BD Nostalgia-Fanfic-08

Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

Warning: The following is non-profit fan-based storytelling.

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Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

Chapter 1 A/N: Here it is! This is just for funsies since Halloween is this month. It’s just about some random, silly things that might happen to Harlock and his crew from time to time.

There might be a few spoilers here for Invictus, just so you know. Enjoy!

The mess hall on board the Arcadia was in essence the central hub of activity. However, most nights after dinner it was deserted save for the few people who remained to clean up. This particular night, when most of the crew would have been asleep, the chairs were practically full and the tables were laden with cakes, homemade sweets and mugs of cider and chocolate.

Every year it was the same; the lights were dimmed for effect and Magi stood on the center table telling the same ghost story that he did every Halloween. Harlock himself fought to not roll his eye and sipped his cider laced with spiced rum. Adalyn of course would have pestered him about not being able to have a drink without some form of alcohol in it had she known, just as well as she’d have complained about him being asocial had he opted out of this.

But damn, there was only so many times he could hear these repetitive stories and idly contemplated eating himself into a diabetic coma with all the sugary treats around.

He mouthed along with Magi’s story of a vengeful ghost who had been walled in an old castle while still alive, knowing exactly when and where he would drop and raise his voice for dramatic effect.

He glanced around at his crewmates wondering if anyone else was as bored as he. The only other person who seemed the least bit uninterested was Masu, but only because she was waiting to tell her story next. Masu’s ghost stories were probably the best, and the fact she never told the same one twice gave him hope that he would find it enjoyable BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 3

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at least.

Harlock went back to half listening to Magi’s story, grateful that it was coming to an end. Once the chief engineer finished a light round of applause broke out and Harlock again sipped his drink. A startling poke to the ribs made him sputter and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Can’t you at least try to act like you’re enjoying yourself?” Adalyn hissed lowly, having been unable to ignore his sighing and fidgeting next to her. As he wiped up some of his drink that had fallen onto the table she furrowed her brow when she caught a whiff of alcohol. “Really? You can’t enjoy a single cup of cider without pouring rum into it?”

Realizing the jig was up, Harlock reached in his pocket for a silver flask and poured more of the amber colored liquid into his mug under her scolding glare. Earlier he had been a bit more tactful in slipping it in, but what was the use now? At the moment he really didn’t care if he had to listen to another one of her lectures about the dangers of a failing liver or stomach cancer; in many ways it would have been more entertaining than listening to stories that he didn’t find scary at all.

“My idea of enjoying myself doesn’t involve listening to wild fantasies about things that don’t exist,” Harlock said matter-of-factly.

“You don’t believe in ghosts?” Adalyn questioned, astonished as she swiveled in her seat to fully face him.

“The captain doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see or touch,” Kei stated with a hint of dryness. “Just like this one over here stuffing his mouth.”

She pointed to Daiba next to her whom was preoccupied with a large slice of glazed cinnamon cake. Realizing he was the subject of inclusion, Daiba quickened his chews and swallowed hard.

“The only reason I have my doubts is because I haven’t seen one!” he retorted loudly, gaining a swift reprimand from Masu who stood to tell her story.

“I call this one ‘The Swing-set Murders’,” the old cook grinned at her choice of title as the group of four ended their short discussion to listen quietly to Masu’s tale.

Despite its promising title, Harlock again let his mind slip and wander as he swirled his drink, which was growing rather cold. He reached for the carafe at the center of the table and refilled his mug. He also took note of Adalyn’s arched brow and sideways stare as he splashed his drink with more rum. He knew her intentions to curb his desire for alcohol were all well and good after a startling round-a-bout with cirrhosis, but he felt as though he wouldn’t be able to last tonight without it.

He couldn’t help but smile when Adalyn partially refilled her own mug and held out her hand to him without looking. Drinking alone was never any real fun, Harlock decided as he handed her his flask. Unfortunately for him, he watched as she emptied the contents into her mug, handed his empty flask back to him and then proceeded to drown BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 4

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the drink. Harlock’s only reaction was to frown when she set the mug back on the table with a loud ‘thunk’ .

Touché, he thought as he narrowed his gaze. That was one way to make sure he couldn’t get any more alcohol in his system for now. He really needed to stop letting her outsmart him. One day she was bound to realize just what kind of hold she had on him and he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

The captain turned his attention back to Masu, and listened to her tale that evoked gasps and wide-eyed looks of horror. Harlock himself had to applaud his cook’s originality and the way she wove a harrowing tale of a rabbit-masked murderer who targeted small children; only to end up tormented by their ghosts until it drove him mad.

Still, he was nowhere near being frightened, especially not like the three people closest to him. Kei seemed rather enthralled while Daiba sat perturbed and wide-eyed like so many others. Adalyn he found, was hanging on Masu’s every word and chewing at a piece of caramel that he knew was to keep her from biting at her fingers.

A wicked thought entered his mind and he couldn’t resist the urge to grin slightly. He sat back in his seat, paying extra close attention to Masu and Adalyn’s reaction to her. A lapse of suspense visibly gripped Masu’s audience, and judging it as the right moment Harlock lashed out, grabbing at Adalyn’s waist and causing her to shriek in fright.

Her loud cry startled others; she even caused Kei and Daiba to jump. Harlock innocently drank his drink as if nothing had transpired while Adalyn glared daggers at him amidst the snickers of several crewmen. With a huff she turned back around in her seat -away from him- and paid him no mind for the rest of Masu’s story.

Clearly she was irritated with him, and while Masu wrapped up her story Harlock had already devised a way to win back her good graces. Adalyn was easily appeased by free food, and the pirate captain thought it was about time they had another one of their private dinners anyhow. In a few days they would land on the tropical planet Casmar where he would to appeal to her by using crab legs, lobster and shrimp.

Masu’s story ended with a standing ovation from the crowd, and while he too clapped along with everyone else Harlock glanced at his wristwatch to discover the time was a bit later than he expected it. Now all he wanted was to get back to his cabin and go to sleep. The lights came on and while some lingered to enjoy the rest of the food laid out on the tables, Adalyn along with several others began helping Masu clean up.

Harlock himself finished his drink before rising, taking his mug along with the dirty dishes at the table. He zigzagged through the thinning crowd and behind the serving counter where he handed the dishes off to Ace who was loading them into the large dishwasher. Immediately afterwards he looked for Adalyn and found her close by putting leftover tarts and peanut butter fudge into storage containers.

“I see you’re setting aside some of that for yourself.” Harlock inclined his head at the two separate containers of fudge.

“I made it, so why shouldn’t I have some for myself?” she questioned, eyeing him BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 5

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indifferently. “Besides, if I don’t there probably won’t be any left in the morning. Not that you’d care of course. You never eat anything I make.”

“That’s because everything you make has peanut butter in it,” Harlock replied contemptuously. “Peanut butter fudge, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter cream pie, peanut butter popcorn, those peanut butter stick things,” he checked off his fingers.

“Peanut butter haystacks,” Adalyn corrected him. “It’s not my fault you have no taste.

Besides, you didn’t complain about the pancakes I made you until after I told you there was peanut butter in them,” she harrumphed as she stacked the container of tarts with one of the fudges and put them away.

“When you’re stuck on a busted ship drifting in space for nearly a month with only peanut butter to eat it’s not something you ever want to see again for the rest of your life.” His grumblings fell on deaf ears as Adalyn retrieved her fudge, wished Masu and everyone else goodnight and promptly left the mess hall.

Harlock didn’t follow for multiple minutes. He and Adalyn didn’t always hide their verbal flirtations, but there was no need to flaunt their relationship in front of their crewmates. They also did not want to make anyone think there was a physical relationship when the two of them remained platonic. The less awkward everyone felt the better.

Eventually he did follow her, but only after retrieving his flask and complimenting both Magi and Masu on their stories before bidding those left in the mess hall a goodnight. The corridor was thankfully free from crewmembers, sleeping or otherwise when he came upon Adalyn waiting for the lift.

“Are you going to forgive me for startling you?” Harlock asked as he sidled up next to her.

“I don’t know yet,” she replied, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “It was uncalled for, so you may be on my bad side for awhile.”

She was playing him, Harlock realized with a sigh. She must have known he would make up for his prank, otherwise she wouldn’t be giving him a look that clearly said ‘I’m waiting.’ “What if I apologized to you by buying you dinner?”

Adalyn’s expression instantly changed from one of feigned annoyance to enthusiasm before dropping back to indifference. “Well, it’s certainly a start.” Harlock certainly didn’t miss the half smirk on her face as she stepped onto the lift when the doors opened with the captain close behind.

“Now, tell me that wasn’t so terrible,” Adalyn said as Harlock looped his arm around her waist and signaled their deck on the lift’s paneling. The doors shut and they thankfully had it to themselves, Harlock more so than Adalyn. He wasn’t comfortable holding her close in front of their comrades and tended not to, despite his strong desire.

“It wasn’t so terrible,” he stated flatly to appease her, only to be elbowed lightly in the ribs.

“Alright, I know it wasn’t that fantastic for you, but I’m proud that you didn’t sit it BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 6

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out in your cabin.” She leaned against him and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

“Really though, you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“No,” he stated, lightly fingering the lid to his flask. “I’ve been from one side of the known universe to another and I haven’t ever seen anything resembling a ghost.”

“Always the practical one aren’t you?” she sighed. “What if you ever saw one? Would you believe it then?”

“I don’t know,” Harlock admitted. “You know some people say ‘ghosts’ are actually beings from a realm of existence parallel to ours and we only see them when they overlap for unknown reasons.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“No, I’m just saying that could be an explanation about why people think they see them.” Harlock watched as Adalyn frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head before sighing. “With Halloween over I just realized that Christmas will be here before we know it.”

“So?” Harlock really wished he had something left in his flask when he realized this would be their first Christmas together as a couple. He’d have to get her something, and unbeknownst to her he was a notoriously lousy gift-giver.

“Do you have any idea how much eggnog we’re going to have to stock up on? Not only do we drink it all month long but you and Baines have your annual eggnog drinking competition Christmas Eve on top of that. There’s all the food and cookies we’ll have to get, Ace and I will have to dig out the decorations and we’ll have to get a tree—” “Hopefully without a squirrel’s nest in it this time.” Adalyn nodded her consensus at his interjection. “That’s the last time I ever let Daiba pick it out.” Harlock never knew squirrels could adapt to life onboard a battleship so easily and it took weeks to clean them out of all their tiny hideaway places. No one was too happy neither when Zero and Harlock decided that all crew members were to take a round of rabies vaccinations as a precaution.

Unlike his other blunders, Daiba had yet to live that incident down.

“For now, how about you not think about all that.” Harlock regrettably let his hold on her go as the lift’s doors opened and they walked out into the corridor. “How about you come stay with me in my cabin tonight?” he questioned after making sure no one was around to hear him.

“Why would you want that?” Adalyn tried not to smile and look impassive but failed horribly.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” He sighed and stepped a bit closer to her. “It’s because I’m starting to like having you there when I wake up.”

