So, they were going to have themselves a good old-fashioned stand off. A human tradition. He'd pass if it was all right with the Universe, thanks.
These are the good guys, we don't want to hurt them.
Telling himself he didn't want to hurt anyone, and telling his fight-or-flight instinct, which seemed stuck on fight, were two different things. His fingers twitched for his gun, but he kept his hands in front of him. If they played things right, no one would die, and at least four people would be much better off. Goals.
"We're not here to hurt you, and we aren't collaborators. My name is Seamus Harper, I'm from Earth. Got out years ago. I want nothing more than to see every last Uber pay for what they've done. We're looking for Garrin Lange and his family, do they live here?" Harper asked, stepping forward, one reluctant foot in front of the other. Though this was Beka's gig, they decided on the Maru to let him take point. For the first time, he was the least likely to get shot. Pretty funny, in a morbid sort of way.
"Earth doesn't exist anymore." the woman sneered. He didn't blame her for her distrust. The first step here wasn't trust. It was getting her to listen instead of shoot. She didn't want to kill them. If they weren't collaborators, it was innocent blood spilled. If they were, it was a target on her back with little chance of escape.
"I know. I was there." Hurt, usually tucked away in the darkest crevices of his mind, flowed into his voice. Emotions still so raw they tore at him, opening the wound in his heart. Let her hear it. Let her see. It would prove he was the person he claimed to be.
A hard sell.
She remained in place, gun held out in front of her, eyes as hard as the exposed steel beams around them. He noticed now her eyes were brown, and that whispy blonde tufts stuck out from her hat. A sliver of a pink scar painted her cheek like war paint. He'd had scars too. He'd had Trance remove those on the surface years ago.
What could he say to help? Nothing. She needed to take a leap of faith. He could not take it for her.
"Where'd you live?" she asked, jerking her chin towards the sky. Sure, that was the general direction of Earth.
"Boston."
Something flickered in her eyes and the hardness around her lips softened. She aged backwards, seven years falling away in an instant.
"The home of Brendan Lahey?" she asked, amazement seeping in. "Bunker Hill?"
He thought his pain to be absolute. Nothing else in relation to Earth could cut him again. But, hearing his cousin's name out of the mouth of a stranger sent an icy knife through his heart. Earth's destruction had robbed him of closure. Brendan was forever schrodinger's cousin, both alive and dead in Harper's mind.
"He was my cousin." This time, his voice cracked. Brendan was born three weeks before him. A brother more than a cousin. He'd left him behind not once, but twice. Trance always said it took courage to start over again, to leave the life you knew behind and build a new one. But on his least forgiving days, he admitted he had run. Taken the cowardly path. Brendan had been brave, and had died for that bravery.
The woman, or rather girl, frowned, eyes narrowing. She motioned behind their shoulders with her free hand.
"Tell commando Barbie back there to lower her weapon and I will lower mine."
Oh boy. Doyle wouldn't take it personally. He hoped.
"Doyle, holster it, and come up to us," Beka said from behind. Doyle's boots crunched in the rubble as she moved in behind him. He could feel her presence. Like Beka, someone safe. The girl followed Doyle's progression with her eyes, weapon still extended, elbows stiff, arms tense. When Doyle was in place, she lowered it and took a few tentative steps forward.
Her boots had holes in them and were two sizes too big, he noticed. Grey fabric stuffing stuck out through the place where sole and boot had separated. Thankfully, the weather was brisk, not freezing. Spring had arrived, though in the ghetto it did not mean much. No pretty flowers blooming in here.
"What was your name again?" she asked, and he didn't blame her for not processing it the first time. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug. Great for action. Not so great for thinking clearly.
"Seamus Zelazny Harper."
A look of recognition crossed her face.
"All around the world, people are ready to rise up. In Paris, Tokyo, Singapore…" she began. His heart twisted again, tried to pull into an unnatural and painful shape. Tried to break into pieces. His words. Words that had started rebellion that killed his cousin.
"Johannesburg. In the thousands. The hundreds of thousands. And they are all waiting," he finished. "I didn't know I was being recorded."
"I thought you looked familiar. Your speech isn't as well known as your cousin's, but we know it here. Some of us."
Her voice was sharp as steel. Fire blazed in her eyes. He knew she was resistance without a single word of confirmation passing between them. No doubt, her fire burned deep, flaring up at every injustice. He knew that look. Had seen it in his own eyes. Seen it in Brendan's. This kid could not be broken, only made angrier. She would fight the chains wrapped around her and fight her oppressors until they took her life. In the end, they would take it. Fire was too easily extinguished in a place like this.
"We're here for something, but we can't talk about it out here." Beka said, stepping up now the risk of death had greatly diminished, giving him a welcome break from the tension.
"Let me tell the others we're coming down. We would be honored to have Brendan Lahey's cousin here."
"Lange, does he live here?" he asked, not wanting to get sidetracked. She scanned their surroundings then gave a sharp nod, not confirming aloud. A safe plan.
