?????

Out past the coral nebulae, a pink shape cuts the blue like a fin breaking water. Its hull is a blunt wedge of magenta plating, stacked in layers like gill slits, with a black stripe running along its back. From its belly trails a nest of black cables that whip and coil behind it like the tail of a hunting fish. A comet of pink fire pushes it forward.

The Ziefin call it ?????, because nobody ever learned the name of the soul inside. Some say it was a deep sea diver back on old Earth who chose to Uplevel so she could hunt the biggest ocean of all. Now she feels every engine hum in the dark like blood in the water.

Its signature weapon is the Sear Lances, twin beams of white fire that spit from its snout. They are its sharpest special attack, and they hit before the target sees the fin. ????? never circles long. It picks a cargo hauler, opens its nose guns, and bites. Then it is gone, cables trailing, back into the blue.