The Invincible
IRON MAN
#370

by Van Plexico

"A DISTANT STAR"

The ship fell out of the darkness and into the light.

The wailing sound that had accompanied their journey finally faded away; brightness flared all around.

Mon-Dria relaxed her grip from where she had vainly fought the bucking controls. She gasped for air, sweat running down her face, which had flared from its usual placid blue to a more angry hue. She reached up and smoothed back her mane of snow-white hair. Never, in her years of service to the Kree Starfleet-in-Exile, had she encountered anything like the bizarre vortex they were passing through. The sudden change from blackness to light all around did nothing to assuage her fears, but she refused to reveal them to her human companion.

In the copilot’s seat, Tony Stark unlocked his helmet from the rest of his crimson-and-gold armor and pulled it off. Then he looked up at the viewport. His eyes widened.

The black void they’d passed through had been replaced by a spiral of light; streaks of color flashed past them at horrendous speed. It seemed that they moved through a tunnel of sparkles, or down the barrel of a kaleidoscope.

He glanced over at Mon-Dria. Despite her efforts to appear otherwise, she, too, was entranced by the sight.

"I take it," he inquired, "that this is not a usual sort of thing."

She frowned at him. "No." Then she turned back to the port.

Tony grew worried. The ship had grown still, which he found in some ways even more ominous than the violent roller coaster ride they’d just survived. What they had lost in turbulence, however, they seemed to have made up for in speed; they traveled ever more rapidly along their unknown course. Wherever they were, they were definitely covering a lot of distance.

He looked back at Mon-Dria. "‘Not an interstellar craft,’ you said."

She glared at him. "If this were my doing, you’d know it."

He raised both hands in defense. "Okay, okay. It’s not like a trip to the Moon wasn’t dramatic enough for me, though."

She was ignoring him again, staring out the port at the waves of light streaking by, no end in sight. As he watched her grip the controls tighter, he thought yet again about how they’d gotten into this mess...

***

HOURS EARLIER:

The sun glinted brightly off the smooth surface of Iron Man’s newest outer space armor. Hovering in the void, he kept one hand clenched firmly to the edge of a vast piece of equipment—one so vast, he never could have lifted it on Earth—holding it in place while SHIELD techs worked at their usual steady pace to attach it to its new home. Its new home happened, in this case, to be a gigantic new SHIELD space station, and one with numerous construction contracts held by Tony Stark.

Looking down—or, at least, in the direction of his booted feet—he saw the great bulk of the Earth, a blue and white sphere that still seemed too small to encompass his entire world. As ever, he felt humbled by the sight. "I don’t get up here nearly often enough," he thought to himself, vowing silently to do so more often in the future.

"Okay, Shellhead, we’ve got it."

Iron Man blinked, looking back "up." Two SHIELD agents in their trademark spacesuits hovered just ahead, one of them giving him a "thumbs up." The Golden Avenger waved back, then triggered his boot thrusters and circled around the station, taking it all in.

The station was huge; one of the largest ever built by Man (or at least by normal men, he corrected himself quickly, thinking that probably Dr. Doom or someone else of his ilk had snuck something bigger up here at one time or another.) With Tony’s acquisition of numerous contracts to help build the thing, it was only natural for Iron Man to show up and get involved. And he could hardly resist the opportunities both to get into space again—and to gain more information on exactly what SHIELD was up to with this facility. That kind of inside info never hurt, and, for once, he might actually be able to surprise Captain America by knowing more about SHIELD’s secret activities than Cap did.

"Thanks for the assist, Shellhead," came the crackling voice of an agent over the radio. "The commander wants to see you inside."

Iron Man nodded. "Roger. I’ll—"

The flash was blinding. Iron Man’s tinted lenses dropped instantly into place, sparing him the brunt of the flare. Even so, he was dazzled for a moment. Recovering and looking past the station, he saw two spacecraft approaching rapidly, then racing by, the trailing one firing some sort of powerful energy weapons at the other.

