Exits Part 3, Loyalty
Disclaimer: I own nothing and am getting no money
A/N: The Finale, thanks for reading
It was about to get worse though. Harper rushed through the door and skidded to a halt. His greeting of "What the frell is going on?" dying quickly on his lips. Beka saw his muscles jerk tight, a snarl in his throat and a sneer on his lips. But she could tell he was terrified.
"Seamus!" Jerrick smiled. He had found the one who got away. He could right that wrong and make his suffer. Jerrick had not been this happy in quite a while.
"Bite me Uber"
"I see we still have vocabulary problems"
"I'm fine Jerrick, why don't you just head home." The ship jumped again as it came in contact with the Neitzchien's. The screen went black.
Beka turned to her engineer. "Hide" he told her, voice full of authority and terror.
"Why, what is going on?"
"He will torture you. You'll wish you were dead. I know. So hide!" With that he yanked open a wall panel and actually pushed Beka in despite her protests and shut her in.
She couldn't see anymore but she heard Harper finding his own hiding place. It sounded like he was under the floor. Beka was more cramped than she had ever been as she waited for whatever was going to come next. Her feet were under her, she was bent forward enough for her chest to be on the floor of this little space. She reached back as far as she could and tried to get a hold of her gun. She was pretty sure she was going to need it.
Harper had become silent. Beka held her gun and waited. Then there was the clunk of heavy boots on deck plates. She could feel the Neitzchien coming. She recalled the rage behind his eyes as he calmly threatened to kill her slowly. Harper knew this crazy man, as was afraid of him. Beka was afraid for him.
She didn't want Harper to get killed. He'd proved he'd protect her; she wanted to protect him now. No one deserved what those blasted Neitz did to their prisoners. She heard the intruder sniffing.
Harper sat in a tiny hold beneath the floor. He was hiding from Ubers again. It was just like Earth. He sat in the dark, hoping they wouldn't find him but knowing they would. He hated this feeling, but he couldn't stop it. He hated the Neitzchiens so much. They killed his family, friends, left him alone in the world. And they could do this to him; make him tremble in the dark.
Jerrick knew Seamus was there. The smell of his fear was hanging in the air. He could hear 2 accelerated heartbeats. He really didn't care about the Captain. Let her stay hidden in the wall. The Neitzchien followed his nose to the floor. One quick pull and his treasure was revealed.
Light flooded into Harper's hiding place and he felt himself being hauled out. It was happening. Jerrick had him by the arm and then his hair and was now dragging him off the command deck. Harper put all his weight into staying put, but it was a useless endeavor. Despite his time on the Maru he still was a scrawny mudfoot, not exactly able to fight off a Neitzchien whose mind was clouded by vengeance.
In her hiding place Beka was getting madder by the second. She couldn't let this go on. Harper was her crew. A captain defended her crew. She heard a struggle going on. The Neitzchien was stealing her engineer. Unfortunately, the mudfoot had safely locked her in this hole. She was going to have to kick her way out.
The scraping of boots on deck and strangled noises made by a man desperately trying to break free faded. Beka wriggled her feet out from under her and placed them on the plate. This cramped position was not giving her much leverage for kicking. She was once again envious of her incredibly flexible engineer.
Who did he think he was putting her in here? He thought he was protecting her. But, unlike him she did not consider a hiding place where your feet needed to be over your head to escape very practical. Her feet didn't make it over her head but she did manage to kick the plate off and get out of the hole.
Not pausing she headed for the Neitzchien boil on her ship. That's where he would have taken Harper. As she walked determinedly she realized what a change this was. She was not thinking about herself. She was thinking about the mudfoot she had simply let stay to get rid of Bobby. But he was a member of her crew, and she was not giving him up.
Harper was dragged off the Maru and onto Jerrick's stolen ship. Jerrick had been using the boy's hair to lead him about; pulling so tight blood was starting to change its color near the Neitzchien fingers. He released the boy onto his ship, letting him crash into the wall. "You do know you will die today Seamus."
"That is really going to mess up my weekend plans." Jerrick laughed coldly in response, a horribly disturbing sound.
He backed Harper into a corner. The Neitzchien leaned forward and took Harper's arm. "This is the one I broke wasn't it? It seems to have healed well." Harper did not answer. He only glared. Jerrick promptly squeezed hard enough to shatter the bones and with a twist separated the joint in his shoulder. Harper yelped; how Jerrick had missed that sound. "It probably won't heal so well this time since you'll be dead."
Jerrick smiled as he looked at the man he had backed into the corner; the man who had caused him so much trouble. He wanted to see the fear in his eyes. He'd seen fear as he dragged the boy from the hole. But it had faded. The damn boy wasn't afraid if him. "Do you remember what I did to you last time?"
"Do you remember what I did last time?" countered the mudfoot. The fear replaced by rage. "Unless you forgot, I won!"
Jerrick growled and drew his knife. He lunged for Seamus. No more waiting, the boy would die. The shot from Beka's blaster hit him square in the back mid lunge. It threw off his aim and the knife slid into Harper's already battered shoulder. He grunted as he felt the metal tear his flesh as the heavy dead weight of Jerrick's body pin him against the floor.
Beka smelled the already present blood. She saw the Neitzchien on the brink of killing Harper and she shot. She pulled the trigger and watched him fall. The murderous bastard was dead. She hurried to the fallen body and with no respect for the dead, pushed it off her engineer. Harper was under there.
"You saved me boss." He weakly coughed, already blacking out.
"Yeah kid, I can't have people coming by and stealing my crew."
"Thanks" and his head fell back.
Beka got the kid medical help. His arm had to be set and immobilized for 6 weeks but nothing was permanent. By the time he could use that hand she had grown pretty fond of the kid. She helped him with the repairs, since having only one hand slowed him down considerably. Not his mouth though, it turned out the mudfoot was quite a talker, but he made her laugh. He didn't leave either.
The end