FicWad

The Mutant World of Today.


In today’s day and age, unlike in times past, mutants and other super powered beings are accepted as a whole by society at large, despite the fact that there are people who still fear and or hate other species. Unfortunately, it is still easy, no matter what age one lives in; there is still bigotry, hatred and fear of the unknown, particularly for those who simply can’t, don’t or won’t, understand other species or anything that contradicts what they believe in. It also appears that many people are still willing to use violence to get what they want, and when someone has abilities that others do not have, it is easy to ignore other people’s rights and to just concentrate on their own wants and needs. In order to combat this, many people, both super powered and those not blessed with super powers, have formed groups to combat this very tendency by some people who use violence that suits their own ends, but that cause hardship and suffering for others.

One such team is known as Excalibur and is extremely well funded. The team has based their headquarters in the space station that was built by the great, great grandfather of David Walker in the year 2279, but which David has upgraded with modern equipment some seventeen years before, which he has done so, ever since. The Walkers originally settled on their land in the newly founded colony of New York in the year 1665, and have gone from strength to strength since, now being worth somewhere in the region of seven hundred and sixty five trillion dollars, and as such, they are among the Federation’s wealthiest families. And as the sole surviving heir to the family’s money, David Walker has decided to invest a significant portion of his family’s wealth in a super-powered team that can stand in the way of and challenge any and all natural and super-powered threats that the Federation, and the galaxy, may and probably will face in the future.

But while David is providing the funding for the team, the headquarters and equipment for the team, as well as the muscle, he is content to leave the overall running of the team to one Professor Charles Xavier, one of the Federation’s most powerful telepaths. While the professor would have preferred to have an all mutant team, he reluctantly agreed to David’s proposal, as David just so happens to be a genetically engineered human, and has already proven himself more than capable of battling super-powered beings far superior to himself, having held his own against various members of the Justice League that, to rights, should have killed him before the fight had really started.

Other members of the team include Cyclops, otherwise known as Scott Summers, who has the ability to fire destructive energy bolts from his eyes. Unfortunately for him and anyone around him, Scott suffered a head injury while he was around nine years of age. While he has recovered from this incident, this means that Scott cannot turn off his optic blasts, thus forcing him to wear a visor with a lense of ruby quartz, the only material on Earth that can control Scott’s optical energy. Jean Grey is a telekinetic/telepath, although her telepathic abilities are nowhere near as powerful as the professors, and her telekinetic powers allow her to manipulate objects through the use of her mind alone.

The team also includes Wolverine, aka Logan, who is the team’s tracker, having been born with senses that are enhanced beyond that of normal humans, a healing factor that allows him to recover from minor wounds in a matter of minutes and from not so minor wounds in a matter of hours to two sets of three nine-inch claws that, when extended, emerge from the backs of both hands, and an adamantium-reinforced skeleton given to him through an experimental surgery done to him that he has no memory of. Lucas Bishop is a time-travelling mutant who has the ability to absorb energy blasts and then turn in back onto his enemies. Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is the next member of Excalibur, is a mutant who has the ability to manipulate and control the weather, everything from a gentle summer breeze to one of the most powerful hurricanes as seen in nature, while Rouge’s abilities liken her to a leech, much to her distaste, which it putting her feelings about her powers very mildly. Rouge has the ability to absorb, if her bare skin touches someone else’s bare skin, a person’s life-force, their memories and for a short time, if the person is a mutant or otherwise super-powered, their meta-human abilities. But one time, she held on for too long and the abilities of near invulnerability, flight and super-strength are now hers permanently.

All eight form the core group of Excalibur, and the entire team consists of approximately fifty seven members, while the station is also a school for gifted youngsters, mutant and otherwise, to learn to control their sometimes dangerous abilities and perhaps even become a member of the team one day.

But while the school is the public front, all of the equipment needed for their life saving duties is housed in a vast hanger complex located in a section of the station that the students are absolutely forbidden to go to, as they are forbidden to go to any of the areas of the station that are essential to the running and the safekeeping of the station.

However, at the moment, David is fighting for his life against five of the Federation’s meta-criminals that, on their own, would be enough to seriously challenge any single hero or heroine as well as a number of hero teams.

His opponents are Parasite, Juggernaut, Rhino, Sabertooth and Maverick. Separately, each is a formidable foe, but together, as a group, they are almost unbeatable. However, David is no ordinary super hero, as he has proven himself capable of more than holding his own in a full-fledged battle royale, in two separate instances, against Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter, arguably the some of the most powerful members of the Justice League, and indeed some of the most powerful super powered beings in the entire Federation, when they mistakenly believed that he had killed almost seventeen thousand people on the colony world of Setim II as well as destroying a Starfleet vessel, killing its crew of seven hundred and seventy six in the process.

Nobody, not even David, is entirely sure about how he survived his encounter with the five powerhouses of the Justice League, except that he knew he would be hunted by some of the most powerful heroes in the Federation, and was thus prepared for them. But even then, a genetically enhanced human should not have been able to hold his own against the majority of the Justice League’s core group, even if he was prepared for them.

