Ivil Antagonist

Interlude Six - Herrings

This was... illogical.

Bleue sat in her office and stared at a blank monitor. Upon it was a faded reflection of her own visage. Recently, that same monitor had been playing a video, not for the first time.

That too, was illogical.

Bleue was cursed with a perfect memory, a logical mind. She was capable in a way that few people were. Her skills, what others might call her intelligence, had propelled her forwards in life. She was the Governor General of Thede, one of Jupiter's many moons. Not the greatest or the most influential, but an important moon nonetheless.

The position was one part political and three parts commercial.

Thebe belonged to the Thebe Corporation. The Thebe Corporation produced a significant amount of the water, hydrogen, and oxygen used by the other moons of Jupiter and the many stations in orbit around the planet and its many moons.

That had been their claim to relative riches early on. Now the corporation had diversified. Mining was still its mainstay, though recently they had taken to capturing comets and other sources of ice through the system and bringing them back to Thebe itself for processing.

The moon was a small one, with a limited amount of resources. More importantly, it was close enough to Jupiter to make certain manoeuvres more costly. Thebe would never be a large or powerful moon. It lacked the geographical advantage for that.

What it could be was an economic powerhouse far larger than its size would suggest.

At the moment, Thebe was the sixth richest of Jupiter's moons, despite being on the smaller side. Soon, they'd be the fifth.

This growth was logical.

With Bleue at the helm, the Thebe Corporation had poured billions into development, buying ships, hiring talented individuals, buying land on other more hospitable moons, and growing their influence. This had quickly paid itself out.

Raw resources like water and air had to be kept relatively cheap. The price was artificially lowered for the sake of the citizens of Jupiter. That meant that the Thebe Corporation, major provider of these resources, was often paid in favours and with resources that weren't exactly monetary.

This too, was logical.

Bleue had leveraged things to the hilt, pushing as hard as she could. She had gained a certain reputation in the Jovian community. Someone that was dangerous. Someone who was without scruples and fears.

Adversaries would sometimes disappear. Competition would sometimes have their cargo attacked. Someone with the willingness to trace deep into the Thebe Corporation's accounts might notice certain amounts of money being used for projects that never amounted to anything.

Bleue had family, and while she and her family had had... differences over their own illogical demeanour and actions, she still found herself relying on that family to give her an edge.

In return, she made sure that her family found itself flourishing in her shadow.

This was logical.

It was also dangerous. It required a level of planning and sophistication that was well-within Bleue's ability, but which had grown significantly as of late.

The Alliance of Moons was coming together soon. There would be riches untold, and opportunities of incredible value that would appear very soon.

The Thebe Corporation had not paid it too much mind. Yes, there was opportunity for growth, but also there was competition. Too many moons, too many eyes.

Instead, she would take the logical path and would ignore this opportunity, because in the shadow of one there was always another. While the moons of the Alliance of Moons fought over alien cores and spent their wealth trying to impress each other, the Thebe Corporation would scheme in the background.

They would grow their influence by not participating. Instead, they'd sabotage the efforts of others. Remove some competition, make fools of smaller moons, then when all was said and done, Thebe would appear like a strong, noble contender. A moon untouched by the drama and infighting the others were openly participating in.

It was a sound and logical plan.

And as always, Bleue found that she could rely on her family to help.

Until now.

She felt her arm lash out, then pain racing up her arm. Her closed fist was buried in her monitor.

"Miss Herring!" a secretary said as she bustled into the room and skimmed over the floor to Bleue's side. Blood was pouring out of the cuts across her knuckles, slowly pooling down in Thebe's negligible gravity. "Oh no, what happened?" the secretary said as she pulled some tissues out and wrapped Bleue's hand in them.

Bleue leaned back into her seat, not reacting to the pain. That had been... illogical. Lashing out was a display of emotion she didn't need.

Her sister was dead.

That too, was illogical.

Rouge was a powerful person. She had a few decent cores, afforded to her through Bleue's power and influence. They had been a costly investment.

Moreover, Rouge was a powerful leader in a group of powerful pirates. They were certainly at odds with several groups, but they were the sorts of groups that took time to move. When the Earth Alliance decided to sweep through pirates, the news got out weeks before they started to move. Their organisation was a sieve when it came to information.

The Martians were better, but their attacks tended to be small and precise and devastating, but only ever to one group and only ever in direct retaliation. The Martians were too conservative and careful. Their intelligence agency was stronger, often letting false rumours of motion spread, which always caused some degree of panic but...

Bleue dismissed all of that. It was illogical to dwell on what hadn't happened.

What had happened was that someone killed her sister. It had happened within hours of Rouge finding and capturing the ship that Aurora Sterlingworth had been using to escape Ceres.

The noble of Phobos might have thought herself clever, sneaking across the system on some ordinary cargo ship instead of moving to the Jovian system onboard a properly luxurious ship as other participants did. That had been her downfall.

It was supposed to be her downfall.

The Phobian noble was moving on her own, without escort or defenders, but with some degree of subtlety. Most others wouldn't have the resources to notice her moving, but the Thebe Corporation had eyes on Ceres.

The logical thing, now, was to have Aurora removed to cause some additional consternation at the summit. One less player at the Alliance of Moons, and one of the only nobles representing Phobos, a moon intrinsically linked to Mars.

Bleue didn't want Mars or Earth involved with the Alliance of Moons. Superpowers complicated things. Jupiter's Emperor kept them somewhat safe from that influence, but cutting away Phobos helped.

Logical moves across a logical board.

Until Rouge was killed.

"Ma'am?" the secretary asked. "Ma'am, are you crying?"

Bleue blinked, discovering tears in her eyes. That wasn't right. If her sister was dead, then so be it, there was nothing gained from crying over it.

She reached into a drawer, removed a small, silent handgun, and fired thrice into the chest of the secretary. Then she touched a button on her desk. "Security, come remove a body from my office," she said.

The head of security would know what to do.

Bleue plucked a tissue from the still-falling corpse of the secretary and used it to dab at her eyes. No, there was nothing to be gained from crying. Instead, she would simply have to find the ones who had dared murder her sister and remove them.

Aurora had to have some sort of bodyguard, someone that her contacts on Ceres had missed.

Bleue looked at her monitors, then squinted and touched the button on her desk again. "Send IT up to my office. One of my monitors needs replacing."

Using the other monitor, she brought up everything she knew about the ship that Aurora Sterlingworth had taken, and the people onboard.

The crew manifest wasn't difficult to find. A captain, whom Bleue dismissed. A man called Donny, with a small unimportant record, a cook called Hawke, or Hawk? His record was smudged and inconsistent. Interesting.

Then a member called Missy, a former Warmime of Haumea. Could she be the one? There was a mechanic as well, a Saturnian girl with a number for a name. Neither seemed like the ones to kill her sister.

Which left the other passengers. Someone had noticed a woman called Evelyn Ville embarking on the ship, an Astro-Archeologist. Bleue had someone start digging into her while she looked at the last passenger. A tech-maid of Mars. One who didn't exist.

Bleue nodded, this was, logically, her target.

But she couldn't be certain.

So, of course, she would do the logical thing and kill them all.

So simple. So very logical.

***