The Wheel

part two

'Captain to the bridge,' Aristotle said into the comms, not caring if he undercut the mate's prerogative. 'Okay darlin',' he turned back to Miimé. 'Captain's on his way. Want to tell me what's got you so spooked?'

Miimé whispered a nameless sound, a word from her own lost tongue, and pointed out into the void. Off the bow a storm was forming. A great black cloud boiling out of nothing and shot through with bolts of red lightning.

Aristotle pitched his voice towards the upper bridge. 'Are you two seeing this?'

'We see it,' the mate replied. He glanced across at the XO. What the fuck, he mouthed to Maji's bewildered shrug.

'Back off a couple of thousand,' the engineer suggested. 'Captain will want to see this.'

'Aye,' the mate replied, engaging the reverse engines.

Aristotle leaned over his console and sighted down the scope. 'What is it?' he asked Miimé as he stared into the expanding bubble of darkness, his skin crawling with the kind of electric dread that accompanies the building of a storm.

'A vortex from a dark matter engine,' she replied in words he could understand.

'Oh.' The gunner targeted the forward cannon on the centre of the mass. 'Much more impressive from the outside.'

'It's too close,' Miimé said, with an edge of unease in her voice.

Aristotle looked up from his scope and stared into the expanding cloud. 'I can see that, darlin'. Yattaran!' he shouted. 'Girl says it's too close. How about you put some distance between us and that cloud?'

'Whaddaya think I'm doin'!' Yattaran barked back.

'Do it faster!'

'How about you mind your station!'

'How about you – ' Aristotle's retort was drowned out by the sudden screech of the proximity alarm. 'Shit!' he cursed, jumping as the alarm scraped across his nerves.

'She's coming out of inskip!' Maji bellowed.

Aristotle brought the guns to bear on the centre of the roiling cloud. 'Cannon armed.'

'Wait,' Miimé said, her voice all but drowned out by the steady whoop of the alarm. Her hand covered Aristotle's and stopped him in his tracks. 'Wait...'

He shook her hand away. 'What am I waiting for?'

'That,' she said, her hand finding his again and stilling it on the board.

He followed her gaze, watched as the swirling envelope of cloud parted to reveal a dark, solid mass that was illuminated by random flashes of red. 'What the hell is it?'

'Deathshadow,' Miimé said, so softly that he had to strain to hear.

'Girl says it's a death shadow,' Aristotle relayed to the upper command.

'Deathshadow?' Yattaran looked again at Maji. 'It can't be…'

'But it is,' Harlock said out of nowhere.

Yattaran turned to find the captain striding the gantry to the wheel. 'Captain at the helm!' the mate announced to the sparse crew, relinquishing the command with grateful haste. 'Orders?'

Harlock's fingers settled around the balusters of the wheel. 'Full power to port thrusters.'

'Aye, sir.' Yattaran cut the reversing engines and relayed power to the thruster banks. 'Port thrusters engaged.'

'Evasive!' Maji's shout came as Deathshadow exploded from the cloud in a burst of red lightning, yawed on her side and fell at speed towards Arcadia.

'What the hell!' Aristotle stared at the battleship that erupted from the vortex. 'Is the pilot of that boat drunk? Damn thing is going to hit us!' He tucked Miimé beneath an arm and braced them both against his console as the ship headed for Arcadia's bow. 'Don't you go exploding on me again, girl – it stings like a bitch!'

'Brace for impact!'

This time it was Yattaran doing the hollering, and Aristotle cursed as Miimé released a spark of electricity into his armpit. 'Damn, girl,' he said as Deathshadow continued its uncontrolled trajectory towards Arcadia.

'Move, old friend,' Harlock grunted, spinning the wheel hard to starboard as Deathshadow closed in on them.

((hold on))

The wheel tore itself out of Harlock's grip, the stars spinning crazily across the forward bow as Arcadia attempted futilely to heave herself away from the onrushing ship.

'Brace!' Maji bellowed as Deathshadow smashed against Arcadia, the impact knocking the crew off their feet as the ship tilted violently and shuddered under the onslaught. The bridge filled with the sound of metal tearing, a reverberating, unyielding screech that echoed through the superstructure as the crew struggled back to the urgent blinking of their consoles.

