Chapter 6

By the time the group had reached the hanger bay that held the transport pod, Tyr/Stolic had gotten rather bored of playing with Harper's mangled arm. The engineer was quite happy that Stolic seemed to lack Tyr's eternal patience. Even with his blood saturated with nano-bots, his arm was still useless and painful. On the bright side, breathing was easier and he could now be dragged with out getting dizzy.

The heart in Harper's chest started to pounding faster as the doors to the hanger bay hissed open. Inch by inch he caught his first glimpse of the allies he had only heard about. The transport pod they came in was huge. There was only a few feet of free space around every inch on the sleek, black ship. The pilot must have been an expert to have gotten it in the bay without hitting the walls or ceiling.

Filtering out of the enormous ship were the allies. Harper was too far away from them to tell what species they were. All he knew is that they were humanoid and there were a lot of them. The strong hands griping Harper's arms dragged and pushed him into the hanger bay and towards his new owners.

A group of ten of the allies were marching towards the invaded crew of the Andromeda. As the groups descended on one another, Harper's racing heart stopped dead in his trembling chest. All color drew from his already pale face. He saw what species the allies were and he was not happy.

Nietzscheans.

Beka's form stepped forward into the gap that separated the two groups. She said nothing as she stared down the group of imposing Nietzscheans.

From the collection of all rather large Nietzscheans, the largest male stepped forward meeting Beka in no-man's-land. He was about the size of Tyr with almost more muscles, if that was possible. His complexion was that of someone who spend their whole life in space away from any sun-light. His short cropped hair was platinum blonde, giving his whole body a unified look. The only features that stood out were his striking blue-green eyes. They were the shade of cold ice water and like ice water, they sent shivers down Harper's spine.

Those callused eyes slowly scanned at Beka's body from head to toe. "Velac, I assume," the harsh, hallow voice echoed through the hanger bay. "Galaver Merilis, out of Athenia by Mercurous, of the Pytho pride."

Harper's stopped heart fell out of his chest and splattered on the featureless hanger bay floors. The Pytho pride. His mind swirled with memories that had long been tucked way into the recesses of his mind. Memories of one year of his life when the Pytho pride had Earth as their play thing.......

****FLASH-BACK****

Earth. Smog filled, dirty, depressing, hell-hole Earth. The home of the human species, once free, now under Drago-Kazov control. Except for one year. One year when a more fearsome nomadic pride of Nietzscheans decided they wanted Earth for a little while. That pride was the Pytho pride. And that year was Seamus Zealanzy Harper's 16th year of painful existence.

Dirty, tattered boots sank into the inch thick layer of debris that coated all surfaces in Boston. The boot were moving quickly through the sludge as nightfall was getting closer by the second. This year, nightfall meant that the Pythos came out to play.

The young Harper normally had no intention of every being this far away from the safety of his home during this time of day. Normally he was already tucked away into the safety of his own little drainage pipe, cuddled up amongst the slime and dirt, trying to stay warm. But today, tonight, he was not there, he was not safe. Instead he was sprinting wildly through the growingly dark alleys, gasping for air as he pumped his thin weak legs as fast as they could go. He was in this situation because of family.

Susie, his youngest cousin was killed yesterday by the Pythos after they raped her and beat her to a bloody pulp. Now the last remaining cousins, he and Brendan, had to go bury their sweet innocent Susie. There was one place in Boston to bury family and friends. That was in the park. The trees were long gone and the playground equipment was long since pulverized, but the dirt and ground were still there. Also there were bodies buried on top of bodies, on top of bodies. That is why Harper and Brendan were out at this late hour, digging and burying. Harper could still see dirt slowly covering up Susie's gentle eyes as she stared up from her final resting place.

By the time the boys had finished, it was later than they thought and wanted. Brendan raced off in the opposite direction, hoping to get home to his ailing mother in time. While Harper raced off hoping to reach is empty, lonely pipe. His parents were killed four years ago and since then he was on his own. Brendan had helped him out a bit, but Harper hated being a hindrance to the older cousin. So most of the time Harper hanged out with one of the many groups of roaming orphaned teens. That or he kept to himself, tinkering away in his pipe while dreaming of the stars.

