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Paris Lourdes sighed, stretching luxuriantly as her limo went on its way down the street. A good day's work was just what the doctor ordered to get over my current issues with Edward. She frowned as that thought brought those issues to mind yet again. The two of them were supposed to be married next month, but Edward had moved back the date of the wedding itself again, resulting in a row between them that had gotten so bad she had left his mansion in a huff.
The cause of this was reports of something or other that his agents had reported, one of which was something about an ambassador friend of his. Suddenly that man was no longer a friend and Edward was in a bad mood. That added to several other reports that had been coming in, all of them about the 'mutant threat'.
While Paris agreed in an existential way with Edward that mutants were a concern that needed to be addressed, she didn't understand nor did she agree with how violently anti-mutant Edward was. Why, it was positively uncouth of him to be so bent out of shape over it.
Edward knew that, and it had become one of those topics that they decided never to discuss in one another's presence if they could help it. Yet these days, it seemed as if it was starting to dominate all of Edward's thoughts, which wasn't good. Edward was a shrewd businessman, an excellent judge of character, a witty and urbane man, but all of that disappeared when he got this bug up his ass about mutants.
He then became someone Paris didn't want to know, and that was saying something. He was still driven, but it wasn't a controlled sort of drive, and she wondered what had ever occurred between him and a mutant in his past to make him so rabid about it. Paris was beginning to actually be concerned about what was going on there, and worse where this could lead him. For all that she was a businesswoman, and could be ruthless at times, Paris considered herself a good woman deep down, and there were some things that she would not condone. She was becoming increasingly worried that Buckman might not have anything he wouldn't do to address the 'mutant problem'.
Paris' thoughts came to a halt as she spotted a woman walking along the walkway. Of course this wasn't exactly unusual, but Paris was a connoisseur of male and female flesh, not in a sexual manner, but in an artistic sense. She had built her empire from a very humble beginning as a fashion model. Paris knew precisely what to look for in attitude, looks and deportment to see a budding star in the making: a person who could make her living in that realm or any other where the lights were on her.
The woman was blonde but the word didn't seem to do her hair justice. It was lustrous, falling down her back in a wave that looked natural, and for some reason Paris decided it was, rather than a carefully cultivated look. Her figure was excellent, and she had a commanding presence that Paris could see even from here. She was almost otherworldly in her beauty, and Paris was not the only one to have noticed, men and women all around the woman stopped and stared for a second. Indeed, if Paris was even a little bit less self-assured, she would've been incredibly jealous of the other woman's perfect proportions.
"Pull over, find a parking space nearby." she said to the driver.
The man nodded not asking questions and soon enough Paris exited her limo, her bodyguard moving with her. She entered the store that the gorgeous blonde had entered previously, smiling as the manager hurried towards her, evidently recognizing her immediately. Paris was after all a very public figure. She waved him off and said simply, "I might need your services in a moment but for now be about your business."
The man bowed his head obsequiously, obviously in awe of her which was faintly amusing, but not what Paris was interested in right now.
She moved deeper into the boutique, and found the magnificent blonde at the back. For some reason she was not surprised to find the woman, staring into the mirror straight at her. Paris smirked a little, cocking her head to one side with one eyebrow raised. The woman, who Thor would have recognized as Amora, after a moment raised an eyebrow in return then nodded slightly, one very beautiful woman to another, before asking. "Is there some reason you're looking for me?"
Paris moved to her side, looking at the dress the other woman was looking at, shaking her head in dismissal of it. The woman nodded and indicated with a finger that she had been looking at the color in regards to her pale skin rather than the actual cut of the dress, to which Paris simply nodded. "How would you…" she said looking at the dress and then over at two more on a nearby rack, grabbing them up quickly to hold up in front of her fellow blonde's body. "Like to work for me? My name is Paris Lourdes, and I think…"
OOOOOOO
Jean allowed her Phoenix aura to fade, looking around the bridge which had been utterly trashed. There was not a single computer that hadn't been demolished, probably beyond even Harry's ability to magically repair. "Of course, that bastard knew precisely what he was doing, and those explosives must've been part of the design of the ship. Odd, I wonder what Harry will think of that one." That matched up well with what she had already seen of the ship's design: that the ship was designed to repel boarders from the ground up. That was interesting, pointing to the Kree routinely having to fight boarders. "It will be interesting to see what they're offensive weapons are like" she said aloud, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"Now should I start taking the ship apart here, or head down to find Harry and rip him a new one? All that talk about not becoming arrogant or putting too much trust in our armor, and then he goes off in some kind of machismo-based fugue to fight an alien one on one?"
She smirked evilly, then thought to herself, Heh, I'm a telepath, I can do both. But first… With that thought she reached out to connect with Ororo down on Earth.
Unlike Jean's connection to Harry, which had to be on all the time to go 'underneath' his mental defenses, this one had to be redone each time she wanted to speak mind to mind with her African lover.
Ororo replied promptly. "Jean? Are you well, firebird? We're done down here, and are already back at the Baxter Building. We even cleaned up. None of us are injured, and we left Ben to deal with the authorities."
"Excellent." Jean replied, imagining a picture of her holding up two thumbs up down the telepathic connection with Ororo. It was difficult getting the image across, not because of the distance, which was a surprise, but because of Ororo's natural mental defense, that static charge that always surrounded her mind. Even Jean could only connect to Ororo's outer mind, much like the professor could, and the connection was tenuous enough that images were tougher to send down it.
Though if she ever compared notes with the man she would've found that her connection was much easier, the love and level of trust between them making it so. "If you all are still good to go, we could use you up here. The fighting is over, but we need to make certain that there's no dead man's switch anywhere else on the ship. I don't think there is, not with us controlling engineering or the bridge, but the bridge has been utterly destroyed, it was a last gasp act of the captain."
"I would have thought that couldn't occur with both you and Harry on the attack," Ororo mused. "We'll be up on High Note soon. I have Cory here to teleport us all, and then we will make our way over to the ship."
"Ask Cory if he could teleport straight here, he might be able to considering we've taken the ship. And as for the destruction of the bridge, Harry wasn't here."
"Excuse me?" Ororo asked and Jean could almost picture the woman cocking her head to one side, her eyes narrowing, something she had seen several times. "And exactly why was that?" Even through the mental connection Ororo had felt Jean's irritation at that.
"He went off to fight some other guy hand-to-hand, no magic or anything," Jean said rather angrily now. "I'm going to start ripping him a new one soon, if you want to join in feel free."
"Oh I most certainly will stupid, moronic, self-destructive male," Ororo said irritably and now Jean could almost picture the crackling of plasma motes over Ororo's fingertips. "See you soon."
