To Kill With a Borrowed Knife
Since the late 1900s did humanity have dreams of piercing the heavens to lay their gaze on what was beyond. We took small steps at first, eventually finding ourselves on the moon but, alas, our steps were uneven and our legs like that of a child, learning to walk. More time was given to science and its dreamers after the financial crises and the War in the Middle East had more or less subsided. Decades past and we were finally going to make something of our dreams and aspirations. Humanity seemed to drop their weapons as we had finally finished terraforming Mars and the construction of the colony was completed. It was a truly beautiful thing to watch the SS Carl Sagan and the SS Stephen Hawking slip forth into the black, Earth's first colonizers in its metal cradle. Sadly, it was not long before the first weaponised craft were developed, responding to the needs of the people as we spread through to nearby solar systems. Piracy became commonplace and it seemed that the 1600s were repeating themselves.
With the growth of humanity and their ingenuity it was only a matter of time until our species were contacted by the Galactic peacekeeping organization, the League of Sentient and Civilized Worlds and inducted into their ranks as an honorary member. Should we want full membership as a species we knew we had to unify under one common human motive and in our current state we could not do this. We were already engulfed in a small arms race with our fellow human factions and had we not been contacted it was ruled by the Committee of Human Welfare that we would die in war by 2320.
Soon, the different factions that rose out of the colonies had to be addressed lest there be war. Each faction had been building their military and arsenal, in turn prompting the others to do the same. It seemed that to talk softly but carry a big stick had the fatal flaw of everyone wanting a bigger stick than the next. Not wanting a Cold War of far Graver proportions the different factions agreed to a treaty. The leaders of the European Union, Trans-American Republics, and the Asian Confederacy agreed to meet on the Mars Colony, the same place Humans had taken their first steps into galactic maturity to once again prove to themselves that same maturity.
On that fateful morning, August 3, 2300, the unimaginable happened. News reports spread to every colony of what had happened, that numerous explosions had gone off in the Judicial and Business Sectors of the Mars Colony and in the explosions the leaders were killed. It didn't take much investigation to know that the explosions were meant to take out the heads of corporations and the leaders of government but no organization, known or unknown had taken responsibility. Until October 1 we waited until a single letter written on paper was received by every government with the simple words "Non Serviam." With no leads but a single piece of paper in the uneasy weeks after the Tragedy of Mars the different Human governments came together once more, meeting in an undisclosed location to discuss their next move.
What came of this was a simple plan. The Human governments would offer a large sum in the currency of the being's choice should they agree to the task of joining the task force formed solely for hunting down the organization responsible for the Tragedy of Mars. It was a simple plan but the best one they could muster. Having soldiers that were tied to no flag was their best option instead of skulking through the galaxy. These individuals could act with impunity in the face of the uneasiness of 2300, they could go anywhere, remain faceless. They were given their task and told to make their way to the certain coordinates of Station 110-2 on the fringe of known space. What takes place after that is up to them, the fate of Humanity is within their hands, for the cold breath of war is felt on their necks.
