“Yeah, you do.”
Gamora stepped closer. “Would you be capable, Rocket?”
“I’m capable of a whole lot, Gam.”
“Yes. But would you have done it?”
Rocket’s eyes narrowed as if it were a trick question. Finally, he shrugged. “Nah. Probably not.”
“No?”
“She’s your family, ain’t she?”
“In a way.”
“Well, I’m part of this stupid team, so I guess that makes her my family, too. And I don’t sell out family,” As an afterthought, he grumbled, “Just don’t expect me to always like ’em.”
“That is reasonable.” Drax extended his hand. “I apologize.”
They shook on it, Rocket’s hand dwarfed in Drax’s.
“Aw, good, we’re all friends again,” Quill said, clapping. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make a few calls.”
THE NEXT morning, Ka-Lenn stopped by the Vadin workyard early.
“Don’t make that face, man,” Peter said.
“It smells,” Ka-Lenn complained.
“You think?” Peter glanced at Gamora, who sat beside him on a gleaming stack of stirium sheets. She merely shrugged in response. The workyard stretched past her. Rows of ships stood parked haphazardly around the yard, bordered by a massive multilayered warehouse. Helper bots fussed back and forth, fetching requested supplies and tapping automated cranes into action. Peter supposed the workyard did sort of stink—of fuel, of metal dust, of grease, of aeroserin, and more—but he enjoyed it. It was a smell of promise.
Not far away, Rocket and Groot zipped around the ship, projecting holos of different cargo bay entryways to see which fit best and which features they wanted. Groot had merged with the Collector’s Grootlings the day before. The process had only taken a few seconds.
Gamora focused on Ka-Lenn. “Tell us about Kiya.”
He looked at her flatly. He had not been too impressed when Peter had suggested meeting up. Apparently, he took “getting stuffed in a closet” personally.
Still, they had enough to discuss that it wasn’t hard to convince him.
“I offered you proof yesterday,” he said, annoyed, “that she was recovered alive—”
“That’s a low standard to meet,” she interrupted. “How is she? Where is she? When can we see her?”
“I thought we had an understanding,” Peter said. “From what I hear, Kiya isn’t the only part of the Collector’s museum the Kree retrieved after recognizing the technology as their own. A tip like that should be worth something.”
Ka-Lenn rubbed his forehead. “You people are insufferable. Please tell me you’ll leave this galaxy the moment that sorry excuse for a ship is fixed.”
“That depends on your answer.” Gamora stared at him in a way that would’ve sent lesser men quivering.
“Kiya is fine. She’s completely unharmed. Apparently, her first reaction was ‘What took you so long?’ You must have rubbed off on her.”
Peter could’ve sworn he saw pride in Gamora’s face. A twitch of her lips, a glint in her eyes.
Ka-Lenn hopped onto a stack of stirium sheets across from them, drawing up and crossing his legs. “We’re not removing Kiya’s implants. For one thing, they’re too deeply intertwined with her biological functions at this point. It might kill her. For another, we don’t particularly want to remove them. She’s one of the few subjects the grafting process worked well on.”
“She’s in constant pain,” Gamora said.
“The implants failed her more than once,” Peter added. “The rest of her body isn’t set up for them.”
“Only because she escaped too soon. We’ve talked it over with her. We’ll perform a few surgeries to minimize the pain and complete the process. Admittedly, she isn’t thrilled, but she agreed. After that, she’ll stay in our care.”
Peter barked out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Ka-Lenn stretched, then slumped back to lean on his arms. He gave Gamora and Peter a once-over. “What are you going to do about it, exactly? We can’t safely remove the enhancements, and my colleagues would be very upset if we let our property out of our sight. We could kill her, but she’s a valuable subject. And she’s agreed to stay, under certain conditions we’re still discussing but will likely acquiesce to. I don’t see how any of this involves you. Honestly, I’m the one with the right to be upset here: I wanted all of you out of my hair, and instead this child who could rat me out at any moment is going to stick around.”
