Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing nothing nothing... Sad, I know.
.- Chapter Ten -.-
"When's he gonna wake up?"
"I'm not sure Harper."
"My almighty, beautiful warship isn't sure?"
"Sorry to disappoint. It was strong knockout gas Harper; he'll wake sooner or later."
"Today, right? I still need to help Trance with that sprinkler that keeps on screwing up her flower bed."
"Calculating."
Alexander tried not to open his eyes. At first, the two voices he had woken up to were hazy, but they had finally become clear, letting him recognize them as the ship he was currently trapped on, and that annoying little blond man that called himself a genius.
Oh, his head was pounding. He'd heard that there was knock out gas involved, but was an ear splitting headache part of the aftermath? Or did they beat him a little bit to make him tell?
"He should be awake within the next half an hour Harper."
"Thank you."
He thought for a moment. Wouldn't someone as smart as this Andromeda's AI be able to tell he was awake by now?
He heard a low whistle coming for a few feet away, and guessed it was the engineer.
"Hey! Alexander, I know you're awake!"
Alexander got up slowly, his head pounding so painfully his hand reached up to hold it without thought. He looked through an illuminated blue door, which seemed to be mad of glass at the annoying little man.
"Rom-doll! You were right! He is awake." Harper said, smiling down at the man as he flinched at his loud voice. Before, Andromeda had told him that the side effects had been a small headache from the gas, but since he had landed on his head earlier, it would most likely be much worse.
"Could you be a little quieter?" Alexander growled through clenched teeth. The man wasn't helping his current condition.
"What's wrong Mr. Duong?" Andromeda asked, her hologram appearing beside Harper. She smiled sweetly at him - a little too sweetly he noticed.
"My head feels like its going to explode, think you could get me something?"
Andromeda looked from Alexander, to Harper, and back again. "I'm terribly sorry." she said, fake regret laced in her voice. "Mr. Harper seems to have taken the last pain reliever aboard the ship."
"Real shame." Harper said, nodding his head. "But you see," he dug a red and white pill out of pocket, "Captain Hunt always seems to have a little stash in his quarters."
"Alright, what do you need from us Miss Trance, Captain Valentine?" Matt asked, looking around the room they were in as he sat at one of the chairs that was left for him and the four other crew members to sit at the table.
"I would like to ask a few questions." Beka said kindly. At least Alexander's crew held some respect for women.
"That's it?" a man asked from Matt's right, looking at least a little older then Beka. "I thought you were asking Duong questions."
"I was." Beka answered grimly. 'And still suffering too.' she thought.
"Mr. Duong refused to answer any questions, so, we need your help." Trance said sweetly.
"What kind of questions?" three of the crew members asked susppiously, the three consisting of the ones Trance had watched over. The Carlo brothers didn't seem to want to say anything.
"Simple ones. Like - oh -" Beka paused thoughtfully, "were you the ones who shot down the Maru?"
"The little cargo ship?" Oliviera asked slowly, and Beka nodded. "Yes."
"Why?"
"It wouldn't let us board."
"You wanted what it had bought from the drift?"
"Yes."
"Next question." Trance interrupted. "How were you able to shoot down the Maru with weapons that were so weak Andromeda couldn't feel them?"
"I don't know." said the man on the other said of Oliviera. "The weapons we usually use for ships of that size only cause normal damage. Those were the ones we must have used on you, since we used only what we had left."
"Then the ones that were used on the Maru, you save for bigger more threatening ships?" Beka asked.
"Yes."
"Then wh-" Beka began, but was stopped by Darren Carlo's low chuckling.
"That hot lady was bein' rude." he chuckled again. "So I taught her a lessin!" he started laughing, his brother along with him.
"Idiots!" Oliviera cried, his hands covering his face.
"Nu-uh!" Darren said defensively. "Darren did good!" he said, hitting himself with his fist in the chest three times.
