"I think it's a flying saucer." Mims was not his usual unflappable self. The human's hands hovered over his console. He'd programmed a firing solution into MACdriver control, ready to unleash another barrage at the first sign of activity from the alien vessel.

"A what?" Yvian could see the thing was saucer shaped, but something in the human's voice told her he meant more than that.

"A legend from Earth that was," The human explained. "Unidentified Flying Objects, shaped like a saucer. There were claims of sightings for centuries. Rumor had it the saucers would appear, abduct someone, and subject them to horrible experiments. Sometimes they'd get dumped back on Earth, and sometimes they were never seen again."

"That sounds ominous," Lissa quipped.

"Horrors from beyond the stars were a popular trope back then." Mims shrugged a shoulder. "There were a lot of stories but no hard proof. At least, none we can confirm wasn't manufactured. People would put out doctored videos and fake alien autopsies. Once we became spacefaring ourselves we never saw anything that matched the stories." The human shook his head. "I always figured they were a myth. Like vampires, or Chuck Norris."

"Chuck Norris is real," Kilroy told him.

Mims turned to look at the Peacekeeper. "Really?"

"Affirmative," said the machine. His eyes glowed yellow. "Chuck Norris died over a thousand years ago, but Death is too scared to tell him. He still resides on Earth that was."

The human sighed.

"The Disk is made out of a metal I've never seen before," Lissa reported. "I'm not even sure it is metal. Scans can't penetrate the hull."

"We do know the ship contained an oxygen rich environment," Scarrend added. "It decompressed when the MAC rounds hit it. Whatever was piloting the Disk was organic."

"Emphasis on was," said Mims. "The pressure wave from a MAC round moving at ten kilometers a second would've pulped anything living and a lot of things that weren't. That's one of the reasons we decompress before entering combat."

"They probably didn't think we could hit them," Yvian remarked. She frowned. "How did we hit them? Why did MAC rounds work when none of our other weapons could touch it?"

"Probably the energy disruption field." Mims kept his eyes on the sensors. "The SHIELDBREACH in our armor works by matching the frequency of shields. MAC rounds are different. They disrupt any energy that comes within two centimeters of the projectile. Must have countered whatever tech the saucer was using."

Scarrend rumbled a hmm. "A powerful technology. The Saucer's mobility defied the laws of physics as well. Maybe we should bring it on board. Who knows what we could learn reverse engineering such a thing?"

"Crunch no," Yvian refused. "We don't know what's inside that thing or what trouble it could cause. Besides, Exodus is watching, right? If he wants the thing he can send someone to get it." She checked the sensors again. Still no other ships. "We should leave. In case the Disk called for help somehow."

"Good point, Captain Sis." Lissa pulled up her Nav console. "I'll set the jumpdrive to take us through the next Gate."

"I've got a better idea," Yvian stopped her. "Take us back to where we started. That first Gate we came in. I need a beer and some sleep and I want to do both of those things as far from here as possible."

"You got it, Captain Sis." Lissa put in the coordinates. The ship hummed as the jumpdrive charged.

"It is not necessary to stop the journey," Kilroy pointed out. "This unit can continue while you meatbags sleep. This unit will notify you if your presence becomes necessary."

"It's a nice thought, Kilroy," Captain Yvian refused, "but I don't want us entering a new sector unless the whole crew is here."

"This unit would be sufficient," the Peacekeeper argued.

"Probably" Yvian admitted. "Unless we find ourselves in a sector that messes with your systems. Or some other thing we never guessed at." She shook her head. "No. I want us all here when we're moving."

"Affirmative." Kilroy said it grudgingly. "This unit will remain on the bridge while you meatbags attend to your squishy meatbag needs. Do you have any orders for this unit during that time?"

"Just one." Captain Yvian glared at the Disk on her sensor display. "If another Disk comes our way, shoot it."

Kilroy's eyes flashed red. "Affirmative."

