Part 6
Harper was shoved one final time, so hard that he stumbled onto the deck of the walkway in engineering. Putting his hands out, Harper broke his fall but remained on the floor recovering his composure. He then noticed the kid was accessing the Maru's systems once more with his make shift kit hacked into the system.
"What do you want?" Harper then asked. "If you want the Maru then why did you lock Beka in command?" he asked, between breaths.
"We don't want the Maru," Tyrone answered. "We have much bigger plans now."
Harper considered his words for a moment before realising. "The Andromeda?" he questioned with disbelief and by Tyrone's smile, matched only by the kid's smile, Harper knew he was right. "You have got to be freaking kidding."
"We don't want you for your opinions, runt," Tyrone stressed.
"How the hell do you propose getting control of the Andromeda?" Harper had to ask with confusion. "There's a guy the size of a Greek god and an uber sized Nietzschean on board, not to mention the hottest most kick ass android I have ever had the good fortune to build," Harper explained. "Actually, I can't wait to see them kick your ass, so go right ahead," he added with a grin.
"It'll be your ass they kick first, Seamus Harper," Tyrone predicted, but showed slight surprise to Harper's amusement to his words.
"Ah I get it, you two will somehow make it look like I took over the Maru and somehow decided for no real reason whatsoever to take control of the Andromeda, just like that?" Harper mocked, finding strength in his confidence that the plan was stupid.
Tyrone soon recovered his confident composure. "I don't intend to give you all the glory, runt, don't flatter yourself," he explained and then turned to the kid. "Are they here yet?"
"Within range, they will be boarding in five minutes," the kid returned.
"What, who?" Harper asked.
"My crew, at least more of my crew, a lot more," Tyrone explained with a smile.
Harper took a sharp intake of breath, not knowing what to think as suddenly he felt his illness taking hold again.
Beka replayed the message again and then stopped it midway through. She sat back in her chair and sighed.
"I guess that explains why Harper got so worked up, damn you Dylan Hunt, why did you work on his fears like that?" she stressed to herself, knowing the virus must have reacted like it was breakfast, lunch and dinner rolled into one of stress to feed on.
She reached out and hit a button, calling on ship wide. "Harper, you done fixing my ship yet?" Beka waited for a response but none arrived. "Harper?" still there was silence and then the ship gently rocked. "What the hell?" she asked herself as she checked the readings but there were no ships in the vicinity and still only Harper's and her own life readings on board. "Harper what the hell have you done to my ship, you freak, sick or not this has gone beyond my tolerance levels!" she seethed with frustration, as she felt the ship rock again, as if another ship was docking alongside but all the ship's readings were telling her otherwise.
With the blast door in place, securing her from the rest of the ship, Beka could not hear anything from beyond but her gut was in overload. The ship readings however were telling her things that her natural instincts did not believe, but she had no other means of finding out what was going on beyond those doors and Harper wasn't responding to her hails.
"Harper, what is going on?" Beka quietly asked, as fear started to creep into her consciousness.
Harper backed up, still sat on the floor of the walkway in engineering but now he was surrounded by many of Tyrone's men, at least fourteen in this area alone. They hadn't touched him, or secured him but Harper could barely move; his illness had taken over feeding off his fear and stress of the situation.
Tyrone soon ordered the majority of the men away from engineering, and Harper could only observe as the kid continued to work at the console.
"It's almost too perfect, boss," the kid enthused, once they were only a couple of the men hanging around.
"It's all going to plan. Do we have an ETA for the Andromeda?" Tyrone asked.
"Picked it up on long range scanners, they exited slipstream a few minutes ago and should be here within the hour," the kid smiled.
Tyrone then turned to Harper. "Is he programmed?" Tyrone asked the kid, whilst continuing to stare at Harper.
"I might need to do a few adjustments, to be sure, and that illness he seems to have is going to help us a lot," the kid answered happily. "He won't put up much of a fight to what we have planned."
"It doesn't look like he'll be resisting our attempts, does it?" Tyrone casually asked.
They now looked at Harper, almost slumped on the floor and caked in perspiration from the illness.
"However, I think he might still put up an unnecessary fight, sir, and that wouldn't be right," the kid stated with a confident grin, crossing his arms, and it was clear to see he was lying.
"I thought so too," Tyrone played along. "He was so much fun the first time around, and real professional, I've not had as good a subject as him to torture for a long while."
"I missed that," the kid stated.
"Even more reason to repeat proceedings, and we certainly have some time to kill, so to speak," Tyrone enthused, and without any resistance he pulled Harper to his feet, and turned him around so he was pressed forwards against the barrier of the walkway.
