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At the same time Harry was making love to Emma for the first time, Jean Grey suddenly stopped midstride on the runner, nearly falling forward to smash her head into the front of the machine when the track went on below her carrying her feet out from under her. On either side of Jean, Paige and Dani laughed. Dani asked, "What was that about?"
"Just an impression I suddenly got." Jean said flushing a little in embarrassment. "I just suddenly got the idea that I was missing something really nice back on Earth, that's all." With that she shook her head and turned the runner up another few notches, racing on, quickly catching up to the other two on the 3-d VR program, though Dani was still a bit ahead of her.
Exercising was paramount on the Hellion, a daily necessity not just a good idea. Even with the ship having an artificial gravity system, humans lost muscle mass quickly in space. The Kree didn't seem to have much of an issue in that direction, but even they had several rooms devoted to keeping their men in shape.
After another hour or so the girls stopped with the runners, all three of them moving over to the weight machines. As they did, rather than watching a movie as they had while on the runner they listened to music, going down the row so each had a chance to choose what songs to play. When it was her turn Paige got up and moved over to the computer that was playing the music, frowning suddenly. "I didn't know that song was on here. Cool." With a laugh she clicked it, then raced over to take her place on her machine again.
"What did you pick?" Dani asked.
"Drive me crazy," Paige said. "Love country it's almost as good as bluegrass."
"We'll agree to disagree on that one," Jean laughed. "But I didn't put that song on either. Whatever." With that Jean laid back down, and as the song started she pumped iron, a hundred and forty pounds, as much as she could lift.
She faltered however when the first lyrics came through because they weren't being sung by the original singer. No, the voice was Harry's. To either side of her Dani and Paige exchanged grins exchanged while Harry's croaking voice belted out the lyrics, almost giving the impression of saying them directly to Jean. When the song ended Paige looked at the older redhead. "I am so fucking jealous of you right now."
Still flushing slightly at the romantic gesture from her lover, Jean laughed finishing her rep and laying the bar back down. Have to think of something nice to do for Harry when we get back. Heh. He drives me wild too.
After that the trio of young women began to move through some martial arts exercises that Ororo and Shiang-Chi had taught them before sparring hand-to-hand, the two younger girls against Jean. Then it was full on power spars with Nikolai and Reed and Susan joining after they came in from another gym elsewhere on the ship. Most of the time it was random teams, but sometimes it was also all of them against Jean, which given her powers was actually more fair than most would initially think.
The Hellion had been in hyperspace for nearly a week and a half now, and they were barely a day out from their destination where they would start to get really busy. There was a planning session scheduled later that day, which was why Jean called the exercises short after only one power-spar session. While Jean showered however she frowned, thinking hard. For the last few days whenever she used her powers, specifically those skills she had gotten when she became the avatar of the Phoenix she got the distinct impression that the entity who she was somewhat connected to was laughing under its wing at her.
It was a very odd sensation, not entirely unpleasant, but not entirely pleasant either. It was like being the butt of a joke and not understanding the punch line or something. I'll think about that on the trip back I suppose, I'll have more than enough to occupy my mind when we drop out into the Dead Man's Row.
Later that day the group Douglas insisted on calling the senior officers got together in the conference room, where Mar'vel began to explain all he knew about the system and the process with which derelict ships were recycled. "For the most part the recycling system is fully automated. There are a series of large recyclers that come through each junkyard system on a set schedule. Most of the time they are empty of course, but at those points it becomes really busy. Those ships tend to be huge, with even the smallest one as large as a World Breaker usually, but with about… I would say a fifth of the mass and not even a tenth of the crew. Indeed the only reason the crew's on there at all is to fix things if anything goes wrong."
"But if resources are scarce, and the parts are needed desperately due to a campaign or some other reason groups of junkers can be brought in to work on the ships, since they'll work much faster than the recyclers but it's dangerous work. That's why most of the time those junkers are from the nearest Resource Reallocation Unit, the lowest of the low since their lives don't matter nearly as much as the resources that they are picking apart."
"Resource Reallocation Unit?" Jean asked, cutting in quickly. "That's the first time I've heard that term. Could you go into detail for us on that?"
Mar'vel looked momentarily confused than shrugged. "I suppose it wouldn't have come up in any of the questions we've been asked so far would it? Resource Reallocation Units are portions of the fleet that deal with local indigenous populations on newly discovered garden worlds. The empire is always expanding inside its area of control after all. Since hyperspace was invented exploration has never been in a pure straight sphere around the home world, rather a series of jumps. So occasionally we find garden worlds or other types of worlds with indigenous populations on them that are in the empire's sphere of influence."
If the world are garden worlds, since those are so rare, or have high levels of resources, the RRU will go in and take over. Of course then the population will be put to work at any tasks they can be for the betterment of the Empire."
Jean was getting a horrible impression here, and she exchanged glances with the others who all were looking similarly worried. Why am I getting the impression of the Jews in the Holocaust here? "Are we talking about slave gangs?" She asked aloud.
"What is a slave?" Mar'vel asked.
"Are they worked until they die in horrible conditions," Reed asked bluntly.
"Of course," Mar'vel replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Why not? It's an excellent use of resources, and after all they aren't Kree." Only when he said this did Mar'vel realize that it might not have been the best thing to say in present company.
Even Una was looking appalled. "I've never heard of this! How many of these RRU's are there?"
"I don't know!" Mar'vel said defensively. "I've just learned about them since I've run into a few people who work on them a time or two. It's not exactly glamorous work, and they always tend to drink heavily when on leave, so occasionally other ships crews are called in to help control them."
"Let's get back on topic," Jean said after a moment's fulsome silence. "So what you're saying is unless we have really bad luck we might be able to just waltz in?"
"I don't know," Mar'vel said. "I have no idea if there are security stations in place or anything of that nature, I've never heard talk about it. I would say that there would certainly be sensor buoys around the system, and each junk world is of course set near a local naval base, which are usually home to at least one major fleet and numerous smaller wolf packs of varying sizes. If you trip something, the response would take…"
He looked up the star charts and calculated distances for a moment before going on. "I'd say around a day and a half maybe two if you're lucky, the first response will be wolf packs of battle cruisers. If you take out one of those though, the next response will be heavier, much heavier. Any threat within the Empire's borders is dealt with by swift, overwhelming force."
"Thank you Mar'vel, I believe that's all." Knowing he was dismissed Mar'vel walked out at Susan's command, though his girlfriend remained behind for a moment.
She looked at all of the humans and shook her head. "I didn't know, I swear! That was the first time I've heard of it."
Jean nodded her head. "I know, trust me I know." She tapped her head lightly, and Una nodded, remembering Jean could usually catch feelings even when she wasn't trying if they were powerful enough.
As Una left Jean leaned back in her chair both of her hands over her eyes. "Please for all that is good and holy, don't let us have to deal with that."
"I think that any chance of working with the Kree in the future just went out the door." said Reed seriously. "The entire culture would have to change for them to see us as anything but enemies, and they don't deal with equals very well at all."
