by Alex Irvine
“Okay, Taserface,” Rocket said. Taserface stalked away. “Hey, tell the other guys we said hi, Taserface!”
Taserface paused, then controlled his temper and started walking again. Another Ravager, wearing thick old-fashioned glasses and a long beard, waved the cage holding Groot at Taserface. “Hey, what about this little plant? Can I smash it with a rock?”
“No,” Taserface said. “It’s too adorable to kill. Take it to the tailor.”
When they were alone, Rocket said to Yondu, “No offense, but your employees are a bunch of jerks.”
Yondu was lost in thought for a moment. “I was a Kree battle slave for twenty years until Stakar freed me,” he said slowly, remembering. “He offered me a place with the Ravagers, said all I needed to do was adhere to the code. But I was young and greedy and stupid. Like you stealing those batteries.”
“That was mostly Drax,” Rocket said.
Yondu let the lie pass. “Me and Stakar, the other captains, we weren’t so different from you and your friends. The only family I ever had. When I broke the code, they exiled me. This is what I deserve.”
“Slow down, drama queen,” Rocket said. “You might deserve this, but I don’t. We gotta get out of here.”
“Where’s Quill?”
“He went off with his old man.”
“Ego.”
“Yeah, it’s a day for names,” Rocket said. Yondu chuckled. “You smiled,” Rocket added, “and for a second I got a warm feeling, but then it was ruined by those disgusting teeth.”
Yondu’s smile faded.
“Why didn’t you deliver Quill to Ego like you promised?” asked Rocket, moving right along.
“He was skinny. Could fit into places we couldn’t. Good for thieving,” Yondu explained, staring straight ahead.
“Uh-huh.” Rocket didn’t believe it. There was more to that relationship than Yondu was letting on.
Yondu changed the subject. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about Quill. “I’ve got an idea on how to get out of here,” he said, “but we’re gonna need your little friend.”
Later that night, Groot wandered through the Ravager ship alone. The Ravagers were mean to him. They yelled in his face, poured drinks on him, made him wear a uniform like theirs. He didn’t want any of it.
He wanted to be back with his family.
He heard a voice from around the corner. “Psst. Hey, twig, come here. Come on.”
It was Yondu, in a barred cell with Rocket.
“Oh man,” Rocket said when Groot got closer. “What did they do to you?”
Groot just stood there, looking sad.
“Hey,” Yondu said. “You want to help us get out of here?”
Groot nodded.
“There’s something I need you to get and bring back to me. In the captain’s quarters, there’s a prototype fin, like the thing I wore on my head. It’s in a drawer next to the bunk. It’s red. You got it?”
Groot ran off. Over the next hour he brought them back a pair of Yondu’s underwear, a live Orloni, one of the Ravagers’ cybernetic eyes, a desk, and a severed toe. Clearly, he was having trouble understanding Yondu’s description.
“The drawer you want to open has this symbol on it,” Yondu said. He took the Ravager flame patch off his coat and handed it to Groot. Groot took the patch and put it on his head.
“What?” Yondu said. “No!”
“He thinks you want him to wear it like a hat,” Rocket explained.
“That’s not what I said.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said.
“He hates hats,” Rocket translated.
“I am Groot.”
“On anyone, not just himself.”
“I am Groot.”
“One minute you think someone has a weird-shaped head, the next minute you realize it’s because part of it is just the hat.” Rocket realized what he’d just said. He looked back at Groot. “That’s why you don’t like hats?”
Groot nodded.
Frustrated, Yondu snapped, “This is an important conversation right now?”
They sent Groot one more time, and he creeped slowly through the sleeping Ravagers toward a cabinet where he saw the same symbol Yondu had shown him. He extended a vine and pulled the drawer open, then reached in. He pulled out a toy and his face lit up as he looked at it.
Then he jumped as someone behind him said quietly, “That ain’t it.”
Groot looked over his shoulder and saw Kraglin.
