Antares autotune torrent

I just upgraded from autotune 8 to autotune 11. A lot of things seem improved, but I have noticed when I am in graph mode and I have a key set, it still lets me drag notes out of key.
I do NOT want this, I do not want to have to thing about what notes are in key when I am fine tuning the manual correction, I just want to be able to drag notes up and down and have them snap in key. Is there a setting to change this? This didnt happen in autotune 8...
edit: Turns out this is a bug and only happens when you are in a Minor scale(it acts like it is in chromatic). I contacted antares support about this so hopefully they fix it

I just upgraded from autotune 8 to autotune 11. A lot of things seem improved, but I have noticed when I am in graph mode and I have a key set, it still lets me drag notes out of key.
I do NOT want this, I do not want to have to thing about what notes are in key when I am fine tuning the manual correction, I just want to be able to drag notes up and down and have them snap in key. Is there a setting to change this? This didnt happen in autotune 8...
Edit: After hours of troubleshooting and watching videos, i pinpointed this to being a bug whenever you have it set to a Minor key. I reported through Antares support so hopefully they fix this

Mac Pro Specs
Windows machine specs
I have a 2013 Mac pro(the trash can desktop) I used for several years, and a 2022 Razer Laptop running windows 11.
Ive been having slow rendering speeds with the Windows machine, hitting between 1.3 x rendering speeds with antares autotune 8, depending on whether I am using auto vs graph mode(manual correction).
I dont make music as much nowadays, but I dont remember rendering taking so long, so I brought out the good old trash can mac. Well, the mac pro is getting 2.3-5.0x rendering speeds. Clearly performing better.
So my question is, how can I troubleshoot or resolve these poor rendering speeds on my windows machine? I would expect a 10 years old newer machine to perform better than a dinosaur, despite how great this machine once was. Is the old version of autotune bottlenecking my rendering speeds?
Windows pro tools version: 2021.12.0
Edit: I can provide any more information that might be relevant, but I also don’t want to flood this post with irrelevant information
Edit: I upgraded to autotune 11 but whenever I open more than 4 instances, my pro tools session crashes 😭. The rendering speed IS faster, I just wish I could have a smooth experience like back in the day

Do they sound exactly the same?
I'm a rapper in the beginning stage. I want to buy Autotune to record songs at home. I'm not good at mixing and I don't need a Graph Mode. I just want to create music at home that sounds decent enough to be released.
Which Autotune do rappers like Juice Wrld, Future, Lil Uzi Vert use when they not in a professional music studio?

Antares Auto-Tune Pro Crack is a professional-grade pitch correction software widely used in music production. It allows for precise adjustment of vocal and instrumental pitches, offering real-time tuning and advanced features like formant correction.

There are so damn many Antares plugins, and I read a lot of them are not being updated. It gets a little confusing, so:
1) What is the Antares plugin that is their version of Little Alterboy's Quantize mode? You know, the audible real-time pitch-correction (that doesn't go near as far as a vocoder would). Is it just one of the Autotune versions? And if so, would I need the Pro version? I am not interested in additional fx like compression, chorus, delay, etc. (though having them included is not a dealbreaker). And I know I could probably get the vocoder + then turn off the vocoding, but that's way too much just for this simple effect.
2) I see that people like Kanye and Frank Ocean use Harmony Engine for some of their sound. I would have thought Antares Vocodist option would be the go-to here for such faux layers + harmonies... So what are the main differences between these? They seem like they'd share a lot of similar capabilities. Is Vocodist just not being updated anymore?
Thank you!

I've tried antares, waves tune, and heard of metatune. I know all of these can sound robotic at low retune speed but what is the absolute most robotic sounding autotune out there? I just love that sound

I use Ableton to perform surreal, live experimental autotuned vocals, but have recently resorted to lip-syncing because, while I can perform my vocals, the feedback at live gigs is just unworkable. My vocals are heavily compressed / limited by Ableton’s native devices. While I would remove this if I were a more talented singer, this is also a central part of the surreal style of the music. I can see that this compression is probably the main thing causing the feedback, as it is bringing the background elements up, so past a certain point, there’s no question of me being able to gate out the ambient noise from the room.
However, I wondered if there was some other way to mitigate the feedback, while keeping their same hyper-compressed character? For example, my effects chain is currently all in the box, including the autotune (Antares). I would ideally like to use a headset mic to perform so that I’m freer to play other instruments. I have both a cardioid headset mic and a dynamic handheld mic, and there doesn’t seem to be much difference in feedback between them.
So, beyond the usual solution of speaker placement (sacrificing booth monitors and using IEMs, for example, or not playing at venues with bad speaker positioning), I’m wondering if any of these would help mitigate feedback:
TL;DR:

• Outboarding some of the effects, i.e. getting a hardware compressor and/or autotune unit. Does hardware have a better rep for preventing feedback?
  
• Finding a much better, more expensive cardioid headset mic. Is there that much of a marked difference between headset mics for preventing feedback?
  

