The Sutinga shuddered as it decelerated out of the trade lane, sparks and smoke trailing behind its battered frame. Arcs of electricity sputtered where its armor plating had been blasted off, exposing the vulnerable power lines beneath. Scorch marks covered the hull and jagged holes gaped in the craft's wings. Briefly, it hung in space, slowly drifting through the junction. Then, with a puff of smog and fumes and a pained rumble, the engines reignited, propelling the ship forward at a limping pace.
Too close, Olivia muttered to herself as she replaced the panel over the bunch of wires she had fiddled with to get the reactor going again. With a glance at the screens, she checked the status of the last of her nanobots. One by one, their indicators went dark as the tiny machines expired, their limited resources expended on keeping the fighter from falling apart. Warning lights flashed across the cockpit, vying for attention. Olivia ignored them. The severed fuel line was reattached, the reactor leak was patched, and emergency life support would last long enough to get her to the nearest port.
With an exhausted sigh, she glanced out through the canopy, squinting against the bright sunlight that was reflected and refracted thousands, millions of times by the field of ice around her. In the near distance, Holman Outpost sat motionless against the backdrop of ever-shifting rocks of frozen water. A press of a button sent out an automated docking request, which was promptly acknowledged. Carefully nudging the throttle up, Olivia steered the shaking vessel towards the indicated airlock.
The instant the atmosphere was restored, flames erupted from the Sutinga's many injuries. Crewmen hurried towards the damaged craft, water hoses and flame suppressants in tow. As soon as it touched down, the fighter was soaked, clouds of steam billowing up from its hull and disappearing into the hangar bay's ventilation system. Jumping down onto the deck, Olivia inspected her wounded ship. It looked like hell, barely resembling the usually well-maintained fighter she proudly called her own. With an outstretched hand, she patted the craft's nose, as though to apologize for the rough treatment she had put it through.
"I want her fixed up nicely," she called over to the bay's supervisor as he approached to look over the mess she had dragged into his domain. He scowled at her but didn't protest. Olivia was, for the time being, on the Guild's payroll, so paying the bills for the repair wouldn't be any trouble.
Stepping away from the landing pad, the mercenary let her eyes wander around the hangar, allowing her eyes to adjust to the comparatively low light of the station's interior. Three of the four other pads were occupied by Guild fighters, each looking similarly battle-worn as her own. Dock crews scampered across their hulls, cleaning off scorch marks and welding hull plating into place. The crew of the fourth, vacant pad sat at their stations, distraught looks on their faces. Not all of the Guild's ships had returned.
"That was a rough battle," a voice remarked behind Olivia. She glanced over her shoulder at its source. A tall, fair skinned man wearing the miners' trademark beige flightsuit stood a few feet from her, running a gloved hand through his disheveled brown hair. A shy smile played around his lips.
She turned to fully face the man, recognition dawning on her as she looked him over.
"Commander Sharpe," she remembered, returning the pilot's smile. "It really has been." Olivia nodded at the man's flightsuit. "New uniform?"
Sharpe looked down at himself, laughing a deep laugh.
"Aye, I'm flying for the Guild these days." He looked over at the Sutinga, the last flames being extinguished by splashes of water and foam. "I thought I recognized that ship when I saw it zoom past me in Forty-Four." His eyes traveled back to meet Olivia's. "I never thought I'd see you out here again."
Olivia nodded thoughtfully.
"If it weren't for the sniffers overreaching, I wouldn't have come."
"So it's not just business," Sharpe replied, stating more than asking. For a moment, there was silence between the two as they held each other's gaze. Then Sharpe's lips broke into a smile again and he nodded his head vaguely towards the deeper decks of the station. "I've got some paperwork to take care of." His eyes briefly shot over to the empty landing pad at the far end of the bay. "If you're not too exhausted, we could grab a drink at the bar. To catch up."
Olivia thought the proposal over. She was dead tired. Her body was bruised from being thrown around the cockpit in high-g maneuvers and her mind was begging her to let it rest. But she was curious about the Bretonian ex-officer, wanted to know what he had been up to since they had parted ways. And spending a few hours over drinks with a friendly face seemed like a more than pleasant contrast to the insanity of fleet combat she had just barely escaped.
