Chapter Eleven: Sisters, Part Four: Cities in dust.

Nebula swore, loudly and inventively as Gamora rose above the rooves of knowhere, and gestured frantically to Shang and Krom.

"Get the hostages out of here! Move, Now, you idiots!"

"Wow. Rude." Said Shang "There's no reason to be mean."

Nebula glared, she had far bigger problems right now, but even so.

Quill said it for her, from the floor.

"You're a hit man! You kill people for cash!"

"Yes, but I don't call people names. I'm a professional: I have standards." Muttered the insectoid, peeved. "There's no call for rudeness."

"Just move them!" screamed Nebula.

Shang gave her a dirty look, but none the less, tapped Rocket's pillory once, adjusting it's personal gravity field until it was weightless, then quickly and effectively making a loop out of some monomolecular carbon thread and tightening it about the racoons tail with a quick sharp jerk. While the racoon loudly protested this treatment with colourful language, Krom gestured once at Drax, and then at Quill, using his magnets to levitate them, legs dangling.

Nebula gestured to the Kree sniper. "Master sergeant, Hold off my sister and that mob. Kill whoever you have to, but not my sister. You two:" she yelled, turning to Krom and Shang, who had Rocket bobbing behind him on a string like the galaxy's sweariest helium balloon and was likewise levitating Groot's hydroponics tank "To the ship, Now!"

Shang and Krom nodded, and begun to rapidly double time it out of the hydroponics station while the male guardians swore and kicked mid-air. Nebula then glanced back over her shoulder, once.

The kree sniper got of his first shot, making a Nova corpsman and actual corpse-man and sending the angry mob scuttling for cover, and over his shoulder, Nebula could see a flash of bright flame as that damn Terran woman tried to burn a tentacle out of her way, the light of it glinting of Gamora's sword like a naked wound.

Less than an hour, and she's gone from running and hiding from me to actually flying.She thought, curling her lip. Nebula had always had a few jealousy issues about her sister, enough, in fact, to stock a large warehouse… but this was just ridiculous.

Some people get all the luck, she thought, watching her sister get swatted about by a giant bleeding meter-thick tentacle. As she watched, Gamora got smashed into the side of a shanty-town tenement, punching a hole in the wall and collapsing the roof. Tabby and the damn dog dived in after her

"Show off." She muttered under her breath, before turning a heal and jogging after her hired goons, and the kree's rifle barked like a bitch-fox, harsh and cold.


Whu-BOOM!

The rifle round cracking with hypersonic flight scorched the air between Gamora and Tabby, narrowly missing Terran and tentacle both. Gamora didn't notice. Smashing though alien drywall would that to your concentration. As she was thrown shoulder-first by the tentacle through some of the finest building materials that could be made of of woven celestial nostril-hair, crushed bone, lime-mortar and spit, Gamora folded her sword to stop it tangling in the rubble, and tucked her elbows and knees in to protect her vital organs. To be honest, she was pretty sure that a hit like that should have killed or severely injured her, until she noticed that the walls were breaking before she hit them , softening her impact.

Cosmo swung in, barely touched down next to her with all four paws, growling, before barking once, low and clear: a bass counterpart to the rifle. At his word, all the debits Gamora had just smashed through picked itself up and exploded outwards at the tentacle. A second before it hit, Meltdown flew through it, lighting it up and the cone of plasma and burning rubble slammed into the tentacle like the finger of god. It recoiled, scorched, and Tabby danced through the stench of burring hair and rock, perching on the edge of the hole Gamora had made when she's hit the side of the building, and flung fireballs at it as it hissed and writhed.

"Thanks Frenchie!" she yelled, hellfire leaping form her fingers

*Think nothing of it Comrade. Citizen, are you injured?* Cosmo asked Gamora

"Someone's going to be!" muttered Gamora, rolling up and sprinting forwards as the tentacle, the length of a small train, reared up to slam into the building and swat Tabby. As she ran the length of the ruined tenement, vaulting thought the holes she'd smashed in the walls with her fall, and passing from room to room in a blur or colours and cheap interior décor of varying tastefulness. Gamora heard a canine rumble for behind her and saw the debris on the floor stand to attention, forming a ramp for her. Sprinting up, plasterboard finding her foot just in time for each new step, she reached the apex of her run, leapt and fired off her Aeroharnes just as the tentacle slammed down at Tabby.

