Tytania:Volume 1 Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – The Ballad of Uneasy Allies

I

The spaceship Honest Old Man, abbreviated to OO, was continuing its journey from planet Ementhal to planet Bargash. Due to being pursued by Tytania, it unavoidably had to occasionally deviate from the official routes and follow unofficial paths.

These unofficial paths were sometimes controlled by local semi-pirate groups, and in such cases tolls had to be paid to ensure safety. When combined with the tolls levied by Tytania, navigation through the supposedly uninhabited void was an expensive activity.

Vice-chief clerk Fan Hyulick only dedicated four hours a day to work and enjoyed his life on board the rest of the time. Thanks to his efficiency, he could properly handle his job. The 91-year-old chief clerk Rodriguez was noisy whenever he was awake but slept through most of the day, so he didn’t pose much of a problem.

In contrast, the 22-year-old Lieutenant Mahdi was a rebellious being who clutched his displeasure and bad temper in both hands and a bottle of alcohol in his mouth.

Having finished his work, Fan Hyulick went to the lounge and called him:

“Hey, black marketeer, still sulking? Why don’t you just reconcile with your destiny already?”

“Stop calling me a black marketeer,” grumbled Mahdi, his voice accompanied by a heavily alcoholic breath.

“It would be fun to light it on fire” was a dangerous thought that Fan Hyulick was often tempted by.

Apparently, Mahdi had a high tolerance for alcohol that was now a disadvantage: no matter how much he drank, intoxication wouldn’t wash reality away. As he heard Mahdi’s lamentations about the burdens of his unhappy fate, he was more worried about the savings he had left behind in Ementhal.

While Fan Hyulick was relieved to have escaped the clutches of that perverted count, he still felt a thorn in his heart. As he shook it off, he offered a piece of advice:

“Once we’re in Bargash, we should go to the bank and empty our accounts. It is useless to worry about stuff now.”

“My bank account was probably frozen a long time ago. I have honestly worked my whole life and finally managed to save enough for a modest retirement, but alas, it has disappeared in the darkness.”

“I’m amazed you can talk about honesty. Doesn’t it make you feel bad for actual honest workers?”

It was Miranda, the captain’s wife as well as the chief navigator, who offered that merciless critique. Taken aback for a moment, Mahdi gave a retaliation fuelled by alcohol:

“Compared to the likes of Tytania, my methods are most modest. I see no reason to retract what I said.”

“But don’t they say that happiness can’t be bought with money?”

“Having money is my happiness! Don’t mess around with people’s values.”

“Well, I’ll just leave it at that. Arguing in a cramped ship is useless.”

Uncharacteristically for him, Fan Hyulick had stepped in as a mediator, but not out of good will or generosity. It was because he felt uncomfortable about the fact that Lieutenant Mahdi’s set of values resonated to some extent with his own.

“Me too, I lost all my possessions in Ementhal. You’re not the only one who’s unhappy, Mahdi.”

“Hey, don’t be overly familiar with me. When unhappy poor people comfort each other, it only makes them look even poorer.”

His argument was so true that neither Miranda nor Fan Hyulick would argue with it, and they gave up on the idea of consoling the young money grabber and sat at a distance from him.

Miranda disappeared briefly in the kitchen, came back with a huge plate of pancakes, and shouted, “Let’s snack.” Every pancake was the size of a child’s cushion. Answering “just a bit”, Fan Hyulick’s mind raced back to Lira. Her omelettes were a masterpiece.

“How stupid of me, she’s someone else’s woman. She’s probably having a good time with that wimpy bastard De Boer right now. She’s none of my business.”

As if she would sense Fan Hyulick’s thoughts, Miranda solemnly served him a pancake with a generous serving of syrup poured over it. That was more than the entire stomach capacity of the young carrot-top.

“If you can’t finish it, just leave it.”

“I’ll do that.”

“But for the youth of the Blaze Flag, it’s barely an hors d’oeuvre.”

“Were you an ally of the Blaze Flag?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Whoever opposes Tytania is ultimately my ally. Mahdi might scoff at this, but there is no shame in the weak joining their hands.”

It was a perfectly reasonable reply. While Fan Hyulick was poking at the giant pancake with his fork, Miranda told him about the recent crushing defeat of the “Blaze Flag” fleet at the hands of Zarlisch Tytania.

