down from the array's gantries a strange effect dissected the air around him. The way she would core and apple, a beam of light green energy appeared in a column from the top of the ceiling to the bottom of the satellite's cogs and spindles. Logan had stared dumbfounded at his arms and hands, his face a blank. She ran from the panel down the steps of the platform and across to the fencing of the array. 'Get out of the way!' She screamed, more trauma and loss creeping through her heart like black ivy. He started to speak but froze. Her feet took the stairs to the gantry three, four at a time and phased intangible before crashing through the spire of stasis. Time was still inside. She was not. It was not physically possible. Looking back, Kitty supposed it was the fault of the stasis coils themselves, not stopping space/time fully, or simply slowing it to a crawl. Either way, she had no chance to ponder as her atomic dispersal infected Logan and together she wrenched them through the stasis beam and back into real-time. She held him close, allowing his feet to rise through the floor to stand on it. 'Why didn't you jump out the way?!' She shouted. He shook his head, shocked. That had been hours ago, in the meantime consuming another bowl of synthsauce and lying in a darkened room for thirty minutes to stave off a migraine. As she emerged, she tripped over a mop and bucket and coated herself in water rats would run from. Exhausted and disgusted she went hunting for living quarters with a shower in Habitation deck. Undressed and grimy she first froze her skin with the cold water and then scalded herself with the hot. The doors opened and Ororo knocked on the bathroom slide door. 'Kitten, are you in there?' She came out shivering and shaking, towel wrapped around and on the verge of tears. She was strong, but not that strong. Ororo hugged her, drying the damp hair with the towel. 'Is your shower broken?' Kitty nodded. '... I can't make it warm. It's either cold or hot.' 'I had the same trouble; I fear Skrull tolerances for extremes outweigh ours by most inhuman standards. Let me see if I can help.' Kitty sat at the edge of her mattress, the sheets smooth and shimmering. This was an officer's dormitory. There was a mirror, cabinets, viewports facing the stars and lamps. A far cry from the basic freezing tub of stasis reserved for soldiers and the non-essential. Ororo came back out. 'There, I had a go and it seems to be functioning. Of course I used my own abilities for a power shower but you probably don't want that. Here,' she placed another canister on the table next to the mirror and desk drawers 'it's some kind of shampoo. I had some. It smells of honeysuckle.' 'Thanks, 'Ro.' She said. 'It's amazing how you do without the basics provided you have a few of life's little luxuries.' Sometime later, a knock on her door. She stepped out from the bathroom in her towel. 'Katya? Are you there? May I come in?' Peter. She held herself together and pressed the door panel revealing him perched to one side. He was about to say something but stopped. Water dripped from rattails and her forehead was plastered with loose strands. 'Hi.' 'I should have asked if you were decent.' He said, shuffling on the spot. 'It's ok.' 'Can I... I'll come back later.' She grabbed his arm and turned him back to face her. 'Come in; I'm going to bed in a minute anyway so if you want to talk...' She walked back into the bathroom. He stepped in, looking at the clothes draped on the bed and marvelling at the simple grandeur of the room. 'This must be the captain's quarters.' The water was running again. 'What? Oh you should see where Ororo's sleeping. That's the real deal.' He gazed out the viewport window, glad to see no damage inflicted on the starboard nacelle. It glowed a healthy blue, superheating plasma pumped from the core. He saw how the stars neither moved from dots to streaks nor melted into the darkness of space like in Star Trek. He had to take it for granted the ship was accelerating, even off-axis was better than not at all. The ship shuddered minutely, he hadn't noticed it before. It was the effect the leaking port engine had on overall stability. Steam emanated from the open bathroom door and drifted over the ambient lighting of the corner standing lamps. Purple haze, a mist curling over the colours and rippling the way it did in the Siberian lakes in winter. Something to do with the magnetic field and solar winds. The water switched off, and he felt his hands sweaty. He returned to look out the viewport, very aware of his stomach, no food for hours. In the reflection of the Plexiglas he saw Kitty snake her arms out to grab the garb lain on the sheets and dash back into the bathroom. 'How are you feeling?' He asked. 'I know this is not where any of us want to be right now.' 'No,' she replied coming back out in a loose-fitting black skin suit 'it's not. I can't believe how rotten our luck has been. If anything else malfunctions I'm going to start dishing out the blame. We must have a saboteur on board...' 'You don't think --' 'I don't not really, but with the others still in stasis and the Professor comatose, the engines screwed up... I feel like falling apart.' Peter stared at his feet. 