"Bzzz! Crackle!"
"Hiss..."
Arcs of leaking energy flickered intermittently across the Sword of the Void's immense hull, ionizing the air escaping from its internal life-support systems before igniting it again.
Small flames flickered across the hull in an endless succession.
The Spear of Titan was already on its way with the fleet and would arrive in roughly a month. Until then, the Sword of the Void would remain anchored in this frontier region of the Imperium.
A compact shuttle was gradually approaching.
The shuttle had an elegant design, quite unlike the Imperium's crudely manufactured standard vehicles, with dragon-shaped ornaments and green markings decorating its outer shell.
Despite its different appearance, its identification signal followed the standard format of the Imperium of Man.
The little shuttle elicited no response from any defensive system.
Although the Sword of the Void was severely damaged, a single shuttle was not enough to prompt the ship's independent intelligence to file a report and draw Iax's attention.
Such shuttles were typically used to travel from a planet's surface to a starport, or carried aboard civilian vessels as escape craft for important passengers.
The shuttle's sudden arrival at high speed prompted the Sword of the Void's intelligence to activate numerous scanners to determine whether any nearby Imperial Ships had come under attack.
Although the Sword of the Void had nothing to fear from ordinary pirate vessels or other such enemies, an encounter with Abaddon's Plague Fleet could turn disastrous. The damaged hull would destabilize its energy shields, while the gaping breaches were an even greater weakness.
What happened next, however, was even more surprising.
The shuttle circled the Sword of the Void several times, seemingly assessing the ship.
Then the little shuttle drew closer to the Sword of the Void's hull, found an enormous breach, and slowly