The Captain brought the Recompense to a stop. "We'll park here. Yvian will take the crystal ship-"

"The Skygem," Yvian named it.

"That works, I guess." Lissa half approved with a shrug.

"Yvian will take the Skygem to the equipment dock," Mims continued. "Lissa and I will follow in the Encounter. We'll make sure Skygem's hooked up to a power source and pick up a few supplies."

"Supplies?" Yvian furrowed her brow. "Didn't the SDF restock our food stuffs a few days ago?"

"They did."

"Then what...?"

"The SDF doesn't hand out MAC rounds," Mims told her. "This is where I keep my ammunition."

The trip didn't take long. Skygem embraced Yvian's presence and helpfully flooded itself with the methane and other chemicals she assumed the Lucendians breathed. She had to ask it to depressurize before they docked. She didn't want to leak dangerous chemicals into the station's air supply.

Yvian had been curious to see the inside of a pirate station, but the hangar bay looked pretty much the same as every other equipment dock she'd been to. A large, clean, well lit space. This particular docking section used transparent material to divide the compartments, allowing a clear view of the other ships sitting in the bay. She looked to her left as she exited the Skygem, waiting for Mims and Lissa to debark.

The ship she was looking at was not the Random Encounter.

"Other side, Yvian." The Captain's voice piped in through her comms. Yvian turned to the right and saw him and Lissa walking down the ramp of his ship. He gave her a wave. She turned back to look at the other ship. Now that she knew what she was looking at, she noticed its guns were... different. A sleek, simplistic design, one she'd never seen before.

"There's another Encounter parked over there." Yvian told him, pointing.

"I know."

"It's got weird guns."

"I know."

Yvian felt a little silly. The Captain used this place as a supply depot. Of course he knew about the other ship. But as long as she was stating the obvious... "I thought the Random Encounter was a custom ship."

"Nope." The Captain pressed a button on the far end of his compartment. A door slid open. Yvian started for the door to her own docking section. "Standard Federation fighter. I've got fourteen of them stashed here."

"How'd you get the humans to give you that many ships?" Lissa asked.

"They didn't." The door to Yvian's compartment opened. Lissa brushed past Yvian, one hand holding the strap of the equipment bag slung over her shoulder. Yvian followed. They'd decided not to bring anyone onto the Skygem without Yvian acting as escort. They didn't want the Crystal Guardian aboard to wake up and do something drastic. Mims continued, "A lot of humans have come sniffing around the Confed over the years, trying to hunt me down. I take their ships once they don't need them anymore."

"Only fourteen?" Lissa sounded surprised. She took a large cable out of her bag and handed it to Mims. "I'd have thought more people would've come here than that. I mean, once they're here, it's not like you're hard to find."

"What do you mean?" Mims walked the cable over to a connector in the floor of the compartment.

"You didn't even bother to change your name," she told him, walking around the side of the Skygem.

"Oh. That." The Captain plugged the cable into the floor. "There's about thirty different humans running around calling themselves Mark Mims at any given time. It's a popular pseudonym for pirates and smugglers."

"That's..." Yvian walked around the other side of the Skygem, looking for an opening they could use as a port. "That's messed up."

Mims shrugged. "Price of fame, I guess. But more than fourteen came after me. It's just that only fourteen were fixable enough I could get them back here."

"I thought you said you didn't have any more ships," Lissa accused.

"None that I can use," Mims told her. "Retrofitting the damned things to accept Confed weapons is a pain in the ass, and if I go flying around with a full compliment of Federation guns XTRO will try to kill me. The only reason I get away with the MACdriver is the ammo's nearly impossible to reverse engineer."

There were no exterior ports on the Skygem. Lissa had Mims unplug the cable, then stripped the insulation off one end. She tucked it into the entrance and had Yvian tell Skygem to close the hatch. Mims plugged the other end back into the port. Lissa used a handheld scanner to confirm electricity was flowing into the Skygem.

