RavensDagger

  Chapter Fifteen - Adeptus Ancillia

  The tech-maids of Mars, or as they called themselves, the Adeptus Ancillia, were members of a religious anisation that sprung up on Mars before the first inter-system war.

  Though calling them specifically the tech-maids of Mars was incorrect.

  The anisatioed oh, and anywhere else where enough people gathered. The split had happened retively early in the religious order's life. Some cimed that it was simir to the split between Catholicism and Protestantism. Those people had no appreciation of history, or of how stupid and accurate that parison was.

  Because it was accurate in many ways, but being correct didn't stop people from being stupid.

  Part of it was the national identity of the members of the different groups. Martian society was exceptionally proud of itself, and that showed in the identity of even the religions that grew upon the red world.

  That was, again, simplifying decades ious growth. All Ivil had to herself with at the moment, was whether this tech-maid was going to blow her cover or not.

  Ivil followed Missy into the Held Together's hangar and sat herself down to one side. She watched as the Warmime started cheg things out, tugging on cargo straps, kig a few braces that were pced to hold crates in pce, and then tsking to herself as she found the workstation at the back full of loose tools. "I swear," she said.

  "Is that Twenty-Six's stuff?" Ivil asked.

  "It is," Missy said with a sigh. "That girl does not pick up after herself."

  "Isn't she the ohat o fix any holes made by her stuff pung through the walls?" Ivil asked.

  "Yes. Yes she is," Missy said. "Trust me, this ship doesn't need any more work added to it."

  "Have you tried reprimanding her?"

  Missy waved a hand dismissively without looking Ivil's way. "Sure, but she fets. Look, if she wasn't as good as she is, I'd make a much bigger fuss. If Donny or Hawk left stuff lying around I'd kick their asses for it, but it's Twenty-Six. That girl is... shit, we don't deserve someone as good on this ship."

  "Oh?" Ivil asked.

  "Yeah," Missy said. "She's the best meic you've ever seen."

  "I've met some very good meics," Ivil said. She was responsible for the ulcers of entire engineeriments, and Mars had the best engineers in the system.

  Missy shook her head. "You've never met someone like Twenty-Six. The girl's a natural. She gets shit that no one else gets."

  "She doesn't have a core," Ivil said. It was a statement, not a question.

  Missy paused and looked back at Ivil. "No. She doesn't. No one on the crew does."

  That was a ft lie. Ivil could tell that Missy had at least two, maybe more, cores.

  Missy tinued while s through the tools. "Two-Six was raised where one meical failure meant that everyone around her would die, and not in a pretty way. I don't know what kind of fancy school you went to to end up a professor of whatever, but she didn't get that. Her education was day-in-day-out patg things up and keeping herself alive. She's good. Makes fixing things look like an art. I wish she did have a few cores. It'd make people respect her more."

  "What did you mean, about respect?" Ivil asked.

  Missy shrugged. "Used to be that if you were good, if you were talented, people would respect you for it. Now? It doesn't matter how good you are. It's all about the cores. Not the people uhem."

  Ivil had the impression that there was a lot moing ohay-Six just missing some opportunities. "I imagine you've met plenty of both," Ivil said.

  Missy turo stare at Ivil for a moment. "You know what I am, right?" She gestured at her own face. It ale, especially irong artificial light of the cargo hangar. The paleness was especially prevalent on her face, starting along the jawline and cirg around. That wasn't makeup, it was a skin-lightening procedure taken to the extreme.

  "A Warmime?" Ivil asked. "Or an ex-Warmime, in any case."

  "Yeah," Missy said. "I left that world behind a while ago. There's a lot of good people out there that'll never get the ce they deserve. I don't like it. I thought it would be better away from home. It's not. And, no offence, but you look like exactly the sort of person that didn't ces."

  Ivil's eyebrows rose. That was close to an insult, but perhaps only because there was a kernel of truth to it. "I suppose so," she admitted. "Though I have fought for a lot of what I have. Still, I... appreciate that you care for Twenty-Six. It's kind of you."