“From what I heard, only Lee Shanchen’s fleet is undamaged. That guy is quite clever, which is why he managed to avoid disaster.”

“Is he that clever?”

“He has a PhD in philosophy. We call him Doctor Lee.”

From what Miranda told him, Lee Shanchen was a brilliant student who obtained his bachelor’s degree at the age of 20, and his doctorate in philosophy at 24 from the National University of Bargash. He became an assistant professor at his alma mater but caused some trouble and couldn’t keep his position. While he was travelling on a passenger ship to transfer to a university in Kafir, he was attacked by the “Blaze Flag” fleet and taken prisoner. But the captain happened to be his uncle and, impressed by his nephew’s knowledge and education, offered him a job as a secretary.

It appeared that his uncle had intended to recruit him from the beginning and attacked that ship on purpose. He gradually accustomed himself to his circumstances and, when the captain died, took over his position.

“In that case, wouldn’t the ‘Blaze Flag’ fleet become a much more solid anti-Tytania organisation if they rallied under that Doctor Lee as their commander?”

“That’s the difficult part.”

Miranda put on a serious expression that was somewhat at odds with her cheerful and boisterous face and build.

“The Blaze Flag fleet had a grandiose name, but it is just a motley crew that only groups if they are after a big prey. Truly uniting them is impossible.”

Doctor Lee was intelligent but had a short temper and a bad habit of yelling, “Do what you want, you idiots!” and storming off whenever his strategies and plans weren’t accepted. Truth be told, many painful defeats were suffered from ignoring him, but no one likes to be called an idiot, even if true, so Doctor Lee never managed to become part of the mainstream. He himself was well aware of his shortcomings and would say, “I have talent, but not virtue, and have no intention of being above others.”

In spite of his academic background, Doctor Lee was also skilled in handling weapons. Tytania, ever so greedy for talent, once offered him a high position to recruit him. Doctor Lee declined, which put him in a unique position among ruffians, as it earned him respect while still being shunned.

Captain Casimir’s image appeared on the ship’s communication screen. He and Miranda used sign language and lip-reading. Fan Hyulick had thought that there were limitations to sign language, but it was probably prejudice on his part. The captain and his wife seemed to communicate perfectly well through facial expressions and, above all, some kind of spiritual resonance.

Miranda was 28 years old, the same age as Fan Hyulick. If he were to be honest, he didn’t find her to be a particularly attractive woman, but she seemed trustworthy as a friend. She was also quite capable. She turned towards her host:

“Admiral, something interesting is about to happen.”

Although she called Fan Hyulick “admiral”, it was a title that came from his position as “City Fleet civil commander”, his actual rank being colonel. Of course, rising from sergeant to colonel in a mere three years at the age of 25 was no ordinary feat. In reality, in his home city of Euria, colonels and majors received the same salary as any commissioned officer, which made the transition from colonel to brigadier general extremely easy.

The rank had been originally held by a near-elderly major general, but he had been hospitalised due to a hypertension stroke, and Fan Hyulick was named in his place. It was a battle he was destined to lose from the start. He was but a clown dancing on a stage smeared with blood.

“What is interesting?”

“I heard a rumour that Doctor Lee is on a nearby route. He’s bound for Bargash, so it wouldn’t be odd to run into him.”

Eight hours after that communication, Doctor Lee’s fleet, which comprised 13 vessels of varying sizes, or rather a mix of small- and medium-sized ships, met with the Honest Old Man.

On the communication screen, the man who appeared seemed to be around Fan Hyulick’s age. He had long, straight black hair tied with a white string at the nape of his neck. Both his eyes had a tinge of blue in them. He had a handsome face that could have been described as Tytania-class, but there was a sharp feeling of irony devoid of any naivety in his eyes.

“Doctor Lee, looks like you’re in trouble again, aren’t you?”

“Ms Miranda, is that you? It’s just the usual. This is what always happens when these idiots don’t listen to me. The universe is filled with absurdity and stupidity, and I can’t handle it on my own.”

It was quite the arrogant statement, but for some strange reason, when this man told it, it sounded like a cold and unvarnished truth. For no particular reason, Fan Hyulick felt like scratching his ear as he stood behind Miranda’s massive frame.

II

From the perspective of future cosmic history, this would be the first meeting between two young men who would become the brains behind the anti-Tytania forces. However, no one aboard the Honest Old Man, not even the lip-service fatalist Lieutenant Mahdi, considered this day to be of any particular historical significance.

