The Wheel

part one

It was what he always wanted.

This.

And her.

Just as she was. Just as she would always be. Frozen in the here and the now with the light forever glinting in her hair.

Harlock stood at the bathroom door, watching the stiff movements of her back as she busied herself over the sink. The display was for him, the manifestation of her irritation that he was here. Again. That he didn't have strength enough to stay away.

'I told you not to come,' she said to the cracked porcelain of the bowl. She looked up and out of the tiny window, at the weeds that clung to the brickwork beyond the grimed glass. 'If anybody sees you here, we'll both be dead.'

'Marry me,' he said, making her laugh in the harsh, exasperated way she always did when he asked the question. The same bitter response to the same pointless request.

'I'm Commander of the Fleet.' His boots scuffed against the cracks in the flooring as he moved to stand behind her. Pressed his groin against her. Sandwiched her between his hardness and the chipped edge of the basin. 'You wouldn't have to live this way with the commander's money to spend.'

'What money?' She leaned back against him. Filled his senses with the warm dry scent of her hair. Blonde. As bright as sunshine. 'I thought you and Tochiro spent it all on boozing and whoring.'

'Only on booze.' He wrapped his arms around her. Cupped his firm officers' hands beneath the petite mounds of her breasts. Whispered into her ear, 'our whores we get for free.'

'Bastard,' she said, nipples hardening beneath the cotton of her shirt.

'My whores call me Captain,' he smirked.

'Captain Bastard,' she corrected, sighing as his lips ran hot along the nape of her neck.

'Marry me,' he said again. 'When the war is over – '

'Hah,' she laughed. Bitter again. Her body turning cold beneath his fingers. 'The war.' She pulled away from him, made him drop his hands from her breasts as she twisted out from his grip and turned to face him. 'This dirty, stinking war.'

'Maya,' he said, staring into the darkness of her eyes and knowing what was coming next. 'Don't – '

'What are you doing, Harlock? Fighting a war for the stinking Sanction?'

'Don't,' he said again, because he'd heard it too many times. It had haunted his dreams for decades.

'What are you even doing here,' she continued. 'The great commander of the Dark Matter Fleet – aiding and abetting a fugitive. Fucking,' she spat, 'a fugitive.'

That part stung. It always stung.

'After the war,' he said, repeating his lines as he had a thousand times before, 'you won't be a fugitive. You won't need to fight anymore, because the Earth will be free.'

'Why don't you understand?' Her eyes searched his and found nothing there that she liked. 'As long as the Sanction exists there can be no freedom.'

'There will be freedom. That's what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting for a free Earth.' His hand searched blindly for hers and came up empty. 'I'm fighting for you, Maya. I'm always fighting for you.'

'Then stop fighting for me. Stop coming back for me. If the Sanction found out they'd put you in front of a firing squad.'

'I don't care. I love you. Marry me.'

'No.' She smiled, softening despite herself. 'The answer will always be no. Because one day that careful construct of yours will break, and I don't want to be there when it does.'

He lifted a hand to smooth her hair and arranged it carefully across her shoulders. 'Or maybe you do.'

She sighed, moved herself a little closer. Pressed a hand against the stiff leather of his jacket. 'How does that rebel manage to get himself into that uniform every day?'

'It's hard work,' he conceded. 'But I'm improving.'

'I can't stand looking at it.'

Her fingers worked at the tunic, popping the buttons one by one from their housings until the uniform slipped free of his shoulders and fell carelessly to the cracked and fading floor. He stood exposed in the filtered light from the window, skin tightening at the sudden exposure to air. Or maybe it was tightening at the look she was giving the neatly defined musculature of his torso. A grin flew impulsively across his face as he leaned forward and grasped the tails of her shirt and slid it roughly over her head, tousling her hair and making her eyes wild with irritation. The way he always liked it.

