The Privateer

A mighty fleet sailed through the void. Three billion ships, from ninety meter Vinga class fighters to seven kilometer Grimjo destroyers. Yvian saw the bulk of the fleet was comprised of Gungra class battlecruisers. She wondered if these ones were outfitted with Rapid Artillery Arrays.

The bulky lines of the Gungras stirred a brief wave of nostalgia. The Beefcake had been the first capital ship Yvian had faced off against. It had been her first real mission as a Privateer, and she'd made a fortune. The ship had been reborn as the Gunzerker, and been pivotal in stopping the Klaath Incursion at Krog Prime. That Incursion had set events in motion that would defy Yvian's wildest expectations and fulfill her deepest dreams.

"They've been flying towards the Empire for months," Scarrend harrumphed. "Slowly." The Vrrl was three meters and three hundred kilos of generically engineered killing machine. Voidarmor the color of fresh blood covered most of his body, but his head was still bare, revealing a face that reminded Yvian of the great hunting cats on New Pixa. His fur was green with black spots. His mane was brown. All three of eyes were a vibrant yellow. The Vrrl crossed all four of his arms in a display of mild contempt. "I thought the Jumpdrive was invented in the Confederation. Did they really not think to outfit their Military?"

Captain Mims answered with a shrug. "The Confed's a corrupt oligarchy and a slave state." The human was tall and lean, with odd pale skin and round ears. His eyes and hair were dark, and he carried himself with the deadly grace of a predator. Yvian had been taught from a young age to fear humans. Mims was proof they were something to fear. "Their government's more interested in lining their pockets than making sure things run smoothly."

"That sounds..." Scarrend frowned. "Incredibly shortsighted."

"It is," the Captain agreed. He shrugged again. "Good for us, though."

"True." Scarrend glared at the holodisplay. The Military fleet was not yet aware of Yvian's ship. They trundled along, eight hundred thousand miles from the Jumpgate the Dream of the Lady had exited. "This will be the largest hunt the Vrrl Starfang Empire has ever seen. I just wish the prey wasn't so..." he chuffed. "Disappointing."

"This unit understands," Kilroy assured the beast. The Peacekeeper unit stood at his console, a metal monster in the shape of a pixenoid male. He wore the sharp suit, black tie, and fedora the machines favored. There was a white mask where his face should be, and a pair of eyes glowing yellow with amusement. "It is trying thing, seeing meatbags be so inferior all the time."

To be fair, an armada of three billion ships would have been a real problem a year ago. As far as the Confed knew, the Vrrl Starfalng Empire didn't possess jumpdrive technology. Without it, they couldn't possibly bring enough forces together to respond to such a threat. The Confed Military would have crushed sector after sector, exterminating vast numbers of the Vrrl before they were stopped. Assuming they could have been stopped at all.

Things were different now. Captain Mims had traded the tech to the Oluken in order to save Yvian's life. The Oluken had sold it to the Vrrl, and the Empire had acquired a vast number of jumpdrives after allying with the Pixen Technocracy in a war against the Terran Federation.

"Well, no point drawing this out," Mims leaned forward, hands going to flight control. Yvian had been reluctant to let the man fly the Dream of the Lady. It was her ship, after all. The Dream was originally a Ronin class battlecruiser of human design, but it had been heavily modified over the last month. The bridge had been built for a crew of dozens, and featured several rows of control consoles that formed semicircles in front of an elevated command chair. Yvian's command chair had consoles of its own. She could have flown the ship herself. Would have, if she'd been able to resist the temptation of looking down at the human and telling him what to do. "Permission to drop Stealth, Captain Yvian?"

Yvian resisted the urge to smile. "Permission granted." She debated ordering everyone to battlestations, but decided it would be silly. Instead she pointed at the Peacekeeper unit below her and to the left. "Kilroy, give the signal."

"Affirmative." Kilroy's eyes glowed red as he entered combat mode. "Signal received. First wave en route."

Nothing changed on the bridge, but Yvian knew the Dream had just shimmered into view on the enemy sensors. The Confed Armada didn't slow, but they pinged her ship with a bombardment of active scans as millions of Captains tried to get a read on this new development.

