In an age of interstellar trade, political division and regular limited wars between the two solar power blocks towards the core of human space, it was only natural that piracy would rise. Some of them were spacers which went rogue, some of them were down on their luck independent merchantmen which branch into illicit activities, some of them were planet based crime syndicates which decide to move their operations off world. In any case if a group of unsavory individuals could get their hands on a second hand starship, rig up a basic interdiction field generator and some crude weapons they could easily prey on loan freighters or asteroid mining craft in under developed systems to sell them off in various shady retreats to fence their ill gotten goods. With enough successful runs they could enlarge their craft, hire more crew and procure more capable weapons allowing them to go after more powerful targets, or build new pirate ships to enlarge their operations into small fleets. These will inevitably break off. Often the two solar power blocks would would sell weapons to pirates operating in the territory of their foes.Around the Core Systems of human space pirates are an occasional nuisance that usually get swatted down before they cause much of a problem. In the disputed worlds they are more of an issue as garrisons are usually thin, prey is still comparitively common and they can find support by the two major powers and a few of the influential independent system states. This is their primary hunting ground as prey is bountiful. Beyond that along the frontier worlds they are at their most powerful. The pickings for raiding shipping are usually limited, but there are plenty of small colonies beyond the effective reach of the Terran Union or the Confederation of Worlds. These areas make excellent places to fence stolen goods directly. Others are hired as mercenaries in small scale wars with rivals. Sometimes they'll raid systems, an increasingly popular tactic as the standards of STO shuttles has improved. But for the a few of the most ambitious pirate admirals which manage to amass a fleet of ships, they'll take over entire planets by parking a fleet in orbit and forcing their rule upon the locals at gunpointCapturing ships usually involves forcing their surrender. Most crews are not suicidal in the defense of their spacecraft and cargoes and will give in when they find themselves staring down the barrels of railguns and laser cannons. Often pirates are only interested in a minor shakedown of their quarries and jettisoning a few cargo modules will be enough to let them go on their merry way. Fleecing is often better business than butchery. If the cargo is of little value like raw ore or the pirates are interested in a bigger payday, they'll board to capture. For the newer pirate crews this is often done by regular technicians, workers, chefs, grease monkeys, NCOs and officers drawn from the general crew, but as a crew grows gradually a specialist exists in that field: the boarding raider.Boarding raiders are men and women who are specialized in EVA operations and combat in tight conditions and zero gravity. At their lowest level they are simply common hired goons given basic EVA training outfitted with crude firearms, some of which would have been made from vintage 20th century designs. At the upper level they are ex-special forces types with power armor and modern small arms. It is often noted that the intermediates between the extremes (such as this fellow) are among the better to deal with if one is on the receiving end of a pirate raid. Though this is not a hard and fast rule the low end thugs are usually prone to casual cruelty, an unthinking application of excessive force and a tendancy towards other criminal activity while the ex-special forces individuals that end up hooking up with Pirates tend to be on the unstable side of things and while they are professional under fire and the active stages of an operation can snap and lash out violently when not under fire as well as displaying other symptoms of antisocial behavior, mental illness and untreated trauma. Experienced and disciplined boarding raiders trained from the ground up to serve this capacity in a professional way can usually keep their cool and are less likely to mistreat their captives, at least initially. In many cases live captives are preferred as they can be ransomed off, integrated into pirate crews, added to the underclass of pirate enclaves, sold into slavery to pirate warlords, be casually disposed of or put into lifepods after a distress signal has been sent, as a fair number of pirate crew have learned that while infamy can be a useful tool in some cases praticularly malicious pirates which are too fond of murder, torture and rape tend to be higher priorities in manhunts.This individual has an patched armored pressure suit (minus the usual helmet) with an RCS pack for zero g movement and a Terran Union R-355 Rail Rifle, a pistol and several daggers. Such gear is of middling quality, but more than adequate for most raider needs. RCS unit removed it is a serviceable combat suit in skirmishes planetside. Leaving aside some of the more developed Pirate kingdoms the performance of said raiders as infantry at anything above the company level is usually quite poor, though when you are up against militias of farmers armed with hunting rifles and you have surplus tanks, shielded combat shuttles and orbital superiority this is not much of a problem. Jade and her forces came as a rude shock to them.