Blood Out

[Ryummel]

From: [color=#FFFFFF]rtl.ubr@rma.sz

To: Steve Holloway (hollow_way@smail.cr)

Yo Steve, been looking for you around the Armstrong but I was told you suddenly poof'd. Well, just sending you this to tell you about my little progress on configuring this bloody software to make those dandy weapons you brought from Gallia work on your brick. Seriously, I've tried everything and energy management is still giving lotsa problems.

I updated the chip so guns don't make this random noisy 'beep' when engines are off. Not a great success in combat but it's at least something. Anyway if you aren't dead yet, get to Barrier Gate and you'll find me lurking docking bay six. See ya.

R. C.

From: [color=#FFFFFF]sntree@lnet.li

To: Steve Holloway (hollow_way@smail.cr)

Worked my arse off to remove all the crap surrounding you and now decided to make it even worse? Screw you, dude. But it's okay, have fun in Liberty. Wish you choke with a credit card someday.

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[Ryummel]

From: rtl.ubr@rma.sz

To: Steve Holloway (hollow_way@smail.cr)

RE: Pills?

No miracles, think I made it pretty clear. I'll be out this weekend to settle some business at Pittsburgh, so hopefully I could smuggle less aggressive medication for you.

This can't take forever, dude.

R.C.

Steve Holloway wrote:

>Is it normal to feel nauseous right after waking up?
>Man this stuff leaves me K.O. for one hour before I can
>do anything. You know that bounty hunting around Taus
>means working with very low profit margins and this is
>just making me waste a lot of time.

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[Ryummel]

Dust To Dust

Sunset on Leeds, staring at what used to be an improvised missile base built over the remains of an old merchant spaceport. I never reached to see said missile base myself, but judging from the extension of the crater produced by the Kusari orbital bombardments back when that war was still raging, the guy had to be telling the truth. Dad used to make the trip between Stokes station and Planet Leeds every two weeks or so to unload the ore in that spaceport, and I was always watched his transport arrive and take off from this same spot where I'€™m sitting right now. Feeling nostalgic? No way.

I don'€™t mind the burnt ground I'€™ve been walking over since I landed here this morning, or the ghostly atmosphere surrounding the apartment complex where I used to live and which was now fully evacuated just like many other settlements across the planet. I don'€™t care because the same bloody poison filling this air is still here, attacking my lungs since I was a kid and now a problem I had to face, alone.

I assumed that sooner or later that the insanely little life-span my parents were condemned to by this poison would make them meet their end soon, but I always grew up hoping I would be luckier. -You- came to me as my only hope but then -you- simply decided to throw me away. No explanations given excepting that greediness everybody could smell from miles away, except me, silly me. If you ever read this, be sure that I still wish you suffered the same slow death I was gifted with after being raised in this hellhole.

Anyway, enough loitering. There's credits to be made. I can leave this planet forever now that the image of that crater is stamped on my retina.

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[Ryummel]

Guild And Guilt

Woke up early, packed my stuff and called Castillo after the breakfast. Tossed her the comms link I opened with that boss-dude from the Hunter's Guild the day before in case anyone in the company wanted to follow. So far had this former Overwatch from the Order-blabla poking me shortly after to sort a new identity for him in the Guild and that's about it.

Can't say I'll care about the rest, perhaps because I failed to fulfill my commitment as Consul and now it was about time I'd run like a coward, right? However, I'm not intending to blame myself since I've got better things to fix at the moment, damn right.

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[Ryummel]

From: rtl.ubr@rma.sz

To: Steve Holloway (hollow_way@smail.cr)

Steve, this is URGENT

I've just taken a look at the results of that blood sample I got from you before you left Liberty. By any means, DO NOT take the medication anymore no matter the pain you feel, the med is just making it worse, got it? I'm trying to find another solution at the moment, take care.

R.C.

[Ryummel]

From: cath_hll8444@smail.bt

To: Steve Holloway (hollow_way@smail.cr)

RE: It's me.

It's pointless to ask you what kind of business you got into, but don't give me any other reason to distrust your word this time.

I'm still praying for you, kid.

Steve Holloway wrote:

>Don't believe everything you see and hear.
>Won't last forever. I promise.

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[Ryummel]

Birthright

Came down to one of the very few refugee settlements across planet Houston for Bretonian citizens. It was a special day, my 30th birthday, and she surely deserved more than an explanation. She as in my mother, who flooded me with questions.

As I kept telling her about my misfortune among hispanics and related barbarians, her stern gestures seemed appeased when she asked about the diamond and I explained who was owning it at the moment. However, the gift I made to Nancy didn't really serve its original purpose ever since my whatever-ancestor began the tradition, but I chose not to explain mother that last part. For now, she would think I've found some stability, and maybe that would help me trick myself into thinking that too. Or maybe I should just stop beating about the bush as Silver has repeated over and over again? Bah...

Have to admit now, mother's birthday gift caught me totally off-guard. It was a data chip with software dating from the mid 600 A.S., something that together with the diamond had been passed to each generation. Wished father was there with us, after all.

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[Ryummel]

Sorrow

I hid that feeling from Nancy for so long... I could have never foreseen finding myself in this situation. I once sworn to myself I wouldn't ever commit myself to anybody, but she...

I figure it's something we cannot avoid at all, as she told me in our first meeting in that cafe at Manhattan. We've fought together, earning our paychecks against any kind of pilot, from Corsair to Bretonian, even Libertonian and generally overcoming any kind of situation we faced while flying together... But am I to give up now that we are isolated from each other?

Maybe this daily challenge is what makes our lives worth going through, as mother told me. Maybe, because I'm not sure if I'll make it out alive this time.

The blue glitter of the bracelet's diamond is at the moment the only thing that keeps me close enough to her, enough to think that the day I return it to Nancy would be... tomorrow?

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[Ryummel]

Purifying Flame

“Either the house, or them..."

That's all I needed to remind myself to set the Sweetwater's house ablaze. She surely inherited that stubborness from her father, the one decided to fight against the gallics despite the fact his health suffered heavily over these long years of service at Leeds.

From what I reached to see before resuming my run back to the spaceport, the firefighters didn't seem to have a problem putting the fire off, of course leaving the place entirely burnt, though sadly having reached a couple of the the swiftly evacuated neighbouring apartments. Sad fact I said? Probably I've also done those families a favor and will finally decide to leave this damned planet for once and for all.

Now I can just hope that a simple fire helps Richard Sweetwater to understand the reality he lives in and the path he has to follow for the best of the family... Just before an orbital bombardment straight on him does it instead.

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