Epilogue

I wasn't sure what to make of The Captain back then. Not for a while. Hell, probably not in the ten years I served on the ship before…

Yeah. Before that.

Sometimes, you got the feeling he was some fae goblin king, an immortal of uncanny beauty leading a ragtag band of minions of surpassing stupidity and ugliness by comparison, straight out of a book of fairy tales.

Except in some of those stories, underneath the glamour, the reality was a creature more foul of face and form and mind than any twisted critter it ruled… One way or another, we were all of us broken men, on board the Arcadia. And that, I figured out really early on, included her captain.

Most of us never spoke about what brought us there, though in some cases you could guess. A psychiatrist's meal ticket, the bloody lot of us - you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger group of men (and the occasional woman) who were as lost, lonely, betrayed, burnt out, shell shocked and ground down by the reality of the post-colonial universe as we were. The Gaia Sanction dangled the unreachable ideal of Earth in front of all of us like some sadistic bastard holding a chew toy just out of reach of his dog's nose.

They didn't hold out hope. What they did was rub our noses in the fact that this ideal, this paradise..

…this Arcadia…

…would never be ours. We were unworthy.

Harlock… Harlock offered us something else. The chance to make our own Arcadia. He empowered us. That was the dream we followed, that lifted us up and kept us going. Even if it didn't work, we were going to try.

And somehow, he'd got a way for finding the kind of people who still had that spark in them, that made them want to do something, to reach for the smallest spark in the darkness in the hope of something better, no matter how much of a long shot it was.

The final Hail Mary came from out of left field, and nobody - not even Harlock, if you ask me, saw it coming…

2977

MX-201 (Heavy Meldar)

Two to go… that was what had kept me going in the days after that last placement had gone so badly wrong. Baptiste… Santos… Takagi… three men lost, and we were all still in shock when we came growling into the atmosphere of the dustbowl of a moon that orbited a gas giant out in the middle of nowhere. Kei was the only one brave - or stupid enough - to approach the captain about it, as he sat slumped in his chair at the back of the upper bridge, something he did a lot of these days. Although after that last debacle, he'd kept to his cabin for a week, until some message had come in on an old Solar System fleet channel. He'd lurched back to the bridge lickity-split after that and changed our course to this forsaken rock, which had to be the first time we'd seen him move that much over the last couple of years.

It wasn't just the captain who seemed to be more withdrawn either, these days. The general air amongst all of us was… I dunno. The captain's increasing isolation was getting to all of us.

'Captain… there can't be more than a couple of dozen people left on this rock. If we need more men, there are better places to find them, surely?'

Kei gets away with challenging him a hell of a lot more than the rest of us. Maybe because she still cared. But then, the girl had been besotted since the first moment she laid eyes on him. Not that he paid attention that much. It hadn't been as noticeable when she was still just a kid who'd stowed away on board, shell-shocked and traumatised. Hell, to begin with he'd taken her under his wing and taught her a lot of what he knew, seeming to enjoy the way the girl soaked it all up like a sponge - or like someone remembering what she already knew. It was freaky how she did that. But as she'd gotten more confident - and frankly, had filled out too nicely in all the wrong places for my peace of mind - he'd withdrawn more and more from her company, leaving her as lonely and confused as the rest of us. More, maybe, since none of the guys really knew how to deal with her. For her part she stuck her nose in the air and took refuge behind a clipboard and her self-inflicted role as the XO, since no-one else wanted the job these days.

'Captain!'

He did look up, briefly. I was at Yattaran's station because the first mate needed to take a whizz. Before he looked away from her again I saw that look in his eyes he tried to hide. As though he was looking to see something - or someone - else behind those baby blues. And as always, having to look away to hide the loss.

'We'll set down on top of the plateau. There'll be at least one possible recruit.'

'We need three.' She pointed it out a fraction of a second before I did, and glared at me for talking across her. I just smirked at her and she sighed and let it go. Besides, the Captain was speaking again.

'I only want one.'

I looked up sharply at that, and caught Kei's eye. She shook her head, suggesting I say nothing, so I piped down. Some days, she does have a better feel for his mood than the rest of us. Today felt like one of those days.

Besides - maybe he had a point? We only had two oscillators to plant, after all. Tokarga… and Earth.

