Sabu stepped back from the airlock and gave the section of the mazone hull a good kick. Assisted by the augmented servos of his power armour, the area he'd cut out landed on the floor behind it with a satisfying thunk. Holding the cutter in front of him he swept the open space, the green tinted heads-up-display of his suit scanning and finding no bodies. 'Looks clear, Ben,' he called back over his shoulder.
Cleo laid a hand on Daiba's shoulder as the youth tried to push his way past her to take point. 'Wait,' she advised in her quiet voice. 'Not all mazone are human-form.'
'Listen to the lady, Daiba.' Ben moved past them and tapped Sabu's metal-clad shoulder with a clang, and the big pirate moved back, stowed his cutter and grabbed a heavy rifle with an underslung knife over a foot long with a wickedly curved blade. Ben held a powered axe in one hand as lightly as if it was made of aluminium; the double-bladed weapon was over four feet long and only a handful of the crew could handle them even with powered armour. Ben held it as lightly as a feather. Daiba eyed it enviously as Ben strapped his blast rifle over his back.
'Could I…'
'No.' Ben nodded to Sabu, who fell in behind the younger man and Cleo. 'You get a pistol - you've not trained with boarding weapons. If I thought you'd stay put I'd leave you with the bullet…' He turned to Cleo. 'What can we expect?'
'Once the ship has had time to recognise us as a threat, watch all surfaces. They can come through any of them - and they don't need doors. The ship itself is mazone, and any surface can attack. Mostly with the vines - clinging, strangling, puncturing - given time they can penetrate your armour, so keep moving. And some are venomous, so try not to get stung.'
Ben turned back to Daiba, about to tell him he'd changed his mind, only to see Sabu already handing the boy one of the spare axes, and hefting another in his own large, brass-covered paws. 'Daiba - if that thing connects with any part of my anatomy…'
'I'll watch him,' Sabu told him, his voice sharply metallic through the comms of his bathyscaphe suit. The multitude of glowing green circles on the round helmet was disconcerting, even after all these years. With a grunt of acknowledgement, Ben flicked his own helmet into place, and sighed behind the bifurcated faceplate. Over the comms he heard Sabu giving the youth pointers on holding and swinging the weapon, but resolved to keep his distance nonetheless. At his side he noticed Cleo giving the pair - the large pirate in his stumpy, baroque armour and the boy in the more delicate valkyrie armour, a wide berth.
'Don't worry - he's a quick study, that one,' he told her, earning himself a startled but satisfied grin from the kid before Daiba thumbed his helmet control, the mechanism unfolding with uncanny, alien precision to cover his head. Cleo looked less convinced, but nodded. With a laugh Ben stuck his head out of the opening they'd made in the hull, and still saw a clear space beyond. Not a passageway as he'd have expected on a human ship, but a wide, open hall of some kind, stretching above him to a great height. It reminded him a little of parts of the Arcadia's interior, with massive sweeping branches arching overhead like the columns of an ancient cathedral, forming pointed arches high above the wooden floor.
Branches was right, he realised as his suit's sensors zoomed in for a close-up. The hall was a glade, with trees arching overhead to hold up the ceiling. The Mazone, he remembered belatedly from his captain's briefing, constructed in living wood, not stone or metal.
He was about to take a step forwards when he remembered to look down first, and instead his feet took an involuntary step backwards, causing him to bump into Daiba. 'Hey!'
'Sorry.' Ben took a breath and steeled himself for a second look. 'By the leader…' he breathed.
The floor - such as it was - fell away on both sides and was in fact a span barely three feet wide that took a sharp turn upwards only a few feet in front of him. The open hall was actually a clever trompe l'oeil, and on closer scrutiny those arching buttresses were revealed as a network of similar pathways. From his vantage point on the bullet, the effect was of an open, cathedral-like structure. A step or two outside and that perspective skewed with dizzying suddenness.
'It's like the structure of that ship on Tokarga,' Daiba said from beside him. 'Only that one was on its side. But they should be safe enough - we only got into trouble because it was old and the planet was a bit frisky.'
'Whereas this one's in space and there's a battle going on outside?' Sabu muttered archly.
'We don't have to go far,' Cleo told them firmly. She moved until she stood beside Ben, and stared up into his faceplate. Since he was about the same height as Harlock, she had to tip her head back to do so. 'Just to the landing area. It's only a couple of sections over.'
'Only?' Sabu muttered darkly. 'What's that in distance?'
