There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Hemingway

The rain had stopped by the time we'd crossed over the bridge. The lights were out in the area, and we were making our way via the light of the two largest moons. I sniffed the air as we walked across the rickety structure and regretted it instantly. The metallic tang of the water mixed with the delightful scent of ammonia - seems the bridge did double duty as a latrine and not everyone using it aimed over the parapet. It also creaked and swayed ominously, the stressed metal protesting in the wind that whistled right up from the estuary. Damn thing was probably at least five hundred years old, and knowing what I did about metallurgy and how steel reacts with the acidity of the water on this planet I scuttled across like my feet were on fire. The captain followed at a more leisurely pace. I dunno - kid must have cast-iron nostrils. And more faith in ancient engineering than I have.

The shit weather meant that we passed very few people as we walked. Music and the occasional staggering drunk spilled out of the bars and fast food outlets we passed along the way, but the streets were mostly empty. Even the whores had taken the night off. Can't say I blamed 'em - on a night like this, business would be slow - no point selling when no-one's buying. Though we did pass one girl - whip-thin with cheekbones you could slice paper with, all legs and arms, no more than fifteen and wearing a skimpy top and tiny skirt that were already soaked through. Captain took two paces past her then turned back. I waited.

Sure enough, he had a little chat, and pressed something into her hand. She took off clutching a bunch of credit chips in cold fingers with a wondering look back over her shoulder just before she ducked into the doorway of an all night cafe. 'You're a sucker,' I told him when he reached me again. 'She'll probably spend it on drugs. Or booze. Or drugs and booze. Or her pimp'll just take it…'

'She just ran into a cafe for a hot drink and a sandwich, unless I lost the sight in both eyes,' he snapped back at me. 'Do you have to be so damn negative?'

I shrugged. 'You can't save em all, Harlock.'

'Doesn't mean I can't try,' he shot back.

Yeah. He's like that. It's one reason why - in spite of my excellent and much better judgement and greater experience, I agreed to have his back on this one.

Unlike our last captain, he's not immortal. But he takes risks as though he is. Like now: we were wandering around the worst parts of a sprawling metropolis at midnight in shitty weather, trying to get ourselves swept up by a bunch of goons who we had good intel would be trawling for the unwanted (and unmissed) for a spectacle to provide entertainment for a bunch of bored mechas who needed cheap, savage thrills to make their mechanical hearts pump a bit faster to make up for their lost - or more accurately "disposed of" humanity.

Luckily we saw them before they saw us.

There were five of em - prodding a group of people in front of em into a large hover-van. Young and pretty, under the dirt, at a guess. Well - most of them. The outlier was an older man, scarred and bearded, and fighting all the way. Tough bastard too: it took two dial-heads to sit on him whilst a third shot him up with something and he went limp.

'Our source was right,' the captain whispered into my ear. His hair tickled it and I swatted him away like the irritating fly that he is. 'It's not just the pretty ones.'

I grunted. Yeah… and that spooked me more than them rounding up pretty young things for sport. Someone in this liked big game, and I didn't like the things that conjured up in my head. 'They want entertainment - that guy looks as though he'll put up a fight. So are we still playing this the way we discussed? Coz I'm not keen on either of us getting tranked.'

He placed a hand on my shoulder. 'Me neither. It'd put a crimp in things. But they just caught one tough guy. If I'm right in reading the machinner behind this, he's after novelty as well as decoration. We need to get their attention and hold their interest. I have a plan…'

'When you say it like that,' I whispered back, 'I just know I ain't gonna like it…' I grinned. 'Hey - maybe you could be my toy-boy - it's worked before…'

His answering grin was so damned self-satisfied, I should have known he'd got something up his sleeve. 'They're locking up and moving out for another sweep - are you ready to be live bait, Ali?'

No. But we were committed now. 'I think I've been wriggling on your hook since we first heard about this operation,' I told him quietly. 'Less talk, more action.'

We stepped out of hiding into the line of sight of the goon squad - four machinners - not your basic dial-heads, but not high-end nano-forms either. They looked vaguely human, but fell into the uncanny valley with their too-perfect features and slightly unresponsive body language. Almost, but not quite, and just off enough to make your skin crawl. They were about a hundred yards away as we walked towards them, laughing and staggering just enough to give the impression of a couple of guys who'd had a few too many. When it was obvious they'd seen us and were looking us over, the captain leaned closer to me as though whispering something in my ear, and tugged me into the next side street. 'Laugh, and call me a crazy bastard,' he said softly. 'Loudly.' And then he shoved me up against the wall.

'You crazy son of a bitch!' I didn't have to fake the annoyance but I did put the laugh on a bit thick. 'What the hell do you think you're doing? This place stinks like a urinal.'

'What - you don't fancy a bit of adventure?' He was louder than I'm used to from him - he's a quiet guy normally. He slurred his words just enough to give some weight to the picture he wanted the goon squad to hear: slightly pissed and taking chances. Booted footsteps were almost on top of us, and I broke out into a cold sweat, coz - and this was the bit I was really having kittens about - we were in disguise, and so no cosmo dragoons. Just ordinary standard ex-military blasters that would do fuck all against dial-heads. 'Oh - and Ali - whatever happens next, follow my lead and sell it like your life depends on it,' he whispered fiercely into my ear.

