DEAD or ALIVE
C89,000,000,000 REWARD
Notify THE GRAND ADMIRAL of the TERRAN STAR NAVY
Long-lived and steady-handed, Fiss the Brass Wyrm is the chief blacksmith and metallurgist of the Devil's Fang Pirates. The eldest of ninety-seven sisters, Fiss carries on with an unbothered and genuine personality, not easily moved to ire and filled with sage wisdom to share with her many, many younger siblings. That wisdom isn't long winded, though, Fiss speaks with an economy of words, but those few words carry tomes of insight- when you are feeling benighted and she casts an illuminating word or two into your sky you will understand. As a member of the Devil's Fang she can often be found in her workshop, the clang of her hammer resounding throughout the Coelacanth, and while she doesn't openly invite anyone into her smithy if crewmembers happen to show up and not get in the way she won't object to their company.
Being part of a big family means Fiss enjoys the benefit of generational knowledge, passed down her line from the annals of time. In the age of technological booms old craft wisdom is often lost to the churn of automation, experienced craftspeople struggling to find apprentices to pass on their legacy and industry muscling them from their old markets into the niche of wealthy patronage. Fiss is a blacksmith in the old sense of the term, tempering metals in hot embers and pounding them free of impurities by hand. As a metallurgist she has a seasoned eye for blending elements into her metals to give them strengths and attributes desirable to their applications, able to reproduce metallic goods with precision that reaches down to their elemental composition. She carries knowledge passed down from forebearers of old and maintains a belief that her craft is for the everyman. Wealthy collectors occasionally learn about and seek out a one-of-a-kind commission from Fiss or her sisters, and are greeted only with silence when they arrive at their island, their forges and workshops paying them no reply. Their draconic hoards do not impress the Serpents of Brass.
Fiss, like Lydia, hails from Terra's middle seas. Her family is large and storied, members of her line could be found in port towns around the planet dating back for as long as Terrans have traveled the ocean. They've born witness to the Terran Curse of Arrogance as it blossomed from its acorn and have given safe harbor to pirates of old who would plunder the wealth of empires and send their wooden ships to the merfolk below. Cultivating a generational contempt for avarice and power, in the age of starships and planetary ports it's only natural the ninety-seven sisters would cross paths with the Devil's Fang. The zinc of her family's morals are blended deep with the copper of her bloodline, and as the eldest of her generation Fiss ensures her family's mettle is maintained. Unique among the crew, Fiss is the one member of the Devil's Fang who did not stumble into the same tangled knot of fate as Anibelle and June and the band of misfits who follow them, no. Fiss was sought out.
It'd been a few years since Empress joined the Devil's Fang, sharing the gift of tactics with the plunderous pirates. They began to target ships more strategically, they began to develop formations among their fleets and they learned to anticipate Star Naval counter-strategies. Their strengths were still in their boarding parties but they began to shore up their weakpoints. As the conflict evolved and their resources became more sophisticated, the Devil's Fang ran into a few emergent problems. The first problem was one of parts- a lot of the old crew were ex-United maintenance techs, they know how to keep their ships in working order, but without parts available they can't do a lot of maintaining. Now that they have bounties on their heads the crew can't simply waltz into a Terran Military Starship Depot and put in a requisition order for replacement parts for some of the burlier ships they'd begun hijacking, they needed to start fabricating their own supplies. The second problem was their favorite tactic, it was getting harder and harder to pull off.
For years the scourge of Terran ambition has been tiny little ships zooming through space, crashing into bigger ships without either one of them exploding. No one understood how nothing kept exploding but it was long suspected one of the Mercurians among their crew had some kind of crashing or explosion aspect to their Gift. The truth was it was the captain's quantum meddling, and pulling it off put a bit of strain on her. As the conflict evolved it was harder to sneak a ship into ramming position and so it was harder for the Devil's Fang to do what they do best: show up aboard a starship and take it over by force. Too many Star Commanders were feeling too comfortable with their necks attached to their shoulders and this couldn't do. Anibelle and June consulted with their tactician on how they could increase their collection of officer heads. Empress offered them a breathtaking proposition.