'Maybe two, three hundred feet?' She laid a small hand on the wall next to the jagged wound left by the cutter. 'We're quite close, as long as we don't meet with too much resistance.' The wall she touched undulated slightly and tendrils curled around her fingers; tiny green vines forming a fragile lace. She stroked them gently and they returned to the structure, although a few leaves still sprouted from the surface where her fingers had rested when she lifted her hand.
Daiba, who'd witnessed first hand the damage the mazone vines had done to the Arcadia not long ago, shivered inside his hardsuit. He waited until Ben shouldered his axe and strode confidently out onto the arch, and followed with far less confidence behind the tiny mazone girl, Sabu lumbering in the rear.
'Why such an open structure?' he asked as they walked. With no hand-rails he kept to the centre of the pathway and tried not to look down at the sides. The depths below were just as terrifying as their fossilised counterparts on Tokarga had been, and he wasn't sure he trusted the way green shoots sprang up in the wake of the dark-haired beauty. 'So close to the hull?'
'These trees grow in space now, but once they were our homes on our colony worlds,' she replied. 'In space we encourage a shell to grow around them to protect the interior - so this is actually several trees intertwined and surrounded by a carefully grown protective shell. The Dorcas is one of the older vessels, from before the destruction and is rather more complicated in its construction - the newer vessels are simpler and also more fragile. If you're worried about the integrity of the hull with these open structures, don't. Although thin, it's structurally stronger than most metal ships - the nacreous Aquatic ships come closest of your human vessels to their strength. The carbon drives provide more than enough energy to encourage fast regrowth after damage to heal any rifts.' Without looking round she seemed to know that he'd risked a glance back over his shoulder at their bullet, still wedged against the hull. 'Don't worry - your vessel is safe - it can't heal over whilst the ship is attached.'
'That might be the least of our worries,' he muttered. A vine curled around his boot and he yelped, lifting his foot out of the way wand raising his axe to aim at the waving leaflets. A hand held the shaft of his weapon just above his own hands.
'I wouldn't, kid.' Sabu told him. He released the shaft and Daiba lowered the weapon a little sheepishly. Behind him, Sabu patted his shoulder, the double clang reverberating through his armour. 'Start hacking at this shit and you might make it worse. Remember the clean up inside the Arcadia?'
'I'm not likely to forget,' he muttered. 'Why didn't we bring flame-throwers?'
'He's young, and a bit stupid,' Ben told Cleo, attempting to head off a potential diplomatic incident. 'And he's had a few bad run-ins with your people.'
'Hey!'
Ben ignored the indignant interjection. 'If you can talk some sense into your people, we'd prefer to keep casualties to a minimum.'
'Talking is for humans,' she retorted a little primly. 'I've been in contact with the ship since we boarded.'
On the private channel, Daiba pinged Ben. 'Erm… is that a good thing?'
'Concentrate on your footing, Tadashi.'
The dismissive non-reply did nothing for his mood. Automatically, and without thinking, he kicked out at the shoots in front of his right boot, scuffing the ground. 'Watch my footing? The damn thing's three feet wide,' he grumbled, forgetting that he wasn't too fond of the lack of any kind of railings.
He'd also forgotten just how quickly the mazone vines could respond. The damaged plant was part of a greater whole, and reacted to the perceived threat before he could complete another step, the vines shooting out of the ground to wind around his brass-covered ankle, and jerked him off his feet. He crashed to the ground, landing heavily, and fell with his head hanging over the edge, staring down into the green-tinged depth of the ship. Panic forced a shrill scream from his throat, before he realised the vine was still wrapped around his ankle. Panting he tried to inch his way back onto the walkway.
Then the vine unwrapped itself from around his leg.
Ben heard the dull thunk of metal on the organic surface of the pathway but was far too late to reach the armoured figure as it started to slide over the slightly curved surface into the depths below. Thankfully Sabu had been both closer and faster, and had a gauntleted hand wrapped around the ankle of the hardsuit. But even a powered grip could only do so much when your hand doesn't encircle what it's holding - especially when that something is about ten stone of solid teenager wrapped in a brassy suit of armour. Ben's hands grabbed the boy's other leg and between them they hauled him back onto the walkway. The difficulty was in not overbalancing themselves and sliding off the opposite side. Whilst Daiba flopped like a crab on its back, Ben felt his own balance start to go, and grabbed desperately at the far too smooth surface.
