"Internal defenses activated," The Captain looked up from his console. "At least Migo left those intact."

"Do you think that'll be enough to stop them?" Lissa asked.

"No." Mims walked over to the portable shield generators in front of the main hatch. "But it'll buy us some time." He deactivated the shields one after the other and opened the door. "Yvian, send out the drones. I want three teams of three to hit each boarding party."

Yvian entered the commands. Thirty six military grade combat drones flew out into the hallway. Mims closed the hatch behind them and reactivated the shields. "The Vrrl are gonna come straight for us," he said. "The drones'll thin their number a bit, but every one of the bastards is packing an ion weapon. Boarding ships is what the Vrrl do. They're good at it. Once they've crushed our other defenses, they'll swarm us. They've got blasters and plasma weapons, but they're just as happy tearing into us with fangs and claws, and their armor's almost as good as ours. You'll need to do a lot of damage to take one out."

The Captain started pulling additional weapons out of the final container. He handed each of the girls a blade. It looked like a knife, but much longer. He grabbed one for himself and unsheathed it. "This is a nanocarbon katana. It'll cut steel on it's own, but if you push this switch," He pressed a button near the top of the hilt, just below the small crossguard. "The blade vibrates at high frequency. Between that and the strength enhancements in your suits, you should be able to cut a Vrrl in half with one swing." He paused. "Remind me to start teaching you two swordsmanship if we survive all this." He sheathed the blade and attached it to his armor, on his left hip. The sisters did likewise.

Next he pulled out a massive eight barreled plasma blaster similar to the turrets he'd set up. "This is a BFG14 Plasma Gatling gun. It fires superheated plasma at a rate of two hundred bolts per minute. Do not fire it without using AIMASSIST." He handed it to Lissa and pulled a second one out for Yvian. "This thing does a lot of damage, and I don't want you putting unnecessary holes in the Paradigm Shift." Yvian nearly dropped hers when Mims handed it over. It was even heavier than it looked. She would need to activate her suit's strength enhancements just to aim the thing.

"Where's your giant rapid fire plasma thingy?" Lissa asked.

"I only have the two." Mims shrugged. He reached in and pulled out a BFSR4 sniper rifle and a pair of KL53 assault rifles. "Have the drones made contact, yet?"

Yvian glanced down at her wrist console. "First group's made contact." The first wave of drones had stuck one of the boarding parties. As she watched, the last of them went offline. "First group's destroyed." Twelve combat drones, destroyed in seconds. They'd only managed to kill four of the Vrrl. Two more drone groups were about to engage their targets. Yvian did not have high hopes for their success.

Crunch. Yvian looked over at her sister. Lissa stood as straight as she could, holding the BFG14. Her legs were shaking. Yvian didn't blame her. She was breathing a little too hard, herself. Her shoulders and legs were clenched in fear. She'd heard tales of the Vrrl her whole life. Everyone had. They were nightmares of tooth and claw. Vicious, sadistic killers that toyed with their prey. If she lost this fight, she would be torn apart and eaten alive. If she was lucky. Sometimes the Vrrl took prisoners. If she was taken to a breeding farm, gruesome death wouldn't be something to be feared. It would be her fondest wish. Yvian shuddered.

"Well, that's four we won't have to deal with." Mims looked as calm as he ever did. If he noticed the sisters' fear, he gave no sign. He looked up from his wrist console and continued. "When they get here, they'll try to breach the shields first. After that, they'll hit us with ion. Our suits are shielded, and so are the katanas, but we'll lose the big guns. The longer we can keep the shields intact the better off we'll be. Any questions?"

Yvian shared a look with Lissa. They both shook their heads. "Are you sure?" Mims asked. "The Vrrl are gonna listen in on our comms, so you won't be able to ask once I depressurize the bridge."

"Why are you depressurizing the bridge?" Lissa asked.

"This is why," Mims answered, patting the BFSR4. "I can't fire it in atmosphere." He walked back to his console. "Everyone's suit sealed?"

Yvian checked her status. She and Lissa answered in the affirmative. "Ok," said Mims. "We've got maybe a minute before those assholes reach the bridge. Get ready." Mims activated the holo emitters on his wrist console, showing a display of the Paradigm Shift's layout. Red dots representing the enemy moved towards the main corridor in front of the bridge. He raised his rifle in a salute. "May fortune find you on the cusp of The Crunch." He entered a command in his console. The air hissed out of the bridge.

Yvian set up her own hollow display. She hefted the BFG14. It had two handles, with a button at the end of the top handle that she assumed was the trigger. It had no sights, but a reticle appeared in her HUD as she activated AIMASSIST.

With no air in the bridge, Yvian couldn't hear anything but the sound of her own breath. The breaths were too quick, too deep, too scared. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself. Her breath slowed down. She opened her eyes and watched the red dots fill the corridor in front of the bridge. She could feel the faint vibrations of their approach through her feet.

When the first red dots reached the door to the bridge, Mims pulled the trigger on his BFSR4. The floor nearly convulsed with the vibration that followed. The door hatch shot forward, folding in on itself as it careened into the corridor. A violent wind rushed onto the bridge, sweeping around the portable shields and nearly sweeping Yvian off her feet. When it subsided, Yvian gaped at the devastation the human had wrought.

