Homeward Bound Part Four: This Town.
Quill took the last two aspirin and bolted them down with some water, adjusting the Walkman around his neck as he eased the Milano down into its landing bay. Gamora hovered over one shoulder, making sure she got a good look at Knowhere before they set down. Quill doubted she liked what she saw.
The place had looked pretty rough before, but at least it had been lively and no-one had paid their arrival and notice, but now….
Most of the ships in the docking area were either abandoned or out-and-out wrecks. At least four seemed to have been burnt out, and judging by the spread of debris, people had just left them to burn in situ rather than try and salvage them. There was a lot of trash strewn about as well, which Quill didn't remember from last time.
There were less people out and about, too. There were folk here, he saw the occasional guy hurrying from place to place, and trash didn't make itself, but before this place bustled, it heaved. Now, it wasn't dead, but there was a tension that he could pick up even though the armour-crys blister of the cockpit.
"It's quiet," he muttered. "Too quiet." he added, because if he was going to get killed today, then by Christ he was going to squeeze every last dramatic cliché out of the time left to him. Not to be left out, his Walkman started on a tinny rendition of Ghost Town by the Specials.
"It's those armoured mining pods," said Rocket, hunched over his work as he gutted the microwave for parts to… you know what… Quill honestly didn't want to know what he was building, but it seemed to make him happy, and he was too hung over to argue with him.
"What about them? I don't see any?"
"Exactly." said Gamora. "There's none running. Listen. We're on a mining station with no mining. It's true, since Tivan pulled out, there's no mining. These Watts brothers must not have got the operation re-started yet."
"Yeah well, unless someone got them a new brain-mod since they left the Ravengers those two couldn't jump-start a toaster, let alone a multi-billion credit operation. And the third one is legitimately simple."
"Plus the point's not to make anyone any money at the start," commented Rocket, taking the magneto from the microwave and bolting it to the corpse of one of the ships spare Em-drive thrusters. "I worked for Count Bling before, I know his style: even if you have a nice little honey pot like this, you don't get it up and making a profit right away, you entrench first."
"How so?" asked Drax, checking the heft of his knives a final time as the Milano set down with a bump. Rocket snorted, but didn't look up from his work: plasma couplings were troublesome at the best of times. It paid not to get distracted.
"You have a load of workers a place like this. Or in a sweatshop, or people smuggling ring or brothel or what have you. A place like that can make a lot off units, but you don't want the workers to get it in their heads that you deserve a better share, so how do you do it? They ain't dumb, sooner or later they'll realise that they're sitting on a Gravitonium mine and want a cut. Unless you keep them desperate an' afraid. So first thing you do, is make sure that the place loses money. Cut off their customers, cut off access to markets and credit. Get 'em as hard up as hard up gets. Then, you get them frightened, send in some real bad kahunas and tell them to go wild. Tell them to own the place. Scare the crap out of the natives. And when they're reduced to eating rat's 'n roots and hiding under their beds to avoid the trained rapists you sent in, that's when you rock up as their own personal saviour: you give them work at dirt-bottom wages, but it's better than what they had before, and you protect them from the hired psychos, so long as they play ball and do the work you tell them for the wages you set. He's good at it too: look at the smashed mining equipment everywhere; he'll sell them replacement equipment on credit, at re-payments they'll never pay back, set up a company store to milk them, get the work force hooked on 'slaught to make 'em work faster and then on Zydrate to relax again, and he'll control the drug supply, the bars, the brothels, the slum tenements, the unions, the air supply, the bounty-hunters to enforce his laws… they'll be his."
"You seem pretty certain. How can you be sure?" asked Drax. Rocket finished his wiring, and snapped the casing back on his new weapon with a well-practiced click.
"Guy runs the biggest bounty-hunting ring in the galaxy: he's hired me to do it before. This won't be the first time I've cleaned up his mess, just the first time I'm not being paid by him to do it. " Rocket shrugged. "Plus, it's what I'd do."
"Nice. You really are scum Rocket, you know that?" said Gamora, not unkindly.
"Yeah well, one thing Yondu taught me is nine times out of ten, scum rises to the top." said Quill, stepping out of the pilot's chair. "And knowing the Watts brothers from days past, they'd need evening classes and three baths each to qualify as scum. So let's do this: reconnoiter only, check the place out. If it's too much to handle, we buy fuel, and we get the hell out of Dodge."
Drax looked confused. "I believe you are mistaken, we are in Knowhere."
"Yeah, well from the looks of things, Dodge Junction would be an improvement. Tool up, let's not take any chances, if we go in, we go in heavy and prepared for the worst and…..aaaaaaand dear god Rocket what the hell is that?"
Rocket grinned. "Oh this, take a look." he said, chuckling the heavy mess of electronics over. Quill caught it easily. Rocket had taken the casing for an old underslung grenade launcher Quill didn't have any ammo for, and stuffed with circuitry and wires, the metal cone of the Em-drive thruster sticking out the open end like a dunce's cap. It vibrated slightly in his hands and felt warm to the touch, and Quill instantly had to fight down the urge to try and peer down the cone: he didn't need to be told that pointing it at your face would be a severely life-shortening move.
