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Moments later, the Long Voyager was heaving to as instructed, the illusion created by Stephen and Reed belching gas and various 'volatiles' into space, as the ship slowed to a halt. The pirate vessel came closer, dipping down on them just like the bird of prey it looked like, stopping directly above them in space. At the same type, Harry and Hela had created a series of illusions, changing the appearance of the interior of the ship to match more closely that of a Shi'ar merchant vessel of similar size. They couldn't do anything for the exterior, but they thought that if they changed the interior, it would further throw off the pirates when they boarded.
The main hatch opened, and Harry did his best not to goggle at the first individual through the doorway. The man was dressed like a pirate, complete with a sash around his middle, a bandanna, and hearing, and twin pistols in his hands. The guns were Shi'ar weapons, the kind that had been previously seen on the crew of the vessel that they had captured in Sol.
None of that was what had surprised Harry. No, that dubious honor was rewarded to the fact that the man looked human. Admittedly he could have been a Kree but for the mustache. Harry had yet to see any fair-skinned Kree with facial hair. The man also didn't move as casually arrogant as Kree did.
The next three at least looked properly alien, even if none of them were Shi'ar. But Harry and the others knew that unlike the Kree, the Shi'ar had assimilated other races, adding them to their Empire eventually as contributing, if second-class citizens, rather than slaves who were slowly worked to death like the Kree did. "Hmm, come to think of it, have we learned what the Skrull have done when they encountered weaker races?" He sent to Jean along their permanent link.
"I don't think so. We know that the Skrull conquer by infiltration rather than brute conquest, but other than that, I don't think we've ever found a reliable source to tell us about how conquered races are treated afterward. Not that it's important right now," Jean answered somewhat repressively before addressing something that was bothering her in turn. "Harry, that guy, there's something about him that looks awfully familiar. Something about his face. And the eyes. Can we say that this is a combat situation?"
"Does he have any mental defenses?" Harry asked instead of replying to Jean's question. It was a combat situation, but it was one against a band that they might wish to ally with rather than wipe out, so if there was any chance of genes mental probe coming back to bite them, he wanted to not take that chance.
After a moment, Jean's voice came back a little disgruntled while Harry moved forward, his hands in the air to address himself to the first man who had come aboard. He, Hela, and James, who he'd chosen to be the welcoming committee, all wore illusions that made them look like Shi'ar of similar size. The others were not there, waiting in the ambush zone, an illusion of a high-priority, low-volume cargo bay. "He does. They all do, but it's a kind of technological shield rather than a natural mental defense. I could break through them all quite easily, but they'd know if I did."
"Best not to then." With that, Harry turned his attention to the man in front of them. "Corsair, I presume?" He asked, putting a bit of disdain and fear in his voice. With some difficulty, it had to be said. Acting did not come naturally to Harry.
"I am, indeed. And I have to commend you for your incredibly intelligent decision to not try to run away or fight. It wouldn't've ended well. This way, at least your ship is mostly intact, and once we have taken off all your cargo, you can go your merry way with you and your crew all still alive," the man said, almost affably.
"Tis indeed a strange Shi'ar captain who would not deem his crew's lives of less import than that their mission," the albino cat-skunk woman next to Corsair intoned, almost glaring at Harry in suspicion.
Harry shrugged. "We're a private company, and most of these crewmen are actually my friends, rather than simple crewmembers to me. Does that suffice as a reason for my self-serving lack of courage?"
Evidently, it did. The alien woman subsided, shooting a look at the sizeable lizard-like alien, who nodded his head. She then turned back to Harry, intoning, "When we are done looking at your ship's manifest and your cargo, I will want to look at some of your equipment. Your speed might not be up to our best, but there could be some interesting engineering concepts within this ship. It is also rare for a private company vessel to have anything of interest technologically wise. But your maneuverability showed that was the case."
Harry just nodded, gesturing them all to follow him. The pirate invaders did so, although they were looking around warily as they did, spreading out into a combat formation, with the giant lizard creature at the back, the skunk woman in the center, and Corsair and the cyborg-looking fellow with the topknot at the front. Where Corsair was armed with twin blasters, the other was armed with twin sabers. Although oddly, those swords didn't match. One was a cutlass, the other a rapier.
