RavensDagger

  Chapter Sixty-Seven - The Nerve

  For some, disc that someone wanted you, personally, dead, was a shock to the system.

  To Ivil Antagonist, it was ahursday.

  Unfortunately, she was disc that her nonce about others wishing her demise was not shared with everyone else in their little group.

  Pixie, who was of course still iarfighter, didn't seem to mind overly much. At least, that was the impression she unicated with them. Ivil didn't doubt it was true, however.

  She arently oop ten of the bounty hunter leaderboards around Jupiter and had a multi-million dolr bounty on her own head pced there by a few piratical syndicates. It wasn't the official, legal kind of bounty, so its veracity and whether anyone might actually be able to cim it was very much up for debate.

  Still, Pixie wasn't overly worried about the situation. It was a job.

  Likewise for Pepper. The MINT agent was still a little stressed, but Ivil chalked that up to her being in the same room as... well, Ivil. If anything, Pepper must have been intimately aware that she was teically in one of the safest pces in the sor system as long as Ivil cared enough to keep her alive.

  Twenty-Six was... taking it well enough, Ivil supposed. She was a little more fiddly than usual, but Ivil suspected that the meic had spent most of her life one bad seal away from death and this risk of a more sudden and violent demise wasn't b her all that much.

  It was Aurora that really had Ivil worried.

  Externally the young woman seemed fine. She was calm and focused on a small tablet on the fold-out desk ahead of her, gently tapping through menus with several reports open. Ivil khat her eyes weren't focused on the s at all, however, and there was the slightest tremble as she reached out her delicate hands to the s.

  She was flexing her cores. It wasn't something the usual person might notice. Aurora was squeezing her cores like a stress ball.

  Ivil carefully stood up and made her way across the room. They were in the process of doing a gentle slow-down burn. The ship's engines, being designed in a proper Martian fashio that they could still stand and walk while the ship pressed them down at a steady two and a bit Gs of force.

  Twenty-Six and Pepper and Ivil had all beehe front of the room while Aurora had calmly moved to the back where the desks were while g she needed a little time to work.

  Ivil discovered a seat fixed to the floor by heavy mags, shut off the cept of magism around it, and moved the seat to be o Aurora.

  The Phobian looked up as Ivil sat o her. "I'm sorry, Evelyn, but I'm a little busy."

  "Staring at the same six pages without seeing them?" Ivil asked. She leao the side a little to read the report. "Is the average tourist spending on Phobos so important?"

  "It's our main source of ine," Aurora said. "And it would be threatened if we joihe League more fully, which we might well o do if we want to take part in things moving forwards."

  "Ah, I see," Ivil replied. "Yes, I imagine Mars might san Phobos if that were to happen. It would be a politically unpopur choiars."

  "We generally try not to care too much about what Mars thinks. But it's a monolith, and we're too close not to be ed. Phobos' entire agricultural system has turowards produg luxury foods, did you know that?"

  "I didn't," Ivil admitted. "Is that an issue?"

  She nodded. "Sustenance foods are still produars. We sell Mars foods that it 't produce because of various ws, and the profit allows us to buy basic foodstuffs. Coffee beans are a luxury good. Mars passed legistion not to give agricultural zones any subsidies for coffee bean produ some eighty years ago. Now Mars barely produces any. It could, easily, but they don't. So we fill that niche."

  "Sounds good so far," Ivil said.

  "And if Mars decided that our alliah the League, or our joining fully would be a bad move, they could easily remove those same restris on their own subsidies, produce their own coffee, and crash a full two pert of our export ey within a few months."

  Two pert didn't sound like too much to Ivil, but she imagihat it was actually quite a bit. Being two pert faster was a huge advantage in space warfare. Two pert stronger shields, two pert more survivability... yes, the number was small but its effe a rge scale could mean a lot.

  "I see. That's important, I suppose. But I don't think it expins your mood. Do... do you want to talk about it?" Ivil asked. She didn't sound awkward. She certainly felt it.

