Flying the space wolf against the tide of dark matter space was like riding one of Tabito's resident heavy horses and trying to move in a direction it didn't want to go. The animals were mostly used for heavy haulage in areas where vehicles just couldn't safely go, and whilst driving them wasn't generally hard work, riding them was universally acknowledged as hard work. The space wolf usually handled (and Harlock at least had to mostly take Hannibal's word for this, as his own experience was limited to the few worlds that had maintained draft horses) "like a well-trained arab": light, responsive, elegant.

Right now, Harlock would have just settled for "steers like a cow".

'Tell me I'm not the only one wondering why my ship's handling like a beached flumper,' he heard Ben mutter over the comms as they broke atmosphere and began their descent to the surface. In the turbulent heat-stream of their re-entry, the fighters wobbled until the stabilisers kicked in - a couple of seconds of nausea inducing juddering from stem to stern.

'Flumper?' Kei asked over the comms.

'Large, blubbery creature native to the seas of Iskander. A bit like a whale, but with a brain the size of a peanut…'

'I think you answered your own question,' Ali quipped. Harlock was glad no-one - especially Ben - could see his grin. 'But that's a relief - I thought for a moment you were talking about your favourite concubine…'

'Walked right into that one, didn't I?' the gamilan replied dryly. 'Harlock - I've got a beacon - SDF ident, bearing 0375. The Sirius. It's on the ground, engines cold. There's a large conurbation about five miles from it. No life signs in the city though.'

'Let me guess - plenty of organic matter?' Kei asked.

'Carbon… H2O… potassium…'

''We get the picture, Ben,' Harlock told him quietly. He fought the fighter onto the new heading. 'Damn - I thought this would be easier inside the gravity well, but it's still fighting us. I'm going in over the Sirius for a pass. Kei, Ben - with me. Ali - hold your position, but keep sweeping for that survey ship.'

'Gotcha, captain. By the way, Luna says there are life signs on board the Sirius - she makes it a full complement or thereabouts.'

'I think I found your "thereabouts.' Ben broke into the comms. 'Three clicks north north west of that city. Someone's using a torch to send a morse signal…'

'Not a torch, 'Harlock replied, after a look at his own sensors. 'That's one of our photon new emitters…'

'O...v...e...r… … h...e...r...e… … d...a...d…' Ben laughed out loud. 'Well it beats SOS I suppose.'

'Hardly professional,' Harlock replied a little sniffily. 'I taught him better than that…'

'At least we know it's him and not someone trying to lure us down,' Kei pointed out as she angled her fighter towards the signal. 'Or a reboot.'

Harlock's radio silence after that comment spoke louder than any words. For once even Ali forbore to make a snarky comment at his expense.

They brought the space wolves down into a neat touchdown about half a mile from the copse the signal had been beamed from, and Harlock was already jumping down from the cockpit as Kei then Ben dropped their respective planes next to his black-and-red pride and joy - although in the peculiar no-light of the black sun, the difference between the sharp red/black, black/red paintwork of his and Kei's planes and the generic dull green of the basic models wasn't at all obvious. Even so…

'Was shit green really the best you could do for the basecoat?' he asked over the comms. A ghostly chuckle was Tochiro's immediate reply. I'll have you know that's military issue khaki, his central computer answered with a giggle. The 3-D printers still haven't run through the stash we had on board when the ships left the dry dock - and good luck telling Kei you want to dump perfectly good supplies because you don't like the colour…

Harlock chuckled as he strode over to his beloved XO, occasioning some eye-rolling from the Gamilan, and a raised eyebrow from Kei.

'What's so funny?' she asked. She was already unholstering one of her over-sized sidearms, but he leaned closer and gave her a peck on the cheek. 'Hmm.' Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

He unpacked his own pistol without enlightening her. 'I think the welcome committee is on its way.' With the unencumbered hand he pointed to the trees, where two figures were walking towards them. One of them broke into a run, and within seconds Kei was practically tackled to the ground by six feet of solid muscle. 'Mom!'

