Don't Pay the Ferryman
"Don't pay the Ferryman, don't even fix a price.
Don't pay the Ferryman, 'till he gets you to the other side."
Chris de Burgh
Chapter One: Chaotic Reunion
Explosions went off all around, as a man of about twenty-five or so made a mad dash for the hangar bay of a prison satellite.
"This is what I get for trying to go too many things alone! Damn ship's too far out of range!" the young man thought, before a piece of shrapnel passed through his right thigh, and he let out a yell of pain. He fell with a crash to the floor, grimacing as shockwaves traveled through his recently bruised ribs. Almost a week before, some bounty hunters had managed to catch him unawares and drag him to this satellite, where he'd spent the ensuing days being tortured.
"If I….ever even come across….their reincarnations….they'll wish they'd never even chanced to hear about the Harlock name!" the young man thought, venomously, as he painfully dragged himself across the ground towards one of the only undamaged one-man ships in the hangar. Before he could get to it, however, a ghostly image appeared in front of him.
"So, it's you again." the young man growled, as he felt for his weapons, feeling some relief when he found at least his blaster pistol on his hip.
"You have been more than just troublesome, human. By all rights, you should have gone insane with fear by now. Why haven't you? Aren't you afraid of death?" the image asked. The young man smirked, as he valiantly stood back up and looked the 'ghost' in the eye.
"I'm not afraid of anything. In fact, death is the last thing on my mind, right now. I intend to get out of here, find my ship and crew, and then blow you and yours to kingdom come….if there is any such thing waiting for you, at any rate." the young man said, as he began climbing the ladder on the side of the ship he'd chosen, disregarding the 'ghost' completely.
"Insolent human! I will show you the true meaning of fear! Die!" the 'ghost' screeched, as it disappeared, something impacted into the side of the satellite, and the wall began to buckle in.
"Hope I can get this thing outta here and into space without getting crushed in the process!" the young man's mind muttered, as his hands hurriedly typed in the command for the ship to get ready for flight. Seconds later, the satellite folded in on itself, then imploded into a brilliant ball of light that was soon gone.
……………………………………
Harlock roused up when he heard the telltale sound of glass cracking. At first, his tired mind told him that his cabin was depressurizing, and that he had to get out quickly; then it cleared, and he realized that nothing of that nature was happening.
"Have got to stop staying up so late….." Harlock mused, as he stiffly stood up and stretched. He'd fallen asleep at his desk yet again.
"Don't say I didn't tell ya so, Harlock." a spectral voice at the back of Harlock's mind chuckled, getting a deadpan look from the space pirate captain as a response.
"Don't rub it in, Tochiro." Harlock retorted, wincing when his back cracked, and he then relaxed and walked over to the wine cabinet. His expression deadpanned yet again when he saw that the bottle there was almost completely empty.
"Lemme guess…..La Miime strikes again?" Tochiro joked.
"In more ways than just one. Going almost twenty years without good wine, she's gone through just about everything in the storeroom. Including that jug of sake you could never quite finish." Harlock 'muttered', smirking slightly when Tochiro gasped in astonishment.
"That bad, huh? Sheesh…..and that sake had been old to begin with! It was almost medicinal quality! Blech!" Tochiro commented, as the image at the back of Harlock's mind shuddered at the thought of it. Harlock chuckled softly under his breath, then sobered. Something was bothering his friend to the point of restlessness, and he wanted to know what.
"On another note, Tochiro, what're you doing talking to me like this? You usually don't do this unless something is amiss." Harlock stated, as he sat back down and reclined back in the chair.
"Something is up, but I can't tell what. The only clue I have is that that photo on the mantle's glass is cracked." Tochiro's voice replied, as he drew Harlock's attention to the small, unassuming picture frame that was placed with care on the 'mantle'. To Harlock's shock, even from where he sat, he could see that the glass in the frame was indeed cracked. Without even knowing why, Harlock stood up again, slowly approached the 'mantle', picked up the picture frame, and ran his gloved fingertips gingerly over the surface. Inside the picture frame, there was a photo of a boy of about ten years of age. The boy's hair was windblown; brown locks straying into eyes of the same color. He was wearing the typical black jeans and skull and crossbones t-shirt of a crewmember, but there was evidence that he was more than that. There was an untamed wildness in his eyes that marked him as being of the same family line as the captain of the ship.
"I wonder what he's doing now?……That son of yours' that could never quite sit still, even while on board?" Tochiro mused, as a feeling of almost dread stole over Harlock as well.
"I don't know…..but I hope he is well. I don't know what I would do if I had to bury him like I had his mother." Harlock replied, as he walked back over to the desk with the photo in hand; a troubled look gracing his scarred features as he did so.
