When she emerged from the bathroom Damian would have already laid something out on the bed for her to put on, back turned away from her towards the door they were going to exit through. It seemed like he presumed that she'd need the small gesture of privacy to get changed, while this would normally seem like a thoughtful thing to do, in his case it came across as simply methodical. "People are going to be asking questions the moment we walk out of this door. Let me do the talking, all the chaos means I can spin us a favorable explanation to justify the mess outside. Come to think of it, the disguise might not even be necessary, the optics make it seem like you were the victim. Feud between members of a smuggling ring turns violent.." All that was necessary for his final words to count as guiding the witness would be a box, judge and jury. While he was clearly capable of defending himself with a firearm, cleverness seemed to be his stronger suit and perhaps more evident was his inherent talent at manipulation. But now it was more concerning in regards to how he knew the nature of the business behind these people, was he competing with them and aware of all the players in the game? He'd offered no closure, letting the doubt bloat instead. When he finally opened the door, there were already people dressed in security uniforms outside, they hadn't come here armed, perhaps because they didn't view Damian as guilty. It was very much true that the Xenos occupied a certain degree of preferential treatment on this station, much to the chagrin of more "legitimate" authorities across either border.
"Morreti, we're looking into what happened, I'm told an armed individual attacked some woman and that you put him and his accomplice down. The Administrator will want to know just what in the fuck happened, but if it's all the same to you and me, I don't want to be hacking open bodies to figure out what happened. Could you enlighten me? Crap of this kind's something you're well versed with." With Olivia conveniently out of frame and her rifle hidden inside a generous duffel bag that Damian was lugging around, there was nothing to suggest guilt of any sort, the accidental savior was free to spin whatever web he wanted to cover things up and he did just that without a moment's hesitation.
"Nothing but your average dust-up between a bunch of smugglers. Probably arguing over premiums and the finer details of their business. The woman was just in the wrong place at the right time, overheard them, became a loose end in need of tying up. I don't think they were counting on this to happen outside my door though. I'm sure if you looked around, you'd find more evidence of the mess they made. She ran off, probably left by now, not worth concern. You know how these greasy types can be, Garcia." Damian must have had prior contact with this member of the Freeport's staff, enough to build up something of a reputation for trustworthiness and favor. He seemed the type to create arrangements that benefited him but undermined a rival or competitor. That was just the nature of the game, and there were no rules other than whatever moral codes people found convenient at the time.
"Yeah that's always the damn case. Low lives won't kill each other in their own holes, always opt to come here and make us a mess to deal with. Thanks for putting them down. I'll go see about getting all of this cleaned up and calming down the residents. Just.. try and knock them out next time, bloody floors on a Freeport lead to more drama than necessary." With the officer wrapping up his involvement here after an exchange of nods with Damian, he and his partner went about their business in reporting back and coordinating a bit of clean-up. This gave Damian and Olivia the window they needed to leave the room and start their hustle to the hangar.
"Come on. Security's going to dial itself down now. Just don't do anything to attract attention." An older spare flight suit of his had been the only disguise he could really offer her, they were roughly the same height, so even if the fit wasn't ideal, it was passable. It was very unlikely that what would be assumed as just two men leaving at the same time would warrant further interruptions, especially with a deescalation in progress. Covering up her silhouette was beneficial in that sense.
Olivia listened closely to the conversation between Damian and the security officer as she stood in a far corner of the room, out of sight from the door, carefully pulling her flightsuit off her sore body. She was impressed at the ease with which the terrorist convinced the staff outside of his alternative facts concerning the sequence of events that took place in the hallways. The Xeno clearly was as quick with his wit as he was with his trigger finger, and just as persuasive. And, perhaps more importantly, he appeared to be closely familiar with the less than legal dealings that so commonly took place aboard freeports - something Olivia would keep in mind for the future, though she decided it to be best not to ask him about it just yet.
By the time the security personnel had backed off, she had managed to slip into the spare suit Damian had laid out for her. It was a crude fit for her figure, but the size was right and it did a decent job of disguising her. As Damian signaled her to follow him out of the room, she produced the small camera from her tattered flightsuit and pocketed it in the new one. The remains of her garment she rolled up tightly and tucked in under her left arm. Then she followed him out the door, keeping her head low.
