Christmas on Noh's ship came and went with a few holiday songs and some mistletoe that Jubilee and Kate were basically using as weapons by the end of the day to grab their respective boys and kiss them. Logan was sure to keep watch on the observation deck while the party went on — and again on Kate's birthday about a week later as Jubilee insisted that they still had to have a dance party just the four of them — though the girls ended up more or less spending Kate's entire birthday bouncing on Jubilee's bed with hairbrush microphones just because they could.

But besides the few moments of distraction like that — the days of the trip were more or less the same, with someone on observation and someone watching the Skrull frequency as the rest of them took turns piloting or sleeping.

They were still three days out from their destination when they ran into trouble. Noh was on the observation deck when he spotted the approaching signal and swore very loudly in his native language and a few others as he ran to where Kate was piloting and breathlessly told her to get out of the way so that he could steer as the first shot went over their bow, missing them by inches.

Kate looked surprised as Noh was already sliding into the pilot's chair and pulling down holographic displays as another shot came apparently from the space in front of them, though there was no sign of the craft ahead of them.

"Shi'ar stealth tech," Noh growled out like it was a curse as he pulled down a few more displays, apparently using them as a guide to where the craft was instead of trusting his eyes as he jerked on the stick and twisted hard, narrowly avoiding another shot. "Hang on."

Almost to be helpful, part of the ship formed a little handle near Kate's head so she could do just that and hang on as Noh made another sharp turn, nearly flinging the ship around 180 degrees past the Shi'ar craft so he could return fire for just a moment before he had to tuck into a tight spin to avoid another shot from the Shi'ar.

"Hawkeye, get these guys in your sights and return fire; I'll keep them off of us," he muttered out as he gestured to the weapons controls, and he tipped the ship so she could have a better shot for just a moment before he quickly pulled up on the stick as soon as she had fired to avoid the retaliatory shot.

As he righted the ship to give Kate her next shot, though, the Shi'ar were finally able to land a good hit, and the entire craft rocked with the impact as Noh had to turn his attention just to keeping them from losing trajectory as he switched to evasive maneuvers, swearing in Kree under his breath the entire time.

Kate managed to get off another shot before the Shi'ar's retaliatory blast crippled their weapons systems and had Noh swearing in English as well as he just tried to keep them out of the Shi'ar's reach — but when another hit took out a good portion of their engines, there wasn't much he could do except to just keep cursing the Shi'ar for whatever he could think to curse them for.

By that time, the rest of their companions had finally made their way to where Kate was almost quietly watching Noh lose his cool. When her little photographer imp made to raise the camera phone, she just reached up and took it from him quickly.

Logan looked over at Kate and the expression on her face before Kurt gently asked what was going on and headed over to stand by Kate.

"Shi'ar," she said simply, tipping her head at Noh. "They took out our engines."

"Does he need ... something?" Kurt asked quietly.

"Only my guns and a clear space to work," Noh said with a deep glare as he got up from the pilot's seat. "They're not getting my ship."

"How many are there?" Logan asked. "We know how to cripple them."

"Judging by the size of the ship, I'd say quite a few," Noh said. The bands on his wrists morphed into the guns that he carried as he looked at the others.

"If you're going to get yourself killed, I'm never going to forgive you," Jubilee said with her arms crossed when she saw the look on his face. "But if the plan is to wreck their day, we're going with you."

At that, Noh actually cracked a bit of a smirk. "The plan is always to wreck their day, Jubilee."

"That better not include some stupid clause like 'unless I'm captured' because that is stupid and no one can pull a Houdini like the X-Men." She made a point to gesture toward Kurt and Logan in particular, and as she did so sparks flew from her fingertips — a clear sign that she was getting ticked off. "One can cut through anything, I can blow up anything, and Kurt can zap us away in case of nothing else working."

"And you and I can shoot through aliens like nobody's business," Kate agreed, motioning between herself and Noh. "So let's show them who's boss."

"Yes, let's," Noh agreed, though his expression hadn't softened the slightest bit.