"What the--?" The SHIELD agents had spun about and were watching now, too. "You gotta be kidding me!"

"Actually, in my line of work," Iron Man replied, "you’d be surprised how often I run into this sort of thing."

Triggering his rockets, Tony swooped around the great curve of the station and keyed his onboard tracking stations. "There." He had them located. The two ships had raced past and were pretty far away already, but his readings showed they were turning again and coming back, still slugging it out.

Iron Man ran a quick check of his systems; he had a foreboding feeling he’d be needing them shortly. Everything checked out fine—green lights across the board—with his latest model of outer space armor. Much less bulky than his previous space versions, this suit differed only slightly in appearance from his regular armor.

The two ships had nearly returned. Iron Man studied his enhanced displays, but didn’t recognize either design. His onboard warbook searched its own files but came up with no direct matches, either. "Close matches," he ordered, and the warbook instantly locked onto the pursuing ship and suggested, "Kree light cruiser, unknown configuration."

Iron Man blinked. Kree?

Flash!!

The fleeing ship took a hit, flames spouting out behind it as it began to tumble.

Warning lights flared across Iron Man’s tracking displays. "Oh, no," he whispered. The nearer ship was spinning out of control—it was headed directly for the SHIELD station.

He had only seconds. His boot rockets flared to life, and he covered the distance to the spiraling alien ship in a heartbeat.

In the distance, the pursuing ship, the one tentatively identified as Kree, seemed to have also taken a mortal hit. Flames gushed from its sides and it, too, began to tumble, though—fortunately enough—not in the direction of the station.

Iron Man scarcely had time to notice more. Reaching the nearer ship, his gauntleted hands felt across its smooth hull, seeking a handhold. Finding a small seam, he gripped and fired his rockets again, turning maneuvering over to his onboard computers. For long seconds, he couldn’t tell if he was accomplishing anything. Then, finally, almost grudgingly, with the SHIELD station looming large before him, the red lights on his tracking displays began to wink out, one by one. Sweat dripping down his cheek, he judged the distance.

Not enough.

Diverting more power to his rockets, he redoubled his efforts. It actually began to seem that he was making progress. And then—

--CRASH!!--

--the out of control ship impacted the station. It was only a glancing blow—Iron Man’s efforts had paid off, to a degree—but the ship still tore a chunk out of the side of SHIELD’s newest pride and joy.

Cursing to himself, Iron Man released his grasp on the ship and quickly covered the distance back to the station.

It was not good.

The rescue efforts too time. Eventually, though, Iron Man and the SHIELD agents together managed to retrieve the station’s crew, with only a few serious injuries. With things in hand, Iron Man turned his attention to the alien ship. His efforts had slowed its momentum a great deal, and he covered the distance quickly.

That’s when he saw the human-shaped form tumbling out of an airlock.

* * *

Minutes earlier, aboard the pursued ship, one Lt. Bal-Rogg raged his fury as blast after blast of energy crashed against the hull. On the other side of the bridge, Lt. Mon-Drian eyed him angrily.

"If you have nothing constructive to contribute, Bal-Rogg, then I suggest you be quiet!"

The wiry, blunt-nosed Kree pointed a finger at her. "How dare you speak to me that way? By all rights, you should be nothing but a ship’s tart, not a ranking officer of the crew. In fact, if this were my ship— "

"If this were your ship," she finished for him, "we’d have all been dead long ago."

Bal-Rogg glared at her, and started to bark off a retort, but another blast impacted the ship and shook them savagely. The lights dimmed, flared, dimmed again. Yet another impact rocked the ship, this one more violent than anything before. Mon-Drian was hurled to the deck, her head bouncing savagely from the metal surface. Darkness took her for a time…

…And finally released her. She awoke with a start, but had no immediate sense of how long she’d been out. Pulling herself to her feet, she looked around the bridge.