“You know, I could get used to you saying these sweet things.” Adalyn stopped outBD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 7

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side her bedroom door but not before pulling him to her and planting a kiss on his lips.

“Alright, just let me grab my pajamas.”

Harlock waited outside as she went in to retrieve her nightwear. Before she returned the communicator he had stashed away in his pocket started buzzing. Hoping it was nothing urgent that would keep him from getting a decent amount of sleep, he pressed the button to answer it and recognized Sabu’s voice.

“Hey captain, we’re passing by a weird asteroid field and we’re picking up a distress signal.”

Damn it all to hell, Harlock mentally cursed.

“What did he say?” Adalyn asked when she appeared out of the doorframe clutching a bundle of soft clothing.

Harlock motioned for her to stay quiet as he answered. “Are we able to tell how many life readings there are?”

“Funny thing is we’re not getting any at all. That itself is not unusual, but the signal we’re getting is an old one, it hasn’t been used in nearly a century.”

“Weird.” Adalyn breathed Harlock’s very line of thought. “You want to go up and have a look at it?”

“There’s not a real reason why,” he stated making sure to end the communication as he spoke to her. “I don’t see how a ship can keep a signal like that going for so long though.”

“Maybe someone went to check it out and ended up stranded on it,” she suggested.

“You know how some people like to search old shipwrecks for treasure.”

“Still doesn’t explain why there wouldn’t be any life readings.”

“Maybe we’re too far out.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” At his words Adalyn shrugged, her usual motion when she was out of ideas. “Still, I can’t help but find it odd.”

“Well, that’s a good enough reason don’t you think? It wouldn’t hurt to just fly by and make sure would it?’’

It wouldn’t, Harlock realized with a sigh. “Sabu.” He opened to communicator back up. “We’ll pass by just to make sure no one is aboard. Be on the lookout for other ships in the area.”

“Sure thing captain!” Harlock flipped off the device and placed it back in his pocket.

“You coming?” he questioned, but already Adalyn had thrown her pajamas back in her room and shut the door.

“Of course!” She beamed, taking his hand and ushering him back down the hall. “I BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 8

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wonder what kind of ship it was.”

“We’ll find out soon enough, I’m not exactly sure where we’re at right now. It could be anything.” Harlock jerked back his hand when they spotted Kei and Daiba walking off the lift.

They weren’t talking, Kei was currently yawning and Daiba was eating a blueberry scone from a container of mixed snacks taken from the galley. A rather large container too. Geez, Daiba was almost twenty now, not a ravenous, hormonal teen anymore; just how much did he need to eat?

“Where are you two going?’ Kei questioned with a quizzical eye.

“Up to the bridge,” Adalyn answered with an innocent tone.

Both Daiba and Harlock exchanged an uneasy glance. Kei and Adalyn were highly unpredictable around one another. There were days when they’d laugh and act like best friends, and then there were the times they looked like they wanted nothing more than to tear each other’s eyes out. It was Masu who had to explain to them that was just how women were and advised them not to get involved when they were at odds.

The old cook didn’t have to tell any of them twice.

“Sabu said there was a ship sending out a distress signal,” Harlock elaborated further, hoping to dissolve any animosity that might bubble up between them. Luckily, it seemed they were on agreeable terms for now, despite their small exchanges in the galley.

“Funny thing is, the type of signal is nearly a hundred years old and there’s no life signs aboard.” Adalyn ginned wickedly as she explained the situation to them. “Spooky huh?”

Kei’s face lit up with enthusiasm while Daiba visibly shrank back with wide eyes.

Harlock couldn’t understand their reactions, but it was Halloween and they’d just spent hours listening to horrible ghost stories. The idea of investigating an old shipwreck must have been exciting, or terrifying in Daiba’s case.

“Is it alright if we come?” Kei questioned looking to Harlock for an answer.

“I don’t care,” the captain responded with a shrug of his shoulders as they started back towards the lifts.

“Hey! Don’t I get a say in this? I’m tired!” Daiba cried as Kei dragged him by the arm onto the lift.

“This won’t take long,” Kei promised, though in truth she had her suspicions that it would. “Where’s your curiosity tonight anyway, Daiba? Masu’s story didn’t scare you that bad did it? You practically jumped out of your pants when Adalyn startled you.”

“I did not!” Daiba retorted, his face turning red when Kei winked at him.

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take them up to the bridge. He ignored it and stuffed his flask in his pocket. Unfortunately, Daiba was unable to put his snacks away and shifted them from one hand to the other.

The doors to the bridge slid open, the heavily armored metal clanked noisily and all four filed out with Harlock in the lead. Sabu was on duty along with two others and they had already pulled the mystery ship up on the main monitor. It was old and reminiscent of a romantic era liner painted white and black with gold detailing. It also had a flat deck with railing and towering false smoke-stacks. On the secondary screen beside it ran the mayday signal along with an additive line of numbers that kept repeating.

“One, one, five, seven, seven, nine, eight?” Kei raised an eyebrow when she read though the text.

“Yeah, I have no clue what it means either,” Sabu commented as he swiveled around in his seat at the navigation console. “The rest of it is a basic distress call, but the ship is identified as a passenger cruiser called the Dionysus. It’s entirely possible that because it’s so old that it’s a glitch in the ship’s system, but who knows.”

“Still no signs of life?” Harlock questioned as he moved towards the helm.

“None, sir.” Sabu replied. “We’ve been able to do a scan of the ship, there’s no apparent physical damage and our scans are finding nothing dangerous like carbon gas or anything. There must have been some mechanical failure that caused the ship to be abandoned.”

“This just keeps getting stranger and stranger,” Adalyn muttered. “Let’s go check it out!”

Harlock nearly jumped at her startling suggestion while Kei enthusiastically agreed and Daiba viciously cried ‘no’.

“It’s nearly midnight!” he exclaimed. “Why would you want to go look at some old ship no one’s been on in nearly a century!”

“Because it will be fun!” Kei argued. “Honestly Daiba, what part of exploring a spooky ship on Halloween doesn’t sound appealing? Unless of course, you’re afraid.”

“I am not!” he pouted, his face turning red again. “I’m just saying there’s no way we can know if it’s truly safe or not! It’s been floating out here for who knows how long so why risk it?”

“I’m inclined to agree with Daiba,” Harlock finally spoke on the matter, instantly drawing the vexing stares of both Adalyn and Kei. Unlike the previous times he had been at odds with women, Harlock felt horribly disadvantaged when faced with these two together.

“Sabu said there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it,” Adalyn countered sweetly. “Just let us go look around for a little while, you can stay here and go to sleep.”

“I don’t trust you to go unsupervised, especially Daiba,” the captain retorted sharply.

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“Hey I—!”

“I’ll look after him, captain, and make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.” Kei cut off the young man and placed a hand on his bony shoulder. “I think if we told the first mate he’d like to come too, you know how he enjoys things like this.”

The chance to look at the mechanics of a ship that old would be right up Yattaran’s alley if he were not already preoccupied, Harlock thought. He still had his doubts however, letting his crew run amuck in a ship that had been abandoned for years would undoubtedly have some kind of consequence.

“Is there an efficient air supply on it?” Harlock practically groaned.

“Doesn’t look like it, but the artificial gravity is still engaged.” Sabu said after scrolling through some information on the panel before him.

“We’ve got those new space suits that Baines gave to us. Why not take this opportunity to try them out?” Adalyn looked to Harlock who seemed more and more likely not to contest their request. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything dangerous and if something happens we’ll come right back to the ship,” she promised earnestly, finally cracking Harlock’s resolve.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But stay in groups and don’t take long, if something happens you get back on the ship immediately. And for the love of heaven, don’t bring back anything that might kill us.” His last comment was directed more towards Daiba who huffed and muttered something under his breath.

“Then it’s settled!” Kei clapped her hands together. “I’ll go get Yattaran and meet you all down by the space walks!”

“I better go put this up then,” Daiba sighed, mentioning the load of snacks still in his hands as he followed Kei back to the lift.

“Hey,” Harlock motioned to Adalyn before she could follow the other two. “You be careful, alright?”

“You know I will.” She winked as she left, leaving Harlock and the rest of the men on the bridge to guide the Arcadia to a docking position alongside the other ship.

As soon as he heard the doors close Harlock knew he made a mistake letting them go. He trusted Kei and Yattaran not to do anything stupid, but Adalyn was too curious about things and Daiba was well...he was Daiba. He was an excellent fighter flyer and good with the ship’s cannons but he was the worst trouble magnet Harlock had ever come across.

Yeah, he would feel better if he was there to make sure nothing went horribly wrong.

As soon as the Arcadia was ready to connect the space walk to the unknown ship, Harlock had made up his mind and headed towards the lift with one final order. He wasn’t too surprised that Sabu had decided to join in on the expedition as well. The Arcadia’s second navigator scampered onto the lift with a smile.

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“The chance to explore a mysterious ship on Halloween is too good to resist!” he explained as they headed down.

Harlock wished he could agree. Halloween was quickly becoming his least favorite holiday.

Chapter 2

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When Harlock and Sabu arrived at the space walk airlock everyone was suited up and ready to go. Not only was Kei there with Daiba and Adalyn, but Yattaran seemed willing to part with his modal kits for an hour or so. Ace was there as well along with second gunner Yasu and engineers Kiddodo and Taro. Everyone else must have either had better sense or were asleep.

Their helmets were already secured and Harlock saw they carried a firearm or two as a precaution. Yattaran had a small toolkit clipped to his belt, and Ace had decided to bring his camera along. They also brought along several flashlights; Harlock berated himself when he realized he had not grabbed one.

“You’re coming!” Adalyn beamed when she saw Harlock approach in one of the new lightly-armored suits colored black and grey. Adalyn had chosen instead to wear her black stealth armor, far lighter and flexible than the ones the rest of the crew wore. Either she preferred it, or she didn’t trust the new ones given to them by Baines. Harlock himself hoped she simply liked hers better, but he would be monitoring his armor’s readings carefully just in case.

“Yes I’m coming,” he said, putting on his helmet and locking it in place against the stiff collar on his neck. “The helmets are definitely tighter.” The safety padding pressed against all sides of his face and head, making it slightly uncomfortable. The faceplate was more transparent than the ones they had been using and he was a little concerned about the visual effectiveness of the helmet’s data screen.

“That’s less weight though.” Adalyn tapped the side of her own helmet which obscured her face completely. “It’s modeled after mine; you’ll be able to hear what’s going on around you better as well.”

Harlock would just have to take her word on it. If it did a better job than the old ones, he would be willing to admit that being able to turn your head a bit quicker and properly hear an approaching attacker was better than having a mild headache. It at least venBD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 13

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tilated the proper amount of oxygen noiselessly and Harlock checked the vital readings while they waited for the walk to connect properly.

When the green light came on above the door Kei reached out and signaled for it to open. The long corridor led straight to the Dionysus’ stark white airlock door. The murky light made it slightly creepy, not to Harlock of course, but everyone else could not help but think it looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Oh my gosh! I can’t wait to see what this ship looks like from the inside!” Kei fearlessly led the way, dragging a reluctant Daiba along with her as everyone else followed suit.

