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Part 14

The guests finally got to their feet and both Tyr and Dylan responded immediately to their show of making to leave. With smiles on their faces, and Trance still able to show them polite courtesy, Dylan was relieved to see things had gone well.

"Ambassador, I hope our meeting today has gone some of the way in welcoming you to the commonwealth," Dylan offered his hand.

The ambassador duly shook Dylan's hand with a smile. "I have had the most splendid time, your crew are truly fascinating and we all look forward to making further use of the Commonwealth's facilities in the future."

"We're just escorting your three wayward friends back, and then I'll walk you to your craft," Dylan gestured.

"Yes, I must apologise for my friends, they are new to these meetings and were a little nervous before arriving," the ambassador explained. "I guess their nerves gave them memory loss for a moment, they forgot where they were and how to get back," he grinned but noted the flash of uncertainty on Dylan's face. "Have I said something wrong?"

"No, no," Dylan was quick to speak, replacing his frown with a smile. "Just there was an incident on board a few days back that caused some of us to suffer memory loss, it just reminded me, nothing to worry about."

Rommie moved up beside Dylan. "I have checked, no gas leaks are present, our lost guests are simply that, no outside interference," she sounded amused.

"Thank you, Rommie," Dylan returned, a little embarrassed at being caught out by paranoia. "Any news on an ETA for our missing guests?"

"Beka and Harper have just located them, and are on their way back, should be here in the next ten minutes," Rommie informed the captain.

"Good, and then we can ensure our guests return to their home safely," Dylan smiled, but behind the smile he was exhausted with playing nice and just wanted to kick back and relax.

"So you think you'll be able to look after yourself to prevent these attacks becoming a problem?" Beka idly asked towards Harper, having found the lost sheep they were now walking ahead of them leading them back to the obs deck. The guests were not great chatters and appeared a little embarrassed by their wanderings, so Beka decided to make the most of the additional time with Harper.

Harper shrugged, but appeared to hesitate before answering. "Sure, I was ok with that stuff Trance gave me when I had the larvae."

"You overdosed," Beka reminded him sharply.

"Oh, yeah," Harper remembered with a frown. "This is different."

"How so?"

"Well firstly no hungry children eating my insides to shreds," Harper offered. "And secondly, I have to take care I mean the alternative for me is worse than death, so this is technically worse than being infested."

"You really have twisted priorities," Beka grinned.

"Come on, keep up," Harper gestured quickly to the three guests they had rounded up, as they continued to walk back towards the obs deck. He watched as they quickened their pace so that they were walking up to speed with them, but Harper also noticed a brief exchange of looks and his instincts kicked in, as his hand moved to his gun but the moment was soon lost when the guests simply kept walking.

"I think my nerves need some time off," Harper grinned, unable to believe he sensed a threat from the guests who hadn't even raised their voices to speaking level since being found, and whose friends Dylan had been entertaining for the past three hours.

"We all need some time off, it's been a tough few days for us all," Beka agreed, and then suddenly yelped as one of the guests without warning got a firm hold of her from behind, immediately immobilising her, despite her instinctive struggles to fight back.

"What the?" Harper spun around but failed to reach for his gun in time, and before he knew what was happening they had a knife to Beka's throat.

"Not so fast," the guy holding Beka warned, and Harper could only offer his hands in the air to surrender, seeing Beka was at their mercy.

"Dylan, problem," Rommie spoke with concern, and Dylan immediately turned to her. "Our three lost souls have just taken Beka and Harper hostage."

"What?" Dylan demanded loudly with shock, and their other guests also seemed surprised.

"What are they doing?" the ambassador asked.

"Tyr, with me," Dylan immediately ordered and reached for his force lance to charge it up. "Rommie, Trance, keep an eye on our guests," he stated before leaving with Tyr.

Both Harper and Beka were forced down to a kneeling position and were ordered to put their hands on their heads. Feeling ridiculous they both complied, seeing the knives remaining close to their necks, before they were patted down and all weapons removed.

"You won't get very far, Captain Hunt is very precious about his ship if your plans are to try and take it from him," Beka spoke firmly.

"We don't want his ship," one of the men spoke, as he moved around Harper to check for anything else that could be deemed a threat to them.

"Can I put my hands down now?" Harper complained. "Hurts enough already with this stupid cast on, not appreciating keeping it on my head as well."

