Dirty Deeds
"That's your plan?" Rocket asked, arms crossed, sitting in the right pilot seat on the flight deck. Quill was across from him in the left seat, Gamora standing next to Quill, and Drax watched from the rear seat. The Milano's approach to Hell's Shadow was projected on the canopy. It was an abandoned planet, generally considered neutral territory, used by various factions and organizations to exchange everything from goods to money to hostages. You could have a face-to-face meeting, or leave your booty at a prearranged dead-drop location where your payment was waiting. Scores were settled there, too, although that was viewed as interfering with business and thus frowned upon. Quill had received a message with the final instructions for the drop just before calling the team meeting.
"Yes, that's the plan," Peter responded, an edge of exasperation creeping into his voice. He longed for one of these meetings to not end in a frank discussion of plan minutiae with Rocket. The session wasn't going as well as he'd hoped, but at least it hadn't degenerated into an all-out argument yet. "What's wrong with it?"
"We're going to the remotest part of a remote planet, for a client we know nothing about, to drop off a cargo we know nothing about, to a buyer we know nothing about," Rocket said, ticking off the points on one hand. "And to top it off, 'they' specifically asked for you two to make the drop," he added, leaning forward and pointing at Quill and Gamora with two fingers. "What could possibly smell bad about this deal?"
"Why are you always so negative?"
"Because it's the same frickin' set-up I'd use if I were tryin' to take you down! Everybody knows this place isn't safe. Why d'ya think they call it Hell's Shadow? Coz the weather's nice?"
"Well, little buddy, you won't have to worry about it, will you, because you're gonna be fixing that engine thing while we make the drop."
"Shit," Rocket said, shaking his head. "Shoulda kept my mouth shut." He'd made his case to Quill about number five earlier in the day, and Peter had agreed to the repair when they made the stop. He now regretted speaking up about the ship, since this whole job was starting to smell like something from the deep ocean that had sat out in the sun too long.
"I am Groot," said Groot from his pot, next to Drax. (You're so paranoid.)
"I'm not paranoid just because everyone's out to get us," Rocket snapped at the tree.
"Look, you said it would take twenty minutes tops to go out on the wing and reset the magnetic…" Quill paused, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember the name of the part.
"Harmonizer," Rocket said, under his breath.
"…gadget and have everything all dialed in by the time we get back."
"Oh, it'll be fixed, no fear. You just make it back so you can enjoy the fruits of my labor."
"Count on it. Okay, 40 minutes til we get there. Deorbit procedure starts in 20 minutes. Drax, you're our back-up while me and Gamora make the drop. Rocket, you fix what needs fixed and be ready to go. That's it."
Rocket opened his mouth to add something, then shook his head, hopped down from the chair and headed down the ladder to the mid-deck. He couldn't shake the bad feeling about the drop, which was strange for him in that he always took a full-speed-ahead approach to things like this. The other three stayed on the flight deck; he could hear them hashing out some final details. An idea hit him on the way down the ladder. He rooted around in the junk on the galley table and found Quill's mapping scanner. He shot a look back upstairs, then jumped down the ladder to the cargo hold.
Gamora watched Rocket drop down into the mid-deck, then grab a piece of gear off of the table and disappear below deck. He usually gave Quill a degree of grief over any particular plan, both to keep up appearances and make sure Peter hadn't forgotten some vital detail. This time, though, Rocket had been on edge all day, like some instinct was screaming at him to be cautious. She touched Peter gently on the arm, interrupting his conversation with Drax.
"I'll be downstairs. There are few things I want to verify before our arrival."
"Sure, fine, I'm not worried about you," Quill said, not really paying attention to her.
She nodded at the pair and made her way down the ladder.
Rocket figured he had five, maybe ten minutes before Peter came looking for him to start flying the approach to Hell's Shadow. He knelt down at the far end of the cargo pallet, keeping the ladder to the mid-deck in sight. He pried open the scanner, pulled out a wire bundle, and started clipping leads from another piece of gear onto the scanner's wires. He hit the power stud on the scanner, and the blue imaging field appeared. He aimed it at the cargo container, and the interior structure for about a foot inside the can came into view. He started working his way around the cargo can, trying to get a good series of images of what was inside. It looked empty. He heard a clank on the ladder, knew without looking that it was Gamora. She was being courteous, letting him know she was there.
