A/N - Hello everybody! So this is a story I promised to write for a friend, KarmaComesBackAround, and it was supposed to be in a similar vein to my normal AU stories such as Pirates! Monsters! and Teachers! However it seems to have turned out to be a much more serious drama type fiction, but I still like it, so hope you guys do too. George. :)

Warning for swearing.

Decycle = year, Septcycle = week, Cycle = hour, Subcycle = minute

Chapter One – The Crew of the Kincanzza

The corridors were silent at night, the lights dimmed and the air thinner to breathe; less of it being circulated round the ship. It was at night when the hollowness of the ship and the emptiness of Space around them seemed to seep into these corridors making the ineffectualness of life so ever present. Just one small dot on the grand scheme that was time, space; an eternal continuum. Most of the crew slept through these long nights bar one particular individual who never did. Sleep no longer being necessary to his existence. Flack wandered down these corridors, ever alert to the ship's needs, ever alert for danger and all the while growing less and less human each day. He spent a great deal of his time in solitude, while the others slept or ate, sustenance being another thing he no longer required.

It was times like these, when he was alone, pacing the dark corridors that his mind drifted back to those fateful events ten decycles ago. He'd been in the Marine Corps, just a simple Corporal but a damn good soldier and the bravest of his unit. He'd seen many battles, survived many fights until the day they'd landed on P3-X92. They'd never even stood a chance. The indigenous lifeforms there had been monstrous, a living nightmare; ripping the members of his unit to shreds. Their guns proving ineffectual on the monsters' skin, grenades bouncing off them like tennis balls in the park. He'd witnessed every member of the unit ripped apart, arms and legs flung everywhere, heads rolling along the ground. Private Angell had been next to him, his girl, his entire life. They'd watched in horror as those around them had fallen, seeing death advance closer and closer towards them. Flack remembered that time had seemed to stop; the scene around them pausing as they'd looked into each other's eyes and decided to accept their fate, to welcome approaching death rather than make futile attempts for their lives. Jess had dropped her gun and clung onto his hand with her own, moving close to his body and holding on for dear life as the creatures' claws tore through their skin. Searing pain bled through his body; he recalled never feeling anything like it before or since. Looking down to see his limbs ripped free from his torso except his left arm and the hand belonging to Jess still holding his. An armless, bodiless, bloodied hand.

The next thing he'd remembered was waking up in a hospital on a floating station, his father standing over him. Commander in Chief Gerrard. His father commanded the military fleet of ships belonging to what was left of the Human Empire and a most influential man. It had quickly dawned on Flack that the only reason he'd been rescued, a solitary survivor out of twenty Marines, was because he was his father's son. He'd soon discovered his missing limbs had been replaced with robotic ones, his respiratory and nervous systems replaced with machinery that was now wired into his brain and heart, sustaining his life. The once human life he'd known now that of an android. Flack liked to think he was roughly fifty-fifty but in reality knew that almost seventy percent of his body was now machinery and only thirty percent was left organic; left human. This made him almost unique among the Human Colonies and Commander in Chief Gerrard had had plans for his son once he was recovered, to become a beacon of hope, an example of survival among their race. It was only when Flack had discovered it was his father who had issued the order that had sent his unit to P3-X92, that had sent his colleagues, his friends and his dear fiancé to their deaths that he had run and never looked back.

It had been while he'd been recovering in hospital that he'd met the one and only Danny Messer. An intelligent, strange little human from Earth who seemed to know everything about mechanics and engineering. He'd in fact been the one who had most helpfully explained what had been done to Flack's body, better than even the doctors. Danny had been involved in a reactor core explosion on his previous ship; his eyes had been burnt out of his sockets and he had been given a transplant. His eyes were now a luminous shade of bright blue and could see in the dark. Apparently his original eye colour had been brown and Flack had barely believed him, unable to imagine that until he'd seen a picture. Danny had revealed to him eventually that his brother Louie had been killed during the core explosion and something about the look in his eyes had made Flack wonder. Danny blamed himself for the explosion, believing he had caused it; therefore he blamed himself for his brother's death and Flack could sympathise with that type of blame. They'd fast become best friends and when they'd both recovered Danny had helped Flack escape his father, able to look after him easily due to understanding the mechanics of his body. Flack had ditched his name, Donald Gerrard Jr. and it had been Danny who had given him the name Flack. He had no idea why, Danny had never explained it, but he'd liked it and it had stuck. So there he was; reborn as an android, reborn under the guise Flack.

