Pushing and shoving through the bustle of Xandar, Cora panted as she continued to sprint through towards Jasper's neighbourhood. She knew her backpack and her frantic running were receiving puzzled looks from the Xandarians but she refused to let that distract her and she pressed on. She slowed as she approached an estate of high-rise apartments and followed the street that entered the estate, turning at the second left and becoming face to face with an apartment building. Cora approached a control panel that had a button for each apartment and pressed the one for Jasper's, activating a built-in camera on the control panel shortly after.
"Cora?" Jasper's voice spoke through the control panel.
"Let me in, Jasper."
"Of course it'd be you."
His voice then cut off and the doors to the lobby of the apartment building slid open. She strode inside and punched in the level for Jasper's apartment once she boarded the cylinder-shaped glass elevator and felt herself being transported upwards at a high speed. As she neared the level, she noticed Jasper waiting outside for her by his front door. Once she exited the elevator, Jasper rushed towards her.
"What's happened?"
"I hope you don't have any plans - we're going to have to start our trip early." Cora explained with dread.
"Did they visit you again?"
"Why else would I be here? They know that we saw each other last night."
"So, they know I work at the bar." Jasper concluded with a grave expression on his face.
"I put the shop on lock down so they're locked in for now. It should buy us some time to escape – you still have that ship, right?"
"Yeah, we'll need to collect it though. I put it away in the garage." Jasper said as he turned to his apartment door to gather some belongings.
"Jasper, we don't have time. We need to go now!" She said with urgency to her voice.
"Alright alright, let me just grab my blaster and we'll go- jesus!" He shouted as he disappeared into his apartment and shortly came back with his blaster.
"I have supplies so you don't need to worry about that." She said as she gestured for him to follow her into the elevator
"That explains the very stylish backpack you're sporting." Jasper joked.
"Come on you, get in." She laughed.
Jasper eventually obeyed and pressed a button, causing the elevator to shut its doors and descend at an alarming but smooth speed to the ground floor. Once the doors parted, they both strode out of the apartment building and proceeded walking across the street on route to the garage. Cora was tempted to run but she knew this would cause a stir and decided to follow Jasper's calm approach.
"What kind of supplies have you got in there?" He asked curiously as they walked side by side through the busy streets.
"Food, drink, a plasma sphere, weapons… just the basics."
"Fair enough." Jasper nodded and fell silent momentarily, appearing deep in thought before he asked another question. "You said you put the shop on lockdown – I take it things got messy?"
"Dealing with bounty hunters, it always is. I wasn't surprised in all honesty; I saw it coming."
"Just how bad did it get?"
"Weapon's got involved."
"Jesus."
"So, I put the shop on lockdown and came to get you." Cora explained. "They do have decent heads on their shoulders so I bet by now they would have gotten themselves out."
"How did they know we were together last night? He asked, turning his head to her as he walked on.
"One of them 'has a way with electronic systems' – those were his words not mine. He pulled up a hologram of footage from the security camera in the bar."
"We should have been more careful." Jasper lamented.
"We weren't to know."
They had finally reached the garage and Jasper was the first to enter along with Cora following behind him. She decided to stand by the door to keep watch in case unwanted visitors such as Rocket and Groot or possible accomplices or theirs. She would occasionally glance at Jasper to see how much progress he had made with his conversation with a worker at the garage. Eventually, Jasper called her over and she followed him towards a hangar bay where his ship was parked and ready to board.
The ship was rather wide but fairly small in size. It had two triangular shaped wings on each side. The top level of wings were shorter than the wings beneath them and had built in guns and turrets. The bottom level of wings had motors and boosters inside them to power the ship. The ship itself was silver with one green stripe running lengthways down the centre. On the west side of the ship, the doors to enter it were in front of the wings. It was the only ship Cora had piloted and controlled and was therefore, only familiar with its particular controls. She wasn't sure how good the ship was in comparison to Xandarian ships and other ships in the galaxy but Jasper had described it as an 'all-round' ship.
"Right, let's board this beauty." He said, rubbing his hands together.
"Have you thought of a name for it yet?" She asked as she boarded the ship, climbing the stairs to the controls as the door shut behind her.
"I'm going with the Winged Cobra." He replied, taking a seat in front of the controls and flicking various switches to bring it to life.
"Why the Winged Cobra?"
"I don't know, the green stripe reminds me of a snake." Jasper shrugged.
Cora took the bag off her shoulders and placed it next to the chair next to his before sitting in it and began entering the coordinates for Earth into the ship's system. She then buckled up her seatbelt and grabbed onto edges of the chair.
"I'm ready when you are." She nodded.
