If being abruptly flung out of bed hadn't woken Thistle Patch, the emergency klaxon would have.

"Razz?" He called groggily from a heap on the floor.

No reply.

Emergency drills allowed muscle memory to assert itself. Before he had finished disentangling himself from the duvet, the Horse had already lit his horn and pulled a boiler suit from the drawers. A brown hoof smacked the cabin's computer access screen to both shut off the racket and open the door.

Isolated as it was, the corridor outside was empty, aside from the Blue Moon buntings. Thistle sometimes wondered if the Fezera-class' design team had arranged all the systems and holds, only to sheepishly remember that the crew needed to sleep somewhere and haphazardly cram in quarters wherever they would fit. It avoided noisy neighbours, at least.

For all his rush to reach his post in engineering, he couldn't help but choose a path which took him past the bridge and poke his head through the door, just to check on his wife.

There she was. Tall (by Pony standards), cream coat, pink mane, ill-fitting uniform. Raspberry tossed him a sidelong smile before turning to report something to the captain. The old Griffon looked groggy and had a mug of coffee clenched in one talon as he leaned on the rim of his command pit.

Having already expended too much time, Thistle galloped on, eventually plunging into the engine room so fast the door barely had time to open.

"PUT YOUR SUIT ON, DUMMKOPF!" A familiar Vraksian voice screeched from all of two metres away.

Ears pinned back, Thistle stared dumbly down at Chief Engineer Elytra for a second before noticing the protective garment still floating in his field. Snapping out of the surprise, he panted an apology and ducked out into the corridor.

A moment later he returned, doing up the last of the catches on his boiler suit. "What's the ruckus?"

"Something tripped ze safeties on ze Starlight drive. We've dropped to sublight," Elytra said, gesturing past the central drive apparatus. "Check ze batteries."

Nodding, Thistle trotted over while the royal-caste Changeling busied himself with the drive crystal. "Huh."

"Vat is it?" Elytra called.

"The batteries are down five percent from nominal. No, six. Have you got an overdraw on your end?" Thistle asked.

Elytra tapped at the drive console for a moment. "Nein. No malfunctions in control. Ring alignment is trim. Shutdown error 879... Unexpected battery depletion at ten-forty PM."

Thistle bent down and checked the battery logs. "The charge rate flatlines at the same time. It's like the magical background just went away."

"Shut down non-essentials and feed fusion power into ze converters," his senior instructed, trotting over to the comms panel by the door. "Ze captain won't like zis..."

"I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this molt on a freighter," Captain Gerlach groused upon hearing the news. "Last time I accept a new route."

Somehow, Raspberry doubted that. They had all been offered handsome pay by their contractor for this two year-long run, and nothing speaks quite like gold to a Griffon. Keeping that thought to herself, she idly rubbed her barrel and watched as the captain replaced the forward view on the main screen with a projection of the Orias system.

Unremarkable binary red dwarfs spun in mutual orbit, three rocky planets and two gas giants around the both, with a band of asteroids shuffling along between the latter like so many broody Penguins. A blinking blue dot traced the path of the Westtry as it crawled on momentum past Orias V.

"You were cutting it pretty close, helm," Gerlach commented, zooming the view in. "Must be something to do with the planet. Adjust heading to two-seventy by oh-ninety, half burn to standard-by-two. I want us well off the ecliptic plane."

The helmsgriff parroted the order in confirmation and with a soft rumble of the deck plating, Westtry began to dive on the screen.

A few minutes passed and Raspberry had begun wondering when the captain would sound the all clear when a faint fizzing tickled her ears. Frowning, she adjusted her headset and checked the offending channel.

To her surprise, it wasn't an unsupervised cub messing around but an external signal. Tying in the sensors, she ran an active sweep and identified the direction of emission, only now emerging out of the nearer star's radiation glare. She boosted the gain and ran a cleaning algorithm. The result made her heart skip a beat. "Captain, I'm picking up two signals near the system centre."

