Self-beta'd so all mistakes belong to me.

This takes place somewhere in Season 5. Don't ask where, it really doesn't matter.

I wish I owned Andromeda, especially TRhade. But I don't.

Thanks to JillyW for saying nice things.

Most literary prose type quotes all from Khalil Gibran.

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Bare Bones

By Chya

"Hey, big man," a low sultry voice called from the depths of a doorway.

Dylan barely glanced towards her, shaking his head as he walked. "Not today thank you." He was somewhat taken aback when the slim, pasty faced woman skipped out of her doorway to block his path. Haunted brown eyes with dark circles stared up at him, completely at odds with the attempted sexy smile from bright red painted lips.

"So, when's good for you, big guy?" she asked, pressing into him.

Dylan gently pushed her out of the way. "I'm sorry but you're just not my type."

She grabbed his hand and, skipping backwards, tried to pull him down the alley next to the doorway she had been standing in. "If not me, then one of my, ah, sisters?"

Her persistence was starting to annoy Dylan, and he snatched his hand away, raising both in a gesture meant to stop her. "Listen, I'm kind of busy at the moment, I need to be somewhere. I'm. Not. Interested. Find someone else."

Again he started to walk away, but then she was in front of him again, hanging on to the front of his jacket, all pretence of seduction gone as she urgently begged him. "He, they'll beat me if I don't bring someone, please, please…"

"Who will?" he asked, exasperation mixing with the need to help.

"Um," she kept a hold of his jacket with one hand, while she chewed on the nails of her other hand and cautiously peeked past Dylan back towards the alley. "Um, him." She pointed and he looked to see a thin, pale man looking around the corner at them before ducking back into the alley.

Dylan sighed, and disentangling the pale woman from his clothes, strode back to the alley. Beating up on a pimp wouldn't really accomplish anything, but it might make him feel better, and might buy her some time to run away or something. As he stepped into the alley, a glint of metal out of place was the only warning he got.

If his reaction times had been any slower, he would already be twitching on the ground from the force of the taser pointed his way. Several white faced and skinny individuals were scattered about the alley, the nearest one armed with the crackling taser. Dylan hopped back and picked up a barrel, throwing it at the taser man. The barrel smashed into crates, sending up clouds of white flour, but when the dust settled, the skinny individuals had gone, along with the woman who had accosted him.

"That was weird," he muttered to himself as he brushed the worst of the dust off his sleeves and he headed towards Harper's bar with just a quick, curious glance back at the alley.

XXXXX

Beka and Trance walked towards the bar together, the avatar laughing in her childlike manner as Beka cracked a joke. They reached the door as it slammed open, and Beka had to hop back to avoid having her nose broken. Somehow, she wasn't surprised when Rhade came staggering out, each arm around a different woman and all three of whom were clearly happily and extremely drunk.

"I take it you're not stopping to see what Dylan wants?" Beka called casually.

In a class of movement normally reserved for large unwieldy vehicles, the Neitzchean managed to swivel the three of them around in an uncoordinated circle to face Beka. "Today," he informed her, extricating one arm from the pouting blonde and wagging a finger at Beka, "is a celebration. I am celebrating. I haven't decided exactly what yet, but I am." The other woman, tall and dark, whispered something in his ear and he snorted. "I'll celebrate that!" he laughed, clearly distracted by her cleavage, and manoeuvred them around to stagger towards destinations unknown, presumably somewhere with a bed.

"Have fun, see you later." Beka rolled her eyes and held the door open for Trance who stood staring at Rhade with that puzzled expression she wore when considering something that might happen in the future, or not.

"You okay?" Beka asked.

"I'm not sure," said Trance. "That which doesn't kill him can only make him stronger and if he leaves now, they will surely try and kill him." She paused, and then suddenly smiled brightly. "I don't know why I said that."

"Um, you mean that those two, ah, ladies, will try and kill Rhade?"

"No, silly," Trance giggled. "They just want sex."

Beka looked after Rhade, and briefly wondered if she should be worried. But, he was a big boy, could look after himself and besides, if he was this drunk at lunchtime, then he'd be sure to turn up in the evening pretending not to be hung over and ready to hit the next bottle. Anyway, she had priorities; Dylan was about to sell her a proposition he couldn't pay for. Again.

XXXXX

"Mr Harper tells me that to make Andromeda achieve slipstream, he needs a… what did you call it?" Dylan asked the engineer.

"It's a phase inducing parasilicoid ignition coil with trans – "

"A glorified inductor coil." Beka interrupted. "I have spares on the Maru, can't you jury rig one of those?"

