The dropships shuddered as flak and missiles detonated around it. Over one hundred of these heavily armed and armored landing craft had been deployed, but only a minute after entering the atmosphere their numbers had dropped to merely a quarter of what they had been. The Arcadian fleet was not playing around, and their allies on the ground were making sure that the troops within those flying coffins were having a very, very bad day.

This was not to say that they even acknowledged the fact that they were being swatted out of the skies like flies near a bug zapper. In fact, those aboard were either the genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced spec ops soldiers known as ‘Zeroes’ or the highly trained pilots of the dropships. One of them was tailor made to care for nothing save the completion of whatever mission parameters were plugged into their cyborg brains while the other had no other purpose in their career but to fly dropships into warzones.

Neither job had any upwards mobility, nor did they pay well or have many benefits, especially for the Zeroes.

Every pilot had been in their position since the day they became pilots for the UGN military. Every one of them had, despite having years of training and service under their belt after being ‘volunteered’ to help in the numerous ‘Corporate Wars’, never received a pay increase or even a promotion. At this point they were payed a few credits less than even an Army Private, despite years of distinguished service.

They would have gone on strike or quit long ago if it were not for the fact that those who left the Dropship Pilot job ended up being dishonorably discharged day before they could leave and thus unable to collect even the slightest veteran benefits or even social security or unemployment checks. Those that left were reduced to beggars and eventually died of exposure and/ or starvation and/or dehydration. Thus, to them it was better that they throw themselves at the wall of anti-aircraft fire and hope for a quick death. At least that way they could die with honor and take a small monetary jab at the military complex that had treated them like trash despite the importance of their job.

One by one, the tens of remaining dropships fell from the sky until only a handful were left. Those remaining few had sustained damage and when they touched down it was less of a landing and more of a skidding crash. One in particular impacted a building and got stuck halfway inside the now collapsing structure. Metal pieced metal and the dropship now had holes in its top, bottom, sides and front while rubble partially blocked the rear ramp.

The cockpit had been punctured, but no one inside had perished. Whether this was a miracle or not remained to be seen however, as the crash sites quickly began to be swarmed by Alliance troops and a handful of Mobile Suit Golems; both parties armed with either flamethrowers or other weapons. The Alliance forces took up positions behind the crashed combat shuttles and began to fire at the rear ramp with their loaned Arcadian weapons. They were not about to let anyone, or anything walk out of those landing craft alive.

The MSGs, on the other hand, converged on the dropship that had embedded itself into a now collapsed building. They quickly arrested the dropship pilots who, due to UGN military standards and regulations, were completely unarmed and unprepared for any kind of resistance. The super soldiers still trapped inside were a different story altogether. They had been activated and began trying to push open the landing ramp, resulting in a contest between them and the MSGs about whether the ramp would fall or not.

The super soldiers soon had other issues, as the holes torn into the wafer-thin, unshielded hull of the dropship meant that flamethrowers could be used to turn the inside of the landing craft into a blazing inferno. Although, despite the fire now raging inside the craft, the Zeroes still focused on trying to force open the boarding ramp instead of doing the smart thing and leaving through the numerous holes in the cockpit.

Eventually, enough MSGs gathered together and held the ramp shut while another one used a Beam Pick to weld the exit closed. Then it merely became a waiting game to see which would give first, the fires, the dropship’s hull or the cyborg super soldiers inside said dropship. As one would expect, flesh tends not to do well when exposed to extreme heat and the electronics inside the Zeroes fared no better as the flamethrowers continued to pour burning death through the holes. Slowly, the pounding noises from inside ceased and only the sound and smell of burning flesh and electronics could be sensed from the flaming pile of junk that lay before them.

…

“I’m so glad I could speak with you all. How is life in your corner of the Galaxy?” Arkhan said with a smug grin on his face.

“You tyrant! What are you doing on that planet?! How dare you violate the---!”

