Chapter 04

Ronan is destroying Xandarian outposts throughout the galaxy,” Nova Prime was arguing from her top-floor office at the headquarters of the Nova Corps. She was a human in late middle age, with a record of skill and resolve in handling diplomatic problems, but the Kree were frustrating her. She tried not to show how angry she was at their refusal to do anything about Ronan’s attacks. “I should think that would call for some slight response on the part of the Kree.”

“We signed your peace treaty, Nova Prime,” the Kree ambassador replied. “What more do you want?”

“At least a statement from the Kree Empire saying that they condemn his actions. He is slaughtering children. Families.”

“That is your business,” the ambassador said. “Now I have other matters to attend to.” He pinched his fingers shut, closing the video link without even pretending to be polite.

Nova Prime muttered something extremely impolite and turned to see one of her officers approaching. “Well, there’s some good news,” he said. “It looks like we’ve apprehended one of Ronan’s compatriots.”

Many floors below, in the Nova Corps inmate processing center, Corpsman Dey—who had helped Peter Quill to his feet an hour before—was identifying and cataloguing the new prisoners. “Gamora,” he read from a display, as the green woman stood impassively in a holding area. “Surgically modified and trained as a living weapon. The adopted daughter of the Mad Titan, Thanos. Recently Thanos lent her and her sister, Nebula, out to Ronan, which leads us to believe that Thanos and Ronan are working together.”

Dey moved on. “Subject 89P13 calls itself Rocket,” he said. “The result of illegal genetic and cybernetic experiments on a lower life-form.”

Rocket spat on the floor.

Dey cycled to the next new prisoner. Behind him, his superior officer, Saal, was startled by the sight. “What the—?”

“They call it Groot,” Dey said. “A humanoid plant that’s been traveling recently as 89P13’s personal houseplant-slash-muscle.” The huge treelike being’s arms were beginning to regenerate, Dey noticed. It would probably be back to normal by the next day.

Then he came to the last of them. “Peter Jason Quill, from Terra.” In the holding cell, Quill was making a rude gesture. “Raised from youth by a band of mercenaries called the Ravagers, led by Yondu Udonta.”

Pursing his lips, Saal said, “Transport all four to the Kyln.”

Floating in the midst of an asteroid field that was the remains of a destroyed planet, the Kyln was a space station prison on the remote edge of the Xandarian sphere of influence. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary station, perhaps supporting asteroid mining or research. But its inside was crammed with some of the most hard-core criminals that sector of the galaxy had ever known.

“I guess most of Nova Corps want to uphold the laws,” Rocket was saying as he, Groot, Gamora, and Peter were processed into the Kyln. “But these ones here? They’re corrupt and cruel. But hey,” he added with a chuckle, “that’s not my problem. I ain’t gonna be here long. I’ve escaped twenty-two prisons. This one’s no different.” Rocket glanced over his shoulder at Peter. “You’re lucky Gamora here showed up, otherwise me and Groot’d be collecting that bounty right now, and you’d be getting drawn and quartered by Yondu and those Ravagers.”

“I’ve had a lot of folks try to kill me over the years, and I ain’t about to be brought down by a tree and a talking raccoon,” Peter shot back.

“What’s a raccoon?” asked Rocket, like it might be an insult he’d never heard.

“What’s a raccoon? It’s what you are, stupid.”

“Ain’t no thing like me, ’cept me,” huffed Rocket indignantly.

“So this Orb has a real shiny blue suitcase, Ark of the Covenant sort of vibe,” Peter said to Gamora. “What is it?”

“I am Groot,” Groot said.

“So what?” Peter snapped. He repeated his question to Gamora. “What’s the Orb?”

“I have no words for an honorless thief,” said Gamora, not even bothering to look at Peter.

“Pretty high and mighty coming from the lackey of a genocidal maniac,” Rocket responded. Gamora turned and glared at him, but he continued defiantly and she looked away again. “Yeah, I know who you are. Anyone who’s anyone knows who you are.”

“Yeah, we know who you are!” Peter confirmed, but then he turned and quietly whispered to Groot. “Who is she again?”

“I am Groot,” Groot whispered back.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah. You said that.”

“I wasn’t retrieving the Orb for Ronan,” Gamora said. “I was betraying him. I had an agreement to sell it to a third party.”

Ahead of them, the lead guard in their escort keyed a code into a panel cybernetically wired into his forearm. Peter saw Rocket watching him and wondered why.

“I am Groot,” said Groot.

“Well, that’s just as fascinating as the first eighty-nine times you told me that,” Peter said, with all the sarcasm he could muster. Which was a lot. “What is wrong with the tree here?”

They went through a security portal and into a hallway leading deeper into the Kyln.

“Well, he doesn’t know talking good like me and you,” Rocket explained. “His vocabulistics are limited to ‘I’ and ‘am’ and ‘Groot,’ exclusively in that order.”

