FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Rocketing Around the Galaxy

Part 7

For GlynWolf

By Draconicon

Glyn and Rocket ended up sleeping off most of their anger and post-sex tiredness, though when they woke and remembered where they were, the timber wolf knew that he was going to be juggling Rocket's rage for some time. The raccoon was just too pissed off to function properly, and if he didn't find some sort of distraction for his partner, there would be an explosion eventually. Rocket was too smart to be watched the whole time, and the best that he could honestly hope for was that the explosion would happen when they were leaving rather than when they were on the station.

In fact, when he woke up and went to the bedroom to check on his partner, he found the raccoon sitting on the bed with various ignition powders and explosives laid out in front of him. The timber wolf stared at the mess, shaking his head.

"Rocket..."

"It's gotta go. All of it."

"I know, but...come on. At least wait for us to get the piece."

"..."

"Just one day, two at the most, and you're rich. Rich beyond your wildest dreams."

"..."

"Come on...at least don't kill the pair of us to kill this guy."

"...Fine."

The raccoon bagged up his components and Glyn let out a slow breath of relief. This was rapidly turning out to be a bad idea, but he couldn't stop now. They couldn't just leave the station now. He had to get that piece, and not just for himself. Ventman and the other pirates were still following him out there, and they were expecting their part of the reward. And that wasn't even counting the other assholes that might be following them. Knives and the other mercs, mercenaries that were hired by the noblewoman to retrieve her pet and her prized possession stolen from her, the security forces that he had humiliated on that first station: there were all kinds of enemies that they had made getting this far.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that they were utterly fucked if they got to Nidavellir without some sort of back-up. He'd have to try and find Ventman when the rest of the men caught up.

But for now, Rocket.

"Look. How about you stay here, and I'll see about arranging a meeting with the Meat-Man, huh? That way, we can get in close, see what we can do to keep our cover going, and you don't have to look at...all that?"

"I know it's there. I know."

"But you can distract yourself here. Please, Rocket, please. We're so close...so close..."

"...Fine."

Seeing Rocket depressed like this was a massive change, particularly compared to the cocky, overconfident man that he was used to seeing. Outpost Z had come within microns of crushing him, but Glyn couldn't think about that now. He had to balance too many things.

"Just...stay here. And I promise, when this is done..."

"It'll be gone."

"It'll be long gone. We'll blow it sky-high."

"Like it never was," the raccoon said, clenching his hands into tiny fists.

Oh, this was going to be a big one. If Outpost Z wasn't left as little more than a miniature black hole in the making by whatever Rocket came up with, he would be surprised. They would need to beat feet to get out of here before they were sucked in by the explosion, too.

He had to find Ventman, and fast. Keep the other guys off the station, make sure that they didn't dock. When the time came to blow this place, it was going to go too fast for an evacuation. They needed to be off-station, and they needed to stay off-station.

#

"So, all the way out on Outpost Z, huh?"

Ventman's familiar face glowed in the hologram as Glyn nodded, keeping his head down and his ears flicking back and forth. He doubted that Rocket would leave their quarters, but there was always the chance that the raccoon might surprise him. Considering the nature of the call, he didn't need to be overheard.

"Yep. And we're about to get the last piece."

"Yeah, you say that..."

"Okay, about to is stretching it. Meat-Man's got it."

"Shit."

"Don't need back-up."

"You better not. Fucking with the Meat-Man isn't exactly healthy, is it?"

"I know, I know. But it's the only way to get the last piece. And you know it's going to be worth it."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. So...what the fuck do you need from us?"

"To stay the hell off the station. Keep an eye on things, make sure that nobody gets in the way when we blast off, and lock onto our signal as soon as you see it. We're going to be jumping to Nidavellir as soon as we get clear of gravity."

And that meant that if Ventman wasn't ready, Glyn wasn't going to have his back-up when they got to the forge. The coordinates for that ancient place were hard to come by, and he doubted that Rocket would let him just send them off once they got them. One little mistake, and this whole thing would come crashing down around his ears.

But they were so close...

"Alright. Can do. Just watch yourself down there."

"Anything to watch for?"

"Yeah. Knives."

"Fuck. He's here?"

"We got signals from the old group. They've got faster ships than us, so they got through space first. Last I heard, Knives cleared customs, so he's probably on Outpost Z with you right now."

Which meant that either Knives's boss knew that there was a piece here, or they'd been tracked. Either way, it wasn't a good thing. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of anything else that he might have fucked up.

