GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: ROCKET RACCOON & GROOT STEAL THE GALAXY!

  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: ROCKET RACCOON & GROOT — STEAL THE GALAXY! PROSE NOVEL. Published by MARVEL WORLDWIDE, INC., a subsidiary of MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT, LLC. OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: 135 West 50th Street, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

  EISBN# 978-1-302-48949-6

  © 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters featured in this issue and the distinctive names and likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc. No similarity between any of the names, characters, persons, and/or institutions in this magazine with those of any living or dead person or institution is intended, and any such similarity which may exist is purely coincidental. WWW.MARVEL.COM

  COVER ART BY MIKE PERKINS AND ANDY TROY

  TITLE PAGE ART BY SKOTTIE YOUNG

  BACK COVER ART BY TIMOTHY GREEN II AND ANDY TROY

  Stuart Moore, Editor

  Design by Nelson Ribeiro

  Senior Editor, Special Projects: Jeff Youngquist

  Assistant Editor: Sarah Brunstad

  Associate Managing Editor: Alex Starbuck

  Manager Digital Comics: Tim Smith 3

  SVP Print, Sales & Marketing: David Gabriel

  Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso

  Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada

  Publisher: Dan Buckley

  Executive Producer: Alan Fine

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  • CHAPTER [BECAUSE WE MUST START SOMEWHERE] ONE •

  • CHAPTER TWO •

  • CHAPTER THREE •

  • CHAPTER FOUR •

  • CHAPTER FIVE •

  • CHAPTER SIX •

  • CHAPTER SEVEN •

  • CHAPTER EIGHT •

  • CHAPTER NINE •

  • CHAPTER TEN •

  • CHAPTER ELEVEN •

  • CHAPTER TWELVE •

  • CHAPTER THIRTEEN •

  • CHAPTER FOURTEEN •

  • CHAPTER FIFTEEN •

  • CHAPTER SIXTEEN •

  • CHAPTER SEVENTEEN •

  • CHAPTER EIGHTEEN •

  • CHAPTER NINETEEN •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT •

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-LINE •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT •

  • CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE •

  • CHAPTER FORTY •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-ONE •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-TWO •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-THREE •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE •

  • CHAPTER FORTY-SIX •

  Special

  PROLOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt cosmic thanks to Stuart Moore, Jeff Youngquist, Axel Alonso, Dan Buckley, Sarah Brunstad, and James Gunn for their support in this project.

  Humble fan-boy appreciation must go to Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen, Roy Thomas, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Mike Mignola, Arnold Drake, Gene Colan, and Stan Lee for the (Marvel) Universe-building and the inspiration. Growing up would not have been nearly as exciting without you. And you’re just the start of the list.

  Disconcertingly humanlike fist-bumps to Ronald Byrd for continuity-fu, and to Nik Vincent for first reading.

  This book, however, is for Jim Starlin. Marvel wasn’t properly cosmic until it met you.

  • CHAPTER [BECAUSE WE MUST START SOMEWHERE] ONE •

  LAST ORDERS

  A talking raccoon and a mobile tree walk into a bar—

  Wait. My linguistic circuits inform me that in the vernacular of more than one hundred and fifty-six thousand civilized cultures, that opening sentence definitely sounds like the start of a joke.

  The sort of joke that might also include the words “Why the long face?” or “I’m afraid not” or “Ouch, it was an iron bar.”

  Please understand, gentle reader, what I am about to tell you is most certainly not a joke. It is a story about the fate of worlds. The Destiny of the Universe, no less. It is a story during which this Galaxy, and possibly many other galaxies—not to mention several terations of the entire space-time Multiverse—will be in serious jeopardy on more than one occasion. This is a serious tale. Billions of innocent lives depend upon its successful conclusion. One false step in our narrative, and stars will snuff out, spiral galaxies will unwind, supergiants will detonate in clouds of luminous atomic heartbreak, and the ancient and mighty civilizations of the cosmos will fall, screaming, as the dreadful blackness of eternity rips out the throat of All Creation.

