A Bit of Both: Wayward Son.
Part One:Bad Company
Peter Jason "Star-Lord" Quill took in a deep breath to steady his nerves, readied both blasters and his rocket-boots, and ran towards the tall shattered remnants of the Collector's windows, his feet slapping quickly on the concrete of the roof as he gained speed and begun to clear his mind of thought, focusing on one step after another, fix the first problem, then move on to the next; like most complex people, he had a pretty straightforward way of dealing with the world, which was generally to run at it and hope it flinched. Usually, it did.
It was when it didn't that things got messy.
He tried to clear his mind of the past day: clearing house, the calls to Nova, the deal, the ambush, betrayal, and pushed it down with each step until there was nothing but the sound of his own feet, the hissing of breath in his helmet and the tooth-edge whine and warning messages of his blasters
"…Shot charge at one-hundred twenty per cent, imminent over heat error, discharge immediately! Shot charge at one-hundred twenty five per cent, imminent over heat error, discharge immediately! Charge at One-hundred thirty-"
Ignoring the heating up he could feel thought the pistols grips, Quill sprinted towards the edge of the rooftop, and then abruptly ran out of world to run at.
He leapt.
Swinging his blasters forwards in front of him he extended his feet behind him and fired his boosters towards the windows and, a second later, fired both blasters on one-hundred and eighty per cent usual power. Time seemed to slow as he hung suspended behind the scouring ball of energy like a comet's tail, and then the blast shot hit the energy-shielding over the windows and blew the capacitors. He just had time to kill his boosters and half-turn with his RCS belt before he hit the remnants of the glass, punching though with his blasters high to shield his head and his elbows tucked in and knees drawn up to protect his organs as orange sparks and fragments of armor-crys as big as knives cascaded down onto the unsuspecting people below. He noticed Rocket's head snap around in surprise, and them a below of swearing that even everyone's favorite misanthropic raccoon would consider strong, and the gunfire started.
Although to be fair, Quill thought Yondu has seen me make worse entrances before now.
Earlier:
"Yep: I get the feeling that this is going to be a preeeeeetty good base of operations," said Quill, standing in the center of the old industrial complex the Watt's brothers had been using and looking around with his hands on his hips: he was in the dusty warehouse level Drax had started his fight in, and despite a cluster of plumbing that looked like it had been designed by HR Geiger on a bad night taking over one end of the room and the odd wind-blown drift of litter in the orange light that filter though the papered-over windows, the place didn't look too bad.
They'd spend a long week living on-board the Milano and cleaning up the mess from their gunfight and trying to convince the locals they weren't about to murder them all in their beds before starting house hunting, and despite going over every free spot in Knowhere, they'd found nowhere that met any of their criteria except this place: large, space to maintain a ship, secure, good comms links, and enough space for hyperactive tree toddlers, misanthropic raccoons, brooding body-builders and expert assassins to live together without getting under each other's feet all the time.
Then again, the evil eye each of them is going the place, it might be we'll never find somewhere big enough for the last one. The galaxy might not cut it, Quill thought.
"I dunno Boss, something about this smells bad to me," said Rocket, looking around gloomily and wondering what might have to be done to make the place liveable. A firebomb might be a nice start.
Groot, celebrating his new-found mobility did what all toddlers do: ran around in the place annoying the shit out of everyone and coming back to Rocket for comfort every time he fell down, which was about twice a minute.
"I am Groot, I am Groot, I am groooooo!"
"Why? Do you think that folk might distrust us just because we're staying in the same place as the Belamy brothers?" asked Quill, as Rocket gave Groot something that was two thirds affectionate pat on the head and one third annoyed clip round the ear. Drax looked up from attempting to drag a crate of supplies from the Milano into the room and pitched in.