'Breaches in sectors one through five,' Maji reported as Deathshadow ground its way across Arcadia's flank. Sparks erupted across the viewport, a cloud of debris spinning wildly out into space as Arcadia and Deathshadow worked on tearing each other apart.

'Multiple system failure,' Yattaran added, both hands on his console to prevent himself from tipping over. 'Atmosphere leak in sector – '

'Back us off,' Harlock cut in. 'Full reverse.'

'Aye sir!'

'Stand by on cannon.'

'Aye Cap'n,' Aristotle acknowledged as Miimé slid out from where he had wedged her beneath his arm. 'Forward cannon armed.' He wiped a hand across the seat of his pants as he sighted down the targeting display, wondering where the sweet spots might be and blinking as the display refreshed and a schematic of Deathshadow appeared with the optimal targets highlighted. 'Convenient,' he muttered to himself as he resisted the urge to cast a superstitious glance back over his shoulder.

'Target idents as Deathshadow 3,' Maji said, glancing questioningly at the captain.

Harlock didn't return the look. Clamped his teeth down hard against the inside of his lip as Arcadia wrenched herself free.

((you're taking this well)) Tochiro said as Deathshadow drifted slowly away from them, her sleek lines marred by the abrupt contact with Arcadia. The rents to Deathshadow's skin sparked and spat, fires igniting and just as quickly snuffing out in the airless void of space.

'Why did it have to be her?' Harlock whispered inside his head.

((bad luck, old friend))

Harlock's lip twitched.

((look at her)) Tochiro said as the dark hulk of Deathshadow drifted ominously still and silent across Arcadia's bow, her wounds knitting themselves together as they watched.

'As beautiful as the day you made her.'

((a perfect example of my minimalist phase))

'Unlike your current tour-de-force…'

Tochiro laughed and sent a silver ripple across the surface of Harlock's brain. ((you're not laughing)) he said when Harlock didn't respond. He pushed deeper into Harlock's mind and retreated abruptly from the cool dread that coalesced there.

'Captain.' Yattaran looked up from his board. 'We're being hailed.'

Harlock's fingers clenched and unclenched on the wheel.

'Captain?' Yattaran ventured again.

Harlock turned to face the first mate, like a sleeper awakening from a dream.

'We're being hailed,' Yattaran repeated, shooting an unsubtle glance across at Maji. 'Orders?'

Harlock left the wheel and moved towards the captain's chair. He lowered himself into it, the crimson leather molding perfectly around him. 'On screen,' he said, his fingers tightening around the skull-carved arms of the chair as the overhead screen erupted in a blaze of light.

Harlock didn't know what he expected as he waited for the visual to stabilise, but he realised when he saw her that a large part of him had hoped she was dead.

'Harlock,' the woman said, the white-blue of her eyes a stark contrast to the dark of her hair. 'I had hoped you were dead.'

((great minds)) Tochiro murmured in the back of Harlock's mind.

'Captain Komarov,' Harlock acknowledged, unmoving in his chair.

'Such formality.' Komarov smiled, but it didn't reach the cold wastes of her eyes. 'Is that any way to greet an old friend? After all that we shared?' The smile fell slowly from her face. 'After all that you did?'

There it was. The accusation. He knew what he did. And so, apparently, did Ekaterina Komarov. 'What do you want, Captain?'

'Permission to come aboard.'

'Denied.'

She acknowledged the refusal with a bow of the head, unsurprised by the rejection. 'Then I suggest we meet somewhere neutral.'

'What do you want,' he asked again, his voice a stone dropping into deep water.

The smile. The hard cold eyes in the still lovely face. 'Neo Triton. Twenty-four hours.'

The transmission ended and left the bridge hanging in sudden darkness. In the ticking silence a muffled sneeze echoed up from the lower command.

'First mate.' Harlock rose from his chair. "Prepare for inskip.'

((you're not seriously thinking of going))

Yattaran turned to the captain, his face fighting a herculean battle against curiosity. It was a war his face was losing. 'Destination?'

'You heard,' Harlock replied, ignoring the bugging of Yattaran's eyes.

((she's still crazy)) Tochiro said.

'And she's still a bitch,' Harlock replied.

((ah, shit. don't tell me she still turns you on))

'That was some hit we took,' Yattaran groused as he trotted down the stairs from the upper bridge. He paused at the bottom landing and looked across at Aristotle at his post, the gunner's arms folded across his chest and his ass leaned back against the console and his legs crossed carelessly at the ankles as he stared thoughtfully back the first mate. Behind his blond head the forward port towered high above him, the view outside the angled windows dark and obscured by the billowing black folds of inskip.

