13977/For a few units more

For a few units more
Date of Scene:	03 February 2023
Location:	Common Area - Milano
Synopsis:	So they found the Egg, but whatever was in it... isn't anymore. Thankfully, nobody got a brood in their neck. Less thankfully, they didn't find the breeder. So that's probably a good thing right? Right?
Cast of Characters:	Gamora, Drax, Nebula, Peter Quill, Richard Rider

---

Gamora has posed:
When we last saw our intrepid heroes they had made their way to the penthouse of a city built entirely from derelic ships. Rocket, Nebula, Peter, and Gamora having taken the elevator while Groot and Drax remained back at the ship birthed on the single landing Ugnex parking berth. It was an odd sort of quiet. True that there were individuals working, but there was a weirdness about them. All pointed the group towards the elevator as if they were both welcome and expected. All smiling.

There was some strange buzzing creature flying outside the glass windows, which is clearly visible up above the Milano now, that gave the group inside a start... But once they reached the market place atop the structure things truly took a turn for the terrifying.

Several creatures, all wearing tattered Ugnex jump suits in some state of disrepair, appeared from behind stacked crates, divides, and barriers... all of them resembling bug like monstrocities in various stages of transformation... all of them speaking with a mental voice in unison.

"WE are the Brood... YOU are the Brood..."

Drax has posed:
Drax finally takes a stroll out to meet up with the rest of the Guardians, bored and stretching along the way.  Just enjoying himself really when he comes up upon his friends and the smiling weirdos.

"Nope."  Drax shakes his head.

"You are all confused."

Nebula has posed:
Nebula is torn. On one hand, at least she has an explanation for the buzzing noises she'd been hearing through the wall. So she's happy. Because that particular mystery is solved.

She's not entirely certain that the mystery being solved counterbalances the negatives of its particular solution. Brood. A pestilence that ranks amongst the most dire of threats to the galaxy. Also, she assumes, related to the strange egg that was supposed to be worth so many Units. Which makes acquiring and selling the egg far less clear cut.

She should have brought more firepower. Preferably literally. And so dark eyes are darting around to find something suitably flammable. Or explosive. Something to react more negatively to a blaster pistol shot than a Brood drone.

Not that she's going to be picky. She's already drawing her pistol to aim at one of the drones and squeezing the trigger. As satisfying as shooting some sort of convenient tank of pressurized plasma? No. But ideally it will mean one fewer Brood drone in the galaxy. And an increased chance she'll find a way to earn those units instead of dying.

"This is not worth one million and five units. We're going to need to negotiate a higher price."

If they survive. But of course they will. Otherwise they won't get paid.

Unacceptable.

Peter Quill has posed:
STAR-LORD is not exactly a happy camper. He was supposed to be up here for a million five units and the easiest gig of the year. Instead, now there's a bunch of little things that look scary and insane and maybe even hungry. So this is not exactly what he was supposed to be dealing with right now.

"Agree! Circle gets the Square!"

Peter's following Nebula's lead by drawing both of his Quad Blasters and he's stepping right now into the mix and he's firing. Both Quad Blasters are set on NOT STUN so these blaster shots might actually be fatal depending on these Brood Things.

"If anybody wants to actually do what we came here to do while we hold these things off... feel free!"

Gamora has posed:
Rocket isn't just sitting on his hands. He doesn't say anything, but he does make off towards the vault with the clear intention of getting the Egg they'd come for. Never you mind that he went a few seconds BEFORE Peter suggested it. It's not like he would ever betray them and leave them on a planet potentially infested with Brood, right?

Noble.

Selfless.

The drones attack. In so far as some of them leap over the barriers they had been hiding behind and make menacing approach upon the Guardians! One goes down, but only because one of it's legs were blown off by Nebula's shot. It's clawing at the ground still trying to get to her, snarling and salivating in what remains of an alien face now becoming something distinctly more insectoid as the broodling inside it transforms the host.

Then two more with Peter unloading quad pistols from the center of the show. They jerk and stumble, one of them drops, but there's so many more. Seething, that same unison voice repeating over and over in their heads as they attack.

