*Amelia listened intently to everything Nika was saying, holding a strong shell on the outside, and she listened to her friend as she described that night and Amelia looked down and sighed, chuckling to herself at how foolish the two of them were that night*"That night... That night was the best yet worst night of our college lives... but whats so special about that incident?"*Amelia looks up from her coffee cup to her friend, analyzing her as she asked she got her reply ready*
No running, no looking back. No point in dodging the question.
"Well... It got me thinking. Had never been a friend of the government, you know that much..." She took a short sip, seeing Lia nod slowly. "I started publicizing critical papers. Political ones. Ones that the people in power could not ignore for long. I think if it hadn't been for Professor Jensen, I would have vanished a few months earlier. He kind of covered me with the university. He's dead now, as I heard. 'Robbery' they call it. I call Bulldrek...
Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Remember that big paper I was working on? The last one? You probably don't remember the title, but generally, I went a bit... too far with it."
Nika looked out of the window, breaking eye contact for the first time. The skyline of Harburg, glooming over the conversation, especially at nighttime, seemed a fitting background for her dark mood.
"Hannes... I mean Professor Jensen sent me a warning, and I left immediately. The moment I left the floor, I heard them kicking my door in. Shouting, gunfire... They turned my whole floor, every apartment into a nightmare made of Lasers and screams. Turned out later that they blamed the Unioners for it, by the way."
Her face filled with determination and a bitter smile, as she continued on.
"As it showed, they weren't guarding the spaceport pretty well. Took the first ferry off-planet, slipped into a cargo container and burned my ID. Then I collapsed. Was just too much, and I hadn't been sleeping the night before anyway... Well, and as I woke up, the ship's security kicked me out on Freistadt. You know, that drekhole in Omega-7."
*Amelia raised an eyebrow at her friend as she goes on, listening intently, and she widens her eyes as her friend speaks about running to the spaceport, then speaks up interjecting*"What? You burned your ID card and left on a random transport? And of all places to end up, Freisdadt? That place is a hellhole full of hessians!"*She quiets down and looks down*"Although I suppose I shouldn't be demeaning to the unlawfuls if i'm going to be supporting one now."*Amelia chuckles and takes a sip of her coffee, noticing it already getting cold, then gestures a hand at Nika*"Continue though, I'm interested to see what else happened."
Nika smirked. That reaction was to be expected, she herself didn't like the hessians very much - which made the next part of the story even worse.
"You say that like you'd done something else. I mean, what would you have done? Waited for the police to catch and murder you? They turned my whole floor into a bloodbath!"
She had to calm herself a bit. Admittedly, her reaction back then had been really impulsive, without much second-guessing.
"Anyhow... Well, Freistadt was hard. Had to steal for a living, I mean, there's not much work an academic like me can find there. I'm not proud of it, don't give me that look!... I'm not sure how long I stayed there. A few weeks, maybe. Met a few other people, miners, spacers, hessians... Ended up hooking up with one of the latter, to be honest. Took me to their home, showed me what he thought to be the 'hessian revolution'. And he kept me fed. Li, you don't know how much having something on your plate every day can be worth to a person... It can even go so far that you mistake thankfulness to that person for love. Gosh, I was blind back then... Ended up marrying him. Believe it or not. Me. Married."
She had to hold on herself to not spit on the ground. Being an outcast from home didn't hurt nearly as much as this particular episode of her life.
"Was doomed to fail, however. Damn Idiot showed his face soon enough. Turned out all that high talk about the 'Volksrevolution' was just pure propaganda. Damned Pirates is what those arseheads are, nothing else!"
Lowering her voice, she then continued talking, now just relying on summing up those memories. Details would probably only cause her to rage again - and she wanted to avoid that at all costs.
"Told Dennis what I thought. That his precious revolution was just facade. He didn't believe me. And boy, was he angry. See that scar here?"
Nika showed the long scar leading up her neck, onto her cheek. Only a fine line due to good plastic surgery, but still visible to the curious observer.
"Yup, even kitchen knives hurt. He probably thought he'd just leave me whereever we were at the time, I'd just bleed out or something - but someone, still dunno who, saved me and got me patched up. And well... Next part is relatively straightforward. Couldn't go back, hessians were not an option, so I called a contact in Frankfurt."
She made an artificial pause, just to reinforce the irreality of the situation a bit more.
"And here I am now, Annika Haupt, Kommandant of a small Bundschuh group."Another pause, leaving what she just said sink in, then she clarified."They call me a terrorist, Lia. A pirate. An Enemy of the state. They call me a murderer. And the worst thing is that they are not wrong. But I didn't choose that path. I only wanted to voice my opinion. To be heard, to improve something. Turns out that that gets you in my situation or it gets you killed here..."
These last sentences were spoken with bitter regret, and a single tear rolled down her cheek, re-drawing the line the scar painted on her face with black-green mascara. Her face was stone, but she was about to burst into tears completely, trying to compose herself behind the mask of stoicism that had held so well for the past two years. Her voice was cracking at the very end, and she had to put down the cup to avoid dropping it on the floor.
"They turned me into a monster, Lia. And there is no way back."
*Amelia Listened intently to everything said by her friend, she listened about the story of Nika getting married, getting a scar, stealing from hessians, the whole thing, and she listened to how her friend admitted to being in the Bundshuh, the one thing that hit her the hardest though, were those words... "Turns out that gets you in my situation or gets you killed here"*
"This is what happens now..."
*Amelia had noticed Nika tearing up by now, it was easy for her to see her closest friend under the surface, no matter what Nika thought she had been through to hide herself, Amelia still saw through her, and saw the scared girl underneath, and its when Nika says those last words that Amelia gets up, goes to the other side of the couh, sits next to Nika, and throws her arms around her best friends neck, resting her chin on Nikas shoulder*
"If they call you a monster, then thats exactly why the Bundshuh calls the government liars... I stand with you no matter what Nika, as stubborn as you are... as stubborn as we both are, best friends will stand by each other. And If they call you a monster, then they'll be ready to call me one as well, because the government, and their great failure does not scare me, Nika I stand with you to accomplish your goals."
*Amelia smiles and lets a few tears fall*
"Remember, I will always stay by those they believe in, and I believe in what you've gone through, and what we need to do, so give me the plan now."
It was hard for her to regain her words. After almost breaking down, Nika needed a few moments to collect her thoughts again. Not really an easy task, but being embraced helped, as much as she denied to admit it. She had missed having friends. Sure, the people on Bruchsal were her brothers in arms, and she'd have given her life into every single one's hands - but they were never her friends.
A faint smile appeared on her face as she softly left the embrace, taking a sip of the coffee. That was the Lia she remembered. Rash, quick to decide and loyal. It was hurtful to endanger her so much, and even more to not be able to tell her the true purpose of being here. But she'd at least need to know what she'd be doing while living in Lia's flat, that would only be fair.
"Phew. For a moment I really was afraid you'd embrace me to death", she uttered, trying to make the situation a bit less... tense."But about the plan... I need a place to hide, that's why I'm here. I need to meet people, go outside at night. It all is for a bigger goal... And me not telling you what it is doesn't mean that I distrust you. It only means that I have sworn to not tell anyone that doesn't know. Holy hell, I sound like one of those secret agents on the trid, don't I?.
It really is that simple currently. A place to hide. Maybe... If you're really serious about that whole helping with the grand scheme thing... I might need your help later on. But right now, a place to sleep and hide is all I need. Plus having a person to talk to really helps. "
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