"And you're sure it's them?" Dey asked. He had made contact with Nova Prime who had passed all information, as well as the forces they'd need in order to take down the lost Halfworld ship. Within twenty minutes of having received Peter's distress call, they were met by one of the larger Nova ships, docking the tattered Milano below where it could be repaired later.
Drax and Groot had been lead off to the medical hold almost instantly, both complaining and griping the whole way, or simply saying 'I am Groot' in a slightly distressed tone in the tree-man's case as he was practically dragged away from the cockpit of their own ship and on board the next. Gamora and Rogers however had stayed at Peter's side to meet with Dey.
Peter nodded, although to be honest, he wasn't sure that he was actually all too sure about it himself. The guardians had taken the last few hours to try and come up with a plan, although seeing as though their official 'plan maker' wasn't with them, they found that even coming up with twelve percent of a plan was proving difficult for the band of misfits as well as the Nova officers.
"Gamora said she was able to get a read on the make of the technology used on the ship and which sector it could have come from, and you said so yourself, it's the only uncharted ship in that part of the quadrant." He argued, shifting uneasily when Dey frown, obviously unconvinced. Peter let out a sigh of defeat, dropping his head heavily into the palms of his hands
"Listen man, I know how much of a burden this is coming from Nova, especially if we don't have an exact location on these psychopaths, but I am begging you Dey, I need your help. We can't just leave Rocket out there and if this is all we have to go on, then I'm going to have to ask you to take that chance with me." He explained, his voice wavering with worry and exhaustion from it all.
The Nova officer stared back in what could almost have been perceived as shock at Star Lord's words. "Quill, after what you did for Xandar, for the galaxy, the least we can do in repayment is to get one of the Guardian's back." He assured him, looking towards Gamora who only stared down at the table as though nothing either of the two men had said had affected her in any way.
If nothing else, at least the warrior's vast knowledge of ships and their origins had been one good thing to come from her time in alliance with Thanos. She recalled countless missions including her need to move about as one of the crowd, often times meaning that she had to steal one of the local crafts. Along with having to teach herself the internal mechanics of how to drive each of the ships, it soon became almost natural to her in identifying the makes of the ships as well.
Her eyes flickered up from where they had been staring down at the table to glance at Rogers. The man had remained quiet the entire time while on the Nova ship, simply trailing behind her and Peter as they left to meet with Corpsman Dey.
She was no less furious at the man, nor was he any less guilty of getting Rocket captured in the first place, however, the more she studied him, the more she began to sympathize with the former scientist. It had come to her attention after she had been forced to working with the man at Peter's request that Rogers really had meant no harm to their friend in the situation. Despite the fact that he was guilty of causing Rocket yet another panic attack, as well as getting captured by the Halfworld fugitives, the guilt stricken look he wore now had brought something out of he that she didn't know she would ever be able to feel with another. Compassion.
The green skinned woman had been taken by Thanos at such a young age, crying and kicking the whole way, tears streaming down her face as her dead and bloodied parents were left behind her. And he had shown her no mercy since then. Within her first week with the tyrant, the majority of Gamora's skeleton had been replaced with cybernetics, the thin metal sheets shining through her cheekbones were a constant reminder to her permanent surgeries.
Over the years, Gamora had been tortured, enhanced, and trained to kill. And that was exactly what she did once Thanos had given her her first mission. Kill.
And she had killed so many since then, not even wincing upon hearing the pleas of her victims before she plunged her knife through their chests, leaving their families to grieve, just as she had for her own. And maybe that was why it had never bothered her. Maybe that was why she never questioned why she was being sent to kill. Because she wanted everyone else to feel the same pain she did. She knew she wouldn't have been able to kill Thanos himself, so she killed others instead, for the sake of having someone understand her pain, even if it meant them wanting to kill her in the end.
After having joined the Guardians, that pain was replaced with something else, guilt. So much guilt that it had often times kept Gamora lying awake at night her entire frame shaking as the screams rang throughout her head.
Looking at Rogers in that moment, it was as though he were mirroring those same emotions back at her. Guilt ridden and full of fear. It was in that moment that Gamora decided that she was done blaming Rocket's capture on the man and instead focus on more pressing matters, like finding their smaller partner and destroying those who stood in her way.
She took a deep breath through the nose upon the thought as the faint adrenaline rush from the sudden lust for blood filled her mind once again, the only difference now that almost spread a faint smile across her face was that this time, Gamora wasn't going to kill to rid herself for her own pain, she would kill for Rocket's.
