The greatest plans of badass space pirates go oft awry… Or something like that. I don't think that mom said it quite like that, but I think she'd understand. You go to such trouble to come up with plans, counterplans, what-to-do-if-it-all-goes-tits-up plans and some inconsiderate asshole still finds a way to rain on your parade.

Or in this case sticks the business end of a pistol up your captain's nostrils just as you're about to launch your amazing, heroic two-man rescue. I mean, we'd meticulously planned this baby for - ohhh - all of two minutes… a record for the captain.

Except… we're pirates… and one thing we don't need to plan for? Yeah. Someone pulling the same sneaky shit to us that we like to do to others.

You don't need to plan for the shit you live on a daily basis. So if Mr. Mysterioso in the cloak thought he had the upper hand? Oh boy did he get a surprise…

The captain dropped, down and back out of the line of fire, rolled and was out of my sightline in a heartbeat. And me? I did what I do sooo well… got off three straight shots with the pistol I had in my hand, sending him staggering into the corridor wall before he could shoot. I closed with the bastard and let him have a meaty, knuckleduster clad fist to the centre mass. He crumpled as the current zapped him and I have to hand it to Maji - the built in taser worked like a charm - albeit briefly. But it's hard even for a dial-head to do much when you kick his weapon out of his hand and plonk over 200lbs of solid geologist on his chest.

'Stop wriggling,' I advised our hooded attacker. 'Or I'll think you're enjoying it.'

The captain was back on his feet and had his pistol in his hand, covering Lazarus. 'Ali- any sign of the guards?'

I checked up and down the corridor. 'Nada, so far. Asshole here seems to be flying solo…' I looked a bit more closely at my cushion. 'We're honoured, by the way - we have a high-ranking skin-job here.' I reached out to tweak back his deep hood. 'Wonder what he's hiding under here?'

Quick history lesson here: machinners come in several types. Top of the pile are nano-forms - made up of tiny sand-sized machines. There are vanishingly few of these - mainly Promethium and her court. They can pass for human, if they want to, and are almost impossible to destroy, so long as even one nano-bot survives. Rumour has it Promethium distributed her consciousness years ago into some massive planet-sized machine, and tends to use copies of her old body (and a few organic clones) as puppets.

Then there's skin-jobs - very expensive bodies, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Synthetics through and through. Down from there varying grades of mechanical forms, right down to the simple, spindly foot soldiers. They also transfer some poor sods into machine parts for their battleships and stations. Our guy, from the look of the bits of him I could see, was a synth - which meant he was well-connected. Maintenance of that synth-bod ain't cheap.

I flipped the hood of his head, not sure what to expect.

The captain's shocked choking noises wasn't on the list. 'You know this asshole?'

I checked over the face revealed. I'd put him around the captain's age - maybe a little younger, but then, the captain still has his boyish charm when he wants to turn it on, and hell - these things can look like anything or anyone they want, so who knows? Black hair, worn down to his collar. Grey eyes, a long nose, and the lips were thin - I'd go with "cruel" - and he had a way of staring at you as though he'd seen something he wanted to squash under his jackboot. He was even wearing a natty little goatee, in an attempt to look even more like some cheap villain, I guess. Some guys just love to roll with the time-honoured classics.

And now I looked, he did look a little familiar. That snooty sneer gave me a sense of deja-vu all right.

The captain, however, looked like he'd seen a ghost. 'Just grab some sheets and rip 'em up,' I told him. 'I need something to tie this prick up with.' He'd got the wild-eyed look that reminded me of the night his daughter was born - best thing you can do with a guy who gets that deer-in-headlights look is give him something to do.

Unless of course he's wise to it and gives you that do-I-look-like-a-total-idiot look. But he did grab the sheets, and a few minutes later I was able to get up, and our would-be smart-arsed captor was glaring daggers at the pair of us.

Well, mostly at the captain. Me, I just about rated somewhere above a cockroach, judging from the sneer I got when I yanked the strips of fabric tight.