'I notice you don't get glomped,' Ben murmured out of the corner of his mouth. Kei was engulfed in a bear hug, barely able to let out more than an oof, before being let go and the perpetrator turned his attention to his father and repeated the attack. Ben shrugged his shoulders. 'I stand corrected…' he added sotto-voce. Wataru, if he wasn't mistaken, had shot up considerably in the last couple of years, and unless it was their boots, or Harlock was standing in a dip, the kid was probably an inch or two taller than his father now - and at six-one, Harlock wasn't exactly short. And there was something amusing about seeing the quiet pirate captain being pounce-tackled with such enthusiasm.

'Breathing would be useful,' Harlock gasped out. Wataru let him go with a mumbled apology. The young man turned a vibrant, welcoming grin on Ben. 'Good to see you too, Ben. Or should I call you Your Excellency?'

'Don't even think it. No hug?' Ben pouted. 'I'm hurt, Wataru.'

'You'll get over it,' Harlock told him dryly, steering Wataru away and towards the SDF captain standing nearby. 'Todo. Glad to see you haven't got any ideas about hugging me half to death.'

'Wouldn't dream of it,' Todo replied with an obvious effort at keeping a straight face. 'I hear Kei gets a little protective.' He did offer his hand though, first to Harlock then to Kei. 'You're a welcome sight, Harlock - how the hell did you get here so fast? Last I heard you were in the Sol System, and that's a couple of weeks away…'

'I was, and it is.' Harlock's eye narrowed. 'Just how long have you been here?'

'Twenty-two hours, sixteen minutes.' The reply came from the young woman who'd walked over whilst they were talking. Ben looked her over appreciatively. Late teens, early twenties at most. From the cadet uniform, probably the former. Her uniform hugged an athletic figure no less enticing than Kei's, and her long fair hair was pulled into a high ponytail to keep it under control. 'You - eyeballs!' she snapped, pointing an imperious digit in Ben's direction. When everyone else stared at her in shock then started making choking noises as they tried to avoid laughing, she glared at them. 'What?'

'Oh my...who knew they didn't break the mould?' Harlock murmured close to Ben's ear. Kei led the young woman out of earshot and whispered into her ear, the young woman first turning a little pale, then blushing as she looked Ben over from head to toe and noticed his smirk and wink in reply. 'Stop that,' he told Ben.

'Me?'

Harlock ignored Ben's insincere indignation. 'Todo - it's been two weeks. We came as soon as we heard.'

'What's the situation from the outside of the rift?'

'Stable, for now. But the time difference suggests this is a pretty deep rip this planet's fallen into. We're having trouble getting the Arcadia close - it seems to be pushing us away, as though we're caught in a current.'

'That current dragged us in,' Wataru told him. 'You think the Arcadia's dark matter is somehow working against her?'

'That's the theory so far. It's why we came down in the planes. Ali's hovering in the bullet.'

'Your shuttle?' Todo asked. Harlock nodded. 'We'll need it, if you don't mind - I've got a wounded cadet back there.'

The young woman paled. 'Oh, shit… Bulge!' She dashed back to the copse. Harlock gave Ben a quick jerk of his head. Nodding once, the gamilan set off after the girl.

'You have the leader of New Gamilas running errands for you?' Todo asked. He shook his head. 'Only you…'

'Long story,' Harlock replied dryly. 'We go back a long way. He can seem a bit of a fribble but it's mostly an act.'

'I love the way you qualify that, dad,' Wataru drawled. But you might want to follow him - the shadows around here aren't exactly friendly…'

'Metanoids?'

'Nah. It's just the way I walk…' Ali's gruff drawl called out from behind him. Wataru failed to bite back a laugh.

'I should have known you'd be following Dad around like a lost puppy, Ali.'

'I don't recall ordering him to land,' Harlock muttered, without turning around. Ali slapped him between the shoulder blades, failing to stagger his captain, who'd pretty much learned to brace for impact over the years. Ali was as predictable as a pulsar.

'But I did anyways because I was monitoring the chatter, and Todo's bunch weren't on a secure channel. Apparently you've got an injured bulge?' He sniggered.

'Bul-ge,' Wataru corrected him, his tone so like his mother's Harlock had to turn away slightly to hide a smile. 'One of my classmates, that's two syllables, and try not to be an arse. For once? He's a nice guy.'