'I mean it,' she said as his hands closed in on her breasts and his mouth hovered millimetres above her own. 'Don't come back.' His thumb grazed across a nipple, made her suck in a sudden breath. 'It's too dangerous. And public executions – '

He pressed his lips against her own, drowned out her words as he melted his body into hers and curled his arms around her. Skin against skin and mouth against mouth. Lost in the feel of her, the smell of her, the –

'Harlock.'

He deepened the kiss, ignoring the voice that whispered in his ear.

'Harlock.'

Maya didn't hear the voice. Maya never heard the voice. She only sighed as she pressed herself against him and ran her hands across his shoulders, curled her fingers desperately into his hair.

'Here you are.'

'Miimé,' he said, breaking the kiss. 'Get out of my head.'

A cool body pressed against his back and he felt Miimé's breath, soft against the nape of his neck. Her hand snaked between his body and Maya's and settled on the hard, flat plane of his stomach.

'She doesn't love you,' Miimé said. 'She never loved you.'

'She loves me,' he murmured, sliding his hands down Maya's back, across her hips, and cupping them warm around her buttocks. 'She loves me with her body. And with her lips. And her eyes...'

'But not with her words.'

'Who cares about words?'

Miimé laughed, a light high tinkle as elusive as quicksilver. 'You know how this will end.'

'It never has to end.'

'It will always end.'

'You're a cold hard bitch,' he told her, his fingers latching onto the clasp of Maya's skirt and sliding it smoothly from her hips to the floor. Maya was always so feminine, even when she was on the run from the law. 'You know what comes next, Miimé, so get out of my head.'

The laugh came again, exasperating him. 'I've seen it before.' Miimé snaked another hand across his stomach, helpfully undid the button of his trousers and let them fall around his ankles. 'This is usually how it goes. Too impatient to do it properly.'

That made him smile, because he always was too impatient. Far too impulsive to think things through. 'What would you know about doing it properly?'

Miimé smiled, and he felt it in the shifting of her fingers, her hands rising up across his stomach to settle cool against his chest. 'I'm learning.'

'Learn, then,' he said. He didn't care anymore. She'd watched him more times than he cared to count, and if she wanted to watch him again, rutting like an animal in the dark spaces of his memories, he was helpless to stop her.

((wake up))

The voice played at the edges of his hearing, nudged him none-too-gently from his dream into waking.

((harlock))

Harlock opened his good eye, lay in his bed and stared at the chandelier in the ceiling. Miimé stirred alongside him, one hand splayed across his stomach and the tip of a thumb settled squarely in his navel. He felt her mouth move against his shoulder, her teeth grazing sharp across his skin.

'Tochiro,' he said. 'What is it?'

((there's a vessel registering on the long-range scanners))

'Has it made contact?'

((no))

'Has it seen us?'

((no indication))

Harlock sighed and lifted his hand to rub the sleep from his face. 'Then let the first mate deal with it. That's what first mates are for.'

((you're right. I'm not used to it yet))

'Old friend,' Harlock said, placing his hand on Miimé's where it rested on his stomach. 'It's time you stopped doing all the thinking. Soon we'll have a full complement and you can rest.'

((hah))

Harlock smiled and squeezed his fingers hard around Miimé's. He rolled abruptly onto her, pinned her hands above her head as he gently nudged her legs apart.

'Miimé,' he said, his body hot against her cool nakedness. 'Stay the fuck out of my dreams.' Her lips curled into a smile as he leaned in to kiss them, the movement chaste and gentle and pure, because she was a delicate thing and he never wanted to infect her with the hard burn of his anger. 'Now show me what you've learned.'

Yattaran blinked at the readout on his console, scratched at his head and blinked again. 'Oi. Ari. Get over here and tell me what you see.'

Aristotle Jones shot a look at the only other occupant of Arcadia's bridge, rubbed contemplatively at the stubble on his chin and stared back down at the console he was parked against. 'Gimme a break. I don't even know what I'm looking at here.'

'Just move your annoying arse.'

'Aye aye sir.' Aristotle hiked up his pants and came to stand beside the first mate. 'What am I looking at?'

