by Stuart Moore
The shield struck another wall, then a third, its speed barely slowing at all. It took out another clutch of Groot-limbs before Cap snatched it out of the air.
The room exploded in chaos. Jennifer ripped a spare oxygen tank off the wall and hurled it at Rocket, who scurried out of the way – almost. The tank hit him a glancing blow on the head, enraging him further. Jen was already on the move, wading into the thicket of Groot vines, punching and kicking.
Cap whipped his shield up and around, slicing through branches as quickly as they came at him. Rocket backed away, waving his cannon wildly.
Natasha was swearing in Russian at the controls. Groot reached for her with a fresh volley of branches; she turned and, electricity crackling on her wrist, fried them with a high-powered blast.
One of Rocket’s shots went wild, sizzling into the control panel. Natasha leaped away as a shower of sparks erupted. The ship groaned, tilted backward and then forward again.
Natasha moved to Cap’s side, kicking and firing her widow’s sting at the forest of Groot-limbs surrounding them. “So much for the wonders of ‘neogravitic repulsion’,” she said.
Cap flung his shield again, severing a fresh growth of Groot stems. The disk struck one wall, then rebounded from the ceiling just inches from the massive gap in the roof. A blank metal face appeared in the hole, flinching away from the impact.
“WHOA!” Peter Quill exclaimed. “What the hell?”
“Great,” Natasha said. “It’s Captain Svoloch.”
“Can we give him a different rank, please?” Cap asked.
Quill dropped down through the hole, retracting his faceplate. He looked around calmly, as if the sight of a shape-changing tree-man and a sentient raccoon mixing it up with the superhuman locals was an everyday occurrence. On this ship, maybe it was.
“Has somebody been using the Big Butt Beam?” he asked.
“That’s Big Burn Beam!” Rocket cried.
“Whatever. Not cool.” Quill ducked low to avoid Groot’s whipping vines, stumbling once as the floor shook, and approached Cap. “Hey man,” he said pleasantly. “You know this ship is falling out of the sky?”
Cap grimaced, sighed again, and punched him in the face. Quill went down.
“Cover me a minute,” Cap said to Natasha.
She nodded, dodging Rocket’s blasts and Groot’s flailing vines. “Nothing better than fighting in a glorified lifeboat.”
Cap ducked down behind a crash chair. Rocket was still firing that gun, dislodging pieces of equipment from what remained of the ceiling. Natasha joined Jen, her stinger blazing, blasting and ripping at Groot’s rapidly multiplying branches.
“Tony,” Cap hissed, touching the receiver on his ear. “Tony, where the hell are you?”
Chapter 23
“Patience, Cap,” Tony Stark replied. “I’m on my way.”
He arrowed upward, searching the sky for the quinjet. Below, more Kree had emerged from the factory. They milled around, staring at the destruction on the pier. A few of them gazed up at him with cold, hostile eyes.
“Well, you better make it quick.”
Cap’s voice sounded tense. Tony poured on a bit more power and felt his boot-jets kick in protest. He checked the power level: sixty-eight percent. Barely enough.
He passed the upper levels of the factory, glancing down at a long low structure on his left. It was completely windowless, with a corrugated-metal façade and a faded red, white, and blue American flag painted on its side. In his father’s day, the building had been a munitions dump, a storage and testing facility for government-commissioned weaponry. Now…?
“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” he subvocalized, “what purpose does that eyesore serve?”
“It’s listed as Employee Support Services,” the voice replied. “No details available.”
“‘No details.’ I’m getting tired of that phrase.” He frowned. “Detecting elevated heat signatures inside the place. Nothing nuclear, just…”
He cleared the roof of the factory, looked up, and immediately forgot the mystery of the faded-flag building. The reason for Cap’s call was clear: the Avengers’ quinjet wobbled dangerously, sputtering and leaking fuel. The Guardians’ battered little ship hung beneath, its “head” literally embedded in the quinjet’s sparking belly.
