The Privateer

"Unacceptable." Warmaster Skrell Scathach scowled, crossing both sets of his arms. "The human military are detonating their ships every time we try to board. If we want meat, we have no choice but to take it from the stations."

"From Military stations, sure." Captain Mims met the Vrrl's glower with his usual cold professionalism. "But we're not hitting civilian targets." '

The Encounter's kitchen was feeling crowded. Mims, Yvian, and Lissa were sitting at the table. The Captain nursed a cup of coffee, while the girls had beer. Four hulking Vrrl loomed over the three of them. All three Warmasters of the Starfang Empire, along with Scarrend. Kilroy stood nearby. Yvian wasn't as afraid of Vrrl as she used to be, but it was still uncomfortable to have so many of them so close, and years of space travel had done nothing to lessen her hatred of close bodies in cramped spaces.

"Foolishness." Nekomata Sithis, Second Warmaster of the Vrrl Starfang Empire, curled her lips, revealing a set of fangs that could give a pixen nightmares. "Civilians, Military, these are concepts for softpaws. To us there is only prey." She bit her salmon in half, chewing loudly for emphasis.

"More importantly," Scathach growled, "the human Military will detonate their stations when we board, just as they do with their ships. The softer paws may be our only source of food."

"This isn't a lunch run, Scathach," Mims pointed out.

"No," Scathach agreed. "This is war. A war the Terran Federation has brought upon itself." He leaned forward, raising two of his eyebrows. "All is fair in love and war, is it not?"

Mims frowned. "Shakespeare wasn't part of the reading list."

Scathach snorted. "Did you think I would not seek more knowledge than what you offered?"

Mims shrugged. "Regardless, this is how we're doing it." He took a sip of his coffee. "If you want to be part of the attack, you've gotta follow the rules of engagement."

"Follow?" A low, rumbling growl filled the kitchen. Lafcadio Tab, First Warmaster of the Vrrl Starfang Empire, regarded the Captain with an expression halfway between a sneer and apoplexy. "You dare expect a Vrrl to follow your rules?"

"If you don't like it, don't come." Mims leaned back in his chair and took another swig from his cup. "You're the ones who wanted in on the attack."

"Insolence..." The First Warmaster crouched slightly, all three eyes locked on the human. He was even bigger than Scathach, a full three and a third meters tall. His fur was orange with red stripes. His mane was white. Four scars stretched from eyes to muzzle down the side of his face. Warmaster Tab's armor was bone white, and he was missing an ear. He growled a second time. Louder. "Scathach might tolerate your disrespect human. I will not."

Mims set down his coffee cup. "Are you sure that's how you want to play this?"

"I am of the Apex." Tab flexed his hands, unsheathing his claws. "I can take your head before your weak eyes see the movement."

"Incorrect." Kilroy spoke up. His eyes were red. "You will be dead before you come within two meters of Big Daddy Mims."

Warmaster Tab spared a glance at the Peacekeeper. His lip curled in disgust. "Scathach named you Scargiver, but I don't smell it. All you know how to do is hide behind your machines."

"You think so?" Mims rose from his chair. "Kilroy, I think Warmaster Tab could use a lesson in etiquette. Why don't you let him make his move."

"Affirmative." The machine's eyes stayed red. "This unit will not kill Lafcadio Tab unless Lafcadio Tab succeeds in killing you."

"Don't kill him unless he attacks Yvian or Lissa," the Captain instructed. "But I appreciate the thought." His voice turned cold as the void. "Well Warmaster? It's your move."

Tab roared. The sound hit Yvian like a wall. The roar of a Vrrl was known to paralyze other species, including humans. Yvian had experienced it before, and had whole heartedly approved of the Captain's insistence in coming up with a countermeasure. Between auditory implants and an upgrade to her voidarmor, the noise washed over her without effect. Well. Without paralysis, anyway. It was still a terrifying sound.

Halfway through the roar, Warmaster Tab leapt. The motherless son hadn't noticed that Mims could still move. Just before he reached the human, a green and red blur crashed into him. Scarrend. The other Vrrl sailed over the table with the First Warmaster clutched in his arms. The two of them crashed into the far wall of the kitchen, bouncing off it and landing on their feet.

