I originally had only my predecessor as an example of pre-Homecoming War humanity, but with a second example (three if you count Hannibal, four Tochiro and five Mimay who has a bit of a free pass for being an alien) I was starting to think that "cagey with information, never tells you the whole story" was perhaps one of the reasons we almost wiped ourselves out.

By the time I'd dragged the last few titbits out of Yanez, I was alone on the beach because the rest of the chickenshit cowards had left, expecting me to face the oncoming storm - otherwise known as Hannibal.

Almost alone. Mamoru was leaning against a piece of driftwood that was planted in the sand -a red flag with a rampant tiger in gold on it fluttering in the early evening breeze - arms folded, ankles crossed in the time-honoured pose favoured by stoic badasses across three galaxies and several thousand years of recorded history and fictional narratives.

'Hoping for your inheritance sooner than expected?' I twitted him. He just let me have that incandescent shit-eating grin that must be coded on a dominant gene down the male line of our family.

'Figured the rest of them would leave you hung out to dry. Besides, Grampy wouldn't kill you in front of your own son, now would he?'

'Keep calling him that and I wouldn't count on your own survival,' I told him. 'But if Nero thinks I'm doing his dirty work for him, he's sadly mistaken. It's not my job to get between men on personal matters. Especially ones this painful. Which is what I told his boyfriend back there. Now I'm going back to the ship for a much needed shower and change of clothes, and to relieve Selen.'

'Back into leather? That's a relief… you really don't pull off that whole badass space pirate thing in baggy silk pants.' he smirked as we walked. Cheeky sod. I ignored the jibe. For the first time he wasn't scuttling to keep up, his stride keeping pace with mine. He might even have been slowing down for his old man, I realised ruefully, since I still have a slight limp from a catalogue of abuse to my leg over the years. 'It's weird though isn't it? I mean… what were the odds?'

'Pretty damn good, sadly.' I'd pondered the same thing myself for a while, but you had to factor in the interested parties, and that's what I told Mamoru as we walked. 'This is a Doppler Corp operation, and Harlock, Tochiro, Hannibal and Nero had several run-ins with them before the war. They were keen to optimise their elite genetic selection, and Tochiro tells me that included Harlock's family - though they considered the line something of a wild card. We always suspected they were behind what happened to Dan and Hank, and they and Nero's "daughters", were among a group of clones found in a separate part of the main transport, and given more detailed memory baselines to the rest, so I'm guessing they weren't destined for the distillation factories. Luna can do some work-ups once she has some samples, but I'll bet good money these also aren't exact copies. Best guess? Military grade fodder or worst case - new bodies for the rebels and/or their metanoid masters. Since they checked the other transports -' Yanez, once he got talking, didn't stop '- and didn't find another chamber like that one, my thinking is these were top of the line samples. Which is some relief, because the idea of thousands of family members fed into Promethium's machines fills me with horror.'

'And thousands of people who aren't related to us doesn't?'

I glanced at him, but he was wearing his most neutral expression. 'Ouch. Determined to call the old man out today?'

He shrugged. 'It's a pretty simple question, though, isn't it? I mean, do we care more if it's family, even if not directly? It makes it more personal, sure, but it doesn't make it more wrong…'

'Some people would argue none of them matter, since they're not really human. Or at the moment, even truly alive.'

'By "some people" you mean Emeraldas?' He sighed. 'She's kind of focused, isn't she? You had a real fall out with her over that clone bank a few years back. Is that why she left?'

'She has a real hate on for her mother - understandable - but those clone-sibs are just as capable of becoming Selen as they are Promethium… and she took out several other "models" - for want of a better word - when she did it.'

We reached the ramp of the Arcadia's side hangar, and he tugged on my sleeve just before my foot touched the deck. 'Dad?'

I turned. Waited, whilst he wrestled with a question. 'If someone had got a copy of Yumi… raised her, loved her as their own… I mean… you despise Lazarus…'

'Wait right there,' I told him. 'Back up. Lazarus is a whole different ball game. He's got copies of my brother's memories, and frankly, he's even more of an asshole. And even if someone copied Yumi's memories, that would only be a starting point. She was only seven when she died - she'd grow up to be a different person, no more or less an individual than you or Wataru are.'

'Wataru and I aren't identical,' he pointed out.

