Some Embrace the Light

by Helen1969

Whilst the Arcadia tries to escape the Gaia Fleet following the battle for Earth, Kei tries to keep her new, wet behind the ears captain alive (despite his best efforts to the contrary...!) Along the way, maybe two lost, lonely people can find a beacon in the darkness... Note: CGI-verse, prequel to Frozen Harvest. Revised Dec 15th 2018

Some Embrace the Light.

Author's note: This takes place immediately before the opening of Frozen Harvest.

Special thanks to Pollywantsaharlock for proofing and commenting on this extensive re-write, when I realised 3rd person just wasn't cutting it - So for the feedback, the support and the emails that keep me going - thank you. I don't think I could keep doing this without you!

---

By the fourth IN-skip jump, it was becoming blindingly obvious that we were being tracked. The only problem was how...

I took my eyes off my console to sneak a brief look to my left, where our new captain was standing, legs apart and braced, hands gripping the wheel with what might have been firm intent, but looked suspiciously as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. Well, that,and about a gallon of The Captain's private stash of espresso, which I'd quietly tasked Eddie with periodically refuelling us both with. If he'd carried on with the sludge that passes for coffee they serve in the mess, I couldn't have vouched for his longevity.

I sighed quietly, looking around sadly. He wasn't the only one getting by on snatched naps, sheer bloody-mindedness and caffeine. Since bulling our way through the remnants of the Gaia Fleet, we'd been on the run for over 72 hours straight, with no end in sight. We were fifteen men down; six to injuries serious enough to keep them in the infirmary. The rest were in the makeshift morgue in an unused torpedo bay that also held twenty Fleet crewmen and officers - including the body of our new captain's older brother. Another twelve fleet prisoners were under guard in the brig, which left us effectively eighteen down, as Yattaran had insisted on putting on a guard detail.

I resisted the urge to look behind at the now empty seat where The Captain had sat. Just his gravity cloak and gun belts remained. And a huge Captain shaped hole in our lives that poor Yama was valiantly trying to fill.

'Exiting IN-SKIP,' Ali called up from the lower bridge. 'Nothing on the short range sensors'

'All right. Eyes peeled people,' I called out. 'So far so good!'

'Anything on the long-range yet?' Yama asked me quietly. I shook my head, and grimaced at the sharp pain in my left temple. The beginnings of a nasty stress headache.

'Negative on that, captain.' I heard the a collective sigh of relief from around the bridge. Out of the corner of my left eye, I could have sworn I saw Yama visibly sag against the ship's wheel. 'Hopefully we've finally shaken them.'

He shook his head, and I noticed him wince as he did so. Someone else with a splitting headache, and I didn't envy him the caffeine come-down he was going to have later. Even in the constant gloom of the bridge, he looked pale. It made the scar that now ran across his face look even more distinct, as it ran across his left cheek and over his nose. I wondered why it looked as though he'd had it for a week. A blaster shot, by the look of it. And from the angle his opponent had been on the floor.

Then there was the patch...

'Do I have something on my face?'

Startled by the question, I looked blankly at him. Then it actually registered, and I returned his slight smile. 'Just a smudge,' I replied. 'You want me to tell everyone to stand down yet?' I needed to get back to business, concentrate on the important things, and try not to think too hard about that empty chair behind me.

'Rotate the watch. One third on at any one time. Pick the fittest for the first, and that, by the way, does not mean yourself.'

'Nor you, if you want my opinion.' Well, someone had to look after him, since self-preservation didn't seem to be high on his to-do list. I looked over the edge of the gantry. 'Ali - pick six other guys who don't look as though they're about to fall over in the next five hours. Then get your ass up here and take the helm.' I looked over to where Yattaran was slumped over his station. 'First mate?'

'Ah. I'll be fine. Just a few bruises. You might want to get that shoulder looked at though, Kei.'

'Shoulder?'

I could have throttled Yattaran for drawing our new captain's attention to my own state. 'Just some bruising. Nothing I can't handle when I get a moment to myself,' I replied. I looked him in the eye, expecting him to just nod and turn away. And why wouldn't he? Harlock had always taken my word for it, even when he knew I was lying my arse off. But if I admitted I'd gotten shot, he'd probably have me off the bridge so fast I'd get friction burns.

But then, it wasn't as though Harlock had given a flying fuck when it came right down to it, was it? It hadn't been respect, treating me as one of the men, giving my space. He genuinely hadn't cared whether I lived or died.

That belated comprehension had hurt worse than any physical injury I'd ever had. And there had been enough of those over the years.

Worthless. just there to be used and discarded. No different to the first part of my life. The bits that got replayed in the middle of the night and usually ended with me desperately trying to wash the memories off in the shower. Hot or cold, it never made any difference.

Some things never wash off.

'Kei?' It took me a moment to realise Yama had spoken again. I pulled my attention back to him. Gave him my best false smile.

'Sorry. What?'

'I said, go and get some rest. Don't make it be my first order!'

So much for trying to get away with not 'fessing up to being a little worse for wear. Whatever. I nodded, desperately tired, and suddenly wanting to get as far away from the bridge as I could go. Away from that empty chair.

Broken dreams were impossible to walk away from. But there was still work to be done, and we were drastically under-manned right now. And my new captain desperately needed his XO, whether he wanted to admit it or not. I didn't trust the rest of them not to shiv him the moment my back was turned.

'In a moment. Time to launch point?' I asked.

'Half an hour.' Carlos replied. 'No sign of pursuit. I think we finally lost them.'

Yama laid a gloved hand on the helm. 'I'd not be too sure. Keep making the long and short range sweeps. Full coverage. And I want a full spectrum check of our own signal. Yattaran - make sure we aren't broadcasting something we shouldn't. I have a horrible feeling we're overlooking something obvious, here.'

'As obvious as why the hell you're still giving the orders?' The fat man pointed to the empty chair behind him. 'Captain's gone, without a trace, and we just take the word of an alien most of us don't...'

'Yattaran!' I stepped forward, right hand on a pistol grip. Of all the times he could pick... Yama however just raised a hand to stop me.

'We're about to lay our dead to rest, First mate. This is not the time to question why I'm in charge. Short answer: Harlock chose me. Longer answer: the ship chose me. I might not be the captain you'd choose but right now, I'm all you've got.' He placed his hand back on the wheel, gently grasping the worn baluster. 'If I screw up, at least you'll have the pleasure of saying 'I told you so.'

A proximity klaxon went off as if on cue.

'That pleasure would be yours, captain,' I called out smugly, rather enjoying watching the rest of them scurrying. 'Incoming - tiered class vessels - standard attack formation!'

'I'd rather have been wrong,' Yama muttered under his breath, rolling his visible eye at me. I smiled back at him.

'Battlestations!' Yattaran bellowed. I noticed his voice was getting hoarse. A legacy of both a pitched battle breathing ionised air and smoke, and hours of shouting orders. 'All turrets, fire at will. You know the drill boys - up 'n' at 'em!'

I checked my sensors again, looking for any signal that would account for the fact that the fleet had somehow tracked us five for five on supposedly random jumps. Still nothing on the outside sensors, so on a hunch, I tried checking the interior of the ship. This time, I got a hit.

'Kei?'

Yama's voice, quiet, as always. Though he sounded tired.

'There's a signal originating inside the ship. Inner hull, near where the Oceanos hit us.'

'Mimay?' Yama called back behind the command gantry to where the massive baroque structure of the dark matter engine filled the rear of the bridge. The tall, willowy figure of the Arcadia's alien chatelaine walked gracefully to stand at Yama's side, the diaphanous folds of her dress fluttering around her flight suit. 'Can you think of any reason we'd be broadcasting? Something Harlock left behind?'

'It is possible,' she admitted, cautiously.

'Couldn't it be something that shithead of an admiral cooked up?' Yattaran asked. 'Or is it just a coincidence?'

'Hardly matters, ' I snapped back at him. 'Whatever it is, we need to clear it, and fast.' The ship rocked as a salvo hit broadside, and I almost lost my balance. Yama caught my arm, steadying me, but I couldn't bite back a hiss of pain has he caught a bruise doing so.

'Sorry,' he said softly. 'I forgot you're still a bit battered.' He let me go. 'Can you track the location precisely?' I nodded. 'Good. Then you're with me. Yattaran, take the helm. Ali, Dan - you two up here, cover Kei and the first mate's stations. As soon as you get the chance, punch through and prepare for IN-SKIP.' He was off and running almost before he'd finished, leaving me trailing in his wake.

---

I caught up with him at the foot of the stairs, having paused to pick up a hand scanner on the fly. 'Wait up!'

He stopped and turned to look at me. 'Sorry. Too fast?'

I huffed at him. 'In your dreams, captain.' I took the lead. 'But unless you managed to memorise the entire layout of the ship whilst you were spying, you'd better follow me!' I led him down a side corridor, pausing at a transport tube. 'We need to go down three levels, whatever beacon is transmitting isn't too far from where you left your brother's body.'

'Did no-one move him?' he asked as we ran.

'I saw to it, don't worry. The cap... Har... oh for crying out loud!' Calling Yama "Captain" or "Harlock" both felt… odd, but I'd tried to do it in public, if only to make it clear to some of the lesser intellects on board who was in charge, and that I didn't consider it negotiable. We reached an access point between decks and I popped the hatch, revealing a pole that vanished into shadowy depths. 'Is there any possible way to differentiate between you without making it sound as though we just picked up a booby prize?' I wound myself around the pole and slid expertly out of sight, and he followed with equal skill, landing neatly next to me.

'I'll answer to anything that isn't 'kid', 'rookie', 'newbie', 'lad', 'boy' or 'oi you' for now. I'm sure we can work the details out at leisure,' he replied to my question as we ran. 'Which way?'

'Left, then right. He always told us to respect those who fell in battle, or died for what they believed in. He would never desecrate or disrespect the dead. Your brother's body was laid to rest with the others.' I pulled up at a junction, and took a quick look at my hand scanner. 'Somewhere around here. But I'm not sure what we're looking for...'

He pointed at a gap in the bulkhead, where part of the anchor tube from the Oceanos still protruded. 'Something like that?' I leaned closer to take a look, when a sudden shockwave rocked the Arcadia, sending me flying, to be fielded by Yama. He pushed me back to my feet. 'That didn't feel too great. I should get back up there...'

'One job at a time,' I reminded him. 'Yattaran is bone idle but he does know his job.' I ran my hands over the walls. 'Ah. Here, I think. The signal's strongest. If I just blast it...'

He laid his hand on mine as I drew. 'Wait. I have an idea. Yattaran?' He keyed his comms to internal, and was rewarded with a tetchy grunt. He grinned. 'Lay in a quick jump to the nearest system, make it look sloppy, as though they did some damage with that hit. I'll meet you back on the bridge to go over a plan.'

'Yeah? Did that plan include a capital class ship riding herd on this shower?' The fat man replied testily. 'Coz we've got a big one heading our way!'

'Identity?'

'It's the Mephisto...' Ali answered for him. 'Ring any bells?'

I saw him flinch slightly. 'Yeah. Hoshino is her captain. A crony of my brother's from the Academy. Not one of my biggest fans, but since I doubt he knows Harlock's not with us, he might just overplay his hand. Keep him occupied. I want them to follow us. '

'And you'll be doing what in the meantime?' Yattaran asked.

'Getting my ass back up to the flight deck. Kei - wait here. On my signal, cut that transmission any way you can.'

I nodded, and he laid a hand briefly on my shoulder before giving me an encouraging smile, and then he was off at full speed back the way we'd come.

I leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh. Whatever he had planned, I thought sourly, it had better be good. He'd not led us too badly since breaking us out of the brig, but he was still an unknown quantity. The Captain had had his faults, but in a fight he at least gave the impression he knew what he was doing. Yama on the other hand seemed to be making it up as he went along…

I began to examine the damaged bulkhead more closely. It was easy to see where the damaged boarding tube had broken off, and I ran my fingers over the raised curve where the hull had reformed over the seal when it had snapped. A possible weak point? I wondered. If so then the best solution long term would be to simply cut it out and let the ship repair itself properly. But to my surprise, the signal from the transmitter was weaker in this area. The actual location was a couple of feet to the left, and when I examined the spot closely, I noticed the pattern of dimples in the bulkhead was similar to an instrument panel. On a whim, I trotted back to a nearby console and brought up the schematics for this part of the ship.

After examining that, I had to fight down the overwhelming urge to run back to the bridge and start shredding a certain someone's left behind cloak. I pressed the intercom for the bridge.

'Better be good, Kei, we're about to join a nasty little cluster fuck.'

Ali, having all the fun at my station... I swallowed my irritation. 'Tell the captain we might have a problem. This transmitter isn't Gaia Fleet - well, it is. It's just over a century old.'

'You're on speaker Kei. What is it?'

Yama, sounding frazzled. I really should have gone back with him. He shouldn't have to handle Ali and Yattaran by himself just yet.

'It's the emergency IFF generator. The bulkhead over it didn't seal recently. I think it's been transmitting constantly ever since the Homecoming War.'

Silence on the other end, and I knew all of them were processing what that meant.

It was Yattaran who got in first. 'Son of a bitch...'

'The bastard was transmitting his location the whole time?' Ali, sounding as though he wanted to punch the shit out of someone, but I couldn't read anything into it, being as he usually sounded pissed at the world.

'Explains why they could always find him...' Yama mused. 'Why does this give us a problem?'

'Kid, you really don't know much about battleships do ya?' I flinched at the smug tone in Yattaran's voice. Oh dear... 'Those signals are designed to keep going no matter what, in case a ship gets stranded. Which means a separate power supply nearby...'

'So I can't blow it. We'll have to cut our way through and try to disconnect it without blowing ourselves to shit,' I elaborated. 'Not an easy job as the Deathshadow 4 was radically reconfigured when it became the Arcadia. We can't rely on the original schematics...'

'Shit.' The heartfelt response from my new captain summed up the situation nicely. 'Get back up here for now. One problem at a time.'

I nodded, before remembering that the connection was voice only. 'On my way.'

---

Tiered class ships lacked the firepower and speed to deal with a ship of the Arcadia's class. Punching outside of their weight class didn't even come close to covering it. They were as annoying as a swarm of gnats - although enough of their bites could cause a little inconvenience, and put a strain on the auto-repair. Not a problem unless a grade class ship was around to capitalise on that weakness.

I ran up the stairs two at a time just in time to see a battered looking example of such bearing down on us. 'Is he seriously trying to play chicken?' I yelped as I elbowed Ali off my station. The big guy took it in his usual bad grace, happy enough to get back to his own console.

'He's trying to avoid giving us his flank. Fast enough to stay in front of us, because we can't expose ourselves to his mosquito squadron,' Yama ground out. 'But I think he's being overly cautious. He thinks he's dealing with Harlock.'

'Bloody good job he does,' Yattaran grumped. 'If he knew we had a wet behind the ears rookie at the helm he'd be all over us all guns blazing.'

