Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, and thanks for your reviews and messages in the meantime. I've probably said this before, but I'm a librarian, and summer is our busiest time, and when the weather is nice out, it's hard to stay inside and edit. But I finally finished this chapter! And the good news is that the next chapter is already written! So I really will be posting again next week—at least that's the plan, and things always go according to plan around here. :) In today's chapter, the Guardians arrive on Jang and meet Quill's friend Varad. (Please picture Varad as Retta, who played Donna on Parks and Rec.) Thanks for reading, and I'll see you again soon!

Quill

After Knowhere, Jang was pretty much as far from anywhere as you could get. It was the kind of planet that Ravagers loved, because there was a lot of illegal work to be had, and even more illegal entertainment. You could bet on anything when you came to Jang, and Yondu often had when he'd brought Quill there as a kid. Like everywhere else that wasn't earth, Quill had hated the whole damn planet at first. But then he'd met Varad, and she became the reason that Quill loved Jang.

"Ugh, look at this place," Rocket muttered as they prepared to land. "You seriously like this planet?"

"This is honestly one of my favorite planets," Quill said. "And not just because we can make some money here and maybe avoid Yondu for a while."

"One of your favorite planets?" Gamora said skeptically. "...do you mind if I ask why?"

"Is that a volcano?" Drax wondered, staring down at a plume of smoke that was billowing up into the atmosphere.

"Yeah, that's why so little of Jang has been settled," Quill said. "Tons of volcanic activity, so the atmosphere's full of ash most of the time—that makes it hard to grow food, so everything has to be shipped here. Also a lotta earthquakes, so...yeah. Not the most stable planet."

"I am Groot," Groot said thoughtfully. He was finally out of his pot, and though he'd only been as tall as Rocket the day before, he was now approaching Gamora's height—he was way skinnier than he'd been before getting blown up on Xander, but at least he was starting to look like his old self again.

"'Impressive' is not the word I'd use for this place," Rocket argued. "Usually, when an entire planet is basically on fire, I try to avoid it."

"The town where Varad lives isn't on fire, trust me," Quill said. "I mean, usually it isn't."

"How did you meet Varad?" Gamora asked.

"When I was a kid, Yondu used to come here sometimes. If he wasn't pissed at me, he'd let me run around like a maniac and buy whatever I wanted with whatever money I managed to steal before we got here. Mostly I'd just buy as much candy as I could carry."

"So what, Varad sells candy?" Rocket said, leaning toward the window to get a better look at the nearest smoldering crater.

"No, she runs a garage…which does sell candy, actually. When I was around twelve, there was this girl named Yena that I hung around with, and one time, we ran past this building and I heard music I knew from earth. So we snuck inside and we met Varad. After she was sure that I wasn't just there to steal stuff, she let me hang out and listen to music, and I always visited her every time Yondu came back to Jang. As far as I know, he hasn't been here in a while though—I'm pretty sure he owes a bunch of people money."

"So Varad collects earth music?" Gamora said.

"Varad collects music from everywhere," Quill said. "Also, she's been telling me for years about every part of the Milano that needs fixing. I can't wait to see her face when she sees it now."

"Yeah, because lucky for you, Nova fixed everything for free—and all you had to do to make it happen was crash and almost die," Rocket said, handing Groot a glass of water.

"That was not lucky at all," Drax pointed out.

"I am Groot," Groot said, nodding.

"Okay," Rocket sighed. "Maybe after we get something to eat I'll explain sarcasm again."

"Now that we're getting close, I'll admit that part of the town we're about to visit is currently on fire," Quill said, scanning the clouds of smoke near the outskirts of the city and aiming the Milano toward the lot behind Varad's shop.

"Maybe we're incapable of traveling without discovering or causing something to be on fire," Gamora said. Quill was pretty sure she was right, but he didn't say anything in agreement, because he thought that might be bad luck. Or worse luck, given recent events.

Varad's garage and shop took up an entire block in Jang's biggest city, which had a name, but Quill never bothered to learn it because it changed pretty much constantly. According to Varad, several families had been fighting over the name for generations, and every time one of them put up a new sign proclaiming the name they liked, the others would destroy it. (Or sometimes an active volcano would.) So Quill just called the city and the planet Jang, and it seemed like most people did the same. Rocket in particular was impressed by the doorway into Varad's shop, which was made of old engine parts. A sign said that the garage was closed, but there was still a light on in the shop, where Varad lived and where customers waited for repairs to be completed, so Quill knocked on the door.

