When Harper woke up the next day, he was confused at where he was, until he remembered and Trance moved against him in her sleep. "Harper?" she called out to him, as she opened her eyes and looked up into his.
"Morning, Trance," he whispered to her, as he moved into a more comfortable position and looked over to see that Freddie and Bubba had gone to sleep. "How did you sleep?"
"I feel like I slept against a wall." She then looked around to see that she had. "Oh, that's because I did."
"Don't worry, Trance, it'll all be okay in the end. Dylan will find us."
"I know he will." Her eyes then flew across the room as Freddie woke up. "At least they're not mean."
"No, for rouge slavers, they are pretty nice towards their slaves."
Freddie came up towards them with two covered tins. "Breakfast," he said to them, as he opened the door and held them out to them. Harper took them both and handed one to Trance. "My name is Freddie and the other man aboard ship is my cousin, Bubba." Just then Bubba woke up and sat up. "Eat up. We're gonna be landing soon, and we're gonna have to use you to load our new cargo."
"Okay," Harper said, as he shut the cell door behind them. "They stole us only to use us as shipping slaves."
"We need to work," Trance said, as she slowly took the lip off of the tip and let out a gasp. "Real fruit."
"Wow, you guys sure go out of your way to treat your slaves nice," Harper said, as he shot a glance up to see that Bubba had begun to eat as well.
"We treat them as though they were workers for us."
"Really?" Trance asked, as she eat a piece of fruit. "How is it different?"
"After a while of helping us, you are set free."
"Really?" Harper asked, as he chocked on a piece of fruit. "So we're not slaves."
"No, you're not."
"Then I have an odd question for you. Why are we in a cage?"
"Because we didn't know what you would do to us if you were free?"
"He has a good point, Harper," Trance said to him, as she finished her fruit. "But you can trust us. We are really good people."
"I bet you are," Bubba said, as he came across the room to look at them. "Then why the freak are you purple?"
"She just is," Harper answered for Trance, as he got to his feet. "It's how her species looks."
"Bubba, don't judge a person by the color of their skin," Freddie snapped at him, as he quickly jumped into the pilot's chair. "Let them out. They've been in that cage long enough." With a grunt, Bubba opened the cage and they walked out. "Make yourselves at home." Just then a slip stream came open and six ships came out of it. "Holy Crap, Bra'don found us. There's no way I can out run those ships."
"Can the Andromeda help?" Trance asked Harper, as they crashed to the floor as the ship was hit. "They are really nice people. I'm sure that Dylan would help them."
"He might," Harper said, as he struggled to his feet and went over to Freddie's side. "Hey, we have a ship who's way bigger than those guys. They'll help us."
"Would that be the ship?" Harper looked up to see the Andromeda exit slip stream.
"Yep," Harper said, as he reached over Freddie and punched in a connection between them and Andromeda. "Andromeda, how's it hanging?"
"Harper?" Beka's voice called out, a second before her face filled the video screen. "You okay?"
"Yeah, we're okay, but not for much longer. You see those six ships, they want to hurt these guys."
"That wouldn't be because they kidnaped you away from Bra'don?" Rommie asked as she came on screen.
"That's the chick from the cell that we left behind," Bubba said, as he grabbed onto Trance and pulled out his knife. "They lied to us, Freddie."
"No, we didn't," Trance said, as she fought to free herself, only to have Harper tackle Bubba to the floor. "She's an android. She belongs to the ship, we belong to its crew."
"Okay, so what do you think we should do, Freddie?" Bubba asked him, as Harper helped Trance to her feet.
"I think we should trust them, Bubba," Freddie answered him, as the Andromeda moved in between them and the six ships. "Because if they weren't the good guys, they would have helped Bra'don's ships destroy us."
TBC