On Harmony
The Statesman
Machine Shop
Day 9
“You can’t run the power line through a bank like that!” Rocket barked. “You’ll burn out the emitter.” He, the barkee, and Parker were crowded around a large workbench, trying to repair/modify the team’s various pieces of gear.
As opposed to the plush nature of the majority of the ship, the machine shop was more utilitarian. The walls and floor were composed of scratched and scuffed bluish metal. The equipment and tools were worn, yet well maintained. And there was a distinct lack of the ornamentation that filled the halls and rooms of the rest of the ship.
“Assuming I didn’t rebuild the emitter while I was at it,” Tony replied pointedly. Before Rocket could reply, he pointed the gun at the test target and fired. There was a momentary crackling sound before its end exploded. Tony flinched instinctively away from the blast, then tilted the gun up to examine the damage.
“I’m sure Quill is just going to be thrilled with your upgrades,” Rocket said laconically.
“I don’t understand,” Peter said from where he was working on the other gun. “That should have worked.”
“I told you it couldn’t handle that much current. You fractured the crystal focusing array,” Rocket explained.
“What crystals?” Tony demanded, shifting his attention from the failed gun to the rodent.
“The set of tiny interlocking crystals that collimate the pulses,” Rocket replied. “By the way, they aren’t easily replaced: certainly, no markets in our flight path,” he muttered as he returned to his own work.
“The crystals weren’t in the appropriate place to collimate anything,” Tony protested, brows furrowed.
“The crystals react to the high energy pulse by forming a lattice of interconnecting fields.”
“I’ve never heard of a crystal acting in that fashion,” Tony replied, clearly having trouble swallowing a whole meal’s worth of crow.
“Which is why I told you to leave this to me,” Rocket replied pointedly. “Go build something more in your tech set, like a set of clubs or something.”
Tony turned an indignant eye on Rocket. It was becoming painfully clear that jumping several hundred years ahead technologically wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. That said, there was no way he was going to pass up the chance to tinker with such advanced technology.
That didn’t stop his wounded pride from urging just that. It had been decades since he hadn’t been able to automatically grasp the concept behind any device. In short, he was out of practice admitting he wasn’t perfect. Widow’s comments of several days ago returned to him unbidden.
“Wait,” Peter put in “what about electromagnets?”
“What?” Rocket asked, as if they’d just suggested replacing the array with glass beads.
“Collimate the beam electromagnetically?” Tony asked, mind already jumping ahead to the possibilities.
“Sure,” Peter said taking control of Tony’s mobile holographic design mat. “Look, we run another branch here,” he said, expanding the circuit diagram. “Coat the exterior of the barrel in a good core material. Run that current through an electromagnetic coil outside of the inner barrel, and back to the power source. We’ll have to put a small resistor here,” he added as a new component added itself to the third line “but we should lose very little power. If we calculate the overall coil length correctly the electromagnetic field will travel down the barrel with the charge.”
“You want to collimate a plasma burst with electromagnets?” Rocket asked, as if just being sure he was hearing them correctly.
“It’s basically how we make lasers now,” Peter offered.
Rocket stared from one to the other. “Lasers?!” he asked incredulously. “What’s next; blow guns?”
“I’m thinking up an improved spit wad thrower right now,” Tony replied.
“Do you aborigines have any idea how much charged plasma your talking about?” he asked.
Tony shrugged. “A converging electromagnetic field should be able to handle it. We may have to increase the voltage at the power source slightly.” Rocket subsided. He really wasn’t sure it wouldn’t work. He hadn’t dealt with electromagnets for anything more than docking clamps, and those were quickly switching over to gravity clamps. No one used electromagnets for anything more than a kid’s science project.
“Run two smaller power sources in series?” Peter asked.
“You’ll drain the power supplies faster,” Rocket warned.
“Shouldn’t be hard to set the batteries up like an interchangeable magazine,” Tony countered.
“The big problem is going to be weight,” Peter said.
“Weight?” Rocket asked confused. “Wait, why?” They both frowned at him for a moment as their brains parsed the different forms of ‘weight’ in use.
“Electromagnets aren’t exactly known for being light,” Tony said.
Now it was Rocket’s turn to frown. “How exactly do you make electromagnetic fields.”
“By winding a conductive material around a laminated conductive core material and applying charge,” Peter said.
Rocket rolled his eyes. “I’m dealing with savages,” he said, stalking over to one of the benches lining the room. He extracted a small disk about the size of a watch battery and came back to them. “This is an EM clamp,” he said, turning the disk so one flat end was facing upwards. He then pushed the small button on the side. The ‘clamp’ snapped upwards, attaching itself to the ceiling of the workshop. All three of their heads followed it upwards.
“It’s used primarily by wood furniture makers when they want to glue to components together. The electromagnetic field it generates doesn’t affect the glue like a more commonly used gravity clamp would,” he added.
“How does it work?” Tony asked.
