"Did we fail?" Yvian couldn't feel her body, but she was sure she was clenching. "Did I miss?"

"No," Mims told her. "If you'd missed, we wouldn't be in Klaath space. Get the ship moving and follow me."

"What do you mean?" Yvian set autopilot to follow The Random Encounter at the best speed she could muster. Damaged as the Lady was, it wasn't that fast.

"When you break a portal ring, there's a reaction. Turns the portal from a circle to a sphere. Only lasts a second, but when it's done everything in the area ends up on the other side."

"So now we're in Klaath space." Yvian didn't feel any shift as The Wandering Lady accelerated. She pulled up her ship's status. Inertial Dampeners were still online. She thanked the Bright Lady, then felt foolish for not checking before she accelerated. If the dampeners were offline, she would have just pancaked herself.

"We are. The Queenships aren't. Or at least, the sections that had Klaath Queens in them aren't."

Yvian cursed. "They're in Krog space. We just doomed the sector."

"Not necessarily. Maintain your current course. I've got to go deal with something." Yvian disengaged the autopilot. The Random Encounter changed course, rapidly leaving the range of her sensors. The human continued, "The portal shift cut the Queenships into thirds. The middle thirds are in Krog space, but they'll be defenseless after that kind of damage. I gave Admiral Fightsmart control of our other ships before we hit. The beam frigates should be able to finish the job."

The bulk of the Queenships slowly drifted off of Yvian's screen. She wished she could see what else was going on. She briefly considered having the ship's auto repair systems focus on sensors, but decided the engines were probably more important. After a few seconds of silence she asked, "So, uh... what's happening out there?"

It was Lissa who answered. "Most of the Klaath are ignoring us, but we've got a Corvette and two Klusters' worth of Raiders and Fighters coming at us. Mims is trying to get them to come after us instead of you."

Yvian cursed. The Encounter could probably deal with the Raiders and Fighters, but a Corvette would turn it into debris. The Wandering Lady wouldn't be able to help. Yvian had no shields, ruined armor, and the entire bottom of her ship was a crumpled mess. She doubted she could take on a single Raider by herself.

"You don't have sensors?" Lissa asked.

"They're so messed up I can't make out anything over fifty k." Yvian glared at her console. She knew she was lucky to be alive, but that didn't make flying blind any less annoying.

"Do you have a working console?"

"Yeah." The screen was cracked. "Mostly."

"Patch your wrist console into it. I'll send you our sensor data."

After a little fiddling, Yvian managed to cast her wrist display onto the main console. An overview of the area appeared. A solar system. Yellow star, six planets, two asteroid belts.

"Here's the sector we're in," said Lissa. "The fourth planet's a Klaath colony. Or their homeworld, or something. At least it was. Look." The display zoomed in, focusing in on the planet. A large, pulsing mass, over six thousand kilometers wide, was pressed onto it. Silvery tendrils streamed from it, grasping and wrapping around the planetary body. The image reminded her of an amoeba trying to consume a larger organism.

"What the Crunch is that?" she asked.

"No idea," her sister replied. "We're too far to do a detailed analysis. But the Klaath are scared of it." The image zoomed out. Klaath swarmed in orbit above the planet, firing down into the silvery mass. The mass fired back, violet beams and scarlet bolts of energy streaming into the ships. Whips of silver material stretched into the sky, reaching for the defenders. The Klaath ships numbered in the millions. Yvian suspected they would not be enough.

The image zoomed closer to the Klaath fleet. Every time a tendril touched a ship, streaks of silver would shoot over its purple hull. The other Klaath in the area would pull away from the infected ship, pouring beam fire into it until it fell into the planet's gravity well.

"By the Bright Lady," Yvian breathed. "That's why there were so many of them in the Incursion. They're not expanding. They're evacuating the entire sector."

"I think so, too." Lissa brought the sensors out to show the Queenships. Seven groups of eight Queenships each stretched over an area far from the planet. They were in pieces, each missing a middle section over ninety kilometers long. They were in motion, but carried no signs of life.

An eighth group was still alive, moving through a portal. The back ends of the ships stretched three hundred forty kilometers into the void.

"Shit," Yvian cursed. "Fightsmart didn't get them all."

"A few more minutes, and they'll pass far enough in to be active in Krog space. Fightsmart won't have the firepower to take them on even if we didn't count the millions of Klaath already in system. Krog Prime is fucked."

Yvian glared at the Queenships. She'd lost her Vinga fighters. Crippled her ship. Broken her body. To do all that and still lose...

No. Not today.

"Lissa," Yvian's anger gave way to the beginnings of a plan. "That thing, it's been infecting ships. Are there any of them...you know... close by?"