Captain Gerlach frowned. "Out here?"

Raspberry nodded. "I can’t get a match on the first one, but the second... It's a disaster beacon, captain."

"Put it on." Gerlach instructed.

Still broken despite the scrub, the computerised message crackled over the bridge's speakers. "–ediate aid. Repeat. This is ERSS Jam Wutt. -stellar carto–. –ife support s-tems offline. Rend– im-diate aid. Repea–. This is–"

Captain Gerlach swore under his breath. "Helm, cut thrusters. Play the other one, comms."

Raspberry obliged, and the bridge was flooded with a melodic pinging.

"It's looping. Probably another automated message," Gerlach observed, drumming his claws on the edge of the pit. "Helm, why are we still burning?"

Hermann Meckler, who had been rigid ever since the distress call, shook himself. Talons flew over controls and the gentle hum of the deck plates fell away. "Sorry, captain."

Gerlach turned back to Raspberry. "Time for the forlorn hope. Hail the explorer."

Raspberry let the request ping for a while. "No response."

The captain sighed as only an old Griffon could. "Blast it all. Give me shipwide."

Raspberry tapped the screen and nodded.

"Action stations, action stations, assume state one-zeblu! Non-operational personnel remain in your quarters. We're answering a distress call. Stay sharp." With the usual neck slice motion, he signalled the message's end. "Helm, plot a Starlight intercept to the Wutt, one-c. Engage only when the lance battery is cleared for firing. Stand by force wall."

"Aye, captain!" The helmsgriff responded as the bridge lighting dimmed, a bit too eagerly for Raspberry's liking. If he wanted action, the lad should have signed up with the Imperial Space Force when he had the chance.

Thistle hooked a pastern through the nearest safety rail as the computer counted down to sublight and the ion thrusters abruptly fired against solar gravity. The jolt wasn't nearly as severe as the emergency stop, but caution never hurt. Much.

"Secure from drive," Elytra announced. "Thistle, batteries. Otto, keep an eye on ze ion drive. I don't trust ze computer with this much null magic around."

Cradling his sore pastern, Thistle limped over to the board. "Eighty-two percent and charging – slowly. Blimey, there must be a whole moon's worth of blackrock out there."

The comms panel near the door chimed and Elytra trotted over. "Engineering."

Gerlach's tinny voice came through the speaker. "We're going to need you for salvage operations, chief. Suit up and meet me at the shuttle bay."

"Ja, captain," Elytra acknowledged, flipping the switch off. "Thistle, with me."

"Me, on the shuttle?" Thistle asked nervously.

"You're ze computer stallion. Come on," Elytra ordered sharply.

As usual, the designers hadn't given much thought to larger races when they drew up the Fezera-class' shuttle, so it was quite a squeeze for the three pressure suited creatures to pile inside. Captain Gerlach took the pilot's couch while Elytra and Thistle made do in the back.

"Clamps released, take care out there," Raspberry's voice said over the speaker as with a lurch, the shuttle's nose dipped and its thrusters shoved it out of its berth.

Once Thistle's stomach had stopped threatening to migrate into his skull, he leaned forward to get a better view. Debris spun lazily past the canopy, small pieces occasionally bumping off the transparent metal as the captain delicately manoeuvred through the cloud. Metal, glass, plastic... For a moment Thistle thought he saw a body, but he couldn't be sure. Nor did he want to be.

"There's not much left of her," he breathed at last.

"Roamer-class, I think," Elytra observed. "Look at that engine strut. Ponies don't know how to build a ship."

"Don't underestimate them," Gerlach said, not taking his eyes off the proximity sensor. "They were a terror in wargames. Scoot and shoot, their doctrine’s based around mobility. But this was a science ship." He laughed humourlessly. "Probably why we weren't warned about the travel hazard."

"Do you think it was pirates, sir?" Thistle asked.