The captain stood up, and flicked his gravity cloak out of his way in that over-dramatic way he has. Truth is there's no way other than to give it a good push to move it, but if you didn't know that, it made him look like a bit of a posing drama queen. 'When our hopefuls arrive, have all hands assemble in armour on the hangar deck.' She nodded. 'And Kei?'

'Yes sir?'

'A word…'

They walked off together down the left hand stairs, and I did my best to overhear what they were discussing. But all I could make out was the captain's low murmur, and Kei's startled "yes sir" in reply. I leaned over the railing to watch as the captain strode off down the corridor in the direction of the Central Computer Room, and pulled my head back sharpish when Kei - who'd been standing staring after him, one hand on her hip and nibbling on her sensually plump lower lip - looked up sharply as if she'd got eyes in the back of her bloody head.

Something was well hinky… I just hoped it wasn't going to be a problem. Not when we were so close.

There were four idjits in the end desperate - or foolish - enough to climb the side of the formation listed in the gazetteer for this rock as "Mount Gun Frontier". Even in the moon's low gravity, it was a hellish free-climb. But one thing we did still like to do was weed out the total no-hopers before they got here. Yattaran's decision to use the clamps on the hangar ramp as impromptu "planks" for our needy little wannabe pirates was a nasty little present for them. They extended over the edge of the sheer cliff face they'd just hauled themselves up by their fingertips to scale, and all four were breathing hard, and looking nervous as we placed one of them on each one, and sniggered to ourselves over the helmet comms as they realised how long a drop it was down to the lake below.

We'd extended the Arcadia's low-g field around the mountain, but they didn't have to know that… The youngest and skinniest of the four had taken one look and although it didn't show through his leather pants, I was pretty sure he'd pissed himself. Franz and Martinez were busy relieving the two oldest - and biggest - of the pair of their weapons. The bald one had my vote. Looked dumb enough and strong enough to be of some use, but also not so bright he'd be a problem. The bandanna wearing muscle-head had climbed well - but even Baldie was giving him what-the-fuck looks as a series of weapons were hauled out of hiding and dropped unceremoniously over the side. If Martinez and I had had our helmets off, we'd have been exchanging similar eye-rolling looks. Never trust the ones who come armed to the teeth.

The lad on the end though… he'd been the last up, but he'd recovered the quickest from the climb. I twitted Kei over the comms as we moved back to surround Yattaran where he sat enthroned on a box of munitions. 'That your favourite?' I asked.

'Piss off, Ali.'

'Ooh. Tone. You were watching the drone footage with your eyes glued to his arse earlier. And were those little gasps every time he slipped?'

She folded her arms across the brassy front of her armour - being a girl she was able to fit into the Valkyrie armour the rest of us - waddling around in our rotund brass bathysuits - could only dream of wearing, and ignored me. I felt like reminding her quietly of what had happened with the last long-haired pretty boy we'd taken in that she'd taken a shine to, but something about the kid made me take a second look.

Tall, but not captain-tall. A bit over six foot if he'd straighten up. Skinny - his tatty vest was gaping to reveal far too much scrawny adolescent chest. Hadn't had a haircut in a few months, given that his mousy brown locks were over his collar and falling into his eyes, which were a washed out muddy browny-green. And his face was mucky - kind of made me want to reach out like my gran, spit on a hanky and try and rub some of the grime off. His clothes were scruffy as well, especially his boots. In all he'd seen better days despite looking barely old enough to shave, and there was an air of self-pitying despair around him like a little cloud. He'd got the lost puppy look down to a t…

Then I heard the captain step out on the upper balcony, and the kid's head shot up like a wolf scenting prey, and he stared right at the captain. Something cut through that miserable apathy, just for a moment, and then like that - whoosh - it was gone, and there was just this pale, dirty youth with his hands clasped behind his head as Yattaran strutted and clanked his way along the line, dropping the sad yokels screaming into the drink below.

