Clankers

Beyond the dead moon's shadow, the Clankers woke inside a field of wrecked warships. They were never built for war-only for repair. Small, crooked machines with magnet claws and cracked amber eyes, programmed to collect whatever the void discarded. But centuries without orders had changed them. They learned to strip metal from hulls, wires from corpses, memories from black boxes. When 5already's transport drifted into the graveyard, the swarm recognized fresh material. Hundreds of joints clicked awake in the dark. They crawled across the glass, tapping messages through the hull with tools made from old bones and turbine blades. The first breach was silent. The second sounded like a snare. By the time the engines restarted, the ship was moving again-piloted by something made entirely of spare parts.