A/N: First a big thank you to all my reviewers. I love you guys!!!! Now I give you THE chapter. The nice gooey center in this angst filled treat. Enjoy!
Chapter 13
The air in every lung on command was still stagnate as Baby finally did her thing. She let loose a blast of gas laden air that quickly dispersed throughout the room. The gas was the results of the three chemical compounds Harper feed Baby with just moments ago. Unlike all of Harper's other bomb, Baby was special in that she was non-lethal. The gas would just make anyone who inhaled it, to sleep, ironically, like a baby.
As everyone's lungs began to ache for oxygen as they were forced to take a deep breath of the greenish gas that now enveloped command. Within seconds of that breath, bodies starting hitting the floor in a symphony of thuds. Into a blissful deep sleep they went.
*******
Outside of command, a lonely Harper counted the seconds as he waited. Thirty seconds. He took a deep breath. That was time enough for the gas to work even on Nietzschean physiology. Again, the wary engineer's hand danced over the door access panel as he hacked into life support to replace the gaseous air with nice healthy breathable air. He would be no help to anyone if he wound up passed out on the floor next to everyone else.
His blood stained hand left the panel to grab the sticky blood coated handle of his knife. His Earth instincts made him urn for the feel of the leathery handle of his trusty knife rather than the cold metallic feel of his gauss gun. If Baby didn't work and he was about to face seventeen Pythos and his friends, a gun would do him just as much good as his knife. Plus, the weight of the small weapon comforted his raging nerves.
With the knife in his only functional hand, he used his nimble fingers to punch in the codes to open the command doors and reveal the fate of all inside. Slowly the doors creaked open to reveal no sound, no gun blasts, no yelling. Harper let out the breath of air he had been holding. The doors grew farther apart to reveal the contents of command to the lone occupant in the hallway.
Strewn all around the metallic floor, in every position possible, laid seventeen passed out Pythos and four fainted friends. Harper's shoulders rose as weights were air lifted off of them. His eyes locked onto the nearest Pythos as he made his way over to her prone body. He knelt down to take a closer look at her face. She was rather pretty, for a Pythos, about Beka's age, fine delicate features with silky smooth mocha colored skin.
Harper, with a trembling filthy knife welding hand, reached out and placed his crimson stained blade against the sensitive skin on her neck. Slowly, he pressed the blade deeper into her skin as he watched with wonder as her deep red life force seeped out around the cold metallic surface of the blade. Harder he pressed as he dragged the weapon across the smooth delicate surface. A river of crimson flowed from her neck, onto the grated floor and dripped into the deep recesses below was created in the blade's wake.
The boy's eyes were mesmerized by the river he had created as a slight spark could be seen growing behind his pupils. Without tearing his eyes away from his creation, he reached down, wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and placed two fingers on the soft vulnerable underside. No pulse. A small lopsided smile tried to force it's self onto his emotionally drained face.
The mass murderer slowly stood up and locked his eyes on his next victim. He strolled over to the poor unfortunate soul and repeated the whole process anew. Even the small flicker of the lopsided smile repeated itself. He got up and repeated the process fourteen more times till all save one Pythos wore a river of blood around their throats. The last living Pythos was the unconscious but still humiliated Galaver. Harper wanted him for last. With much determination, the mudfoot made his way over to the sleeping cause of his current hellish situation. He glared down at the motionless form knowing that the mare fact that an injured kludge took out three thousand of his pride as well as himself was more than enough torture for the Alpha. Plus, he really didn't have time to play with him, so killing him in his sleep was just going to have to do. Kneeling down next to Galaver, Harper once more created a river of death. But this time, the murderer didn't get up immediately. Instead he stayed as he placed his blade onto the far side of Galaver's pale forehead. Slowly and maliciously, Harper started carving the flesh that resided there. After a few minutes of concentrated carving, Harper stood up and admired his work. Now on the dead Alpha's forehead there were four big bloody letters. Uber. The lopsided smile that had been fighting for presence on Harper's face this whole time finally made it's grand appearance.
