“Feels like it,” replied Cap. “Listen, I don’t want to waste time. I know things have been pretty hairy for you, too. There’s another potential Alpha.”
“What have you got?” asked Stark. “Is this Siberia?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Cap. “I was going to ask you about that. What’s the sitrep?”
“Unclear, but it looks like the worst of that may be over,” said Stark. “So what are you talking about?”
“Strucker told me he was acting in response to an ultimatum,” said Cap. “Basically, if Hydra didn’t make good on its threats to move in and control the world, someone else was going to.”
“He say who?” asked Fury.
“Of course not.”
“But you hit him a lot and repeated the question, right?” asked Stark.
“He’s not talking,” Cap said. “But the threat’s real. The fact that Hydra took it so seriously gives it genuine credibility.”
“Supports our theory,” Fury said to Stark.
“Yeah, unless Ultron was the instigator,” agreed Stark.
“You’ve had Ultron on your plate?” asked Cap.
“It’s been a day,” said Stark. “What can I tell you?”
“Avengers priority signal!” called de la Fontaine. “Routing from McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.”
“On screen,” said Fury.
“Stay on the line, Cap,” said Stark.
Cap nodded. A second window appeared. They could see Black Widow and Hawkeye in the cockpit of an unidentified craft.
“Helicarrier?” called Widow.
“Receiving you, Natasha,” said Fury.
“You guys never pick up the phone these days,” said Hawkeye.
“I’m hoping you can tell us that the A.I.M. thing has been put to bed,” said Fury.
On-screen, Widow and Hawkeye exchanged looks. She scowled. He looked uncomfortable.
“Kinda,” said Hawkeye.
“We’re not at home to ‘kinda,’” warned Fury.
“A.I.M. is out of action here,” Widow said. “But we’re concerned there may be some nanotech contamination in the area.”
“Dammit,” said Stark. He sighed. “Gotta say, I’ve had my fill of nanites today. No pun intended.”
“Good news is, we snagged the A.I.M. guy who helped build the stuff,” said Hawkeye, “We got a full technical rundown out of him.”
“I can squirt that now,” said Widow, leaning forward to operate a control. “Data package sent.”
“Stuff’s pretty inert in itself,” said Hawkeye. “From my understanding, anyway. But if it gets in our DNA, it gives M.O.D.O.K. a foothold. Mind-control stuff.”
“How’d you get the A.I.M. guy to talk?” asked Fury.
“Arrows are pointy,” replied Hawkeye.
“I’ll scramble a nano-tainment task force,” said Fury. “They can—”
“No need,” said the Vision.
He was reviewing the data that Widow had sent.
“We can shortcut a solution to the spill,” he said, “using Ultron’s nanites. They are dormant now, but the swarm remains, and Ultron no longer controls them. It would be a straightforward task to reprogram them, and set them to target and destroy the A.I.M. nanotechnology.”
“Oh, there’s sweet justice in that,” said Stark. “Dog eat dog. Ultron will hate the idea that its tech is being used for cleanup.”
“There’s something else,” said Widow. “Thewell, the A.I.M. agent, was pretty talkative. I think he’s hoping for some immunity. He made it clear that A.I.M.’s operation was a response to some external threat. M.O.D.O.K. had fast-tracked its operation to secure world domination before somebody else could step in.”
“We’re hearing that a lot today,” said Stark. “He give you anything useful?”
“No,” said Hawkeye. “He doesn’t know details. We’re—”
“We’re on it,” said Fury.
“A threat big enough to provoke Hydra and A.I.M. has got to be big,” said Cap. “It has to be hidden. Well hidden.”
“I know where it is,” said Stark. He looked at Fury. “Get your specialists to look at Wanda’s message again.”
“A mathematical expression of our universe and the other dimension…” the Vision began.
“Plus a separate little side-pocket of reality,” agreed Stark, “right in our world. A bubble of counter-dimensional energy. Like a cloaking device. Wanda didn’t know what she was showing us, but she mapped everything.”
“Find out where it is,” Fury said to de la Fontaine. She nodded and hurried away.
