Guardians Of The Galaxy

P2 : C5

Gamora and Rocket stood at the bottom of the ramp looking at an old Hauler-88B with their arms crossed and bored expressions. I stood at the top, trying to talk them into taking a look but they refused regardless of how much I asked.

"No. The Milano II is perfectly fine as it is." Rocket objected, loudly. "What's so wrong with her?"

"Nothing, Peter just wants a new toy." Gamora rolled her eyes and nudged Rocket with her foot.
"Of course he does." Rocket grumbled something to himself about my acting like a child and stalked away to muddle through a crate picked up from the storage locker of the ship.

"Come on Peter, we've got more important things to worry about than ships." Gamora gave the ship a once over before turning to stalk away.

"Come on, what gives?" I started after her but she quickly turned on me.

"Vele. That's what. Your little girlfriend is basically comatose, and instead of trying to find some answers your trying to buy a ship." She just wasn't having it.

"We're not going to get any answers to help her if we're constantly pushing our minds to focus solely on her. Everyone needs a break every once in a while and this is mine. Drax and Groot are watching her, I've got them on stand-by should anything happen. But this is what I'm doing to give my head a little room to breathe. It's either this or I work myself to death."

Gamora glanced around at the ship, taking a moment before looking into my eyes. "You really care for her, don't you, Peter?"

"Yes." I answered without so much as a hesitation. I knew what was happening, she was leading the conversation on where I hated for it to go. Once there was something between us, a flame, but now that Vele filled that missing void in my life with so much curiosity, I couldn't help but to chase after her. I hoped Gamora didn't hate me, or was too upset to still talk. We were family, and losing another member in any way would kill me.

She nodded and covered her eyes, her shoulders shaking before leaning against my chest. I held her but she didn't quite cry like I half expected. Instead she just took deep breaths. "Nebula went crazy, I lost her and if I have to endure losing another I'm not sure I'll be in once piece by the end."

"We're not going to lose her, I won't let it happen again." I promised, feeling that cold pang of guilt weigh itself in my chest.

"I turn around for two seconds and you two fall to shit. Do you really need me to be babysitter all the time? Yeah!" Rocket was standing to my left, casually resting his arms on the thick chain links he'd set around his neck. Guess he found more toys to play with. "Come on, let's check out the ship, I wanna see the storage on this baby."

Gamora and I took one more moment to hug it out, kept words to a minimum before I gave them the grand tour.

The ship was rather large, several times bigger than the Milano's but much more heavy duty for Ravaging. Five 8x10 storage pods in the rear, ten 5x10 in the nose, 5 10x10 pods scattered throughout, three decks, two pilot stations on the top deck, crew quarters were on the middle deck that could turn into its own escape pod, four plasma cannons, one dark matter core fueled battery engine, two 200,000 liter bladder tanks for water or fuel storage and an aux input for tunes. It was everything you'd need for deep space travel or extended trips. Something we desperately needed if we were to continue as normal with travel plans. Despite them being held up we still planned on stopping at Hemm, a gaseous planet about four or five clicks from this station, to get some answers about Vele's mind.

At that point, after showing them the blue prints and giving a short tour, both Gamora and Rocket seemed sold on the upgrade/addition. I knew they'd approve if they gave it a chance.