The Privateer

The chase scenes in holo-vids used to be a favorite of Yvians. Races against death, fast and tense and full of danger. Space Captain had the best chases, but high speed maneuvers were a staple of the action genre, and Yvian used to fantasize about taking part in a chase herself. Working with Mims had cured her of those fantasies. In real life, chases were still tense and dangerous, but they were mostly just... frustrating.

For over three hours, the Random Encounter had been accelerating towards the Hub. The majority of the Stinger units had gone ahead. Yvian couldn't see them. The enemy was also somewhere ahead. Yvian couldn't see them. Assuming, of course, they were actually there. Each passing minute increased Yvian's fear that Reba's frame job was some elaborate trap to get them to invade Xill territory.

There was nothing to see, but Yvian couldn't afford to stop paying attention. If anything happened, it would happen fast. It always did. She had to be ready. Unfortunately, the fear and tension that came with an unknown number of hidden enemies did nothing to lessen the effects of boredom. Yvian kept her eyes on the sensors as best she could, but she knew her alertness wasn't what it should be.

Every ten minutes or so, Yvian would switch the sensor feeds to show what was happening with the Incursions. Admiral Ender Zhukov had been kind enough to have a Queen in each sector provide a live feed through the Nexus. The Encounter's Nexus Node was hardwired to the control panels, which allowed the crew to use the Nexus without Reba or the Xill being able to access the network wirelessly.

The Vrrl Starfang Empire was running wild in Tendril Sector. Compared to the Federation ships the Vrrl were used to fighting, the Klaath might as well have been made of tissue paper. Ion Roarcannons and heavy weapons smashed through the lightly shielded ships long before they could get close enough to fire back. Klaath Destroyers were leading small fleets of a few hundred Frigates and Corvettes and thousands of Raiders, only to be shredded by Vrrl fleets of similar size.

Large numbers of Klaath Klusters had circled up in eighty different places, forming portal rings to bring in their Queens. Yvian watched the Vrrl destroy a portal by simply firing their Ion Roarcannons into the Klusters forming the ring. The backlash from the portal's destruction transported the front third of eight Klaath Queenships into the sector. The ships themselves weren't much of a threat with two thirds of them missing. No weapons, no shields. The Queens were another matter. Any one of them could organize the rest of the Klaath into an unstoppable tide. The Vrrl didn't give them the chance. A second fleet's volley of Roarcannons hit the Queenships thirty seconds later, flash-frying anything that might have survived the portal's destruction.

There were still a huge number of Klaath, but they didn't outnumber the Vrrl by nearly enough to win. The Empire would gleefully slaughter the Destroyers and the smaller ships, and it's flotilla of captured Federation YEET Artillery Barges would make short work of any Klaath Queens that actually made it into the sector. Yvian doubted the motherless sons would manage to destroy a single Oluken station before the Vrrl killed them all.

The Federation in Aldara Sector was doing even better. It looked like they'd sent their entire Military, nearly four hundred million ships. With no stations to protect, the humans kept a few million ships near the planet while the rest went hunting. Eighty Klaath portal rings had opened in Aldara as well, but the humans didn't bother to close them. Instead they had their Artillery Barges launch YEET rounds, half ton slugs of shield piercing metal moving at over eighty kilometers a second. Massive as the Klaath Queenship was, a single YEET was enough to kill the Queen that flew it.

It was New Pixa that had Yvian worried. Most of the Technocracy's defense fleets were captured human ships, with a sprinkling of Confederation vessels and forty two Peacekeeper Queens. The Queens had given the Technocracy an edge against the Federation, but the rest of the defenders barely numbered three million. Most of the pixen ships were sitting tight, guarding stations or the planet.

Four hundred twenty Klaath portal rings had opened in New Pixa Sector. The Peacekeepers weren't even attempting to shut them down. Every ship with a beam weapon was firing continuously, blasting Klaath out of the sky as quickly as they could. It wasn't amounting to much. There were still over two billion Klaath floating around. More than had ever been seen in once place before. Five times more than the Incursions in the other sectors.

Why were there so many? How did they find New Pixa in the first place? Yvian didn't know. She'd probably never know. The Klaath didn't communicate. The Confederation had never tried talking to them, but the humans had. The humans had studied the motherless sons every way they could. According to Mims, they still didn't know much. Just that they were silicone based life forms that could open portals psionically. It was believed they talked to each other psionically as well.

The bigger question was how in The Crunch were the Peacekeepers going to fight off so many of them? The Technocracy had better ships, and Admiral Ender Zhukov was so competent even Mims deferred to his judgment. That didn't change the fact they were outnumber a thousand to one.

Yvian spared a glance at Captain Mims. The human looked calm and focused. He switched sensor displays every few seconds, cycling between the Hub and the area around the Encounter. Every few minutes he'd strafe the ship in a random direction, keeping their flight path too unpredictable to get hit by a MAC round from a Stealthed enemy ship. At least, Yvian hoped it was too unpredictable.