"Don't worry. It won't come to that. He's as tough as you are, so he'll live through whatever hardship he's run into. Trust me on this one." Tochiro said, hoping to boost his friend's morale a little.
"I believe that is all I can do, for the moment…." Harlock replied, looking up when the alarms started blaring, and an urgent message came from the bridge.
"Captain! We're picking up some life readings in this area! They're faint, but close to where that prison satellite had been!" Kei Yuki's voice said, sounding noticeably shaken, yet trying to keep her voice calm.
"I'll be right up." Harlock stated, as he put his cloak back on, then started walking towards the door. Yet, before he could leave, he looked back at the photo of the ten-year-old boy.
"I have a bad feeling about this….." Harlock thought, grimly, as he turned off the lights and went to the bridge.
…………………………………….
Tadashi turned to look as the door at the back of the bridge opened, and the Arcadia's captain walked in. Almost immediately he could tell that something was bothering the man; there was a chip in the older man's usually stony façade, and worry was making itself known: even if it was very slight.
"Where are the life readings coming from, Kei?" Harlock asked, his tone of voice not much different from before.
"There appears to be a small, one-man fighter near where the satellite had been. It's badly damaged, but the cockpit is still intact. Whoever is still in it had been very lucky." Kei replied, also seeming to notice that the captain seemed a little more on edge.
"Bring us in closer, and ready the tow-lines. I want to bring that fighter on board." Harlock ordered, getting an immediate compliance from all those involved.
"Thing is, Captain, is that ship is transmittin' some sort of distress signal…..and it's in the same frequency that…..Voice of Free Arcadia…..had used….." another crewmember added, albeit hesitantly. This piece of information froze the captain right in his tracks.
"Now that got his attention!" Tadashi thought, as surprise and shock warred briefly for supremacy on the pirate captain's face.
"But who would use that frequency?…….No….." Harlock muttered, before snarling something furiously under his breath and charging from the bridge.
"What was that about?" Tadashi asked, turning a questioning gaze onto Kei as he said that.
"I don't know…..but I have the feeling we're about to find out! C'mon!" Kei shouted, as she left her post, and as Sabu and Tadashi did the same. Within moments, the trio found themselves just outside of the hangar, where a decidedly angry Captain Harlock now paced; hand gripping his sheathed space sword all the while.
"I don't think I have ever seen him this agitated! What the heck is going on here?" Tadashi wondered, as Yattaran and Doc Zero arrived behind them.
"Eesh, the Captain's furious! What happened that made him this angry?" Yattaran asked, careful to whisper so he wouldn't anger the taller man further. Tadashi shrugged.
"Got me. All I know is that he reacted to something having to do with an old radio program's frequency being used to transmit a distress signal." Tadashi explained. This got a widening of eyes from Yattaran (if that were even possible).
"But the only ones who would know about that frequency would be the Captain, those who had been alive during that time, and any family he might have left……" Yattaran murmured, as the sound of the tow line being launched came to their ears.
"Well, it seems we're about to find out why the Captain's so upset….." Kei said, softly.
"Oh, yeah." Tadashi muttered, as they listened to the winch begin to pull the fighter in.
…………………………………
The young man groaned as awareness slowly returned to him. He'd narrowly escaped the 'ghost's' deathtrap, and now floated who-knew-where, on the wrong end of the galaxy.
"Guess I'm too far away for the distress signal to work…..But, if I don't die out here, Emeraldas, Tochiro, and Zero will want to kill me for worrying them like this." The young man mused, sighing as he floated weightlessly in the cockpit; the gravity mechanism having been disabled a short time before. He winced when his leg reminded him that he desperately needed medical attention, and the ache in his head where his helmet had met the control panel signaled that a concussion was likely.
"Just perfect….." the young man thought, sourly. He hated spending time in a sickbay, and his injuries (including the cracked ribs) only meant more time off his feet. He would have uttered a growl of frustration, if it hadn't been for something impacting the side of the damaged fighter.
"Great. Now what?" the young man wondered, as he felt the ship settle, and then begin to move again. When he chanced a look out from the starboard side, he got his answer; in the form of a giant black space battleship.
"I don't believe it! It's the Arcadia! But who is the captain of her, now?" the young man silently asked, as doubt and wonder warred within him, and as the battleship loomed ever closer……
………………………………….
Harlock listened tensely as the winch finally pulled the ship into the hangar, and as the hangar doors closed behind it. He barely even waited for the doors on his side to open before dashing in with his space-sword drawn and ready for a fight. Behind him, he could tell that members of his crew were curiously and concernedly watching as he approached the side of the fighter. The fighter was in terrible shape; the only words that could be used to describe its' appearance was that it looked as though it had been through an old-style dryer.
"Or a blender." Tochiro's ghostly voice added, as Harlock pulled one of the portable ladders up to the side of the craft.
