Chapter 4

God help the sheep when the wolf is judge.

- Danish Proverb

00000

Thirteen days later…

"Harper get this ship going now!" Dylan shouted from just outside the airlock as another blast narrowly missed giving him a free membership in the 'bald but beautiful' club.

Harper's boots pounded on the deck plating as he raced for the pilot's chair, ignoring the burning in his left leg. "Already on it, Boss!" he yelled back over his shoulder. He literally jumped into the chair and slammed the Maru's controls all the way to full power, completely skipping the warm-up. It was murder on the engines and Beka was gonna kill him, but he'd take impending death from Beka in the future over certain death from nasty, evil, bad guys with big guns any day.

Dylan heard the engines scream and fired off a few more shots to clear their path. Then he leapt back into the ship and slammed the airlock closed. "Thank you, Mr. Harper," he muttered as he leaned heavily against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

Harper didn't slow the ship down until he was at least two slip-points away and sure they were alone. Then he carefully eased the Maru to a complete stop and sank back into the chair, exhausted and in pain. He didn't even turn around as he heard Dylan enter the cockpit.

"Whew. That was a close one, wasn't it, Boss?"

"Too close. I don't think they liked us very well, Harper."

"Hey, speak for yourself, Dylan. I don't think the local population had any objection to me. I mean, what's not to like?"

"Speaking of local population, I'm not sure I want to know but what exactly where you doing with that museum receptionist? I told you to distract her, not corrupt her."

"That wasn't corruption, it was education! That's what museums are for: education," Harper said with a smile as he struggled to his feet and turned to face Dylan. "Besides, I've always wanted to try one of those 'Persian Goodbyes'." His eyes closed in fond memory and Dylan rolled his own heavenward.

"A Persian what?"

"You know, a 'Persian Goodbye.' Like from Oklahoma."

Dylan continued to gaze at him without comprehension.

"Don't tell me you've never seen Oklahoma? You know 'chicks and ducks and geese better scurry'and all that?"

"Um…no."

"But that's a classic! You poor deprived soul…" Harper shook his head in sad disbelief and limped toward the common room.

Dylan just rolled his eyes and laughed at the strange babbling of his engineer. As Harper limped past him, he reached out and put a steadying hand under his elbow. "Come on, let's have a look at that leg; that blaster caught you pretty good. You need to learn to run faster," he teased.

"Yeah, well you didn't come through unscathed either, Captain Superman," Harper threw right back with a glance at Dylan's smoking shoulder. Dylan grimaced.

"Okay, agreed. Maybe we both need to learn to run faster."

"And for the record, when I yell 'look out!' it means 'don't look, duck'."

"I'll try to remember that."

00000

Two hours later, Harper was feeling much better. He'd filled up on three cans of Sparky, and the nanobots were working on repairing his leg. In a day or so he'd never even know he'd been shot. Ah, the wonders of modern medicine. To top off his good mood, they'd made it out alive with jewel number five, and the engines were no worse for the harsh treatment he'd subjected them too earlier. Maybe Beka would never even have to know about that little wild ride.

With a smile at that particular thought, Harper carefully wiped off the tool he'd been using to measure the AP tank's fluid and stored it in his toolbox. He snapped the box closed and carried the whole thing with him to the common room, barely limping at all now.

Dylan was sitting at the table studying a flexi. "Anything I need to worry about?" he asked as Harper came in.

"Well, I'm down to my last six-pack of Sparky, but other than that, nope. She's good to go."

Dylan nodded and turned his attention back to the flexi while Harper went into the crew quarters to stash the toolbox next to his bunk. Emerging, he noticed the captain still absorbed in his flexi, a frown on his face.

"Why so glum, Dylan?" he asked as he fixed himself a bowl of soup. "I mean, we're almost done. Just one more jewel to go and we win the prize for best freakin' treasure hunters ever. Surely that's worth a little smile?"

"Well, don't plan the party yet, Mr. Harper. The last one is usually the hardest, and in my experience, where it all falls apart."

Harper pulled a stool up to the table and sat down with his soup. "Thanks for the pick-me-up, Dylan," he muttered sarcastically. "Now I'm so excited."

Silence descended as Dylan concentrated on his flexi and Harper concentrated on his soup. Finally, Harper couldn't stand it any longer.

"So, Boss, you ever gonna tell me where we're going or do I have to watch out the window as ya drive?"

