Author's Note: Bracketed text denotes a character speaking in Krazoran, or writing in Krazoran. Non-Krazoran characters will not understand them however I wanted to ensure that you, the reader, would not lose out on any relevant text or dialogue.

Shipmaster Arios Ferantyl had nearly fallen asleep in his command chair. Things were more often than not quiet out this far, and he whiled away the majority of his deployment in an Ichor vapor induced haze. His crew protested, citing the illegality of Ichor in the Imperial systems but the near-perpetual state of R&R the VIGILANT SENTINEL remained in washed away most feelings of apprehension among the crewmembers.

Akka remained a bustling production center even after the lesson the Krazorans had learned about keeping important elements this far on the frontier. The headquarters of the espionage organization known as the Office of Secret Intelligence on Shield World Roland was lost during the Slipspace War due to some unforseen repercussions on the part of Humanity.

Despite this, other than the single Blackwatch battleship Shipmaster Ferantyl had caught some time ago and the occasional cargo transport or private pilot who decided to take a "shortcut" things were quiet. His pilotka-style hat had been drawn over his eyes, and his hands were folded over his Ichor Stick. Sleep lurked just around the corner, but the sudden whoop of the alarm scared it away.

[ "Warning! Slipspace trajectories have been predicted to cross through this vicinity. Hyperdiction systems are automatically charging, please take battle stations." ] The ship's Tactical AI shouted above the wailing alarm, and Ferantyl snorted back in the snore that threatened to escape his mouth.

[ "Jenna, how long do we have until the contacts reach Hyperdiction range?" ] Ferantyl straightened his cap and shook the sleep from himself, unfortunately the chemical fog was harder to dispel but it would be a lie to say he hadn't fought that way in the past.

With luck, there wouldn't be a need to fight. His crew could handle it, they always could.

[ "One-hundred and twenty seconds. Hyperdiction Tether is ready. I advise that you--" ]

[ "Yeah, yeah, tether the lead contact. I am high, Jenna, I am not stupid." ]

Jenna had no reply to this. The bridge crew filed in from the entrance behind Ferantyl's chair, and stepped down into the trenches that flanked a raised walkway to the projection-window screen at the front of the command deck.

Ferantyl rolled up his right sleeve, exposing his tattoo of Kha-Anantal, the Fate Serpent of the Void that devoured the sun in the ancient myths of his people. Half of a successful Hyperdiction was the performance before taking down the incoming ships, and good showmanship was something the Shipmaster valued. He stood and made groggy steps toward the front, stopping just a few feet from the projection-window.

[ "Initiate tether with draw strength eighty-five, ready the Disturber Net. Target velocity, four hundred Luminal. Target heading, one hundred sixty seven degrees. Use primary reactors." ] He dictated to nobody in particular, orating the information displayed to him by the bright red triangles on the window's display of the space before the ship.

A deep electronic thrumming filled the ship, a discordant symphony of readying subsystems. Ferantyl took a deep breath and his pulse quickened, ushered on by the SENTINEL's rallying song more effective than any alarm clock.

The screen blinked out as the Tether ignited to shield the bridge crew from being blinded, the thrumming erupted into a growling warble like the sound of a thunderstorm discharging all of the lightning within at once. Ferantyl dropped the Ichor Stick into his breast pocket just beneath his unit patch bearing the image of his ship and the characters for the number "37". He brought up his other hand and bit into the first phalanx of his pointer finger. He may have been confident in his ability as a Shipmaster, but one could never know the nature of the catch until it had been made.

[ "Tethering successful, My Lord. Raising relative gravitational force." ] One of his subordinates announced from below.

The groaning sound of the ship took on a trilling quality, fading in and out of frequencies that pounded in Ferantyl's head. He bit down harder with his front teeth, wondering what he might be pulling from the black. Could it be a Fossan control ship, on its way to unleash an invasion of skeletal robotics on the planet he swore to protect? A weaponized asteroid flung from Adytum to spread the virulent disease of the Red Death to Akka? Maybe a LexCorp cruiser all the way from Earth, bearing anything from cargo to aid or maybe even a turncoat's attack. There was even a non-zero chance he could even be ripping another Krazoran ship from light speed, though if that were the case a quick scan would be all that would be necessary before he would let them go.

[ "Target is dropping into real-space now. Stand by for intimidation." ] The same crewman as before spoke again. Ferantyl straightened up his posture with his hands behind his back and a smirk on his face.

