Chapter Seven - Ceres

There were twenty-seven pillars keeping the two halves of the Ceres apart, and all twenty-seven of them were rigged to blow.

At the moment, there were nineteen pirate crews, gangs, syndicates, and corporations that owned those twenty-seven pillars between them. At any moment, when hostilities got too warm, they could threaten to literally press the big red button and doom them all to be crushed.

The space between the two chunks of Ceres was called the Crevice, and it was the asshole of the solar system.

The Crevice, when classified, falls into a neat little space usually reserved for slums, favelas, and shantytowns. This sub-category exists for places where the rule of law is weakest, where poverty and violence is the norm, and where someone with muscles and guns can become a king, at least until someone with more of either sweeps through.

No one wanted to live in the Crevice. Twenty million did anyway.

The dwarf planet had been cracked in two during the opening months of the second intra-system war, but due to the size of the two halves, they had eventually gravitated back towards each other.

That was when the inhabitants of Ceres had decided to create a better, more secure home for themselves.

The planetoid wasn't sheared through at the middle, it was more of a two-thirds split. That split remained open to this day, held in place by massive pillars created from derelict warships.

The Crevice was one of the biggest cities in the solar system. It encompassed the entire space between the two parts of Ceres, a space entirely walled off from the outside.

On approaching Ceres, a keen-eyed traveller would be able to make out a ring of light banded around the dwarf planet where the city pushed out of its rocky confines. The Crevice, the shining jewel of free Ceres, was a city held hostage by its own inhabitants.

Right now, Ivil was staring at Ceres from one of the forward CICs of the Purgatorial Oblivion. There was no question, when she said that she needed to be on Ceres within six days, as to which ship she would be riding to the smuggler's moon.

There were consequences to the choice, of course.

Ceres was run by pirates and killers and worse. Those sorts of people tended to have a powerful dislike of the rigid way that the Empire of Mars, or even the Earth Alliance, did things. Laws didn't agree with them.

When they ran into patrols, they were as likely to open fire as they were to burn hard and run.

It made the entire space around Ceres a deeply uncomfortable place to police and patrol, and one which was simply not economically viable to control. It didn't help that Mars hired pirates to attack Earth Alliance stations and ships, and the Earth Alliance returned the favour.

The best way to avoid problems when flying past Ceres was to be too big of a threat for the pirates to bother.

The Imperial Star Dreadnought Purgatorial Oblivion, currently flying with a small escort fleet of several cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, was too big of a threat for anything on Ceres to try anything.

At the moment, there was something of an exodus going on. Ivil's attention wandered from one ship to another, noting how quick they were to run. There had been several hundred rapid evacuations around Ceres as pirates and smugglers burned hard to get away from their safe haven.

The Empire had just done the equivalent of setting a rabid grizzly loose in the middle of a busy daycare, and the children were running for their lives.

"We'll be arriving in three hours, Ma'am," a voice said from over Ivil's shoulder.

She glanced back at Sonic Spectre. The B-classer was hovering in the air, still occasionally winking out of existence for a brief second.

"Good," Ivil said simply. "I can't imagine that the Purgatorial will fit in the Crevice?"

"Permission to be... blunt, Ma'am?"

"Go ahead," Ivil replied.

"I don't think the admiral would want to risk it," Sonic Spectre said.

Ivil nodded. That was fair. The ship was large. And the manoeuvres to squeeze it into the Crevice would be exceptionally complex. It was possible, she was certain, but then all it would take were a few suicidal fools to cause immense damage.

"We'll take the Lucky Despot down," Ivil decided. "Do you think the Lucky's captain would appreciate the attention?"

"I think they would be rather honoured," Sonic said. "Ma'am, if I may... what are we going to do on Ceres?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I will be going on a mission there," Ivil said. "It's somewhat self-serving, but I suspect it will be quite good for the Empire overall."

"I see," Sonic replied. "May I know what kind of mission? To better prepare my squad."

"I'll be going solo," Ivil said.

She felt Sonic's surprise. It was hard to read expressions on Sonic's doll face. "Is the threat so great?"

"No. Rather, I'll be going undercover."

"You... will be going undercover?" Sonic asked.

"Yes. Is that so surprising?"

Sonic shook her head, then paused. "Permission to be honest?"

"Denied."

"You'll do fine, Ma'am."

Ivil made her way to the Lucky Despot, boarded the ship, then waited within the frigate's bridge for the warship to be undocked. It was another couple of hours before they were let loose. The captain, at least, seemed far less nervous now than she had been on their first trip out.

Instead of the captain being nervous, it was Ceres as a whole that was currently stressed.

The traffic control agent—Ivil refused to call them Crevice Control—they connected to was a stuttering mess, though he did properly direct the Lucky Despot towards an open section of the Crevice.

Ivil installed herself behind the ship's navigator and watched through the screens as they approached the Crevice.

The inside of the slice cut off from the side of the planet was unsurprisingly dark. Sunlight only streamed in when the planet was aligned just right, and this wasn't one of those moments. Instead, the interior was illuminated by several thousand strong lights pointing every which way.

More light came from huge banner ads, some of which streamed off the side of the pillars holding up the topmost half of the slice. Smaller ships, tugs and personal craft, flew across the cityscape, avoiding the taller buildings and the glowing tram-lines that zig-zagged through the space.

The centre of the crevice was the residential area. There was less light there, only distant shadows hinting at massive residential blocks. The outer sections of the crevice were one massive shipyard and dock. Room enough for entire fleets to park themselves above and below.

The Lucky Despot was guided into a free berth, and the captain and navigator glided the ship into place with all of the gentleness of a feather in low gravity.

"We're here, ma'am," the captain said. "It may take a while for us to be connected to Ceres' airlock system. They are notoriously unreliable."

"I'll take that under advisement, captain. Thank you," Ivil said.

"Shall we wait here for your return?" the captain asked.

Ivil considered it. "If I'm not back within two days, then you should consider leaving," she said. "Also, as you may know better than I do... where might I find a registry of ships currently on Ceres?"

The captain frowned. "Imperial intelligence probably has something like that, ma'am. But if you want the official listing, then Crevice Control, the local traffic control group, probably has an up-to-date listing available. I wouldn't trust it, but it definitely exists."

"I see, thank you, captain. You've done a great job so far." Ivil nodded to the captain, then casually walked off the bridge.

Ceres had some amount of gravity to it. A minuscule amount, but enough to pull dust and people down. Ivil enjoyed it. There was something comforting about the pull of a planetary body, the feeling of her own mass mattering.

She made her way over to the ship's airlocks, stepped into it, then waited for the airlock to cycle.

It did, eventually, and she walked into the far crustier, rust and graffiti-covered airlock on the other side. It was leaking.

Ivil crossed her arms, then realized after a minute-long wait that the airlock wasn't going to finish cycling at all, not while it was pissing air out so quickly.

With a sigh, Ivil made the door into the station disappear, then she stepped through to the other side. Now it was someone else's problem. She had her own problems to look forward to, like discovering where the Held Together was berthed, and exactly what kind of ship it was to begin with.

Fortunately, it didn't take more than a dozen steps through the dingy, poorly lit corridors of the Crevice that someone approached her, a small vibrating knife held casually in one hand.

She blinked. Was this a mugging? Already?

"Ah yes, a hive of scum and villainy. I'd almost forgotten."

***