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Chapter 151 – Reed Richards
🕑 Added 2025-09-04 14:52:16 +0000 UTC
For the D’Bari, a people without a homeworld, survival meant scattering their fleets to the stars, chasing even the faintest chance of rebirth.
This warship, having tracked the mysterious cosmic energy across light-years, had found something—an opportunity unlike any they’d seen before. And so the crew would not let it slip, even if it meant turning the destroyer of their race into its only hope.
Vuk turned toward his science officer. “What’s the planetary environment? Threat assessment?”
The officer’s response was clinical:
*“The planet’s atmosphere and climate are harsh for our biology, but survivable without constant adaptive gear. If we use mimicry to blend in with the natives, our warriors’ physical efficiency would only drop slightly compared to full combat form.
“The locals are still a planetary species. Their spacecraft are primitive, incapable of faster-than-light travel. By all metrics, the planet is low-threat. The only complication: technically this system lies within Kree territory. But it’s a border region. No Kree ships have been sighted nearby.”*
“Excellent,” Vuk said, rising to his full height. *“Commence infiltration protocol. I will personally lead the strike team. Each soldier will deploy in single pods. No weapons. Only bio-mimetic armor. First priority: assume native disguises.
“The rest of you will assemble into ground support and strike units, awaiting my command. Objective: locate the host of the cosmic force. Extract the energy. Stealth is paramount.”*
The bridge echoed with a unified response: “Yes, Commander.”
---
On Earth, days after the so-called “solar flare” spectacle, a new cosmic event streaked across the sky—a sudden meteor shower. No observatory could explain it.
Meanwhile, on a highway in upstate New York, a beat-up car tore down the asphalt. Behind the wheel was Reed Richards—Ph.D. dropout, genius of a kind the world rarely produced. His passenger seat was littered with printouts and fax paper, crammed with observational data.
Government secrecy had locked away most of the “solar flare” records before he could get a look. That, naturally, only sharpened his curiosity. And then came the lifeline: a stripped-down report, smuggled to him by Hank McCoy. Among “those foolish mutants,” Reed considered Hank a rare mind worth his time.
The moment he read it, he knew he had to see more.
He didn’t care if it meant driving to some hidden campus in Westchester—one whispered about but never publicly confirmed. He didn’t care if it broke half a dozen confidentiality agreements. What mattered was the truth.
So when he rolled up to the sprawling estate marked Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and saw children running across the lawns, Reed blinked in momentary disbelief. This? The secret mutant base? It looked like any old prep school for trust-fund kids.
But there was Hank waiting at the front steps, all blue fur and spectacles. That confirmed it. Reed parked and stepped out.
“McCoy. Been a while.”
“Dr. Richards.” Hank’s voice was warm, though a little surprised. “I never thought you’d actually come.”
Reed waved the compliment off. “I don’t care about your politics. I care about what really happened up there. ‘Solar flare’ is government nonsense, and we both know it.”
“Then we share a goal,” Hank said with relief. “Come with me.”
---
The mansion’s grandeur didn’t interest Reed. He barely noticed the Civil War-era architecture or the aristocratic flourishes. His brain was already firing with questions, pressing Hank for details about the Endeavour mission, about what the team felt when they brushed against the so-called solar flare.
That subjective input mattered as much as numbers. Data without context was empty.
Hank led him deep underground, into the school’s concealed sublevels. Labs and hangars hummed with technology, most of it Hank’s own handiwork—half-finished gear for field ops, experimental weapons, reinforced suits. Reed’s eyes skimmed past it all without interest. Child’s toys.
What caught him was the raw data: a bank of monitors hooked to a bulky, slightly-outdated computer system. The main screen flickered green with text outputs. Others looped black-box footage from the X-Jet’s flight recorders.
Within minutes, Reed had commandeered the console, navigating the interface as though it were his own. Hank hovered nearby, explaining parameters, recounting what each mutant aboard had experienced.
The numbers painted a clear picture: whatever they’d encountered, it wasn’t a solar flare. Temperature spikes, frequency anomalies—none of it aligned with stellar physics. Reed leaned back, frowning. “This is high-level cosmic radiation. The origin? Unknown. The absorption process? Unclear. But one thing is certain: the government’s ‘flare’ story is bullshit.”
He was about to probe deeper when something on the footage snagged his attention. Reed froze the playback, eyes narrowing.
“Wait. That. Back it up.” He rewound, then froze again, pointing at a patch of what looked like empty space.
Hank leaned in. “What is it?”
“The stars,” Reed said simply. “Brightness irregularities. Wrong coordinates. Something’s there. Something that doesn’t want to be seen.”
Hank adjusted the image, fine-tuning the film’s pause. Clean resolution. Still nothing obvious.
He frowned. “I don’t see it.”
Reed’s gaze was locked, intense. “That’s the point. Someone hid it. The question is—who?”