'Captain? You got that garotte?'

'Captain, is it now?'

'Do you practice that verbal sneer?' I asked. 'Coz it needs work… a bit heavy on the dripping-with-contempt…'

'Ali.' The captain had that tone in his voice that advised me to shut up and fast. Not that I usually took much notice, but I was curious, so I shut my flap and shoved our prisoner into our former cell, not being too careful about how many walls I bounced him off. With his hands tied behind his back, he couldn't protect himself, and landed in a heap in the middle of the floor.

'Oops,' I added. I took the garotte off the captain, separated it from the toggles and used it to give our prisoner an extra disincentive to try and break free. Given time a machinner could easily break through the fabric strips - but a nice length of wire around wrists and ankles would take its hands and feet off - and not many'll risk it.

I took up a pose in the doorway so I could watch for trouble. No telling whether or not Lazarus - or whoever he was - had a way of calling for help. I also kept one eye on the action in the cell, as the captain stood over the skin-job, looking down at him with the oddest look on his face.

'This isn't possible,' he said quietly. 'You're dead…'

Well, that explained the moniker…

'Apparently not.'

Damn… that oily baritone was familiar…

'That's a matter of opinion. My brother died in my arms seven years ago and I shot his body into a sun less than a week later - and at no point was that body off my ship. So whoever you are, you're not Isora.'

'Really, Yama? You're still that naive? Or does it suit Captain Harlock to tell himself that machinners are just digital copies of the dead - soulless automata, a facsimile of life? It must make killing them so much easier on that pathetic conscience of yours…'

'Sure sounds like your brother…' I muttered. Yeah. I remembered that sneer now. I'd been standing next to the communication centre on the bridge when the bastard had laid into the rookie recruit who'd turned out to be a spy. At the time I'd shrugged, smirked, and called it poetic justice.

Now? Now that rookie was my captain, and anyone who started dissing him could go through me first. 'If you can't show some damned respect, maybe you should just shut your damn mouth, dial-head.' I strode into the room, grabbed a length of sheet off my captain, and gagged the bastard.

'Ali-'

I stood up and gave him a shove towards the door - not hard enough to floor him. I'm nice like that. 'We ain't got time for this now, cap'n. He ain't going anywhere tied up like this. Mission first, remember? We got a couple of dozen people - real people - need our help. We can come back for this one when we've got the ponce in the fancy frock-coat. Then you can ask some searching questions.' I grinned down nastily at our captive. 'Including why this skin-job is walking around wearing your brother's face and sporting a stupid beard of evil.' I shook my head and tutted. 'That last's an offence that really needs takin' care of.'

Brother or not, those grey eyes promised a nasty, prolonged, painful death if he ever got his hands on me. I leaned over and patted him on the cheek. Damn me if the skin doesn't feel as warm as the real thing. Always freaks me out. I had a run-in once with this girl - hair down to her knees…

Yeah. Digressing. 'Be a good… whatever. We'll be back to play with you later.'

If looks could have killed I'd have been a slimy smear on the floor.

'Ali - to throw your own words back at you - on mission?' The captain stood in the doorway with his best laconic face on, leaning against the doorframe in that way he does - arms folded, slouching, letting his hair fall over his eyes in that fuck-you to the world we all know and love so much. It's also his way of telling you to get a damn move on.

See - after a while, you learn to speak "captain" on the Arcadia. The previous guy used to be harder to read, but his dialect was a bit "older" is all. I sauntered over to him - doesn't do to look too obedient, after all. Might give him ideas. 'Ready when you are.' I pulled the door to behind us and wedged it shut - wouldn't stop anyone getting in, but it would stop Count Undead from getting out - unless he could charge like a tank.

The nice thing about dial-heads is their arrogance. They think they're so damn superior to normal humans that we're almost beneath contempt. Security in this pile of stone was a joke - practically non-existent.

