Chapter Five: Vide et crede
(see and believe)
When Harper returned to consciousness he desperately wished he hadn't. His head was pounding, his stomach was doing flip-flops, and the tiniest bit of light was an assault to his senses. It took his a few seconds to come to the conclusion that he was moving and if the jostling didn't stop soon he was going to lose what little lunch he had had.
"Stop," Harper moaned in pain.
He felt himself being lowered to the ground and propped against a wall. The cool metal felt good against his skin so he just sat there, hoping for reprieve.
"Harper?" Dylan's voice rang through the fog Harper felt like he was in. "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"
The engineer licked his dry lips before replying softly, "If you don't stop yelling I'm going to kill you."
"Sorry," Dylan whispered. ".Harper?"
"Whad?"
"Can you walk? We still have to find Beka and Tyr."
All of his previous memories came back to him full force and Harper bolted upright, swaying slightly. He had the map! He could help. Opening his eyes warily, he looked around before calling up the image that he'd copied from the mainframe.
Looking up at Dylan's concerned face he said, "We need to go left about 200 meters and take another left. That should take us to place they keep prisoners."
"How do you know that?"
Harper tapped his head lightly, flinching when his finger came back soaked in blood.
"It's all up here. Got a map from the mainframe when I hacked in. Man, their defenses sure pack a punch.literally."
Dylan smiled but he glanced at Harper in worry. He was pale and sweating, his eyes didn't seem to want to focus, and the white bandage around his head was now a deep red.
That cut must've been deeper than I figured, Dylan thought to himself as he closely followed his genius engineer, monitoring his movements but trying not to hope too much. He wanted to find Beka and Tyr more than anything but if this was another dead end. The clock was ticking and at that moment they only had an hour and 17 minutes left.
A little while later, their five minute walk had turned into a fifteen minute one when Harper had gotten confused and took a wrong turn.
"How much longer Harper? This is taking forever." Dylan was losing what little was left of his patience.
"S'ry," Harper apologized. "Don't you think I wanna find them too? Hell, this is worse than that one time I woke up-"
"That's okay Harper," Dylan cut in, not wanting to hear about his friend's morning escapades.
Through scrunched eyes, Harper saw the look he was being shot and stammered, "Oh no boss, it was nothing like that. I was just going to tell you about the worse hangover I ever had and how this is twice as worse."
Dylan had to stifle a smile at the grammar toward the end of the sentence, but the pain-laced words didn't go by unnoticed. They were reaching the end, or so Harper said. The captain was too tired to care and too taxed to argue. He had just wanted to find Beka and Tyr and bring them back unharmed, but now he was lost in the middle of a huge ship with his injured engineer and no sign of their companions.
Harper turned a corner and disappeared from sight for a moment. Dylan was just about to follow when he heard a gasp. He froze with forcelance in hand, already planning his attack. Taking a calming breath to assure steady aim, he jumped out from behind the corner, totally prepared to shoot more aliens. What he saw made the muscles in his hand loosen and he dropped the forcelance to the ground with a clang that seemed to reverberate through the entire ship.
The sight in front of them was magnificent to say the least. They were standing in another cavern only this one was bigger and little pods covered the walls. Each pod appeared to be a sort of holding tank for an organic. Dylan and Harper couldn't recognize a single species in them and some of the aliens didn't even look sentient.
"We found them," Harper whispered to himself, then turned to Dylan and yelled, "We actually found 'em!"
The loud noise that had come from his own mouth made Harper wince, but he just beamed and stared, waiting for Dylan to start jumping up and down with glee. It didn't happen.
"There has to be hundreds of thousands of people here." the captain muttered. "Harper, there's no way we'll find them in time. We only have a little over an hour."
"Don't say that!" Harper screamed at him, the walls he set up against the stress and pain and desperation suddenly crumbled as his hope was crushed. "We're gonna find them and get 'em outta here.before the hour's up! You'll see!"
They stared at each other, each with similar demeanors.
It's the slipfighter all over again, The thought ran through Dylan's mind.
"Harper?!" A quiet, yet familiar voice penetrated the silence.
