The Arcadia's decks thrummed beneath Harlock's boots as he stepped aboard. After the stench of incense and machine-oil in Port Helios, the air here — cold and metallic though it was — felt like home.
He summoned his council to the captain's wardroom: the master of arms, the ship's chief navigator, the scarred elder who drilled the children into soldiers, and two of the old noble-born Arcadians who still lived. They sat around the long steel table as the ship's lanterns burned low.
Harlock poured no wine.
"They smiled," he said, breaking the silence first, "but they showed their teeth."
The master of arms, his face half hidden by scars, grunted. "The Ecclesiarchy want you in chains of scripture. The Mechanicus want the Arcadia gutted and rebuilt as one of their own. And the Inquisition… they don't want you at all."
The navigator, her eyes clouded with augmetic lenses, leaned forward. "We could avoid them. Cut a course deeper into the Eastern Fringe, far from Terra's eyes."
"Running only makes prey easier to hunt," the old drill-sergeant rasped. "They'll come eventually. You saw it in their eyes, Captain. They'll make their move."
One of the noble-born spoke softly. "And when they do, the people must see us stand. If Arcadia's survivors bend, the generations after us will never rise."
The wardroom fell silent. Harlock's crimson eye glowed faintly beneath his patch, a flicker no one dared mention.
"They think freedom is weakness," Harlock said at last. His voice was low, steady. "They think a ship must belong to shrine, forge, or throne. They will learn the truth in time. Until then… we sharpen our blades, and we endure."
The others nodded. It was no oath sworn aloud, but the ship's spirit seemed to hum softly, as if in agreement.
In a perfumed chamber lit by candles, the preacher who had spoken to Harlock knelt in prayer, but his words were bitter. "The man is dangerous. His people worship him already. If he refuses consecration, then we must move before a new heresy blooms."
In a chamber of steel and copper, the Magos hissed through vox-grill static, his mechadendrites writhing. "The Arcadia contains a lost engine, a relic that defies the annals of Mars. Unclean. Unsanctioned. It must be seized. The Captain's will is irrelevant. The machine must be purified, no matter the cost."
And in the black vaults below, the man without robes spoke softly to a circle of shadows — other Inquisitors, their faces hidden, their voices colder still.
"Francis Harlock has survived battles no man should. He commands a ship whose spirit disobeys the laws of machine and man alike. The Ecclesiarchy and Mechanicus fight over him. That is to our advantage."
A voice rasped from the dark. "And if they fail to leash him?"
The man in black paused, then answered. "Then we erase him. Quietly. Completely."
The silence that followed was colder than the void.