Harlock followed last behind Yattaran and waited as Kei supplied power to the opposite door before she could override it and command it to open. She smiled when her efforts succeeded and the door slid open rather easily revealing a pitch black interior.

The small group in front turned on their flashlights and crept onto the ship. Harlock could not see much at first when he boarded, but quickly realized it was not that remarkable. The simple, wide corridor they gathered in ran parallel to the ship’s hull.

Another black hallway stretched out in front of them, but when the lights fell upon it, they saw it too was devoid of ornamentation.

“Which way do we go?” Daiba questioned, his voice coming over the radio in Harlock’s ear.

“I want to go look at the bridge,” Yattaran said flatly. “Sabu, you did manage to get a schematic for the ship didn’t you?”

“Of course,” he replied. “It should have downloaded to the mainframe; we can access it through the screens in these things.” He was referring to the helmets, and Daiba let out a strangled cry when the brightness on his was turned up too high.

“There we are.” Harlock was impressed when he accessed the map. Not only was he able to see the schematics clearly on the limpid screen, he was able to maintain an unobstructed view of his environment. It was also highly convenient that each suit was uniquely and readily identifiable on the map. He could easily know where everyone was at in a combat situation. He would have to thank Baines with more than a few rounds of drinks next time he saw him, that was for sure.

“Can you change the name of your suit?” Daiba questioned after having accessed the map. “It seems I’m AP-117, I’d just rather it say my name.”

“If you’re able to personalize it yourself I’m putting you down as ‘Squirrels’.” Taro quipped, gaining a laugh from just about everyone in the party.

Daiba huffed and felt his ears turning red. He learned not to argue back in situations like this a good while back, it only seemed to make it worse. That incident happened nearly a year ago and he was eagerly awaiting the day when everyone would move past it.

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“Did you hear that?” He shined his flashlight down the corridor to his left. “I thought I heard something.”

“It’s air pressure from the space walk.” Yattaran dismissed the slight groaning noise and moved to shut the airlock door behind them. “This ship hasn’t had any circulating oxygen in it in quite awhile, once it’s closed there won’t be any more sound.”

“Geez Daiba, you’re awfully jumpy,” Kei remarked as he breathed a sigh of relief.

Adalyn, with her flashlight in hand, started down the corridor in front of them. Leisurely she shined her light on the walls, seeing if there was perhaps anything of interest.

“Where are you going?” Ace questioned her as he took a few tentative steps in her direction.

“I didn’t come here to just stand around, I’m going to go wander around and see what I can find.” She responded, prompting Harlock to break from the group and trudge after her.

“You’re not going anywhere by yourself!” the captain chastised. Adalyn however, ignored his command and continued to walk further down the lengthy hall.

“Well I’m going to find the bridge,” Yattaran decided, then looked to Sabu. “You wanna come with me to see what went wrong with this ship? Maybe we can get some light going too.” Sabu nodded and the two started down the hallway to their left, whilst Kei ushered Daiba down the opposite corridor.

“Let’s go see what we can find this way!” she practically chirped as she took his hand.

“The map says there’s a theater, let’s go find out what it looks like!”

With everyone else breaking up, Ace, Taro, Yasu and Kiddodo looked at one another and shrugged. “To the engine room?” Taro asked which was met with a nodded consensus and they promptly set off in the same direction as Daiba and Kei. “Now wait a second!” Harlock turned only to find the rest of his crew had broken up and were already gone. Not even five minutes had passed and he already regretted his decision to come on this misadventure.

“They’re gone Captain.” Adalyn glanced over her shoulder at Harlock who was at a loss for what he should do. Ordering them back would do nothing he realized, and he was tempted to grab Adalyn and run after them. “You said that everyone should stay in groups and that’s precisely what we’re doing, now hurry up, I want to see where this goes.”

Harlock reluctantly sighed and slouched his shoulders before he trailed after Adalyn.

He did not like it, but at least he could always see where they were and no one would be alone. With nothing else to do, he supposed he should at least try to enjoy himself.

He was alone with Adalyn at least.

“What are we looking for?” Harlock questioned, looking around at wherever Adalyn shined her flashlight.

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“Nothing in particular,” she replied. “There doesn’t really seem to be much down here though, why don’t we go up to the higher levels and see what’s there?”

“I’m just following you,” he stated with a casual shrug. “There should be a stairwell around here somewhere.” Harlock looked left and right but there were few other corridors and most of them appeared to be dead ends from what he could make out.

It was mainly just one wide hallway with walls colored in a pale shade with a few golden plaques indicating room numbers and lifts. The further they went the hard flooring gave way to blue and white carpeting. Intricate wall molding appeared along with colorful recreated paintings in gilded frames.

“Oh, here we are!” Adalyn smiled when they came upon a broad spiral stairwell covered in the same carpet lining the floors and a detailed railing. When they looked, they could see it stretched upwards several floors and was capped with an elaborate domed ceiling. “Nowhere to go but up,” she commented as she began climbing the stairwell.

Harlock followed her and kept his map displayed. After they walked up the first flight, they came to a landing that branched off into a corridor that matched the one they had just come from. It was nothing but passenger rooms, and he motioned for Adalyn to keep to the stairs.

“Keep going up,” Harlock said to her. “The last floor will lead us to the main lobby.”

“I thought you said you were following me.”

“I am, but I don’t think comparing passenger cabins would be a fantastic way to spend the rest of the night,” he grumbled, noting that it was past one in the morning. “I would much rather be in bed to be perfectly honest.”

“Quit your whining, this is an excellent way to spend the night! How often do we get to explore a ship like this? It’s actually rather lovely; I don’t think it’s creepy at all.”

“Are you disappointed that it’s not decayed and covered in cobwebs?”

“It’s not your run-of-the-mill ghost ship, that’s for sure. It’s the not knowing what caused this ship to be abandoned and not knowing what’s around the corner that’s spooky. Because there’s no air either, we won’t be able to hear anything sneak up on us. That’s what creeps me out the most.”

“You just have a vivid imagination,” remarked Harlock as they came to the final floor.

“More than likely an engine failed and they forgot it was floating around out here. You have no idea how often that used to happen.”

“Do you just go around doing your absolute best to make sure that no one has any fun? Cause that’s what you’re doing,” Adalyn humorously berated him. “It’s Halloween and the rest of us are trying to make the most of it by exploring a mysterious ship that we would all like to believe is scary and haunted. You should have just stayed behind with your paranormal doubts, your asocial personality and gone to sleep after finally accomplishing your lifelong quest of destroying your liver.”

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Harlock could not help but laugh when her tirade ended. He sometimes hated the fact she could change his mood for the better without trying. He had been concerned about the safety of his comrades for so long it was hard to stop. Adalyn sometimes seemed like the only person who could take his mind off things and he did not think he had told her how grateful he was.

“Which way now, Navigator?” Adalyn asked as she looked down three hallways they had to choose from. “Left, right or center? Or do you just want me to pick one?”

“Right,” he pointed. “It’ll be nice when we find a hallway that doesn’t look the same as the last one we came from.”

“Does it unnerve you?” she questioned slyly, and Harlock knew she was grinning underneath her helmet. “I suppose it would be bothersome if you were trying to get away from something.”

“You’re not going to stop that are you?” Adalyn laughed in response. “There’s nothing I know of that can survive without air.”

“There you go again, spoiling all the fun.” Harlock groaned as she chastised him.

“Although I honestly wonder if ghosts do need air, they are dead after all.”

Harlock kept his mouth shut so not to engage her in a debate regarding her curiosities. It would only dissolve into whether or not ghosts actually existed and he always avoided unnecessary arguments with her. His best course of action would be to distract her from the current subject.

“After we get to the lobby is there any place you’d like to look at first?”

“Not really, although the map says there is a bar nearby, you might find something you’d like.” Harlock couldn’t help but raise his brow in interest at her suggestion. “But don’t you think for one second that I will let you have it all at once; the next time I find you lying unconscious with your face in a pool of bourbon I’m going to leave you there.”

“Now who is spoiling someone’s fun?”

“Oh, ha! ha!” she replied with a sarcastic laugh.

Before she could further retort, lighting from overhead and along the walls sprang on, illuminating the expansive hallway they walked through.

“Yattaran and Sabu must have made it to the bridge.” Harlock remarked as Adalyn switched off her flashlight. “Guess our fun time in the dark is over with.” he chuckled as she slouched her shoulders and grumbled something inaudible.

“Hey captain,” Yattaran’s voice came through the communicator. “We’re here on the bridge; it doesn’t look like there’s anything too wrong with the ship and we’re running a complete diagnostic on it. If all goes well we’ll have some oxygen circulating in a few minutes, but we’ll have to make sure that the filtration system is still good.”

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“Sounds fine to me. You can take your time.” The transmission ended, and as soon as it did Adalyn couldn’t help but gripe.

“Every last one of you is a spoil sport.”

Harlock draped an arm over her hunched shoulders. “It doesn’t have to be creepy and haunted for us to have fun,” he assured. “We only need each other’s company, and some alcohol.”

“You’re just wanting to get to that bar as quickly as possible, aren’t you?”

“I can’t deny that,” he admitted freely. “Neither can I deny that this is a high-class ship, there’s bound to be some good booze stashed away here.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I had to fall for an alcoholic pirate,” Adalyn wondered aloud.

“Don’t know, probably the same reason I fell for a peanut butter loving, finishing school failure,” Harlock said with a smirk. “But hey, I’d say that it’s a fair trade, you get to wonder around an old shipwreck -against my better judgment- and I get a few bottles of prime alcohol.”

“Against my better judgment,” she quipped. “You’re right, perhaps we should have just ignored the distress signal and went to bed.”

“Too late for that now; next time you’ll just have to listen to me.” Harlock ushered her along and never once gave her the opportunity to retort. Maybe Halloween wasn’t such a bad holiday after all.

Despite being nearly a century old and figuratively collecting dust the Dionysus was in remarkable condition. Yattaran and Sabu went from panel to panel checking everything and running a complete diagnostic. They were able to navigate the controls fairly easily; the layout was not much different than the ships of today.

The panel sending the distress signal was the only one up and running when they arrived. This was not surprising to them, but they were left scratching their heads, figuratively speaking. They didn’t find any evidence that someone had been on the bridge recently, and no one else was aboard the ship besides them.

Tearing open the panel revealed what Yattaran himself had suspected. The wiring had come loose and became entangled. He frowned at the shoddy workmanship; he wasn’t surprised that something went wrong. It was an all too common example of bad priorities. The shipbuilders were too busy with the commodities for passengers rather than the mechanics. It was a sad, sad thing Yattaran thought.

Satisfied they found the reason why the ship was sending out a signal, they set to work discovering what went wrong. They also worked on making the ship a bit more hospitable to them. The filtration system for breathable oxygen seemed fine, but they first needed to raise the temperature inside the ship. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if they took off their tight helmets and their lungs suddenly froze.

