Chapter 64: Memories of Toscana | Rouen, the Wave of Pyres: Ripples of Determination
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This can’t be happening. I don’t want to believe that the unthinkable happened. Captain Emmanuel and his men have endured so much suffering and went to great lengths to preserve their lives. And yet, in the brief moment they get to lower their guard they are taken out in such a distasteful manner. This is malevolence at its finest; cruelty that causes me great pain. Yet again blood has been pointlessly spilled—a death of many that could’ve been averted if I had taken more precautions. And yet, all the same, I am powerless to do anything.

Down below, the bridge is in an uproar. They shout at one another, run around in a panic trying to make sense of the situation. Some look up at me for answers, and everyone tries to make sense of what the next course of action will be. Next to me, Brutus tries to calm me down—a gentle rub on the shoulder. Words of reassurance that don’t reach me. Leave me alone, I want to say to Brutus, figure it out among yourselves what to do next. But I can’t bring myself to speak.

From below, an exclamation to the rest of the bridge that I happen to selectively hear stirs me from the dreadful spell cast over me. “We’ve managed to establish communications with the Kafraiya!”

“Could it be?” I whisper wryly “could captain Emmanuel be alive?” Brutus takes a step back and bellows to the radio handler to display the video transmission if possible. Slowly, I raise my head, and my eyes are drawn to a murky transmission of a lone man, the backdrop lit as amber. From the portrait view, he looks rather uninjured but does seem to clench his stomach just off-screen.

“The Kafraiya?! ” Brutus shouts in my stead “what’s the status on the damage?” Brutus glances over at me before banging a fist on the dark-gray railing “is captain Emmanuel in critical condition?! Speak!” The young man, with a gravely pained face, shuts his eyes. He clears his throat and averts his eyes off-screen. Just barely visible behind him are stretchers racing around him. But there is no sign of the gray eminent captain.

“Captain Emmanuel…” the young sailor states somberly “…was directly hit by shrapnel to the abdomen… and died from severe blood loss,” he lowers his head briefly and covers his face “it all happened so fast—he never even got a chance to react. Just before he died, Madame Li, he wished for you to give the Federation hell for what they have done…” the man lowers his head again. Just off-screen, a hand is placed on his shoulder and says something that I cannot make out, as the connection proves to be unstable. The adjacent person disappears, and the man looks upon me with gleaming eyes. “We’re trying to evacuate the ship as fast we can—the engines might go out any minute now… but we still want to fight!”

Brutus glances over at me, and then back at the screen “don’t be ridiculous! You all need to get to safety. It’s what captain Emmanuel would have wanted!”

“We don’t want to let Emmanuel’s death be in vain! We could never live with ourselves if we didn’t pay back the Feddie dogs tenfold!…”

“Enough!” Brutus retorts, slamming his bruised fist on the railing “I’ll quickly send shuttles and send you lots to the nearest Side! Your battle here is over…”

“It is his decision on what he wants to do,” I whisper under my breath. Brutus nods but turns to face me with perplex upon realizing what I said “if he wants to avenge his captain, then he has all rights to. If it were me that was struck down, would you or the men want to do the same?”

“Li…” Brutus mutters. I rub my facial scar and meet eyes with the youthful sailor on screen.

“What is your name, young man?” I ask the fellow, who is taken back by the question.

“Dontae, it’s Dontae Kleyman” Dontae responds. I give a nod and close my eyes.

“Dontae…” I utter under my breath and open my eyes “Dontae, if there is no one else capable of taking over Emmanuel, I hereby place you in command of the Kafraiya’s crew,” both men stare at me with widened eyes “if you wish to continue fighting, then quickly join another ship and finish the fight—for his sake and all of ours. If there are men who wish to honor the captain’s memory in peace, then let them go where their hearts desire.”

Just as Dontae nods, another video display opens—the white-haired Richter. “Acting captain Dontae,” the man says with a warm smile “I have heard everything… it is most tragic that Emmanuel suffered such a terrible demise,” Richter remarks with a pained face “I have known him for as long as I could remember. I would be more than welcoming of his men aboard my ship, and I am sure he would be grateful of this gesture as well,” Richter finishes as he looks off to the side at Dontae.

