spacelagos

[spacelagos]

79. Information.

Blackjack smiled. “The Khail took ‘im. Surely you already knew that, right?”

Nothing on Des’ face betrayed how she felt about that. She just narrowed her eyes. “Where?”

“How am I supposed ta know? Kinda hard ta see anything when yer DEAD,” BJ said sarcastically.

Brock dismissed this. “Start over from the top. Where was Cocky when the Khail arrived?”

“Why, standing right where you are, beating the living daylights outta me with my own arm,” Blackjack said. Rocket started laughing heartily.

Des narrowed her eyes again. But Brock said, rubbing his chin: “That does sound like Cocky.”

She smiled venomously. “CLASSIC Cocky.”

Blackjack scoffed. Rocket hoped to find some footage somewhere.

“Alright, so he was standing there. And then the Khail arrived and took him,” Rocket said.

“How many of them were they?” Des asked.

“Two. That I could see? I’m telling you, he was REALLY doing a number on my—”

“Just a couple of Khail would have NEVER been able to take on Cocky if he was free, even unarmed,” Brock said with certainty.

“Have ya seen the SIZE of those things??” the hare said, skeptical.

“Was he hurt?” Des demanded.

“Not really,” Blackjack said. He looked at Des directly. “They used a sonic whip on him. Bet that stung,” he chittered.

Des was apparently grinding her own teeth to dust. Rocket thought Blackjack was enjoying himself too much and decided to intervene. “Okay, so he got incapacitated and then carried away?”

“’m assuming,” BJ said, trying to shrug.

“So it was then that you got shot,” Brock said.

Blackjack looked away. It was then that they saw an expression that even Rocket had very rarely seen in Blackjack O’Hare.

Fury.

[spacelagos]

78. Pliers.

“Tell me again why you asked me to bring this asshole back?” Rocket made a face of distaste.

“He’s gonna talk. Which shouldn’t be hard, since it’s his favorite activity,” Des said. “You can start by telling us where’s Cocky.”

Blackjack looked around and snorted. “Alright. Mebbe I will. Still, what’s in it for me?”

Brock threw his hands in an exasperated manner. “I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS.”

“The way I see it, you—” Blackjack started.

He never finished. Desiree grabbed BJ by the collar and roared in his face, green fire spitting from her eyes.

“LISTEN to me, you dirt rag reject. You’re not dealing with Cocky now. You’re dealing with ME. And either you tell me everything you know RIGHT. NOW. Or I’m going to rip off your tongue and FEED IT TO YOU!”

Blackjack laughed nervously. “Oh baby, when you’re so close, I could—”

“Rocket, give me some pliers,” Des said, and extended a hand, palm up, towards him.

Rocket was about to protest he didn’t have any pliers (of course he did and she would know that) and to maybe ask Brock for some. But Brock got up, turned around, and simply left the bridge saying: “I don’t have the stomach for this.”

“Oh, what is dis, bad cop, queasy cop?” Blackjack quipped.

“Rocket,” Des said again, twirling her fingers towards him.

A part of Rocket insisted he was only curious about what she was really gonna do instead of just admitting that having gone in a contest of wills against Desiree before, he simply did not have the energy or the commitment for another one. He put the tool in her hand, and BJ was about to say something when she simply straddled him, forced his jaw open with her left hand, and started fishing around the hare’s mouth with the pliers. Blackjack struggled and coughed tiny droplets of blood into her unflinching, unmoving face, her jaw so tense you could see the muscles moving under her cheek. The struggling turned to agony screams and Rocket, without really thinking, just pulled her away. If not by the fact the pliers slipped off the tongue, she would have surely had a grim memento of Blackjack slapping like a dead pink fish at the end of them.

“OW! Ow, you CRAZY broad??” Blackjack tried to cover his mouth but his hand flopped, useless, at the end of his right arm. Apparently, once the adrenaline had worn off and swelling had set in, the injury to his only remaining arm was worse than he had originally thought.

Des, still with the pliers in her hand, rolled off Rocket cleanly, jumped herself upright and went directly for Blackjack again. Rocket, still in disbelief of what he was doing (oh the Guardians had changed him, yes they had) stood between her and her prey.