Own his own against formidable opponents and even more formidable odds; David is still alive and fighting, despite being advised by Professor Xavier not to do this. As Parasite’s meta-human physiology allows him to absorb all energy thrown at him as well as absorbing life-energy once he touches a living thing, which makes it difficult for anyone, with or without any super powers, to defeat. Juggernaut, the step-brother of Charles Xavier himself, has been granted invulnerability and super-strength by a mystical object, making him one of the most powerful people on the planet. Sabertooth has the same abilities that Logan has, except for the fact that Sabertooth has four adamantinum-reinforced claws that extend from the back of each hand, as compared to Logan’s three. Rhino, who usually focuses his efforts on killing another hero known as Spider Man, has an exterior suit that grants him super strength and speed, as well as near immunity to injury. Lastly, Maverick’s mutant ability allows him to absorb any and all kinetic energy, like a punch or a thrown ball, and then turning it back onto his attackers or to enhance his natural abilities.

Wearing a combat suit given to him by an alien species, David fired a net that caught Rhino by surprise, the force of which took him flying through the air for several meters, all the while sending powerful electrical charges pulsing throughout his entire body that he felt even through his protective suit. While this was happening, his right hand had a blaster pistol in it, with which he stunned Maverick. However, while the may have been pure energy, their was still enough kinetic energy involved to allow Maverick to fight off the effects of the stunning effects, requiring three more shots from David to send him into unconsciousness.

Then, as if from nowhere, Sabertooth appeared and sent the genetically engineered human flying through the air, into the waiting arms of the even more deadly Juggernaut. While Juggernaut may be invulnerable to all sorts of harm, he can still be affected by all sorts of conditions, including temporary blindness, as David knows all too well. Activating the suit’s in-built energy weapon, which is mounted on the back of the wearer and fires over the left shoulder, he fired it three times in quick succession into the Juggernaut’s face, or what little of it that can be seen through the helmet that protects Juggernaut from all psychic attacks. This weakened Juggernaut’s grip enough to allow David to escape with relative ease.

David leapt away from the destructive powerhouse that is Juggernaut and straight into the furious attack of Sabertooth’s. David was quickly put on the defensive, but caught the mutant off guard with a powerful blow to Sabertooth’s stomach. Reacting quickly, David slammed his metal suited knee into his opponents face, causing a painful bloody nose, followed up with a powerful blow to the back of Sabertooth’s head, powerful enough to send him into unconsciousness.

Parasite chose that it was his turn to go onto the attack; half hoping that David would be foolish enough to fire an energy weapon at him. However, David was not that foolish, having chosen his opponents with care, and instead grabbed a staff from its place on his back and activated it, causing it to extend to its full battle length. Using it to spear the on-coming villain who is capable of going toe-to-toe with Superman, one of the most powerful beings in the Federation, he distracted the Parasite enough to allow David to land several pile driver blows to his opponents head before retracting his staff to carry size, which then allowed David to throw the stunned Parasite onto Juggernaut, where Parasite greedily began to feed upon the Juggernaut’s mystical might.

Unfortunately for the Parasite, Juggernaut proved to be too powerful, using his enormous strength to rip Parasite from his back and throwing him far into the distance. Enraged at what the smaller and less powerful genetically engineered warrior had done to him, the Juggernaut covered the space between the two of them in less than an instance, far more quickly than what David had expected, and began to land tremendously powerful blows upon David. However, David managed to use a combination of deflection and leverage techniques in a far shorter period of time than what most people are capable of to flip the far larger and heavier Juggernaut up off the ground and into the air, eventually landing on his back some meters away. Standing up proved to be a challenge for David, as battered and bruised as both he and his armour were, but he managed to do it, and then he made a particular hand signal just as the Juggernaut began to get to his feet in order to renew his attack.

In a control room that was, until recently, concealed, stood an entire class of young mutants who witnessed the practical applications of just one of the many combat programs of the holographic simulation chamber, more commonly referred to as the Danger Room. In other parts of the stations training complex, there are rooms that are referred to as holodecks that have the same abilities as the Danger Room, but are used for more relaxing and pleasurable pursuits than the honing and practicing of meta-human abilities and their uses in combat and in everyday life. Of course, each of the students will each have their turn in the Danger Room for their use of their mutant abilities in a combat situation without actually putting them in any danger of being seriously hurt or killed. To this end, each student will receive several lectures on the Danger Room safety protocols, which includes having at least one person in the Danger Room’s control booth whenever the more dangerous programs are activated and so on.

Quickly rushing into the Danger Room just in time to catch David as he started to collapse, utterly exhausted, was Storm. She quickly raised one of her hands to David’s mouth, pushing a sensu bean into it. David barely had enough strength to chew and swallow the bean, which has incredible restorative abilities, restoring David to one hundred percent of full health, which just goes to show the students how powerful even holographic foes can be without the safety protocols activated.

Later that day, with the demonstration still in their minds, the students finished packing for a field trip to Almania, a planet approximately six hundred and seventy two light years from Earth, and part of the Federation. For generations now, the people of Earth have been able to travel to distant stars with relative ease, with many people choosing to make a permanent home in space.
But unfortunately for everyone, space is extremely unfriendly at the moment, with ever increasingly bold attacks of shipping lanes occurring ever more frequently, by as yet unknown groups and/or organisations that want, as yet, simply want to cause chaos, mayhem and confusion among the elected officials of the United Federation of Planets. But the risk of attack on the field trip’s transport was judged to be minimal, despite the fact that the Calmin School for the Genetically Gifted, which is one of the more favoured schools for those with super powers, has a rather high proportion of students from wealthy family’s that went to the great expense to ship their sons and daughters from the far reaches of the Federation to the school, which is located in orbit of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Terran solar system.

