[INTRO — DOGS, spoken] Hundred million on your head? Fine. Spend a hundred million teaching somebody else how to kill the bastards. [COUNT-IN — ALL] ONE! TWO! ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR! [VERSE 1 — DOGS / DEATH] Blueprint original, missiles in crates, Minerals stacked by the factory gates, Two hundred Kestrels nobody keeps, Single-seat promises, cheap and deep. Green little corporation, hungry as hell, Galavet grinning, DB learned well, Taggart haulers on the Pure Blind run, Twelve ships vanish—twelve more come. Two fucking days and the loot pays through, You give them a weapon— they give you a crew. [PRE-CHORUS] Lose the hull. Keep the pilot. Lose the sec. Rat it back. Every explosion says something simple— [ALL] YOUR POWER CAN BLEED AND WE CAN COME BACK! [CHORUS] I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! Cheap little knives against the kings! We learned how fast a throne could shake when disposable engines grew wings! I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! The laughter underneath the guns! We didn't know what we were making— we only knew the bastards ran! [VERSE 2 — TANGENT] Venal burned and the borders broke, NVA rising through cordite smoke, Then hands on the gates grew scared again— blue lists, closed doors, territorial men. Reikoku walked. Jericho too. Nobody owed the new kings a view. Then the Northern War made old fights small: thirty was plenty— then hundreds called. [ALL, accelerating] Two hundred! Three hundred! Five hundred strong! [DEATH] And suddenly nobody could see the whole war. [PRE-CHORUS 2] Outposts. Sovereignty. Dreadnoughts. Cyno fields. Jammers. Docking rights. Resources sealed. We built the tools to break the gate— then built the gate into the tools. [CHORUS 2] I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! Before the maps required a king! Before the code rewarded walls and called control the rational thing! I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! Before the fleet became the law! The whirlwind grew around us— and nobody could steer it anymore! [VERSE 3 — GLITCH / DEATH] Reikoku rode where the borders failed, Four more companies under sail, No frontier lord would tell them where— Band of Brothers filled the air. And fuck, they were beautiful. Terrible too. Warrior princes with regions in view, burning the claims of the people they beat, then taking their soldiers into the fleet. Thousands arrived with the old world inside, Ideas survive when the banners have died. Rare moons. Rent. Docking. Tax. Capital fleets that answer attack. The freespace wolf became something grand— Not betrayal. Transformation. [BREAKDOWN — ONE DIRTY GUITAR] [DOGS, spoken] Then somebody brought ten Thoraxes. Ten cheap tech-one bulls. Blasters. ECM drones. Against the unstoppable three-year champions. You know what happened next. [BRIDGE — ALL] TEN BULLS RUNNING! BLASTERS HOT! JAM THE GIANT! TAKE THE SHOT! NO GOLDEN FLEET! NO PERFECT PLAN! JUST TEN CHEAP SHIPS AND A FUCK-YOU RAM! The little ship bites the giant again! History folds! And nothing proves everything— BUT FUCK, IT WAS GOOD! [POST-BRIDGE — MUSIC FALLS AWAY] [DEATH] Afterwards— drunk, hands shaking, adrenaline still burning. A call comes through. Old comrade. Never enemy. He says he loved it. Every second. Says thank you for everything. [DOGS, quietly] And sometimes that's the last time you ever really speak. [VERSE 4 — TANGENT] Then one day the locks all changed, codes went dark and the maps rearranged, hangars emptied, capitals gone, the leviathan bleeding before the dawn. Someone else took the throne downstairs. New flag. Same rent. Same moons. Same stairs. Kill the king if that's your game— the architecture may remain. [FINAL CHORUS] I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! The names beneath the noise! The friends we loved before the world turned comrades into symbols and toys! I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! The first mad run, the open sky! The whirlwind doesn't get to tell me who you were or fucking why! I STILL REMEMBER THE KESTRELS! Through empires, ruins, flags and years! We built the tools— the tools built worlds— and still I know my comrades here! [OUTRO — FEEDBACK FALLING AWAY] Galavet. DB Preacher. Everybody who climbed into a cheap ship because somebody said it might matter. And everybody who isn't here to hear the song. [ALL, softly] To absent comrades. [DOGS] And ten fucking Thoraxes. [ALL] GOOD NIGHT.
