RavensDagger

  Chapter Ten - Warmime

  If the average Lunatic warrior was the War--someone on the edge of sanity, equipped with one or more cores and enough training to keep themselves alive in a hairy situation--then the Warmime was the equivalent of the Lunatic's special OPs.

  Where a War had esprit and revelled in chaos, the Warmime danced a different tune.

  Their fvour of chaos was less about revelling in big, bombastic as, and more subtle. It was the faint stink that came with a ship's life support failing at a critical moment, the stratle an engine made before it failed catastrophically. Stealth, deception, lies and misinformation.

  Nothing that anyone would associate with the Lunatics, which is what made them almost perfect for the job.

  Almost.

  As subtle and silent as a Warmime might be, they were still Lunatics at their core. It was easy to pick them out of the crowd. It was only obscurity that kept the idea of them out of the public's attention.

  Ivil wasn't a member of the public. When Missy the Warmime led her into a small but fortably appointed room just past the opening hangar of the ship and turned, she found herself meeting the shorter woman's eyes and w if the mime pnned to kill her.

  "So," Missy said as she settled into a rexed posture, all of her weight on one side, hip cocked. "You pnning on paying?"

  "I never pnned not to," Ivil said. "Though we did skip past the bargaining phase. The young miss out there, Twenty-Six? She doesn't seem entirely... financially scious."

  Missy sighed, pinched her brows, then nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like her. She'd probably just be happy to have one more person on this rust bucket. Fortunately, she's not first mate. Look, we've got four passenger rooms on here, two are kinda shit. One of the good ones is booked. The st isn't cheap."

  Ivil nodded along. "The uy is footing the bill for me. Well, within reason. This isn't the only ship from Ceres heading out towards Jupiter."

  Missy shrugged. "It's the one you picked, fancy. Besides, there was an exodus around the Crevice, if you didn't notice."

  "With the arrival of that Martian warship?" Ivil asked. "I noticed."

  "That's good. So you'll uand that, as one of your st remaining options to get to Jupiter, what we charge for a room is entirely reasonable."

  Ivil held back a smile. It looked like Missy was trying to fleece her, but she was beiirely too ho about it. Maybe that's why the Warmime wasn't on Haumea? Was she too poor at ag for her own good? "Just give me a price," Ivil said.

  "Five thousand dolrs for a trip from here to Jupiter."

  "That seems high," Ivil said. She had only the vaguest notion of what things were worth anymore, but that did seem like it was on the higher end.

  Missy raised her hands in a 'what you do' sort of gesture. "It's room and board, and covers the cost of carrying your weight and freight."

  "My freight is one small bag, a briefcase, and my weight is hardly worth mentioning," Ivil tered. This was amusing. Usually when she wanted something, people gave it to her. Sometimes while screaming for mercy.

  Missy sniffed. "You're not that thin, fancy."

  "Evelyn," Ivil said. "And I'll give you two thousand five."

  "Two... Fancy, for two-five you'll be eating nothing but slop," Missy said. "Now, we're not the best when it es to food and board, but I'd expect you to want something more than vat-grown veggie-substitutes from here to Jupiter."

  "Three thousand," Ivil said. "And I expect a fine-dining experience like her."

  Missy grinned. "Four."

  "Only if you're serving me yourself," Ivil said.

  "You'd like that," Missy shot back. "Fihree-five."

  Ivil paused, then nodded. "Three thousand five hundred. And I do expect to get the room on this rust bucket."

  "Eh, you 't have that one, booked already. But the sed best isn't all that bad." Missy crossed the room and pushed aside a sliding door, revealing that the room tinued. It was oddly misshapen, part of it was thin and narrow, then it opened up inter space, with dders leading up to a sitting area above.

  At a guess, Ivil imagihat this space was what was left after room had been allocated to other ies in the rear. There was a rge eai suite to one side, and a pair of couches squeezed into another. A small locker room was off to the left, where someone could get suited up before dug out of the airlock.

  Missy went to one wall and opened up a small cubby, then ahen animme a minute," Missy said as she tio root around. There were several small nooks and spaces here. It looked... lived-in.

  "Is this the main living room?" Ivil asked.

  "It's the rear one," Missy replied as she tio search for something. "Main living space is way out front, behind the cockpit. Back here's the med bay, engineering, crew quarters. You'll be staying in the spine. Ah, found you." She shut a thin closet door with a bump of her hip, then sauntered back to Ivil with a small payment mae in hand. "First Bank of Mars, right?"

  "That's right," Ivil said.

  Missy turhe mae towards her, and there was a charge pending on it. She read the dusty s. "That's three seven."

  "Service charge," Missy said.

  Ivil rolled her eyes, then tugged out the wallet she'd gotten from MINT. There was a card there that she tapped onto the mae. It took a moment, but eventually beeped.

  "Nice. Wele on board the Held Together. Let me show you to your bunk."

  Missy tossed the reader onto one of the couches, theured Ivil after her.

  They moved through a bulkhead door, then up a steep ramp in a narrow corridor with padded walls. There were handholds all over, for easier motion in zero-Gs. "This is the spine," Missy said as they reached the top. "It cuts across from the rear to the fore. Bit narrow, so if you see someone moving by, just squeeze to the side."

  "I see," Ivil said. "How big is the crew on here?"

  "It's just five of us," Missy said. "Me, Two-Six, the captain, the navigator, and the muscle."

  Ivil wondered what she meant by the muscle, but before she could ask, Missy was stopping by a doorway. There were two of them fag each other in the middle of the corridor. The one Missy stopped at had what at one point had probably been a rge B stencilled over it.

  "This is yours," Missy said. She tapped a keypad and the door hissed open. "You've got your own head and all. Kit's at the front, so's the dining room. Not hard to find or anything."

  "Thank you," Ivil said. She ducked into the room, then paused by the entranot that there was much beyond arance.

  The space was cramped, and Ivil could tell that this was very obviously one of the cargo tainers held onto the side of the ship, verted into a living space. There was a bed, just barely rge enough for two and folded up against the wall, a small kit o a washroom that was basically just big enough for someoo stand in. There wasn't much else, actually. An a s ced against one wall, and there was a small desk squeezed into the st er.

  "Well, it's certainly fortable," Ivil said.

  "Heh, spoken like a ground-pounder," Missy said. "This is a luxury suite for anyone used to ship life. And it's all yours. Enjoy." She gave Ivil a little salute, then ducked out of the room. The door hissed shut behind her.

  Ivil tilted her head to one side, listening to what was going on beyond the room. She could clearly hear Missy heading up to the front of the ship while muttering to herself.

  "Weird one. Captain's gonna be happy, that's a hell of a payday."

  Ivil rolled her eyes. She tossed her bag to one side, then pced her briefcase otle desk and popped it open to retrieve one of the tablets within.

  She probably had a few hours alone, which would be a fantastic time to study up on her new identity.

  It didn't take her long to discover that someo MINT was thinking ahead and had outlihe cost of a berth on a ship like the Held Together. "Hmm, I might have overpaid a little," she muttered.

  Not by too much, but Missy had certainly gotten more than this room deserved. Ivil wasn't sure if the room was even safe. It had that faint smell that came when a space wasn't well shielded.

  If she were someone who had to worry about radiation, then it might even be a problem in the long term.

  Ivil checked through the information packet until she discovered a file with all of the information Martian Intelligence was able to gather on the crew of the Held Together.

  Ivil stared at the file, theated.

  Did she want to know this, or did she want to form her own opinions?

  The question worried her for a while.

  ***