Gamora shouldered the Terran woman out of the way, and took the tentacle mid-air with her sword held above her head, flat of the blade supported by her off-hand upper-snake because she wasn't going to try chopping something his big and couldn't form a proper ox mid-air, a rare gap in Thanos's other extensive triaging regimen.

The tentacle parted under her blade, but the arterial spurt of ichor knocked her back as the falling half-tentacle smashed the already weakened tenement flat. She righted herself using the harness, somewhat clumsily, it was still an experimental device and she'd not practiced, she landed in the wreckage, next to a sheet of drywall, which coughed and pushed itself up to reveal a Terran.

"You okay? Asked Gamora, panting, palms on her thighs. Tabby groaned, and shook her head.

"No! I have tentacle goo and drywall places I didn't even know I had!"

"Tell me about it: I was in the shower before this started. Seems a waste of time now." Said Gamora, glancing towards the hydroponics bay and trying to plot a route that wasn't mostly tentacle

*I too find B-A-T-H time distressing.* added Cosmo, with a canine whimper. * We have, however, more pressing concerns, da?*

"Like what? Ringworm? Running out of chew-toys?" said Tabby, standing up. Cosmo immediately then knocked her down again, in the nick of time.

Whu-BOOM!

The hypersonic round missed Tabby by inches, and she swore, and rolled on the ground, wiggling under cover

*Like that sniper, citizen.* said Cosmo, peering cautiously out from behind the fallen tentacle. *He is rather well positioned, and we are not. He also appears commendably skilled. Kree Spetsnaz, I would guess by his use of fortuitous positioning to maximize enfilade while retaining some measure of concealment and cover. Quite the Vasily Zaitsev, no?*

"I don't know, I don't like folk music or Eurovison! He's a good shot tho', I'll give you that Frenchie." Muttered Tabby. "How come he's picking on me? He didn't shoot at you, greenie, and you were right in the open!"

"My sister want's me alive and working for her, remember? I guess he's under orders." Said Gamora, ducking under the cover of the tentacle none the less. "Gods, sniper in a dense urban environment, classic tactical nightmare. So like my sister. So, anyone have any ideas on how to deal with a well-positioned sniper who's a better shot than any of us?"

*Call in a close-range artillery strike.* suggested Cosmo. Tabby and Gamora both gave him duck-faced looks of surprise.

*That's what the Red army had to do to the White Death, and even then he survived.* said Cosmo, slightly defensively. *Finn's are like tree roots, citizen: indestructible, troublesome, and the forest is bloody full of them*

Gamora frowned, sarcastically. "And you just happen to have an artillery regiment in that EVA suit, do you?"

Cosmo barked what could have been a laugh.

*Crowded enough with me and my fleas, Citizen. No, but we do have the American bourgeoisie and her typically destructive habbits.*

"Who?" asked Tabby. Gamora and Cosmo stared "Me? Hey, if you're talking about me, use my name, or like, one of my codenames, I've got lots. Don't call me fancy words, I don't speak French!"

*I… for once you are correct there, citizen, but you could blow up that building, no?*

Tabby bit her thumb in concentration. "Bit far, but shouldn't be a problem…"

"NO! A, my friends are in there, and B, no-one is blowing up buildings! There are civilians everywhere and we're on a space-station with limited oxygen, we need to keep combustion to a minimum! No, small explosions only." said Gamora, peering over the felled tentacle. As she did, she thought about the horrifying effects a major fire could have on the re-circulated air of knowhere, and an idea came to mind "Can you produce explosions with smoke? A lot of smoke?"

"Sure, I just run the mix a little heavy in my mind. Why?"

Gamora pointed." Smoke bombs there, there and there would give anyone running up Zygomatic street cover from the sniper."

*Concealment, not cover: he could still shoot blind into the smoke and hit us, and even then, the smoke would not cover us past the second junction. Even at a full sprint, we would make it no more than 35% of the way before we were shot and killed.*

"Oh, I know that. Which is why as soon as the smoke bombs blow giving cover to that street, we fly to that mining gallery there, overlooking the street and we work out way along it to get an overwatch positon on that sniper. Pin him down from there and then two of us drop either side of him and close." She said.

Tabby smiled. "Fancy miss-direction, I like it she-hulk!"

