Title: Breaking Out

Author: Moonloon

Rating: NC17

Fandom: Andromeda

Pairing: Tyr/Harper

Feedback: Uh huh, yes please

E-mail: maryavatar@yahoo.com

Summary: Harper and Tyr encounter the aftermath of an Magog attack and it shakes a few things loose.

Notes: This started life as a script for the AC project. The AC project died and this slid further and further into slash...oopsie, I couldn't help it

Disclaimer: In my internal world Tyr and Harper belong to me. Unfortunately the real world thinks they belong to someone else. I hate RL :(

The last of the supplies were trundled into Andromeda’s cargo bay 7. Harper checked the manifest and sighed with relief: he couldn’t wait to get away from Shantii’s drift. He’d gotten drunk a couple of days before and had woken up between a pair of high-G men and under a girl with more tattoos than visible skin. Harper was still wincing as he walked, and forget about sitting down.

Tyr was leaning over a box, lifting out one of the new weapons he’d bought. Privately Harper thought there was something wrong with the way Tyr’s guns kept getting bigger and bigger. The one he was lifting now was big enough to crush any opponents, let alone shoot them. Harper grinned and considered that the guns might be to compensate for the big guy not getting any in the sack recently.

That was definitely something else to keep firmly behind his teeth.

"Okay," Harper said, "Everything is accounted for. I’ll be glad to get the Hell away from here."

Tyr looked up. "Really, I thought you found the local party scene to your taste?"

"Huh?" Harper cringed, hoping Tyr hadn’t seen his ‘performance’ in one of Shantii’s sleazier bars. He had vague memories of stripping and dancing on a table with a girl in feathers, before crawling under it to blow her boyfriend.

"You were gone for two days and when you returned you smelled like stale alcohol and several types of sex. That is your preferred way to spend shore-leave isn’t it?"

Harper breathed a sigh of relief; Tyr hadn’t seen anything. "Yeah, but the beer here sucks and the liquor is murder on the stomach lining." Harper grinned and made his escape.

Tyr watched Harper go. He hadn’t missed the signs Harper was giving out: embarrassment. Whether it was his behaviour he was embarrassed about or Tyr knowing about it wasn’t clear; but Tyr had been a little surprised when he’d realised that, from the smell, Harper had had sex with at least five people in those two days and three of them had been men.

<><><><><>

Harper sauntered onto the command deck and smiled to see the ugly bulk of Shantii’s Drift receding in the viewscreen. As far as he was concerned the sooner they’d finished warning this area of space that they were directly in the path of a Magog invasion the better.

Beka smiled at him indulgently as he limped over to her. "Good shore leave?"

"I think so. I don’t remember much of it which is usually a good sign."

Beka laughed and then swore as a slipstream portal opened up right in front of them. A cargo transport hurtled into normal space.

"I’m receiving a transmission." Viewscreen Rommie said.

"Let’s see it," Dylan replied with a scowl.

The screen flickered to show a panic-stricken spacer yelling at them. "This is Adam Alvarez of the cargo ship Nocturne to all ships, drifts, planets…whatever. The Magog have taken down Jay’s Mining Colony two jumps out. They could be on their way here now. Get the Hell out of here while you still can. There’s nothing left of Jay except rubble and blood stains." The screen went blank.

"He’s gone back into slipstream." Holo-Rommie said.

"Damn!" Dylan cried, "I wanted to have a talk to him."

"Isn’t Jay one of the planets we visited last week?" Harper asked.

"Yes," Dylan said shortly. "Beka, plot us a course back there. Best possible speed."

Harper gaped. "Uh Dylan? You do realise that flying into Magog space is not a good idea don’t you?"

"Jay’s World is well outside Magog space and the colony there is barely 50,000 people. I’m betting that this was just a raid, not an attempt to expand Magog territory. Besides, if the Magog had still been there do you think that ship would have been able to get out?" Harper didn’t reply but left the command deck with a scowl on his face.

"Dylan?" Beka asked tentatively.

"Yes."

"This is the first time since…you know…that Harper has had to deal with hostile Magog remember. He’s bound to be a bit twitchy about it." Beka smiled carefully. "And he does have a point: you don’t know that the Magog just stopped in for supplies and moved on."

"The Spirit of the Abyss is re-building his World Ship. That’s his main priority now. To do that he needs more workers, to get more workers he needs something for them to breed in and eat. I don’t think he’s going to try to expand into known space until he’s at full strength."

Beka sighed, "I hope you’re right.

Part two

The Andromeda jumped back into normal space and surveyed the damage. The remains of about a dozen cargo ships and their contents drifted in orbit around Jay’s World. Part of the planetary defence system passed them and as the terminator crossed the only inhabited area of the planet they could all see the scarring caused by first the mining operation and then the Magog attack. The atmosphere over that part was darkened also, as smoke and ash rose from the ruins.

"I’m detecting no ships in the area." Holo-Rommie said.

"What about the planet? Can you read any life signs?" Dylan asked.

"Not yet. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any. The survivors could be spread out or underground. I can do a more detailed scan once I’m in orbit."