"What is it?" he asked. Rocket's grin got wider and nastier.
"Intrinsic field un-knitter."
"Oh dear Gods!" yelled Gamora scrambling back from the thing. Drax also took a step or too back. Quill, who had no idea what that phrase meant, took a cue from the others and froze in place.
"A what?" he asked, trying not to breathe.
"It's a damn matter scrambler," said Gamora. "Rocket, do you have any idea how illegal those are?"
"Sure, otherwise what's the point? Wouldn't be fun. 'Sides, you said it. Here, there are no regulations whatsoever."
"What's it do?" asked Quill, lowering it away from his face and aiming it down into the floor." Rocket popped open a ration bar, and chewing slowly on long-life sculpted protein, replied casually to rub in the fact that he was enjoying Quill's discomfort, and clearly in no hurry to end it.
"Well, it emits W and Z bosons to temporality increase the weak interaction in a diminishing cone emitting from the tip of the focusing cone."
"Plain English!" yelled Quill.
Rocket stopped chewing and gestured with the stub of his ration bar. "Well, technically none of us other than you are speaking English at all, you just have that translation doodad in your helmet. And secondly, If you're from America, how come you ain't speaking Americanese or some-such?"
"Yeah I've been wondering about that," said Gamora.
"Time and place guys! What's it do and why is it scary?"
Gamora sighed. "It causes atoms to decay when it's aimed at them. At long range it will cause Beta decay and give its targets radiation poisoning. A close range it will disintegrate solid matter and give of horrific levels or radiation, and at medium range it will randomly re-arrange it's targets at the sum-atomic level."
"Rearrange?" said Quill, looking nervous. Rocket nodded.
"Yeah, remember that animated movie you found on those intercepted TV transmissions the other week? The one with the frickin' idiotic start with the ground-car being dropped from orbit by that primitive spacecraft?"
"Heavy Metal? Hey don't knock that film, that's a classic! I love that film."
"It's got a female bald-body with even more swords and even less clothes than Gamora, of course you like it. But remember that big glowing green thing that keeps melting people faces?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah well, like I said. Rearrange," said Rocket, finishing his ration bar, and picking up his containment sphere ball and tossing it from hand to hand. "Stupid idea. Like outer space is just full of big glowing spheres of doom."
"You touched an infinity stone." Gamora reminded him.
"So?" said Rocket, confused. "That was a small glowing sphere of doom. Totally different."
"He is substantially correct." Said Drax. Gamora snorted in exasperation.
"Face melting aside, is this thing even safe to hold? Because I'd really like to put it down now."
Rocket nodded. "Yeah 'bout that. Eats a lot of power that thing, so it needed a high-density energy source, and to make it small enough to be useful, you basically either gotta go for a plasma-bottle or a partially-shielded betavoltaic system. So it either basically explodes when hit, or it gives out low levels or harmful radiation nonstop."
Quill looked down. Holding it as far from his face as possible and pointed at the floor had put it level with his crotch, which he now noticed was starting to feel pretty warm. Rocket noticed the direction of his gaze.
"But we're cool, right? I mean it's not like you wanted kids anyway Quill?" said Rocket. Quill scowled and lobbed the Gun back to Rocket, who looked panicked and scrambled to catch it.
"Idiot! I was joking about the Betavoltaics, It's got a live plasma bottle in it dummy!" yelled Rocket, jugging it, his protein bar and the ball, and in the best manner of suck, he fell over, hard on his ass, dropping all three.
"I thought you said it was safe unless someone shot it?"
"Theoretically, yes, but there's no need to take chances, ya dummy. Besides, I'm to hung-over to be scared like that."
"Well then don't make jokes about irradiating my junk! I'm hung over too! And for that matter, can we not make things that could blow up and kill us all on such a depressingly regular basis?!"
Rocket muttered to himself. "Are you still sore about me soaking the toilet paper in mercury fulminate? Firstly I only did that because I was bored and I'd run out of pepper-spray, and thirdly it serves you right for cleaning yourself in such an antiquated and barbaric way. What's wrong with a biodegradable moist towelette?"
"Or a bidet," added Drax.
"I am Grooooot!" added Groot.
"Yeah! ... Wait, what are three seashells going to do?" asked Rocket, turning to Groot. "You know what, never mind. I don't wanna know. It's not like you even have to go to the toilet anyway," said Rocket, snapping the matter-scrambler to the accessory rail under his gun.
"Cultural differences and personal freshness aside, haven't we got a mining station full of criminals to explore?" asked Gamora.
Quill nodded, and buckled on his guns. "Let's check it out," he replied, in his most badass voice.
Quill sat with his head in his hands on the wing of the Milano, listlessly.
