Issue 1 Downtime

The X-Men had had a few days to settle into their quarters in Knowhere and get the lay of the station before the rest of the Guardians arrived. Later that day, they were all called into the room they'd met in last time.

Rocket and Groot were there, as was Cosmo. Also present were a green insectoid man, identified as Bug, a bald woman identified as Moondragon, a man in a bodysuit carrying an all-too-familiar shield identified as Major Victory, a green-skinned woman (that Cal always seemed to be eyeing) identified as Mantis, and the apparent leader of the Guardians, Star-Lord. ((note that that's a mask. Star-Lord generally looks like a normal guy with brown hair))

"All right," Star-Lord (or Peter, as everyone kept calling him) said. "We had to do some quick digging, and some even quicker running, but we've finally got some information. Shi'ar are in major 'cover up what happened so no MORE people find out how bad we screwed up' mode, apparently Earth's giving them hell by shouting far and loud what they were stupidly up to."

Daniel, as usual, sat in the back of the group with Melody, listening with his arms crossed, looking like he was going to hit anyone who slowed the process down at this point.

Cal, meanwhile, was sitting with Kevin, mostly paying attention, but partly checking the computer systems for further information on what they were saying.

"If this briefing takes longer than fifteen minutes, I may punch things. Sorry in advance closest punching bag," she said to Daniel under her breath.

"That's all right, I'll spank you for it later," Daniel muttered back to her.

"Promise?" she smirked.

for real though. I legitimately need to get laid like yesterday she thought to herself.

"We could bore you with details, or we could let you listen to the conversation we hacked. And it's a lot more entertaining, so we're going to do that."

"Good evening, Chancellor."
"Agent Brand. I am a very busy-"
"Yes, yes, save me the details. You've dodged me for weeks, I want answers."
"Any answers you were going to get, you already h-"
"No, I think you have more answers for me. You know, the Kree would love to talk to me about how Skrull agents might have gotten onto your ships. I've had a few chats with Ronan who told me exactly that. Now... I haven't gotten into much detail with him yet, but if I talk to him, I'm going to have to."
"You go too far!"
"No YOU go too far! Do you know who you've pissed off over here? Let's put the cards on the table for a minute."
"The Imperial Guard can handle whatever-"
"I have video of the leader of your Imperial Guard getting tossed around by one of the mutants they antagonized. And now your security problems have made that oh-so-pleasant mutant's daughter cry. And he's just the first name on the list of people I'm holding back from finding a way to Chandrilar to get answers their way. Eight of them got killed directly because you were too incompetent to find Skrulls among your own people. They are much less rational than me, and yes, you should feel as terrified as you are right now. Now I want answers and I want them now, or the next time we talk it will be in person and I'll have a dozen pissed off mutants with me. And I'll take no responsibility for collateral damage they cause."

There was silence on the line for a moment as the Chancellor considered this.

Cal frowned as he listened. Wait, eight?

Bobby frowned, listening in.

He didn't know this Agent Brand, and he didn't like her so far.

"Great.." he muttered.

"It's fake," Daniel said in a flat, dangerous voice.

"It is?" Kev asked.

"You heard it. Cassiel isn't pissed because they made his daughter cry, it's because they killed her. And you know eight is wrong, these guys are fucking with us."

"I AM GROOT!"

"Easy, buddy," Rocket said. "And watch it, kid. We got this feed live. Got it confirmed by a buddy of ours on Earth, too."

"There are eight of us here." Ashlie flatly points out.

"And me."

"Well we aren't dead, so maybe the others aren't either. I mean... we didn't really see all of what happened."

Daniel froze a moment as hope and panic collided in his stomach... Kevin could be right. But hope wasn't anything but pain...

Rachel took a step backwards, and knocked against the wall. Maybe Bear isn't dead. If she isn't, I might still have something to go home to. Yeah, right. Ryan is going to hate me anyway.

"They might, they might not. Right now, we don't know for sure. we need to keep focused on Mira." Bobby said, not sure what to believe.

"Lets find out if there is a point to finding Mira." Rachel said.

"Shut up," Daniel said, not taking his eyes off the Guardians to look at Bobby. "Goes to their credibility. There's been too much of people being had by other people in this mess for me to start letting us get added to the list. The number was thirteen or fourteen, depending on who's doing the counting. Not eight. They wouldn't reduce the body count when they were trying to strongarm the Shi'ar."

Bobby rolled his eyes, and muttered something under his breath.