Corsair attempted to make conversation, asking Harry about where his ship had originated, how he had made captain, and so forth. Harry didn't reply beyond saying he was a keel-owner as well as captain, and that the ship did represent some new technological breakthrough. He could see the pirates were getting tense. But when they arrived in the cargo area, and the foursome didn't see any immediate trap, they started to relax as they moved forward, with Corsair staying beside Harry to cover him while the others moved deeper into the hold.
"Where is the rest of your crew?"
"In the commissary, beyond the double doors on the far end of the cargo space."
"Harry, I am detecting some kind of scent in the hair coming from the woman. I am changing the ship's internal air pressure to draw it out," E's voice came from the com-bead in Harry's ear. Of course, with the pirates in front of him, Harry couldn't respond, but he trusted E to know what he was talking about.
Corsair slowly nodded, looking around. As he had known given the small size of the ship, the cargo area was small. There was nothing in bulk here, simply hundreds of thousands of small boxes, barely the size of a man's chest, most of them even smaller. Heavily protected boxes, all of them looked to be the kind that either held expensive electronics, gems, or in the case of a few that had cryogenic warnings, delicacies.
"Well, even though you are a small ship owned by a single private company, captain, you seem to have done very well for yourself," Corsair said enthusiastically. Now, if you will just give my darling Hepzibah the manifest, we will take around four-fifths of your cargo and leave you the rest as a recompense for your having chosen to do the smart thing, rather than the vainglorious thing."
Harry nodded slowly and moved deeper into the cargo area towards the woman who was already examining a few of the cargo box illusions, reaching forward with one hand to open one of them up. Just as her hand reached into the illusion, Harry intoned, "Now."
With a wave of his fingers, the illusion fell away, revealing the rest of his crew, surrounding the four pirates. Indeed much of the bulkheads and the seeming interior of the ship also disappeared, the battlefield entirely different from what the pirates had thought. Harry then turned back to Corsair, his hands lighting up with magical energies, while Hela raised a sword, holding it in a salute to her face, and James cracked his knuckles with a grin.
"I believe, Captain, that it is your turn to do the smart thing rather than the thick vainglorious thing," Harry said simply. "We don't want…"
Before Harry could finish speaking, the pirates had moved. The green-scaled alien roared, racing backward along their path back towards the hangar bay, hoping to clear a trail for his friends. "It's all illusions! It's a trap, we must escape. There can be no thought of overcoming them, my friends! Survival is the name of the game here!"
"How about no, you freaky lizard!" James growled, meeting his charge with his own. "You're not going anywhere!"
The two crashed together, creating a shockwave that trembled through the deck and the air around them, as Corsair turned on Harry, his blasters blazing. But Harry simply blocked them, then with a single gesture ripped the pistols out of Corsair's hands, opening the man up to blast from Ororo, a condensed ball of air slamming into the man's side and hurling him into the wall.
"Corsair! The woman shouted, leaping over a blast from Alex, but right into a force grab from Jean. The telekinetic hand held the albino woman in the air, twisting her around so that she was upside down, as she found her weapons torn from her belt. "Dammit, these are Imperial Guard! And ones we've never even seen any files on before!"
"We're not actually," Jean said apologetically, lowering the woman towards her so they could communicate without shouting despite the ongoing battle around them, but still retaining a telepathic hold around the woman that made her completely unable to move. "Just remember, you're the ones that attacked us. You can't exactly be horrified when the attack is turned back on you, you know?"
Nearby Raza snarled, his twin swords clanging against Hela's one as she and he danced around the room. To her surprise, despite wielding two different types of swords, Raza was not thrown off or slowed by the different styles each demanded. The rapier at first seemed to be his primary defensive weapon, flicking this way and that to redirect Hela's attacks, while his saber cut and slashed at her in turn.
But he wasn't as quick as she was, nor anywhere near as strong. He found that out to his cost the first time he attempted to redirect directly block her blade, only for his sword to nearly be pushed back into his face, forcing him to block it with his saber for the first time the fight. Then she pirouetted around with their swords still locked, coming in with a punch that would've laid Raza out had it hit.
He ducked, thrusting forward with the rapier, before flicking it up towards her own sword, as it came down, redirecting it to the side, his saber flashing out in the real attack.
Hela quickly shifted her grip, flipping the sword around in her hand to block that blow, redirecting the sword into the ground, then stepping into his guard, smacking his next thrust aside with her bare hand, a sight that brought a snarl of surprise to the cyborg. She then brought up the pommel of her blade into his chin, sending him flying backward.
