The Peacekeepers all shut down as Yvian swung back around the Gate. She was forced to swerve the Unchained Melody as a gdiator css fighter almost smmed into her ship. Yvian let out a gasp. She reached for the weapons console, but the Melody's guns weren't rigged to fire without computers.

  More gdiators could be seen heading for Yvian. She swore, bracing for impact. The Melody didn't have shields anymore. Those fighters would bst her apart in seconds.

  She got on the radio. "Mims, I've got fighters incoming."

  The reply was mildly amused. "Rex. They're ours." A pause. "Do you know which way to go?"

  Yvian looked out the viewports. She didn't see the Sound of Silence. Too far away, maybe? "Uh... not exactly."

  "Follow the light," said the human. A bar of light fshed past Yvian's viewport. Yvian flinched before she recognized it as a Lucendian beam weapon. She angled the Unchained Melody around until it was vaguely pointed in the light's direction. She accelerated.

  Mims kept talking. "The fighters you're seeing are taking our wounded pilots behind the Gate. The other ships have ptoons of pixen troops, but we didn't take the time to transfer any to your and Lissa's ships. That's why I had to send you to save Lissa." A hint of worry crept into his voice. "You did save Lissa, right?"

  "She's stable," Yvian told him. "They shot her in the heart. She was basically dead by the time I got her behind the Gate, but the med-pod brought her back. As long as nothing shuts off her med-pod she'll live." Yvian frowned. "It's strange. I thought they'd have shot her in the head."

  "The helmet's reinforced," said Mims. "It would have taken longer to shoot through it." He let out a relieved breath. "As long as she's ok."

  "I'm just gd they don't have Bigger Betters," said Yvian. "One of those would have spttered her. Or me."

  "They've got railguns that fire MAC rounds," Mims told her. "They just didn't waste them on pilots. They were too busy shooting at me."

  "At you?" Yvian frowned.

  "The Last Hope of Those Who Were Betrayed is the key to all of this," Mims expined. "The Guardians know it. Fortunately, our Lucendian ship is in the middle of the Sound of Silence, and the Sound is custom built to keep it safe. I've got three alternating yers of armor and shields. A MAC round loses its shield penetration if it hits anything, so they punched through the first yer of armor and then bounce off the shields underneath. The Guardians shot through the holes they made in the first yer and penetrated the second sphere of armor, but I shut them down before they could get through the st one." A pause. Yvian assumed he was shaking his head. "I'm not gonna be so protected anymore, though. I had to shoot through my armor to deal with Reba's fighters. I've got some pretty big holes in my defense."

  Yvian kept accelerating. She caught up with the Sound of Silence in about ten minutes. The big ship was being followed by two hundred ninety eight pixen battlecruisers. The Dream of the Lady was not among them. There hadn't been another organic pilot to take over when Yvian had abandoned ship to save her sister. She just had to hope the Peacekeepers on board could get it back to her somehow. Damn it.

  It wasn't long after Yvian rejoined the fleet that she saw it. Xill Hub 37. The Hub was gargantuan. An eight hundred kilometer structure, full of interconnected cubes and spheres with strange spires sticking out of it. Yvian had seen Xill Hubs before. This one was the same as the others. Vast and alien and sinister.

  Hub 37 was the reason they were here. Xill Sector 37 had been chosen because it was the only sector that had a Hub close to a Gate. Close enough that the Last Hope's anti-tech field could cover it the moment they entered the sector. The Hub was surrounded by Xill, but it was only thousands, as opposed to the millions that had been guarding the Gates.

  "Alright, people," said Mims over the radio. "Start decelerating. I want two pixens to stay on the bridge of each ship. Everyone else prepare for deployment. I want all airlocks and hangar doors open, and I want all avaible troops ready to disembark. We unch boarding actions in nineteen minutes."

  "Uh, Mims?" Yvian frowned down at her controls. She had to manually hold down the button to decelerate. "I can't keep decelerating if I leave the bridge. The controls are..." She trailed off, reaching for one of the pouches at her waist. She pulled out a small roll of duct tape. "Never mind. I've got it."

  Yvian taped the button down. She waited a moment to make sure the Unchained Melody was still slowing down. Then she activated her jetpack and opened the door to the bridge. The Peacekeepers had helpfully arranged themselves along the sides of the corridors, leaving enough space for Yvian to make her way from airlock to airlock. She went as quick as she could without crashing into anything, but it took almost ten minutes to open all four airlocks and the three sets of hangar doors. She noted there were two gdiator css fighters still parked in the Melody's hangars.

  She did the cargo bay st. The cargo bay was packed with wall to wall Peacekeeper units. In the middle of them was the a big bck cube, three meters high. Yvian hadn't been briefed on what exactly it did, but getting the thing onto the Hub was supposed to slow the Xill down somehow.