As the sound decrescendoed, the projection-window blinked back to life. For a moment there was only a single contact, the one forcefully pulled from Slipspace to meet him. A yellow box surrounded it, and displayed it's range at 110,000ku. The ship seemed to Ferantyl like a cyberpunk brick with a pillbox-bunker in the center of it's aft-section.

Then something far more dangerous appeared, the second contact that Jenna had warned about. The forked end of a Blackwatch Destroyer came to a halt at around 95,000ku highlighted in hostile-red. The business end of what the screen highlighted to be a "twin high-velocity linear cannon" levelled with the Hyperdictor shielded within the folds of the pointed bow of the SENTINEL.

Ferantyl cleared his throat and the performance began with the forced opening of visual communications with the captains of each vessel. The sight of the familiar General Calhoun's tight toothy grimace drew a wolfish smile across the Shipmaster's face, and the look of surprise indicative of a greenhorn caught off guard on the other's washed away any trepidation from his heart. He saluted the pair.

"Greetings, undesignated vessel, and Blackwatch Destroyer KNIGHT ERRANT. You have both made the mistake of crossing into the exclusion zone of Shield World Akka, the sovereign territory of the Krazoran Infinite Empire. I advise and encourage you both to submit for mercy." He didn't hide his excitement, any drop of intimidation he could squeeze from them was a delicacy ripe for the taking.

There would be no mercy, however. He never intended there to be. That was why then the time to sign out came, he did a flamboyant about-face on his heel with both hands clasped behind his back, grinning like a maniac.

He left the feed running just long enough to recite the directive he nearly considered a catchphrase, [ "Fire the Disturber Net." ]

The feed cut out and one of his officers stood  with his white gloved hands against his gray-clothed sides, [ "My Lord, the Disturber Net is still charging from our last catch. We are vulnarable to an attack should we not open fire immediately!" ]

Ferantyl put out his tattooed hand reassuringly, taking a moment to smile at the way the Serpent's jaw warped along the surface of his hand. [ "Then ready the Prismatic Interlock Defense Territory and let them illustrate to themselves the inadequacy of their armament. We shall win glory this day." ]

[ "Yes, My Lord. I shall engage and jettison the Disturber satellites when they are fully recharged." ]

Ferantyl smiled his wolfish smile and slumped back in his chair, chomping the end of the ichor stick as Calhoun's defiant reprisal struck their shield.

---

"About a minute 'til we exit Warp, General. We're hot on their trail."

Tobias Calhoun rocked on the heels of well polished boots with a hearty belly laugh. He hardly believed his compatriot, General Veyner, when the idea of warp-tracking was sold to him. Again the child-prodigy he often doubted due in part to his age and in part to his upbringing in otherworldly nobility.

"Outstanding! I'm going to buy that kid a beer when I get back, restrictions be damned."

Of course, this victorious statement implied he would not be returning to Nepton empty-handed. He shuddered to think about the consequences of facing the menacing void of her hooded visage without their group project in tow, and Jax Davis' bounty redemption token in his hand. No, he had the advantage, and he knew if he pressed that advantage he could win.

"Sir, I'm detecting an anomalous slow down in the Prototype's velocity, faster than a safe-drop. Can those engines even do that?" The wavering tone in Tactical's voice churned up a memory of recent failure in the General.

"Our speed is dropping to compensate, brace!" The ship lurched like a car striking a low barrier as the words left her lips, and the impact shook free a memory in Calhoun's mind.

He fixed his eyes dead ahead, "I want all of our crew at battle stations. Ready the main gun, we're going to have incoming."

"Yes, sir!" The Gunnery officer called and initated the alarm. Reticles lit up all across the circumference of the screen, blinking into life one by one in a neat pattern across the dark of the void.

The tentacles of the beast that lurked in this darkness were around him once more, but the Soldier had heard the Child, and brought the entire platoon.

Stars crashed back into view. Along with their target just to their relative Southwest was the Prototype, but directly due-north was the unforgettable shape of the VIGILANT SENTINEL.

Calhoun growled throughout the Krazoran's introduction and clashed his catchphrase against Ferantyl's.

"Fire everything!"

The outgoing bombardment lit the dark of the Black with a violent show of color, Reticles cascaded toward the viridian star that the Krazoran ship. More and more roared to life as the shapes converged.

"Pound on his shield like a drum!" Calhoun burst into equally colorful laughter and turned his attention to Jax.

The Zip-Guns in the port-side lacked the ability to join their bretheren, but every man and machine must pull their weight on Calhoun's ship. With a wave of the General's hand, they burst into their chainsaw-sound beneath the hellish concert.

