Dominant
Prologue
"When you stare into the Abyss, Take heed that the Abyss also stares into you."
Unknown Source
Systems University Archives
C.Y. 8537
Dylan was almost ready to meet with the leader of the Tellarian people, an Eldrich Hahn, to finalise the entry of the Tellarians into the new Commonwealth. The planet Tellaris had been colonised by Humans just after the fall of the old Commonwealth, in order to protect themselves from anti- commonwealth aggression they had renamed themselves the Tellarians and the people had since depended upon the rich mineral deposits that graced the world. Given the reactions of the Tellerians so far, Dylan was confident that the signing would go smoothly as the Tellerians, while technologically advanced, had almost no fleet to speak of, and certainly nothing to defend against an assault by the Magog or the Nietzscheans. They would enjoy the protection of the Commonwealth and the other enlisted planets would benefit from the influx of resources.
~All in all, a deal where everyone wins~ thought Dylan as he finished preparing his uniform, the Tellarians were fun-loving people during recreation, but they were absolute sticklers for form and conduct when they worked, which suited the life-long officer just fine.
Dylan had asked Beka to take the Maru and miss the ceremony in order to investigate a strange signal that the Andromeda had picked up the day before. It had looked like a distress signal of some sort, but it was of a completely unfamiliar language or code so not even Rommie could translate it. Given the need for formality at this occasion, Beka had convinced Dylan that if it was a call for help, that she would need a medic and an engineer, so Trance and Harper had agreed to join her.
***
Trance walked down the corridor, her tail trailing along behind her, to her best friend's quarters. When she called for him but received no reply, she ask Andromeda to locate him.
"Harper current location is Machine Shop 12, shall I tell him your coming?" The holographic woman inquired.
"No, I'll just go tell him myself." And with that, Trance turned on a heel and headed towards the Machine Shop.
Harper whistled as he worked on his latest project, considering how often he ran into trouble he was trying to fit a new power source to his forcelance, to give it more firepower. An unfortunate side effect of the upgrade was that the forcelance overloaded at random intervals giving him an extremely unpleasant shock. But if he could just fit a second power regulator to the.
"Hey, Harper. What are you doing?" The lilting, laughing voice that Harper had always loved echoed behind him.
"Nothing much Trance, you?" He turned to face the 'Sparkly Purple Babe' that was Trance Gemini. Noting, as always, how pretty she was when she smiled.
"I was just coming to see if you were ready to go yet." Came the reply.
"Yeah, lets go, it doesn't look like I'll finish this soon anyway" As he spoke, the Forcelance gave him it's irregular jolt and he yelped and dropped it onto the bench. Harper glared at the treacherous weapon before turning back to Trance and saw her barely concealing a grin.
"After you, babe." He gestured towards the door and the two left. They walked closely, Harper's arm around her shoulders, and Trance's arm encircling his waist. The pair easily falling into step as they navigated there way toward the Maru.
Chapter 1
"Andromeda, this is the Eureka Maru, we're heading off now, see you in a few days." Beka effortlessly piloted her ship out of the Andromeda bay and prepared to jump to slipstream.
"See you soon, Beka. Andromeda out." Came Hunt's reply.
"Trance, Harper! Hang on to something, we're going to slipstream." Beka yelled over her shoulder.
Harper braced himself on a nearby railing, then looked over to see Trance do the same, satisfied that she wouldn't fall over, he continued to tinker with the forcelance problem in his head.
The Eureka Maru jumped to Slipstream. With the talented Beka Valentine at the helm, this was a routine, and quite frankly boring, stream. She piloted as if she had been born for it.
When the jump had finished, Beka ran a scan to look for the signal that they had been told to track. There was a large asteroid, a few smaller ones, a small star and some wreckage. Her instruments told her that the distress call was coming from the cloud of debris.
"Harper, get your ass up here and tell me all about that." She pointed towards the Debris.
"You got it, Boss." Harper called, sitting at the console and expertly manipulating the controls.
"Well, it looks like what's left of ship, it was about the same size as the Maru and it's fairly recent, maybe three or four days. The signal is coming from inside the wreckage. We need to get closer to get a more clear reading. Unfortunately for you, the computer isn't as capable of genius as I am."
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Beka moved them closer. Harper saw an image of purple beauty walking into the front and blushed slightly when Trance caught him staring.
"Ok, better. What do we have here? Uh, boss, there is something in that wreckage that as sure as hell is not a part of the ship. It's about 3 metres across, spherical and not made of the same kind of metal as the debris. It looks like our signal is coming from that." Harper's voice carried a slightly excited tone, a new toy to play with!
"Wait! Something weird is happening!" Yelled Harper.
"What do you mean by weird?" Beka asked
"Weird? Strange, odd, queer, unusual." Harper ran off the litany as he worked.
"Okay! I get it, what is happening?" Beka was getting more and more annoyed with her engineer as the seconds ticked by. Trance grinned despite the situation.
"It's generating power, lots of power. More than we are, in fact. Wait, It's scanning us."
A blue glow flashed over the ship for a second, before dying.
"Okay, we're getting a message. From the sphere." Harper reported.
"Lets see it."
"Accessing communication, it's audio only" Trance said, before flicking a few switches. The hollow, metallic voice rang through the ship.
"Attention, unidentified vessel. You are trespassing. Scanners report three sentients on board. One 'Unknown', female. One Human, female. One Human, male. You are ordered to power down your systems and prepare to be boarded. You will not be harmed. Failure to comply will result in your being rendered unconscious. You have 30 seconds to power down." The message ended.