The bodies of her two assailants were already sealed in black bags, a pair of security guards standing over them, engrossed in casual conversation with each other. They briefly glanced over at Damian and Olivia as they left the room, then averted their gaze again. Olivia allowed herself to relax a little. It seemed her companion had things under control. With a slight limp, she hurried after him and, matching pace beside him, muttered,
His pace was brisk, nothing lazy in the manner he strolled down the hallways or carried himself, it could easily be mistaken as a respectable pair of traits for a man like him to have, but it was likely owed to constant rehearsal in order to get right. "That's the plan. Too much of a buzz getting everything back to normal after the mess, nobody's going to care about departures with what just happened. Consider cluing me in on what all of this was about sometime." Even while his mind was occupied with other things, he was still paying enough attention to perform minor misdirection. Such as putting himself between Olivia and people who would pass by, so that they would see Damian first before her and have their focus diverted. Maybe this wasn't the first time he had to sneak somebody around an installation that might be looking for them, or his first time twisting the facts. He was by all accounts doing violent and dishonest things, but without any associated malevolence behind his motives. Under a debate, he could probably justify his behavior quite well, he was only ever doing what he needed to do.
Soon enough they were walking past rows of ships all parked close together in the hangar, keeping himself beside her until Olivia's Sutinga was in sight, at which point he fell behind if only a little. He offered a hand when she'd have to climb the ladder into the pilot's seat, if only to speed this process along so that he could leave and get back to his own business. If she had any parting words, now would have been the time to say it.
On the inside, at least, Olivia was ecstatic to see her ship again. Escape from Ames was literally within her grasp and with that, hopefully, would come freedom from Pedro's machinations. For a moment, she considered explaining her situation to her Xeno savior. It would only be fair to tell him why she had ended up causing a shootout right in front of his quarters, dragging him into this little mess she had made. Yet... the time didn't seem right. She didn't want anyone else to getting involved with her employer, nor did she entirely trust Damian, despite his help. The feeling that she would owe him a favor, one that, when it was eventually called in, she would not to be too pleased about, crept around her mind. Nevertheless, without him she would have been killed, and she knew she was in his debt.
Olivia reached out for the bottom rung of the ladder and paused. She glanced over at Damian, standing beside her, hand held out for support if she needed it. She smiled a crooked smile and titled her head.
His immediate response was to scoff at the question, clearly he found something amusing, maybe it was her timing of when she chose to ask the question, but his unpredictable behavior made that one of the many possibilities. It didn't feel like there was any real way to know anything about him for sure, at best there must have been a pattern, it was more simple to just assume he was impulsive. "Maybe I'm just partial to the underdogs, regardless of circumstance. Go, now isn't the time for talk or any sudden affection." He offered a smirk in return, and at least for once it was entirely genuine, wrinkling the corner of an eye to reinforce that fact. It felt like there might have been something in one of her borrowed suit's several pockets, but there was no time to turn them all out and see what it was. It was tiny enough that it could have simply been a buckle that was overlooked.
Olivia nodded, still smiling. Finally, she had seen something amounting to genuine emotion on the odd man's face. Maybe there really was a decent man behind those strange blue eyes, after all, she thought to herself. With that, she slowly ascended the ladder into her ship's cockpit, her arms and legs trembling slightly from the effort. She fell into her chair, panting. As she flicked a number of switches to engage power and prepare the vessel for takeoff, she leaned out of the still open cabin and looked down at her companion.
"Whatever your reasons," she called down over the noise of the Sutinga's engines spinning up, "thanks. A lot." She raised her left hand to her forehead in a cheeky salute. "See you around."
With another flick of a switch, the canopy slid forward, covering the cockpit.
The Sutinga shot out of the airlock, Olivia wanting to get as much distance between her and the station as quickly as possible. In the back of her head, she almost expected a wing of patrol ships to fall in behind her and demand her surrender for her involvement in whatever exactly it was that had occurred aboard the freeport. Now that she was alone again, in the relative safety of her ship, the day's events felt almost like a dream, the memories blurring.
She sighed. All she wanted now was to get back to Liberty and have a nice, cold ale. And a proper medical exam. She punched the waypoints for her return trip into the nav computer and let the autopilot take over. Returning to Manhattan would take a while and, until then, she would get some desperately needed rest. Gently rubbing her injured shoulder with her left hand, Olivia leaned back in her flight chair and closed her eyes.
The smell of aging, stained carpet was particularly pungent today - or perhaps it just seemed that way because she had been gone for a bit. Either way, Olivia tried to breath in as little of the musty, humid air as possible. Difficult, considering how much her lungs were begging for it after climbing up twelve flights of stairs. Of course, she thought to herself, panting, the elevators had to break down today. She limped towards her motel room door, the thought of a shower and a somewhat soft bed giving her the strength to overcome her exhaustion and discomfort. Finally in front of it, she reached out with her left hand to push the door open...