Nothing came to mind. But then again, neither had Knives right then.

This doesn't change anything. Still have to follow the same plan, still gotta do the same things. Just have to do it faster.

"Watch yourself, Glyn. We want a profit on this. And we want to do this right."

"Yeah...yeah. For us and Jonas."

"Yep. I'll do what I can, but...you know how it is."

"Yep. Glyn, out."

The hologram flickered out, and the timber wolf rubbed his face, all too aware of how he was the only non-humanoid that was in the café. The others were looking at him, arching their eyes at the sight of the furred creature among all the ones that were more fleshy. The only thing that would keep him from being sent to the Zoo was the paperwork saying that he was here for a meeting with the Meat-Man, but that only worked so long as nobody checked with the big guy before he set one up.

He had to move faster, faster, fastest.

Getting up from the table, he laid a couple of units down for the waiter, then made his way out. He walked from the tables in the open restaurant to the railing that looked down on the Zoo from this level, trying to calm his heart down.

It didn't really work. He saw other wolves down there, gray wolves that walked on two legs. They were said to be the rarest in the galaxy, now, their feral relatives hunted to extinction and these being used as a 'breeding program' to start bringing them back. The two-legged wolves were bowed over, bent in the spine, implants controlling them to keep them moving in a hybrid fashion of two-legged and four-legged. No dignity, no clothes, no nothing as they lumbered around.

He could see that there were other females further down the Zoo, and he imagined that they were probably going to be something closer to the feral stock that they were crossbreeding the anthros with. Probably trying to 'restore' the old species...and give the Meat-Man more stock to sell.

His stomach tried to revolt on him then, and he barely managed to push it back down. Every time that he thought of what could happen to him and Rocket if they fucked up, he wanted to throw up. Every time, he managed to push it back down. Barely.

Just a little bit of finesse...it isn't that hard...

As he leaned against the railing, however, something pressed against his back. Something sharp. His eyes went wide as the point traveled up his spine, parting the jumpsuit that he wore and exposing fur. It traveled all the way up to the back of his neck, taking its time, close enough that he didn't dare move.

"What's this, hmmm? A little wolf caught off-guard?"

"...Knives."

"Yes. That was a rather humiliating fight back on the other station."

"If you can call it a fight."

"A cheap shot, from your little friend."

"It worked."

"But it was cheap. Not like what you did."

The blade hovered over the back of his neck. Glyn was all too aware of how it could just plunge in and cut through his spine right then, leave him paralyzed. He was in no position to fight back. The timber wolf had to be smart, but there was no clear way of getting out of this. No way of flipping it around. The Zoo was right there, but it was too far a drop for him to make it.

"My boss is not pleased with you...but I found it rather brave, to jump out as a distraction."

"It had to be done."

"And you did it well...despite the fact that you were not the one that would get the thrill of finishing it."

"I prefer the thrill of staying alive."

"And yet, you come here. Stupidly."

"..."

"You have something that belongs to us."

"Not on my person, I don't."

"Then you are going to take me to it."

How visible was the knife, he wondered? If he fought back, would he be someone that was defending himself, or would he be seen as a wild animal that was just striking out at a person? The former might be worth it; the latter would have him sent to the Zoo. He had to decide quickly, though, particularly as that blade -

Knives started to reach around his neck, the point shifting to the flat for a micro-second. It was all that the timber wolf had to work with, and he reacted by instinct.

"NNNGH!"

He kicked up. His heel hit his attacker in the inner thigh, bounced him up. Glyn grabbed the knife hand by the wrist, pulled. The cutting heat along the side of his neck told him that he was bleeding already, but that didn't matter. He had to pull, had to throw, had to push Knives away from him.

Up, over, and forward.

Knives went over the railing, and Glyn backed away. Just in time, too, barely avoiding the other man's grasping fingers trying to pull him down with him. Knives fell for three feet, hit something, jumped -

But that was all that Glyn let himself see. Whether Knives managed to grab hold of the railing or not, he was already turning, running. The blood was hot against his neck, and he shivered as he jammed his hand against the wound. It wasn't so thick that he couldn't hold it back, so it wasn't a death blow, but it was hot and painful.

He ran.

Round the corner, over a building. Nobody was calling anyone, nobody was trying to stop him. That meant that he had a chance. They weren't calling security, weren't trying to get him sent to the Zoo. That much was safe. That much was good.

He ran...and ran...and ran some more.