I winced, waiting for the explosion. Surely Yama couldn't - wouldn't - just stand there and take this? At some point he had to crack. No-one was that damn even-tempered, surely? So far the sly digs and innuendos had rolled off like water off oil.

Yama laid a gloved hand on the wheel. 'I trust the crew know our old patterns of attack and defence enough to cover. It's not as though you didn't have the practice with your oh - so - hands - on former captain, who was so keen on leading every charge and micro-managing every decision on the bridge, now is it?'

Yattaran almost lost his footing as he stepped back in wide eyed shock, just as another blast rocked the ship. I just pretended to pay closer attention to my console to hide my laughter at the dry delivery and the first mate's spluttering. I could have hugged him for that alone. Yama continued with missing a beat.

'We have unfinished business to attend to, gentlemen. Ladies. Now I know how fast this ship can turn on its axis. so on my mark, let them have a full frontal salvo, then gun it towards them as fast as we can. Overlay the holographic array onto the hull; make it look as though we're coming at them head on. Only then do I want all guns rotated to the upper starboard flank...' he broke off as he saw Yattaran's face break into an anticipatory feral grin. 'I think you can take it from there?'

'Aye aye, cap'n!'

'Are you serious?' I whispered as Yama took up his stand next to the wheel. 'You do know how badly that manoeuvre would go if you mis-timed that flip?'

'Which is why I will have a little help at the helm.,' he whispered back. He turned back to the crew. 'Ali - get the gun crew into position. We're drastically undermanned, so make the best of what we've got. Can you run all the main batteries through your station?'

'Yeah, but...'

'No buts, Ali. It's one big target, I just want you to aim at the damn thing. Rake it bow to stern and that should take care of things. There's an inhabited planet nearby, looking at the charts. Shouldn't take too long for help to reach them.'

'The tiered class ships?' Carlos asked.

'Without a capital class vessel to back them up, they can't do much damage. Once the Mephisto is out of commission, we can jump and take care of that signal.' He took a light hold of the wheel, I noticed. Barely curled his fingers around the worn balusters. I hoped to hell he knew what he was doing. Since I'd kind of stood by him since finding him at the helm when we took off from Earth, all I could do was follow his lead and hope for the best. By now it felt like running downhill, out of control, unable to stop once committed and flailing like mad to stay upright and hope no-one noticed – I just had to hope I didn't land on my metaphorical face before we hit bottom…

Deep breath, Kei. Bright and confident… 'Okay people - you heard the captain - let's get rid of this creep!' I called. I gave Yama a worried look though. 'Chicken. Seriously?'

He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his usually strong grip tremble slightly. He hadn't had nearly enough sleep, I realised, looking at his ashen face. 'Trust me, he's no Isora. He'll flinch before I do.'

'I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but shouldn't you put Yattaran at the helm?' I flicked an uncertain look at our rotund first mate. Who flipped me the bird.

'I'll hold,' Yama replied, taking a firmer hold of the balusters.

'Yeah, trust the new captain, Kei.' Yattaran told me in a falsetto sing-song as though imitating my own words. 'Just keep your eyes and ears peeled for trouble, little girl.' He sniggered at his own cleverness.

'Less chatter, children, more action, ' Yama chided. He ignored our annoyed expressions. 'Concentrate on the idiot in front of you, not to the side...'

That earned him a glare from me, which he just very quietly - and with studied deliberation - smiled patronisingly at and then ignored. Yeah... not so funny being on the receiving end...

A cackling chuckle from Ali on the lower bridge was followed by a full blown whoop of amusement. 'Oh man, I wish I could see their faces...'

'And the same goes for the artillery section, Ali,' Yama called down.

'Yeah, yeah. Don't get yer panties in a bunch, rookie. Leave it to the professionals...'

'If I could find any,' he muttered under his breath, 'I would...' The sotto voce murmur finally earned him a punch on the arm from me, landed without taking my eyes off my console. He rubbed the offended limb. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stick his tongue out at me, and despite the situation, I found it hard not to laugh with him, and it was nice to see he didn't mind me teasing him back.

'All ahead full! Hold onto something, ladies!' Yattaran called out with relish as Yama steered our course. 'We're about to see if this bastard has any balls...'

Gracefully, and with little disturbance to the crew thanks to the efficient inertial dampeners and artificial gravity, the Arcadia flipped end over end as the Mephisto's captain pulled her sideways at the last moment. The turn forced his flank into the range of the Arcadia's guns, which then raked her from bow to stern, concentrating on her engines. A cheer went up from the crew as the Mephisto seesawed awkwardly, pitching and yawing in a manner that made me feel a little seasick just to watch.

'Ooh, that has to hurt,' Ali smirked. 'Maybe just one more up the arse for luck?'

'Unless they open fire, no. Earth might need all the ships it has left one day. I'd rather not be responsible for totally wrecking the solar defences.' Yama said quietly. He had his fingers still curled lightly around the balusters, I noticed. Almost as if he hadn't been the one steering?

'We took out their KSS neutron array and that bloody Jupiter plasma planet-killer before we left,' Yattaran pointed out. 'What's a few ships more or less when they're gunning for us? Especially when the only people they would ever defend against are - how do I put this?'

'Our own kind?' I finished. 'He's right, we could send a message not to mess with us right here...'

Yama turned a look on me that was equal parts exasperation and resolve. 'We had to fight our way clear. That was one thing. I made it plain I would never turn my back on an opponent again. They followed us, so I'm sending a message that I won't roll over. But killing our own isn't what I stand for. Not on a whim. If that's a problem for anyone, you know where that planet is.'

There was silence on the bridge, and I waited to see what the reaction would be. We'd been fighting the fleet for a long time, with no quarter given. But Yama was right. If they left us alone, we didn't need to go looking for trouble.

'I ain't got a problem with that.'

Bob, the big tattooed guy who didn't usually have much to say spoke up. Yama moved to the front of the gantry. 'Bob?'

'Captain had a beef with the authorities, we just kinda went along. And if someone sticks a gun in my face he has to know he'll get what's comin'. But it don't sit right just killing a guy for being on the wrong side.' He looked up to meet Yama's eye. 'I'm okay with it, captain.'

Yama nodded his approval, and the big guy grinned. Carlos gave him a slap on the back and winced, shaking his hand to unnumb his fingers. A ripple of laughter went through the lower bridge crew, and I lowered my head to hide a smile. Well whaddya know, he had them.

Well, some of them. I caught an unintelligible mutter from Ali, which suggested trouble might still come from the sulky gunner. But even Yattaran looked pleased.

'Open a channel, Kei. I think it's about time I introduced myself to that captain.' Yama ordered softly.

---

The captain of the Mephisto looked much the worse for wear, sporting a cut above his left eye and looking as though a shave hadn't been on the cards since he'd left the solar system.

'Harlock! You coward. Hiding behind holograms with unworthy tactics!'

'Coward? I'm sorry you feel that way, Gõzõ. Would you like to send for a few more ships to even the odds?' Yama moved in front of the transmitter to another ripple of laughter from the bridge. 'I'd hate for you to feel outnumbered...' He sounded so innocent, and looked relaxed as he folded his arms. There were sniggers from all points on the bridge.

'You? You pissant little prick! Where's Harlock?'

Yattaran of all people stepped forwards, giving the Fleet captain his best stinkeye; 'You're looking at him. We're under new management.' At my startled expression he shrugged. 'No-one gets to diss our captain but us,' he added quietly so as not to be overheard over the comms. He gave Yama a slap on the shoulder as he stood beside him that almost floored the smaller man.

Hoshino's thin lip curled into a sneer. 'Him? He shouldn't be put in charge of a garbage hauler. Where's your brother? What did you do to the Admiral? And where's the real Harlock? Putting on an eyepatch doesn't make you a pirate captain, lieutenant. if I'd known I was dealing with some pubescent little twerp...'

'Oh, now, is that any way to speak to the man who has a dozen oscillator cannon pointed at you, Captain? Isora didn't make it, he's dead, and not by my hand. This is the only warning I will give you, Hoshino. Keep the fleet out of my space. Next time I won't be so generous.' He gestured to me to cut the connection, and I did so, rather enjoying the spluttering officer's fury.

'You could have stayed quiet,' I said softly. 'You pretty much burned your boats there. They might not have known you turned your coat.' I paused. 'Again.'

The little reminder of his recent decision-making disorder occasioned a very slight flinch. Then he shrugged, rather more nonchalantly than I suspected he felt. 'I was never going back. This is my home now. Besides, I doubt he'll be quick to report that he had his arse kicked by a - what was it - oh yes: "pubesecent little twerp"...' He grinned at me. 'I guess the holoprojector can't pick up three days worth of stubble...' He turned to Yattaran as those of us near enough to hear him laughed. 'Make a small jump to get us out of here. We still have that transmitter to deal with.'

'And that old geezer in the brig wants a word with you,' Dan called up from below. 'The Fleet officer we captured? The one with better muttonchops than Ali here!'

'Hey, bigger ain't better!' Ali replied.

I grinned. 'Just keep telling yourself that, Ali. You'll sleep better at night!'

The crew laughed with me. Yama just shook his head. 'Fine, I'll stop by. Kei - finish up here and meet me in the brig.' I nodded, and he trudged wearily off the bridge as I watched with concern. He really did need a break...

---

Once he was out of earshot I all but pounced on Yattaran. 'You pull his file whilst you were in the system?' I had a few suspicions about our new captain. I'd written him off as a bit of an idiot after he'd first come aboard – a bit of a ditherer, not particularly sociable and apart from some sharp skills behind a turret, not someone I'd really care to have behind me in a fight. Since Tokarga though, something hadn't felt quite right, and there had been times I felt as though I was dealing with two different people; one competent and confident, the other introverted and shifty. After he'd turned on us, I'd assumed it was down to his somewhat ambivalent loyalites. Since he'd shown up in the brig to break us out however, I'd seen only the first of those. I hoped – really hoped – that I wasn't just seeing what I wanted to see. Because over the last couple of days I'd started to like him... no, not just like - trust - and with my track record, I didn't want to make another mistake.

Yattaran looked at me warily through his thick glasses. 'Mebbe. Why?'

'I want a read. Patch it through.' He didn't need to know why I was feeling a little twitchy..…

'Anything we should know?' he asked. I retrieved the record and started flipping through. Lost his mother at fourteen... father - oh, another fleet admiral? - at fifteen. Brother had become his guardian and that of a girl their father had taken in when her parents died. Free climbing and basejumping? I smiled. Bit of a risk taker, no surprises there. Fast tracked for an honours programme in biology, which he'd ditched to enrol in the Officer Training School at seventeen. Well, well… brains and beauty…

The family was loaded and connected in very high places – which explained Admiral Nasty's position at such a young age. Huh… so why the hell did he want to hang around with us? With these connections he could probably have gotten away with a parking ticket for landing on a restricted planet...

'Kei?' Yattaran sounded impatient. I waved him off.

'Not sure. Just a hunch. Ah!' I stood upright with a satisfied grunt, frowning slightly. 'Take over here would you? I'll be with the captain. Oh - and get on that signal transmitter with Maji. The sooner that's down, the sooner we can get back to the Triceratops Cluster.'

---

I caught up with Yama on his way out of the brig, looking almost happy for once. 'Good news?'

'Commander Levary and some of his men want to stay on. Seems they have a problem with a government that opens fire on its own military. '

Hmm. Possibly good news – if they were on the level. But we needed the manpower. 'Can't say as I blame them. Do you trust them?'

'He used to command my father. Known him since I was little. He's a decent man, so yes. I've arranged to drop off anyone who doesn't feel like turning pirate.' He gave me a penetrating glance. 'You however look as though you have something to say. If it's about my earlier actions...'

'It's not,' I assured him. Well, it sort of was, I supposed. I guided him into one of the turret rooms and shut the door behind them. 'I read your file.'

He looked at me warily. 'Okay... which bit?'

'Your Fleet Academy record...'

'Ah. That.'

He didn't sound too surprised, so I guessed he must have figured one of us would see through the bullshit eventually. If anything, was that relief in his voice? I decided to go straight to the point. 'You've been blowing hot and cold ever since you got on board. One moment I'm certain you're an effete idiot, the next you take control and handle yourself like you were born to it. It was bugging me. Your academy record was a bit of a revelation. For two whole terms you aced every single course you took. All of them, in the top three of the class. Then for the rest of your training, you place consistently - with I should add statistically improbable precision - in the middle of the same cohort. For three whole years. Funnily enough, this outbreak of idiocy coincides with the first holiday you took back to Mars when your brother was home...'

'What can I say? I peaked early?'

'Bullshit.'

He grimaced. 'It's not something I'm proud of, Kei. Can we leave it?'

I thought for a moment, then shook my head firmly. I had a strong feeling if not pressed, he'd just keep it bottled up.

He sighed, and ran a hand through his already unruly hair. 'I was reminded rather forcefully of a promise I'd made. Isora... You read about the explosion?'

I nodded. Though there was a sealed file attached to that part I was going to have to pick at later…

'I promised him I'd do whatever it took to make up for crippling him. He held me to it. Over the years... let's just say that if there was a shit job that he needed doing to advance his career without getting his hands dirty, I was the patsy who took the fall whilst he took the credit. I was told that I wasn't in Fleet to further my own career. Standing out - it wasn't an option. That might have led to a commission and a career that took me out of his influence.'

I laid my hand on his arm. 'He made you give up your university place as well, didn't he? That must have hurt...'

'You have no idea...' he replied with feeling. 'I had no love for a soldier's life, but giving up on my own dreams and then having to play dumb when surrounded by fools I could run rings around? Yeah. It stung. I think he knew that. He wasn't even too happy about the climbing - Gaia forbid I do something that I enjoyed. Or could cost him his chew toy. But hell, I love the freedom out there - and if I'm honest, it was one of the few small ways I could fight back. Petty, really... but then in some ways we were more alike than I care to admit.'

I snorted. 'I somehow doubt that.'

He gave me a curious look. 'I rolled over and handed you all over to the fleet without trial, for execution. Still want to tell me how nice you think I am?'

He had a point. 'I don't believe your brother would have come back for us.' I replied forcefully. 'Didn't strike me as the kind of man who ever backed down when he was wrong. Quite the opposite in fact. I've seen the type before. If he reminded me of anyone, it was Harlock, not you.'

He didn't say a word. Just leaned closer and shattered my carefully built defences with a tentative, tender kiss that had me curling my toes with delight. 'What was that for?' I asked once I could get my breath - and my tongue - back.

'Thank you. It's been a while since anyone unconditionally stood up for me.'

