Thud.
Thud. Thud.
Thud.
A fifth knife, held gently between finger and thumb of the thrower's right hand was released with a quick flick of the wrist.
Thud. The narrow, black-hilted blade joined its fellows clustered around the bull's-eye on the target at the far end of the room.
'Very nice. Now try it with one eye closed,' Kei said from her perch on a bench on the left side of the Arcadia's training area. Harlock walked slowly the length of the room to collect the blades from the target, sheathing them one by one on a black belt ornamented with a skull and crossbones buckle. Only then did he turn to look at her, and gave her a sly smile.
'Only if you wear something revealing and spangled and stand in front of the target,' he replied, his smile widening in response to her own twinkling grin. 'Or would you prefer blindfolded?'
'Now you're just showing off,' she told him. 'You know - it looks pretty cool, but at the end of the day, it's a little impractical to disarm yourself voluntarily during a fight.'
'Says the fierce little scrapper who taught me. He took the seat next to her, deliberately close enough so she had to shift up to make room for him.
'I suggested it to you as a way for you to improve your hand-eye coordination after you lost your sight in that eye. I never thought you'd take it so seriously as an actual tactic.' She huffed at him, and in reply he leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek.
'It has come in handy over the years, so don't be such a snob.' He handed her the belt. 'Why not see if you still have what it takes? Unless you're out of practice…'
He grinned as she almost snatched the belt from his hand, her cobalt blue eyes narrowing as she eyed him up as though wondering what the hell he was up to.
'I take it there's still nothing on the long-range sensors?' he asked as she took her place behind the line on the floor that marked the thirty-foot distance to the target.
Thud. Thud. Two knives hit the board in quick succession, both in the black centre bull. 'Nada. Zip. Zilch. Though Ali broke radio silence again - just to say they were under siege at the site still. With Freya no longer controlling the dark matter the engine was shutting down and the growth of the jungle shot up exponentially - as he put it like a rat out of a trap. So she was holding it back somehow - now we just need to work out how…'
'Freya?'
Thud. In the red this time. 'Shit.'
Harlock hid a smile. Only Kei would consider that a bad throw. Mid-torso on a human target it would still have given the recipient a nasty shock. On the other hand, she'd seen all of his in the black… He smirked as she poised for another throw. So competitive...
'The little girl. That's what Daiba called her.' Thud. Another score in the black. 'There were some oddities about the materials used in the structure as well - mutations in the self-repaired sections, so the theory is sound - now we just have to see if we can replicate any of it.'
Thock.
Her last blade bounced off a hilt and fell harmlessly to the floor. 'Bugger.' She marched over to the target and picked up the errant item, then pulled the rest out with sharp jerks. 'I told Blaze to rendezvous at Deathshadow Island, just in case. We'll lose too much time if we send them back to Tabito.' She took back her position on the line. 'Oh - and you were right - that lichen-stroke-moss stuff? Similar genetic make-up to the stuff that infested the Arcadia.'
'Knew I'd seen something like it somewhere before,' he replied mildly, settling back to watch the view as a very firm, rounded, leather-clad arse wriggled enticingly as she lined up another throw. 'You're pulling your throws, Kei - too sharp, too fast. You always try too hard. Here.'
Pushing himself to his feet he walked over to stand behind her, ignoring her protests. With a grin he knew she wouldn't see, he inhaled the fresh, lemon and roses scent of her hair - so uniquely Kei, and placed his arms around her briefly, giving her lower body a little tug until she fitted snugly against him. His right hand he ran down her arm, gently encircled her wrist, his fingers encouraging her hand and lower arm to relax. 'You're using too much wrist,' he murmured into her neck, smiling at her soft intake of breath as his caressed her skin. Soft golden hair tickled his nose. 'You're getting too much spin and over-rotated that last throw. Here - you need to step into it like you mean it…'
'You're just using any old excuse to cop a feel,' she accused. 'And don't even think of trying to claim that's your holster - I can see both your gun-belts lying on the bench from here!'
'Just keep in mind that whatever you think is digging into your ass is doing so through two layers of reinforced leather,' he replied. 'And if it bothers you, for Earth's sake, stop wriggling quite so much…'
'Wriggling?' she asked, with a mischievous tone, matching deed to word. 'Like that?'
'Any more of that, and…' he plucked the knife from her fingers and dropped it point first into the floor mat, before divesting her of the rest in their sheaths and letting them fall to join it. By which time she'd twisted in his grip so that she was facing him, her face tilted up by the small amount needed to look him in the eye, a playful smile on her lips.
