The Strider tore through the starfield with its upgraded shielding fully online. Kylus monitored the navigation console and adjusted the output of the secondary thrusters. The ship performed flawlessly after the black market modifications on Grey Finger.
'This vessel handles like a true war machine now,' Kylus thought while checking the orbital trajectory. 'But it's still 10% of what my ship was.'
A spatial tear violently ripped reality open directly across their flight path, like a wound in the cosmos. Violet light bled from the abyss as four dreadnoughts forged from black bone emerged into the sector.
The enemy vessels immediately formed an overlapping blockade around the Strider.
Tractor beams slammed into the hull and killed all forward momentum. The primary screens flashed red. Dozens of smaller interceptors deployed energy tethers to lock the ship in place. The ambush neutralized every single escape vector before Kylus could even touch the evasive controls.