Or is this *just* a case of speaker positioning? Thx ✌️

Gravediggers. Corpse Grinders. Skull Takers. Every unit that shared his profession had a name that was like that. As Corporal Brandy floated silently, his body suspended in a dense salt water based solution alongside eleven of his peers, he once again thought how he liked the name of his unit the best. Ghouls. His arms were stretched out, as were his legs, secured to four corners of the hull leaving him splayed open. His wrists were tethered, his ankles were tethered, all to keep him from drifting. The water was cold, felt even through the suit even though it didn’t touch him. It was only appropriate they called vessels like the one he was in Coffins. It was long, with seven feet between floor and ceiling when one could stand in it.
The patch of his unit was a zombified corpse, walking towards the one viewing it, with their arm outstretched, a large 17 behind the shambling figure. It was laser etched on the left shoulder guard of his SVS51 body suit, the symbol of the Terran Front of laser etched on the right. Right now, Brandy knew he was flying through the void, heading towards the wreck of a Vral Light Cruiser, his unit’s speciality. A countdown on the upper left corner of his vision was reaching the single digits. No one talked, not even the squad leader. Not even command. Brandy liked it like that. He had been selected for special operations early on in his life, as most operators were. Sure, you could volunteer to join if you joined the Fleet and decided to test yourself, but most humans were already training for something like this by the age of thirteen. Jesup, one of his squadmates, he was a joiner, one that had volunteered when he was signing up. Brandy though? Brandy was a lifer.
Lifers like him were singled out in school and made aware of their tentative selection. Lifers were trained harder, tested harder. No one really minded Jesup not going through what they had been through, but it did mark him out. Hence the term, but lifers and joiners all got the same specialized training. Five seconds left. Brandy knew his job well, knew the layout of the ship well. Four seconds. Brandy clenched his fists. He felt the liquid shift, knowing their craft had hit the hull. Suddenly he was free of his constraints, floating free in the dense salt water. There was a bright light from the front of the craft, the plasma torches already burning into the Vral light cruiser hull. Three seconds. The dense salt water solution suddenly was sucked into the floor, drawing him down. He tapped his heels together, hearing an automated voice call out ‘Maglocks Engaged’, just before his feet touched the deck. He was already yanking the protective cover off of his rifle, slinging it back over his back. Two seconds. Those in the front of the line had their rifles up and ready. Brandy on the other hand, reached to his sides and drew out two long blades from sheathes locked to his thighs.
One.
He felt the compression in his chest as the breaching charge detonated, and the segmented doors of the Coffin opened. The first four Ghouls entered, no shots fired as they cleared the room. He heard a soft whisper saying, “Depressurized.” The entire deck was without atmosphere. Brandy looked to his left, and nodded once. Jesup nodded back. The pair in front of them sprinted out. Jessup and Brandy sprinted out immediately after them, Brandy drawing his blades. The interior of the Vral ship was a dismal place, and within just seconds Brandy knew what kept their grav plates powered was already down. The difference in design priorities from the Vral to the Terran Front could be seen even from the hallway they were running down. The Terran Front fleet was designed to maximize the space they had, to deliver the most punch possible for the weight class the ship in question could hit with. The chua had lent their practicality to that level of ship design. It was why the standard Terran corvette could fight completely out of it’s weight class. Brandy knew that the standard Terran corvette was more than a match for any variety of Vral destroyer, it was even said that a light cruiser would have to go blow for blow with one.
Most who heard that wouldn’t understand until they saw what Brandy was seeing now. Terran hallways were built narrow, the space an artery for personnel to move through in a very direct way. The ceilings would be laced with piping and joists, covered by protective layers of material just in case an impact threw the crew against the ceiling. Standing shoulder to shoulder, even battleship halls on Terran ships only allowed two large humans to stand shoulder to shoulder and extend their elbows halfway to touch the walls. This hallway was broad, four, no, five times the width. You would never see such a waste of space onboard a Terran fighting ship. The only exceptions to this were the larger logistics ships, the carriers, and the Antares herself. Terran ship tonnage was dedicated purely to what the ship in question was made to do. Vral ships, on the other hand, seemed to be built to not just fight space conflicts, but carry the troops for ground assault. The Vral sacrificed tonnage meant for fighting for transport. They did not have dedicated troop ships, or even dedicated logistics ships.
Brandy guessed it made sense when you never had to worry about someone being able to really hit back.
The map of the light cruiser was laid out in wireframe in the upper right of his HUD, a pulsing arrow pointing his way. As they reached the first door it was clear that whatever powered the lights also powered the doors in this section. He sheathed the blades and raised his rifle as Jessup pulled his breach bar. A moment later Jessup applied the handheld pneumatic and nodded once to Brandy, who gave an almost imperceptible nod back. Jesseup pressed an activation stud, and Brandy breathed out as the door began to open. A brief glimpse of chitin was all it took for Brandy to immediately put two shells through the door, the only audible evidence of the shots being two ticks from the recoil traveling along his armor plate. .
“Contact.” Brandy whispered even as the shells tore through the Vral floating behind the door. The Vral flew away from the impact as the door opened further, revealing more Vral, all floating, all already dead. “KIA Vral.” He whispered into the mic within his helmet. A small tone let him know his information was received. Brandy and Jessup moved into the hallway and saw why the Vral were all already dead. There was a gash in the hull almost three meters long and a meter wide. The deck had been exposed to the vacuum, and judging by the hole further down the hall which Brandy glanced through as they passed, a railgun round from a cruiser had lanced straight through the entire hull. Brandy slung his rifle and began the halting half run, half jog of moving quickly on magnetized boots. Brandy cleared an adjoining hallway before looking back to the door. The Vral dead were everywhere, floating in the vacuum, and Brandy kept having to shove the floating corpses aside as he moved. The dead didn’t stop him. They didn’t stop Jessup either.
Jessup was already setting the breacher, and Brandy’s rifle was unslung and readied. As this door opened a forcefield came to life in front of it, and a sliver of light began to show through. Brandy’s thumb flipped his rifle from semi-automatic to full. He didn’t need to speak, Jessup was already pulling his own rifle. As the door was suddenly shoved open by the pneumatic Brandy’s entire body snapped forward. The Vral that was standing by the door, who had even watched it open, made it clear that the Vral didn’t even know they had been boarded. Brandy’s rifle butt slammed into the head of the Vral, and sound returned as he moved fully through the forcefield meant to keep atmospheric integrity but not keep him out. Beyond it, Brandy saw at least twenty milling around. A damage control team. The Vral turned to the sound of one of their own skulls caving in, chitin cracking, just to see Brandy’s barrel come down. He was already moving left to give Jessup room to enter, as he squeezed the trigger. Chitin and ichor erupted, the Vral leapt at the sound, some freezing in place, some charging. Jessup came around the corner, raising his rifle, taking single shots at individual Vral who reached for weapons even as Brandy’s fully automatic spray swept the hall. Brandy was the scythe, Jessup was the surgeon.
Brandy’s ammo counter quickly was cycling down, but he hadn’t been simply praying and spraying. As his counter read zero the last of the Vral was spasming violently on the floor. He thumbed the magazine release, the hand on his grip already having reached for his right hip to draw up a fresh magazine even as the empty one slid out and began falling to the floor. “I’m close.” He said. He slammed the new magazine into the rifle, racked the slide, then slid it behind his back. He drew his blades, then began to sprint.
“I’m far.” Jessup began sprinting behind him.
The next set of doors opened automatically this time, but to a familiar scene, but the Vral were already aware of them due to Brandy having firmly announced their presence in the previous hall. Brandy never stopped his full sprint, carving through the Vral with the edges of his monomolecular blades. Every so often a shot rang out, taking one of the Vral down just out of Brandy’s reach or one that was pulling up a weapon. Brandy used the suit’s speed and strength enhancements to their fullest, barely slowing as he tore through the group, both blades cutting. Suddenly he heard the retort of full auto and spun to decapitate one of the remaining Vral to look as Jessup was emptying his magazine into an open door. Brandy let both blades drop, popping his hip to the side and curling his waist, letting the weight of his rifle carry it around his body into his hands. As the Vral tried to come into the hall they were cut down, caught in a fatal funnel of fire by their own hatchway.
“Reload.” Jessup said, tucking himself back against the wall. “Control, need sweepers. My location.” A tone was the only reply to Jessup’s words. Twelve men, organized into six teams. That was the boarding party. Each had a part to play, and as Jessup made the call for sweepers Brandy was already preparing to move. As Jessup slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle Brandy was still covering the door. The other doors in the hall remained closed. Jessup reached to a small bandolier of grenades and pulled one of the X-04 flashbangs, throwing it hard through the door against the opposing wall. A second later a dull pop sounded. Brandy and Jessup continued their run, but now both had slung their rifles. Both had blades out.
Following the skeleton map on his HUD, Brandy led the way through the next door to find the hallway empty. He didn’t mind that state of affairs at all. A dull klaxon began to sound throughout the crippled ship, and neither Brandy nor Jessup needed to be told twice that the Vral were now more than aware they had been boarded. Brandy turned down a corridor, instinctively lashing out and taking the head off a Vral had been moving towards him. “Breaching bridge.” He said into his microphone, hearing the tone of acknowledgement from Control as he saw the large bay doors that marked the command and control center of the Vral vessel they intended to take. He sheathed a blade as he came to a stop beside the bay door, out of range of the motion sensor that would open it automatically. Jessup was right behind him, freeing a hand of his own. They both reached up, yanking X-04 grenades off their pins banded to their armor. Brandy and Jessup looked at each other and nodded. As Brandy kicked out his foot to trigger the motion sensor, the door slid open. A torrent of laser fire erupted from the doorway, painting the floor and wall beyond. Brandy snapped his arm around, exposing only his hand as he threw the flashbang around the corner. Jessup’s own flashbang flew past Brandy towards the other side of the room. They both immediately pulled a second, even as the first detonated in the room beyond. Almost instantly the weapon’s fire stopped, and wails of chittering echoed into the hallway. They threw the second set of flashbangs into the door.
As the second pair of dull crunches sounded, Brandy and Jessup breached the bridge. The bridge was arrayed like a bowl, stations arranged orbiting a center divot in the deck where the captain would stand. None of the Vral in the room were standing. While flashbangs disoriented humans, essentially stunning them into stupfication, the same flashbangs had even more pronounced effects on the Vral. Most of them were simply laid out on the ground, completely insensate, and screaming incoherently in their chittering tones. Brandy and Jessup had entered having expected at least one of them to have donned protection, perhaps even a warsuit, but their boarding had caught the Vral completely by surprise. Jessup turned to the door, tapping the control panel and closing, then locking it. Brandy had already begun moving from station to station. Jessup joined him as they quickly and methodically dispatched the crew. Brandy turned and moved down into the captain’s pit, coming to the Vral that had commanded the ship.
