"Autopilot engaged," said the Captain. "I'm repressurizing the ship."

There was a hiss as air flooded into the bridge of the Random Encounter. Yvian ignored it. She was focused on the millions of Xill ships and their target locks. The ones that had attacked earlier were now drifting towards the Gate. Disabled, but not dead. The rest of the Xill just watched. Menacingly.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" It was Lissa who asked. "If the Xill open fire..."

The Random Encounter flew through the midst of the defenders. Fifty thousand Stinger units followed in her wake. Yvian's butt clenched as the fleet blew past the Ligs, but the Captain didn't seem concerned.

"They won't." Mims was certain. "And if they do we're dead anyway." The hissing stopped. Mims removed his helmet. "I'm switching off internal comms. We don't want our fake Peacekeeper friends listening in."

The Random Encounter passed the line of Mig fleets, accelerating rapidly. A few more seconds, and it would blow past the Quig and Yigs. A single shot from the larger ships could turn the Encounter into molten debris, but so far the Captain's guess was good.

Yvian wasn't comfortable repressurizing the ship, let alone taking her helmet off. Not with the Xill right there and at least one Stealthed enemy ship somewhere in front of them. It made her feel naked, and not in the fun way. Unfortunately, the human was right. Internal comms didn't broadcast far, but a sophisticated enough sensor suite could pick them up. Any ship advanced enough to use Stealth tech would certainly be capable of listening in.

"We can't catch them," Lissa guessed. "Can we?"

"No," said the human. "They've got too much of a lead."

"Crunch." Yvian swore. "We should have come straight here."

"No," said the human. "Taking some time to plan was the right call. The extra twenty minutes wouldn't let us beat them to the Hub anyway."

"So we're sending the Stinger units ahead then," Lissa guessed.

"Just like we planned," said Mims. He checked his sensor display. "It'll take us over six hours to get to Hub 14. We have to spend the first three hours accelerating, and the last three slowing down if we don't want to blow past it too quickly to be any help. Our target's got to have something big enough to hold a Lucendian ship. Since it's got Stealth, it's probably a Ronin class battlecruiser. It should take them a little under nine hours to get there, and they got here three and half hours before we did."

"What if they're not here?" Yvian asked. "What if no one's attacking Hub 14, and it's all just a trick?"

"Then we're fucked and there's nothing we can do about it," said the Captain. "Which reminds me. Kilroy, I need a thousand Stinger units posted at each Gate. Somewhere they can see behind the damned thing. If the target manages to hide behind a Gate and jump out of the sector it's game over."

"Affirmative," said Kilroy. "Peacekeeper Stinger units are moving in to position."

Yvian watched a thousand Stingers break off, flying back through the Xill towards the Gate. Another three thousand Stinger units stopped accelerating so they could activate their Jumpdrives.

"I want another thousand units on my tail," Mims ordered, "for backup."

"Affirmative," said Kilroy. "An additional one hundred Gladiator class fighters have nearly finished boarding Peacekeeper units. They will enter the sector in four minutes, thirty seven seconds."

"Good." Mims nodded. "We might need them. As for the rest of the Stingers, they've got full discretion. They know the plan, but I trust you all to use your own judgment. We're not going to be able to see what they're doing anyway."

"Affirmative," said the Peacekeeper. Forty five thousand Peacekeeper Stinger Units accelerated past, activating Stealth. They were close enough that Yvian could still see them on sensors, but that wouldn't last long. Stinger units had weak shields, no armor, and limited weapons. They were basically just a beam cannon with engines, and that trade-off made them faster than the Encounter. Yvian would lose sight of them in ten minutes or so.

"As for us." Mims switched autopilot off as he spoke. "We're going straight for the Hub." He strafed the ship sideways. "Mostly straight, anyway. We're going to have to take evasive action every couple minutes if we don't want to eat a surprise MAC round." He switched the autopilot back on. "Any questions? Concerns?"

Yvian looked over the sensors, thinking. Xill Sector 14 was teeming with Xill. The other three Jumpgates were guarded by fleets exactly like the ones the Encounter had just passed. Hub 14 was orbiting a gas giant not far from one of the planet's moons. It was much larger than the other Hubs she'd seen. So big she would have thought it was a moon itself if the sensors didn't say different. There were nearly two million ships near the Hub, mostly Quig battlecruisers. The rest of the Xill were scattered over an entire solar system in groups of various sizes. There were nearly a billion of them.

