Marked

[Toaster]

Olivia wasted no time hanging around Pittsburgh's orbit. She punched it towards the trade lane, just in time to escape a wing of police ships ascending from the planet's atmosphere. A well-placed mine detonated against the lane generators, overloading them as her ship rapidly accelerated away from the planet. Moretti's signature had disappeared from her scanners, but she had no intention of following him any further.

Pedro.

Like a cancer, the son of a bitch stubbornly kept interfering with Olivia's life, threatening to get her or people she cared about killed. Like a cancer, it would require an extreme treatment to get rid of him. She was fed up. The things she had done for him would haunt her for the rest of her life but she would not allow any more misdeeds to stack up on his behalf. She would put an end to him, once and for all. Assuming she could reach him before the Xeno did.

Halfway down the trade lane, she disengaged superluminal travel, hurling the Lovebird into the debris field enveloping Pittsburgh's gravity well. She knew the LPI could track her movements through the network, but she also knew that few police officers would be willing to pursue her into the vast expanse of the scrapyard. It was Rogue territory and they would swoop in on any lawful entity that dared trespass.

Hunted as she was, she would have to travel across New York at cruise speed. It would take hours but judging by the course Damian appeared to have taken, he, too, was avoiding the busy traffic of the trade lanes. With any luck, she would reach Manhattan - and her target - before him. Olivia did, however, still have one ace up her sleeve.

She scrolled through the Lovebird's list of neural net contacts until she found the one she was after.

"Kelly," she spoke as the communication link was established to Beige's wife, "I guess you may have heard about Beige's predicament." Olivia hated what she was about to do to yet another person she had once considered to almost be a friend. "I can help him. But first, you'll need to help me."

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Olivia Sable