Owner	Pose
Jean Grey	PREVIOUSLY ON X-MEN Since their pivotal early mission to save humanity from the Brood, the X-Men have been intertwined with Earth's emergence into interstellar affairs... a journey they've shared with the Shi'ar Empire, both as allies and enemies. After Princess Lilandra Neramani's mind found that of Charles Xavier, the Shi'ar helped the X-Men reach the Brood homeworld, but were shocked when the Phoenix Force -- to them a feared goddess of destruction -- re-emerged to possess one of the Earthlings and destroy the threat. A year ago, they came to Earth with an armed task force, nominally in pursuit of the now-exile Princess. In truth, they came to carry out the ambitions of Lilandra's brother, Majestor D'Ken, who sought to access an ancient artifact and cement Shi'ar rule, and his own power, over the the universe. While other heroes fought the Shi'ar fleet above the moon, the Xavier school was attacked and the Headmistress seemingly killed as the power of the Phoenix was ripped from her by a powerful unknown mutant. Again, the heroes rose to the occasion, traveling to the furthest reaches of space to foil the plot and restore their teamate. Recently? Things seemed to be going a bit better. Earth's most powerful super-powered states -- Atlantis, Themyscira, and Wakanda -- joined together with several heroic teams to build the Atlantic Starport, the planet's nascent foray into organized interstellar travel and diplomacy. With Lilandra now ruling the Empire, the Shi'ar were the first alien polity to open formal relations with Earth. The wheels of government are slow to turn, however, and months later the negotiations were still ongoing, with progress steady but slow. Still, it was progress. A path toward peace and cooperation, carefully drawn through the pitfalls of past conflict, legal and cultural gaps, and just a touch of HYDRA espionage. That was all until about a minute ago, when a Shi'ar radical assassinated their own diplomat in the middle of the Starport food court. She proclaimed her actions in the name of Deathbird, another of the always-squabbling royal siblings, Cal'syee Neramani. No peace with lesser races. Only violence and submission... or death! The Starport immediately went into high alert, its Amazon security forces rushing into action to secure critical areas ahead of any further possible attacks. While the assassin herself was badly injured and in custody, it seemed her compatriots (including a yet-unseen but clearly present telepath) had seized the visitor hangar where their ship was docked, and no doubt the vessel itself, its engines powering even as the attack was underway. There are no clear protocols here, for impounding an alien vessel, even if the bay could be retaken quickly enough. Fortunately, as one of the founding teams, the X-Men just happened to have their own hangar at the Starport, with their own shiny-new space-capable Blackbird, the prototype SR-X. Of course, it was loaded with all kinds of barely-tested tech, some of it on loan from the Shi'ar themselves. Would it work? Could any of it be trusted? There's no time to find out, like the present.
Emma Frost	And along with the others that are going towards it is Emma Frost. Her own failures to notice anything amiss had lead to this. She had been too distracted playing her little games and someone had died for it. They'd been taken by surprise and outplayed by an enemy in space. Who knew what the consequences would be for her failure? The least she could do was get her revenge by digging her proverbial mental claws into the freaks that had done it and bring them back to slowly have their brains drained.     Emma is running up and over along with the group to the latest model of the X-Jet, teeth chattering from the sudden change in temperature as she slides to one of the passenger seats. Once there, she's going to immediately start to snap on the restraints to hereslf to anchor hereslf in place. They're in it for the long haul now. A nd that means it's going to be a very bumpy ride up and out. Setting in hard and moving to quickly setup a mindlink amongst the members of the team that were scrambling and rallying over to start to relay information along.
Alison Blaire	Alison doesn't like space. Not a fan at all. She wasn't lured on the mission, there was no coersion or promises other than 'it's safe'. By people she trusts... so she'd come to this spaceport with the assurances she wasn't going to have to do anything other than look cute for diplomats from the Shi'ar. Which she takes very seriously! Wearing something stylish, but functional in the form of pants suits, because these functions always end up requiring her to do a lot of walking and the kinds of dresses she wears aren't meant for much walking at all. Like her shoes. Which are not comfortable in the slightest.. or her hair, which is all pinned up with tressled bangs. She's got on her makeup, her dangly earrings, and a winning smile. Until the alarms go off. ''The did the thing to the person!'' There's more to it, lots of details. But Alison has a pretty good idea what's about to happen... Head hanging as she makes her way towards the Blackbird now fit for SPACE FARRING. "We're going to god damn space aren't we?" Yes, yes they are. She's holding onto the seat with a white knuckled grip, eyes closed and an expression that bleeds ''this is bullshit.''
Tabitha Smith	Soon as it was safe to do so Tabby was in the SR-X hangar sending messages to the school for help at the spaceport cause she's just horrible at saving lives sometime. Then she had to wait impatiently for people to show up. At least she could clean herself up and takes something for the headache that came from being psychically flashbanged. Those that do make it finding a blonde in a pair of beat up old bluejeans, clunky workboots in a dull scuffed up yellow. A sensible blue worksirt that actually covers most of her upper half with sleeves rolled up, That mane of hair bound up into a bun and then hidden under a backwards worn ballcap with XAVIERS printed on it. Her yellow tinted glasses on her nose. While Emma might be getting her seatbelt on and being a bit better about relaying what happened over the mindlink than Tabby might currently be capable as she shakes off the dulling of her telepathy. The young blonde whom is seriously considering launching the ship herself to the abject terror of anyone that realises this. Bad guys getting away.
Rogue	Rogue wasn't there when the shit went down, she was here in the hangar, familiarizing herself with this new version of the Blackbird. It is larger, it is more modern, and it is more... alien. Ew. Okay, well, she kinda likes it too. But still! Once things had hit a high level of alert, Rogue had already gone inside the craft to check the comms and its computers that were linked to the Starport. She communicated with Jean, who was telling her what was going down. "We'll be ready to go." Rogue had said back. And sure enough, the Belle in her green and gold, bomber jacket worn over the formfitting bodysuit, and her sunglasses worn over her green, eyes, the Space Jet is ready to roll, its systems already on with its engines on standby. When people start to settle in, Rogue looks back over her shoulder. "Everyone get ready, this thing is gonna have a kick to it..." She'll warn. MEre moments later, the twin engines start up, their exhaust panels flexing, as the interior mechanisms begin to wind up! A green glow starts to form behind the engines, as the hull of the Blackbird rumbles with the vibrations of life humming through the ship. "Oh yeah... purr for me, lil baby." The Belle mutters while adjusting controls i nthe cockpit. "We're set to go!" She announces just moments later, her covered eyes sweeping over the displays before her.
Michael Erickson	Michael is not a model Imperial citizen - not anymore anyway, if they even count him among them. But he loves his country and his people, and knows all too well the woman into which the assassin of the Imperatrix's chosen ambassador serves. Too many times he has faced the rebels of the hated prodigal sister of the royal line, and too many times has he been in the same situation. Cleaning up that woman's all too literally bloody mess.     And so now he finds himself in the modified Blackbird, in suit and tie still with Jessica in a passenger seat. "I've been training Agent Drew in space operations," he calls up to the cockpit. "She can be of great assistance if we need to board - or man weapons systems. I can, of course, leave the ship and fight alongside in my armor."     For once, the Raptor might actually be cooperative, given he's serving the Empire's direct interests here. Or it might be another battle of iron wills. His, at least, is yet stronger still.
