Again, it was O200 and Harper found himself stuck on the device. He was
having trouble figuring out how to make certain components more efficient,
and how to get ones he needed, but did not have. Then, out of the blue, he
had a vision.
He was in a jungle, near a river searching, for something, but what? Suddenly, he found a cave, and entered it. There, he found something, needed, but then he was back at the machine shop.
"That's it!" he thought. "I'm going to Ubaki" Ubaki was a jungle planet, that was mostly unpopulated.
So, he hacked into the Maru, and the bay doors, and left to go there, after a brief stop somewhere else.
Several slips later, he landed near a river planetside.
He started to search for a cave, but then had the feeling that this was not the place. So, Harper choose another site. this cycle went on until one day, he heard Dylan's voice say
"Harper, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for something"
"What?" Beka asked. "and who gave you the right to steal my ship?"
"I can't describe it, but I know that I need it. Look, Beka, I just wanted to borrow your ship"
"Harper, we were worried about you." Beka said.
"What possessed you to come here?" Dylan was curious.
"I had a vision." he answered as Dylan and Beka looked at each other. "that something I needed was on this planet"
"Oooh kay..." was all Beka could say.
"How did you find me?"
"Well, we first went to the nearby drift, Nuf, and asked around. They told us that you bought supplies for jungle trekking, and this was the nearest jungle planet."
"Oh yeah, I did go to a nearby drift first."
" Harper, you can't just run off just because you need to find something" Dylan said.
"Look, I have to find this. Couldn't you guys help me?"
"Fine." Beka figured it wouldn't hurt to humor him for now, until later, when they would try to help him.
"Sure" Dylan said, as he felt the same.
After some more searching, Harper finally picked a spot and starting digging, with Dylan and Beka's help. Finally, they found what Harper was looking for: a odd shaped purple thing, that was made as a machine part.
"So, that's why we put in so much effort on this?" Beka asked,
puzzled
"What does it do?" Dylan wondered.
"I don't know, but I'm sure that I'll figure it out." Harper answered, happy to have found what he was looking for. "Thanks guys!"
"Your welcome" Dylan answered.
So, they went back to the ship, where Harper tried to figure out what the component was, but without much success. It didn't help that he didn't get any more visions. He did scan after scan, and nothing useful came up. As he was doing another scan, he got his usual 'white room' visit.
"The Harper did well" the Tyr prophet said.
"Thanks!"
"Now disaster can be avoided" prophet #1/Trance.
"So, guys, does that mean that I get more visions on the device?"
"The Harper is impatient" prophet #1/ Trance remarked.
" Hey, I'm not immortal like you guys are" he replied.
"We are aware of the Harper's mortality" the Tyr prophet said.
"That's good to know" Harper replied. "So, what do you guys want?" He knew that they had another mission for him.
"Your captain wants to try make peace between the Iakans and the Ecix." The former was a race of people who worshipped some goddess, named "Hechicera", while the latter worshipped a goddess called Zija. The philosophies of the prospective religions were very different, and thus centuries of war have resulted within the planet, both races lived in. Dylan wanted to broker a peace between them.
"Yeah.. so…wait.." Harper said with a sigh… "You want me to stop him from trying huh?"
"The Harper is correct"
"Look, there is no freakin way I'd be able to convince Dylan."
"That is the same excuse the Harper used before" the Beka prophet said.
"That's different. I was able to take the choice from his hands, now there is no way for me to do it." Harper knew that if he would somehow sabotaged the talks, it would only postpone things and his getting caught could hurt the commonwealth and his reputatation ."Look, why don't you give him some freakin' visions?"
"The Harper does not understand that visions are reserved only for certain individuals." The Dylan prophet said.
"The Harper needs you to understand that there is no freakin way for me to convince Dylan not to be Dylan. Why wouldn't brokering peace between these two be a good thing?"
" Peace, will lead to friendship, friendship will lead to an alliance. The alliance will lead to disaster in the universe." The Trance prophet said.
"Oookaay.." Harper said. "Look, as I've said before, Dylan would never listen to me. He only pays attention to what I have to say when it relates to engineering, and even then he sometimes ignores me whenever he has some crazy plan."
"The Harper must figure it out" the Tyr prophet said.
"Couldn't you guys help me somehow? Give me some ideas? I am doing you a favor, yanno."
"The Harper must do this task on his own" now it was the Beka prophet talking
"Thanks a lot" Harper replied sarcastically, "You want me to do you this big favor, and you won't help me at all." He was getting annoyed.