“It’s an effect of controlled layering of a composite material,” Rocket explained. “When the appropriate molecules are placed in a specific matrix it allows for an unbalanced expansion of the electromagnetic field.”
“Two questions,” Tony replied. “How heavy is it, and how much do we have on hand.”
“Most of the weight is in the power source,” Rocket told them. “And I can make it if necessary.”
“Friday?” Tony asked.
“I’ve scanned the Extra-Net,” the AI replied. “Building a fabricator should be fairly straight forward. The materials used are also available, although creating enough for everyone trained in handguns will deplete our remaining store of lightweight high strength metals.”
“Could we disassemble the excess suits?” Tony asked.
“That estimate was including cannibalization of all remaining suits but yours,” Friday replied.
“Do we know of anything else that might require those materials?” Tony asked.
“None, unless you want to build melee weapons,” Friday replied.
“I’d say ranged weapons should take precedence,” Rocket offered.
“Well, that should make the pistol users happy,” Tony said.
“Shouldn’t we keep a couple of the suits?” Peter asked.
Tony shrugged. “It’s not like anyone else was going to use them anyway,” he said wryly.
“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to use one,” Friday replied. “That EMP hurt.”
“What about using the containers themselves?” Peter asked.
Tony shook his head. “You saw what was left of the hardened steel pins Nebula was using,” Tony said. “Steel just isn’t strong enough.”
“We could use the remaining high tensile metal to dope it,” Rocket said doubtfully. While it would certainly help, he’d already worked out just how much of Tony’s stockpile of high strength material would be left. There just wasn’t enough to reach the desired strength. But it was the best he could come up with. And Gamora had threatened to shave him if he didn’t at least try to play nice.
“Alright let’s go over the ship again. Maybe there’s some system we can cannibalize,” Tony said.
“I’ve already done that, Boss,” Friday replied. “There just isn’t any. Unless you’re keen on compromising structural integrity.”
“Come one, there’s got to be some internal pressure doors we can use,” Tony said.
“I suppose. It’s not like I need atmosphere,” Friday said.
“Yeah but I do,” Rocket replied forcefully.
“Did the people that built you remove your spine?” Tony asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Rocket growled. Tony shifted uncomfortably. “They replaced it with a high-density alloy so my body could support more implants.”
Apologizing wasn’t exactly Tony’s forte. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually “but what are the odds that we’ll experience a hull breach in the next three weeks?”
“With force attenuators that are just barely limping along?” Rocket asked pointedly.
Tony winced slightly. He should have thought of that himself. “Alright, but we have to figure something out. What about this layered composite technique you were talking about?”
Rocket paused for a moment, considering the possibility. Then he shook his head. “I doubt it would provide much additional strength. It was designed to allow the creation of shaped electromagnetic fields.”
“Could you at least try to come up with a solution?” Tony asked in irritation.
In the back and forth Tony and Rocket had failed to notice Parker’s withdrawal from the conversation. He’d taken to staring at the corner of the room, a thoughtful, far off look in his eyes. Tony’s irritated tone finally brought him back to the present.
“What about that?” he asked, pointing to the shiny black neutronium block that had been dumped in the corner after they’d freed Vision.
“You want to use the neutronium?” Stark asked, somehow sounding both intrigued and skeptical at the same time.
“I guess we could make something to throw it at Thanos,” Rocket said dubiously.
“There has to be some way to split it apart,” Peter argued.
“Split it apart?” Rocket said incredulously. “We don’t even know what’s keeping it together!”
“I’ve been working on that actually,” Tony said standing up, eyes affixed to the obsidian like block of metal. “Electron backscatter suggests that the distance between each neutron is eighty three percent of the distance between the nuclei in a hydrogen molecule. The neutrons are also larger than standard neutrons.”
“Well, that would explain its light weight,” Peter said, following Tony over to the device. He frowned in thought. “You think the extra size has something to do with it?” he asked.
“I think we’re looking at a stable pentaquark,” Tony agreed.
“But neutrons only have three quarks,” Peter pointed out.
“In nature,” Tony replied. “My best guess is that the aether has somehow stabilized gluon interaction between the quarks. Theoretically, that could increase the length of the flux tubes.”
“Wait,” Peter said as the implications hit him. “You’re suggesting that the extra quarks in the neutrons have formed gluon pathways with quarks in adjacent hadrons; sort of a subatomic crystal lattice?” Tony nodded absentmindedly. “But that’s crazy,” Peter protested. “That would require the pathways to stay viable at trillions of times their normal maximum range!”
“Alright, hold on,” Rocket cut in before Tony could respond. Up until then he’d kept switching a rather confused look between the two. By the time gluons had been brought up he was hopelessly lost. He didn’t like being lost. “Could either of you translate that jibber jabber into Galactic Standard English please?”
They both turned back to the talking racoon. “Galactic Standard English?” Peter asked.
