Ain't No River Wide Enough

A Guardians of the Galaxy fan fiction by xahra99

Peter pressed his nose against the window like a kid on Christmas Day as he peered through the Eclector's porthole at Tahuna. The planet gleamed like one of Yondu's trinkets. Apart from the storms spiralling across the planet's poles, it looked pretty much the same as Earth.

The image blurred as condensation from his breath fogged up the window. Peter curled his fingers into his palm and scrubbed the scratched plastic clear with the too-long sleeve of his hand-me-down Ravager leathers. The weapons he'd been sent for lay forgotten at his feet.

His wrist-comm buzzed. "Time's wasting, boy!"

Peter ripped his gaze away from the blue planet and scrambled to collect the guns. Yondu wouldn't wait forever.

He staggered through the Eclector's shabby corridors, arms piled high with weapons and a plasma rifle propped on one shoulder. The map on his comm flashed with each step, guiding him towards Yondu's location in the shuttle bay. The recycled air caught in his throat as he ran. Knocking noises echoed through the corridors as asteroids or space debris bounced from the Eclector's shields. The ship had weathered much worse storms. Peter had spent nearly two standard years aboard. He knew which sounds could be ignored and which meant trouble.

Peter edged the rifle up an inch with his knee as he ran. The guns in his arms were surprisingly heavy. His run slowed to a jog, and then to a hobble, but he arrived in the hangar without dropping anything.

Yondu leant against Kraglin's M-ship with his arrow at his hip. A sour expression creased his scarred face. "I said five minutes, boy."

Peter was panting too hard to respond. He hunched over and coughed up dust that the Eclector's scrubbers had missed. It had been several months since they last docked, and air could only be recycled so many times. He clutched the guns to his skinny chest, unwilling to discard even one weapon. The plasma rifle slipped from his shoulder and hit the deck.

Yondu raised his brow ridges. "What you got there?"

Peter tucked a quad blaster beneath his armpit and bent down to grab the gun. "You told me to choose a weapon."

"One weapon, boy." Yondu trapped the rifle beneath his boot before Peter could lift it and extended his middle finger. "One."

"I couldn't decide."

"You think I'm gonna let you take all those?"

"We've been a few places you'd need that much metal," Kraglin said as he uncoupled the refuelling hose.

"Yeah," Yondu agreed, "but Tahuna's not one of them. Lemme see, kid."

Peter laid each weapon reluctantly on the deck. Yondu rejected the calendrical sword ("Too complicated. Take me a year just to teach ya the basics.") the plasma rifle ("Too heavy.") the apiarist's gun ("Hate to tell ya, kid. Bees ain't normally fatal."), the Kree submachine gun ("Recoil'd break ya nose.") and all but one of the quad blasters. ("I said a gun, kid. That means one.")

Peter frowned. "That's a kid's gun."

"Last time I looked, you were a kid."

"I'm ten years old!"

"Yer still a kid. Now put that lot back 'fore people miss them."

Kraglin sniggered. Peter scowled. His glower slid off Kraglin's leathers without making any visible impression.

Yondu gave them both a dirty look. "Go, Quill. I'm giving you five minutes before my arrow's gonna come find ya."

Peter gathered up the guns and ran. The quad blaster thudded uncomfortably on his hip. He'd knotted the leather to make the gun-belt small enough to fit his waist, but the belt was still too large. He tossed the Kree submachine gun through the armoury door, replaced the calendrical sword and the apiarist's gun in Yondu's cache of antique weapons and slipped the spare quad blaster back into Horuz's holster as the third mate snored. That left him with the plasma rifle.

Peter ran covetous fingers across the rifle's sleek blue surface. He closed his fingers around the trigger, imagining mowing bad guys one by one. The rifle wasn't any taller than he was. He could absolutely almost lift it without his arms shaking. He was nearly ten years old. Ten was old enough for a proper gun.

Peter glanced down at his wrist comm. Two minutes.

He heard footsteps-heavy, adult footsteps, slamming along the catwalk towards him. Instinctively he wrapped both his arms around the precious gun. He looked around to be sure that nobody was watching, dropped to his knees, and flipped up a ventilation hatch near the floor. The metal mesh on the catwalk floor bit through his pants as he crawled through. It was awkward to manoeuvre the plasma rifle after him. Peter managed-just. The hatch swung back into place behind him seconds before the nameless Ravager rounded the corner.

The Eclector's construction was as random as the ship's name suggested. The ventilation system had grown with the ship, upgraded whenever the crew had the opportunity or the units to do so. Some ducts were wide enough for Peter to walk upright without his head touching the ceiling. Others were little more than narrow pipes. This part of the ship had long, straight ducts which vented out into the engines. The vents were Peter's favourite hiding-places; large enough to crawl through but small enough to discourage adult-size Ravagers from venturing in except in dire emergency.

The air inside the shaft was close to blood heat. Ship sounds drifted through the walls; the crackle of static; the whirr of pumps; the hiss of fans. Peter heard snatches of conversations in a dozen translated languages. Footsteps thumped over his head. The ducts vibrated under his hands like living things. Beneath it all the engines thudded like a heartbeat.

Peter army-crawled along the vents, dragging the rifle behind him. He checked his comm. One minute left. The timer switched to seconds counting down. He sped up, heedless of the noise. His elbows and knees scraped painfully along the vent walls as he slithered along. He was close to his hiding place now. The access chamber opened just ahead. His wrist comm chimed just as he squeezed through the tiny access point. Thirty seconds.

Peter fell head-first into the warm nest he had constructed in the vent's service chamber. All the chambers were meant to be regularly checked by the crew, but the entrance to this chamber had been blocked by a bulkhead during some repair work years ago. Nobody had yet bothered to prise the chamber open and peer inside.

The chamber was a sheet-metal cube measuring two metres across. Four ducts ran from the cube's four sides, two leading to the ventilation system and two pointing down towards the engine's core. Peter kept his treasures in the centre of the cube, wrapped in a nest of fabric scraps. He unfurled the cloth and checked everything. One tattered flannel shirt, one orange-haired troll doll and one worn-out, too-small river-rafting T-shirt. All of Peter's treasures were there.

Peter re-wrapped his treasures and laid the plasma rifle reverently on top of the pile. Then he dropped down onto his belly and crawled back the way he had come, praying that Yondu hadn't gotten bored and left without him. To his relief the M-ship was still in the hangar when he arrived. Peter slipped through the shuttle door just before it slammed shut, climbed into a seat, and strapped himself in.

"What took ya so long?" Yondu demanded.

Peter shrugged. "Nothing."

"You put all them guns back?"

"Yeah." Peter was about to embroider his lie, but right then his teeth snapped together as Kraglin floored the thrusters. The M-ship left the hangar and soared into the jewelled darkness of deep space. Asteroids bounced from the shields. Peter's stomach lurched, but he forgot his nausea as soon as Tahuna appeared through the M-ship's windshield. The planet grew from a marble to an orange, then enlarged until it filled the whole screen. They skimmed the atmosphere, soaring past the strobing flashes of lightning storms before descending through the clouds a few thousand klicks from the planet's pole.