Oliviera looked up a Beka and Trance. "They're idiots. I don't know why Alexander keeps them around."
Beka sighed. "Neither do I."
"Give me that!" Alexander roared in anger, cringing when his own loud voice rang through his ears.
"Give you what?" Harper asked innocently, the hand holding the pain killer behind his back. "You mean - this?" he asked, waving it just out of Alexander's reach.
"Yes you ass wipe!"
"Ah, ah, ah." Harper said, waving the pill side to side. "You aren't supposed to use foul language in front of a lady."
"What lady?" Alexander hissed. "There's not women here!"
Andromeda appeared at Harpers side, a holographic eyebrow raised.
"There's always a lady on this ship!" Harper said cheerfully, waving the small pill in the holograms direction.
"You know Alexander, you can get that pill, if you answer a few questions for us." Andromeda said, tilting her head towards the pill Harper was waving around.
"Never." Alexander hissed, trying to keep his voice low. The less noise, the less pounding his head did.
"Hey Alexander, you like music, don't you?" Harper asked, turning to Andromeda before the man even answered. "Andromeda, play one of my fav songs for me, wontcha? I think our 'guest' here might like it."
Andromeda nodded, searching her data bases for one of Harpers loudest, longest songs that he insisted on having programmed into some of her free space. He said that she might want to listen to it, something she had never done in her existence. Finding the file, she fixed her internal speaker system so it would play in Alexander's cell only, and at her own control in playing speed and volume.
"Yea!" Harper yelled, his head bobbing up and down to the loud heavy music. "Dontcha just love it?"
Alexander covered his head and ears with his hands, trying to drown out the heavy drums and guitars that blared through the speakers.
"Alright! Alright!" he yelled, pounding on the door before him. "I'll tell!"
"Good." Andromeda nodded, the music turning off.
"Awww." Harper said, his shoulders slouching. "Come on Rom-doll, that was the best part!"
"Later Harper." she sighed, rolling her eyes at her pouting engineer. "Now, tell Duong. How did that cargo ship get through the defense system without losing control?"
Alexander glared at the hologram, internally beating himself up for giving up so easily. "Pill first." he demanded quietly.
"Give him the pill Harper."
Harper walked over, holding the red and white pill out to Alexander in the palm of his hand. Alexander reached forward, but before he could grab the pill, Harper closed his hand. "Swear on your ship, and your crew, that you won't lie to me." Harper said, staring Alexander in the eye. Before he could think, Alexander found himself nodding and Harper's hand opening. Who knew the little man could be scary?
"Good. Now tell me." Andromeda demanded, moving closer towards the cell door.
"Alright alright." Alexander said sourly, swallowing the pill. "I'll tell you, just don't shoot my head off."
"What do you think the damage will be?" Trance asked the young man, Marcus Mathers, the engineer, curiously.
"Well, we saw multiple explosions, and they were hit from a pretty close range..." he mumbled out loud, things most likely only to be understood by Harper running through his head. "I'd say that the engines will be repairable, though it would take a while. The slipstream core wouldn't be able to be repaired from down there, and I bet they no longer have any weapons left. I wouldn't trust taking it into space either, the hull might have some major holes in it."
"Terrific." Beka sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose lightly. Her ship was un-flyable, in need of months, years, of repairs, which she knew she wouldn't be able to pay for, Harper or no Harper, and she was without a warships captain, an avatar, and a weapons expert. After this, one thing in her mind was sure. She was going to take a very long shore break, millions and millions of miles away from this ship.
"Beka." Andromeda said, appearing on one of the screens before the table. "Harper and I were able to make Alexander talk, they're in command now."
"Thank you Andromeda." Beka said, standing up to leave the table. "Coming?" she asked, practically skipping out the door.
'Now,' she thought to herself, 'I'm going to have to get Harper and Andromeda to tell me how exactly they got him to tell.'
