Nine Tails blockaded Cru-L1 

Today started like any other. Running cargo boxes, doing odd jobs, helping old ladies in Olisar’s lobby, and chasing a random station cat off the holoscreen. Stanton was quiet, for once.

Then the CDF call came.

The Nine Tails. A new group had somehow slipped into Stanton and wasn’t just causing trouble — they were blockading Cru-L1. An entire space station, locked down by a pirate gang.

How?

How did Nine-Tails even get here? How did they pull together a fleet big enough to choke a station’s traffic? And the bigger question — why the hell wasn’t the station firing back? Its defenses sat idle, turrets cold, like someone on the inside had flipped a switch. Where is the UEE Navy?  

Then came the broadcast. 

Every MobiGlas lit up at once — a live feed hijacked across Stanton, Nine Tails beaming their smug grins into every cockpit and hab. Not threats. Not demands. A recruiting video.

They strutted in front of their ships, showed off loot piles, promised credits, power, “freedom.” And honestly? It was kinda funny. If I were a criminal, I’d probably get along with them just fine. They seemed like a lighthearted bunch of guys… err, criminals.

But behind the jokes, the blockade was real, and so were the people trapped on Cru-L1.

The CDF didn’t waste time. Calls went out for volunteers. I rallied with others at Port Olisar and volunteered for a turret crew aboard a Hammerhead with the callsign DomRosa.

Seven of us packed into those Rhino turrets. Once we jumped in, it was nothing but fire and chaos. Fighters swarmed. Missiles lit up the black. We raked them down, turret after turret, chewing through anything dumb enough to close the distance.

But then came the Hammerheads.

Not one. Not two. Multiple.

Just like XenoThreat, I couldn’t stop asking myself the same question: where the hell does a ragtag pirate group like Nine Tails get Hammerheads? These aren’t stolen Cutlasses or pieced-together scrap haulers. These are warships — fifty million aUEC each — and Nine Tails had more than one. When I served with the UEE Navy, they couldn't just show up with ships. They had to be built, tested, go through space trials.  It's almost like these groups have some type of fleet ship yard just printing ships day and night.  

We didn’t stop to think about it too long. Couldn’t afford to. The DomRosa screamed through the fight, all guns hot, and we kept firing, burning through ammo, cooking barrels, holding the line.

And then the sky tore open.

The last Hammerhead fell. We were in a ship graveyard. So many hulls just floating in the black.  Then a new quantum signature spiked across our screens. An Idris!

The damn Nine Tails had an Idris.

It dropped in right on top of us, unleashing hell the second its drives spun down. Beams carved through the dark, tearing ships apart like paper. We countered, maneuvered, fired back — every turret, every missile, every gun in range lighting it up.

CDF ships swarmed, a dozen against one, but it didn’t matter. The unprepared fighters slammed into the hull of the Idris as it seemed to consume all light with the black space it sat in.  The Idris bled us all the same.  Our hull was screaming, armor being peeled off. 

Ships vanished in seconds. Hull's gutted, crews gone in the blink of an eye. And then I saw it — an Arrow pilot, maybe green, maybe just brave, diving straight into the path of an Exodus laser beam on the nose of the Idris. For one heartbeat, he was there. The next… nothing. Vaporized. Not even wreckage left to mark he’d even existed. I hope he had regen.

We pressed on. Kept firing. Adjusted, adapted, survived long enough to whittle it down. Inch by bloody inch, we tore it apart. And in the end, the Idris fell. The explosion filled the black around Cru-L1.  I had to enable tinting on my visor using my PILSS.  

Cru-L1 was free. But the cost was staggering. Hundreds were sent back through regen stations, hospitals across Stanton were overwhelmed, and cities went on high alert. The comm chatter afterward was just as grim — someone whispered that Nine Tails had a bigger plan, that they were already eyeing Orison’s platforms as a forward operating base. And some swore they’d figured it out: the pirates must have slipped into Stanton through the Pyro Gate, smuggling their fleet in under everyone’s noses. Except, how do you sneak Hammerheads and an Idris anywhere?

And yet, when the guns went quiet, we were welcomed like heroes. The people of Cru-L1 met us with food, water, and medical kits. The CDF covered our resupply, fuel, and repairs. We docked the DomRosa, battered but intact, and called it a successful day.