"The creepy rodent has a point: by associating ourselves in any way with the Watts brothers we may be cementing ourselves in the minds of the denizens of this artefactual satellite as simply their successors; a secondary set of outsiders who took power via force of arms and are interested only in furthering their own agenda via a series of appeals to force. We should at least attempt to distance ourselves from the ancien régime by decamping to a less emotionally charged locale and releasing a statement pointing out that we will only use intense bodily violence to get our way within the normal constraints of a governmental Hobbesian social contract, rather than purely self-serving examples of Argumentum et baculum."
"Argtumentum et What?" said Rocket, frowning and subconsciously lowering his gun to shield his crotch. "Anybody tries to eat anything like that and we are going to have more than just arguments! No, I meant that something here literally smells bad to me. Like, really, really bad. Worse than the Milano, and given that some of Quill's socks could probably vote in some planets in this sector, that's saying something."
"You can talk; making prison wine in the sink isn't normal, and if you're going to cache food all over the ship could you at least try to eat it sometime this century? I keep half expecting you to bring-in roadkill and start dragging your ass over the flooring whenever you've got an itch." Quill paused, and then turned to Gamora.
"Was that racist? I'm still not sure where exactly the line is with Rocket."
Gamora see-sawed a hand to indicate that it was on the very borders of good taste as she poked with her sword at what she guessed, under the death-stick ash, beer-stains, and magazines, was a couch, whereas Rocket smiled sweetly and innocently as he mentally planed out his revenge on Quill for that particular comment. Quill, a little weirded out by the strange and unnatural rictus Rocket fondly imagined passed for innocence, decided to press on with selling the merits of this location to his crew.
"Hey look, it's got all the ship fuel and a private airlock. That sells it. More than anyplace else on Knowhere, it is where you need to be if you want to run anything like a successful base of operations. We even get the glass in that viewing gallery repaired so we can re-pressurize it, and we'll have a pretty sweet place to hang out and watch the stars, maybe even plant a little garden there to catch the morning sunlight when the head turns to face the sun-" said Quill, knowing that when it came to getting Rocket's vote bringing Groot into it was the best way around.
I might not know what Argumentum et Baculum means, he thought, but if I need to convince Rocket of anything I need to appeal to the stick.
"-and it'll give us a more publicly visible face, distance ourselves from Belamy and his gang, make us look like respectable-ish, regular folks who just turned up to help and aren't here to conquer anyone or take over the place." he said, confident that it would win over Drax, who was increasingly annoyed with what he saw as an rather Thanos-like attempt to take over Knowhere rather than focusing on hunting Thanos down and Focusing on the mission.
Rocket, however, frowned.
"Wait, aren't we taking over? Wasn't that the whole idea? 'Cause I already planned on going round everyone's door and demanding twenty-percent tax to pay for an anti-ship quad-scramcannon battery for the Ministry of War!"
"No! We are not here to take over! We are just here to use this place as a hidden base, protect these people here in exchange for occasional goods and services, be their silent proctors, never telling them what to do, just there to help when needed. Their dark-knights, their silent protectors! Their robin-hoods! That and to get non-domiciled tax status so Nova won't take twenty percent of our bounties in tax!"
"Noble words," said Gamora, sarcastically. "But we still need to check the place out, make sure that the Watts brothers haven't left us any unwelcome surprises."
"Why, you think they might have booby-trapped the joint?" asked Rocket, sniffing the air. Rancid fatty acids, decomposing protein and glycols, high bacterial load. Atypical for deacomp.
"No, they just make you and Quill look housebroken. This place is filthy."
"I'll second that, sister," said Rocket, kneeling down to snuffle at the skirting. "I think we might have a dead rat-lizard nest in the walls somewhere. Something ain't right, I'll give you that. "
"Yeah, but you've got to look at the positives. Just look up; the warehouse has heavy lifting equipment on the ceiling, internal bracing, power-winches, maintenance slots cut into the concrete of the floor, we could use the lifting gear to lift up the Milano, use the trenches to sit under it as we worked, strip it down completely if we need to, and we've got out open airlock big enough to get it in and out without fuss. And a private re-fuelling complex," he said, walking over to the far corner of the cavernous ground-floor space; the Watts had clearly been big fans of open-plan living as most utter, utter slobs where, and paused at a strip at the edge and corners of the garage-like space were a collection of battered, oil-stained seating pieces, a holo-cine, and a small, filthy kitchen range with a huge enameled refrigerator with the word "beer" embossed in stamped brass above it. "I mean, it even comes fully furnished!" said Quill, opening the door of the refrigerator to see what drink they had.