The skinny runt of the litter managed to fall off his perch all on his ownsome before Yattaran could even give the signal to drop the hangar clasp he was standing on, and I had to smirk. Oh… if I'd only thought to set a drone up to get a shot of their stupid faces when they bobbed up spluttering and realised the fall hadn't killed 'em…

But Yatts was approaching the scruffy brat now, and I wondered idly if he'd do any better when Yattaran did his thing. I hoped not. There was something lurking under the grime and that air of apathy that got my hackles up… it'd be like taking in a starving, whipped pup only to have it turn out to be a rabid attack dog once it had a few good meals inside it… You could see it in the way he looked at the other applicants, like he was better than this and had better things to do…

But no, he hesitated just a second or two too long, and Yatts drew his clawed arm across his faceplate to tell Martinez on the controls to drop the kid… Tant pis…

He screamed out the word "freedom" as he dropped. Too slow, I muttered under my breath. Shit outta luck, kid. But then Kei - and boy can that girl move fast when she wants to - nipped past me (I hadn't even noticed her move from the back of the deck) - and reached out to grab the hapless oick by the arm. 'Name?' she asked him.

'Yama'

She hauled him up and slapped him arse first onto the deck, forcing the breath out of him in a pained "oof".

'Don't forget what you just said,' she told him, as her helmet slid back to let him get an eyeful. Her blonde hair floated around her head in the wind and he was looking up at her kinda speechless. 'It's what this ship is all about…'

As the rest of us started prepping for take-off, I heard Yattaran call out to Kei "You'd better take him in hand..'

'Why me?' She sounded well put out at the thought.

'You saved him - take responsibility!'

She sighed and pouted, but to no avail. And it was the poor new rookie who got the brunt of her exasperation, since he seemed a bit slow on the uptake, not getting to his feet fast enough, so she chivvied him along with a slap to the back that almost floored him, nagging at him to get a wiggle on.

Or maybe not so slow… but distracted. He kept looking up to where the captain had been standing, as though looking for him.

Behind my helmet I frowned. Maybe it was nothing… but I still had a bad feeling about this one.

IN-SKIP, between Tokarga and Earth

I'd learned a long time ago the captain didn't like anyone intruding when he was "communing" or whatever it was he did in the Central Computer room. But that didn't mean you couldn't kinda sorta bump into him all accidentally like in one of the corridors once he was on his way back to his room or the bridge.

'Ali.'

'Captain.' I fell beside him, although I had to stretch my legs out a bit to keep up. 'This kid…'

We were en route to Earth after a nasty near miss on Tokarga. The moment of truth was fast approaching, and in the last few days you could have cut the atmosphere on board with a knife.

'What about him?'

What indeed. He'd saved Kei's life by kicking her free of the workboat and into Yattaran's waiting claws on the grappler. Something was still bothering me, but hell, he'd lightened up a bit since then, didn't look so mopey. I shook my head. Nah. If I was honest, it wasn't the kid who bothered me.

'Nuthin'. It's not him, really, I guess. It's just…' I touched him on the arm just below one of his bracers, and instead of growling at me for my effrontery, he stopped and looked at me. Looked down, I should say, but hell, the lanky bastard can't help that, right?

'What is it that really bothers you, Ali?'

Like he didn't know or couldn't guess. Coz it bothered all of us, although mostly we just muttered quietly to each other in the mess, in twos and threes.

'When we get to Earth… that last detonator… I mean - are you sure it'll really work?'

'It's a little late in the day to back out now,' he pointed out in his soft voice.

True, that. One way or another we were committed. 'Funny that,' I called out as he began to walk off again, his cloak flapping behind him as he moved. 'The guys have only just started muttering amongst themselves in the past couple of years.'

'And?' He didn't stop walking, and I didn't bother to follow him.

'No-one on this ship's been with you longer than about twelve years. Not one. Even the guys who were on board when I shipped out with you had only been with you a few months.'

He stopped then, and turned to face me. Why the hell that heavy leather gravity cloak doesn't topple him I'll never know. Mind you, he's burlier than he looks, although he'd lost a lot of weight recently. 'Just what are you suggesting, Ali?'

Santos. Baptiste. Takagi… They'd been with Yattaran when the oscillator had slipped. He was the only one who'd made it back. And they'd been pretty vocal for a while in asking about The Plan. 'How long does it usually take for the men to start wondering just how this plan of yours is supposed to work? I mean - really think about it?' I blurted.