Behind them, the Eclector shuddered as it flew through an asteroid belt. Most of the asteroids shattered into dust against the shields, vaporised immediately before they could do any serious damage. Only a few small rocks passed through the shields to pepper the battle-scarred hull. Deep in the ventilation shaft, Peter's troll doll rolled to the side of the service chamber. His prized plasma rifle slid a few inches towards the vents.

"You ain't gonna spew, are ya?" Kraglin asked anxiously. "Cause if ya do, ya gotta clean it up."

Peter swallowed vigorously. "No," he said.

The continents unfurled like a blanket below him as they approached the planet. Ridges of snow-capped mountains peeked through from a sea of mist. Peter peered through gaps in the clouds at river deltas and impossibly blue lakes. Storms swirled at the northern pole of the planet. A white-capped sapphire sea spread out to the south. The rivers and woods all seemed rivetingly familiar. Peter didn't realize he'd moved forwards to clutch at the seats until Kraglin turned around.

"Hold on, kid. We're goin' down."

Peter threw himself back into his chair. The clouds swallowed them softly, pressing against the M-ship's windscreen. Trees skimmed below them at an alarming pace.

Yondu flicked the dashboard. "Ain't this a little bare? Next time we hit Knowhere, I'm gonna pick you up some trinkets."

Kraglin glanced up from the controls. "You really don't have to, boss."

"Get you some cute little buggers to line up on ya dashboard."

Kraglin pulled back on the throttle with more force than as strictly necessary. "I like it this way," he said.

They broke the clouds. Peter gazed through the windscreen, entranced by the panorama beneath them. Mountains stretched out like a white sea. The trees -green, just like Earth-grew densely on the slopes, thinning as they neared the peaks. Waterfalls cascaded down slopes of pale grey scree into deep turquoise lakes that gleamed beneath a white sun. Peter's mouth fell open.

Yondu peered at him. "Ya sure you're not gonna puke?"

Peter nodded.

Yondu pointed with a split blue nail at a field of tussock grass. "Put us down there."

Kraglin nodded. He aimed the M-ship at the sloping field. Five minutes later the ship's belly nestled in the grass. They cracked the hatch, and Peter got his first breath of fresh air in nearly two years.

It smelt like sunshine and pine and fresh-cut grass. Peter closed his eyes. His smile widened into a beatific grin. Shipboard air stank of exhaust gases, ammonia, and sulphur, and when the scrubbers weren't working it smelt even worse. The Eclector's oxygen generation system, like most Ravager tech, was strictly low-rent; stolen, patched, and recycled. It produced air that was just about breathable, and that was about all that could be said for it. Breathing planet-side air was like breathing champagne by comparison.

Peter inhaled through his nose, out through his mouth, and went to walk down the ramp. Yondu grabbed him by the back of his jacket before he had taken three paces.

"Whoa, whoa. What's got into you, boy?"

Peter reached up to work Yondu's hand free, but he couldn't break away no matter how hard he squirmed. The only way he could get loose was to remove his jacket, and no way was he losing those prized Ravager reds. "I just wanna explore," he said sulkily.

"Look at him," Kraglin shook his head. "Kid's high as a kite."

Yondu pinched Peter's ear with one hand and pointed towards the forest with the other. "Now you listen to me, boy. This ain't no safe space here. Plenty of things out there that'd like to eat a Terran. That means you gotta shut up and you gotta do what I say. Now you gonna listen, or are we gonna go back right now?"

Peter subsided. "M' gonna listen."

Yondu released him. "We got a deal?" He held out a calloused blue palm.

Peter spat on his palm and shook Yondu's hand. "Yeah."

Yondu nodded. "Okay," he said to Kraglin. "Okay. Come pick us up in four hours. That is, if this idiot don't shoot himself first."

"Right, boss."

Yondu grinned. "Now come on," he said to Peter. "I'm gonna teach you how to shoot."

Peter jumped down from the ramp. The springy grass gave beneath his boots, the gravity just a little lower than standard. He moved cautiously at first, gaining confidence as he jumped from tussock to tussock with no sign of alien attack. He looked back just in time to see Kraglin's M-ship lift off. The shuttle trailed vapour as it ascended. It cleared atmosphere quickly, blinked like a star, and vanished.

Several hundred kilometres above Peter's head, the Eclector vibrated beneath another rain of asteroids. Peter's troll doll trembled, hair moving in a gentle breeze as if brushed by invisible hands. The plasma rifle clattered to the floor of the chamber and slid another inch towards the vents

Peter was almost disappointed when he reached the edge of the trees without being eaten.

The forest looked weirdly like Missouri. The trees were roughly symmetrical, just like trees on earth, and they weren't strangely spindly or short and fat like trees were on some planets. The alien lifeforms twittering in the trees sounded just like birds until he listened closely. The air was cool and it smelt funny, but the atmosphere was far sweeter than the rank fug of the Eclector. Everything considered, Peter decided, the alien forest was disappointingly underwhelming.

"Hey, Yondu?"

"What, kid?"

"Why does this place look like Earth?"

"Hell if I know. Same reason we both got two arms and two eyes. Some shapes just work better than others."

Peter nodded. It wasn't a perfect explanation, but he figured it was all the explanation he was gonna get. He was about to ask Yondu more when he was distracted by the sight of water gleaming through the trees. The fleeting glimpse brought back memories of Missouri summers, of swim trunks and green water and his mother teaching him to swim. "You gotta float," she told him. "Just go with the flow, Petey. Just like life."

Peter caught Yondu's sleeve. "Can we go swimming?"

"Best not, kid. This ain't no holiday. Could be some bad stuff in there."

"Like what?"

Yondu considered. "Like anything. There's a parasite on Excedris that crawls straight inta your mouth an' eats yer tongue." He wriggled his own blue tongue at Peter. "Puts itself right in its place."

"Gross." Peter said. He frowned. "Hey, what happens? Can they still talk?"

"I dunno." Yondu scratched his chin. "Why don't ya go for a swim? Then we can find out."

Peter glanced suspiciously around the clearing. "Are there any here?"

"Don't think so." Yondu snickered as Peter came closer. "What, you think I'd drop you on a planet with those kinda beasties? Waste of good meat."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I thought you were gonna teach me to shoot?"

"Just findin' the right place." Yondu squinted at a fallen log. "Here should do. Now just lemme find you some targets." He picked up a few pine-cones and lined them up along the top of the log. "That should do it. Now show me what you got."

Peter squinted at the cones. He brought the blaster up and squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked. Nothing happened.

"Safety off, boy."

Peter thumbed the safety, blushing. He aimed again, pressed both triggers, and fired. A fiery blast lanced from both barrels and incinerated all four pine cones, the fallen tree, and most of the vegetation in a five-metre radius.

Yondu raised one eyebrow. "Okay," he said. "Knew there was a reason we didn't do this on the ship. Don't worry 'bout the tree. It'll burn out."

Peter regarded his quad blaster with new respect. "Are you sure?"

"Sure enough," Yondu said. "Now let's go down beside the lake 'fore you burn anything else."