Two students, a twin brother and sister, the children of the only one of all of the Federation’s largest businesses to be based near the Federations borders, which so happened to be located on the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, which is located twenty eight thousand light-years from Earth, on the far side of the Federation from Earth, flew in under the protection of the ambassador’s personal security force, costing the ambassador and his family some thirty eight thousand credits on the one way fare on public transport.

Undertaking the trip to Almania is a class of thirty students, who are being accompanied by Excalibur’s Alpha team, which consists of Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Bishop, Rouge, David and Storm. The vessel that they are using is a Septimus-class light transport, which is more than capable of making the one hundred and forty for light-year round trip. The vessel is also well equipped, weapons wise, to deal with any such attack as have been occurring to Federation shipping as of late.

Unfortunately for the transport and all those on it, the raiders are not only daring enough to launch an attack on the transport on the return to the Terran system, but are daring enough to attack with fifty tri-fighters, which is so named for the three armed design of the fighter.

With an excellent weapon control system, the transport was able, with surprise on its side, to catch a cluster of fighters among the attacking swarm, destroying a cluster of fifteen tri-fighters that were too close to one another with one well placed photon torpedo, and then catching a dozen more of the fighters with twelve amazingly fast and accurate phaser shots.

However, the sheer numbers began to take its toll on the prototype of an intended new class of transports, and it began to receive an almost crippling amount of damage to the ship’s engines, despite the heavy shielding for a ship of it’s class and size, as well as the extra armour in that section of the ship.

But just as a half dozen of the tri-fighters swung around to take the final assault on the transports engines, a whole group of ships appeared out of hyperspace and launched a withering assault of the tri-fighters, destroying half of the remaining fighters, which included the six that were about to attack the transports engines.
Taken by surprise, the remaining tri-fighters swung around on headings toward the second group of fighters, unsure of what the best angle of attack would be when they were assaulted by a deadly barrage of proton torpedo fire. The tri-fighters destroyed nearly half of the incoming torpedoes before they further reduced the tri-fighters numbers. By the time the second group of fighters were ready for a third torpedo barrage, the tri-fighters were to close to risk it and the battle quickly degenerated into a deadly dogfight.

In twenty short, furious minutes, the battle was over when the last of the tri-fighters were destroyed. Then a large ship decloaked and tractored the light transport into its main hanger bay, which was followed by the fighters. By the time the large ship had gone into hyperspace, almost everybody on the transport was asking who had tractored them and where they were going.

When they were finally allowed out of the transport, they were all escorted up to an observation lounge where they could see a shipyard busily building warships of unknown types. While the students and members of Excalibur were all amazed by both the number of ships being built and the rate at which they were being built, a group of people came into the room, led by a young woman that looked to be approximately twenty three years of age.

This young woman who, when she saw both David and Storm standing next to one another, she began to stare at the two of them, mystifying both them and everyone else in the room.

Eventually, David broke the mystified silence first and, looking of the woman’s shoulder, he asked, “Smith, what is going on here?” to the surprise of those from the transport.

Smith, the man who he asked the question of, looked a bit flustered when he answered his employer’s question. “Uh, boss, we were informed that you were to be attacked.”

“How did you get this information?” asked David.

“By the young woman who was staring at you, sir. While we didn’t believe her at first, she began to give us quite detailed information of you, sir. She also seemed to have a lot of information as to both the whereabouts of the attack and of what was going to attack you, sir. So, we thought it was best to be safer than sorry, so we trailed you from the school to Almania, and back again to where the attack happened,” Smith informed him.

Looking back at the young woman, David said, “Thank you for that, young lady. Now tell me, how did you come by this information?”

The woman looked back at him for a while before she answered, seeming to look as if she was considering or choosing what the right words were before she spoke. “I came from what you would consider to be the future. I came back through time to warn you.”
“Warn me of what?” David asked her.

“Where I come from, you, and most of the people in this room, are all dead,” she told him.

“And how did we die, or aren’t you going to tell us that important detail?” David asked her rather sarcastically.

“No, I’ll tell you, but you probably won’t like what you are about to hear,” the woman said.

“No shit,” somebody muttered in the group behind David and Storm.

Ignoring the comment, the woman went on with her story. “Sometime in the next few months, the forces that are attacking the shipping of both the Federation and that of other powers will launch the first of their attacks on several key worlds in the Federation, including Earth, Vulcan and Kashyyyk. This will lead the Federation and its allies into a war that will last for nearly twenty years.”

“And why is it that we are supposed to just believe every word you say?” asked Cyclops, suspicion clearly heard with every word.

“Well, you do have two telepaths and a Force-user in the room. Also, I’ve brought some important information back with me that should confirm at least part of my story for you. And you should also run an analysis on my DNA.”