Looking quite put out at being interrupted, Harper assumed his most patronising tone. "Well actually miss smarty-pants the answer to that would be no. Not even my genius intellect could transform a rusty old inductor coil from an old salvage scow. Even a beautiful old salvage scow like the Maru," he added hastily, as Beka gave him a look to kill. "As I was saying not even the Harper could transform a, uh… standard inductor coil into a phase inducing parasilicoid ignition coil with trans-ferrous anodyne…" Dylan stared very hard at him. "For those of you not familiar with the term, an inductor coil for very large spaceships. The bit that makes the slipstream drive go Pow!" he finished off quickly.

"And this has exactly what to do with me?" Beka asked.

"Well, we've managed to locate one," Dylan said lightly.

"And this has exactly what to do with me?" Beka repeated.

"The current owner would like to trade for it." Dylan replied.

"I repeat-" began Beka

Harper snorted, impatient with the game between Dylan and Beka. "The old man won't give us the coil unless we find his son, who could be lost anywhere in the Seefra system, kinda like a needle in a haystack if you get my drift, impossible and unlikely to succeed. I think we should just steal it. Er, and give him some of Dylan's money later."

"And you want me to run around all the planets looking for him?" Beka asked. "I hope not, because that really is going to cost you. A lot. And your credit rating isn't the best."

"Not so much running around actually," Doyle spoke up. "Alec Althazar is pretty certain that his son is on Seefra 6 and that he will have got there by shuttle along with his crewmate."

"So you want me to cruise Seefra 6 at low level to try and pinpoint the shuttle." Beka's expression was still one of disbelief.

"Or yours truly can sweep for residuals that might indicate where a shuttle's crashed, landed or otherwise hidden away from prying eyes," Harper said.

"Okay, that's better," Beka nodded thoughtfully then looked at Dylan. "Still gonna cost you lots though."

"I'll put it on the tab." Dylan scanned the room. "So where's Rhade? He said he'd be here and we could certainly use the manpower, there's likely to be quite a few possible sites to cover."

"With a client," Harper and Beka said in tandem and looked startled at each other.

"Really?" Dylan said. "Was he sober? Ah no, don't answer that, I already know."

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The familiar nagging headache roused Rhade from his post-coital doze, and he opened one eye cautiously. Blinding pain assaulted his optic nerve from the sunlight filtering through the bedroom window and he groaned, bringing a hand to his sore head. A small moan of protest brought his attention the dark woman curled up to his left, and he smiled as he recalled her incredible… agility. The blonde had her head on his chest, gentle snores blowing softly across his skin.

It was a shame to leave these two beauties, but needs must and he had a client to see once he'd cleared up his hangover with a small hair of the dog. He'd have to go back to the bar for his hip flask and a change of clothes which was slightly inconvenient, and he wouldn't normally bother but he needed to sharpen his senses and lift the fog before dealing with this particular client.

Levering himself off the bed, he paused to give each of the two protesting women a kiss and a word of appreciation, "… if beauty be the food of dreams, this feast must last a thousand nights…" before quickly dressing and sliding out of the door.

The suns were too bright and people too loud as he strode along the dusty road towards the bar.

Hey, big guy," a low sultry voice called from the depths of a doorway.

Rhade barely glanced towards her, shaking his head as he walked. "Later maybe."

But the slim, pasty faced woman hopped out of her doorway to block his way at the head of an alley. Haunted brown eyes with dark circles stared up at him, completely at odds with the attempted sexy smile from bright red lips.

"So, when's good for you, lover?" she asked, pressing into him.

"I told you," he pushed her firmly to the side by the shoulders. "Later."

She raised a hand to finger the bone blades on his right arm. "Special discount for Neitzcheans," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Really," he said, not making any effort to disguise his impatience. "I'll bear that in mind."

He started to walk past the alley, but she gave a sharp cry. Reflexively he turned back towards her, his back to the alley.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, he would never have been so careless.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, his senses would have seen and heard the attack coming before the taser had even been drawn.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, his reflexes would have easily taken him out of danger and enabled him to take them down.

Before he could move, electricity shot through him, stopping him in his tracks, shocking muscles into uncontrollable rigours; eventually it stopped with shocking suddeness and his legs now incapable folded involuntarily beneath him to leave him shaking on hands and knees, trying to pull himself together.

"Well, hell," said a male voice somewhere above and to the left. "Will you look at that, he's still conscious."

Another male voice spoke up. "We'll see about that." More electricity stabbing eyeballs and eardrums, beating veins and arteries into submission and he could only stay on his knees and take it.

"Don't kill him!" shrieked the woman's voice, "We'll be well sorted if we take him alive!"

"I'm not going to kill him," the taser man said. "Just knock him out for a bit." And the shocking didn't stop until he did.

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"This is a waste of time!" Beka complained yet again. "This planet is a junk heap and that's what we keep finding; junk heaps."