"The hell we will, we're leaving right now!" Came Beka's voice. She swung the ship around and prepared to enter slipstream.
"Boss, that. thing is preparing to fire some sort of weapon at us. If we are gonna leave, we should go right now." Harper advised.
"Okay, we're gone in.AH!" Beka yelled as the sphere fired at them. Trance, Harper and Beka collapsed.
The last thing Harper saw as he hit the ground was a Trance's Tri-colored hair, and then it was all went black.
***
The first thing that hit Beka as she opened her eyes was just how much she disliked being KO'ed. It happened far to often for her liking and it often gave her a headache for days.
On this pleasant note, she lifted her head slowly and took in her surroundings. She was in a small room, there was a door, a large mirror that covered most of one wall, a double bunk and a still purple form lying next to her.
Sitting up suddenly (much to the protestation of her aching head) Beka grabbed Trance's form by the shoulder and gently shook her.
"Trance, Trance! Wake up" She spoke in a quiet yet intense whisper.
Trance groaned and opened her eyes. Where was she? She remembered falling over, nearly landing on Harper.
~Harper! Where is Harper, is he okay?~ The panic began to rise in her chest, Trance jolted up and looked around wildly.
"Trance!"
"Beka, Where are we, what happened." She whipped round to look at the blonde.
"I don't know, kiddo, just stay calm." Beka was trying to sound confidant for Trance's sake.
"Ah, I see our guests are awake" The voice rang through the cell, as the 'mirror' on one side of the room suddenly became transparent. Both Trance and Beka turned towards their' captor.
The man in question was Human, or at least he so appeared, his small frame supported his slightly balding head. Crinkled facial lines and a stooped posture demonstrated his advanced age. Despite his physical frailties, his eyes betrayed a great intelligence and a sharp wit.
"I am Doctor Jacobs. I must apologise for the accommodations, I'm afraid we weren't expecting visitor, though your arrival is so timely it might be considered fate." A chuckle followed that statement, which quickly turned into a coughing fit. Once that had finished, he returned his attention to them.
"My health is not what it once was, even with the exceptional care of this facility, I have but a few days to live. No matter, what I will bring to the universe will be my contribution, it will be the axis of my immortality. I may die, but my name will be known throughout the stars."
"That's all nice and dandy and all, but where the hell are we and why did you bring us here?" Beka had risen and was quickly loosing her temper.
"And where is Harper?" Trance added from behind the irate captain, she was scared, but her concern for her best friend overrode that for the moment.
"Harper? Ah, you are referring to your friend. He is about to have the great honour, no, the privilege to taking the first step to returning mankind to it's rightful place among the stars."
"You had better start explaining yourself right now!" Beka actually hit the glass.
"Perhaps you are right, you might be more co-operative when you know the truth, so I shall explain it to you. Why are Humans oppressed by Nietzscheans? The answer is simple; they are better than we are. They are stronger, faster and smarter than any Human could hope to be. So, the solution is equally simple, to survive, Humans must become better than them."
"How though? Well, at first we thought of using chemicals to improve the individual soldiers. But chemicals produce messy and unpredictable side- effects. So we turned our thinking towards genetic alteration, making the society stronger over the generations. But the Nietzscheans have used this technique for centuries and already have too great a headstart. Finally, we had to think on a grander scale, we had to make the Human RACE better, not just small groups. The answer lay in an alien message buoy we discovered, it including data on an entirely new field of research, EvoGenics."
"For the last three decades, I have spent every waking moment in the advancement of this technology and barely two days ago we finally conquered our last barrier. We now have the capacity to cause the spontaneous evolution of an individual Human. Our test subjects do not arrive for several weeks, but your arrival provided such a great opportunity I just could not let it pass away. Therefore it has been decided that you and your friend will be the Adam and Eve of the new Genus of Humanity. Homo Superior. Do you now understand how important this is, you will mate and spearhead the new Human species." The doctor appeared to have moved even himself with his speech and was grinning broadly.
"Your are out of your fucking head if you think we are going to co-operate with you in any way!" Beka was beyond furious now. The doctor looked disappointed.
"I see. Well, you cannot stop the evolution, and if you will not mate after that. Well, I am sure we can find some way of making you co-operative, drugs perhaps. Or possibly threats made on your friend here, either way, you WILL do as you are told. I know that you must think I am a monster, so to prove to you my good intentions I shall permit you to observe the procedure from your cell. I am sure, once you have seen the results, you will be impressed." Dr. Jacobs turned away from the panel, ignoring Beka's screamed threats and for the first time since they arrived, the duo paid some attention to the room in which the doctor stood.
The room was expansive, white and bland; an operating room of some description. In the centre was a bed equipped with heavy-duty wrist and ankle restraints, above it hung a large, grotesque machine so completely alien that Beka could not discern or even guess at it's purpose.
Strapped to the bed was a struggling Harper.
"Harper!" Trance pressed herself to the glass, the young engineer did not respond., either he could not hear her or he was too preoccupied by his current situation.
"The operation will now commence, I don't expect you to listen, but it would be better if you just relax." The Doctor was kindly, but coldly advising the unwilling patient.
"Fuck you! I am gonna kill you! Let me go!" Harper was screaming, he didn't like being restrained, being confined, it brought back unpleasant memories, things that he would rather forget.
"Well, I tried, now you might feel a slight pain, but don't worry. That'll go away once the searing agony sets in. Activate the device." The doctor ordered the nurse by a control panel in the corner.
