A/N: Again, thanks for all the reviews...but what will I do for ego boosting when this is finally done? ;) I hope you all enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 31
Harper strolled onto the occupied cockpit of the Maru. "Hi'ya Boss!" he chirped cheerfully with a goofy grin spread across his grease covered face. "Engines are fixed and ready to go thanks to the genius that is me." He cocked his head proudly and pointed his grease blackened thumb at his ego swelled chest.
Beka pushed herself out of the piloting chair in order to spin around and face the grease monkey that stood behind her. Every inch of the engineer was covered in some kind of gooey, sticky substance that flowed throughout the engines. Beka's eyes finally landed on the hyperactive human's boots. Little black footprints led up to where he was currently bobbing with unnatural energy as growing puddle of goo was accumulating at his feet. Beka felt her anger growing as Harper continued shuffling his filthy feet on her deck plating.
"So, Boss, we gonna go now or what? Come on, the waves at Infinity Atoll are calling my name...as are the voluptuous babes." He wiggled his eyebrows as a mischievous look sparkled in his eyes. "Come on, let's go! The babes...and waves...need The Harper," he begged as he continued to jump around with all the energy of an ancient Earth humming bird.
As he jumped more and more goo and grease flew off him and onto the floor below. Beka remembered watching her father meticulously install each of those deck plates as she sat in the corner playing with her favorite, and only, doll. And now those deck plates were getting destroyed by that filthy, annoying mudfoot.
"Boss?" Harper's tone was more worried now as he noticed the captain's pursed lips and narrowing eyes. His energy had suddenly been converted to nervous fidgeting. "Are you okay?"
Suddenly Beka charged Harper. "GET YOUR FILTHY MUDFOOT BOOTS OFF MY DECK!!" She grabbed his grease saturated shirt and threw him out of the cockpit's entrance.
"Beka?!" Harper yelped in surprise as he fell to the floor. A look of sheer terror flashed on his face.
The enraged captain looked down at her now blacked hands and the anger grew even stronger. 'That boy dirties everything he touches!' Quickly she stomped towards the fallen engineer who was currently shuffling away from his towering attacker on his hands and backside. A smudged trail of blackened goo followed his retreat as if he were a slug.
"Beka!? What I do wrong?" His voice was breaking as tears welled up inside, yearning to come out.
Harper continued his retreat...right into a corner. Beka stood over her cowering best friend. "You're pathetic, truly pathetic." She raced down with her hands and lifted the trembling boy up by his neck until his boots hovered about the ground. The sound of dripping grease from the shoes could barely be heard over Harper's racing heart and jagged breaths.
"B-B-Beka," he gasped out between struggling gasps for air.
"Don't you dear speak my name you useless kludge! Ya wanna know what you did wrong!? EVERYTHING!!! You made me trust you! And then you betrayed me!" She tightened her grip around his small neck with each screaming sentence.
"D-D-Don't..." Harper pleaded as his face turned redder and redder.
"SHUT UP!!" Beka suddenly dropped him.
Harper landed in a crouching position as he gasped for sweet oxygen, unfortunately his reprieve was short lived.
"JUST SHUT UP!" Beka's boot made contact with his nose, then his mouth, then head, then eye, then ribs and so on...all the while as she screamed at him to shut up.
Finally she stopped to catch her breath as below her laid a motionless bruised and bleeding lump of flesh and bone. The lump made a murmur. "B-Beka...w-w-why?..."
"SHUT UP YOU EGO WHORE!" She yelled as she delivered the fatal kick to his throat.
Only sick gurgling sounds originated from Harper's twitching battered body.
Then silence and stillness.
Beka stared down at the motionless lump of flesh that laid at her bloody feet.
Then it happened....
The pile of broken bones began to move. It slowly rose from the floor as it took the gruesome form of zombie Harper. Bones protruding from flesh, blonde hair turned crimson red, eyes empty and haunting. Those eyes, those dark tortured eyes grew larger and larger, engulfing Beka in their pain and loneliness. Soon all she could see was black, all she could feel was the anguish she caused....she caused....
"AGH!" Beka bolted from bed gasping for air as her eyes tried to escape from their sockets. Her chest continued to heave as her scream of terror still echoed in her ears. "No...no.." she muttered as she brought her trembling knees up to her heaving chest. "N-N-No..." Behind her clenched closed eyes, weeks of unshed tears began to pile up. In her throat, a lump grew and grew until finally it broke...until finally Beka broke.