Jasper fastened his seatbelt, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and lunged it forward, causing the Winged Cobra to jolt onwards as it gained momentum across the take-off strip. Once the ship was outside, it sped up and when it reached the appropriate speed, Jasper pulled a lever and the ship zoomed into the air and out of Xandar's atmosphere. Soon enough, they were surrounded by the galaxy's stars and rocks and Cora couldn't help but stare at the windscreen in awe. Eventually, Jasper got the Winged Cobra stable and on course and programmed it onto auto-pilot.
"Everything is reading normal." She stated. "Fuel is good, the oxygen is stable and we are on course."
"Good, now we can relax until we get to Earth." Jasper replied as he undid his seatbelt and sat back in his seat. "In the meantime, I need something to eat."
"Take the bag." Cora replied, lazily kicking the bag over to him.
He nodded in thanks and picked up the bag, resting it on his lap. He unzipped it and peered inside then glanced up at Cora, shaking his head with a smile.
"Jaffa Cakes; really?"
"Don't be so ungrateful!" She chuckled. "Eat the Oreos then."
"It's just so typical of you." He laughed and opened a packet of Oreos, popping one in his mouth.
The pair sat together, chatting away whilst eating and drinking to keep their energy levels up. They knew they had a long journey ahead of them and they only had each other and the stars for company. They continued to chat for hours until they dozed off to the sound of the ship's engine humming as it sped across the galaxy.
A few hours later, Cora jumped as she was startled from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and looked down at the empty orange Jaffa Cake wrappers on her lap. She narrowed her eyes at the windscreen, thinking that the Winged Cobra could have possibly bumped into a floating piece of rock but could not see any damage to the windscreen. She was convinced she felt the ship jolt suddenly.
She turned to Jasper to see him still fast asleep on the chair. Cora scarped her hair back and proceeded to enter codes into the controls to check on the status of the ship. The screen in front of her on the control panel showed her there was minor damage to the east side of the ship, possibly caused by gun fire from another ship. Before she could activate the Winged Cobra's ship detector, the ship jolted again and rumbled from the impact. Cora fell out of her chair into a heap on the steel floor and clambered on her feet to see Jasper wide awake and concerned.
"What hit us?"
"Possibly another ship." Cora explained. "I'm going to activate the ship detector."
"I don't think you need to." Jasper spoke meekly as he pointed to the windscreen.
Cora looked back at the windscreen to see herself face to face with another ship. It was slightly smaller and slimmer than the Winged Cobra and only had one pair of wings. It was all grey and had more advanced weapons attached to it. She shook her head in disbelief, knowing who it could possibly be and wondered how they were able to catch up so soon. The Winged Cobra then began to make beeping noises and Jasper looked down at the screen on his control panel.
"They want us to turn our communicator on."
"Do it. I think I know who it is." Cora sighed as she felt her anger bubble up inside her.
"I'll leave the talking to you." Jasper nodded and pressed various sets of buttons to activate it.
This caused the beeping to cease and a familiar voice to boom across the speakers inside the ship.
"Listen up girlie, did you really think that little stunt you pulled at your junkyard was cute?" Rocket's voice yelled with no introduction.
"How the hell did you find us?" She shouted in anger.
"I managed to grab the audio from the footage I found." Rocket announced proudly. "It told me just what I needed to hear."
"You just won't quit will you?"
"That boy has quite the bounty on him. I can't let an opportunity like that pass by. Care to hand him over?"
"Why so sure that he's with me?" She asked as she turned to Jasper, who watched her with a solemn expression.
"Cut the crap, my ship is picking up not just one but two signs of life in your piece of flying trash." He said confidently.
A faint "I am Groot" was then picked up on the transmission which seemed to confuse Jasper as he frowned.
"Just because their ship has some colour on it doesn't mean it's better than ours." Rocket argued. "Anyways, hand him over girlie and I'll think about leaving you and your Terran junk alone."
"Why don't you discuss this with me since I'm the one this mostly affects." Jasper retorted.
"Jasper no –"
"I'll discuss it with you once you board my ship, Starling." Rocket said slyly.
"I'm not letting you get me that easily." He shot back.
"No no no Groot don't touch that! Ugh, I'm growing bored of this conversation." Rocket groaned and then hung up.
The ship was silent and Jasper turned to face Cora who shook her head angrily at Rocket's ship in front of them.
"Why did he hang up?" Jasper thought aloud.
Rocket began to fire multiple shots at the ship, causing it to wobble side to side and the emergency sirens to wail frantically. It was evident to both Jasper and Cora that Rocket meant business and was willing to bring them down if they weren't going to come quietly.
