Landfall: The First Winter of the Molden Heath Pirates (part I)

In the summer they camped away from the spacelanes in far-flung planets and seedy pleasure resorts. When winter came they turned their ships to the land of their birth and ravaged anything they could and so continued the pleasure they had left behind.

Around the loop they raided, taking stricken ships to a scrambler and setting them to flame. They robbed and slaughtered and they did not stop to wash away the blood and their black hands turned red and the legend and fear began to grow.

Their music was the call of the autocannon. A dance on the edge. Rifters and Jaguars jostled for room in the formation. Wolfs and Thrashers and Dramiels in line. A menacing spectacle and the locals shouted to each other to spread the warning. But the Brutors clad in black and the sickly-white Sebiestor arrived like some twisted image of a chess board only in alliance and not to wage war on each other, and the shouts were answered only by the sound of fading warp drives and then trickling blood.

In these lands they thought themselves secure but now they were dead for they had not bargained for the pirates and their stinking blood-reek and sweat and no mercy.

For one great winter black flags would fly high over the flaming gates of the Heath.

MB.