*The plan is tactically sound.* said Cosmo. *There is however, one problem None of us can fly. Not competently. Not well enough to avoid tentacles: I levitate objects, and can steer myself somewhat with the EVA suits Vernier thrusters, you have that harness, and are clearly unpractised, and the American- *

"Hey, balancing on the plasma you're shooting out of a hand is hard. I mean, it's basically on-fire pommel-horse at high speeds, and I haven't worked at horse since I was a cheerleader sophomore year, I have no idea how Stark manages this flying shit." Muttered Tabby. "Besides, we have other problems getting to that gallery. Like Squidward." She said pointing, as tentacles started to grow out of the underside of the gallery, and stanch at passing civilians.

Gamora groaned, and then stopped, and looked, eyes narrowing.

Two tentacles had both tried to grab the same feeling civilian, a grey-haired Xandarian ladies-man, and then both stopped, confused, when they got too close to each other, feeling around blindly, trying to grab him without getting too close to the other tentacle. In their blind confusion, he got away.

"Tabby, do we know for the fact that all these tentacle are from the same life-form, or is that just something we've assumed because we can't understand it?"

"It bleads non-stop, screeches and has no social skills, it basically the EMO band of aliens, who the fuck would want to understand it? Why?"

"Those tentacles don't seem to be working together very well to catch prey, In fact, they're avoiding each other."

*Octopus have one brain controlling each tentacle, could it not just be this?* asked Cosmo.

"Maybe, but if they're not working together, then perhaps we could take advantage of this…" said Gamora.

"Oh how?" said Tabby, sarcastically. "What the fuck are we going to do, Tie me to a rock like some clash of the Titians damsel in distress and hope two of the damn things go for me at once?"

She noticed the look Cosmo and Gamora were giving her a little too late.

*Gilligan cut, Tabby tied to some rubble by each wrist with a belt on one wrist and what appears to be a dog-collar on the other.*

"Oh no I'm, like, totally helpless and not bait at all, Squidward!" yelled Tabby, dramatically rolling her eyes much like the blonde in a typical slasher movie. "I sure hope no tentacles want to come and molest and or eat me!"

"Skkkrrrrit?" two tentacles appeared, one to each side of Tabby and waved, curiously, as if tasting the air.

"Oh no, I'm doomed, doomed I tell ya! Doooooooomed…. Yeah little closer, no, like, to the left squidward. No, my left Idiot…. Doomed doomed…." She said, as one squirmed closer, tip hovering just of her cheek and dripping on her. "Doomed, doomed and…. guys, any time now, doomed!"

WOOSH!

The two tentacles jerked up, almost as if they were looking around, but it was too late.

Cosmo slammed into one, levitating a chunk of wall the size of a car and moving with it at his shoulder like it was his riot shield, forcing it to the right. Gamora, meanwhile hit the tentacle on the right, grabbing the tip of it and quickly reaching out for the tensile Cosmo was pushing towards her, snatching it, and tying in and the other together in a quick, messy knot before boosting out of the way with the harness. Tabby leapt up belts dangling from each wrist, they were just buried in the rubble, not tied to anything, and sprinted away.

The effect was instant and gratifying. As soon as they touched both tentacles jolted and stiffened as if they'd been electrified, and suddenly surged forward, grappling and slithering as each tried to wrap round the other and engulf them, forming a huge, complex, messy, dripping knot.

The three rescuers retreated to a safe distance and, panting, admired their handiwork.

Tabby punched the air. "Wo-Hoo! They're killing each other! Aww-yeah!"

Cosmo and Gamora stared, examining the tentacles a little more closely, the Russian dog sniffing curiously

*I… I do not believe that to be the case, citizen.*

"What, oh come on, those things are totally wresting, I mean look, they're really going at it and…. oh."

The tentacles, cuttlefish like, were changing colour. From both being a uniform purple-green one had on a far darker purple, the other I light pulsing pinkish-lilac. They were spawning objects, squeezing pulsating organic pods or bags out of their suckers, and stabbing them into-each other with vicious, translucent bone hooks.

"Are… are they mating?" asked Gamora.

*Yes*

"are… are those egg-casings?"

*Yes. And if I recall my EVA training in black sea correctly, possibly barbed spermatophores as well. Cephalopods are… interesting*

They stared. Tabby gagged visibly. "Ewwww, Squidward, why? That's it, I never eating calamari again. Oh god, are the others…"

All around knowhere, the other tentacles had stopped trying to randomly grab people, and seem to develop a sudden, pressing interest in each other.

*Responding to pheromones from this pair, yes.* sad Cosmo, watching as the interior of knowhere suddenly became a giant, thorny tangled web of very preoccupied tentacles, blocking most of the intersections and the main access ships used to get in and out of the celestials eyes.