"T-Trance?" Harper called out into the nothingness and listened to his voice echo through the room, if you could call it a room.
"Harper! I can see you! Look to your left! No, your other left!"
Dylan and Harper both searched furiously before they saw Trance directly on the other side of the cavern. It would've all been just fine except for one major problem. There was a large, oval chasm across the entire middle of the floor that appeared to be where the engine was held, and it was a very long drop to the bottom.
"There's no bridge," Harper stated.
"Trance! How. Who are they?" Dylan questioned. He wanted to know how she had gotten across but his curiosity was piqued even more when he saw the aliens she was with. The fact that he couldn't identify them made him uneasy.
"These are our new friends. They're here to help us get Beka and Tyr." Trance replied politely.
"How'd you get over there?" Harper asked what would have been Dylan's second question.
"We walked across."
"Walked across what?"
"The air. Our friends here have telekinetic abilities. C'mon!"
The statement shocked Dylan and Harper but Trance didn't look affected in the slightest, as if being able to lift something with one's mind was an everyday thing.
"I can't do that!" Harper yelped as the idea and the agony in his head hit him full force.
"It's easy, all you have to do is trust yourself. And me. And the aliens." Trance said with an enthusiasm that Harper could not believe she possessed.
"Oh, that's all?"
The gold girl smiled, "Yah."
"I was being sarcastic Trance! I mean, walking on air? That's a little hard to comprehend, even for a genius like myself. What you're suggesting, defying gravity with no electronic assistance just doesn't sit right with me." Harper was on the edge of panicking.
"Don't you trust me?" The innocent remark calmed him down but he still wasn't very sure about the whole thing.
"Yeah, but-"
"Then walk across." Trance's tone was commanding but compassionate, and it left no room for argument.
She wouldn't hurt you, Harper thought to himself before yelling none to surely, "I'll try."
"You can do this Harper," He said to himself, earning a weird look from Dylan. "Just like Indiana Jones. Yah, there's really an invisible bridge right under your feet. You're not going to fall, you're not going to fall, you're not going to fall."
A memory of Beka counseling him swept though his mind and he heard her voice, 'Take deep breathes Harper. Slow, deep breaths.'
Harper spared another look at Trance before closing his eyes and thinking, Deep breathes. I'm coming Beka.
The jittery engineer stuck his foot out over the edge of the canyon-like hole and took a step, then another, and another. He kept walking at a faster than brisk pace and didn't stop until he felt a pair of hands steadying him. The smiling face that greeted him sent shivers through his body.
"H-hey," He stuttered as the adrenaline rush wore off.
"Hey yourself," Trance replied as she pulled him closer. "You look terrible."
"I feel terrible," Harper admitted. "But don't worry, I'm sure I feel worse than I look, I mean, look worse than I feel."
Trance laughed, glad to be able to see and touch her friend again. She felt like she could look after him and keep him safe so long as she held him. Dylan had made it across and was having a quiet discussion with their new friends while Trance was perfectly content just holding her friend and it seemed Harper shared her sentiments.
"What are you doing here?" His muffled voice asked.
Trance decided to give him a shortened version of what she knew since they were running out of time, "Well, these aliens are apparently at war with the other aliens. They hailed me on the Andromeda and I asked if I could come along when they went to sabotage this ship. They agreed and even gave me my own search party. Harper.we found Beka and Tyr."
The blonde man let go of his friend and stared at her with wide eyes, "Are they a-alive?"
Trance nodded and gestured towards two pods that some aliens were working on. Beka and Tyr could be seen in them, both struggling to get free from inside.
"As soon as we free them we're going back to the Andromeda and getting out of here," Trance explained.
"Wait a minute," Harper whispered. "What about all the others? Can't we help them too somehow?"
Trance swallowed hard and looked over at the seven aliens who were working to open the pods their friends' were trapped in. She saw Dylan having a heated conversation with Silek and couldn't help but notice the similarity in their stances. In fact, she was looking everywhere but right in front of her.
Harper knew it too and prodded, "What?"
"The people.aliens, in the other pods.thh, they're dead."
