To the Loyal Readers: Thank you for following - you know who you are! This will be the last post before the seasonal break, since the interwebs goes dark for about 2 weeks, and I hate posting in even more of a vacuum than usual! Corsairs both Black and Cosmic will return in the New Year! (Rumours that I considered calling this one "Captain Scarlock and the Mysteroids" are totally unfounded!)

Orange flames from a campfire appeared to lick the horizon as they leapt and danced against the backdrop of the setting sun vanishing into the ocean. Although too close to sit near, as the temperature still hadn't fallen to night time levels, the scent of food cooking in the ashes raked to the side of the fire filled the air, carried on a gentle sea-breeze to where eight young men and women sat on a pile of blankets thrown down to protect bare skin from the still hot sand. Periodically someone would pass round refills from the demi-johns sticking out of a large bucket of defrosting ice water.

Morgan leaned back against a blanket-covered dune and massaged the dainty feet resting in his lap, smiling at Ianthe's blissful sighs. 'Apart from a couple of arseholes, I'm pleasantly surprised. They're not at all what we expected,' he said. He took one hand off foot-rubbing duty and shoved the lean figure making itself comfortable against his shoulder. 'Find someone else to lean on, Dav. Ianthe will get the wrong idea…'

'Ianthe,' a feminine voice from lower to the ground replied, 'Is going to start getting growly if you don't get back to rubbing her feet…'

Morgan grinned and re-applied himself. 'You do know what they say about people who talk about themselves in the third person, right, love?'

'She's stuffed full of your spawn,' David pointed out mildly. He took a large swig from the glass in his hand. 'She gets what she wants and can say what she wants…' He lay back on the blanket and put his arms behind his head. 'That blonde in the leather thights is something else, isn't she?' he sighed appreciatively. 'Those legs just go on forever, and did you ever see such ti…-'

'David!' Ianthe's spluttered indignation made everyone laugh.

'She's Harlock's,' Morgan pointed out. 'And the mother of that scarred kid. So first - totally unavailable and second, way too old for you.'

'She doesn't look it,' Erik said from the other side of the blankets. 'In fact I got Galene to check the files from the Space Sheriffs' outpost? They're all old… I mean, almost fifty.'

'They don't look that much older than us,' David pointed out. 'But then, we're not exactly our apparent ages, are we? Just a few years of experience built on top of a personality matrix…'

'Doesn't make us any less who we are,' Ianthe said firmly. She reached out and squeezed Morgan's hand. 'We're us…'

'Are we so sure?' Liam, Erik's twin plonked his tall form down next to them. Across the fire the girls were giggling together, and he waved at the trio. 'Yanez and the captain had their heads together earlier - they can't figure out who shut down the grid earlier. We could be well and truly infiltrated - and how would we know?'

'It can't be one of us though - I mean - we'd know?' Morgan couldn't help the question creeping into his voice. David patted his knee, the only part he could reach from prone.

'S'okay, Morgan. Those two gingers are far too ridiculous to be reboots, and we all know each other too well for an imposter to pass.'

'We do - but we aren't the only cohort. If you were going to slip un-noticed into us, a group would be the perfect cover - we've always kept in pairs or groups to avoid being replaced, but what if a group were covering for each other?' Morgan had stopped rubbing his wife's feet and rested one hand on a puffy ankle. 'More scarily - what if some of us were sequestrated before we were decanted? You wouldn't spot strange behaviour then, would you? Because we're all weird when we're first born, until the synapses start firing. You'd always have been like that…'

'Father and Uncle Yanez think that there might have been a weak point whilst Yanez was kidnapping our new friends,' Ianthe said drowsily. 'But I think whoever took out the grid had been around far longer than that - I mean - how else would they know? In such a short time?'

'Can they access your memories?' Liam asked.

'Good luck with that,' David snorted. 'We don't have any… not that would be useful to anyone.'

'Useful enough,' Morgan pointed out. 'But that thing that attacked the beach - we'd never seen anything like that until these pirates got here. Maybe they brought it?'