Susan nodded agreement, scowling. "Even Mar'vel didn't realize it! They're so, so uniformly arrogant and…" she paused, hands gripped together for a moment. "They'd have to change their entire social structure for me to want to trust the Kree in any kind of peace agreement we could make with them."
"Agreed," Jean scowled. "Which means we need to learn more about the Skrull and the third power, the Shi'ar. Unless you think we can deal with the Brood?"
Reed shrugged ignorance at that, and on that rather somber note the meeting ended.
The next day Hellion arrived in Dead Man's Row on the outer edge of the Oort cloud. Moving in under low-power they scanned ahead with what they could. Most of the ship scanners had been overhauled by Reed, replaced with versions whose energy signatures were much less than their counterparts, but just as good.
After a full day of moving through the Oort cloud in a circle and scanning ahead of them into the system Reed finally declared that he couldn't spot any kind of sensor array. "There are a few signal buoys out there, but they're low powered, certainly not powerful enough to send any kind of out-system real-time transmission even if the Kree had that technology. We should avoid them in any event, but I think we are good to go to a high-level scan."
"Are you sure?" Jean asked from where she was sitting in the captain's chair.
Reed nodded, then typed in quickly on the keyboard in front of them. The map of the system which had been on the large screen updated itself suddenly, showing for spheres of red. "So long as we stay out of these areas, we'll be well out of range of any kind of sensor that the four power sources I am reading now could possibly possess."
"And they won't be alerted by our own sensors going through those areas?"
"Not the ones I designed, no," Reed replied, and after a moment she Jean nodded.
With that they moved in swiftly, popping in and out of to cover the area between the Oort cloud and the two lifeless rocks that were this system's only planets. Their more powerful scanners now reached out, painting a much more detailed picture of the system and Jean was not the only one who gasped in astonishment as icons began to glow on the screen.
Mar'vel was sitting at a console near Reed, and after the system finished updating began to go over what the readings were telling him. "According to your scanners we have at least fifty ships of various sizes here, none of which are in the range of the sensor buoys, they must have shifted over time, sloppy. Twelve battle cruisers, seven battleships and most of the rest are heavy and light cruisers, though there are also 10 frigates apparently. And one Doom Bringer."
"I'm not getting any life signs anywhere in the system." Reed said. "Unless they're deep in one of the ships which I doubt given the fact we don't see any kind of central ship that could be used as a hub or something for the ongoing work, we might be lucky there." He didn't mention what they were lucky about, but Jean simply nodded thanking the stars for small mercies.
Mar'vel went on after a moment rubbing at his nose and thought. "I'm surprised that a Doom Bringer is here. Those ships are rarely if ever sent to the breakers, instead dying in battle like dreadnoughts."
"You said you never served on one of them." Jean asked not accusing just stating.
"No, the crews of Doom Bringers and World Breakers are carefully chosen for their assignments, and are all experts in their fields. But Doom Bringer's especially are heroic subjects, their deeds and actions are reported on in the news, far more than World Breakers. Doom Bringer's are ships of the line that are intended to smash opposing lines or stop the same such tactics on our own fleets. They're a step up from dreadnoughts in size, the same size as a World Breaker, but their weaponry is very different and their mission is somewhat more glorious than that of World Breakers."
Jean nodded, calmly staring at the map of the system on the main screen. "Douglas, how many ships can your slave program handle?"
"Theoretically an infinite number," Douglas responded shrugging his shoulders. "It's just a program, the ships themselves will be doing the calculations and the jumps, all we'll be doing is slaving those computers to our own after the jump calculations are finished.
Reed frowned thoughtfully. "I can understand the appeal of the Doom Bringer, since that alone should be able to shred any of the initial fleets sent after Earth, but other than that what other ships should we concentrate on?"
"All of them," Jean replied simply. "I want every single one of those ships we can get gentlemen. As long as its drive isn't damaged, I want it."
OOOOOOO
As the ship moved forward their sensors began to get more and more data on each of the ships as they closed with their main target. Soon they saw what had happened to the super-dreadnaught. The Doom Bringer had apparently been gutted by an explosion in its engine room, which had blown out the entire back of it.
Mar'vel and one of the other Kree, a midshipman who had served on a battleship before named S'egrel. Mar'vel couldn't figure out what had happened to it, but S'egrel took one look at it and nodded his head grimly. "There was a rumor before we set off on our last mission about some major industrial world that had been caught cutting corners on its power runs. The engines on their ships would fail if they were held at combat output for too long. That kind of thing would necessitate almost rebuilding the entire ship to get at the power runs, no wonder the ship was sent out here."
Jean looked over Reed. "Would that be repairable?"
"The drives no, but we could possibly fit the Doom Bringer with a smaller engine from one of the other ships. Or better yet cannibalize from several of the small frigates, simply put six or seven of their smaller drives on it."
"How long would that take? And would it be worth it if we could do it, if we have to repair all of the power runs I mean?"
"That won't be a problem." Reed replied excitedly. "I've been working on a system of nanites in my spare time. They should be able to go into the power runs and repair any damage or replace low quality parts as they go."
That made Jean choke for a moment, shaking her head. Only Reed Richards could say that he had been working on nanotechnology in his spare time like that. She shook her head of horrible dreams of nanites suddenly coming alive and trying to eat the world with difficulty. Surely Reed wouldn't… on second thought maybe she should look at some of the program for these things before giving the okay for that. Out loud however she simply said, "All right, let's do it."
While Reed and Douglas began to work together to figure out which of the frigates would be easiest to cannibalize, the ship continued to move around the system getting a better read on all of the other ships. Practically every ship there was just this side of a total wreck. Not a single ship was sent here because they were old and had been mothballed. All of them were blasted and had major battle damage.
When asked about that Mar'vel shrugged his shoulders. "Bean counters as you humans would say. The smaller the ship, the less expensive it is to simply replace it rather than repair it."
Eventually the survey was complete. A surprising number of ships still retained their hyperdrive engines, and the ability to enter and exit hyperspace. None of them would be ready for combat against similar ships for a long time, but only eighteen would need major refit now. This of course included the Doom Bringer, but Jean left that ship and its repair in Reed's capable hands.
"Alright, here are the teams." Jean said a few hours later. "Team one will be me, Dani, and two of the Kree which will be the same for every other team. Team two will be Nikolai and Mar'vel and team three, Paige and Susan with Susan in charge. Reed, Douglas, you and the construction droids we brought along will start on the frigates you've chosen. The rest of us will start with the battlecruisers, I think they're the most important ships here. While two teams are out there working, one will be back here resting, and will switch off as needed."
OOOOOOO
Paige looked across at Susan as the two of them moved towards the target ship, frowning at what she could see of the older woman's face through her helmet. "You're not looking well, are you okay?"
"Zero-G's a little hard on the stomach dear," Susan said grimly. "I'm not metal like you." Like Colossus when Paige changed to her metal form she didn't need air to breathe, so was simply moving through space in her metal form right now, with a small receiver helmet over her face so she could talk.