"Wait here," she said.
Something about her behavior nagged at him. Felt off. Like when you were forced to wear a pair of boots a tiny bit too small and they pinched your feet in all the wrong places. Uncomfortable, but not so much that you took them off, because boots were expensive, and not easy to come by.
Or maybe it was just this place. It made his skin feel too tight, like it belonged to someone else.
She disappeared behind the barrels. Silence fell around them and his mind puzzled over it, tried to figure out why it, too, felt wrong. Birds. The answer was birds. None chirped or cawed, nor flitted between the broken eaves. Even on Seefra there had been birds in the city. Dogs too, scrawny with ribs showing, scrounging around garbage heaps and door cracks. None here. Probably not a lot of vermin either.
The thought made his stomach roil. Probably should have warned Beka not to eat the local delicacies if offered. Even starving people showed a surprising amount of hospitality. They weren't savages. Mama Harper raised him to make sure guests at least had a cup of clean water. Beka probably shouldn't drink the 'clean' water, either.
Their host returned after a few tense moments. A grey and balding man in a tattered vest with a prominent square jaw and deep wrinkles chiseled into his cheeks, followed. Harper's hand hovered near his gun, just in case. The man ambled towards him, movements stiff. He was probably in his forties, but scarcity and hardship aged a body. No one was who they appeared to be in a place like this.
"It is you," he said, voice filled with gravel. He stopped a few steps in front of Harper and Harper pulled unconsciously backward. Until this moment, he had not realized he had reached celebrity status, that any of his words had been heard outside that rooftop in Boston so many years ago. The side eye the Nietzschean welcoming part had given him on the landing pad made a bit more sense now, and it sent a chill down his spine. He glanced at Beka who raised her eyebrow. She had not expected it either.
"Uh, yeah. Seamus Harper. Nice to meet you."
He felt the grimace on his face, but had lost the ability to control his expression. He bobbed and twitched nervously under the man's scrutiny, afraid he would see a stupid boy who started a fire and ran away before it burned him. Or, maybe, more afraid he would see a hero instead. Expect him to live up to a passionate lie formed under intense pressure.
"Come inside, we can't talk out here. You never know what they will hear out in the open." The discomfort returned as he watched the way the man carried himself. There was something hidden in the hunch of his shoulders, the redness around his eyes, and the way they darted around, jumping from one thing to the next like a caged animal searching for threats.
Harper looked to Beka who gave a sharp, military, nod. The man turned to lead them. Doyle's hand fell on his shoulder, pressing down with light, reassuring, pressure. He followed behind Beka, allowing Doyle to take up the rear. The sooner they finished, the better.
Someone, likely Maria Lange, had tried to make the basement dining room homey. Tried to make it a pleasant place to live. Some abstract artwork hung on the walls. The first bit of color she had seen since entering this godforsaken place. A reasonably clean beige cloth covered a table made of sheet metal and barrels. Someone had embroidered a few flowers at each corner of the cloth and Beka couldn't take her eyes off of them. Little bits of color. Little bits of beauty. So out of place. And she thought she'd had it hard. Dust with a hint of mold tickled her nose, but the unpleasant fetor from outside was banished in this space, giving a moment of olfactory relief.
Maria motioned for them to sit on mismatched stools surrounding the table. Beka did, on edge, ready to jump. Doyle sat beside her. Harper did not. He stood nearby, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes scanning everything. Beka could almost hear his mental inventory. Where were the exits? What could be used as a weapon? Was there anything of value? What did their hosts possessions say about them?
Garrin and the girl, Olivia, Ollie for short, moved into the room and sat.
No one said a word. Another stand off, this time over sheet metal and fabric.
For her part, Maria looked harmless and pleasant. Like a grandmother though they were probably around the same age. Rosy cheeks. Wide blue eyes. Greying blonde hair, pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. A picture resting on a roughly hewn wooden shelf showed a pretty young woman with a handsome young man. The years had not been kind to this pair. Another held six children, out in the sunshine, an ocean behind them. In the middle of the pack, next to another blonde-haired boy was a familiar face. Jace. They were in the right place.
"We share this space with three other families, but they are out now," Maria said, breaking the tense silence. Beka noted the rough texture of her voice, the puffiness around her eyes, and hair-thin lines of red in the whites. Signs of tears. Garrin too had cried recently.
Next, Beka turned her attention to her companions. Doyle sat perfectly still, hands folded on her lap, back straight, chin up. Her lips were clamped so tight lines stretched out from their corners. If she were human, she would have a massive headache from the strain of knitting her brow so much. Normally a spitfire, it surprised Beka how shaken Doyle was.
Harper hadn't stopped moving since they got there, though his feet remained planted on the ground. Fingers tapped, shoulders bobbed—a nervous caged animal ready to spring and run at a moment's notice. This went beyond his typical jumpiness. He sensed something. A danger she did not. She was not one to ignore Harper sense.
"Would you like anything to drink, to eat? You must have walked pretty far. We don't have much, but we do all right," Maria asked.
