The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist

Chapter Thirty-One - Trust

Trust was a two-way street.

There weren't streets in space.

Ivil was a little worried that her easy dismissal of Aurora's question about her own personal power would create something of a rift between them. It wasn't a well-played move, and she was silently chastising herself for it.

Most of the time, on the rare occasion where she made a mistake, she had the option to cover it up by violently separating anyone who noticed it into their constituent atoms. That wasn't an option she wanted to take here, so she had to live with the consequences of her own failure.

It was frustrating.

Ivil pushed ahead, leading the other three through the corridor and to its end where Twenty-Six checked on the console for the next bulkhead. "It's good," she said.

They had slowly repressurized the corridor they were in to the same level as the rest of the station. From here on, as long as they didn't poke holes through the walls, they'd be just fine. Ivil pressed a hand against the bulkhead. It was entirely for show. "There's going to be resistance on the other side," she said.

Missy tucked her purloined shotgun against her shoulder. "How many?"

"I'll take them," Ivil said. "Just stay out of the line of sight. Twenty-Six, open the door whenever you're ready."

The others moved to the side, though Ivil noticed Missy switching the gun from one shoulder to another and aiming it down into the doorway despite her warning.

The bulkhead klaxon honked a warning, then the door rumbled open.

Ivil raised a hand, stopping a few slugs in midair as they raced towards them.

The next room over was a small space on two levels, with several corridors connecting into it and a few doors leading out. The middle of the space had a terminal, and a table had been flipped onto its side to provide visual cover for a team of pirates in very light armour.

A police force? They weren't armed or equipped for boarding actions, and as Ivil batted aside the trailing wires of a taser, she found that they weren't armed for anything serious either. Even the shotgun shells were gelatin packs, designed to deform on impact to spread their kinetic energy on a wide area without penetrating. Exactly the kind of weapons used on belligerents in a place like this.

After taking her time scanning things, and allowing Missy to rather foolishly peek her head out and take a shot at the temporary barricade the pirates had put up, Ivil reached out and snapped some necks.

There was a great and sudden crunch noise as a half-dozen women were killed in the same second.

The room went silent, at least until Twenty-Six started to lean in to look. "Is it safe?"

"A moment," Ivil replied. She frowned, then tugged a body closer. It floated up and over the barricade, then towards them. Her senses told her that there was something not right about...

An explosion rocked the entranceway, quickly blocked by a shield of Ivil's making.

Small rounded pellets bounced across the entrance, thumping hard against the grated floor with enough force to snap some of the metal fittings, but not nearly enough to penetrate through.

"What was that?" Aurora asked.

"A trap," Ivil said. The body she'd pulled forwards was covered in small holes across their suit, the skin beneath flayed and cut. "You'll see that sort of thing in some ships. They're anti-boarding weapons."

"Some high-sec ships will have that kind of thing," Missy said. "If you don't have the right IFF on, they go off."

Ivil glanced at her, but didn't comment. That was true, but most of the ships that took such a high degree of precaution were exactly the kind of vessels that civilians had no business being in, or sometimes knowing about.

Martian warships had a few anti-boarding devices. They only cost twice as much as a grenade to manufacture, and in the few cases where a Martian ship was boarded during the last inter-system war, they had proved their worth.

"Should be clear," Ivil said as she stepped in. She glanced up, then around, searching for cameras. When she noticed one, she crushed its interior. "Let's move quick."

"Where are we moving to, exactly?" Aurora asked.

"I think the centre of the station," Twenty-Six said. She very gingerly kicked off the ground and floated towards one of the corpses, then with one foot hooked on a rail, she came to a gentle stop next to a body. Twenty-Six pried a gun free and looked it over before looping the sling over her shoulder.

"Do you know how to use that?" Ivil asked.

"Can't be harder than some power tools," Twenty-Six said. She grabbed a pair of magazines from the pirate's body and slipped them into her toolbelt.

"Keep your finger off the trigger," Missy warned. "This isn't the place to be learning how to use a gun. How about you?" The last was aimed at Aurora, who blinked.

"Oh. No thank you," she said. "Actually, one of the few advantages of being from Phobos is the lack of obligatory service time. I do know how to use a firearm, but nothing quite so big."

Missy slipped over to the pirates, then tugged a small handgun free from a belt holster, she pushed it towards Aurora, who caught it out of the air. "Take one anyway. Miss-C-Classer here is tough, but she might not be there the entire time. You might want it."

Ivil blinked. C-classer? She was almost insulted by the insinuation. Though she supposed that with how hard she was pulling her punches, she was displaying about the level of power that could be expected from someone between the ten and one-hundred core level.

"Is everyone ready to move on?" she asked.

When she got enough nods, Ivil took off towards one of the upper corridors. It actually forced her to kick off the ground and allow the lack of gravity to carry her upwards. This junction split off in multiple directions, and if she had done enough breaking the cameras, then from this point on, the pirates would have a hard time tracking them.

Which, she imagined, wouldn't be ideal for the pirate's peace of mind.

"Is that an alarm?" Twenty-Six asked.

There was a faint wailing in the distance. A blaring alarm whose sound was carried through the metallic superstructure of the station. "Sounds like it," Missy said.

"Is that because of us?" Aurora asked as she pulled herself along with some handrails. She was holding the pistol in her free hand, rather awkwardly, but not pointed towards anyone.

"If I had to guess, yeah," Missy replied. "Pirates like this won't be used to frontal attacks, but they will be ready for it. At least a little. They live by the sword, they think violently, which means that they'll want their home secured as well."

"You know a fair bit about pirates," Ivil commented.

"Just enough to piss them off," Missy muttered. "Look, they'll be mounting some resistance, strong resistance. A lot more than you'd expect from any civilians, but the moment they break, it'll get ugly."

"Ugly how?" Aurora asked.

"Ugly in the sense that they're not soldiers. They don't have allegiances to a country or people. They're in this for themselves. These pirates might have started off with a bit more of an ideological bent, but you can bet your last dollar that they've gone fully piratical. They probably only pay lip service to their traditions at this point because it gives them an edge when dealing with others. A rep."

"It'll be every pirate for themselves," Twenty-Six said.

"Something like that," Missy replied. "Might have bosses that can rally people. That'll be dangerous, because they'll have people with more than just one spoon-bending core at their disposal. And bigger guns. And ships. If they decide that's enough, they could start shooting up the station."

"We won't let it come to that," Ivil said. They reached the next intersection, and Ivil crushed the cameras she noticed before pointing to a console against one wall. "Twenty-Six, can you break into that? We need a map."

"Let me see," Twenty-Six replied. She floated over to the wall-mounted computer and tapped on its screen. It didn't take long that she had a basic map up. "Here you go!"

"Good job," Ivil said as she walked over. The map was simple, with a few sections coloured in, and a few shops marked out. She wasn't entirely surprised to discover that there was a shopping arm to the station next to the habitation section. That wasn't a concern for the moment. "Here," she said, stabbing a finger at a spot on the map.

"That's the central station," Missy said. "The biggest damned part of this place."

"And it's where we'll likely find what we're looking for. The meanest, biggest ship we can steal."

***