Rocket still wasn’t thrilled that Kiya was accompanying them—it seemed like a good way to risk the Collector mucking things up again. She was right that most Kree couldn’t tell her from any other DiMavi teenager, though, and the Guardians needed an extra set of hands given the time crunch. Besides, he’d sent the Collector a burst of false Kiya sightings just before landing, including some with forged snapshots of her at various locations. Hopefully that would throw off Tivan for a while.
As he moved, Rocket kept a subtle eye on the cameras. Motion-activated. Wired. That was a plus, mostly. Wireless would’ve meant he could do this from outside the building, but now that he was already in, it was just a matter of hijacking the signal. It might not even be secured.
He slipped into the stairway, paused to scratch his knee where his fur had gotten bunched up, and peered up at the cameras.
He could do this the careful way: avoid the cameras, freeze the image so no one suspected a thing, and set up his connection to the system without a care in the world.
He could also do it the effective way, which would give him the access he needed—and the info he was looking for—a hell of a lot quicker. He’d just have to cross his fingers and hope the feeds weren’t actively monitored.
He chose option two.
Rocket scrabbled up the wall and pinned himself up high, humming cheerfully. He glanced at the ceiling to estimate its thickness, then adjusted the power level of the gun clipped to his waist and pressed the muzzle against the ceiling.
“Boom.” The gun sent a soft pulse into the structure. The approach was quiet, so no one could overhear, and gentle, so he could crack the ceiling without bringing it down. He plucked away layers of synthic and rubber to reveal the wires.
Ha. Wires! This hospital was adorable.
Now, he only needed to—
Footsteps. He heard them a split second before the door opened.
“…saying is, whoever is behind the attack, it better not get blamed on…” The voice trailed off.
Rocket looked down from his position on the ceiling. Two Kree guards stood in the doorway, staring up at him in puzzlement.
“Really?” Rocket said. “Really? You had to choose now to use the stairs? You couldn’t wait one minute?”
“What are you—”
“Oh, well. Wanna hear my favorite sound? Listen close.” He grabbed the gun. It wasn’t his blaster of choice, but it’d do the trick.
“Rocket!” Quill’s voice came in so loud over his earpiece that Rocket cringed. “Don’t! Shoot! Innocent! Hospital! Guards!”
He still had the line open? Oops.
The guards already had their guns aimed at him. They clearly weren’t obeying Quill’s rules. “Come down from—”
He didn’t let them finish. He dropped to the floor, landing in a crouch. A half-second to aim, and: BLAM.
At this setting, the gunblast would only feel like a punch to the face. He hoped it was a painful punch, though. Crap-timing bastards deserved worse.
He aimed the gun up at the exposed wires and sent out an electrical blast strong enough to fry the entire camera system. Assuming security was on the way, he didn’t want to help them out with pretty pictures of him. If their system was particularly poor, the blast might even be enough to take out the rest of the security measures.
Time to go. He bolted on all fours between the guards, through the open door, and into the hall.
“Status?” Quill asked.
“Status: whoopsie,” Rocket snarled. His nails tapped down the hall, echoed by footsteps farther away. The guards seemed to take getting shot at as a personal offense.
“Where are you at?”
“Being chased back the way I came. They’re—yep, they’re calling for backup.”
“I’m on my way to you.”
Kiya interrupted, “You seem a little busy—”
“Ya think?”
“—but I found where they’re keeping the patients.”
“Scratch that,” Quill said. “Kiya, I’m on my way to you. Give me directions. Rocket, lead the guards away. Keep them distracted. And no killing.”
“You wanna tell them that?” he yelled. Energy crackled past his ear and struck the ground just in front of him. His tail lashed frantically as he ran. He fired over his shoulder, the setting now cranked up significantly above “punch to the face.”
“Broken bones are okay,” Quill said.
“Trust me,” Rocket said. “Already on it.”
33
VADIN seemed to like its parks—the surface level was littered with them. Some were only narrow strips, while others stretched across dozens of city blocks, twining around buildings and replacing what must once have been streets.
The park where the incident had taken place was on the average side: about ten blocks long, running beside a quiet surface road. Between the skyways overhead and buildings across the street, only the occasional sunbeam made its way to the ground, painting fiercely bright splotches across the artificially lit grass and streets.
Gamora and Drax had found the correct park, but the reports had not indicated where in the park the incident had taken place.
That didn’t stop the gossip.
“I wasn’t around, but it happened over there,” a DiMavi parent said, attempting to wrangle two children from a pond while pointing across the park. “Past the hill, way over by the edge of the park. You can’t miss it.”
Gamora nodded thanks, then stalked off across the grass toward Drax, who’d stayed at a distance so as to not frighten the children. Typically, his attempts to sound unthreatening still came out pretty damn threatening.
They walked on, checking the area for any sign of a struggle, although Gamora doubted they would find anything. If something had gone down here, there wouldn’t have been families with children around so soon afterward.
If they found anything, it would be at the other side of the park, where the DiMavi had indicated.
As she walked, Gamora glanced over her shoulder. The DiMavi children weren’t cooperating with their parents’ attempts to get them out of the pond and onto the grass, turning it into a game that largely involved splashing pond water around.
