Those fifty metres turned out to be fifty metres too far. As Loki and Brunnhilde ran out onto the tarmac, a squadron of soldiers came around from behind the ship. These were not Palisade guards either, but an expeditionary company that must have been called up to reinforce the Palisade's perimeter.

Loki was the quickest to react. He aimed his blaster at the closest soldier and managed to strike down a second one too by the time the soldiers responded with blasts of their own. They roared with rage — a sound Loki realised was familiar. This was a squadron of the same Exian company he had been charged with training. Between their seldom worn full-battle regalia and the murk of the spreading smoke from the fire, Loki hadn't recognised them. But those battle cries were unmistakable and for the first time, he appreciated fully the impact of that vicious clamour.

Sorry, boys, I'm not coming willingly.

'Go ahead!' he shouted to Brunnhilde and he let out a massive wave of energy, sending it rushing towards the Exians.

He took out those closest to him, but the force of the wave didn't have the impact he had wanted. Heavy on their feet, the Exians were also hard to sweep over. Loki ducked behind a maintenance cart and set off another blast at the Exians, but there wasn't much left in the weapon. He could feel his skin burn where it came in contact with the blaster; the next shot was just as likely to blow off his thumb as wound any of the Exians.

It was an unfair fight. The Exians didn't bother with the swords strapped to their sides, they relied on their heavier and larger blasters, which had a good twenty times capacity of the weapon Loki held in his hands. Worse yet, with every second, they were drawing closer. The window of opportunity was closing.

Swallowing the blood building up in his mouth — the wound in his cheek from his fight with Nebula had reopened somewhere along the way – he brought up his hand. The lingering heat from the blaster was an excellent focus point. He forced that heat to materialise and then imbibed it with energy a thousand times its source. A whip of green-hued flame crackled through the air, forming a temporary barrier between Loki and the approaching Exians.

He ran, but fire wasn't going to slow down a blaster shot. Within moments, pain tore through his left leg — from his knee, up his thigh and then down, resonating through his bones all the way down to his ankle. Loki slid to the ground. His eyes watering, he reached for his knee and found only a charred mess where the joint used to be. As far as blaster fire went, it was pretty much a direct hit. He tried to get up and got nowhere. His undamaged leg was no more willing to cooperate than the injured one.

He whipped his head around. The broad-shouldered silhouettes of the Exians were nearly upon him now.

Allfather, if this is...

Mechanical parts hissed as they shifted into position. Lights flared up, cutting bright beams through the smoke. Then, the cannon fire. Loki grinned as Brunnhilde took up the ship's cannons and showed the Exians how things were really done. Under the cover of friendly fire, Loki did his best to crawl over to the hatch of Thanos' ship.

Unfortunately, Brunnhilde couldn't take them all out. Loki had drilled some basic tactics into them. They found safety behind technical equipment scattered around the tarmac and began firing back at the ship, trying to find weaknesses in its defences. And some continued firing at Loki. Crawling was too slow. He wasn't going to make it.

Loki gulped down a breath of ash and cinders, then performed the only spell he could think of. The magic surged through him with the velocity of a lightning storm and coalesced around the blast wound. The burn of the healing left him screaming as much as the blast itself had, but it was quick. Within two seconds, the bones and the tendons had knotted back together.

His vision swam — that single spell had cost him more than all the magic he had performed over the previous three days put together. The beams of light emanating from the ship became his beacons as he stumbled over to it. He found the hatch and clumsily, pulled himself inside.

'Loki!' Brunnhilde shouted from somewhere within.

His throat had gone dry and he was sure he was shaking. Not trusting his eyes, he followed her voice until he stumbled into the cabin.

'You good?' Brunnhilde asked, then immediately went on, 'Right, lift off.'

He collapsed into the nearest chair while Brunnhilde rushed about from one control panel to the next; this wasn't a ship designed to be crewed by one person. She seemed to be managing though, better than she would have if Loki tried to help in his current state. Loki reached for the controls to the cannon and fired a volley without taking care to aim at anything in particular. This was as much as he could contribute at that moment.