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It was a slow process, but they had time. Sabu was looking through all the stored personnel files out of curiosity while Yattaran kept his eye on the diagnostic and researched the reason for why the ship was abandoned. The original distress call sent out around that time stated a problem with the propulsion system. The diagnostic wasn’t conclusive yet, but it was a likely scenario given what they knew.

“Funny,” Sabu remarked from his place at one of the panels.

“What?” Yattaran questioned without removing his gaze from the display screen.

“Did you find something?”

“Kinda, one of the last entries states that a passenger went missing right around the time the ship messed up.”

“Oh?” Yattaran couldn’t say he was rather intrigued, his slightly compulsive behavior had him fixed on the mechanics of the ship.

“An eight year girl named Emily Rose disappeared exactly eleven hours before the ship sent out its first distress call.” Sabu continued, undaunted by the first mate’s lack of concern. “That’s kinda creepy if you ask me.”

“Why’s that?”

“It doesn’t look like they found her from what the records are saying.”

“If they were in the process of abandoning the ship, it’s likely they wouldn’t have bothered to record something like that,” Yattaran dismissed. “Aha! Here it is, it looks like there was a malfunction with the ion thruster, but it doesn’t elaborate.”

“Guess that means you’ll want to head down and take a look?” Sabu asked though the answer was blatantly obvious. “In about a half hour the temperature will be about right and we’ll have some breathable air.”

Yattaran didn’t bother to answer, by the time Sabu turned around the first mate was already walking out the door. Sighing, the navigator was able to sync the status of the ship with the console wired into his suit. He’d be able to keep his eye on the oxygen levels on the ship. He scampered after Yattaran once he finished his work and relayed his findings to Kei, who would certainly find the information regarding the missing girl interesting.

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Chapter 3 “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Daiba questioned as Kei peered through the doorway of a darkened room. “Cause I don’t think we are.”

Daiba himself was not necessarily sure where they were at exactly. At one point they were headed towards a theater, and then somehow were sidetracked when they stumbled upon a casino. Kei said something about a few of their fellow crewmembers needing new packs of cards and ended up going out a wrong door. Now they were in a narrow maintenance corridor on the port side of the ship with white walls and white doors. Even the hard flooring was lacking color, and Daiba found it sterile and a little creepy given the harsh lighting.

“There isn’t a right or wrong way if we’re just exploring,” Kei said as she abandoned the doorway and went onto the next.

“Yeah, but there’s nothing down here but storage rooms, and to be honest, I don’t like it.” Daiba would not readily admit that he was not the most incentive person there was, but even he felt there was something that was not right about this place.

He kept telling himself he was simply tired and that Masu’s story was making him paranoid. From the moment the lights came on however, he’d felt like the atmosphere around them was changing, as if it was becoming heavier. He felt uneasy, like someone was peering around the corner just watching them.

“I don’t think this feels right,” he finally confessed, hoping there would not be too many humiliating consequences from doing so.

Kei however, seemed to ignore him and ventured into the room. He wasn’t exactly sure whether to be relieved or not. As he stood alone in the hallway, he became more BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 21

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and more anxious. Nothing was there, even the sensors in his suit were not picking up anything, but he wasn’t alone. His eyes kept wandering to a spot that branched off into another hallway. Every time he turned away, he would look back fully expecting to see someone or something standing there.

“Um, Kei?” Daiba maneuvered closer and nearly jumped when she walked through the door.

“What is wrong with you?” she questioned, knitting her brow as that growing, oppressive feeling quickly subsided when she appeared. “You’re as white as a sheet!”

“Um...” he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Daiba had no doubts Kei would call him crazy or worse if he told her what was bothering him. “Do you feel... strange?”

Kei’s eyebrow arched high on her forehead in response. “What on earth are you talking about? What did I tell you about being weird?”

“To stop doing it,” Daiba replied without hesitation. “But I’m serious! Something really doesn’t feel right!” His eyes looked back to the spot beside the hallway, though nothing was there. He really wanted to get back to the Arcadia, but couldn’t think of a logical way in which to sway Kei to return. Obviously saying, ‘hey Kei, there’s some kind of invisible...something watching us, and I think we should get back to the ship cause I don’t feel comfortable here.’

Yeah, that’d go over real well.

Before Kei could retort —much to Daiba’s relief— the communication line opened up; “Hey Kei!” Sabu called. “I found something on the ship’s log a little while ago you might find interesting.”

“Oh?” she turned her attention away from Daiba for the moment, leaving him to think of some kind of explanation or excuse in the meantime.

“Before the ship was abandoned, a little girl went missing. They never made an update as to whether or not they found her.”

Daiba’s face went stark white as Kei let out a surprised gasp. “What room was she in?” she immediately asked. Kei’s mind was already swirling with possibilities, and the very first thing she could think to do was explore the little girl’s last known location.

Maybe they could find a clue as to what happened to her. This little excursion was becoming more and more worthwhile.

“I don’t know, but I’ve downloaded all the information to the Arcadia’s computer, you should be able to access it.”

“Thank you Sabu!” The transmission ended and Kei fluttered her eyes in Daiba’s direction. “Oh Daiba!”

“No!” he cried, but his outburst did nothing to hinder Kei as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back down the hall. “Do I not get a say in any of this?!”

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“No,” Kei stated. “We’re just going to explore a cabin, what’s the harm in that?” she suddenly stopped and grinned mischievously. “Oh, that’s right; I’ve got you with me!”

“Do any of you realize how much I hate you?!”

“Oh quit complaining,” she admonished. “We’re just going to take a quick look around and I’m sure as long as you don’t touch anything we’ll be fine!”

There was no point in arguing with her Daiba realized. Sighing in defeat, he let her lead him to the higher decks after Kei found the room number and found it on the map.

To his horror, he felt like they were being followed. Intermediately he would turn his head and still he could see nothing; even when the hallways became larger and more grandiose.

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts. Your mind is still dwelling on Masu’s story; there’s no such things as ghosts, oh gah, where’s the Captain? He’ll know if something’s not right, and there’s no such thing as ghosts!’Daiba repeated to himself over and over again in his head.

A short corridor branched off the white and blue one they walked through; despite his armor Daiba swore a rush of air passed by him and down that corridor before going around the corner. Daiba even heard a faint “whoosh” in his earpiece and snapped his head in the direction it came from.

“Did you hear that?!” he cried in alarm, stopping Kei dead in her tracks. “I swear I heard this big blast of air pass right by me!”

Instead of responding, Kei simply looked around before spotting an empty porcelain vase on an intricate wall table. She went and picked up the piece before letting it fall to the ground. The sound was strangely half-way audible when it hit the carpet, almost like it happened further down the hall.

“Well we are getting some air in here; you’re probably just hearing the air currents kicking in.”

Daiba wanted to argue, but realized there wasn’t exactly to justify his concerns to Kei. She’d only tell him he was being paranoid and would probably think of a way to scare the crap out of him when he least expected it. Daiba had to take a personal moment to congratulate himself on thinking ahead; he no doubt saved himself from a humiliating act.

His best option was to simply keep his mouth shut, hope that weird feeling didn’t come back and pray that nothing went too horribly wrong during the rest of this misadventure. He didn’t want to be the cause of another catastrophe; the mishap with the squirrels had been bad enough.

Finding out why the ship malfunctioned was easier than any of the men gathered in the small engine room could have hoped. There was some disappointment; the mystery was blatantly obvious by the thick ice encasing a lot of the propulsion and auxiliary equipment. Even the metal flooring had a thin sheet of frost covering it. It was a most BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 23

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bizarre sight for most of them.

Yattaran sighed and shook his head as he observed the foggy ice encasing the panels and machinery that took up a majority of space in the cramped room. “Here I thought this was going to be a challenge.”

“Obviously not,” Taro added. “What could have caused this anyway? I haven’t seen anything similar to this.”

“Any number of things, really,” the first mate replied. “Just by looking at it my best guess would be a leaking coolant line that suddenly ruptured. They crammed so much of this vital machinery into such a small space it would have been hard to locate.”

“You still want to poke around here?” Sabu asked as Yattaran shook his head.

“Why bother? It’s no wonder they abandoned it, it would take us too long to melt through the ice to look at anything. I think I’m satisfied with this excursion so I might just head back to the ship.”

“I think I’ll turn in too,” Yasu yawned as he stretched. “There’s not much else I’d want to look at personally.”

Yattaran left without saying anything else as Yasu followed him back to the Arcadia.

Sabu, Kiddodo and Taro were less inclined to head back so soon and headed out to wander around.

“You coming?” Sabu called as Ace lingered behind to snap a few photos.

“I’ll catch up in a bit,” he waved. “I just want to get a few pictures of this.” Sabu shrugged and left the young man to himself without a second thought. Ace was not the hazard Daiba was, so letting him wander around alone for a short time was no big deal.

Ace was quite content by himself, snapping photos and wandering through the tight spaces. He was careful to avoid the slickest areas, and skirted around sharp edges of ice. As he wandered about, he came to notice that a certain area contained the thickest and most erratic forms of ice.

Jagged shards stuck out in all directions around a monitoring console near the back of the room. Ace wasn’t much of an engineer, so he could not identify the type of mechanism he was looking at. As he looked closer he could see a large dark mass beside the metal paneling.

Curious, Ace went closer, having to squeeze precariously between sharp edges and frozen machinery. For a few moments he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at; Ace wiped away a layer of frost to see what was there.

His jaw fell in shock at what he saw.

The young man tore from the room screaming for Sabu over the radio. Adrenaline pumping, the only thing in his mind was what he found. Frozen in the engine room now far behind him, was a little girl.

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Harlock shifted his rather heavy case of booze as he followed Adalyn down a wide, grandiose hallway lined with gilded paintings and paneling. He managed to score a few prime bottles of alcohol sealed tight in a bar they recently left, so he found no reason to complain as she kept wandering through the ship.

However, as Adalyn stopped to peer at a particular painting a set of double doors caught his attention. Pushing one open with his foot and looking inside, he could only grin.

“Adalyn! Come in here,” he called as he walked into the room.

Harlock set his case of mixed bottles down on the smooth mosaic flooring, noting the bottles made a clanking noise as they struck each other. He looked at the oxygen readings, finding there was now sufficient air to breathe in the ship. Harlock smiled as he stood, just as Adalyn walked through the door with a painting she pried from the wall outside.

“Take a look at this; this will be beautiful in my bedroom!”

“Yes, I’m sure it will.” he took it from her hands without looking at it and set it down on the ground beside his drinks. “But right now I want you to humor me.”

Adalyn was briefly at a loss, especially when he reached forward and began to take off her helmet. “What are you talking about?” she questioned as he tossed it aside.

He didn’t need to answer her; as Harlock removed his own helmet Adalyn had time to survey the massive room colored ivory and gold. Eight glittering chandeliers hung from a decorative ceiling over a hard dance floor, and Adalyn put on a look of apathy as Harlock led her to the center.

