The roar of the storm ceased.
The frantic escape moments ago left only a tearing ringing in our ears and a disastrous silence filling the bridge.
All four of us had just witnessed the wondrous spectacle of this ship taming the Aether of the storm.
But that wonder was soon crushed by a new fear.
Lilia's pale whisper broke the silence of the bridge.
"This... this way. Into the shadow of that rock... we can hide... for a moment."
The Lumina Lip moved precariously like a bird with broken wings, barely hiding its body in the shadow of a small floating rock not marked on the navigation chart.
Adrian's red flashes were no longer visible. The physical threat had vanished.
But the air inside the bridge was as cold as ice. No, it was more suffocating than the storm outside.
"Damn it... damn it...!"
Leon groaned as he slammed his fist onto the smashed console.
With all stabilizer fins destroyed, the ship's condition was hopeless.
He tried to focus only on this despairing damage to the hull, but his eyes kept drifting elsewhere.
Lilia sat slumped in the corner of the bridge, pale and exhausted.
Part of it was due to the frantic Aether storm draining her energy, but what truly suffocated her was something else.
She turned her head to look at Vent standing in the darkness of the bridge.
The smell of blood and agony radiating from his very existence, that wave of terrible guilt, was crushing her more than the physical storm.
At the end of her gaze, where Leon's anger was directed. Vent Steel stood there.
He didn't move a muscle, yet his presence alone filled this narrow space with suffocating pressure.
The shocking truth Adrian had revealed. Arkelos.
That word echoed even more massively in this silence where the roar of the storm had vanished.
Everyone's gaze turned to me, standing stiffly next to the captain's seat in the center of the bridge.
I had taken my hands off the useless control stick and was staring motionlessly only at him, at the shadow in the darkness where Vent stood.
*
It was Leon who broke the silence crushing the bridge.
He was gripping a steel pipe, torn from the smashed console to use as a makeshift wrench.
In his intelligent gray eyes, unfamiliar wariness and logical anger burned.
He stumbled a step forward as if to block the path between Vent and me.
"Jayn. You have to make a decision now. What are you going to do with him?"
He jerked his chin toward Vent standing in the dark.
"That guy knows Adrian wants to capture this ship, and you, alive! He's exploiting the fact that our ship is wrecked and can't move! Since Adrian can't just shoot us down because of you, he plans to use us as hostages to buy time until the storm clears and negotiate with Adrian!"
Leon's rational shout was blocked by a small sob from the corner.
It was Lilia.
She couldn't block the way with a weapon like Leon, but she was covering her mouth with both hands, looking at Vent in terror.
Her clear turquoise eyes were filled with tears.
"Blood... the smell of blood... is too strong..."
Her voice trembled as if piercing through Vent's inner self.
"Pain... too much... too deep an agony... is flowing out of that person...!"
Leon's logical distrust and Lilia's instinctive fear.
Both of my companions, in their own ways, defined that stranger as a 'danger'.
I quietly placed my hand on Leon's shoulder, making him slowly lower the steel pipe he was gripping.
"Step aside, Leon."
My voice was calm enough to surprise even myself.
Leon tried to say something more, but after seeing my eyes, he reluctantly took a step back.
I walked toward Vent, stepping over the debris scattered on the bridge floor.
Into the darkness where he stood.
My mask of cheerful madness had already shattered and was gone.
Only the face of the last survivor of Arkelos, bearing the weight of 10 years, remained.
I stood before him.
The shadow cast by his massive 188cm frame completely covered me.
"Tell me the truth."
My eyes, blue like the abyss, directly faced his blue-gray eyes sunken with guilt.
"What Adrian said... 'Operation Purge'. What is it?"
Vent remained silent for a long time.
He couldn't face me and turned his gaze down to his matte black prosthetic arm.
As if all his sins were engraved on that arm.
Creak...
The steel prosthetic trembled, ringing a chilling mechanical sound inside the narrow bridge.
After a long silence, he opened his mouth with a voice cracked like scraping metal.
"...Yes."
At that single word, Leon swallowed his breath, and Lilia's shoulders heaved heavily.
"I... participated in the Arkelos raid."
His voice was hollow. It was like playing a record recorded a long time ago.
"The brass said... it was a 'Resistance Base' researching 'illegal ancient weapons'. A den of heretics... threatening the Empire's order. We... we just followed orders. As soldiers."