Jessica Drew	Jess kicks off her shoes and hikes up her skirt to join the stream of Xavier personnel running toward their ship. Grumbling to herself about dressing up for diplomatic events on one level. But, she also keeps close tabs on Michael, SHIELD's Shi'ar asset, as she is among the last to hit the ramp and find a seat to strap into. Space suits and weapons will come next, she promises herself.
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie got the word while at the school and Zeta beam and then a quick blast around the outside of the station to the hanger, has Sam scampering on board while the engines are revving. He find a place near the back of the ship, just in case they need an extra booster rocket.
Jean Grey	Jean is not here, with her many many jobs, but back in the city. Not even up in Salem, but down in New York proper, handling something at one of the various foundations that Charles supports. Often as not these days, she handles those little details. Still, she is patched in to their communication, getting both an alarm alert, and then an actual message from Rogue. Rogue might NOT want to relay the first few words she shares over the comm, as they're... a little less than teacher-ly. "This is the last thing we need. Well, you're in charge. I'll see what I can do from here." Does she envision that she'll actually NEED to do something from down on the surface? That could bode ill! With the X-Men and their now somewhat familiar turnfeather Shi'ar guest (complete with SHIELD escort) all aboard, the SR-X's launch sequence soon starts to initiate. At the same time, they can tune into the Starport secure communications as well, which are blaring their own manner of information to the various Super-Teams representated at the installation. There's an element of confusion, perhaps because of the coordination between different groups, or perhaps just because this is all quite unprecedented: "Shi'ar vessel approaching outer shield." "Turrets have deployed. Do we fire?" There's no immediate answer to that. Even among people as familiar with war as the Amazons, there is a great hesistation to be the voice that gives the order, the finger that carries it out, that might re-start an interstellar war.
Emma Frost	Buckled down over, Emma Frost would make her straps tight and then go to purse her lips. Going to send a mental message over to the turret operators <<Standby. Engaging in pursuit. Firing upon a diplomatic vessel will lead to difficulties. We'll recover it intact and bring it back for analysis>> Well, that and the madness of them going to be chasing an alien courier ship through space in their own new, mostly untested craft that had more systems thrown together than one of the US Navy's Stealth Boats.     Hopefully they wouldn't fail just as spectactularly - at least without enough subcontractors to be paid in full for life.     "Get ready for launch. WE're only going to have one shot at this." TO prevent the Shi'Ar from retlaiating for this. Or for the Shi'Ar to take to chaos admist themselves.
Alison Blaire	"Come to the spaceport and wear nice clothes, they said." Alison buckles herself into one of the seats... then reaches over and closes the little portside window. She doesn't want to see out there. She takes several deep bretahs and grabs hold of the arm rests to make sure she's not launched out of the... something.. Too many Star Trek movies tell her that there's going to be a hull breach and the people in red shirts are going to die. And she wore a red dress. That probably counts... "It's not too late to let the professional space people handle this, you know? We can go drink some wine.. I'll sing.. nobody has to go into space."
Tabitha Smith	Luckily more experienced pilots can be found and someone had the sense to tell Tabby to sit down, and strap in. Which she actually does just in time for Rogue to punch it and launch the bird. There's a grin over at Alison who might not be enjoying herself but if anything. The roaring of the ship taking of is probably not the most soothing way to power Dazzler up. "Once you get past the fact Space Air smells like farts. Space is awesome! Unbound performance opportunities Ali!" she clearly has a differing opinion from the musician. Once the launch is happening and the ship is hitting all those G-Forces. Boom-Boom grips the edge of her seat's arm rests and wears a straining but giddy grin. There's a grin as Sam hunkers down in back. "We are the Professional Space People this time!" "WOOOOOOOOOOO!" she lets out loudly. "Spaaaaaaccce is AWWWWWWWEEEEESOMMME!" and this is even with the fact that she can't, by meaning she should not use her powers. No air or anything to convert into plasma outside. Limited space inside.
Rogue	With everyone settled in, Rogue has the Jet's entry ramp closed and sealed. The Jet takes only a second longer to lift up off of the hard deck, and it begins to taxi toward the mouth of the hangar, with its long pointed nose angling downward ever so slightly. The Southern Belle is listening to the comm chatter from the Starport, and the words coming from her crew aboard with her. She speaks in to the comms to the Tower to let them know that the XBird is launching out of their team hangar, then the Jet does just-so. The light from outside fades in through the forward viewports, and Rogue can hear the chatter behind her. "Think of it this way, Dazzler. Space is closer to us right now, than New York is..." She says with her eyes forward while guiding the ship out of the hangar's mouth, and over the calm waters of the deep blue sea beyond! "The fleeing ship hasn't passed the shield dome of the Port yet." Rogue announces. "We can still potentially disable it before it can get out there. I need someone up here on the gimball gun!" She calls out, using her right hand to point to the station where the turret controls are located. A large holo display feeds the range of motion, the relevent target tracking systems, and other viewing options such as IR and more. "Settle in there, I'll send you the Starport information on the Alien ship. The sensors are set to White is Hot!" Rogue adds before the engines of the Blackbird start to come online, and push the vessel forward at a kick of speed, Rogue pulling hard to the port to send it turning around in the sky over the Starport itself!
Jessica Drew	Strapped in and powerless as alarms blare, Jessica's hands clench on the armrests till her knuckles whiten. Her green eyes roam the craft, looking for weapons and lockers with spare suits. The lighted control panel in the cockpit winks enticingly at her as she tries to parse the use of the different toggles and handles that she can see from her angle. Amused at the other's reactions, the agent lays her head back and smiles faintly to herself and then looks over at Michael who has years of space experience. "You or me on the gun, Michael? I've trained but you have the hours on things like that." Initial acceleration pushes her back into the seat, giving her the now familiar feeling of blood draining from her head that she learned on the training centrifuge. SHIELD had pulled out the stops and set up a training facility to rival NASA's. Sipping breathes she watches black dots dance in front of her eyes, obscuring a clear view of what is going on in the cockpit. She adds more questions to those nagging her. Will they need to use the guns?
