DEAD or ALIVE
C85,000,000,000 REWARD
Notify THE GRAND ADMIRAL of the TERRAN STAR NAVY
Driftwood851, better known as Driftwood the Whaler or Droidscourge Driftwood, is an Android serving as an anti-systems specialist for the Devil's Fang Pirates. Manufactured by Horizon Adaptive Technologies Partnership, Driftwood851 wields a formidable six job cartridges, double the maximum allotted by his specs- we'll get into the specifics of that in a moment, but the long and short of it is Driftwood851 built his stats to literally harpoon starships and take over their central computers. He has a cinematically vengeful personality, not allowing any slight against him to go until he has seen it through to a definitive conclusion. Driftwood851 loves to speak with the affectations of an old mariner, often quoting his favorite story as he drives his harpoon into the steel hide of an enemy starship. He holds his ship's command in high regard, as they are the sole force in Sol's reach that could stay his hand from driving his wrathful barb into the very heart of they he has named as his enemies. He has no fear of death and may in fact believe he is living in an old Terran novel.
Most Horizon Androids need to juggle their collection of job cartridges between their three cartridge slots- it can be a bit cumbersome at times but it allows them to be extremely versatile and adaptive team members on their native Martian expeditions. A set of lights on top of their head flicker or light up to indicate when each of their three cartridge bays is being accessed. Driftwood851 has been outfitted with six cartridge bays courtesy of the old United crew of the Devil's Fang, and he's been given his choice of stolen or bootleg job cartridges to choose from. His chosen loadout is Starship Architecture, Delta Systems Specifications with a Quasar Computer System Networking patch, General Android Maintenance, Melee Combat - Advanced Techniques, Applied Physics and History of Terran Literature. Combined with the large data port installed on his central chassis, what this combination of job carts enables is for Driftwood851 to board a starship with his crew, understand the make and lay of the ship, jam his data harpoon into a section of ship with cables running through it and take over the central computer, controlling doors and security features to allow the Dread Hunter and the Grim Shard to more easily find captains to chop. Additionally, thanks to his Advanced Melee and Android Maintenance cartridges, Driftwood the Whaler will heave his harpoon at enemy Androids, plug in and attempt to override their systems, turning an Android soldier against their own squadmates. It is a terrifying spectacle that has earned him a fearsome reputation among starfarers.
"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing."
Driftwood851's story marks the beginning of the end of the Devil's Fang Pirates and their fight against the Inner World Terraforming Project twenty-someodd years ago. He was serving as a general shiphand aboard the Osprey, a merchant cargo hauler operating along the Inner Belt trade routes. Their ship was lightly armed and with a clean record for conduct, by all accounts carrying on as the peaceful and orderly merchant vessel they present themselves to be. This pedigree did not spare them a chance encounter with the Terran Star Navy, where under direct orders of the Grand Admiral they were fired upon and blown out of the stars. In their great misfortune the crew of the Osprey happened upon the Coelacanth- the Grand Admiral's personal warship and the flagship of the Star Navy- while he was on the hunt for the Devil's Fang.
The Grand Admiral had been drawn fully into the conflict with the outlaw pirates by this point, his attention diverted from overseeing the terraforming project he was assigned to, he was now fully invested in crushing one Mercurian woman and her crew of bad guys. He knows they have a collection of civilian cargo ships they'd raided and taken and they've demonstrated a habit of repainting them and falsifying their information in order to move stolen goods from port to port. They've been developing naval ship formations and they've been able to maintain stolen naval ships despite an airtight hold on Terran naval part and supply storage. They've evolved their strategy towards firing a strange sort of inhabited cannon round to board and take over his ships. The more the Grand Admiral tried to stamp out the Devil's Fang the more they seemed to evolve and grow, always riding an inexplicable wave of good fortune in their encounters with his highly-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped forces. How hard could it be to shoot a ragtag band of pirates out of the stars? At the height of the Grand Admiral's frustrations, the crew of the Osprey would learn how easily a Terran warship could shoot down a little cargo vessel approaching their location at "ramming speed". Unfortunately there were no pirates aboard the Osprey. The Coelacanth moved on, regardless. The conflict had escalated beyond the point of taking chances.