"One of these days, I'm going to get to use my most badass voice and then actually get to do something badass without having to sit and wait for half an hour while Rocket fusses over Groot."
Gamora shrugged. From inside the Milano came the sounds of parenting.
"No Groot, you can't come with us and I HAVE to go, so just let go of my tail and drink your dammed nitrates! Don't you dare… don't you dare!"
Or something close enough to pass for it in bad light, at any rate. Quill sighed, and stood up. Knowhere's spaceport seemed half abandoned, and the guy Quill remembered as being the guy who collected your docking fees and tried aggressively to sell you premium fuel had taken one look at the amount of weaponry the crew had between then and ran off as soon as Quill had approached him, intending to pay. If people were too frightened to try and make money, then he figured that things were pretty damn bad.
"Okay, Gamora, Drax. I've been thinking for some time that while we are all pretty dam badass in our own ways, we all also suck pretty hard at everything but our own specialty, so I'm gonna suggest that from now on, we start actually training each chance we get. And I know that we haven't been able to practice much stuck on the Milano and having the extra space to practice combat was one of the reasons that I thought having a secret la- having a stable base of operations, was a good idea. So, seeing as it could be some time before Rocket joins us," said Quill, as the sounds of an enraged mammal trying to fight his way out of a needlessly tight vine-based hug echoed from inside the ship, "That we could start trying to fill the gaps in some of your skills-sets." He finished, walking over to the edge of the wing and hopping onto the burnt-out ship in the next bay. Ducking under a swinging sign for discount RCS fuel and oxidizer, Quill begun to line up the various empty beer-cans he had found surrounding him when he woke up. Gamora and Drax watched him unsure for a moment, until Quill hopped back and pulled the long tulip-barrelled bulk of a Xandarian target-pistol out from under his coat, and held it up.
"Okay, so let's start with some basic pistol shooting. This is a target laser, zero recoil, high accuracy. Not much stopping power but still enough to deal with most un-armoured humanoids, and designed for easy acclimatization and use. Balance is just above the trigger, and the long barrel at a good angle to the butt means that it points well, aiding intuitive shooting. Here, Drax. Hold it," he said, handing it over. Drax hefted it experimentally, and even pointed it a few times, feeling the weight. He frowned. "This feels cumbersome compared to my knives."
"Yeah, well, it will at first. Okay, I'm gonna put the power cell in now, and what I would like you to do it aim, like this" said Quill, aiming. "Take the safety off, like this." He said, tapping the sensor panel twice with his thumb. "And then fire."
The left-most beer can flipped over backwards and partially vaporised. Quill grinned. "And then re-apply the safety, like this, and lower the gun slowly. "he said, before removing the power cell. "Okay Drax, you try it."
Drax took the laser, carefully re-applied the power cell, raised it and took of the safety. He then frowned.
"The object is to hit the beer cans?"
"Yeah, but don't worry if at first you don't. Just try to line up naturally on the target, move the sights over the can you want to hit, breath out, and gently squeeze, not pull, the trig-"
The cupola on the burnt out ship shattered. Drax frowned.
"Okay," said Quill. "That was a little off, let's try that again. Now the sight is a direct neutral uplink, so just put the crosshairs I project over your vison on the target, and squeeze the trigger and-"
There was a thunk as the cupola on the next ship took a laser round. Quill frowned.
"Okay so maybe beer cans are too small to be starting off with. Let's try shooting abandoned spaceships, since you seem to be good at it. See that burnt out blue-hornet over there?"
"Yes."
A bolt of raw energy from Quill's blaster caught the indent number on the wreck's tail, burning thought the vanity plate. Quill lowered his blaster, and nodded to Drax. "Your turn." Drax aimed, took a deep breath, replaced it slowly, and gently squeezed the trigger.
A beer-can in the middle of the line vaporized. Drax lowered the pistol and put on the safety, looking ridiculously proud.
"Ha! I excel in all that I attempt!"
"Drax?"
"Yes Quill?"
"Were you aiming at that beer can?"
"No, I was aiming at the ship you were. But I hit something! Destroying something with this weapon makes me feel powerful!"
"Ooookay. I'm gonna take that away from you before you turn into Rocket mark two. We'll…. we'll think of something latter on. Until then, knives are good. Really, really good. Okay, Gamora, now I know that you like your swords, and probably have some sort of Jedi-shit going on about the purity of close combat, but this is a less elegant weapon, from a less civilized age, and it does have the major advantage of being able to hit people who unfairly stay outta poking range. So again, at first don't worry about how good you are to start off, you just want to get a feel for the weapon. Okay? "
Gamora looked at Quill with studied indifference, and the snatched up the pistol. Flicking off the neural uplink, she drew and fired one-handed using the iron-sights.
The chain holding the sign Quill had dicked under disintegrated, and swing wildly across the abandoned ship, neatly scything down all of the beer-cans in a single sweep. Gamora lowered the gun, upped the power output, and then raised it sharply in both hands and fired seven times in rapid succession, tracking the moving sign. Pausing a moment to admire her work, she then put the safety on and removed the power cell before handing it back to Quill.
