Challenge Accepted: William Bertram Ayres
22 Apr 2016Magnudius
William Bertram Ayres, a station in Hecate, became a piece of paradise for Nudo as she ground away her morals for access to Terra Mater. None of her 93 rare goods were tagged “illicit” in the space around this station, leaving Nudo no stress about ship scans while docking. Because the Brotherhood of Terra Mater no longer owned RJH1972, the other station in Hecate, Nudo couldn't sell her exploration data for reputation gain. Unfortunately for her, the Brotherhood required all newbies to go through some piracy and mercenary missions before gaining access to the smuggling opportunities. Nudo considered adding Terra Mater to her list of systems requiring other commanders' help, but she just couldn't bring herself to be more dependent than necessary. For better or worse, Nudo proudly embraced her stubborn independence.Nudo looked over at her Systems Panel and tabbed over to her Permits Page. She couldn't complain about the 4 permits she'd collected so far. Nudo's shoulders squared and chest puffed when she looked at her CQC Home World Permit. Battling through the bloodbath of beginner CQC fighting to become a Prestigious Player (albeit a fledgling one) filled Nudo with enormous self respect every time she thought about it because the skill didn't come naturally to her. The Jotun Permit breezed by compared to this Terra Mater one, and she remembered complaining about the process then! Oh her silly past self. As for Beta Hydri and Achenar, frankly Nudo had no idea how those showed up on her list, but her hunch told her that access came from community goals. One of these days Nudo planned to take the time to find answers for some of her simple questions, but the easiest tasks seemed to have the longest procrastination times.
Speaking of procrastination, Nudo couldn't put off her task at hand any longer: her first assassination mission. Ever. She had accepted the mission but hadn't look at any of the details except the time frame yet. A notification popped up indicating her Orca modifications were complete. With that, her lag time ended and mission began. A sudden desire for Evil Juice flooded Nudo as she opened her mission details. Everything else after that went black. It was like Nudo's mind switched off and instinct took over. Nudo didn't regain composure until this moment:
The beauty of her destruction caused tears to well in her eyes and her gut sink in despair. No occupied escape pod bleeped across her sensors; not even personal effects lingered to indicate the presence of life. All Nudo could do was stare at the changing shapes the wreckage took on as it spread in front of the sun. Mission success came with a 9 thousand credit bounty on her head, and the Brotherhood finally bothered to look her in the eye this time when they presented her with two options for her next mission: assassination or stealing. With a sigh, Nudo accepted thieving into her life.
By the time Nudo became "friendly" with the Brotherhood of Terra Mater, she had bounties worth 64 thousand credits spread across 3 systems. It was during the stretches of downtime between missions that Nudo discovered the sanctuary William Bertram Ayres offered. While docking, Nudo was tagged neither "wanted" nor "illicit" (a rarity as much as her 93 Rares), so she could leisurely cruise into the station, ship scans be damned. The only major flaw that Nudo found was a weak commodities market, so she won't be seeing much of this place once she's gone. Nudo used this opportunity to embrace a long tenure at a starport and got chatty with the locals. During one of these chats, Nudo weaseled her way into a message-man role of delivering Kill Lists to nearby planetary cities. It was during one of these missions (which ended up being her last) that produced a beautiful galactic moment, a sunset at Baxter Paradise:
Upon her return to Hecate, Nudi found a Terra Mater invitation awaiting her. Nudo stifled a shout of excitement while she read her permission to Gr8minds. She hoped it was worth it with a name like that. With a quick thanks to the station that soothed her soul during these dark missions, Nudo took off without a look back.