Jean Grey	As the Blackbird clears the bay the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean opens before it, with the gleaming structure of the Starport in the rear. The Shi'ar ship has arced round, rather than taking a clear-shot out, so they'll have to turn into pursuit. Ahead, even as a small diplomatic shuttle, it's main hull is larger than the Blackbird, with two wing-pylons that extend out to large engine nacelles, giving it several times the breadth. It continues ahead, gaining speed. And while the Atlantic Starport personnel are hesitant to start a war, the people aboard the Shi'ar ship... have exactly that goal. Approaching the shield boundary quickly, it begins firing its forward weapons, pulses of bright light causing watery ripples in the air ahead where they connect. Even Wakandan tech still fails to achieve the advancement of its alien counterparts, but the size of the installation (and the massive Atlantean power generators beneath the surface) gives it a lot of power, compared to the little ship. At first, it seems like it won't be able to punch through quickly enough, and maybe this will be a short mission. Except that a moment later, there's an explosion on the side of the Starport below nearest to the fleeing ship. More sabotage? It fires again, and those ripples through the shield spread wider, wider, and then... open to the air beyond. Although Emma's directive had convinced them to hold fire until now... it falls apart now. The Amazons revere peace, but are always prepared for war. And when action is taken against them? Out the port side windows, they can see the turrets swing out into position down below... and then start to fire. Soon the air ahead is a full-on lightshow. Here, though, although some hits cause the shuttle's own shield bubble to shimmer into existence, the power differential seems to skew the other direction. Earth Weapons? Still puny! While all this is happening, aboard the Blackbird, two of the passengers are privy to alternate... 'aspects' of what is happening. Emma, for one, feels a familiar mind at work. It isn't looking for her, but rather communicating with someone else nearby. It's the same thing she or Jean does for the X-Men, nearly every mission: Coordinating, no doubt with whatever saboteurs were left behind at the port. And then there's Michael, in his suit, talking about armor. He hears something else. Not for the first time, but perhaps more clearly than it's often been. A rush of... thought? Speech? Words? Data. Vast. All encompassing. Strangely elegant, almost musical. It is hard for him to quite comprehend it, maybe a bit overwhelming, but he will start to feel a shape to the data-notes, to the larger composition. A discussion. Debate? Evaluation and consideration.
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie is perhaps more accustomed to the Gs than anyone else around. He is braced for it, and waits for it to lessen to start to move towards one of the cargo lockers and looks over to Tabby, "Hey this time maybe Ah won't have to threaten to blow up a planet." He offers to her, in response to their trip saving James. He then looks up towards the cockpit, and says "Just let me know if we need to deploy fighters."
Michael Erickson	"Take the gun if they'll let you," Michael advises Jessica as he jumps up out of his seat, making for the exit hatch. "I just need you to get the aft shields down - Rogue! I'm gonna get out there and see if I can't open that can enough to keep it from being spaceworthy." Even as he says this, his body shudders with a film of violet light - and, in an instant, his body is replaced with an armored anatomical model with long eagle's talons jutting from sculpted fingers as it turns the activation lever.     He chose to turn his back on his honor to save mutant children and the vessel of the Phal'kon. He won't do it again to aid the Prodigal.     But now, there are voices. He must fight them. No. He will be the master.
Emma Frost	Emma Frost would go to try and focus over as she picks up the mind aboard the fleeing craft. "They have a telepath with them. A good one. They're acting as coordinator.>> She would go to hold on and think. "Tabitha, I'm going to be cycling you into this. When we link up wiht them I'm going to need you to go to full aggressive mode to see if we can break through. WE want to try and disorient them as much as posible before they can get out far enough of system to jump."     THe exact mechanics of FTL were beyond Emma, but she would assume when they got far enough out of the gravity well they would be able to get ou tof the Sol System, and then vanish.     Going to psionically pick up the other 'mind' coordinating, Emma would steel herself. Now time to -properly- get acquainted. Emma waits for Tabitha to join her over.. Then Emma's going to try and simply then take along the consciousness to start to give a 'hello world' exchange of simple sheer brute force.
Alison Blaire	Alison would have rather stayed on the ground. Is the rattling of the ship and the sounds of the engines charging her up? Could she, in theory, shoot lasers through a window? Yes, that is an affirmative. Is she going to willingly open the window to do that? All signs point to no. Tabitha's excitement is noted. With a glower from Ali. "You're way too excited about this. You realize that all that stands between us and the all consuming void of-" Well it's not space yt, but she can feel the engines rumbling. She closed the window so she could continue to be generally upset about the whole ordeal. Out of sight, out of mind. "-... engines. I don't know, just relax, you're making me nervous." Then Rogue opens her big stupid mouth. "Thanks, Rogue for that bit of astrophysical wisdom that didn't do anything to make me feel better."
Tabitha Smith	Tabby finds an earpiece and looks out the cockpit windshield. "Good thing is, We aren't in space." she reassures the blonde killing it in the red dress. While pursuit is still mostly in atmosphere Tabby gets some risky Tabiness on and unclasps her harness and almost regrets it as she climbs up and out of her seat till she can find a few things. Some rope and a harness to wear. "While I'm tag teaming the opposing telepath with Emma, Rogue If you get us close enough I can BOOM out their engines if Mike and his lovely friend can't get a clear shot. Cannonballa! How big a blast shield can you get these days?" she communicates into the earpiece communicator for now with her full powers mostly back on track. A sweeping hand an a mental image of the SR-X flying shielded like Sam himself. "If I miss we can always just ram them! Last resort but Sam's shields should keep us airborn?" she indicates playing demolition derby with the Shi'ar ship they chase. <<Emma, gonna start by trying see if we can make their pilot invert his controls and then make him 'Pull up'?>> by that she means trick them into diving the plane down into the ocean.
Rogue	With the Starport opening fire, the Aliens opening fire, there's a lot for Rogue to take in through the viewport, and her readouts. When the shield pops in front of the alien craft, the Belle adjusts course and speaks over the comms. "ATS: I'm going to need you not to blast a hole in my backside as we pursue this thing. Just keep your skies clear if it circles back!" With that said, the throttle is pushed forward and the X-Bird is on course toward the alien ship at high speeds now. "Gunner, we're going to see how fast they are, and if we can't beat them to where they're going. I'd like to get ahead of them, and then see if we can't use our special talents to bring them down. Try to hit their engines as much as you can, but their shields are probably stronger than our gun is!" The Blackbird's hull shakes as the engines pour on more speed, with the intent to pass the Shi'ar ship by on its port side. "Tabitha, Alison... if you can get to the entry hatch, maybe bathe that damn thing in light, and bombs... we might have a shot of takin' them down before they get to space!" She glances back at Michael, and his armor. "You... do whatever it is you do!" The Belle adds before looking forward again, her left hand clutching the flight yoke between her thighs as she keeps them on course that the AI system is feeding her computer.
Jessica Drew	Buckle undone, Jess hesitates long enough to get Michael's answer. He is never separate from the suit and she expects he will play a pivotal role in the upcoming show down. The light glowing over the Starport shield as it goes down, galvanizes Jessica out of her seat. Keeping a careful grip on the backs of other seats, she pulls herself forward into the cockpit, relying on her mutant strength until she plops into the gunner's seat. "Copy that, Rogue. Target engines." The agent brings up the targeting HUD and positions it in front of her eyes. While she waits for the computer to acquire the target, she grasps the firing control that swivels the laser. "Rogue, not the way I pictured meeting you again. Laser is up, warm and ready to fire!" Outside a spectacular lightshow spells the end of the Wakandan shield.
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie looks over and says "Ah aint sure, if Ah can cover the whole ship, but Ah am pretty sure, Ah can blast right through the middle of their ship." He offers with a smile and looks over to Tabby, and Allison, "Miss Dazzler, Ah promise Ah won't drop you, if you want to fly Air Guthrie, and and see just how strong oh blasts you can do from the roar of my field. " He waits near the hatch way himself, waiting to see if Allison or Tabby wants to join him EVA.