'That.' Yattaran took a step back to allow Arcadia's newest recruit room to move.

'All I see is stars,' Ari groused. 'What else should I see?'

'There.' Yattaran poked a fleshy finger at the screen 'That bright spot there.'

'This is a false-colour image, right?'

'Right.'

'Then I haven't got a fuckin' clue. What is it?'

'It's a dark matter bloom.'

Aristotle straightened from the screen and turned to look at the first mate. 'If you knew what it was, then why the hell are you asking me?'

Yattaran showed his teeth. 'Because I'm the first mate and I'm enjoying ordering you around.'

'Great. What did you do for fun before I came aboard?'

'I took a lot of baths.'

'And yet it never helped with the smell.'

'Hah.' Yattaran poked Aristotle's arm with a fist. 'Funny bastard, aint ya.'

'I try.' Aristotle poked a fist right back.

'Hey!' Yattaran yelped and rubbed at his arm, aggrieved at the unexpected insult to his flesh. 'You're stronger than you look.'

Aristotle grinned. He raised a hand in the air and clenched and unclenched the fingers of his fist. 'Comes from crushing rocks between my fingers. Look,' he said, rolling up a sleeve to reveal a nasty scar that wound its way from his wrist to his forearm. 'Got that digging for neodymium with my bare hands.'

'Bullshit,' Yattaran gruffed.

'Yeah,' Aristotle laughed. 'I've dug for that too, but it don't leave scars.'

'What about that,' Yattaran said, indicating the slash of white on Aristotle's forehead. 'I s'pose you smash rocks with your thick skull, too.'

Aristotle's hand snaked up to his face, fingers skimming the scar that curved over his right eye. His hand dropped suddenly away, as if he didn't like to touch it. 'Yeah,' he said. 'A story for another day.'

Yattaran looked at him, musing. 'Secrets, hey. Well, I've got a something on my left testicle that I don't like to talk about, either.'

'Jesus, man. Too much information!'

There was a squawk behind them. A rustling of feathers that made them jump and turn to look at the captain's chair. Harlock's bird perched there, head cocked, the black beady eyes studying them intently. As birds go it was enormous – over three feet of constant hunger in an ungainly black package.

'Shit,' said Aristotle. 'When did that arrive?'

Yattaran shrugged. 'I dunno. It was already here when I first came aboard.'

Aristotle turned an incredulous glare on the first mate. 'No, you imbecile. How long has it been sitting there watching us?'

'I don't know.' Yattaran shrugged again. 'It's black. It blends in. Why? You worried it's been listening?'

'Yes.'

Yattaran barked out a laugh. 'You're an idiot.'

'I'm serious,' Aristotle protested. 'It understands everything you say.'

'Bullshit.'

'Watch.' Aristotle turned to the bird. 'Hey, Mr Bird, there's a cracker in my pocket.'

Yattaran snorted. 'You keep crackers in your pocket?'

'Yeah. Ever since I got lost on deck 17. And don't think I didn't notice that you and Maji didn't come looking for me. Now shuddup and watch.'

The bird's head had risen on its flimsy neck at the mention of crackers, and a series of hopeful squawks bubbled unmelodiously out of its beak. Without warning it exploded from its perch in a flutter of wings and feathers and crash-landed on the deck at Aristotle's feet, one wing flapping tenaciously at his leg while the long beak probed at one of his pockets.

'Not that pocket,' Aristotle instructed it patiently. The bird squawked again and snapped at the other pocket until Aristotle relinquished a cracker out of his stash. 'Good bird,' he said, smoothing the rough feathers of its head. He raised a smug eyebrow at Yattaran. 'See?'

'So what,' Yattaran said. 'The captain's bird likes you.' He winked and then leered, 'So does the captain's woman, hey?'

Aristotle hissed, shooting the first mate a look and shaking his head in violent negation. 'There's nothing going on there – she's just fucking with my mind.' And then he added crabbily, 'and keep your voice down, would ya?'

