Candide felt overcharged with adrenaline and fury. He charged, his axe overhead like a sledgehammer. Pirate stepped back merely half a step, drew a sword from his sheath with astonishing speed, and gracefully parried the axe blow.

Candide carried his momentum into a spin. He raised his foot and delivered a kick to his target's shin. Pirate grunted and stumbled to his side, but his grin did not disappear from his face. “Good lad! Don't you make it too easy for me. Have at ye!”

Pirate stabbed at Candide with several quick strokes aimed for Candide's hands. Candide recoiled as the sword nicked at his axe handle. Small cuts on his hands stung, but the firefighter maintained his grip. Fighting the pirate was very unlike fighting opponents in the arena.

Pirate made no large swings like arena fighters. He made quick forward attacks which were difficult to predict and impossible to dodge. As Candide retreated all of the way back to a wall, Pirate delivered several more small cuts to the the youth's body. When Candide's back touched the bulkhead, Pirate bent lower and made a powerful slashing motion intended to slice through Candide's belly. Moving with raw instinct and reflexes, Candide blocked the sword with his axe head, spun on his heels into attacker, and thrust his elbow into Pirate's chest.

As Pirate stumbled backwards, other rebels cheered him on in alien languages. Candide glanced around. He had been surrounded by armed enemies. Aegelief, mostly ignored by the rebels, continued to tap away at a computer.

Candide's eyes returned to Pirate. If possible, the pirate's grin seemed even more malicious now. The pirate tossed his sword into his other hand. Candide rushed forward. He held his axe with only one hand and used the other to jab a punch at Pirate's blind side. Pirate allow the blow to smack into his jaw, and he countered with an upward stab that cut the inside of Candide's arm.

Ignoring the pain, Candide swung his axe as hard as his single armed grip could at Pirate's throat. A hook-shaped blade sprang from Pirate's sleeve. The hook caught the axe blade. Pirate stabbed Candide between his ribs. The sword blade passed completely through his lung and poked through the back of his chest.

Candide's vision filled with white pain. The firefighter released his axe. He grabbed Pirate's wrist at his sword arm. With his other hand, Candide grabbed the wrist of the arm with the hook-shaped dagger. The two humans struggled in a contest of strength. Candide pushed the hook towards Pirate's face. Pirate twisted the blade in Candide's chest, but the firefighter's own ribs locked it more or less into place. Teeth gritted, Candide pushed the hook into Pirate's remaining eye. The rebel scowled in pain released his grip on the cutlass and recoiled backwards.

Candide pulled the sword out of his own chest. He spun it around in his hand. With a mightly axe-like swing, he chopped the head off. The leader of the rebels dropped to his side and was dead before he hit the floor.

Candide dropped to his own knees, unable to stand any longer. A rebel stepped up to him calmly. Candide looked into her face. She was a pirate woman, human and not much older than himself. She seemed strangely pretty to him, but there was no compassion in her expression.

She said, “Ye have bested our admiral. As agreed, ye mate may depart.” She looked at Aegelief. “At least we shall not stop ye drone from leaving. I doubt that ye will be able to walk that far.”

The lights in the room shut off. The holographic interface in front of Aegelief shut off at the same time.

Aegelief said, “Our champion is bleeding to death. I can still restore him, but I require the champion's body.”

All of the pirates in unison shouted, “Nay!”

The pirate lady told Aegelief, “Two champions died here together in honorable combat and bought your life in the deal, ye bootlicking scallywag.” White hot plasma glowed around her hand. “The admiral said, 'no guns, no bombs, and no regenerations.' Ye shall cast off by yeaself or not at all, and ye shall do so without one more word.”

Candide coughed. He then said, “Aegelief, go. I'm okay. Take the data with you. Take all of it.”

Aegelief's silence while staring at Candide communicated the question as well as words could have done. Candide wheezed. Then he said, “Take it all so that next time there's a revolution, it will be done the right way.” Aegelief nodded.

Candide, most handsome of all space firemen, most brave of space firemen, poured red life from his wounds. His manly lung filled with it. Despite exquisite pain, his heavy eyelids pulled him downward away from wakefulness. The beautiful pirate lady pressed her palm against Candide's chest as gently as a lover. The pain vanished. Plasma burned the firefighter's body into ash and small black shards of burnt bone.

On the Asgard, Odin and Isis watched Candide's life signs. The data feed stopped abruptly. Odin commanded, “Muginn, Huginn, route all available power to our shields. The enemy has no reason to delay the attack any further. Everyone brace for impact.”

The nebula split apart. Space-time tore like a canvas sail. A huge spaceship appeared in the gap. The saucer-shaped ship gleamed bright red. Standing on top of the saucer at its edge, Shiva opened his tiny dragon maw.

A beam of wild destructive energy erupted from Shiva's jaws. At the speed of light, the beam struck the nearest pirate ship. The ship, crew, and its anti-matter weapon were consumed instantly in an inferno more intense than the heart of a star. The beam then curved through space and arced towards a second pirate ship at light speed and consumed it as well. The laser curved around the Asgard before striking a third target. The beam zig-zagged through the fleet, destroying every target completely. The nebula filled with all of the energy of a gamma-ray burst, but it did not fill the space completely. Three specific areas were excluded: the motherships of Shiva and Odin and the space occupied by the small stealth ship which Aegelief piloted.

Shiva closed his mouth. In the silence of space, the Lord of Destruction admired his work with pride.