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Many had been rendered useless, and had crashed into whatever was nearby – people or buildings or other hovertanks.

And the buildings themselves were torn open by force – mostly through the liberal use of bullets and explosives of every size and caliber. Some were even still on fire.

Especially the largest and most heavily defended building. Although it had multiple layers of fortifications and armor plating, it too had been ripped open violently. The bodies of its defenders lay everywhere, and their blood had decorated most of the walls.

Worse, the central vault had been blown open, and its contents emptied of everything.

On top of the building, a torn, half-burnt flag flapped in the wind. It was decorated with a golden apple.

~

In another section of space, deep inside the Federal Colonial Systems, a wrecked frigate spun in the void of space. The emblem of a golden apple sparkled slightly as the system’s star shone right on it.

.....

The frigate’s armor had been completely blown open in the middle. Its armor had been wrenched open violently, as though it had been shelled by multiple large-bore artillery. Multiple decks had been wrenched open and warped from the impact of those shells. Anyone who was on those decks were painfully mangled by the twisted plates of metal.

Those who weren’t instead painfully died by suffocation, as the frigate depressurized from the irreparable hull breaches that criss-crossed its hull. Many of the pirates’ corpses floated aimlessly in the passageways, frozen in position as they eternally grasped at their throats for air.

Even the captain wasn’t immune to it – his corpse was up in his quarters. But in addition to his icy state, he had been shot in the head. And the large safe on his floor had been blown open.

Its contents had also been completely emptied, save for a single broken vial of Azrael’s ultrafentanyl.

~

The vast fleet of the Temple of Discord sat in a barren stretch of lawless space bordering Federation space, practically out in the middle of nowhere. Brilliant, multicolored star clusters surrounded them on every side, each one filled with trillions of people.

The fleet itself was incredible – far larger than it had ever been. It had grown far beyond anyone’s expectations, in any case. And it certainly had the firepower to challenge national fleets.

In the center was a massive carrier: it measured little over 2000 meters long, 800 meters in height, and 450 meters wide. Multiple hangar bays sat along both port and starboard sides, each one protected by dozens of defensive turrets. Their atmospheric shielding glowed blue and revealed the countless fighters and mecha docked inside their bays, lined up along the tall walls.

All along the top and bottom of the carrier were numerous offensive gun batteries and missile emplacements. They would have made the ship formidable in battle, even without the ships inside.

In a word, the ship could be described as ‘devastating’.

Worse, it wasn’t alone. The carrier was surrounded by three battleships, dozens of cruisers, and hundreds of destroyers and frigates. There were swarms of fighters and mecha that flew all around the fleet, perhaps tens of thousands of them.

And every single vessel, no matter its size, was emblazoned with the Discodian’s emblem – the golden apple.

Deep inside the carrier itself was its vast bridge. Unlike most other starship bridges, this one was circular. The captain’s chair sat in the middle, and could spin in every direction.

Pirate Queen Eris sat in that chair – her throne – and commanded her growing enterprise from it.

Her leadership brought them all prosperity unbound, despite the roadblocks that hampered her on occasion. Thanks to the massive wealth she generated (stole), everyone under her was utterly loyal to the bone.

Surrounding her were all of the many terminals that connected to various ship systems and functions. There were dozens of them, and each one was manned by her most trusted and experienced officers.

Above each were huge screens, all of which ringed the entire bridge. All manner of data and reports filled every screen. Most seemed to revolve around the Temple’s profits.

“Half of our forward locations were trashed?” Eris said with a sigh. “How utterly irritating. It took over a year to get those bases set up. Too many cash infusions and man hours, down the drain.”

Eris scowled slightly as she reviewed one of the large screen’s reports.

On that same screen was a comms subwindow, and on it was one of her scouts. He appeared to be wearing light armor, but his face was completely shielded. Once in a while, the optical camo on his armor shimmered slightly.

“Field teams are estimating a loss of about a hundred million ducats,” he said. “That’s not just in stolen goods, but also counting lost manpower and infrastructure.”

Eris mouthed ‘hundred million’, as though she had just had a healthy swig of sour milk. She shook her head at the unbelievable number.

“Who caused it?” she asked. “And the answer had better be good.”

“Some no-name raiders,” replied the scout. “The Androstar Cutters, or something like that anyway. Nobodies, really.”

“Anyone who can do a hundred million ducats worth of damage can’t be considered ‘nobody’. They take anything else, or just the juice?”

The scout shook his head adamantly.

“Just the drugs,” he replied. “They left pretty much everything else still on the field, albeit as scrap.”

“Ballsy amateurs,” sighed Eris. “They should’ve swept it all clean and made a real killing. It’s what I would’ve done. You got a bead on their HQ?”

“I’ve got my people scouting them out as we speak.”

He tapped on some controls and sent a small package of intel straight to the Discordian fleet. Data engineers disseminated it, cleaned it up, then displayed it on an adjacent screen.

Eris leaned back into her chair and watched as a rowdy bandit group no larger than a few hundred celebrated in their compound. They seemed to still be pretty high from their victory, and kept it up with chemical intoxicants.

“Want us to retaliate?” asked the scout. “We could wipe them out right now and take everything back. Well, anything they haven’t already used themselves.”