His expression of cheerful contentment didn't change one iota as stared into the fridge for a long moment, then closed the door again and turned to Rocket.
"Get the matter scrambler." He said, staring into the abyss.
Gamora snorted, and stormed off in disgust, and Rocket looked back from his snuffling to the fridge, the stale odors that had cascaded out of it when Quill hand opened the door mixing with the deeper funk he was furiously trying to place.
"That bad, Captain?" he asked.
"Let's just say we need to nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. Unless you happen to have a flamethrower about your person then I don't think we could salvage the fridge… You know, one of these days I'm gonna learn not to say stuff like that, aren't I?" he said, taking the proffered flamethrower Rocket produced from one of his cases with indecent haste, and waving it at Gamora. "Hey Gamora, look, Rocket's actually helping with house-chores!"
"It doesn't count if napalm is involved," said Gamora, trying to run the tap and getting a rust-colored sludge. "I'm going to go and try and find the stopcock…. Oh, for gods sakes Quill, don't smirk at that, and see if I can get the water running properly. I doubt that the Watts gang had too much time for showering, but I don't see an outhouse dug into the concrete, so presumably they had a bathroom somewhere."
"Fair enough." Said Quill, as Rocket donned a welder's mask, oven mitts and a heat-resistant apron and deposited Groot in Quill arms muttering in no uncertain terms about keeping Groot away from the flames. Drax moved forwards to grab the fridge door, and as Quill held Groot out of cinder range, Rocket flipped his visor down, took the flame-thrower back, and nodded to Drax.
Gamora walked away as behind her, the door opened and before any of the things could get out, Rocket opened up, the hiss of the flame-thrower not quite masking the shriek, crackle and pop as various chitinous bodies heated and burst in their shells, and Rocket moved the flame from botttom of the fridge to top, so that the nape' falling thought the wire racks kept up as continual rain on the larger synapse creatures on the lower levels whilst allowing him to focus on each threat shelf-by-shelf. When he'd reached the top shelf he switched to the underslung pulp-action riot gun and put a breaching-round and a quick jet of fuel though the ice box, just in case, then gunned-down some lively critters attempting to escape with carriages filled with solid oxidizer, penetrating their armored hides and fuelling the flames all in one. Flinching as a creature leapt at him only to be knocked back in comet-like by a well-placed round, Rocket pulled out a stun-grenade and nodded to Drax, who slammed the door a fraction of a second after the grenade was lobbed in. He stood back sharply and there was a dull whump as the fringe rocked slightly, and then only quiet hissing and seething pops as some smoke leaked out from the seal.
Rocket took of his face-mask, panting and wiped his brow with a sweaty paw.
"That ortta do 'em. The oxidizer will burn for a good ten min, should be able to salvage most of the fridge after that, 'tho the ice box and seals will need replacing."
"Fair enoughl it was a bit Warriors of the Wind in there, the ice-box is acceptable collateral damage," said Quill, looking around. "Well, we get the sliding door runners greased so we can open them wide enough to let the Milano in, fix the water, the electric, the outer-net cables, the gas, the coms, the drains, run a fuel-line over from the depot and give her a lick of paint, and we'll have a pretty sweet secret lair."
"Or, yanno, we could just pick someplace with things that worked and that didn't smell of Adipocere," said Rocket, resuming his search of the walls. Gonna have to have to pull the walling apart if we can't find what the hell that stench is, he thought. Quill might joke about me cashing food, but at least I remember to eat it before it starts to stink.