'I didn't say there were no conditions...' I teased, trying to get my composure back. He looked just as flustered as I felt. I laid my hand on his face, resisting the urge to trace the line of that scar. Sometimes looking at him there was an odd feeling of dislocation: as though I'd never really looked at him – or see him – properly before. I'd dismissed him as a shorter, thinner, paler copy of Harlock when I'd seen him that first time with the scar and patch. And no, he didn't have The Captain's height or sheer presence, or that sultry charisma that - as Ali once put it – "could snap knicker elastic at fifty paces". But now outside of that looming shadow, he was plenty tall enough – over six foot, when he didn't slouch, which he'd noticeably stopped doing since the brig. Ali - never short of an opinion whether you wanted it or not - had early on dismissed him as the "boy next door", but if by that he meant ordinary and bland, he was way off the mark. Our new captain didn't drag a hundred years of doom-laden misery and despair around with him, wrapped around with a brooding darkness blacker than that heavy gravity-cloak, but if you dismissed him as a non-entity you weren't looking hard enough. He was quiet, and a little sad, and unless I was really off my game, lonely. But he had demonstrated a sly sense of humour, could think fast on the fly, and his dismissal of the Mephisto had shown there was a ruthless streak not far under that amiable facade. The combination was strangely compelling, though he seemed to be wielding it unconsciously for the most part. I had a feeling when he finally learned to weaponise it the universe had no idea what it was in for…

Which, I thought, could be fun to watch…

'Conditions?'

He was putting on the confused look, but I had at least picked up enough of his tells recently to know when he was fishing for a response. Fine. Two could play at that game…'For a start, I don't think I gave you permission to stop, rookie...'

He smiled at that, and that took my breath away even more than his kiss had. It was the first truly genuine smile he'd shown me - I'd seen him serious, confused, determined, bored and joking, but that fleeting smile... It reminded me of my first sunrise. He had no business unleashing that on unwary bystanders. 'Is that an order, ma'am? Because I'm pretty sure us poor little newbies aren't supposed to be harassed by desperadoes with designs on our innocent, delicate sensibilities...'

That earned him another thump. 'You really can be a bit of a joker, can't you?'

'Guilty as charged I guess. Another defence mechanism, according to those who bother to get to know me.'

'Not many of those, I'm guessing?'

He gave a little huff. 'I spent the last six months before you picked me up on a dead-end planet in the middle of nowhere with a population barely into double figures. Before that let's just say my brother kept me busy, and leave it at that.'

His matter of fact tone didn't fool me for a moment. I laid a hand on his arm. 'It doesn't have to stay that way. But it's your choice.' I yawned, caught by surprise. 'Damn, it's late. And I seriously need a shower.' I turned away, took a step or two, and turned back. 'I think we're going the same way, if you want some company...'

---

We walked in a companionable silence. From the brig to the officers' quarters was a fair distance to cover after more than three days straight on your feet, and we were both content it seemed to take it slowly. Or maybe we both liked the unexpected companionship which we'd found since I'd thrown caution to the winds and followed him out of our brig three – four days ago? Damn… It felt like a month. At an intersection, I stopped, pointed. 'Captain's quarters are up that way, in case you didn't know the way.'

'My quarters are down on the crew deck...' he pointed out.

'Not anymore.' I watched him as he stared up the darkened corridor. From here you couldn't see the doors - designed to look like a pair of heavy, gothic wooden doors from - what? An old castle? I'd never asked. But I did sometimes run a hand over the carvings when there was no-one around to see. It felt how I imagined wood felt. Warm to the touch. Rough and smooth. Dead but alive.

The thought triggered a very small suspicion that wouldn't go away. The Arcadia had shown a tendency of late to act on its own account. Had Yama really been piloting earlier? Or had something... someone... been taking control again?

If so, how had Yama known?

I heard a sharp intake of breath, and turned to see him leaning against the wall, holding his chest. I knew the feeling: in too much pain to stand up straight, and it hurt too much to double over. 'Ribs?'

'Feels like it. I'll be fine. Just needed to get my breath.'

I let out a snort of disbelief. 'Bullshit. Infirmary's this way.' I gave him a tug, but he resisted, and I let go with a sigh of exasperation.

Instead, he offered me his hand. 'Captain's quarters might be closer.' It was, I suspected, as close to an admission that he was in more pain than he wanted anyone to know as I'd get. He dropped the hand when I didn't take it. 'I could use some help.'

I hadn't expected the admission and only became aware that I was standing with my mouth open when he reached over and tapped me under the chin to close it. 'Not used to your captain admitting to a weakness?' He smiled at me again, his unhidden hazel eye twinkling with humour. 'Don't let the eyepatch fool you. I'm nothing like him.' As he turned away again to look up the corridor I could have sworn I heard him mutter 'I hope...' under his breath.

No. He wasn't… I strongly suspected The Captain would have bled out rather than ask anyone for aid. 'I'd still have to make a trip to the infirmary for supplies,' I said quietly. 'I doubt the captain kept bandages to hand. His usual medication of choice was a brandy bottle.'

'Can't fault him much there. I've heard rumours on board about that liquor cabinet...' he teased.

I regarded him carefully for the first time: barely able to stand, limping on a possibly sprained ankle, battered, half blinded and slashed across the face, yet still able to crack a joke, even if it was jut a defence mechanism. The few short days since he'd handed us over for execution had seen a massive change in the man who stood in front of me now. I'd already put my life in his hands twice since then, to follow him. Which might come back to bite me later.

Or might not.

I made a decision, and before I could change my mind, grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve again. 'This way. The infirmary will be full.' Maybe... just maybe this would work out? If I could keep him alive long enough...

'Where...' he asked. I stopped outside one of the officers' rooms and keyed in my access code. 'Oh.'

'It's quite all right, I don't bite,' I quipped. Throwing his own words back at him earned me a quirky little smile, thankfully - or not - not that lightning flash that lit up his entire face, but he followed me in.

'Take a seat. I just need to raid my stash.' I told him. I knelt down to open the bottom drawer of my cupboards, and pulled out a couple of packets of strapping, some gauze and some antiseptic. 'If you have anything that needs stitching, we'll have to fetch Maji. He's the only one of the cack handed bastards who won't leave too big a scar.'

'Scars don't scare me,' he said gently. I stood up and turned to see him perched on the edge of my bed. 'It was the only clear spot...' he said apologetically in reply to my unasked question. He gestured to my only chair, which was embarrassingly piled with the contents of my underwear drawer. The rest of my things were scattered around the floor; two spare flightsuits, a couple of sweaters and shirts. My spare boots had been attacked with a knife, and my silver-handled hairbrush was in two pieces. A pointlessly spiteful act by the Gaia Fleet – what the hell did they think we were hiding in our quarters?

'I'm not sure what your people expected to find, but at least there's nothing missing.' I said this as airily as I could, but it wasn't convincing even to my own ears. Blushing, I grabbed the pile of undies and chucked them into a corner with a towel over the top. The brush I picked up, a piece in each hand, and reluctantly put it on the side with a sad sigh. 'Can you take your jacket and sweater off, or do you need help?'...

My brain caught up to my mouth a little late. If I thought I couldn't be more embarrassed than by having my underwear and my few belongings on display for my new captain to see, I realised I'd been wrong. Yeah. One kiss and you invite your ridiculously cute new captain over to your quarters and ask him if he'd like you to take his shirt off for him...

'I don't mind if you prefer to leave the door open,' he told me, misreading my blushes. 'I mean, if you feel safer?'

I grabbed the first aid supplies and clutched them to my chest like a barricade. 'They'd still talk, if they strolled by. Besides, Ali has the room across the way, and he gossips like a fishwife. We could both be in plain sight wearing hardsuits and standing six feet apart and he'd spread it about the whole ship that we were busy rogering each other into the middle of next week.' If there was one thing I'd learned over the years, it was how to tough it out and hide behind a wall of bravado.

'Then he's got a higher opinion of my skills than I have. I doubt I could stand upright for that long right now, let alone manage any acrobatics, sexual or otherwise.' Yama replied dryly.

I smiled to myself at the image, and busied myself washing my hands in the little sink. In the vanity mirror above it, I had a pretty good view of the bed as he started to unfasten his jacket. Painfully slowly, his teeth gritted as he tried to slide it off his arms, but I had the feeling he felt he had to make a point of managing for himself.

The sweater underneath however proved a step too far.

'Here, let me.' I helped him get his arms out of it one by one, and pulled it over his head. It took the eyepatch with it, and I disentangled it for him before handing it back. I reached out to lightly trace the pitted burn marks under his bloodshot eye. The pupil looked fixed, partly dilated, and didn't react as I passed my hand in front of it. 'I thought you might have lost it in the boarding of the Oceanos, but it looks fine apart from being a little bloodshot. Overflash from the blaster that shot your face? If so, you might be okay in a few days...'

'Overflash took out the nanotech recorder/transmitter they fixed to it on that patrol boat we raided as we left MX-201. It's been dead ever since...' he ran a finger over the scar on his cheek. 'I need to get it scanned later, I guess.'

I ran a finger down the length of that scar. The skin was only slightly puckered, no inflammation. Perfectly healed. Shorter than the captain's scar. Less extensive in width. Like The Captain, it didn't really detract from his looks either, as if the injury highlighted his beauty, instead of destroying it. Though in combination with the patch, it made him seem a little grimmer – until he unleashed that elastic-snapping smile. I had to give the far too appreciative demon on my shoulder a shake. Focus… 'Someone got the drop on you from the ground. That won't do. You need to be sharper than that.'

'I'm hardly likely to make the same mistake again,' he said softly. 'I only had the one brother after all.'

I sat back on my heels, and let my hands drop limply into my lap. That damned brother… what kind of bastard shoots his younger brother in the face? And from the angle, Yama hadn't been facing him full on...

I decided to concentrate on his injuries. Whatever strange force had healed his face hadn't been quite so generous with the rest of him. His chest and stomach were still blotchy with dark purple and yellow bruises, and these extended round to his back. Like he'd been slammed up against a wall and pinned, at a guess. I ran my fingers over the bruising, feeling gently for any signs of bleeding or breaks. From his file I knew now we were the same age - twenty four; I'd guessed a year or two younger before that. He was still boyishly slender; narrow-waisted with slim hips; only a scattering of fine hairs on his chest. His trousers rode a little low, and a thin trail of dark hairs ran from below his navel to disappear behind the skull belt buckle... yeah, Kei, eyes up. It was getting warm all of a sudden in my room. Need to check the environmental controls later... but he had broad shoulders and the smooth muscle under my fingers was lean and hard. This, along with his nicely defined back and upper arms indicated he'd fill out very nicely in a couple of years... I already knew he had good upper body strength: he'd held my weight and his own on Tokarga one-handed, no mean feat however brief. Figures. Free climbing wasn't for the weak or faint hearted, and according to his file he'd been an Academy champion. Overall he was nicely toned but not ripped. Not a gym-bunny like a couple of the guys. So, not particularly vain, and he liked to keep fit the hard way then...?

'If you want to talk about it...' I suggested, leaving him the opening. He let out a shuddering breath as my hand ran over the small of his back. There were old burn scars, I noted idly. Faint, and obviously professionally treated. I could barely see the scars from the grafts unless I looked closely. Those I guessed were from the "accident" listed in his file. 'Sorry, did that hurt?'

'Not exactly.' He looked flushed, I noted. 'It's a long story. How much of it did you want to hear? Or are you just asking to be kind?'

I moved slightly to be able to look him in the eye again. 'Can't I be kind and mean it? I overheard your conversation with him before the first battle. He wasn't particularly pleased to hear you were alive, and there's no way in hell he cared about getting you off the Arcadia before all hell broke loose. And the little you let slip earlier combined with the sketchy details in your file…' There had been more, but I wanted to hear him tell it.

'Short version: you saw the hover chair he was in?' I nodded. I had seen the file, but he needed to tell it his way. 'That was my fault. When I was sixteen, I did something monumentally stupid. My mother... she was a botanist. Spent most of her life trying to get Earth plants growing on a new world. I wanted to follow in her footsteps, after she died. Her greenhouse... we got there one day to find everything she'd worked so hard to grow blackened and dying. The generator for the environmental controls was broken. I thought I could sort it out. I was wrong. The entire place blew. Isora was trapped in the wreckage; a girder broke his spine, left him a paraplegic. He was barely nineteen.' He took a deep breath.

'That wasn't the worst of it. There was a girl. Nami. I'd adored her since we were kids. She was injured as well. Seventeen years old, and I put her on life support for the rest of her life.' He looked my straight in the eyes. 'One moment of thoughtless stupidity, and I ruined the lives of the two people I loved most. Still feel like being kind?'

My throat tightened at the sound of the heartbreak and bitterness in his voice. 'Sounds to me as though three lives were ruined that day, not two. You never really intended to survive this mission, did you?'

He didn't reply. I sighed, knowing the answer.

'What happened? On the Oceanos, I mean. I get that the two of you finally went for each other, but from what I hear you single-handedly dragged the bastard back over here...'

'Harlock saved my life. Shot Isora in the back before he finished the job by doing the same to me. He did what I couldn't... despite everything... all the hatred, the lies... I couldn't do it, Kei. Not to my own brother...' He took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eye. 'I'm pretty sure Isora pulled the plug on Nami's life support. He never could lie to me worth a damn. But I still couldn't pull the trigger... or leave him there to die alone. It's not who I am.'

I reached out and brushed his hair back from his face, wishing I knew a way to take away the hurt there. 'You know, I'm rather glad you're not that kind of man. And I'm glad you came back. Less than a week ago we were all dead men walking. Now, thanks to you, we have a second chance. A real one, this time.' I shook my head. 'I'm not too sure any of us really know what to do with it.' I placed my hand over his, which rested on his thighs, tightly clenched. Little by little I worked my fingers into his, until he relaxed his grip and curled those strong fingers gently around mine.

'You think I do? What am I supposed to do with all of this?' His expansive gesture with the hand I wasn't holding took in my room, but I guessed he meant the ship. 'When he said there had to be a Captain Harlock, I didn't think he meant 'straight away'. The whole thing was just too surreal, it didn't really sink in that I was on my own until we hit that first wave.'

I was, I knew, going to have to sit him down at some point and get him to lay out the story properly, filling in the gaps. 'You were doing fine on the bridge earlier...' I squeezed his fingers gently, deciding against asking about mysterious self-willed battleships. For now. 'Let me guess, as long as you're throwing yourself headlong into a situation, you're fine, but now we've stopped...'

He gave me a rueful smile. 'Running headlong into trouble isn't my problem. Dealing with downtime… that just gives me too much time to worry...'

I had noticed. It was one of the things that had started me warming up to him – he reacted to situations instinctively, as though he lived and breathed the words he'd thrown back at me earlier – better to do something than nothing. Maybe The Captain had been like that long ago, but he'd lost his way long before I'd met him. It occurred to me then that perhaps what I liked about Yama was what I'd thought I'd seen in Harlock eight years ago and in the years since. I just hoped I wasn't making the same mistake again...