"Some things, must be done independently" prophet #1/Trance said.
"Look, why don't you guys, just appear in a vision to people in one of those races, and pretend to be their gods telling them that the alliance is a crappy idea."
"The Harper does not understand that we don't practice deceit." Seemingly, it was the Dylan prophet's turn to talk.
"The Harper is getting annoyed that you expect him to do something for you, but yet, you won't lift a non-corporeal finger to help him."
"The Harper is impatient" the Trance prophet remarked.
Harper just rolled his eyes and sighed.
Suddenly, Harper found himself back where he was. He had a lot of thinking to do. Rethinking the possibility of a plan without having to talk to Dylan, he thought of several options.
"I could fake evidence or something else" he thought "but Andromeda could figure out it was fake, or I could use some sorta device to make it look like the goddess of one of the races was against the peace. What the hell am I thinking? Rommie could catch me, though I could make it so, I was the investigator…." Sighing, he knew that talking to Dylan was his only hope. The next day, after hours of thinking, he found himself at the door of Dylan's office, and tentatively rang the doorbell.
"Come in" Dylan was busy looking at some flexis. "Mr. Harper, what brings you here?"
"I need to talk to ya about something, Dylan"
"Oh?" He put the flexis down.
"Well, you see, the nebula aliens came to talk to me."
"And?" Dylan could not help but sigh, as Harper's visions have caused problems such as when he disrupted the signing of a charter, and sometimes neglect on the engineering side.
"Well, they say that brokering a peace between the Iakans and the Ecix is a bad idea, and they feel that we shouldn't do it"
"Why?" Dylan was curious and puzzled.
"Well, they said that if they make peace, they will make an alliance, and disaster in the universe will result."
"What can much worse can it be than millions dieing from endless wars?" Dylan was getting annoyed at the nebula aliens.
" Who knows, but these guys seem to know what they are talking about. After all, they probably have information that we don't have."
Dylan sighed at Harper's willingness to believe them.
"Harper, I gave my word that I would help broker the peace, and as I've said before, my word is the foundation of the Commonwealth."
"But if the nebula aliens are right, the Commonwealth could be in danger later on. Look, couldn't you just postpone it, and maybe the nebula aliens will give me more information by then?"
Dylan just looked at him, with annoyance.
"Come, on Dylan, at least you'll get more time to prepare and stuff." Harper was hoping that with a postponement, he could at least come up with a better argument or proof. He knew that the nebula aliens would not give him squat in terms of more information.
"Are you a member of my team or theirs?"
"What?" Harper was surprised at this question.
"You heard me"
"I'm a member of your team, Dylan, I just help them with stuff, as a side gig."
"For a 'side gig' as you call it, it sure takes up a lot of your time"
"But I haven't been neglecting my duties lately"
"You seem awful obsessed with that mysterious device, to the point sometimes jeopardizing the ship, as you forget to eat and sleep. Rather essential things, don't you think?"
"But I obsess over that during my own time."
"And then you, in your mind, let what the nebula aliens want take precedence, over the saving of lives."
"Come on Dylan, don't be like that." Harper was starting to get defensive. " I do care about the Commonwealth, and saving lives."
"Prove it"
"Oh please, don't give me any of that prove it crap, I've already proven myself. You're just saying that to make me do what you wanna do." Harper was starting to get a bit annoyed.
"Yes you do" Dylan said simply. "I don't think that it's longer possible for you be dedicated to helping these aliens and the mission."
"Dylan, I can't help having visions and visits from these guys"
"Fine, look, your first priority should be the interests of the Commonwealth, not the desires of these aliens."
"The nebula aliens do not ask for stuff, for their own health. They do it for the sake of others."
"Look, Harper, if you don't prove to me that you are dedicated first and foremost to the Commonwealth's interests, I will have to ask you to leave"
"Wha..?"
"I can find another engineer. There would be no hard feelings, but I need an engineer that won't spend his time, trying to appease some mysterious aliens."
"Beka would not let you get away with this"
"Oh watch me"
The idea of having to leave, his friends, the Andromeda, and especially Rommie, frightened him so much, that he said,
"Fine" Harper was not willing to go that far for the nebula aliens. "What do I have to do to prove myself?"
"Help me broker the peace talks"
"But I wouldn't…."
"I'll teach you what I know"
"Fine fine" Harper was not willing to go that far for the nebula aliens.
"Good. Anything else?"
"No. I guess I'll go back to my duties"
After Harper had left, Holo-Andromeda appeared.