"Of what?"
"Things die and there ain't enough air for them to rot normally, they sort of turn into soap. The salt in the body reacts with the fat and boom, soapy waxy shit. Stinks like nothing else. You get in in bodies they pull out from under water, or sealed crypts or where people have died in the bathtub, that kinda thing. Getting a real whiff of it around the place, so I recon some poor critter's got trapped and died in here someplace."
"Yeah well, it's not like any place we were going to wind up was ever going to be perfect." He said, resting himself in a leather recliner-chair that commanded the best access to the fridge and best view of the Holo, and crossing his arms behind his head as he tested it out. "It's going to be a bit of a fixer-upper."
There was the sound of a door opening from upstairs, a shriek, and a wave of a nostril-scorching stench rolled down from the stairwell.
"Quill, why the fuck is there a dead hooker in the bathroom?" yelled Gamora, appearing at the top of the stair like a slightly nauseous avenging Valkyrie as Rocket nodded, glad he wouldn't have to rip the walls out after all.
Quill became aware of Rocket, Drax, Gamora and Groot all glaring at him. He shuffled defensibly in his chair.
"Like I said, fixer upper."
Having vetoed Rocket's idea of just using the matter scrambler until they could get the body down the plug, and run back to the Milano for body bags and space-suits (because absolutely no-one wanted to deal with that in their normal clothes) the team was now faced with the unlovely problem of going into town and finding someone who could identify the body. Gamora and Quill headed off, while Drax, who had drawn the short straw, and Rocket, who was found to have been cheating by scent-marking the long straws, were left behind to get the body-bag down the stairs and try and clean up.
"Okay, on three lift. One, two three! On three! Three! Lift, confounded mammal!"
"I am lifting!" shouted Rocket, straining, the hand-holds in the bag way over his head and the body still slummed and touching the floor in the middle. "How the hell did I get paired off with you on this?"
Drax grunted impatiently, and begun to shove his end forwards. Rocket reflexively took a step backwards, and suddenly begun to overbalance and totter on the stair behind him.
"Drax! Drax buddy don't push you firckin' dumbass! Drax I- Draaaaaaaaaax!"
There was the sweary bounce and spin of Rocket going down a staircase, followed a moment later by the far more slithery, boneless bump-bump-bump of rubberized canvas over concrete stairs, and a crash that sounded like the occasional table at the base of the stairs.
Quill and Gamora paused, and looked at each other for a moment, before both turning and walking away with identical studied 'Not my problem' faces.
Bits of the town had taken a pounding during their gunfight with the Watts brothers, but overall the damage had been pretty light, and the removal of Wade and Belamy had certainly lighted the mood; Instead of everyone hiding indoors, there were people on the streets, desperately bartering for the increasingly dwindling supplies of food and giving Quill and Gamora angry, meaningful looks as they passed. On the basis that Knowhere wasn't that big a place, they headed for the big bar by the docks for no better reason than they were on reasonably good terms with the barman, and as that was where most of the town's prostitutes hung out they'd have a better than average chance of finding someone who could identify the body.
Although just showing them a Rorschach test and asking if they knew who it was would probably work better, thought Quill, gloomily. Wade didn't leave much in the way of facial identifying features before the decomposition kicked in.
As they rocked up at the bar, named the Skinless Drum for some reason, Quill checked his blasters were in easy drawing reach, because he'd had more bad luck with this place that good, and stepped inside. Gamora followed close behind, covering his back.
The place was pretty darn quiet, considering, and after a brief scan of the room, Quill spotted the barman who had backed them up against Belamy, and headed over. He froze up, cautiously, glaring at him like a cat, but made no move to back away.
"G'day." he said to Quill, very cautiously. Quill thought that a bit weird, but given how hostile everyone in town seemed to be for some reason it wasn't exactly unexpected.
