<span class="mu-i">“The Krieger Corp is the life for me,
A gun, bed and funeral for free.
That’s my lot in the Black Company.”</span>

It took the Earth 10 long years to die. Like every planet afflicted by the pervasive sentient plague that swept the galaxy at the turn of the 23rd century, aptly named <span class="mu-s">The Rot</span>, Earth’s demise was slow and agonising at first then violent and sudden by the end. The seas boiled and the air turned to ash in the wake of the continent-shattering orbital bombardments that cleansed her and a hundred other worlds.

20 years later, the dust of the Purification Wars has settled and the surviving xenos empires have finished carving up the remaining colonies of those less fortunate races between them, including those few left from Earth’s initial phase of expansion. Just rewards for the victorious alien’s part in saving the galaxy. The surviving human population, once many billions, now numbers in the mere millions. An entire race of refugees, vagrants and backwater outcasts begging, stealing and labouring as second-class citizens, servants or slaves under uncaring alien masters.

A lifetime of backbreaking work for stale recycled oxygen units and a handful of credits is the best fate most humans can hope for. Little wonder then that the violent but lucrative life of a mercenary holds such appeal. As the novelty of peace wears off and the rival alien nations rattle their sabres once more, human mercenaries are in high demand for their crude effectiveness and affordable prices.

And of all the human mercenary firms, there are none so infamous and so highly sought after as the services of the Black Company…

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