Harper tried to shift the feeling of nausea away with the sudden movement and rested his weight against the metal bar of the walkway, his hands gripped the bar firmly, as his head began to clear but he still felt weak. Trapped now in Tyrone's hold, he felt helpless, unable to even shrug the larger man off and Harper tried instead to will his virus to give him a break. Even if he was well, Harper now considered, there were nearly thirty men and one nasty Tyrone on board the Maru. He didn't stand a chance of fighting them all off, he'd barely manage one and that would probably just be the kid. As thoughts of putting that kid in his place began to make Harper brighten, the sudden tug on his shirt sent him hurtling back to his situation, as Tyrone roughly move his shirt up to reveal his back.
"Admire my past work," Tyrone proudly bragged gesturing to the fading marks of the previous beating, and it gained appreciative jeers from the onlookers, as Harper's anger began to replace his feelings of fear and weakness. Last time he had talked his way out of more beatings, but this time he barely had the energy to keep his eyes open. He felt flushed, his head spun with illness and he knew what was coming.
Seconds later Harper screamed in agony, gripping the bar even tighter at the sudden eruption of pain across his exposed back. Tyrone had brought down a piece of flexible cord without warning, the closest thing he could find to hand to a whip. Harper now gripped the safety rail, trying hard to stay focused but his inner demons and feeling of helplessness fought to overcome him. Another sharp snap of the cord stung his back, and Harper collapsed to the deck, unable to keep holding onto the rail.
He felt hands roughly pull him back up to a sitting position, his shirt pulled up higher till it was almost choking him around his neck. Unknown hands gripped him hard holding him in position, as the crowd of men were cheering Tyrone on for more before another lashing crashed down, the pain was almost unbearable as Harper cried out once more.
"Stop," Harper begged with his head hanging down, his whole upper body racked with pain and being supported only by unknown hands, as he was ready to plead anything to stop the pain.
He was met simply by another sharp swing from the cord that felt as though it was setting his back on fire now. Resigned to the continued beating, Harper closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to escape into his mind.
Beka suddenly smiled as the communications panel came to life. She quickly sat forward in the pilots chair and activated the comm.
"This is the Eureka Maru, am I glad to see you!" Beka enthused.
"Beka, what's going on?" Dylan's voice came back.
"I'm not sure, I think Harper's had a serious relapse; he isn't thinking straight and has done some strange stuff back there," Beka admitted, unsure as to whether to be concerned or not. "I'm locked in the cockpit, I think he's confused or something."
"He's not the only one, Beka, we're reading 35 life signs on board, including your own," Dylan returned, and Beka could now see his concern.
"What?" Beka checked her own readings. "I'm still only reading two."
"You have intruders," Dylan confirmed.
"But," Beka tried to understand. "Someone has messed with the Maru's sensors, and they've done a good job and Dylan, there's only one person I know who could do a job this well."
"Let's not jump to conclusions. I'm guessing Harper isn't with you in the cockpit?" Dylan returned over the comm.
"No," Beka confirmed.
"Which means he's one man among 33 intruders," Dylan pointed out and Beka suddenly looked up.
"He's not well, Dylan," Beka stressed. "That damn virus has come back strong in the past few hours."
A new voice joined the discussion. "Beka, did you get any signs that something might be wrong? Did he give any signals as to why his virus has grown strong again?" Trance's voice now spoke up.
"He was very confused when I last saw him, he hadn't taken his meds and the virus had already consumed him again," Beka remembered. "More so than before, I assumed Dylan's message activated his paranoia," she added. "He was convinced we weren't alone."
"What did he say?" Dylan was quick to ask.
"He said that Tyrone was on board," Beka spoke with fear now.
"Tyrone?" Dylan was unsure.
"Remember our last supply trip that went wrong? I said a scavenger tried to take the Maru by force?" Beka prompted. "That was Tyrone."
"I don't understand, why has he returned?" Dylan asked.
Beka took a deep breath, and then faced Dylan as he looked back from the screen. "There were parts of that particular situation that neither Harper nor myself included in our reports," Beka spoke solemnly. "Dylan, if that is Tyrone and his goons out there, we have to help Harper!" she stressed, remembering what Tyrone had done before.
"Give me one good reason," Dylan requested, needing to understand the severity of the situation.
"Harper tricked Tyrone in a way that I'm sure he never forgot," Beka sighed heavily, seeing Dylan's unwavering expression. "I think Tyrone took offence?" she shrugged.
"Why did this get omitted from your reports?" Dylan demanded.
Beka took a deep breath, knowing Dylan still didn't know the full story and she knew she had to tell him now, so they could help Harper. "Tyrone tricked me initially," Beka frowned. "As a result he had Harper as his prisoner for nearly a day, Dylan, and he beat him pretty badly, tortured him," Beka tried to keep her emotions in check. "Harper was badly affected by it both physically and mentally," she explained softly. "He didn't want you to know, he didn't want anyone to know what had happened to him."
There was silence for a moment before Beka heard Dylan issuing orders, and she numbly sat back, her mind whirling with fear about her friends safety, knowing he was so near, yet so far away from her being able to help, again.
TBC
