Here's the next part. But first a message from our sponsors.

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Now onto the show....

PART TWO

"Correction, standing next to you [Trance], Beka, Rev, Rommie, Dylan....err, well anyways, then I'm one of the good guys, but I didn't survive twenty years on that hellhole we lovingly call Earth by being Santa's Little Helper. I survived by being the nastiest piece of work that ever clubbed someone over the head in the back alley over a hunk of cheese."

-----Seamus Zealanzy Harper

Chapter 7

Andromeda's corridor was quiet save for the four sets of stomping boots on the hard metal floors. The boots belonged to the two lower Pythos, Apoc and Zeck, the abducted body of Trance Gemini and the Earth kludge Seamus Harper. Trance was in front of the group leading them to V deck. Following her were the stereotypical thugs. Both had muscles larger than their brains and their low brows dominated their faces. You could see the ancient Earth Neanderthals' traits still in their so called superior DNA.

In-between the two towers of bulk walked Harper. Apoc had a nice strong grip on his right arm, while his non-related twin had the same grasp on his still mangled and useless left arm. Luckily for Harper, the nano-bots Trance injected him with earlier were doing their job. His ribs only hurt a bit and all the other bruises and cuts were now only superficial. All of the internal bleeding from the punches and kicks had been fixed and even his fever from the infection in his data port had broken. Trance/Nixic had been nice enough to mix in some antibiotics with the nano-bots. Nice bad guys. Unfortunately, two major injuries still remained. His left arm, if Zeck were to let go of it, would fall uselessly to his side. Pain was still radiating from it, but not as intense as before. The other major problem was his dataport. Still swollen, still quite painful, still unusable. The nano-bots were seemingly having no effect on it at all.

Harper's mind focused on the silent corridor instead of the pain. Soon, he thought, the corridors he now called home, would be home to thousands of Pythos. Thousand of treacherous Pythos' feet would be strolling these halls. Voice of the horrible ubers would fill Andromeda's lovely walkways....and rooms....and even her...HIS engine room. NO! screamed Harper's mind. I can't let it. I won't let it. After he survived the Pytho's recreation center, he promised himself that he would never be in Pytho control again and that any Pytho he saw would leave this world with Harper's grinning face staring over their bleeding, broken body. He promised. The blood in his veins started to boil, his mind racing with memories from years ago mixing with the memories from the past 24 hours. When his mind reached his current situation, his blood froze.

Who was he kidding. Three thousand Pythos were boarding Andromeda. Three thousand! And he was being dragged off to V deck by two Pythos twice his size who were being lead by his golden goddess. To top it all off, his friends were prisoners in their own minds and unable to help. Or were they? They had beat him and tortured him, but were they truly helpless? Harper knew that he annoyed them and that maybe, sometimes, they only kept him around for his technical merit, but did he annoy them that much. Enough for them not to fight while being forced to hurt him? Enough for Beka to say those things to him? How much did they truly despise him?

Harper internally shook his head, rattling the clouds of doubt that constantly overcast his thoughts. Not now. It didn't matter either way, if they hated him or not. Either way they would not or could not help him. It was up to him to save himself and his friends...even if they did hate him. No one deserved to be left with the Pythos, well except maybe the Drago-Kazov.

Pain shooting though his arm brought his thoughts back to the real world. The real world where Zeck had just squeezed his poor arm as he shoved the smaller man forward. The boiling blood that had been placated earlier with fear was getting hot again. Familiar anger rose within Harper's psyche. Anger that had not been fully used or felt since that day Beka rescued him from Earth. Every once it a blue moon, the rage would peek it's ugly head, but never to the magnitude that filled Harper's mind and body everyday on Earth. He had felt a twinge of it with Gerentex and with Satrina, but it wasn't the same desperate, empty stomach, survival-of-the-fittest rage that filled his thoughts every second he survived on that hellhole. The rage had been placated because Harper had always felt safe with Beka and the others. He always knew, no matter how much he annoyed them or how much they hated him, they would always have his back. He hadn't needed to call up that part of him since he meet that lovely redhead-now blonde captain. But now it was different. Now no one had his back, no one could help him but himself.

Deep in the recesses of the spunky kluge's mind there is a locked door. A door which has years of dust settling on it's large strong lock. A lock that Harper's non-corporeal hand was now fiddling with. A lock and a door that was now creaking open. Behind that door, inside that dark cold harsh room, laid pure, unsaturated survival.

The door was now wide open and Seamus Zealanzy Harper of Earth was finally let loose.