Eventually, when the corridors were dark, when there was nothing to be seen save for the rough pipes against the wall, he stopped. He'd lost track of where he was some time ago, and he wasn't sure if he was still in the main part of the station, in some maintenance corridor, or hidden somewhere between the walls. Wherever he was, there was no space for anything but drones to reach him. He slumped back against the wall, looking at his hand.

The blood had stopped, despite his thudding heartbeat, which had to mean that the cut wasn't that bad. That was good. No need for going to the medics.

But the fact that Knives was here...

Gotta get to Rocket. Fast.

They were going to have to go with a more direct plan. A meeting would have been great, but with someone else already on the station, hunting them, chasing them, with the urge for blood...no chance. They couldn't do this subtly. This was going to have to be explosive.

That should cheer him up.

The timber wolf took a few more deep breaths, then kept going. Retracing his steps had a better chance of sending him back to Knives than getting him where he wanted to be.

He stumbled into the hotel room with Rocket already packed up. The raccoon didn't look up at him, still shoving stuff into bags.

"Got us another room. Hell of a lot cheaper than this one."

"Did you pay units or on account?" Glyn asked, groaning at the roughness of his own voice. Fuck, that knife better not have touched his vocal cords. He cleared his throat. "We got problems." Better.

"Problems, huh? What, you go suck a fat dick in an alley for that voice?" Rocket grunted.

"No. Found someone."

"Who?"

"Knives."

That got the raccoon to sit up and take notice. His eyes flicked to the wolf's neck, narrowed at the wound, and he muttered a curse.

"Not good," Rocket muttered. "Did he follow you?"

"No. I made sure not to double-back, and he wasn't on my trail when I made my way back up here."

"Good. Not in the mood for that son of a crap right now."

"Me, either."

Of course, that depended on whether he had fallen into the Zoo or not. He'd guess not. The fact that he had seen Knives whipping around to that degree suggested that he was a much better fighter than he looked, and that they had mostly gotten lucky at the other station. Not something that he wanted to test, not something that he wanted to find out.

He sat down, huffing as he took a load off. He was more tired than he thought, and his head spun as he tried to think through what they could do.

No, no. He stopped himself from going down that road. There was already a plan, a way forward. He just didn't like it for how explosive it could get.

"Rocket?"

"Yeah?"

"How good are you with bombs?"

"..." The raccoon slowly turned, his muzzle turning up in a grin. "Oh, I'd say I'm pretty good."

"Timed delays?"

"Easy."

"Long-distance detonation?"

"Less fun, but still easy."

"Controlled demolition of a station?"

"Heh...hehehehe..."

That was definitely appealing, he could tell. Probably more than it should, but he had to admit that he would shed no tears for the station itself, just for those that happened to live on it. The Zoo itself was a loss, but considering what the animals were going through in there, both the intelligent and not so much...

If it gets rid of the Meat-Man...

"Can you blow up the station without blowing up the enclosures?" he asked.

"That's...harder, but I could. What do you have in mind?"

"You're gonna like it."

"Tell me."

Glyn did. He was right; Rocket liked it.

The next twelve hours turned into a game of hide and seek, mostly with Knives - who had, unfortunately, dragged himself free of the Zoo - but occasionally with security officers of the station looking around for a 'short timber wolf' and a 'trash-eating rodent.' He made sure that Rocket never heard the latter description; the body count would only get bigger.

As they wandered around, keeping out of sight, they split their duties. Rocket found his way into the ducts and the various vents throughout the station, places where the infrastructure could be damaged in a key but not instantly debilitating way, and Glyn spent his time finding the few people in the Zoo that looked trustworthy and telling them that there was an order coming down to evacuate the animals, and if they wanted to get off-shift in time, they better get started early.

It worked, for the most part. Nobody wanted to be stuck working late, and the Zoo employees were no exception.

It was a long twelve hours, too, and only got harder as time crept on. Rocket was exhausted eight hours in, and Glyn the same, tension rising and soreness creeping in as they were forced to stay low. The lack of crowds as 'night' swept over Outpost Z meant that they were all the more exposed going from point to point, and Glyn was ever more anxious about being cornered by security or, worse, Knives.

Every time that he saw the blade-wielding maniac, he felt shivers running down his spine, the cut along the side of his neck burning at the reminder of how close he'd come to being caught despite his experience. All it had taken was one little moment of distraction, and he'd had his life in someone else's hands. Not something that he wanted to repeat.

The lights were low, and they were just installing the last of the explosives, when it happened again.

