The Privateer

The Vore Sphere hurtled through the void. A mass of nanomachines the size of a moon. It was decelerating at a rate that would liquify a conventional ship, but it would still be moving at a ridiculous speed by the time it entered the system.

Five thousand ships of the Vrrl Starfang Empire raced to meet it. Or slowed down, rather. After twenty three hours at maximum acceleration, the warships of the Empire had reversed course. Inertia had carried them far from the defenses the Confederation Military had prepared for Brilend Prime. The Warmaster's fleet had just come to a full stop, and was now accelerating away from the incoming Sphere.

"Are we sure this is going to work?" Yvian had been calm at the start, but tension and doubt had crept in over the last forty six hours. It didn't help that she'd been stuck in her voidarmor the entire time. The Skygem maintained a Lucendian atmosphere, which was mostly methane. She'd considered stepping off the ship and spending time in the Priderender's hangar bay, but Mims had reminded her she'd still need the armor. Vrrl ships kept their gravity half again as high as galactic standard. She'd been forced to drink recycled water and eat protein paste, and as for using the restroom... Well. The armor took care of that too, but it wasn't a comfortable experience.

"Isn't it a little late to be asking that?" asked the Captain. He lounged in one of the chairs they'd brought on board, monitoring the console they'd rigged up. The Skygem's way of seeing the void around them wasn't compatible with it, but Warmaster Scathach had kindly allowed them to patch into the Priderender's sensor suite. The console and its comm equipment were attached to a portable generator, one of forty that had been placed in the crystal ship. There hadn't been time to implement Scarrend's idea of installing a full reactor, but the generators fed a constant trickle of energy into the ship. They should be enough to keep Skygem alive if Yvian had to use the Pulse.

"I'm nervous, alright?" Yvian watched the Sphere growing closer on the console's holodisplay. "I mean, look at that thing. Can we really destroy something that big in under a minute?"

"You didn't hear when..." Mims tilted his head. "Right. You were communing with the ship."

"I'll explain again," said Scarrend. The Vrrl hadn't bothered with a chair. He loomed over the console, both sets of hands folded behind his back. "Each ship in the fleet is equipped with two Cascade Annihilators and a launching mechanism. It is enough firepower to destroy a planet a thousand times over."

"Cascade Annihilator?" Yvian vaguely remembered hearing the term, but she'd been busy convincing Skygem to send one of her Crystal Guardians to stay in City 43. The ship had two, and she wanted Shard to have access to one if Skygem was destroyed.

"In order to achieve the fifth Mafdet," said the Vrrl, "You have to expand the Mafdet. Improve our technology, or generate an insight no Vrrl has previously considered. New weapons are the most common entry, and the Cascade Annihilator is one of the more... extreme examples."

"What's it do?"

"The device creates a resonant entropic..." Scarrend trailed off, regarding the pixen for a moment. "No. I'll speak more simply. The Cascade Annihilator disrupts molecular bonds. The energy released feeds into the effect, spreading the disruption. The denser and more complex the material is, the faster the effect spreads. Breaking the atomic structure releases a vast amount of energy, mostly in the form of heat and radiation. One Cascade Annihilator can turn a planet into a ball of plasma in just under two hours."

"Oh. Crunch." A weapon to kill worlds. "I guess whoever came up with that earned their Mafdet."

"No," Scarrend admitted. "She was stripped of her Mafdet and executed."

"What?" Yvian blinked. "But she made a planet killer."

"Yes," the Vrrl agreed. "But she tried to test it in the heart of the empire." He shook his head. "An inventor that refuses to think is danger to all."

Yvian grunted. Thirty minutes until they were in range of the Sphere. She needed something else to think about. "What about you?"

"Me?" The Vrrl shifted to look at her.

"Yeah. You're a Mafdet of the Fifth Order." On the comms, Warmaster Scathach gave the order to prime the Annihilators and prepare for combat. "What did you invent?"