" You were bluffing, weren't you?" she asked.
"Yes I was" Dylan said.
He was in a jungle, near a river searching, for something, but what? Suddenly, he found a cave, and entered it. There, he found something, needed, but then he was back at the machine shop.
"That's it!" he thought. "I'm going to Ubaki" Ubaki was a jungle planet, that was mostly unpopulated.
So, he hacked into the Maru, and the bay doors, and left to go there, after a brief stop somewhere else.
Several slips later, he landed near a river planetside.
He started to search for a cave, but then had the feeling that this was not the place. So, Harper choose another site. this cycle went on until one day, he heard Dylan's voice say
"Harper, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for something"
"What?" Beka asked. "and who gave you the right to steal my ship?"
"I can't describe it, but I know that I need it. Look, Beka, I just wanted to borrow your ship"
"Harper, we were worried about you." Beka said.
"What possessed you to come here?" Dylan was curious.
"I had a vision." he answered as Dylan and Beka looked at each other. "that something I needed was on this planet"
"Oooh kay..." was all Beka could say.
"How did you find me?"
"Well, we first went to the nearby drift, Nuf, and asked around. They told us that you bought supplies for jungle trekking, and this was the nearest jungle planet."
"Oh yeah, I did go to a nearby drift first."
" Harper, you can't just run off just because you need to find something" Dylan said.
"Look, I have to find this. Couldn't you guys help me?"
"Fine." Beka figured it wouldn't hurt to humor him for now, until later, when they would try to help him.
"Sure" Dylan said, as he felt the same.
After some more searching, Harper finally picked a spot and starting digging, with Dylan and Beka's help. Finally, they found what Harper was looking for: a odd shaped purple thing, that was made as a machine part.
"So, that's why we put in so much effort on this?" Beka asked,
puzzled
"What does it do?" Dylan wondered.
"I don't know, but I'm sure that I'll figure it out." Harper answered, happy to have found what he was looking for. "Thanks guys!"
"Your welcome" Dylan answered.
So, they went back to the ship, where Harper tried to figure out what the component was, but without much success. It didn't help that he didn't get any more visions. He did scan after scan, and nothing useful came up. As he was doing another scan, he got his usual 'white room' visit.
"The Harper did well" the Tyr prophet said.
"Thanks!"
"Now disaster can be avoided" prophet #1/Trance.
"So, guys, does that mean that I get more visions on the device?"
"The Harper is impatient" prophet #1/ Trance remarked.
" Hey, I'm not immortal like you guys are" he replied.
"We are aware of the Harper's mortality" the Tyr prophet said.
"That's good to know" Harper replied. "So, what do you guys want?" He knew that they had another mission for him.
"Your captain wants to try make peace between the Iakans and the Ecix." The former was a race of people who worshipped some goddess, named "Hechicera", while the latter worshipped a goddess called Zija. The philosophies of the prospective religions were very different, and thus centuries of war have resulted within the planet, both races lived in. Dylan wanted to broker a peace between them.
"Yeah.. so…wait.." Harper said with a sigh… "You want me to stop him from trying huh?"
"The Harper is correct"
"Look, there is no freakin way I'd be able to convince Dylan."
"That is the same excuse the Harper used before" the Beka prophet said.
"That's different. I was able to take the choice from his hands, now there is no way for me to do it." Harper knew that if he would somehow sabotaged the talks, it would only postpone things and his getting caught could hurt the commonwealth and his reputatation ."Look, why don't you give him some freakin' visions?"
"The Harper does not understand that visions are reserved only for certain individuals." The Dylan prophet said.
"The Harper needs you to understand that there is no freakin way for me to convince Dylan not to be Dylan. Why wouldn't brokering peace between these two be a good thing?"
" Peace, will lead to friendship, friendship will lead to an alliance. The alliance will lead to disaster in the universe." The Trance prophet said.
"Oookaay.." Harper said. "Look, as I've said before, Dylan would never listen to me. He only pays attention to what I have to say when it relates to engineering, and even then he sometimes ignores me whenever he has some crazy plan."
"The Harper must figure it out" the Tyr prophet said.
"Couldn't you guys help me somehow? Give me some ideas? I am doing you a favor, yanno."
"The Harper must do this task on his own" now it was the Beka prophet talking
"Thanks a lot" Harper replied sarcastically, "You want me to do you this big favor, and you won't help me at all." He was getting annoyed.
"Some things, must be done independently" prophet #1/Trance said.