*We, we may have made the situation somewhat worse.* said Cosmo, after a pause.

Gamora pulled her eyes away from the scene for long enough to scan the tactical situation.

She grinned, and pointed with her sword. "Yes, but we're not the only ones this is worse for."


Nebula grinned, as she gunned the engine of the Barracuda towards the eye of Knowhere. With the Nova fleet temporarily disabled by the killbot and her sister pinned down by tentacles and the sniper, she was in the clear and could get her hostages out of there and so leverage her soft-hearted sister indefinably. We'll soon see who the smartest of Thanos's daughters is when-

The tentacles shot in front of her without warning, and she killed the main drive and activated the forward thrusters in time to avoid trashing her ship, but not fast enough to slam into both sets of tentacles. She put the engines in to full reverse, but it was already too late as dozens of tentacles swarmed over the ship, trapping it like a fly in a spider-web. She swore loudly and tried to pull out, but they were stuck fast.

Nebula swore again, and turned and ran down from the cockpit, gesturing to Krom and Shang who were guarding the prisoners, Krom taking the opportunity to hang his laundry off the pillories to dry.

"Out, Out we're snared! That stupid tentacle beast has gone rogue! You two, go help hold up my sister and those fools!" she yelled, running over to a weapons wrack and booting up two of the Controller's mind control drones she'd got on the black-market so she had something flying to levitate her to the ground. She then grabbed a small silver puzzle box off the shelf: when getting the hired help from Count Bligh she'd had reservations about the Dread Kuthun, because frankly there's only so far you can trust tentacles. Fortunately, seeing as they were extra-dimensional tentacles, there were ways to top them bleeding into this universe.

Shang nodded, popped the lower hatch and dropped out, manipulating his own gravity. Krom followed, levitating a hunk of metal down and then Nebula was at the hatch, grabbing onto a drone for support. She snarled as a tentacle tried to get in the hatch, slammed the door on it repeatedly to sever it, glanced scowling back at the male Guardians, curling a lip, and then dropped.

The male guardians stared for a moment, and then glanced forward.

Directly in front of them the huge polymer blister of the lower viewing desk was entirely clogged with tentacles, of every conceivable colour covering every inch of window, and all sliding and slithering over each other, swapping barbed egg-sacks and genetic material like Pokémon cards.

They stared in silence for some time, Quill occasionally cussing and trying to kick the still grasping severed tentacle tip away from his leg.

"Well, that's just unsettling." Said Rocket, at length.


Trying their best to ignore the increasingly tangled mess of somewhat preoccupied tentacles, Gamora Tabby and Cosmo broke cover at a sprint down lower zygomatic street, Tabby providing them with a smoke screen and a few bright flash-bang grade fireballs going off around The Kree sniper's position. As predicted, there was an immediate crack of a hypersonic round narrowly missing Gamora as the sniper shot blind into the smoke along their path, which was the signal for them to all hang a sharp right down a side-street and leap, clumsily boosting themselves a hundred meters up with a combination of aero-harness, psionics, fire, and swearing. Landing with a mix of four-legged grace, correct parachute roll, and cool but cartilage destroying tri-point, they rolled upright.

Gamora signalled them to move, and they managed to get maybe a hundred meters down the mining gallery thinking they'd not been spotted before a rail-gun round hit the bottom of the gallery and punched up thought the floor at them with a thunk! Gamora, face nicked by a flying sherd of bone, swore and dropped to the ground. Wriggling over to the edge of the gallery, she looked down and swore.

From this potion she could see clearly into the old hydroponics station's glass-house roof, and Quill and the others were gone. More importantly, she could see her sister running into the shelter of the Milano, no doubt needing a less tentacled ship. Good luck with that, you'll need to clear the eye first. She thought.

She also spotted what looked like a wrestler with metal for arms and a giant wasp moving rapidly thought the streets towards the hydroponics station. They were the only ones running towards the sounds of the shooting. She frowned, and beckoned tabby over.

"When my sister hired you, were those two with you?"

"Bug-boy and Hulk Hogan? Yeah. Some coenobite R2D2 kill-bot too, but I don't think we need to worry about him." She said, pointing out the eye into space, where Nova star-fighter were visibly trying to lock force-fields around something and contain it. "Looks like the space-cops are getting their act together at long last."

*Too slowly to help us, unfortunately. We can not rely on the millitzia to arrive in the nick of time like cavalry in westen, da?*

"I'm with frenchy, we're boned."

Gamora considered the tactical situation.