'You look stronger than ever.' She smiled. 'It's an act, believe me. Ororo gave me this shampoo mixture; it's making my scalp and neck warm. I think this is how Skrull female officers relax.' 'They say it's a male-dominant society.' 'Probably the same as us. I don't mean any of us -- the X-Men -- but the world in general. We accept that we're civilized in that way, women's liberty and freedom and equality but it's all a bit fraudulent.' He said nothing. 'I'm not having a go, Peter. It's the truth. We may strive for harmony between races, but even amongst our own there's dissent. There always will be. How can we ever be united under one flag? I don't see it.' 'I suppose I can't deny it.' Her face fell into a scowl. The floor was jarringly cold. 'No. Not that it'll matter soon anyway. Even if we make it back, Magneto's still in charge of Genosha, Joseph will be dead and the whole planet raging for mutant blood as penance.' Her brain worked over the hysteria at home. The UN causing uproar, every tabloid, every news channel, every bookie, every chef, teacher, postman, gasman, gossiping neighbour spreading the virus of detest and jealousy and anger across America in one giant pandemic flood. She leaned against the desktop and flung her arm to the bathroom ceiling. 'I might not even bother turning these lights off, the batteries and air recycling are going to die before we pass Jupiter. What's the point of returning home? All we do is manage to screw things up!' 'Don't think like that; pessimism and negativity is the start of self-loathing, and we have nothing to hate ourselves for, nothing to regret!' 'Nothing to regret?! Why not, Peter! We're stranded a billion miles from anywhere, without the faintest hope of getting home, our ship is worse than an arthritic mule climbing a mount Everest, bits falling off, air consumed in a ship fire and food that tastes like sewage. Our attempt at sending a communiqué was pointless, we could get stuck deader than Tommy Cooper in a stasis beam at any time -- Kurt barely escaped the engine blast, even Logan's losing it -- we can't wake the Professor from a coma we don't know whether it's dangerous or not, no-one wants to get Gambit and Marrow up because we'll all end up killing each other in cabin fever or using all the oxygen until we asphyxiate, and you -- you the most sturdy of the lot of us -- were knocked off the back of the ship --' she cupped her mouth and nose '- and almost died out there in space, the loneliness of space because of Ororo...! Because of Ororo! I can't, I just can't handle this...' He wrapped his thick arms around her small shoulders. 'Shhh, little one, it's alright. Shhhh.' 'Peter, if I hadn't phased through about a hundred floors to come get you, you'd be all alone out there and Peter! You weren't moving or anything!' He held tight and smoothed out her damp hair. 'But I'm moving now. I'm moving now, I'm ok! See? Even came to see how you were didn't I? It's alright.' 'It's not alright! It's not alright! I led us into this! This decaying ship with nothing but spit and tape holding it together! We're all going to suffocate and die out here, and nothing any of us can do can stop it! Not you, not me, not the Professor and not Ororo! I don't want to die, Peter! I've seen it so many times, and so many friends, I don't want to die out here alone, not having got married, had a child a baby with my love and care I never saw Dave Grohl play, I've never juggled, there are a thousand things I won't get to do!' She wept freely into his chest, moisture leaking into his flightsuit and her clutching his arms. When the waters receded, she sat on the mattress and turned off the lights in the corner. 'I'm sorry.' She said. 'Don't, you have nothing to apologize for.' 'Yeah, well, I'm not a kid anymore.' 'Everyone cries, Kitty. I cry.' X-Men: Italy, Sicily, France+Spain 'You cry if you see a hawk kill a sparrow.' 'Storm cries, Kurt cries, the Professor cries.' 'Yeah but I'm not a kid!' 'Nobody said you were. I've known you the longest, and you are in every way that matters the most mature and resilient member of our team. I will always put my life in your hands.' 'Don't say that! If it wasn't for me and my course plotting we wouldn't be in this mess!' 'If it wasn't for you I would be another addition to the moons of Neptune, gods and monsters as they are and me just as myself.' 'Aww, Peter, don't. I thought I'd lost you out there. It was horrid, so cold, so empty, no life not a damn thing out there. You were all alone... I'm sick of this! Sick of space.' 'You didn't cause those problems we've faced. You didn't no matter how much you wish to take responsibility for them. They are not yours to take.' 'You sound like my old priest.' 'If that is what you need to absolve yourself, then so be it; I can call for Kurt.' She swatted his shoulder. They sat. 'Oh, God.' She exhaled. The condensation was gathering at the base of the mirror, steam long since escaped from the corners of the shower. Kitty shivered. 'It's getting cold... I need to go to bed.' 