"Huh." Said Quill, after a long pause. "Kinda forgot you were a trained assassin."
"Yep. I prefer swords. But I'll fight with whatever weapon I have to. It pays to get good with all the basics," she said, watching as the sign swung back and forth, the smiley face burnt into it winking at Quill mockingly as the sigh spun slowly.
"I really shouldn't have introduced you guys to 80's action films, should I?"
"Nah. None of them are good, and that last one you showed us was just pain depressing," said Rocket, finally emerging from the ship, with his main gun, underslung matter-scrambler, and the shock-probe worn on one hip. "I mean, who has them main character killed off like that in the last act?"
"Wait, what?" said Quill. "What movie was that?"
Rocket shrugged. "The one with the tower block."
"Die Hard? Wait, Hans Grubber is not the main character, that douche from Moonlighting is."
"The cop? No, fuck that, Hans was clearly the main character. He was way smarter, way cooler, and he was the one who actually died at the end. He died hard, it's totally about him. And he was awesome! And for another thing… oh for stars' sakes, Groot," grumbled Rocket. Quill turned.
Groot hand somehow managed to drag his pot to the cockpit, and was reaching for the controls to open it, getting noticeably taller as he did. Rocket buried his face in a palm.
"Great. Frickin' great. Child proof my striped furry ass. I said NO, Groot. You can't come with us until you're bigger. At least until you can walk…." said Rocket. He then stopped and stared. "Oh you have got to be kidding me!"
As the cockpit hissed open with a release of steam from the servos, Groot tentatively, experimentally lifted himself up from the dirt of his pot, and pulled one root out and put it on the deck.
We so need the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey playing right now, thought Quill, as through the hissing steam dramatically framing him, Groot latched onto the sides of the Cockpit door, and pulled his second root out of the pot, and took his first, tottering steps into the world.
-And promptly fell over and slid down the polished flanks of the Milano on his face, making a ridiculous squeaking noise, followed by the unpleasant fingers-on-chalkboard resonance from the pot as it followed him down. Strangely, the falling flat on his face didn't seem to have upset him, as he kept up a happy little litany of "I am Groooooo!" all the way down, before falling off the edge of the wing, followed a second later by the pot, which smashed on his head causing everyone to wince, except Rocket, who was so embarrassed at this point that his palms were practically being pushed through his face. After a second's respite, Rocket noticed a tugging on his leg fur and looked down.
Groot was staring up at him wide eyed and confused, holding two shreds of his pot and trying to push them back together. He then held them up at Rocket, pleadingly.
"I am Grooot!"
Rocket considered this. "Yep. I could've teamed up with that wise-cracking robot, and I chose the walking, talking shrubbery. I deserve this. Okay, just this once. But the first chance I get, I'm dumping you on a babysitter!" he said, picking Groot up and in a strange (and Quill thought, rather sweet) reversal of their former roles, letting him ride on his shoulder, Rocket got moving, taking just long enough to glance at the rest of the crew to let them know that the first person to make a joke about this was getting their kneecaps relocated to the next zip-code. Quill, Gamora, and Drax then fell in behind.
Quill looked around, noticing the people watching them from doorways and street corners, or pulling away from windows as they passed. One guy actually hit a remote to turn he glass opaque as they went past.
"Okey-dokey. I'm getting as real Clint Eastwood rocking up to the old west shithole, village of the dammed, hammer-horror vibe here. I mean all we need is a child playing in the street getting snatched up by its mother as we pass and a big-ass sign saying 'strangers not welcome in these parts, two-for-one offers on duelling banjos' to complete the look. Anyone else feeling it?"
Gamora nodded, and Drax said, "Affirmative, I find this atmosphere of heavy social tension most disagreeable and suggest we engage in meaningless social interaction to distract and comfort ourselves, without lowering our vigilance."
"What, like small talk?" asked Rocket, drawing level with a stray dog in the tattered remains of a space-suit feeding out of a trash-can and kicking it soundly as he passed. It yelped and ran off, stopping to peer around the corner and give him a dirty look until he passed. Groot gasped, shocked, and Rocket muttered. "Hey, that thing probably had mange or distemper. If you were as vulnerable to them as I am, you'd want it out of your way too."
"Groooooot!"
"No, you can't get a puppy! What did I just say?"
"Why is Groot acting in such a child-like manner if, as you claim, he has regained all his old memories?" asked Drax, one hand on a knife as a group of angry looking men in mining uniforms watched them from an alleyway.
"Well, his memories are all there, stored in some sort of epi-genetic manner, so even a single cell has a record of most of his life, but as his core re-builds, starts to form pseudo-white matter again, his ability to process them will develop much like a humanoid baby. Just, just think of him as having the memories and experiences of an adult, but filtered through the mind of a child."