His feet slid into a hard barrier that hadn't been these a few seconds ago. Breathing far more heavily than he liked, he looked over to see a small - maybe a foot high - raised lip had now appeared on both sides of their path. He looked across to see Cleome staring down at them, a tiny frown wrinkling the area just above her nose between her eyes. 'Nice trick,' he said quietly, once he'd got the hyperventilating under control. He got to his feet, a little unsteadily and then helped Daiba to his before holding out a hand to Sabu. 'And nice work, Sabu.'
'Thanks,' Daiba got out eventually, more than a little shakily. Ben slapped him lightly on the back below his rebreathers.
Sabu sniggered. 'I just didn't want to lose the axe… the captain takes those out of our cut,' he deadpanned. The item in question had been attached to its power source on the suit and thankfully hadn't fallen to its doom in the flickering green bowels of an alien spaceship. Sabu picked it up and handed it back to Daiba with a bow.
'I'm rolling my eyes behind here, just so you know,' Daiba shot back.
'If we can get moving?' Ben took point again, laying a hand lightly on Cleo's shoulder as he passed her. The upturned edges of the walkway, he noticed, preceded them by about six feet and were absorbed back into the scenery once Sabu had stomped past. Try as hard as he might, he couldn't shake the discomfort the changing structure caused. He was used to the Arcadia's self-repair, but the Arcadia didn't - as far as he knew - start changing itself on a whim from any of the crew…
'Am I the only one freaked out by what she just did?' Daiba asked on his private channel.
'Freaky is one word - but at least she had our backs. You okay, kid?'
'Uh.'
Ben smiled inside his helmet. If conversation was back to non-committal grunts, he figured the kid would be fine. The resilience of youth… For his own part he couldn't shake an itch between his shoulder blades. A feeling that they were being watched, although looking around his HUD wasn't picking up any unusual activity in their surroundings. He half-expected eyeballs on stalks sticking out of every surface. 'Shouldn't we meet with more resistance?' he asked Cleo as they moved from the open walkway into the (comparative) safety of a tunnel. 'Or even your friends?'
The look she gave him mirrored his own puzzlement. 'We should, but there's an odd stillness aboard. As though the vessel is waiting for something…'
They reached the area she'd indicated was designated as a hangar for their orbital to ground ships and fighters. Currently empty, since most of them were out chasing Blaze and the Arcadia. Two mazone - the small, green-skinned plant-like women - stepped out and Ben had to slap down Daiba's pistol as the boy lifted it. 'Friendlies,' he snapped curtly, as Cleo greeted the pair warmly. They stared at the Arcadia's crew nervously, but demurred when Cleo asked them to open the hangar iris. A green haze flickered into being around the edges of the deck as the atmospheric forcefield kicked in. As the opening in the hull opened - to a startled and decidedly filthy snigger from Sabu as he recognised its resemblance to an orifice generally found on the female of the species - Ben called in the success of phase one to his captain, and settled back to await his arrival, setting Daiba and Sabu to watch their backs, and kept a firm grip on his axe handle. He had a feeling that "waiting" would be quickly over once the captain arrived...
The strange stillness of the Mazone fleet made the spot between Harlock's shoulder blades itch as he inched the space wolf towards the open maw of the giant tree - a space at the jointure of three branches and the main trunk, gaping to show a sickly green glow against the night.
He let out a breath he hadn't even noticed he was holding as the undercarriage touched down on the surface of the "hangar", still on one level expecting a barrage of fire from whatever weapons the ship had.
But it appeared Cleome at least had kept her word. The large chamber was empty, except for the sleek-winged forms of the rest of his wing taxiing to a stop behind him. With the ease of long practice he popped the canopy, grabbed his gravity sabre and cloak, jumped lightly out onto the wing, then to the ground. It took him only a few seconds to slide the sabre into its holster and swing the gravity cloak into place, the controls slotting into the power ports of his hardsuit with a soft click as its weight settled on his shoulders. Not twenty yards away, Kei was doing the same, and Ali wasn't far behind. Cai had already glided silently to his side and he gave the crewman a brief smile, which was, as ever, returned with a flickering facsimile that still grieved him to see. Since Matthias' death in the plague five years ago, he'd not been able to shake the feeling that Cai was just going through the motions. 'Hold back,' he told the slender pirate, when he moved to take point. 'Ali-'
'I know, I know… watch your arse…'
Kei slapped him hard enough for her augmented armour to knock him off balance as she sashayed towards Harlock. It was a constant source of amusement - and not a little discomfort - to the men that she could manage to make walking in her armour a sexual provocation - doubly frustrating to those who had to waddle around in the Arcadia's old-style suits.
'Oi!'