Gamora wished they would leave. Skip the ceremony, go straight home. Even if Baran’s attack wasn’t aimed at DiMavi citizens, there could be casualties. Civilians always got caught up in the Guardians’ messes. People like these kids and their parents—people like Kiya—hadn’t signed up for that.
They hadn’t signed up for anything but living their lives.
What was that like? No responsibility, no danger, no atonement—simply doing what you wanted, when you wanted? The thought had always filled her with distaste, on the few occasions when it occurred in the first place. She’d rarely had cause to wonder.
Now, she didn’t know how she felt about it.
“You are staring, Gamora,” Drax said.
“Do you ever want to go back?” she asked. They started to climb the hill the DiMavi had indicated.
“It is too soon. We have only been in the park for ten minutes.”
“You had a normal life once. A family. Do you ever think about going back to a life like that?”
“That life is gone.”
She paused to find her words. She shouldn’t have been talking about this, she knew—not now, and not with Drax. “You know what it’s like. You weren’t always the Destroyer.”
“As long as Thanos lives, that is all I can be.”
She could press on—what if—but there would be no point. If Drax ever thought about a life beyond Thanos, he didn’t show it, and wouldn’t tell them.
Gamora also didn’t know what she’d tell him if he turned the question back on her. There was no Zen-Whoberi with its spring feasts to return to, no “normal” to hope for, and no family to find—
Or so she had thought.
Kiya wants nothing to do with you, she told herself.
Gamora knew the girl existed, now. She knew s
he wasn’t alone. That should be enough. Gamora would help Kiya to safety and then move on with the life she had been leading before.
That was what the rage in her heart said, what her sword arm yearned for, what the guilt pulsing in her every memory pushed her toward.
But now, for the first time, the blood in her veins had a say in the matter, too, and it said: What if?
She breathed in, trying to let the thoughts slide off her. She should not be asking pointless questions. She had a job to do.
“There.” She pointed. “They’ve cordoned it off.” They stood atop the hill, traffic roaring on the skyways above, and looked down at a small creek that wound its way around the field and floating flower beds before them. At strategic positions, bright-red poles stuck up from the ground, with hovering lines of energy stretching between them to section off the area where the Grootling had attacked. The energy grid covered a corner of the park and part of the street beyond.
Gamora noticed only two things out of the ordinary. One, parts of the lawn near the edge of the park were disturbed, with clumps of grass piled up beside unearthed dirt. And two, bots were systematically sweeping the area, some the size of her fist and others so small she could only spot them when they moved.
Kiya and Quill had said the Grootling’s spores took effect on impact, and it had been hours since the attack. If anyone else had been affected by stray spores since then, the authorities would’ve been far more thorough in cordoning off this zone and keeping people safely at bay.
That was one positive, at least. The Grootling was only dangerous in the moment.
They didn’t cross into the zone—no reason to, yet. They stuck close by the barrier, investigating the surrounding area, although Gamora didn’t expect to discover anything new.
When they reached the edge of the park, Drax eyed the torn-up lawn. “Those marks are from the Grootling’s feet.”
“Hey, does that look… Those people are interviewing that woman across the street. Let’s go.” She crossed the street toward the trio of Kree. With the street cordoned off, there was no traffic.
Two men—their shoulders adorned with patches from a local branch of a Kree news show—were interviewing an excitable-sounding woman. A camera bot hovered in between them. The closer Gamora and Drax came, the better they could make out their words.
“Got away just in time!” the woman was saying. “That thing almost got me!”
“And you said it was a tree?”
This was bad.
“It was! It was! Not like a Cotati, no, different—” She stopped talking as she noticed Gamora’s brisk approach. “’Scuse me?”
“Stop recording,” Gamora said.
One of the men shook his head, looking at his partner askance. “I told you we shouldn’t ignore a media blackout—
“We’re reporting the news!” he said, indignant. “We’re within our full rights to—”
Drax reached for the camera bot and crushed it in his hand as easily as snapping a twig. The bot fell to the ground. It bleeped once before powering down.
“You’ll need to pay for that,” the first guy said.
“This is censorship—”
“You knew about the blackout,” Gamora said. “These are the consequences. If you publicize the footage you’ve already recorded, there will be more consequences.”
“But you aren’t with the Association of—”
“We are.”
“We are not,” Drax said.
Gamora elbowed his side.
He amended, “We are the Guardians—”
“—of media,” Gamora finished. “Please leave. We need to question your subject to determine the level of your infraction.”
They narrowed their eyes, but didn’t argue further. They picked up the crumpled bot and walked to their nearby shuttle.
“Blackout?” blurted out the woman they’d been interviewing. “What blackout?”
“This is a politically sensitive incident. We’d like certain details to stay under wraps.” The fewer media outlets reporting the truth about the Grootling, the lower the odds of the Collector picking up on it. He knew they were after the Grootlings; he knew Kiya was with them; he might even connect the dots between their presence on DiMave and the ceremony tonight. The last thing they wanted was to lead him here. Having Kiya in the open, with that reward on her head, was dangerous enough.
