[Khan’s PoV]

  “We're almost reaching the target.”

  The voice crackled through static, distorted but clear enough to make out.

  Khan leaned back in his chair. His eyes scanned the holographic displays dancing across his face. He didn’t answer immediately. He never did. He preferred silence, the kind that made others uncomfortable. The kind that reminded them who was in command.

  The room around him was vast and dark, carved into the upper decks of his Dreadnought. It was his one luxury after forging a fortress from decades of scavenging, theft, and conquest. The walls were lined with flickering holo-panels and half-functioning monitors, each one displaying a different sector of the battle raging outside.

  This ship wasn’t just his command center. It was his kingdom.

  Built from the bones of dead fleets and the steel of local wars, it was large enough to house thousands. Pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, and every other kind of scum that drifted through the Borderlands, they called it home. He called it insurance.

  Because in the Borderlands, loyalty lasted only as long as fear did.

  'Never let them think you’re one of them.'

  That was Khan’s rule. That was why he stayed here, high above the command deck, sealed inside his private chamber. He didn’t need the noise, the chaos, or the stench of desperation that filled the lower decks. From here, he could see everything. Every ship. Every life. Every betrayal waiting to happen.

  The holograms shifted, displaying the chaos outside. The Dreadnought loomed like a mechanical god over the battlefield, its hull bristling with weaponry. Even under fire from two opposing fleets, the ship showed no sign of slowing. Its shields shimmered faintly, deflecting wave after wave of lasers and missiles.

  “There’s a ship near Sector Four!” a voice shouted over the comms, the static breaking as the channel struggled to maintain connection. “It’s taken out one of our cannons!”

  Khan’s gaze flicked toward the display. A small corvette darted across the holographic projection, weaving through the Dreadnought’s defense grid like a wasp among giants.

  He smiled faintly. “Send more interceptors. And turn the ship toward the Dark Star.”

  There was a pause on the line. “Sir, are you sure? If they’re lying—”

  “Then our employers are idiots,” Khan said flatly, his tone so casual it almost sounded amused. “We still have the cargo aboard.”

  The mercenaries on the other end of the comm fell silent. No one dared to argue. The massive ship rumbled, its colossal thrusters roaring as it accelerated toward the looming Dark Star.

  'They’d better not be lying,' Khan thought, fingers tightening on the armrests of his chair.

  The comms erupted again, a dozen voices shouting over one another, each more panicked than the last.

  “Shit! Shit! The Independence is charging its main cannon! It’s locked onto us!”

  “That’s not a star!” another voice yelled, static crackling through the transmission. “Sensors are reading no heat output. Gravity’s completely screwed up!”

  “They’re pulling back! They think we’re about to melt!”

  Khan allowed himself a thin smile. “Good. Let them.”

  Outside, the Dreadnought’s prow cut through the void, its massive hull dwarfing the escort ships that trailed behind. The black sphere ahead filled the entire view.

  It wasn’t just dark. It was alive.

  Great tendrils of shadow rippled from its surface like waves of smoke made solid, writhing and shifting with an unnatural rhythm. The closer they drew, the more the ship’s sensors screamed, their readings spiking into incomprehensible values.

  Even from the safety of his chamber, Khan could feel it.

  His sensitivity to Energy was higher than most; an instinct honed through years of exposure to the impossible. The raw power radiating from the Dark Star was staggering, a storm of Energy so dense it distorted reality itself.

  'This isn’t a star,' he realized, his eyes narrowing as the first of the shadow-flames licked across the ship’s shields. 'It’s an anomaly. A planet, maybe.'

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  The Dreadnought shuddered as it entered the cloud layer, the hull groaning under the gravitational pressure.

  “Contact made. Shields holding steady,” one of the mercenaries reported.

  “That’s it! We’re through!” another voice shouted, exhilarated. “They’re falling back!”

  Cheers erupted across the comm channels. The mercenaries, half-mad and half-relieved, were celebrating their survival.

  Khan didn’t share their enthusiasm. His eyes never left the shifting black horizon beyond the holographic displays.

  “Don’t stop,” he ordered, his voice cutting through the noise like a blade. “Keep pushing forward. They’ll realize soon enough this isn’t suicide, it’s strategy. Once we breach the surface, I want scouts scanning for the main ruins. We need to activate the planetary defense grid before they catch up.”