'Concentrate!' she snapped at him. He opened his mouth to object, caught his captain's eye, and shut it again with a snap. 'Why are you all standing around looking useless? We're here to find my sons!' She stormed past without waiting for them, and had to be hoiked back by Harlock's quick hand on the rim of her suit.
'Yama…'
He ignored her half-growled snarl of his old name - a sure sign she was stressed. 'I knew I should have let you bring your clipboard,' he quipped. 'Now stay put. No-one goes off half-cocked, and that includes you.' He stood his ground impassively as she glared at him - a trick he'd learned from their old captain: to stand calmly and just wait for the storm to pass when someone was getting in your face. It had been known to earn him a few additional beatings for being a trolling twat, but thankfully Kei wasn't inclined to start whaling on him, and he could usually outwait her. She gave in with a short nod and a sigh, and he resisted the urge to hug her. The resulting clang of armour on armour didn't tend to encourage such gestures. 'We go together, Kei.'
'I knew she'd blow eventually,' Ali's voice drawled sotto voce into Harlock's earpiece as he drew level with his captain. 'You should have trussed her up and locked her in your cabin.'
'That's such a good idea,' he drawled back, careful to subvocalise in his turn. 'Why don't I get you to do it?'
Ali snorted, causing Kei to turn and eye him suspiciously. 'Do I look suicidal?' he replied quietly out of the corner of his mouth. Harlock flicked his cloak back in lieu of an answer, the heavy black leather rippling to reveal the red lining. Ali eyed the garment up with narrowed eyes, and grunted. 'Remind me to stand a few feet away from you - that thing has a distressing tendency to warp energy beams in odd directions.'
'That was once, before I figured out the settings,' Harlock retorted in his calmest manner. 'Maji and Yattaran fixed that little problem years ago, and it should just provide enough of a field to deflect them away from me, and absorb them.'
They were moving towards the exit where Ben's small group stood waiting, helmets down, all eyes scanning for trouble, which so far seemed to be keeping its distance. Ali, however, was never one to let something go, like a dog with a bone. 'And yet… there's that word - "should". Not exactly confidence-inspiring…'
'And yet… you're still flapping even when you should be concentrating on the situation at hand,' Ben snapped over the comms.
'Blow me, Blue-boy,' Ali snapped back. 'Who died and made you the boss of me?'
'Both of you can pipe down,' Kei snapped before Harlock could tell the pair to shut up. 'Or I'll start shooting off the bits that keep your right hands occupied on those long lonely late night watches.'
'I'm left handed,' Ben called out breezily as she reached his position. The snarl that greeted that quip made all of them flinch. Stress and the high stakes made them all a little cranky, Harlock reflected, but the pissing contests tended to grate on his nerves.
'Enough. Or I'll come out swinging,' he told them firmly. None of them missed the flat tone he delivered the few words in, and all of them knew the unmistakable sound of the calm before the storm. From his position watching the corridor, Daiba smirked, relishing the rare feeling of being on the side of sanity for once.
A smirk which quickly vanished as the wall started to bulge a few feet away. 'Captain!' he called out. A face appeared in the rough bark, then a hand… a foot… a torso…
Vines lashed out from the side, catching him unawares and he only just missed them getting a grip on his throat, swiping at them with a swing of his battleaxe. Even as inexperienced as he was with the heavy, bulky weapon, he couldn't miss the mass of green, leafy tentacles that poured out of the walls, the floor, and the ceiling to writhe in the spot where he'd just stood, blocking his view of the rest of the crew. Sap flew from the wounds of the severed tendrils, but the vines kept coming, as did the green-skinned, blank-faced forms that were pulling themselves free of the walls. Swearing under his breath he didn't wait for back-up - with a scream of pure rage he lifted his axe in both hands, and charged at the mazone about to swarm him.
The silence in the small ante-chamber they'd been hiding in for what felt like weeks was almost deafening. The six Mazone tasked by Cleo with protected them stood silently in the centre of the small round room, staring at apparently nothing. Taro edged closer to Wattaru, and for once didn't object to the taller boy putting and arm around his shoulders and holding him close. 'Why aren't they moving?' he asked in a whisper. The women had been standing in exactly the same position for ever… unblinking, unmoving, not even showing the slightest signs of life, since their chests didn't rise and fall as they breathed. Their dark green veins were clearly visible against their paler green skin, but no matter how closely he'd looked, he couldn't even see the flicker of a pulse. Or feel one, when he'd risked touching them. Their skin was warm, but oddly smooth to the touch. Not plastic, as such, but too smooth, hairless and dry and waxy.
