Songs: The Kills - Sour Cherry; Royal Blood - Out Of The Black
It wasn't until a few days later that Lilith showed up in HQ with a scary looking woman in tow. The woman had white hair and was wearing sunglasses and a floor length coat. She looked like she wasn't someone to mess with.
"Who are we lookin' at, Lil?" Mordecai asked, obviously not realizing the aura of authority that had just entered the room.
"These three are the ones who are supposed to get Athena off my back? Seriously?" the woman asked with a raspy voice. Mordecai, Brick and I looked at each other. Who the hell was this?
"Guys, this is Vallory. You remember, I told you about her?" Lilith said. I squinted at the woman. This was Vallory? I don't know why, but I had just imagined her very differently. No idea how I had imagined her, but not like that.
"The lady who's after this Gortys project, is it?" Brick replied.
"Exactly. That's the one." Lilith answered with a sigh.
"Okay, Lil, what do you want us to do? Help her find the project and another Vault? Did you actually find any connection to Athena yet? What's going on?" I wanted to know. Lilith had presented me with so many different theories over the last few days that I didn't really know what the point of this was supposed to be.
"I want the Gortys project for myself and I had it. Until Athena arrived. I need her off my back, so I can open the Vault and get my money's worth out of it." Vallory said, shooting a disapproving look at Mordecai's feet on the table.
"What do we get from it?" Mordecai asked her.
"You get Athena."
"I think what they mean is what they'll get besides Athena." Lilith said. Vallory nodded and smiled a little.
"Ah yes. Of course. There'll be a nice sum in it for you, too." she told us.
"Alright then. So why is Athena after you? Just because of the Vault? I doubt that, I thought she had retired from all that a while ago." Brick said.
"I don't think she's in it for the Vault. She couldn't care less about Atlas or one of their projects. I think someone may have hired her to protect the other people that are after the Vault." Vallory replied and sat down at the table with us, glaring at Mordecai again. He didn't seem to notice. Or he didn't care.
"So who are the other people after the Vault?" I asked, while trying to subtly gesture to Mordecai to take his feet off the table.
"Two Hyperion guys and two girls from Pandora. One of them is wanted for major fraud. The Hyperion guys seem to be small fish and shouldn't be a problem, but the two girls? They're smart. They have a loader bot with them as well, but you should have no problem at all to get rid of one of those, should it come to that." Vallory explained. Huh. That didn't sound like a huge problem at all.
"So Athena's the only one that's giving you actual trouble?" Mordecai asked.
"Exactly. They're all travelling together, so it's difficult to get to the four of them without Athena interfering. That's where you come in. They're currently on their way to an Atlas research facility. It's a huge area and chances are that we might be able to get them to split up there. We get the Gortys Project, you get Athena and your cash and we're even. It's simple, really." Vallory said.
"When are we going?' I wanted to know.
"In an hour. Pack enough ammunition, we have no time to get any of that on the way. If you're out of ammo, you're on your own. You better pack up your things now, before we leave." she told us and got up from her chair.
"See you at the Fast Travel Station in an hour." she added, turned around and walked away. Lilith waited until she was gone until she let out a relieved sigh. She sat down on the chair that Vallory had just gotten up from.
"She is pretty scary to deal with." Lilith said.
"Agreed. She's got an aura." I replied.
"Yeah, something about her just makes you feel really uneasy." Mordecai agreed and shook a little.
"She's one scary lady." Brick mumbled.
"Looks like you'd better pack and get ready, she doesn't mess around." Lilith said, leaning on the table, her head in her hands. She looked really exhausted, as if she hadn't slept in years. Which I knew for sure wasn't true, because from what I knew she'd been sleeping a lot lately.
"You alright, Lil? You look really exhausted." I replied.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just... I don't know. Having to see Athena again and everything has given me a good few sleepless nights. You know there was some stuff that happened back then and it's just been keeping me awake at night. I'll try and get some sleep while you're all gone." Lilith told me.
"Are you sure you'll be okay? If you want someone to stay with you..."
"No, Nova, it's alright. I can manage. Don't worry about me. I'm sure it'll all be better once we get this over and done with."
"Okay, but echo me if you need someone, okay? I'm probably not gonna be a great help there anyway." I said.
"Oh, bullshit! You've won prizes at a sharpshooting competition and survived this planet for 15 years and you survived Jack. You fought a Vault monster, for fuck's sake. Face it, Nova, you're better at this than you might think." Lilith replied.