She was never too fond of dancing, and the memories of many terrible lessons from her old boarding school and Madam Rousseau’s came flooding back. However, she didn’t miss the enthusiastic look on his face, and she could never bring herself to deny him anything; even when it came to his drinking, she tended to be more lenient than she should have been.

Despite her initial reluctance, she fell into step with him as he led her in a simple waltz. Adalyn felt her lack of enthusiasm slip away as Harlock began to hum a tune and a smile formed at the corner of her mouth in response. Perhaps the problem in school was not having the correct dance partner. Yes, her dashing pirate would have been much more appealing than those austere, uniformed boys they were forced to partner with.

“We don’t dance enough,” Harlock remarked as they made another turn about the floor.

“Is this a fact or an opinion?” she asked wryly. “I thought after the incident at the Paradise Pub you’d never want to dance again.”

“We were both drunk,” he recalled with a mixture of humor and contempt. “It was mostly your fault; you attacked that woman who tried to cut in.”

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“She had it coming!” Adalyn retaliated with flushing cheeks. “I distinctly remember you complaining that she wouldn’t stop bothering you at the bar either; I wasn’t about to let trash like that ruin our night together!”

Harlock dissolved into laughter at her flustering face. “You know it doesn’t matter, even though we barely escaped capture from the local authorities I still love you.”

“And I love you; despite the fact you constantly attract the attentions of other women and give me heart attacks on a regular basis.”

“You know, I might be doing in on purpose. You’re right, I will one day drink myself to death, but you’re young and healthy; logically speaking, I need a way speed your demise so I won’t be lonely after death.”

“So you are determined to be the death of me?” Adalyn snorted when she laughed at his joke.

Harlock suddenly jerked his head and abruptly stopped their dance when something caught his attention. Adalyn looked at him with a curious expression after she nearly lost her footing over their unexpected stop. “Did you hear that?” he asked, prompting Adalyn to shake her head. “I heard someone else laughing.”

Adalyn strained her hearing, looking in the same direction as Harlock. There was nothing there but another set of doors that led into the same corridor they came from. It was partially opened, and Harlock stepped away from her thinking perhaps it was one of their crewmates.

“Hey! Who’s out there?” he called, waiting for a response and ultimately heard none.

“You sure you heard someone else? It might have just been an echo,” Adalyn reasoned after several minutes as Harlock shook his head.

“It wasn’t your voice I heard,” he responded with a convinced tone. “It sounded higher, almost like a child’s.”

The door they had been staring at mutely creaked and moved. Harlock bolted towards the door with Adalyn right behind him. He busted through the door, hoping to catch whoever it was that he was certain had been there. Surprisingly, there was no one in the long corridor. Harlock looked both ways, he didn’t hear footsteps either.

“No one,” he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Jeez,” Adalyn rubbed the side of her face. “Don’t you think it’s rather cold out here?”

“The temperature is not going to be leveled throughout the ship.” Harlock dismissed, and then turned his attention to the door, checking to see how smooth the hinges were.

It wouldn’t have taken much force to move it. Though satisfied, he still couldn’t quite explain the laugh he heard. It sounded exactly like a little— “Captain!” Both Harlock and Adalyn looked to see Sabu rushing down the corridor towards them with his helmet gone. “There you are! You gotta come down to the engine BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 26

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room now!”

“What’s going on?” Harlock questioned as Sabu paused to catch his breath.

“I didn’t believe it myself until I saw it,” he breathed. “I swear to you, down in the engine room is a little girl frozen in ice!”

“What?” Adalyn breathed her eyes wide.

Neither of them knew what to say; but after the initial shock wore off, Harlock started down the hallway with Sabu close behind.

Adalyn lingered behind for a moment, slowly processing the past several minutes’ events. Maybe she was going crazy, but the fact Harlock had heard a child’s laugh, they both witnessed a door moving on its own and now a little girl’s body had been found made her mind wander. To add to it, the air against her skin wasn’t as cold as it had been just a few moments ago.

She tentatively looked about, wondering if perhaps they really had stumbled upon a real ghost ship. Harlock would undoubtedly say it was just her imagination, but to her the events were a little more than coincidence.

“Adalyn!” Harlock called once he realized she hadn’t been following. “Are you coming?”

“Y-yeah,” she said once she snapped out of her reverie. “I’m coming.”

Adalyn followed them at a much slower pace, thinking perhaps the best thing to do was simply watch and wait to see if anything else abnormal happened.

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Chapter 4 Daiba wasn’t quite sure what they were looking for exactly, and he was certain Kei hadn’t the slightest clue either. He leaned against the rosewood doorframe to a lavish sitting room as Kei picked through the adjacent bedroom, pulling open drawers and looking through the deserted wardrobe and bathroom.

To him, it seemed like no one had been in the room before. The two-bedroom suite was spotless; the beds were made, and there was no clothing or jewelry in any of the dressers and wardrobes. Towels were folded up and ready to be used. Even the little bathroom samples were still where the staff had left them. It was a little more than bizarre, but right now, he was too tired to care.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes, wondering how much longer she planned to take. He wasn’t quite sure of the time, but he hoped she would finish soon so he could go to bed.

Daiba had personally had enough of this excursion, and since experiencing that unnerving feeling of being watched, he was slightly paranoid. He jumped at just about every noise and kept expecting something to leap out at him from behind each doorway.

“Are you about done?” Daiba drawled. “There’s nothing here, and I’m ready to get back to the ship.”

“I’m still looking!” Kei called. “Just hang out on the couch until I get done, will you?”

Daiba immediately grumbled something inaudible under his breath before he collapsed on the overly plush couch where they had placed their discarded helmets. Damn it all to hell, it was more comfortable than he expected. He leaned his head back as he sank into it, closing his eyes briefly as he heard Kei pilfer through more drawers.

Before he knew it, he had begun to doze. After a few minutes, he was slowly being BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 29

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pulled back to the waking world, but kept his eyes shut. Was it just him or had the room gotten colder?

“Kei!” Daiba called as he folded his arms tightly across his chest to ward off the chill.

“Can we take this couch back with us? I like it.”

“You’ll have to check with the captain first,” Kei replied from the adjacent room.

“He’ll want to look it over before he makes a decision; you know it’s a rule now.”

“Fine,” Daiba grumbled, cracking open his eye to grab the communicator lodged in his helmet.

Before he could take hold of it, he jolted back to the opposite end of the couch when he saw the wispy form of a small person standing beside it. He could not see any discernible features, and in a split second it vanished. Daiba instantly fell off the couch and scrambled across the carpeted flooring screaming for Kei before he ran headlong into her as she emerged from the room.

An audible rush of wind left Kei’s lungs as they crashed to the floor, Daiba landing on his face while Kei hit her back. Daiba lifted himself from the floor and rubbed his sore nose and forehead that had gained a rather painful carpet burn.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Kei smacked him on the head after she sat up.

“A ghost!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “I swear to you, I just saw a ghost standing beside the couch in there!”

Kei frowned as she gave him a skeptical look. “Did you sit down and fall asleep in there? Remember what happened last time you came running and screaming you had seen a ghost?”

“Yeah, but this time I haven’t been drinking cactus moonshine and Tori’s not around wearing a horse mask!” he retorted.

Kei, needless to say, was skeptical. “What did it look like?” she rolled her eyes as she stood.

“I couldn’t really see its face, but it was about this tall,” he motioned with his hand, indicating it was almost even with his hip. “It almost looked like thick smoke, but it was shaped like a person!”

She still had her doubts despite Daiba’s earnest description. He might have very well seen something, but whether it was a ghost or not was doubtful. Though Kei believed in the paranormal, this was Daiba she was talking to; the very same person who had, after a drunken stupor last Halloween, been scared witless by a bird in a mask and was convinced what he had seen was a demonic entity. Daiba had been ordered to never drink again after that.

“It was right there!” Daiba pointed to the location where he had seen it. “I opened my eyes and it was right there at the end of the couch!”

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Kei walked towards the location in which Daiba pointed, doubtful at first, until she felt a discernible drop in temperature with only a few steps into the room. It hadn’t been that cold when she was in there a few minutes ago. Curious, she removed the glove from her hand and reached out to feel the air where Daiba claimed he saw the ghost.

“It’s so cold right here,” she remarked as Daiba took a few tentative steps in the room.

Her curiosity kicking in, Kei reached for her helmet on the couch and slipped it back on. The very first thing she did was power up the visual readings to see if she could get an exact temperature. Her findings were a quite interesting.

“There’s a thirteen degree drop in temperature from where you’re standing Daiba,” she said before pulling the helmet back off. “That’s a little more than weird.”

“You see! Something weird is going on here! I knew it, but I didn’t want to say anything cause you wouldn’t believe me!” he cried, getting a majority of his frustrations off his chest. It felt good, but it didn’t have quite the effect he was hoping.

Kei bit her lip and looked at him with the most enthralled look he had ever seen. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no!

“Do you know what this means?!” Daiba didn’t, but she didn’t bother to wait for a response anyway. “If you really did see a ghost, then we’re on a real haunted ship! We can go on a real ghost hunt!”

“I don’t wanna!” Daiba yelled in response. “I just want to go back to my room and go to sleep! I don’t want anything to do with ghosts, ghost hunts, or anything that doesn’t involve sleep anymore!”

Again, his outburst didn’t have quite the effect he was hoping. Kei narrowed her gaze in a menacing way, letting him know he was not getting his way, once again.

“Listen here you little twerp—” Kei’s tongue-lashing was cut short as the communication line in her helmet started beeping. It was the captain.

“Kei, we’ve got a situation, I need everyone to come down to this ship’s engine room.”

“Daiba and I will be right there.” The transmission ended after her confirmation.

Daiba breathed a sigh of relief and felt as though he had dodged a bullet. His way out of this seemed so simple now; he could escape from Kei and if he could make it to his room, lock the door behind him and barricade himself inside he’d be free to sleep.

“Get your stuff,” Kei barked, prompting Daiba to obey her command without question.

He followed her out of the room clutching his helmet in front of him. Though he was glad this excursion seemed to be at an end, he couldn’t help but feel a little bad for Kei. She had obviously been excited and her demeanor now was one of disappointment.

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“Hey, you alright?” he tentatively questioned. “I’m sorry I started yelling.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she replied with a sigh. “I got too excited.”

“It’s okay,” Daiba dismissed. “What do you think is going on? First all this crazy ghost stuff starts happening, then the Captain wants us all back on the ship.”

“It is a little more than eerie, isn’t it?” Kei said, obviously picking up on Daiba’s unease. “If it’s nothing major and we can come back, I do want us to look and see if we can’t see that ghost again.”

Daiba couldn’t help but let out a low whine.

Harlock gave a sigh as he looked at the little blonde-headed girl curled up against a panel with a stuffed rabbit in her folded arms. To him it looked as though she had been sleeping when the coolant line ruptured—if that was what had happened. All sorts of unanswered questions ran though his mind based upon what he had seen, how did she get down here? What was she doing down here? Did she get lost? Was there someone out there who might still be looking for her?

