The Privateer

The Vronin J were sweethearts.

It took five days to remove the Dream's destroyed reactors and get the spares installed. The Peacekeepers had stocked Yvian's ship with enough equipment and spares to replace every part of the ship at least once, but assembling and connecting the power supplies was a much more involved process than the Captain had expected.

Repair drones had done most of the actual labor, with Kilroy and Scarrend monitoring. The drones could be controlled wirelessly once active, but had to be turned on and off by hand. This was a standard precaution against electronic warfare. A drone that could assemble a ship could disassemble one just as easily.

It took Kilroy four days to build a lexicon of their language. It took him just under a minute to update the Dream's translation protocols. He could have updated the crew's language implants as well, but that would have taken another day. Yvian decided there was no need. Yvian's implant let her understand other languages, but it didn't help her speak them.

Yvian decided not to open communications with the Vronin J until the reactors were ready. She'd feel much more comfortable with the idea of first contact once she had access to weapons, shields, and a jumpdrive.

The Vronin J's warship had waited patiently. The ship looked very much like an insect, with a green hull and a segmented design. It reminded Yvian of a flying bug she'd seen on New Pixa. A dragonfly. The ship's weapons were not turreted, but instead faced forward on gimbals. It was a design choice Yvian had never seen on a capital ship. Large vessels were slower to maneuver than fighters, and every other species she'd seen had compensated with omnidirectional firepower.

On their second day of waiting, the Vronin J vessel released a transmission on several frequencies. The encoding was odd. Lissa declared it was a mix of audio and visual, but not holographic. It took her a few hours and more than a few curse words to adapt a holoprojector to play the transmission. When she finished, Yvian saw a flat image. A moving photograph of the people on the Warship.

They were singing.

The Vronin J were pixenoid, but their skin tones were more in line with humans than Yvian's species. Their ears were even round like a human's. The main difference was in their eyes. The Vronin J had irises that were metallic in color. Silver, gold, steel, bronze. Each of them had a gemstone of some kind grafted to the middle of their foreheads. The gemstones came in a variety of shapes and colors, but they were all roughly five centimeters in diameter.

They were pretty. Very pretty. Smooth skin and big eyes and long shiny hair done up in strange, elaborate styles. The majority were dark haired, but silver, white, and the occasional purple could be seen. The Vronin J wore colorful smocks. The material was sleek and shiny and just a little bit sheer. Males and Females all dressed the same. None of them were carrying weapons that Yvian could see. She wondered if they'd removed their guns before transmitting so as to appear friendly.

The song was hauntingly beautiful. The Vronin J weren't using instruments, but their voices melded together in a symphony of interweaving melodies. It was mournful and hopeful and soaring. Yvian might have cried a little the first time she heard it.

The end of the song was the end of the transmission. Every twenty six hours, the Vronin J Warship transmitted and sang to them again.

Once Kilroy finished his translation program, Yvian tried to listen to comm traffic in the sector to get a feel for the situation. She gave up after an hour. She asked Kilroy to listen and figure things out instead. The Peacekeeper's report painted a bleak picture.

The Enlightened had wiped out over a third of the Vronin J's population. Two thirds of their ships and stations had been destroyed. Rescue efforts were ongoing, but only a very few had been saved. Anyone that had been subjected to the Enlightened's absorption process for more than a few seconds was very thoroughly dead.

There was a lot of chatter about Yvian's ship and the role it had played in the conflict. It was obvious that the Dream of the Lady had fought the Enlightened. Most of the Vronin J believed that the Dream had killed the Enlightened. Opinions differed on how and why. Kilroy had noted that the majority of opinions were in Yvian's favor, with only a small percentage showing concern that Yvian and her crew might be nefarious. Yvian appreciated the sentiment, but it made her worry for them. She herself would be more suspicious of a strange craft appearing during an invasion. These people were far less paranoid than they should be.

The Vronin J sang to each other often. Kilroy found it annoying. He also noted that the Vronin J cried a lot. "Even for meatbags." Yvian didn't blame them, considering what had just happened. If a third of her species had just died she'd be crying, too. Peacekeeper units had been caring and sympathetic to Yvian and her people. She forgot sometimes how little they gave a shit about anyone else.

On the fifth day, with the reactors installed and diagnostics completed, it was time to talk to their new friends. Yvian wanted to play it smart. She put Lissa in charge of making contact, and had Kilroy monitor comms in the area. Mims would watch the sector for new activity. Scarrend was on weapons. Yvian didn't think the Vronin J were going to try anything, but she wasn't taking any chances.

Lissa waited for the warship to transmit its song one more time. A few seconds after they finished, she hailed them. They answered, and Lissa immediately burst into song. It was The Psalm of the Homestar. Yvian sang along with her. When the song was completed, Lissa activated the ship's translator. She simply said, "Hello. My name is Lissa Kiver. My ship is called The Dream of the Lady."

The Vronin J became very excited. It took them a minute to calm down. Their leader stepped forward. A male, with gold eyes and blue gemstone in his forehead. His eyes were wide. "You know our language."

