Part 41
Beka continued to tug at her restraints; it had been a too long since she'd seen Rico drag Harper away, leaving her to be dumped in a small room and left alone. The rope around her wrists was finally starting to give, and ignoring the burn marks that had appeared on her skin, Beka was at last able to remove the rope. Quickly untying the restraints around her ankles, she got to her feet and tested the door, finding it locked.
With frustration she hit the door, before composing her thoughts. It was concerning her that she could hear no sounds from outside, and that she had been left alone, allowing for her mind to play games as she imagined the horrors that could be happening, taunting her and making her more determined to get out and at least try to do something.
Feeling the need to test the door again, Beka did all she could to try and move it before feeling the wall, the lack of light made it difficult to see anything but her hands felt only a smooth surface.
"Damn you, open you stupid door!" Beka finally yelled, and to her complete surprise the door opened. For a moment Beka just stood there with her eyebrows raised, not quite believing what she had just seen but her common sense quickly stepped in, and she hurried through to begin her escape.
The ship was blanketed in low lighting, as Beka attempted to look up and down the corridor, wondering which way to go. She then noticed blue lights flickering, and then they appeared to run along the wall in sequence. Beka couldn't help thinking that they were telling her the way to go.
"You want me to follow your lights?" Beka asked as she looked around unsure, and with disbelief, her voice low in case she was losing her mind and someone witnessed it.
One light solitarily blinked, and she decided to take that as a yes, so Beka began to follow, tentatively at first until she grew more comfortable in supposedly trusting the ship. Suddenly the lights changed from blue to red, and stopped, so Beka sensing danger stopped and pressed herself up against the wall. Seconds later a solitary Nietzschean walked past, glancing to her right Beka spied lose metal bar that she easily prised away from the bulkhead fittings and before the uber had a chance to wonder what the noise was, he was unconscious on the deck.
"Thanks," Beka gestured upwards to the ship around her, still unsure, but feeling she finally had an ally.
"Captain, Rico's ship is approaching and attempting to dock," Andromeda announced, as Dylan and Rhade arrived on Command having safely secured all of the intruders.
Dylan nodded towards Trance and resumed command at his console before responding. "Let them think they are in control, Rommie," he finally decided.
"I am sensing their attempts to link to my systems," Andromeda's face appeared on the main view screen now, looking concerned.
"It's ok, Andromeda," Dylan assured her. "We won't let them succeed but we need them on board before we can do anything, so let them proceed."
"It's not that, captain, although I am not exactly happy about allowing intruders access to my matrix," Rommie revealed, now appearing in hologram form beside Dylan. "I sense Harper."
Dylan could see the concern all around him at the mention of their engineer's name. "That kind of makes sense, Harper is being forced to help Rico, we heard Harper over the transmissions when we were dealing with those last two intruders in the conduits," Dylan explained. "It's only natural he would be the one attempting to access your matrix."
Rommie still appeared concerned. "He's jacked into their system, but he's not strong enough for the link he's attempting to establish, captain, no human is, and the link appears to be unstable," she spoke with consideration and care. "Effectively what they are asking him to do is simply too much for a human, even one with a data port and of Harper's skill."
"What do you mean?" Rhade now spoke up.
"I'm not sure exactly what they have done, or how, but it would appear that Rico has placed Harper into a position where he has all of the ships systems, simultaneously working through him," she paused before continuing. "I would imagine it's in a desperate attempt to regain full operating control of the ship that has lost too many essential crew members, and does not have a central intelligence to run without a crew," Rommie answered.
"It's just a Delta class ship, it's supposed to be manned by a minimum crew of ten at least," Rhade pointed out helpfully. "If certain positions are not manned, they are vulnerable; we could take them out before they get just an inch closer."
"We can't, not if Harper is in the position Andromeda is telling us he is in," Dylan returned with concern. "Rico has no crew, but he has Harper jacked in attempting to keep the ship working as if he has."
Rommie briefly nodded her head. "I am detecting only four conscious crew members with Rico, none of which are currently working in an operating capacity, they must be his aides not his crew," Rommie continued with disbelief, her eyes then darted to the side. "I have now also detected Beka who is making her way towards Harper's position."
"Where's the rest of the crew, what happened to them?" Rhade asked.
"From the dead bodies that I have sensed on board, I would say that at one time there was a minimum compliment of crew members, probably when this ship started its journey," Rommie informed them. "But along the way their numbers have halved, and all personnel on board who were in an operating capacity have met unfortunate ends, the body count on that ship, captain, is unusually high."
"I can only imagine what has been going on there, I just hope that Beka and Harper are not the only reason for these unfortunate ends," Dylan stated diplomatically.
"Captain, our concern now should be for Harper's welfare, if he continues to do the work being asked of him then I fear we might lose him, either in death or due to brain damage," Rommie stated sombrely. "We can't let that happen, we have to get him out of there, out of that system."