They'd hitched aboard different ships for a while, staying under the radar, living almost fugitive lives until they'd been found by their current Captain. Originally prisoners, the Captain had listened to their story, deciding they could stay on board in return for becoming permanent members of the crew. The Captain was himself against the tyrannical rule of Commodore Sinclair and the League over the Human Empire and Colonies and wanted to oust them himself. Flack and Danny had discovered they had quite a lot in common with him. Captain Mac was a human from Earth and had been a Captain within the fleet under Gerrard's ruling. He'd been a loyal and trusting member until the day Earth had been destroyed by terrorists fourteen decycles ago. Claire, Mac's wife, had been living on Earth at the time and had died in the explosion along with billions of other humans. Mac had sworn revenge on those responsible and worked tirelessly to help in the search. Commander in Chief Gerrard had been aboard his ship, being transferred from one station to another when Mac had discovered the truth. It had been Sinclair and League who had destroyed Earth in a bid to unite all the Colonies as one against enemy races. Their plan had succeeded in unifying the majority but Mac had felt anger like never before. He'd left the fleet then, becoming a marauder, captaining his own ship against not only alien races but also those of the Human Fleet in an attempt to seek justice. Flack and Danny had fitted right in with Danny quickly becoming the head engineer and Flack becoming the pilot. The fact that he was mostly machine now proved useful in that he could plug himself into the ship's circuit board and become one with her, sensing any problems.

Flack paused in his wondering and stared out of the window at the darkness lit by millions upon millions of stars. He sometimes wondered if Jess was one of those stars, he hoped so. He didn't know what he'd say to her if he ever had the chance to see her again. She would probably be angry, spiteful at him for being the only one to survive, for being pulled from the wreckage of their unit because of a name. A name that had caused every one of their deaths. Flack shook his head and continued on, cocking his head as he thought he heard a sound. He did. It was singing. A beautiful, high-pitched alien tone that never once faltered or wavered. Flack knew exactly where to go. As he entered the mess he saw Sid singing whilst moving around the kitchen, preparing what was most likely to be breakfast for the rest of the crew when they awoke. Sid was a quirky, eccentric arthropodic alien called a Cracitad with four arms as well as his two legs whom they had picked up seven decycles ago on a desert like planet in the outer quadrant. Apparently he was allergic to water and the slightest drop would kill him. He was rather mysterious and they still didn't know much about him except he made the most marvellous food, well according to Danny he did anyway. Flack no longer had any need for the stuff.

"Flack," Sid smiled as he saw the young man enter.

Flack nodded back and sat down at the table, watching as Sid cooked. It was strange to watch the skinny entomic alien move around, his four arms moving so quickly they were almost a blur. They seemed to know what they were doing without Sid even having to think about it and when the alien looked over at Flack and began talking, the arms continued their tasks by themselves.

"How are you today?" Sid asked.

"I've been better," Flack replied, flexing his left hand as he so often did, still trying to decipher the mechanics of his body.

"You should talk to Josephine," Sid replied.

Flack looked back at Sid but didn't reply. Jo was Mac's second in command and a half human – half Moyriran alien. Her human mother had died during childbirth and she had grown up with her father on Moyrira. A large part of her childhood had been spent travelling around to other planets as her father was an ambassador for the Moyrirans; a race of psychic beings who could read minds at will. This made a lot of other races mistrustful of Moyrirans and they were often taken as prisoners and forced into using their abilities for their captors. Jo and her father had been captured by Lugarons on one of his embassy missions and used as slaves and forced to read the minds of their enemies for many decycles. Jo's father had eventually sacrificed himself so she could escape and after decycles of travelling about, training in many types of weaponry and combat she was rescued by Mac when she attempted to kill her old Lugaron captors. She'd been unsuccessful but Mac had vowed he would help her get her revenge. At first she had been cold and hard-hearted to the rest of the crew but over the five decycles she had been on board she had warmed to them and become motherly towards them all, using her psychic abilities only when they asked for help.

"I don't need anyone getting in my head," Flack stated as he looked back down at his hand and started opening and closing it.

"Can I perhaps fix you something?" Sid asked as his arms whizzed around him.

"You know I don't eat," Flack replied without looking up.

"I'll never understand that. Part of you is still human, still organic, surely that part needs food and energy?"

Flack sighed and looked back up, putting his arm down at his side.

"My human part is sustained by the wiring and circuitry I have running through me. I have no need for food," Flack assured him. "Not that I have any tastebuds left anyway," he added under his breath.

"Well if you're sure," Sid said loudly as he finally looked back at his cooking. "But you should get that double checked with Hawkes."

"You don't think I might have already done that in the ten decycles I've known him?" Flack said sarcastically.

Hawkes was a human from a Colony on the outer regions of the Empire. A small, isolated planet called Salbitara that had been occupied by invading aliens many times and each time the humans there had fought back and managed to defeat the aliens with no help from the fleet or the rest of the Empire. It was one of the only planets that still mistrusted Sinclair and the League and hadn't unified after the destruction of Earth. Hawkes had grown up on this desolate, warring planet and had learnt all he knew about doctoring from living it firsthand. He was rather bitter towards those humans who had grown up on Earth and other such luxuriant planets that had been cared for by the League.