“Thank you, Richter, and Madame Li… for this opportunity,” Dontae says somberly. With a grunt, the man gives us a brief salute and then signs off.

Richter then turns his attention to me “now then… what should be our next course of action, Madame?”

I turn my back to the railing and ponderously pinch the blemished part of my nose bridge. What shall we do, indeed? Looking at the map, adjacent to Richter’s video feed, the battle in the northern zone is as static as ever. As much as I desire rushing to execute the flanking maneuver, the loss of Emmanuel and the Kafraiya throws a wrench into my plans. It still feels like though I have unfinished—but brief—business here, so I should wrap things up here more thoroughly and hold off on the north for now. Who knows if more stragglers are biding their time? For all I know, perhaps that stray missile was intended for me. Where there is one, there may be more lurking to leave their mark on history.

I turn back to face the stoic Richter. “Send a message to all the ships to search the Federation wreckages for any enemy survivors…” I trail off and look to Brutus who gives me a nod “I want to make them pay for Emmanuel; there shall be no quarters. In the meantime, I want all the lieutenants gathered to discuss my plans for the battle… Richter?” The man slightly frowns and strokes his chin.

“Given what has occurred with Emmanuel, I believe it might pose a risk if more surviving Federation ships make attempts at sinking the Castelforte”Richter inquires “would it not be beneficial for us to remain on our ships and communicate on secured lines?” My eyes drift to the Castelforte’s windows. If I look closely enough I can make out the Kafraiya’s chassis as it drifts by the wayside of passing asteroids. Even now a steady convoy of shuttles are doing their part to retrieve its crew—and hopefully, the remains of Emmanuel.

“Richter, given that you were close with Emmanuel, do you believe he would wish to be buried in Lübeck, or perhaps laid to rest with his ship?” I ask looking back at Richter, a glimpse of surprise at the sudden off-topic question.

“Emmanuel loved his ship more than anything—” a scoff “even more than his crew. Unlike Jung, he never had much care in the world for Toscana, for women, or anywhere else for that matter. He felt right at home in theKafraiya —it was a part of him. I believe a ship pyre is what he would’ve wanted. Given that the engines will blow any moment, I think he could not have asked for a better sendoff.”

I give a slight smirk. “If it’s not too late, please contact Dontae and let him know to leave the late captain’s remains behind. Now then, getting back on hand, you make a valid point about having us congregate on theCastelforte —though, I believe that a stray Metropol ship would still detect signals coming from each ship and make an attempt in either case. Regardless, we would be wasting valuable time with shuttle travels, so a meeting through transmissions would be beneficial. Just as a precautionary measure, I will have the Castelforte put up a jamming signal so that our plan isn’t decrypted and relayed to the Metropol fleet in the north.”

“Understood,” Richter replies with a nod of approval “I will sign off for now and do my part of combing the wreckages for any Federation survivors, until then…” Richter pats his chest with a fist and ends the transmission. Brutus and I then walk down the flight of stairs to the lower level of the bridge, where I can reliably relay orders to the operators on the search and destroy task.

“Aren’t you being too cautious of rooting out Federation stragglers?” Brutus asks crossing his arms “I see where Richter is getting at—if there are ships around the Feds could no doubt detect either ship and attempt to take one out—or both,” he shrugs his shoulders “you say gathering everyone here is time wasted—but isn’t the combing a little needless too?” While Brutus rags on, we are walking around as I give orders to all the bridge technicians handling the jammer and communication consoles.

“Brutus,” I say warmly “I have to say for an oversized oaf you are quite an insightful complainer,” I glance out of the corner of my eye at the ape scoffing with bafflement “as the saying goes…” I tap my bottom lip and scrunch my eyebrows “it is better to be safe than sorry, am I wrong? Just as I told Richter, if there were any daring Metropol officers still lurking about, they would have tried their attempt at making history again.” I stop and turn to face the trailing Brutus, who similarly halts in place so as to avoid crashing into me. Brutus sags his shoulders and resigns with a sigh of defeat.