Jean nodded, reluctantly letting the connection go. There was something truly pleasurable in having her mind connected to her loved ones, even Emma for all her control. She then reached through to the connection with Harry. "I take it that the air coming back was your doing, Harry?"
"Hey love!" Harry replied, almost sounding happy. "Yes, that was me. Damn difficult moving it through the ship like that, but worth it. We have some POWs, and a few who have actually surrendered. Oh, and I covered the ship with a Notice-me-Not, figured that might help keep us from getting any visitors from below."
"I see." Jean sent back calmly, she didn't want to give the game away just yet after all. "And your personal issue?"
"That one didn't surrender, in fact he tried to kill me while I was concentrating on the air issue. Earth spikes to the chest stopped that however."
Screw calmly, Jean thought to herself then let Harry have it. "That's good you Hot headed moron!" Through the connection she could feel Harry's confusion, which infuriated her all the more. "You, you man! You do not go off in a fight to have a one-on-one dick beating contest in the middle of a battle!"
Normally that language wouldn't occur to Jean, despite her tomboy attitude at times, but at the moment it simply fit. "After all that stuff you said about not becoming overconfident, about being a team, about not being immortal, and you charge off to pursue a hand-to-hand contest? My God, I've heard of male stupidity, but that takes the cake."
At that moment Ororo and the others appeared in the air next to her, with Cory hopping from one foot to the other, always happy to 'pop' someplace new. He looked around and frowned, then began to clean up. He couldn't repair anything, the house elves couldn't repair electronics, they just didn't understand how to put them together, but the mess in the room and the dead bodies slowly began to disappear, possibly chucked outside.
Jean reached out with a thought, connecting Ororo into the conversation and continued to let Harry have it for several minutes with Ororo adding her own thoughts to it while Jean led the way through the ship unerringly towards her target. They both kept on hammering Harry for his 'testosterone moment', for his complete lack of forethought, and for forgetting the overall mission.
Throughout it Harry simply kept silent for the most part, simply saying, "But I", "Yes dear", and "Well, no," before being cut off by Jean's diatribe.
Finally Jean paused, as they came in sight of where Harry was. It looked like some kind of medical bay, which was made obvious when they went through the doorway to find several beds already occupied by wounded. Harry was moving around them, even as he listened to Jean rip him a new one.
He was helping a woman with light brown hair wearing a white uniform who was moving around freely, healing them, but Harry was also tying them down one by one. A few others were already up and about, and they were free to move around though they were looking at Harry with fear and awe. Jean noticed all the ones moving around were the pale-skinned sort of Kree, rather than the blue skinned ones.
Harry looked up, moving forward to pull Jean into a hug nuzzling into her neck. "You're right, I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have let myself be pulled away from concentrating on the main battle. But in my defense they didn't seem to have anything that could break through my magical defenses, and I'd hoped to make the man surrender. Didn't realize at the time that he was a fanatic, but..." he shrugged. "And in the end it worked out. I wouldn't have been near enough to the medical bay here to save the injured if I hadn't been fighting him."
Jean growled, pushing him away slightly to let her think more clearly, trying to figure out if she should give him a telekinetic punch of reality readjustment to the crotch. Luckily for him Ororo was there, and she moved forward to pull Harry into a hug. "The next time you do this, you idiotic man, not only will you be sleeping on the couch, even if I have to transfigure one for you personally, but I will join the prank war against you, and will figure out a number of humiliating ways to make you pay for it!"
She pulled back glaring into his eyes but she couldn't hold it for long as he simply stared back at her with amusement and love. She frowned pushing away slightly then looked around at the woman who was coming towards them, bowing respectfully.
Harry waved one hand at her. "This is the Hellion's, that's the name of this ship, chief medical officer, Una. She surrendered to me after the air began to escape and I brought it back. The others around her also have surrendered, and have even asked for asylum."
At that point they were joined by Reed, Susan and Paige. Paige was still limping, but at Ororo's nod, she exited the room to peel out of her metal skin. Harry absentmindedly transfigured a few clothing items for her, tossing them through the doorway after Paige. One of the Kree men near the door chanced a look out, and got the shredded bits of clothing from the strange human female in his face for his troubles. He chuckled, moving away from the doorway as she reentered, glaring at him a little but it faded when he simply shrugged his shoulders, cocking his head in an amused manner at her. This showed that in many ways the Kree were similar to humans, not just in appearance but in certain thought processes.
Harry looked at the others nodding approval at seeing them all there. "Good thinking calling in the others Jean. Reed, the ship's ours. Were there any problems with the engine room after what happened in the bridge?"
Jean explained what happened, and Reed nodded. "That makes sense, there was a spike in power and output, but I caught the execution program that would've caused the engines to go critical. The engines are a fascinating system, not as tight as I would prefer, but robust."
"I'll be interested in looking at your notes about it," Harry replied earnestly. "Jean, Reed, why don't you two head down to the engine room, then look at the weapons on the ship, I want to know everything you can tell me about it."
Jean nodded eagerly while Harry went on. "Let's get Emma up here and have her start questioning this lot. Colossus, you stay here and guard the prisoners. Paige, Dani start making a map of the ship for us would you?" The two girls nodded, exiting without another word and Harry looked up into the air. "Cory, you'll probably have to go get Emma, but could you ask one of the other good poppers to come up and clear out the bodies? Oh, and bring up a vial of Veritaserum."
"Yes master, Cory will do." A disembodied voice responded, causing all the Kree currently conscious in the room to jump a little, looking around wildly. Ororo and Jean looked a little askance at that but Harry shrugged it off. So long as the bodies weren't their masters or other house elves, they weren't bothered by much.
After that, Harry looked over at Una. "Now, you were saying something about being here to find a Mar'vell, a spy? Why don't you and I go find him now." That last sentence was worded like a question, but the tone gave that the lie.
The nurse gulped a little but nodded. "I, I know the channel we can use to contact him, if we get close enough anyway. He's, he's not supposed to break cover, but we can still contact him. I even know the city he was last transmitting from. Mar'vell won't be a problem, not after he hears that he's wanted for treason and that Yon'rogg was willing to write us all off." Harry nodded, then they waited for Emma to arrive.
She was able to join them almost immediately. Having a day off she had decided to get some sun, and had been lounging by the pool of her mansion. Cordelia and Angelica were both out for the day getting the girl a whole new wardrobe. Cordelia had been appalled that all the girl had brought was sweats and other comfortable clothing, so had decided to treat Angelica with her own allowance. So Emma had the pool to herself, a state of affairs that she enjoyed until Jean got in touch there.
