From Bad to Worse

The Great Escape

Summary

  Wolverine wakes up to find himself physically alone on an alien spaceship. Aria, the Zennan fugitive, was still in his head, though not controlling Wolverine's body at the moment. Aria points out how sleep seemed to have calmed Wolverine down, and asked if he had fewer "reservations" about helping her to free the people. Logan tells her that he just wanted to get this task for her done and over with, and that their relationship wouldn't improve one way or another, after what she had put him through. According to Aria, based on what she had saw in Wolverine's mind while he was sleeping, she had thought he wasn't angry with her anymore. Logan is mad that she had looked into his mind, but Aria says that the way her powers works basically meant that when she possessed a body, the body and mind is virtually open to her to experience and see.

  Just then, the ship hits turbulance. Logan sees nothing outside, even though Aria says they've encountered the prison world's first line of defensive barriers. Reprogramming their landing sequences, Logan is then able to see the prison world: a huge world which one couldn't even begin to imagine how one was able to build a prison of such shear size. Only then does Logan realize just how big of a task he had gotten himself into.

  On the prison world, the Collector is notified by one of his slave that the ship that the Zennan female had stolen had returned. Their scan had indicated an Earth mutant on board, which brings to mind, for the Collector, the other Earth prisoner that he had on his prison world: Corsair (and his alien followers). The ship is brought into the prison world by a tractor beam. Logan wants to know what the strategy is, only to be told by Aria that their strategy will depend on what happens once they've docked, which meant that Logan had to find a hiding spot.

  Once docked, a group of Saurian guards begins to look thoroughly through the ship for Wolverine. From his hiding place, Logan attacks the guards. As he attacks, he mentally tries to look for Aria, but only to discover that she wasn't in his head anymore. He realizes that maybe she had "jumped bodies" and that one of the guards he was fighting might be her. Suddenly, a small explosion occurs behind him. Logan believes that one of the guards had missed firing at him, and had hit the ship. Before long, the ship explodes with the guards and Wolverine close by.

  Elsewhere on the prison world, the Collector summons a creature named Torgo, requesting that the situation on the docking bay had turned for the worse, and wanted Torgo's assistance to find the ship's passenger (Wolverine), dead or alive. Through his video feed with the imprisoned Corsair and his gang, he informs Corsair that Wolverine had just arrived, and would make a fine addition to his collection. Corsair, hearing this, thinks that if the Collector was being informed right, then Logan was "in over his head -- and so are they [the Collector]."

  Meanwhile, down below near the docking bay, we find that Logan had survived the explosion, and hid in an air duct (by luck, he found it) until some other guards cleared the way, which gave him the opportunity to leave the hanger. He thinks to himself how he had wish he brought along some of the other X-Men with him, and also without Aria to guide him around, he was lost, but couldn't figure out why she had bailed out on him. He picks up a few familiar scent from the air, but couldn't make a match out of them. Snooping around, while complaining to himself about why Aria had bailed on him, he gets a stronger scent, which he realizes it wasn't the guards, but rather, their prisoner. Believing the scent to be maybe Shi'ar, he follows the guard quietly. He hears, from behind, some guards coming up behind him, and makes an attempt to hide. Four guards pass by, saying how they should be more concerned with the Zennan woman since the "Terran" (Earth human, as in Wolverine) probably had been killed in the blast. One of the guards notice a loose air duct, which indicates that Wolverine had not died yet. From above, Logan takes out one of the guards. He dodges another guard's blast, which hits another guard instead. Logan is hit from the side, and goes down. The guards make the mistake of thinking Logan was down until he unleashes his claws and takes out the guards.

  Doing some more snooping around, from behind, he is held at gunpoint by one of the alien guards. Only after the guard calls him "Canucklehead" does he realize that it was Aria. Aria's plan was to put Logan in restraints and make it look as if he was her prisoner. She was going to fill him in about her plan until Torgo shows up, threatening the two, poised for a showdown.