3: Winteroud Sole and the Core Marauders

Kyllini Prime, Pleiades Cluster

Snake eyes.
Below us a world, a half finished dream deferred of a man long gone. A world first forgotten in the exigencies of the moment; a war, a stand, a victory-then time delays and some plans are not resumed. Oceans half filled, disputes among the worlds and still the half finished dream spun round its star, days upon years at the top of the Pleiades.
Snakes eyes, here on this unfinished, neglected world, snake minds-Marauders far from the Galactic Core where no one suspected. Devious doings, here among the star systems of ordinary mankind which they, the mysterious half men of the Core seemed to have abandoned and preyed upon at the Galactic Center.
Snake eyes in the Pleiades, below us hiding in plain sight of the worlds unawares. Our three ships, The Kanaafutra, The Serpentine, and The Mel's Monkey took orbit armed and ready but the snake eyes, assured of the derelict and unheralded nature of their hideout, seemed not to be watching. Something in the strange nature of the inhuman condition they had assumed gave us that much an edge; we had come to high orbit unrecognized and unchallenged....