Scarrend seemed pleased by the question. He spoke with pride. "I found a way to greatly increase the efficiency of our Ion Roarcannons. Now they can fire once every eight minutes instead of twenty."

"Son of a bitch," muttered the Captain. Yvian remembered the time they'd defended Migo's Shipyard. The Roarcannons had been a major problem. Mims had been shocked at their new rate of fire.

"Yes," agreed the Vrrl. "It was a fine addition."

They were silent for a minute. Ship after ship reported their Annihilators were primed. Apparently they were complicated, and couldn't be armed once the anti-tech field was activated. Once the devices had been activated, the reaction could be held in place with magnetic fields until the Annihilators hit something and detonated. The Vrrl planned to fire the weapons just before the Skygem did her thing.

Along with the Annihilators, the fleet charged their Ion Roarcannons, took a close formation around the Priderender, and performed their pre-combat system checks. If the Sphere noticed the flurry of activity, it wasn't concerned. It continued to decelerate.

Fifteen minutes until contact. Yvian was trying not to fidget. "Two hours," she said.

Mims grunted askance.

"Scarrend said the Annihilation Cascade take two hours to kill a planet." Yvian reiterated. "But we won't have two hours. At the speed it's going, the Sphere will pass through Skygem's anti-tech field in under two minutes."

"Seventy three point six seconds," Kilroy supplied.

"It takes two hours for one Cascade Annihilator," Scarrend stressed the word with a hint of annoyance, "to destroy a planet. The Sphere is smaller than a planet, and we'll be hitting it with ten thousand of them."

"Oh. Right." Yvian frowned. "What about the shields?"

She could hear Scarrend's smile. "That's the best part. We've covered the devices in your shield piercing MAC rounds. The Scourge may dodge or destroy the Annihilators, but they cannot block them."

Yvian grunted.

"It'll be fine, Yvian." Mims assured her. "Just be ready to do your part. We've only got one shot at this."

"One shot?" Yvian lifted an eyebrow at him. "Is that supposed to be reassuring?"

"You don't need to be reassured," the Captain told her. "You're a trained killer and a hardened professional."

Ten minutes until contact. Scarrend shifted forward suddenly. "What are they doing?"

"What?" Yvian peered at the sensor display. The Vore Sphere was rippling. A moment later it broke apart.

"Why are they doing that?" Scarrend wondered. The pieces reshaped themselves, forming hundreds of smaller Spheres. The new Spheres formed a circle as they spread from each other.

"Kilroy," Mims spoke with detached, professional calm. "what's the new vector?"

"The Vore Spheres will encircle and pass the Vrrl fleet at a distance of three million, two hundred thousand, eight hundred and thirty six kilometers," the Peacekeeper reported.

"That's..." Realization turned Yvian's veins to ice. "Isn't that the range of City 43's anti-tech field?"

"Negative," said Kilroy. "It is exactly three hundred thousand kilometers further."

"They know," said Mims. "They fucking know." He reached for the console. Before he could activate the comms, Warmaster Skrell Schathach sent a transmission.

"All ships," barked the Warmaster. "Activate jumpdrives! Now!"

There was a hum as the Priderender charged its drive. One of the other warships asked if they should fire their weapons.

"No!" Warmaster Scathach was adamant. "The Scourge is ready for us. They'll destroy whatever we fire. Or worse, copy it for themselves."

"Alert," said Kilroy. "Projectiles incoming."

Yvian turned back to the sensors. Tens of thousands of needles, each half a kilometer in length, accelerated towards the fleet. They were already moving at ten times the speed of the Spheres, and still accelerating.

"Evasive maneuvers," Warmaster Scathach ordered. The fleet moved. The Needles shifted their trajectory to match.

"Crunch," Yvian breathed. She shook herself and reached for Skygem's control node. "I can activate-"

"No!" snapped Mims. Yvian stopped just short of touching the Node. "You'll kill the jumpdrives."