Beka and Trance walked onto command, with everyone following them, to see a very pissed of Alexander Duong pacing in front of Andromeda's hologram, and a smug looking Seamus Harper.
"Are you going to tell us now Alexander?" Trance asked softly. When someone was pacing, they were either mad, or worried, and the way he was stomping around the deck made it obvious he was mad, and she was sure things would be a lot easier if Alexander didn't start yelling again.
"Yes." he hissed. "But none of you can tell anyone how you found this out, and I mean no one."
"Deal." Beka said quickly. 'Anything to get you off this ship faster.' she added to herself as an afterthought.
"Good. Now, as you saw, the cargo ship was able to get through, and come back like the point lazars were even there. That's because where it went through, there wasn't any." getting confused looks from the crew, and shameful looks from his own crew, he continued. "Our system isn't that rich. We make do with what we have, but sometimes it isn't enough. Like this defense system for example. In certain places, at a certain time, parts of the lazars don't connect, leaving a space open for a small cargo ship to get through."
It took a moment for everything to be taken in by the four people before him. Slowly, he looked over at his crew, who were all listening to him, looking as though they were trying to believe that he hadn't just told total strangers about a secret that they were supposed to keep strictly secret. No one but special drift authority could be trusted to go down onto the planet. What the planet had was too important to lose.
"If that's true," Trance said, taking a step towards Alexander, "then why when it came up was it not disabled? You can't possibly keep the lazars off for that long, something's bound to get in."
Alexander blinked a few times. She was smart. "You're right. Like I said, our system isn't that rich. The lazars only affect you if you're going down to planet, so that we know you won't be able to get back out with what is ours. It doesn't affect anything on the way back. You could literally ride straight through one of the lazars and you wouldn't know the difference, because they don't have the capability to work that way."
"So we could go down there if we found one of those spots without getting caught, and get back to the Andromeda from the planet without any problems?" Beka asked, a small plan already working out in her head.
"Yes, but getting back will prove to be the hard part." Alexander said, lightly shaking his head.
"How's that?" Trance asked.
"There's patrol ships that guard the open areas, as well as everywhere else, just incase people find out about the secret that we all swore not to tell when we got our citizenship to the drift." Oliviera scowled, answering the question for his captain with a bitter edge.
"You weren't supposed to tell anyone dude." Darren said, his big shoulders shaking slightly as he tried to hold in his idiotic laughter.
"I did what I had to do to get us outta here." Alexander said before Darren's brother could say something stupid himself.
"Andromeda, do you think they'll be able to handle one more day down there?" Beka asked, facing the hologram beside the engineer.
"I have no reasons to doubt it." she answered, nodding her head once.
"Good. Now that we know how to get down there, we'll need a plan." she paused for a second, a sly smirk forming across her face as she faced Alexander once again. "And a new cargo ship..."
.- End Chapter Ten -.-
YAY! I'm done! And just like I said, everything that happened on the Andromeda that I didn't put into last chapter.
Reviews--
prin69 --
Heh heh. Thanks for the review! And yes, my evil alien thingy smirked... Creepy huh? And trust me, I was reading over the last chapter before I put it up, and I was like - Damn, I made Alnar sound like an asshole! - So now, I have plans for him. Once again, thanks for the review! Review again? -
Jade Rhade --
Wow... you get hyper when you're cold? My friend gets hyper when she's sleepy, it's a little creepy. And I have to say, you're one busy, busy little child! Seriously! All those sequels... There's so many! I don't think I could ever make that many. Though, I do like Terla. She's awesome XD
Thanks for the review, yours always seem to make me laugh. Like with the 'whatever-the-hell-that-asshole's-name-is'. That was a very nice line XD. Anyways, I hoped you liked this chapter, review again and make me laugh ? -
Awohali --
It's ok that it's a little late, at least I got it! Thanks for the review! .
Now, lets all be good lil' fan fiction readers and send Kasumi a review, kay?