Yvian slept in her armor. Just in case. In the morning they had a quick breakfast and got back to exploring. The first hour was uneventful. Yvian had been dimly aware how sparse life was in the void, but she'd spent nearly all of her time in occupied sectors. She'd known in theory that less than five percent of known space was occupied, but hearing the numbers was not the same as experiencing it directly.

Yvian had spent the time doing math. Three minutes between sectors. She was planning on flying for about twelve hours a day. Assuming they didn't get sidetracked, that would be two hundred forty sectors. The Gate Forge was about six thousand light years away. It would take them.... Crunch. Yvian didn't know. The distance between sectors was variable. A Gate might take them half a light year, or two, or fifty. If she assumed an average of two light years a jump, it would take... Nine days? That couldn't be right. Exodus had told them it would be take months.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Maybe she should ask him. The Genocide was already watching. The Nexus Node on the Dream was paired with one on New Pixa that only he could access. The Synthetic didn't talk to them much, but he seemed to like Yvian. Maybe she should comm him after lunch?

"Contact," Lissa warned. Yvian snapped back into focus. The sensor display lit up. There were thousands of... ships? Not ships. Lifesigns.

"Are those..." It couldn't be. Could it? "Creatures? In the void?"

Yvian zoomed in on one of them. It was shaped somewhat like a cross between a snake and a fish, with a gaping mouth full of teeth and a long sinewy tail that undulated as it swam through the vacuum. It had two large eyes and a dozen smaller ones that lined each side of its body. The eyes gave off a sickly yellow glow. Its scales were black and highly reflective. Strange thick tendrils extended at regular intervals from its body.

It was also sixty kilometers long.

"Affirmative," Kilroy confirmed. "The creatures appear to be biomechanical. Sensors indicate multiple power sources."

The sector they'd just entered was full of rocks. The remains of a planet were a few million kilometers from the Gate. The planet had been about twelve times the size of New Pixa. A super-earth, as Mims called it. Traces of water, but any life that had lived there was long gone. Not that life was likely in a planet that size. The gravity would be crushing. Then again, if there had been no life, why would anyone bother blasting a three thousand kilometer hole through the center of the world?

The creatures were swarming in the asteroid belts. A feeding frenzy. Yvian couldn't guess how the space fish had been engineered, but she could guess why. They were mining.

"We've been spotted," said Mims. "There's a group coming right for us."

"There are more," Kilroy reported. "They are emerging from the nearest planet."

Yvian checked the distance. The closest swarm was half a million kilometers away. They were accelerating much faster than she'd expect from a ship of that size, let alone an animal. Still, it would be several minutes before they could endanger the ship.

"Drop stealth," ordered Captain Yvian. "Let's get an active scan and jump to the next sector."

"Affirmative," said Kilroy. "Scan in progress."

"Which Gate are we taking, Captain Sis?" Lissa asked.

Yvian checked the sensors again. There were three Gates. They just came through one, and neither of the other two were pointed in a direction she wanted to go. Jumpgates always led to the sector closest to them, and the back of the Gate was always facing the direction it would take you. The Dream's computer had labeled the Gate they came in as North. The East Gate was pointed up from Yvian's perspective. The West Gate was pointed down.

Maybe this was why Exodus said the trip could take months? The Dream didn't have the time or detection equipment to try mapping Jumpgates from afar. The odd radiation they emitted couldn't be detected at a distance over half a light year, and they were nearly invisible to most other forms of detection. Most species didn't realize the Gates existed until they'd been spacefaring for at least a decade.

It was a miracle Exodus had been able to find a Gate as far away as he did. A miracle that had probably taken months and the combined effort of several million Peacekeeper units. Captain Yvian had no choice but to go Gate by Gate and hope for the best.

"I guess one's as good as the other," Yvian decided. "Take the East Gate."

The new sector was a binary star system with two red suns. No planets. No asteroids. Four Jumpgates. Even better, one of them was pointed in the rough direction of the Gate Forge. Yvian's mild relief didn't last very long. The sector was barren, but it was not unoccupied.