"They're active," Yvian point out. "If they've got SHIELDBREACH..."

The hum of the jumpdrive reached a crescendo. "Yvian!" The Warmaster ordered. "Activate the field!"

Yvian grasped the Node as the jump effect took the fleet. She immersed herself in Skygem. Her senses expanded. Yvian didn't wait to adjust to the feeling, calling on the crystal ship to activate the anti-tech field. Skygem obliged.

Skygem released a pulse of yearning. The ship could sense the delicious energy within the Gate Effect. She wanted a taste. Yvian offered sympathy as she let her senses roam over the fleet. None of the warships seemed to be damaged. It looked like the jumpdrives had activated in time.

As always, the Gate Effect lasted thirty seconds. The fleet was ejected into Vrrl space at a speed of ten meters per second. There was a crackle on the radio receiver next to the console. The voice of Warmaster Scathach came out of it. "All ships, status report."

The radio crackled again as the other warships answered. "This is the Redstalker, no damage."

"This is the Preyslayer, no damage."

"This is the Fleshrender, no damage."

It continued on like that for some time. Two ships didn't answer. The Warmaster tried to contact them again, but decided against sending help. Instead he ordered all ships to shut down their reactors and brace for a Pulse.

There was a flurry of acknowledgements. Skygem could sense Vrrl racing around the Priderender, manually disabling systems and shutting down the reactors scattered through the destroyer. It took them about ten minutes.

The Warmaster waited another few minutes, then spoke over the radio. "All ships, brace for Pulse. Wait five minutes before you turn your systems back on. Yvian, do it now."

Yvian brought herself into her body long enough to nod at Mims. Mims spoke into the radio. "Activating Pulse."

At Yvian's urging, Skygem's anti-tech field was replaced with one large burst of energy. The Pulse washed over the Vrrl fleet. The crystal ship only needed to stretch a few hundred kilometers to cover the fleet, but the Lucendian ship couldn't control a Pulse very well. Skygem dumped most of her power into the blast, enough to kill any power source within three thousand kilometers.

With the generators active, Skygem didn't panic as she had during previous uses of the Pulse, but the sudden energy expenditure still made her weak and woozy. Yvian stayed with her, offering what comfort she could and praising the crystal ship as she guzzled greedily at the generators. A few minutes later, the warships of the Vrrl Starfang Empire were powered up once again.

The Warmaster himself came down to the hangar bay as the fleet got underway. Yvian let him in. Mims offered the man a chair, but he refused, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. Yvian couldn't see under his helmet, but she would have bet her last case of beer his mane was bristling.

Mims watched him for a minute, then spoke. "You made the right call."

"The right call?" Skrell Scathach growled. "It was the only call I could make."

"The time to abandon the hunt," Scarrend spoke, "is when you learn you are the hunted."

"Don't quote me, Scarrend." The Warmaster shook his head. "I don't need comfort. I need answers. How did the Scourge know our plan?"

"Scanning?" Yvian guessed. "Maybe they detected the Skygem?"

"Scanned it well enough to know what it could do? At that range?" Skrell shook his head. "If they can do that..."

"That's not it," said Mims. "They already knew." He pulled up the sensor readings of the Vore Needles. "Those things would have hit us exactly twenty nine seconds after we could see them on sensors. If we hadn't already activated the jumpdrives, we'd all be debris."

"But how could they know? These Vore would have never seen..." the Warmaster stopped pacing. "New Pixa..."

"New Pixa," the human agreed. "Everything they did, it was a perfect counter for what we showed them at New Pixa."

"But all those Vore were destroyed," Yvian protested. "And that's thousands of light years away."

"Which means the Vore can communicate with each other," Scarrend realized. "Instantly, and over vast distances."

"They're connected," said Mims. "They've got their own version of the Nexus. Anything one group of Vore learns gets passed on to the rest."

"Fuck," said Yvian.

"Fuck is right," the human agreed.