Cold void, endless darkness. Only the distant stars cast their indifferent light across the savage silhouette of the Hand of Yellow Sand.
The battleship, once glorious but now covered in battle scars and blasphemous markings, lurked silently like a wounded viper in the shadows of stardust and rubble.
Inside the Bridge, dim red warning lamps were the only source of light, staining everything the color of blood. The air carried odors even the circulation system could not entirely purge: machine oil, corroded metal, and an indescribable, cloying sweetness like old blood mixed with incense.
Abdullah, once commander of the Second Legion's Fourth Company, now a traitor warlord and one of the leaders of the renegade Legion's remnants, stood like a cornered beast before the enormous holographic star chart at the center of the Bridge.
The chart's spectral blue light illuminated his face, twisted by rage, anxiety, and prolonged indulgence in dark powers.
His former martial bearing had long since given way to viciousness and cruelty. His eyes were sunken, but his gaze remained sharp as a poisoned blade, sweeping over the red markers on the chart as they went dark, flickered, or were swallowed by the glaring points of light representing the Imperial Fleet.
"Useless! Every last one of them! Scum! Idiots who couldn't even buy us time!"
His hoarse, furious roar echoed through the cavernous Bridge. His knuckles cracked as his grip tightened, his fingers almost digging into the sturdy edge of the tactical console.
On the star chart, the red lights representing his former comrades and the fleets of other traitor warlords dimmed and vanished one after another, or were surrounded and annihilated by Imperial lights several times their number.
The signal from Shirku's Sandstorm had gone completely dead not long ago. His former adjutant's Withering Wind had