"We've got the high ground and clear lines of sight, but still have that sniper waiting for us to pop our heads up, enemies inbound, and it can't be too long until my sister gets the Milano in the air and is looking down on us with the big guns. My sister tired to flee with her ship, so my friends must be on it. Tabby, can you burn that ship out of the knot of tentacles without destroying it?"

"Duh and or hello, I'm awesome. Of course I can."

"Okay, move fast, free them up, and open that eye so the Nova fighters can get in. If we're quick we can do it before Nebula can hot-wire the Milano. Go." Tabby nodded, threw a few more smoke-bombs at the sniper's nest, and boosted off.

Gamora turned to Cosmo.

"Cosmo, one of us needs to disable the Millano, and the other take out the sniper, If I provide you with covering fire from my laser, could you work around to that gallery there and-"

There was a snap-snap-snap of three rail-gun rounds in close succession right into the gallery below them, as Master-sergeant Ko'star spotted Tabby taking off, backtracked to her point of origin on the gantry and emptied his mag into it. A flying chunk of bone struck Cosmo in the head, knocking him down with a yelp, and a round clipped Gamora's side grazing her, before the bone under them shifted ominously, gave one warning creek, and the parted company with the rest of the gallery sending them falling. Gamora fought down the impulse to grab the edge, a fools game, and instead grabbed at Como, managing to get a hold on the collar of the unconscious dog's EVA suit as she plummeted down the hundred meter drop, trying to slow herself with the aero-harness before shaming into the flat roof of a café, dog in arms, before the avalanche of crumbling bone slammed into the side of the café and downed her and the building both.


Ko'star slammed another mag into his rail-gun, and aimed it at the dust cloud of powdered bone where the avalanche had hit. He saw movement, probably just a beam from the building shifting, but he fired anyway, once, twice, thrice. Almost lazily.

"Ahem, excuse me sir!" said an annoying cheerful synthesised voice, right behind him. It sounded like one of those self-driving cabs. "What, exactly do you think you are doing master sergeant?"

Ko'star didn't even bother looking around at Shang. "My Job."

Shang giggled, a synthesised nervous titter. "Your employment contract specifically forbade harming Lady Gamora. Our orders on that point were very clear."

The kree grunted, not looking away from his reticule.

"You honestly think nebula is going to pull this off? Her ships down, her sisters loose and wants to kill us, and the sky is mostly Horney tentacles right now. You think Nebula is going to win, then you're a bigger fool than she is."

"I fail to see the relevance of this."

"I'm not the type to be on the losing side in a fight."

"Given you fought for the Kree against Nova, I sincerely doubt that Sergeant, but I still fail to see the relevance…"

"Ronan killed a lot of people. I say they deserved it, Xandarian scum, but she helped him, and a lot of grieving relatives put a bounty on her. Dead or alive. Nebula won't live long enough to pay me, this way I still take home a pay check."

"You took a contract." Said Shang, mildly, steepening the fingers on his weak secondary arms and looking over them.

"Fuck the contract." Muttered Ko'star, squinting down his gunsight. He spotted movement, aimed, drew the gun into his shoulder and cheek and-

The spiny insect foot slammed into the back of his head hard enough to force his nose down into the receiver of his gun and jam his eye painfully into the telescopic sight. His rifle went off, but with him pushed down on the butt, it see-sawed wildly on the bipod legs, and hit nothing but celling tentacles. He rolled away from the gun and sprung to his feet, drawing his combat knife, just in time to take the second kick in the chest.

"You took a contract." Said Shang, jovially, moving forwards and drawing his own cruel, wavy-bladed knife. "And where I come from, taking a contract to kill or not kill someone is serious business. Almost sacred. You see, this is the problem with all you newbies, all you ex-special forces types: you used to fight for patriotism and now that you don't any more, you lose all sense of professionalism. This is just a paycheck to you, isn't it?" he asked in his happy little voice, parrying a knife blow and kicking the kree again, using his gravity manipulator and vestigial wings to raise a meter off the ground and then drop back down with the force of five gravities, snapping ribs and sending the kree flying backwards a pace, as he activated the holo-recorder on his HUD to record the fight for prosperity. "A punch-clock job, like you're working in a burger-bar, or a holo-marketing call-centre?"

"What ever happened to taking honest pride in your work?" he asked no one in particular.

The kree snarled, and swung his knife at him again.

Shang leaned backwards, using the manipulator to let him lean to a gravity-defying smooth criminal extent as the Knife whistled harmlessly thought the air were his head should have been, and tapped the kree with one skinny finger from his secondary hand.