"Maybe you're right. Still, there is so much going on, it's hard to believe I'm actually being a part of it now. Anyways, I better go and pack up. Not that there is much to pack, anyway." I said with a grin.
"You still didn't look for anything to put in your apartment, did you?" Lilith asked, a small grin forming on her face. I shook my head.
"When would I have done that? I've been away for the last two months and then Mordecai and I just never found the time. And I mean, now we're going away again. I've been thinking of getting a plant or two, but who's gonna take care of them if Mordecai and I are away for a few days and all?" I replied, laughing. It was just such a mundane thing to complain about in a place like this.
"What kinda plant were you thinking of? I doubt you'll find too much on Pandora." Lilith said, shaking her head laughing.
"I don't know. Don't you think I could find some weird desert plants around the place? Dig them up, put them in a pot and bring them home? Might be worth a try at some stage." I replied and shrugged.
"Isn't it terrible we don't even have the time to get a plant on this planet?" Lilith asked dramatically.
"I know, right? A real shame. Anyway, I really need to go and pack up. At least a fresh change of clothes and the ammo I need. I'll talk to you soon, alright? And echo me if you need anything!" I told her.
"Yeah, yeah, will do. Have fun!" she replied, rolling her eyes. I knew Lilith didn't like it when people worried about her, but we all just cared about her. And it was easy to start worrying about her.
"Take care, Lil." I said as I walked out of the room to pack up some of my stuff that I had left by the side of my bunk bed. I had half my stuff at the apartment and the other half at HQ, because I was constantly there either on duty (whatever that meant, nowadays) or being sick.
"Is Lil alright?" Mordecai asked quietly when I entered the next room to pack up my things. I had some clothes and healing hypos here and a few of my guns, but not much else. I'd need to get one of my nicer rifles from the apartment before we'd leave. And maybe a few nice snacks, as well.
"She says she is, but I don't know. She said she's not sleeping well lately. Worried about Athena and all the stuff that went down on Elpis when she was there with Roland. She seems really tired. I'm not sure she's doing well, but if she's not saying anything, there's little we can do." I told him.
"It feels wrong to leave her alone in a state like this." Mordecai answered with a sigh. I nodded.
"I know, I know. I offered that I could stay back with her, but she said she'll be fine. I told her to echo me if she needs anything. That's all we can realistically do for her right now." I said. I felt bad about leaving her behind in that state as well, but what could we do? We couldn't force her to anything.
"Yeah, I guess so. You got everything you need?" Mordecai asked.
"No, I'll have to go back to the apartment for some things. Do we have a plan or something? We both sniping? Or only you?"
"No plan so far. I'll definitely be sniping, but I don't know if we'll both need to yet. Get a good variety of guns, just in case. We might need you for close range. Hell, I don't even know what the area's gonna be like."
"Yeah, I know. You met Athena before?"
"Yeah, but she was on our side then. And I wouldn't wanna be fighting her, but I guess that's what we're doing now. She is pretty dangerous. She's a skilled assassin, trained by Atlas since birth. She's not gonna be an easy target by any stretch of the imagination." Mordecai said.
"Fuck. That sounds bad."
"It is bad."
"Well, seems like we have no other choice right now. We gotta bring Athena to Lilith and hope for the best, I suppose."
"Yeah. See, I can't get two things out of my head. First, you guys worked with Athena a few years ago, didn't you? And she seemed alright. And secondly, Nina also said that Athena was a nice girl. I'm just worried that Lilith will snap at some point and not just question her, you know?"
"I know what you mean. Lilith seems a little volatile lately. But we'll have to get her. We owe it to Pandora to get the whole story and I just hope that there is a reasonable explanation for her involvement in all this and that Lilith will see that it's reasonable when the time comes. That's really all we can hope for." Mordecai said. I nodded. He was right. Of course he was right. We had to stick to Lilith right now, no matter what. She hadn't done anything wrong and just because she seemed stressed and overworked didn't mean we could publicly doubt her.
That would destroy everything we had worked for the past years. We had to stick together as the Raiders, as long as it was somehow feasible. I was just hoping that Lilith wasn't taking on too much here. It seemed like all this might be more than she could handle at the moment, but she didn't even want to take a break. There was really nothing we could do right now, except following her orders.
"You're right. Anyways, let's get the rest of our stuff from the apartment. We don't have much more time to spare. I suppose we can see what we're going to do about Lil once we're out of Sanctuary."