Only to find it already was. She sighed.
Stepping through, she flicked the light switch to the side of the door, bathing the room in the weak, orange glow of the slowly dying ceiling lamps. She glanced around, looking for the familiar but completely unwelcome shape of her employer. Her eyes landed on him, sitting at the small dinner table, a glass of water in hand, smiling at her a fake, unfriendly smile. Olivia lowered her hand towards the handgun strapped to her left thigh.
"I thought I was supposed to send you the footage," she muttered, looking more closely around the room, checking to see whether any of Pedro's henchmen were lurking in a dark corner. Pedro chuckled coldly.
"A little bird sang a song about you getting into some trouble in Kepler," he replied and raised his glass to his lips. "I wanted to make sure you got home safely." His eyes gleamed hungrily, like a jaguar eyeing its prey from under a brush. Olivia shuddered slightly. Outwardly, she remained calm, casually resting her hand on the grip of her pistol.
"As you can see, I'm fine."
Pedro placed his water back on the table and rose from his chair. Tucking his suit jacket back into shape, he sauntered over towards her, eyeing her up and down.
"Well, relatively," he spoke sarcastically. Then he reached one hand out towards her, open palm facing up. He raised an eyebrow and waited. Slowly, Olivia reached into a pocket of her borrowed flightsuit. Inside it she felt the small camera she had used to record her assassination of Juan Perno. However, her fingers also sensed something else within, something she hadn't noticed when she first donned the suit. She glanced down, confused, then caught herself and produced the camera. Pedro's eyes shifted down towards it as she pulled it out and placed it in his hand.
"There," she spat. "For your viewing pleasure." The man closed his fist around the small device and smiled coldly at her again.
"Well done, my dear. Now, you've earned yourself some rest. And you certainly look like you need it." He strode past her towards the door, pausing in front of it. He glanced over his shoulder. "Until next time." Then he departed, closing the door behind him.
Olivia was left alone in her room, feeling every bit as exhausted and battered as her body was. She limped over to the dinner table and dropped down into the other chair. She let out a long breath, letting her body sag together. Her limbs ached, her throat was sore, and the haphazardly stitched-up wound in her shoulder still shot occasional waves of stinging pain through the right side of her body. More than anything, however, she felt like she could sleep for days. But, before she could do that, she had to inspect something.
She reached into her pocket again and extracted the small, metallic object she had noticed within. It looked like a token one would attach to a keychain, a small, red serpent, coiled together. The flared neck made it look like an angry cobra.
Cobra, Olivia thought at the sight of it. She tilted her head, curious. It must have been Damian's. Did he leave it in the flightsuit for her to find? If so, why? Her tired mind ground to a halt. "Tomorrow," she muttered as she placed the small trinket on the table before her. Then she rose from the chair, lumbered across the room to her bed, and let herself fall into it. Sleep overcame her in an instant.
The room was dark, the ceiling lamps extinguished, as Olivia sat at her small dinner table, head hanging low. In one hand, she absentmindedly played with the small serpent token, twisting it between her fingers. She was tired but couldn't sleep. Her head was filled with images of the night, spent on Pittsburgh - that miserable, barely hospitable dust bowl of a planet. She had always hoped she's be able to avoid ever having to land there, but an invitation by the most influential Xeno in Liberty had more or less forced her hand. On top of that, she had felt like she owed it to him for what he did to help her in Kepler. After all, she would have been dead without him.
Damian had been a gracious host. Olivia hadn't expected him to be so... competent at normal social interaction, especially not after the first impression he had made on her aboard Ames. He had certainly surprised her with his charm and she had to admit, he wasn't what she had initially taken him for. It was too bad, then, that clearly he had misjudged her as well.
What was it he had tried to do at the terminal? Unconsciously, Olivia ran her fingers over her cheek. Had he... tried to kiss her? That really was the only explanation. She sighed. There was no danger of that ever repeating itself now, not after how she had reacted. Like a threatened animal she had reflexively grabbed his wrist and would have likely broken it, if she hadn't snapped out of it again. She felt sorry for Moretti. She doubted a man like him made many close connections and to have theirs strained, if not outright severed in such an abrupt manner must have been a blow to him. But, on the other hand, he had completely overstepped. Olivia had made it clear to him that she answered his invitation for the sake of spending time with a friendly acquaintance, nothing more. Or at least she thought she had.
