A Dusty Old Rock

[Backo]

As no story is complete without a Z-tier Sirian celebrity, Eliza Valdez Carmen Summers finally arrived at Stenn's roll call location. This delay to her arrival was much a surprise to everyone (by everyone we mean mostly Nick Stenn) as she was the one to convince the cyborg armed mercenary to revive the Forlorn Hope and was also last seen not a system away from where she was now. If asked why exactly Eliza Carmen was this late, she would answer with the "official version" as to why it was so - she was busy tying up some loose ends with her past life. The truth was Valdez Summers was simply playing hard to get and also trying to get back at Stenn for disappearing on her yet again, something which he was very prone to doing, as she learned over the last couple of years.

The number of times she had visited Hope's Watch were easily countable on a single hand, even if you remove a few fingers from it. Most of the station's interior reminded her of other pirate stations carved into various big rocks found across Sirius. The big distinction that earned this place a more fame and distinction were the murderous robots that patrolled the decks. Why exactly did this god forsaken station need killer robots to protect it, considering nobody cared about it, was a mystery that not even the auburn haired heroine could answer. Still, the killing machines were nice enough not to shred, slice, shoot or electrocute Valdez Summers to death upon arrival so that was a good sign, right? Right.

Luckily directions to the various facilities of the station were written in plain and understandable Sirian English, something that Eliza Carmen had no problem with, regardless of what any Xeno activist would claim about the descendants of the Hispania. As she got closer and closer to the assembly room, the auburn haired girl became more and more nervous. This was actually the first time she would meet the members of the Forlorn Hope face to face. Until her own departure from the organisation she operated under the alias of Carmen Summers, supposedly a freelance pilot with ties to Crete and Liberty. As such she always pretended to be unavailable whenever Nick Stenn organized meetings as not to uncover her then much more secret identity.

But the cat was out of the bag by now and people like Sanada already knew her true identity. Still, pretending to be someone else was something Eliza Carmen found fun and liberating to do. As such she could not afford to disappoint the public and a modest masquerade was very much in order. Her delayed arrival actually gave Valdez Summers the chance to visit quite a few stations in preparation and purchase more than a few items of attire, all normal on their own, but quite bizarre when put together. A somewhat expensive endeavor, considering she was currently unemployed and without a source of stable funding, but that Eliza Carmen hoped soon to change.

So with a rather plain Kusarian kimono robe, likely purchased from the Golden Chrysanthemums in Shikoku, a rather pretentious and preposterous Victorian style Bretonian bonnet and sunglasses purchased from a stolen goods flash sale on Cape Wrath with a hefty discount and lastly a slightly charred military grade Rheinwehr sack in hand, generously provided by the neo-Zoners of Freeport 2 for a modest sum of credits, Eliza Valdez Carmen Summers walked into assembly room where the rest had gathered. Seeing that her rather pompous entry was not received with enough attention, she quickly tried to remedy that with the next piece of this show of Mrs World Wide - a very bad attempt at a Houston accent:

"Howdy y'all, I hope I'm not too late for the annual Forlorn Hope anonymous meeting?"

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Republic of the Sword and Sun