"Good. We’ll need as much information as possible before we go down there."

"Down there? Are you crazy?" Beka jumped down from the slipstream console and strode over to Dylan. "We don’t know what’s down there."

"That’s why Rommie will scan first. Don’t worry Beka we’ll make sure it’s perfectly safe before we take the Maru down." Dylan smiled reassuringly and patted Beka on the shoulder.

"You’d better: because if there’s one scratch more on the Maru for this I’ll nail your hide over it."

<><><><><>

Beka piloted the Maru through the atmosphere, trying very hard not to be annoyed at Dylan leaning over her shoulder. She was still angry with Dylan for first making them come down here and second insisting that Harper had to come too.

"He has to come," Dylan had said. "If there’s any record of what happened down there he’s the best chance we have to access it."

"And how’s he going to react to seeing the aftermath of a Magog attack? He was a wreck for weeks after we met the World Ship."

"But this time there’s no Magog. He grew up on Earth; he’s seen this before."

"And that makes it okay?"

"You don’t need to protect him Beka. He’s not as fragile as you seem to think. If he was he’d never have survived this long."

Beka had her doubts but Harper had reacted to the news that they were going down to the planet with a scowl and a couple of bad jokes so she’d let it go. She wished she hadn’t when they touched down and she saw how pale Harper was.

"You okay Harper?"

"Fine." Harper said.

That wasn’t good, reflected Beka. Harper was only monosyllabic when something was bothering him.

"You don’t have to go out there you know. Dylan would understand if you had a problem with it."

"I’m fine." Harper pushed past her and walked over to the airlock and Dylan. "The main records building is about 500 yards away. I’ll check it out first; it’s our best chance of finding anything. I doubt if the Magog cared too much about covering their traces."

Dylan looked up. "Good, take Tyr with you."

Harper nodded and went to collect the weapons Tyr was handing out. "Looks like it’s you, me and the Magog again Tyr."

"There are no Magog left here Harper," Tyr said.

"We hope," Harper said as they made their way out of the Maru.

Part Three

The air was still and it was ominously quiet. It all made Harper very twitchy: it didn’t matter that it was quiet because Jay had no indigenous animal life. His Earth-born senses kept telling him that the lack of sound meant something was about to attack.

"You’re sure there are no Magog here?" Harper asked Tyr, hating the slight, but detectable, whine in his voice.

"I didn’t say that. The ship couldn’t detect any and I can’t sense any. There probably isn’t anything left on this rock, dead or alive but nothing is ever a sure thing."

"Thanks for the reassurance," Harper muttered.

They walked on in silence until they reached the records building. Harper had jumped at every shadow until Tyr had started growling. Harper was sure the surroundings of burnt-out buildings and the smell of blood and Magog was getting to Tyr. After all, Tyr had been infested with Magog eggs too. Harper kept forgetting that. Even with the eggs removed, Tyr had gone through the same trauma on the world ship as he had, Tyr must have been affected by it. Harper
just hoped Tyr wasn’t as freaked out right now as he was.

The record building was set away from the rest of the town centre. It was trashed but was only partially burnt out. Harper found the mainframe with no problems and settled down to jack in.

"I’ll do another sweep. How long will you be?" Tyr asked.

"Dunno. It depends on what I find once I’m in there." Harper jacked into the system and slumped against the wall.

Tyr watched Harper for a few moments; he hated the idea of leaving your body so vulnerable as Harper did when his consciousness was in cyber-space. Anyone could just walk up to him and kill him. Tyr turned to re-check the building. He knew he hadn’t missed anything the first time but making sure comforted him somehow. He hated to admit it but he was fond of the annoying little kludge and would prefer not to have to explain to Dylan why he hadn’t protected him properly.

<><><><><>

Harper mentally winced as his consciousness rattled into the mangled mainframe.

"Shit, rough ride." Harper’s virtual form appeared, flickering in the unstable data-streams. Carefully making his way through the masses of corrupted files and the jagged edges of destroyed programs he finally found the visual records from the planetary defence system. In Harper’s opinion it was a piss-poor excuse for a defence: the damn thing had only got off three shots before being blown into confetti.

One of the benefits of his virtual body was it didn’t have the same nasty physiological response to the sight of numerous Magog swarm ships pouring out of slipstream as his flesh and blood one did. Harper studied the record: 73.19 minutes of the Magog approaching and then BOOM! Some sparkles and everything went black. Harper’s attention shifted to the planetary recordings. A general alert in the middle of the night, colonists rushing to either the mines or the
pitifully small armoury and then the slaughter. Harper removed his consciousness from the visual database as soon as the Magog landed. He didn’t want to see that. Carefully he extracted records, making a mental note to warn Rommie about the damaged codes as some of them could be dangerous to an unshielded AI.

Once he’d finished making records of all the relevant and undamaged data Harper wandered out of the building to look for Tyr. This part of the town didn’t seem so badly damaged as the rest, presumably because it was the business district and would have been mostly empty of people at that time of night. Harper shivered as he thought about what would be happening to those colonists who had survived the slaking of the Magog’s initial hunger.

