It had only been a few hours since the Sentinels had blatantly attacked the X-Men on Christmas day. It was now about 1am, but Scott Summers felt like it had been weeks. He had expected the Sentinel attack, after all, but his little manipulations with time had already a ripple effect on the timeline. Jean could actually feel the Phoenix Force coming, and while she wasn't actually on speaking terms with the cosmic entity, she could tell something had caught the creature's attention. Further, the roster of kidnapped X-Men were a little different than last time.

John Proudstar, Sean Cassidy, and Logan had been taken captive by Steven Lang and his Sentinels. Professor X had also been kidnapped earlier, as attested to by Doctor Peter Corbeau, who was resting up in the medical bay of the X-Mansion. The man never failed to surprise Scott. The first time he'd met the doctor and astronaut, Doc Corbeau had swam from the Bahamas to god-knows-where just to make it back to shore. The fact that he'd shown up drenched and smelling of the sea implied the man might well have been an undetected mutant with abilities like Namor, but times like this and other encounters with the good Doctor just taught Scott to leave those sorts of questions alone.

Scott let out a low groan as he leaned back in his chair. Seated in the Professor's command room, Scott was surrounded by a half-dozen televisions from various brands and model types. It was a far cry from what the Professor would one day have, what Logan nicknamed "the porn chair" in private chats, but it would do for now. All the TVs were tied to a news channel's coverage of the Sentinel Attack, now dubbed "the War on Christmas" by ABC7. CNN and the All News Channel could only focus on the fact that the Sentinels had flown out into space, rather than out to sea. It was still the early days of the 24 hour news cycle, and the two networks were desperate for something. J. Jonah Jameson had an interview about how he believed Spider-Man was somehow partially responsible. Anything to fill airtime and get ratings, right?

Running a hand through his hair, the man named Cyclops knew what he had to do. The problem was, it was only four years after the Challenger was lost with all hands. Security was also heightened, thanks to the Soviet Union beginning to collapse. Sure, it meant the end of the Cold War could be at hand, but the government was also rightfully concerned that desperate parties could try and sabotage the next shuttle launch, which wasn't scheduled for another four months. Or steal it for their own, which was ironically what the X-Men wanted to do. And while Doctor Peter Corbeau, Super Doctor Astronaut Extraordinaire with his own space station Starcore, had been able to pull strings, Scott wasn't wanting to wait around.

One of the reasons that the Professor had bought Jean and Scott a night on the town was actually sitting in the X-Mansion's hangar bay at the moment. The Strato-Jet, formerly a prototype variant of the SR-71 Blackbird, had been retrofitted with extra fuel tanks, surplus boosters purchased from NASA, and even the highly cushioned seats used for shuttle launches had been installed. It wasn't the Blackbird of a decade hence, and it sure wasn't the Shi'ar infused beast that he'd become used to, but it would do in a pinch. The Professor had assumed it was for future missions, and he was technically right.

There was a knock at the door keeping Scott alone in the command room. Jerked out of his thoughts, Scott turned to get out of his chair. The door opened, and Bobby Drake was standing there. The Iceman was agitated, and it was pretty easy to tell. Bobby's skin had a slight frosty tinge to it in places, and his hair looked white in color.

"Hey, fearless leader," Bobby nodded to Scott as he looked past him to look at the TVs, "They're still going on about the Sentinels?"

Scott shrugged as he began to shut off the televisions, "Anything to keep the news going."

There was a pause as Bobby seemed to be sizing up Scott, "You know where they are, don't you?"

"I have some ideas," a half-lie.

"I'm not dumb, Scott." Iceman shook his head, closing the door behind me, "You're not lying to us, I know that. But ever since Krakoa… you've known things. Or made preparations for things that just don't make sense." Sitting down on the ornate desk where the Professor once kept the antiquated Cerebro system, Bobby continued as he mixed some metaphors, "You've always been good at poker, but now it's like you can see the cards about to be played by life itself."

