Sealing the bulkheads hadn't been the best choice I could have made in hindsight. Once Tochiro went offline to do whatever it was he needed to do, I was forced into the internal conduits. Thankfully I'm skinny enough to get through the crawlspace that links the captain's quarters to the corridor around the corner from the Central Computer room, although it's a tight squeeze in places, with a tight bend at one point I wasn't sure my predecessor would have gotten around with his greater height unless he hinged in two places… It was also vertical for the last fifty feet, but at least bracing myself climbing cracks for fun came in handy for that part - although I wasn't sure if I hated the slippery metal's back-breaking need to wedge myself against the sides and slide downwards with some attempt at control, or skin-tearing rockfaces more by the time I reached the ceiling grill at the bottom.

There was enough room for me to undo the hatch and let it hang down quietly from one side so that I could jump down to the deck. I ruined my attempt at stealth as my boots clanged on the floor, ringing out like a bell with a spectacularly flat tone. Honestly, I might as well have just let the damn grill fall anyway, I mused as I picked myself up from the twenty foot drop and rubbed my right ankle. Always that damned right leg… I plastered myself against the nearest wall and waited, sabre drawn (and hadn't that been a mistake in cramped quarters? Maybe I could get Maji to copy the expanding gizmo Selen used…) trying not to hold my breath as I waited to see if "Val" had heard me. Or cared enough to come and look.

Probably the latter, if he - it - had made it this far and was in the data servers. What better place to ambush someone? There was plenty of cover there after all, with a clear line of sight down the only access corridor. Walking down that, I'd be a sitting duck. Unless I'd beaten him to it.

'Tochiro?' I called out quietly over the comms.

No answer. Hopefully that just meant the little guy was busy. The alternative didn't bear thinking about. I listened carefully - moving around stealthily on a spaceship isn't as easy as you'd think - metal soled boots on metal decks (a hedge against sudden, unexpected catastrophic artificial gravity failure) - mean that you tend to clank around like an old-time knight in armour.

Unless you do what I did, and take your boots off. I'd take cold feet and the remote chance of the gravity going ape over getting shot in the head. I left them underneath the main light switch, then reached up and killed the lights in the corridor leading down towards the Central computer room.

I take a lot of flak for our internal lighting… "gloomy" is the usual complaint, which is a little unfair - we just don't operate on the maximum daylight analogue a lot of Alliance ships think is necessary. Partly because it helps with the dark matter absorption on the inner hull, and partly as a courtesy to our resident nibelung, since they like it a bit dimmer than we do.

This plunged that section into a stygian darkness that most people would have hesitated to enter, but I did have a few useful gifts from half a lifetime give or take a couple of years of exposure to dark matter - the wispy blue lightning that permeates the ship is visible even to my remaining eye, and that was more than enough to allow me to navigate my way towards the main server room, especially since the room itself was still lit from the whirling red lights of the main computer's central column.

What I'd forgotten, because it rarely ever came up, was that I also glow in the bloody dark with those same wispy blue flames...

The blaster bolt sizzled over my head and slammed into the wall behind me. A flicker slower dropping after I'd registered the incoming bolt and I'd have been short an ear as well as an eye.

That roll left me exposed, lying on the cold floor, and I rolled out of the way of a second blast, before letting rip with my own. The blast from the sabre rifle took a chunk out of the doorway next to the metanoid's head, and forced it to duck back out of sight. Since I had no cover, the only option was to get to my feet and run like hell for the servers, keeping up a stream of suppressing fire as I headed for the closest back. Breathing hard, I slammed into the monolithic electronic dolmen to brake, and tried to get a sense of where my opponent was.

And where, in all of this, was Mimay…?

A tiny green firefly landed on the tip of my nose and vanished with a silent pop. I risked a quick check into the rafters. Mimay had a habit of lounging on the overhead cabling like a kitten up a tree, but she tended to stay at head height. This time however I had to crane my neck to find her - over fifty feet up on one of the nests of cables that connected the central core to the bridge. Hopefully our third infiltrator hadn't spotted her. Reassured for now at least, I turned my attention back to the problem at hand. Since no more shots were heading in my direction, "Val" either thought he'd taken me out, or figured I'd be keeping my head down. I peeked around the side of the server I sheltered behind, and finally saw someone moving behind the far side of the massive tree-like structure that we laughingly refer to as merely the central computer.

