Hell's Jesters

The Grand Galactic Alliance rots from within, and now the disease is terminal. As interplanetary governance deteriorates, the mega-corporations sweep into the vacuum with their own form of order: their Will, propped up by brute, paramilitary force. Lives mean nothing. Profit overrides peace. And everyone is out for themselves. The people cry out for heroes. They find them in the Hell's Jesters, once marauders of the space lanes, now outlaws with a cause. This motley band of crusaders and criminals, human and renegade AI, will speak truth to power with firepower. Laughing at death, fighting like hell, they might be enough to free the galaxy.

Bitterly divided, the galaxy hurtles for civil war. On one side, the wounded but still mighty Grand Galactic Alliance gathers its massive resources for a conflict it believes inevitable-and easily won. On the other, the breakaway worlds of the Union of Free Stars struggle to assemble star fleets or even a functional government. Both sides fear the Hell's Jesters. The Alliance cringes in anticipation of another of their partisan raids, which elude military reprisal and ruin corporate profit. The Union dreads their recklessness, which inflames passions and accelerates a conflict for which they're poorly-prepared. But the oppressed peoples of the galaxy know Heroes when they see them. They remember the words of the Old Earth Bard who proclaimed, "Cry Havoc!" Let slip the Jesters of War.

War is hell, and now it's reached the Jesters' doorstep. Emboldened by early victories, the Alliance fleet strikes deep into the Union of Free Stars, bent on bringing its rebel planets back under their yoke. And more than politics drives them; their appetites have drained loyal worlds of resources. Only from untapped Union worlds can they find further sustenance. This is more than war for the Hell's Jesters. The Alliance now rampages amongst star systems they once called home. And as the Union Navy reels from defeat and falls back before the Alliance's superior numbers, only the Jesters have the means and the will to carry on the increasingly desperate struggle. But outnumbered, outgunned – it doesn't matter The Jesters are never out of the fight.

The Jesters need a break – they're not going to get one. Depleted by casualties, marred by personal loss, and driven to the brink of exhaustion, the galaxy's most-feared partisans have fled to the furthest corner of the stars to lick their wounds. But the war isn't done with them. Driven to desperation by a shortage of the hyper fuels needed to power their interstellar empire, the Grand Galactic Alliance launches a frenzy of attacks. Invading every world suspected of harboring even a thimbleful of resources, they'll accept any loss, so long as they can keep feeding their war machine. The Union of Free Stars, perennially short of manpower and firepower, buckles before the savagery. They send out the call for all their allies to muster in defense. This time they're not asking the Jesters to come in – they're ordering them. It seems the only way out of the fire is to go through it.

All things have their breaking point – and the war for the galaxy is about to reach its own. The Union of Free Stars was supposed to collapse after six months of galactic civil war. Instead, worlds flock to their cause as their hard-luck star fleet ekes out key victories in battle. And the Grand Galactic Alliance, beginning to run out of the hyper-fuel necessary to power the superluminal reach of their empire, resorts to ever more fascistic means to hold its citizenry together. Something's got to give. The Hell's Jesters are going to make certain it does. Whittled down to only the most fanatical, battle-weary survivors, they're coming out of hiding, one more time, to make certain the Union fleet finally finishes the job. They've lost friends, family, love. It has to have been for something. The forces of freedom must finally break the hold of tyranny and corruption over the galaxy. The Jesters are going to win it all – come Hell or Highwater.