'It went straight for them, father said.' Galene dropped gracefully to the ground and crossed her legs, sticking her tongue out at David when he leered appreciatively. Her sisters sat next to her and passed around the baked roots, which were juggled from hand to hand with much blowing on fingers until a laughing Dione passed out the plates. 'Harlock seems nice - he's handsome, in spite of that scar. And I like the tall one with the dark hair - he's got a lovely smile…'

'The one who hangs around with his mom?' David asked slyly. 'Yeah… I can see how that would appeal… oof!' He glared at her, and she pulled her bare foot back from his chest. 'I don't think "licking you from head to toe with his eyeballs" is a good enough reason to exclude them from suspicion,' he continued. 'We don't know these guys…'

'I would think if he's leching at the ladies, then he's kind of by definition "not an undead creepy reboot with no personality…"' Dione offered. 'Also - they're all kind of silly…'

'Don't fall for that,' Liam warned. 'These guys are in the same league as the captain and Yanez for tough - maybe more, if they live up to their rep. That banter? They know each other so well they can pick up and run with the tiniest cue between them. We were watching them all the time on the Lightning. And that nice old man? Might be over a hundred and fifty and change, but strips down to lean, hard muscle and looks as fit as Harlock… don't let the silver hair fool you. I don't think they're reboots, but I wouldn't piss any of them off on a bet.'

'But if they're not reboots, we still need to nail down who is,' Ianthe said. She shifted until she was sitting up and leaning back against Morgan, almost purring as he dutifully rubbed her lower back. 'Oh gods… I'll be so glad once this is over… any bigger I'll need a crane to get me back to my feet…'

'Wasn't going to be the one to say it, sis,' Dione twitted her. She shrieked and ducked the paper plate that headed her way. Ignoring the peanut gallery, Ianthe continued: 'We can't be sure how many might be among us. They might try and sabotage the island defences - or they might be on board one of the ships…'

Dav raised a hand and sat up, looking around intently. 'Did you hear something?'

'Apart from your stomach?' Morgan drawled.

''No… behind…'

'Don't shoot! It's just us!' A bright, youthful tenor called out. The two youths who'd arrived with the Miranda stepped out of the shadows of the dune, the one-eyed boy waving his hands in the air above his head - the mock surrender somewhat ruined by the fact he was holding two large bags that contained something with a delightful smell. 'We thought we'd be sociable, and brought goodies…'

He grinned and placed the bags next to Ianthe with a wink. 'I was told that one should always offer food to the pregnant woman first…'

'...or the guys,' the other boy said, dropping down between the twins with an equally chirpy grin, which for some reason looked a lot less reassuring on his narrow face. 'Dig in - the Arcadia's cook is one hell of a chef, and my mom runs the best ramen shop on Tabito…'

'Your mom runs the only ramen shop on Tabito,' the other boy pointed out. He grinned again as Ianthe sniffed the contents and grabbed a bag, slapping Morgan's fingers away with a mock growl. 'Plenty to go round, even with the small singularity Rei there calls a stomach. I'm Mamoru, by the way. Any of that rocket fuel going begging?'

David placed a protective hand on the jug. 'You don't look eighteen…'

'Probably because I'm not. I'm fifteen, and I've been drinking engine room hooch for far longer than I will ever admit to my somewhat over-protective parents. Besides - if we're counting, how old are you guys?'

Morgan shrugged and grinned at his friend. 'Dav - he kind of has us there. Pass it over. If he passes out…'

'I won't,' Mamoru assured them. 'Actually it doesn't really do much - kind of have my dad's metabolism when it comes to alcohol. Comes of too much dark-matter exposure…' He hefted the demi-john expertly onto his elbow, tipped his head back and drank down a generous amount before passing it to Rei. 'Bloody hell, that's weak… remind me to ask Maji to pop over before we leave and teach you guys how to distil it properly!'

David eyed him from under lowered lids. 'Weak? That stuff had me cross-eyed after the amount you just…' He sniffed as one of the insulated bags was being passed over his lap. 'What is that? It smells amazing... ' He reached in and hauled out a wrapped, steaming packet.

'That, my dear friends, is some of your local crayfish, in Anita's special chowder sauce, wrapped in a flatbread for your eating convenience. Rei here has some pots of her soup, and I believe the pregnant lady is trying to keep all of the ribs to herself…'

'Ribs? As in real meat?' When Rei nodded, Galene leaned forwards and fluttered her eyelashes at her sister. 'You can't be selfish, Ianthe…'

'Watch me.' But she snagged two dripping portions and allowed her sisters to pounce. 'The sauce is incredible…'

'That'd be mom's,' Rei added proudly. He snagged a portion for himself as the bag did the rounds. 'The adults,' he mumbled around a mouthful, 'are around that huge firepit further down the beach, discussing the weighty matters we're all caught up in. We saw you lot lounging around on your own and thought we'd be neighbourly…'

'You mean you were barred from the big boys table and thought we could fill you in?' Morgan asked.