Tony had more important concerns on his mind. “Jibber Jabber?” he asked, seeming somewhat amused.
“I got it from Quill,” Rocket replied slightly defensively. “Something his grandfather used to say. You’re turn,” he added, a demanding look in his eye.
Tony paused, trying to find a good start point for an impromptu introduction to Quantum Chromodynamics. Teaching had never been his forte. In truth he’d never understood the “normal” learning processes. For him things just fell into place. It made teaching hard, not to mention frustrating for both sides.
Fortunately, Peter had a bit of a flair for it. “For a long time, atoms are considered the basic building blocks of the universe,” he said. “They consist of a nucleus comprised of positively charged subatomic particles we call protons and neutrons, which have no charge. Smaller, negatively charged particles called electrons orbit the nucleus in what we call the electron cloud.” Peter paused to see if Rocket was still following. The smaller creature waved a hand like paw in a ‘continue’ gesture.
“In the last half century experiments with high energy collisions have revealed that all subatomic particles are made up of smaller particles we call quarks. Quarks can have either a positive two thirds charge, or a negative one third charge. Anything comprised of quarks was denoted a hadron. This includes neutrons and protons, but not electrons. All stable hadrons have three quarks. For instance, protons consist of a duo of two thirds charge ‘up’ quarks and a single one third charge ‘down’ quark. Neutrons consist of one up and two down quarks.” Peter paused again, to see if Rocket had lost the plot.
“Don’t stop, you’re on a roll,” Rocket replied.
“Quarks also have something we call color charge, but it has nothing to do with actual colors. Gluons pass this charge from quark to quark, changing their color charge, via flux tubes. It’s believed that this constant transaction of charge is what holds the quarks together at the hadron level and the neutrons and protons together at the subatomic level. But flux tubes break down at distances greater than ten to the negative twelve millimeters,” he finished, aiming that last back at Tony.
“Wow,” Rocket said slowly. It was hard to tell if he was being complementary or not. Then again, he was rarely complementary so they could be forgiven for not having a baseline.
“What; why?” Peter asked defensively. “Don’t tell me Quantum Chromodynamics is wrong,” he added.
“What? No,” Rocket replied. “It’s just shocking that a group so primitive they clutch to this belief that the speed of light is constant could somehow stumble on Micro Celestial physics.”
“Wait, relativity is wrong?” Peter asked, shocked.
“Micro Celestial Physics?” Tony asked, wondering who’d coined that ridiculous title.
“Supposedly it was called that because the electrons, as you call them, orbit your nucleus like planets orbiting a star. Look I didn’t name it,” he protested when their looks failed to improve. “But the tyke is right, what you call flux tubes would have to extend one hundred thousand times past their maximum limit in order to link up with another nucleus.”
“I’m not a tyke,” Peter protested. Neither one of them paid the comment any attention.
“Observation trumps theory,” Tony said bluntly, his most natural form of communication.
“Or perhaps your observations are wrong,” Rocket replied in kind.
“Electron microscopes don’t leave a lot of room for interpretation,” Tony countered.
“Fine, what do you think is going on, since you seem to know everything already,” Rocket replied, glaring at the engineer.
“I believe the color charge transaction in these neutrons isn’t random,” Tony said, returning Rocket’s look.
“What does that have to do with it?” Peter asked, looking from one to the other. He thought for a moment that they were going to ignore him again, but Rocket reluctantly shook himself free of the staring contest he’d initiated and glanced at Parker.
“There is a theory that suggests that the length of a . . . flux tube, as you call it, is related to the color charge being passed. Some charges strengthen the tube, which could extend its limit, while others weaken it. Normally these interactions are random so they cancel each other out. The idea is that if you could order the charges being passed in a specific pattern you could maximize flux tube strength.”
“And you think that’s what’s happening here?” Peter asked.
“I’m certain of it,” Tony said confidently.
“What difference does it make?” Rocket growled. “If your right there’s no way we can split individual neutrons off.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Tony stated.
“You’re talking about trying to counteract the -what do you call them anyway?”
“The strong and weak nuclear forces,” Peter supplied.
“Imaginative,” Rocket said sarcastically.
“Hey, I didn’t name them,” Peter replied, echoing Rocket’s earlier protestation.
Rocket let it pass. “Fine, the strong and weak nuclear forces. It doesn’t matter what you call it. The bottom line is you propose to counteract the force that binds all matter together.” Tony opened his mouth to respond, but Rocket plowed on. “How? I assume you weren’t planning on ramming it with fissile material,” he added, effortlessly blending hopefulness and fear in that last.
“We want to shear and weld the neutronium, not convert the block into energy,” Tony replied.
“I assume you have some concept of how to achieve that goal?” Rocket prompted. In truth this sort of problem solving lay outside his normal domains of thought. He’d never been designed, and if truth be told had no interest in being- a physicist. He was a weapon with a somewhat all-encompassing interest in other weapons. Give him a vague concept of something that could kill and he’d make it out of scrap parts. But delving into the mysteries of the cosmos tended to induce narcoleptic tendencies.