  So let us not, loyal and friendly reader, get off on the wrong foot by thinking that I am about to tell you a joke.

  I am not. Are we clear? I will suspend my literal speech protocols {literal speech protocols suspended} because that’s possibly what’s causing the problem. I will try to be more…informal and more human (because I am presuming that you are human, loyal reader. You look human, at any rate. Except for those eyebrows. Really? Really? Did you trim them yourself?). I am a synthetic. A synthetic humanoid. I am an instrument of measurement. A recorder of data. I was manufactured in the matter forges of Rigel. I was made to observe. So cut me some slack, okay? I don’t do organic nuance.

  Where were we?

  Oh yes, right. A talking raccoon and a mobile tree walk into a bar.

  The bar is in Dive-town, a minor suburb of the continent-spanning supercity/starport cosmopolis of Lumina on the planet Xarth Three. Occupying a long-season, “sling-loop” orbit around the binary stars Fades Primary and Fades Secondary in the Xranek Group, Xarth Three is a class M world with a population of 9.9 billion and a gross industrial export principally comprising—

  {halt expositional protocol}

  —just checking with you, loyal reader, but that’s going to become tiresome, isn’t it? If I keep reverting to data-delivery mode every time I hit a proper noun? I am an encyclopedia. But I want to tell this story without sounding like one. Here’s an idea…if I’m going too fast or not explaining things, tell me, and I’ll back up and fill in details. I’m very good at filling in details. If details are what you want, you’ve come to the right place.

  {resume narrative mode}

  The bar is in Dive-town. The suns are setting like hot coals spitting as they sink into murky water. In the streets outside, neon lamps are pulsing. Necrodroidal trash-gangs are howling at the rising moons, eager to begin a night of vicious turf wars and lucrative organ scavenging.

  The bar is called Leery’s. No one who frequents the bar can actually remember who Leery was, or why the bar bears his (or her, or its) name. Not even Nrrsh, the Skrull who runs the place.

  Nrrsh has been wounded (presumably in the course of numerous Kree-Skrull wars) so many times that a great deal of his biomass has been systematically replaced by cybernetics and prosthetics. It’s fair to say that he is not so much a Skrull with cybernetic parts, but rather a collection of cyberne
tic parts with one remaining Skrull arm vaguely involved. This does not in any way prevent him from being fiercely Skrullian and singing the traditional anthem “Tarnax! Tarnax! Always shifting!” lustily every Skrull-Day, or when he has had one too many Timothies.

  {data note—we’ll come back to the subject of the Timothy later}

  Leery’s is typical of most Dive-town hostelries: split-level, multibars, a dancefloor, an orchestra pit, a ranged sequence of fighting arenas, and a quasi-siderial gateway to the Multiverse that no one ever uses because they are too busy getting hammered, betting on the arena fights, dancing, or having a flarking good time of it.

  As our talking raccoon and mobile tree enter it, Leery’s is business as usual. The dancing girls are dancing (I say dancing girls—I mean a shoal of eighty coalescent pseudo-moebea swirling in stylish, syncopated formation. With ostrich feathers). The band is playing (I say band—I mean a close-harmony squadron of Kymellian interpolatory trumpatoonists who are using brass acoustic-tubes to produce disconcerting and frankly uncomfortable horse-fart noises at ultralow frequencies. With a samba beat). The joint is jumping (I say jumping—and it is. The deep and immense rock-fuse piles upon which Dive-town was built, bored down into the planet’s mantle in ages past by the first constructors of Xarth, are actually being affected by the ultralow infra-sound frequencies of the Kymellian band’s horse-farting and are beginning to twitch. Just a little bit. Oooh, just a little bit).

  “My kinda place,” announces Rocket Raccoon with relish.

  “I am Groot,” his towering companion agrees, nodding.