I stood up. 'Then try to get some sleep, at least. Hopefully we'll reach the Triceratops Cluster in a few hours. Get your boots off, use my shower. I'll use the crew showers then fetch some food and grab some clean clothes for you.' If nothing else, it would give me time to think.

---

I left him trying to tug off his boots as I shut the door. I suppose I could have helped him, and I almost turned back to do so, but my guilty conscience came to an abrupt halt at the same time as I bounced off a broad, green sweater clad chest. 'Ali! What the hell are you doing lurking in corridors when you were left with the helm?'

'Helm's taken care of. Just checking you didn't need any help with the kid there.' He leaned against the wall with his usual insolent sneer. I sighed inwardly. Just great. The only person he'd ever listen to was Harlock, and with him gone...

'There's no need. I can take care of myself,' I snapped. I watched him closely. He liked to play the brainless thug, but there was a lot more to the bad-tempered bastard than he liked anyone to know.

'Like you did with that bastard who half killed you in that hangar?' Yeah. Like that... I gave him a hard shove. Pointless, really, since he was braced against the corridor wall. Like shoving a brick wall.

He had no call bringing that up. 'That was six years ago. Besides, Yama's not the type.'

'Kei. I'm just sayin'. Be careful. Kazuya seemed pretty harmless as well. Nicely spoken. Hard working. Pretty if you like the type. And lady, before you launch that nasty right cross of yours at my beautiful face, trust me, you do have a type...'

Tall, slim, dark, handsome, needy. Eyepatch and facial scars optional. Life and soul of the party not essential. I gave him another pointless shove. 'I don't need reminding, Ali. I learned my lesson all too well.' Hell, that sounded bitter even to my ears.

And I had, I told myself. That was why I currently carried six knives and two boot-concealed handguns in addition to my bolters.

'You were lucky the captain came along when he did, otherwise. ..'

'Shut up, Ali.' Don't say another bloody word, I wanted to scream at him. Lucky? The crew still thought Harlock had shot the bastard after pulling him off me.

If only. I pulled away and stormed off up the corridor, heading for the refractory. Sometimes some of those late night nightmares had Kazuya's face, as I pulled the trigger of the pistol the captain had handed to me and watched a man's chest splatter over a bulkhead as I slumped to my knees shaking and crying, blood running down my face and the torn remnants of a pale pink flightsuit, running onto the metal grating.

Lesson learned, captain. Until today, I hadn't let anyone get that close again, or looked to anyone but myself for strength. I had to lean against the wall for a moment to regain my composure, letting the calming heartbeat I sometimes felt through the walls settle my rattled nerves, and swallowed back the bile in the back of my throat. I had learned to pick myself up and keep that calm mask in place. Never let anyone see me bleed. But for the first time in years, that mask was beginning to chafe.

I set off again rather more confidently than I felt. Shower, food, clean clothing... Give me a ticklist, and I could at least have something to hold onto instead of worrying. Which probably wasn't too different to our new captain's way of coping...

---

I arrived back in time to see someone bulling his way into my quarters past a sleepy-looking Yama. Crap... it probably didn't look too good that the captain of a little over three days was half naked in the quarters of the only (human) woman on the ship. Especially when the scowl that pushed past him without so much as a by your leave was attached to the hefty, muscled bulk of Ali - who apparently just couldn't keep his nose out of my business, and was possibly the one person on the crew who might conceivably want to challenge for the captaincy. As quietly as I could I made my way to my partly open door, and listened in.

'She's not here. Oh, and do come in...' Yama added sarcastically.

'I know. We just talked. You know, if I hadn't seen you crawling your way up Mount Gun Frontier by your fingertips back on Heavy Meldar, I wouldn't rate you highly. Scrawny little bugger aren't you?' On Yama's behalf I bristled. Since I rather liked staring at my new captain, I took deep exception to that description.

'Well unless you're here to proposition me, I don't think that's your problem,' Yama snapped back. I grinned. I rather enjoyed his attitude as well...

'There are one or two of the guys who think you're cute. Me, I prefer something to get hold of in the clinches. A lass with a bit of meat on her bones.' I peeked around the door, and watched Ali fold his arms. 'Listen, kid. I don't know what stories you've heard about Kei running round the ship, but just in case, I'm giving you one warning. Don't play around with her. I get even a hint that you're hurting her, and I'll emasculate you with a rusty spoon. Kid's been through enough, and she's nowhere near as tough and hardbitten as she likes everyone to think. Don't let that space dominatrix getup fool ya.'

Space what? Ooh. I'd have him scrubbing the turret coolant ducts for a week for that...

'Now you're being insulting. What kind of jerk do you take me for?' Yama snapped back.

'The kind who sold us all down the river a few days ago and only changed his mind a few seconds before we were executed?' Ali replied with a snarl. 'I ain't forgetting that in a hurry, kid. If the ship and the creepy alien lady want to make you captain, reckon we're stuck with it for now. You got us outta the brig, you got the captain back in the game and you got us out of the solar system without too many more losses, so you're heading back into the credit column. But you ain't there yet. Just sayin'.'

'I hear you. And for the record, I won't hurt Kei. I'd never do that.'

'I'll hold ya to that. Holy shit, your guys did a number on our rooms, you know that? Mine looks like a bomb hit it, and some flat footed tosser smashed his way through Yattaran's precious models. If the perp's one of those idiots in the brig, he's a dead man.'

I had to pull back out of sight as Yama stood up unsteadily, and walked over to my small chest of drawers. 'About that.'

I peeked back round. He held up the two parts of my broken hairbrush, which trailed strands of golden hair. 'Got anyone who might fix this? She tried to hide it, but I think this means a lot to her.'

It had been a gift from Harlock, back when I'd first come aboard. An antique, and previously used, but whoever had owned it before had had hair a similar shade to my own. I'd always wondered who it had belonged to.

Ali snatched it from his hands, and gave him an appraising look at odds with the rough gesture. 'Leave it with me.' He waved the pieces under Yama's nose, but far less threateningly than he might have done. 'Okay, that's another one in your favour, kid. '

'I'm not looking for points, Ali. Or to curry anyone's favour.'

'Hmmph. We'll see. But I mean it about Kei. It's lonely, being a pretty girl on a ship full of middle aged, testosterone addled delinquents.'

'Any of you ever try being friends?'

No...

Ali just grunted. 'Kid, what the fuck do any of us know about women? Populations on most planets are so outta whack and skewed to the xy that most men only ever interact with our mothers and sisters. And before you can crack the joke, yes, on some planets that does get squicky. Plus in case you hadn't noticed, this ain't a gentleman's club. Hell, most of us wouldn't know how to make small talk that extends beyond 'how much?' She's a sweet girl under the armour, as well as one of the best fighters on board. The guys might talk trash, but they will protect her. Consider this a friendly reminder to mind yer manners.' With that he stomped back out, only just missing me as I pretended I'd only just arrived, the covered tray in my left hand and a sweater for him in my right. Something which judging from the sideways smile it earned me, didn't fool Yama one bit.

---

'Hmmph.' I tried to make light of my eavesdropping. Actually, I really hadn't expected the grumpy bastard to care. 'Wasn't that entertaining... for the record, I can take care of myself.'

Yama took the tray from me. 'I know. I think my backside still has the imprint of the hangar deck on it from when you smacked me down onto it when you dragged my sorry arse on board.' He made a show of lifting the cover of the food tray 'MREs? Three lies for the price of one...' he looked back up at me and grinned at the affronted glare I gave him. 'Oh come on, it's worth a little smile, surely? Even hardened gropos bitch about this stuff. Can't we kidnap a chef?' He handed me one of the two spoons I'd packed.

I snatched it out of his hand. 'That was weeks ago. You cannot still be bitching about a few bruises on your behind...' I huffed as I noticed his sly grin. 'Yeah. Right. You sit there looking like you went five rounds with Ali or Bob, a couple of those ribs are cracked at least, and I have it on good authority you took off through the Oceanos like a one man assault squad. Don't try and play the helpless card, rookie.' I picked up one of the sealed sachets, pressed the little self-heat button and ripped it open with a practised shake. One sniff of the contents though and I stuck the spoon in gloomily. 'You have a point about the chef though. Never mind being stuck on patrol around Heavy Meldar, what did those poor bastards do to deserve this stuff?'

'Punishment detail.' he told me through a mouthful of something that advertised itself as some kind of stew. 'Isora wanted to make it look good enough to be worth a fight, but wasn't going to risk more useful troops on it.' He pulled a face. 'I take it we didn't get around to stashing the stuff we took off the Oceanos when we took her in tow?'

'Still in the hangar. Captain preferred to rotate foodstuffs properly, otherwise nobody would eat this shit.'

'Do me a favour. Ditch the stuff from that patrol ship and swap in the Oceanos supplies. I know a few fleet re-supply planets we can raid.' He pushed the sachet away. 'No-one should have to live off this.'

I pushed it back. 'No can do. You need to eat something. And food isn't so easily come by out here we can afford to be choosy.'

He pushed it back mulishly. 'I know the case numbers for my brother's private stash of delicacies...' he teased. I arched an eyebrow.

'So?'

'Lemon tea... coffee... chocolate. ..'

Seriously? Damn. I should have taken a quiet look at those crates before the other vultures got to them... 'Bribery is underhanded and illegal, captain. Not to mention we're supposed to share everything.' I replied primly. 'But for future reference, you had me at the lemon tea...' Trying to keep a straight face however proved to be impossible, and I bowed my head to attempt to hide a smile. 'Why couldn't you have been more like this from the start?' I asked as I managed to school my face into some semblance of my usual poise. He had a way of breaking through my carefully cultivated defences that strangely didn't leave me wanting to bolt for the door.

'Because I had my head stuffed so far up my arse I'd lost sight of daylight?' he offered, with a wry smile. 'Under the circumstances I couldn't risk anyone getting close either. You especially... you see far too clearly when you're not blinded by loyalty...'

Ouch...

He must have noticed the wince, because he hit me with that smile again. 'Okay... that was a low blow. Sorry.'

'Accurate though,' I sighed.' 'You're right. I did let my feelings for The Captain get in the way. Dazzled by the packaging, guilty as charged.'

'Not totally,' he said quietly. 'On Tokarga I got the distinct impression you were trying to convince yourself as much as me that the plan was a good one. And frankly, I fell for it as well...'

He couldn't keep making little digs and hope to get away with it forever. I let him have both barrels: 'You fancied the arse off him as well?' I paused. 'If I'd known, I could have given you guys a little privacy when you went down on one knee to offer him flowers...'

That earned me a Look, but he couldn't keep up the frown for too long, and laughed. 'Thanks. I had that coming. I'd forgotten what it feels like just to have someone to talk to or share a moment with.'

'I've never had anyone at all,' I said softly. I laid a hand on top of one of his. Gloveless, the gesture felt unnervingly intimate, but pleasant, I realised. His fingers gripped mine briefly with a gentle squeeze. 'The past is a dark place for both of us, let's leave it there. We've both learned the hard way there won't be any do-overs. Doesn't mean we can't take hold of a second chance.'

'After all I put you guys through? I handed you over for execution and didn't look back. How can you forgive that or let it lie?' The look he gave me from under that tousled lock of brown hair was both troubled and tired. Bruised, and hurting, and lost. 'Every time I walk onto the bridge I keep waiting for someone to stab me in the back. I wouldn't blame anyone for it either.'

I gave his fingers, still wrapped around my hand, a light squeeze. 'Well I wouldn't worry too much. Yattaran's too lazy, Ali would just beat the crap out of you and the rest of them are not what you'd call leadership material.' I said lightly. True enough, as far as it went; he didn't need to know there were a couple I wouldn't trust alone in a corridor with him. Worrying about keeping him in one piece was my job.

'And you?'

'Me? I'm just tired of it all. Revenge and recrimination... blame and anger. I saw what it did to The Captain. All that festering pain got us nowhere. I'm sick and tired of despair and feeling lost and alone. Yes, I'm sore about you turning on us, but you did what you had to do. No-one could have gotten through to Harlock by then. I might as well have just kept my mouth shut for all the notice he took of me. He had to be stopped, and whilst there might have been an easier way on all of us to do it, what's done is done. I can't change what happened, but I can decide what to do about it. For what it's worth, anyone who wants a piece of you will have to get through me first. You're the captain, they'll just have to swallow that.'

Whoa. where had that come from? Every time I opened my mouth around this guy I seemed to find old hurts, long buried emotions and my most secret regrets tumbling out. In hindsight it was probably a damn good thing for all of us his heart hadn't really been into the whole secret agent thing. I remembered I'd run my mouth off on Tokarga and in hindsight, he hadn't even been trying.

'Kei...' he swallowed hard. 'I promise you, I'll never let you down again if I can help it.' He reached out his free hand and gently pushed a stray lock of hair back from my face, and it was just the most natural thing for him to trace the line of the single tear that I'd been unable to hold back. He leaned forward to give me a peck on the cheek, a little awkwardly, but one or both of us moved slightly and instead, his lips brushed mine again for the second time in less than an hour; warm, soft, slightly salty from my tear. He pulled back slightly, seemingly expecting a slap to the face for the effrontery, but instead I reached out and laid my hand gently on his scarred cheek. I didn't think I was imagining the way he leaned into the caress. He'd found the laser shaver, I noticed. The fine stubble was gone, leaving his face boyishly smooth.

'I don't make a habit of...' he began.

'Me neither.' I replied softly.

I leaned closer and returned his kiss, tentatively at first, shyly exploring, at least until his hand, which had wandered down to my shoulder, accidentally pressed a little too hard on a bruise and I squeaked. Oddly, it didn't dampen the mood, but he did reluctantly break off.

'You need to let me look at that. Why didn't you remind me?'

'It's nothing much.' I tried to ignore the shooting pains stabbing down my arm.

'To quote you: bullshit. I barely touched it and you almost shot off my lap. Come on, stop toughing it out.'

Just when had I shimmied onto his lap? I was blushing furiously now, but concern was all I could detect in his face. 'You've nothing to fear from me, Kei. We're both adults. Allegedly in my case by all accounts, but still…'

I made no move to pull away, but looked at him helplessly, wondering how to explain what was going through my head without sounding as though I was wallowing in self pity

'If I was out of line...' he began. I shushed him with a finger to his lips. I wasn't sure where to start, to be honest. But he deserved to know the truth. And so did I. If he had a problem with my past, I wanted to know now, before I got in too deep. I tried to ignore the little voice saying too late.

I took a deep breath. 'No. You're not. I... I have scars. Bad ones. I guess I shouldn't have let you get close without telling you... Guys... don't usually go for damaged goods...' And my courage failed at that point. Try as I might, the rest of it just wouldn't come out. I suspected the guys might have delighted in laying out my past for the rookie – they usually did, but despite suspecting that he already had a pretty good idea of what I was attempting to spit out, I choked on the words.

'Kei... I... dammit, I know you have no reason to trust anyone, let alone the prat who'd almost gotten you executed... You think scars would bother me?'