'Nobody knew that until we had to take a DNA sample when you were sick,' I pointed out. 'You looked so alike anyway, it made no nevermind when you were kids. But to answer your question, I have no idea. One thing I do know? I do not agree with Emeraldas on the subject - and neither does Selen.' I hoped he'd leave it there, because the Millennial Queens' situation was a tangled web. Killing the clone-sibs was a moral black hole, since unless mind-wiped by Promethium, they would indeed have the same choices their sisters had. Cracking them out of their tubes and letting them have a life? Rather more of a problem, since you'd have no way of monitoring them for infiltrators. And we'd had a couple of attempts over the years - hence Emeraldas' shoot on sight policy.

Either way, we were screwed. And the current situation was shaping up to be a larger scale version of the same problem. Logistically, morally and legally, it was an epic ballache, and I just wished Nero had found someone else to dump this on. 'If it helps, I'd consider her my daughter, and your sister. But she wouldn't be Yumi, and to think of someone that way? A replacement for what was lost? It's just as toxic as thinking of them as a non-person. You can't just replace people. There were good reasons human cloning was never mainstream, and remains the purview of tyrants.' I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to this, but since he was the one who raised it, I asked. 'Never mind my fossilised opinions, Mamoru - what do you think?'

'That it's a headache whichever way you look at it. But that once someone's in this world? Then you make good on it. Mind you - living in a world of identikit copies? That's just got to be downright weird, right? Imagine a planet made up of millions of just one person…' He grinned. 'Hey, I think I watched that warp-vid…' The grin turned into that infamous smirk. '...right after watching that one about you with the gay…'

'Do not go there,' I warned him. He just sniggered, and stuck his hands in his pockets.

'Sorry.. But it is hysterical. And the sequel…'

'Which you shouldn't be watching since it's got a Mature Adults rating.'

'Oh please - that would exclude most of the crew.'

True, that. If we're talking emotional maturity, most of them would score lower than my boys.

'And besides,' he continued, 'Hang around with this lot long enough and sex ed classes just pale by comparison… I think I'd seen most kinds of kink by the time I hit puberty…'

'Please do not voice that opinion outside of friends and family - I'd hate to be arrested for allowing minors to be corrupted…' I drawled.

He snorted. 'Alongside what? Multiple counts of piracy, grand larceny, destruction of government and private property, sedition, terrorism, treason, unlawful access to and use of Warp Comm and other restricted servers, assault on a Fleet officer, actual bodily harm, murder, compromising commercial and military navigation and shipping lanes, and arson in a naval dockyard? Dad - the galaxy's depopulated, fragmented and human civilisation reduced to a few pockets of sanity in an insane world. Anyone complaining about someone under eighteen being aware of sex - or having it - needs to get a sense of perspective.' He fist-bumped my shoulder. 'And since I do have said sense of perspective, there's something I need to fetch from the Miranda - mind if I take one of the bullets?'

'One. One count of arson in a naval dockyard,' I corrected him. 'And if I hadn't blown those dark matter scrubbers way back when you wouldn't be here...' He smirked. 'Fine.' I waved him off before it hit me. 'Hang on - you're asking…' I narrowed my eye. 'Mamoru… what are you up to?'

'Nothing bad, honest!' He skipped back down the hangar before I could grab hold of him. 'I was talking earlier to that Ianthe about the transport power problem - In fact, I think you'll like this. Once you get over wanting to ground me for a year…'

'Fine. I… wait - what can you bring to that power problem?'

He waved one hand over his shoulder without turning back. I leaned against the nearest wall briefly, and watching him bounce to the bullet parked closest to the hangar bay door. I could have commed the bridge to ground the vehicle, but then he'd probably just grab the shuttle Blaze had come down in.

'If he puts so much as a scratch on that…' a voice growled near my right ear.

'Just buffed the hull?' I asked Doscoi. My surliest engineer - and yes, he makes Ali look like a ray of sunshine - just glared down into the hangar. 'He's as good a pilot as any of the men, Doscoi. Relax. It's not personal if the planes get a bit bumped from time to time.'

'Yeah? You ain't the one who has to polish out the dents,' he grumbled. 'Nice to have you back though,' he muttered gruffly.

'Selen too hard on you guys?'

