The Umbral Widow

The Dominion keeps a list of captains it does not discuss. The Umbral Widow is at the top of it. She is on no fleet roster and she takes no orders. She works alone from a ship called Last Vigil, which the Dominion pretends not to recognize when asked directly.

Intercepted traffic says she was a lord of the old order until her own crew mutinied and left her drifting. Rumor says the void kept her alive. Rumor says the mask is plate from her first ship, fused to her face over a long cold span alone. Rumor says she lived by feeding on the dark, and that some of it is still in her.

What is verified is narrower. She fights at extreme range. Her lances go through shields as if the shields had stepped aside. She does not speak in a fight, except once, at the end, when she tells you her name. Afterward you cannot remember it. What is verified and never said aloud: Last Vigil is built around a million-year-old fragment, recovered from the void by the first necromancer-captains. She inherited it the way the Dominion inherits a sealed obligation. The fragment is why the Dominion exists. She will not surrender it living.