When Harper returned to consciousness he desperately wished he hadn't. His head was pounding, his stomach was doing flip-flops, and the tiniest bit of light was an assault to his senses. It took his a few seconds to come to the conclusion that he was moving and if the jostling didn't stop soon he was going to lose what little lunch he had had.
"Stop," Harper moaned in pain.
He felt himself being lowered to the ground and propped against a wall. The cool metal felt good against his skin so he just sat there, hoping for reprieve.
"Harper?" Dylan's voice rang through the fog Harper felt like he was in. "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"
The engineer licked his dry lips before replying softly, "If you don't stop yelling I'm going to kill you."
"Sorry," Dylan whispered. ".Harper?"
"Whad?"
"Can you walk? We still have to find Beka and Tyr."
All of his previous memories came back to him full force and Harper bolted upright, swaying slightly. He had the map! He could help. Opening his eyes warily, he looked around before calling up the image that he'd copied from the mainframe.
Looking up at Dylan's concerned face he said, "We need to go left about 200 meters and take another left. That should take us to place they keep prisoners."
"How do you know that?"
Harper tapped his head lightly, flinching when his finger came back soaked in blood.
"It's all up here. Got a map from the mainframe when I hacked in. Man, their defenses sure pack a punch.literally."
Dylan smiled but he glanced at Harper in worry. He was pale and sweating, his eyes didn't seem to want to focus, and the white bandage around his head was now a deep red.
That cut must've been deeper than I figured, Dylan thought to himself as he closely followed his genius engineer, monitoring his movements but trying not to hope too much. He wanted to find Beka and Tyr more than anything but if this was another dead end. The clock was ticking and at that moment they only had an hour and 17 minutes left.
A little while later, their five minute walk had turned into a fifteen minute one when Harper had gotten confused and took a wrong turn.
"How much longer Harper? This is taking forever." Dylan was losing what little was left of his patience.
"S'ry," Harper apologized. "Don't you think I wanna find them too? Hell, this is worse than that one time I woke up-"
"That's okay Harper," Dylan cut in, not wanting to hear about his friend's morning escapades.
Through scrunched eyes, Harper saw the look he was being shot and stammered, "Oh no boss, it was nothing like that. I was just going to tell you about the worse hangover I ever had and how this is twice as worse."
Dylan had to stifle a smile at the grammar toward the end of the sentence, but the pain-laced words didn't go by unnoticed. They were reaching the end, or so Harper said. The captain was too tired to care and too taxed to argue. He had just wanted to find Beka and Tyr and bring them back unharmed, but now he was lost in the middle of a huge ship with his injured engineer and no sign of their companions.
Harper turned a corner and disappeared from sight for a moment. Dylan was just about to follow when he heard a gasp. He froze with forcelance in hand, already planning his attack. Taking a calming breath to assure steady aim, he jumped out from behind the corner, totally prepared to shoot more aliens. What he saw made the muscles in his hand loosen and he dropped the forcelance to the ground with a clang that seemed to reverberate through the entire ship.
The sight in front of them was magnificent to say the least. They were standing in another cavern only this one was bigger and little pods covered the walls. Each pod appeared to be a sort of holding tank for an organic. Dylan and Harper couldn't recognize a single species in them and some of the aliens didn't even look sentient.
"We found them," Harper whispered to himself, then turned to Dylan and yelled, "We actually found 'em!"
The loud noise that had come from his own mouth made Harper wince, but he just beamed and stared, waiting for Dylan to start jumping up and down with glee. It didn't happen.
"There has to be hundreds of thousands of people here." the captain muttered. "Harper, there's no way we'll find them in time. We only have a little over an hour."
"Don't say that!" Harper screamed at him, the walls he set up against the stress and pain and desperation suddenly crumbled as his hope was crushed. "We're gonna find them and get 'em outta here.before the hour's up! You'll see!"
They stared at each other, each with similar demeanors.
It's the slipfighter all over again, The thought ran through Dylan's mind.
"Harper?!" A quiet, yet familiar voice penetrated the silence.