'Too bloody soft,' he muttered. 'She was making them donuts. Donuts!' he threw his hands in the air. 'What self-respecting pirate captain makes donuts?'

'Yeah…' Franz had been walking past and leaned on the wall next to me companionably, a dreamy look on his face. 'You never make us donuts… crispy, warm, sugared donuts...'

'I used to bus your table and wash your laundry,' I pointed out. 'That not good enough for you?'

He smiled. 'Awww… rookie… you know, I do have a pile of dirty underpants if you feel the need to earn some points back…'

I slapped the back of his head, which he mostly ducked through long practice. Franz was one of a handful of crew still left from the original, when I'd come aboard. They'd follow me through hell and frequently have done, but later additions - even those as long serving as Doscoi - still didn't get the attitude. Or why I allowed it.

'Too soft…' Doscoi muttered again, walking away shaking his head. Franz grinned at me from under his 'tache. 'Somehow, that time, I don't think he meant Selen…'

'Donuts?' I asked, raising an eyebrow. He laughed.

'Oh hell yes… we were so well behaved she needed something to do. Seems she loves to cook.'

'Donut get used to it,' I told him, walking away with the same backwards wave my son had used earlier.

It took him at least three seconds, then he groaned. 'Captain…'

I gathered all the relevant parties in my war room a couple of hours later, and you could cut the atmosphere with something a lot less impressive than a sabre rifle - five of which were currently on show on hips.

Make that six, because Morgan walked in with one as well, and then seven because the blond slab of muscle behind him was also carrying. They both looked comfortable with the weapons, which is unusual enough of itself, since it's not a skill taught these days in the Fleet Academy. The blades were of a much older vintage than their current holders. Not exactly hard since if you thought about it, both men were about ten, not their apparent twenty-four, twenty-five.

But I suppose it answered the "has anyone told Hannibal?" question.

I glanced over to where Rei was sitting, motherball hovering behind his shoulder, already at the table, with Blaze shoving his feet off it with a slap against his boots. One artificial young man who looked sixteen but who was actually created over twenty years ago, and a whole group of young people who looked over twenty but who'd been brought into the world no more than ten years ago.

Then we had the more vintage members of the group, one of whom looked even close to their ages: Hannibal; Selen; Me; Blaze; Kei… Khalsa slash Nero. Yanez I gathered from titbits he'd let drop was about my age - he just looked it.

No-one could accuse us of being normal...

Yanez was staring at the group made up of myself, Hannibal, Blaze and Selen with an amused smile, which was then extended to his captain. 'Did I miss a memo?' he asked with a spritely grin, before taking a free seat next to Ali, who scowled at him. 'No-one said anything about a uniform…'

It took me a moment to work out what he was talking about, and then I had to smile. I'd been stuffed into a black flightsuit and a matching jacket, with the gravity cloak over the top. Both Hannibal and Blaze wore the black flightsuits of the Millennial Thieves with a long mantle over them. Selen was similarly attired but without the mantle, and Nero…

Nero looked as though he'd stepped out of an historical action vid. Black knee boots with a much wider top than ours, almost but not quite identical to ancient sea boots. Tight black pants that frankly fitted where they touched, and a mid thigh length black waistcoat over a full sleeved black shirt that was open almost to the belly button. Over those his gun belts sat, antique cosmo flintlock on one, the gravity sabre in the other, and a wicked looking curved blade that looked as though it could disembowel a man just by looking at him thrust through the belt under his sabre. Over that he wore a shorter gravity cloak than mine, totally black, asymmetric and slung over one shoulder.

'I think you forgot the earring,' Ali sniggered.

'They're too easy to pull off in battle,' Nero replied without missing a beat.

'Well for once at least you won't disgrace me,' Kei murmured in my ear as she passed me on her way to the table. 'Who's the Colonel Douglas look-alike?' she asked out loud.

'This is David,' Nero said, introducing the young man. 'Since we don't have room for all of my captains, I only brought along the most senior, bar two. Liam O'Malley you've met, and there's also his twin Erik, but they're prepping the rest of the fleet.' He smiled. 'And those two are actual twins, for the record - I picked them up on a transport from New Maracaibo about fifteen years ago, bound for Promethium's "distilleries".'

'Is it something in the water?' Ali asked, 'or just coincidence that that makes three Deathshadow captains who make a habit of picking up waifs and strays? Coz you and Hannibal can't pass a stray kitten without picking it up either...'

