Harper staggered to the door of Machine Shop 5. His body was beyond freezing and had become dull numbness. Sounds he heard still seemed to echo and his eyesight wasn't up to par but the jaunt from engineering had gotten the blood circulating through his veins. As he hit the door release button it swished open, chilling him even more.

The nova bombs were still there. None of them had been touched since the last time Harper had seen them. The nearest automated airlock was over a hundred meters away and he didn't think he was up to hauling each individual one there. Instead, he carefully and permanently disabled each bomb before walking back outside and sealing the door. Harper would normally be able to vent any room in the Andromeda by merely asking Rommie herself, but this time he'd have to do everything the old fashioned way, by hand.

The first thing Harper had to do was jump-start the side panel next to the door. It only took a shredded wire and a flick of the wrist before the lighted controls were functioning again. Having no time to display his handy work, the engineer took out an override board, or hack pack, as Harper liked to call it. Once the hack pack was plugged into the wall all he had to do was push a few buttons on it in order to override any safeties, firewalls, passwords, and locking mechanisms. Doing exactly that, the panel was at his disposable in under a minute.

'Here goes nothing,' Harper thought to himself as he enabled the venting controls.

There was a click and a whoosh, followed closely by a hissing sound, signaling the start and completion of the venting process. Once it was over, Harper sunk to the ground with his head in his hands. He hadn't realized how absolutely tired he was until now. Just thinking about sleep, he was about to drift off when something jerked him up. Opening his eyes, he saw five guns pointed directly at his face. The owners of those guns were Nietzcheans, Gerentex's employees.

"Where are they?" The closest uber growled.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harper replied as calmly as he could.

"I'm talking about the nova bombs! I know you know where they are, now tell me before I blow your head off!"

"They've just been released into the nearest neighboring sun. If you really want them, however, I won't shed a tear if you try to retrieve them. In fact, I bet you as a crispy brown could get a million wives."

"I don't think I like you."

"That's probably the only thing that we have in common."

The Nietzchean smiled and said, "Time to die, kludge."

Harper closed his eyes as he felt the barrel of a gun touch his forehead. Although he'd never truly believed he began to silently pray to God, hoping he'd end up with his parents and friends in the afterlife, if there even was one.