They set up another line of targets on a tree beside the lake. Yondu knelt beside a stump and motioned Peter down beside him. "Rest your elbows on the stump. That's right. Now let's go back to basics. Make sure you know just what you're aimin' at. Don't do you no good to be shootin' yer own side in a firefight." He squinted over Peter's shoulder. "Close one eye. Now line it up."

"You don't close one eye."

"Don't shoot guns, kid. Don't have to."

Peter rolled both of his. "Kraglin don't close his eye."

"Kraglin's been doin' this longer than you have. Close yer eye, keep it nice and still. Fire when you're ready. One trigger, kid. Just one. Ya hear?"

Peter pulled the trigger. A plasma bolt shot from the blaster's barrel and thudded into the tree, missing all the cones. One of the cones vibrated slightly. Peter watched the pine-cone hopefully, but the seed failed to fall.

"Pick the gun up, kid. You ain't gonna be shootin' anything smaller than you are. Last time I looked, kneecaps weren't fatal. Aim higher."

Peter squinted down the blaster's barrel and squeezed the trigger tentatively. A bolt lanced from the top barrel and scorched the centre cone to slag.

"Nice try, boy. Again."

Peter clipped the next cone with his second shot. Yondu scratched his cross-hatched scars and nodded. "Not bad," he said. "But not good. Again."

Far above them, the Eclector suffered through its biggest impact yet. Bottles fell from tables and shattered on the floor of the Ravagers' mess. Hammocks swayed gently in the racks without waking their occupants. On the bridge, crew slid swearing into bulkheads. Kraglin, securing his M-ship in the hangar, steadied himself against his craft's warm metal and glanced up at the flickering lights.

The plasma rifle slid from Peter's cache into the mouth of the closest vent. The ducts were polished, and the weapon found little resistance. It gathered speed as the vent descended steeply, slipped past rivet holes and empty casings where the safety measures had been removed or recycled, and fell down the air intake straight into the engines.

All the lights went out on the Eclector.

Kraglin, promoted to second in command by Yondu's absence, was halfway through a bowl of cereal when the ship shuddered. He experienced a brief, disorienting moment of complete blackness before the red emergency lighting flicked on. Kraglin was on his feet and sprinting to the bridge as soon as he could see to run. He flicked on his comm as he ran. "What the hell just happened?"

The voice on the far end of the comm was shaky. "D-don't know, sir."

The corridors around him filled as every able-bodied Ravager aboard ran to their stations. Kraglin could feel the sweat and fear in the air. He dodged past a shambling Acherlonian and ran for the bridge. A sinking feeling settled in his stomach. The Eclector was his responsibility right now. If the ship didn't kill him, Yondu just might.

"Engines out." Czar said as soon as Kraglin made it through the door. "We're losin' power."

"We still got air." Kraglin said, although the fact that he could articulate made this self-evident. "And gravity."

Czar nodded. "Emergency generator's good for a few days," he rumbled. "We got time. Let's try some things."

Kraglin tried everything he knew.

Nothing worked.

Three hundred kilometres below them, Tahuna's suns slid slowly down the sky. The clouds rolled in and laced the mountaintops with mist. Peter's shoulder ached from the unaccustomed weight of holding the gun. "Can't I stop?"

"You think a firefight's gonna stop for you to catch ya breath? Well, it ain't. Keep goin'."

"I'm tired," Peter whined.

"You can stop when that blaster runs outa bullets."

"But blasters don't run out of bullets!"

"Then you can stop when I tell ya. Again."

Peter riddled the tree with shot until it resembled a slice of swiss cheese. Yondu called a halt once the trunk began to smoulder. "Enough, kid. Don't wanna set the forest alight."

Peter replaced the quad blaster in its holster and rubbed his hands. "It won't burn. No way. It's too soggy." He gestured to the smoking tree trunk. "How'd I do?"

"I don't know, kid." Yondu peered at the tree. "Ah, hell. Pick a big enough target, you're gonna hit it."

Peter frowned, unsure whether he'd just been handed a compliment. He decided that he hadn't. This was Yondu, after all. "That's not fair. I only just started. How come you don't have to practice?"

Yondu stomped across the clearing and picked up a pine cone. He tossed the cone lazily up into the air and whistled. His yaka arrow flew from his hip, pierced the cone, executed a neat figure of eight and flew through the cone three more times before the pine cone exploded in a shower of dust.

"Show-off."

Yondu grinned toothily. "Don't have to practice, kid." He slapped Peter on the shoulder. "Cheer up. You know how long it took me to learn to fly that arrow?"

"No."

"You never will." Yondu's comm buzzed. He raised the unit to his ear. "Yeah?"

"Cap?" Even through the static, Kraglin's voice sounded nervous. "We have a problem."

Peter's ears prickled. He scrambled towards the comm. "Is that Kraglin?"

Yondu pushed him away. "Shut up, kid. I gotta take this."

"Is Peter there?"

"He's here." Yondu shoved Peter away as he tried to listen in. "What happened?"

Kraglin explained. Yondu listened, eyes narrowed to crimson slits. When Kraglin had finished he thought for a moment and said "Reroute power from the shields. See if you can jump-start the engines. Could be we lose some equipment to asteroid strikes, but we can fix that later."

"Tryin' it now," Kraglin confirmed. "You an' the boy gonna be okay?"

"Sure we will. This ain't Klyntar." Yondu rolled his eyes at Peter. "You can come pick us up in the mornin'."

"Yeah. Hope we'll have it fixed by then."

"Ya better. Or else we're gonna see if my arrow makes it out of orbit."

Peter heard Kraglin swallow even over the static. "Yes, boss."

"I'll see ya later." Yondu pressed a button and ended the call. He snorted. "Jackass. Leave him alone one second with me ship an' look what happens. Can't even keep 'er in the air."

"What happened?" Peter asked.

"Engines jammed." Yondu shrugged. "Won't be the first time. Kraglin'll fix 'em. Looks like ya got your wish. We're stayin' here tonight. But no swimmin'."

Peter glanced up at the towering clouds and imagined the Eclector's scarred hulk floating powerless in orbit. The thought unsettled him. Yondu's ship was ugly, smelly, and patched together from spare parts, but he'd called her home for the last two years. What if something happened?

"Is everyone okay?" He didn't care if Yondu laughed and called him sentimental.

To his surprise, Yondu didn't mock him. "Fine so far," he said.

"What d'you think happened?"

"Dunno. Five years back, a Chitauri space-whale went right inta th' engines. Hell of a mess."

A worm of anxiety writhed in Peter's stomach. "Does that happen much? Things falling into the engines?"

"Why you askin me, boy?"

Peter avoided Yondu's eyes. He examined the strange forest. Tendrils of smoke rose from his first, failed, target. Emerald-green moss carpeted the ground. Blue globules on long stalks like sapphire pearls hung from the towering, rough-barked trees. The forest looked a whole lot more alien now that he knew they were spending the night. Peter remembered the plasma rifle, the inspection chamber, the ducts. Surely not?