The corner of his mouth twitched, oh so slightly. 'Are you suggesting I clear my house periodically to avoid difficult conversations?' He folded his arms across his chest. On another man it'd be defensive. I get the feeling he just never really knows what to do with them. 'I don't make a habit of throwing my crew out of an airlock or arranging accidents for them if they start to question me. It's a little late to get off, but I'll detour for anyone who wants out. That's always been my rule, you know that.'

His rule, yes… "my way or the highway". I shook my head, and he unfolded his arms, nodded once, and took off. And it was only later, in my quarters, staring up at the ceiling, it occurred to me how very specific his answer had been… "I don't make a habit…"

Yeah. But occasionally taking out the trash doesn't have to be a habit, now does it? And those three jokers hadn't just been questioning, they'd been outright plotting…

Fark. Who cared? If I'd caught 'em at it, I'd probably have made sure they learned the error of their ways meself. We were days away from the moment of truth. I turned over and thumped my pillow a few times. One way or another, we'd soon know…

What's there to say about the next few days others haven't? We all know how it played out. What sticks in the craw the most is that we should have seen it coming. All of us. But we'd put the blinkers over our own eyes, hadn't we? Can't blame anyone really but ourselves in the end for being taken in by a smooth operator with a pretty face.

Both of 'em.

Yama said it best: he almost bitch-slapped me in front of the entire crew when he said it wasn't him I was mad at. I mean… I was, but hell, it wasn't even The Captain I was pissed at the most. Yes, I'd trusted him. Would have followed him into hell and back if he'd asked, and for what? In the end he hadn't even hung around long enough to take his licks like a man. Just faded away, leaving us with the most powerful ship in the known universe, shellshocked, worn out and lost, and under the command of a wet behind the ears former Fleet agent who hadn't held a command in his entire short life. And I'd let it happen. Put the noose around my own neck.

But here was this last minute replacement, and somehow, the ship and Mimay were treating him like he was the captain? Hell, even Kei was backing him up and supporting him, though I did wonder how much of that was down to him now sporting a natty little scar across his face and one of the captain's eyepatches. Sucks to be the rebound guy…

Yeah. I didn't trust the little weasel. He'd turned on us once. Shame on me if I trusted anyone wearing an eyepatch again no matter what pretty speeches he could spout. Especially when he spouted pretty speeches…

When I'd spotted him following Kei into her quarters, I did what any concerned crewmember would have done if any of them had been smart enough to think about it: I thought up a pretext to confront the little shit and planted a bug in there. To be honest I'd have stuck a camera in if I thought I could have gotten away with it, because I figured he'd make a play for the lonely Kei, who was obviously missing her beloved captain so hard any cheap imitation would do, and he struck me as the kind of manipulative little prick who'd take advantage…

…except he didn't, and I had to stamp down hard on the prickings of a long atrophied conscience when the pair of 'em just chatted and snuggled up to fall asleep. I didn't get much sleep that night, wondering if he'd make a play at some point and I'd need to go and rescue the silly chit from her new crush. But he played the officer and a gentleman card right down the line even when it was obvious to anyone listening in that she was offering to do things to the boy no red-blooded, heterosexual male would refuse.

He was a puzzle, and that bothered me.

That first week was just… I dunno. Picture this: Two days out of Earth orbit. Eight idjits and me sitting around a table in the mess, staring glumly at our packs of ready-to-pukes and bitchin' about life, the universe and new captains, in between waiting for the alarms to go off again, How the hell that Fleet captain was tracking us was still a mystery.

'...my grandad used to tell me this story when I was a kid.'

'What the ever-lovin'-fuck have your grandad's bedtime stories got to do with what our new captain's plans for us might be?' Bob asked Eddie, who at about twenty was the youngest of us by far and still a bit of a limp dick.

The kid flushed almost the same colour as his carroty hair, but persisted. 'There was this pirate - but he retired and passed on the same to someone else. And then he retired and did the same, and then he…'

'Yeah, yeah. We get the picture.' Franz leaned over and ruffled the kid's hair, getting a "gerroff" for his pains.

'So?' Dan asked, leaning closer.

'So they - the new captain and the old one - would put off the old crew and take on a new one. And the old captain would stay on as first mate for a few months, and keep calling the new guy by the captain's name, and everyone would think it's the same guy.'

'Slight problem with that,' Franz drawled, waving his fork at Eddie. 'Since if the old captain was a replacement, and the first mate was the previous captain Harlock..'

