We open on the bridge of the Enterprise with Kirk, Spock & McCoy discussing a space anomaly the Enterprise has encountered. Kirk's Captain Log tells us that they are at Delta Vega, a planet the Enterprise has been to before, a place that brought a lot of pain to Kirk. This happened in the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the series second pilot, when the Enterprise was called to Delta Vega and Kirk's best friend, Gary Mitchell, was transformed into a god-like being.
The Enterprise continues monitoring the anomaly when Uhura isolates a signal emanating from the anomaly. It's a distress signal, but she can't translate it, and neither can the Universal Translator. Suddenly, an odd-looking spaceship emerges from the anomaly. Kirk tries to have Scotty get the ship in their tractor beam, but before Scotty can act, the ship gets destroyed in the anomaly's wake.
Spock informs Kirk that the Enterprise's sensors had been able to scan the other ship before it exploded. There were seven near-human life forms on board, but before Kirk can fully digest whatever "near-human" means, a gigantic ship uncloaks right in front of the Enterprise and fires a projectile at them. The projectile stops 100 kilometers from the Enterprise, and the crew is surprised to see it's a being, and not just any being: it's Gladiator from the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.
He warns the Enterprise that he has claimed the planet for the Shi'ar Empire (of course, Kirk marvels how he's able to talk in space), and as a parting warning, Gladiator punches the ship. Yes, you read that right. He punches the Enterprise, damaging the shields.
We then get to see that someone has been spying on the Enterprise crew via the ducts: Wolverine. Yep, those seven life forms on that ship that exploded are the X-Men, and they managed to teleport off. Unfortunately, they were aiming for Deathbird's ship (Deathbird is the sister of Shi'ar Empress Lilandra) & ended up on the Enterprise by accident.
Beast soon figures out that somehow, the X-Men got transported into the future when they got sent through the spatial anomaly. However, they can't deal with that mystery at the moment. Gambit was injured during the teleportation, and the team needs to find the medical center of the ship. Jean uses her telepathic powers to try and find a way off of the ship so they can escape without being detected, but Spock senses her somehow, and he leaves the bridge to check up on his hunch.
Meanwhile, Storm & Beast manage to get Gambit to sickbay (via those ever-so-useful air ducts) where they run into Dr. McCoy. Dr McCoy, meet Dr. McCoy. This is one of the niftiest little scenes in the book, and one of my favorites.
Back with the rest of the team, they're headed through the ship, trying to reach the shuttlebay. Their plan is to steal a shuttle craft & take it down to the problem, but they run in to a little problem in the form of Spock. Wolverine being Wolverine, he attempts to attack Spock, but Spock brings him down promptly with a Vulcan nerve pinch. Doesn't work, though. Wolvie's healing factor brings him right back, and he pops his claws while demanding Spock take them to his leader.
The action now cuts to Deathbird speaking with Gladiator & her vizier. We learn that she has brought the ship to the anomaly because she believes that the energy emanating from it could allow her to conquer the universe. Gladiator tells her that their sensors have found a humanoid life form on the planet (which is supposed to be lifeless), and she makes plans to go down and visit it.
We now get our first glimpse of Delta Vega. Somehow, the planet is being transformed; the source of this transformation is Proteus, long-time X-Men villain. He has combined his essence with that of Gary Mitchell (Kirk's dead friend), and their two immense powers have been combined.
Back aboard the Enterprise, the two teams are having a meeting in the ready room when Chekhov informs them that the rift is expanding again. Kirk tells Spock to get a landing party ready to head down to the planet and see what's going on down there. The rest of the teams depart, leaving Kirk alone with Jean Grey.
Of course, Kirk being Kirk, he tries to hit on Jean, but she quickly puts him in his place.
The two teams beam down to the planet where they find what appears to be a Scottish village. Little Proteus has been a busy villain! And he takes no time at all to show himself. Proteus/Gary have joined forces with Deathbird and the Imperial Guard. She's promised him that she'll take him along on her ship so he's free to conquer the universe as he desires. He reveals that Proteus was searching for a body to contain his essence, one that wouldn't burn out because of his powers, and he was attracted to the psionic rift. He found Gary, and when they bonded, they found that they could control the rift & affect changes to reality.
Now here is where things really start getting cracky. Spock, who remained on the ship with the Drs. McCoy, informs Kirk that the rift is expanding erratically. Bishop tells Kirk that his mutant ability enables him to rechannel vast amounts of energy, so Kirk has him beamed back aboard the Enterprise to help out.
Beast & Spock are putting their vast intellects together to solve the issue.
Back on the planet, Proteus/Gary betrays Deathbird, and the heroes attempt to attack him, even though they know it's not going to do any good. Kirk asks Jean to use her psy powers so he can talk to Gary. Gary is very, very angry at Kirk still because Kirk killed him when his powers threatened to overtake them all. Kirk tries to reason with him, to explain that he acted out of justified fear. Jean seems to reach Gary by telling him that he still has humanity in him and he knows what he has to do.
The fight is continuing, but Proteus is pretty much thrashing them. Spock contacts the landing party and tells them that they're going to attempt to destroy the rift (resulting in a cold-blooded Vulcan comment from Bones). Gary in Proteus starts to protest as they begin their siphoning of the energy rift, and Jean, Cyclops & Kirk plead with him.
Bishop, riding on the ship's nacelle barrel, refocuses the rift's energy through the phaser banks & fires it back into the rift, causing it to contract upon itself. Of course, they never explain how Bishop, a human (he may be a mutant, but he's still human) can breath in space, but let's leave that aside, shall we?
With everything a success, it's just time now to clean up. There's nothing left of Gary, and we get a "He's dead, Jim" from Bones as a result. The Imperial Guard almost starts to attack, but Cyclops uses his authority from Lilandra to commandeer their craft. Deathbird immediately surrenders, but as she says, "only because there is nothing left for us here."
The X-Men give the Enterprise crew a hurried goodbye (they have to leave before the rift completely closes). Cyclops tells Kirk that seeing his crew has given him hope for the future (awwww), and Kirk returns the favor by telling Cyc that the sacrifices people like the X-Men have made is why they've made it this far as a race (double awwwww). The X-Men depart on the Shi'ar ship, and things go back to normal for the Enterprise. Bones & Spock go back to their regular bickering, which Kirk cuts off. The issue ends with Kirk telling Sulu to bring the ship out of orbit "to the future, Mr. Sulu. To the future."
All in all, it's still a good read. Memory had kind of made it a little better than the reread proved it to be, and it wasn't quite as funny as I had remembered it, either. Still, it's a fun book, and if you can find it for cheap, I'd recommend it just for the sheer crack.
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