Yondu misinterpreted Peter's expression. "Don't worry boy. Ain't nothing out there worse than me."

Peter's stomach lurched. He raised his chin and gazed hopelessly at the sky, trying to spy out the Eclector through three hundred kilometres of atmosphere, asteroids, and space. The galleon was a big ship. It had plenty of parts to go wrong. What if it wasn't his fault?

What if it was? He'd seen Yondu space people for much less.

The object of Peter's concern stared at him through narrowed red eyes. "Whatsa matter, boy? Ya drink some bad water or somethin'?"

"Nah," Peter said miserably. "M'fine."

It was all gonna be okay, he decided. Kraglin would fix the ship. He'd come pick them up. Peter would check his cache the first chance he got, and everything would still be there. Everything was gonna be fine.

Peter squeezed his eyes tight shut and abandoned his search for the Eclector in the clouds. The sky had faded from blue to grey-tinged white. Clouds curled over the mountain peaks, soggy white mist blending with the snow-capped peaks. A cool breeze drifted through the trees. A drop of rain hit Peter square between his eyes, precise as a bullet.

"It's raining!"

"Can see that." Yondu agreed. He scowled up at the sky, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his red Ravager coat. "Let's find some shelter, boy. Planet like this, there's sure to be some caves."

They quartered the forest. There weren't any caves. Just trees and slopes of scree and slick grey rock tumbling with tiny waterfalls.

"We could stay right here," Peter suggested. He pointed to the tussock meadow where Kraglin had landed the shuttle. Fingers of cold water snaked between the lumps of tussock grass. Rain pelted Peter's face, trickling between his collar and his neck. He shivered.

"It's the bottom of a valley, kid."

"So what?"

"Valleys flood. You need me to draw you a picture?"

Peter hunched over. "You said there'd be a cave."

"I said there might be a cave. We need to go up."

"Will there be a cave if we go up?"

"Might be a cave. That's what I said."

An hour later, Peter had forgotten all about the plight of the Eclector and focused firmly on his own troubles. Sweat and rainwater mingled and slicked the lining of his leathers. Slopes of grey scree ascended dizzily towards snow-capped peaks. Streams of cold grey water cascaded from the rocks and poured into the valleys. Pine trees with water dripping from their branches creaked in the rising wind. Peter retreated into his too-large Ravager leathers like a snail. Alien planets were proving less exciting than he'd expected.

"When's Kraglin gonna come for us?" he whined.

"He's gonna pick us up in the morning. Don't you worry about that. What we need to worry about is findin' some place safe to spend the night."

Peter looked around at the trees. "I'm cold."

Yondu sucked his teeth. He looked down at the ground with a calculating expression and dragged the toe of his boot over the forest floor. "Get outta the way, kid."

Peter stepped back, slowly. He leapt away as Yondu whistled. The yaka arrow shot from its sheath and lanced through the trunk of the nearest tree just above Yondu's head. Yondu whistled again. The arrow reversed its course in mid-air and shot through the trunk in the other direction, leaving a pair of neat, sizzling holes. Yondu kept up the two-note whistle until wood splintered and the tree cracked and crashed to the floor. Peter covered his head from the rain of cones, chips, and pine needles, grateful for the Ravager leathers that protected him from the worse of the barrage. When he cautiously uncurled his arms from his head the yaka arrow was back in Yondu's coat and the tree had cracked in half like a cheap chopstick.

Yondu spread his arms theatrically. "See, kid?"

Peter rolled back his sleeves and reached out to touch the pine needles. The needles were soft and slightly sticky instead of prickly and hard like he had been expecting. The air smelled strongly of aniseed instead of the sharp scent of resin he'd been expecting.

Yondu shrugged off his leather coat. Beneath his coat he wore more leathers, patched and mended. The rain didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He spread the coat over the pine tree's branches, and weighted the coat down with stones on the sleeves, straps, and buckles. "That's my best coat, boy. You better be worth it."

Peter dropped to his knees and gazed at the small space inside. It was dark and smelt of old leather and aniseed. He couldn't imagine spending the whole night in there. He looked back at Yondu uncertainly. "That's your only coat."

Yondu grinned at him, teeth gleaming in the gloom. "I'm gonna get us some food. Light a fire, boy. Save us both a lot of time." He turned and swaggered off among the trees.

Peter scrambled to his feet. "Wait!" he blurted. "Don't leave me!"

But Yondu had gone. Peter knew that a blue guy with a crystal mohawk and red leathers couldn't just disappear. Still, he saw no sign of Yondu among the trees. Peter hesitated, still not ready to rule out the possibility of tongue-stealing alien creatures. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. The light waned little by little, and Peter realised that if he didn't build a fire in what little light he had left he'd be searching for wood in the dark.

The mere thought was enough to force him from the shelter. It was still raining. He found precious little dead, dry wood. He picked a handful of the blue globules that hung from the pines and squished them between his fingers. He wasn't sure if they were fruit or flowers. Either way, they were far too soggy to burn. Eventually he scraped together a small pile of twigs and shavings nd hoped that alien wood burned as well as Earth logs did.

Peter searched his pockets hopefully. He found nothing left to burn. He remembered the smoking, incinerator tree and his hand moved to the trigger of his quad blaster. He rejected the idea almost immediately. Yondu might kill Peter for sabotaging the Eclector but he'd stuff Peter first and use him as a figurehead if he burnt Yondu's coat.

Peter had been thrown out of Boy Scouts after one single afternoon for using a camera battery to give the other kids electric shocks. The only thing he remembered was that you could light a fire by rubbing sticks together in an emergency.

This, Peter decided, was definitely an emergency.

Half an hour later Yondu sauntered back through the trees with something like a giant furry prawn dangling from one hand and found Peter hunched over a pile of sticks, frantically sawing a pair of twigs together.

"What did they teach you back on Earth, kid? That's not how you light a fire."

Peter, face red and palm smarting, all but tossed the sticks at him. "You show me, then!"

Yondu whistled. His yaka arrow burst from its sheath, igniting as it went, and hissed into the pile of tinder. The little fire exploded, showering cinders. Yondu leant over and snatched his arrow from the flames. "There ya go," he said, tossing the dead alien in Peter's lap. "Dinner."

"I'm not eating that!"

"Eat it, kid. Or I'll eat you."

In two years, Yondu had threatened Peter enough for him to know that it was unlikely he would be on the Eclector's dinner menu. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

Peter poked the alien's plush cerulean fur. "It's the same colour as you."

"You're pink, you eat pink things." Yondu drew a wicked-looking knife. "So what? Now quit whinin'. Or I really will eat ya."

Skinned and eviscerated, the alien hovered uncomfortably between skinned rabbit and shell-less, blue lobster. Rain sizzled on the fire, making cooking a tedious process. Yondu pronounced the meat ready after an hour; more, it seemed, from boredom than any real culinary judgment.

Peter regarded his portion doubtfully. The meat was singed navy around the edges and pale blue in the centre. "Is it safe?"

"Nothin's safe, kid. But I don't think it's gonna kill ya."

This was less than the wholehearted denial Peter had hoped for. "You don't think?"

