09-Shipwrecked

Peter met Gamora in the docking bay. She was wearing her spacesuit but had placed the spherical glass helmet between her arm and side, laying on her hip, as she was waiting until the last minute to put it on. "How's Rocket?"

"He's tired, but good."

"I heard you laughing." She said, putting on her helmet and checking if the comms were working.

"Yeah, something got lost in translation," he activated his mask and moved next to the airlock exit. "Ready?"

The sand was so fine they sank into it up to mid-calf, and by the time they reached the other ship they were both out of breath.

"I'm so done with this place." Peter grumbled between pants.

"Agreed." Gamora answered, also finding it hard to catch her breath. She ran her hand on the metallic hull. "Have you seen markings like these before?"

Quill glanced at the odd ship. "No. I've never seen a ship made with this kind of alloy either… I wonder where it came from." The ship had an oblong shape, covered with a black smooth hull and had absolutely no window or any door visible.

"We need to find a way in."

They turned around the mysterious spacecraft, running their hands on the hull and looking for a bump or anything that could reveal a door. Feeling restless, Peter used his jet-boots to jump on top of the slightly slippery surface, getting on all fours and hitting the hull with his fist until something gave in with a click. He stepped backwards when the trap opened suddenly like a jack-in-the-box, lost his balance, slid down the hull head first and found himself half buried in the sand, thankful to his mask for allowing him to breathe nonetheless.

Witnessing her friend's fall, Gamora sighed and ran the best she could back to him. The sight he offered was fairly comical, with his legs up kicking against the hull and his hands jutting out of the sand. She put a hand against one of his legs to let him know she was here. He stopped kicking, not wanting to hit her inadvertently, and she grabbed his hands to pull him out. They struggled for a moment until he popped out and landed on top of her, mask bumping against her helmet. They remained like this long enough to catch their breath then extracted themselves from each other awkwardly.

"I guess after all I'm not entirely immune to whatever this planet's doing to all of you," Peter said as he was getting back on his feet and vigorously dusting the sand out of his clothes, "I'm getting spectacularly clumsy."

Gamora snorted and helped him get rid of the sand stuck in his hair and mask. "What happened?"

"I've found a trapdoor on the top, then decided to dive with style into the fluffiest sand I've ever seen to impress you. Tell me it worked." he said playfully.

"Are you saying you fell head over heels for me, Star-Lord?" she answered with a mocking smile.

He paused and cocked his head a little, as if he was carefully choosing his next words. "I know I did."

There was a sudden seriousness in his tone that left her wondering if there was a terran expression she had missed somewhere in their conversation, but she didn't have time to ask as he jumped from one subject to another and asked her if she needed a lift to reach the upper side of the shipwreck.

She was tempted to decline his help as she didn't really need it; with proper time and readying she would have been able to climb the smooth and slippery surface on her own; but they were in a hurry and it was the fastest solution. She nodded and he grabbed her by the waist before activating his jet-boots and propelling them right on top of the craft, where the trap was still open.

The insides of the ship were even weirder than what they could see from outside, and way bigger. Everything was plunged into darkness but their helmets allowed Peter and Gamora to see that the corridor walls were finely decorated with what seemed like rich tapestries, marble and gold, and even a few statues of humanly shaped animals here and there.

"This ship must be heavy as hell," Peter commented. "Making it fly would require an unnecessary amount of energy… I mean, that's pretty if you're into that sort of shit, but who would do that?"

Gamora shrugged. "Saving energy was probably not a problem for whomever they were."

"Now I'm curious about their engines room," Quill said while opening another door giving into another break room. "If they ever had one."

"Now that we're inside, I think it was a luxury cruise ship," Gamora said as she was closing a bedroom door. "The engines room must be on a lower level."

After opening at least two dozen doors and only finding big, overly decorated bedrooms, a restaurant and three rooms clearly dedicated to amusement, they found themselves in a stalemate.

"I don't get it," Gamora said, "Is there any door we missed?"

Peter frowned. "Not a visible one, anyways."

"You think they hid the door giving onto the lower levels? Why would they do that?"

The former Ravager shrugged and ran his hand on the finely decorated wall in front of him. "Dunno. Maybe this floor is for insanely rich people only and they didn't want the lower classes to mingle with them?"

"That's… possible, actually." Gamora did the same as him and searched for asperities that could show a hidden entrance on the opposite wall.

They inspected the walls for a few moments before Peter called her. When she reached his position, she could see the thin slit between two slabs of marble, and no obvious way to open it. Quill was examining the nearest statue, then chuckled and pressed on one of its eyes. The doors slid open in an instant, revealing an aseptic corridor contrasting with the luxury surrounding them.

"I've always wanted to do that!" Peter said proudly, and even if she couldn't see his face due to him wearing his mask, Gamora could have bet he was grinning like a child.