  The clouds broke apart like torn fabric, revealing the world below, if it could still be called a world.

  The planet stretched out in endless shadow, its surface a wasteland of blackened stone and fractured plains. From orbit, it looked scorched, as if fire had burned away everything living, leaving only the ashes of a civilization. The ground itself gleamed faintly, a dark glassy sheen.

  The only contrast came from the ruins; the skeletal remains of cities scattered across the planet’s surface. Cratered highways, shattered towers, and collapsed megastructures. Most were nothing but rubble, indistinguishable from the wasteland around them.

  But one city stood apart.

  A cluster of impossibly tall skyscrapers, their spires still reaching toward the sky. Even from the Dreadnought’s altitude, Khan could see them clearly, piercing through the haze of drifting ash.

  “I think I’m seeing movement,” a voice crackled through the comms.

  Khan frowned. “Impossible.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing as he studied the live feed. “This planet was annihilated. It has no sun, no atmosphere worth breathing. It’s been drifting through the void for gods know how long. Nothing could have survived.”

  “No, I’m sure of it,” the pilot insisted, his voice rising with conviction. “Something’s down there. Movement near the tallest structures. I’m going in for a closer look.”

  Khan didn’t stop him. He watched through the pilot’s feed as the small recon craft descended, slicing through the black clouds and skimming low over the surface.

  The ruins passed beneath the camera. Skeletal towers, streets choked with debris, the remains of vehicles long since turned to dust. The feed wavered slightly as the craft banked, circling one of the taller skyscrapers.

  No response.

  No heat signatures. No movement.

  Nothing.

  “I… I must have seen wrong,” the pilot said after a long silence. “There’s nothing. No life, no signals. I’m heading back to formation—”

  The sentence cut off mid-word.

  Khan straightened. “Say again, pilot. You’re breaking up.”

  The video feed flickered, static crawling across the screen. The recon craft was pulling up, its thrusters flaring as it ascended. Then—

  A flash.

  Something streaked upward from the ground, too fast for the sensors to track.

  The image on the feed went white.

  Then the explosion hit.

  The blast tore through the small ship, engulfing it in a storm of fire and debris. For a moment, the only thing visible through the camera was chaos.

  Then the signal went dead.

  “What the hell is happening?!”

  “Our ships are under attack!”

  “Something’s firing on us!”

  “Alert! The Dreadnought is taking damage!”

  The moment the small escort ship exploded, it was as if the universe itself had turned hostile. The shockwave rattled through the massive hull of the Dreadnought, lights flickering as the fortress groaned under the strain.

  The holographic displays around Khan kept flashing red. Ship icons blinked out one after another; his fleet was being torn apart in real time.

  “What the fuck—” he muttered, his voice low, dangerous, before it rose into a snarl. “Bastards. They lied to us!”

  He slammed his fist against the armrest of his throne, the impact echoing through the chamber.

  “All engines to full power! Ascend! Get us out of here!”

  “Sir, I don’t think we can!” one of the mercenaries shouted over the din. “Escape pods are launching! Some of the crew are abandoning ship!”

  “Cowards!” Khan roared, the word tearing from his throat like a thunderclap.

  The comm channels devolved into chaos. Screams, orders, gunfire. Some of his mercenaries were firing blindly into the darkness below, unleashing missile volleys at anything that moved. Others were trying to flee, their smaller vessels detaching from the Dreadnought’s docking bays.

  But none of them made it far.

  Every ship that broke formation, every desperate attempt to escape, was met with the same fate. They were struck by something unseen, something fast, and then they… ceased to exist.

  “It’s some kind of slime!” a voice screamed through the comms, distorted by static. “It’s crawling up the hull, it’s eating through the metal!”

  “The fortress is losing altitude!” another officer cried.

  Khan reached for the polished green helm resting beside his throne. He slid it over his head, the seals locking with a hiss. The armor’s internal systems flared to life, the HUD lighting up across his vision.

  “A good Ork is a dead Ork,” he muttered, his voice grim inside the helmet. “Guess the humans got that one right.”

  He locked the final seal and braced himself.

  The alarms wailed louder, their shrill tones merging with the groaning of the ship’s dying engines.

  “We’re in freefall!” someone shouted.

  “Stabilizers offline!”

  “Impact imminent!”

  The lights flickered one last time.

  “Brace for impact in three… two… one—”

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