'And?' She let the tip of her tongue lick her bottom lip, then squealed as with one quick move he swept her feet out from under her, taking her down to the mat and pinning her to the floor. 'Ooof.'
'Was that "oof" or "oaf"?' he asked, before his mouth captured hers.
'I'm going with "oaf",' came a sardonic reply from the doorway. 'Do either of you ever keep your comms on?'
Harlock rolled off Kei with a regretful sigh and got to his feet, helping Kei to hers. Doc stood in the doorway tugging on her pony-tail with one hand. 'Ever heard of knocking?'
'Ever heard of putting a sock on the door?' She shook her head. 'Honestly… every time there's some downtime, I can guarantee I'll find the pair of you acting like a couple of teenagers.'
Harlock exchanged a look of mock indignation with Kei. 'I'm supposed to take this from the woman responsible for honey all over the controls of one of the gun turrets? I needed to bleach my brain after that image as well... ' he shuddered. 'That was more of Ali - and you - than I ever needed to see…' He gathered up his gun belts and picked up the stray blade for Kei, who'd retrieved the others and who was trying and failing to keep a straight face.
'Not my fault,' Luna answered crossly. 'Would have been perfectly fine if someone hadn't decided to throw the ship around without properly engaging the inertial dampeners…'
'We were in orbit...Take it up with the Alliance - and next time, use a blanket.' He leaned against the wall and stared her down. 'Well - what couldn't wait but didn't require a call to battlestations?'
'Seems we've finally got company - Yattaran suggested I come and get you both.'
'That would usually be cause for an all-hands alert,' Kei pointed out. Luna shrugged.
'His call - but he says there's something rather odd about this group. Thinks you might need to take a look…'
'How many ships?' Kei breathed. She took a couple of steps towards the edge of the bridge gantry until she was standing at Harlock's side. On the main viewscreen, space was filled with the images of hundreds - if not thousands - of ships exiting IN-SKIP and moving across their field of view.
'They've been filing out of IN-SKIP for over a day. So far, no signs of stopping,' came Tochiro's reply over the internal speakers. 'Most of them are smaller than we are, but right in the middle - ' the view zoomed into a bulge in the caravan than wandered across their screen. '- was this beauty.'
The ship filled the viewscreen, even with a reduced magnification. Except "ship" was not the first word that came to mind as they watched the object drift gracefully through space, surrounded by smaller vessels like a cluster of fireflies.
'That's a tree…' Sabu said wonderingly from his place at Kei's station. 'A Gaia-damned tree…'
'A tree that's about six miles long,' Harlock replied, staring at the screen. 'Weapons?'
'None that we can detect on the ship itself - looks as though it relies on the black body drive to power one hell of a shield, and those smaller ships around it for protection. That thing isn't a battleship.' Yattaran took his thick glasses off, polished them on the bottom of his sweater and pushed them back onto his nose. 'And that's the fourth I've seen go past, though the other three were smaller.'
'Quite a mix of ships as well,' Sabu called out. 'But most of them are showing no signs of anything resembling weapons.'
'Why are they taking their sweet time going back into IN-SKIP?' Martinez asked. A dark haired man a little older than his captain, his dark hair was pulled into a mohican and shaved in strips on both sides. One of the handful of survivors from the days of the last Captain, he currently stood at Ali's usual post on the lower bridge.
'Powering up, at a guess,' Kei replied. 'At least, that was what that data chip seemed to suggest. Seems we were right.'
'Have they noticed us?' Harlock didn't turn his attention from the viewscreen.
'Not so far. We've been in the shadow of these asteroids the other side of this solar system and we're powered down apart from the time radar - this lot have just kept filing past, like a damn parade.' Yattaran clumped across the gantry to stand beside his captain. 'You thinking of engaging? Because that's a bloody awful lot of ships…'
'Like you say - most of them look as though they're civilian…' Harlock folded his arms across his chest and frowned. 'Why drag civilian ships along if they're not refugees? They're heading for a handful of weak points in the fabric of spacetime…'
'...storing up energy in the black body drives as they go,'Mimay finished for him. She drifted across the gantry and stood between Harlock and Kei. 'There are very few habitable planets in that area, or even on the route they're taking.'