'Are you going to be alright?' He asked. She flicked back the covers, looking at the gelatine lump passing for a pillow. She sniffled. 'Yeah. Yeah, I'll be ok.' He stood and turned to leave, switching out the bathroom strip lights with a wave of his hand over the sensor. The room became a blood vein, back-up lighting crimson while outside the quarters a harsh white. Kitty gazed at his huge silhouette in the doorway. He took up most of the space, and had to duck to get in and out. He had this amazing presence. 'Peter?' She asked. 'Yes Kitty.' 'Stay here tonight.' She saw him turn and pause, facing the corridor. She felt a rush in her belly. He turned back into the room and sat in the low-backed chair facing the bed, his form indistinct in the darkness. She rest her head and watched him until dreams gathered. *** A jolt shook Peter awake. His eyes wouldn't adjust. He realised what he had been staring into moved. It had a voice. He wasn't in isolation, not in the black room with the white lights, no glass at his feet, not alone. 'Don't sleep in the chair.' She said. He allowed a pull and a shift and he hit the mattress. His arms, heavy from the latent drugging, tripped over themselves and he came to lie at the pillow, outstretched. Kitty nursed the lines of his face and jaw, starlight her guide. 'Thanks.' He mumbled. She put her head back down and closed her eyes. Between the hours of two and three he stirred again. Pressure, soft, on his cheek. Fingertips. The scent of honey. Breath on his lips. The weight on the mattress; his eyes open to see her proximity. She murmured his name. Stole a kiss. She was being tentative. He laid his hand on her shoulder preventatively, on his back her inclined toward him. 'Kitty?' Searching her face. 'Do you remember the time we were taken by the Brood, Peter?' She whispered. 'Yes.' 'The night we knew we were going to die. Do you remember that?' 'Yes.' He said. 'I said I wished I had been older. I said it didn't matter.' 'I know.' 'It still doesn't matter.' '...Kitty...' 'I don't want to die thinking what might have been.' '... I don't either.' She placed her hand on his breast, feeling up to his collarbone and cheek. Her palms were damp. Her heart pounding. She tried to gain some focus. How many times had she done this? Enough. How many times had she done this? She could feel the gravity in him. Coming in waves, evaporating from his chest. The inevitable. The drawing of clouds inland. The flight south. The salt of the sea and the moon and its pull. 'Take me Peter.' She said, pressing herself into him, his body an altar and her approach the one single moment of her young life. She reached one hand down to his stomach, short, cut nails grazing over his bare muscles in nervous discovery. Her other went to the back of his head, coaxing him into another intimate kiss. He responded slowly, his fears outweighing the arousal being leeched from his heart. She knew his head and heart would be at war. He was honourable, selfless. Too good for anybody else, just right for her. She took a fistful of hair, bunching her fingers and opening her mouth to lick his lips. There was little black hair to hold onto, Peter keeping it short, not growing it long like his brother used to. Her fingers drew back to his chest, raking gently against a nipple and she felt a shudder, the follicles stiffening on his neck by her elbow. He was waking up. She tilted her head, his kisses becoming insistent, vengeful and found herself rolling onto her back with him leaning over and reciprocating. Kitty ran through his hair and to the base of the neck. He locked lips with hers and opened his mouth to let her in. A drop of sweat hit her shoulder from his underarm. She stroked his face lovingly, curling hands down then resting at his chin while he kissed her again. He had such massive hands and arms and muscles, and a huge chest of all bare skin, not so much as a blemish. Her eyes fell into the bottomless magma of his skin, the red light dark enough that neither could make out shapes properly. She wondered what his expression was. What he was thinking. What he was feeling. A glow entered her belly, travelling downward, but she barely registered, legs entwined with his and now his fingers and damp palm pressing into her left shoulder and then a little further south than that. Peter was thinking where his restraint had gone. Perhaps dissipated along with his refusal to live up to the fact he was deeply in love with Kitty still. She was staring at him, eyes questing for an answer only his soul could surrender. She kissed him lazily. Doe eyes. Hair spread on the pillow, carbon dioxide and lack of breath. 