Plasma leeches

Small, individually only four to ten centimeters long, and difficult to detect in the plasma streams they inhabit, plasma leeches are the scourge of starships and power stations throughout the galaxy. An infestation can be a costly affair, both in terms of drained energy, and in the costs of extermination.

The standard galactic taxonomy survey counts several million distinct species of these creatures, although from the standpoints of captains and engineers, they can all be lumped into one classification of pest. Unfortunately, a standard defense against a predominating species inhabiting one star system can be completely useless against those of a neighboring star.

Before the emergence of interstellar travel by intelligent star-faring races, plasma leeches spread over millennia, surfing on solar flares and plasma waves throughout the galaxy. However, for the billion known years of ebb and flow of galactic civilization, they have become interstellar hitchhikers, seeking out starships, wormhole stabilizers, and habitat power generators. The concentrated energy fields of these technological marvels are like honey to them.

Because of the hundreds of years that Dryad-Fellows Substation X served as a wormhole hub, it has unfortunately also been a draw to this scourge. Starships passing through bring all manner of interstellar fauna, and the substation has never been able to keep up with the myriad species of plasma leeches, particularly when their evolution is spurred by such an intermixing of populations.

Thus, the power of the substation has always been variable. Energy costs within the substation have always been higher than usual, although this had always been made up for by the commerce from the wormhole hubs. Now that Dryad-Fellows has been cut off from the rest of the galaxy, dealing with its various plasma leech infestations may become a high priority, if it is to prosper or even survive for the decades it estimated it will take to reconnect to the rest of intergalactic society.