He stared into the void as if seeing the scene of that day.
Red flashes pouring down from Imperator-class battleships. The sight of the beautiful crystal city collapsing.
"And... after the main fleet's bombardment ended..."
His voice crumbled for the first time.
"'Disposal of Embers'. That... that was the second order given to me."
"Disposal... of Embers?"
As I repeated the word, Vent's body began to shake violently.
"I landed... in the city turned to ashes."
He lowered his head. As if trying to suppress terrible memories, he pressed his temple with his steel prosthetic hand.
"There were... no resistance forces."
His voice became tangled with anger, resentment, and indelible guilt.
"Burning... burning houses... crystal decorations of the 'Star Cluster Festival'... and... children... children's... toys."
He couldn't continue and gasped for rough breath.
"Then... Adrian ordered to 'dispose' of the survivors. To completely erase... traces of resistance. He said that was 'Order'."
"..."
"In front of that tragedy... I... refused."
His eyes flashed, containing the madness of 10 years.
"They defined me as a 'Traitor'... and tried to 'dispose' of me. So I... fought... and eventually deserted."
The long confession ended.
Only silence, like the debris of a storm, remained in the bridge again.
Vent finally raised his head and looked straight at me.
His cold blue-gray eyes were completely broken, and only 10-year-old despair remained within them.
"My hands are also... stained with the blood of your home."
He slowly pulled out the blaster from his waist. Then, he turned the muzzle around and offered the handle.
"It is only natural for you to hate me... Even if you kill me right here with this gun, I will accept it sweetly. That would be my judgment."
He entrusted his fate, his life, to my hands.
*
Suffocating silence flowed inside the bridge.
Except for Leon's rough breathing, Lilia's suppressed sobbing, and the blaster offered by Vent flashing in the red emergency light, everything had stopped.
Leon and Lilia were only looking at Jayn's lips.
On her single finger, on her single breath, hung the fate of everyone in this narrow space, and the life of one man.
Leon still didn't relax his grip on the pipe. If Jayn just nodded, he was ready to strike down that Imperial soldier without hesitation.
I looked at Vent for a long time.
I looked at the blaster in his hand.
And I saw the steel prosthetic hand gripping that gun, trembling slightly with 10 years of guilt.
Finally, I looked at his eyes.
They were different from Adrian's ice-cold blue eyes.
Vent's blue-gray eyes were... empty. An emptiness that waited only for judgment, with all light extinguished in the ashes of my home 10 years ago.
It was the emptiness of an 'Exile' who had given up everything, crushed by guilt.
The moment I looked into those empty eyes, a forgotten sensation revived in my head.
The 8-year-old me, who woke up alone in a crushed escape pod, amidst a massive pile of scrap metal 10 years ago.
The despair of that day when I lost everything and gave up everything.
It was the very color of despair that had frozen my heart.
I realized.
Vent Steel was a 'perpetrator', but at the same time, another 'survivor' trapped in the tragedy of that day.
He couldn't package his sin as 'Order' like Adrian.
He faced his sin head-on and had been running away for the past 10 years, crushed by its weight.
Just now, in the storm, offering my hand to his crumbled form wasn't pity or forgiveness. It was instinct.
The instinct of a survivor recognizing another 'ember' like myself.
And now, I was no longer an 8-year-old terrified girl.
I am the Captain of this ship.
I pushed away the blaster Vent offered. He looked at me with surprised eyes.
"Forgiveness?"
My voice rang out coldly. And Lilia's sobbing stopped.
"There is no such thing. My home won't come back."
Vent's face was dyed with despair again. He lowered his head, waiting for the final judgment.
I took a step closer to him.
"But you're right. Your power only brought destruction."
I turned my gaze to look at his black steel prosthetic arm. And looked at his eyes again.
"Then you can change it from now on."
Leon swallowed his breath.
"Jayn...?"
Ignoring Leon's call, I extended my hand to Vent.
My bare hand, not the blaster.
"Use that power of yours to 'protect' my crew from now on."
His blue-gray eyes shook with shock.
I didn't withdraw my hand and commanded as a Captain.
"Use that damn Imperial knowledge of yours for us to counterattack them."
I jerked my chin toward the empty hologram table on the bridge.
