"Argh!"
We desperately tried to grab onto anything as violent tremors shook the entire ship.
The Lumina Lip, spiraling out of control, was being sucked fiercely into the storm.
Red emergency lights and the lightning of the blue Aether storm outside flashed alternately, illuminating the bridge in a dizzying strobe.
"No! If we hit a rock like this, we're done for! What do we do, Jayn? The controls are dead!"
Leon screamed in a voice filled with despair.
He knew better than anyone. We had no means to change our direction.
"This storm... it's not natural!"
That was when Lilia's scream-mixed shout pierced the air.
"The Aether is... it's in so much pain!"
"Pain? Lilia, what are you talking about...!"
Leon looked at his console to refute her, but the numbers were breaking apart into meaningless strings of code.
"Damn it, the data... I can't read the data! This is just the worst turbulence we've ever seen!"
"No! It's not the sound of wind... This is... a scream! It's the scream of the Aether trying to fill the space that was forcibly torn apart...!"
Just then, the bridge's communicator turned back on with harsh static. It was that strange voice that had saved us just moments ago.
"Ghost ship! Can you hear me! Snap out of it!"
His voice was urgent.
"It's a side effect of that stupid noble, Adrian, using the Aether Dampener! The sky is going crazy trying to fill the vacuum he forcibly tore open! That woman is right; this isn't a storm, it's a seizure of the sky!"
His explanation proved Lilia's senses were correct, but there was nothing we could do in this hellish situation.
"Don't try to steer! This current leads to a rock cavern in the 'Grave Airspace'! I'll go in first and secure the entrance. You guys just control the speed with your remaining thrusters! Just slam on the brakes so you don't crash!"
Outside the window, the pitch-black fighter drew a trail of blue engine flame and disappeared toward the cavern first.
"Leon! Reverse thrusters! Use everything we have left!"
I grabbed the output lever instead of the control stick. I desperately engaged the reverse thrusters using the few auxiliary engines that had survived the first volley.
Steering was impossible, but braking was barely manageable.
The Lumina Lip, dragged by the current out of control, barely managed to reduce its speed as it slid into the cavern entrance like a crashing comet.
Boom— Bang! Thud!
With a roar as the side of the ship roughly scraped against the cavern wall, the Lumina Lip made a disastrous emergency landing on the cave floor.
The roar of the storm echoed distantly from beyond the walls.
We... were alive. For now…
* * *
The inside of the bridge was a wreck.
The roar of the storm echoed faintly from beyond the walls. But inside the bridge, an ominous silence, heavier than the storm, settled in.
Only the red emergency lights blinked, grotesquely illuminating the smashed consoles and the debris scattered on the floor.
Leon groaned as he grabbed a broken console and stood up. His face was pale with despair.
He barely managed to operate his data pad with his burned hand, then muttered in disbelief.
"Stabilizer fins completely destroyed... Micro-fractures in the keel."
He looked back at me. Those intelligent gray eyes were submerged in fear for the first time.
"Jayn... this ship... even if the storm stops, it can't move a single step. We... it ends here."
As soon as he finished speaking, two blue engine lights approached from the darkness deep inside the cave.
The black fighter that had guided us slid silently like a ghost and docked quietly next to the Lumina Lip.
Bzzt—
The communication linked up shortly after. It was that same rough voice that had just plucked us from hell.
"You look like a mess, Ghost Ship. With those fins, you won't make it ten meters out of this cave. My ship has an external plasma welder and emergency locking clamps."
There was no emotion in his voice. It was dry, like a technician diagnosing a broken machine in front of him.
"I'll fix you up so you can at least fly straight until the storm dies down. Grant docking permission."
Docking.
That meant letting that unidentified Imperial soldier into our ship.
I looked at Leon. And he was already blocking my way.
"Are you crazy, Jayn!"
He growled. In his hand, he gripped a leg of a broken console like a club.
"That guy is Imperial! He uses the Empire's latest stealth tech! This is a trap! He's going to seize control of this ship under the pretext of repairs!"
Leon's words were perfectly rational. Right, logically speaking.
I looked back at Lilia. She didn't block the way like Leon, but she was leaning against the wall, pale as a sheet.
"That person..."
She whispered in a trembling voice.
"...Even though he hasn't come close... I feel pain... It's like... the smell of blood..."
Rational Leon's opposition and instinctive Lilia's fear.
Both of my companions were saying 'No'.
I looked at the communicator once more.
The stranger didn't rush for an answer.
He was simply watching us from inside his pitch-black fighter.
We were trapped.
The ship was wrecked.
And when the storm stopped, Adrian would return. So we had no time.
This was a gamble.
We were trapped in a wolf's den, and a tiger was blocking the entrance.
Right at this moment, that wolf had proposed a negotiation.
My lips went dry.
"But we can't move a step from here. And... if he intended to kill me, he would have done it in the storm earlier."
"Jayn, no!"
I made up my mind.
Ignoring Leon rushing toward me, I manually operated the console and opened the external docking hatch.
The sound of pneumatic pressure, 'Hiss—', echoed through the bridge.
A moment later, the internal hangar door leading to the bridge opened with a heavy sound.
From the darkness, a man walked out.
A giant frame nearing 190cm. A pitch-black Imperial combat suit wrapped around his massive body.
The moment he stepped under the red emergency lights of the bridge, we gasped.
His entire left arm, from shoulder to fingertips, was a matte black military prosthetic.
The man took off his helmet.
A cold, scarred face. Short-cropped steel-like hair. And... cold blue-gray eyes that seemed to pierce through everything.