They crossed the corridor to an elevator door and pried it open with difficulty, to find the car stuck between levels and no way to get around it. Before Peter could think of another solution, Gamora unsheathed her sword and cut the cables holding the elevator, which went down after two tries and crashed in an instant as the cut cables went flying all around them. Peter yelped and threw himself on the ground to avoid being cut in half while Gamora hid behind the wall, smiling.

"Wow," Quill said, picking himself up, "That's efficient for sure… but next time, give a guy a little notice, okay?"

Gamora shrugged nonchalantly and jumped down the shaft, grabbing the ladder effortlessly and starting her descent. Peter shook his head, laughing a little and followed her wordlessly. They reached the level below and found the doors jammed on a semi opened state that only Gamora could sneak in. She jumped down through the narrow passage and forced the doors open so that Peter could join her.

This floor was clearly destined to welcome well off travelers with its walls soberly decorated with a few paintings here and there and ground covered with rich blue carpeting. The first doors they opened lead into comfy bedrooms which, unlike the upper floor, showed signs of life with the beds undone and some personal belongings discarded in the closets.

The next room they went into was a vast break room with comfortable looking armchairs and a breakfast buffet. Some of the chairs were upside-down and some dried out pastries were scattered across the floor.

"They obviously left in a hurry." Gamora commented. When Peter didn't answer, she turned around to find him enthralled by a giant poster on the wall that looked like a map of an unknown world. Next to it was a long text in writings she couldn't decipher and what looked like an overall chart of the ship. "Peter, what's wrong?"

"Tha… that's..." Quill answered with a lump in his throat, so obviously distressed about what he was seeing that she unconsciously came closer to him. He looked at her briefly and came back to the poster as if it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. "This is a map of Terra."

He stepped closer to the map and touched it carefully, as if he was afraid it would break up under his fingers.

"Are you sure?" Gamora asked.

"Yes," He showed her a big shape on the map. "This is America. I was born there... I don't even remember where exactly; I think it was in the Midwest, maybe? The States aren't specified…"

"Terrans do not have the technology to build this kind of ship, Peter."

"I know but… We had approximately the same map in my class room, there's no mistaking it."

"What do those writings say?"

"I'm not sure… It's been so long since I've seen something written in English, except for the comics that were in my backpack when I left. I'm not even sure it's English, but this," he showed her the inscription at the far end of the text, "is a date and it kinda makes sense, in a mind-blowing way."

"What do you mean?"

"If I'm reading this correctly, this ship was built in year 3725. I left Earth in 1988 and even if it's been hard to keep track of terran time, it can't be more than year 2020 now, probably less. This ship is from at least 1700 years in the future!" He stepped back, scratching the back of his neck in wonder.

"Considering that this planet jumps randomly through space and time, it is possible."

"Yeah… Now I really want to see their engines room. This is so weird."

Gamora pointed at the chart. "I guess we are here, and this room here looks like the bridge, right?"

Peter concentrated on the words written in small characters, trying to remember how to read English. Despite his mom's best efforts he wasn't a very good reader before leaving Earth and since his departure he had to learn how to decipher totally different languages and writings. When he looked at his beloved comic books, he got the general meaning of the story from memory and from the drawings, but it had been a very long time since he had really tried to read the words. And now, looking at a map showing places he couldn't name painfully reminded him how little he knew about his home-world.

"I think so… And if I'm right, this right here is the engine room, nine stories below us."

"Alright. I would like to inspect the bridge first and see if we can access the captain's log. I don't know about you, but I wonder where everyone is."

Peter nodded, following her outside the room and to the bridge. "Yeah, the shipwreck we visited with Rocket was full of dead crew members. I kinda thought we'd find the same thing here," he stopped when facing the closed door to the bridge. "Okay, this is a little unsettling."

The double door was barricaded with chairs and broomsticks, the sand that obviously had invaded the bridge seeping out of every crack and covering the floor and chairs with a thin film of tiny, shiny grains. No way were they opening that door.

Gamora stepped back, disappointed. "Too bad for the logbook."

Quill nodded. "Let's hope the engines room isn't flooded too."

They went back into the elevator shaft and down to the lowest level they could reach, spanned over the remains of the elevator car to find a large metallic corridor partially crowded with sand. The sand had penetrated through the broken windows on the right side of the ship, pooling on the ground in front of four rooms and creating high dunes which the two friends escalated the best they could, hoping something important wasn't buried in there.

"Look!" Gamora called while sliding down the fourth dune and pointing at a door on her left, "The engines should be here."

"Finally!" answered Peter, almost out of breath. They rushed into the room to find it intact. The place was filled with shut off computers, each connected by cables to small metallic boxes linked to the core reactor.

Quill inspected one of the small boxes, let out an excited giggle and went back a few steps to open the back of a computer while Gamora was looking at him, puzzled.

"What are you doing, don't we need a power converter? This doesn't look like one." she said, casting an eye at the room. "In fact, nothing here looks like our power converter. The technology might be too different… I think we should not waste anymore time in here and go."

