The Privateer

The surge of adrenaline hit her a quarter of a second after she realized what was happening. The ground hit her a quarter of a second later. Yvian's attempt at a panicked yell was cut off. Then she was tumbling. Bouncing and skidding along the hard surface of the crystal road. There was no thought, or even feelings. Just jolts and impacts and gut wrenching changes in inertia. After an eternity that was several seconds long, Yvian skidded to a halt.

She didn't feel anything after the stop. She lay gasping, but unharmed. A miracle. After three breaths, she tried to sit up. She immediately fell back down, vomiting. Fire lanced through her body. She twisted onto her side as bile filled her helmet. It was choking her. She scrabbled at her neck, trying to release the helmet's seal. Only one of her arms was working, and some of her fingers were broken. Yvian panicked. This was not the way she wanted to die.

She couldn't break the seal. She was drowning. She kept pawing at her helmet. Her desperate writhing sent shockwaves of pain through her chest. Her shoulder. Her head. She kept at it, but her damaged fingers refused to move like they should.

The helmet came off. Yvian got a mouthful of air. The coughing fit that followed hurt more than anything she'd ever felt. When it was over, she curled on her side, panting. Whimpering. Her face smushed into the mess on the ground, but she was too tired and too hurt to change position.

"Yvian? Yvian!?" A voice dimly registered. Lissa. Concerned. "Yvian? Are you alright?"

The pixen decided not to risk nodding. She waved her working arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. Lissa persisted. Yvian saw her out of the corner of her eye, hands hovering. Lissa wanted to touch and check and reassure her sister, but she was afraid to do so. It was a smart call. One shouldn't move or touch a broken person until their injuries had been assessed or there was no other choice. All pixens knew that. Her species was no stranger to blunt force trauma.

Eventually, Yvian had enough of her breath back to reassure her sister. "Not..." she croaked. "Not a miracle."

Lissa blinked. "What?"

Yvian ignored the question. She had one of her own. "Mims?"

"Mims?" Her sister's face scrunched. Realization hit. "Mark!" Lissa disappeared from view. Yvian didn't have the energy to turn and keep her eyes on her. She listened as the Captain dimly responded. She let her eyes close.

"Yvian!" The shout snapped her back to consciousness. Lissa knelt over her. One hand gently clasped her upper arm. It was not comfortable.

"Don't touch," Yvian mumbled. "Hurts."

"You've been out for twenty minutes," a voice behind her spoke. Mims. "You've got a broken shoulder and I think your collar bone's popped. I'm also pretty sure your concussed."

"You can't sleep," said Lissa. "It's dangerous."

Yvian frowned. "How come I'm the only one that got hurt?"

Mims snorted. "We just fell out of the sky at forty kilometers an hour. Everyone's hurt."

Lissa grimaced. "Mark made me undislocate his knee and his shoulder. Not fun."

"Your sister got off lighter," Mims continued. "Bruised ribs and sprained wrist. Basically a miracle."

"I hate miracles," Yvian grumbled.

"Me too." The Captain rustled around behind her. "It's another two kilometers to the big building in the center. I don't think you should walk in your condition, so we're putting a litter together."

"We're still going?" Yvian didn't like that idea.

"No choice," the human told her. He stepped into view and pulled out his pistol. He aimed for a building and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. "Whatever killed our jetpacks took out every piece of tech we have. Our weapons. Radios. Everything. We can't call for help, and Peacekeepers couldn't come here if we could." He glowered at the spire, grim. "Either we find a way to fix this or we die."

"Are those the only options?" asked Lissa. "I mean, we could always go back to the ship..."

"We could," Mims allowed, "but I'm not sure we can trek a hundred kilometers on foot in our current condition. Especially since the Encounter might be dead when we get there."

It took another fifteen minutes to get organized. Yvian didn't help. She felt bad about it, but the Captain was right that she shouldn't move around. A tent was sacrificed to make a litter, and a few essentials were stuffed into a single duffel bag. They left everything else.

Yvian nearly threw up again when they moved her onto the litter. Lissa took a cloth and some water and cleaned her up once she was out of the mess. The Captain grabbed one end of the litter, lifting it to waist height behind him. He started forward, limping slightly as he hauled her along. Lissa followed with the duffel bag.

The Captain huffed and puffed and grunted as he dragged the litter. Lissa offered to take over several times, but the human just waved her off. Yvian laid back and watched the buildings roll by. Mims had injected her with a painkiller, reducing the pounding of her head to a dull ache. She couldn't feel her shoulder and ribs at all unless Mims stumbled and jostled her.