“Peter?” Tony asked, turning to the youngest of the group.
“Um, you want to build a cyclotron?” he asked doubtfully.
“Bingo,” Tony said turning back to Rocket.
“What’s a cyclotron,” Rocket asked.
“Essentially, its two particle accelerators aimed at each other,” Tony answered. “Get the particles going fast enough and their collision literally breaks the atoms into their component pieces.”
Rocket’s eyebrows rose in interest. “Particle accelerators you say?” he asked with budding enthusiasm.
“Can we even build one big enough on this ship.”
“I think we can,” Tony said, eyes on Rocket. “We won’t have to limit ourselves to electromagnetic propulsion.”
“Wait, isn’t gravity weaker than electromagnetism?” Peter argued.
“Yeah, but it’s more efficient for our purposes,” Rocket replied, already heading towards his stash of random parts.
“Because magnetic fields only affect nonferrous metal when they are extremely high powered,” Peter said as a light dawned.
“Then all we have to do is construct a way to capture the quarks and feed them to a finer mass accelerator,” Tony said, following Rocket across the room.
“A sub-subatomic particle accelerator?” Peter asked, following the other two.
“That’s easy,” Rocket said to Tony as he began tossing random components out of the bin. “Sifting the quarks for maximum effect, that’s going to be the hard part.”
“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Tony said.
>>
Day 11
An oddly disconcerting sound made Mantis pause in the corridor. It wasn’t long before it repeated, a sort of harsh grunt. The sort of grunt Drax gave off when he was injured. She backtracked the noise to the gym entrance she’d just passed and stepped inside.
It became clear why she’d missed him on her way by. Instead of working out on one of the machines, a far more sensible option in her opinion, Drax was swinging along the various handholds he’d had that Stark person install in the walls and ceiling. Then again, Drax and sense had very little contact with each other.
Case in point: he was dangling from the twenty-foot ceiling with injured ribs. Drax reached for the next handhold. Again, he grunted in pain as his not insignificant body weight was shifted onto the injured side. But his grip was firm.
Mantis nearly yelled out for him to be careful, but concern that an interruption might break his concentration stayed her tongue. A moment later she wished she had.
Drax reached for the next handhold with his good arm. It never made it. Even Drax was not immune to the effects of pain on the body. As he stretched towards the next rung in the wall his grip slipped.
The blue berserker cartwheeled down to the ground, somehow managing to land right side up. His legs cushioned most of the fall before his body’s rotation threw him off center. He sprawled onto the ground and lay there, breathing hard.
“Drax!” Mantis yelled, charging into the room. By the time she got to him he was already on his hands and knees.
“You can’t push yourself so hard,” she chided, helping him to his feet.
Drax gave her a confused look. “Of course, I can,” he said
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Mantis amended as he got back to his feet.
“I must prepare,” the blue man said before turning and heading to one of the workout machines.
“You don’t have to do it all at once; we still have three weeks before we reach Earth.”
“Two days,” Drax grunted.
“Until what?” Mantis asked.
“Rematch,” Drax grunted, working the sore muscles of his right side. Mantis watched him, a growing look of concern on her face.
“She doesn’t have to be so mean,” she said finally. There was just the slightest hint of petulance in her voice.
“She’s not,” Drax said, switching to work his uninjured side.
“She crushed your side this morning,” Mantis protested.
Drax twisted from the machine to look at her. “Will Thanos be kinder?” he asked pointedly before turning back to his task.
“She’s supposed to be our ally,” Mantis replied.
“She is,” Drax replied matter-of-factly before moving to the next machine. “She’s preparing us for the challenge.
“She’s brutal.”
“The more difficult the task the more difficult the training,” Drax replied philosophically.
“The more brutal the lessons the more sadistic the teacher,” Mantis said acidly.
Drax dropped the weight he was working with back on the rack and turned back to her. “You are an empath,” he stated.
“Yes,” Mantis admitted.
“Do you sense that she enjoys it?”
Mantis hesitated. “No,” she admitted. “All I ever get from her is rage,” she added
Drax shrugged. “So, she’s like me,” he said pointedly.
“No,” Mantis replied with a shake of her head. “Your rage is hot like an explosion. Hers is cold and dense. It feels more like gravity.”
“Sounds the same” Drax muttered, turning to the next machine.
Mantis stifled a cry of frustration. Sometimes there was no talking to Drax. To him rage was rage and that was that. She had no idea how to explain to him the different flavors of emotions. It was like trying to explain color to a person born blind. An incredibly stubborn person in this case.
“Drax,” Mantis said pleadingly “don’t fight her again.”
“Why?” Drax asked without pause. There was no sarcasm in his question, no recrimination. He truly didn’t understand her request.
“She nearly killed you last time,” Mantis protested. “Aren’t you afraid?”
