The bells of Veyra Port tolled low and heavy, echoing across the marble cliffs. To the people of Arcadia, it was a sound older than memory — a summons to harbor, a warning of storm. But on this day, no storm brewed over the seas. The storm was in the sky.
Francis Harlock stood on the balcony of his family estate, dressed not in formal silks but in his officer's coat, the wind tugging at his dark hair. Below him, the city blazed with light. Ships rose from their cradles like sparks flung into heaven, answering the alarm. Civilians crowded the harbors, pointing, praying, weeping. The air tasted of salt and smoke.
A voice crackled through his personal vox-bead. "Lord-Captain Harlock, the fleet is assembling. Orders?"
Francis's jaw tightened. "Hold formation in orbit. Do not engage until I give command."
He turned his gaze skyward. Beyond the atmosphere, faint shapes loomed like knives against the stars — vessels that did not belong. Raiders, not the scattered pirates of the Drelath Belt, but a fleet with purpose. Their prows were jagged, their hulls scarred with heretical markings. Traitor's ships, long exiled from the Emperor's light.
The enemy had come for Arcadia.
By nightfall, the void was fire.
Francis's fleet was not alone. Around Arcadia, the banners of the great houses flew: the proud crimson sails of House Velath, the golden-winged prows of House Deymar, the sleek silver hulls of House Torvain. Families as old as Harlock's, their ships carried centuries of honor. Their captains were rivals as much as allies, but on this day, they fought as one.
In orbit, the noble houses blazed like a constellation of steel and flame.
The Harlock corvette Veyran Star darted between broadsides, crippling raiders in maneuvers so daring that even Velath's grizzled admirals gasped. Deymar's battleships cut swaths of destruction through the enemy line, their golden prows burning bright — until overwhelming fire reduced them to drifting pyres. Torvain's cruisers fought in perfect, glittering formation, their silver hulls gleaming — until the enemy's flagship split them apart like a hammer through glass.
For every raider destroyed, two more pressed in. The void shook with lances, torpedoes, and screams carried across the vox. One by one, the banners of Arcadia's noble houses fell, torn down in blood and fire.
On the surface, the cities burned. Orbital fire rained from above, shattering marble spires, igniting the docks where sailors had once sung Harlock's name. From the Veyran Star's bridge, Francis watched the oceans boil with falling wreckage. His hands never trembled, but his eyes… his eyes betrayed the storm within.
"Captain!" his first officer cried. "They're breaking through! We can't hold them!"
Francis clenched the railing of the command throne. "We will hold. For Arcadia. For her people."
He gave the order: a desperate counterattack to shield the evacuation barges fleeing the surface. His men obeyed without hesitation, not out of fear, but of loyalty. They trusted him — and he would not betray that trust.
But the tide was too great.
The turning point came when the enemy flagship descended into low orbit. Vast and monstrous, its prow carved into the semblance of a screaming skull, it cut through Arcadia's defenders like a cleaver through flesh.
The Veyran Star shuddered as a blast ripped across its flank. Consoles exploded in sparks, crew thrown to the deck. Francis staggered but did not fall.
"Status!" he barked.
"Engines failing! Shields down!"
Francis's mind raced. He saw the inevitable. His ship would burn. His fleet was gone. Arcadia was dying.
And yet — in that moment of despair — something happened.
The enemy flagship's prow glowed with a strange, unnatural light, a rift splitting the void. From it came the chorus of voices — Arcadia's dead, calling to Francis.
Francis Harlock… carry us… do not let us vanish…
The captain fell to his knees, clutching his skull as grief tore through him. He felt the Warp press against his soul, vast and merciless, offering power at a price.
And then, beneath the voices of the dead, another sound rose — cold, mechanical, ancient.
A hidden engine, buried deep within the Veyran Star's heart, stirred to life. For centuries, it had been there, silent and inert, a second heart that had never once burned. The Harlocks had kept it, though they had never understood it.
⚙️ Binary liturgies chanted in his mind, strings of forgotten code.
Dark Matter Drive — designation: "Eidolon." Core initialized. Potential: unbounded. Vessel matrix prepared.
Francis staggered. Memory struck — his father standing with him in the engine chamber, the plasma reactors blazing, and beyond them the second reactor, black and dead.
"See it well, Francis," his father had said, lantern-light flickering across his weathered face. "That thing has been part of this ship since before our family first took her helm. My father never saw it burn. Nor his father before him. Some say it is cursed. Others whisper it waits for the hand of fate. I cannot say. All I know is that it is ours to guard, and never to touch."
He had paused, eyes hard, voice low. "Remember, Francis — myths cling to machines as much as to men. If ever it stirs… nothing will be the same."
Now, under the wound of the Warp and the cries of his dying people, the Eidolon Drive ignited.
The Warp poured into it. The souls were drawn into it. And in a moment of blinding clarity, Francis understood: this was no curse. This was destiny.
"I accept," he whispered.
The Veyran Star dissolved in light.
When it cleared, the Arcadia stood revealed — a vast warship of gothic grandeur, its prow carved into a grinning skull that sneered at the void, its core burning with the impossible black fire of the Eidolon Drive. A vessel born of sorrow, Warp, and a machine older than empires.
On its bridge stood Francis Harlock, his coat tattered but his form unbowed. His crew, once broken and dying, now stood revived at their stations, their eyes wide with awe and terror.
"My lord…" his first officer whispered. "What… what is this ship?"
Francis looked out at the burning world below — his world, reduced to ash and ruin. His heart clenched. He would not let its name vanish. He would not let its people be forgotten.
"It is Arcadia," he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried through the bridge like thunder.
"It is all that remains."
The noble houses of Arcadia had perished. Their fleets were ash, their legacies extinguished. But from that ruin, one ship endured.
Not Velath. Not Deymar. Not Torvain.
Only Harlock.
Only the Arcadia.
And so the galaxy would remember not Francis Harlock the noble, nor the laughing captain of Arcadia.
But Harlock.
The immortal.
The defier of fate.
The ghost with a skull at his prow.