Before Yvian finished speaking, Kilroy fell over. The light in his eyes disappeared.

"Kilroy?" Yvian stared in confusion for a moment. The holodisplay had winked out, as well. Confusion gave way to alarm. Then Yvian realized what must have happened, and alarm gave way to embarrassment. She placed a hand back on the control node and let her mind sink into the Skygem.

She felt it. City 43. The crystal city was flooding the sector with its anti-tech field. When Captain Mims had ordered them to prepare for the Last Resort, a third of the fleet guarding the station complex had taken up orbit over New Pixa. They'd rigged some of their guns to point at the city and set them up so they'd fire continuously even if the targeting computers were shut down. When Kilroy had relayed Yvian's order, they opened fire, and Shard had recognized it as the signal to activate the largest anti-tech field it could muster.

The largest field Shard could produce was actually pretty damned big. Skygem could see it, a sphere radiating from the city, nearly three million kilometers across. It encompassed the Gate, the Skygem, and most of the portals that the Klaath Queens had come through. The Peacekeepers that had been fighting the Klaath had mostly finished their business, either wiping out the enemy or running away at top speed before the field hit. Now the ships and the Peacekeeper's who'd been flying them were helpless. A few of the fleets were far enough away from any Klaath to be safe. The others were being swarmed.

Unlike the pulse, the anti-tech field had a definite boundary. Anything outside it's radius would be left untouched, but inside it would be impossible to use any tech advanced enough to require a computer. The two farthest groups of Klaath were outside of the effect, and they were still duking it out with the Pixen fleet. They were a long way away, and Skygem couldn't make out as much detail as Yvian would have liked, but she got the impression the Peacekeepers were holding their own.

Yvian focused in on the Vore. Vore Sphere 3 had successfully divided into a swarm of smaller spheres, but those spheres were just as frozen and helpless as Kilroy. Even better, the field had hit before the spheres had finished forming engines, leaving the entire mass of them together in a clump that Skygem could disable all at once if she got close enough.

The bad news was that the mass of spheres was still heading for the North Gate at tremendous speed. The North Gate was at the far end of the Sector, mirroring the orbit of the solar system's eighth planet, a gas giant that no one had gotten around to naming. The Vore were no longer accelerating, but inertia would keep them on course. It would only take them a few hours to reach the end of the anti-tech field, at which point they would wake up and go back to being unstoppable.

The Pixen forces at the Gate were still active and in one piece, but they wouldn't be able to destroy the Vore themselves, and they had no way to get to Yvian without being shut down. That left only one choice. "Kilroy, can you hook up the generator?"

Kilroy didn't answer. After a moment, Yvian remembered he'd been shut down. She wasted several seconds calling herself an idiot. Then she asked Skygem if she could shield the interior of the ship from City 43's anti-tech field. A moment later, Kilroy stood back up.

"Anti-tech field's up," Yvian told him, "but Skygem's low on power. Can you hook up the emergency generators?"

"Affirmative." Still hooked into the ship, Yvian couldn't see him directly, but she felt him move at speeds a pixen could never match. A few seconds later, warmth and power trickled into the ship. The generators didn't produce nearly as much energy as a ship reactor, but it should be enough to get the crystal ship moving.

Skygem didn't want to move. She was hungry. She was hurt. She just wanted to sit and eat and start to heal. Yvian tried to suppress her frustration. She coaxed and cajoled the ship, trying to explain how important it was they get to the Gate. If they could pass through the South Gate, one of the Peacekeepers could pick them up on the other side. Skygem wasn't hearing it.

Kilroy returned. "Generators active," he reported. "This unit also re-activated the med pods. Lissa Kiver and Captain Mims are stable."

"Thanks, Kilroy." Yvian had forgotten about the med pods. The field would have shut them down. Crunch. If Kilroy hadn't checked, her sister and the Captain could have died. "Have you heard from the other Peacekeepers?"

"Negative." She couldn't see him, but Yvian guessed his eyes were glowing purple with worry. "The anti-tech field breaks down long range communications and interferes with sensors. Standard transmissions will be rendered unreadable within twenty kilometers. We need to reach the South Gate. The other units will know to send a battlecruiser to retrieve us."

"I'm trying." Yvian continued trying to convince the ship. "She's hurt. She doesn't want to move."

A moment of silence. Then, "You are coddling the ship."

"I am not," Yvian protested. "She's hurt. I have to be gentle."

"Our people are dying!" Kilroy snapped. "There is no time to be gentle. If we continue to do nothing, the Vore will escape the anti-tech field. If the Skygem does not move to the Gate, she will die. You will die. This unit will die. All of Pixa will die."

