The answer to that question was simple: because we all couldn't fit in one Breakworld flight craft.
Mister Summers and Miss Frost got into one, leaving me to fly the other one alone. I had never flown alone. To make things scarier, we were on a hostile planet, in case anyone had forgotten. So I wasn't just flying, I was also playing fighter pilot.
Even as quickly as we'd moved out, of course it would have stood to reason that the soldiers camped near the tomb would have eventually noticed that we'd dropped all of the guys they left behind, stolen a bunch of their vehicles, and sabotaged the rest. So it only stood to reason that they would send planes to shoot down the ones that we'd taken. You know what that meant? Dogfights. Plenty of dogfights.
As playing Grand Theft Auto for the better part of a decade had prepared me for hijacking an armored car, years of playing Ace Combat, as well as actually getting real flight training got me prepared to shoot down alien pilots in the skies of the Breakworld.
As a plane tried to line itself up with Mister Summers' to try and shoot it down, I slipped in behind and did the deed first. Boss-man using himself as bait made it easy.
They sent a squadron after us, but they hadn't lasted very long after the engagement started. There was one sovereign ruler of Breakworld, so it wasn't like their pilots got a lot of practice on-world fighting other enemy pilots. I had a feeling any 'war games' that troops took part in were to the death.
It was the only way that I could explain how I was handling them so well. Even when I wasn't picking up the scraps from Mister Summers, I still shot down a few in my own right. But it was nothing compared to the other plane containing X-Men
Mister Summers was good. Really good. The best pilot I'd ever seen. Granted, I had only seen a few better than me, but they had all been X-Men. Still, he was leagues above any of them. I'm pretty sure he didn't even need Miss Frost to co-pilot and watch his back. I'm pretty sure he didn't need me to pick up the scraps and take out any planes that he couldn't get rid of himself.
Eventually, we came across a flaming wreck in the woods. The fact that they had an intact forest was amazing to me. I had to apologize for my brazen assumption that I was on a crapsack planet.
"Bellamy, look alive," I felt Mister Summers say to me telepathically, with help of course from Miss Frost, "If that's the last of the splinter ship, the troops can't have gone far. We'll have to circle until we see something or get a signal."
'Gotcha,' I thought back, moving out of the formation I had been keeping outside of combat with their plane, 'Splitting off to start searching.'
What proceeded was nearly an hour of boredom. All trees looked the same when you were over a thousand feet in the air. Yes, my eyesight was good, but it wasn't that good. Thankfully there were instruments in the plane that let me get a better look at what was in closer to the ground. Breakworld jets really were a lot like jets on Earth. I could locate what I was looking for, I just needed a sign.
My sign came in the form of a goddamn flying purple dragon that was a dead ringer for the one my teacher kept back at the Institute. It was a dead ringer because it was the very same, "Lockheed? What the fuck are you doing here?" I said to myself when the weapons locked on to the would-be bogey. I did not fire a missile at my teacher's pet dragon, thank you. Instead, I found a place to put the plane down to investigate, "If this is a trap... it's a really good trap," I said as I hopped out of the cockpit and started heading that way.
Eventually, I saw Lockheed land on a tree branch in the woods and look down at me. When he realized who it was, for the first time ever, he seemed happy to see me. The growls that came out of his mouth as he flew down and landed on my shoulder seemed pleased, at least.
The feeling was mutual, especially because he then led me to the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers that had been on the decoy escape vessel. We came across all of them taking up hiding spots for a would-be ambush.
I almost started laughing in relief. There were more of them than I had expected to see. What a stroke of fortune, "Oh man, I thought all of you guys were toast. I'm so happy to see you," I said once I was close enough.
The first soldier, the one I guessed was in charge of who was left, lowered his weapon and visibly relaxed his body, "Same here. You're that kid. The one with the X-Men, right? They're still kicking, aren't they?"
And then some. Of course, that was before we had split up again, so anything could have happened, "Last time I checked, we were all alive. Your boss too. Have you guys been hanging around here the whole time?" I asked, looking around at the amassed fighting force. They all seemed tired, "So is this place teeming with soldiers or anything?" I needed to know in case I had to be ready to shoot a bitch.
An odd alien soldier with a red dragon-like head answered, "Honessstly, we haven't sssseen any patrols ssssince we crashed. At leassst not on the ground," He hissed quietly.