The bulk of the Devil's Fang were running the Armadillo outside Venusian space, harassing a piece of industrial equipment under heavy escort, but Anibelle, June and a few of their friends had taken a cargo vessel they'd liberated around the other side of Sol in hopes of landing a surprise attack on a key Terran warship. They'd called it the Seahawk. They didn't find the warships they'd anticipated in this sector of space, instead happened upon the wreck of the Osprey not long after its fateful encounter with the Grand Admiral. Here, adrift in a field of debris, the crew found Driftwood851.
“By heavens man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and fate is the handspike.”
After a thorough search of the Osprey's remains, the crew brought Driftwood851 aboard the Seahawk, setting him down in the maintenance room. By stroke of fortune Driftwood851 was a Horizon droid, a Martian design built to be easily repaired. His emotive display screen was cracked but he was still alive and recoverable, and the ex-maintenance crew of the Devil's Fang were equipped to restore him to working order. His chassis had taken damage in the attack, the front door panel long gone amidst the debris and his job cart ports in poor shape. A Horizon droid with no job carts was a sorry sight, so the crew bypassed the swappable utility of his front ports and wired them to a fresh rig on his back- one intrepid engineer found a way to rig both of the ports they'd cobbled together up to the cables linking to Driftwood851's ROM board, and with a simple gate switch in place the android now had access to double the job carts for his troubles. They'd found him adrift clutching one cartridge in particular to his chest, his History of Terran Literature cart. The crew plugged that back into one of his ports and brought him out of his critical state.
They asked him if they could do anything for him, where they could take him to drop him off? Driftwood851 requested the crew deliver him to the bridge of the Coelacanth, that he might see revenge visited upon the men who killed his crewmates. He'd just woken up, he didn't know in whose presence he found himself. He would soon learn well.
Back aboard the Armadillo Driftwood851 was introduced to the crew, and the names read like a roll call of legends. He was starstruck! He'd met the Dread Hunter Anibelle, the legendary captain whose intimidating aura bent oaks like willows in her presence, her chainhalberd- fire-belching, hungering monstrosity- resting on her shoulder. There was Grim Shard June, first mate and crystalline maestro of the bloody orchestra, her Songblade singing merciful hymns and funeral dirges with each stroke. And there was Whisper the Silent Flame, the sizzling scythe who never falls in battle. And there, that's Bad Seed Bixy, the arboreal architect themself, the turncoat of Titan. He'd heard rumors of Teddy the Casket, the walking sarcophagus with unerring accuracy- they seemed a lot nicer than their stories portrayed them. And that was Anne the Void Witch, awakened from her long slumber to twist flesh and conjure impossible horrors. The Iron Empress, leader of the Bad Batch, standing taller than even the stories told. And Fiss the Brass Wyrm, the mythical Forgehand of the Devil's Fang, she who could shape a fleet between her hammer and anvil. The Star Navy had delivered Driftwood851 into the company of the Devil's Fang Pirates; they offered him a library of stolen job carts to choose from, with an invitation to join their ranks. He accepted, and outfitted himself for a grand hunt. From the wreck of the Osprey emerged Driftwood the Whaler, his metal core seeking only retribution.
"God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; the vulture the very creature he creates."
