BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Sixty: The Fault Lies Not in Our Stars
The Flying Fortress "Hydra"
The Silver Sea
Other people prayed to the Moons, to gods and goddesses, to their ancestors. They placed faith in an existence beyond this one and benevolent omniscient beings who watched and judged their deeds - a belief that was strangely ironic, when it came from the decadence of Valua's former ruling class. Galcian clung to no such hallucinations or empty platitudes. Galcian lived by a very simple mantra.
Trust only in power.
Galcian trusted only in power, and in Ramirez, who he'd trained and molded as his subordinate, an equal believer in the doctrine of power. Power did not betray you. Power did not scheme, or undermine you. True power merely existed. It served the strong and it crushed the weak.
Only right now...power was failing him. Galcian stood in the control room of the Hydra, the flying fortress built in secret by De Loco's engineering teams over a period of years as alarms blared and the deck plating shook under his feet. He had stood, fuming in silence as Vyse's little band of rebels, including the missing 2nd Armada, Komullah's Nasrian remnant, and the Moons-damned primitives from Ixa'taka and beyond tore into his superior force and started to beat it back.
Now he fumed for an entirely different reason as harried, panicked voices over the intercom from all the besieged stations on board let him know exactly where Vyse and his band of troublemakers were. And how quickly they had chewed through - were chewing through his men.
"Enough." Galcian finally said, turning off the intercom speaker to silence the screams. The few operators on the bridge with him looked up in askance. "Status of the Armada."
"Dwindling, but holding the line, milord." The telegraph operator reported. "They are asking for permission to fall back to Soltis, however."
"Retreat? In our moment of triumph?" Galcian glowered. "The Hydra still stands. And while we stand, there will be no retreat."
"What about the boarders, milord? They're nearly here!" Another bridge crewman asked fearfully.
Galcian reached for his personal sword, a weapon of such size and power that nobody else could wield it. "Leave them to me."
Nicholas Galcian was born to a noble house of middling importance in the hierarchy of Valuan nobility. An only child, there were few happy memories of his youth worth remembering.
His mother was a 'gossip hound', a phrase he had heard her described as once in passing, and only called her once before a slap to the mouth made him stop. She cared only about social events, parties, and of course learning the dirty secrets of other important families so she could grind away at the rumor mill for her own twisted satisfaction at their expense.
His father claimed to be of higher stock. "Reputation, my boy," The circumspect man would often repeat for his son. "Reputation is everything. Do nothing that will shame the family. Our public standing is the one currency we must never spend. It is impossible to restore." And the elder Galcian lived, Nicholas believed, by that motto. He believed his father to be a man of honor, for to sully one's honor was to sully one's reputation.
Nicholas was ten years old when he discovered differently. His mother gone at a party, he returned home alone from his studies to find the house lit up. Expecting to find his father in the study, and knowing the man's rules about running like a crude hellion, he went about their manse with soft footfalls, only to find the study empty and the lights off. Confused but feeling hungry after his tutoring, he went downstairs to the servant's portion of the house to see if he could not bribe a snack for himself. Strange noises drew his attention, and he passed by the kitchen to investigate the grunts and the cries, afraid that someone was in trouble.
Instead, he stumbled onto the sight of something terrible in the pantry. His father, pants around his ankles, was forcing himself onto one of the scullery maids whose dress was hiked up as he bent her over a workbench and raped her. Galcian remembered the tears in the girl's eyes, the helplessness there.
He remembered the enraged scream of his father as the man backhanded him for 'interrupting', the stinging pain on his face, and the stern talk in the study thirty minutes after that he was not to breathe a word of what he'd seen, for doing so would shame his family, and ultimately, Nicholas himself.
Reputation, then, was a polite fiction. A mask that was worn in public. Honor was merely a sucker's game, for his father didn't give a fig for honor beyond what he had to parrot in the presence of others. The honor of his own marriage vows accounted for nothing.
Some months later, the scullery maid that his father had raped was dismissed without references and in disgrace. The whispers Nicholas heard among the rest of the fearful staff working in his family estate was that she had become gravid, and was sent away to bear the shame of it alone. It would not do for a bastard child to come into the world and shame the Galcian family, after all. Further word came two months later that the girl had been lost in the slums, and was either dead or as good as. Of the child that might have been his half-brother, there came no news at all.
When Galcian was 12, his father pressed him to consider a position in some office of authority among the nobility, an easy job that would lead to an easy life. Nicholas, long since disillusioned with the two-faced nature of his father and his mother's twisted games, harbored hopes for something else. An escape from the cycle of polite fictions and the veiled hostility that the nest of vipers of high Valuan nobility was. He wanted no part of the life his father had led, of paying lip service to honor.
Years of studying the method of his mother at Court, and his father's knack for disguising his misdeeds had given Nicholas Galcian a unique education beyond what wealth and privilege had granted him. On a hunting trip in the Valuan hinterlands to a country estate that had been his mother's dowry, he put his plan to work. Galcian saw to it that the servants were well and truly absent from the country estate; a handful of coins in the butler's pocket for a tavern an hour's carriage ride away took care of that problem neatly. True to form, his father had used the opportunity to sow his wild oats on an unfortunate young woman. Untrue to form, however, Galcian ensured that his mother walked in on it, falling into hysterics. After the unfortunate milkmaid had run off into the night, Galcian locked the doors of the room his parents were arguing in...and set the entire villa ablaze.
The next day, a 'shaken' Nicholas Galcian huddled in a coarse blanket as the sole survivor of his house. While locals sifted through the still burning debris, he explained to the local constabulary that he had heard his parents arguing in raised voices over his father's philandering ways, but had dismissed it. It was common enough a fight for them, Galcian said, and he'd gone to sleep to ignore it. He kept the lie going, saying he'd then awoken to find the villa ablaze, and had barely escaped with his life, being unable to render aid to his parents.
His father's passing saw other women emerge from the woodwork with similar claims to that of the milkmaid. High society damned the Galcian patriarch in absentia, but commended his son for not falling into his father's footsteps. The young boy had arranged for small sums of reparations to be passed onto the afflicted women after selling off much of his family's holdings. Instead of settling for an easy life, he'd then joined the Valuan Royal Military Academy. His fortunes, the court gossip said, would come from his own valor, honor, and achievements.
They were all wrong, of course. It was Galcian merely acknowledging the fallacy and hollowness of his father's words.
A reputation built on lies served no one and harmed all when it fell. There was no honor to be found in a family name, or a dynasty. Reputation was nothing. It was a worthless currency.
He sought elsewhere for purpose and meaning.
Flying Fortress Hydra
He could hear their voices through the intercom mounted outside of the heavily armored entryway that separated the command center from the rest of the structure. After two close encounters with Vyse the bedamned Blue Rogue who refused to die, Galcian could hardly mistake the boy's voice for anyone else.
