Title: Barley Alive
Author: Shakia
Spoilers: None
Sequal to: Frozen Nightmares
Summary: Harper is kidnapped by aliens who claim they worked with the Dragons on the Ice Kludge project and they force him to do things he will never forgive himself for.
Authors Notes: Wow, thanks so much agian guys! The reviews really do encourage me :3 Anyways, onto the next chapter...
The door of the cell shrieked as the Nietchian beside him opened it. He gave him a hard shove and Harper fell to the ground with a grunt. He felt dazed and disoriented from whatever they were doing to him. The door slammed shut with a sudden clang that made him jump. He was also jumpy, he noted, not to mention confused. His mind swam with a confusion that seemed not to be explained and a state of dazed and dizzyness that seemed to cloud over his thoughts and feelings. Yet the one feeling of hate seemed to claw free of the mash of confusion. Whatever the stupid ubers had done to him he knew he was messed up. He groaned, but was too exhausted to move. The sounds of people shrieking filled the hallways from others like him. He was sure they had heard him cry out in pain more than once too.
His body ached and pain radiated through it. Even now blood continued to slide down his face. He shut his eyes as he tried to consentrate on not thinking about what had happened, but it was harder to do that here. Harder when every sesion became worse and harder with people's screams and sobs echoed around him. He shut his eyes tighter, trying to drown out the noise. Trying to drown out the very world around him. But a sudden voice came through his barcade he put over his mind and he forced his eyes open. He stumbled backward suddenly as he found a face to linger before him.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya." The girl before him appoligized. He studied her a moment and felt a sense of insecurity fill him. Of course the ubers would put him in a cell with someone else. They wouldn't waste their time giving everyone their own. He subconciously scooted backward, knowing all to well never that she could be a lot stronger than she appeared. He had had bad experiances with contact with other people outside his family. Most did when you were on earth. He quickley tried to ward off the memories that threaten to creep into his mind and turned to the girl.
"Who are you?" He demanded suspiciously, his voice raspy and hard to make out.
"Mara." She responded simply, but also looked him over with untrusting eyes.
"Harper." He responded gruffly. Her gaze fell to something beside her.
"I have water here." She stated and slowly held up a bowl. Harper lowered his head and tried to not think of how dry his throat was. "You gotta be thirsty after another sesion." She said, before adding, "And they only bring you enough water to keep you alive. There isn't going to be anymore until two days from now." She continued, holding out the bowl. He looked from the bowl to her suspiciously.
"Why?" He asked stonily, continuing to survey her untrustingly. She raised a brow.
"'Cause by my estimate you haven't drinkin in quite a while and you'll die if you don't get some water, so I don't want a smelly corpse in this jail cell." She stated, shoving it toward him. He took it hesitantly, flashing a look back up to her before trying his luck. The water was cool and refreshing as it slid down his throat. He found himself to be more thirsty than he thought he would be.
"Thanks." He murmered after setting the bowl down. She gave him a weak smile.
"People have to look after eachother down here." She whispered with a sigh.
- - -PT - - -
The first thing that Harper realized as he slowly began to drift into conscienceness was the pain. It seered through his skull and throbbed painfully. He moved his arm up to touch his aching skull only to find that it was strained down by a cool and metelic restraint. His heart suddenly began to race as for a moment he thought he was back on the earth at the age of fifteen. He quickley shook off the idea and tried to recall what had happened. Man, his head hurt so bad. He was on the Andromeda. He had been heading to Engineering when...when he realized someone had been there. Although his eye lids felt like lead he managed to force them open. He found that he regretted this decision immidiatley for the light around him burned his eyes, doubling the pain in his skull.
"Nice that you've finally joined us." Harper started at the sudden voice and turned his head to where the voice had come from. An alien stood a ways away from him. He had tanish skin and as well as spikes on his shoulders and a rather muscular appearance. His thoughts suddenly focused on the fact he couldn't move his legs or arms and looked down. He paled as a horrible dread and terror filled him. Metal, half circular restraints held him down to a metalic table that looked identical to the ones in the lab on earth. The ones he had spent months upon months trapped in. He couldn't take his eyes away from the site and his breathing quickened somewhat. "So you remember?" The alien asked. He felt a sudden hate and furry consume him and tour his eyes away, focusing them on the alien.
