Ishtar's first contract for the Guild of the Excluded was not an assassination or an act of sabotage. It was a declaration of war. The target was a mobile fortress belonging to The Crimson Scourge, a massive pirate guild that had tormented the Excluded for years—the direct cause of Payload's avatar corruption. The objective was their flagship, the Malevolence, a monstrosity of black and crimson armor plating that looked like a bleeding wound in the fabric of space.
For this mission, the Star-Mite stayed in dock. Using the guild's resources, Khepri had acquired the hull of an assault corvette—the Retribution. It was nearly a replica of Ishtar's old command ship, with one crucial difference: its hangar did not carry repair drones. It carried six attack fighters, each piloted by a member of the Guild of the Excluded.
On the command channel, the tension was palpable. Payload's voice was a low growl, Glitch's a nervous static, and Echo's silence heavier than usual. Only Ishtar was calm, her face impassive as she watched the Malevolence approach, surrounded by its swarm of fighters.
"Athena formation," Ishtar's voice cut through the channel, cold and precise. "Payload, Silas, Glitch—you're the spear. Echo, Parallax A, Parallax B—you're the net. Stay glued to my aft. No matter what happens. Do not fire. Do not break off. Stick to my hull."
"Stick to your hull?" Payload protested. "Boss, if they focus us, we'll get fried right along with you!"
"Exactly," Ishtar replied, without emotion. "Now comply."
She pushed the Retribution forward, straight into the heart of the enemy swarm. Dozens of Scourge fighters surged to meet them. And then Ishtar committed the first act of madness.
She stopped.
Right in the middle of their optimal firing range.
Enemy weapons opened in a torrent of fire. Lasers, plasma, and kinetic rounds converged on the Retribution. The corvette's shields screamed as the energy bar dropped—100% to 70%… 50%… 30%. The six Excluded fighters, hidden in Ishtar's shadow, so close they nearly scraped the hull, felt the heat of the barrage.
"Our shields are taking splash damage! Ishy, we're going to die here!" Glitch screamed, her avatar flickering wildly.
"Not yet," Ishtar said.
The instant her shields hit 5%, she executed the maneuver.
With a violent burst of thrust, the Retribution juked sideways, slipping out of the firing line. For one glorious second, the enemy swarm—focused entirely on a single point—found empty space in their sights. And in that second, they came face to face with six Excluded fighters, bristling with weapons, at point-blank range.
"Fire," was all Ishtar said.
What followed was a massacre.
Caught off guard and packed too tightly to maneuver, the Scourge fighters were obliterated in a series of coordinated explosions. Payload laughed uncontrollably as his cannons shredded one enemy after another. Echo's net snared three ships in an ion trap, and the Parallax twins executed them in a perfectly synchronized pass. In under a minute, the enemy swarm was reduced to drifting wreckage.
Now the Malevolence was alone. Exposed.
"Let's finish her! We can flank and hit the weak points!" Silas shouted, his three arms working furiously at the controls.
"Negative," Ishtar said, her focus locked on the capital ship. "I'm going alone."
"That's insanity," Echo transmitted in text. "Her point-defense will tear you apart! We can do this together, with the fighters!"
"No," Ishtar said—and the discussion was over.
She accelerated the Retribution, not to the sides, but straight at the black-and-red behemoth.
And then, she danced.
To the guild members watching in stunned silence, it looked like the game was lagging. The Retribution moved with a speed and precision that shouldn't have been possible. It dove beneath a laser barrage, rolled through a missile salvo, its own cannons firing in steady bursts. But she wasn't aiming at the hull. She was targeting the small power reactors feeding the shields—each one the size of a small ship.
It was as if she had twenty hands, her movements so fluid and multifaceted. One by one, without a single return shot touching her hull, the Malevolence's shield generators detonated in small blossoms of blue energy. When the last reactor went dark, a hush fell over the massive vessel.
Its shields were dead.
"She… she's a demon," Glitch whispered.
Ishtar didn't stop.
Instead of bombarding the helpless ship, she angled her nose toward the main hangar bay, which was opening to launch more fighters.
And she went in.
"What is she doing?!" Payload shouted, his voice split between panic and awe.
Inside the cavernous hangar, chaos erupted. The Retribution screamed past catwalks as internal defense turrets fired wildly. Instead of blasting through to the far side, Ishtar halted at the center of the bay and released her payload: a single, massive Antimatter Bomb—a one-use weapon so large a corvette could carry only one.
The instant the bomb dropped, with the internal guns locking onto it, Ishtar inverted the Retribution. The sudden maneuver slammed the NPC crew violently into the ceiling. And then, in the midst of the confusion, she burned out—exiting the same way she'd entered.
Behind her, the bomb pulsed once.
The universe went white.
The explosion was beautiful.
It wasn't a single boom. It was a cascade. It began in the hangar, tearing out the ship's heart. Then the detonations raced along the power lines like a virus, each deck erupting in sequence, from the inside out. The Malevolence split in two, then four, then dissolved into a cloud of glittering debris that continued to expand in silence.
On the guild channel, there was a stunned second of silence—followed by an eruption of cheers and shouts. For the first time, they hadn't merely survived an encounter with The Crimson Scourge.
They had decapitated it.
Khepri, who had observed from afar, finally spoke on the channel—his voice calm, but carrying a weight of admiration none of them had ever heard from him.
"This is Ishtar. The Queen of Destruction."
Back at the rendezvous point, while the others were still celebrating, Payload approached Ishtar, who stood quietly, watching the wreckage. He slapped her shoulder so hard her avatar nearly buckled.
"Boss," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "How can anyone be stupid enough to betray you?"