Kade’s boot sole crushed the carbonized debris littering the bulkhead of the Aeos-class wrecked starship, while the frost-rimmed dagger in his palm took on a faint, matte blue sheen from the cold sweat pooling in his palm. As a reconnaissance scout with the Federation Marine Corps, he had been stranded for 72 hours amid the ruins of this starship—ravaged by the Zerg—and now his comm device emitted only static, like crackling snow. The last signal from his squadmates had frozen deep within this very compartment. This standard-issue, 3D-printed dagger had been hastily forged at the last minute using void-crystal powder salvaged from the ship; its hollowed-out blade design dissipates the recoil force of Zerg exoskeletons upon penetration, and the diamond-patterned grip is the Marines’ standard anti-slip feature—right now, it was firmly embedded between his fingers. With a swift sidestep, he evaded the sweep of a Zerg chela, then drove the dagger precisely into the joint gap of an aberrant scythe-worm. Blue-white bodily fluids spurted into the blade’s perforations, sizzling as they corroded the metal💥. Kade withdrew the blade and was just about to take a step when a faint pulsed signal suddenly crackled through his comm. Behind him, from the shadows of the wreckage, more Zerg hisses echoed, and the dagger’s sharp edges began to glow with tiny flecks of fluorescence in the dimly lit chamber…