This chapter may be a bit confusing, all I have to say for myself is that I only wrote the first half of it, and that after I initially received it in part from my friend. Still, for what it's worth I hope it meshes well enough.
Anya jolted awake with a yelp, then rolled over and checked her clock. Only 0300. Only fifteen minutes since the last time she'd woken this way. She slowly sat up and ran her hands through her hair, trying to regain control of the hurt, the betrayal, and the guilt she was feeling. It didn't happen. She couldn't concentrate, she couldn't eat, and apparently she couldn't sleep. She struggled out of the tangled mess that was her bedding, stood, and walked over to climb into her warframe. She grabbed her bedding up from the floor and tossed it dejectedly on the bed, then she grabbed her helmet and put it on. She didn't want anyone to see how fragile she was feeling right then.
She left her quarters, locking the door behind her as she went, then she went looking for Reya's quarters. It took her over an hour to find them, she found the engine room first and had to backtrack, and she thought the ship was much bigger than necessary by the time she got to the captain's cabin and pressed the buzzer. Reya opened her door almost before Anya even took her finger off the button and the nova allowed herself a slight smirk at the fact that Reya apparently couldn't sleep either. The ember wasn't wearing her helm, and Anya could clearly see the stress written across the older woman's face.
"Ah, Anya, come in. I was just about to send for you, but I see your timing is as impeccable as ever," Reya stated, "I have something important I need to discuss with you."
"I need to talk to you too," Anya said, crossing her arms over her chest as she added, "Alone."
Reya thought about it for a moment, then nodded, "Alright."
"Why?" Anya asked the second the door closed.
"'Why' what?" Reya asked in return.
"Why did you torture Stock when you found him in my cryopod?" Anya elaborated, "What did he ever do to you?"
"Anya, I have a responsibility to our clan and this crew, to keep them safe," Reya replied, "I had to be sure he would tell the truth."
"And the pendant didn't prove he'd tell you the truth?" Anya demanded, her voice trembling.
"A pendant is just that, it's a piece of jewelry. It could just as easily have been a souvenir from taking your life, or something he picked up on a battlefield without truly knowing what it was," Reya said quietly, "I couldn't take a chance."
"But I left you a message! I asked you to protect him, I asked you not to let anything happen to him, and you go and do the exact opposite!" Anya cried, "I trusted you, and you let Ira… you let him…"
"We were expecting you to be in that pod," Reya said, "Then when you weren't we didn't feel we had the time to horse around asking possibly useless questions when there was every chance that you were in danger. Forcing the issue was the quickest way to determine what actually happened to you."
"But why Ira?" Anya pressed, "Why couldn't you ask Boreas or someone who knew what they were fucking doing?!"
"If you must know—"
"I must!" Anya spat.
"Ira has a lot of experience here, he's always been the best when it came to getting the most information in the least amount of time," Reya continued, "That, and only that, is why I chose Ira."
"Oh and I suppose you conveniently forgot what Ira always did every time we took prisoners when we started fighting the Orokin Empire," Anya hissed, "Or maybe I should have climbed into the pod with Stock and just hoped it would support us both!"
"No, and I would never suggest that because you and I both know what would have happened then," Reya told her, "But we had no time and no options. We didn't know if you even made it into cryo. Regardless, when this is over, if it's ever over, we'll be placing him with one of the remaining human colonies. It's the best thing for everyone."
"Don't," Anya begged, "I can't leave him…"
"We can't babysit him all the time. I've made my decision," Reya said firmly, "I'm sorry if you don't understand, but the tenno are just a tiny bit more important to me than some Orokin marine."
"He's not just some marine! He's…" Anya couldn't even articulate what she meant by now, everything on the inside hurt and she felt like her old captain was deliberately not understanding why she was so upset right now.
"He's what, Anya?" Reya prodded.
"He's everything…" Anya sniffled, "He's my whole life, if I lost him I don't know if I could move on… I love him, and I trusted you, and you let Ira hurt him without a thought, it never even crossed your mind that he might not have known he was being put into stasis in the first place… Reya, how could you?"
"I'm sorry, Anya, but it was all I could do to keep Ira from killing him outright, even after showing him your message telling us that your marine was the only way we would find you," Reya said, "And if we leave him with a colony, the problem is solved."
"If you leave him, then you will leave me too," Anya told her, straightening her stance and clenching her hands in fists at her sides, "I will not leave Connor."
The buzzer went off and Reya gave Anya a measuring look. "We'll talk about this later," she finally decided, "For now we have more important things to worry about and not a lot of time to deal with them."
Stock had a hard time falling asleep, he tossed and turned wondering what was in store for him before finally drifting off into a nightmare filled sleep. He had the reoccurring nightmare that had plagued him since waking from cryo, along with several new ones involving dead grineer, ghosts of lost family and friends and battlefields long since gone. He awoke to a knock on his door, and after dressing he answered it to find Tess there with four other tenno.
"Reya wants to speak to you," Tess said abruptly.
"About what?" Stock asked, but Tess didn't say a word. She simply turned on her heels and started walking down the hallway while the tenno with her surrounded and prodded him forward after her, taking up positions all around him. His mind started racing, he wondered if this was the part where they would airlock him. He started looking down hallways memorizing where he was at incase he needed to escape. He wasn't sure how far he would make it, he imagined only a few steps before he was obliterated into a million pieces by one of these tenno.