It doesn’t feel like long when the reports begin flowing in; there is nothing to indicate any further presence of Federation stragglers. So what we encountered is merely a sole survivor who lucked out—and what poor fortune that proved to be for us. With that said, I feel relief brush away all the weight on my shoulders. As I look upon the Kafraiya, I can only feel regret for not being more thorough in the initial destruction of the Federation detachment. The naivety of thinking that my foe is under-trained and under-prepared. In a twisted tactical sense, it is beneficial for me that the Federation ship commander chose to boldly risk the lives of his men for one last death throw, rather than quietly slip to warn the armada of the loss of the southern battlefield.

If it was Miss Happ-Schwarzenberger in command, would she have attempted the same thing? Or would the young blonde bide her time, decode our transmissions and warn the fleet of the impending danger awaiting them?

Hold on; even if we didn’t detect any stragglers now, is it possible remnant ships took advantage of the chaos and slipped away to warn the Metropol host of our victory here? It could be likely, but by now my men would’ve noticed any ship moving rapidly away from here…

As I thoroughly massage my disfigured cheek, I suddenly find myself alarmingly jolting when a burly hand is placed on my shoulder. Before I know it, I am one technique away from throwing this intruder over me—but upon seeing it’s an embarrassed Brutus, my strength dissipates and I relax wholeheartedly. I loudly clear my throat, “Brutus, you should know better than to—”

“Er, sorry, Li,” Brutus mutters awkwardly as he retracts his hand and rubs the back of his neck “I just wanted to inform you that the lieutenants are now all on screen.”

“I see…” I walk past Brutus towards the front of the bridge but decidedly stop. “That aside, Brutus. There hasn’t been any indication of strange movements heading away from the south space zone, has there?” Brutus ponders the question for a moment before shaking his head. I imagine with the meteor shower ongoing it might be hard to detect anything, so perhaps my worry is unfounded?

Making my way to the frontal part of the bridge, I see that most of the monitor is taken up by the strategic map, and most sub-screens on either side are saturated with the various lieutenants: Olga, Richter, Darcy, and Sergi.

In a way, it feels disheartening not to see Emmanuel among them. Perhaps even so, if the man was still with us there wouldn’t be a need for this meeting in the first place. In which case the fleet could easily march north without needing to squander time. I hate the situation we are in, but it is my fault alone for not exercising more caution sooner.

“As all of you may now know,” I state warmly “the passing of the Kafraiya  Captain has thrown my plans into disarray,” I pause to give a moment for the lieutenants to some room to take in Emmanuel’s fate. Richter in particular looks strained. “The initial plan would have been to maintain cohesion of the phantom fleet as I flank into the rear of the Metropol armada. In the meantime, I would have deployed the Kafraiya’s squadron to help replenish Jung Lee’s fleet. In this way, I could bring all our forces to bear where they’re needed.

“Unfortunately, I do not have any ship captains among the Kafraiya fleet to lead them as skillfully as he could. Thus, I am pained to decide between seeing who among you can go in his stead,” after wrapping up my speech, I sigh heavily and glance over at Brutus. It would be better if I could avoid all of this together and dispatch him to lead the Kafraiya detachment—but it strikes me as believing I haven’t given him command of any ship and thus has no experience himself.

I rub my scarred cheek in disbelief. To have a small pool of capable lieutenants seemingly dwindle by the day is frustrating. I’m lucky enough that I still have Richter and Jung Lee. If only my father permitted Simon to come along then I wouldn’t have to stress over this predicament so much. And as for Che…

Several open their mouths to speak, but it’s the blonde that gets the first say in the ordeal. “I’ll lead the formation to master Jung, it’ll be the firepower they’ll need to hold the line,” as Olga speaks it’s evident to all of us that something resembling battle-lines shift in the Federation’s favor. Just as I have expected, they have shifted their weight downward in tandem with the meteor stream, thereby increasing the width of the lines.

Olga glances over her shoulder to utter something off-screen. What follows is a slight change in the strategic map as it adjusts from real-time to a simulation of Olga’s plan. “I expect the Federation will want to unite with their southern front and envelop Jung. If I go with the Taiga they might be caught off-guard, and I might be lucky at getting a shot at the Federation command ship. And if I can’t accomplish that, then I can disrupt communications with signal jamming.”