"Let me see," Yvian's display shifted around as her sister manipulated the sensors. "Yes. Sort of." Sensors focused in on a mass of debris. Silvery material still writhed around the remains of broken hulls. "They're drifting, about nine hundred k from where you are. I'm guessing they were heading for the Queenships and the Klaath rammed them, then shot up the whole mess."

"Give me the coordinates," Yvian told her. "I've got a bad idea."

"I don't think that's... wait. You're already heading in that direction." Lissa's voice switched from concern to rage. "Mims, you motherless son!"

"Do you, mind?" asked the human. "I'm a little busy, here."

"Are you out of your fucking mind!?" she demanded. "That shit's murdering a whole planet of Klaath, and you're sending Yvian at chunk of it!"

"Not directly at it," he corrected. "She'll pass within about ten kilometers. Then we'll have to turn the ship around."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Lissa was not mollified.

"Decisions," he said. "I wanted to see if you two would make the right one." He cursed. "Be quiet a minute. This isn't as easy as I'm making it look."

Right. The human must be fighting the Klaath. Yvian wanted to see. "Lissa, can you...?"

"Yeah, yeah." The display changed. The Random Encounter was flying backwards, spitting fire at a Klaath Corvette. The Corvette was bobbing and weaving, trying to evade the fire. There was no sign of the Raiders and Fighters, but the human's ship had lost a third of its shields.

"Why isn't it shooting?" Yvian asked.

"What did I just say?" Mims grumped. Two seconds later he answered. "I'm staying just outside of its firing range, and just inside the range it can't dodge. Fighters and Raiders can match my speed, but a Corvette can't."

It took another minute for the Encounter to whittle down the Corvette's shields. When the enemy vessel had been pounded into debris, Mims swung around and plotted a course to meet up with Yvian.

"Yvian," Lissa commed, "I'm gonna need you to do a slight course change. The stuff on the dead ships is putting feelers out. I don't want you getting too close to it, yet." Coordinates appeared on Yvian's display.

"Got it." Yvian programmed the new coordinates into her nav console. "So, uh... how are we getting out of here? Are we making a run for the portal before the gooey stuff hits?"

"We'd never make it," said Mims. The display shifted back to the Queenships, then zoomed in. A pair of Destroyers floated nearby, flanked by Frigates and Corvettes. "Even if we got past these assholes, the Queenships would blow us out of the sky the second we went through."

"So... we're stuck here?" Yvian didn't know exactly where they were, but she hadn't seen any Jumpgates when Lissa showed her the sensors. That made sense, since the Klaath didn't use them. No Jumpgates meant no way to leave the sector. It would take decades or centuries to reach another system just using their engines.

"Of course not," Mims scoffed. "We've got a Jumpdrive."

"Oh. Right." Yvian watched as the Encounter moved into an escort position near The Wandering Lady. She sighed. "I guess it's just as well we're doing this, then. It's not like we could've taken the Lady with us."

"No, we totally could've." Mims corrected. "Jumpdrive's a modular upgrade. We could fix the Lady up enough to dock, transfer the drive, and get both ships out of here pretty easy."

Crunch take it. Before Yvian could speak, Lissa piped up. "You don't even know the meaning of the word diplomacy, do you?"

"She's sacrificing her ship. She deserves to know that sacrifice is real. I know all about diplomacy." Yvian heard that pause that meant the human was shrugging, again. "I just don't bother with it most of the time."

The Wandering Lady passed by the mass of infected debris. Silvery tendrils stretched towards them, shooting forward farther and faster than Yvian would have guessed. She was suddenly very glad her sister had recommended a course change. If she'd been even a kilometer closer it might have got her.

Lissa sent Yvian another course change. She heard Mims curse as she started programming it. Flashes of green light flashed in her viewport, which she only now noticed was missing it's transparent covering. The Encounter was firing.

"Yvian, you gotta get out of there!" Mims shouted through the comms. "That stuff is launching balls of itself at us. I don't think I can get them all!"

Yvian fumbled at her nav console, suddenly afraid. She felt a thunk through her magnetic boots. Something had just hit the ship. She forced herself to take a breath and slow down. She programmed the course change, listening as hard as she could. Not that listening would do any good. She was in vacuum. Some instincts are just too hard to ignore.

Course change accepted. The Wandering Lady started to shift. It was time to go. Yvian clomped towards the door to the bridge. She would have run if she wasn't operating without gravity. The door wouldn't open. The frame was bent. She struck it as hard as she could. The impact was more than her grav boots could handle, and she was blown backwards off of her feet. She scrambled for a few seconds before she remembered to use the jetpack to right itself.

"Hold still, Yvian," Mims instructed over the comms. "I'm making you an exit."

Yvian put her boots back on the deck and froze in place. A torrent of green light smashed through the side of the bridge, narrowly missing the nav console. It punched a three meter hole through both sides of the bridge. The human shouted. "Take the hole on the left. Go! Go!"

