The Privateer

The Wandering Lady followed in The Gunzerker's wake, weapons primed. Klaath swarmed in every direction around the little fleet. Two frigates flanked the huge battlecruiser at a distance of half a kilometer. Troubleshooter and The Longfire had been firing continuously for over an hour, beam weapons lancing through the void at a third of the speed of light. They wouldn't be stopping any time soon.

The Gunzerker itself had been firing more and more frequently as they went on. While the frigates targeted the annoyingly quick Raiders and Fighters, the battlecruiser only concerned itself with larger prey. Corvettes and Frigates were coming on faster, now, in larger and larger groups. They seemed indifferent to the deaths of those who came before, neither deterred nor enraged by the trail of broken vessels left in the wake of a human's desperate charge.

And desperate it was. Captain Mims had chosen to attack the core of the Klaath Incursion with only three ships worth mentioning. As the fighting continued, Yvian realized he reckoned his own ship just as superfluous as Yvian's modified cargo hauler. As waves of capitol ships crashed against the cruiser's Rapid Artillery Arrays, she was starting to understand his reasoning. The Encounter was a dogfighter, built for firepower and agility in combat. It could not stand alone against a single Klaath Corvette. All the skill in the Confed was useless against an enemy that couldn't miss, especially when it's weapons outranged your own. Yvian's own Wandering Lady would fair better, with more guns and similar shields, but her ship was too slow to escape the bigger ships, and she'd be eating vacuum within twenty minutes of losing the cover of the human's fleet.

As she watched, the first of the Destroyers entered the fray. Flanked by nine Frigates and hundreds of smaller ships, it flew for the fleet at speeds far greater than should be expected for a ship of its size. The Destroyer looked like a series of triangles, slightly folded, merged into each other at odd angles that made Yvian's gaze want to slide away from its two kilometer frame. The Frigates were more palatable, cylinders half a kilometer long with spiral patterns of spikes.

The beam frigates sliced into the ranks of the fighters, killing two or three of the things every second. Yvian wasn't worried about them. Forty three spikey egg shaped Corvettes emerged from the mass, speeding a little ahead of the larger capitol ships. The Gunzerker opened up well before they reached conventional firing range, it's death cone of rapid energy lances spread wide to hit as many targets as possible.

Yvian had expected the other ships to dodge. They did no such thing. The Corvettes closed in on each other, forming a shield. The Gunzerker's cannons tore into them, but could not reach the larger, more dangerous ships behind. Yvian cursed, directing her turrets to add their fire to the mix. The Random Encounter threw the weight of its guns behind the attack, as well. Their combined weapons seemed pitiful next to the awesome power of the battlecruiser, but every little bit helps, and Yvian didn't have anything else she could do.

It took a full minute to pound through the mass of Corvettes. Another thirty seconds and the Frigates would be in firing range. Yvian hoped they would target the cruiser. The Wandering Lady couldn't hope to survive the firepower such ships could bring to bear, and The Encounter would fare no better. She kept firing at the lead Frigate.

Klaath Fighters and Raiders swarmed into the mix. Troubleshooter and Longfire had more than halved their numbers, but that still left close to two hundred ships screaming in to rain fire on the little fleet. Yvian lost a third of her shields in two seconds. She kept firing on the Frigates. The Lady's guns couldn't hope to kill the Raiders fast enough to make a difference. Either Mims had a plan to deal with them or they were all going to die. Either way, attacking the Frigates was the most useful thing she could do at the moment.

The Gunzerker stopped firing on the Frigates for three full seconds. In those three seconds, thousands of bolts lanced into the small Klaath ships. Its Rapid Artillery Arrays obliterated Fighters and Raiders with perfect precision. Then it switched again, firing exclusively at the Klaath Destroyer. Yvian checked her ship's status. Shields were at nineteen percent.

The Lady's guns battered down the last few percentages of the lead Frigate's shields. Two had been destroyed by The Gunzerker before it switched targets. The Random Encounter dispatched a fourth as Yvian's turrets cracked her target's hull. Five Frigates left, and one Destroyer.

At a distance of twenty five kilometers, the Destroyer opened fire. Nine bright white beams slammed into The Gunzerker, larger and more powerful than the ones she'd seen before. The massive battlecruiser kept firing. A Frigate tried to shield the larger Klaath vessel, but the RAA guns simply fired around it. After eight long seconds, the Destroyer's shields buckled. The deadly beams fell off as the enemy was consigned to the void.

The Gunzerker immediately switched targets, focusing fire on a single Frigate. All five ships entered firing range, stabbing into the cruiser with fifteen beams of light. These beams were not as large and powerful as those the Destroyer had cast, but were still an order of magnitude above the weapons a Corvette could wield.

Neither Yvian nor Mims had ceased their attacks, but the combined might of their weapons paled in comparison to those wielded by the capitol ships. Gunzerker focused fire on one Frigate after another, shredding shields and pulverizing hulls. Another fifteen seconds and the battle was over. Or at least this part of it was.

Yvian checked the status of the other ships. The Random Encounter was down to twenty three percent. The beam frigates were at about eighty a piece. The Gunzerker's shields were down to sixty seven percent, but ticked back up to sixty eight as she watched.

"Bright Lady," Yvian wondered. "What's that thing made of?"