'I'd suggest that the kind of man who can handle the pressure of the responsibility of these ships is also the kind of man who protects anyone who needs it,' Selen told him. 'Compassion isn't weakness.'

'The only thing you're missing is the freaky ship,' Ali replied jauntily. 'And no, but it does seem to get us all into a shitload of trouble,' he grumbled. And this from a man who'd once gone under cover on a fragile asteroid to save a bunch of orphans used as forced labour.

'Well… at least no-one's dropping rocks on my head, and you've kept your pants on. Thus far.' I told him, referencing said incident. He glared at me and folded his arms, but said nothing, probably not wanting anyone to know he'd been caught out.

'So what's the plan?' Rei asked. 'I get that you and Captain Black over there will be kicking arse with the dark matter ships. What are the rest of us doing?'

'You'll be sitting it out here,' I told him, before he had to take the grounding from either his mother or brother. 'Mamoru says he needs you for his little project regarding the powersource.'

'Oh. That…' He developed a consuming interest in his own fingernails at that point. I tabled it and moved on, figuring I could squeeze the details out the pair later.

'Nero and I will be taking Arcadia and Thunderbolt to intercept the Phantasma ships, before they reach the system - I'd rather take them out in the interstellar gulf, than close to home. There's no knowing what could happen if we destroy them, and it makes a mockery of our defences here if we blow up the sun.'

Morgan raised a hand. 'Is that even a thing?'

'Not if we stay in the intergalactic void,' I assured him. I hoped he didn't notice that I had my fingers crossed. 'Morgan? You'll be with Hannibal, securing that Doppler Corp facility.'

'I thought we were going to transport anything we liberated back here?' Morgan asked.

Hannibal stepped forward, and the younger man instinctively took an involuntary step back - then caught himself, and resolutely stepped forward again, and held his ground. And eye contact. Good for him… he had a spine under the fancy embroidery. 'Won't work, and we can't - as you pointed out - risk the clones down there any more than we have to. Simpler to secure it, and move the operation there once we're done. Doppler's over-extended by setting up a base this far away from the Milky Way - it'd cost him a small fortune to retake it, he'd prefer to cut his losses. We'll take however many of your ships you can spare…' he nodded to Nero. 'The rest will stay in wide patrol in-system. Maximum spread. Anything that gets past Harlock and Khalsa will be their problem.'

'On the ground,' I picked up again smoothly, 'Selen will help co-ordinate both the maintenance of those transports, and any ground defences.'

'So she'll be co-ordinating with us.'

Three young women walked into the room, in shorts and tanks. Like the rest of the adult clones, they appeared to be in their mid-twenties. One of them - the shortest - grinned and blew a kiss at David, whose fair skin went bright red.

I nudged Yanez in the ribs. 'You said they were going to be safely offshore until we'd left?'

'Do your kids do what they're told?' he whispered back. 'When Nero told them, they kind of tore a strip off him…'

Good for them… and good point. Even Nami has a stubborn streak a mile wide, and she's a little angel compared to her older sister, who used to lead her brothers into trouble all the time even at seven. Yeah… leave that one alone, and don't wonder how you'd feel if it was Yumi standing there in come-fuck-me shorts and a barely there tank top… Ali had his mouth open and was staring in open admiration and even Blaze was sneaking a long, head to toe appreciative look when he thought no-one was looking.

Hannibal, on the other hand, had gone so pale his scars - the three that marred his right cheek - stood out as dark slashes on his skin, vanishing into his silver beard. He recovered quickly, and stepped forward.

'Girls…'

Hannibal raised a hand to shut Nero up, but his daughters got there before him. Three young women with determined looks on their faces that seemed very familiar, faced their adoptive father, hands on hips.

'We talked it over, father. The consensus was you're being over-protective - both to us, and to him…' the girl talking pointed to Hannibal. She looked so like my mother, this had to be a clone of Aurora. Which was the point when I appreciated a fraction of just how weird it had to be for Hannibal.

Oh… you have no idea… Tochiro murmured in my head. But they are seriously cute…

'Khal… you and I are overdue for a very long, pointed conversation when this is over,' he said very, very softly. Selen and Blaze both flinched. 'Introduce me, would you?'

