The planet Morag was once home to a great civilization. For centuries, the citizens worked together to develop commerce, build monuments, and advance the arts. But at the height of its culture, Morag’s environment went through a terrible shift.

Suddenly, violent storms of unimaginable power blasted the globe. Mega earthquakes struck, sea levels rose, and continents flooded. The mass destruction led to a planetary evacuation. Over the centuries, Morag fell to ruins and was visited only by adventurous water-breathing archeologists and horribly unlucky spaceship-wreck survivors.

But when Morag’s lesser sea began to recede, a different kind of visitor came.

His ship landed on the rain-soaked, windswept outskirts of a city, and anchored itself into the stone. The pilot descended his ship’s ramp, his face covered in a protective mask, and walked through the torrent of rain into the ruins of Morag Prime. Once he reached the location of its main thoroughfare, he pulled out his holo-mapping device.

The gadget shot out tracking dots that scanned its surroundings and projected a grainy hologram of the way the streets of Morag Prime had looked in their heyday. Then: “BA-BEEP!” The holo-map calculated a way through the ruins, marking the route with a red holo-line.

The visitor looked around, popped on a pair of headphones, and began listening to his favorite songs on Awesome Mix Tape #1 for what seemed like the millionth time. As he pulled off his mask, Peter Quill smiled.

In the twenty-something years since he was abducted from Earth, he’d seen a lot. He’d seen a planet made of fire with a moon made of ice. He’d seen an army of shape-shifting aliens attack a space whale. He’d even watched as twin suns went supernova together. It had been a pretty amazing couple of decades.

He’d worked his way through the ranks on the Ravager outlaw ship that had picked him up. He had started as the space equivalent of a deck hand and risen all the way to being his captain’s second in command.

But in all these years, there was one thing he’d never been. He’d never been rich. And, as he walked into the remnants of a massive temple, he was ready to give it a try.

The chamber was dark inside, but Peter took out a plasma light sphere and shook it, igniting a brightness that illuminated the whole room.

“There it is,” he mumbled as he looked up at the high ceiling to see a silver metallic Orb hovering far above his head. The Orb floated inside a protective laser fence that still functioned after all these hundreds of years.

This was it. This is what he’d come for. He’d give it to the Broker, and the Broker would make him rich.

What was the Orb for? What was in it? What did it do? Peter didn’t know, and he didn’t care. When he looked at that Orb, all he saw was his future.

“Let’s get you down here, big boy,” Peter said, pulling a tool out of his pack.

As soon as he turned on his electromagnet, the silver Orb shuttered and moved toward it. For a moment the Orb strained at the edge of the laser fence, but then it popped out and dropped to the ground, sticking to the magnet.

“Ha-ha!” Peter shouted happily as he turned off the gadget and picked up the Orb. He was so happy to have his hands on the artifact that he wanted to kiss it, and he might have done just that… except that he’d noticed he was not alone.

“Drop it!” said the dangerous commander Korath as his Sakaaran soldiers leveled their weapons.

“Cool, no problem!” Peter said. He let the Orb go and put his hands in the air.

“Who are you?” Korath demanded.

Peter tried to act casual, like he didn’t understand how valuable the Orb might be. “Hey, I’m just exploring, man!”

“How did you know about this?” asked Korath, pointing to the Orb.

“I don’t even know what that is! I’m just a junker,” explained Peter. “I search for salvage, anything that can be recovered and resold.”

Korath took a moment to look Peter over from top to bottom.

“We don’t believe you,” Korath grunted. “You’re wearing Ravager gear.”

The Ravagers were a gang of criminals that pulled off jobs in this sector, and if you crossed them, you usually weren’t heard from again. Peter was, in fact, a Ravager… but he didn’t want Korath to know that.

Korath spoke to his soldiers in the Sakaaran language. The soldiers moved forward, grabbing Peter by the arms.

“We’re taking you back to our ship,” Korath said.

“What?” shouted Peter. This was not going well. “Why?”

“My master, Ronan, might have some questions for you.”

“Oh, hey…” said Peter. “There is another name you might know me by…”

“What is that?”

Peter looked him right in the eyes and prepared to enjoy the impact his revelation would make.

“I am…” The aliens leaned in closer, waiting. “Star-Lord!”

Korath looked confused. “Who?”