"What the heck am I doing here?!" He demanded furiously. The alien smirked.
"Seamus Harper, isn't it? The only known Ithro, or as the Neitchians put it, Ice Kludge left in existance." He said, the smile never leaving his face. Harper gritted his teeth, glaring at the man. "You wonder why you're here?" He asked almost absently after a moment. He paused once more as though trying to think of an accurate answer for the question. "Obviously the Drago Kazuf pride never told you why they made you?" He asked.
"For a war." He scowled in responce. The man let out a laugh.
"You really think they'd put in two years of constant work for a mere war?" He laughed, his grin widening. He shook his head. "No, they didn't do it for a war. In fact they didn't even do it by themselves." He explained. Harper continued to glare at him and yet found himself confused to what he meant. "We worked with the Neitchians." He stated. Harper found himself surprised at this. "They wouldn't have been able to get so far without us. A long time ago we had thought up this idea. No one was willing to be put through through the process and so we contacted the Drago Kazuf." The man explained the whole thing like it really was no big deal. Harper began to build the same loathing he had had for the Neitchians for the alien before him as the man told him about their involvment. "The idea was to make the perfect fighting creature. One more stronger than any thing out there." He continued, his eyes shining with excitment at the idea. "And yet we both feared the other would betray eachother. So we each picked a certain amount of people to be on the project that would only know half of the information. After two years we finally had our sucess. Our scientists began to speed up their process on a different invention being built here that was tied in with you creation." Harper looked away from the man, instead constrating on the cieling. Was was he telling him all this? He felt the hate within him to stir further. It wasn't right how the man talked about the idea. He had no right to talk of it like that. He shut his eyes, but continued to listen all the same.
"The Neitchians began to have second thoughts about the whole thing after finding out just how powerful all of you were. We barley kept them on board by sending them a prototype of the device and letting them use you for their pittiful war. The Irthros won it in a matter of days." Harper heard the man walk toward him and chanced opening his eyes. "Since you had escaped them they feared it would be a matter of time before the others did. Finally they cut off the research and killed every one of them. Before we thought all of the Ithros had been destroyed, thus everything died with them. We only knew half of the information and so there was no way to continue the project. It was shut down, even though we completed the device we had been working on. Until four weeks ago we had no idea one still existed." He went on and took a step closer. Harper tensed as he did this and yet kept his gaze firm and unfearful. "It was pure luck that you were the strongest and most advanced Ithro there was." He said. Harper was taken aback by this and found that for a moment it must have shown on his face. "You had more than the others. I'm rather surprised you didn't know." He stated. He took one final step toward him. Harper felt himself tense even further, recognizing the look on the man's face all to well.
"Do you want to know what the device we had been working on was, Seamus?" He asked in barley a whisper. Harper didn't respond and the man pulled something from behind his back. Harper's heart skipped a beat. It was a black collar.
-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-
Rommie studied the panel before her. She felt her AI fade even further and felt the worry in her increase. By her estimates they had only ten minutes till life support shut down and then fifteen minutes till the whole ship was torn apart and they were no where near a solution. The explosions had come more frequently and more in power. Medical had been in danger of being destroyed so the three had moved to Engineering with Tyr to try and figure something out. Beka had left to go get Harper a little while ago while she, Rev, Tyr and Trance continued looking for a solution. Trance glanced up at her worriedly.
"Rommie I don't think Harper did this." She said suddenly. Rommie was surprised by Trance's timing. They hadn't even gone near the subject as they had worked.
"I don't either Trance, but we have to consentrait on killing this-" Tyr had been about to cut them off, but Beka entered the room, beating him to it.
"The Maru's gone." She said. Rommie turned to look at her.
"What?" She asked.
"The Maru, she's gone. I went to get Harper and he wasn't in his quarters. On the way back I saw the doors to the docking bay open. She's gone." Beka explained. That had been their last chance. The Maru had been their last resort. The escape pods would've taken at least forty minutes to eject with this power loss.
