Overdue
By: Boboskiwatin
Chapter 6
If one were to walk onto the command deck of the Andromeda Ascendant at this very moment they would assume the place was disserted. There was nothing but silence. No movement but the silent tears of empathy sliding down soft purple skin. I can feel him. His hatred, his helplessness, it engulfs me. I can feel my skin burn. Flames licking at my body in a pattern I will never forget. God how I wish I could have been there for him. Because above all other emotions that washed over his heart as it now does mine I feel alone.
"How… Why… When… Oh my god!" Beka's frantic stuttering pulls me from my thoughts. She is on the verge of tears. I look back at the transparent form of my best friend and now I feel nothing but anger. How can someone do this to a person? No one disserves such suffering. I have never felt so much pure rage in my life. I have never wished another to be hurt the way I wish to hurt those who have scarred my beloved friend the way they did.
"How… Why… When… Oh my god!" I break the long silence. I tried to form a question or at least a coherent sentence but too many things were running through my mind to stay on one thought. I don't see why I didn't expect this. I had known Harper since he was in his late teens. I was the one who took him away from that hell he called home. But I guess you can take the kid out of hell but you can't take hell out of the kid. I thought I was jaded to this kind of stuff. Harper does that to a person though. He resurrects emotions one has believed that they have lost. When I picked him off of Earth I was stone-cold. I walked the streets of Earth seeing the starving thinking God I hate planets. After my father died I was surrounded by a wall of hatred and bitterness. Bobby took away the hatred. But the bitterness and the eternal cynicism remained. Until I saw the dirty, scrawny, blonde mechanic standing in my cockpit looking out at the stars and my walls began to crumble. If someone who lived their entire life the way Seamus Zelazney Harper lived his and still find a reason to smile, and joke, and laugh, and care. Than so could I.
In some ways I think he saved me as much as I saved him. Too bad I couldn't keep him safe.
None of this seems to be registering to me. I don't understand this. It's like I fell asleep and woke up in a world where pain controlled the people. Where hate and oppression reigned. And in a way I did. I took a 300 year long nap and woke up in the devil's playground. This is what Beka has been trying to tell me since I came back from the black hole. What went so wrong from the time of the war to now? Have people always been like this? Was I as blind then as I am now? How is it that this one image is causing me to doubt everything I have come to believe is true? But this is not just any image. This is a man who's image depicts such brutality, such anguish. His body seems to represent all that the universe has become. It has become pained and broken.
It has been enslaved. Seeing this symbol of the new world just fuels my drive to reestablish the commonwealth. I will free the universe from those that have marred it.
Starting with Harper.
I've seen his scars before. I've even confronted him about them. Once, only once, because I can't stand to see the sadness that engulfs his ever clear blue eyes and seems to darken them as if a thunderstorm were clouding the sky. And worse is he just laughed it off "The world has been a cruel place Rom-doll but what's done is done. It's in the past and can't hurt me anymore." I had looked at him skeptically and then gave him a smile I hoped was reassuring. I am a warship. I should not be so effected by things as irrelevant as flesh wounds. But then again these are not just wounds that go skin deep. These press through him and mark his very soul. People shouldn't be able to inflict such damage. No one should. Seeing his tortured figure again just reminds me of the pain I saw in his eyes. If seeing these markings effects me so much how can Harper live with seeing them everyday. Then my eyes shift to his wrists, where slashes that are jagged and angry stare back at me. It is apparent that living with these reminders had at one time become so unbearable that he had wished to end his own life. I can see why. What I don't understand is why he is still alive. Was there really anything left for him to live for? Judging by the color of the scars they had been made long before the Maru had come to his rescue. Despite all he had been through he still had enough hope to keep himself alive. Through beatings and starvation he had been helpless yet still had faith.
You can have faith in me Harper. I will come for you.
I turned to look at my shipmates. Emotion flashed from each face. Except the AI of course who remained stoic. I have been taught not to show what I feel. It is a weakness that enemies can easily take advantage of. I should be feeling disdain at the fact that those I expect to have my back in battle are so weak. But turning back to the Professor's hologram I can only feel disgust towards the ones who have harmed someone with such lack of compassion. I do not condemn slavery nor do I condone it. It depends on how it is executed. But what the Opacus pride has done is not about hired help. It is about power over the weak. If anything I believe that if you enslave one that is less capable than you; you should treat them with as much respect as they give you. Because without the weak there would be no strong. I look at the mutilated shoulder of the man I almost consider a friend.
I had seen this before. A "master" would take his most valuable, or most disobedient slaves (I'm sure the little man fell under both categories) and he would mark them. This marking was done with an iron of the pride's shield that had been heated to unbelievable degrees. It was then held to the captives shoulder blade until it burned through the skin. This was not the part that bothered me. It is customary to mark a possession as belonging to the owner but with the Opacuns it did not stop there. They continued to burn the skin, than the muscle, until the burning iron hit the surface of bone. It left a brand that would stay even after the worms had eaten away the skin of the slave's lifeless corpse. The individual would be bound to their captor even after death. The scar of oppression ever-present; reminding to whom the person belonged.
If anything the fact that Harper had been through such agony showed that the boy had strength. He disserved respect. He should have the man holding him captive bowing at his feet…
and I will the one to push that man to his knees .
With that last thought the hologram of their lost comrade flickered out and the crew looked into one another's eyes. And at that moment they finally agreed. They would find Harper and make the one who caused him so much pain pay for what he has done.
He'll wish he had never been born.
TBC.
Hope you enjoyed. It's been a while. R&R.