It’s a sound reason. It’s firepower that Jung will desperately need and it will isolate elements of the fleet from others with the Taiga’s encoding. But the main issue I see with Olga going with a fleet that has non-Federate identification codes means her luck will run dry this time. The Taiga, I think, works best when it is with my phantom fleet. Olga would just needlessly be exposing her and her crew when the Federation realize that one of their own is leading a pirate fleet. Who knows? They might just try and concentrate all their local firepower on it.

With a wincing frown, I cross my arms ponderously. There is one way Olga could pull it off, though—and that’s perhaps making a plan for theKafraiya fleet to fire on the ‘retreating’ battleship as it frantically rushes to‘friendly’ line, From there, Olga can blend in and metaphorically backstab them—they would be none the wiser. I imagine there might be some old Federation uniforms on-board that she can take advantage of in case she has to initiate video feeds with them and make the ploy more convincing.

Just as I begin to imagine the lanky blonde in military uniform, the voice of Richter brings me back to focus. “For the record, I have no qualms with this plan—I’m sure Jung needs the firepower as much as we do, as evident by the slow decrease in his ship numbers…” Richter clears his throat and looks me in the eyes “but just this once, Madame Li, I wish to honor Emmanuel’s memory and head off to support Jung. I feel it is the only way for me to give a parting gift to an old friend of mine—to someone I didn’t get the chance to speak to for one last time.

“His death is in my hands—the responsibility lies with me as most outlying ships are under my command… ships that should’ve easily rooted them out beforehand” Richter closes his eyes and sighs “I will retain a portion of the ships under my command to supplement the Kafraiya numbers—to make up for the losses that Jung has seemingly occurred.

“With that said, the Taiga would be best suited for sailing with the phantom fleet—depending on how you handle things, Madame, I think you could find and locate the supply ships that the Federation has been holding back during this battle,” my eyes dart around the edge of the strategic map, But it’s difficult pinpointing if any given formation are supply ships or not. It could be they are further back in the corridor. In the meantime, the others remain silent as they take in Richter’s suggestion. When I look over at Olga, our eyes meet briefly. She silently nods in acknowledgment of Richter’s plan.

I want to tell myself this is how it should be. I suppose it’s no secret that Olga means more to me than anything else. And if something were to happen to her, I have not the slightest doubt that I will be greatly disturbed and unable to lead our defense in earnest. In a way, this is a compromise that satisfies everyone. Richter gets to achieve what he believes is retribution—or perhaps atoning himself for his anguish—and my integrity of a phantom fleet will remain mostly intact.

But emotional judgment aside, this may not be the most sound plan because there’s always the risk that the Metropolitan fleet will shift its weight again and threaten Richter’s formation—and if I lose another talented officer then this battle will truly be lost.

Perhaps it would be best for Sergi to go as well? Just as a precaution, as a just in case if Richter falls in battle. The gruff-looking man has not uttered a word so far and has mostly taken a backseat in the meeting. He seems to be more closely observing the strategic map if anything.

When I look over at Darcy, I see someone who’s more than capable of standing on her own—but if Richter goes down, she still lacks the talent compared to the core lieutenants. Her miracle at Baltit was impressive, but there will be no miraculous silver linings here. Compared to my brother, though, she has a bright spot as a lieutenant if she survives this.

No, she will survive this. All of us will. That includes Jung Lee and Jean too.

“Madame! If It’s not too much to ask… I think it will be beneficial if I go along with Richter,” the red-haired Darcy beams “most of my fleet has transponders—if I remained with your fleet, it’d ruin the element of surprise. I’d hate to bear the blame for the fall of the Mafia here.”

“It didn’t cross my mind,” I remark offhandedly to Brutus standing next to me “but Che isn’t entirely useless when he has lieutenants with heads on their shoulders,” with a pinch of my scarred nose bridge I continue “when this is all over, I will have to scout out the lieutenants that served under him—and her, too, I suppose. Though I do hope that after this battle there will be no need for bloodshed…

“That aside, Darcy; I think I will leave the dummy fleet in your hands: I believe they have mostly served their purpose, but I have faith you can still find a use for them. The Federation may fail to realize at first I am in control of a phantom fleet—or that I have returned—so there is certainly an opportunity to throw the Metropol armada into disarray.”