"Shut up!"

Harper simply frowned and glanced at Beka, who in turn gave him a warning stare to not make trouble.

"Sergeant I think we've hit jackpot, scans reveal that this is one Seamus Harper and the lovely lady is Beka Valentine, we've only bagged ourselves the commonwealth's top engineer and the best slipstream pilot in the known galaxies," another of the men suddenly spoke up, as he handed his scanner to the lead guy to check.

"Don't flatter yourselves," Beka remarked.

"Yeah, you may have us but unfortunately for you, you've missed the best damn high guard trained captain in the known universe, the most angry will kick your butt to high heaven resident Nietzschean in the known universe as well as a couple of very unique in their own way handy ladies when it comes to kicking slime ball ass," Harper remarked cockily. "In the known universe," he added with a grin.

Harper barely saw the back hand that caught him sharply across the face, nearly causing him to lose his balance from a kneeling position, his hands barely stopping him in time.

"Son of a," Harper began but felt his hair being grabbed and pulled, as the leader forced him to look up at his sneering face.

"Hands on your head where I can see them!" the leader ordered, and pushed Harper's head away with disgust. Harper reluctantly replaced his hands on top of his head and sneered back as the guy remained looking at him. "He'll do, and she'll be the reason."

Beka and Harper glanced at each other unsure, before they heard footsteps approaching. Harper was suddenly pulled to his feet, and pushed in front of the leader who got a firm hold on him and put the knife to his neck. Beside him, Beka found herself in a similar position as Dylan and Tyr came into view, their force lance's aimed.

"Let my people go," Dylan calmly ordered as he slowly approached.

"You won't shoot me, I have your crew hostage," the leader confidently predicted.

"Actually, both of them have shot me in the past week, still got the healing wounds to prove it, so I make a rubbish human shield," Harper remarked and then grimaced, feeling the knife press deeper into his neck. "It's true," he stressed.

"Harper, not the time," Dylan warned and then focused his attention back onto the leader. "Whatever it is you're planning, you'll fail."

"We'll see, now back away," the leader ordered, but neither Dylan or Tyr backed off. "I'm warning you, I can still do what I want to do with only the one hostage, and I firmly believe in old fashion values of ladies first," he warned and the guy holding Beka put the knife closer to her neck to emphasise his point.

"Tell me what you want," Dylan stressed.

"I want you to return to the party, we'll talk once I'm ready and not before, understood?" the leader stated. "Now back off!" he growled and Harper tensed as he felt the knife break the skin of his neck.

Dylan glanced at Tyr, knowing they were in no position to argue in the standoff, and they backed away.

"Don't worry about us boss," Harper managed, still feeling the knife to his throat.

Once Dylan and Tyr were out of site the leader immediately spun Harper around and into the firm grip of his colleague. "Real smart mouth you have there kid," the leader hissed, moving closer to Harper and bringing his hand up to Harper's neck.

"Hey," Beka spoke up. "What the hell is going on here, what do you want?" she asked to distract the leader from his attentions to Harper.

"Let's move, I don't want to conduct my business in a corridor," the leader stressed. "You," he gestured to Harper. "Lead the way."

"Lead, what?" Harper checked.

"I want a location that gives us access to the ships AI, but isn't as open as a corridor," the leader stressed.

"I could recommend the brig, real cosy and often visited by the likes of you," Harper innocently suggested but immediately the leader had a handful of his hair again, and Harper yelped.

"I'm warning you about that mouth kid," the leader sneered.

"One of the machine shops," Beka spoke up; glaring at Harper once more in the hope he'd stop yanking the bad guys chain.

"Fine, sounds good, take us," the leader gestured to Beka who began to walk, still being held by one of the men as she did. "Don't take your eyes of this one for a minute, Rav," he gestured to the man holding Harper.

Harper found himself yanked up and then forwards, following Beka as they moved the short distance to the closest machine shop. Behind them, out of sight, Dylan and Tyr stepped forward and frowned.

"I want to know what they are planning, Rommie, record everything and keep me posted," Dylan ordered, and then looked at Tyr. "You know this ship as well as I do, I want you to plan a means of taking all three of these men out, the first opportunity we get."

Tyr nodded his head and moved away to plan, leaving Dylan to keep a distant eye on proceedings.

TBC