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Rommie raised her eyebrows, shocked at the scene she was watching from her holographic screen. Harper had quite happily thrown Trance away like a rag doll into the medical cabinet.
One minute the human male was having convulsions and his heart stopping to chucking Trance.
Her Harper wouldn't of been able to do that. He was strong but not enough to throw a person to the other side of a room. Heck, not even a few feet away from him but the image she just witnessed… If he had been Tyr or Dylan he could of but he was Harper! Harper for crying out loud!
Small, cute, helpless…the one who the crew would defend to the bitter end.
She didn't wait to be asked by the still stunned Trance to activate security. She ordered her other robots to the medical facility, called Tyr and then Dylan. This all happened within seconds.
She could only watch as Harper picked up a hypo and filled it with a chemical she couldn't see. He moved to one of her screens and stared intently at it for a long second. His hands shook as he reached out to touch it.
She appeared in her holographic form behind Harper hoping to distract him long enough for Tyr and Dylan to get here.
"Harper! What are you doing?!" she crossed her arms in a disproving manner, hoping to scold him into behaving.
The small blonde stopped and looked directly into her eyes with aid of the his reflection. His were red rimmed and he looked shattered. His jaw twitched as he stood silently in front of her. Any colour he usually had was gone from his cheeks.
Slowly, a smile flickered on his lips. Not his one of cockiness or his cute I-know-nothing-will-ever-happen-between-us-but-I-can-still-dream-can't-I smiles.
This was one she had never seen before. One she really didn't like on him.
"I don't really feel like telling. I told the purple…girl what I was after," Harper said flatly, like he was reading from a prewritten script.
"You said revenge," Andromeda played the scene back in her mind, "For what?"
In the same flat voice the blonde spoke up again, "Because I fee like it. Because I can. Because I think after all this time I deserve it. Nothing will stop me from having what I want."
Expertly his fingers danced over keys, encrypting any files he could. He worked the few seconds silently in order to gain access to the Andromeda's self diagnostics procedure, from there, he told her to perform an A.I check as well.
"Har…" Rommie opened her mouth hoping to finish the word before she disappeared.
That would give him some time to get to the engineering deck and thoroughly take control of her younger 'cousin'.
He walked right through the hologram, not looking back to see the look of confusion spread across the woman's face as she disappeared back into the virtual space she came from.. He watched as Tyr rushed by him, not even taking the time to even register him.
Tyr stopped millimetres outside of the door as it refused to open for him and turned, "What are you doing up boy?"
"…one of…Rommie's bot's went nuts. Threw Trance across the room. I was going after it," the blonde offered him a weak smile.
The thought made Tyr's lip curl up to one side in humour, "You?"
The smile Harper gave him was dull and lifeless. As though the action was odd for him and he wasn't used to it.
"Well, I've managed to put her in a self diagnostic routine so she won't bother us," Harper stared blankly at a spot on the wall.
"What is wrong with you boy?" Tyr frowned, the man in front of him didn't look anything like he usually did. Red eyes, deathly complexion, emotionless voice.
The answer was slow in coming, "I was…just electrocuted. See how you feel after you get a few thousand jolts through you."
The Nietzschean raised an eyebrow in way of response. he had been electrocuted at one point because of his force lance and had been accused of killing the Castelian president. Amusement flashed on his face as Harper swayed slightly.
"And you are going to tackle the robot yourself?" Tyr laughed out loud at the thought, "Go back to bed child."
He raised his hand, as though he was going to hit the smaller man and growled menacingly. He frowned when Harper didn't flinch or even move an inch.
Harper narrowed his blue eyes, "Is that supposed to be scary?"
Tyr moved towards him, hoping to make him move some small inch back. When he threatened the human, it usually sent him running backwards and falling flat on the floor.
The engineer moved almost to quickly for Tyr to follow and the Nietzchean found himself flat on the floor himself with Harper pinning him to the ground with all his weight.
This wasn't much of a problem for the Kodiak member, he'd benched pressed heavier sugar bags than the blonde. More to the fact he was annoyed at how the blonde had flattened him.
Harper grabbed one of Tyr's muscular arms, somehow managing to keep the larger and now annoyed man down. The engineer had nearly all his weight on the Nietzchean's lower body.
"Get off of me boy," Tyr growled, his top lip curled in anger.
"No because if I do, you'll more than likely hurt me," Harper pulled out the hypo he acquired from the medical bay.
"All I know for certain boy," Tyr bit out every word with anger, "Is that if you do not get off me, you will be right in your prediction."
Harper stuck the hypo into Tyr's upper arm, "Oh…"
The blonde sounded disappointed at the effect the chemical was having, it was a sedative. Tyr's eyes softened as the sedative worked it's way through his strong system and Harper poised for a second administration of the drug, waiting to see if the first had done it's job.
Oh…I was so hoping for a much more interesting reaction, Angel pouted as Tyr quickly fell unconscious, Oh well.
Somewhere on the Andromeda
"Dylan?" Rommie stopped mid run, she had just became suddenly quiet.
One minute she was talking or rather trying to talk to Harper in the medical bay and now she wasn't. She had placed into a self diagnostic routine for all her systems, including all her avatars by Harper.
"Rommie?" Dylan turned round checking to see what the matter was.