“Steve? Oh, Steven Grant Rogers?” Tony called. “Mother is not going to be pleased with your driving.”
A grunt and a thud came over the comm line. Great, Tony thought. Those space delinquents have started another rumble.
“Hang tight, Cap,” he said, jetting up toward the ships. “Let me see if I can wrench the two ships apart.”
“No!” That was Natasha’s voice. “Tony, the quinjet is completely inoperative. On its own, it’ll drop like a rock.”
Tony grimaced. The two ships lurched and sputtered, moving one way, tilting, then veering away again. On the ground, little groups of Kree gathered, pointing up at the aerial chaos.
“I’ll have to try and push you out to sea,” he said. “Much less chance of bystanders there, plus the inevitable touchdown should be a bit less fatal.”
No answer. Just more grunting, and the sound of something hard hitting metal.
“Is Quill causing trouble again? You’ve got Jen and Ms Marvel with you, right?”
“She-Hulk is with us.” Cap sounded out of breath. “Ms Marvel seems to have… fallen overboard.”
Guilt stabbed through Tony. He screeched to a halt below the fused ship and initiated a fast scan of the ground. Kamala, he thought. Kid, don’t be dead! She wanted so much to be an Avenger… What have I done?
“There,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. “The inland corner, between the factory and, errr, ‘Employee Services’.”
He looked down, zooming in on the ground. Relief flooded through him, followed immediately by a renewed sense of alarm.
“Good news and bad news,” he said. “Ms Marvel is alive.”
“What’s the bad news?” Cap asked.
“I think she’s fighting Gamora.”
The ships let out a terrible wrenching noise. Tony ducked, jetted away, and grimaced. The factory roof was less than thirty feet below.
“Gamora’s a trained killer,” Cap said.
“I can’t go down there right now,” Tony said. “If your little hybrid-ship experiment falls out of the sky–”
“I’ll help Ms Marvel,” Cap said. “You just do what you do.”
“Roger that.”
The ships were drifting away from the factory, circling down toward the mysterious warehouse building. Tony checked his power level: seventy-one percent. Still a little low…
Reaching out to steady himself in the air, he jetted in a horizontal line away from the ships. When he cleared the factory roof, he executed a hard U-turn. Boot-jets flared white as he shot straight toward the rear of the quinjet. The Guardians’ ship wobbled beneath, holding both ships aloft with whatever power was still active in its engines.
“Ouch,” Tony said, preemptively.
He slammed into the quinjet with a loud clang. Pain shot through his arm and shoulder; alarms rang in his helmet. His power level reading fluctuated wildly now, flickering on and off.
He pressed his shoulder against the fuselage, pushing, willing his boot-jets to full power. The quinjet’s rocket tubes gaped wide just below him, empty and cold. If the jet’s engine had been working, those rockets would have fried him alive.
“Come on,” he said. “Come on!”
Slowly, with a whine of protesting engines, the ships began to move. Back toward the roof, heading in the direction of the pier and the water beyond.
Tony risked a glance down. Kamala’s Ms Marvel suit was a blur of red and blue from this distance, as she leaped and stretched and changed shape. The blue kid, Halla-ar, was down there with her, along with a whole lot more Kree. The
y seemed to be holding their own against Gamora, but not by much.
A wrenching noise distracted him. He looked up from the ground to see a familiar costumed figure climbing out of a hole in the Guardians’ roof, onto the vessel’s protruding top fin. Cap looked up at him, smiled, and…
No, Tony thought. No, you corny bastard. You’re not gonna do it.
Cap saluted.
Then Steve Rogers, the living legend of World War II, turned toward the ground, flexed his legs, and without the slightest hesitation jumped off into the open air.
Tony shook his head, frowned, and leaned his shoulder against the quinjet. His power level was dropping again: forty-five percent. This wasn’t going to be easy.
I’ll help Ms Marvel, Cap had said. I hope so, Tony thought. Because I’ve got to keep a ton and a half of mangled machinery from slamming into, let’s say, the experimental nuclear reactor on the other side of this complex. Or, more likely: falling straight down on top of the Kree, the very people we’re trying to help.
He gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
Chapter 24
Gamora swept her sword in a wide arc, letting out a Zen-Whoberi battle cry. The girl jumped back, startled. She was a joke, that girl, a brightly costumed novice with powers she barely knew how to use. Not worth a minute of Gamora’s time.
The boy, Halla-ar, was the real threat. He’d clearly had combat training, and the fury in his eyes brought out the fire in her own. That fury, she thought, might be the rage of an orphan who’d seen his world burn. Or it could be something far more dangerous.
The Kree watched from a safe distance. One group sat on a factory loading dock, cheering Gamora on. Another group, clustered near the building with the flag painted on it, was rooting for Halla-ar. A tall crewcutted man yelled “Come on, kid! Take the outworlder down!”
Gamora shook her head. Was this just a game to them? Did they even care that there might be a world-killer in their midst?
Surprisingly, the girl recovered first. She formed her hand into the shape of a hammer – really? A hammer? – and charged.
Gamora stood her ground, held her sword high, and swung it around with lightning speed. The flat of the blade struck the Earth girl on the cheek, just below that ridiculous eye-mask, with a dull clang that filled the air. Not quite hard enough to break the skin, or to crack her skull. But close.
The girl cried out in pain and flew through the air. The Kree spectators gasped. When she struck the ground, a handsome Kree man with light blue skin grabbed hold of her, pulling her away through the low grass.
Halla-ar cast a quick, worried glance down at his fallen friend. Then he turned his eyes back to Gamora, fists raised in a defensive posture. Despite herself, she was impressed. Good warrior, she thought. Don’t allow sentiment to distract you from the battle.
“Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”
Gamora sheathed her sword. She studied his high cheekbones, the curve of his chin. If only she could remember… the face inside the dome, back on that doomed planet…
“Is it you?” she asked. “Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
She stalled for time, matching Halla-ar’s movements – maintaining the distance between them. The face in the fire, the visage she’d seen on Praeterus, still eluded her. This boy – it might have been him. But once again, she just wasn’t sure.
“The blue woman,” she said. “Kir-ra. She wasn’t the killer, but she knew the killer.”
“Kir-ra?” The kid looked puzzled. “My sister?”
“Sister…” She jabbed out, forcing the boy back. “Yes – oh yes, that makes sense. It is you.”
“What?” he cried. “What’s me?”
Gamora edged closer. Yes, she thought. That’s why she’d felt the evil on Kir-ra, back at the pier. It had come from this boy, from her brother. Maybe Kir-ra had even protected him, brought him to Earth, all unknowing. Never suspecting that his angry, youthful façade concealed…
“A planet-killer,” she hissed.
His eyes went wide. “A what?”
Doubt stabbed at her, making her hesitate. What if she was wrong? What if this was an innocent boy, forced by horrible circumstances to grow up too soon?
She forced herself to think, blocking out the cheers and jibes of the Kree onlookers. In her mind, once again, she saw the face of the little Kree girl. The girl she’d made a promise to, a promise she’d failed to keep. Had that girl survived the destruction of Praeterus? Or was she just another casualty, like so many others?
The memory of that girl – of all the murdered children – made Gamora’s blood boil. And Drax, her friend and comrade; his face too loomed in her mind, feeding her rage. Lips twisting into a snarl, she lunged toward Halla-ar–
–then jerked to the side, just an instant too late. A pair of steel-reinforced boots slammed down on her head, knocking her off her feet. Pain lanced through her skull; she tumbled sideways and dropped to the ground.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of red and blue fall from the sky. Captain America landed in an easy crouch, rose to face her, and raised his shield.
“One warning, Gamora,” he said. “Stand down.”
She rose to her feet, taking in the positions of her enemies. Halla-ar stood behind her, keeping his distance for now. The Kree were clumped in groups, watching. A few of them had crouched down against that odd building with the faded flag design, where they tended to the unconscious Earth girl.