To Hela's astonishment, the alien cyborg rolled the blow, kicking off the wall and coming in again, thrusting with both swords. When she blocked them with her own, he then used that block to dance to the side, his rapier stabbing for Hela's face, even as his cutlass blocked Hela's attack, suddenly shifting defense and offense.
It didn't help, as Hela once again batted his attacks aside, lashing out with an onslaught of her own that would have pierced his throat with the point of her blade. The two of them began to then exchange blow after blow, Raza shifting his style to allow for more maneuverability, staring at her in something like admiration along with his anger at their ambush.
"Do you need help, Hela?" Ororo asked casually, watching the ongoing duel with amusement.
"Not a bit of it!" Hela bellowed a laugh. "I'm having fun!"
"What about you, do you need help there, James?" Ben asked, from where he had been standing by the far end of the room, with his girlfriend beside him. She was looking a little disgruntled, there just weren't enough Pirates to make a real fight of it against the hornet's nest they had kicked over in the Long Voyager, so the two of them were left out of the fun. This annoyed Thundra greatly.
Benjamin was more philosophical about things.
"No thanks Ben, I've got this!" James grunted, grabbing the outstretched punch from his opponent, ducking underneath it and doing shoulder throw that slammed the creature down into the deck, letting go before the alien could pull him in. The giant monster twisted around on his hands and knees, coming up in a shoulder thrust, but James danced around him, getting on its back, and locking in a chokehold.
However, the beast reached back, showing that his shoulders didn't entirely move the same as a human's, grabbing James with both hands, around the head. Then it was James's turn to be slammed into the ground, the creature's strength breaking his grip. A kick from James sent the alien stumbling backward, and James twisted around, lashing out with another kick at ankle height, which sent the beast stumbling back but did not trip them up entirely.
"You're good, but I think you will find that I am more experienced," the lizard alien rumbled. A knee came towards James's face, followed by a punch, but he blocked the one thrusting that leg down with one palm, then redirected the other, with another palm strike, his leg lashing out at the pivot leg that the monster had been using. A light kick to the side sent him somewhat off-balance, opening the lizard alien up to several strikes to the check chest area, then an uppercut to the chin which sent him flying backward.
"It's always fun watching someone James's son use Wing Chun," Harry said almost conversationally, looking at Corsair, who had recovered himself somewhat but found himself, like the woman, pinned against the wall by a powerful force that he could not fight against. "Bet on how long it lasts?"
"Just kill us and get it over with. Or have you been ordered to hand us over to the Emperor for his own pleasures? I've always wondered how the Imperial Guard can live with themselves following such a monster. But then again, I suppose one shouldn't underestimate the power of indoctrination," Corsair growled, his voice and face set into a sneer trying to goad Harry into killing him and his crew so they wouldn't be handed over to the Emperor. That would be a fate worse than death for all of them, especially for Hepzibah. The Emperor would no doubt want to eat her as had happened to all of her race before this.
Harry was about to reply when Alex came up to them, staring at the captain. He pulled off his mask, revealing his face as he stared at the pirate captain. "Havok? Is there something wrong?" Harry inquired.
"I, I, I don't… His voice, it sounded familiar," Alex stammered, staring at the man's face. "I, his face also… I mean, I don't… I don't understand," Alex muttered, shaking his head.
Corsair was also staring at him in perplexity, his brows furrowed. But there was something in the younger man's face which was also making him realize there was something weird going on here.
"What do you mean that his voice sounded familiar?" Jean asked. The others were still busy watching the two duels going on, but she and her captive joined the trio of men along the wall. The skunk/cat woman as still trying to escape, releasing a cloud of pheromones, but the pheromones were also stopped by the telekinetic field around her.
"I don't know. Something from my past. I…" Alex stammered to a halt, looking even younger than his barely seventeen-year-old self. "He sounds, he sounds almost like my…"
"Oh shit Harry, look at their faces!" Jean sent, suddenly realizing what it was about Corsair that had bothered her. "Their eyes, their jaws, they could be…"
"You're not part of the Imperial Guard, are you?" Corsair asked, staring back at the blonde-haired young man in front of him, not breaking eye contact even as he addressed his question to Harry. "Where the hell do you people hail from?"
