The blood-gold fissure expanded across the upper void, widening until it spanned ten thousand miles from horizon to horizon.
Twelve heavy, metallic chimes echoed through the vacuum of space. The sound was not made by bells. It was the synchronized discharge of fifty high-frequency spatial displacement drives dropping out of hyper-warp simultaneously.
Through the ragged tear in the cosmos, the vanguard sailed into low orbit above the Taichu Astral Hub.
They were not typical warships. The hulls were forged from polished platinum and brushed electrum, gleaming with cold, blinding brilliance under the starlight. The flagship was ten miles long, designed in the shape of a massive, circular gold coin. At the center of the coin, an open void-iron guillotine blade hung suspended in a magnetic cradle.
Fifty heavy Repo Cruisers flanked the flagship in a tight diamond formation. Each vessel bore cold corporate names etched in glowing runes along their hulls: Foreclosure Sovereign, Default Harbinger, Asset Stripper Seven, and Liquidator Prime. Their ventral bays were open, exposing rows of black Sun-Swallowing Torpedoes that hummed with gravitational hunger.
On the bridge of the Sovereign Aurora, Tang Xiaomi’s consoles turned deep crimson.
“Signatures confirmed,” Tang Xiaomi said, her fingers blurring across the arrays. “That is the Galactic Margin-Call and Repo Vanguard from the Central Milky-Way Exchange Ring. Lead vessel identified as the Foreclosure Sovereign.”