Yondu poked at their shelter's makeshift ceiling, which was beginning to leak. "I ain't sure 'bout your weird Terran biology. But if I wanted you dead, I shoulda done it two years ago. Saved myself a lotta time and a whole lotta music."

Peter regarded the meat suspiciously for a few minutes. Eventually, he ate it. The aniseed resin gave the meat a strange aftertaste, like breath mints, but it didn't taste so bad. He curled beside the fire, almost-but-not-quite dry, and listened to the rain patter on Yondu's coat. The sky was a bowl of inky blackness. Peter squinted, searching for the bright falling star that marked the orbiting Eclector. Clouds blocked his view. He saw no stars at all.

Or perhaps the ship isn't there to find.

Peter's stomach lurched. What if the Eclector had malfunctioned so badly it couldn't be fixed? What he was stuck down here forever?

I wouldn't mind being stuck on Earth, he thought, with pinball machines and drive-in movies and Diet Coke. But not down here.

I don't even have my Walkman.

Above the clouds, the Eclector floated gently; lights dimmed, engines dead. Kraglin set down the tool he was holding and swiped a hand across his face. Ordinarily, he would have been sweating, but the back-up heating systems were designed for survival rather than comfort. The air temperature in the corridors was just above freezing.

Kraglin's hand closed on a small plastic rectangle.

"Hey," he said. "Quill left his Walkman."

Horuz grunted. "Chuck it in the waste disposal while we have the chance. Unless you can use it to find out what's wrong with the ship?"

Kraglin shook his head. He tucked the Walkman away in his jacket. Quill's music-maker was a pain in the ass, but it made Peter happy, and Kraglin figured everyone should have at least one thing in life that made them happy. The kid was a long way from home.

Gef joined them, pushing up his goggles onto his forehead as he blocked out most of the dim emergency lighting. The Xandarian was even bigger and uglier than Horuz was, and Horuz was pretty big. Pretty ugly too.

"Any luck?" Kraglin asked.

Gef shook his head. "Nah."

"Have you checked the ducts?"

"No way I'm goin' in the ducts." Gef said.

Czar cackled. "No way you'd fit."

Kraglin stabbed a finger at his datapad and checked the systems, but the main generator resolutely refused to ignite. When he glanced up, he saw all of them looking at him. "Don't look at me. That's an order. I won't fit."

"We could cut some bits off," Horuz offered.

"I like all my bits." Kraglin said. He sighed. "Shame Peter isn't here. Damn kid could be useful for once. Now come on. We gotta get this fixed by morning."

"Or what?"

"Whadda you think?"

They exchanged glanced. Only Gef was stupid enough to actually say what some of them were thinking. "Cap's a long way away."

Kraglin raised one eyebrow. "You think that's gonna stop 'im?"

Gef shifted uncomfortably.

Kraglin nodded and turned back to his work. "Thought so."

Thousands of kilometres below them, the damn kid folded his arms behind his head and stared into the fire. The flickering sparks didn't look much like the Ravager flames.

Yondu flicked him on the ear with a horny blue nail. "Wake up, kid."

"M' not asleep."

"Coulda fooled me. Ya gotta gun now." He tossed Peter a rag. "Gotta learn how to look after it."

Two guns, Peter thought. He drew the quad blaster awkwardly and turned it over in his hands. The metal was cool, rainbow-stained around the muzzle and scratched from years of use. He scratched the tarnish with one nail, scraping a thin silver strip. Half-recalled memories of Westerns and cop shows danced through his head. "Do I gotta take it apart?"

Yondu shook his head. "I'll teach you how to strip it down properly when we get back aboard. Jus' give it a wipe. If ya gonna use a weapon it better work when you need it to. Else if you're lucky, ya just look stupid. Or you be dead. Put some elbow grease inta it."

Peter put some elbow grease into it.

"And ya gotta practise," Yondu continued. "Go shoot some Orloni or womp rats or something. Don't let the crew see ya. If you miss, they'll think you're weak. Good for nothin' but eatin'. Don't show 'em what you can do till you're good an' ready." He yawned, displaying capped and broken teeth. "Always good to have folk underestimate ya."

Peter couldn't imagine Yondu ever being anything except but a ruthless, terrifying space pirate. "When was the last time someone underestimated you?"

Yondu grinned like a shark. "Long time ago, kid. Long time."

The night drew in around them. The rain never stopped. By the time Peter crawled out of their makeshift tent the night was alive with the sound of running water. Water dripped from every tree and trickled in rivulets through the leaf litter. Drops the size of golf balls hit Peter's forehead. He covered his head with his hands. Down through the trees he heard water bubbling like somebody had turned on a tap. The rain made the night seemed alive. Peter unzipped his fly with shaking hands and tried not to think about Yondu's tongue-eating parasites.

"Y' better not piss on my coat, boy."

Peter adjusted his aim, zipped his fly and dived back into the tent. He pulled off his boots and crawled to the back of their shelter, right into the snug nook where the tree branches met the forest floor. The stuffy space smelt of aniseed, gun oil and unwashed Ravager. Peter found it oddly comforting. He zipped up his coat and tucked up his knees, huddling into the leather like it was a sleeping bag. The rain drummed on their makeshift tent. It was an oddly soothing sound. Peter was warm (pretty much), dry (almost) and he knew that Yondu would defend him to the death against any other aliens that wanted to eat him.

Peter drifted off to sleep. He woke to the sound of running water and Yondu's hoarse voice in his ear. "Get up, boy. We gotta go."

Peter blinked sleepily. Everything was dark. Rain showered his face. "Wha?"

"Getcha boots on."

Peter opened his eyes. It was still dark. The night was black as pitch and lightless in a way that Peter hadn't experienced for a very long time. The Eclector was never dark. There was always someone up on watch. Low-level, emergency lighting glowed dimly in the corridors even when the power failed. Deep space was dark. People needed light.

It had been two years since Peter had experienced complete blackness. He blinked, willing his body to adjust as he fumbled for his boots. He found them and jammed in his feet, stifling a yelp.

"Hurry up, kid!"

Peter's boots were full of cold water. He laced them up and crawled outside. The sound of running water was louder than a freight train at a rock concert. Rain lashed his face. Peter covered his head with his arms and tried to crawl back in the shelter.

Yondu hauled him out by his collar. "We gotta go."

"Where to?"

"Not here." Yondu kicked away the rocks pinning his coat to the ground. He swept the coat up and over his shoulders, shaking away pine needles as he showered Peter with spray.

Peter squinted at the sky. The snow-capped mountains were invisible behind dark low clouds, but he could feel their presence in every pinprick drop of freezing rain. Grey cliffs gleamed behind curtains of rain. Waterfalls cascaded down steep slick rock. The pine trees swayed in the wind. The rain was so heavy it seemed impossible to breathe between the drops.

Yondu shoved Peter between the shoulder-blades. Peter staggered forwards and shot Yondu a dirty look. A trail of fist-sized rocks bounced down the mountain in front of them. Peter stopped one with his toe. "Is Kraglin here?"

"Not likely. No time for questions. Let's move."