"Pirates wouldn't destroy the ship like this," the captain replied. "They'd want her intact, for her cargo if nothing else. Hold on."

With a twitch on the yoke, the shuttle tilted and into view swung a ship the likes of which Thistle had never seen. It was as if somecreature had decided to build a giant kingfisher from nothing but marble statues and mosaics, painted in bright and cheerful colours which clashed with the scorch marks and grim surroundings. All which visibly marked her as a warship were ball turrets mounted along the wings.

Thistle couldn't take his eyes off the alien vessel as they matched velocity, until Elytra nudged him. "Stay in ze shadow of ze shuttle. So close to ze stars, ze radiation vill be higher than our suits can take for long," he instructed.

"Got it," Gerlach replied, affixing his helmet. "Mic test."

"Clear," Elytra said.

"Ham and beer," Thistle countersigned.

After final checks on seals, Elytra depressurised the cabin and opened the hatch. Silently, the three creatures jetted the short distance to the opposite airlock.

"Give me a moment," the Horse said, aligning with what looked like a control panel. He unclipped a vacuum-proof computer slate from his flank. Only a few seconds later, the hatch slid open.

"That was quick. Good work," Gerlach praised.

"Too easy," Thistle muttered, frowning beneath his photoreactive visor. The slate had hardly booted up.

Gerlach caught the implication and drew his lance pistol as he entered the airlock. The others followed.

Inside, the ship was a mess. Pipes dangled from shattered ceiling panels and electrical scorches marred the walls. It was no less decorated than the hull, however. Vibrant frescos lined every wall, and every door was etched with fine calligraphy. A xenologist could have spent a lifetime studying it all; Thistle did his best to record as much of it as possible with his helmet camera. It helped take his mind off the nerves.

Elytra paused and pointed at a broken, sparking cable. "Zat's a main power line. Follow it back, and ve find engineering. They'll have main computer access zere."

"This is an En-keladim ship," Gerlach said as the group moved on again. "The Orias system is on the fringe of their space."

"They might have destroyed the Wutt if they thought she was invading." Thistle soberly speculated.

Gerlach shook his head. "They're a peaceful race. Most of them are artists."

"All those gun turrets didn't look very peaceful," Thistle replied.

Gerlach clicked his tongue. "Tch. You should read more history. Peaceful nations are maintained by strong deterrence. The Great War showed what happens when they aren't."

"I was born in Saddle Arabia, captain," Thistle reminded. "We didn't really study Equus at school. Eleventh century history's all about the Civil War and the Emirs' oligarchy."

"It's easy to forget. Who'd your kin fight for?" Thistle wasn't sure if the captain meant that to be rude or a compliment. With Griffons it could be hard to tell.

"I've never dug into who was where, sir," Thistle replied. "My family's from the south-west though, down Trotadla way... So I suppose a few must have been commies," he admitted with distaste.

"You're not the only one with divided ancestry. Some of mine shot at one another in the Battle of Winghagen," Gerlach commiserated. "How about you, chief? Any sordid parentage?"

Elytra, who had already begun to sag, took a moment to reply. "Ve don't talk about ze Bad Old Days. Zan am atá kaite, ach zós rózga, as zey say."

"It's been two and a half centuries," Gerlach countered. "You've got to reflect at some point or history will repeat."

Elytra shook his head. "If I may be blunt captain, you are a Griffon. Imagine if you ever mentioned Kemerskai, ze entire room stank like a septic tank. Ze Bad Old Days are dead, my great-grandmother is dead. We move on or we drown."

Captain Gerlach managed to look somewhat abashed. "Let's find you a machine to prod then."

The trio plodded along in silence, magnetic boots thudding dully on carpeted deck plates. Without the chatter, the ship suddenly felt colder.

Elytra's instincts proved correct, and beyond ornamented double doors lay a contrastingly industrial-looking engineering bay. Less damaged than other parts of the ship, crystalline lamps cast a cool blue glow across every surface, as well as the lanky corpse.