'With a really, really unfortunate name,' Ali pointed out.

'Only in your head,' Wataru replied smartly. He glanced past the burly pirate and breathed a sigh of relief. 'Doc!' he called out and waved. Luna trotted up, Anita strolling along behind her toting one of the Arcadia's barely man (or woman) portable artillery pieces as though it was a twig she had thrown over one well-muscled shoulder. 'Aunt Anita!'

'Wataru!' Anita's voice had a tendency to carry. 'Look at you, laddie! I swear you've shot up a couple of inches since we last saw you. Not quite sure how you do it on SDF rations mind you…'

He gave first Luna, then the burly ex SPG sergeant a hug. 'Kanna's home cooking when I rotate back to Tabito in between sessions I think. But we need to get out of here asap - I was trying to tell dad, the shadows here…'

'Seem to be a little bit agitated…' Harlock stretched out his foot and waggled the toe just out of range of the leading edge of one strange, mandelbrotian patch with no readily discernible origin.

'Dad!'

'Harlock!'

'Captain!'

'Yama!'

'Oh, stop panicking and pay attention,' he sighed, placing his foot back on the dried grass safely out of reach. 'I think it's more scared of me than I need to be of it…'

'They didn't like me much either,' Wataru said softly, standing at his shoulder 'I thought it might be because of the dark matter…'

Ali shouldered his way past the young man and waved his hand next to the curling edges of the shivering shadow. Flickers of blue flame curled around his outstretched gloved hand and the shadow recoiled. 'I can't push past a certain point either,' he told his captain. 'It's like the ship - as though you're trying to push two like poles of a magnet together.'

'It tried… one in the town tried… to take me over, but couldn't get a hold on me.' Wataru shuddered and smiled gratefully at his father when Harlock laid a hand on his shoulder. 'These things… shadows… it's not like Mamoru described - not dark storms. These… I supposed you'd call them ghosts? I'm fairly sure the ones I encountered were a mother and her little girl. The mother was trying to give her daughter a new body. I think they are the people who died when the planet was hit by whatever shifted it into this space. There's a mazone ghost back in that grove, but that seems uninterested in humans, and I think it has no love for the other shadows - it was keeping them at bay when I asked it nicely.'

Ben was leaving the shelter of the copse, Julia hovering at his side and Bulge's arm draped over his shoulders as he helped the young man to walk. Harlock strode over, Luna hard on his heels and helped Ben get the cadet over to the ramp of the bullet, where he sat down with a sigh of pained relief. 'Thanks.' He noticed who'd been assisting and flushed. 'Captain. I mean, sir…'

Harlock laughed, and had to resist the temptation to do what he'd have done to his offspring, and ruffle the young man's already untidy hair. 'Relax, Bulge. I'm not in your chain of command, you don't have to sir me. In any case, I don't hold any military rank.'

'Not quite true,' Todo replied, coming up behind him and sitting next to his charge as Luna looked him over. When she asked for a knife the Sirius' crew - even Wataru - flinched, but Ali handed his over without a qualm and just shook his head.

'She needs to get his boot off. Sheesh. What kind of bastards do you think we are?' He vanished into the interior of the craft, grumbling away.

'What do you mean?' Wataru, unfortunately, was obviously going to be like a dog with a bone over Todo's off the cuff remark.

'He's technically still a lieutenant in the former Gaia Fleet.'

'I thought he was court-martialed?' Wataru asked with a frown.

'Oh no.' Kei smiled sweetly and slapped her captain/husband on the shoulder, ignoring his shut-the-fuck-up glare. 'See they can't strip him of his rank until he's been court-martialed, but if they strip him of his rank, then he has to be tried in a civilian court. If they ever catch him. The government wants the latter, but doesn't have the right to apply a purely military administrative punishment, and the military won't do it because they'd rather hold the kangaroo court and be the ones to put him in front of a firing squad. And before you ask, some quirk of the original Gaia Fleet laws means he can't be tried in absentia either.'

'Never mind, Harlock,' Ben said solicitously, patting his captain on the back. 'When I get home I'll give you an honorary promotion. I'm sure I can shuffle an admiral or two around to fit you in.'

'You really think that rank matters to me?'