“I want to talk to her,” Gamora said.
“That’s nice.”
“Who’s performing the surgery?”
“Me and my team,” he said without hesitation. “That means you’ll want to keep me intact—I’m the girl’s best chance of success.”
“Perfect.” Up until now, Gamora had been direct, but calm. Now she sounded outright vicious. She leaned in. Her hands wrapped around the edge of the stirium stack, and her eyes settled on Ka-Lenn’s. “We have two proposals. The first proposal: If Kiya dies, or anything goes wrong during her surgery, I kill you. I don’t care if it was an accident. I don’t care if it wasn’t your fault. I don’t care if you spent hours trying to save her life, and it’s the biggest regret of your career. I don’t care if someone else walks in and shoots her out of the blue, before you can act. If she dies, you die.”
“That…” He blinked. “That is tremendously unreasonable.”
“Yes,” Gamora said, “and it’s what’s happening. Kiya is inconvenient to you. I won’t let you ‘accidentally’ slip up in surgery and eliminate that problem.”
He looked away, glaring at nothing in particular.
“Cheer up, buddy,” Peter said. “Our second proposal doesn’t involve killing you at all.”
“Why did I even come here?” Ka-Lenn wondered aloud.
“Because we can get you court-martialed! It’s great!” Peter said, delighted.
“Are you done? You know, when you asked me to meet you at a workyard, I thought you might have repaired my car.”
“Hang in there,” Peter said, holding up one finger. “We were busy yesterday afternoon and evening. We’ve talked to the DiMavi government to let them know what happened, and suggest our plan of approach. They agreed. They were also grateful enough for solving all this and dropping Annay into their laps to give us honorary citizenship on top of a basket of local treats and alcohol. I quite like these people. We’ve also talked to some members of the Vadin Elder Council. They suspected DiMavi of the attack straight away, but given the number of DiMavi civilians injured and killed, well…it’s enough to cast doubt, and they can’t prove anything. They’re also pret-ty embarrassed about being unable to keep either their own people or their DiMavi guests safe during a peace ceremony, of all things. They need a scapegoat.”
“You?” Ka-Lenn suggested hopefully.
“Tempting!” Peter said.
Gamora was still shooting death glares at Ka-Lenn, but it didn’t stop her from pitching in, “And unfortunately plausible.”
“Yeah, given the involvement of the Grootling, we’re easy targets.” Peter smiled. “But hundreds of people saw our Groot on stage right beside him—so we’re off the hook. They thought Groot ate him or something. They don’t know it’s really the same Groot. So here’s the story we’re feeding them, and that you’ll enthusiastically back up: The people behind the attack are the same Kree bandits that attacked DiMave four years ago.”
“That seems unlikely.”
Peter shrugged. “Let’s say they’re still bitter over getting chased out of DiMave after the Maraud. They dressed up as Kree soldiers, got their hands on a biological weapon, and tried to make a mess out of the peace ceremony. We’re running with it. It gives the Kree a safe, minimally political target, allowing them to save face and go after someone, and it gives the DiMavi some semblance of seriously overdue justice for the Maraud. Like I said: You’re going to back it up. Because the moment you let slip there wer
e DiMavi involved, we’ll tell the Kree precisely how the Collector got his hands on their tech.”
“See?” Gamora said. “That proposal did not involve killing you. We’re true to our word.”
“Hurray,” he said gloomily. “And then you’ll actually leave me in peace?”
“Once we have our Grootling, we’ll never contact you again,” Peter said.
“And another thing,” Gamora said.
Ka-Lenn winced.
“I want to talk to Kiya.”
50
GAMORA met Kiya in the military hospital outside the capital of Vadin.
She got a lot of wary looks as she sat in the guest recreation area on the ground floor. She couldn’t tell whether the Kree patients, visitors, and staff recognized her as Gamora, deadliest woman in the galaxy, or as Gamora, one of the Guardians—who had recently either saved the day or mucked things up, depending on who you asked.
All those perceptions were true, anyway.