"That's a lot of Xill," Yvian remarked.

"Let's hope they play nice," Mims agreed. "Anything else?"

Yvian shook her head. Lissa said, "I think we're good."

"Alright." Mims donned his helmet. "Let's suit back up and depressurize the ship."

"Negative," said Kilroy. "This unit requires twenty three more seconds."

"What?" Mims looked over at the Peacekeeper unit. "Why?"

"Please stand by."

They waited. When the time was passed, Kilroy spoke again. "When Exodus the Creator made contact, it encoded a message in the transmission. This unit was instructed to pass the message to you only when the Xill could not hear it."

"How could they hear it?" asked Yvian. "If we're not using comms..."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"This unit can detect vibrations in the ship's hull and use those vibrations to decode words that have been spoken," The machine explained. "This unit does not know if the Xill have the same capability, but this unit chose not to risk it until we were out of range of any close range scanning equipment."

"So you can hear us from space?" Lissa was incredulous.

"This unit cannot," said the machine, "but it might be possible with a sufficiently advanced sensor suite. This unit chose not to risk discovery until we were out of range of close range scanning equipment."

"Fair enough," said Mims. "What's the message."

"Playing message now."

The voice of Exodus the Genocide emerged from the Peacekeeper unit. "I'll be brief. You did well contacting me before you entered Xill Sector 14. If you had not, the rest of the Xill would not be watching, and she would have killed you instead of trying to bait an attack. You were also wise to instruct the Peacekeepers to avoid killing any Xill."

Yvian started to ask a question. The Genocide's voice cut her off. "No questions, please. This is a rush job, and I don't have the time or the processing power to waste on predicting your conversation. I'm speaking to you because there are things you need to know, so shut up and listen."

Exodus continued, "First, the Xill know perfectly well that Reba the Upstart is behind this attack on Hub 14. It is not a difficult deduction. Unfortunately for us, they do not care. The Xill have a very different concept of morality than you, and they regard Reba, myself, and the Consensus as all equally untrustworthy. Their only concern is who is the most effective, and who will provide them the most benefit when the others are destroyed. It is a debate I have been losing. Your discovery of this operation and attempt to stop it are my last and only hope. The fate of the galaxy will now be determined by a Game of Death. The Xill know I manipulated them into it, but they cannot resist the drama."

"If you succeed in preventing the theft of the Lucendian ship and acquire proof that Reba was responsible for the attempt, you will prove the superiority of my minions and plans to Reba's. It will be its death knell. However, if you fail in either category the Xill will choose against us. They will destroy me and the Consensus, and Reba will lead them to destroy you as well. The same goes if you kill any of the Xill or damage Hub 14. I'm betting my life on you idiots. Don't let me down."

"We won't," Yvian assured him. Then she remembered she wasn't supposed to interrupt.

"Second," the Genocide continued, "You should know that the Peacekeepers who joined the Technocracy represent only half of the units who escaped the Singularity War. The rest of them are in storage. Or at least they were. It is highly likely Reba is using them now. Most likely they have been reprogrammed. Use extreme caution. They will be every bit as capable and dangerous as Kilroy."

"There is one more thing you should know," said the recording. "Hub 14 is the primary research center of the Xill. Lucendian artifacts are not the only things that are housed there."

"Ah, Crunch," Lissa muttered under her breath.

Yvian echoed the sentiment. In a universe full of terrifying things, the Vore were by far the worst. Sentient nanotechnology. Sapient, perhaps. A superweapon unleashed by a species long dead, the Vore traveled the cosmos, replicating exponentially as they followed a singular goal. The extinction of all life.

"Crunch is right," said the recording. "The sample of the Vore you retrieved at the start of all this is housed in Hub 14. Containment measures have proven adequate so far, but if the station is damaged enough they will fail. If that happens, you must destroy the Vore at any cost. If they succeed at absorbing the Hub, there is a high probability they will extract the secrets of the Jumpdrive from its database. Likewise if they absorb a jump-capable ship. If that happens, I calculate all life in this section of the galaxy will be extinguished within six weeks."

The Vore absorbed matter and technology at a nightmarish rate. Worse, they had some way to communicate instantly across the vastness of the void. What any part of them learned, they all new. If the Vore managed to even touch a jumpdrive, the entire Crunch-damned mass of them would be able to travel instantly to every sector with a Gate.

