X-Men Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epilogue

  Act One: Signs of Life

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude One

  Act Two: Hellfire and Damnation

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Interlude Two

  Act Three: Stormbringer

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Prologue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A NOVEL OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE

  THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA

  NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS

  Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr

  Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett

  Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland

  Civil War by Stuart Moore

  Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha

  Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha

  Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore

  Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck

  X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore

  Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharp

  Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore

  Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss

  The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas

  Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak

  MARVEL’S X-MEN: THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789090628

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789090635

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: May 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING

  Jeff Youngquist, VP Production Special Projects

  Caitlin O’Connell, Assistant Editor, Special Projects

  Sven Larsen, Director, Licensed Publishing

  David Gabriel, SVP Sales & Marketing, Publishing

  C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief

  Joe Quesada, Chief Creative Officer

  Dan Buckley, President, Marvel Entertainment

  Alan Fine, Executive Producer

  X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  © 2019 MARVEL

  Visit our website:

  www.titanbooks.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For John Byrne, Dave Cockrum, and especially Chris, who’s always reached for the stars.

  EPILOGUE

  THE SHUTTLE screamed down through the upper atmosphere, gaining speed with each passing second. Heat shields buckled and snapped, splintering off into the air, vanishing into the largest solar flare the Earth had seen in more than a century.

  In the pilot’s seat, a tall red-haired woman gripped the armrests tight, trying to ignore the relentless voice in her mind:

  Welcome to the last minutes of your life.

  Jean Grey shook her head, forced herself to concentrate. She ran her eyes across the console, studying each of the ten screens. Nothing but static. The flare had fried the shuttle’s electronics, leaving the little ship blind and deaf, its sensors useless. Only one screen was still up and running—it showed an external view of the flare’s energy, roiling red-orange-yellow, strobing up and down the spectrum. A hypnotic sight, like the primal energies of the universe.

  The screen flickered and went black.

  Jean toggled a few controls, tugged briefly on the stick.

  I don’t know what I’m doing, she thought. This ship is tearing apart around me, and I can’t even see where we’re going!

  Leaning back, she closed her eyes. Her thoughts strayed to the people in the shielded life-cell, back in the shuttle’s aft compartment. Her teammates, the friends she cared about most in the world. Her mind reached out, unbidden, and touched their thoughts, one by one. Nightcrawler, Storm. Wolverine, his mind filled with grim regret. Dr. Peter Corbeau, the brilliant entrepreneur who had built the shuttle. Professor Charles Xavier, the X-Men’s founder.

  Cyclops. Scott Summers.

  The man she loved.

  As the shuttle groaned and shook, Jean wrenched her mind away from his. She couldn’t deal with Scott’s pain, his dread, right now. A memory came to her: Scott’s hand in hers, firm and strong, as they walked together under the trees of upstate New York. The leaves changing, falling all around, dark grass covered in a bright panoply of yellow, russet, and auburn.

  The last minutes of your life.

  A loud crack snapped her out of her reverie. The shuttle lurched, throwing her back in her seat. She leaned forward, using another mutant ability—telekinesis—to partially counteract the g-force. The attitude gauge was redlining. One of the screens had switched over to LAN mode and bore the block-letters warning:

  NOSE WHEEL ALIGNMENT – FAULTY

  Panic washed over her. I’m no pilot, she thought. I can’t fly this thing!

  Then she remembered…

  Yes, you are. Thanks to Dr. Corbeau.

  Jean reached into a file of memories, thoughts that were not her own. She scanned and searched until she found the information she needed. Hand trembling, she reached out for the bob switch, making sure to apply just the right degree of force.

  Thanks, Doc, she thought…

  * * *

  One hour earlier

  “THE FIRE’S almost reached the hypergolic fuel cells, Dr. Corbeau. We haven’t much time.”

  “On the contrary, Cyclops,” Corbeau replied. “We have all the time in the world.”

  Jean watched the two men closely. Scott Summers— Cyclops—stood leaning over the pilot’s seat, hands clenched tight on the backrest. His blue-and-yellow uniform was torn and smudged from the recent conflict. Energy pulsed behind the ruby-quartz lenses that covered his eyes, holding back the deadly energies within.