"Activation sequence initiated, system is hot, beginning preliminary DNA evolution extrapolations." A wave of golden light passed from an emitter on the device and bathed Harper in it's harsh light. Harper moaned in pain.
"DNA evolution beginning, intensity at 10%. 20%. 30%. Holding at 35%. Beginning sequence." The nurse reported.
The golden light intensified greatly, Harper began to scream and writhe around in pain. He felt like his body was being torn apart one cell at a time.
Suddenly, something exploded. Sparks flew from the machine and a disturbing whine echoed in the chamber. The golden glow became almost blinding, Harper's inhuman scream made Trance cover her ears. He was beyond words, screaming himself hoarse, then sucking in a frenzied breath and screaming again.
"Holy Divine! Intensity at 80%! 90, 100. Sir! Intensity has reached 120%!" The nurse had to shout to make himself heard over the racket.
"Discontinue the operation, shut down the machinery!" Jacobs bellowed.
"I can't, it won't respond, it's going into overload"
"Cut power to the machinery." The doctor ordered.
"Sir! Are you insane?" The nurse was incredulous, he couldn't be serious!
"DO IT!" There was a pause.
"Cutting power"
The glow reached it's zenith, everyone looked away from the blinding light and Harper's scream tapered off, he had passed out. And slowly the light began to fade as well, leaving spots in the eyes. Beka blinked several times, trying to restore her vision, when it finally came back, she saw Harper's motionless form lying on the bed. She tried to see if he was breathing, she couldn't tell.
"Report!" Doctor Jacobs was frantic, what had gone wrong?
"Sir, the machine didn't stop at the theoretical maximum, it continued to evolve him until we shut it down. According to the sensors, the subject is NOT a Homo Superior!" The nurse seemed to be re-checking his instruments.
"Dammit! Another failure, he's completely useless to us now." Jacobs anger was reaching boiling point.
"Sir, you don't understand. The machinery has surpassed the projected 'Homo Superior' window, his DNA is now 13.2% different. Sir, if these readings are correct, the subject is now a completely new level of Human!" The nurse was amazed.
"Incredible! We had theorised this might be possible, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it would happen any time soon. He has reached the third stage? That would make him Homo Dominant! Are you totally sure?" The Doctor was practically jumping up and down.
"All systems are green, the sensors are working, I would have to say yes."
"Jacobs! What the fuck is going on, what have you done to him?" Beka was terrified for Harper, he was like a younger brother, she should have protected him, this was her fault. Trance was unusually quiet.
The doctor turned to the captives, a triumphant smile on his face.
"You see, aside from some minor technical difficulties, everything went perfectly, in fact it, went better than perfectly! I'm sure now you can appreciate." The doctor's ranting went on and on and Trance looked passed the raving scientist at the Nurse.
She was standing stone-still, the tendons in her neck standing out prominently, a fine sheen of sweat covered her slightly paled face. Trance didn't understand what was wrong with her, until she glanced over at Harper. His eyes were open and his stare was fixed on the woman. He wasn't even blinking, the intensity of his glare seemed to disturb the nurse greatly.
The woman was trembling slightly now, her hand moving of it's own accord, slowly pressing controls on the panel in front of her, she struggled with herself, her eyes pleading with him to stop.
She pushed the final key, Trance saw the restraints that covered Harper noiselessly slide back into the bed. Harper rose up from his confinement like a vengeful phoenix. The nurse looked ready to faint, she was petrified. A final glance from Harper, and the nurse collapsed, her body slid down to the floor in a boneless heap.
The sound of the falling nurse had alerted Jacobs, who span around and came face to face with the 'test subject' that he had so recently operated on. His words died on his lips. He looked into the distant stare that Harper was giving him, instinctively he backed up against the glass.
For an instant Beka thought Harper was going to kill him, not that she would have blamed him, but that just wasn't the kind of person Harper was. She was right, Harper moved the doctor to the side with a sharp glare, the doctor looked too scared to think.
Harper's eyes roamed quickly over the edges of the obviously reinforced glass. He drew back a step and punched the glass dead centre. Nothing, twice more he fruitlessly hit the transparent surface. Finally, he kicked the glass as hard as he could, creating the tiniest crack barely and inch long in the centre.
"It's no good. No-one, not even an angry Nietzchean could break that. We designed it that way deliberately." There was a slight tremor in the Doctor's voice, but it was carefully controlled.
"I will open the room for you, I have the keycard on me, so take your friends and leave, your ship is on docking bay 2. You will have to go around through that corridor" The doctor held up a slightly crumpled card and pointed to an exit. Harper glanced briefly in that direction, seemed to be lost momentarily, then returned to them.
Harper looked at the doctor again with frozen eyes, he seemed to calculating something. The smile froze on the doctor's face as his quick mind began to understand, with sickening certainty, exactly what the patient was contemplating. He raised his arms to protect himself, all in vain, for this Harper was far to quick and strong.
"NO! PLEASE!" Harper grabbed the man by the scruff of his lab coat, heedless of his pleas. He lifted him easily off of his feet and swung the man hard into the glass. Trance and Beka leapt away. The extra weight, combined with the sheer ferocity of Harper's swing was enough to shatter the glass. Shards of broken glass fell in slow motion, for an instant reflecting the falling visage of the doctor's broken, bleeding and shattered body fell into the cell. The man lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, he was not moving.
Beka and Trance stood in shock. Harper had just made that man into a living battering ram, he had thrown an elderly man through the glass because it would take less time than unlocking the door.
