The Privateer

Yvian woke with a pounding headache. The drone’s stunshot had left a low grade ache throughout her body, a side effect of the disruption of her nervous system, but the headache was much worse. Light stabbed her eyes when she forced them open. She let out a pained hiss and shut them again.

It was better than being dead, she supposed. If that drone had been programmed to kill, she’d be standing before the Bright Lady right now. Had Mims gotten away? Lissa? Probably not, she decided. If the drone had failed to take either of them out before they could activate their armor, they would have cut a swath through the station and Yvian would be waking up in a med pod without a headache. She allowed herself a single, aggrieved sigh.

Yvian tried opening her eyes again. Slowly, this time. There wasn’t much to see. The hard surface her head was resting on turned out to be a simple metal table. A small table, cheap, square. She’d seen hundreds, maybe thousands just like it, on ships and stations throughout the Confed. Looking past the table, she saw the metal bulkheads of a small room.

Slowly, carefully, Yvian raised her head off the table. The cool feeling of air moving against wetness alerted her that she’d drooled while unconscious. Yvian reached up to wipe it away, only to be stymied when her hand was halfway to her chin. A metal cuff was attached to her wrist. The cuff was connected to a chain which appeared to come out of the chair she was sitting in. Yvian blinked in alarm.

The small table in the small room made a lot more sense, now. Yvian checked her other limbs, confirming they were all similarly restrained. She pulled and jerked at the chains, just in case, but she already knew they wouldn’t come loose. Interrogation chairs were infamous in the Confed. Used mostly by the Militia, they were the standard method of keeping prisoners restrained for “questioning.” Nothing good ever happened to a pixen who woke up in one of those chairs. The last time she was in one, the Militia had beat The Crunch out of her. She’d only been set loose that time because Captain Mims had connections. She wondered if those connections would be able to help her, now.

Yvian wiped her face on her shoulder. Another look around the room confirmed her suspicions. A small, cramped room. One table. One interrogation chair. And one cheap but comfortable looking regular chair. That’s where her questioner would sit. Yvian also noted that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Disappointing, but not a surprise. If they’d left Yvian with her voidarmor, she could easily break out of this place. Taking it away was just basic security.

Assessment complete, Yvian settled back in her chair. There was nothing to do but wait. She had a lot of questions. What she didn’t have was enough information to make any kind of guess. Planning an escape wasn’t feasible, either. At least not yet. She couldn’t get out of the interrogation chair on her own, and she couldn’t make any plans until she knew where she was. Or at least who she was dealing with.

Yvian shifted around, trying to get comfortable. She knew it was a waste of time. Interrogation chairs weren’t designed for comfort. She did it anyway. It wasn’t like she didn’t have time to waste. Speaking of time, how long had she been out? One hour? Three? Her wrist console had been taken along with everything else. She had no way to know. She did know that the Vore had been sixty one hours from entering the system when she’d reached Danil’s door. Yvian had less than sixty one hours to get out of here, retrieve the Skygem, and be ready to fight the Vore. Maybe a lot less, depending on how long she’d been kept unconscious.

There was no point in worrying about it. That’s what Yvian told herself. It was good advice, from a woman with a lot of experience with dangerous situations. Unfortunately, Yvian couldn’t take it. She was nervous. Scared. Getting more scared by the minute. Yvian noticed her breath coming faster. Too fast. Her heartbeat quickened the pounding in her head. She forced herself to slow down, breathe deeper. She bent forward, resting her forehead against the cool metal of the table. It helped. A little.

Time passed. A lot of time. So much time, in fact, that Yvian was dozing again. The sound of a door opening jolted her awake. She glanced over to see a man enter. She wiped her mouth on her shoulder again before taking a better look.

He was a Brilend. Middle aged. Big shoulders, and a noticeable gut. The hair just above his ears was white, but the rest was black and slicked back close to his skull. He wore a black void suit, sleek and of decent quality, but not outrageously so. His face was round. His jaw was thick. His eyes were cold and dead.

“Yvian Kiver,” the man said. His tone was detached, almost bored.