As one we all turned to watch Yattaran, who was busy shovelling his lunch into that gaping maw he laughingly calls his mouth. Never a pretty sight. 'What?' He mumbled through a mouthful of something that had advertised itself as Pork Stew on the wrapper. I shuddered and turned my attention back to my own sorry rations. The rest did likewise, though Bob and Martinez seemed to have been put off their food.

'That… Is a mental picture I just can't unsee…' Dan shuddered theatrically.

'But he could just get rid of us, right?' This from Bob, big bad bald tattooed and not the sharpest tool in the box. 'He's keeping those ex fleet guys. Why would he want us anyway? He'd be lookin' over his shoulder waitin' for someone to shiv him in a dark corridor…'

'No shortage of those on this ship,' Dan smirked. Nasty smirk he's got. My kinda guy.

'Kei's watchin' out for him,' Bob pointed out.

'She's just a girl. If anyone did decide to take him, what could she do?' This from Axel, who should know better by now. I gave him a sharp kick under the table, but as usual he didn't get the hint, even when Yattaran stood up and started to waddle down the table towards him.

'Dig a hole…' Franz muttered near my ear. I nodded. Yattaran can be a lazy sod, but he's got a serious soft spot for Kei, and he'd so far backed the new captain's plays.

'Got something you want to share, Axel?' You gotta hand it to the fat bastard, when he wants to, he can throw down and get dangerous with the best of them. Something guys like Axel tend to forget. Yeah, me and some of the others give him some lip, but 1. We know where the line is and 2. We've earned that privilege.

'Just saying, first mate. We don't owe this kid Jack shit. Because of him we almost got executed back there. He's a traitor, a snitch and a turncoat. And he ain't done Jack to get us clear of this fleet pursuit, has he? Way I heard it, he was just some jumped up gopher for that crip of an admiral, right? Got no business in charge of any ship, let alone the Arcadia…'

'How do we know he'll stand and fight?'

Largo. Another dick.

'Right now he's all the captain we have, and he's done okay so far,' Yattaran pointed out. 'Harlock trusted him enough to leave him the ship, his weapons and his name. Seems to me we can cut him a little slack.'

'The same captain who lied to us and sold us a lie for years?'

Yamada. Well, the troublemakers were coming out of the woodwork like woodlice. They'd been loyal to Harlock… but that was part of the problem. Not everyone was going to react well to realising they'd been played 'n' betrayed, and some of us… we grow hard shells out here for a reason, and that means your brain kind of fossilises in self-defence as well, common sense and flexibility replaced bit by bit by an almost fanatical loyalty and refusal to move on. They'd had a few days to think about it and they were starting to wonder what the hell they owed this kid.

'How do we even know that's true?' Largo asked. 'We only have Mimay to back the rookie up on what Harlock did or said, and she's not even human!'

…and sometimes they also put on hold deeply held prejudices just because the captain wouldn't like it otherwise, and blinded by the light that was Harlock, they'd followed blindly, willingly… until all of that was cut out from under them with one revelation, and a betrayal so painful you wanted to lash out at everyone and everything that reminded you of it…

Murmurs from a couple of tables, quickly quelled by Yatts giving them the stink-eye. 'You gotta problem with him, you got the XO and me to get through,' he told them. It might have been a bit more impressive if he didn't have a fresh gravy stain on his sweater. 'Anyone who has a problem can get off when we drop off any of the fleet prisoners who don't fancy staying on.'

He stormed out muttering, and most of the men went back to eating. But the three gobshites moved to share a table, putting their heads together.

I punched Martinez on the arm to get his attention, and tugged on one of Franz' girly locks. 'Gentlemen …'

'Ali… if you're wanting us to help you take out the new…' Martinez began. He ran a hand over his fancy shaved stripes on his head. A sure sign he was nervous.

'I got my eye on the little weasel,' I told them, 'but fragging the guy whilst we're still being chased by this fleet dickhead ain't going to help us. And it ain't the first time I've heard one or more of that little group of incels badmouth Mimay either. And I got nothing against the wee alien. She's odd, but okay. Ditto our Kei.'

'So?' Franz elbowed me in the ribs and I growled at him. He just smirked.

'So watch 'em. If they decide to make a move, I think there might be a couple of casualties the next time that fleet shoots at us… Capisce?'