"Maybe you should head back to the ship if you're not feeling up to it," Paige said solicitously. Susan Richards was one of her personal role models, and getting to know her on this trip had been really awesome, but she didn't want to have to deal with the woman getting sick to her stomach inside her helmet as she kind of looked like she was going to do.
"I'll be fine once we touch down on the ship," Susan gurgled, womanfully keeping her gorge down. "Let's just hurry."
With the accompanying soldiers with them they soon landed on the outside of the battlecruiser very near one of the gaping wounds in its flank, their magnetic boots clamping on quickly. The Kree had said the damage was caused by heavy grazer fire at long-range. They had gone on to explain how you could tell it was long-range rather than short, but Paige hadn't paid enough attention.
Moving forward they soon reached the end of the gash in the hull, and one after another entered the interior of the vessel. The interior of the ship was eerie. Without even warning lights anywhere the only light visible was from their helmet lights, and it did very odd things when it hit some of the loose debris here and there caused by pieces of the interior of the ship coming loose in space pressure.
"Why am I thinking of the movie Alien again," Paige muttered to herself as she took the lead. "Thank God for my mutation, no face suckers gonna get a hold o' me!"
As if her words had tempted fate there was a sudden movement ahead of them, and several small flying things flew towards them through the interior of the ship. "What the hell?" Paige shouted falling backwards in shock. "What are those things!?"
One of the Kree troopers with them shook his head raising his rifle and firing at the creatures as they flew at them. "Elcrasi! They're vermin, sometimes they cling to the outer hulls of ships if you pass through asteroid belts where they've made their nests." His bullets struck home into one of the creatures, and it imploded with noiseless splats in the vacuum of space, painting the interior ship near them with green and purple blood and also hanging in the air in small balls here and there.
Paige grimaced as she smacked out at the nearest one, shattering it and flinging it aside. Two of its fellows tried to claw at her hand and chest, and she smashed them with equal ease, but their blood literally soaked her entire upper body and even some of her helmet. "Great, just great."
A moment later the last of the Elcrasi was dead, and they continued on into the ship.
They ran into several more of the creatures but the real threat came after they had dealt with the last group. As they were entering the ship's engine room, a large creature detached itself from high up near the top of the generator and flung itself down at them. It looked somewhere between an octopus and a starfish, with an octopus' body and tentacles, but with the skin of a starfish, along with the central mouth.
Paige had been in the lead the entire time as they moved through the ship, and the others gasped as her metal body disappeared under the thing's bulk. One of the Kree began to blast away at the creature, while Susan flung up a hasty shield, blocking a large tentacle from smashing them back out of the engine room. "What is that thing!?"
"I don't know its name but I think it must prey on the Elcrasi somehow!" One of the Kree troopers shouted back. His fellow didn't bother replying verbally, instead racing forward trying to use his rifle on the soft underside of the tentacle that had tried to attack them when it rebounded. Dark purple blood spurted out, but the wounds swiftly closed, and the creature smacked him backwards into the other two by the doorway.
Susan had hastily lowered her shield to allow the Kree trooper to fly through the area it had covered rather than smack into it. Now she hastily raised it again, while another two tentacles joined the attack on the trio in the entryway.
"Paige, are you okay?" Susan asked, keeping her shield up with a surprising amount of difficulty, her powers fluctuating, allowing the creature's tentacles to come ever closer to them with every attempt.
"Ah'm not fuckin' captain Nemo, so why the hell am Ah battlin' a dahm octo!" Paige shouted from underneath the beast, her accent coming out much more than normal in her anger. She began to lash out with her metal fists, smashing into the creatures' hide with all her might, smashing out teeth from the maw which had tried to swallow her.
The beast seemed to shudder under the assault, lifting its body off the food whose hide had so far stopped its assault. But Paige grabbed it by a tentacle, then began to hammer at it with pile driver blows into the areas all around its central maw. Behind her the two Kree soldiers began to fire on it again, causing more blood gushing wounds all over it.
Finally Paige simply grabbed the beast with one hand on either side of its mouth. As the thing continued to flail at her now just trying to get away she heaved to either side, ripping it open. The beast flopped to one side, dying from this wound, but still trying to get away until one of the troopers came over and emptied his rifle into the beat's maw. After that it finally subsided.
Paige looked down at her hands disgustedly, trying to shaking them free of some of the beast's blood which made little bits of purple and blue in the vacuum all around her. "Great, I am so callin' the first shower when we get back!" Actual water-based showers on board the ship were a premium, but after this Paige felt she deserved one.
Susan moved over quickly to one of the stations, thankfully at the far end of the room from the battle they just had. And after a moment's typing there was a slight thrum from throughout the ship. "We are online, there's not a lot of fuel left in the engine, but it should be good for the jump back to Earth. Though I would recommend we sanitize the room first. Liquids in zero-g get everywhere."
Paige nodded, waving the two Kree soldiers away. The two of them had huge backpacks on, which contained small power reactors that Reed had designed. They had seventeen of them, and each would only be good for one job, but hopefully enough of the ships here had power already they wouldn't run out of them.
Leaning close to Susan she put her helmet against the other woman's so that she could talk without using the intercom which automatically would direct her voice to all of them. "Mrs. Richards, I seriously think you need to see Una when we get back. You're still looking a little green, and frankly you weren't well… I mean.." she stammered, not wanting to call out one of her idols.
"I wasn't worth much in the fights against those Elcrasi creatures, let alone the octopus thing." Susan responded, smiling faintly. "I'll see Una the moment we're done with all of these ships not a moment before." She smirked a little. "Besides, I have a feeling I know what's wrong with me, and it's not something that she'll be able to solve. Trust me on this."
OOOOOOO
By the end of the second day Jean knew that her initial estimate of the time it would take to get all of the ships in the system ready to go had been grossly optimistic. The first few, eight battlecruisers they cleared out quickly, they had gotten lucky with. Those ships retained enough mass in their core to drive both their hyperdrive and the minimal amount of shielding necessary to protect a ship while in hyperspace. Others didn't, and they didn't have enough small generators to go around.
Halfway through the third day Jean called a halt to everything, pulling the teams back to discuss options. Reed was very blunt about his thoughts on the subject. "The Doom Bringer alone is going to take Douglas and myself several days, possibly a week to get it repaired enough to handle hyperspace. On the computer side, Douglas is having to go through several programming firewalls to enable the ship to link with his slave program. On my part, it's going to take three of the small generators we brought along to power the engines and the shields that only leaves nine. And while we'll only need five of the frigate engines, pigeonholing them into the Doom Bringer is not an easy process.
"And we don't have the manufactory capacity to make more," Jean nodded, her voice understanding despite the frown on her face.
Nikolai shrugged. He had the true infantryman's disdain for ships of all kinds, though he understood why Jean wanted to bring as many of these back as she could. Still there was such a thing as being reasonable. "I think that your wish to take as many of these ships as we can is a little unrealistic. We should concentrate on the heavies, the battleships, the battle cruisers and the heavy cruisers, leave the cruisers and the frigates alone."