Turning down an alleyway with his gun drawn, Harper’s attention was caught by a scrap of colourful cloth. Moving closer he dropped to his knees and moaned in horror. The scrap that had drawn his attention came from the skirt of a young girl, probably only 11 or 12 years old. Her legs were horribly burned and her stomach was swollen to grotesque proportions. Harper could see the outlines of the Magog larvae moving through the thin fabric of her tee shirt.

Harper scrabbled at his neck, pulling off his inhaler and holding it to her lips. He gazed into her pain-dulled eyes and tried to comfort her.

"Breathe this. It’ll help."

She stared up at him, no trace of comprehension in her eyes.

Harper pressed it more firmly to her lips and with a silent apology held her nose. The girl breathed in through her mouth. Harper smiled in triumph. "That will make the Magog dormant."

But it didn’t.

Harper was stroking her arm when he noticed the first bloom of blood appear in her tee shirt. At first he thought it was part of the picture, a unicorn racing through the clouds, but as it grew he realised it was the Magog tearing their way out. He looked down into the girl’s eyes and saw that she was now dead.

Harper was frozen watching the blood spread, there was less that he thought there should be until he remembered that the Magog inside would be drinking most of it. Finally, with a dreadful tearing noise the head of a Magog ripped through into the light.

Harper wasn’t aware of the gun in his hand but some instinct aimed it and began firing. Yelling at the top of his voice he fired pulse after pulse into the body. Not stopping even when all movement had ceased.

Tyr was on the roof when he heard Harper screaming and the sound of gunfire. Sprinting down stairs and leaping over wreckage he followed the sounds. He turned into the alleyway Harper had found and saw Harper shooting, at close range, something unidentifiable. Tyr knew that whatever had spooked Harper had sent him into a panic and Harper in a panic was not predictable. Slowly Tyr moved into Harper’s line of sight and tried not to make any threatening moves.

Harper’s gun swung up to aim at Tyr.

"Whatever it was, it’s dead now," Tyr said gently.

Harper looked at Tyr, at his gun and down at the charred remains scattered around the alley. Harper dropped the gun and stood swaying, staring at the ground.

Tyr picked up the gun. "Did you get the records?" For a moment Tyr thought Harper wasn’t going to answer until he saw the slight nod. "Good, lets get back to the Maru." Harper didn’t resist as Tyr lead him back through the town. As they arrived at the Maru Dylan ran up.

"I heard gunfire. Are you both all right?"

"It was Harper shooting," Tyr said. "I don’t know at what: by the time I got there, there wasn’t much left."

"Harper, what were you shooting at?" Dylan asked.

Harper continued to stare at the ground, his face pale and sweaty.

"He hasn’t said anything since I found him."

Dylan swore. "Shit, he’s in shock. Get him back to Andromeda and take him to med-deck. We found some survivors in the mines and we’ll need Trance to stay here, some of the colonists are badly injured and can’t be moved. You’ll have to use the medical database to help him."

"I’m not a doctor, and I wouldn’t trust the ship to diagnose a cold," Tyr said, scowling.

"It’s the best we can do," Dylan said with a shrug. He placed one hand on Harper’s shoulder and squeezed. "It’s okay Harper. You’re going back to the Andromeda now."

Harper nodded and walked up the ramp.

Dylan turned back to Tyr. "As soon as Harper is settled I want the Maru back here. There are about twenty survivors and once Trance has patched up them up I want to move them to the Andromeda."

"Fine," Tyr said and entered the Maru.

<><><><><>

Harper was sitting curled up on the bed in his old cabin. His knees were under his chin and he had his arms wrapped around his legs. Tyr saw that Harper’s knuckles were white. Tyr was unsure of what to do so he left Harper there and took the Maru back to Andromeda. Once they were safely back on board Tyr returned to find Harper still in the same position, only shaking violently.

"Harper?"

"I gotta get these things out of me. I’m *not* going to die like that," Harper muttered.

"Good, you’re talking. That’s an improvement," Tyr said. Harper just scowled up at him. "You have to go to med-deck now."

"Fuck that."

"Dylan said you were in shock. I assume that needs to be treated."

"I’m outta the shock now. I’m in the shakes. Pretty soon it’ll be the manic, closely followed by the aggressive stage and then I’ll pick a fight, get laid or drunk and everything will be A-OK again. So fuck off and let me work through it."

Tyr decided that arguing with Harper was a waste of time and picked him up. Harper cursed a blue streak as Tyr slung him over his shoulder and headed for Medical, but Tyr ignored him. Harper’s shakes had slowed a little by the time Tyr deposited him on the nearest bio-bed.

Harper sat and scowled. "Fine, I’m here. What now Doctor Tyr? I have to tell you your bedside manner sucks. I can’t believe Dylan sent you to baby-sit me. Shouldn’t you be down on the surface doing your stoic-heroic thing?"

"I see the manic stage has set in." Tyr was both concerned and amused by the energy that seemed to radiate from Harper. It had set in so fast.