The Thunderbolt's central core was superficially similar to ours - a circle of large data servers surrounding the central core which rises from the centre of the room over a hundred and fifty feet into a dome behind the bridge. But where the Thunderbolt's core was a monument to electronic minimalism - lattices of crystal and quantum superconductors wrapped in a tectite shell - the Arcadia's central computer resembled something out of ancient myths - a gigantic tree rising out of a circle of futuristic standing stones, massive cabling arrays trailing away from it like the roots of the ancient tree it resembled as though it had been grown, not built.

Some of those roots were tall enough to hide a man if he crouched down behind them, and sure enough, near the base of that great trunk, I could see blond hair bobbing in and out of view as Val's copy worked on something out of sight.

Very quietly and slowly I raised the sabre rifle to take aim, not unaware of the irony… Years ago I'd been in a similar position, my hand hovering over the butt of a pistol as I'd watched a man sitting with his back to me apparently oblivious to my approach, with a nibelung on overwatch in the overhead branches. Then, I'd been the monkey in the wrench.

I might have gotten the shot off this time, if the entire structure of the ship hadn't suddenly shuddered violently as something smashed into the hull. I slammed into the monolith next to me and lost my grip on the sabre, which skittered off into the darkness under one of the trailing cable bunches.

The secondary explosion knocked me off my feet and I slammed into the floor, knocking the breath out of my lungs and catching my head on the side of one of those conduits. The sting of the cut I got on my temple was secondary to the blinding pain that hammered into my skull somewhere behind my blind right eye, but even dazed and battered, I heard the piercing scream from above as the aftershock dislodged Mimay from her perch, sending her plummeting over fifty feet to what would be a messy end, unless her connection to the ship had made her splatterproof. Not wanting to risk it, I desperately tried to reach her as she tumbled, thankfully (or not, depending on how many bruises she'd be sporting) she bounced off at least two of the lower tiers of wiring on her way down, which slowed her fall enough so that by the time I took a second tumble to the floor, this time underneath a pile of slender alien fairy and diaphanous veils and silky hair, I cushioned her fall somewhat.

Me, I wasn't so lucky. My right wrist snapped like a twig. Slender and delicate she might be. Dainty she isn't. I extracted the damaged limb from under a pert green ass and hissed through my teeth as the pain shot straight back up the arm and slammed into my already aching head. 'Son of a bitch…' I forced out quietly through tight lips. 'Mimay?'

She was very quiet and outwardly still, but her eyes - wide and round at the best of times - seemed even wider, and her third eyelids were flickering wildly, almost in time with her beating heart, which I could feel fluttering against my chest.

'Disarmed and damaged… who knew you'd come practically gift-wrapped?'

I looked up into the face of the metanoid. Val was one of the younger crew, and had been with us for about ten years. A good all-rounder, he'd been an Alliance officer until the fleet had agreed to join forces with the Machinners and pushed anyone looking for advancement towards mechanisation - not always making it a choice. After that he'd bummed around the outskirts for a few years, before Selen's people had found him, and determined his slightly antagonistic-to-authority tendencies might be a better fit for the Arcadia.

They'd been right - but it had, to my amusement, cost them a useful undercover operative. Val's annoyingly pretty-boy looks, long dark curls, blue eyes and charming smile could get him into almost anywhere. He often hung out with Ben, when the Gamilas Emperor's wayward offspring graced us with his presence, and the two of them were guaranteed on a night out to paint the town in rainbow colours and leave a trail of shattered hearts in their wake.

Now a monster looked out of that familiar face, and those blue eyes were a dull grey - like the one I'd seen on the beach, almost shark-like, they appeared so dead and flat. Maybe that was suggestion and the low lighting making his pupils look larger, but even so, the overall effect was shockingly inhuman. Val's warm, almost self-mocking smile was replaced by a predatory thin line.