It took nearly an hour to reach the spire. Yvian wondered how long night was on this planet. It felt like they'd been out here forever. A little math told her they'd only been travelling for six hours. Maybe seven. Yvian was pretty sure this was the worst night she'd ever had. It was definitely the longest. She wanted it to be over. She wanted to see the homestar rise.

The central spire was even bigger up close. It was the biggest building Yvian had ever seen. Even the Hall of Masters at Krog Prime paled in comparison. She vaguely wanted to pause and take it all in, but Mims just kept shuffling forward. His dark hair was plastered to his skull.

They entered through an archway so wide they could fly the Encounter through it. A grand hall awaited them. Well. A large empty space, anyway. A dark large empty space. The light filtering in through the archway only illuminated twenty meters or so. The refraction of the crystal floor extended it a little, but not enough to let Yvian see the ceiling or the other walls.

"Flare," Mims panted.

"What?" Lissa asked.

"Duffel," Mims explained. "Chemical flare."

"Right." Lissa took the bag off her shoulder and rummaged through it.

The tip of the flare burst with bright red flame. Yvian squinted her eyes and looked away from it. Gazing into the abyss of the spire was less painful, but not much less pleasant. A darkness that stretched forever. It stirred something primal and fearful and claustrophobic. Agoraphobic? Some kind of phobic. Yvian chuckled, then grunted at the sharp reminder of her injuries.

Mims lead them straight forward, aiming for the center of the spire. Yvian watched the archway full of starlight shrink with a rueful expression. "Maybe we should wait a little?" Mims stopped at her suggestion. "This'll be a lot easier after star-rise."

The Captain thought it over. "Maybe." He wiped his head against his shoulder. He couldn't use his hands while he was hauling the litter. "But maybe not. This place is huge. I don't know if enough sunlight can get in to light it up." He rolled his neck. "Let's keep going."

"We've only got six flares," Lissa reminded him.

"When we're down to four, we'll head back out." The human grunted and resumed his forward march.

Barely a minute later, the flare's pool or red light shone on a step. Steps. There was a staircase. The stairs were wider than the light could let them see. The steps were deep but not tall. Maybe twenty centimeters high, and three times that in length. As the crew got closer, Yvian counted thirty three of them.

"Fucking stairs," the human griped. "Of course there's fucking stairs..."

"We could-" Lissa started.

"Shut up," Mims decided. "We're going."

Being dragged up stairs on a litter was not fun. Each step sent a jolt of pain stabbing through the comfortable numbness of the painkillers. The change in angle as Mims climbed had Yvian gripping the side of the litter as best she could. She was worried she'd slide down and fall off the thing. Reaching the top didn't take long, but Yvian prayed to the Lady they wouldn't have to do that again any time soon.

"Well, fuck me," said the Captain. "I think we found what we came for."

Yvian rolled her head, ignoring the spike of discomfort the movement caused. The human stood in front of a pedestal. Dais? Some kind of raised platform. It was rectangular, nearly two meters tall. A perfect sphere of crystal rested on top, roughly two meters in diameter. Four crystals protruded from each side of the rectangle. Yvian recognized them. Control nodes, like the ones on the Crystal Mother.

"Set me down," said Yvian.

"No," said the Captain. "You shouldn't try to stand, yet."

"I feel fine," Yvian argued.

"That's the painkillers." Mims shuffled forward. "You're body's still a wreck. I'm gonna lean the litter against this thing so you can touch the Node without getting up."

It took a minute, and Lissa had to help, but they managed to set Yvian against the platform without dumping her out of the litter. She settled herself as best she could. Once she was pretty sure she wouldn't slide off, she reached out and touched one of the Nodes."

With the implant given to her by the Crystal Mother, the pixen's mind touched something in the crystal. Cold. Fear. Hate. Defiance. A torrent of emotions slammed into her. Too much. Yvian tried to pull back, but something clamped onto her psyche, clinging to her like a drowning child.

What is it it? Yvian tried to ask. What's wrong? The other mind didn't respond. It couldn't understand her. Yvian gritted her teeth, trying to parse through the welter of feelings and alien thoughts. Understanding slowly grew. The rage and grief and fear all swelled from a certainty. An instinctive knowledge, something deeper than thought. The knowing terrified the pixen. Screaming and struggling, she finally managed to wrench her thoughts out of the Node.

"Yvian?" A concerned voice. Lissa again. Yvian held up a hand as she caught her breath.

The terror faded slightly now that she was back in herself. Only slightly. "Mims!" Yvian shouted. "We have to do something!"

"What is it?" asked the human.

"City 43." Yvian noticed she was still yelling. She was upset enough that she didn't care. "We have to save her!"

"Save her?" Mims was confused.

"She's dying!"