Derelict

The tableaux is disturbing, but he comes quietly.

When the advance team finally cuts through the unknown materials of the little craft's hull and float through the umbilical, instead of the two people promised by the first distress call, there's one person, and one corpse. The man who spoke with a soft, lilting accent and neatly diplomatic phrases has had his skull opened against the floor, and his brain scooped out. They aren't sure what the other passenger did with it. He looks odd, in the helmets' cameras: his black and gold uniform is immaculate, but his cheek his finely misted with blood, and he has darkness under his fingernails. They find him kneeling by the body. For a moment, when the door first opens, the cameras catch a glimpse of something that might be grief on his face, but when he looks up, there's only blank acquiescence.

( The Emperor is not available to mysterious, murderous foreigners )