Broodkeeper Vesh

Vesh was raised in the wet of a cradle-moon in the seventh ring, tending spawning tides the way broodkeepers do for centuries before they earn a ship. They were promised the next great hatchery. They grew the seed-shells, sang the gestation hymns, and learned the taste of every spawn that moon produced. A Necro raid burned the moon to slag while they were off-world at a high broodmother's molt.

The Collective did not blame them, and offered another hatchery, another ring, another song. They refused. Their song is the cradle-song, and the cradle is dead. The Sunken Cradle carries the remembered shape of the moon. Its hull weeps a brackish coolant that smells like the tide-pools. They will fight for anyone who lets them point that ship at the Dominion. They have been patient for ninety years.