Somewhere on Knowhere: Book Three

16

Peter Quill was bored. Like, bored, bored.

Things were different on the Milano now. Now that stupid trash panda had let him join the crew. It wasn't like he wasn't cool or amusing or anything. He was both cool and amusing. Also incredibly and undeniably annoying.

There was also a huge Gamora-shaped hole in the atmosphere, which was impossible to ignore, even with Blue Swede playing in the background. It didn't feel like 8 months since that last visit to Earth, fighting Thanos, Gamora's death and apparent resurrection and gaining a new crew member. Things had gone downhill since then and they hadn't had a pay day in ages. No obvious evil empires trying to take over the galaxy by making their plans completely obvious by announcing them to the world. They paid well.

So that's why Quill could be caught doing something he very rarely ever did (because it was Gamora's job). Reading through the reports of things that had happened in the galaxy recently to see if anything would potentially pay well. Maybe someone wanted they could bring down. Anything.

And it was boring.

Quill looked up from the little screen he was looking at and sighed. He'd accept any company at the moment, even Nebula's, who, of course, was not here, but wherever the heck Gamora was. Drax was doing whatever Drax did. Mantis was likely with him. Rocket was with the god and Groot was obviously with him. So he was alone with just Blue Swede to accompany him.

Then the little portable screen buzzed in his lap. Quill looked down at it, intrigued, because a new report had just literally popped up. Maybe this could be worth a couple million units.

In Knowhere? Great. Knowhere was the worst.

The Sovereign were involved? Even better.

A Ravager craft was involved, but no Ravagers were? Strange...

Damn, there was a wanted person and an accomplice involved, but wanted by the Sovereign. Well, that was just great, seeing as they were also wanted (dead) by them. Quill sighed, but kept reading the article. It was being updated as he read, and while he'd never admit it to Rocket, he did actually enjoy helping people and actually putting the effort in, not just the money. Not as much, of course.

Wow, as he read, Quill had to admit his respect for this wanted guy – Loki he was called. How did you pronounce that? Lock-y? His accomplice looked familiar in the one snapshot they had of him, but he wasn't sure why yet. Apparently Loki had really offended the Sovereign in some way about a week ago and then outrun the entire fleet of ships sent after him, which was no easy task. He'd managed to evade them for a week, when there'd been a call from someone on Knowhere. Less than an hour ago, the Sovereign had sent a whole fleet of ships after him again, the first few hundred he'd tricked into dive-bombing the city and causing a giant explosion (respect) then managing to get out of Knowhere, only to be followed by, wow, two fleets of a thousand ships each, gone through four jump points before... after that it wasn't clear. Apparently he'd made all the ships explode mysteriously. But how was that possible?

Well, if the Sovereign was stupid enough to go after a guy like that, he was sure Loki would have some good times making them run around like headless chickens. He had Quill's respect.

Quill was still reading the article when the door opened and Rocket came in with Groot and him. He wasn't about to look like he was enjoying reading with Rocket around, so rearranged his face to one of boredom and started tapping his feet along to the song.

Luckily, Rocket hadn't noticed him. He was busy ranting about something, as always. Groot was nodding along, saying the occasional "I am Groot" to agree with him.