  "Yeah, sure," Missy said dismissively.

  Missy didn't seem impressed, but she gnced off to the side and the ship's entrance before saying anything. Ivil ghat way too. There was someone ing. Another person with cores, only they had quite a number of them. A solid C-csser, maybe edging into B.

  There was a heavy kno the smaller door i within the cargo-bay door.

  Missy walked over to it, then checked at a small monitor built into the entranceway. Ivil only saw a fuzzy blur on the low-resolution s, but it was enough to tell that there was only one person oher side. Missy opehe door with a squeal of metal oal. "Hey," she said. "You're Sana?"

  A woman stepped into the Held Together. She was retively short, a little shorter than Missy, though it was hard to tell anything else about her physicality.

  She wore the formal outfit of a tech-maid of Mars. A white cowl and doublet with a deep hood over a blood-red corset and skirts. Her coat swept down and out, puffing away from her like a frill-edged skirt. Beh it, it was clear that she was wearing a flexible hardsuit. The coat and her corset only gave the impression of a maid's outfit without any of the actual issues that might e from wearing such a thing in a dangerous enviro.

  Ivil narrowed her eyes.

  She had a history with the tech-maids. Not this one in particur, but she couldn't help but feel like seeing one here was a bad omen of sorts.

  The tech-maid paused at the entrand tilted her head back to s the room. Her face was covered by a mask. White, with golden filigree along the edges, and dark lenses over the eyes that said nothing. It was carved into the face of a pretty woman.

  Ivil felt at the tech-maid and found herself even more cautious at what she felt. This was a B-Csser, but ohat was... weakened?

  The difference was subtle. This was asking someoo guess if the gss was half-full or half-empty. There was always a correswer, but it was more often than not textual. Few people would be able to tell, but Ivil wasn't just ahis tech-maid was a B-Csser that had just split her own cores. It was ret. There were still some lingering after-effects of the split.

  Ivil jumped off the crate she was sitting on and smiled as she walked over. "Hello," she said. "I'm Evelyn, one of the other passengers."

  "Hello," the tech-maid said. She gnced back. Her only luggage was a small bag on wheels trailing after her. It had a few symbols of the Adeptus Ancillia, and some pouches on the side which tained some of the tools of their religion. A small brush, a folding duster, a of pressed air.

  "Missy, let me take her to the mess. You keep w," Ivil said.

  Missy raised an eyebrow at that, then shrugged. "Sure. I'll have Hawke show you your room ter. You're lucky, the passenger partment's all yours unless we get any more st-minutes."

  "Thank you," the tech-maid said. Her voice was faintly eleic, a small buzz that made it less-than-natural.

  Ivil smiled some more, theured the tech-maid after her. She followed, and Ivil led her towards the spine of the ship. "This is the spine. Most of the aodations are at the front," she expined casually.

  "Iing," the tech-maid said. She didn't sound as if she was feeling all that talkative. That was too bad for her.

  "I didn't catch your name, actually," Ivil said.

  "Ah, of course, my apologies. I'm Savant Sana Pendergast, Keeper of Pristiworks, Sister of the Order of the Wet Mop." She bowed her head a little.

  Ivil nodded along until the very moment they were passing in front of her room. The door smmed open on its own accord, though without making any noise. In a blink, 'Sana' was ripped off her feet and tossed into her room.

  Ivil followed, appeario the tech-maid and grabbing her by the scruff faster than most people could process. The door closed a moment before Sana was shoved into it and locked in pce by Ivil's will and her forearm across the neck.

  The tech-maid struggled faintly for a sed, then stopped, her entire body going unnaturally limp.

  This wasn't how Ivil nning on pinning someoo her wall for the first time.

  "Hello, B-css Imperial Valkyrie, Sonic Spectre," Ivil said calmly. "What the fuck are you doing?"

  ***

  RavensDagger

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