"No damnit!" Jean growled slamming her hands down on the table. "Earth is in such a big hole we need all these ships, not just the heavies. The heavies we'll use in defense of the planet, but we could use the others to maybe go and contact this Shi'ar Empire, or maybe even look around and see if we can find other races that we could ally with."
She held up a hand as Nikolai made to speak. "I'm not talking about the one or two missions against Earth, I am talking long-term. You all heard Mar'vel, and you all heard the doctor back on Earth when he was giving his presentation." The presentation had been recorded and shown to the team, afterward. "The Kree will send one or maybe two small wolf packs against Earth first, but if they don't return, they'll send in a full fleet. We won't be able to stop that, not unless they come out at one single point where we are already waiting for them."
She looked at Reed who sighed unhappily knowing what she was getting at. "I haven't had any luck," he said bluntly. "Of course the past few days I haven't had time to devote to that bit of research, but still…" He shrugged. "I have some ideas, but I have no idea how long it would take to set the scanners up, especially with the level of inundation we'd need."
"Worse is the fact that with this is something we'll only get one shot at," Jean went on after nodding at the older man. "We can't assume that the Kree won't change their patrol policies after this in such a way that we won't be able to hit up any of the other junk systems. We need all of these ships. Now, let's figure out a way to get them for us!" Jean leaned back breathing heavily for a moment as she tried to get her anger under control. Her emotions had been all over the place at times lately, and she didn't understand why, though this was something she believed passionately about.
Next to her Danielle spoke up hesitantly. "Can I ask, why do these ships need shielding during jumps?"
Reed replied smiling at the young age of American woman. "To put it in layman's terms hyperspace is full of radiation that would kill any biological being in short order inside them."
"But there won't be any biologicals on the ships, would there? So surely we won't have to power the shields right?"
"Hmm... interesting," Reed said nodding his head thoughtfully. "But even so, the shields also protect the hulls themselves from the force of travelling like that. I'm not certain that the interior of the ships would be able to survive, remember these are almost completely trashed ships we're talking about here. Their structural integrity isn't the best to begin with."
"But that's a good point," Jean said, throwing an arm around the younger woman shoulders and giving her a squeeze. "I think we could do a computer test on some of the ships couldn't we? See if they could survive without the shielding and then see what they would need to survive if they can't?"
"I can write up that program!" Douglas grinned enthusiastically. He had enjoyed every step of this trip, and looked forward to telling his parents all about it, or as much as he could anyway. "Give me a few hours, and I'll have an AutoCAD program to show you at least!"
Reed smiled over at the young man, who had impressed him with his computer abilities even knowing that most of it was based off his mutant power and his ability to understand programming languages. Imagination and intuitive logic however was something you had to provide even with that ability, and Douglas had those. He had a bright future ahead of him, and Reed was happy that he had hooked up with Harry's group.
"Excellent." Jean replied with a nod. "While you're doing that, I think that myself, Paige and you too Danielle, should start working on some of the bits and pieces we've seen lying around out there." Those were leftovers from older ships that had already been almost entirely cannibalized and taken apart, mostly bits and pieces of hull that had floated away during the deconstruction process. "We'll use those to help patch up the exteriors of the ships."
Thanks to Douglas' computer program, the next few days went much more smoothly though Jean was forced to admit that without the construction droids from Dr. Doom that they had brought along, even taking ten of these ships would've been an arduous task. They were no use in clearing out the interior of the vessel from the little critters that occupied practically every ship so far, but once that was done they went to work with the robotic version of eagerness.
It turned out that the Doom Bringer was so massively armored both inside and out that it could survive even with the giant hole along its aft without extra shielding. When he had seen that, Reed whistled in shock. "The interior of the vessel is built to the same structural level as the exterior armor! My god these ships are fucking tough!"
That was the first time Jean had ever heard the man curse and she made a mental note of it. As the name implied Doom Bringers were seriously bad news.
Nevertheless, that freed up the three generators that Reed had feared would be needed for the gigantic ship, allowing them to put them on an equal number of the battleships, all of which had massive structural and exterior damage. They also found out, once again thanks to Douglas' program that two of the battlecruisers they'd already cleared out were complete write-offs. Even with their shielding intact, they would not be able to survive the stress of the initial jump. The equivalent of their keels had been smashed to pieces, and it was a wonder that they had even gotten into this system in the first place.
The frigates on the other hand were all in much better shape, and could do without shielding so long as the numerous holes in their exterior were patched up. Danielle and Mar'vel took charge of that. With Danielle's suit incorporating Jean's hover technology and a few extra thrusters that had been added for this trip, and Mar'vel having been trained in zero-G combat they were easily able to aid and direct the droids in their work, finishing three frigates a day for that first week.
Jean led the teams working on the battleships, installing the generators, which was fiddly work that the droids couldn't do, and finished them relatively quickly. The next job was the two remaining battlecruisers. Then they'd start in on the heavy and light cruisers that made up the remaining bulk of the ships in the system.
Many of the construction droids had already been put to work on those, doing what work they could on the exterior after Paige and her team had cleared out the interiors of the ships. That group, now five Kree troops led by Paige, were clearing six ships a day and once the ships were powered up even in a limited fashion, the creepy crawlies didn't come back to them thankfully. Of course they'd all have to be heavily sanitized later, but that was doable. The ship the octo-creature had been found in however was a write-off as well, given the mess its bodily fluids had made in the engine room Read and Jean had decided it was too dangerous to attempt to start its engines.
Jean laughed to herself as she telekinetically moved a gigantic piece of armor from one of the battlecruisers that had been a complete write-off onto the hull of one of the others.
"What?" asked one of the Kree troops, whose name was E'erdas. He, the com tech, and Mar'vel were the only three Kree that had truly been trained to operate in Zero-g, and his help had been important in the past few days. Jean had gotten to know him relatively well, and found that his hatred for the Kree Empire ran deep. There was something personal there, something much more personal than most of the other prisoners. But the man hadn't shared it with her or anyone else and Jean wasn't about to use her telepathic powers to delve into his mind just to satisfy her curiosity.
"Oh nothing, just laughing about Paige and her team. I think they've gone through almost half the ship's water quota between them with their showers." Not a single ship had been cleared without getting Paige or at least one of her fellows splattered with the blood of the creepy crawlies that they were clearing out.
E'erdas laughed as well, and was about to reply when their intercoms beeped. "Jean, abort operation! All workers abort operations, return to the ship immediately! There's a gravitic footprint that just appeared a third of the way around the sun from us!" Douglas' voice, sharp with worry and a bit of fear sounded through it a second later.
Jean cursed, and then with a single thrust smashed the piece of junk into the hole it was supposed to occupy, summoning up the hottest fire she could to weld the edges together for a second with both of her hands. Then she reached over and grabbed E'erdas, zooming off faster through the intervening space between them and the Hellion than she normally bothered to go. A second later they were there, slowing down to enter the airlock as she telekinetically reached out for the others pulling them through the junkyard towards the ship far faster than their onboard systems could move them.