Doctor Lee came aboard the Honest Old Man in a shuttle accompanied by five men. He wore a beige coat over his silver-white crew suit. He was shorter than Fan Hyulick but still above average height.

When he shook hands with Captain Casimir, his scholar-like expression softened, and it softened yet further to a student-like appearance when he shared a light and friendly embrace with Miranda. But as soon as he sat down at the tea table, he reverted to his scholar-like air, his tone consistently as if he were giving a lecture. After the initial exchange of greetings, Fan Hyulick casually asked, “Do you hate Tytania?” and the answer was:

“Tytania is the strongest force in the universe. So I don’t like it. That’s all there is to it; it’s not Tytania’s fault.”

An unappealing over-logical person, huh? thought Fan Hyulick while sizing his character. Still gauging him, he asked one more question:

“I wonder about that. Do you think that the anti-Tytanian forces could unite to destroy Tytania?”

“That would be difficult,” answered Doctor Lee whithout explaining why, before sipping his herbal tea.

Fan Hyulick also sipped his herbal tea without pressing further. Miranda looked at the two of them as if to ask what they meant, so Fan Hyulick spoke up:

Even if Tytania were to experience internal division and an external force tried to exploit it, it would inevitably unite Tytania against the external force. Provoking it needlessly would only serve to strengthen Tytania’s unity, which would ultimately work to the detriment of the external force. And it would be that external force that would end up breaking, splitting, and being destroyed.

“Is that what you meant, Doctor?”

“More or less, Ms Miranda.”

With a nod, Doctor Lee put back his white cup of herbal tea into its saucer. The way he looked at Fan Hyulick was reminiscent of a teacher examining a poorly performing student, but maybe it was Fan Hyulick who was being bitter about it.

“However, things might change in the future. A few things have recently happened that were unprecedented in history.”

“For example?” asked Miranda, her eyes lighting in curiosity.

“For example, it would have been unthinkable for a fleet commanded by one of Tytania’s Four Dukes to be defeated by a single City Fleet. And the one who accomplished this was this gentleman here.”

The doctor shifted his gaze, making the young carrot-top shrug.

“Am I to take this as a compliment, Doctor?”

“No, it was merely a criticism of Tytania.”

Miranda laughed heartedly, and her husband also smiled. The other two didn’t even crack a smile.

“Let’s think about it more seriously. Earlier, I stated that a period of change might be approaching the history of Tytania and the universe. But my main point is that this change might also be temporary. That’s what I mean.”

The doctor explained the following:

The Battle of Cerberus could have been the trigger of a major upheaval if it had been planned from the beginning as part of a strategy to bring about change. The defeat of Ariabert Tytania was an unprecedented shock in 200 years, and had the Interstellar City League and anti-Tytania nations risen in conjunction with that event, even Tytania would have been obligated to disperse its forces. But that didn’t come to pass. The victory of the Battle of Cerberus was buried as an isolated tactical miracle.

More frighteningly, it was Tytania who incorporated and systematised that miracle as a battle strategy of their own. As long as this difference in mental energy persisted, Tytania’s hegemony would remain unshaken. Tytania had prevented the change from affecting the whole and instead fragmented it and assimilated it themselves.

“Admiral Fan Hyulick is a genius. I’ll recognise that much.”

This assertion left Fan Hyulick confused. Should I simply accept the compliment or retort with some clever sarcasm? he wondered.

“But while geniuses can bring about change, it is upon the anonymous masses to ensure that the change persists. If we cannot form this majority in society, the idea of changing history is just a pie in the sky.”

While not as sarcastic as before, his tone was still undeniably lecture-like. No wonder the members of the “Blaze Flag” fleet were angry at him. They weren’t the kind of bunch that would quietly let themselves be lectured at.

Surprisingly, Miranda happened to be that kind of person and nodded as she intently listened to the lecture.

“Were I Tytania’s Clanner, I would turn over every asteroid in the entire Cosmos to find Admiral Fan Hyulick. I would offer him a position and authority comparable to one of the Four Dukes, and if I had a daughter, I’d marry her off to him.”

“Amazing. Is Fan Hyulick really worth that much?”

Miranda’s eyes literally widened as she looked at the young carrot-top.