Harper looked at them, a strange look in his eyes. A moment later, he indicated with his head that they should follow him, turned and slowly began to leave the lab. Trance looked at Beka, and they both ran after him.
"Harper! Wait." Beka called, He didn't even slow down. The two finally caught up to him as they rounded a corner. Before either of the ladies could react, Harper broke into a sprint, looking along his path, Beka saw two black-clad guards.
He caught the first gun-wielding human in the mid section and rammed the taller man into the wall, cracking his head unpleasantly on the wall. The partially concussed guard was too stunned to even contemplate retaliation, the other guard raised his weapon, a rather primitive energy weapon of some sort, and loosed a shot that went wild and sizzled a black mark into the wall just above his companion's head.
Beka kicked the guard hard in the gut, then ripped his weapon away from his loosened grip and beat him over his unprotected head, the man went down in an instant.
Harper straightened, smashed the man across the face with his elbow, blood splattered over the wall as the guards nose collapsed under the blow. Harper grabbed his opponent by the jacket and with a grunt threw the man across the hall and into the wall with sufficient force that Beka winced at the sound of the bones cracking and splintering inside of him. Harper crossed over to the downed guard, kicked him onto his back and stared into his glazed over eyes. The man was moaning in pain, Harper paid him no attention except to reach down and relive the man of his weapon and stood back. Kicking the man in the head almost as an afterthought. The ex-guard passed out.
Harper looked at a scared Trance and then his stunned captain, he jerked his head in the direction of the corridor and turned to leave. Beka seemed to be getting angrier by the minute, though whether it was Harper's actions or just the current situation, she couldn't tell you. She was just about to rip into Harper when Trance placed a gentle hand on Beka's arm. She decided to stow it until they were out of here, at which point she would have a serious talk with this man.
Trance and Beka followed closely with their' friend. Beka noticed that he was walking differently, instead of his characteristic quick steps, Harper was stalking in a manner that Beka could only call 'graceful'. Considering that graceful was not a word normally applied in any way, shape or form to the cocky young engineer; Beka was becoming increasingly worried for the man who, all things considered, was like a little brother to her. For her part, Trance was getting more and more scared of the man she considered her best friend.
Minutes later, the trio came to a door. Stencilled on the door were the words
"HANGER BAY"
The door was locked, a small card reader was situated on the wall to the right of the door frame, Harper swiped the card and the three stepped out quickly into the bay. Right into the path of a single young man holding a gauss rifle.
"Stop right there! Anyone moves, they die" The man was Human, approximately twenty years old, and held his weapon with a familiarity that indicated his experience with it's use.
"We're leaving, right now and you are not gonna stop us." Beka yelled, almost tempted to just attack him, but common sense won out in the end.
"No. We are going right back to the lab. You will walk slowly, you will keep your hands behind your head at all times. I will shoot any one who even thinks about trying to escape. You!" he looked at Harper "drop that weapon now, or I'll just kill her." The man swung his rifle to aim at Trance.
Harper was completely still, no trace of emotion on his face, a moment passed, then he carefully unhooked the weapon from his shoulder and dropped it.
"Kick it away from you." The man was in complete control of the situation and he knew it.
The tiniest move of Harper's foot, and the weapon was sent skidding away from them and colliding with the wall. The man didn't appear to have noticed just how little effort that had taken Harper, he was too wrapped up in his own power to care.
"Fuck it, I think I'll just kill this bitch anyway." A malicious grin spread across his face as he tightened his finger around the trigger.
The man's smile froze on his face, his eyes blinked rapidly, his breathing accelerated and he began to sweat. He could not move, it was like he was a statue, he felt something digging into his mind, moving behind his eyes, something monstrously powerful. Then it hit him, it was not something, it was someone. He looked wildly around and saw Harper, his iris' a solid black.
Then came the pain.
It was a blinding white inferno of agony that cascaded through him, sweeping his senses up into a whirling cacophony. He felt like he was burning from the inside out; but he was also so cold, so utterly chilled that his teeth chattered and his hands shook violently. Stabbing pinpricks covered every inch of his skin. He screamed, it hurt so bad he wanted to die.
He would get his wish.
Harper crossed slowly to the man and batted the weapon from his grasp. His lip curled up in a snarl. He violently grabbed the man's head, securing his other hand in the mans hair and twisting viciously. The crack of bones filled the bay and the man finally stopped screaming. He fell to the metal plating with a clang.
Harper looked down at the man with almost psychotic rage etched into his face, his thoughts a tempest of malice and darkness. It took a full minute for Harper to calm down enough to be confidant of turning around and facing his friends. He did so, looked Beka in the eyes and nodded toward the Eureka Maru, she took the hint and jogged to the door.
Punching in the code, she ushered Trance in, then turned and looked at Harper. She was not sure what to say. On the one hand, he had always been a part of her crew and as such obeyed her orders. On the other, she had just witnessed him do things that gave her doubts about how to approach this situation. Harper saved Beka the trouble by silently climbing in, being careful not to touch her in any way.
Beka shook her head, bit back an angry remark and decided to just focus on piloting her baby back to the Andromeda.
Harper sank quietly into the nearest corner, crossed his arms and closed his eyes. Moments later, he heard someone enter the room. He guessed it was Trance, since Beka was probably piloting. He heard her take a seat, and decided that she was here to stay. Harper remained still, feigning sleep and hoping to avoid the questions he knew were coming.
He could feel her eyes on him all the way back to the Andromeda.