She had to jump aside as Paige and one of her troops collided right in front of her before they entered the airlock, then again as Reed and one of the worker robots that had been helping him on the Doom Bringer collided, with Reed using his elastic powers to simply hug the droid for a moment as the two of them bounced into the airlock. But not 2 minutes after Douglas had radioed the warning every group that had been out and about in the junkyard were back aboard. "Everyone in!?"
After a second of replying groans and moans Jean hit the button to close the outer airlock, cycling the air through quickly. A moment later she was flying through the ship racing towards the bridge. "What've we got?" she asked, skidding to a halt right behind Douglas.
He gestured at the screen while Reed and the others, all of them huffing and puffing, entered the bridge behind her. "Three cruisers, two heavies like the Hellion, both looks to be badly battered, heavy damage, we're not reading weapons systems and only hyperspace shields are up. There could be more structural damage, but at this distance we just don't know. I had the ship power down its sensors as soon as we saw the gravitic footprint."
"Good thinking, though it might be too late," Reed said as he slid into the sensors section, his fingers moving rapidly over the controls.
"There was a third footprint about a second after those two came in, it reads as a battlecruiser," Douglas went on. "And from what we can tell from here, it doesn't have any damage at all."
Mar'vel growled. "The first two ships are probably here to be dropped off, the third will be here to take their crews off and return to the nearest fleet base. We're in trouble here."
Jean frowned angrily. "If we jump out now, how many ships can we take with us with the slave program?"
Douglas did some quick calculations and frowned. "15 or so, I'm not certain some of the frigates would be able to jump with us as they are. I haven't been downloading the program to all of the ships that we've cleared for hyperspace travel I'm sorry. And the Doom Bringer isn't ready yet either."
"Don't, one of us should've thought of that," Jean frowned. "I should've thought of that as team lead." She frowned heavily as the battlecruiser came around the sun enough for them to get better readings on it even with their powered down sensors. "There certainly isn't any damage to that thing, its shields are already up and its sensors are fully online. Is that normal?"
"Yes, and I don't…" Mar'vel stopped speaking as one of the symbols, one of the heavy cruisers began to turn around, making for the outer edge of the system. Then the battle cruiser went to full normal drive speed, heading straight towards them. Behind it the second heavy cruiser also followed, with some of its weapons coming back online as they watched. "They've seen us, and that one's gone to report."
"Why's it backing away like that rather than simply jumping out from where it is?" Jean asked.
"The deeper into a gravity well you are the more power you need to get into hyperspace," Reed said. "I'd bet that their drives are badly damaged, and jumping in like they did probably screwed them up further. Since it was supposed to be a one-way trip that would've been fine, but now they're reaping the toll of that move."
"If none of those ships report back how long would it take for someone to notice?"
Mar'vel frowned calculating distances in his head. "About six days maybe? But if that battlecruiser doesn't report in, they won't bother sending anything smaller to investigate, they'll send a Wolfpack of battleships at the very least."
All right. Jean thought breathing deeply to calm herself as she thought. The question she had to answer, were those ships out there worth endangering her crew by throwing them into battle? Yes, she finally decided they were. This is why you get paid the big bucks. "Okay here's what we're going to do. Can normal Kree sensors find unpowered drones or debris?"
"Not normally, no. Why?" Reed asked.
"We need to stop that one from getting a message out, but if we jump out to engage it the other two ships will probably do the same right? So we pop out, drop Nikolai, Danielle and Paige off then pop back here before the two of them can figure out where we went. I'll take out the battle cruiser and the heavy cruiser."
"Are you certain you'll be able to?" Reed asked not commenting on the fact that she hadn't mentioned him or his wife. They would need to stay on board ship just in case the Kree troopers rebelled. By this point they were trusted well enough, but that trust hadn't been tested in a combat situation where they'd actually have to fight their former fellows.
Jean nodded grimly. "I'll handle it," she said cracking her knuckles a little.
Seconds later the team was ready in the airlocks, and the heavy cruiser which had heretofore been moving to engage the incoming battlecruiser and wounded heavy cruiser suddenly performed a micro-jump, popping out as close as they could get to the heavy cruiser that had been backing out of the system. Jean reached out, grabbing the other ship and holding it, not still, but on its current course while the team flew out of the airlocks towards it. She also pushed them along as fast as they could go, hearing their curses and a few moans from Paige at the sheer speed before they clanged into the front of the heavy cruiser.
"Good luck you lot!" she said, cutting off her powers as the undamaged battlecruiser popped in nearby, its weapons blazing at the Hellion. She zoomed out of the airlock herself, while the Hellion's shields took a hammering, failing in under 20 seconds.
But those 20 seconds was enough to allow Jean to get out of the ships shield range, her telekinetic powers flaring up all around her to form a fiery bird of prey so automatically Jean hadn't even needed to think about it. At that show of power, the attack on the Hellion stopped and the battlecruiser came around slightly to bring its weapons to bear on her. She grimaced as the heavy grazers and lasers slammed into her, dodging to one side as some of the railgun shots whizzed by her position. They weren't actually hitting her with most of their weapons, simply saturating the area of space she was in, but that was enough. She gritted her teeth as the blasts continue to hammer her telekinetic shields, but held them up well enough. Raising one hand she held the shield in place, while bringing her other hand around as if delivering a slap.
Which was almost exactly what she did. A giant telekinetic slap smashed into the nose of the battlecruiser, flinging it through space as if it had just been smacked by the hand of a God. The nose of the ship caved in, and it skittered away off course erratically, but it still fired back. "Boy do the Kree make their ships tough," Jean growled, before concentrating again with one of her hands raised in front of her sending out a telekinetic blast that caught the ship in the midsection.
Most of the weapons on that side fell silent as the ship tumbled end-over-end for a moment, but even so the weapons on the other side of the ship continued to fire. "Damnit!" Jean muttered. "Why the hell do the Kree have to be so fucking xenophobic, I like how tough they are, and they're tough-minded too, but this is ridiculous! Why don't they surrender?!"
She attacked again, zooming over the ship as it continued to tumble, its main drives out of order but its guns still blazing. None of them were in any danger of getting through her shields however, as Jean began to methodically rip them out of the hull one by one. She probably killed over half of the crew already, but she didn't want to massacre the entire crew.
Suddenly she got a warning through her telepathic powers, a kind of grim resolution and a desire to lash out just once more. Hurriedly she threw up more power into her telekinetic shield just as the ship exploded underneath her. The explosion threw her away from the ship, yet her shields held as she grimaced angrily. "Dammit, fucking crazy Kree! I wanted to leave you bastards alive!"
With a sigh she turned towards the battered heavy cruiser, which was now trying to head out system away from the Hellion. "Hellion, this is Phoenix, stay here just in case, I'll handle that ship."
Douglas sounded a little awed as he replied, "Roger, Phoenix."