His bloodshot eyes finally left his last victim as they searched the now command-turned-morgue for the last remaining living beings. With great relief, he spotted all four of them. He had no time to reflect, no time to feel anything now. He was still fighting the clock of the Buzz and the clock was winning. Quickly, he snapped himself out of the killing trance and raced over to the still bodies of this friends, his family. He hurriedly checked their vitals and discovered they were no worse for ware. He took one last glance at the body's that were sprinkled over the command floor before he turned on his heels and began his sprinting marathon throughout the ship. Stop one was Medical.
*******
The image of himself trying to hoist Tyr's huge frame over his shoulder and carry the big lug to Medical kept Harper's sprits light at he weaved his way around the burnt crisps of bodies that littered every corridor in Andromeda. His boot splashed in a puddle of Pytho as he repeated to himself, "Gurneys, must get gurneys." He was trying everything to keep himself from taking in the carnage that surrounded him and the thought of the clean up job that was ahead of them. Them. Would there every truly be a Them again after his friends saw what he created? He should start packing his bags now. No, Medical first, then pack, he thought as a crisp burnt hand crunched under his racing boot.
The doors to Medical flew open as Harper flew in gasping for air. He tried desperately to ignore the burning in his lungs and the aching of his still mending broken ribs. The gasping engineer spotted the gurneys and grabbed one along with some powerful sedatives. He didn't want anyone waking up until he wanted them conscious. With sedatives in pocket and gurney being pushed in front of him, he continued his race back up to command where his friends awaited him.
One by one, he exhaustedly transported them down to Medical, kicking any corpse that was his way to the side. The injury to his arm was slowing down the process and causing Harper great pain every time he tried to use the misshapen limb. After much cursing and gasping for air, he had all four drugged up and strapped to beds in Medical. They shouldn't wake up for at least a day and incase they did Harper had a little homemade gadget that would help. Each prone body had a small electronic device attacked to their neck which would alert Harper through his data pad if they showed any signs of waking. The genius engineer didn't have the luxury to be by their sides, he still had a AI to bring back up and an android to fix. He couldn't stand to be without backup a minute longer, he needed Rommie more than life itself. But first, his twitchy instincts were screaming at him to get Andromeda's ass out of this area of space and somewhere safe. So his marathon continued as he race off to the engine room as he still hurdled corpse after corpse.
The doors hissed open as Harper skidded on top of the three day old organs that still littered the area outside of his first bombing site. He wasn't prepared for the wave of noxious air that came flooding out of the engine room. A stench of death and decay filled his nostrils as he doubled over trying to empty his already empty stomach. Waves of wrenching pain ripped through his body as his stomach became violently ill.
Finally, his stomach yielded to the fact that wrenching it's self was not helping. Slowly he straighten his aching body back upright and took at look at carnage he created. The scene was horrendous. Three day old rotting body parts still dripped off the ceiling and made sickening splashes as they landed in decaying puddles of organs and bones. The new paint job of crimson red was giving off it's own metallic stench, a sort of aromatherapy paint for psychopaths.
Luckily, the work Harper had to do on the engines would only take an half-hour at the most. He tried to hold his breath and his stomach the whole time, but he failed at both attempts. Within twenty minutes, after a few literal gut wrenching breaks, the vital engine parts were back where they belonged and both slipstream and regular engines were back online. The second the engines were up and functional, Harper was out the door, fleeing from the room of horrors he had only days ago so proudly created. He pumped his aching numb legs back to Medical to grab his faithful gurney and raced back up to Command where one last crew member was still laying in wait for his help.
Reaching command, he shoved the gurney aside and raced over to the piloting station. His last patient would have to wait while he got their collective asses somewhere safer. He commanded the slipstream piloting station to drop down and encase him. Quickly he realized his left arm was going to have to help pilot. Gingerly he used his right arm to place his mangled arm in position. He struggled to wrap his weak fingers around the slipstream handle. Intense pain radiate up his arm with every slight movement. "This ought to be just lovely," he grunted thought clenched teeth.