"Peter," Mantis said, looking back at Star-Lord, "The elevated stress levels in the room indicate that it would be a very good moment for you to skip the ten-minute silent deliberation in the recording"

"Yeah, good call," Peter said, hitting a button so that the voices resumed.

"The circumstances around this incident are quite questionable enough, Agent Brand. As it stands, your organization is the only one on your planet recognized by the Galactic Assemblies, and you have no witnesses that you can vouch fo-"
"Oh, thank you, I was hoping you would bring that up. It just so happens that I do have an agent who was a part of that mess, and is absolutely set on getting answers, one way or another, about what happened. Agent, tell me, in the conversations you've had just in the past two days, how many worlds have you found who are absolutely fed up with the Shi'ar and their constant reactionary bullshit?"
"Thirty-seven."

The voice, naturally, was unmistakeable to most of the long-time X-Men.

"Oh, sorry, did you mean including Shi'ar 'protectorate' worlds? Eighty nine."
"Actually, I meant ones with enough of a starforce to actually do something about it."
"Ones who are sick of them, or ones that just wouldn't mind helping because they think it's the right thing to do."
"Mmm, you're right, I did word that badly. Those too."
"Oh, in that case? One hundred twelve."
"Were you counting the X-Men and the Avengers in your figures there?"
"Mmm, good point. One hundred thirteen."
"Thank you, back to your post. Now, Mr. Chancellor, I assure you that my agent's numbers are correct. And he's being very thorough and very persuasive in his work. Do you remember two years ago, the mess that the Baddoon warlord caused because the Kree Ambassador insulted one of his mates? Well you just killed one of his. And unlike the Baddoon warlord, he can speak in complete sentences, so I want you to think, very hard, just how much trouble I and mine are completely ready, more than willing, and more than able to cause for you if you don't swallow your goddamn pride and give us the information we want."

There was another silence, this time they could hear the muffled voice of the Shi'ar Chancellor talking to someone and covering his comm while he did.

Ryah. Rachel thought Oh, Ryan. Baby, what happened to you. I..dammit, I have to get back to him.

Bobby turned Rachel's way for a split second, before turning back, determined.

"That's... a pretty spot-on voiceprint match," Cal admitted, after getting confirmation from his systems.

"Well god damn, maybe things finally ARE looking up," Melody mumbled quietly.

Daniel seemed content to not interrupt the briefing anymore, instead just leaning over and whispering something in Melody's ear.

Melody squirmed a bit in her chair and blushed bright red, flashing Daniel a grin.

"There was a Skrull ambassador on Chandrilar."
"No, really?"
"Cut the insolence. I'm giving you the answers you want. He was recently reassigned from our planet, a few days after the incident occurred. Reasonable response, but we've had a number of disappearances after he left as well. Our only guess is that he'd managed to place his own people in strategic positions. We don't know what he did with the people he replaced."
"See, now was this so hard?"
"Silence. We lost track of him en route to the Skrull empire... or what remains of it, at least. I'm transmitting a starmap with his last known location and our best guesses as to where he might have gone from there. Excluding those place we already looked into while trying to find him, that is."

Star-lord turned off the recording. "And it just so happens that we have more people that like us than the entire Shi'ar empire does. And so we have the location." An image came up, a purple and blue planet floating above a holoprojector. "Currently it's serving as a resettlement colony for the displaced Skrulls who've had their planets destroyed... and there've been a lot of them. So he's been counting on crappy record-keeping to keep himself under the radar. We traced his comm network activity, though, and backtracked to a little secret resort that the Skrull officials are keeping on that planet for when they're not being... well, official."

"Tomorrow we go and infiltrate, we find him, and we find out what the hell's going on so we can start backtracking and finding your friend. Questions?"

"Do we get cool space guns?"

"If it turns out you can use them without killing bystanders we'll think about it. Next question."

"How, exactly, do we infiltrate a base of professional infiltrators?" Kev asked.

"I AM GROOT!"

"No, buddy, we're not using trees," Rocket said. "Pretty much we beam in, take control of the place quick, and keep enough psychics with us to make sure everyone we think is one of us isn't really a skrull."

"Simple enough. Beach head the place, and get the guy."

Bobby stroked his chin.

"how big to the space guns get, exactly?"

Star Lord eyed the tree that was his teammate. "About as big around as him and half as tall," he said.

Rocket looked back at him. "Oh we're bustin out my private stash? You do mean business."

"That's... big alright..." Kev said.

How does a raccoon even hold such a thing?