'I don't know,' Wattaru replied equally quietly. 'But I really hope Dad's to blame.' They shared weak smiles, and Wattaru hugged his brother tightly, welcoming the returned cuddle from the smaller boy. 'Grip!' he had to remind Taro eventually. For his size, the kid was a bit of a scrapper and tended to cling a bit hard when scared. Taro loosened his death-grip around his adopted brother sheepishly. 'Sorry.' Then, more plaintively. 'I'm hungry…'
'You're always hungry,' Wattaru grumbled. But he checked the spigot on the wall that dispensed the protein and carb paste that passed for food, and handed the moulded bark container over to the smaller boy when it was full. 'Here. Not exactly mom's cooking…'
They shared a faint grin as Wattaru filled his own bowl up. Kei had always been notorious on the Arcadia for her (brief) stints on kitchen duty, and not even Selen's (or Anita's) patient instruction had managed to improve things. The boys tended to eat at the ramen shop when on Tabito when Anita wasn't around. 'Remember when Dad ate his way through that entire bowl she cooked one time?' Taro asked, mumbling through a half full mouth.
'Bravest thing he ever did, according to Uncle Ali.' Wattaru giggled. 'Though Yattaran said he'd have been far more impressed if he'd stopped after the first mouthful and just told her it was crap…'
'Mom's scary, isn't she? Think she's here, if Dad is?'
'I know they are,' Wattaru replied forcefully. 'Think anyone else could cause this?' he gestured at the still-silent, frozen mazone. 'Well, apart from Aunt Selen, maybe…' he put his bowl down and stared at the floor suddenly overcome with a wave of homesickness, and another, less general loss. 'I hope Mamoru's okay.'
Taro patted his hand gently. 'He'll be fine, Watt. You know Mamo-chan - he's sneaky that way.'
Wattaru sighed heavily, but nodded. He raised his head again, a determined look on his young face, but quickly changed it to consternation. 'Erm… Taro?'
One of the mazone girls guarding them was reaching a hand out towards them, and the door was opening. 'We have to go - now,' she urged in her bell-like voice. 'They've found us.'
The boys barely had time to get to their feet before they were being bundled out of the door, mazone surrounding them.
And they'd not gone ten feet before boneless, doll-like figures with black eyes were coming out of the walls, three-fingered hands reaching and clutching at them and their guards. Two went down immediately, trying to remove the twisted ropes that their attackers' arms resembled. The others were trying desperately to keep the boys safe, but Taro only narrowly avoided a brown, bark-covered tentacle trying to wrap itself around his throat. In the struggle, he lost his glasses.
'Go!' one of their guards told Wattaru, bending down to whisper in his ear whilst one of her sisters tried to protect them. 'Run - and keep left! When the walls are dark, flaking bark, you'll be in a safer area. Find a chamber and stay hidden.' When he hesitated, she gave him a push. 'Hurry!'
Taking Taro's hand in his, he ran, pulling his brother along with him, both of them stumbling in their haste. Behind them, they heard an unearthly shrieking, and the dim lighting was augmented briefly by a bright, blue glow that quickly faded as they rounded a corner.
Every single surface erupted. At least, that was Harlock's impression, as leaves, branches, thick, sinuous lianas with a will of their own all spilled out of the walls, grew out of the floor and trailed down from the ceilings with murderous intent. Green skinned mazone - blank faced humanoids with stygian pools for eyes and lipless mouths, with snake-like vines for hair ran towards them screeching in a register which tortured the ears. Their hair writhed around them and targeted their victim, attempting to twine around their throats and throttle them, whilst those who could spat venomous spines from their skin, most of which bounced off their armour. Harlock ducked as one almost took out his good eye and winced as it left a burning trail across his left cheek and ripped across his ear. 'Helmets!' he called out, hoping to be heard over the shrieking cacophony. 'Helmets up!' He thumbed his into place and had to hastily order the heads-up to infrared, since the usual green tinge had the unintended effect of rendering his foes somewhat invisible. A thick vine wrapped around his right arm and he cursed as the metal - a nibelung variant of tectite, actually began to crumple.
Ali's battleaxe whistled down between Harlock and the wall of the mazone ship, severing the tentacle. With a nod of thanks he pulled the dripping remains off his wrist and threw it to the ground, still writhing. A well-placed shot from his cosmo dragoon put paid to it and it crisped to ash in a wisp of blue fire. But he had no time to spare for taking a closer look. They were surrounded, and his small group struggling against not only superior numbers, but the ship itself turning against them.