"Sure," she replied simply.
"Great!" Sharpe stepped closer and gently patted her shoulder. "I'll see you at the bar in a little bit." Then he walked past her to where his two remaining wingmen were waiting. Olivia looked after him until the three pilots disappeared through a door down a hallway leading out of the hangar. She sighed.
Commander Benjamin Sharpe, Bretonian Armed Forces. She had been assigned to his squadron throughout her employment in Bretonia during the Gallic War. For four years, she had flown under his command, alongside his men and women. The Bretonians had not been averse to hiring mercenaries and freelancers to bolster their ranks against the seemingly unstoppable Gallic juggernaut and Olivia had quickly found herself well-acquainted and well-liked among the pilots of the 227th squadron. Of course, by the time she left the front to pursue her fortunes elsewhere in Sirius, the majority of faces within the group had changed. Only Sharpe remained as a steadfast anchor until the end. They had grown close, even against Olivia's better judgment.
But five years had passed since then. When Olivia ended her contract with the armed forces in 822 A.S., there had been no hard feelings between herself and the commander. They even promised to keep in touch, but both failed to keep their end of the deal. She never blamed him, of course. He was fighting a war of survival for his house. And she soon got caught up in a mess of her own in the Omegas. And so they had never spoken since parting ways. Until now.
A faint smile on her face, Olivia headed deeper into the station, following signs and arrows towards the civilian decks where she could find the outpost's bar.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Sharpe called out as he approached the booth Olivia had claimed for herself. "The higher-ups wanted a full debriefing on the battle." Signalling for a waiter, he sat down on the bench across from the mercenary. Smiling warmly, the former Bretonian commander eyed her up and down, not too greedily to seem inappropriate, but lingering on her long enough to come across as a slight flirt. "I see you're still taking good care of yourself."
Olivia cocked her head, smirking at Sharpe.
"Better than of my ship, it seems," she replied, playfully deflecting the compliment.
A young waiter strode up to the two of them, notepad and pen in hand.
"What can I getcha?" He asked in the strange accent common to parts of the Taus. Olivia glanced at Sharpe, raising her eyebrows inquisitively. The ex-soldier rapped his fingers on the tabletop, thinking for a moment.
"I'll... have a whiskey on the rocks," he finally answered. Then he looked back at the mercenary across from him and continued, "And she'll have... scotch and soda?" He raised his eyebrows in turn, checking whether he had guessed the order correctly. Olivia nodded with a chuckle. The waiter scribbled the two drinks onto his pad, gave the slightest bow, and returned to the bar.
"You remembered," Olivia remarked. Sharpe gave a short laugh and leaned back on his bench.
"Hard to forget a drink you'd order after every sortie."
The mercenary let herself relax and leaned back as well. She was too tired to keep up her usual caution and, with Sharpe around, she doubted she'd need to be worried about running into any trouble, even in a place like Holman. For a few seconds, she studied the man's flightsuit; the faux fur collar, the beige outer layers, the fake leather straps crisscrossing its body. It was far removed from the dignified, red-white-and-black uniform she was used to seeing Sharpe in.
"So, Sharpe. How did you end up with the miners?" Olivia asked, it being the obvious question on her mind.
The man raised one hand and swept away the formality of her address.
"Please, I'm not your C.O. anymore. It's just Benjamin now." Lowering his hand again, he sighed and remained in thought for a minute, his eyes gazing right past her as memories seemed to course through his head. Taking a breath, Benjamin finally replied.
"I stayed in command of the Two-Twenty-Seventh for most of the remainder of the war. Saw plenty of action in Leeds and then New London after you left. Eventually, we were so short on manpower that the squadron was dissolved and its pilots merged with other units. I got assigned to New London's Forty-Second but...," he hesitated and closed his eyes, clearly trying to unsee the images the memories were triggering. Olivia kept her eyes on him, patiently waiting for him to continue. "We were deployed in the battle for the planet. It was a mess and most of the Forty-Second got shot down. If I recall correctly, of twenty deployed ships, only four survived, me included. Then I spent the last few weeks being bounced from unit to unit as high command tried to regain some semblance of structure. Then the war finally ended and I didn't really recognize home anymore. Leeds was gone, New London was practically wrecked. Most of my colleagues and wingmen were either dead or missing in action."