"Hey. Can we talk or do I need to buy another really pricy soda first? What's up everyone's asses all of a sudden?" asked Quill, on the basis that if there was going to be an angry mob, he'd quite like to know why.
Gamora looked worried. "Is it sticks? Do we need Kevin Bacon?"
"Wait, what? No look… Nevermind." said Quill. "Look, let me re-phrase: why does everyone look upset, and do I need to run away from it?"
The barman shrugged, in a pretty cagey manner. "Well look mate, fair suck of the sav, we were glad to see you deal with Belamy and his Berko brother, but did your plan extend to more than just having a big barney and shooting up the town? 'Cause rumour has it that this Count Bligh bloke had work lined up for everyone."
"Yeah, but at, like, really shitty exploitive rates. You'd basically be slaves."
The barman shrugged. "Well maybe there's something to that, but it's all for young and old right now; if a new buyer for the brain n' bone doesn't come out of the blue, people might thin' slaves would be better off. Slaves get to eat."
"Yeah, well, don't worry about it. As it so happens, one of my crew is an expert in all things criminal underworld related," said Quill, giving his best winning smile, and activating his comm "If there's a buyer out there, he'll find it. Hey Rocket, folk down town are getting pretty hostile with regards to the whole, we destroyed their towns only industry twice situation, you know any buyers for a big ol' head full of high-value, back market brains?"
There was a momentary crackle of static on the coms, that stretched Quills nerves, but just when he was about to ask again, Rocket replied
"Yeah, I know a guy would take it of our hands for us."
Quill grinned. "Ah, I know you would. What's his name?"
"Count Bligh. And Guess what boss? I've checked my bounty-hunter channels, and you'll never guess what, but he's put a bounty of forty-thousand on anyone else who tries to trade with Knowhere, and two-hundred g's on each of us. Half a million for you, delivered alive."
Quill sat there, still staring at the barman with the same cocky smile, but one now as waxy as Adipocere.
"What?"
"Oh yeah, a bonus for me delved to him alive for torture as well, sentimental old bastard, and the fucking great news? Look like someone big's already promised to get it, 'cause they ain't taking new offers. Look like we ain't getting any new buys, and that if there ain't a full fleet coming at us already, then it's only a matter of time 'till there is."
Quill stayed staring at the barman, who was now grinning sardonically as he polished his glasses.
"Shit." Said Quill, hanging up.
"So" Said the Barman, as Gamora readied her pistol, as much for something to do as anything else. "You got a plan to deal with this?"
Quill grinned, somewhat queasily "Not as good a one as I had ten minutes ago."
The barman snorted. "Anything I can help you blokes with?"
"Nah… oh shit, yeah, almost forgot." Said Quill fumbling in his pockets as he approached a trio of tired looking working-girls at the end of the bar. "Hi, I'm sorry to put it like this, but to any of you know this woman?" he said, pulling out a picture-filmy from his greatcoat and showing it to them.
In hindsight he should have expected the screaming.
Having spent more money that he'd have liked on brandy, supposedly as a treatment for shock, Quill found someone who, based on a tattoo tenitively identified their deceased as one Hot Wax Gagor, real name Shu Irir. Bighting down the temptation to say she was more wax than hot now, Quill arranged for the hand-over of the body to her friends. She had no family on the station, only other sex workers, and he found that curiously depressing. He also realized that with no police, medical examiners or coroner's office, he'd somehow jumped in to the role that made any dead bodies found lying around his business.
God, I'm like Quincy but if he put his skill in medicine into even more womanising instead, he thought, as he walked back to the Milano. He'd got Drax, Rocket and Groot to meet them there; they didn't have fully secure comms at their new base yet, and he didn't what this to be overheard.
Frankly, he didn't want to do this, but he didn't see any other way out.
"I mean secret lair, guys, secret lair! The whole point is that Nova doesn't know where it is!"
"Well, Peter, if you have a better plan, I'm all ears," said Gamora.
Drax frowned. "No you're not; that's an elbow!" he said, pointing.