'I'm yours Peter. Take me.' She said. Peter reached down to hold her breast through the cloth, the weight of his body pinning her in comfort and familiarity and submissive consent. She moaned through their kiss, desire making a cramp below her stomach. He caressed her hair, silken from the wash. She smelled so vital and new and with that the scent of a woman's intentions; she, the key to unravelling his very being, every bit as essential as his own thoughts and eccentricities. She gave herself over to him, grabbing his hands as he became increasingly desperate and autonomous. She made an excited pant and suddenly shoved him out the way pulling unsuccessfully and pulling again at her top and then over the head and discarded on the floor. Her hair fell in a cascade and he waited until she turned to face him, arms covering herself, crossed, glorious. Her next reach went across galaxies, past spirals and nebulae, binaries and the centre of the universe. She fell into his arms never losing connection through her lips, landing on his neck, jawbone, nibbling at his ear while he stroked her chest and waist. She groaned and reaching down, sliding past the band of elastic on his slacks stopped just short of his bulge. He exhaled raggedly and paused. So did she. This was it. It sped up and she circled her thumb and forefinger around him, a tight clasp. He gritted and groaned, eyes connecting as he gripped her flesh. She held him like that, motionless while his reactions flowed out at random. She kissed him fiercely then scooted down underneath the covers. Mind blank, he laid down hands free concentrating on the intricacies of sweaty fingers. She lifted the band over his erection and yanked his slacks down a way, over his buttocks, further down his thighs, hot in her seclusion. He bobbed in front of her, sixth sense telling her the details. She drew back the skin and held him in a loose fist. There was a groan. She pushed her hand against him, motioning the fist up and down and dragging him in a rough pattern, figure of eight she thought. Her other hand held steady at his thigh, the pheromones coming thick and fast. With it she fingered his testicles, light probing whilst jerking the fist up and down. Peter shut his eyes, conscious of his saliva. He had thought about this a great many times. Suddenly there was wetness around the tip of his cock, her mouth fitting him in. A fuzzy blanket clouded his mind. She performed the same motion with her head as with her hand, which had not stopped moving. Closing her eyes, she felt her hair dislodge and flop against his belly, trickles of saliva coming down the side of his shaft. She used it to slip her fist into a twist. She cupped his testicles and inside her mouth, used her tongue to lick at the top of his cock. She nudged the lost hair back behind her ear, but it came loose again. Above the covers Peter felt the pull in his groin. He knew he wouldn't last long, his toes curling and his thighs tensing, especially when Kitty gripped his balls. She was pulling up and down faster now, and he spoke out without knowing whether she would hear it or not. 'Kitty -- Kitty, stop... I'm not going to last...' She raised herself, not letting go in hand and throwing the covers off. He could see the gleam of reflection in the moisture at her lips. The silhouette of her long neck and messy hair made him surge inside, the surge that he couldn't hold back. 'Do you want me to stop?' She whispered. Her fist went up. He shook his head. Her fist went down, picking up the pace. 'Kitty... I'm -- I'm going to come any minute.' She bent at the waist and took his cock in her mouth once more, bobbing her head. He closed his eyes trying to stave it off. She gripped his balls again and tugged. He was coming. He was seeing the whiteness all the colours battling each other behind closed eyes and feeling the rising come from deep down. She moaned softly, straddling his knee and rubbing herself against it. He inhaled sharply and she took it into her mouth swallowing again and again. His body jerked and he grabbed her head holding her down. She took the chance to wiggle out of the slack leggings and kick them to the end of the mattress. His breathing slowing, she let him out and licked her lips, throwing down on top of him with her lithe and little body spread out. She kissed him deeply, an obtuse fog in her brain the only receptors and synapses firing those of uninhibited desire. Her hands pinned him and rubbing her wetness against his stomach she leant back. 'Peter...' she moaned. He shook off the stupor and took her in his giant grip, laying her out at the end of the mattress while her legs restlessly buzzed and searched for fulfilment. She needed something right at the core of her desire. She wanted to be tasted. To be sucked on. He pressed firmly at her thighs, breath hot but shallow and nuzzling the skin of his jaw against her soft folds. She pressed into his scalp with both hands and draped the covers over herself. She closed her eyes and surrendered the rest to him. 'Yessssssss....' Even when he slid a thick finger into her pussy she didn't open her eyes. She couldn't if she wanted to. 'Ahhhhh!' He stroked her inner thighs and outstretched his tongue to sooth the burning of her clitoris. Vibrations radiating from within her womb shot out to her legs and toes, raising them at the knee and surrounding him with mountains of her flesh. He rest a palm at her mound, dragging his thumb over her clit and licking faintly, tasting the liquid sponging out of her folds. The other hand twisted its fingers inside her, and she growled; he made a towing motion and her chest rose up from the bed in sweet escape. His thumb moved faster, his tongue lashed harder and more insistent, pleading the come she knew was coming. 