"Five minutes!" Rommie said suddenly as another explosion rang through the ship. They had to figure this out fast, or they'd all be dead. The door opened suddenly and Dyllan entered the room, a flexi clasped in one hand and a tool in the other. Rommie had wondered where he had been and was about to ask when he walked right past them, heading toward a panel to her left. She noted his face was grim as he worked for a moment on the panel before releasing something into the ship's system. "Dyllan, what-" She began, but paused suddenly as she felt her AI begin to regain power. The virus started to die down through her systems and the explosions stopped. Dyllan slowly got to his feet, the flexi still held in his hand.
"The virus is dying." She announced, surpised. Everyone looked from her to Dyllan in shock. The lights slowly began to flicker on and a dim glow filled the room.
"Dyllan?" Rev asked after a moment. Dyllan sighed, looking weary.
"I found this in Harper's quarters." He explained, holding out the flexi. Rommie immidiatly recognized the picture on it to be the virus. "It was locked in his drawr and by the looks of it had been in there for a while." He sighed. "It had notes on the virus that you couldn't have unless you had studied the virus for weeks or..." He left off for a moment and Rommie found herself to finish his statment.
"Or create it." She said. He nodded.
"Dyllan-" Beka began. Rommie could tell she too was exhausted. Dyllan merley handed her the flexi.
"With the notes I made an antidote." The lights grew steadily brighter and Rommie felt her AI grow stronger with it.
"Dyllan, Harper would never have done this." Rommie told him.
"We'll still look into the matter right after we get Harper in here." He stated. Rommie knew that now that sensors were back up Andromeda had already begun to scan the ship for him and paused, a frown on her face.
"Dyllan...Beka found out that the Maru is missing and Harper's no longer on the ship." She explained suddenly. Dyllan looked up at her. He paused for a moment.
"Andromeda, scan for any sources to where Harper may have gone." He told her as he heading toward the door.
"Aye' captain." Andromeda stated as her holgram appeared for a moment. She seemed worried and yet relieved they all weren't dead.
"Dyllan?" Rommie asked as he continued toward the door.
"I'm getting Harper's tool belt. He did use them this morning while fixing sensors, didn't he?" He asked. She nodded and with that he left the room. Beka had finished reading the flexi and scowled.
"Harper would kill himself before doing this." She scowled, tossing the flexi to the floor and following after Dyllan. Rommie sighed, reminded of when Tyr had been framed of killing the ambastor of a planet they had wanted to sign up for the Common Wealth. The situation was similar and maybe the evidence would prove to be false. She kept this thought in mind as she stood there, hoping that Harper had truley not done this.
-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-
Dyllan entered Harper's room, climbing over everything that had collapsed and fallen onto the floor. Finally he spotted the tool belt sticking out from a pile of shattered glass. He reached over and pulled it out, careful not to get cut.
"Dyllan." He turned to see Beka in the door way.
"Beka." He responded cautiously, though already knew what was coming.
"Dyllan, Harper didn't do this." She told him as he headed back to the door. He sighed.
"We'll get to the bottom of this." He promised her.
"Dyllan, how can you even consider this?! This is Harper we're talking about!" She exclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air.
"We'll look into it, and if you're right will find he isn't." Dyllan told her. He felt a sence of doubt weigh heavily upon him while thinking this. There could be no other explanation. Harper had put the virus through the sensors that morning, broken out of his room and abandoned the ship with the Maru. Even though Dyllan knew that this seemed like the only explanation, he would dig to find any other pluasable explanation until their was nothing left to dig through.
Once they reached Engineering Dyllan headed over to a table on it's side and hoisted it back up. He then set the tooldbelt upon it and turned to everyone else.
"Rommie, which tools did he use?" He asked, looking over to her. She gave him an uncertain look before something seemed to dawn on her.
"You think the virus might have been released by one of them?" She asked, walking over to him. He sighed.
"Hope not." He muttered as he picked up a scanning device from a drawr in the table. Rommie pulled out a few of the tools, setting them beside the belt. Dyllan began to scan them and noticed Beka in the corner of his eye, looking very pissed.
"Dyllan, we should be looking for Harper, not in here trying to pin him for something he didn't do." Beka growled. Dyllan was about to turn to look at her, but the scan he took was complete. Although it wasn't totally thorough, it would catch anything out of the ordinary in the tool. As he read through the readings he felt whatever small trust and hope he had regained in the engineer fall apart.
"The virus was released by these tools." Dyllan sighed as he set the scanner down.
