The humming of the ship maintained its fever pitch. Yvian pulled up the ship's status on her console. All systems green, Jumpdrive engaged. She looked back at Mims. He continued to shift between nav console and ship status, cursing to himself.

"Uh, Mark?" Lissa looked up from her console. "We don't know where we are."

"We don't need to," Mims replied. "We just need to know where the Gate is, and the Jumpdrive takes care of the rest."

"No, Mark," Lissa sounded worried. "We need to know where the Gate is in relation to us. That's why we're not jumping."

"Oh." Mims stopped what he was doing. "Shit."

"What happens when you activate the drive with bad navigation data?"

"Same as if you use it with no data," the human shrugged. "It finds the nearest Gate and takes you there."

"Ok," Lissa listened to the humming for a moment. "How does it know where the nearest Gate is?"

"I have no idea."

"Damn it, Mark!" Lissa pulled something up on her console. "How can you not know that?"

"It's not in the manual," he said. "The Jumpdrive is proprietary technology. They don't tell anyone how it works."

Lissa cursed. "Do you have any guesses?"

"Not really," the human folded his arms. "I kill things for a living. I'm not an engineer."

"Guys," Yvian interrupted. "We have a new problem." She zoomed in on the sensors.

"What is it?" Mims came over and looked at her screen.

"I think powering the Jumpdrive brought us some unwanted attention." Yvian pointed at the sensor display. "The Klusters stopped spinning and broke up. We've got infected Fighters, Interceptors, and Raiders heading our way."

Mims cursed. Lissa asked, "How many?"

"Um..." Yvian stared at the screen, then gave up counting. "All of them? I think?"

Mims walked back to his station. "How soon will they get here?"

Yvian ran calculations through the console. "If they keep accelerating at their current rate, they'll be on us in six hours, twenty seven minutes."

The human nodded. "Then we've got six hours to figure this out, and twenty seven minutes to blow the ship if we don't."

"Blow the ship?" Yvian didn't like the sound of that.

"Those things can co-opt our tech. Probably replicate it, too." The human pulled up a weapons display. "If they take the ship, they get a Jumpdrive. We can't let that happen."

"Do we even have a way to do that?" Lissa asked. "Overloading the engine's a Holovision thing. Real ships have too many safety features to do that kind of crap."

"That's the easy part," Mims said. "We can just lower our shields and target ourselves with missiles. I'll make sure the heavy torpedo hits first. We won't even feel it."

"That's better than feeling it I guess," Yvian mused. "But I think I'd rather live."

"We could use the emergency shutoff," Lissa suggested. "If we shutdown the drive, we can use the engines. Buy a little time, maybe."

Mims considered. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. The Jumpdrive's the only way we're getting out of here. If it's trying to find us a place to go, I think we should give it as much time as we can."

Lissa checked the ship's status again. "I'm not sure how much time we can give it. We're putting pretty serious strain on power distribution."

"You think it might go critical?" Mims looked at his status screen again. "I thought you said it can't do that."

"It can't go critical," Yvian agreed. "But it can overload enough to damage itself, and then we've got no way to power the drive."

"That would be bad," the human said. "Keep an eye on it and let me..." A swirl of blue light surrounded the ship. "...Know?" The ships hum pitched just slightly higher. The light pulsed around them, giving the appearance they were falling into it. Then it was gone. The humming ceased.

The Random Encounter had passed through a Gate.

"Well," Mims said, switching to sensor displays. "There's a problem that took care of itself. Lissa, systems check. Yvian, see if you can figure out where we are. I'm on...fuck me."

"What is it?" Yvian wanted to look at what the human was seeing, but she followed orders and tried to get the nav console to update their location. It could not do so.

"Never a fucking break..." the human muttered.

"All systems green," Lissa said. "What's going on?"

"It's the Xill," the human brought the Encounter to a stop. "We're in Xill space."

Yvian froze. The Xill. Sentient machines. Humans might be the most feared species in the Galaxy, but Xill were considered the deadliest. Lethal, implacable, and known for killing any organic they saw.

"Why are we stopping?" Lissa needed to know. "We should run!"

"Run where?" Mims asked. "We don't know where we are. We go through that Gate behind us, we might just be running deeper into their territory."

"I'm not sure not moving's any better," Yvian pointed out.

"There's a small fighter group headed our way," Mims reported. "Three Mig interceptors, two Lig fighters. They'll be on us in six minutes."

"Jumpdrive?" Yvian suggested.

"Useless," the human said. "Without nav data, it'll just do the default again. We'd end up right where we are."

