Chapter Sixty-Seven - The Nerve

For some, discovering that someone wanted you, personally, dead, was a shock to the system.

To Ivil Antagonist, it was another Thursday.

Unfortunately, she was discovering that her nonchalance about others wishing her demise was not shared with everyone else in their little group.

Pixie, who was of course still in her starfighter, didn't seem to mind overly much. At least, that was the impression she communicated with them. Ivil didn't doubt it was true, however.

She was apparently on the top ten of the bounty hunter leaderboards around Jupiter and had a multi-million dollar bounty on her own head placed there by a few piratical syndicates. It wasn't the official, legal kind of bounty, so its veracity and whether anyone might actually be able to claim it was very much up for debate.

Still, Pixie wasn't overly worried about the situation. It was a job.

Likewise for Pepper. The MINT agent was still a little stressed, but Ivil chalked that up to her being in the same room as... well, Ivil. If anything, Pepper must have been intimately aware that she was technically in one of the safest places in the solar system as long as Ivil cared enough to keep her alive.

Twenty-Six was... taking it well enough, Ivil supposed. She was a little more fiddly than usual, but Ivil suspected that the mechanic had spent most of her life one bad seal away from death and this risk of a more sudden and violent demise wasn't bothering her all that much.

It was Aurora that really had Ivil worried.

Externally the young woman seemed fine. She was calm and focused on a small tablet on the fold-out desk ahead of her, gently tapping through menus with several reports open. Ivil knew that her eyes weren't focused on the screen at all, however, and there was the slightest tremble as she reached out her delicate hands to the screen.

She was flexing her cores. It wasn't something the usual person might notice. Aurora was squeezing her cores like a stress ball.

Ivil carefully stood up and made her way across the room. They were in the process of doing a gentle slow-down burn. The ship's engines, being designed in a proper Martian fashion, meant that they could still stand and walk while the ship pressed them down at a steady two and a bit Gs of force.

Twenty-Six and Pepper and Ivil had all been near the front of the room while Aurora had calmly moved to the back where the desks were while claiming she needed a little time to work.

Ivil discovered a seat fixed to the floor by heavy magnets, shut off the concept of magnetism around it, and moved the seat to be next to Aurora.

The Phobian looked up as Ivil sat next to her. "I'm sorry, Evelyn, but I'm a little busy."

"Staring at the same six pages without seeing them?" Ivil asked. She leaned to the side a little to read the report. "Is the average tourist spending on Phobos so important?"

"It's our main source of income," Aurora said. "And it would be threatened if we joined the League more fully, which we might well need to do if we want to take part in things moving forwards."

"Ah, I see," Ivil replied. "Yes, I imagine Mars might sanction Phobos if that were to happen. It would be a politically unpopular choice on Mars."

"We generally try not to care too much about what Mars thinks. But it's a monolith, and we're too close not to be concerned. Phobos' entire agricultural system has turned towards producing luxury foods, did you know that?"

"I didn't," Ivil admitted. "Is that an issue?"

She nodded. "Sustenance foods are still produced on Mars. We sell Mars foods that it can't produce because of various laws, and the profit allows us to buy basic foodstuffs. Coffee beans are a luxury good. Mars passed legislation not to give agricultural zones any subsidies for coffee bean production some eighty years ago. Now Mars barely produces any. It could, easily, but they don't. So we fill that niche."

"Sounds good so far," Ivil said.

"And if Mars decided that our alliance with the League, or our joining fully would be a bad move, they could easily remove those same restrictions on their own subsidies, produce their own coffee, and crash a full two percent of our export economy within a few months."

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Two percent didn't sound like too much to Ivil, but she imagined that it was actually quite a bit. Being two percent faster was a huge advantage in space warfare. Two percent stronger shields, two percent more survivability... yes, the number was small but its effect on a large scale could mean a lot.

"I see. That's important, I suppose. But I don't think it explains your mood. Do... do you want to talk about it?" Ivil asked. She didn't sound awkward. She certainly felt it.

Aurora turned and looked up, meeting Ivil's eyes. "Evelyn... you might suck at this," she said rather bluntly.

Ivil blinked, then chuckled. "I might," she admitted. "I'm unfortunately better suited for death and destruction than chatting about feelings. I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologise. You're genuinely trying. It's kind of you."

"I'm trying to be kinder, at least to some select people," Ivil said.

"I'm happy to be amongst those," Aurora said. "This whole thing with the ambush today and the pirates recently. I... I think I might not be as prepared for all of this as I thought I was. I have been in some high-stress situations on Phobos before. Negotiations, corporate battles. But never anything like this, and never while out on my own."

"On your own?" Ivil asked. "Don't say that. I'm here, aren't I? I'd like to think that I count as a small army for the purposes of keeping someone safe."

"One woman, no matter how strong, won't stop people from being unscrupulous... assholes," Aurora said. Her little Phobian accent and the emphasis she put on that last word almost had Ivil laughing again. It sounded so foreign to Aurora, like she was trying to speak a word in an unfamiliar language.

Ivil smiled and patted Aurora's hand where it lay on the desk. "I think you'd be quite surprised at how much one headstrong person can or can't do. But I didn't come back here to brag about my overwhelming strength. I came back here to make sure you were alright."

"I think I'm fine," Aurora said.

"I think you're not," Ivil corrected her gently.

Aurora looked at where their hands met, and paused. Her hand carefully, slowly turned so that her palm was up and Ivil's was resting on it. Neither of them moved past that. It wasn't handholding, Ivil reasoned, just... hands touching. This was fine.

"I hate to admit it, but I think I need help," Aurora said. "I came out here thinking I'd sweep in, get what Phobos needs, then run along all victorious. Instead I've found knives in the dark and more challenges than I'd expected to find of a level of difficulty greater than I was prepared for."

"What sort of help do you need?" Ivil asked. "I can wipe the moons of your enemies out of the sky, atomize their bones and boil their pitiful brains."

Aurora laughed. "No, I don't need an assassin of my own, Evelyn. Having you here is good enough, I think. But... you're strong, aren't you? I saw you fighting a little with the pirates."

"I was holding back quite a bit," Ivil admitted.

"I'm sure. Could you keep us safe?"

"I could do more than that," Ivil said. "I could knock heads together and convince people at this meeting to bequeath you their entire fortunes before leaping out of an airlock."

Aurora shook her head. "No, I don't want help with the negotiation itself. It's a delicate matter that requires a delicate touch. But... I'm not as prepared for all these physical threats. The showboating and power plays I can live with, it's the actual attempts on my life that I can't."

Ivil nodded. She was very pleased with this entire conversation. "Very well, then. With your permission, I'll keep you safe from anyone that might try anything. But, as I said before, I'm not your minion. I'll handle threats in my own way."

"I suppose I can't ask for more than that," Aurora said. Her hand shifted a little, furthering the contact between them. She flushed a little, then pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. "I... need to work. Sorry," she said.

"Of course," Ivil replied. Aurora didn't know it, but in that moment she could have asked for a lot more than that and Ivil would have given it to her willingly.

When she glanced back, she found Twenty-Six blushing and giving her two-thumbs up.

***