The idea that Harry and company had taken out an alien ship, capturing it intact, was more than enough incentive for Emma to agree immediately to be popped up. She took a few moments to speak to the others and be hit by the translation spell, before shooing them out on their own tasks.
Harry smirked at that, before gesturing for Una to take his hand. Una gulped but Harry ignored her trepidation, looking at the others. "We'll be back boys and girls, just tying up the last loose end."
"I trust I don't have to tell you not underestimate this fellow?" Jean said sweetly, her eyes locked on Harry like jade lasers.
"Of course not, Jean, I've learned my lesson." Harry smirked at her, and Jean huffed irritably while Ororo chuckled. A moment later he disappeared, popping down to the Baxter Building, from which he would make his way to wherever Una directed him.
Emma had Cory pop in a simple desk and two chairs, which she set up in the corner of the room, before sitting down in the chair, steepling her fingers on the table. Next to her hands on the desk was the vial of Veritaserum. With Colossus looming in the doorway, she looked over at the Kree who were free to walk around. "May I have the most experienced or highest ranking person come up here please."
For some reason the blonde human woman intimidated the life out of all the Kree in the room, but after a few muttered comments one of them was pushed forward by his fellows. Emma nodded him into the chair on the other side of the desk.
"First, let's start with your name and your job aboard this ship," she began pleasantly. At the same time her powers touching his mind lightly, just enough to know if he lied. Going by Jean's report some Kree had natural mental defenses, and Emma was leery of how she would be able to navigate a truly alien mind in any event. "Then, why this ship is here over Earth. After that, we'll go into what you can tell me about any other operations that might impinge on Earth, and your society as a whole…"
OOOOOOO
While Emma began to conduct her interviews/interrogations of the prisoners, Harry and Una had teleported down to the Baxter building, its defenses down for now thanks to Reed calling ahead. Johnny and Wyatt hadn't returned just yet, which was good because Harry didn't want to waste time explaining what had happened to them. "Do you know the name of the city where this spy person is supposed to be?"
"His name is Mar'vell," Una said somewhat shakily. The odd mode of teleportation had caused her stomach to roil as if it was about to burst. "And yes I do. He's supposed to be in Cape Canaveral Florida, if that means anything. I believe it's on that odd peninsula where the Sentry touched down."
"It is indeed, and that helps a lot actually." Harry looked over at her, waiting until she was recovered to grab her shoulder. "We'll teleport someplace else and then fly down from there, it'll be faster that way."
Una groaned but didn't try to argue. Frankly this strange human male's powers scared her. He called it magic, but that couldn't be right, mysticism like that wasn't real after all. Still whatever it was, it scared her more than any of the higher-ups, even Ronan the Accuser ever had. More than they had even before she had begun to question their decisions, and the Kree way of life.
They appeared in what looked like a large house of some kind. The architecture of the humans was somewhat like the Kree, only without the technology that they possessed, which was interesting. Or would have been if Una wasn't trying to not throw up at present as her world and most particularly her stomach's place in it fought a war against one another.
"Question," Harry said, asking now to take her mind off things. "Would this spy person be able to have sensed the Sentry's arrival?"
"His name is Mar'vell," Una said again, her irritation at the human male's, Guardian she recalled, continued use of 'this spy person' instead of Mar'vell's name irritating her. Mar'vell was a hero, not just to her people but to her personally, as well as her lover. "No, he wouldn't be able to. Though he would be watching for anything unusual as a matter of course, so if it was reported on the local intelligence feeds I believe you call them news? Things told to civilians to make them more pliable or warn them of something dangerous? If you have that, he will be watching it constantly, as part of his intelligence gathering duties."
In all honesty Una didn't know what Mar'vell would be doing as a spy. He had never been trained for that, he was an infantry officer with a recon specialty and a damn good one. Perhaps that could carry over to actual spy work, but she didn't really know.
That caused Harry to frown and he thought quickly looking around. Luckily the X-men seemed to be out for the day, and the professor was nowhere to be seen.
Charles was out at that moment with the two Vietnamese women, getting them some clothing and slowly acclimating Xian to being around men again. It wasn't going well, but Harry had no way of knowing that, and would still have left it in Charles' hands if he had anyway. He was the psychologist after all.
At present however it worked in Harry's favor because it definitely seemed as if he wouldn't have time to explain things. "If so he might try to go to ground or change position or something wouldn't he? He would recognize the Sentry if someone was giving a description of it?"
"So long as they were reasonably accurate yes," Una said finally straightening up as her stomach settled down.
Harry left her to it holding up his hand for a moment. A second later Hedwig was there, simply popping into existence in midair, alighting on his shoulder. "What was his name again?"
OOOOOOO
Captain Mar'vell 2,104th Recon Battalion, hero of the Absalom Sector, paced in the small house that he had commandeered as his own trying to think of what he should do. On the TV screen in the room one of the strange 'civilian' reporters, and that had been a shock when he first arrived, that information was in the hands of the civilian sector rather than the military, interviewed a security guard for the nearby spaceport. Apparently a Sentry had landed and fought some of the defenders of this world. Worrisome, a fact made even more so because of the fact it had lost.
He was also worrying about why a Sentry had been sent. The best explanation he could come up with was that the locals were onto him, and it had been sent to reinforce him. That made sense to Mar'vell, a Sentry could get here quickly even if it came alone though they rarely did these days. Sentry's were so expensive that they normally worked with at least a company of regular troops. If so they might still be in orbit, but why?
His thoughts were going round and round, and Mar'vell, stuck in an unknown situation on a type of mission he had never been trained for, was wondering if he should try to escape, if somehow he had given himself away? If so he had seen no sign of it, and Mar'vell was reluctant to leave the persona he had taken over. It was simply too good for his purposes. His cover identity was a scientist at NASA which allowed Mar'vell access to a lot of the information that the Kree were most interested in. Specifically the technological level of Earth, and its space-based ambitions, which was almost nonexistent, something that would make his superiors happy.
And I need to keep them happy, he thought sardonically shaking his head at the odd and all-too-familiar thoughts. The blue skinned Kree feared Mar'vell because he had become a symbol of equality between the pale skinned half Kree and the purebloods thanks to his heroic actions against the Brood. He knew for certain that Ronan the Accuser, at the very least, saw him as a threat, and possibly others in the hierarchy, though the Supreme Intelligence didn't.
The Supreme Intelligence was supposed to be the one in charge of the Kree race, yet on a day-to-day basis that didn't matter much. It was the bureaucracy that ran things, and the bureaucracy wanted to keep the status quo. Mar'vell was a sign that said status quo needed to change, putting them on a collision course, despite the fact he wanted to remain a simple soldier, fighting the enemies of his people face to face rather than deal with this political crap.