"Fuck you Tyr," Harper said, jumping down from the bed. "I’m fine. I’ll be even finer when I get the Hell out of here."

Holo-Rommie appeared behind Harper. "I recommend a sedative."

Harper yelped at the sound of her voice and jumped about a foot in the air. "Shit! Rommie, don’t do that. You’re not sticking me with anything. I don’t need a sedative."

One of the Marias walked over and handed a med-spray to Tyr.

"That should calm him down," Rommie said.

"No!" Harper took off towards the door. Tyr, however, was ready for this and grabbed Harper by his collar as he ran past. Harper choked and yelled as Tyr pressed the med-spray into Harper’s arm.

"Bastard." Harper yanked free and stumbled out of the door.

"It should knock him out for a couple of hours." Rommie said, "He needs natural sleep but I don’t think he’s going to get that any time soon." Her gaze went distant for a second. "He just passed out in the corridor."

"I’ll bring him back." Tyr turned to go.

"No, put him in his quarters. I can monitor him easily enough there and I’m going to be full of injured Magog victims soon. I don’t want Harper waking up to that."

Tyr nodded. "I have to take the Maru back down to the surface as soon as I’m done here."

"Fine, don’t worry about Harper: I’ll look after him."

Tyr grimaced; he wasn’t worried about Harper being alone on the ship. Except he *was* worried about Harper being alone on the ship. He was worried about Harper waking up alone. He was worried about Harper full stop. Not that he’d ever admit it, he thought as he picked Harper up off the deck-plate.

Tyr dropped Harper onto his bed and looked around. Harper’s quarters weren’t as messy as he’d expected. Tyr, remembering the avatar’s complaints about Harper’s sloppiness, assumed that the ship had sent something in to clean up recently.

Bending over he removed Harper’s boots and set them on the floor. Looking down at Harper lying in an untidy mess on the bed, Tyr sighed and unbuckled Harper’s tool belt, fumbling with the unfamiliar fastenings. Tyr decided it would be easier to just pull off Harper pants instead of untangling them from the belt. Tyr pulled off Harper’s pants and then the shirt, leaving him in just a tee and boxers.

All of a sudden he didn’t want to leave. Harper looked so young and vulnerable, just like he had down on the planet when he’d jacked in. Tyr realised his reluctance to leave stemmed from his guilt at allowing Harper to wander off unprotected. If Tyr had stayed with him Harper wouldn’t have been in this state now. Tyr pulled the edge of the blanket over Harper and stared down at him.

Tyr cursed softly at himself and left the room to return to the planet below. There was work to be done.

<><><><><>

Harper was sure something was wrong. There was a panic filled moment when he wasn’t sure where he was, then he felt the familiar fabric of his blanket and realised he was in his own bed on board the Andromeda. His head felt full of glue, he couldn’t think straight and some instinct told him that he wasn’t going to like it when he did regain his memory of recent events.

The Magog! Harper leapt into a sitting position and screamed as something moved in the shadows.

"Hush. It’s me." Tyr moved into view.

His heart pounding with the shock, Harper stared at Tyr. "What are you doing here? " Harper thought for a moment, "What am *I* doing here?"

"You were in shock. The ship sedated you and I brought you here." Tyr sat down on the edge of the bed. "How are you now?"

Harper goggled at Tyr. A concerned Tyr? He must have woken up in an alternate universe. "I don’t know yet." Wait, he *did* know: he was majorly freaked out by what he’d seen….

The shakes set in again.

"Oh shit. That girl."

"What girl?" Tyr asked gently.

The words tumbled out, Harper barely registered when the shakes slowed and his mouth sped up. He wasn’t aware of Tyr’s hand on his shoulder as he spilled out all the gory details. "Crap Tyr, sorry about pulling the gun on you. I wasn’t really in a very good mental place when you showed up. I mean Niets aren’t as big a thing for me as Magog but hey, you guys are way up there in the top five y’know?

"I never saw anyone ripped open before." Harper unconsciously pressed closer to Tyr, who was rubbing Harper’s back. "I’ve seen people infested before but we always…y’know, killed them before the Magog got out. And I’ve seen after, if we didn’t get there in time. That’s not nice: there’s blood and gunk and ribs all over the place. I just never saw the ripping. I can still hear it. Thank god I’ll be dead already when that happens to me: it’s not a nice sound." Harper
crammed a fist into his mouth to prevent himself from howling like a baby.

"You are not going to die." Tyr stated.

Harper growled, "Sure I am, we’re all going to die sooner or later. I just get the ‘sooner’ option, that’s all. That’s fine, I’ve outlived almost everyone I grew up with anyway. I’d hoped to go out with a bang…" Harper giggled, slightly hysterical. "But I suppose I *am* going to explode."

Tyr gripped Harper’s shoulders and shook him. "Listen to me, child, you are alive now and you’ll be alive tomorrow. Somehow you will find the way to remove the spawn."

"Harper gazed into Tyr’s eyes, "Then how come I feel like a piece of dead meat walking around wondering what’s about to hatch in me? I don’t feel alive." Suddenly Harper lunged forwards and kissed Tyr.