'Ooh. Busted,' Mamoru told Rei with a smirk. 'Well… we're staying to help with the power supply, and we wanted to know a little more about your metanoid infestation…'

'When you put it like that,' Erik muttered, 'I want to reach for bug spray…'

'If it was only that simple,' Morgan replied. 'We're still trying to find a reliable test that doesn't involve deadly force.'

'The main problem is we just don't have the equipment,' Ianthe added in between licking barbeque sauce off her fingers. When Morgan leaned over to do the same, she pushed him away with a laugh. 'Stop that!' she slapped his hand lightly. 'Get yourself sticky!' Ignoring the laughter from her companions she continued. 'The kind of machines we'd need are only found on industrialised planets - and mostly for checking spaceship hulls for structural integrity. They're not exactly man-portable or suitable for use on living tissue.'

'What about the nibelung?' David asked. 'You have two, don't you? Maybe they know more than Yngwie. Not that he ever tells us anything. You know, for an alien he does a remarkable impersonation of a disgruntled teenager…'

'No sex for over a hundred years probably doesn't help,' Liam opined, earning a thump on the arm from Dione. 'What? I'd be grumpy…'

'You'd be grumpy if you went without for a day,' his twin told him.

'At least I don't head for the self-service counter,' Liam shot back.

Rei poked Mamoru in the side.

'Sounds like you and Wataru,' he joked.

'You've got a brother?' Liam grinned whilst fending off a slap from his. 'So… ever get the urge to just strangle the annoying twat?'

'Oi!' Erik pouted, and grumbled under his breath whilst glaring at his twin.

Mamoru smirked back. 'All the time - we're twins too, though we just look a lot alike - we're not monos.'

'That's one hell of a knife scar…' Halia, the quietest of the girls, leaned forward. 'What happened?'

'Hallie!' Galene tugged at her sister. 'I'm sorry. She sometimes just puts her big feet in it…'

'No biggie.' Mamoru shrugged. 'Someone went for Wataru - my brother - and I kind of got in the way.' His hand crept up self-consciously to straighten his eyepatch.'

'That's not recent - you must have been very young,' Hallie said softly.

'Nine,' he replied brusquely. When she flinched a little at his tone he winced. 'Sorry. It's okay. I'm used to it.'

'The loss, or the reaction?' she asked. 'Can't be easy, people pointing fingers…' She smiled, the gesture showcasing that same incandescent smile that he'd weaponised himself over the years. 'You'd be almost unbearably pretty otherwise, I think. It gives you more of an edge.'

'Hey, hey!' Dione mimed a "sorry" at Mamoru. 'Stop flirting with the underage boy!'

'I wasn't flirting!'

'Oh… you so were. Do you want him to die on the end of father's sabre?'

'Which one…?' Mamoru muttered. 'They'd both kill me. But I think I'm safe. We're kind of cousins, so…'

Rei's spit take almost hit Erik, and he waved an apology as he tried to recover his composure and fended off a helping hand. 'Seriously? In your family?'

Mamoru ignored him. 'So. Metanoids. Specifically this new thing with taking over corpses - what is that about? We talked to both Mimay and Freya and that's news to them as well. They know them as a basically humanoid -'

'Nibelungoid…' Rei interjected.

Mamoru carried on with only a slight eyeroll, '- lifeform that falls square into the uncanny valley - like their features were sculpted by a blind puppeteer, Mimay says. Very stiff features, not very expressive, and like wearing armour - though that might be part of them. A machine lifeform from the previous universe, according to Freya, and she mentioned something about the nibelung creating bodies for them, which makes me think the black cloud thingy that attacked Dad and the rest was their natural form…'

Morgan choked on a crayfish wrap. 'Previous universe?' he spluttered once David had almost flattened him by slapping him on the back. 'As in "before the big bang"?'

