Kei was right. I had been spoiled rotten: after several nights squashed into a bunk made for one not even her delightfully firm backside nestling against my nethers as we spooned was going to make up for the loss of our jumbo-sized four poster, and sharing the room with our great-something grandfather didn't help. Cats, kids, birds, aliens… I'd put up with the lot over the years, but having Hannibal in the room kept making me feel as though I had to be on my best behaviour. Not that hanky-panky was on either Kei's or my minds under the circumstances.

Privacy for rather more important conversations was an issue, however. If there were cameras and mics in the room, they were well hidden unless we went on a full-on seek-locate-destroy, which would pretty much negate the point of getting around them. So it was shared showers and ignore the smirks from the guards in the corridor, who presumably assumed the kindly old gentleman had particularly egalitarian tastes…

'You really think that this Captain Nero could be your old friend?' I asked. We had to take a chance on the room not being bugged too efficiently, and Hannibal waited politely with Kei in the changing area whilst I took a shower first. 'Deathshadow Two was crewless apart from her Nibelung, and Three had a crew of what I can best describe - and never want to see again - as shambling, rotting zombies. I'd just assumed Harlock was the only one who managed to survive, and that only because he's too damn stubborn to die.'

He snorted at that last comment, but since he let it pass, I figured we were on the same page. 'I think it's more than possible. Khalsa was on the edge of the dark matter explosion - when Kodai opened fire on the Deathshadow Four and Komarova followed his lead, Khalsa hung back. I've no idea what passed between him and Harlock - I arrived after the whole thing had gone tits up, and missed most of the crap that went down after Kodai's men boarded Four…'

'What kind of man was - is he?' Kei asked. She'd taken the first shower and was now sitting primly on the bench, brushing her hair with a brush provided by some smitten crewmember. Probably the same one who'd coughed up three sweaters almost as soft and clinging as her own and some brand new underwear still in the wrapper. For some reason the crew of the Lightning were falling over themselves to make her feel comfortable - at least, in any arena that didn't include a larger bed… O'Malley in particular was probably hoping she'd move in with him if they didn't give us a bigger bed. I was looking forward to the conversation I'd have with the oversized red-haired puppy if he carried on flirting. For now I had to pay attention to Hannibal.

'Khalsa? He was one of a handful who'd known my brother and Tochiro since the Academy - they all graduated within a year or so of each other - Harlock, Tochiro, Kavanagh - who was killed in the early years of the Homecoming War - Khalsa, Kodai…' he paused, lost in thought for a moment. Eventually he continued: 'He wasn't command track to start with - like a lot of us he ended up in command of a ship simply because they ran out of officers towards the end. Harlock kept a few officers with him from ship to ship, simply because they worked well with him - which Phantom being Phantom tended to mean they were content to follow along for the fun and didn't trouble him too much over the details... Kav was more of a bruiser, Khal electronic warfare. My brother had a somewhat laid back command style, and tended to pick officers who'd thrive under it. You knew Harlock, you both have a feel for the kind of men and women he liked serving with - fiercely independent, tough, intelligent…'

'...right up until the point he pulled the rug out from under them when they questioned his orders?' Kei muttered darkly. Under a curtain of lukewarm water, I winced. She wasn't letting go of Harlock's betrayal anytime soon. 'How come he's still alive, if the other ships all turned on Harlock? I'd have thought The Captain -' She still capitalised it, and I tried not to take it personally '- would have hunted him down and ended him for that.'

'Deathshadow One didn't fire on the Arcadia,' Hannibal replied softly. 'I'm not sure Komarova would have if Kodai hadn't lost his head because his fiancee was piloting one of those transports. Once the Three and Four engaged, it all pretty much went sideways. She'd have gone in to protect the young ass, because sure as hell Albrecht wouldn't have backed down once one of his own stabbed him in the back like that. Khal… I think he probably didn't want to fire on a friend - but he was a career military officer - firing on his own fleet wouldn't have sat well with him, so I'm not surprised he didn't exactly go rushing to Harlock's defence. However you spin it, my brother's actions were in total violation of both his orders and the rules of engagement. He fired on a civilian target, and it was his word against the government's as to what was going on down there.'

'Didn't his fellow captains trust him?'

He gave me a sharp look. 'You were never career military were you?'

I shook my head. My brother had pushed me out of my fast-track science degree and into the Academy not to make a career for myself in the family trade, but to have a willing patsy to enable his own ambitions. Consequently the military mindset had never been more than an awkward overlay at best, quickly shed once I'd decided to throw in my lot with Harlock, and later taking over as captain of the Arcadia. I'm good at what I do - which mostly involves flying by the seat of my pants. Taking orders and actually obeying them? Not so much...