"What about the valley?"

"There ain't no valley. Now move."

Peter frowned. He sank his boots into the leaf litter and stared down at the valley. The meadow where Kraglin's M-ship had dropped them was already covered in water. The valley was filling up like a sink with the plug left in. A deep rumble came from the rocks on the other side of the hill. Something big and heavy splashed into the water on the other side. Splintering noises sharp as gunshots followed.

"What's that?"

"Trees fallin'" Yondu said. He stood with his shoulders hunched against the storm, fists balled as if he could fight the rain. "Let's go."

Peter pulled the collar of his jacket up to his ears and slouched towards Yondu. The rain poured down his coat like a funnel. Behind them, the rain battered down the branches of the broken tree, the leaves twitching and shuddering as if they were living things. The dry patch of ground where they'd spent the night was already soaked through.

"Why can't we stay?" he asked. "It's safe right here."

"It ain't safe, kid. Nowhere's safe. Now get movin'."

Peter shoved his hands in his pockets. Yondu headed confidently along the slope. Peter kept closer and hoped some of Yondu's confidence would rub off on him. "How's Kraglin gonna land?"

"He ain't. Not tonight. We gotta find some shelter. Wait it out."

Peter stumbled into a tree. A branch hit his face. He blinked back tears. "You said there'd be a cave."

"I was wrong, kid."

"Have they fixed the ship?"

"Not last time I heard."

"Are they really gonna come for us?"

Yondu glanced back at him with narrowed red eyes. "Shut up, boy."

Peter subsided into sullen silence. Yondu set a pace slow enough for Peter to follow, but fast enough that Peter had to struggle to keep up. If he was following a path, then Peter couldn't see it. "Where are we going?" he asked. His boots squelched in the mud as he jumped across a fallen tree.

"Stop whinin', kid."

"M'not whining."

"I say ya are." Yondu stopped abruptly. "No more questions."

Peter opened his mouth, but as he peered around Yondu's shoulder and forgot what he had been about to say. The ground in front of them had vanished. A crack gaped open in the ground a few steps beyond Yondu's boots. The exposed earth was quickly turning to mud. Spindly white tree roots protruded from the rip's steep sides.

"What happened?" Peter asked.

"Looks like a slip." Yondu curled his lip. "Lotsa rain. Steep slopes. Slips happen."

Peter gazed down at the crevice. It looked deep enough to hold a dozen M-ships. A new waterfall has already formed on the other side of the hill. Water rushed into the crack, gouging out more soil. A ledge on the far side of the crack abruptly folded, collapsing into the gorge with a gurgle. Peter leaned out to follow it, but Yondu caught him before he could lean too far over. "We gotta go back. Head the other way. Get off these damn hills."

Peter folded his arms. "Can't you call Kraglin?"

"The comm's not working." Yondu tapped his wrist unit with one horny blue nail. "Must be the storm. Could be their power."

"Which one?"

"Damned if I know, kid."

"But why-"

"How about ya shut your mouth for one damn minute?"

They turned back across the slope. The rain poured down, washing away the aniseed scent of the alien pines. The mud grew thicker. Peter's boots slipped. He skidded downslope for a pace before Yondu yanked him back. A deep rumbling sound filled the valley. They both tensed, but the roar died away without obliterating them in a wall of mountain debris.

"What was that?"

"Landslip. Big one."

"This'd all be fine if you could find a cave."

"Well, why don't you find one for me-"

Something barrelled past at a flat run, sending pine needles flying into Peter's face. It was too dark to see, but he thought it might have been another of the furry prawn aliens. He staggered back, slipped, and went down on his rear. Thick mud soaked his leathers. "Why'd you bring me here?"

"Target practice, kid. And if ya don't start moving, I'm gonna get some practice in right now."

Peter flicked mud from his hands. As his arms were now as sodden and mud soaked as everything else he was wearing, the gesture did not so much remove mud as help spread it around. He wiped mud from his wrist comm, which beeped, informing him that it was now twenty standard hours since they'd left the Eclector. There was no sign of sunrise. He couldn't even see the horizon. The feeling of dread that had been slowly coalescing in Peter's stomach ever since Yondu had told him the Eclector wasn't working dragged at him like a brick.

"Don't you worry," Yondu said. "Ship'll be fixed soon. Kraglin'll come down an' pick us up."

"Will he?" Peter said doubtfully.

Yondu shrugged. "Him or Czar. Though I sure hope it ain't Horuz. Ain't no way I'm gonna be stuck in the shuttle for an hour with that asshole."

Peter dug his feet into the mud. He stopped, turned, and looked Yondu straight in the eye. His dramatic moment was spoiled by Yondu staring over his head at the cloud-obscured peaks. "Don't like like the look of this," he muttered. "Let's get."

Peter folded his arms. Soaked leather squelched. "I got something to say."

"Tell me later, kid. This is a bad place to stop."

"It's important." Peter dug his heels in the mud and scowled at Yondu mulishly.

"Get goin', kid. Ain't got time for this."

"I gotta tell ya!

"This ain't no negotiation. You can tell me later. Haul yer ass."

Peter shook his head. "They're not gonna pick us up!"

Yondu frowned. His implant gleamed as he glanced back up at the mountains. "Don't talk nonsense, boy."

Peter felt a stab of irritation. He had something important to say, something Yondu might eat him for, and Yondu wasn't even listening to him properly. "It's my fault the ship's broken," he said, cringing as he waited for Yondu's whistle. Rain scoured his face.

"Don't see how a skinny Terran like you could break a whole damn ship-"

The slip hit with the force of a train.

Peter saw it coming a moment before it hit, sweeping down the mountainside towards them in a maelstrom of foaming water, fallen trees and rocks. A clump of pines surfed incongruously on the wreckage. Peter leapt back-or tried to. Mud sucked at his boots and he fell on his ass. Yondu hissed something that made Peter's translator short out and leapt towards him. His coat blotted out Peter's view of the landslide.

And then the world fell away.

The sound of the rain, of the wind, of Yondu cursing, disappeared beneath a roar louder than the Eclector's engines. Peter had a confused impression of movement and pain. He rolled over and over, head spinning. Everything was dark. He hit something hard-or something hard hit him. Branches lashed his face. Something heavy compressed his chest. For a moment all sensation abruptly stopped except the rushing in Peter's ears. Then he plunged into the water.

The water was so cold it took his breath away. Peter gasped. He opened his eyes, but saw nothing but trails of bubbles. He opened his mouth to inhale, and gulped down more water. The liquid stung his eyes and nose like bicarbonate of soda, but it tasted just like water did on Earth. His chest tightened painfully. There was more pain-a heavy throbbing in one cheekbone, scrapes along his arms and thigh and wrist that burned in the water, but the need to breathe gradually erased everything else. He thrashed, unable to tell which way was up. He was gonna die, and there was nothing he could do.

You gotta float, he thought.

He remembered his mom, that last summer. Floating by him in the creek, water lapping her bald head. "Your body wants to live. It tells you to swim hard, to fight the cold water. But you can't fight it, Petey. It's too big. You gotta float, Petey. Let your body adjust. Then you can swim."