The hazy sun-light sky was getting darker and darker as the mother star dipped below the horizon. Harper commanded his aching, numb legs to move faster. He was only a block away from the entrance to the sewer system and to safety. The young man hurdled over unwanted corpses and debris, desperately trying to reach his home. Finally, when he thought his legs were about to give out under him, he saw the entrance. Yes! Take that you ubers, thought a joyous Harper.

That joy came tumbling to the ground along with Harper as he crashed into the layers of sludge. He felt fire course up his right leg and he felt his pants getting warmer and wetter around the thigh. He reached down and with a hiss felt the warm liquid. Drawing his hand back up to his eyes he saw dark red mixed into the normal grim that coated every inch of his skin. He had been shot. Before he could make a move he heard a voice from overhead.

"Well, well. Look at what we have here boys," a course hard voice bellowed out.

The fallen form slowly pushed himself over to face his attackers. What Harper saw still haunts his nightmares. Above him stood five very large and intimidating Pythos who were looking at Harper like he was a bunny and they were a pack of ravenous wolves.

"Looks like we have a kludge who doesn't know how to tell time. Stupid kludges." The towering speaking Nietzschean knelt down to face the trembling kludge. He thwapped Harper's cold nose. "Don't you know how to hide kludge?" The others laughed a cold heartless laugh that chilled Harper to the bone. Luckily, the Nietzscheans' bad sense of humor left Harper with just the opening he was hoping for.

Harper instantaneously kicked the legs out from under the knelt down Pytho. He jumped on top of the now prone Nietzschean and with one swift punch to his face, forced the Pytho's septum up into his brain, killing him instantly. Within a nano-second, Harper was up on his wounded leg tackling one of the other Pythos. He quickly grasped his trusty knife from his boot and impaled it into the Pytho's temple. Two down. But the third never came. Before Harper could blink an eye, he felt a powerful blow to his unprotected back. That blow was quickly followed by another to his head, then to his chest, and so forth and so on. Eventually, sweet blissful unconsciousness claimed him.

Surges of energy passed through his body filling each synapse with pain. This is what the young Harper woke up to...agony. Harper reflexively jumped forward upon waking but found that it was not possible. He was strapped to a type of adjustable metal table. He felt the electrodes attached at his temples as more waves of energy coursed through him.

Harper really didn't expect this. He was expecting death, sweet peaceful, painless death. Why did the Pytho's want him alive? Why not just kill him like they did to poor Susie. Why was life so unfair?

He never did get the answer to those questions but he did get more pain. From what he could speculate, he was in some sort of sick recreation center for the Pythos. He was in a small room with one door. Lining the walls were torture instruments of every kind. In the middle of the room laid Harper strapped to the table. He could hear screams coming from both of the rooms next to him, and everyday he would have up to ten Pythos come and visit him. They would do whatever they felt like doing to him. The worse the day they had, the worse the day Harper had. It turned out that Harper was a favorite for many and he saw many repeat customers. Maybe it was his smart-aleck remarks that kept them coming back. He really did need to learn to shut up.

This daily torture went on for weeks, and then months. They kept him alive with nano-bots and fed him through tubes. Not once did they let him off of the table. Harper turned 17 on that table. For his birthday, the Pythos gave him two thousands deep small cuts all over his body. He would have rather had a puppy.

Finally, one day months later, Harper's ears were filled with the sound of gun fire echoing through the halls of the recreation center. Apparently the Dragos finally got sick of the Pythos and were kicking them off of Earth. The Pythos were ruthless and quite a force to be reckoned with, but their nature was nomadic. They were not about to put up a fight for Earth, they had their year of fun and that was all they wanted. Off to another planet they went.

The Drago-Kazov had no use for the half-dead recreation toys. They simply threw all the beaten skeleton-like kludges out into the street as they reclaimed the building. Harper landed on top of another victim of the Pythos with a thud when the Dragos threw him out. He slowly breathed in the relatively fresh air of Boston. He was free and alive. Well barely. Harper commanded his body to crawl out of the heap of writhing bodies and toward safety. His limbs were atrophied from being restrained for so long. Slowly and painfully he crawled and dragged himself to Brendan's old home, hoping that his last family member had not moved over the past year.

