RavensDagger

  Interlude Three - Missy

  Missy had worked with some pretty shady people doing some pretty shady shit, so she wasly uo being thrown out into situations that the more normal sort of person might have been desperate to escape from.

  Still... she'd left Haumea for a reason a long time ago.

  That life wasn't for her, not anymore.

  Yes, there had been some fun, but...

  Her old home, the pce she'd grown up in, the unity she'd been part of since she was little, it took being apart from it to realize just how incredibly fucked it was.

  The Lunatics weren't fun-loving deep-spaarchists. That's how they liked to appear, that's what they painted on their masks, that's what they wao be. Reality had a way of iing itself into that kind of fantasy.

  She had gdly worked for the greater good of their society for years. Putting down dissidents who were on the wrong side of anarchic, hunting down spies, chasing after traitors that ran away... she was a Warmime, and dirty work was her day job.

  Until... until she met someone. Until she started to look bad see how things actually were. Until she was ordered to put down that someone because they were trouble.

  She retired soon after.

  She always suspected her past would catch up to her, one day, but her retirement had been as cut and dry as it could be. Sure, she knew a few dirty secrets, but they were the sort of thing that was rumoured-at anyway. Sure, she left with a couple of cores, but they weren't overly precious, and the day she left she split all of her cores and abahe splits.

  It had left her weak, paratively, but it also meant that the Lunatics weren't any weaker for losing her.

  She'd probably left a small gap in their ranks. After all, she retty damned petent, if she said so herself. She wasn't going to be all that easy to repce, but they'd manage.

  So she settled into the life of a first mate on an old junker of a ship, travelling the system and minding its own damned business. At first the rigidity had chafed a little, but she got used to it. Plus, it wasn't all bad. There were perks to spending time at every port in the sor system. Missy might have quit the business on Haumea, but she still had her paints, and there were men, and women, across the system that found her... exotic.

  She rarely had to spend a night in port alone, which was nice.

  It iss-poor band-aid on the wound in her heart, but it was something.

  She figured she'd go on like this for some time, until the Held Together gave out, was caught by pirates, failed to deliver something, or... maybe she'd even move on to another ship, or pick up a little craft of her own one day.

  She never expected to be thrust bato exactly the kind of work she'd been doing before.

  She never expected to find it so damned thrilling.

  Missy pushed the thoughts away and tried to focus oask in front of her. There was a sole from that pirate ship they were actively pirating, the Sappho. It was the ship's navigation puter, but also the system trolling the ship's torpedo and missile unch system.

  Usually, she'd think that ahat had both on the same meism was a fool, but this irate ship, so that was a fone clusion.

  "Missy?" Evelyn asked.

  Missy khat the name was fake. Evelyn Ville. E. Ville. No one sane would actually call themselves that, not when it was very close to encroag on the name of one of the three Emperors. "Yes?" she replied.

  "Are we ready to unch?" Evelyn asked.

  "At the press of a button. But once we're going, everyone will know."

  "Hmm, that's a fair point. Miss Aurora, if you would be so kind as to get on the s and swear a little? Perhaps insihat we're diseg from the docks for our own safety?"

  Aurora looked up. The nobledy--the one very likely responsible for them being chased down by pirates in the first pce--seemed a little frazzled. Her hair was a mess, curls having freed themselves from her coif, and there preciable flush on her darker skin. "You wao act like we're pirates leaving the station?"

  "Exactly," Evelyn said. "I doubt that other pirates would follow any sort of procedure in this situation, so let's py up the fact that we're doing the same."

  "I'll... try," Aurora said.

  Missy reached down and tapped the final release on the cmps holding them ihe entire ship shivered, then swayed around them. "Ready to move," Missy said as she took full trol of the helm and activated all of the ship's man thruster suite.

  It was strao be piloting a ship that wasn't a rustbucket like the Held Together. This thing had some real power behind it, and it wouldn't take seds for a pressed and to be acted out.

  "Take us out, slow and steady," Evelyn said. "Then we'll see about aiming those torpedoes and missiles. There are a lot of sitting ducks around here."

  "A duck's one of those earth chis, right?" Twenty-Six asked.

  "Just so," Evelyn agreed.

  Missy shook her head, and not for the first time, activated one of her cores.

  Of all the cores and powers she had taken with her when she left Haumea, this was the ohat was most likely to have them chase after her. It wasn't directly powerful, but it was... useful. A full tenth of the Warmimes had copies of it.

  The core was called the Eye of Marceau. It allowed her to 'ping' other cores nearby and gauge their retive strength. It was far from perfect, and it took some time to get used to telling how strong a core was, but it did mean that when out oreets, Missy could point to each core-wielder in sight, regardless of how subtle their core and its powers were.

  Aurora came back as a tiny steltion of weak lights. Like faint, distant stars twinkling together. All of her cores save a couple were copies of copies of copies. Weak, but slowly repairing themselves.

  Twenty-Six came back as a single point, a weaker star, but irely faded. Her core was likely a sed-geion copy of its inal, and it had matured successfully.

  Missy's own clowed bright withiwo fully regrown cores. One was even an inal, healed from its split years ago.

  She could even feel a few distinct cores dumped in a locker by the ship's airlock, tossed in there by Evelyhey boarded. That would bear iigatihough she doubted that Evelyn had entirely fotten.

  And Evelyn Ville... was nothing. A bnk spot, with no more cores shining from within than Missy could see in the average person.

  That was, of course, entirely impossible.

  "Missy, you spin up targeting and send it to my seat?" Evelyn asked.

  "Alright," Missy replied as she did just that. Her haed on the ship's yoke, and she gently pulled them up and away from the station. She felt a slight, momentary bit of acceleration, then nothing again as she let the ship drift.

  She had an idea of what Evelyn was aiming for. They'd py the part of pirates on the run from some trouble in their own station until they were poised to strike. And then they'd let loose with everything the Sappho had to offer.

  That was actually a fair bit. Missy had an eye on the ship's onry, and every tube was filled with anti-ship torpedoes, EMP bombs, and MIRVs desigo disable entire small voys of cargo haulers. There were even more torpedoes and missiles stored away and ready to reload automatically.

  "Hmm, so many targets, so few projectiles," Evelyn said as she idly tapped the targeting s o the captain's seat.

  "Want a list of priorities?" Missy asked. "Or just go for the biggest, mea ships around the station."

  "Yes, that was always my favourite tactic. Find the biggest, mea, stro person in the room and kick their teeth in. It puts everything in perspective for the rest."

  "Yeah," Missy said. She eyed the back of Evelyn's head. Who the hell was this woman?

  "We'll just shoot a bit of everything. I want to keep some ammo for our trip as well, something tells me haviy tubes wouldn't be the best option at the moment. Do you agree?" Evelyn half-turned a Missy's eyes.

  She didn't know what to think. There was no anger, or fear, or nation, just a steady, curious gaze.

  "Yeah, I guess that's not the worst idea," Missy said. "Should I get ready to unch us out of here as soon as you've fired?"

  "No, we o stick around to keep the Held Together safe. I pn on that ship making it to Callisto no matter what."

  Yeah, this woman was weird.

  Missy had to get to know her more, before she pulled out another weird trick.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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