“A great deal, I think,” says Sharnor the Accuser.
I muse.
“So you have a corporate spy placed inside Timely Inc. HQ?” I ask.
She looks guarded for a moment, then grudgingly replies.
“Highly placed, in truth,” she says, “but able to pass only the most selective and incomplete messages to the Kree Stellar Empire because of Timely’s intense security systems. From our spy we have learned only of Project 616’s existence, its rumored purpose, and the fact that you are vital to its success.”
“And others know this, too?” I ponder. “Which is why everyone is after me.”
“Why do you think you are the vital missing component?” Sharnor the Accuser asks me.
“Frankly, Madam Accuser, I do not know. I can only conjecture. It must be because I know something. Some vital piece of information. Somewhere in the vast archive of the collective data I contain, there must be some small but crucial piece of information.”
“But you do not know what it is?”
“I cannot begin to imagine,” I reply.
“Forget the others,” the Accuser says. “Forget the other factions that pursue you. You are the property of the Kree Stellar Empire now. We have secured you. We have guaranteed the failure of Timely’s Project 616.”
“What will you do with me?”
“Now that I have established the limits of your conscious knowledge of this matter,” she replies, “and your lack of cogent new information, I will continue as I began. I will conduct you to Hala, where you will be examined. I have no doubt that the Empire’s scientists will be able to identify this scrap of vital information lurking in your unconsciousness or your databanks. Once we have obtained it, no doubt it will show us how to develop a reality-control device akin to Project 616.”
“And…how will this identification be made?” I ask.
“We have mechanisms,” she replies.
I was afraid of that.
She is about to comment further when the ship judders perceptibly.
“What was that?” she demands.
Captain Yon-Dor steps forward, listening to his helmet com.
“Report from the bridge, Accuser,” he says. “We are under fire.”
“Under fire?” she splutters. “That is not possible! We are traveling at super-light warp, and the aura of negativity is engaged. Nothing should be able to detect us!”
“Agreed, Accuser,” says Captain Yon-Dor. “Nevertheless, a ship has intercepted our warp-path and is matching speeds. It is firing antimatter torpedoes at us.”
“Identity?”
“Unconfirmed, Accuser,” replies Yon-Dor, “but helm believes it to be a War Brotherhood Class megadestroyer of the Badoon War Brotherhood.”
“Badoon…?” she whispers.
Slowly, she rises to her feet. “Go to battle stations. Drop from jump and come about. We will face the Badoon scum and eviscerate them for their impudence.”
“Yes, Accuser.”
“Tell the ship’s captain I will be on the bridge in a few minutes to supervise the action. I will take personal satisfaction in obliterating the Badoon.”
“Yes, Accuser.” The Captain salutes.
The deck judders again. Another hit.
Yon-Dor and his men open the hatch and rush to their appointed battle stations, leaving two warriors behind to stand guard over us. The hatch slams shut.
Sharnor takes her seat again.
She looks at me. Her eyes are as hard as diamonds.
“The Badoon,” she says. “There is no way they could have tracked or detected us. There is no way anyone could have tracked or detected us. The aura of negativity is foolproof. Unless…”
“Unless?” I ask.
“A cloaking field is useless if someone already knows your location. How did you communicate the information?”
“How did I what—?” I ask. “Madam Accuser, even if I possessed the means, why would I reveal my location to an enemy that I know is hunting me ruthlessly?”
“All I know is what you have told me,” she replies. “You mentioned the Badoon. Perhaps you have already struck a deal with them: your secret in exchange for your safety.”
“I assure you I have not,” I reply.
“I do not believe you,” she says. “You are the only possibility. The only possibility. Tell me how you are communicating with them.”
“I—” I begin.
Her finger is hovering over the touch control built into the arm of her throne.
“Tell. Me.”
I am frantic. I have no answer for her. I glance down at Rocket and Groot sprawled on either side of me. I know another sustained burst of the Psyche-Agonizertron will kill them both.
