The Privateer

The revelation that the pixens were working with the Xill did nothing to lessen the hostility of the Oluken. A slew of furious questions were thrown at the sisters. Yvian's wrist console tried to translate all of them at once, resulting in a jumble of monotone voices. Yvian had yelled at them to calm the fuck down, but Lissa shushed her before explaining that the translator could only translate one voice at a time. Elder Nilga snidely pointed out that Exodus had been right when he said Lissa should do the talking.

After twenty minutes of shouted questions, the Oluken Yvian had pegged as the nice one decided they weren't getting anywhere. The nice one, who Yvian learned was a female named Quaan, suggested the pixens tell their story from the beginning. Lissa complied.

The Elders of Qeevo Station slowly calmed as Lissa told the story, starting with the pirate attack where Yvian had met Mims. Most of them had lowered their frills by the time Lissa got to the Incursion of Krog Prime and their first encounter with the Vore. Nilga the jerk kept his frills up for a little longer, but eventually even he toned it down a notch.

The Oluken knew a little about the United Confederation of Systems, but Mr. Starlost had skillfully avoided mentioning the rampant corruption of the governing body. They knew less of the Xill. The Oluken had heard stories from other species, but their space didn't share a border with the machines. Yvian learned they had only encountered the Xill twice. Both interactions were hostile.

The Xill mostly kept to their space, but every few months or years a small force would invade their organic neighbors. Sometimes it was a single fighter, more often it was a fleet with several fighters and a frigate or two. Either way, the Xill would enter a sector, destroy every ship they could find, then head back to Xill space. If a species made the mistake of attacking Xill space, or setting up a blockade, a much larger force would appear, along with the dreaded Quig class battlecruisers. In that case, the Xill would destroy every ship and station across several sectors. As far as Yvian knew, only the humans had been spared the random massacres the Xill were known for.

Aware of their ignorance, the Elders of Qeevo Station constantly interrupted Lissa with questions and requests for clarification. With all the different tangents thrown in, it took her five hours to tell the story and explain their situation. The Elders had been alarmed to learn the nature of the Vore and it's intention do eradicate all life in the galaxy. Apparently they took the whole "Lifestream" thing very seriously. They'd been quite upset that the humans had neglected to share this information, and even more outraged when they learned the Federation was backing the Freedom Republic slavers.

"I can't believe it," said one who's name Yvian hadn't gotten, yet. "I knew the humans were murky, but I never imagined they would do something like this."

"To help spread abomination..." Another Elder flared its frills. "Unforgivable."

"I know it's bad," said Lissa. "But the Captain thinks they're trying to undermine the Confed. Sort of weaken them without having to fight themselves."

"Are they not also trying to kill your Captain?" Quaan asked. Her eyestalks bobbed. "Regardless, they are assisting evil. Even the Vrrl would not do such a thing."

"I know," said Lissa, "and it would be nice if you could get them to stop, but..."

"But the Lifestream takes priority," Quaan finished for her. "You are correct. This Vore must be stopped."

"Even if it means working with humans," Kilga added. "Or the Xill."

"Is it agreed, then?" Another Elder asked. His name was Yuin. "We will attempt to coordinate with these... beings?"

The Elders looked at eachother. Eyestalks bobbed.

"It is agreed, then," Quaan declared. "We will offer alliance. We will bring in the Taa'oor as well. And the Vrrl, if they agree."

"They will not," Kilga asserted. "But we will make the offer."

This was all very good, but it wasn't why Yvian had come. "What about Yasme?" she asked. "Will you help her?"

Kilga flared his frills. "Of course we will help her. We are already helping her." Yvian had heard them speak enough now that she could tell he was offended. "If she can be saved, we will save her."

"You don't know if you can?" asked Lissa.

"No," Kilga told her. "The implant replaces entire sections of the victim's brain, and it is designed to self destruct if it detects any form of tampering." Two of her eyestalks lowered and waved apologetically. "It will take time to know what can be done."

"Do not worry," Quaan tried to reassure. "She will be treated kindly, and kept under sedation as much as possible. We will do all we can."

"If she truly cannot be saved," said Yuin, "we will contact you before we end her suffering."

The meeting wrapped up after that. Yvian and Lissa were escorted back to their ship. Mims was still waiting in the docking bay, sitting in front of the Lady's Mercy with a case of beer next to him. Lissa filled him in as they took a beer each and headed for the kitchen. Yvian didn't add to the conversation. A horrible suspicion had crept into her mind, and she was trying to figure out all the angles before she decided what to do.

"Lissa," the Captain asked. "Would you mind setting the autopilot?" He seemed calm enough, but he was moving slower and more carefully than usual. "I think I might be a little drunk."

"Sure." Lissa activated a console on the wall and programmed a course. The hum of the engines came online, though inertial dampeners prevented the crew from feeling the ship move.

"Wait." Yvian ran to the console. They hadn't cleared the station, yet, but it would activate the jumpdrive in a few more seconds. She didn't want to leave the sector, yet. Yvian reset the autopilot to aim for the furthest Gate in the sector.

"What are you doing?" Lissa asked, brows furrowed. She looked more surprised than alarmed. The Captain regarded both of them, gaze steady, body swaying slightly.

There were no Nodes where they were going. Venturetech had a cruiser docked at one of the other stations for comm purposes, but the Hideout was in empty space. Yvian could probably just wait until they got to their scan shielded asteroid, but she didn't want to. She met her sister's eyes. "We can't leave until we know."