Yondu and Rocket looked up as Kraglin dropped the prototype fin through the bars into the cell. Yondu stared at him coldly. “I didn’t mean to do a mutiny,” Kraglin said sadly. “They killed all my friends.”
After a pause, Yondu said, “Get the Third Quadrant ready for release.”
Kraglin gathered himself and thumped his chest in the Ravager salute.
“One more thing,” Yondu said as Kraglin turned to go. “Got any clones of Quill’s old music on the ship?”
CHAPTER 14
Most of the Ravagers were asleep when Star-Lord’s Awesome Mix Vol. 2 started playing over the ship’s speaker system. The few who were awake went looking for the source of the music…and one of them walked into the repair shop where Rocket was just finishing installing Yondu’s new fin.
They grabbed for their weapons, but Yondu was already whistling.
His arrow punched through the wall and then the two Ravagers, dropping them where they stood. He grabbed it as it returned to him, and Rocket picked up the gun one of the Ravagers had dropped.
Together they walked through the ship toward the Third Quadrant, where Kraglin was getting ready for their escape.
In a central observation post, one of the Ravagers spotted them. He ran to the sleeping quarters and woke Taserface. “He’s got it! Yondu’s got the fin!”
Alarms went off and the Ravagers mobilized. Yondu let the arrow go and started whistling. The arrow left traces of red as it circled and looped through the ship, striking down the Ravagers before they even knew where the escaped prisoners were. They walked out into a central open space ringed by balconies. Ravagers on the balconies started shooting down, but the arrow made short work of them.
Groot spotted one of the Ravagers who’d been mean to him. He screamed in fury and tangled the Ravager’s legs in vines. Then Groot threw him off one of the balconies.
They were close to the observation post, where screens showed every part of the ship. Yondu kept whistling, watching the arrow as it streaked across the screens, taking out mutinous Ravagers all over the ship. Rocket finally got in on the act, too, using the screens to aim his gun through the walls and blast away at Ravagers who got too close. Before long, the only Ravager left standing was Taserface. Yondu whistled the arrow at him with a little smile. At the end of the whistle, he added a note and the arrow burst into flame, speeding up and showing the new capabilities of the prototype fin.
Taserface saw it coming and dodged—or at least that’s what he thought. But Yondu had let him get out of the way. The flaming arrow punched into a fuel tank behind Taserface, igniting a giant explosion that blew the Ravager across the room.
“You maniac!” Rocket shouted. “The whole ship’s gonna blow.”
Explosions started tearing the Ravager ship apart, but Yondu didn’t look worried. “Not the whole ship,” he said. They strode through the burning ship and into the Third Quadrant, where Kraglin almost had it ready for them.
“Release the Quadrant!” Yondu said when they were aboard.
“Aye, Cap’n,” Kraglin said. He touched a series of controls and the forward part of the Ravager ship detached from the rest. Kraglin fired the engines and the Third Quadrant moved clear of the explosions ripping through the main body of the ship.
In the heart of the inferno, Taserface staggered to his feet and reached a wall terminal. He punched in the code to contact the Sovereign. A golden face appeared on the screen. “Who is this?”
“I am sending you the coordinates for Yondu’s ship,”
Taserface said. Behind him, the flames were getting closer. “I only ask one thing: that your high priestess tell him the name of the man what sealed his fate.” He paused dramatically. “Taserface!”
The Sovereign officer couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.
A moment later, the Ravager ship disintegrated in a giant fireball.
From the pilot’s seat, Kraglin aimed the Third Quadrant toward the nearest jump point. “Where to, Cap’n?”
“Ego,” Rocket said. He was already punching in the coordinates.
“No, boy!” Yondu protested, but it was too late. The Third Quadrant passed through the jump portal. Then through another, and another, and another.
“It ain’t healthy for the mammalian body to do more than fifty jumps at a time!” Yondu yelled over the roar of the jumps.
“I know that!” Rocket shouted back.