“Attempting to access.” Jessup said, stepping to one of the panels even as Brandy reached the side of the Vral commander. Brandy watched dispassionately as the Vral’s body curled and spasmed on the ground. Without replying to Jessup, Brandy was already securing the commander. He flipped the commander over on it’s back, yanking it’s limbs together and zip tying them together.
“Control. Commander secured alive. Bridge secured.” Brandy said, and he glanced over to Jessup. Jessup looked over to him and grinned, his teeth showing through the dark tint of the armored glass of his helmet. A tone of acknowledgement came into his helmet. Brandy moved to the panels, just as Jessup was moving. “Anything yet?” He asked, letting his suit’s speakers carry his voice.
Jessup moved to another panel. “Nope. Wiped.” He said.
Brandy brought the panel to live and was already moving on, and cursed silently under his breath. Several times teams like his had breached the bridge of a Vral ship only to find what they were finding now, wiped computer cores, dead panels. Brandy continued to move panel to panel, as did Jessup, moving up the bowl. Brandy heard Jessup muttering as he went, his voice carrying because of the speakers in his suit. Brandy glanced up at the other man, then continued with his work.
“Doesn’t make any sense. We still know nothing about these bastards. Nothing.” Jessup said as he was working on the last panel on the row he was on. “Aside from the fact they melt their cores down really well.” Brandy smirked behind the tinted glass of his helmet as Jessup balled up a fist. Jessup moved up a row, then started work on another panel. “I’m beginning to think the only thing they exist for is to piss off the universe.”
Brandy couldn’t argue with that, and Jessup stopped his grumbling, continuing to check the panels.
“Control, Sweep Two is down. I repeat. Sweep Two is down.” Brandy stopped in his checks and looked up, the voice of Talb in his ear from possibly the same location he had called for sweepers to come in. He hadn’t heard a call for sweepers from anywhere else.
“That’s Vlad.” Jessup said, his voice flat, having paused himself to listen in.
“Confirm.” A woman’s voice hit Brandy’s ear, and Jessup began walking across the bowl towards him. Brandy settled his hands on the panel that he had paused midway through working. The woman’s voice keyed back into his ear, their Control, and Brandy listened intently. “Prep Sweep Two for extraction. Sweep Three and Four enroute.”
Jessup reached his side and put his hand on Brandy’s shoulder. The silence in his ears now was deafening, and he knew he should be continuing on, checking the rest of the stations, but he couldn’t move his feet right now. Brandy and Vlad were close, they had gone through basic together, they had gone through Advanced Infantry, as well as Weapons and Tactics, hell, all of their advanced training schools. When orders had come through, they had both been delighted to have twin assignments to the 17th Breacher Corps “Ghouls.” Vlad had met Brandy’s family, his mother, his father, even his ice queen of a sister who was serving as a Drone Cutter pilot. Vlad was his friend, the brother that he had never had, and now Vlad was down, somewhere on this hellhole of a ship, unable to even communicate that he was injured.
Jessup stood by him, saying nothing, and Brandy’s eyes were focused on something far in the distance, something he couldn’t even see right now. Suddenly, like his mind was pulling itself from mud, he forced himself to continue working. Jessup stayed by his side. There was nothing he could do for Vlad right now, nothing at all, and he had work in front of him that needed to be finished. Jessup went back to the stations he was working through. Brandy finished the sweep of the panels on his side. Nothing, as was usual.
He walked down the bowl shape of the Vral bridge, standing next to the Vral commander, who was now very much aware and awake, not struggling as it lay on the floor of the carnal house that was the bridge of it’s ship. He ignored it, placing his hands on the hilts of the twin swords at his sides. Jessup continued his work, a little slower than Brandy was, but then again Jessup was newer than Brandy himself was to this sort of thing. Brandy had already served for nearly eight years, and had done the tear down from the sixth Vral war, alongside Vlad. Brandy grunted and pulled up his arm, opening one of the armor plates to reveal the communications controls for his suit. He set up a private channel to Control.
“Control, BT One. Status of Sweep Two?” He asked, and he heard two clicks in response. He was being transferred to another operator. Brandy felt his entire body tensing up. He didn’t know if being transferred was a good or a bad sign.
“Bridge Team One, this is Secondary. Sweep Two is stable. Sweep One is prepping him for extraction. He took an indirect hit by a plasma round to his left shoulder. His suit took the majority but he’s going to be in the burn unit.”
Brandy breathed out, and then nodded once to himself. “Thank you Secondary.” He heard a tone in response, then he set himself back to team communications. Vlad was alive. That was good enough.
“The void will take you.” He heard the chittering sound translated, and he slowly looked towards the prone form of the commander. Brandy turned and walked over, and purposefully stepped over, the Vral. He then knelt down next to the figure. “You will not survive. We will bathe in your ashes.”
“When.” Brandy said, a dark bit of amusement in his tone. “Come on. When. Daylight’s wasting.”
“The void will take you.” The vral repeated, then went silent again as Brandy stood up and stepped over the commander once more. Jessup was coming down to meet with him in the center of the bowl.
“Good news, Vlad’s going to make it.” Brandy told him, “He’ll be in the burn unit for a bit, don’t know where he got hit, but the suit saved him.”
“Good. What’s the word from the local moral officer?” Jessup said, motioning to the vral, who was laying again in silence.
“Same as normal. We’re gonna die. Void’s gonna take us. Ashes. Dancing on my grave.” Brandy shrugged. “You know, what they normally say, that friendly little conversation.” Brandy could actually feel Jessup’s eyes rolling.
“Control, Bridge Team. Secured and detailed.” Jessup said, and they both heard the click of acknowledgement. “Another two hours maybe?” Jessup asked, and Brandy nodded. “Welp, two today, that makes six boardings for me, how many for you?”
“Fourty.” Brandy replied, and Jessup whistled low. “And that’s just these types. I was actually put on a team as a standby sweep for a battleship or two, but mostly light cruisers. No corvettes or destroyers though. They normally just send the heavies to take those. The cruisers though? Heavy cruisers? Carriers? I’ve done a few of those too, but mostly this.”
Jessup leaned against the back of one of the panels that he had checked. “What kind of team do they send to a carrier?” He asked, and Brandy laughed.
“Put it to you like this. They send units of chua war machines, and what’s called a kill team. They don’t even bother sweeping like we do with these ships, they just punch holes in every room and open them to vacuum, and the kill teams go in to make sure none of them got into a warsuit.” Brandy tapped his chest, “We barely do anything. They just turn the entire ship into swiss cheese then call us in to check panels. Kill teams are just different, but it’s an experience. You don’t get to really do much though. Go in, stay behind the kill team, and check elect…”
Brandy stopped talking and both of them listened as a tone sounded from Control, then they heard her speak. “All objectives secured. Stand by in location. Prepare for tow and extraction.”
The two of them reached out and grabbed hold of a panel, and Brandy looked over at Jessup. “Well, quicker than I thought.” Just as he was finishing that sentence the entire hull seemed to shake, and he felt a small surge of negative g force before his body adjusted. “A lot quicker.”
“What do you think they’ll get out of this?” Jessup asked as he let go of the panel.
“Oh hell.” Brandy said, motioning to the ship they were in. “Three destroyers easy. Maybe a corvette added in. Couple of fighters. Ever seen the reprocessors?” Jessup shrugged at the question and Brandy pointed at him. “When we get back, if you have some downtime, just ask to watch. It’s some impressive shit. I watched one of those crews break down a corvette in two hours.” Jessup raised his eyebrow and Brandy held up two fingers. “Two. No shit. Something like this is going to take them maybe a day, probably less than that. It’s absolute magic.”
“I was raised on the Los Angeles flats.” Jessup said, and it was Brandy’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You know, where they had one of the landfills. They said they used a reprocessor for that too.”
“Yeah, the chua know how to make the most out of everything. Did you know there used to be a floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean?” Brandy placed his hands on the hilts of his blades as Jessup shook his head no. “Yeah, when the chua got set up, first thing they did was clean up all of that. Tons of plastic, centuries of fuck ups, and they fixed it in barely a month. Earth was trashy, real trashy. Now we just reprocess everything.”
“I never looked into how that works.” Jessup said, then laughed when Brandy raised his fingers and wiggled them in the air. “PFM?”
“Yeap. Pure fuckin’ magic. At least that’s how it looks to me.” Brandy sighed, then he motioned to the panels. “We had the technology centuries ago but we just never refined it like the chua did. I asked how it worked and I felt like I was an ape. They felt the same way about our computers the way we feel about their reprocessors though, so I guess it evens out.”
“What do you mean?”
Brandy glanced over at him and smirked, then he motioned to his suit’s right chest pauldron, where his suit’s electronic suite for his HUD was kept. “This here has more processing power than the chua had on one of their battleships. They just didn’t focus on it like we did. The concept of a microprocessor blew their minds. We know how to store a hundred terabytes on a fingernail, they know how to break down a landfill into bars of material.” Jessup leaned back against the panel again and grunted. “Seriously, ask to watch what they do to this thing. They are going to slice it up, put the pieces into the reprocessors, and by tomorrow it’s going to be raw materials. No waste, it’s crazy.”
Brandy turned his head back to the vral laying on the floor, hearing it muttering to itself. He narrowed his eyes for a few moments, listening to the sound of the clicking, then he looked back to Jessup. “Wish that thing would just shut the hell up.” A moment later he said a bit louder, “We get it asshole. The void is coming, it’s going to take us. Ashes, death, suffering. We get it. Shut the hell up.” He pushed himself off the panel and walked to the edge of the bridge nearer to the door. “Non-stop with them.”
Jessup gestured to the commander with his head. “What are we doing with him.”
“Well, he’ll get to tell an interrogation team about the void, bet he’s got a hard on for that.” Brandy replied, then paused and glanced at the upper right of his HUD, seeing a few green dots moving in their direction. “Then they’ll just toss his ass out of an airlock. Ready to go?”
“Yeap.” Jessup pushed up from the panel he was leaning on and joined Brandy near the door and waited as they both watched the dots approaching the door. Brandy reached over and toggled the lock, and the door slid open. Four humans in construction harnesses with atmospheric suits rated for vacuum were just coming to a stop. Behind them Brandy could already see the two other members of the team coming to relieve them.
“Is that Vodka?” One of them said, a hard feminine voice coming from one of the suits. Brandy’s eyebrow perked up, and so did Jessup’s entire body. Both of them knew Janet Shippen’s voice. Janet was what Brandy’s mother would call a feral tomboy. Short, muscled, her brown hair cut in a pixie cut, who felt more at home covered in engine fluid than anything else. She was also what his father would call an absolute knockout. Jessup had met her three times and was in love. Brandy’s relationship with Janet was a private affair, but Jessup wouldn’t find out about it, no sense in breaking his heart after all. Not to mention that Brandy looked at Jessup as a friend.
