Chapter Text

Ada Gray woke in a cold sweat. Her vision was blurred and unsteady; dull metallic colors danced in front of her eyes as a dozen images flashed through her head. The red-hot metal of her own Blackjack's heat sinks failing, Mastiff's stern face on the viewscreen, ordering her to eject, Victoria Espinosa's mech, pounding Mastiff's Centurion with the fury of a thousand suns, and then that final, enclosing darkness as she began to black out, illuminated only by the explosion of missile after missile impacting the dropship she had fought so hard to protect...

"Lady Arano!" Ada gasped, shooting up from the makeshift bed she had been laid on.

"Woah there, easy." A calming, but unfamiliar voice pierced through her consciousness as a hand gripped her shoulder and restrained her from freaking out further.

Her eyes focused and unfocused a few times until she could put a face to the voice - a handsome man perhaps in his late 20s, casually dressed, with a concerned look in his deep brown eyes as he held her shoulder. Ada blinked a few times. "Who are you?"

"I'm Darius Oliviera. We found you in the shadow of that wrecked Dropship. You're lucky to be alive - some of the wreckage missed you by just a few yards."

"The... the Dropship...?" Ada's heart stopped. "But... Lady Arano... she was... she was..."

"On it. She's dead. I'm sorry. The Directorate has been playing the recording of it going down on every broadcast channel."

Dead. Lady Arano was dead. Everything else Darius said flowed past her like a stream around a stone. What did any of it matter? Lady Arano was dead. Her one hope, her one future, her one queen. The only woman who could have brought her redemption. The only woman worth being redeemed for. The only woman worth following in a galaxy of frauds and petty tyrants. How many cruelties had Ada seen perpetuated by those who claimed the right to rule? How many dictators and murderers had clawed their way to power without a single thought as to those they crushed under their heel? But Lady Arano was different. Mastiff convinced Ada of that. She was a light in the darkness, and just as quick as Ada found her, she had to watch her be snuffed out.

All of those dreams she had on the frontier after her exile... gone. Dreams of honor in service, dreams of a greater purpose in life than simple survival, dreams of having a place in the galaxy instead of simply taking up a place. Dashed away with the Directorate's malice. Her face tingled, felt numb, as though she had cried for hours and hours, though not a single tear had crossed her face since she woke.

Darius tried to express his sympathies best he could, but the mercenary trade was etched into his soul. Everything always came back to business. "Your bloodchit says you've got family in the Magistracy. We can drop you off in their borders, though you'll have to chip in your share for lodging, repairs, that sort of thing. Or if you prefer, after that fiasco, we're short on manpower, and your Blackjack is still in working order. You could carve out a place for yourself in the company. You seem like you know your way around a mech."

Ada shook her head. "I can't go to the Magistracy. My parents never even set foot there, and I... I don't really have anyone to go back to." No parents, no nation, no family. Nothing left.

Nothing.

"So you'll stay for the ride?"

Ada nodded weakly.

Darius let her alone to grieve. In the tight confines of the Leopard's Command Center, she caught a glimpse of the navigator's face, looking at Ada out of the corner of her eye, scarred and sad and sympathetic in a way she never would have dared betray in words.

It was all that lent Ada Gray the simple strength to slip into sweet, insensate slumber.