"Hamilton, what's the status on the shuttle system?" The High Commander spoke into his wrist console.

"Not good, sir," a female voice answered. "General Devera's command codes are the highest credentials recognized by the station. We can't override the lockdown, so we'll have to uninstall and reset the whole system."

The High Commander grimaced. "How long will that take?"

"Eighteen hours at least," the voice replied. "The system's designed to prevent remote hacking. We'll have to manually remove every single control nodule, purge it, reinstall the programs, and put it back in."

"Understood. Keep working on it." General Young ended the transmission and turned to Mims. "What model voidarmor is that?"

"GR17," said the Captain.

"Hmm..." The High Commander hmmed. "So you don't have PALETTESWAP?""

"No."

The High Commander peered more closely at the Captain's suit. "It looks close enough." He straightened. "You ten," he pointed at a squad. "Stay here and guard the ship. Everyone else use PALLETTESWAP." he pointed at Mims. "Make your armor look like his."

The High Commander fiddled with his wrist console, along with fifty SDF soldiers. Their white armor changed to black. Their gold visors changed to silver.

"Activate STEALTH," ordered the General. Everyone did so, including Mims and the pixens.

"Alright," said General Young. "We're going to double-time it back to my office. We can keep you safe there." The soldiers lined up in two columns. The High Commander directed Mims and the pixens to join the formation, halfway between the front and the middle of the lines. He stepped in front of the columns.

"Activate ENERGIZER," he ordered. "Forward march." The High Commander marched out of the docking bay. Yvian followed, trying to blend in with her column of SDF warriors. They were marching in step. She tried to do the same.

Once out of the docking bay, the columns found themselves in a corridor with a ten foot ceiling. It was wide enough for five men to walk next to each other without touching. The High Commander kept marching until the entire column was in the corridor, then barked, "Double time!" and broke into a jog. The soldiers jogged behind him.

Yvian was relieved to see that, while the soldiers maintained the same relative positions, they no longer worried about staying in step with each other. The High Commander barked. "Double time!" again, running faster. It wasn't a full sprint, but it was twice as fast as the jog had been.

They ran for three hours. Yvian was certain she could never have maintained such a brutal pace without ENERGIZER. Several times they had to turn down a different corridor. The High Commander would yell "To the left!" or "To the right!" each time. Sometimes they had to use stairs to go up, and General Young would slow them to a brisk jog.

Yvian had been aware that Stellar Command Station was big. Sensors had informed her the station was nearly two hundred kilometers across, and three hundred high. But knowing the size and running the size were different things. And there were people everywhere. Most of them wore the fancy cloth uniforms General Devera had sported, but a solid third were kitted out in voidarmor. Everyone was armed with at least a blaster. When they saw the High Commander and his troops running, they all hustled out of the way.

Finally, they reached a large door guarded by a dozen soldiers. General Young slowed the column and called a halt. One of the guards shouted. "High Commander on deck!" They all snapped to attention, backs straight, weapons held across their bodies at a forty five degree angle. The one who'd yelled spun sharply to face the High Commander and snapped his right hand up to rest against the top of his visor, palm facing down. "Good morning, sir!"

General Young brought his own hand up, mirroring that guard. Then he crisply moved it horizontally and let it drop. "At ease." The guard mirrored his movement. The other guards widened their stances slightly.

The High Commander turned back to the columns. He ordered one column to relieve the guards outside the door, and told the other column to relieve the first one in six hours. "Fall out!" The soldiers jumped to obey, leaving Mims and the pixens exposed.

"You three, come with me," said the General. He didn't wait for a response, walking up to the big door with the clear assumption that none would dare question his orders. The door slid open before he reached it, and he strode through, Mims and company trailing in his wake.

They passed into a large reception area. Three crisply uniformed soldiers sat at two large desks, typing into consoles. At the sight of General Young, one of them shouted "High Commander on deck!" and they all leapt to their feet, making the same sharp gesture the guards had made.

The High Commander returned the gesture and said, "At ease." The three promptly sat down and went right back to typing.

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The General removed his helmet. Mims and Yvian did the same. Lissa removed hers and then fell over, gasping for breath.

"Turn you ENERGIZER back on," the High Commander ordered.

Lissa managed to gasp out the words "Activate ENERGIZER." In a few seconds, her breathing went back to normal and she stood.

"Keep it on for another twenty minutes or so," Mims told her. Lissa nodded.

"Hamilton," General Young addressed the soldier at the desk on the left, a fit looking woman with yellow hair and sharp cheekbones. "Are the Secretaries ready?"

"Yes sir."

"How about XTRO?"

The woman nodded. "Everyone's ready to go, sir. They're just waiting on you to start the meeting."

"Good to go," the High Commander turned to Mims. "You ready to give your report?"

He looked haggard, with bags under his eyes, but he nodded firmly. "Yes sir."

The High Commander gave a curt nod. "Follow me." He walked past the desks and through another door.

The office was smaller than the reception area. There was a large desk with a number of consoles on it. Three chairs sat in front of the desk. There was a door several feet to the right behind it. The room was devoid of other adornments.