"Give us your name, your real name, and I might answer that," Harry retorted, also staring between the two men, and now, seeing what Jean was hinting at. "Christ, he does look a bit like an older Scott, doesn't he? I thought Charles said that Scott's parents had died in some kind of plane crash? Why do I think there was more to it than that?"
"My name's Christopher, Christopher Summers," Corsair said at last. "What's your name, lad?"
"*Gulp*, M, my name's Alex Summers," Alex said, staring at the older man.
By this point, both Hela and her opponent had stopped fighting the words of the small tableau having reached them. James and his opponent were a little further away, unable to hear the discussion over the sounds of their own fight. But Harry sighed and turned to them, shouting out, "Enough." Thrusting out his hands to either side, he used his magic to push the two combatants away from one another, holding the alien still while simply pushing James away from him. "As much fun as you two are having, I don't think there's any more purpose in our fighting, do you?" he questioned, looking back at Christopher.
The older man shook his head, as much movement as he was able to deal with the moment, and Harry released his grip around him, while Jean did the same to the albino cat/skunk woman. "No, there fucking well isn't. I'm not going to fight a group that has my own son as part of it. Though how the hell you all got here is a mystery that I demand an answer to!"
About fifteen minutes later, what little wreckage had been created in the short fight was cleared up. All of the combatants were now seated around the main sitting room, with the massive lizard alien called Ch'od sat in a specially conjured chair from Harry, although the lizard had looked more than a little askance at it as it appeared out of midair. Matter creation like that was almost entirely unheard of in the Shi'ar Empire, or indeed anywhere else.
All of them now had cups of tea or something else in their hands, while Harry spoke. "I realize that this is an emotional moment for you, Alex, and I don't want to interfere in your reunion. But we do still have a mission not see to. We'll stop here in this system for a few hours, but any longer than that will have to wait until after we've dealt with why we're out this far from Earth. For now, I have questions."
"Can you at least tell us first what this mission is?" Christopher Summers rebutted, staring down at his proper American coffee in something like bemused joy. "And do you have actual coffee beans aboard? Or better yet a coffee plant? I swear to God if we're able to figure out a way to transplant coffee out here somewhere and grow it, we would have a massively profitable, stable source of income."
Rolling his eyes, Harry shrugged. "Coffee, yes, but it's all ground. As for the rest, my name is Harry Potter. Through various adventures, I've become the leader of the Earth Defense Force and the Custodes Mundi. The Custodes are made up of various superpowered or highly trained individuals, such as you see all around us. They include other hero teams like the Fantastic Four, the reason why the bird people took an interest in Earth recently. Because the Fantastic Four figured out a way to scare off Galactus."
"You have?!" shouted Ch'od raising his voice for the first time since the pirates had boarded the ship. "That's incredible! And… Ah, I see. That means that you're out here to use this means of scaring them off then?"
"Not exactly. That device is too terrifying to use. That, and we at made an agreement with Galactus that we would never threaten him with it again, or else the agreement with him to never return to Earth would become null and void," Reed replied somewhat apologetically. Although not a lot. The Ultimate Nullifier frightened him, more so now than when he had been merely ignorant about what it did.
Raza snorted incredulously. "And you think you can stop someone that dozens of combat fleets haven't even slowed?"
Harry held up a hand, waving his fingers in creating small sparks of magical light there. "We seem to have access to a certain type of energy and ability that you aliens have either forgotten or never discovered in the first place. Magic."
As he had expected, the last word invoked a snort of derision from all of the aliens, and even Christopher chuckled. But he subsided quickly as he saw that none of his fellow earthborn warriors were doing the same. "You're serious? You're really relying on something you yourselves call magic against a monster like Galactus? That's ridiculous!"
"Magic exists. Or do you have some other means to explain how I can create matter out of nothing, create attack spells, with specific results, and manipulate the very fabric of the energy of the universe around us through imagination and created spells?" Harry retorted.
"… Well, when you put it like that," Christopher mumbled, looking away before throwing his shoulders back and glaring at Harry. "I'm still not happy about you leading my son against Galactus on something like that, though."
"You don't have the right to say that!" Alex flared. "You might be my dad, but you haven't exactly been around, have you? Did you even try to get back to Earth after… well, I suppose you were abducted or something? And…" his anger receded as soon as it came, and the younger Summers brother went on in a softer tone, looking at his father seriously. 'And why don't I think I'm going to like learning about what happened to you or to mom?"