'Can't see the new captain liking that… or Kei…' Franz murmured.

'What those two lovebirds don't know won't hurt 'em,' I replied breezily. 'We've always had a few borderline headcases that only stayed in line because the captain could keep 'em there.' I watched as the threesome left the mess. 'Captain could keep us all going forward and together by sheer force of personality and charisma. You really think that boy-next-door is going to be able to pull that off?'

They both looked unhappy at that. I didn't feel too great about it myself, which was partly why I felt so cranky about the whole thing. But the Arcadia was the only home we had, and I wanted… what? To keep it together? To trust the new captain? Well… at least he'd apologised for his mistakes, which, I had to admit, was more than Harlock had… We took out our own trash though. That was how it worked. If the captain had to get involved, it wasn't good. And seriously, who'd tell him?

Yeah. Okay. I didn't know then about Tochiro, all right? Gawd… when I think of the shit we used to pull thinking it'd never get back to him, I have a few cold sweats…

And the alarm went off again.

'We took a couple of casualties on that last attack we couldn't afford,' Maji murmured near my ear, as we stared at the backplate of the new captain's armour. I just grunted at him and concentrated on the crushed metal. 'Accidents happen…' And thankfully sometimes to the right people - who'da thunk it?

I wasn't sure what disturbed me most: the crushed and crumpled remains of our new captain's rebreather from his armour in Maji's hands, or the sight, through the open doorway of the sick bay, of the damage it had done to Yama's back. Maji took the offending item out of my hands. 'A couple of extra pounds of pressure or another ten minutes, the kid would have been lucky to walk again,' he said quietly. 'Yet he was ordering us to pull Kei out first. Must have been in agony all the time they were trapped under there, but he busted his butt to keep her safe. I know we've been a bit twitchy about him taking over, Ali, but what the hell do you say to a guy who does that?'

I hadn't the foggiest. And looking at his bare back, I could see it wasn't his first rodeo. The kid had had some obvious - and obviously expensive - skin grafts done at some point. He was also covered in bruises, not all of them the result of today's bonkers stunt getting rid of that bloody beacon we'd been broadcasting from for all to hear. Shit. The wheel had probably been all that was holding him up for the last four days…

Double shit with knobs on. I did not want to be feeling guilty about my lack of trust. Bastard. He wasn't supposed to be likeable, damn him. Last minute epiphanies be damned: he'd sold us out and we'd come within seconds of being executed.

'... stubborn, stupid, reckless… you could have been killed! What the hell were you thinking? You're the captain…'

Kei. Letting the kid have both barrels. I wanted to peek round the door for a better look, but if she knew I was eavesdropping there'd be hell to pay.

'And as captain, I'd never ask any of my crew to do something I wouldn't. Nor let them come to harm if I can prevent it.'

'I didn't ask you to protect me!'

Ouch… good luck talking your way out of that one, laddie…

'To be fair, if we'd fallen the other way round you'd have done the same,' he pointed out, not unreasonably.

'But you still feel you have to prove a point? Self-sacrificing? For what, Yama?'

'You prefer I sacrifice others? Because that isn't happening.'

Silence. And after a few seconds of that I had to take that peek. And blow me if the grabby little git didn't have his unworthy hands all over our decidedly hands-off-or-draw-back-a- bloody-stump XO. And she had her cheek pressed against his skinny chest.

'Baka.' Her voice was muffled by that unworthy hide.

'Guilty as charged. Look, I'm done atoning for the past, but do not ever expect me to stand by and let anyone I care about come to harm. It isn't about being overprotective, or not letting you do your job. I get that. You're twice the bloody space pirate I am right now…'

At least…

'At least,' he continued. 'But it cuts both ways, Kei. You have to let me be who I am, as well.'

'Have you got that figured out?'

My thoughts exactly.

'No.' He dropped a kiss on her cheek and stared into her eyes. 'But I do remember someone offered to help me with that only a few hours ago.' Another peck for punctuation. 'Now please - help me on with my jacket at least and back to my room?'

'Not until I've got some bandages round you.' She tsked and tutted whilst ferreting out some supplies from one of our woefully under stocked cupboards, and then got to work.

'You do know it's already healing according to Maji?' he told her.

