Chapter Thirty-Eight - Respectful Suggestions

Missy glared across the table at Ivil, her fingers tapping a quick one-two-three-four beat. She kept it up for a surprisingly long time before stopping suddenly and crossing her arms. "I don't trust you," she said.

"That's... understandable, I suppose," Ivil said. "But I respectfully suggest that you do trust me."

"You... respectfully want me to trust you?" Missy asked.

Ivil focused on her fully. It was painful to exclude Aurora from this discussion, but she felt like she was losing Missy at the moment. "Yes. Think of me in the abstract, if you would. I'm someone who is, to put it modestly, somewhat powerful. I can use that power to my own ends. I can use it to get what I want, and in this particular situation we find ourselves in, I could use it to get what I want out of you. But I don't, and I won't."

Missy tilted her head to the side a little, eyes still narrowed. "I'm not used to discussing this kind of thing so plainly," she said.

"Why not? We could dance around the subject, if that's what you prefer, but I've always been a very straightforward kind of woman."

Missy chuckled mirthlessly. "Alright. I... I guess I can't say you didn't help. That's respectable, at least. What do you want for it?"

"For the help I rendered?" Ivil asked.

The Warmime shrugged a shoulder, then leaned against the table. "Nothing's free," she said.

"That's true," Ivil said. "What if I said I have ulterior, personal motives?"

"I'd believe that."

"And if I said that I just saved you because I didn't want to see you or the others hurt?" Ivil asked.

Missy grinned. "That, I'm afraid, I wouldn't entirely believe."

Ivil shook her head, but smiled a little herself. "You didn't strike me as the sort that waits for a gallant knight to swoop in and save her, in any case."

"My life's been devoid of gallant knights," Missy agreed. "But maybe I wouldn't mind playing the part of the desperate... nah, nevermind." Missy stood up, casually tugging the edge of the table to stop herself from being thrown towards the ceiling. "I'm gonna check on Twenty-Six. Then the rest of this ship. I refuse to believe it isn't trapped in some way."

Ivil nodded and watched her go. Missy floated with a powerful confidence. Ivil wasn't sure if she deserved it, exactly, but it was alluring all the same. Missy leaving had left her alone with Aurora.

The noblewoman was sitting her hands on her lap, but on seeing Ivil noticing her again, she sat up straighter. "I don't have the same sort of suspicions as miss... Missy," Aurora replied.

"That's... good," Ivil said.

Aurora was both harder and easier to understand than Missy. Her motivations were more political, and more abstract. "I want to hire you."

"Pardon?"

"I won't presume to know your history, or why you were on the Held Together. Instead I'll judge you based on what I saw. A competent woman, able to keep myself and others safe in a situation where most would have folded. You're very good. As I said, I won't presume to know why you're on the move from Ceres, but I can guess. I think someone in your position might appreciate a job. Something legitimate, which would offer you some protection in turn."

Ivil blinked, then allowed herself a small smile. "Go on, what kind of job?"

"Bodyguarding duty," Aurora asked. "It's not very glamorous work, but--"

"No thank you," Ivil said.

Aurora froze for just a moment. "I see. The work doesn't interest you?"

"Oh, it does," Ivil said. "But I don't like the position it would put me in. Bodyguards sit back and watch for threats, they protect their charge. Most of all, they're passive. If you want me to keep you safe, Miss Sterlingworth, then you only need to ask. If you want me to make it my business to keep you safe, then we're going to need to enter into something more than just a client-employee relationship."

Aurora blinked, then nodded slowly. "You want to become business partners, then."

Well, Ivil supposed that it wasn't the worst first step. "Sure. You entice me with whatever plans you have for the future, and I help you make them come true."

Aurora nodded while sitting a little straighter. "Okay. Do you have any abilities that might make the next part of this discussion more... private?"

"Yes, sure," Ivil replied. She muffled some of the noise of the ship around them and created a small bubble where vibrations were dampened down into illegibility. "Go on?"

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"I'm trusting you with a lot here," Aurora said. "But... I trust you." She laughed.

"Trusting me is funny?"

"A little, yes. Forgive me. I don't come from a background where trust is gained easily. In any case, I'll extend the olive branch, because you deserve that much. If you run off with this information, then I'll be in quite a bit of trouble, but knowing who I'm dealing with, I've no doubt that things have leaked already."

"Go on," Ivil said.

Aurora took a deep breath. "Are you familiar with the League of Free Moons?"

"It's a political organisation, almost more of a joke in system-wide politics. They formed after the... second inter-system war and basically formed a fourth bloc, of sorts."

Aurora nodded. "I figured that your history as an astro archeologist wasn't entirely made up."

"I know my history. The more recent stuff, at least," Ivil replied. She was in the history books, after all.

"In any case, the League is, in fact, something of a joke. You're right. The League ostensibly coordinates and runs something like forty moons, spread out across the solar system, but the actual control it has over these moons is... somewhat comparable to the twenty-first century United Nations. It's all on paper, and very little of its power is tangible. But that's about to change in a big way."

"Oh?" Ivil asked.

Aurora ran her tongue across her lips. "Yes." She took a deep breath. "A minor tangent, but are you aware of the origin of cores?"

"More so than most," Ivil said. "They're extra-system devices. Alien."

"Yes. I think Mars once found a probe-like object captured by Sol's gravity well which had a few cores built into it."

Ivil was reluctantly impressed. That was more than a little classified. "Interesting."

"It's happened again," Aurora said. "But this time it's bigger. A Jovian-Saturnian exploration ship, crewed by a crew of scientists working for the League, discovered a new asteroid. One which has been slipping in and out of our solar system for... ever. It's ancient, on a looping trajectory opposite the solar plane. It was an oddity, so they went out to explore it."

"And they found something?" Ivil asked.

"A cache of Cores," Aurora said. "Larger than the one found on Deimos, comparable to the Martian one."

Ivil might have found her breath catching if she still needed to breathe. "How many?"

"Several hundred cores. Maybe a thousand? You have to understand, these are new cores. We don't know their power or potential. They've never been split. They're whole cores. So if the League wants, they could split all of them right away and double the amount."

"A thousand cores is enough to start a war," Ivil said. "Given to a single person, you'd end up with a new A-Classer. How many A-Classers does the League have?"

"Now? A few dozen B-Classers," Aurora replied. "This single find is huge, and the League is trying to leverage it into... legitimacy."

"How so?" Ivil asked.

"The current head of the League is a political genius. She's... dangerous, but smart. She climbed the ranks at an absurd rate and isn't to be underestimated. A lot of people ignored her climb because the League itself is... well, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But now, with a thousand cores to share between all of the participating moons in the system? Every moon is sending representatives to the Jovian system."

"I didn't hear anything about this," Ivil said.

Aurora nodded. "That's normal. There's a full media blackout. The League's spy agency, as rather pathetic as it is, is running interference. Every moon knows that if news gets out, their chances are screwed. So there's lots of infighting, trying to discredit each other and slip a knife into the competition before they can attend."

"Ah," Ivil said.

"Of course, the Empress of Mars helped."

Ivil blinked. "She did? She's aware of this?"

"Oh, god no, it would be a nightmare if she were. If any of the other emperors found out it would be a disaster. Can you imagine any more of those greedy idiots finding out? There would be a war, instantly. But, in any case, the Empress of Mars moved an entire battlefleet across the system for no apparent reason and it sent every intelligence agency in the system into a tizzy."

"Well, that's fortunate," Ivil said. "It must be a coincidence, I'm sure."

***