In the vastness of deep space, there drifts a dark ship. With its matte black panels, the ship is nearly invisible. No beam of starlight reflects off its surfaces, and it flashes no signals at passersby. Hundreds of years ago, if a ship on the sea had drifted as waywardly and as eerily as this one, it would have sparked legends of a ghost ship. Tattered sails. Seemingly unmanned. Only glimpses and dread.
And there are glimpses of this massive ship.
Passing pilots are startled to find such a large anomaly on their radars. Its mass registers on their mechanical instruments even though the instruments of their fragile bodies cannot find it. Most pilots mark the aberration down in their ship's log and hasten away. Those too stupid or too curious to leave are never heard from again. Entire ships and crews have disappeared. Back home, there are reports of "assumed accidents" or even "undiscovered wormholes." But the answer is much simpler than that: murder. A drifting ship is not self-sustaining; it must support its crew, which is exactly what this ship does.
For, you see, the black ship of the unmoving sea is still trying to provide resources for its dead inhabitants. They died years ago when a hull breach whisked all the oxygen out of their bodies. The ship, designed for stealth and self-repair, fixed the breach without noticing the real damage. But there are still programmed feeding times, programmed refueling checkpoints, and the ship runs faithfully.
It is Dreadnought. It drifts along, inspiring dread and dreading nothing.
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