Yvian clomped to the hole as fast as she could. She didn't trust her numb hands to operate the jetpack controls precisely enough to maneuver out that way. When she reached the hole she deactivated her grav boots. She jumped.

The Encounter was not close. She could barely see it hanging in the void. Her HUD told her it was nine kilometers away. She activated the jetpack, shooting forward at the maximum velocity the suit's safety features would allow. She looked back at her ship.

The Wandering Lady was crumpled. The entire bottom of the ship was crushed and twisted. It's engines sputtered as it pushed through the void. As she peered at her broken home, she saw something else. The ship was pulsating. Writhing. The silvery substance that had taken the Klaath's world should have been barely visible against the Lady's metal hull, but the motion gave it away. Motion, and very faint luminescence. The stuff glowed, just a little.

The silver liquid had spread quickly. It had wriggled its way over two thirds of her once proud mega freighter. As she watched, a tendril spiraled out from the mass. The thing lazily spun in her direction, then paused. Yvian received the terrible impression that the thing was looking at her. She frantically pawed at her jetpack, desperate for more speed. There was no more speed to be had. She was already moving as fast as she could.

So fast she could barely register the movement, the tendril shot forward. It struck like a whip, coiling around her right ankle. Yvian screamed. Her motion jerked to a halt. More tendrils emerged from the mass of her dying ship. Yvian screamed again.

Green light flashed. The tendril was gone. Yvian was back in motion. The Random Encounter had shifted position. It poured a steady stream of weapons fire between Yvian and her infected ship. A curtain of death to keep her safe.

WARNING! Yvian's HUD flashed. SUIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED! LIMB AMPUTATIONS DETECTED! SEALING FIELD ACTIVATED! A faint shimmer appeared around Yvian. The HUD's warning pulled her gaze away from her damaged ship and the wall of plasma lances. She looked down. Her legs were gone. One had been severed just below the knee. One had been severed just above. Yvian screamed again at the sight. With the suit's PAIN REMOVAL active, she couldn't feel the loss, but that small mercy failed to quell the horror as parts of her body went missing. Panic filled her as she desperately searched the stumps with her eyes. The thing had touched her. Was she infected? Was the suit?

Her frantic search yielded no results. As far as she could tell, the silver liquid had been carried away with her legs on streams of heavy plasma fire. Her relief gave way to a new problem. She was feeling woozy. The shimmering SEALING FIELD kept her in oxygen, and kept the void from sucking the blood right out of her body, but she didn't know how much longer the voidarmor could keep her alive. She'd been barely alive before she lost her legs.

WARNING! The HUD flashed more bad news. Her jetpack cut out. POWER FAILURE IMMINENT! POWER RESERVES BELOW 1 PERCENT! SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IN 30 SECONDS! Not bad news. The worst news. When the suit shut down, PAIN REMOVAL would end. She would have enough time to feel all her injuries at once while the void pulled the blood from her body. Unless the suit had sealed the bleeding. Then she'd feel the agony just a bit longer. Yvian started breathing as fast as she could, trying to oxygenate her blood. She debated whether she'd hold her breath so her lungs burst for a quicker death, or let it out in the hope she'd survive long enough to be rescued. She looked towards the Encounter, and saw the shadow of a man outlined by the flare of a jetpack.

Mims. The human was coming for her. As she saw her torn body reflected in his mirrored visor, Yvian began to weep. Her vision blurred as the tears lazily floated around her eyes. There was no gravity to make them fall.

The human was right. She hadn't been making good decisions. She'd had to be saved over and over again, and now here she was. Lost, dying. No victory, no ship, no hope save that which he had come to give her. The human was right. Yvian was a cascade of failure.

"Crunch...take me..." she sobbed. "I am so... so... tired of... being rescued..."

The human took her in his arms. "No, Yvian," he said. He pulled a cord from his voidarmor, attaching it to hers. The system failure warning cut out as her suit accepted power from his. "Not this time." He circled behind her, tucking one of his arms under each of her armpits. He clasped his arms together and reactivated his jetpack, heading for The Random Encounter.

He spent a few seconds adjusting their course, then continued. "This is not a rescue. This is not a failure. This is a motherfucking battle plan. You made sacrifices, and you got hurt, but that's how battles are. If we win today, it will be because of you."

Yvian sobbed harder at the human's words. She knew he could hear it over the comms, could feel it in her (she assumed) shaking body. He made no further attempt at comfort, ignoring her as much as it was possible to ignore a person one is propelling through the void.

By the time she'd cried herself out, they were almost at the Encounter. Yvian wished she could brush the annoying eye water away from her face. Also, the mucus. To distract herself, she said to Mims. "I thought you didn't bother with diplomacy."

He shrugged. "I do when it's important."

"Aww..." Yvian teased. "You think I'm important..."

"Don't make it weird."