'More "before the expansion after the contraction at the end of the previous universe.".' A light contralto called out from the twilight behind them. Freya stepped out of the shadows and dropped gracefully between Mamoru and Rei, smiling a tiny, enigmatic smile at the group. 'Hello.'

'You shouldn't be out alone,' David grumbled, holstering his pistol. Like the rest of them, he stared openly at the dainty little nibelung.

'I'm not,' Freya replied lightly. She nodded as the glowing metal ball hovered behind Rei. 'Even if your people weren't constantly on guard, I had Boreas watching me.' She smiled again and continued. 'The universe cycles endlessly through aeons; energy - the true state of matter - passing from the crunch of one to the expansion of the next. The dark matter and more primal zero-point energy of this universe is a remnant of that previous state. The nibelung originated there as well, and our legends say we fled something darker than black in that universe - the Lords of Shadow.'

'Metanoids,' Rei offered helpfully, one hand resting gently on the motherball.

'Yeah. I think I can work that out,' David drawled. 'But what are they?'

'Rei? A light?'

Rei duly obliged, focussing one of the Motherball's glowing gauges where Freya directed. She waved her hand in front of it, her shadowy fingers playing on the sand. 'We see them as this…' she joined her hands together to form the shadow of a fluttering bird on the sand, 'but the shadows on the wall are not real. They are shadows cast by the light of this universe, and we can never truly see what casts them. Truthfully, from what we read in the ruins on Niflheim, I'm not sure we'd want to… And like shadows…' She nodded to Rei who changed the position of the beam so that her hands created a more formless, wriggling mass of shadowy finger-tentacles '...that form can change, even though the thing that casts them does not. And shadows…' She moved her hands until her shadowy fingers touched and then merged with the shadow cast by Morgan's arm. She fell silent, watching them with her large eyes as they worked it out for themselves.

'Can they take over the living?' Ianthe asked, a hand protectively on her bump.

Freya tilted her head on one side, considering. 'I'm not sure. They're so inimical to life that our legends say that they can't stand to be close to it for long. It's as though living things give out an energy that they can't tolerate. It causes them to break down, lose their forms. That's why they mostly appear as armoured warriors - the armour is holding them together. Without that, or a corpse to take over, I think they're actually rather protean in nature.'

'Protean?' Erik whispered to his brother.

'Can't keep a shape,' Rei told him helpfully. 'Which fits with that black cloud.'

'There were a lot of references to shadows in the ruins on Niflheim,' Mamoru mused. 'I guess we now know what that means…'

'Doesn't give us any clues as to how to kill them,' Morgan pointed out. 'It took how many of those fancy weapons to get rid of one of them? Only the captain's gun can take a reboot out, and even then it takes a couple of shots, by which time they're on top of you… If I'm leaving Ianthe here, I'd like to know we've got some hope of stopping these things.'

Rei and Mamoru exchanged smug looks. 'I think the grown-ups - and I use that term very loosely,' Mamoru said, 'have something there. Mimay went digging in her old nibelung gear for a weapon - non-functional but some kind of heirloom? Our Brains Trust are going over it to see if there's something they can use. She thinks it might disrupt their cellular integrity - the bonds that hold them together. If so it's a modular component that just slaps into our cosmo pistols to modulate the energy frequency.'

'Can I see?' Dione asked. Mamoru handed her his handgun, and watched whilst she turned it over to examine it from all sides, the others crowding in to look. 'It's heavier than I thought it would be.'

Mamoru took it back and reholstered it. 'Packs a punch as well - for an energy weapon it's got a hell of a kick. This one's modelled on a standard Japanese model from the Twentieth Century. Yattaran - our first mate - has been passing them out as they upgrade them. It's not quite up to the power of dad's cosmo dragoon, but it's close.'

'You don't carry?' Galene asked Rei, who was notably holsterless.'

'Don't need it,' he told them. 'Not with your field down.'

'Yeah… what's with that? The captain says if you're around it needs to stay down?' Morgan eyed him up and down. 'Do you have prosthetics or something?'

'Something,' Rei replied enigmatically. He laid a hand on the motherball and smiled when it pulsed slightly under his touch. 'But it's not like it's going to be much help, is it? Now we just have to figure out how to find the infiltrators - not stop them.'

'Too much to ask that someone gets a sick feeling in their stomach if one walks by?' Ianthe asked.