“What? No, of course not,” answered Eris. “Send ’em a message. Tell ’em, good job, well done, yadda yadda. All’s fair in love and war, and all that. Offer them a welcome package and a place in the fleet. Tell ’em they can keep the drugs all for themselves. Like a sign-on bonus.”

“And if they refuse?”

Eris grinned widely at the scout’s question.

“If they refuse,” she answered, “then we take back what’s ours, and pay back the debt of the dead. As per our charter.”

“As you command,” said the scout.

Eris leaned forward again as another question tumbled around in her mind. To her, the product itself was definitely a good investment. It was easily cut and diluted and resold for massive profit.

But it all still came down to the person that had sold her the goods in the first place.

“What about the chemist?” she asked.

“Still MIA,” replied the scout. “Completely vanished five months ago, no trace anywhere. None of my people even heard of their movements.”

“Figures. Maybe the heat from the Feds got too much?”

“Feds’re busy with the Hegemony. Too busy to notice all this fun that’s happening with the free markets.”

“Alright then, how about any alternative suppliers? There’s gotta be more than this one person, right? I mean, it’s kind of a big fuckin’ galaxy, right?”

“Oh, there’s plenty alright.”

The scout sent more information to Eris’ fleet. It flashed up on her screen and overlaid any of the other reports they were looking at. The list itself was composed of thousands of names, each one with their location in Federation space, along with their contact information.

And also a letter grading. Almost all of them were C or below.

“Problem is that their product is trash,” he continued. “Not just that, but they’re expensive as hell. Our... chemist... is the best. From any that I’ve ever seen anyway. If we want to dominate, we need him.”

“So we had better find our chemist then,” said Eris. “I bet that’s gonna be expensive.”

“Their operation’s too small, honestly. My teams are barely able to track them.”

Eris shook her head and waved her hand slightly.

“Don’t worry about them,” she said. “You keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll get someone else to recruit the chemist to the fleet.”

“What if the chemist refuses?” he asked.

“Stop asking dumbass questions and get back to work.”

The scout immediately nodded, then winked off the screen.

It took a few moments as Eris absorbed the report she received, then turned her chair towards one of her comms officers.

“You there!” she commanded. “Open comms with Lucifer and draft up a contract. She’ll know what to do.”

One of the other officers on the other side of the room sat up in alarm at the mention of Lucifer’s name. He turned to the officer next to him and silently mouthed out ‘she?’ with a deeply puzzled look on his face.

~

Somewhere in Federation space, Freelance Strategist Lucifer stood in the war room of a busy wartime frigate and watched its officers as they scrambled around.

Many often described Lucifer as a beautiful man, or a handsome woman, as though they were unable to determine his or her gender.

Ze was lean and slim, and honestly bordered on skinny. But not deathly so. Hir silver hair was styled into an undercut bob, which covered one of hir eyes. And the tips faded into a deep, dark red, which matched hir pupils.

In front of Lucifer was a low holo-table with an active tacmap of a fleet battle projected just above it.

All around the tacmap next to Lucifer were a number of uniformed officers, all of whom pored over the battle as it occurred live in front of them. Some looked at the holograms, while others looked at the screens that surrounded them.

Most weren’t happy with the number of red flags and warnings they saw all over.

“Mister Lucifer,” cried a rotund mercenary captain. He stood opposite Lucifer, on the other side of the tacmap itself.

“Mister?” said Lucifer. “What an interesting choice.”

The captain was taken aback by the comment, and floundered a response.

“I, er, was I mistaken?” he stammered. “I apologize... I, uh, what should I call you?”

“Whatever suits you,” Lucifer said, and waved off the question dismissively.

The mercenary captain looked around nervously at his officers in search of answers, but none of them had one for him.

Instead, the captain cleared his throat and adjusted his stance.

.....

“I... look, I understand that you love to play games,” said the captain, “but now isn’t the time. Our fleet’s taking a serious beating. If this keeps up, we’re gonna lose our charge, and our contract’s gonna get voided. We can’t afford that.”

“Then maybe you should’ve activated me earlier,” Lucifer rebuffed, “when your chances were better.”

Ze turned towards the tacmap and observed the movements of both fleets.

On it, their twenty-one frigates faced off against their opponent’s five destroyers. They were accompanied by a squadron of nearly two hundred fighters. And although their own small arms forces outnumbered their enemies’, half of them were mecha.

Though mecha was incredibly versatile, they were poor at dealing with fighters – they simply didn’t have the speed to keep up.

Although it seemed like the numbers were on their side, all the mercenaries there realized it was a lopsided fight. Or at least, they realized it when those destroyers ripped apart three of their frigates in short order.

Destroyers were designed to kill frigates, while frigates were designed to kill small arms forces, like fighters.

“I’ll accept this activation,” said Lucifer, “and I won’t even charge an emergency rush fee. Instead, you must consent to giving me full control for the duration of this engagement. Deal?”

“F-full control?” said the captain. His eyes bugged out with disbelief. “Did I hear that right? You want me to give you full control of the fleet?

“If you don’t, they die.”

“Is that some kind of threat?”

Lucifer arched an eyebrow at the captain, unsure if he was being serious.

“No,” ze replied. “It’s reality.”