Among the Devil's Fang's fleet were a number of larger, bulkier ships with multiple decks and sturdy frames. A ship needs room to take off, maneuver and build ramming speed to crash through forcefields and hangar bay doors, which telegraphs the expected behavior. Empress's proposal was this: equip some of the larger ships with fixed broadside cannons capable of firing very large shells. The Star Navy prefers ship-to-ship combat so they'll be positioned to receive cannon fire from an enemy vessel, but what they wouldn't expect is for that cannon fire to contain pirates. Empress proposes developing a cannon round that can safely transport a squad of dudes directly from one ship to the next, give it a spiraling forcefield disruptor at its tip and an epoxy sealant at its tail and you can fire these rounds unpredictably into any deck of a ship, not just their hangar, at any time. The Venusian engineer and her Mercurian mechanic friend looked to each other- the latter's eyes lighting up while the former smiled nice and bright. They stood at the threshold of a new era, but there was just one thing in their way: how they hell were they going to build the damn things?
Their answer lay hidden in Terra's glittering blue seas. One of June's old engineering teammates- a fish-tailed aquatic Terran- mentioned that her family had friends who shared roots around an island in the middle seas. It wasn't feasible for modern fabrication facilities to produce anything for the Devil's Fang, but there were older disciplines who were not bound by the limitations of technology who might serve their needs. The Devil's Fang could solve their two logistical problems with an old-fashioned blacksmith, but the catch was they had to travel to Terra, to the very heart of the hornet's nest they've swatted, in order to find them.
If there's one thing the Devil's Fang has a surplus of, it's cargo ships. They'd been plundering ships for years and they had a supply of the most plain and ordinary utilitarian cargo ships imaginable stashed somewhere or another in the Asteroid Belt, but the most inconspicuous one of them all was Bixy's old plant transport ship, the one they'd flown out to meet the Devil's Fang in. With a little serial number falsification and a quick coat of paint they put together the vessel for their most dangerous mission yet, gave orders to their crew and set off for Terra.
The team for this job was Anibelle, June, Bixy and Whisper. Bixy was needed to pilot the ship, as Ganymedean starships are too small for outworlders to fit on their bridge or in their halls. The other three were all crammed in the actual cargo hold, where Bixy would carry larger plants and trees. It was a comically-cramped ride, but with a Ganymedean ship entering Terran space there was no chance it was the Devil's Fang, right? Fortunately Terran star control didn't feel the need to interrogate this one Ganymedean transport and waved them in. Once they were in atmosphere, the little ship headed to sea level to cruise along above the waves, seeking out an island veiled in stone.
The Ganymedean ship came to rest on a gentle beach, an idyllic ring of greenery encircling a great fang of stone rising out of the sea. Inside the mountainous walls lived the Serpents of Brass, their old blood steeped in old knowledge. It's been years since the pirates had set foot on Terra, soaking in the pleasant atmosphere. It was Whisper's first time, and once he was out of the ship's cargo hold he was just so gee-whiz about how pretty everything was- this was one of the worlds his Solzari people sought to strip-mine for minerals, it was one of the jewels he joined the Devil's Fang to protect, and seeing it up close was, ahh, well, it's just breathtaking.
Bixy hopped onto the captain's back and hung onto her shoulder as her boots plodded through the island soil, her first mate at her side and their crew coordinator, the man of iron from beyond the stars, towering behind them. As they approached the brass village they could feel hundreds of eyes upon them, these visitors to their home. Anibelle listened for the clang of hot iron, following it to a simple stone smithy in the heart of the village- June's contact had warned them about presenting yourself to the Serpents of Brass, "carry yourself confidently, they have no patience for unalloyed metals." The Mercurian's knuckles rapped against a wood beam, announcing the crew's presence. "You Fiss?" The serpent-tailed woman looked up from her anvil, her hammer coming to rest on her workbench, her eyes sizing up the outsiders.
