We are legends of Aventris.

Pilots to your stations.

Sink your cores.

Fire up the engines and prepare for launch.

This is Walt for eternity.

Love rages in my heart, blazing through the endless sky.

I follow you across the stars far beyond the day.

The rapid march of rolling drums echo through the highest hangar of Castle Ascalon.

What is typically a chamber for rooks has been transformed into a chapel.

The lights are low, and the banners of the twelve great houses hang from the upper gantries unmoving.

Along the far wall, the surviving rooks stand in their berths with their heads lowered.

At the center of the hangar, beneath a column of light, sits a steel coffin.

Engraved on each side are the sacred crests of Durgan's world and the great house that sponsored him.

On its face, engraved letters read Sir Durgan Welbar, Knight of the Cavalon Empire, lost beyond recovery and loyal defiance of the enemy.

You stand with the officers of Operation Walt's informal rows.

Sergeant Margath is on one side, cigar absent for once.

Dr. Crescent stands with his hands clasped, looking even smaller than usual.

The surviving members of Ash Squadron stand in the front line, as still as the rooks and the banners.

The great doors open, and General Sigurd enters in black ceremonial armor, his medals replaced by a single white sash marked with the crest of the Cavalon Empire.

He walks alone to the empty sarcophagus and stops before it.

When he does, the hangar is filled with the sudden report of every officer standing at attention.

Every commander who wears a clean conscience is lying to themselves. I have given orders that placed good men and women in the path of fire.

...