Loyalty, Love, Fanatism

[Sombs]

January 9th, 825 - Omicron Kappa

The cup was halfway empty by now. Sombra lay on her side on the couch, supporting herself with a pillow under her head. She smiled at the counselor, obviously enjoying the talking. Lindsay's dimples were starting to hurt her facial muscles from the smile. Some things her new patient told her about the Captain and their past were quite amusing.

"So you grew up on Curacao suffering from adipositas and related symptomes, physical, mental and social. Then Ezrael stepped into your life at the right time and organized a make-over, turning you into the slim and athletic woman you are now. You stopped spending time on the neural net chats and games and instead interacted with people in the real life, did sports, went clubbing with your teacher and even had sex with him and other men." Lindsay summed up, looking at Sombra with a questioning expression to ask her for correction.

"And women."

"And women. I take it this went on like this for the rest of your college time?"

"Yes. I didn't get the best degrees but I had Ezrael using his connections to make sure I would get a job at Orbital Spa and Cruise, training inclusive." She scratched her nose, which caused a strand of her thick black hair to fall into her face. Cross-eyed looking at it, she placed the strand back to where it was supposed to be, behind her ear. "And thus I became an OSC liner pilot."

"Oh. That sounds interesting!"

"It absolutely wasn't. It was refit. Looked like a liner, was actually a freight transport. They didn't want me to fly around with the responsibility over thousands of people all over the ship. I didn't mind that, actually, so I did use the ship for secondary and tertiary transport contracts of OSC, and in the off-times I did some jobs for Detroit Munitions, Wisp and other groups."

"You piloted a liner that was used for cargo transports?" Lindsay blinked at her, smirking.

"For a year, yes. Then I got shot down by a Liberty Rogue destroyer, because my escorts fucked up. It was a horrible day, really. I entered the New York system from Pennsylvania with a cargo hold filled with Neon gas cannisters from Erie. I had my cat with me on the ship, Dr. Orpheus. There was a Freelancer snub escorting me and a Liberty Battlecruiser who just happened to fly the same way as I did." The more Sombra was talking about that day, the less happy she sounded. "We jumped into the badlands using the gate, and a Liberty Rogue Destroyer was waiting there for us. You know, in those moments you would expect a Liberty Battlecruiser to take action. The snub didn't do anything either. So the pirate just took his sweet time to make his demand. Obviously I didn't comply, with a battlecruiser sitting next to me and a snub. Obviously, that was a horrible mistake. The people on the battlecruiser were incredibly incompetent and instead of drawing the fire, tanking the shots for me to leave, they went on distance, allowing the destroyer to fire multiple mortar shots at my ship."

The smile on Lindsay's face had vanished, similar to Sombra's smile. "Oh god..."

"The shots hit the ship and ripped it into multiple parts. I was able to get to the rescue pods unharmed, the destroyer had aimed for the center of the ship, not the bridge. Dr. Orpheus however didn't make it, he got sucked out into space. Just like the many robots that maintained the liner. Can you imagine that? There is a bloated, frozen black cat somewhere in the Badlands of New York floating around if it didn't crash with asteroids to break into thousand little cat pieces. What a way to go. Poor Dr. Orpheus. Because of that i don't take my cats into space anymore. Ezrael, Leon and Mojo are staying at home all day."

The expression of sadness and shock suddenly on Lindsay's face suddenly turned into confusion. "Ezrael, Leon and Mojo?"

"After Dr. Orpheus death, I was so sad I bought myself three new kittens. I only wanted two but they were all so cute so I got all three of them. I named them Ezrael, Leon and Mojo, Ezrael and Leon obviously named after my best friends. And Mojo because I thought that would be a funny cat name." Sombra smiled, thinking about her cats. "A day after naming them I realized Leon was female. It's something human Ezrael reminds human Leon of to trigger him." She smiled even wider.

"Wow," the counselor sounded, mildly smiling at Sombra's cup. It was obvious she was at a loss of words about what Sombra just told her. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back, licking her lower lips for a moment before continuing with the talk. "So you got show down in Liberty, lost your beloved pet, and all that because of the incompetence of the ships that escorted you. And to get over it, you got yourself three new kittens, which you named after the people you like. Luckily, you made it back to safe space unharmed. That is quite a thing. You probably had some counseling about that incident?"

"Yes, of course. Back then I was pretty depressed and they took my license. I lost my job, but as a curacao-born woman I didn't have to leave the planet. Instead they took care of me and allowed me to stay in my apartment. That is a thing on Curacao, luckily. They do care about the people who have been born on the planet. There aren't many, but Ezrael, Leon and I happen to be born on Curacao, as children of people who have either worked or settled down on that world."

Shifting in her seat, Lindsay stretched her legs, for now sitting casually in her seat. Her muscles were sore from sitting cross-legged. "Do you think you processed what happened?"

"I don't believe one can overcome things perfectly, making a cut like a machine and just look back at things without any emotion. I still feel the fear of death when I move through Liberty. Rogues, Lane Hackers, Outcasts, and in the worst cases, Xenos. Some of them play along the rules, some of them just want to see the world burn. But I've learned from my mistakes. Escorts are useless. They can't catch mortars aimed at your transport. They are eating up your money for nothing. Now that i am a Whale pilot, I use a cloaking device most of the time. I rather fly multiple runs instead of getting spotted by people who just want to kill me. Liberty is the worst place when it comes to that. Not all of the criminals out there are evil. For example, Ezrael and I have a good relation to the people of Montezuma base in Cortez. And I recently did a job for the Cassini Rogues."

"So you say you processed it but it made you be more careful," Lindsay concluded.

"Yes. Ezrael once told me one of his fortune cookie wisdoms. 'Losing is not when you fail. Losing is when you don't stand up anymore.' So I took my time to enjoy life, with my new kittens. I didn't need to worry much about money because OSC paid my rent and provided some life-support, and then I also had Ezrael who was always incredibly nice to me." Her voice turned more sad the more she talked about it. "And then out of all people, his parents died in Curacao's orbit, when nomads appeared and destroyed an OSC convoy. Suddenly, Ezrael was alone with an entire company. And he vanished for weeks and developed an alcohol problem. Then only Leon was there for me."

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