"So let me get this straight, Harper is multitasking the operations of an entire ship?" Dylan attempted to understand.
"In a sense, yes," Rommie agreed. "Attempting to do my job," she added to emphasise the seriousness of the situation.
"But you perform hundreds, probably thousands of different tasks in a blink of an eye with ease, a human couldn't possibly be expected to do even two or three of those roles at once," Trance exclaimed.
"Harper is already weakened by the workload being asked of him, and his connection to the mainframe is not the best, his actual connection is not stable," Rommie frowned. "Permission to help him, sir?" she then asked to Dylan.
"Do what you can to help him, of course do what you can, just don't give our position away, or let your presence be known until we're ready," Dylan ordered and Rommie blinked out of sight.
"I won't be able to directly help Harper, my presence could cause him further distress and possibly overload him with information, the confusion of my presence alone could send him into a fatal form of shock," Rommie then spoke from the main screen. "I will attempt to take the weight of the ship's main operating systems, navigation mainly, and then guide the ship in under my control, and then hopefully the less work for Harper should help him, and ease the pressure on him."
"Good," Dylan confirmed happy, before turning to his command crew. "Rhade, Trance, go and talk to Yussuf, explain that we are bringing Rico in and that we need a united front, strength in numbers for that moment we reveal to Rico who really has control of my ship," Dylan partly smiled.
"Colin and his father are talking things through, I will let them know also," Trance smiled warmly, before leaving command with Rhade.
Dylan turned back to the approaching ship, knowing things were still far from settled, as he turned his focus towards the final battle knowing two of his crew were still in Rico's grasp, he couldn't afford to let things go wrong in his planning now.
Beka somehow sensed now that she was being led to engineering for a reason, and her fear mounted as she got closer, still being guided by the blue light that for some reason was growing weaker and was barely a flicker now, she could only just make it out, as she approached the section it had led her to.
Without a weapon, Beka needed to think on her feet and she glanced around for anything that she could use to defend herself, should the need arise. She could hear Rico now, he was with at least four other men and they seemed to be in good spirits, talking loudly and generally having a good conversation. They appeared happy, and this rang alarm bells in Beka's mind, before she then caught a glimpse of a nearby view screen, and she saw the looming sight of the Andromeda.
There was no way she would allow anyone to take over her home from home, not wanting to consider that Rico's arrival, and seemingly easy approach, could mean that the Andromeda was already lost. With haste she hurried across the engineering deck, and quickly found the first thing she could to arm herself with, a nano welder was as good as anything she considered, still alert to the voices of the ubers nearby. Slowly she approached the area where the voices were loudest, and then took a sharp intake of breath as she spotted Harper, he was alone and secured to the console, out of sight from the ubers and she curse their arrogance knowing that it meant they felt Harper was in no position to try and escape.
"Harper," Beka whispered, as she tentatively knelt beside him, but he was jacked in and unconscious to the world around him. His arms were tightly secured above his head, his hands already a slight blue colour from the restraints. His head hung forward slightly and fresh blood still dripped from a cut lip and recent nose bleed, there were other bruises about his head that hadn't been there the last time Beka had seen Harper.
She had seen Harper in some bad scrapes but in that moment he looked the weakest that she had ever seen him, and looked as though he was being used as a punch bag for fun. With care she lifted his head, and gently pushed it back so it was against the console, and rested against his raised arm. She took in with more care the damage to Harper, and saw both his eyes were now swollen shut from black eyes, and the make shift lead plugged into Harper's port was looking decidedly unstable, the heat it was producing around Harper's port was leaving his neck red, the smell of electricity was strong in the air around him.
"Harper," Beka spoke again, but there was still no response. Unlike the other times she had seen Harper in the matrix, this time he looked tense, uncomfortable and far from relaxed, this was not the usual blissful slumber of being jacked in. His body then jerked and seemed pained, and every so often his face would twitch, as though he was suffering from a bad dream or nightmare, she wondered if he was trapped in a living nightmare.
For a moment she considered removing the jack in Harper's port, but in her mind she was reminded of a more youthful energetic Harper telling her with far too much enthusiasm about the dangers of an unplanned disconnection. Bobby too had given her that speech, a few moons ago now, just with less enthusiasm. Feeling helpless now, Beka could only move to sit beside Harper and hold him, until a better option became apparent, hoping Harper would disconnect soon.
"Touching, but he's mine, and the slave is busy so hands off my property," Rico announced, as he arrived in front of Beka, surrounded by his guards.
With clear bitterness Beka held Harper tighter, as Rico and his men approached. "Harper belongs to no one but himself, the sooner you figure that out the better for all of us," she announced defiantly.