“I’ve just found out that myself,” muttered Fan Hyulick without any sarcasm.

Just as he was thinking about thanking Doctor Lee for the compliment, the latter spoke again:

“It’s not that Admiral Fan Hyulick is worth anything himself. What is valuable is the potential for change that he symbolises,” he said as casually as smashing an egg. “Unfortunately, ordinary eyes can’t see that. If the city of Euria had even a shred of historical awareness, they wouldn’t have banished him so willingly.”

“If they had this historical awareness, what would they have done?”

“Kill him,” stated Doctor Lee calmly as Miranda crushed her syrup contained in her hand.

The golden clear liquid formed a sticky puddle on the table, and Captain Casimir shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. Miranda wiped the table in a hurry. Watching that scene unfold in a corner of his eye, Doctor Lee continued his “lecture”:

“It might seem odd, but they would have had to kill him. Euria City is unable to use him, and handing him over to Tytania would be a disaster for Euria City. There is no way he would have any favour for Euria City.”

“Hum, so what about the possibility of Fan becoming the leader of the anti-Tytania movement then, Doctor?”

“It would depend on what Admiral Fan Hyulick thinks about it. So I’d like to ask you, Admiral, do you harbour any anger towards Tytania?”

When asked that question, Fan Hyulick found himself at a loss for words. While he certainly had no affection for Tytania, he wasn’t driven to the point of genuine hatred against it. He wasn’t anti-Tytania, but rather non-Tytania. He found no compelling reason to willingly engage in a conflict with Tytania.

“Where there is no anger, there can be no change. Even if it’s only at an individual level, if there is intense anger or hatred, it can be a catalyst for change. But even that can only occur when the time is ripe.”

Doctor Lee lightly waived his hand. The lecture was apparently over. Miranda stood up with a thud on the floor and invited him to stay for dinner, and the Doctor smiled and thanked her:

“I gladly accept your offer. But alas, whenever I taste Ms Miranda’s cooking, it makes me lose any appetite for my ship’s food for a while, which is a bit of a problem.”

“You’re such a sweet talker. I love you only second to my husband. You should find and marry a good woman like me soon.”

Maybe Miranda was laughing aloud to laugh for her husband, whose vocal cords had been destroyed. Captain Casimir kept smiling gently. Though he had lost his voice, had his life been compensated by this cheerful and boisterous wife? If there were such a thing as equilibrium in life, would Fan Hyulick’s life be in the black or in the red at the moment of his death?

She was undeniably the princess of a nation, small as it may be, while he was but the captain of a modest interstellar cargo ship. One could say that it was Tytania that brought them together. Through an accumulation of countless wills, actions, and coincidences. Even though it swallowed them all, the universe still had space to spare.

Fan Hyulick recalled the dazzling colours and brilliance of the starbow he saw as a boy from the rear window of a passenger ship. He had then resolved to sail a ship by himself to navigate the sea of stars, and twenty years have passed since then. Suddenly, Fan Hyulick sighed. Surely, he couldn’t be so old that he’d let himself drift along with the crowd?

III

20th of July. Fan Hyulick and his companions landed on the surface of planet Bargash.

Even back when he was a respectable merchant sailor, Fan Hyulick had never set foot on a planet. That was why he was feeling childlike curiosity about this unfamiliar land. But from the beginning, had he not stopped by Ementhal, he might have already been breathing this planet’s atmosphere.

Although this planet’s colonisation started five centuries ago, it still had a strong feeling of a newly opened land. Calling it the “capital of the star frontier” would be an overstatement, but it was still a place rough and yet brimming with vitality, a maelstrom where investment and speculation, adventure and exploration, success and failure, triumph and ruin, hope and despair, all swirled together.

This planet was Doctor Lee’s birthplace.

“I have a house. I don’t have any family in it.”

Doctor Lee somewhat worded it in a strange way, but he probably meant that while the house belonged to him, its occupants didn’t. Fan Hyulick guessed that maybe his house where he was born and raised had passed into someone else’s hands. Or maybe the circumstances were slightly different, but it wasn’t worth prying into them.

Procedures at the spaceport were quite formal and superficial. With a crew card for the Honest Old Man and a 100 dakar bill, Fan Hyulick was easily granted free entry. Half of the 100 dakar would be returned upon departure. It was apparently a guarantee against causing trouble, but it probably allowed some small official to make some extra cash.