Michael Erickson	Whatever it is he does - for a moment that's hesitating at the hatch, listening to the voices that blow through his mind once he realizes it isn't possession that's being attempted, but a distant meeting of synthetic voices. He twists the door handle and opens it to an inrush of cold air, and then, without ceremony, leaps out into the sky as the hatch seals shut behind him once more. Vanelike wings extend from his arms, razor-sharp and gleaming, and like a red angel he is propelled toward the fleeing shuttle on invisible currents of exotic particles and aetherial motors somewhere within the biomechanical complex of this body that he rides from deep within the jewel-fruit in which his own body slumbers, far away in the wilds of the ancient Void.     Extruded from the substance of his thigh, the ancient heirloom blaster of his family meets his grip as he reaches for it - and, though it is no sword, it aims to bite into the shields of the departing shuttle. It is no naval cannon, but the bright white lances of plasma that are spat from its muzzle are powerful yet, the weapon as powerful as field rifles in the days of his celebrated ancestor. It has lost little of its potency.     << Approaching target, >> he calls over comms frequencies the body knows on instinct to touch. << If we can get the shields down I can attach myself to the hull and hopefully tear it open, let the laser and the rest of you do enough damage to force it down. I doubt they'll give up on their own! >>
Jean Grey	One thing true about both vessels is that, even in the atmosphere, they're very, very fast. Once that hole is open in the shields and the Shi'ar vessel doesn't have to 'circle' the Starport, it angles to make a clear run and is... through in seconds. Beyond that bubble, the vastness of the ocean opens up, and the sky above it, all of it whipping by at incredible velocities as the Starport falls away. They're in the middle of the ocean, but they could be back in New York in under an hour. That said, for the Shi'ar ship, this is actually an area of slight limitation in the battle of alien vs Earth. Rogue will start to realize as much as their pursuit gains on the other ship, albeit gradually. After all, for the Shi'ar, space is the norm and atmospheric operation a 'secondary' function. Meanwhile, the SR-X is a modernized prototype of arguably the greatest aircraft in history, one that held the manned airspeed record for nearly 50 years. It's built to move. Emma makes contact with the enemy telepath, 'saying hi' in a very direct and forceful manner. She'll feel the secondary connections sever, although it's not clear if that's her doing or a consequence of increasing distance. Still, she's closer to that other mind. There's something familiar in it, but something also not. It's also quite hostile, as her forceful 'entrance' to the party is met with a matching kind of 'shove' trying to drive her back, although it doesn't fully succeed. Within the ship, at the same time, there's a great roar of wind as one of the external hatches is briefly opened. It's actually pretty terrifying, probably close to what Alison is imagining in terms of Sci-Fi movie 'sucked out the airlock' scenarios, except, well, with air still outside. Advanced engineering keeps the ship from ripping apart from the aerodynamics, but even Rogue feels a bit of a 'bump' from the added friction. Outside, Mike's armored form closes with the ship, firing several blasts that make big shimmering 'splashes' against the shield. Individually, it's at the same tech level. But... it's still a handgun against the craft, and at this point, they've outdistanced the Starport turets to add their own saturation of fire. He does, however, witness something very curious. The Shi'ar ship, free of the shields, starts to pull up. Toward, well, space, as everyone imagined would soon happen. But it also ejects something first. Well. Two somethings, both metallic. One starts to fall back toward them, closing toward Michael (and increasingly, as they get close to each other, looking... like a copy of him). The other streaks ahead, smaller, more sleak, but wreathed in the glow of its own rear engine. This one banks off, keeping level while the Shi'ar ship climbs. Its trajectory is clearly back toward the landmass they all know is several hundred miles off in that direction.
Emma Frost	What's now is push and shove in the astral plane as the target is going further away. Then the Blackbird is catching up. Emma goes to focus, and at Tabitha's suggestion goes to let the girl go on full attack mode at the pilot while Emma works at trying to bludgeon over at the defending telepath. Emma goes to try and setup a network to let Tabitha keep up her own merry form of distracting trauma while trying to invert the pilot's sense of controls and stability. Just to invert hte Y, X, and Z axises and spin them around quite mad and merrily. Just enough to hopefully slow them down and make them an easier target for the boarding operation.     The smaller craft ejecting from the larger one is ignored for now. The others can handle it. Emma goes to as she lets Tabitha assault the pilot to try and engage the telepath. Emma goes to try and use the sensation of space itself as a weapon. The void. Nothingness. No sound. No light. No sensation. For atmospehric based creatures, everything depended on the line of sight of the planetary horizon for perspective. Part of the psychological quirk of why ships always rotated 'up' in combat was related to this. E ven for things which had spaceflight for tens of thousands of years. Still evolutionary perhaps.     Emma goes to try and ecompanss them in eternal nothingness. Cut off from everything. no sound. No sight. Emptiness. Cold. The void.
Alison Blaire	BEFORE Space? Alison unhooks herself from the chair and practically runs towards entry hatch. Stumbling around, catching herself, and looking like an extra from Battlestar Galactica, she grabs hold of the hatch breeze-way and levers herself into position. All the while absording ample amounts of noise polution from the rattling bulkhead with the power radiating from those massive pulse drives. Or whatever. She's no scientist. Maybe they're regular old combustable or something. It doesn't matter. If she can keep them from going to space, it might as well just be another day at the, relatively landbased, office. In high-heels. And a pants suit. "Tabi! Hold me while I'm Chargin' my lasers!" The hatch is thrown open and, god bless that's a lot of wind... Provided BoomBoom grabs her, Alison puts her life in the blondes hands and rears her hands back, then throws them forward. A set of ten lasers errupting from each of her fingertips towards the portside of the Shi'ar ship! "No space! We don't wanna go to space!" Speaking for everyone. To Sam, from the hatch... She shakes her head rapidly, "No, no I'm good.. I learned my lesson with flying. Look at this pants suit, does it look like an airsuit?" She does grin his way and waves him to do his cannonball like things, while she spews lasers at a ship so they don't go to space. "Just don't let it get to space."
Jessica Drew	Gimbals whine as Jess makes micro adjustments to her aim and depresses the button on the control stick. Ruby light, fifty times brighter than the midday sun streaks toward the fleeing Shi'ar ship, the Rayleigh phenomenon broadens the beam as she misses her first attempt. Frowning, she bites her lip, readjusting until the laser paints the ships engines. Other streaks of light join her own. "Rogue, do we have a rear array of guns?" "What did they just drop out of the craft?" she asks tensely. On the HUD, the main target sprouts secondary blips. On a hunch, she changes targets, "Reorienting to the secondary blip heading toward the Starport." She depresses the button, hoping that her hunch is wrong.
Tabitha Smith	Tabby has at least a couple safety harnesses ready. One for Alison and one for herself as they find a hatch. The younger of the blondes grinning to Dazzler playfully. "There's people who would pay good money to see us in ropes and harnesses." she states. She's not quite so fast on dangling herself out the hatch yet. As part of a redundancy, tabby makes sure she and  Alison are linked via rope and carabine to each other and separapate to the Blackbird so if one line goes, the othet will hold. Once Alison is charging and lining up her shots, the Tabby holding on for extra redundancy gets on with her other task. Her mind pushing out to try and break into the opposiing mind link. The mental image of Tabby on their view screen, hands waving up and down and left and right. Like a the Three Stooges and an impending eyepoke. Even some taunting shakes of her shapely backside at the escapees. Birds flipped and a few other gestures she might have learned from friendlier Shi'ar citizens and Imperial Guard. Boom-Boom daring them to turn and fight insteadd of run. Whether or not it's even picked up, there is a telepath on that other ship that could just block her entirely. She's pushinbg energy that should have been for bombs behind the psychic intrusion attempt. While she's not an experienced telepath she might be able to do a brute force attack as a distraction from someone much more surgical like Emma Frost. And if Tabby gets through she's planning to take hold of the pilot's hands and force them to make their ship dive to the ocean. Or maybe the other craft that seems to have taken flight. For now she has two jobs. Hold Ali which some people might dream about. Tabby's best life right now. And mess with minds on another plane.