“C’mon, I’m sure he gets the message by now,” Rocket said, in an eerie imitation of the tone Quill would use.

“I don’t hear him speaking,” Des said, and clacked the pliers twice, still looking at Blackjack straight in the eye and trying to get past Rocket.

“Gods of Asgard, FINE. What kinda heroes are you??? You tear an honest, working guy to pieces,” Blackjack complained.

“Jack, just shut the Hell up, man. I mean… you know what I mean,” Rocket warned.

[spacelagos]

77. Offline.

Des and Rocket had to go by the bridge to check on the lower level. Des stopped right on her tracks when she saw Brock.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Desiree asked.

Brock continued to poke and prod inside the nasty-looking hole in the middle of Blackjack’s chest.

“I think I can get him online again,” the tall lagomorph said.

“Online??” Des frowned. “Is he a robot, then?”

“This part is,” Brock said. “Goddammit. This is so weird. I don’t think I have ever seen this crap before, and—”

“Uh, I have,” Rocket said. He sighed and knelt down. “Gimme that.”

Brock never even hesitated and gave Rocket the tool. “What is even this thing??”

Rocket bit his lip. He seemed embarrassed. “Half-world tech. I’m from there too,” he muttered.

Des and Brocky exchanged a meaningful look. The meaning was “don’t ask.”

“Did you find Cocky?” Brock asked in a low voice.

“Not yet. We were right; he escaped. But we don’t know where he is. He’s probably unconscious somewhere. Maybe he lost too much blood and he’s in a hiding place,” Des said slowly.

Brock swallowed hard. “Des, you know it as well as I do… that hole in BJ’s chest was made with a plasma gun.”

“Plasma gun technology is not exclusive of the Khail Empire,” she quickly said in a bitter tone.

“That’s right, I have a plasma gun too,” Rocket said, trying to help. Although he knew it was probably useless. They had arrived too late, and all because he had been stubborn and arrogant enough to insist on using his gutted ship. He felt depressed and guilty. “Do we have a flashlight? It’s rather dark in here.”

Desiree just pointed her glove to the grim wound. Light came out of her knuckles. “Thanks,” Rocket muttered. Less than two minutes after that, Blackjack’s robotic eye opened.

There was a silence.

“Great. Just… great. Just flarkin’ GREAT,” Blackjack complained, coughing.

Before anyone could react, Desiree smacked Blackjack’s face with enough force to make his neck crack.

The hare just laughed tiredly. “Kinda late to the Blackjack piñata party, honeybuns.”

[spacelagos]

76. Fog.

The cage in the prisoner hold was closed tightly. Green smoke swirled around. Des immediately went to try to open it.

Rocket looked around. There was trash everywhere. Electronic parts, gas masks, open boxes and crates. He looked at Des, who seemed to just be punching codes in randomly.

“Here, let me,” he said, and hung his gun from his shoulder while he opened the panel that controlled the door. “Huh. This is rigged, probably by BJ. I’m gonna try to crack it.”

“Hurry,” Des said. “We don’t know if he’s hurt.”

“Is he even alive in there?” Rocket immediately bit his tongue. “I mean, is he even IN there?”

“I don’t know,” Des said. The cage was absolutely covered in condensation; it effectively made the glass completely opaque, obscuring the contents. She wiped the fogged up glass and tried to look inside. “He isn’t there!”

“Uh?” Rocket stopped.

“Cage’s empty! Look. See? There’s just chains,” Des said.

Rocket looked inside. “And some blood too,” he pointed.

Des sighed raggedly. “Could mean nothing. He was pretty beaten up when he got captured. But where is he now?? Does this ship have another prisoner hold?”

“No, this is the one. Besides, if he managed to get out and got recaptured again, I don’t see why they would put him in the same kinda cage he previously escaped from.” Rocket pocketed his tool. He pointed to the green swirls. “That’s sleeping gas. Knocks you out in under a minute.”

“And no one inside,” Des frowned. “If he didn’t get recaptured, then he is probably hiding somewhere in the ship.” She quickly ran out of the prisoner hold. “Cocky! Cocky, it’s us! C’mon, let’s get out of here!”