Coming to a decision Mar'vell turned quickly walking toward the door and the keys there for the human car. He rather liked driving it, cars were fun in a very low-tech sort of way, and he sighed, realizing that if someone was on to him he would have to ditch this particular vehicle quickly. He stopped suddenly when he noticed a local animal, an avian of some kind, sitting outside one of the windows looking in at him. On one leg for some reason was… "A letter? I know these humans are primitive, but I know they don't send letter by trained avian."
Mar'vell jumped back in shock as two people suddenly materialized as if teleported into the center of the sitting room. Before the two of them could look around and before he could take in the fact that one of them was his girlfriend Una, Mar'vell charged.
Harry grunted as a haymaker slammed into his shoulder, but having taken Jean's warning to heart Harry had his crysis suit on, along with his Magia Erebea at low power. So his attacker stumbled backwards when his blow rebounded, wincing as his hand throbbed.
Even as he wondered about the other man's odd durability Mar'vell's other hand came up. The metal arm guards that he always wore even under his civilian clothing flashed, blasting a laser at the other man.
Harry's hastily conjured "Protego" took the blast but dissipated immediately after and Harry shook his head. "Bugger this for a game of soldiers."
He suddenly teleported, causing Mar'vell to look around wildly before he let out an "OOMPH!" as a fist buried itself in his stomach, and another one slammed into the side of his head sending him down to the ground. Harry hit the man with an Incarcerous scowling irritably. "That could've gone better, but I suppose it could've gone worse too. He was making his way out the door when we arrived."
Una finally gasped aloud, pushing herself up for where she had collapsed on her knees. Contrary to Harry's previous experience with teleporting other humans, Una certainly wasn't getting over the teleportation response, in fact it got worse every time. That was interesting to know, and Harry made a note of it in the back of his mind but right now he had his mind on something else.
He leaned down, grabbing Mar'vell by the hair and pulling him upright, then turned him to where he could look at Una. "Now you stupid arse, if you had taken the time to actually look at the two of us you would've noticed that your girlfriend, according to her anyway, is here with me. Not only that but she isn't in chains or handcuffs or whatever it is you Kree use on prisoners. Now, I'm going to keep your arms tied up, and I'm going to take those odd laser band thingies of yours. Then, I'm going to let Una here explain your new reality to you, do you understand?"
Mar'vell nodded his head, still groggy from the blows he had taken. He was much stronger than most normal Kree, having been modified for this mission by the Supreme Intelligence, but that last blow had nearly taken his head off. Given their disparate strengths it was best to go along with things for now and listen to what Una had to say.
As for Harry taking his laser bands, that was fine. It wasn't as if they were a huge secret or anything, they were simply laser bands, not even as powerful as a CSW in a light infantry company, let alone a heavy. They were no doubt superior to any weapon the humans regularly used, but they were standard fare for spies because they were able to be hidden underneath clothing or even a skin graft. They made for a good surprise weapon, and their power core could be used to create a temporary protective shield around their wearer, but that was all. There had been rumors that the Supreme Intelligence had taken an interest in them a few years ago and was tinkering with them almost constantly with some of its processing power. But nothing had come up the line for normal people just yet.
He waited until Una recovered from whatever kind of transportation had caused her such distress then asked, "What in the world is going on, why are you cooperating with this human?"
"Because he saved my life when captain Yon'Rogg tried to scuttle the ship. We…" Una hesitated knowing that despite the hatred the blue skinned ones had for him Mar'vell considered himself a patriot but he had to be told. "And because we were told you had betrayed the Kree people. We were here to bring you in for treason. I was on the mission because Yon'Rogg wanted to rub your status in my face, you know he has, well had designs on me."
"What!" Mar'vell gasped. "Why!? I've done nothing wrong, I've simply been following orders, keeping my head down and gathering intelligence."
Una explained, not exactly happy her beau had ignored the bit about Yon'Rogg but willing to overlook it for now. At the same time Harry looked around searching for said intelligence or anything that looked unusual. He found it in a few odd looking pieces of crystal, with small rings of what looked like circuitry of some kind on their bottom. Interesting, wonder what Reed and Jean would think of these? With a thought he transported them up to High Note, where they would appear in the master bedroom on the bed. He figured that would amuse Jean.
By the time he was finished with that, the two aliens had finished talking, and Mar'vell was looking extremely disconsolate. "I, I can't understand, why? Just because I'm not pure Kree? Why?"
"I don't know," said Una as Harry walked toward them. "But it's true. Frankly, I think we're better off in human hands at present. This one, he leads their group and they've agreed not to kill any of us unless we try to escape, which is better than our own people would do. Plus who knows, maybe after they're done questioning us, we might be able to settle here somehow."
"That will be tough, but doable," Harry said nodding his head as he moved forward. "For now however, you are our prisoners. We won't torture you or anything like that, but we will be restricting your movements to the ship."
"I'll agree to come quietly," Mar'vell said looking at them human warily. Those punches had hurt, and it was only because he wore his military uniform on under his normal clothing that he hadn't cracked a few ribs from that first blow. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Guardian," Harry said amused at how wary the man was. Evidently the Kree had no equivalent to magic and their culture, and his powers and strength worried the man greatly. Good, that might make him more pliable when Emma began to question him. Being sucker punched had not given Harry the best impression of the Kree spy.
Una however, he actually liked. She was conscientious, seemed to have a caring nature and was a very good nurse judging from the lives she had saved among the crew of her ship. Maybe after the questioning session was over I'll offer her a job he thought to himself amusedly. I'd really like to switch Dr. Druid over to runes entirely now that the potions division has begun to run without him, but he's always taking care of the kid's scrapes and bruises. I know that's his line, and he's done a magnificent job with the two that Ororo saved, but still runes is a major bottleneck, and one only myself and Kitty can really address at this point.
"Gather around you two, and I'll be taking you up." He looked over at Una. "I'm sorry, humans normally get over their reaction to teleporting quickly, you Kree don't seem to do so unfortunately. Would you like me to knock you out for the trip?"
The woman nodded frantically, her stomach was still paining her a little. Mar'vell looked at Una in shock, wondering how bad the teleportation experience had to be to force Una to trust an enemy to wake her up again without doing anything to her. A moment later he found out, but unlike Una, Mar'vell actually threw up when they arrived.
Waking Una up with a wave Harry banished the detritus with his other hand, shaking his head. "Big bad Kree hero huh? Right."
