Peter and Gamora sprinted for the Orloni table and pulled the fighting Drax and Rocket apart. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’re you doing?” asked Peter.

“This vermin laid hands on me!” shouted Drax, as Gamora held him back.

“That is true!” confirmed Rocket.

“He has no respect!” Drax shouted even louder.

“That is also true! He keeps calling me ‘vermin,’ ” Rocket complained. “He thinks I’m some stupid thing! Well, I didn’t ask to get made!”

Peter tried to calm him down. “No one thinks you’re a—”

But Rocket pushed Peter off. “He called me ‘vermin’! She called me ‘rodent’!”

Gamora was taken aback. “Rocket, my intent was not malicious.”

But Rocket ignored her and threatened Drax.

“Let’s see if you can still laugh after I finish with you!”

Peter jumped between the two of them. “Four billion units, Rocket! Suck it up for one more lousy night and you’re rich!”

That got Rocket’s attention. He took a deep breath and looked around at all of them. “Fine.…”

While Rocket had calmed down somewhat, Drax was still enraged. He broke free of Gamora and headed for the exit. “We have traveled halfway across the quadrant and all I have done is quarrel with wildlife,” complained Drax as he left. “Ronan is no closer to paying for his crimes!”

And with that, Drax walked outside, leaving Peter to call after him.

“Let him go. We don’t need him,” said Gamora to Peter.

“We? You got a mouse in your pocket?” said Peter, growing sick of this partnership. “You guys better find a ride home, because the minute we get what we came for, I don’t want to see any of you maniacs again.”

Groot, who had been lurking nearby during all the shouting, stepped forward and asked, “I am Groot?”

“Yes,” confirmed Peter, “you’re also a maniac!” But then he realized what had just happened. “I think I just spoke Groot. It’s disturbing.”

At that moment, a hidden panel in one of the club’s walls opened up, and a small female stepped forward, addressing Gamora. “Milady, I am Carina. I am here to fetch you for my master.”

Gamora, Peter, Groot, and Rocket looked at one another. Finally, it was go time. They followed Carina through a secret passage into a dark tunnel. After some distance, the tunnel opened up into a large room lined with glass cages. The cages were filled with animals, plants, and other life forms that were less easily classified.

Peter gave off a low whistle as he looked through a window into a hallway. This combination zoo-museum went on for as far as his eye could see. It seemed to stretch on forever.

Carina led the group onward to an examination bay while explaining, “We house the galaxy’s largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manner.”

An odd-looking white-haired man entered from the back of the lab. Carina introduced him: “I present to you Taneleer Tivan. He is known as the Collector.”

The Collector stepped forward, “Ah! My dear Gamora. Finally we meet… in the flesh.”

“Let’s bypass the formalities, Tivan,” Gamora spat out impatiently. “We have the item we discussed.” She pulled out the Orb and showed it to him.

The Collector glanced at the Orb and then looked away, seeing Groot. “Oh that… My, what do we have here?”

“I am Groot,” Groot explained, a little miffed by the question.

“A Groot! Fascinating,” exclaimed the Collector, excited. “You must allow me to pay you a small fee now so that I may own your carcass at the moment of your death.”

Groot shrugged.

The Collector smiled, pleased, and then moved his attention to Rocket. “And what is this little beast? Is this its pet?”

“It’s what?!?” shouted Rocket.

Seeing where this was likely to go, Gamora interrupted. “Tivan, we’ve been halfway around the galaxy retrieving this Orb.”

“Well then, let us see what you’ve brought,” said the Collector, taking the Orb and placing it onto an examination table. After a moment spent carefully looking it over, the Collector smiled. “Yes… this is authentic,” pronounced the Collector.

“An authentic what?” asked Peter.

“An ancient source of great power,” said the Collector casually. “Does it matter?”

“Not as long as you pay what you promised,” said Gamora, cutting Peter off.

“Of course,” said the Collector, using a special device to open the Orb slightly so that he, and only he, could peer inside. “I have not become the universe’s foremost collector of rare items by reneging on my—”

Suddenly Carina rushed forward and reached for the Orb. “I will be your servant no more!” she shouted. She had been watching and waiting for a moment such as this. For years she’d suffered under the cruel hand of the Collector, who badly mistreated her and her fellow servants. She had heard the Collector talking about this Orb and the power that it held, and she was convinced that if she could hold such power in her hand, she would be able to free herself from her cruel master.

But, unfortunately for Carina, she didn’t understand the nature of that power.

“Carina, no!” shouted the Collector… but it was too late.

The second Carina touched the Orb, her whole body convulsed! Her eyes bulged and turned black, her face distorted with energy. A harsh white glow came out from inside of her body.

Almost instinctively, Groot grabbed Rocket and ran back down the tunnel, away from whatever was going to happen. At the same moment, Gamora grabbed Peter, dragging him down to the ground for cover. Barely a heartbeat later, there was a pulse of bright white light!

The sheer force of the explosion blasted all of the glass cages, every item the Collector had assembled.

The Collector wailed as he saw this. “My life’s work!” he screamed moments before a flying piece of scrap metal hit him and knocked him out.

Gamora and Peter, now that the explosion was over, pulled themselves back up. They looked around, seeing everything destroyed.

“I was a fool!” shouted Gamora. “How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was within the Orb? I was blinded by my own selfish desires.” She grabbed the Orb, and the pair made their way through the tunnel to join Groot and Rocket back in the club.

As soon as they walked out of the secret passage, Rocket spied the Orb in her hand and started freaking out. “What do you still have it for?” he asked incredulously.

“What are we going to do?” Peter responded. “Leave it there?”

“We must bring this to the Nova Corps. There’s a chance they can contain it,” Gamora explained.

Rocket’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? We’re wanted by the Nova Corps. Just give it to Ronan!”

“We cannot allow the Orb to fall into Ronan’s hands,” said Gamora. “After all he’s done, after all I helped him to do! We must go back to your ship and deliver it to Nova officers!” Gamora walked out of the club.

“Or we bring it to someone who’s not going to arrest us,” Peter suggested as he and Rocket followed Gamora. “Someone with a whole lot of money.”

The second the trio walked out into the street, they saw Drax, his back to them and his arms outstretched with a blade in each hand. He laughed like a maniac and looked up at several Necrocraft from the fleet of Ronan.

“At last, I shall meet my foe and destroy him!” said Drax, watching the ships come in for a landing.

“Oh no,” said Peter. “Ronan knows we’re here!”

Once again, it was time to run.