Rogue	"Yeah. shame we can never just get a milkshake together, or somethin'. Paris was nice though!" She tells Jessica while the Agent mans the turret gimball. "We don't have a aft cannon, no, this is just a Recon transport..." Rogue further states while gritting her teeth at the extra shakiness brought on by all the unplanned-for activity at the aft of the vessel. "We're gainin' speed on them!" Rogue announces before her sunglasses-covered eyes take in the sight of the two objects being ejected from the Alien-craft. "Cannonball! We got a payload dumped, and headed west toward home! Can you intercept it!?" She calls out before she reaches to the comm-channel to signal Jean again, shooting off a quick message to the team leader back in the city... All the while, the Belle is continuing to bring the X-Bird up along the portside of the Shi'ar vessel, while trying to out-pace them so that Alison and Tabitha have some targets to fire their ire at!
Michael Erickson	No. No, no no no no no--     Michael braces within his void-sealed tomb, the machine that he rides firing off a hail of plasma bolts toward not the escaping shuttle but the shape that falls toward him - like him, in ways, but also not. Every Raptor, after all, is different.     << Raptor, Raptor, >> he calls over comms as the weapon is absorbed by his body and his winged arms now cross in a forest of blades as he alters course to intercept it. << Brace for potential impact, Blackbird. I am moving to intercept. >>     It's a heroic display, truly, his gleaming armored figure moving with confidence toward the incoming danger. But he alone knows the ugly, ugly truth: he may ride a body of the great and terrible Raptors of the Empire's ancient history, shadows of destruction, but most of its powers are barred to him. He meets what is likely a fully capable veteran in the air, made of centuries, while he is but a year within the suit himself. But he is Shi'ar. He is Cal'hatar of Chandilar, prodigal himself of an ancient house that is celebrated despite its smallness. He will be victorious, or it will destroy him. There will be no hesitation or quarter given.     The though does come to him in a fleeting moment on approach, however: fitting if he were to die in the air, winged as his ancestors once were...
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie nods, a bit and lowers his goggles, and steps over to the doorway and just falls back out it saluting the ladies as he goes. Once out of the plan he kicks in he blastfield, and while not as loud as the two crafts his field lets out a roar, and he is off. He looks over at the big ship they are chasing and then battle that Michael seems to be engaging in and "Tag your it." He says and he will press himself, going faster and faster as he tries to reach the smaller craft. None seemed to want to take to the air with him so he is off "Doing my best." He says over the coms.
Jean Grey	The Shi'ar vessel's shields can handle a lot. The multitude of turrets from the Starport, and, not surprisingly, the single and relatively low-power weapon that the Blackbird mounts. Michael's fancy space pistol. Which should put Alison's abilities into perspective. It's a perfect storm for her, with the roar of the Blackbird's engines, of the turbulent air. And when she releases that multibeam barrage, the shuttle's shield lights up in a dozen (ok, in exactly ten) places. Whether its the raw output or the multiple simultaneous impacts or some combination, the array can't quite seem to handle it all. Not everyone will recognize the tell-tale change as it shorts and fades (the shield is invisible when nothing is hitting it, so it's hard to know its gone!), but the Blackbird sensors will show it, as will Mike's visor. Nothing blows up on the ship, though. So who knows exactly how long that will last! The psychic battle occurs elsewhere. Literally figuratively? With Tabitha joining in, it's two on one. Although distracting the pilot puts things back to two versus two, in a sense, although only the other telepath is really participating. As the distance closes, both figuratively and literally, the astral duel becomes more engulfing. They see a starship bridge, hazy and translucent, with a command chair filled by an equally hazy figure, but also an alien landscape, with strange plants, strange trees, and an orange-purple sky. A chalk-skinned figure stands between them, active and fully present. She, clearly, stands as a bulwark from the pilot, with Tabitha's images flickering onto the monitors of the imagined bridge but then fading back, or the screens overgrowing with that alien foliage. Jess can probably retarget to take a last potshot at the large (but much smaller than the ship) projectile, but Rogue's right about the limited fire-arcs of the Blackbird weaponry. And they're really not set up this! The good news is that, compared to the two hypersonic craft, it's a bit slower. Well, maybe that's good. Maybe it's REAL BAD. Jean is on the comm, communicating with Rogue. "What's the trajectory... crap, if it was heading for New York, I could try to get it, but that'll be a ways south." So it's probably good that Sam is chasing it, although even as he accelerates, there's a question: will it be fast enough? Finally, there's Michael's new friend. Or old friend, maybe. The two approach, as if in a joust. Michael can hear it again, although it's unclear if the flow of data is truly for him, or if he's just eavesdropping. <<OPPOSITION: BROTHER-NOT-BROTHER. WEAKNESS. FALL. THE MAJESTRIX. A NEW ORDER.>> And then, as they meet in the air, his fears are made true as it's greater access to their shared power manifests two weapons. One arm forms a cannon, the other, sprouts a glowing blade. Agile in the air, it is the latter that is swung against Michael as they near and it twists to try and pass, seeking an angle... ...so that it may fire a powerful enerfgy blast from the former, aimed at the Blackbird itself. And besides all of this, another fact remains, edging every nearer: that thing about them being a ton closer to space than home. It's weird to think about, but 'up' really doesn't go as far as people think. The stratosphere is 7 miles up. Commercial jets operate up there, and you'd need oxygen to survive. They've already passed that, and the Blacbird will start to register the drop in pressure as the hatches remain open. True 'nothing'? You could make it up there in under an hour in your CAR (well, if you could drive your car straight up). It might take them a minute or two.
Emma Frost	The joys of being a telepath, even as the chasing ships go out into the atmosphere an dnear the bridge of escape into the void and to space, is the ability to dissassociate oneself. Telepathy involves pressing one's mind and consciousness into extremely different circumstances and scenarios. So the necessity to be flexible and adaptive is ingrained. So as they go to what might be nearly Zero-G she's hardly phased.     As the telepathic engagement goes on, Emma goes to focus on that, trusting in the others to handle teh flying, the boarding operations.. She maintains teh mental network amongst the group, the loose sharing of information going back and forth to ensure they're all up to date. She's not engaging in so much the small details and the specifics just as they are in chaotic combat, where micro-seconds count. Anything that distracts focus is bad.     So as the Blackbird bucks as they darta long the line into space, Emma goes to give another mental -push- into the alien consciuosness. Seeing the glade of trees (?) and an alien landscape has her file it away for later. Emma goes for a different attempted attack. WHile keeping up her engagementw ith the pilot and the telepath, Emma goes to try and bombard the telepath with the trees, with the forest.. Burning.     Fire, flaming. Chainsaws. THe Amazon being pillaged. Emma goes to reach down her consciousness to bcak on Earth, pulling up impulses and thoughts from clearcutters in the rainforest and moves to pull up and try and shove those thoughts into the telepath. To the crew on the bridge. At this distance, it would be incredibly straining and disoirenting, and not something she could keepup for more than a few seconds without passign out. but hopefully a complete attack like that out of nowhere would be more effective than a duel of skill.