'You should have just shot me before I saw you,' I replied quietly. Without taking my eye off him I rolled away from Mimay, making sure to try and keep myself between the monster and her. 'Don't they have a villains' handbook in the darker dimensions?'

'Why shoot you?' the voice was Val's. The intonation was not, being flat and devoid of emotion. 'By the time we've finished with this ship, you'll see this vessel under our control - stripped of the infestation that contaminates it, including the peculiar little rat that scuttles around the circuits of this control mechanism.'

'Fond of the sound of his own voice,' I told Mimay flippantly in a stage whisper, deliberately ignoring the fake Val. 'Always a mistake with rookies. Talk, talk talk…' Actually, I prefer the chatty ones. Whilst they're busy trying to impress or intimidate, they're not paying attention to what you're doing. This one was a gloater, and whilst turning my back on an enemy is something that should only be tried by an experienced professional, it usually has two benefits: it winds that type up faster than any sarcastic repartee, and allows me to get my hands on a hold-out.

I turned around slowly, a short straight blade palmed neatly up my left sleeve, and my best annoying smirk plastered over my face.

Gratifyingly, even body-snatching zombie hell-spawn can develop a nervous tic at the corner of the eye… It's all in the presentation. I usually pretend I'm staring at a certain Count Lazarus. Works every time.

'You can't kill me,' it said eventually. 'Not in here. Even if you could get to the detonator in time…' it raised its other hand to reveal a small device, a green light blinking steadily, 'My cells would explode.'

'Go ahead,' I said calmly. 'Push it.' I folded my arms, wondered if I could cross my fingers, and hoped like hell Tochiro knew what he was doing… Behind the copy's head, the circles on the front of the central core whirled silently, red to green to red.

Click.

Clickclick.

Clickityclickclickclick.

'Did you check the batteries?' I asked helpfully. It snarled and threw the detonator at me, following it up by raising the other hand, which was empty…

...and writhed and twisted into something resembling a dragon's snout, which spat some strange blackish-green stream of fire at us. I pushed Mimay down and only just missed getting hit by it. Part of my jacket was gone when I rolled to my feet, blackened at the edges, although there'd been no heat. I threw the knife as I moved, hitting exactly where I'd aimed, taking out its left eye.

It screeched - more in anger I suspect than pain. It pulled the knife free and howled. The injury flickered in the strange way I'd seen on the beach earlier - as though the image I saw was an overlay on reality, and for a moment something decidedly unhuman stood in front of me - more mist and tentacles than anything else - I couldn't seem to see it clearly, as though my brain refused to process what it saw.

I'd expected to only get a moment's grace before it healed itself - I'd hoped that would be enough to allow me to dive for my sabre rifle, where it had lodged under a tangle of cabling. But even at maximum stretch, the hilt was just a tantalising, useless inch away when a heavy boot came down on my back. As my fingers scrabbled for the rifle, the weight increased, slowly but surely crushing my ribcage. The trip-trapping click of Mimay's boots on the floor was met with a heavy thud and a breathless little cry as it knocked her flying, followed by the soft slow slide of her slumping to the floor.

My saviour came from a different quarter. A rush of large wings and a loud, indignant cawing announced the arrival of Tori-san, diving at the creature's face, I hoped. The weight on my chest was lifted to the tune of assorted curses and a lot of squawking. A heavy thump and a piteous cry were my only warning as the poor thing crashlanded next to me with a heavy thump, but it wasted no time: that long neck and beak snaked out and grabbed the sabre's skull-fronted hilt and tugged it into reach of my fingers. I barely had time to grab it, roll, and try and shield my brave bird as that thing once again spat the strange flame from its mutated hand. 'What kept you?' I asked it. I got a faint caw in reply. One wing was stuck out at an unnatural angle, but I had no time for subtlety. I shoved him ungently under the conduit. 'Stay put, pal. You've done your bit.' I rolled away and to my feet in a move that was nowhere near as graceful as it sounds, holding the weapon trained on the metanoid.

