Captain Harlock nodded and gestured to the staff, and in moments a place was cleared between Thraxius and the old engineer, Ernest, who, unlike Thraxius, did not seem perturbed at his new dinner companion, being more interested in chatting up the lovely Sarah.   He was already well into a whispered story about some great battle from over two centuries before which he had witnessed as a lowly mechanic's mate on the Everest.<br/><br/>Somehow the old man remembered a lot of rather implausible details about his own personal heroics that day, but mercifully, most of the table was spared the majority of the details, as old Ernest apparently had difficulty speaking over a raspy whisper.