15222/Making All Her Knowhere Plans

Making All Her Knowhere Plans
Date of Scene:	17 June 2023
Location:	Common Area - Milano
Synopsis:	Gamora briefs Peter on a new job from an old contact.
Cast of Characters:	Gamora, Star-Lord

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Gamora has posed:
The Guardians had just finished a job, but as fate would have it, the gods of prosperity were smiling on the crew. They were still counting their earnings when Gamora found Star-Lord in the common area.

"Peter, I just got a call from Zana." One of her /many/ connections around the galaxy. "She wants us to meet her on Knowhere. Something about recovering an artifact she already has a buyer for. I think we should hear what she has to say."

And that's how, as it sometimes did, the Milano finds itself parked on the most wretched, lawless hive of scum and villainy around, which made it the perfect location to meet up with scummy contacts about scummy jobs. Eventually, maybe, the Guardians would focus on /only/ being completely wholesome... but that day was not today.

Gamora went to the meeting by herself (let's be honest.. so that the rest of the crew didn't cause some sort of scene), which left the rest of them to do whatever they did while she was off trying to find them more work.

But now she's back, and duster likely left on her bunk, Gamora stands with both hands propped on the Milano's central console, a star map projected in front of her. The hologram slowly rotates while the ship hums with the familiar buzz of machinery. She reaches one slender, green finger out and touches the controls, and the spinning galaxy map zooms in on the planet, providing a data display of environmental conditions and a map of the continents with a glowing reticle floating over a land mass between two of the seas.

Above the planet hover the words 'Viridian Prime.'

Star-Lord has posed:
"Sooooooooooooooooooo..."

That would be the voice of one Peter Jason Quill aka STAR-LORD. That's right, the (more or less) captain of the Milano and leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy has made his arrival from his bunk all too obvious. He's jacketless at the moment and just wandering around in his pants and random t-shirt that says 'Headed Knowhere Fast...' in different languages. No, seriously, the languages change every time you look at it. It's super weird but novelty and everybody knows Quill likes novelty.

His arrival is from behind Gamora as he tries to get a look at what she's looking at. He's eating a bag of Zargles, a delicious treat from somewhere in the galaxy and in between crunches he decides to tempt fate a little. Because he's Peter Quill, dammit.

"Did Zana say anything about me?" Quill looks obliviously hopeful. "Does she still have my number?"

Who knows if Zana even has Quill's number. The fun part is needling Gamora. But also, yeah, does Zana have his number?

Gamora has posed:
Who knows what the first indication of Peter's arrival was to Gamora's cybernetically enhanced senses. Was it his chip-scented breath wafting up from his quarters, moved about on the currents of the ship's air recyclers? Was it is footfalls on the ship's deck plating? Or was it the /RUSTLE-CRACKLE-RUSTLE-RUSTLE/ of his infernal snack bag, then the obnoxious sound of his chewing, like some interdimensional beast slowly devouring reality? Actually, that might be preferable, all things considered.

Regardless, he stopped behind her, and The Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy(tm) didn't bother turning away from her inspection of the map to acknowledge his presence. She knew he was there. He knew she knew he was there. It didn't warrant-- *CRUNCH*

UGH!!

Though she managed not to actually make the sound, a ripple ran down her spine and her hand flexed into a fist, like she was picturing herself holding a blade...

And after /all/ of that, is his question even ABOUT the job?! NO!

"/No/," Gamora growls. "She didn't. And /how/ should I--" A beat. A click of a gear into place. Suddenly, she stands and wheels on him, golden eyes glinting dangerously. "What do you mean /still/?"

What was she more jealous about? That /her/ contact had the ability to go (and apparently already had?) around her back, straight to Peter? Or that Peter wanted the attention of one of her arguably more physically attractive connections?

Star-Lord has posed:
Quill is in the middle of doing that thing with the bag where you just dump the rest of the crumbs into your mouth? Yeah, that's what he's doing right now so he's pretty oblivious to any reactions that may be happening because of his choice of words. Not that he chose those words carefully and for any reason that may or may not be causing such a reaction to take place. Nope. Peter Quill, as almost always, is just oblivious and innocent to any of his own verbal wrongdoing.

Ahem.