“Tell. Me.”
“Madam Accuser, please—”
Her eyes narrow. She jams her finger down.
But her hand does not move. It freezes where it is, unable to reach the touch control. Sharnor gasps in surprise and struggles to complete the action, her arm straining.
I see what is restraining her. It is, at first, hard to spot in the gloom away from the cold blue glow of the podium. But I see it.
There is a tough, knotted root system growing up the side of her throne and over the arm; the fibrous ends of it have grasped her wrist, holding it in place. The root system snakes all the way back across the floor, and I see it is an extension of the arm Groot has draped limply over the lip of the podium.
Groot is not unconscious at all. He has been playing dead while my answers kept the Accuser occupied.
Rocket is not unconscious, either.
He opens one eye and winks at me.
“Get ready to move, pal,” he whispers.
The Accuser rages. Groot’s grip is astonishingly strong. She hauls herself to her feet and grabs her ceremonial power hammer with her free hand, bringing it down on the tangled root. The hammerhead mechanism pulses green inside the casing as it impacts, and the root shatters.
Sharnor is free. She runs at us, hammer raised to strike.
“Go, buddy!” Rocket yells, leaping up and virtually shoving me off the edge of the podium. I am sorry to admit, gentle reader, that I did not land on the deck below in the most dignified manner.
The two Kree warriors at the back of the room step forward to assist their commander.
Rocket—a hissing, clawing, furry missile—leaps clear of the podium edge and lands in the face of one warrior, driving the fellow back hard in surprise. So hard, in fact, that the back of his head impacts against the wall and he is knocked unconscious. Rocket and the Kree guard collapse in a heap. The other guard turns, weapon raised, and is felled by a single shot from the Uni-beam blaster that Rocket has borrowed from his first victim.
Then Rocket is running again, scampering hard around the edge of the chamber.
Sharnor has reached the podium. Groot rises to meet her.
“Nice trick,” she says, and swings the power hammer at him. He steps back, dodging a blow that would have shattered his heart-wood.
She leaps up onto the podium to get a better swing.
“Nice trick,” she repeats, “but I am not impressed.”
Groot dodges the second swing and leaps backward off the podium.
“If you thought that was a nice trick, lady,” Rocket calls out, “wait until you get a load of this.”
Sharnor turns. Rocket is perched on the arm of her throne. He grins. She looks down and realizes where she is standing.
Rocket presses the touch control.
For an unnecessarily long time.
• CHAPTER NINETEEN •
BATTER UP
ROCKET does not kill her. I believe the average Kree Accuser is so durable, you would have to casually but firmly lean your elbow on the touch control of a Psyche-Agonizertron for enough time to eat a bagel, read the morning newspaper, and carefully drink a hot beverage to make a dent in her—and Sharnor is well above average.
But Rocket presses long enough, his tongue
extended gleefully over his grinning fangs, to make her first quiver, then curse in Kree, then convulse, then finally collapse unconscious onto the podium, face down.
Only then does Rocket take his disconcertingly human-like finger off the touch control.
“I always think,” he says, leaping off the throne, “that it is way, way better to give than to receive.”
“I am Groot,” Groot replies, picking me up and dusting me off.
“Yes, it was a very fine ruse,” I reply, “and I was more than happy to keep her talking while you propagated a new root system.”
Groot grins. He has already shed the shattered root limb. He picks up the Accuser’s fallen power hammer and tests it for heft.
“I am Groot.” He grins again.
“Well, you’d better,” calls Rocket, reaching the hatch. “You’re gonna need it, is my guess.”
Distantly, we hear alarms sounding, but they are not for us. From the sub-vibrations of the deck, I know that the battleship has cut to sublight and is making a hard turn. We are coming about to face the onrushing Badooon megadestroyer. Main power will be cycling from the jump drives to the weapon batteries, shield system, and matterannihilation fields.
A full-scale space battle between dreadnought warships is seconds away.