"Hey, Varad! It's Quill!" he shouted. "And I have money!"

"What does that mean?" Gamora said.

"Last time I came here, I needed a loan," Quill said with a shrug. "I figure she's more likely to open the door if she knows I'm not here to ask for units."

"You're right," a woman said, pulling open the big metal door.

"Hey!" Quill said. "How's my favorite person who definitely didn't put a bounty on me?"

Varad frowned. "Someone put a bounty on you? And you decided to come here?"

"Yeah, for the job we talked about. And I was pretty sure the bounty wasn't you," Quill said. "Like ninety-five percent sure, but the fact that you're not shooting me right now proves it."

"You say the sweetest things, Peter Quill. It's about time you came to visit," Varad said, giving Quill a fierce hug. Then she looked over his shoulder. "So, I guess the rumors are true and you finally ditched that asshole Udanta."

"Yeah, I have actual friends now," Quill said, trying and failing to not sound as proud as he felt. "Varad, this is Gamora, Drax, Rocket, and Groot."

"Nice to meet all of you—I'm glad this guy isn't hanging around with Ravagers anymore," Varad said. "Come on in and let's see what I've got, food and drink-wise."

Quill smiled—he'd always loved Varad's place. The garage was pretty much just a normal garage, and though Varad had employees, she still did some work herself, if she spotted a ship she really liked. Her shop was like a weird museum of things she'd found while traveling, full of music and art and ship parts of all shapes in sizes.

"I'm in charge of music," Quill said, heading straight to a box of cassette tapes and rifling through it.

"You know there are these things called CDs now?" Varad said. "Also, I hear your planet finally has digital music, so you could easily just download the songs you want to your ship's memory. Or, you know, you can keep carrying around a fragile physical copy of your favorite songs, that's good too."

"Varad, there is music in my ship's memory, and sure, I listen to it sometimes, but my favorite songs are right here," Quill said, motioning to his Walkman. "And that's thanks to you. As long as you can keep this thing working, I'll keep using it."

"Wait, is that thing fragile?"Gamora said, sounding slightly alarmed. "You carry that device everywhere and it's breakable?"

"Yeah, Varad's had to fix it and the Awesome Mix a few times over the years," Quill said, finally popping a Beatles tape into a cassette deck that Varad had built from spare parts. What most people saw as obsolete technology, Varad saw as an aesthetically pleasing challenge. (There were similar weird gadgets from other parts of the galaxy all over the shop—Quill had even seen an 8-Track player once. It was a weird hobby, but probably less dangerous than Rocket's similar love of building explosive stuff.)

Varad rolled her eyes. "Those things aren't really built to last thirty years, Quill. And cassette tapes definitely aren't."

"Well, I've got a new tape now, and I plan to protect them both with my life. So, I'm buying dinner, since I really do have money," Quill said. "Can we order something?"

"Here," Varad said, handing him a takeout menu. "I've circled the best ones. You guys can have a seat over here and pick what you want."

They all sat down in a circle of chairs and couches that Quill knew Varad's mother had reclaimed from old ships. After she'd ordered their food, she too took a seat.

"How did you come to live on Jang?" Drax asked.

"My mother was one of the first settlers here," Varad said. "She landed here about forty years ago, hoping the closest volcano wouldn't erupt before she got her ship fixed. Except, her ship was busted up worse that she thought. She spent weeks trying to repair it, but it never flew again. By then though, mom had decided she liked it here, so she turned the ship into this shop and raised me in it. And she helped found this town—Jang isn't exactly the most civilized planet in the galaxy, but it's my planet, and I like it."

"So, you like to build stuff," Rocket said, trying to sound casual as his eyes eagerly darted around the room, clearly considering what he might build with the same parts.

"It's my hobby and my profession—speaking of which, how's the Milano?"

"Great actually, thanks to Nova Corps," Quill said, giving Varad a very abbreviated account of what had happened on Xandar.

"Wow," she said when he'd finished talking. "Just when I think you've hit some kind of limit for making bad choices, you go and break all your old records."

"What, by saving a planet?" Quill said.

"By grabbing an infinity stone!" Varad said, giving Quill a stern look. "Quill, that should have killed you. I thought everyone knew that much about infinity stones."

