Emergency spacecraft repair tested more than an engineer's technical skill. More than anything, it tested stamina and willpower. It was exhausting work. Jojani wore an exoskeleton to help her move shuttle parts, while Rocket Raccoon had Groot assisting him.
In the stands, Tony bounced his leg anxiously. He knew the key to victory was not restoring the shuttles perfectly, but getting the engines back online with as few repair steps as possible.
Whoever was better at "cutting corners," whoever better understood emergency methods, would gain the advantage.
That was entirely for the sake of wartime reality. On a battlefield that changed by the second, the damage-control crews never had much of a repair window, and their working conditions were always limited. Often there were no spare parts at all, so they had to make do with nanoprinting.
So this was really an art of making do. Repair what had to be repaired, ignore anything nonessential for the time being, and put everything toward preserving combat capability.
To do that, you needed not only a deep understanding of ship structure, but also a great deal of hands-on experience.
Rocket had been knocking around the starways for years. He was a true old hand, and his ability to adapt on the spot was extraordinary. Give him a pile of scrap metal and he could throw together a devastating gun. Jojani, meanwhile, had received Lady Moonshadow's personal instruction in the Time Chamber. She had studied and trained hard for ten full years just for one chance to make her name. All kinds of mechanical knowledge were now etched into her mind, and the structure of a starship had already become a complete 3D model in her head, making any flaw instantly obvious.
To everyone's surprise, the two of them stayed neck and neck in the early phase. The crowd's excitement surged at once. People talked among themselves nonstop. Most of them had dismissed Jojani before, but now even they could not help quietly praising her.
"Skyl, hurry and divine it, who's going to win this match?" Tony asked hopefully, looking at Skyl.
At that, the Hogwarts prodigy suddenly looked extremely suspicious. Skyl dodged the question and rambled about how the future could not be predicted, how anything was possible, and how a scientist should not pin his hopes on mystic nonsense.
Tony shook his head. "Skyl, that's where you're wrong. People in the engineering business are always at least a little superstitious. Fixing machines is basically black magic. Sometimes no matter what method you use, you can't find the problem, but smack it a couple times and it starts working again. Some old relic runs perfectly fine until you service it, and then it breaks."
Then he turned and patted the alien tech expert beside him. The guy had both arms replaced with metal prosthetics, so he looked like a real professional. "Buddy, tell him, engineers are kind of superstitious, right?"
The older alien nodded as if it were obvious. "Of course. I believe in the machine spirit. The key to repairs is making the machine spirit happy."
Skyl's eyelid twitched. Brother, did you wander in here from Warhammer 40,000? Why stop at the machine spirit? Why not start talking about the Omnissiah too?
Since he clearly was not going to talk Tony out of it, Skyl grudgingly began his divination.
"Here, drink this tea." He employed Hogwarts' most scientific divination method, tea-leaf reading. He brewed the tea slowly, deliberately making it piping hot so Tony would have to sip it bit by bit. He had not expected Tony to gulp it down like some kind of buffalo possessed.
"There."
Tony's tongue was practically scalded numb, and the rest of their companions all looked over curiously.
Lady Moonshadow smirked. A good show was coming. She was about to enjoy a genuine old-fashioned fortune-teller scam.
Holding the teacup, Skyl began muttering under his breath. His eyes suddenly rolled white, his body started trembling, and his voice turned airy and eerie, like some wandering ghost had possessed him.
"I see it... ah, I see someone standing on the winner's podium... yes, someone has won..."
Tony lit up at once and pressed, "Who won?"
"The one who won is standing on the podium. The one who did not win is not standing on the podium," Skyl muttered gloomily.
"Uh... so who exactly is standing on the podium?"
"The one standing on the podium..." The wizard's voice sank lower and lower, like fish blowing bubbles underwater.
Tony, Gali, Stan, and Jormungand all leaned in, pressing their ears close to Skyl's mouth like a pack of curious children. Only Lady Moonshadow had already started laughing.
"The one standing on the podium is, precisely, the winner."
"Isn't that complete nonsense?" Everyone stared at him speechlessly.
Lady Moonshadow laughed so hard she doubled over, her full-moon curves bending into a crescent.
"Do you even know how to tell fortunes?"
Skyl bristled. "My divinations are always accurate. Just wait." He gently rubbed the Infinity Scepter, and the Time Stone flashed faintly, unveiling the torrent of the future before him.
"I see it... wait... something's happening." Skyl drew back his gaze. "This final can't continue. The High Evolutionary has already sent the Sovereign to capture Rocket."
"The Sovereign? I think I've heard of them." Lady Moonshadow thought for a moment. "I remember Kori mentioning them. Their skin is gold from head to toe, and they're a pack of arrogant, ill-mannered narcissists. But their military strength is excellent, so they're not to be underestimated."
Everyone could not help feeling sorry for Rocket's fate.
Out on the arena floor, the raccoon was completely immersed in his work. He briskly directed Groot to help him remove a shuttle's fairing and expose the tangled lines inside. He only had to glance at them once to know exactly which ones needed reconnecting.
A spaceship was not all that different from a rocket. Both were machines meant to race toward the sky and the stars.
Rocket was exceptionally good at fixing ships. No matter how badly one was wrecked, he could put it back together, because that skill had once been his hope of escaping the laboratory. For a raccoon who longed for freedom, knowing how to repair and fly a ship was the kind of skill that could save your life.
Not only his own life, but his companions' lives too.
89P13 was the number assigned to the experiment. Rocket was the name the raccoon gave himself, a name that carried his companions' hope for freedom. He had promised he would take them all into the heavens, away from the endless cycle of modification and experimentation, toward a new life.
They had promised they would escape together aboard a ship, but in the end, the only one who actually reached the sky was Rocket.
No matter how fast a ship flew, it could never turn back time. He could never truly go back.
That did not stop Rocket from using that trade to make some fast money. He still had to keep wandering, and without credits, life was hard. He was not a tree. He could not just stick his feet in the dirt and live off sunlight.
Rocket glanced at Jojani's progress. She was working desperately to catch up, but the gap was still slowly widening. Hard study and relentless practice could not create miracles. An objective gap was not something so easily erased.
The High Evolutionary was smart enough, wasn't he? He could make a life-form leap across millions of years of evolution in an instant, turning a mindless beast into an intelligent species. His OrgoCorp was one of the top biotech enterprises in the cosmos. He could even transform barren worlds into cradles of life.
And yet a scientist like that could still be stumped by one problem for decades, while Rocket could spot the issue at a glance and offer the solution immediately.
If intelligence was a superpower, then very few in the universe possessed it. Rocket was one of them. The High Evolutionary's obsession with him was nothing more than pure greed for Rocket's brain.
After several grueling hours, both finalists finally finished repairing their five shuttles. Rocket was a full half hour faster than Jojani.
The final result would depend on the organizers' inspection.
Xandarian engineers began checking the shuttles.
The audience waited for the final judgment.
And then, at that very moment, a group of golden-skinned Sovereign suddenly burst into the arena. Their soldiers were armed to the teeth and carried themselves with imposing authority. At their head stood a woman wearing a crown, clearly of exalted rank.
It was none other than High Priestess Ayesha.
"89P13!" Ayesha's gaze locked onto the raccoon. "So we've finally found you."
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