"T-Trance?" Harper called out into the nothingness and listened to his voice echo through the room, if you could call it a room.
"Harper! I can see you! Look to your left! No, your other left!"
Dylan and Harper both searched furiously before they saw Trance directly on the other side of the cavern. It would've all been just fine except for one major problem. There was a large, oval chasm across the entire middle of the floor that appeared to be where the engine was held, and it was a very long drop to the bottom.
"There's no bridge," Harper stated.
"Trance! How. Who are they?" Dylan questioned. He wanted to know how she had gotten across but his curiosity was piqued even more when he saw the aliens she was with. The fact that he couldn't identify them made him uneasy.
"These are our new friends. They're here to help us get Beka and Tyr." Trance replied politely.
"How'd you get over there?" Harper asked what would have been Dylan's second question.
"We walked across."
"Walked across what?"
"The air. Our friends here have telekinetic abilities. C'mon!"
The statement shocked Dylan and Harper but Trance didn't look affected in the slightest, as if being able to lift something with one's mind was an everyday thing.
"I can't do that!" Harper yelped as the idea and the agony in his head hit him full force.
"It's easy, all you have to do is trust yourself. And me. And the aliens." Trance said with an enthusiasm that Harper could not believe she possessed.
"Oh, that's all?"
The gold girl smiled, "Yah."
"I was being sarcastic Trance! I mean, walking on air? That's a little hard to comprehend, even for a genius like myself. What you're suggesting, defying gravity with no electronic assistance just doesn't sit right with me." Harper was on the edge of panicking.
"Don't you trust me?" The innocent remark calmed him down but he still wasn't very sure about the whole thing.
"Yeah, but-"
"Then walk across." Trance's tone was commanding but compassionate, and it left no room for argument.
She wouldn't hurt you, Harper thought to himself before yelling none to surely, "I'll try."
"You can do this Harper," He said to himself, earning a weird look from Dylan. "Just like Indiana Jones. Yah, there's really an invisible bridge right under your feet. You're not going to fall, you're not going to fall, you're not going to fall."
A memory of Beka counseling him swept though his mind and he heard her voice, 'Take deep breathes Harper. Slow, deep breaths.'
Harper spared another look at Trance before closing his eyes and thinking, Deep breathes. I'm coming Beka.
The jittery engineer stuck his foot out over the edge of the canyon-like hole and took a step, then another, and another. He kept walking at a faster than brisk pace and didn't stop until he felt a pair of hands steadying him. The smiling face that greeted him sent shivers through his body.
"H-hey," He stuttered as the adrenaline rush wore off.
"Hey yourself," Trance replied as she pulled him closer. "You look terrible."
"I feel terrible," Harper admitted. "But don't worry, I'm sure I feel worse than I look, I mean, look worse than I feel."
Trance laughed, glad to be able to see and touch her friend again. She felt like she could look after him and keep him safe so long as she held him. Dylan had made it across and was having a quiet discussion with their new friends while Trance was perfectly content just holding her friend and it seemed Harper shared her sentiments.
"What are you doing here?" His muffled voice asked.
Trance decided to give him a shortened version of what she knew since they were running out of time, "Well, these aliens are apparently at war with the other aliens. They hailed me on the Andromeda and I asked if I could come along when they went to sabotage this ship. They agreed and even gave me my own search party. Harper.we found Beka and Tyr."
The blonde man let go of his friend and stared at her with wide eyes, "Are they a-alive?"
Trance nodded and gestured towards two pods that some aliens were working on. Beka and Tyr could be seen in them, both struggling to get free from inside.
"As soon as we free them we're going back to the Andromeda and getting out of here," Trance explained.
"Wait a minute," Harper whispered. "What about all the others? Can't we help them too somehow?"
Trance swallowed hard and looked over at the seven aliens who were working to open the pods their friends' were trapped in. She saw Dylan having a heated conversation with Silek and couldn't help but notice the similarity in their stances. In fact, she was looking everywhere but right in front of her.
Harper knew it too and prodded, "What?"
"The people.aliens, in the other pods.thh, they're dead."