However, Fan Hyulick’s movements weren’t that free. First, Tytania’s influence, or rather its fingertips, naturally extended to planet Bargash. Second, he had left behind on planet Ementhal what could have granted him material freedom. Miranda had given him 1,000 dakar as an advance on his salary, but if he spent it on alcohol and women to accompany his bed, it would be gone in three days. At the basis of Fan Hyulick’s mind was a faint, undercover bourgeois mentality that he should “use it wisely”, prickling at the collar of his desires.

But since Ementhal, he had lived a life bereft of women’s company, and he hadn’t had that kind of experience since his days in Tytania’s prison camp.

“Bah, money is meant to be spent; I’ll leave saving it to the miserly Mahdi.”

As he muttered that to himself, he headed towards the Latour district, famous for being an entertainment district.

While it was certainly crude and uncouth by Ementhal’s standards, Latour was supposed to be the most refined entertainment district in Bargash. Women, alcohol, gambling, drugs, and various street performers. Whatever human primal desires existed were unleashed together within the densely packed houses over a three-kilometre radius. It was said that some people would never leave, but that was hardly a problem. Someone who would enter such a place of his free will to seek pleasure should not expect absolute safety.

But the self-governing body of Latour understood well that customer safety was essential for their prosperity, and the actual crime rate in Latour was very low. Being stripped of one’s possessions was a matter of an individual’s lack of self-control and wasn’t considered a crime.

Having passed the gates of the Latour district and standing in the corner of a square, the young carrot-top was pondering which direction he should take. Suddenly, Fan Hyulick was grabbed by his right elbow, and his body and mind immediately tensed. “A Tytanian agent?” he wondered, which wouldn’t be impossible here. When he heard a voice calling out, “Admiral Fan Hyulick!” he turned his tall frame and swiftly and firmly thrust his free left hand out.

Had his opponent been of the same height as him, he would have been knocked back by a blow to the jaw. However, his attack was repelled by a bundle of thick muscles. A young and boyish giant looked at him with surprise. For a moment, as if to jog his memories, another man shouted:

“Admiral, that’s not how you’re supposed to greet someone upon reuniting, right?”

“What are you two doing here!?”

Fan Hyulick was unable to resist asking this very unoriginal question. The two men in front of him had been his staff officers back when he was part of the Euria City Fleet.

They were Lieutenant Mikhail Walenkov, who had been his aide-de-camp and bodyguard, and Lieutenant Louis Edmond Pagès, his intelligence officer. Walenkov was almost two metres tall, weighed 0.1 ton, and was like a kind teddy bear. Pagès was of medium height and agile, giving the impression of a cunning fox. The former was 27 years old. The latter, 26. They were almost friends with Fan Hyulick.

This is what they told him: After their unexpected victory at Cerberus, they returned home in triumph, drank heavily, and indulged in boisterous revelry. Then the next morning, as they were clutching their heads with a hangover, they got out of bed to watch the morning news, only to learn that Fan Hyulick, the hero of the Battle of Cerberus, was on the run.

“But we couldn’t believe it. Admiral Fan Hyulick, on the run? Was there any reason to be on the run to begin with?”

“Pagès is right. All we could conclude was that you hadn’t escaped but been forced to leave. A house arrest was immediately issued, and we ended up locked in our quarters.”

“What followed is a heartbreaking story that is heartbreaking to recount…”

After carefully crafting this sentence, Lieutenant Louis Edmond Pagès began to tell the subsequent events with remarkable ease. He gathered information, analysed it, selected what was useful, and submitted it to his commander. He was an exceptional intelligence officer, and it was said that he knew the contents of the love letters of the mayor to his mistress and even the size of the underwear of the city council’s chairman’s second daughter. Maybe he had the instincts of a journalist within him.

While he spoke, Walenkov, on the other hand, said very little, only nodding and making brief corrections when asked for confirmation. They had different personalities.

While the victors were confined to their quarters and forced to live on bread, water and sausages made from scraps of meat three times a day, the Tytanian fleet came into the port of Euria. There had apparently been a treaty of friendship and peace signed between Tytania and Euria. In itself, it was a very good thing. But they couldn’t understand why they were being confined to their quarters.

What the young officers could understand were the unbearable scenes of the celebratory party shown on TV, with foie gras, roast beef, and lobster, filling the screen with vibrant colours. Historically, resentment over food had always been the shortest path to revolution.