"Like Quill." Said Drax.
"Hey!"
"Exactly."
"Hey!"
"Oh grow up, captain. It's not like we aint' got bigger problems," said Rocket, eyeing up some street urchins meaningfully. Groot waved to one, and she shrunk back hurriedly. Rocket sniffed the air.
"Yikes. Quill, at least some of those kids are legitimately malnourished. Looks like they've been scavenging out of the garbage. If it's this bad, then it can't be too long before Bling or the others rock up to cash-in on all this desperation. We gonna do something here, we gotta do it soon."
"Hummm…" said Quill, stopping at a familiar crossroads. The neon signs were still flickering faintly, painting the air in greasy day-glow colours and making everyone passing buy look like the victims of the amazing technicolour plague. He considered his options for a moment, and then nodded to a depressingly memorable doorway.
"Okay, we check out the bar, case the joint, slip in, get info on where the Watt brothers are, if they have supporters or a gang, if so how many, how tough, what weapons they have. Ask around the gaming tables, Black Belamy might never gamble, but the other two brothers are borderline addicts for gaming and cruelty, and that lizard-baiting had both. We go in, we do not get drunk, we do not get sucked into the gaming, we ask around, and we make sure that each one of us can see at least two others, got it?"
Rocket groaned at the idea of going into a bar as hung-over as he was, or perhaps at the idea of going into a bar and not being allowed to drink and gamble, but raised no objections. Quill looked them all over. "And at the first sigh that we can't handle this, we go back to the Milano, we fuel up and we get out of Dodge. Rocket, Groot, keep an ear open for who's selling space ship fuel: I tried to siphon off those wrecks while you were trying to tie Groot to the playpen with gardener's twine, but someone drained them and the fuel-seller ran off. Someone here must have some gas, it's a space-station. No gas, no trade, no food. Gamora, if Rocket's right about this Count Bling using the Watt brothers as a preparation for some power play, chances are they might have got all the fuel stashed someplace, Mad Max style. Make like we've got some fuel to sell that should let you know if there is a real shortage or if we just drew back luck at the star port. If people get too interested in buying your fuel, say you don't want to step on the toes of whoever runs this place and want to know where to go to find them and sell fuel, that should tell us where it's all holed up, if it is. Drax, pose as muscle, and ask around, see who's hiring. That should tell us who in this place has their own private army of badly-shaved goons… not that I'm calling you a goon…. I….. look I'm sorry, don't glare at me like that. Sheash."
"And what will, you be doing as we're asking around, oh glorious leader?" asked Gamora, testing her sword blade and then strapping on the target pistol to her other shapely hip. Quill dragged his eye away for long enough to rely with the dignity befitting a starship captain.
"Me? Why I'm an old friend of the Watt brothers. Sure, I hate them and they hate me, but we've both been kicked out of the Ravengers. Maybe if I tell them that, say I'm working against Yondu, buy them a drink, they might let me in on their evil plan. It hardly looks like this place is first to get the news, maybe they haven't heard we're good guys now."
"And if that fails?" asked Gamora. "Or if they're not here?"
Quill gave her a winning smile. "Well, as we learnt in Fairport, barmaids hear everything that goes down in town. Guess I'll just have to try some of the old Starlord pelvic sorcery."
"Awwww crap, we're screwed," muttered Rocket.
Quill pushed open the door of the bar, and although he was fully prepared for it, it was worse than the reaction they got at Fairport. Without fail every single person in the bar turned to watch them as they came in. The Mos eysley cantina music wasn't playing, and the music that was didn't suddenly end with a needle scratch, but it may as well have, for the all of a sudden break in people's attention. Jesus… that guy is actually sitting watching me with beer dribbling down his chin. I didn't know people did that outside of taverns in bad DnD sessions, though Quill. So much for slipping in unannounced.
He moved over to the bar. He didn't want it to be obvious that they were together, so he would come in first, the Drax and Gamora together after a pause, and then Rocket and Groot. It had the advantage of keeping it from being too obvious that they were working together, but also in keeping Rocket away from alcohol and maybe, if needed, replicating events from the bar of Fairport: having a talking raccoon turn up at your bar was a mite distracting, and Quill was pretty sure he could play any distraction to his advantage, particularly as this place seemed to have got itself somewhere between Derry Maine and wherever deliverance was set in terms of friendliness since they were last here.
Feeling like a character in a cheap western, Quill walked up to the bar. There was an attractive Kylarian barmaid in the corner he made a point to try to pump for info latter, but the heavily muscled barman was giving him the eye and if he didn't walk over to him he'd look weak, so he approached and gave him a tough, no-nonsense but gentlemanly nod. The barman snorted, but stopped re-distributing grime of the glass with an oily rag and asked him "What'll it be, stranger?"
"Sarsaparilla, with a dash of cherry," said Quill, because you can take the boy out of the 80's, but you can't take the lifetime of mental scarring inflicted by re-runs of old westerns out of the boy.