'Not just the scars…' I took a deep breath. I could tell him. I could. Get it over with. But instead my gaze dropped to my lap.

'Ah... you're afraid I buy into the bullshit on the rumour mill?' He reached out and tipped my chin up so that I was staring into his eyes. No clue without the patch that one of them now saw only darkness. 'Look at me, Kei. If there's any shame in what happened to you, it's the people who took a lovely little girl and used and abused her for profit who should feel it. From what I heard, you rescued yourself from an intolerable situation, and I can't even begin to tell you how rare that is – your courage and your determination – the way you see the best in people...' he shook his head slightly. 'I know you've no reason to trust that I'm not another asshole who sees you as an easy target. But I suspect from what little I overheard outside from our resident loudmouth that someone did, once?'

I nodded, chewing my bottom lip. Damn. I should have checked the door was closed...

'Look, after what you've been through, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted nothing to do with any guy ever again. But we can have that talk later. For now, pardon the unfortunate implications, but get your damn flightsuit off so I can look at your injuries.' When I still stared at him uncertainly, he tried to give me a reassuring smile. 'Please?'

I nodded. He had to help me with the fastenings of my flightsuit and with the sweater underneath it, and although I stiffened a little at his touch, I relaxed little by little under his hands. Though I had to fight my tendency to reach for a sheet, especially when I was naked apart from a thin bra and panties and the extent of my injury, and the scars I'd mentioned, were visible.

At his sharp intake of breath I instinctively tried to cover up the scars on my shoulders that extended to my breasts. The wide burn marks had scorched both shoulders and extended over my back, as I well knew, and the knife scars on my arm where Kazuya had attacked me had scored me almost down to the elbow in one place. Then there was the blaster scar across my stomach, which trailed almost horizontally across from my side to my navel. Another that ran across my hip and thigh. Bruises covered my torso and legs, and not all from being bounced around in a firefight. Several I knew had the tell-tale imprint of a baton.

'Resisting arrest,' I said lightly when he asked. His mouth compressed into a hard line of disapproval.

'Bastards... I'm sorry.'

'I would say "not your fault" but...'

'No need to pull that punch, Kei. It was my fault. I walked away without even giving a damn what happened to any of you. Don't try to make me feel better about it. Trust me, I'd like to smash the Yama of a few days ago in the face myself.'

I really couldn't answer that. Take a number, get in line might be accurate, but felt like kicking a small puppy. And I didn't want to hurt him. Not anymore.

His fingers traced the tender bruising on my left shoulder expertly feeling for a break or swelling. 'Looks like your suit spread most of it, but try moving that shoulder around for me. I don't like the feel of the joint.' Obediently I tried to raise my arm, and hissed as the angle went past the horizontal. 'The swelling's not too bad, but that has to hurt. Need a shot?' He asked. I shook my head.

'Save it for those who really need it. I can manage. There's a topical analgesic I brought for you. If you don't mind?'

He didn't, it seemed, and I sighed in relief despite my best intentions as the painkiller did its work. That, and the unexpected expertise of my masseur. 'Where the hell did you learn to do that?' I asked. It was all I could do not to just lean back and start purring.

'Thought I might help out with Isora's physiotherapy, so I signed up for a course.' Yama's reply was calm, but I detected a bitter undercurrent.

'Let me guess. That went down about as well as could be expected?' I asked softly. I turned so I could see his face. For all his bravado, I realised, this one wore his heart on his sleeve, if you knew how to look. Any mention of his brother occasioned a bewildered hurt that I had never suspected could move me. Of necessity, I'd walled myself off for so long, refusing to allow my own weaknesses to show, that any display from others met with a stony indifference at best. Ridicule if the perpetrator persisted in getting underfoot.

Perhaps it was because he gamely pulled himself back to his feet and carried on fighting, regardless of how far over his head he got. I was beginning to realise that we had a lot in common that way. I laid my hand on his shoulder, intending to say something encouraging, but noticed that his skin was cold. 'You need to get under the covers. Get some rest and get warm.' I pushed him down and covered him up, noticing that he didn't protest or resist too much. Yeah, running on empty, and he was about to crash hard, if I read the signs right. I covered him carefully, smiling as he murmured incoherently and nestled under the covers. I pulled on an old shirt, and headed for the chair. Uncomfortable, but do-able for a few hours.

'Where were you planning on sleeping?' Yama asked with a yawn, obviously not as sleepy as I'd thought.

'Chair.' I pointed.

'Not even got a cushion,' he shot back, jabbing his own finger at the offending article. 'If you promise not to take advantage of me we could share...'

His tendency to flip the stereotypical roles elicited a giggle, over-riding my initial reaction which was to panic slightly at the suggestion, even as a more rebellious part of me was thinking "well, why the hell not…?". 'You're quite the dark horse, you know that? Who knew you had a sense of humour?'

'Who's joking?' He asked, putting on a hurt expression. 'I have to protect my virtue, what with all these vicious desperadoes on board lusting after me...'

Laughing, I leaned down to pick up my towel and chucked it at his head, remembering too late that I'd bundled the contents of my underwear drawer in it earlier. I watched in embarrassed horror as he brushed towel and a couple of pairs of panties off his head, and then, with exaggerated care, folded everything neatly and placed it on the side without losing a beat.

By which time I was afraid my face would set off the fire suppressant system.

'Well,' he drawled. 'That's a first...' he held out a hand. 'Seriously. I'm way too tired to make a pest of myself, and if I did get frisky, I'd want far more than a one-time deal. I can't do casual. Tried it years ago, hated it.' He flashed me that quirky one-sided smile that reminded my so painfully of Harlock's that my chest felt tight. 'Besides, I hear you have a right cross to be reckoned with...'

I hesitated, but only briefly. What the hell, I could break his damn neck if I was wrong. 'You heard about that punch, huh?' I asked as I snuggled in next to him. Intended for one, my bed wasn't wide, but we managed. I tensed a little as his arm went around me, but there was a warmth in him that I was finding so hard to resist. That hollow place inside felt just a little less cold and empty with him near.

'Hmmm.' His reply was sleepy. 'It's about all the chatter from the crew I've heard since we left Earth. You really decked Yattaran? With one punch?'

'Unless someone wiped the security footage from the brig, I'm sure it'll be doing the rounds.. ..' I sighed. 'What can I say? I was pissed, he was there, you and the captain weren't...' I felt him start to laugh, then flinch as his ribs protested.

'I think I'd have paid good money to have seen you take on Harlock.'

'And add striking my captain to disobeying an order? It's a sobering thought to think if he was still here we'd be having this conversation in adjoining cells in the brig... I'm sure more than one person filmed our practice bouts. Let's just say he didn't make the mistake of saying 'Don't hold back' too often in recent years. I fight dirty, and he taught me most of it.'

A pause, and for a moment I thought he'd fallen asleep. 'Would you teach me?'

I pulled away slightly so that I could get a look at his face in the soft light I'd left on. As far as I could tell, he was serious. 'You'd take lessons from a woman? Didn't they teach you anything about combat at those fancy schools?'

'Officers aren't supposed to get our hands dirty. And Fleet frowns on anything as practical as hand to hand pastings that don't have fancy names attached. That's why they keep Special Forces around. I just had my arse handed to me by a paraplegic in a hoverchair, so yeah, I'd say my ass-kicking skills are not the greatest. I should also 'fess up that I've never held a command before either. So I'm throwing myself on your mercy here. You were Harlock's second. He trained you. You're the one who gives most of the orders in battle. You lead the boarding teams. Yattaran's a lazy bastard who only lends a hand for the bits he enjoys... So yes. To answer your question; I'd take lessons from you.'

The admission stunned me, dealing as I did with rampant testosterone poisoned idiots day in day out. Most men took to being ordered around by a slip of a girl with poor grace, and no-one - ever - had asked for my help. Let alone someone who had so much to lose by admitting his weaknesses. He'd practically handed me the ability to oust him from command on a plate.

And yet he just lay there, waiting, looking me straight in the eye with a calm patience which I quickly realised was as much of a front as my own feigned disregard for the physical intimacy of accepting his presence in my bed. He knew damn well he'd effectively placed his life in my hands. He was waiting to see what I'd do with it.

Just as he'd done after breaking us out of the brig, I remembered. Turned his back on us and waited for someone to either follow his lead, or shoot him in the back... he was either the biggest idiot I'd ever known, had balls the size of a gas giant... Or had a deathwish the size of Jupiter... 'Remind me never to sit at the same poker table as you,' I told him. 'I think you just went all in on a pair of twos...'

He smiled at me. 'Poker's not my game. I prefer Bridge, if you'll excuse me extending an analogy to breaking point. Where your partner's hand matters just as much as your own. I've got nothing left to lose, and everything to gain, Kei. I need you. On my side. At my side. And so help me, I also want you as a friend. You're smart, brave, beautiful and fiercely protective of the people you care for.'

'Friends.' I looked down pointedly at our relative states of undress. 'I think we might be flying past that marker...'

'Oh, I don't know. I've still got my pants on...' he deadpanned. I rolled my eyes at him. 'If you can get past taking orders from the idiot who was sweeping the decks only a couple of weeks ago and bussing tables in the commissary...'

'I might be able to make something of you. If nothing else, as soon as those bruises are gone I'm going to enjoy making you eat mat in the gym.' I smiled at him to take the sting out and took a deep breath. 'If we do this, it might be better if the crew do think I'm sleeping with you rather than teaching you. It's not a good idea to show weakness around these guys. The captain could keep them in line by sheer force of personality. Some of them will be circling like sharks if they scent blood...'

'That would undermine your authority, wouldn't it? I wouldn't ask that of you.'

I shrugged. 'Some of them thought the only reason I had my position anyway was because I screwed my way into it, despite him never looking at me as anything but part of the furniture. I can live with...'

He placed a finger on my lips to forestall the rest of that bitter reply. 'Firstly, I won't hide. No more lies. Secondly, don't ever sell yourself so short. Or let anyone else do it. I spent eight years trying to be someone and something I'm not, trying to atone for one stupid decision, and in the end, I might as well have saved myself the hurt. Isora... Gaia, I still can't believe I let him twist me around so badly. I lost sight of who I really am, and didn't even begin to dig my way out of the hole I was in until Harlock gave me a timely pep talk on the way back up from Tokarga. Trust me, it's never worth the cost to your soul. Even if they don't throw it back in your face. Anyone who wants to make an issue of our private lives can take a running jump; it's no-one's business but ours. And if they insult you, I'll personally deck them.'

The impassioned response stunned me momentarily. It explained so much, I thought, looking into those hazel eyes. His unhappy reticence before Tokarga made so much sense when I thought back now. There was a body in the torpedo bay right now I was seriously wishing I could resurrect and give a piece of my mind to. And pummel senseless. What kind of monster were you, Admiral? To twist your brother into something that would tear him apart? Not enough to use him as your cat's paw, but you had to make him believe he had to become everything he hates in order to pay for a damn accident? You didn't just want him dead. You wanted to destroy him... you should have protected him. Instead you threw him to the wolves. He's just damn lucky we weren't the people you thought we were.

He'd been played by his own brother and by The Captain, and I'd played my part in that, however unwittingly. Maybe if I'd taken that responsibility from the start as Yattaran had told me to. Maybe this would have played out differently...

But wanting to reset the past was the thinking that had gotten us into this mess to start with. And now... now, the only thing either of us could do was play the hand we'd been dealt. Perhaps he was right... maybe when you played both hands, you could come out ahead...

Hell. Maybe going all in on a single one-eyed jack wasn't an unthinkable proposition...

'Kei?'

His quiet question reminded me that I'd been silently musing for far too long. Despite which, I struggled to think of a way to express the thoughts running around inside my head.

In the end, I settled for the only reply which made any kind of sense; I laid my head against his shoulder, and rested my free hand on his chest. When his arm curled around my shoulders and he rested his head next to mine, I snuggled closer, and for the first time I could remember, the nightmares kept their distance.

---

I awoke sometime in the early hours, and after the first panic at finding a firm, but gentle arm wrapped around me with a hand resting on my right buttock, I relaxed, rather enjoying the feeling. Being held... it felt right. Comforting. Safe. Everything I thought I'd never know - at least, not unless I had to remake the Universe to do so.

It took me a few minutes to realise he was faking being asleep. 'how long have you been awake, you faker?' I asked, smiling into his shoulder.

'Not long. I was just enjoying watching you sleep. You snore, by the way. Just a little. It's cute...'

'I can twist you into a pretzel without breaking a sweat, rookie,' I growled at him. All he did was hit me with that sweet little smile.

'Someday, I will call your bluff on that,' he replied. 'You're the most beautiful sight I've ever woken up to,' he continued softly.

I huffed at him. 'Almost a week since I had more than a catlick of a shower, or a decent night's sleep, my hair looks as though a bird's nested in it, and I'm covered in bruises... that doesn't say much about your morning views so far...'

He ran his fingers through my hair and his hand came to rest on my back, warm through the thin fabric of my shirt. 'No, it just says a hell of a lot about the current one.' His fingers tapped my spine. 'But if your hands wander any lower, at the very least you're going to owe me dinner...'

Oh. Well, in my defence there was a lot of very firm, very bare muscle under my fingers. Most of it bruised, sadly. He flinched when I touched one black, yellow, and purple patch on a lower rib. 'I think you're safe, there's not much I can do to you in this state.' Or mine. I was bruised, sore and stiff, but oddly tense and... yep: frustrated. Also feeling a little guilty, though why was a mystery. It wasn't as though I was cheating on anyone. Mind you, if I wanted to throw caution to the winds, pressed up against Yama as I was it was pretty obvious I wasn't the only one feeling tempted. If I was bold enough to take hold of my future in both hands...

...so to speak...

I leaned closer and risked a tentative kiss, which quickly escalated as his tongue went hunting for mine. I had to straddle his hips to get closer, whilst avoiding the worst of his battered ribs, and then pulled back a little to run my fingers down the midline of his chest, to his navel, and that enticing trail of dark hairs...

His intake of breath as he realised where I was going was gratifying. 'You don't have to do this,' he whispered hoarsely.

I stayed my downward path and looked up into his eyes from under my hair, which had flopped onto my face. 'You don't want me to?' I wondered briefly if I'd misunderstood... if his feelings for the girl who'd died were still too raw. But he shook his head.

'It isn't that... it's just...' he cleared his throat. 'There are some things a gentleman just doesn't ask a nice girl to do on a first date...' he smiled slyly. 'I think there's a list...'

I smiled back. 'Well then, you should let me have a copy. It'll save me a lot of experimentation...' My fingers were already on the fastening of his trousers, the stiff leather not hiding his reaction. 'Besides, you're a pirate now... though if there's a list of things I shouldn't be asking a nice boy to do on the first date...'

'Oh, I think I'll hold onto those lists,' he replied dryly. 'I've been on the receiving end of your somewhat energetic efficiency drives when you get hold of a clipboard...'