Alison Blaire	It's impossible to know precisely how effective her lasers were, but Alison fires them anyways. Inwardly, she wishes it was to do something good, bring the assassins to justice... and perhaps some of it is about that, but there's another part too: She really doesn't want to go to space. It's not even as simple as a phobia, though that would be the easist way to explain it. The beams hit the shielding and Alison feeds off the constant sound around her, from the engines, tot he howling wind. It's all food for her inherent weaponry. Thanks to Tabby holding her in place, whether or not anyone would pay to see it, she's kept firmly in position. Until the battery starts to run a little dry and it's left to other, more capable hands, to finish the vessel off. The blonde collapses backwards, thankful for the teather keeping her in position when she very nearly loses her footing and slips. That would have been incredibly awkward; all that fear of space and then she falls out of the Blackbird before they ever clear atmo? "Don't tell anyone." She murmurs to Tabby, whom she's holding onto for dear life right now.
Tabitha Smith	The telepath and the pilot. Verus the White Queen and Boom-Boom. Herself jumping from place to place on the shared telepathic battlle grounds. The attacks Tabby makes to distract and beat down her opponents taking thr form of those bombs of her's. The blue aura of her powers behind her actual eyes matching the psychic flames that she throws around and directs like an anime missle swarm. Loud on the brain and designed to keep her opponents agitated. The bridge appearing to take blasts, then burning the imaginary astral forest while the younger of the blondes runs rampant in the field of view of their minds' eyes. It's diffucult to maintain two separate psychic fronts and pay attention to reality. Luckily she had herself mostly doing the autonomic stuff like holding onto Dazzler when she wobbles and collapese back. "Next time we really should go on a date before we tie each other up" she whispers and winks at the performer. That's when she focuses back on the telepathic fight. Though she does keep a real ear out ready to lay down some of her own real BOOM if needed. She just needs a bit more proximity closed up for her own powers compared to the lasers of awesome. The migraines from all this and the dwindling air because she didn't grab any oxygen masks is going to leave her wiped when they land.
Rogue	DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER The oxygen inside the X-Bird is getting gradually pulled out of the open airlock more and more, causing Rogue to sweep her eyes over to the system HUD before her right side. "I get it, I get it!" She tells the computer before finally a blinking light gets her attention, and the Belle reaches over and taps it. It is then that a sudden blast of white and blue light surrounds the air lock, and a shimmering energy field builds itself out from the edges of the airlock, until it comes together with a bright 'snap' of light. ATMOSPHERE SEAL ENGAGED "Oh, so... that's what that ... does..." Rogue mutters. "I hadn't read that far in the manual yet..." She adds before she looks back over her shoulder. "WE should be good, I think we're sealed in now!" She tells the others in the back who have been likely terrified of getting sucked out through the open hatch. Looking ahead once more, the Belle calls out again. "We're coming up on the Von Karman Line quickly! Get ready to be astronauts!" She kicks the ship around just a little until she can get them up along the Shi'ar vessel again, and with another flip of a switch, some very loud German Death Metal starts to play in the passenger compartment, and hatch hair, for Alison's benefit. "Let'em have it, Dazz!" Rogue depresses the comm again for Jean. "Alien shuttle pod, probably 10 to 15 minutes out, depending if they hold speed and course. Hard to tell precisely where they're headed. I'm sending the info to the ATS Tower though, so they're getting everything we're getting on scopes!"
Michael Erickson	Now below the ship, Michael and his doppleganger press in for combat - only for the gleaming blade that the veteran Raptor manifests bites through several of his wing-vanes and embeds in his right forearm. There is no pain, of course, only the knowledge of damage - and, given the punishing damage both can take, Michael does the one thing that makes best sense to him in the moment: he presses his metal body against the muzzle of the other Raptor's arm cannon, ready to take the blast.     << LEAVE THIS PLANET, MACHINE, >> he says in the Raptor's distorted machine-voice, full of cold, metallic fury as it reverberates on the wind. << OR I WILL -EAT- YOU. >> After all, he's done it before. Of a sort. But will it work with the proper effect?
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie is putting everything he has into chasing the craft. He does not speak over the com, he does not worry about those behind him, trusting them to handle the ship. He has one job, and he is going to do that job. His eyes locked on the craft as he makes up ground he thinks it is hard to tell, but the thing is looking slightly larger.
Jessica Drew	Without looking away from the targeting HUD, Jess is well aware of the alarms going off. And, she wants to close her eyes and look away. Instead, riveted to the HUD screen, she continues firing, watching two living beings hurtle at each other at supersonic speeds - one of whom she knows and cares deeply about. Two bucks in the woods crash their heads together, and only one will likely survive. The target headed for the spaceport is out of range of their little laser, so the agent reorients to the ship they are chasing. Miracles of miracles, the display shows the shields are down. The laser streaks across the sky, fading somewhat as the atmosphere thins. Maybe they can get some lucky damage on it. Picking up the conversation thread as she waits for the clash of the Raptors, "Yep, my treat in Paris if we all get out of this in one piece." "Boom", she mutters and winces as she sees Michael impact the incoming Raptor.
Jean Grey	Alison fires another volley, and this time, they do work. They laser light blinks and strobes across the intervening distance, and across the chrome hull of the ship. That choice of color is probably not accidental, a form of refractive armor as a back-up to the shielding. But it doesn't cover everything (like the engine ports themselves), nor is it 100% efficient. Here and there, her blasts leave searing burn marks in the plating, and one hits home, catching the port side engine nacelle. It blows up! Jessica also joins in as she loses her other target, scoring a similar hit on the main engines on the main fuselage. They don't blow up all at once, but there are some smaller explosions that don't look GOOD or anything. Notably, none of this causes the ship to fall, although it definitely wobbles strangely in the air. Everyone aboard is no doubt caught off guard, and the helmsman tries to- The Astral is strange, no doubt. And there's an advantage to creativity, to the flexibility of an agile mind. The telepath's defense is a standardized one for her, a retreat onto familiar ground and perhaps a kind of feint or attempt to pull her opponent in after her. Primitive aliens know nothing of the wider universe, after all, and thus might become quite lost in it's various oddities. But Emma applies a particularly Terran countermeasure: a love for reckless environmental destruction! Just show a human a beautiful rainforest, and we'll burn that mother down! ... Point is, it seems to work, and whether by pokemon counter logic or pure raw power, aided by Tabitha's own barrage of boomy-bombs, Emma pushes back. The jungle fades. They can see the bridge more clearly, and around it, no walls to the ship at all, but just the black of the stars beyond. The other crew starts to be visible too, outlines slowly fading in. -throws the ship end over end as he throws the pitch control all the way forward. They've done it! ... sort of. See, there's bad news for Alison 'I don't want to go to space' Blaire, and it's called 'the Laws of Physics.' The ship, at this point, is pretty well disabled as far as driving goes, but it has a lot of momentum. With every passing moment, there's less air, less atmosphere, less... stuff, to make it obey more Earthly rules, to naturally slow down. Also, it's control interfaces, to the chagrin of the telepaths, are designed somewhat differently, so that pitching the ship over engages maneuvering thrusters separately of main thrust. The remaining engine is facing backward now, yes, but it's acting like a break, fighting against the existing motion. With half power. And that's assuming no one thinks to press stop. If Hank or Scott were here, they could explain the math, figure out how quickly Earth's gravity would recapture it. But the bottom line is, it's there. It got to space. And so did the X-Men! Well, most of them. Michael's combat has a different kind of outcome, albeit no less essential. Throwing himself against the other Raptor armor, there is a moment of contact, a moment, perhaps, of mechanized communion. But he also places himself to take the blast at point blank. This saves the Blackbird, no doubt. Yet here, the law of physics dictate a different outcome: the two being violently thrown apart, in different directions. One, however, has sustained terrible damage, the blast ablating multiple layers of the potent armor and revealing... mechanized guts, cabling, servos, wires. But no blood. No Michael. That's good, right? The broken armor falls back toward the Earth, while the other one is flung away, tumbling for a few moments. Perhaps it will recover? In time to catch whatever is happening above? And finally, very far away from all of this, Sam Guthrie, flying faster than perhaps he ever has, manages to slowly close that distance, by miles, by feet, by inches, until he can finally... well, catch it? The Blackbird registers a huge explosion behind them. Jean's on the comm, though there's static. "-splosion, off the-zzt-coast-tttzt-" Then nothing.