“We need to—” Stark started to say.
“Incoming,” said Fury, reaching for the console. “A third Avengers priority.”
Another comm window opened. Thor and the Scarlet Witch were sitting in a Quinjet. The image was unstable.
“—you hear us?” Wanda called.
“We can, Wanda,” replied the Vision.
“Ah, we see you!” Thor declared, pointing at the screen.
“Sister! Where are you?” asked Quicksilver.
“Inbound out of Siberia,” replied Wanda.
“It’s good to see you,” said Pietro.
“You too, brother.”
“I heard you. I heard you in the darkness.”
“My message got through?” she asked in surprise.
“Big time,” said Stark.
“I thought I’d failed,” she said.
“There has been much tumult,” said Thor. “The Dread Dormammu—”
“Dormammu?” exclaimed Fury. “Geez, I hate magic stuff.”
“His threat is ended,” said Thor. “The battle was hard-fought. His dimensional rift has been closed and Earth restored, but the aftershocks are still coming.”
“We’re riding out a storm you wouldn’t believe,” said Wanda. “We barely got out of the void alive.”
“We’re glad you did,” said Stark. “Hit the juice. We’re going to need you back here.”
“Aye,” said Thor with a nod. “But surely we must discuss—”
“There is another priority,” interrupted the Vision, “routing via S.H.I.E.L.D. channels in the Far East.”
“Take it,” said Stark.
A fourth window opened. Bruce Banner appeared on-screen. He looked surprised.
“Oh,” he said. “It worked. They told me the links were screwed.”
“We see you, Doctor,” said Fury.
“Lot of people there,” said Banner, peering into the camera.
“How you doing, Bruce?” asked Stark.
“Good, Tony, thanks. Well, all right. There’s been a lot happening.”
“Is there a situation there, Doctor?” asked Fury.
“Not anymore,” Banner said. “But there’s another problem.”
“Keep it short,” said Fury.
“I was going to,” replied Banner calmly. “There’s a threat. A hidden threat. No one knows about it, but—”
“We know about it,” said Stark.
“You do?” asked Banner. He looked crestfallen. “Well, okay, then. Good. That’s good. I was worried. It’s pretty big.”
“We’re on it, Doctor,” said Fury. “Just get yourself to somewhere secure. And quiet. Looks like you’ve had a long day.”
“I’m fine,” said Banner. “But thank you for your concern.”
“We’re handling the threat, Bruce,” said Stark. “Just identifying it now.”
“You don’t know what it is?” asked Banner.
“No, but we will very soon,” said Stark. “Until then—”
“I can tell you what it is,” Banner said. “I know.”
Stark, Fury, and the Vision looked at each other.
“Good for you, Doc,” said Fury. “One step ahead.”
“Just trying to help out,” said Banner.
“Appreciate that,” said Stark. “And this is confirmed?”
“By the highest authority,” said Banner.
“Okay,”
said Stark. “Let’s do this. We’re all ears, Bruce. Give us the lowdown. Oh, just before you start—”
He looked up at the screen image of Cap.
“You want to do this or shall I?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” said Cap.
“I think it’s your turn,” said Stark.
“Just do it,” Cap said.
“It should come from you,” said Stark. “It sounds better coming from you.”
“Gentlemen…” growled Fury.
Stark smiled and nodded to Cap.
“Okay,” said Captain America. “Avengers… assemble.”
TWENTY-FIVE
PINE BARRENS, NEW JERSEY
06.31 LOCAL, JUNE 14TH
FROM above, there was nothing to see. Just the expanse of dense forest, thick and dark in the early morning air.
“Time to target, four minutes,” Iron Man said from the helm of the Quinjet. They were coming in low and fast. The sky was hard blue above them, and the ocean of emerald trees below rushed past perilously close. The wake of the speeding Quinjet scored a rippling line across the treetops.
“Nothing on visual,” reported Hawkeye. “We sure this is right?”
“There’s definitely something there,” said the Scarlet Witch, turning her hands in front of her face and staring at her fingers
“You can feel it?” asked Quicksilver.