The crew of the Devil's Fang noticed a marked change in the disposition of their captain when she returned from the wreck of the Osprey. The perceptive among them caught hints of it in years past, during the encounter with Empress and her Bad Batch. She'd helped weave together this quiltwork of outlaws to help fight for her friend, her home planet and the preservation of the many beautiful worlds that had discovered her and shaped her from a spitfire youth into a full and whole person. She fought the ambitions of interplanetary empire without hesitation or mercy, but now she was beginning to see the collateral damage of her efforts- it started with Empress and her siblings, robbed of their autonomy, and culminated in the wreck of the Osprey and the loss of Driftwood851's friends. The Star Navy had shot down an unassuming starship believing it was her, validated by her own actions- her years-long fight was beginning to bleed over into civilian casualty, inflicting a collateral damage she could not abide. She could not continue escalating this conflict ever further. With the wreck of the Osprey she knew the hour was at hand, she had to find a way to end the terraforming project once and for all. The crew had noticed a change in her disposition- it wasn't one of sorrow or anguish, but a kind of quiet rage, her hand holding fast the chain leash of something monstrous within her heart.
Driftwood851 liked to explore the Armadillo in the late hours, when the crew were finding what rest they could, acquainting himself with the ship's twisting corridors. It was late one night, while he was on one of these walks, he happened upon the captain's quarters. Her lights were on and her door ajar; peeking in he bore witness to a blue devil wearing the Dread Hunter's clothing, her spade-tipped tail lashing, her hair white as bleachbone. She was alone in her room, speaking and gesturing to no one, although somehow, in a way that defies explanation, he could feel ten million eyes upon himself. The captain paused and glanced over her shoulder, her glowing eye peering over the top of her coat's collar. She didn't shoo him away, she just turned back to her business- Driftwood851 didn't know it at the time, but The Anibelles were holding a quantum conference together. They had begun their work, coordinating and compressing the infinite quantum potential of their infinite concurrent dimensions into a singularity, narrow enough to be threaded through a seamstress's needle. Such was their fury, they sought to end their cursed fight once and for all.
A call had come in over the Armadillo's radio- the Grand Admiral was looking to parley. The destruction of a civilian ship and the utter derailment of the terraforming project had not gone unnoticed, and the Grand Admiral was under pressure from his own brass to find an end to his fight with the Devil's Fang. He proposed to meet aboard his own ship. the Coelacanth, in a location of the pirates' choosing. After a night to consult with herself, the Dread Hunter agreed to the Grand Admiral's terms. They would meet outside the Asteroid Belt, in the dark half of Jovian orbit, outside Terran jurisdiction. The terms were set, and Anibelle called her crew to the mess hall. It was time to cast their votes.
“Blacksmith, I set ye a task. Take these harpoons and lances. Melt them down. Forge me new weapons that will strike deep and hold fast. But do not douse them in water; they must have a proper baptism. What say ye, all ye men? Will you give as much blood as shall be needed to temper the steel?”
The Coelacanth was an enormous ship- when you approach her in space, without the context of landscape, it feels as though you should be reaching her deck, but you still have further to go and the ship appears ever larger as you draw near it. Her hangar bay ramp lowered and the Seahawk approached for a gentle landing. Anibelle, June and their trusted officers- those souls whose stories are chronicled here- they alone set to meet the Grand Admiral aboard his flagship. They arrived unarmed, checked by security before they were escorted to the ship's bridge. For some Star Patrollers it was their first time seeing the Devil's Fang up close; the Dread Hunter would turn her cinder eyes towards a soldier, locking on them as her crew passed, watching them flinch in a quiet panic. Some Star Patrollers had met them before, shown mercy by a band who set only their commanders on the chopping block. This was the first time the Devil's Fang did not have to fight tooth and nail towards a Terran bridge, being led directly to their appointed destination. Driftwood851 had joined the legendary band, carrying a white flag on a wooden pole. It was the Grand Admiral's suggestion, he was always one for the old ways.