The kree immediately fell backwards, directly away from Shang as the wasp stood back up. He should have slammed into the distant wall and burst like a melon, but kree are tough nuts and he had cybernetic enhancements of his own. Digging his feet into the floor, Ko'star stopped his sideways-dissent in twin furrows cut into the dirt of the sidewalk outside the hydroponics station. Snarling, and leaning over like he was climbing a 45 degree slope, Ko'star begun to painstakingly walk towards Shang, one foot at a time, against the higher gravity.

The insectoid assassin cocked his head on one side, compound eyes glittering, tossing his knife up and catching it again. This was mildly interesting.

"Huh." He said, his Knife absentmindedly falling upwards and vanishing somewhere in the celling, watching as the kree very slowly climbed towards him up apparently flat ground using super-human strength and resolve.

After a moment, he lit a death-stick with his secondary arms, checked his watch on his main arms, and them put his main arms on his hips, foot tapping impatiently.

"In your own time." He said. He kree strained and grunted constipatedly, sweat pouring down his face. Shang sighed.

When the Kree sniper was five paces from him, Shang cut off the gravity manipulation.

The resistance he was straining and leaning in against suddenly gone, Ko'star lurched forwards, and fell flat on his face, as Shang's thorny feet, moth full of dirt.

He spat and swore. "dammed bug!" he yelled, drawing a pistol. "I'm going to-"

Shang's falling dagger caught him in the top of his head, blade first, and punched through and out his chin. His eyes rolled back, he spasmed, and slumped over, dead.

Shang watched for a moment, smoking.

"Humph. How disappointing." He said, kneeling to recover his knife. As he did so, he cut off a finger so the family would have something to bury, and then shot the kree three times with his anti-matter pistol, disintegrating the body.

As he did, his communicator rang.

Shang answered cheerfully.

"Hi there, you've reached-"

"Goddanit, it's gone to voicemail." Said Count Bligh.

"Um, no, sir, that's just how I always sound. Remember?" he said, finger in ear. Or were his ear would have been if it was external.

"Oh… yeah. Look, Ko'star's life-sign monitor just cut out unexpectedly, any reason for that?"

"Nothing unexpected at all, sir: given I just killed him I would be surprising if it didn't cut out. He was causing unnecessary complications, sir."

The line went quiet.

"Such as?"

"he went off contract, sir. In his option our mission had a low success probability, so he attempted to kill Gamora for the rewards offered on her. I found this unprofessional."

"In your option, does the mission have a low success probability?"

"Irrelevant: I took a contract."

"No Shang, you took two contracts. Remember?"

Shang paused for a long time.

"Are you activating plan b sir?"

"Does the mission have a low success probability? Has it failed?"

"Yes, it has a low success probability: Gamora is fighting back, she has recruited help from the locals, an Nova is involved, The Kree is dead, the tentacles not being helpful . Has it failed? No: we still have the other guardians contained, The locals are largely neutralised, Nova is temporally out of the picture, and Gamora appears temporally disabled, although I doubt a little rubble will keep her down for too long. If Nebula arranges viable transport soon, and the guardians' don't escape again plan A is still go. "

"Again? Okay Shang, I leave it to your judgement. But if plan A fails, Nebula knows too much about our operations, and we can't have the guardians coming after us with some sort of revenge mission. If they break out of containment, activate plan B. Understood? If the guardian's escape from Nebula, you Kill Nebula and all the Guardians. No loose ends."

"All the guardians…. Including Rocket?" asked Shang, blankly.

Bligh scoffed. "Going sentimental in your old age?"

Shag shuddered, and pulled himself together.

"Yessir: I suddenly find I have a deep and lasting attachment to that huge reward that was being offered for bringing him in alive." Said Shang, trying to repress that sudden moment of emotion.

Bligh scoffed again. "We can stretch to paying the full reward for him so long as he's out of the way. Just try to make the little bastards death as messy as possible, would you? That's not going to be a problem is it."

Shang looked unhappily at the knife in his hands, gleaming monomolecular edge sharper than glass. But his voice never faltered, bright and eager and fake as ever."

"That… that should not present undue difficulty, no. I will use my judgement. Now if you'll excuse me, sir, I should go check on Plan a before it goes further off track." He said, glancing back towards where the avalanche had kicked up a huge cloud of dust and pulverised bone, yellow as madness. He stood very still as it swept over him, and then field knowhere, turning all its occupants into ghosts.

