Chapter Fifty-One - Attracted to Success

The human propensity to be attracted to success is well known, well documented, and generally regarded as something no one can do anything about.

Are you annoyed that people are approaching you because you're richer, prettier, better-off, or more powerful than them? Suck it up.

Ivil dealt with that kind of negative attention by punishing it in as public a way as possible. This earned her a reputation that some thought was awful, but it also kept gold-diggers and lesser trouble-seekers at bay.

With a sufficient application of vengeful violence, the same technique could be applied to politicians and bureaucrats as well.

Ivil wondered if, perhaps, she ought to teach this trick to Aurora. The Phobosian noblewoman was in her room onboard the Sappho, a room which she had transformed into a small office space. A few boxes were left just outside of the door, ripped open and abandoned as trash.

She knocked on the doorframe while eyeing the boxes. "Aurora?"

"Oh, Evelyn," Aurora said as she stood from a small seat. It still had plastic wrapped around its cushions, and a few packing peanuts stuck to the legs. "I'm glad to see you. What do you think of my... let's call them renovations?"

Aurora spread her arms wide, encompassing the entire room.

Unlike the captain's cabin, this space was small, tight. Still, it was much larger than the tube-rooms one might expect onboard a warship. The pirates that designed the Sappho built the ship for a small crew, and then filled it with unnecessary luxuries, such as elbow-room.

"It's nice," Ivil said.

Aurora had fitted a small unfolding desk on one side of the room, with a light bar fixed to the wall above it for additional clarity. There was a new computer sitting on the desk, an unfolding laptop with a brick of a base to it, and of course, the chair, which seemed to have magnetic feet.

A small shelf was fixed to the wall, with an elastic holding bar to keep the two books on it in place. Actual paper books. Something of a strange luxury.

"Why the office set-up?" Ivil asked.

Aurora frowned. "I would have thought that obvious. If I'm going to have to sift through paperwork then I want to do it with some level of comfort. It's enough of a pain to do already. Having good tools can only help."

"I suppose," Ivil said. She didn't do paperwork. The last time the MRS had demanded that she file her taxes she'd found the director in charge of the organisation and teleported him into their complaints department. Piece by piece. "Did you need help?"

"Not really. Though, I'd appreciate it if you brought the boxes out? I can't fit them in our trash receptacles and I... honestly don't know what to do with them."

"Sure," Ivil said. She'd disintegrate it later. "Where did you buy all of this?"

"Online," Aurora said simply. "Driftwood has its own local net. It's... fairly reliable. I wouldn't consider it safe by any means, but I have a decently secure device to connect with, and a false identification to make purchases through."

Ivil raised an eyebrow, then glanced at the boxes. They were addressed to a Miss Aya Roara. "Aya Roara?" Ivil read.

Aurora blushed prettily. "It's easy to remember."

"Fair enough," Ivil said. Her glass house might have been impervious to stones, but there was no reason to test that today. "I'm happy to see you settling in. Looks like you're making the Sappho your home."

"I suppose so," Aurora said delicately. "It's a nice ship, all told. I think it's nicer than most of what we have available around Phobos."

"Phobos has a navy, doesn't it?"

Aurora snorted indelicately. "Yes, a navy. Some thirty-odd ships, each one three decades old at the youngest. They're old Martian surplus that Mars deemed unfit for their mothball fleet. Our personnel is decent, however. Lots of former Martian citizens who purchased citizenship on Phobos for one reason or another and who wanted a continued job in a naval force."

"Ah, so Mars builds your ships and trains your crews," Ivil said.

"Essentially. There has been a push to change that, but it has run into budgetary issues."

"How so?" Ivil asked.

"Well, the current way of doing things is exceptionally inexpensive. We're buying old ships and getting decent personnel with training better than we could ever afford to give. New recruits are usually tied to a more experienced sailor and they just pick things up as they go. It's cheap. Building our own flotilla, nevermind a full armada, would be expensive. We have shipyards, but they build luxury yachts. Not warships."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ivil nodded. There was a pretty severe difference between the two in terms of build quality and such. Mostly owing to their purpose. She'd been onboard some older Martian warships whose interiors made nineteenth century submarines look like palaces.

"I'd be curious to see the design philosophy that Phobos would bring to the table," Ivil said.

Aurora hummed. "It wouldn't be pretty. Don't get me wrong, I love my homemoon, and I wish to see it prosper in the future, but Phobos has too much money and not enough tradition. Corruption is a way of life there. We're used to it now, but it's still harmful. If we did make our own warships, they'd either come with casinos and gambling dens built in, or the graft and theft before production would mean a ship made of cardboard and propaganda."

Ivil leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms casually. "You know, that was a thing."

"Ships made of propaganda?" Aurora asked.

"Cardboard," Ivil said.

Aurora blinked. "No," she said. "That's not possible."

"Oh, it is! Cardboard is... probably too simple a term for what was actually used. But it was definitely some sort of pressed material. It's very lightweight, after all, and can be shaped and cut and glued with ease. With the right treatment it can be airtight."

"But radiation would cut right through," Aurora said.

"Mhm," Ivil agreed. "It was an Earth fleet, from the tail end of the third intersystem war. It was actually more clever than you'd think. They had a surplus of cardboard and such, and they needed their ships armoured and covered. So they used what they had. They specifically left the sections that are critical armoured properly, but something like a third of the hull was cardboard. The ship's frame was untouched, of course."

"That must not have inspired much confidence with the crews."

"They were unpopular choices," Ivil agreed. "But it was the end of the war, and Earth needed ships fast. Shaping cardboard is faster than processing steel, cheaper, lighter. It made for surprisingly mobile craft, I think. Not that it mattered."

Aurora hummed. "Mars must have loved it."

"Oh yes, simple point-defence would scythe right through, and as you can imagine, if they're cutting back on hull plating, they were doing the same with shielding and the like."

She'd enjoyed them, in any case. The ships used to crumple in interesting ways. It was like high-velocity origami.

"Ah, did you come here to talk about cardboard ships?" Aurora asked. "Not that it isn't an interesting historical tidbit. I imagine you're full of those?"

Ivil smiled. She was thankful for her cover as an astro archeologist. It meant that any moment where she fell into reminiscence could just be played off as her thinking of her job. "I wanted to see how you were doing. We're at your destination, after all. And yet you seem to be settling in. I was worried that I'd find you packing up and ready to run."

Aurora pursed her lips. "Afraid that I'd run off?"

"A little."

She sniffed. "No, you don't have to worry about that. Though if I did want to leave, I'd leave. I considered it, even, but... the situation around Jupiter will be... very complex soon. So many fresh cores, so many competing interests. Already, just looking over the Jovian internet, I can see rumours slipping around. This ship might be one of the safest places I can be."

"I'm glad you think so," Ivil said. "And I agree. You have both a degree of anonymity to protect you, and of course myself."

Aurora rolled her eyes, but she smiled nonetheless. "I have been thinking about that date as well. It would be hard to fulfil my end of that agreement if I gallivanted off, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, I suppose it would," Ivil said. "Have you thought about it more than that?"

"I don't yet have a plan," she admitted. "But give me a few days. And maybe access to somewhere that isn't as skeevy as this station. I don't have great confidence in the safety that can be found on Driftwood."

Ivil nodded. That was understandable enough. She'd make sure that Aurora felt safe, then.

Which might, perhaps, prove a little tricky.

***