Pre Turn : Captain Starfire Voss didn’t waste a single night mourning Rax—empty bunks meant empty firepower, and the Ebon Veil wasn’t going to clear itself. She slid into the darkest booth at the Rusty Wrench, bought a round for the right scum, and sent the message down her Nexus-9 pipeline: dock rats, ex-Unity welders, anyone who moved hot metal. “Need a heavy assault bot. Built to kill, weapon mount intact. Ten credits budget. No fucking questions.”
Word came back before the ice melted in her glass. A decommissioned military assault frame, K-7R9, fished out of the drift near Thalor after a reactor “accident.” Salvagers had already stripped the original rattlegun—some half-melted piece yanked off a privateer that barely crawled out of the Ebon Veil—but the mount was pristine, the multi-wave threat scanner still humming, and the extra plating the miners had welded on over the years made the chassis damn near indestructible. Miners that had employed her called her “Korra” for the deadpan “korrecting” every time she fixed their screw-ups.
Elias ran the scans, nodded once. “Toughness off the charts. Mount’s perfect for our rattle. She’s ours.”
Ten credits changed hands—barely enough for a bottle of the good stuff—and the hooded, scorched frame thumped onto the Vanguard’s deck like a coffin. Elias patched the fried logic bus, slotted the rattlegun home, and hit the power.
Orange visor slits flared. The gravelly vox rolled out, low and pissed:
“You bought me for ten credits? Either you’re cheap or I’m more broken than I thought. Let’s kill something and find out.”
Korra was home.
The Starlight Vanguard slid into the crater like a blade between ribs.
Ebon Veil lived up to every nightmare story. Violet light crawled across the asteroid like veins under skin. Gravity felt wrong. The air tasted metallic. Even the pirates looked like they regretted every life choice that brought them here.
But Biomorphix was paying top dollar.
The Job: Clear the pirate squatters from the old Vita Synth black-site lab, secure the container known only as Specimen Zero, and hand it over so Biomorphix could bury the nightmare forever.
What the crew wasn’t telling Biomorphix was the rest of the plan: the incoming Voidstalker Salvage team (quietly hired by Vita Synth remnants) was about to walk into a very ugly ambush.
Simple. Clean. Bloody.
They parked in the crater, life-support systems still down from the pirate takeover. Voss led the breach through the air shaft, Korra’s heavy boots clanging softly behind her. The rest followed in silence: Elias, Jax, Hex, and Kai—still pale from the med-patch but moving like a ghost again.
The playing field
Round 1 They dropped into the maintenance tunnels and moved like smoke. A roving pirate patrol passing nearby never even looked up.
Round 2 Voss was first into the upper lab. She didn’t hesitate—pulled the pin on a Frak grenade and lobbed it clean through the doorway. The blast lit the room violet. Two pirates went down stunned hard. The third staggered, coughing.
The pirate captain was upstairs in the secure office, already screaming into a comm.
Then the random event token dropped: three tokens. Possible reinforcements.
Round 3 No reinforcements. Two tokens left.
Initiative was a disaster—everyone moved last except Voss. She didn’t waste the chance. Second Frak grenade. The blast ripped through the remaining pirates. One specialist and another goon dropped for good. The last stunned pirate bolted for the stairs, screaming for the captain.
The captain leaned over the railing and fired at Voss. Missed.
Jax slid in, machine pistol barking—cut the fleeing pirate in half mid-stair.
Kai ghosted up the stairs, leveled her blast rifle, and put one perfect shot through the captain’s forehead. The man dropped like a sack of meat.
Hex, Korra, and Elias took position to cover the lower hall as the rest of the pirate patrol finally woke up.
Pirates engage from down the hall
Korra takes position..."Meatbags,
Round 4 No reinforcements. One token left.
Remaining pirates almost on them. Hex dashed across the open hall, shattered the reactor room window with her shoulder, and opened up with the needle rifle—dropped the first pirate like a puppet with cut strings.
Voss charged back to support, shotgun roaring, blowing the second one off his feet.
The remaining pirates tried to return fire from cover. Missed.
Then Korra stepped into the hall.
The rattlegun screamed. Three hits. Pirate turned into red mist.
Elias took a shot and missed the last one—then the random event flipped: Cunning Plan. All crew goes first next round.
Round 5 No reinforcements. The Scoundrels converged like wolves. The last pirate didn’t even get a shot off.
“You bought me for ten credits?”
"Good girl Korra, good girl"Post-Battle – Ebon Veil Black Site
Biomorphix was thrilled. Persistent patron status locked. Quest conclusion confirmed—next battle is the finale.
Specimen Zero is now in the Vanguard’s secure hold, humming quietly like it’s dreaming.
Payday: 8 credits (5 base + 2 danger pay + 1 curious item). Loot: Combat Armor (VIP bonus), plus a pile of broken gear (Military Rifle, Hyper Blaster, Stabilizer, Hot Shot Pack). Battlefield Find: One usable dose of stims. No injuries. The dice gods were smiling tonight.
XP: +3 to everyone. Voss and Kai both hit +4.
Campaign Event: Spent a Story Point to dodge a disaster roll that did not make sense → Settled Old Business.
The rival they’d picked up from the package delivery job—Kael “Ghostwind” and her Dust Hounds—suddenly backed off. A terse message came through: “Serious judgment error on our part. Please accept our sincerest apologies. We’re square.”
Voss just smirked and deleted it.
Character Event (001...ugh, ): This felt really appropriate -“All This Endless Violence” Kai stood over the pirate captain’s body, staring at the massive hole her blast rifle had punched through his skull. Blood was everywhere. She muttered something about “all this blood… just like Rax…” and walked away without another word.
Voss put a hand on her shoulder. “Go back to the Vanguard. Chill. Prep for a hot evac if this next part goes sideways.”
Kai didn’t argue.
While the crew prepped for the incoming Voidstalker ambush, Voss handed Jax the broken Hyper Blaster. “Jax. Highest Savvy in the room. Please tell me you can get this thing running.”
Jax took the weapon, already turning it over in his hands. “Give me twenty minutes and a workbench. I’ll make it sing.”
Elias grinned. “I’ll help. We’ve got time before the next wave of idiots shows up.”
Voss looked at the humming crate in the center of the lab, then at her crew—bloody, tired, but still standing.
One more fight.
The Ebon Veil waited.
To be continued…
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