A few hours earlier…
The nomad vessel had just slipped out of a minor warp jump near the edge of the Sable Drift, venting radiation and limping from overuse. Its crew—migrants, salvagers, and wanderers—were already deep into routine repairs when they picked up what looked like a salvage beacon.
They made the mistake of slowing down.
From the shadows of a nearby asteroid field, the Skullclamp Pirates struck.
Four blacked-out boarding shuttles launched at once, masked by advanced stealth and camouflage tech. Before the nomads could react, EMP drones fried their comms, and a data virus wormed into their nav systems like digital rot. Lights flickered. Doors slammed open and shut without reason. Artificial gravity pulsed violently.
Then came the hull breach alerts.
With military precision, pirate breachers sliced through airlocks and cargo bulkheads using plasma torches and breaching charges. They surged in: Sskarn-of-the-Third-Brood led a strike squad into the command deck, while Varlisk stormed the medical bays and crew quarters.
The nomads never had a chance.
Within twenty minutes, resistance was dust. Most of the crew were dead or captured. Their captain—now an empty corpse—had become an accidental vessel for Kael, an off-worlder with a head full of sci-fi trivia and a recently awakened survival instinct.
But the worst was yet to come.
A new vessel approached.
Unlike the stealthy raiders that came before, this one was massive—more like a siege weapon than a shuttle. Its hull was plated in star-forged alloy, its undercarriage bristling with retractable weapons and stabilizer fins shaped like the jaws of a beast.
This was the Clawfang—personal dropcraft of Mael, Broodlord of the Skullclamp Pirates.
It tore silently through space, engines growling like a predator's breath. The nomad vessel's compromised defense grid tried to lock on, but targeting feeds jittered and died. The Clawfang's jamming aura blanketed the area like a death shroud.
Inside, the silence was tense.
He stood at the center of the chamber—Red Mael Zun—a monstrous, lion-like warlord draped in a fusion of metal and muscle. His mane rippled like a warbanner caught in storm winds. Each movement of his **cybernetic arms** gave off a rising hum, pistons and energy cores thrumming with restrained violence. The claws at the end of each hand glowed faintly, twitching with anticipation.
Born in blood. Bred for war. Reforged in fire.
Red Mael Zun was no ordinary pirate. He was the kind of apex killer who made other warlords flinch in nightmares.
Behind him stood ten of his finest: elite mercenaries from ten different species, each bearing trophies and scars, each with the crimson Skullclamp sigil stamped across their armor like a curse.
A holographic projection of the nomad ship hovered before him.
Varlisk's distorted face buzzed to life on the side panel, static dancing around his purple skin and three eyes.
"We've confirmed it. The greenskins are sprouting like weeds in the hydroponics bay. They're multiplying fast. We can't contain them."
Zun's eyes glinted cold.
"Good," he growled. "Then I will."
He turned to his guard, voice a low snarl:
"Drop."
The Clawfang's boarding spike extended—a drill-tipped spear that punched into the nomad ship's upper decks like a needle into living flesh.
The decks trembled from the impact.
Then came the footfalls—heavy, deliberate, echoing through steel corridors like the promise of death.
**Red Mael Zun had entered the battlefield.**
---
Somewhere in the deeper decks, **Bootlicka** twitched. His nostrils flared as he tilted his green head, sniffing at the air like a hound catching a new scent.
"Boss…" he grunted. "Sumfin' big's come aboard... sumfin' wrong. Smells like it wants ta be da new boss…"
In the reclaimed control room, Kael stared at a flickering holoscreen. Through the glitchy security feed, he saw the silhouette of a lion-shaped monster cutting through hallways like grass through a harvester.
His heart dropped.
"Great," Kael muttered. "Another damn boss fight."
He straightened up, the old instincts kicking in. Not gamer instincts—survivor instincts.
"AI, seal every bulkhead. Lock every corridor between here and the hydroponics. Delay them as long as possible. Let the Orks reproduce. We're gonna show them what it means to pick a fight with the wrong damn ship."
A moment of silence passed.
Then the cold, deadpan voice of the AI echoed from the walls:
\[Confirmed.]