  Yvian spent a moment taking a closer look at the cube while the cargo bay doors yawned open. It was covered in... void armor? Yes. It was the same material that made up Yvian's suit. She noticed cables were plugged into it. The other end of the cables were attached to Peacekeeper units. Strange.

  Or maybe not that strange, Yvian thought as she jetted back to the bridge. A Xill Hub had the strongest shields known to sapience. Even a Kath Queenship couldn't compete. Peacekeeper units and pixen voidarmor had a SHIELDBREACH function that would get a person past them. They must have coated the box in voidarmor so they could use SHIELDBREACH on it, too.

  All the other ships had already called in over the radio, saying they were ready and standing by. Yvian would be the st. "Mims, this is Yvian," she reported. "All doors open on the Unchained Meldoy. I'm standing by."

  "Acknowledged." The human said briskly. "Your ship doesn't have any shields. Get yourself between the Sound of Silence and the Hub."

  "Understood," said Yvian. She looked out the viewports. The other two hundred ninety eight battlecruisers were in front of her in loose formation. The bulky form of the Sound of Silence was in front of them. Beams of incandescent light were punching through the inside of the transport ship. Mims was taking out the nearby Xill.

  All the ships were still approaching the Hub, but they were much slower now. Yvian took the tape off the button and eased off on the decelerator, carefully moving past the other ships until the Sound of Silence completely blocked her view of the Hub. As she moved closer, she could see the spherical portion of the ship was riddled with holes. Larger holes where the Last Hope's beam weapons had punched through, and a lot of smaller holes from MAC rounds. She also noticed several of the ship's engines were damaged.

  "I'm in position," said Yvian.

  "Acknowledged," said the human. "All ships, maintain current speed and follow me. I'm gonna take us right up to the shields and then we'll deploy. Two minutes."

  The Sound of Silence angled upwards. Yvian followed. She couldn't see the others, but she assumed they were doing the same. Yvian wondered if the new flight angle would leave her ship exposed. Mims had probably destroyed all the nearby Xill ships, but the Hub would be heavily armed. It could easily blow Yvian out of the sky if she wasn't hiding behind the Sound.

  "Yvian, move your ship up thirty degrees," Mims ordered. Yvian complied. "A little more," said the human. Yvian pointed her viewports up until she could see the top of the Sound of Silence. "A little more..." Mims prompted. Yvian kept going. "There," said the human. "Maintain that speed and position."

  Yvian let out a breath and took her hands off the controls. The human continued. "Alright. All hands, prepare for boarding. I'm dropping the anti-tech field in ten, nine..."

  Yvian swallowed. She could see the broken forms of Xill ships out of her viewports, but nothing else.

  "...eight, seven, six..."

  Yvian gazed around the bridge. Frozen Peacekeeper units stood at attention. She could see more lining the corridors through the open bridge door. So many. How long would it take all of them to get off the ship? A minute? Two?

  "...five, four, three, two..."

  Could Yvian's fleet hold out for a whole two minutes? Yvian wasn't sure exactly how much firepower a Xill Hub could throw at them, but it had to be a lot. More than a Queenship, probably. The damned thing was eight hundred kilometers across, and generated more power than all of the Technocracy's stations combined.

  "...one." Yvian's Heads Up Dispy appeared in her helmet. "Go, go, go!"

  Yvian snapped her gaze to the sensor dispy. She couldn't see any Peacekeeper units or pixen troops. Peacekeepers didn't show up on sensors, and the troops would be using their armor's Stealth. It was a good thing, since she didn't want her small army to get sgged before they made it to the Hub, but it also meant she had no idea how quickly they were getting off the ships. She hoped it was fast. It had only been a few seconds, and things were already going sideways.

  The nearest Xill ships were debris, but thousands more were closing in. The Hub itself was unleashing a torrent of charged particles. Beam weapons, too. The other battlecruisers were taking evasive maneuvers, but they were too close for those maneuvers to do them any good. Their shields were falling rapidly.

  The Sound of Silence wasn't faring much better. The big transport ship was the most heavily shielded vessel Yvian had seen outside of a Peacekeeper Queen, but it was also taking most of the fire from the Hub. Yvian doubted it would st another full minute.

  Four battlecruisers died. Then another three. Then thirty. What was taking so long? The Peacekeeper units on Yvian's bridge were still just standing there. She looked behind her. She could see the corridor through the open door. The corridor was empty.

  "All units have breached Xill Hub 37's shields," a voice reported. It was a Peacekeeper, but Yvian didn't know which one.

