Frost coats my body
A final suit of armor
Cloaked in silver

—Japanese Death Poem, AOEE (Ancient Old Earth Empire)

It had been good to be the king, King Duncan Valori laughed sardonically at himself; one hand held a stolen fusion-sword, the other kept his belly-wound closed lest his steaming intestines spill upon the frozen waste. Any other day, perhaps. The King tried to stay still and quiet, but he feared his heavy breathing would give him away, either by its sound, or the plumes of white he was spewing forth against the crystal blue sky. A sudden flurry of wind-driven snowflakes removed at least that threat, but caused him to shiver even more.

The crunching of boots on frozen snow caused the king to crouch in the shadow of a chunk of fallen hull; more pirates were coming.

Then a static-laden, pitch-shifted voice split the freezing air, “Kyokuchô Malicious, the liner did manage to send a distress call into Pin-space, before crashing.”

“Pocmahoan!” Malicious exploded in Celtic. “How long do we have?”

Kyokuchô? King Duncan thought, that’s a title I haven’t heard since..what was it? Yes, the chief of the Eastasian Triad’s secret police unit, the...ah, Shinsengumi! The most feared Eastasian paramilitary unit; part Yakuza, part Gestapo police force.

That confirmed his suspicions, this pirate clan was definitely the Black Dragons, an offshoot of the Seikyotai, the Eastasian Alarian clan that he exiled more than two decades ago.

“No way to tell, my lord. Depends how close the nearest Sentinel strike fleet is...”

“Keep me instantly informed of anything emerging from Pin-space!”

“Yes, my lord.” The static transmission cut off.

"I want that boy prince found, no matter the cost," King Duncan clearly heard this Malicious order. "We will not waste an opportunity like this one. And remember, no blasters, I want to drag the prince before the Coil; when I do so he can be writhing in pain, but he’d better still be breathing, because I plan to use him to get to his father."

So, they knew his son was on the transport. How could they? A spy, or an intercepted messenger? They’d been so careful.

“You do understand,” Mal spoke to him with exaggerated slowness, as if to an imbecile, “that he must be alive for me to force such an exchange, don’t you?”

"Yes Mal," Duncan overheard another attacker reply offhandedly.

King Duncan heard the boots crunch to a sudden halt. "What did you call me?"

"I... I’m sorry, milord... milord Malicious, milord."

The pair of pirates were very close, now; the King dare not make a sound.

"Now you listen very closely to me, Deandre. I need to stay out here where I can be certain the Hidoiburēdo can reach me from orbit. If the Sentinels arrive, they won’t be coning freighters like this piece of crap...we’ll have to run.

“So, you will –personally– lead the last two shurikens into that wreckage, and drag that simpering fool of a prince from the crater. The child of Alarian royalty is a renowned duelist, so if you find him holding a sword, you may blow his hand off, but otherwise, I want him whole. Any other injury you do to Prince Morgan, I shall personally repeat upon your body."

Two more shurikens; that would mean...ten more men coming! Duncan knew his son would never be able to fight that many off, even assuming his concussion had cleared up by now. The King had left his son in the care of the handful of royal retinue who had been in the passenger compartment with his son and him when the ship slammed down. It seemed the pilots, and guards were all dead.
"Y...yes milord." Duncan heard the sound of one of them—Deandre, he presumed—turn in the snow and run back, away from the boss. However, King Duncan did not hear the other person take a single step; the other pair of boots just stood there, silently.
Duncan imagined the pirate lord searching the wreckage with his gaze, and listening for the sound of his breathing...and maybe even his pounding heartbeat, against the din of wind and driving snow on the glacier.
"Do you hear me?" Malicious spoke calmly and normally, as if having a conversation over an elegant dinner.

Duncan wondered if the pirate had heard him, or simply felt his presence, somehow.