Dylan set the flexi down on the table and finally looked up at the young man sitting across from him. Despite the tongue that was hinged in the middle and notoriously ahead of his brain, Dylan found himself actually enjoying this time with Harper. And Harper with his technical skills and slightly crazy ideas had turned out to be a valuable asset on the trip in his own right. He looked closer at his friend and was pleased to see that the haunted look that had dogged him for the last week or so was a little less visible in those clear blue eyes. Crazy natives and gunfights notwithstanding, this trip had been good for Harper. Now they were about to embark on the toughest phase of the mission and Harper deserved to be leveled with, have a say in the planning.

"I'm just a little worried about this last drift," Dylan confided. "The sixth jewel was carried off by Nietzscheans when they sacked the Bix Tan's home world over a hundred years ago. They've supposedly got it enshrined in some government building and from the intelligence I've been given, the security system on Sommer's Drift is supposed to be…"

Dylan stopped speaking abruptly as Harper nearly choked on his soup. The engineer's eyes jerked up to meet his, and Dylan was shocked by the look. He had expected some sarcastic remark about Nietzscheans but not this. Gone was the calm and excitement of moments before. It had been replaced by anger, shock, and something that looked suspiciously like fear.

"Sommer's Drift? You have got to be kidding me?" Harper cried, standing quickly and pushing away from the table.

"What's wrong with Sommer's Drift?" Dylan asked, confused by Harper's rapid change in moods.

Harper snorted and threw Dylan a scathing look. "What's wrong with it? Dylan, that's a freakin' Drago-Kazov drift! The whole place is crawling with them!"

"I'm aware of that, Mr. Harper, but I can't do anything about it. That's where the last jewel is and our mission is to get it. Just think of them as any other bunch of egocentric, over-confident Nietzscheans," Dylan offered, trying to calm the young man.

"Boss, they're Drago-Kazov," Harper emphasized again.

"I know that, Harper," Dylan answered calmly.

Harper just stared at Dylan in disbelief as he ran a hand through his wild hair. Dylan just didn't get it. Sommer's Drift. The name sent chills up and down his spine. Five years in space and he had purposefully managed never to set foot on it. Beka knew why; Beka would have understood, but Beka wasn't here. Dylan had no idea why this place was at the top of Harper's taboo list and the engineer wasn't very keen on sharing his reasons at the moment. Almost without realizing it he started pacing the small room, trying to figure out what to do, what to say.

Dylan wisely kept silent, waiting for Harper to speak and give him a clue what had upset him so much. Finally, Harper turned and faced him again.

"Do you actually need me on the drift with you? I'm sure I could jack in and hack the security system from here."

Now Dylan was really confused. He knew Harper hated the Dragans; heck, he knew Harper had good reason to hate the Dragans, but to voluntarily offer to stay behind? That was so un-Harper like that all of Dylan's inner alarms started going off. He had the sneaky suspicion there was more going on here than Harper was telling him.

"Is there something I should know about this drift, Harper?"

"No! I just…um…don't like sharing oxygen with Dragans is all!" Harper responded a little too quickly.

He couldn't make the young man talk, so he simply told him the truth. "I'm not going to force you to come with me, Harper. I was supposed to do this alone anyway and I still can if I need to, but I won't lie to you. I could really use your help down there, and what's more the Bix Tan could really use your help. If we get this last jewel and present them with all six, we can end decades of war and give them a better life in the Commonwealth."

Harper started pacing again, his thoughts in turmoil. He knew there was no way Dylan could get through that security system on his own, but he also knew there was no way Dylan could be talked out of trying. If he didn't go down to that drift, he'd have Dylan's and hundreds of Bix Tanean lives on his hands; if he did go down…. Well, he didn't really want to think about that either. Abruptly, he stopped pacing. He knew what he had to do. Dylan might be annoying and over-optimistic at times, but he was still his friend. He knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if Dylan went down there and got himself killed, not when he might be able to help him.

"All right," he said quietly. "I'll go. But I want it noted official that I think this is a very bad plan."

"Noted and logged," Dylan replied with a small smile as he stood up and placed a friendly hand on Harper's shoulder. "Now, I'll go pilot for the last stretch. We should be there in roughly two hours. In the meantime, why don't you get some rest and give that leg time to heal."

Harper just nodded resignedly and watched Dylan leave. After a few moments he went to engineering and opened up one of the panels. He inserted the fat end of his wire lead into his dataport and plugged the other end into the console. Extremely subdued, he proceeded to hack into the communications and sent a rogue message. Dylan would never know and it was coded so only Rommie could pick it up and make sense of it. It contained only three very short sentences.

Beka, we're going to Sommer's Drift. I just thought you should know. Thanks for everything; I love you. –Harper