"Right now, we have to survive in the cracks between the iron fists of imperialist powers. The only places with room to breathe are the New World and Fermo," Babalu told everyone gravely.
He wore a laborer's exoskeleton, with construction-grade armor plates strapped over the vital parts of his body.
The gear made the Luminarian look like a third-rate mercenary scraping by in some border system—the sort who'd work as a hired guard if anyone paid him, and turn to robbery when no one did.
Yet the rebel leaders around him were all skilled fighters. Whether it was the Draconian hunter with scales bright as ice, the Lothar gladiator carrying a force-field shield and a warhammer at his waist, or Yaxiu Stein—the strongest person there, despite dressing like an ordinary adventurer—they all listened as attentively as students in a classroom.
The Luminarian brought up a star chart and drew a line through the Spiral Nebula. "So once we board, we have to leave at once. As long as we enter the Spiral Nebula from the Lanpo system before May 15, we'll be able to shake off the Alliance pursuers."
The rebel leaders considered this briefly, then nodded one after another.
They were currently on a barren planet at the border between the Alliance frontier sectors of Kaut and the allied Kingdom of Bailin. Rebels from the Alliance frontier, "terrorist" groups, and remnants of separatist movements had gathered there.
They had just fought a battle, destroying a mercenary camp set up by the Alliance's Red God Arms Security Company. They'd seized a substantial quantity of weapons, as well as two armed merchant ships.
Of course, among their spoils was a considerable number of laborers' uprising permits. These more than a hundred thousand laborers and their families might be the purest members