"Do you? This is the moment of reckoning, young prince. The son pays for the sins of the father, and your father’s sins are many, indeed. Perhaps it won’t go so badly for you, if you surrender. Your father would trade himself for your life, being of such noble Valori stock. How could he refuse, after all? You know what I’d do then, sweet prince? I’d lower the ’king’ into a medit tank, and program a surgi-droid to remove his liver every day, keeping him alive through it. That’s right; I’d create my own little Prometheus." Duncan’s blood further chilled at the pirate captain’s tone, which sounded absolutely elated at the prospect of such torture.
Obviously, this man was for some reason obsessed with his royal personage. Maybe...maybe there was some way he could use that fact. It seemed the pirates knew his son was on that ship, but had no idea the real prize they had bagged.
Scattered debris, twisted bodies, shattered hull plating, and smoking power conduits created a maze of rubble atop the flowing ice-field upon which their ship had crashed, after being assaulted by two pirate frigates; Black Dragon Clan, the King assumed. Oily black smoke rose from a myriad of locations to pollute the pristine chill clouded-speckled blue sky, so cold it seemed to be trying to freeze him into part of the frigid landscape any time he stood still, like now.
Duncan had looked for help among the corpses. He’d found four of his six Royal Guard thus far, but none could offer more than a dead man’s gun. Two of the plas-pistols the king had recovered were damaged, but the third had sufficed for a few blasts before fusing into an aluminum chunk, useless as all but a cudgel.
Now he held a sword taken from the last pirate he’d killed. It, too, must have malfunctioned in some manner; the fusion-swords employed by the other nine pirates the king had killed had all disintegrated into a thousand metallic shards once their wielder had died.
Bitterly stark cold air numbed the majority of the Valori King’s wounds: the bruises, burns, and lacerations he’d received from the crash. However, the newer wound, the slash from a pirate fusion-sword, was not so fortunate as to be dulled by the cold; in fact, the biting cold burned like fire in the sword wound. The slash across half his belly seemed to exhale steam into the frozen air, like hot breath.
The pirates had come into the wreckage in waves, teams of five; there had seemed no end to them. Now he knew; ten more were coming. These Black Dragon raiders are not going to leave empty-handed... He knew he had to convince them they’d found something worth all their efforts, then perhaps they would cut their losses and leave for their cold black-void—a home which matched their hearts.
To accomplish even that much today, he’d have to keep the marauders’ attention off his youngest child.
A spike of fear, cold as the ice beneath his feet, impaled King Valori; if he fought this devil of a pirate lord in his current state, there’d be little doubt as to the outcome. But he might be able to give the Sentinels time...time enough to save his son.

Ruthlessly he fought off the gibbering caveman in his head, that survival urge that screamed for him to run for the downed ship’s wreckage, run past it, even!

It turns out I am human, after all, Isi.

Royal decorum; isn’t that what you’ve taught your sons, these five and twenty years? Act with decorum. Live with decorum. Die with decorum. A Valori must never dishonor his great name.  Well, you dolt, this ’Malicious’ is all alone at the moment, that opportunity may not last...If it’s to be done, get it done.
King Duncan Valori stepped out from the shadow of the hull-wreckage, his wound stinging deeply. "Over here, you pirate bastard! Take me! If you can!" Oh, Isabel, I’m sorry I was so distant. From you. From the boys. Remember me with some fondness.
For a moment, the King thought he’s come face to face with a monster. Half his face had been torn open or off decades back, a third of his head was scar-tissue from a blow that had ripped from the scalp, to eye, to mouth, to neck. His long hair was as white as the driving snow, though his age could not have been more than fifty. A twisted smile made him look like a troll contemplating an easy meal.

