Planet Mercury. Ergon Facility. Holding cell for detained inquisitors.
Mercury has no proper prisons. Only isolation chambers, hidden deep inside dead corridors of abandoned production halls.
No bars—just thick steel doors. Cold, concrete-blooded cells where the unwanted are locked away like faulty components in a failing machine.
Ragnar walks down a dim hallway.
Each step muffled. Measured.
As if he's marching through the verdict of his own trial.
The cell door slides open with a coarse hiss, and he pauses on the threshold.
Inside—it's spacious, yet the air feels lifeless.
The light stings.
Everything is flat, gray, stripped bare.
Inquisitors crouch in the far corner, still as predators.
Their eyes—sharp, hungry—
probing for a crack in his armor.
And then—Libert.
Captain Libert.
Inquisitor of the old order.
He rises from the cot like a man still mid-battle.
His stare is razor-edged, bitter.
His movements—lean, fast, aggressive.
"Captain Libert," Ragnar says, his voice level, almost cordial—
but coiled tight, like an android trained to know a friend might become a threat.
"Good to see you, old friend."
"What the hell is going on?!" Libert snaps, his voice rough, torn—as if betrayal itself is clawing its way out of his throat.
"We came back from the raid. Everything by protocol. And now—chains. This hole. Care to explain, Ragnar? Or are you just here to stare like the rest?"
Ragnar steps forward.
The overhead light catches the shadows beneath his eyes, the tension in his jaw.
He doesn't want to explain.
But Libert needs the truth.
"I don't even know where to begin..." Ragnar's voice is soft, almost transparent.
"Tell me, Libert. What god do you believe in?"
Silence.
Then a bitter snort.
"What god? What are you now, a priest from Mars?" Libert spits.
"Gods are for those afraid of dying. We weren't built that way. Or did you forget who we are?"
Ragnar doesn't reply.
His gaze lingers on Libert's face.
Not just rage—there's disgust there.
"I haven't forgotten," Ragnar says, voice firmer now.
"But the world has changed.
We live by the commandments of Hanaris."
"I believe in them.
I'm not just an inquisitor anymore."
"They're simple," he continues.
"No one has the right to own another.
Not their body. Not their mind. Not their time.
Not without consent.
And any violation of that... is evil.
And evil must be punished."
Libert laughs.
The sound snaps across the room like glass beneath a boot.
Sharp. Unhinged.
"Do you hear yourself?!"
He lunges forward, fists clenched, every tendon drawn tight.
"We were the pillars of this whole damned system!
I mined ergon. You broke bones for credits.
We held this nightmare together.
And now we're the evil?!"
Ragnar holds his ground.
His face calm.
"An empire built on pain can't last," he says.
"We don't serve it anymore.
We're building something new—without the whip."
"Without the whip?!" Libert throws his arms up, breath ragged like a trigger about to break.
"And you call this justice? Locking us in a cell like traitors?"
"I'm no traitor.
I'm a soldier.
I survived the dust of Mercury, the ice of the Belt.
I earned the right not to kneel before your shiny new god."
Ragnar speaks slowly, each word cutting clean.
"You didn't just survive.
You were a cog in the machine that killed.
Now you're terrified of becoming something else."
"No, Ragnar."
Libert trembles, voice shaking but unbroken.
"I'm no saint, but I'm not blind either.
You think you've created a faith.
What you've built is a virus. A fever dream.
An illusion of freedom—just another collar, only this one's gilded."
Ragnar turns.
His spine straight.
He's already walking away.
But his voice—
quiet, unflinching—
lands like a sentence.
"Maybe.
But this virus gave me meaning.
And your world... is already burned."
"The trial is coming.
Under new law."
"Whose law?! A god's?!" Libert shouts after him.
His voice echoes through the cell like the last salvo from a sinking ship.
But Ragnar doesn't stop.
The door shuts behind him with a metallic click.
Cold. Almost mournful.
And Libert remains.
Alone.
Left with nothing but the shadow of a faith that breaks him from the inside—
more than any chain ever could.