A/N: Again thanks for the positive reviews. I'd also like you to review if you have some constructive criticism and don't necessarily like the story. Or even a review that say, "Hi, I read it," would be nice. So this chapter is pretty long and we're really getting into the meat of the story. Hope you enjoy. Thanks. fuzzytomato

OOO

"And that's how one genius engineer saved the Eureka Maru and thus saved the day," Harper said, finishing his story and one last weld on the circuitry he was working on. "So what do you think?"

Josephine hadn't answered. She stood in the other room, well within hearing range, staring at her earlier work that had kept them all alive. The wiring was overloading and starting to melt. With no breakers or relays, it wouldn't be long before the environmental systems started to shut down.

"Josie?" she heard Harper call. "I said, what do you think?"

"I think we're in big trouble," she answered.

Harper stood, confused and walked into the room. Turning the corner he saw what was happening. He also saw her move closer to inspect it; her right arm raised to brush aside some wayward wires.

"No! Don't!"

It was too late. Sparks flew and the charge from the blown circuit was enough to throw her backwards, right into his open arms. He caught her, barely, and they both fell to the ground, Harper's body a cushion. His head connected hard with the deck plate, hard enough to cause little dots to dance before his eyes.

Josephine lay across him, her eyes closed.

He gently grabbed her shoulder and gave a shake. "Josie? You ok, babe?"

"Fine," she answered, opening her eyes and flexing her fingers. She was glad to find that her hand and arm were only partially numb. "You?"

He cautiously felt the back of his head. There was a bump but no blood. "Ok, I think."

The young woman tried to push herself up but her right arm gave out underneath her and she fell right back onto Harper. "Sorry, but I think I'm seeing dots."

"You should be. That shock was enough to kill a grown Vedran."

"But not enough to kill a kludge," she replied, groaning a little as she rolled off of him.

Harper stood then helped her to her feet, throwing her arm over his shoulders and wrapping his around her waist. She was unsteady to say the least. "Ok, so we've established that we're both ok, generally speaking." He looked over to the sparking mass of wires that was slowly eating itself. "But not for long."

Alarms from all over the drift started their wailing and red lights started to flash in sync. The computer's cold unemotional voice came over the intercom.

"Twenty minutes until Environmental Systems failure."

"Harper, I…" she trailed off and her eyes rolled back into her head. She went limp and it was all he could do to keep them both on their feet.

"Oh no, come on." He arranged her in his arms and half-carried, half-drug her to the generator they had been working on. Kicking tools and instruments out of his way, he gently laid her down on the hard floor. Harper lightly touched her face and was rewarded with a groan and blue eyes slowly opening.

"Stay with me. Come on, we have to fix this."

Dylan's voice came over the built in com system. "Harper, what the hell is going on?"

"Well, boss, Josie's a genius but the jury rig she had created to keep us all breathing just overloaded and exploded."

"Can you fix it?"

"Uh, maybe. But I suggest a full scale evacuation."

"Suggestion noted. Get yourself out of there, Harper."

"Fifteen minutes until Environmental Systems failure."

"Give me ten minutes."

Dylan frowned at Harper's request but didn't have the time to argue. "Fine. But if you're not at the Andromeda in time…" he trailed off. Harper was smart enough to know the implications.

"Beka!" Dylan yelled over the com.

"I heard!" she called back. "Trance and I are on it. We've got some refugees on board and sending them to obs deck."

"Good. Rommie, Moriah and I are headed to the common area to herd them your way."

"Gotcha. Dylan, you better hurry."

Beka shepherded more scared refugees toward Trance's direction. "Move people. Get on the Andromeda." She looked toward the corridor that led to the engineering department. "Come on, Harper," she whispered.

Harper slammed his fist on the consol. "Come on! You should be working!"

"Ten minutes until Environmental Systems failure."

Josephine had managed to get herself into a sitting position and was handing Harper various tools. She wearily lifted her numb arm and pointed. "Harper, look."

His gaze followed the direction she was pointing and nearly kicked himself. He grabbed the loose connection wire and jammed it forcibly into the consol. Still nothing.

Harper kicked the initiator hard. Lights came on, buttons flashed and the telltale sound of a working generator whirled into life. "Yes!" He began to push certain buttons, but as suddenly as it came, it was gone. The generator slowed to a halt and lights winked out. "No! It makes no sense. It should be working."

"Five minutes until Environmental Systems failure."

That was it. He was out of time.

"Come on, babe. We're getting out of here." He pulled Josephine to her feet, and started heading for the door.