"You're not," Christopher said with a shudder. "But you're right. I don't have a right to say that, I suppose."
"As I said, the two of you can talk about that later. Right now, what do you need that we can provide you, and what information can you provide us?" Harry interjected, trying to get the conversation back on track.
"We need fuel most of all. I wouldn't say no to coffee, or any other delicacies from back home. The food out here is okay, but they don't have anything like coffee that isn't riotously expensive. If you have any trade goods, we could take that off your hands too. In return, we can give you quite a bit of up-to-date information. We can also let you look at the technology of our ship. Although I don't know if that's actually all that necessary. How the hell is this ship so much bigger on the inside than the outside?" Chris demanded.
Hepzibah had not spoken up since the battle had ended, too busy staring around in bemused wonder at that fact. Ch'od also seemed unable to decide if he was disturbed by that, or intrigued. Raze had simply ignored it, concentrating on the crew of the odd vessel rather than its most glaring oddity.
Harry smirked. "I already told you. Magic." The groans from the four pirates at that statement was music to his ears.
Even more sweet was the star charts that the Starjammers transferred over from their ship's computer. It was incredibly detailed, more so than even the Shi'ar's own when it came to the outer edge of their territories and the empty systems within the Empire's environs. It showed which were marked by sensor buoys, which weren't, where there was a black hole that Harry had had no knowledge of before, where trade passed through occasionally, where it didn't, and so forth.
In the long term, It even had information on what Harry had termed the Unclaimed territories months back: smaller polities that had gathered together via mutual borders, to create a kind of defense force against the larger Empires. In the long run, that was precisely the kind of information that Earth needed to try to find real allies out among the stars.
The two ships stayed there for a bit longer than Harry had hoped, having a lot to learn about how the Shi'ar operated from them. Learning about the reason behind Chris's hatred for the Emperor, in particular, was heartbreaking. Learning that the woman was a survivor of the Mephitisoid race that had practically been eaten into extinction was a shock. But these solidified Harry's view of the Shi'ar Empire. Still, that, and what had happened to the swordsman's people were merely examples of the Shi'ar Empire's cruelty. The information on D'ken and how he went about in his private moments from Corsair was actually more critical in terms of planning for his actions in the future.
With all of that, Harry had no problem whatsoever in planning a preemptive strike. But it couldn't be a physical attack, not yet. They would need the help of the Shi'ar, in particular the Imperial Guard, if they wanted to deal with Galactus and his Herald. And Harry was still of the opinion that no race deserved to feel Galactus' deprivations.
Later that day, as Corsair and Alex were taking a break from incredibly emotional discussions, Harry found Alex, and gently touched Alex's shoulder, squeezing once. "I know how you feel, lad," he said, having heard the bare-bones of what Christopher had gone through with D'ken before the two Summers took themselves off for a more in-depth conversation.
Alex looked over his shoulder and nodded once. "Scott told me about a bit of your own past, sir, so I'm not going to argue. But it still hurts. Still hurts to know what happened to my mother. To know that my father was out here all this time, with no way to return home, trying to hurt the man who killed her any way he could, while never able to actually challenge him personally."
Harry nodded, squeezing Alex's shoulder again lightly. "I had thought of asking if you wanted to join the Starjammers?"
"… Maybe after we've dealt with Galactus," Alex said, shaking his head and throwing off that temptation. "I do want to get to know my father more. But I signed up for this mission when asked to volunteer. I'm going to see it through."
Harry nodded firmly, squeezed his shoulder once more. Then without another word, Harry left Alex in the sitting room alone with his thoughts.
While Alex was still trying to come to grips with all he'd been told, Christopher, Harry, and the others laid plans. First, Forge transferred over to the Starjammers' vessel, along with quite a lot of their supplies of extra parts and so forth. With his technopathy, Forge would be able to create weapons that could give the Starjammer the ability to hit well above its weight class, as well as giving their already good shields and engines a tune-up. On the other side of the ledger, he wasn't actually all that good in extracting data from computers without leaving a trail, something that would be part of the first strike that Harry was now planning against the Empire. Both the extraction of information and the planting of something else: a data bomb. A virus so virulent and fast to propagate that it might wipe out every connected system.