"It took us some time to learn," Lissa told him.

The man made no effort to compose himself. "My far-name is Jaizya Zevron, but I name you friends, and ask you to use my close-name. Call me Jai. We are onboard the Avallis. We have many questions, but the first is the most important. Are you the ones that slew the Enlightened?"

Lissa nodded. "We are."

The Vronin J cheered. They jumped and held each other. They burst into song. Yvian smiled in spite of herself. She hadn't come here to save these people, but she was glad it had worked out that way. When the Vronin J finished singing again Jai launched into an excited babble about how grateful they were. Lissa let him ramble on for a bit before explaining that the rescue had been unintentional.

"You did not mean to save us?" Jai looked crestfallen.

"It's not that we didn't want to," Lissa told him. "We didn't know any of this was happening until we got here. We're explorers." She proceeded to explain the encounter with the Enlightened and how they were defeated. The Vronin J were alarmed to learn Lissa had a Synthetic on board, but Kilroy quickly won them over. The Peacekeeper could be surprisingly charming when he chose. He even convinced them that "meatbag" was a term of endearment.

When Lissa explained that they were looking for a new homeworld, Jai immediately offered his own. He said he'd be honored to share it with "such heroes and bringers of harmony." Lissa thanked him warmly, but declined. The Vronin J's home planet was in ruins, and she didn't want to impose.

"It would be no imposition," Jai assured her. "You are the saviors of my people. We will gladly share all that we have."

"I know you would," said Lissa, "but we cannot accept. My people need a planet of our own. One that belongs only to us. We are going to terraform that world into a version of New Pixa. We can't do that to a world that already has people living on it."

"We could evacuate," Jai insisted. "Please. Come stay with us."

"You are very sweet," Lissa smiled at him. "But Pixa must stand on its own. Accepting your kindness would lessen who we are. Instead, we would like you to be our friends."

"We would love to be your friends." Jai brightened. "You have saved the Vronin J. My people will sing your praises until the stars grow cold. And if you ever have need of us, you need only ask."

The two of them talked for nearly three hours. Lissa introduced the rest of the crew, but everyone but Kilroy stayed out of the discussion as much as possible. Eventually, Lissa told Jai that it was time for them to continue their mission. She promised to send a diplomatic envoy, but warned it might be several months. Jai promised to wait patiently, and further promised that several songs would be written by the time the envoy arrived. Songs about Lissa, and the saviors of the Vronin J.

When the transmission finally ended, Yvian entered a set of coordinates into the jumpdrive. They would return to the sector this journey had started in. Kilroy had named it Save Point Sector. Mims had rolled his eyes at the name, but had refused to explain the joke. The Vronin J had sung one more song at them while the jumpdrive charged. Lissa had quickly turned the translator off so it didn't come out as a discordant mess.

As nice as the Vronin J had been, Yvian breathed out a sigh of relief when they were back at Save Point. A quick scan confirmed they were alone. "Alright," she said. "I think we'll call it a night. Kilroy, keep watch. Everyone else, get some sleep."

Yvian woke up three hours later. Alarms were blaring. Red lights flashed. Yvian was still in her void armor. She'd ordered everyone to sleep in full gear in case of emergency. She activated comms as she sprinted for the bridge. "Kilroy, what's happening?"

"A saucer just appeared in this sector," the Peacekeeper unit reported. "Permission to employ the MAC Cannons, Captain Mother Yvian?"

"Kill them the second they're close enough," Yvian ordered. "I'm on my way."

Yvian had only made it halfway to the bridge when a column of light engulfed her. She screamed a curseword as she was pulled sideways towards the bulkhead. Just before she passed through it the light cut out. Yvian thumped in to the wall with another curse. She got up and sprinted for the bridge.

She needn't have bothered. Kilroy stood at his console, eyes red. Scarrend was also on the bridge, pulling up sensors on his console.

Yvian slid into her Captain's Chair and pulled up the sensors. The Saucer was dead. Kilroy had pumped it full of holes. The electromagnetic storm that usually accompanied the alien ship was gone.

Mims and Lissa spilled onto the bridge. The human's arm was missing just below his shoulder. The bottom of his leg was missing, too. He hopped to his station with help from Lissa. "Abductor beam left me stuck in a wall." He explained. "Had to amputate."

"Well shit," said Yvian. "I kind of thought this was a safe sector."

"There's no such thing," said Mims. "That's why we always have someone on the bridge."

"Where'd they come from?" Lissa asked. "How did they know we were here?"

"Unknown," said Kilroy. "The Saucer did not come through the Gate. It appeared thirty million kilometers away."

"Teleportation." Scarrend growled. "Perhaps they have been going from sector to sector, looking for the ones who killed their kin."

"Or we could just be a target of opportunity," Mims grunted. "There's no way to know."

"Either way, we should get out of here." Yvian pulled up her Nav console. "I don't think we should come back to Save Point anymore."