The void was crowded with fire.
Lord-Captain Seraphis Veynar had come with three grand cruisers, their flanks bristling with macrocannons, and no fewer than a dozen escorts. His banners burned in the light of a distant star, crimson and gold, the sigils of his dynasty as old as the Warrant he carried.
Against them drifted a single ship.
The Arcadia.
Her skull prow was silent, her masts bare, her lanterns guttering as if she were already a corpse. But the mist curled about her hull, black as void, thick as smoke, hiding the glow of her drives. She waited, cloaked in silence, as the hunters closed in.
"Bring us to range!" Veynar thundered upon his bridge. His officers scrambled, relaying orders. Vox-channels burned with his voice across his flotilla.
"Let the ghost see what real power looks like!"
His crews cheered, macrocannons charging, torpedo bays opening, lance batteries warming with a deadly hum. They had hunted pirates and rivals before. They expected another easy kill.
On the Arcadia's bridge, silence reigned.
Harlock stood at the helm, cloak trailing, his right hand resting on the wheel, his left brushing the hilt of his saber. His crew watched him, waiting, tension thick enough to choke.
"Three cruisers," Thomar muttered, spitting on the deck. "A dozen escorts. That's more guns than any pirate ever faced and lived to tell."
"Then we'll be the first," Harlock said simply.
His crew drew sharp breath. No boast. No bravado. Only a promise.
The mist outside the viewports thickened, curling across the void like smoke from a dying fire. It swallowed the Arcadia whole.
The first volley came like a thunderstorm.
Macrocannon shells screamed through the void, kilometers-long slugs of steel and fire. Lances tore across the mist, spears of blinding light. Torpedoes hissed toward the skull prow, their engines shrieking.
The Arcadia vanished.
The shells tore nothing but empty mist. Lances struck shadows and found no flesh. Torpedoes sailed blind, detonating against phantoms of smoke.
From the blackness, the Arcadia's guns spoke.
A broadside roared out, macrocannon fire tearing into an escort's flank. Armor buckled. The ship split in two, fire consuming her midsection as she drifted apart in silence.
The Arcadia slid sideways into the mist, her lanterns winking out, her prow turning toward the heart of Veynar's fleet.
"Impossible!" cried one of Veynar's officers. "The mist blinds targeting systems!"
"Then burn it away!" Veynar roared. His jeweled hand slammed down on the command rail. "Flush the void with fire! I want the skull prow shattered!"
On the Arcadia's bridge, Harlock's crimson sight flickered beneath his patch. He saw flashes — the trajectory of shells, the burn of torpedoes, the faint gap between volleys where the mist would hide them.
He tightened his grip on the wheel.
"Starboard guns," he said, voice low. "Then vanish."
The gunnery crews didn't hesitate. The Arcadia broke from the mist just long enough to spit fire — another escort torn apart, her hull gutted — before she slipped back into darkness, gone like a phantom.
The crew roared, their voices filling the bridge, but Harlock stood still. His crimson eye burned with certainty: this was only the beginning.
Three grand cruisers hunted him. And he meant to take them all.