'It's not about trust. You'd go into a fight to take one for a friend without hesitating, but your acquaintance with the Chain of Command was spotty at best even when you were in the Fleet - and don't give me that look, Harlock - I've seen your record - even if you hadn't had your brother's leash around your neck, that rigid fleet uniform collar would have chafed. And "screw the rules, I'll make my own decisions" was precisely the attitude that got my brother into so much trouble.' He took a deep breath. 'And it wasn't Harlock who gave the order. His own father-in-law was on board one of those planes. Justin Rosenbach begged him to fire on those transports, even knowing it meant his own death - I'll bet Isora didn't tell you that one?'

No, he hadn't, but then there was a lot he either hadn't known, or hadn't cared to know. 'Why?'

'Because there were men on those ships who had plans for Earth that would have excluded anyone but a small elite from ever living there - they planned a final "cleansing" that would have left the planet for a chosen few. They planned on rounding up anybody who didn't meet their criteria and the result would have been a pile of bodies almost worthy of Promethium. The Gaia Sanction was compromised from the moment it was born, except hardly anyone knew it. But it was split into two factions - and one of them took the view that if they couldn't have the planet, then no-one could.'

I thought back to the battle in Earth orbit, eighteen years ago. The Arcadia. The Oceanos. And a sacrifice play that had left a chunk taken out of the Moon that you could still see on a good day from the surface of the ravaged planet. 'The Jovian Blaster?'

'Give the man a gold star. Taking out the leadership of the Elite - you know this bunch by the way - Doppler's Purists have been around for a long time - wasn't enough. I broke the rules myself by taking my ship out to Jupiter to take the damn thing out, and almost got myself killed doing it, because I got caught with my pants down by that Neutron Star System. Disabled them both - permanently, I thought at the time, sorry about that… But that wasn't enough for Harlock…'

The rest I'd pieced together over the years: Harlock's plan to ensure weapons like those couldn't be used to target Earth by surrounding it with a dark matter shield - a plan that had gone utterly, catastrophically wrong. The four Deathshadow ships had been caught in a massive backblast from the chain reaction, and had been thought destroyed by it, only the Arcadia escaping, albeit dramatically changed and twisted by the process.

That assumption had been proved totally wrong in the last few years, and each time, the results had been terrible: the Deathshadow Two had been used to create a rip in space-time that still hovered over our heads. Nothing we'd found near the Gate of Yedar had given us any idea what its purpose was. Deathshadow Three had brought with it a mutated plague that had wiped out whole systems along its path, and had cost me the lives of several people I cared about and loved before we'd taken it out. My best friend. Our daughter. Our baby son. It had almost cost me Mamoru and Kei, and nightmares about that time still haunted both of us.

The water was now cold, so I stepped out of the shower cubicle and into the air dryers, warming up slightly in the blasts of hot air. 'You saw the ships go down?'

He nodded, and handed me my pants. 'Close enough to see it happen, too far away to stop it. I begged Harlock not to do anything stupid. Khalsa tried to get through to him, begged him to stop, but he didn't listen. I put the engines into the red trying to reach him - but even then, I didn't believe… I didn't even think - that it could go so badly wrong. I thought he'd kill himself trying, for fuck's sake…' He stood staring into the empty room, and a single tear trickled down his cheek, to vanish into his silvery beard as he lowered his head. 'I saw him fall. I saw them all fall, black fire leaping from ship to ship, tearing them apart.

'The Earth… Oh, God help me… It was like watching the planet turn itself inside out. The atmosphere was black and red, like the fires of hell itself. Mountains crumbled in the space of a heartbeat and the seas... The land heaved, buckled, thrown up into space and torn apart in an instant. And all I could do was watch…' He took a deep shuddering breath. 'Miranda… Katie… Ellie... my wife. My daughters. Tochiro's wife Annelise and their daughters. My home. My family. My friends… all gone, in less time that it takes to tell you.'

I laid a hand on his shoulder. Truthfully, there wasn't much else I could do. Even after over a hundred years this was a wound that still bled. I wondered how the hell he bore it, day in, day out, without succumbing to the same nihilistic apathy as his brother. But I figured I had most of my answer in what he'd become over the years. Instead of sinking into the terrible, self-loathing depression of his brother, he'd gone out and made a difference. He was a man who liked to stay busy. He moved out from under my brief gesture with an apologetic smile.