OOOOOOO
In a secure computer room deep within the Helicarrier Carol Danvers frowned, nibbling on the pen stuck between her teeth as she stared into her computers glowing screen trying womanfully to prepare the after-action report from her latest op. It had been a successful raid on a Magia meeting place, much like the one that they had run over in Istanbul which turned out so horrifically, but this one was successful. Carol hadn't lost a single man, which she was very proud of. They had intercepted a shipment of cocaine and possibly broken a budding agreement between the drug cartels and the Magia.
That would've been a nightmare, she reflected, her eyes going distant. Those bastards down in South America are psychopaths pure and simple, they don't just kill someone who was in their way, they kill his entire family in as public a manner as possible. Even the Magia isn't that bad, if only because they knew what would happen if they drew too much police attention to themselves. Of course that was part of the problem in Mexico, the police were a joke, and the cartels were gaining more and more power every year.
But at least this way they won't be getting Mafia help, or their high-tech weapons, wherever the hell the Magia is coming up with them in the first place! Those weapons were a major point of interest for SHIELD and every other intelligence apparatus dealing with the Magia and others too at the moment. With Stark out of the game SHIELD didn't have a supplier that could match the weapons they were routinely meeting in the field, and that showed in their casualties at times.
She'd heard rumors, which normally weren't worth much, but this one came from one of the men up on the communications room, that the Big Three terrorist groups were now SHIELD's primary targets, primarily because AIM could be the source of those weapons. Two teams had been lost to a man recently in an op up in Canada, and it seemed they had walked into an AIM task group, and weapons similar to the ones used by the Magia that Carol had reported were spotted in that debacle.
Carol wished that if she couldn't put her knowledge of space to work she could at least transfer over to the teams working on the Big three, AIM, HYDRA and the Red Skull's as yet unnamed group. The idea the Red Skull was still alive and operating somewhere in the world was a terrifying one for any student of history, and HYDRA's manifesto was worse than their Nazi predecessors. AIM too was bad news to anyone who thought about what a group of amoral geniuses could do if they put their minds to it.
The Magia on the other hand were dangerous, slippery, but small potatoes. They weren't interested in trying to change the status quo of the world, overthrow governments or even simple acts of terrorism, let alone greater acts of terrorism such as that bombing that occurred in China a few days ago. An entire munitions complex taken over, stripped to the ground, and then laid with traps for the pursuers. An entire battalion of the Red Army had been sent in, and died to a man from those traps. SHIELD wasn't in that loop of course, but there was very little that went on in the world that didn't eventually reach them in any event.
No, taking on the BIG Three was where the action was, even if it wasn't the action that Carol wanted to be a part of.
She shook those thoughts off and was about to return to her work when a knock on her cubicle interrupted her. She turned to see one of the communications officers there. "You don't have your pager on!" she said angrily.
"No?" Carol said looking over at it and then cursed, seeing it was out of power. "Sorry, I didn't know. What's up?"
"You're needed immediately in the OTC, there's been a development."
Carol's eyes widened, but she shrugged and stood up hurrying after the other woman through the corridors up to the carriers bridge. She found Fury and a few analysts staring at a video feed that showed Ben Grimm talking to someone. In the background Carol noticed a scene she recognized easily. "What's the Thing doing in Cape Canaveral?" She asked, moving forward.
"Glad you could finally join us," Fury growled tapping one finger on the display device in front of them. "We don't know, the action was already all over by the time we heard about it, damn NASA."
"NASA?" Carol said now taking a real interest. "How did those morons screw up now?"
The chief censor analyst for the Helicarrier scowled angrily. "We're supposed to be getting live feeds from their space radars and telescopes, no if's and's or but's. They are supposed to be sending us all of their telemetry data on anything entering atmosphere, not just the stuff over America but anything their satellites pick up or anything else. But no, damn bureaucrats decided to sit on this until it was too late, the 'object of interest' slammed into the runway at Cape Canaveral, and then something went down there, which ended before they deigned to contact us!"
"That's enough," Fury said calmly, but his one eye was glittering angrily. "NASA screwed the pooch, but I might be able to use this to take control of some of their satellites for us, though I doubt it. The bureaucracies too damn strong for that. We could at least get their liaison with us fired, and replace him with someone who actually knows how to find his ass without a map."
"But that's irrelevant in right now." He went on turning to Carol. "Get your team together, I want you down there ASAP. Question Ben closely, he's evidently staying to answer questions so you shouldn't have many problems."
Carol smiled at that, nodding. The FF were very good people as far as she was concerned, and it was nice to know that her boss didn't view them in the same way as their employers apparently did. Don't look at that too closely Carol, you might not be happy about what you see.
That was an errant thought, quickly subsumed by her excitement. Carol saluted, before racing off to meet up with her team, seven new men and the two survivors from the Greece debacle. She wasn't certain she liked some of the new men, in particular Agent Matthews who had come over from NSA, but she couldn't put her finger on why. They all came highly recommended, and two of them were ex-Navy SEALs, which spoke highly of their skills. But it bothered her how she couldn't shake her paranoia about the former NSA man, when there was nothing on the surface to show anything that could explain it away.
She informed them of the mission as they raced into the hangar bay, where they commandeered one of the newest toys of the SHIELD armada, a small incredibly fast troop transport of the type code-named Eagles. They were built by Stark Enterprises, a sign that he wasn't against building things for the military, just weapons for anyone. She had seen some of the new designs for land based troop transports, and they were impressive to say the least, much like this baby, a perfect mix of armor, speed, and stealth. The moment they exited the Helicarrier the stealth screen activated, and they disappeared from any radar system save that of SHIELD.
Thankfully the Helicarrier had been over Georgia, so getting to Cape Canaveral, only took thirty minutes. After a moment of 'my badge is bigger than yours' with the locals, Carol and her team were ushered onto the base and quickly made their way toward where Ben Grimm loomed over the locals.
Carol barked out orders for her men to spread out. One of them turned aside to interview the local civilians, one went to interview the security guards, while two more moved to reinforce the gate and keep out the news vans that she could already see piling up on the other side of the fence. The others started spreading out searching the battle field for anything of unusual origin. She doubted that SHIELD would be able to keep the news of whatever had happened here from spreading this time, this place was after all a tourist attraction just as much as it was the center of NASA, but she could do her best to put an 'official' spin on it.
"Ben!" she said, smiling as moved up to him. "How's it hanging?"
The Thing turned to her smiling and reaching out with one of his rocky hands to grasp her own. "Danvers, you still in the spy game or transferred back to NASA?"
