DEAD or ALIVE
C92,000,000,000 REWARD
Notify THE GRAND ADMIRAL of the TERRAN STAR NAVY
Seven feet tall and plated with bulkhead steel , the Iron Empress is the living wall of the Devil's Fang Pirates. She is an Android manufactured by United Robotics Corporation and one of a very rare vintage, manufactured during the height of the Inner World Terraforming Conflict. Empress is fearless and matter-of-fact in her personality, regarding the possibility of her own termination as merely the end point of her obligations to her comrades. Some new crewmembers expect a gentle-giant dynamic from Empress but she couldn't be further from the trope, giving her friends firm pats on the back, picking them up like ragdolls and putting them in friendly headlocks. She's very hands-on and doesn't hide how she feels, and she encourages this degree of openness from her crewmates- not everyone is willing to oblige, although it is funny when someone tries to pat Empress extra firm on the back and clang-clangs their hand painfully on her steel hide. Like the Dread Hunter herself, the Iron Empress is the first to step out of her team's boarding round and inspires confidence among the crew around her, since they know full well what she's capable of.
The Devil's Fang Pirates began as a group of ex-workers trying to brute force their way through a conflict with the largest and most powerful presence occupying their side of the Asteroid Belt, relying heavily on surprise, bravado and their captain's ability to pull quantum strings to prevent catastrophe in order to gain ground and win the day. But as the years ticked on these tricks are less surprising and it takes more and more quantum manipulation to pull through, and without significant changes the band of buccaneers might not outlast the endless resources of Terra itself. The arrival of the Iron Empress introduced a strategic mind to the unwavering heart and tireless body of the Devil's Fang, allowing them to evolve their methods and stay one step ahead of the formidable Star Navy at a time when the interplanetary power was beginning to wear down the scrappy pirates. Her introduction was a bit of a tragic story and, as far as the captain was concerned, her situation was a little bit their own fault.
Ever since the Camerahead incident 180-ish years ago an interplanetary board of standards and practices was developed to govern the creation of Androids. Manufactured lifeforms built with synthetic sentience are not and shall not be made as instruments of industry and they are not beholden to their creators or anyone else. There are six major corporations who are licensed to create new sentient life and there are limits on how many they can produce within a Terran year- they are not allowed to churn out an endless line of lifeforms to leave stranded in the world, they are responsible for the lives they create. These corporations will often equip their Androids with tools and skillsets that are compatible with their own broader industries but the Androids are free to seek work wherever or however they please- they are hired, not purchased, and this is an important distinction. The board of standards ensures new lives created by old lives are guaranteed the same autonomy and opportunity as organic sentients. During the height of the terraforming conflict the Star Navy had a problem, and United Robotics were ordered to bend these rules a little bit.
The Grand Admiral had a morale problem. Superstition and tall tales about this violent band of space pirates circulated among Star Patrollers, and then they're confronted by a starship Kool Aid Manning through their hangar door and then the Dread Hunter and her band of oddities pour out into your ship and they're worse than the tall tales told. Their men have been captured but even when that happens they just break into Cold Storage and un-capture their men right back! The fear and superstition plays well into the Dread Hunter's hand, because a nervous opposition is more likely to forget their training, squeeze the trigger on their service rifle too hard and miss- that's an easy quantum string to pull. They don't know she's doing this, they can't explain her impossible luck, and when they shoot and the pirates don't fall down their fears are compounded and the situation spirals out of control. This is the problem the Grand Admiral has found, and he's developed a three-pronged strategy to deal with it.
Firstly, to embolden his men he created the bounty board- straighten their backbones with golden bars, turn the host of devils and hellspawn into credits and prizes and your men will aim more true when cash, status and a big promotion are on the line. Secondly, emphasize ship-to-ship combat- the Devil's Fang are advantageous when they are employing their boarding methods, but these are mechanics and engineers and defected soldiers, they're not naval tacticians. Keep their ships at arm's length and force them to fight on the Star Navy's terms. And thirdly, capitalize on the pirates' habits and turn their thieving ambitions against them- they are attempting to stop the construction of terraforming technology, they are on record as boarding to steal and sabotage, so put a mousetrap under that cheese and your problem can resolve itself.
