Space Hulk

Iax watched Calando sink into thought after his inexplicable question, with no apparent intention of continuing their conversation.

There was nothing aboard this ship that struck him as novel. Though the Knight stirred some nostalgia, that was all it was.

A pile of civilian goods from a bygone age.

For some reason, Iax wanted to see whether he could still find one or two of his own kind in this universe.

After all, if even he had been left behind like this, his kin must clearly have evacuated in great haste and confusion.

The Men of Iron had once followed the Creator and the Engineer across the entire Milky Way.

Countless bizarre xenos life-forms and rebellious civilizations had been reduced to ash beneath the beams and shells of the Automated Machines.

Perhaps other Men of Iron still remained in the Milky Way.

Perhaps they had yet to be awakened and activated, or perhaps they lay dormant on standby.

Iax believed he would find them.

"Beep. Material object detected. Trajectory collision warning."

The sudden automated warning echoed throughout the ship.

Iax scanned the surroundings through the viewport but saw nothing.

Then he teleported straight to the corresponding viewport on the opposite side of the ship.

To the right of the small fleet, a vessel comparable in size to an Imperial Navy battleship was hurtling sideways across the fleet's course.

There were no energy readings from that ship, nor did it have a Gellar Field. Even its stern thrusters were completely dark.

The fleet urgently adjusted course, trying to dodge the enormous hull ahead.

But their relative speed was too high.

Speed was unstable within the warp.

Sudden acceleration and deceleration were commonplace.

But when this unidentified, unpowered ship abruptly accelerated and cut across the fleet's path, no one had time to