Storm asked, “Why should we run an analysis on your DNA?” these being the first words that she had spoken ever since they had left the damaged transport in the main hanger bay.

The young woman stunned the entire room with her answer. “Because, both you and the man you are standing next to are my biological parents.”

“What on Earth do you mean by that?” exclaimed a very surprised Storm.

“In the timeline that I come from, I will be born in about eight and a half month’s time, and the two of you will be killed about twenty three years later.”

At that statement, everyone in the room turned, all as one, and looked Storm, who confirmed the statement. “I was just waiting until I was sure, first, before I told anyone that I was pregnant,” she told everybody, but she was looking at David the entire time.

“Ooooo-kay, so, do you know who is performing all of these attacks upon Federation shipping, or don’t you know?” asked David.
“Oh, I know who is performing the attacks, but all of the information that I have is on these discs here,” at that, the young time traveller waved a number of computer chips around that she then threw to the man who she claimed to be her father.

“All right, then, I’ll go through these. But, in the meantime, these fine gentlemen will take you down to sickbay, where they will confirm that part of the story.” David told the young woman.

Gesturing quickly, David had the guards who escorted them into the room to carry out his command. He then had the computer chips that she was carrying taken to the ships information centre for an even more thorough analysis than what the young woman would have to endure in sickbay. David also had the thirty students taken to what will be their quarters for the duration of the situation that has befallen them.

Once they were alone in the ship’s observation lounge, Storm and everyone else turned to face the professor and Jean Grey, the two telepaths in the room, for some answers regarding the young woman.

Professor Xavier sighed and said, “She has been well trained in shielding her mind from telepathic incursions, but I’m afraid that I think that she’s telling the truth as she sees it.”

“What about you, Jean?” asked Cyclops, who had his arm around his wife.

“I think she was telling the truth, or what she sees as the truth. But the professor was right about her mental shielding. It rather reminds me of David’s mental shielding, in fact,” Jean answered her husband and, by extension the rest of the room.

“Yeah, I agree about that, Jean. If nothing else is true, she has been trained to resist mental probing,” David commented.

But it was with that comment that Storm turned to David and demanded that he tell them of how he knew these people, why they willingly take his orders and why they would come to their rescue with such a valuable fleet.

Sighing heavily, David knew that he was in a rough time for the foreseeable future from his friends, team mates and, in Storm’s case, his lover, while he attempted to explain himself to them. “This will take some time to explain it all to you,” he tried to tell them.

“Well, we do have all the time in the world,” Storm told him.

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you all that you want to know. As I said, this will take some time to explain, so all of you, so please bear with me,” he asked, looking around at his seven team mates. “This, all of this, began when I was sixteen. At that time, I was travelling with my parents from Kashyyyk to Starbase 194, I think it was, in order to do some business negotiations face to face, or so I was told. However, I will never know for sure now because, about halfway to the starbase, the ship came under attack.”

“Where are you going with this?” Wolverine growled, impatient to receive the answers that they all want to hear.

“I did say that this would take some time, so calm down and wait. You will get all of the answers that you want. As I was saying, the ship came under attack by an unknown but aggressive alien species. It turned out that my parents were transporting an extremely dangerous alien species to the starbase for experiments, a species that had caused a considerable amount of death and destruction on Kashyyyk, as I found out quite some time later. This alien species is reptilian in appearance and nature, although they do have a ‘hive’ mentality. The so-called ‘Queen’ lays a large number of eggs that, upon hatching, produces a creature that fastens itself to a person’s face in order to implant an embryo that eventually hatches from the chest of the host from anywhere from several hours to several days later, depending upon the host’s species. The aliens that had attacked the ship, which Starfleet calls ‘Predators’, but who call themselves the ‘Yautja’, are effectively a species of big game hunters, and are constantly in search of ‘worthy’ prey, which includes sentient species, like humans, Wookiees, Vulcans and Klingons, among others.

Of the six Yautja’s that bordered my parent’s ship, only one survived and out of the ship’s original complement of passengers and crew, I was the only survivor. During the combat with the reptilian creatures, which had broken out of containment during all of the fighting, I apparently earnt the respect of the sole surviving Yautja, and it allowed me to leave my parents ship after I had activated its self destruct commands with its help.”

“Why did you activate the ship’s self destruct?” asked the professor.

“Simply because the creatures, I call them ‘Xenomorphs’, were too dangerous to allow off of the ship. Each one is incredibly powerful and extremely difficult to kill. The creatures are extremely cunning and have an insatiable appetite to collect even more hosts for yet more creatures to incubate in. But even when they have been injured or killed, they can still cause damage, and even death, as their blood proved to be an acid, dissolving whatever came into contact with it.”

“So what ever happened if these ‘Predators’ were defeated?” asked Jean Grey.

“Well, every Yautja has a computer situated on his left forearm that, as well as providing a three dimensional map of the immediate surroundings, but it also acts as a self destruct device, producing an explosion similar to that of a nuclear explosion.”

“Bloody hell, why haven’t you told us that you’ve been walking around with a nuclear bomb attached to your arm, you fucking idiot?” exploded Wolverine, who, of all of the members of Excalibur, has the shortest temper and was, as David suspected, the first one to say something about this very fact. Indeed, Wolverine was so angry that David started to think that he would be attacked by his team mate, not that he could blame him.