“Sabu went to get equipment to get her out of here,” Yattaran said as he knelt in front of the ice, mentally mapping the best way in which to remove her safely. “He’ll be bringing Magi back with him.”

“That’s good,” Harlock remarked flatly, as he continued to stare at her.

It was completely heartbreaking and depressing; the few men left around him were equally gloomy. Ace had been quite shaken up and had left a while ago, and Adalyn had gone to make sure he was alright. In the meantime, Yattaran, Taro, Kiddodo, Yasu and Harlock waited for Sabu to return with Magi. They weren’t about to leave her here, it had already been decided without question.

“Captain? What’s going on?” Kei questioned once she and Daiba arrived, initially confused by the disheartening atmosphere.

Harlock turned, not sure how he would explain the grim find. He desperately hoped he had shielded the little girl from view with his body as he tried to say what he needed to in the best possible way.

“Kei, I need you to go back to the ship and relay something to the rest of the crew,” Harlock began and Kei nodded in understanding. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a girl went missing on this ship and...we found her.”

Kei and Daiba’s eyes went wide, and Harlock noted that the younger of the two paled at his words. Kei however, seemed to be in a state of awe and disbelief. She stared blankly at the captain who didn’t quite know how to process her reaction.

“Sabu told us,” she replied quietly. “Is she down here?”

Harlock nodded. “I can only guess why she was here, but it appears as though she was asleep.” His awkward stop made it obvious that it was difficult for him to explain what BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 32

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happened. “We’re going to get her out of here and take her to Casmar to bury her. I’d like for you to tell the rest of the crew that.”

“Sure,” Kei nodded in understanding, noting Harlock turning his attention to Daiba.

The perplexed look on his face prompted Kei to turn and found the young man ghastly pale. Daiba was teetering on his feet and as if in slow motion Kei watched as he suddenly tilted back. Daiba collapsed in an unconscious heap on the cold flooring, startling everyone.

“Daiba!” Harlock cried, stepping forward to check on him. “Daiba!”

“I think he’s alright Captain,” Kei said from her position standing over Daiba. The moron was more than likely overwhelmed, not that the captain needed to know anything about the ghost Daiba supposedly saw. Harlock would only brush it aside, even with Kei’s own suspicions quickly rising. “You know he’ll do this sometimes if he hasn’t gotten his twelve hours of sleep.”

Harlock could only blink as he stared down at the youth. Daiba could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, even while on duty on the bridge Daiba was known to pass out from time to time. Harlock himself had a habit of smacking him upside the head when he began snoring loudly. Despite a few misgivings, Daiba seemed perfectly fine and accepted Kei’s reasoning for now.

“I’ll take him back with me and make sure he gets to his room alright,” she promised, and Harlock seemed content.

“You need help carrying him?” he questioned as Kei stooped to haul Daiba over her shoulder.

“No,” she stood and adjusted the unconscious youth. “I can make it back with him alright.”

Harlock nodded, remembering how strong Kei actually was despite her lithe frame.

He watched as she easily carried Daiba out, focusing on the matter at hand rather than Daiba’s strange reaction. It seemed a bit too coincidental to him, and Kei was hiding something. Harlock would probably question them eventually if he needed to, and something told him he probably would.

As Kei walked back to the Arcadia, passing Magi and Sabu along the way, she felt herself growing increasingly convinced that Daiba had seen what he claimed. Perhaps she was jumping the gun, or giving into wishful thinking, but his reaction coupled with the strange temperature drop and ultimate finding of the girl’s body was quite extraordinary.

What she truly wanted to do was throw Daiba in a corner and track down that ghost.

Unfortunately, she knew the captain pretty well and figured as soon as Emily was brought on board they would be leaving, which wouldn’t take a long time at all.

She sighed and walked back onboard the Arcadia intent on throwing Daiba back in BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 33

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his room before she went to the bridge and told everyone what was going on via the intercom. As soon as she stepped through the airlock door, a cold brush of air slid past her that only lasted for a couple of seconds.

“What on earth?” Kei murmured.

Her attention was momentarily taken by Daiba who muttered something and shifted in his sleep, snoring slightly a few times before falling quiet. In that short amount of time that cold air was gone, leaving her mind wondering. It could have easily been from the air walk, but...

“Kei?” she was torn from her thoughts as Zero appeared coming down the corridor in his blue and white striped pajamas. “What’s going on? Did Daiba get hurt again?” he sighed as he came forward to check on the unconscious young man.

“Daiba’s fine,” Kei said. “He just passed out and I’m taking him back to his room.”

Zero sighed with relief. “That’s good. Ace just left sickbay with Adalyn, he was all shaken up and I had to give him some tranquilizer. I came down to see what was going on; Adalyn didn’t say much about it.”

“Yeah, we came across an abandoned ship and went to look around. Unfortunately Ace found a little girl that went missing.” She rubbed the back of her neck, finding herself in the same uncomfortable position as Harlock. “He found her encased in ice; they’re still over there. The captain doesn’t want to leave her.”

“That’s just awful! No wonder Ace couldn’t say much.” Zero shook his head. “I think I’ll head over there to see if I can help.”

“Do you need directions?” Kei asked as Zero started walking towards the airlock.

“Nah, I think I can find my way alright. Once you’ve been on as many different ships as I have you get a sense of where everything is pretty quickly” he dismissed as he disappeared from view once making it down the walk.

Kei sighed, then rolled her eyes when Daiba began to snore lightly. Obviously he was not overly concerned with his ghostly sighing or the discovery of a body at the moment.

Sometimes she really wanted nothing more than to shake him until some kind of common sense formed in his brain. She could not understand how he or anyone could not jump at the chance to track down a ghost.

Unfortunately she felt this was a missed opportunity. As much as she wanted to find out what happened, she feared what happened to Emily would remain a mystery.

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Chapter 5 Harlock couldn’t remember a time when he had been so happy to see his bed. He stretched out under the freshly laundered sheets, fully intending to sleep in the next morning. That extended misadventure had drained him physically and emotionally.

The girl, Emily, was only eight years old when she died. It was horrendously tragic, and it weighed on his mind so heavily that sleep eluded him for some time.

Harlock tossed fitfully for the better part of an hour, trying his best to push the memory of that little girl out of his mind. Even though they had left that ship behind them, Emily had been cut from the ice and placed in a stasis casket before they took her to sickbay; she would remain until they arrived on Casmar.

Just as he was about ready to fall asleep, his door unexpectedly swung open before closing. He opened his eye, though he was barely able to discern anything in the darkness. There were padded footsteps and a weight descended upon the edge of the bed.

The warm smell of vanilla drifted under his nose as he reached out, his fingertips brushing Adalyn’s arm before she climbed under the covers next to him.

Wordlessly she settled against him and Harlock shifted his long limbs to accommodate her. He had thought she had forgotten about his request, or had gone to sleep before he was able to pull himself away from that night’s events. Her hair was quite soft however, and he recognized the cozy smell of her favorite soap; she more than likely had just gotten out of the shower.

“Where have you been?” he quietly questioned.

“With Ace,” she answered. “Poor guy was a wreck for the longest time; if it wasn’t for Zero giving him a shot of tranquilizer I don’t know what we would have done.”

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“Was he alright when you left him?”

“He had settled down for the most part, and he was getting into bed when I left just a little while ago. He promised to call me or Zero if he needed anything.”

“I’ll check on him myself in the morning, maybe have him follow up with Zero,” Harlock decided. Ace was much more emotionally fragile than most of the people on board. He had no doubt the young man had been quite disturbed. Hopefully after a night of sleep, time to process what happened and their support, Ace would recover from his shock.

For now, Harlock was able to push all those unpleasant thoughts from his mind now that Adalyn was there. Her comforting scent and warm presence gave him something else to focus on. Sleep came to him much more easily then, and as he drifted off there was only one more thing that distracted him before he blacked out: footsteps in the corridor.

Groggily, Harlock lifted his head from his pillow to scowl at his door. The short, quick steps were rather noisy, but he laid his head back down and paid them no further mind after they faded. Before he fell asleep though, he made a mental note to track down whomever was wandering the corridor and strangle them.

There were very few things that were able to wake Daiba from sleep. One was the need to use the bathroom, the second was the need for food, and the third was usually because he was uncomfortable. It was reason number three that Daiba wearily opened his eyes in his messy cabin. He was still wearing his armored space suit, face down on his bed.

Memories of the night’s events came back, and he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position with his booted feet on the floor. From his port window he saw they were moving again, meaning they had left that ship —and that freaking ghost— far behind them. He couldn’t help but sigh in relief.

Daiba yawned and stretched before he began to take off his boots then the suit, throwing each piece in opposite directions. He grabbed a t-shirt wadded up on the floor and took a hesitant sniff of it before deciding it clean enough to sleep in.

Instead of going back to sleep, Daiba instead decided to head down to the galley for something to eat. His collection of pilfered treats from earlier that night were currently unappetizing; he needed a sandwich or something. So, in his mostly-clean shirt and Mario boxers Daiba set off to get his snack.

The corridor was mostly deserted, save for those who had chosen to sleep against its walls. Daiba was never quite sure why they always slept in the hallway when they each had their own cabin. He picked his way through the garbage and sleeping forms, careful not to trip over anyone or anything. When he made it the elevator that would take him to the lower corridors, he was a little surprised to find Kiddodo and Taro sitting opposite of the lifts, strangely staring at its doors.

“What’s going on?” Daiba questioned as he approached the two men, noting the empBD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 36

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ty bottles of booze around them and one more they were sharing between them. “Aren’t you guys tired?”

“Gettin’ there,” Taro slurred as he motioned to the three sets of doors in front of him.

“We think that the middle one there is broken; we’ve been sittin’ here for awhile and it keeps goin’ up and down, and the doors will open, but there won’t be anyone on it.”

Daiba rolled his eyes at the two drunks. “Have you plugged it into the repair roster yet?”

“Nuh uh,” Kiddodo answered with an exaggerated shake of his head. “No one can fix it right now, so we’re just gonna sit here and make sure that no one uses it.”

“Whatever,” he dismissed their ramblings and got onto the first lift available.

His journey to the galley was uneventful after that, except when he got there someone had forgotten to turn the lights off when they left. Shrugging, Daiba quickly made his sandwich, grabbed a bottled drink and headed back up to his room; he did make sure to turn the lights back off, knowing Masu would have a fit if she came down to make breakfast and saw they were on. He managed to save everyone from having lumpy oatmeal in the morning.

When he got off the lift, Kiddodo and Taro were right where he left them, only passed out and snoring. He paid them no mind this time and picked his way back though the maze before he made it back to his cabin door. Just as he was about to open the door he heard quickened footsteps further down the hall.

Curious, Daiba perked up his ears, ventured further down the hall and looked around the corner but could see no one. They were getting further away, and eventually he could no longer hear them. Whoever it was sounded as though they were in a hurry, just to be sure no one had gotten hurt or anything he went a little further down the hall.

Still, there was no one there that he could see.