'Umm.' Through a mouthful of safety pin, she wasn't going to be too talkative.

'And that strapping up my ribs isn't actually recommended? Ow!'

I bit back a snigger because she'd quite deliberately jabbed him with that pin.

'Well if you want to peel your jacket off your back when it's stuck to you because it hasn't healed fully yet,' she told him primly. 'Go ahead.' I was hard pressed not to laugh when he stuck his tongue out at her. She'd better kick that playfulness out of him damned fast though - Captain Harlock did not indulge in such childish behaviour. Gawd… we'd be laughed out of every sleazy dive in the galaxy… doubly so if his fondness for a cinnamon latte became common knowledge…

Bloody fantastic. We'd swapped a socially awkward, dipsomaniac depressive, borderline sociopath for a treacherous, backstabbing puppy dog with a fondness for poncey coffees…

I missed the next bit thanks to woolgathering, and came in a bit further down the conversation: 'Kei. We've got a shaky crew right now who've taken a lot of hits in the last week or so. They're mostly shell-shocked and exhausted, but with a couple of days' sleep and rest, and with the pressure off, they're going to start thinking, and start thinking long and hard about Harlock, about me, about everything they've lost in the past few days, and wondering who to blame for it…'

'And around that time we're looking at having forty Alis on my hands…' Kei said brightly.

Well howdya like that…

'The Alis of the world I don't mind. He'll come at me head on, and despite him sounding off incessantly…'

Little pipsqueak…

'He'll face me man to man, not drive a knife between my shoulder blades down some dark corridor.'

Oh? I suppose I could take that as a compliment…

'It'll take both of us to hold this together. But you have to let me do this my way.' He leaned forwards as she offered him his jacket, and dropped a kiss on her lips, which ended up escalating from a barely-there peck, to his jacket in a pile on the floor, and her arms wrapped around him like a two-armed octopus. I had a very short conversation with the angel and demon on each shoulder, and told the angel to push off. Hell, I hadn't had my own leg over in years, if they were gonna forget the door was open, who was I to remind them?

'The door's open,' said my rookie captain when he came up for air.

I took that as my cue to scarper.

Harlock had been right. Live long enough, things do come round again.

So there I was, barely six months later, lying on one of those thin mattresses in sick bay, almost as badly damaged as the time I'd come on board, and staring across at another guardian angel.

Eyepatch. Check.

Scar. Check.

Sabre and pistol slung round his skinny hips. Check.

Gravity cloak. Check. Lounging against the doorway with his arms folded, ankles crossed and hair flopping into his face? Ch… ok. You get the picture.

'Doc says you'll live,' Harlock said quietly. His voice is softer than his predecessor's, but he has just that same way of making it carry. And there's that hazel eye, that can look through you with that same sense that he could see right through to your soul, and find you wanting… Well no. Not quite the same. Yama… he is different. He looks for the best in people and is disappointed when it ain't there. The Captain? Always made you feel he expected the worst from folks and was relieved when he was wrong… or was that surprised? Either works. Anyways… 'Yeah. Sorry to disappoint you there…'

'Well damn. If I'd known you weren't that bothered about it, I could have saved myself the trouble of rescuing your sorry arse,' he drawled at me. He really was developing a nasty little line in sarcasm. He pushed himself off the wall in that same way the captain did, only instead of effortlessly cool, he looked stiff and uncomfortable. Now to hear him tell the story of that rescue on Lar Metal, he made a jump from high altitude with that gravity cloak and walked away from a bumpy landing without a scratch… but he's a lying little git at times, and when his intake of breath caught our new Doc's attention and she had his sweater off in record time, I got to see what he'd been trying to hide from everyone else - mostly Kei because right from day one of their cute lil romance she'd had his number… 'Holy shit…'

Dark matter can help us heal fast, but it can be fickle. If this was several days after we'd made it back on board, I hate to think what state he'd been in down there. And from her language as she catalogued his bruises, so did Doc.

I was warming up to that broad. She's got a mean streak, and I kind of like that in a woman. After she'd sent him on his way with instructions to get some rest, which she had to have figured out by now he'd ignore, she turned her attention back to me. 'You should be sleeping.'