After what seemed like hours of drudgery, Harper finally spotted Brendan's building. It was a ruin down collapsing old apartment building. The seventeen year old dragged his broken body through the doorway and up the steps to his cousin door. A shaky, bloody, pale hand reached out and weakly knocked on the filthy door. The sound of his fist on the wood was the last thing Harper heard before blackness enveloped him.

Brendan heard the soft knock on his door. He quickly grabbed his knife from the counter and slowly opened the creaking door. Brendan peaked out, ready to attack whoever was there, but to his surprise, the hallway was empty. His tense body relax and he opened the door wider as the still form on the ground caught his eye. It was a body. Bending down he rolled over the filthy, stinking, poor soul. A gasp escaped his mouth when he saw the face that belonged to the pathetic body. His last living family member, Seamus.

About a year ago, Shay had disappeared and was eventually thought for dead. After Brendan's mom finally died, he believed he was all alone in this world. Now that body on his door stoop changed that belief. Brendan took another look at his cousin. He could hardly believe what he saw. Harper was basically just a skeleton with flesh. New and old bruises filled every inch of his skin, while new and old cuts overlaid the bruised creating an interesting patchwork. Harpers face was thin and hollow, his eyes were sunken deep into his face. His cheeks were also so sunken that if a smile could have filled that face his trademark dimples wouldn't have been able to show up. Dried and fresh blood was covering his dirty, tattered clothes. His normally short blond spiky hair was now shoulder length and dyed red from the year of blood flowing through it. The stench coming off of Harper was that of death, but Brendan could just barely make out the rise and fall of air filling Harper's lungs. Even though he looked dead and looked like he would want to be dead, Harper was alive.

Gently Brendan picked up his cousin. His stomach turned when he felt how light Harper had become. He couldn't have been more that 50 pounds. Brendan carried the sack of bones into his apartment, laid him down on the soft makeshift bed and began nursing his last family member back to health.

From that day on, Harper never spoke one word of his 16th year on Earth. He had pushed all the memories and horrors back into his mind where they stayed buried under a thick blanket of denial. And they stayed there until that fateful day on Andromeda when the Pythos came back into Harper's life.

*******

Harper shook the nightmarish memories out of his head. He came back to the present to find the cold harsh eyes of Galaver staring deep into his terror filled eyes.

Beka's commanding voice broke through the stare. "We brought you a gift to strengthen our relationship. Fex. Stolic," she ordered.

Dylan's and Tyr's powerful hands pushed Harper toward his nightmare.

"What do we have here?" spoke the cold dark voice.

"A Earth kludge for your pride. One of our boarding team was lost and this....mudfoot was not take over. My people give him to you as a gesture of cooperation. A free slave to go with your new ship," Beka/Velac stated diplomatically.

Harper felt himself get pushed toward the large Pytho as realization of what Velac said struck him. "Your new ship." No, it can't be, Harper thought with dread. Andromeda now belonged to the Pytho pride.

Galaver caught the small form that was pushed toward him. He grabbed Harper's arm and his bad one at that. Harper's pain from the arm was now insignificant. The Pythos had control of Andromeda and his friends were lost within their own bodies. Not for the first time in his life, Harper wished for death.

Galaver's rough hands caught Harper's chin as he tilted up the beaten face of the engineer. He was examining the goods. "Not bad. A little beaten up, but not bad." The words were void of any emotion.

Strongly against Beka's will, Velac spoke up. "He's also an engineering genius. As for the wounds, he's already been injected with nano-bots so he should heal quickly."

"Good, good. You've done well. I"m glad to see your species is cooperating." Galaver's head was raised high as he spoke. Turning his proud head behind him, he gave commands to the lower Pythos. "Apoc, Zeck, take our first slave here to the holding cell." He turned back to face Beka. "I do assume this magnificent ship has a holding area."

"Of course, Deck 15. Nixic will show you the way."

"Follow me," Trance/Nixic said as she lead the two muscle bound Pythos and the small, disheartened Harper out of the bay.

Harper could just make out the next part of Velac's and Galaver's conversation.

"How many of your pride did you bring to colonize this ship?" asked Beka's voice.

"About 3,000. They are all docking in the other hanger bays as we speak."

Inside of Dylan's, Tyr's, Beka's, Trance's and especially Harper's mind the exact same word filled their thoughts.

SHIT.

TBC