Castaways
David McDonald
CONTENTS
Dedication
Interstitial
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Interstitial
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Interstitial
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Interstital
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Dedication
To my Muse. You know who you are.
Interstitial
He stands in the middle of the cleared space that acts as their arena, the avid faces of the crowd staring down at him. He is their champion, and he can feel them willing him on. They have never seen him beaten, and they cannot believe that tonight could be the night that he meets his match.
But he is not alone in the ring. Towering over him is the huge figure he must overcome. He has faced bigger men, and he has faced faster men, but he doesn’t think that he has ever faced a man as big and as fast as this one, and the unshakable aura of self-belief he carries around with him wherever he goes is starting to fade.
He is covered in bruises, and the way that pain stabs through his side whenever he moves is worrying him—it feels like at least one rib is broken. Blood drips from a cut on his brow, and he blinks it away from his eyes, cursing at the sting. His vision is starting to blur, but still he looks around the crowd, searching for a friendly face.
There are many that are familiar—some with whom he has become very familiar indeed—but none of the faces he needs to see are there. There is the Duke who has become his patron, the Duke’s councillors, the Duke’s beautiful daughter. But the friends with whom he has faced a hundred life-or-death situations are absent, and they are the ones he needs now.
As his gigantic opponent closes in, Peter Quill wonders how it has come to this; how he has found himself in a strange land, surrounded by strangers, all alone, and without those who mean the most to him.
Chapter 1
One moment they were arguing, the next they were being flung from side to side in the spaceship, caroming off the walls in a mad version of table tennis, a game from Earth that Peter Quill remembered only vaguely from his childhood.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Quill had protested, sparking the argument.
The rest of his companions glared at him—other than Groot who was looking out the spaceship window, a happy smile on his face.
“Not your fault?” Rocket Raccoon asked incredulously. “How do you figure that?”
“How could I have known that our client would prove to be such an ingrate? We rescued his only daughter and heir from space pirates, and did so before they could harm a hair on her head or threaten her virtue.”
“That might have carried more weight with him if the pirates were the real threat to her virtue,” Gamora said drily. She was a beautiful young woman with green skin, but the knives at her sides showed signs of hard use, and belied her youthful appearence. “Not quite what they mean by setting a thief to catch a robber.”
“Our client’s daughter was a robber?” Drax asked. “I did not know this.”
“No, you idiot,” Rocket snapped. “It’s a proverb.”
“I don’t understand,” Drax rumbled, a hint of anger in his voice. He was intimidating at the best of times, his green skin marked with the scars of countless battles, and his massive body bulging with muscles. Even when he sounded happy, he made you nervous, and right now he was downright scary. “Call me an idiot again and I’ll squash you, rodent.”
Rocket snarled at him, but Gamora broke in before Rocket could say anything to further inflame the situation.
“It’s an old saying, Drax. It means that the best person to catch a robber is another thief, because they know what to look for,” she explained gently. “I was trying to make a play on words that insinuated sending Quill to save our client’s daughter was like sending a thief to catch another thief because . . .” She sighed. “These things are never funny when you have to explain them.”
“I still don’t understand,” Drax complained.
“You wouldn’t,” Rocket muttered, and then more loudly, “But that’s not the point. The point is Quill’s inability to resist a pretty face nearly got us arrested—again—and also cost us a small fortune in credits.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Quill protested. “I wasn’t the one who blew a hole in the side of our client’s mansion. I’m sure we could have talked it through if you’d just given me a chance!”
“I think the time for talking had well and truly passed by then,” Rocket said. “Or maybe I was reading too much into the fact that he had set his own private army on us, and that they were shooting in our direction?”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Quill said.
“This is not humorous,” Drax said. “This is yet another example of your lack of self-discipline causing trouble for us. A warrior must learn to master himself before he can master others.”
Quill opened his mouth, but his reply died unsaid when he saw the others nodding their heads.
“You all feel this way?” Quill asked, looking at each of them.
“Rocket?”
“Sorry, Quill, but you’re not always thinking with your brain, if you know what I mean.”
Quill flushed. “Gamora?”
“Quill, I’ve come to accept that you can’t help yourself when it comes to women,” she said gently. “I’m sure you mean the wonderful words you use, and that when you call them special and tell them that they are the only one, you really do mean it at the time—but you seem to have met a lot of special women.”
“Groot?” There was a faintly imploring note in Quill’s voice as he addressed the seven-foot-tall ambulatory tree. As usual, Groot had a slight smile on his face, and it was hard to know what he was thinking.
“I am Groot.”
Quill didn’t need Rocket to translate that—the expression of vindication on the raccoonoid’s face told him that Groot wasn’t on Quill’s side.
