OMEGA. I had never heard the name before - Was it an individual? An organization? Or something else? I knew it had something to do with the Institute - but directly, or indirectly? I had no other information to go on.
We had to dispose of the bounty hunter's body. StatSec could be easily bribed to look the other way regarding this entire incident. I wanted to pack him in a crate and ship him to the Institute by Courier, but I didn't have a destination. Breaker reminded me that we didn't want to tip our hand. We ended up wrapping him in a tarp, stuffing him in a crate, and dumping it in a salvage processor. The carbon would be recycled to make something more useful. Breaker summoned a maintenance bot to clean up. They don't ask questions like 'why is the floor covered in blood' or 'who does all this brass belong to'.
Aside from the blood on my hands (again), I had managed to stay clean. I washed up in a nearby fresher while Blake left to talk to the people who could smooth over this whole incident.
* * *
After I cleaned up, I headed back to our apartment. Sure, we could live on the Acheron full-time, but as I'd learned so dearly, there's nothing quite like coming home. Now that we were on better financial footing , Blake had moved out of his small studio apartment and we invested in a suite. It was nothing fancy - we needed to stay inconspicuous after all - but it was reasonably comfortable and fairly roomy. We even had more room than we needed.
When I reached the door to the suite, my intuition warned me that something was wrong. Had the bounty hunter found our place earlier and tracked us from here? Did he have a partner waiting inside for us? I wrapped myself in the shadows around me, and crept quietly inside.
[Gather Information: +Wits, 5+2 vs 4/8, Weak Hit]I couldn't see much in the faint glow of the night lights. I heard a faint sniffling sound. Someone is in here. There was an unfamiliar shape seated in the dim lighting of the main room. I stepped into the room quickly, tapped the wall pad for the lights... and froze. I couldn't move. I couldn't even speak. I was not alone here.
I heard a familiar voice. A voice I never thought I'd hear again, someone I never expected to follow me to Redhaven, let alone to be sitting inside my quarters. "Hello, Ashton."
This wasn't the Jane Doe that her crew had known. There was no disguise, no accent, no pretense. I hadn't realized before how truly beautiful she was. This was the honest, vulnerable woman I had talked with in the hydroponics lab. It was the one that leaned on me and wept when I was leaving, the one I'd last seen with a tear in her eye and a hand against a window. The tears were still there.
Once more, she threw her arms around me and buried her face in my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ashton," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry... I know you didn't want me to come here, but I didn't know where else to go. I thought you hated me, but I didn't have anyone else who I could trust. I just needed to -"
"It's okay," I said, as I held her while she cried. "It will be okay. We will be okay. I'm so sorry for the way I treated you. I was scared and angry and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You were just trying to protect your people-" As I said that, she looked away from me. Once more, sobs racked her body.
The outer door slid open. "Ash, you OK in here?" Blake called out. Whiz looked up and wiped her eyes as he stepped into the room. When he saw us, he stopped suddenly. Like me, he didn't move. His jaw worked wordlessly. "You must be Blake Bridger," she said to him. He came to his senses. "And you must be... Whiz?"
"Wait," I interrupted. "The two of you have never actually met?" They both shook their heads. "We-" they both began. Blake gestured to her to continue. "We only communicated through mutual contacts," she explained. "Old habits die hard, I guess." I wasn't sure what she had meant by that.
Blake looked at both of us, reading the room. "It's nice to finally meet you in person, Whiz. Listen, I need to get washed up and catch some shuteye. It was a rough night at the docks and I'm exhausted. We can get caught up later." She nodded, and he half-bowed as he turned and went to his quarters.
I sat down on the couch, and she sat beside me. "Tell me what's wrong, Whi-" "Juliana," she interrupted, "You can call me Juliana, Ashton. 'Whiz' is gone. She died just like Azriel did. My real name, my given name, is Juliana Ruiz." Ruiz. Ruiz... Suddenly, I understood where the name "Whiz" had come from. Just as Blake's handle was so much like his given name. "Tell me what's wrong, Juliana," I asked once more.
I could see how painful it was for her to recount the story. The day I left, they began the hasty preparations to evacuate Nyx. They loaded their supplies and vital equipment as quickly as they could. She didn't know where to lead them, but she knew they had to get away from Nyx before the Institute returned to Nimbus.
Eight days ago... the Institute returned to Nimbus. This time, they didn't come in a scientific exploration vessel. They came in a gunboat. They demanded that Juliana surrender her people and all refugees, and to turn over her stockpile of Trip and all of her computers.
She and her lieutenant Cassidy, along with two of the other Dissidents and the remaining refugees, boarded the Phantom, her fast scout ship, while wiry old Shen and the remainder of the crew left aboard the Fall of Icarus. They scuttled the base and fled the small moon. The crews of her two patrol boats engaged the gunboat to buy the others time to evacuate, but it was a losing battle. The Icarus was badly damaged and crashed into Nimbus while Juliana and all aboard the Phantom slipped away to safety. Their cargo hold was packed full of her specialized equipment and all of the supplies they could carry.
Four people were all that remained of the Coalition of Dissident Souls. They lost 18 people, but saved eight refugees. They had followed the passage that I had charted, and made it safely to Redhaven. For a week, twelve people hot-bunked in quarters designed for four. Their life support systems were overworked, and she told me that without the extra consumables I had left for them, they might not have survived the journey. The refugees were being granted asylum on Redhaven, and given communal quarters and work suitable to their skills.
I told her about my journey from Nyx back to Redhaven, and how she had saved me when I was boarded by the Keepers. I told her about the bounty hunter who had come for us earlier, and how she had saved us because he was searching for someone I no longer was. Then I told her about the raid on Arrakoth. I did not spare the details of the horrible things I had to do. I expected her to react with revulsion, but instead she touched my face and reminded me that because of the things I had done, not one more innocent person would be the subject of their heinous experiments. She reminded me that eight of those innocents were aboard the station right now. I had killed at least ten people that night, plus however many more were immolated in that cave, but my warning and my aid had saved the dozen who fled here on the Phantom - one of whom was her.
But what she told me next was chilling. She had not destroyed the crate of Trip that I had delivered to them. She had brought it with her to Redhaven. The very thought filled me with dread. Breaker and I had risked so much to put an end to the operation, only to find an entire case of the drug back on our proverbial doorstep. But I had learned some hard lessons in the weeks that we had been separated. I was more capable of controlling my anger. I did not lash out at her, I never wanted to lash out at her, ever again. And now that their pipeline was destroyed, the Institute would be desperate for a source. They had trapped her people, and nearly trapped her... and now, perhaps, we could set a trap for them.
Azriel Kain was dead. Hellion was no more. The Coalition of Dissident Souls was dead. Whiz was no more. All that remained was Blake Bridger, the Breaker; Ashton Frost, the Wraith... and now Juliana Ruiz, the Cypher. It would be enough. Together we would make the Institute pay for all they had taken from us. Juliana and I just sat side by side on the couch for the rest of the night, not saying a word, until we both drifted off to sleep.
[Develop your Relationship (Cypher): Mark progress +2 boxes (now 6)]
[Ending Stats: Momentum +10 Health +5 Spirit +5 Supply +5 Fire 3 Fugitive 1]