'That's...' Brunnhilde hesitated. 'We need ground control to release the clamps. The ship can't take off otherwise.'

It took him far longer than it should have to grasp what she was saying. Longer yet to formulate a reply, 'Can't we blast them off?'

Brunnhilde leaned forward to look out the cabin's windows. 'None of the canons can turn to that acute an angle. We need to go —'

'We're not going back out there,' Loki replied, hoping his voice held a gravitas he in no way felt.

He pulled himself upright, ignoring the lingering weakness in his knees, and shifted over until he could see the edges of the two clamps keeping the ship grounded. When coupled with a modicum of intellect, magic was a subtle art. But presently, he had neither the time nor the mental capacity to think the problem through, so he simply tore off the clamps.

As the ship lifted off, Loki felt himself slip sideways.

----------------------------------------

'Are you back with me?' Brunnhilde asked. Under the garish, orange-tinted lights inside the cabin, every feature of her face seemed to have become exaggerated. With Loki's vision still somewhat swimming, the end result was surreal. Loki turned his head away, but that didn't deter the Valkyrie. 'Hey, a verbal confirmation would be great.'

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'Yeah, I'm conscious,' he replied.

He had no idea how much time he had lost, but he had a sense that it was more than a couple of minutes. He had woken up slumped on a chair in the pilot's cabin; only the seatbelt kept him from tumbling out. Outside, darkness reigned, the outlines of the numerous asteroid around them barely distinguishable. Loki's vision, meanwhile, still swam with trails of the blaster fire.

'How long was I out of it?' he asked.

Brunnhilde glanced to him momentarily, then flicked her gaze back over to the controls. 'About two hours. You missed all the fun; I had to shake off a few pursuing ships. Now I've just parked us in a particularly dense asteroid clump. Your unconscious arse was sliding all over the floor while I was trying to lose the pursuing fighters, I was getting rather worried you were dead.'

'If you say so,' Loki said dryly.

'Let me look at your leg.'

'It's fine. I healed it.'

'Loki, let me see it.'

He sighed and shifted over so Brunnhilde had unobscured access to his left leg. There was a gaping hole in his trousers where the blaster fire had burned away the material and the area around was discoloured with dried blood, but as Loki had promised, Brunnhilde didn't find the grotesque wound that had been there two hours ago. Only light bruising remained and that too would be gone soon enough.

'Your arm still needs re-breaking, doesn't it?' Loki said. 'I'll fix that, just give me a few hours of rest.'

'It's been like that for three days, another three won't matter.'

'I don't need three days.'

Brunnhilde seemed to try to stifle a laugh, but didn't succeed. 'Whatever you say, Odinson.'

Loki let the comment go unanswered; any attempt to argue the point further would leave him sounding like a child. The real way to win was to show Brunnhilde that he didn't need three days to recover. Whether this was actually the case of course, he wasn't sure.

I'm pathetic. A few big spells and I'm gone. A sorcerer, by Bor's prickled arse. Hardly worth calling myself that anymore.

'Loki,' Brunnhilde said sharply.

He jerked at the sound and found himself clenching the rim of his seat. Swallowing a breath, he forced himself to shake off the tension in his body, but it achieved little. Brunnhilde peered down at him with an expression that reminded Loki of the palace's stable-master when he examined some terribly wounded animal and considered whether putting the beast down would be the most merciful thing to do.

Loki was about to tell her to leave him be, but Brunnhilde began to speak before he could.

'I'm sorry about how it ended with Nebula,' she said.

'Let's not talk about that.'

'That's fine, if you don't want to, we won't. I just wanted you to know that I was sorry.'

Those cooing words feigning understanding about what he felt left Loki gritting his teeth. He barely accepted these sorts of sentiments from his mother, he certainly didn't want to hear anything of the kind from the Valkyrie. What was the use of a 'sorry' anyway? What was she sorry for? If she meant the fact that Loki would probably never see Nebula again, Loki had never expected their pseudo-friendship to last in the first place. Or was she sorry for persuading Loki to attempt what they had? Neither of them had known Nebula would interrupt them. Or was it a sorry for the ice spear that ended up in Nebula's chest? Or was it for the explosion? Why should she be sorry? Loki had conjured the spear. Loki had set off the bombs.