He switched his pistol to his left hand and drew the gravity sabre as Kei fought her way to his side, her massive pair of blast pistols - baroque, and sporting thick curved blades she'd been known to detach and get to work with - in her hands, blasting away alternately with a quiet, deadly grace he never tired of watching. Back to back they laid waste to the mazone surrounding them, Kei occasionally ducking behind his cloak to avoid taking fire as the hanger was thick with mazone spitting acidic sap and firing all manner of organic weaponry. 'Is there any part of themselves they can't weaponise?' she panted during one brief respite.
He swung around, pivoting on one foot, the black cloak swirling heavily around him and covering Kei's exposed left as he fired at the tangle of six inch thick brambles tried to form a human figure. The blast from the gravity sabre hit it centre mass and it shrieked and twisted in response, lashing out with barbed vines that left deep scores in his armour. A slash from the blade severed several of these and they thrashed around on the ground. Kei's blaster scorched them where they lay and blue flames blinded him for a moment, forcing him to look away blinking as his HUD tried to compensate.
'Apparently not,' was his eventual reply. 'Where's Daiba?'
'Cai went after him. The idiot took off down the corridor yelling and shooting at anything in his way. Ben's got Cleo, she's trying to re-establish contact with the ship.'
'Sabu?'
'Here, Cap'n!' The brassy hardsuit waddled up, battleaxe held casually in both hands, dripping with suspicious substances, the blade looking rather pitted and chipped. He brought it down on a wriggling green tentacle and grunted as he had to haul it back out of the wooden floor. 'These things just don't quit!'
'They're part of the ship. I guess it's using its own mass to form them.' Gravity sabre and heavy blaster both hit the same green-skinned mannikin which burst into blue flames as it fell. 'Pick your own targets, Kei.' Their next shots went in opposite directions, Harlock firing over Kei's outstretched arm. 'We need to move - they're trying to keep us pinned here!'
'I'm open to suggestions!' she called back, another two shots finding their targets. 'Duck!' He dropped and she fired at the mass that had been about to drop onto his head from above. Even with the warning he had to roll to avoid the remains as they went up in flames. She hooked one of her pistols back onto her belt and offered him her hand. 'How far are we from that central core do you think?'
'If it's centre mass, then not far as my bird flies. But the interior of this thing is a labyrinth, if it's anything like that fossilised ship. It'll let its own pass through walls, but us - I'm thinking -' a quick shot snapped off from the hip with his cosmo dragoon took care of one of the last of the first wave, behind Kei. '-not so much…'
'Fighting all the way…'
'Cleo says she left the boys with her people, with instructions to take them to what she calls "deadwood". Something about areas of the ship that are no longer living?' Ben said over the comms. 'We'll face far less opposition there - just the mobile mazone, and those loyal to Cleo are helping out.'
'Lignified tissue,' Harlock replied off-handedly. 'That makes sense. How is she holding up?'
'It's tough - the queen's aware of her and fighting back, but she says it's as though the queen's distracted by something. The whole fleet's affected - not just here…'
'The ships all stopped,' Kei added quietly. 'If she's trying to force her will on them, she's not able to concentrate so much on us?'
'It's what we were hoping for,' Harlock pointed out. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard. 'Damn… I'm getting old if this is winding me.'
Kei scanned his armour and frowned inside her helmet. 'You're not…but I can't see…'
'I can.' Sabu leaned towards his captain and lifted the cloak out of the way. 'You got some of that weed wrapped around the regulator. Only I can't get me fingers in to get it - they're too big.'
'Show me.' Kei spotted the offending article once it was pointed out, and deftly yanked it clear. 'Better warn the others - this stuff's got a knack for finding weak spots.' With one keeping a weather eye out for more trouble, they quickly check each other's armour over, finding two small strands on Sabu that were squirming their way towards his oxygen recyclers, and one on Kei trying to burrow into the cuff of her left gauntlet.
'Amazing,' Harlock said as he reluctantly ground the last one underfoot. 'They really are a fascinating lifeform…'
'I'm sure you meant to say "disturbing, dangerous and unsettling.' Ali strolled back into the hangar with his battleaxe slung over one shoulder and Cai's arm over the other, one arm around the younger, smaller pirate's waist. 'He's hurt.' Harlock and Sabu helped Ali ease Cai to the ground. His armour was penetrated in several places, and blood seeped through two of them; one in his shoulder, another in the small of his back.
'Fuck,' Harlock said under his breath. 'Daiba?'