"No, wait! I've got to get something."

Harper turned them both around and led her back. She ripped open the drawer full of the hundreds of flexis and began frantically looking through them. The ones she didn't want she threw over her shoulder to get them out of the way. Finally, she found the most important one, and slipped it inside her coveralls.

"Now, can we run for our lives?"

"Yes."

OOO

Beka could see Dylan and Rommie at the back of the pack of refugees driving them forward.

Dylan reached Beka and turned around to scan the area. "That should be all of them." He noticed that Beka did not make a move toward the airlock and he only guessed what that meant. "Harper?"

"Not here."

"Harper, where the hell are you?" Dylan yelled into his com.

"Two minutes until Environmental Systems failure."

"Hopefully less than two minutes away!" Harper said forcing a laugh to keep himself calm.

He pulled his new found friend further down the corridor and was glad that she was getting a bit stronger with every step, taking more of her own weight.

"It's just around the corner," she said a little breathless.

They turned and Harper smiled at the sight before him. The beautiful open air lock with his friends standing there waiting on them, most with not so happy expressions on their faces but still his friends.

The two staggered into the airlock, both tripping over the last step and landing in a heap at the feet of various annoyed looks.

"Rommie, close the airlock," Dylan ordered once they made it inside. Rommie nodded then a strange look overcame her features. When no action was forthcoming, Dylan added, "Today would be nice."

She nodded again. "I…can't…" she began, "wait, got it."

The door slammed shut just in time for them to hear the cold computer voice announce that Environmental Systems had finally failed.

Beka leaned over her engineer, who was still on the ground and slightly grimacing.

"Harper, you hurt?"

He looked over to Josephine, who was also lying on the deck, trying to control her erratic breathing and cradling her arm to her chest.

"I'm fine," he said out loud while telling another story to Beka with his eyes. He grimaced again and his hand flew to his stomach.

She knelt down beside him. "Here," she said while picking up the device hanging around his neck and offering it to his lips. "Take this."

Harper did as he was told and breathed in the all too familiar medicine that was trying to keep the baby magog from hatching. He didn't know why he just didn't tell her that the larvae were getting antsy; after all, it was no big secret to the crew. But for some inexplicable reason, he didn't want the information shared amongst present company.

Well, the reason wasn't inexplicable. He kind of enjoyed the pedestal that Josephine had set him on, and baby magog festering in his gut was certainly going to knock him down a few pegs. Besides, she was having Uber issues, no reason to bring up the magog as well.

He closed his eyes for a moment and let the medicine work and he felt his little friends settle down. He then opened his eyes to find the impressive figure of his current captain looming over him. Harper gave him his trademark smirk and Dylan couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Dylan flicked his gaze over to the girl that had come stumbling into their midst and was quite surprised to find that Acting Chief Engineer Frank, supposed conspirator and traitor, was actually just a kid younger than his own genius engineer.

"Would one of you like to explain what exactly happened?" He asked, his High Guard training not hiding the exasperation that crept into his voice.

Josephine and Harper exchanged a look from their places on the deck.

"Well, Josie had this rig set up to keep the drift breathing…"

"And Harper had worked really hard but we couldn't get the main generator back…"

"Then Josie got shocked…"

"And I flew into Harper, who hit his head…"

"And she passed out…"

"And he still tried to fix the generator…"

"And she noticed the missing plug…"

"And he hit it and it came back to life for a second…"

They looked at each other again. "Then it died," they ended in unison.

Dylan blinked and looked over to Beka who shrugged, quite in awe herself at the rapid fire conversation.

"Oh, how's your head?" Josephine asked suddenly.

"I'm done seeing spots. How's the arm?"

"It still hurts a little and I don't think I'm done seeing spots…"

Moriah, who had been listening to the conversation and watching the interesting relationship forming between her engineer and the other, pushed her way past Dylan and walked up to the still sprawling form of her friend.

"I can tell you what happened down there," she hissed. She reached down and grabbed the lapels of Frank's coveralls and hauled her to her feet. Moriah then slammed the younger woman against the wall and pressed her forearm into Josephine's throat, restricting her airway and her speech. "She didn't want her treasonous actions to be found out and sabotaged the repair work. Well, it's too late. We discovered the transmissions that came from engineering. We saw the video of the Dragans coming for the engineers only."

Josephine just stood there, listening, thoroughly confused at the accusations while trying to push Moriah's forearm from her neck with her weakened right arm. Her arm throbbed and was useless against the other woman's stronger grip and her left arm was annoyingly caught behind her.