Except it no longer looked even remotely human. What stood in front of me now, between me and the central core, was a dark, bulging mass of muscle that resembled no beast I'd ever seen - and I'd been around a bit. It looked as though it was made of parts of creatures - clawed hooves, backward at the knee, with a reptilian skin and a fanged mouth with a gape worthy of a crocodile. Only the eyes were still human, and that just made the whole thing even creepier. Although it stood on four thick, oddly jointed legs it had two snake like arms, each now sporting one of those dragon heads, both of which were facing me, and ignoring Mimay who crouched off to one side, her face bearing an uncharacteristic snarl.

I fired, and the wound flickered, bulged and sealed shut without a trace.

Fuck.

Except… it moved slightly, and that revealed an injury to a foreleg that didn't seem to be healing. Blue fire flickered along the edges of a gash over six inches long. Mimay must have hurt it, but with what? She didn't go armed…

'Mimay?'

'Harlock.' She sounded tired, and when she did move it was slowly and without her usual grace.

'Fireflies might help,' I said cryptically, hoping she'd understand. I slid the sabre across the floor to her and leapt for the monster, in a sliding tackle that allowed me to scoop up my knife along the way. I slid underneath the damn thing and rammed the blade into the armpit under that massive chest. Mimay fired, and then the thing let out a scream that cut right through my already aching head, pulling away from me and toppling over onto its side where it kicked and screamed some more, with both front legs and those deadly hands severed. Pale blue wisps from the field surrounding the gravity sabre - its "edge" were intermingled with thousands of tiny green sparks for a brief instant before they vanished like mist.

Neither wound bled, but neither did they regenerate. 'Cable!' I shouted over the din. 'Grab something to tie it up with!'

She didn't answer, but I heard the rifle clatter to the floor. I jumped on the creature's neck and snarled 'stay down' at it when it thrashed and squealed underneath me. 'Dammit…'

'Need a hand, captain?' Ali jumped on the thing beside me and passed me some heavy duty wiring.

'Oh… now you show up for the fight, once I've done all the hard work?'

He grinned at me, his face covered in substances that were usually kept well out of sight in the ship's multitude of pipework. 'Hey - you want to hogtie this critter all by yerself…'

'Just make sure your knots are good and tight this time,' I told him. Together we subdued the thing, and watched as it heaved increasingly feebly against its bonds, the remains of its arms tied to its rear legs and a noose around its neck tied to that rope to keep it compliant. Thankfully it seemed too shocked to realise it could just change shape - or just go nuclear. 'You do realise we've got to get this out of here, down half a kilometre of corridor and out of the ship, right? Before it gets its wits back?'

'Well if the little guy can get back online and open up the bulkheads, we'll get some muscle down here to help,' he replied breezily. He looked me up and down. 'Man… rookie, you look like shit.' Then he looked past me and his chirpy teasing vanished. 'Mimay!' He left my side and scooted over to where she lay in a heap, unconscious. He gathered her up gently. 'Captain…'

'Take her to Luna,' I told him. 'I can manage.' On cue, the telltale sounds of the bulkheads opening echoed through the cavernous chamber, and the lights came back on. 'Tochiro?'

Never went away. His voice was quieter than usual. But it took a lot to keep those jammers going. I'd appreciate it if the clean up crew could get those things out of here when they collect that beastie…

I looked over to the pile of explosives still lurking against the trunk of the central core. As Ali dashed away with Mimay in his arms, I wearily made my way over and dismantled them. One handed this wasn't easy, but I managed. The broken wrist still hurt like hell, but it was mending, slowly.

A pained caw reminded me I wasn't the only combatant in the room. I made my way back to where the bird lay, and rather more gently than I'd stuffed him under the cabling, pulled him free. 'Bravely done, again, little friend.' It rested its head on my shoulder and replied with a wobbly cark.

I was still cradling it in my lap, sitting in front of the whirling lights of the central computer, when the rest of the crew arrived.