'Here.' The youth stumbled back in behind Ali, looking miserable and battered. A purple bruise was already forming around his neck, one gauntlet had been torn off and his left arm hung limply at his side. 'He had three on him at one point, trying to get them off me. If not for him…' Harlock took a closer look and noted his eyes were bloodshot and the tell-tale marks of petechial hemorrhaging marked the skin around them. Leaving Ali and Sabu to look after Cai, he got to his feet, strode the few feet over to his young cousin and pulled the exposed hand towards him. The palm was scored with deep lines that had been burned into the skin and tissue. Turning it over he saw the same lines on the back - telltale marks of having wrapped the stuff around his hand to pull them off something. 'Cai?' Daiba did his best to shrug nonchalantly. Harlock pulled him close and hugged the youth as hard as he could with armour in the way.
'Hothead,' he told Daiba as he pulled away, punctuating the observation with a shake. 'But a brave one.' Daiba smiled wanly, and then hung his head. 'I screwed up…'
'We've all done that. Now pull your head out of your ass and go help Ben. I need you to help make sure Cleo gets to the centre of the ship safely.'
'We need an army,' Daiba muttered. He fumbled with his dangling gauntlet, then let Harlock help him put it back into place. It locked into place with a click and he had to bite back a cry when his wrist and shoulder both complained.
'That's broken.' Harlock looked him in the eyes, his helmet having flicked back whilst he worked, the better to see what he was doing.
'I can manage. The suit'll keep it straight if I don't use it.'
Harlock opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again with a snap, and a silent nod. 'Go.'
Daiba set off at a slow lope, and Harlock turned his attention back to the group on the hangar floor. 'How is he?'
Ali looked up and shook his head. 'Not good. I need to get him out of his armour to stop the bleeding…'
'Take him to the bullet. Do what you can.'
'But…'
'Ali - You've got the best field-medic skills out of all of us. And Doc can talk you through anything else. Get him to safety. Sabu - help him and then join us.'
Harlock made his way to Kei's side, where she watched the corridor, guns in hand. 'We could use Ali better than…'
'He's the best chance Cai has.' She didn't reply, knowing he was right. 'I should have brought more men…' he added softly. 'This could be a big miscalculation.'
'Never mind the men,' she retorted. 'I'd settle for Anita and her shoulder-mounted scenery remover…'
'You and me both,' he replied with some feeling. He stepped back as Sabu rejoined them, the big man surprisingly fast, for all that the Arcadia's old armour tended to make the occupants look as though they were waddling. 'All set?'
'He's in bad shape, but whatever those vines secrete seems to reduce the bleeding.'
'Probably to keep their food alive for longer,' Harlock muttered without thinking. Feeling four shocked eyes on him he considered trying to shrug off the observation, and thought better of it. 'From the tissue samples I've been able to examine a lot of the pre-carbonaceous era mazone were partly carnivorous. Makes sense when you evolved before proper topsoil…'
'Oh. Like this just didn't get any nastier,' Kei muttered. She checked the charge on her carbines. 'Ben love - does Cleo have a route for us?'
'Sending now, Miss Kei.' The data appeared on their HUDs. 'We've got a line on the boys - Cassandra's sent her troops after them.'
'That bitch is mine,' Kei growled once Ben had cut the connection. Behind her back Harlock exchanged looks with Sabu. The big pirate risked a quick glance at Kei, then back to his captain and nodded. Harlock smoothly swept past his wife and XO to take point before she could object. 'This way, I think? Before more dryads start crawling - literally - out of the woodwork?' He took off at a run, forcing the other two to keep up. It had the benefit at least of avoiding a tricky conversation.
There was no way in hell he stood a chance of stopping Kei from going for the mazone commander's throat, and truthfully, he wasn't inclined to stop her. But he would, no matter what, make damn sure she had someone watching her back...
Keep left… keep left… the instruction played out in Wattaru's head like a mantra as they tried to evade the mazone chasing them. They'd not seen any of the odd, blank doll-like creatures since they'd moved away from the well-travelled areas of the ship into an area that was lit by a dull phosphorescent moss on walls that looked like the bark on ancient trees. Now they just had to find one of the small ante-chambers to hide in - although that was proving harder than he'd thought. The corridors… tunnels… whatever you wanted to call them, were devoid of any openings apart from crossroads leading into even dimmer lit areas, none of which he felt comfortable venturing down.
He still had Taro's small hand in his as they ran, even though the smaller boy's shorter legs were struggling to keep up. He tried to slow his own strides down, but it was hard to concentrate on that when it was so natural to stride out. And he was trying, very hard - right up until the point they both fell over the same tree-root.