I love it when the bad guys do most of our job for us.

We did have to scuttle behind some statuary at one point. For the second time in twenty-four hours I was shoved up against a wall by my captain. Thankfully this time he didn't shove his tongue down my throat. But I did have my crotch pushed up against a hard male bum. Alabaster, this time. 'No hard feelings,' I muttered, patting the naked Adonis on the left cheek. I peered over its shoulder, and was grateful they'd positioned it facing outwards. 'Damn, captain - I always thought these things were supposed to be hung like a hamster?' I ran a hand over the surface of the smooth back of the figure. 'Oooh, terrestrial travertine. Don't see this much these days - especially with these reddish deposits. Look at the translucent quality of the stone, where it catches the light, and the banding...'

'Ali - shut the fuck up.' They say you can't hiss a sentence without sibilants, but we all know that it just means a kind of in your face stage whisper designed to get your attention. It works.

I swatted away the face tickling my ear. 'They're downstairs - we're on the landing.'

'And sound carries. So sshh.'

I ssshhed. I knelt down to stick my head out to take a look over the bannister.

In the hall below, several dialheads were dragging in a corpse by the heels, followed by the ponce in the coat - this time also sporting a hat with a jaunty feather in it. The whole look was weird - I mean, from the neck down he looked humaniform, but the face… that plain oval with the single big glowing "eye" in the middle was seriously freaky. I put it down to a fashion choice or something. He was carrying a serious piece of artillery that I didn't fancy being on the receiving end of - a hunting rifle with a large sight bolted on the top. He handed that off to a lackey, and another stepped forward to take his hat and coat.

'Lazy buggers,' I commented. 'Can't even undress themselves, huh?'

'That's the older man from the city,' Harlock whispered somewhere above my head. He was leaning over me, looking over my head. Sure enough, the corpse was the greybeard we'd seen putting up a fight just before we'd let ourselves be caught. There was a blaster burn on his clothing over his heart, the only injury I could see, but his clothes were torn and muddied.

'A fine hunt, excellency!' one of the guests called out - a partial human-form sporting dials sunk into his torso and arms. 'A single shot, and hardly any damage to the skin!'

'It'll make a fine addition to the trophy room,' the fancy-pants count agreed. 'There's something so much more satisfying about the ones that put up a fight!'

His lackey and guest dutifully obliged by laughing with him. I felt my hands close on the wooden railing in front of me, and noticed the hand next to mine was similarly white and clenched. 'Captain?'

'I've seen more than enough, Ali.' He'd palmed Lazarus' pistol at some point, and was checking the charge when I shuffled round on my knees to look at him. He was glaring down at the scene in the hall with that look I knew all too well. 'Let's find the servants' staircase and get you to the kitchen. Time to earn your keep.'

I shuffled back until I could stand up again shielded by my alabaster Adonis. Actually, spotting the animal skin casually sculpted over muscular shoulders, and the large club in the other hand, I revised my mental annotation. This was Heracles - a fairly modern copy- less than a couple of hundred years old. The lack of any weathering gave it away. I patted him on the ass again. 'Sorry old man. My bad…

'Ali…' the warning tone let me know I was drifting off-topic again.

'Yeah. Right. No problem.'

We were halfway down the stairs before I added: 'Hang on - I get paid for this?'

A blaster bolt whizzed past my ear and the dialhead I'd totally failed to spot crumpled up with a muted electronic howl. 'Put it on my tab,' Harlock replied - somewhat snarkily, I thought.

'Thanks,' I muttered. I left it up to him if I meant for the save or for the promise of a favour or three. It wasn't like any of us needed money - nice thing about piracy is we kinda all share in the spoils, and the captain ain't greedy. We just take what we need when we need it.

I wished that extended to weapons. Right now I'd prefer to be the one with the best blaster.

Oh well. Half an hour uninterrupted me-time in the kitchen and I could even up the odds a bit in ole Ali's favour...