Unrestrained sobs wrenched her body as she curled up closer to her comforter hoping it would do as it's name implied. But all the soft bed covering did was to soak up the river of tears that finally flowed freely from her eyes.
Alone in her darkened room, Beka Valentine wept. She wept for herself, for her friends and especially for her missing adopted brother. Guilt, the pain of betrayal, anger, fear, all of the thousands of emotions she had bottle up were finally set free.
For hours she wept alone, curled up in the comforter, finally willing to give up enough control to begin her reentry to the real world.
******
Beka's legs hurriedly brushed past each other as she raced down the empty corridors. Dylan had just called a meeting in the conference room. Beka's fingers fidgeted madly with each other. He said he had news about Harper. Her teeth tugged at her soft lips.
Six weeks. It had been six weeks since they had received the news of Harper's troubling disappearance. Six weeks of endless worrying, of searching, of finding nothing but bad news after bad news.
After weeks of searching the numerous drifts and planets that were on the suspected cargo ship's schedule itinerary, they had finally found a lead on their missing engineer. Unfortunately, it was only the first link in a long chain of horrible discoveries...
"Oh yah, I remember that drunken runt. He trashed my bar with a couple of angry Nietzscheans. Feisty little feller. Ended up throwing 'em out to continue their 'argument' in the street.....hey, ya wouldn't by any chance have any money to pay for his damages?"
"Seamus Z. Harper? Um, let me check our records....Yah, we arrested him...let's see...for...um...disorderly conduct. Street fight with some local humans. Says here he served his seven day sentence and was released. If my memory serves me, he was in withdrawal pretty bad. He probably went to find his next hit when he left. Good luck finding him."
"Why are you looking for that druggie lush? Waste of time I'd say. By the looks of him I'd suspect he's lying dead in some gutter by now. Good riddance."
As Beka rubbed her still healing bruised fist, she quickened her pace. Dylan's voice had sounded so empty, as if he was afraid to let any emotion through....what had he found out this time?
The strain of the hopeless searching had been hard on the recovering crew, but in a way, the stress was helping to bring them back together. Many nights, into the late hours, the girls could be found in the Maru just talking and sharing memories of the many times Harper had propositioned them. They were finding comfort in just being in each other's presence. As soft voices escaped the open door of the Maru, the echoes of a bouncing basketball and squeaks of sneakers could be heard radiating down the empty darkened corridors. Tyr and Dylan had begun a tournament of insomniacs. So far they were tied.
The one place that stayed empty and quite was Machine Shop 17. No one could bear to enter the now lifeless space. Harper's colorful shirts laid crumpled where he last left them and empty crushed Sparky cans still littered the floor. It was as if Harper's presence haunted the once vibrant room. Everyone who walked by the sealed closed door would have visions of Harper's new life...of his dead eyes staring up at them from some gutter or of him ramming a contaminated needle into his veins or of his bloody, bruised face begging for help as a group of Nietzscheans beat him to within inches of his life.
Breaking into a run, Beka sprinted past the haunted space as she continued on her way towards the conference room. The image of bone blades cutting into Harper's neck flashed into her mind. She gulped down the lump that appeared in her throat. "You have to be okay, Seamus, you just have to," she whispered to herself as she ran ahead, leaving his haunting presence behind.
After what seemed like a race through the never-ending corridors, she reached the meeting room. The door hissed open to revel four sets of eyes greeting her with matching worried looks...but one of those sets held a much deeper sense of worry.
Beka's heart stopped and legs went weak as she saw Dylan's face. Pale and drawn, his eyes held a horrible secret that was eating him alive. On wobbly legs, Beka made her way over to the empty chair next to Dylan.
All eyes snuck quick sadden glances at the one unoccupied chair.
Dylan's loud purposeful intake of oxygen attracted all the wandering eyes onto him. "We all know why I call everyone here. I have news on Harper." He looked down and swallowed hard. "As you know, the last lead pointed us to Hanioa Drift. I went ahead and sent a preliminary message asking for any information they might have." He paused. "I just received a message back from them an hour ago."
The sound of a nanobot hitting the deck could be heard in the breathless room.
The brave High Guard captain looked down at the table as if somewhere on it's shiny surface it concealed the strength to continue...to tell his adopted family what he had just learned. Taking one last deep breath, he rose his head and made eye contact with each one of his crew.
"We've finally found him. Harper is currently sitting in one of Hanioa Drift's jail cells serving a ten year sentence for murder."
TBC.......