Kiya sat down across from her. “Say the word,” Gamora said, “and I’ll get you out.”
“I meant what I said. I want to stay.”
Gamora scrutinized her face for signs of duress or brainwashing, and found none. Kiya didn’t seem afraid, either, aside from the undercurrent of wariness that had permeated their every interaction.
Kiya simply sat in her chair across the small round table, leaning back and twirling the glass of ninati juice before her.
“You wanted life to go back to normal,” Gamora said. “This isn’t it. You’ll be trapped again.”
“I know. But…” She kept playing with the juice. “Normal is gone. The Kree can give me safe. That’s good enough. They’ve agreed to my terms: They’ll complete the enhancements that were already in progress, but not implant anything new. They’ll inform me thoroughly before each surgery or assessment. They’ll train me to use the implants optimally, but with a focus on self-defense. They’ll let me visit my remaining family and friends on DiMave, as long as I’m with an escort. They’ll let me continue my studies—they’ll even give me my own greenhouse and supplies.”
“And you will be trapped.”
“On. My. Terms.” Kiya looked up, shifting her focus from the juice to Gamora. “They can keep me safe from Tivan. As long as I’m in their care, he’ll think twice about coming for me again. For now, that’s enough.”
“What if they change their minds?”
Gamora had dreaded Kiya inevitably leaving the Guardians, but she’d known it was for the best. She’d imagined the girl undercover, hidden, building her own family and her own life. That way, even if Gamora had to lose her immediately after finding her, Kiya would still be safe. She deserved a different kind of life from the one Gamora led.
Different, not better: There was nothing bad about Gamora’s life with the Guardians. They were her family. They were her friends. She admired no one more.
The Guardians of the Galaxy simply weren’t right for Kiya. Gamora had accepted that. Still, leaving Kiya here to be the Kree’s guinea pig—that was worse than she’d imagined.
“The Kree agreed to let me stay in touch with the Guardians,” Kiya said.
Gamora paused. “Oh?”
“With you.”
She sat silently for a moment. “With me.”
“You’re the one who told me about the plan to hand me back to the Collector.”
“I didn’t tell you. I asked you.”
“Which should never have been up for debate.” Kiya dipped her head, and her voice took on a harsher edge. “I know why Rocket didn’t want to tell me—but he should’ve.”
“He should’ve.”
Whatever anger Kiya felt, she either managed to dissipate it or tuck it away, because when she looked back up, her eyes were neutral. “I’ll be able to call every week or two to let you know how things are going here, and to keep up on how the team is doing. If that’s all right with you.”
“Yes,” Gamora said slowly. She hadn’t realized how heavily her thoughts about Kiya—about leaving Kiya—had weighed until now, as they lightened and faded.
Kiya wanted to stay in touch.
That was all Gamora wanted.
“Yes,” she repeated. “That’s all right with me.”
“Good.” Kiya sipped her ninati juice.
“If they mistreat you, let us know. We’ll come get you. It won’t be the first time we we go up against the Kree, and it won’t be the last.” Gamora leaned in. One final time, she asked: “Are you sure?”
This time, Kiya didn’t answer so quickly. For a moment, Gamora feared that maybe Kiya really did doubt her decision, that the Kree had threatened her. Then Kiya did something Gamora hadn’t expected:
She smiled.
“It’s not what I thought I wanted.” Kiya seemed to be thinkingthrough her words as she said them. “But the life I wanted back isn’t there anymore: I’d have to build it up from scratch. So maybe I should see what’s out there, first.”
“It’s a big universe,” Gamora said.
“Yes. I’ve seen a lot of the bad, now. But I don’t want to run from the rest before I even get to know it.”
Gamora cocked her head. She said nothing.
“How is Groot?”
“He’s good. He’s back to being himself. Only one Grootling left to find,” Gamora said. “I asked him what you wanted to know—why he sacrificed himself for you in the bar on DiMave.”
“What did he say?”
“I am Groot.”
“Very funny. What did he mean?”
“He meant: I am Groot.”
