Chapter Text
Beyond the Terran Empire, at the edges of the Procyon Expanse…
The stars glowed brightly as a gentle breeze caught the sails of the Procyon Star Runner that evening out upon the vast oceanic plane that was the Etherium. The PSR Light Brigade was making its way back toward its home planet of Laar after having delivered cargo to one of its many outposts at the edges of the Procyon Expanse.
The captain, a short statured man who shared the likeness of a raccoon, stood at the helm and observed the quiet skies around him.
“Well, Sir, I think I’ll retire for the evening. Everything is in order below,” came a voice as his second officer climbed the steps to the helm to join him.
“Very good, Jacop,” Captain Rebin nodded as his officer returned to his cabin for the night cycle aboard their vessel.
“Perhaps you too desire rest, Captain,” his helmswoman commented beside him.
“No, Orsa, I fear I’m far too much an insomniac,” Rebin responded.
“You’re thinking about her, again, aren’t you?” Orsa asked quietly, causing Rebin to stiffen. She wasn’t wrong. Rebin had done little else than think about his late wife the past ten days in space. It had been seven years since the Terrans had enacted their harsh penalties against the Procyon Expanse for the threat they had once posed to the Terran Queen during the Battle at Parliament. Seven years since Rebin had lost his wife to a Terran skirmish that had erupted at the very outpost he was currently returning from. An outpost that existed this side of the Terran-Procyon divide and which had seen many battles between the two superpowers. It was in the weeks following the Procyon defeat at the Battle for Parliament that the Terrans had advanced their forces, finally managing to push the Procyons into a retreat, but not before Rebin had lost her on the frontlines.
Today the outpost was again under tentative Procyon control, and Rebin had been instructed to sail cargo to its forces. Over the course of the voyage, not a day went by that the Procyon captain didn’t think about the love of his life, wondering if she had been taken as a prisoner of war or if her vessel had been shot down.
These past ten days had been particularly agonizing. The Procyon shipping lanes had been severely restricted due to their loss at the hands of the Terrans. Whenever Rebin set sail, he was forced to obey Terran regulation. And each time the name Terran so much as crossed someone’s lips, all he could see was his wife perishing at the hands of an empire that would never see a Procyon as anything other than a rat to be squashed.
“I know it’s not my place, Sir,” Orsa continued at the sight of her captain’s glare. “But perhaps taking shore leave could—”
“No,” Rebin growled. What was worse than sailing under Terran regulation? Falling asleep in the cold bed that still smelled like her. “And you’re right, it is not your place.”
“My apologies, Captain,” Orsa whispered as she went back to observing the starry skies. Rebin sniffed, feeling a little guilty at his outburst, but then decided he didn’t care to apologize. He wished people would stop trying to fix him. He was broken and there was nothing more—
Their ship rocked violently to the side, throwing Orsa and Rebin across the deck.
“What in the name of Ratec?” Orsa swore as her captain pulled her back to her feet.
“We’re under attack!” Rebin exclaimed. “All hands to battle stations!”
“...Captain!” came the disjointed cry from the communication tube behind him.
“What is it, Endris?” Rebin returned into the mouthpiece as he watched his crew come alive from the belly of the ship. Jacop was back on deck ordering the crew to man the buckets and douse the fire that had flared from the striking of their craft.
“I don’t see anything, Sir! Nothing’s out there!” came Endris’s panicked voice.
Rebin’s blood turned to ice, but he rolled his shoulders and swept his gaze across the open sky. Surely enough, there was no sign of another vessel or any danger that could have struck their trimaran.
“Keep it together, Endris, and keep your eyes open. Crew to full alert. Orsa, south by southwest,” Rebin ordered. Orsa obeyed, quickly turning their vessel away from the sector where the shot had been fired. “Don’t expose our engines, but get us out of here.” His gunners were in position now, ready to fire on whatever it was that lurked unseen in the dark. “Hold fire!” Rebin commanded. Despite the crewmembers working to douse the fire from the heavy hit, the remaining Procyons settled into an uneasy silence. Rebin’s own eyes hunted the stars hungrily for the assailant.