Benjamin paused again. His eyes focused back on Olivia and he gave her a weak, apologetic smile.
"Sorry, didn't mean to dump this on you. Anyway, when it was all over, I resigned from the armed forces. Spent a few weeks helping out down on New London's surface, clearing debris, aiding the displaced. But I'd had enough of it all, to be honest. So I came out here to the Taus - despite all the stories you told me about them, I know - and hired up with the Guild. I wanted to do something peaceful, like fly freighters and transports, but here I am - leading a fighter wing to combat the Outcasts."
The waiter returned with the ordered drinks, placing them before the pair of patrons and leaving them without a word. The two pilots raised their glasses in a silent toast and each took a sip, enjoying the warming sensation of the scotch and whiskey within their systems rinse away the cold of space.
No wonder so many spacers are alcoholics, Olivia thought to herself and chuckled softly.
"So," Benjamin spoke, placing his glass back on the tabletop before him, "what has Olivia Sable been up to all these years?"
The mercenary took a second sip of her drink and swished it around her mouth, taking in all the flavor the relatively cheap scotch had to offer before swallowing.
"That's a long story," she replied briskly. The man across from her shrugged innocently.
"I'm in no hurry."
Olivia sighed. There was no getting around it, she supposed.
"Fine. But we'll need more and stronger drinks."
Benjamin let out a laugh and nodded, waving at the waiter to come back.
"Whatever you want."
The next hour or two shot by in a blur as Olivia recounted the many adventures - or rather misadventures - she had been on since leaving the Bretonian theater of war. She told the former Bretonian pilot about her work in the Omegas, the mercenary company she had been recruited into based on a lost bet, the good times she'd had with the Colors and the much more numerous bad times she'd had thanks to Pedro.
She wisely skipped over many of the more shameful details of her life under the Cretan's grip, not wanting to give her drinking partner the idea that she was some kind of monster. Instead, she went into great detail about how her and the Colors had banded together for one last hurrah to take down a dangerous, cruel artifact smuggler, ridding Sirius of one of its many crimelords.
Benjamin listened closely, captivated by the many tales as much as he was by the woman telling them. His eyes were practically glued to hers, taking in every emotion produced by every word she spoke. Olivia recalled details of their past together; how he had stood up for her early on when his pilots had questioned her unorthodox strategies in the field; how he had often assigned her to his own flight, supposedly to keep an eye on the unruly hired gun; how they had spent many nights at the canteens and bars of Bretonian battleships together, laughing, singing, drinking.
There had always been attraction between them, an unspoken desire to get closer to each other, but Benjamin's sense of duty and decor coupled with Olivia's still fresh pain of loss and fear of intimacy had prevented it. But many years had passed since then. Commander Sharpe was no more, instead Benjamin was now a simple employee for the Independent Miners Guild. And Olivia's recent experiences in Liberty and on Crete had broken many of the restraints she had long ago imposed on herself, liberating her from the fears that had haunted her for so long.
As she spoke, Olivia noticed that her fatigue diminished, that her rustled mind calmed down. The man across from her wanted her. Not in the sense that Pedro had; as a means to an end. But as an object of desire. And she noticed that she wanted him, too.
"And now here I am, getting paid to kick sniffer ass back to Alpha," Olivia finished her summary. "What more could I ask for?" She laughed loudly and threw back her fifth drink. Benjamin sat across from her, a wide smile on his reddened face. An equal number of empty glasses stood on the tabletop before him.
When they had arrived, the bar had been decently populated, a number of miners and other pilots and crewmen sitting at the bar and booths. But it had gotten late, and apart from them, only the waiter and bartender remained at the establishment. Benjamin glanced around the now quiet locale, spotting the two employees lazing at the counter. Olivia followed his gaze. Both looked tired and like they wanted to close up for an unexciting night.