Awesome mix vol2: Siouxsie and the banshees: Cities in dust

We're all the living dead now, not just me. Thought Shang.

"I took the contract. I will continue with the mission. Shang out."

"You go do that." muttered Count Bligh into his wrist mounted com, before hanging up.

The salesman sitting across the ritual moat smiled at him. The five foot of water would not have prevented a serious attack, but it was the look of the thing: there are two sides here, you, and us. And we're in charge. The design of the garden was built entirely around that point.

Not that this little shit seems to have noticed. Thought Bligh.

"Having some trouble with stock?" asked the K.L.S salesman, kneeling on the ornate rug opposite Bligh, who was on the left of the throne. "This is what you get for buying second-hand and out of warranty."

"Perhaps. Perhaps this is what happens when people are careless with their stock-keeping."

Said the Sapartoi sitting to the right of the throne. He had a name, but it hadn't been given at this meeting. He'd introduced himself only as "I speak for Mister Knife, you will address all your questions to me, never to him directly. Understood?"

The salesman had whined about that. "I'm here to see Mister Knife, and to speak with him-"

"No" said the Sparoti, almost amused, in the brief introduction over cocktails before the meeting formally started. "You are here for him to see and hear you. You will not look upon his face, nor hear his voice, nor touch him. DNA, face and vocal recognition… why take the risk? You don't become the biggest crime boss in the galaxy by taking risks." Smiled the Spartori, rubbing his close cropped auburn beard. He dressed modestly, severely even, like a soldier, but spoke like he was well educated and came from money. He seemed more the accountant that Bligh did, and in the present, he sat to the right of the throne, literally at Mister Knife's right hand. That was all you needed to know about him, which was why that was all anybody knew about him.

He scared Bligh, but not as much as the man on the throne.

The salesman glared at the Spartori, who smiled back blandly. There was a snort of wry laughter at the salesman's discomfort, restrained, but genuine. Dr Kessler at least seemed to have found that amusing, sitting directly opposite the Spartori, and idly tracing a finger across the surface of the moat water. While the salesman had made a clear effort to look unimpressed by the opulence of the garden, in the grounds of the manse that was half palace and half fortress, Kessler had been genuinely interested in the garden by the lake. He'd spotted that all the plants were poisonous, for a start, something few ever did until it was too late.

In the distance, a Narth-bird made a god-awful sound, like they did.

The Spartori smiled, wanly, and activated a projector with a wave, making the numbers appear and dance on the surface of the lake.

"We'll take them… at this price."

The salesman made a face. "The hell you will. We won't sell for less than 100,000 a pop."

The right hand man smiled.

"We had someone argue with Mister Knife about money a few months ago. This would have been, oh, 90 days ago?" He said, before appearing to loose interest, staring across the lake. It was a wide lake for one that was entirely privately owned. You could see the other side, but only just. In this planet's sun, the heat coming off it was already uncomfortable, the humidity unbearable. The point of having meeting here was to make your guests sweat. The Spartori didn't seem to notice, going off on a tangent.

"In the bad old days, of the first Kree empire, there was a palace on a lake, much like this. If someone was found guilty of a partially heinous crime, treason, insulting the gods… annoying the emperor overmuch… he was sentenced to a curious form of execution, known as Scaphism, or just as 'the boats.' I understand some other primitive worlds have used it, but it was perfected on lakes like this.

"Briefly put, a man is sewn up alive into a canoe or something very much like one, with his face and sometimes limbs poking out though holes cut for that purpose. The boat was weighted so no matter how he rocks it with his struggles it can't tip over and drown him, and it's of course far too small for comfort, and he's pushed out into the lake, under the midday sun. Imagine…. Slowly roasting away, in open water with no shade, dying of thirst, and hearing nothing but cool water lapping all around you: an exquisite mental anguish.

"The kree, however, were unwilling to leave it like that, back in the bad old days. Servants would row out to the condemned man, every day, and force feed him. A mix of milk and honey. It would nourish him, prevent his dying of thirst, and so prolong his anguish... and the raw sugars would turn his bowels to water, filling the boat with liquid excrement. The smell of the filth and the honey combined would attract insects. Not nice one, I'm afraid. Biting ones, burrowing ones, all sorts of ickyness would develop, really very rapidly. Surprisingly quickly.