The night before, the Devil's Fang were put to a vote. The Grand Admiral had requested a parley to end the terraforming conflict. Her crew, your crew, had drawn this gesture out of the most formidable man in the Inner Belt. He would not go quietly into that good night, no. Treachery was certainly afoot, and the Devil's Fang would likewise not go quietly either, but the fate of the crew was their own choice. Anyone who did not wish to choose a fork in the road was free to leave the ship, to settle in whatever world they find and let the Devil's Fang be a memory. Go and live your life with the captain's blessing. For everyone else, concurrently, across every quantum dimensional instance: do we negotiate, or do we do what the Devil's Fang does best, one last time?
Aboard the Coelacanth the crew of the Devil's Fang walk the long walk from the hangar towards the bridge. Anibelle, the Dread Hunter, looked towards her first mate, her best friend, the woman with whom she'd collected this eclectic band of malcontents. She was haunted by the ghosts of other quantum states as they fill the halls of the Coelacanth, painting it with their blood. In an infinite number of universes the crew of the Devil's Fang voted to fight to the last, to bring such ruin to the Grand Admiral that his commanders would cut their losses and end any hope of terraforming their home worlds forever after. She watched her crew and her friends fight their doomed cause, friends she had moved waves to protect, their starlight fading all around her as their bodies fall to the red-slick deck. She stepped over their ghosts as she led her crew through those very halls, quiet but for the echo of bootfall on their deck. June smiled- it was going to be alright.
For our Anibelle, her crew voted to parley. The bulk of her crew would standby in ships outside the Coelacanth while the small collection of officers would come aboard, unarmed, and face certain treachery by the Grand Admiral. A Terran officer- a Commander Lightstorm- gestured ahead to the bridge. "The Grand Admiral is waiting." The Dread Hunter glanced his way, watching Commander Lightstorm's quantum ghost meet a grisly end underneath her chainhalberd. She offered him a smile and a nod in return, the bridge door hissing open as she led her band into the belly of the beast. Driftwood851 stood at the back of the group, carrying his wood flagpole, watching in awe as the crew's story was authored before his very optics.
"Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!"
The Dread Hunter would never ask of her men any task that she would not take up herself. Here upon the bridge of the Coelacanth the quantum waves were churning all around her, she found herself in rocky currents. Here she and her closest friends would strike down the heart of the Terran Star Navy, here the Grand Admiral fell beneath her hungering chain. She would add her own blood to the grim cost for peace, for the quiet that would overtake the Coelacanth. Here upon the bridge of the Coelacanth she watched herself fall, her best friend fallen beside her, their friends fallen throughout the titanic ship. That somewhere on Mercury a young girl might see the same big, beautiful universe that had shaped herself, here she would watch her own life end amidst the ghosts of those who chose to fight. She drew a breath, focusing her attention back on her own quantum universe- here the Grand Admiral stood before her, copper haired, his hands behind his back. He struck a dignified pose, finally laying eyes on the focus of his ire these many years. Driftwood851 recalls he began his introduction, a thank-you for agreeing to meet, the specifics of it didn't matter. The Grand Admiral had at last found his white whale here aboard his ship, surrounded by his men, at his mercy. The Dread Hunter didn't come here to talk niceties, she didn't spare him a word. She had him exactly where she wanted him.
Driftwood851 recalls the moment in hindsight, as if time itself had slowed down, every detail of the scene playing out before him. The Dread Hunter's eyes remained fixed on the Grand Admiral, burning like embers. To one side her first mate, the Grim Shard, stepped forward beside her. The Iron Empress and the Silent Flame, two walls of metal, moved to the flanks of the group, standing between their friends and the Grand Admiral's personal guard. They began to raise their weapons when the Void Witch reached over to rest a hand on a guard, drawing his Terran essence out of him. The hexweaver gestured towards the floor of the bridge, a miasma of distorted static forming like a low fog. The Grand Admiral's eyes widened, his pupils dilated; he began to move an arm out from behind himself. As the unarmed Dread Hunter approached him she flashed in a wreath of heat, revealing her true Mercurian form. She kicked a foot into the Void Witch's subspace miasma, up from the static dust ascended her Martian leadcaster, the rectangular brick of steel she'd long kept on her belt, that she'd left aboard the Armadillo. This leadcaster flickered with the telltale distortions of subspace magic, stabilizing as the Dread Hunter caught it out of the air. The Grand Admiral brought his own flashcaster out from behind his back.