“I’m not in trouble, am I?” the woman asked.
“Not at all,” Gamora said. “Tell us what you told them.”
“And what you planned to tell them.” Drax crossed his arms. “Speak.”
34
KIYA had hidden herself in an unused room across the hall. Peter found her easily. The alarms blaring through the emergency ward kept doctors and patients away from the hallways, and he looked enough like a patient or plainclothes employee that the few guards he’d seen hadn’t paid him any mind except to bark at him to clear the area. More to the point, he didn’t look like an angry anthropomorphic raccoon.
“Not sure how much time we have,” Peter told Kiya. “Let’s go.”
“There are security measures on the door. I saw a doctor enter through some kind of fizzling barrier.”
“Fan-tastic.” At this point he might as well blast a hole through the wall, although that probably wouldn’t put the Grootlings’ victims inside at ease.
He and Kiya crossed the empty hall to the door, and he took a second to examine the mechanism above the frame—
Footsteps were pounding their way. Guards came running from the left.
And from the right, screaming. Rocket rounded the corner, running against the wall and leaping back onto the floor to land on all fours. He bounded forward, shooting blindly behind him. Three guards were on his tail. Blasts ricocheted off the walls.
“Oh,” Kiya said.
“Incoming!” Rocket yelled.
Peter unclipped his element gun and pointed it absently at the ground to his left. One…two… When the guards were close enough, he fired. A mud slick splashed onto the floor, and they went sliding.
“Hey, Rocket!” he bellowed down the hall. “Do you not understand what ‘lead the guards away’ means?”
“Wouldya shoot them already? They singed my tail, I’m deaf in one ear, and I’m two seconds away from tossing a bomb!”
“Fine, fine. Kiya, can you disarm those guys?” He aimed a thumb at the mud-covered guards. She was on them in two seconds, jamming a knee into one guard’s back to keep him down. Mud squelched underneath him. The other guard was trying to aim his weapon: Kiya grabbed it, redirected it toward the wall, then slammed it to the floor with enough force that Peter suspected she’d cracked a bone or two in the guy’s hand.
Peter lifted his gun and took aim at the other guards, who were still running.
Ffzzzt. One guard went down, her arm encased in a block of ice.
Ffzzzt. Missed that one. The next shot did the trick.
That left just the one guard on Rocket’s side of the hall, the two Kiya was disarming behind Peter, and—
Something tore through Peter’s shoulder from behind. He screamed. His grip on the element gun slipped, and it bounced to the floor. Reaching for his shoulder, he swiveled out of the way and dropped low. A half-dozen more guards were running down the hall on the left-hand side.
“We don’t want to fight!” Peter yelled.
That didn’t seem to work.
Kiya bolted toward the newcomers, leaving the other two guards crumpled in the mud. She flung a stolen energy-gun clip at one guard’s face and hurled the gun itself at another. By the time they went down, she was already pouncing on a third guard.
That gave Peter a short breather. He glanced at the wound on his shoulder. It was a clean cut, but a wide one, leaking blood all over the place. He hissed through his teeth. The pain was sharp, the wound deep.
One of the guards Kiya had disarmed was back on his feet. He charged at Kiya from behind.
Peter tried to rea
ch for his gun, then yelped, letting it clatter back to the floor. That cut must’ve gone deep into muscle, to hurt this bad. No time to grab his gun again now. Instead, he bolted forward, wrapping his good arm around the guard’s waist and bringing him down. A quick choke: The man was out. Peter snatched up his fallen blaster, trying to bite past the pain.
Peter had meant to keep this mission clean and simple. He really had. But somehow, it had devolved into this: Kiya in hand-to-hand combat with four guards at once, with several more already unconscious by her feet; Peter attempting to ice people with the element blaster in his wrong hand, missing half his shots; Rocket climbing up on one guard’s shoulders and using the leverage to kick another one in the face with his hind legs.
They were winning—the day hospital security beat them was the day he retired the Guardians—but more guards would arrive soon.
“Kiya! Your left!” Peter bellowed.
She pivoted, elbowing the approaching guard in the face.
A sound fizzled behind him. Instead of the guard Peter expected, a door opened—the one leading to the hospital room holding the Grootling’s victims. A blue-skinned Kree stood in the doorway, blinking at the chaos.
“What are you doing?! Keep that door—” someone yelled from inside.
“Kiya?” the Kree asked.
Well, that was intriguing.
More important: The door was open.
Peter reached out and grabbed hold of Rocket’s tail. He yanked Rocket away from the guard he was assaulting and shoved him inside the room. Turned. Headbutted an approaching guard, stepped between Kiya and her targets, and pushed her toward the room, as well. She got the hint: She shoved past the Kree and immediately spun to defend the doorway.
“Hey,” she said to the Kree. “I know you.”
“Out of the way,” a guard yelled, gun raised, trying to get off a shot at Kiya or Rocket.
Peter was about to ice the guard and crash into the room himself,when the Kree in the doorway raised his hands. “Whoa. Whoa! Hold on. Give me one—”
“Out of the way!” the guard yelled.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All Page 21