"How are we supposed to get through? I guess I could try cutting through it…"
The pirate could barely stop himself from malicious destruction of property. Galcian punched the intercom switch and ground the words out. "That won't be necessary." And then he hit the switch that disengaged the multiple lock seals and raised the door up to permit him to walk out.
The four of them took several steps back, wary of whatever he might try. And he did pause as he took in the sight of one of Vyse's party who somehow was still breathing.
"The Silvite girl." He said, staring hard at Fina. The young woman had stopped wearing that silver dress and veil for a more functional, if less conservative outfit. She looked the part of an air pirate finally. But it was her, when Ramirez had assured him that her life was extinguished. "You're supposed to be dead."
"So are you." Fina countered, a floating silvery creature Ramirez had called 'Cupil' changing its shape into a slender and menacing blade. She took up a defensive position, not calling up any magics. "Why don't we remedy that?"
Galcian snorted at her bravado, then sized up the other three. Amazingly, Prince Enrique was alive as well, when he'd been sure that the royal line had been fully extinguished in the bombardment of Valua he and Ramirez had directed Zelos to undertake. "What is it about you Blue Rogues that makes you so hard to kill? You've been nothing but trouble to me since your little raid at the Coliseum."
Vyse smirked, two new swords held low at his waist in a guard position meant to seem nonexistent. "It's a Blue Rogue's duty to cause trouble, Galcian. Especially for brutal monsters like you. I give you this one chance. Surrender."
Galcian scoffed. "Even at your strongest in Dangral, with two more fighters besides the three standing by you now, you couldn't hurt me."
"I wasn't at my strongest then." Vyse countered, lifting his head up and tipping the brim of that black tricorn hat to the sky. A hat which, if the former spies of Belleza's employ were to be believed, had once belonged to Daccat himself.
The cheek of this boy. "You think you have won?" Galcian held his sword level, not leaving an opening for the opportunistic band to take advantage of. He gestured to the skies around them with a slight nod of his head, still full of ships fighting with one another. "I will give you credit for your strategy. Dyne obviously taught you well. In another life, he could have risen to the rank of commodore, perhaps even vice admiral."
Vyse raised the eyebrow over his strange eyepatch goggle. "Is this where you offer me a position in your armed forces? Try to bribe me?"
"No, it isn't." Galcian answered. "You chose your side a long time ago, boy. You should feel honored. No pirate ever had so high a reward posted for their arrest or death on the bounty board. But it ends here. I will slaughter you and the exiled prince and the women and hang your corpses on the hull of this fortress for everyone to see. You brought a great deal of firepower to this engagement, and I have no doubt that you made promises you have no intention of keeping to do so." That got a glare from the Blue Rogue, but it didn't slow Galcian down in the slightest. "They will scatter like the opportunists they are when you are dead. You know nothing of real power. But allow me to complete your education."
"You gonna teach me something new, old man?" Vyse mused, slipping into a different pose. The Silvite and the redhead began to glow with power, burning red and iridescent silver. Enrique held himself in a portrait perfect duelist's stance, only his eyes showing the utter burning rage that the royal held for him.
Vyse's fury took a different form. He smiled, and in that smile was the promise of death and absolute confidence in the outcome. It was a smile Galcian knew well - he'd worn it himself most of his career.
"Show me something." Vyse taunted him.
The utter cheek of this boy. Galcian didn't need an invitation, but he took it anyways.
He charged at them, and the flow of battle took hold.
The whispers followed him to the Academy, but Galcian had been inured to that since childhood. Those who pitied him, he ignored. Those among the nobility who thought him weak and facile, he crushed. But not with schoolyard brawls, no. Galcian did not want the demerits. He crushed them in the classroom, in their wargames, and on the practice field. He had a keen mind for planning and organization, and he knew how to use it. He'd used it to murder his parents, after all.
Many among the upper echelon of the officer corps preferred to fight with the saber or the rapier, a "gentleman's" weapon. They clung to masks of honor and 'gentlemanly behavior' and all the while sneered at those they considered their lessers when they could get away with it. Galcian was an old hand at playing the game, but he suddenly had a freedom he hadn't before; he didn't have to. To the irritation of several boys who were in his class, Galcian ignored the unwritten rules of noble rank and due deference. What did he care, after all? Who was in his family that was left to disappoint? The freedom with which he acted and his devil-may-care attitude about the proprieties of social custom had the unexpected benefit of drawing the lesser nobility and the handful of non-noble Academy students to his side. Galcian was a little surprised, but he wasn't about to discourage them. Still, they were among the minority in the Royal Military Academy. At that time, officers in the Royal Navy were, to a man, selected primarily with consideration towards their social status. Someone of low birth might rise as high as lieutenant through dogged work and determination, and perhaps might serve as acting captain aboard a ship if the worst came to pass, but when the dust settled a nobly born naval officer always was given command. Commodores and admirals were always nobility, full stop. Nicholas Galcian found himself at the head of a force of misfits who strained and chafed against the harness that social norms and societal expectations had forced on them. They were not exactly helpful in advancing his own career. They did not have talent in the back-room gladhanding way of dealmaking that the sons of higher noble houses took to so effortlessly, but they had a quality that Galcian found himself respecting even more. They were loyal, and when he gave orders during exercises, they listened.
That became especially important on the last major exercise that their class undertook in their final year. Graduation would mean they would all attain the rank of ensign in the Royal Navy and begin their careers. Everyone was on edge. It was a combination survival and objective exercise; they were to be dropped into the Valuan hinterlands, east of the Great Seal, and broken up into self-formed teams. Galcian paired up with the boys of lower status or no status who had flocked to his side. They were given the task of attacking a 'fortified' installation which was to be crewed by the opposing team, and they had limited resources. That installation was to be an old abandoned east-facing fortress that once stood as the watchtower for brigands and pirates that liked to sail in from the Nasrian skies to the east and the south.
The only problem, once the exercise began and Galcian's scouts reported back, was that the installation was not abandoned prior to the opposing team coming up to it. Instead, a rough looking force of sun-kissed Nasrian brigands were walking the parapets while others busied themselves with various projects, including the maintenance and guard patrol of low-visibility airships. The sneakiest members of his team reported that they'd overheard some of the Nasrian scouts talking about the other students. For the time being, they and the instructor selected to be the exercise's arbiter were being held inside of the old and crumbling fortress. They also learned that the Nasrians might have been dressed as pirates, but that they were regular military in disguise, here to reconnoiter the Valuan hinterlands.
Galcian had a strong suspicion that they were here as an advance force meant to probe the weaknesses of Valua and create more accurate maps. It fit their modus operandi; no witnesses, coming in disguise to throw any future investigations off the trail. They would likely leave the students alive when they were done so they could spread the disinformation about their false identities, and leave Valua's Admiralty guessing at the true purpose of the strange raid. It was too bad that they wouldn't get away with it.