"Yea, but I doubt it was released by him. I know Harper and he would never do this. Ever." She warned them all strictly.
"Beka, I don't want to believe this either. We'll do this thoroughly." He promised her. She sighed and rolled her eyes, her trust with Dyllan long lost.
"Alright, but while we're doing that let's go after the Maru." She suggested.
"Beka, it could be anywhere." Andromeda's voice explained worriedly. Trance perked up as a screen of all the slipstream routes in this system popped up. Although Andromeda had pulled these up only to show them how impossible it would be to find the Maru Trance moved to it.
"Let's try this one." She suggested and pointed to one of the closest slipstream routes. Everyone turned to look at her and she shrugged.
"Alright." Dyllan agreed. He turned once more toward Beka. "Beka, you'll need to polit through slipstream." He told her. She nodded before turning and racing through the door. "Rev could you and Trance scan these tools thoroughly? And Andromeda could you go through your ship log to see if Harper was doing anything out of the ordinary this morning?" He asked. Rev and nodded reluctantly while Trance gave a hesitant shrug.
"Ok." She agreed as she and Rev took the tools.
"Tyr, go the bridge and help Beka." He sighed as he headed toward the door.
Dyllan left Engineering and again headed toward Harper's quarters. He felt troubled as all of it seemed to fall into place. It all went together so well Dyllan couldn't help but begin to think Harper had done this. No one had been on board so if anyone would have tried to frame him it would have been one of the crew. There were many reasons this had been ruled out. The first was that Harper was the only one aboard capable of making the virus. Also everyone but Harper had been aboard during the virus's attack. Dyllan shook his head. How could it have come to this? After all they had been through he wondered how could Harper betray them so readily? That was the only reason he hadn't already closed the case. He hoped beyond anything that Harper hadn't done this, that he was as Beka said, innocent. He sighed, wondering if it was even possible that this could be true.
"Harper, what have you done?" He whispered to the empty corridor.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Agian TBC! Hope you guys enjoyed that chapter. I might not be able to update for a little while (Maybe till Friday?) because of school, but I shall try! :3 Anyways, please review!
Author: Shakia
Spoilers: None
Sequal to: Frozen Nightmares
Summary: Harper is kidnapped by aliens who claim they worked with the Dragons on the Ice Kludge project and they force him to do things he will never forgive himself for.
Authors Notes: Wow, thanks so much agian guys! The reviews really do encourage me :3 Anyways, onto the next chapter...
The door of the cell shrieked as the Nietchian beside him opened it. He gave him a hard shove and Harper fell to the ground with a grunt. He felt dazed and disoriented from whatever they were doing to him. The door slammed shut with a sudden clang that made him jump. He was also jumpy, he noted, not to mention confused. His mind swam with a confusion that seemed not to be explained and a state of dazed and dizzyness that seemed to cloud over his thoughts and feelings. Yet the one feeling of hate seemed to claw free of the mash of confusion. Whatever the stupid ubers had done to him he knew he was messed up. He groaned, but was too exhausted to move. The sounds of people shrieking filled the hallways from others like him. He was sure they had heard him cry out in pain more than once too.
His body ached and pain radiated through it. Even now blood continued to slide down his face. He shut his eyes as he tried to consentrate on not thinking about what had happened, but it was harder to do that here. Harder when every sesion became worse and harder with people's screams and sobs echoed around him. He shut his eyes tighter, trying to drown out the noise. Trying to drown out the very world around him. But a sudden voice came through his barcade he put over his mind and he forced his eyes open. He stumbled backward suddenly as he found a face to linger before him.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya." The girl before him appoligized. He studied her a moment and felt a sense of insecurity fill him. Of course the ubers would put him in a cell with someone else. They wouldn't waste their time giving everyone their own. He subconciously scooted backward, knowing all to well never that she could be a lot stronger than she appeared. He had had bad experiances with contact with other people outside his family. Most did when you were on earth. He quickley tried to ward off the memories that threaten to creep into his mind and turned to the girl.
"Who are you?" He demanded suspiciously, his voice raspy and hard to make out.
"Mara." She responded simply, but also looked him over with untrusting eyes.
"Harper." He responded gruffly. Her gaze fell to something beside her.