Right as they were about to explode with discontent, more oil was poured on the fire. Sixty officers who had participated in the Battle of Cerberus were declared to be war criminals and to be sent to a Tytanian prison camp. Pagès and Walenkov were among these sixty officers. At that point, the situation was quite clear. To sum it up, Fan Hyulick and his men had become the victims of their mother city’s diplomatic strategy. So there was no guarantee they’d ever come back alive from that Tytanian prison camp. Since they wouldn’t come back alive, they planned an escape.

Walenkov often sneaked into the food storage to distribute food for his comrades. In spite of his massive frame, he was agile and had a talent for thievery. One night, he stole a bag of flour from the storage, scattered it through a ventilation shaft, and threw in a makeshift match. It provoked a dust explosion that engulfed the barracks in flames and black smoke. Once their escape was successful, and their companions scattered, Walenkov and Pagès hid in an ore transportation ship and fled their mother city. With a thought process that was similar to that of Fan Hyulick’s, they headed for planet Bargash.

In the end, they managed to arrive on Bargash before him. Though Bargash was a vast planet, they didn’t go wandering around aimlessly and settled instead in a cheap inn in the Latour district. They believed in the fact that their commander would arrive here eventually. They carried on a penniless existence until they finally had an emotional reunion with their former commander.

“I see. Looks like I caused you a lot of trouble. I’m sorry.”

Fan Hyulick was nodding with a thoughtful expression, his arms crossed, but he inwardly felt the urge to click his tongue. Why did these guys spend their time hanging around the entertainment district rather than universities or libraries? Anyway, their judgement was certainly correct, and it was all fine and dandy that he would reunite with his comrades, but something didn’t quite sit right with him. If it were Doctor Lee’s men, they wouldn’t have come to a place like that to search for him. Maybe he was feeling jealous about that?

“So, what are you going to do now?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Walenkov and Pagès had no choice but to accompany Fan Hyulick. He couldn’t abandon them. All he could do was to ask the princess if they could come aboard the Honest Old Man.

“But we won’t head immediately for the ship. I came all the way to the Latour district. It would be an insult to this town’s history to back out now.”

“Well then, leave it to us. We can introduce you to cheap restaurants with good service.”

Pagès snapped his fingers and winked. He had become one of the most informed people about the Latour district in a very short period of time. Fan Hyulick shrugged and began to walk with his two former staff officers.

IV

Feeling refreshed after accomplishing his objectives, Fan Hyulick returned to the spaceship some twelve hours later. He and his former staff officers were in a pretty good mood, having refreshed their minds and bodies to their satisfaction in exchange for about 1,000 dakars.

Once they saw the egg-shaped hull of the Honest Old Man, the two former staff officers whispered with unease, “That thing depreciated a long time ago,” but Fan Hyulick urged them inside cheerfully. Once he entered the room that served as a lounge, dining room, and conference room, they saw the faces of his comrades, and his vision suddenly went dark.

“I heard that Lira is dead.”

It took more than ten seconds for Miranda’s words to register in Fan Hyulick’s mind. The young carrot-top finally became conscious of his own mouth, uttering the words:

“What happened to Lira?”

It was a question devoid of any intellect or reason. Miranda’s thick hands gripped Fan Hyulick by the shoulders, and he slumped into a chair.

Devoid of her cheerfulness and boldness, the Princess of Casabianca looked at the young carrot-top, hesitated, looked up to the sky, and, after making up her mind, repeated:

“I heard that Lira is dead. I got this information through two sources, one being Doctor Lee’s subordinates and the other our own group.”

Another silence fell until it was broken by Fan Hyulick’s voice:

“Was it that perverted count? I doubt that she died from a sickness or an accident. She was radiant with vitality. It has to be that count’s doing!”

“Yes, you are correct. Lira was… Count Arses did something terrible to her.”

The moment the woman said “something terrible”, the situation was clear. Fan Hyulick groaned in anger and confusion.

“But isn’t that pervert count supposed to be gay? What, so he’s bisexual after all?”

“The count is gay, but his subordinates aren’t. He ordered Lira to sleep with them in exchange for sparing his man. More than thirty in one night.”