Rocket sighed and threw his hands up. “Oh, she can yell, but when I do it…”

[spacelagos]

75. Dirty.

The ship was very dark. The only lights working were the emergency ones. Sparks were flying everywhere and there were some alarming groans coming from the ship.

“Just what the flark happened here?” Rocket snipped.

“SHH,” Des ordered. Rocket shut his trap without protesting, and swung his very large gun around. But the overpowering stench of blood told the Guardian what his instincts were screaming: there was no one alive there.

They had lost Cocky’s signal a while ago. It had simply blipped out of existence. Both Desiree and Brocky had freaked out over it, until Brock reminded Des it could just mean Cocky’s nipple ring had been destroyed. Brock had his electric gun out, since all of Rocket’s guns were heavy and cumbersome. Des had borrowed one.

Rocket looked at all the corpses, debris, and pools of blood around, feeling his OCD jab him in the base of his spine. He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

Des looked around, then turned one of the corpses over with her boot. “Brock!”

“Oh, she can yell, but when I do it, it’s—” Rocket started. Brock completely ignored him and went to look at the corpse. Astonishingly, both Brock and Des smiled.

“Well, what is it? It’s just another guy for the pile,” the racoonish mercenary said, taking a look as well. He could see nothing special about it.

“This is Cocky’s handiwork,” Des beamed. “He managed to get away.”

Rocket’s jaw hung open. “Uh, Cocky killed ALL these guys?”

“At least these, yes,” Brock said, examining another one.

Rocket whistled. Well, he had seen the lagomorph kill a bunch of them in the other ship. Still, there was something very unnerving about all this. Despite Cockwell’s reputation, his demeanor was usually too goofy, both in looks and in attitude, to be really menacing. It was like turning over a cute and fluffy animal and finding a venom-dropping sting under there.

“C’mon, if he got loose, we need to find him soon. He might need our help; he might be injured or maybe he got recaptured again,” Des said urgently. “But he did manage to shave the numbers a good deal before that, it seems.”

“Lead the way,” Brock said. Rocket was about to protest again, but what was the use?

They reached the bridge, where even more corpses and damage could be seen.

“Krutacking HELL,” Rocket exclaimed, loudly. He knelt down. Blackjack O’Hare was lying there, almost unrecognizable. He had been beaten to a pulp, he was missing his left arm, and there was a fist-sized hole in the middle of his chest.

“Oh, he’s dead DEAD,” Des commented, tossing her head back. “How SAD. Anyway—”

“He won’t be able to tell us about Groot now,” Brock said, eyeing Desiree intently.

She had the decency to blush. “Um…”

Rocket got up and sighed. “It was a long shot anyway.” He shook his head. “I’ve been in this ship before. The prisoner hold is on the second level. C’mon, I’ll take you there. Brock, stay here and keep an eye on our ship; we don’t want any surprises.”

Brock just nodded and went to sit down, grateful.

Rocket and Des quickly made their way up.

“This is a massacre,” Rocket noted, nimbly jumping over the corpses and blood.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Des asked.

It did. Being with the Guardians had changed him. A lot.

“No,” Rocket lied. “They had it comin’. I mean… comes with the territory, right? Merc work is dirty work. Sometimes more dirty than others.”

[spacelagos]

74. Bad luck.

Blackjack O’Hare had never expected a glorious death. If anything, he expected to make a mistake or have enough of a bad luck with some materials (you can’t trust a lot of what is sold to you in the black market, after all) that he got blown to pieces while setting a charge. He would go, and he wouldn’t even notice. One second he would be humming to himself (as he often did while working explosives) and the next he would turn into stardust. Not even leaving anything behind to bury; the instant vaporization assuring that his legend would go on. No one would believe he died; instead, they would believe this was yet another trick from the ultimate trickster.

Or maybe he would piss off someone powerful enough to put a large bounty on his head, and he would get captured and executed before he could work something out. It had not happened, ever. Usually he was too useful to crime syndicates to be touched. And his contacts, at least, assured him to always have someone inside every jail.

