Chapter Twenty-Seven - Unprepared Lions

Piracy didn't exactly go unpunished within the belt, but the issue with actually punishing piracy was twofold.

First, it was expensive. The pirates were rich off the booty they collected, and unlike any government, they only had themselves to invest in. Sure, the overall growth and profits might be small compared to that of a proper planetary nation, but they didn't have the worries and bloat of governance to worry about. In that way, they were closer to a conglomerate of disparate companies than a proper political entity.

Second was the matter of jurisdiction.

Did Mars want Earth moving a fleet around the belt? Fuck no. Would Earth accept Mars wiping out a pirate fleet with their superior navy? Not without whining about it.

If no one had rights in the belt, then no one had the right to fight off the pirates either.

It was a twisted bit of logic despised by cargo captains everywhere, and easily understood by any career bureaucrat.

In the end, it meant that the pirates of the belt were used to things going one way. Their way.

They'd prey on those that traversed their corner of space. If you were weak, you were on the menu. Better hope you looked poor or the pirates around you were fat already. They were lions lazing in the migratory path of limp gazelle. Sometimes an elephant would rumble by, and unless the pirates had a big plan in mind or a sponsor in the shadows, they wouldn't go after well-armed convoys.

The lions never expected to have their airlock door literally kicked in and for the savannah's equivalent of a safari hunter with an attack helicopter to barge into their home turf.

Ivil, the current safari-hunter of choice, stretched her back as she walked past the three slumped pirates. "You didn't answer," she said over her shoulder.

Twenty-Six peeked out around the corner, attention going from the men on the ground to Ivil. "Huh?"

Ivil pointed to the core-user in the bunch. "She has a core. It's nothing special. Some minor ferrokinesis of some sort or another. It's the kind of power that would be useful to a mechanic." And if Ivil knew anything about Cores, and she knew everything, then it wasn't the kind of core that would give Twenty-Six any noticeable physical changes.

"You're just going to give her a Core?" Missy asked.

"It's a weak one, good to cut your teeth. And Twenty-Six seems smart. She might find creative uses for it," Ivil said. "Besides, there's a number of Core-users here. We'll have plenty to go around."

Missy eyed her, then shrugged. "If you want it, Two-Six," she said.

"I-I-I can't have a Core!" Twenty-Six stuttered. "That's for important people."

"You're important to me," Ivil replied simply. "You've been friendly and kind so far. And I certainly don't want or need the core."

Twenty-Six gulped, but she nodded.

"That's a big responsibility," Aurora said.

It froze Twenty-Six on the spot, which didn't stop her from floating forwards a little more under her momentum. "W-what do you mean?" Twenty-Six asked.

"Having a core puts you ahead of others, whether you want to think that way or not. It can leave you feeling... detached from the rest of humanity, in a way. That can be hard to overcome. Worse, some people gain a Core and its power and fail to understand that with that power comes a responsibility to use it wisely." Aurora locked eyes with Ivil. "And giving that kind of power to another is also not something so easily done."

Ivil nodded, acknowledging the point. "That's a valid argument. But I'm not giving a gun to a child. I'm giving a knife to an adult. It'll be a tool, or a weapon, as she sees fit, but it isn't something she'll fail to use wisely, I don't think. Better to give it to her than to hoard it."

Aurora considered that for a moment before shrugging a shoulder. "Very well."

"So... should I take it?" Twenty-Six asked.

"Go ahead," Aurora replied. "In the worst case, if you find it unsuitable, then give it back. Miss Ville could sell it for a pretty penny."

A core, even a weaker one, was worth its weight in precious metal. More, even. There were only so many of them to go around, and more people who wanted one than there were to share. Not to mention those few like Ivil who hoarded them.

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She reached down, casually ending the life of the pirate and watching as her core reassembled over her body. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than the joint at the end of her pinky. She plucked it out of the air and inspected it. "It's a third-generation core," she observed.

"What's that mean?" Twenty-Six asked.

"When you have a core, you can 'split' it. Break it within yourself and extrude a broken replica. That replica will repair itself over time. Sometimes it's months, usually it's years. The copy within the Core-wielder will heal as well, often over the same timescale. In the end, however, you're left with two copies of the same, or extremely similar, Core. This one was the split of a split. That makes it somewhat uncommon." Ivil handed it to Twenty-Six, who took the small item with reverence.

"Wow. Wait, doesn't that mean that people could double the number of cores? Exponentially?"

"Yes," Ivil said. "At the cost of severely weakening themselves for months or years. It's still a valid if slow way of earning money, as long as you have a core valuable enough to sustain you for the year or more in which it's broken."

Twenty-Six took a moment to parse that, then nodded. "Okay. How do I?"

"Just swallow it," Ivil said.

There were better ways. Opening a hole within one's body and shoving it in was preferred, and more accurate at times. But for such a weak core, and one given to someone she didn't want to traumatise, consumption was best.

Twenty-Six eyed the Core. "Really?"

"It'll work," Missy said. "But I--"

Twenty-Six tossed the Core back and gulped audibly. "Uh... sorry, what?"

"I was gonna say that I'd clean it first," Missy said.

"They're usually somewhat sterile," Ivil said.

"Somewhat, sure," Missy muttered with a shake of her head.

Twenty-Six glanced between the two, then touched a hand to her chest. "Am I supposed to feel something? Weird new senses or whatever?"

"You'll notice in a moment," Ivil replied. She reached down and started to search the women, looking not for a gun or a weapon but for... she found it, and ripped it from the belt of the corpse. A small pouch, for shotgun shells. She emptied it, then handed it over to Twenty-Six.

The young woman had just enough time to look at the bag in confusion before her face went green and she vomited into the bag.

"First time's always the worst," Ivil replied.

There was a reason ingestion wasn't popular for more experienced Core-wielders.

Missy stepped up and started rubbing circles in Twenty-Six's back. "There, there," she muttered.

"We can give you a couple of minutes," Ivil said. "These three will probably have to report back sooner than later, but I doubt the pirates will act out so soon."

"I don't know about that," Missy said. "Their MO is to have a group come in, secure the entrance, then open it up for more troops. Then once they have a squad or two in the ship, one secures the main objective, another secures the ship."

"Ah, so they'll be expecting these three to report right away, then," Ivil said. "You have some experience with this kind of thing?"

Missy eyed her, then nodded. "Some," she admitted.

Ivil considered her next move while Twenty-Six continued to cough and sputter. The girl would be fine. Ivil could feel the core settling already. Soon it would break apart and reconfigure itself in her head as that kind of core was apt to do. It would probably be a few hours before Twenty-Six could even start to use it. More likely it would take a day or two.

She refocused on the issue at hand; the pirates. "Alright," she said. "Aurora, Missy, Twenty-Six, please stand on this side of the airlock. I'm going to cycle it. In the meantime, strip these three of whatever you might want. Once I'm done on the other side, I'll cycle the airlock again. If it opens up empty, that's your all-clear. Understood?"

"You're just going to dive into the lion's den?" Missy asked.

"Lions aren't prepared for the likes of me," Ivil replied.

"Hmm. We're going to have to have a talk," Missy shot back.

"I think I'd like to be part of that," Aurora added.

Twenty-Six swallowed, and looked between the two. "H-hey, Evelyn's not a bad guy," she said.

Well, that was one of the most heart-warming things Ivil had ever heard just before she walked out to commit some extreme violence.

***