I laughed with him, and leaned into the caress he offered, his hands running through my hair and down to my shoulders.

...which was precisely the time someone banged on my door loudly enough to wake the dead. 'Oi - come on kiddies, wakey wakey... some of us have been on the bridge for an hour, and it wouldn't hurt for the XO and the bloody captain to show a leg!'

Ali. Who was a walking dead man once I got my hands on him. Yama heaved an aggrieved sigh the same time I did. 'Would anyone stop me if I shot the surly bastard?' he muttered.

I reluctantly leaned away from him and reached for my discarded weapons on the floor. 'I have a gun around here somewhere...'

---

Ali smirked when we both arrived on the bridge later, and I had to resist the temptation to land a much deserved fist in the middle of that smug face. I strolled over to his post and slammed the bug I'd found in my quarters whilst Yama and I had been getting dressed onto his console. He looked down, looked me in the eye and raised a blond eyebrow - the one close to being bisected by a nasty scar.

'If you ever - ever - pull a stunt like that again,' I hissed at him, 'I swear I'll cut your cock off and nail it to the nearest bulkhead...'

He gulped back whatever quip he'd been about to verbalise, and rubbed a bushy sideburn. The bridge had gone deathly silent and both Carlos and Dan were looking around nervously and cupping their crotches.

'Kei!' Yama's voice from behind me sounded shocked and I whirled round guiltily. Crap. I'd forgotten that he was Martian. But I wasn't used to moderating my language, and I sighed inwardly, thinking I'd have to watch it around our new captain's more delicate sensibilities. Strangely though, he wasn't blushing. He was wagging an admonitory finger at me. 'I don't know what kind of liberal, pansy-assed attitude your last captain allowed you all to indulge in, but I won't have it on my ship... Am I clear?'

I caught the twinkle in his eye and winked at him. 'Sorry captain... won't happen again.' I turned back to Ali. 'I'm sorry, Ali. That was out of order.' I waited for the smirk to reach maximum. 'I meant of course to say that "I'll nail your cock to the nearest bulkhead"...' I waited for the penny to drop, as he turned it over in his head. Maji of all people caught on first, and our taciturn armourer whooped with nervous laughter, the rest of the crew joining him at Ali's expense, much to his annoyance. I walked back to Yama and and we shared a smile. He was quite right: it would be far too merciful to remove the offending article first.

'You wanna make an issue out of someone lookin' out for you, kid?' Ali snorted, and I counted to ten under my breath, bristling at the patronising insinuation. 'Someone needs to look out for you, since you seem to be determined to think with yer cu-'

The rest of his slur was cut short by a well timed jab to the solar plexus that left him doubled over and gasping. Damn. Yama could move fast when he wanted to... He had a fist full of Ali's short hair and was tugging his head up to stare into his eyes before I could take a step to intervene.

'You just don't know when to stop pushing, do you,' he said quietly. I hovered nearby, hoping Ali wouldn't try anything serious, but he seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Yama waved me off with his free hand. 'This is the only warning you get. I'm not in favour of a captain brawling with his crew, but sometimes an example needs to be made. You're coming perilously close to crossing a line you're going to regret, and I'm going to make two things clear. The first is that you really don't want to mistake 'quiet' for 'weak'. The second is that if you persist in being a dick, I won't just let her pin your junk to a bulkhead, I'll be the one stuffing your balls down your throat as an encore. Are we clear?'

'Are you for real? That one can take care of herself...' Ali gasped, his eyes watering. Sweet Earth... he didn't know when to cut his losses some days. Or notice when he'd flat out contradicted himself, the great lump. I folded my arms and waited. And I'd thought I'd been a bit slow to realise our very young, very new captain had a pair...

'I promised her I'd deal with anyone who insulted her. I keep my word.' He smiled calmly. 'Which seems to mean letting her do what she does so well...' Then quietly, so that even I had to strain to hear it, I heard him add: 'I'm not the one who's got your boxers in a twist, Doctor Jones. Deal with it.' He let go of Ali, who slumped over his console, but said nothing. The look in his eyes though... Some days I couldn't read the guy. He liked to play the thug, but there was a calculating gleam in the look he gave Yama as our new captain walked away from him that wasn't what I'd expected. In fact, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, though when he caught me watching he changed it so quickly into his usual sullen frown I started to think I'd imagined it.

The rest of the crew seemed to take it with a shrug. The captain had spoken, and he didn't take any shit... they'd be fine with that. And just that quickly we were back to business.

'Has Maji managed to disable that transmitter yet?' Yama asked. Yattaran sighed and shook his head.

'Planning on running over to lend a hand. The damn thing's power supply is right next to that weakened section of the hull. Trouble is, if we blow the transmitter, we might blow the hull. Try to cut out that section first, we risk blowing the transmitter power supply.'

'And that risks whoever goes in to do the job...' Yama mused. He laid a hand lightly on the wheel. 'Has anyone asked the ship's central computer?'

'Harlock...'

Mimay's soft voice held a warning note that I couldn't miss. Odd...

'Mimay, I think the time for secrets is long past on board. We can discuss it later. But for now, we need to cut that transmission, and we need his help. Just ask him, please? You're closest to him now.'

He asked softly, and I had to strain to hear him, but Mimay nodded, and tripped gracefully off the bridge, heading for the Central Computer room, at a guess. I gave Yama a questioning look.

'Did no-one ever wonder what happened to Harlock's friend - Tochiro?' He asked me quietly. Ali and Yattaran were both listening in avidly, so probably not that quietly. 'Surely you all had questions about the Arcadia moving under its own steam so to speak. Or why the ship wouldn't leave without him, when it could have broken free of those dark matter scrubbers any damn time it wanted?'

'It was weird, ' I conceded. 'But how did you...'

'It - he - talks to me,' he said bluntly. At my arched eyebrow he shrugged. 'No, I'm not losing it. The ship - or perhaps it's truer to say the central computer - talks to me. In fact, it never bloody shuts up. I take it no-one else apart from maybe Mimay hears it?'

'Nope,' Yattaran interjected. 'Just you.' He scratched his oversized belly. 'Explains a lot though,' he smirked.

All joking aside, it did. I looked more closely at Yama's pale face, which appeared almost gaunt in the shadows cast from behind the captain's chair, still draped with Harlock's gravity control cloak and the gunbelts holding his cosmo dragoon and sabre, none of which Yama seemed to be in a hurry to take up. If he'd been hearing that voice for the past week, it was no wonder he looked frazzled. He might even have thought he was going mad. I made a snap call.

'Mind if I take a break whilst you guys work this out?' Not waiting for an affirmative, I left the bridge as if my goal was the nearest head. After a quick check behind to make sure no-one was following, I ducked into a side corridor that only a few of the crew would know of, if any. I'd often wandered around the ship looking for places to be alone, and this little short-cut had proven useful more than once over the years.

---

I opened the hatch at the end carefully, and stepped into the central computer room, checking to see if I was alone. With no-one in sight, I weaved cautiously through the stacks of massive databanks and over the sprawling cables that spread out from the central core like roots from some massive tree. The vaulted ceiling of the room soared above me, into a shadowy darkness I couldn't penetrate. The central core was lit up, red lights revolving in swirling patterns that moved in time to the soft, barely audible beat of an unseen heart.

Rather more boldly than I felt, I walked up to the conduits that formed something of a natural bench in front of the great machine, where Harlock had often sat, saying little, sometimes even appearing to be asleep.

I found myself wondering if he'd ever known I would watch him.

He knew.

The words formed on the very edge of hearing, so quietly I thought for a moment they really were just in my head.

'You have to stop bothering him,' I said softly. 'He needs to rest. He needs time... I know you must miss Harlock, but Yama's hurt, and tired, and just as lost as the rest of us.' I pulled my right glove off and laid my bare hand on the central core. 'It won't be like it was, but we know you now. It doesn't have to be so lonely. With only Harlock and Mimay for company.'

Silence, although the heartbeat seemed quieter, slower.

'You should not be here.'

Mimay's voice, soft but as brittle as spun glass.

I turned to look at the ethereal alien woman. 'Things change. Secrets are out and it can't go on like it was. Yama...'

'Is Harlock. That was Harlock's wish. It is Tochiro's.' Mimay's heels clicked on the floor as she walked over to stand next to me, the veiled shimmering fabric over her flightsuit floating in some almost imperceptible breeze; the same breeze which caused her long pale hair to ripple like water as she moved.

'Was it yours?'

Mimay bowed her head. The nictating membrane that flickered over her large cat-like eyes the only other sign of her emotions. 'I am a woman who has sacrificed her life for Harlock. I live with the Arcadia. I die with the Arcadia.'

'That isn't an answer,' I said softly. 'You must have loved him... can you so easily replace him?'

Mimay raised her head to stare directly into my eyes for the first time I could remember. The alien depths made me shiver.

'Can you?' Mimay asked gently.

I shook my head. 'It's different. You and the captain... you were a part of each other. Yet you talk to Yama as though nothing's changed...' I stopped, seeing tears in those large pale orbs for the first time since I'd come aboard. 'Mimay?'

'I told him... death, destruction... change... they are all a part of life. We go on, we live, we accept...' she halted, and I reached out to the other woman hesitantly, expecting to be rebuffed, but the Nibelung accepted my embrace, and returned it.

A sharp clicking of boots on the decking alerted me to someone entering the chamber. Over Mimay's gauze draped shoulder I caught Yama's eye as he entered the gap between two servers, and halted, looking awkward. I flashed him a quick smile, and released the alien woman, who pulled away gracefully and turned to look at the newcomer. She said nothing, merely inclined her head slightly to acknowledge him, gave me a sad smile, and left, trailing a cloud of tiny green fireflies in her wake.

I suddenly wondered - was that how her connection to the dark matter manifested? Akin to the way that I had sometimes seen the wispy blue fire around Harlock? Despite the ambient temperature of the ship being reasonably comfortable, I shivered slightly, feeling goosebumps under my flightsuit. Just how much were the rest of us affected...?

Why did we never question it?

'Kei?' Yama walked over to my side, concern written all over his expression.

'It's nothing,' I answered, smiling with a brittle brightness I didn't feel. 'What brought you down here?'

He stared over my shoulder at the massive trunk of the computer core. 'It all went rather quiet. I thought...' he let out a little huff. 'I should have known. Still watching out for me?'

I thought he was addressing the computer, until I noticed it was my eyes he was trying to make contact with.

'If I'm out of line...'

He shook his head. 'No. You don't have to be so solicitous, but it's a new feeling, remember? I forgot what it felt like.' He paused as though about to say something further along the same lines. 'I also had word from Maji. He and Yattaran are still having problems with that signal. They've isolated it temporarily, thanks to our friend here,' he nodded to the computer core, 'but can't safely disconnect the power supply. I thought another set of eyes might help - seven being better than four...?'

His reluctance to stand aside and watch from sidelines was endearing, but I wondered what the hell the two of us could do that two engineering specialists couldn't, and said so.

'I can't ask anyone to put themselves in a place I wouldn't,' he said simply. 'I know the arguments against it, but this isn't a military ship. This is our home. I want...' he trailed off, and I reached out to lay a hand on his arm, to let him know I understood.

'We're family,' I said softly. 'If we don't stick together, stand by each other, who will?'

He'd jumped a little when I began speaking, as though I'd triggered something he hadn't wanted to go near. One hand was in his trouser pocket, fiddling with something tucked away. I caught a glimpse of something brassy and coin-sized as he pulled his hand free, but it was shoved back again so quickly I didn't get a good look.

More mysteries. but I let it lie. If we didn't get this signal cut, jumping to the Triceratops Cluster was out of the question.

---

The normally stoic Maji was arguing vociferously with Yattaran when we arrived back in the outer corridor. The slim, dapper engineer was a fraction of Yattaran's bulk, but refusing to be intimidated. I sighed, watching them. Just great. I didn't relish getting in between them whilst they were on a tear, but someone had to do it...

'Before this comes to blows, could the pair of you shut up and tell me - one at a time - what the problem is?'

Yama's voice was quiet, but he did seem to know how to make it carry. Since Earth it seemed a little deeper as well - perhaps his tendency to wander around without the right equipment, I thought sadly. I'd have to break him of that bad habit... but it wasn't unpleasant. In fact, it was definitely sexier...

Oh, concentrate, girl, I told myself crossly. I turned my attention up to full on the three men in front of me.

'He wants to rip the transmitter out of the wall,' Maji was telling our new captain. 'Thinks he can do it without cutting the power first.'

'You're being too cautious,' Yattaran snapped. 'Rip it off like a plaster. There's little chance of feedback. The specs...'

'The specs are a century out of date, and that remnant of the anchor tube is in the way. It's short circuited the system, which is why it won't shut down manually. If we remove the section of the hull with the tube, and can isolate the transmitter, you can take it out before the hull repairs itself.'

'You can't just cut a hole in the bloody hull!' Yattaran loomed over the smaller man and bellowed in his face.

'You can if you seal this section and we work in hardsuits,' Yama said, in a lull as Maji glared up into Yattaran's thick glasses. Both men turned to stare at him. 'There are bulkheads about fifty metres apart - one ten metres that way -' he pointed back the way he'd come with me. 'The other behind you. Seal them, drop the pressure, and cut out the hull section from outside using the workboat waldoes. As soon as it's clear, a team in here can cut the transmitter free.'

I lowered my head to hide a smile as the two engineers went from arguing their own case to discussing the merits of our captain's. In short order, they had a plan in place. Maji and Ali would take out the workboat, whilst Yattaran worked on the transmitter.

There was however a slight problem...

---

'We only have a couple of hardsuits that can do that kind of work,' Ali told us when we were gathered with the main bridge crew. 'Kei's and Harlock's. Ours are battle suits.'

'I saw five...' Yama said into the silence as they digested this.

'But none of us fit them,' Ali replied. 'They're Nibelung Valkyrie suits - meant for slimmer - and more feminine - frames than ours. Eddie might get in one, but he can't do the job. Needs steady hands, and two pairs at least. The captain's suit is too damn big - the bastard might have been slim, but he was a lanky bugger...'

'Plumbing aside, which I can manage without, I think I might just fit one of them,' said Yama quietly. 'Maji here can surely adjust one to fit me on the fly. Yattaran - you can guide the two of us in removing the transmitter, and hopefully we won't blow anything important up on the process.'

'I hope you included us in that sweeping assessment,' I added. I didn't like this as a plan one little bit, given that my expertise was navigational mathematics, not electronics, but he was right. We were the only two who could do the job in the timescale. Any longer and we risked either the Mephisto on our backs, or any reinforcements it could call.

We needed the break, if nothing else. Ever since we'd engaged off Pluto with Yama's brother, we'd been on high alert, or imprisoned, then escaping, then facing the fleet, and scampering with our tails between our legs. The crew not already in the infirmary weren't far off heading there. They were tired, hurt and stressed, and even the toughest nuts were close to cracking.

