Title: Effervescent Essence
Author: Harper's aka Weird_Peace
Rating: PG-13
Synopsis: Sequel to And You Thought Larvae Were Bad. I highly suggest you read the first fiction.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, but I love 'em anyways.
Spoilers: Season Two spoilers.  

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"I want my caretaker!" Dylan entered into Hydroponics, stopped, and then turned to leave.

"Dylan!" Harper whimpered as he saw him retreating. The captain sighed and turned back around.

Harper and Trance were in the middle of a group of whining, babbling perseid children. The blue youngsters clung to the two beings, not understanding how they got there or where the nice grownups that always took care of them were. Upon hearing Harper shout, four of the small beings rushed and grabbed a hold of Dylan's legs. They began to ask questions.

"Who are you?"

"Where are we?"

"Why aren't you blue?"

"Do you think that we may one day develop a technology that will make slipstream obsolete. Hulen has this theory..."

"Rommie!" The hologram appeared in front of her captain. "What the hel..." Trance glared at him. "Do you know what's going on here?"

"I'm sorry Dylan, I don't. They just all...appeared." The AI looked around, extremely puzzled. "I count 34 of them, between the ages of 2 and 6, no sign of adults."

"Hey!" Harper tried prying his nanowelder away from one child. Upon doing so, another gripped his magnetic field calibrator and took it back to his friends. They began to tear it apart, examining the pieces inside. Dylan watched the scene with amusement, before one tried taking his forcelance.

"Andromeda," Dylan grabbed the lance back and shook his finger at the child. She burst out in tears. "Where's Beka and Tyr?"

"Tyr is currently in the gym. Beka is on command."

"Good. Have Beka contact Sinti and tell them what's happened. And get Tyr to help us move these children somewhere safer." He walked over and plucked a perseid off of Trance who was climbing up her to get at the deadly blades she held over her head. "And I think you better get your avatar down here as well."

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"Most. Annoying. Children. Ever." Harper stared at the door of the brood's quarters. Well one of them. They had actually used five rooms to stick all 34 children in.

"They weren't that bad." He turned his gaze upon Trance, who found herself also at the attention of Rommie, Tyr, and Dylan. "Ok they were annoying, but they are very young."

"What did Sinti have to say about it?" Tyr asked Dylan.

"According to Andromeda, they have no idea how 34 children escaped from the government caretakers, but they're glad that they're all safe and sound. We just have to transport them all back to Sinti." He rubbed his face.

"Which means we're stuck with these kids for three whole days." Harper massaged his temples. "I can already feel the aches and pains."

"It'll be good parenting practice," Trance pointed out, feeling oddly familiar upon saying so.

"Yeah yeah yeah. At least they're down for the night." He yawned. "Sleep doesn't sound too bad right now."

"Sounds good to me as well," Trance agreed.

"You two head off to bed. Andromeda will watch the perseids. I've got to go talk to our Nietzschean guests about the change in plans." Dylan looked worn out as he turned and left, Rommie following behind. Tyr shook his head.

"A litter of perseid just suddenly appearing. What will be next?" He nodded a good night to Harper and Trance before leaving.

Back in Harper's quarters, Trance was pulled out of her lesson when she heard Harper yell out. Sitting up, the golden alien found the room full of little perseids.

"Help!" Harper cried out again as he was buried under a swarm of blue skin. Trance reached out to grabbed him, but the children bounced onto her bed and began to curl up. She realized with surprise that they were doing the exact same thing to Harper.

"I'm so sorry. I locked the doors," A miniature hologram of Andromeda appeared and sat on one of Trance's knees, "but one of them had...a little help." A six year old handed Harper his nanowelder. "I can send my avatar to help retrieve them."

"You little..." He gave up and and looked at Trance wearily. "Most of them have fallen asleep, and I really don't want to get up."

She smiled.

"It's fine with me," she said. Harper fell back onto his pillow, which he found he was now sharing. He shrugged, and then fell back into a deep sleep. Trance took one more glance at him, thinking of how cute the picture of Harper and 8 little blue humanoids curled together looked, before laying amongst her own charges and going back to her teaching.