“For two reasons, Logan. One reason was that I knew that some, if not most of you, would not be comfortable, to put it very mildly, with being so close to such a powerful explosive on almost a daily basis and secondly, perhaps more importantly, none of you asked,” answered David, still unsure about whether or not if he was about to be attacked, or by how many of those that he still considers to be his friends.

“What do you bloody well mean by that, you tin-plated buffoon,” Wolverine exploded again, looking even more willing to forget about talking and more willing to start battling with David.

“What I mean is, how many of you even bothered to wonder why or even how I got my armour, or did you all just assume that I or someone in my employ simply designed and built the damn things? I knew the professor here asked me a few of those very questions, as did Ororo, but none of the rest of the team, including the rest of you in this room, even bothered to ask me, so why should I tell you something that apparently weren’t even interested in?”

At this, most of those in the room looked a bit sheepish, because David had found the truth of the matter, but Wolverine wasn’t yet willing to concede anything. “Nonetheless, you should still have told us about it,” he growled in a way that told David that he still wasn’t willing to forgive him about the omission of fact any time soon.

“Perhaps I should have, but I am telling you now. Now may I continue with my story.” At Wolverine’s brief nod, David continued with his narrative of the major points of his life since the age of sixteen. “I spent the next sixteen years with the Yautja, slowly understanding why they go on hunts, the more challenging ones the better. But eventually, after sixteen long years, I found my way back to a Federation outpost.”

“So, tell us, how did you found your way back to such a convenient outpost,” asked Rouge, suspiciously.

“It wasn’t quite so convenient for the people stationed there. We, that is, me and the Yautja’s that I was with, had tracked a Dark Jedi to the planet that contained a Federation science outpost, although at the time, I was unaware that there was such an outpost on the planet.”

“Sure,” muttered Rouge, sarcastically.

“While on the planet, attempting to track down this Dark Jedi, I discovered the remains of the scientists that were stationed at the outpost, engaged in all types of science projects, as I was told later on. They all appeared to have been killed by slash marks, similar to the marks made by lightsaber cuts. In fact, they were identical to such marks. But, despite the fact that I was accompanied by experienced Yautja’s and not rookies, there were soon only two of us left alive, me and the same Yautja that I’d met sixteen years earlier on my parents ship.”

“So why are you still alive today then?” asked Cyclops, who was interested in the story despite himself.

“Because a Jedi by the name of Mace Windu, along with a Jedi strike team, had arrived on planet in order to deal with the Dark Jedi, and I later found out was newly promoted to the rank of a Jedi Master. However, it took the combined efforts of all of us to eventually kill our opponent, even through it cost my friend, and three of the Jedi, their lives.”

“Hang on, hang on, if this ‘Dark Jedi’ had a lightsaber, how then did you and your Predator friend fight him then?” asked Rouge, quick to spot the major inconsistency in the story.

“The Yautja staffs are apparently invulnerable to harm from a lightsaber, fortunately, although I didn’t find this out until I was engaged in combat with the Dark Jedi. But before Master Windu and I left the planet, the main ship that I came to the planet in decloaked hovering above the planet’s surface, and allowed me to collect my spare sets of armour and weapons while they collected my friend’s body. Luckily for me, they also gave me one of the small, five man hunting ships for Windu and me to use, as his ship had been too badly damaged in the battle with the Dark Jedi to even think about flying.

During the time that it took us to return to Federation space, as we were almost a month’s travel time outside Federation territory, I learnt, for the first time, that I was, am, a “Force-user”, just like the Jedi, and I began to learn a number of different methods about how to access, manipulate and use the Force, as well as a number of lightsaber techniques that the Jedi use, and also quite a bit about the then current events in the Federation. After I had been thoroughly debriefed by various Starfleet personal at Starbase 327, the first starbase we came across after we entered Federation territory, who were mainly those in the culture and medical sections of the fleet, as well as three captains and two admirals who insisted on, I’d say interrogating would be the word, me about which of the cultures and species that I had encountered might possibly prove the most hostile to the Federation, or the most friendly and so on.

After they’d finished with me on the starbase, I then went with Master Windu to the Jedi Temple on Earth, and received an extremely intense instruction in Jedi techniques for about five and a half years, which was built upon the training that I got from Master Windu while we were travelling to Starbase 327, and, among other things, I became quite proficient with several different lightsaber techniques. After I had left the Temple, I proceeded on a tour of the Federation for about another four or so years, learning the martial arts of several worlds, and I then spent three years learning Klingon martial arts on their homeworld, Qonos, before my grandfather found me and dragged me back to Earth, some twenty seven months before he died, leaving me to take over the company and leaving me all of his money.

But during that time period, I managed to convince my grandfather of the urgent need to create a brand new security force and to build a fleet of ships designed solely for providing security for the trade routes. This was shortly before these attacks began and once they did, my grandfather began to see the logic in my arguments and began to push for more powerful ships himself and I took over when he died. You can see the results of that of yourselves,” here he paused to gesture out of the lounges windows at the sprawling and bustling shipyards. “And you all know the rest of the story,” finished David.

Just then, the door to the observation lounge opened, and Commander Smith walked in, with a datapad in his hand and looking as if he was the bearer of bad news.