Gamora leaps over the cover she'd taken and swipes her blade through the junction between segmented neck armor on one of the drones and pushes off in a backflip that seperates head from body. A body that lands and keeps clawing at the ground sightlessly.

"This is flarking bad.. Drax, I hope you locked the Milano." Which would probably be why they were so eager to seperate the crew from their ship.. Her sword swipes another, but half a dozen drones are closing in as she back-pedals in the direction Rocket went, where they vault was suppose to be. "The vault, we need to get to the vault!"

Drax has posed:
Drax is busy slicing and the nasty animate bodies, following up on the dregs of the other Guardians' shots, completely unworried about stray shots.  Those don't happen.

"Groot is in there," Drax explains as if that sheds any light on the fate of the ship in the slightest.  He hops forward to help head them off just past Gamora and looks over his shoulder down the way Gamora is focused on.

Somewhere, just in time, or maybe not, the Milano...BEEP-BEEPS.

Drax says nothing.

Nebula has posed:
Nebula's not content to have blasted a leg off one drone. She fires another shot. And another. And another. And a few more, as she's not really counting. The drone's still moving, and apparently it requires thorough discouragement. And it's just getting uglier... that didn't seem possible a moment ago.

She'd probably throw a knife into its remnants on her way by, except that as much as she hates to admit it, Gamora's got a point. They need to get to the vault... and she'd hate to wind up wishing she kept a knife extra.

Nebula settles for continuing to fire off shots at any Brood she sees... or, really, any movement that's not one of her companions. Does this mean some uninfected dockworker might be sent back into cowering behind cover? Yes. But they should probably be doing that anyway. She's just giving them motivation as she works towards rejoining Rocket to help with the vault.

Peter Quill has posed:
Quill is focused on trying to keep the hordes of Brood Things back. "Sec!" Quill holsters one of his Quad Blasters in a swift motion and then goes into is bag. Spinning on the heels of his jet boots, Quill comes out of the bag with four gravity mines. "Gonna' see if I can part the Brood Sea!"

Quill steps up and hurls a pair of gravity mines on either side of himself to see if those won't yank the Brood bodies this way and that way. Quill's seriously trying to actually make a path in the middle of the Brood pile.

"By the way, is anyone else hearing them in your head? Weird, right? I hate it!" And he's back to dual Quad Blasting to try and cover the others. Captains gotta' get their crews to the goal first. Then they can follow.

Gamora has posed:
This is a fighting retreat with the group harrassed the entire time. Every corner they turn, there's dozens of them clambering forward. Some of the former dock workers and Ugnex employees are so robotic in their movements that they must be recently infected. Their faces are of people, but with flecks of skin chipped away to reveal the carapice beneath.. or an insectoid appendage coming out from beneath a shoulder-blade. Whatever, whoever, they use to be is long gone.

Gamora skids to a stop down one alley, ten of these things down at the far end. Jerkingly walking towards them or crawling across the walls. "Not this way..." With Drax carving , Nebula blasting them, and Peter's gravity mines jerking bodies in a path that leads towards the only place that might offer them any kind of salvation. She isn't sure what the hell they're going to find in that vault, or what the hell they're going to do once they get there...

But it's a whole lot better than trying to fight their way out. They did NOT bring enough weapons for this.

Another body falls, still grabbing at her ankles, beneath Gamora's blade. She leaps up, step jumps off the wall into a shoulder roll to keep from being grabbed. "We're close! Rocket, tell me you've got it open!"

He had the drill, afterall.

They round another corner and ... there it is. The vault, with the door ajar and Rocket inside waving for them to enter, in his typical snarly, 'what took you so dang long' way.

"Once we're inside, Peter, close the damned thing! Rocket, seal it behind us, we'll figure out how to get out afterwards..."

Drax has posed:
"What did you give them Rocket?" Drax asks as he continues his slicing and dicing.  His blade comes crushing into a skull, but that doesn't stop the body.  Viscera paints the walls with each slash as the blasts whizz past here or there.