Harper jumped forward, brandishing his bag like a shield. "It's all right, we brought food and drink for you. We didn't know if you'd be hungry or not, and I always found it easiest to talk on a fully stomach."
He dropped the bag on the table, shaking it. Ollie, looking like a child, all wide eyed excitement, dug in, pulling out ready meals, protein bars, and water bags. The medical supplies, she tossed to the side, but Maria eyed them with interest, and suspicion.
"Why would you bring all this for us? Where did you come from, Miss Valentine?" she asked. She had a right to be suspicious. Beka would have been, too.
"I'm the Captain of the Eureka Maru and first officer on the Andromeda Ascendent," she said. Ollie's mouth fell open and her parents eyes widened.
"The Andromeda Ascendant?" Ollie asked in wonder, using a tone Beka generally associated with celebrity groupies. "The ship that single handedly restarted the Commonwealth?"
Not just Harper's reputation preceded them, apparently. Single handedly was a bit of a stretch. The discovery of Terazed had added fuel to Dylan's fire, bringing on a number of worlds that had been on the fence, making their fifty and some change into hundreds. But, she felt a flare of pride.
"That's the one," Harper said, overcoming his uncharacteristic shyness now that they were on the subject of his pride and joy. "And she's a beauty, too. You've never seen anything like her."
"I wish I could see it," Ollie muttered, an adult level of bitterness in her voice, mingled with overwhelming sadness. Moisture collected at the rim of her eyes. She looked away, as if ashamed of her tears.
"That's what I am here about," Beka said. "A couple of weeks ago I was on a diplomatic mission to a Dragon ship. Let's just say that things did not go to plan."
For now, she left her role as Matriarch out of the conversation. There would be time for that later.
She stood and moved to the shelf containing the photographs. Their eyes followed her. She grabbed the photo of the children, surprised by the absence of dust around the frames, considering it clung to everything here. She carried it to Garrin and Maria.
"I left the ship before completing my mission, but I brought a boy with me." Without touching the glass, she pointed to the picture of young Jace. Doyle passed over her comm with a picture of the now eleven-year-old boy pulled up, smiling before a tree on the Obs Deck, stars peeking through the viewport on one side. That smile had been hard to bring forth and harder to capture. "He calls himself Jace and he is about eleven-years-old. We think you are his only living relatives."
Maria stared at Jace's picture for a long moment, then looked up, eyes full of a mixture of sorrow and wonder. "He will be eleven next month. He'd barely turned eight when they killed his parents and took him from us. We thought he was dead," she murmured, then looked down at the photograph again. "Out of all the children in this photo…"
She put the photograph down on the table and sobbed into her hands. Her husband wrapped an arm around her, his eyes on Beka. Hard. Angry. Some people dealt with news like this with grace, others with misplaced anger.
"So you came to bring him back here? You'd be better off putting him in an orphanage," Garrin snapped, voice booming as it echoed off basement walls. "We don't have the money to feed another mouth, and these provisions won't last long. They'll come back, take him away again, and next time he might not be lucky enough to find himself on a Dragon ship instead of the mines. You expect us to mourn him again?"
Perhaps a little too much anger. What was going on here?
Harper jumped in front of him. "Hey, back down. We didn't come here to bring him back. Let her finish. I get it. I get the anger, but we aren't the bad guys here."
"Harper," Beka warned. She clamped down on his arm, possibly a bit harder than she needed to, and tugged him back. His muscles coiled tightly under her hand, ready to spring. He had become a pressure tank building beyond capacity, seconds from exploding. Almost to the point where friends started to look like enemies, in fact. A dangerous place for Harper to be in.. To his credit, though, he took a step back with no resistance.
"We wouldn't bring Jace back here," she said disarmingly. "We came to bring you to him. Take you off this rock. You are the only family he has left as far as we can tell. We represent the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth believes in keeping children with their families if at all possible."
That was the official line, at least, the line they used to justify this mission on paper. The truth was far more heartbreaking. Jace was traumatized. He seemed to be adjusting to life with his foster parent on Andromeda, but Ensign Smith also reported that he was afraid to do anything without express permission to do so, that he woke from nightmares multiple times a night, that he shied away from her attempts to make him more comfortable and would not even look up at non-humans—this Beka had seen in action when she tried to introduce Rhade as the man who was going to help her get his family out. The only time he opened up was when asked about his family. He remembered his Aunt and Uncle fondly, and recalled growing up beside his cousins. The only chance Jace had at a normal life, at healing, was his family.
"You came to take us away?" Ollie asked, her brown eyes wide, hopeful—desperate.
"We would love to go and never look back. We've been trying to find a way out for almost a year now, but it's been almost impossible," Maria said between sniffles, though her eyes were dryer now. "But we can't go anywhere now." The last words were sharp, and directed at Ollie. Beka heard the undercurrent of anger in her voice, and saw the way Ollie shrunk away, the way she did not meet her mother's eyes.