Yattaran blinked at Aristotle with watery eyes and indicated with a jerk of his head that the gunner should follow him, but it took Aristotle a while to uncross his arms and his legs and tail him into the cavity tucked discretely beneath the gantry of the upper bridge.

'What's this,' Aristotle asked, squeezing himself into the cubby behind the rotund mate and peering over Yattaran's broad fleshy shoulder at the bank of orange-lit displays.

Yattaran ignored the question and scrolled through the external display system, bringing up image after image of the rents and tears in Arcadia's skin. Some of them still sparked fitfully, but most of them were knitting together perceptibly, faster now that Arcadia was deep in inskip and surrounded by the rolling mass of dark matter that beat like thunder against the hull.

'Breaches in sectors one through five,' Yattaran announced loudly, even though Aristotle's chin practically rested on his chubby shoulder as he studied Arcadia's rapidly healing wounds with interest. 'Still leaking atmosphere…' Yattaran took a step back, his heel landing on an unguarded toe and eliciting a pointed shit as Aristotle slid his foot out from beneath the mate's heavy boot.

'Ahh… what am I worried about?' Yattaran said, oblivious to the cursing in his ear as he waved a nonchalant hand towards the glowing bank of displays. 'Thanks to the magic of Nibelung technology,' he announced like a circus ringleader, 'Arcadia is invincible!'

Aristotle pressed close to the mate again. 'I'm seeing it,' he stared incredulous at the screen as Arcadia's hull visibly reconstituted itself, the metal knitting itself together seamlessly over the gaping wounds that Deathshadow had torn into it. 'But I'm not believing it.' Maji had one night explained to him about Arcadia's self-repairing capabilities, but until he had seen it with his own eyes Aristotle was never going to believe it. And even now, with the ship repairing itself right in front of him, right before those self-same blue and unblinking eyes, he still wasn't believing it. 'It's not possible…' he breathed as Yattaran's warm bulk shifted and made moves to squeeze back out past him.

'If you're going to ask me how,' Yattaran said laconically, as though he were tired of thinking about the question and couldn't be bothered thinking about it again, 'the short answer is I don't know. And the long answer is I don't know.' He stepped back again, this time avoiding any unwary toes as he eased himself out and lumbered back up the stairs. 'The same process that heals organic material – ' he said, turning to make sure Aristotle was following him ' – and by 'organic material' I mean us – seems to heal Arcadia as well, although with Arcadia it seems to be more accurate. And it's a hell of a lot faster.'

'And I notice it doesn't leave scars,' Aristotle observed, with his own scars still tender beneath the dark material of his skivvie.

Yattaran paused on the landing and waved a hand expansively at the dark matter generator that hummed at the rear of the bridge. 'Quit yer moaning. If it wasn't for that, you wouldn't even be alive.'

'About that,' Aristotle said as he crested the landing behind the mate.

'About what?' Yattaran stretched his arms over his head and leaned back, eyes popping in surprise when his spine produced an audible crack.

'That,' Aristotle said, indicating the dark matter generator. 'Doesn't the girl need to stand watch, or something?'

Yattaran shrugged, scratched, and swallowed down the indigestion he'd been battling since breakfast. Arcadia was deep in inskip, surrounded by billows of dark matter that seethed like storm clouds against the hull. Blood-red sparks of energy cracked like lightning across the forward port, and now and then what sounded like thunder could be heard echoing through the superstructure. Behind the captain's chair the dark matter generator worked unattended, turned silently on its axis, tendrils of light the colour of cool water drifting randomly from the control orb.

'She'll come back when she needs to,' the mate said. He stretched again, and this time nothing popped. 'She's never far away.'

'I don't like this one,' Miimé said, leaning over the two figures coiled tight in the sheets of the bed.

Tochiro sighed the sigh of the unsurprised. ((ekaterina komarov… i could have guessed. he's so predictable))

Miimé peered down at Harlock as though studying a fine work of art. She leant closer to look, her eyes tracing the smooth contours of his face. 'He was so young.'

((and so stupid))

'You know I can hear you,'Harlock said, kicking the sheets out from around his ankles.