Thistle did his best to ignore the dead alien and found the closest apparent control panel. Lighting his horn, he unclipped his slate and booted up the translator software. "You said En-keladim, captain?"

Gerlach's voice was subdued as he turned it over. "I thought so, now I know. Poor hen. No visible injuries."

Thistle scrolled through the options and selected the appropriate one, proudly declaring itself an alpha build. Better than nothing, assuming it was the right En-keladim language.

As Thistle held the slate's camera over the button-festooned console, the algorithm did its best. "This looks like life support," he announced after some interpretation. Tapping what was overlaid as 'Refresh' made a cracked monitor flicker to life. "If I'm reading this right, there are some hull breaches and the bridge is exposed to vacuum. Bulkheads have sealed them off. Temperature is on the chilly side, but it's oxygen-nitrogen. Richer than standard. The translator's struggling with some trace compounds."

"Defensive systems here – it looks like they put up a fight. The laser arrays are fried, but the counter-missiles are still in their bays," Elytra reported.

An obnoxious alarm blared, Gerlach shouted and there was a clatter. The alarm shut off as quickly as it had begun.

Thistle almost dropped his slate in surprise at the ruckus. Quickly regaining his footing, the captain aimed his pistol at a door covered with hazard symbols of some sort. Elytra had pressed up against the console he had been examining and drawn his own weapon. "Are you all right, captain?"

"We're not alone," Gerlach rasped, before switching to an external speaker on his suit. "Didn't your mother teach you not to creep around?!"

The door remained stoically shut.

"I'm going back in. Cover me," Gerlach instructed at length.

Elytra readied himself, and the alarm blared again as the door slid open.

This time Thistle saw it looming in the doorway. A lanky biped, similar in both appearance and robe to the corpse now resting in a more dignified position by the wall. It was pale and hairless, except for a long blonde mane which vanished down the back of their tunic, with a razor-sharp but immaculately symmetrical face and eyes like slits. Its long arms ended in seven fingered hands.

It blinked, and that was the only way Thistle could tell it was alive.

Gerlach approached cautiously. "En-keladim? Can you understand me?"

The alien ignored him, staring blankly forward.

Lowering his pistol, the captain waved a talon in front of the alien's face. Then he reached out and firmly shook its arm.

The alien screamed and cowered. For a moment it stood, mouth still agape, then blinked a few times and held its head in its hands.

"We're here to help. Are there other survivors?" Gerlach said in a firm, but coaxing way Thistle had never heard from the old Griffon. He wondered if it was ISF training, or if Gerlach had dealt with this sort of thing before.

The alien gave no response, but didn't resist as Gerlach reached out again and led him into the main engineering bay, which fell back into silence as the alarm died.

Gerlach nodded to Elytra. "See if you can find out what happened."

Thistle managed to stop gawping at the alien – the first he had ever seen in the flesh – and turned his attention to the next console, which turned out to be for plumbing.

Elytra had more luck and beckoned him over. "I've found zeir superluminal engines. Zey don't use Starlight drive. It looks like projected anti-gravity."

"Bend space either end of your ship to cheat the speed of light," Thistle clarified.

The Changeling nodded, scrolling through menus. "Ja. Much less efficient than Starlight drive, but faster." He paused and rubbed his neck. "Ach, and why must zey put ze screens so high?"

Thistle snorted at that. It was nice for the shoe to be on the other hoof for once. "I wonder how they're powering it? Can you see an option to access logs?"

Rearing for a better view of the monitor, Elytra read through his slate. "Coolant, draw and feed, something intermix... I'm guessing zis is sublight related. Zat too... Hatcher below, this UI is awful."

"Found it," Thistle said, flicking a switch with the edge of a hoof. He skimmed down the list, then switched to the power draw logs. Most of it was either inane or illegible, but not all. "Whatever happened, it was two days ago, maybe three. They don't use the same clocks as us."