“Now that we’re close, yes,” she replied. “Vast, yet invisible. It’s as though I can touch it.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. reports in position,” said Widow. “Full mobilization at your discretion.”
“Let’s see if we can handle this,” said Cap. He adjusted his shield and glanced at the others.
“I am eager to,” said Thor.
“Three minutes,” said Iron Man. “Vision? You’re up.”
The Vision nodded and rose to his feet.
“See you inside,” he said, and he phased down through the deck of the speeding craft.
Outside, he turned and accelerated like a missile, flying alongside the Quinjet as it ripped across the tree-cover. Then he began to pull away. He turned sideways in a graceful arc and descended toward the heart of the forest.
The cloaking shield was advanced and sophisticated, but Stark had analyzed the data in advance and identified the harmonic values. Phasing, the Vision flew into the trees and began to pulse his molecular structure to the correct harmonic frequency. It was a delicate, subtle manipulation of his synth-organic system.
He plunged into the invisible cloak.
There was a shimmer.
Its pattern disrupted, the cloaking field failed and collapsed.
The forest glimmered away, revealing a depression in the trees eight miles in diameter. The trees had been removed with surgical precision by fusion beamers, and the cloak had simply reproduced their appearance, matching itself to the surrounding forest.
Now, daylight revealed what the cloak had been hiding.
It was vast, monolithic. A vehicle. A starship.
The starship was circular, a huge disk of gleaming green-and-white alloy, with architectural structures extending from the center of the top surface. It looked too big to be real, like some strange city seen from a distance.
“I think I see it now,” Hawkeye murmured.
“No kidding,” replied Iron Man. “Superclass dreadnought. That’s a ship of the line.”
“Size of that thing,” muttered Quicksilver.
Iron Man banked the Quinjet and decelerated hard. Vector nozzles turned and fired.
“They’ll have seen us,” said the Scarlet Witch.
“Even with stealth mode engaged, they’ll have seen us from a hundred miles out,” replied Iron Man. “You know what? I no longer care.”
“Why aren’t they shooting at us?” asked Widow. “Why no countermeasures?”
“Maybe they don’t want a fight,” replied Hawkeye.
“They’re going to be disappointed,” said Cap.
Cap opened the Quinjet’s deck hatch. Iron Man put the craft into a steady VTOL hover and slaved the controls remotely to his suit. They were in among the trees, twenty feet above the forest floor and about six hundred yards from the edge of the vast ship.
“Go!” cried Cap.
Thor led the way, followed by Iron Man, his boot jets firing. Quicksilver came out of the Quinjet like a shaft of blue light, a dazzling trail that dropped to the ground and snaked between the trees toward the ship.
* * *
CAP jumped, landing on his feet. The others dropped by fast rope.
Airborne and running, they tracked through the trees toward the immense structure.
“Oh, they just realized we’re worth their attention,” said Iron Man. “Shields are coming on. Watch for defense systems.”
Automated gun turrets extruded from recesses along the rim of the ship’s hull. Beam emitters opened their apertures and began to spit sizzling darts of fusion energy, decimating trees and throwing up geysers of soil. Quicksilver zagged between the explosions. Cap leapt to avoid being crushed by a toppling pine. Hawkeye flinched as a blast ripped up the ground close to him, showering him with dirt. He kept running.
“They’re not employing their main arsenal,” said Widow, vaulting a tree trunk. “This is just to discourage us from getting closer. They’re relying on their shields.”
“Which I’m about to jam,” reported Iron Man, banking aside to avoid fusion bolts. He was flying between the treetops.
“You confident you can?” replied Cap over the link. He was running hard, shield on his arm.
“We know their tech,” said Iron Man. “I’ve been working on a few things in case we ever had to face them again.”
His unibeam pulsed, and the energy fields around the hull shivered and burst. The starship’s shields—built for sustained, deep-void combat with rival superclass vessels—suffered an immediate and catastrophic failure. They all felt the pop of the air-pressure changing. There was a stink of ozone and pine sap.