((excuse us. are we distracting you))

Harlock didn't answer. Leaned in and kissed Ekaterina Komarov instead. In the early days these conversations were forever distracting him, his dreams dissolving into so much smoke and slipping through his fingers. But now… Harlock settled deeper between Ekaterina's thighs, felt her rise sighing up to meet him. He closed his eyes against Tochiro's tut of disgust.

((no shame))

'There must be somebody else you can annoy.'

((there is. and i've got the whole night ahead of me))

'So have I,' Harlock murmured as Ekaterina's legs wrapped themselves around him. 'And I would like for you both to leave so I can enjoy it.' He bent his mouth to Ekaterina's pale throat, trailed his lips leisurely towards her tantalising breasts.

((who says we're even here at all))

Harlock grinned, his tongue momentarily ceasing its circumnavigation of Ekaterina's nipple. 'Are you trying to screw with my mind?'

((i don't know. am i))

Harlock grinned again and glanced up at Miimé, her lips pursed tight in distaste. 'Miimé… if you're not going to leave, you could try joining in.'

Miimé screwed up her nose. 'I don't like this one,' she told him again, her disapproval plain in her voice.

'You don't like any of them,' Harlock replied as Miimé dissolved abruptly from his view, a soft implosion of smoke and green lightning. 'One down,' he whispered as Ekaterina shifted beneath him and wrapped her legs tighter around him. 'One to go.'

Ekaterina didn't answer. Only sighed as Harlock buried his face in the darkness of her hair. Ran his teeth along her throat. Bit down hard on the lobe of her ear.

'Do you taste blood,' she asked as his teeth grazed her skin.

'No,' he murmured, kissing her on the mouth and wincing as her teeth pierced his lip.

'Now?' Ekaterina grinned up at him, feral, her elegant canines glinting in the dim light. Harlock licked at his lips. Tasted salt and iron hot on his tongue.

((crazy)) Tochiro said.

'And about to get a whole lot crazier,' Harlock hissed as Ekaterina's fingernails raked grooves across his skin.

((i'll say))

'What…?' Harlock recoiled as Ekaterina's arms and legs locked tight around him, looked down at her face as her lips pulled back to expose a row of neat, sharp teeth that lengthened perceptibly as he stared.

'What the hell?'

Harlock squirmed in Ekaterina's grip, tried to tear himself free, but the grasping arms and legs hugged him harder, pinned him tight as her fingernails sliced like knives into his back. He felt blood well hot on his skin, struggled in her grip as the lengthening teeth aimed themselves unerringly for his throat and the grasping fingers pierced into him like daggers.

((i'd get outta there if I were you))

'I'm trying,' Harlock gasped, managing to get an arm free and bringing his hand to Ekaterina's face, pushing her head back hard into the bed as the teeth gnashed violently beneath his palm. He gouged a finger into an eye, managed to get his other hand around her throat as her taloned fingers flailed savagely at him, slicing hot into his arms and shoulders and scoring gaping wounds across his chest. He squeezed against her windpipe, the air choking in her throat as her body spasmed erratically. Tendons snapped beneath his fingers and Ekaterina heaved a great, shuddering gasp, her legs loosening from around his waist enough from him to break free. Harlock leapt abruptly from the bed, staggering back as Ekaterina dissolved around him in a black cloud of smoke.

((well)) Tochiro's voice piped into the sudden silence. ((that was interesting))

Harlock stood, panting, staring down at the empty bed. 'What the hell was that?'

((search me. it's your nightmare))

Yattaran grabbed hold of Aristotle's arm as he brushed past across the hangar deck, halted him in his tracks and reeled him back in.

'Watch it!' Aristotle slapped Yattaran's hand from his sleeve and fussed with the puckered knit. 'I just found this sweater and I like it. Keep your grubby mitts off.'

'Hnh,' Yattaran grunted. 'Red suits you, Rookie. Brings out the bloodshot in your eyes. Where'd you find it?'

'In the stores. It was this or a dusty old Fleet Lieutenant's jacket. Which might have been useful for snaring the ladies, but would also have been problematic – hey! Who's got bloodshot eyes?'

'Idiot.' Yattaran folded his arms and eyed Aristotle critically. 'You're not going down there to pick up women. Captain's taking you for backup, so I hope you're taking the responsibility seriously.'

'What do you take me for?'

'I just said. An idiot.'