'That rule…' Wataru mused. 'Would that mean that technically, my ghostie great-great-grandfather is still a commodore? And would be your commanding officer?' He dodged the half-hearted swat that earned him with a laugh. 'I'll just keep watch for shadows or stray machinners, shall I?'

'Remind me again that you don't give a shit about rank?' Kei whispered into Harlock's ear. 'Your ass is so tightly clenched right now I'd be amazed if you could walk…' She gave him a peck on the cheek and strolled off to keep watch with her son. Bulge, innocent instigator, looked up at the pirate captain unhappily.

'Sorry. I didn't realise…'

'Ignore them,' Harlock told him with a world-weary sigh. 'I always try to. Nice to see you again, but didn't realise you had the same talent for getting into trouble that my offspring have…' He tapped Luna on the shoulder to get her attention. 'How is he?'

'The ankle's badly swollen but not broken. A lot of bruising to the ribs, a couple of punctures and that head wound looks worse than it is, though I'll put a couple of stitches in it to be safe, but he'll need a full scan when he gets back to his own ship, unless we're taking them all with us?'

'I hope not. I didn't get Anita to replenish the stores before we left.' Harlock turned his attention back to Todo. 'Heigoro - what is the situation with Sirius?'

'We have power but can't get her off the ground. It occurred to me when you showed up… don't you have a tractor array capable of towing a capital class ship?'

Harlock looked thoughtful. 'We do… but that was in zero-g… not sure if it would lift the Sirius out of a gravity well. Ali!'

A blond head peered around the doorway of the bullet's small hangar. 'Yeah?' Harlock outlined the question. 'Ooh… good call… it might work. I'll get on the comms to the brains of the outfit. If nothing else they'll relish the challenge.' He disappeared again.

'If not,' Harlock told Todo, we'll be able to ferry your people up in a pinch. It's not that far to a planet we can drop you off to wait for pickup. But the ship you came to rescue?'

Todo shook his head. 'We hadn't located it when I left to track down Yûki and Lawrence. Wataru and Guy spotted some very fresh reboots, which doesn't bode well. The machinners appeared to be chasing the crew for their life force, and letting the ghosts have the corpses.'

Ben frowned. 'Ghosts? So the people who died here can possess the dead as well?' He grimaced. 'And I thought dealing with extra-dimensional body snatchers sounded bad…'

'It might well be the same phenomena,' Bulge said from his perch on the ramp. With a couple of painkillers courtesy of Luna in him, he seemed a lot perkier. 'They died when this planet was torn out of our space into this, right? If this is the same space/time those metanoids come from, or related to it in some way, then doesn't it make sense that maybe they might be something similar?'

'Some property of that space/time makes such lifeforms possible?' Harlock mused. 'Not that it helps much.'

'Understanding your enemy always helps,' Ben replied dryly. 'Or so Domel keeps telling me. Personally I'm happy as long as my understanding covers things like vulnerable body parts.'

'Are they always like this?' Bulge whispered to Luna, who was putting the finishing touches to a couple of butterfly sutures on his forehead.

'Like calls to like,' Luna replied with a smile. She stripped off her gloves, stuffed them into the disposal unit in her back and pushed her glasses back up her nose. 'Our captain has a habit of making friends just as ridic… of a similar mindset.'

'And a crew that's pretty disrespectful?' the younger man pulled a face. 'How does he keep you all on track?'

'By making sure everyone knows where the lines are,' Harlock replied. 'And I don't keep people who can't figure that out for themselves. A good crew doesn't need micromanaging…' His soft, pleasant voice carried in the still air, as did the loud, unladylike snort from the direction Kei was standing.

'Or you have an XO who has to pick up the slack so you can always look like either the Voice of Reason or the One Who's Even Scarier,' she called out.

'I really like her.' The blonde cadet tossed her ponytail back over her shoulder and stared admiring at Kei.

