The Purple Testament
Ch 1
Disclaimer: Don't own any of these characters except a couple of original ones that may show up.
Synopsis: Harper sets out on a course that will bring him into opposition with his old friends
"I don't frigging believe this!" Seamus Harper stormed through the command deck doors.
"Don't believe what Mr. Harper?" The cool voice of Captain Dylan Hunt came from tactical.
"This!" Harper slapped a flexi down in front of the man he had followed literally to hell and back.
Hunt took a moment to scan over the document that had his chief engineer, not to mention one of the five smartest, or at least craziest people, he had met in more than three hundred years of life, so angry.
"I'm sorry Mr. Harper but I don't see what the fuss is over."
"You don't see what the "fuss" is over??" Hunt winced, Harpers voice was raised several decibels higher than any High Guard officer would have ever been allowed to use to a commanding officer, but then again after five years Hunt had almost gotten used to the "quirks" of this crew of rag tags.
"Maybe if you explained it?" Dylan slipped into his diplomat voice, it had worked on enraged Pyrians, no reason it shouldn't work on an over excited human.
"You tell me. You tell me what's wrong here." Harpers voice had dropped but the rage was still there, controlled but there.
"We scheduled a meeting between the various Neitzchian prides and Beka to present her as the Matriarch."
"Not just any prides Dylan, Drago-Katzov pride!"
"Yes they requested that a representative be allowed to attend."
"And it just slipped your mind??" Hunt winced, again, this time Harper's voice was climbing not just in decibels but pitch as well, so that the last word in the sentence verged on a frequency that only dogs, and he had to admit, Neitzchians, could hear.
"Look I'm sorry Harper, but there was no way we could exclude the largest most powerful pride out there."
"Sorry? YOU'RE sorry?!" Let me refresh your memory" Harper made a circle with his hands. "Earth and then flinging his hands apart, "BOOOM!"
"Mr. Harper," If Harper had been less enraged he would have noticed the warning tone in the captains voice. "That will be quite enough!" He understood that he couldn't expect anything like real discipline from them, even after all this time, but he would have the minimum respect due an officer of the High Guard and captain of a heavy battle cruiser.
Harper stopped in mid rant then lowered his head, Dylan braced himself for either an apology or another outburst, but what came next was something he had never imagined. Harper raised his head and looked Dylan straight in the eye. He had seen the young or at least young seeming, engineer in situations from deadly to ridiculous, but he had never seen that look in his eyes. For a moment he actually felt an urge to put extra distance between them.
"You're right about that Dylan, more right than you know. It is enough, more than enough." With that he spun on his heels and left command just a quickly as he had entered.
"Andromeda." The face of the ships AI appeared on the screen next to Hunt's head.
"Yes Captain?"
"Please keep an eye on Mr. Harper." He had no idea what the last part had meant but given the young mans past history and proven abilities it was probably better to be safe than sorry.
"For he has come to open the purple testament of bloody war" Shakespeare Richard III