“Well, what were the results of the medical tests on that woman?” David asked him.

“Sir, the tests, which were double and triple checked, confirmed that she is the daughter of both you and Ms. Munroe,” Smith told the shocked room. “She is still in sickbay because we weren’t sure on what to do with her, considering who and what she is.”

Half an hour later, David regarded the woman that definitely is his daughter from twenty years in the future in the stations holographic training arena.

“Why are we in this arena?” she asked him.

“Because I want to test whether or not you are actually are who you say you are, particularly the bit about being my daughter. While the tests do confirm you are what you say you are, I’m afraid I need a lot more proof than that before I accept that fact. As a result, I want to know your name, as well as to test your combat skills.” David told her.

She said, “Okay, my name’s Kara,” before attacking him with sudden, and furious, energy. Caught off-guard, David gave ground to her, before he recovered and went on the attack. The two of them went back and forth, each testing the extent of the others abilities, when the woman suddenly pulled out a small cylinder thirty centimetres long. She pressed a button on the side of it, activating a beam of light a meter long. David’s eyes narrowed slightly as he recognised that it was his lightsaber that he had built himself during his training with the lightsaber, which she obviously brought back with her through time.

He pulled out the lightsaber that he was carrying, and activated it. Although he wasn’t, strictly speaking, a Jedi and he definitely wasn’t or a telepath, he knew that by feeling the sensations of the next room that some of the people that were watching the battle would be shocked, stunned or surprised when they saw that both lightsabers were the same, deep purple.

When the battle began again, they both had stepped up the ferocity of their attacks, calling upon all of their combat abilities in order to defeat their opponent. The battle raged from one end of the room to another, with both combatants using all of their skill in combat and with the Force coming to play, and Kara soon revealing that she can control the elements around her, much like her mother, Storm. While those watching were soon stunned to be watching such an epic battle, despite the fact that only a small fraction of those who were watching the fight from the control room overlooking the arena knew about the fact that the two combatants are actually father and his time-sifted daughter, David began to alter his fighting style to exploit any weaknesses that he may discover in his opponents.

Using the Force to protect him against the worst that the weather attacks can do, David stepped up the pressure against his time-sifted daughter all the more, despite the fact that Kara is using the powers that she inherited from Storm to levitate in mid-air. With a number of strategies that he had planned in the event that Storm, or someone with similar powers to her, began to use their weather controlling abilities to cause death and destruction, or in the cause of personal gratification, David brought Kara back down to the ground, and therefore to a more equal playing field.

With a sudden, unexpected move, David dropped his lightsaber, and, quickly grabbing his daughter by her shirt front, he head-butted her nose and then, by falling on his back, he sent her flying through the air for several meters to land rather painfully on her back where she laid, stunned, for several seconds. Before she could get back into the fight, she found that David was standing above her, with his lightsaber to her throat.

“You’re good, quite good in fact, but I think you need to know that there are ways of countering combat training with quite unexpected moves, as I think I just proved.” David told the woman that, despite the fact that his mind is still trying to come to terms with, his daughter. The doors to the training arena opened and two of Kara’s guards walked in.

When the guards that were still escorting the young woman, Kara, had taken her to her assigned quarters, the guards being a full dozen T-800 Terminators and six of the polymemetic T-1000 Terminators that the genocidal war computer Skynet used in the final stages of its war against the humans on Selvaius Prime. While the humans on that planet could not defeat the war computer on their own, David, along with three Klingon Vor’cha-class Attack Cruisers and six B’rel-class Birds of Prey, provided them assistance in destroying the genocidal computer. David also convinced the commander of the Klingon ships to invite a Starfleet taskforce to assist in the hunting down of any remaining units of Skynet’s forces after a Starfleet vessel detected the Klingon ships in orbit of Selvaius Prime. David had managed to download the schematics of all of Skynet’s forces and weapons into his wrist computer before the humans on the planet destroyed Skynet’s computer ‘body’ and its back-up systems in another part of the world.

Going up to the control room, David asked the rest of Excalibur, and Smith, what their thoughts were of the woman.

Professor Xavier said, “I was monitoring the thoughts of both you and that young woman, and I detected that you’re requiring her to battle with you in this way seemed to confirm something in her mind in relation to you. Also, her mental shielding was, for a non-telepath, quite powerful, almost as powerful as yours, David.”

“Really? What about?” asked David.

“Yes, I’m sure, David. But I’m not really sure what it would have been unless I had looked deeper, and you all should know that I would never read someone’s mind like that without their permission,” the professor added.

Jean was forced to agree with what the professor said. But she also had her own impressions to add to the conservation. “I think that she also had a number of teachers apart from you, judging from all of the techniques that she used, but I had the impression that she had some of the same teachers that you had. Also, it was your lightsaber that she was using, I did sense that much.”

“Yeah, bub. You know as well as I do that people who have the same teachers can develop similar fighting techniques, and I’m pretty sure that she has had at least some of the teachers that you’ve had,” commented Wolverine.

After almost another hour of talk and discussion, everyone decided to go to bed and get a good nights sleep. In the morning, David was awakened at 0530, ship time, and was informed that the information that his daughter had brought back through time with her had been thoroughly analysed and both the information and the report were ready for him to read anytime he was ready.