"Scarrend!?" Lafcadio's outraged shock raised his voice an octave. "What the blood do you think your doing?"

"Saving your life, Warmaster." Scarrend stepped back, blinking slowly at the elder Vrrl. "Did you not see Scargiver Mims shifting? He was about to kill you."

"Know your place, whelp!" Tab swiped at Scarrend's muzzle. Yvian suspected it was more of a dominance gesture than an attack, since he didn't seem to care when Scarrend dodged. "It is not for you to interfere!"

"He's right, Scarrend," Scathach stepped in. "If Warmaster Tab wants to commit suicide by Mims, it's no concern of ours."

"Maybe not," Scarrend admitted. "But we're in the middle of a war, and we've lost one Warmaster already. Losing the First Warmaster is a blow to the Empire I'd rather not smell."

"Even at the cost of your own life?" Tab regarded the other Vrrl with fury.

Scarrend nodded. "If that is the cost I must pay."

"You know," Lissa remarked, "you're showing an awful lack of control for a Vrrl of the Eighth Mafdet."

"SHUT YOUR-" the Warmaster started to shout. He stopped himself, eyes narrowing. His gaze flicked from Lissa to Mims as he put the pieces together. "You could still move."

"The roar doesn't effect me," Mims confirmed, "and you're not wearing a helmet." He raised a hand and slowly clenched it into a fist, a reminder of his voidarmor and the terrible strength it could bestow. "I was going to cave in your skull."

"I saw him shift," Warmaster Sithis added, "Scarrend really did save your life."

Warmaster Tab closed his eyes. When he opened them, his anger had vanished. "Scarrend. Your interference is offensive." He shook his head. "But your intentions are not. While I believe I could have killed the human, neither his death nor mine would serve the empire. I will overlook your insult just this once." He stepped back to his place at the table, placing two hands on his hips as he stared down at the Captain. "As for you, I may have been... hasty." Tab grimaced. "I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgment. It is a failure of the Mafdet." He folded all four hands behind his back, the Vrrl sign of nonaggression. "I will not apologize, but I won't kill you either. For now."

"I'm not sorry, either," said the Captain. Lissa elbowed him. "But you're right. We shouldn't fight among ourselves." He sat down and picked his coffee back up.

"Does something like this happen every time Mims meets someone?" Sithis asked. She sounded amused. "Or is it just with my kind?"

"It's almost everyone," Yvian told her.

"He's kind of an asshole," Lissa agreed.

Mims gave her a wounded look. "I'm not that bad," he objected.

"You just tried to kill one of our highest ranking allies," Lissa reminded him. "During a council of war."

The Captain had nothing to say to that.

"If we're all done playing and posturing," said Scathach, "I'd like to get back to the matter at hand."

"Indeed." Sithis placed two of her hands on the table. "The fact of the matter is, we will take as many humans as we can. If you deny us from joining the battle, we will simply attack them after you have moved on."

"If you think-" Mims started. Lissa gave him another elbow. He glowered, but subsided when she gave him a look.

"Why?" Lissa asked.

"Because we must," said Sithis. "Our people are starving."

"Starving?" Yvian frowned at the woman. "Don't you have meat vats? I could swear we sent you the schematics."

"Gribs and fish are not food," Sithis told her.

"Didn't you just eat one?" Yvian countered.

"It's not the food we need," Scathach explained. "You forget what we are. What we were designed to do."

"The gods designed us to prey on sapients," Sithis elaborated. "A Vrrl can only survive for a short time on the flesh of lower life forms. A few months at most. After that..." She released a short growl. "Madness. Madness and death."

"When the Vore consumed Histel, they took most of our breeding camps and nearly all the flesh we'd stockpiled." Warmaster Scathach was grim. "My hunters have been raiding the Confederation, but the war has conscripted every ship with a jumpdrive. Progress is slow." He folded his upper set of arms across his chest. "If we don't take a large number of humans, and soon, our people will start eating each other."

"They have already started eating each other," Warmaster Tab rumbled. "Over twenty million have been consumed."

"What?" Scathach stared at him.

"How do you know this?" Sithis demanded. "And why wasn't I informed?"