“Well, I’m sorry you all feel that way,” Quill said, starting to get angry. Their comments had cut uncomfortably close to the bone. “It’s not like you all don’t have your own flaws.”
He pointed at Rocket. “You’ve got the worst case of little-man syndrome I have ever seen, and your answer to every problem seems to be to blow it up.” He moved his finger to Gamora. “The only way you can interact with a guy is by trying to stab him.” He moved along. “And you, Drax—telling the absolute truth is not always a virtue. Ever heard of little white lies? You can be pretty hurtful.”
“I am Groot.”
Quill’s finger stabbed out. “And, you . . . you . . . you get leaves absolutely everywhere in my ship!”
Quill’s anger suddenly deflated as he realized how ridiculous he sounded. His shoulders slumped and he stared at the floor, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes. They were right, of course. He had been selfish and had put himself before the team. He would love to tell them it would ne
ver happen again, but that would be more than a little white lie.
“Well, I think Quill makes some good points,” Gamora said, surprising him. “I am sick of all this arguing, and people doing whatever they want to or whatever they think is a good idea at the time. Maybe it’s time for a break.”
“A break?” Quill and Rocket said at the same time, then glared at each other.
“What do you mean, a break?” the raccoon-like creature asked.
“Exactly that,” Gamora said. “We’ve been cooped up together for much too long, and I think we’re starting to get on each other’s nerves. Perhaps it’s time to go our separate ways.”
She held up a hand to forestall their protests, all of them trying to talk at once.
“I don’t mean for good, but some time away from each other could be beneficial. A holiday, nothing permanent,” Gamora said. “We’re not going to make back all the money we’ve lost on our own, right? I think Quill owes us a more . . . successful mission.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” Quill said thoughtfully, ignoring the dig. “We have been living in each other’s pockets, haven’t we? Not literally, Drax—I mean we haven’t had much time to ourselves. A few months doing our own thing might help us appreciate each other a bit more. And when we’re ready, we might find working together fun again.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Rocket said. “So, where would you go, Gamora?”
“Somewhere I could meditate in peace and quiet. Maybe an uninhabited planet so I could have all the time alone I wanted,” she said, sounding wistful. “I need to process some of the things I’ve seen and done lately, and I just want to clear my mind and find my center again.”
“Borrrrring,” Rocket said.
“Well, where would you go?” she asked. “Something tells me you won’t be looking for a path to self-improvement.”
“The only thing I’m looking to improve is my bank balance.” He glared at Quill. “Due to the choices of certain people who will go nameless, it’s looking pretty bleak right now. That’s why I want to go to the casino planet, Sin. Every game of chance you can imagine, and some you can’t. And the amount of money that flows through there . . .” he trailed off, a dreamy note in his voice.
“Yes, your money flowing to them,” Gamora said.
“Not in this case!” Rocket said. “Groot and I have a system. Don’t we, buddy?”
“I am Groot.”
“See? We’re going to win big, I guarantee it. And while we’re there, I’m going to eat until I cannot move,” Rocket said. “How about you, Drax? What do you do when you aren’t busting heads?”
“I only have one interest, and that is pursuing vengeance for my family,” Drax said, unsmiling. “If we take a break I will leave you to your childish entertainments and do what I have always done—search for justice.”
“Drax, you are such a downer,” Quill snapped. “Can’t you let us just enjoy the moment or something?”
“Maybe if you worried less about your enjoyment and more about serious matters, we wouldn’t find ourselves with no money and no prospects,” Drax said.
“I’m not taking life advice from a guy who doesn’t know what a proverb is.”
“I don’t need to know what a proverb is to snap you in half, Quill.”
Gamora stepped between them. “That’s enough—from both of you. I’m sick of having to be a mother to boys; it’s not what I signed up for.”
It was then that the ship began to shake and shudder. It was tossed around like a twig in a stream, spinning along every axis. There was no way to judge direction; one moment their feet were on the floor, the next their feet were on the ceiling—or on a wall. Every so often the ship would hit a pocket of turbulence and simply drop, the floor falling out from under them, leaving them feeling like their stomachs had been left behind. There was nothing Quill could do. He’d been thrown from his chair in the first few seconds, and even if he’d been able to reach the controls, the ship was in the grip of forces far more powerful than it could possibly compensate for—no matter how skillful the pilot.
Rocket handled the disruption most easily, leaping from body to body as they tumbled though the spacecraft. The genetically augmented creature may as well have been built for this, his animal reflexes allowing him to react to the pitching and yawing of the ship, his sharp claws digging into the walls—not to mention the clothing and skin of anyone unlucky to have him land on them. Quill could hear his shipmates cursing Rocket until finally he clung to Groot, who had braced himself in a corner, growing additional tendrils to anchor himself.