All I want is to curl up and sleep for a week, I thought to myself. Even at the thought I had to bite back a yawn. Sharing a sympathetic smile with Yama, I sat straighter and tried to concentrate on Yattaran and Maji's instructions, with the help of a wiring diagram a hundred years and one dark matter makeover out of date.

---

'Remind me,' Yama muttered over our private channel, 'why I thought this was a good idea?'

The bulkheads sealed simultaneously, leaving us, and a bulky, hardsuited Yattaran, cut off from the rest of the ship, in a section about to be exposed to space.

No, I thought, as I checked our tether lines were secure. I didn't have an answer, beyond 'It seemed like a good idea at the time?' I replied brightly, hoping to keep the mood light. I moved in to check his hardsuit, a slightly larger, silvered version of my own. Seals tight. Rebreather scrubbers seated firmly on his back. I stood still whilst he returned the favour.

'Moment of truth...' I said lightly, when he'd finished. We took our positions behind a makeshift barrier Yattaran had set up to protect the three of us from any unexpected damage from the hole in the hull Ali - the sharpest gunner of the lot - was about to cut.

Fast and hard, that had been the plan, and Ali - a former miner - knew his business. He worked fast and the hull section was removed with surgical precision. In the low pressure of the sealed section of corridor, there was little chance of being caught by the escaping atmosphere, and the waldoes had a small forcefield in place almost as soon as the hull section containing the anchor tube was clear.

'Now!' Yattaran called out over the link. Working in a hastily practiced tandem, Yama and I began cutting the transmitter clear. As Yama lifted the device free from the nacreous hull, I let out a sigh of relief.

Too soon, as it turned out. One wire, not noted on the schematic, had been hidden behind the device, and before I could warn Yama, the hull finished healing over the wound left by the Oceanos.

Which also bridged the connection with the transmitter and its power supply. Yama was still pulling the device away, and it was all I could do to launch myself at him and push him away.

The blast caught us in mid fall, carrying us into the opposite wall, to slam against the floor with what would have been bone-shattering force had we not been suited.

I was aware of something heavy landing on top of me, then the sound of twisted metal screaming in protest.

Silence, and darkness.

---

I was crushed under his weight, bearing down on me, a sneering face pressed against mine, hands grabbing, nails digging into soft flesh. Unable to scream. To fight back. Just the false euphoria of whatever they'd given me. I stared out through my own eyes, crying silently, unable to take control of my own body...

'Kei! Kei!' A voice calling my name. The only thing which brought my out of the old nightmare.

I hadn't had a name. Just a number. Twenty seven.

But I was pinned, caught under the heavy weight of another body, and I panicked, struggling to get free.

'Kei! It's all right. You're trapped, but we're alive. Kei, please, just relax. It's only me. Yama...'

The now familiar voice reached through to me at last. I tried to slow down my breathing. Opened my eyes.

Blackness, and another gulping panic, before I remembered.

The transmitter had blown the power source. I'd tried to shove Yama out of the way, and that was the last thing...

He was on top of me, his not inconsiderable weight holding me in place.

'Yama?'

'Please don't wriggle. There's a piece of rebar behind me poised to make me its bitch if I slip another inch, and it hasn't even had the decency to take me to dinner first,' he told me, his levity I guessed an attempt to make me feel a little better. It didn't quite disguise a strained tone in his voice, and when I slowly reached a hand out and upwards to feel around us, I realised why.

We were pinned in place by part of the ceiling, a large support strut on top of us, from the feel. Remembering our earlier conversation, I dropped my exploring hand back onto his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. 'I guess we're both having bad flashbacks,' I said quietly. 'I don't suppose you can reach a utility belt for a torch?'

'I tried a few minutes ago while you were out. Sorry.'

'Never mind. What about comms?'

'Dead. I think my helmet hit something. Yours?'

I tried to move my arm so that my hand could reach the switch on the side of my helmet. With a little more wriggling I managed, but heard only static. 'Nope. Damn. But they should be trying to get us out. Maybe we just have to sit this one out?' All I could hear in return was his shuddering breath. 'Yama?'

'Sorry. You kind of hit the mark about flashbacks. Well, that and a sudden understanding for why a one-eyed man had his bedroom full of lights. Thankfully you were out cold whilst I had that panic attack. I think there might have been some girly screaming. Some leader, huh?'

I moved myself carefully so that my faceplate touched his, as close as I could get to letting him know I would have gotten closer if I could. 'Hey. You're allowed a panic attack or two. But this isn't Mars. We'll get out of this.' I heard the catch in his breath again. 'Concentrate on me, if it helps. Or see if we can find a way out. Can you move?'

'Not much. The strut's resting on my back. I've got a little wriggle room to my left, but there's something pushing my leg armour into my thigh...'

I couldn't resist. 'It's my holster, I swear...'

He began to laugh, but had to stop as the movement caused a slight shift. He stiffened, and I squeezed his outstretched arm, that lay next to me. 'Okay. Thanks for that, but this probably isn't the time to make me laugh.'

'Is there anything we can use as a light?'

'I might...' he wriggled again, trying to reach the small pouch on his belt. 'Stupid of me to cart this around, but it might give us enough light to see by...'

A small hologram appeared, of a lovely young brunette, with green eyes and a shy smile. Enough light from the projection emanated from the disc that he held to show me that we were caught in a pocket, protected by the strut which also pinned us together. He managed to hit a pause button to stop the recording on a freeze frame, but not before I heard a fair chunk of the message. As 'Dear John's' went, it could have been worse, if not for the fact she'd decided on his brother. Oh, lady... were you crazy? How could you pick the psycho over the sweet one?

In the awkward silence that followed, I felt I had to offer something. 'Was that Nami?' I felt, rather than saw, his nod. 'She was lovely.' ...and used to trying to knock some sense into your head as well, I thought to myself. 'Would you mind an outsider's observation?'

'Can I stop you?' The tone was bitter this time, and I flinched at the implied rebuke.

He was instantly contrite. 'I'm sorry. That... was undeserved.' When I didn't speak, he tapped my faceplate lightly with his own. 'Oi. That was your cue to carry on...'

I hesitated then, unsure of my ground. After all, technically it was none of my business, but his unhappiness was almost a living, breathing thing, and I couldn't leave it unsaid, in the end. 'She did love you. That much shines through. She risked so much to save you - and by extension the Arcadia. Maybe it wasn't the relationship you wanted, but...' I paused, searching for the right words. 'As a friend, a sister... that's more than a lot of us ever know; you should treasure what you had, not mourn what never was.'

He was silent for so long I thought I'd pushed too far. 'It still hurts,' he said eventually. 'The last few years I kept wondering what the hell was so wrong with me that...'

'She didn't return your feelings?' I cleared my throat to cover the catch in my own voice. If I hated one thing more than my own weakness, it was other people's pity. 'At least that I understand...'

'Harlock?' He asked with a surprising tenderness. I didn't want to reply. Foolish, foolish childhood dreams of a silly, lonely girl.

I didn't realise I'd spoken some of that out loud until he said gently: 'I had a similar dream once. I just never understood how big the age difference is between sixteen and seventeen. What woman would choose a boy, even if he didn't almost kill her?'

If I could, I would have hugged him. 'But you had that friendship. Those memories. That's something at least. Sometimes, there were times I would have envied you your brother's hatred. Even to have had an enemy would have been better than being alone.' The words came tumbling out in a rush, a confidence I'd never ever dreamed of sharing.

'Kei...' His voice sounded troubled, but he didn't continue. I felt my face flush, wondering what on earth had possessed me to admit something so personal. Maybe facing death had a way of focusing your worst fears...

'You aren't alone.,' he said eventually. 'I did mean what I said last night. About being friends. And that's not out of pity, or utility. You keep reaching for the light in the darkness, and I like to think I've got the courage to follow. Harlock didn't. He was lost in despair and took the rest of you with him, but you... you are a light in the darkness. You never stop hoping, or caring. I think...' he stopped, and I waited, wondering just what was going through his head. 'I think, between us, we can make this ship, its crew, count for something more than despair. So if you think - ' he gave my arm - the only part of me he could touch - a little shake. 'That I will let you disappear up your own arse, missy, you're sadly mistaken. Trust me, it's never a good place to live.'

His teasing little pep talk at least shook a small laugh from me, he sounded so mock-fierce. 'Duly noted, sir.'

'Fffh. Less of the sir. Save it for the bridge. Off duty...'

'Off duty?'

'Dunno. We'll work it out, I suppose. If we live that...' he cocked his head on one side. 'I think I heard something...'

A click. Tapping, then a thumping. 'Oi, oi! A light! Maji, Bob! Get your arses over here!'

'Yattaran?' Yama shouted.

A pause. 'Rookie? You in there? What about Kei?'

'I'm fine. Just being squashed by some idiot who didn't look where he was landing!' I called back. Did my captain just blow a raspberry at me for that?

'I'm fine too, if anyone cares...' Yama shouted back. Giving as good as he got he added, 'thankfully I landed on something soft...'

I punched his armour clad arm lightly, feeling my dark mood lifting, and not wholly due to the relief of rescue at hand. 'Watch where you start clearing, guys. We're protected by one of the reinforced infrastructure struts by the look of it.'

'I see it.' The first mate called back. 'Be a while before we can shift it safely - the damaged section re-formed around it. We've re-pressurised, so air won't be a problem if you take your helmets off. Either of you pinned hard?'

I wriggled just to make sure. 'Yama?' I asked. He shook his head.

'I'm good. I don't think either of us is in any immediate danger of compartment syndrome. The beam's just low enough to hold us in place, it isn't pressing on anything,.' he called back. A little more quietly he added 'apart from my bladder, and now I wish I hadn't been so blasé about the damn plumbing...'

I wondered then what the guys working to free us must have thought as we both dissolved into giggles.

---

It took Ali, Yattaran and Maji over an hour to get to a point where they could finally left the beam holding us in place. More light flooded the small compartment we were trapped in as they cut and lifted the hardly healed walls away. Only the beam pinning Yama on top of me remained, and that, it seemed, wasn't going away as easily.

'Can't cut any closer without risking the pair of you,' Yattaran said gruffly. 'I sent fer Bob. Need a bit of brute force for this one, not brains.' He was kneeling to one side, peering in on us with a false cheery grin on his round face. 'Gonna be close though. Not got much headroom, so we'll get a couple of inches clearance tops, and we'll have to yank you out one at a time, quick.'

'Then you pull Kei free first,' Yama ordered quietly.

'Like hell!' Damn idiot - did he really think I'd let anything happen to my captain? 'First mate, you pull the captain free, and that's an order!'

'Belay that, first mate. You get the XO free and that is an order from your captain. Do I make myself clear?'

Yattaran mumbled something under his breath, sounding nervous. 'Yattaran, you know what I can do to you... what's he going to do? Be sarcastic?' I snapped.

'That's weapons grade sarcasm, I'll have you know,' Yama drawled. If he'd not been encased in a hardsuit I'd have thumped him. 'Yattaran, give me a moment, would you?'

Yattaran pulled back with an unconcealed sigh of relief, the coward. Yama turned his helmeted head back so our unvisored faces were once again facing each other. 'Kei, please. It isn't up for debate. Trust the guys to do their job, we'll be fine.'

'But you're the captain...'

My protests fell on that mulish stubbornness. 'And your captain will not save his own ass at the expense of yours - or any of the crew. So get that through your head right now.' Then his expression softened and so quietly that it would go not further than the two of us, he continued: 'And I won't lose anyone else.'

There was a look on his face when he spoke which reminded me so much of The Captain, on the rare occasions he'd ever shown any passion when speaking that I didn't react quickly enough to his statement, and he took my disconcerted silence for acceptance. He called the crew back in to finish the rescue.

Bob took the strain of the weight with a grunt, aided by Ali on the other end, and the beam gave enough to allow Yama to lift himself up just enough to allow Yattaran to drag me unceremoniously out from underneath him by my ankles. I pulled free and struggled to my knees to check on Yama, even as Bob - despite his best efforts, lost control of the beam and let it slip out of his hands, accompanied by a curse from Ali.

'Get him out!' I screamed at the men. 'Don't just stand there, get him out!' The strut didn't fall far, but I heard the scream of tortured metal from Yama's suit as the beam crushed the rebreather. Bob heaved the damn thing back up with a grunt, and Maji and Yattaran, on an ankle each, pulled the silver armour free from the wreckage. Bob's grip held long enough to pull Yama free, and this time it collapsed onto the corridor floor with a clang.

I didn't care by that time. I scuttled over to Yama's side, terrified that he was badly hurt, but he was getting to his feet helped by Yattaran, holding onto the first mate for dear life. 'Yama?'

He smiled at me, and when I had him in a bear hug, returned the gesture a little shakily, ignoring the not so subtle sniggers from the crew. 'I told you to trust them,' he said, making it sound like a quiet rebuke. I tried to get under one shoulder to help him, not trusting myself to say anything. I was shaken to the core not so much by how close a shave he'd had, but by how much the thought hit that empty hollow inside and made it feel so deadly, icy cold...

I didn't get a chance to say anything however. A soft-winged shadow launched itself at us out of nowhere and landed on Yama's shoulder, screeched in my ear and stuck its beak between us, shoving its head into Yama's face. Seems The Captain's bird had adopted Yama as well. I could have sworn it gave me the stink-eye as Yama pushed the offending article out of the way and told the damn thing to behave.

---

I finally managed to persuade him to head back to Harlock's quarters once we'd been checked over in the infirmary. I'd press ganged Eddie and Dan into sorting a few things out first, one of which had been sending up some of the better food options from the Oceanos' stores. Sadly my appetite wasn't up to the task, and Yama, having finished his own, stared at me as I toyed with my meal pack, swirling the spoon around in the sachet absently.

'Planning on finishing that, or were you going to just stir it to death?' He asked. I handed it over and watched it vanish speedily. Nothing like a near death experience to enhance a guy's appetite, I knew. After a battle the crew could clean out the refectory stores in record time.

There was a small glass beaker in the captain's quarters, perched precariously on what passed for a windowsill at the foot of the massive, ornate fake leaded lights of the room. The beaker had been smashed at some point, and carefully glued back together. It was filled to about the halfway mark with a gritty soil and a single green shoot was busy slowly pushing its way out of the soil. Four tiny, fragile leaves strained upwards, as though reaching for something just out of reach. Yama had placed a small, portable light source nearby, which bathed the small plant with a soft yellow light.

'What is it?' I asked, leaning closer for a better look.

'Not sure. It was here when I first wandered in to take a look, before deciding this mausoleum of a room was a little too much, too soon,' Yama told me. 'I'll have a better idea once it gets a little bigger. Hard to tell with only a couple of true leaves and cotyledons.' He placed the bandages he was carrying on the large baroque chair behind the captain's desk - an equally ornate monstrosity carved from solid wood, which housed a state of the art communication suite tied into the ship's systems. Dozens of artificial candles were the only other lights in the room, apart from two massive crystalline chandeliers hanging on thick chains from the vaulted ceiling. The bed off to one side was surely large enough for four people even allowing for one of them being the captain's height. Hell, maybe he'd liked to sprawl?