Apoc's grip loosened for a second and that was all Harper needed. Ripping his good right arm from Apoc's loose grip, Harper quickly took aim at Zeck's large nose. With the palm of this hand, the engineer plunged Zeck's septum straight up into his rarely used brain. The soft sweet sound of cartilage on gray matter brought back sweet memories for Harper. He loved that move.

Before Apoc could even register that the weak injured inferior kludge had just killed his fellow Pytho, Harper had laid a strong solid kick to his family jewels. Apoc violently hunched over in pain. With the Pytho's head now at Harper's level, the weak human took his only useful arm and put Zeck into a headlock. With his hand securely griping Apoc's chiseled chin, Harper twisted his arm. Snaps and cracks filled the corridor as Apoc's head twist like a cap on a Neubayern Weisbrau bottle. A sick thud followed as the large body hit the ground.

*********

In the dark recesses of her mind, Trance sat and thought. The number three thousand kept repeating it's self. The word crap also kept repeating it's self.

Inside her mind she sat, useless and helpless. She watched her body lead poor Harper into a life of slavery. Poor Harper. Her thoughts paused on that phrase. He had been through a nightmare today and she had a good feeling that it was only just beginning.

Her golden heart broke realizing there was nothing she could do for him...or herself...or for the others. The future was so hazy and uncertain right now she couldn't even win a hand of Yeshi-dono. That thought alone was scaring her. Usually she could see or figure something out, but this was like being blindfolded. She hated not knowing what would happen, or even what could happen. It was so...so...mortal. She could only figure that it had to be Nixic's presence that was blocking the possible futures from her. It had to be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound behind her of bones breaking. HARPER! She thought as worry and dread filled her mind. Nixic turned her body around to see Harper grabbing a gun off of Apoc's dead body which was laying next to Zeck's corpse. Both bodies were quite a site. Apoc's head was now on backwards and dark red blood and gray matter were oozing out of the area that used to hold Zeck's nose.

Nixic focused Trance's eyes off of the grotesque forms on the ground and up at the barrel of the gun that Harper was pointing at her. His left arm hung limply at his side. Trance had done that to him.

Nixic commanded Trance's voice to speak. "Damn Harper," her voice was filled with admiration. "Trance didn't know you had that in you. Impressive. Futile, but impressive." Nixic focused on the gun that was pointed at her. "You know that thing is useless against Trance. Plus, you hurt me, you hurt your golden goddess."

Harper's cold and empty eyes just stared at Trance. He spoke up in an equally cold and empty voice, "Silly alien, tricks are for kids."

He fired.

A wave of fire burned through her leg as the bullet from the gauss gun made contact. Pain shot up through her whole body, but there was something else...something good. Nixic was feeling the pain too and is was causing him, her, it to loosen it's grip on Trance's mind and body. Trance jumped at this opportunity. She fought past Nixic's powerful mind and grabbed hold of her voice.

"H-H-Harper! It's me, Trance!" She yelled out feeling simple pleasure at the act of using her own voice.

The mysterious golden alien had crashed onto the corridor floor after taking the shot to her leg. The second Harper heard the real voice of his golden goddess he raced over to her side.

"Trance!!" he yelled in joy as he held her dreadlock filled head with his good arm. The left arm hadn't moved an inch from before.

Trance's eyes locked on that arm, that mangled arm. "I"m sorry Harper," she said nodding towards the limb.

"No prob babe. I've had worse."

"AAAGGGGHHHHH...."screamed Trance. The pain from the shot was wearing off and Nixic was starting to regain control. Trance pushed Nixic back down.

For a split second, Harper could see the minds switch from Trance to Nixic back to Trance. A wave of energy had flowed across the surface of her eyes in-between transitions.

"Trance, don't leave me," he begged. Fresh tears were coming to his tired eyes.

"H-Have to...can't keep Nixic at bay.... pain... makes... them... weakkkkkaaaagggghhh... run.... harper.... run." Silence. Trances eyes rolled back into her head as the waves of energy returned to dance across her retinas. Nixic was returning.

With one swift movement, Harper placed Trance's head down, grabbed all the guns off of all the bodies, alive and dead, and ran for his life.

A second later, Trace's voice could be heard reverberating through the empty corridor as Harper fled. "DAMN IT!"

The pumping of his sore legs and the air struggling to fill his lungs reminded him of Earth and his past. A past which he had fought to forget, deny or repress. Instincts from that past were resurfacing along with the memories. Instincts that his friends didn't know were in him, would not want to know were in him and would be repulsed by. Instincts that Harper, of Earth, were about to release on the Pytho pride.

TBC.