Space was a cold, hard enemy. No-one fully understood it and its ways, but more importantly, no-one fully trusted it. It smiled slyly at those who dared to challenge its power and could (and often would) backstab those souls in the shortest of heartbeats. Only a person's own odds could say whether the obsidian void would be freedom or a dungeon – or death – and the cosmos ignored all hopes, turning blindly to its victims and softly whispering to them…

The Kharakid knew the power of space now. They knew its temper, they knew its mood. They had felt its might when the unknown raider ships had blown the Khar-Selim into smithereens. They knew its fury when the clouds of fighters had wiped out the Kharakid missile defence system, and when the actinic blue lances of ion beams had melted the Scaffold into a misshapen grave of thousands of engineers. And they had known its mercy when five of the cryo-trays had been rescued by the salvage corvettes. Unfortunately, space had decided not to be too merciful, and had allowed the Taidaan to destroy their world and one of the cryo-trays. Millions of lives had been taken on this one fateful day that had begun with promise and ended in tragedy.

And yet, there was hope for the Exiles.

In the silence of the vacuum, the giant semi-crescent of the mothership slipped into hyperspace and left the corpse of their world behind. It could not carry them straight to Hiigara in one jump, but they would be well on their way for now. The depths of the galaxy could prove to have open arms or closed fists, but for now, it was impassive, unrevealing, relentlessly anonymous.

Space whispered to the occupants of the mothership, taunting, mysterious.

No promises…

No promises…

No promises…