Have to sink them before those damn charges come out. Calhoun left his hand on the butt of his pistol as though he would shoot the Disturbers down on his own.

They came out anyway, two of them arcing high toward each of their targets.

"Ready point defenses, blow those damn things out of the sky!"

Silvery beams of light blazed toward the Disturbers, but on impact the beams reflected off of the polished plating of the satellites.

Then they fell around them. Stopping almost immediately off of their bow, and between their engines. They burned with their sickly green fire, and plunged the ship into darkness.

---

[ "Fire the Disturber Net." ]

"Oh fuck this!" Jax Davis threw his recently lit cigarette at Ferantyl's image before it blinked away.

Jax knew that language and didn't need to be told who it belonged to, or how dangerous they really were.

"Four-Arms, switch out our ammovl and get us goin' with the real shit! Marten, do we got any chance of gettin' away if we just jump forward again?"

Marten shrugged, not bothering to check their local map, "We'll just be going further into their territory and I don't want to see what might come catch us if we do."

Four Arms managed the task with astounding pace, causing heavy whirring and clanking of automated ammunition belts above them. Loading the weapons would take time, and time was a precious resource.

Jax had hoped that when the KNIGHT ERRANT bisected the darkness that it would gift them the time they needed. The Krazoran ship blazed a bright shield around it, enduring the full force of the planet-cracking attack.

The Reticles of the Prototype's weapons appeared one by one, their grinding voice fading away from the babbling mechanical chorus. Four-Arms drew them slowly toward the trailing engine nearest to them, intent on crippling the Destroyer and leaving Calhoun for the Krazorans to chew on.

"Warning! Multiple locks detected, brace for significant impact!"

"Smash their teeth in!"

Four-Arms redirected the weapons he had control over to the twin rows of stacked cannons that had exploded into rapid lights like a Las Vegas casino sign. He squeezed the triggers.

What followed was a series of events almost like an apocalyptic earthquake. The overlapping sounds of incoming and outgoing, the jittering of the AI's voice. Unsecured crewmembers  thrown around the command deck. Jax got up just in time to witness the Disturber stop just off their bow, and unleash its crippling effect.

Blackout. Both human ships made helpless at the press of a button.

Jax struck his lighter, casting a flickering amber glow around six feet in diameter. Not quite enough to see beyond the eyes of his crew, waiting for some order, some direction to put them on the path back to freedom.

A basso profundo noise groaned through the corridors of the ship, followed by the low sound of electronics. Dim lights recesses into the ceiling like the sunken eyes of a sleeping beast came on with a slam like Doctor Frankenstein's switch. The screen didn't come back, but as the sound faded, Jax could have sworn he heard the rumble of the air recirculator.

The Prototype was alive albeit subsisting against the Disturber's oppressive force. Arna stepped around Jax' chair and rested a hand on her hip, "I'll be damned. It can take it just as well as it dishes it out."

"The elevators too?"

"Yeah, it's a backup system. No clue about how it works. Probably a safeguard in case it gets sunk by its own weapon."

Arna drew a finger and pointed at Jax, who couldn't help grinning, "Your next line is 'where were ya' at with that weapon anyways?'".

Jax made a dismissive gesture, and twirled his hand.

"Fourty nine. Guess that's down the shitter though. We're burning whatever this circuit runs on for fuel, now c'mon!"

Jax flipped his lighter as he prepared a fresh cigarette. He shrugged with his free hand as he puffed the end in the tip of the flame.

"C'mon, what?"

"Don't be stupid, those things have to go down if we wanna move again."

"Can't'cha hack 'em?"

There was a dull thump as Marten's head hit the console he was stationed at. Four-Arms employed all of his limbs in climbing out of the trench to moderate their discourse. Arna slapped her face.

"Have you been watching movies, Jax?"

"Goddamn'it cut to the chase! Time's of the essence right?" He blew a cloud of choking smoke into her face indignantly.

Arna made the same sound as a fed-up mother finally conceding to her petulant child. "The best hacks are physical. We need to go out there."

Jax' jaw loosened just enough that he nearly lost his cigarette. "Out there? In the Black?"

Arna rubbed her temple and Four-Arms impatiently crossed his many arms. "No Jax, to Kansas. Yes out there!"

"And we need to make it fast," Marten swiveled in his chair away from the blank screen, "That ship is going to send a boarding party and I do not want to meet them."

"I barely made it away last time."