"One man's junk heap is another man's paradise," replied Harper watching the screen in front of him intently. "Just think of all the things I could do with this junk, I saw what looked like a telep – "

"Don't go there, Seamus!" Beka snapped. "You and junk are always trouble. And don't think I haven't noticed the bits you've been sneaking on board when you think I'm not looking."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, always on my case, but I don't see you complaining when it's the Harper has to pull your ass out of the fire again, with bits of junk cobbled together in ingenious ways."

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Through his throbbing head, Rhade tried to focus all his concentration on his lower arms. He was blindfolded and gagged, his feet hobbled, but he only needed his arms to be free as he'd estimated the length of rope between his feet to be around shoulder width apart. His kidnappers had tied him up with rope, which when done as badly as this was completely ineffective. Bone blades were not designed for slicing, but with patience, he could work the points of his lower blades through the knots.

There was an anger inside him on a long slow burn and he fully intended to use it against the little bastards. With two men and a woman, all three of them skinny little Kludges by the sound and smell of them, the only problem would be the taser. He would just have to take them by surprise and act fast.

He didn't know where he was, but the stench of the place was overpowering to his sensitive nose, full of mud and unidentified chemicals. Without knowing how long he'd been out, he had no real estimation of how far they could have travelled. He'd come to when he'd been thrown into what had to be some kind of space transport, which had smelled strongly of fear, and played dead so far even when they'd landed and thrown him none too gently on the floor where he was now.

The ropes were loose about his wrists when he heard the footsteps coming in his direction, so he gathered them together in his hands, pulling them tight against his wrists so that it would seem he was still secure.

"See?" a voice he recognised as the woman said. "A Neitzchean! You always said they made the best Rush. You said there'd be a bonus if we got one. You said we could get first dibs on its Rush if we got one. You said they take longer to die. You said – "

"Shut up!" A new voice snapped, silencing the woman, for which Rhade was grateful; her shrieking tones were cutting through his headache and not in a good way. "You'll get your reward, don't worry. Is he still unconscious? Good. Take off the gag and blindfold, I want to check his eyes and teeth."

By the sound of feet and breathing there were probably four of them; the woman, a new man and presumably the other two men who had kidnapped him, one of whom was in front of his face. He kept perfectly still and hoped there was enough length in the rope between his feet to at least maintain balance.

The instant his eyes were clear of the blindfold his arms were shedding the ropes, hands clamping either side of the head of the man who was untying him. A quick turn, a snapped neck and the man dropped lifeless to the floor as Rhade rolled to his feet. He quickly noted the rough walls, the lack of windows and the fact that he was furthest from the single door. The other three spaced out around them, the woman and the new man who, with his decorative staff, was clearly in charge, stood set back slightly, leaving the man who had taken pleasure in electrocuting him to take the lead.

Growling deep in his throat, Rhade grinned nastily at the man, revenge clear in his expression. He feinted forward and all three leapt backwards. They were scared of him. Good. That gave him enough space to crouch down and feel through the dead man's clothes for a weapon whilst never breaking eye contact.

The taser man though, found some courage as his captive crouched and threw himself at Rhade. His intention was never clear and the taser never made an appearance, but one swipe upwards and bone blades tore through the man's guts and chest cavity leaving him to try and hold his own innards in while he finished dying.

Quickly finding a knife on the first dead body, Rhade sliced the hobbling rope and advanced on the woman. The man in charge had disappeared and the woman seemed torn between fight and flight, her head swivelling as she licked her lips and divided her attention between Rhade and the doorway.

The decision was made when it became clear that the third man had gone for reinforcements. "He's mine!" she screamed over and over as a score of thin pasty men came pouring through the door. Adrenaline kicked in and Rhade felt his blades virtually singing in anticipation; he was not in a mood to take prisoners.

The first two fell instantly with their throats ripped out, another two with their skulls cracked together and yet another jumped on Rhade's back and he used that one to shield himself. More arrived bringing home made weapons, clubs and frying pans, all determined to take him down and none caring for their own lives. There seemed to be no end to his attackers, only bodies piling up around him, until a pinprick barely noticed at his neck and the world slipped sideways, his attackers drawing away.

As he fells to his knees he sneered up at the man who seemed to be in charge, staff still in hand. He couldn't speak, his tongue frozen by the drug but his eyes promised death to any that touched him once the drug wore off.

The man with the staff watched him as he battled the chemicals that tried to draw him down. A battle of wills that was hard fought and not easily lost, but the outcome was inevitable. Rhade slumped fractionally and the man with the staff smiled faintly.

"This mustn't happen again," the man said calmly. "I want those inbuilt weapons gone. Cut them out at the root and bring him to me alive."

"No!" Rhade tried to protest, find someway out of this, but the word came out as meaningless noise and he could do nothing, as the pasty men pinned his arms and set about hacking his bone blades away, but scream.

TBC