Quill sighed, and ran a hand though his hair in frustration.
"Shit, okay. Make the call."
Rocket nodded and hit the buttons in a rapid sequence Quill couldn't follow. In a few moments the screen lit up, and the holo projected out the triple-sun icon of Xandar, as they established the secure connection with Nova Prime Rael. She was behind her desk, flanked by Denarian Dey. They'd called ahead to arrange the secure line. She finished writing a note, and then looked up.
"So, Mister Quill. What exactly was so important it couldn't wait until after the governors speech on the latest Badoon migration?"
"Um, yeah, Hi, you look nice today. Did you lose weight? Or a war? Yeah, so there's no nice way to say this so I'll cut to the chase. We just kinda took over a small country that relies solely on crime, so we'd like you to legalise it and trade with us."
To her credit, Nova Prime took this pretty well, only raising the galaxy's most sarcastic eyebrow.
"Is that all? Anything else I can help you with?"
"No, well, one small thing. We might need a small fleet from you to defend it. Like, next week, at the latest."
Nova Prime Rael put down her stylus, and pinched the bridge of her proud, aquiline nose. "Alright, I think, young man, that you'd better start at the top."
"-and then it turns out there is some major player already coming to get the bounty, and we don't know who, and we have no way out of this that I can see, and I was kind of hoping that as what we did was, when it all comes to it, a good act, that you might help us out. Seen' as you wanted to encourage ethical behavior in us and all that jazz."
Nova Prime considered this, as Dey leaned in and said "although, strictly speaking whilst removing an unlawful force would be an moral act, it would not necessarily be an ethical one given that-"
"No, no." said Nova Prime. "I'm already trying to deal with what they just told me, don't make it worse by confusing them as well."
"Hey!" said Quill. "I know the difference between moral and ethical! Moral is the horizontal axis on a DnD alignment chart, ethical is the vertical axis!" It's like the difference between chaotic neutral-" he said, gesturing to himself "and-" he looked around at his shipmates, and then turned back to the screen. "and whatever the fuck you guys are!"
Nova Prime, Dey and his crew stared at him with identical open-mouthed stares for a long moment, and then Nova Prime said.
"Look Quill, it's not that we don't sympathize, but we can't just buy a load of back market, highly narcotic material from you. The main use of those brains it to make powerful illegal drugs, and we are a major intelligence and security agency. We don't deal drugs; not unless we've got back ops to fund, and we just don't do that stuff anymore."
"Why, is it just easier to just extort cash out of banking cartels after threatening them with arrest when they launder the drugs money?" asked Rocket. Nova Prime didn't lower herself to respond to that. She wasn't going to get in that sort of argument with the likes or Rocket, and what's more, having gone through her predecessor sealed files, she suspected he was right.
"Well, are the drugs dangerous?" asked Quill, Nova shook her head. "No; pharmacologically non toxic, mildly psychologically addictive and not physically harmful. A few people jumped out of windows after bad trips in the 3360's but that was it. Our own chief medical advisor suggests they're safe."
"It's even legal for medicinal use in some jurisdiction of Nova worlds." said Dey. "Plus there are legal uses for the bone and spinal fluid in computing, biomed research and constriction…"
Quill threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Then what's the problem? People here are being exploited by gangsters to produce it; it you bought it legitimately then they wouldn't be. What's the issue?"
Rael shrugged. "There was a moral panic at the start of the century by regulators here, and since then all the laws have been against its use or production. It's prohibited. Besides, it fuels crime."
"Only because it's illegal! We had a prohibition where I was from, back in the 20's, and it didn't help anyone except organized crime!"