Yondu was looking at the navigation chart. “We’re about to do seven hundred!”
The Third Quadrant streaked on, jump after jump, and everyone on board started to feel the effects. Moving through holes in space-time distorted their bodies, stretched them and compacted them. They felt like they were flying apart into tiny pieces, being smashed flat, and stretched like rubber bands all at the same time. How many more jumps do we have? Rocket thought.
He looked at the navigation chart through eyes that felt like balloons and realized they had a long way to go.
CHAPTER 15
Riding high from his game of catch with Ego—and the dawning realization that his origin was truly extraordinary—Peter stood on a palace balcony looking out over the fabulous gardens of Ego’s planet. “So I guess this could all be mine someday,” he mused to Gamora. He had music playing, a classic.
Gamora was trying to find out where Rocket was. She had a transmitter and had been calling him every hour or so, but hadn’t gotten a response. Now she tried again. “Rocket? Rocket, are you there?”
Static crackled from the transmitter and she gave up. Peter walked up and put an arm around her. “What are you doing, Peter?”
“Dance with me,” he said. The music had him feeling romantic. He was half Celestial; he could create energy with his hands; he could hold an Infinity Stone! Life was grand.
“I’m not going to dance with you,” she said.
“This is one of the greatest Earth singers of all time.” He put her hand on his shoulder and started moving, and she began to dance with him. At first she looked uncertain, but he twirled her gently out and back, and she warmed to it. Now she was looking steadily into his eyes. “Drax thinks you’re not a dancer,” he said.
“If you ever tell anyone about this,” she answered, “I will kill you.”
He paused. “When are we going to do something about this unspoken thing between us?”
“What unspoken thing?”
“This…‘guy and a girl on a TV show who dig each other but never say anything because if they do the ratings would go down’ sort of thing.”
Gamora had no idea what he was talking about. She never did when he talked about Earth stuff. “There’s no unspoken thing,” she said.
“Well, it’s a catch-22,” he pointed out. “Because if you said it, then it would be spoken and you’d be a liar, so by not saying anything you are telling the truth and admitting that there is.”
“No, that’s not what I’ve—” She pushed him away. “What we should be discussing right now is…something about this place. It doesn’t feel right.” She walked back inside.
Well, that killed the mood, Peter thought. He followed her. “What are you talking about? You’re the one who wanted me to come here!”
“That girl, Mantis. She’s afraid of something.”
“Why are you trying to take this away from me?” Peter was starting to get upset. Did she not see how important this was to him? How awesome it was to find his father after more than thirty years of missing him?
“I’m not trying—”
“He’s my father. He’s blood.”
“You have blood on Earth,” she said. “You never wanted to return there.”
“Again, you made me come here! And Earth is the place where my mother died in front of me.”
Gamora had no tolerance for the way people fooled themselves sometimes, and she wasn’t going to let Peter get away with it now. “No, it’s because that place was real, and this place is a fantasy.”
“This place is real! I’m only half human, remember?”
“That’s the half I’m worried about.”
“Oh, I get it,” he said. “You’re jealous because I’m part god, and you liked it when I was the weak one.”
“You were insufferable to begin with,” she said. She gave up on the conversation. “I haven’t been able to reach Rocket. I’m going to go outside and try to get a signal.”
“You know what?” he called after her. “This is the show where one person is willing to open themselves up to new possibility, and the other person is a jerk who doesn’t trust anybody! It’s a show that doesn’t exist, because it would get zero ratings!”
She spun around.
“I finally found my family! Don’t you understand that?” he yelled, desperate to break through to her.
He saw this had hurt her, and at first he didn’t know why. Then she quietly said, “I thought you already had.”
Gamora walked away from the palace out into the countryside, to get her feelings sorted out and get away from Peter for a while. He was so smitten with the idea of this perfect place that he couldn’t see the obvious problems, and talking about it more would only make him angry.
