"Are we sure they're not still planning to kill us?" Captain Mims gazed at the holodisplay. Five fleets of Stinger class fighters scythed their way through Klaath swarms as they accelerated. Two of the fleets were heading for the cluster of stations the Random Encounter was docked at. A sixth fleet stayed where it was, guarding the farthest set of stations and rapidly turning every Klaath for ninety thousand kilometers into molten debris.

"Affirmative," Kilroy confirmed. "The Stinger units are conferring with other Peacekeeper units to confirm this unit's explanation, but they do not currently intend to kill all the meatbags."

"That's one crisis averted, I guess," the human glowered at the display. "You and me are gonna have a talk about this later."

"Understood." The Peacekeeper's eyes flashed purple and blue. "This unit-"

"I said later," Mims cut him off. "Right now we've bigger problems. How long 'til they get here?"

"The Stinger units will reach this location in fourteen hours, forty three minutes, and twenty seven seconds."

The Captain grunted. Yvian blinked. The Stingers were in the far asteroid field, over two hundred million kilometers away. For them to get here that soon... "How fast are those things?"

Kilroy's eyes flashed the white light of pride. "The Stinger units can accelerate at a rate of three hundred eighty two meters per second."

"The same speed as a Klaath Raider," Mims remarked.

"For the same reasons," Kilroy replied. "A Stinger unit's engines are powerful enough to accelerate faster, but doing so would cause structural damage without inertial dampeners.

"Fourteen hours is still a long time," said Lissa. "Can we hold out that long?" As she spoke, a wave of Klaath accelerated towards the shipyard. Pyramid shaped Raiders led the way. Raiders were small, only five meters across. Mixed in with the Raiders were Interceptors, the same shape but twice the size. Just behind them came the Fighters elongated diamonds.

There were twelve thousand of the smaller ships, spread out in front in a wave of purple hulls criss-crossed with pulsing black veins. Behind them followed two thousand Klaath Corvettes, egg shaped, with spines protruding from the front of them. Then came three hundred Frigates, jagged spheres three hundred meters across. A mass of spines speared out of either side of the spheres, curving inward to resemble wings.

Last came the Destroyers. There were only three. Unlike the other Klaath, the main body of the hull was a mottled gray with glowing purple veins. It was round, but not spherical, curving almost to a point at one end. A kilometer wide bulbous mass that somehow seemed both bloated and predatory. Thick purple tentacles extended from the front, shifting and squirming as the ships accelerated. Mims had once remarked that Destroyers looked like a cross between a spider and an octopus. Yvian had made the mistake of asking what those were, and after being shown pictures she'd sworn never to meet either species.

"We'll be alright for a while," said Mims. Two thousand Pixen Stellar Defense Force ships shifted their beam weapons to target the incoming fleet. The Pixen frigates only had one beam weapon each, but the carriers had four and the battlecruisers and destroyers had six. Nearly five thousand beams of charged particles lanced out, rapidly destroying the lead Klaath. "As long as they don't group up too much before they hit us. The real problems won't start til the Queenships come in."

"Or if the Vore show up," Yvian added. She shuddered at the memory.

"Yeah, about that." Mims activated the comms. "Zhukov, this is Mims."

"Go ahead," The Peacekeeper Admiral answered.

"We need to get Yvian down to City 43 on New Pixa. If the Vore show up, we're going to need the Skygem. Can you cover us?"

The PSDF finished wiping out the smaller ships. The beam cannons focused in on the Corvettes. The Klaath were still forty thousand kilometers away. Yvian realized none of them would survive long enough to get within weapons range.

"Negative," said the Admiral. "City 43 is on the side of the planet facing away from us. Any Klaath in the planet's shadow can not be targeted."

"Then we'll need an escort." The human scratched the side of his helmet. "Frigates and Battlecruisers, I think. The fastest ones available. Maybe a hundred?"

"We will send one hundred twenty frigates, three battlecruisers, and one YEET Artillery Barge." The force in question broke from the rest of the defending formation, moving towards Yvian's shipyard. The frigates were still firing beam weapons at the incoming Klaath. "When are you planning to leave?"

"Right now." Mims stood and walked over to one of the bridge consoles. He took a seat and pulled up flight controls. "Before anything else happens."

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"Understood," said the Admiral.

The bridge of the Random Encounter had four modular consoles situated at the other end of the room from the holodisplay table, just below a set of large viewports. Yvian and Lissa seated themselves at the consoles on either side of Mims. After a brief hesitation, Kilroy stood in front of the console next to Yvian's.

Yvian watched through the viewport as the hangar bay doors opened. She'd half expected to see the brilliant yellow lines of PSDF cannons piercing their way through the void, but the door wasn't facing in the direction her defense fleet was firing from. The Random Encounter eased out of the bay and swung a loop, setting a course for New Pixa and accelerating at a rate of ninety six meters per second. It was less than a quarter of the ship's maximum acceleration, but the escort frigates couldn't move any faster and leaving them behind didn't sound like a good idea.