The walls had bowed outward, bent and twisted by the shockwave of the BFSR4. Blood and broken bodies were splashed and crushed against them. The corridor was twenty meters in length, and nearly sixty Vrrl hunters had been in it when Mims struck. Portable shields lay strewn among the bodies, crushed by the force generated when over half a kilogram of tungsten smashed through the ship's atmosphere at a speed of ten kilometers a second. They had failed utterly in the face of the anti-ship weapon's SHIELDBREACH technology.

Lissa said the words Yvian had been to shocked to voice. "By the Bright Lady..."

With atmosphere leaking onto the bridge, Mims could not dare fire the BFSR4 a second time. He set it down and threw a small object down the hallway, then hefted one of the KL53s. "Here they come."

The surviving Vrrl let out a roar that turned Yvian's knees to jelly. After two seconds, the sound cut off. Her HUD gave a notification, but she didn't have time to read it. Living Vrrl streaked into the hallway, sending a torrent of green and red plasma crashing into their first shield. Flashes of white light flooded the entryway as their ion weapons joined the fray.

Yvian fired the BFG14. The weapon shuddered in her hands, spitting rapid-fire lances of blue plasma so bright her visor dimmed itself to protect her eyes. AIMASSIST moved her hands and arms of its own accord, tracking and striking one Vrrl after another with burning death. The two turrets Mims had set up activated half a second later, sending their own stream of identical blue plasma bolts. Lissa added her own torrent of fire to the mix. Yvian could hear her screaming defiance over the comms.

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A second later, another flash of white light put an end to the Vrrl's plasma weapons. The object Mims had thrown earlier. An ion grenade. The Vrrl dropped the now useless guns. They did not drop their ion weapons, which kept flashing pulses of white light. The weapons didn't look like they were doing much, until Yvian saw that the first and second portable shields had failed. The ion pulses were rapidly destroying their defenses.

A violent rumble traveled up Yvian's feet as the floor disintegrated behind her. The shield Mims had placed on the floor held, revealing a two meter hole still glowing at the edges. Pulsing flashes of ion energy ate away at the shields. It would fail in seconds.

The human's voice rang out over the comms. "I've got this. Deal with the ones in the hallway." Mims threw an ion grenade into the hole. He drew his nanocarbon blade and leaped in after it.

The third shield fell. The Vrrl charged through the entryway. Yvian kept firing, the plasma overwhelming the personal shields of another of the beasts and filling it with charred holes. Then an ion weapon flashed and the BFG14 fell silent. She dropped the weapon and drew her blade. There were only four Vrrl left to face.

As she gripped the katana with both hands, Yvian got her first good look at the Vrrl. Pixen sized and pixen shaped, but with an extra pair of large, muscular arms. It was clad head to toe in black armor, similar to Yvian's own GR17. The tips of its finger and toes ended in wicked claws, glowing orange. Whether this was an augmentation or just ornamental Yvian did not know, but it was frightening enough that it took half a second to notice the creature's fangs. The Vrrl's helmet was open at the muzzle, with only an energy field to protect it from the ravages of the void. Curved pointed teeth glistened in its maw. Short golden fur covered what she could see of it's skin. Three slashes of green light snarled through it's helmet where the eyes should be.

It circled to Yvian's left, then shot forward, claws flashing. Yvian skipped back, swinging the katana as she would a pipe. She learned that the orange glow of its claws was not ornamental, as they sheared through her armor and most of her left arm. She let out a scream.

A second Vrrl leaped past the first, looking to take advantage of Yvian's moment of shock. But Yvian was not shocked. Yvian was waiting. That armor's PAIN REMOVAL had been activated before the fight, and Yvian didn't skip a beat as she swept the blade down. The Nanocarbon katana whipped through the Vrrl, slicing so easily Yvian barely felt the resistance. The Beast crashed into her. It's head, left arms, and third of its torso fell away at the impact. Yvian's armor enhancements and grav boots let her keep her feet, and she rushed forward, swinging at the startled attacker. Her blade arced towards the enemy as she finished the scream she'd used to lure them in.

The Vrrl skipped back, narrowly avoiding the blade. Yvian didn't waste any time getting fancy. She bulled forward, swinging wildly. The creature moved the only direction it could, backwards. Yvian grinned as she backed it up against the wall. It would have nowhere to run, now.

The Vrrl grinned right back. It lashed out, shearing off Yvian's right arm. The sword fell. Yvian did the only thing she could think of. She kicked it. The force of her amor enhanced attack crumpled the wall the Vrrl was slammed into, but the beast itself was unharmed. Yvian noted the shimmer of its personal shield at each impact, and felt a fool for not activating her own. She did so.

The Vrrl shot forward, its claws a blur. Again and again it struck, and Yvian saw her shields fall rapidly under the impacts. She kicked it away and activated MOBILITY PROTOCOL. Her left arm was mostly severed, but the suit would compensate. She picked up the sword. The Vrrl grabbed her wrist.