Eventually they reached a door and Tess pressed a button to the left of it. He heard a voice telling them to enter. Upon entering Stock saw they were in an office of sorts, against the wall opposite the door there was an ornate wooden desk, cluttered with paper reports and ship read outs. Behind the desk was a shelf that had all sorts of knickknacks such as a shredded grineer flag, several Orokin sculptures, old weapons and other odd items. Reya was leaning on the front of the desk when he entered the room, she had apparently been talking with Anya who was seated on a couch on the wall to his right. The nova's helm was on, the faceplate engaged, but just as he looked at her he saw the vents on the back of her helm and shoulder blades snap closed.
"Here he is Reya. Anything else?" Tess questioned.
"Thank you Tess, please stay. The rest of you are dismissed, I need to speak to these three alone." The four tenno filed out without a word. One the door closed the room was bathed in silence. Stock glanced at Anya who gave him a small nod and a flick of her vent covers, and then to Reya and Tess.
"So, I assume you are not going to off me just yet, or else I would have been dead already right?" Stock asked.
"I don't know where you got the notion that I intended to kill you after we found Anya, but yes, you are correct," Reya replied, "I actually brought you here because I have need of you once more, all three of you in fact. It's what we discussed before, Sergeant Woodstock."
"The leak?" Stock asked cautiously.
"The leak" Reya confirmed, before adding further, "To catch you two up, Anya and Tess, Sergeant Woodstock and I have suspected there is someone aboard this ship leaking information to the grineer. I managed to confirm it and narrow the list down to three possible suspects."
"How?" Anya asked, and Stock noticed a slight edge in her voice.
"Stock first brought to my attention the leak after we picked up the first clue from Earth," Reya explained, "No grineer were around, and yet they managed to pinpoint us even after a stealth insertion, the same for the second clue. Smart hiding them by the way Anya. As for the third clue, only the crew on the bridge and the crew I took down with me to Mars knew where we were going, then from there I narrowed it down even more once we left Mars."
"By not telling the bridge where we were going into the void," Stock said, coming to the realization. "That means…" he trailed off but Reya finished it, "That means our rat was with us in the void. That means that our rat is either Boreas, Talos, or Ira. One of those three were in contact with the grineer."
Everyone in the room went dead silent as they all mulled over that realization. Stock had his own suspicions on who the rat was but he didn't want to jump to conclusions, so he kept his mouth shut.
Reya spoke up again, "Right now we are on our way back to the Dojo to get Anya up to speed on events since we last saw her, and to figure out what to do with you, Stock. I am not going to kill you but you are an enigma. I'm not sure what to do with you to be honest so I am going to consult with our other clan leader. He is going to want to interview you, and we will go from there. But until then, you three are the only three I can trust. Stock, as much as I hate to say it I'm trusting you because you have been under constant surveillance since we first recovered you."
Stock noticed Anya's fist clench then release, several times. She clearly did not like it anymore then he did but he decided not to say anything.
"Anya, I am trusting you because you couldn't possibly have reported to the grineer while in cryosleep in the void, Tess, you because I eliminated the possibility of you being the rat in that little test I ran," Reya continued, "I want each of you to watch one of the three, Stock you're on Boreas, Anya I want you to start training with Talos to keep an eye on him, and Tess I am putting you under Ira's training in the guise of him giving you stealth lessons. Any questions? No? Good, dismissed."
"You're wrong, you know," Anya said quietly when the others had all gone, "You're looking in the wrong places, looking at Boreas and Talos. I won't say it wouldn't be brilliant if you were trying to keep Ira from being spooked or trying to get him spooked, either one would suffice, but I can promise you he's the only one you have any reason to worry about."
"You're awfully sure of yourself," Reya said, "The fact remains that Boreas didn't need any persuasion whatsoever to get him to vouch for your Orokin marine. He didn't even think twice about it when I informed them of the consequences of that action."
"Tess didn't either, or so I was told," Anya pointed out, "Why is Boreas so special?"
"Because Tess doesn't know what the empire did to us," Reya replied, "All she knows is that your marine risked his fool neck to drag Jack out of a firefight. It was easy enough for her to accept him after that, being as young and naïve as she is."
"Young, yes, but I don't think she's naïve," Anya said, "You're condemning them both, without even knowing who Stock really is. I'll bet you didn't know he's the only reason I'm still around."
"Frankly with him being an Orokin marine I wouldn't put it past him to have brain washed you," Reya said flatly, "Can you give me one good reason why I should think otherwise?"
"What would be the point?" Anya asked, "You still think he was just as cruel and vicious as the executioners and commanders who made us dread even going to sleep, after everything he's been through. You weren't there, but I wish you had been. If you'd been there you would understand. They put him through hell just as much as us, more because he's human and his body wouldn't have been able to take even half of the abuse we went through. They still hurt him more than anyone should ever have to bear, and part of it was because of me, because to him I was never a monster…"
"You'd really leave us for him?" Reya asked, "You'd give up everything for this one marine?"
"I would," Anya replied, "I love him, Reya. He has no idea, but gods I love him."
"And if he doesn't feel the same about you, Anya, what then?" Reya asked, "What will you do if it turns out he doesn't see you as anything more than a friend, or less?"
"Then I just won't ever tell him," Anya said as she walked to the door, "I'll be fine, so long as he is happy." With that Anya walked out, the door sliding shut behind her.