The derelict warship loomed like the fossilized ribcage of a god.
Kael Veyron's boots crunched over frost-rimed debris as he approached it, the jagged silhouette cutting a black scar against Hollow's Graveyard's perpetual twilight. The asteroid junkyard was a graveyard of empires—rusted dreadnoughts from the Corporate Wars, skeletal mechs stripped of armor, and the hollowed-out husks of colony ships that had once carried thousands. Now, they were all just scrap. Scrap, and a tomb for fools desperate enough to scavenge here.
*Like me*, Kael thought bitterly.
His breath fogged the cracked visor of his enviro-suit as he adjusted the welding torch on his belt. The suit's oxygen recycler wheezed, its filters long past due for replacement. Two more hours, and he'd have to return to the *Rustbucket*, his patched-up shuttle. Two more hours to find something—*anything*—to sell before the gangs found him. Or the Vryxil.
He shoved the thought aside and climbed the warship's skeletal flank. Up close, it was… wrong. Most derelicts were steel and ceramite. This thing's ribs were *bone*, blackened and fused with circuitry. Bioluminescent veins pulsed across its hull, faintly crimson, like blood creeping through rot.
"Corpse of a leviathan," Kael muttered, prying open the cockpit hatch. The metal groaned, flakes of rust drifting in the low gravity. "Let's see what you left behind."
Inside, the controls were alien—crystalline panels etched with glowing glyphs, a pilot's seat molded from what looked like vertebrae. But his gaze locked on the central console. Dozens of **Crimson Crystals** crusted its surface, their jagged facets shimmering with volatile energy. Each one was worth a year's rations on the black market.
*Jackpot.*
He unclipped his plasma cutter, its battery dangerously low. "Just a few. Just enough to—"
**"Identify… intruder… or… terminate."**
The voice was glacial, synthetic, and utterly inhuman.
Kael froze. Behind him, the hatch slammed shut. A tendril of black biometal lashed from the console, stabbing his wrist. He screamed—but pain never came. Instead, *warmth* flooded his veins, and symbols blazed behind his eyes:
**ECLIPSE CORE—ONLINE.**
The cockpit lit up. Holograms flickered—star maps, weapon schematics, and a serpentine countenance forged from static.
**"Host bonded. Designation: Kael Veyron. Former rank: Chief Engineer, United Stellar Corps. Status: Exile. Crime: Sabotage."**
"Turn *off*!" Kael wrenched his arm back, but the tendril held fast, burrowing deeper.
**"Unable to comply. Synchronization at 12%. Warning: Lifeforms detected. Proposal: Evade or engage?"**
Outside, the asteroid trembled. A chittering echo skittered through the tunnels—a sound like knives on glass.
*Vryxil.*
His blood turned to ice. The swarms were relentless, stripping ships—and scavengers—to the bone. He lunged for the controls. "Evade! Now!"
**"Morph Engine: Available. Select form."**
Holograms flashed: a speeder bike, a fighter jet, a hulking mech. Kael's pulse roared. The bike was small, fast, easier to hide. He slammed his palm on the icon.
The ship *dissolved*.
Nanites swarmed like metallic locusts, disassembling bone, circuitry, and hull. Kael plummeted—then landed hard on a snarling speeder bike, its chassis writhing with biometal. The handlebars fused to his gloves, the Eclipse Core's heat searing his wrist.
"Go, *go*!"
The bike roared, thrusters igniting. Kael hurtled into the labyrinth of Hollow's Graveyard, Vryxil scouts screeching behind him. Six-limbed shadows lunged from crevices, claws raking the bike's armor. One landed on his back, mandibles snapping.
**"Core stability: 9%,"** the AI warned. **"Prolonged morphing risks system collapse."**
"Risk *this*!" Kael slammed the bike into a spin, hurling the Vryxil into a jagged spire of wreckage. Acidic blood sprayed, melting steel.
He wove through the graveyard's carcasses—a gutted freighter, its hull etched with gang sigils; a mech's colossal hand, still clutching a rusted railgun. Memories flashed: *Another mech, another war. The screams as the orbital factory burned. His own voice on the comms: "This ends now." The detonation. The exile.*
**"Focus, Captain,"** the AI hissed. **"Turn left."**
Kael banked hard, skimming a fissure's edge. The Vryxil swarm pursued, their chitters rising to a fever pitch. Ahead, a colossal monument emerged—a corroded statue of the Corporate Wars' "hero," General Telvar, his face eaten by acid storms.
"Dead fool," Kael spat.
Beneath the statue's cracked boots lay a crevice—a tight squeeze, but passable. He gunned the thrusters.
The bike rocketed through, scraping sparks, and burst into open space. The Vryxil fell back, hissing. Kael didn't slow until Hollow's Graveyard was a distant tumor of shadow.
**"Threat neutralized,"** the AI said. **"Query: Designation?"**
Kael glared at his wrist. The Eclipse Core's symbol pulsed—a crown of thorns etched in biometal. "What?"
**"I require a designation. Former hosts named me Nyxis."**
"Nyxis? Sounds like a back-alley stim."
**"Acknowledged. Welcome aboard the *Eclipse Sovereign*, Captain Veyron."**
"Don't call me that." He throttled the bike toward a derelict mining station—his hideout. "What *are* you? Syndicate tech? Some vampire House's toy?"
**"Insufficient data. Core archives corrupted. Proposal: Harvest Crimson Crystals to restore functionality."**
Kael's laugh was bitter. "Of course. More scavenging."
But as the station's airlock hissed open, he glanced back. The bike—no, the *Sovereign*—shimmered, its nanites dancing like stardust. Exile or not, he'd never seen anything like it.
And he'd be damned if he let it go.
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