Prologue
"When you stare into the Abyss, Take heed that the Abyss also stares into you."
Unknown Source
Systems University Archives
C.Y. 8537
Dylan was almost ready to meet with the leader of the Tellarian people, an Eldrich Hahn, to finalise the entry of the Tellarians into the new Commonwealth. The planet Tellaris had been colonised by Humans just after the fall of the old Commonwealth, in order to protect themselves from anti- commonwealth aggression they had renamed themselves the Tellarians and the people had since depended upon the rich mineral deposits that graced the world. Given the reactions of the Tellerians so far, Dylan was confident that the signing would go smoothly as the Tellerians, while technologically advanced, had almost no fleet to speak of, and certainly nothing to defend against an assault by the Magog or the Nietzscheans. They would enjoy the protection of the Commonwealth and the other enlisted planets would benefit from the influx of resources.
~All in all, a deal where everyone wins~ thought Dylan as he finished preparing his uniform, the Tellarians were fun-loving people during recreation, but they were absolute sticklers for form and conduct when they worked, which suited the life-long officer just fine.
Dylan had asked Beka to take the Maru and miss the ceremony in order to investigate a strange signal that the Andromeda had picked up the day before. It had looked like a distress signal of some sort, but it was of a completely unfamiliar language or code so not even Rommie could translate it. Given the need for formality at this occasion, Beka had convinced Dylan that if it was a call for help, that she would need a medic and an engineer, so Trance and Harper had agreed to join her.
***
Trance walked down the corridor, her tail trailing along behind her, to her best friend's quarters. When she called for him but received no reply, she ask Andromeda to locate him.
"Harper current location is Machine Shop 12, shall I tell him your coming?" The holographic woman inquired.
"No, I'll just go tell him myself." And with that, Trance turned on a heel and headed towards the Machine Shop.
Harper whistled as he worked on his latest project, considering how often he ran into trouble he was trying to fit a new power source to his forcelance, to give it more firepower. An unfortunate side effect of the upgrade was that the forcelance overloaded at random intervals giving him an extremely unpleasant shock. But if he could just fit a second power regulator to the.
"Hey, Harper. What are you doing?" The lilting, laughing voice that Harper had always loved echoed behind him.
"Nothing much Trance, you?" He turned to face the 'Sparkly Purple Babe' that was Trance Gemini. Noting, as always, how pretty she was when she smiled.
"I was just coming to see if you were ready to go yet." Came the reply.
"Yeah, lets go, it doesn't look like I'll finish this soon anyway" As he spoke, the Forcelance gave him it's irregular jolt and he yelped and dropped it onto the bench. Harper glared at the treacherous weapon before turning back to Trance and saw her barely concealing a grin.
"After you, babe." He gestured towards the door and the two left. They walked closely, Harper's arm around her shoulders, and Trance's arm encircling his waist. The pair easily falling into step as they navigated there way toward the Maru.
Chapter 1
"Andromeda, this is the Eureka Maru, we're heading off now, see you in a few days." Beka effortlessly piloted her ship out of the Andromeda bay and prepared to jump to slipstream.
"See you soon, Beka. Andromeda out." Came Hunt's reply.
"Trance, Harper! Hang on to something, we're going to slipstream." Beka yelled over her shoulder.
Harper braced himself on a nearby railing, then looked over to see Trance do the same, satisfied that she wouldn't fall over, he continued to tinker with the forcelance problem in his head.
The Eureka Maru jumped to Slipstream. With the talented Beka Valentine at the helm, this was a routine, and quite frankly boring, stream. She piloted as if she had been born for it.
When the jump had finished, Beka ran a scan to look for the signal that they had been told to track. There was a large asteroid, a few smaller ones, a small star and some wreckage. Her instruments told her that the distress call was coming from the cloud of debris.
"Harper, get your ass up here and tell me all about that." She pointed towards the Debris.
"You got it, Boss." Harper called, sitting at the console and expertly manipulating the controls.
"Well, it looks like what's left of ship, it was about the same size as the Maru and it's fairly recent, maybe three or four days. The signal is coming from inside the wreckage. We need to get closer to get a more clear reading. Unfortunately for you, the computer isn't as capable of genius as I am."
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Beka moved them closer. Harper saw an image of purple beauty walking into the front and blushed slightly when Trance caught him staring.
"Ok, better. What do we have here? Uh, boss, there is something in that wreckage that as sure as hell is not a part of the ship. It's about 3 metres across, spherical and not made of the same kind of metal as the debris. It looks like our signal is coming from that." Harper's voice carried a slightly excited tone, a new toy to play with!
"Wait! Something weird is happening!" Yelled Harper.
"What do you mean by weird?" Beka asked
"Weird? Strange, odd, queer, unusual." Harper ran off the litany as he worked.
"Okay! I get it, what is happening?" Beka was getting more and more annoyed with her engineer as the seconds ticked by. Trance grinned despite the situation.
"It's generating power, lots of power. More than we are, in fact. Wait, It's scanning us."
A blue glow flashed over the ship for a second, before dying.
"Okay, we're getting a message. From the sphere." Harper reported.
"Lets see it."
"Accessing communication, it's audio only" Trance said, before flicking a few switches. The hollow, metallic voice rang through the ship.
"Attention, unidentified vessel. You are trespassing. Scanners report three sentients on board. One 'Unknown', female. One Human, female. One Human, male. You are ordered to power down your systems and prepare to be boarded. You will not be harmed. Failure to comply will result in your being rendered unconscious. You have 30 seconds to power down." The message ended.