Moriah pushed her face so close that their noses were almost touching. "You aren't going to get away with it. You are going to suffer for your betrayal," she whispered menacingly.

Josephine started to gasp and though Moriah's words had partially sunk in, she was currently consumed with the task of getting a complete breath.

"Chief Reston, let her go." Dylan ordered when he realized the situation had gotten out of control. "Once we finish the investigation…"

"The investigation is over! She made sure of that!" Moriah yelled interrupting Dylan's voice of reason.

Harper was just as confused as Josephine, but knew that no person born and raised on a slave planet would ever give their friends over willingly to Nietzscheans, much less Dragans. He stepped forward.

"Hey, let her go! She wouldn't do that!"

Moriah tore her gaze from her struggling one time friend and looked toward Harper.

"So she's befriended you too. Be careful, you might be the next person she sells out."

"Dylan," Rommie began, adding her voice to the rising tide, "If you want a live suspect you might want to break this up."

Josephine was truly struggling for any bit of air she could pull in and before much longer would be passing out. Beka and Harper didn't wait for Dylan's go ahead before pulling their blasters and aiming them at the chief of security.

"Drop her," Beka commanded.

She scowled at the two but let go of her captive. Josephine slid to the floor and gulped in large breaths of air. Moriah ignored the loud gasping and coughing coming from the floor.

"I want her thrown into the brig and treated like a hostile enemy," she said, glaring at Dylan and pointing at the girl on the floor.

Dylan pressed his lips into a thin line and once again, his friends could tell his High Guard training was being tested. "You are on my ship and while on my ship she is considered a Commonwealth citizen and as such is allowed certain rights and privileges. One of them is innocent until proven guilty." Moriah opened her mouth to protest but Dylan plowed on. "You have hundreds of scared refugees on my obs deck and I suggest that you go and comfort them while I finish the investigation. Beka, please escort Chief Reston to her citizens."

Moriah gave Dylan a dark look but said nothing. She turned to go with Beka but heavy footsteps down the hallway stopped their departure.

Tyr turned the corner, obviously frustrated. "Ship," he yelled, "why have you been ignoring me?"

Rommie looked confused. "Ignoring you?"

"I have sent several messages over the com system for you to join me on the bridge. One of the stations has shorted."

"Tyr, we haven't heard any of your requests." Dylan added.

Rommie closed her eyes for a moment and did a scan. "There seems to be a glitch in the com system."

"Really?" Tyr said sarcastically.

Dylan closed his eyes for a moment and counted to ten. He wished he was back in his shower and reminiscing about his days on Tarn Vedra. He opened his eyes again and looked toward Harper who was kneeling next to his new friend. "Mr. Harper, go the bridge with Tyr. Find out what's going on."

"Sure thing, boss." But as Harper moved to leave Josephine's side she grasped his arm with a shaky hand.

He looked at her and noticed her breathing had become erratic again and that she had paled considerably. He followed her fixed, terrified gaze to Tyr and heard her frantic whisper. "Uber." She desperately tried to make herself small and unnoticeable, half hiding behind Harper.

"No, it's ok. He's a friend."

She tore her gaze from the menacing figure with the bone blades and looked at Harper like he'd gone mad. "Friend?"

Dylan and the others noticed the exchange. "Tyr, go to Command. Harper will be along shortly."

Tyr sneered and walked away, brushing right past Moriah who didn't even flinch at his presence.

Once gone, Josephine relaxed slightly but still was exhibiting signs of extreme anxiety. "You didn't tell me there'd be one on the ship!" she whispered to Harper accusingly.

"It's ok. He's a…"

"He's not your friend!" She exclaimed as loudly as her throat would allow. "No matter how nice they are, or how forgiving they seem they will find some way to stab you in the back, kick you when you're down. Nietzscheans will never be a kludge's friend!" Then realizing she had said too much, she looked down and away to avoid anyone's questioning gaze.

Dylan watched the reaction, the way her hand still clutched Harper's, the way her fear was palpable when Tyr entered the room and decided there was no way that this girl had orchestrated anything with the Dragans. Something was very much amiss on Natasi drift and now it had spread to his ship. He nodded for Beka to continue her task and once Moriah was out of earshot, he turned toward the pair on the floor.

"Mr. Harper, take Engineer Frank to the med deck and let Trance look at her injuries. Then join us on Command."

Harper nodded and helped Josephine to her feet then led her to med deck.

Once they were gone, Dylan turned to Rommie. "There's something rotten on Natasi Drift."

"Agreed," she answered.

OOO