'Listen, funny guy, didn't you hear what the captain said?' Aristotle patted the holster slung low across his hips. 'Guns are my thing.'

'I remember. But I also remember a certain rookie being dragged aboard Arcadia with enough blaster holes in him to drain spaghetti through. I hope you're as good as your word – this ship doesn't fly without her captain.'

Aristotle met the first mate's eyes. 'Yeah,' he said soberly. 'Don't worry. That won't happen again.' He turned as Maji exited the little transport parked mid-centre of the hangar deck.

'She's up to spec,' the engineer announced. 'Neo Triton doesn't have a planetary defence system anywhere near up to par, but this baby should get you through under any radar the DF may be operating.' He looked at Aristotle. 'How's your flying?'

'Nothing fancy,' Aristotle replied. 'I'm rated for heavy transport but I've had enough experience in small craft to get by. I'll be able to manage this.'

'I doubt you'll get a chance. Captain prefers to do his own flying.' Maji pulled a rag from his back pocket and busied himself wiping his fingers. 'Have you eaten today?' he inquired politely, ignoring Yattaran's barked laugh.

'Yes,' Aristotle replied warily. 'Why?' He turned to the grinning first mate. 'Is this about the crackers?'

Miimé lifted the wine from Harlock's desk, filled her glass close to the brim and settled languidly into the lounge that had been her sanctuary for almost a century. And counting.

'Will you ask about Maer,' she asked, sipping at the wine and watching Harlock as he dressed.

'You said you felt nothing,' Harlock replied from the far side of the room. 'She must be long dead.'

'I need to know,' Miimé said, watching as he buttoned up his trousers and adjusted them on his hips. 'There were only four of us…'

He turned to look at her. 'Miimé…' he said, because he should have realised. Shouldn't have been so caught in his own thoughts that he couldn't read anybody else's. He moved to the couch and knelt at her knee, touched his forehead to her own. 'I'm sorry,' he said, letting her feel his remorse through the contact of their skin.

'Don't go,' she said, her breath cool against his face. 'You're in danger.'

'I'm immortal,' he reminded, his lips close to her own.

'You're not immortal.' Her fingers moved across the bare skin of his chest, lingered over the heart that beat strong beneath the palm of her hand. 'You're just harder to kill.'

He laughed, gently, and took her hand from his heart. 'Don't I know it.' He returned to his dressing, shrugged into a shirt and tucked it into his waistband, slid a dark jacket over the top.

'What do you think she wants?' Miimé asked, absorbed by the movement of his body and the human ritual of dressing. After all these years he was still alien to her. Rough and hard with his lingering Earthman smell, despite the dark matter that bled perceptibly through his skin.

'The usual.' Harlock zipped up the jacket and smoothed his hair into place with his hands. 'What everybody wants from me in the end. Revenge... retribution...'

'Or love,' she said, making him turn to look at her.

'Mmh.' It was a kind of a laugh, but the emotion never reached his face. 'What Ekaterina and I had was never love.' He picked up a pair of boots and moved to the bed, sat on its edge and pointedly avoided her gaze. 'It was two people fucking.'

Miimé tilted her head. 'That's a kind of love.'

He bent to his boots, slid them on one by one and attended to the fastenings. 'Sex doesn't always equate to love.'

Miimé sighed in exasperation and released a stream of dark matter into the air. 'Humans are inexplicable. You compartmentalise everything, even love and hate. You didn't love Captain Komarov, and now she hates you.'

'She hates me for more than that.' His hands left the fastening of his boots and he looked questioningly up at her, tracked the flow of fireflies with his one good eye. 'Would they have known, the rest of the fleet, where the chain reaction began?'

Miimé stared back at him with her unblinking eyes. 'Without doubt.'

He nodded, because maybe he'd always known the answer. It was what he'd feared the most.

'Your secret was never safe,' Miimé said, her words moving inside his head at a speed close to light. She drained the last of the wine and placed the glass on the desk, rose from the lounge and paced the short distance to his bed. 'It was only ever a matter of time.'

'Time,' he said, reaching for her. 'We've had all the time in the universe to learn from our mistakes, and yet here we are, still screwing up.'

'Time is an illusion.' She leaned into him, slid down to straddle his lap as his hands curved around the small of her back.

'Time is a trap,' he said. His mouth found hers, tasted the wine on her lips with his tongue. 'And soon we'll all be free of it.'