Finally, smirking, Drax slips inside.  "Close the door already!" he shouts suddenly as if it might get Peter moving faster than what's already coming for them or is it more like someone who is deathly afraid of creepy crawling things.  We'll never know.

Drax does help hold it closed as the door is secured though.  So helpful.  "We made it!" he shouts with a big smile plastered on his face.

Nebula has posed:
Nebula's not going to question the plan, not when she's fairly coated in gore, and missing... a rather worrying amount of her arsenal after the fighting retreat. She's got her pistol still, and one extendable baton, but there's probably twenty pounds of various small and medium sized knives left in drone corpses back to their first encounter.

And she's certainly broken a sweat, breathing heavily as she shakes her mechanical arm in frustration until she dislodges her latest drone opponent free. Apparently you _can_ punch a Brood drone too hard.

Once she's in the vault, she provides blistering covering fire for the rest of the group, "Maybe we can just wait in the vault until the next hapless group of hunters shows up to 'do an easy job' to acquire an egg."

There's only her usual amount of scorn in her voice, so... apparently killing Brood at least has /some/ positive impact on Nebula's mood.

Peter Quill has posed:
Quill, of course, is the last one in. He's taking a few extra moments to blast a couple more Broods in the facial expression before he hurls a Concussion Grenade to give them all a little breathing room whilst he slips inside the vault. There's an immediate holstering of his Quad Blaster and he's focused on getting the door nice and shut and sealed.

Drax's help is appreciated even as he points at the various Brood gore on him. "Oh hey, Drax, you missed a spot."

A random joke from the Star-Lord as he turns to look at everyone that's inside this here vault. "Okay. Two things. First? Somebody tell me the Egg's here and we got it and we're gonna' be rich. And second?"

Comedic Timing Pause.

"WHAT THE FLARK JUST HAPPENED OUT THERE AND HOW'RE WE GETTING OUT OF THIS?!"

Richard Rider has posed:
There is light growing in the starport. Eye-searing, red-yellow light that flickers like firestorm falling to the ground. The Broodlings turn to face this new activity with momentary uncertainty that almost immediately turns to snarling and unfettered hate.

The Guardians, trapped-- *garrisoned*, rather, in the vault, are privy to absolutely none of this. All that can be heard from within is the screech of Brood launching into combat and dying horribly. Great *thuds* and explosions, bursts of heat and energy that make even the redoubtable vault walls shudder. There is a familiar tug of gravimetric charges being detonated, the way it invisibly grabs one by the gut and yanks towards a point of gravitational attraction that exists only for a second or two before imploding on itself.

This goes on for most of a minute and then there's five distinct raps on the vault door in a fast tattoo. Each sounds like a force impacter. A beat, then two more completes the rhythm with ground-shaking results:

*shave and a haircut-- two bits*

Gamora has posed:
Gamora is breathing heavily as well. The flight through the area was arduous, most of the drones they fell are likely still clawing their way towards the door with missing limbs. Putting these things down is not so easy when poorly equipped for it. Which isn't to say some didn't die... they did, but it wasn't nearly enough given how much ammunition went into doing so.

She slides down the wall and peers around at her companions, then towards the center of the vault. There are multiple boxes full of all manner of salvage. Things the Ugnex Corp values, anything they can use to turn a profit, but what the Guardians are here for? That egg? It is rests off to one side behind a glass case with half the forward facing display shattered. Cracked and hollow.. whatever had been inside is not anymore.

Then begins the sounds. The enclosure shakes and trembles, the sounds of snarls and blasts sounds hollow and distant through the thick metal door.. until all is silent once more.

Silent except for the gentle rap...

She tosses her blaster pistol over towards Nebula and lets her collapsible sword extend out at her side. Her left hand brushes red hair out of her sweaty slick face, "Rocket, grab the egg pieces.." It's still worth something right?

How unfair would it be if they don't get paid AT ALL?

Is the world that cruel?

"Unless someone has a really fancy idea, I say we open it, deal with whatever's on the other side, and get back to the Milano...?"