"Well, it didn't, because it turns out my dad is some kind of ancient alien," Quill said. "Also, about that bounty I mentioned earlier—don't worry about it. It's probably just Yondu being an asshole like usual."

Varad closed her eyes, apparently willing herself to be patient. "Anyway. Let's talk about something less stressful than your…entire life and every decision you've ever made."

"What kind of work did you have in mind for us?" Gamora asked.

"I've got a few jobs you might be interested in—depending on how law-abiding you guys are."

Quill and the others looked at each other.

"We are not very concerned with breaking laws," Drax said. "Provided that no one is worse off from our criminal activities."

"Except, you know, if you tell us to rob some rich asshole, that'd be okay," Rocket said.

"Ever heard of asteroid mining?" Varad asked.

"Yes!" Quill said. "Always wanted to try it. It's expensive to get started though—and isn't it usually illegal?"

"Depends on where you do it," Varad said. "If you do it in Kree territory, then yeah, you're going to get arrested. But the Nova Empire could care less who mines asteroids, as long as they file a claim first. When you told me you were coming, I started looking into this, and it seems that there is a very large, very valuable asteroid just inside Nova territory. I filed a claim last week, and now all you have to do is go collect it."

"If it's valuable, why hasn't it been claimed before?" Gamora asked.

"Because," Varad said, showing them a 3-D map, "it's here, right between Nova and Kree territory."

Quill and the others watched as a tiny asteroid on the map slowly spun between two small moons as they rotated around Kendaviss, a small planet that was mostly ice, gas, and storms that had been raging for thousands of years.

"I am Groot," Groot said.

"Yeah," Rocket agreed. "Definitely weird."

"A rotation like that is one in a million," Drax murmured.

"Several million, actually," Varad said. "Nobody's dared claim it yet because there's a Kree garrison here, on one of the closest moons to the asteroid's orbit. Here's the thing though: if you time this just right, you can bring the asteroid down on the other moon, this one in Nova's jurisdiction."

"Wait, wait—Kendaviss has two moons, and each moon belongs to a different empire?" Rocket said. "How does that work?"

"Technically, Kendaviss doesn't belong to anyone—no one wants it, because its only resources are ice, rocks, and poisonous gas," Varad said. "So, back when this sector of space was first explored, Nova and the Kree each just took a moon and called it good. The problem is, every satellite out there is pretty close together. If your timing's off by even a second when you try to land this asteroid, you'll crash into the wrong moon—or into another asteroid, which would also be bad."

"How much time would we have?" Quill asked. "Is this map not to scale, or is the rotation of these moons really that fast?"

"Unfortunately, it is exactly this fast," Varad said, enlarging the map. "These two moons will eventually be broken apart in Kendaviss' atmosphere, but for now, they hurtle around the planet once every hour. And the asteroid is only in range of Nova's moon for seven minutes once every three days."

Quill winced. "Okay, this sounds like fun, but also maybe impossible."

"I know the math on this isn't encouraging, but look," Varad said, zooming in on the asteroid. "This scan shows you what this thing is made of. It's mostly rock and ice, but there's something different at the core. What does this chemical composition look like to you?"

"Um...can I get a hint?" Quill said.

"Really?" Varad said.

"You know I've never been good at chemistry," Quill pointed out. "I mean, not the literal kind—the figurative kind—"

"Anyway," Gamora said, rolling her eyes. "What is it?"

"It's some kind of metal," Drax said, his eyes narrowing. "A very valuable one."

"Rhodium," Varad said, clearly pleased. "A shiny silver metal—pretty, but also chemically inert. It doesn't corrode either, which is part of why it's used in engines."

"My home planet has a few mining colonies," Drax said before Quill could ask how he knew about this stuff. "This does seem to be a reasonable, if risky money-making venture."

"Does everybody like the sound of this job?" Quill asked, looking at the others. "Because obviously, we've had worse plans than this and things have turned out okay. This sounds like it could actually work."

"I am Groot," Groot said, passing his hand through the 3-D map and lingering on the image of a piece of Rhodium, shining brightly in the dim light of the room.

"I have no objections—how will we split the profits?" Gamora said.

"Well, I'm a generous woman, so how does splitting our asteroid seventy—thirty sound?" Varad said.

"What?!" Rocket said. "How about seventy-five—twenty-five, just cause we're so generous?"

"Hey, Rocket, come on," Quill said. "Don't be like that. Eighty—twenty, Varad."

