"Dark Elves?"
Silas Vire narrowed his eyes as he studied the fleet descending through the sulfur-hazed skies of Vulcan. The formation was unmistakable: one A-class firepower cruiser, two B-class escort frigates, and ten C-class fast-strike vessels, all bearing the jagged insignia of the Night Empire.
He had heard of them before—fragments of historical dossiers and whispered caution in the Starborne Academy. The Dark Elves were a splinter faction of the ancient Stellar Elven bloodline, twisted by genetic heresy and psychic extremism. Exiled from the Inland Sea and hated by their parent kin, they had built a brutal society on conquest and spiritual zealotry.
Unlike the aloof nobility of the Stellar Elves, the Dark Elves thrived in conflict.
And now, they were here—in open sea space. On Vulcan.
That alone made Silas suspicious.
Beside him, Celeste Vale—still sipping her star-fruit milk tea—looked up at the sky and frowned. "That's a Dark Elf military crest. Night Empire tier. Why would they show up on Vulcan of all places?"
Silas didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he keyed a silent command through his techband, initiating a passive scan of Dock 66.
Meanwhile, at the edge of the landing zone, Vulcan's renowned shipwrights had gathered to welcome their new client—as was custom for any fleet entering their neutral port. But as the gangplanks of the lead cruiser lowered, any hope of formality evaporated.
The first to disembark was a Dark Elf captain clad in obsidian armor, his face concealed behind a pressure-sealed helm. His voice rang out through a vocal amplifier, dripping with contempt.
"Vulcan," he sneered. "A forge-world of scrap and grease. This entire starrock is an insult to the Empire's boots."
The Vulcan shipwrights stiffened, but said nothing.
Around the captain, dozens of black-armored soldiers marched out, weapons drawn and scanners active. They were not here to trade. They were hunting.
The Vulcan dockmaster approached, his expression carefully neutral.
"Honored guest," he said diplomatically, "these vessels belong to sovereign voyagers under the protection of the Vulcan Accord. Unauthorized tampering—"
A crack sounded.
The captain pistol-whipped the dockmaster across the face, sending him sprawling. Steam hissed from his shattered respirator.
"I do not take orders from metal-smeared insects," the Dark Elf growled. "You have a relic aboard one of these ships. We will find it. And if you interfere again, Vulcan will burn."
He turned to his troops. "Begin the sweep. Dismantle every ship if necessary."
The order unleashed chaos.
Dark Elf soldiers fanned out like locusts, ripping through sealed hatches and slashing through security panels with plasma cutters. Sparks flew. Hulls shrieked. One after another, civilian ships were violated, their systems exposed, their cargo torn apart.
Vulcan workers clenched their fists—but the threat of imperial laser cannons kept their fury chained.
Then they reached Dock 10.
There, resting like a beast at slumber, was the HYPERION.
The soldier leading the team paused. "Captain, we've found something. S-Class."
The captain approached, gaze lifting slowly over the dreadnought's hull—its silhouette eclipsing half the dock, its pulse-thrusters still warm from recent flight.
An S-Class warship, here?
A slow, venomous smile spread across his face.
"This ship is now property of the Night Empire. Breach the hatch. I want it stripped and re-coded."
They raised their cutters.
And the Hyperion responded.
[ ⚠ ALERT: Unauthorized breach detected at Dock 10. ]
[ Unit Protocol: Iron Riders – Awakening Sequence Initiated. ]
Inside the dreadnought's belly, the cryo-locked hangars cracked open with a hiss.
Rows of Iron Riders—fully armored shock troopers clad in burnished black warsteel—awoke in perfect synchronization. Their eyes glowed red, their gauntlets hissed steam, and their pulse carbines charged to full capacity.
One thousand of them. All awaiting a single command.
Silas Vire stood from the café bench, calmly handing his half-drunk milk tea to a baffled Celeste.
"Stay here," he said. "You'll know when it's over."
He tapped his techband.
"Deploy Iron Riders. Priority clearance: lethal force authorized. Remove them."
Dock 10 – Vulcan Starport
The first squad of Dark Elves had just begun cutting into the HYPERION's forward airlock when the hull split open—not from their blades, but from the ship itself.
Iron Riders emerged in phalanx formation.
The soldiers barely had time to scream.
Plasma fire poured forth in controlled bursts. High-velocity projectiles shredded through Dark Elf armor. One soldier fell, then another, and another. Blood sprayed across the scaffolds. Shouts turned to gurgles. Weapons clattered to the floor.
A fireteam tried to counterstrike—only to be met with zero-gravity shock charges and plasma blades.
A Predator officer landed beside the Riders, directing the formation like a living algorithm.
The Hyperion had gone to war.
By the time Silas reached the main concourse, the dock had become a killzone. Smoke filled the air. Wounded mercenaries screamed from behind cover. Vulcan engineers ducked in fear as Iron Riders advanced in precision waves, merciless and unrelenting.
The Dark Elf captain emerged from the backline, eyes wide in horror.
"You—"
"I gave no permission," Silas said coldly.
The captain drew his sidearm. "This ship harbors a relic! We have imperial authority—"
Silas raised one hand.
The captain exploded in a mist of red vapor, his body crushed mid-sentence by a precision rail slug fired from the Hyperion's dorsal battery—miles away, and yet accurate to the millimeter.
The remaining Dark Elf soldiers fled.
Only a handful survived.
Later, as smoke cleared and scavenger drones removed wreckage from Dock 10, Silas stood beside the Vulcan dockmaster, who was bleeding but alive.
"Your people held the line," Silas said.
"We try," the dockmaster coughed. "That… was your ship?"
Silas nodded.
"I owe you."
"No," Silas said. "You don't."
He turned and walked away, his Iron Riders forming ranks behind him. The HYPERION's lights flickered once, then powered to full brightness.
Back in the mall, Celeste Vale sipped her milk tea and watched the fires fade in the distance.
"Mmmm," she muttered, "I'm picking the place next time."