'Explains the slow progress - even allowing for the need to photosynthesise, they're taking a slow route to charge up those black bodies.' Yattaran added. 'By the way the life signs detectors are getting huge readings - even allowing for the ships being alive in some way, those vessels are stuffed to the rafters. Why bring along so many? If it's a…' he broke off. 'Erm - Captain?' He pointed to the screen.
Harlock followed the direction the rather grubby finger was pointing. Several of the larger ships had peeled away from the main body of the convoy, and were heading in their direction. Smaller ships - which had been orbiting their giant tree, broke off and followed, even as the tree and the bulk of the fleet vanished into imaginary number space.
'Have they spotted us?' Harlock asked. Kei took a look at her station.
'Doesn't look like it - the little ones are firing on the big ships…' She looked up at the screen. 'Oh, shit…'
One of the five ships broke up, splitting open like a rotten fruit. Several of the crew looked away, cursing as another suddenly vented from several points, before drifting into the path of another, which couldn't avoid its fellow. The remaining two ships were still hauling for what they obviously thought was the safety of the asteroid belt the Arcadia was using as cover.
Harlock's hand tightened on the wheel.
'Why aren't they fightin' back?' Sabu asked. 'They're bigger…'
'No weapons,' Harlock replied softly. Despite the tone, Kei and Yattaran exchanged a look behind his back. Both nodded. 'Those are transport ships. They're firing on their own kind…' He bowed his head briefly, then lifted his chin and stared straight ahead. He didn't get a chance to speak.
'Change of plan, people! All hands to battlestations! Seal internal bulkheads. Clear main arrays for firing!' Kei called out. She caught Harlock's eye and smiled. 'Well, you were going to give the order anyway…'
'Fffft. Yattaran - '
'I'm on it… easing us out of here, Captain. Orders?'
'Put us between those transports and the attackers. Position and activity in the main fleet?'
'Not reacting - most of them are already gone - looks as though they're in a bit of a hurry, though - some of those phase transitions are sloppy!' Kei called back.
'Hardly surprising,' Harlock said quietly. 'Someone's sending a message, and I suspect the rest of them got it loud and clear…' They pulled clear of the asteroid field, dark matter billowing around the ship as she powered up. 'Ahead full, first mate. Are we in range?'
'Not quite - though we can fire a warning across their bows…' Kei replied.
'Do it. Try to raise those transports - not sure if they speak our language, but if not, hopefully they'll get the message!'
'Franz- you're the linguist - see what you can do,' Kei shouted down the order. A dark-haired, mustachioed crewman ran for the communications suite under the gantry.
'A cunning linguist?' Yattaran asked with a smirk.
'Don't make me come over there and slap you,' Kei snapped back. 'Main battery - fire at will!'
The Arcadia's main array of oscillator cannon ratcheted into place around her circumference, triple-barrelled turrets pointing long her length, then each turret angled its guns as the crews locked onto a target. The three rows on her top elevation fired sequentially, twelve shafts of energy headed for the battleships bearing down upon the Mazone transports, tracked by Kei at her station, calling out the time on target.
One of the ships exploded, its energy signature blooming and then dying. The crew cheered.
'Who got the hit?' Harlock asked. 'I think someone just earned a raise!'
The crew laughed. Martinez looked up from the main gunnery console and called out: 'Hell - we get paid for this? News to me!'
More laughter.
'Esteban,' Kei told Harlock. 'Nice shooting!' she called out.
'Thanks Miss Kei - but I think she just turned into it!'
'Well, we have their attention now…' Harlock span the wheel to the left to avoid a speculative, though apparently spent shot from one of the ships. 'We've got a longer range than they have - unless they're faking. Pick your targets - and don't be shy about introducing yourselves!'
He turned to Yattaran. 'What's the reading on those ships? That one just burst like an over-ripe melon. Compared to that ship that gave us so much grief around Earth, that was ridiculous.'
'Eh. You got that right. Might be worth stopping to pick up some souvenirs before we leave - whatever it's made of, it's not even in the same class as that Earth ship. Weapons are weaker as well. Still made of that weird wood though - and so are those transports - but the hulls - they're thin, from what I can see. That first transport blew apart like a Zone Industries special…'
'One cheap bottom feeding tender in every requisition,' Harlock quipped grimly. He grimaced. Zone Industries - notorious for undercutting bids and delivering ships that had a galaxy-wide reputation as flying death-traps. Despite this, there was always some venal flunky willing to take a back-hander and pocket the difference on the tender prices. Feydar Zone had eventually fled to Shaitan, after Harlock had publicly humiliated him and flattened his main dry-dock. Apparently Chancellor Doppler wasn't as picky about safety standards… 'Keep a weather eye out for reinforcements - I don't want any nasty surprises that aren't me.'