"Look, why don't you guys, just appear in a vision to people in one of those races, and pretend to be their gods telling them that the alliance is a crappy idea."
"The Harper does not understand that we don't practice deceit." Seemingly, it was the Dylan prophet's turn to talk.
"The Harper is getting annoyed that you expect him to do something for you, but yet, you won't lift a non-corporeal finger to help him."
"The Harper is impatient" the Trance prophet remarked.
Harper just rolled his eyes and sighed.
Suddenly, Harper found himself back where he was. He had a lot of thinking to do. Rethinking the possibility of a plan without having to talk to Dylan, he thought of several options.
"I could fake evidence or something else" he thought "but Andromeda could figure out it was fake, or I could use some sorta device to make it look like the goddess of one of the races was against the peace. What the hell am I thinking? Rommie could catch me, though I could make it so, I was the investigator…." Sighing, he knew that talking to Dylan was his only hope. The next day, after hours of thinking, he found himself at the door of Dylan's office, and tentatively rang the doorbell.
"Come in" Dylan was busy looking at some flexis. "Mr. Harper, what brings you here?"
"I need to talk to ya about something, Dylan"
"Oh?" He put the flexis down.
"Well, you see, the nebula aliens came to talk to me."
"And?" Dylan could not help but sigh, as Harper's visions have caused problems such as when he disrupted the signing of a charter, and sometimes neglect on the engineering side.
"Well, they say that brokering a peace between the Iakans and the Ecix is a bad idea, and they feel that we shouldn't do it"
"Why?" Dylan was curious and puzzled.
"Well, they said that if they make peace, they will make an alliance, and disaster in the universe will result."
"What can much worse can it be than millions dieing from endless wars?" Dylan was getting annoyed at the nebula aliens.
" Who knows, but these guys seem to know what they are talking about. After all, they probably have information that we don't have."
Dylan sighed at Harper's willingness to believe them.
"Harper, I gave my word that I would help broker the peace, and as I've said before, my word is the foundation of the Commonwealth."
"But if the nebula aliens are right, the Commonwealth could be in danger later on. Look, couldn't you just postpone it, and maybe the nebula aliens will give me more information by then?"
Dylan just looked at him, with annoyance.
"Come, on Dylan, at least you'll get more time to prepare and stuff." Harper was hoping that with a postponement, he could at least come up with a better argument or proof. He knew that the nebula aliens would not give him squat in terms of more information.
"Are you a member of my team or theirs?"
"What?" Harper was surprised at this question.
"You heard me"
"I'm a member of your team, Dylan, I just help them with stuff, as a side gig."
"For a 'side gig' as you call it, it sure takes up a lot of your time"
"But I haven't been neglecting my duties lately"
"You seem awful obsessed with that mysterious device, to the point sometimes jeopardizing the ship, as you forget to eat and sleep. Rather essential things, don't you think?"
"But I obsess over that during my own time."
"And then you, in your mind, let what the nebula aliens want take precedence, over the saving of lives."
"Come on Dylan, don't be like that." Harper was starting to get defensive. " I do care about the Commonwealth, and saving lives."
"Prove it"
"Oh please, don't give me any of that prove it crap, I've already proven myself. You're just saying that to make me do what you wanna do." Harper was starting to get a bit annoyed.
"Yes you do" Dylan said simply. "I don't think that it's longer possible for you be dedicated to helping these aliens and the mission."
"Dylan, I can't help having visions and visits from these guys"
"Fine, look, your first priority should be the interests of the Commonwealth, not the desires of these aliens."
"The nebula aliens do not ask for stuff, for their own health. They do it for the sake of others."
"Look, Harper, if you don't prove to me that you are dedicated first and foremost to the Commonwealth's interests, I will have to ask you to leave"
"Wha..?"
"I can find another engineer. There would be no hard feelings, but I need an engineer that won't spend his time, trying to appease some mysterious aliens."
"Beka would not let you get away with this"
"Oh watch me"
The idea of having to leave, his friends, the Andromeda, and especially Rommie, frightened him so much, that he said,
"Fine" Harper was not willing to go that far for the nebula aliens. "What do I have to do to prove myself?"
"Help me broker the peace talks"
"But I wouldn't…."
"I'll teach you what I know"
"Fine fine" Harper was not willing to go that far for the nebula aliens.
"Good. Anything else?"
"No. I guess I'll go back to my duties"
After Harper had left, Holo-Andromeda appeared.
" You were bluffing, weren't you?" she asked.
"Yes I was" Dylan said.