They had walked in on some sort of domestic situation. The red eyes, the tension between family members, their overblown reactions. It was Doyle who puzzled it out first.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lange, where is your son?" she asked.
A pause, as if the world had stopped spinning for a moment, or someone had stopped time. Maria sobbed.
Ollie looked Beka in the eye and whispered, "They took him. Two days ago. I was out looking for news today when I saw you arrive. Those bastards took him right off the street outside. They took him to detention."
The Dragons tortured their allies. They tortured their allies.
Harper came forward again, his countenance softer. He moved around the table until he was in front of Ollie and crouched down so they were at eye level. One of those rare moments when Harper's heart came out of its protective cage to rest on his sleeve. He saw something in Ollie.
"What happened?" he asked softly. "I saw some mechanical things over there. Are they your brother's or yours?"
Tears welled up in the girl's eyes. Beka stood back, giving Seamus the space he needed to work out what was rolling around in his brain.
"They are mine. I like to tinker. I can't do much, but I am good with communications," she explained. "I've been helping the Resistance since the revolt."
Harper nodded, never once taking his eyes from Ollie's. "Did they come for him because of your work with the Resistance?"
She shook her head. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, creating shimmering clean streaks on dusty cheeks, falling from her chin in muddy drops. Beka glanced up at Ollie's parents. Neither looked at their daughter, and neither reached out to comfort her.
"No. Though we have been trying to leave because they suspect, and they've increased raids the way they did with the war a few years ago. They took him for something stupider than that." Her voice cracked as she spoke. "I made him a remote control toy. Jake and Jace were born a week apart and were like twins. He's never been the same since Jace was taken. I just wanted to make him smile. It was a simple thing that used an old fashioned radio transmitter to make it fly around the room. He loved it so much that he wanted to show all his friends. I told him to leave it here."
"And we told you not to make it in the first place. We told you what they would do to you if they found out, and now they have taken your brother," Garrin snapped. Beka winced with Ollie, knowing how grief made you say things you might not otherwise. Hurtful things.
"How old are you?" Harper asked.
"Sixteen."
Younger than Beka thought.
"It's not your fault. I'm going to tell you a story, okay?" he asked, breaking eye contact for a moment to look at Beka and Doyle. When his eyes met hers they flashed and she saw how important this was to him. Saw that he wanted her to hear as much as Ollie.
"Okay."
"A long time ago, on Earth, there was a thirteen-year-old boy who knew he was smarter than anyone in the whole world, including the Nietzscheans. His parents agreed. They told him stories about how at three-years-old when other children were learning to count, he was teaching himself multiplication." Harper smiled here. "His parents secretly asked for textbooks, science kits, and anything else he needed from the relief ships that stopped by the ghetto. He couldn't get enough. He wanted to see more and know more. He wanted to understand how everything worked. By the time he was thirteen, he could build almost anything. There was nothing left on Earth for him to learn, and his mom and dad knew they had to get him off the planet. But between Magog attacks and Nietzscheans, it was pretty much impossible."
Beka looked over to Doyle who exchanged glances with her, telling Beka this was new to her as well. Garrin stood with his arms crossed over his chest, anger still etched into his features while Maria's eyes were fixed on the photograph, but the stillness of her body and the slight forward lean of it, told Beka she was listening to every word. Probably putting herself in Harper's mother's position.
As selfish as he often was, he had never used his past to earn sympathy points, to convince anyone to give him a break, so he was telling this story now for a reason. It was important.
"There was one rule in their house. Never let anyone know. Well, this boy grew tired of hiding in the shadows. He knew he was different, that he was special. The Ubers spit on him, pushed him around, took his food, made him work for crumbs and table scraps. But he was smarter than every last one of them.
"Now, he was proud, but not stupid enough to do anything directly to the Ubers. He just wanted to feel like someone, for once. To have others beside his parents tell him how amazing he was. So, he showed off to his friends. Built them fun toys out of spare parts. Radios that could pull signals from around the world, remote control spacecraft, even energy based weapons to protect them from Magog raiders.
"One of the kids told his father. His father was a collaborator." Harper stopped, gave himself a moment. When he spoke again, his tone had changed. It dripped with regret. "I should have known. He was too well fed and always had newer clothes than the rest of us. They came for me in the night, to the home I shared with my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I can still hear them banging on the door, shouting. It shook the entire shack. The first home we'd ever lived in with just our family. The adults rushed us into a hiding spot built to be undetectable. I wish it had been soundproof too. They asked for me, demanded my parents turn me in. When they would not, they killed them, brutally. You see, they knew we were there, watching and listening, my cousins and me. They didn't care about killing me. Smart or not, I was still a mule. They'd get me another day. They wanted to send me, and others like me, a message. Intelligence doesn't make you special. It makes you a liability."
Beka's stomach twisted. Breakfast, though eaten hours ago, threatened to come back up, burning the back of her throat. Out of every horror she had seen here today, this is what got her, forced her to blink back tears. It had been easy to imagine clever Harper outsmarting everyone and somehow living better than this, above it. He didn't let on the depth of his grief.