"The hell we will, we're leaving right now!" Came Beka's voice. She swung the ship around and prepared to enter slipstream.
"Boss, that. thing is preparing to fire some sort of weapon at us. If we are gonna leave, we should go right now." Harper advised.
"Okay, we're gone in.AH!" Beka yelled as the sphere fired at them. Trance, Harper and Beka collapsed.
The last thing Harper saw as he hit the ground was a Trance's Tri-colored hair, and then it was all went black.
***
The first thing that hit Beka as she opened her eyes was just how much she disliked being KO'ed. It happened far to often for her liking and it often gave her a headache for days.
On this pleasant note, she lifted her head slowly and took in her surroundings. She was in a small room, there was a door, a large mirror that covered most of one wall, a double bunk and a still purple form lying next to her.
Sitting up suddenly (much to the protestation of her aching head) Beka grabbed Trance's form by the shoulder and gently shook her.
"Trance, Trance! Wake up" She spoke in a quiet yet intense whisper.
Trance groaned and opened her eyes. Where was she? She remembered falling over, nearly landing on Harper.
~Harper! Where is Harper, is he okay?~ The panic began to rise in her chest, Trance jolted up and looked around wildly.
"Trance!"
"Beka, Where are we, what happened." She whipped round to look at the blonde.
"I don't know, kiddo, just stay calm." Beka was trying to sound confidant for Trance's sake.
"Ah, I see our guests are awake" The voice rang through the cell, as the 'mirror' on one side of the room suddenly became transparent. Both Trance and Beka turned towards their' captor.
The man in question was Human, or at least he so appeared, his small frame supported his slightly balding head. Crinkled facial lines and a stooped posture demonstrated his advanced age. Despite his physical frailties, his eyes betrayed a great intelligence and a sharp wit.
"I am Doctor Jacobs. I must apologise for the accommodations, I'm afraid we weren't expecting visitor, though your arrival is so timely it might be considered fate." A chuckle followed that statement, which quickly turned into a coughing fit. Once that had finished, he returned his attention to them.
"My health is not what it once was, even with the exceptional care of this facility, I have but a few days to live. No matter, what I will bring to the universe will be my contribution, it will be the axis of my immortality. I may die, but my name will be known throughout the stars."
"That's all nice and dandy and all, but where the hell are we and why did you bring us here?" Beka had risen and was quickly loosing her temper.
"And where is Harper?" Trance added from behind the irate captain, she was scared, but her concern for her best friend overrode that for the moment.
"Harper? Ah, you are referring to your friend. He is about to have the great honour, no, the privilege to taking the first step to returning mankind to it's rightful place among the stars."
"You had better start explaining yourself right now!" Beka actually hit the glass.
"Perhaps you are right, you might be more co-operative when you know the truth, so I shall explain it to you. Why are Humans oppressed by Nietzscheans? The answer is simple; they are better than we are. They are stronger, faster and smarter than any Human could hope to be. So, the solution is equally simple, to survive, Humans must become better than them."
"How though? Well, at first we thought of using chemicals to improve the individual soldiers. But chemicals produce messy and unpredictable side- effects. So we turned our thinking towards genetic alteration, making the society stronger over the generations. But the Nietzscheans have used this technique for centuries and already have too great a headstart. Finally, we had to think on a grander scale, we had to make the Human RACE better, not just small groups. The answer lay in an alien message buoy we discovered, it including data on an entirely new field of research, EvoGenics."
"For the last three decades, I have spent every waking moment in the advancement of this technology and barely two days ago we finally conquered our last barrier. We now have the capacity to cause the spontaneous evolution of an individual Human. Our test subjects do not arrive for several weeks, but your arrival provided such a great opportunity I just could not let it pass away. Therefore it has been decided that you and your friend will be the Adam and Eve of the new Genus of Humanity. Homo Superior. Do you now understand how important this is, you will mate and spearhead the new Human species." The doctor appeared to have moved even himself with his speech and was grinning broadly.
"Your are out of your fucking head if you think we are going to co-operate with you in any way!" Beka was beyond furious now. The doctor looked disappointed.
"I see. Well, you cannot stop the evolution, and if you will not mate after that. Well, I am sure we can find some way of making you co-operative, drugs perhaps. Or possibly threats made on your friend here, either way, you WILL do as you are told. I know that you must think I am a monster, so to prove to you my good intentions I shall permit you to observe the procedure from your cell. I am sure, once you have seen the results, you will be impressed." Dr. Jacobs turned away from the panel, ignoring Beka's screamed threats and for the first time since they arrived, the duo paid some attention to the room in which the doctor stood.
The room was expansive, white and bland; an operating room of some description. In the centre was a bed equipped with heavy-duty wrist and ankle restraints, above it hung a large, grotesque machine so completely alien that Beka could not discern or even guess at it's purpose.
Strapped to the bed was a struggling Harper.
"Harper!" Trance pressed herself to the glass, the young engineer did not respond., either he could not hear her or he was too preoccupied by his current situation.
"The operation will now commence, I don't expect you to listen, but it would be better if you just relax." The Doctor was kindly, but coldly advising the unwilling patient.
"Fuck you! I am gonna kill you! Let me go!" Harper was screaming, he didn't like being restrained, being confined, it brought back unpleasant memories, things that he would rather forget.
"Well, I tried, now you might feel a slight pain, but don't worry. That'll go away once the searing agony sets in. Activate the device." The doctor ordered the nurse by a control panel in the corner.