"Scathach leads the hunt, you defend the territory," Tab held two of his hands out in front of himself. Claws came out, then retracted. "But I keep the homes. I know what is happening in my Empire." Desperation and rage warred across the monster's muzzle. "We must capture the humans. As many as we can. If we don't, the Empire will eat itself." Rage won out, and he slammed all four hands on the table. "If you try to stop us, we will make you our prey as well."

"Fucking Crunch." Lissa stood, shaking her head. "You're all idiots."

Four trios of eyes swiveled to Lissa. She glared back at each of the Vrrl one by one, then said, "Did none of you read the schematics? Don't you know what meat vats do?"

It was Scarrend who answered. "They grow meat."

"They clone meat," Lissa corrected. She moved closer to Captain Mims. "We gave you the programs to grow grib and fish because that's what we had. What we eat. But the vats will grow anything you've got the DNA for." She placed one hand on the Captain's shoulder. With the other, she plucked some hairs from the top of his head.

"Hey!" Mims protested. Then his eyes went wide. "Wait..."

"Here." Lissa walked up to Warmaster Scathach and held out the hairs. "One hundred percent grade A human DNA."

Scathach reached for the hairs with a quizzical expression. Then he laughed. "Not just any human. I told you, Scargiver." The Warmaster laughed again. "I told you I'd eat you someday." He opened a compartment in his armor and carefully tucked the hair inside.

Mims started swearing under his breath. Scathach laughed harder.

Sithis chuckled. "I need to come to more of these meetings."

Tab scowled. "It's unnatural."

"Unnatural?" Scarrend asked.

"Growing food," The First Warmaster ran a hand down his face scars. "Cloning prey. It is not the way the gods gave us."

"The ways the gods gave us are the source of most of our problems," Scathach reminded him. "You know as well as I."

"Yes. The gods made us to be monsters, and discarded us when they had no further use." Tab shook his head. Both Scarrend and Sithis growled. The First Warmaster returned their snarls, pointing a claw at each. "You two are proof that we should worry. A pair of our most promising youth, and you fail to reach the Sixth Mafdet. How can we expect the rest of our people to accept such a thing?"

"It's a failure of education, really," Mims remarked. "You're taught from a young age not to question things, to avoid critical thinking." He got up and made his way to the coffee pot. "That's why none of you got creative with the vats."

"Creative..." Scarrend rumbled. Yvian looked over at him, but turned back around when she realized he was talking to himself.

"You didn't think of it either, Mims," Lissa chided.

"Why would I?" Mims refilled his cup. "I don't know how vats work. I'm not an engineer."

"Creative with the vats..." Scarrend ran three hands through his mane. The he jerked like he'd been shot. "Warmasters! The gods!"

"What about them?" asked Scathach.

"The Remembrance," Scarrend explained. "The Great Dome on Starfang! Where we keep the last relics of the gods."

"Oh, Crunch!" Yvian got it. "You think the Varma left some DNA."

"Think of it!" Scarrend practically vibrated. "God meat. An unlimited supply!"

The Warmasters looked at each other, then back to Scarrend. It was Tab who spoke. "I will send a team to scour the Remembrance. If there is any trace of the gods, we will find it." He blinked slowly at the young warrior. "Good work, Scarrend. You are a credit to your Mafdet."

Scarrend clasped his hands behind his back and thrust his belly forward. "Thank you, Warmaster."

The old Vrrl stroked his mane. "I can only hope this solution will calm the Empire. Our people have suffered too many shocks and too many changes in too short a time."

Scathach eyed the First Warmaster with concern. "I've heard rumblings. Just how dire have things become?"

"Very." Tab glanced at Lissa and Mims. "But we will speak of it later." He nodded at Sithis. "All three of us. Alone."

"Agreed." Scathach turned to Mims. "I think we've accomplished enough for one meeting. We'll meet again in three days to discuss your rules of engagement."

Mims crossed his arms with an annoyed expression. "Fine."

"Still mad about the hair, Scargiver?" The Third Warmaster dropped his jaw open in the Vrrl equivalent of a grin. "Don't be. Just think of the great service you're doing the Empire."

"You'll touch the lives of billions of Vrrl, Mims." Sithis added with a grin of her own. "Not to mention our tastebuds."

"At least until they get their god meat," Lissa smiled as she draped an arm around the human's shoulders. "After that you're chopped liver."