A little under an hour later, the Lovebird rendezvoused with a small transport near the edge of Pittsburgh's debris field. The Gull waited, hidden between slabs of metal junk, as the Kingfisher approached it. A small airlock extended from the the transport's bow section.
Olivia nudged her craft forward, until her cockpit was immediately below the airlock. With a strange, sucking sound, the hose latched onto the Lovebird, pressurizing itself. Olivia unlatched herself from the pilots seat and unlocked the canopy. With a slight hiss, it slid open. As the fighter's artificial gravity shut off, she pulled herself up towards the hatch to the transport. It opened before her, granting her entrance. Within the small chamber on the other side waited a red haired woman, roughly Olivia's age. Her arms were crossed in front of her, her face distorted into an angry frown.
"Kelly," Olivia greeted her as the hatch closed behind her, her feet touched the steel deck as gravity clasped at her again. "Good to see you."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure I can say the same. What kinda mess did you get Arthur into?"
Olivia raised her hands defensively, lowering her gaze. "It's Pedro." The mere mention of the name caused Kelly to involuntarily take a step back. Her face paled. "Turns out, we were both after him," Olivia continued. "We took out one his men but Beige got arrested. I barely managed to get away."
Kelly averted her eyes, mulling over what she'd just been told. "You mean you left him behind," she finally spat, glancing back at Olivia, venom in her gaze.
The mercenary sighed. This was a waste of time. Every second spent explaining the situation to Beige's wife was adding to Moretti's lead. And there was no way in hell Olivia would leave Pedro to the Xeno. The bastard was hers.
"We got separated," Olivia lied. She reached out for Kelly, lightly resting a hand on the woman's elbow. She locked eyes with her, trying to look as reassuring as possible. "I'll help get him out. But first, we have to get to Pedro." Retracting her hand again, she fished her PDA out of her vest, handing it to Kelly. "That's the address. Can you get me there? Fast?"
Kelly glanced down at the screen. Finally, her shoulders slumped and she dropped her hands to her sides.
"Yeah," she muttered, turning towards a ladder at the back of the chamber. "Come on." Olivia followed her up into the ship's small bridge, settling down at one of the consoles.
Leaving the Lovebird behind, hidden away behind heaps of scrap and debris where no one would ever stumble across it, the transport cruised towards the nearest trade lane. Olivia allowed herself to relax. The LPI wouldn't know - at least not yet - that she was personally involved in the mess that had occurred on Pittsburgh. Now, all she had to do was let Kelly ferry her to Manhattan in her not-wanted transport and get to Pedro's location from there. With access to the lane network, the trip wouldn't take much more than an hour. With any luck, Olivia would reach her target before Moretti even got close. But she knew better than to underestimate the man. She would have to act quickly, regardless of her current advantage, if she wanted to secure the kill for herself.
Morreti was not the sort of man who would allow himself to be outdone with trickery, that was his domain. Snakes survived despite harsh conditions through much more than just brute force after all. His gut feeling told him Olivia would get there first, and he couldn't have that. This meant a creative approach needed to be adopted. And he had the network of supporters required to pull off something along those lines.
Pedro would receive a warning for a reputed "Robert Hughes" a former technology tycoon who made a killing off of selling a proof of concept to Ageira. The only strange thing about this man was the fact that he was also reclusive, and vanished without cause after his wealth accumulated to such an extent. Evidently, Mister Hughes knew a lot about Pedro's operation in Liberty, and expressed a sincere desire to invest in such an effective financial scheme. The only catch was that Pedro's newfound benefactor also warned him of an impending attempt on the sleaze's life. If Pedro was going to prove useful towards wealth generation, then he needed to keep breathing. And Hughes was happy to offer protection in exchange for a more substantial initial return on investment. With undisputed evidence that both a Xeno and mercenary, whom Pedro was 'intimately' familiar with were on their way to him. He rabbited without question and made for the Jersey field as instructed, told to expect a convoy of Junkers to be waiting for him in order to facilitate a quiet escape. To make this a quick trek, Pedro opted to make use of a rhino he'd acquired through 'legal' means and traveled under light security, trusting his pilot to avoid any major traffic and keep their movements secretive.
