Chapter Eighty-Three - Standing

There were very few people who could stand up to her.

Nominally, the leaders of Mars could tell her no. At least on paper. They knew better than to try, however, because no amount of written rules would stop her mild annoyance from turning their bodies into clouds of disparate atoms.

Then there were the two Emperors.

When people charted out powers--as humans were wont to do--the very top of the 'people you shouldn't fuck with' pyramid was a small capstone that held three figures. The Empress of Mars, the Emperor of Jupiter, and the Emperor of Earth.

All three titles were mostly nonsensical.

She was the only one whose appointment as Empress was actually legally recognized, but Mars, being a single-nation world, didn't have enough kingdoms to actually make her an empress.

The Emperor of Jupiter didn't really care about the Jovian system at all, except that he lived there and he had some familial relations in the system.

The Emperor of Earth, in Ivil's estimation, was a weak-willed, spineless little pissant who was only called that because the Earth Alliance's PR division was terrified that their citizens would realise how far behind the power curve they were.

The Emperor of Earth was an upjumped A-Classer.

According to conventional logic, in order for someone to become a C-classer, they needed more than ten cores. B-class was hidden behind the lofty one hundred core mark, and A-classer was past a thousand.

The three Emperors all had ten thousand cores.

But cores weren't all made equal. A well-practised, well-balanced B-classer could whip an A-classer's rear, and while there was something to say about having lots of power, that wasn't the end-all be-all of anything.

The Emperor of Earth only barely deserved the S-classer nomination and Ivil suspected that she could get rid of half of her cores and still--to put it in technical terms--whoop his fool ass.

And now he was sticking his idiot nose in her business, again. She pursed her lips as she considered the situation.

He was definitely around. The idiot knew as well as she did that one couldn't always trust others to do things appropriately. Recovering that cache of cores around Uranus was a delicate enough matter that he wouldn't trust the Earth Alliance to do it.

Even if they succeeded, the Earth Alliance's greatest weakness was their fragmented nature. It was an alliance--barely--of some hundred-odd nations, each one would want a slice of that pie, and he'd be forced to split out thin slices for each of them in the end.

He'd be left with a quarter of a pie by then, if the analogy held. That wasn't enough pie to make up much of the difference between himself and even the laid-back Emperor of Jupiter. Let alone the difference between himself and Ivil.

Ivil started to pace. So, in all likelihood he was here himself. Sneaking across the solar system, past Mars and past Jupiter to get his grubby hands on that cache.

Would it be enough to bridge the gap?

If there were a thousand or more cores there, then... maybe? She doubted it, however. After the third intersystem war... well, there was a very good reason why Mars was far beyond Earth in terms of total cores owned. They had been much closer to parity before that massive war. Ivil had thinned out Earth's core-users considerably. She even started to donate cores she didn't care about back to the Martian navy.

"Empress?" Pepper asked. The question had Ivil raising her head mid-pace. "Have you come to a decision as to what to do?"

"You may call me Ivil, if you wish," Ivil said.

"As you wish, Empress Ivil," Pepper said.

Ivil grinned. The woman knew that 'may' wasn't 'should.' MINT had really sent someone clever. "What would you do, in my position?"

"Ah," Pepper said. She didn't immediately dismiss the idea, however. Her brows drew together, and the young woman thought about the issue for several long seconds. "Hypothetically, I personally would put the safety of Mars ahead of my own... romantic interests."

"I see," Ivil said. "I suppose that makes sense, as far as responses go. And then what would you do, once you've come to that choice?"

"Given that the Earth Alliance is trying to move with some subtlety... I suppose there are two courses of action?"

"Oh?" Ivil asked.

"The first would be to intercede personally. Hypothetically, with your level of personal power, you could stop this would-be theft, perhaps take the cores for your own. It would severely damage Mars' reputation in the region, but it would be better than allowing an adversary access to those resources."

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"That's one course of action," Ivil said. "And what's the other option?"

