Absolutely astounding artwork by the fair  Poliarnaya, who is still running this YCH and others like it on her FA page! Be sure to give her a watch!
Now, onto the lore.

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Captain Valek's second and most disastrous defeat saw ripples of fear and sadness spread throughout the cosmos at speed and impact almost as potent as the Resurgence's had been. There were no survivors of the Ferrovix's mighty crash, and with the strongest of the SSO's few remaining captains dead, the future of the war looked darker than ever. Even so, no one was shaken quite as thoroughly as Valkiro, as no one felt quite as responsible for the catastrophe. Protecting his brothers had been the duty assigned to him by his mother before she died, and now it was all too clear that his strategies of violence and killing were only exacerbating an already terrible conflict, instead of ending it. Shortly after receiving the news of his brother's death, Valkiro failed to report in for duty at his usual front-line post, leading to critical defeats along an already-crumbling perimeter.

Under the belief that he had failed his family, friends and homeworld, as well as the prophecy of peace between his brothers which had fueled his ambitions through the war up until this point, exile seemed kind.