In any case, Blackjack O’Hare never imagined going out like this. Pummeled to death with his own metal arm by B’eel’s Golden Boy. He had run out of explosives, he had run out of bullets, he had run out of ideas. He couldn’t even say anything as Cocky beat the ever loving crap out of him, patches of black in his vision growing larger with every single blow. Blackjack thought, bitterly, that maybe the Cocky he had met in the Thirteen would stop when he was unconscious. But that Cocky had died back at the camps.

It had been a mistake to tell him that. A grave, grave mistake. It had also been a mistake to go after the lagomorph in the first place, but Cocky was in a very precarious position and the temptation was too big. He had been an idiot to not wait for Rocket to be out of the equation, but he had thought the raccoon was just after his bounty too. Lying here now, in a heap on the floor, Blackjack thought that this had always been his worst quality: always biting more than he could chew, always his ambition surpassing his caution. He almost laughed, but instead, he started coughing blood. Of course. Of course.

There was an ear-piercing sound that could or could have not been his own electronic eardrum rupturing, but suddenly everything stopped. Blackjack opened his only functioning eye; the actual one he had when he had been born. It was hard to see through all the blood, but the sight was astonishing. Cocky twitched on the floor like a fish out of water, his limbs going everywhere, his eyes wide and full of tears. He gasped and gasped. Blackjack, even clinging to the last of his consciousness, recognized the effects. He had actually never used it, his own ears being too sensitive to be able to use it comfortable, but he recognized it indeed.

A sonic whip.

A couple of very large shadows fell over Blackjack and Cocky.

“Got you good, gnek,” a voice like rusty metal said. “Got you good this time.”

[spacelagos]

[spacelagos]

72. Dying.

There was a final silence after a piece of debris fell to the floor from the ceiling. Many, many shots had gone astray. But most of them had met their objectives.

Unfortunately, one too many. Blackjack made a face of pain as he finally dropped the gun in his right hand. The one on the left had been depleted. As his non-dominant hand, and a robotic one at that, these were mostly the bullets that had ended up everywhere.

“And that’s that,” BJ said. “Good work, men.”

Behind him, a single shot rang down. Blackjack, startled, turned around to see one of his two remaining troops twitching on the floor, the life rapidly leaving his body; just one more to join the rest of the corpses on the floor. The last member of the Bunny Brigade was there, with the gun smoking.

“What the living, actual—” Blackjack started, but never finished. Under the gas mask, the other bunny said: “Looks like someone shot you right through your tricaprelous flexor. That’s too bad; seems like you can’t hold any kind of weight with your dominant hand now.”

BJ felt suddenly drenched in cold. A part of him wondered if he had gone crazy. But he wasn’t wearing a helmet or a gas mask, and in the middle of the blood and burnt ozone from the shootout there was a familiar scent that he couldn’t rightly place. It was something like, uh, something like…

Hair dye.

Calmly, as if he had all the time in the world, Cocky removed his helmet and gas mask. His ears and fingers had been dyed black, along with his neck. He had applied dye around his eyes too, considering, perhaps, that the helmet goggles could let some of the white fur be seen.

BJ’s ears went quickly behind his head. He smiled nastily.

“Guess that’s you and me now, huh, Cockwell? Funny thing, I don’t remember you being like this.”

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean,” Cocky growled.

“Being afraid enough to cripple me before our big Fight to the Death,” Blackjack said, insidiously. “What, is Big Army Man worried about widdle ol’ me?”

Cocky frowned, as if he was thinking of a good answer, and Blackjack quickly dived to get his depleted gun from the floor. It was empty, but Cocky didn’t know that. It was good enough for show.

He had run out of alternatives, anyway.

[spacelagos]

71. Sides.

When Blackjack O’Hare casually walked into the bridge, wielding two large rapid-fire guns, everyone immediately got their own weapons out and pointed them at him.

“Settle down, will ya? Sheesh, it’s almost like you haven’t figgered we all neck-deep in shit’s creek,” BJ said in an annoyed tone.

Some of the bunnies had been so surprised they had not even brought their weapons out. They looked around uncertainly.

