“...What is that? Isn’t that the Aegis fleet?”
One, two... probably hundreds of ships. No, maybe thousands. A fleet too numerous to count was swallowing the daylight whole. Like the line in the theology books about God shutting the heavens in anger, an abrupt blackout had come over the ground.
“Huh? Why would the empire’s allied forces be here...?”
Someone passing the end of the corridor looked up and voiced the same question Luca had. That question never got the chance to become a scream.
A high-frequency shriek split the air and bored into his eardrums. For a split second the sky flashed a searing, translucent violet.
All morning he’d danced with a sword under the pretext of petitioning the god’s mercy. At last, the god answered. With high-output charged particle cannons pouring down, tearing the atmosphere open.
KRRRAKOOM!
Violet lightning punched through the planet’s surface. The earth howled like a beast and twisted. Barely thirty minutes ago those voices had been laughing and chattering, savoring the afterglow of the banquet. Now they turned into horrific screams.
“Kyaaah...!”
“Aaaagh...!”
Even the most desperate cries were devoured by the eardrum-splitting blasts and the enormous shockwaves sweeping the air. The vast crowd that had watched Luca’s sword dance vanished, senselessly, into a dust storm clotted with blood and ash.
The huge stone buildings that had boasted such grandeur collapsed all at once, like sandcastles swept away by a gale. A peaceful planet that had lived alongside the god’s benevolence turned into a burning hell in an instant.
“Haa, haak...”
In ruins thick with dust and flame, Luca lay collapsed beneath a fallen stone pillar. There was no room to be grateful for the miracle of surviving a shockwave that had scoured the land in a heartbeat. His severed body sent its ruinous pain up late, and his mind went white.
“Ah, hng...”
A groan laced with the raw, metallic reek of blood leaked between his lips. Luca instinctively tried to feel over his own body. But his right arm was crushed below the shoulder, scorched black, without even sensation left in it.
His gaze, unable to even focus, dropped a little lower. The ceremonial robe that had been fluttering so elegantly moments ago was torn in half. Both legs below the thigh were gone without a trace. Only the bright blood surging from the severed stumps was soaking the ash on the ground.
“Hng, hh...”
Luca didn’t have the strength left to wail. His vision heaved and swam. His body, bleeding hard enough to form a wide pool, cooled fast. Even the feeling in his remaining left arm had dulled at some point.
Everything receded into a blur. The meaning of life, and the face of the father he missed.
Am I dying...? Like this...?
Cold swept over his whole body in an instant. What came with that chill was, surprisingly, peace. He wasn’t afraid of death. If anything, rather than live on in this ruined shape, he needed the rest that death offered.
Yeah, better to just end it here, easily...
Luca slowly closed his eyes. The acrid smell of fire drew away, and just as his consciousness went distant...
Crunch, crunch.
Steady footsteps approached. Treading over burning timber, they carried the faintest trace of urgency.
“Captain, I’ve found him.”
A woman’s voice. But Luca hadn’t the strength to push his heavy eyelids back up and see who she was. Death had come right up to his face and was squeezing his throat shut.
“We got a shield up in time, so the damage was minimized... Oh, no...! Captain, it isn’t! The situation is serious! Come quickly, hurry!”
Another set of footsteps layered over the woman’s frantic cry. Lower and heavier than hers, yet composed. As though a body dying with its limbs severed was something he’d seen to the point of boredom.
That immense presence lowered itself beside Luca. There was the sound of a glove being pulled off, and then soft fingertips pressed firmly to the blood-soaked side of his neck, reading the faint pulse of life there.
“He’s still breathing.”
“But at this rate... his pulse is far too slow!”
“We can save him. It’s all right, calm down.”
The voice ringing in his eardrums made age impossible to guess. It carried a cunning that transcended the years, and yet also the razor-edged vigor of a young man.
Who is that...? Who is he, to swear up and down that he can save me?
Luca lifted his eyelids with great effort, as if burning the last guttering flame of his life to do it.