The Terran Star Navy had not been forthcoming in telling people the Devil's Fang exists, but in certain circles people knew exactly what had been going on in space the past few years. They knew who the pirates were, what they fought for and they understood the risk they'd take in setting foot on Terran soil. Word of their exploits had reached this little island, friend to their foes. The Dread Hunter and the Grim Shard stood before them, carrying a sizeable fortune on their heads- the fact they were here at all, that they stood before the eldest of the hundred sisters, spoke clearly without speaking a word. The woman's eyes looked the crew up and down, shifting from one to the other before settling on Whisper. Her brow knit, and finally she spoke. "Come here". Whisper stood up straight, his hot iron fingertips tapping together. "Wh-- uhh-- did I do something wrong? I, uhh--". Anibelle put a hand around his back and gave him a push forward. "Go on, Whiz." Fiss reached for her hammer.
The years had not been kind to the Devil's Fang, but for Whisper in particular his metal frame chronicled the trials the crew endured fighting against the reach of Terran power. He didn't have flesh, he didn't mend, his body bore nicks and breaks he collected being big and scary for his friends. Fiss took his hot metal hand in her gloved mitt and stuck it in her forge, heating it until it glowed a bright orange. She then pulled him along to her anvil and began to hammer out the breaks and the bends in his fingers, mending the man of iron in her own way. Whisper panicked at first but after a few whacks with the hammer he started to feel a little better- she reforged one of his hands in her shop, and he lifted it and wriggled his fingers, free of kinks. Fiss looked him over, and glanced back to the other three pirates. Without another word she gathered up a bag of her things and slithered out of her smithy, one of her sisters taking up the job she'd left on her anvil.
Whisper looked to his friends. "Did I, uhh.. was that good?" Anibelle nodded. "Yeah, you did good." The Devil's Fang had found their metallurgist.
Fiss had answered the call and joined the motley crew, but she had one condition: while she would board this crew of the damned and take her place in her lineage, aiding the adversaries of empire as her forebearers before her, she wanted to see her family from time to time. The Dread Hunter and the Grim Shard had risked their necks to find her once, they could bring her back home again, if this was her cost they would gladly pay it. They understood. Family was important to Fiss, and over time she would come to see the Devil's Fang as a family of their own, but she couldn't leave her ninety-six sisters unattended indefinitely. That just wouldn't do.
With the hire of Fiss the Brass Wyrm the pirates' fleet could withstand the wear of use and time. She could forge replacement parts shockingly to spec with hammer and anvil, she could fix up the crew's favorite gear. Fiss helped bring the legendary Boarding Rounds of the Devil's Fang to life. Years later, on the Coelacanth, her smithy would be a welcome space for her crewmates, offering her sisterly wisdom in frugal doses. She helped maintain Whisper's metal frame and ensured Teddy's evo suit did not rust to pieces, buttoning them both up and earning their unwavering trust. Those Star Patrollers and Bounty Hunters who would breach the home of the Devil's Fang would meet the Brass Wyrm, who would not hesitate to pound the impurities out of them like so much pig iron. It is fulfilling work, to get your hands dirty and carry on the legacy of your ancestors. To be a part of this other family and to alloy your own metal into theirs, everyone becomes stronger for it. But she couldn't stay away from her home, from her sisters.
Decades would pass. Somewhere in the Sol system the Coelacanth lurked in the darkness of space, a thing of myth and infamy, but today a small cargo ship received clearance to enter Terran space. It was a beautiful planet, well cared for by its inhabitants, its waters glistening under the glow of Sol. This small ship would land somewhere in the middle seas, on a gentle beach of sand ringing a rocky little island. Its cargo bay doors would open, a pair of steel-toed boots setting foot on Terra Firma. A stripe-socked pair of wellies would follow, and after them a scaly tail of serpentine brass slithered onto the warm sands. Fiss would glide along ahead of her companions, who took a slower pace into the island's center, in hurrying to reunite with her many sisters. The times had been trying, but the Dread Hunter and the Grim Shard always kept their word.