"Thank you, Kilroy." Yvian tried to keep her voice smooth and commanding. "Scarrend, open the comms. I'd like to broadcast on all frequencies."

"Yes, Captain." The Vrrl finished fixing his helmet in place and typed into his console. "Broadcasting on all frequencies."

Yvian pressed a button on her own console and routed her helmet's comm to the Dream's. "Attention, Confederation vessels. "This is Captain Yvian of the Dream of the Lady. I am a Mother of Pixa and leader of the Pixen Technocracy. We see that you are heading for the Vrrl Starfang Empire. Be advised, the Vrrl are allies of the Technocracy. Any attack on them will be seen as an attack on us."

The scans continued for several seconds before one of the Military vessels replied. "Captain Yvian, this is High Admiral Vosk of the Confederation Militia. Be advised that we do not recognize the sovereignty of the Pixen Technocracy. You are not a nation. You are insurrectionists and pirates. Please remove yourselves from our flight path, or you will be fired upon."

Yvian switched to the inter-ship comm. "That's a lot more polite than I expected."

"The Military isn't like the Enforcers, Captain," Mims explained. "They're disciplined professionals."

"Oh," Yvian resisted the urge to frown. "Now I kind of feel bad for them." She switched back to general broadcast. "I'm afraid I can't do that, High Admiral. You're an invasion force heading for our allies. We have no choice but to respond."

Another delay of a few seconds. Then the High Admiral said, "In that case, we will have to destroy you and whatever forces you bring to bear. I have my orders and I cannot turn aside." A pause. "Are you sure you won't reconsider, Captain Yvian? I'd rather not waste time blowing you and whatever fleet you have waiting out of the sky."

"I'm sorry, High Admiral Vosk," Yvian told him. "I think you've misunderstood my intentions."

As if on cue, thirty massive vessels appeared in the Jumpgate behind Yvian. Five hundred kilometers long, each Peacekeeper Queenship was a line of nine kilometer spheres. Three sets of bladelike walls spiraled around the spheres. At a distance, the Queens looked like very long, very thin screws, or perhaps the stinger of a particularly nasty insect. Up close, they were much worse. Veins of light crawled along the purple hull of the vessels, pulsing in a way that made the ships seem alive. Alive and alien and evil.

The Queenships had once belonged to the Klaath, and were easily the most frightening vessels Yvian had ever encountered. The appearance of a single Klaath Queen was the death of an entire sector. Yvian could only imagine the High Admiral's panic at seeing thirty of them at once.

"I'm not trying to get you to turn back," Yvian continued. "It's too late for that. I am simply giving you information to pass on to your superiors before you die."

The High Admiral didn't respond. Yvian assumed he was too busy giving orders. Three billion ships were probably in a panic. To his credit, High Admiral Vosk made the best call he could. The Confederation Armada accelerated. The beam weapons of the Queens had a much longer range than conventional cannons. The Military's only hope was to get in close and try to overwhelm the Queens with numbers and concentrated fire.

The Queens didn't wait. Each of them fired thousands of beam weapons, disabling ship after ship after ship. The Military fleet was too far away to retaliate. They had to settle for pushing as hard as their engines could go. The fighter class vessels quickly pulled ahead of the others, only to be struck down by the Queens.

This continued for several minutes. Kilroy made a snarky comment about the tardiness of meatbags. Then the great Gate rippled again. Eight hundred million ships of the Vrrl Starfang Empire began to pour into the sector. Disc-like Hissith fighters, and Clawwings with four functioning mechanical arms. Battlecruisers in the shape of a Vrrl in midleap. Destroyers gliding through the void like rust colored primitive daggers.

The Vrrl's lead ship, the Priderender, opened a broadcast. "Attention softpaws," the deep, cultured baritone of the Empire's Third Warmaster intoned, "This is Skrell Scathach of the Starfang Empire. You have exactly five seconds to surrender." The Warmaster gave an amused grunt. "Unfortunately, it took me ten seconds to say that. The hunt is on."

The Vrrl fleet surged forward. The gaping maws of their battlecruisers glowed, then spewed forth massive bars of white light. Ion Roarcannons. The signature weapon of the Vrrl did not have the instant impact of beam weapons, but they were powerful enough to strip a destroyer's shields at extreme range.