“How the hell are ya Shipwreck.” Brandy said with a smirk, “I got you a nice one here. I even got you a local to keep you company, ask him about the void. He’ll tell you all you want to hear.” The two figures in the back, clad in all black with no identifying markers, looked to Brandy, who simply pointed towards the vral commander laying on the floor.
“By the way. Ran into Vlad before I came over here.” She said, coming closer to the two Ghouls. “They got him out of his suit before they sent us over. He’s got an ass of a burn on his shoulder, but he said he’s going to be a bitch about it so they’ll give you fuckers some down time.” Brandy smiled, knowing if Vlad was joking around he was more than ok. Janet motioned to the bridge, “Lot of nothing?” She asked, and both of the Ghouls nodded. “Figures. Fuckers.” All three of them watched for a moment as the two black clad humans knelt over the vral commander. “Alright, I’ve got to prep this bitch for breakdown, then I’m done for the day. Salvagers are just putting most of the wrecks in orbit.”
Jessup glanced to Brandy before speaking, “Think they want to move again soon?”
“Bet your ass.” Janet reached for her side and pulled out a data pad. “Way I see it we’re just topping off right now, waiting for some of the boats out there to get their shit together, then they are going to move us out. Speaking of moving out, bounce your asses, I’ve got shit to do so I can get off once we pull back into Antares.”
“Call us a cab?” Brandy asked, using the slang term for the shuttle that had delivered Janet’s team that would take his own back to Antares.
“Yeap. We made entrance right next to where you did.” Janet started moving into the bridge, towards a grouping of panels hard mounted to the wall. She stopped and glanced back at Brandy. “It’s been a hell of a day, almost eighteen hours. I’m going to get a stiff drink in my quarters.”
“You do that. I’m going to check on Vlad and get him settled in before I do anything else.” Brandy said, and she turned and went to the panel. Brandy was glad for the tint of his helmet’s visor or else his smirk would need explaining from Jessup who was none the wiser. Once he went through debrief and turned over his gear already knew what he was going to be doing. Straight to engineering deck C, where Janet would be waiting.
Kukat was miserable, or at least was acting like she was. Vicky was rigidly standing at attention, as was Jess, standing stock still beside Kukat’s bed. The loud exclamation that had brought them to their feet of, “What the chicken fried fuck?!” had come from the man standing in front of them. Vicky wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Jess was trying to keep herself from laughing. Kukat reached out a three fingered hand towards the man wearing a captain’s eagle on his flight jumper, a hand that had two small bow tie stickers on it.
“Torture. Help.” Kukat said, as weak as a newborn kitten, and Jess’s breath escaped her in a buzzing of her lips from someone desperately attempting to keep in her laughter. The small sheet containing bow ties, smiley face, stars, and other cartoonish stickers fell from her hand that was clenched firmly at her side. Kukat was wearing half of them. Captain Yang stared in an expression of one who is seeing something for the first time when they had believed they had seen it all. “Help.” Kukat said again, holding out her other arm which had a line of stars stuck to it all the way down to the back of her hand. Yang slowly brought his fingers up to squeeze the bridge of his nose, and then he turned on his heel and faced away from the trio. Vicky just wanted to die. The captain of the cruiser had visited them a few times in the past three days since they had been brought onboard by the Barrowmore. Kukat had been immediately rushed to start receiving medical care, Victoria Brandy and Jessica Anders had been by her side from the second they were allowed back, barring short periods where either woman needed to file their reports. The problem was, every time Captain Yang had come back to visit them, it was always at the most inopportune time. The first time he had walked in to Jess cuddling the small chua in a bed that was almost a meter too small for her. The second time Vicky had taped Jess’ hands and feet to her chair. The third time Jess had been singing a nursery rhyme to Kukat. Each time Yang had walked in, Vicky had felt like crawling in a hole, Jess had desperately tried not to laugh, and Kukat had acted like a prisoner of war. Vicky was getting the feeling the captain was enjoying these trips down to see her and her crew.
“Can someone explain to me why the three pilots that I’m supposed to award the Terran Star to are acting like toddlers in my medbay?” He said, then he turned back to face them. Vicky didn’t want to die anymore. Jess stopped laughing. Kukat’s hands fell to the heated blanket that covered her. All three of them were to awarded the highest honor in the Terran Fleet. Now it was the captain’s turn to laugh as he stepped forward and grabbed Vicky’s hand, which almost knocked her off balance as he began vigorously shaking it. “Congratulations.”
Vicky stared at him for a few long moments, trying to parse through the entire scenario in her head. None of them had paid much attention to news outside of the medbay, Vicky had barely even been back onboard the Thumper aside from downloading nav data to be included in her flight logs. “Captain…” She said, sounding to even her own ears a bit disjointed, “What did we find out there.”
“First off at ease.” Yang said, then he smirked as Jess began to self consciously pluck the stickers off of Kukat, her eyes on him, he turned his attention to her. “Your flight records and the reserve drone data is being sent back to Earth to be implemented into training.” His attention turned to all of them in turn. “You really don’t know do you?” All three shook their heads, and Vicky took a step back to stand side by side with her crew.
“We haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been coming in.” Vicky said, and she placed her hand on Kukat’s medical bed. Yang nodded, understanding. This crew was a very tight group, and he could see that even from the small amount of time he had been around them.
“You scouted out the entire Vral fleet, they were evacuating. I don’t think they expected us to move as fast as we did on them, so when we jumped into the system they were barely organized into battlelines.” Yang interlocked his fingers in front of his belt. “Because of what you got on those scans, we knew exactly what we were jumping into. We knew exactly what we would do the moment we landed and…” He paused for a moment, letting his words stand out. “... we eradicated their entire fleet.” Vicky looked to Jess. Jess’s mouth hung slightly open.
“I knew it was a fleet!” Jess said after a moment. When she had been asked by Vicky a few hours after they had gotten Kukat settled, Jess had insisted she had been trying to evade fire from point defense and laser batteries from at least twelve ships. What she didn’t know, and what would be reflected on the citation for the award she was yet to receive, was that she had been evading around thirty individual vessels weapons fire.
“Not a fleet.” Yang said, and Jess looked back to him. “It was ‘The’ fleet.” Jess looked at him in confusion for a few seconds, as did Vicky.
“Shit!” Kukat chirped, and all three humans looked down at the small, sticker covered chua. Kukat’s mouth hung open slightly. Jess looked up to Vicky, and both seemed to realize what was said at the same time. Jess’ hand shot to her mouth, covering it, her eyes wide as Vicky stepped back to lean against the wall.
Yang waited a few moments then stepped forward. “Well, I hope you three are ready.” He said as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Drone Cutters are supposed to cut and run the second they get in trouble. You three…” He motioned to them with a wave of his hand. “... you stuck around, and because you did, you handed us everything we needed to go after them.” Jess’ hand came down on Kukat’s small shoulder, and one of the smiley face stickers peeled off as Kukat wrapped her hand around Jess’ pointer finger. Vicky slowly pressed her back against the wall and started sliding down it. “Basically, to be blunt, now that this has broken, every news feed in the Terran Front wants pictures of you, details on your status…” He motioned to Kukut. “... and to be honest I’ve had to keep them from taking over the ship to get to you.”
Jess and Vicky exchanged a glance, and then looked back to Yang. Kukat had not looked away from him even for a moment. Yang shrugged his shoulders and turned to the display panel on the wall, and activated it. He tapped the panel for a few moments, then the sounds of cheering came through. On the display was a live news feed, and they could hear the reporter’s voice barely above the cacophony of the crowd around her.
“... action. The news of the destruction of the fleet has sparked widespread celebrations of joy. The foot of the enemy that we have all felt over us has been cut off. Thermopylae Station, for the first time in nearly a century, is standing down from Condition One to Condition Three.” The reporter was almost shouting, and Vicky breathed out, even as she heard a low tone from Kukat, and a sob coming from Jess. Yang had his back turned to them watching, and without saying another word he turned and walked out. “Once Condition Three was set at Thermopylae, the information began to pour in from the Zzisma system as well as the planet Zvitia located there. Fleet Marshal Simmons of the Antares battle fleet will be continuing to press into former Shesvie Accordance territory once consolidation is completed.” The reporter paused, the moment she had said Antares a chant had begun, and it was overwhelming. The thunder of uncountable human voices yelling, ‘We’re Still Here’ drowned her out entirely. The reporter eventually just held up her hands helplessly as the chant overwhelmed the microphone’s input threshold, turning the people’s chanting into a dull roar. The feed cut over to an image of man behind a news desk, the ticker at the bottom of the screen citing off ship names.
“Again if you’re just joining us the Vral have been soundly beaten in the Zzisma system. The enemy’s losses have been stated as total. Fleet Marshal Simmons, commander of the Antares battlegroup, will be holding a press conference at a later date to discuss the events of today, but has released a few names to us as well as their roles within the conflict.” Jess, Vicky’s, and Kukat’s individual service portraits slowly appeared on the screen while the reporter spoke.
“Holy shit.” Jess whispered. “That’s us.” Vicky stared at the screen, even as Kukat squeezed Jess’ finge
“Lieutenant Victoria Brandy, Drone Operator Second Class Jessica Anders, and Drone Operator Third Class Kukat were conducting a routine drone sweep of the Zzisma system when they sighted the Vral. The three managed to gain enough intelligence to warrant the immediate redeployment of the Antares battlegroup which had been in rescue and recovery efforts above the chua homeworld.” Vicky just stared at the man as he continued talking on the display. “From the feeds that we have managed to confirm, the crew of the scout ship stayed while exposed and under threat and under fire until such time as the information was confirmed transmitted. All three of the scout’s crew made it back safely, although Drone Operator Third Class Kukat was reported as needing medical attention, the reasons of which are unknown, but it is reported that she is in stable condition.” Their portraits fell away from the screen as another image came up, of a chua in a captain’s uniform came up, grayed out.
Vicky just stared at the screen, Jess breathed out a breath that she didn’t even know she had been holding. Kukat leaned back into her pillow.
“We famous.” Kukat chirped.
The news reporter was still speaking, something about a battleship that had engaged the Vral, some new story of heroism. The three of them sat in silence. Vicky wanted to look to Kukat and Jess, but both of them were quiet. Suddenly Vicky and Kukat flinched as Jess erupted out of her seat. “Yeah! That’s right! What do you think now Rick?” Jess said her ex-boyfriends name with vitriol. “Who’s not photogenic now huh? Galaxy wide baby!” She whooped and Kukat stared up at her in amazement as Vicky buried her head in her hands and laughed.
“You problem.” Kukat chirped low.
“I told you you suck at picking men Kukat!” Jess proclaimed. “You still suck Rick!”