General Young took a seat behind the desk, gesturing for the others to sit as well. He tapped on one of the consoles. "Hamilton, make the comm. And remind the Secretary of Research to use a secure line this time. That lady's got a real problem with info-sec."

"Yes sir," Hamilton's voice acknowledged.

A few seconds later, voices started popping up from the High Commander's console. There were over a dozen of them, and Yvian had a hard time keeping track of them all. General Young spent a few minutes confirming that everyone was there and using a secure channel.

When he was satisfied, the General said, "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, here's the deal. I got XTRO Agent Outcast here with a Code Galactica. Seems genuine."

A cacophony of voices interrupted him. Several people were trying to speak at once. The General listened for a few seconds, then raised his voice. "PIPE DOWN!" The voices quieted. The General continued. "We don't have a lot of time, here. Agent Outcast's gonna give his report. Save your questions until the end." He gestured at Mims. "Go ahead, Agent."

Mims took a breath and began, "During an Incursion at Krog Prime..."

The Captain's report was quick, concise, and devoid of emotional content. Yvian thought it would take hours for Mims to tell the tale. He did so in just over ten minutes. He finished at the point where they had arrived in Aldara Sector, not bothering to cover the attempts on his life that followed.

"I know that voice..." one of the Secretaries said when he finished. "Who are you?"

"I am an XTRO agent." Mims replied.

"Our agents aren't in the habit of revealing their identities," another voice chided the Secretary. "You should know better than to ask."

"Bullshit," the other voice replied. "That's Mark fucking Mims."

Several voices started talking at once again. Yvian couldn't make out everything they were saying, but she did hear several people say "Kinslayer" and "Homekiller." The High Commander spent several seconds trying to get everyone to quiet down again so the meeting could resume. Just as he was making progress the Secretary demanded, "He's the kinslayer. How the fuck can we trust anything he says?"

The voice that had chided the Secretary before answered. "Agent Outcast has been working with XTRO for thirty years. Not once in that time has he given bad intelligence. He's absolutely reliable. If he says the Xill want an alliance, they do. If he says the Vore are real, they are."

"Just say the name, for christ's sake," the Secretary retorted. "It's Mark Mims."

The High Commander grimaced, but before he could speak the Captain intervened. "That's right, it is Mark Mims."

The voices started up again, but the Captain's voice cut right through the others. "You know who I am. You know what I've done. And you know how many people want to kill me. I absolutely would not come here if there was any other choice. So stop fucking around with who I am, and start worrying about the TWO GOD DAMNED EXTINCTION EVENTS COMING OUR WAY!" The muttering lessened, until it was just that one Secretary talking. After a few more seconds, he went quiet as well.

Mims reached into his armor and pulled out a small device. A data cartridge. "You don't have to take my word for it." He handed the cartridge to General Young. "This cartridge has all the flight data, sensor readings, and comm records from my ship, plus recordings from my voidarmor. It'll confirm everything I just told you. We need to move quickly. If we don't have a delegation at the Hub in six days, the Xill will come for us."

"So what?" A different voice this time. "We've got the strongest military in the verse. The Vrrl just tried to fight us, and we crushed them like a beer can. Why would the Xill be any different?"

"Because the Xill can fuck us in the ass," the High Commander replied. He looked at Mims. "Do you want to tell 'em or should I?"

Mims let a breath out through his nose. "We know the Xill control at least twenty sectors. They probably have ten times that, but we'll start with the twenty. Every single one of those sectors has at least a couple million Xill in it. That means they have a minimum of forty million ships, but probably a lot more.

Their ships are faster, have better shields, and their firepower's in another league altogether. I've seen a Quig destroy a Vrrl Bloodwing class cruiser in just under twenty seconds.

But the real problem is the Xill themselves. They're adaptive Sapient intelligences. Every single Xill can outfly the best pilots humanity can produce. They think and react at speeds we can't compete with. They can hack our automated defenses and any ships we're dumb enough to remote pilot. But worst of all, they've got Exodus the Genocide. The SI of the Singularity Wars were masters of predicting human behavior. He's gonna know what we'll do before we do."

The High Commander cut in with, "We learned during the Singularity Wars that we can't outgeneral an SI. Exodus was outmaneuvering us at every turn until Reba and the others stepped in. The Xill have us outnumbered, outgunned, and outsmarted. We've got SHIELDBREACH, and that gives us an edge, but it won't be enough."

"How sure are you of this assessment?" A different voice, female. Something in her tone gave Yvian the impression that she was used to being in charge, and that she was in charge now.

"One hundred percent, Madame President." The High Commander was firm. "The Xill could crush us, the Vrrl Starfang Empire, and the Confederation all at the same time."

"Find a way to change that," the Madame President told him. "In the meantime, I suppose we'd better put a delegation together." A pause, then. "Agent Outcast, how likely are the Xill to maintain an alliance in good faith?"

"Not very," said Mims. "We know the Lucendians had an alliance, and the Xill killed them all."

"Then we'd better make ourselves ready," the Madame President decided, "For their sudden but inevitable betrayal. I want options."

Yvian sighed as quietly as she could. This was gonna be a long meeting.