Chapter Twenty-Nine - Absolutely Not

Ivil considered herself a... picky person.

It wasn't out of control. She merely liked some things, disliked others, and was vocal and violent about her choices.

She wouldn't suffer incompetence for long, but she didn't kill incompetents either, she merely suggested, politely, that they leave her presence. When she still needed to eat, she would gravitate towards the foods she enjoyed.

It was all perfectly reasonable. Yes, she was impossibly powerful, but that didn't mean that her desires and limits were impossible as well. Merely... more difficult to work with.

So far, the three candidates she'd met all fell within the broad-enough range of acceptable for Ivil. They were attractive enough, in their own ways, smart, acted in a reasonable fashion, and she found herself enjoying her time with them thus far.

She was well-prepared to judge this fourth candidate.

The pirate captain stared at Ivil through what looked like a small drone camera floating ahead of her. She was glaring rather fiercely. It suited her, made her seem more ferocious and dangerous.

"You're not Sterlingworth," she said. "Did the little princess bring a bodyguard?"

"No," Ivil said. "My name is... Evelyn Ville. I was onboard the Held Together, now I'm enjoying some time in your station. I'm afraid that with the air being vented all the effort I took to avoid killing your friends here was for nought."

"So, some punk bitch with a few cores and some attitude, huh?"

Ivil smiled. "Something like that. I'm curious, what's your--"

The pirate woman paused. She pressed the pad of a thumb against one nostril, then blew hard. A long stream of snot jetted out of her other nostril and shot off in the low-gravity passage she was in. She rubbed the underside of her nose with her sleeve, then resumed glaring at the screen. "I'm pirate Rouge--"

"No," Ivil interrupted. "I don't care. Please disregard all of my previous good humour. I... I can't believe I wasted all of this time."

"What?"

Ivil was disappointed. In herself, of course, and most of all in this piratical barbarian. What kind of ill-mannered simpleton just... did that? She was utterly disgusted, and didn't plan on wasting any more time with these pirates.

A stray thought crushed the console before her, and with a sigh, Ivil exited the command room by jumping out of the window and floating herself down to the ground. She glanced up, searching out the cameras dotted across the room, and ripping them apart with force of will.

On arriving back at the airlock, she tapped on the communication device on its side, connecting to the Held Together. "Missy, Aurora, Twenty-Six?" she asked.

"Ah, hello?" Came Twenty-Six's reply.

"It's clear on this side. I'm going to cycle the airlock. The only problem is that they vented the air out from this side," Ivil said.

There was a pause before Twenty-Six clicked the coms on again. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Ivil replied.

"We have the, uh, suits from these guys, and we have our own equipment too, but it'll take a while to get suited up," Twenty-Six said.

"Take your time," Ivil said. "I'll keep things clear on this end."

"Are you sure? You could come back in. It'll be safer."

Ivil smiled. "Safer for me, maybe. But not safer for you. Get geared up, I'll be here when you come back."

She felt three figures just past the bulkhead of the Held Together moving about. They took a while before they split up. One moved towards engineering, another towards the crew quarters, and the last towards the passenger area. It didn't take a genius to figure out which was which.

Surprisingly, however, Missy was the first to return.

Ivil felt her hesitating by the comms unit, so in that moment of hesitation, Ivil turned and reached her senses out deeper into the station. There was a team of pirates by one of the bulkheads leading into the room she was in. They were preparing to breach, which would, of course, interrupt things.

The corridor they were in gained a sudden hole the size of a minivan, and the team was sucked out into the vacuum.

That would, she figured, gain her a few minutes.

She couldn't go too hard, otherwise the pirates might decide to cut their losses by simply destroying the entire arm, Held Together and all.

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The comm unit hissed for a moment as Missy tapped it on. "Evelyn?" she asked.

Ivil reached back and pressed a thumb against the unit on her side. "I'm here," she said. "We're still in the clear so far."

"Good," Missy said. She continued to press the comms button, even as she said nothing for a few long seconds. Ivil let her cook, until Missy leaned in closer. "What are you?" she asked.

"Just another woman, out here, looking for love and some peace and quiet," Ivil said.

Missy chuckled. "Cute answer. But really. Martian special ops? A retired Valkyrie?"

"I'm a little young for retirement," Ivil said. "Then again, so are you... how about a trade?"

"A question for a question?" Missy asked.

"Exactly. You can go first," Ivil said. She grinned, this was an interesting little game.

Missy seemed to think about it for a while before her question came through. "Are you Martian special ops?"

"No," Ivil said. "I'm not technically part of the Martian military at all."

"Technically?" Missy asked.

"That's two questions," Ivil teased. Missy huffed, but didn't press, so Ivil took her turn. "You left the Lunatics to work on... what's probably one of the least luxurious ships in the system, why?"

Missy grunted something. "You really go for the jugular, huh?" she said.

"It's what's most effective, most of the time," Ivil said. "If you're not comfortable..." It was a little strange, talking to a woman through a door, and not how she imagined this kind of thing going down.

"No, it's fine," Missy said. "I left because I was being fit into a little box. I was good at what I did, but it wasn't all I wanted to do. I knew the captain. Not friends or anything, just met a few times. Took the job here, and it's... a dead end of my choosing."

Ivil noted how little Missy had actually said about her past, but that was fine. They could continue the game. It was a productive way to learn what she wanted to. "Your turn to ask a question," Ivil said.

"Hmm, so, not technically Martian spec-ops or military. What's that mean?"

"It means that I do what I want, and the kind people of the Martian military complex make sure they're not standing in my way," Ivil said. "Sometimes they'll ask for favours, and I'll help if I feel like it at the time."

"Heh," Missy said. "So, you're that sort, huh? You look surprisingly human."

Ivil knew that Missy had gotten the wrong impression. There were, scattered across the system, some few hundred people who edged into B-class and who weren't directly tied to any government. Free agents. They often had strong bonds to one world or another anyway, because a B-classer was powerful, but it wasn't a monolith.

"Something like that," Ivil replied. It was enough, for the moment. Better, even, than Missy knowing who she really was. That would only inspire fear the likes of which she didn't want to deal with.

"Your turn," Missy said. "Wait." She cut off the coms. The reason was obvious to Ivil. Twenty-Six, who was now much brighter in Ivil's senses, had finished suiting up and ran over. Aurora was on her way back as well. "We're coming out in a few, you'll have to pocket that question for later."

"Gladly," Ivil replied.

Aurora arrived, and soon enough Ivil backed off and waited for the airlock to cycle.

When it finished and opened, Ivil found herself looking over the team stepping out. Missy was in a fairly sleek suit. Old, certainly, and worn at the knees and joints, but well made. She'd grabbed one of the coats from the pirates that had broken into the Held Together, the pockets filled with loose shells for the shotgun hanging behind her by a strap.

Twenty-Six's suit was a mess of patches and spare parts, and it was clearly a size too large, but she had some straps and belts to keep it in snug, as well as a suite of tools strapped to her chest and in a large duffle she tugged after her.

Aurora came up behind the two, in a perfectly serviceable light suit, her head covered in a transparent dome over a dark jade suit with a few bronze highlights. The small bean-shaped emblem of Phobos was emblazoned on her chest.

"You all look ready," Ivil said.

"And you look like someone who should be choking on the lack of air in here," Missy said.

"I've got a trick or two for that," Ivil said with a shrug. "So, I had time to think, and I've come up with a simple plan."

***