"Activation sequence initiated, system is hot, beginning preliminary DNA evolution extrapolations." A wave of golden light passed from an emitter on the device and bathed Harper in it's harsh light. Harper moaned in pain.
"DNA evolution beginning, intensity at 10%. 20%. 30%. Holding at 35%. Beginning sequence." The nurse reported.
The golden light intensified greatly, Harper began to scream and writhe around in pain. He felt like his body was being torn apart one cell at a time.
Suddenly, something exploded. Sparks flew from the machine and a disturbing whine echoed in the chamber. The golden glow became almost blinding, Harper's inhuman scream made Trance cover her ears. He was beyond words, screaming himself hoarse, then sucking in a frenzied breath and screaming again.
"Holy Divine! Intensity at 80%! 90, 100. Sir! Intensity has reached 120%!" The nurse had to shout to make himself heard over the racket.
"Discontinue the operation, shut down the machinery!" Jacobs bellowed.
"I can't, it won't respond, it's going into overload"
"Cut power to the machinery." The doctor ordered.
"Sir! Are you insane?" The nurse was incredulous, he couldn't be serious!
"DO IT!" There was a pause.
"Cutting power"
The glow reached it's zenith, everyone looked away from the blinding light and Harper's scream tapered off, he had passed out. And slowly the light began to fade as well, leaving spots in the eyes. Beka blinked several times, trying to restore her vision, when it finally came back, she saw Harper's motionless form lying on the bed. She tried to see if he was breathing, she couldn't tell.
"Report!" Doctor Jacobs was frantic, what had gone wrong?
"Sir, the machine didn't stop at the theoretical maximum, it continued to evolve him until we shut it down. According to the sensors, the subject is NOT a Homo Superior!" The nurse seemed to be re-checking his instruments.
"Dammit! Another failure, he's completely useless to us now." Jacobs anger was reaching boiling point.
"Sir, you don't understand. The machinery has surpassed the projected 'Homo Superior' window, his DNA is now 13.2% different. Sir, if these readings are correct, the subject is now a completely new level of Human!" The nurse was amazed.
"Incredible! We had theorised this might be possible, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it would happen any time soon. He has reached the third stage? That would make him Homo Dominant! Are you totally sure?" The Doctor was practically jumping up and down.
"All systems are green, the sensors are working, I would have to say yes."
"Jacobs! What the fuck is going on, what have you done to him?" Beka was terrified for Harper, he was like a younger brother, she should have protected him, this was her fault. Trance was unusually quiet.
The doctor turned to the captives, a triumphant smile on his face.
"You see, aside from some minor technical difficulties, everything went perfectly, in fact it, went better than perfectly! I'm sure now you can appreciate." The doctor's ranting went on and on and Trance looked passed the raving scientist at the Nurse.
She was standing stone-still, the tendons in her neck standing out prominently, a fine sheen of sweat covered her slightly paled face. Trance didn't understand what was wrong with her, until she glanced over at Harper. His eyes were open and his stare was fixed on the woman. He wasn't even blinking, the intensity of his glare seemed to disturb the nurse greatly.
The woman was trembling slightly now, her hand moving of it's own accord, slowly pressing controls on the panel in front of her, she struggled with herself, her eyes pleading with him to stop.
She pushed the final key, Trance saw the restraints that covered Harper noiselessly slide back into the bed. Harper rose up from his confinement like a vengeful phoenix. The nurse looked ready to faint, she was petrified. A final glance from Harper, and the nurse collapsed, her body slid down to the floor in a boneless heap.
The sound of the falling nurse had alerted Jacobs, who span around and came face to face with the 'test subject' that he had so recently operated on. His words died on his lips. He looked into the distant stare that Harper was giving him, instinctively he backed up against the glass.
For an instant Beka thought Harper was going to kill him, not that she would have blamed him, but that just wasn't the kind of person Harper was. She was right, Harper moved the doctor to the side with a sharp glare, the doctor looked too scared to think.
Harper's eyes roamed quickly over the edges of the obviously reinforced glass. He drew back a step and punched the glass dead centre. Nothing, twice more he fruitlessly hit the transparent surface. Finally, he kicked the glass as hard as he could, creating the tiniest crack barely and inch long in the centre.
"It's no good. No-one, not even an angry Nietzchean could break that. We designed it that way deliberately." There was a slight tremor in the Doctor's voice, but it was carefully controlled.
"I will open the room for you, I have the keycard on me, so take your friends and leave, your ship is on docking bay 2. You will have to go around through that corridor" The doctor held up a slightly crumpled card and pointed to an exit. Harper glanced briefly in that direction, seemed to be lost momentarily, then returned to them.
Harper looked at the doctor again with frozen eyes, he seemed to calculating something. The smile froze on the doctor's face as his quick mind began to understand, with sickening certainty, exactly what the patient was contemplating. He raised his arms to protect himself, all in vain, for this Harper was far to quick and strong.
"NO! PLEASE!" Harper grabbed the man by the scruff of his lab coat, heedless of his pleas. He lifted him easily off of his feet and swung the man hard into the glass. Trance and Beka leapt away. The extra weight, combined with the sheer ferocity of Harper's swing was enough to shatter the glass. Shards of broken glass fell in slow motion, for an instant reflecting the falling visage of the doctor's broken, bleeding and shattered body fell into the cell. The man lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, he was not moving.
Beka and Trance stood in shock. Harper had just made that man into a living battering ram, he had thrown an elderly man through the glass because it would take less time than unlocking the door.