"I could have sworn I'd locked you up and threw away the key," Rico dismissed easily, before continuing. "You have lost, Beka Valentine, the Andromeda is now mine, this kludge is now mine and that poor excuse for a ship littering my docking bay is also now mine," Rico announced as Beka just glared back at him. "In fact, you're on my property, so I guess you are mine now too."
Beka just smirked. "You wouldn't be able to handle me, not even for a minute so don't even think about it."
"Is that so?" Rico seemed to find her words intriguing. "I heard you have a thing for Nietzscheans, maybe I need to see how much of a match you are for me."
"You know something, for a Nietzschean, you're severely lacking in anything that constitutes brains," Beka returned sharply, reluctantly leaving Harper's side as she got to her feet to confront Rico. "You say you're in control but who really has the control here?"
Rico's eyes glanced down to the prone human for a moment before returning to Beka. "I have control of this situation, and that kludge works for me."
"Do you even know what he's doing in there?" Beka questioned.
"He's guiding this ship to the Andromeda, that is obvious if you just check the screens," he gestured arrogantly.
"Little tip, boy," Beka now partly smiled, showing her own form of arrogance. "This engineer, he works for me, but I don't own him, and he has worked for me for over five years, hey, closer to ten now and you know what?" Beka questioned but didn't wait for an answer. "He's my best friend, I treat him as a brother, and we're close, ok? You want to know how I got here, how I escaped, you're looking at the answer," she gestured assuredly to Harper. "He's in control."
"Ridiculous," Rico simply said before Beka continued.
"I would do anything to ensure no harm comes to him, can't always prevent it, in fact I fail a lot on that score, he attracts trouble, but if I can, I stop it," Beka stressed, and just as Rico was about to gesture to his men to shut her up, Beka stepped closer. "But after all that, I would never, ever give him the freedom of a ships matrix after I have pissed him off enough that he clearly wants to kill me, and you know why?" she asked brightly. "Because I'm not that stupid."
"You don't understand," Rico remained smiling, and for the moment gestured to his men to back off as he brushed some stray hairs from Beka's face. "He has no freedom in there, none at all, because he's trapped and unable to do anything other than operate this ship, all of this ship, every last detail," Rico announced. "He's too preoccupied and overloaded with information to even remember who he really is, because he's so busy in there."
Beka's features noticeably wavered as she glanced back at her prone friend, and in that moment Rico grabbed her arm. "Your friend, Valentine, is a slave to my ship now, a slave to me," Rico emphasised. "He's just a bunch of reactions and instincts that best serve this ship, simply the means of getting it from one place to another. Maybe he did help you escape, but he probably doesn't know why, it was just instinct, not will."
"He can't sustain that sort of control, it's too much, you're killing him so how does that help you? You need him!" Beka exclaimed with panic to the news, as it quickly sunk in.
"I just need him to get my ship from one place to another, outside the Andromeda, to the inside, and his job is almost done, that's if he lasts that long," Rico announced with a broad amused smile. "The Andromeda has its own slave to the system, a ship's avatar, she's stronger and more able than a stupid kludge, so I shall assume command of her very soon, and then dismiss this ship to decay in space where it will be used only for target practice."
"It's too much for him," Beka stated, fearful of Harper's situation now, seeing his tense body in a different light now, understanding and knowing now that he was fighting for his life trapped within a ship's mainframe but unable to leave, unable to do anything but respond to the flood of information being poured into his consciousness by the many systems of the ship's mainframe.
"Take her away," Rico ordered dismissively. "I wouldn't want her to witness her friends painful end, so let her imagine it instead, I'm sure it will be worse that way," Rico stated, with a sickening grin.
"No, I'm not leaving," Beka determined and moved away, remembering the nano welder she had retrieved, as she activated it to stop the men approaching her.
"You can't do anything to help the kludge, he's my slave, my property," Rico announced with a bored disinterested air, as Beka frantically kept the men at bay. "We're almost docked, so the kludge is serving me well."
Beka allowed herself a quick glance at the screen, seeing the hanger bay doors of the Andromeda opening to their full capacity to allow Rico's ship entry. Beka returned her attention to the men, inside she willed Harper to just stop whatever it was he was doing, but she could only imagine the amount of information he was dealing with at one time, and she realised he probably wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
"If I can't do anything, then why can't I just stay with him?" Beka then asked her voice softer. "You plan to kill him, and then me most probably, so just let me stay, I only have a nano welder, so you know I can't hurt you."
Rico considered her request and sighed. "Kludges are all the same, sentimental idiots," he dismissed. "Fine, stay with him, you're right you can't do anything to help him now so what him suffer, watch him die if that's what you want, you'll be dead soon enough anyway."
Moving across the deck, Rico ordered one of his men to stay and keep an eye on Beka, as she moved and settled down next to Harper again. Without a word she simply held her friend, and hoped that somehow they would both get out of this mess alive.
TBC
