Chương 9: Chapter Eight - Perfect Disguise

Ivil Antagonist was hardly a fool. She knew this about herself, and she knew that she wasn't all-knowing. The combination of not being moronic and also being aware of her own deficiencies was actually quite potent. There had been others, leaders, people who thought that they'd gained enough cores to make it past the lower barriers of humanity, people who thought they knew better. Ivil had seen plenty of that sort think that power translated to capability.

Instead of making a fool of herself, Ivil stayed in her lane. She was the all-powerful hammer of Mars. Fleets would fly out to challenge her and be rent into so much scrap. Flights of enemy Valkyries would donate their cores to her through no choice of their own. She was good at murder and death. She left the bureaucratic matters of running Mars in the hands of the bureaucrats. The medical matters were in the hands of doctors, and matters of war pertained to the admiralty.

When someone stepped out of line, Ivil would put them, or their remains, back in place. It was a simple way to run things, and it worked for Mars. Right now, Ivil was going to infiltrate a ship she knew nothing about, with a crew of unknown origins. The issue was that.... Ivil had passing knowledge of how romance worked. Mostly from rom-coms and soap operas. A romance begun on a foundation of lies would, inevitably, lead to drama.

She didn't want to find her lover dropped into a multi-year coma only for her identical twin to show up out of the blue. Such things were beneath her. So, in essence, she needed a disguise. Ivil Antagonist had been agonising about this for some time. She had met with some of Mars' best spymasters, but their ideas had been... profoundly unhelpful. She was not going to walk around trying to look like some unassuming, lost paper-pusher that needed transit to some backwater.

She needed a disguise, yes, but she needed it to at least try to capture the magnitude of power that Ivil held. At the same time, she needed that disguise to make sense. Moving about as a powerful businesswoman, for example, didn't make sense when such a person would likely have a ship of their own. It had taken some time for her to pick out a suitable disguise, one that would be... common enough, without being so lowly that she would have to debase herself.

Ivil walked through the many corridors of the Crevice, this first leg of her trip was arranged already. She went down four levels from the area where the Lucky Despot had connected and to a section of the port facility that had several restaurants. Most of these were unmanned stations, though not all of them. She was actually surprised to notice a few food places from Mars. The Red Rock Cafe she passed could have been on one of the stations in Mars' orbit.

Past all of these was an unassuming, family-owned pre-packaged food place. The sort of business lined with freezers of quick-heat packs that were all uniformly shaped and easy to slurp a warm meal from. These were the kinds of meals a cheap crew would eat on a long voyage. They required no kitchens, cost little per-meal, and could be comfortably eaten in a multi-G or zero-G environment. Ivil slipped into the shop and went to the counter where an older woman was standing.

"I'm here for the..." Ivil sighed.

"Lost Star special."

"Of course, ma'am, follow me," the old woman replied. This level of subterfuge was beneath her. Ivil followed the woman anyway into a surprisingly spacious backstore. There were more freezers here, a small office space, and an entire rack of clothing.

"Thank you," Ivil said, dismissing the woman. The woman bowed, then picked up a small briefcase and placed it closer so that Ivil wouldn't miss it. She darted out of the room. Ivil turned to the racks of clothing, then sighed. She swept the room, searching for any cameras or anything intrusive, but predictably found nothing. This entire deception had been arranged by MINT, the Martian Intelligence and Naval Tactics division. They didn't mess around when it came to spycraft.

Ivil squeezed out of her uniform, then into one of the outfits MINT had bought for her. It was a nice enough outfit, if rather utilitarian. A custom-fit brown jumpsuit of the airtight variety. Not pretty, exactly, but still well-fitted and it cooperated with Martian boots. The upper half of the outfit was a white synth-weave coat, the same rather expensive material used by naval officers, with a high collar and some additional pockets and pouches.

Atop that, a breastplate with a few dings and scratches in its white paint. It had a rebreather module, and a forward and rear-mounted six-direction compressed-air jet system, for movement in zero-Gs. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. All in all, it was a functional outfit that would give her the appearance of someone well-used to work in the field, without seeming as though she were impoverished.

The little logo for the University of Hellas on the breastplate brought it together. She folded her pitch-black uniform and placed it carefully within an available suitcase already filled with a few changes of clothes and some necessities. The last item she placed within was her Valkyrie pin. Then, with a twist, Ivil vanished the suitcase and its contents. Ivil decided that she liked her new outfit, and she liked the look of herself wearing it. It had been a very long time since she'd worn anything but her uniform.

This made her look less like a warlord and more like... an adventuring scholar. She picked up the briefcase and opened it. There were several tablets within, all with the University of Hellas logo, and a small wallet that she flicked open. The papers within painted her as Evelyn Ville, tenured professor of astro-archeology. She packed her things up, then slipped out of the room. The lady by the counter didn't even acknowledge her. Now, onto the Held Together.

One of the tablets in her briefcase had an up-to-date map of the Crevice and every ship docked on Ceres. It was everything that MINT could get and hand over to her, probably enough classified information to start a small-scale war. She navigated through the map until she discovered the Held Together. It was a quarter-way around the ring of the Crevice, but, fortunately, the city had public transportation in the form of high-speed rail.

Ivil didn't want to board the cramped, odorous train car, but she made her way into it anyway. A small use of power pushed the plebs away from her and her suitcase so that none of their germs would get onto her. When one of them tried to reach towards her rear--either for a pinch or for her wallet--Ivil broke every bone in his hand. They were clean breaks. They'd heal eventually. His screams did wonders to earn her a little more space.

It took twenty minutes to reach the right exit, then she walked out of the car and onto a grungy, poorly-lit street in one of the poorer docks. Fortunately, Ivil wouldn't be spending enough time in the Crevice to really scope out how its society worked, but there was clearly some form of stratification between the poor and the destitute and the few who had fought enough to earn a little something. The Held Together was docked in one of the worst of these sections. That didn't bode well. Ivil kept moving anyway.

Soon, after a ride up a rickety elevator and through a station airlock, she arrived in the docks proper. One wall was made of foot-thick glass, giving anyone walking by a fantastic view of the ships parked above. There was an ancient Earth Systems Apoca Class cargo hauler parked above, next to a still-shiny Thanthela Europan Star Runner. They were beautiful ships. A little worse for wear, and aged, but Ivil could appreciate them all the same.

It wasn't something she made a big fuss over, but she did enjoy spacecraft with all of the enthusiasm of a middle-aged car geek. There was a reason so many Martian warships had sweeping lines and aggressive forms, even if these weren't necessary for their function. She continued to walk, eyes constantly flicking back out of the windows to take in the ships above.

There was a Nar-class tug, a centuries old Duskland-class martian warship called the Emergency Complaints docked next to a Moment-class ship, the Hawke, from Io. It took her some time before she reached the end of the docks, and as she went, she discovered that the quality of ships docked further out seemed to degrade the more she went. Ivil was feeling something like nerves building within her. She quenched these. The mission would carry on. Then she laid eyes upon her destination: the Held Together.

"That Claire Voyant had better be right," she decided. Because otherwise, she would be having words with her.