Miranda’s voice was trembling with anger and disgust. Captain Casimir, beside his wife whose large frame was shaking, remained silently sombre. The one who broke the silence was Lieutenant Mahdi, a black marketeer at heart who was part of Tytania’s Ementhal forces.

“Count Arses uses that tactic from time to time. Since he is unable to defile women in person, he uses his subordinates to do so.”

He spat it out with a hatred that ran deeper than his aversion to poverty, which was extremely unusual for that man. Unable to say a word, Fan Hyulick turned his gaze to Miranda. The princess seemed to be devastated.

“We were too naive. We thought that Count Arses would give up on us once we escaped and quickly return to his dissolute life.”

Combining information from two sources, it appeared that Count Arses Tytania had sent his men to capture Lira and her grandmother and, through her grandmother’s confession, also captured De Boer. As her grandmother was making a scandal about not being paid the reward money she was promised, she was slapped by a soldier and died from the shock. It appeared her body was more fragile than her spirit.

The one who was mentally frail was De Boer. When asked about the whereabouts of the Honest Old Man, he answered that he didn’t know. He really didn’t know. With a sneer, Count Arses ordered De Boer to be tortured. Being forced to wear headphones, after some 40 hours of sleep deprivation, De Boer “confessed”. His “confession” was that Lira knew everything.

Count Arses Tytania began interrogating Lira and flew in rage when she called him a “pervert”. Since he was unable to rape Lira himself, he gathered his most brutal soldiers, and, with an eerie grin, declared to Lira: “Well then, if you are still alive after sleeping with 30 of my men, I shall let you and your lover go.”

“Very well,” replied Lira. She knew De Boer had yielded and was already prepared for that. “What a fine resolve,” sneered the count once more, although he meant something quite different by “resolve”. By their side was a huge tank of predatory fish. Lira erased every expression as she began to undress. She took off her jacket and her shirt. She flung her skirt in the air, and as the soldiers’ gazes shifted for a second… a shriek echoed. Lira had lunged at the count, and they had both fallen in the tank.

“… From what I heard, the count survived, but Lira didn’t make it. And apparently, the count has gone half mad from having his pets devouring his face.”

After Miranda finished speaking, there was a silence of several seconds until Fan Hyulick let out a pained sigh.

“That girl was a good girl. The best girl in Ementhal. At the very least, she didn’t deserve to die like that.”

No one replied. Obviously, Fan Hyulick wasn’t expecting an answer. He ran his hands through his carrot-coloured hair, stopped, and fell deep in thought while his posture was that of a cheap statue.

When he finally looked up, there was an expression on his face that his acquaintances had never seen before. Though he would have hated to admit it, Mahdi couldn’t help but tremble at the sight of it.

“I’ll avenge Lira. I don’t care if De Boer ends up as food for carnivorous fish, but I will avenge Lira. I’ll strangle that perverted Arses Tytania with my very hands.”

His declaration was quiet. His tone was almost flat, as if reading something someone else had written, and that was precisely what showed Fan Hyulick’s resolve. Doctor Lee, who had been perfectly still like a painting until now, moved for the first time.

“You are facing a Tytanian. He might be considered an outcast within the Tytania clan, but he is a Tytania nevertheless. Are you ready to become an enemy of Tytania in order to get your revenge?”

“Whether it is Tytania or Zeus, I don’t care!”

Who was Zeus exactly? He didn’t really know, though he remembered hearing the name – probably some politician or a space pirate. In any case, Fan Hyulick was only interested in Tytania. He glared at everyone in the room, his carrot-coloured hair dishevelled, and walked off to his quarters with heavy footsteps.

Walenkov and Pagès exchanged glances and cautiously followed their former commander. Lieutenant Mahdi clicked his tongue and slumped in his chair.

“He’s going to get revenge on Tytania for a woman he never even slept with? He’s completely unhinged.”

“That’s not for us to judge.”

Doctor Lee pinched his chin with one hand as he fell deep in thought. His expression was ambiguous, making it difficult for others to guess what he was pondering. Maybe he was contemplating his own past and future.

After a while, some expression returned to his eyes. He glanced around at the men and women around him and took an academic tone.

“Tytania’s fleet is 100,000 vessels strong. To defeat it, we would need to gather almost the same amount of forces and establish a complete command structure. Well then, how many years will that take?”

Once he was done talking, Doctor Lee quietly rose to his feet, contacted his meagre fleet, and ordered them to set off for planet Ementhal.