"Star-Lord," he corrected her, and in his head, she smiled.

"Okay then, Star-Lord."

Peter let himself go. He floated upwards, boots dangling down towards the bottom of the pond. His hair drifted towards the surface. Peter followed, chest bursting, stretching his arms out towards the surface. Bubbles escaped from his mouth, his nose, and the sleeves of his coat.

Peter's face broke water.

The rush of cold air nearly took his breath away all over again. He ruthlessly compressed his chest and controlled his breathing. His ears rang with the sound of falling rocks and splashing water.

It was nothing like a Missouri summer.

Calm, Peter thought, Float. Then you can swim.

He fanned his fingers, knees bent, and let his boots sink rather than struggling with the laces. Once he was floating upright like a pendulum he pushed soaked hair from his eyes and looked around.

Everything was dark. The water around him was a soup of mud and broken branches. Rain dimpled the water. To Peter's left a ragged slope of rocks, soil and fallen trees cut sharply up the mountain on one side, terminating half way across the lake on the other. A wide swathe had vanished completely.

Peter exhaled spray. His throat hurt.

Landslip, he realized. A big one.

Peter looked around for Yondu, but saw nothing but dark water, floating logs. His breath quickened. He willed himself to be calm. The shore wasn't far. He could probably make it. But what then?

He heard a familiar hoarse voice. "Quill?"

Peter's head inched a little higher in the water. He drew in a deep breath, preparing to shout back, and inhaled water, coughing. His head ducked beneath the waves.

"Quill? Answer me, boy!"

I'm here, Peter thought. He went under, swallowed water. "Yondu?"

"Where you at?"

Peter dragged one arm up. The water fought him all the way. "Here!" he gasped, floundering. He strained his eyes, searching for signs of life. He could hear splashing, but he couldn't see a thing. Peter's fingertips were numb. The cold crept up his arms, tightening his chest. He began to gasp again. They had to get out of here.

He searched the water desperately for signs of life. "Yondu?" He meant to shout but it came out as a whisper.

"Kid!"

Peter turned, and saw Yondu thrashing in the water, fighting it like he fought everything else. He dragged in a breath, swallowed water instead, and went under again, gasping too much to whistle.

Peter forced his chilled limbs to swim. "Yondu!" he shouted. His chest tightened with the beginnings of panic. He couldn't get them both out of the water. He didn't even know if he had the strength to save himself. Forget being marooned on an alien planet, they were both gonna drown right here. "Yondu! You gotta float!"

He didn't know if Yondu heard him. He didn't know if Centaurians even floated. Didn't know if they even had rivers, or lakes for that matter. But if Yondu didn't float, he'd have sunk way before now.

"You gotta float!" he shouted.

This time he thought Yondu heard him. At least, his movements slowed. His head bobbed in the water, crystal implant gleaming. After a few moments he'd recovered his breath sufficiently to ask "Kid? Y'all right?"

Peter nodded. His throat burned. "Yeah."

"You got nothin' better to do than float around?" Yondu's voice was even hoarser than usual. "We gonna get out of here or not?"

Peter shivered. "Y-y-yeah."

Yondu whistled. His arrow punched through Peter's coat with a force out of all proportion to its size. The blow wrenched Peter from the water and dumped him unceremoniously on hands and knees on the shore. The air was colder than the water had been. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and shivered.

The arrow wriggled through his coat and zipped back across the water. The crimson light looped and returned to the shore more slowly, towing Yondu behind it. Once Yondu was knee-deep he whistled again. The arrow darted back to its holster. Yondu staggered across the shore and folded up at Peter's side.

Peter looked over at him. "You made a hole in my coat," he said. Then he puked.

He rested his elbows on his knees and coughed up the lake. Once he was done he leant against Yondu and pressed his cheek against the worn leather of his coat. Centaurians ran hotter than humans. Peter could feel Yondu's body warmth even through his coat. He wrapped his arms around him and clung on like a crab.

Yondu raised his arm. Peter shied away, but Yondu just reached over and ruffled his hair. "Hey, hey. Don't get too comfy, kid. You okay?"

Peter sniffed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. "Did it hit you?"

"If it had hit me, I'd be dead." Yondu scowled at the wall of rock as if it could hear what they were saying. "That was a big slip. We just caught th' edge, that's all. Guess we were lucky."

"Guess so," Peter agreed. He blinked water from his eyes and watched the sky lighten. The rain had stopped, but they were both so wet it hardly mattered.

Yondu sighed. "We need to talk. About what ya said earlier."

So, this was it, Peter thought. He was finally going to be eaten. "Guess so," he said reluctantly.

"How'd ya break a whole damn ship?"

Peter explained. The ducts, his cache, the stolen plasma rifle. He told Yondu everything.

Yondu scratched his stubble. "So ya reckon the rifle fell down into the vents and blocked the engine?"

Peter nodded.

"Why didn't ya say earlier?"

Peter stirred the alien leaf litter with his toe. "I wasn't sure," he mumbled.

Yondu snorted. "Bullshit. You sound pretty sure to me."

"I was scared. Okay? I thought you were gonna eat me!"

Yondu regarded Peter for a moment with no more expression on his face than a stone. The he reached out and poked Peter in the ribs. "Don't be an idiot.! I'm not gonna eat ya."

"Thanks, Yondu."

"Gonna wait till you got more meat on ya bones."

Peter punched him. It was like punching a rock. "Loser."

Yondu smirked. "Jackass." He raised his comm. "Let's call Kraglin. We got a ship to fix."

Far about their heads, the Eclector floated through the silence of deep space. Red emergency lighting striped the corridors. Kraglin hunched over the bridge console with Peter's headphones laced around his neck. He stared at the readouts, willing them to make sense. The engines were still dead, and it didn't look like they were planning on resurrection any time soon. Kraglin had the best engineers they had working down there. He hadn't bothered to offer them bonuses for working overtime. The prospect of suffocating slowly within a few days if they didn't figure out the problem seemed motivation enough.

The comm on the dash beeped. Kraglin thumbed the channel open. "Yeah?"

Yondu's hoarse voice rasped above the static. "Hey, Kraglin?"

"Yeah?"

"You on private comm?"

"Let me check…" Kraglin reached over to the dash and flipped a switch. "All good, boss."

"Ship workin'?"

"Not so far."

"Check th' vents."

Kraglin slipped the headphones down. A tinny rendition of Oooga Chaka seeped into the stale air. "The vents?"

"There's a service chamber in one of the ducts. Only th' panel's bolted up. You'll-" He paused. "Hang on, kid, I'm tellin' 'im-you'll need someone to go inside, check it out. Some scavengers got in. Hoardin' stuff, ya get me? Some of it might 'ave fallen down inside the ducts. Somethin' like a plasma rifle."

"Scavengers?"

"Scavengers," Yondu confirmed.

"Hang on-are we talkin' 'bout Terran scavengers here? You know we shoulda delivered him to his dad like we was hired to do?"

"Boy has his uses," Yondu said defensively.