She was angry, too. He was making her feel things she had sworn never to feel because they might make her weak. Some tall grass nearby rustled in a sudden breeze, and in a fit of irritation she slashed it down with her sword.
Then, with the rustling gone, she heard another sound. Thrusters.
Gamora stood up and turned to see. Was it Rocket? Had he fixed the Milano already?
It wasn’t Rocket. It was a small fighter ship, shaped like an arrowhead, with blaster cannons under both wings. And it was coming in fast and low—not a landing path but a strafing approach.
As soon as Gamora had that thought, the ship opened fire.
The ground around her erupted with the blaster impacts. She turned and ran, looking for a place where she wouldn’t be exposed. This part of the surface of Ego’s planet was riddled with dramatic features: deep canyons and steep ridges. She aimed for the nearest canyon and dove into it just as the fighter screamed overhead, low enough that it would have taken off Gamora’s head if she’d still been standing.
“Psychopath!” she screamed. She’d gotten a glimpse of the cockpit and seen a familiar bald, blue head inside. Nebula had gotten free, somehow grabbed a ship, and now she was making good on her promise to kill Gamora.
The fighter came around for another pass, blasting rocks from the walls of the canyon. Gamora ducked into a cave, breathing hard, thinking she was safe…but when she looked outside, she saw Nebula swooping around for another pass.
Gamora ran as Nebula piloted the ship straight into the cave, snapping off pieces of its wings against the walls. She was still firing and still revving the thrusters even as huge chunks of the ship broke off from the cave walls and stalactites. Rocks fell around Gamora and she fell, too, skidding on the stone as Nebula’s ship scraped overhead and crashed into the far wall of a chamber. The ship was burning now, and Nebula struggled to free herself from the cockpit.
Under almost any other circumstance, Gamora would have helped. But this was one attempted murder too many. One of the blaster cannons lay on the cave floor, broken free of its wing housing. Gamora picked it up and spliced two of its wires together so it would fire on its own. Then she heaved it up onto her shoulder and took aim.
Cannon fire riddled the ship and shattered the rock formations around it. Gamora didn’t stop shooting until the ground beneath Nebula’s ship collapsed and the fighter
disappeared into a lower chamber. She dropped the cannon and looked down. The burning ship hung upside down in a deep part of the cave. Nebula was still trapped in the cockpit.
I could leave her, Gamora thought. And once she might have. But she wasn’t an assassin anymore. Now she was a Guardian of the Galaxy.
She dropped down into the lower chamber and pulled Gamora free of the cockpit just as the ship exploded, flinging them both across the cave. They landed close to each other. Gamora was stunned for a moment. As she tried to get up, she looked over at Nebula, who had broken several bones in the crash. But Thanos had built a healing factor into her, and Nebula reknit her broken bones and straightened her twisted joints in just a few seconds.
Then she came after Gamora again.
“Are you kidding me?!” Gamora screamed. They grappled on the cave floor—not a smooth martial arts fight but a pure emotional fight to the death. Fueled by her hatred, Nebula got a knife to Gamora’s throat. She held it there, keeping her sister at her mercy for a long moment. Then she smiled and dropped the knife. “I win,” she said. “I win. I bested you in combat.”
“No, I saved your life,” Gamora said.
“Well, you were stupid enough to let me live.”
What? What had Nebula just done? “You let me live!” Gamora said.
“I don’t need you always trying to beat me!”
“I’m not the one who just flew across the universe just because I wanted to win!”
“Do not tell me what I want.”
Gamora waved at the flaming wreckage of Nebula’s ship. “I don’t need to tell you. It’s obvious!”
“You were the one who wanted to win. I just wanted a sister!” Nebula paused, as if she regretted admitting this. Gamora was shocked. She didn’t know what to say. “You were all I had,” Nebula went on slowly, as if she had to tear each word free of some deep place in her heart. “You were the one who needed to win. Thanos pulled my eye from my head and my brain from my skull and my arm from my body because of you.”