  Aurora turned and looked up, meeting Ivil's eyes. "Evelyn... you might suck at this," she said rather bluntly.

  Ivil blihen chuckled. "I might," she admitted. "I'm unfortunately better suited for death aru than chatting about feelings. I'm sorry."

  "No, don't apologise. Yerying. It's kind of you."

  "I'm trying to be kinder, at least to some select people," Ivil said.

  "I'm happy to be amongst those," Aurora said. "This whole thing with the ambush today and the pirates retly. I... I think I might not be as prepared for all of this as I thought I was. I have been in some high-stress situations on Phobos before. iations, corporate battles. But never anything like this, and never while out on my own."

  "On your own?" Ivil asked. "Don't say that. I'm here, aren't I? I'd like to think that I t as a small army for the purposes of keeping someone safe."

  "One woman, no matter how strong, won't stop people from being unscrupulous... assholes," Aurora said. Her little Phobian at and the emphasis she put on that st word almost had Ivil ughing again. It sounded sn to Aurora, like she was trying to speak a word in an unfamiliar nguage.

  Ivil smiled and patted Aurora's hand where it y on the desk. "I think you'd be quite surprised at how mue headstrong person or 't do. But I didn't e back here t about my overwhelming strength. I came back here to make sure you were alright."

  "I think I'm fine," Aurora said.

  "I think you're not," Ivil corrected her gently.

  Aurora looked at where their hands met, and paused. Her hand carefully, slowly turned so that her palm and Ivil's was resting on it. her of them moved past that. It wasn't handholding, Ivil reasoned, just... hands toug. This was fine.

  "I hate to admit it, but I think I need help," Aurora said. "I came out here thinking I'd sweep i hobos needs, then run along all victorious. Instead I've found knives in the dark and more challehan I'd expected to find of a level of difficulty greater than I repared for."

  "What sort of help do you need?" Ivil asked. "I wipe the moons of your enemies out of the sky, atomize their bones and boil their pitiful brains."

  Aurhed. "No, I don't need an assassin of my own, Evelyn. Having you here is good enough, I think. But... you're strong, aren't you? I saw you fighting a little with the pirates."

  "I was holding back quite a bit," Ivil admitted.

  "I'm sure. Could you keep us safe?"

  "I could do more than that," Ivil said. "I could knock heads together and vince people at this meeting to bequeath you their entire fortunes before leaping out of an airlock."

  Aurora shook her head. "No, I don't want help with the iation itself. It's a delicate matter that requires a delicate touch. But... I'm not as prepared for all these physical threats. The showboating and power pys I live with, it's the actual attempts on my life that I 't."

  Ivil nodded. She was very pleased with this entire versation. "Very well, then. With your permission, I'll keep you safe from ahat might try anything. But, as I said before, I'm not your minion. I'll hahreats in my own way."

  "I suppose I 't ask for more than that," Aurora said. Her hand shifted a little, furthering the tact between them. She flushed a little, then pulled her hand bad cleared her throat. "I... o work. Sorry," she said.

  "Of course," Ivil replied. Aurora didn't know it, but in that moment she could have asked for a lot more than that and Ivil would have given it to her willingly.

  When she gnced back, she found Twenty-Six blushing and giviwo-thumbs up.

  ***

  RavensDagger

  26 best tug <3 Some of my stories are on TopWebFi!-amon Bun-Stray Cat Strut-Lever A-Dead Tired-Heart of Dorkness-SpeddonVoting makes Broccoli smile!

  The following books are avaible as paperbacks (and as Ebooks) on Amazon. Oh, and there’s like, a billion audiobooks of my stuff now!

  (The images are links!)

  All proceeds go to funding my addi to buying art paying for food, rent, and other ies!

  Thank you so much for all your support everyone! And thank you extra hard for allowio do this for a living; I’ll do my best to keep you eained!