Yvian swore. The motherless son was right. She dropped her coddling tone and soothing emotions, letting the crystal ship see her fear. The Klaath were killing her people. The Vore were still on the loose. If Skygem didn't get a move on right now, Yvian swore to the Bright Lady she would take over and do it herself. The mind in the ship cowered, crying out in the face of Yvian's anger.

Yvian didn't let up. She imagined City 43, smashed by the Vore. She showed Skygem the Vore devouring the planet. Devouring the ship. Devouring Yvian, herself. We have to stop them, she insisted. It's the only way.

Yvian didn't know if Skygem could understand the words, but the feelings got through. The crystal hull hummed to life. The ship cried in pain as she used her kinetic fields, pulling for the Gate as fast as her cracked body would allow. Yvian cried with her.

It had only taken half an hour to get from the Gate to Vore Sphere 2. It took almost two hours to get back. Yvian spent the time linked to Skygem, shuddering with pain as she urged the ship forward. When they finally fell into the Gate Effect, Yvian nearly collapsed, barely retaining her hold on the node.

The Gate bathed Skygem in it's power. Yvian didn't know if it was a wormhole, or another dimension, or how any of it worked. No one did, really. The crystal ship drank greedily, guzzling the energy like an alcoholic who'd found a beer after weeks of being dry. It hurt. It hurt to drink the power. The massive beam the ship had endured had overloaded whatever mechanism Skygem used to absorb such nourishment. Skygem did it anyway. She was starving. Even with the generators running, the ship had been perilously close to death.

Yvian had held some hope that the influx of energy would help her ship to heal. It did no such thing. While Skygem didn't say it directly, Yvian received the impression that the ship would require a lot of time and energy to repair itself, healing slowly over the course of weeks or months like an injured pixen without a med pod.

After thirty glorious and painful seconds, Skygem exited the Gate. Yvian found herself surrounded by Xill. In the distance, the dead mass that used to be Vore Sphere 2 drifted at a steady ten meters per second. More Xill circled the dead nanomachines.

Yvian was too tired to take an accurate count, but she guessed there were several thousand Xill vessels around the Gate. Most were smaller vessels, fighter class Migs and Ligs, with a few thousand large Cigs (Corvettes) and Frigs (Frigates). There were also a full fifty Quig Battlecruisers, and half a dozen Yig Destroyers. A few thousand Xill wasn't a large number compared to the fleets she'd seen lately, but the vastly superior Xill ships meant it was a force to be reckoned with. Easily capable of destroying a human fleet twice it's size, or a Confed fleet ten times bigger than that.

Forty six lances of plasma slammed into the side of the Skygem. The ship drank them with only a little pain, but the impact sent Yvian's adrenaline into overdrive. Were they under attack? Were the Xill going to kill them? She had little doubt that they could. She looked around to see who was firing just as the second wave of plasma hit. The sight of the PSDF Battlecruiser that had just exited the Gate filled her with relief at the same time it made her feel like an idiot.

"The Master Exploder is lowering shields and opening Hangar Bay doors," Kilroy reported. "Unit 878576349 invites us aboard."

"Tell him thank you," said Yvian. She coaxed the crystal ship to move again, limping over to the battlecruiser and landing inside with an exhausted thump. The bay doors closed. The Master Exploder hummed as its jumpdrive came to life. Yvian briefly considered asking for the bay doors to be opened so her ship could take in more Gate energy, but rejected the idea on the grounds that she was too exhausted to deal with it. A pair of Peacekeeper units approached and attached cables to the ship, connecting Skygem to the cruiser's reactor and allowing her to drink. Yvian let out a shuddering sigh and let go of the control node, allowing herself a break at last.

The Xill ignored them as they jumped out of the system. Kilroy rebooted the holodisplay, and Yvian took in the sensor readings once the Gate Effect dumped them out of the North Gate of New Pixa Sector. The Master Exploder accelerated, moving towards the Vore Spheres just as fast as it could go. Twelve thousand Pixen Stellar Defense Force ships followed.

"This unit has to ask," Kilroy spoke. "Is the Skygem capable of releasing one more Pulse and signaling City 43?"

"I think so." Yvian braced herself. "I'll ask." She reached out and touched the control crystal again. Pain flooded back into her body, but there was less of it now that the ship was at rest. Absorbing power from the cruiser's reactor was still uncomfortable, and the cracks in the crystal hull throbbed, but Skygem hurt less now that she wasn't straining.

It took a few minutes for Yvian to make the ship understand her question. It took longer to explain why using the Pulse one more time was necessary. Finally, the mind in the ship agreed. She would fire the Pulse one more time. She did not know if she would survive using it, but use it she would. Signaling City 43 would be more of a problem. The crystal emitter Skygem used to transfer energy between ships was damaged. She didn't think she could power it enough to reach all the way to New Pixa.