Harper looked directly at Garrin, a mask of anger twisting his normally jovial features.
"They were wrong." He turned his attention back to Ollie and his expression softened. "It is your most valuable possession and you have every right to use it. You did nothing wrong, Ollie. The blame is on those bastards out there that took an eleven-year-old boy as punishment just because he was being a kid. You deserve better than this."
Beka made up her mind. They were not leaving this planet without this family. Ollie was smart. Likely not Harper levels of smart—not many were—but she had a future in the stars, not here with her feet stuck in the mud. If that meant Beka wielded her power just a little bit more, so be it.
Rhade was going to have kittens, but he could deal with it. Or cry into his cup as he had been wont to do on Seefra. Either option worked for her as long as she got what she wanted.
"Ollie, do you know where they are keeping your brother?"
Maria made a little strangled sound and looked up from the photograph, eyes full of hope, asking silently what Beka didn't think she wanted to ask aloud.
"Yes. I even know the room number."
"Good." She turned towards Ollie's parents. "Pack up anything you want to take with you, and be quick about it. Nothing more than you can carry. I hadn't planned on a side mission, but we have one now, so that means you are going to need to leave a lot behind."
"You want to take all of us with you? Are you insane?" Garrin asked. Beka decided then that he really was an unlikeable and bitter man. Probably couldn't be blamed. Harper had been dangerous and feral when she got him. Still didn't have any table manners. But, at least he'd had a lovable quality to him. Maybe some of the missing softness would return once he'd settled into a more comfortable life elsewhere. Though she suspected that at his age, the damage was done.
"Listen, Beka knows what she is doing, and she is just about the only person who can get your son back off this planet because the Dragons won't touch her as long she's got seven shiny warships backing her up," Harper cut in, gesticulating wildly in his Harper way, mouth running at the speed of light, patience finally worn away. "I am willing to bet that Jake isn't going to be in great condition by the time we get to him if they have taken him for interrogation. Doyle here is a pretty good medic, but she isn't a miracle worker. We have one of those, but she is on the Andromeda Ascendant at least 24-Hours away if we can't get them to rendezvous with us earlier. So, if you want to take the risk, go ahead and stay behind, wait for us to bust your kid out of the pokey and hope there is time enough to come back and get you. But if you want Jake to have the best chance possible, start moving, and for the love of God, stop talking before I make you."
To Beka's surprise, Garrin didn't say another word, but got to work packing up.
"Beka, are you insane?" Rhade asked, the second person to outwardly question Beka's sanity in less than an hour. Doyle thought that, yes, Beka was a little bit insane, but in a good way. If they left that little boy down here in this… whatever the hell one was supposed to call it… she might never have forgiven Beka.
"Oh Rhade, it's so sweet of you to worry about little old me, but they aren't going to hurt me. Not so long as my big strong protector keeps his big strong warships' weapons locked on their pretty little town."
People stared at their group, large enough to be out of place. Observations led her to hypothesize that no one gathered in large groups. Too suspicious, she reckoned. Too much risk of being mistaken for a resistance cell. As if they would be stupid enough to meet openly and walk down the streets in broad daylight.
Harper explained before they touched down what to look for in collaborators and informants. She saw them everywhere now, watching with their greedy eyes, wondering how much cash turning them in would net. This whole place made her sick—nauseous. She didn't even know it was possible for her to feel nausea before today. The part of her that wanted to feel everything humans felt warred with the part of her that never wanted to go through these physical sensations again. It was one thing to feel her emotions, and something completely different to physically react to them.
She kept her hand on her gun, finger on the trigger, ready to pull and shoot. She had watched nine planets disintegrate, one still populated. She'd stood on Command and faced down the root of all evil. None of that affected her the way this did.
People did this. Not gods. Not Ancient Vedrans with a crazy plan to stop a moving sun. Not minions of the darkness. People who bled red blood into the soil the same as the poor, starving, beaten, and imprisoned souls that surrounded her.
"Matriarch…"
"Don't call me that. Just keep up until we get back. Capische? And if you can, get a courier to Dylan, we need the Andromeda to meet up with us a bit early. Tell them to prep Med Deck for a medical emergency, we're probably going to need Trance if she is up to it. Make sure you say it isn't one of us, no need to worry them unnecessarily."
No need to worry Trance, she meant.
"Whatever you say, my liege. Your wish is my command." Sarcasm. Time with his family had not removed Rhade's death wish. Beka grunted as she cut the Comm. Pity to the next person who had to deal with Beka after her scheduled check in with Rhade, who had been quick to point out that they were thirty minutes late.
"You know, he can just call me Captain. Or Beka. Beka would be nice," she grumbled.
"Not to happy about the change in plans?" Doyle asked. Beka looked back at her and rolled her eyes.
"He's got his bone blades in a twist, but he'll get over it. He always does."