Most of the pirates the King had faced thus far were armed with weapons known as fusion swords, which were, in truth, swords only in name. A thousand shards of steel magnetically programmed to form and hold the shape of a sword, oftentimes with the shards on the blade’s edge in motion... resembling a chainsaw’s. Instead, Malicious’ sword was an old Eastasian single-forge; a long, curved Japanese katana, shining in the frozen sun. One pale hand held an intricate ashen tsuka and tsuba, cross-hilt and handle, carved from white bone.
"Well, well, if it isn’t the royal murderer himself! Come, come, my good king; certainly, you’d feel better getting out of this cold, having your wounds treated?"
"So I can experience the pleasures of your medit tank? I think not, Dragon scum!"
Malicious’ wide white smile turned into a vicious scowl, "How many of my clan did you have killed, all those years ago? You didn’t expect—when you called the double-March, and exiled our clans—that you’d ever see us again...did you?"
"I did my duty to the people of Alaria, getting you scum off the Planet of Light. You were the ones who started it all."
"Thousands... of...my people..." Malicious’ voice trailed off, and he stopped talking, seeming not to know what to say next.

He was becoming flustered; could the King push him over the edge into fury?
"Nonetheless—like cockroaches—I couldn’t stomp you all out, or we would not be here today. How was it you and your brethren managed to find a way off-world? Who helped you rats escape Alaria?"
Malicious smiled again, his scarred face twisting unnaturally with the effort, "You’re mixing your metaphors, King.” This pirate was not taking the bait so easily, it seemed. “Howsoever it began, my good King; for you, it ends here!"
The pirate struck high, rapid-fire blows to the King’s right and left sides, blindingly fast.

The King, one hand gripping the sword, the other holding his stomach, still managed to intercept every blow. Smoothly, passionless, Malicious switched to a low snap to the King’s left.

Pain erupted as, having no shield, the King took the blade on his left arm. Fortunately, there was not much power behind the snap, so the sword only cut half-way through. Bone probably shattered, thought the King, still, he kept his left hand tight on his belly wound. For a moment he considered finding an opening for a deadly, desperate thrust...

The pirate batted these aside as if the King were a child in a dojo. The pirate did not take the open opportunity to take the King’s head afterward.

The King knew he was failing of body and endurance; not long now and he’d fall, to be captured. That must not be. It had to end here. How?

This ruffian was from one of the two houses he’d called Marches upon decades ago, one was Euroceltic, the other Eastasian, and though he fought like an Eastasian, and with their weaponry, he didn’t seem at all Asian of birth nor of speech. In a desperate bid, Duncan decided to insult the man in Celtic-Gaelic.

“Pogmahoan! Graad-laat, oh-mah-dawn!”

The pirate’s face erupted in teeth and steaming breath; wild white hair whipped back like tentacles. That seemed to strike home, Duncan thought.
Malicious quickly switched grips, bringing down a two-handed overhead strike. Instinctively, the King’s training kicked in; knowing such a powerful blow would require both hands to intercept, his left hand tried to join his right on the fusion-sword hilt. Broken as it was, his left arm never made it, but it did move away from his wound. The pirate changed his blow’s angle of attack on the fly.
Malicious’ blade disappeared into the King’s wound as Valori’s hand moved away, and pain was all that remained of Duncan’s world. He tried to keep his eyes level with the pirate scum’s, but found his suddenly warm feet entangled in something wet and slippery, and he fell, losing the sword as his hands tried to stop his fall.
"Dammit!" The King heard the pirate curse.
Duncan smirked, the pirate would never have his personal Prometheus

The king had gambled that he could get the pirate to act more out of immediate fury than his own long-term interests. The gamble had paid off...but had cost him his life. Malicious ended his tirade with two vicious kicks to the downed king’s left ribs, certainly shattering more than one.
Duncan spat blood. "No medit tank handy, Mal?" he sneered. He found it virtually impossible to draw breath after speaking, however.
It had been good to be the king, Duncan said to himself again.
Some days.
Today, it was enough to be a father for once, and die in his son’s place.
The bitter cold quickly faded. Then his wounds stopped burning. Duncan thought a flurry of snow must be clouding his vision, as his sight faded to white.  

Next Chapter: Royal Ball(s)