He active the slipstream drive and let Andromeda be sucked into the stream. Andromeda bounced around the stream like a popcorn popping in a bag. With the mangled arm, Harper was barely able to pilot. The steam was playing with them, dragging them along wherever it pleased. After an hour of sweat and curses, an exhausted Harper managed to get them out of slipstream and to their destination. A nice quiet out-of-the-way asteroid belt. Harper punched up auto pilot and sent Andromeda to camouflage herself within the nice collection of large space rocks.
He retracted the slipstream piloting console and pushed his weary body away from the station. Oh how he wanted to rest, to sleep, to eat. True, he wasn't hungry thanks to Buzz, but he wanted to enjoy the simple pleasure of chewing and swallowing food. It didn't even have to taste good, he just wanted to eat. But he couldn't give into any simple pleasure, not yet anyways. He was still running his marathon.
Again, he forced his trembling legs to race over to an access panel in the back of command. His heart skipped a beat as his mind realized how close he was to what was behind that small door. His shaking hand punched in the code and the door slid open. Real happy light sparkled from Harper's eyes as a smile and a frown fought for control of his face. Inside the opening of the conduit laid the burned out body of Rommie.
He had located her when he located the others with the program he downloaded into his data pad. Rommie's marker on the pad was a silver heart. A sliver heart that laid motionless inside this conduit for the whole three days. When he was feeling down, he would bring up her location and just stare longingly at that glowing sliver heart. His Rommie.
He had to tear his watering eyes off of his creation to grab the earlier discarded gurney. He placed her limp body onto the smooth metallic surface and quickly gave her a once over. Andromeda had been correct when she said all of Rommie's circuits were fried, but she was also wrong, very wrong on the other part. He could fix her! For the first time since this whole fiasco had begun, a true smile of joy lit up Harper's filthy face. It wasn't a cruel cold smile or a smile mixed with sadness, but a real glowing smile. In a short time he would have his Rommie back and Andromeda's AI back online. Two down, four to go.
His momentarily happy thoughts turned to the four still laying unconscious in Medical. "No, no time for celebration now," he whispered to himself as the smile fell and was replaced by the grim exhausted look he was so used to wearing by now. And he was off again.
He raced Rommie down to the AI computer core. Why not kill two birds with one stone, he thought. Well, it was really more like bringing back two birds by throwing two stones at the same time, but the former just sounded so much better.
His legs were barely holding him up as he raced to the AI core. He was keeping most of his weight on the gurney as he pushed himself and Rommie up to the doors of their destination. He pushed the burden laden gurney up near to the area he was going work on the AI core. Harper began doing what Harper does best, fix things. For hours his hand and tools danced over the inner workings of the AI core computer as well as Rommie's inner workings. Fix AI's rewiring, replace one of Rommie's burn circuits. For hours he juggled the two complicated repair jobs with only marginal support from his left hand. Anyone watching this feat of engineering genius would have been in awestruck by Harper's skills. Unfortunately for Harper, no one was watching.
For hours he stared at wires and circuits and computer chips. For hours he endured hundreds of minor electrical shocks to his already numb bleeding fingers. For hours his heart and mind raced trying to finish the repairs before his Buzz clock went off., but still he was too slow.
He had raced against himself and had lost. His hands were shaking more and more by the minute. He was almost done with the repairs, but he could feel the monster of withdrawal breathing down his cold clammy neck. He had known from the beginning that this time would come, that this decision was going to have to be made, but that knowledge didn't help calm his racing heart right now.
Reluctantly, he reached his trembling hand down to his pant's pocket to where the two remaining green pills had been stashed. He pulled out bag and dumped the contents on the closest surface. He watched with horror as the small round pills danced around on the table begging him to take them. It wasn't the drug, but the situation that was really begging him to reach down and take the Buzz. He had two choices. One, don't take another pill, go into withdrawal, be forced to abandon his friends and quite possibly die alone in a conduit. Or, two, he could take the second pill, hopefully save his friends and the ship, then go into withdrawal and more likely die alone in a conduit. The choice was obvious.