"She's working with Nietzscheans? Did he just call her Matriarch?" Garrin asked in a tone of disbelief, shooting a suspicious glare at Beka's back. Why did she get stuck walking beside this idiot? A sudden, and surprising, need to defend Rhade's honor hit her.
"Listen, you're angry at the whole universe, and who can blame you after what you've been through, but you aren't making any friends with your attitude. You don't have to like us. You don't have to trust us, but you would not have followed us out here if you didn't believe we were your best chance of getting out of here. That Nietzschean is our friend, has been for years, and he is the reason you are going to get off this planet alive." She emphasized, friend. Let that sink in. Even in a drunken stupor, Rhade was more pleasant than this man.
Cowed, Garrin kept silent. Doyle checked her comm. Two more blocks to the detention center.
They completed the journey in irritated silence, boots squelching in the muck and mud that Doyle tried hard not to contemplate, thanking her lucky stars Androids did not get sick the way humans did. If Harper was correct about Jake's condition—and no reason to doubt him—Trance's miracles were going to needed, but even being around them after walking through this cesspit put her fledgling immune system at risk. She made note to scan everyone and disinfect everything before reaching Andromeda.
Detention turned out to be a large building backed into the ghetto side of the fence, a checkpoint beside it for the convenience of soldiers and informants. No need to delay important work collecting slaves and torturing the opposition. What the hell was wrong with these Nietzscheans?
"So, Harper, what's the general procedure for getting someone out of detention?" Beka asked, shooting a look back at him. He was walking with neck stooped and eyes down, Ollie beside him, stance mirroring his right down to the hunch in their backs, as if trying to make themselves invisible.
Harper looked up and shook his head.
"You don't get people out of Detention. It's where people are sent to…" he trailed off, sending a sidelong glance to Ollie. She skipped a step. A hand wiped furiously at her eyes, smudging the dust on her cheek until the brown streaks resembled war paints.
"Do you know how Nietzscheans get people out?" Beka's tone took on a note of frustration. As much as she was known for flying off the cuff, Doyle got the impression she preferred to have at least faint outline of a plan to work from. Often quite faint. Almost invisible. But there.
"My guess is that they walk up like they own the place and make demands? Seems to be the way they do everything else."
"Well, as far as they are concerned, as long as they are playing along because of our ships up there, I am as good as Nietzschean."
Beka, the picture of confidence. Confidence was good. Unless the scales tipped over to too much, and with Beka, who could tell?
Garrin blanched beside her. Seefra, with its mix of species and the Commonwealth's interest in it, was going to come as a shock to this man and his family.
"Well, we're going to have to figure it out soon. That guard is drawing his weapon," Doyle said, her eyes able to pick out small details from much further away than her organic companions'. Maria, a few steps ahead of her, looked back, concern knitting her brow.
"Two can play at that game," Beka said, grabbing out her pistol, eyes on the guard ahead. Doyle wondered how well the brass communicated with its underlings out here in this dump. Did they know not to shoot Beka? She sure as hell was acting like they did, like they would take her at her word that she was the Matriarch.
Beka, be careful.
Following Beka's lead, Doyle drew her weapon and so did Harper. His finger twitched near the trigger, arm quivering. Her breath hitched. How he had made her breathe so realistically, she did not know, but her breathing reacted to her feelings and her non-existent heart sped up. Danger loomed, tall and threatening before them, but the Nietzscheans were not the source.
Beka held her pistol down as she approached, one hand up to show she would not shoot if not provoked. The guard eyed her warily, unused to people having weapons out in view. From what Doyle understood, weapons weren't allowed in the ghetto, especially gauss guns and smart bullets. But the manpower needed to police the law was astronomical. The occasional public example made of someone caught building or selling kept them hidden under folds of clothes, and other methods kept to populace scared enough prevent uprisings.
Doyle frowned. It was one thing to read about a place like this. To hear stories second hand, with the bad parts glossed over—because with all the horror he allowed in his description, Harper had never done it justice. Seeing it, smelling it, and feeling the grime build up on her skin... She had always imagined adults in his stories. Imagined Harper the way he was when she met him, full of bluster and confidence, a joke dancing on the tip of his tongue at every moment. A grown man with grown man coping mechanisms. There were children here. Harper had been a child.
"I don't want any trouble," Beka said, stepping forward. "I am your Matriarch. If you don't believe me, go ahead and take a second to make a call to your superiors. We'll wait. You wouldn't want to be personally responsible for calling down the wrath of seven warships, would you?
Without being told, she and Harper took defensive positions a couple meters behind Beka as she bluffed her way into the guard's good graces, motioning to the family to stay back, under their protection. A quick look showed Ollie in front of her parents, gun hand tucked into the folds of her many tattered layers. Keeping the weapon hidden with the precariousness of her diplomatic immunity so apparent. Judging by her stance earlier, she knew how to use that gun and could hold her own in a fight. A sixteen-year-old warrior. Her parents were not, Doyle noted, both looking uncomfortable at the thought a conflict.