“What we think is that you went and killed a bunch of us and now you expect to just waltz in here and say your piece,” one of the bunnies said resentfully.

“That I did, but what did you expect for mutiny? Mars bars?” O’Hare snorted. “In any case, what do you think is gonna happen, now that there’s just a dozen of us and that monster is still out there?”

“Monster?” The bunnies started muttering in a confused manner.

“I’m talking about Cockwell, ya knuckleheads! Unless we figger a way to work tag-ether Cockwell’s going to pick us out one by one!” Blackjack said. He was, for once, telling the truth. The bunnies in the room were merely a dozen, merely a dozen between Jack and Cocky. BJ had no intention of dancing with the lagomorph; after so many years in the Thirteen, he knew well that he was toast if he did. But the urgency didn’t seem to register.

“Cockwell’s still in his cage,” said one of the bunnies.

Blackjack frowned. “What?”

“He’s right,” another bunny chimed in. “I went in like ten minutes ago to get a first aid kit. He’s there.”

O’Hare looked baffled. What the Hell were they talking about. “No he isn’t.”

“Yes he is,” yet another different bunny said.

“Wanna bet?” BJ snorted. He was not counting on… whatever this was.

“Stop lying,” another bunny snarled. Even with the helmet and gas mask his attitude was, BJ considered, far gone.

“Alright, you know what? Have it your way, I don’t care. In any case, if you believe this is all my doing, then the choice is pretty simple, right? Either you stop this mutiny bee-es and come back into the fold, or I kill you all dead like I did the rest,” Blackjack growled.

There was a silence and lots of looking around. BJ was starting to think of a preemptive strike when one of the bunnies raised his hands, unarmed, and reluctantly placed himself beside Blackjack. He sighed.

“Well? Anyone else? I’ll tell ya what you have: a ship with only like 25% of its original crew, malfunctioning engines, one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy on the loose, and not to mention ME, well armed and well piss’d. Also! Good LUCK on dealing with the Khail without me; I’m the contact they know and trust. More likely they will just blow the goddamn ship sky-high and consider the death of Cockwell enough of a birthday present. Yeah? Sounds good?” Blackjack looked around, his trigger finger itching.  He was already tired of dealing with all of them, and he was probably going to kill them all as soon as it was all over. But for the moment he needed them.

Two more bunnies joined his side, but no one else moved. BJ clicked his tongue.

“Eight versus four, eh? Not gonna lie, I like these odds,” he chittered, just before all Hell broke loose.

[spacelagos]

70. Malfunction

Losing Murray had been a big blow, but sending some of the very few remaining troops to check why the engines had stopped working had been more complicated by the fact that there was nobody to give the order. Finally, Erle said: “Look, we can have some sort of vote later, but we’re not going to deliver the prisoner if we’re stuck here, and don’t forget we don’t have any more sedative gas to keep him under because Murray got rid of it all.”

Unofficially, then, the bunnies that had returned from Blackjack’s fruitless hunt in the walls made their way to the engine room to figure out what was the problem. Everybody was extremely on edge.

Even if more or less all of them had been secretly getting more and more fed up with Blackjack each year, it was evident now that the mutiny had been a grave mistake. Perhaps it would have worked as a less impulsive, last-minute decision. As it was now, the corpses were piling up high, and the future of the Black Bunny Brigade was uncertain. Even as heavily armed as they were down there, that had not been any help whatsoever before. They were all convinced Blackjack had played them for fools, because nothing he had ever taught them was even remotely like this.

Very, very cautiously, they entered the engine room, where a very abnormal noise could be heard. Still pointing their guns everywhere, they got deeper and closer to the engines. The emergency lights were on, as all the normal lights had been shot off. It was hard to see.

“Does anyone know what could be happening here?”

A bunny shrugged and looked around. “Not enough to repair a grave malfunction, but I can take a look and see if there’s a wire loose or something.”

“Go ahead, Bax; we’ll cover you,” one large black rabbit said, looking around with his infrareds.

Bax put the large gun in the holster behind his back, and approached the engines. He opened a panel. There was something large and metallic causing a shorted circuit. It looked like a wrench.