She was about to leave the room when Peter stopped her. There was eagerness in his voice, enough to make her curious about it.

"What?"

"This," he showed her a small printed circuit card he had carefully took off, "is all we need." He was literally bouncing with excitement, like an overgrown puppy. "Rocket's gonna love this so, so much." He turned over and started to unplug the wires linking the computer to the small box and pocketed them.

Gamora crossed her arms impatiently. "Do you plan on explaining this to me or what?"

Quill was about to answer when a grating noise made itself heard in the room next to them. "Guess we're not alone in here after all," he whispered, then pointed at the box and the cables linking it to the core. "Help me take that out quick, we're gonna need it."

Gamora set herself to work, unplugging the box and carefully putting it in her bag, while Peter was following the cables to find where they connected with the core. He found a small hatch he opened and sneaked his arm in, feeling around to find the connection point and stretched to the maximum until he found what he was looking for. After a few tries, he managed to unscrew the small wires from their junction connector, and felt an uncomfortable burn under his wrist on his way out.

"Ouch!" he said shaking his wrist, "beware of the wires, some of them still have some residual power in and will burn you like a son of a bitch."

Gamora let out a small laugh at his expression full of imagery and bagged the wires. "Poor you."

"Yeah, poor me. Wanna check the rest of the rooms before we get out of here?" Quill asked, putting the shoulder strap of his bag over his head and readying himself for whatever they might find.

Gamora pondered their options for a short while. They needed to leave the planet while they still were in their own space-time. But she was curious and having a chance to find out what had happened to the passengers and crew of this ship won over caution. She smiled, realizing that Peter's own adventurous spirit and recklessness were rubbing off on her. "Okay, but quickly."

They had to kick the door to the next room as it was partially jammed with a sticky substance. When it finally opened, it led them into the biggest room they had seen on this ship and it was filled with human-sized pods lined up like toy soldiers. The two friends kept moving to reach the closest pod and found it occupied by what used to be a man in a hibernation state. Now it was a desiccated body covered with tiny swarming bugs, not unlike the creatures that had attacked the Milano earlier, but on a much smaller scale. The bugs had weaved their cocoons all inside the pod and the man.

"Poor guy," Peter whispered, mesmerized and disgusted at the same time. "I hope he didn't wake up to this… that's an awful way to go."

Gamora nodded and stepped backwards to look at the other pods and an open cap standing out in the second row caught her attention. On their way to take a proper look at it, they discovered that almost all the pods were filled with corpses and bugs. Some of the victims had clearly woken too late to fight their demise, face and body stuck in a haunting tortured expression.

"I'm so gonna have nightmares about this." Peter said in a whisper, almost bumping into Gamora as she stopped abruptly in front of the open pod. The thing had obviously been forced open from the inside. The hinges were standing out, almost ripped from the frame and the glass cap was smashed in its center as if something powerful had kicked it open. Blood and slime pooled at the bottom of the pod, slowly dripping on the floor as a few bugs were swarming around the oxygen and nutrients inlet. "Well, now we know how those things got inside the pods," Quill said quietly. "The other bodies seem to have been in that rotting state for a long time, but doesn't this look awfully fresh to you too?"

"I have a bad feeling about this," Gamora murmured, tensing up. "We should go."

"Agreed!" Peter shouted, catching her by the arm and forcing her to run with him. She followed trustingly but turned her head to see what had startled him, and swore loudly. Behind them stood a hybrid, half-human half-creature, head cocked to the side and studying them threateningly. Unlike the creatures they had encountered earlier, it was standing on two legs and had a humanoid posture, but that probably was all that was left from the terran it once was. It looked like a skeleton, as if all its internal organs had disappeared and its skin had shrunken to stick to the bones, and its head had morphed into a hideous combination of human and insect. It also wasn't silent and emitted a weird combination of clicking and gurgling sounds. Elsewhere in the room, some kicking and smashing noises were starting to ring out and more pod caps popped open. Not wasting any more time, the two guardians escaped the room, hurried as fast as they could through the sand filled corridor, rushed into the elevator shaft and started climbing their way back to the top deck.

"Dammit, they're fast!" Quill exclaimed, looking down as they were about to reach the third level. Below them, a dozen of mutants were massing together into the shaft and a few of them had already started to climb the walls in the style of a very, very gross and nightmarish Spider-Man. The former ravager swore and drew his blaster, wincing when his hand protested as the burn started to hurt badly, and fired against the creatures that were catching up with them. Thankfully they still couldn't tolerate electrical shock and dropped like flies, getting in the way of the others.

Since he had not stopped climbing the ladder, Peter bumped his head against Gamora's foot. She didn't give him time to ask what was wrong and showed him a new wave of creatures coming from the now opened elevator doors to the fifth floor above them, and the doors to the eighth floor were currently being forced open too. She drew the stun-gun Rocket had given her and gave a nod to Peter who nodded back. Things were about to get ugly.