"I feel like we may not be entirely welcome here anymore," Benjamin remarked with a chuckle, his speech ever so slightly slurred. He turned back to face the woman across from him. "Maybe we oughta do them the favor and get out of here." His eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Maybe we should," Olivia went along, playing the part of the innocent. She could feel herself blush slightly as their eyes locked.
"Got a room?" The ex-soldier knew the answer didn't matter. Where the night would take them had already been silently decided.
Olivia smirked.
"No, I'm afraid I have nowhere to spend the night but my ship." She feigned a sullen sigh, fishing for Benjamin's response.
"Well, that won't do," he replied and sprung up from his bench, casually dropping a credit chit on to the table. Then, with exaggerated chivalry, he bowed before Olivia and reached out his hand, offering it for her to take. "I can offer my humble quarters."
Olivia laughed and took his hand, letting him help her out of the booth. With a sarcastic wave to the bartender and waiter, Benjamin led her out of the bar and down the now quiet corridors and passageways of the station. A moment later, they stood before the door to his rooms. Without even noticing it, they had gone from holding hands to locking arms, holding themselves to each other's bodies.
Benjamin turned to face her, any semblance of humor wiped from his features. Instead, his eyes were alight with intense passion and his breathing slowed as he took in Olivia's scent. She returned his gaze, looking up into his eyes as the distance between their lips slowly diminished. Her heart beat loudly in her chest and for a moment, she was afraid its pounding might interrupt them. But their lips touching proved her wrong as they leaned against the wall, tightly embraced within each other's arms.
Blindly, Benjamin reached out with one hand and searched the bulkhead for the access panel to his room. He found it, pressed his hand against the biometric scanner, and the door slid open beside them. Without a moments hesitation and without releasing each other, they stumbled inside, letting the door silently close again behind them.
The digital viewport on the far wall of the room brightened, showing the beautiful display of Tau-31's ice field, rainbows cascading between the tumbling rocks. In sync with the display, the quarters' lights turned on, gradually brightening as not to startle the inhabitants.
Olivia sat at the edge of the bed, pulling the straps of her tanktop over her shoulders. She took a deep breath, enjoying the well-circulated air Holman had to offer. It was a vast improvement over the questionable climate control she was used to from zoner freeports and beat out even her ship's own conditioning. She glanced behind her to where Benjamin still remained blissfully asleep, a few beads of sweat still clinging to his naked body. She would let him sleep and get some well-earned rest.
Getting up from the mattress, Olivia tip-toed over to the small desk on the far side of the room over which they had haphazardly strewn her garments the night before. Quietly, she slipped into her undersuit, zipping the skintight layer up around herself.
She could use a shower, she thought, after the last day's and especially the last night's excitement. But she didn't want to risk waking the sleeper and decided she'd head back to Tau-44 - assuming her ship's repair had been completed - as soon as possible. Benjamin stirred, unconsciously reaching out over his bed to where Olivia had lain. His hand patted down the mattress, searching for her, but quickly gave up upon not finding her body. The man quietly muttered something and fell silent again.
Olivia pulled on her boots and threw her flightsuit over her shoulder before cautiously striding to the room's door. Walking the corridors of Holman in only her undersuit was not the dignified presentation she would have preferred, but she wanted to get to her ship quickly. Glancing over her shoulder a last time, she beheld Sharpe's figure, half draped in a blanket, breathing calmly. A smile crept across the mercenary's face.
It had been a while since she had allowed herself any real pleasure. Maybe, if things continued to improve for her, she could permit it more often.
Benjamin rolled over in bed as the door slid open and shut again.
Olivia sat on the couch in her Stanton apartment, looking out through a wall of glass at the city's expansive skyline as the sun slowly set behind a long row of enormous skyscrapers, casting kilometer-long shadows across the surface. The clouds hanging lazily over the distant horizon were cast in brilliant orange light and purple shade, pockmarked by hundreds, if not thousands of air speeders returning to the city from the surrounding commercial districts. Beyond the city limits, in the dimming light of New York's sun, the greenery of Manhattan's nature reserves could be made out; enormous groves swaying gently in the low wind.
