The occupants of the two Lanexian ships gazed in wander as they watched a strange, tantalizing display of colour unfold before them. Neither ship was really supposed to be there, in the presence of the twisting and turning lights, but an interspace chase had led them to the strange sight.
The Coldspear was a ship belonging to the Frozen Scythes, the mountain-born Ice Tribe Lanex that mostly worked as the Lanex’s overall military and police force. They’d spotted an unknown Lanex vessel going way, way over legal speed limits and flying incredibly dangerously, and had raced off after them, considering the ship a threat. As they’d caught up to what they originally thought was a stolen or unlicensed ship (or maybe a Lanex ship loaned to another race), the crew of the Coldspear realized that something was very wrong. The second ship, named Void’s Grasp, belonged to the Perpetual Abyss, a hidden Lanex tribe that existed in secret, and considered themselves to be the direct descendants of the Lady of Stars Herself.
Still, as dutiful members of the Frozen Scythes, the Coldspear forced Void’s Grasp to come to a halt. The Coldspear did briefly lose track of Void’s Grasp, but a strange, black, floating cat pointed them in the right direction, and they got back on track, bringing everything to a standstill. The crew of Void’s Grasp knew they were in trouble and surrendered peacefully, but while they did admit to speeding, none of them, especially not their captain, Ignik Lifegatherer, were willing to say why they were speeding and what they were doing. The Lanex of the Perpetual Abyss were a secret organization, unknown to all other races, and they were the Lanex’s main connection to the Panelix, with rumours hinting that they served Her directly.
However, when the Panelix had caused an earthquake on the Lanex homeworld, the main Lanex population ended up disowning their matron deity. After all, among the three Epanian races, the Lanex were the least wealthy, the least populous and the least cared about, they risked their lives exploring dangerous places for other races and were poorly rewarded for their work. Sure, the Rethavok respected them, but the Torr considered the Lanex to be nothing more than servants. So when the Dragon God of Time extended an olive branch, of course the Lanex accepted. It meant leaving their Rethan allies to the claws of the Thantophor, but, well, they didn’t seem too bothered by that.
It’d only been about a month or so, but the Whenvern have the Lanex a small cash injection, allowing them to bolster their social services, as well as some other, smaller benefits. More importantly though, their new fellow Kaironian allies, the Spasts, had given the Lanex a handful of Time Feather ships. Sure, Lanexian ships were pretty good, but Time Feathers were the best and fastest ships in the universe. As the Lanex were THE race when it came to exploring both space and uninhabited worlds, access to these ships was a godsend, and, with Spasts’ and the Whenvern’s blessing, the Lanex had started building new exploration vessels.
The Lanex of the Perpetual Abyss didn’t like any of this, and they’d promptly cut ties with the rest of their kind and essentially gone rogue. The Lanex overall didn’t care, they didn’t consider the Perpetual Abyss leaving as a real loss. But they did try to keep tabs on them, because the Perpetual Abyss were always known to be plotting in the shadows.
Void’s Grasp’s crew had remained eerily silent the entire time the crew of the Coldspear had interrogated them. The captain of the Coldspear, Ataka Iceshield, a relative of the Imperator of the Frozen Scythes himself, felt something weird was going on, but he didn’t have any concrete proof, not until he asked about the cargo manifest on Void’s Grasp. What little desire the Perpetual Abyss Lanex had to cooperate disappeared completely. Asking about cargo manifests was standard practice, to make sure that speedy Lanex ships complied with anti-smuggling laws, and denying the request to see the cargo manifest had immediately raised suspicion.
That was until the cat reappeared. It blinked into existence in front of Ignik Lifegatherer, meowed a couple of times, nuzzled up up against Ataka Iceshield, then sat on Ignik’s shoulder, meowed again, made a hissing sound in Ignik’s enhanced hearing apparatus and disappeared. Ignik stared at Ataka briefly, then led Ataka and his troops into the cargo bay and immediately showed them what they were carrying.
It turned out, Void’s Grasp WAS smuggling something. A single, lone Vohra, frozen in a cryopod. Ignik blatantly admitted that he had been given a contract to fulfil from someone who claimed to be a servant of the Panelix, to deliver this Vohra to a secret lab hidden inside an unexplored asteroid belt, but he had no other information to give and had no idea who the Vohra was and why they were so important to the Lady of Stars. But whatever the cat had done, they had convinced Ignik to comply completely with the Frozen Scythes, and he and his crew agreed to follow the Coldspear back to Lanex territories for further investigation.
The light show outside though had stopped both ships in their tracks. The main light came from a very large, asteroid-sized entity, about a kilometre across but rather thin, seemingly chasing a smaller, very faint light that would occasionally emit the odd yellow sparkle. Whatever the faint light was, it was absolutely tiny, unable to be properly measured by the Lanex ships’ instruments, but it was moving very, very fast, dancing around the long, red, twisting light beam. Neither of the crews knew what these things were, and their tools and instruments failed to bring up any useful data either. Occasionally, a loud, booming sound, akin to the bellows of a sea whale, would echo over the radio and scanning devices, but whatever these sounds meant, no one knew.
Akama’s second in command, a young, bright, white-painted Lanex by the name of Atuhen, suggested that maybe they were watching the Lady of Light herself, fighting an errant entity. With a little more thought, Shelek, a member of Void Grasp’s crew, stated that maybe the second light was the Thantophor, and that the Lanex were observing a fight between two deities. Either way, the red light was very definitely trying to consume or otherwise snuff out the darker energy.
However, rather abruptly, the darker energy turned into a dim, yellow light, and remained perfectly still. The red light immediately capitalized on this and seemed to swallow the yellow light completely. As it did so, a low, gentle humming sound crept through the radios, but this sound was followed by a horrific screech, a sonic boom and a brilliant pink flash. A thin purple stream of light coiled around the red light, seemingly ensnaring it. The whale bellows returned, but not quite as loudly as the purple and red lights twisted around each other.
This new fight seemed to continue for at least five minutes, until a hideous, female voice echoed over the communication arrays of not just the two Lanex ships, but echoed across the stars as well.
“MIN ME TOLMAS, ADELFE, DEN TON FOVAMAI, THA TON ELEVTHEROSO AN KREIAZOMAI!”
The red light froze in its tracks. After a brief moment, the yellow flicker reappeared, the red light faded away into nothingness and the sound from the radios and scanners went silent. The purple trail and the yellow flicker circled each other briefly, then both those lights disappeared as well.
No one on either Lanex ship moved for a bit. Not until knocking was heard on the walls of the Coldspear, on one of the ship’s entrances. Ataka’s crew immediately rushed to see what it was, and none of them knew what to say when a young black Lanex with strange, yellow eyes, wearing an emergency survival jetpack, collapsed in the hallway.
“Are you alright, little one?” Ataka asked as he carried the stranger to their medbay.
“No, not at all… Pretty sure the Lady of Stars just destroyed almost all my stuff… Mind if I pass out for a bit?”
“Uh, no, go ahead. But we will want to talk to you when you wake up. Standard procedure.”
The unknown Lanex sighed as they closed their eyes and drifted off. “That’s fine. Just need to rest for little while. Thank you for picking me up…”
Ataka sighed back, utterly confused by all that had happened today. “No worries, kiddo. I’ll have our medic keep an eye on you. Sleep well.”
“Cheers…”