“Wonder who that was?” he wondered aloud, intending to turn back until he saw the captain’s door swing open and an irritated Harlock storm into the hall.

“Daiba!” Harlock’s tone was cross when he approached the younger man.

Admittedly, Daiba would have been much more concerned about the thunderous look on the captain’s face if it weren’t for the fact he was in his nightwear. The captain was much more intimidating in his usual clothing with a gun on his hip than in soft black pants and a light grey t-shirt. Funny, this was the first time Daiba believed he had seen the captain in his pajamas.

“What are you doing out here?” His eye twitched as he glared down at Daiba who finally decided that it didn’t matter what the captain was dressed in; he was still a terrifying individual.

“Um, getting a sandwich...” he raised the food in his hand to prove his answer. He wasn’t quite sure why Harlock was so upset. As far as he knew, getting a snack in the BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 37

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middle of the night wasn’t against the rules. Hell, there were hardly any rules on the ship other than ‘don’t give Daiba any alcohol’ and ‘don’t let Daiba get anywhere near explosives or high-powered weaponry’.

“Does getting a sandwich involve you running down the hallway twenty-three times in the last hour?” he demanded.

“Huh?” Daiba was seriously confused for several moments. “This is the first time I’ve been down here!” he protested under Harlock’s menacing glare. “Honest!”

Harlock continued to glare at Daiba despite his growing belief the young man was telling the truth. Reluctantly he sighed and folded his arms. “Did you see anyone come down here?”

Daiba shook his head. “I heard someone walking down here, the only reason I followed was because they sounded like they were in a hurry. I thought someone might have been hurt.” He pointed in the direction in which the footsteps went, prompting Harlock to walk down the corridor and peer around the corner.

Harlock saw nothing; it was completely deserted. He sighed again, this time out of frustration, and decided to go back to bed. If he heard that person again, they could bet he’d be coming out with his pistol next time.

“Um...goodnight captain?” Daiba tentatively spoke, wondering if he was truly off the hook when Harlock walked back into his cabin.

“Goodnight Daiba,” came the curt reply before he firmly shut his door.

Daiba blinked and stared at the double doors for multiple minutes before he managed to tear himself away and head back to his own cabin. That altercation had been...weird to say the least. Not only that, he was a little perplexed. He had clearly heard footsteps, and evidently Harlock did too. Daiba figured someone was simply drunk and wandering the hallways. It was an all too common occurrence on the ship.

In the end he locked himself in his cabin, ate his sandwich and laid down in bed, passing out almost instantly. He did not however, hear the footsteps passing outside his door...

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Chapter 6 Adalyn would never describe herself as a morning person, and never got up before nine at the earliest. Even though she got up later than her usual time, she could not say she got a very restful sleep. To be honest, she came very close to smothering Harlock with her pillow.

Just about every hour he would jump up and rush to the door for whatever reason, and every single time he would wake her up. She was a little on the cranky side. Even now, she was not quite sure why she had bothered to get him his morning coffee or one of the muffins she kept stashed in her cabin. What he deserved was a good kick in the shin, not a pumpkin spiced latte.

After leaving him still snug in bed with his coffee and food on the bedside table, Adalyn headed down to the storage rooms to finish an inventory count before they arrived on Casmar. Luckily, there was nothing major they were lacking, but it still amazed her as to how much toilet paper they all went through in such a short amount of time.

As she stepped off the lift and into the corridor, she noticed something strange right off the bat. The double doors lining either side of the wide corridor were wide open and every one of the overhead lights was on. Under normal circumstances, only a third of the lighting would be on and the doors shut. “Is anyone down here?� Adalyn called, thinking that perhaps someone had wandered down here to find something. When no one answered, she was a little perturbed, but did not think much of it.

She first went over to the lighting panel and turned off the appropriate number of BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 39

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lights before walking to the nearest set of doors. It was one of the smaller of the storage rooms, holding mostly necessities on floor to ceiling shelves in large gray bins. Even in here, the lights were on, and though nothing was out of place, she noticed small groups of items in the floor.

On the floor was a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and other necessities. Sighing, she bent down, gathered up the items, and put them back in their correct places. She then went to the next room and strangely found the same thing. The lights were on, and several items left were on the floor.

“Someone’s purposefully trying to tick me off,” she muttered to herself as she once again put them back where they belonged and turned off the lights.

Again, she found the same thing in the next room. This time, she noted there was always the same number of items. They were spaced apart, and there were always two single items, and then groups of five, seven, seven, nine and eight. She brushed it off as a joke, a joke that was seriously ticking her off, but a joke nonetheless. She had just cleaned and reorganized everything in these rooms, so it was difficult to brush off the fact someone had come down here and intentionally left things out.

Adalyn had to take several deep breaths before she was able to work, but she managed to get through it without further frustrations. She shut all of the doors, turned off the lights and went back up to see if Harlock had decided to get up.

When she got off the lift, Yattaran was running a diagnostic on the outer panel of one of the elevators. She raised a dark eyebrow, wondering why the first mate would be doing such a thing.

“What are you doing?” she questioned.

“Seeing what’s wrong with this elevator,” Yattaran answered. “It was running between floors all night.”

“Doesn’t someone else take care of generic repairs like that?” It was downright odd that someone like Yattaran would be bothering with something like a simple elevator repair. There were plenty of people on board capable of fixing it.

“Two other people looked at this earlier and couldn’t find anything wrong; I’m just looking over it to see if there was anything that was missed.”

Adalyn nodded her head in understanding and with nothing left to say to the first mate she returned to Harlock’s cabin. She found the captain at his desk still in his pajamas and looking at something on his tablet. His coffee mug was there beside him, as well as the muffin.

“You need to eat something,” Adalyn chastised him as she went to make the bed.

“Did Masu not make breakfast?” He cast a disapproving eye towards the muffin. It was not exactly what he wanted first thing in the morning. It fact, he had never really bothered with breakfast until recently; there were certain things he tolerated after wakBD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 40

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ing up.

“Well, she did but I highly doubt you would have wanted oatmeal for breakfast,” she said as she noisily fluffed the pillows. “This time it looked like lumpy glue. Who do you think upset her this time?”

“It’s hard to tell,” Harlock answered after taking a bite out of the muffin. “Daiba was down in the galley last night; he probably didn’t put everything back when he left.”

“Once again,” Adalyn muttered, and then went to peer over his shoulder when she finished with the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find out who kept walking through the hallway last night.”

“Is that what was bothering you?” Adalyn frowned as Harlock continued to search through the security footage with no success. Unfortunately, the camera surveying the corridor had malfunctioned; there was no way to tell who it had been. With a groan of frustration, Harlock dropped the tablet on his desk.

He became quiet after that, and Adalyn could tell he was a little irritated. He did not seem too happy about constantly getting up last night, which she could understand.

Adalyn had come to learn that living with forty other people in a confined space was oftentimes difficult, and it was quite easy to get on someone’s nerves.

She rested her chin on his shoulder before speaking. “Don’t get upset; you put everyone on edge when you’re not in a good mood.”

“I think it’s funny that you’re the one telling me that.” Harlock smirked and leaned his cheek against hers. “Usually I’m the one telling you to calm down.”

“Hey, you should be proud of me; someone had been messing around in my storage rooms, and I didn’t have to punch a wall.” She kissed his cheek. “Who’d of thought that a pirate like you would be a good influence on me?”

Harlock did not get to answer as his communicator lying on the desk went off. With a sigh he answered and instantly heard Yattaran on the other end.

“Hey captain, I just got a call from the bridge, there’s something going on up there that I think you need to come look at.”

“What’s going on?” Harlock asked indifferently.

“Don’t know for sure, Sabu was saying something about finding numbers all in our navigation system; he thinks it’s some kind of malware,” the first mate replied.

“I’ll be right up.” Even as he ended the call, Harlock was pushing himself away from his desk and went to retrieve some clothes from his closet.

“Finish your food,” Adalyn calmly instructed him when he returned from his bathroom fully dressed. “Masu doesn’t like leftovers and neither do I.”

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“Since we’ve been together I’ve been noticing the waistband on my pants keeps getting tighter,” Harlock said as he retrieved his gun belt from a nearby chair. “I may be a good influence on you, but I don’t think you’re a good one for me.”

“I’m a bad influence if I encourage you to eat regularly? I’m sure that according to you your former diet of wine, bourbon and whiskey is perfectly healthy,” Adalyn retorted humorously as Harlock quickly kissed her, grabbed his muffin and headed out the door. “Have a lovely day at work, dear.”

Harlock merely smiled at Adalyn’s reference to their mutual joke and made his way towards the bridge. He ate as he walked and was not exactly sure why Yattaran or Sabu would suspect a virus; they had never had any problems with one in the past. For a moment, he wondered if perhaps it was because of their little misadventure with the Dionysus that caused this problem.

When Harlock arrived at the bridge, he found Kei and Yattaran leaning over the panel Sabu sat at. On display was their current navigation route with the numbers one, one, five, seven, nine and eight repeating beneath it. Harlock recognized the numbers as the same one from the Dionysus’ mayday.

“First the lift and now this,” the captain heard Yattaran mumble as he ran various diagnostics in order to understand what was going on.

“What is it?” Harlock questioned his officers.

“We really don’t know,” Kei answered. “It’s not affecting any of our systems negatively, but these numbers keep appearing on our navigation screens. We have no clue what they are.”

“Is our current course affected?”

Kei shook her head. “No, we’re still due to arrive in two days time.”

Harlock became quiet as a few of the diagnostics Yattaran ran came back without any real results. From all appearances, it was physical interference and not a cyber one. No one truly doubted these findings; the Arcadia never had a computer virus. Now it appeared they would have to turn their attention to finding whomever it was that caused this.

“Let’s start by searching through our systems and see if we can pinpoint where this happened,” Harlock said. “I don’t think anyone could have done it form here.”

“You’ve got that right,” Yattaran concurred. “We’ve got at least eighty terminals that could have been accessed, narrowing it down is going take a few minutes.”

The first mate worked quickly, tracing the source back to sickbay of all places. Harlock raised a brow when he saw where it came from. It was highly unusual to begin with, until he saw that their system indicated Zero had been on the ship’s connected mainframe around that time. He had been uploading a supply list from the looks of it; knowing the good doctor, he had probably drunk too much before doing so.

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“Well, that solves that,” Kei sighed, though it seemed to Harlock her voice held a twinge of disappointment. “Turns out it was nothing at all; sorry if we wasted your time captain.”

“I’ll go see what Zero says about this,” Harlock stated when it became evident the situation had ended. “I had planned on going to see him today anyway in regards to—” The intercom abruptly interrupted Harlock. With a frown, he recognized it was Adalyn, and she was not happy. He had told her numerous times to stop using the ship’s intercom to yell at people throughout the ship. It seemed like he would have to have that little talk with her again.