“Time to make like a progressive wallpaper designer,” Rocket cries, “and get the flock out of here!”
He pushes the activator panel and opens the blast hatch.
And there is, of course, still the Sentry.
The burnished bulk of Sentry #212 fills the entire doorway of the Chamber of Examination like a subway train parked in a subway tunnel. It peers in at us with beetle-brows and issues a rumbling electronic query.
Rocket slams the hatch again. He looks over at me and Groot.
“Oh yeah, ha ha ha!” he says. “I forgot about that dude. Rethink.”
He looks down at the Uni-beam blaster he has commandeered. It is a powerful weapon, the standard-issue rifle of the Kree fighting man—as renowned, reliable, trusted, and ubiquitous as the AK-47 of your Earth, gentle reader; or the Tafstehl 190 of the Shi’ar; or the Urzenta-plazmaar of the Z’Nox; or the Ssh-tsss 8-11 of the Sssth; or the Kaar Delta Delta Hash Under-and-Over Recoilless Life-Suppression Combat Sub-Rifle (“Votok” pattern) with cut-down grips, fusion feed and rail-mounted sighting system of the Ergons; or the—
You get the picture. I am nervous. I talk when I am nervous.
The Uni-beam blaster is a powerful weapon. But it will not make so much as a teeny-tiny dent on the gleaming bodywork of a Kree Sentry.
“I am Groot!” Groot decides.
“Are you sure?” I ask, dismayed.
“Hey, go with what you know, that’s my motto!” Rocket replies. He raises a disconcertingly human-like hand to the hatch activator.
“Ready? On three. One, two…”
He hits the activator.
The blast hatch opens again.
The Sentry is still there, glaring in at us. It must have been glaring at the closed hatch in the meanwhile.
I can only say, gentle reader—in order to place a recognizable Human Culture image in your mind that you can relate to—that Groot, for a moment, resembles Babe Ruth, or Ty Cobb, or Ed Delahanty, or Tony Gwynn.
He braces—feet planted in a wide stance, weight on the back foot—and raises the power hammer, choking up with his hands together. He then begins his swing—taking a stride forward with his front foot, turning through his hips, keeping his elbows toward his body. His back foot pivots.
A tight circle. A perfect level swing.
The head of the Accuser’s power hammer connects with the middle of the Sentry’s chest plate. The hammerhead mechanism pulses green inside the casing as it strikes, amplifying the kinetic force of the blow—which is already considerable indeed—with a reinforcing charge of potent Nega-energy.
There is a crack, like all the lightning in the Universe striking at once. The back-shock knocks Rocket and me off our feet.
The impact throws Sentry #212 down the entire length of the mirror-finish hallway outside, its trailing hands scouring friction scratches along the polished wall at head height.
“Touchdown!” I exclaim.
Rocket looks at me.
“Wrong sport?” I ask. “Sorry, I was nervous and thus confused.”
“Let’s go!” Rocket yells.
He leads the way. Groot follows, and I follow Groot.
We are halfway down the polished hallway when the Sentry reappears at the far end. It is swaying slightly, as if dazed. There is a hammerhead-shaped dent in its chest plate.
“Whoops!” says Rocket, skidding backward between Groot’s legs.
With huge, thumping strides, the Sentry begins to charge at us. Even more than before, it resembles a subway train, filling a subway tunnel, rushing toward us. It is not a sight I am happy to have recorded. Sometimes it plays back at night and keeps me awake.
Groot stands his ground and tightens his two-handed grip on the haft of the power hammer. He pulls back to swing. The charging Sentry raises its immense hands, and they glow with power. He is going to blast Groot into kindling long before Groot is close enough to take another swing.
So I step forward and slip in front of Groot to face the Kree Sentry.
“I am Groot!”
“I know I’m in your way!” I reply. “I know what I’m doing.”