"I want to know what attacked them," Gerlach left the alien for a moment to peer over Elytra's back. "Do you have sensor records?"

"Unlikely from engineering, captain," the Changeling replied. "There's no power to ze bridge, so you'd probably need to access ze sensor suite directly, unless there's an auxiliary control room."

"Drat. I'll comm back to Westtry, then go another round with our friend," Gerlach said. "See if you can piece anything together. We need that data."

An hour of work bought Thistle a more complete picture of events. But 'what' as it turned out, was no substitute for 'why'. Elytra meanwhile had finished deciphering the environmental controls and deemed the atmosphere liveable, at least in the short term. It was an improvement on misty helmets and limited air supplies.

Gerlach had found a working dispenser and sat the alien down with a warm, sweet-smelling drink, which finally seemed to thaw him out of his catatonia. He had got up, slowly but under his own power, rummaged through a compartment and pulled out a device, which quickly revealed itself to be an audio translator. It took yet more time to zero in on Herzlandic.

"I'm Captain Gerlach, skipper of the Imperial freighter ISS Westtry. We picked up your disaster beacon, as well as an Earthling science ship," Gerlach introduced once the palaver was over. "We saw the mess outside, what happened here?"

Listening in over a cup of tea, Thistle got the impression that the En-keladim did not so much speak as sing, though right now this one was about as tuneful as a drunk Abyssinian. "First Officer Tekel, of the Ishtar. W-we are... were a patrol bird operating out of Ellor Eshúrizel. A day ago? Two? We responded to your kin's plea for salvation, but–" Tekel shuddered.

Captain Gerlach gave him a moment before pressing. "What happened to them? What attacked you?"

"They say the Beast was bound long ago and far away, but that..." Tekel waved an arm vaguely at the bulkhead, mouth working wordlessly. "That. It. I SAW IT! The gluttonous spectre of malice, borne upon a brush whose stroke overtook us all. You must flee. Run far, run fast, and maybe It will miss you."

"Be careful, captain," Elytra warned from the main console.

"We have to investigate, chief. Convocation Spacefaring Commitments eleven-ninety," Gerlach countered, though he softened his body language as he leaned back in to the En-kelad. "Tekel, please tell me what happened. A ship was destroyed."

"Devoured. We were too late to stop it. They called us. Begged us for help. One hundred of them. The vessel was rent. It ripped out their beating heart, left them to the void and turned on us. Our weapons were useless. We tried to save..." Tears welled. "The captain, she unveiled herself in the void, but its song ate her and it kept coming, and... and... I COULDN'T!" He buried his head in his hands and wept.

Gerlach gingerly patted him on the back and turned to Thistle. "Did you find anything?"

"Something smashed through their shielding and shook up the power grid. An electrical surge knocked out their lasers and from there the log's just floods of thrown exceptions and errors. I'm amazed the computer still works." Thistle reported.

"Thistle found a link into ze command system and rerouted it here. But ze files are fragmented," Elytra added pre-emptively. "We've set a system repair running, but it'll be a while before ve know if any data has survived."

"I told you, it's a spectre of evil!" Tekel declared.

"What does it look like?" Gerlach asked, measuring his tone carefully. "As lit–" He was interrupted by a bleeping. "Gerlach here."

Raspberry's voice came out the speaker. "Captain, we've picked up an anomaly on long range sensors. Shall I transmit to your slate?"

"Do it," Gerlach said. As soon as it booted, the screen shifted to a grainy video feed.

"T-that," Tekel stammered, pointing at the slate. "Evil is a storm in the stars."

Author's Note

See the appendix blog for detail on worldbuilding aspects such as the Starlight drive, the Griffonian Empire and the En-Keladim.

For context, 'Earthling' is an instance of translation convention at play, not referring to humans as it often does in sci-fi. Most of the peoples of the EaW world call their home Earth or something similar, just not in English for obvious reasons.