Harper reached out and struggled to grab the tiny object with his trembling hand. While struggling with his own body, Harper's mind recalled stories of the poor souls who did take more than one dose of Buzz. They weren't pretty stories, though most stories from Earth weren't pretty. Like all Buzz users, while they were on the drug they were fine, but coming off of multiple douses would enhance the already nasty symptoms. The paranoia and all the physical sides effects were unbearable, he had heard. One story went that a guy took two douses of Buzz, just like Harper was about to do, and in the withdrawal state he thought his wife and two little girls were ubers. He slit their throats and raped their still writhing corpses. Luckily for the man, the withdrawal was merciful and killed him. He wouldn't have to live with the knowledge of what he had done. He was at peace with his family. Harper only hoped to be so lucky.
The little green drug was now securely between his fingers and was on it's way to his mouth. He tightly clenched his eyes closed as he shoved the pill under his tongue. He felt it dissolved. Seconds later he felt the shakes and increasing sense of fear getting pushed away. His thoughts were becoming clearer again but his body still felt the horrors of all it had been through over the past four, five or six days. Harper had lost count.
Now calm and steady, Harper made quick work of finishing the repairs. After a few more hours of finger dancing, his work there was done. The AI was rebooting and Rommie was being powered back up. About five hours later, Andromeda would be back online and Rommie would be up and running. Harper could do no more for his women so he turned and slowly headed out the door. If only the next part of his plan would be so easy and painless.
*****
Bliss, sweet nothingness bliss. Dylan, Beka, Trance and Tyr were in heavenly bliss. The gas and sedatives sent everyone to the sweet void of unconscious. No longer did Beka have to see the horrors of her life. She was surrounded by peaceful nothingness. Tyr and Dylan no longer struggled within their own body. And Trance no longer had to watch her friends live in agony. The Calastors were just as unconscious as the crew were and could cause them no more pain in this state. All eight beings just floated helplessly in their sweet dark void blissfully unaware of what their futures held.
*****
Seamus Harper did not sprint his way back to Medical. He didn't even run. He walked slowly, struggling with each step. He didn't notice the blacken fragile limbs he stepped on, nor did he notice the stench rising out of the random piles of unrecognizable body parts. He just walked, consciously forcing each foot forward. A blank dead stare filled his dirty bruised face.
His eyes gazed down the long corridor that was ahead of him. But he didn't see the corpse ridden hallway, instead he saw his friends, his family. He remembered them before this hell of an adventure broke out. Beka's contagious laugh, Trance's smile that could light up any room, Dylan's supportive voice, and even Tyr's playful growling. Then he remembered them during the hellish adventure. Beka's screaming how worthless he was as her boot cracked another rib, Trance's warm breath breathing down his neck as she held him while he was beaten, Dylan's cruel laughter as Harper cried out for help, and Tyr grinning in glory as he heard Harper's nose break under the force of his punch. Lastly, his mind was filled with visions of the peaceful sleeping friends that laid in Medical, his current destination.
Slowly and painfully he turned the last corner as his eyes fell onto the doors of Medical. He just stood in place, unable to force his legs forward. Finally, a trembling left leg stepped forward. With one slow step at a time, he made his way to the door...to his family.
He stood still facing the doors, trembling like a leaf on a windy day. His bloodshot eyes were glazed over as tears tried to force their way from his ducts. Again his mind flashed back to his friends. One friend in particular, Trance and what she had said four days ago and the sentence that had been dancing through his head since he had heard her scream it.
"H-Have to...can't keep Nixic at bay.... pain... makes... them... weakkkkkaaaagggghhh..." This one sentence is what Harper's whole plan, on how to get his friends back, was based on. That one freakn' sentence. He doubted if it would work, but it was all he could come up with. All his brilliant mind, his high IQ, his thousands of thoughts a second could come up with.
His head dropped as he forced him mind to go over his "brilliant" plan. Force the intruders out by putting his friend's bodies in so much pain that the aliens would choose to die rather than to endure any more pain. In short, Harper was going to have to use all the torture techniques he'd learned in his year in the Pythos' recreation center on his friends...on his family...on the only people alive that he still loved in this universe. This is his genius plan, this is everyone's only hope, and this is what now had Harper curled up outside of Medical, in a fetal position, as his body was wrenched with sobs and as a quite mantra of "no, can't do it" crept out of his mouth.
TBC...