Disclaimer and stuff is still in the first chapter unless someone's stolen it.

Thank you so much for all the brilliant reviews! I'm sorry for the delay with this chapter but I've had a headache for the past two days. Anyways, here is chapter 4:

"In truth we're all just hurtling to our deaths, like insects hitting a windscreen. All there is left is a smudge and eventually even that disappears. So what's the point of living if you're just forgotten? But sometimes, if you look carefully, you can still make out the smudge on the screen, because though you are gone, the mark of what you have done remains.......or failing that there's always the little baby bugs you left behind."

The trip on the Eureka Maru seemed to last forever. Way too long in Harper's eyes. Especially with Granzen constantly at his back. He had new bruises on his face, arms, stomach and probably a few bruised ribs as well. Harper had never been able to figure out exactly why Granzen hated him so much.

Until now, that is. Granzen had just knocked him to the floor when one if other Nietzcheans walked in. Harper stayed on the ground, not really wanting to move and hoping against hope that Granzen was needed somewhere else. Not that there was much of an elsewhere to be on this ship.

He missed the first part of their exchange, probably because he was too busy trying to dampen out the pain in his stomach where he'd just been kicked. He guessed by Granzens reply that the question had been to do with him.

"I just can't stand kludges like these. Not only are their race weak and pathetic but he is moreso. He is weak and small and he gets scared easily. You'd think by beating him round a bit that he'd harden up but no, he'll be a scared pathetic kludge forever. Especially this one..." At that he kicked Harper in the side and he curled in on himself in pain.

"...because he seems to be smart. And these are the dangerous kludges. Smart and weak, so they're smart enough to survive but weak enough that they'll pass on their weak genes and pollute generations of the species. Nietzcheans know to kill the weaklings but humans aren't that smart yet."

He grinned and laughed evilly. Harper briefly imagined him with horns and a tail, like the devil out of the stories he heard in the camps. But he had always pictured the devil as having bonespurs like Nietzcheans and claws like a magog. All he needed was to be in a room with both a Nietzchean and a Magog and he was in his own idea of hell.

Three days had passed since they'd left and he finally had some idea of what was happening. He and Dale hadn't had that much to do since they left, some minor repairs and adjustments. But they'd overheard a lot from the Nietzcheans.

Apparently, this big ship that the salvage crew had pulled out of the black hole was a very powerful ship. A highguard ship. He had been told stories about them when he was little. How everyone used to live in peace and Earth was a paradise. But they were like fairytales to him.

Apparently the plan was to lure the big ship into taking this ship onboard, Harper wasn't sure how. They'd been looking for the Maru for a while. And then they'd be onboard and a couple of Nietzchean ships would cause a distraction.

They needed Dale because he'd been working on the ship before and they needed Harper to interface with the ship and gain control. Then the Nietzcheans would take over the ship kill the crew and bring it to the nearest Drago-Katsov base. Simple. He hoped.

They'd learnt all that from overheard conversations. Harper had been thinking and trying to come up with a way to escape but there didn't seem to be one. If he let them take over the ship, he was trapped, if he didn't he was dead. Damned either way.

Dale wasn't much use either, he seemed to have lost hope. Harper really wasn't surprised that the Nightsider had been able to capture him. He gave up too easily.

Everything had happened suddenly. The Nietzchean in the engine room had activated some device and all the systems had turned down to a minimum. He and Dale were warned not to even breath loudly.

He guessed later that the device sent out signals that mimicked complete power-failure. So the were dead in space and it looked like there was no-one on board. It was a few hours before they felt themselves being pulled into the ship. Then things started happening fast once again, it was almost like time sped up.

The five Nietzcheans onboard armed themselves and one grabbed Dale and Granzen grabbed Harper. They literally sneaked on board. Harper supposed they'd been sent some signal from the attacking ships to know when it was time. The ship rocked now and then with explosions.

Harper was used to them though. The Nietzchean ship he'd been on had fought in a lot of battles and he'd done a lot of repair work.