That was where they had met. When Reed had tried to get NASA interested in his project to investigate the Cosmic Rays Carol had been working with NASA in the hopes of getting into space herself. She had left a few years later, disgusted by the bureaucracy and the sheer idiocy of NASA.
"Unfortunately it's the only game in town that even looks like it's going to start caring about what's up in space." Carol replied, shaking her head. Well, there's Harry of course and his dreams for the future, but I still haven't decided if I'm willing to work for a private group rather than an agency that is at least nominally connected to the powers that be. "Can you tell me what happened here?"
The Thing grimaced. Waving her closer he moved off, ignoring the squawk of outrage from the local who had been questioning him. Carol nodded at one of her men, who sighed in a put upon manner before intercepting him, moving him backwards to let Carol interview Ben alone. She scanned the area, whistling as she noticed the damage getting worse as they moved down the runway. "What did you tangle with?"
Ben laughed grimly. "We're not certain what it was here for, but it was one of those Kree Sentry bots, tough fuckers. You read the reports we passed on about the Kree?"
"Oh yes," Carol said grimly. "That and my readings on the Skrull make up a lot of my nightmares. I'm not certain which group is scarier."
"Join the club," Ben grumbled, moving forward to stand where the Sentry had first appeared.
He pointed downward and she frowned looking at the blast radius. Something must have let off its jets here, to slow it down maybe?
Ben went on. "Like I said it was one of their Sentry's, big ass robots bastards. We tangled with one about a year or so ago, you know that one?"
"Yes," Carol growled shaking her head as she turned back to face Ben. "Was it just you though? I would've thought Reed would've stayed around to answer questions rather than you Ben, no offense."
"None taken," Ben laughed quietly. "Naw, it wasn't just me, I was with a few of our friends when we saw it. Reed, Sue and the others were all busy with other projects, or out of com range, so we handled it."
Even though Ben liked Carol, he wasn't about to tell her about the ship in orbit, that was a prize that Harry was adamant would stay in his hands, not one he was willing to share with anyone he didn't have to. Reed had agreed wholeheartedly with that idea, not trusting any world government, or any military not to take advantage of the ship and what it contained for their own ends. He trusted America's government more than anyone else's of course, but when your starting point was zero that really didn't matter much.
Carol frowned. "Don't suppose you could fill me on who these friends of yours were?"
"Sorry no can do, not without their permission." Ben shrugged, then began to walk her through the battle as far as he could without giving Ororo or the other's identities away. He figured their powers wouldn't matter, not having heard that Carol had run into Harry and his group before, so what Ben told her was actually much more than he had hoped.
Still, Carol wasn't unhappy about this news, or rather not unhappy about hearing from this group again, the news of the Sentry worried her a lot. So it looks as if Harry is already in position to do something about space borne threats, she thought to herself. Again, how the hell do I resign?
OOOOOOO
Later that evening, the younger members of the two groups bedded down in the Baxter Building with a desire to hit the beaches the next day, along with Ben and Susan, neither of whom had much insight in the scientific or strategic issues at hand. This included Johnny and Wyatt, who had returned from their day out a little dismayed at having missed the action. Harry and the others however were still up to discuss recent events.
Harry strode in nodding to them all as he entered the Kree ship's conference room. "I've placed wards on the rooms where our asylum seekers and prisoners are being kept at present. They can't escape even if they wanted to, though the fact most don't want to is interesting, something I hope you can tell us the reason for Em. I understand that you also put up an anti-radio field Reed?"
The older man nodded at that while Harry pulled up a chair beside Jean who was sitting along one edge of the table with Ororo on her other side. "In that case, Emma, you have the floor."
Emma frowned, tapping her fingers on the table. "To start off I should say two things: For one, the Kree are a closed, controlled society, so much I've never seen the like. They don't have news agencies or anything of that nature that is not under the control of the government. They have civilian and military jobs, but both are controlled by the government, the only difference is that one group goes into battle, the other doesn't."
Hearing this Harry shook his head tiredly. "This sounds like an all too familiar refrain." Reed and the others nodded, seeing the connection between the magical world where Harry had come from and what Emma had said. "Let me guess, they're racists too? Closed societies almost always look down on those not part of the chosen elite.
"I'll get to that in a moment Harry, but yes." Emma went on ignoring his loud groan. "Anyway, the next point is that none of the people who've decided to surrender to us are officers. Those two points combined mean none of the prisoners know anything about the overall strategic situation or anything like that, though they know small scale rumors in abundance. Despite this, they were able to tell me about some of the other races out there."
"Interesting but what we need to know now is should we expect further incursions any time soon?" Harry asked intently.
"Not quickly," Emma replied shrugging her shoulders. "Hellion wasn't able to get off one of their communication beacons, which I understand is how they communicate from one solar system to another."
Reed, Harry and Jean all nodded, thinking that that made sense. It was also a good thing if the Kree had faster than light communication then this battle might well have started all-out war between the Kree and Earth. A war that even with Harry's involvement Earth might not win if the Kree were able to throw an entire fleet against Earth or something of that nature.
"Moreover, the scuttlebutt among them is that this mission was off the books. When I questioned them after the others, Mar'vell and Una were very forthcoming about their opinions on the whole mission." She smirked a little looking at Harry who had a butter would not melt in his mouth expression.
"Una in particular seemed very willing to share information. I didn't even have to threaten either of them with mental probing." She ignored Jean's sudden chuckle. "Or the truth serum. The others were not in the main nearly as forthcoming. In particular I had to dose the blue skinned ones with Veritaserum to get anything out of them. I'll come back to them later."
"Captain Mar'vell was chosen to infiltrate Earth, discover the level of technology here, discover the level of the heroes here and determine if they were or could in time become a threat to the Kree. Apparently the first Sentry the Fantastic Four dealt with was able to send out some information, and Mar'vell said that the Kree had had dealings with a group of some sort here before, though he wasn't given any information about them. How much of that is distorted information and how much is true I can't tell you."
Harry did not miss the contemplative look in Reed's face, but he decided to ignore it. If Reed was keeping secrets there was no doubt a reason behind it, and Harry trusted that Reed wouldn't keep a secret that would impact the security of Earth.
Next to him Jean spoke up. "You think this other group could be the source of your data worms?"
"I don't know," Emma replied contemplatively. "We'll have to bring in a programmer to look at the programs aboard the ship and compare them, I have one or two I might be able to bring in, though I would recommend that we erase their memories later. It's not that I don't trust them, it's that I don't trust their discretion."