More laughter, as the gunnery crews got to work - not a straightforward task once the ships regrouped. Seventeen vessels that fell roughly into destroyer-class - roughly half the Arcadia's mass and length - formed up into three groups - one seemingly intent on doing an end run around the Arcadia, the remaining twelve ships attacking from multiple directions in groups of three. Harlock neatly slipped the Arcadia between two strafing attacks and span the ship up and around, the gunnery crews taking out all six in the space of seconds.
'They never learn,' he muttered.
'Hate to remind you, but this lot don't know who you are,' Yattaran pointed out. 'Oi Martinez - clean up that little shit to starboard - Doscoi - what the fuck are you playing at? The third ratchet system just took a hit! Self-repair's got the hull but it's jammed something inside the mechanism! For fuck's sake, whose idea was it to let Maji take a holiday?'
'Maji ain't the only decent engineer on this ship you fat bastard - just let me do my job!' came the pithy reply back over the comms.
Yattaran grinned evilly as he leaned over his console. 'Six down - no - seven - nice one Martinez! Looks like we caught these girls with their knickers down, eh? Now let's show 'em what we've got!'
Harlock rolled his visible eye. 'Really? - with Ali gone I'd rather hoped I'd be spared the inappropriate running commentary…' He cursed as a shot passed perilously close to the bridge window. 'Oh no you don't... ' The wheel received a hard spin to port, and the ship flipped around on its axis in a well practised manoeuvre. 'Rear guns - give those gnats something to think about. Forward turrets - protect those two transports - someone out there seems to think I can't be in two places at the same time!'
'You can't,' Kei pointed out. He just smiled at her.
'No, but it's going to feel like it in a moment, because someone thinks they know our range now... Martinez - take out that ship that's hanging back will you? It's annoying me.'
'My pleasure, captain!'
'Heh heh...should we send out a warning that we have them surrounded?' Yattaran patted his stomach.
'Don't get cocky,' Harlock warned him. 'We're fast… but we're not that fast!'
'Captain!' Franz's voice called up from below. 'You might want to hurry this up a bit - I've made contact with one of the transports - they're asking for sanctuary!'
'All enemy ships accounted for, bar the one that slipped away,' Kei reported in their quarters, a couple of hours later. Harlock dropped into the chair behind the baroque wooden desk with a heartfelt sigh, and accepted a glass handed to him by Mimay. She placed her tablet down on the desk and perched on the edge, accepting a tall glass of her own from Mimay with a smile of thanks. The Nibelung woman drifted over to the chaise-longue nearby and draped herself over it gracefully, a glass of red wine in one long fingered hand, her wide eyes fixed on the captain.
'Are they Mazone?' he asked. Kei nodded. 'Well, we don't attack civilian non-combatants. As to what to do now…' he stared at the ruby depth of his glass. 'Damned if I know - it seemed like a good idea at the time…' He lifted the glass and drained it in one long swallow. 'Still, I wanted information - now might be a good time to see if I can get some.' He smiled at Kei. 'Fancy a side-trip?'
'You're planning on going over to one of those ships?'
'Well I'll be damned if I'm letting another of those creatures loose on mine,' he responded pithily. 'We're still cleaning up the mess from the last time.'
'That ship that got away…' Kei began.
'Done is done - besides, after what happened on Earth and afterwards, I have a feeling they won't be telling their high command anything they don't already know…' There was a half-full bottle of wine on the desk and he picked it up to refill his glass with casual nonchalance. 'Yattaran can hold down the fort. I've made arrangements for Franz to come along - and we'll wear the Valkyrie suits - there's a compatible atmosphere, but I'd prefer not to rely on that damned cloak for protection if plasma starts flying.'
'You and me both,' Kei replied, snagging the bottle off him and topping up her own glass. 'The only safe place for innocent bystanders in a firefight is under that thing, not next to you…'
Mimay hid a sad smile behind her glass. 'What?' Kei asked.
'It wasn't really a problem for Harlock,' she replied in her soft voice. 'He so very rarely fought beside anyone when wearing it…'
'One of these days, we need to work out a designation,' Kei told her captain. 'Old Harlock/Young Harlock? Great Harlock? First Harlock…'
'Anyone who starts appending "young" to my name will find out how funny I don't find it, at my age.' Harlock stood up and reached for his gunbelts, hanging from the back of the chair.