Nero swallowed hard. 'Dione, Galene and Halia. My daughters.' He said the last word as though defying Hannibal to contradict him.

'Father told us you were our real father - biological.' The second girl - Galene? said quietly. 'We asked Selen if it would be okay to meet you…'

Hannibal closed the distance to Dione and smiled sadly. 'It seems she was the only one who had the balls to talk to me. Dione, is it? My oldest daughter's name was Aurora, and she was that one's -' a hand jerked in my direction - 'great-great grandmother.' He reached out and touched her face gently. 'She was younger than you, the last time I saw her. Galene? Her name was Elena. And Halia? Your original's name was Ekaterina. Katie. They died… when Earth was destroyed. With their mother.' His smile was so full of sorrow it would have broken the hardest heart in that moment.

There are many kinds of courage - and in a way I think it's easier to face our enemies, than to stand there, as Hannibal did then, in front of those copies of his long-dead daughters. Harlock's way of dealing with pain and loss had been to open a bottle, and try to uncork the universe to make it all go away. And this was where Hannibal and I both differed from him, in that we tried - as best we could - to make the best of the crap that we waded through. But I'm not sure I'd have had the courage and the strength that Hannibal showed us, if our places had been reversed. If Yumi, or my foster-sister, Nami, had stood in front of me...

Hannibal spoke softly to the young women. 'I never saw them as young women. They were still so very young... ' He touched each of them very gently - just a hand on a cheek. 'To see in you what they would have been… grown so beautiful. So like their - your - mother...' He turned to Nero. 'For keeping this from me, Khal… I will demand a reckoning.'

Nero flinched and placed a hand on the hilt of his sabre. 'Mamoru… I am sorry.'

'Don't be. However Doppler and his thieving lackeys will be.'

'I love you,' Ali spoke up, waving his hand in the air for attention. 'Just for the record...'

No one laughed, but the tension did ease, slightly.

'But…' Hannibal continued. 'Thank you. For saving these three, and Ianthe. And for the chance for me to see them grown.' He turned and walked towards the door. 'I need a moment.'

Even Ali watched him leave without making a snarky comment. I caught Kei's eye, and followed him out, leaving her to carry on with the briefing.

He'd only gone a few yards down the corridor, and was leaning against the wall. As I walked he slumped down to the floor, his posture mirroring that of his brother, almost twenty years ago, when Kei and I had rescued him from Isora's chains… 'Hannibal…'

'I just need a moment…' His voice, reduced to a husky whisper, was also so close to Harlock's in that moment…

Mamoru? Tochiro's gentle voice over the comms made him raise his head. I've been following this. If you need to talk…

He hauled himself back to his feet, not without effort. When I moved to offer a hand he waved it off. 'It's fine.'

'It really isn't. You know… Blaze could take the Miranda. You've been training him to replace you eventually…'

He shook his head. 'I'm the best person to lead that side of it, just as you and Selen can handle your jobs. And Harlock - I appreciate the concern, but I'm not my brother. I don't run from pain.'

'No-one should have to face this,' I said softly. He smiled that sad smile again.

'No. But here we are. And after we finish here, Lisa Douglas and Takuma Ichimonji will have to face it as well. And Oedo - he loved that pair of jokers as though they were his own sons… But you don't deal with problems by wishing them away. We both know that.'

He patted my shoulder as he walked past, heading back to the war room. 'We learned it the hard way, more than once.' He paused before reaching the open doorway. 'I meant it, Harlock. It really does matter… to see them grown. Doppler might have taken their DNA for his own purposes - but to see them… after all these years? Given a second chance? It hurts - but it's a hurt I can live with, under the circumstances.' He paused. 'They're not my girls… it's in the eyes. And that's what hits hardest. Not their faces, but to see a stranger looking back at you…' He sighed, then pulled himself together. 'Have you noticed just how shockingly gentle these people are? They're barely ten years old in real terms, but expected to be adults, by training, and by biology. Khalsa's doing his best, but they're not as worldly as they would be had they lived their lives from birth to this point. They're all about to get a terrible wake-up call…' His tone was sombre, his face thoughtful. 'Khal was right to eventually restrict the waking up to the youngest, physically. They have more time to mature.'

'And yet,' I murmured, 'we're going into battle with them.'

