Kole’s knuckles pressed against the carved hilt of the Azure Dragon Soul Devourer Tactical Dagger, his thumb brushing the etched dragon eye. The emergency lights of the derelict starship cast a cold, blue glint on its serrated blade. He’d wrenched it free from the skull of a Xenomorph in the core compartment, surrounded by the tattered patches of a long-lost Marine squad. Every time he gripped it, a low, rumbling dragon’s roar echoed in his skull, as if something ancient and slumbering within the blade was stirring. The three scythe-clawed bugs he’d encountered in the corridor had fallen easily, their tough carapaces sliced open like thin paper, their acidic blood evaporating on contact with the blade, leaving only faint scorch marks. Leaning against a rusted bulkhead, Kole stared at the dragon relief on the hilt, and noticed the eye’s lines were slowly writhing. Then, his comms crackled to life, spitting out encrypted signals that didn’t belong to the Federation—their frequency perfectly synced with the faint hum emanating from the dagger.