Harper looked at them, a strange look in his eyes. A moment later, he indicated with his head that they should follow him, turned and slowly began to leave the lab. Trance looked at Beka, and they both ran after him.
"Harper! Wait." Beka called, He didn't even slow down. The two finally caught up to him as they rounded a corner. Before either of the ladies could react, Harper broke into a sprint, looking along his path, Beka saw two black-clad guards.
He caught the first gun-wielding human in the mid section and rammed the taller man into the wall, cracking his head unpleasantly on the wall. The partially concussed guard was too stunned to even contemplate retaliation, the other guard raised his weapon, a rather primitive energy weapon of some sort, and loosed a shot that went wild and sizzled a black mark into the wall just above his companion's head.
Beka kicked the guard hard in the gut, then ripped his weapon away from his loosened grip and beat him over his unprotected head, the man went down in an instant.
Harper straightened, smashed the man across the face with his elbow, blood splattered over the wall as the guards nose collapsed under the blow. Harper grabbed his opponent by the jacket and with a grunt threw the man across the hall and into the wall with sufficient force that Beka winced at the sound of the bones cracking and splintering inside of him. Harper crossed over to the downed guard, kicked him onto his back and stared into his glazed over eyes. The man was moaning in pain, Harper paid him no attention except to reach down and relive the man of his weapon and stood back. Kicking the man in the head almost as an afterthought. The ex-guard passed out.
Harper looked at a scared Trance and then his stunned captain, he jerked his head in the direction of the corridor and turned to leave. Beka seemed to be getting angrier by the minute, though whether it was Harper's actions or just the current situation, she couldn't tell you. She was just about to rip into Harper when Trance placed a gentle hand on Beka's arm. She decided to stow it until they were out of here, at which point she would have a serious talk with this man.
Trance and Beka followed closely with their' friend. Beka noticed that he was walking differently, instead of his characteristic quick steps, Harper was stalking in a manner that Beka could only call 'graceful'. Considering that graceful was not a word normally applied in any way, shape or form to the cocky young engineer; Beka was becoming increasingly worried for the man who, all things considered, was like a little brother to her. For her part, Trance was getting more and more scared of the man she considered her best friend.
Minutes later, the trio came to a door. Stencilled on the door were the words
"HANGER BAY"
The door was locked, a small card reader was situated on the wall to the right of the door frame, Harper swiped the card and the three stepped out quickly into the bay. Right into the path of a single young man holding a gauss rifle.
"Stop right there! Anyone moves, they die" The man was Human, approximately twenty years old, and held his weapon with a familiarity that indicated his experience with it's use.
"We're leaving, right now and you are not gonna stop us." Beka yelled, almost tempted to just attack him, but common sense won out in the end.
"No. We are going right back to the lab. You will walk slowly, you will keep your hands behind your head at all times. I will shoot any one who even thinks about trying to escape. You!" he looked at Harper "drop that weapon now, or I'll just kill her." The man swung his rifle to aim at Trance.
Harper was completely still, no trace of emotion on his face, a moment passed, then he carefully unhooked the weapon from his shoulder and dropped it.
"Kick it away from you." The man was in complete control of the situation and he knew it.
The tiniest move of Harper's foot, and the weapon was sent skidding away from them and colliding with the wall. The man didn't appear to have noticed just how little effort that had taken Harper, he was too wrapped up in his own power to care.
"Fuck it, I think I'll just kill this bitch anyway." A malicious grin spread across his face as he tightened his finger around the trigger.
The man's smile froze on his face, his eyes blinked rapidly, his breathing accelerated and he began to sweat. He could not move, it was like he was a statue, he felt something digging into his mind, moving behind his eyes, something monstrously powerful. Then it hit him, it was not something, it was someone. He looked wildly around and saw Harper, his iris' a solid black.
Then came the pain.
It was a blinding white inferno of agony that cascaded through him, sweeping his senses up into a whirling cacophony. He felt like he was burning from the inside out; but he was also so cold, so utterly chilled that his teeth chattered and his hands shook violently. Stabbing pinpricks covered every inch of his skin. He screamed, it hurt so bad he wanted to die.
He would get his wish.
Harper crossed slowly to the man and batted the weapon from his grasp. His lip curled up in a snarl. He violently grabbed the man's head, securing his other hand in the mans hair and twisting viciously. The crack of bones filled the bay and the man finally stopped screaming. He fell to the metal plating with a clang.
Harper looked down at the man with almost psychotic rage etched into his face, his thoughts a tempest of malice and darkness. It took a full minute for Harper to calm down enough to be confidant of turning around and facing his friends. He did so, looked Beka in the eyes and nodded toward the Eureka Maru, she took the hint and jogged to the door.
Punching in the code, she ushered Trance in, then turned and looked at Harper. She was not sure what to say. On the one hand, he had always been a part of her crew and as such obeyed her orders. On the other, she had just witnessed him do things that gave her doubts about how to approach this situation. Harper saved Beka the trouble by silently climbing in, being careful not to touch her in any way.
Beka shook her head, bit back an angry remark and decided to just focus on piloting her baby back to the Andromeda.
Harper sank quietly into the nearest corner, crossed his arms and closed his eyes. Moments later, he heard someone enter the room. He guessed it was Trance, since Beka was probably piloting. He heard her take a seat, and decided that she was here to stay. Harper remained still, feigning sleep and hoping to avoid the questions he knew were coming.
He could feel her eyes on him all the way back to the Andromeda.