Yvian pressed a hand against the Skygem's hull. "Bye for now, sweetie." She felt a faint pulse of emotion from the ship. It vaguely felt like someone waving goodbye while they were enjoying a cheeseburger.

"Alright," said the Captain. "Let's grab a couple crates of ammo and then we'll give Migo a call."

Ninety minutes later they were docked on the Recompense. Yvian monitored from the bridge as Mims showed Lissa how to load the MACdriver. Having nothing better to do, she scanned the pirate stations. There were indeed fourteen ships just like the Encounter at the equipment dock. Another four slightly larger ships and two dozen smaller ones amounted to a respectable fighter wing if Mims ever decided to make use of them. The destroyer, on the other hand, was junk. It's engines were beyond repair, and its reactors were damaged, putting out barely enough power to maintain weapons and shields. Judging by the scans she took, the thing wouldn't be much good in a fight even in top condition. She could see why Mims was using it as a weapons platform.

"Yvian, this is Lissa." Her sister's voice pinged through the comm.

"Go ahead."

"We're uh..." There were traces of a giggle as she trailed off. "We're gonna take a break. We'll be out of contact for a few hours."

Yvian sighed. Must be nice. "Understood." She needed to find herself a girlfriend soon.

The Captain's voice piped in. "This place is shielded from detection, and it's got automated defenses. If you want to take a break too, go right ahead. I'll comm you when it's time for lunch."

Yvian smiled. Beer and holovision were no substitute for female companionship, but they were an excellent alternative to standing watch on the bridge."Don't mind if I do."

After a nice break and hearty lunch, they reconvened. Mims grimaced as he accessed the Node on the Recompense, routing his comm signal to Migo's shipyard. He sighed. "Alright, let's do this."

"He's not that bad," said Yvian.

"He'd be dead right now if you hadn't stopped me," the Captain replied. He pressed the comm. "Migo, this is Mims."

"Mims, you old scumsucker!" Migo's voice bolstered it's way through the comms. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon! Does this mean we're friends again?"

"We were never friends," Mims told him. "I've got a job for you."

"Never friends?" Migo laughed. "Then why'd you give up a carrier to save my ass?" He laughed again. "You act all tough, human, but you can't fool old Migo. What's the job?"

"I've... acquired a new ship. I need it armed. " Mims typed into his console. "I'm sending you schematics and an outline of what I want. Same basic layout as the Paradigm Shift."

There were several seconds of silence as Migo perused the outline. "Mims...this is a cruiser."

"It is."

"There's no way a cruiser can power this kind of weaponry. The carrier couldn't handle it without modifications."

"Check the specs," said Mims.

"I don't see how..." Migo trailed off, muttering to himself. Another few seconds passed. "Holy shit, Mims. Are these specs accurate?"

"Extremely," the Captain assured. "Why?"

"The power output is enough to power three destroyers. Where the Great Dark did you get this thing?"

Mims shrugged. "Some humans blew up my ship. So I took one of theirs."

"A Terran ship..." Migo grunted. "I'd heard rumors, but I never seen one."

"You'll see one, now," Mims told him. "You won't have any problems with power distribution, but you'll have to remove the gun ports and replace them with Confed tech."

"We can do that," Migo hmmed. "It's gonna cost you, though. And it'll take a while. I don't have that many ports on hand. I'll have to order them in."

"I figured." The Captain sighed. "Can you give me a rough guess on the time?"

"Eh... lemme think." A few seconds of silence. "About six weeks, I guess? And I'll need an advance if you want me to order the parts. Three hundred million should do."

"Three hundred!" Mims sputtered.

"Hey, you know those things don't come cheap, Mimsey-cake," Migo drawled.

"Don't call me that."

"It's the name that gets listed on the work order, isn't it?" Yvian could hear Migo's grin. "I'd normally charge five hundred for something like this, but seeing as we're friends and all..."

Mims let out a breath threw his nose. "Fine. I'll transfer the money. We're on our way."

"Heh." Migo grunted his satisfaction. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mimsey-cake."