Glyn hissed as Knives crossed his vision further down the corridor, the mercenary looking left and right, glimmering body armor reflecting the laser-points of the cameras around him. He obviously had gotten permission from the Meat-Man to patrol and search, considering that the security officers always cleared out of the floor when Knives was there. He had a knife in one hand, and his other was clenched tight, followed by the fingers spreading wide, then pulling in tight once more.

"He's back," he whispered into the vent.

"Shit. How far?"

"Twenty meters."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

"Quiet..."

They hadn't been spotted just yet, which was the only thing that they had going for the pair of them. If they could stay quiet, then the darkness might work in their favor. Glyn pressed himself further back in the little depression in the corridor, hoping that his outline didn't show too much.

Please don't have night vision, please don't have night vision...

Knives turned, walking towards them as if Glyn's thoughts were as good as spoken word. Each step was a soft click, metal on metal. The mercenary spun the knife between his fingers, and Glyn clenched his hand tighter around his belt, missing his pistol badly. The decision of coming unarmed onto the station just felt so stupid right then.

But how was he supposed to know it was going to end like this? How was he supposed to know that this was going to go this badly?

Knives came closer, and closer. Each step cut the distance between them by a half-meter, at least, and sometimes more. Twenty turned to fifteen, then ten. The timber wolf could smell him, could feel Rocket in the vent behind him gripping his tail. They were both on edge, and he could feel the hissing breath against his tail as the raccoon pulled a bit closer.

If this came to a fight, they were at a major disadvantage. No armor, no weapons, both exhausted...

Knives stopped five meters away. He looked back and forth, lifted his hand. For a moment, that knife pointed right at Glyn, and he swore that the merc could see him -

THUMP!

"RAAAAWR!"

The glass wall of the Zoo saved Knives right then, a jaguar slamming into it and clawing at it. The merc turned, stumbling back, weapon raised, only to chuckle and lower his hand.

"Dumb beast..."

"RAAAAAAWR!"

Though two-legged in body, the jaguar was obviously feral in mind. Glyn could see that, could see the way that it had already ripped one claw free of its fingers by slamming its paws against the glass. Knives chuckled, shaking his head as he walked up to it.

"Miserable little creature..."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!"

"You should shut your mouth."

CHINK!

And just like that, the mercenary punched his knife against the glass barrier, right through the chomping jaws that were trying to break through. The jaguar stiffened, then slumped, hanging off the knife blade that was stabbed through the underside of its jaw.

Knives shook his head and walked off without a word, barely flicking his arm to pull another knife to hand. In little more than a minute, he reached the far end of the corridor and disappeared around the corner.

Glyn and Rocket finally let out the breath they'd been holding. The raccoon crawled out of the vent, while Glyn did his best to keep from throwing up.

"Right...that's the last one. Back to the ship," Rocket said.

"Gonna need...gonna need a minute."

"We don't got a minute. Come on."

And so, Glyn found himself being dragged away. He was surprised that he only left a few drops of his stomach's contents behind.

They reached the hangar. A short scuffle after, they were back on the ship. Rocket powered up, and the hangar's security forces were immediately called for. The lights came on, the alarms started blaring, and they all knew that it would only be a few minutes before the entire station knew they were there.

"Right. Think it's time to give them something else to think about," Rocket muttered. "Now, kid?"

"Now."

Glyn wished that he could summon a little more enthusiasm for that, but he felt almost dead inside. Not a good feeling, really.

Rocket touched a button on his belt, and Outpost Z shook from tip to base. The alarms changed, going from the 'intruder alert' sort of sound to 'emergency protocols' sound. Mostly a change from the 'Whoo whoo whoo' sound to the 'beep...beep' sort of sound.

In any case, Rocket was already taking off. They swept up and around Outpost Z, darting around the immediate scanners with Rocket aiming for every blind spot that he could. They'd be flickering on and off their readings, hopefully.

That, in any case, was helped so much more by the next explosion that occurred five minutes later. It rattled the station once more, sending ripples through it. Even from the outside, it was clear that there was massive damage being done to the internal systems, ripping through the life support and other parts that kept the station running.

It had all been planned carefully. The bombs were set to go off either at a signal from Rocket's ship or at ten-minute intervals, whatever happened last. It was just enough time for the station to get the teams to the area to start putting down the worst of the damages, just little enough time for them to get anything done before the next bomb went off. It would keep pushing them further and further away from one end of the station, and further and further towards the other.

And more to the point, it meant that they'd never entirely get a grip on the explosions.