"It's a 'no questions asked' cargo," she said in a level tone.
"Since when's that stopped any good merc?" he replied.
She smiled, moving off the ladder and over to where he was working. She sat on the floor by the pallet, crosslegged, blocking his progress along the can. He sighed and faced her. They were suddenly close, eye to eye.
"You mind?" he said. "Workin' here."
"What have you found?" Rocket heard the warning in her tone. He shut off the scanner, looking at her, trying to decide whose side she was on right now. He crossed his arms, cradling the scanner.
"Nothin'. There's nothin' in it."
"Nothing dangerous."
"No, I mean there's nothin' in it. Like, empty."
"Scanner problem?"
"Nah, scanner's fine, considering the rig."
"That is strange. Does it look shielded, or like active countermeasures?"
"Not at all. I'm tellin' ya, it looks like air and a 50 bule lead plate."
She nodded, and gently took the scanner and box away from him, set it on the floor, motioned for him to sit. He started to protest, stopped, shrugged, sat.
"What is going on with you?" she asked.
"Oh, I dunno, didn't I say enough upstairs?"
"Yes, you spoke your usual amount of words, but it is obvious that this mission is bothering you more than normal."
"Shit," he said, collecting his thoughts. "I can't explain it, call 'animal instinct' or whatever, but I gotta real bad feeling here. There's somethin' that doesn't add up wit' this gig, an' I can't tell you what it is." He picked up the scanner and began reassembling it while watching Gamora. "You an' Quill better grow some eyes in the back a' yer heads, all I can tell ya. An' if they twig to Drax bein' your backup, then get the fuck outta there, like yesterday. I don't care how well hidden he thinks he is."
She put her hand on his shoulder, and he gasped in surprise, almost dropping the scanner. She had a serious expression.
"Thank you for being concerned. I admit, I have reservations about this drop, too." She pulled her hand back, looked down, then met Rocket's gaze again. "Just be sure you get the Milano fixed so we aren't caught with our…our butts in the stars."
"'In the wind.'"
"There, either," she said, and worked her way back down the aisle and up the ladder. Rocket watched her go, then shook his head, put the extra piece of electronic gear in a pocket, grabbed Quill's scanner, and followed her out of the compartment.
Milano approached Hell's Shadow via a polar orbit for a landing in the upper latitudes. It was an area of perpetual twilight, given the inclination and orbit of the planet. There was a watery, gray light, ideal for concealment, that filled the barren landscape. The ground was a series of low, rolling hills with a surface of red and gray volcanic rock and sand. The landing site was about 150 meters from the exchange site.
Peter and Rocket flew the ship. They circled the exchange site, and Peter ejected the cargo pallet using the transport beam. Rocket circled back to the landing area, slewing Milano around in tight turn and flare for landing when warning lights lit up on the instrument panels.
"Engine failure engine failure engine failure." intoned the ship. Rocket suddenly had his hands full as the ship began to yaw and roll to the right, the ground tilting crazily beyond the canopy.
"Shit! Number five ate it! Get the struts down!" he shouted at Quill. "The thrust compensator is dead!" Normally, Milano would adjust the thrust of the remaining engines to maintain controlled flight, but that feature wasn't working, so the extra power on the left wing threatened to flip the ship over on her back. Quill got the landing struts extended just as Rocket fought the ship onto the ground. There was a tremendous crash and the ship slid sideways in a spray of dust and sand. Rocket killed the engines. The main power went out, and the ship was filled with the yellow glow of the emergency lights.
"Yes!" shouted Drax. "That is your best one yet! We must do that again!" His booming laugh filled the flight deck.
"Everybody okay?" Quill asked, to a chorus of positive replies. "What happened?" he asked, looking angrily at Rocket.