'You shouldn't let me ramble,' he said, as he stripped off and moved into the shower cubicle. 'An old man's regrets and a lifetime of guilt…'

'I think you're too hard on yourself,' I told him, my voice muffled slightly by my shirt as I pulled it on over my head. Our hosts had at least seen fit to provide the pair of us with some clean clothing, thankfully, as after a couple of days ours was getting a little ripe. I never could be bothered with buttons so I tended to just undo enough to pull the damn thing on and off. 'But it helps - to understand. A little of what you endured. Maybe even to understand this Captain Nero, if he is Khalsa. From what you say, it's possible he survived the dark matter reaction, like Harlock.' I paused to pick up my patch and tie it over my eye. 'Okay, maybe hopefully not totally like Harlock… I'd rather not have two of them to deal with…'

Hannibal's mouth twitched slightly at the corners. 'Khal was a warrior through and through - and much less inclined to wallowing in his own misery than my brother,' Hannibal replied over the splashing drizzle of the shower unit. 'Like Harlock though, he had his blind spots, and he could be a little rigid. A good man is not always an easy man to live with…' he switched off the water and stepped out. 'Was it necessary to use up all the hot water, you two?'

I ignored him, and returned the favour from earlier by handing him his pants when he stepped out of the dryer. 'Hard, stubborn, principled… You do know we're screwed, right?'

He pulled up his pants and took the black shirt Kei offered. 'Maybe. They want something from us though. Anyone who feels he has to kidnap me and hold me prisoner to get my attention feels they've got a good reason to keep me under control whilst they lay out why they want me. Same goes for you - unless he doesn't know about the regime change…'

I laughed harshly. 'Oh, they know. This Yanez puts on a good show, but he's playing us. Make the infamous space pirate think he's a nobody? Please. I went through Andromeda like, as Ali would say, prunes through a short granny a few years back, and Promethium's had my wanted poster plastered over every available billboard and street light in the galaxy. The only people who didn't know I was passing through were already dead.'

'And strangely enough, I don't remember hearing about this "Nero" when we were over there,' Kei said, her normally smooth forehead bearing a tiny crinkle as she frowned. 'Terror of Andromeda my arse…'

'Games,' I added sagely. 'This Yanez is almost as playful with his prey as I am. I seriously love the way he's got his crew to play along - they're enjoying the Dastardly Pirate roles, but it's not who they are.'

'Like your crew,' Hannibal replied dryly.

Kei shook her head and answered for me. 'Our guys enjoy playing silly buggers and knocking the unwary on their arses by playing at being screw-ups, then showing their hard bastard credentials. This lot are playing pirate, but they're smooth underneath it. Guard changes are like clockwork, and the slouches evaporate whenever an officer walks past - in fact, that's how we've identified some of the command crew, for all they dress down and try to act as though they're all in it together. When we're not around, this is one very slick, well trained crew.'

'So's ours,' I felt the need to add, feeling I had to stand up for them.

She just rolled her eyes. 'They're a bunch of individualistic fuckups you happen to be very good at going in the same direction most of the time,' she pointed out. Hannibal gave me a sympathetic shrug.

'Some help you are,' I told him. 'Whose side are you on?'

'It's a compliment,' Kei added, giving me a pat on the arm. She sighed a little wistfully, and I knew damned well why - the little minx loved nothing better than order and efficiency, something the Arcadia tended to be a little… lacking… in from time to time. Just to make it clear I glared at Hannibal. 'You can't have her,' I told him. 'No matter how much she begs to swap commanders.' He just smirked and sat down to pull his boots on.

Kei laughed and gave me a peck on the cheek. 'But I'd be bored on the Miranda,' she told me. 'They're so polite and efficient…'

'Bossy.' I told her. 'You're still bossy.'

'Still have a ship full of people with serious social issues and problems with authority,' she replied. She was about to say more, then cocked her head on one side. Hannibal and I both felt the same change and we all reached for our flight jackets. I picked up Hannibal's by mistake, and we exchanged with sheepish grins. Kei zipped hers up with a determined flourish. 'We've stopped.'

'Not quite - coming in for a landing,' I added, feeling the minute gravity changes as the ship dived through the atmosphere. I turned to Hannibal. 'You can pay me when we get home,' I told him.

'Pay you?' Kei turned a puzzled frown on me as we walked back to our quarters.

'I bet him this lot had a planetary base, not a space one.' I grinned at the red-haired guard as we walked past. 'Hi, O'Malley. Looks like you'll be able to top your tan up!' He ignored me - or at least tried to. I'd almost succeeded in getting this guy to crack, and a couple of times the corners of his mouth had twitched when I baited him. Like now. I felt the ship rock slightly as she touched down, and grinned still further. 'Two for two? Damn, I'm good…'

'Smartarse,' was all Hannibal said as he walked past me and into our room. Kei tugged my sleeve. 'Two?'

'We just touched down on water,' I told her. 'Seriously? Did neither of you spot the tan lines and the calluses from hauling ropes some of these guys have? Or the way they walk? Half of them spend a lot of time on the water...' I walked into our quarters, hands in my pockets, and feeling rather pleased with myself. Now assuming I was reading things around here correctly, our host should be along shortly to escort us personally to meet his "captain"...

...and I was three for three when I saw our host, Yanez, standing in the middle of the room, waiting for us with a smug grin on his weathered face.