  A talking raccoon and a mobile tree. As heroes go, they’re not much to record home about. That was certainly my reaction when I met them. I am presuming that it is yours, too, loyal reader, as you observe them for the first time stepping into my expertly woven narrative. A raccoon and a tree. One talks, one walks.

  Surely, I hear you say, loyal reader, they are not the heroes of this tale? Surely, you add anxiously, the fate of the Multiverse does not depend upon them?

  Well, yes. Yes, it does. Loyal reader, if this idea alarms you, then maybe the fate of the Multiverse isn’t something you should think about too hard.

  If it matters at all, and I hope it does, my first impressions of them were similarly underwhelming. It took a while for me to fully appreciate that Rocket Raccoon and Groot of Planet X were proper, Multiverse-saving heroes. Quite a while, actually. I’ll shout out when, in the course of this narrative, it happens.

  Anyway…

  “My kinda place,” says Rocket Raccoon with relish. He is very much less than a human meter tall. His coat is glossy and in wonderful condition. His spectacular tail is bouffant. He walks upright in a way that makes the human in you want to exclaim, “Lookit the little man! Lookit! Walking on his back paws! Oooooaww!”

  Do not do that. Ever. If you do that, he will shoot you to death as many times as necessary. Rocket Raccoon has, I’m sorry to say, experienced a twisted and unpleasant background (an “origin,” as I suspect you might regard it, loyal reader), but that twisted and unpleasant background has made him the glossy-snouted, cheeky-as-a-button space warrior he is today. I may reveal some details of his “origin” as this tale advances. I can’t promise. I was warned with actual guns not to reveal certain particulars. Look, if you know him as I do, you’ll know his heart is in the right place (in the upper-left-hand quadrant of his thorax), and he has a very specific moral code (“Flark everything and everyone!” © 2014 Rocket Raccoon. All rights reserved), and he likes unfeasibly large guns.

  One of which is strapped across his back as he enters Leery’s. Look at him! Look at him, walking upright! Like a trained dog! Gaw-www! Good boy! Good boy!

  Sorry.

  And then there’s the hands. Look, this is the thing. I can’t get past it. Rocket’s hands…they’re so disconcertingly human. It’s uncanny (not in the mutant sense, obviously. Mutants are uncanny in an entirely different way). It’s amazing, astonishing, astounding, incredible, adjective-less…okay, it’s just distressing. Rocket Raccoon’s hands are disconcertingly human in the most distressing way.

  Let’s think about something else for a moment, because the hands thing is creeping me out a bit.

  Something else, something else…okay, Rocket is wearing a uniform. It’s dark blue, militaristic, with red flashing and frogging. It’s the uniform of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a cosmos-defending supergroup that really doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Or the publicity. Or anything. Mention the name, and most people will go, “Huh? Guardians of the where now?”

  Rocket is enjoying a sabbatical. The Guardians, you see, are on a bit of a hiatus between their efforts to save an ungrateful cosmos (and guard a sniffily "I don’t need to be guarded" Galaxy). Star-Lord’s off doing this. Gamora’s off doing that. Drax is off… destroying. That’s just a guess.

  So Rocket and Groot, they’ve gone back to what they do best: make a little action, develop a little cash. They have the keys and papers for a subcompact jump freighter and a fresh cargo of zunks. Forty-eight tons of zunks, in fact. They’ve come to Leery’s because they’ve got a lead that a zunk trader might be in the house tonight—a zunk trader looking to move between forty-seven and forty-nine tons of zunks. So this is business time for Rocket…just him and his trusted pal Groot.

  Speaking of which…Groot is a tree. Imagine an ancient, giant oak tree with a face, arms, and feet. Imagine it walking toward you. Groot has to duck as he comes in through Leery’s doorway—and even though he does, twigs scrape off and clatter to the floor.

  Rocket looks at the almost entirely not Skrullian barman.

  “Two Timothies!” he declares.

  “I am Groot,” says Groot.

  Rocket sighs.

  “Okay, make that one Timothy, and one bitterbark and soda.”