The silhouette of a man looking down at him lodged in his vision. Even in ruins that had become a portrait of hell, the man wore an immaculate uniform without a speck of dust on it. He knelt on one knee before Luca with the air of someone strolling through a quiet park.
“Luca, right?”
The man took off his other glove. A bare hand cupped Luca’s cheek lightly. Warmth, alien and out of place, clung to skin caked with blood and dust.
Luca’s lips stirred. From between his teeth, where a plea to be saved should have poured out, he begged for something else entirely.
“Kill... me...”
His cracked voice warped with pain. The man had said he could save him, but Luca knew perfectly well he couldn’t survive. So he wanted this agony cut short, even a moment sooner.
“Make it painless... Kill me...”
Even looking at Luca, who seemed about to die of shock any second, the man laughed low. It wasn’t mockery. It was a smile that said he understood, better than anyone, the urge to choose death, the easiest escape there was.
“Sorry, but there’s no room aboard my ship for a corpse.”
“Please...”
“I’ll save you. So don’t give up.”
“P-please...”
Why are you trying to save me? How am I supposed to live like this?
He wanted to scream at him to spare him the useless sympathy and pity. But with his throat gasping, even breathing wasn’t easy.
Kill me, please, please, please...
The desperate plea that never became sound burst out instead as tears mixed with blood. But the man was tender to the point of cruelty. He wouldn’t grant Luca the death he craved so badly.
Instead he carefully gathered up Luca’s body, hideously severed and crushed, and lifted him. He handled him like a fragile piece of ancient glasswork.
Blood surged from the stumps of his missing legs and pulped right arm. The dark red soaked through the man’s immaculate navy uniform in seconds. He didn’t care. If anything, as though worried by a body temperature lower than he’d expected, he tucked Luca deeper into his arms.
“Luca. My name is Luka too. The least you can do is hear how a man with your own name came looking for you. So survive. Don’t you ever give up.”
Through his fading consciousness, Luca stared blankly at the man’s face.
An unfamiliar face. A man he’d never once seen in his life. They might share a name, but nothing about the tracks their lives had left, or the weight of the fates they carried, seemed likely to overlap.
Feeling the steady beat coming from the man’s chest, Luca let go of consciousness. The roar of the planet collapsing left his ears deadened. Yet even inside that tragedy, the man’s golden eyes shone as bright as the sun.
It was as if the god everyone had so desperately hoped to meet while watching Luca’s sword dance had made himself flesh in this tender man.
Through the ship’s window, the planet could be seen collapsing.
The continents couldn’t withstand the pressure erupting from the planet’s core. The land tore into thousands of pieces, and blood-colored magma surged up through the gaps and sprayed out into space. The planet crumbled from its center outward in moments.
The man, the captain who shared Luca’s name, crossed the bridge with that small blood-drenched body in his arms and shouted.
“All hands, brace for impact! Take the magnetic barrier to maximum output!”
Sharp orders filled the chaotic bridge.
“Engine room, deal with the overload! Navigator, calculate the incoming debris trajectories immediately. We begin evasive maneuvers before the storm hits!”
He shifted the boy in his arms and swept a fierce glance across the comms console.
“Cut the relay. Channel all residual energy into thrust and the barrier! We’re escaping this planet right now!”
Crisp, disciplined responses burst out from every station.
“Magnetic barrier fully deployed! Holding at maximum output!”
“Engines entering critical threshold, output locked at one hundred twenty percent!”
“Comms fully cut. All energy rerouted to propulsion!”
“Debris trajectory calculations complete, beginning evasive maneuvers!”
Rrrrrumble!
The massive hull rocked under the violent impact. Outside the windows, fragments of the planet streaked past, throwing off sharp sparks.
A powerful gravity well spilling out from inside the collapsing planet caught hold of the fleeing ship. The already overloaded propulsion system dropped sharply in output, and the ship lurched as though it were about to be sucked straight back in.
Wheeng, wheeng.
Red warning lights washed the entire ship. In a flash, the crew’s faces drained pale.
“Captain...!”
Someone’s cry begged desperately for rescue.