The third prong of the Grand Admiral's plan required the complicity of United Robotics in breaking some sacrosanct laws. United Androids are built to work in heavy industry, like construction, mining, excavation, demolition- useful roles in a growing society. Their chasses are built to be strong and durable, they're not seven-foot tall walking tanks for no reason, they're designed to withstand hostile and dangerous working environments. What the Grand Admiral wanted was a batch of United androids who weren't equipped with utilitarian skillsets, he wanted them built for war and he wanted their sentient personality algorithms skewed towards loyalty. He wanted soldiers and sergeants made of heavy metals and he wanted them to know their way around battle formation and heavy weaponry. The Devil's Fang don't raise a hand against their fellow workers, so the plan was to fill a ship with United construction Androids and when the pirates crash into it like maniacs to try and steal raw materials, the construction droids would box them in and cut them down, and that would be the end of that. If the board found out United went through with these orders they would be apoplectic. United went through with the orders, and Empress and her batch were created.
Empress is competent with most known forms of weaponry but her specialty is "extra-heavy" firepower. She carries a PCR-4821 helical photon cannon array, also known as The Firehose; a set of six rotating barrels attached to a photon accelerator, which itself is connected to two large centrifugal drum magazines. The Firehose is capable of drawing a big red line of death wherever Empress pleases, and her tactical knowledgebase allows her to corral targets with sustained suppressing fire, gathering them in one place for her squadmates to capitalize on. It's a dreadful skillset for a construction droid to be burdened with, having no practical utility once the Devil's Fang were dispatched, but that was the least of the Grand Admiral's present concerns. He had bigger concerns on his mind.
The first prong of the Grand Admiral's plan made it more difficult for the Devil's Fang to run their standard game, since Anibelle had to burn more calories keeping her men safe from more confident Star Patrollers holes started to appear in their impossible streak of luck, taking out more pirates and increasing the cost of their raids. The second prong likewise made life more difficult for the Devil's Fang, as defensive formations made it hard to sneak little ships into the bigger ships and they didn't have as many bigger ships as they needed to put up a fight, they were starting to find themselves boxed out of their goals. They needed to shift their focus, they needed to pick up more bigger ships that they could stick cannons on to fight the ships protecting the cargo ships they need to raid to stop the terraforming of their and their friends' homes.
Empress and her batch of United droids found themselves employed by the Star Navy. Their orders were simple: board a modified asteroid mining ship and sail around Sol towards Venus. They are to carry a load of construction supplies under light protection, and they are to neutralize any unauthorized persons to board that vessel. It was a somewhat obvious target but the increased ship presence in the Venusian supply route didn't leave them many options- the Grand Admiral knew they'd have to take a win where they can, and when they come aboard his special order of Androids will snap down on them like a mousetrap.
June, the Grim Shard, tapped away at a holoscreen as Anibelle manned the helm of a small starship, on the hunt for their prize. Just ahead of them drifted the very thing they needed: a bulky ship equipped with a large mining cannon array. They were up to their ears in cruisers and cargo vessels, but a mining ship like that could really go toe to toe with the Star Navy's new bruisers and put the Devil's Fang back on even footing. Since the liberation of the Void Witch the pirates had taken to carrying regenerative potions, like something out of a storybook- she'd been able to develop a transmutative elixir that can reverse damage to a living vessel. "Everyone make sure you pack the red potions," Anibelle would tell her men. "Do not pack the purple potions. I don't care what she told you, the red ones are your heals." They'd been taking heavier fire and they'd been losing a few more friends, but being able to stand up again from a solid hit sowed fresh new rumors among the Star Patrollers, that even just landing a clean hit isn't enough to do the job anymore. It was a tight situation to be in but Anibelle and June were doing what they could with the resources at hand to keep their fight going.
One of June's holoscreens pinged. She gave it a quick read before dismissing it away, turning to give a nod to her friend. "We're all set!" Anibelle put her hand on the ship's throttle, and gave it a gentle little nudge. They'd brought Whisper with them on this sortie- in the early days he needed to be big and scary but he'd started to get used to his role coordinating men and resources behind the front lines. He didn't miss crashing ships into other ships, not one bit, which is why he was surprised to see Anibelle gently sailing their ship towards their target. "Uhh, miss Anibelle.." he tapped his hot iron fingertips together, "we don't seem to be, uhhm.... accelerating. Is everything alright?" The Mercurian settled back in her chair, watching the quantum waves flow around their little ship. The seas were calm. "Yeah, Whiz", she reassured her companion, "everything is just fine."