At that very moment, as soon as he fully stepped onto the bridge, Leon gripped the broken pipe again and blocked my path.
"Stop right there! Take one more step and..."
The man ignored Leon's crude weapon completely.
His gaze wasn't on the pipe. Nor on Lilia.
His eyes, slowly and meticulously scanning the interior of the bridge, finally landed on me.
His cold blue-gray eyes met my eyes, blue like the abyss.
After a moment, he opened his mouth.
His voice was low and rough, but carried no emotion.
"I am called 'Vent'."
He walked past us and looked at the shattered crystal window at the front of the bridge.
Then, as if talking to himself, but asking a question clearly directed at me:
"That ship... was it made in Arkelos?"
He asked.
Arkelos.
The moment that name, carved into my soul for ten years, flowed from this stranger's mouth, the air in the bridge froze.
Leon gasped, and Lilia's eyes widened.
And it felt like my heart dropped to the floor with a thud. How does this man...
Just as I was about to open my mouth amidst wariness and confusion.
Chii-jijik—!
The Lumina Lip's main screen, which had been dead, was forcibly turned on with a loud roar.
And the screen, flickering convulsively due to the storm's interference, soon displayed a man's face.
A flawless white uniform without a single wrinkle. Ice-cold blue eyes.
It was Colonel Adrian Valentine.
He stared down at us hiding in the cave within the storm with an arrogant gaze, as if looking down at his office desk.
"Vent."
Adrian's cold voice pierced through the static and echoed in the bridge.
"Vent Steel. 'Vent of Steel'. To think the Empire's 'Hero' is trembling in a storm, hiding behind such a piece of scrap metal."
At Adrian's cynical voice, the atmosphere around Vent, which had been as calm as ice just a moment ago, changed explosively.
"Adrian...!"
Vent growled.
His cold blue-gray eyes instantly burned with rage.
Along with it, his matte black prosthetic hand clenched with a 'creak' of mechanical noise.
"It was game over the second your 'Nightwolf' got caught in my 'Iron Net'. Did you think that 'Ghost' could actually save you? Just like the comrades you cast aside curse your name, she will end up blaming you in the end."
Leon and Lilia couldn't even breathe. This situation was a reunion of two monsters beyond their comprehension.
Adrian's gaze slowly moved over Vent's shoulder.
His icy eyes met mine, which were full of wariness.
"Ah."
He twisted the corners of his mouth as if he had found an interesting toy.
"Is that child the survivor of Arkelos I've only heard rumors about? What a truly amusing combination. A fallen hero and a forgotten ghost."
Adrian plucked the cruelest string as if enjoying Vent's rage.
"Vent, that 'Inhumane Command' you disobeyed for the last time..."
"Shut up!"
Vent roared.
It wasn't a human voice, but the howl of a wounded beast.
However, his desperate shout couldn't stop Adrian's next words.
Rather, that scream completed the final piece of the truth Adrian was about to reveal.
Adrian ignored Vent's scream and, with the cruelest smile, delivered the final sentence to me.
"Do you know that the mission you fled from... was the 'disposal of the final embers' of the Arkelos Purge Operation?"
Adrian's cruel whisper made all the air in the bridge freeze solid.
"Arkelos...? Purge...?"
Leon trembled, clutching the broken pipe, looking back and forth between Vent and me.
His rational brain was rejecting the combination of the words he just heard.
His logic couldn't catch up on how the word 'Purge' connected to the ancient civilization of 'Arkelos'.
But Lilia was different.
Before she could even understand the historical meaning of those words, she had already physically felt the truth.
As soon as Adrian finished speaking, the wave of terrible guilt and self-loathing that exploded from Vent hit her directly.
Lilia gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.
Her clear eyes began to dampen with fear and pity, as if she had looked directly into Vent's inner self.
Adrian smiled with satisfaction at his perfect face, enjoying our frozen reactions.
"That's enough for the pleasant reunion. When the storm clears, I will judge both your Nightwolf and that scrap metal... with my own hands."
Bzzt—
The hologram turned off with a noise.
In the bridge where Adrian's arrogant face disappeared, only the sound of the storm crying from beyond the wall filled the space again.
And the rough breathing of three people.
Leon's confused breathing.
Lilia's fear-stricken sobbing.
But Vent didn't even breathe.
His massive body didn't move an inch.
The overwhelming presence he had when he entered the bridge was gone, and he looked like an empty shell whose soul had escaped.
He slowly lowered his head.
His matte black prosthetic hand clenched, making a faint 'creak...' mechanical sound.
He was trembling.
He still couldn't say anything.
I didn't move either.
No, I couldn't move.
My time had stopped in the flames of that day, 10 years ago.
Adrian's voice had become the trigger.
The crying sound of the storm turned into the roar of flames swallowing Arkelos.
The blinking of the red emergency lights overlapped with the red flashes of Imperial cannons tearing apart my home.
Creak...
The sound of Vent's prosthetic hand sounded like the mechanical footsteps of the Aegis Guardian approaching my parents.
'Disposal of embers.'
That word circled in my head.
Embers. The residue left after burning.
That was me. The 8-year-old me.
That his mission was to 'dispose' of me.
This man.
This man who saved me.
Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head, heavy as the weight of 10 years.
To look at the hero who saved us, and the Imperial soldier who was ordered to 'clean' my home.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in the silent bridge.
It wasn't my voice.
It was the trembling voice of an 8-year-old girl who had barely crawled out of the ashes.
"...Did you... Arkelos...?"