It was dark. Red emergency lights flashed from nearly every console, reflecting in ghastly shades from the gray deck metal. And the rest of the crew… they lay where they had fallen, unmoving.

Coughing, Mon-Drian fanned at the thick smoke filling the bridge, and turned toward the helm seat. Someone sat there, alive, awake, working the controls. She took a step forward. "Bal-R—?"

The lieutenant’s head jerked up, eyes wide. Composing himself almost instantly, he studied her with suddenly lustful eyes. "So. The good Lt. Mon-Drian lives. Wonderful."

"What happened?" she managed, between coughs.

He turned back to the console. "The atmospheric systems were hit. I’ve managed to stabilize the air, but it’s too late for the rest of the crew. They’re dead."

Mon-Drian’s eyes widened in shock. "They’re-- All of them?"

He bent back over the controls, ignoring her.

"No…" Mon-Drian felt an intense sense of loss for the many crewmembers who had been close to her. They had worked and fought alongside one another for several years, part of the backbone of the Kree Starfleet-in-Exile. For a fleeting moment, she wanted to sit down and cover her head. She forced the feeling aside and composed herself, turning back to Bal-Rogg "What are you doing?"

He didn’t bother to look at her. "The ship is mine now. I’m getting out of here."

Mon-Drian frowned, puzzled. "Yours? What do you mean, yours? This ship belongs to the Fleet-in-Exile. We have to find a way to return--" Her voice trailed off as her crewmate drew a pistol and pointed it at her.

"Wha--?"

"You have a choice," he told her flatly. "Serve me…" and he smiled cruelly, "…or join the rest of the crew when I jettison their bodies."

She looked upon him with utter contempt. "You’ve lost your mind."

He pulled the trigger.

She wasn’t there.

Leaping to his feet, he whirled about, firing blast after blast. She was too quick. Before he could bring the gun to bear on her again, she had dropped to the deck and rolled behind a console bank.

His anger growing, his blue Kree face darkening, he strode after her. Rounding the console, he brought the gun up again, but the space was empty. She’d moved again!

Furious now, he whirled—and Mon-Drian’s foot lashed out, striking his knee and sending him crashing down to sprawl on the deck. The weapon clattered out of his grasp.

Mon-Drian was a streak of motion, her lithe, athletic body moving like a jungle cat, her years of training coming to bear. Her plume of long, white hair flared behind her as she struck again, her booted foot bloodying Bal-Rogg’s nose.

Cursing, he lunged for his weapon and grabbed it. By then, she had concealed herself again.

"Blast you—come out! You can’t hide forever!"

"I don’t have to hide from the likes of you," she barked back, striking again. Her fist caught the side of his head, but this time he held his ground and lashed out himself. His fist connected with her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She doubled over, silently cursing the pride that had forced her to attack again, rather than finding a better defense or hiding spot. The pride, so strong in her father and her brothers; strong enough perhaps to get her killed before she had the chance to see any of them ever again.

Bal-Rogg’s kick caught her full in the face, stunning her and leaving her lying in a heap. Before she could move, he hit her with a low-intensity stun beam—just enough to momentarily incapacitate her.

Bending down, he grabbed her under the arms and dragged her to the airlock at the rear of the bridge. Opening the inner hatch, he shoved the white-uniformed woman into the airlock before sealing the inner hatch again. Looking through the glass, he saw her begin to stir, and he smiled. He waited patiently.

A few moments later, she had regained her senses and clawed her way to her feet, realizing then just where she was. Her situation fully hit her, then, but she knew with equally sudden awareness that there was nothing she could do.

"Your last chance," Bal-Rogg said over the intercom, smiling that evil smile again.

She spit on the glass.

Calmly, Bal-Rogg cycled the airlock.

* * *

Iron Man had of course seen her tumbling from the ship, and swooped in to the rescue. The ship rocketed away as he grabbed the girl, but he could only let it go, though he recorded its configuration and energy signature in his computers before it was out of range.