Over the course of their strange journey many of their fellow workers joined Anibelle and June in their dreadful business, putting their lives on the line to stop what they saw as an injustice. Others saw them as a threat to their own careers and their own job security and worked with the Star Navy to thwart their efforts. Outside of the conflict there are still others- coworkers and comrades- who supported their cause but didn't find themselves able to commit to a life-or-death struggle alongside the Devil's Fang. June was a United engineer specializing in crystal computer memory, when she became an outlaw she left a gap in her old team, but she didn't disappear from their lives entirely. To many she became the Grim Shard but to her old friends she was still just June, and she kept in touch with a few of them over secure channels. She'd learned about the engineering teams being ordered to install military skillsets in a batch of Androids, and she'd learned about being made to tamper with personality manifestation algorithms to ensure they were loyal. There were a lot of objections among her old staff, many didn't know what to do. The Star Navy supplied them with profiles on all the known outlaws, on June and Anibelle and their friends, they wanted them fed to the awakening Androids. They'd have to make the system-level changes to these droids, but they couldn't give their friends up like that, they couldn't just feed them their dossiers. June tapped back on her holoscreen: "do you still have our old United profiles?"
Whisper grew more and more anxious as the normally-speeding starship eased its way towards the heavily-armored mining vessel. The ship wasn't going fast. Why weren't they going fast? Not that he minds, but this is different. Why is it different? These two women are tough- the red-haired one is a little scary but not even the little blonde one is worried. "Uhh, are we--" before Whisper could continue he noticed the hangar bay door open on the mining ship, their own craft coming in for a gentle landing. "Come on, Whiz. We're gonna need your help for this one." The captain, her first mate and their selection of crew gathered their things and disembarked from the landed craft. Whisper plucked up his scythe, totally confused at this point. Waiting outside for them stood about three dozen giant metal people, with a bunch of those Star Patrollers tied up on the ground in front of them. The Androids seemed to have taken command of the vessel and detained their Star Patrol handlers. This was the Grand Admiral's special batch, explicitly engineered towards unwavering loyalty. Empress stepped towards Anibelle- the Mercurian reached a hand out to shake but the United droid seized her in a terrifying bear hug and lifted the six-foot woman up off her feet. "Comrades!" she bellowed, "Welcome aboard the Armadillo!" Anibelle urked out as much a reply as she could with Empress squeezing the air out of her. June smiled. Whisper was really, really confused.
Empress and her siblings were built to be loyal. June convinced her friends in engineering to show them the old United workers they were, not the enemies of Terra they were intended to be. The Devil's Fang had powerful new allies at their back, and Whisper, their coordinator, had a lot of new friends to help acclimate and make comfortable. The Grand Admiral blew a fuse when he read the report.
Androids are guaranteed autonomy, they're ensured a right to choose their own path with the skillsets available to them and they are not made to serve any man's ambitions. The Iron Empress and her siblings were denied this guarantee, and the ex-United workers of the Devil's Fang sought to restore it to them. Through her contacts in Engineering June was able to acquire skillset software for a range of other United offerings, and as an ex-maintenance worker Anibelle knew a little bit about working with United hardware. Together with their crew they let their new friends choose a skillset that appealed to them and gave them a tune-up, swapping out their military knowledgebases for civilian ones. They gave them new serial numbers so they couldn't be tracked and they found them places to disembark and begin new, rich lives in the Sol system's great bounty. Empress and a few of her siblings opted to stay on board with the Devil's Fang, keeping the Promethean fire she'd been given. She would wield her Firehose and stand between her crewmates and danger, she would share her knowledge of ship combat with command and she would continue to fight the reaching hands of power, that they might think twice about meddling with the autonomy of any future Androids.
Most of all, the Iron Empress would lift the Dread Hunter Anibelle up off her feet and squeeze her like a teddy bear. The crew love to see it. It gets funnier every time.