Drax turned back around. He stared at her for a moment as if coming to a decision. “Yes,” he admitted slowly. “But I am more afraid of failing my family,” he added before turning back to his exercises.
Mantis flinched as if his words had been a physical slap across her face. In a way it had been. She’d never had much martial training under Ego’s care. Honestly, she’d had no interest in gaining such expertise. On the ship she’d participated in the martial classes grudgingly and refused to be a part of the battle simulations.
But then, she hadn’t had anyone she wanted to protect either.
Wordlessly, she stepped over to the machine Drax had just finished with. Drax was right; this was her family. If learning to fight is what it took to keep them safe then she would learn to fight.
>>
Day 14
“Hey,” Sam greeted as Wade entered the mess hall.
“Yo,” that worthy replied, marching across the room to the pantry. Sam watched him with a slight sense of alarm. There was something odd about the way he was moving, and there were small triangular peaks on the front of his suit.
Sam set his spoon next to his bowl of cereal. “How goes your attempts to grant the sisters a sense of humor?”
“That depends,” Wade replied cryptically.
“Depends on what?” Sam asked.
“On how many knives,” Wade replied as he passed him on the way to the pantry.
“On what-” Sam started before doing a double take. “Dude, seriously?” he insisted. “I’m trying to eat here.” In truth he wasn’t sure why that sight bothered him so much. He was a decorated combat veteran. He’d seen plenty of wounded in his day: big wounds, little wounds, missing limbs, entrails hanging out enough to play jump rope with. He’d always handled it and moved on. By the end of his tour he’d become so inured to it that it registered to him the way most people registered the color of a room they’d just entered.
But the sight of someone walking around with three knives buried up to the hilt in their back was enough to put him off his feed.
“Oh yeah,” Wade replied as if he’d genuinely forgotten the sisters’ latest attempts to use him as a pin cushion. “You mind?” he asked. Sam’s face twisted in disgust even as he got up to remove the implements. Wade turned to lean on the counter separating the prep and consumption sections of the ship’s galley.
“Why didn’t you go to the medical bay?” Sam asked as he got a grip on the first one and pulled it out. It came out with a snick sound. He slapped it on the counter Wade was bracing against and moved to the next. Snick, thunk.
“Banner was busy with Thor. Apparently, the biker dyke did a real number on him,” Deadpool replied as the second blade came out. “Besides, I was hungry,” he added with a shrug as the third blade was removed. Snick, thunk.
Wade glanced down at the counter. “Only three this time,” he announced as if that information would be followed by some kind of prize.
“So, making progress then?” Sam replied sarcastically as he walked back to his bowl of cereal.
“Yep,” Wade replied walking around the counter.
“So, Bruce was too busy to do that?” Sam asked pointedly.
Wade shrugged. “Well, he has been making noises about not undoing the damage I cause. Says the guy who heals himself shouldn’t be the guy that takes up most of his time or some such. I think he just doesn’t want to provide care outside his HMO network.”
“Have you considered, oh I don’t know, leaving those two alone?” Sam asked pointedly.
“Never occurred to me,” Wade replied as he rummaged around in one of the cupboards. Sam couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.
He decided to take the statement at face value. Wilson was just crazy enough for it to be true. “Maybe you should,” Sam stated firmly as Wade exited the galley with a handful of energy bars.
“Trust me, those girls are crying out to made to laugh,” Wade replied, heading for the exit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date in the Oval-gon.” And with that he was gone. Sam picked his spoon up and continued eating, contemplating the door the man had just exited through. He wasn’t sure whether to respect the madman or dismiss him as one. In the end he supposed it didn’t matter.
>>
Thor couldn’t sleep. His mind insisted on replaying the day’s fight, whether he’d wanted it to or not. It wasn’t so much that he’d lost; he’d lost to his sister as well. But at least that had been a fight. It had been a long time since he’d been humiliated in battle like that.
The fight had started out predictably enough. After a couple hits from his hammer Nebula had attempted to disarm him. He hadn’t actually let her, but nor had he defended himself from that rather predictable tactic; in truth, he’d rather enjoyed watching her try to lift the hammer.
But that entertainment had been rather more short-lived than normal. She’d quickly caught on to the fact that she wasn’t going to turn his weapon against him. As he recalled the hammer she’d counterattacked, by breaking both of his arms. The match had been called directly thereafter.
The arms were of course healed, thanks to their de facto doctor and the well provisioned medical bay on the ship. But the frustration that encounter had engendered had not.
No, that wasn’t right, he realized suddenly. He’d been getting more impatient, more frustrated, long before the fight. It had been building inside him for some time now, without his notice. He couldn’t exactly pin down when it had begun. He rolled onto his right side to face the wall next to his bed and tried to trace the origin of those feelings.
“You mustn’t blame yourself, my son,” Odin’s voice said from behind him. Thor’s head twisted around just enough to see a golden haloed version of his father sitting in one of the finely upholstered chairs dotting his room. He paused there for a moment before continuing the roll onto his back. He stared at the ceiling as those words ran through his head again and again.
