A/N: So here's the next bit. Thanks for all the reviews. We're getting close to the big action so I hope you're all out there in suspense. I don't have much else to say so…Enjoy!
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Harper sat on the rug while Josephine still laid, the two discussing the intricate details of Harper's plan. Though no internal sensors were working, meaning no one could actively listen to their conversation; Nietzscheans had highly evolved hearing, so the two were forced to lean in very close to each other and whisper, not that either of them minded being in close proximity to the other. The more they schemed and discussed, the more invigorated Josephine became and the tiredness seemed to melt away though she would still grimace in pain when she moved or when Harper touched a particularly tender spot.
It worried him.
"Our two hours is almost up. Do you think you'll be able to pull this off?"
"I've had to work in worse condition." She looked at her bare arms wincing at the bruises and the bandage Harper had wrapped around the wound on her wrist. "I'm just mad they ruined my favorite coveralls."
Harper picked up two pieces of gold fabric that Nefertiri had left and gave them a quizzical look. "Well, she said she left you some clothes…" he trailed off, trying to figure them out.
"Slave clothes," she muttered. "Since I was a pet I was always dressed in really fine fabric to show off just how rich they were."
Harper gave her a playful leer and a nudge. "You going to need help with those?" he asked his voice more nasally than normal, his eyebrows raised suggestively.
She gave him a glare and a smack on the arm. "I'll be fine. Just turn around."
"Hey, just thought I'd offer," he said, turning away from her but staying well within reach just in case.
It only took a few minutes for a pain-filled gasp, and alarmed call for his name to cause Harper to turn around and catch the falling Josephine.
After managing to pull on the ankle length skirt made of gold filmy material over her hips, the shirt was too much for her sore arms and back. The ensuing pain made her vision blur and she would've fallen if she hadn't managed to grasp hold of his arm and heavily lean into his body.
He was extremely careful where he put his hands finally resting them on her hips.
"Whoa, whoa, I got ya. Just lean into me."
She struggled for a moment, trying hard not to completely have to depend on him but since he was offering, she allowed her head to fall to his shoulder, her hand weakly grasping his bicep while her other hand gamely tried to keep the cloth covering her.
"Sorry, I just got dizzy," she said.
"It's ok, doll. I kind of expected it."
After a few moments of silence, and Harper very aware of the nearly naked girl leaning into him, and with no forthcoming instructions Harper cleared his throat nervously. "So, uh, what do you need me to do?"
"Just tie the strings," she answered, her voice muffled by the fact her face was buried into his shoulder.
He scrutinized the cloth and realized it was actually a shirt made to tie around her back with three sets of strings. With fumbling nervous fingers, he tied the first set around her neck, the next around the middle of the back and the third encircling her waist. He tried to make them as loose as possible, so as not to aggravate the lash marks, without jeopardizing any modesty. Though after looking at the outfit with a skirt that rode low on her hips and slits up the sides and a shirt held together by three strings, he was pretty sure the intent of it had very little to do with modesty.
On second thought, maybe he would make those knots a little tighter.
"Harper, just in case our little idea doesn't work the way it's supposed to, I want to tell you something."
Josephine waited a moment for his reassuring protest to interrupt her, but one didn't pass his lips. Obviously, he either knew that she would silence him or he knew of the probability of their plan working just the way they hoped was very low. She hoped it was the former but didn't fool herself into thinking the latter wasn't an option.
"I just wanted you to know that what I told you on med deck was the complete truth and not some lie I told you to get you to trust me." She pulled her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "I truly believe that you were worth the sacrifice." Before he could respond and before the shocked emotional expression could leave his face, she leaned in and lightly brushed her lips across his.
He wanted to echo the sentiment, tell her that she was also worth every ounce of blood her brother spilled for her. He wanted to pull her in close again and taste her lips like he had done on med deck. He wanted to hold her, comfort her and be comforted by her but he didn't get the chance. The door to the quarters slid open.
Both were expecting Nefertiri but it was Osiris who witnessed the curious scene. He saw their physical touch, smelt the blood mixed with desire and heard both their rapid heart beats. He let a slow feral smile grace his hardened features.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked as he stepped further into the room.
Josephine immediately dropped her hold on Harper and took a step back from him. Her eyes lowered, posture penitent, she answered him with a slight stutter. "N..no, sir."
Harper, for his part, said nothing but refused to lower his eyes and actually pulled himself to his full height.
"Oh, I think I am."
He stalked around the pair, giving them an amused smile before coming to a halt behind Josephine and facing Harper. He allowed his eyes to roam the slight figure, noticing his mother's punishment on her back and arms.
Again, Harper burned at the familiarity of the gaze.
Osiris stepped up close behind her, grasping her left wrist and pulling it up so the brand of the Drago-Kasov under her forearm was easily seen by all. "Do you know what this means, mutt?" He asked addressing Harper. "Here, I'll give you a demonstration. Pet," he barked, "who are you?"