The Nasrians had come under false identities, under false pretenses, and were establishing a foothold for further mischief. Well. If they did not wish to play by the rules of war, neither would he.
The week that was meant to be spent in a war games exercise became an actual exercise in war. Under his command, Galcian's small squad began chipping away at the invading Nasrians. Brutal home-forged pit traps and stake traps whittled away their scouts with brutal efficiency, and the reclaimed firearms and weapons of the Nasrian two-man patrols bolstered their own ability to wage war. As the Nasrians were dressed like pirates and raiders, Galcian treated them as such. They gave no quarter and accepted no surrender. It was brutal and ungentlemanly, but all Galcian cared about were results. The surviving Nasrians began to panic as their men went missing, first the patrols and then the rescue teams sent out to locate those missing patrols.
The final showdown came at the conclusion of their training week, with the remaining Nasrians huddled up in the old base and making plans to escape in the morning, before the Valuan patrols would return to pick up the students. Galcian twisted the knife in, in the most devastating way possible for all of his enemies. One of his most clever scouts, a student named Samuels, had discovered an old escape tunnel that led into the basement of the old fortress. Galcian had Samuels use it and take along a small handful of weapons - daggers mostly, and a flintlock pistol his men on the outside had no use for. Samuels made sure that the students and the instructor were given them, along with orders to begin their attack just before first light. Galcian and his troops on the outside, Samuels was instructed to tell them, would begin their attack at the same time.
At the appointed hour, the imprisoned students and their instructor started their attack from the inside, expecting Galcian to do as his scout had promised. And here, Galcian had his revenge - for while the nobly-born academy students were busy fighting the Nasrians inside of the fortress, Galcian and his troops had instead made their way to the Nasrian airships with their diminished defenders, and set fire to their means of escape. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make. After all, he wasn't the one making it.
Trapped, the Nasrian forces inside of the old base made a stand after suppressing the escaped prisoners. At their reduced number, they didn't stand a chance when Valuan reinforcements, drawn in from the sight of the pillars of black burning smoke from the fires of the burning Nasrian ships, arrived.
There was a hearing afterwards, since there had been no survivors recovered from the imprisoned students inside of the old stone fort. Samuels testified to the deception they had practiced, as Galcian knew he would, but argued (out of order, even) that it had been necessary for them to achieve their objective of denying the Nasrians their escape. The prosecutor's closing argument damned Galcian (as the commander of his men) with lapses in gentlemanly behavior and with violations of the rules of war. The panel of military judges deliberated for several hours before clearing Galcian and his squad of any charges during the incident, something which made the dead student's families howl and even gave Galcian pause. He had been expecting some form of punishment, albeit a diminished one in lieu of the extraordinary circumstances involved with the underhanded attack on the part of the Nasrian irregulars. There was no penalty. Just a reminder that his graduation commencement was in 4 days, and for him to be ready for it.
Afterwards, as he stood outside of the courtroom, Admiral Pennington came over and offered him a draught from a whiskey flask the man produced from the inside of his longcoat. Galcian accepted the drink, savoring the burn as it evaporated along his throat.
"I foresee trouble on the horizon with these Nasrian dogs." Pennington said to him, with a casualness that put Galcian's hair on end. "It would be a shame to punish such a promising officer simply because of the offended sensibilities of a few milquetoast dandies. You won't receive your orders until after your graduation, Nicholas, but I thought you might like to know. You've been assigned to my fleet for your first posting. I expect great things from you...lieutenant."
Lieutenant. Galcian blinked several times and mumbled some form of gratitude, but he couldn't recall what for the life of him. Straight to lieutenant, skipping straight over ensign. Then Pennington patted him lightly on the shoulder, tipped his hat, and walked away.
Galcian learned another vital lesson that day on the steps of the Judicial Military building.
Those in power were willing to ignore the less palatable actions and decisions he might make - provided that they garnered results.
It took Galcian all of five seconds to deduce that this would be a very different battle than the brief skirmish he'd had with Vyse and company in that corridor of Dangral Island. Though they were fewer in number now, and fatigued after fighting their way through his Armada and then the station's personnel, they were doing so with a ferocity and a surprising level of synchronization. It was more than a desperate attack on their part.
They had practiced for this.
He'd aimed himself straight at Vyse, expecting the brash young man to try to match him strength to strength. And Vyse had - at first, glance anyways. But when Galcian had brought his enormous blade down with all of its weight and the strength of his arm behind it, Vyse hadn't buckled under the hit, merely pulled in closer and going into a slide that took him off to the left with the power of the hit driving him away, and Galcian didn't have time to follow up with a pirouette and an upslash to punish the boy for the deft maneuver. Enrique was on him in an instant, a flash of the prince's slender rapier forcing Galcian to snap his cudgel of a greatsword to midline to catch and deflect the royal's steel away from his chest. Then just like Vyse, Enrique dashed out of reach before Galcian could counterattack.
A flash of silver light had him spinning around to prepare for another attack, and he was caught off-guard when the Silvite girl Fina stood a fair distance away, chanting something under her breath before a glowing silver aura bloomed and took hold around her and around Enrique and Vyse, who were an equal distance away with their weapons held up in guarding positions. Some kind of an enhancement or lingering restorative, no doubt, and probably a spell she'd learned from her training as a priestess as Ramirez had warned him. But not an attack. Still, as he glanced back to Vyse and Enrique, he wondered why they weren't…
And then he looked up with dawning horror as he recalled that for a brief moment, he'd forgotten all about the fourth member of their team…
He was able to bring his sword up in time to keep the red-haired Blue Rogue Aika from caving his skull in with that oversized boomerang of hers, but she'd been screaming as she'd fallen towards him from a height she'd achieved by means of the silvery saber hanging high in the air above him. That scream hadn't just been for the strike aimed at his face. Galcian finally noticed her blazing red aura, and the sudden intense inferno of heat that blazed off of her.
Aika had merely used the overhead slash as a means to force him into a defensive posture so she could put him at ground zero of her real attack. The fiery explosion she'd been charging up detonated, and Galcian turned his head to the side, closing his eyes tight.
When the fire and the light and the noise ended, he stumbled back and blinked to clear his vision. Moons bless the defensive wards that Ramirez had insisted on the Valuan mage corps spending days putting into his clothing. Instead of being charred to ash by the heat of that fire which even now made the buckled and warped deck plating glow a dull orange, he'd only ended up singed with spots in his eyes, gasping for oxygen that had been stolen out of the air.
They had definitely been practicing.
Instinct alone saved him from the followup, as Vyse and Enrique came at him from behind and he reacted to a twinge in the air, spinning around with a roar and a horizontal slash that they hadn't been expecting. The young men got their blades up in time and were thrown back several feet for their troubles, but managed to stay on their toes.
"Well, well." Galcian ground out, suddenly wanting a glass of water. Not that he would get the chance for one, with these four children committed to ending his life. "Learned a few new things, I see."
