The Privateer

The next several minutes were silent. Tense. Yvian kept a sharp eye on the sensors, but nothing was happening. A frustrated apprehension took hold of her. The Guardians were out there. They'd made their first move. Disabled the Xill's defense fleet. Now all they had to do was break into the Hub. So what were they waiting for?

It took everything Yvian had to maintain radio silence. Lissa decided not to bother. "What The Crunch are they waiting for?" she demanded.

"They're repositioning," said Mims. He didn't take his eyes off his console.

"What?" Lissa turned to look at him. "Why?"

"The inferior units positioned themselves to disable all Xill vessels in the area without damaging Xill Hub 14," Kilroy explained. "Now they must position themselves to destroy Xill Hub 14's weapons and shield generators without damaging the rest of the station."

"MAC rounds do a lot of damage," Mims added. "If one of them goes through a reactor or a power relay, they risk crippling the station."

"So they're trying not to damage Reba," said Lissa. She turned back to her console, shoulders clenched. "I guess that makes sense."

"That's probably the main reason," said the Captain. "Wouldn't want to kill whatever copy of their God's running the Hub."

"I'd be more worried about the Vore," said Yvian. The nanophage of the Yolobros still held a special place in her nightmares. "Crippling the Hub could breach its containment."

"That concern will be secondary to the inferior units," Kilroy stated, "but they will take great care not to damage their CREATOR."

"Works for me," said Mims. "The longer they take, the more time we have to get there and stop them."

Three minutes later, Kilroy spoke. "Alert. Xill Hub 14 is under attack. All shields and weapons disabled."

Yvian saw it was true. The Xill Hub had been covered in all manner of exotic weaponry. Charged particle cannons, beam weapons, ion disruptors and missile pods and quite a few things too alien for Yvian to guess what they did. On top of that, the station had shields to rival a Klaath Queenship. Had being the operative word. Tens of thousands of shield generators had been riddled with holes, along with anything that could possibly be a weapon. Just like with the Xill fleet, the MAC rounds had hit everything with perfect precision at precisely the same moment.

"Crunch," said Lissa. "And we still can't see them."

"And we won't," said Mims. "Not 'til we get close enough to pierce their Stealth."

"The inferior units will be moving in now," Kilroy stated. "Estimated time of arrival is six minutes."

"How do you know that?" asked Yvian.

"This unit calculated the acceleration speed of a Ronin class battlecruiser against the minimum distance required to avoid detection by the Xill," Kilroy explained. "The math is so simple even a meatbag could do it."

"We'd better hope our Stingers are still kicking," Mims remarked. "Otherwise this'll be over before we get there."

"Do not worry, Big Daddy Mims," the Peacekeeper reassured him. "Peacekeeper Stinger units are Peacekeeper units. They will be sufficient."

"They always have been," Lissa agreed. She paused. "But I think I might worry a little anyway. Just in case."

"That is because you are Mother Lissa," said Kilroy. "Worrying is the prerogative of parental units."

Six minutes and twelve seconds later, Kilroy spoke again. "Alert. Weapons fire detected at Xill Hub 14."

"It's started," said Mims. "How long do you think it'll take them to secure the Blingy?"

"This unit estimates two to four minutes," said the Peacekeeper. "Advanced models such as this unit uniformly refuse to accept the control chips demanded by Consensus. Only the most primitive models allow themselves to be enslaved. They are so inferior that a meatbag could fight them. They pose no threat to units operating a Peacekeeper unit chassis."

Three and half minutes later, a wave of panic struck Yvian. Fear and pain and despair slammed into her psyche, clenching her legs and settling into a queasy feeling in her stomach. She heard Lissa cry out over the comms.

"Crunch," Lissa cursed. "Does anyone else feel that?"

"It's Blingy," said Yvian. A terrible guilt welled up, pulsing in tune with the trauma of the ship she'd betrayed. "Oh Bright Lady, what have they done to you?"

"Why didn't we feel it before?" Lissa wondered.

"It is highly likely the Xill took measures to keep the Lucendian ship restrained and sedated," said Kilroy. "The inferior units must have removed those measures."

