Part 84: Holiday Update: Let's Read: Planet X - Part 9

STAR TREK The Next Generation / X-MEN: PLANET X - part 9

Last Time: Picard made a captain's log (they'll never clean that out of his command chair), Lt. Sovar found his brother, and Corba finally stopped talking.



Chapter 26

Dr. Crusher has created a holographic Professor X to consult about means of 'fixing' the transformed. So, Dr. Crusher programmed 'Earth's most brilliant geneticist and expert on mutations' in the span of about five minutes between chapters. She also perfectly recreates the X-Mansion and marvels at it as if somehow it programmed itself and honestly, this shit makes no sense. It's kinda like they were planning to have Dr. Crusher discover the way to get the X-Men home about here and wanted her to visit Professor X; then changed it at the last minute to keep the Star Trek universe from having free access to the X-Men universe or something; but they still wanted to slip Professor X into the novel so Picard could meet him later and we could have a 'har har they look so alike' moment. This book came out shortly after the first X-Men movie, incidentally.

It's a huge plot-hole, in other words, and it makes no sense. This is the part of the book that makes me want to slam my head into my desk until I forget this book exists.

Here, read this, and understand.


She then spends a page explaining the Holodeck to a hologram that she could have simply programmed to be aware of his own nature. She asks the Professor, a holographic 'master' of 20th century genetics, to assist her (a 24th century doctor) in finding a cure for the transformed.

ARRRRRRRRGHHHHH.

Holo-Xavier has the same qualms I do.




We then jump to Data, who's just regained consciousness. He comments that he shut down entirely for a little while, then walks out of the broom closet he'd been locked in. He spots the transformed who zapped him and beats her unconscious uses the Vulcan nerve pinch on her. The other transformed in the room runs off yelling a warning that Data has woken up.

Data then 'relies on the element of surprise' to get the drop on the transformed in the next room. I'm not making that shit up, he tries to surprise them immediately after they've been warned he's awake, and, of course, fails miserably.

One of the transformed tries to rally the others to attack Data, but Data wins them over by explaining how different he is and how he knows what they're going through and… why did they need the X-Men for this? Data seems to have it all under control. Data has a plan to escape the Draa'kon, but we don't get to hear it so that qualifies as a cliffhanger. The chapter ends.



Chapter 27

We then return to King Cold and Frieza. King Cold randomly comments that things are not going well. King Cold then contemplates the Enterprise, comparing it to a mosquito, but one that has disrupted his mission and blah-blah-blah.

He then makes a comment about being afraid that Captain Picard will 'discover what we created on Xhaldia'. He then decides that he's going to kill everything on the planet, because his soldiers are all retarded. No big loss, from where I'm sitting.

We then cut to Picard, who is regretting his decision to let Archangel onto the bridge, as Archangel is hugely disruptive even though he's sitting at a station that's not working. The Draa'kon then launch an explosive device at Verdeen. Uh-oh, so, like, a photon torpedo or-




With the Enterprise's weapons out, Picard opts to take a shuttle to go after the SLOWEST MISSILE EVER. It's suicidal, because he can only destroy the device while he's nearby, which would kill him. He decides that if that's the price to save NotEarth, so be it.

Archangel follows him into the turbolift.


Archangel then demands to come along, because 'he can help'. Picard technobabbles about friction and such and Archangel makes a joke about dying, which pisses Picard off. Archangel points out that there could be radioactive fallout, something the Captain hadn't considered, so he opts to take Archangel along and try to disarm the missile while it's traveling through NotEarth's atmosphere.

So resolved, the chapter ends. I'm going to qualify this a cliffhanger even though it's pretty obvious that Picard isn't going to fail.



Chapter 28

Lt. Sovar is still watching his brother walk away slowly. He stands there like an idiot, then decides he can't let his brother escape leave. He follows Dongs and pleads with him to listen for a moment, but Dongs will have none of it.


Dongs then spooges his death-ray all over a Draa'kon that had been sneaking up on Lt. Sovar. Dongs then goes back to the shuttlecraft with Lt. Sovar.

We then cut over to Troi and Colossus, who see the city guard shoot at the transformed rather than the Draa'kon; so Colossus goes postal-but it turns out they're mistaken and the guard were shooting past the transformed at another group of Draa'kon. Troi considers the irony, because Colossus nearly doomed them all-but Wolverine shows up and murders everyone so the lesson here is less "don't make rash judgments and start punching people until you're certain they're dickheads" and more "don't fuck with Wolverine", I suppose.

We then rejoin Picard and Archangel, who are chasing the slowest missile ever. Seriously, Malcom McDowell's missile was able to hit the sun like, eight seconds after he launched it; and the Draa'kon can't build a missile capable of hitting a planet (which they're orbiting) in less than ten minutes?

Some conquerors.

Picard takes the shuttle into the atmosphere at a 'dangerous' speed and angle, so it starts to heat up. Picard then scans the (slowest) missile (ever), has time to explain to Archangel how to disarm it in terms he can understand, and then matches speed and tags it with a tractor beam.

Then we find out both the shuttlecraft and the missile are only traveling at 400 kph.

Really. Not joking.


Archangel then jumps out of the shuttlecraft, flies to the missile, and…

CLIFFHANGER ENDING!



Next Time: Rahatan gets his ass kicked, Picard and Archangel a missile, and Wolverine kills some dudes.