'She's a pirate,' Bulge pointed out. Then remembering the company he coughed. 'Erm… I mean…'

'I'm used to it. Don't fret.' Harlock smiled down at him, and Wataru rolled his eyes. Really, his old man was a shamelessly manipulative bastard sometimes. That winsomely incandescent smile combined with the tousled mess of his hair falling over his patch made him look like the boy next door, and shaved a good ten years off his already much-younger-than-his-age looks. It had disarmed and discombobulated tougher prey than poor Bulge over the years. 'Stop that,' he told his father. 'You're just confusing him.' The Raised Eyebrow of Puzzled Innocence made its appearance and Wataru shook his head in mock despair. 'Honestly. I can deal with people knowing I'm related to the most notorious pirate ever to sail the sea of space, but it's another thing entirely for my classmates to find out you're actually rather ridiculous.'

'-ly cute?' Ben appended with an air of facetious innocence that rivalled Harlock's. 'Harlock - when you're done trying to bamboozle the next generation of SDF officers into totally underestimating you, I think we just found the crew of that survey ship. There's a small group of life-signs about ten clicks north of here, and since we're here, everyone on the planet's already dead, and the Sirius is over there…' he gestured vaguely in a south-easterly direction with his cosmo dragoon 'I think we can safely assume there's a handful of survivors.'

'After all this time?' Todo frowned. 'From what I saw in the town there are a fair number of machinners who weren't killed by the dark matter wave but no humans. According to Yûki and Lawrence's reports the machinners were stripping the lifeforce out of the survivors, and it doesn't go that far.'

'They're probably held and rationed,' Wataru suggested. 'Plus this lot seem to enjoy hunting their prey, before handing over what's left to the shadows.'

'Well we can easily see how much they like being on the receiving end for a change.' Harlock patted the butt of his pistol.

Bulge shivered. 'That's not a reassuring image,' he pointed out.

Harlock smiled blandly. 'Wasn't supposed to be. Despite what the propaganda machine for Promethium would have people believe, exchanging your frail, mortal form for an existence as a vampiric parasite dependent on the life force of the mortals they claim to despise so much isn't a walk in the park. But enough people buy into that crap that we're still trying to cut off the tentacles she keeps extending into our lives in this galaxy.' He glanced at Todo. 'Has he had your little talk yet?'

Todo shook his head and sighed. 'In my own time. Try not to force the issue, Harlock. You tried it your way a couple of years ago - and remind me - how did that work out?' Harlock gave him a sour look and didn't reply.

Ali's head popped back out from around the hatchway. 'Yattaran says Tochiro can work his mojo on the tractor beam, but it's going to take a lot of power to get close enough to the planet. When we do, he says we can expect to get a hefty shove towards the rift - this place really wants us gone. Oh - and the little guy says to be quick about it - this place isn't draining our systems as fast as it did the SDF's, but our dark matter scoops aren't working, and what we have won't last forever.'

'Suits me,' Kei muttered. 'But we need to check out that signal. Probably best if we get that out of the way and then make sure everyone's on board their ships for the rescue?'

Harlock nodded. 'Ali - you and Yara take Todo and his cadets back to the Sirius. Then lock onto our location and lend a hand. Do we have a deadline?'

'An hour. Tops. So you might want to shake it off and get moving.' He leant over Bulge and offered a gloved hand. 'Come on, small fry with the silly name. Let's get you stowed away safely. Leave you out here any longer and you're likely to find yourself rehomed…'

'Ali…' The warning note in Harlock's voice was blithely ignored. Bulge however looked mildly panicked.

'What…'

'Oh. Captain has a habit of picking up waifs and strays,' Ben replied, a tiny smirk lurking at the sides of his mouth. 'And has an equally bad habit of not returning them to their natural habitat.'

'In your case,' Harlock replied smoothly, 'Be thankful it wasn't trap-neuter-return. And don't think I haven't had enough requests for the second of those over the years…'

Wataru laughed at his classmate's wild eyed gaze. 'Relax. They're just being idiots.' And then because, as anyone who knew the twins could attest, he and the usually snarkier Mamoru weren't as different in personality as they liked to pretend, added, 'mostly.'

'Shouldn't you be carpeting him for such cheekiness?' Harlock asked Todo. He tutted. 'What is the SDF coming to?'

'Personally,' Todo added in a sarcastic drawl that could handily stand toe to toe with anything the Arcadia's crew could deliver, 'I blame the parents.'