  Nrrsh scurries to his task. Rocket glances up at his leafy friend.

  “Lightweight,” he says. Then he sniffs the air with his glossy button nose. He smells snake oil and leather. He smells reptiles. He smells lizard belly.

  “Flark it,” he says. “Badoon.”

  It is not long after this that the fight begins.

  • CHAPTER TWO •

  A SPOT OF BOTHER

  THE drinks arrive. Groot sips his, his littlest twig finger extended politely. Rocket regards his Timothy with healthy caution and respect, the sort of respect that a veteran tamer of Denebian face-eaters shows for the predators he has spent his career taming. They may let him get into the cage with them every day, they may be used to him, they may even allow him to scratch them behind the ears or feed them treats, but they are still Denebian face-eaters, and their name is not in any way euphemistic.

  The Timothy is, loyal reader, a truly splendid beverage. It sits upon its napkin on the bar, glowing with a kind of inner light that promises merriment, conviviality, and ultimately a merciful memory blackout. The exact recipe for the Timothy is, of course, a secret closely guarded by the Most Honorable Galactic Fraternal Guild of Bartenders and Mixologists, but it is rumored to contain Arkuan spirit, Kree brandy, shaved zark-seeds, a shot of vooosh-juice, a jigger of sentient remorse squeezed out of the collective memory of a dying species using a quantum press, lemon zest, and a small antimatter charge just strong enough to sustain the hyperspatial cascade at a molecular level. When first concocted, it was given a completely terrifying name that accurately reflected the experience of drinking one. This honesty was found to be off-putting in the retail environment, however, so the drink was renamed “The Timothy”—a Monicker that was felt to be much more reassuring and mild.

  Rocket Raccoon looks at his Timothy for a moment, his eyes narrowing. One does not rush into a Timothy. One does not casually knock back a Timothy. A Timothy requires a certain degree of mental preparation before it is confronted. A certain degree of mental preparation, a deep breath, and a long run-up. Like a ravine. Or a flying tackle. Or a Kree-Skrull War.

  It is worth noting that the Timothy
is the only beverage in the known Universe to have repeatedly made it on to the Shi’ar Imperial Guard’s watch list of prohibited and outlawed weapons.

  “I am Groot,” says Groot, noting his companion’s pensive nature.

  “As a matter of fact, I have got something on my mind, ol’ buddy,” replies Rocket. “I’m worried about our cargo of zunks. If we don’t find a d’ast buyer soon, we could be left with forty-eight tons of overripe zunks. We could be seriously out of pocket. I thought zunks were a smart investment. They always used to be. But since they opened those mega-farm plantations in Gamma Eridani, the market’s been awash. That’s what’s on my mind. Or at least it was my chief worry until we came in here.”

  He sniffs the air again.

  “I can definitely smell Badoon,” he says.

  As if on cue, the Badoon appear.

  There are ten of them. They are especially large specimens of their race. Judging from the “talon-and-forked-tongue” silver insignia on their War Brotherhood wargear, and their satin-sheen black battle pants, they are warriors of the elite War Brotherhood “Devastation” Cadre—a division not known for taking a lighthearted approach to love and life, even by Badoon standards.

  And it is clear that these large and aggressive reptilian warriors are looking for something. Unblinking amber eyes dart to and fro, scanning the environment for traces. Forked tongues flicker between steel-enhanced war fangs. The Badoon leader keeps a firm grip on the jeweled handle of his ceremonial War Brotherhood plasma exterminatron.

  Rocket turns back to his Timothy.

  “Don’t make eye contact, ol’ buddy,” he murmurs to Groot. “We don’t want to get involved in any trouble. The last thing we need is a fight with Badoon.”

  “I am Groot,” agrees Groot.

  “Exactly, pal. A spot of bother is not where we want to be right now. Ignore any provocation.”

  “I am Groot.”

  “Yeah. Even if it is hugely tempting to ease our troubles by laying some righteous smackdown on good-for-nothing, pointy-eared lizard bullies.”