She yawned, dropping the serpent back onto the table. Her eyes felt heavy.
The buzzing of her PDA woke her as it vibrated on the tabletop. Olivia snapped up, straightening herself in her chair. She looked around, dazed. Had she fallen asleep? She must have, finally.
The PDA buzzed again, demanding her attention. She glanced over at it, its screen lighting up with notifications. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she leaned forward, looking at the display. Two new messages had arrived for her. Reading the sender ID snapped her wide awake, like being doused in a bucket of cold water. She grabbed the device and read the messages carefully.
Red is gone.
Meet me on Freeport 1 ASAP.
"Damn it," Olivia cussed quietly as she slumped back into her chair. Things weren't about to get any less complicated for her.
When had her life turned into such a mess? Olivia wondered as she rubbed the back of her head, her skull throbbing with pain. Glaring out of the Rhino's canopy, she could just barely make out the engine plumes of a Condor fading into the distance, eventually disappearing into the dark matter cloud that dominated Kepler's west. Hoisting herself into the pilot's chair, she slumped back, dizzy, the cockpit and stars swirling around her like an out of balance carousel.
Pedro had escaped, once again slipping through her fingers. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to put together what had happened. The man had been tied up, sitting in the freighter's cargo hold, barely able to remain conscious after a series of beatings Olivia had given him. Even though the serum Moretti had administered had long since worn off, she was more than capable of inflicting all the pain she felt Pedro deserved for what he had done to her and everyone else.
She had gone to the cockpit to check on the autopilot's plotted course. When she turned back to look in on her prisoner, he stood before her, a wrench clutched in his hands. Then all went black.
Olivia sighed. Of course. Of course. Her anger, the self-righteousness that came with it, had blinded her, distracted her. Instead of planning an elaborate punishment for the son of a bitch that had tormented her for years, she should have just put a bullet in his head when she had the chance. Now here she was, floating in empty space aboard a disabled freighter, her prey slipping away from her once more. To her surprise, she wasn't angry. Not at Pedro, nor at herself. She was just tired. Resigned.
Maybe it was time to give up. To settle down on some far away frontier planet. To live a quiet life on the solid ground instead of risking her life in space every day, fleeing the nightmares of her past that haunted her present.
Absentmindedly, she keyed the communications system and sent an automatic distress signal to Ames. It would be a few hours before the tugboat found her and towed the Rhino back to the station. Still rubbing her bruised head, Olivia leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, sleep overcoming her in an instant.
Stepping out of the freighter, Olivia flicked a credit chit at the tugboat pilot who had delivered her to the freeport. Nodding at her, he tucked it into his overalls and left her to her own devices. Walking around the ship, Olivia inspected the Rhino. It was in good shape, aside from the severed internal power lines that had resulted in her stranding. Having those repaired would be inexpensive enough and the ship as a whole would get her a pretty penny.
Enough for a small place on Canaria, she thought to herself. Pulling her PDA out of her vest, she pulled up the station's dealership and put the freighter up for sale. Paying a small fee, she'd let the locals handle the actual selling of the ship.
Olivia sighed in relief as she entered hangar four. The gleaming white hull of the Sutinga stood out among the dark greys and browns of the other ships parked within the bay. The Xenos had kept their promise and taken care of it in her absence. Glancing around the hangar, she spotted a dark-clad man leaning against the far wall, the star-and-stripes badge of the Alliance just barely visible on his boots. She nodded her head once and the man straightened up, leaving his post.
Striding up to her ship, Olivia ran a hand along its hull. It was cold to the touch, yearning for the reactor to be reignited for the first time in days. Olivia came to a stop at the craft's nose. Her hand clenched into a fist.
The image of a cozy hamlet on the green world of Gran Canaria still swirled around Olivia's mind. But this ship was her home. Her closest companion. Were it not for her meticulous care and constant repair work, it would sport as many scars as she did herself, if not more. Scars left there, in no small part, by Pedro. Olivia sighed again.
Settling down was not in her immediate future, if in any. She would never be able to relax, to forget, as long as the bastard was still out there, wreaking his havoc on the lives of those who got caught up in his webs of lies, threats, and torture.
Olivia retracted her hand, letting it rest comfortably on the grip of her holstered handgun. She looked up at the Sutinga's cockpit, a smile of determination on her face.
"You and I still have some work ahead of us," she whispered.
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