The Seven Revels

Cracks

Quill didn't like the shade of green Indigo's face had taken on. Her eyes were closed, but he could see them moving back and forth under closed lids. He wondered what she was dreaming about.

Nearly two days had passed since Milo had been captured. Indigo had awakened, long enough to let Quill know that her head 'hurt like hell'. Then she went out again, like a light. Quill had stabilized her as best he could before gathering those who were able to in the cockpit. Eve had taken a bullet to the bicep and Psi had also been hit pretty hard over the head. He wanted to come, but he couldn't go more than two minutes without throwing up. So Quill, Jen and Garrett convened in the cockpit to discuss what to do.

"We can't just leave him with them," Jen had argued.

"We can't sit around here and wait for them to come back," Quill replied. "We're fish in a barrel here. We can't chase them down, because we don't know where they were going."

"Jen, I know you want to save Milo, believe me, I do too," Garrett interjected. "But Quill is right. If we try to do anything now, we're all going to get killed. All we can hope for is that they decide Milo can be useful to them. If not, chances are he's already dead."

"I don't understand! Why did they only take Milo?"

"I'm guessing he was the only one of you four that the agent could get his hands on. Indigo and I managed to take out four of the other agents, but Indigo was hit hard and we had to retreat. The agents that attacked us didn't have the man power to take any more of us. They were just lucky that our pilot was the weakest one of us."

"Quill, Milo could be dead. Any chance you could lighten up on the insults?" Garrett snapped.

"I'm not trying to insult him, asshat. Any of us could see he wasn't in the best state of mind. Hell, he could barely hold himself up at our meeting. There was no way he was going to be able to fight those assholes off. They were lucky they hit us when they did. Us? Not so much."

"I understand why it's safer for us to leave him," Jen said, sudden tears in her eyes. "But I really don't want to."

"We can't put all our cards down on the hope that he might still be alive. I heard what that agent said to him. I doubt he lasted more than an hour aboard the Cognitive."

Jen clamped her hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. After another moment she spoke in a strained voice. "He showed me a little about the controls. I'm sure I could get this ship flying again with a little bit of time."

"What's Indigo going to say when she wakes up and finds out what happened?" Garrett asked Quill as Jen sat herself down in the pilot's chair.

"How about we focus on if she's going to wake up," Quill said.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Quill glanced at Jen, who was running her hands lightly over the controls of the airship, then said in a hushed voice, "Come with me."

Garrett had followed him down the hall, past the long blood stain that ran from the leftmost wall to the bay doors, and pushing into the room he'd left Indigo in.

"I swear to God her heart stopped twice. I don't know what to do. That damn agent hit her so hard, I'm amazed he didn't smash her skull in. I mean, look at this!" He held up the agent's gun, which had been dropped and left behind. The handle of the gun was cracked and blood was spattered up from where it had hit Indigo. He dropped the broken weapon to the floor and very gently moved Indigo's hair from her neck. The back of it was drenched in blood, and a long, jagged cut was still oozing. The drying blood looked black in the weak light.