"Yeah, like crawlin' into ducts. Only thing is he ain't anywhere here. So I guess I'm gonna have to go instead. Just so ya know, I'm gonna complain to my boss about this. Figure I'm due for a raise."

Yondu's voice sounded sour. "Complain all you want. Ain't no guarantee you're gonna get one."

Kraglin sighed and clicked Peter's Walkman off. ""I'm on it, Cap," he said, pressing a button on the console as soon as Yondu's voice faded out. "Czar?"

"Kraglin?"

"I'm headin' down to the engine room right now. Anyone checked the ducts?"

There was a pause. "Not recently."

"Get them on it."

"Yes, boss."

Kraglin ended the connection. He unhooked Peter's headphones from around his neck and dumped them in the nearest storage locker. The he climbed on the counter, hooked his fingers in the ceiling grate and yanked it off. The opening was much narrower than he had expected. The small dark space inside was uninviting, though Kraglin had to admit that the draught gusting through the ducts smelled much sweeter than the stale shipboard air. The scrubbers were working at half-power due to the engine failure, and the oxy aboard the Eclector hadn't been that fresh to begin with. He pulled out a light-globe and started climbing.

It took Kraglin half a standard hour to find Peter's stash. It was one of the longest half-hours of his life.

He found signs of Peter's presence before he had crawled a hundred yards. A fan had been neatly sabotaged, the mechanism stripped out and left to rot at the side of one duct. Kraglin nearly got stuck in the remains of the frame. He was grateful the kid had smoothed off all the sharp edges on the inside of the ducts. They'd sanded down the outside because the larger members of the Ravagers always kept getting caught on them, but they hadn't thought about the inside. Just as well the kid had brains, or Kraglin suspected he'd have emerged wearing underwear and rags if he was lucky.

That said, he wasn't sure how Peter had moved through the ducts unobserved to start with, 'cause it turned out that crawling through the pipework made one hell of a noise. The crew was on edge as it was. After the first cry of "Somethin's crawling through the ducts!" followed by a hail of gunfire, Kraglin made damn sure to tell Czar exactly what would happen to any rookie foolish enough to shoot the first mate while he was carrying out his duties.

He snickered as he listened to Czar embellish the punishment over the comm.

Still, Kraglin was fed up to the teeth of tunnels by the time he stumbled across Peter's hidey-hole. The narrow vents made the service chamber look spacious. Kraglin rose into a crouch, rubbing his bruised elbows. He looked down and saw a crumpled white T-shirt emblazoned with some sort of Terran planet, a small orange-haired troll doll and a faded checked shirt. There were scrapes in the dust near the pile; nearly but not quite erased by Kraglin's boot prints.

Kraglin traced the scrapes down to the closest duct. He frowned as he pulled up his mental schematics of the ship. The ducts sucked in cold air from the ventilation system and used it to cool the engines. There should have been at least three other safeguards preventing debris from entering the engines; a fan, some fine wire-mesh grilles, and, if all else failed, motion sensors.

Kraglin was willing to bet at least two of the safeguards had failed. He hunched over, squeezing head and shoulders into the entrance of the duct, and saw the scratches etching the duct lining. The duct narrowed sharply an arm's length into the vent. Kraglin could see no further. He pulled out and measured the duct diameter with his hand. It wasn't wide, but something long and narrow -something like a plasma rifle- would probably fit.

Kraglin pulled out the light bulb and set it on the service chamber floor. He scraped the surface clean with his hand until he found the chamber reference number. Then he flicked on his comm. "Czar?"

"Boss?"

"Get the techs to check the intake valves. Second intake of four. Somethin's trapped in there. Not sure what."

"Sure," Czar said, sucking his teeth. "Yeah. That would do it. I'll get them to check."

Kraglin leaned down and scooped up Peter's keepsakes. He wrapped the clothing around the troll doll and tucked the bundle into his jacket. "You do that."

"Gonna be a bitch to fix, though. We'll have to strip out half the engine to get to it."

Kraglin sighed. "Just do it. 'Less you wanna explain to the Cap'n why his ship's not workin'."

"Right away, boss. Anythin' else?"

"Yeah," Kraglin said. He read off the serial number of the service chamber. "Damn thing's got no hatch. Get the door open. Shoulda never been shut in the first place."

"Got it, boss," Czar said. "That it?"

Kraglin took a deep breath. "One last thing," he said. "Get me out these fucking vents."

It took another half-hour and a close encounter with an oxy-acetylene torch to prise Kraglin from the ventilation system. Despite his earlier complaints, Czar had the engine stripped and the vent open by the time Kraglin crawled, bruised and dusty, out of the newly opened hatch. He presented Kraglin with a charred and melted hunk of metal.

"Looks like you were right. Fell into th' air intake. Right where you said it'd be." Czar's green forehead scrunched up. "How'd you know?"

Kraglin shrugged. "Lucky guess. Now get those engines runnin'. I'm goin' planet-side to pick up the Cap'n."

He set the M-ship's nav co-ordinates for the meadow where he'd left them. What he found looked like another planet. A lake stretched out where the nav computer said there ought to be a valley. The lake shore was choked with debris, the water stained a muddy brown. Kraglin circled the M-ship, looking for signs of life. What the hell had happened? The place looked like a war zone.

He saw a red glimmer in the corner of the windscreen. Yondu's arrow, looping back and forth. The arrow hovered for a moment before darting down towards the surface.

Kraglin followed.

Yondu and Peter sat by the side of the lake and watched the ship descend.

"Quill?"

Peter huddled, knees pulled up nearly to his nose, folded arms resting on his knees. "Yeah?" he said miserably as the pinprick light of Kraglin's M-ship resolved into a tiny meteor.

"It's okay to be afraid. But don't ever let fear stop ya from doin' what ya think ya gotta." He gave a gap-toothed grin. "Understand?"

Peter nodded.

"Good," Yondu said. He looked up at the sky. "Now let's get off this dirtball 'fore anything else tries to kill us."

Wind tugged at Peter's hair as the M-ship descended, squelching into soupy mud. Yondu stalked towards the craft as Kraglin cut the engines. The hatch squeaked open. Kraglin stuck his head out of the cargo bay. His eyebrows shot up towards his Mohawk.

"You look like hell," he said.

"Still better than you," Yondu growled. "Ship fixed?"

"Yeah." Kraglin pulled a troll doll from his jacket and tossed it at Peter. "Whatever else fell in there ain't coming back."

"So it was the vents?"

Kraglin nodded. "Yeah."

Yondu scratched his chin, horny fingernails rasping audibly through his stubble. "Thought we had safeguards for that sort of thing."

Kraglin nodded. "We did, boss. Only thing is, some jackass routed the air intake directly through the engines so we could make the ship go faster."

Yondu scowled. "That was years ago. We needed that boost. An' it's been workin' fine since then." He jumped onto the ramp, boots squelching.

"What happened, Cap?"

Yondu grunted. "Tell ya later." He gestured to Peter. "Come on, boy."

Peter tucked his troll doll into his pocket and followed.

Everything's going to be all right, he thought.

They were going home.