She would never tire of the view. Three decades spent almost entirely in space left her feeling robbed of the incredible experience of dwelling upon a planet's surface. No doubt, the void beyond possessed its fair share of beauty, be it vast, colorful nebulae, pulsating neutron stars, or glistening expanses of ice. But none of it truly compared to the beauty of an Earth-like world, its nature, its vibrant life.
Life. Olivia sighed as she thought about it, reclining further into the sofa's soft cushions.
Life had taken some odd, unexpected turns for Olivia of late. Returning to Liberty from her mercenary expedition into the Taus she had - unsurprisingly - found the house mostly unchanged. Ridden with crime and incompetent law enforcement; brimming with pilots and captains whose intelligence quotients left them with no business flying spaceships in heavily trafficked areas; alien incursions that went nearly unchecked by Liberty's grand military forces. But, most importantly, Isla was still there, as ever.
And she had been as in love with Olivia as ever. Which, following the numerous near-death experiences she had had fighting the Outcast alongside the Miners Guild and the Crayterians, had led Olivia to... to what? Confess? Not exactly.
It had been everything short of confessing to the young police captain. Olivia had found herself unable to utter the words, unable to make up her mind on what exactly it was that she felt for the woman. A decade of guilt and emotional seclusion had rendered her both incapable of and unwilling to admit to any kind of close emotional ties to another person. Yet, somehow, Isla had made it seem almost within her grasp.
And so began a few weeks of what should have been bliss. The first more or less committed relationship Olivia had been in since her teens. And, at first, it truly was blissful. Having only recently moved into her first planetside apartment, sharing it with Isla made it truly feel like home; a home she hadn't had since originally leaving the Taus many years ago.
But things had quickly soured. Olivia quickly began to question the feelings she thought she had for her partner, doubting that it was truly love - romantic love, at any rate. Nor could she get over the fear that letting herself get so close to the other woman would somehow ultimately only result in pain; whether through loss of life or love, she didn't know.
Ironically, in the end, her fear turned out to be warranted and the cause of the pain at the same time. Olivia broke things off with Isla, trying to let her down gently but sincerely doubting that she had succeeded. They had, of course, agreed to remain friends. Isla was still the person closest to Olivia, regardless of their relationship status and the cop's feelings for the mercenary remained unchanged, if now unrequited. Nonetheless, Olivia had noticed a distancing taking place between them. She hoped that it was just temporary, a matter of Isla getting over the blow of their relationship ending as abruptly as it had begun, but she could not help but worry that the damage caused by her words and deeds might have gone deeper.
The coming days and weeks would reveal how things would turn out between them. In the meantime, Olivia would continue to do what she did best: hang around Liberty, bother the locals, and hope to make a few credits while she's at it.
With another sigh, Olivia rose from the couch and looked around the apartment. It felt empty and lifeless without any company around. It lacked decoration and most of the furniture remained unused as the sole occupant only very gradually got acclimated to life in a flat on a planet. As much as she enjoyed the experience of natural gravity and a non-processed atmosphere, her job kept her spacebound most of the time.
I'll make something of this eventually, Olivia thought to herself, more hoping than stating fact. Suddenly tired, she strode into the small bedroom, closing the door behind her. Maybe things would return to normal for her tomorrow.
Olivia sat slumped into her ship's pilot's seat, staring dejectedly out of the canopy before her. A few tears were running listless courses down her cheeks, though she couldn't feel them. Her face, her entire body, felt numb. And so did her mind.
How had things gone wrong so quickly?
Six weeks ago, Olivia had died. Only to find herself very much alive four weeks later, waking up in an unfamiliar room aboard an unfamiliar station, wearing unfamiliar skin. Her ship, her trusty Sutinga, she knew, was gone, likely floating now only as wreckage deep within Omicron Minor. The few belongings she had kept aboard the ship, too, were lost. Instead, she was given a new ship and a new chance at life. Who had saved her, treated her, and bestowed upon her these gifts, she had no idea. At the time, it didn't matter to her. The only thing she cared about was getting back to Liberty, to return to the few friends she had there, her family, and show them that she was alive and well.