By the time that the rest of the team was awake and had reported to the conference room where David had decided to read both of the report and the information, he had nearly finished both, which was thanks to the genetic enhancements done to him before he was even born.

“Now, I’ve spent the past four hours going through the information that my ‘daughter’ had bought back with her as well as the analysis that my people had performed on it. Now, beware that I won’t be acting on anything that this information says until I’ve had a chance to get some independent confirmation on this through my usual contacts,” David told them all.

His daughter, who had began to sit up straighter and started to look a bit smug, sat back with a slightly shocked look to her face. “What do you mean by independent conformation?” she demanded, rather testily.

“What I mean is, I won’t commit to do anything about this information until I get information that confirms or denies that what is said in the information that you brought back. I’m sorry, but your word is simply not enough. I need confirmation before I act on anything this big,” David told her, daring her to challenge what he had just said. However, she did not take him up on his dare.

“As it is, I’d like to have the students taken back to the school, as they must be wondering what’s happened to us by now,” he continued, before being interrupted by Rouge.

“And who do you think is going to take the students home, David?” she asked, with real heat in her voice.

The professor answered for him. “I will, as will you and Bishop. The rest of the team will stay here to give any advice or help that they see fit.”

“What? What do you mean by this, Professor? This is serious business,” exploded Rouge, angrily.

“Yes, of course it is, Rouge. And what do you think will happen to the students on their way back to Earth without a proper escort? I doubt that the professor would ever shirk potential danger, and he wouldn’t take both you and Bishop along with him if he didn’t trust the both of you implicitly,” David asked her, surprising her with both the question he asked and the intensity in his tone, as he is normally not one to show much emotion in public.

Reluctantly, Rouge agreed to go to Earth with the professor, Bishop and the students. However, David was taking no chances with any attacks that may occur to them during the journey, giving them a refitted Constitution-class starship, heavily upgraded with modern technology, and an escort of four cloaked Birds of Prey. David had used a very fine net when it came to building his fleet, calling in favours from various Klingons in order to get the designs to their Birds of Prey, but in order to get the latest of the Klingons cloaking devices, he had to call in a number of favours as well as paying a liberal amount of money.

And in order to get the plans for the century-plus old Constitution-class starships, which were extensively refitted in the early 2270’s, David had to set up a number of bank accounts for Starfleet Intelligence’s covert operations and to agree to conduct some operations for them at some point in the future.

But in order to get the verification that he needed, David was forced to use a large number of favours that people owed him, as well as create new favours that he now owes to various people. And when the information that Kara had given him was proven to be true, he was not very happy at all.

Twenty hours after he got the verification, Storm walked into his office to find David in a glum mood.

“Look at this, Ororo, it seems as if the information that our ‘daughter’ brought back with her has panned out. Proven beyond doubt, at least so far,” David told her, still staring at the same spot on the wall of the office that he was looking at when she walked in.

“So, what are you going to do about it? Tell Starfleet, or act on it yourself?” asked Storm.

“I’ll tell Starfleet, for sure, but I doubt that they’d act on it, at least not in a way that will stop this war from happening. You know just as well as I do that that’s not the way that Starfleet, or the Federation itself, for that matter, behaves.”

“So, you will act on this…information, then?” Storm asked him cautiously, eyeing her lover with some concern.

“Oh, don’t worry, Ororo, I won’t go off, all guns ablazing, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll just send a few ships to scout the various planets given to us, double check everything, then I’ll decide, okay?” David asked, finally turning his head and looking at the love of his life.

“Okay, then. Now, can we please talk about what your reaction to my being pregnant is, my love?” asked Storm, looking very worried at David, unsure of what his reaction truly is.

“I’m just stunned, that’s all. I mean, I find out that you’re pregnant from someone who won’t even exist for the better part of a year, and even then, she’s from a future that probably won’t even exist anymore. I also have to deal with the fact that this person, our ‘daughter’, has brought information along with her, information that apparently foretells impending doom to all, which does seem to be of more importance to just about everybody than the fact that your pregnant.” David told her, all the while looking rather guilty.

“That ‘impending doom’ thing is not more important to me than my pregnancy; in fact, it’s the other way round. Yes, I know that you didn’t mean it like that, David, but that’s what it sounded like. Now, tell me what you really feel about my pregnancy?” Storm asked, more to the point this time.

“Okay, the truth?” At Storm’s nod, David continued. “I really don’t know, because it is rather out of the blue, and also, I had never really given much thought of being a father before. But, I will learn to come to terms with it, and maybe being with Kara will help me in the process.”

“Okay, I can accept all of that. But you really do have to come to bed, my love. I think I know of a way to help you to come to terms with things sooner,” said Storm, taking his hand in hers.

It was several days before David discovered the results of his scouting missions, and by the time he had finished reviewing them, he wished he had never received the information that resulted in all of this, and he also wished that he had never seen nor spoken to the person that had given him the information.

It began shortly after the last of the scouting parties had been docked in their respective landing bays when the attack began. The attack was extremely well planned, with three separate fleets, each consisting of ninety ships, each nearly two and a half kilometres in length, and fifty escorting vessels, each of these being approximately six hundred meters in length, dropping out of hyperspace, with the ninety vessels of each group disgorging thousands of fighters, all of which having one primary mission: the total destruction of the shipyards.