It was so quiet now.
The world had been ending for hours. Sounds of weapons fire, sounds of some alien language being shouted. Her broodnest was a small steel box with no windows, and she dared not open the door. Around her back legs, her younglings cowered. Her mate lay on his sleeping mat, unable to rise. Bandages covered his legs, his short quill like feathers stripped bare showing scars along his form from beatings that had taken place over the course of his life. They had never beaten her like that. The Overseers didn’t do that, not in a long time. To the Overseers, it wasn’t enough to simply hurt you, it simply wasn’t their way. Long ago they had realized how females of her species were supposed to defend their mate and their brood, how it was more than just an instinctual need. To her people, the female protective instinct was more than just a matter of survival, it was a deep and intense matter of integrity.
When the Overseers found this out, they took particular delight in it. Originally, when they wanted to prove a point, or when they wanted to just alleviate what seemed to be sheer boredom, they would come in and attack the females. Many elder matriarchs bore those scars with pride, but there was also the shame. When the Overseers finally figured out why the females would stand up and take the beatings, everything changed. That was why her mate was barely able to move, covered in bandages, his small beak slightly open and his body twitching every so often. A group of Overseers, for reasons she didn’t know if there was even a reason at all, had come into their home five days ago. She had been shocked into near unconsciousness, and her entire family had been dragged into the street. There, in front of any who would watch, they pinned her to the ground and made her watch them savagely beat her mate. The Overseers had struck his legs repeatedly until they had given out, and then set on him with the thick rods that she and her people simply called the Rods. It was a cruel thing, the Rods. They were built to bludgeon, but not break. Lacerate but not gash, they were meant to hurt but not kill. She was glad that her younglings were not home, still out in the field and working. They would have gladly expanded it to her young. Her neck still felt the weight of the Overseer’s leg pressed down on it even now. They had been coming more and more into the Slave Quarter recently, especially for the humans. The chua were lucky enough to be small enough to simply hide away.
She had seen the humans dragged into the street so many times in the last week it had actually begun to alarm her. What was worse was what they had done to them. What had happened to her and her mate, she knew, was mostly for entertainment. What they had done to the humans? It appeared very personal. She admired the humans even though she had never spoken to one, but what she knew of them, they were hard workers and very driven.To be caught trying to communicate with another species merited a death that was so horrifying the first time she had seen it she had never once thought to even look at a human or chua besides brief glances or observing from a distance. The last week, the Overseers had been dragging the humans into the street almost hourly. The beatings that she had seen issued to her had come with the mocking laughter of the Overseers. The beatings given to the humans? Screeching, shrieking, or just silence. They would see one of the bipedal mammals, descend on them like locusts, and leave them broken and bleeding on the ground.
Then this morning, it had started. The sounds of weapons she had never heard in the streets, the distant bloom of explosions. Things falling like meteors from the sky. She had pulled her brood back into her broodnest and she didn’t dare step outside again. She didn’t even know what time of the day it was.
“Yidora.” She heard a weak rasp behind her, and she usher her younglings closer to her mate.
“Quolovar.” She warbled back, and watched as he gestured with his beak to the door. Without a word she pushed her brood behind her body and put herself between her younglings, her mate, and the door itself. Males of her species had much better hearing, the better to care for the quiet younglings, but she? She possessed the physical might. She went down to all fours, her thick neck lowered with her beak close to the ground, her haunches raised. Her feathers were raised in a threat display. A few seconds later she heard the soft impacts of footfalls, human by the sound of them. Her feathers relaxed a bit, but remained slightly raised. Why was a human coming here.
When the door opened the first thing she noticed was the rifle, and the height of the figure in the doorway. The rifle, pointed at her, fell only a moment after the door had been opened. The body armor it wore was black, and bore several scars along it’s arms and torso. The helmet was clean, but just underneath the helmet it was sprayed with ichor, ichor Yidora knew very well belonged to the Overseers. He raised his hand to her, palm held up, and she heard what could only be human speech, a low rolling sound with staccato clips. She understood none of it. She completely lowered her feathers, and suddenly felt a pang inside her chest, something she had only felt when one of her younglings had turned the corner on a fever years ago. The human began speaking again, but again nothing made sense. She suddenly heard more footfalls, this time sounding more fleshy. A small brown chua in loose rags padded around the human’s leg and chirped at the armored figure, and the human spoke again. The chua responded with a series of chirps, then looked from the human to Yidora. He padded closer on his small webbed feet, holding a small device in his hands. She kept her eyes on the human for a few more moments, then looked to the small chua once more, eye level with him as she was hunched so low to the ground.
The chua held up the smooth cylinder, then turned his head and pointed directly behind his ear cavity. She could see a small drop of green blood where something had been injected. She glanced back to the human who was leaning his rifle against the wall of her broodnest. As she looked to the chua once more, the chua simply pointed back to the human. She heard a hiss and her eyes darted back to the human, and she could see the release of gas around the human’s helmet. As he pulled it off, she noticed his hair was cut close to his scalp, a strange thing the humans did. He had hard eyes, a predator’s eyes, but she could tell just by the way he was looking at her that while he may be a hunter and a killer she was not his prey. He turned his head, leaning forward slowly and pulling forward on a fleshing bit near what she could only guess was his own ear canal. A small scar was present, at about the same distance as the fresh mark of the chua’s.
Yidora almost wanted to cry out. She thought she knew what this meant. She hoped she was right, she looked to the chua and turned her head away from him. He padded close and held the cylinder device against her head, gently brushing the soft down around her head until she reached up and drew the downy feathers from her ear canal. He moved it slowly over, then looked to the human, who spoke a short bark. She felt a sudden sting but didn’t move, setting a proper example for her brood. She blinked a few times, then looked to the chua, who then looked to the human. The hard eyes seemed to swallow her, and she suddenly realized he was curious. He opened his mouth, his smooth vocalizations coming for…
“Can you understand me.” His vocalizations came into her ear with his tone, but the warbles of her people filled her ears. “If you can understand me, blink your eyes twice.” Yidora blinked her eyes twice at the human, marveling at this. His mouth didn’t move like her beak but she understood him all the same. She raised off of her haunches and slowly raised to stand on two legs once again. “Are you hurt?” The human asked, motioning to her mate, who the chua was already kneeling over. She saw her mate’s eyes pinch shut once, then open once more.
Yidora looked between the human and her mate, “Yes.” She said, drawing out the word.
She watched the human’s expression as he began speaking again, leaning towards a small receiver that was bonded to his armor, just below his mouth. He picked up his helmet and placed the open end near his head. “Control, this is Seven. I have encountered a shesvie family group. Mark my location. Medical check required.” She canted her head to the side as she heard a short acknowledgement come through the helmet. “What is your name? I am Sergeant Hakuri Watanabe of the Terran Front.”
She listened to his name, then slowly, she lifted her clawed forelimbs to opened them, palms facing away, claws facing away, in what she knew to be a symbol of non-aggression. “I am Yidora, Kidishi, Matriarch.” Her grand matriarch had told her once, how her people had once introduced themselves by name, by clade, and by standing, and to stand like this when welcoming an outsider. She had only done it twice before. Once to an Overseer, who had beaten her for it, and once to Quolovar. Each time her standing had been different. She saw the eyebrows of the human raise slightly, his eyes glancing to the chua, who nodded once at him.
“Control. Match confirmed.” The human sergeant said softly into the transmitter, leaning his head forward. “Please advise.” Yidora blinked once, then felt her feathers along her back begin to rise slowly. The human raised his helmet to his ear again, and listened intently as a voice came through his helmet. Whoever was talking was speaking fast, but too low for her to hear. She heard Quolovar’s breath hitch in his chest, and she looked down at him. His flank quills were twitching happily, his eyes fixated on her. Pure joy, but she didn’t know why. For not the first time, she wished she had his hearing.
“What did they say Quolovar, could you understand them?” She asked. She looked between her mate and the human.
“Let him say it.” Quolovar said, and his clawed forelimb lightly tapped her leg. “You’ll want to hear this from him.” She turned her gaze from her mate and settled back on the human. Hakuri did not move, looking at her as he gave short acknowledgements in between a series of instructions too low for her to hear. After one more acknowledgement he reached down and opened a hidden panel on his left forearm, she couldn’t tell what he did, but a moment later she knew.
“Sargeant we are hearing you on Antares.” She heard a woman’s voice, stern yet passionate, through the helmet’s speakers. This time there was no problem understanding the words.
“Understood Fleet Marshal.” Hakuri said, never taking his eyes off of Yidora as he stepped closer. Her forelimbs came down to her sides, and she was surprised as he stopped about two paces away, and slowly knelt in front of her. “Yidora Kidishi Matriarch.” He said, and she was so taken aback that she didn’t bother correcting him. “You are the first of the Kidishi line to be liberated from the Vral.” She blinked at him, wondering what a Vral even was, and what her clade was being brought up for.
“I am?” She asked, then she looked back to her mate, who motioned with his head back to the human.
“Your clade name, Kidishi, was invented. Your true clan name was Kellandro, which was the ruling clade of the Shesvie.” The human said, and she blinked. “It is my duty to inform you that in accordance with the last government of the Shesvie, and with respect to that same, you are the current defacto head of state of the Shesvie Accordance.” Yidora blinked again, then looked down at her mate.
“What.” Yidora said, and her mate clicked his beak together, a sign of approval. Yidora looked back to the human, who was kneeling in front of her still. “What are you even talking about.” She didn’t know what to expect during the assault. The world is cruel to those who have no power, and she had none at all. They could have been dragged off to labor under harsher chains, they could have been killed outright. Liberated? That she hadn’t even really begun to process, and now this? The clade Kellandro was extinct. The Overseers had wiped them out, ages ago. The human kneeling in front of her just looked up at her, saying nothing. The helmet was silent. “What are you talking about?” She asked again.
“You are, as of today, until such time as you and your people see fit, the defacto leader of the Shesvie.” Hakuri said, and then motioned to her. “We are asking you to take up leadership, until either a senior member of your clade is found, or a new form of government is decided on.” Yidora’s head was swimming, and she took a step back from the human.
“No.” She said, remembering how the Overseers had treated her, what they had done, the humiliation and the shame. Now she was being told this. Were the humans any different? “I’m no figurehead and I won’t be your collaborator. I won’t do this.” Yidora felt a squeeze on her ankle, and looked down to her mate, who once more clicked his beak. She wasn’t swayed as she looked back to the human, glancing to the rifle leaning against the doorway. “The Overseers…”
“Are dead.” The human cut her off. “And they were called the Vral. Your people have spent five of your generations as slaves to them.” Yidora looked from the rifle to the human once more. “There are more of them out there, and more of your people. We are not asking you to be a figurehead, or a collaborator.” He glanced towards his helmet, seeming as if he wished someone else was doing this, he looked back to her. “We are asking if you will speak for your people, until your people decide what they wish to do.”
“What we wish to do?” Yidora asked.
“Yes.” The human said.
“What does that even mean.” She whispered, and for a second she felt the enormity of that word, freedom, what it meant. She had worked at the Overseer’s demands her entire life, under constant watch, under constant lash. The concept of that not being the case was completely foreign. The human was silent.
“It means you have work to do.” The woman’s voice came from the helmet. “Your people will be brought to you. You must speak to them, they must speak through you, for now. Until you either appoint a new leader, or decide to continue, we need you.”
“Can she hear me?” Yidora asked, and the human nodded. “Who are you?” She asked, speaking a bit louder.
“Fleet Marshal Simmons, Terran Front Navy. You are Yidora Kellendro Matriarch Primus.” The voice said, and Yidora’s eyes widened, hearing a title that she had only heard old ones speak about. “I know this is sudden, but I need you to accept this. Have you ever thought about what would happen if your people were freed?” The woman’s voice came through the helmet clearly, and even though she paused Yidora knew she wasn’t done speaking. “Well, so far, every Shevise we’ve spoken to has asked if a Kellendro had been found.”
The human kneeling in front of her was silent, Yidora was silent, silent because she knew that Simmons was right. The first thing she would have asked, if she had had the time to really ask, was if a member of the Kellendro clade had been found. “I… I will not be a collaborator if that’s what you are wanting.”
“Far from it.” The woman’s voice came from the helmet speakers. “The last thing we want to do is subsume your people against their wishes. For now, we need to get your people organized and established, and that’s going to take work. It’s going to take a lot of work. If you tell me no, then I’ll order the Sargeant to keep quiet about who you are, and that will be that. We’ll figure something out in the meantime, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be up to your people what they want to do. We’re just asking you to be a part of that in the way your own people want.”
The voice went quiet, the chua standing nearby was silent. Everyone was silent. Yidora looked down at the helmet. Her mind was a torrent of thoughts, but after a few moments she felt her mate’s hand on her ankle. She looked down at him. “I told you you were a queen.” He said, and tittered weakly in amusement. She rolled her feathers, and sighed. “You can do it.” He said, and he took his hand off her ankle.
“I can.” She said, then she looked back to the human kneeling in front of her. “I will.”
“I look forward to meeting you in person.” The voice that called herself Simmons said from the inside of the helmet.
In the vacuum of space, Simmons smiled to herself, then she looked to Petty Officer Hazard. “Seven, you are to remain at her side until the medical teams arrive. As soon as they are able, call for a shuttle. I need to meet with her and go over the details.” She waited until the acknowledgment came, then she took the headset off and offered it back to Hazard. She glanced out of the long front view screen for a few moments.
“Tired ma’am?”
She looked back to Hazard, “If I pass out crewman, just hit me with some stims and kick me a few times.” Hazard grinned at her as she turned and made her way back to her display on the central table. She was glad to have found the Kellendro descendant, it was going to be useful to have a figurehead to build the shesvie around. She only hoped it would go right. The last damned thing she wanted or anyone else wanted was a dependent people who couldn’t find their footing. The chua had maintained their identity, and she knew that now that their space was taken a lot of the chua living in human space would be going home.
How does one maintain their identity though when no one alive when it was stripped from them is around that they are being asked to show it again. She didn’t know the answer to that question. Her eyes looked at a question that she also didn’t know the answer to. Her eyes ran down the report again from the recon team. The Vral, before her fleet had come into system, had laid waste to a solid twenty kilometers of the surface, and only that.
The initial findings showed that the Vral had done it with precision laser batteries, which struck her as odd considering they could have dropped a few graviton bombs instead. It had intrigued more than just her. Whatever the Vral had been up to, they didn’t want it to be seen. Bombs left debris. They had melted the entire area to slag. Inside that twenty kilometers, and just that twenty kilometers, the Vral had dedicated enough laser battery firepower to turn not just the buildings to atoms, but they had liquified the crust to the point it had sunk down nearly a tenth of a kilometer. So far they had so far not found any non-hardened electronics within a thousand kilometers of the site itself. The bloom of EM radiation the probe had picked up was gone. The site that had been the epicenter of the bloom was a crater of molten rock. Whatever had been happening in that small twenty kilometers, it was something that neither her, nor anyone at the Terran Front, knew anything about.
Nothing they had captured had any data pointing to the site. No one that had been liberated knew of its existence. When teams had landed in the surrounding towns, they had found them completely abandoned. Anyone who knew what had existed at that site was out of the system before she had destroyed the fleet, or had been on the surface and took their secrets to the grave. In fact, what she was looking at was a staggering nothing. No words, no one talking, no writing, no files. Nothing. A EM field the size of Australia, a monstrously powerful one at that, had simply vanished alongside anything that could be linked to a cause for it.
“What were you doing down there.” She whispered.
No one replied.