"We even know our way around their city," Jubilee said. "And I know about the secret tunnels under it."

"Jubilee, I do not intend to allow them to take me — or us — that far. Or at all," Noh said with a sharp look her way.

"I'm just saying, if it were to get that far — which you seem to think is the worst possible thing in the universe — I still know how to get out of it." Jubilee sighed and took a step forward to rest her hand on his arm. "And clearly, I know these things because it's already been done — and I'm still here."

He paused in his glaring for a moment to give her a kiss on the cheek and to say simply, "You are not Kree," before he turned to the others. "I cannot ask you to risk capture for my ship."

"Doing it anyhow," Logan replied. "But not for the ship. For Jubes. I like her a lot better when she's happy."

Noh turned Logan's way with a raised-eyebrow look for a long moment before he simply nodded. "When they board us, it will likely be this way," he said, indicating a further corridor. "The defenses are weakest there."

"Then grab your weapons if you need 'em," Logan said Kate's way before he and Jubilee shared a look and a nod in their own tried and true non-verbal agreements.

The whole of the group looked ready to go, and even one of the bamfs was sitting on Noh's shoulder and giving him a comforting sort of pat on the head before the little guy turned toward the aft corridor and bared his teeth when they heard the telltale thunk of the Shi'ar ship latching on.

Jubilee lowered her shades as she stood at Logan's shoulder, and when Kate looked their way, she saw the bruised purple marks on the backs of Logan's hands where the claws were just waiting to cut through.

Kurt had his swords drawn, and the bamfs around him were all growling low, their tails switching back and forth sharply, ready to do whatever they could think of to help in the battle. Kate already had an arrow on the string, ready to draw back the instant something happened. They were all set to go, and just before the breach happened, Jubilee looked up toward Noh. "We have a rule," she told him before tipping her head to Kate.

"And the rule is — don't die," Kate finished for her, which got the tiniest of smirks from Noh.

"A simple enough rule to follow," he said.

"It's the only one that counts," Kurt agreed. "And we do try very hard not to break it."

Noh nodded his agreement, though the moment the Shi'ar broke through his ship and the little group were able to get in their first shots, Jubilee had to wonder if he'd really been listening as he dove right in with such ferocity that he didn't seem to care where he was fighting as long as he was making life miserable for the Shi'ar.

Kate recognized what he was doing as a white run — which meant he was completely ignoring any pain, or really any stimulus at all, in favor of just focusing his every thought on the fight. It was how he had taken down her entire team and the Runaways the first time they met — and it was effective, if incredibly dangerous, since he could not feel it when he was hit. The white run allowed him to move through entire groups in a matter of seconds, and the Shi'ar were clearly caught off guard by it — but that only meant the Shi'ar hit back hard once they had regrouped a bit.

When Logan and Jubilee saw how Noh was taking damage, they moved into a different stance, where Logan tried to push ahead to clear the path or take the brunt of it and sever some Shi'ar limbs before Noh could fall on his own sword as Jubilee went to blowing up anyone that seemed to be targeting him in particular, hoping that he hadn't done himself too much damage already and crossing her fingers that Logan could hold out long enough to get the job done.

Kurt and Kate, however, were magnificent and graceful by comparison. Kurt fought with both swords drawn and used his tail as a weapon as he cut through weapons and Shi'ar alike while Kate shot one invader after another. When the Shi'ar got too close to Kate, Kurt would simply teleport her up to what looked like a safer vantage point — with clear alleys to shoot — before he would reappear below, generally behind them to start in as the best swashbuckler that the universe had seen since his father.

The arrangement couldn't last forever, though. Eventually, Noh's white run all but evaporated when he took a solid hit to the chest. When that stopped him cold, one of the Shi'ar rushed in to restrain him before Logan could get there, all the while muttering curses about the Kree.

Logan growled out in frustration and tried to help Noh break loose. In a mad rush, he cut his way through two Shi'ar before a third turned his way unexpectedly and simply shot him in the head, which dropped him instantly.