"Surrender, you miserable old bastard." Enrique declared, electricity dancing down the length of his blade. "You're outmatched." A swirl of blue magic surrounded the prince, and a flicker in his peripheral vision confirmed that that second layer of magical enhancement had been party-wide for them. A quickening spell, undoubtedly. Enrique had the gall to smile after.
Galcian knew his face had gone stormy. "You think you know the ways of war, do you?" He rumbled, and clenched his off-hand into a fist. Magic power condensed there, surrounding his forearm with a twisted grayish light. Ramirez had tried to show him a technique once for dealing with spell augmentations. It had been elegant, reliant on a connection to the silver moon, as precise as the abandoned child's swordwork.
Galcian required no such elegance, and did not want it. The Silvite girl shouted out a warning and Vyse lunged at him, ready with one sword leading to be parried and the other raised for the riposte that would follow, burning with terrible speed.
The Blue Rogue wasn't fast enough. Galcian swung his fist down towards his feet and unleashed a shrieking wind that rushed outwards with cutting sickles. They caused light harm, but the true power of that attack wasn't in direct harm. The layers of magic that kept the four sped up and rejuvenated were shredded under the assault, and Vyse staggered as he came in for the next exchange of blows. There was still power behind the strike, but it was unbalanced in the face of the power-slicing wind and the sudden loss of his speed. Galcian sneered and backhanded Vyse across the face before hurling the child back. He felt the crack of cartilage where his knuckles connected.
Vyse slid across the deck plating, hissing even as the red-haired Aika shouted his name and rushed to his side. A broken nose, no doubt, and guided by the weakness of sympathy, Aika had opened herself up for an attack.
Not that Enrique gave him the opportunity to follow up on it. The prince was on him with a roar and a flurry of stabs that forced Galcian back on the defensive. The shock of electricity threatened with every near blow and block, but Galcian kept his grip on his greatsword regardless. He was the Emperor of the Eternal Empire, former Lord Admiral of Valua. Galcian had taken hits from much stronger Electri-series spells.
"You rely too much on your magics." Galcian taunted the prince, and kicked out, catching the prince in the midsection and driving the wind out of him. The silvery blade made up of the creature called Cupil swerved down and denied Galcian the chance to cleave the battered prince's head from his shoulders, and it moved in irregular patterns of attack, having no arm or body connected to it by which he could predict its turnings.
It was all just denial, though. Just a distraction while Vyse and Enrique recovered.
The impertinence of these children was maddening. And Galcian knew a thing or two about impertinence…
That fateful last mission where Galcian and his team had gone up against Nasrian agents in plainclothes hadn't been some random incursion. It had merely been the beginning of slowly warming hostilities in what had been a sort of uneasy balance and parity between the two powers of Mid-Ocean. Nasr, opportunistic and mercantile, sought to expand its influence and reduce the same of its neighbors. Valua, with King Matthias on the throne, vowed to stand against their expansionist rhetoric. Years of bickering and reported (and unreported) border skirmishes built up until at last, a formal declaration of war was issued.
By then, Nicholas Galcian had risen from the rank of lieutenant to captain in the Royal Navy, promoted by meritorious service and some particularly daring naval encounters. The naval forces of Nasr were numerous, one and a half times the amount of ships available to the Royal Navy at the outset of the war. Nasr had the upper hand at the start of the conflict, winning the first engagements and pushing Valua back. What they needed was a means of buying time, time for Valua to build up the industrial machine that would make them Nasr's equal. Nasr's better.
It was Admiral Winston Gregorio who bought Valua that time with an ambitious project begun even before the start of the war, taking advantage of the natural mountain range that protected Valua's southern face. There was a reason that the capital had been moved to the enormous crater tucked between the southern and middle ranges; a very large and naturally occurring tunnel made it possible for ships to fly through for trade. The hollow in which the capital sat made for a perfect harbor, protected from the tempests that sometimes struck Mid-Ocean and calm enough that the wild bucking thunderstorms of the hinterlands were held back as well.
Into that space which had once been used solely for trade and for the small naval base that the Royal Navy called home, something greater developed. A force of civilian and military engineers and workers hollowed out the tunnel, widening it and making it of uniform size. The plan was to build a fortress at the exit, one which could cover the whole of the entrance to their vulnerable capital - seal it off, if needed. The stone hollowed out of the mountain as they widened the tunnel, the iron ore mined from its rubble became the skeleton and the face of the Grand Fortress.
Gregorio had bought them time, both with the ambitious Grand Fortress project and with his skillful mastery of defensive fighting.
Galcian, nascent among the Admiralty and only a rear admiral by the time of the Grand Fortress's completion, argued for even further buildup. Why merely expand to a level of strength equal to Nasr's when they could surpass it? Valua had a wealth of untapped resources and potential. Now was the time to build more moonstone refineries, more factories, more smelting plants. Nasr thought them weak, now was the time to do so while they dithered at the Wall.
At the time, there was significant resistance to the idea. They were holding their own, after all. The Grand Fortress lived up to its name, resisting the combined efforts of the Nasrian Fleet's bombardment for countless days, giving nearly as good as it got. Nasr's ships had backed off, the Grand Fortress was a nut they could not crack. Gregorio led the part of the Admiralty arguing for diplomacy, to an end to the war and reforged trade agreements to divide up Mid-Ocean between Valua and Nasr. Galcian was the loudest voice in those arguing to crush Nasr's forces completely, to drive them wholly out of Mid-Ocean and make them regret ever firing a shot in anger. Neither side had enough votes and the King would not commit to further escalation.
But then, King Matthias was killed and everything changed. Driven by grief and vendetta, the opposition to Galcian's faction arguing for further buildup won public favor. Gregorio, who had been the king's friend, spent more time keeping an eye on Prince Enrique. The prince was just a child at the time, and his new focus meant Gregorio spent less time in managing the war with the rest of the Admiralty.
Galcian knew his star was on the rise. More of the mountain range was hollowed out, building protected harbor space for the metal ships being rolled out rapidly. The wooden sailing ships in use were decommissioned and Valua adopted an all-ironclad navy. When it came time to lead the counterassault on Nasr's forces, Galcian took point. He made himself the tip of the spear that drove into their heart, and he made sure that everyone knew who was most responsible for driving the enemy out of Mid-Ocean. The vermin who had caused the death of their king were gutted.
The Nasultan called for a truce at last, and the grief-stricken Queen almost tore the offered document in half. Gregorio and the Old Guard may have been the ones that called for peace, but it was Galcian who convinced her to stay her hand, to call back the dogs of war. Nasr wished to lick their wounds. "Let them," he told her, as she sat in her private chambers with all the weight of a dead husband, a son far too young to ascend, and a wartorn country on her shoulders. "Let them have peace for now. We can use the peace as well."