“Well, I tell you what, that’s going to wear real thin real fast,” Peter said. Then he heard something.

Music.

His music.

It was playing from a workbench in a storage area off the passage, and when Peter followed the sound, he saw one of the prison guards playing his music through his headphones from his tape player.

And he lost it.

“Hey!” he called out. “Put that away!”

The guard put the headphones on and Peter ducked through the open doorway. An alarm chirped and the door closed behind him. “Hey!” he said again. “Listen to me, you big blue bastard, take those headphones off. That’s mine. Those belong to impound.” Prisoners didn’t get to keep their personal belongings, but they were supposed to be stored securely, not picked over by thieving guards. The guard took the headphones off and stared Peter down.

“That tape and that player are mine!” Peter shouted, and that’s when the guard had had enough.

He came around the workbench and hit Peter with a stun baton that shot electricity through his body, doubling him over in pain. He screamed and hit the floor, but kept himself from collapsing completely. “That song belongs to me!”

It was all he had left from Earth. All he had left from his mother. Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1 was his last link to the boy he had been before the Ravagers took him.

The guard hit him with the baton again. Peter went down, and the guard hit him again. He didn’t remember anything for a while after that.

He recovered soon enough, but Peter’s usual upbeat mood was shattered. He couldn’t lose Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1. Prison didn’t scare him, but that did. The group was processed, given uniforms to wear, and escorted into the main yard. The whole time they were watched by automated floating drones that threatened to attack them if they stepped out of line. While they were getting dressed in their yellow prison clothes, Peter saw scars and crude cybernetic implants all up and down Rocket’s back. He didn’t say anything, but he felt a surge of sympathy for the obnoxious little animal. Everyone had a history, and Rocket’s had been especially cruel to him.

But at least Groot’s arms had grown all the way back.

The prison floors were circular, ringing a common area where prisoners played cards, talked, fought, and otherwise lived their lives under the watchful eye of the drones—and of a prison guard up in a central tower, who could see the entire area from his station. When Peter and the group emerged, the inmates started shouting and threatening them. Some threw things. A piece of some unidentifiable prison food hit Peter and he flinched.

At first Peter thought the prisoners were trying to hit him. Then he realized they were shouting Murderer! . . . and then he realized they were shouting it at Gamora. “Coming for you first, Gamora!” he heard one of them scream. “You’re dead!”

Peter looked at Rocket in confusion.

“It’s like I said.” Rocket shrugged. “She’s got a rep. A lot of prisoners here have lost their families to Ronan and his goons. She’ll last a day, tops.”

“No . . . The guards will protect her, right?” asked Peter.

Rocket laughed darkly at this. “They’re here to stop us from getting out. They don’t care what we do to each other inside.”

Peter looked at Gamora, seeing that she had heard everything Rocket said. She looked resolute. “Whatever nightmares the future holds,” she said to both Rocket and Peter, “are dreams compared to what’s behind me.”

Peter hoped Rocket was wrong . . . but in another moment he had his own problems, as a giant blue monster, barely humanoid, blocked his way. “Check out the new meat,” it said, and would have gone farther but Groot stepped up and extended two roots from his hand. The blue monstrosity didn’t register them as a threat until it was too late, and the roots were already growing into its nose. It cried out in pain as Groot lifted it from the floor. Peter was astonished. It must have weighed three hundred pounds, easy, and Groot didn’t seem to be straining at all.

The rest of the inmates stopped what they were doing to watch the show, and Rocket took full advantage. He stepped out into the space cleared around Groot and pointed at Peter. “Let’s make something clear!” he called out over the blue creature’s groans. “This one here is our booty! You wanna get to him, you go through us! Or, more accurately . . . we go through you.”

With a crunch Groot twisted his roots and dropped the blue creature to the floor. It lay there covering its face with its hands. Rocket and Groot strolled toward their cells, and Peter stepped over the moaning blue creature, looking out at all the inmates. He knew he was lucky to be under the protection of Groot. Nobody would mess with him now. “I’m with them,” he said, just to confirm what everyone had seen.

Gamora was in more trouble. Many of the inmates still had a grudge against her because they knew she had worked with Ronan, and that night Peter woke up at the sound of a struggle. As he sat up in the middle of a bunch of other sleeping inmates, he saw a group dragging Gamora down the hall.

She might have been an assassin, but he couldn’t just let her suffer whatever her enemies in the Kyln had planned. Peter got up and followed. Behind him, he heard Rocket mutter, “Quill. Where you going? Quill?”

A group of inmates pressed close around Gamora. One of them held a knife to her throat. “Gamora,” he rasped, “consider this a death sentence for your crimes against the galaxy.”

Peter didn’t know what to do, and it turned out he didn’t have to do anything right away because someone else had noticed the commotion. A shirtless, heavily muscled humanoid, his skin a swirl of red and green tattoos and ritual scars, stepped out of the shadows and said, “You dare!”