'Peter...! Don't stop!' She bit her lip and grabbed at the sheets forcing them into herself trying to reach the place he was getting to. Her breathing was getting shorter, she felt a bass rumble in her ears, sensory input meaningless this close. His tongue lathered her, and he pulled with his lips at the apex of her legs. Surprised, she gasped and held her breath. She was there. He was in her and on her and she was there. He ran over her clit again and again and again, and her legs wobbled, and her whole body trembled and she let out a fantastic cry, shaking and bucking. Weight from his body kept her relatively still, but she felt the roll of thunder reverberating outward absorbing all her toes and fingers, the erect nipples on her breasts and the tips of her ears. He let her come down gently, and finally stopped when she became too sensitive. Her focus was out. His was too, but she could sense he was ready again. She beckoned him over and let the build of the man push her down. They kissed intensely, no fireworks, just a hatred of all the time spent not being still like this, not entwined like this. He opened her lips with his fingers, tongue tentative in her mouth as she was very very still all of a sudden and then not, just her nerves in the way of sensation but her muscles and bones straight and expectant as he pushed his erection into her and she was all touch and taste and sight and sound and feel and all of those things blinded and scorched by Peter's strength and fire. She lost her voice, jaw open, heads to the side of each other, ear to ear and one of her hands wrapped around his neck and the other down by her pussy touching the both of them as he pushed in and out of her. In and out of her body, her whole person offered to him and this glorious physicality dominating the room. He held her tightly, few words murmured, most spoken in tongues not understood by the everyday parts of the brain. She bent the way he bent, moved the way he moved. She was tingling, goose bumps and response, his muscles tensing at the automatic motion. Kitty gagged and felt the glow pop inside, a release of sorts ballooning and bursting where he dug into her. Damp flesh at her thighs made wetter. She had come. The sensations were delayed by the disconnection in her brain. A yell tried to come out, but Peter silenced it with his lips, closed eyes holding her down and pistoning in and out harder and faster. He raised his head, staring down at her neck and chest, where they joined, feeling the peel of sweat separate as he did and she groaned loosely not wholly conscious of what was happening. And at the last moment it flashed across his three a.m mind: they had no protection. Her voice cracked. 'Why you stopping?' 'No protection. I'm not wearing anything Kitty...' Her mind raced. She felt a deep and insistent dig well up and inside her. 'Oh... god...' He stopped and got off her, dashing his arm across his forehead trying to slow his body down as she struggled up. She draped across his belly, hair all over the place and stroked his tingling cock. 'You don't need to come inside me, Peter...' He almost laughed, but she stopped it by taking him into her mouth. He felt holy. She moaned, thankful to be connected to him. 'Kitty...' he intoned blindly, letting his body tense and tense and tense and give himself over to her. She used her hands again and made him jerk. The blast hit the back of her throat and she swallowed thickly, savouring the moment as if it were her last while he spasmed and came in streams. He went lax, and she curled against him, her feet nowhere near his but her head and her kiss at the exact point they needed to be. There was no telling how long they slept. The stars had no faces and the planets no hands. When time was relevant, the ship had flown successfully past Saturn. They approached the command deck with the others in good spirits, tangible release in the air. Kitty wondered whether Logan would notice. They had showered -- a long shower -- and dressed, but she had read somewhere that sex caused certain chemical changes in the body felt over several days. Women referred to it as a sort of "glow" in the skin, a cleansing of mental cobwebs. Men called it a good mood. Whatever he was bound to pick it up. 'Mornin'.' He said. 'Er. Hi. Everyone okay?' She asked, taking a seat at the command table close to Peter but not so close as to reveal anything. He caught her eye. Kurt fidgeted with a fluteful of synthsauce. He presented them with a large grin. 'A good night, ja?' 'Eh? What you mean...?' She said. 'Oh come on!' Peter felt a gathering of nerves sweat out at his arms. He glanced across at Kitty, then each of them individually, spaced out in a panorama around the command bridge, then back to Kitty. 'What?' She said, voice wavering. 'You didn't hear myself and Ororo celebrating?' 'Celebrating what, tovarisch?' 'We have found a way to get back to Earth!' 'Yeah? For real?' She squealed. Peter's ears subconsciously pricked up with her pitch. 'For real kid, no foolin'.' Logan added. 