"Oh, grow up, Quill, I know that. Hell, everyone in law enforcement with a triple-figure IQ knows that." said Rael, drumming her fingers. " But we don't make the law, we just enforce it. Yes, these sorts of legal prohibitions are stupid, and even if it was a lethal drug that killed people, at least if the government handed it out, then we'd know who was on it, could be there if they OD'ed, and knew they weren't committing crime to get it, but that's not the point. We've conquered the locals major drugs are produced before, all we needed to do was legalize it's production at that end, and suddenly you have the population beholden you to and they can't act against your national interests without ruining their one export, but we couldn't sell it to Parliament and soon we had a full scale insurgency, funded by the illegal drugs trade! Big businesses and lobbyists control this stuff, so you can kiss goodbye to common sense on your way out the door. Listen to me very carefully, there is no means via the Nova Cop. that you can get this stuff legally exported from Knowhere."
Quill was about to object, when Nova Prime raised a finger. "No way it can be done via the Nova Corp. Understood? You look stressed Quill: have a death stick to calm down."
"Huh, no thanks those things-"
"Are foul smelling poisonous, lethal, and addictive. Yes. They are also completely legal," she said.
"Heck, we even tried to introduce pain packaging on them to make the packets look bad, but we couldn't. The companies that made them, Moris Phelps in particular, sued Xandar; said that the packaging constituted their intellectual property, and we'd sighed a free-trade agreement not to confiscate any of their intellectual property."
Quill consisted this for a moment.
"So, if we joined a free trade deal…"
"Only sovereign nations can join free trade deals."
"So if we declared ourselves the People's Republic of Knowhere…"
"Then I'd let Bligh invade you. Firstly, it wouldn't seem legitimate unless it was backed by a proper vote, with high turnouts, proper international monitors, etcetera. Secondly, sovereign nations don't do well suing other sovereign nations. These days it's easier for a corporation to sue a government than another government, and if you wanted to get a license to sell the bone and brain from Knowhere, that's what you need to do. And thirdly, Quill, if you ever became the head of state of anywhere, I'd take that as a sign to just give up and let Thanos destroy all life in the universe because clearly something went horribly wrong and it all needed to start again from scratch," she added.
"Get your mandate via a vote, for the gods' sakes don't run yourself; it'll look suspicious and scare of the trade commission, get a smart lawyer, and then go via the Xandar trade commission. I'll move some ships closer to Knowhere, but they won't move in unless Xandar's trading interests are threatened, understood? Get in with the trade commission lobbyists and you've got it made."
"Are any of these trade commission guys easy to bribe, out of professional interest?" asked Rocket. Nova glared.
"They are representatives of some of the oldest and proudest political parties on Xandar; of course they are easy to bribe!" she said, switching of the transition.
Quill looked to the rest of the crew. "Well, not exactly ideal, but it could be worse. I guess we've got to get the locals keen on the idea of democracy now."
"We're fucked," said Rocket, gloomily.
"It could be worse," replied Quill. "We should be able to get support from those Nova ships before anyone turns out to claim that bounty," he added, and then paused. And looked to one side.
"Huh, the sensor net picked up something."
"You muted it to make the call," said Rocket, switching it back onto its regular mode. As he did, he looked at the sensor sweeps, and his eyes widened and his whiskers drooped.
"Oh no no no no NO! Bogey's inbound, ten o-clock " Quill and Gamora ran to look, but Drax just looked confused.
"Someone is going to sneeze in two hours and forty five minutes?"
Quill swallowed. It looked like a lot of ships.
"So who is it? Some bounty hunter scum? Kree Hard-nats? Rampaging Badoon mercs who want to rape us to death and drink organ smoothies out of our skulls? Alf? I never trusted that creepy fuck," grunted Quill, buckling on his gun belts and trying to fight down his raising fear. "Whoever it is, I reckon we can handle them guys, we're one badass company."
"No no no no no NO!" swore Rocket, hopping up and down with frustration. "I don't fucking believe it!"
"What, who is it?" asked Quill.
Rocket turned to him, against. "It's the Ravagers. They picked up the contract for your bounty."
Quill stared into space for a moment as he considered this.
"Oh, FUCK!"
Awesome Mix tape Vol 2: Bad Company- Bad Company