At the rendezvous point however, things were not as he expected they would be. Junker signature appeared on the scope but then quickly vanished, larger silhouettes emerging from the debris, blending in almost perfectly given how ill maintained both craft were. It seemed like a Condor and Defiant class gunship, both more rugged than usual and armed with particle cannons that had been scaled up for use on larger vessels. The Junker signatures were legitimate however, no tricks, they were lured here under a different pretext, believing that the infamous Cobra had been betrayed and was isolated in this field. This was a convincing ploy to establish a temporary truth to fuel an impression of legitimacy regarding the circumstances. One which faded away rapidly when the rhino was boarded.
Strangely enough, Olivia would receive these updated coordinates from the same strange man. And assured that the ships already at the site would not fire on her vessel. Upon arrival, that assurance proved to, at least for the time being, be truthful. The gunships themselves were squawking Xeno authentication codes, and it was clear what had happened here. Morreti, had through some grand charade, created circumstances under which he could get to Pedro first. And at least at the moment, the sleazy creep's status was unknown. With the possibility that Morreti had already killed him being quite high.
A string of expletives erupted from Olivia's mouth as she glared out the bridge's windows at the conglomeration of vessels floating about the scrap field.
"Moretti," she spat, slamming her fist into the console before her. Spinning around to face Kelly, she yelled, "Get me on that freighter!"
The red-haired captain stared at her, eyes wide. "Are you nuts? I'm not going anywhere-." She was cut off by Olivia drawing her handgun and pointing it straight at her face. The mercenary's features had gone hard and cold, her eyes however betraying enraged determination. Kelly swallowed hard, carefully increasing the transport's thrust towards the captured Rhino.
Reholstering her sidearm, Olivia strode towards the back of the bridge, punching a code into a touchpad laid into the back wall. A small compartment opened up, revealing a short-barreled scattergun. She grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder, the magnetic pads in her armor latching on to it. Taking a deep breath to calm her racing mind, she jumped onto the ladder to the airlock, sliding down the side rails. She had no idea what she was about to walk into, but if the Xeno had killed Pedro before she got a chance to exact her revenge on the bastard, there would be hell to pay.
The interior of the rhino was a mess, the three armed guards onboard under Pedro's employ all had rather large holes punched through their chests, creating new cavities for their hearts to pump through and shower much of the cold steel with a striking shade of crimson. Proceeding further, into a reinforced cargo section that had been converted into serving as a cozy and well protected living space revealed the fact that Morreti was already there. And so was Pedro, alive of course. For whatever reasons, Morreti had not outright resolved to kill him. "I see you got my message, I was worried you'd dismiss it as a potential trap to distract you from directly pursuing this.. creature." Damian gestured towards a very much restrained Pedro with a mixture of disgust and overt hatred.
"But before you put your gun to use, I have a proposition. I'll leave him to you if you let me extract some information out of him. Sal's daughter is still missing. Family says this fool's behind it. All I need to know is where he's keeping her and then I'll leave you to what seems to be a very ballistic reunion." From the moment Olivia entered the room, Morreti had his gun trained on her head, very much committed to making sure he found the person he was looking for, even if that meant leaving here with bits of himself missing and leaving Olivia without her facial features. At least for the moment, he was in the way of her and Pedro, not willing to move until his offer was properly responded to.
Olivia had her scattergun trained at the Cobra from her hip. From where she was standing, a blast from the weapon would likely dismember most of both the Xeno's and Pedro's body. For a brief second, she considered pulling the trigger and ending the farce right then and there. But reason proved victorious - ending it like this lacked the satisfaction she so desired, nor could she guarantee that Moretti wouldn't manage to place a round in her skull.
Staring at the snake, eyes furious, she slowly lowered the gun.
"Make it quick," she finally growled through clenched teeth. The very sight of Pedro made her body tense up, like the string of an overdrawn bow, threatening to snap from even the slightest increase in tension.
With a grin and a wink to express gratitude upon her agreement, Morreti lowered his weapon and pulled a syringe from his belt. Walking back over to Pedro and jabbing it into the neck of the restrained man. "Don't worry, Olivia. It's not lethal. It's a cocktail of truth serum and a certain something in a high enough dose to make pain more compelling." To demonstrate his point, Damian slapped Pedro with the butt of his gun, and it resulted in the man nearly passing out from how much pain that put him through. It was so horrible there wasn't even any strength left in his lungs to scream, he just shivered after the impact noticeably bruised his face.
