The ship lurched with the cough of a dying creature as it emerged from hyperspace, spewing sparks through the flickering overhead lights. Inepta did not flinch. This was what the Vulture’s Mercy always did when it crossed over into realspace. It sounded as if it was recalling the war it once fought and hated every moment of it since.

He leaned back in the cracked pilot seat, feet kicked back, a half-smoked stim stick dangling from his lip. Smoke curled around the controls, interrupted by the cold blue light of the nearby moons. Below them lay Karsis Four, a mined planet with a crusty surface that orbited a gas giant. No law, no questions. The perfect spot to dump illicit spice.

Z-5 beeped annoyingly from the co-pilot jack, a small spherical droid who was quivering with excitement.

"Yeah, yeah, I hear the fuel cells suck," Inepta grumbled, tapping on the dashboard. "We make the pickup, we get paid, and we purchase a type of fuel that doesn't yell at me in the wee hours."

Z-5 chirped a questioning warble, spinning its optic.

Inepta sighed and pushed a hand through his tangled black hair. He could smell carbon and dried blood on his jacket. He couldn't help but keep glancing at the comm system.

“No signal…. Great. No patrols. No bounty hunters. No Sorellian Empire Ghouls,” Inepta said to himself, counting each thing on his fingers, dirty from oil.

The Vulture’s Mercy groaned through the atmosphere of Karsis IV, tail fins clicking like skeletal hands along the wind currents. Ash storms boiled along the horizon, black clouds of dust tearing across the barren lands of a once-mighty mining world. This world, too, had been stripped bare before Inepta’s birth, its worth long extracted. Or so its people had once believed. The empty derricks, twisted spires, and makeshift shelters that remained were a testament to their foolhardy hope.

Inepta brought the ship down behind a hill of slag, and they managed to hide it from orbital detection. The landing gear creaked in protest, but they held.

Z-5 emitted a drawn-out sigh.

"You wanna pilot next time?" Inepta said, drawing his gun. "Didn't think so."

The Vulture's Mercy settled in a valley beside a cliff. Mineshafts, train tracks, and blank mining robots lined up along the side. Inepta prepared his last defense moves before climbing down from the rusty ladder smeared by the Empire’s war.

Before him was a smashed pallet with a questionable tarp covering it. That was the cargo.

He checked the contents: two containers of pure Drosk spice, locked away in magnetic containers. Enough for them to live on fuel and rations for two months, perhaps even treat themselves to a real bed that did not reek of rot. He holstered his corroded pulse pistol and ventured out into the hot, dry environs.

The air was thick with the flavor of copper and old ideas.

Waiting for him were three figures in respirator masks, locals it seemed. Scars. Mismatched, rusty armor. Guns that they probably didn’t know how to clean, let alone fire. The leader was a tall woman with a cracked visor, who waved in greeting.

“You Inepta?” she Remarked.

"And who's asking?" he answered, holding position just out of arm's length. His calm voice, his ever-ready hand on his gun.

The woman laughed.

“Chill out. We got creds. You’ve got good spice. Let’s keep it simple.”

It was NEVER simple..

They swapped in silence, always watching, always twitching fingers. Z-5 hung back behind Inepta, its optic nerve monitoring every move, prepared to electrify a spine if necessary.

Just when the box locks opened, one of the slave mercs twitched. Signal? Threat? Not a concern.

Inepta struck first.

His pistol flashed out, the crimson projectile slamming into the earth at the foot of the merc. Not a kill. A warning.

“Try it, then,” Inepta said bluntly. “And your mask won’t be the only thing leaking pressure.”

The female lead lifted her hands, palms out.

“Alright, alright. Okay, no tricks. It’s just hard to trust anyone this far out.”

Inepta nodded slowly.

“Good. We’re on the same page.”

The creds were transferred. The boxes of ammo were removed. And so on and so forth, the deed was accomplished.

However, just as Inepta was turning back towards his ship, he spotted it. Briefly, very far away on the ridge.

A figure, cloaked in dark dusty garb, unmoving against the wind of the storm. Watching.

The air began to cool. Z-5 revolved, beeping plaintively.

“We've got company,” Inepta muttered.

And so suddenly he knew, deep within himself, that this particular run was not just another gig. Something larger had begun to stir. Something ancient.

The wind grew louder, it seemed, to warn him. But Inepta was not so easily frightened. There was the time he’d smuggled spice past pirate blockades, hotwired an escaping ship during high-speed chases, or extracted a Varran hound’s tooth with nothing but a boot knife.

Still…

This felt different.

The figure did not stir. Made no sound. Merely stood, a silhouette etched by lightning flashing in the sky behind it.

Z-5 let out a single piercing tone. Danger.

Inepta raised his gun, taking aim high, but he knew he was alone on the ridge. Nothing betrayed his presence. No footprints. No noise.

“Don’t like that,” he muttered. “Let’s move.”

They were about halfway to the Vulture’s Mercy when the blast struck.

A scream of sonic force blasted through the air, flattening the nearby hill in a flash of blue. A shockwave sent Inepta crashing to the deck, slamming him against the side of the ship. Z-5 tumbled end over end, sparking erratically.

He coughed, ears ringing, vision blurred.

And from the smoke emerged something that was not quite human.

The movement was fluid, but heavy. The armor was old, Sorellian but distorted. Areas of it were melted, pushed to new uses, fused with alien metals. A light hilt sparked at its hip, a heartbeat of power.

Inepta felt the space around it warp.

"What the hell are you?" he growled, pulling himself up.

The figure finally spoke with a metallic voice, but not robotic. "Tired. Cold."

“Just another ghost this galaxy forgot to bury.”

The blade sparked.

Not red. Not blue.

Black and violet, like lightning flashes in a jagged, frozen arc. A Voidbrand.

Inepta moved backwards towards his ship, his pulse pounding. He did not believe in fate, but the galaxy was certainly quick to provide him with motives to change that belief.

Z-5 let out a nervous warble.

“I hear ya,” Inepta said, his eyes never leaving the stranger. “Something tells me we’re no longer dealing spice.”

The black-violet sword screamed through the dust, illuminating the storm like a secondary sun. Inepta ducked, the plasma glance mere inches from his throat, etching a smoldering wound on the Vulture’s armor mere steps behind.

Z-5 let out a shriek, shooting into the open hatch of the ship with sparks trailing.

Instead of fighting, Inepta ran. He slid across the scorched deck and pressed his palm on the ramp release. The ship's loading bay cycled shut just in time for another slash from the Voidbrand to carve a scar of burning metal across the door.

“Get us off this rock!” he yelled, launching himself into the pilot seat.

The engines roared, coughing violently with dust-clogged air filters. He jerked the throttle home. The ship shuddered like a wounded animal, but it climbed.

Via the viewport, the figure didn’t give chase. It simply stood there, watching. The blade faded to nothing.

And that frightened Inepta more than anything else.

Stars flashed by as *The Vulture's Mercy* entered hyperspace.

He sat in the cockpit, puffing for oxygen, his chest soaked with sweat. His hands were still shaking over the controls.

"What the hell was that, Z?"

Z-5 chirped quietly, searching for pursuit, its lens dull.