The bridge of the Gilded Tyrant, Veynar's flagship, stank of fear. Smoke clung to the air, alarms screamed in fractured Low Gothic ciphers, and half-mad machine-spirits howled through the vox-systems. Crew scrambled in desperation to restore targeting relays shattered by their own guns' misfire.
Lord-Captain Seraphis Veynar stood at the center, gilded armor blackened with soot, his jeweled hand trembling on the command rail. Rage twisted his face until it looked less human, more beast.
"How," he rasped, voice raw, "does one ship make mockery of a fleet centuries strong?"
None of his officers dared to speak.
"Tell me!" he bellowed, spittle flying. "What is she? How does she move so? Why do our guns strike mist and shadow? Speak, damn you!"
The sensor-master swallowed hard. "M-my lord, the returns— they defy reason. The void is saturated with… interference. The mists corrupt every augur. It is as if the Emperor Himself—"
"Logic!" Veynar cut him off, his voice breaking into a roar. "Logic says my House is blessed by the Throne! Logic says my fleet carves empires from stars! And yet logic cannot kill a pirate's ghost ship!?"
His jeweled fist smashed against the sensor console, shattering glass dials and spilling sparks across the deck. Officers flinched, but none moved.
Then, the vox crackled.
Harlock's voice slid into the bridge like smoke. Calm. Cold. Terrible.
"Lord-Captain Veynar," he said. "You named me false. You said my prow would hang beneath your bridge. Tell me… how fares your trophy collection now?"
The crew stiffened. No one dared breathe.
Veynar's face twisted into a snarl. "Coward!" he spat. "You hide in shadows and trickery! Face me in the Emperor's light, and I will cut your legend to shreds!"
Harlock's answer came like a blade in the dark.
"I've already faced you, Veynar. And I've already won. Your ships burn. Your men die. It is not I who hides in shadows. It is you who hides behind your warrant, your titles, your hollow dynasty. But the void remembers nothing of your House. Only the Arcadia."
The vox fell silent.
Veynar shook where he stood, eyes wild. Foam flecked at the corner of his mouth. An officer whispered, "He—he taunts us, my lord. He toys with us."
Something in Veynar snapped.
He drew his gilded power sword and, with a scream, cut the officer down where he stood. Blood sprayed across the deck, hissing as it touched burning consoles.
"Signal all ships!" Veynar roared, his voice breaking with madness. "Launch boarding parties! I'll drag the phantom from his deck with my own hands, and I'll take his cursed eye for my prize!"
At once, his enginseers clattered forward, their red robes slick with oil, vox-grilles hissing in binharic. They chanted rites to the Omnissiah as they prepared boarding torpedoes, incense filling the air. Holy seals were stamped, sacred oils poured, machine-spirits bound in chains of prayer.
This was the Imperium as Veynar knew it: a marriage of dynastic arrogance and Mechanicus dominion.
But aboard the Arcadia, there were no chanting priests. No red-robed Magi humming binharic litanies. Only Arcadian hands, trusting in their captain, their ship, and the bond that had once defined an entire world.
The nobles of fallen Arcadia had never trusted the priesthood of Mars. Their ships were not machines to be tended by outsiders, but ancestral partners, like the Knights of distant Houses who would never allow a tech-priest to touch their Thrones.
And the Arcadia, born of that tradition, would never suffer the touch of the Mechanicus.
In the mist, she waited.