I scratched at my head and continued to look around, "That makes sense of one thing at least. There were a lot of planes swarming around near the crash site. We had a bunch of dogfights on the way over here. The skies are clear now."
Everyone else reacted positively to that bit of news, "Outstanding. Now what?"
A great question. One that I hopefully had a satisfactory answer to, "Now I've got to get a signal to Cyclops and Emma Frost. They're out looking for you too," I said, looking up through the canopy of the forest with a frown, "I have no idea how to send something without letting everyone see it. Bad guys included."
All of the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers winced, clearly not liking the sound of that. I couldn't blame them. They weren't as well equipped and they would be outnumbered if another battle started. I didn't necessarily want to fight a ton of people either, "Well that's no good."
Agreed. However, it wasn't like we were powerless, or stuck on the ground, "Fuck it. Do you want me to just hop back in the plane and circle tight around here? I'm sure they'll come back, see me, and get in touch eventually," I wasn't much for military strategy. I just wanted to help, "If anything pops off while I'm up there, well, just get your distance, because that thing has weapons."
The guy in charge seemed to have his shit together when it came to handling things in the field, but making calls beyond that seemed to vex him, "It would be nice to have some air superiority," He seemed to be debating the decision, "...No. Stay down here. You've got some firepower in those hands. We might need that more than you up in a plane you're still learning how to pilot."
Fair enough. Either way, I could deal with it. And I had remembered that I had a second way to communicate with Mister Summers and Miss Frost, as long as they were somewhere close. He said they would circle the area, so maybe it had a chance of working.
'Hey, Miss Frost, can you hear me?' I started thinking out loud, much in the same way I would have tried to contact Ruth on my squad, 'It's Bellamy. I've got the S.W.O.R.D. guys here. It looks like most of 'em are in one piece. They seem tired though.'
I waited patiently for a response, even though it seemed to take forever to get. Eventually though, after close to two minutes, right before I gave up, I got an answer, "That's wonderful, dear. We're on the way to you now. And don't worry about what happens next. Everything is fine."
If that wasn't the most ominous thing I had heard all day, I hadn't been paying attention to what had been going on around me.
Heavy thuds on the ground and rustling in the trees started to get all of our attention. The soldiers around me started holding onto their guns tighter, their heads whipping around to try and figure out what was coming.
I looked up and saw the cause of all of the trouble, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
It was a giant, metal insect with thin, sharp metal legs. It reminded me of the big metal spider from Wild, Wild West, only somehow scarier. And yet, I didn't start cutting it down at the legs. Mostly because I remembered what I'd been told a minute earlier about not freaking out over whatever happened next.
Like I said, the lead S.W.O.R.D. soldier only felt certain operating in the field, "Stay low! If they engage, return fire and fall back in Alpha-Kree Formation! Maybe it'll miss us."
The dragon-headed guy was less certain of that fact, "No, it won't."
Either way, if there was going to be another fight, I figured there wasn't anyone around that was going to cover my ass. More like I would be expected to cover theirs, seeing as how I was one and they were many. With that in mind, I marched on out to deal with whatever this thing was.
Its thorax lowered to the ground and opened up. It was then that I bore witness to a badly beaten up Mister Summers and Miss Frost emerging from inside of it.
I wasn't even surprised. Why else wouldn't something like that have tried to kill us all on-sight, "I have a lot of questions," I said, trying to play it cool, "What happened to you? Weren't you guys in a plane? Where did this thing come from?"
Out of the two of them, Miss Frost looked particularly beaten up, which was weird since she could turn to solid diamond to protect herself, "To answer all of your questions in order..." They moved out of the way and Danger stepped out of the same doorway.
She was right. That did answer all my questions, all at once even. But on the same end, it opened up so many more; namely-, "Why am I not shooting her right now?"
You know, because she tried to kill me three times. Oh, and because she actually did kill two students back at the Institute. Granted, it was kind of indirectly, but in the same vein it was exactly what she'd wanted.
"We've come to an understanding," Mister Summers said, apparently okay with whatever turn of events that had occurred out of my line of sight, "And now we have transport for all of you."
"Okay, great," I said, not knowing what exactly we were going to do with our newfound mobility for the many. Because it didn't sound like he meant it was for all of us, "...Wait. Transport for them? What about us?"