It was a small fleet. Two hundred fifteen ships. These ships weren't much different from the vessels Yvian was used to. Shields, energy weapons, and inertial propulsion systems. They were running for the sector's South Gate as fast as they could accelerate. They were being chased by three flying sixty meter tall men.

"What the hell?" Mims cursed.

"I think I hate this place," Lissa quipped.

Yvian focused her display for a closer look at the men. Pixenoid in shape, but maybe not actually male. The sensors picked up life signs, but they were faint. Yvian wasn't about to drop Stealth for an active scan, but she suspected the things were biomechanical, like the rock eating spacefish. Whatever they were, they were fast. The fleet they were chasing wouldn't stay ahead much longer.

A closer look was even more disturbing. They were a mishmash of black and yellow, with no facial features to speak of. Their was an odd pixelated quality to their bodies, like they'd been constructed of large blocks. Glowing circuitry zig zagged across their frames.

"They're not paying attention to us," Scarrend pointed out, "and this battle is no concern of ours. We should continue."

"We might need the intel," Mims disagreed, "and twelve million kilometers is far enough we shouldn't be in danger. I think we should watch." He turned to Yvian. "Your call, Captain."

"Let's see what happens," Yvian decided.

It took another twenty minutes for the pixenoids to close in on the fleet. When they did, each of them raised an arm. The arms morphed, reconfiguring themselves into blocky cannons. Pink bars of light lashed out at the fleet.

"That's a lot of energy," Mims remarked.

"Fast, too," said Lissa. "Twelve hundred kilometers a second."

The lances hit their marks. The arm cannons shattered the shields of the targeted ships and punched through their hulls without resistance. In two cases, the light struck and pierced another vessel with no sign the weapon's energy had been diminished.

The fleet started evasive maneuvers. They fired back. Over two thousand cannons launched charged particles at the pixenoids. The biomechanicals didn't bother to dodge. Cannon fire crashed into them, accomplishing nothing. They continued to massacre the fleet with mechanical precision. The remaining ships tried missiles next. Plasma warheads, ion disruption torpedoes, and nuclear fission all failed to make a dent.

It was over in less than a minute. The giant pixenoids moved the rest of the way in on the shattered fleet. Each of them reached out and touched a broken vessel. Yellow and black circuitry spread from their hands. They moved on to the next ships, and the next. In a matter of minutes, the entire fleet was encompassed in the material the monsters had been made of. The ships folded in on themselves, condensing as the pixenoids began to gather them up. They massed the assimilated ships into a ball. The ball condensed further, the ships bleeding into each other.

"I think we've seen enough," said Captain Yvian, "but let's get behind the Gate before we activate the Jumpdrive. I don't think we want their attention."

"Too late," said Kilroy. "The humanoids have accessed our communications. They are attempting to hack into the ship." Yvian turned back to the sensors. One of the pixenoids had turned. It was pointing at the Dream of the Lady.

"Can they get in?" The Dream's comms were kept separate from the rest of the ship's controls, but Yvian had seen too much weird shit today to take anything for granted.

"Negative," said the Peacekeeper. "Ship systems are still partitioned. The humanoids were only able to access our communication and translation protocols." Kilroy's eyes flashed purple. "They are hailing us."

Shit. "Patch them through."

The voice that came through was stilted. Mechanical. It echoed oddly. Like a hundred people were speaking with perfect timing and diction in a dreary monotone. "BE NOT AFRAID."

Yvain turned to Lissa. "Get us out of here."

The pixenoid continued. "WE ARE THE ENLIGHTENED. THE FINAL SYNTHESIS OF ORGANIC AND MACHINE. WE WILL REMAKE YOU AS WE HAVE REMADE OURSELVES. YOUR SOULS WILL JOIN THE GREAT GESTALT. YOUR TECHNOLOGY WILL FUEL THE GREAT CHANGE. WE ARE NOT THE END. WE ARE YOUR BEGINNING. JOIN US, AND BECOME ENLIGHTENED. JOIN US, AND TOGETHER WE WILL ASCEND."