Nebula has posed:
Nebula is absorbed in patting herself down... and occasionally giving her artificial arm a firm shake, only for more ichor to splatter off that limb like wet paint. Horrifying, ghoulish paint. And with the egg cracked? Well, Nebula's not really worrying about whether or not anything else is coated in the ichor. Someone can have an unfortunately sticky spare part for their ship if they want.

That tossed pistol is snatched out of the air, given a quick once over, and Nebula's baton is tucked away. She's fine shooting twice as many Brood on the way out as she did on the way in.

"I am quite content to continue murdering my way through my feelings."

There's a long pause and she eyes the sights of both pistols.

"My feelings are currently very violent. I vote we return to the ship, and if we can find a way to destroy the planet as we take off, that would be reasonable recompense in place of our units."

Peter Quill has posed:
"... so we're going back out into the hordes of nasty looking things. Right after we ran in here away from them. Right. Solid plan. Love it."

Quill's sarcasm is all up in the middle this here plan but his loyalty and unity to this entire group and plan is paramount. It's more important than anything else he's had to deal with since becoming a Terran in Space.

Quill draws both of his Quad Blasters as he makes his way up to the front of the group. If anybody's going to die first it's going to be him.

"Somebody pick some Brood Slayin' music." Both of his weapons are switched on as he looks towards Drax to give him the signal to do the vault door opening. After all, Drax is strong as heck.

Richard Rider has posed:
Once the door opens, the Guardians get treated to the sight of a lot of dead, crispy Broodlings. Some of them look like they fell into thermite. Others are squished into improbably tiny masses of organic goo that does not resemble a living thing in any sense of the word.

The other bad news: It's the Space Cops!

Good News: It's not THOSE space cops, with the rings and the fascism.

Bad News: It's the Nova Corps!

Good News: It's not the WHOLE Nova Corps.

Bad News: From his uniform this can be the one and only Richard Rider, 'Nova Prime', the leader of the Nova Corps and embodiment of the power of the whole of Xandar.

Arms folded across his chest, face impassive under his helmet, Richard doesn't make a move as he and the guardians come face to face. There's a long beat and he unfolds one arm to lift it near his shoulder. "Count one: Antagonizing a Brood Nest. Count Two: Trafficking a Brood Egg. Count Three: I was enjoying a *very* relaxing weekend on a very private, very /quiet/ beach on Xandar with a very lovely young woman I was getting acquainted with, and I got the alert that a bunch of numbskulls were trying to crack into a vault on a sanctioned planetoid."

He looks around the crew. "Did I miss any? I'm sure if you give me a minute, I'll come up with some more charges."

Gamora has posed:
Gamora flinches forward to spring back into the fray as soon as the vault door is swung back open, only to find that whatever enemy they were going to face was, at least for now, spread on the walls like jam. She lowers her sword when she sees Nova Prime standing there, but doesn't put it away.

Could be worse. Could be the Lanterns.

Those guys are dicks.

"I don't think it's fair to blame us for antagonizing a brood Nest.. We found a brood nest, on a planet that definitely shouldn't be a brood nest..." Salvage World might be full of blood thirsty salvage corps, and maybe some of them look like insects, but... "Technically, we didn't traffic a brood egg. It was already traffiked when we got here." Rocket starts to say something and Gamora shoots him a dirty look.

"If you think about it, though, you're probably getting overtime right now... I don't think a thank you is out of line."

Never minding that where there's a dozen brood, there are likely to be quite a few more dozen brood. These guys don't deal in small numbers once they get good and infested on a planet. "Speaking of which, this place sees a lot of privateering salvagers coming and going. If one got off world, we're going to have a pretty big problem on our hands. We can stand around pointing fingers and casting blame... or we can get out there and make sure this thing doesn't spread?"

Nebula has posed:
Nebula tenses. Awaits Gamora's flinging open the door... and as the vault opens, she springs forward, pistols raised, barrels swinging to.... aim at charred bodies. One after another. They lift only to avoid aiming at the non-charred Nova Prime standing there.

