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Part 8

The kid stepped back from the console, his make shift unit in his hand and a great big smile on his face as he checked the Maru's readings.

"We're docked," the kid announced.

"Great work!" Tyrone commended.

"Boss, there's a whole fleet of people out there, I thought you said this ship only had a crew of six?" one of Tyrone's men checked.

"What?" Tyrone hurried towards the console and discovered that his man was right.

"This makes no sense," the kid stressed. "All records stated that this ship was under manned, it's a well known fact.

Tyrone turned on hearing Harper offer a brief laugh, and instantly he grabbed the engineer by the throat, lifting him practically from the deck where he had dumped him. "You warned them!"

Harper caught his breath before speaking. "No, but I could have told you that we've been expecting a new crew for weeks now," Harper almost choked, as he spoke. "You're timing is a little off," he croaked, and felt himself being pushed back down to the deck.

"Doesn't change anything," Tyrone insisted, as he looked around and assessed the situation. "Do we have access to the Andromeda mainframe?"

The kid checked and then nodded his head. "Just as the runt asked," the kid replied swiftly.

"Let's do this," Tyrone decided, and gestured to the man stood closest to Harper. "Bring him over here."

Harper immediately attempted to struggle as he was led towards Tyrone, but his fever quickly weakened him, and a coughing fit followed. Tyrone grabbed his hair, and Harper found himself looking up at the mad man, as he knelt on the ground.

"Now to plug you in."

"You're letting me access the main frame?" Harper checked; his throat dry and sore after the coughing fit.

Tyrone simply laughed. "Yes, I am that stupid," Tyrone mocked, and then tugged at Harper's hair when Harper's expression showed that he agreed. "We've reprogrammed your port, remember?"

Harper narrowed his eyes. "I thought that was to try and control me?"

"Now who's the stupid one?" Tyrone smiled. "We reprogrammed your port to control the Andromeda." Looking confused Harper saw the kid plugging in one end of the jack to the make shift unit. Tyrone continued. "You are about to become the biggest threat to Andromeda's systems, you, Seamus Harper, are now nothing more than a virus."

"You've loaded my port up with virus code," Harper partially whispered with the realisation. He'd heard nothing but noise in his head for the past day, but put it down to their seemingly failed attempt to try and control him.

"Over fifty thousand different variations," Tyrone was having too much fun now, as he saw Harper's face fall.

Harper began to shake his head. "No, no way, you're not jacking me in, not like this," Harper started to panic and weakly struggled in the hold still on him.

"Your own projection is already infected," the kid took over. "The minute you jack in, your conscious will be affected by the code, you'll have no means of stopping what we're about to do, and in one hour, we'll have full control of the Andromeda."

"No!" Harper stressed, trying to back away from the cable as Tyrone took hold of it. "Dylan, Beka, anyone if you can hear me, you can't let this happen, I have a lot of junk in my port, you have to stop this!" Harper screamed in desperation. "Stop this, if you can hear me, do something but whatever you do just stop this!"

"Put the jack down, Tyrone," Beka calmly spoke, and everyone looked up to see her at the top of the ladder that came down into engineering, her gun was aimed at Tyrone.

"Beka!" Harper gasped, and twisted as much as he could to see her.

Tyrone simply laughed. "You really think I'm going to put this jack down when I have at least ten men alone aiming their weapons at your lover here?"

Beka remained focused, and her gun trained on Tyrone, as Harper tried to look around to see Beka. "Not Tyrone, Beka, aim at me!"

"What?" Beka questioned with surprise.

"Aim at me, shoot me, Beka you have to, I have enough junk in my head to render Andromeda useless, we can't take that chance," Harper stressed, but he was clearly afraid and his words lacked conviction, he wasn't thinking straight Beka concluded, and he looked in bad shape enough without a gun shot wound as well.

"I'm not shooting you, Harper," Beka returned calmly.

"And that is why I chose him," Tyrone declared. "None of you are going to kill this virus, and pretty soon both these ships will be mine."

"Beka please," Harper pleaded, his words sounding desperate.

Beka hesitated, hearing Tyrone gloating was nearly enough but she couldn't pull the trigger, she could never do it.

"Get her down and secured," Tyrone eventually ordered and with all guns now trained on Beka, the blond captain had no choice but to surrender. As she was led to Harper's side, she could already tell by his body language that he felt the last chance to stop this had passed.

"It'll be ok, Harper," Beka whispered once they were side by side.

"Not this time," Harpers voice had a hollow sound to it. "Tyrone's right, I'm nothing but a virus once that jack goes in, and there's only one thing you can do to stop a virus," he frowned. "Kill it."

Tyrone then tugged Harper's head back, and in one swift movement he forced the jack into Harper's port and the engineer screamed before collapsing unconscious, and jacked it.


"Dylan," Rommie suddenly spoke from her position a few meters from the captain, surrounding the Maru. "Something is happening, I need to disconnect from the main frame."

"What's going on?" Dylan asked.

"Virus," Rommie simply said before all power seemed to cease inside her, and she fell to the deck.

"Rommie!" Dylan was quickly to her side, her eyes barely open.

"Trying," Rommie managed. "To disconnect," she paused. "Harper, its Harper?" Rommie gave Dylan a look of confusion before powering down.

"Harper?" Dylan questioned, and then looked up as Andromeda appeared in holographic form, but her projection was breaking up. "Rommie what's going on?"

"I am under attack."

"From what?"

"Harper," Rommie answered her captain, and then disappeared.

"Would somebody care to tell me what the hell is going on!" Dylan demanded and then he heard Tyrone's voice over the comm.

"This, Captain Dylan Hunt, is me taking over your ship," he announced.

"Over my dead body, and don't say that can be arranged, I've heard it all before," Dylan stressed with determination, and then glanced over to Tyr. "Tyr! We need to get onto the Maru!"

"Captain," Rommie's voice spoke up on audio only. "I need to kill this threat. The virus is corrupting my files, in less than an hour I will be completely rewritten."

"Then do it!" Dylan snapped.

"I can't."

"Why the hell not? You're a warship Rommie, and you shouldn't need encouragement to destroy a threat!" Dylan barked, his patience wearing thin.

"Harper is the threat, and he doesn't want to die," Rommie returned, and Dylan suddenly felt as though he had been punched in the gut. Tyr was now stood beside him, and his expression seemed as unsure as his own.

"The threat is Tyrone," Tyr spoke evenly.

"Agreed, let's go," Dylan ordered, and they moved across the docking bay towards the Maru.

TBC