"Tell me where the girl is, Pedro. The nice lady with the big gun across the room from us doesn't look very patient. And I have my own business to tend to." Without much else to do with the custom piece, Morreti had holstered his gun for the moment. Waiting for Pedro to spit out what he needed to hear. He wanted this to be over with immediately, no longer having the malignant patience necessary to keep chasing leads and setting up convincing traps. This was the end of the line, all that remained was a proper thanks for the help.
Instinctively, Olivia winced as the pistol grip whipped across Pedro's face. She had always been against torture, believing that few people, if anyone, deserved to be put through the pain and suffering it entailed. A quick death was what she had always hoped to provide to anyone she had to kill, be it on the job or otherwise. But on this special occasion, she decided to let it slide. In fact, once the serpent was done toying with its prey, she fully intended to inflict some pain of her own on the bastard who had in turn tortured her.
Dazed, his eyes wet with tears, Pedro shifted to look at Olivia. Fear and pain were plastered all over his face and he stared at her, pleading with his eyes.
"Olivia, please-," he stammered.
Olivia strode forward, raising her shotgun and jabbing its muzzle into the man's chest. What little air remained within his lungs exploded out through his mouth as his whole body jolted in agony.
"Tell him," Olivia growled, pulling the gun back as if to strike him again. Pedro shrunk away from her, shaking. His eyes shot back to the white-haired man before him. Then he nodded towards the hatch to the cargo hold.
"In there, in a container," he muttered, resigned. He slumped together, finally realizing that there was no way for him to weasel his way out of this.
That grin that had appeared on Morreti's face before returned, this time much wider and more pronounced, the corners of his eyes wrinkling from genuine amusement at how easily Pedro had cracked under pressure and given up information, by surrendering his only bargaining chip to the serpent, Damian simply nodded to Olivia. Reaching for her shoulder and seeming to instinctively know where his mark had been concealed, that was easily due to the fact that she was wearing equipment that the snake was very familiar with, given that it belonged to his cause. Softly pressing the mark back in place to be visible on his shoulder, he would holster his gun properly and belted the grip down with a strap attached to the holster. "Remember this little moment in time, because it's proof you're no better than I am. In the end, we're one and the same. Like I promised, he's all yours. But the girl and the ship's cargo, those come with me." He turned to look back at Pedro one final time after directing those words towards his convenient ally in all of this.
"You should never have come after my people, Pedro. Don't worry, I'll take good 'care' of your suppliers whenever I find them in Liberty. I'm sure all these trinkets will invigorate the cause." If words had venom, then the way he expressed all of this would have surely been lethal. Exchanging another glance with Olivia, Damian walked over to where Pedro had indicated the girl was, ripping away the lid of the cargo container prompted a shrill scream of terror, initially believing she was being taken out by the same men who had put her in the container. When her eyes adjusted to the light, the girl groaned out a sigh of relief and wept tears of relief when the face turned out to be familiar, a friend even. Her legs had been broken to fit her in the cramped space, so despite Morreti's absolute lack of interest in being 'comforting' towards people, he would pull her free and carry her the rest of the way in his arms. Despite his methods, he appeared to be true to some semblance of his word, he did look out for his own people. But it did also seem like he was the reason they were targets at all. All the same, his business here was concluded and he turned to leave with a slow pace, Olivia had a few moments to say something if she wanted.
"No, Damian," Olivia said, turning to face him as he carried the girl away. The mercenary's face was an odd mixture of disgust and pity. "I'm nothing like you. You find too much joy in what you do."
With that, she turned back to the bound man quivering before her. She would wait for the Xenos to clear out the cargo from the freighter before she touched him. The plans she had for Pedro required the ship.
Kneeling down in front of him, she inspected his face. Fear and hatred were plastered over it. The overwhelming urge to raise her scattergun to it and pull the trigger gradually subsided. No, she had other intentions for him. After all the horrible deeds he had done and made others do, he didn't deserve an easy end.
The sound of airlocks opening and closing rang through the freighter's hull as Xeno personnel transferred what valuables they could find to their own ships. Then, all was still but for the ragged breathing of a man facing death.
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