"I want to feel alive." Harper said when Tyr pulled back. Changing direction suddenly Harper asked, "How long was I out?"

"Four hours, I just got back with the survivors. You should rest, the ship said you need natural sleep." Tyr wasn’t sure what was going on but backed away slightly.

"Did you take my pants off?"

"I couldn’t separate them from your belt."

"Why were you taking my belt off?" Harper moved closer, something Tyr didn’t recognise in his eyes.

"You were asleep, it looked uncomfortable."

"Now you look uncomfortable. Can I take your pants off?" Harper scrambled onto Tyr, straddled his lap and kissed him again.

Tyr pushed Harper away and wondered why he wasn’t already in the corridor heading away from Harper's quarters. "Harper, what are you doing?"

"Trying to feel alive Tyr. I need to feel alive or I’m going to go crazy. Help me?"

Tyr felt Harper wriggling on his lap, hands under his shirt and was that…yes, that was an erection pressed against his stomach. "Harper, I can’t…Nietzscheans don’t…"

Harper was biting Tyr’s neck as Tyr floundered around trying to find some way to disengage Harper without hurting either his feelings or the parts of him that were currently wrapped around him.

"Crap." Harper replied, "Niets like ass as much as the next man. Probably more since the babes only put out to procreate." Harper laughed at Tyr’s expression. "Did I shock you? Well Hell, you were what? Twelve when your family died? I guess they’d given you the ‘it’s your job to attract a mate and save your seed to breed’ speech, but not the ‘but it’s okay to screw a little kludge ass if that’s all that’s available’ speech. Am I right? I probably know more about fucking Nietzscheans than you do."

Harper pushed his hips forwards and Tyr felt himself react to the friction as Harper kissed him again. Why wasn’t he pushing Harper off? Why was he getting aroused? Questions flew through Tyr’s head as he sat there and…enjoyed what Harper was doing to him?

"C’mon big guy, make me feel alive. I know you can do it. Make me scream for it." Harper humped against Tyr impatiently. "Tyr, fuck me, do it. What are you waiting for?"

Tyr suddenly remembered Harper’s words in the Maru, *I’ll pick a fight, get laid or drunk and everything will be A-OK again*. Tyr jumped to his feet, spilling Harper off his lap and back onto the bed. "Harper, you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s just a reaction to what happened down on the planet." Tyr strode towards the door. "Try to get some rest."

"What the *fuck*! Tyr, come back here." Harper leapt up and followed Tyr before realising he wasn’t dressed. By the time he’d pulled his pants back on Tyr had vanished. "Rommie, where’s Tyr?" He yelled.

"Harper, Tyr is right. You need to rest." Rommie appeared in miniature on his nightstand. "You aren’t thinking clearly right now."

Harper scowled, "Fuck off then. Privacy mode."

Rommie flickered out and Harper stalked around the room muttering to himself and throwing things around until he found an unopened bottle of whisky.

Harper’s second awakening was much, much worse than the first. He was out of the bed and hunched over the toilet, throwing up everything he’d eaten over the last couple of days, before he was completely conscious. Harper’s stomach was empty long before he stopped retching, the long, painful dry heaves leaving him shivering and weak on the floor.

Harper lay for a few minutes trying to remember why he’d gotten so drunk in the first place. The memories didn’t resurface until he’d crawled over to the sink and gulped down about a pint of water. Drinking so fast sent a sharp, stabbing pain through his stomach and for a moment he thought he was going to throw it all back up again. He curled around himself and waited it out; that was when he remembered the events of…last night?…yesterday morning?

Harper wasn’t sure when he’d asked Tyr to fuck him, no, not asked: begged, but he recalled it now in horrifying detail. He’d climbed all over Tyr and begged like a portside whore. Harper put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Ah, you’re awake. Good." Tyr stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. "Have you finished?"

"Finished what?" Harper croaked.

"The shock, the shakes, the mania and the passion for self-destruction?" Tyr waved one hand vaguely in the direction of the bedroom.

Harper cringed at the memory of what he’d done on the bed with Tyr. "Yeah, I’m done."

Tyr sniffed. "You need a shower."

"No…really?" Harper tried to stand and was surprised to find Tyr’s arm holding him up. Hot daggers of pain lanced behind his eyes and he bit his lip to stop a whimper from leaking out.

"Headache?"

"Uh huh."

"This should help." Tyr offered one of Trance’s med-sprays; "It’s an analgesic and anti pyretic. Although it may be a little late for the latter."

"Y’think?" Harper blinked and took the spray, the thumping eased but didn’t disappear: Trance didn’t agree with curing hangovers instantly. "What are you doing?" Harper struggled weakly as Tyr yanked his tee shirt off. "Ow, ears, be careful." Harper rubbed the side of his head and sat down beside the sink.

Tyr opened the door of the shower and turned it on, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You need a shower." Tyr gestured at the open cubicle.

"I can shower myself you know. I’m not totally incapacitated."

Tyr grinned, "So you don’t want me to join you?"