'A bit much, isn't it?' Yama said, walking to my side. 'Just wait 'til you see what's in the bathroom...' He grinned, and suspecting a challenge, I strode over to take a look - thankfully with only a slight limp left over from three hours stuck under a hardsuit with a good eleven stone of human male in it on top of me.

I saw what he meant the moment I stuck my head cautiously around the door. 'Bloody hell... is that a real, honest-to-goodness hot tub?' I couldn't stop staring as he walked up behind me. 'Oh my... if I'd known about this I might have joined you in that mutiny. Have you any idea what it's like having to use those low-G showers for eight years?' I stepped into the room and ran a hand reverently over the smooth wooden surface of the tub. The transparent cover slid back when I touched the control panel, and I pulled off my gloves to trail my fingers in the warm water. 'You do realise I might just have to stage a coup...?'

He tilted his head on one side, with a quirky lop-sided smile that was so oddly familiar. 'Why? If it could hold that lanky bastard, it's big enough for two.'

I blushed furiously, feeling as though my skin was on fire from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. My fingers jerked clear of the water, scattering droplets over the pristine, cold marbled floor.

I shook my head to clear it, and realised he'd spoken again. 'Sorry, what?'

He stood in front of me, the undersuit from his hardsuit half fastened, sporting a new bruise on his scarred face. Somewhere along the way he'd lost the eyepatch. 'I said, if it would swing your vote, I'd throw in a back rub...'

He was looking at me the way he'd been doing ever since we'd been pulled free. In the infirmary, every time I caught his eye, that same expression that straddled the border been indecision and speculation, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

I reached out, touching his scarred cheek tentatively with my fingertips. A step closer brought me within the reach of his arms and once again, I was having the breath kissed out of me and giving as good as I got.

My fingers moved of their own volition up the lines of his cheekbones, skimming the edge of one ear, soliciting a strangled moan from that lovely mouth of his under my own.

Then they were tangled in his hair, and yes, those light brown strands were as soft and silky as I'd thought they would be. I ran my hands through his hair, trailed my fingers over his neck and felt him shiver, even as he mirrored the action and elicited a similar response. Under the thin flightsuit, which I tentatively pushed out of the way, my hands explored his smooth back, broad shoulders.

My palms pressed against his chest: so smooth, just a sprinkling of fine hairs, a little more wiry around the hard nipples. And still he mirrored my moves, gently, though I could feel the strength in his hands, and the rest of him was coiled like a tightly wound spring. Despite this, he never rushed me, even as his breathing grew a little more ragged as I helped him out of the form fitting undersuit, and he delicately assisted me likewise.

'Are you sure?' he asked gently, as his hands brushed my breasts. I leaned against him, loving the feel of muscle and soft skin warm against my own.

'Life's too short for regrets,' I said quietly, resting one hand on his chest. I looked into those hazel pools, deep enough to drown in. 'We could be killed tomorrow, or live for a hundred years. We have no way of knowing which - but I have the freedom to choose how I live that life. Thanks to you...' I smiled at him. 'This isn't gratitude, in case you're wondering. This is my choice.' I left the "if you'll have me" unsaid.

'Freedom, huh?' He leaned closer and kissed me again. When we came up for air he let me have both barrels with that devastating little smile. 'I think someone once told me that that was what thís ship is all about...'

'Fffht. I think it took me a while to pull my head out of my ass and realise what it was I really wanted,' I told him with a laugh.

'There's a lot of that going around,' he replied dryly. He went back to helping me out of my undersuit. Never once did he try to take the lead, and I realised he was letting me keep the control. A gift my growing frustration told me I didn't want as much as I would have once thought I did. Not from him. 'You do know I won't break?' I asked breathlessly in a rare interlude that allowed us both to come up for air. I'd been tough on his hair; it fell over his face, hiding the burn scars around his damaged eye, giving him a roguish, but still innocent look. We'd somehow manoeuvred ourselves towards that enormous bed, and I was caught underneath him again, but this time with no hardsuits in the way, and there was no fear...just a sense of freedom, an exhilaration I never thought I could feel. My hands traced the contours of his back, feeling him flinch when I accidentally caught the bruises where the beam had caught him - if not for his hardsuit it might have crippled him; a shadowy, ironic spectre I wished I could have chased away. He'd tried so hard to hide it, but the situation had been an obvious strain.

'Yes, but I might,' he quipped. He leaned on his hands, taking most of his weight through his arms, and I ran my left hand down one of them, from shoulder to fingertips. Even in the shadowy light cast by the candles, I could still see the older bruises from battle, overlaid now with new purpling marks from today which mottled his chest. There was also a long shallow slash across his back down over one shoulder almost to the waist where the cross beam pinning him had caused the re-breather to buckle when Bob had dropped the damn thing, cutting through the undersuit and his skin.

He hadn't mentioned that little detail, until we'd reached the infirmary and he'd nearly passed out when Yattaran tried to peel him out of the hardsuit. Prat. I really was going to have to remind him that stoic masochism wasn't at all entertaining. I ran my hand down to his waist, carefully avoiding the still obviously painful injury. He practically purred when I found the spot at the base of his spine that guaranteed some exquisite writhing...

---

The door to the captain's quarters slid open with an anachronistic creak. It was all the warning we had before the sound of heels clicking on the floor stooped dead to be replaced with an embarrassed intake of breath. Struggling to cover ourselves and retain at least a little dignity was a futile effort: a little too enthusiastically trying to sit upright, Yama overbalanced. I could feel the edge of the bed, but despite my attempts to hold on, we landed on the floor in a tangle of legs and sheets, and for the second time that day I was pinned and helpless underneath my new captain.

It was utterly inappropriate, but I just couldn't help it, and the strain of the last week or so hadn't helped. I giggled.

'Mimay?' If frustration could be front-loaded into a single word, Yama managed it. 'A little privacy wouldn't go amiss...'

'Harlock. My apologies. I am used to...' I couldn't see her from my current position tangled up in bedsheets and Yama, but I had to feel sorry for the alien. This, after all, had been her home for a hundred years, and now here we were, playing around on Harlock's bed before it was even cold... 'I thought you should know, we have arrived.'

'Well I'm glad someone has,' Yama muttered sourly. As mood killers go, this was right up there, but I was finding it harder not to laugh, even though my own frustration levels were currently skyrocketing. 'We'll be along shortly.' Clicking heels exited the room, and Yama sighed heavily. 'The universe hates me, that's what it is...' he dropped a light kiss on my cheek and started trying to untangle himself. I pulled the sheet out of his hands with a determined tug.

'And just where do you think you're going?' I asked with a teasing smile.

'You heard her: arrived. Funerals. I think the captain and the XO should at least put in an appearance.'He tugged on a sheet. 'Also, how the hell do I start getting us out of two square miles of bed linen? I mean, I know you're in there somewhere...'

I sighed. 'Yama. Firstly we'll be at least half an hour dumping delta-v. Second, you are the captain. They aren't going to start without you...' I had been going to add a snarky remark about the current tangle, but the slow dawning comprehension was a delight to behold. Really, he was adorably innocent in some ways. And a quick study.

'We shouldn't keep them waiting too long though,' he whispered, in between nibbles on my earlobe, a few minutes later, whilst we tried to extricate ourselves from the sheets, with an awkward, desperate enthusiasm that tended to end up with both of us laughing.

'Right now, you should just worry about not keeping me waiting,' I teased.

'Bossy cow, aren't you?' He ran his fingers down my spine, and I shivered in delight. 'But also, if I'm right, a little ticklish just... about... here...'

Yeah. Waay too quick a study. He had me so thoroughly distracted that I never noticed when we finally made it back onto the bed, at least not until after I'd finally succeeded in not so much as embracing my future, as impaling myself on it. Hopefully no-one had this room bugged – they'd be laughing their arses off watching two desperate idiots trying to get it together whilst trying to avoid far too many injuries, years of frustration and a tendency to collapse into giggles when we got ourselves in a tangle. I'd give us points for enthusiasm, but not much for technique. Ah well. We'll just have to get more practice; such hardship… I lay back on a soft pillow with Yama's head resting in my lap, the two of us just staring vaguely at the vaulted, gothic ceiling, and ran my fingers through his hair, wondering how long we could get away with just lying here and saying "to hell with it".

It was only when I shifted slightly to get some feeling back into the arm he was lying on that I noticed someone had placed my repaired silver hairbrush on the bedside table, right next to Yama's toiletries from his crew room.

---

'Stand still and stop wriggling! You're just making this difficult!' I gave the white cravat a final tug and tucked it into the front of the dark grey jacket Maji had found for Yama in stores – a little shinier than his usual gear, with a skull and crossbones in white that covered the entire front. He fiddled with the high collar and I slapped his fingers away with a sigh.

'You know, you're the only woman – apart from my mother – who ever fussed about getting me into clothes…' he griped, but not crossly.

'You're the captain now, you need to look the part.' I sighed, and stepped back to check the result. Not perfect, but better than that faded jacket he'd grabbed out of stores and had been wearing ever since. 'But nothing of the captain's will fit you…'

'Gaia be thanked…' he interjected. 'Can you really see me in black studded leather swirling that damned cloak?'

The heartfelt "yes" I kept to myself probably wouldn't go down well. '…and I haven't had time to sic Maji on you to sort out something more suitable. Apart from your Fleet uniform, this is as good as it gets, but I thought you'd not want to wear that, so…'

'Burn it,' he said with feeling. 'I never want to see it again.'

I gave him a hug. 'I'll see to it.' I stepped back again and looked him up and down. Showered, yes, hair washed and brushed - well as neat as it was going to look, and I did kind of like the way it fell over his face, hiding the patch; fed, watered, dressed well enough not to embarrass me… well, close enough. I handed him his gloves, and waited whilst he pulled them on, grabbing my own from the table. I'd had to drag my white flightsuit out of storage, and felt a little washed out when I looked in the mirror.

Yama dropped a kiss on my cheek. 'You look lovely. We both do. Now let's get this over with before the Universe decides to throw something else at us.'

---

'Have you thought of a speech?' I asked, as we made our way to the torpedo room. He shook his head.

'Did Harlock ever make one?'

I shook my head. No, he'd always stood off to one side, and let Yattaran do the honours, and I said so. 'But you were the one who told me we needed to get this a bit more "together".' I gave him a little push in the small of the back as he hesitated. 'Just speak from the heart. You don't seem to do to badly when you just say what you feel.'

The torpedo room door was ahead of us, and he hesitated again just outside. I waited, and after a deep breath, he stepped over the threshold.

Despite taking our time, we were still the first ones there. I hadn't given the call out to all hands until we'd left the captain's room. Precisely for the reason that I now saw, as Yama walked slowly towards the torpedo housing that held the body of his brother, and stopped next to it, staring down, his hands resting on the tube and a look on his face that tore at my heart. Take equal measures of pain, grief, betrayal, love, anger and guilt. Stir well and drink to the dregs…

I walked over to him after a minute or so, and laid my hand on top of one of his, long black glove on top of short brown. I gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, then reached up to brush that wayward lock of hair off his forehead. I looked down at the cold, pale form inside the tube, and shivered slightly. Even in death, there was no softening of the cruel lines on that face. Oh, he'd been handsome enough, if you like the type. Cold, overbearing, sneering and with a stick up his ass the size of the Martian beanstalk. How the hell this dark, intense, malevolent asshole could be related to Yama was a mystery.

'I take after my mother,' Yama said softly. I looked at him. 'It was pretty obvious what you were thinking.' He reached out and smoothed down an errant tuft of dark hair. 'Full brothers. Not adopted.' His brother's glasses had been placed on his chest, and he tucked them into the breast pocket of the jacket. 'It would be so much easier wouldn't it, if we weren't? A way to excuse the inexcusable. When the sorry truth is, we're only human...' He slid the hatch closed and stepped back. 'And we're all capable of hating just as fiercely as we can love. Isora. Harlock... they weren't so different. You have that right. It's up to us, I guess, to find a better way...' He placed one arm around me and pulled me close, taking what comfort I could offer, at least until the crew began to file in, and we had to take our places, sending our dead into their final rest.

---

We stood in front of Harlock's leaded window later. For once, whilst we took a brief breather before heading off for a re-supply, the dark matter cloud that usually surrounded the ship had thinned, and I leaned against Yama's shoulder, sharing a wineglass with him. Thankfully we had the room to ourselves - the bird had been unceremoniously ushered out into the corridor, and Yama stammered an excuse about needing some bandages changing changed to excuse him from having to deal with Mimay, and that left us in a comfortable isolation.

I studied the tiny plant that thrust its way up towards the top of the glass beaker. Did it look a little bigger than earlier? On this ship, who knew? Dark matter had so many strange manifestations, after all. 'How does it know?' I asked, pointing to the seedling. 'Covered in darkness, but it breaks free and strains towards the light.'

He smiled. 'There's a really technical explanation that has to do with tropism and hormones... gravity-tropic versus light tropic...' he laughed. 'Your eyes would probably glaze over halfway through.'

'Don't be too sure. I never thought to see real greenery... I always dreamed of seeing Earth, but this... and your little flower... this is all I've ever seen actually growing.' I couldn't keep the wistful tone out of my voice, and leaned into his reassuring hug.

'And yet you reached for the light, even in the darkness. Just like that little seedling of Harlock's.' He took the glass back from my hand and took a sip. Still holding it, he pointed out of the window. 'When you look outside, what do you see?'

The question startled me, but I answered with only a slight hesitation. 'Stars. Thousands of them.' I turned my head slightly to look at him, noticing that since the torpedo carrying his brother's body had been sent into that darkness, he'd stood a little straighter, as though a load had been taken off his shoulders. About time...

'See. That's exactly what I mean.' He kissed my cheek. 'Most people would see only the darkness. Even I did, until I came aboard this ship.' He placed the glass down on the table, wincing a little as he turned to do so. Shirtless, the bandages he'd finally agreed to let me strap his ribs up with were stark white against his skin. Hands now freed, he unbuckled my gunbelt and dropped it carefully onto the floor. This was followed by my gloves and the first of my holdout blades from its concealed sleeve sheath.

'What are you doing?' I bent down to pick up my gloves but he stopped me and tugged me closer.

'I think it's traditional...' he said brightly. Quite deliberately he dropped the blade so that it landed just past the edge of the desk, on the way to the bed. 'Normally I think there's supposed to be lots of frantic clothes tearing, but that's not possible in these passion killers, so...'

I ran my hands down his chest, and began unbuckling his belt, following his lead by dropping it to the floor as we moved slowly towards the bed. 'I think I see where you're going with this...'

...and I could, I thought, always tidy it up later whilst he slept...