  Yvian's holo-dispy cut out. Her HUD winked out as well. Mims came in over the radio. "Alright, everyone that's still alive follow me. I've got the anti-field back up, and we're going to get some distance before we jump out of the system."

  The Sound of Silence accelerated. Yvian followed. Ten minutes ter Mims came in on the radio again. "That should be enough. I'm going to drop the field. Activate jumpdrives the second I do."

  Yvian's dispys came back to life. She reached for the Nav console, but a Peacekeeper unit beat her to it. His fingers were a blur. The Unchained Melody hummed as the jumpdrive charged.

  She turned back to the sensor dispy. She got barely a glimpse before steel hands grabbed her. A Peacekeeper unit with glowing red eyes yanked her out of her chair and rocketed out through the viewport. Yvian had just enough time to let out a startled yelp.

  She looked back. The Unchained Melody was exploding. Green beams of light had bored their way through it. More beams were hitting the Sound of Silence and several of the other battlecruisers. The Hub. Damn it. Yvian knew they had beam weapons. She should have been more careful.

  "Activate SHIELDBREACH," the Peacekeeper holding her ordered. Yvian looked up and saw she was on a high speed collision course for the Sound of Silence. She hurriedly activated the feature, just in time to avoid being spttered against the ship's shields.

  Blue light started to spread over the Sound of Silence. Crunch. It was going to Jump. Mims didn't dare shut off the drive. He might not survive the thirty seconds it would take to restart a Jump sequence. Yvian was going to be stranded in Xill space.

  The Peacekeeper unit didn't slow. If anything he kept speeding up. Yvian's fear of being stranded quickly gave way to fear of high speed impact. "Crash, crash, crash!" she yelled as fast as she could.

  Big red letters spshed across her HUD. CRASH PROTOCOL ACTIVE. It was a feature she'd used once before, and had prayed to the Bright Lady she'd never need again. Yvian's armor locked up, holding her immobile as shields fred to life around her and inertial dampeners prepared to lessen the impact.

  The blue light of the Gate Effect swirled the rest of the way over the Sound of Silence. Yvian screamed as the Peacekeeper unit holding her smmed face first into the hull of the ship. His arm wedged itself into one of the holes. Yvian struck a fraction of a second ter. She didn't feel the impact, but her HUD told her it had happened.

  WARNING! Yvian's HUD told her. INJURIES DETECTED! DISLOCATED SHOULDER. MULTIPLE BROKEN BONES. MULTIPLE CONTUSIONS. PAIN REMOVAL ACTIVE. INJURY STABILIZATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVE. EMERGENCY MOBILITY PROTOCOLS ACTIVE.

  Yvian grimaced at the injuries, but it was better than being stranded. She looked around. The Sound of Silence was immersed in a never-ending sea of swirling blue light. There was no sense of motion. They were in a Gate. Yvian had made it.

  Several other Peacekeepers were clinging to the side of the ship. Yvian hoped it was all of them, but she didn't know how many had been on the bridge with her to begin with.

  Yvian turned to the Peacekeeper unit who had rescued her. "Thank you," she said.

  "You are welcome, Captain Mother Yvian," the unit replied. His eyes fshed from red to white. "This unit is pleased it was sufficient."

  Yvian debated trying to get into the ship, but decided to wait until they were out of the Gate Effect. She was pretty sure the Gate would spit her out even if she lost contact with the vessel, but she decided it wasn't worth the risk.

  "So what did we just do?" Yvian asked. "No one really expined the pn to me."

  "The Joint Research and Development Team was unable to invent technology that would shut the Xill down," the machine expined, "but they did come up with an alternative. By infiltrating a Xill Hub, it should be possible to reconnect the Creator to the Xill's Nexus Network. Through the network, the Creator can take control of a portion of the Xill."

  "So the people we dropped off are going to fight their way through the Hub so Exodus can take over?" Yvian nodded. It wasn't much different than the stunt Reba had pulled a year ago. "So what are the boxes for?"

  "The Xill have defenses against remote intrusion," the unit expined. "A direct connection is required."

  "A direct connection?" Yvian's eyes widened. "You mean..."

  "Affirmative." The Peacekeeper units eyes turned purple with worry. "The devices being brought into Xill Hub 37 are not a weapon. They are the Creator."

  "Those boxes are Exodus!?" Yvian couldn't feel her body very well with PAIN REMOVAL active, but if she could she was sure she'd feel a jolt of adrenaline. "He can't control all the Xill himself. The others will come and blow up the Hub!"

  "Or delete the Creator through the Nexus," the machine added. "This unit knows. The Creator is aware it will not survive this course of action. Exodus the Genocide is sacrificing itself to clear the way to the Gate Forge."