"I doubt it, I know how you two don't get on terribly," Sid stated.

"We get on just fine," Flack said gruffly. "And Hawkes couldn't hate me for who I am anymore than I hate myself," he added.

"There we go again," Sid hummed. "You should talk to Josephine."

"If I wanted to talk to anyone I would," Flack growled.

"Lindsay may well be the translator on this ship but I know exactly what you mean by that," Sid said wisely. "And you should talk to someone."

Flack growled again in the back of his throat and ignored Sid's jibes. His thoughts drifted to Lindsay. She was an extremely beautiful alien of a rare and dying breed called Bunazalians. Her eyes were bright purple and her skin had a bluish-purple tint to it. She had an amazing ability to recall anything she had ever heard, read or seen like it was only a moment ago. This meant she could pick up languages easily and was now able to speak 3,062 different dialects. Flack had been immediately attracted to her when she had come on board only a year ago but knew in his heart of hearts that he would never get over his Jess and if he was honest he didn't really want to. He still loved her so much. He also had a sneaky suspicion that Danny was also attracted to Lindsay and the two of them had been dancing around each other for the best part of a year.

The doors to the mess suddenly slid open and a yawning male with a long tail appeared from the other side. It was the last member of their small crew, Adam, the second engineer to Danny. He glanced up, noticing Flack sat at the table and unconsciously licked his lips, a look of hunger in his cat-like, yellow eyes. Flack started to feel rather uncomfortable. He liked Adam and got on well with him but every so often the young engineer would forget himself and Flack would catch him staring. It wasn't his fault, Flack supposed. Adam was the product of another race of aliens whom were unknown to them. He had been grown by these powerful aliens to search out precious metals and bring them back to them. Adam could tell what a metal was just from looking at it or smelling it. He was therefore fascinated by Flack's body which was now a mixture of many different metals and alloys. Flack guessed Adam sometimes couldn't help but stare; after all it was what he had been grown to do, even if Flack didn't quite like it. Adam was obviously unaware he sometimes did this, the young man being unsure of himself and finding interaction with other beings difficult as he had no parents. Flack had seen him watching him and Danny together in interest, trying to figure out their friendship, trying to understand the brotherly love they had for one another.

"Good morning, Flack," Adam squeaked as he sat down next to him. "Hello, Sid."

"Adam," Sid beamed. "My first client of the day."

"What about Flack?" Adam asked.

"I need to get going and check on the status of the ship," Flack stated before Sid could reply and stood up.

Before he could leave the doors slid open again and Danny came in looking rather pleased with himself.

"Flack," he nodded.

"Messer," Flack replied.

They stared hard at each other for a moment before Danny suddenly grinned and Flack's face broke out into his wonky smile, the machinery not letting him smile fully.

"Need to get going," Flack stated.

"Where you off to?" Danny asked.

"Need to get plugged in," Flack nodded.

"Right you are, catch you later then," Danny grinned.

Flack quirked an eyebrow up and then left. Behind him he heard Danny ask Sid what was for breakfast and smiled. Flack knew he loved Danny more than anything or anyone left in the world now that Jess was gone, even his own family. Danny was the only one on board who knew his true name and identity. And Flack was the only one who knew Danny had been responsible for his brother's death. He guessed the whole crew had their secrets; they were outlaws, vigilantes and that's why he was a part of them.

Flack paced along the corridors to the bridge. The lights had come up now and the air was in more plentiful supply, not that Flack noticed this, the wiring in his respiratory system meant he no longer needed oxygen to breathe. No oxygen, no food, no sleep. He wondered yet again whether there really was any human left in him at all. He still didn't fully comprehend what his father had had the surgeons do to him to enable his survival. It had been an untested procedure and according to Hawkes nothing like it had ever been attempted prior or since. Human-Alien-Android hybrid experimentation had been outlawed among the Colonies many decycles ago. No, Flack was now a one of a kind and should his father ever find him, he knew he would never be allowed his freedom again. He entered the bridge and walked over to the door accessing a small room set to one side; the brain of the ship, her core. The four walls and ceiling were covered in computers that flashed different coloured lights and beeped electronically at him. In the centre was a padded table that he sat down on and then pulled off his shirt. For one moment he paused and glanced down at his torso, at all the scars there and at one large one in particular that ran its way from his collarbone to his naval, where his organs had been replaced with machinery. He closed his eyes and calmed himself before lying back on the padded table and starting to plug wires into the computers on the walls and ceiling in various places. Eventually when he was satisfied he started attaching them to his body, opening up places on his forearms, chest and head and plugging the other ends of the wires into himself. Immediately he was taken over by the flashing lights and beepings and his eyes fluttered closed. He became one with the ship, with the Kincanzza.