“Show yourself, You Coward,” he breathed.
“Sir!” Endris’s voice came once more from the communication line. “It’s a ship, Sir! It’s a—”
Before Endris could finish his sentence the starlight leeward rippled as if something had upset the very fabric of the cosmos. Orsa released a quiet gasp beside him as a glittering iron hull shimmered into view, the cloaking mechanism falling away to reveal the true might of their opponent. Rebin was unfazed by the display. He had seen the trick used many times in past skirmishes against the Terran Navy.
“Full stop to engines,” Rebin directed his engineers as the Light Brigade slowed to a halt, cast well within the looming shadow of this extraordinary monstrosity. And a monstrosity it was.
The vessel was none other than a Procyon ironclad submersible. The entire ship was covered in plate metal, no sails were present on this behemoth. The bow of the juggernaut curved down into a flat imposing surface that could be subjected to ramming if the need should arise but was typically used to support the gaping maw of its torpedo bay. Like two soulless eye sockets staring down the Light Brigade , Captain Rebin could see now why the Terrans had so feared Procyon advancement at one time.
But that time had long since passed and it was a miracle a submersible existed at all now, for the Terrans had required the Procyons to melt down any and all ironclad ships as part of their war reparations. Rebin was glaring into the face of a relic.
“Hold. Fire,” he growled at his gunners who looked skittish. Rebin knew the question weighing on everyone’s minds as he reached for the radio line attached to his helm’s mainframe controls.
“Submersible,” he greeted via the comm. “This is Captain Rebin of the Procyon Star Runner Light Brigade . It appears you have mistakenly fired upon my ship. I shall speak to your commanding officer or your vessel will face the criminal charge of an act of treason against the Procyon Empire.”
He waited.
There came only static.
The hairs all over Rebin’s body stood at attention, but he decided to try one more time.
“Submersible! I repeat: I will have the allegiance of your crew and—”
“Captain!” Orsa screamed as the torpedo launchers of the submersible began to glow with a fiery white light.
“Evasive maneuvers, NOW!” Rebin shouted, but it was too late. The torpedoes launched from their holds, slamming into the PSR Light Brigade from point blank range. Rebin was once again knocked off his feet, Orsa thrown back, head cracking against gunwale, rendering her unconscious. The wheel spun on its axle as the ship rotated from the impact. Rebin could hear the screams of his crew as they were lost to the flames or thrown from the ship. He grabbed the spokes of the wheel, heaving hard against the weight to stabilize what little remained of his vessel.
“All gunners, open fire!” he roared as the night sky lit up from the barrage, but no amount of trimaran weapons fire could stop what happened next.
The submersible entered a charge just as a predator bears down on its prey. Rebin had mere seconds to react as he cranked the wheel. For all his heightened thinking, however, nothing could prevent the inevitable desolation that occurred before his very eyes. The hull of his vessel crumpled like tinfoil under the weight of the ironclad’s prow. The deck ruptured, the boards splintering as the horrid sound of steel grinding against varnished timber reached Rebin’s ears.
“All crew to the lifeboats!” Rebin cried, but even he knew the window of escape had long since sealed shut. There was a deep resonating groan as the sails tore free from their tethers, the masts severing from their bases. Explosions erupted from the lower decks as the submersible destroyed the Light Brigade’s solar core, and still the leviathan kept coming. There was nothing left to salvage. Nowhere else to flee.
Without taking his fierce eyes off of the machine, Rebin reached into the inner pocket of his captain’s coat and withdrew the picture he kept on him at all times. Faded from years of Rebin’s handling, he brought the photograph to his lips and kissed it. One last time.
“I’m coming home, My Darling.”
From a distance, in the void space between sunlight and shadow, a hooded figure lowered his silver spyglass…and smiled.