'There were never going to be any easy answers to this,' Hannibal replied. 'But these "specials" at least had additional conditioning. I hope it counts for something. But whichever side comes for them - Promethium, Loki or these Metanoids - they need protecting.'

'Mamoru asked me if it mattered more, if they had the faces of family,' I mused.

'Mamoru is frequently wise beyond his years,' he said quietly. 'What was your answer?'

'Truthfully? I changed the subject.'

'Seems he gets his smarts from both of you,' he said with a sly smile. He re-entered the war room, and the escalating conference.

Kei caught my eye and I sauntered over. 'Did I miss much?'

'There's an additional wrinkle…' she whispered.

'Hold up a minute!' Mamoru stuck his head around the door. 'Sorry I'm late.' He dropped into a chair next to Rei. 'Carry on - but I think we might have a solution…'

Morgan cleared his throat. 'We're risking the entire complement of clones once the Thunderbolt's dark matter drive's disconnected. There's no way in hell there's enough power for all of the ships - not to keep them in stasis, and we can't risk the clone banks powering up.'

'So you lose a few,' Ali shrugged. 'They're not really alive, are they, until they're hatched? Those ships are underwater, right? Why not just cut the more marginal transporters loose - the ones with the worst chances - and let them sink?' He looked from one silently shocked face to another. 'What?'

I shook my head, and Kei looked as though she wanted to put her face in her hands. Rei muttered "dude" and moved his chair away rather ostentatiously, presumably to avoid splatter. The rest just seemed to be waiting for someone else to call the bonehead out.

Morgan balled his hands into fists so hard his knuckles were white where he leaned on the table across from my big-mouthed crewman. 'Is that what you people think? That we're not real?'

'That ain't what I sa…'

'You're aware, in those tubes… Once that stasis field is gone, they'll be awake. Unable to move, unable to even think properly until the downloads take place and that's another moment of terror… but they - we - can feel. And you can't forget it. It's your worst nightmare. There's pain, and darkness… the forced growth is carried out so fast, and without painkillers, because why waste the money? If we did this… they'll die alone, in the dark, screaming, and not knowing why, or what's happening to them. But they'll die in agony and in terror. Cruel enough to come into the world like that. Crueller still to die without love, in the cold, the dark…' he trailed off. 'Ianthe and I... We weren't sure… at first… if we did the right thing. Wanting a family. To be normal. To bring a life into the world with love. But it's right. It's natural. What we endured… what the rest of them are enduring right now, is wrong. But we won't right it by drowning them. Or allowing them to die without a fight.' He glared defiantly into Ali's face and then mine, and Kei's, finally lingering on Hannibal's, as though searching for something in our eyes. 'We talked about it. All of us. I wish I could say we came up with an answer…'

'Mom? Is that... I mean I never thought about what would happen - to be born as an adult…' Blaze asked, looking rather shell-shocked at the thought.

She wrapped her arms around herself but said nothing. Hannibal reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, very gently.

I stepped in. 'None of us did. Lar Metal's programme was pretty much done by the time I saw much of the planet.' Though it did make me wonder a little more about Luna's history. Our doctor was a broken woman underneath her bluster, had worked in the elite medical facilities before opening a clandestine clinic amongst the workers, and I wondered if it wasn't totally due to the loss of her child and husband to the mechanisation… There'd been a lot wrong with Lar Metal long before Selen's sister had lost the plot.

Hannibal sighed heavily, and I knew from the look on his face what he would say next. 'You're having second thoughts about the Thunderbolt.' I said bleakly, the sick certainty settling like a cold lead weight in my stomach. Looking around the room, everyone else felt the same.

Move the Deathshadow One, and the clones on those transports would die. Alive, sentient, aware… They might die anyway, with losses in the process, or if we couldn't schedule a staggered awakening to take account of limited resources. Or if those three Phantasma got past me and took them anyway. There were no certainties bar one: Whatever was in our power to do, we'd do it. They might die in spite of everything we could do, but I'd be damned if they'd die because of it.

'I wasn't comfortable with writing off those transports even if we thought of their "cargo" to be so much meat in storage,' Hannibal said quietly. 'The Arcadia's the most advanced of her class… can you…?'

'Just Arcadia, against three Phantasma? You don't ask much…' I quipped half-heartedly. Mentally I was already trying and discarding numerous battleplans the way Nami and Kanna can go through their wardrobes before a night out. I couldn't ask any of Nero's ships to help out - they'd be wiped out in the first salvo.