"I know nothing about the Empire. Their tactics, weaknesses, codes... everything. I don't know what trap Adrian will dig for us next."
I stared straight into Vent, into his empty eyes again.
"But you are different."
I briefly looked back at Leon and Lilia standing behind me.
"I intend to protect my crew. To do that, I need you right now. I'm saying I need a strategist."
I glared at the blaster he was still holding.
"And I need a hammer to block what's in front of us."
Silence flowed in the bridge again.
Vent stared blankly at my hand extended toward him. And looked alternately at the blaster in his hand.
He expected hatred. He expected revenge.
Maybe he expected death along with contempt.
But never once... did he expect the words 'I need you'.
For the past 10 years, his power was only a symbol of destruction and death. It was a curse even to himself.
But now, that girl, the survivor of the tragedy that took everything from him, was saying she 'needed' that cursed power.
It wasn't forgiveness. It was something much heavier, an 'opportunity to atone'.
Creak...
The sound of Vent's steel prosthetic trembling was heard. And his fingers slowly, painfully uncurled.
Thud.
The blaster fell to the bridge floor with a dull metallic sound.
Leon and Lilia flinched at that sound.
Instead of his trembling steel prosthetic, Vent raised his intact right hand and grasped my hand.
His hand was full of scars, but his grip was firmer than the steel prosthetic.
He finally raised his head.
In his empty eyes, a faint flame was burning again for the first time in 10 years.
His voice was still rough, but a new weight was carried within it.
"...Roger, Captain."
*
As soon as Vent's single phrase echoed heavily amidst the red emergency lights, what broke the precarious peace of the bridge was Leon's desperate shout.
"That's not what's important right now, Captain!"
He spat out the word 'Captain' with explicit contempt.
He kicked the blaster Vent had dropped and punched the smashed console.
"We are still a broken piece of scrap metal! The stabilizer fins are all smashed! This ship can't move a single step! We avoided the storm, but Adrian will come again!"
Leon's desperate shout was reality. Just because the emotional conflict ended didn't mean we escaped this steel coffin.
But Vent was no longer submerged in the past. He moved immediately as Jayn's 'Strategist'.
He approached Leon's console and looked at the ship status diagram sparking with damage.
"No. We can move."
"What?"
Leon gripped the steel pipe again.
"Nonsense! What do you know about this ship! This is an organism! Not one of your Imperial tin cans!"
"I know."
Vent's voice was cold.
"But that damage is caused by Imperial weapons. Meaning those ruptured energy conduits are Imperial standard specs."
He pointed to the damaged area on the screen with his steel prosthetic.
"We can't restore the stabilizer fins, but we can exploit that to bypass them temporarily. If we combine your steam engine knowledge and my Imperial technology knowledge."
Leon looked at Vent with contempt, but soon scanned the damaged area of the ship again. His genius brain began to spin.
"...Control the rudder with steam pressure? It's madness... but... if only the energy conversion efficiency is calculated... Give it here. Hand over that spec datasheet you mentioned."
The heretic genius and the steel ace began to cooperate while glaring at each other as if to kill.
Watching the two, Lilia smiled faintly at Vent for the first time.
"It still... smells sad. But it's not the smell of blood anymore."
* * *
A few days later.
The Lumina Lip was miraculously flying again.
It still creaked here and there, and the entire ship lurched every time it turned because there were no stabilizer fins, but thanks to the kitbashing technique of Leon and Vent, temporary repairs were completed, barely allowing flight.
The four gathered on the bridge, looking at the hologram map Leon had restored.
It was no longer Leon briefing the map. It was Vent.
"Adrian will think we've fled to a place like Silverine for repairs, escaping this airspace. But the real intelligence is here."
He pointed to a spot on the map, a 'Forgotten Archive' deep within Imperial territory.
"The place where all the truth of Arkelos sleeps. The place he wants to protect the most."
Leon refuted.
"This is suicide! That's the heart of the Empire!"
"That's why we're going."
I answered. And when I looked at Vent, he nodded.
I looked around at everyone with determined eyes.
"Good. Then let's go there."
Now, the Lumina Lip left the shadow of the rocky zone and turned its nose toward the heart of the Empire.
We are no longer fugitives.
We were ghosts, heretics, lost children, and exiles.
But now, we have become one under the wings of 'Jayn's Crew'.
And our counterattack starts now.