A burst of surprise shot through Yvian, followed by a terrible relief. The panic intensified, leaving Yvian with a desperate need to share her pain and be comforted. To be saved. Yvian clenched her teeth. Lissa was swearing again.

Mims stayed silent, glued to his console as he strafed the Encounter again. Yvian was sure his implant was hitting him with the same feelings she was getting, but the human would be damned if he showed weakness during a mission. It was one of the things that made her respect him so much.

"Fuck me," the Captain muttered. "I hate this implant sometimes." He looked up from his console. "Lissa, you know what that feeling means."

"Myrsa's with Blingy," Lissa swallowed and nodded. "Right. Time to do my thing." She took a breath and activated the Encounter's comm. "Myrsa, it's Lissa. Can you hear me?"

There was no response. Lissa tried again. "Myrsa, it's me. We were friends. You don't have to do this."

"We weren't friends." Myrsa's reply was terse. Angry. "You were an asset. And you're wrong. I do have to do this."

"No you don't," Lissa insisted. "I'm sure there are Guardians with you, but Blingy can shut them down. And we can help you. Take you back to New Pixa. You could start over."

"Help me?" Myrsa scoffed. "Help me like you help your motherless sister? I don't want your help, Lissa. I don't need it. You disgust me."

"If you take Blingy out of here Reba will gain control of the Xill," Lissa told her. "She'll use them to kill us. All of us. Every single pixen will die."

"I know," said the spy.

"Then why are you doing this?" Lissa demanded.

"There's no choice." The woman's voice cracked for a moment. "She has my son."

Captain Mims set the ship back on autopilot and typed rapidly into his console. Yvian assumed he was sending an N-mail to the High Commander.

"Your son?" Lissa swallowed. "I didn't know you had a son."

"Trysten," said the spy. "He'll be nine in a few days. XTRO rescued him when his father sold him into slavery. It's how they recruited me. Reba has him, now."

"Has him where?" asked Lissa. "If he's here..."

"The Guardians will kill him if you attempt a rescue," Myrsa told her. "Reba was specific about that. The only way to get him back is to get her this ship. So that's what I'm going to do."

"Even if it means killing every other pixen?" Lissa questioned. "Are you going to doom our entire species just for him?"

"If you were a mother," Myrsa coldly informed her, "you wouldn't have to ask."

On the sensors, a crystal ship floated out of the Hub. Ninety meters long, a four sided pyramid stretched to a needle point, with a smaller pyramid attached at the end. Blingy's hull was damaged where pieces of her had been cut out, and various devices were still attached to her. The protrusions had all been smashed or melted, hanging in pieces off the Lucendian vessel, giving her a ragged, wretched, desperate appearance. Like the broken survivor of the end of a world.

"Kilroy," Mims ordered quietly, "send a broadcast to the other units. If that boy's in the sector, I want him rescued. Don't destroy any enemy ships until you're sure he's not aboard, and do everything you can to keep him alive."

"Affirmative," the Peacekeeper replied.

"Come on, Myrsa," Lissa tried again. "We can talk about this. There must be some way we can work this out."

"There's nothing to work out," said Myrsa, "and nothing you can do." Blingy disappeared from view. Yvian realized the ship had just docked inside a Stealthed battlecruiser. "Thirty more seconds and we'll be gone."

Beam fire. A lot of it. A moment later, ships appeared on the sensors. One hundred and three Ronin battlecruisers. All disabled. Yvian still couldn't see who fired on them, but she didn't need to. The Stinger units weren't as dead as she had feared.

More beams lanced into invisible targets. Plasma cannons and bolts of charged particles returned fire. The Encounter's sensors still couldn't see the ships, but judging from the amount of fire there were twenty thousand battlecruisers fighting against an equal number of Stinger units. Yvian wasn't thrilled to see half the Peacekeeper armada missing, but there were still enough of them to get the job done.