The secondary mission of all the enemy ships states that they are to destroy any and all resistance to the attack, and therefore, when a fleet of one hundred and two ships, consisting of four elements, with each element representing ships from Walker Enterprises and Starfleet, as well as the Klingons and the Andalite fleets, the machines suddenly faced a far tougher opponent than just a shipyards caught unawares.

While the attacking ships were on the lookout for such a fleet, the four allied fleets obscured their approach to the shipyards by passing through the Tarsus Nebula, a nearby nebula that is well known in the sector for obscuring all long range sensor scans, thereby masking their approach until the last minute, when they had already dropped out of faster than light speed, with the enemy fleet between them and the shipyards.

As a result of being caught unawares, the machine fleet nearest to the allies lost fifteen capital ships and close to seven hundred fighters in the initial assault by the allies, before they divided into smaller squadrons and moved in to attack their opposing ships from in close.

While the information brought back through time by Kara states that the majority of the fighters and a sizeable portion of the enemy fleet are entirely robotic warships, there are still enemy ships that are crewed by living beings, but are complemented by artificial beings, more commonly referred to as androids in the Federation.

The battle between the two fleets, with the prize being the Walker Enterprises secret shipyards, lasted for several hours before the attacking ships decided on a withdrawal, having lost sixty seven capital ships and seventeen thousand fighters to the Allies losing fifteen capital ships and one thousand, three hundred and seventy five fighters destroyed.

With their surprise attack being not so much a surprise as they’d hoped, the enemy quickly launched a series of assaults along the Federation-Cardassian borders, rapidly gaining hundreds of light years worth of territory within a matter of weeks, straining the resources of the United Federation of Planets, as well as those of the Andalite, Klingon and Romulan Empires. While the home territories of the Andalites, Klingons and Romulans aren’t in the path of conquest, they are still suffering attacks in key planetary systems and on key shipbuilding facilities by long range raiding fleets, fleets that have the ability to move long distances in short periods of time, with little fear of being detected until they arrived at their destination.

Also, as the vast majority of the enemy ships are entirely controlled by on board computers, or by all robotic crews, the reaction times on board those ships are vastly superior to those crewed entirely of living beings or those that are crewed by both. The enemy, who call themselves the Confederacy of Independent Systems, have one primary objective for this war: they want to have on unified political system governing the space currently belong to the Andalites, the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans and every other empire in the region, before they move onto conquering the galaxy, with the intention of having a single, galaxy wide empire.

It was soon proved that the Confederacy had allied itself with both the Cardassian Union and the Dominion, which the Allies found to be quite disturbing, particularly considering that the Dominion also has a formidable military might, especially considering that their genetically-engineered foot-soldiers, the Jem’Hadar, grow from infancy to adulthood in a matter of days.

In the Antias system, a combined fleet of Federation starships and Walker Securities Star Destroyers are being pushed to the limit by a combined Confederate/Dominion fleet. Meanwhile, a Confederate/Dominion army is making headway on almost all battlefronts, which managed to make landfall shortly before the Allied fleet joined battle with their counterparts in the skies above.

On the ground, the fighting is savage, unrelenting, with the droid forces of the Confederate armies and the ever merciless Jem’Hadar showing utterly no mercy towards their Starfleet foes, who are backed up by nearly fifteen hundred T-800 series endoskeletons. Even combined with the eleven hundred Starfleeters, the allies are out numbered at least twenty to one odds. But despite the ingenuity of the Starfleet personnel and the precision shooting and relentlessness of the endo’s, the allied troops would most likely have been wiped out within the first hour or so of the engagement, had it not been for the Hulk.

With incredible levels of strength, endurance and durability, the Hulk is an almost unstoppable engine of destruction that is aimed straight for the Confederate and Dominion forces, having already lost nearly fifty thousand war machines and fifteen thousand Jem’Hadar to the Hulk’s massive hands alone, in just ten hours of combat. But while the Jem’Hadar and the Starfleet personnel are tiring, no longer at their peak fighting capacity after ten gruelling hours of combat against a foe that never tires, both the Hulk and the endo’s, as well as the Confederate droid forces are fighting just as hard as when the fighting began, the Hulk more so.

A key part to the Hulk’s fighting ability that hardly anyone understands, particularly those in the Confederacy, the Cardassian Union and the Dominion, is that the longer a fight last, the angrier the Hulk gets. And as the Hulk’s anger increases, so does his strength. As a result, if the Hulk is unable to overpower his opponent in the opening minutes of a fight, he can either outlast his opponent or simply wait long enough for his strength levels to eclipse that of his opponent or opponents. But as none of the forces that the Confederacy or the Dominion landed on the planet are designed, or prepared, to battle the Hulk, or any super-powered foe, so all the Hulk can do is to hope to outlast the fifteen million, seven hundred and sixty two thousand, three hundred and ninety one droids and three hundred and fifty three thousand, one hundred and seventy four Jem’Hadar that are trying everything in their collective power to kill the Hulk, the endo’s and the Starfleeters.