When Jubilee saw what had happened, she flat out lost her temper as she just started to try and light up any Shi'ar that got too close to Wolverine's still form - or who tried to rough up Noh as he was restrained. But that didn't last long, either, as she was upset enough and distracted enough that a Shi'ar grabbed her and lifted her up, kicking, screaming, and crying.

Kurt quickly took in the situation before him and with a frustrated growl that seemed to reverberate among all the bamfs, the tiny blue imps began teleporting around the ship at incredibly rapid speeds, fueled by their rage as they tore into the Shi'ar guards around them.

Kurt was removing limbs as he teleported, a trick that he would tell Kate later was incredibly hard to do, and that he wasn't entirely sure how he did it, only that he had to be completely furious to pull it off. Unfortunately, he couldn't rage fully and keep close tabs on Kate, and with their comrades down and out anyhow, it wasn't too long before Kate found herself completely surrounded.

The Shi'ar guards yanked her bow from her hands and pulled the quiver away from her, and although she fought well hand to hand — the armor they wore certainly didn't help her very much. When she was finally subdued — and very angry — one of the Shi'ar called out to Kurt to get his attention.

"Call off your pets and surrender," the Shi'ar commander ordered Kurt as the other Shi'ar soldiers made his point for him by taking his three friends in tighter holds. When Kurt paused and looked toward the commander, the Shi'ar fighter bared his teeth and made a motion for his fellow soldiers to make their points more succinctly, with a couple soldiers roughing up Noh, another trying to clap a hand over Jubilee's mouth and nose, and one Shi'ar holding Kate drawing a long blade to hold just below her chin.

"Call off your pets and surrender," the Shi'ar commander repeated, "or we will kill your allies one by one."

Kurt looked at his captured friends with wide eyes as the rage he had been building seemed to only burn hotter on seeing their state before he finally teleported a few feet in front of the commander with a glare that could kill on its own, grudgingly surrendering so that he didn't have to watch another of their group fall — though he lost much of his steam being so close to where Wolverine still was completely motionless. Kurt stared at Logan as they restrained him, practically holding his own breath as he hoped for Logan to just ... take a breath. Just one.

The bamfs all looked upset as well, little growls still echoing the corridors of the ship as a couple of them sat on Logan's chest and stared at him intently while a few others were hovering in the air close by Kurt practically waiting for a reason to fight again. Every one of them looked either concerned or downright angry.

"We're not interested in your little pets," said the Shi'ar commander as he roughly pulled Kurt forward once he was restrained. "Tell them to stand down and stay put — and maybe we'll leave the life support systems operational on this pitiful Kree scrap heap long enough for some scavengers to find them."

Kurt looked to the bamfs and gave them a single nod, and none of them looked happy as they teleported away from him and instead gathered around Logan, little arms folded and tails switching behind them as they clearly disagreed with being left behind.

The Shi'ar commander looked smug as he looked over his catch and informed them, "You're under arrest for violating Shi'ar territory, for harboring fugitives, and for resisting arrest," as the lot of them were dragged from the ship and into Shi'ar custody.

On seeing that they were leaving Logan behind, Jubilee started to fight again, her teeth clenched together as she tried to wrestle from her guard's grip and threw her head back to crack him in the mouth, stomping at his feet and using even her cuffed hands as weapons as she tried to beat them back, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "I just got him back!" she cried out as two new guards managed to wrestle her down. "Let me go, you losers!"

The hits that Noh had taken during his white run were finally starting to show as he had a hard time even trying to edge out his guard to get a better view of Jubilee and make sure she was alright, but he didn't sound like he was as worn as he was when he was practically spitting, shouting, "Do not touch her!" Which only had the Shi'ar holding him laughing as they just roughly pulled him back and held him down tighter.

"Calm yourselves," Kurt said almost sharply. "There's nothing we can do right now, there's no sense in making this worse." He still had his jaw locked and he was talking through his teeth as he said it, and only the very tip of his tail was switching as they were manhandled away from Noh's ship, but he couldn't help but steal one more glance back at his friend and the bamfs surrounding him.