'Too much daytime vid-watching, sis?' Hallie teased. 'Expecting Dav here to clutch his head and fall to the ground groaning in pain?' They all laughed as David proceeded to demonstrate.

'It's not beyond the bounds of possibility.' All of the group turned to look at Freya once the giggles subsided. Facing a row of suddenly sobered faces she continued. 'Our kind of life and theirs don't mix well, remember? But it's more likely we'd make them feel unwell…'

'Unwell?' Morgan asked, 'or angry?' As though a thought had just occurred to him he placed an arm over Ianthe's vast expanse of belly protectively. 'If they hate and reject us so much… if we're so much of an anathema that they want to destroy us, what would they think of a new life being brought into the world?'

None of them had an answer, not even the normally glib Rei.

'The boys seem to be getting on with the locals.' Hannibal stood just inside the circle of light cast by the large bonfire behind them, Selen at his side, watching the group of youngsters further down the beach, shadowy figures made visible by their own smaller fire. Occasionally the wind eddied and carried voices and laughter their way, barely audible over the hum and buzz of chatter from behind them. 'Are you happy that they'll be safe?'

'Rei needs to get out of his comfort zone more, and he can take care of himself. Mamoru's a crack shot and quite adept hand to hand, so no, neither Harlock nor I is particularly worried. And Freya…. Well, she's a nibelung and we've no real idea what they're capable of, do we?'

'Against these metanoids?'

'Ah. Now that's a whole different question. Against humans - or even machinners - I'd give the edge to our youngsters. How do you fight shadows?'

'With light, usually,' Hannibal replied. 'Except that's also what gives them their strength. We can only fight darkness with darkness, and I have no idea what that will do…'

'The photonic weapons the Gaia Sanction used on us didn't exactly prove that effective.'

Both turned as Kei approached them, glasses in hand. 'The local brew - according to Harlock a nice fruit punch…' She handed them the drinks with a smile. 'The Arcadia's dark matter antennae managed to dissipate the output of the Jovian Blaster.'

'By unleashing almost every scrap of dark matter the ship had,' Hannibal pointed out. He took a gulp. 'He's right. Fruity. Did they forget the alcohol?'

Selen took a more cautious sip and coughed. 'Seriously?' Her second was even more tentative.

'My brother's tendency to throw caution to the winds almost destroyed his ship and crew - and sent him into some kind of limbo. Even if we had time to set up a plasma-gate network and could lure those ships into range of a gate, their manipulation of dark matter is far more sophisticated. The chances of taking them out are slim.'

'What about the Kaleido Star System?' Kei asked.

'Same problem,' Hannibal replied. 'And that design was Evgeni Zone's… that family never met a corner they didn't cut, or knowingly under-engineer anything. Zone Industries is still the poster child for a total disregard for safety. Anything that powerful should have equally strong safeguards, which were, and I shudder at the memory, woefully lacking. Please note that if Phantom hadn't wrecked it by causing it to overload by firing at a hologramme, it wouldn't have made a second shot without overloading - and that idiot brother of Yama's deployed the bloody thing inside the orbit of Saturn's rings…' he sighed. 'How that moron ever made Fleet Admiral…'

'Yama.' Selen and Kei chorused. They smiled at each other. Kei continued. 'I read the files… just after he took command. Wanted to know what I was dealing with. Isora used him to uncover all sorts of dirty secrets - even down to throwing him to the cougars of the admiralty and political head honchos he needed to leverage. Some of the skirmishes he earned his stars for? All Yama's research for his own term papers, which oddly were never submitted in his final drafts, all of which ended up in his brother's office… Though I love my Harlock for this at least - once he got fed up with being used, he deliberately stopped producing stellar work.' She smiled fondly. 'He does so love those stealth "fuck-you" moments, even now…'

'Comes by it honestly,' Hannibal replied dryly. 'There's no more satisfying feeling than sticking it to an uppity opponent…' He shrugged at their surprised looks. 'You thought I meant Phantom? Oh, he loved it when he could be bothered, but mostly ruining someone's day just by shooting them in the face sufficed. Too bloody lazy to plot a really satisfying gambit.'