His new spaceworthy armor included an emergency environment bubble that popped out of a tiny storage unit at his waist and instantly expanded to a size that could hold two people. He had Mon-Dria inside it and breathing again within moments, and felt reasonably sure that he’d rescued her quickly enough to avoid any serious damage.

He’d been more correct than he could have guessed. She’d recovered quickly, and just as quickly revealed that she spoke English. Her first words, after she quickly surveyed the area of space surrouding them, were not an introduction but an order: "Get me to the other ship!"

The other ship, the pursuing one, had been even more heavily damaged that her own, and no one remained alive aboard it. But it did have shuttles— lavish luxury yachts, he would find out later—and almost before he knew what was happening, he found himself seated in the copilot’s seat of one, as the Kree woman blasted them out of the shuttle bay and into space. After a brief introduction and a terse exchange, he’d agreed to go with her for a couple of reasons, including the fact that he wanted to get to the bottom of all this. She’d dragged him along for a couple of other reasons, including his obvious abilities and usefulness in a fight. She planned on getting into a fight very soon.

Eventually, he'd even taken off his helmet, for several more reasons. One, he'd been wearing it for more than half a day, already, and was getting downright claustrophobic. Two, after spending so much time cramped in a spaceship cabin with her, he was already developing some sense of familiarity with her, and had reached a sort of odd comfort level. And three-- She's an alien, for crying out loud! What interest could she possibly have in revealing my secret identity to anyone on Earth? It made enough sense to him at the moment, that he hardly thought twice about popping out of his headgear and breathing an enormous sigh of relief.

Thus this strange, mismatched couple came to be piloting a small starship above Earth’s Moon, tracing the lingering remains of a trail left by another ship’s engines, when the portal opened before them, swallowing them up.

It appeared from nowhere, a glowing mouth that gulped them down and hurled them along a seemingly endless, glowing tunnel of light. A great keening wail sounded throughout the ship as it shook violently. Mon-Dria clung to the sticks, fighting desperately to maintain control.

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

"I think we’re coming out of it."

Tony sat up, looking out the port. They’d been racing through the tunnel of light for what seemed like hours. But now he could see that the light had faded and their speed seemed to have vastly decreased.

"There."

He followed her eyes. A point of blackness grew in the center of the viewport, and spread rapidly.

"Oh, sh--"

With a flash, they were out of the tunnel and back into space. Starfield all around them. Tony sighed in relief. "Well, at least that’s over. Where are w--" He shut his mouth instantly, staring out into space. Then he opened it again. "What the hell is that?!"

Mon-Dria said nothing, merely shook her head slowly.

Stretching out before them floated a gigantic gray rectangle, hanging motionless in space. At first it was not clear exactly how big the thing was, but all too soon they could see that the structure was immense. At the angle they approached, it looked like a great featureless slab of concrete runway a million miles long, and nearly as wide. Their minds rebelled at the very idea of something artificial, a construct, being so vast.

Because it clearly was a construct. As the ship continued to travel towards it, they began to make out details. All sorts of cables and conduits and sections and boxes and the like covered every surface. A number of what had to be gigantic clear bubbles protruded from various locations. Tiny red lights flickered on and off along its edges. Spacecraft, clearly much larger than the one they currently occupied, lay moored along the sides, each one dwarfed by the enormity of the rectangle, almost lost to visibility like grains of sand along a driveway.

Tony shook his head in wonder. "It-- it’s some kind of space station..."

Mon-Dria nodded. "But not one I have ever encountered before. Or even heard of." She squinted at the close-ups her ship provided. "Those spacecraft-- I am unfamiliar with them." She glanced back at Tony. "That should not be. I am fully trained in all military and civilian spacecraft configurations. I should know them. But they are not Shi’ar, they are not Skrullian, they are certainly not Kree..."

Tony peered at them. "They really don’t look like they belong to any one group. They’re all totally different."

"...Yes..."

The space station now filled their viewport, and still some unseen force drew them closer.

