When Arbiter Valdis arrived, Sector XA-6 didn't just open; it shattered.
Adrian's instincts and senses screamed a split second before reality tore apart. It wasn't the clean, mathematical precision of a standard FTL jump. This was a brute-force intrusion, a violent laceration of the space-time continuum that sent shockwaves rippling through the asteroid field.
One moment, Adrian was alone in the cockpit, staring into the abyss.
The next, the stars were gone.
Three colossal shadows emerged from the tears, blotting out the nebula's purple light. They were monoliths of black metal, each one the size of a metropolitan city. Dreadnoughts.
Their hulls bristled with thousands of turbo-laser batteries, and their prows glowed with the terrifying, charged energy of planet-cracker cannons.