With that Jean moved forward, faster than even the fastest Kree ship could go, catching up with the other ship quickly. This one however didn't even let her get within weapons range now before it opened fire on her even though they must've known it was hopeless. But Jean was much more careful this time, she stood off at range, reaching out with her telekinetic powers to rip and tear at the ships drives, gouging them out of the hall with telekinetic fingers of flame, then doing the same to every weapons system that fired at her. When she finished the ship more closely resembled some kind of modern art piece than an actual spaceship, and it was tumbling away through the system from the momentum of her attacks.
Yet even so, she could still detect thanks to her telepathy the minds of at least two dozen Kree in there. They were shocked, worried and fearful, but also determined, and Jean sighed sadly. She was tempted to reach out telepathically to talk to a few of them, trying to calm them down or convince them to surrender, but just from the feelings she was getting from skimming their minds she knew that wouldn't work. Almost all of them were blue skinned Kree, and the ones in charge were true fanatics. They wouldn't surrender.
"Well bastard I'm not going to go out of my way to kill you, you're not going to get that satisfaction for me. If you lot are still alive when the response fleet pops in maybe they'll help you, maybe they won't. Fucking xenophobes." She paused for a moment there, her telekinetic aura flickering back to its normal level while she ran one hand over her mask, and down to the red hair that stuck out at the back of it. "I seem to be cursing a lot lately, must be dealing with idiots that does it."
OOOOOOO
While Jean had a relatively easy time of it demolishing the battlecruiser from the exterior, Nikolai and his team had invaded the second badly battered heavy cruiser. Almost immediately they ran into resistance, fully armed and armored Kree soldiers holding the passageway leading deeper into the ship.
Paige cursed as she was sent tumbling back, her steel form glowing red hot on the shoulder for a moment. "Dammit what the hell is that!"
"Overpowered shot!" Mar'vel said from over the radio from back on the Hellion. He was observing the battle from there via a camera that Paige and Nikolai had on their space-based helmets. "You can overload one of the crew served heavy weapons like that, though it ruins it for future battles."
"That's nice and all," Nikolai said, his mutant reflection power activated as bolts began to spatter his front, while he calmly kneeled down and lined up shot after shot, killing three Kree each with a single shot to the head. But right now, we need to be aware that Paige and I might not be as invulnerable as we like to think."
A moment later, that was proven true as his legs went out from under him when another overpowered shot impacted his legs. It didn't do any damage thanks to his reflection power, but the reflected power actually gouged a hole in the deck below him, sinking his upper body into it for a moment.
Danielle jumped over him, and for once she was not using arrows but a rifle on full auto. The blasts caught the last two Kree holding the position, and she raced forward along the ceiling of the corridor on her hover skates, taking position at the crossway and turning this way and that. "Clear! Move forward!"
Paige grumbled but moved forward with her, pulling Nikolai out of the hole his body had fallen into easily. "Which way?" Danielle asked over the com to Mar'vel.
"Head to your left, that should bring you to the bridge."
"Let's not assume that the bridge is our main objective," said Nikolai pointing to the right and moving in that direction. "Remember the drives are the thing we need to take out to stop the ship."
Douglas cut in at that point. "Reed has us tractoring the ship right now, but he says you've only got about twenty minutes or so to take out the ships engines before we have to cut it out. The tractor beam is putting pressure on our hull just as much as theirs, and we took a heavy pounding from that one fusillade that battlecruiser got off before Jean engaged it!"
That was actually an understatement, the Hellion had been pounded almost so badly that it might have issues jumping itself now. Almost all of its weapons on that side were gone as well as it sensors, and it was only Harry's runic array worked into its hull that stopped it from being blown into pieces. Even so, its weapons systems were gone, and it's shielding was badly battered though that was coming back up slowly. It was only a minor miracle that the drives hadn't been hit.
"Roger that," Nikolai said grimly. Flicking a few buttons on his rifle, he changed it from sniper to full auto, and raced down the corridor.
It was well he had because at the next intersection they ran into more Kree, hurrying towards them thankfully rather than in a prepared position. Both sides saw one another at the same time, and began to open fire at once.
In the lead Nikolai winced occasionally as the heat of a few of the blasts penetrated his shield before he ducked to one side as he could feel it begin to give out on him. He pushed into what was possibly crew quarters of some kind, firing back down the corridor at the remaining Kree, having killed two of them. The Kree took a moment to recover, while Paige charged them.
Behind her Danielle went to one knee, sighting along her sniper rifle past Paige's charge. Two of the Kree fell with their heads missing then Paige was in among them her fists lashing out with more force than even a Kree soldier could take. Stronger they might be than normal humans, but they weren't up to her weight class. She pulped arms and heads with equal abandon, kicking out at one point and catching one of the troopers in the crotch. He screamed high-pitched and throaty until Danielle put him out of his misery. By that point Paige had raced on, knowing that time was of the essence.
The two snipers followed after, using her as mobile cover until they ran into a prepared position right outside the engine room. At Nikolai's command Paige fell back, just barely dodging two charged shots that might have blasted her metal form into slag. Really have to look into figuring out if I can turn into Orihalcum or adamantium, she thought to herself as she ducked into a storage closet of some kind which was barely large enough to hold her. Still, it got her out of the way of those charged shots, which gouged into the side and floor of the corridor.
Nikolai charged forward, diving into the section of the hull that had been gouged out of the deck by one of he shots as if it was a foxhole, firing on full auto out of it at the Kree troopers. But they had some kind of portable shield set up which absorbed his fire, then went down to allow them to fire back. He winced as one impacted his head, and his own shield faltered for a moment, the heat of it making his face hurt as if he had been out in the sun for an entire day.
Cursing, Danielle used her hover jets to skate up one side of the corridor onto the ceiling, firing her rifle down at the Kree. Whatever shield they had in place didn't have enough overhead cover to stop that, and two of them fell before her rifle bolts smacked into something that exploded taking the rest of the position out with it.
Seeing that, Nikolai and Paige leapt out of cover and raced forward, into the smoke and fire of the explosion, then through it into the engine room. Inside several Kree were working desperately at one of the controls, trying to do something to the engines. Nikolai and Dani fired as one, cutting them down mercilessly before they could finish whatever they were working on. With that done Nikolai raced over to the system that they were working on. "What am I looking at here!?"
"They've started a self-destruct sequence," Douglas's voice came back instantly. "They might think they could take us out, we've been moving closer all the time trying to mitigate the damage the tractor beam is doing to our hull. I'll walk you through shutting it down, but you'll have to be really quick, we're about one minute away from critical damage here!"
"Do it!" Nikolai said, then quickly followed the younger boy's instructions, clicking buttons with as much speed as he could muster. Slowly the hum of the engines subsided, only now bringing attention to it since it had been background noise from the moment they had boarded.
"And we're cutting the tractor beam off now," Douglas said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Jean is coming back now, we'll take you off after you disable the engines."