...
Rocket's breathing had become limited to gasping for air between his constant screaming that had already torn his throat raw. His countless pleas for the pain to stop had done nothing in terms of his torture as more and more scientist began to pile into the room, many of which he had recognized from his previous days in that Halfworld prison.
It hadn't been long after the first syringe was filled with the raccoon's crimson blood that the doors had slid open again, two males in those stark white lab coats that he had grown to hate so much. He had hardly finished in his surprised and pain induced shouts when the needle in his numbing arm was replaced with another.
His back arched off of the metal table as he tried to fill his lungs with air again, only losing his ability to breathe again, a choked yelp of panic tearing itself from his trembling body. He closed his eyes tightly when the harsh light swinging high above him was suddenly blocked by the two men who had just entered the room, leaning curiously over the breathless animal with looks of shock and amusement.
"Bet you thought you'd seen the last of us rat." He heard one of the men say, and quite loudly at that as Rocket's ears began to ring. Of course it hadn't helped in terms of pain when he felt the sudden pressure of a hand on his chest picking almost absentmindedly at the implants.
"Gah! Stop! Please!" He had barely began to register that it had been his own voice shouting before a heavy force sent his head snapping to the side, hitting the table as it did so. Rocket's eyes blinked open rapidly in shock, trying to raise a paw to where the hand had hit his still tear soaked cheek were they not both restrained.
"You'd do well to keep your mouth shut rodent, you've caused us enough trouble as it is." The voice made Rocket's ears fly back so that they pinned against his head as the man leaned down, too close for comfort.
He had lost track of what the other two occupants in the room were doing as the pain returned to his chest, the man above him toying with his implants once again out of plain spite. Rocket bit his lip this time to keep himself from crying out, wincing when his sharp teeth drew blood as it pierced his skin, but it was almost nothing in comparison to the pain erupting in his heaving chest.
His vision had become rather blurry as his head buzzed with the sudden amounts of pain erupting in his system, but he was still able to make out what the figures gathered around him were doing as they began removing what could only be surgical tools as well as a tightly wound roll of black and red wires from one of the men's briefcases and setting them on the table.
The man standing directly above him had yet to remove his hands from Rocket's implants and by the look of amusement on his face, it didn't seem to the raccoon that had was planning on the motion anytime soon. The pain had dulled itself into a consistent dull throbbing, making his body spasm every few seconds as a nerve was struck wrong. He didn't know exactly how his cybernetics worked seeing as though the scientists tended to experiment first, explain never, but he was almost positive that they were connected to his spinal cord, meaning that in terms of pain, the electric pulses ran throughout his entire system.
A garbled yelp escaped through his bloodied lips as an especially painful spasm jolted his chest. He arched his back off of the table again, only pressing further into the man's grasp as he did so, pulling another ear shattering scream from his violently shuddering body.
"Stop! Stop!" He was cut off by another strike across the face, but the pressure that had been seizing his chest and keeping him from breathing had been lifted as the hand was removed to hit the creature once again. He took a large gasping breath, relishing in the short-lived yet beautiful feeling of air filling his lungs. His heart was pounding so rapidly in his chest that Rocket was sure that were it not cybernetically enhanced, it would have simply burst.
"W-why are you doing this?" He managed through short breaths, his eyes fluttering with dizziness. He flinched away from the man as he leaned down closer to the raccoon, his hot breath blowing on his tear soaked fur as he spoke.
"What, you didn't miss us?" He said mockingly, taking advantage of the raccoon's position to ran a hand over Rocket's face as though to wipe away the tears streaming down his face. Rocket pulled away as much as his restraints would allow him, trying to refrain from biting the man's fingers as they stroked his cheekbone.
A shudder ran up the raccoon's spine, but whether it was from the man's soft chuckling or the woman pulling a surgical mask over her face, he couldn't tell. What he did know was that breathing was about to become a lot harder as the third figure in the room, the one that had remained silent, pulled a scalpel from their metallic tray of surgical tools.
"We've been looking for you across the entire Galaxy for years now, and now that we've got you back, we're going to make sure we never lose you again." Rocket wasn't exactly sure who it was talking now, all three of the figures in the room had pulled on their surgical masks and his head was swimming with the voices of the present as well as those horrific memories of his past so that they seemed to warp together.
He did, however, hear when one of the many voices, so much louder than the rest called down to him at the same moment that the metallic scalpel was placed at the base of his collarbone. "There is no escape. Chip him." And his world exploded with pain.