It had been a long, steady process in the wake of King Mathias du Valua's death. Galcian had acted as the dutiful admiral, a servant of the royal family and their cause. He had proven himself to the Queen, earned her trust and risen to become her most trusted confidant.
Perhaps Gregorio and the peace-seekers thought they had won with Galcian supporting their arguments. They had been wrong, of course. Galcian had sought peace as a means to an end.
Valua would do more than merely rebuild. Only power, true, absolute power could secure peace in Mid-Ocean. Starting with her grief and then playing to her pride, Galcian warped Queen Teodora to his way of thinking.
Valua turned from a kingdom into an Empire. A Queen became an Empress. The Royal Navy became an Armada, and Mid-Ocean became more than a wild space where people could freely settle and trade. Under Teodora's command and Galcian's guidance, Mid-Ocean would be annexed and brought into the fold. And that was merely the start.
The Grand Fortress began to receive additional upgrades. More space in the mountain was hollowed out for more ships. The factories never stopped and prisoners became forced labor for the expansion of their military might. Slowly, Valua began to exhaust its own resources and looked elsewhere. The expansion into Mid-Ocean increased in speed, and the first stirrings of descent which had begun with the formation of the Armada began to take root. A new faction of dissidents and traitors that called themselves 'Blue Rogues' became a minor thorn in their plans.
There were other solutions, though. From the North Ocean there came reports from the scouts that served under Lord Admiral Mendosa of newly discovered lands rich in resources, whose people were woefully primitive.
At Galcian's urging, Empress Teodora declared the existence of Ixa'taka a state secret. A cordon which only authorized vessels of the Armada could pass was created.
Galcian was not yet Lord Admiral within the Admiralty, though he could almost taste it. He had the Empress's ear, after all. Mendosa of the Old Guard was still favored above him for his rank and status in the nobility.
To ascend past the last obstacle in his way, Galcian knew that something needed to change. His Doctrine of Absolute Power was by then, fully formed. He lacked the rank and status to put it to full effect.
And then, something changed…
The battle changed. Vyse and company should have grown more winded as the fight went on, not less. Yet as the fight dragged on, Galcian found they grew swifter, adapting to his moves and striking out more fiercely. His own strikes came slower and his muscles burned from the effort. The dratted brats kept infusing one another with their magics, and every time he washed it away, it took them almost no time at all to bring them back up again. Or rather, it took the Silvite girl and the red-haired pirate girl no time at all to bring them back.
In anger, he threw his own spells at them, the highest level yellow magics taught and practiced at the height of Valua's militarism. Galcian raged inside his head when the redhead threw up a rapid burst of iridescent bubble shielding around their party, deflecting the magic away as easily as swatting flies. When he was able to snap out of the pincer maneuvers they kept hurling at him and focus on one opponent, it was Enrique who turned lethal blows into ones that merely injured with whatever variant of a protective field his own powers manifested.
More the fool him, Galcian thought. Even now with nothing but a kingdom of ashes and a people who would spend generations sifting through the scraps of a ruined land to survive, the prince still fancied himself a protector.
How irritating that he was proving to be quite good at it. With a terrible bellow, he backhanded Enrique clear and dashed for Vyse. If he did nothing else today, he was going to eviscerate that jaunty Blue Rogue and rip that stupid black hat of his into pieces. The massive sword that had been Galcian's companion in every short and one-sided match he'd fought in his career came down with enough force and magic infused in the blade to split stones in two.
But Vyse didn't try to block it. He sidestepped it and shouted out a name. "Aika!" Galcian brought his sword to the side with a turn of the hilt, planning on cutting Vyse in half.
There was the hint of something whistling in the air at him and he ducked on instinct. That spared him the worst of the impact of the boomerang spinning for the back of his head, but he felt a sharp stinging pain along the side of his skull and the burning immediately after that was the hallmark of a cut. To the bone, if his guess was right.
It was a graze, but the shock of it threw off his control and gave Vyse enough space to step out of his threat range. Galcian lunged after him with a stab, but there came a second impact with no warning at all, one that failed to touch him in the slightest. That muffled thump was the sound made when some sort of debilitating status effect struck at him and was blunted from taking effect. He whirled around and glared at the Silvite girl, whose arm was outstretched with silver light still bleeding from her fingertips.
"Stupid girl. I'm immune to status effects." He snarled, and spun his head back around to pursue Vyse. He took one step, started to take another…
And suddenly found his upper body scraping against stone. Encased in it. With his arms up above his head, gripping a sword that he could not swing down.
"You are." Fina answered him, and then a blast of fire that Galcian hadn't been ready for and hadn't seen coming engulfed him in a tornado of fire that lasted for seconds. He counted them as he screamed. It nearly outlasted the air in his lungs. "Your clothes aren't." The Silvite finished darkly.
Enrique was on him in a flash, bleeding freely from the cut above his eye where Galcian's hand had struck him. There was death in the prince's eyes, and his rapier stabbed through Galcian's leg, sliding in and then out cleanly. Not a mortal injury but a crippling one. Galcian slumped to the side, kneeling and feeling fortunate to do that much, unbalanced and entombed as he was in his own affected tunic.
"That was for Valua." Enrique growled, whipping the slender blade out to the side and sending a spray of Galcian's blood through the air.
Galcian strained against the stone that his tunic had been transformed into, feeling cracks beginning to form. Though his head and his leg burned from his wounds, it would be the work of two or three more seconds to free himself. Had he been facing anyone in his condition, Galcian wouldn't have dreamed of giving them that opening. Yet the prince calmly stepped away from him, sword at the ready to defend, making no further attacks.
It left Galcian, pained as he was, wondering why the prince would be so merciful after his declaration of vengeance.
Then a flicker of blue light off to the side drew his eye, and he realized almost too late that Vyse was coming straight for him, preceded by a burst of condensed spiritual energy.
Vyse let out a warcry without end. Galcian grimaced as that first blast hit and tried to pin him down. He flexed and cracked the stone encasing his chest and his arms, hoping to break free before…
Before…
The Admiralty changed, following the end of the Valua-Nasr War. The number of seats was reduced to a lower number, the smaller Fleets were incorporated until five Fleets remained. What might have been seen as a reduction in military power was little more than a reorganization - fewer the Admiralty and Fleet might be, but greater were their responsibilities, ship numbers, and influence. Slowly, steadily, Galcian began arranging the Admiralty to his liking. De Loco had been an engineer and weapons maker - a brilliant one, but always something of a loose cannon - but with a word from Galcian to the Empress's ear, the undiagnosed sociopath rose to command of the 5th Fleet. His gratitude and loyalty bought Galcian a line into weapons development…and more importantly, to control of military production without Imperial oversight, if he played his cards right. Belleza was a new face in the aftermath of the war, the daughter of a Captain who'd died in the conflict. She believed herself in love with him, and while she was not an admiral - yet - the spymaster's growing influence once he finally authorized her for the role would solidify his grip over the Armada's information network. Both in gathering, and in denial. But Gregorio, the hero of the War remained on the Admiralty board, as did the opportunist, Lord Admiral Mendosa.