Gamora’s would‑be killers turned. When they saw who was speaking, looks of terror appeared on their faces and they backed away from her a little.

“You know who I am, yes?” the intruder asked.

“You’re—you’re Drax. The Destroyer,” one of them said.

“You know why they call me this,” Drax said as he approached the group.

“You’ve slain dozens of Ronan’s minions.” The inmate, who had been so bold with Gamora, looked like he wished he was anywhere else but facing Drax. Peter noticed Rocket next to him. They both watched the unfolding drama, wondering if they should intervene.

“Ronan murdered my wife, Ovette, and my daughter, Camaria. He slaughtered them where they stood and he laughed!” Drax said, his voice rising to a roar on the last word. “Her life is not yours to take. He killed my family. I shall kill one of his in return.”

“Of course, Drax,” the prisoner said. He bowed his head and held out his knife. “Here, I—”

Gamora saw everyone looking away from her, just for a moment, and she seized the opportunity. She moved faster than Peter could follow. All he heard was bones cracking and inmates yelling, and when Gamora stopped again she had a knife in each hand. One was held at the throat of the prisoner who had been so eager to kill her. The other was laid against the top of Drax’s collarbone, where an artery pulsed in his neck. He didn’t look scared, but he also didn’t test her by moving.

Peter started creeping into the room. “Quill!” Rocket hissed behind him. “What are you doing?”

Holding the knife at Drax’s throat, Gamora said, “I’m no family to Ronan or Thanos.” She took a step back and dropped the knives. “I’m your only hope of stopping them.”

Drax paused, then lunged forward, picking up one of the knives. He gripped Gamora by the throat and forced her up against the wall, brandishing it in her face. “Woman, your words mean nothing to me!”

“Hey! Hey, hey, hey!” Peter called out, stepping into the room. He had to do something.

Behind him, he heard Rocket mutter, “Oh, crap.”

“You know, if killing Ronan is truly your sole purpose,” Peter said, “I don’t think this is the best way to go about it.” He advanced slowly, showing his hands so this Drax character wouldn’t see him as a threat.

“Are you not the man this woman attempted to kill?” Drax asked.

“Well, I mean, she’s hardly the first woman to try to do that to me,” Peter said, trying to lighten the situation up a little. He showed Drax a scar on his side. “This is from a Rajak girl, tried to stab me with a fork. Right here a Kree girl tried to rip out my thorax,” he added, pointing to another scar at the base of his neck. “She caught me with—”

Drax was just staring at him. “You don’t care. But here’s the point.” Peter knew he’d gotten Drax’s attention, and Gamora was still alive, so things were working out okay so far. “She betrayed Ronan. He’s coming back for her. And when he does . . .”

Peter made a throat-cutting gesture. Drax looked puzzled. “Why would I put my finger on his throat?”

“What?” It took Peter a minute to figure out that Drax didn’t understand the gesture. “Oh, no, it’s a symbol.” He repeated the gesture. “This is a symbol for you slicing his throat.”

“I would not slice his throat,” Drax said. “I would cut his head clean off.”

“It’s a general expression for you killing somebody.” Peter turned to the other inmates. Didn’t everyone know that gesture? “You’ve heard of this. You’ve seen this, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the inmates said . . . but as soon as Drax looked at them, they all shook their heads. “No, no, no.”

Peter gave up and got literal again. “What I’m saying is, you want to keep her alive. Don’t do his work for him.”

For a long moment Drax still held Gamora against the wall. Then he let go of her throat. She collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. Drax walked out of the room. On his way he said to the ringleader of the inmates, “I like your knife. I’m keeping it.”

A minute later, Peter was following Gamora back to her cell. “Listen,” he said, “I couldn’t care less whether you live or whether you die.”

“Then why stop the big guy?” she asked.

“Simple. You know where to sell my Orb,” Peter said.

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “How are we going to sell it when we and it are still here?”

Peter grinned. “My friend Rocket here has escaped twenty-two prisons.”

“Oh, we’re getting out,” Rocket said. “And then we’re headed straight to Yondu to retrieve your bounty.”

This was not what Peter had in mind. “How much was your buyer willing to pay you for my Orb?”

She paused. “Four billion units.”

“What?” Peter and Rocket said simultaneously.

“That Orb is my opportunity to get away from Thanos and Ronan,” Gamora said. “If you free us, I’ll lead you to the buyer directly and I’ll split the profit between the three of us.”

Four billion units. Even split three ways, that was enough that none of them would ever have to work again. They’d be lying awake at night thinking of ways to spend their money.

“I am Groot,” said Groot from the other side of the fence separating the hall from his cell.

“Four of us,” Rocket said. “Asleep for the danger, awake for the money, as per usual.”

Groot growled, but the deal was struck. Now it was time to plan the escape.