An enormous pirate fleet had a distinct advantage that the regular army of a normal nation lacked: it broke free of tactical constraints.
Pirate fleets had always been difficult to manage, but they never fought by conventional rules either. Pirate leaders such as Nais and Black Needle knew this perfectly well.
The fleet the Chosen had left to guard their home territory in the Isomer Cluster was far from weak, but every ship remained on standby at the stellar base to reduce maintenance costs.
In a conventional battle, such a fleet could have crushed the pirates. But the wealth of the Gaia Planets in the Isomer Cluster outweighed their fear of death. For money, these outlaws who lived with their lives on the line would do anything.
A host of idea kings immediately emerged among the pirates.
Yes, the pirates had to play to their traditional strengths: boarding, suicide attacks, and harassment!
Pirates, Marauders, and terrorists were all fundamentally cut from the same cloth. For those three rich Gaia Planets and three Orbital Habitats, every lunatic genius in the Milky Way had gathered here, including several outstanding agents Xi Yan had planted among them.
At first, it was just pirates. Then came every sort of terrorist organization, sinister cult, and criminal gang... all manner of illegal, disreputable groups received invitations from the well-connected pirates and gathered here in secret.
Even the last Marauders Tribe in the Milky Way Galaxy could not resist scraping together a raiding fleet to join this grand heist in the Isomer Cluster.
The assembled lunatic geniuses discussed the matter at length before finally devising tactics with a distinctly terrorist flavor.
Of the entire force, the Marauders Fleet was the strongest. It would have to shoulder the main burden and would receive the largest share of the