Pepper shifted slightly ."Mars does have an... amicable relationship with the League of Free Moons. Warning them could mean that they'll protect the core cache themselves. Perhaps they'd even be willing to accept Martian assistance in the matter?"

"Oh, now isn't that just a delicious idea," Ivil said. She liked that. She liked it a lot.

It would paint the Emperor of Earth like the little shit he was and make Mars look better for it. Though... it wasn't terribly subtle.

"I think I have an idea. A third option, of sorts," Ivil said.

"Ma'am?" Pepper asked.

Ivil nodded. "I'm going to need you to arrange something for me. A meeting with the Emperor of Jupiter."

"Ah."

"Thank you, Pepper, you've been quite helpful. I'll be sure to let your superiors know. I imagine being my official contact with MINT would do wonders for your career, yes?"

Pepper swallowed. "Yes, ma'am."

Ivil did like rewarding useful, and cute, subordinates. She patted Pepper on the head. "Let's go see Twenty-Six and Pixie. I think... I think I have some news for them."

Pepper seemed worried about that, for whatever reason, but she didn't protest as Ivil returned to the restaurant. She discovered that her meal had arrived. Twenty-Six was laughing, swaying from side to side and bumping her shoulder against Pixie's while the shorter woman recounted a story. "--and then I come in, and I lock everything I've got on their ship. It's like, a hundred times bigger than my Nightshade, I'm out of ammo on half my guns, I've fired half my chaff, and I've got like, one missile left. But I lock everything I've got and everything I don't onto them. They must've been shitting themselves."

"And then?" Twenty-Six asked. She noticed Ivil and her grin grew, but that didn't interrupt Pixie much, though the mercenary did cut her story a little shorter.

"And then they paid me. Really quick too. I think implying that not paying me would make them pirates really encouraged them to get going with the money transfers. Anyway, long and short of it is that if you're doing an escort job, it's always better to be able to talk to the people in the ship you're escorting, not just the seat-warmers back in their corporate office."

"Sounds like I missed a good story," Ivil said as she sat.

Pepper paused, then smiled at the others as she sat next to Ivil. "I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner," she said casually. "I had some important news for Evelyn."

"What's up?" Twenty-Six asked. She grabbed a handful of fries, put them on a smaller plate, and pushed it towards Pepper.

"We have some trouble coming up," Ivil said. "Nothing too... violent, yet, but I think it might be good that you're here, Pixie."

"Yeah?" Pixie asked.

Ivil nodded. "We might be hiring you, before anyone else can slip you a contract, even."

Pixie leaned forwards onto her elbows. "Sounds like you know something not a lot of others do. What's going on?"

"The Earth Alliance might be trying to sneak by to steal the cache of cores," Ivil said. "I believe that soon we might be leaving this station and rushing after them. Seeing as how they're trying to be subtle, we might be able to shoot past and mount a defence."

"Against an entire fleet?" Pixie asked. "I'm as confident in my skills as anyone, but I know my limits."

"Against an entire subtle, cobbled-together fleet, one designed to not seem like a fleet at all," Ivil said. "Besides, it wouldn't be the first time I've had a fleet arrayed ahead of me. I've survived such things so far, and I'm far more confident in my skills than anyone else is."

Pixie snorted, then leaned back into her seat. "If this is true, you're talking about a big political mess."

"Yes. We ought to let Aurora know. She'd be able to twist this thing to some sort of advantage. I too often tend to fix others' problems violently, then have to encourage them to reward me for it. It's much simpler if they agree to the reward beforehand," Ivil said.

She smiled smugly, then took a knife to her meal to cut it into more bite-sized pieces. It occupied her hands. She was still able to notice the passing look of discomfort on Twenty-Six's face.

Was something wrong?

It was definitely something she'd have to look into. Twenty-Six's returning smile and good mood wasn't quite enough of a disguise for Ivil to just drop it and pretend that she'd seen nothing.

If that rat bastard Emperor ruined Twenty-Six's happiness, she'd rip him apart.

***