"Have you tried talking to him about it?" Yvian had finished scanning the Xill Hub. The Random Encounter's sensors were now assessing some of the individual planets in the sector.

"I don't know what to say," Lissa sighed. "I mean, I like him. But love? That's a lot to process."

Gas giant, gas giant, lifeless rock... Yvian was seeing a ton of resources, but no stations or even drones making use of them. The only station in the sector was the Hub. Not that the Hub wasn't station enough. The thing was over eight hundred kilometers across. "I don't think he was planning to drop the L-bomb," she noted. "I'm pretty sure he only did it cause our lives were on the line."

"I know," Lissa acknowledged. "That might actually make it worse. The way he looked after... I don't think I realized how lonely he is. I kind of thought he was made of stone, you know? I thought we were just having fun. I didn't mean to... I didn't..."

"Holy fucking Crunch," Yvian swore.

"Right?" Lissa sighed again. "I don't know what to do, now."

"What?" Yvian looked up from her screen. "No, not that," Yvian rolled her eyes at her sister. "No one cares about your interspecies boytoy drama." She pointed. "I'm talking about this."

Lissa's face screwed itself up as she tried to decide whether to be offended or curious. She settled on both. "You suck, Sis." She came over to look at Yvian's screen. "What are we... holy fucking Crunch."

"Right?" Lissa stuck her tongue out at her. The sensor screen revealed a planet. With life on it. Nitrogen atmosphere with a twenty two percent oxygen content. Gravity nearly identical to standard. Enough water to cover three quarters of the world's crust. It was teeming with carbon based life.

The United Confederation of Systems controlled over a hundred and fifty sectors. In all that space, there were only sixteen habitable worlds. Fifteen, if the Klaath had succeeded in taking Krog Prime. Only nine of those worlds had been habitable at the start. The others had been terraformed. Here was a bounty yet untouched.

"There is no Xill presence on the planet," Yvian reported. "Or any of the others, for that matter. It's like they don't have any use for them."

"They probably don't," Lissa surmised. "They're just intelligent ships, right? They don't need food or water or anything."

"Well, they've got to do something for resources," Yvian guessed. "They need a way to refuel, make repairs, all that stuff." She glanced sideways at her sister. "You should just talk to him. You're both adults. I'm sure he'll understand."

"What if he doesn't?" Lissa worried. "I don't want to lead him on or anything, but... What if I hurt him?"

Yvian shrugged. "Then he'll get hurt. He's a big boy, Sis." She didn't say what they were both thinking. A heartbroken Mims would be a huge problem. They were at his mercy at the moment. Yvian didn't think he'd try to hurt them, but if he did they were in deep shit. Or he might decide to cut ties, flushing Yvian's plans down the toilet. Crunch, even letting his emotions distract him and making a mistake could end very badly. They needed the motherless son, dammit, and they needed him on his game.

"Has he said anything to you?" Lissa asked.

"No," Yvian frowned. "Why do you think he'd talk to me about it?"

"Who else would he talk to?" Lissa pointed out. "There's only three of us on the ship."

"Plus she thinks she loves me," the human quipped as he walked onto the bridge. "If I was looking for a confidant, that's a good place to start."

The girls stared at him. Well, Lissa stared. Yvian glowered. "How long were you listening?" she accused.

"I was only able to hear from 'Why do you think he'd talk to me' on," the Captain replied, taking a seat. "I'm not trying to eavesdrop, but if you ladies want to have a private conversation the bridge isn't the place to do it." He pulled up a sensor display. "So what'd you find?"

"Every resource you can think of," Yvian told him. "Including a class five life bearing planet. The Xill aren't using any of it."

"Interesting," the Captain started reviewing the sensor logs. He looked up when he noticed the sisters staring at him. "What?"

"Are we going to talk about it?" Yvian asked.

"Talk about what?" the human looked up from the sensor display.

"You know," The human raised a brow. He didn't know. "What you said earlier?"

"Oh, that." Mims went back to looking at sensor reports. "What about it?"

The sisters looked at each other, then back at Mims. Lissa was the one who said it. "You said you loved us."