Beyond that, the Starjammer vessel would follow the Long Voyager almost to its destination, but then would wait nearby under cloak it's fuel topped up thanks to the hydrogen extraction system aboard the Long Voyager. If the Earthers needed help to get away, the Starjammers would provide it. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that though since if it did, the Starjammers would move from a nuisance to public enemy number one. But it was helpful to have that option. The two ships would meet up again after Galactus was beaten off at a predetermined point, an out of the way solar system set well away from the Shi'ar's own worlds.
But the Starjammers were not willing to help against Galactus themselves. Raza and Hepzibah believed that Galactus was doing the entire galaxy a favor by eating Shi'ar worlds and should be encouraged to do so. Ch'od and Corsair didn't hate the whole Shi'ar race, but even they felt that Galactus was the lesser of the two evils. None were willing to stop the Earthers in their madness, but they wouldn't help.
Eventually, however, everything had been transferred, including Forge, and it came time to go their separate ways.
Christopher and Alex stood together in the hangar bay, the others having left them alone again. For a moment, neither man said anything. Christopher had not thought about his family back on Earth without pain in a long while, and now faced with his youngest son grown into a man? Christopher didn't know whether to be sad he had missed so much, happy at the reunion, proud that Alex was willing to risk his life on something he felt was the right thing, or furious with him for doing so.
Finally, he simply pulled his son into a hug, saying, "Stay safe, son. I just met you again. I sure as hell don't want that to be my only memory of you, all right?"
"Right back at you, old man," Alex quipped, gripping the old man just as tightly. "And I'll see you afterward. No measly little world-eating monster is going to stop me from seeing my Father again now that I know he's still alive."
Christopher laughed at that, and after a moment, the two moved away from one another, Christopher heading back to the Starjammer.
He remained on the bridge of his ship with Hepzibah, watching as the Long Traveler disappeared into hyperspace. "Well… that was unexpected, wasn't it?" he asked, getting chuckles from his crew.
OOOOOOO
Almost immediately after coming out of hyperspace into Chandilar, the Long Voyager's sensors were nearly blinded from all of the signals it was picking up the system was that heavily industrialized. Two gas giants were ringed with hundreds of space stations, mostly small admittedly, but that didn't take away from the sheer number of them. There were even more ships, thousands of ships moving around the system, about a third of which looked as if they were combat vessels. The others were simply in-system supply craft or civilian shipping. Deeper in-system were two planets that looked almost agrarian, but not quite. Large swaths of them had been apparently left in their natural states, but each had what looked like Australia-sized cities corresponding with equally more significant space stations.
The third, their target planet, gleamed in the light of the sun with all the power of a fully industrialized world from one end to the other. "An ecumenopolis," Reed murmured as he looked at the sensor readings. "Interesting. I would not have thought that even a race as psychologically maladjusted as the Shi'ar would go to that extreme."
"It is unnatural, an abomination!" Ororo growled her normal regal air in marked abeyance. "How can people live without at least being able to touch nature."
"I rather think that is why the other two worlds were kept as they are, my dear," Hela answered soothingly.
"More importantly, I think if we intend to make a true spy ship, we will need to find a way to hide the hyperspace bloom. They might not see us, but…" Reed gestured to the tactical hologram, where Harry and the others could see that indeed many of the military vessels were now making their way towards the unknown ship that had suddenly appeared in their midst, far deeper into the system than most could jump. Other vessels sailed serenely on arrogant in the belief that whatever this newcomer was, their defenders could handle it.
Given that they were a single ship, and there was a fleet coming towards them from every direction consisting of at least three hundred vessels, Harry supposed that they were entirely correct. Or they would be usually. Considering the cargo of this vessel, that was not nearly as accurate as they might think, those defenders a rather flimsy barrier to what Jean or Harry could do to them. If those ships spread out, killing them would take longer, but that was all. They weren't a threat at all.
Yet, at this point, Harry was uninterested in any such a grandiose gesture. He already had done something that would overawe the Shi'ar Empire and was preparing for a more personal confrontation. With that thought, Harry gestured to the communications system. "You're on Reed."
Read nodded and leaned into the pickup. "This is the Long Voyager, out of Sol. I am Reed Richards and have come to answer your request for aid against Galactus. Repeat, this is Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. I have come to respond to your request for aid from the Galactus."
