The young engineer held a leaflet in his hands. It was printed in red, with the imprint of a bloody hand visible in the bottom right corner.

There are 3 ways to accumulate wealth.

Work hard, only to be laid off due to a crisis and die homeless of starvation.

Inherit money, since you're lucky to be one of the 0.1% oppressors. I wish you death, bastard. We will find you and kill you.

Now the real way. The last path we have chosen...

ROBBERY!

We can't give you stability, but we can give you a chance to kill politicians, businessmen and aristocrats.

Every day on the battlefields, millions of soldiers die. What are they fighting for? Patriotism? The desire to protect their country? It's all just the deceitful propaganda of your government.

These soldiers kill for wealth, for money you'll never see. Capitalism is an expansive system. If there are no external markets, income can only be accumulated, not spent.

When the bastards in power spend big, another economic crisis happens. A crisis that will deprive you of family, home and food.

Are you ready to be oppressed? Ready to give up the fight?

No? Want revenge? Burn down this galaxy of capitalism with our pirate group!

RED HAND, let's burn down this rotten world.

The leaflet was tucked away in a far corner of the desk as the engineer went about his daily work. In the Green Cross sector, he was one of the few traders supported by ship weapons.

"D-modules again!"

Ezzon kicked his thermoplastic printer. He had just ruined the casing of a 50 TW laser gun. The housing would provide too poor cooling, reducing lifetime and power.

Ezzon didn't get angry.

He closed the diagnostic program, turned off the power, and skillfully cleaned the printer.

This sequence of actions was well-practiced. He had failed many times before.

In less than five minutes, he restarted the print program.

This time there were no issues.

The front casing was quickly printed, and after polishing some uneven edges, it was ready for use.

Ezzon connected the parts, then returned to the workbench and began assembling the laser weapon. The old casing had long been dismantled, and the broken focusing crystals had been replaced.

"The last component has been printed. Although there was a minor issue earlier, everything should work now..."

As he assembled the weapon, he spoke into a camera, explaining things periodically. Pirates paid for training, with many doing field repairs on their ships. Workshops earned most of their profit from trust and authority.

Advertising didn't work well with the gangs inhabiting the darkest corner of space.

Essentially, this was his daily routine.

As the owner of an online restored weapons store and administrator of a small repair tutorial site, his daily work consisted of taking orders from the online store, then fixing the loot of pirates, with the process being recorded and used for teaching.

By selling weapons, doing repairs, and posting videos, he could earn a little money.

Of course.

It couldn't be said that he earned a lot.

He made 320 exo-coins a month, but expenses were around 260 exo-coins. So all he could earn was enough for sustenance.

"Alright, the gun should be getting enough cooling now. We'll check that next."

Ezzon turned off the camera on his PDA, then started heating the laser. For this he had brought a dozen heaters.

Pirates were usually idiots asking why don't you test the weapons? Ezzon would just shrug - where could he test them? In the workshop? 50 TW? It would blow away the whole building.

Few would bother to observe the repair process of looted goods, yet his fans had a strange tendency to watch repair failures.

It was quite abnormal.

However, to increase his number of fans, he had to fake failures during repairs.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Pirates clearly had strange tastes in content.

A loser? Pirates love to ridicule him? At least he was quite popular, and local barons weren't rushing to rob his workshop with their "protection" offers.

Ezzon placed the PDA on a stand and turned off the heaters. Checking with a thermal imager, he nodded satisfied. The housing easily dissipated heat from the laser.

Having completed the test, he turned off the video and started writing to his client.

---BTOOM---

A sudden flash and pain in the head. The poor mechanic immediately lost consciousness. The world before Ezzon darkened as a gang of tall intruders broke into his workshop.

He regained consciousness in the hold of a spaceship. His legs were tied up and his head hurt.

In front of him stood a tall figure in powered armor. It was dark in the hold and he could barely make out armor details.

"Ezzon Nerronis. A hybrid of humans and mystics. In the three years on Trax-38, didn't drink, smoke or even fuck in a red..."

The voice was female, but the words were full of the arrogance of another stupid pirate newbie.

"Hey, that's offensive now."

He shook his head disapprovingly and peered closely at the unfamiliar woman.

M-130 powered armor, from back in human independence. Prehistoric 3 meter junk. Ezzon sized up the crappy armor and realized the woman was under 2 meters tall. The armor had a narrow V-shaped visor and a huge number of unprotected sensors.

For weapons, she had an old gauss rifle on her waist. Ezzon knew about such rifles, but had never seen one. Who makes weapons without self-guidance and target analysis functions nowadays?

"We kidnapped you, it's natural for you to be upset."

Having finished assessing the enemy, Ezzon sighed.

"Don't you know the rules of Trax-38? Workshops are under the protection of the Barons' Сollegium."

"Well...we don't care."

The woman pressed a button on her powered armor. Lights finally turned on in the room.

