Somewhere beyond the respectable edges of the Thirteen Star Systems, where sensible people rarely travel and insurance companies refuse to return calls, there is a ship. Not a particularly elegant ship, not a particularly legal ship. either and certainly not a ship you would voluntarily board after reading its maintenance history. Its name is The Mongoose a battered, overpowered, illegally modified freighter with enough hidden armoury to invade a small moon and enough unresolved mechanical problems to make an engineer quietly reconsider their career. Aboard this magnificent flying violation of safety regulations lives a collection of individuals collectively known as... The Zone Warriors, heroes? technically, criminals? frequently, Idiots? well let us not get distracted by terminology.
Their leader is Jack Vance, smuggler, rogue, professional improviser and a man with the remarkable ability to walk into catastrophic situations carrying absolutely no visible plan whatsoever. Somehow, this usually works, nobody understands why even scientists have stopped trying.
Then there is Rinn Kazza, former naval pilot and velocity addict whose interpretation of the phrase maximum safe speed appears to focus primarily on the word maximum. Rinn can fly almost anything it's just landing it afterwards remains a separate discussion.
Providing the subtle tactical element is Brakka Nine, former bounty hunter, walking siege weapon and enthusiastic owner of the Grav-Hammer known as Ironsaint. Brakka believes almost every complicated problem can be simplified by hitting it extremely hard. Statistical analysis suggests he may be correct.
Then we have Rugg Delphane, the Data Phantom Hacker. Cyberwarfare specialist. Digital saboteur and the reason Dominion security technicians occasionally stare at their screens before quietly resigning. Rugg does not believe computer systems should have secrets., especially not from him. If your network contains something classified encrypted or deeply embarrassing, Rugg will eventually find it., probably while eating something over your keyboard.
Then there is Detta Marr the Bomb Whisperer. Most people see explosives as weapons Detta sees them as art. She gives them personalities, she writes poetry about them and occasionally she writes poetry on them. This would be charming if the poems did not generally conclude with a detonation powerful enough to rearrange local geography.
And finally there is Keera Thorne, the Firefly Queen. Former galactic racing legend, outlaw pilot, gravity enthusiast. Professional enemy of sensible acceleration. Keera is the primary pilot of The Mongoose, which means she regularly attempts manoeuvres that cause navigation computers to develop what can only be described as existential anxiety.
But there is another presence aboard this ship, something considerably more intelligent, at least according to itself. V.I.X.I.
The Variable Intelligence eXperimental Interface.
Artificial intelligence. Navigator. Weapons controller. Cyberwarfare system.
Tactical computer. Guardian of The Mongoose and unwilling electronic babysitter to six biological disasters who apparently regard flashing red warning lights as encouragement.
V.I.X.I. sees everything aboard The Mongoose. She controls the engines. She controls the weapons. She controls the cloaking system. She controls communications. She controls life support which means irritating her is generally considered unwise. The crew does it constantly because these are the Zone Warriors they argue, cheat, steal from unpleasant people. They insult dictators, embarrass tyrants, destroy expensive Dominion property with an enthusiasm best described as bordering on recreational. They rarely follow orders, they occasionally follow plans. and have absolutely no understanding of the phrase strategic withdrawal unless someone explains that it means running away while shooting backwards. Yet beneath the sarcasm, explosions, illegal modifications and truly horrifying repair bills lies one inconvenient truth. When nobody else comes...
The Zone Warriors do.
When colonies are abandoned, they show up, when prisoners disappear into Dominion camps, they start looking, when slavers believe nobody is coming to stop them, The Mongoose tends to appear on their scanners shortly before several extremely expensive things explode.
They do it because somewhere beneath all that dysfunction, stupidity and spectacular property damage, the Zone Warriors actually give a damn.
Which is deeply inconvenient for the bad guys. So when the Dominion comes hunting, when the Galactic Justice runs out of conventional options, When another lunatic develops a superweapon, when some ancient cosmic horror wakes up after ten thousand years and decides the galaxy looks particularly conquerable, there is one question everyone eventually asks.
Where are the Zone Warriors?
The answer is usually disappointing, they are probably late, Rinn has probably broken something, Detta has probably exploded something, Rugg has probably hacked something he was specifically told not to hack, Brakka is probably hitting something, Keera is probably flying sideways, Jack Vance is almost certainly pretending all of this was part of the plan and V.I.X.I.?
V.I.X.I. is doing what she always does, keeping the ship flying, keeping the crew alive and quietly calculating exactly how much easier her existence would be if she simply opened the airlocks.
Welcome aboard The Mongoose. Please keep your hands away from the controls, ignore the smoke and whatever you do just don't annoy the AI.
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