"What?" said the barman, in the classic 'You beein' funny mate?' tone of voice beloved of barmen, accompanied, as always, by one hand straying to the weapon under the bar for difficult customers. The barman sounded like he was from 'Strine, but the same could be said of every other barman in the galaxy.
"Old joke, not a good one I'm afraid. I'll just have a soda. So, what the fuck happed to this place since I was last here?" said Quill, a firm believer in suitably easing his mark into reliving information.
"Dunno, that depends on when you were here last, and how much are you willing to pay for this 'ere soda," said the Barman, standing an ice cold Cyan flavored Chromasoda. Quill leaned in, spotting Drax and Gamora enter, and begin to work the room for info. Needing to distract the barman from this, he pulled out his credit slip.
"I dunno, what do I get for the twenty unit version?"
"For twenty units? You get these 'ere fine tinny of pop, and taken out and coathangerd by the dunny, and now a days that no joke. Used to be unless you wouldn't work in an iron lung, there was mining money to be had, but now, you get left on the street blotto they'll have your organs for beer money. Fifty units now…"
"Thirty five."
"Forty. " Quill considered this, and handed over the credit slip. The bar-man took the top of the can and popped the tab, reaching under the bar for a clean-ish glass. As he bent down to get the glass, he causally asked. "So when where you here last?"
"Can't remember the exact date, but the Collector blew himself up, Roman the Accuser attacked us, and the Ravengers kidnaped me. I think it was a Tuesday."
"Ah well, I never could get the hang of Tuesdays myself. Well, the Tivan group pulled out, Ronan's Necroships shredded half the space-capable vessels on the way in, some fools damaged a load of mining pods using them to ram necroships, the Ravengers damaged a few on their way out. Chasing after one of their own betrayed them, story is.
"Oh come on! Not so much a betrayal more sort of a growing-apart, needed my own space thing… or so I heard. Anyway. Nevermind. So, what then?" the barman shrugged.
"Fully? No Bugger's that cert, but with Tivan gone there was something of a power vacuum, as it were. The station's come a gutser with no work in the mining, and his mug lair Wade Watts and his berko brother Belamey blow-in and start putting everyone backs up."
"Right?" asked Quill, he heart sinking as he relayed that his translation unit was struggling, the words reaching him a fraction of a second after the man's lips moved as it tried and failed to translate the man's impenetrable slang. He reckoned he was getting about half of this, and wasn't sure it was worth 50 units.
"And then?"
The barman shrugged. "Well, some to the local boys do their nana and decide to stand up to these flash-jacks, but well, even the galah brother is fitter than a Mallee heardbeast and knows how to kill sober or three sheets to the wind, and Wade and Belamy are worse, so it's all for young and old since then."
"That bad?" asked Quill, not sure what was said, but getting the general gist.
"We're rooted." Confirmed the Barman. "That'll be forty units."
At this point, as Quill was about to try his luck with the barmaid, Rocket rocked up to the bar and got on the stool next to Quill, and ordered a glass of blue milk. Pulling a face and swearing, apparently unfamiliar as to how it tasted without whiskey in it, he hung around pointedly not looking at Quill until, the barman moved on to another customer, an attempt at subtlety that was not aided by Groot waving at Quill and trying to get him to give him an airplane ride. Gods, I should never have introduced him to that, thought Quill.
"Yeah?" asked Quill, once the barman was gone.
"Not a drop of fuel for sale in this frickin' hole. Gaming table's been rigged, too. Oh don't look at me like that, I know what you said about drink and gaming, and I'm not a sucker, I only gamble if I'm sure to win. But someone's running a con here, and it ain't the house, so if they are letting someone cheat them, then the house is freighted. My money is on these Watt brothers of yours. Get anything from the barman?"
"Yeah, a really expensive soda. He's from 'Strine, and my translator couldn't cope."
"Well, serves you right for not learning the lingo proper like what I does."
"Hey, I'll have you know that I'm a very cunning linguist, it's just, with a translator that good, you get to rely on it, is all. Besides, it's never failed before."
"Uh huh? Try speaking to Groot some time then."
"Oh bite me, Rocket." Quill paused. He had bigger problems right now, but his interest was piqued.
"What do you all speak, anyway? A captain should at least know that about his crew."
Rocket tried to fight down a laugh. "You don't know? Oh wow, frickin' hummie, you really rely on that more than you think, eh? Well, Drax is speaking Standard Xandarian, Gamora High Xandarian flavoured with a little Zen Whoberi, and well, I speak low Xandarian pretty well, but I'm not native. I speak cant. But I don't around you as the translator circuits can't handle it and because it's not for you law-abiding citizens to know. Anyone snitched to the translation companies about the cant, and they're dead. "
"Do I look like a law abiding citizen, Rocket?"