I might have been stuffed full of drugs, but like most of the crew, they react a bit oddly with my metabolism. 'Not sleepy,' I told my drill-sergeant-with-a-pony-tail. 'Especially with you waving those bouncy little mouthfuls in my face…' I grinned at her, letting her have all of the patented Jones family charm full on. She just rolled her eyes and sighed at me.

'Really? You're going with that? Not even this crews' testosterone addled, sex deprived brains should be turned on by my tits, Jones.'

'Beg leave to differ,' I informed her. I reached up and gave one of those delectable little nuggets a friendly squeeze through the tight tank top she was wearing. 'Very perky. And nibbleable. Did I mention nibbleable?'

I got my hand slapped for my pains. 'Behave. I can always put you in restraints.'

My cock twitched in anticipation and I smirked at her. 'Promise?'

Either I'd been hit on the head one too many times in the past few days, or those painkillers had turned off my self-preservation, because as she flounced off muttering about "sexist dinosaurs", I opened my gob again. 'Anyone ever tell you you got a really nice ass as well, darlin?' No word of a lie. I mean - prefer my birds with a bit more meat on the bones, and she was a bit on the skinny side. And the wrong side of thirty by a country mile, but… yeah. She was smart, mean and from what I'd seen so far, hadn't found a whiskey bottle she didn't like.

'Anyone ever tell you, darlin', that you shouldn't put your paws on a woman who knows how to emasculate someone with minimal blood loss and without anaesthetic?' she shot back.

'No, but why don't you come back over here, sit on my lap and explain it?'

Over the ship's intercom, someone - presumably the Central Computer - spluttered and sniggered. 'Oh man…' it (he?) said quietly over the speaker next to my ear. 'You do have a death wish… either that or you're totally off your head on whatever she's given you…'

'Both, I'd say.' Starchy, mean and almost as deadly with a clipboard as Kei muttered as she stomped back over and checked my vitals again. 'I do have good hearing, whoever that is on the comms.'

'Tochiro,' he said cheerily. 'Resident ghost in the machine…'

'The builder of the ship,' I explained to our new doctor, who looked puzzled. 'Apparently when the ship got caught up in what happened to Earth, the survivors became bound to the ship, with Tochiro here getting sucked into the ship's central computer…' I slurped to demonstrate.

'So are you a copy, or is it like a soul ring?' she asked.

'Search me.' Tochiro switched to the main comms in the sick bay. He's a friendly soul. 'I feel like me. I was injured when the other Deathshadow class ships fired on us. I remember that much. After that it gets a bit blurry until I woke up and found myself in a territorial spat with my own AI…'

'It took us ten years to perfect that soul ring technology…' she whispered. 'And you did it by accident…?'

'Given that from what I've heard since we started looking into this mechanisation process it seems it's based on the same Nibelung tech we used to create the AIs for the Deathshadow ships, I'm less surprised than I was,' Tochiro replied. Me, I grabbed onto something else she'd said. I also grabbed her wrist to get her attention.

'Us?' I asked. She pulled her hand away, and I must have been holding it tighter than I'd meant to because she cradled her wrist afterwards, staring down at the floor. 'Lady… were you part of that fucking programme?'

'You'll be well enough to go back to your quarters tomorrow,' she snapped at me. 'Though I'll recommend light duties for a while.'

She walked off, but I've never been one to let a bone go. 'Hey! Lady! You didn't answer me!'

'I don't think she wants to,' Tochiro murmured near my ears as the door to her office slid shut.

'Yeah?' I glared at the door and lay back against my pillow, hands laced behind my head and trying to ignore the dull aches that were starting to reappear as whatever I'd been dosed with began to wear off. 'Tough shit…' I muttered.

Fool me once… Yeah, yeah. She wasn't a new captain, but she had secrets, that one. Nasty dark ones unless I missed my guess. And…

And I was starting to like my new captain. But he was too trusting in letting a sob story get in the way of a sound recruitment policy, to my mind. Obviously I was going to have to step up and save the day. As usual. For all the thanks it ever got me.

I lay back on the thin mattress and put my hands behind my head. Yeah… she was a tough cookie, but everyone has their pressure points. It's like breaking up a large rock formation. You just have to find the flaws in the matrix…

Never would have thunk it was kittens though.

Author's note:…and for those wondering, yes, Luna's story will be forthcoming, in "Primum non Nocere"