'Hardly worth it when you can just get in someone's face and ruin their day just by being yourself.' Nero's voice rumbled behind them. He stood beside Hannibal and nodded a hello. Looking up to where the Arcadia squatted on the headland above them, dimly lit by the glow from behind its engines, he watched the tattered pirate flag flutter in the sea breeze against the still crepuscular sky. 'I heard some of that,' he continued. 'Thunderbolt is not quite in Arcadia's league, and we've never weaponised our dark matter array… I'm not even sure how we'll make this work, in practice, if our main battery isn't effective.'

'I trust Harlock to come up with something,' Kei said softly. 'He always does. Talk to him. And Tochiro thinks there's something we can do with the optical cannon, to boost the photonic energy output. By the time we engage with those ships, we'll have a working plan.'

'So sure?' he asked, a wry smile twisting his full lips as she stood firm, meeting his gaze without any hesitation. 'So loyal.'

'So experienced,' she corrected. 'I took a chance on him almost twenty years ago, and he's never caused me to regret that decision. He earned that loyalty, and my confidence.'

Nero stared past her at the Arcadia. 'They have that in common at least,' he said, half to himself. 'Harlock - my Harlock - could make you believe that you could follow him into hell and he'd march you right back out again.'

'What a shame it proved to be just bullshit built on self-pity, guilt and self-delusion,' she snapped, before turning on her heel and striding away.

Nero watched her with a puzzled look. 'What did I say?'

Hannibal patted him on the arm. 'The worst thing you could, under the circumstances,' he told him.

Nero sighed. 'Women… I never understand them,' he said. Then remembering belatedly that Selen was standing to one side, watching the proceedings with an amused smile, he tried to pull his foot out of his mouth. 'Present comp…'

'Never mind, captain,' she told him. She handed him her empty glass. 'I rather doubt you'd understand me either, if Kei proves too much for you.' She left to follow Kei, lost to the growing shadows as she moved from the light towards the darkened hall.

Nero turned to Hannibal, who was failing to contain a grin behind his beard. 'You're no help,' he accused.

'Me? I know when to keep my mouth shut, 'Hannibal replied dryly. 'You however - you never married, did you?'

Nero pantomimed a shudder. 'Now why would I do something so monumentally stupid?' He sent a glance over in the direction of his young crew, laughing and joking around the more distant fire, now dying down to red embers flickering like fireflies in the breeze. 'Daughters are hard enough to deal with, even when they're not my own flesh.'

'They're Harlocks…' Hannibal pointed out. 'If they're giving you trouble, you only have yourself to blame there.' His own gaze however was notably not on the three sisters, but on the young woman lying now with Morgan's head in her lap.

'She's almost as stubborn as they are,' Nero told him, his voice softened and huskier than usual. 'They come by that from both of you it seems. I remember Miranda, although we only met a few times. I often envied Harlock Maya - she was a match for him in temper and spirit… but I also envied your more domestic lifestyle. Miranda had - and Ianthe has - a quiet strength and intelligence that's sometimes too subtle for most people to appreciate. Your mother for one, if I remember rightly.'

'You do. But it seems Morgan's capable of appreciating it…'

Nero laid a hand on his old friend's arm sympathetically. 'He adores her. I wouldn't have countenanced his suit otherwise. I understand if it hurts, but they would both like to get to know you.'

'Maybe later,' Hannibal said quietly. 'Funny. I understand my brother's response to my actions more clearly now… Though I don't feel the urge to try and break Morgan's jaw, strangely.'

'Your brother never liked sharing,' Nero pointed out. 'He'd probably have tried to flatten Tochiro for shagging Maya…' He slapped Hannibal on the back. 'Enough maudlin introspection, Okita. Tomorrow we sail off to meet our fate, whatever that may be. Tonight, that calls for something a little stronger than that piss my crew brew up. Thanks to Harlock, we have some decent whiskey from your brother's extensive stores - a personal present that shouldn't be drunk alone…'

'Phantom would disagree with you,' Hannibal pointed out, letting himself be led back to the hall.'

'See my earlier comment about not sharing,' Nero replied with a smile. 'But we'll raise one to his memory, and to the little guy and other long-lost friends… and you can tell me all about what happened when he found out you'd married his "widow"… I mean… I'm curious… how did Maya take his return from the dead?'

'About as well as could be expected,' Hannibal drawled. 'Almost shot him in the face, chucked a vase at his head and threatened to castrate him with a spatula…'

Nero chuckled. 'And you wonder why I never married…'