  Corbeau swiveled the seat around, tilting his head up to cast a grim smile at Summers. P
ossessed of a brilliant mind and a flamboyant personality, Corbeau had built a private space-travel empire by leveraging both traits. Even now, with death closing in on the shuttle’s occupants, he affected a cool demeanor. His only sign of stress was the hand running obsessively through his thick, meticulously groomed hair.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Corbeau explained, gesturing at the shuttle’s consoles. “The flight-control computer got slagged during our scrap with the Sentinels. Without it, this bird is grounded.”

  Cyclops grimaced and turned to Nightcrawler. “Any word from Logan and Storm?”

  The slender, blue-furred mutant held up a short-range comm device, his pointed tail whipping around with anxiety. “They’ve found the Professor,” he said in a thick German accent. “They are on their way.”

  Cyclops nodded. His eyes met Jean’s for a brief moment, and he smiled a tight smile. Then he turned away again.

  They barely notice me, she thought. Any of them. Even Scott assumes I’ll just follow his lead, whatever he decides.

  And why shouldn’t he? I always have.

  She fidgeted, feeling uneasy. The Sentinel robots had abducted her from an elegant dance. She still wore the tattered remains of a very expensive black dress.

  Cyclops had planted himself in the copilot’s seat. “What about a manual reentry?” he asked.

  Corbeau’s smile became a rictus grin.

  “So in case you haven’t noticed,” he said, “the space station around us is being consumed by fire. What’s more, we have no pressure suits—but believe it or not, those are the least of our problems.”

  Nightcrawler let out a hissing noise. “The flare,” he said.

  “The solar flare!” Corbeau spread his arms in a theatrical gesture. “Worst eruption since 1859, and it’s just about to reach Earth. The computer was supposed to guide us through it while we sat, safe and sound, in the shuttle’s shielded life-cell.”

  Cyclops glared at the instrument panel. “But we have no computer.”

  “Right.” Corbeau ran his fingers through his hair again, faster this time. “I can pilot a reentry with one hand tied behind my back. Probably invent a new company while I’m doing it.” A look crossed his face. “Hmm… maybe it’s finally time to get that solar-monitoring station off the ground, so to speak. I bet I could line up some sweet venture-capital funding for—”

  “Doc!”

  “Right, yes.” Corbeau looked past Cyclops at Nightcrawler, as if seeing him for the first time. “I was saying, I can pilot the ship with my eyes closed—but I’d never survive the flare, sitting in this unshielded compartment. One of you might, with your mutant abilities. Wolverine, perhaps—”

  A wrenching noise came from outside the shuttle, followed by a loud thud. The air was growing hotter, too. The station had only minutes left before it cracked apart, exposing all compartments to the cold vacuum of space.

  “Actually,” Corbeau continued, “high levels of charged particles could, theoretically, cause mutations in the DNA. It might have been something like this flare that triggered the rise of your own Homo superior…” He saw the looks he was getting. “Ah, sorry. Not relevant. The point is that none of you know how to pilot the shuttle. We need someone who can survive the radiation and steer this baby safely, and there’s no one who can do that.”

  “I can,” Jean said.

  All heads turned toward her. Corbeau frowned. Cyclops’s mouth was set, grim. As always, his eyes were hidden behind his protective visor.

  “Fräulein,” Nightcrawler said, “you are my trusted friend and valued teammate, but since when are you a trained astronaut?”

  “Since now.”

  She stepped forward, lifting a hand. Corbeau flinched slightly, but made no move to rise from his chair.

  “I’m a telepath, Doctor,” she explained. “I can access everything you know about flying this space shuttle. I won’t exactly be John Glenn, but I can pilot us safely down to Earth.”

  Corbeau looked up at her. A hint of fear flickered in his normally steady gaze. Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  When she touched his forehead, a welter of thoughts washed over her. Recent memories of the X-Men—Cyclops and Nightcrawler—coming to Corbeau’s office in Houston, imploring him to help them rescue their captured teammates. The shuttle flight up to this station, an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. espionage installation where Jean, Storm, Wolverine, and Professor X were being held captive. The battle against the Sentinels, the escape through smoke-clogged corridors to the shuttle.

  More, rising up from the depths of Corbeau’s mind. Childhood images of a loving mother, a father who was never satisfied. The thrill of founding his first company, a telecom startup that revolutionized satellite communication. The failure of two, then three marriages, brushed aside by Corbeau’s triumphs in the field of private rocketry.

  Once, Jean would have found this flood of impressions too much to bear. But over the years, Professor X had tutored her, taught her techniques of strict mental focus. Techniques that only Xavier—himself an incredibly powerful telepath—could have perfected.