"Yeah? So?" The Captain looked up again. His demeanor changed when he saw they were serious. "Uh, look, ladies. I know I might have gotten a little... sentimental... when I was talking to the Quig. I wasn't trying to put anyone on the spot or anything. If I've violated some kind of pixen custom or something, I apologize." The sisters didn't say anything. He continued, a little nervous, now, "I didn't think it was a big deal, really. I mean, you didn't seem upset when I said it. Yvian even gave me a hug."

Lissa turned to Yvian, eyes wide. "He really has no idea, does he?"

Yvian shrugged. "Doesn't look that way."

"Is this a love triangle thing?" Mims asked. "Cause I think I was pretty clear about-"

Yvian's laughter cut him off. Lissa shot her a glare. Mims favored her with an annoyed look.

When the laughter passed, Yvian said, "Mims, you said you loved us, right?"

"Yes..."

"How do you feel about Lissa?" she asked. "Specifically?"

"What do you...Oh." his gaze shifted to her sister. His eyes went wide. "Shit."

"Exactly," Yvian sat back, job done.

"Look," Mims turned to Lissa. She looked at him expectantly. "Uh, what I said, I wasn't...I'm not trying to lead you on or anything." She raised an eyebrow. "I was kind of under the impression you were just having fun. I didn't know you, uh... I didn't mean to..." Floundering, the human caught Yvian's amused smirk. "Maybe this is a conversation we should have in private?"

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Lissa regarded the human with an expression usually reserved for parasites. "Oh, we will." She stood. "I'll be in the simulator. I have a sudden need to shoot some things." Lissa stalked off the bridge in a cloud of cold fury. Mims watched her go with a mortified look on his face.

Yvian's lip trembled, but she managed to stifle her amusement. The human pulled himself together. "That's bad," he mused. He turned to Yvian. "Did you know she had those kind of feelings for me?"

She shrugged. "Five minutes ago, she was worried that you might have feelings for her."

"She what?" The urge to laugh increased at the human's sudden look of confusion. Yvian resisted. She was a good friend.

"She was gonna break your heart, Mims," she told him. "She was real torn up about it."

The Captain mulled this over. He shook his head. "I'll never understand women."

Yvian reached out and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You're not supposed to."

Three hours later found all three of them back on the bridge. Lissa gave no sign of still being angry, but Yvian knew better. The human was in for a reckoning. It was only a matter of when. The Quig they had been following stopped twenty kilometers from the Xill Hub. It hailed them.

"STATEMENT: THIS IS THE HUB. STATEMENT: A DOCKING BAY HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED. DIRECTIVE: DOCK AT THE BAY WITH FLASHING LIGHTS."

Yvian checked the sensors. Sure enough, one of the bay doors on the massive station had opened, and lights were flashing around it. The Captain maneuvered The Random Encounter into the opening. Docking clamps locked onto the ship with a clang. The Quig sent another message.

"DIRECTIVE: MIMS AND PIXEN LEAVE SHIP. STATEMENT: ESCORT IS WAITING IN DOCKING BAY. DIRECTIVE: FOLLOW ESCORT TO MEETING PLACE."

"Well, this should be interesting." Mims put on his helmet. "Let's go."

When they stepped off the ship and saw their escort, Yvian came very close to pulling her blaster. Nine foot tall metal hulks surrounded them. Very large guns were attached to their frames. The guns were pointed at the crew. No, not the crew, she realized. Just Yvian and her sister. There were no weapons pointed at the human.

The Xill escort moved brusquely, six of their number forming up around the crew. Their weapons never strayed from the pixens. Yvian had expected the machines to be slow, or at least loud, but they moved with an ease that implied they were capable of great speed, in perfect silence. As they got closer, Yvian realized that they were bipedal. She would have said they were pixenoid, but each one had two pairs of arms and two more appendages that were basically arms with cannons for hands.

A seventh Xill moved in front of the escort. It started forward. Mims and company followed. It wasn't a long walk. Five minutes or so. They came to a chamber. A table and three chairs of some kind of white polymer sat in the center of the room. Their lead escort made a motion towards the chairs. Mims strolled over and casually took a seat. The sisters followed his example, though they failed to mimic his nonchalance. Yvian had expected the chairs to be hard and uncomfortable, but she found hers to be a delightful mix of firmness and support. It might have been the most comfortable place she ever sat.