“This is not supposed to be here,” Bax said. His gloved hand pulled it out. There was something underneath. Curious, he turned the wrench around and was greeted by a purple vinyl sticker that said HAVE A NICE DAY.

Bax frowned and then a very large lightning ball erupted from the engine and engulfed most of the engine room. It was completely dark for a couple of seconds and then the emergency lights kicked in again.

Every single bunny was on the floor, convulsing.

Blackjack dropped out from the ceiling and looked around.

“Cheer up, kiddos. I’m doing you a favor. All your insides are already fried. I mostly liked you all, so that’s my way of saying thanks and happy trails, mmh?”

With surgical precision, he put a plasma bullet in every single body on the ground. Then he took a couple of the biggest guns, holsters and all. In that, at least, he was Rocket’s spiritual twin: the bigger the better.

[spacelagos]

69. Redemption.

[spacelagos]

68. Pep talk.

Quill gave Rocket a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder. Normally the raccoon would squirm under such a gesture, but he had grown close enough to Peter to allow it, and Peter had grown close enough to Rocket to know he needed it even if he would never, ever say so. Then StarLord left.

Rocket saw the Milano leave with his friends and felt a pang of desperation, and then some anger. He saw Brock swaying in place. “You go and lie down, Leggy, I got this.”

“I just want to make sure—” Brock started, and was interrupted by Desiree. “Go right now. We might need you later.”

“But the weapons…” Brock shook his head, admitted defeat, and left the cockpit.

Rocket sighed and buckled up. Des sat down next to him and did the same.

“Gimme his coordinates, if you’re still following him. There, use that port,” the raccoon said. He pushed the button and the ship purred like a kitten. He smiled, satisfied.

Des connected the port to her phone. “They seem to have stopped for now. They were going backwards for a while, too.”

“What are those crazy kids even doing? Never mind, I’m getting over there, and then papa spank,” he growled.

Desiree didn’t answer anything. She had several ideas of what could be happening. Some were better than the others. She did exhale in relief when Rocket’s ship hauled ass towards the coordinates, however.

[spacelagos]

67. Control.

With the fire under control Murray went out to the arms repository, where he changed the access code for a new one. He picked up ten bunnies with him, feeling nervous about his dwindling troops. He could feel his command slipping out of his grasp, but he was sure after delivering at least one prisoner everything would fall into place again. And moving through the halls, all heavily armed and looking for Blackjack, he could at least feel, for the moment, focused on the task.

He stopped at a crossing, trying to determine where to look next. Everyone around him looked nervous, even under the helmets and gas masks, which made really hard to look at their faces.

“I guess we have to deal with the second level now, especially if we consider—” Murray started saying, but he never finished that phrase. One of the bunnies just crashed into the whole mob, startling everyone. Murray instinctively got his gun out before even knowing what was going on: the bunny moved erratically, clinging to the others, bouncing on the walls and making strangled noises. “His neck!” One of the bunnies pointed at the thick steel wire protruding from the bunny’s neck. It had been set tightly around it and then locked in place with a butterfly bolt. “Cut it off!” “It’s too thick for knives!” “Get the bolt cutters!” The whole place was descending into chaos and at last Murray finally shouted: “Immobilize him and turn the bolt by hand!”

But before that could even be done, there was a gurgle and suddenly an arterial spray bathed Murray along with several bunnies. He tried to wipe the blood off his helmet visor, only to see a corpse on the floor in the middle of a puddle. There was a scream behind him and another bunny came down, although it was only when he hit the floor when he saw the dagger sunk down to the hilt on the back of his neck. There was a roar of panic; everybody got their guns out and waved them randomly, looking around in a frenzy. One of the bunnies yelled, pointing at the end of the corridor: “It was Blackjack! He’s in the walls! Blackjack’s in the walls!”

Several gunshots afterwards, Murray shouted: “Idiots! You’re going to damage the ship! Wait!” But no one listened to him as they ran down the hall, screaming.

Murray just stood alone with the bunny that had shouted about Blackjack and shook his head. “I’m going to give them all brand-new, shiny assholes,” he snarled, putting his gun back in the holster. “Get that garrote thing off that poor bastard before he dies.”