“Who should I blame?” he asked pointedly. “Half a galaxy is in danger of being exterminated because of my pride.”
Odin paused for a moment. He could hear the hollowness of that argument. If Thor truly blamed himself, he’d have sought out Odin’s advice long before now. “Is it your pride, or your faith in me you’ve come to question?” he asked.
“Both,” Thor replied bitterly. “Opposing Hela was a mistake,” he added quietly.
“Oh?” Odin asked, sounding almost amused. “And now you would allow her to set the galaxy ablaze with war?” he seemed almost amused at the prospect.
Thor rolled to face his father, revealing his patched eye, a souvenir of his prideful defiance. “Now I would help her,” he said coldly.
“Why?” Odin asked, almost as if he were humoring his son.
Thor rolled back onto his back and stared at the ceiling, trying to order his thoughts. “Thanos was no threat to us,” he said at last. “As long as Asgard stood the galaxy was safe. We could have continued to expand, bringing more realms into our influence, until we could have met him anywhere in the galaxy and killed him.”
“So, now you support the very policies I put a stop to when you were but an infant,” Odin commented.
Thor turned his head to look back at his father. “Did it ever occur to you that that might just have been a mistake?” Thor replied with a cold eye.
Odin didn’t respond immediately. He looked away, as if seeing the room around them for the first time. But he wasn’t seeing the room, he was seeing his final breaking with Hela. She’d insisted on continuing their crusades. Oh, not for fear of Thanos or any other. That may have been how it started, but by the end she’d thirsted for conquest simply for the sake of conquest.
He’d tried so hard to keep the same thing from happening with his sons; but in the end, Thor was still his son. Odin couldn’t bear to watch him follow the path he’d followed in his youth, but he wasn’t sure how to change his mind. He’d tried explaining to Hela so long ago, but she’d refused to hear him. Would Thor do the same?
There was one difference between Thor and Hela. He could only hope it would be enough of a difference.
Odin cleared his throat. “I never did tell you how I came to adopt Loki,” he commented.
Thor looked back at the ceiling. “That would have been hard considering that we only learned he was adopted a few years ago,” he replied, maintaining his frosty demeanor.
“It was on the eve of our conquest of Jotunheim,” Odin continued, doing his best to ignore his son’s anger.
“We never conquered Jotunheim,” Thor pointed out.
“No,” Odin replied with a mixture of sadness and shame. Even after all this time it was still so hard to think about the horrors he’d committed back then. “No, but we were going to,” he continued. “I’d become intent upon the very path you would devote yourself to now. But as we stormed Laufey’s capital I noticed something hiding in the snow.”
“Let me guess, a small ice child that melted your heart and turned you to good,” Thor cut in sarcastically.
“A bonfire on the ice actually,” Odin replied frankly. “With the battle all but won, I chose to investigate. I expected to find some odd curiosity. Instead I found the smallest baby Frost Giant I’d ever heard of. So small it had been seen as unfit and left to die of exposure.”
“And the flames?” Thor asked, trying to hide his interest.
“The flames,” Odin repeated sentimentally. “Those flames were the product of that infant’s mind. An illusion that shed warmth. I’d never seen anything like it. Never in all the histories’ of the nine realms has anyone shown such a gift for the magical arts. The strength of his will alone was astounding.” Odin smiled remembering that one good moment on that dark day.
Then his expression hardened again. “Yet the Frost Giants did not care. They would have let him die, because he did not conform to their idea of strength.”
Thor shrugged. “So, their narrow mindedness was their undoing,” he stated. “I fail to see why that would prompt you to stop your conquests. By all rights they would have had far better government under your leadership.”
“They would have had the same government,” Odin snarled bitterly. “Just a new figurehead.”
Thor rolled back to face Odin. “Father you can’t possibly believe you were ever like Laufey,” he protested.
“Can’t I?” Odin asked harshly. “I allowed my fears to turn me into the very thing I sought to destroy. I slaughtered the defenders of nine realms in my quest for power. I destroyed their cultures and rebuilt them along my concepts of strength.” He took a breath, calming himself. “But there is no strength that comes without a corresponding weakness,” he continued. “And the greater that strength, the greater the weakness.”
“Is that not better than no strength at all?” Thor asked pointedly.
“There is another kind of strength my son,” Odin replied. “It is a form of strength that comes from the unity of many strengths. When each differing strength covers another weakness. Loki showed me. I stopped our people’s conquests of others. I fostered relationships with other peoples. I did my best to bridge the gaps I’d created, and allowed our conquered realms to search for their own paths. And when the Frost Giants invaded other realms, I sent my armies. But instead of marching to conquest they marched to the defense of those who could not defend themselves, lest they too lose the chance to discover their true strengths. I sent my two sons to ensure that opportunity. And when they’d overcome their armies, I required of Laufey the source of their power. Not to destroy their culture, but to keep them from destroying the cultures of so many others.”