'Why?' Yattaran folded his arms and eyed him speculatively. 'Guilty conscience?'

Aristotle let go of the bird's head and peeled a black downy feather from his fingers. 'It's just…' He glanced around the deserted bridge, at the shadows that worked relentlessly at sucking up the light. 'Don't you ever feel like you're being watched? Like there's somebody, or something, inside your head? Sometimes I only have to look at a monitor and think about what I want to do with it, and the screen changes. Shows me exactly what I want to see without me even touching it. Creeps the shit out of me.'

Yattaran gazed at him and pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. 'Coincidence,' he suggested lamely.

'My arse. I know you know what I mean. How do you think Harlock's been running the ship on his own all these years? Even with you and me and Maji it's more than we can manage.'

Yattaran's finger moved to scratch at his ear. 'He's got the Nibelung.'

'Yeah. And the bird. But this is a goddamned battleship. It would take more than one human, and one alien, and Mr Bird here to run it.'

The bird squawked at Aristotle's knee, rubbed against his leg and nipped gently at his fingers until a second cracker made an appearance out of his pocket. Aristotle ruffled the bird's feathers. 'Yeah. You know your name, don't you, Mr Bird? Maybe you were Arcadia's first mate before Tubby here came along?'

Harlock leaned a hand against the wall of the shower and let a stream of heat play against the back of his neck. Water flowed across his down-turned face, separated into rivulets that ran warm across his lips. He opened his mouth and let the water sluice across his teeth.

((harlock))

Here, Harlock said, not using words. Letting the thoughts move directly through Tochiro's interface.

((first mate's detected a dark matter bloom))

Harlock's eye opened beneath the cascading stream. Distance?

((89 AU))

Same location as the ship you reported earlier?

((yes. suggest the dark matter bloom is an inskip residue))

Harlock straightened beneath the cascade of water and brought up a hand to brush strands of wet hair from his face. Could be nothing. Could be a random pulse left from the Creation.

((or it could be your worst nightmare))

All my nightmares are the worst. What's Yattaran doing?

((arguing. with the rookie))

Harlock smirked as he shut the water off. Aristotle will argue with anybody.

((he's fun to watch))

Miimé thinks so.

((don't be jealous. it's the blond hair. and he still has his new toy smell))

I'm not jealous, Harlock said. Miimé had always been fascinated by blonds. She said they smelled different. And Aristotle had the added bonus of blue eyes as well. That made Harlock grin – the poor bastard didn't have a hope in hell. Miimé's free to torment anybody she wants.

((ah, yes, what was it you said? no commitments))

No attachments, Harlock corrected.

((when did you grow so cold))

You know when.

'Yattaran,' Harlock said, making the first mate jump. 'The ship's computer reports a dark matter signature on the long range scanners. Report.'

Yattaran's head spun 180 on his neck to look at Harlock standing behind him, then cranked back to glance at Aristotle, pinned between the bird and the adjacent console. 'Aye sir. We picked it up earlier. The instruments briefly registered a ship the same distance out, but the signal's not there now.'

Harlock moved to stand beside him, hair damp and his skin still smelling faintly of soap. He was wearing a pair of pale pants, the leather sullied by time to a dirty grey that collided abruptly with the black of his tunic.

'The computer suggests it's an inskip residue,' Harlock said. He slid in between Yattaran and the console, his fingers passing deftly across the sensor controls. He turned to look the first mate. 'What do you think?'

'Ah… that would be impossible.' Yattaran looked at Harlock's face, his gaze studiously avoiding the tiny teeth marks that were bruised along the captain's lower lip. 'Wouldn't it?'

'Nothing's impossible.' Harlock glanced across at the XO's console, smiling indulgently at the bird's attempts to get its beak back into Aristotle's pocket. 'There's a reason we keep the food stores behind locked doors, Aristotle.'

'Understood, Captain.' Aristotle grinned sheepishly at his station and dodged the flapping of a wing as the bird's talons trampled haphazardly over his boots.