And then the sneaky bastard kissed me.

And when I say "kissed", I wish I just meant a quick peck on the cheek or a brush of lips. Hell - I've snogged guys before. Kind of happens when you've had a skinful and… yeah. Well, I've led an adventurous life. Hell, some planets the nights are cold, dark and long, women in short supply and one mouth on your cock feels like any other.

Beard rash is a bitch though.

But noooo - the skinny bastard had me pinned up against the wall - which, by the way did indeed smell as though it had been used as an outdoor toilet for a couple of hundred years - my boots were slipping in something slimy underfoot, my captain had his fingers in my hair, his other hand on my ass and his tongue was heading down my throat.

Oh… I got his play all right. Tosser. Could have warned me. But I had no option but to hold on for dear life (so to speak), close my eyes, and think of Luna.

Yeah. Not my best idea. For one thing who knew my captain was a better kisser than my gal? (You want unlikely? I always preferred my lasses with a bit of… youth. And meat on their bones. Nice helpings of everything - double portions of tits, hold the brains. So why I frequently bunk with our ship's doctor, who's not far off my age, bony, with little handfuls, a snarky line in sarcasm with a bedside manner that could make grown pirates cry for their mommas and a dreadful lush to boot remains a mystery… Including to both the participants. Though she can deliver a back rub that turns me into putty in her hands. Apart from the bits that shouldn't be soft and floppy, that is.)

And if the night couldn't get any worse, I had to shift to the side a bit. There's nothing more mortifying than being snogged by your captain in a dark, dank alley with an audience - unless it's the very real fear that he'll notice the boner poking into his crotch.

Not that it lasted too long - there's nothing like having the business end of a pistol pressed against your head to put the damper on the proceedings.

We put up enough of a fight to make it look as though we knew how to handle ourselves, but not enough to earn a tranking or to show off how good our ripping-heads-off-machine-men techniques (honed over seven years or so of practice) were. So we were soon forced to our knees on the slimy pavement (and yes, it did smell much worse than it felt when it was only three feet away from my nose) with our hands zip-tied behind our backs. The bastards used thumb-ties to boot, making it that much harder to work free, even if we'd wanted to. We were quickly divested of all obvious weapons, including our boot-concealed hold-outs, and a small pile of three pistols, six knives and a knuckle duster soon lay in the muck. I was so glad at that point to have been talked out of bringing my favourites along.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Harlock snarled at one of them. 'We're not doing anything illegal.'

'Well, not on this planet,' I couldn't resist adding. 'Ya just ruined what was shaping up to be an interesting evening. What are ya? Cops?'

'Not police,' Harlock replied softly. 'They don't come down here at night.'

The exchange earned us both a short, sharp tug on our bonds, enough to cause a lot of pain to already strained shoulder joints. I hissed out a few words Mama Jones would have washed my mouth out with soap for using, and even the captain didn't hold back a pithy cuss.

One of our captors shone a light into our faces and I longed to slam the damn thing into his non-face. 'Maybe we should throw these two back,' he said, addressing the one who hadn't taken part in the scuffle. How to Spot the boss: 101. 'Just a couple of drunken fags - lowlife spacer trash. We might use the younger one, but the old one isn't really worth the effort.'

Old? I was going to rip that little shit's wires out when I got loose...

Boss peered at us. 'I'm not so sure. His Grace might find the dynamic interesting… Beauty and the Beast?' The others laughed, in that hollow way they have. 'I'd have expected to find this brute as the dominant… but there's potential in the pairing. And Beauty here is no lowlife.' He pulled the captain's hair so hard he almost slammed the back of his head into his shoulder blades. 'I know educated, entitled, Martian diction when I hear it. It's the way they pronounce their vowels…'

'Told you that you still sound like a posh tart, you daft kid,' I growled at my captain. 'No grime covers up that posh education you walked away from, lover.'

Boss let go of Harlock's hair and turned his glowing eyes on me, missing the savage glare Harlock gave him. 'You have no room to talk, blondie. You've spent more time in low company than your better half here, but I detect an accent in there that's pure New Macedonia, and that's an academic planet. I suspect neither of you is what you pretend to be - which makes me wonder about your performance just now.' It made a noise that might have been a snigger. 'But no matter - you'll still make an interesting diorama when stuffed and mounted…'

I was hauled to my feet next to the captain. 'I really hope he doesn't mean that literally,' I muttered when Boss had walked off giving orders. 'The idea of spending eternity with your cock in my ass doesn't fill me with joy.'

Beat.

'That came out wrong,' I added.

'No shit,' was the laconic reply out of the corner of his mouth. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from rising to that line.

We weren't moving fast enough for our captors, apparently, because we both earned jabs with pistol muzzles in the small of the back to help us pick up the pace. Like the kids we'd seen earlier, we were bundled into the back of a black hover-van, already crowded with waifs and strays. And once locked in the darkness surrounded by sniffling dregs of humanity, it hit me hard that we were utterly alone in this, if it went tits-up.

And long experience had taught me that it wasn't a matter of "if". More "when".

The hover-van lifted, and we were on our way.