"We could jump to one of the other Gates in the sector."

"Maybe," he allowed. "We'll keep it in mind in case we have to run."

"In case?" Lissa asked. "Were we planning on fighting, first?"

Mims snorted. "Hell, no."

"Even Mims can't take on a Xill," Yvian said. "No one's that good."

The human gave her a level look. "Yvian, I'm one of the best pilots in the galaxy, flying one of best heavy fighters ever made. I can absolutely defeat a Xill one on one. Two on one if I'm lucky."

"There's five of them," Lissa pointed out.

"And now you understand my dilemma." The human accessed ship status. He powered down the Encounter's gun turrets. "More to the point, there are a couple hundred other Xill out there. We fire on these ones and they'll come after us. The Xill don't stop. They'll keep coming until we're dead or every one of them is. We bring a fight like that to the Confed, and the Military'll kill us themselves."

"What's the plan, then?"

"We're going to surrender," he said. "Let me do the talking."

The human hailed the Xill. "Attention, Xill vessels. This is Captain Mark Mims of the Terran Federation of Systems. I apologize for entering your space. It was accidental."

The Xill continued their approach. They gave no sign they'd received the transmission.

"Uh..." Mims continued. "We'd like to leave, but we uh, don't know which way to go. If you could help us out, we'd appreciate it. We apologize again for intruding."

The Xill continued their approach. They gave no sign they'd received the transmission.

"What do we do if they attack?" Yvian asked.

"That's why I stopped the ship," he told her. "They start firing, and I can back us through the Jumpgate in just under two seconds."

"Then we run?"

"Then we run." Mims pulled up manual flight controls. He placed his hands on them, thumb hovering over the reverse accelerator.

"They've locked on to us," Yvian reported.

"I know." The human tensed, then forced his shoulders to relax. "Don't do anything."

The Xill broke formation. The two Ligs stopped, still targeting the Encounter. The three Migs moved to a flanking position, one above and two below. Once they completed their maneuver and brought their weapons to bear, the Ligs turned away, heading for a Gate on the other end of the sector. Mims breathed a sigh of relief and programmed the autopilot to follow them.

"Did you know that would work?" Lissa asked, slumping back in her chair.

"I gave it even odds," he told her. "The Xill don't have any quarrel with the Federation. There've been a couple stories of dipshit traders getting lost and ending up in their space. The Xill just escorted them out. On the other hand, we're running a Confed IFF, so..."

"The humans have an alliance with the Xill?" Lissa sputtered. She'd never heard of such a thing.

"Not exactly." He shrugged. "Its more like we stay out of each other's business. The Federation sends an unarmed diplomatic envoy into their space once a year. The Xill ignore it, but they don't blow it up. Other than that, we stay out of their space, and so far they've stayed out of ours."

"The Xill attack everyone. How The Crunch did you get an exception?"

Mims shrugged again. "No idea. Been that way for centuries."

"You know," Yvian remarked. "I think it says something about your species that the only people you get along with are homicidal death machines."

"We get along with lots of other people," Mims asserted. "You just don't know any of them."

Lissa removed her helmet. "Ok. Since we've moved on to banter, I'm guessing the crisis has passed?"

Mims nodded. "For now. Looks like we'll follow them through the Gate in eleven hours."

"Good," she stood up. "Then you and I have some catching up to do."

"Catching up?" Yvian's eyebrows rose. "You've been hanging out by yourselves for five days."

"Hanging out next to the Vore," she corrected.

"The Vore? Is that what we're calling it, now?"

"Too simple?" Lissa asked. "I just came up with it."

"No, I like it." Yvian assured her. "The Vore."

"Sounds menacing," Mims agreed.

"The Vore it is." Lissa continued, "We spent five days together on the alert waiting for that shit to try to eat us. Sleeping in shifts and avoiding distractions. Now, its distraction time." She ran a hand across the human's shoulders.

Mims took off his helmet. "The lady has a point. Yvian, you've got the bridge. Use the comm if anything happens." He stood, following Lissa.

"Can you at least try not to be so loud this time?" Yvian called after them. She'd forgotten about the romantic aspect of her sister's relationship with the human. Now she remembered how annoying it had been.

Mims paused. "Don't worry," he said. "The Encounter's had an upgrade. All our quarters are soundproofed."

"Thats..." Yvian frowned. "I'm gonna be honest. I'm not sure if soundproofing the rooms in anticipation of boinking my sister is considerate or just creepy."

The human considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Probably both." Then he turned back around and followed Lissa off the bridge.