The Privateer

"It's pretty," said Yvian, "isn't it?"

The bridge was quiet. Even the background hum of the ship's systems seemed muted, somehow. Yvian knew the day/night cycle was meaningless in the void, but it still felt late, like the cold quiet predawn hours of a moonless night on New Pixa.

The Captain's console projected a holographic image of a planet. Aldara. Clouds drifted lazily across the globe. The oceans were a deep blue surrounding landmasses of brown and green and white. Mims had been staring at it for some time.

The Captain didn't answer at first. Yvian was starting to wonder if he'd heard her when he said, "It was the most beautiful place in the verse. A place I'd give my soul for. A place I gave my soul for. But now?" He tried for a smile. It was small. And sad. "It's just a planet."

Yvian didn't know what to say to that.

The human closed his eyes. "It wasn't really the place itself. Aldara was a garden world. Class five. Terraformed to look like Earth that was. It was pretty, but not really any better than Dorado or Terra Nova. I thought it was special at the time, but now I know better. It was the people that were special. People I... People that aren't there anymore." He leaned back in his chair, eyes still closed. "You should be asleep."

"So should you."

"Tried," said Mims. "Couldn't."

"Me too." Yvian took a seat at her own console. "Where's Kilroy?"

"I asked him to give me the room. I know he's still watching, but..." Mims shrugged. "I needed the illusion of privacy. Wanted to be left alone."

"Oh." Yvian froze in the act of pulling up a sensor display. "I'm sorry," she started to get up. "I can-"

"It's fine." Mims waved her back down into her seat. "I think I've had enough solitude for now, anyway."

Yvian nodded. The human's eyes were still closed, but she figured he caught the gesture anyway. Humans were odd like that. "Do you still think the Klaath are coming back?" She checked her wrist console. "It's been nineteen hours."

"No idea," the Captain admitted. "We don't know much about the bastards. But I've never seen them just leave like that. Especially not when there's a planet up for grabs. I figure we'll give it a few days and see what happens."

Yvian nodded again. She finished pulling up a display of Aldara Sector. Four Jumpgates. Eleven planets. Two asteroid belts. A handful of broken down, abandoned space stations. Yvian had seen empty sectors before, but never one with a class five planet. Aldara hung like a jewel in the void, surrounded by weapons platforms and shuttle stations. The presence of a human homeworld made the rest of the sector feel even emptier. It was... profane, somehow. Or maybe apocalyptic.

The forces of the Pixen Technocracy felt small in the face of so much empty void. Eight Peacekeeper Queenships stood guard, two to a Gate. The rest of Pixa's forces surrounded Aldara at a range of eighty thousand kilometers. Close enough to protect the world, but not so close they would have to contend with the planet's defenses themselves. There were fewer ships than Mims had demanded. Two hundred fifty thousand Peacekeeper Stinger units. Twenty five hundred Gladiator class fighters, five Yeet Artillery Barges, and the Random Encounter.

Peacekeeper Unit Admiral Ender Zhukov had disobeyed the Captain's orders. Mims was livid, but the argument had been short. Zhukov pointed out that Aldara only had one planet to protect, while New Pixa had thousands of stations. New Pixa had a lot more enemies than just the Klaath, and diverting resources to protect an empty planet would put the entire Technocracy in danger for no good reason. He pointed out that he could send more ships at any time as long as the Gates were intact. Finally, he'd told Mims to stop letting his emotions cloud his judgment. Yvian thought the man would explode, but Mims went deathly quiet. He spent several seconds visibly forcing himself to unclench, taking deep, slow breaths. Then he'd grudgingly admitted the Admiral might be right.

"I still can't believe the humans summoned them." Yvian grimaced. "I didn't think that was something you could do."

"It makes sense," said Mims. "I've suspected it for a while, now."

"Really?" Yvian glanced at the man. His eyes were still closed. "How come?"

"Krog Prime."

"Krog Prime?" Yvian remembered that mess. She and Lissa had been hauling quantum tubes in the Wandering Lady, hoping to finally pull in a profit on her disastrous quest to become a successful void trader. The sector had been hit with the largest Incursion ever recorded. Millions of Klaath. Lissa had commed Mims for help, and he'd brought his entire fleet after accepting a contract to protect her. Yvian had rammed the Wandering Lady into a circle of Klusters forming a portal, and she'd been sucked into Klaath space with the Random Encounter right behind her.

"Reba set it up." Mims opened his eyes and sat forward. "She told Exodus I was supposed to die there. She manipulated the markets to get you to make a cargo run, and she engineered a distraction so most of Krog's Military was two sectors way when the Incursion hit."

"I didn't know that part," Yvian admitted.

"I did some digging after the fact," said Mims. "Admiral Fightsmart thought it was just bad luck, but once I knew a Synthetic Intelligence was involved..." He shrugged. "The thing is, there's no way to predict an Incursion. Not even for an SI. There's no rhyme or reason to where they show up. But there's a pattern to what happens when they do. Usually it's just a couple Klusters at first, and then the rest come if they find something. At Krog Prime they came in force right away." The human grimaced. "It's been bugging me for years, but the pieces didn't really fall into place until yesterday."

"So the humans are responsible for Krog Prime? That's..." Yvian crossed her arms. "That's fucked up."

"There probably weren't that many humans involved," said Mims. "Maybe a handful of XTRO agents and whatever poor slob they made a patsy." He rubbed his eyes. "Hell, they might not even have known what the device was. Reba was the one pulling the strings."