And so she did. The return trip took longer than expected, involving brief detours through the Sigmas and Kusari, but a week after her coming to, she finally crossed the Libertonian border once more. Olivia had contacted Isla ahead of her arrival, learning from her dearest friend that the mercenary had been presumed dead. Beige had gone out in search for her, breaking his own promise never to revisit the Omicrons, and found her Sutinga. He had assumed the worst.
But that did not matter. Olivia was alive and eager to reunite with Isla and the few other people she held in high regard. The reunion, however, did not go as she had expected.
Reyes.
Anger flashed through Olivia's mind at the mere thought of the woman. Heat swelled up within her, vaporizing the numbness that had frozen her body. Reyes had ruined everything. Her first words to Olivia still rang in the mercenary's ears.
Stay. Back.
Olivia let out a guttural scream at the memory, pounding a clenched fist against the canopy's glass. Infected. The retired Core guildmistress had accused her of being infected. Had commanded her not to get close to Isla. But what was far worse, was that Isla - the one person that mattered more to the mercenary than anyone else in Sirius - had believed her. Her mind poisoned by Reyes' words, she had displayed the one feeling towards Olivia that she never thought she would. Distrust.
After everything they had been through, after patrolling Liberty's furthest reaches, after fighting side by side, after being together... Isla didn't trust her. The thought of it made Olivia choke up. This was not how it had been meant to be. Not at all how she had envisioned their reunion. The rest of the memory was a blur. She remembered entering New York's trade lane network and making the jump to California, trying to escape the questions and accusations that were being flung at her like she was suspected of committing some heinous crime. Unable to take it all in, unable to cope with the shock of it all, her mind had retreated inwards, letting her hands and feet take the ship wherever they desired.
Now, she glared out through the canopy, finally focusing on her surroundings. A debris field. Wrecks and scrap as far as the eye could see. Olivia glanced down at her instruments and read the navigational data. Texas. She wasn't sure how she had ended up here, nor did she care. She knew there was a junker station not far from her location - it would offer as good a place to rest and think as any other.
Olivia collapsed into a heap on the sofa with an exhausted sigh, letting her body sink into the still uncomfortably plush cushions, like a boulder sinking into a tar pit. Her muscles ached all over, her skin tingled and burned, her stomach growled, and her mind was a jumble of incoherent thoughts and emotions. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, attempting to clear her wits.
The past two days had been nothing but hellish torture.
The awful reunion with Isla and Reyes; the confusion and anger at their reactions to her sudden reappearance; the accusations and distrust. Their words and suspicions had felt like claws in her chest, rending the mercenary's heart apart. The panicked and confused flight to Beaumont Base had done nothing to calm Olivia's nerves, and she had spent the night aboard the ramshackle station seething in her ship's cockpit, replaying the encounter in her head over and over again, trying to understand what had gone wrong. Ultimately, she tired herself out on thoughts of wringing Reyes' neck and finally fell into a restless slumber.
This morning, she had felt the urge to talk to someone, anyone who would listen to her and not judge her for what she had been through. Prower kept her word and joined her at the smuggler's den on short notice, willing to talk her through her confusion and anger. It had gone well - the off-duty navy officer encouraging the mercenary with words of understanding and trust - until, of all people, Silverstone and the Cobra stumbled upon them. It had taken all of what remained of Olivia's fortitude to restrain herself from letting her fighter's weapons loose on the unwelcome duo. Finally, however, it was Cobra who seemed to empathize with her and dragged his rotten freelancer companion away.
In the end, Olivia was able to calm herself enough to realize that there was only one way to regain her closest friend's trust. Reyes and Isla had insisted that she should go through a medical examination, to ensure properly that she was indeed who she claimed to be and not a host for a Nomad incubus. The very thought of it had at first revolted her - to return to a medical facility after weeks of lying in a coma. But, if there was no other way to prove to Isla that she would pose no threat to her, she would undergo the procedure.