'Well,' Yattaran said, leaning back at his post and rubbing a knuckle vigorously into his lower back, 'it would only make sense if the other ship had a dark matter drive. And Arcadia's the only ship with a dark matter drive that I know of.'

'That you know of,' Harlock repeated, making Yattaran's eyes blink behind the lenses of his glasses. 'There are others. And we have no idea how many Nibelung ships might have escaped destruction.'

'But the legends say the Nibelung ships were all destroyed.'

'Not all of them,' Harlock said.

'So what,' Aristotle interrupted, his hand on the bird's head as he attempted to guide it away from any further exploration of his pants. 'So there are other ships with dark matter drives out there, and nobody sounds too happy about it. But unless there's a club that we're supposed to join, why don't we steer clear?'

Harlock relinquished Yattaran's console. 'For the moment I agree. But running from trouble doesn't necessarily mean trouble won't come running for us. Where's Maji?'

'On the hangar deck,' Yattaran said, 'sorting out a problem in the deployment module.'

Harlock nodded. 'Leave that. Put him on the XO and automate a scanner sweep every ten minutes. Alert me if you detect anything that looks even remotely out of place. Aristotle, meet me on the lower command and I'll instruct you on the operations of the weapons console.' A smile crooked the corner of his mouth. 'Something tells me that the cannon are going to be your thing.'

((miimé. what do you see))

'Nothing.' Miimé stood alone at the massive windows that lined the rear of Harlock's rooms, staring through the leaded glass into the silent wastes of space. The dark matter engine was dormant, the boiling cloud of inskip long since dissipated into space. Arcadia coasted along on impulse power, the stars around them distant and unwavering in the void. 'Whatever was there is gone now.'

((so… not a bloom from the creation))

'Doubtful,' she replied to Tochiro, 'since it has dissipated. And I know from the Nibelung records that the original sources were always constant. Eternal connections between the present and the past.'

((and the future))

'It's a logical supposition, but one that was never definitively proven.'

((there's evidence to suggest that the Nibelung proved it))

'Or were destroyed in the doing.' She sighed, the movement releasing a drift of fireflies from her hair, the manifestation of the dark matter that coursed through her blood. 'I miss my sisters.'

((i miss everything. noodles. mushrooms. the feel of a warm body in your bed... heeey, miimé, there's a few warm bodies for you to choose from now, hey))

She smiled. 'Some warmer than others.'

Tochiro laughed. ((i wish i still had a warm body))

'Human bodies seem to be more trouble than they are worth. And so easily damaged.'

((ah, but miimé, never forget that positives always outweigh negatives. there's the feel of the sun on your skin. and the wind through your hair. a belly full of food…))

The double doors of the captain's quarters creaked open on their hinges, permitting the entry of the bird in a squawking flap of feathers. Harlock followed on its heels, closing the doors carefully again behind him. 'Dreaming of food again, old friend?'

((always))

Harlock crossed to his desk and collapsed wearily into the ornate chair that was parked behind it. 'You and the bird have the same one-track minds,' he said as the bird waddled up beside him and rested its long beak across his lap. He sighed, ruffling the bird's feathers as he glanced towards Miimé at the window.

'How goes the training?' she asked him, feeling his gaze on her back.

Harlock grimaced and turned to look longingly at the wine that waited patiently on his desk. In a minute he would pour himself a glass. Just as soon as he could muster the energy. 'I forgot how tiring people could be.'

((being sociable is hard work, hey, harlock))

Harlock allowed a smile to chase wryly across his face. 'I think it might actually be killing me.'

((hah. the immortal captain harlock, brought down by polite conversation))

'Shut up.' Harlock grinned down at the bird, smoothing the ruffled feathers as the black beady eyes stared hopefully up at him. The damn thing was hungry again. Soon it would start snaffling around the room, looking for anything that would fit down its scrawny throat. 'Miimé,' he said, 'do you sense anything out there?'

'Nothing.' She left the window and paced leisurely towards him, poured a glass of wine and pressed it into his fingers.

