Exkalibur Brigade

The Exkalibur Brigade are one of the largest pirate forces known in the galaxy, which completely consists of heavily mutated Humans.

General
The Exkalibur Brigade was founded by the crew of the G.U.N.S.S.-Exkalibur, which was heavily mutated during an accident caused by a malfunction in their hyperdrive-engine.

History
The G.U.N.S.-Exkalibur was originally an escort ship of the Galactic Union, which was not dedicated to a single sector, but was escorting convoys the whole way from spaceport to spaceport, even if they passed the boarders of a sector on the way. This was supposed to be the first step towards a new escort system, where less important sectors would not have escort ships permanently stationed there, instead non-dedicated escorts would be assigned to convoys from that sector, whenever necessary.

During a mission in the outer sectors of the Galactic Union, the Exkalibur was taksed with escorting a medical supply convoy to one of the far out borderworlds. During their attempt to jump into hyperspace, a malfunction wth their hyperdrive engine created a rift in space, sucking both the Exkalibur and the convoy inside. This rift threw them into Liquid Space and the enormous forces that were pulling them in, damaged both the excalibur and the convoy. With both ships heavily damaged and the pressure of Liquid Space beginning to break the hull of the unarmoured convoy, the crew of the Exkalibur teleported some of their crewmen over, but more then half of the men sent over, were lost, due to the Liquid Space interfering with the teleportation process.

Within the convoy the air was already filled with fumes coming from the Liquid that was streaming into the ship. The Exkalibur-crewmen found the convoy crew to be heavily deformed and in a state of insanity, beginning to attack the crewmen. After suffering more losses while fighting the transformed convoy-crew, the crewmen sent a distress signal, making the Exkalibur use their finite energy reserves, to dock with the convoy ship to send backup for their crewmen. After a few hours almost all of the member of the convoy-crew were either mutated and killed, or heavily injured and brought to the Exkalibur's medical center. After retrieving the as much of the medical supplies as they could store within their small cargo bay, they abandoned the convoy, which was son completely crushed by the pressure of the Liquid Space.

Soon however the Liquid was also breaching the leaks in the damaged hull of the Exkalibur. This coupled with the constant skirmishes with the predatory creatures living in Liquid Space, slowed down the repair of the exkalibur significantly, exposing the crew to a lot of the fumes and permanently contaminating the Exkalibur, before they could sucessfully make a hyperspace-jump, back into normal space. The long exposure to the Liquid Space caused heavy deformities and mutations of the members of the Exkalibur's crew, but non the less they continued their mission, to bring the part of the medical shipment that they could salvage, to its destination, hoping to get treated at the spacestation they were supposed to travel to.

But upon their arrival at the spacestation, they were met by the station's security personell, believing them to be one of the several packs of mutats, that have been repeatedly raiding the station the past months. As they were faced by armed guards and said guard's unwillingness to listen to the crew's explaination, the tension of the situation was rising quickly and as one of the station's guards opened fire on the crew, it came to a firefight, which ended in the complete anihilation of the security personell of the space station, due to the crew of the Exkalibur having full military equipment, opposed to the weaker weaopnry of the station's guards.

After this incident the Galactic Union declared the crew of the excalibur as rogue and ordered all spacestations to forbid the Exkalibur from docking. This was te beginning of the Exkalibur's service as a pirate vessel and within a few years the Exkalibur was not the only ship under the crew's control and today the crew of the Exkalibur, now the Exkalibur Brigade, is in control of a full fleet of starships. Although many new people have joined the crew, it is not rid of its mutations, since the brigade has it's home starbase within the Liquid Space, to escape the persecution of the Galactic Union.

Raids
A raid by the Exkalibur Brigade can happen at any poin in normal or hyperspace and is completely unpredictable, as they jump from the Liquid Space directly to the point in normal space that will be the target of their next attack.

In battle they use heavily modifyed weapons, using the properties of Liquid Space to damage or destroy their opponents, such as boardingpods, wich are filled with the Liquid that had mutated them, which's high dosis turns the crew of the attacked ship, into similar beings like the crew of the lost convoy. Other weapons include Biocannons, that were taken from killed fauna from Liquid Space, or corrosive substances launched at close range, to eat through the target's hull.