RavensDagger

  Interlude Eleven - The Silly Spy

  She ag in her office, trying very hard to keep the screams within herself, rather than yell out her frustrations aloud.

  The office was hers, in a way. Well, it was more accurate to say that it was MINT's offid she was just borrowing it for the moment, but her name was on the front door. Peppermint's Party Pnning! It was a small office run by MINT before the empress decided to shack up in Dirftwood station. MINT had verted it into a pnning anisation with three whole employees and a detly long made-up history around the Jovian system that no one ought to look too deeply into.

  It was tight, and not in the se of the amalgam station, but it wasn't in the worst either. She had a desk, a small apartment, and a few amehat were a luxury when living in a station.

  All things said and done, MINT was treating her as well as they could. She couldn't tell if that was because she'd threateo rip her handler a new asshole or if it was because of her proximity to the Empress.

  No, no, she could defiell whie really mattered to the intelligence agency.

  Pepper sighed, but tinued her pag. She didn't have the time, let alohe mental energy, to waste thinking about stuff that didn't matter.

  Her long-term career was in jeopardy, but she was also poised to unch that same career right up into the stratosphere. Handling the Empress was the not-so-secretive end-goal of MINT. She was Mars' greatest military asset a Mars had no real trol over her. That was sometimes for the best, as her is served as a ter to the political ambitions of some and the military ambitions of others.

  If the navy had trol over the Empress, Earth would be a barren husk and the entire system would be wearing the uniform by now. If a politi took trol of her, then... well, that'd be horrifi strange and unique ways, certainly.

  MINT served to curtail those attempts at trol while als to establish their owhods.

  They'd never been truly successful, but every step that ended with the Empress happy with MINT was a major aplishment.

  Pepper had studied the agency's history. The unaltered, real history. MINT had once been on the verge of colpse, but a few lucky strokes had them iently helping the Empress, and she casually mentiohe fa the hearing of the media and some important figures. It had entirely ged the tides that MINT was drowning in.

  Right now, Pepper was the closest thing MINT had to a mouth poised o the Empress' ear. For the first time in the anisation's history, they were the closest part of the Martian apparatus to the core of Mars' power.

  MINT wasn't broadcasting the fact, because... well, they weren't that sort of people, but even Pepper could tell that the higher-ups were shifting anxiously, ready to make a few small, subtle moves with long-term potential tied to them.

  It was a lot of pressure on Pepper's back, and she was quite certain that she wouldn't succeed at her primary objective.

  It wasn't that she wasn't tempted by the Empress. Pepper licked her lips then shifted her shoulders a little. Ivil was undeniably attractive, both physically and in terms of power. Pepper would readily admit that in her current--siate, she wouldn't mind spending more time with the woman.

  But the Empress had her eyes locked upon others, and Pepper might be a spy and an informant and very, very single, but she wasn't a homewrecker, orders be damned. If she couldn't be part of whatever strange harem was going on, then she could at least be her imperial majesty's wingwoman.

  Pepper g her desk. There was a stack of papers ying upon it. Actual paper-paper. Uhese days except for when someone wao demonstrate their wealth or anaistidencies, or when information had to be passed along in a very destructible form.

  The sheets clearly ordered her to destroy them upon her havihem. They'd even been delivered with a small lighter. Pepper had abstained from that for the moment.

  The pages were reports. Detailed to the point of nausea. Reports of movement across the sor system. Fleets of mert ships that, when traced back to their ins, hi discrepancies.

  One mert fleet had een ships within it. It had only had fourteen three months ago when a Martian patrol flew by. At some point, five more ships had joihe small fleet, but all of the previously noted appearances of that same fleet said that there were only fourteen.

  So either the le sensors of the patrol were wrong, which ossible, or someone had added five new ships to their fleet and disguised the fact.

  It wasn't the only strange happening. There was a small Earth-Alliatlegroup that was going through war trials and war games. Small being the operative term, because it only had half as many vessels as the average war game would have.

  Another area had some ships belonging to a small ship-ons developer dois on the edge of the asteroid belt. They were firing rounds at rocks. Nothing too special. Only MINT had dug into that pany's history and discovered deep links to the Earth Alliance.

  There were a dozen more reports. Each was small, a drop in the bucket. A discrepancy that could be written off as ce, inpetence, or even subtle but not unusual enemy a. The Earth Alliance had their own intelligence apparatus and it too o move agents around.

  But taken all together?

  MINT admitted in the report that it was sheer ce that the several agents looking into various cases all happeo notice a pattern and started to pare notes.

  The is, charted on a map of the system, drew a line.

  A line frhly where Earth sat at the moment, tht past the Jovian system and straight towards Uranus.

  MINT was mobilising in a big epper imagihat if she wasn't in such a critical position, she might also be one of the lowly agents being tied to an outbound mert ship with the goal to spot some of the Earth Alliance elements moving further out towards the edge of the system.

  At the moment, it seemed like the League of Free Moons was still unaware, or their intelligence apparatus had yet to kick things into gear.

  So, MINT had stumbled across ah Alliance plot far from their own jurisdi, and the bme for that could be pced on the Empress for moving to the area at a time where she really should have been around Mars.

  The Earth Alliance was rarely this subtle, but their goal here was obvious.

  The chase of new cores currently held around Uranus. It represented enough cores to catapult a nobody into the higher end of core-user rankings. That would mean one more individual capable of causing mass disruption.

  Or, the new cores could be cultivated, reproduced, and dissemihroughout the Earth Alliance. In terms of short-term gains, it would mean little, but in two decades, whehousand or so cores were suddenly twenty-thousand distributed across the alliance?

  Or... or the Earth Alliance could sider giving all of those cores to a single person with a lot of cores already. One of their A-rankers, perhaps. It wouldn't be anywhere near enough to gain a sed S-rank core user, but it would mean a sed rge threat.

  The most horrific idea, of course, was giving those cores to their own S-ranker.

  The Empress of Mars was one of three S-ranked individuals in the system. At the moment, she held a firmed and rather important lead oher two, the Emperor of Jupiter and the Emperor of Earth.

  But this many new cores? That could, ceivably, be enough to cut that gap and narrow it down until the Empress was only as strong as the Emperor of Earth.

  That was, quite simply, uable.

  The Emperor of Earth issant, whiny man that liked to lord over others, but who was too stupid and easily distracted to notice that he was well and truly ed by the leadership of the Earth Alliance.

  Given the opportunity, he would e to blows with Ivil Antagonist.

  Someone had to tell the Empress. She was right here. So close to Uranus. She could grab those cores for herself. She could secure them and give them to the League of Free Moons and earn herself, and Mars, a lot of good will.

  In any case, the Empress had to be informed, and the person so carefully chosen for the task was her than Pepper Mint.

  She had to go up to the Empress--currently having a dinner date where she was bullying that poor merary pilot--and inform her that her dating time was going to be cut short.

  Pepper hoped she wouldn't take it out on her poor, silly spy.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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