"I have water here." She stated and slowly held up a bowl. Harper lowered his head and tried to not think of how dry his throat was. "You gotta be thirsty after another sesion." She said, before adding, "And they only bring you enough water to keep you alive. There isn't going to be anymore until two days from now." She continued, holding out the bowl. He looked from the bowl to her suspiciously.
"Why?" He asked stonily, continuing to survey her untrustingly. She raised a brow.
"'Cause by my estimate you haven't drinkin in quite a while and you'll die if you don't get some water, so I don't want a smelly corpse in this jail cell." She stated, shoving it toward him. He took it hesitantly, flashing a look back up to her before trying his luck. The water was cool and refreshing as it slid down his throat. He found himself to be more thirsty than he thought he would be.
"Thanks." He murmered after setting the bowl down. She gave him a weak smile.
"People have to look after eachother down here." She whispered with a sigh.
- - -PT - - -
The first thing that Harper realized as he slowly began to drift into conscienceness was the pain. It seered through his skull and throbbed painfully. He moved his arm up to touch his aching skull only to find that it was strained down by a cool and metelic restraint. His heart suddenly began to race as for a moment he thought he was back on the earth at the age of fifteen. He quickley shook off the idea and tried to recall what had happened. Man, his head hurt so bad. He was on the Andromeda. He had been heading to Engineering when...when he realized someone had been there. Although his eye lids felt like lead he managed to force them open. He found that he regretted this decision immidiatley for the light around him burned his eyes, doubling the pain in his skull.
"Nice that you've finally joined us." Harper started at the sudden voice and turned his head to where the voice had come from. An alien stood a ways away from him. He had tanish skin and as well as spikes on his shoulders and a rather muscular appearance. His thoughts suddenly focused on the fact he couldn't move his legs or arms and looked down. He paled as a horrible dread and terror filled him. Metal, half circular restraints held him down to a metalic table that looked identical to the ones in the lab on earth. The ones he had spent months upon months trapped in. He couldn't take his eyes away from the site and his breathing quickened somewhat. "So you remember?" The alien asked. He felt a sudden hate and furry consume him and tour his eyes away, focusing them on the alien.
"What the heck am I doing here?!" He demanded furiously. The alien smirked.
"Seamus Harper, isn't it? The only known Ithro, or as the Neitchians put it, Ice Kludge left in existance." He said, the smile never leaving his face. Harper gritted his teeth, glaring at the man. "You wonder why you're here?" He asked almost absently after a moment. He paused once more as though trying to think of an accurate answer for the question. "Obviously the Drago Kazuf pride never told you why they made you?" He asked.
"For a war." He scowled in responce. The man let out a laugh.
"You really think they'd put in two years of constant work for a mere war?" He laughed, his grin widening. He shook his head. "No, they didn't do it for a war. In fact they didn't even do it by themselves." He explained. Harper continued to glare at him and yet found himself confused to what he meant. "We worked with the Neitchians." He stated. Harper found himself surprised at this. "They wouldn't have been able to get so far without us. A long time ago we had thought up this idea. No one was willing to be put through through the process and so we contacted the Drago Kazuf." The man explained the whole thing like it really was no big deal. Harper began to build the same loathing he had had for the Neitchians for the alien before him as the man told him about their involvment. "The idea was to make the perfect fighting creature. One more stronger than any thing out there." He continued, his eyes shining with excitment at the idea. "And yet we both feared the other would betray eachother. So we each picked a certain amount of people to be on the project that would only know half of the information. After two years we finally had our sucess. Our scientists began to speed up their process on a different invention being built here that was tied in with you creation." Harper looked away from the man, instead constrating on the cieling. Was was he telling him all this? He felt the hate within him to stir further. It wasn't right how the man talked about the idea. He had no right to talk of it like that. He shut his eyes, but continued to listen all the same.