Alison Blaire	Death Metal. Lisa Loeb would have been better. Alison, who was looking rather drained and withdrawn after releasing those ten lasers begins to vibrate a little when the music hits her and rattles in the bulkhead all around her now that the atmospheric seals are in place. "Ugh.. it had to be Iron Maiden." Whatever, something death metal. Only losers listen to that stuff. It's loud though. And it's giving her life. Until she sees the red hue of atmosphere burning on the environmental shield and then the sudden void when that light disappears... "Are we in space?" She wonders, feeling herself going weightless against the restraints she'd used to keep her (along with Tabby's super strong grip that people would pay to see), from flying out the previously open window. "I did all that so we WOULDN'T go to space... Turn this ship around immediately or I'm going to need to speak with the manager!"
Emma Frost	Focus on one thing at a time. The inhabitants of the Sol system are a particularly creative lot when it comes to savagrey and barbarism. Existence is not universal. What is true for one society is not true for another. Planets have different organisms, atmospheres, and cultures. But some things still apply. EMotions. E quivalencies. Sensations.     Casual dismissal and destruction is as close to a universal as one can get. Emma goes to brace herself as they hit that point of up and into space, holding down herself hard in the straps as seh would bounce just a little bit as they hit zero gravity.     <<Got them>> As the sensation of the alien bridge goes clear, Emma attempts to hit the disoriented pilot's mind hard. Intent on trying to get the pilot to simply power down the ship's engines and go into a steady path if she can. Just to stabilize the arc and to keep it predictable, and ready for boarding. And hopefully reasonably intact with all things, and maybe even some of the crew alive. <<Can someone get aboard it?>> She tries to do a quick check of everyone over on the ship if she can to coordinate them amongst the ranks.     Then the call from the surface comes in, all garbled, and Emma swears. She goes to try and send a telepathic link down to Jean, requesting an update on things if she can. But telepathic connection from dozens of miles up and however far away in the arc they've gone since launching to orbit may be a very difficult thing.
Tabitha Smith	In the Astral, there's boms and plasma flame representations along with Tabitha's taunting and bouncing around in order to leave the battle field as veritable smoking ruin before they get the win. Once the psychic battle is done and Tabby can kinda wake up with Emma, Boomie grins up at Dazzler and chuckles as it seems they did make it out of the upper atmosphere. "That's Space yeah. Weightnessness when you can feel it, we seem to have gravity, might get mean on the stomach but damn will your rack love it!" she points out. She does keep the mind link open on her end. <<Was that? Sam, Mike?>> she asks worriedly. And may actually be considering jumping down to try and catch someone. a little heat on re-entry. She should theoretically be fine but it'd be kinda dumb even for Tabitha Smith.
Rogue	The broken up comm message from Jean has Rogue glancing to the sensor readout, she can spot the information coming in about the explosion, and it makes her frown, as she's not entirely sure of the situation there-in. Hopefully Cannonball did what Cannonball does... In the here and now, Rogue keeps the X-Bird close to the Shi'ar ship, but not TOO close. She does hear Alison's demand from further back in the vessel. "Oh come on, now that we're up here... we might as well see what this thing can do... I mean, I wonder what the weather is like on Mars right now..." All of this is said as she adjusts the ship's controls, and starts to monitor the space systems now, a great deal of curiosity filling her up, since she's never piloted a space vessel before, and she hadn't finished that part of the manual yet!
Sam Guthrie	Sam Guthrie has been pouring it on, giving it everything he has. As seconds seem like hours to him, as he is trying to make up each mile, yard, and foot. Sam has flown fast before, but this is pushing him towards his limit. He angles to catch the thing, but does not stop there, the young man needs to get in front of the thing. He grits his teeth and with a last force of will, he makes it in front of the craft, and pulls up to a stop to let the thing blast into him, and his blastfield protect him,      It does the job, but the exertion and the impact does take a toll on the young man, after the explosion Cannonball can be seen hovering in the air, and then the glow around him fades, and he starts to fall. Luckily at the heights they were flying he does have time for the wind rushing past his face and through his hair to bring him back to his senses, and he will kick in his blast field jetting back into the air his feet just feet short of being wet.
Jessica Drew	Unaware of the telepathic drama playing out behind her and on the Shi'ar ship, Jess is frankly surprised when she sees it flip. Whoever is firing lasers out the back made an excellent hit. "Rogue, somebody back there has amazing lasers. They should be on every trip. Who needs a cannon, right?" she quips through her growing anxiety about Michael. On the HUD she follows Michael's trajectory as he and his assailant fall farther and farther behind them. It is out of her hands. "We going to Mars?" she asks loud enough to be heard through the craft. "Did we pack a lunch?"
Michael Erickson	No blood. No Michael. The red machine that plunges like a gory mechanical rendition of a Julee Cruise song toward the sea below, it is only a machine - with its own mind, perhaps, but buckled under the will and unwilling symbiosis brought about by the dying Shi'ar that has become its master. Eaten, like he threatened to do to this other machine - and in that moment of communion, before it emptied its cannon into the guts of his host body, that is exactly what he started to do. Somewhere in the Void, where his living flesh slumbers, he senses the taste of metal on his tongue. Metal. Ash. Ozone. Perhaps, if his aim was true, some semblance of fear. The machine-minds of the Raptor Fraternity can feel, after all. They are cold, but not mindless.     << ...ssgggrzzk...alive...intak-k-k-k-k-kt...ffffffzzzhhtt...pickup when...poszzzzzz---b-b-b--sssskkkrt >> The message is sent off through heavily damaged transponder nodes, but hopefully it should give assurance. For now, there is only the knowledge that they can fight it, and his body is already starting to knit. Slowly. Surely. There's a certain dark, revenant poetry about these machines into whose legend he has been inextricably thrown. It's almost romantic, to him. He will, like some dark biomechanoid mirror prince, rise from seemingly certain death again.     But not without a nap, first. The machine's systems drop into standby, and the world goes dark long before the sea claims it. Across the distance of dimensions, Michael's mind too fades, and the ancient, heavy hand of sleep descends to embrace him.