“He’s already dead,” Cocky said from under the helmet and the gas mask, sticking his gun under Murray’s chin. “And so are you.”

He pulled the trigger.

[spacelagos]

66. Ruse.

The door to the prisoner hold had to be forcefully opened by hand and by using a hydraulic  crowbar. Five members of the Black Bunny Brigade ran inside, weapons drawn.

Inside the cage, there was only an empty set of chains and a still-chained Cocky, curled into a fetal position on the floor,  unresponsive. The Big Sleep gas was visibly swirling inside, so thick it was hard to get a look inside.

Murray shook his head. “The bastard got away! Get every single Bunny in the quarters. It’s all hands on deck now. And get the gas masks from the lockers.”

One of the black bunnies went near the cage. “Are we gonna take this guy out from there?”

“Nah, leave him be,” Murray said. “The gas masks are just in case. We need to get back to the bridge and we can’t count on Blackjack not trying to poison us again. You! Get all the remaining gas cans and throw them out of the airlock. I think there’s only a couple there,” he pointed.

“Sheesh, BJ is playing for keeps,” one of the black bunnies said, holding out the pieces of a healing gun. Murray grunted. “Oh, decided to raise the bets, huh? Forget that crap; we can pick up a dozen healing guns right after the delivery. And you can’t use them more than once every twenty-four hours anyway; I expect we can manage. It’s just one guy.”

“This gas mask is missing the filter,” another bunny said, tossing it aside.

“Let me see that,” Murray said, leaning to pick it up. But just then an explosion coming from the quarters could be heard, and they all ran outside again.

One minute later, Cocky opened an eye cautiously, blinking rapidly due to the gas irritation. He eyed the door. He could see people running around outside, but no one was paying attention to him or the prisoner hold.

One of his cuffs was open, as he was counting on them not checking thoroughly. He quickly got rid of his chains, and then opened the cage. As soon as he was out he spat out the mask filter he had stuck in his mouth. Moving silently, he got rid of his shirt, which was bloodied and torn and smelled heavily like the gas. Then he moved to rummage inside the garbage can and took out some stuff he had stashed there. He had no idea what that explosion was about, although he was pretty sure Blackjack was behind it.

Before leaving, Cocky manipulated the room temp controls, driving humidity to the highest possible level, and the cage where he had been imprisoned to the lowest temperature possible.

He removed one of the wall panels, and disappeared inside, praying to the gods out there for a bit of quiet and solitude.

[spacelagos]

65. Dark magic.

Blackjack saw all that and chuckled internally. Leaving Cocky to do his dark magic was paying big dividends already. He wondered where the lagomorph was, although he was, presumably, still killing the brigade members in the sleeping quarters.

Every single bunny evacuated the bridge, although Blackjack could have told them there was no need to panic. Cocky’s tactic had been crude yet effective; the can of Big Sleep was not enough to knock everyone in the room. It was designed to fit the needs of an individual cage. And yet, it had caused enough bunnies to feel sleepy enough to slide away, only to be picked out one by one by the lagomorph in the quarters.

Blackjack pushed a wall panel open, then slid into the bridge. Without wasting any time, he sat on the long comm command and sent out a written message. There was not enough time to do anything else, so he deactivated the autopilot, set a new objective, then put on the autopilot again. Slowly going back was even better than slowly going forward, he figured, especially now that the gig was up. Let the lago deal with the fallout while he retreated into the shadows again and waited to see what would happen.

He moved to check on the headquarters where Cocky was, just for a little peace of mind. Cocky was not there. However, at least six beds were occupied with bunnies. Maybe more that were out of his line of sight. Blackjack guessed it had been a pain in the ass to try to move the bodies to the top beds and army man had decided to move to the other room.

But Cocky wasn’t there either. There were, however, several bunnies that seemed asleep. It seemed unlikely Cockatiel had killed them all, unless being in two places at the same time was also one of his creepy powers. Blackjack thought fast; if the bunnies were merely asleep, they would become reinforcements in a few moments.