  Corbeau, she realized, was a particular sort of person— charming, arrogant, accustomed to getting his way. Not the kind of man she tended to associate with. She felt a brief twinge of discomfort at their sudden, uncomfortable intimacy, then cast those thoughts aside and began sifting through his memories. When she found the specific knowledge she needed, she copied it to a mental clipboard and swiftly withdrew.

  She shook her head and smiled. “All done.”

  Corbeau didn’t smile back. There was definitely fear in his eyes now.

  “I didn’t know,” he said, and faltered. “I don’t know what you are.”

  The arrogance was gone from him. Somehow that rattled Jean, even more than the touch of his mind. She shivered, turned away—

  —and almost collided with Cyclops. His lean, muscular form blocked her way, his arms held rigidly at his sides. His mouth was a downturned line, and his eyes pulsed an angry red behind those lenses.

  “You are not doing this,” he said.

  * * *

  Now

  YOU CAN’T do this!

  Cyclops’s thought, clear as a beacon, pierced the wall of the life-cell, stabbing into her mind. All at once she felt his panic, his grief, his anger. She shook her head, banished him from her thoughts. There was no time for that now. Only one thing mattered: piloting the shuttle safely down to the ground.

  The forward screens still flickered with static, but a small LCD monitor above her head glowed steadily, displaying a series of equations. Accessing Corbeau’s memories, she identified the numbers as altitude and pressure readouts. Unfortunately, the external sensors were still inoperative. The readouts blinked on and off, their information incomplete and unreliable.

  However…

  Corbeau, she knew, had once managed to reboot a faulty sensor module by sending an electrical pulse through the system. She stared up at the ceiling, studying the manual switches next to the LCD screen.

  Grimacing, she pulled down a module and began to reset the switches to an overload setting. Her fingers plucked and manipulated wires, withdrawing every time an electrical spark flared up. The work was slow, almost automatic, as if someone else were manipulating her hands.

  A part of her mind began to wander again. Back to that day among the autumn trees, her sandaled feet crunching on the cold, brittle leaves.

  “I love the fall,” she’d said, reaching out for Scott. He had turned to her, a strange expression on his face. Eyes hidden behind the crimson sunglasses that substituted for his combat visor. He’d said something in return, something that disturbed her.

  She couldn’t remember what it was.

  The shuttle veered sideways, slamming her against the side wall. Her hand caught on the ceiling, yanking loose the lowered panel. Metal scraped against her arm, leaving a bloody gash. She swore and cried out, reaching for the wound.

  A distant crack—proba
bly another heat shield breaking off— and still the shuttle was blind and deaf.

  Sweat covered her forehead. It must be over ninety degrees in here. But it wasn’t just the heat, she realized. The solar flare held the shuttle in its grip, bathing the ship in immeasurable levels of radiation. Her telekinetic shield screened out some of it, but not all. Her skin was crawling, her stomach churned. Her heart seemed ready to burst from her chest.

  What had Corbeau said, back on the space station? “High levels of charged particles might, theoretically, cause mutations in the DNA.” Was the storm affecting her on some primal level, rewriting her genetic template? She stared at the blood, pooling dark on her arm. Watched as a drop detached, seemingly in slow motion, and drifted down to the deck plates.

  The last minutes of your life.

  That voice again. She’d thought it was just her own panic speaking, but now it seemed like someone else. Something else. Something… other. Was this just the storm? Or was something happening to her? Something deeper, more drastic?

  You’re going to die.

  No, she thought. No, I’m going to live. I’m going to save them.

  You’re going to die.

  She tore off a scrap of her black dress, pressed it to the wound.

  It will be glorious.

  Before she could reply, her telepathy seemed to surge, reaching out in all directions. She saw inside the ship, its hundreds of thousands of circuits and electrical connections, damaged and battered by the solar flare. Outside, raging auroras surged up and down the ultraviolet spectrum.

  Far below, on the surface of the Earth, people tossed aside useless phones and radios, staring and pointing up at a sky filled with a once-in-a-lifetime blaze of color. None of them could see the tiny shuttle lost within that massive halo of stellar energy. They seemed so small, those people of Earth. So insignificant. So helpless in the face of the cosmic energies descending upon them.

  A thrill ran through her. So much power… so many beautiful currents. The primal forces, calling to her like a song. The superstrings, chords of time that linked all things together. Life and death, and all the pain and joy and sorrow that lay between.