'Feeling that long slow slide to forty, as Ali would say?' Kei asked with a grin.
'Every damn day,' he replied with feeling. 'Let's go and see whether or not this was a good idea or not, shall we?'
Of the two surviving transports, the bullet was heading towards the one in better shape. The second ship was leaking its atmosphere and water to space, even as they watched.
'Should we send over another bullet to check on survivors?' Kei asked.
'I already did, but with that amount of damage?' Harlock replied sadly. 'Look at it - what's venting isn't under pressure - they already lost most of it hours ago. The black body drive is almost depleted, trying to keep that force-field up at a guess. If there are any survivors, they'll be few and far between.'
Kei bit her bottom lip between her teeth and said nothing.
'The drive on this ship's reading a bit shaky as well,' Franz added as they drew near. He peered at the console. 'She's not going anywhere under her own power, that's for sure.'
'This thing must be over three times our length,' Kei said softly, awed. 'Look at it! I've never seen anything like it… from this angle, it's almost left-shaped!'
'You have to hand it to them - the ship designs are pretty amazing.' Harlock made a slight adjustment to their course. 'So far, so good at least no nasty surprises, and I have their beacon. Decelerating and matching rotational vector. Franz - how's the suit?'
The pirate ran a hand under his collar and stretched his neck. 'Not too bad - though I wish I'd had more practice in these new suits. You sure we couldn't just use the old ones?'
'They aren't renowned for their manoeuvrability,' Harlock pointed out. 'And is it really the look you want when making a first impression on a race of alien women fabled in legend for their beauty?' he continued, a wicked glint in his eye. 'Look at me, the waddling weirdo with glowing green circles where my face should be and yes, my ass does look fat in this, thanks for noticing?'
Franz sniggered. 'Have anyone in particular mind when you came up with that one?' he asked, giving his long moustache a tug.
'I'll never tell,' Harlock told him smoothly. 'Okay - Yattaran? Hold your position, we're going in.'
'Yeah, yeah - just watch yer back, captain!'
'Don't worry - I'll keep one eye open.' Harlock closed the comms and guided the small ship towards what they assumed was a hangar. 'Well, if anyone has any questions about this mission, too late now…'
Behind him, in the body of the bullet, Anita and Luna made noises which he had to assume were negative. Right about now, he was wishing he'd not sent Niobe and Meg off to Niflheim. Since the "Mazone Effect" so far seemed to leave women unaffected, it was probably time to think about a change to the recruitment policy...
He guided the bullet into the darkness of the Mazone transport's interior.
The wait as the hangar doors closed behind them seemed to take Forever. Kei swapped places with Franz whilst they waited for the hangar to re-pressurise. She stared out of the window, but with the internal lighting in the bullet so much brighter than that outside, could see only their reflections - silvered and bronzed statues from the neck down, she thought briefly. The effect was lost when they both moved. Then the exterior lighting began to brighten, and the reflections faded to ghostly after-images.
'Pressure's almost back to tolerable levels,' she told Harlock, her eyes fixed on the readouts.
'Oxygen?'
'A little lower than ours, but still breathable. Other gases close to Earth normal at this pressurisation - although CO2 is a little high, but I guess that's expected, under the circumstances. Nothing harmful that I can detect at least. At worst it'll be like breathing at altitude - but you should be used to that…' she smiled at him as he stood up. 'Not that you've had time for any climbing recently.'
'Nor for a while yet,' he muttered. 'Any signs of movement yet?'
She pointed. 'I think the delegation just arrived.'
A small doorway had irised in the wall in front of them, and half a dozen figures were stepping out of it, to stand in a group before the bullet. One figure - looking to Harlock's eyes like a slender, freckled girl in her late teens with pale red hair falling down to her waist, stood slightly in front of the rest. Three were dressed in short draped garments that resembled a kind of toga - clasped at the shoulder and leaving one shoulder and arm bare. All were barefoot, and he couldn't see any obvious weapons.
Except, on Hakidame, the Mazone they'd faced had utilised the plants around them, and had some kind of inbuilt weaponry - sharp thorns tipped with a paralytic poison.
Except on Hakidame, he reminded himself, he hadn't been wearing armour. He gave his left gauntlet a sharp tug, and gestured towards the hatch. 'Well, we came this far, might as well go and say hello.'
'You know, you should have worn the cloak,' Kei told him as she fell in beside him. 'Far more imposing.'
