Chapter Fourteen - Quiet Reading

The Held Together was seventy-two years old, placing its construction date as twenty-odd years after the first Inter-system war and long before the second. It was originally commissioned as a bulk freighter for a company called EM-Works Transportation Ltd, an Earth-based hauling company.

The company folded six years later and the Held Together changed hands, first being bought by a ship reseller on Mars, then by a small company in the Jovian system that did cargo transportation between the system's moons.

At that time, it was refitted and very slightly modernised. The ship's computer was replaced to allow for more automation and to cut down on crew numbers. The Held Together, which at the time still had a name that was little more than an alphanumeric string, kept working around Jupiter for two decades.

It was eventually purchased by an employee of the same company, and the ship took on the far riskier job of transporting goods from Jupiter to Saturn.

Six years in, it was stolen by pirates.

Two years after that, it was recovered, with several critical components missing. The owner let it languish for a few more years, but eventually his son repaired it, just in time for the second inter-system war.

The newly named Held Together was then used as a transport around Jupiter again. It narrowly avoided being taken out by a torpedo strike near the end of the war. Two years after, it was repaired and flying once more. The repairs came with an elongated spine, to allow for more cargo pods to be attached, and an upgraded engine suite taken from a warship.

There were plenty of destroyed vessels to salvage from at that time.

The Held Together went on to have a simple, unassuming career for several years until the daughter of its then-captain took the helm. Since then, rising fuel costs, the ship's poor maintenance record, some minor accidents, and a dozen fines meant that the current holder of the ship's deeds, Held Together Transportation Limited, was hanging on about as well as the ship was.

There were some notes in the files suggesting that the captain ended some jobs being paid far better than she should have been. MINT suspected smuggling activities, all well outside of Martian jurisdiction.

Ivil lowered the tablet. She'd tried to make herself comfortable while she read, but the small couch was stiff and the room was far too warm, something that she imagined was only going to worsen once the ship was underway.

The reading was interesting, and in-depth. MINT had not skimped on information, likely because there was so little that mattered here. Interesting didn't mean important.

Ivil imagined that some poor overworked MINT operative onboard the Purgatorial Oblivion had received her demand at an ungodly hour and had scrambled to get everything together in time.

Of course, the intelligence agency had a bureau onboard the Star Dreadnought, because doing otherwise would be foolish, but that didn't mean that they were fully-equipped. She was happy with the work they'd done considering their limited capacity.

Her cover was actually improving as she read more about astro-archeology. It was an interesting subject: the study of battlefields and conflicts long past, some of which she'd caused, had participated in, or had been able to put an end to. The tablet she had was connected to a subtle network on Ceres, and her cover was being updated by the hour as MINT solidified it.

It was more than enough. Anyone that looked into Evelyn Ville's history would discover more and more about her. Testimony from past students, photographs, public records and citations. Even some slight youthful indiscretions, to better sell the story.

It would do for now.

Ivil knew from her extensive research on matters of romance--mostly via soap operas--that communication was of paramount importance in matters of love. It was to love what logistics were to war.

The night passed relatively quickly as she read up on the history of the ship and of her cover story. Then she indulged herself in catching up to her favourite soaps with a small tub of ice cream she had... acquired from the mess.

The Held Together was surprisingly eerie at this time, when everyone was asleep. Of course, Ivil only made passing note of that eeriness. She did not give in to fear. She gave fear to others. And also, on occasion, stole their ice cream.

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The ship came alive around seven in the morning, ship-time. Ivil felt someone moving through the ship. Not Aurora. That woman's cores would make her movement far too easy to read. Someone else.

She changed from her jumpsuit into another, similar one, donned the same jacket, then adjusted her hair to give the illusion that she'd showered and redressed. She also made a mental note to waste a small amount of water, otherwise her lack of use of the plumbing might raise suspicions.

Slipping out of her room, Ivil turned towards the only person awake on the ship besides herself and discovered Missy walking along the spine.

The woman paused, staring right at Ivil for a moment. Her makeup was freshened up, and she looked exactly as unamused as Ivil remembered.

"Good morning," Ivil said.

"Hey," Missy replied. "You're up early."

"I sleep little," Ivil said. "And I think I'm travel-lagged still."

Missy nodded along, then slipped past Ivil. "There's coffee," she said.

"Actual coffee?" Ivil asked.

"No. But it's brown and warm and has caffeine," Missy said.

Coffee, real coffee, was one of the system's greatest luxury items. There were some that were very adamant that coffee was the cause of the first intra-system war. Though Ivil wasn't so sure if that was entirely true.

"Are you an early riser as well?" Ivil asked.

Missy made a dismissive gesture. "I get first shift," she said.

Ivil supposed that made as much sense as anything. Someone needed to man the ship around the clock, and the captain couldn't be awake at all hours. As first mate that naturally fell upon Missy's shoulders. "So, anything exciting planned for today? Other than our launch?"

"Not too much," Missy said. "I'm hoping this'll be a regular run, though it already feels... off."

Ivil followed the former warmime into the mess where Missy beelined for the kitchen where a coffee dispenser sat. She started to fill a zero-gravity 'sippy' cup with something which was, in fact, brown and warm, and smelled like caffeine.

"Off how?" Ivil asked.

"Two clients outside of our usual... budget for that kind of thing. Plus a third this morning. We do passenger stuff sometimes, but it's usually a dozen clients at a time. Workers or civilians moving from one place to another. Rarely some middle-classer that doesn't want to pay for an expensive trip. Now?" Missy looked at Ivil. "You and the princess."

Ivil leaned back a little, then nodded. "I suppose that it is unusual. Though I am flying with something of a budget. It's just not my money to burn. If it helps, I don't have any ill-will towards the Held Together or anyone on its crew... well, perhaps Donny."

Missy cracked a smile. "He's a bit of a dick. Spent--and I kid you not--six months trying to flirt with me before he caught on."

"Is he like that with everyone?" Ivil asked.

"Only women," she said.

"Ah."

Ivil wondered if an accident could be arranged.

"Not with Twenty-Six, though," Missy said thoughtfully. "I think he has a sister about her age. So he teases her a lot instead, but no flirting. Which is good, because Hawk would beat his ass if he did, then I'd space him."

Ivil nodded along. That was entirely reasonable. "So, you think I'm strange? Strange in a good way?"

Missy chuckled. "I guess it can't hurt. You know, where I was raised, being strange was considered attractive."

Ivil perked up at that. "Really?"

"Yeah. One of the reasons I moved out."

"You wound me," Ivil said.

Missy grinned. "Come on. You can't be all that strange, miss Professor from Hellas." Missy pushed a warm sippy cup into Ivil's hands as she moved past. "Gonna go to the hangar. The next guest should be arriving any minute now."

"Are they strange as well?" Ivil asked as she looked at the cup.

"Can't get stranger," Missy said. "They're an Adeptus Ancilla."

Ivil watched Missy go, then took a small sip from the cup. It was vile. She grimaced and set it aside, then started after Missy. She had nothing better to do, and besides, maybe this next passenger would be the one?

She wasn't so sure about that. An Adeptus Ancilla would be... trouble. Actually, it might be enough to blow her cover, so being there to greet them would be even better. She might be able to plug a gap right away.

There were few people, after all, as annoying as fanatics. And there were few fanatics as fanatical as the tech-maids of Mars.

***