At this point, High Admiral Vosk made yet another sensible decision. He ordered a full retreat. Yvian respected the man's decisiveness under pressure, but it would do him no good. At this point the Confederation armada was a mere two hundred thousand kilometers from the Gate. Peacekeeper Queenships were slow, but their beam cannons were effective up to ten million kilometers. The Vrrl were not slow. Their ships were nearly twice as fast as their Confederation counterparts, with shielding and firepower to match.

Then the High Admiral made another decision. This one made Yvian like him a lot less.

"Target locks," Scarrend reported. "We're being targeted."

"Targeted with what?" asked Yvian. They were still well out of weapons range.

"Missiles," said Scarrend.

Missiles? "How many?" Yvian touched the holodisplay next to her command chair. More red dots than she could count filled the display.

"All of them," said Scarrend. "The softpaws are launching their entire complement at us."

Oh Crunch. "Evasive maneuvers," Yvian ordered. "Activate Stealth."

"Aye Captain," said Mims. The Dream of the Lady burst into motion. The light of stars filtering in through the viewports blurred as the human angled the ship away from the fight. "Stealth active."

"Missile lock disengaged," said Scarrend, "but they're using a saturation attack. Filling the entire area. Impact in thirty seconds."

Yvian thought fast. "Back through the Gate. Now!"

"On it, Captain." The human's hands flew over flight control.

The Queenships shifted targets, blasting missiles out of the sky as quickly as they could. It wasn't enough. There were too many. Over three hundred billion projectiles rocketed towards the Dream of the Lady. And not just the Dream. The wall of explosives would hit the Vrrl, too.

The Vrrl responded with Roarcannons as well as conventional fire. A wall of charged particles reached out to clash with the wall of missiles.

"Impact in ten seconds," Scarrend reported.

Two seconds later, blue light flooded in through the viewports. The Dream of the Lady had touched the Great Gate. The Jump effect took hold. Yvian spared a moment to watch the swirling blue light. "Crunch," she breathed. "That was close."

"Not that close, Captain," said Scarrend. Only then did Yvian realize she was still on interior comms. "We had eight more seconds."

"Which means we'll have another eight seconds before the missiles come out of the Gate," Mims pointed out. "Some of them might be out of propellent, but the rest will come straight for us, and they'll be close enough to see through Stealth."

Which meant Yvian needed another quick decision. "Mims, acceleration to full as soon as we clear the Gate."

"They'll catch up fast, Captain," said Mims.

"No they won't," she replied. "Kilroy, divert power to the Jumpdrive. Everything but the engines."

"Affirmative." Kilroy's hands blurred. A moment later, the bridge lights shut off. A hum shuddered through the ship. Jumpdrives were energy intensive. Most ships couldn't do anything when they were active. "Jumpdrive charging. This unit had to deactivate shields, Stealth, weapons, and life support." Yvian didn't like losing the shields, but she was pretty sure the Jumpdrive would let them escape before any missiles hit. At least, she hoped it would.

The Dream of the Lady entered another sector exactly thirty seconds after it had entered the Gate. The light of the Gate effect fell away as the battlecruiser was ejected at ten meters per second. Mims immediately gunned the engines. The ship hummed louder as the Jumpdrive continued to charge.

Eight seconds later, a cloud of missiles followed them into the sector. Like everything else that came out of the Gate, they were moving at ten meters per second. Some of them stayed at that speed, but the majority reoriented themselves to point at the Dream and burst into motion. Yvian's legs clenched as millions of explosives closed in. If a single one of them hit...

The humming reached a crescendo. A quantum entanglement field finished wrapping around Yvian's ship. A piece of the field ignored time and space to touch the Jumpgate they'd just left. Blue light swirled around the ship. The Gate Effect took hold a mere two seconds before the first missile could make impact. Yvian let out the breath she'd been holding, barely stopping herself from slumping in relief. "Turn the shields back on," she ordered, "and engage Stealth."

"Affirmative," said Kilroy.

"Foolish softpaws," Scarrend muttered. "Why waste so many missiles? We were the only ship not hunting them."