Harry nodded thoughtfully, then waved for her to continue, while at the same time Cory popped in with some fruits and beverages for them all. While everyone, even Reed, fell on the food. "Well, most of the crewmen we've captured seem to think that the mission was bogus, a put on by someone in the Kree government. The Kree are ruled by something called the Supreme Intelligence, but there are still factions in their government, and Mar'vell is a hero to the pale skinned ones, and a source of anger for the blue-skinned elites."
Plucking a few grapes up, Emma swallowed them before going on. "The pale skinned ones are not 100% Kree, the Kree have apparently been able to breed with other humanoid races, bringing in new DNA for some reason because the Supreme Intelligence told them to and they did so. But now the pale-skinned members almost outnumber the 'True Kree' and are treated like second class citizens. It's worse of course if you're not part of their military, which dominates their entire culture."
"Why am I getting the impression of Spartans in space here?" Harry murmured.
"That would not be too far off From what I know from our previous interaction with them." Reed said shaking his head.
"An excellent analogy on many levels Harry!" Emma exclaimed. "Apart from looking down on non-Kree, from what bits of the culture I've discovered so far the Kree are inherently warlike. If you are not part of their military or their government, you're second-class at best. And yes, the blue skinned Kree would be the true Spartans in that analogy, and while men of course can breed outside of that group with the helots, if a woman does it well…" She shrugged. "I don't have to paint you a picture do I?"
"No you do not," Ororo said shaking her head, while Harry began to bang his head on the table. "Bigotry and racism among the stars? That is… depressing, really, to think an empire could exist in space yet still have such, such foolish problems."
"Prepared to be depressed further," Emma replied dryly. "Diplomacy in space amounts to if you've got guns enough to make someone else back off, you can be listened to, if you don't, you're not worth consideration."
Ororo sighed sadly and Jean put her arm around her friend while Harry reached over the redhead to take Ororo's hand.
Emma shrugged being much more of a pessimist than the others, and went on. "Mind you this is from the Kree themselves, so I don't know how much of that is fact or fiction, but the Kree have conquered several different races, as has one of the other big players in the area, the Shi'ar, who a few of the Kree call 'birdies' for some reason."
She frowned. "From what I can gather, the Shi'ar society might be a little more open than the Kree, I got impressions of some kind of Praetorian guard for their Emperor that is composed of representatives of dozens of different races, and nothing to hint that the other races are treated as second class. The Kree are contemptuous of both those facts, but the pale-skinned ones were also intrigued by it.
"The Kree have a condescending but neutral attitude towards the 'birdies', which essentially means no open warfare along their shared borders, though there have been some flare-ups of course. One or two actually became general knowledge, and Una, the now deceased captain and Mar'vell was actually a part of one of those flare ups."
That got everyone to sit forward, and Jean smiled faintly. "Una impressed me with her dedication to her job, but what in the world could she have done to be involved in something like that?"
"Apparently there is a new race in the area, an extrasolar one from the impression I got from Captain Mar'vell…"
"A race from outside the Milky Way?" Reed said quickly, sitting forward. "That's impressive and rather disturbing frankly."
"It gets worse. I presume everyone here has seen that movie Alien?" Emma asked with a grimace.
"Oh God," Jean groaned, shaking her head. "You're not serious are you?"
"Deadly. Apparently the captain of this ship, Mar'vell and Una were the only survivors of an expedition sent in to rescue a general and his forces who had been supposed to look into why one of the colonies on the border between the Shi'ar and Kree had gone silent. Their group was almost wiped out by this new race, which is called the Brood. And they apparently propagate by injecting some form of… disease, or seed into other races and taking them over, though thankfully the brood don't then burst out of your chest. Mar'vell's a hero to his people because of how he dealt with that."
"Fantastic." Harry muttered, rubbing his face irritably. "And let me guess, talking to them isn't possible?"
"Apparently not, but the Kree aren't exactly good at talking themselves so I don't know."
"Were you able to get astronomical data of where that planet was?" Reed asked.
"No, I couldn't get any astronomical or science based knowledge. Should I tell you about the third and fourth groups?" Emma asked archly. "First the Badoon is the third really powerful race out there but they don't share a border with the Kree, so outside of their name our prisoners don't know anything about them. But then there are the Skrull, who you've run into before Mr. Richards. The Kree are at war with them. In fact the ship had just finished a tour of duty against the Skrull."
"This isn't a Cold War sort of thing, this is a very warm war that flares up into major confrontations every few months." Emma shook her head. "I got the impression of massive armies on all sides, not in the billions but in the trillions in the…we don't have a number for it, but entire star systems changing hands or being scoured of life."
Emma was actually very worried about the sheer size of the empires she had gotten an impression of from the prisoners. As if each trooper or ship was just a single grain of sand in a desert. "That's about all I've got in terms of concrete information."
As Jean and Ororo began to question her about the Skrull and the other races as well as the Kree themselves, Harry leaned back thinking hard.
"Exactly how loyal all are these people we have to the Kree Empire?" Jean asked. "I got the impression there was a lot of underlying anger on both sides."
"You're right about that, and in terms of loyalty, the blue skinned ones are extremely loyal, the pale skinned ones not so much. It would be different if we were, well not human to put it bluntly, close enough in looks to seem like the same species, but we are and I think this group respects us thanks to this show of force."
"So if we help them to build lives on earth, do you think we can trust them not to make trouble?" Ororo asked.
"Eventually for the pale-skinned ones. They're not spies, not even captain Mar'vell is. He should never have been sent on this mission, he only was because someone set him up, that's clear from the orders Yon'Rogg, the captain of this ship, was given. These people don't have the first idea about how to be spies. I think we should still keep them sequestered for now, however. There's still a lot of information we could learn by pumping their brains, but for more you'll need a sociologist of some sort. I can't get anything out of the blue skinned ones without Veritaserum, they all have mental defenses that can at least tell them I'm trying to get in, and it makes anything they say suspect."
"I know a socialist we could bring in, he's a bit of a peacenik where it comes to humanity, but he's a family friend, and knows full well about the alien races we've run into before." Reed said excitedly. The prisoners and the ship itself were a major source of information. "I'd also think hard on bringing in a third questioner, a trained spy. I would propose to bring in Nick Fury or someone he recommends, if they could keep it off the books."
Ororo raised an eyebrow at that and Reed shrugged. "I've recently had to deal with several attempts to bug my incoming and outgoing calls, and another attempt to try to figure out our power usage for some reason. It's clear someone doesn't trust my family and I, and if they don't trust me, why should I trust them in turn?"
"For now we can wait on that, I might be able to bring in another man to do it," Harry said coming out of his thoughts and thinking about getting Banshee to do it, the man was a trained Interpol operative after all so should be able to direct the questions to get what they wanted out of their prisoners.