Ben smirked and patted Harlock on the shoulder. 'I think he won that one.'

'Only until I repeat it to Kei,' Harlock replied blithely. He took a good look around at those assembled before continuing. 'The fighters can take passengers if necessary. Todo - one of your team at least should come along, so if the young lady…'

'Reinhardt,' the cadet interjected.

He nodded his acknowledgement and continued: 'Cadet Reinhardt can squeeze in handily behind Kei. Luna - with Ben; we might need a medic. Anita - you're with me. The rest of you back to the ship but keep a boat prepped to pick up any survivors, if we find any.'

'Dad…'

'Not this time,' Harlock told Wataru firmly. 'Your classmate looks a lot fresher than you do. You've done your bit.' He got a short sharp nod from Todo, and turned away to forestall any further entreaties. Wataru at least wasn't as pushy as his brother. He clammed up and followed his captain into the interior of the bullet without any further comment. As the ramp hissed up, Harlock let out a small sigh, picked up only by Ben, as Kei was already heading back to her fighter, the young cadet in tow. 'Got to let them go sometime, I guess,' Ben murmured as the door snicked shut.

'Wait until you have some of your own,' Harlock replied. 'Then we'll talk over a bottle or two.' Ben gave a mock shudder. 'Perish the thought… I'm amazed any of my siblings made it to adulthood. I'd never wish that on anyone.'

'Set a better example,' was Harlock's pithy reply as he turned his back on the gamilan and made his way to his plane, where Anita was already waiting, having stowed her barely man-portable assault weapon in the side panel. He helped her up onto the wing and then into the space behind his seat with casual aplomb. A consummate professional on a ship of argumentative dropouts, at least he could rely on her to sort herself out quickly and efficiently. 'Before you ask,' she said as her wide, freckled features vanished behind her helmet, 'no, it doesn't get better as they get older.' She chuckled. Her son Zack was now in his thirties and his wife was about to present her with her third grandchild. Harlock smiled at her, and tried not to think too hard about the grey in her once dark hair. Anita was only a few years older than he was, he reflected, but sometimes he was hit with the occasional tough reminder of just how much time had passed since he'd taken command.

No-one lives forever… he thought, as he thumbed the canopy closure control and flicked a series of switches on the console. And nothing good ever came of denying that. But even the dead it seems aren't immune to that particular delusion...

He sent the space wolf soaring into the sky with a roar of its engines.

The location of the missing survey crew turned out to be a storage barn on the outer edge of a deserted farmyard. It squatted between two large grain silos, its massive shuttered doors locked tight.

'Vehicle storage,' Anita said as she ducked down behind the wall they all hid behind. She handed the binocs to Ben. 'There'll be a smaller, person-sized door on the side. No-one's going to haul those doors open unless they plan on rolling out one of the auto-combines.'

'No guards visible,' Ben pointed out as he took a quick look over the wall for himself. 'But those shadows are pooling right up against the doors with the same kind of expectant intensity little Reinhardt behind me keeps staring at my arse with…'

Harlock raised a hand to forestall the indignant spluttering. 'Later, children. And cadet? Anyone who ends a sentence on a preposition isn't worth your time, regardless of how pretty they are.'

'You really think I'm pretty?' Ben shoulder bumped Harlock. 'Awww… After all these years…'

'Focus!' Kei hissed at the pair. 'Honestly. You're both old enough to know better. Ben, you're a bad influence on him…'

Ben pouted. 'Really? I'm the responsible, mature, beloved ruler of a small but happy little empire, and he's the pirate with a price on his head that would tempt anyone... ' He broke off. 'Dialheads.'

Three figures came into view, from around the side of the barn. As Harlock watched them, the normally sweet bow of his lips compressed into a stern line. 'Something's off…'

Ben, also watching closely, frowned. 'Such as?'

'The way they walk,' Kei replied.

'Telemetry's off,' Harlock continued. The furrow between his brows deepened slightly. 'I've seen it before - happens when someone's piloting a body they're not integrated into. But that doesn't make sense…'

After decades of avoiding assassination attempts and pushy reporters, Ben had learned a long time ago to process almost as fast as his pirate friend. 'There's no way in hell so many machinners could have lasted this long - even allowing for the time dilation at the edge of that rift… this planet was mostly mechanised - I saw the census statistics en route. Mamoru and Guy had seen a dozen, at most? All the power sources here are dead, so…'

'So?' Reinhardt hissed the syllable into his ear.'