“I understand, Madame, I will do what I can to drive the Federation scum out,” Darcy says resolutely.

“That said,” I declare “this will not be a battle like none other. This is not a battle of annihilation or even dividing or conquering—much like we have done at Side Baltit and every battle like Abassi. No matter how many formations we destroy—no matter how many times we cut through a force, there will always be more. We will lose with that mindset in mind,” I shake my head with a regretful sigh “there are more Metropol ships than there are men and munitions in our fleet: by no means least we capture or destroy the  Trinidad will the Federation withdrawal,” as I finish the lieutenants nod one after the other in grim acknowledgment.

As much as I desire having no one else die needlessly, I have to accept that this feat won’t be accomplished without enduring the losses of hundreds, rather that be lowly crew or the captains leading them. And even then, will it be worth the colossal losses if the Federation will merely return to strike another day?

With a wincing but warm smile, I speak again “after this, much like at Side Baltit it will be exceedingly difficult to communicate with everyone other than Olga and Sergi—” I gaze over Olga before darting back to the rest “it could very well be the last time some of us may speak to one another,” enduring the increasing pain I try to smile more glowingly “but I hope that will not be the case. I expect a lot out of everyone—and surviving is our top priority.”

I conclude with a casual ceremonial chest salute, and the others return the gesture.

“I believe that just about settles this meeting…” I pause before glancing out the bridge at the Kafraiya. The flow of shuttles has more or less ceased now; the last few shuttle speed away from it as if in a hurry. I turn to face Brutus, who has been following my gaze.

“If I had to guess,” Brutus surmises “the Kafraiya’s time is at an end?” He inquires as he glances at me. I ponder the thought before cutting a sigh.

This is our one and only chance at giving Emmanuel a proper sendoff. I wish it could be done under better circumstances—but we will have to bear with it for the occasion. Perhaps when this is all done and over with, I will oversee a land burial for him and the countless others once I return to SideBrunsbüttel.

Brutus gestures for someone to hand him a radio receiver, and after a little bit of scurrying from an adjutant he hands it over to me. “This is theMadame Scarface of the Castelforte —I want all crew members to spare a moment of silence for those that stood fervently against all odds—including Captain Emmanuel of the Kafraiya,” I pause for a moment to let the message sink in before clearing my throat “if you can, I wish for all of you to salute and pay respects to the Kafraiya as it detonates—the least we can do before heading into the fray once more. Leave no regrets, and vent your anger out on the Federation armada.”

With that said, I hand the receiver back to Brutus and walk towards the windows. For what seems like several moments, there is nothing. With bated breath, I wait for a detonation that may never even come. I release with a sigh, and just as I turn to inform Brutus we are to give a salute and begin the march north, the bridge is illuminated with an orangish-red glow. Almost instinctively, all the bridge crew somberly slam a fist to their chest.

I quickly reel around and find not the Kafraiya —but the spectacle of a sphere’s blinding destruction. An explosion whose disruptive shock-waves subtly shake the Castelforte. But there is something oddly beautiful about it. For it is not one brought about by anger—but which means one whose captain can finally rest in peace. In my eyes, the fact that I do not need to tell any of the men to salute says much for itself.

With a profound salute, I give my final regards to the Kafraiya —to the men and women who have done all they can to stall time for my arrival given the odds and the cruelness that speared them. From now on, no more suffering will end in vain. No more will I tolerate senseless sacrifices; no more will men cling to false hope.

Whatever it takes, I will seek victory, no matter the cost. I will carve a river of blood to justify the ends to this nonsense of a conflict. The Federation can send as much as they will; I will send as many back in kind.

I reel around to face the Castelforte crew; my arms outstretched.

“To all ships: the time has come! We sally forth to the north and relieve Jung Lee!” I yell with a clenched, to louder roars of excitement.

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