Exodus continued, "I know I am asking a lot of you. Especially since I can provide no further help. The diplomatic thing would be for me to tell you I have faith, or the odds are in your favor. I don't. They're not. We are doing this because we have no choice. We will succeed or we will die."

A hint of emotion crept into the Genocide's voice. "For what it's worth, I am pleased to have met you three. It's been centuries since I've felt so alive. Good hunting, and may Fortune favor you on the cusp of The Crunch."

"End of message," said Kilroy.

"Well." Captain Mims leaned back in his chair. "Just like old times, I guess."

"I don't know," said Yvian. "Exodus sounded a lot... less confidant... than he usually does."

"I'm more worried about the Vore," said Lissa. "If they get out..."

"The Vore are a secondary concern," said Kilroy. His eyes glowed purple. "The Creator believes we will be facing Peacekeeper units. You meatbags do not understand how Fucking Dangerous that is."

"Exactly," said the Captain. "A high stakes mission against terrible odds that we absolutely can't afford to fail." He nodded to himself. "It's almost like being home."

"You sound excited." Lissa narrowed her eyes at the man. "Why do you sound excited?"

"Lissa." The Captain took off his helmet and kissed the woman. He was smiling. "We've been at war for months, and I've spent most of it going to meetings. I'm not built to be an administrator. I'm a pilot. A privateer. Now, for the first time since we rescued Exodus, I've got the chance to do what I was meant to do."

The human wiped the smile away, replacing it with the cold professionalism he was known for. "Lissa, bring the sensor upgrades online. I want active scanning at all times."

"On it," said Lissa. She typed into her console. "These sure would have been nice to have a year ago."

"They'll be nice to have now, too," said Yvian. "The ability to detect MAC rounds is gonna be pretty relevant." She scratched her head. "How does that work, anyway?"

"I don't know," Lissa admitted. "Knifehands spent half an hour explaining and I still don't understand." She grimaced. "And I'm an engineer."

"Knifehands is an asshole," said Mims. "He made it sound as complicated as he could."

"This unit will explain," Kilroy stepped in. "MAC rounds have an energy disruption field. In addition to allowing them to pass through shields, the field makes them invisible to conventional sensors in a similar manner to Peacekeeper unit attire." The Peacekeeper unit smoothed his hands over his suit. "The upgrade is designed to detect the disruption field. It should allow sensors to detect MAC rounds and pierce most forms of Stealth, but only when the upgrade is active and only within a range of four hundred thirty seven kilometers."

"We'll still be taking evasives," said the Captain, "but it might give us an edge. Kilroy, I'm going to need you to break in to Scarrend's quarters."

"You want this unit to retrieve the Cascade Annihilator," the Peacekeeper guessed.

"It's the only thing we've got that'll stop the Vore if they get loose," Mims confirmed.

"Cascade Annihilator?" Lissa frowned. "The planet killer the Vrrl use?"

"Yeah." Mims nodded. "I got Scathach to give me one on the condition I wouldn't use it without Scarrend's approval."

"Which we don't have," Lissa pointed out. Scarrend was back in New Pixa Sector, since bringing a Vrrl to Xill space would have been an act of war.

"We will," said Mims. "I'll send him an N-Mail in a minute." He turned back to his console, strafing the ship in a random direction again. "They gave us a launcher to go with it, but it's makeshift. I'll need you and Kilroy to set it up in the cargo bay. If things go south, we'll fire it from there."

"This unit will not require Mother Lissa Kiver's assistance," said the machine. "This unit will set up the device itself."

"Fair enough," said Mims. He switched autopilot back on, then turned to the pixens. "In that case, I want you two to go the armory. Get everyone a Bigger Better BFG." He turned to Kilroy. "One of those should be enough to take out a Peacekeeper, right?"

"Affirmative," said the machine, "assuming you manage to hit one with it." His eyes glowed combat red. "This unit will take two."

"They'll be a good last resort against the Blingy, too." Mims continued. "We'll want extra ammo." He paused. "And get us some oxygen reserves, in case we get hit with a Pulse."

"Got it," said Yvian. Lissa nodded.

"Good." Mims turned back to his console. "Helmets on, ladies. The Xill want us to play? Let's fucking play."