Using the coordinates Yondu had provided, the Dark Aster arrived in an unfamiliar star system.
Through the bridge's enormous viewport, she saw a brilliantly colored planet suspended ahead, so teeming with life that it seemed almost eerie.
Strange vegetation and flowing veins of energy covered its surface, yet there was something subtly unnatural about it, something too perfect.
"Is that Ego?" Hermione asked.
It was hard to imagine that the planet before them, thousands of kilometers in diameter, was actually a living, self-aware being.
The atmosphere on the bridge was tense.
Although the Ravagers had witnessed all sorts of wonders across the universe, a living planet still lay beyond their comprehension.
Hermione turned her head, her gaze settling on Quill and Yondu.
"Yondu, take him down."
Quill abruptly raised his head, his eyes resolute.
Worry filled Yondu's face. He opened his mouth to say something, but in the end, he merely sighed and patted Quill's shoulder.
"Come on, kid."
He knew Hermione's plan and the dangers of this journey, but he could not shake Quill's resolve.
A small Ravager ship detached from the Dark Aster and flew toward the surface of Ego the Living Planet.
The ship had barely entered the atmosphere, before they could even look for a suitable landing site, when countless fissures tore open in the ground. Hundreds upon hundreds of energy tendrils blazing with blue light shot into the sky, lashing at the ship and trying to coil around it!
"Damn it!" Yondu cursed, hauling the ship upward and narrowly dodging several deadly tendrils.
"Ego! It's me, Yondu! I've brought your son back!" He switched on the external loudspeaker and bellowed.
The moment he finished speaking, the energy tendrils froze in midair, then slowly withdrew underground.
On the ground a short distance ahead, soil and rock