“That’s not my name,” Yvian told him. “Not anymore.”

“Actually it is,” the man told her. “Officially, at least. Your quaint custom of banishing outcasts doesn’t carry legal weight.”

Yvian glowered at the man. He walked around the table, seating himself across from the pixen. “Yvian Kiver,” he said again. “Twenty eight years old. Born on Caminal Station in the Xerv Sector. Parents were Yasme and Skeane Kiver. Skeane Kiver is a slave. Yasme Kiver’s whereabouts are unknown. You have one sister. Lissa. Also in our custody.”

“Who are you?” Yvian demanded. Well. She tried for demanding. Mostly she just sounded scared.

“You may address me as Agent,” said the Brilend.

“Agent?” Yvian swallowed. It couldn’t be. “Agent who?”

“Just Agent,” said the man. The barest hint of a smile appeared at Yvian’s reaction. The smile did not reach his dead eyes.

An Agent. They weren’t supposed to exist. Didn’t exist, if you believed the government and everything put out on the Nexus. But Yvian was a pixen, and the pixens knew. This man was from the Office of the Unknown. No one knew if they were part of the Military, or their own separate agency. The Unknowns existed for the sole purpose of maintaining the power of the Confederation government. They squashed secrets, quelled dissent, and eliminated threats. Their Agents were devoid of morality, above the law, and so ruthlessly efficient Yvian had heard they were humans in disguise.

The nameless man pulled an object from a pouch on his void suit. “Do you know what this is?”

Yvian nodded. “It’s a truthiness box.”

“Exactly,” The Agent placed the truthiness box on the table. “I have questions. This will make sure you answer honestly.”

Yvian bristled, a thin thread of anger finding its way through her fear. She worked her tongue, trying to coax more saliva into her dry mouth before asking. “And if I don’t?”

“Your sister asked the same question.” Yvian waited for the man to continue. He didn’t. She resisted the urge to ask if Lissa was alright. They sat in pregnant silence.

Just when Yvian was ready to speak, the Agent leaned back in his chair. “We don’t normally do things this way, you know.”

Yvian frowned. “What do you mean?”

“This.” The Agent gestured at the room they were in. “Normally, we’d put you in a slave pod. Once the implant takes, you’d tell us everything we want to know.”

Yvian’s mouth got even drier. “Then why haven’t you?”

The Agent drummed his fingers against the table. “Because you already have an implant. Some kind of mineral we’ve never seen before. I’m told we can’t remove it without killing you.” He leaned forward a little. His eyes glittered. “It’s an interesting countermeasure. Where did you get it?”

“Your mother gave it to me.” The truthiness box chimed at Yvian’s snarky response. Yvian didn’t care. She’d taken Mims and Lissa to see Skygem before they’d come to Brilend Prime. Scarrend’s suggestion had worked, and they had the same implants Yvian did. None of them could be enslaved.

“I don’t think you understand the situation you’re in.” The Agent continued to drum his fingers on the table. “My people are already in your ship. We know everything.” His gaze intensified as Yvian flinched. “We’ve got the coordinates to New Pixa. We know their defenses. How many ships they have. We know you’ve been working for them.” He stopped drumming and leaned forward. “Or rather, that they’ve been working for you.”

“You don’t know a damned thing.” He was bluffing. He had to be.

The truthiness box chimed. The Agent looked down at it, then back at Yvian with one eyebrow raised. Yvian felt the blood draining from her face. They’d been so careful. Mims and the pixens had done everything they could to hide the truth from the Confed. New Pixa was an entire class five world, ripe for exploitation. More than that, it represented hope for Yvian’s people. Hope the Confed didn’t want them to have. If the Confed found out where it was…

No, she realized. It was worse than that. If they’d been in the ship, they knew she’d been working with the Vrrl. And the Xill. Crunch, they knew about the Peacekeepers. Forget exploitation. The Confed would hit them with everything it had. The entire Military would come down on New Pixa. Millions of ships would grind them all to dust. After committing treason on this scale, the High Court might decide to punish Yvian’s entire species. It would be The Darkening all over again. Or worse. All of her people could be hunted and killed, right down to the last newborn child.