"Well, no, but not enough to speak the cant, that's for sure. Anyway, as for my native tongue," Rocket shrugged. "I dunno. I never met anyone who spoke it except for… except for one of the researches at … at the place they made me. I guess it's whatever he spoke, but I never met anyone else in the galaxy who spoke it. They taught me some Xandarian there too, but this… I ain't never heard that since," said Rocket, contemplating his milk.
Quill looked sympathetically. "Hey, speak some for me. I'll turn off the translator, just speak to me." Rocket glared.
"Why the hell would I want to
Quill shrugged. "I just realized that I've never heard any of you without the translator circuit. I dunno what your real voice sounds like, for any of you."
Rocket snorted. "You're an idiot, Quill. You don't need to switch it off. You ever noticed when Gamora swears in Zen Whoberi, you hear the real swearing, then get the transition a second latter?"
"Yeah?"
"The translator circuits run on a slight lag, and it gets worse if you switch between two languages unexpectedly. If it doesn't know what language to expect, it takes a moment or two to get the translation. Around two seconds."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So switch languages. I wanna see what it sounds like."
"Oh for fucks' sakes. You are a giant child, you know that Quill, Jy is 'n fokken swaksinnige, en dit is hoe ek regtig klink. Gelukkig, moroon? There's a reason I speak Xandarian in public, you know," said Rocket, a moment before the translator helpfully said 'You're a fucking imbecile, and this is how I really sound. Happy, moron?'
Quill was a little shocked. He'd half expected Rocket to make some sort of animalistic growl (and immediately felt like he was kinda a racist for assuming that) but what Rocket said was a little gruff sounding, but unmistakably a language. Albeit the most alien sounding one I've ever heard, thought Quill.
"Huh. So how come I-"
"How come you hear me like you hear me? How come you hear Yondu like you hear Yondu or hear Drax like you hear Drax? The translator was built by Xandaiarns: if translating to or from Xandarian it tries to retain accents and render them into a similar, appropriate accent in your own language. So Drax sounds like a walking Thesaurus read in neutral middle class, Gamora sounds well educated, Yondu sounds like a hick and-"
"And you sound like an extra from a cheap mafia movie. I get it. And don't speak that way about Yondu, he may be a hard-ass and kinda uncivil, but he's no hick."
"Oh, if you wanna stand up for your adoptive dad after all the shit he put us through-"
"YONDO UDONTA is not my adoptive dad!" yelled Quill, as the bar's doors kicked open behind him. He heard the bar go silent, and this time the music really did stop.
"Yondu Udonta? Who in Sam-hill mentioned that evil minded, spoon-headed gap-toothed old Grox reamer? I thought I said, 'No one, no one was to mention that devious old bastard's name.' Who said it?" yelled a familiar, unlovely, unwelcome, voice from Quill's past. Rocket slipped off the chair and edged away from Quill quietly, as, and Quill couldn't see this, but he knew enough about life to feel as everyone in the bar pointed to him. He put his glass of soda down with a satisfyingly badass clink and didn't turn around as he cocked a boot on the bar's foot-rail and said, "Long time no see, shipmate."
He heard the man stumble a bit behind him he, always couldn't handle his drink. Hungover I'm twice as coordinated. Then again, he never missed with a gun, sober or drunk, he thought.
"Quill, Peter Quill? Is that you, Boy?" Quill stood up straight, worked a crick out of his neck, and turned around to face someone who, if his skin wasn't blue and he took some more time with his appearance could pass as Biff Tannen's uglier brother. Quill rested his elbows on the bar top as he leaned casually and made damn sure that his gun was easy to reach.
"Wild Wade Watts. Heard you were in this neck of the woods."
Wade stared, drunkenly. He had a girl on each arm, hired and frightened, and with good reason, and a few boys with him that Quill didn't recognize but looked like the grade of hired help that Yondu would scrape of his boot-heel after a bad bar fight. They all had blasters on their hips, and a few had plasma carbines or flechette rifles slung over the backs, but they all looked drunker than him and Rocket were last night, and he gave them even odds of hitting their targets or their own feet. Except for Wade. That bastard never needed to see straight to hit what he wanted: the man was living proof it was better to be born lucky than smart. Or pretty. Or with personal hygiene.
"Quill. Gods-dammed Peter Quill," he said, not quite believing it himself.
"The name," said Quill, lifting off the bar and standing straight. "Is Starlord."
Wade paused, suddenly aware of the hostility in the room. Quill watched, trying to forget all the bad things that Wade had done whilst in the Ravengers. This isn't your fight. You told the others that if this didn't look winnable to just up and walk away. Refuel, and get out of dodge. Don't get involved. This ain't your fight.
Wade smiled. "So you finally quit the Ravagers. Good on you, boy, looks like we could do with a man of your caliber. Here to join up? We're gonna own this station. You want anything, food, booze, money, you take it if you run with me, boy, ya' hear?" Don't get involved. This ain't your fight….
"Hell, " said Wade. "You want girls, we got em' aplenty, ain't we sugar?" he said raising the cheek of one on his arm, to show of her face. "It's like I said to you before, ditch Yondu, stick with me and don't play me false and you could be on my level someday."