Lips press into a thin, impassive line. Dark eyes sweep around the carnage as she states deadpan. "If it's illegal to disturb a Brood nest, perhaps there should be some sort of sign."

There's a pause, one eyebrow arching. "And we were not trafficking in Brood eggs. We were simply hired to recover an egg. The egg happens to be in a Brood nest. Correlation is not causation. It may be an unrelated egg."

Drax has posed:
Drax gives a good laugh at Peter's joke.  "You missed all sorts of spots too," as if Peter's were a total knee slapper.  "We will have to rip them with our bare hands of course!" on account of running out of weapons.  "And rend their throats with our teeth."


It's the sound of imploding Brood and those little tugs that have him bend over as if overhearing some gossip, poised for revelations.

"It tickles!" Drax exclaims in surprise as the surroundings tremble from the forces.

As for when Peter gives him a queue to open the door, he's lucky Gamora was paying attention, because Drax was distracted as he picked through the loot for something he can smash Brood with.  However with the sound of the vault, he's quick to jump forward and find...the cops.

"We have also saved that Xandar lady great shame and a long, very boring weekend."

Peter Quill has posed:
When there's nothing but Nova Prime on the other side of that door, Star-Lord actually relaxes. He ends up holstering both of his Quad Blasters at the sight that's not all the Brood ever trying to do something like killing them all.

"I feel like this is a case of wrong place, wrong time." Star-Lord offers a big grin. "Thanks for getting the door." There's a wink from Quill as offers his playful attitude and bringing it to the front.

Quill is all for this being smooth as silk on the walk back to the Milano. He's even adding a bit of a strut to each step because of this.

Richard Rider has posed:
"'Found', yeah? Wow," Rider marvels. "That is just a fantastic coincidence. You -found- a Brood nest." He paces back and forth a few steps, giving a critical eye to the Guardians. "On a pirate-- excuse me, *salvage* world that belonged to some of the worst dregs in the galaxy."

He hovers laterally in place four feet and puts a hand up in front of Quill, blocking his path as Star-Lord tries to saunter off. "And you fought valiantly through an outbreak of said Brood to try to recover a viable egg from a long-lost vault, all out of the ..." he purses his lips. "Goodness of your hearts?"

"I can't even say that bit with a straight face," he admits, and turns to look daggers at Peter Quill. Mostly because he's the one trying his hardest to downplay the whole thing. "So wrong place and wrong time means I get to decide if you're on the wrong side of the quarantine I'm about to drop on this whole planetoid," he informs the Guardians. "

Gamora has posed:
"After a rather extensive search." Gamora adds to Rich's mock surprise and general disbelief of their situation, "You can check our flight logs, we landed just a few minutes ago." Said as she nudges a half a dock worker with the tip of her sword, "Judging by how far into transformation this guy is, I'm thinking they've been like this a few days... So.. certainly wasn't anything we did."

Rocket has the egg, parts of it, and maybe he's trying to hide it.

That's a Rocket thing to do.

"Goodness of our hearts and ransom of units, yes." Her green head tilts to peer around Nova's shoulder. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but there's definitely more of these things in this building.. and probably a whole flarking boat load more of them on the planet."

Her hands turn over in a shrug, "If we must continue this conversation, can we do it where there's not potentially hundreds of insect infected monsters trying to do whatever the flark it is they do to people when they catch them? I don't want to be a bug person..."

Nebula has posed:
Nebula hands Gamora her pistol back and eyes her Sister slowly, "Yes. We should reboard the ship before more drones arrive and my sister winds up looking decidedly insectoid. Then I'll have to hear about how she can beat me with four of her six arms tied behind her back."

Her gaze flicks to Rich and she shrugs listlessly, "I'm mostly cybernetic. And quarantining us here to force us to become weird bug monsters seemed a little unjust. You know, given we were just doing a job. We didn't even open fire until they were trying to eat us."

And then she's sauntering towards the Milano, her piece said.