"Number five died in the flare," Rocket said, just as annoyed. He banged away on the panel, and the main power came back on. Another screen lit up with the engine parameters. "Just flamed out. Weird. The compensator didn't kick in, dunno why…"
"Can you fix it?"
"Yeah, enough to get us out of here."
"Great. You get to work on that. We'll make the delivery and then get the hell outta here, " Quill said, getting out of his seat and stretching. Gamora and Drax were up, too, shaking off the effects of the rough landing. Groot had wrapped tendrils around the bulkhead where his pot was secured, and was unwinding himself from the ship.
"I am Groot." (Damn, dude, thought you could fly.)
"We can still use her," Rocket said over his shoulder to Groot. "Happy?" There was an old saw among 'ship drivers: any landing you walk away from is good, it's even better if you can use the 'ship again.
The team made their way down to the mid-deck. Quill, Gamora and Drax picked up their gear and weapons. The nose hatch irised open, and the three of them jumped down to the surface. Rocket stood in the hatchway.
"Quill," he said. Peter turned back to look, as Rocket put a finger to his eyes. "Keep your eyes open."
"Yeah," he said, walking away with Gamora. Drax had already disappeared into the landscape. Rocket shut the hatch. He clipped a comm lead to his ear, was gratified to hear Quill and Gamora's progress. He grabbed a case and bounded up the stairs. The canopy hissed open, and he jumped out onto the left wing. Time's a wastin', he thought, working his way over to the right rear wing.
It took only a couple of minutes for Quill and Gamora to reach the cargo pallet. Quill followed Drax's progress on the readouts inside his helmet. He was amazed how the big man could disappear when he needed to. Drax was following them about twenty meters to their left, weaving in and out of the hilly terrain. The rendezvous area was in a hollow between two serpentine hills. Quill and Gamora exchanged looks, and moved to opposite ends of the pallet. Each carefully cleared their weapons.
A single figure walked into the exchange area. It was covered in a gray camouflage suit, the face hidden behind a blank gray plate.
"Star-Lord. You have brought the cargo we desire."
"Yep we did, right here," Peter said, rapping his knuckles on the top of the can.
The wing panel hinged open easily enough. Rocket look at his tablet, matching the schematics to the actual parts. Fuel lines, manifolds, magnetic harmonizer, engine controls…what the? He looked at the pad, then at the magnetic harmonizer again. That ain't on the plans, he thought, looking at an odd piece of hardware mounted in the wing. Cables ran from the device to the magnetic harmonizer and the engine control for number five. He got down on his hands and knees, looking closer at the mystery gear. Holy shit! He keyed the mic on his comm unit.
"Quill! Get outta there! It's a set-up!"
"Yes, you brought…that. But that is not what we desire."
Quill heard Rocket shout his name in the comm, then a burst of static squealed in his ear. The mystery guest flung a silver disk at Gamora that seemed to sprout legs in midair. She effortlessly sidestepped it, cutting it half with her long blade. It hit the ground in a shower of sparks. Gamora's knife sang past Quill's nose, sinking into the camouflaged figure.
Another enemy burst from the ground behind Quill. He dropped and rolled, came up in a shooting crouch and blasted away. The new arrival dodged the shots and jumped on Quill. They fell to the ground, trading punches. Quill heard Drax's roar of battle delight, and his opponent was pulled away from him, impaled on Drax's blade. Drax flung the body away and waded into the melee around Gamora. Quill thought he heard Milano's engines roar to life in the distance. Part of his mind wondered what was happening with Rocket, while the other part dealt with a new attacker.
Rocket ripped the leads out of the foreign hardware, and muscled the component off of Milano's engine controls. He tossed the item toward the cockpit, so he could inspect it later. It skidded across the ship, fell through the open canopy and clanked onto the deck. He spun and slammed the wing panel closed with his foot. He heard a buzzing sound and flung himself flat on the wing as a blue bolt of energy flew over his head. Rocket rolled toward the center of the ship, counted to five, jumped up and scampered for the open canopy. He leaped in the air, somersaulted and dropped into the cockpit feet first. Something hit his left leg while he was in the air, knocking him onto the floor between the seats. He reached up, slapped the control panel and the canopy hissed closed. Rocket felt something crawling on his leg, then a fiery pain exploded in his left thigh.