“TO THE PERSON WHO INTENTIONALLY CAME DOWN TO MY STORAGE ROOMS AND DESTROYED THEM KNOW THAT I WILL FIND YOU AND WHEN I DO I WILL USE YOUR ASS FOR TARGET PRACTICE!” Well, at least she kept it short; Harlock had to give her that. It was not filled with profanity either, nor threats of castration. He may end up congratulating her. The question at the forefront of his mind however, was what had happened? Adalyn had mentioned someone messing around in the storage rooms; had someone else done something as well?

Harlock turned and decided he had better go and see what was going on. He left the bridge without another word and went down to storage. He was not surprised to find that the corridors leading towards it were deserted. It was common knowledge that Adalyn wanted to be alone when she was angry over something.

When he arrived, the lights were on and all the doors were open. He raised his brow as he went to the set of doors where he heard cursing and other loud noises. Peering inside he became fully aware of what caused her to become so upset. Bins of supplies had either fallen or pulled from the shelves and had landed on the floor. The majority had broken open and their contents were scattered throughout the room. Adalyn was in the midst of it, angrily tossing items back into a bin.

“Adalyn, is this how you found the place?” Harlock questioned as he walked closer to her. To be perfectly honest this upset him in a way too, something like this was unacceptable.

“Yes!” she replied hotly as she stooped to pick up several items off the floor. “I came back down because I forgot to check something and found every single room like this!”

Adalyn threw the items into another bin before she kicked it hard and sent it sliding across the floor. “Who would have done this?!”

“We’ll find out,” he assured and took her hand. “Now come on, let’s get out of here for awhile. You need to calm down.”

“But the—” she tried to interject as Harlock led her from the room.

“Don’t worry about it; these storage rooms have been a worst state than this. I’m more concerned about you,” he said as he pulled her onto the lift. “You’ll only dwell on BD NOSTALGIA FANFIC #8 | 43

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it and probably break something.”

Adalyn’s face reddened when it became obvious he was referring to the spare power supply she kicked in a fit of rage some time back. She had forgotten it was the only one on board during those heated moments and shortly thereafter, the main power supply for the port side cannons blew. Harlock had realized that it was her fault and made her pay for the new one when they docked for supplies some weeks later. Luckily, they did not run into any major opposition during that time, but in the end, she was out twenty thousand credits.

She wondered if he was truly concerned for her or for their supplies now.

“Hey Kei, will you check the vid feed and see who was down in the storage rooms for me?” Harlock said after hitting the com in the lift.

Back up on the bridge, Kei slightly frowned at the request but agreed anyway. “Sure thing Captain.”

The young woman went to an unoccupied seat and brought up the footage from the storage rooms. She felt a bubble of resentment build up when she backtracked through the footage, seeing Harlock with Adalyn. She did not really like that the captain paid so much attention to Adalyn for several reasons; most of them were highly personal though.

Still, she did as asked and watched for whomever it was that Harlock was looking for.

However, what she found made her bolt upright in her seat. Kei had viewed something highly surprising and stopped the footage to play it back in real time.

On the screen the doors to the storage room slid open, then the lights came on. About a minute or so passed before she saw a bin on one of the shelves start to slide forward on its own. With abated breath she watched as it finally tiled and fall to the floor.

Kei leaned forward in her seat as she watched other bins slide forward and fall. When the destruction of the room was over, she was able to see the doors to another storage room open and quickly found the camera for that room. Again she saw the same thing happen; bins were pulled from their shelving with no one in sight. Kei switched cameras until she viewed what happened in every room.

Kei could scarcely contain her excitement as she bit her lip and quickly downloaded the footage to her personal memory drive and bolted from the room. She gripped it tightly in her hand as she descended to the lower levels in the lift. Kei had no doubts it was the ghost of Emily, and she desperately wanted to show someone her find.

She wasn’t about to tell the captain however; he wouldn’t believe it anyway and probably claim the footage was tampered with. No, she was going to find the only person who had actually seen Emily and show him. Perhaps then they could figure out what Emily was doing and what she wanted.

Kei could scarcely believe it! She could go on an actual ghost hunt after all!

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Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

Chapter 7 Figured I would go ahead and try to finish this since a bunch of people has asked me to. Hope you all enjoy this one!

Daiba was being hunted.

His back flat against the cool metal wall, Daiba craned his neck around a corner to make certain the hallway was deserted. He needed to get to the bridge for his shift, but it was difficult to navigate the corridors without being seen.

Daiba scampered down the hallway as quietly as he could and resumed his backagainst-the-wall position when he neared another corner. His heart was pounding in his chest as he inched closer to the edge and stuck his head out, his eyes widening when he spied three crewmen loitering.

“There he is!” one of the shouted and pointed.

“Get him!”

Daiba took off with a screech, running away from them as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure why Masu had placed a bounty on his head exactly, but he did know that someone had told her he was in the galley early that morning. Even though he had made sure to clean up after himself and put everything back where he found it, the old cook had locked the liquor pantry and swore no one would get a drop of booze until Daiba’s head was mounted on the dining room wall.

Why was everyone motivated by alcohol? He wondered as he slammed into a wall and scrambled away, narrowly avoiding capture.

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Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

from their view.

Just when Daiba was thinking he might actually escape from them, an arm shot out from an open doorway and pulled him into a storage unit, clamping a hand over his mouth to prevent him from screaming. Daiba struggled against his captor as the three men ran past the room, and was a bit surprised that after the sound of their footsteps dissipated he was released.

Daiba stumbled at first, but quickly righted himself and found that his rescuer wasn’t someone he was too happy to see.

“Kei!” he gulped. “You’re not going to take me to Masu are you?”

“No,” she shook her head, but the devious grin she had on her face didn’t soothe Daiba’s concerns. “I need you come with me. I saw something amazing happen down in the storage rooms!”

“The storage rooms!” he cried, jumping back and knocking over a collection of cleaning supplies. “But Adalyn will shoot us if we set foot down there!”

Daiba was afraid of a number of people on board the ship, and Adalyn was one of the top five with good reason: she was a girl.

“She’s not even down there,” Kei said with an annoyed huff and grabbed his arm.

“Now come on!”

“Wait!” Daiba grabbed hold of the doorframe that Kei tried to lead him through.

“Why are we going down there?”

“Because,” she said sweetly, pulling on him and trying to get him to let go. “I wanna look for something.”

Daiba latched on tighter, convinced that she was up to something. Kei frowned when she was unable to pry Daiba away and sighed.

“I’m pretty sure that the ghost followed us,” she explained, releasing Daiba’s arm and grabbing his leg, determined to drag him down there if need be. “Now come on!”

“No!” he shouted, now using both hands to hang on. “I don’t want anything to do with ghosts! I’ve got to get to the bridge! It’s time for my shift and you know what the captain will do to me if I don’t show up!”

“If he hasn’t shot you out of one of the cannons yet, he’s not going to,” Kei reasoned.

“Now let go!”

Kei planted her heels and pulled hard. Daiba could only hang on for so long; he watched as his fingers slipped one by one until nothing remained to hold him upright.

His face smacked against the floor when he fell, causing him to wail in pain. Kei didn’t seem to notice, or really care for that matter, she still held onto his leg as she dragged him down the corridor and to the nearest elevator.

“This is going to be great!” Kei sang, but Daiba could only cry.

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Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

Adalyn felt like she was going to have to ease up on Harlock’s daily alcohol limit as she lounged in the bathtub. It was his suggestion that she kick back and enjoy her favorite pastime and worry about the storage rooms later, and she didn’t think she could love him more.

Steam filled her tiny bathroom, and she ran a hand over her arm that was a bright shade of pink. She looked over the edge of the tub at the book Ace had loaned her about some ancient serial killer that once terrorized a place called London. She was never fond of reading, but loved diabolical stories. Ace had assured her this would be a wonderful read, especially with it being October and all, but she struggled to make it past the first chapter. Oh well, she’d just ask him who that Jack the Ripper guy was and be done with it.

She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and sank deeper into the hot water. She wondered how many hours she could spend lounging as she felt a cool wisp of air hit her face. Adalyn rubbed her cheek, a little perplexed when she felt like the air around her exposed skin was popping. She lazily opened her eyes, only to jump back in terror when she saw a misty form standing beside her. It had a head and upper torso, but no discernible features.

Her mouth fell open and she released a blood-curdling scream as it dissipated. Her only thought process was to get out of the bathroom and run to Harlock, and with her adrenaline pumping she didn’t think of what would happen when she scrambled out of her room and made a mad dash to Harlock’s.

The pirate captain had just finished pouring himself a brandy and slumped into his favorite high backed chair when he heard a commotion in the hallway. He took a long sip of his drink, thinking perhaps it was Daiba running from someone, when Adalyn burst through his door, dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel.

Harlock had seen plenty of women wearing much less in his lifetime, but this was Adalyn, his girlfriend with killer legs, and he choked the instant that he saw her. Instead of spitting it out, the brandy hit the back of his throat and then made a fiery exit through his nose. Harlock felt he had just choked on fire when he sputtered a string of curses so foul he was certain Blackbeard would be rolling in his grave.

“What the hell are you doing?!” he shouted and grabbed his burning nose.

“There’s someone in my bathroom!” she pointed, her chest heaving from exertion.

Deadly resolve overcame the pain as Harlock silently stood, grabbed his pistol and saber, and marched into her room.

The door was wide open when Harlock walked in with his gun raised. Adalyn hovered just outside the door, watching as he peered into her bathroom.

“You didn’t shoot them did you?” he asked, looking for blood on the floor, but found only puddles of water.

“No,” Adalyn sighed as Harlock bent down and picked up the soggy book.

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“Well, who was it?” Harlock had already devised their death sentence before she answered.

“You’re not going to believe me,” she said as she walked into the room. “But I swear to you, there was a ghost standing next to me when I was in the bath.”

Not surprisingly, Harlock sighed and dropped his weapons and the book on her bed.

He turned his back to her and sat down, rubbing his nose.

“Adalyn, really?” he said, unmistakably annoyed.

“I’m not making it up!” she cried. “There was this thing right there, it didn’t have a face, but I know it was a person!”

Harlock half listened as she described the ghost in further detail and how it so unnerved her that she came running to him. He supposed he should have been thankful that she didn’t turn to the anti-tank rifle she had stashed under her bed instead, but this was ridiculous.

“You were probably just seeing things,” he dismissed, checking his hand to see if blood was coming from his nose. Why did it still hurt so bad?

“I know what I saw Harlock!” Adalyn retorted as he got up. “Where are you going?”

“I can’t even be in here with you like this,” he said as he left her room.

“Well excuse me if my visions of ghosts disgust you that much,” she snapped in return.

“That’s not what I meant!” Harlock called from the hallway. “I can’t concentrate on anything you say when you’re in nothing but a towel. When you get some clothes on we’ll talk more about this.”

Adalyn opened her mouth to make another retort before she looked down at herself.

She was embarrassed and grateful no one else saw her. But a sly grin spread across her face in the end, and as she shut her door, she made a mental note to ask Harlock why he had such a hard time listening to her when she wasn’t wearing much of anything.

Listening to his response was bound to be amusing.

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Captain Harlock: Arcadia Misadventures: Ghost Ship

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