It isn't until the bag is empty does he crunch and chomp his way back down to paying attention to Gamora and the hologram. "What?" Quill's hands are immediately up and innocent, even if the Zargles bag is hanging between two fingers. "/You/ went to see her so I thought I'd ask /you/. Sheesh."

Quill turns away for a moment to ball up the Zargle bag and shoot it off towards a bin that he always misses. It's obvious he always misses because there's a bunch of snack wrappers all around the mostly empty bin. As he does this, there's a grin on his face from either messing with Gamora or just the deliciousness of the Zargles he just consumed. "I wonder if she still wags her flaps when she's talking about Units..." That's a thought that gets spoken out loud to himself before he spins back around with his innocent face plastered back on.

"Anyway. What's the job? Please tell me it's something good that'll make us all filthy rich for exactly no effort whatsoever..."

Gamora has posed:
Why did she even bother to get upset? It wasn't like the rest of the crew was even /actually/ scared of her, anymore. She'd used to warrant at least some level of cowering under her withering stare, but she'd gotten soft. If she wanted to earn that respect of the others back, she'd need to make an example out of one of them...

Jaw clenching, Gamora's eyes shifted from Peter's annoyingly innocent face (once it wasn't being nearly swallowed by the opening of the snack bag), down to his throat, and back up again just in time to see him turning away from her to prove that he wasn't about to leave the Guardians to become a professional bag-ball player any time soon. The galaxy was infinite. That was probably a thing somewhere. The worst part was that she couldn't make an example out of /him/. It would be like slaughtering a baby seal. She couldn't take her frustration out on Rocket, either, after he shared the candy he'd pilfered from Peter's stash with her.

"Ugh," the woman makes a defeated noise after his comments about 'wagging her flaps,' rolling her eyes and turning back around to the spinning holomap above the console.

For a man that wasn't /trying/ to mess with her, Peter certainly seemed good at getting under Gamora's skin. Unless he /was/ trying.

"This is Viridian Prime," Gamora says, folding her arms across her stomach and apparently grateful to have STAR-LORD's attention on something more productive than Zana's excitement about his units. "Zana's people have discovered the location of an artifact called the Lumina Core that's hidden in an ancient temple, but it's protected by traps and guardians. They've already lost two teams trying to get it out. She has a buyer already, but she can't get to it." She pauses, then, and dares a look over her shoulder at him. Her frustration has subsided, but she's still in 'professional' mode. "I told her we could handle it."

Star-Lord has posed:
"Sounds like a piece of cake. You know, I've raided my fair share of lost arks. I've stepped foot in a many temple of dooms. And yet, I've not once considered that any of them would be my last crusade."

Peter's already moving to take a seat as he spills those facts of the matter. He's all about making sure that the facts are true and thus the smug look on is face as he sits down is one that makes him feel quite accomplished. Not to mention that he just managed to work all those Indiana Jones titles into one simple moment of humility.

"How much we stand to make after we breeze in and out of this place?" Quill figures they've already got this in the bag. So much so that he's putting his feet up on the table in front of him and potentially even ruining the hologram imagery with his boots. That's right, he figures this is such a piece of cake that they don't even need to prep for it. Or, well, maybe he's just be comfortably lazy.

It's Peter. It could be either.

Gamora has posed:
It's Peter. It's definitely both, and Gamora knows it.

That much is evident in her eyes when she turns around to rest her rump up against the console next to his feet, only unfolding her arms long enough to swat at the power control for the holoprojector. The distorted and useless display fades from existence, and she returns the lengths of both bare, green arms to her stomach, fingers tapping impatiently on her toned biceps.

"Why do you talk so funny, sometimes?"

Her brow furrows, but there's not as much curiosity as there is.. frustration. Gamora was a consummate professional that was always working towards the optimal outcome, whether that meant planning, fighting, or training. Peter, on the other hand, was a clown that rarely took anything seriously.

Granted, he was an adorable clown, at times. Not that she'd ever admit that, even under threat of torture.

"Not as much as I'd like after you factor in fuel out here for the meeting, fuel to get to Viridian Prime, and fuel to get back with the Core. But, the buyer has another job he needs done, so this will serve as an... audition, to see if he wants to continue to hire us." A beat. "Unless we.. you know. Don't come back." Because someone put their feet up on the map she was using to plan out the mission.

