TITLE: The Unintended

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Andromeda series, I'm just borrowing.

NOTES: Lots more chapters to come. Things get better before they get worse - all that jazz ;)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Fall from Grace

"Sweet child in the wilderness,

Be careful not to stray;

The path of hope is thinning

And you do not know your way."

Than poem

Harper and Rylisa were just as shocked as each other and for what seemed like the longest time they just stared at one another. Harper didn't understand it. He hadn't felt any pain when he let himself get angry, which could only mean that either the inhibitor has stopped working, or it had been switched off. Whichever it was, it now presented him with an unexpected opportunity. It was like a switch had been flipped inside him and suddenly there was nothing beyond his capability.

Rylisa suddenly tried to get out of the room but Harper willed the door to shut. She looked scared. Realising her position, she attempted to keep her cool. "This changes things somewhat," she said.

Harper brought his hand up to catch Rylisa's sidearm, a gauss gun. "Yeah," he said, finding a slight smile. "I'd say so."

"Rayne said you hadn't experienced any desirable symptoms," Rylisa said, stalling.

"Aw, I'm sorry. Did I mess up your plans?" Harper replied, madness dripping into his voice. "Yeah, I know the feeling. Let's see, a friend of mine blew her brains out recently, I got infected with a virus that, granted, gives me a hell of a rush but will eventually kill me; I've been kidnapped - twice - by really not very nice people oh and just this second? I found out all my friends are dead and my home has been blown up. But, I mean, someone lied to you, so I can't really relate."

At that moment the door behind Rylisa opened and three of her crew entered.

Rylisa had never been so relieved in her life, though she would rather die than show it. "Shoot him," she sneered.

Harper smiled. "Hi guys."

The three opened fire but despite their flawless aim, none of the shots met their target as Harper instinctively deflected them. When their guns had run dry, Harper shot each of them with inhuman precision through their hearts. "Welcome to the party."

Rylisa knew she was going to die if she didn't think of something within the next twenty seconds. Unfortunately, thinking had never been her strongest point. She never believed in any kind of Divine force either, although what happened next made her reconsider for a brief moment.

Harper was ready to get sweet revenge on Rylisa when his concentration suddenly wavered. This didn't go unnoticed by the Nietzschean, who took the opportunity while it was presented, to get the hell out of there, and seal the door behind her.

Rayne bled from numerous wounds to his face, chest and arms. Rylisa had taken great pleasure in torturing him, but at least the pleasure was not all hers. When he heard the distant sound of crunching metal and explosions, coupled with the sudden jolt that rippled through the ship, Rayne knew that it was time to start moving. The first stage was to get out of the chair that he was strapped in - it was going to be painful but after Rylisa, it would seem like nothing.

Harper felt himself falling into the same dream state he had encountered before. He was suddenly standing in what looked like the command centre of a ship. It didn't look The Barbell, it wasn't Commonwealth, he was pretty sure it was Nietzschean. As things began to get clearer, he could make out sounds. There were alarms, fires crackling and heavy breathing. Voices came to light.

"Taylor? Rayne?" a blond man on the viewscreen said.

A woman leaning over a console in front of him replied; "I don't know." It was Rylisa. Harper walked into the room, knowing that nothing there was real - yet. There were bodies scattered over the floor, bloodied and battered, and total mess everywhere. Rylisa herself looked like she had been in a Magog feeding pit. "If I die, so help me I'm taking that filth down with me. I'm setting the auto-destruct."

"Rylisa," a new, emotionless voice said. It came from behind where Harper was standing, and he turned to see its origin. He only caught a glimpse of the blood-drenched horror before the dream ended and he was back in the cell. Instead of the disorientated feeling that had followed the previous visions, this one took a lot more out of him. It was a minute before he became fully aware of his surroundings, but when he did the anger returned. Andromeda had been destroyed, everyone he cared about was dead, and the bitch responsible had eluded him. But that didn't matter. Even if it took some time to get his revenge, it wasn't as if he had anywhere to be.

Outside, Rylisa was frantically trying to resolve the situation. What she really wanted to do was tear Rayne's head off for lying to her, but that would have to wait.

"Maslen, fill that room with gas, poison, anything just make him unconscious and do it now," she ordered the man who had been watching from adjacent room.

Maslen had only just got to his feet after being thrown backwards from the shockwave of Harper's outburst earlier, but attempted to carry out his superior's orders without trying to figure out what was going on."I can't. The system's damaged, it would flood the whole deck," he told Rylisa.

"Then evacuate the deck!" she screamed in return, and left the room.

Maslen hadn't a clue what was going on but he opened a communication channel anyway. "Orders from Rylisa, evacuate this deck immediately."

Harper heard the announcement from his cell and finally snapped back to harsh reality. He turned to the long, thin gap where the window used to be before it had been destroyed and could see the man speaking into the comm. Rage and power once again flooded through him as he looked into the eyes of the stranger. In them he saw every Nietzschean piece of garbage that had ever crossed him.

The anger was fuelled by the power that travelled through his body and the power only served to satiate his anger. He focused his energies on the wall and summoning his mental strength, ripped the very structural supports out. Sparks flew as the wires and energy circuits than ran through it were broken. Maslen looked positively terrified - something that Harper celebrated in witnessing. Once the wall was completely dislodged, he grinned madly as he thrust it towards the cowering Nietzschean, crushing him under its weight.

The adrenaline that charged through Harper was unlike anything else he'd ever felt before. In that moment he forgot that his power was a result of a virus. He forgot that it would probably kill him or drive him to suicide in the end. He even forgot that his friends and the people who loved him most were dead. The only memory left was the rush he had felt, and there was only one drive that remained.

More.

End of Chapter Sixteen