One ship against several would work when the advantage was with Arcadia. And against any normal fleet, that held true. Against her own class or better, on a level playing field?

It couldn't be done. Not with one. I wasn't sure I could do it with two.

'I have to, Hannibal.'

Morgan glared icy daggers at me. Well, so he should. 'Hate me if you want,' I told him. 'But I know the power of those ships. If they get past me, you're all dead. Every last one of you. If the nibelung rebels and those metanoids get their way and open the Gate of Yedar, everyone's dead, because there won't be a universe left that we'd be able to live in.'

I could see Hannibal thinking the scenario over, and knew to the second the moment he came to what he thought would be a compromise. 'Then I'll fly with you, and Blaze can take the lead along with Morgan on the raid. They don't need me…'

'Yes, they do. The Miranda's a great little ship, but she's not in the same weight class. Besides - you're the logistics expert. Everyone tells me this - Mimay, Tochiro… your bloody annoyingly incorporeal brother… you know what we have to work with, Hannibal. Make it work. You have Selen, and there are plenty of your lot embedded in Andromeda fighting Promethium. Time to call them in. But the longer we argue, the closer those ships get.'

He nodded, once. Morgan opened his mouth to speak, snapped it shut. 'Speak up,' I told him. 'We don't hold back.'

'There's a window… of maybe three days where the transports run on auxiliary power. Is there a way to maybe use some other power source to keep them running? Link the ships together more eff-'

'Or you could do that with the help of a portable dark matter generator?'

Seven eyes were suddenly fixed on my oldest, who sat there, hands in his pockets, hair flopping down over the damned eyepatch - which he wears because he gets arsy about popping in the prosthetic that's supposed to help his socket grow properly - with a wide, smug grin on his all too handsome face.

'Okay...' I said, starting out as slowly and quietly as I could manage. The little bugger had just spent several months on Niflheim, so I was guessing "rhetorical" wasn't on the table. 'I take it that means you have one?'

Nod.

'From Niflheim.'

Nod.

'Which you, Rei and Freya were planning on handing off to Taro when you got home?'

Open and shut mouth like carp on a cutting board. Busted… Nibelung tech was not supposed to leave the planet, unless under the aegis of Professor Oedo, the project leader.

'Blaze had no idea,' he blurted out.

Blaze looked as though he wanted to strangle my son and I was tempted to tell him to get in line.

'Not helping your case,' I replied. 'Given that you shouldn't have been able to sneak anything past him if he'd kept his damn eyes open.'

'Oh, he only had eyes for Emilia…' he began. Then rapidly, finally, shut his mouth when he realised he'd dropped Blaze right in it. The guilty party just rolled his eyes and moved so his mother was between him and Hannibal. 'Oh, c'mon,' Mamoru added when faced with stony silence from Blaze, myself and Hannibal. 'Everyone else is bloody well shagging, so who cares?'

'Not you I hope,' I watched his face as he struggled to frame a non incriminating reply. 'You're fifteen…'

'So was I,' Hannibal pointed out helpfully. Before I could point out that he really wasn't helping, he twisted the conversation back on track. 'Is it in working order?'

I waited until the rest of them finished sniggering before addressing Hannibal, who now had that shoot-me-now look on his face. 'You really, really want that one back, don't you?'

'Oh hell yes,' he muttered. 'Mamoru - the drive?'

'Oh yeah. That's also working.' His shit-eating smirk was plastered across his face to stay for the duration by the look of it. 'Rei and I can get it going, but it does take a fine hand to keep it focused. If Freya's needed on the Thunderbolt…'

'Then you'll have to talk nicely to Yngwie,' I told him. 'And probably apologise for knocking him out…'

I wondered if the mutinous eye glaring out from under a thatch of untidy brown hair was how others saw me… '...or you can just try glaring at him and offer to put a boot up his over tight tushie, whatever works for you,' I continued smoothly. 'But you'll have a dedicated line to Tochiro, just in case. He's the best brain we have.'

I watched that irritating - and familiar - smug smile widen - and then vanish so fast it almost got friction burns, as he realised he'd just talked himself into staying behind, safely out of the line of fire without me or his mother having to tie him down first.