Valua was an empire now, and the peacemakers among the nobility were convinced by the honeyed words, the promises and the rhetoric. The line was one of Valua spreading its values and its prosperity across all of Mid-Ocean. It had been something that Galcian had ensured the Empress and the Armada spread wherever they went, even as they added economic pressure to their military playbook. Things were progressing, yet something still seemed to be missing. Galcian couldn't quite place his finger on it but it left him agitated. As did the hypocrisy that Mendosa so frequently displayed. The Lord Admiral portrayed himself as a kindly man, the shining example of Valuan nobility on stage as a nobleman and a doting father and a servant of the Empire. The hypocrisy was in what Galcian knew - but could not prove before a military tribunal - of his treatment towards the Ixa'takans. Of how much of Mendosa's wealth was taken on the side from the brutal occupation of Ixa'taka. Galcian did not mind the strip mining of the green people's sacred mountain and the suppression of any resistance. The weak ruled over the strong, that was the way of things. It was the man's hypocrisy that chafed at Galcian, what made him finally snap at the young silver-haired man whom Mendosa had all but adopted. Ramirez, a boy with no prior history, a rescue found in the wilderness with a case of amnesia. Given the boy's skill with a blade, Galcian had reason to doubt his story. Ramirez had been so ready to duel him over Mendosa's honor in that heated exchange. If it hadn't been for the ship's physician pulling him away, Galcian might have given the pup what he thought he wanted.
Galcian had settled for cruel, cutting barbs instead, taunting the boy about Mendosa's duplicity. He hadn't given the matter another thought after that exchange, for he had his own concerns to deal with. He was First Admiral of the Admiralty, but that control was not ironclad. Not while Mendosa was Lord Admiral and stood in opposition to him and his more heavy-handed plans.
Galcian didn't think of Ramirez again. Not until the boy turned up in a rumpled, bloodied uniform at Woolsey Naval Base in Mid-Ocean unannounced and unnoticed. The skill of the boy in sneaking onto the base was clear. The even greater skill of turning up in Galcian's quarters without alerting any of the base sentries was something more. The youth looked up at him with haunted eyes, unable to let go of his silvery blade, and Galcian knew immediately whose blood was staining the boy's uniform.
"You were right." Ramirez whispered, after Galcian sat him down and poured a glass of high-quality Valuan Rye whiskey into his presumably empty stomach. The boy looked like he hadn't slept for days. "You were right about Mendosa. He lied to me. He…He's always lied to me." The boy let out a little laugh then, cracked and warped by the meltdown he'd clearly suffered from. "So much for Valuan honor."
"It has been my experience, Ramirez, that those who bleat the loudest about honor are only trying to mask the utter lack of their own." Galcian said, pouring the young lieutenant another drink and one for himself - making sure his own was diluted. It was an old trick he'd picked up during his Academy days and it had continued to serve him well, for the inebriated often said far too much.
Ramirez made a watery snort and shook his head. "And you have honor?"
"I do not care if I do." Ramirez countered. His voice was flat and the directness of it startled the boy out of his fugue enough to replace dull bitterness for surprise. "I care about power, and I despise hypocrisy. Mendosa's lies finally caught up to him, and you killed him." There, the lieutenant flinched again, confirming what Galcian had suspected. "Did you kill him in cold blood, or -"
"He tried to kill me!" Ramirez snapped, and Galcian nodded. "It doesn't matter now, though. Nothing matters."
"Have you given up then?" Galcian asked him. "You had fire, the last time I spoke to you. You were stupid, but you had power, and fire in you."
"No." Ramirez said, his head swiveling back and forth slowly. "I don't know what I have, except bitterness. You were right. I can't trust in humanity. Only in…in…"
"In power." Galcian finished, placid where Ramirez was not. And he saw how fragile the boy's mental state was. How close the lieutenant was to tipping entirely to his way of thinking, or into madness. "Mendosa's authority was not true strength. He gave voice to hollow virtues, and I despised that about him. A fool Gregorio may be at times, but at least honor means something to him. True Power allows no room for such hypocrisy." Galcian had paused then, hearing movement outside of his room. "Who else survived?" He asked lowly.
"The…probably, the ship's physician. He…we were friends. He found me after. I told him to run before I set the torch to the ship." Galcian nodded, making a note to check the last crew manifest for Mendosa's flagship when he had the time. He sent Ramirez to bed after, sequestering the boy away with a promise that he would return soon. That he would sort it all out.
The reports that came in the wake of Ramirez that day made his duty all too easy. There were no survivors among the rest of the crew, no sign of Mendosa's daughters. The ship itself was lost to the abyss, but there were reports of a Blue Rogue ship sighted by its last known coordinates, seen sailing away. Belleza's skill proved useful to him in fabricating a false story that was easily accepted by the Armada and the Empress's Court - and, through her network of informants, of spreading it through all the harbors they had agents in. The Blue Rogues were blamed for the death of Mendosa, his family, the Aquila and its crew. The ship's physician, Doctor David Levinstone, seemed to have disappeared from the face of Arcadia entirely.
Ramirez's remarkable survival served as the centerpiece of the lie. The sole survivor of the Aquila massacre who had escaped by lifeboat when he could resist the Blue Rogues no longer, Ramirez became the point of light amidst tragedy. Galcian's influence sheltered him from the truth of it all, and when Galcian took the young lieutenant in as one of his staff officers, none complained. Mendosa's passing opened the seat of Lord Admiral, and using his significant clout and the favor of the Empress, Galcian secured his place at last.
Mendosa's death led to the retirement of another stately admiral who'd been past his prime even during the war with Nasr. The politics of Court had the Empress insisting on filling the seat of the Admiral for the 1st Fleet with a highborn dandy by the name of Alfonso. The other seat, though, Galcian filled with a lusty, militant fellow with a penchant for overcompensation both in battle and in his personal life. Vigoro was a loose cannon, but keeping him close gave Galcian a mad dog on a leash to be thrown at his enemies - or put down, if a scapegoat was required.
A year later, Ramirez was serving as his vice admiral, his strong right arm. Galcian's control of the Admiralty and his steadfast stoicism at Court kept him both in the Empress's favor and as the de facto ruler of the military. Teodora retained nominal control, but more and more often deferred those responsibilities to him, claiming fatigue and weakness, or a need to better prepare her son for his own eventual ascension to the throne.
And yet with all of that falling into place, something was still missing from Galcian's plans. To secure peace in his lifetime, he would need something more than what he possessed. Valua was an exhausted resource. Ixa'taka bled moonstones into their coffers, Mid-Ocean fed their war machine, and it still was not enough.
