Thanks to everyone who read and to Aileil for reviewing.
So, Tyr was pissed enough to be triggering some of Harper's old fight-or-flight responses, not a great thing when his assistance was pretty much all that was keeping Harper upright, they still had half a station to cross to get back to the ship, and Harper wasn't entirely sure how long the whole upright thing was going to last even with said assistance because the adrenaline surge that had carried him this far was fading fast. Plus Tyr hauling him around by the collar probably wasn't doing a lot to bolster his claims that he was with Tyr of his own free will, although he'd still say that it was better than being tossed over Tyr's shoulder. That wasn't happening as long as he was conscious no matter how long this trip took, but he wasn't about to say so out loud because he had no trouble seeing Tyr raising an eyebrow and then fixing the conscious part.
The transport tube car slid to a halt, doors opening in front of them, and they stepped inside. "Sit," Tyr ordered, and since he let go of Harper's collar at the same time, Harper didn't have much of a choice except to collapse onto one of the benches running halfway across the car.
"Hey, guess what, I can fetch and roll over, too," Harper said before he thought better of it.
"It is amazing that you've survived this long."
That was...pretty much entirely true. Making angry Nietzscheans angrier was how Harper had picked up more than a few of his scars, and even if it was just Tyr that he was sniping at now, it wasn't exactly a shining display of common sense.
Tyr twisted to lean against the wall beside Harper, turning his glare to the three people who'd already been in the car when it had stopped. Mysteriously enough all of them felt the need to exit abruptly despite the announcement of their eminent departure, and the one man who tried to board on the heels of their rush took one look at Tyr and thought better of it.
The first thought that sprang to Harper's mind was a comment about Tyr's ability to make friends, but that flew even further into the face of both common sense and the efficient use of his remaining energy. Things would be a lot easier if Tyr had dropped him on one of the benches on the other side of the car, the ones bolted to the wall rather than the floor. At least then he'd have something to lean against.
The car started moving without warning—well, okay, the announcement over the speaker probably counted as warning but it wasn't like it had done Harper any good—and he tried and failed to grab the front of the bench to keep himself from tumbling backwards. Fortunately before he could fall far a hand grabbed the front of his shirt, and he found himself abruptly transferred to one of the other benches. One with a back.
"If you crack your skull open, I will haul you back to the ship however I please," Tyr warned.
"Whatever," Harper mumbled.
Tyr caught his hair and tugged sharply.
"Ow!" He blinked hard and lifted his head. "What?"
"Do not pass out. What did they drug you with?"
"Told you, some kind of gas. I never got the specifics. Might be able to figure it out if I can get back into their computers, but..." He started to wave his hand and then decided that it was too much effort. Genius or no, biology had never been his specialty, and while he'd gotten better on Seefra, it hadn't been by choice. And he certainly hadn't cared enough to work to retain most of that knowledge.
The tube took a turn, and while Tyr didn't even seem to notice, Harper would have flopped sideways on the bench if Tyr hadn't grabbed him again. "This is absurd."
"I know. Their inertial dampers are as shoddy as the rest of their systems."
Tyr didn't seem very impressed by his assessment—although it was possible that Tyr hadn't understood his assessment since it was just slightly possible that some of that had come out slurred or out of order or not at all—and the next thing Harper was aware of was pitching forward as the tube came to a halt. And then he was abruptly inverted and the world went dark.
Tyr was tempted to shoot a couple of the Squirgin in security uniforms stationed along the interior of the docking bay just on principle, but he had an unconscious engineer to deal with, and that had to take priority. Well, no, undocking from this waste of time and resources took priority since he had no intention of risking another incursion onto his ship, but after that he'd see that Harper was properly cared for.
A dock worker approaching his own size and with a scowl on his face started to step towards him, and Tyr let his hand fall to his primary gun. He only be able to get off a single shot without needing to drop Harper, even for him it had enough recoil to require a second hand, but if nothing else the fool could recognize a threat when he saw it and while his scowl deepened, he also backed off.
Tyr didn't run, but he didn't loiter, either, and as soon as he was through the main hatch of his ship he ordered a full lockdown and ordered the computer to signal for departure. Station control connected to squawk at him about it at about the same time that he reached command, and he deposited Harper on the floor where he'd be safely out of sight and then waved the screen on. "What?"
"Security requires at least three—"
"Security allowed the kidnapping of my engineer and then did nothing to help retrieve him, so you'll understand that I don't care what their requirements are. Your station is fully equipped with bay-specific atmo fields so I suggest that you activate the ones around this ship and detach all clamps before I decide to remove them myself."
"You're grumpy," Harper mumbled from the floor.
The little professor would take the opportunity to regain consciousness now. Tyr scowled at him, but if he saw it he ignored it. Which, admittedly, wasn't unusual. Fortunately the man on screen didn't seem to have heard him, and soon enough Squirgin command seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valor and released the ship.
Tyr had no intention of actually leaving the system since they were supposed to be loading cargo for their next client in two days—although they'd be loading off-station if he had any say in the matter, and if anyone tried to insist otherwise he'd seriously consider dropping the charter—so he only took them out of the flow of standard system traffic and found a reasonable rest point in the orbit of a small moon before shutting down the engines.
Harper was still on the floor where Tyr had left him, although now that Tyr thought about it, he probably ought to have Harper install a second chair in command. Maybe at the weapons' station. If it came to a running fight, having crash harnesses for both of them would be an advantage.
That was for later, though, and Harper blinked hard as Tyr leaned over him. "'re you still grumpy?"
"Extremely." He lifted Harper carefully. The bruise on his face was obvious, but Tyr had no idea how much other damage he might have taken.
"Told 'em I didn't need rescuing."
"Yes, well, they seemed singularly unwilling to listen to reason." He took Harper to medical and laid him on one of the bunks.
"'m fine."
"Clearly." He ignored Harper's fruitless attempts to sit up and activated the both the regen unit and the full-body scanning system with a few taps. "Be still and let me fix your face while the scanner does its job."
The scanner finished before the regen unit did—if Harper really had done that damage to himself falling, he'd fallen hard—but while it reported an unidentified toxin in his system and with some prompting suggested flushing it with one of several intravenous options, none of them were things that Tyr had on hand. Because of course he didn't, he still hadn't gotten around to stocking medbay with anything human-appropriate.
Tyr growled in annoyance. He should have ordered Harper to do that when he'd had the opportunity, because even if he hadn't foreseen this specific situation, he had seen enough during their time together on Andromeda to know that Harper was bound to require medical attention on a far more regular basis than he did. And irritatingly enough Squirgin station had probably had plenty of supplies that would have met the necessary requirements if only it hadn't been a station of fools.
It was too late now, though, and the computer did register that the toxicity levels were decreasing which presumably meant that Harper was correct and that whatever he'd been dosed with was slowly leaving his system. So while Tyr didn't like it, he threw a blanket over the professor, ordered him to remain where he was and the computer to tell him when Harper got around to disobeying, and then stalked off to make some soup.