Night stalker

The so-called **night stalkers** are a species of silvery creatures endemic to the Andromeda Galaxy. They are a form of artificial life, each composed of hundreds of millions of nanites.

## Physiology

No two night stalkers are identical in morphology, and there are presumably countless variations with different numbers and arrangements of limbs. The shiny silver exterior, long and emaciated limbs, sharp teeth and lack of eyes are common features, with the night stalkers' silver appearance and unnatural limb arrangement making them extremely easy to spot and identify.

Night stalkers have a shiny surface that looks like pure silver. When injured, silver mist (see venom below) sprays from their wounds. A dead night stalker oozes dull metallic-looking liquid. They lack internal organs. The inside is a homogeneous mass.

## Behaviour

Night stalkers are extremely aggressive to humanoids, and will always attempt to kill on sight. Some show signs of basic intelligence, being able to recognize and avoid traps laid out for them, while others are mindlessly aggressive.

Ahankari Prime is working on reprogramming them. She demonstrated this ability to great effect at a formal meeting of the Warlords with an apparently tame night stalker that prowled around the premises but did not attack any of the attendees.

### Life Cycle

Night stalkers reproduce, perhaps solely, by injecting their venom into humanoids that become silver statues, which hatch into new night stalkers years or decades later. It's not known whether they have another way to reproduce.

## Venom

    Night stalkers are able to spray a silvery substance from their mouths and any other available holes (including bullet holes) as a jet or as a mist. It can also be injected by biting or, sometimes, clawing. This substance is called venom by the galaxy's inhabitants. It is known to seep into the victim's body and individual droplets seem to burrow through the victim's flesh in order to form larger clusters that coagulate on the surface of their skin as distinctive 'silver flecks'.

In larger or repeated doses, especially if injected, these flecks grow into clusters that eventually cover or replace all of the victim's skin, leaving them encased as a silver statue. Several of these statues exist in Salanda's garden, twisted and deformed, while the entrance to Ahankari Prime's palace boasts much neater statues posed as *benches*. Over time, the statues in Salanda's garden somehow begin moving, perhaps eventually becoming new night stalkers.

Ahankari Prime was able to remove both the 'silver flecks' and injected venom from Tyler in a surgery that took several hours.

## Further Abilities

### Durability

Night stalkers are incredibly durable, being able to survive a hail of bullets and repeated blasts from a Zat'nik'tel 🡭 mostly intact, and even a subsequent point-blank explosion of C-4 🡭 was not enough to completely kill one, although it did remain motionless for several minutes and finally died to another three zat blasts.

They do not seem to feel pain or be seriously hampered by broken body parts; a partially mangled night stalker seemed to need nothing more than a few seconds to adapt to its new arrangement of limbs before resuming the chase. Likewise, having its neck twisted almost all the way around did not seem to affect another one at all.

### Regeneration

It's not instant, but night stalkers have the ability to regenerate wounds.

## Weaknesses

Although formidable, night stalkers are not invincible, and are considered more of a nuisance than a genuine threat by sufficiently advanced civilizations.

### Light Avoidance

As stated by Salanda, night stalkers do not hunt during the day or in brightly-lit environments.

### Target Detection

Also stated by Salanda, night stalkers identify victims by seeking a human(oid) face, silhouette or gait. Wearing a mask and billowing, shapeless clothes made Salanda confident enough to move through Mu in darkness, albeit carefully.