"No windows, either..." Tony leaned next to Mon-Dria, studying the images. "Those must be navigation lights-- but there are no lights from the inside... Is it abandoned?"

Their ship, still under external guidance, pulled even with one edge of the station and ceased its forward progress, then smoothly switched to a perpendicular angle and floated inward.

"Well, no doubt where we’re being taken now, huh?" Tony whispered.

Mon-Dria sunk back in her seat, away from him, her face growing pale.

Tony glanced back at her. "Are you alright?"

"...I don’t know..." Her eyebrows were knitted in concern.

"Well, look at it this way-- at least we’ve reached the destination. Maybe now we can do something about getting back home." He realized instantly his mistake, but she gestured it away.

"You must understand," she said softly, "I’ve lived my entire life believing that my people, and our allies or associates, were the most technologically advanced beings in the universe." She gestured airily again. "Oh, sure, the Shi’ar have slightly better interstellar drives, or the Rigellians produce better artificial intelligence units. But the point is, we’re all fairly close to one another." She pointed out the viewport. "But this..." She shook her head, white hair tousling, "...this is beyond my imagination..."

He frowned. "It’s just a big space station, right? Big deal. We don’t know how advanced they are yet."

"They overrode this ship. An admiral’s cutter, with all the shielding! They brought us here through some sort of gateway... And who knows where here is?!"

With a resounding clang, the ship docked into the station. Tony looked around, then stared back at her. "Mon-Dria. Pull yourself together. Okay?" He met her eyes; they still seemed shaky. She seemed on the verge of tears. He couldn’t believe it. Quickly he switched to a different tack. "Look, I’m just an uncivilized monkey from a backwater planet, right?"

Her eyes focused, and for the first time, revealed a bit of compassion. "What? No, I never meant to suggest that--"

"No, it’s really true. You’re a high and mighty space ranger, who isn’t intimidated by aliens-- as long as they’re not as advanced as you! But me-- I’m just an uncivilized bumpkin who rarely gets off his own homeworld!" He glared at her, then indicated the station. "But still, despite all that, I’m not going to be intimidated by this." He picked up his helmet and waved it in front of her. "I have a few tricks up my sleeve, too. So I’m gonna go out there and demand that these people release our ship and send us back where we came from!"

Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and the blue skin of her face flushed as blood rushed through it. Then, her jaw setting, she stood, moving to the back of the cabin. She said not a word at first, just opened a locker and pulled out a bundle of equipment. Tony watched in silence, uncertain of exactly what reaction he’d provoked in her. Then, finally, she moved back to him and leaned close, taking his chin in her hand. Her lips moved very close to his. "Thank you," she whispered. Then she whirled and strode imperiously from the flight deck.

Tony stood there a moment, blinking, then smiled faintly. "No problem," he whispered back, before snapping his helmet on and rushing after her.

Next: All Alone in the Night!

SOCK IT TO SHELLHEAD!
Send mail to: vplexico@bellsouth.net

Hello again, MV1 readers! 

Yes, it's me again.

I warned ya, back at the end of 1998, when I was finishing up the big Moonstone storyline in the pages of MS. MARVEL, that I might be back when you least expected it. Only a couple of characters and series could bring me out of "retirement," and good ol’ Shellhead is one.

So—write in and let me know what you think.

As you can no doubt tell, if you’ve read this far, I’ll be taking Tony in a very different direction over the course of these twelve issues. Some of you may like it, some may hate it… but I hope you’ll give it a try, and let me know what you think.

By the way, the logo art at the top of this page is from a piece contributed to my www.avengersassemble.org website, by Eric Wolfe Hanson. Ain’t it swell? I Photoshopped it up a bit, for logo purposes, but to see the original, head over to Avengers Assemble.

Enough of this stuff—see ya back here in thirty days for the next chapter in "A Distant Star!"

--Van Plexico

September, 2000

Story © 2000 by Van Allen Plexico