'Thank you,' he murmured as she moved to stand behind him and rested her hands upon his shoulders.

'It's not the first time we've seen this shadow,' she said.

'But it's the first time we've caught glimpse of a ship,' Harlock replied as her hands moved up to his face.

'Maybe we shouldn't loiter in this space.'

'You're right,' Harlock said, succumbing to Miimé's ministrations as her thumbs described small circles at his temples. Pleasure and pain and the eternal bite of dark matter. 'Tochiro, take us out – '

((nope. you have a crew now. the captain will need to get up off his arse and give the order))

'Mm,' Harlock replied, lost to the pressure of Miimé's fingers. 'Seems you're not the only one who keeps forgetting.'

((you're only human. must be difficult relying on that hard lump of grey in your head))

Harlock ignored him, his left eye closing as Miimé's fingers moved into his hair, his right eye sealed irrevocably shut beneath the leather patch that covered it.

((oi. harlock. did you hear me? i said it must be difficult – ))

'I heard you,' Harlock cut in. 'I was just remembering how hard your head used to be.'

Tochiro laughed, a high bright babble of static. ((those were the days, eh, harlock))

'We'll have those days again, old friend,' Harlock said softly. He leaned his head back, resting it against the back of the chair as Miimé's fingers worked their way across his scalp.

((it's good to have people around again))

'Voices to listen to,' Miimé said, making Harlock tilt his head back to look up at her in surprise.

((speaking of, the loudest voice is making noise again. says he's hungry))

'I'll go,' Miimé said, sliding her hands out of Harlock's hair.

'Miimé,' Harlock said, grabbing hold of her wrist before she could slip away. 'Play nice with Aristotle. And Tochiro… keep out of his head.'

((is that an order))

Harlock sighed, regretting that he'd even brought it up. Tochiro was as wilful in the spirit as he had been in the flesh. 'It's a request. Consider it a favour amongst gentlemen.'

((no gentlemen here, old friend. you have no idea how entertaining it is in there. you should try it sometime – there's alien sex and everything))

'You have no idea,' Yattaran was saying to Maji at the executive command and sounding like a housewife as he was doing so. 'He argues every damn point and questions every damn order. He's driving me crazy.'

Maji shrugged, staring at the display on his console. 'None of us are exactly experts at this. Taking orders, giving orders… and Arcadia isn't the most regimented of ships. Let it go. Captain will pull rank if he has to.'

'Yeah, but I'm first mate. Ari should do what I tell him. And without any bitching!'

Maji shook his head. 'Give it up. Captain likes him. And I suppose he's entertaining…in his own way.'

'He's entertaining alright. You should have seen him earlier with the damn bird.' Yattaran grinned and scratched at his three-day-growth. 'You know he carries crackers in his pocket?'

'Because of deck 17?'

'Because of deck 17.' They both burst out laughing.

As if on cue, Aristotle's voice drifted up from the lower command. 'Shit I'm boooored.'

Yattaran shared a grin with Maji. 'Ignore it,' he stage-whispered to the engineer, 'and it might go away.'

'And huuuuungry,' came the plaintive cry from below.

Maji returned the whisper theatrically. 'It's not going away.'

'And once it starts it never damn-well stops,' Yattaran groused. He took a deep breath and bellowed out across the cavernous wastes of the bridge. 'What about those bottomless pockets of crackers?'

'Damn bird cleaned me out,' the disembodied voice moaned.

Maji moved out from the XO's post and peered over the gantry at the sole occupant of the lower command, who despite all the complaining was bent intently over the scanner sweep of the weapons console. 'Hey, Rookie,' he said to the back of Aristotle's head, 'nobody cares if you're hungry. Captain's orders were to stand watch.'

'Yeah,' Aristotle turned to look up at him, 'but he didn't say we had to starve while we were doing it.'

'Consider it part of the training, Rookie.'

Aristotle's hands planted themselves obstinately on his hips. 'How long are you two gonna keep calling me that?'

