Ancestral machines

The Warcage: 200 worlds harnessed to an artificial sun in a feat of unprecedented stellar engineering. Built to travel through space as a monument to peace between alien species, now its voracious rulers have turned it a nightmarish wasteland, capturing new planets for slaves and resources, then discarding the old. When a verdant agri-world is pulled out of its orbit, the captain of a smuggling ship must journey into the Warcage to rescue his crew.