Title: A Kiss Before Dying
Author: Harper's Cat
Archive: Yes, just let me know where.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters (except Malaika) and make no profit from this story.
Rating: G
Setting/Season:
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Comments/Feedback: Don't forget to feed The Cat!

Summary: A derelict ship yields a horrifying surprise.

A/N: Heaps of praise to my beta Electric Gurl, bless her for sticking with my ramblings. She encourages me to write longer stories and I'm trying really I am! You're right, where did I leave Tyr?

take my love
take my land
take me where I cannot stand
I don't care
I'm still free
you can't take the sky from me

take me out
to the black

tell 'em I ain't coming back
burn the land
and boil the sea
you can't take the sky from me

have no place
I can be
since I found Serenity
but you can't take the sky from me

Slave tune – Earth

"Emergency distress signal detected. Automated format." Rommie announced as they exited slipstream.

"Visual." Dylan requested.

"On screen."

A delighted smile lit Beka's face as she gazed at the drifting derelict.

"Hail them."

"No response. Scans indicate minimal life support. Operational systems on emergency power."

"Life signs?"

"Possibly."

"Possibly?" Dylan asked.

"Readings are ... confusing." Said Rommie.

"Boarding party?" Beka asked.

"Rescue party." Dylan grinned. "You, me, Trance and Harper."

"And I." said Rommie.

"Of course."

Harper gave Beka a high five. "Treasure." He laughed.

"Adventure." She grinned back at him.

Harper got the doors opened and they stepped inside, weapons ready. The remains of a species the likes of which none have them had ever seen littered the deck.

"Magog attack." Beka hissed

"I'm still getting a faint life sign, but I still can't pinpoint it." Rommie said.

"Okay, we split up and have look around." Dylan cautioned, "keep in contact and everybody," he took time to glare at Harper and Trace, "be careful."

Harper squeezed between the twisted remnants of the doors. The room was dark but he took care of that with the fusing of a few wires near the entrance. Slowly, amber light revealed the damage done to the consoles and sparten furnishings. Harper tried to ignore the bodies decaying on the floor.

"I think I found the command deck." He notified the others. He wandered around, touching a few of the panels, disappointed with the lack of response in them. "Not enough power left." He mused.

Only one thing in the whole room seemed to have sustained no damage whatsoever.

The box was black. About two meters tall and half that wide. Harper ran his hands over the smooth surface, searching for some way to open it.

His sensitive fingertips found a small indentation. With the edge of a fingernail he flicked open the cover revealing a port. With his other hand he pulled his jack out and plugged it into the box. He hesitated a moment before plugging the other end into his own port. The familiar twisting ribbons pulled him into darkness that lasted for several minutes then gave way like the breaking of dawn. It was green, covered with plants; Trance would love this place. The sky was clear blue, only hints of white clouds drifted across it.

"Who? How?" A woman's voice asked.

Harper turned and found himself nearly nose to nose with a dark haired woman. Her skin was the color of dark honey and it seemed to him that she smelled like that very substance. He smiled and held his hands up, palms forward. "Harper, long story. You?"

"Malaika."

"Malaika, that's a pretty name."

"My mother's people were Swahili, it means 'angel'" She reached out, her fingers just nearly brushing his face. "It's been so long."

Harper took a step back. "Whoa there, not on the first date."

She cocked her head, looking at him in a manner that made Harper feel very uncomfortable. "You're the ship's AI?" he asked.

"I'm not a computer, I'm the pilot and I'm human, like you."

"But the remains we found..."

"Xrendi."

"How did you get here?"

"They brought me here. The Xrendi can't navigate the slipstream. Something about their brain, I never understood why. They use humans to pilot their spacecraft."

"Use? You're a slave?"

She seemed angry at this, "I am no one's slave. To be selected as a pilot by the Xrendi is a great honor." She looked away but not before Harper saw the tears. "There was nothing I could do when the Magog boarded us. I'm just the pilot, I couldn't fire weapons or vent the ship or … or …."

"Magog suck, I hate them. Well most of them, all of them, except for one." Harper felt a nagging itch in his neck, and rolled his eyes, "Give a guy a minute will ya?" he grumbled. "Malaika I have to go …."

"NO!" She reached for him again, "Please! Please don't leave me!"