“Oh.” Kiya’s lips twitched with a smile. “Hey, I thought…wasn’t Drax coming?”
“He’ll be here. He had an Accuser to visit in the south wing. Something about a rematch.”
“She survived the spores?”
“She was the only one who did. The Accuser armor protected her. She’ll recover, in time.”
“How many others…?”
Gamora gave Kiya a long look, then shook her head. “It wouldn’t help to know the number.”
Too many, was the answer. Even if only a single person had died from the spores, it was too many.
“But what happened is my responsibility.”
“You played a part in it against your will, as a result of desperation. That’s very different. It’s enough to know that it happened; what you do with that knowledge going forward…that’s your responsibility.”
Gamora had done this. She’d chosen to fight alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy.
What Kiya would do—that was her own choice.
Gamora looked forward to seeing her make that choice.
WHAT?” Rocket said, following the others out of the shuttle. He squinted in the evening gloom, which painted the sky above the nearby trees a colorful pink-purple shade. “This is the middle of nowhere! Don’t tell me this is where Ka-Lenn keeps his Grootling.”
“Nope,” Quill said. “Gamora’s already picking him up.”
“Then what else does Kree-Lar have for us?” He shook his leg as something crawled over his foot. “Ugh, nature.”
“It’s more about what we have for Kree-Lar.”
Rocket scrunched up his face. “That ain’t informative, Quill.”
“I am Groot,” Groot snickered.
He watched as Quill and Groot reached back into the shuttle and rummaged around.
“How’d your talk with Tivan go, anyway?” Rocket asked.
“Oh, you know,” Quill called back. “Good alcohol, terrible company, obligatory tour of the known marvels of our universe. I feel we reached an understanding, though.”
“Does the understanding include, don’t put your flarking paws on Groot ever again?”
“Yes, actually.” Quill and Groot walked away from the shuttle, each holding an identical rectangular object covered in black drapes.
“You got boxes,” Rocket said dubiously.
“I negotiated for a peace offering,” Quill corrected hi
m.
Rocket pointed at Groot’s box. “Your peace offering is making funny noises.”
“I am Groot?” Groot raised the box and pressed his face flat to the top. He smiled. “I am Groot.”
“What do you mean, they’re excited?”
They walked toward the edge of the woods. Rocket followed, tromping through the grass and swatting away bugs.
“Who’s they?” he asked. “Excited about what?”
Finally, Quill and Groot crouched and set down the boxes near the tree line. Quill took the cloth on Groot’s box and plucked it off, quickly following it with his own. “Ta-da!”
Rocket stared at the contents.
They hadn’t been holding boxes—they’d been holding cages.
And the cages held—
“Rodents?” he said.
“Raccoons,” Quill corrected him. “Earth raccoons from the Collector’s museum. We’re setting them free.”
Rocket looked up, his face a mask of horror. “They’re disgusting.”
“I am Groot,” Groot admonished.
“How’re they cute? Look at ’em! Look at those hands!”
“They’re family, however distant they might be, and we’re going to treat them right,” Quill said. “I named this one Fluffy, and that one’s Squishy, and that one’s Stinky-Butt because on the way back from the Collector’s—you know, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rocket glared. This was ridiculous. This was embarrassing. This was outright offensive. He still couldn’t resist pointing out, “You missed one.”
“Oh! Yeah. I figured you get to name that one.”
Rocket peered at the fourth raccoon. It seemed to be the runt of the set. It was gross and hairy and made an angry sound at them, or maybe at the world in general.
“I don’t wanna name it,” he huffed. “It’s just an idiot animal.”
“I am Groot.”
“Ugh, no. Groot is a good name for a tree, bad name for a rodent.”
“Raccoons aren’t rodents, actually,” Quill said.
“Changed my mind,” Rocket announced. “I call it Peter.”
“Awwww—!”
“Now get rid of them. I think Squishy’s got some kinda disease.”
Guardians Of The Galaxy: Collect Them All Prose Novel Page 31