Unfortunately, this idea wouldn't work out. Banshee put off joining up with Harry's team for another month wishing to hunt down his brother before turning to anything else. So Emma would remain the best interrogator they had for a time.
"In any event we're going to need to bring in a lot more people to work on other things so Jean can concentrate up here. I'll work up some more lie-detecting arrays to emplace in Magical Minds corporate headquarters, and Jean and I can start bringing in more engineers and programmers on the arc reactors and other projects. But we'll also have to bring in Dr. Doom on this," Harry said, looking over at Reed.
Reed's teeth clenched, but he didn't react otherwise. Harry had already told him a few weeks ago about the deal he had made with Doom, and frankly it sounded like a good one to Reed. For his part he did not hate Doom, he was wary of the man, and certainly counted him as a rival and enemy, but didn't loathe him as much as he hated Namor. At least Doom had never tried to steal his wife, other than using Sue as a hostage of course. Moreover, the man hadn't made any moves against the FF since regaining his mother, and it was to be hoped that the woman a calming influence on him.
"I could wish we didn't have to, but we can't seem to break the agreement with Victor. If it ever came to light later on that we did, any goodwill you have with him would disappear, and he would believe himself not bound by it either. At least in that we can trust him, his word is his law if you can actually get him personally to agree to anything." Reed said sourly.
"Jean," Harry went on turning to turning to the redhead. "I want you to expedite your work on the arc reactors. I want the design ready to be handed off to an engineering team to place it into production within a week, after that you'll work with Doom and Reed on this ship".
"The mass production design's already done." Jean shrugged. "I'm just waiting for us to have enough Orihalcum to build one, and we don't actually have production capacity yet." the initial design had been in place in the castle for over a week now, with no problems.
"I'll be buying that capacity soon, don't worry about that. As soon as you're certain that the design works I'll want you working on this ship 24/7. Hopefully by that point I'll be able to join you, and we can go over it all together." Jean cocked an eyebrow at him and he smiled thinly. "I'm not interested right now in how well it's built, or anything new we can learn from it Jean, I'm interested in what it can tell us about the Kree's war capacity, how they fight, how they think. What's their battle doctrine like, their ship classes, anything and everything! Beams, missiles, what kind of weapon systems dominate their strategic planning, and most importantly, where are the cracks, where can we take advantage of their current thinking."
Read look at Harry with wide eyes, then nodded with respect clear on his face. Harry was evidently thinking very long term indeed, and in a way Reed would never have thought of.
Jean frowned, not liking the idea of quitting work on her current projects despite the fascination she had for this ship and what it represented. "Can I have two days to finish up some other projects?"
"That's fine. Our potions are supposed to finish their observation time the day after tomorrow anyway, that'll give us the cash we need to do anything we want. You can start hiring immediately the day after. I want to start building up an order of battle for the Kree as soon as possible." Harry then turned to Emma and Reed. "Emma, when you question the prisoners, I'd like to know anything about outdated ships. What happens to them? Are they decommissioned, destroyed, kept going until they are destroyed in battle, what? Reed, see if you can get more of the computers going outside engineering for now. Anything more will have to wait until Doom can join us."
The others nodded, and the meeting broke up from there.
Emma paused as she was leaving the room, linking her arm with Harry. "This won't take your attention away from our more terrestrial enemies will it? I think we have possibly a month before the Hellfire Club situation boils to the surface."
Harry frowned, but nodded. "You can call if you need me, but for now I want to continue to let that simmer. I'm not happy about it, but we just don't have enough people to put out all the fires that we've got going. In terms of defense however, what's happening on the Sandman front, or, what's her name, Firestar?"
"Ororo will be by this weekend to see to Firestar, though it will only fix the cancer, not the fact she isn't immune to her powers. As for Sandman, I've found out what's been going on. Norman Osborn of Ozcorp is blocking my attempts to get Sandman out. Osborn tends to try to play both sides as it were, on the surface he's a simple businessman, but underneath he might be as dirty as Shaw or that old bastard Hammer. Not certain what he's up to, but he might be thinking to break Sandman out and a few others to build his own crew of super-powered individuals, loyal to him because of their escape and other handles. I told Sandman that the last time I was over there, and I should have him out and working for me in another two weeks max."
"Good." Harry smiled thinly. "I like the idea of you having a powerful bodyguard beside you if things go south with the Hellfire club, after all I might not be able to get to you right away."
"I find it very comforting as well," Emma remarked dryly then moved over to where Cory was waiting to pop her back down to her mansion in New York.
With that Emma walked off to talk to Jean and Harry hurried over to Reed, speaking to him in a low voice for a moment. The older man grimaced, but nodded, seeing the point to Harry's request, which was to do an autopsy on some of the Kree dead. While not his main line, Reed could analyze a dead body as well as he could a robot, thought the former was of course much more disgusting.
This would allow them later to figure out the Kree would have issues with Earth's atmosphere, as well as finding out why the Kree were so much stronger than human norm. But In other ways it would give Harry even more questions to ask. But that was for later.
Several hours later, Harry stood alone in the docking area of the ship, looking around him before moving on to look at one of the main weapons of the ship. Like he had said to Jean and Reed, he wasn't really concerned about the fact that there seemed to be a few problems with the designs of the weapons, or that the engine was very dependent on fuel for its output however massive that was, though that was of strategic importance to him. No, he was already thinking in terms of what this ship said about the Kree military.
One of the questions he had asked was could humans build this ship with their current tech level, and the question had been answered in an ambivalent manner by Reed. If he, Tony or one of the other true geniuses in the world was involved with the construction then yes, but if he was asking if one of the superpowers of the world could do it, the answer was no.
The ship was made of a type of metal that could only be created in zero-g environments, it was tougher and stronger than any terrestrial steel barring adamantium or Harry's Orihalcum, which would never be available in large enough amounts to create a ship, not for years anyway. Some of the systems were far beyond current tech. The weapons in particular were something that Reed would fight tooth and nail to see kept out of circulation. Harry agreed with that, which mollified the man tremendously.
This ship represented a major breakthrough, and Harry was determined to start building up the tech base necessary to take advantage of it. Harry was thinking long term: of making Earth a force to be reckoned with, not just some backwater planet but something that the Kree, Shi'ar and Skrull would not wish to tangle with, at least not as cavalierly as was previously the case. If he could give them pause, that might be enough. It would take time, but Harry was already planning for it. Not just as a defensive measure for Earth, but to give humanity a shining example to live up to, to force them to forget all the petty rivalries and rise to the stars.