Chapter Thirty - Complex

Complex plans were a complex risk.

So keep your plans simple.

That was the essential way that most successful armed forces conducted warfare for millenia. Then humanity reached the stars, and suddenly old ideas didn't work out so well.

This was especially obvious during the first inter-system war.

Mars and Earth fought and clawed at each other. Earth trying to reclaim what they thought of as rightfully theirs. Mars fighting for an independence that they thought they had earned.

Both sides approached war as a matter of putting simple plans into action.

Space, however, was infinitely complex. Soldiers on both sides ran out of fuel and were flung into the void. Both sides had ships run out of food, and soldiers starve in their billion-dollar warships. They discovered, to their mutual horror, that rocks going very fast were very dangerous.

So keeping things simple, as a concept, died an inglorious death.

Still, there were times where Ivil thought that it was still applicable.

"So, what's the plan?" Missy asked.

"These pirates are relatively well established," Ivil said with a gesture around herself at the station. This station wasn't top-of-the-line, but it was more impressive than most frontier stations. The pirates were doing well for themselves. "So, I imagine that with all of this wealth, they must have a few private vessels that are worth taking. I think it's only fair that we take from those who would take from us."

"You... you want to steal a ship?" Twenty-Six asked.

"I can see many ways that could go wrong," Aurora said. "First of all, how do you intend to steal a ship?"

"Twenty-Six can likely break any security measures on board their ships," Ivil replied easily. "Besides, will they really have that many locks in place? Missy seemed able to pilot the Held Together just fine, and whatever we take will likely be generations younger and more responsive."

"It's not that easy to go from one ship to another," Missy said.

"You can't do it?" Ivil asked.

Missy's spine straightened. "I didn't say that."

"Well, there you go then. We find the nicest ship here, clear it out of piratical scum, then leave. Nice and simple."

Aurora shook her head. "No, not so nice or simple," she countered. "The station has defences, there are ships around it, and lots of pirates on this station. We'll be gunned down."

"We'll take a ship with good point defence. In any case, I didn't intend to leave the station in any shape to retaliate," Ivil replied. "I'm willing to bet that the pirates here are already in a rough state. Punch a few more holes into the station and they'll be too panicked to care about one ship pulling out, and once we're out and in weapon's range... we can assist the Held Together by making some noise."

"That seems kind of dangerous," Twenty-Six said.

Ivil looked at her. "Twenty-Six... we're invading a pirate outpost. This place is filled to the brim with people who want us all dead or worse. The only safety here is for the few people whom I have decided to protect."

Twenty-Six smiled slightly. "Thank you," she said. "Um, you're probably right. I wouldn't mind looking at the engineering on some of these pirate ships."

"I'll let you pick the ship," Ivil promised.

"And what happens if we do survive and somehow make it out of here?" Aurora asked.

"Then onwards to Calypso? You had a reason to head that way, no?"

Aurora paused, then nodded slowly. "Yes. I didn't expect you to still want to move that way, but I wouldn't say no to it. On the other hand, we have other options. Less insane ones."

"Oh?"

"We're now in a position to negotiate. We could ask the pirates to allow us to contact someone from outside. A Martian patrol, maybe? Phobos has its own small fleet as well. It's nothing compared to Mars or Earth, but I'm certain it would measure up to some pirates. Or mercenaries... In any case, we could negotiate for our own release."

"That'll never work," Missy said. "That would mean holding off the pirates for however long it takes for your rescuers to show up."

"Can't we?" Aurora asked.

"Certainly," Ivil said. "But they'll try to sabotage us the entire time. They were willing to vent the air out of this section while living crewmates were in it. They'll be trying a lot worse against us if we sit around and wait."

Missy sighed. "She's right. If we're going to do something, I'd rather it be proactive and destructive. If you want to call for help, then we might find a place to do that along the way."

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Ivil reached over and carefully placed a hand on Aurora's shoulder. "We'll figure this out. I'm certain that we might find a time or place to put your diplomatic skills to good use." Aurora didn't seem too impressed, but she didn't press the issue. "Alright. Let's head towards the centre of the station. Stay behind me, I'll keep you safe."

None of the three looked entirely certain about that, but Ivil didn't mind. She had hardly flexed in front of them yet. If everything went well, she wouldn't need to.

Taking the lead, Ivil headed towards one of the bulkheads near the back of the room, the same one the mechanics had fled down a few long minutes ago. "Do you think you can cycle the air in the corridor?" she asked. "We won't want to be in a low-oxygen environment forever."

The suits her companions were wearing hardly seemed fit for combat. One puncture and they'd be choking on nothing. That, and while the suits had modern air recyclers and scrubbers, she doubted the efficiency on some of them, and the air tanks they did have--the sort that automatically refilled and repressurised in a pressure-neutral environment--were all small capacity tanks. They had, at best, twenty to thirty minutes of breathable air.

On arriving at the door, Ivil walked over to the command system next to it, then frowned. It was more unfamiliar hardware. "C-can I?" came Twenty-Six from behind her.

Ivil stepped aside. "Go ahead."

"I recognize it," Twenty-Six said. "It's Jupiter-made. See the rounded handle? All of the stations around Jupiter have passages that can act as temporary airlocks."

"Strange," Aurora said.

"No, not really. It's additional redundancy. Because a single point of failure means... a lot more pain. Remember the Titan earthquake."

That had been a fairly major event, Ivil remembered, a large tectonic motion sometime between the first and second inter-system war. Titan had been well on its way to becoming a third system-wide power at the time, but the quake had ripped open several stations. Thousands had died, and the disaster relief was slow in coming.

Even now, decades later, the moon hadn't regained its early momentum.

Rumour had it that the quake had been triggered by a Core-wielder. A powerful one. One who wanted nothing more than to slow Titan's growth and prevent a third system-power from appearing. At least, that was the common conspiracy theory.

"Yeah, I can cycle it from here," Twenty-Six said. "The other side is still pressurised."

"Do so, then," Ivil said. "If we fight in rooms that are at one atmo, then they'll likely be a lot more careful with their fire."

Twenty-Six tapped two buttons and flicked a small lever. It all seemed very simple when she did it like that. The room hummed, and there was a faint hiss from the other side of the bulkhead.

"If they know we're coming, then we'll be meeting some resistance," Missy said. "Would this be a good time to come clean with what we can do? Because as much as I like holding my cards close to my chest, I also like not having my chest punched full of holes."

Ivil raised her eyebrows. "Go on," she said.

Missy gave her a look, then shook her head. "Sound dampening, and better joints."

Those were relatively weak cores, but not entirely useless. They were the kind of cores that the Martian navy might hand out to a would-be-Valkyrie to get them started without them having any real power.

Missy and Ivil both turned towards Aurora who stared between the two. "What?" she asked.

"If you don't want to reciprocate, that's fine," Ivil said.

Aurora's eyes narrowed. "How did you know?" she asked.

"I can sense it," Ivil said.

"You're rich," Missy replied. "You seem the sort."

"Wait," Twenty-Six said. "Miss Sterlingworth has a core?"

Aurora groaned. "I don't have anything that would be useful here."

"Nothing?" Ivil asked. She sensed at least half a dozen cores in Aurora, maybe closer to ten.

"I can regulate my body temperature, suppress involuntary reflexes, and see well in the dark. Not night vision, just... better vision in the dark. My nails are tougher too." She crossed her arms. "Happy?"

"That's all?" Ivil asked.

"We've been purchasing random, cheap, cores for a while. Just that much cost me a fair bit. What about you, Miss Ville? Care to share?"

"Hmm... no, we don't have time for that," Ivil said.

***