Homestar Saga

Chapter 62: Out of Beer

"Why are we still doing this?" Lissa slumped back in her chair. The repair drones had just finished sealing the last hull breach in the bridge of the Encounter. She took off her helmet and tossed it negligently onto her desk console. Her hair was matted. Her face was sweaty. She had bags under her eyes.

"Fixing the ship?" Mims removed his helmet as well. His brown hair was plastered to the top of his head. He looked like he hadn't slept in two days. Which made sense, Yvian supposed. None of them had. While the Captain was as tired as his crew, he was in a much better mood. "Because I like having air to breathe, mostly."

"You know what I mean." Lissa chided. Yvian removed her helmet, running a hand through her hair. It was as matted as her sister's, though considerably shorter. The adrenaline of combat had faded hours ago, leaving her shaky, sticky, and exhausted. Lissa continued, "It's been three months. Three months, and they're not letting up. If anything, it's getting worse."

The first attack had happened three days after they left Tortuga. It had been small scale, only half a dozen Terran Gladiator class fighters. They'd jumped into the system with no warning, firing their MACdriver cannons without so much as a how do you do. The Recompense had been far enough away that Mims could dodge, and he killed three pilots without taking a hit. The other three had activated their jumpdrives and fled back to pirate space to rethink their life choices.

"Of course it is," said the Captain. "The Freedom Republic's hunting us with the full backing of the Terran Federation. The longer we survive, the more they're going to throw at us."

From that point on, nowhere was safe. Attacks came at random, sometimes within days, and sometimes within minutes. It didn't take long to figure out they were being tracked. The Nexus system allowed instant communication in any system in the Confed, and there were no shortage of people willing to tell the pirates where they were.

"Are you sure the High Commander can't do anything?" Yvian asked. She'd met the High Commander, one General Bartholomew Young, four months ago. He'd seemed like a stand up guy.

"The General's hands are tied," said Mims. "He runs the military, but Stellar Command's got no jurisdiction over XTRO. Even if it did, the President herself set this in motion. She's the highest ranked person in human space."

"It's gribshit," said Yvian. "Aldara happened thirty years ago, and it wasn't even your fault."

"No," said Mims. A torrent of emotion flashed through his face for an instant. "No, it was."

"It was a Klaath Incursion," Yvian insisted. "If you hadn't-" She cut herself off at his blank stare. "It wasn't your fault," she finished lamely.

The Captain was silent for a moment. He shook himself and said, "I appreciate the thought, but I don't think this is just about me. I'm an excuse. I think President Laswell's an interventionist."

"A what?"

"An interventionist," the human repeated. "It's... hmm." He thought for a moment. "Did you ever wonder why there are so many pirates?"

"Because we haven't killed enough of them, yet?" Yvian guessed.

That elicited a ghost of a smile. "It's economics. The Confed's an Oligarchy. That means a handful of rich families control everything. The government, law enforcement, the media, all that shit. The entire system is designed to protect the rich and funnel money and power to them at the expense of everyone else."

"So it's because people are poor?" Yvian frowned. "I don't know. Pixens are poor, and you don't see a lot of us resorting to piracy."

"You don't see a lot of pixens in space, period," Mims pointed out. "The two of you together scrimped and saved your whole lives, and barely managed to get your hands on a klunker with no shields. That's why most of you are prostitutes."