Character
Arsenio Tagge sat at the corner of the bar, his back to the viewport that framed the burning horizon of Yag'Dhul. The station lights pulsed faintly, dim and uneven, like a dying heartbeat. He watched the cards flicker across the table through eyes that weren't truly his. Two small optic drones hovered near his shoulders, feeding him a perfect image of every gesture, every twitch, every lie from his opponents. He had the advantage, but he wasn't playing to win. The game was called Coreline Crush or something equally forgettable. He'd lost a few million credits already and didn't care to count the rest. Credits meant little when the galaxy had stopped pretending to be civilized.
He sipped something bitter and golden. The bartender had called it "imported Core whiskey," but Tagge doubted anything from the Core still flowed this far out. He thought about Tepasi, about the House, about the half-burned estates that once bore his family crest. The Tagge name still carried weight among those who needed it to, but to everyone else, it was another ghost from another fallen empire. He told himself that a true Tagge built again, always. He had the ships, the people, and the will. What he didn't have was a world left to rule.
Outside, his fleet orbited in a slow, protective pattern. Some were House Tagge security ships. Others still bore the fading insignia of the Galactic Alliance Defense Fleet, though their crews no longer swore allegiance to anyone but survival. He had Tepasi refugees aboard the transports, men and women who once toasted him at fundraisers now sleeping on bulkheads. The entire thing felt grotesque, a parody of nobility drifting through a graveyard. And still, he planned. Every great house that had ever fallen had one scion who refused to stay buried. He told himself he was that scion.
A group of Givin engineers laughed from the far side of the room, their mechanical cackles cutting through the hum of the bar. It reminded him of the Senate nights before the defeat, before everything folded in on itself. Back then, he had been a frontrunner for Chancellor, one of the last serious contenders before the firestorm. He remembered the endless briefings, the quiet confidence that the Alliance would hold. How foolish that felt now. Even the word Alliance had begun to taste wrong in his mouth.
He looked at the table again. The dealer's hands flicked, the cards sliding clean across the polished durasteel. His drones adjusted slightly, lenses narrowing, refocusing. It wasn't that he couldn't win. He could. But winning a card game on Yag'Dhul meant nothing. Rebuilding meant something. Enduring meant everything. There was a mountain to climb yet, and he had no intention of dying in the valley.
The dealer waited. The others at the table looked at him, impatient, unaware that their opponent was already seeing every path, every probability, every angle through his machines. He stared at the flickering holographic card waiting before him, then finally spoke. The words felt strange in his mouth, like a relic of a language he no longer believed in.
"Hit me."