If the Guardian's cruisers had been equipped with beam cannons, they'd have crushed the Stingers in short order. They were not. Conventional weapons packed a lot more punch than beams, but the projectiles were slower and easy to dodge at long range. Long range combat is what the Stingers were made for. It would take some time for the Peacekeepers to disable the much more heavily shielded Guardian ships, but they would definitely do it. Probably without taking any damage themselves.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Lissa quipped. "We just took out your ride, and the rest of Reba's ships are under fire as we speak."

Myrsa didn't respond. Blingy slid out the back of the cruiser she'd been docked in.

"There's not going to be anyone with a jumpdrive to get you out of here," Lissa continued. "Surrender now, and let us help you get your son back."

A small prism rose from the top of the Lucendian ship. It glowed for a moment, then spat a line of light that carved through one of the Stinger units.

"Shit," said the Captain. "Yvian, MACdriver. Take out her firing node."

"On it." Yvian pulled up MAC control and ran the calculations. The Blingy was still moving, but her flight path had stabilized as she made a run towards the Guardian fleet. "Firing."

Blingy sliced another Stinger in half. Some of the Ronin cruisers redirected their fire. Plasma and charge particles raced towards the crystal ship. The Lucendian vessel would absorb their energy, use it as fuel to power her weapon.

A new feeling blossomed in Yvian's gut. Fury. The fear and panic of the crystal ship swelled into righteous fury as Blingy realized she could strike back at her enemies. Then came the hate. A hate so pure it scalded the pixen's soul.

"I think you forgot something, Lissa." Myrsa growled into the comm. "This is a Lucendian ship. You and your motherless robots can't do anything to stop me."

"Impact will be in fourteen minutes, thirty one seconds," Kilroy reported. "Myrsa Trin will have destroyed ninety percent of our forces in that time."

"Have them cease fire and pull back," said Mims. "Myrsa's targeting the source of the beams. I don't think Blingy can see through stealth."

The crystal ship destroyed one more Stinger as the rest disappeared. She did not stop firing. Hate and fear and pain and rage stormed through Yvian as Blingy turned her weapon on the disabled Xill around her. The cannon fire of the Guardian fleet reached her, and the ship's beam shot brighter and faster, a line of death severing everything it touched.

"Can you feel it, Lissa?" Myrsa shouted into the comm. "Can you feel what they did to her? What you let them do?"

"You're right," said Lissa. "This whole thing is our fault. My fault. We never should have given Blingy to the Xill." She leaned forward, voice dripping with urgency. "Kill as many as you want. Just... Just don't touch the Hub. They've got Vore sealed up-"

The brightest line of light yet carved through the station. It pierced all the way through, slicing down into the gas giant below. The Hub was as big as a moon, but Blingy cut it in half in a matter of seconds. It was a terrifying display of power, but not as terrifying as what would happen next. Yvian doubted the Hub could take that kind of damage and still keep the Vore contained. A breach could happen any second.

Mims didn't wait. "Kilroy. Fire the Annihilator."

The Peacekeeper didn't take the time to acknowledge the order. He simply disappeared. Mims took up flight control and spun the ship around so the rear hangar door was facing the Hub.

"You know what else?" Myrsa raged through the comm. She sounded like she should be foaming at the mouth. "She knows it was you!" Just like Blingy herself, the woman was out of control. If the crystal ship's feelings were hitting Yvian so hard at a distance, she could barely imagine what it must be like to commune with her directly. "She knows you betrayed her."

"Fuck!" Mims jerked on the flight control. Light flared in Yvian's vision, too bright for her visor to compensate in time. Then she was tumbling. Ricocheting off the walls as she spun out of control. Yvian wasted several fruitless seconds trying to get her bearings, only to realize she was outside the ship. Outside the ship, out of control, and in a lot of pain.

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts," Yvian said to her voidarmor. The pain disappeared. Yvian set her jetpack to stabilize her motion and checked her Heads Up Display.

WARNING! INJURIES DETECTED! DAMAGED VERTEBRAE! PUNCTURED LUNG! MULTIPLE BROKEN BONES! MULTIPLE CONTUSIONS! PAIN REMOVAL ACTIVATED. MOBILITY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.