"But it would not end quickly. Some maggots would eat out the necrotic tissue that would form around his sores, keeping him alive for a little longer, others… other maggots in these parts are less picky in if the tissue that they flense off is dead, or still very much alive and responsive to pain. I image the either ecosystem that would form would be quite interesting to scientists, had any existed at that time. Can you imagine… not the pain: you can't imagine pain like that until it happens, but the heat, the smell, thing crawling their way into every orifice, but especially the eyes? The feeling of utter helplessness and abandonment? And, of course, the noise, buzzing, buzzing day and night without respite? You'd go mad in days…. And live for weeks. Well, maybe live is a strong word. Endure. Not quite die. One condemned general lasted seventeen days. He must have been an exceptionally strong man, to survive that long without modern medicine. No antibiotics or blood transfusions back then." Said the right hand man, watching as the object floated closer across the lake.

"No medical nanites or stem-cell mills. Why, with modern technology I'd image you could keep then sort-of-alive for a lot longer." He said, as the salesman stared wide eyed with shock as the thing drew closer. It looked a lot like some sort of canoe, with a tall rod growing out the top, cruising gently in circles on a solar-powered motor.

Not that you could hear any motor over the sound of the insects. There was possibly another sound, a strange strangulated gargling, like someone trying and failing to spit out a mouthful of extremely wiggly rice, but Bligh tied to pretend that he hadn't heard that. After some time, the boat, the buzzing, and the stench gently made its way back into the depths of the lake and mercifully out of sight. The right hand man smiled, while the salesman was sick into the moat.

"I would hazard that with the right medical technology even a weak man could last, oh, about 90 days?" he said, smiling. "So, what was that about the cost?"

Dr Kessler pulled a face, brow furrowing, as if trying to solve a crossword.

"What purpose did the upstanding rod serve? It wasn't a mast, and didn't look like a control aerial."

"A selfie-stick." Said the right hand man. "Linked directly to the optical nerve. What's the point of doing that to someone if they can't watch what's happening to them in real time?"

Kessler considered this. "Have you considered 3d printing back-up bodies? The brain transplant itself should not cause undue difficulty, and it would be interesting to see if the new host demonstrated classic PTSD: so many of the symptom that manifest in classic PTSD that are party endocrinal or related to the spinal grey matter; it would be interesting to see if a different set of symptoms manifested with an entirely new body, or how it affected the case progression."

He noticed the looks he was getting. Even the right had man seemed somewhat surprised.

"What? It's interesting. You could then continue the torture if you wished, or sell the new body into extremely scream-heavy sexual slavery or kill them over and over again or whatever it is you mobsters do too feel powerful over your rivals, although I fail to see the point. This is all, if you'll forgive me, somewhat gratuitous. I fail to see the purpose of pain for pain's sake. If you're going to cause suffering, at least endeavour to learn something from it. And if you're hoping a little intimidation will let you rob us, you're quite mistaken." Said Dr Kessler, looking directly at the man on the throne, his face hidden behind a mirrored visor. Kessler addressed his reflection while the salesman sweated and shook.

"It costs us 50,000 to build and train a mark five jaeger. If you get a big enough bulk order and all the optional add-ons, like buying the guns and armour direct from us as well, we can drop the per unit cost of the jaeger itself from one hundred to sixty-five thousand credits, no lower."

"Our best offer is-" started the right hand man.

"Irrelevant." Said the doctor, standing, as if to go. "You need us, otherwise we'd be having this meeting on halfworld. You flew us all the way out here and tried to threaten us, that means you're desperate. Sixty-five, and I'll throw in some sentient otters for you lake. Take it or leave it."

"And you, you are free to leave at any time." said the Spartori "By ship, or by foot, or perhaps… by boat."

Kessler actually smiled at that. "You need me. And the board of directors will be upset if I lose another salesman, so I suppose I should ensure he comes back as well to to avoid awkward questions. Sixty-five. I don't give a damn if the company makes a profit or not, I find all that rather tawdry, but I'm a craftsman, a scientist, and above all an artist, and I won't have it said my work is cheap. You need to take pride in your creations." He said, standing by the lake. It was, really, quite a beautiful garden.

The Spartori looked to the mirrored man on the throne, and nodded.

Mister Knife inclined his head, very slightly.

The auburn haired Spartori turned back, and nodded. "Sold. Sixty five, and no more than eight thousand each for arms and armour. And some free otters: we have a problem with watercourse management by the summer-house, they may prove useful."

The salesman seems to recover himself, and smiled, queasily. "How many do you need? For what you're planning?"

"How many have you got?"