He needed something startling and dramatic to ensure that the Doctrine of Power would endure. Galcian found the answer in an unlikely place - at the bottom of the bottle of rum Ramirez had been drinking one evening, slumped against the wall of the admiral's cabin and looking a gust away from collapsing.
Galcian admonished him, because Ramirez had never slipped so badly in his control. It was something he thought that they had in common, a characteristic they shared. Ramirez shook his head.
"She'd be twelve now." Ramirez slurred.
"Who?" Galcian asked, confused. The silver-haired vice-admiral, now only just 19, blinked and looked back at him. "Who would be twelve now? Someone who is dead?"
"Not dead." Ramirez quickly dismissed the idea. "More alive than the rest, though."
Galcian's pace quickened a little. For all that the youth was his chosen vice-admiral, for all that Ramirez clung to Galcian and the Doctrine of Strength like a security blanket, his past was a vast blank slate. "Who do you speak of, my young friend?"
"The others. The old ones, who couldn't die." Ramirez went on, wavering a bit before taking a breath of oxygen that probably made his brain go fuzzy. It sobered him enough to straighten up and stare at Galcian. "The Elders of my people. The ones who sent me here."
Galcian's mind stirred with possibility. "And who are your people, Ramirez?"
They were on board Galcian's flagship then, sailing along the northern end of the Silver Sea which connected to the rest of Mid-Ocean. Ramirez lolled his head to the side and looked out of the porthole nearby, smiled, and pointed to the sky.
He pointed at the Silver Moon. Galcian's breathing stilled.
"If you had absolute power…" Ramirez went on, and Galcian strained to keep himself silent as he watched the youth twist himself into knots over an internal argument that might lead to untold potential, "...If you had the kind of power that was lost to time, what would you do with it?"
"What power is that?" Galcian asked, somehow keeping himself from gripping the boy's shoulders and shaking the truth out of him.
"Answer the question, m'lord." Ramirez slurred. "What'd you do, if you had the power to become invincible?"
"Create a world where the strong ruled." Galcian told him. "Where I ruled, where the weak and the covetous could not mask their duplicity with words like honor. Where covetous men could not hide behind authority and the guilty were punished instead of being allowed to hide behind birthrights. Where all the people of Arcadia had no need for war, when they were united under one banner. Where quaint sensibility would never stand in the way of what needed to be done. A world where they would be offered peace in one hand, and destruction if it was refused."
Ramirez blinked a few more times, and found himself nodding. "Would you slaughter entire nations?" He asked Galcian, and the Lord Admiral frowned.
"The weak serve the strong. They who obey, prosper. I have no stomach for genocide. Let them live, so long as they serve."
The silver-haired vice admiral thought it over for a few more seconds, then let out a cracked little laugh. "And they thought you the barbarians." The Elders, Galcian deduced, but he said nothing. Ramirez pushed the nearly empty bottle away from him, and looked up at Galcian.
Galcian saw it in his eyes, the moment when the last wall covering up his secrets fell. Ramirez spoke, and Galcian listened with widening eyes and a stunned heart at the horrors and the wonders. Ramirez spoke of the Old World and the truth behind the mythological Rains of Destruction. Of a lost continent in the Silver Sea called Soltis and the terrible power that slumbered there. He spoke of behemoths created by every Civilization and the terrifying war fought with them and over them, and five purified Moon Crystals capable of commanding them. He spoke of the Silver Civilization and the ageless Silvites hovering in the domain of the stars, keeping eternal vigil over the world. He spoke of a lonely, empty childhood full of pain and responsibilities, and a girl seven years his younger that was the sole bright spot to that dead place. Ramirez spoke of the mission they had given to him, the bitter truth of their plans.
Plans that began with him traveling the unseen world for those lost treasures, the planned final sacrifice of his own life, and the inhumane genocide and repopulation the Elders planned for after. How Ramirez planned on making that sacrifice to give Galcian the keys to the lost kingdom, and the ultimate power of Zelos.
How drained Ramirez looked then, resigned to his fate. Something stirred in Galcian's cold stone heart then, something he had thought abandoned years ago.
He found that there was still sentiment for the boy whose loyalty to him and his cause was absolute. Galcian found the flaw in his vice admiral's plan, and caught his attention with a hand to the shoulder. Ramirez looked up, confused.
Galcian smiled and shook his head. "I could no sooner sacrifice you than I could myself. Who will rule when I am old and tired? No. I refuse to let you die for this to come to pass."
"But you cannot recover Soltis and Zelos without my shard of the Silver Moon Crystal!"
Galcian shook his head. Any shard would do, if Ramirez's account was correct.
"We will find a way," he promised, and thought of the girl who would be twelve when that dark night ended and Ramirez was sober again. A Silvite girl with another shard ripe for the taking. It was simply a matter of getting to her.
The next day, when Ramirez was no longer in his cups, Galcian spoke to him in private. His vice admiral didn't regret anything he had said the night before, if anything, was more resolved to the plan. There was a moment of pain on his face at Galcian's suggestion of using the girl as the sacrifice, but he brushed it away. And then he supplied Galcian with the answer.
"The Elders will not wait forever. They will send her. Probably in five year's time, when they consider her old enough. She will come to us."
It would mean waiting. It would mean years of waiting and priming the Empress with hints of information. Of making Fina the lynchpin instead of Ramirez to protect his vice admiral - his heir - from the Empress's moods.
But those years could be spent in preparation and planning. Once he made Belleza an admiral, his control would be absolute, and the work could begin in earnest. Secret work, with none the wiser until the sword was raised and prepared for the final swing…
Vyse's blades swung down at him, hurling sickles of blue energy. One came in horizontally and the other vertically in a familiar one-two maneuver that he had blunted at full strength before in the depths of Dangral. But now? Here, as Galcian cracked the stone shell of his transmuted clothes enough to bring his sword to bear?
The double blows of spiritual energy sent his greatsword reeling to the side in a screech of metal, but spared him. And then Vyse was on him. The double slash cleaved through his blade, and then his shoulder and collarbone, and exploded with all the fury - the wrath - that Vyse had mustered.
It threw him and the smoking stump of his greatsword backwards by the force of the impact, and the crash of his back against the sealed door to the Hydra's bridge sent a wave of fresh agony through him. He coughed wetly and knew blood was spilling from his lips. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. His right arm wasn't moving at all, and he was barely on his feet. Only his iron determination and his refusal to cower before pirates kept Galcian from collapsing on the spot.
The four of them stood in a semicircle, Vyse and Enrique in the middle of the formation, humming with power and purpose standing a full twelve paces back from him. Likely they suspected he would try something suitably devastating as a counterattack. Hardly possible, in his condition. It was a miracle that he was still holding onto what was left of his sword, although that might have been because his fingers weren't moving at all. He couldn't lift the sword if he tried, and he did try.
"You're done." Vyse snarled. "Surrender, while you still have that arm. You can be crippled and still answer for your crimes, monster."