“And yet here we are,” Thor said bitterly.
“Here you are,” Odin corrected “surrounded by one of those races you helped to protect; a race of people who have found more versions of strength than a hundred worlds combined. But those worlds are still out there. Each has something to offer this struggle. All they need is the opportunity. You can give them that.”
“I’m a warrior not a diplomat,” Thor muttered, turning back on his back again.
“You are a king,” Odin replied sharply. “And you are my son,” he added, in a softer tone. “More to the point, you are Thor, God of Thunder, Champion of the Weak, and one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met,” Odin added, a slight twinkle in his eyes. “All attributes that lend themselves well to diplomacy.”
A slight grin cracked Thor’s stony mask, but it was a fleeting moment.
“What of Loki?” Thor asked.
The twinkle disappeared from Odin’s face. “I know you worry for Loki,” he said. “I wish I could say he was alright, but I cannot reach him.”
“Thanos has twisted him to his purposes,” Thor stated bitterly.
“You can’t know that,” Odin replied softly.
“He stopped Clint from disintegrating Thanos’s ship inside a hyperspace portal,” Thor replied bitterly. “If not for him the threat would be eliminated.”
Odin was silent for a moment. “Perhaps your brother has more faith in you than you do?” he offered.
Thor shook his head. He didn’t even have to consider that interpretation, which wasn’t to say that he didn’t long to. When Tony had first proffered the idea that Loki might just have helped Clint in a backhanded way, he’d wanted it to be true. But he’d come to realize that it was so much wishful thinking. The sisters knew the truth; no one resisted Thanos’s will for long. No one could.
“How I wish I could believe that Father,” he said sadly. “But Thanos twists everyone that comes within his grasp. Everyone. Knowing how stubborn he is will only make Thanos torture him more.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that were I you,” Odin replied. “There’s one young woman residing on this very ship he was never able to completely twist.” Thor shrugged noncommittally. He wanted his father to be correct more than anything, except perhaps to gain the ability to spare his brother that ordeal entirely. But the very strength of that desire made him distrust its conclusion even more.
And there was something else. He’d spent so long hoping he could redeem his brother. He’d spent so much time hoping and praying. And on the few occasions where his brother had seemed to have redeemed himself there’d always been some scheme he was working on. In truth, Thor was tired of hoping his brother would come around.
“I don’t know father,” he said finally, with a sigh.
“Neither do I,” Odin admitted. “What do you believe?”
“I believe I don’t know,” Thor snapped. He was in no mood for riddles or koans or anecdotes. Nor was he interested in an impromptu counseling session, whatever their current positions were.
Odin shrugged. “In the end it’s not important. What’s important is whether you are fully prepared for the coming conflict.” With that he was gone.
“Thanks for being my Obi-Wan,” Thor murmured to himself, laying back down. But still he couldn’t sleep. The conversation kept working its way through his brain, like a worm in an apple.
He realized that his father was right about at least one thing. He’d become so consumed with what might have been that he’d ignored the alternatives completely. Asgard had built up a fair amount of good will amongst the various polities of the stars. Surely some of them would come to their aid now, particularly when they had so much to lose themselves. All he had to do was convince them.
He lurched back to his feet and headed out the door. He had some networking to do.
>>
Day 19
Gamora stalked down the hall towards the lab in a fury. The noise grew steadily louder as she approached, punctuated by voices somehow raised above it.
In a rich man’s luxury yacht the idea of hearing anything even one cabin over was absurd. This ship had the best sound proofing money could buy. Yet she could hear the argument down the hall from her quarters.
At this point she’d given up. She didn’t know what they were arguing about, but she no longer cared. She had tried to help weld the various groups on this ship into a seamless fighting force for nearly three weeks now, and what had it gotten her? A screaming match that could probably be heard through the entire ship. Perhaps if she welded a couple of them together, they’d learn to behave as something other than a clutch of three-year-olds.
She reached the door and smacked the control panel, a blow calibrated just below the guiltless switch’s breaking threshold. The door whooshed open, manumitting the full volume of Through the Fire and Flames, by Dragonforce, into the hall at what seemed to be 200 decibels. Such was the intensity of that blast of sound that her yelled threats fell forgotten in her throat.
“All I hear is noise!” Quill managed to yell over the music. Gamora didn’t even try to exceed the sound level. She grabbed the nearest item not bolted to the ship and hurled it at the off switch on the console Quill, Tony, Drax, and Rocket were huddled around. The four turned as one to look at the door as the sound cut off.
“What is wrong with you four?” she demanded, still incensed.
Quill was the first to speak up. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “We were just having a . . .” he trailed off, lost for how to explain this while avoiding pissing her off.
“Having a friendly discussion on the merits of various music styles,” Tony put in.