'I could've persuaded her to turn against Thanos,' he said. 'She would've changed sides, it was only a matter of time. But not back in that room. I had a thought when I was last alone with her that I should tell her the truth. I should've done it then.'

Brunnhilde cocked her head. 'You have no proof she would've switched sides. Had you told her, you would have blown your cover and would've had to kill her there and then.'

But I do have proof.

'No, no, if I had laid it out to her, she would've listened. But that back there in the Palisade wasn't about Thanos. She was furious with me.' He closed his eyes and let out a bitter laugh. 'You warned me about allowing her to become too attached to me.'

'Did I? I don't remember to be honest.'

Loki was certain she remembered the exact conversations he was referring to, but he supposed it was a small gesture of kindness on Brunnhilde's part not to rub it in. Plenty of other people would have. He forced a semblance of a smile and nudged his chair to swing around. 'Do you think there's anything edible on this ship? Or alcoholic?'

'Hope so. I could really use some of that 150 proof whisky they do back on Sakaar.'

Although 150 proof was probably a bad place to start, Loki wouldn't have minded gathering up the contents of any liquor cabinets that belonged to the Children of Thanos and working up to 150 proof. He stood up, paused for a moment to make sure his legs were steady under him and then set off towards the cabin's exit.

'Damn it,' Brunnhilde hissed before he had taken three steps.

'What?' he said, but he saw them before Brunnhilde had formed a reply — a sleek fighter ship.

Four came after it. Loki knew this design. Like most of the better pieces of military machinery in Thanos' arsenal, they were originally a Kree design and had undergone only minor modifications in order to be adapted for use by Thanos' soldiers. There were plenty of missiles aboard as well as a laser cannon. And the ships were fast.

'What are the specs on this?' Loki asked. 'How are the shields? What's left of the artillery?'

Brunnhilde rushed over to bring up the system log, all the while speaking to herself under her breath. 'How the bloody fuck did they find us? And so fast too. The guys who were after us before are space dust.'

The comms unit emitted a high-pitched wail. They wanted to open a communication link. Loki grimaced as he accepted the request and tuned the receivers to the right frequency.

'This is Wing Commander Thar-iru of the 27th Strikers,' came the sharp baritone from one of the fighter ships. 'Fugitives aboard the Nesha IV, I advise you to surrender. Neither your shields nor your firepower are a match for this squadron.'

Loki pressed the button to mute the line from the side — the last thing he needed was for Thanos' men over-hearing what he and Brunnhilde were discussing. As for what he could say, that was limited. He took a look at the information Brunnhilde had pulled up. Loki was unsurprised to find that the wing commander on the other side of the comms line wasn't lying. Nesha IV had formidable capabilities for a transport ship, but she was no match for five proper war ships.

'Thoughts?' Loki said.

'You have any more magic tricks up your sleeve?' Brunnhilde snickered bitterly. 'I mean, we could give it a go. The ship'll be crippled in a best-case scenario —'

'It might have a bearing on your next action to know this,' Wing Commander Thar-iru added. 'Nesha IV is Lord Thanos' own vessel. It carries a number of tracking devices. Even if you try to flee, you will never escape the Great Titan's justice. Surrender is your only path to mercy. You have three minutes to decide before I give my men the order to shoot.'

That answered one question at least. And brought to an end any thought of trying to flee. Nesha IV wasn't a small ship and 'a number of tracking devices' could mean almost anything. They could spend days tearing apart every inch of the ship in search of the trackers and never be certain that they got them all. Not that this was a real possibility, Brunnhilde was right — should they manage to prevail in this encounter, the ship wouldn't come out unscathed. Only fools flew ships through asteroid fields; only madmen attempted to do so in a ship whose performance couldn't be trusted.

'Heimdall!' Loki grabbed Brunnhilde's hand and pulled her to the back of the pilot's cabin where there was more open space.

'What are you doing?' she demanded.

Loki took a breath and shouted louder. 'Heimdall! Take us back to Sakaar!'

A rainbow cacophony of colour swallowed the Nesha IV.