{I hope}
The Sentry stops abruptly just a few paces short of me. It lowers its hands, and they power down. It looks confused. It emits a perplexed electronic rumble.
“Yes, Sentry #212, sorry about that,” I say, “but I heard the Accuser’s orders quite clearly. I must be recovered without damage and brought to the Accuser intact. You must not harm me. You are free to obliterate my companions, but since I am standing in the way, you cannot. Can you?”
It thinks about this. Electronic rumbles stir inside its head casing.
It raises one vast paw to blast Groot over my shoulder. I step to block the beam. It lowers its hand.
“I’m in the way, and you were ordered not to harm me.”
It rumbles.
“I’m sure it’s confusing, all those commands and countermands, but it’s really quite simple,” I say. “Back off and stand down.”
It does neither. It picks me up and puts me down again behind it.
“Damn!” I say. I did not expect that.
Now facing the unprotected (by me) Rocket and Groot, it raises its huge hands and unleashes a tank-killing blast of Uni-beam energy.
However (and I only learn this later), while I was being all brave and everything, Groot was examining and fiddling with the Accuser’s hammer behind my back. Apart from its obvious primary use (i.e., hitting things tremendously hard), it has many other features built into the twist-grip controls of the haft.
As Sentry #212 fires, Groot is ready, the hammer held in front of him in a vertical, two-handed grip.
He has twisted the grip configuration, and the hammer is projecting a Nega-energy barrier.
The Uni-beam blasts strike the barrier. The barrier holds. There is a burst of blocked energy, ultra-bright in the tight and mirrored confines of the hallway. The polished surface plating of the walls, floor, and ceiling from Groot’s barrier back toward the Sentry shatters like glass in a long, rippling series of concussive explosions, revealing the drab structure of the subwall architecture and concealed underdeck system trunking.
The back-blast of its own weapon staggers the Sentry hard. Groot uses this to his advantage, twisting the hammer grip to "Negaload Max" and taking another swing.
It connects, this time with the Sentry’s jaw, smashing its head sideways and delivering enough Nega-amped kinetic force to hurl the robot beast back down the hallway for a second time.
Unfortunately, this time I am standing innocently behind the Sentry as it is smashed backward. It cannons into me. We are propelled together.
“I am Groot!” I hear Groot yell
in horror.
I do not reply as I am very busy being concussed and emitting a high-pitched digital squeal of dismay. So high-pitched, in fact, that I am rather ashamed of it.
Carried together by the force of the blow, the Sentry and I exit the now-ruined mirrored hallway and fly out into the vast dark cavity of the forward drive chamber.
You know those slender walkways, gentle reader? The ones without guardrails that I mentioned?
Yeah, well, we bounce and skid along one of those, the massive Sentry on top of me for most of the way. The vast compartment yawns underneath us, the pulsing drive units spread out like an enormous cityscape far below.
And then, inevitably, we slip off the edge of the walkway.
I fall.
Something grips my left wrist and arrests my fall. The impact almost dislocates my shoulder.
I look down. Thousands of distance units below me, the drive units and Nega-impulsor sub-generators appear like the rooftops of a city seen from altitude. I know that, in another second, I am going to drop for a long time and then smash to smithereens on impact. Tiny, dust-mite engineers look up and shout things I am too far away to hear.
The distance below me is… terrifying.
I look up. The Sentry is clinging to the lip of the walkway with its right hand and clutching my right arm with its left. It is still obeying its orders to keep me intact.
For a moment, gentle and fastidious reader, I feel gratitude, even affection, for it. It is trying to save me. It is, though bound only by the harsh orders of a Kree Accuser, trying to protect me.
Its beetle-browed concern is plain. It wants to save me. It needs to save me, in order to fulfill its instructions.
But the purchase of its right hand is giving way, finger by finger. It is slipping.
It is slipping.
I feel it trying to start and restart its internal propulsion systems, to fly us both clear. But Groot’s hammerblows have damaged it internally, and the flight systems will not fire.