Don't get involved. This ain't your fight. Don't get involved. This ain't your fight. Don't get involved. This ain't your fight…
Quill suddenly noticed the hooker's black eye, and the memory of the squashed frog rose like yesterday's drink and all thought pretty munch stopped at that point.
"Wade, the only way I could get on your level would be if something ate me and shat me out. Get the hell off this space station, and take your brothers with you. I am not going to ask you again."
Wades face slowly fell from slack-jawed idiocy to hard-jawed hatred. He pushed the two hookers away from him and they fled gratefully out of the bar, as Wade's boys begun to square up for a fight, grinning as they expected an easy win.
"What did you say, boy?"
"Now, Wade, you were always ugly, never deaf. Get of this station. The people here deserve better than you and Count Bling. Oh yea, I know about that, don't look so surprised. Get out. Unless you haven't heard. Me and my crew are heroes now. So get off this damn head before I put a round through yours. "
Wade considered this for a long moment, and then grinned.
"Well ain't that nice. So few people get to die a hero's death anymore," he said, gesturing to his goons to draw their weapons. "Boys, you know what to do."
"Hey, idiots."
Wade and his boys looked to their right.
Rocket stood on the table, legs akimbo and Groot on his shoulder, smirking down the barrel of a gun bigger than he was. "Captain said take a hike, so make like a tree and fuck right off." Rocket looked to Groot on his shoulder. "No offense."
Groot shrugged. "I am Groot."
"What the Fuck?" asked Wade. "Asov, what the ruttin' fuck is that?"
"I dunno boss, but it's dead." Said one of the goons, drawing a rifle of his back painfully slowly. Rocket waited until he had the gun almost aimed at him, and them shot him neatly in the head, from the hip, without taking his eyes of Wade.
"Oops," he said, not sounding remotely sorry. He then dropped into a scowl. "It is a genetically and cybernetically modified killing machine holding a homemade matter-scrambler, causes cancer at thirty paces, completely disintegrates at ten, gets interestingly unpredictable in its effects between those two, which is where you numb-nuts are. It's also slung under a big frickin' gun aimed at your face, so walk away now before I air-cool your brainpan."
"It's still, dead," said Wade, disinterestedly, as a random drunk in the bar suddenly got up and pressed a knife to Rocket's throat. "You think I just walk in here without some of my boys already in place?" he said, as four goons came from one corner and two more by the back doors.
"You think I do?" asked Quill, casually, as Groot turned on Rocket's shoulder and, in a happy baby manner, hugged the knife wielders arm with a crunch of breaking bone, as Drax picked up two of the four and banged them together before holding knives to the throats of the others, and Gamora stepped in front of the two by the back door, sword and pistol raised. Wade looked back to Quill to curse him, and only then noticed the live quantum grenade he pulled form under his coat.
"Fuck!"
Quill grinned. "Yeah, little shocking ain't it? Sorry Rocket, I swiped this from your bunk. So now Wade, you have a choice, you can walk away and live forever, for all I care, or you can make a fight of this, and die on this space station. And frankly, I couldn't give a shit as to which, although I believe that my first officer here might have some opinions."
"He called me it. I want to make a plant pot for Groot out of his skull."
"No you don't," said quill, "That's a step too far, even for us."
"Yeah, I guess: it wouldn't drain well. Bedpan for the sickbay?"
"Better." suggested Quill.
Wade snarled, and pointed. "No! Just NO! We own this town, you ain't gonna take it from us. I'm going to get all my boys, get my brothers, and then we'll see!"
"Suppose we will," said Quill. "But right now, I'm trying to drink a forty unit soda in peace, so fuck off."
Wade fucked off, with bad grace, his boys followed, Gamora and Drax escorting their ones out while Rocket casually looked the corpse of the one he shot.
"So." said Rocket, checking the guy's wallet. "That was interesting. What now, boss? Back to the ship?"
Gamora looked outside at Wade staggering away. "Quill, we can't leave this station in the hands of that awful man!"
"But fighting him here seems unlikely to result in anything but our deaths: we are quite outnumbered," said Drax, almost bored.
"So what?" asked Rocket. "We gonna get into a fight here or not. Quill, I'm with Drax. This is heavy stuff, and I know Bling is a bad guy to cross. Back to the ship, captain?"
Quill considered this.
Don't get involved. This ain't your fight. Don't get involved. This ain't your fight. Don't get involved. This ain't your fight…
"Back to the ship."
Gamora looked disappointed.
"Fuel up and get gone?" asked Rocket.
Quill shook his head. Squashed frog, dammit. "No: Tool up and get dangerous. If we're gonna take on Thanos, we can't go running from fights with the likes of the Watts brothers. Time we stood our ground. Team, let's do this!"
*Back to the Milano for a Commando style Arming Montage*
Awesome Mix tape Vol 2: Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us