"We heard you were here, Matriarch," he sneered. Blonde haired and buff in all the right places, he might have been attractive if his face weren't quite so hard and his eyes didn't flash with disdain looking at them.
"Well, good, we have that out of the way. We are here to take a family with us, and it seems that you have taken a member of that family with you. I intend to leave with everyone today."
"You must be mistaken, we only have criminals here," a redheaded man, smaller than the first, but no less physically fit for his stature laughed. Doyle kept her gaze shifting between the unfolding situation and Harper. His fingers tightened on the grip, knuckles white, eyes narrowed into slits. There was a fire inside of him and these men, this situation, were the bellows, making it burn hotter and wilder. A tiny spark, and it would spread, consuming him—threatening them all.
"I'm not in the mood for joking. In case you hadn't noticed, it isn't pleasant over here, and I am a little bit cranky from the gravity. So, be good little children and listen to Mommy. We are here for an eleven-year-old boy by the name of Jacob Lange. Surely we can agree that a child that age can't possibly be a hardened criminal."
"Human vermin," the redhead muttered. Beka raised her pistol.
"Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way? If I have to do this the hard way, it's going to be a bad time for everyone involved."
There was fire in Beka too. Controlled fire. Dangerous, and directed towards the men before her. When people talked about walking in like you owned the place, Doyle wouldn't be surprised if they referenced the behavior of one Beka Valentine, the very picture of overconfidence.
"I'm sure you will understand if we have to call our supervisor?"
"Go right ahead, I'll wait."
And wait they did. Feet shuffling in the mud, everyone tired of standing in one place, but afraid to move. At first, the larger man looked giddy. These Dragon brutes took pleasure in causing distress and pain, it seemed. Granted, she had not met many different prides on Seefra, but any normal person would find this disgusting, yet an entire society lived and breathed on the other side of the hedge as if this were normal. Natural. Not all Nietzscheans were like that. Rhade was a stuck up pig with a stick in his ass sometimes, but he would find this abhorrent.
After a few minutes, a few different comm conversations even her enhanced hearing could not pick up, his gleeful smile shifted to grim disappointment. The brass getting back to him. Beka's claim was legitimate. Turn over the child or risk the deaths of the home guard and damage to the planet itself. The Dragons weren't prepared to go to war with the Commonwealth, nor were they prepared to go to war with at least seven prides that recognized Beka as their leader.
"Your group can approach, weapons down," the redhead called out, turning towards them. Beka motioned for them to lower their weapons, which they'd raised the moment Nietzschean attention turned on them again. For all her silent orders to them, Beka's hesitated before holstering her gun. Steps came reluctantly, as well, body wound tight like a spring. Overconfidence did not equal stupidity. The Dragons were untrustworthy.
Doyle walked beside Harper, keeping the family behind them in the best position to protect them if needed. She looked to Garrin and Maria. Garrin whispered something to Maria, his disposition changing for a flash. Gentle. Kind. A man still in love with the woman he had married, who wanted the best for her. A glimpse at what this unpleasant person might have been like before the stonemill of life ground him down and reduced his kindness to chaff in the wind.
"This isn't going to be good," Harper said through gritted teeth when Beka reached the checkpoint, holding her identification and day pass up to officially confirm her identity.
"Nothing here is," she replied with a sidelong glance. He held his jaw so tight she feared he would injure it. The protective part of her nagged at her to get him away. Choose flight before he chose fight. Impossible in the midst of a mission. She had no way to alert Beka.
"Don't be stupid, Harper," she said instead. His 'who me' expression would have been a lot more convincing if his arms weren't held stiffly by his side with hands balled into fists.
They were led through the checkpoint and a back door into a nondescript hall with numbered blue doors staggered on either side. Evens to the right, odds to the left. They followed the guard down a sterile hall with bright white lights lining the hall just beneath the ceiling. Their boots clicked on shining white tiles and not a single piece of art adorned flat white walls. They turned down another hall, practically identical, and Doyle hypothesized that every hall looked the same. Easier to disorient prisoners and make it harder for them to remember the ways in and out.
At the end of the next hall, they approached a set of double doors that took them into a lobby of sorts, or a control hub, with a pair of spotless glass doors where a perfectly manicured lawn sparkled in the sunlight outside. Her processing power rivaled Rommie's. In many ways, Harper had tried to improve on his original design. Even so, the dichotomies here confused her, gave her a headache. Why had Harper given her the ability to feel headaches?
"Gaius, I am under orders to hand over a prisoner to the Matriarch here. Make sure they feel welcome while I go to retrieve him."
The Dragon meaning of hospitality, and hers did not coincide. Gaius, whose appearance was close enough to the large guard outside to place them in the same category of brute, gave them suspicious glares as they stood in the center of a room as white as every other they'd passed through, though lined with consoles and a security display that flashed images of people in cells, and larger groups in rooms filled over capacity. People of all ages. Their fate, she did not want to guess.