"The Neitchians began to have second thoughts about the whole thing after finding out just how powerful all of you were. We barley kept them on board by sending them a prototype of the device and letting them use you for their pittiful war. The Irthros won it in a matter of days." Harper heard the man walk toward him and chanced opening his eyes. "Since you had escaped them they feared it would be a matter of time before the others did. Finally they cut off the research and killed every one of them. Before we thought all of the Ithros had been destroyed, thus everything died with them. We only knew half of the information and so there was no way to continue the project. It was shut down, even though we completed the device we had been working on. Until four weeks ago we had no idea one still existed." He went on and took a step closer. Harper tensed as he did this and yet kept his gaze firm and unfearful. "It was pure luck that you were the strongest and most advanced Ithro there was." He said. Harper was taken aback by this and found that for a moment it must have shown on his face. "You had more than the others. I'm rather surprised you didn't know." He stated. He took one final step toward him. Harper felt himself tense even further, recognizing the look on the man's face all to well.
"Do you want to know what the device we had been working on was, Seamus?" He asked in barley a whisper. Harper didn't respond and the man pulled something from behind his back. Harper's heart skipped a beat. It was a black collar.
-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-
Rommie studied the panel before her. She felt her AI fade even further and felt the worry in her increase. By her estimates they had only ten minutes till life support shut down and then fifteen minutes till the whole ship was torn apart and they were no where near a solution. The explosions had come more frequently and more in power. Medical had been in danger of being destroyed so the three had moved to Engineering with Tyr to try and figure something out. Beka had left to go get Harper a little while ago while she, Rev, Tyr and Trance continued looking for a solution. Trance glanced up at her worriedly.
"Rommie I don't think Harper did this." She said suddenly. Rommie was surprised by Trance's timing. They hadn't even gone near the subject as they had worked.
"I don't either Trance, but we have to consentrait on killing this-" Tyr had been about to cut them off, but Beka entered the room, beating him to it.
"The Maru's gone." She said. Rommie turned to look at her.
"What?" She asked.
"The Maru, she's gone. I went to get Harper and he wasn't in his quarters. On the way back I saw the doors to the docking bay open. She's gone." Beka explained. That had been their last chance. The Maru had been their last resort. The escape pods would've taken at least forty minutes to eject with this power loss.
"Five minutes!" Rommie said suddenly as another explosion rang through the ship. They had to figure this out fast, or they'd all be dead. The door opened suddenly and Dyllan entered the room, a flexi clasped in one hand and a tool in the other. Rommie had wondered where he had been and was about to ask when he walked right past them, heading toward a panel to her left. She noted his face was grim as he worked for a moment on the panel before releasing something into the ship's system. "Dyllan, what-" She began, but paused suddenly as she felt her AI begin to regain power. The virus started to die down through her systems and the explosions stopped. Dyllan slowly got to his feet, the flexi still held in his hand.
"The virus is dying." She announced, surpised. Everyone looked from her to Dyllan in shock. The lights slowly began to flicker on and a dim glow filled the room.
"Dyllan?" Rev asked after a moment. Dyllan sighed, looking weary.
"I found this in Harper's quarters." He explained, holding out the flexi. Rommie immidiatly recognized the picture on it to be the virus. "It was locked in his drawr and by the looks of it had been in there for a while." He sighed. "It had notes on the virus that you couldn't have unless you had studied the virus for weeks or..." He left off for a moment and Rommie found herself to finish his statment.
"Or create it." She said. He nodded.
"Dyllan-" Beka began. Rommie could tell she too was exhausted. Dyllan merley handed her the flexi.
"With the notes I made an antidote." The lights grew steadily brighter and Rommie felt her AI grow stronger with it.
"Dyllan, Harper would never have done this." Rommie told him.
"We'll still look into the matter right after we get Harper in here." He stated. Rommie knew that now that sensors were back up Andromeda had already begun to scan the ship for him and paused, a frown on her face.
"Dyllan...Beka found out that the Maru is missing and Harper's no longer on the ship." She explained suddenly. Dyllan looked up at her. He paused for a moment.
"Andromeda, scan for any sources to where Harper may have gone." He told her as he heading toward the door.
"Aye' captain." Andromeda stated as her holgram appeared for a moment. She seemed worried and yet relieved they all weren't dead.
"Dyllan?" Rommie asked as he continued toward the door.
"I'm getting Harper's tool belt. He did use them this morning while fixing sensors, didn't he?" He asked. She nodded and with that he left the room. Beka had finished reading the flexi and scowled.