"Captain, we don't know who or what is inside. Maybe you should wait until some thorough scans have been run….." Kei suggested, voicing the thoughts of the crew, but going pretty much ignored by the stubborn captain. Yet, no sooner did he reach the top of the ladder did the cockpit slowly begin to open. At first, all he could see was the smoke that was rising from the damaged flight console; then it cleared to reveal the badly injured pilot. The younger man's flight suit was bloodied and burnt, hinting at the violence of his escape. His right leg was covered with blood, all of it coming from a deep gash in the thigh. Other cuts and bruises could be easily seen through the tears in the material. But he couldn't see the younger man's face, since it was hidden by a helmet.
"Good grief! He looks like he's been through a war zone!" Tochiro yelped, 'voicing' Harlock's thoughts perfectly.
"You're probably not far off the mark, old friend." Harlock replied, as he reached in and started loosening the young man's safety harness. This got a soft moan from the other man.
"Take it easy. You've reached safety. Can you tell me what happened?" Harlock asked, quietly, as he worked on getting the younger man loose.
"Yeah……some zombies….trashed the prison satellite…..Then proceeded to try and kill me by imploding it around me……As you can see….it didn't quite work…." The young man gasped, uttering a yelp of pain when Harlock placed one arm behind his back, and one under his knees, and lifted him free of the cockpit.
"Yep. Sounds like the Noo, all right." Tochiro muttered, angrily. Harlock kept his thoughts to himself, as he carefully descended from the ladder, and placed the younger man on a waiting stretcher.
"What did those 'zombies' do to those on the satellite?" Harlock asked, even though he knew what the answer would be.
"They drove everyone nuts. Guards started shooting other guards and inmates, and the inmates who got their hands on weapons started killing each other off as well. I don't know what it was, but it was like their fear had gotten the better of them….." the younger man stated, thoughtfully.
"He hit it right on the nose. This kid's sharp!" Tochiro commented.
"He is, indeed…." Harlock silently agreed, as he watched Doc Zero approach to get a better look at the man on the stretcher. But what the younger man said next startled all of those gathered there.
"Have they tried the Arcadia yet, Dad?" the younger man asked, with a hint of apprehension in his voice. The next thing Harlock knew, was that he was reaching down, and carefully removing the young man's helmet. There, lying before him on the stretcher, was an older version of the child in the photograph; very bloodied up, but alive.
"Young Harlock……." Harlock muttered, in utter shock and disbelief.
"Long time, no see, eh, Dad?" the younger space pirate asked, after a moment.
"Yes…." Harlock replied, almost too stunned to think of a good answer.
"Son of a gun….to have survived a catastrophe like that and remained conscious for this long afterwards…..He's your son, all right." Tochiro muttered. Harlock only nodded slightly, then shamefully looked away. He had no right to see what kind of man his son had become….Not after he'd broken his promise to return; yet he turned to look again when a hand gripped his shoulder, and found Young Harlock gazing intently at him.
"Don't worry about that promise, Dad. It was one you didn't have to fulfill…..When you didn't return within five years' time, I assumed you had meant that I make my own way in the universe. I did it, but I didn't succeed alone. The bonds between the two families were too strong." Young Harlock murmured.
"He must mean…..my son is still alive! And that they'd teamed up to build a ship of their own!" Tochiro's jubilant voice shouted, almost getting a mental wince from Harlock as a response.
"Have you launched your own Arcadia yet?" Harlock asked. Young Harlock shook his head.
"No. So long as this Arcadia sails, mine will not. There should never be two Arcadias." Young Harlock replied, getting a rueful smile from Harlock in response to that.
"Sentimental, as always, Young Harlock." Kei chimed in, as she appeared before the young pirate.
"Hey, Kei. Glad to see that you haven't changed. Are you still sore with me for rigging your shower with the banana pepper sauce?" Young Harlock asked, snickering as some steam rose from Kei's ears, signaling that she still was.
"You'd better be glad that you're already injured, Young Harlock, since you still have to pay for that." Kei growled.
"Do tell." Young Harlock taunted, arching an eyebrow for added emphasis. Harlock only sighed as more banter passed between the two, and as Doc Zero started walking towards the sickbay (the stretcher was outfitted with repulsor-lifts, so no men were needed to lift and carry it).
"Doesn't matter how much time passes, those two can still argue like siblings!" Tochiro stated, and Harlock rolled his eye when an exceptionally loud 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT!' came from Kei's mouth.
"Oh yes. And I can only see it getting worse, as time goes on….." Harlock agreed, as he followed them out, and closed the bay doors behind him when he knew that all were clear.
Author's Note!
Yes, I realize that I already have a few fics based on Captain Harlock posted, but there is a reason for this. So please, ignore what the other fics have in them, and take this story with a grain of salt, okay?
Gemini14