In short order, a general evacuation began, with ships launching from the station and going in all directions. Rocket ignored them, continuing his flight towards the bottom of the cylindrical station, heading to the spot that Glyn had marked out on the map all that time ago before they'd arrived.

They watched in silence, angry silence as the station blew apart. One layer after another came free, gradually exposing the unsealed interior to space. The key systems around the Zoo itself were untouched, a testament to Rocket's skills.

But the main parts of Outpost Z...Well, there was no saving it.

They watched together as it burned, waiting as the bombs went off one after another. The ships cleared out, some hopping to warp, others sticking around to watch the show.

Finally, just when it seemed that their plan might have been a bit overambitious, the bottom of the station burst free. The escape pod that the Meat-Man had installed down there had finally launched. Rocket swooped down, swinging the ship around to catch it before it could go more than a few hundred feet from the ruins of the station, and armed all weapons to point at it.

"Attention, idiot."

"Who's this?" the comms crackled. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Yeah, stop posing, asshole. You're gonna die if you don't do what we say."

"..."

"That's what I thought. Now, we're gonna reel you in, nice and slow. You're gonna give us your treasures, and then we're gonna shoot you towards the nearest warp point."

"You're not going to kill me?"

Rocket looked at Glyn. The expression on his face all but begged for the chance to do that, but Glyn shook his head. A quick kill now would mean all kinds of reprisals later from the thugs that the Meat-Man had.

"If you got enough stuff for us, we'll let you live."

"I...may have something."

"Better figure it out, you son of a bitch. Reeling you in, now."

The confrontation between them and the Meat-Man was...rough, to say the least. Rocket lost his temper almost immediately, commencing a beatdown that Glyn was loath to end, but eventually had to in order to keep the asshole alive. However, the Meat-Man was in no shape to send off in his escape pod afterwards, forcing them to shove him into the hold and keep him with them.

"That wasn't the best idea," the timber wolf muttered as they returned to the cockpit.

"He deserved a hell of a lot more than that."

"Yeah..."

But now they had to be responsible for him, something that he had been trying to avoid. He looked back at the scanner, saw that a lot of different ships were already latching onto the Zoo tube, and figured that those few remaining animals inside would probably be evacuated to some private zoo or another. The timber wolf told himself that it would be better this way, that they would be taken somewhere, at least, that would not be harvesting them for torture food.

He hoped that he wasn't lying to himself.

However, they finally had all the pieces, and they spread them out on the cockpit console. It was more or less a super-gun, but the whole thing wouldn't come together without being put through the forge at Nidavellir. Once that was done, however...

The sparkles, the shimmers, the little tingles that the pieces gave off when they were close to each other, promised that it would be a weapon of great power...and even greater value. Even split three ways, the gun would bring in enough profits to set them all up for life.

And if I take it all...then we can set up something with Ventman...

He looked at Rocket, and wondered if the raccoon was putting as much effort into holding back thoughts of stabbing him in the back as the timber wolf was thinking of doing to the raccoon.

"Well?" Rocket muttered. "We going?"

"Yeah...we're going."

The components together gave off a signal, one that Rocket plugged into the ship's computer. Nidavellir was all but within their grasp. The raccoon turned his attention to the ship proper, while Glyn glanced out of the cockpit, staring into the emptiness of space. He hoped that Ventman was watching. Hell, he hoped that anyone was watching; this was the beginning of history.

The only one that he hoped wasn't watching, who he hoped had died, was Knives. Please, please, please, he thought, let Outpost Z be that man's grave.

Shaking his head, he leaned back, staring out the window as Rocket plugged in the coordinates from the signal. Space stretched around them, pulling the view of the world in towards a single point, and then, the engines kicked in.

They were off. The clock had started, the countdown had begun. Glyn had no doubt that Rocket planned to cut him out of the final take; the pair of them had worked together well enough, but there was no way that they would be able to share this. Not this time.

Him, or me? he wondered, looking at the back of Rocket's head, guessing he was thinking the same thing.

"I am Groot."

"Yeah, you said it, buddy," Rocket muttered, looking out the cockpit. "Heh...biggest score we've ever chased...and soon, it'll be all ours..."

Ours. Hard to tell just who 'ours' was, but it didn't hurt this time. He expected it. Hell, he looked forward to it.

After all, what good was a prize if you had to share it? What good was a score if you didn't make sure that you had earned it?

The End

Summary: A big boom.

Tags: No Sex, Rocket Raccoon, Raccoon, Timber Wolf, Sci-Fi, Humans, Zoo, Horror, Explosions, Hostage, Series,