Yattaran turned as the tread of steady footsteps heralded the arrival of Arcadia's captain on the hangar deck.

'Captain,' he hailed loudly. 'Transport's prepped and primed. Can't say the same for him,' he added, jabbing a thumb sideways at Aristotle.

Harlock followed the direction of Yattaran's thumb, raked his gaze over Aristotle and faltered imperceptibly in his tracks. 'That damn sweater,' he said to Tochiro, staring guardedly at the offending item as though it were an old adversary he hadn't expected to meet again. 'I thought Miimé disposed of that.' There was a moment of internal weightlessness, a crack in his reality as thoughts other than his own slid inside his head.

((guess not)) Tochiro's voice filtered directly into his brain. ((hey, harlock, remember your red phase? it was red everything…jacket… pants… and don't get me started on the cravat…))

'This from the man who spent the best years of his life with a sombrero planted on his head.'

((it wasn't a sombrero. and if you didn't like it, you should have said))

'I did.'

((i don't remember. and besides, we were talking about the sweater. let the rookie have it. it suits him. a bit tight around the chest…))

'So now I have to listen to a running fashion commentary?'

((why not. i've not much else to do))

'How about the repairs. How about maintaining Arcadia in orbit. And keeping a lookout for Deathshadow 3.'

((i'm doing all that. and at the same time i'm running a spectrum analysis on those pants you're wearing))

Harlock quickened his stride across the deck.

((run, little man))

'Captain?' Aristotle fell in beside Harlock as he strode towards the shuttle. 'Something the matter?'

'Nice sweater,' Harlock said without looking at it. He ascended the short ramp into the transport with Aristotle quick-stepping to keep up.

'Thanks. I found it in the stores. The sleeves are a bit long and the chest is a bit tight, but I like the way it clings to my…'

((does his mouth ever stop moving)) Tochiro asked, his amused inquiry drowning out the rest of Aristotle's ramblings.

'I thought you liked having voices to listen to.' Harlock slid into the pilot's seat, turning as Aristotle assumed the co-pilot's station – sure enough, his mouth was still moving. But there were shadows around his eyes that Harlock hadn't seen before. A wan tiredness that even the reflection from the accursed sweater couldn't hide. 'Sleeping much?' he asked.

'Ah...' Aristotle closed his mouth. He looked awkwardly at the captain, apparently discomfited by the question. 'Yeah,' he said. 'S'nothin. I've been having, ah, well, what you might call weird dreams.'

((weird is not the word i would use))

Harlock looked sympathetically at his co-pilot and tried not to smile at the blush that tinged his cheeks.

((he should be blushing. he's even more depraved than you are))

'Depraved. That's a big word.'

((it's nowhere near big enough to describe the goings on inside that head))

'You'll have to tell me about it,' Harlock relented, because if it was as interesting as Tochiro kept telling him, then maybe he did want to know.

((if that crazy bitch doesn't kill you, maybe i will))

'Maybe she's changed...' Harlock said mentally as he commenced launch procedures. 'Time does that to people.'

((yeah. maybe she's turned over a new leaf. become a nun. rescues kittens in her spare time and eats them))

'Gods,' Harlock sighed as the transport's engines powered up. 'Leave it alone.'

'Leave what alone?' Aristotle's hands leapt back from the console and waved spread-fingered in the air. 'What did I do?' He turned to Harlock with an expression of bewildered affront on his face.

Harlock turned a blank stare on his co-pilot. 'Did I say that out loud?' he said to Tochiro.

The question was answered with a peal of laughter from the soul at the heart of Arcadia's central computer. ((you're gonna have to watch that))

'It would help if you would shut the hell up when I am trying to have a conversation.'

'Captain?' Aristotle ventured again. 'Might be an idea to label the things you don't want me to touch.'

((that's an idea. labels. make sure you slap a few on miimé))

Harlock clamped his jaw shut, uncertain whether to laugh or cry since Tochiro seemed hell-bent on driving him to distraction.'I didn't mean to say that out loud,' hesaid to Aristotle. 'I was… wrestling with my conscience.'

'Begging the captain's pardon,' Aristotle grumbled, lowering his hands warily back to the console, 'but the captain's conscience sounds like a right pain in the arse.'

Harlock couldn't help but grin as the transport's hatch settled into place with a pneumatic hiss. He glanced out of the forward screen, making sure that Yattaran and Maji had cleared the deck.

