STARGIRL

twenty-nine.

Something crashed into Rocket's room. People around Eleanor started to scream and she whipped her head up to see what was happening.

"What the hell?" yelled Nebula, as people around her started to run down to where Eleanor was. She pushed her way through the screaming crowd to Nebula.

"What happened?" the teenager shouted through the noise.

Nebula bared her teeth, "Stay here." and she ran towards the weapons building.

Eleanor rocked back and forth on her feet, "Okay," she said quietly, "but are you going to fill me in?" the blue woman ran past her again, "No? Okay, fine."

There was nothing happening for a while until Nebula got slammed into the floor a little bit away from Eleanor, "Holy!" she ran over to Nebula, but before she could get close, a golden boy raised his head to look at her.

"Hey!" Eleanor yelled, as the man started to punch Nebula in the face, "Stop!"

He looked back up at her again, and Eleanor severely regretted saying anything. He picked Nebula up by one hand and flung her away. She went flying for miles and Eleanor started to back away as the golden boy started to advance towards her.

Groot dropped down onto him, and Eleanor breathed out as she continued to back away towards the weapons building. She wasn't going to fight this muscled monster without a gun. Her hands fumbled with the login but she finally managed to get the pin correct. She swung the door open and closed it straight away when she got inside. She just managed to grab a couple of guns and hide around the corner as the golden boy stormed in.

Apparently Peter had the same idea as she did because she bumped into him. "Dad!" she hissed, "You're supposed to be sleeping!"

"How can I be sleeping when this dickhead is assaulting our friends?" muttered Peter and he started to shoot at the golden boy. Eleanor joined in, and the two advanced towards the boy as he started to back away. Drax grabbed him by the collar, "Pick on someone your own size."

They continued to fight outside.

"Peter!" Mantis yelled, causing the father and daughter to look over to her. She was kneeling next to Rocket, "Peter!" they sprinted over as Rocket gasped for air, "We need Med-Paks!"

Eleanor slipped as she turned to run for the cupboard and fell onto the floor scraping her knee. She pushed herself back up and rushed over, pulling the cupboard door open. She grabbed an armful as she heard Rocket choking in the background. She chucked one over to Peter who was standing near Mantis and he kneeled down next to Rocket whilst ripping it open.

Blood was seeping onto Mantis' hand as Eleanor crouched next to her. Eleanor's heart was beating fast as she watched her dad place the Med-Pak onto the raccoon's chest. Mantis placed one on her broken arm and she pressed the button. Her arm got fixed.

Peter pressed the button on Rocket's Med-Pak. He started to groan and seize as the electricity crackled. Eleanor's eyes widened, "I don't think it's working!" she said quickly.

"No!" Mantis screamed, and Nebula ran in.

"All I did was activate the Med-Paks!" Peter explained, pointing his hands at Rocket.

Nebula ran over, "Get them off! Now!"

Peter ripped it from Rocket's little body. The Pak had scorched his fur and skin that was around the wound on his chest. He had white froth coming out of his mouth. His chest was still moving and he was grunting which signalled that he was alive. Eleanor's hands shook as she still stared down at him, none of them wanting to hurt him even more.

Peter carefully picked him up, "We need to get him to the Med-Bay!"

"It was destroyed!" Nebula replied, "There's one on the ship."

Eleanor ran beside her dad as the group rushed over to the ship.

"A kill switch?" Peter asked once they had wired Rocket up. Nebula was hooked onto him and was reading through all of his information as it flashed through her shiny black eyes.

"A device set to destruct if anyone goes poking around inside him, or even if we use the Med-Paks." explained Nebula.

Eleanor had her head on Peter's shoulder again. "Why would Rocket have a kill switch?" he asked.

"Apparently, someone considers him proprietary technology and sent that golden lunatic to get him."

"So, he'll die if we operate on him?" Mantis asked.

"And he'll die if we don't." added Drax, and Eleanor sniffed, rubbing her eyes free from any tears.

"There has to be some way to bypass it." Peter commented. "It looks like there's a passkey that could override the kill switch." replied Nebula.

Mantis looked up at the others, "What do we know about where Rocket came from?"

"He won't talk about it." sighed Peter.

"Much of the tech was developed by a company called OrgoCorp," Nebula said, "And there's a code on all of it, 89P13. He's got maybe 48 hours."

Peter stood up, causing Eleanor's head to fall and she looked around to him as Mantis followed after. "Where are you going?" yelled Nebula.

"OrgoCorp have to have records, right?" Peter replied, and everyone started to follow after him, "Maybe they'll have a way for us to override the kill switch and save Rocket."

"They won't just give us that information." said Mantis.

"Well, that's why we're gonna break in."

"We kill anyone who gets in our way!" Drax added, a bit too enthusiastically for Eleanor's liking.

"Not kill anyone." replied Peter.

"Kill a few people."

"Kill no people."

"Kill one guy, one stupid guy who no one loves." concluded Drax.

Eleanor pulled a face at the same time as Peter, "Now you're just making it sad." he replied.

Eleanor sat down in her seat and clipped in her seatbelt. She grabbed the book on the side and started to read from where she left off last time which had been a while since they never really left Knowhere apart from a couple of times two years ago.

"I located the coordinates for OrgoCorp," Nebula said, "I think I have a contact near there. Maybe they can help us get in."

"Contact him," Peter replied, switching on Since You Been Gone - Rainbow - and Eleanor started to nod her head to the beat whilst reading, "Let's go save our friend."