“Discussion?!” Gamora snapped. “I could hear you down at the other end of the hall.”
“Did it help you sleep?” Drax asked.
Gamora awarded him a disbelieving look. “No, it did not help me sleep!” she nearly yelled.
“I thought it was soothing,” Drax offered slightly defensively.
“Sorry,” Quill apologized again. “I guess we got carried away. Didn’t we?” he asked pointedly, glancing at the others. A moment later the other contestants echoed his apology. “We’ll keep it down,” he added.
“Thank you,” Gamora said, more stunned than anything else. In the three weeks they’d been on this ship she’d never known Quill or Stark to take the other’s lead. She’d been starting to fear that those two were the type that would just never get along. That development in itself was worth being woken up for, really.
“Now what was so important it was worth risking permanent hearing loss, anyway?” she asked curiously.
“Well, just listen,” Quill said, jumping at the opportunity like a five-year-old when one of their parents showed even the most remote interest in whatever they were doing. He quickly reached up to the display she’d just assaulted, lowered the volume, and switched tracks. Carry on Wayward Son, by Kansas began playing softly through the speakers she just noticed had been strung all around the room. Quill and Rocket’s heads both started bobbing to the vocals at the beginning
“Now listen to this,” Quill said, voice falling into his rarely used lecture mode. “It’s a full song. There’s a piano counterpoint running through it. It has good riffs, and the lyrics are incredible.”
“It’s a cure for insomnia,” Stark stated. “It’s a wonder the band doesn’t fall asleep playing it it, let alone the listener.”
“It has soul,” Rocket replied pointedly.
“It’s the beginner song in How to Play Guitar: Book One,” Stark replied reaching up to the controls. Kansas cut off, replaced by You Can’t Bring Me Down, by Suicidal Tendencies. “Now listen to this,” he instructed.
They listened for a few moments. “Okay this doesn’t sound that bad,” Quill admitted.
“Just wait, it gets better,” Tony said in anticipation. A few moments later the intro ended.
“Nope,” Quill said as one long mash of guitar filled the room.
“What’s wrong with it?” Stark demanded.
“Where do I begin?” Rocket replied. “It’s just one solid wall of noise. I can’t even understand the lyrics. And I can sing better than that. Listen,” he added, taking a deep breath.
“NO!” Quill and Drax yelled in unison. “Trust me, you don’t want that,” the space rogue said to Stark’s curious look. “But he’s right; it’s not music or singing.”
“It’s complexity and skill,” Tony retorted indignantly. “Do you know how many artists can play that riff?”
“Do you know how many people actually want to hear it?” Rocket shot back.
“I like it,” Drax put in. “It reminds me of the music of my home,” he explained.
“They had three gold albums, so I’d say quite a few,” Stark replied evenly, ignoring Drax’s comment. “Besides the blue berserker here, of course.”
“Look you want complexity?” Quill asked? “Try this,” he said flipping through the songs on his player. He eventually found the one he was looking for and sent it to the sound system. Suite Madame Blue, by Styx began playing.
Tony shrugged. “That’s alright I guess,” he said as the guitar intro began. “But it’s hardly what I’d call complex.”
“This isn’t the guitar solo,” Quill replied.
“I can’t believe you’re wasting your time with this,” Gamora stated as they listened to the song’s slow buildup. In truth she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. To her, arguing about music was a waste of time. But they were interacting civilly for the first time. That had to count for something.
“Shhh,” Quill chided her absentmindedly. Normally she wasn’t one to be shushed, but in this case, she decided to just wait and see where things went.
It took a few minutes to get to the guitar solo. Stark had become quite impatient by the time it flooded the room. Despite that they could all tell he was impressed.
“Not bad,” he said as it passed, “but short. Any professional guitarist could play that.”
“But how many of them could write it?” Quill asked.
“Any of them,” Stark replied. “But they could have written it longer.”
“But that’s the point,” Quill replied quickly. “You’re ‘solos’,” he said holding his fingers up in air quotes, “last the entire length of the song. It’s like the entire song is just an excuse for them to show off.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Tony asked confused.
“Nothing, unless you use up the entire song,” Rocket replied. “Then no one else gets a chance to show off. Unless they just play their solos at the same time, that is. Hence the noise.”
“They just drowned each other out,” Quill agreed. “So, it’s just four different showboats competing with each other. That’s noise, not harmony. Personally, I get enough of people showboating at work,” he added with a slight grin.
“You guys just don’t appreciate the difficulty of playing that music,” Tony insisted.
“Please,” Quill asserted, gaining a confused look from all assembled, “If skill was all you were worried about, you’d have us listening to one-man polka band music,” he added pointedly. Tony blinked at that, almost as if the space rogue had punched him right between the eyes.
Gamora decided to let herself out at that point. She had no doubt this conversation would go on well into tomorrow. And in the end, nothing would be resolved. Not that that knowledge had any effect on the slight smile that was working its way across her face as she headed back to her quarters.