The metal walls were covered in rusty stains. Boxes and cargo containers almost filled the space. Most noticeable was the ship's thermonuclear reactor.

Ezzon sighed and pleaded with his captor.

"Tell me we're still at the station?"

The loud laugh was his answer.

"Welcome aboard, this is my frigate. We already set out on a raid. Oh, and thanks for repairing the laser gun. We couldn't find a chief engineer, again welcome aboard."

The covering on the cables had been removed. The reactor occasionally rattled, and the smell was indescribable. Ezzon realized what a wreck he was on. The mechanic peered into his captor's visor.

"So you're the captain of this rusty scrap metal?"

The woman nodded and took off her helmet, revealing red hair that might not stand out if it wasn't for the two small black horns above her forehead. The tall girl attached the helmet to her armor and finally introduced herself.

"Scarlet nicknamed The Lustful, welcome aboard Whore."

Ezzon wanted to lash out, but was speechless for a moment.

"I've never gotten a welcome like this, a woman calling herself a bitch herself."

The woman narrowed her eyes but didn't hit her new subordinate.

"The nickname was given by Baron Cross."

Ezzon rolled his eyes and started complaining.

"I'm not going to work for you, drop me off at the nearest station. I'll pay the ransom."

Scarlet shook her head, then pulled out an archaic paper sheet.

"Here's your contract, now choose. You on board or into space?"

Ezzon took the contract, started reading it, and then pointed to his legs.

"Untie me, I'm going into space like you said."

Scarlet crossed her arms.

"Nice joke. So you agree?"

Ezzon was silent. He didn't say that civilian frigates fly with suicide pilots. This wasn't a military frigate, just a pile of reworked civilian crap. Judging by the removed wiring panels, the ship had been tuned towards speed, but the reactor in front of him was weak.

There wouldn't be enough inertia for battle against military or rich pirates. No armor, no speed, and probably no escape pods.

Ezzon wanted to refuse again, but reading the contract, he suddenly shuddered. The mechanic suddenly discovered semi-transparent panels appearing before the reactor.

[Item: Civilian class reactor (v-144)]

[EXP: 0/100]

[D-modules: 14]

[E-modules: 0]

[Manufacturer: Bro-Transport]

[Resonance energy: 0]

What was happening?

He involuntarily jerked his head, and Scarlet saw a nod in his head movements.

"That's good then."

She untied his legs and slapped her metal hands.

"Congratulations on the appointment."

Ezzon's eye twitched, but he calmed down.

"Okay, but can I be alone for a bit? I don't think you've assigned me quarters and tasks yet."

Scarlet smirked and gave him access to the ship's network.

"You underestimate me, I did it all before your kidnapping."

At that moment, the doors opened and five more muscular two meter tall women entered the hold.

Ezzon shuddered, unable to help but notice some of their features. One had scales, another had horns like the captain, some had snake eyes, and the last had an actual tail.

"So you're ubers?"

Scarlet happily slapped him on the shoulder.

"Got it, I gathered the best girls and we decided to stop serving other pirates. We're the first uber gang in this galaxy!"

The captain raised a finger and laughed haughtily. Ezzon just shuddered.

His differences from humans were only in his elongated ears, reminiscent of elves from old human fairy tales, but ubers weren't hybrids.

Each of them was a descendant of Sector 17. The last of the humans who resisted the protectorate. Worlds of resistance were subjected to genocide and exo-infection. Who would have thought, exo-materials deadly to aliens became a panacea for humans.

Exo-materials caused mutations in the remnants of the resistance. Males got the external resonance factor, while females got the internal resonance factor.

External resonance is responsible for the ability to disturb the effect of time on matter, but only in contact with technology embedded with exo-material.

Internal resonance allowed near immortality, regeneration, and adaptability to the environment, but lowered emotional control, and bearers had to constantly consume radiation from exo-materials.

The invaders captured the survivors, then used the males to breed noble mecha pilot families. Hybrids and humans received tech with exo-material for resonance.

But the alien women of the resistance were of no interest to the invaders. Creating an environment for them was nearly impossible.

Thus, the descendants of these women became outlaws. These dangerous tall women are called ubers, recognizable by minor reptilian mutations.

Eyes, horns, scales, claws or a tail. All this will indicate an uber to you.

External resonance mutations were passed on to both men and women, but internal resonance only affected women. This fact further marginalized ubers.

Scarlet didn't notice the hatred in Ezzon's reaction. This fact pleased her, and she pointed to the wiring and generator.

"Okay, then your first task is this. I need to get the FTL drive up to 500%. In a month, we have to attack a rich transport ship."

Ezzon looked at her like an idiot.

"You want to fry us?"

Scarlet confidently slapped him on the shoulder.

"Just make sure the ship doesn't blow up. Once we capture a new ship, this baby will become spare parts."

Scarlet led the ubers away, and the mechanic was left alone in the hold. His eyes still clung to the strange semi-transparent plates.