The hare wished Cocky was still in the room, perhaps out of his line of sight. Nonetheless, he pawed inside his pockets, where an incendiary grenade he had stolen from the bridge was waiting. Holding the wall panel open, he activated the grenade with one thumb and tossed it inside. Then he quickly moved away from any vents to avoid being cooked. The bang was loud and, judging by the screaming, effective. He chittered. “Enjoy your last lesson from Uncle Jack.”

[spacelagos]

64. Expansion.

Murray, in an eerie mirror of Des, millions of miles away, looked at the clock impatiently.

“What gives?” he asked. “Weren’t we supposed to be doing good time?”

“We’re going as fast as it’s safe in this sector,” Erle said from the pilot’s seat.

“That makes no freaking sense. This is taking forever. The expansion of the Universe is not happening that fast,” he said sarcastically.

A black bunny approached Murray. “Hey, if I’m not needed around here, I think I’m hitting the sack for a while, if that’s okay.”

The newly crowned leader of the Black Bunny Brigade looked around. “Nuh-huh, wait for someone else to come back. Where the heck is everybody?”

“I think they went to bed. There’s not a lot to do around here anyway,” the bunny answered, yawning.

Murray frowned. “Nothing to do except maybe deliver these marks for a crapload of money? There will be time to sleep later.”

Someone else yawned too, and Murray frowned. He looked around. Everyone seemed apathetic or lethargic somehow. He got up, all the alarms in his head going off.

Then he looked up and saw something weird coming out of the vents. Without thinking, Murray took his gun out of the holster and shot the vents panel. Something fell down from the ceiling with a metal clang, and rolled around the floor.

It was a big can, apparently activated and leaking a green gas.

BIG SLEEP, it could be read in fat letters on the side.

[spacelagos]

63. Device.

Rocket’s tail swirled around him as he ran in circles around Groot.

“What’s wrong with him, Quill??” the raccoon asked in an anguished tone. “Why won’t he wake up?”

Peter approached gingerly, very pale. Was Groot even alive? As he touched the wood, an almost imperceptible vibration let him know that, at least, he wasn’t looking at a humongous corpse in the engine room. He exhaled in relief. “I don’t know, Rocket. But at least we found him before the engines blast fried him. I have no idea why your computer didn’t pick up on his bio signature down here.”

“These things are usually calibrated for a certain range,” Brock said. “If the signal is very low, it won’t pick it up.”

“Wait, he is DYING??” Rocket almost screamed. “Screw this. I’m going to take him to Brodo Asogi; they have helped him before and they will do it again.”

Des closed her eyes and recoiled as if she had been struck, devastated. She leaned on the wall.

Quill tried very hard to think. “Wait. Rocket. I don’t think he’s dying. I think he’s been put in some sort of stasis. I have no idea how, but—”

“I bet it’s that thing,” Brock sighed. He pointed to some sort of device that was screwed into the wood of the chest.

“Let me see that,” Rocket immediately jumped over Groot’s body to take a closer look. “I have no idea what this is.” He took out a tool from his belt to try to pry it off.

Still with her eyes closed, Des spoke softly from her corner, her face mostly obscured by her hair. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Rocket stopped. “Huh?”

“You don’t know if it’s a kill switch,” Des pointed, her voice trembling. “You might kill him by doing so.”

The raccoon immediately stopped, paused, and shook his head. “I still can’t do anything here, I don’t have the proper equipment.”

There was a silence. Quill looked around at everybody. If there was something he excelled at, was in reading a room and thinking outside the box. He decided to intervene. “Rocket, I’m taking Groot with me.”

“I’m going with you,” Rocket said, firmly. “Ain’t abandoning Groot like that. Guys, I can let you borrow my ship, as long as you promise to be careful with it…”

“No, you need to go with them to rescue Cocky and get Blackjack O’Hare,” Quill said firmly. “You need to get him to talk. You need to get him to tell you what he did to Groot so we can help him. It’s too risky to do anything otherwise.”

Des looked up, startled but grateful. Brock just scratched his cheek. “Since  O’Hare’s specialty is explosives, I would definitely be wary about tampering with whatever that is.”

Rocket growled under his breath. “I’ll get my portable crane.”