The battle in the Devil’s Nose Asteroid Cluster just weeks before Operation Aurora set off an accident that permanently altered the space around Viridia Prime, particularly near Apex Station.

The Ctjnians coveted Vermailia’s experimental Heterochron starships docked at Devil’s Nose. A Ctjn fleet surrounded the cluster and made to board Vermailia’s test vessels. The Vermailians scrambled from the asteroids, and a raging battle ensued. Neutron beams and astrotorpedoes streaked the vacuum in a patchwork like electric farmland. Wave upon wave of Vermailian starfighters broke themselves against the Ctjnian frigates.

The losses for Vermailia were catastrophic, but the battle turned when a stray missile struck one of the experimental vessels. Survivors vividly described how the stricken ship rippled and blinked like a bad video transmission. A paralyzing migraine struck the crews of both fleets, and sound simply stopped. Men moved their mouths but could not hear their words; their buzzing nervous systems silenced. After a moment of surely transcendent stillness, The Cleft opened from the Heterochron ship. The dark force that leaked from it rippled outward like the tentacles of a sea monster, clawing and decimating both fleets; where the strands touched, only Blank Space remained.

—Lance Malloran