A call to an acquaintance on Denver ensured her a prompt appointment at a renowned private clinic on the planet - no questions asked. Not that she would have been willing to answer any, regardless. Isla joined her, making up for her earlier lack of confidence in her friend with a show of support. The following hours had exhausted Olivia's remaining mental and physical stamina as she underwent test after test, scan after scan.
But it had paid off. The doctor revealed that the irregularities that had appeared during the exams were easily explained and of no danger. Internal scarring from years of fighting and the recent skin transplant. Foreign genetic material in her bloodstream from the augmented, cloned tissue. Migraines and sporadic sensitivity to light caused by stress. He explained in clear terms that all Olivia needed was rest and recovery. It was a treatment she would gladly subscribe to.
Isla's worries - and Olivia's own, growing anxieties - had dissipated in an instant upon hearing the good news. She was who she said she was. That much was clear.
Now, finally, here she lay, practically drowning in the overly soft pillows of a couch she hadn't touched in months. Slowly, Olivia opened her eyes, taking in the only half-familiar surroundings of her Manhattan flat. Even in the dim light of the nighttime city that washed in through the enormous windows, she could see the layer of dust that covered what little furniture inhabited the space. She would have to clean it up soon. But not now. Now, she would just lie here and rest, hoping for sleep to take her.
Taking another deep breath, Olivia rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. A sharp pressure was forming in her head, an all too familiar sensation of the past two weeks. The oncoming migraine would delay her descent into the realm of dreams for a few hours, she guessed. Dark spots formed first in the corners of her vision, then more and more towards the center. Olivia frowned. They didn't seem to be their usual black.
Olivia massaged her temples, trying to rub away the dull, throbbing pain of an incoming migraine.
Life was strange of late. Admittedly, the past years had never been simple, but it had never been this complicated, either. Nearly dying in the Omicrons. Waking up in a new suit of skin. Being accused of Nomad infection. People worrying about her, people asking her questions. Acting oddly, caring too much. And now, the latest addition to her collection of upsetting experiences - a dead man leaving her a gift.
Everett Lewitt, some no-name pirate she had met only twice, had somehow become infatuated enough with her to not only crave her death but, when nearly succeeding in fulfilling that desire, also take his own life. And Olivia would have never known about it, had he not left behind a farewell note addressed directly to her. But it wasn't just a note. It was a last will - one that a Rogue boss from Alcatraz had insisted on executing. And so, she had met with the man, away from the policed shipping lanes, on the fringes of a Californian asteroid field, where she had received Lewitt's parting gift.
Neither she nor the Rogue had had any idea what it was. When her ship received it, the Lich's scanners had gone completely haywire, energy readings spiking as though the small object had been an unshielded fusion reactor. Instinctively, she had considered jettisoning it again, leaving it behind in the void of space, floating amidst the icy rocks. But something about it had intrigued her, triggered her curiosity.
And now, here she was, sitting in her Manhattan flat's living room, staring at Lewitt's gift as it sat still upon the small coffee table. Olivia had never seen anything like it. An orb, roughly the size of a basketball. It looked crystalline, like an enormous gemstone, yet - unlike any rock she had ever seen - it emitted light. A faint, blueish-white light that cast long shadows across the otherwise unlit room. The mercenary could not help but stare at it.
Was it dangerous? Perhaps. The readings had certainly not given her a comfortable impression of the object, and yet it had done her no harm since she had picked it up. For all she knew, the scanners could have been merely malfunctioning. The orb could be little more than a fancy piece of art, some luxury decoration. But yet, a voice in the back of her mind nagged at her, telling her to get rid of it. That it meant trouble.
A second voice, however, louder than the first, told her to hang on to it. To keep it, to study it. To discover what it was.
The mercenary took a deep breath, feeling the throbbing pain in her skull sharpening to a pinpoint of agony as the migraine advanced.
She would keep the gift - for now. At least until she found out what it was.