Not the impact Peter was looking for.

“Star-Lord! Come on, man… the Star-Lord! The legendary outlaw!”

Korath turned back to his soldiers. “Any idea what he’s talking about?”

The soldiers just shook their heads.

“Oh, man! Just forget it!” Peter was disappointed.… What did a guy have to do to get a little notoriety around the galaxy? At least the aliens had dropped their guard for a moment. Peter seized the opportunity and moved into action.

He kicked his Plasma Light Sphere into the soldiers and it burst, spraying them with hot plasma. As they screamed in surprise and pain, Peter grabbed the Orb and dashed away!

Quickly, Korath pulled out his rifle and fired. Peter ducked and the shot blew a hole in the temple wall!

“Thanks for the quick exit,” Peter shouted as he hit the button that made his boots shoot out a quick rocket thrust, pushing him up and out the hole Korath had made.

Outside, Peter landed a fair distance from the temple. He looked back over his shoulder to see Korath looking out through the hole in the wall. “He’ll never catch up,” thought Peter as he ran with the Orb.

“Get him!” screamed Korath. Peter turned to see five more Sakaaran soldiers now between him and his ship. They shouted and raised their rifles.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Peter muttered. He was still running at the soldiers, racking his brain for how to get out of this situation, when he realized the soldiers’ armor was metal.

“Worth a try,” he said, reaching backward into his pack to pull out the electromagnet. He switched it on and threw it ahead of him.

Immediately, the five soldiers were jerked forward toward the magnet! They dropped their weapons as they stuck to the device.

I can’t believe that worked! Peter thought to himself. He jumped over the pile of soldiers as they struggled to pull themselves back up.

Finally past them, Peter ran up the loading dock into his ship, the Milano. Once in the cockpit, he immediately fired up the engines and took off.

But he wasn’t in the clear just yet. Peter peered through the cockpit window and saw that the soldiers weren’t out of options. One of them had managed to turn off the electromagnet, and now, under Korath’s supervision, they were loading a massive rocket launcher.

A rocket roared straight toward the Milano, with Peter barely banking the ship in time to avoid it. He pushed the engines forward, escaping the ruins just as a second rocket blasted past him!

“Later, losers!” shouted Peter as thrusters engaged and he escaped into the planet’s atmosphere. Escaping from an army of Sakaaran soldiers with invaluable treasure—if that didn’t add to the legend of “Star-Lord the Outlaw,” nothing would!

Hours later, the ship set on course for the planet Xandar, where he would meet the Broker, Peter sat in his pilot chair idly tossing the Orb into the air and catching it over and over again. He was daydreaming of things to do with his coming fortune when a video call came in over the main console.

“Quill,” grumbled Yondu, the blue-skinned alien who served as captain of the Ravagers.

“Hey, Yondu,” Peter said casually.

“I’m here on Morag. The artifact I’m looking for ain’t here, but I do see some of your handiwork: a couple of deep-fried Sakaaran soldiers.”

“Yeah, I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d save you the hassle,” Peter said simply.

Yondu shifted his eyes. “Where are you?”

“You know, boss, I feel bad about this… but I’m not going to tell you that.”

Yondu’s face twisted in anger. “I slaved this putting together a deal with the Broker for the Orb!”

“ ‘Slaved’ is pushing it,” chuckled Peter.

“And now you’re going to rip me off?” Yondu demanded.

“Making a few calls is ‘slaved’? I mean, come on—” continued Peter.

Yondu’s blue face got redder and redder. “We don’t do this to each other. We’re Ravagers. We got a code!”

“Yeah, the code is: ‘Steal from everybody,’ ” Peter reminded him.

“Everybody… not me!” Yondu yelled back.

“That’s a particularly self-serving definition of ‘everybody.’ ”

“When we picked you up from Earth, my boys wanted to eat you. I stopped them! You’re alive because of me!”

“And now I’m rich because of you. You’re the one who taught me that the universe belongs to the heartless,” Peter pointed out.

“I’ll put a bounty on you, boy! I’ll find you!”

“Yeah, yeah. Later, Yondu,” Peter said, cutting the call. Yondu’s face disappeared from the screen.

Peter wasn’t going to let anyone bring him down after the day he’d had. He went back to dreaming about what to do with all his money.