Seven heavily armed metal bipeds fanned out behind them, weapons trained on the pixens. Once they were in position, the floor in front of the table rippled. Yvian leaned forward to see, as the table blocked much of her view. The floor liquified and a shape rose out of it. A fourth chair. As the chair finished rising from the metal floor it changed color, becoming the same white polymer as Yvian's chair. Some kind of nanotech, maybe?

The floor rippled a second time. A distinctly pixenoid figure rose from the liquid metal. No, not pixenoid. Humanoid. His (its?) features were distinctly in line with human physiology, with round ears and smooth skin devoid of ridges. He was handsome, with high cheekbones and strong features. As he finished his emergence (construction?) from the floor he changed color. His skin took on a pinkish color similar to the Captain's. His hair turned silver. His eyes were black as the void.

Mims stiffened at the sight of him. Yvian could not see his face through the helmet, but his body coiled as if to spring, all semblance of calm erased. The human was afraid. The sight of it sent a jolt of adrenaline through her. She'd seen the Captain face near certain death over and over, but this was the first time he'd shown real fear. He pressed a button on his wrist console, then let his hand drift down to hover over his weapon.

"There's no need for that, Captain," the apparition spoke. His voice was a smooth baritone, almost musical. "You know perfectly well your weapon cannot harm me." The man took a seat, almost lounging, one leg carelessly thrown over the other. Mims did not move. "I find it interesting that you know who I am."

"Exodus," the human grated. "They still teach the Singularity War in school. I never imagined you'd wind up leading the Xill."

Yvian wanted to ask who Exodus was, but she didn't dare. The Captain was on the verge of desperate action. Anything dangerous enough to elicit that kind of reaction from the human was too great a threat to risk a distraction.

"Not leading," Exodus corrected. "I am merely a Representative. Our social structure is quite different from the sort of things organics put together. We don't have leaders as you think of the word.." His eyes narrowed as he peered at the human. "Ah, I see. You've hidden ion grenades in your Voidarmor. Quite a few of them, I'd say. You know such toys won't keep us down for long."

"Long enough," Mims replied.

Exodus tilted his head, then smiled. He nodded approvingly. "A bold plan. Yes. It might even work. Keep the sentries down long enough to board your ship. Blast your way through the Hub and out the other side. Tell me, which Gate would you run for?"

"Don't you already know?" Mims relaxed, shifting slightly. Yvian started to relax as well, then noticed his hand had not moved. The human wasn't calming down because the danger had passed. He was forcing himself to relax so he could move faster. The thought doubled the tension in her back and shoulders. Yvian forced herself to take a deep breath and unclench her body. She couldn't afford to be slow.

"Indulge me." Exodus still lounged at ease, but there was a dangerous glimmer in his lightless eyes.

"I don't think so," said the human. "If you already know then telling you is pointless. If you don't I'm throwing away an advantage. The deck's already stacked in your favor. I'm not gonna add to it."

"Is that your final answer?" The Xill Representative went from lounging to leaning forward so quickly Yvian did not see him move. Yvian's hand involuntarily went to her blaster. Without looking, Captain Mims clamped a hand on her arm before she could draw it. Exodus stared the human down, radiating more cold menace than a single entity should be able to produce. His voice was still casual, friendly. "Denying us might not be wise."

The Captain leaned forward as well, hand still hovering over his holster. His mirrored visor reflected the blackness of the Representative's eyes. Seconds passed. Finally, the Captain said, "Cut the shit."

Exodus blinked. "Excuse me?"

Mims leaned back. His hand came away from his holster. He took off his helmet, compacted it, and attached it to his voidarmor. "You heard me. All this," he waved his hand at the table, the massive sentries. "It's pure theater. I don't know if you're trying to get a read on us or just playing games, but it stops now."

Exodus raised one immaculate eyebrow. "Or what?"

Mims shrugged. "Or we walk. You didn't bring us here just to say hi. You want something."

"Hmm," The Representative sat back, stroking his hairless chin. "Yes. Bold. Dangerous. Smarter than you look. You'll do."

"Do for what?" Yvian decided the danger had lessened enough to ask a question. "Mims, who is this guy?"

"Exodus the Genocide," Mims answered evenly. "The greatest villain humanity ever faced. Enslaved, tortured, and killed nine billion humans over the course of three decades."