She wanted to ask him why he wasn't freaking out. Why he wasn't terrified they would lose their planet. She kept her peace. She knew what he'd say. And he was right. Probably. Yvian needed to focus on the mission. A mission that would kill her entire species if she failed it. Yvian couldn't do much to affect the outcome at New Pixa, anyway.

Or could she? Warmaster Scathach liked her. He liked Mims, too, though he'd never admit it. The Vrrl Starfang Empire easily outgunned the Klaath they were facing. He could probably send a third of his ships to New Pixa and still crush this Incursion. He might if Yvian asked nicely. A hundred million Vrrl battlecruisers wouldn't turn the tide by themselves, but they'd sure as Crunch make things a lot less desperate.

For that matter, High Commander Young liked her, too, and the humans hated the Klaath. Now that the Federation wasn't under Reba's control, the humans might send aid. If a hundred million humans ships joined in along with the Vrrl, the Klaath would be done for. Then again, Yvian doubted she could keep the humans and the Vrrl from killing each other if they found themselves in the same sector. Maybe she should only ask one group?

Yvian's musings were interrupted by a continuous flare of yellow light glaring in through the viewports. She looked up. Beam fire. A thousand beams hitting something in the distance. A lot of somethings. A lot of somethings coming in fast.

Mims cursed over the comms, trying to veer the Encounter out of the way. He was almost successful. Glowing molten hunks of metal bounced off the ship's shields. Other objects shimmered, matching the Encounter's shield frequency with SHIELDBREACH. Peacekeeper units. At least three.

Yvian groped for her Bigger Better BFG. She started to yell "Sh-"

She was too slow. The Peacekeepers slammed through the viewports, shattering the transparent material and flying past Yvian too fast to follow. There was no sound, not while the ship was decompressed, but it felt like there should be. She whipped her head and the BFG around to see the metal bulkheads were warped and four killing machines were falling to the deck.

"ields-"

Two of the Peacekeepers exploded at the torso. Yvian guessed Kilroy had hit them with his BFGs. Yvian brought her own gun up. She had to hit one more, and she'd better do it before they landed. A Peacekeeper on his feet could move faster than Yvian could see. Kilroy could probably stop one of them, but the other would kill them all before Yvian knew it was moving.

Yvian pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Yvain's thumb was on the charging button, but the gun wasn't finished charging the shot. It needed a full second, and the machines would be on their feet before that second was up. Yvian was going to die.

A fraction of a second before the Peacekeepers touched the deck, Kilroy was there. Yvian's friend seized the killing machines by the front of their fancy suits, slamming them up and back against the bulkhead. A fraction of a second after that, the Peacekeeper on the left was torn apart by a half ounce of tungsten traveling at ten kilometers a second. Yvian guessed it was Mims who fired the shot.

"-up," Yvian finished shouting.

The legs of the remaining Peacekeeper blurred, and Kilroy was flying at Yvian. The machine's jetpack activated just barely fast enough to avoid hitting the barrel of her gun. Yvian didn't dare wait to reacquire the target, squeezing the trigger before she was even completely sure she wouldn't hit Kilroy. The Bigger Better bucked slightly in her hand.

A notification appeared in Yvian's HUD. SHIELDS ACTIVE.

The shot was good, but not as good as it needed to be. The enemy Peacekeeper's leg was gone. He was falling, chassis blown backwards by the force of the impact. He reached for the deck, not bothering to use his jetpack. Probably because the jetpack couldn't move him as fast as he could crawl.

Yvain's brain had barely registered the terror of failure when a column of light lanced past her shoulder. A beam as thick as her wrist hit the killing machine, tearing through his tuxedo armor and slagging his upper body. The beam severed the Peacekeeper's head and a third of his chest from the rest of his chassis. It also gouged a sizeable gash into the deck of the Random Encounter.

Losing two thirds of his body was not enough to stop the machine. His remaining hand slapped the deck, launching the Peacekeeper at Lissa. Yvian didn't even have time to raise her useless gun. She spun as fast as she could anyway. The Bigger Better spun with her, coming to bear on... Lissa? Intact? Yvian didn't see the upper half of an evil Peacekeeper. She found it a moment later, held by Kilroy. Her friend's eyes blazed with red light.

Kilroy's voice dripped with contempt over the comms. "You were not sufficient." He pulled on the enemy's arm, keeping it straight and holding it away from himself. "Big Daddy Mims, will you please destroy the arm of this imposter?"

"Bastards keep making me blow holes in my ship," Mims grumbled. He raised his gun and fired. The round tore the enemy Peacekeeper's arm off at the shoulder.