Nikolai nodded and he and Paige got to work while Danielle covered the entrance to the engine room. By the time they finished she had been forced to deal with two assaults on her position, and was wincing from when a few blasts had gotten through to her armor. They hadn't been able to penetrate her armor, but one had caught her hand, and it felt as if she had a first degree burn on a few of her fingers there.
They were finishing up when the entire ship shook violently. "Vanguard, Paige, Ghigau, this is Phoenix, I'm back. I'm holding the ship steady they don't seem to have any exterior weapons working, have you disabled the engine?"
"Just a second," Nikolai replied, having just finished inputting the commands. He waited until the system acknowledged them, then raised his gun and fired several blasts into each of the computers he could see. He waited for a moment as they fizzled and sparked then smiled grimly. "Yes I think we can say that they're disabled now."
"Roger that, I'm going to peel away some of the hull nearest your position, and we can just leave the ship to drift for now."
"Sounds good to me," Danielle said shaking her head sadly. As a hunter, she had dealt with the knowledge that she could take life well before this, but this had been the first battle in which she had actually killed someone living, someone who actually had life. She was finding it much harder to deal with then she had thought she would.
Nikolai slapped a new cartridge into his rifle, motioning for Danielle to do the same which she did automatically, still staring down at the last Kree she had killed. He motioned to Paige to take point then laid a gentle hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of the ship, then I think you have earned a drink, yes?"
OOOOOOO
It was about two hours later, and the teams had once again congregated on the Hellion, minus Danielle. She and Jean had talked briefly, and then Susan had taken over talking to the younger woman, telling about her own combat experiences and how she dealt with the knowledge of taking life. Jean would talk to her again later, but as team leader she had to be part of this discussion. "So you're saying it will take at least four days for them to realize the battle cruiser is overdue, and another four to send someone?"
"Eight days minimum," said Mar'vel firmly. "I have no idea if they'll notice that that ship is overdue quickly or slowly, but we should err on the side of caution shouldn't we? Eight days minimum, then we could see another group inbound."
Jean nodded. "Douglas, start downloading the slave programming to all of the ships we've already got ready for jump, how many will that give us?"
"It'll take a few hours, but we can start simultaneously on all of them so I'd say by the end of the day around 19 or so?"
"How many can we get ready in seven days?"
Douglas and Reed crunched some numbers for that, looking from one screen to another. "Most of the heavy and light cruisers should be cleared out by then, that'll give us all of the battleships, the available battlecruisers, a few of the frigates, the Doom Bringer, and… fifteen mixed light and heavy. The Doom Bringer we might not have ready to go."
"Prioritize that, I want the Doom Bringer ready in seven days, pull droids off the other projects if you need to."
"10 is the max I could use in the space of the engine area," Reed said, nodding as he inputted that. "If we do that, the Doom Bringer will be ready in six days or so, but the last five light cruisers won't be ready."
"Do it, I want us gone before another response fleet comes in. If one does, do you think you can figure out where they'll jump in?" she asked Mar'vel.
Mar'vel shook his head. "Common Kree doctrine is to randomize where in the system you're going to hyper out unless you're doing scouting operations in which case you always appear on the outer shell of the system. They won't be doing scouting here. They'll simply come in guns blazing. I'd say you could have a 60/40 chance that they would come in at the same position as the initial battlecruiser did, but that's just a guess."
"We need to also work on the Hellion for at least a bit, two or three of the construction droids at least," Douglas said. "That battle cruiser nearly pounded us into slag with a single pass. I don't think we'll be able to repair any of our weapon systems, but we should at least repair the hull a bit just in case the shields fail during hyperspace jump."
"If we do that how many ships would we have to abandon?" Jean said, frowning angrily. She had hoped to grab all of them, but she had to deal with realities. They hadn't brought along enough people, even with the construction droids and given the time limit they were now operating under.
Douglas frowned as she he looked at a listing compiled. "We've already started to clear out the heavy cruisers, six of them have been cleared out already. I'd recommend simply working on those and abandoning the other heavy cruisers and light cruisers. If we work on the frigates, we might be able to get all of them ready to go, that'll give us 22 frigates to 10 or 11 heavy cruisers in the same timeframe."
"Do it." Jean ordered. "We'll all take a two hours break and then get to work again." She held up a hand as Paige and Reed frowned at her, though Nikolai simply nodded. "I know you guys have been in combat, and I know you're tired, but frankly those ships take priority. Earth will need them in the future, and we can rest on the way back to Earth. From now on we'll do with two hour breaks, all of us."
Nikolai nodded grimly. "You can rest when you're dead." He smirked suddenly. "Besides, I've got experience dealing without sleep."
Paige frowned then shrugged. "I can hang I suppose, so long as we have enough coffee to keep me going anyway."
"Disgusting muck," Jean muttered shaking her head. "Seven days, I want us gone from here by then."
It was well she had shaved a day off Mar'vel's timeframe. By the time seven days were done, they had figured out how to get 32 of the 50 ships in the system going, including all of the real heavies. But as that last day was drawing to a close, and the slave program was powering up on all of the ships four full wolf packs, 16 battleships, popped into the system. They spread out four to a side, then further above and below, trying to envelop their prey.
"If we pop out now, will those ships be able to figure out where we're heading?" Jean asked as she stared at the incoming battle cruisers. They were making straight for the Hellion where it was almost within docking range of the Doom Bringer. It would only take about twelve minutes to get within range of the first of the ships that were ready to go, so they didn't have much time.
"Possibly, but remember we were going to do a short jump first and then a longer one back to Earth to throw off the trail anyway," Reed replied from where he was running the sensors, frowning heavily as he looked at the damage the Hellion had taken.
"Then get us out of here," Jean ordered. Not a moment later the hum of the drives deepened as they powered up to enter hyperspace, and they all watched breathless as the derelicts all around them began to do the same. They hadn't been able to do test runs of course, so they didn't know if any or indeed all of those ships would be able to power their drives up to full capacity without running into issues despite the best guesses they could make based off Douglas' program. After a moment, two of the heavy cruisers failed, the power to their drives cutting out abruptly, but the others continued to power up, then with a wink all of them jumped out, leaving the wolf packs behind them.
While the rest of the team took a well-deserved break Jean remained on the bridge as they moved through hyperspace, getting by with catnaps in her seat before the flotilla came out on their first jump two days later. They had lost another three ships somewhere along their journey, the repairs they'd done to them not enough to withstand the pressures of that strange dimension, but the other ships, including the Doom Bringer, all of the battleships and all the battle cruisers were still with them.
Back on the bridge now Douglas and Reed quickly went over the readings they were getting from all of the ships. "We'll have to do some work on one of the battle cruisers and two of the frigates, but other than that we'll be able to jump again soon enough."
Jean nodded grimly then stood up from where she had been sitting in the captain's chair. "Keep the fleet going in normal space until you're hidden on the other side of the star from our entry point into the system." This system was an empty one, consisting only of one gas giant and single large, orange star.
"What are you going to do?" Reed asked.