The automated turrets immediately started to fire at a heavier rate. Fusion bolts rained into the treeline, turning tall trees into wooden shrapnel, torching others, and ripping up the soil.
“Okay, now they’re mad,” snapped Hawkeye, diving for cover. He rolled, raising his bow.
He shot blast arrows at the gun turrets in rapid succession. He was aiming directly at the pulsing apertures of the turrets’ emitter modules. Adamantium-tipped arrowheads pierced the modules deeply and precisely, and the charges did the rest.
The gun turrets exploded along the saucer rim in a series of flurrying blasts. Power-feed subsystems inside the hull-skin fed back and blew out, shredding sections of the hull. Debris rained down, and smoke gusted into the blue sky.
A broad section of the starship’s anti-personnel net was crippled. The Avengers had a clear and unopposed line of approach. They left the burning forest and rushed the ship.
“Thor? Vision? Get the door,” ordered Iron Man.
Synthetic human and Asgardian flew in side-by-side. Thor delivered a huge blow to the hull with Mjolnir, smashing a hole through it. He and the Vision grabbed the edges of the puncture and hauled in opposite directions.
They tore the hull section wide open.
Iron Man flew straight in through the yawning gap, followed by Quicksilver, who had converted his acceleration into a flying leap. Cap stormed in a moment later, followed by Black Widow, the Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye. Vision melted in through the hull, and Thor smashed open yet another entry point.
Inside the cool, high-ceilinged hallways of the craft, warriors of the Kree Stellar Empire scrambled to meet them.
The Kree were an ancient and highly advanced race, and their civilization had long dominated galactic affairs. They had built a star-spanning culture, preserved their dynastic purity, and achieved great feats of cosmic engineering and science.
None of which had been accomplished without ruthless military zeal. They had fought off rival empires. They had conq
uered worlds.
They were not afraid of conflict or bloodshed.
Hundreds of Kree warriors rushed to repel the invaders. Their green-and-white battle armor and crested helms were menacing and sinister. Their discipline and fire-team order were immaculately controlled.
Within seconds, they started to fall.
Iron Man strafed them, raking the hallway with repulsor fire, mowing down the Kree and casting bodies into the air. Thor thundered in behind him, unleashing hammer blows of Asgardian rage that crushed the Kree battlefield elite.
Kree blasters fired. The air filled with a criss-cross of dazzling bolts and beams. Cap’s shield deflected shots as he charged into the opposition ranks, punching and kicking troopers aside. Each blow was perfectly timed and perfectly aimed. There was no waste of effort. Kree warriors toppled and collapsed, overwhelmed by the intensity of Cap’s expert assault. Cap barely lost any momentum. He plowed into their formations.
Quicksilver raced ahead of him, zipping through the warriors and dropping them with rapid punches while dodging every blaster shot. Hawkeye hung back, using the mangled cover of the breach-point, and took down officers with pinpoint accuracy. He spotted groups of Kree on an upper level, crews who were trying to set up heavy blasters on tripods. He spun up more blast arrows and blew the walkway out from under them. Flailing Kree warriors fell, along with sections of walkway and burning weapon mounts.
Widow moved up alongside Cap, spin-kicking and shooting as she came, covering Cap’s flank to prevent the increasingly frantic Kree from closing in around him. Her nines roared, firing Stark-built penetrator rounds that could punch through just about anything—including the Kree’s advanced battle-plate.
Broken green-and-white armored bodies began to litter the deck.
The Vision rose through the deck like a ghost, solidified, and slammed together the heads of two firing Kree warriors. He turned and laid out another with a straight punch. Several more warriors blasted at him, but their beams passed straight through him and knocked down Kree troopers behind him. The Vision reached down, ripped out the deck, and sent a dozen warriors flying as though a carpet had been yanked out under them.
Support squads poured into the hallways, rushing to engage. The Scarlet Witch, tall and elegant, calmly strode along the corridor behind the main assault as if oblivious to the mayhem. She had woven a hex around herself that deflected energy fire like rain. At the sight of the reinforcements, she raised her hands and conjured a wave of misfortune.