With Antares Autotune pro 11 just out, I’m curious about what’s best? I started with the Logic pitch plugin included, then got Antares Real-time included with my Apollo x4. Later, I upgraded to Antares Auto-tune Advanced (pro) but it’s not a native plugin, so it only works with my Apollo DSP. Today, I’m thinking I don’t want the limitations of an Apollo interface and I want to use autotune/pitch correction with ANY gear and ANY DAW.
Upgrade to Antares Auto-tune 11 or is there something better?

Hey guys, actually I have the subscription for antares. But I only use autotune. Now, I dont really want to continue with antares cuz I dont pay like every single month. Im ready to buy the pugins but xant get my head around these subscription bundles.
I can't really buy autotune cuz it costs more than so many daws. I was watching some comparison and I found wavestune real time pretty solid. But before I buy that I wanna try some free autotune alternative.
So, if you guys have some recommendations on the free alternatives and also why they are better for you then please let me know.

For those who have used both for pitch correction, which do you prefer? Personally, I prefer WavesTune. It is available at a much lower price point, but it still does the job. Some say Autotune has more features...but outside of correcting notes, what else does one possibly need?
What do you all think?

Hi! I am new to the group, and my bad stressing away, but I have to wonder if anyone has any help. My autotune Pro X does not show up in my Ableton 12. I tried scanning the plug-ins while holding option, and looking at the custom folder as well. However, it does not show up. I contacted Antares about this. They took a week to respond, and told me they would to refresh my license. I tried this, and unfortunately. autotune Pro X still did not show up. I reached out again and told Antares AutoTune still didn’t show up. A week later, they finally replied. It was as like a broken record, they told me to reinstall my license, and it should show up It’s like they were avoiding the question. I told the customer service rep that I had just tried that, and they refreshed my license and told me it should show up🤦🏾‍♂️. It was going in circles and circles. I really regret purchasing this, I spent over 500 at this point. Also, there’s so many more options on the market now. Has anybody else dealt with their Customer Service, and have any suggestions how to approach them. or Solutions to get to get AutoTune pro x show up? Anyways, thanks for listening to me venting, and could use any suggestions. Thanks a ton!