The trip to New Pixa was both tense and boring. Tense, because the Random Encounter no longer had a big fleet and a station's shields to hide behind. Groups of Klaath Klusters were still popping into space here and there. If a big group appeared right next to them, they could destroy the Encounter in seconds. It was boring, because that didn't happen. A mass of a few thousand Klusters did portal in, but they were eight hundred kilometers away, and still within easy firing distance for the ships guarding the shipyard. None of the Klaath got close enough to shoot at Yvian.

It was a twelve thousand kilometer trip. Mims kept the Encounter and her escorts at the highest acceleration the frigates could manage until they reached the halfway point, then reversed that acceleration the rest of the way. They reached the planet in just under twelve minutes. That's when things got more complicated.

The first indication that there was a problem was a flash of light flooding through the viewports. A hundred twenty beam cannons pulsed past the Encounter. Yvian checked the sensors. There was a Klaath Destroyer hiding in New Pixa's shadow, shielded from the guns of the Pixen Stellar Defense Force. It had been rushing straight for the planet itself, but had now changed course to attack Yvian's fleet.

With the Destroyer were a dozen Frigates, two hundred Corvettes, and three thousand smaller ships. Yvian's butt clenched at the sight. She checked the distance. Five hundred kilometers, and closing fast. Yvian was going to die. "Oh, Crunch," she whispered.

"We're going to die," Lissa agreed.

"Incorrect," said Kilroy.

"We're gonna have to burn some ammo, though." Mims sounded like he was smiling. "Kilroy, you have the MAC. Kill everything bigger than a Fighter."

"Affirmative." The Peacekeeper's eyes flashed red and yellow. "Calculating trajectories. Firing." The ship thrummed as the MACdriver rapidly accelerated rods of depleted uranium into the void.

While Terran vessels were superior to Confederation models in every category, it was the human built MAC weapons that made them so much deadlier than everyone else. MAC rounds had a device inside them that created an energy disruption field. It allowed the highly accelerated chunks of metal to bypass shields, completely ignoring the primary defense of most voidships. It would take a few seconds for the rounds to reach their targets, but Yvian doubted the Klaath knew they needed to dodge.

The PSDF frigates were already hammering into the smaller Klaath with beam canons. A few seconds later, the battlecruisers opened up as well. Great columns of plasma and ion lanced out, vaporizing everything they hit. The Klaath were fast and accurate, but their shields were weak and they had no armor to speak of. They relied on speed, aggression, and numbers. With the larger ships out of commission, Yvian's escort fleet could handle the rest.

A few hundred Klaath Raiders still reached them, along with two Corvettes and a Frigate that had either avoided the MAC rounds or survived the damage. Captain Mims gleefully turned the Encounter's guns on them, taking out as many as he could before his escort's beam cannons could murder the rest. The Raiders blasted indiscriminately, two second pulses of white light and charged particles stinging the shields of the Encounter along with the rest of Yvian's fleet. The Frigate and the Corvettes went for one of Yvian's battlecruiser escorts. Their cannons were more powerful, continuously driving lines of white death into the shields of their target. In response, all three battlecruisers shifted their fire. The cruisers' guns were made for smashing other heavily defended capitol ships and stations. They swatted the Klaath out of the sky with contemptuous ease.

"You know," Lissa remarked. "You could have let the cruisers handle the big ships." She gave the Captain a sidelong glance. "Or the YEET. They've got bigger MAC guns then we do."

"Yeah," the human admitted. "I could've."

"You just wanted to kill some of them yourself, didn't you?"

"We're in the middle of the biggest Klaath Incursion ever recorded," Mims reminded her. "It'd be a damned shame if I didn't get to kill any of them."

"Humans," Lissa muttered.

"This unit agrees with Captain Mims," Kilroy piped up.

"Of course you do," said Lissa. "You're a bloodthirsty killing machine."

"This unit appreciates the compliment." The machine's eyes flashed yellow in pleasure.

Lissa sighed.

With the danger passed, Yvian focused sensors on the planet itself. Unguarded as this half of it was, she was relieved to see it wasn't on fire. That relief changed to confusion when she found several hundred Klaath vessels scattered on New Pixa's surface. "What the Crunch?"

Lissa looked over at Yvian's screen. "There's Klaath on the surface." She started typing into her own console. "What are they doing?"

"Burrowing," said the Captain. "They're digging in."

"Why?" asked Yvian.

"How the hell should I know?" Mims shrugged. "Most planets that fall to the Klaath lose their Gates and communications first. We have no idea what they do when they take one."

"They are putting down roots," Kilroy reported. "Biological material is digging into the soil around the ships."

"Roots?" Yvian checked the sensor scans again. "The Klaath are plants?"

"The Klaath are neither plant nor animal," Kilroy told her. "They have elements of both classifications." He typed into his console for a moment. "The vessels appear to be rapidly consuming organic materials. They are releasing significant quantities of hydrogen sulfide and phosgene gas."

"As fascinating as that is, I don't really care what they're doing." Mims opened a comm channel to their escort ships. "Escort ships, this is Mims. Will you do me a favor and murder every single Klaath on the planet? I'm going to take Yvian down to City 43."