Sirens blared and yellow strobe lights painted the hallway as Peter and Gamora charged down it, dodging lasers that hit just a little too close for comfort.

"This is fun, right?" Quill grinned at his companion. " We're having fun?"

Gamora scoffed in disgust as they ducked around another corner. "If it were not for the possibility of death, I suppose one could describe this as 'fun', yes. I would perhaps choose 'stimulating' or 'thrilling'."

"God, you sound like Drax when you talk like that." Peter couldn't help but grin as they soared down the hallways, passing doors left and right. A symbol on the wide door just to his right caught his eye and he skidded to a halt, clasping Gamoras elbow before she got away. "Here's our stop!"

"Do you really know where we are going? How do you even know what any of these symbols mean?"

"Just a hunch." He flashed her a huge grin and punched the button next to the door. The double wide door slid open to reveal a landing bay. Unfortunately, this one contained no ships, but rather a large creature that sort of looked like a cross between the rancor from that Star Wars movie his mom had shown him as a child and a hairball Rocket had coughed up last month. He punched the button again as the creature turned and roared at him.

"And my hunch says not that one. How about this one?" he rhetorically asked as he raced across the hall to another door with the same marking with a different smaller symbol next to it (Bay 1 and Bay 2? Bay 3 perhaps?). Gamora gave an exasperated sigh as she remained in cover, firing off a few shots back at their pursuers when she could.

"Booyah!" Quill hollered as the door slid open to reveal a small pod looking ship waiting on the platform. "Lets rock this bitch!"

Gamora mentally waved off the odd phrase, having adjusted to the half-Terrans significantly different speaking habits. The two of them raced towards the ship, Quill slapping the close button for the bay door in an attempt to buy themselves more time, even if it was only a second. The ship door was open and waiting to receive them into its belly.

"This type of ship is unfamiliar to me, I hope you know how to pilot this." She said as they ran through the small cargo hold of the ship and into the cockpit.

"Eh, how hard could it be?" Peter smirked as he scrambled into the pilot's seat, or at least assumed was the pilot's seat, it was hard to tell since none of the three seats in the cockpit had a joystick or steering mechanism of any sort, but this one was slightly ahead of the other two. He started haphazardly pushing buttons and sliding levers. The back ramp lifted closed just as the bay doors slid open and he turned to his companion with a huge grin on his face. "Full disclosure, I have no idea how I did that."

Gamora scowled at him and turned her attention to the panel in front of her seat, peering closely at the markings above each control. This one bore two symbols and one was the same mark as the double door they had come through so maybe…

She pressed it and the large doors in front of them slid open, a faint green shimmer indicated there was still atmosphere within the bay. She pointed to the mark on the dash. "This means Bay Doors." She tilted her head at Quill.

"Nice job, missy." He ignored the glare she directed at him. He was at least mostly sure they were past the 'I will actually physically maim you if you call me that' part of their relationship. "My gut says this is the button that makes us fly." he declared as he pressed it with confidence. The ship immediately dropped onto its belly as the landing gear disengaged. If looks could kill, Peter Quill would have breathed his last.

"Alright, now at least I know how to prepare for landing. Uh.." His hand flitted across a dark screen in the dash as he was reaching for another lever. The ship instantly responded by flaring up its boosters on the left side wing, starting the ship into slow turn, eliciting the horrible screech of metal on metal. "Oh you have got to be kidding me." he groaned, tapping on different parts of the screen. The slow turn eventually had them facing back towards the doors they had entered the bay through where their pursuers now stood, staring and laughing (or could be assumed to be laughing, it was an odd chittering/screech noise, accompanied by pointing and slapping at each other. They seemed highly amused.) at the two of them trying to figure out the ship.

Gamora turned her glare to the three silver skinned creatures. Her deft fingers flew across the screen in front of her, even though it still remained black and unresponsive looking, allowing instinct to take over. The two remaining aliens immediately froze as the one in the middle slumped to the ground, his head removed by an "expertly" placed shot from Gamora. No way was she going to admit she had no idea how she managed that shot though. The two aliens opened fire on them again, one of them seemed to be focusing his shots on one specific corner of the front window in front of Peter, as if he knew of a structural weakness.

Quill noticed this and returned his focus to the dark screen in front of him. It gave no indication as to where to put his hands, so of course he was just going to wing it. The ship was slowly turning back towards the big doors again and he mentally ran through what he had touched before. Last time his left hand had been moving towards the right and he had dragged his middle finger from the outside edge to almost the middle about a quarter of the way down the screen. So maybe if he did the same with his right hand going towards the left? It was going to be his first try at least, the big doors were almost completely in his front view and that super focused little dude was following them around, still firing at that one spot. He was standing between them and the exit now and he didn't seem to have accomplished his mission. Too bad for him, good for our intrepid heroes.