Harper groaned and hid his face in his hands. "I’m never going to live that down am I?" Tyr just continued grinning as he left the room. "Crap! Just what I need: a Nietzschean with one of my embarrassing secrets." Harper got up slowly and stepped into the shower. Dialling it up as high as he could stand he let the pounding of the water wash away the smell of vomit and sweat.

Harper felt almost human when he exited the shower and wrapped himself in a huge fluffy towel. His stomach flipped over slightly as the smell of scrambled eggs wafted in from the main room. Unsure how his stomach would react to actually eating it, he sat down again and sipped some more water.

Tyr appeared in the doorway. "Good, you’re out. You haven’t eaten for over 24 hours, you need nourishment unless you want…" Tyr’s eyes flicked to Harper’s abdomen and he grimaced.

"...Unless I want the kids to join me for breakfast, right?" Harper scowled, "It’s okay to mention it; I’m not going to go back to the freak-show you saw last night. They’re there, they’ll may or may not get out in the foreseeable future. Not talking about it isn’t going to change that any more than making bad jokes or passes at friends will.

"I’m not hungry anyway."

"You will eat." Tyr growled.

"I’ll grab something later. I gotta get to work." Harper stood up, glad that the thumping behind his eyes wasn’t visible.

"Dylan has relieved you of duty for the next 24 hours. Beka has put me in charge of making sure you eat. I don’t particularly want to tell her I failed. You will eat." Tyr put his hand on Harper’s shoulder and manoeuvred him out of the bathroom.

Harper winced as he saw the huge pile of toast and eggs in front of him. "Tyr I don’t normally eat this much in an entire day. I’m half your size and I sure as Hell don’t have a Nietzschean metabolism. There’s no way on Earth I’ll be ableto eat all that."

Tyr sat down opposite him and folded his arms again, flaring his bone-spurs slightly. "Try."

Harper opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it and started to eat. Strangely enough once he managed to swallow the first mouthful the rest was easy. Harper suddenly realised he was starving and succeeded in putting away over two thirds of the eggs. "Good stuff." Harper said, his mouth half full.

"Thank you." Tyr was still watching him carefully. Harper was finding it a little unnerving.

"You’re a pretty good cook huh?"

"It’s a convenient skill to have."

"Uh huh. I’m full now." Harper pushed the rest of the plate away. Sorry, I’d eat the rest if I could; I just don’t normally eat a lot at once. I sort of snack feed most of the time."

"I’d noticed."

"Hell Tyr! Is there some reason why you’re doing this?"

"Doing what?" The corner of Tyr’s mouth drew up slightly in amusement.

"Looking after me? You brought me back here, undressed me and put me to bed. When I woke up and made a pass at you, you didn’t turn me into a greasy smear on the wall. You even cooked for me." Harper was still hungover and his head felt like it was full of rancid porridge. "And for the last ten minutes you’ve been watching me eat. No, not watching, staring. What’s up?"

"You shouldn’t have wandered off by yourself."

"I was looking for you."

"You should have waited for me where you were."

"If I’d done that there would have been a dozen or so Magog running loose on the planet down there." Harper sat back and crossed his arms.

Tyr sighed, "I should have kept a closer eye on you."

Harper was annoyed. "I’m not a kid you know! I’ve been looking after myself for25 years with no help from Nietzscheans. You aren’t my babysitter." Harper regretted raising his voice: his stomach might be feeling better but his head was very sore.

Tyr sat in silence for a moment. "Was it true what you said last night?"

"Uh, about what?"

"About Nietzscheans and…sex?"

"Do Nietzscheans really have sex with kludges? Yes, they do. Well, the Drago Kasov on Earth do." Harper looked down at his plate and scowled. "Have I ever fucked a Nietzschean? Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to. Hell Tyr, I have eyes, Nietzscheans may be the bastards of the universe but they come in hot packaging."

Tyr snorted at that. "Is that all sex is to you? Something nice to look at while you…relieve your tensions?"

"Yeah, pretty much. So far anyway. It’s easier that way when people around you have a habit of dying. Best not to get too involved."

"And you’re happy like that?"

"Do you think we could discuss this when I’m not hungover? Not that talking about my sex life isn’t fascinating but my head hurts and I’d like to go back to sleep." A thought occurred to Harper, "Tyr, how did you get in here? I invoked privacy protocols last night."

Tyr had the grace to look a little guilty, "I had Dylan revoke them. We thought it would be a good idea to have the ship keep an eye on you."

"Oh. I’m going to go to bed now. Goodbye Tyr."

Tyr took the hint and got up. "We’re en-route back to Shantii Drift to drop off the survivors. We should arrive in about half an hour."

"Fine."

"You have no duty shift today, will you be going on-station?"

"No." Harper was sitting with his arms crossed glaring at Tyr.

Tyr picked up the remains of Harper’s meal and left.

Harper detoured to the bathroom to pick up some more painkillers, then climbed back into bed and tried to go back to sleep. Sleep was elusive though: Tyr’s protective behaviour was out of character. Or was it? Harper thought back and remembered a number of occasions where Tyr had looked out for him. They’d usually been in the middle of a battle and Harper had been too freaked out to notice but it was all coming back to him now.

