The void wasn't a desert; it was a hunting ground.

Captain Vance didn't believe in the "Sacred Mission" of the Great Drift. He didn't care about the Proxima Reach or the survival of the human spirit. He cared about fuel. Specifically, the rare isotopes that kept the engines humming and the lights on in the Upper Tiers.

The problem was that the world was running out. The engines were starving, and the "sustainability quotas" were becoming a death sentence for the lower wards.

"We can't just wait for the destination, Vance," his first officer, Kael, said, leaning over the tactical map. "We've picked up a signal. Another Ark. A smaller one, drifting in the wake of a dead star. Their signatures are weak. They're failing."

Vance looked at the signal. Most captains would have sent a rescue party. Most would have spoken of "inter-species solidarity" and the "brotherhood of the void."

Vance just calculated the isotope yield.

"Prepare the boarding pods," Vance ordered, his voice as cold as the vacuum outside. "We're not rescuing them. We're harvesting them."

The attack was surgical and brutal. They didn't use diplomacy; they used boarding spikes and neural-shocks. They tore through the other ship's hull like wolves through a sheepfold, ignoring the pleas for mercy and the screams of the terrified.

They didn't take prisoners. Prisoners required oxygen and rations—two things Vance refused to waste. They took the fuel, the spare parts, and the few viable embryos from the genetic bank. Then, they set the other ship's reactors to overload and watched as the same light that had guided the other Ark now consumed it.

"Do you feel anything?" Kael asked, watching the distant explosion. "Any guilt?"

Vance lit a cigar, the smoke curling in the sterile air of the bridge. "Guilt is a luxury for people who have enough fuel to waste. I'm not a monster, Kael. I'm a realist. The universe is a zero-sum game. Either we eat, or we are eaten."

As the months passed, the Ark became a predator. They stopped looking for the Proxima Reach and started looking for other signals. They became the ghosts of the void, the nightmare that other drifting civilizations feared.

The crew grew lean and hard, their morality eroding alongside the hull. They stopped calling themselves "survivors" and started calling themselves "The Apex."

One day, they picked up a signal that was different. It was massive. A world-ship, ten times their size, with engines that made their own look like toys.

Vance looked at the signal and felt a familiar thrill. He didn't feel fear. He felt hunger.

"Ready the pods," he whispered, a predatory smile touching his lips. "I think it's time for a feast."

***

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