"What are you doing?" Jason barked, his head snapping toward the back of the cabin. "The inertial dampeners are barely holding! Sit down!"
"I'm going outside to talk to them," Leander said calmly. He didn't look like a man about to step into a vacuum; he looked like a man going to check the mail.
"Are you completely insane? Just going out there like that?" Jason stared at Leander in absolute disbelief. He reached out and snatched a portable, emergency EVA suit—a high-tech "skin" folded into a series of metal rings—and tossed it at Leander's chest. "Do you even know who they are? These aren't Nova Corps scouts. These are scavengers. If they open fire, I'm not coming back for your frozen corpse. I'm hitting the jump-gate and never looking back!"
Leander caught the gear with one hand, a small, confident smile playing on his lips. "I can handle this, Jason. Just keep the ship steady."
He snapped the first metal ring around his waist. Instantly, a thin, shimmering layer of carbon-fiber weave adhered to his clothes, sealing his skin from the vacuum. He clicked the second ring over his shoulders, and a transparent, high-tensile helmet pressedurized around his head, the life-support hum starting up in his ear. Without a second glance, he stepped into the airlock, the inner door hissing shut behind him.
Inside the Triangular Interceptor
"Boss, they've gone dead in the water! What's the play? Should we vent their hull? They've got point-defense cannons, they might bite back!" the pilot in the yellow jumpsuit shouted, his eyes darting between the sensor array and the viewscreen.
"Why are you shaking like a leaf? It's a piece of flying scrap!" Yumi roared. She stepped forward, physically shoving the pilot out of the way to take the primary console. She slammed her palm onto a glowing rune.
A thick, undulating gray energy shield flared into existence around the triangular ship, wrapping the hull in a protective cocoon of ionized gas. To anyone watching from the outside, the ship suddenly looked twice as large and three times as dangerous.
"That ship—the Ghost Shadow—is an Elian XD86 model. It's an antique," Yumi sneered, her eyes scanning the structural analysis on her HUD. "No major modifications, no reinforced skeleton. Aside from a couple of dinky pop-guns and a slightly tuned engine, it's space debris. It's a miracle it hasn't shaken itself apart yet."
She leaned closer to the glass, her reflection showing a face twisted by greed. "They've got high-quality elemental metal but they're flying a bucket of rust? They're green. Inexperienced. Probably some backwater kids who stumbled onto a meteorite and thought they could play with the big boys on Xandar. Opportunities like this are the reason I stay in this business. You don't just find a gold mine; you take it from the hands of people too weak to hold the shovel."
The gentle, helpful guide persona Yumi had worn on Xandar was gone. In its place was a cruel, repulsive scavenger with a grin that promised nothing but pain. "Don't worry about them escaping. Once we disable their life support, we'll take our time cutting that ship open."
Aboard the Ghost Shadow
Jason watched the external monitor as the airlock cycled. He saw the outer hatch swing wide, revealing the terrifying, beautiful vastness of the void. He felt a deep, gnawing conflict in his gut. He wasn't afraid of a fight—he'd been fighting his whole life—but he didn't want to die for a suitcase of metal.
His one true wish was to survive long enough to see Ronan the Accuser fall. He wanted to watch the Dark Aster, that mountain of Kree steel, crumble into stardust. But as a lone scavenger, that dream was a joke. Ronan was a god-general; Jason was a bug.
Yet, Leander Hayes had given him something he hadn't felt in years: a spark of something that wasn't hate. This kid had knocked him out, then apologized, then healed him with a warmth that felt like a sun he hadn't seen since his home world burned.
"Stupid... kid..." Jason hissed through grit teeth. He couldn't let him die. He sat back in the cockpit, gripping the firing levers for the electromagnetic guns. He slaved a tracking beam to Leander's spacesuit, the targeting computer chirping as it locked on.
"Leander, get your head in the game! Get back inside!" Jason's voice crackled through the comm-link in Leander's helmet. "We need to burn the engines and pray. We can't win a broadside against a ship that size!"
Leander's voice came back through the static, sounding impossibly calm. "Jason, open a wide-band channel. I want to look them in the eye and find out what they think they're doing."
"They're going to kill us, that's what they're doing!"
"Just do it. Trust me. We'll be fine."
Reluctantly, Jason patched the comms through. Immediately, Yumi's arrogant, mocking voice flooded the cabin.
"Oh, Leander! Why the rush to leave? We were just getting to the good part of our conversation. Xandar is so much nicer when you stay for the after-party."
"We aren't that close, Yumi," Leander replied. His boots sparked as small thrusters on the EVA suit ignited, drifting him toward the triangular ship. "Hatton paid you your three thousand credits. The deal is done. Go home."
Yumi's laughter echoed through the link. "Three thousand? Please. That was a tip. You owe me a five-hundred-thousand credit 'finder's fee' for introducing you to the best market in the sector. Or, better yet..." her voice dropped to a sinister whisper, "Just give me the source. Tell me where you found that metal, and I might let you keep your ship."
Leander stopped drifting, hanging in the void between the two vessels. "And if I don't?"
"Then I take the scrap metal from your wreckage," Yumi snapped. "Look at your sensors, boy. My guns are hot. My shields are up. You're a bug on a windshield."
On the triangular ship, the massive electromagnetic cannon began to glow with a sickly green light as it drew power from the reactor.
"You really shouldn't do this, Yumi," Leander's voice went icy, losing all its warmth. "It's illogical. I'm in a hurry to get home, and you're standing in my way. Move. Now."
"Fire! Blow that bucket of bolts out of the sky!" Yumi screamed at her gunner.
Jason didn't wait. He pulled the triggers on the Ghost Shadow, and several blue laser bolts lanced out, striking the gray energy shield of the triangular ship. They splashed against the surface like water on a stone, dissipating without causing even a flicker in the gray light.
"It's not working!" Jason yelled.
At that exact moment, the triangular ship's heavy cannon reached full charge. A massive, blinding ball of plasma and kinetic energy launched toward the Ghost Shadow. It was a killing blow, a dazzling beam of light designed to vaporize the hull in a single hit.
But then, a second light appeared.
A golden streak, faster than the eye could follow, intercepted the plasma ball mid-flight. Leander didn't dodge. He threw himself directly into the path of the projectile.
BOOM!
The vacuum of space doesn't carry sound, but the shockwave was felt in the hull of both ships. The energy ball didn't reach the Ghost Shadow. It exploded prematurely, exactly halfway between the two ships, creating a blinding supernova of white and violet fire. The sheer force of the detonation sent ripples through the gravitational field, knocking the Ghost Shadow sideways and rattling the triangular ship's shields.
For a moment, neither side could see through the expanding cloud of ionized gas.
Yumi recovered first, slapping her gunner upside the head. "I told you to hit the ship! How do you miss at this range?!"
"I didn't miss, Boss! Something hit the shell! It was like... like a bird flew into a windshield!" the gunner stammered, his hands shaking.
"If we lose the trail because you're incompetent, I'll sell your organs to the slave markets on Knowhere! Charge it again!"
Across the void, Jason was frozen in his seat. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape as he stared at the spot where Leander had been. He had seen the golden beam—Leander's signature energy—collide with the plasma.
"Leo...?" Jason whispered, his voice cracking. Even though he'd only known the kid for half a day, the thought of him being vaporized sent a sharp, physical pang through his chest. He'd spent so long being alone that the sudden absence of that annoying, confident voice felt like a vacuum.
He gripped the controllers tighter, his teeth bared in a snarl of grief and rage. He didn't care about the metal. He didn't care about the ship. He just wanted to make Yumi pay.