Dale was directing them, but Harper wasn't sure exactly where they were going until they got there.

"You can interface here." Dale's face was pale and frightened. Obviously he hadn't been in too many battles. To Harper it was like background noise, like the screams of people dying during a Magog attack or a Nietzchean raid. You ignore them and you run, you just run. Except there was no-where to run now.

He quickly set up his tools and interfaced with the computer. He was very surprised at what he found. It was so much bigger and more powerful than he'd been expecting. He kept himself hidden as best he could from the computer but it would be hard not to detect his presence when he was trying to break down the computers command controls.

He began to break his way through the security. After twenty minutes or so he thought he was nearly there but he came up against a wall. It was a damn secure computer if it had protection like this. It didn't take him long to figure out that he couldn't get complete control from this access point. He needed to be on the bridge or in the slipstream core.

He terminated the interface and informed Granzen, who looked briefly as if he would murder him. But of course that wouldn't help them, so he turned his attention to Dale. That was when the ship detected their presence and all hell broke loose.

***

They were in the thick of battle and Captain Hunt knew that there was something wrong. It was a completely unprovoked attack. Out of the blue.

And they also weren't putting up that great a fight. It was like gorilla warfare. They kept jumping in, sending a volley and retreating. It was too predictable. It was like throwing rocks systematically at a piece of steel, barely making a dent.

"What's wrong with this battle, people?" He spoke to his crew, if you could call them that, for the first time. Voicing his opinion and asking theirs.

"It's almost like...." Captain Valentine spoke and then hesitated. Hunt gestured for her to continue.

"..like they're trying to occupy our attention, distract us. But from what?"

That's what Captain Hunt wanted to know, he was about to say something else when both Anasasi and Trance spoke at the same time.

"That ship" "The Maru!" Of course. Dylan was about to order Rommie to activate the internal security systems when her hologram appeared.

"Intruders detected, deck 15, internal defence systems have been activated."

Hunt headed towards the door. "Anasasi, Valentine, you're with me." The Nietschean ships outside had stopped attacking, they'd probably been contacted by the intruders.

They made their way to the nearest weapons locker and got ready for a fight.

***

The internal defence systems had got one of the Nietzcheans but now he and Dale were disabling them as they went along. Only problem was it left a lovely trail. Like those breadcrumbs in that fairytale he used to be told about a Magog who dressed up as a little girls grandmother after she'd eaten her and had tried to eat the little girl too. When he was little it used to give him nightmares.

That was when they were attacked from both sides. Harper didn't see who it was but all of a sudden another Nietzchean was down and Granzen had given him a weapon. He didn't know how to use it and vaguely shot in the direction of one of the attackers. The other two Nietzcheans were hit, one after another.

"Which way?!!" Granzen was yelling at Dale and shaking him hard. Dale just stuttered and shook his head. Which was when Granzen turned his weapon around and shot him. Harper spun round just in time to see Dale's body hit the ground, blood trailing down his forehead from where he'd been shot. Dead, definitely dead.

It was like time was speeding up and then slowing down. The next second Granzen pitched forward and hit the ground, blood coming from a wound on his back. And Harper was standing there alone. He was the only one left standing, with a weapon in his hands.

He was looking at the mass of bodies on the ground around him. And for the first time in his life he contemplated killing himself. What other option was there anyway? It was then he noticed the dark-skinned Nietzchean standing in front of him with his weapon pointed at him. He didn't need to worry now, he was dead anyway.

He let the weapon in his hands fall to the ground and stared blankly at the Nietzchean, almost willing him to shoot. He didn't notice the people come up behind him, he didn't hear their words. He just calmly waited for death. He wanted it and the Nietzchean man wanted to give it to him. He raised his weapon and Harper held his breath, waiting to smash into his own personalised windscreen.

***

A/N: Okay, it's the weekend and I've very little work to do so the next chapter will be up soon. If you try and hurry storylines they get grumpy so I let it take it's time! I hope you don't mind waiting a bit longer for the whole meeting thing!