Hot packaging…he thought as he drifted back to sleep.

"How is he?" Dylan asked, moving into step with Tyr.

"Almost back to his usual self. Once the hangover fades I think you can expect him back at work."

"Did he eat?"

"Eventually, he complained that he wasn’t hungry and then ate about six eggs and half a loaf of bread."

Dylan laughed. "Good, could you and Rommie keep an eye on him for a few days? Beka, Trance and I are going to busy with the survivors for a while. They’re all fairly traumatized."

"How did they escape the Magog anyway?" Tyr asked

"The old mine workings. They got down to the lowest level and collapsed the roof behind them. Only the fastest survived, a lot of them feel guilty about leaving children and the injured behind."

"If they hadn’t they’d have died too."

"They know that but I don’t think it helps, survivor guilt is tough to fight."

"Yes, it is," Tyr said quietly.

Dylan blinked. "Oh." There was an uncomfortable pause. "So you don’t mind looking out for Harper?"

"I don’t mind, I wouldn’t be much use to the colonists. Telling them to ‘live with it’ probably doesn’t constitute good counseling for unmodified humans."

"Ah, no. I don’t think so. Did Harper manage to download any information from the defense network?"

"Yes, the data chips should still be in his tool belt."

"Good, Rommie should review the information as soon as possible."

"I assume that means you want me to go and get them?"

"If you would. We need to know how large the raiding force in this area is. Depending on the size we can hopefully predict where they’ll attack next and warn them."

"We warned the people here. It didn’t seem to do much good."

"I think more people will listen now we have proof the Magog are on the attack."

"Never underestimate how blind a person can be when they don’t want to see."

"Hmmm."

Rommie strode into view in front of them. "Captain, one of the survivors is asking for you. I think he may have some pertinent information."

"Thank you Rommie, I’ll be right there. Harper managed to get some recordings of the attack before the...incident, Tyr was just about to collect them, I’d like you to analyze the data for swarm size and where they might have slipstreamed from." Rommie nodded. "Tyr, I’ll talk to you later, I’ll need to brief you and Harper on some weapons modifications but it can wait until Harper’s back on his feet." Dylan walked off towards the med deck.

"I should have been given the data immediately," Rommie said, falling into step with Tyr.

"I don’t think Harper even remembered he had it."

"But you knew."

"I had more pressing things on my mind at the time."

"Like looking after Harper? You forgot about important tactical data because Harper was upset?"

"No!" Tyr was suddenly confused: that *was* what had happened. He scowled and marched off down the corridor, leaving Rommie to catch up.

Harper was asleep again when they got to his quarters. Tyr noticed that Harper’s fingers were twitching and a light sheen of sweat covered his skin. The smell of fresh sweat and adrenaline filled the cabin and Tyr debated whether or not to wake Harper up. He took a step towards the bed.

"I wouldn’t if I were you," Rommie said quietly from the doorway, "for Harper that’s a quiet restful sleep."

"He’s having a nightmare."

"No, he’s just having a bad dream. If he were having a nightmare it would be…louder. Trust me Tyr, I watch Harper sleep all the time and he never sleeps without a few bad dreams."

"Every night?"

"Yes. On the plus side, I don’t think he remembers them when he wakes up and it doesn’t seem to disturb his sleep cycle much. He is getting enough rest despite the dreams."

"How often does he have nightmares?"

"Before the Magog larvae, once or twice a week. Now…most nights."

Tyr crouched down and searched through the belt still lying on the floor where he’d dropped it the day before. Finding the chips he handed them to Rommie and left, carefully not looking at Harper sprawled on the bed whimpering slightly.

Rommie silently crossed the room and placed a light kiss on Harper’s forehead. "Sweet dreams Harper, try to think of something nice. Me and keg of beer perhaps?" Rommie smiled as she remembered Harper’s behaviour the night before. "Or maybe Tyr?"

Harper quietened a little as Rommie straightened up and moved towards the door. She wrapped her hand around the chips and accessed the data. Gasping in shock she stumbled out of the door and closed it behind herself. A stream of corrupted files and visual records dumped themselves into her matrix, overwriting subroutines and shorting out a dozen or so processors before she shut down her retrieval commands and dropped the chips.

"Ow." Rommie winced and ran a quick check on her systems to make sure nothing was irretrievably damaged. Nothing important seemed to be affected so she carried on with her duties and reminded herself to ask Harper to give her check up once he was feeling better.

"Harper!" Beka was standing, hammering on the door to machine shop five. "I know you’re in there. Open the door!"

Rommie shimmered into sight; "The only people with access to machine shop five are Dylan and Harper."

Beka scowled. "Fine." She turned back to the door and yelled, "Harper, I’ve been patient: you can’t stay in there forever you know. It’s not healthy. You have ten minutes to get out of there and come find me. I’ll be on the Maru." Sending a black look Rommie’s way she marched off.

Rommie reappeared in machine shop five. "She has a point. You’ve been in here for the last twenty hours."

"I’m busy," Harper said shortly as he placed another completed nova bomb in its padded storage container.