"Harper would kill himself before doing this." She scowled, tossing the flexi to the floor and following after Dyllan. Rommie sighed, reminded of when Tyr had been framed of killing the ambastor of a planet they had wanted to sign up for the Common Wealth. The situation was similar and maybe the evidence would prove to be false. She kept this thought in mind as she stood there, hoping that Harper had truley not done this.
-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-
Dyllan entered Harper's room, climbing over everything that had collapsed and fallen onto the floor. Finally he spotted the tool belt sticking out from a pile of shattered glass. He reached over and pulled it out, careful not to get cut.
"Dyllan." He turned to see Beka in the door way.
"Beka." He responded cautiously, though already knew what was coming.
"Dyllan, Harper didn't do this." She told him as he headed back to the door. He sighed.
"We'll get to the bottom of this." He promised her.
"Dyllan, how can you even consider this?! This is Harper we're talking about!" She exclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air.
"We'll look into it, and if you're right will find he isn't." Dyllan told her. He felt a sence of doubt weigh heavily upon him while thinking this. There could be no other explanation. Harper had put the virus through the sensors that morning, broken out of his room and abandoned the ship with the Maru. Even though Dyllan knew that this seemed like the only explanation, he would dig to find any other pluasable explanation until their was nothing left to dig through.
Once they reached Engineering Dyllan headed over to a table on it's side and hoisted it back up. He then set the tooldbelt upon it and turned to everyone else.
"Rommie, which tools did he use?" He asked, looking over to her. She gave him an uncertain look before something seemed to dawn on her.
"You think the virus might have been released by one of them?" She asked, walking over to him. He sighed.
"Hope not." He muttered as he picked up a scanning device from a drawr in the table. Rommie pulled out a few of the tools, setting them beside the belt. Dyllan began to scan them and noticed Beka in the corner of his eye, looking very pissed.
"Dyllan, we should be looking for Harper, not in here trying to pin him for something he didn't do." Beka growled. Dyllan was about to turn to look at her, but the scan he took was complete. Although it wasn't totally thorough, it would catch anything out of the ordinary in the tool. As he read through the readings he felt whatever small trust and hope he had regained in the engineer fall apart.
"The virus was released by these tools." Dyllan sighed as he set the scanner down.
"Yea, but I doubt it was released by him. I know Harper and he would never do this. Ever." She warned them all strictly.
"Beka, I don't want to believe this either. We'll do this thoroughly." He promised her. She sighed and rolled her eyes, her trust with Dyllan long lost.
"Alright, but while we're doing that let's go after the Maru." She suggested.
"Beka, it could be anywhere." Andromeda's voice explained worriedly. Trance perked up as a screen of all the slipstream routes in this system popped up. Although Andromeda had pulled these up only to show them how impossible it would be to find the Maru Trance moved to it.
"Let's try this one." She suggested and pointed to one of the closest slipstream routes. Everyone turned to look at her and she shrugged.
"Alright." Dyllan agreed. He turned once more toward Beka. "Beka, you'll need to polit through slipstream." He told her. She nodded before turning and racing through the door. "Rev could you and Trance scan these tools thoroughly? And Andromeda could you go through your ship log to see if Harper was doing anything out of the ordinary this morning?" He asked. Rev and nodded reluctantly while Trance gave a hesitant shrug.
"Ok." She agreed as she and Rev took the tools.
"Tyr, go the bridge and help Beka." He sighed as he headed toward the door.
Dyllan left Engineering and again headed toward Harper's quarters. He felt troubled as all of it seemed to fall into place. It all went together so well Dyllan couldn't help but begin to think Harper had done this. No one had been on board so if anyone would have tried to frame him it would have been one of the crew. There were many reasons this had been ruled out. The first was that Harper was the only one aboard capable of making the virus. Also everyone but Harper had been aboard during the virus's attack. Dyllan shook his head. How could it have come to this? After all they had been through he wondered how could Harper betray them so readily? That was the only reason he hadn't already closed the case. He hoped beyond anything that Harper hadn't done this, that he was as Beka said, innocent. He sighed, wondering if it was even possible that this could be true.
"Harper, what have you done?" He whispered to the empty corridor.
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Agian TBC! Hope you guys enjoyed that chapter. I might not be able to update for a little while (Maybe till Friday?) because of school, but I shall try! :3 Anyways, please review!