The battle was won, but Arcadia was lost.
Francis Harlock stood at the helm of his ship, the Arcadia, staring down at the burning ruin of his homeworld. No words could rebuild it. No vengeance could restore the lives consumed in fire. But vengeance could be taken. And in the grim darkness of the void, that was enough.
The Arcadia drifted free of her dead world, silent save for the murmurs of the crew and the occasional crack of metal still knitting itself into place. For days, the ship prowled in silence, like a predator denied its prey.
Then the Imperium came.
The patrol arrived without warning: an Imperial frigate and two escorts, their banners bright with the aquila, their vox filled with liturgical demands.
"Unidentified vessel, heave to and prepare for boarding. By order of the Segmentum Command, you are to surrender this ship to Imperial authority for immediate inspection."
On the bridge of the Arcadia, silence hung heavy. The officers looked to Harlock, eyes searching. He alone stood calm at the wheel, cloak gathered around him.
"They come as carrion," he said quietly. "Not to save, but to scavenge."
"Captain," the first officer murmured, "they… they are the Emperor's men. If we fire on them—"
Harlock's hands rested on the wheel. "If we do not, we are already dead."
The Imperial frigate's lances charged. The order was repeated across the vox, this time with the bark of threat:
"Surrender your vessel or be annihilated. You cannot stand against the Emperor's justice."
Francis's gaze hardened. He had seen justice die in the skies above Arcadia. What hunted him now was not salvation, but fear — fear of a ship that should not exist.
"Broadside," he said.
The Arcadia obeyed.
Macro-cannons spat death into the void, their fire trailing black flame. The nearest escort ship burst apart instantly, its reactors tearing it in half. The frigate staggered under the weight of the salvo, half its hull reduced to slag.
"Captain!" a helmsman cried. "They've locked weapons on us!"
Harlock's grip tightened on the wheel. His voice was steady. "Mist."
From the ship's flanks poured a tide of black vapor, rolling across the void. The Black Dark Matter Mist swallowed the Arcadia, turning her to shadow. The enemy's lance struck, but the beam dissolved, consumed before it touched hull.
The wounded frigate's sensors screamed with false echoes, a dozen phantom Arcadias dancing across its auspex. Gunners fired wildly into nothing.
Then Harlock turned the wheel. The Arcadia burst from the mist like a blade from a scabbard, prow guns roaring. The frigate split down the middle, its vox-transmission cutting off mid-prayer.
The last escort fled.
When the void fell silent again, the crew stared at their captain. Fear mingled with reverence.
"Captain…" the first officer whispered. "The Imperium will brand us heretics. A cursed ship. The whole Segmentum will hunt us."
Harlock's eyes did not waver. "Let them."
He turned the helm, the skull prow of the Arcadia pivoting toward the stars beyond. "If they wish to make us outlaws, then we will be outlaws. If they call us heretics, then heretics we shall be."
His voice dropped, steel beneath sorrow.
"We are Arcadia's vengeance. We bow to no throne but hers."
The ship's engines roared, and the Arcadia vanished into the dark.