The shields shimmered where they met. Two clawed hands clamped around her wrist, but their shields did not provide the friction needed to hold her securely. Yvian twisted her wrist out of its grip and swiped the sword upwards. The Vrrl fell in two pieces.

Yvian turned to check on Lissa. Her sister's back was against the wall, and she swung wildly to keep her attackers at bay. The Vrrl darted in and out, orange light flaring as they struck. Her shields were holding, but wouldn't be for much longer.

Yvian sprinted for the closest Vrrl. It registered her presence and turned to face her more quickly than she expected. It roared as it struck. Yvian yelled as she swung her sword.

The claws ripped through the hilt of the sword, knocking it from Yvians hand. Yvian's foot swept out, but the beast ducked under it, bowling into her and driving her into the ground. She tried to grapple, but one arm proved no match for four. The Vrrl pinned her to the floor, two arms holding her left, pressing its weight down on her lower chest as its other hands clawed into her shields. She bucked, placing her feet on the floor and thrusting up with her hips as hard as she could. The armor enhanced motion sent the Vrrl flying off her, slamming it into the ceiling. She rolled onto her feet as it fell.

The Vrrl landed in perfect balance. Yvian stepped away from it, bending to snatch up her fallen sword. The Vrrl let out a low, evil chuckle. "Worthy prey," he growled. At least Yvian assumed it was a he. She didn't think a female would have such a low, scary voice. "Your bones will make a fine trophy."

Yvian didn't know what to say to that. She decided she didn't need to have a conversation with someone who was trying to eat her. She rushed forward again, swinging. The blade skipped off the Vrrl's shields. The Vrrl laughed. "I've broken your toy, human. Let's see how well you do without it."

Normally, Yvian would be annoyed at being mistaken for a human, but annoyance was outweighed by dismay. Her katana had been slashed right down to it's nanocarbon core. Odd looking electronics were visible through the gashes in the hilt. Without SHIELDBREACH, it was just a sharp piece of metal. She had no hope of piercing the Vrrl's shields with such a thing.

Yvian threw the sword at the Vrrl facing Lissa. She fumbled for her holster, wishing to the Bright Lady she still had her right arm. Still laughing, her Vrrl launched forward, looking to take her down again. Yvian leapt to the side. She misjudged how high she could go with the enhancements and ended up bouncing off the ceiling. She didn't bother getting up, pushing off with her legs to get more distance as she drew her blaster. She hoped its holster was as ion shielded as the rest of the suit.

The Vrrl rushed towards her as she fired. Energy bolts struck, damaging but not defeating his shields. Yvian tried to leap away a second time as he closed in, but this time the Vrrl leapt with her. His arms latched around her as they crashed into a wall and onto the floor. Yvian kept pulling the trigger. The Vrrl snarled and snatched the weapon out of her hands.

She tried to buck again, but the Vrrl was ready. The strength of his armor enhanced arms was enough to withstand Yvians armor enhanced thrust. His claws struck again and again. Yvian squirmed, kicked, elbowed, but to no avail. Her shield failed with a disappointing shimmer. An armored claw ripped into her stomach. The Vrrl let out a triumphant roar.

The roar ended abruptly. The Vrrl's head fell off.

"Well," Mims remarked, sheathing his blade. "That was a little closer than I'd like." He kicked the dead Vrrl off Yvian and offered a hand. She took it, rising to her feet. "Should've known they'd bring some with Stalker armor. Bastards don't show up on sensors."

"Lissa...?" Mims gestured towards her sister. She didn't have a scratch on her. Neither, for that matter, did Mims. Yvian slumped back with relief. They'd won. They'd killed them all.

"Crap." Yvian's head shot up again at the human's voice. He was holding the remains of her katana. "First my sniper rifle, now my sword." He dropped it in disgust. "Assholes keep breaking my stuff..."

Yvian looked down. Both were weapons she'd been wielding. "I'm sorry."

"I told you before," said the Captain. "Shit happens." He activated his wrist comm. "Exodus, this is Mims. Our guests have been dealt with. We're ready to hand over control of the Paradigm Shift."

"We've already taken control," Exodus informed him. "But I'm happy to see you're done putting holes in my ship."

"The Node and Jumpdrive are still intact," Mims replied. "That's what matters."

"I suppose it is," the Xill Representative allowed. "We'll have a planet ready for you in six months, as agreed."

"Thank you," said Yvian.

"It's just business," said the Genocide. "Speaking of which, shouldn't you be at the Federation right now? You only have eight days left to convince them to join us."

"I know," said the human. He was busily tossing their weapons into the big container. "We're on it."

"Be on it faster," the Xill ordered. "Exodus out."

They took the weapons and portable shields back to The Random Encounter. Mims launched the ship and powered up the Jumpdrive. "How much time do we have left before those other Vrrl reach the Gate?" he asked.

Yvian had forgotten about the other Vrrl. She checked her readout. "Uh, about half an hour, I think?"

"Good." The Captain activated the Jumpdrive. "Are you sure you don't want to get in the medpod? Your arm's missing."

"I'll get in when it's safe," she told him. "Right now we've got work to do."

"Good answer," Mims chuckled. "We'll make a privateer of you, yet."