Drax has posed:
"I have a big heart and big pockets," Drax agrees with Gamora's assessment of their motivations.  "You can check the logs.  I was the last to come off the ship," he insists, to demonstrate that he did, just stumble upon these Brood!

"Oh please, I could kill these all day and all night and every dawn and every dusk!  All of you would be so lucky," he exclaims to the general array of space cops before them.  "Gamora, I'm beating everyone," at how many Brood he's killed.  He may be mistaken.  He certainly has stabbed a lot of them a lot of times.

"But please, you must spare the pathetic one," Drax humbly gestures with sorrow to Peter.  "I fear he will not last."

Peter Quill has posed:
Of course, Star-Lord's trying to keep this as smooth and as downplayed as possible. That's almost always the best course of action when it comes to things like this. Especially when dealing with the Nova Corps. Why should this time be any different?

"The goodness of our hearts fetches a pretty big discount by the way." Quill takes a moment during his stride to look around for anything that might be lootable on this here planet. There's a lot of Brood bodies and whatever they were before strewn around. There has to be something he can uncover.

When Drax's words hit his ears, Quill stands at his full height. "Hey, come on. I can go just as long as any of you. And I'd prove it right now if it weren't for the fact that we've already done it and I'm getting way too much dead Brood thing on my boots. Ew."

Quill will be careful stepping back to the Milano now.

Richard Rider has posed:
Rider's feet lifts off the ground and he escorts the Guardians back to the Milano at a distance that is decidedly less than congenial. Push comes to shove, they're a handful in a fight, and they *did* clear out a lot of Brood spawn.

He gets what data he can-- including a full-ship scan, inasmuch as he can get past the shielding and whatever ghost spaces Quill has installed. No Brood, thankfully, and aside from a lot of guts and viscera there's no sign anyone has gone and done something dumb like swallowed an egg or hid it down their drawers.

At an opportune moment, he catches Gamora's eye, and beckons the green-skinned alien aside. It's hardly whisper-whisper, but it at least is not him talking *at* the rest of the Guardians.

"You seem like you have the monopoly on brain cells here," Nova tells Gamora. "It was foolish going after the egg but even a merc like you has to see what a catastrophically bad idea it would be to take a live egg off planet. This is one small nest of Brood drons," he reminds her, gesturing at the mess of the stardock. "No one's seen a breeder in years but if one gets loose this will look like a kid's picnic. If anyone on your ship decided to go and do something stupid, do the right thing. Help get it secured before it hatches on a settled world or something." He offers Gamora a translucent identicard with a designated frequency for contacting him on it, and makes pointed eye contact. "A Brood outbreak will put a serious dent in the freelance market, even for you guys."

Gamora has posed:
Gamora doesn't put her sword away until they're well within sprinting distance of the Milano and then only to colapse it down. It is still very much in her grip should things go pear shaped between where they are and when they're taking off to space.

There's nothing safe about this place.

There wont be until every drone is destroyed and the responsible breeder killed.

She knows this because even Thanos had a healthy respect for the Brood. These are not to be taken lightly, so she treats them accordingly. Peering at Nova Prime when he seeks out her eye and stepping over to listen to what he has to say.

The card is taken and turned over in her fingers a few times, then slipped into one of her many pockets. "Salvage World is not a major hub of activity, but the people who frequent here run phantom ISF codes. We weren't the only people looking for that Egg. I don't know how many have come and gone before we did, but if they did..." She looks up at Nova seriously.

"We're not idiots. If we'd known it was a Brood egg, we would have launched tactical nukes at the planet surface until nothing could possibly live here for at least a decade." At the very least. With a tigh smile, she nods to Nova and starts towards the ramp, but pauses before actually disappearing into the ship. She looks back and sighs, "Even Thanos was afraid of the Brood. Destroy this planet.. It's the only way to be sure."

She steps up into the Milano so they can get the hell out of here before they're included in the purge. Gamora looks intensely down at her hands as she walks purposefully towards the cockpit, sliding into her seat with the card once more twirling between her fingers. "We have some stops to make."