"Here goes nothing." Peter muttered to himself as he flicked his right hand across the screen. The right side boosters sprang to life and the ship skidded across the floor towards the exit. The alien attempted to tuck and roll to the side, but the low wing caught his shoulder and sent him tumbling out into space with them. Quill whooped as they slowly flew away from the alien satellite.

"Yeah! High five!" he hollered, holding out his hand for the highest of fives from his green skinned friend. She stared at his hand and then at him.

"This ship must be capable of moving quicker than this. Why don't you ask your intestines how to achieve that."

"Self five!" Quill clapped his hands together, determined not to leave himself hanging. He bobbed his head and vocalized his own little victory song to himself as he felt around on the dash again. Attempting the same inwards swipe thing on the screen again didn't seem to make it go any faster, but maybe if he tried at the halfway down point…

The two friends were suddenly sucked back into their seats and the view out the front window was streaked in black and white. The ride was rough and Quill desperately reached for the screen, attempting to reverse the move he had done in the hopes of dropping back into regular speed.

"Quill! Make it stop!" Gamora hollered at him, bracing herself against the seat.

"I'm trying, ok! Give me a break, it's my first time driving one of these!" he gritted his teeth, pulling himself forward to reach the dash.

Before he could reach it, the weakened spot next to the frame around the window suddenly fractured, sending tendrils careening through the glass.

"Oh, that son of a-" was all he got out as the emergency protocols engaged and they immediately dropped back into normal space. Gamora was thrown into the dash, her reflexes and enhancements stopping her from hitting too hard and causing injury. It still jarred her enough that she could tell she was going to have a sore neck. She groaned as she sat back with her eyes closed, rubbing at the back of her neck.

"Quill. Are you alright?" The lack of a snappy reply had her in her feet in an instant. Peter was slumped across the dash, completely unresponsive. "Quill!"

She gently pulled him back into the seat, his head lolling to the side. Blood poured from his nose and a gash to his left eyebrow, making him look extremely pale in stark contrast to the crimson. "Quill, can you hear me?" she asked as she gently tapped his face. No response. "Quill! Peter!" she was basically screaming at him, but not even an eye flutter.

A shrill beeping suddenly pierced through the cockpit. Looking out through the cracked window it became abundantly clear why the ship was making so much noise. They were headed straight for a blue and green planet, which already filled most of the view.

Gamora quickly manhandled Peter out of the 'pilot's seat' and into the third seat in the cockpit, back and to the left of the center seat. At least the seatbelts were universally understood and she deftly buckled the five point harness over his chest, pulling it tight to ensure he wasn't going anywhere. She stood and turned back to facing forward, took one look at the cracked window and tapped the button on his ear earpiece, trusting it would cover his face as she slipped into the pilot seat and buckled herself in.

She had no idea where to start. The language was so foreign and the only two words she had figured out were 'door' and 'bay', which really did not help when it came to doing an atmosphere entry and landing. Or even turning and avoiding the planet entirely. That didn't seem feasible at this point and she didn't want to risk getting caught entering the atmosphere horizontally if she failed, so keeping the nose downwards for now seemed like the best option.

Vertical may be better than horizontal, but it was unmistakably more terrifying, what with the combination of rapidly approaching ground and the occasional pop as the cracks spread across the window. The whole ship felt like it would rattle apart during entry and she could feel it getting hotter in the cockpit. She looked back at Quill as another crack shot across the window. The blank glowing red eyes gave nothing away about his condition, but the fact he was very much dangling from the harness showed he hadn't woken yet.

A sliver of the window popped out and suddenly the whole thing was gone, leaving just a constant flow of wind hitting her right in the face. She scrambled blindly for the control screen, swiping her fingers straight down in an attempt to make it straighten out. It made sense in a backwards kind of way. This whole ship was so unpredictable, it was worth a shot.

It didn't level the ship out for the most part, but now it was doing a sort of spiral spin as it came in at an angle, low enough now that it was plowing through tree trunks. Branches slapped along the top and side of the cockpit until the ship came to a sudden stop and her vision went black.

So in my Google Docs this story continues on. And it crosses over with another Marvel movie that is now a few years old and has more continuation on, and basically the crossover would really mess with the flow of the MCU (Which I hate messing with the flow of canon, unless something is severely messed up), so I don't know if I should attempt to finish what I have in my Doc... As it is, I wrote this about 5 months ago so I've lost my "groove" on pounding it out, but I'm still hoping for some inspiration to hit me maybe?

Anyways, comments appreciated!