'How?!' But Kitty didn't really listen to the reply. She watched the outside of the window. The blackness of space. The unfathomable distances between. The epic frontier they still knew close to nothing about. How everything had its place on Einstein's space-time plane and how bodies orbit each other and forces act in strange and wonderful ways on all they touch. She thought of Wisdom, and Doug Ramsey and last night, Illyana and her divorced parents, Lockheed and Deerfield, Stevie Hunter and the Hellfire Club. How life has it's intricacies of love and loss, hate and inexplicable emotions which unbalance people from time to time. How the head does not follow the heart and how the heart does not follow the head, and how sometimes they do and neither make sense. She thought about being asleep last night, holding on tight to Peter and not waking up. She thought about being pregnant. Caliban and Callisto, people who have made her hurt and whom she has hurt. She thought about being a teenager, eating an ice lolly on the peer at Lake Michigan with her dad when she was thirteen. He told her to look at all the mussels. They were an invasive species: Zebras. All the way from Russia he had said. The Yenisei basin. Serious impact on North America. A serious impact on Chicago and Milwaukee. Siberia to space. A serious impact on her. 'So you see we are going to make it!' Kurt triumphed. 'Excellent news! That is excellent news my friends; don't you think Kitty?' '...What?' She asked, smiling cheerily. 'The fuel dump? Weren't ya listenin'?' Logan asked. 'Wassup with you? Kurt gave it the 411 and you're off in the clouds.' 'We tried to wake you last night Kitten but the door was locked. Are you well? I knew we should have given you more support.' Ororo said, walking over and clasping Kitty's hands. 'I'm fine... I was fine last night. It's okay. That's great. Wonderful, even!' 'Yes.' Kurt grinned. 'Sounds like it.' 'When can we get started?' Peter asked. 'Right away. All it's going to take is a few commands we process up here; we do not even have to venture near Engineering.' Kurt said. 'The plasma core is ejected from the aft of the ship, rather near the damaged nacelle, but because of our awkward tilt we will hit it with our exhaust. We're already moving at a velocity required to evade another detonation shockwave, and if we time it just right the blast will carry us to well above light speed.' Kitty thought a moment. 'What happens when we want to slow down and there's no fuel?' 'We leave the residual fuel in the engines until the very end, and draw on that to fire in the retros.' Ororo replied. 'We've only one chance then. A concentrated explosion and if we get it wrong we are royally screwed.' 'Yup.' 'Don't let me near the controls then.' She laughed. 'Actually Kitty, we think you're the perfect candidate to pilot.' Kurt said. 'No_way.' 'Yes, Kitty. You can do it.' Peter said. X-Men: Italy, Sicily, France+Spain 'No. No! I already got us stuck out here; I'm not having us smash into Mars or the Moon because I timed it wrong. Not going to happen.' 'You must!' Ororo said. 'Not in a million years!' She replied. Peter knelt by her side, hands over hers and looked deep into brown eyes. He felt the fast beat of her pulse and the anxious pumping of blood. 'Don't do it for us. Do it because you need to get home. You have a life to lead Kitty. Places to go, to see, to fall in love with and people who shall be with you all along the way. You are every bit as heavenly as the dance of the suns and moons, and the world deserves to know you and what you will become. It is a duty to yourself to show them.' 'Oh, Peter.' 'When we sat on the cliff all those years ago, I didn't have the words to describe what I had felt for you. My words went cheap in the Beyonder's realm. The tongue I used was the wrong tool; something for the gutter. I cannot be poetic for you because I am a lowly man, a vessel from God only literate enough to sketch the sunrise and record the movement of stars.' He held her cheek. 'Your courage, your certainty, the splendour of your beauty and innocence and vitality and holiness are beyond my capacity to think, you blind me. I am overpowered. You must be true to yourself.' And all those years ago she had sworn to herself that he would not see her cry. He was not to waste tears on. With the honesty and purity inside, what was on his mind was on his face. He stood and kissed her forehead, whispering: 'you can do it.' The others waited expectantly. As the nitrogen clouds of Titan came into view, Old Faithful flew on course to Earth. The slow drift of planets was a graceful performance. Everything in its right place, choreographed for beings whose fire had burnt out of the galaxy long ago. Kitty's hand hovered over the command console, warnings flashing. Did she want to eject the core, had she made all the right preparations. Endless details, all moot. The past was prologue. It was this or it was nothing. Her hand went down. The plasma cylinder disconnected and popped out the back, an empty shell casing in a rifle. A hot rock. The bang no-one heard and their ticket out of here. The ship sought its destination and cleaved the heavens, riding the wave home.