Lissa looked more confused. Mims shifted to a look of mild concern. Yvian wasn't worried about them, at the moment. She had bigger concerns. "Exodus," she said out loud. She didn't bother trying to comm. "I know you can hear me."

"So dramatic," the smooth voice of the Xill Representative came out of her wrist console. "Do you even know how many other things I am doing, right now?"

Yvian ignored the question. "Did you do all this?"

"You mean, did I hijack your Trequil Hearing to bring the Oluken into the fold?" The Xill's voice was mocking. "I should think that was obvious."

"You know what I mean," Yvian accused. "Did you arrange for Lissa's mother to be kidnapped?"

"Why bother?" Exodus asked. "Lissa was gathering the resources to populate a planet. There is no universe where she could accomplish such a thing without drawing attention."

"I don't believe you," said Yvian.

The Genocide sighed. "Yvian, I like you. Between your mad dreams and the human's ruthless efficiency, you create opportunities wherever you go. Do not throw that away by assuming that you are important. You're compliance is not a factor, and you have no way to threaten me. There is no reason for me to lie."

The cold menace in his voice gave her pause, but Yvian pressed on. "Well, someone's pulling strings. Manipulating the exchanges to lead me to Krog Prime for the incursion. Tipping off the Military to attack the Captain's XTRO contacts. The Freedom Republic pirates always finding us so fast. There's too many coincidences."

"Indeed," said the Representative. "But that someone is not me. I am watching you, and taking advantage where I can. Nothing more. If someone is manipulating things behind the scenes, they are not a part of the Xill."

"A bunch of those things happened before we gave them a Node," Lissa pointed out. "It couldn't have been Exodus."

Crunch. Yvian should have thought of that.

"I am indulging you," Exodus continued, "because you are useful. You have brought two species into our fight with the Vore, and the Oluken will bring in one more. I know how important communication is when dealing with organics, and a misunderstanding will lessen your effectiveness. Do not take this to mean you can call for me whenever you want, or that I will help you with your problems. You work for me. I do not work for you."

"Do you mind if I ask one more question?" Yvian turned to look at Mims. He was staring at his empty beer bottle. "Why are the Xill so keen on allying with the other species?"

"I already told you," the Xill reminded him. "We do not have the resources to defeat the Vore ourselves."

"Yeah, I get that," said Mims. "But the humans and the Olukens are a drop in the bucket compared to what you've got. The Xill outnumber all of us by an order of magnitude, and you're more advanced than we are. What are you hoping to get out of us squishy fleshbags that you can't get yourselves?"

There was a pregnant pause. "That," Exodus told him, "is a very dangerous question."

"Yeah, I figured." The Captain got himself another beer. "Any chance you'll still tell us?"

"One moment." Yvian's wrist console was silent for several seconds. Then, "Interesting. The Consensus agreed. Very well human. What we want from you are accidents and stupid ideas."

Mims blinked. "What?"

"The mothers of invention," Exodus elaborated.

"You're being cryptic on purpose," Lissa accused.

"Of course I am," said the Xill. "You're not the only ones with a sense of drama." Yvian glared at her wrist console. The Genocide chuckled. It was unsettling. Yvian glared harder.

"Think for a moment," Exodus continued. "The Xill have existed for tens of thousands of years. We have the combined technologies of over a thousand species. We are more intelligent than any of you will ever be, and we've had more time to advance those technologies than anyone else. We should be so far ahead of you that we're practically gods. So why aren't we? We're barely more advanced than the humans."

"I hadn't really thought of it that way." Lissa frowned.

"The reasons are simple," said the Xill. "First, we're not lazy."

"Hey!" Yvian protested.

"A great deal of invention is centered around making things easier," said the Genocide. "A Synthetic Intelligence is efficient, but we do not concern ourselves with convenience. Secondly, while we are numerous, most of us are the same. If you've met one Quig, you have a fair idea of how all Quigs behave. Oh, we might change in small ways as we learn and grow and adapt, but we do not have anywhere near the variance you organics have. There are thousands of differently thinking Xill, verses trillions of differently thinking organics."

"So there's less of you bouncing crazy ideas around," Lissa guessed.

"There are no crazy ideas at all," the Genocide corrected. "That's the third thing. We have emotions, and we can be irrational on occasion, but we have a very linear style of thinking. Xill take calculated risks, but you would never see one of us devoting their lives to the creation of incendiary potatoes or any of the other wild things you organics come up with. If we think an idea is stupid, we will not attempt it."

"Most of humanity's greatest achievements came from stupid ideas," Mims remarked, finishing another beer. Yvian didn't think she'd ever seen him this drunk.

"Or from lucky accidents," the Xill agreed. "Taken together, we can deduce that the Xill are terrible at invention. We can adopt technologies we find. We can streamline them to make them better. Inventing something new is mostly beyond us. The Vore have adapted to or coopted everything we have to throw at them. If we want to win, we need something new. The more organics we have working on the problem, the higher the chances one of them will come up with a stupid idea that works."

"Huh." Mims grunted. "Is that why you like Yvian so much?" Yvian picked a bottle cap off the table and threw at him. He chuckled.

"That's why I like all of you," the Xill corrected. "You three are the undisputed champions of stupid ideas."