The dilation of time felt like it broke with the crack of the Dread Hunter's hand cannon. Star Patrollers who were there to witness the moment recall the shot, describing the echo of its bark, the baleful cries of fallen commanders howling in the reverberation of the weapon's report. The Grand Admiral's eye was wide, its mirror a grim bore through the far side of his melon. He dropped his own flashcaster- the Grim Shard stepped forward in this moment, gently reaching for the hilt of the chainsword on his belt. He tipped backwards like a plank of wood, collapsing on the bridge of the Coelacanth, his sword unsheathing into the Grim Shard's hand. An infinite number of quantum Anibelles had fought to this bridge, dying to bring an end to their own conflicts, bleeding out on this very deck. Here, an infinite number of quantum Anibelles would, with the aid of their Void Witches, bridge the gap of subspace and kick a single object through the quantum veil into their own universes. A simple object, a solid chunk of metal with few moving parts, just enough to see the job through. None of the infinite Grand Admirals ever saw it coming.
As our Grand Admiral hit the deck his guard drew their rifles towards the pirates. The Iron Empress and the Silent Flame stepped towards them as walls, as the many roots of the Bad Seed lashed out to seize the barrels of those same rifles. The Grim Shard revved her purloined chainsword, brandishing it at those bold soldiers whose first instinct was to approach and detain their commander's assailant. The Dread Hunter turned to face the flanking Star Patrollers, her leadcaster still occasionally flickering with subspace distortion. The quantum waves were churning hard around her- any man who entertained the idea of shooting her or her crewmates, she pointed her weapon at that man. Her glowing eyes turned towards Driftwood851, giving him the nod. Now, Driftwood. Do it!
True to her word, the captain had delivered vengeance upon Driftwood851's assailants. The android twisted the wooden shaft of his white flag, pulling the top half off to reveal a harpoon barb, ringed with gold contacts- the Brass Wyrm had prepared this cunning instrument for him. "With pleasure, my Captain!" Driftwood851 raised his harpoon and jammed it into the deck of the Coelacanth. He extracted a cable from the pommel end of the shaft and plugged it into his chest, his screen flickering from blue to red. The Coelacanth was his. The ship's intercom crackled to life.
"Know This", the Dread Hunter bellowed, Driftwood851 broadcasting her words throughout the Terran flagship. "This ship is now under command of the Devil's Fang Pirates." The crew of the Coelacanth attempted to open fire on the waiting fleet of pirate ships outside, but their turrets would not respond. Something was interfering with them. "Leave now under your own power and no harm will come to you." The hangar ramp lowered and the pirate fleet began to enter the great warship, their crew- fully armed- coming aboard. "Those of you who want her back, load your guns and come take her from us." The bridge door opened for Commander Lightstorm, who walked directly into one of the Dread Hunter's bullets, the chilling vocal cries again audible in the report of the subspace revolver. "Your work here is over. Go home." Driftwood851 closed the comms channel.
Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.
It's been twenty years since the Devil's Fang took the Coelacanth, marking the end of the Inner World Terraforming Project. They had made changes to it to suit their needs, but for twenty years they'd had to lay low, hiding out from the wrath of a Terra who would not so easily forget them. No one ever found a wreck of the Coelacanth, but now and again starfarers would happen across chance encounters with the mythical ship, its legend spreading from port to port throughout the Sol system. Aboard the Coelacanth, even still years later, crewmembers would ask Driftwood851 to retell the story of how the pirates came to claim a mighty Terran battleship, as only a handful were present to bear witness to what actually happened. His screen would light up at the request; he would affect his mariner's speech and invite them to have a seat. He knew many stories, but this was his favorite of them all.