'Did you get a good look at them?' he asked her softly as they approached the hatch. Franz was operating the door control, one hand on the hilt of his holstered pistol. Kei shook her head. 'I don't think authority is what these people need right now,' he continued. Standing in the hatchway, he waited for the rest of his crew to form up behind him, and then with Kei at his side, walked slowly down the short ramp towards the waiting delegation.
Unlike the boldness of the Mazone he'd met previously, these seemed nervous, trembling like leaves in the wind, although they held their ground. They had none on the aggressive arrogance he'd seen on Hakidame or Earth.
Closer inspection also revealed they were less human in appearance than others as well, although the girl in front appeared almost normal. Those surrounding her however were a mixed bag. The less human like ones were unclothed, although given they had no obvious sexual characteristics to hide, this wasn't too surprising.
One was stick-thin. Her fingers and toes were long and thin, the fingers longer than her palm by a considerable margin. These twitched as he stared, and he raised his eye to her face. Like the rest of her this was dark nutty brown and looked like the bark of a tree. A few steps closer, and he could see the bark was rough and flaking in places, and instead of the more flexible skin in her limbs, looked hard and brittle. Her hair - or what passed for it - was willow-like leafy twigs falling from the top of her head, and the leaves looked spotted and yellowed in places. Her face reminded him of a child's illustration of a dryad from his childhood - as though the features of a human face were only visible in the tree when you looked hard enough. Her eyes were an inky black, but in them, when he met that gaze, he felt a wave of sorrow wash over him.
Uncomfortable he swept his gaze over the rest. To the right of the girl, a green-skinned creature who otherwise looked like a loose-limbed human girl. She moved with a fluid grace when she shifted slightly, and he suspected a lack of an internal skeleton. She moved like a young tree in the wind. Behind her a woman who looked as though she was supposed to be a lot more rotund than she was - her sagging flesh was wrinkled and hung in folds from her limbs and rounded belly. But not old, he realised, looking at her face.
The remaining Mazone were more human, so similar in appearance to the freckled girl that there had to be a family resemblance. If anything, they looked even younger. Whether it was the lighting, or natural, they all looked pale.
He came to a halt several paces in front of them. 'I believe you wanted to discuss sanctuary?' he asked as blandly as he could. The girl in front took a step closer, and went down onto one knee, the others following suit behind her. 'Ah… please, don't do that. Get up - I bow the knee to no-one, and I'd never ask anyone to do so to me.' He leaned down and gently lifted the girl to her feet, noting the confusion in her dark - though not black - eyes. 'Do you have a name?'
'Sainess,' she replied, in a melodic voice. 'This vessel and its people are under my protection.'
'Call me Harlock,' he replied. 'Most people do.'
All of the Mazone recoiled at the name, and he gave Kei a helpless what-did-I-say look. She shrugged.
'The Destroyer of Worlds!' one of the Mazone - one who looked human - wailed. Even the girl - Sainess - looked nervous.
'Well that's a new one,' he muttered to turned back to Sainess and her entourage and essayed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. 'Tell your people I mean them no harm. If they mean what I think they do, that was my predecessor.'
She concentrated for a moment, her eyes fixed on his, then nodded slowly. 'I see the truth of this,' she said eventually. 'Although… there is something about you…' She trailed off, looking even more like a puzzled young girl.
'You speak our language?' Kei asked, seizing the moment to change the subject. 'How -'
'We guardians were tasked with learning it in preparation for the exodus,' she replied. 'The rest of our peoples less so, although they can understand you if your thoughts are clear enough.'
'Mind-reading?' Franz sounded panicked. 'Ali said…'
'My people are not part of the faction who feel we must use force,' Sainess told him, addressing the crewman directly. 'Be at ease, we only see what is broadcast, we do not pry.'
'We've had dealings with your more militaristic factions,' Harlock added dryly. 'But on that score I suspect we have something in common? What happened here?'
'There are more comfortable areas further within.' She gestured, and the iris re-opened. 'Please.'
Seeing the crew's hesitation, Harlock stepped through with as much purpose as he could put into his stride, sensing, rather than seeing, Kei do the same on his right side. Muted booted footsteps behind him told him his crew had belated followed behind, and the iris closed behind them, cutting off the bright light of the hangar and leaving them in a softer, yellow light so diffuse as to leave no distinct shadows. With a deep breath, he allowed himself to be led into the heart of the Mazone craft.