Her smile thins.

Star-Lord has posed:
"/I/ talk funny? One of us is a giant tree that says I and Am and Groot. And /I/ talk funny?"

Peter's playful incredulousness is what he's wearing right now all over his face. He even goes so far as to lean back in his seat a bit so that he can look even more like he's the innocent one in all of this. "For your information, that was a very cleverly worded play on words to reference one of Earth's most awesome heroes: Indiana Jones."

Peter waves a hand to dismiss that whole part of the conversation as he focuses in on the job. And the fuel issue. "You let me worry about the fuel. I know somebeing on Kasjar Major. She owes me a favor. Well, actually, I owe her a favor. A couple of them." Peter unsidetracks himself. "But she'll fuel us up. That should put a few more units into our pockets." He hopes. Unless, of course, she's mad and tries to kill them all once they land. That's happened a few times too but Peter doesn't want to think about that.

"Hey. Hey, Gamora, would you relax? We're the Guardians of the Galaxy, remember?" Peter grins as he leans even further back in his seat. "We got this..."

And the celebratory leans of Peter Quill have his chair finally being unable to remain balanced and the Milano's Captain goes tumbling backward as the seat slips out from underneath him and there's a collection of sprawled Terran and clattering chair smacking into the ship's floor.

"Probably." groans Quill.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora's head rolls and her eyes shift to the side. Point Peter, on the Groot front. Granted, she had higher expectations for their /captain/, but...

"I've never heard of her." Because of course she hadn't. She lets it go, though.

Instead, her eyes sharpen as she focuses on him, watching him stumble as he tries to dance himself through his own minefield of /we're all definitely going to die./ It was less than confidence inspiring that he seemed more worried about getting fuel than he did about breaking into an ancient temple full of traps that had already claimed two scouting parties.

"Oh, no. You're plenty relaxed for all of us," she muses, but even as she's speaking, he's tumbling over backwards and sprawling on the deck. Her hand comes up, fingers covering her mouth to try to hide her smile, but it shines clearly in her eyes, even if she does manage to suppress outright laughter.

Adorable. Clown.

"Yeah. This is going to go /great/." Sarcasm. Lots and lots of sarcasm.

Despite that, she does step away from the console, the whole length of her lean, six-foot frame towering over him for a moment before she stretches out her hand, offering him help up.

Star-Lord has posed:
Peter looks like he was content to just stay sprawled out on the floor. It's just part of what happens when he's trying to be too cool. He actually doesn't look miffed or even hurt but it's just par for the course whenever he's doing something incredibly profound for something like this to happen. The acceptance of this fate on his face is disturbingly fine. And likely something the Guardians have seen many times.

Quill takes the offered hand and pulls himself up to his feet. With Gamora's enhanced strength it might as well be like he never fell at all. Somehow, without trying to be cool, he manages to kick the chair back up and into place while focusing his attention on Gamora for the next moment or two.

"Thanks." It's a softer and more lingering moment as he takes his time letting go of her hand.

Ahem.

Peter steps back and claps his hands. "Alright! Sounds like we got us a job! I'll get the rest of these losers back on the ship and let's go make us some units!" Leave it to Peter to suddenly want to be focused on the job now that he's made a fool of himself recently. Always with the saving of face.

Gamora has posed:
It wasn't meant to be a 'moment.' But then, it never was. There were, sometimes, just these little spaces of time in which Gamora found herself... frozen. It wasn't anything she had control over. It snuck up on her. She should have let go. She /wanted/ to let go. But the longer Peter hovered so close, the more she felt the fog of... what? Hope? Longing? Desire?

Pelvic sorcery. That's what.

That realization comes just as Peter releases her hand, and she too steps back with nothing more than a forced little smile to acknowledge his thanks. There's no more hesitation than that. In the next moment, she's moving over to the console even as he's laying out 'the plan,' as any good captain would.

"I'll plot the jumps to Viridian Prime through Kasjar Major."

She doesn't even look back at him. She's already gone to work, pulling up the star charts and flipping through screens to find the most fuel efficient path that doesn't include going through space where they /know/ they have bounties.