'So they'd be dead as well. Which means the shadows can also take over machine bodies…'

'...and you now have to ask, why did we suddenly spot a handful of life signs way out in the opposite direction to the Sirius?' Harlock added grimly. Ben, Anita, Kei and Harlock all looked at each other. 'Trap.' they said, simultaneously.

'Harlock?' Reinhardt looked at each of the Arcadia's crew in turn, puzzled. Then she belatedly understood. 'Oh. Oh, shit…'

'Several hundred warm bodies, just waiting to be picked off,' Ben said softly. 'Hundreds - if not thousands - of hungry ghosts desperate for a new body… shadows all around us, listening, and watching everything we do. Harlock…'

'We can't risk this being a genuine hostage situation,' Harlock told him. 'Kei - you, Anita and the cadet here deal with this. Luna you'd better stay in case of casualties. Ben - with me. Unless the SDF has changed its fighters in the last few years, Reinhardt should be able to fly the space wolf once you're done.' He smiled at the unabashed delight the young woman showed at the suggestion. 'And no, cadet, you can't keep it. I don't think your superiors will take kindly to the SDF using a fighter designed by pirates.'

'Correct me if I'm wrong…' Ben leaned into Harlock over his shoulder, his cheek almost touching the pirate's, and ignored the finger flicked at his blue nose, '...but Tochiro and Harlock weren't pirates when they designed it?'

Harlock took hold of Ben's arm and began to forcibly steer him back towards the planes in question, taking care to stay out of the line of sight from the barn. 'I'd appreciate it if you didn't encourage the SDF to start looking longingly at my hardware? Especially that one… there's a gleam in those eyes that reminds me uncomfortably of Kei…'

'The look that says given half a chance she'd have them confiscated in a heartbeat on some legal pretext?' Ben laughed. 'I adore Kei - in a totally platonic kind of way - but she scares me sometimes. I understand all too well what drives her, and I'd not like to get between her and whatever she feels needs to be done. Something tells me that young lady back there has a similar need for order.'

'She was picked up by the Millennial Thieves when she was five,' Harlock told him quietly. 'What? I checked out my son's classmates, yes. There's hardly a planet out near Destiny that didn't get swept by the Machinners' harvesting ships. Between those and the plague, it's hardly surprising there's an entire generation his age suffering the consequences. Most of his class are orphans.' He paused next to the wing of his fighter. 'Ben… A couple of years ago I saw several alternate timelines to our own courtesy of the Time Castle on Herise… these kids - I recognised a few of them, but they were at least ten years younger there. Different lives, different times. Our timeline is screwed up beyond belief in places. But it's weird - no matter how far out along the rings of time you go, it's as though the same souls travel together. Different relationships sometimes...'

'Even us?' Ben grinned at him.

Harlock rolled his visible eye. 'In one of them, I think I strolled off with your ex…' he snarked. 'Regardless, I saw enough to make me think that these kids matter - or will matter, and not just to me. Some of that timeline couldn't easily come to pass in ours, but that doesn't mean that there won't be something in our future they'll be called upon to face.'

'You'd rush to the rescue even if there wasn't,' Ben pointed out, calling out over his shoulder as he strolled towards his own plane. 'If I hadn't seen the way you deal with anyone who pisses you off, I'd swear you were far too nice to be a pirate… But don't worry, your secret's safe with me!'

'Funny… I could say the same about you, your excellency!' Harlock called out. 'Is that your new Imperial Salute, your excellency?' he added innocently, smirking at the raised finger Ben flipped at him without turning round.

Should you bait him? Tochiro murmured in his ear as he settled into his cockpit seat.

'Preventative measures,' Harlock replied as the canopy slid into position. 'If he ever loses his sense of humour, it'll be time to duck… Anything from the Sirius?'

Nothing. Not since the bullet landed…

Saying nothing, Harlock gunned the fighter's engines and took to the skies, Ben's space wolf in close formation behind him.