“Did you think no one would notice?” The Agent gave another cold, lifeless smile. “That we wouldn’t wonder where so many ships came from? Or where you found a large, highly trained fighting force with voidsuits that put our own power armor to shame?” The smile dropped. “Did you think we’d really believe those were pixens in those suits?”

“They are pixens,” Yvian told him. It was true. Technically.

“Sure they are,” said the man. “You just happened to stumble across a lost colony of your species. With a massive Military filled with ships that just happened to be built by humans. Is that right?”

Yvian’s gaze fell on the truthiness box. She didn’t answer.

“I didn’t think so,” said the man. “Be smart, Yvian. I already have all the information I need. I’m just looking for context. Talk to me.”

Yvian said nothing.

“It’s not just your life at stake, you know.” The Agent went back to drumming on the table. “Or your sister’s. I know everyone you’ve ever loved. Myna, on Krog Prime. The travel broker you met on Prisna III. Janry Farvel, from your time in college. Every friend, every colleague, every acquaintance you’ve ever had. All of them. Their lives depend on what you’ve got to say.”

Yvian said nothing. It was not that she didn’t believe the threat. An Agent of the Office of the Unknown could and would do everything the man had said. That was the problem. If she was innocent, she might have convinced him to spare them. She wasn’t. If she told the Agent just how far against the Confed she’d turned, he would definitely kill everyone she knew. He’d probably start a genocide against her entire species.

“How long have you been working for the humans?” The Agent sat forward again, eyes boring into Yvian.

“What? I’m not-“ Yvian cut herself off just in time. Any answer she gave would just get her in deeper. She couldn’t lie, and the truth would damn her entire species. She caught herself glaring at the truthiness box, and made herself look away.

“It’s not a hard thing to figure out, Yvian.” The man went back to drumming. The tapping of his fingers was starting to get on the pixen’s nerves. “Human ships. Human tactics. Human gear.” The Agent shook his head. “This isn’t the first time the Federation has tried to undermine us, but I’ve never seen them try this hard. First the Freedom Republic, and now New Pixa. What’s changed?”

He thought she was working with the Federation? That was… Yvian frowned. That was a pretty good theory. It would make sense, and it certainly sounded better than an ad-hoc alliance of pixens, man-eating aliens, and killer robots. It also meant the Agent hadn’t been on her ship. Or at least, the information hadn’t been extracted, yet.

Come to think of it, how could the Office of the Unknown take the Encounter? Between Scarrend and Kilroy, there shouldn’t be enough armed forces on the whole station to…

Yvian’s train of thought was interrupted by an explosion. Close. Not so close she could see it, but close enough to make her jump. Almost close enough to make her ears ring. Weapons fire followed. Weapons fire, and screams.

The Agent tapped his wrist console. “Security, status report.”

No one answered. The screams were getting closer. “Security, report.” Still no answer. The Agent tried again. “Bridge crew, talk to me.” He fiddled with his console. “Somebody tell me what the fuck is happening.”

Yvian smiled. They were coming. “You wanted to know who I’m working with.” Her grin widened at the Agent’s worried expression. “I think you’re about to find out.”

The Agent drew his pistol. Yvian realized her mistake. The man had questioned her sister. He’d questioned Yvian. Even without the Encounter’s computer files, he had enough information to cause problems. The smart play would be to kill Yvian and get out as fast as he could. Gloating and making threats would only remind him of that fact.

The Agent leveled his pistol at Yvian. Yvian tried to duck under the table. She couldn’t reach low enough. She was still chained to a chair. She lurched to the side, bobbing and weaving as best she could to throw off the Agent’s aim. The movement barely bought her a second as the Agent readjusted. The second was enough.

The door opened. The Agent snapped his gun up to deal with the intruder. His face paled at the thing standing in the doorway. Man shaped, with metal skin. A sharp suit, and a porcelain colored mask where the face was supposed to be. A fedora, and glowing red eyes.

“Greetings, meatbag.”