"You lot start fixing those ships," Jean replied grimly, pulling on her mask and staring at the man. "I'll handle our pursuers if they show up."
While the rest of the incredibly battered junk fleet continued in to the system Jean waited floating in nothingness. Her eyes were closed for a moment as she simply waited, hanging there in space, moving only from the slight bit of impetus she had used to move out from the hatch, trying to find some inner peace in the stars and darkness all around her.
What she was about to do wasn't something Jean really wished to do, but they couldn't afford to have the Kree follow this raid to Earth and the ships they had stolen could not sustain more than one more jump. They'd have to head straight back to Earth from here, and that forced her hand. Jean knew she had to destroy the wolf pack that was after them.
The derelicts weren't even halfway towards hiding themselves on the other side of the star when the wolf packs popped in, proving that they had been able to triangulate the coordinates for the first jump easily. The battleships all popped out into real space guns already blazing as if they expected to come upon the derelict fleet immediately. Jean winced as a few stray blasts pounded her shields, before powering them up further.
By that time the ships that were attacking knew she was there, and again responded much quicker than Jean had expected them to do for such a small human sized target. They saturated space all around her, hammering her with her as many weapons as they could bring to bear.
Still Jean held up her shields, straining now a little, but not as much as she had feared. Then with one hand still thrust forward holding up the shield Jean brought her other hand came up too, her telekinetic powers reaching out as she clenched her hand as if to grab one of the battlecruisers. She wondered fleetingly if she could concentrate on both her telekinetic attack and start a telepathic one, before shaking her head, she couldn't keep her shield up and attack telekinetically and telepathically.
With a wrench of that second hand to the side, she sent the ship she had grabbed flying, flinging it through space to actually impact onto another battleship that was relatively nearby. The ship had been going around Mach one when she released it, and it slammed like a giant railgun blast into the other ship both ships disintegrating under the impact, their engines not even having time to explode.
For a moment the fire of the remaining battleships faltered, then they all raced apart, putting more distance between them and between them and Jean so that she couldn't do that same thing so easily again. However, that gave Jean enough time to renew her energy shield, and reach out telepathically. She sifted through the minds on some of the ships around her, finding officers, and with a shudder of revulsion overriding those minds for a brief moment to get them to open up onto their systems with their sidearms.
Chaos and confusion abounded on those ships for a few moments, but most of their fire didn't let up, and Jean grimaced. So much for that idea. She'd have to really concentrate to take control of enough minds on one ship to turn that ship on its fellows or something of that nature, and she wasn't getting the time she needed to concentrate on it.
With a snarl Jean called upon her Phoenix powers, her aura flaring out like a giant bird of prey made of the fire of a star. Reaching out with both hands she grabbed two of the battleships, her flaming talons crushing and melting and burning! Both ships disintegrated under her grip, and she flung the remainder at some of the others. The effect was like buckshot from a railgun, riddling three other ships and destroying them in turn.
At that point there was only five ships remaining, and the captains on them must've realized that they were losing this battle. They began to turn away, making to jump out towards the nearest Kree held system, not caring where they ended up just away from here. But Jean knew that she couldn't allow even that. She couldn't allow her own presence, the presence of the Phoenix, to be connected to the pirate raid.
Grimly she reached out again with her telekinetic powers, halting all the ships, holding them in place and pulling them back towards her. They began to fire on her again, and she bit her lip so hard it bled as she concentrated both on defense and offense yet again. But the ships couldn't get out of her grip, and soon enough she simply slammed all five of the ships together. The ships came apart, and the battle was finally over.
There were no survivors. None of the Kree even on the group of ships hit by the remains of the first two she had destroyed with her Phoenix powers had tried to evacuate. They stayed, fought, and died rather than flee.
Jean wearily raised a hand, touching her communications gear on the side of her head. "Hellion this is Jean, battle over, I'm coming back," she relayed, her voice weary and grief-stricken.
Reed replied, "Roger, Jean come on home." And while his voice sounded mildly horrified, there was also understanding there.
Several hours later the ship reentered hyperspace heading back to Earth. Jean kept to herself for the first few days after that, needing time to deal with the horror that she had been forced to deal out back there, and knowing that some of the crew were now looking at her fearfully. Surprisingly, Danielle and the rest of the team also looked at her with pity, as if they understood what she was going through or at least understood enough.
Reed however had major issues with what Jean had done. He understood the strategic necessity of it, but her show of force had greatly worried him. When Susan found him making notes about how to possibly contain Jean's telekinetic powers however, his wife took him sharply to task. You did not do that kind of thing with allies, and Jean and the rest of Harry's team had not done a single thing to warrant such suspicions.
That had turned into an argument, but empathy and feelings had worn out over logic and fear, for now at least. Susan knew this would not be the first argument they'd have on this issue. Reed was deeply concerned about mutant powers in general anyway, and what he had seen from Jean worried him even more, despite all of the incredibly powerful enemies they had dealt with in the past. But Susan would sit on him in any event. She desperately wanted them to remain allies of Harry, loving the amount of security he gave Franklin. But if he discovered that Reed was thinking up ways to shut Jean's power down, that relationship would end instantly.
For her part Jean slowly got over the fact that she had been forced to become a mass murderer by telling herself over and over that the Kree had every opportunity to evacuate their ships, and at least a few would have survived if they had, and that they hadn't had to come after them in the first place. It didn't help a lot, but it helped enough.
About six days into journey back to Earth, Jean woke up from an uneasy sleep feeling sick to her stomach. She barely got to her room's bathroom before emptying her stomach into the toilet, holding its sides and groaning in agony for a few moments.
Wiping at her ugly tasting mouth for a moment Jean shuddered wondering what the hell that was. If it had happened directly after the battle, she would've understood but now? "Am I coming down with something?"
With that thought in mind Jean made her way down to the nurse's office, where she found Una already working on Susan. "You should've come to me at once," Una was saying, shaking her head angrily at the blond human. "Trying to soldier through it is fine and dandy, but what if this was something life-threatening?"
"I thought I could handle it," Susan replied simply. "And besides, the work we were doing is important, and I think I know what this is anyway."
"I'm not arguing that, I'm just saying that to do my job I need to be told when you're sick immediately!" The nurse replied hotly. She looked up as the redhead entered. "Can I help you?"
"I hope so. I woke up throwing up, I think I might be coming down with a stomach bug, do you have anything I can take?"
Una looked between the two women frowning. "Susan's complaining about the same thing. Sit down so I can scan you too."
Jean took a seat next to Susan on the same medical bed and the two women waited while Una ran a scanner over both of them, concentrating on their stomachs for a moment as a smile began to appear on her face. "Well I've never had to deal with this issue before, I'm a ship's doctor, not a hospital doctor, but well my system doesn't lie. You're not sick, either of you."
"So what is this?" Jean asked, though Susan had begun to smile.
Una laughed. "You're pregnant both of you! Susan, you seem to be about a month into your pregnancy, Jean you're around three weeks or so." As Jean's eyes widened in shock Una went on, beaming happily at them. "Congratulations!"