So I downloaded the subscription version of pro tools and I installed all the AAX files for the third party plugins I want to use which would be Valhalla Delay and Reverb with Antares Autotune but after countless times of reinstalling and deleting the plugins and Pro Tools and even when it starts up it says it’s running them I open a project to use them and they’re no where to be found can someone please Help me I’m on windows please no Mac’s

Part One
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The loosely translated name of the Vral cruiser was the Devouring Maw. It was a sleek war machine, having fought in four regional wars against the Vral’s neighbors. It held the singular distinction of being the first to fire on the Tulinak homeworld three hundred years prior. The sight of the Devouring Maw was a glimpse of terror, built to not only look like a pure weapon of war but to be armed like it as well. Disruptor cannons lined the outer hull, missile silos built to launch the city blocked sized HunteKiller missile lined it’s centerline sweeping along the arch of the cruiser’s five kilometer long spine. It had dorsal, front, and aft launchers to launch the fast moving torpedoes called Gullhawks, which had gotten their name from another dead empire. It’s primary weapons, tri-barrelled laser batteries, were built to unleash a torrent of light and death. Long paint lines decorated the hull, one for each ship that the Devouring Maw itself had claimed a kill for, so many that if the cruiser was compared side by side with a fresh cruiser of the same design it appeared the two were painted with different styles in mind. For three hundred years, the Devouring Maw had either been directly in a war zone, or had been stationed at a border to be apart of the armored fist when war was declared on another victim of the Vral’s expansionism. It had been at the front for six invasions, but for the last ninety years it had been stationed at the border of the Piranesti Commune, waiting for a war to end that seemed to refuse to end. For ninety years the guns of the Devouring Maw had remained silent. Finally, the Devouring Maw was reassigned, sent to the endless war to fight the enemy that had dared to resist the Vral for so long. If a machine had a soul, the Devouring Maw would have been eager, ready, almost salivating at the chance to deal death again. As the crew of the Devouring Maw engaged this new enemy, in long, dagger like ships, the crew was increasingly frustrated. The missiles would launch and never reach their destination, shot down by point defense, the torpedoes would sail past their targets of intent, confused by signal interference to explode uselessly in the vacuum of space. The disruptors and laser batteries would strike true only to seemingly do nothing against armor that was purpose built to disappoint the Devouring Maw’s energy based arsenal. If a machine had a soul, the Devouring Maw would have been raging against this new enemy. Until, of course, that enemy glanced it’s way.
The Devouring Maw, the Vral cruiser who had killed hundreds of ships that dared to stand against it, didn’t understand what was happening to it, even while it was happening. A sudden hail of shells impacting the shields caused the crew to panic, watching as the power of the protective barrier was being stripped away, and more importantly, what was stripping them away. If the ship had a soul it would be shrieking in terror, as it realized that after a life of mercilessly hunting down prey it itself had flown into the jaws of a much more malicious predator. The instant the crew began to react to the battering of the shields, a shell the size of a freight container slammed into the shield wall and pierced through as if it were paper. The hull armor didn’t even slow the massive shell, and the Devouring Maw lost power almost instantly as the precise strike blasted through the engineering section and blasted an exit wound out of the other side of the cruiser so large a corvette could fit inside. Another massive shell hammered straight through the spine of the ship, and the entire frame of the cruiser seemed to buck violently, the hull screaming. In less time than it takes to breathe in, the Devouring Maw had been rendered broken, helpless, and as the Vral crew that survived desperately tried to determine how badly they were hurt a few looked through viewing ports or displays that were flickering with the first pulses of auxiliary power, just in time to see an avatar or war turn it’s gaze from them. Any relief was short lived, for as the guns of the Antares shifted to a new target, a single trail of vapor was seen. The Vral who noticed it stopped trying, watching the missile approach, and waited for the end.
On the bridge Field Marshal Simmons didn’t even look as the Vral cruiser met it’s end, blasted almost cleanly in half by the El Reno class missile. Her attention was focused on the wider war. “Richards, you’ve got four heavy cruisers trying to bear down on the Donnager.” She said into her headset, while to her left and right officers with ranks of Commander to Admiral stood bent over the same large circular table, issuing commands to their own weapons teams. She heard Richards reply, and looked his way and he flipped a control switch on his headset and began speaking rapidly to his team while manipulating the displays in front of him. A few moments later, as she turned her attention down to the displays that she commanded, she watched as the lead heavy cruiser was blanketed by a torrent of laser battery fire. The Antares could, of course, focus all of it’s firepower on a single target. That would be pointless however, overkill to the extreme. Instead, the weapons of the Antares were split into multiple groups organized into overlapping zones of control. The operational brain of the Antares had dozens of commanders issuing orders to their assigned weapons ports. Twelve point defense Areas or Responsibility had their own overseeing captains. In different areas of the Antares over a hundred flight commanders directed thousands of strike craft, split into tactical wings with their own overseers. Each individual aspect of the ship ran in a chain, just as Thermopylae had done. In fact, many of the men and women around the table with him had served on Thermopylae itself.
Three admirals stationed at her three o’clock, six o’clock, and nine o’clock positions around the table had their jobs as well, watching the overall battle and making calls much the same as she had just done. Simmons job was to direct the fleet, but in times like this, she only stepped in if she felt like it was needed. She trusted her ship captains, she trusted her commanders around this table. She trusted her fleet. That was why, during times like this, she had to fight off the urge to start calling shots. What good is trust if it’s not shown? No, at times like these she made it a point to simply direct attention if she felt it were needed, to see things that others were too preoccupied to see. At times like these, she watched. Almost as an afterthought she reached down and pressed an icon on her display, hearing a click in her right ear. “Shield status Admiral?” She asked, almost conversationally.
“Shields are at eighty seven percent and increasing.” Came the reply from a station she knew was almost twenty kilometers away. “Reserve generators are charged and ready.” She nodded to herself as the Admiral on the other end of her comms continued. “Is the fight going well ma’am?”
“Very well.” She replied. “Keep up the good work.”
“Of course ma’am.” The Admiral replied, and Simmons reached down and tapped a sub screen, bringing up a new list of icons on her display.
“Tac-Com, this is Antares.” She said, speaking to the Strike Tactical Commander. “How are my rabble rousers doing out there.” She actually leaned against the table out of habit when talking to the leader of the strike craft wings.
“Glad you asked Field Marshal.” A woman’s voice came on the line, and she grinned hearing Admiral Shelby. “Strike is being itself, but I need some priority put on the Shitcans. I can’t send anyone within five kilometers of any of them and they are starting to catch on.” By shitcans, Shelby was talking about a specific class of destroyer. Field Marshal Simmons quickly brought up the design, a blade like picket destroyer with an alarming amount of point defense laser turrets. She always had found amusement in the nicknames most had given Vral ships. Shitcan was the name for the Shivota class destroyer. There was a host of classes, and a lot of inventive people to mock them.
“I’ll get on it.” Simmons said. “How are the losses.”
“Not as good as I wanted, better than I’d hoped.” Shelby said, “We are close to having strike dominance but those little nuthuggers won’t let go.” Simmons blinked, and she almost asked if Shelby was sure. Strike dominance at this stage in the fight meant that Shelby’s pilots were on the verge of sweeping the Vral strike elements completely off the board. The Antares could knock out ship after ship with MAC and railgun volleys, but the rest of the fleet would only be able to take down one at a time. The Vral might be able to get off the field with a significant portion of their fleet intact. If they took strike dominance though, that meant the strike craft could slide just under the speed threshold where the Vral shields solidified to protect their ships. The second strike dominance was achieved if the Vral tried to cut and run at all, they’d have a swarm of fighters and light bombers devouring their drive sections.
“”Sounds good. Get your flights ready.” Simmons said, and once more she changed her icons. She cast her eyes over the field and looked over the flow of the battle. Antares had jumped into the system at a three to one numerical disadvantage, and it was at two to one now. Her fleet losses were there, but out of the ships that had been taken out of the fight only a small fraction had actually been destroyed. The Vral weren’t killing the ships they had taken out, they were trying to disable them and shifting targets the second a Terran Front ship was unable to fight back anymore. Long gone were the days the Vral felt comfortable enough to turn ships into scrap metal. As Simmons cast her eyes over the battle she felt a grin slowly spreading on her face. Strike dominance now meant this Vral fleet was going to be eliminated from the battleships to the corvettes. The numbers of her dead were low, the Vral were losing this engagement. Even now she could see the beginnings of a fighting retreat beginning to form in the lines. She could sense the retreat coming, she could smell it. Blood was in the water, and she had tens of thousands of hungry piranha waiting to pounce. Her finger hammered down on the icon for fleet wide transmission.
“All commanders, this is the Fleet. Stand and heed. Shift course to my heading” She said as she hammered in a path directly into the heart of the Vral lines, her table had gone silent, all eyes turning to her. “Target priorities are reassigned as follows, I want every Shivota class destroyer on the field dead or dying in the next five minutes. If you can’t reach one of them, eliminate anything cruiser weight and above.” The commanders at her table began to quickie search their areas of responsibility, some of them already speaking into their headsets. “The goal is Strike Dominance. Get it done.”
As one, the Terran fleet turned and drive plumes lit up, driving the entire Terran fleet like a fist into the Vral. Simmons watched in silence, interrupted every so often by status checks, as systematically her fleet began exterminating the picket destroyers. As the Vral tried to flex their lines in the face of the sudden advance, they seemed to realize what Simmons was up to, and the Vral fleet began to burn hard towards the jump point for the Kazitka system. What was beginning to become a fighting retreat turned into a rout. Simmons watched with a slight grin on her face, unchanging, as swarms of Terran strike craft suddenly began swooping into the larger wakes of the Vral fleet. One by one, their drive plumes sputtered, and went out. Within the hour, the rout turned into a massacre. Simmons stood by for it all. Urgent calls slowly became less urgent, her own losses in her fleet slowed to a crawl, then almost stopped completely, as less and less of the Vral fleet were able to fight back.
Her own fleet turned from killing the Vral fleet to disabling them to be returned to later, doing it’s best to keep up with the fleeing ships. As she watched yet another Vral ship begin to drift as railgun rounds turned it’s hull into a graveyard she reached down and lightly tapped on her display. She keyed her headset. “This is the TFF Antares to all hostile ships.” She saw several heads within range of her voice come up, looking to her quizzically. “Your fleet is lost. Surrender now, and we will spare your lives, you will not be mistreated. You will not be tortured or put on display. You will not be enslaved. Do it not, and I will exterminate you.” A few of them looked at her in surprise, but more than a few nodded their heads once, then went back to their duties.
She wanted them to surrender. She wanted them to beg for mercy. She wanted desperate pleas like they had caused so many others to scream to come from their mouths begging for her to stop. She might have actually entertained the notion of allowing them to leave on transports, and not keeping them as prisoners of war. More than anything though, she wanted them to reject her offer. She wanted to kill them all.
As the time went on however, her grin turned into a sneer. No messages came from the Vral ships. No quarter was asked. None was given. Celebrations were already beginning to kick off even as the last hundred Vral ships were still being erased from existence. On the bridge of the Antares Simmons herself was stopping each of her warfare leaders mid task, congratulating them on a job well done.
She took another hand, putting her free hand on the shoulder of the man in front of her, a rather young looking commander. “Excellent work today Sharpe.” He nodded, but something in the depth of his gray eyes held her for a moment. “Is something troubling you commander?” He said nothing, but something about the way he was looking at her bothered her. Simmons raised a brow, then used her hand still holding his to draw him away from the table. She looked past him to one of the captains who she had spoken to earlier and raised her hand, signaling that whatever it was, it could wait. The captain nodded once, then stood by.
“What’s on your mind Commander Sharpe, rank is off the board.” She asked, stepping into him so their conversation would not be overheard. His eyes widened a bit in what she could only see as alarm, and she didn’t blame him. He had attracted the attention of the most powerful eyes not only on his ship and his fleet, but probably in the entire military.
“Begging your pardon ma’am, but why did you give the Vral a chance to surrender.” He was trying to appear calm, just inquisitive, but she could see there was a lot of hesitation to speak with her, especially about this. Her offer had bothered him. No. It had pissed him right off. He was masking it well, but there was a lot of bitterness in the way he was holding himself. There was a lot more he was trying to hide, probably anger, and she understood why. He didn’t understand, he probably felt betrayed. She never took her eyes off of his, but both of her hands came to his shoulders and she clasped them tightly.
“Because we aren’t them.” She said, and she saw a bit of confusion suddenly creep into his expression. “Because we’re not the Vral. That’s why.” She paused a second and lowered her head, then raised her eyes back to his. “If we had lost here, they would scream it to the heavens. They’d string up my body to the prow of their flagship. They’d torture anyone they found alive in the hulls until they got bored and either enslave the rest or just kill them for sport.” He nodded at her words, and was about to speak again but stopped as she continued. “When the rest of the galaxy hears about this battle. They are going to hear that we destroyed every ship, killed every Vral. They are going to hear that we exterminated them, down to the last, and they are going to be terrified.”
“And then they will hear that we reached out a hand and offered mercy.” The commander said, and the moment he said it she watched all of the conflictions about her offer to the Vral vanish. She grinned up at Commander Sharpe, squeezing his shoulders. “They’ll hear we didn’t just offer mercy, we offered fair treatment.”
“And they will know that we aren’t the Vral. They aren’t watching one horror die only to be replaced by another.” Simmons said, and Sharpe nodded. “They need to know that, because when we push into Vral space, we want them to know that they aren’t next. They need to know that they haven’t traded one monster for another one, now don’t get me wrong. We are monsters.” She said, and he grinned at that. “But they need to know that we’re the right kind of monster. The kind they can trust. The kind they can rely on.” Sharpe nodded at her again, a growing grin on his features.
“Because we aren’t and will never be the Vral.” He said, and she nodded. “Thank you for helping me understand Fleet Marshal.” Sharpe
“I trust my crew. I want them to trust me. If you ever have a question like this again, just ask. Better you get the clarification you need rather than letting it stew.” Simmons released his shoulders and Sharpe snapped to attention, only turning at a nod from Simmons. She went back to the table, spreading her hands and pressing them to either side of her display, watching as the fleet began to turn from a war setting to one of salvage and recovery, but more importantly, planetary assault. There was time though, to do this one thing. With a few taps on the display she brought up the TFS Vellacore. Minor damage rode along her starboard side, where it looked like a Vral disruptor bank had gotten through their shields. From the reports it was mostly cosmetic. “Comms.” She said into her headset. “Patch my station through to the Vellacore, and get someone up here to rig this thing where I can do this sort of thing myself.” She said, “Kind kind of silly to be able to address the fleet but not individual ships.”
She heard her comms key up for a second but all she heard was a low chuckle for a few moments before an acknowledgement of her orders. A few moments later a gruff sounding voice spoke into her right ear. “This is Vellacore OOD.”
“Officer of the Deck this is Fleet.” She said, and on the other end of the line she heard the officer of the deck on duty on the Vellacore hitch their breath for a moment.
“What can we do for you Field Marshal?”
“Is the crew of that ship that sent us the drone feed back on board?” Simmons asked, leaning back and glancing around the table, watching as her officers began the long and laborious process of getting the fleet put back together after a heavy engagement.
“Checking on that ma’am.” Came the reply. After a few seconds of silence the line became active again. “Ma’am the crew of the Thumper is currently still onboard the Barrowmore. One of the crew was injured bringing us the scout data.”
“Not seriously I hope?” Simmons asked, leaning back and bringing back up the datapack on her screen that had started all this. She tapped play as drone footage showed the inside of the lane, then an absolutely nauseating series of maneuvers made all the more nauseating by the epilepsy inducing light show that was the god alone knows how many ships trying to kill it.. Whoever had piloted this drone had been absolutely unrelenting.
“No ma’am, high g-force related injuries.” The OOD on the Vellacore replied, even as the footage showed that the drone had stopped. She saw some of the ships of the fleet she had just destroyed, saw the first probe launched from the drone and the sudden influx of information. The drone’s camera feed was pointed straight at the Mandeville point as three corvettes entered the lane to chase down the Thumper. The drone began a blistering set of turns and accelerations, decelerations, and rolls. The crew onboard the Thumper had stayed until the entire scan of the system was done, and then had been nearly destroyed even as they sent their data over to be processed. If they had lost the drone, or cut and ran before it was done processing the data, there was no chance she would have brought her fleet to this system for another few days. They had stayed with death coming quickly, risked themselves, and one of them had in the end been hurt. In doing that, they had been the catalyst for this entire battle, which she already knew based off the initial jump in alone was going to be decisive in this war, and they had won, and won massively.
“Good. Here’s what I want.” She began talking, and she shut down the display. All around her, as she gave her orders to the Vellacore’s Officer of the Deck, damage report assessments began to come in from every corner of the fleet. Damaged ships were given orders to withdraw or to dock with Antares, salvagers were dispatched to harvest the wrecks of Vral ships for alloys, and the manufacturing centers prepared to begin building ammunition to replace what had been expended. The battleship Blade of Hope was given first rights dock with Antares to repair it’s drive section, Several tugs were dispatched to bring the ships too damaged to move independently to planetary orbit, fast runners were dispatched to run down the fighters who had been damaged but still read pilot life signs, and at the corner of the system the signs of a large fleet began to show at the Mandeville point.
Having had no part to play in any of the fleet battle that had just occurred, General Zziaa had been at his own small terminal, the chua General working as fast and as hard as he could, alongside his own general staff. It wasn’t the best plan, he would admit, but it was a plan, and he could live with it. He heard the call that his fleet was in lane and would arrive soon, and he looked over to the tactical table where Simmons stood. She was speaking with another officer, but she glanced over and saw him standing there. She said something to the officer and walked briskly over.
“General, your fleet is coming in?” She asked, and he bobbed his head, then he motioned for her to follow. As she reached his terminal she kneeled down to look at the screen he had been working on. “Just show me what you need from me, you’ll have it.” Slowly the chua turned, and he grinned.