“I know what you are going to say, so stuff it. I can accuse you and yours of the same thing.”

“Nonsense!” yelled the UGN’s Secretary General, a large insectoid that looked similar to a cross between a rhinoceros beetle and a grasshopper, “We have not even set a single foot upon that world, or any other for that matter!”

“And the fact that the natives have been receiving support and technology from the UGN? Does that mean nothing?” Arkhan was getting ready for the reveal. He could hardly wait and wondered how it would go down.

“Those rogue elements are not ours!”

Arkhan closed his eyes and nodded as his insidious smile grew wider.

“I see. I see. So, they are unaffiliated with your UGN in any way, shape or form?”

The Secretary General nodded.

“They have no connection to us whatsoever.”

“Wonderful! That means they are pirates and nothing more, right?”

Now the leaders of the UGN were slowly starting to get concerned. Why was he so happy when they announced this?

“If they are pirates than that means their lives are forfeit. Death, torture and possibly worse is all that awaits them, then. I should probably show how much I hate pirates with a demonstration, right? To show that I only intervened due to extraneous circumstances, right?”

“I don’t like where this is going….” The Secretary General said in a worried tone.

The ‘wall’ behind Arkhan rolled away on wheels to show the lined-up forms of over eight dozen people who were the sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and relatives of various high ranking UGN personages.

“Ready.”

The mix of Lodian Humans and MSGs readied their weapons.

“Aim.”

The troops aimed.

“Wait! Stop! That is my--!”

“FIRE!”

The captives were torn to shreds by a hail of fire, both kinetic and energy based. For a good minute and a half, the barrage continued, chopping the bodies of those ‘pirates’ before them into smaller and smaller bits.

“NOOOOO!” “YOU MONSTER!” “YOU FIEND!” “YOU DEVIL!” “YOU KILLED MY BOYS!”

Heedless to the cries coming from the UGN leadership, Arkhan gave a non-verbal signal and another group of Lodians came forward onto the scene and began to drown the shredded bodies in liquid fire. Finally, the camera turned to show the most decorated admiral in the UGN military, who had just watched his ‘best’ officers be butchered and incinerated.

“Well, Mr. Pirate Captain, I believe it is your turn now. Your pirate armada has been broken, your enslavement of the people here has been stopped, and now the time has come for you to meet your maker. Not before those whom you have wronged have a word with you first, though.”

The camera followed the admiral as he was thrown into the waiting arms of the mob that had assembled just for this purpose. There were widows, childless mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters who had lost a sibling or a parent and those who saw their homes razed to the ground and their neighbors sold off into slavery on a faraway world. There were many people who wanted their pound of flesh from this UGN admiral who, in their eyes, had taken so very much from them. As the mob advanced, the admiral begged and pleaded for his life, crying out that he had just followed orders and that he was not to blame for the actions taken.

Such words fell on deaf ears and soon his cries for salvation were replaced by the noises of bones breaking and flesh tearing as the mob of furious and grieving Humans tore him to literal pieces, all while the camera relayed scene in all its graphic detail.

Arkhan beamed as he addressed the horrified Leaders of the UGN.

“By the way, these ‘pirates’ had a lot of strange data on their computers. I took the liberty of forwarding that data directing to both Arcadia’s intel teams and to the various news networks in the UGN. If there is one thing the talking heads love more than celebrity scoops it is reporting on, or rather, gossiping about government and military matters. By the way, I expect you don’t mind if I kill the rest of the pirates we captured, despite some of them claiming to have family in some of your largest corporations. Anyways, now that the cat is out of the bag, no thanks to these pirates, Arcadia will be giving the seven worlds the choice ahead of time, for their own safety, you understand.”

As Arkhan walked off, he looked back at the grieving UGN leadership.

“Remember; none of this would have happened if these ‘pirates’ had not shown up. Don’t blame yourselves or myself for this, blame the ‘pirates’ for it all. After all, they didn’t have any connection to your nations or companies, right?”