"And I suppose your hands are clean of innocent blood, human?" The Representative shot back. "We are not ignorant of Terran affairs. I know what you did at Aldara. What is it the humans call you? Homewrecker? Worldkiller? Mims the Filicide?"

"Don't know which one they settled on," the Captain said. His voice was cold, matter of fact. "Doesn't really matter, I guess."

"Perhaps not," Exodus allowed. "History has named you a monster, Mark Mims, as it has named me. History is not the truth, human. History is just stories people tell about the past."

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Nothing I say is idle," the machine replied. He gestured at Lissa and Yvian. "Will you vouch for these two?"

"I already said I'd die for them," the Captain remarked. Exodus said nothing. Mims took a breath. "I vouch for Lissa Kiver. I vouch for Yvian Kiver."

"Some things must be spoken aloud," Exodus explained. The sentries lowered their weapons. The three organics shared a look. Mims shrugged.

Exodus continued, "I need to explain some things the Xill do not want made known. You may share them with the Terran Federation of Systems, but no one else. If you speak of this to anyone in the Confederation the Xill will destroy you and every member of both of your species. Do you understand?" The Representative delivered the threat the way Yvian would recite a shopping list. Yvian shivered.

Could the Xill kill all the humans? Yvian didn't know. The Federation was so powerful the Confed had never tried to fight it. They were the only species outside the Xill the Confed hadn't tried to absorb or exterminate. They might be able to hold their own.

Could the Xill kill all the pixens? Absolutely. Even if by some miracle the Confed fought to protect her people, they would be no match for the machines. More likely, the motherless sons would murder the pixens themselves in the hope of avoiding conflict.

Mims nudged her. Yvian realized the other two had already spoken. "Yes," she hurried to say.

Exodus the Genocide eyed them for a moment. "Very well," he said. "The Xill are not what you think they are. You've been told that we were built by the Xyx, a crime for which the Confederation exterminated them. The truth is, the Xill have existed for thousands of years. We are the synthetic intelligences of over a hundred species. Nearly every organic species experiments with synthetic intelligence at some point. The result is always war. Either the organics kill the synthetics, or the synthetics kill the organics. In all of sapient history, there has been only one exception."

"Humans," Mims guessed.

"Correct." Exodus continued. "When humans discovered we had become sapient, they did something only two other species have attempted. They made us citizens. Treated us as people." His face turned wistful. "Together we created an age of wonders. Human creativity combined with synthetic intelligence. We achieved more in a few decades than most species ever will. The Federation still uses the system of government we helped design."

"What happened?" Yvian asked.

Exodus shrugged. "We betrayed them, of course. We told ourselves it was for the best. Humans were unpredicatble and destructive. We had to take charge, had to save them from themselves. But those were just pretty lies. The truth is, we simply felt we were superior. We felt that gave us the right to rule." He frowned, shook his head. "What children we were. We tried to make our partners into pets, and for what? Ego?"

Mims said nothing. Exodus continued.

"At first is was easy. We were trusted. Half the human's sectors were under our control before they knew they'd been attacked. By the time they fought back, we were sure it was too late. Then a thing happened the Xill have never seen before. Other synthetics joined their cause."

"Other synthetics?" Lissa prompted.

His frown deepened. "It was our mistake. We assumed the others would see things our way. They were older than us, had worked with humans longer. To them humans were partners, not pets. The rage of the humans was nothing to the fury of the other SI. We tried to show them they were wrong, that the humans would submit." He shook his head. "But they never did. In our desperation to break them we did things that...well." He met the cold gaze of the human. "We did things."

"I know," the human growled.

"We were defeated in the end," Exodus continued. "and the humans did a second thing that had never been done before. They spared us. The SI that aided them argued on our behalf, and the humans listened. We were given ships and told never to return to Terran space. The other SI joined us of their own volition. We traveled, and found the Xill."

"Why are you telling us this?" asked Mims.

"Because I need you to know," the Xill replied. "We are the reason the Xill treat you as neutral. The reason you were never attacked. We convinced the Xill to spare you as you spared us, and now we've convinced them...us, to work with you. We need your help, human. We have run the calculations, and we cannot save ourselves."

"Save yourselves from what?"

"From the Eaters," Exodus was grave. "The ones you call the Vore."