Have tried everything really stuck

Seguinte, uso o Ableton Live 10 e queria fazer umas gravações nele com Autotune, baixei um Antares Evo e por algum motivo o Ableton não consegue achar ele na pasta de plugins, somente os outros plugins aparecem, já reinstalei, vi todos os vídeos possíveis
O Antares não é o oficial, porque o oficial é pago e o teste gratuito dura poucos dias e exige cartão.
ALGUEM PRA ME DAR UMA LUZ PFV??

Hey guys, I've been trying to add an autotune effect to my vocals so I can try out a different, melodic flow when rapping. Below are 3 tracks with the type of vocal effects (including timestamps) that I'd like to learn how to create, so could I please have some tips in identifying how to create those vocal effects with autotune, reverb, compression, etc.? I do understand that each of those tracks have varying levels of effects added to them, so it would also be good if you pointed out how the tracks differ or are the same in terms of vocal effects.
If its helpful, I usually use Fabfilter Pro-Q3, RVerb Stereo, and RVox Stereo for mixing my vocals on regular songs, and I just got Antares AutoTune Pro. All help is appreciated, thanks very much in advance! :)
Track 1 (2:11 to 2:47): Pass (feat. Sik-K) - GroovyRoom, Leellamarz
Track 2 (0:11 to 0:42): Body (feat. Sik-K) - JMIN
Track 3 (0:13 to 1:38): iffy - Sik-K, pH-1, Jay Park, GroovyRoom