"You call me the monster." Galcian coughed, spitting up more blood. "I will never surrender to scum like you." He hissed as he tried to lift his arm up again to no avail, and tried to transfer his broken sword to his other hand.
"You're pathetic." Enrique murmured. "Dead on your feet and you refuse the wisdom that mother wit granted you. It's almost as if you want to die."
"Go ahead. Try it." Fina called out to him, her pupils entirely gone as her eyes glowed silver. The power wafting off of her made Galcian's teeth ache. "I'll just drag your spirit back into your corpse kicking and screaming. As my wife said once, 'Dying's easy. Living's hard.' You will die, Galcian. But not here."
"Who should get first crack at their pound of flesh out of this guy?" The redhead asked aloud. "The Ixa'takans? The Yafutomans? The Nasrians? Or maybe we'll let Enrique carve your eyes out for what you did to Valua."
Galcian bared his teeth at them. "My life…is not yours to take. Or to give." He paused, and felt the door behind him begin to slide up again, opening. A hail of riflefire and yellow Electri spells came firing out of the enormous hatch before it had cleared to his waist, and Enrique and the red-haired girl reacted defensively. They huddled together as aura shields of antimagic and Enrique's defensive warding settled over them, and Galcian took the opportunity to fall back inside, stuck in his half-kneeling pose with his sword scraping across the deck.
"Attack them, you fools!" Galcian ordered the bridge crew who'd left their posts to race to his aid. Spurred on by his voice, they let out a yell and ducked under the still opening door, racing to attack Vyse and company.
Galcian hobbled to the door controls and slammed the button to close it. He left the last of the Hydra's crew to their fates and made his way to the hatch that connected to the escape pod's entrance. Maybe one of them shouted as the hatch slammed shut and trapped them outside with the Blue Rogues, or maybe the soldier was just shouting in general. It didn't matter to Galcian, as he slammed into the wall beside the hatch, finally discarded the useless lump of moonsteel, and toggled the release with his left hand. As he stumbled through the door, a horrendous squeal of metal came from behind him. He turned to see one of Vyse's cutlasses somehow carving through the steel one jerk at a time, in a path that made it clear the pirate would cut open his own entrance. Just as he'd thought aloud about doing earlier. Galcian wheezed and slammed his left palm against the button for the escape pod lift. The hatch shut and trapped him in the narrow steel cylinder, then began rising to the top of the Hydra's control tower. The sight of Vyse carving into the door vanished, as did any hope of the pirates catching up to him.
How had it come to this, he raged in his mind. He crumpled against the back of the lift, gasping for air as his back screamed with every inhalation. He was the strongest! Even working together, they should have fallen! In no world where Power ruled should Vyse and his band of pirates ever stood a chance!
Too late to do him any good, Galcian realized that the Blue Rogue had out-thought him. Galcian had thought he understood Vyse's plans, but now it was clear that Vyse had been a step ahead of him throughout the engagement. This was to be the graveyard of the Blue Rogue's two decades of rebellion - and instead, by rallying forces from around the globe, Vyse had made it his.
No. No, he refused to die here. Soltis still stood, the barrier was still in place. This was a blow, but it was not the end.
The lift came to a stop and the door opened. Galcian lurched out of it and stepped into the command center escape pod's spacious cockpit. It was designed to carry six men in crowded, but survivable fashion. Today, it had only one occupant. He slumped into the chair and leaned forward in spite of the pain, flipping open the glass cover over a large red button marked EJECT. A slam of his fist put it in motion.
The escape pod rumbled as the explosive bolts mooring it to the rest of the battered and dying Hydra popped off. Galcian dug for the emergency first aid kit strapped to the side of the pilot's seat, fumbling with the latches until the cover popped loose. The contents spilled over the deck plating, and he hauled himself out of the chair and onto his hand and knees, searching for the precious single-use spell crystals that it contained.
There. A Sacres crystal, glowing a brilliant green with the promise of medium-grade healing. He took it in his left hand and smashed it to the ground, pulling the spell's power into his body and breathing deeply. The first breath was agony, as before, even when the warmth of the magic settled over him. The second hurt less, the third had only a pinch of pain. The fourth…he inhaled deeply, with only minor discomfort. There was nothing to be done about the state of his shoulder and right arm, though. Not here and now.
He eased himself back into the pilot's chair and growled as he grabbed hold of the yoke with his good arm, turning the escape pod around and away from the battle. He didn't know what hole Vyse had crawled out of, but he would have Ramirez use Zelos's power until every scrap of land in the Silver Sea was rubble and ruin. All he had to do was get back to Soltis, and a cursory glance of the battlefield showed that there were no enemy ships between him and home. Everything, including the Delphinus, was out of position and steering clear of the Hydra as they fought against the remains of his once-invincible Armada.
An inauspicious start to the reign of his Eternal Empire. But he would endure, as would Ramirez and Soltis and Zelos. If Galcian had to start over, he would. He'd done it before. He sank back against the pilot's chair and tipped his head back as the escape pod slowly puttered towards the gleaming continent of Soltis, having escaped death again. He'd had to sacrifice much to do so - sailors, Admirals, ships - but he would have done so a hundred times for the same result. He lived. The weak were there to be ruled, and used by the strong as they saw fit.
A gleam of reflected sunlight flashed over his closed eyelids, and Galcian opened them with a frown. What had -
He saw a ship flying in towards him. A ship he had thought destroyed along with its admiral, for he had sent them to die in the Valuan Capital. And yet, that graceful pink hull with its feminine curves was undoubtedly the Lynx. It flew in from the apex of the divide between the Upper and Central Sky, at speed, soaring nose-first for him. A glittering trail of lifeboats was laid out behind it, a clear sign of the total evacuation of the crew. Yet someone was steering that ship straight at him.
"Belleza." Galcian whispered, feeling the vein in his forehead pulsing in tune with his anger. She'd been a loose end, one he had thought cut off. He'd seen the doubt in her eyes before, how she struggled with the necessity of his plans. He had known she would have betrayed him after what he did to Valua.
She was alive. She was here. She was his death.
"How?" He whispered, confused at first and then suddenly enraged, he yelled. "HOW?!" This was not the Doctrine of Power at work! She was weak! Vyse was weak! All of them, all of them who had come here to fight the Eternal Empire were weak! Just how had they managed to beat him, when all the Power of Soltis and the Armada was against them?! This was not his fate! He was Nicholas Galcian, Lord Admiral, Emperor of Arcadia! He commanded the dread legions, the power of a lost civilization, the terror of unspeakable monsters!
He screamed in defiance and kept screaming over those last three seconds that passed before the nose of the Lynx rammed into his escape pod, condemning him and his former off-and-on paramour to death. The very last thought that went through his head was a terrifying existential question, and the shock of it was terrible enough that he welcomed the sudden nothingness that came after.
Had Power abandoned him to serve the weak instead?