billy poses an excellent question, and excellent questions are, at the very least, worthy of half-decent answers. too bad the only one quill can give is lousy at best, and blatant equivocation at worst.
"it's a ... soft yes." a work in progress, is what he means to say, but can't quite admit that he's so-far lacking in the plan department.
his arms swing back-and-forth, palm smashing into his fist as those hardworking cogs in his brain try their best to produce even the slightest of opportune thoughts. look, it's not like he's incompetent; it's just that in order to put the whole "mysterious gem" puzzle together, he must first obtain all the pieces. ya'know, start with the corners & edges, and then work your way inside. elementary-level problem solving, stuff that should be easy - but is beginning to feel like hard work.
"we found this -" the sentence trails off, and he lets it, one hand rifling through his trouser pocket to produce a thin, geometrical piece of metal. so small it might have gotten lost in the lining, if not for the fact that it audibly crackled with continued, tinny static.
the device springs to life with a mere click - and the two are suddenly bathed in a lambent, red diagram, patterned by all manner of elaborate tracery. hundreds of planets, maybe thousands, accompanied by splendid little boxes all displaying information in a language peter wasn't sure he could read at this size. the image flickers, once, like a old film reel jumping at the end of its presentation and then, abruptly, switches off. darkness yet again. blink and you'd miss it.
"'cept, as you can see, broken."
pile of crap, complete waste of my time. the poor star-map is swiftly disposed of, sentenced to the floor to live out the rest of its sorry days with peter's dirty socks and rusty wrenches. he doesn't speak, for once, but the frustration is there. retrieving that goddman thing from hala was a nightmare. (suppose, that's what you get for being from the central world of the kree empire. stupid flarking map).
peter shelves this particular blunder for another day. no plan and faulty loot? - his ego's taking quite the bruising.
ah, on the topic of bruising, billy's swirly blue glitter circles. healing magic? they say curiousity killed the cat, and this cat's got a taste for the execution. call him nosy, he can't help it - the only flavour of wizardry that he's ever been exposed to was in the form of his good ol' buddy adam warlock, and god knows him and billy couldn't be more different if they tried.*
*for a start, one of them might actually be a warlock and not just a dude with lasers for hands.
"say, there's not like a - i don't know, just testing the waters here - magic way we could find the gem, is there?"
the legendary outlaw has hit a tactical brick wall.
so much for "master strategist" ...