"Ahhhooowww," he screamed, flopping over to look at the source of the pain. There was an eight-legged device about the size of his hand clamped onto his leg. The legs on the device sank through his jumpsuit and into the meat of his thigh. He grabbed the thing with both hands and yanked. He felt the fingers tightening into his muscle, then another burning stab from the center of the machine. His eyes crossed from the pain as he rolled across the flight deck floor towards Groot's pot, still secured at the back of the flight deck. The thing came free after another yank in a spray of blood, fabric and flesh. Rocket growled in agony, still fighting the device as the eight legs tried to grip his arms. Hands slippery with blood, he fought to control the spider and bash it into the floor.
Rocket felt another set of fingers working their way into his grasp. Groot extended a branch that forced its way into Rocket's hands, enclosing the spider. He pulled it away from Rocket, slamming it repeatedly into the deck until small metal parts began flying out of the knot of wood and the intruder was still. There was a snap as Groot separated the vines encasing the remains of the spider, leaving it imprisoned on the deck. Rocket scooted away from the thing on his back.
"I am Groot!" (What the fuck is that?)
"Thanks, buddy," Rocket said, pressing a hand to his wounded leg. "Oh shit that hurts that hurts that hurts," he said through clenched teeth. He struggled to his feet, turned around to see a gray camouflaged figure standing on the ship outside the canopy, raising a weapon. He dove at the control panel and activated the "intrusion countermeasures" section. A blue spark erupted from the ship and the figure was thrown to the ground with a loud zap. Shots rattled off of Milano's hull and canopy.
Rocket climbed into the pilot seat, thumbed the fast ignition on the thrust lever. Milano responded beautifully, all the engines coming on line instantly. The ship exploded off of the ground with a roar as Rocket toggled the tactical displays. He saw eight enemy targets on the ground. He yawed the ship around, finger convulsing on the guns trigger. The three gun pods erupted, and the eight targets were gone in a messy spray of guts and sand.
Where's their transport? Rocket thought, switching displays. There, just lifting off! Gotcha now, bitches! Three missiles and another burst from the guns and the enemy ship trailed smoke, flew into the ground and exploded. Rocket turned Milano back toward the exchange area, searching for his friends. He felt lightheaded as his leg continued to bleed. A cold, numb sensation was spreading from the center of the gashes on his thigh, and he could feel blood dripping off his toes.
Keep it together keep it together, he thought, fighting to stay focused on reaching Quill, Gamora and Drax. He could see a cloud of dust rising from the exchange area along with the flashes from energy weapons. Milano covered the distance from the landing zone to the exchange area in seconds. The tactical display showed the three green outlines of his friends, crouching on one side of the cargo can. There were two red enemy signatures working on a flanking maneuver. Rocket ended them with a burst from the guns.
He slewed Milano around, aiming her nose at his friends. He reached across to the right seat controls and engaged the transport beam to pick them up. It worked, he heard shouts and thumps from the cargo compartment. Satisfied that he could hear three voices, he punched up the orbital insertion flight path, gave the ship max throttle and engaged the autonav. He sat back for a moment, then struggled out of the chair, slipping and falling on the blood-slick deck. He got back to his feet, shuffled toward the gangway to the mid-deck.
"What the fuck is going on?" Quill shouted, starting up the ladder to the flight deck.
He stopped when he saw Rocket at the top of the steps, blood soaking the lower part of his clothes and matting the fur on his left leg. Rocket took a step, reached out his hand, mouth open, panting. His eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled forward, falling head first down the ladder. Quill caught him before he hit the deck. He held Rocket's limp body, felt the warm blood on his hands, and looked around at Gamora and Drax.
"Oh shit," was all he could manage to say to their stunned expressions.
"I am Groot." The plaintive voice drifted down from the flight deck. (Rocket! Talk to me!)
Author's note: This chapter took forever to work out. It became more of Rocket's story than originally planned, but I'm OK with that. Hope you like it, now that the real rollercoaster ride has started. Comments welcome and appreciated!