((who's calling who a pain in the arse))

Harlock powered up the little module. 'Tochiro…'

((i know. shut the hell up. you'll be out of interface range soon and then you can have your whole head to yourself. that ought to make you happy))

'Ecstatic.'

Miimé drifted through Harlock's room, ran her fingers across the desk, wrapped her hand around the hilt of the gravity sabre and stared at the cloak that hung unused across a chair. He's naked, she thought. Vulnerable and exposed in the reach of a woman Miimé barely remembered from the time before the war. One of the four captains assigned to the Dark Matter Fleet. One of the four to whom the power to destroy worlds had been entrusted...

((they didn't call them all 'deathshadow' for nothing…))

'If only they'd known,' she said as Tochiro filled the empty spaces of her mind.

((you knew))

She flinched. Closed her eyes against the truth. 'I should have stopped him.'

((don't think about it))

'I've tried. We've all tried.' Miimé moved to the room's bank of ornate windows and stared out at the darkness of space. 'How many years can we pretend it didn't happen? How long before our guilt and our isolation drives us all to insanity?'

((when we restart the universe there won't be any more guilt. there won't be anything left to remember))

'And then what?' Miimé's eyes tracked the movement of Harlock's transport as it cleared Arcadia and headed towards the planet. 'All we are is memory...'

((we'll make new memories, miimé. all of us. we'll get the chance to live again... to do it all over…))

The transport diminished to a point, was swallowed by the glare of the slowly turning planet. 'And what if we make the same mistakes again,' she said. 'What if fate can never be denied?'

Tochiro lapsed into silence and she felt him falter in her brain, the tiny tendrils of him shrinking away from the touch of her doubt.

Blessed silence. No Tochiro. No Miimé. Just the deep, dark quiet of his mind as he navigated the deeper and darker wastes of space. A man could get lost in that kind of darkness, and one day he would. The day he was ready to surrender to it.

Below them Neo Triton turned on its axis, waltzed a slow creeping waltz with inertia as the pale reaches of the atmosphere rushed up to greet them. Harlock glanced sideways at Aristotle, silent in the seat beside him as the transport skimmed the upper edge of the thermosphere, skipping and shuddering like a stone across water. He had shut his mouth the moment Harlock had accelerated the transport over the lip of the hangar bay, clamped his hands surreptitiously around his seat restraints and leant his head back against the seat in surrender. In the reflected light of the planet Harlock could see the gunner's knuckles turning white.

Just as well he was holding on.

Harlock pushed down on the column, gave the little transport a burst of speed as he tilted her nose-down into the atmosphere. The effect was akin to cresting a hill and then accelerating down the other side, only at this altitude it was more like a head-on dive towards solid ground with all the attendant internal sensations attached. Harlock had never been a fan of standard atmospheric entry protocol – it might have been gentler on the hardware, but it wasn't nearly so much fun.

Aristotle grunted as his stomach rose up into his throat, his fingers clamping harder around the seat restraints as the bones of his knuckles attempted to punch their way through his skin. He lifted momentarily in his seat, his rear-end drifting free of the chair as the internal grav system failed to compensate for the dive, and cheeped in a faintly girly voice, 'what the hell are you doing?'

'Flying,' Harlock said simply, jostling in his seat as the bump and grind of atmosphere took hold.

'Jiggling the shit out of me is what you're doing,' Aristotle grimaced. 'Literally.' Gravity forced him back into the chair as flames ignited across the transport's heat shield. 'Oh hell, that can't be good.'

Harlock spun the yoke and twisted the little craft into a vertical spin, forcing the flames to spark from the hull and extinguish themselves in the thin air.

'We're gonna die,' Aristotle choked out as the g-forces pressed him down into his seat and the planet spun circles across the forward port. 'And the tragedy is we're gonna do it covered in my breakfast.'

Harlock squinted at him with interest. 'You're the second man I've seen whose face has actually turned green.'

'And the first man died from it, didn't he. He had to have.' Aristotle closed his eyes to shut out the spinning planet. 'You killed him.'

'I didn't.'

Aristotle opened his eyes and stared incredulous as the captain crooked him a half-smile.

'At least I took your mind off your stomach.' Harlock righted the transport and his unfortunate passenger was rewarded by a diminishing of g's and a steady horizon in his field of view. 'Better?'