'Oof.' Wattaru had the wind knocked out of him as Taro went down less than a second after he did, but with a long enough interval to land on him. The pair tried to disentangle themselves, Wattaru more easily than Taro. 'You okay?' he asked, when Taro didn't immediately get to his feet.
'I can't put my weight on it.' Taro tried again but struggled when he tried to stand on his left foot. Eventually Wattaru put out a hand and helped him up - not without difficulty, since for all his shorter size, he was a chunky little kid. 'It's just sprained, I think,' Taro said as he tentatively put more weight on the damaged limb. But Wattaru caught the wince he tried to hide.
'Just rest a minute,' he said gently. 'They haven't found us yet.'
Sounds of the pattering of bare feet on the thick vegetation underfoot gave a lie to that as soon as the words were out of his mouth. 'Oh.'
'You had to say it,' Taro told him with a creditable imitation of their Uncle Ali, trying to lift the mood a little, but failing. 'I can walk on it, I think.' He limped a few steps, and stumbled again, fielded by Wattaru. 'Should be the other way round,' he quipped. 'I can't reach your shoulders to lean on them…'
'Well we'll try,' Wattaru told him. 'I think there's an opening that way…' He led them in the direction of a stronger light, and mercifully the sound of those footsteps faded away as they walked - or limped, in Taro's case.
Right to the edge of a precipice criss-crossed by the ubiquitous arching walkways the mazone were so found of.
'Oh, fuck,' Wattaru muttered. He stared at the narrow path in front of them. Smooth, open, slightly convex and a good fifty feet to the other side. And absolutely not a stable platform for a kid with an unstable ankle.
And behind them, the sounds of those fast-pattering footsteps were growing louder again. 'Double fuck with knobs on.' His parents would have thrown a fit if they'd heard him, but he felt the expression was justified.
'You have to go,' Taro told him, pulling out of his helping arm. 'I'll just slow you down.'
'Not happening, Taro.' Wattaru glared at him. 'Mamoru would sodding kill me - besides, no Harlock would leave his Tochiro behind, would he?'
'No Tochiro would let his Harlock come to harm either,' Taro told him. 'They're getting closer, Wattie - you gotta go!'
'No.'
They heard a voice call out in that bell-like, rustling language. The footsteps stopped and then began again, faster this time.
Wattaru still hesitated, wondering if it was worth the risk to get them both across. They might not hurt them...
'Run!' Taro screamed at his brother. He tossed the improvised dagger he'd hidden away in his tunic to Wattaru who caught it and stared dumbly between it and Taro.
'I won't leave you!'
Taro leaned against the wall, balancing on his good leg. 'I can't walk over that and you know it. If you hide maybe you can find mom and dad.' He gave his brother a shove. 'Better they can't hold both us against dad, right?'
Wattaru still hesitated, even knowing Taro was right. Then: 'I'll be back for you, I promise.'
Taro didn't reply; he hobbled back towards their pursuers waving his arms and shouting "over here!" at them. With a sob, Wattaru rubbed hard at his eyes with the back of his hand and set off across the walkway as fast as he could, and tried very, very hard not to look down. Or to think about looking down…
He stepped out onto the walkway, and started by shuffling, his bare feet finding better purchase on the rubbery surface than he'd expected. Gaining in confidence, he increased his pace. By the half-way point (or as best he could tell without looking too much at anything other than the surface under his feet - the arches and the abyss had a tendency to look different and swim in and out of focus if he looked around) he was running.
Over-confidence, his parents had said for as long as he could remember, was always his undoing. If he'd been going more slowly he might have been able to slow down to avoid colliding with the small, spiky creature which appeared out of nowhere in front of him. It looked like some horrifying baby, but walking upright, and it's head was almost waist height to him - and he wasn't short for his age. Its skin was a dark green that was almost black in the shadows, and resembled a spiky cactus he'd once gotten too close too out on a trip with some of the construction guys on Tabito, out in the drylands. The eyes though… those were just black pools, almost radiating a malevolence he could practically feel crawling over his skin.
If he'd been going more slowly, he might have stopped. Might even have kept his footing. But he fell at its feet - spatulate, tipped with thorns instead of toenails, he noticed.
But it was moot, since the creature opened its mouth, shrieked at him like a howling banshee, and bent down to push him off the walkway with unexpected strength.
'Papa!' was all he could think to cry out, as he fell. Knowing it was hopeless. And silently: 'Mamoru…'