Yvian relayed what she'd learned to Kilroy. The Peacekeeper was silent for most of a minute. When he broke the silence, it was with, "Parameters are acceptable. Admiral Zhukov is in City 43. He will signal Shard to cease the Last Resort ten seconds after we have intercepted the Vore Spheres."

Yvian frowned. "How will he know when that is?"

"We are Peacekeeper units," Kilroy chided. "Calculating velocity and distance is a simple matter."

"Oh." The unit's eyes hadn't changed from combat red, but Yvian got the impression he was offended. "Of course. Sorry about that."

"Apology accepted."

The next two hours were quiet. Yvian mostly dozed. She was hungry, but she didn't want to leave Skygem to eat, and she couldn't unseal her suit as long as the ship kept filling itself with methane. Her voidarmor kept her hydrated, but she'd never bothered to fill the thing with emergency food. It was just as well, she supposed. Emergency food meant protein paste, and Yvian would much rather go hungry than ever have to eat that crap again.

"We will reach the anti-tech field in ten minutes," Kilroy informed Yvian. "The Master Exploder is opening bay doors. All ships will fire weapons continuously on a trajectory that will take us within half a kilometer of the Vore Spheres. The fleet has ceased accelerating, but Skygem will need to increase her speed to avoid catching them in the Pulse."

Peacekeepers detached the cables connecting Skygem to the Master Exploder. Yvian took up the control node again, urging the crystal ship into motion. The mind in the ship sent sadness and fear, but also determination. With the emotional equivalent of gritted teeth, she pulled herself back into the void.

As promised, ten thousand ships fired energy weapons. Beams and lances of charged particles and plasma streaked into the distance, converging to a single point some ten thousand kilometers away. Skygem eased into the stream, painfully swallowing as much energy as she could. She moved to the point of convergence, building her reserves as she prepared for one last Pulse.

As promised the Peacekeeper ships had continued on course and kept up their stream of fire as they passed into the anti-tech field. Yvian wanted to look out at the rest of the sector, to see what was happening with the Klaath, but she didn't dare take her attention from the Vore. The Spheres were closing in fast. She had maybe twenty minutes before the Pulse had to be fired.

Skygem was terrified. Yvian had tried sending soothing thoughts, but the ship had seen right through them. Yvian was just as scared as the ship was. Using the Pulse could kill Skygem. Maybe kill Yvian along with her. Even worse, there was a chance they would fail. That the Pulse would be too soon, or too late, or too weak, and some of the Vore would survive. If that happened, then this was all for nothing, and everyone Yvian knew and loved would die.

Yvian frantically tried to calculate speed and distance and reaction time. There were no Peacekeepers to send a signal. Skygem might be able to judge the right time, but Yvian didn't know that for sure. The Vore Spheres loomed closer. Five more minutes.

"The Pulse will need to be activated in four minutes, forty three seconds," Kilroy reported. Yvian jumped. She'd forgotten he was there.

Yvian cursed herself for an idiot once again. What she said was, "Ok. Let me know when."

"Affirmative." She dimly felt a metal hand being placed on her shoulder. "Fear is acceptable, but do not fear too greatly. This unit is with you, and we will be sufficient."

Immersed in the Node as she was, Yvian still felt herself tearing up. She nodded, glad that the crystal ship's insistence on methane had forced her to keep her helmet. Then she realized that Kilroy would know she was crying anyways. Then she decided she didn't have time to worry about it. She joined Skygem in preparing the Pulse. She prayed to the Bright Lady that it would work as intended.

"Activate Pulse in ten, nine, eight..." Kilroy counted down. Yvian braced herself. The crystal ship braced herself. The Vore hurtled towards them, looming masses of silver death waiting to be unleashed. Yvian prayed one more time. This would work. This had to work.

"...three, two," Kilroy squeezed Yvian's shoulder. "One. Activate."

Skygem screamed as the Pulse blasted forth. Yvian screamed with her. Her body was on fire. The cracks in the crystal widened. The two of them pressed as hard as they could, a wave of technological destruction reaching as far as they could send it. She felt it crash into the Spheres, through them.

The pain reached a crescendo. Skygem wasn't just cracked. She was shattering. She was dying, and Yvian would die with her. With the last of her strength, the pixen wrenched control from the ship, forcing the Pulse to end.

Yvian's connection to her body dimmed. She knew it was thrashing. She could tell it was still trying to scream, but she didn't know if she was actually making any sound. She had time for one last thought. One final prayer before the darkness took her.

Please. Please let it be enough.