Xar'thul Bloodreaper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Xar'thul Bloodreaper watched the fuel gauge drop and knew the star-beast would kill him one way or another. The creature's blood could grant a hive-queen her final evolution. That was the rumor. Rumor was all Xar'thul had. No coordinates. No sighting logs. Just Outer Rim traders whispering about a thing that swam between stars. His ship had drifted for nine days chasing those whispers, and the fuel meter now glowed red. He checked his dataset out of habit. Forty-seven gaps still on the list, sorted by phylum. A longer column beside it named the species that died before he reached them. He had crossed the whole sector to collect blood for the Galactic Pathogen Registry. The star-beast was different. That sample was for himself. If he burned the last of his fuel searching blind, he would join his own extinct column. One signal broke the silence. A ship the size of a small moon hung ahead, black metal scored with old burns. Xar'thul had heard the stories. This was the machine that took whole planets and ground them to rock. He should have run. Instead he opened a channel, because that ship had crossed more of this sector than anyone alive. The reply came without greeting. On his screen sat a metal figure in a jagged command chair, one hand resting on a rebuilt gun that glowed blue at the barrel. "You are burning fuel," said Zx-7 Dreadforge. "I can hear it in your drift." "I'm looking for a star-beast," Xar'thul said. "Living blood. I only have rumors." "I have seen it." Dreadforge did not move. "It feeds near a dead ringworld. Three jumps out." Xar'thul's hearts lurched. "Give me the coordinates." "No." The robot leaned forward. Green light crawled along the chair's arms. "I strip worlds because I once left something behind. I do not make that mistake twice. You want the location, you owe me the planet the beast circles." "I'm a scientist. I don't have a planet." "Then you have a ship." Dreadforge lifted the gun a finger's width. "The coordinates cost your cargo hold. Every sample you carry. I sell blood to buyers who pay well." Xar'thul thought of the vials locked below. Months of work. Species that no longer existed anywhere but in his freezer. He thought of the red fuel meter and the star-beast three jumps away. He unlocked the hold. "Take it," he said. A drone crossed the dark and drained his cargo bay in silence. Then the coordinates arrived, cold numbers on his screen. Dreadforge's ship turned and slid away without another word. Xar'thul fed the numbers into his navigator. He had a location now. He also had an empty hold, half a tank of fuel, and forty-seven gaps he could no longer close. He fired the engines toward the dead ringworld. There was only one sample left to gather, and no fuel left to fail.