"They don't know that," said Mims. "The Queenships are controlled by Peacekeeper units. No life signs. A smart Admiral might assume they're being controlled by remote."

"And hope destroying the controller would stop the Queens," Scarrend surmised. "A bold play. It would not have saved them."

"Nothing they do can save them," Yvian told him. "That fleet was dead the moment we entered the sector."

The shields had only charged back up to six percent by the time the Dream exited the Gate again. They were back where they started. The missile barrage had failed to destroy a single Vrrl ship, and they were chasing the Confederation. Peacekeeper Queens continued to disable Confed ships with beam fire. Vrrl battlecruisers and Clawwings used their mechanical arms to grapple disabled ships, allowing boarding parties of Vrrl hunters to swarm in and take their prey.

Yvian shuddered at the thought. The Vrrl had been engineered with a craving for sapient flesh. They lost their sanity if they had to go too long without eating people. Ten minutes ago the Confed fleet had been a confident conquering force. But now? Now they were a buffet.

The Confederation Armada were enemy combatants. Military Officers that made their living by conquering and exterminating other species. Yvian didn't want to feel sorry for them, but she did. The lucky ones would die quickly, but the Vrrl would take as many alive as they could. The captives would wish they hadn't.

"The Empire doesn't do breeding camps anymore," she asked Scarrend. "Does it?"

"No," said the Vrrl. "The clone vats from the Technocracy have eliminated the need." He turned to look at her, expression unreadable behind his helmet. "The prey will be killed quickly, or placed in stasis until it is time to feed."

"Good." Yvian nodded to herself. "That's good."

"Do not pity them, Captain," the Vrrl continued. "Those people are the Military arm of a slave state. They were coming to kill as many of my people as they could."

"I know," said Yvian. "I just wish it didn't have to be this way."

"You would have preferred to simply kill them," Scarrend rumbled. "I know. But we are hunters. The Apex predators of the verse. The Empire has suffered greatly these last few years, and our people have suffered too much change too quickly. Defeating the humans helped, but we are still on a precipice. We need this hunt. We need to reaffirm who and what we are."

"We don't have to stay, Captain." Mims spoke up. "Our only job was to deliver the message. That job's done. We don't have to watch the rest."

Yvian shook her head. "Yes we do."

Mims regarded her for a moment. Then he nodded and gave her a salute. "Aye Captain."

The next few minutes were silent. Yvian watched the Vrrl take one Confederation ship after another. The Confed was firing back, doing what they could where they could. It didn't matter. Between the overwhelming firepower of the Queens and the superior ships of the Vrrl, the Military fleet stood no chance. The Vrrl would suffer few losses, and not a single Confed ship would survive.

"It is nice being proactive for once," Mims remarked.

"What?" Yvian pulled herself out of her reverie.

"We've spent most of the last few years putting out fires," Mims explained. "Running from one crisis to another. Eking out wins by the skin of our teeth."

"Teeth don't have skin," Yvian pointed out.

"Old human expression," Mims shrugged. "Doesn't matter. The point is, we've finally got some breathing room." He gestured at his console. "This fleet was still months away from Vrrl space. We finally get to take the offensive and deal with a problem before it's an emergency." He shrugged again. "It's nice."

"You've got a weird definition of nice," Yvian told him. "New Pixa's cut off, remember? There are multiple versions of Reba trying to kill us, the Confed's on a slaving spree, and the Vore are on their way to wipe us all out. We've got a lot of problems to deal with."

"Do not worry, Captain Mother Yvian," Kilroy spoke up. His eyes glowed the white of pride. "We have been sufficient before, and we will be sufficient again. Between your stupid meatbag ideas and this unit's superior efficiency, we are the most dangerous beings in the verse."

"Thanks, Kilroy." Yvian frowned. "I think."

"You are also correct." The Peacekeeper unit's eyes blinked yellow with amusement. "Big Daddy Mims has a weird definition of nice."

"Kilroy?" Mims managed to convey a long suffering look despite his helmet. "Could you please stop calling me Big Daddy? Just Mims is fine. Or even Captain."

"Captain?" Yvian grinned at the man. "Captain of what? The Random Encounter's still out of commission."

The human sighed.