Josephine swallowed, her throat becoming suddenly dry at having to repeat the phrase that was beaten into her the first week she had become their personal servant. "I am the property of Nefertiri Saladin and her offspring."
Osiris patted her head. "Very good. And whom do you serve?"
Her cheeks burned red with shame at the question. She flicked her eyes to Harper for a brief second, seeing the tortured look on his face and she felt her spirit sink to the floor. For all of his encouragement and faith, this one question, this one thought had made all the talk of destiny and freedom vanish. The question held a double meaning that was obvious to all in the room and she couldn't help the tear that rolled from the corner of her eye as she remembered the first night, when she was only a teenager that the second meaning became apparent and turned into a hated part of her slave mantra.
"I serve my mistress, her sons and any Nietzschean they deem fit."
The big Nietzschean smiled at her humiliation and Harper's outrage. "So you see, mutt, there was nothing in there that says 'and dying kludges.'"
Osiris roughly pushed Josephine into the hands of the other Nietzscheans at the door. "Take her to command so I can have my ship." His gaze cut to Harper who was valiantly trying to hide all the emotion that was running through his frame. "The kludge and I are going to have a talk."
OOO
Dylan's patience was wearing thin. It had already been tested within hours of arriving on the drift but adding Nietzscheans to the pot and the ship's subsequent capture had stretched it to its breaking point. But now, after hours of being pinned to his own ship's wall with unrelenting clamps and watching said Nietzscheans destroy various components on his command deck he was so annoyed that he couldn't handle it much longer.
He was at the point that he could very well do something stupid. It was really the only plan he had.
At least they didn't have control of Andromeda's systems. That was the one good point in the whole mess.
He risked a glance at Tyr who was pretending to be asleep or he hoped he was pretending. They had been ignored for quite some time.
What he really needed was Osiris. He obviously wasn't an alpha or he would've introduced himself as such and this whole elaborate plan was some way to better his standing within the pride or within his family. Maybe, Dylan could taunt him into releasing him in some way. Then he could get to his force lance that was across the room, maybe activate internal defenses…
"You'd die trying," Tyr said matter-of-factly, his eyes still closed.
"Huh?" was Dylan's less than articulate response.
Tyr sighed. "I know you're planning something in that devious mind of yours but you would easily die trying whatever it is. You are outnumbered twenty to one on this mere deck alone and we don't even know if anyone else is aboard the ship. There is nothing that you would be able to accomplish but meeting the Devine."
"And you're suggesting you would be able to accomplish something, am I right?"
Tyr huffed. "Of course. I have a knife in my boot. You are otherwise unarmed. I'd last longer than you, if I were stupid enough to try something."
Dylan rolled his eyes. "But your survival instincts dictate otherwise."
Tyr lifted his head and met Dylan's eyes for a brief instant. "I'd rather wait this one out and see what the little professor and his girlfriend have devised."
Dylan laid his head back against the wall and let out a world weary sigh. "You think they have a plan." It wasn't a question but a drained statement.
"I think, no, I know that neither one of them want to reenter the situations they were born into. Therefore, they have some method of escape brewing in their brilliant little minds."
"So, you'll let the kludges do the work and possibly die while you lounge away hanging from a wall and reap the benefits of their sacrifices. Is that it?"
Again, Tyr lifted his head and met Dylan's eyes. However, this time it wasn't a brief flicker of acknowledgement but a long intense gaze that bore into Dylan's soul. "Isn't that what you were accused of?"
Dylan opened his mouth to protest but the remark died in his throat when he saw movement and a small commotion over by the door. He watched as Josephine was led onto the deck by two towering Dragans. She was walking stiffly avoiding any superfluous movement wearing a rather revealing outfit and it made Dylan wonder where she had been the past hours.
She looked over at the pair on the wall, locking her gaze with Dylan and winked.
The movement was so quick and almost imperceptible that Dylan thought he had been hallucinating. But the small devious smile she also sent in their direction was enough to alert him to the fact that they did indeed have a plan. Maybe he wouldn't have to do something incredibly stupid after all.
The Nietzscheans left her to her work once they arrived at the consol. Josephine turned to begin her and Harper's plan and for the first Dylan and Tyr laid eyes on her back.
Dylan audibly gasped and Tyr growled at the sight of the stripes that laced across her back and shoulders some still bleeding, turning the gold fabric of her shirt to crimson. They both immediately looked back toward the crowd of Dragans by the door, searching them for any sight of their engineer, wondering and fearing what fate may have befallen him. If they were capable of whipping their favorite pet, what were they capable of doing to an enemy?
When no evidence of Harper could be found in the gaggle, they turned their attention back to Josephine. They watched as she stiffly lowered herself to the ground before plugging the neural jack into her port and allowing her consciousness to enter Andromeda's VR matrix. Her body went limp once her mind had fled into the blissful comfort of the machine.
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