Cyclops scratched at the back of his head, letting out a sigh. Bobby and he hadn't been super-close, but they'd still known one another for six years now… plus or minus the lifetime of experience Scott had. The Professor had stopped asking questions, simply choosing to accept Scott's changes for the better rather than suspecting the worst… or so Scott hoped. Jean and Logan were in on the truth, and no one else really questioned it. With Hank and Warren off with the Avengers or Champions, Scott hadn't figured on Bobby being that observant yet.

"I keep forgetting not to underestimate you, Bobby," Cyclops shook his head and laughed softly. He looked up at his friend and paused for a second, "When this is over, we'll talk. I promise."

Bobby clapped Scott on the shoulder as the two stood up, "Fair enough, Scott. I'm going to hold you to that." He motioned to the door, "So. Plan. What crazy crap are we going to do today?"

Scott opened the door for Bobby, "...ever wanted to act out a scene from Star Trek 5?"

Within a few minutes, Strato-Jet let out a howling roar as the craft took off into the night sky. The specially-designed booster engines installed beneath the craft's wings glowed a dull red before a second separate roar ripped through the quiet night alongside the main engines. The craft pulled up into the sky slowly, arcing out of the Earth's atmosphere. Silently, the upgraded jet ignited its Ion Engines and slipped forward deeper into the inky black of space.

Over 1,340 miles out into space, an old and abandoned space station orbits the Earth. When it was in use, dictators and dignitaries, physicists and fools, and even Avengers have visited its hollow corridors. That was years ago, before the budget cuts in the Carter administration forced SHIELD to leave the space platform. Rather than scuttle the space station, it was left to rot and fall to pieces with the passage of time. However, that relied upon no other national power or crazy rich individuals deciding that a space station built by the best unlimited funds the United States had at the height of the Cold War would be a great thing to own.

Enter Steven Lang, heir to the crazy notion that mutants should all be exterminated by giant robots stationed in space. He had fought the original X-Men a few times years back, before Krakoa. Lang was done working with plans manipulating other mutants to have them fight the X-Men. Instead, not only had he come across the deactivated space station as someone rich would do if they went into space, but he had also found the government's archived plans for Bolivar Trask's Sentinel project.

It was a good day for Lang, having also just captured three of his dreaded foes. He didn't know any of them, mind you, but that was beside the point. Lang had some Mutants to torture later, and a fleet of Sentinels being made under his command.

As Lang entered the control hub of SHIELD Space 1, a distinct soft alarm was blaring off on the side of the room. He crossed the room to the sensor hub, manned by one of his mutant-hating volunteers. It was Joe's shift, and he was flipping switches like a madman.

"What's going on, Jones?" Lang asked, putting a hand on the headrest of Joe Jones' chair, "Did the Commies launch another space probe?"

Joe looked up at his boss, "Well, sir, I'm not entirely sure. I've got something on sensors, but it keeps reading as an SR-71 Blackbird."

"What."

Joe looked over the scans again, scratching his head, "Yeah, that looks like an SR-71 Blackbird. Damndest thing, it's coming right for us as well."

Another alarm ripped through the command center. Lang whirled around, wondering what the hell was happening to his perfect day. This alarm was coming from the communications console, manned by someone whose name Lang had yet to learn.

"Incoming communication, sir!" he shouted, flipping switches to bring the transmission to the overhead speakers.

Immediately, the full orchestral theme from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn ripped across the speakers.

"I know you're there, Lang." Scott Summers' voice spoke over an low point in the song, "And I'm coming for you. X-Men! Brace for impact!"

Yeah, we're not done yet. I would like to apologize for not writing more recently, but life has been hellishly hectic. Thank you all for the kind reviews, and I really appreciate that people seem to be enjoying this story.

To put one thought to rest: Even if Scott and Maddie somehow don't hook up, Cable will still exist. Time travel is hilariously broken in Marvel.