"Eighty—twenty?" Varad said, raising her eyebrows. "You're gonna offer me twenty percent of a job I planned myself? Really?"

"So far, all this has cost you was the money for the claim," Quill pointed out. "If we're paying for the equipment and the fuel to get out there, then it's gotta be worth our time and units."

"Really Quill? You're like the little brother I never had, and you're asking me to take a deal like this?"

"Yeah, because you didn't teach me to negotiate like an idiot," Quill said, smiling. "So, do we have a deal?"

Varad resisted for a moment, but then she smiled too and shook Quill's hand. "Next time, start at ten percent for me so you at least have room to haggle. I might have taken fifteen percent, if you'd had the nerve to offer me that."

"I'm not stupid enough to offer fifteen when you deserve twenty," Quill said.

"Well, don't be so generous with anyone else," Varad said.

"We'll need special equipment for this," Rocket said thoughtfully. "I can build all the explosives we need to spec, but mining stuff isn't exactly my area of expertise."

"We can rent mining equipment here," Quill said. "It won't be cheap, but we can get it, right?"

"I've got a guy you can talk to tomorrow," Varad said. "And I can help you build the drilling rig you'll need."

Varad and Rocket were soon deep in conversation about constructing dangerous gadgets, and Quill started going through tapes, trying to decide which ones he wanted the others to hear, when there was a knock on the door: their food had arrived, and though Drax was always skeptical of any food he hadn't cooked, he seemed to enjoy it. For his part, Quill devoured several cartons of the brightly colored stuff—Varad said it was mostly vegetables in some kind of sauce, but it tasted so good that Quill didn't even care that it was probably healthy.

There were several rooms at the back of the shop—Varad occasionally had employees who lived there—but at the moment, all the rooms were empty, so everyone took a bed and soon fell asleep. Except for Quill, who was too excited about the upcoming job and still buzzed from an evening of good food, drinks, and music—plus, the fact that his old friend was getting along with his new friends was a serious relief. Quietly slipping back into the main room, he decided that he would play tapes until he got sleepy. He found a Rolling Stones cassette and put it in the tape deck, then turned the volume way down—just because he was having too much fun to sleep didn't mean he wanted to wake anyone else.

"What's that music?" Gamora said.

Quill jumped and turned to see her standing in the doorway, still fully dressed except for her boots. "Oh, hi. Um…Sympathy for the Devil."

Gamora smiled wryly. "That sounds like my kind of song."

She joined him on the couch, and they sat in silence for a few moments, just listening to the song.

"You know, this might be kind of hard to dance to, but we could try," Quill said, once the next song had started.

Gamora nodded slowly. The song was something that Quill knew he'd heard as a kid, but he couldn't remember when. Probably his mom had had this tape, and they'd danced to it in the kitchen. It was a slow song, and Quill and Gamora danced the way he'd seen people in movies slow dance: her hands on his shoulders, his hands on her waist.

"Did you and your friend Yena used to dance like this?" Gamora asked.

It took Quill a second to realize that she was teasing him, but then he snorted with laughter. "Um, no. We hung out because we both wanted to get away from the asshole adults who were in change of us."

Gamora nodded. "I remember that feeling. Not that I had many chances to get away, when I was a child."

They were near the tape player, so Quill leaned over and hit stop. He suddenly felt like there shouldn't be county-rock-blues fusion music playing. Gamora looked serious.

"You okay?" he asked.

Gamora shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "We don't know that this bounty we're avoiding is the work of Yondu. What if it's one of my many enemies?"

"So what if it is?" Quill said. "We'll kick their asses."

"What if it's Nebula?" Gamora said, looking up at him. "She would happily kill you all just to hurt me, Quill."

"That won't happen," Quill said. "We'll kill her—unless you don't want us to. Then we'll just…maim her. Or, you know, gently incapacitate her."

Gamora smiled reluctantly. "I wish anything about this were that easy. I feel so foolish sometimes, thinking I can have friends and a happy life after everything I've done…"

"Gamora, you deserve to be happy," Quill said firmly.

She shook her head. "No one deserves happiness. Now that I've found it, I don't want to lose it, but it could be snatched from us so easily…"

"So, we've gotta enjoy it while we can," Quill said quietly.

Gamora looked at him for a long time. "Yes, we do."

It was then that Quill had what he knew from experience was a dangerous thought: he realized that he was about to try and kiss her.