"Then I wish you luck," Silas said, eyes steady on the comms display. "But I'll be taking this voyage alone."
The channel went silent for a few beats. On the other end, Lyra Caelis sighed.
"…Very well. I'll find another fleet to join."
Her image flickered and vanished. The comms returned to static.
Silas leaned back in the command chair of the Hyperion, surrounded by the humming glow of bridge systems and the quiet ticking of automated processors. He knew her decision wasn't personal. The fringes of the Solar System had become infested with pirate fleets—scavengers and predators feeding on green crews and unarmed ships.
But fear wasn't the reason Silas was flying solo.
He called up the tactical database.
[Pirate Activity – Outer Solar Orbit]
• RAZOR FLEET
– Flagship: Class-C
– Escorts: 4x Class-E Frigates
• JEWEL FLEET
– Flagship: Class-D
– Escorts: 10x Class-F
• CROCODILE FLEET
– Flagship: Class-B
– Escorts: 2x Class-F
• SHARK FLEET
– Flagship: Class-C
– Escorts: 5x Class-E
Silas scanned the data, smirking.
Aside from the Crocodile Fleet's Class-B flagship, the others were laughable. C-class and below. Fleets like these wouldn't survive a second inside the Starsea's core systems. They were parasites—lingering in backwater orbits, snatching scraps from independent ships too small to mount resistance.
But they'd hoarded wealth. That made them useful.
"I'll eat you all," he muttered.
He tapped his console.
[Activate Power Systems]
[Navigation Locked: Pluto Border Outpost]
[Initiate Sublight Burn on Departure]
The Hyperion's drive cores surged to life. Massive grav-plates shifted beneath the hull as the cruiser began to drift from the docking platform like a leviathan unmoored.
From the walls of Lunar Port, alert klaxons began to ring.
[⚠ NOTICE: S-Class Vessel Departing Dockyard. All traffic divert paths immediately.]
[⚠ NOTICE: S-Class Vessel Departing Dockyard. All traffic divert paths immediately.]
[⚠ NOTICE: S-Class Vessel Departing Dockyard. All traffic divert paths immediately.]
Dozens of smaller ships scrambled to veer off-course. Their pilots didn't need a second warning. The Hyperion was too massive, too sacred. Colliding with it wouldn't be a fender-bender—it would be an execution.
"Get out of the lane!" someone shouted over open comms. "That thing could vaporize our whole hull by sneezing!"
"When the hell did a dreadnought like that get stationed in Sol?!"
"By the void, I'd kill for a deck tour..."
As the Hyperion ascended into open space, Silas watched the stars part before him like curtains. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
This is just the beginning.
—
Elsewhere, Captain Lyra Caelis stood aboard the bridge of the Valkyrion, her jaw tight.
"Set course," she ordered, "for Pluto Outpost. Sublight burn. Now."
Her helmsman complied. Around her, several smaller vessels accelerated in formation—light frigates and scout ships. A temporary fleet, hastily assembled, bound together by mutual interest and common fear.
They couldn't rival the Hyperion, but in numbers they hoped to survive.
Behind the primary formation, the stars blurred as they entered sublight speeds and vanished into the dark.
—
Back inside the command tower of Lunar Port, Lord Marshal Elias Draeven stood overlooking the departure lanes, his armored fist smashing down onto a reinforced desk. The impact shattered the ceramic surface into a cloud of powdered shards.
The Port Overseer standing nearby went pale.
Elias Draeven did not tolerate failure.
"You mean to tell me… you lost her? Here? In my territory?"
"I… I apologize, Lord Marshal. There was no sign of infiltration. The registries—"
"Enough."
Draeven turned back to the viewport, staring at the growing void as the last outbound ships slipped into deep space.
A chill crawled along his spine.
Lady Celeste, his youngest sister—bright, rebellious, sheltered—was gone. She had no business facing the horrors of the Starsea. She wasn't trained, wasn't sanctioned. If she had stowed aboard one of those vessels...
His fists clenched tighter.
House Vale was a pillar family in the Solar Ascendancy. Their influence reached across star systems. And Celeste? She was the favored daughter—too valuable to be sacrificed to chaos and void-rot.
He activated a secure relay.
"This is Lord Marshal Elias Draeven of House Vale. Issuing a system-wide Class I priority bulletin."
[Target: Missing Noble — Lady Celeste Vale]
[Reward: 100,000 Credits – Verified Sightings]
[Reward: 1,000,000 Credits – Safe Return to Lunar Port]
[Notice: All outbound ships to register at Pluto Outpost. Full manifest inspection required.]
Pluto was the gate. Once crossed, there would be no tracking her. She'd be gone—into the Void of Space beyond Sol's reach.
"Find her," Draeven growled. "Before someone else does."
—
Near Pluto's edge, just beyond the gravity well of the solar border, a crude formation of ships drifted like predators waiting in ambush.
Their hulls were ugly, scarred by scavenged plating and emblazoned with a grotesque insignia: a skeletal crocodile devouring a planet.
The Crocodile Fleet.
Inside the bridge of their flagship, a Class-B dreadbarge held together with reactor chains and scrap-tech, a monstrous figure stood atop a steel dais.
He was barely human anymore—his body twisted by genesplicing, covered in leathery green-gray scales, with thick arms ending in clawed gauntlets. His eyes were yellow, reptilian.
They called him Krell, the Crocodile King.
Once a man, now something else entirely—an apex predator carved from stolen DNA and ambition.
"Status?" he hissed.
One of his crew—more fish than man—saluted.
"Our informants confirm multiple launch signatures from Luna. D- and E-class, with one confirmed B-class."
Krell's tongue flicked across jagged metallic teeth.
"Perfect."
He stepped toward the viewport, claws clinking on the rusted grating. "Begin preparations. Hide the smaller ships behind Pluto's shadow. Wait for them to pass."
Then the sensors chimed.
"New contact!" a pirate barked. "Unidentified vessel—massive. Heading straight for the outpost!"
Krell's eyes narrowed.
"What class?"
There was a pause.
"…Unknown. Readings are distorted. It's big. Bigger than anything we've ever seen in Sol."
On the main display, the void shimmered—and then parted.
From hyperspace, the Hyperion arrived.
Ancient. Silent. Immense.
Krell took a single step back. "What in the name of the Deep is that…"
No one answered.
But they would soon.