“What’s going on?” yelled Gamora, trying to be heard above the wailing klaxon of the ship’s alarm. The green-skinned warrior had managed to strap herself into the copilot’s chair and was scanning the readouts displayed on the few screens that were still functioning.
Quill groped his way over to the console and pulled himself into the pilot’s chair, quickly attaching the harness that he normally refused to wear. His fingers danced over the keypad as he grabbed the controls and, straining against the bucking ship, finally managed to bring it under control. The craft leveled out, but as it resumed its normal orientation there was a loud crash. Quill could hear Drax cursing—he must have been caught unawares when up became up once more—and down became down. Quill set the syscomp to run a diagnostic to check for any major damage, and then began to analyze the data coming from the external sensors that had survived whatever had hit them.
“There!” Quill pointed to one of the forward sensor displays. “See that?”
Gamora and Rocket crowded in behind him.
“I don’t see anything,” Rocket said at first. “. . . Ah, there it is. What the hell is it?”
The monitor showed a grandstand view of a vast nebula that coruscated with all the colors of the visible spectrum, and probably a whole lot more. But as glorious it was, the nebula was not what they were paying attention to. As they watched, a section of the view rippled, as if some transparent sheet of material had caught in the solar breeze. Adjusting for scale, they were focusing on an area of space the size of a small moon. Quill punched a button and the visual was overlaid with lines representing the local gravitational fields. When the lines passed through that section of space, they bent—significantly.
“Whatever that thing is, we must have gotten caught in its gravity well,” Quill said. “That’s what triggered the alarm and emergency evasion procedures. We should count ourselves lucky that we got off so easy.”
“I think you may be overlooking something,” Gamora said.
“What’s that?” Quill asked.
“Have you ever seen that nebula before?” she asked. “It isn’t on any of the charts we have.”
Quill swore and looked at the ship’s present coordinates. He had been so caught up in checking for damage that he hadn’t even thought to check their location.
“According to these readings, we’re . . . a little off course.”
“How much is a little?” Gamora asked.
“Only about 350 light years,” Quill said grimly.
“So where are we then?” Rocket was flipping through the battered ship’s atlas. “I can’t see that nebula anywhere.”
Gamora was far better at astronavigation than Quill was, so he let her run the numbers.
“Bad news,” she reported. “We are in uncharted space. Whatever that thing is, it must have thrown us out of hyperspace. We’re lucky we came out intact, rather than as a spray of superheated plasma.”
“That sounds like good news to me!” Quill said. “We’re alive, and what’s a few hundred light years? We’ll be back on track before you know it.”
Gamora was shaking her head before he had even finished.
“You need to read this damage report. Looks like one of the crystal arrays on the hype
rdrive shattered. We aren’t going anywhere soon.”
Everyone started talking at once, drowning each other out in a cacophony of accusations and complaints. Finally, Quill raised his fingers to his lips and gave a short, sharp, and very piercing whistle.
“Calm down everyone. Let’s not get carried away. The safety overrides are designed to kick in if the ship is about to drop out of hyperspace due to unforeseen factors—and to bring us out near the closest habitable planet. All we need to do is land there and find the materials we need, and then the ship will repair itself.”
He looked around at them. “Okay?”
They all nodded, albeit a little sullenly.
“Gamora, is there anything on the sensors?”
She scanned them for a few moments before nodding.
“There we go,” she said. “A ‘G’ class planet, gravity .8 Standard. Plenty of oxygen and incredibly clean air—I’m talking no traces of hydrocarbons at all. Decent climate, not holiday material but better than a lot I have seen.” Her voice took on a note of excitement. “Preliminary scans of the crust show plenty of heavy metals. We’ll have no trouble finding raw materials. There’s only one real downside to the place.”
“What’s that?” Quill asked her.
“I’m not picking up any signs of even moderately advanced technology. No radio waves, and as I said, no hydrocarbons. No satellite network—in fact, not a single artificial structure in orbit.” She ran her finger down the screen. “There is one area the scans can’t penetrate—look, right here—but that could be some of those heavy metals interfering. I’m afraid that if we go down there, we won’t have any assistance from the inhabitants. We’ll be on our own.”
“Are there inhabitants?” Rocket asked. “As in genuine sentients?”
“Yes,” Gamora answered, “and what’s more, they are building a civilization. There are cities down there, but they haven’t yet reached a very sophisticated level. I’d guess that they are at a swords and bows stage, and that they haven’t quite gotten to steam power.”
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