Jean Grey	Various space phobias aside, the X-Men have completed their mission. The Shi'ar ship seems adrift, although their are caveats to their victory. After her high-effort assault, Emma finds some difficulty in getting direct control over the pilot again; it may be apparent that even the non-telepaths are trained (much like Xavier's students) in some degree of mental discipline and defense. But it doesn't seem that even with a command of the bridge that they are doing anything immediately. They have one sublight engine, which simple math will confirm is half of what they started with. Alison got the other, and Jessica hit the main drive. So where can they possibly go, that the Blackbird won't catch them now? It feels like they have some time to breathe, even if some elements of the situation below are unknown. The Earth stretches out beneath them, and while they're far too close for that proper 'blue marble' effect, it still looks very different from up here. The clouds conceal whatever happened with Sam. Still, he's... notoriously a tough one. So Rogue takes advantage of the moment's rest. Sometimes you need that, in these hard-fought efforts. And while it might not technically be her (or Tabitha's!) first trip away from Earth, it still may be a new kind of experience. And they're doing it the 'old fashioned' way, strapped to a pair of ion engines, not via some crazy kind of space-bending or teleportation. They've made the journey! They've earned the right to enjoy it. They get to do this (and Alison gets to be miserable) for maybe a minute or two before the consoles start sounding various alerts and alarms. These are not the 'oops, forgot the seals' ones from earlier. These are automatic sensor notifications, some of them the still not wholly familiar Shi'ar tech. Maybe she can't translate all of it, but the overall message is pretty clear: something has just appeared on their sensors that wasn't there a second ago. Something much bigger than them. Some may check sensor readouts. Some may... go up to the windows or hatches to look. All of them will notice as the shadow of the full-sized Shi'ar cruiser, with its distinctive cross-wing design, engulfs them. Notably, it isn't quite in weapons range. Here, the Shi'ar have foiled teh Shi'ar, and their sensors give them precious moments of warning. But how do they spend them. Is this a friend, come to claim the traitor vessel? Or... are these their compatriots? They're much closer to the shuttle, still... but not for long.
Emma Frost	Emma Frost would lean back in her seat, taking a moment to start to breathea gain as the oxygen goes to flow. "Status report?" She goes to take a few moments to send that around to the rest verbally to rest her brain fora moment. "is everyone all right?" The flickerings of the consoles and the alerts coming in catch her by surprise.     "And lovely, it seems that we have more visitors. I do think that we should try talking to them." Without having contact with SWORD or anything else, they were on their own. And that meant until they could reestablish communications they were just up here in the X-Jet.     The sensors were beyond her ability to interpret. But Emma goes to just look out the window for a moment. Even in the chaos, the fighting.. She could still give herself a few seconds to just admire the view they had. Out here, in the infiniteness.
Alison Blaire	Alison is not having any part of knowing what's going on outside this ship. They're in space, the one place she didn't want to go! So she is sitting as far away from any hatches, windows, or openings that might let her see beyond the walls to either side of her. If that means going down in the cargohold? So be it... if that means curling up behind one of the rows of seats and burying her face in her knees... well that's more likely. Gently rocking back and forth, humming to herself to keep from freaking all the way out. This isn't something she's doing for funsies and to be amusing. She's absolutely bat shit terrified right now. Hands on the back of her head, face in her knees, eyes closed so tight it actually hurts... and a melodic tune on her lips.
Tabitha Smith	"I could kinda nap or eat!" Tabby calls out and tries to let her talky words work. But she does at least give the other blond stioll teathered in place with her a hug. "Ali, we are walking Death Star lasers. We're also hot by most species standards. We're fine" she reassures and tries to not nod off but otherwise lets the res of the other X-men and allies plan. Cooler heads for now.
Jessica Drew	Having a front seat has its perks at times. Jess loves space. Through the cockpit window the agent gets the full-tilt whammy of a behemoth winking into existence. She brakes like a bad back seat driver, "Whoa. What. Is. That? If that is not a friend, we've got problems!"
Rogue	"That's Dazzler." Rogue responds to Jessica, without looking over at her gunnery station. "You should go to one of her concerts, you'd get the real show then. Or is this the real show..." The Belle lets that last thought trail off there as she's moving her hands over the controls, and trying to check on the status of the Shi'ar ship they'd just disabled, as well as everything still going on down on the ground, all while the ship floats through low Earth-orbit. IT's messy up here too, lots of trash and satellites out there to avoid. But when the Shi'ar cruiser comes up in to view on the adjustment of the X-Bird's nose, Rogue's eyebrows raise up. "Fucking... Hell." "Hang on!" Rogue says, sealing the airlock, with a punch of another control. Both of her hands go to the flight-yoke, and she kicks the throttle forward causing the Jet to bank and come about. With her white bangs waving against the sides of her face as she sweeps her gaze from one computer readout to the other, before back to the forward flight HUD, the Belle pushes their ship toward more distance from the alien cruiser. Alison won't like the shaking, buffeting that this causes, but it's better than letting them get in range to fire on them. "Jean!" Rogue shouts over the comms. "WE're gonna need a bigger boat!"
Jean Grey	There is a lot to unpack here. The idea of a larger Shi'ar ship being in the solar system is not news in and of itself: a smaller class of cruiser carried Chancellor Araki to the first peace summit at the Starport. But this is both a full warship, and... well, so close to Earth that someone might see it. They might not even need a telescope. Maneuvering the SR-X to keep distance from the cruiser means sacrificing some proximity to their original prey, which the approaching ship quickly takes advantage of. Another obscure computer readout that is probably still gibberish to Rogue nonetheless quite faithfully registers a directed gravimentric effect (the so-called tractor beam!), targetting the smaller Shi'ar ship first. Soon enough, it is being drawn back in the other direction, toward the larger craft. So far, the Blackbird is- -another warning light, but this time, probably wholly unecessary. They all feel it, as the ship briefly shudders, adjusting to the artifical pull. Maybe they could punch it and break out, but even as Rogue's hand clutches the throttle, pushing up for power, she'll start to see even more warning lights. The 'you might just rip the ship in half if you do this, would you like to continue? y/n' kind. Then there's another light. This one she knows, on the same communication panel as she's been using to talk to Jean. Except Jean isn't answering (it seems like Earth radio is still on the crazy fritz from that huge explosion), and, well, it's a video call. Beep. Predictably, the face that appears on the small screen is surrounded by a regal feather crest. "Earth vessel Blackbird. Hail and well met. I am Captain T'rvek, of the Shi'ar Imperium Cruiser B'rynal. We recevied certain communications indicating an incident on the surface and have come to investigate." There is a pause, as he turns, perhaps to check a screen or hear some report from a subordinate. Then he looks back. "We would be most pleased if you joined us aboard my vessel to help answer a few questions about the incident." An invitation? At this point, the slow but steady movement of the Blackbird back toward the cruiser, might portent otherwise.