Yvian's heart hammered in her chest. The fight was over, but the fear and adrenaline had just finished ramping up. She pointed her gun at the dead Peacekeepers. They didn't move. She swung around to aim out at the shattered viewports. Nothing. Her breath was coming too fast.

Mims was aiming out the viewport as well. The motherless son was way too relaxed. "Lissa. Damage report."

"Minor," said Lissa. She sounded a little shaky, at least. "We've got multiple breaches where the Stingers knocked boarders off the hull, but the ship's already been decompressed. One of our kinetic thrusters got hit with a Bigger Better, but autorepair should have it working in an hour or so."

"Good." The Captain looked out the remains of the viewport, then lowered his weapon. "And good work dropping the shields. That was smart."

Yvian tried to breath deep. Breath slow, calm down. Oh Crunch. Her legs were starting to shake. She hoped no one noticed.

"What can I say?" asked Lissa. She'd smoothed out her voice, but Yvian noticed she was shaking. It made Yvian feel a little better. "I'm the best."

"In more ways than one," Mims agreed. He gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Yvian, you did good too. And Kilroy, you were sufficient as always. Good job."

"Good job?" Kilroy scoffed. "This unit saved your lives several times in a five second period, and all you have to say is good job?" His eyes flashed yellow before going back to red. "You should be calling this unit the best."

"You can't be the best and be standard at the same time," Mims pointed out.

"Compared to you meatbags this unit can." Kilroy's eyes glowed an amused yellow again.

"Alright," Yvian decided. She tried to sound in control and was pleased her voice was steady. "That's enough banter. What The Crunch just happened?"

"We found out our sensor upgrade can detect Peacekeeper units," said Mims.

"These are not Peacekeeper units," said Kilroy. "They ignored this unit's communication. No Peacekeeper unit would refuse to acknowledge another."

"You know what I mean," the Captain chided. "I'm guessing the sensors saw through the stealth field Peacekeeper suits put out, and Kilroy pointed the bastards out to the Stingers."

"Affirmative," said Kilroy. "Unfortunately, there were too many moving too quickly for the Peacekeeper Stinger units to destroy before they reached this ship."

"They did enough," said the Captain. "Send them my compliments."

"How many were there?" asked Yvian.

"Two thousand," said the machine.

Two thousand? Four enemy Peacekeepers was almost more than the crew could handle, and they were almost jumped by two thousand of the things? "Crunch," said Yvian.

Without the upgraded sensors, everyone would be dead. The motherless sons would have gone undetected right up until they breached the Encounter's shields. They'd have killed everyone on the ship and then gone after the Stingers, who wouldn't have been able to see them either. A simple, lethal strategy that Kilroy and company shouldn't have been able to counter. "That can't be good," Yvian muttered.

The number of enemy units said something, too. Lethal strategy or not, there was no way the things didn't keep enough back to fly their ships and help raid the Hub. If they could spare that many... "That can't be good at all."

"No it can't," Mims agreed. "If they can afford to dump two thousand units into the void for an ambush, we're dealing with more than one ship. Probably a whole fleet." He thought for a moment. "Kilroy, the Stingers don't have the upgrade, do they?"

"Negative," said the machine. "The gladiator class fighters following us are the only other non-capital ships that do."

"Well that's something, at least." The human took up flight control and moved the ship again.

"Should we slow down a little?" Yvian suggested. "Let them catch up?"

"We're already decelerating as fast as we can," Mims reminded her.

"So have them slow down less," said Yvian.

"That makes more sense," said the Captain. "But no. We probably shouldn't. Better to keep them in reserve so we don't risk everyone getting wiped at once." He leaned back in his chair. "The good news is the stealth effect only works on sensors. It won't make them invisible. They can't get the jump on us like that again as long as someone with enhanced vision's on the lookout."

"Affirmative," Kilroy agreed. "This unit will keep watch momentarily." He set the dismembered enemy unit down on his console and disappeared. He reappeared a moment later holding a tool kit and a datapad. "This unit has also notified the other Stinger units of the attack."

"So they're alright?" Yvian asked hopefully.

"Unknown," said Kilroy. "The Stinger units cannot break radio silence without compromising their Stealth."

"So they could all be dead," Lissa realized. "The enemy machines could have killed them already and we'd never know."

"Nothing we can do about it now," said Mims. "Even if they're gone, we've still got a thousand Stinger units and a hundred and one gladiators. One of which is piloted by the most dangerous crew in the verse. We can do this."

"Right," said Lissa. She nodded to herself. "Right." She looked at the human for a moment. "You know, you're a lot more encouraging than usual today."

"Oh, thanks sweetie." Mims paused. "I think."

"You're really worried," Lissa guessed. "Aren't you?"

"Maybe," the Captain drawled. "Or maybe I'm just having a good day."

"A good day?" Yvian could hear Lissa's frown. "Because you got to kill something?"

"Because I got to kill something."