A lone figure strode across the broad expanse of Alfa Station's shipyard.
The station's upper docks were alive with noise—humming repulsors, screeching mechs, crews shouting orders as cranes lifted armored plating into place. Yet his attention was fixed on one particular vessel.
The ship before him gleamed under the artificial lights, transformed after days of relentless modifications. Fresh hull plating reinforced its battered frame, gleaming with the silver hue of newly smelted alloys. Turrets lined the flanks where gaps had once been, sleek new navigation arrays hummed faintly from the prow. Most striking of all, the crude blue skull insignia that once scarred its bow was gone. In its place stretched a stylized wolf, rendered in black and silver, maw open in a silent snarl. It radiated menace, a predator reborn.
The figure allowed himself a rare flicker of satisfaction.
"Captain, you're back!"