Doyle took the opportunity to move closer to Harper, standing so their sides almost brushed. A kind, calming presence, she hoped. At the very least she could block him if his mouth ran away with him, though she didn't think they would have any issues shooting an innocent woman any more than they would shooting Harper. He was more fragile, though she would not tell him that to his face.
His eyes grazed hers before darting off again. Under the bright lights, no shadows took purchase, yet he scanned each corner as if expecting invisible enemies to tesseract out. A bit paranoid, but given Andromeda's extensive records of battles past, perhaps not without reason.
A gasp and a cry drew their attention to Maria and Ollie. For a moment, Doyle was certain her processors has broken. Through the door the red headed guard came, a woman with bronzed skin and hair by his side. Between them, they dragged a child, close to unconscious, bruised and beaten. A variety of colorful curses shot into the air out of Beka's mouth, mingling with Maria's cries.
"What the hell is wrong with you. He's a child!" Beka snapped as they dropped the boy in front of her. He crumpled to the ground, a boneless doll painted in shades of blue and green. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Maria and Garrin rushed forward to their son. Ollie held back, frozen, wide eyes on the guards in disbelief. Still young enough and sheltered enough in this environment to be surprised at its cruelty.
They shouldn't move him, she thought. Beka had years of experience in field injuries, could direct them, but the parents… could they remember in their fear for their child? She needed to get over there, take over, use her sensors to catalogue his injuries and make a plan.
"There is your prisoner Matriarch," the redhead taunted. The woman beside him laughed. She actually laughed. Doyle did not have time for indignation. Beside her, Harper let out a feral growl. His gun came up, whirring to life. A glance at Beka showed that Beka needed her, but if she did not get Harper out of here right now…
She reached out and pushed his arm up the moment she saw his finger squeeze at the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the ceiling, spraying them with plaster Every head in the room turned their direction and guns came out all over the room. Beka's glare might have been as deadly as a shot in the chest if Harper had been paying attention. Doyle caught her eyes, tried to convey that she had this, as she grabbed the gun from Harper, then took him by the arm and dragged him out the glass doors.
"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted once they were out of earshot. He fought her, wriggling and pulling with all his strength, employing every method short of hitting her to get free. She did not want to do this to him, but she wanted him dead even less.
"Let me go Doyle, or I'll…"
"What? What will you do Harper? Shoot me? I'm trying to stop them from using you as a punching bag too."
"She laughed," he growled, "They beat that boy to a pulp and laughed about it."
"And how will killing them make any difference except destroying Beka's chances at freeing the rest of them, and getting yourself killed?"
"You don't know anything Doyle, you didn't live this. I am going to make them pay, every last one of them."
It was as if he had transformed into someone else. A stranger wearing her friend's face, contorting it in rage. Still, he fought against her grip, despite the futility of it. If he kept up, his arm was going to bruise.
He could be callous. She had seen him bury his conscience deep down inside when it proved a liability to survival, but this murderous rage was new. Now, he did not seem to care about survival, just about inflicting pain.
"Listen to yourself. Think Harper. Use that big brain of yours and think! You won't hurt them. They weren't even the ones who hurt Jake."
"Doyle," he said, his voice taking on a dangerous edge, "Let. Me. Go. They as good as hurt him, Every one of them would have if given the chance."
"If I let you go, you are going to go in there and shoot those guards. Best case scenario, the Dragons take you and let the rest of us go. If your life means that little to you, and you are willing to be tortured and killed for a moment's satisfaction, then go ahead," she said. Her voice cracked. "But think about me, Harper. You created me. I have never known my life without you. If you die, you leave me alone in this Universe. You are the closest thing I have to a family. And if that isn't enough, Trance is expecting you to come back alive. Do you want Beka or me to explain to her that the Dragons arrested you and killed you? Hasn't she lost enough already?"
Bringing Trance into this was a low blow. She'd seen them right before she left the Maru a day ago, knew that feelings ran deep between them, but she figured in the interest of saving his life, guilt was a viable weapon.
He stopped, shrinking as her words hit home. A part of him must have thought he was still alone in the Universe. Alone and unloved. He needed the reminder that hearts would break when he breathed his last breath.
His chest heaved as she struggled his catch his breath, cheeks blotchy and red, eyes watery. A frustrated growl escaped him as he deflated further, now using Doyle's grip for support. He didn't speak, she didn't expect him to. She loosened her grip, satisfied he wasn't going to run in and create more of a diplomatic disaster anymore.
"We all love you, Seamus. Let Beka do this. Help her bring about real change. If you kill those guards in there, you prove them right. If we walk out of here alive, save Jake, and start to unite the other Nietzscheans against the Dragons, you win. You, and Beka, and other humans."
"That sounds like something Trance or Rommie would say." He'd lost his fire, voice more tired and defeated than angry now.
She put her hands on his shoulders. "They are right. Now I need to go in there and stabilize Jake so we can get him to the Maru. Keep your head down and mouth shut, okay?"
He gave her a tired half smile and a nod. "Let's just get the hell off this planet and somewhere that makes sense."
