[Interlude] - Dragon of the void

M’rteek extended a tendril thoughtfully, nudging one of the pieces across the gameboard. The Osthirian opposite him mused for a moment before responding in kind, one nine-fingered hand reaching out to delicately move it’s owner’s piece into place. “Check, my friend.” The voice was a soft whisper, scarcely loud enough for the translators to pick it up. M’rteek frowned at the board for a moment before sighing. “Fine, you win again. C’mon, we should get back to work.” As he rose on his motive tendrils, the Ts’losh tilted his head to one side, listening to the magnetic waves striking the side of the ship’s hull. “Can you hear…” he began - before the two of them were thrown to the floor as something smashed into their ship.

Hauling themselves to the bridge a moment later, the pair slipped into their seats. Their heavy trader was listing hard to one side, and even as they scanned the controls a second impact sent them tumbling towards the nearby planet. M’rteek looked up, a horrified grimace across his face. “Something cut us from the cargo pods, the engines - we’re going to hit the planet.” His companion’s nimble fingers worked the controls like lightning, rerouting around missing and damaged systems. “Deploying weave-distress beacon, raising re-entry shields, activating emergency landing and backup power.” The Osthirian’s voice was shrill and loud, so loud for one of his species in his panic as the crew section of their ship tumbled towards the world below.

Behind them, twin black shapes drifted in the night, only the dull fading red glow from the weapons of one illuminating their hulls. As one, the ships clamped on to the wreckage of M’rteek’s vessel - and then with a twisting shimmer vanished into the weave. When a rescue vessel retrieved the two crew of the trading vessel a week later near delirious with thirst they couldn’t get any useful information from them. Looking into the ship’s black box revealed little too - the ship had been moving from one jump point to another, and had passed this planet when it had been struck by some form of high-energy weapon that had burned clean through the hull in just two hits. With nothing but the damage to go on, those tracking such matters noted that it matched occasional descriptions from other isolated incidents over the previous few years; while pirates were the usual explanation, those who felt more fanciful gave the attacker a new name. The Dragon of the Void.

Author's note: Consider these interludes as "what's going on elsewhere in the galaxy" whenever they show up. They are usually / probably linked in to the main plot, but I'm planning on them being self-contained vignettes. I'll add them in here and there, and I'll only ever upload them alongside main plot chapters as they're likely to be shorter than a proper chapter - think of them as a little bonus thank you for all the likes and favouriting and stuff that you my dear readers have kindly given me so far :)