Rommie stood perfectly still, her mouth slightly open as if she was interrupted in the middle of saying something. Her dark eyes stared blankly at him and Rommie, the most powerful and probably intelligent warship in the universe…looked like the universe's stupidest bimbo who had forgotten that she could talk.
Sephiroth stopped a few metres ahead and turned when he heard Dylan's voice. It seemed that Rommie was now an expensive fly catcher for the Commonwealth.
Dylan's first thought was that Sephiroth had done something to her. Implanted some sort of virus into her mainframe or something. Was the silver haired avatar planning on taking over his ship?
Not while Captain Dylan Hunt was alive and kicking. He hadn't survived Magog attacks, 're-education facilities', bounty hunters, phase shifting aliens and all the others just to be taken down by some silver haired robot!
"If you have anything to do with this Mister Sephiroth, I swear to the Devine that I will melt you down into spare parts quicker than you can say Sparky cola," Dylan placed his hand on his ever trusty force lance and his trigger finger very lightly over the fire button.
"Sparky cola?" Sephiroth frowned, "What the hell is that?"
Dylan growled in anger, not impressed with the response he'd been given. Everything had been going along swimmingly…well, not exactly swimming but they were having a good run of luck. He had managed to get at least a few more prospective members for the Commonwealth Charter.
His response was cut short when Beka ran up to him, her pale face red after the run.
"…Dylan…" she panted, ,"The doors won't open and Andromeda isn't responding."
The captain nodded his head in the direction of his avatar, "I know."
Beka took a deep breath, "What's the plan?"
Sephiroth clicked his fingers in front of Rommie, trying to get some form of an annoyed tut from her. His green eyes searched her face for some form of small sign.
"Let's get to the medical bay and check what's going there. My first priority is Trance and Harper," Dylan gave Sephiroth a foul look.
What have I done? This is all his fault. If he hadn't of waltzed on over to the Angel and allowed his crew to start pushing buttons…wait a mintute…what crew? I haven't seen any other than what was presented.
The purple girl, the Magog, Tyr and the midget of an engineer. Don't tell that the Commonwealth has been cutting back on crew sizes as well.
Sephiroth scratched the back of his head thoughtfully, "Captain…where is the rest of your crew? Surely Rommie would of called them to the medical bay and not you."
Beka raised both her eyebrows and turned expectantly to her captain. Her blue eyes hiding the amusement that was barely being concealed.
Dylan said nothing as he ran past them. Sometimes avatars were to smart for their own good.
Beka and Sephiroth followed after him after a second or two of eyeing each other warily. The trio almost ran in step, Angel's avatar being the slower of the three.
Beka gave him a quick glance, "Keeping up okay?"
Annoyance flashed in green eyes, "I think my battery is almost dead."
Dylan shook his head and sighed, "Great. Beka, stay with him. I'll go on ahead and check the medical bay."
The captain didn't even try to hide the distrust in his voice as he ordered his first officer to play babysitter. Beka watched in a growing anger as he left. Dylan seemed to bump her with all the boring assignments. What really got her goat was that it was the middle of an emergency and she was babysitting Rommie's inbred cousin with a dying battery.
"I'll just stay here then…" she called after him.
Sephiroth frowned, his reserve power was low. Not once did he actually think about charging it, he didn't even think that he would even have to. Getting off the Angel had always been hypothetical so, no real plan was formed.
"Miss Beka……I believe that I may have to….." Sephiroth's head felt three times as heavy as it should. Every word was beginning to get increasingly difficult to say.
"……leave…" Sephiroth's soft voice trailed off slowly as his power reserves fell to empty. His head slumped forward and his shoulders sagged.
Beka snorted her response, "Huh, stuck babysitting two statues."
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Harper's mind
No matter how hard he ran or how fast, Angel always seemed to be right behind him.
His legs threatened to give out from underneath him, his knees began to turn to jelly and the feeling was more than happy to spread to his calves and ankles.
Slowly, he eased up on his mad sprint. His blue eyes darting around the strangely familiar yet different surroundings.
"Okay…first order of business is to find Beka and the others. Tell them what the heck is happening here," Harper wiped a sweaty hand across his face, "Aww man, who am I kidding?!"
"I don't even know where I am!" he moaned, half hoping to hear Tyr's growl and extremely bad imitation of him.
"Harper! Oh Harper! Where are you?" Angel's once sexy voice had been raised to a horrid screech making the said engineer wince every time he heard her.
"Um…" he muttered, anything to try and drown out the screeching voice looking for him.
"Harper," he said in his best Dylan voice, "don't be a freaking idiot. Get your ass down to the engineering deck. Get the Andromeda back on line!"
"Do as he says child," he lowered his voice a few octaves to get Tyr.
Engineering right! I mean, if I disable Rommie's holo projectors. Angel should disappear and then I could start working on restoring Andromeda and find out where the guys are!
He smiled proudly at his hastily made plan, "Thanks guys."
Almost by chance he walked by an active security panel on the wall and he was kinda shocked to see the image. Beka stood with his back to him, beside a motionless Rommie and Sephiroth, if he concentrated hard enough he could of heard what the former red head was muttering about.
Something shiny caught the corner of the screen, something metallic in appearance. What was he watching? A pre recording of what happened to the crew? Did something bad happen to Beka?!
All he could do was scream at the screen as the thing moved towards an unsuspecting Beka.