"That thing," Mims' answer startled her. She'd forgotten they were linked on the comms. "Is a Gungra Class Battlecruiser. Best armor and shields you can get, almost as tough as a Confed destroyer. It's got crap for engines, though."

"It seems to be doing alright," Yvian remarked. "We're all moving at eight kilometers a second."

"Exactly," said the human. "We should be at twice that by now. I had to ease off the acceleration or risk blowing the engines on the damn thing. It won't be able to pick up the pace again for half an hour."

"Just how fast do we need to go?" Yvian asked.

"Faster than this," he griped. "Check it." One of her sensor consoles centered on the Destroyer fleet they were en route to engage. Klaath Klusters were circling next to them, forming a ring almost two hundred kilometers in diameter. "The bastards are making portals bigger than anything we've ever seen. They only need a ring to be twenty k to get a Queenship through. And they are fucking far from here." Yvian checked the distance and tried to do the math, but the human beat her to it. "At our current pace, we'll get there in four hours. A Queenship can get enough of itself through the portal to kill us all in three."

Yvian nodded, then remembered that Mims couldn't see her through the comm link. "Ok, so what do we do?"

"Nothing, yet." Her console changed again. Destroyers and Frigates appeared on the screen. "We've got two more fleets we'll have to deal with, first."

"Shit." The next fleet would hit them in fifteen minutes. Not enough time for her shields to recharge. It was much larger, as well. Three Destroyers and twenty Frigates.

"Thats... a lot of ships," Lissa chimed in. "Are we sure we can take that many?"

"Of course we can," the human boasted. "The real question is will we have enough shields left to survive the one that hits us eight minutes later." He laughed. "What a fun day. Thanks for calling me in on this one."

"Uh..." Lissa sounded as dubious as Yvian felt. "You're welcome? I guess?"

"Seriously," he said. "Klaath are my favorite things to kill. More than slavers, even."

Yvian noticed the beam frigates had changed targets. Instead of hitting the closest Raiders, they were concentrating their beam weapons on the Frigates of the approaching fleet. "You do know we're in deep shit, right?" she asked. The human's sudden gleeful mood swing disconcerted her. "As in, we're probably going to die?"

"Oh, yes." the human purred. "I haven't had a challenge like this since Milvari. And I've been just itching for a chance to put The Gunzerker to the test. Klaath are fast, but they've got shit shields and no armor. As long as they keep slugging it out with my Gungra, we'll be fine."

"And if they don't?"

A pause. Yvian realized he was shrugging. "Then we're dead."

Yvian thought of several responses to that, but decided most of them sounded too whiny. She went with, "We should have cake after this."

Mims laughed. "It we make it out of here alive, I'll bake two."

Troubleshooter and Longfire managed to kill two frigates before they entered The Gunzerker's range. As soon as the battlecruiser opened up, eighty seven Klaath Corvettes swarmed to the front to take the hits. This time, instead of making a death cone, the Rapid Artillery Arrays narrowed into concentrated fire, sweeping across the swarm in a measured, efficient pattern. Thirty nine seconds later, the Corvettes were a debris field, and RAA cannons formed a smaller, tighter cone, just wide enough to envelope a single Frigate's dodge radius. The beam frigates shifted their weapons to strike whichever ship The Gunzerker was targeting. Yvian set her own turrets to do the same.

Fighters, Raiders, and Interceptors surged forward, thirteen hundred strong. The Gunzerker switched targets. Six seconds later, the swarm was dust. Not a single Raider had made it into firing range.

"Holy shit," the human approved. "I need to give Migo a bonus or something. He said the new targeting system was good, but damn."

"Who's Migo?" Yvian asked. The Gunzerker was pounding on the lead Destroyer, now.

"An arms dealer with delusions of grandeur." The Destroyers closed to twenty five kilometers, beams lashing out to crash against the cruiser's shields. "Guy talks a lot, but he knows his stuff."

Yvian grunted. The lead Destroyer died. The Gunzerker shifted it's fire to the next one.

Fourteen Klaath Frigates reached firing range before the second Destroyer fell. The cruiser's shields were dropping rapidly under the combined might of so many ships, but it stayed stubbornly focused on one ship at a time. Troubleshooter and Longfire piled on, as well as Lady and The Encounter, but Yvian was starting to worry they'd lose their heavy hitter before they ran out of Klaath to kill. If The Gunzerker went down, the rest of the little fleet wouldn't be far behind.

She needn't have worried. The gungra class battlecruiser crushed the last Frigate with a full twenty three percent of it's shielding left. Yvian slumped back in her chair. Bright Lady, she was tired.

"Well," Captain Mims remarked, "That took a little longer than expected. The next fleet's gonna hit in three minutes. Brace yourselves, ladies. This might get a little fucking desperate."

Shit. Yvian bolted back upright, eyes on sensors. The next fleet was smaller than the last one, but bigger than the first. Twelve Frigates, two Destroyers, and eight hundred other ships.

Lissa voiced the question Yvian had just started thinking. "How can you be so cheerful? Is this fun for you?"

"Yeah," The human was shrugging, again. Yvian just knew he was. "Kinda."

"This is why everyone thinks your species is crazy, you know." Yvian remarked. "If that fleet kills us, the portal goes uncontested, and everyone in the sector dies."

"If that fleet kills us," Mims replied. "We'll be too dead to care."