And something was happening above. The ship? She couldn’t look. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the enemy.
“Stay out of this, Captain,” she snarled. “You have no idea why I’m here.”
“Your friends told me you’re hunting a killer.” He gestured at Halla-ar. “I don’t think it’s this boy. And I know it’s not Ms Marvel, the girl you swatted like a fly a minute ago.”
“It’s on him,” she said. “The evil that snuffed out a world.” She took a step forward, eyeing him. “Aren’t you supposed to be the Avengers? Doesn’t Praeterus deserve vengeance?”
“Avengers, yes. Not child-killers.”
He shifted, grimacing, keeping his shield up before his body. She raised an eyebrow, noticing the cast on his concealed arm. She reached for her sword.
“You’re not quite… whole, Captain,” she said.
“Stay back.”
And then she was within range, swinging her sword. He ducked, kicked out, and knocked the legs out from under her. As she stumbled, he brought that blasted shield up hard, right into her clasped hands. She cried out in pain as the sword flew free, flying up into the air.
Halla-ar moved in. She whirled to face him, thinking: catch me by surprise, boy? She aimed a jab straight at his face, but he avoided it easily. She kicked out, catching his flank, but he danced away, blunting the impact.
Captain America charged in hard, landing a punch on her stomach. She gasped and stumbled back, but managed to grab his shoulder and spin him around – slamming him shield-first into the surprised Kree boy.
“Gamora,” Cap gasped, tumbling back to his feet. “You don’t understand. Your ship…”
She ignored him; she couldn’t afford to fall for his diversions. She jabbed and kicked, keeping both enemies at bay. The fight strayed toward the tall factory building, scattering the group of Kree spectators – Gamora’s cheering section – away from the loading dock.
“We ought to get Horse out here,” a young Kree said. “He loves a good fight!”
Gamora had been trained in Kree fighting moves, but Halla-ar knew a few she’d never seen before, including a rapid-fire uppercut barrage that caught her by surprise. She ducked away and kicked him in the stomach, using a Strontian muscle contraction technique to sharpen her toe into a rock-hard tip. He covered his retreat with a series of jabs, but as soon as he was out of range, h
e stumbled and fell to the ground.
Cap’s technique was more conventional, but no less effective. He alternately jabbed out with that shield and kicked or punched, almost in a predictable rhythm: shield-kick, shield-jab, shield-shield-kick-again. He was favoring one side, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. Time after time she tried to get behind the shield, to grab at his wounded arm. But he protected himself well.
Slowly, one step at a time, Captain America forced her up against the wall of the factory. Gamora struggled, but he kept his shield – that shield, that cursed shield! – between them, using its curved surface to press her against the cold stone.
“Now,” Cap said, “are you willing to listen to reason?”
She looked out over the lip of the shield. Saw Halla-ar, a few feet away – and something else, too. A shadow dropping out of the sky…
“Not yet,” she said.
A puzzled look crossed Cap’s face and then the ground exploded in a barrage of force beams. As he flew up into the air, shield flailing, a small figure in an aero-rig descended, a sneer plastered across its hirsute face.
“Sorry, flag guy,” Rocket said. “But we got a planet-killer to catch.”
Captain America’s shield clattered down to Earth a moment before its owner did. As Gamora picked herself up, she thought with satisfaction: that toy won’t save your smug carcass this time, Earthman.
Chapter 25
“Dude? Terran kid, you OK?”
Kamala’s eyes flew open. A trio of faces looked down at her with concern. A young guy with a Mohawk, a middle-aged woman with hard eyes, and another young man with a kind smile on his pale blue face.
“Kree,” she said. “You’re all Kree.”
“It ain’t a crime.” Mohawk gave her a crooked smile. “Most places, anyway.”
They helped her to a sitting position. The rippled metal of that strange building felt cold against her back. “How long was I out?” she asked.
“Couple minutes,” Mohawk said. “Don’t worry, we didn’t take your mask off.”