The ships came on, but the energy readings on them dampened noticeably a few seconds later. Evidently, someone had been hoping for their arrival, and a corridor opened around them. The open spacelane led towards the massively industrialized world, and a voice came on the intercom. "This is Admiral P'ster. By order of his August Majesty, you are cleared to for orbit over Aerie. From there, you will be escorted down to the ground. You will be searched for weapons before being allowed into the presence of His Imperial Highness. Failure to comply or deviate from this path will be met with deadly force. This is your only warning, barbarians."
Read looked over at Harry, who shrugged his shoulders, looking over to Nikolai, who would be leading the infiltration mission. He just held up his hands, waving them what one side to the other, his voice a drawl. "Look, nothing under my sleeves. With magic, anything is possible. Still, we need to access our ship, so we can't let them sideline it up here."
That won some laughs, and Reed replied to the man in the affirmative so long as they could use their own ship to land. This caused some blustering on the other end, but the Shi'ar official eventually agreed. The Long Voyager, after all, didn't seem to have any kind of docking equipment from what they could see. Or rather, what they were being allowed to see at the moment.
Fifty minutes later, they reached orbit over the planet, having been forced to travel slowly, since the civilian ships in their way had to be shimmied out of their own lanes occasionally. When they arrived, it was clear that they were under the guns of two massive space fortresses, so large each looked as if they could cover an entire continent. "Very different from the ones in the outer system," Reed mused, "I wonder why?"
"One is for refining, the other design for defense, I'd assume," Harry said with a shrug. Reed nodded since that made sense, although he still looked quizzical, staring at the design. Something about them was bothering him, some difference between them and the ones in the outer system, not just their function of the difference in size, but their form. Something about the way they were designed.
The ship hit atmosphere after that, moving slowly now, while the spacestations behind them kept them covered all the way down. That was when Reed realized what had bothered him. The two spacestations were not set up as simple defensive installation or commercial rally points. Underneath, they each had hundreds of small apertures, all of them pointing at the same collection point in space. This meant they were either a single weapon system or some kind of thruster system. And unlike the stations in the outer-system, these are designed to rotate. Some sort of weapon then, a huge one.
Ben piloted them down, a smile on his rocky face as he felt the controls of the ship answering his commands. Ben Grimm had been one of the world's best test-pilots before he and the others had been exposed to the cosmic rays, which had given them their powers. And though he had never really made a big deal of it, a part of Ben had really missed the feel of the controls under his hands like this.
"I want everyone ready for immediate action. Remember what Chris told us. D'Ken's an egomaniac with a high level of paranoia and a severe lack of self-control when it comes to his personal life, something that at times bleeds over into his public persona. He's going to be unpredictable, so be ready for anything. I hope our show of force will be enough to get him to back off and cooperate with us against Galactus, but we can't predict how he will react to losing his strongest guard."
"And if push comes to shove, remember you all have emergency portkeys," Ororo replied. One point the Starjammers and their prisoners had agreed on, which Harry had been rather thankful for as it had backed up his initial thoughts on the matter, was that the Shi'ar Empire had no idea of magic whatsoever. Indeed, Harry suspected that they had wiped out anyone who could have learned how to use magic in generations of culling those among them who dreamed, seeing them as diseased or psychotic. Without imagination, there could be no magic.
The ship was directed to what looked like a private landing area, lined with trees and various bushes, cut to look like the heads of what Harry supposed were prominent figures. It was a little disturbing frankly, to Harry's eyes anyway. And after seeing the looks on those faces, the other humans agreed. "Well, that's one point to the psychologists, the Shi'ar really don't have much in the way of art do they?" Harry quipped. "Landscapes and portraits, that's all. And both ultra-realistic too, rather than stylistic."
At the edge of the landing area was an old man, his face a mass of wrinkles, most noticeably frown lines. His hair was also white, and he moved with what looked like a pair of robotic aid in the form of a pair of exoskeleton-type legs. He seemed to count them off as they exited the Long Voyager, sneering slightly at the odd outfits Harry and the rest wore, seeing no uniformity there. His eyes narrowed as he saw the Thing, but beyond that, none of the group with Harry were armed nor seemed at all threatening.
That seemed to put him at ease, and he nodded brusquely. "I am Advisor T'fas, Minister of Diplomacy. You will come with me."