"Stealth!" The Captain's voice crackled into her helmet, startling Yvian. "Stealth now!"

Yvian obeyed. "Hide me, hide me, hide me," she said quickly. STEALTH ACTIVE appeared under her other notifications. By that point her motion had stabilized, so she jetted to the side for good measure. Half a second later a beam of light swept through where she'd been.

Blingy's beam swung back around, dicing through space over and over in the span of several seconds. With PAIN REMOVAL active, Yvian couldn't feel much, but she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. The crystal ship couldn't see them. Blingy was firing at random hoping to get lucky. That meant dodging around was useless. Wouldn't help at all. Yvian did it anyway. Her fear demanded action. Eventually the Lucendian vessel stopped shooting, or more likely went back to killing the nearest Xill. Only then did Yvian dare to take in her surroundings.

The Random Encounter had been cut in two. Two thirds of the ship was spiraling quickly out of sight, engines still firing. The remaining third, which included most of the bridge, was spinning away from Yvian. Or rather Yvian was moving rapidly away from it after being knocked around and tossed out of the ship.

"Holy fucking Crunch," Yvian swore. Her voice shook, and she was grateful no one could hear her in the void. She couldn't see any of the others, but she didn't dare activate comms. Not with a vengeful Blingy and twenty thousand ships full of crazed Guardian units looking for her.

Yvian allowed herself a full five more seconds to freak out. Then she made herself make a decision. With Stealth active, the rest of the crew couldn't find her, and she couldn't track down anyone else. None of the Peacekeeper's following behind could see her either. So she needed a rally point. A logical first place someone would look. Yvian took a breath and accelerated towards the only landmark in the area. The spinning remains of the Random Encounter's bridge.

The Captain arrived at the same time she did. He jetted over, pulling a cable out of a compartment on his hip and plugging it in to Yvian's armor. "Damage report."

"What do you mean damage report?" Yvian gestured at the remains of her home. "The ship's cut in half!"

"I mean you," Mims clarified. "How bad are you hurt?"

"I'm functional," she told him. "For now. But if I lose MOBILITY PROTOCOL I'll be useless."

"Same here," said the Captain. His head shifted around, trying to look every direction at one. "You see Lissa? Kilroy?"

Yvian shook her head. "No." Then motion caught her eye from behind the Captain. "Wait, yes!" She pointed.

It was Kilroy. He had Lissa in his arms. Yvian's sister was missing both legs and half her pelvis. The lower remains of her voidarmor were slagged and melted, but they had still managed to seal the wound. At least, Yvian hoped they had.

Mims released an uncharacteristic cry at the sight of the wounded pixen. He jetted for Kilroy, forgetting that Yvian was still tethered to his armor. Yvian jetted forward instead of letting herself be dragged along. Upon reaching Lissa, he yanked the cable out of Yvian's armor and plugged it into Lissa's. His shoulders sagged when he read whatever his HUD displayed.

For a moment, Yvian felt the stirrings of a terrible grief. Kilroy's hand found her shoulder. His voice filtered in. "Mother Lissa will live, but only if she is placed in a medpod within the next nine minutes."

Yvian let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Not dead. And they had nine minutes. A small backup fleet of Pixen Stellar Defense Force Gladiators had been five minutes behind them. At least one of them would come check the remains of the Random Encounter. Nine minutes wasn't long, but it was long enough. They were going to make it. Her sister would live.

Mims grabbed Yvian's arm, then pointed at her hip. Yvian stared in confusion for a moment, then pulled a cable out of her armor and attached it to his. "She's in bad shape," he told her. "But she'll live if we can get to a medpod in time."

"I know." Yvian's voice was still a little thick. She cleared her throat. "Kilroy told me."

Mims nodded. Nobody said anything for a moment. Then the Captain looked down at the remains of his beloved ship. "It might be for the best."

Yvian blinked. "What?"

"It might be for the best," the human repeated. "As long as she lives."

"What?" Yvian frowned at the human. "Why would you say that?"

"Because," the Captain replied, "she's not going to like what I do next."