"I'll be right back, I promise. My friends are looking for me and they're getting worried about me." He took her hand and kissed it, "How could I desert someone as lovely as you?"

"Promise you'll come back?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die." He pushed himself back up and the ribbons pulled him back into his body.

"Harper?" Dylan asked, worry clear in his tone.

"You were expecting someone else?" the engineer retorted, sitting up.

Beka thumped him on the head. "What do you think you're doing? We don't know anything about the species that piloted this thing and you're going poking around inside it's computer!"

"She's human Beka and I have to get back to her." He lay back and she grabbed his arm, pulling him up again.

"Just a minute there shorty, explain it to me a little slower this time 'cause I didn't get the last one!"

"There's this girl …" Harper glared at Dylan as the captain groaned, "I mean it, she's the life sign Rommie's been trying to pin down and I have to get back to her she's really scared and all alone." He lay back again, "Now if you'll excuse me, I must be going." His eyes rolled back and he was back in the matrix.

"You came back!" Malaika's arms were around him, he'd have been breathless it he needed to breathe.

Harper loosened her grip on his neck a little, "I told you I'd come back and I never break a promise."

"I've been alone for so long, I was afraid you'd just leave me here."

"Not a chance, just tell me where you are and we'll get you out of here before you can say 'Bob's your uncle'."

"I'm right here."

"No, I mean where is your body?"

She looked confused, "I'm here."

"Malaika there's nothing here but a little box."

"I'm in a box?"

"You don't know where you are?" Harper caught her as she swayed. "Sit with me." He pulled her down into his lap, "Don't be afraid, I'm going to help you but I need to go back and talk to my friends for a minute okay?"

"You'll come back?"

"Just try to keep me away!" Harper smiled. "Rommie?" he asked as soon as he was back in his body, "I need you to scan the box I'm jacked into. See if you can detect any life signs."

Rommie closed her eyes, "Faint pulse. Electrical discharges that could be brain wave activity."

"What is it?" Dylan asked.

"Some sort of stasis chamber." The avatar responded. "The field is deteriorating. Whatever it contains would not long survive outside of it."

"I'm going back."

"Harper wait!" Dylan said but the engineer was already gone.

"Hey beautiful, I'm back!"

"I want out."

"Just give us a little time," Harper grinned crookedly, "it's kind of complicated but I'm sure I can fix it."

"You're stalling," Malaika's voice was sad, "Open the box Harper."

"I can't." Harper said, "You'll die."

"I'm dying now." Tears filled her eyes, "Don't let me die here, in this prison." She reached out trying to touch him, "I want to touch someone, a real human being just one last time." Her fingers curled and she pressed them against her mouth, "Please Harper."

He turned his back to her and fled back to his body.

When the box opened, it released a cloud of warm steam. The filters had long ago given out and the nutrion liquid had gelled into a gooey mess. Her body slid free of the box and he pulled her into his arms.

The others stepped back; overcome by the smell of decay and the sight of the atrophied body he clutched.

Harper didn't even flinch, he still saw the woman he'd met in the matrix, young and beautiful. He took her withered hand and placed it against his cheek. "We'll take you home Malaika. Everything is going to be alright."

She looked up at him, staring into his eyes. Her voice was low and cracked; "I can... see ... blue sky."

"Yes, and it's a beautiful day." Harper began to cry, "Hardly a cloud."

"Is ... it... raining?" she asked, feeling his tears on her face.

"No."

"Too ... bad..." Malaika coughed "I miss... the rainbows."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." She gasped, "I'll remember…. you…. when I…. get there."

"I'll never make it to where you're going."

"Don't …. listen to…. the devil. He only…. thinks….. he knows."

"Then," Harper choked, "I guess I'll see you again someday."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"I'm not…. afraid anymore." Her words were quick and soft, "I'm not alone now."

Harper held her tighter as he felt he life slipping away, "Neither am I."

"Harper?" Rommie asked.

He looked up at them, "We have to bury her on a planet."

"Harper…."

"No Dylan! She spent the last days of her life in cold and darkness and that's not where I'm going to leave her!"

"Serenity Atoll is just a couple of jumps away." Dylan suggested.

Beka swallowed hard, fighting back tears, "There's some awesome rainbows during the second sunset there."

"And there's grass." Trance sobbed. "Soft, green grass."

Finis