Maji grinned down at him. 'Until we get a new rookie, Rookie.'

Laughter floated down from the upper command – Yattaran, laughing the phlegmy laugh of the overly-indulgent.

'Great,' Aristotle muttered, rolling his eyes. 'I get to die of starvation while that lump of lard sits pretty on his accumulated stores of – uh-oh.' He backed up against the weapons command, hands dropping abruptly from his hips. 'Shit,' he cursed beneath his breath as Miimé paced the deck towards him, a bloom of light appearing silently out of the dark. He still hadn't got used to her – the faintly glowing skin, the upswept points of her ears, the unblinking orbs of her cat-like eyes. But she had all the right curves in all the right places, and that, at least, he was more than able to appreciate.

'Miimé,' he said, his back to the stars and perspiration pricking beneath his skivvie as she relentlessly paced towards him. 'Um…can I help you?'

'Ship's computer says you're hungry,' she replied, placing a flask in one of his hands and a vacuum-sealed package in the other.

'The ship's computer?' he croaked, raising the package and flask to stare at them incredulously. 'How the hell does the ship's comp – uh.' He pressed back against the console as she moved in between his outspread arms and stared into his eyes, the vacuum-pack slipping from his fingers with a dry crunch that could only signal the shattering of crackers.

'Miimé,' he pleaded softly, squirming where she pinned him with his back against the console, her breath cool in his face and only millimetres of electric air between their bodies. She smiled and cocked her head as though he were an exotic, talking flower, and she was enjoying marvelling at the magnificence of his blooming. Yattaran's voice drifted down from the upper command, sniggering faintly, and Aristotle glanced up to see Maji, still poised at the edge of the gantry, watching them with an unreadable expression on his face.

'Lady, you're killing me,' Aristotle groaned as Miimé trailed a finger down his cheek and ran it musingly across the stubble that spattered blond across his chin. A firefly drifted from her hair and sparked against his lower lip, his tongue darting out to assuage the sting. Her mouth quirked wickedly as he swallowed, her eyes on his adam's apple as it bobbed beneath the rollneck of his skivvie.

'Are you afraid?' she asked, her face close against his and another spark leaping from her hair and stabbing him in the cheek.

'No,' he lied, his face stinging and twitching, his free hand clutching the console behind him and preventing him from sliding weak-kneed to the floor. Miimé smiled, a tiny knowing smile, and he might have chanced tasting those cool pale lips if Maji hadn't been standing there watching. And if Miimé hadn't been the captain's woman.

She laughed, a soft sound, as light and pure as a bell, and Aristotle felt it pass like water through his brain. 'Liar,' she said, revealing a row of sharp alien teeth that he had a sudden urge to test with his tongue. 'Don't be afraid,' she added softly. 'I won't bite.' And then her words moved inside his head... 'Harlock told me not to.'

'Girl,' Aristotle started to say, his mouth moving before his brain caught up with what had just happened inside his head. 'I don't care what – wait. What? Did you – ? How…? What the hell just happened?'

'What do you think just happened,' she asked him, her voice sweetly innocent and her eyes playfully mischievous in the dim light.

'For a moment I thought – ' He shook his head as her hand settled on his shoulder and anchored him back in three-dimensional reality. 'Nothing.' He shook his head again, as if to get the water out of it. 'Must have been my imagination.'

Her fingers slid towards his upper arm. 'Don't you trust your imagination?'

Now it was his turn to grin. 'Only at night.'

She smiled again, sent sea-foam bubbling inside his head. Aristotle blinked at the sensation, stared into the pale orbs of her eyes as her gaze moved suddenly to the stars beyond him. Watched with confusion as the laughter drained abruptly from her face.

'Miime,' he said as her fingers clamped tight around his bicep. 'What is it?'

She stiffened against him, dug her nails into him, made him hiss in pain as a burst of dark matter exploded from her body and burned across his skin like lightning.

'Warn the captain,' she said, the fear in her voice galvanising him into action. 'Something is coming.'