"It's still fucked up," Yvian decided. She yawned, rubbing the back of her neck. It would have been really nice if she'd been able to sleep tonight. "We spoiled her plan, though. Krog Prime's basically what started all this. Finding out about the Vore. Meeting Exodus. All of it." She scratched her head. "I wonder why she thought an Incursion would kill you? It's not like you haven't dealt with them before."

"She was probably going to kill me herself," said Mims. "My entire fleet was piloted by remote. Hacking in would have been child's play for someone like her. I'm betting the plan was to blast me out of the sky with my own ships."

Yvian nodded slowly. "So why didn't she?"

"My guess?" Mims leaned back again. "She got caught up in the drama. Spent too much time enjoying the moment. And she probably didn't expect me to follow you into Klaath space. It was out of character."

Out of character? "No it wasn't," said Yvian. "You do stuff like that all the time."

"Protecting you wasn't part of the contract," Mims reminded her. "Letting you die wouldn't have violated any rules, and it was the practical thing to do."

"Maybe," Yvian allowed. "But you would never do that."

"Yvian," Mims said wearily, "I've let more people die than you've actually met. Following your dumb ass in a doomed rescue attempt was pretty much the opposite of how I operate."

"That's not true." Yvian didn't like it when Mims made himself out to be a monster. He was cold, pragmatic, and violent, but he wasn't evil. "You're a good person."

"I'm a principled person," Mims corrected. "It's not the same as good."

"What's the difference?" she asked.

"Kindness."

Yvian leaned back and closed her eyes, mulling that one over. "I've seen you be kind to people. Lissa and me, the Peacekeepers, Scarrend..."

The human grunted sleepily. "That's... a new development. Lissa's fault. And yours. I wasn't like this before." His lip quirked just a little. "You girls are a bad influence."

"Scathach told me once I was making you soft," Yvian remembered.

"He wasn't wrong."

Yvian yawned again. Maybe she should get some sleep after all. But there was a question she'd wanted to ask, and now was as a good a time as any. "What was it like?"

She heard the Captain shift. "What was what like?"

"Having a family," she told him. "Being loved."

Mims was silent for a long time. "It was a lot like this. But better. I was warm and safe and I belonged." His voice thickened. "More than that, I was worthy. Knowing that Callie wanted me, thought I was good... It was... I can't describe it. And the boys... They were so smart. So busy." He snorted. "They were a pain in the ass, but they blew my fucking mind. I was so happy and so proud."

"I never had anything like that," Yvian admitted. "My Dad... Skean was a monster, and Yasme... I was never warm and safe. I wasn't good at making friends. I fell in love a lot, but they never... Never wanted me back. Before you showed up, all I ever had was my sister." Her eyes watered. She kept them closed. "Everyone who ever loved me is on this ship."

"Could be worse," Mims told her. "Means you never lost anyone."

"Yes I did." Yvian tried not to sniffle. "I lost Skygem. I was... I was in her when she died. I felt how scared she was."

"She was a good ship," said Mims. "And a good friend. But she wasn't..." He shifted again, trailing off.

"Were you going to tell me she wasn't a person?" Yvian supposed she should be offended, but she couldn't muster the energy to glare at the man.

"No. She was a person." Mims let out a breath through his nose. "But she wasn't someone you can relate to the way you relate to me or your sister. She didn't think like we do. Losing her hurt, and she'll be missed, but it's not as devastating as... as it could've been."

"You mean it gets worse?" A tear leaked out Yvian. "How do you deal with it?"

"You don't." Yvian thought that was all he would say, but he continued. "It's like... It's like being shot. You don't feel it at first. Just shock and numbness. When the pain hits, it hurts so bad it blots out the world. Only there aren't any pills or armor functions that can fix it. So you just suffer. Keeping busy helps. You try to distract yourself so you don't notice the pain. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you feel alright. But the hurt's still there. You tell yourself it just takes time. That it'll get better. But it won't. It's a hole in you that stays forever."

"That sounds..." Yvian frowned. "If it hurts that bad, why risk loving at all?"

"Because we fucking need it," said the human. "A life without love is no life at all." She heard Mims run his hands through his hair. "I spent thirty years alone, Yvian. I had everything I needed. Food, shelter, all that crap. I had my ship and my purpose. Hell, I was one of the most famous Privateers in the Confed, and rich as hell to boot. And it was all I could do not to eat my own blaster." Yvian opened her eyes to see the human looking at her. No, not at her. Through her. Like he was staring at something a thousand kilometers away. "I wasn't alive. I was barely a person. If it wasn't for..." He blinked, eyes slowly coming back into focus. "I only started to live again after I met you."

"Mims..." Yvian trailed off. She didn't know what to say.

"You and Lissa," Mims corrected himself. His brows furrowed a little. "Mostly Lissa. But also you." He glanced at the image of Aldara. He raised his hands and stretched, yawning. "Anyway, I think I'm going back to my bunk. Maybe I'll actually get some sleep this time."

Seeing Mims yawn made Yvian yawn, too. "Yeah. It's pretty late. We've gotta be up in a couple hours."

"No we don't," said Mims. "We're not going anywhere for a couple of days. We've got no business to attend to, and it's been a while since any of us actually took a day off. So I'm canceling training. Instead I'm going to sleep in and spend some quality time with Lissa. " He twitched. "At least, until the Klaath show up."