The first thing that Logan felt when he started to wake up was the tiny, fuzzy hand on his cheek that was insistently pressing on him as its owner muttered 'bamf' over and over. When he opened his eyes, there were three sets of yellow eyes blinking back at him as the chattering began, but it took him a good few minutes to understand what they were saying.

He got to his feet and let the bamfs lead him around, though it was pretty clear that outside of the bamfs, he was the only one on the crippled ship. "I don't suppose you know where they all went do you?" Logan asked toward one of the bamfs, though he wasn't surprised in the least when the little guy just shook his head.

He looked around cautiously, not one to put it past the Shi'ar to have set up some booby traps in case anyone was still alive on the vessel. When he got to the bridge, he let out a sigh. Weapons were down too. Nothing was going to work, and he was stranded. He made his way over to the comms and took a moment to figure out how exactly to even call for help, and once he got that far — he was all the more surprised when the one to pick up the other end of the comm was Scott.

"Where are you?" Scott asked, sounding both concerned and annoyed — which was the norm when Logan had to call him for help.

"Why, you busy?" Logan shot back.

"As it happens, yeah I was," Scott said.

"It's fine — just pass the message on," Logan replied with a little wave. "Storm can handle it. I'm not sure exactly where I am anyhow, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Keep a line open. I'm sure the mansion can pick up your signal better than I can," Scott advised. "We can get coordinates from there."

"Will do," Logan replied. He paused before he just let out a breath and tried to give Scott a little more background to the situation so he'd be prepared when he got there. "We got hit by Shi'ar. They're all captive — I think."

There was a long pause on the other end before Scott sighed. "Alright. We'll find the others once we lock in on your position."

"Thanks, Slim," Logan replied. "Blackbird's still in your backyard, more or less."

"Then I guess you'd better expect to see it out your window soon."

"We're a few systems over, not sure on her range, to be honest," Logan told him.

"I'll figure it out," Scott said.

"I know you will."

The outpost where the Shi'ar ship landed was, as Noh pointed out in increasingly frustrated tones under his breath, in Kree territory. The large asteroid was a veritable gold mine of fuel sources - and that seemed to be what the Shi'ar were doing there, if the infrastructure was anything to go by, with mining equipment and storage facilities scattered across the area where they had touched down.

One of the Shi'ar was even sure to point out, gleefully, that they could see a Kree mining outpost from one part of the landing platform. "The half-wits have no idea we're even here," the guard said, practically cackling at the situation as he warned Noh not to get any bright ideas about trying to make a break for Kree territory.

All four of them were manhandled through the outpost until they reached a large holding cell, which already held a few Kree prisoners who had apparently gotten too close to the mining operations and were captured — as well as a couple Shi'ar slaves.

After they were searched one last time and their comms and badges were taken from them, they were unceremoniously shoved inside and left there, and as soon as they were relatively alone, the little group tried to take better stock of each other.

Jubilee had immediately made her way to Noh and was steadfastly trying to not look him in the face as she fussed over his injuries and just in general tried to pretend like she hadn't just completely lost her composure, though the way her hands were shaking was a total giveaway even if he couldn't see her face.

"Jubilee," he said quietly as he grabbed one of her hands in his and tried to catch her eye.

"I just want to make sure you're okay," she said very quietly.

"I will heal soon enough," he said dismissively, this time taking her chin in his hand to tilt her face so he could see her. "You are upset," he said in a tone that sounded just as upset to match.

She finally glanced up at him with tears in her eyes as she tried to shrug it off. "I'll be fine."

"Of course you will be," Noh said, nodding firmly. "I shall make sure of it." With that, he wrapped her up in both arms, doing his very best not to wince as he did so as he just pulled her as tightly as he was able. As soon as he did, she wrapped both arms around his neck and just melted into him, letting herself go entirely.

"Can't you control one hysterical Terran?" asked one of the Kree in the cell with them with obvious disdain as he watched Jubilee fall apart.