"You’re not busy, busy is when you have a lot of work to do in a limited amount of time. You are making up work to fill time so you don’t have to think about what happened on the planet. If you want to distract yourself take some shore leave. We’ll be staying at Shantii drift for another 48 hours."

"No thanks. Been there, done…everyone I think. And in case you hadn’t noticed everything I do is on a limited amount of time. Dylan needs nova bombs, the weapons need to be at full capacity and I need to figure out how to make that work." Harper waved at the schematics and parts for the half-built tesseract generator sitting on a bench at the far wall. "Who knows, maybe I might get one of the things on that list done before I become a dear departed dad."

"Harper, it’s not going to come to that. And there are other things that need to be done: the environmental systems are off by almost five percent, there’s a huge knot in the data stream between my avatar and my main AI, I need help decrypting the mess that used to be the Jay’s colony records and Beka is taking her temper out on Dylan, who already feels guilty about sending you down there in the first place. Please, just talk to Beka, get her to calm down and then get some rest. If you don’t I’ll override security protocols and send Tyr in here to put you to bed again." Rommie grinned.

Harper’s eyebrows rose and he looked reluctantly amused. "Tyr huh? Okay, I’ll talk to Beka and get some sleep, but the other stuff will have to wait."

"As long as you rest I can wait for everything else."

<><><><><>

"You’re going to get sick if you carry on like this you know." Beka was pacing up and down in the narrow confines of the Maru.

Harper sighed, "I’m fine Beka, I’m taking my meds. I’m eating properly, I can’t do much about the not sleeping well, but you can’t have everything. If I work until I’m exhausted I have a better chance of getting a full night’s sleep. If it makes you feel any better I even have Tyr forcing food down my throat and nagging me about my health. I’m fine."

Beka stopped and stared at him. "Tyr?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I didn’t think Tyr was the nurturing type."

"Yeah, well, we’ve been through a lot together over the last few months." Harper shrugged.

"What, you two are buddies now or something?"

"No…he just…looks out for me. I never really thought about it before."

Beka tilted her head and studied Harper for a moment. "You should."

"Yes Mom, anything else?"

"Go get some sleep."

"Not a problem right now." Harper yawned and made his way out of the Maru.

Part Nine

Rommie felt…strange. That was the only way to describe it. Her diagnostics hadn’t picked up anything anomalous…but… "You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?" Rommie asked her core AI.

"As sure as I can be with all this interference in the link. Why hasn’t Harper fixed this yet?"

"He’s busy in machine shop five."

"I really think this takes priority over Nova bombs."

"He’s working on the tesseract generator."

"He needs to be working on the records from Jay’s. The data needs to be handled by something that won’t be hurt by the broken files. That requires wet ware."

"I know, and so does Harper. I’m sure he’ll get around to it."

Holo-Rommie flashed into view. "I just reminded him about it. He apologized and he’s on his way now."

Harper appeared at the door, Tyr in tow. "Hey there, sorry I didn’t get on this sooner. Data dump problems?"

"And problems with the avatar interface," Rommie replied as holo-Rommie and the main AI faded from view.

Tyr leaned against the doorframe and watched silently as Harper babbled about being busy and needing to get this done fast so he could get back to work. Tyr wondered if Harper even realized how that sounded: maintaining the ship was his work.

"Okay Rom-doll, I’m just going to purge the link and reset it. That should fix the problems between you and the Central core, then we can go and kick those records into shape."

"Fine, do you need me to do anything?"

"Nah, just lie back and think happy thoughts," Harper said as he sat on the floor and jacked in with a grin and a wince.

Tyr shifted uncomfortably as Harper slumped against the wall; there was no way he was ever going to get used to that. It brought back bad memories too. Tyr shook his head to rid himself of memories of Harper jacking into Jay’s records, Harper with a gun in his hand and a dead expression on his face…Harper asleep…

Tyr was about to leave when he noticed the avatar twitching. He wasn’t sure what was normal for it but he was sure uncontrolled limb movements weren’t usual. He stepped over to investigate when Harper jerked and screamed, ripped the sparking jack from his neck and passed out.

The lights went out and the Andromeda’s artificial gravity flickered. Tyr saw Rommie fall over but his attention was focused on Harper who was groaning and coming around.

"What the Hell?" Harper rubbed his neck and jumped to his feet. "Jesus!" Harper opened a com-line to the command deck and said, "Dylan, there’s a virus in the main AI." Harper reached out and grabbed some diagnostic tools and knelt next to Rommie. "I think it’s Dragan. They must have got to Jay just before us and downloaded it into the records. I didn’t know it was there because I didn’t view the whole thing…I didn’t want to see the Magog in action. It must have uploaded to Rommie when she scanned the chip and it’s been hiding there waiting to get into the core memory."

Harper shut down the link before Dylan could answer and opened up an access port in Rommie’s side and made some adjustments. "Shit, this is my fault: I should have scanned that stuff before Rommie got anywhere near it. And I should have checked why there was a problem with the data flow between the memories. I think that was part of Rommie’s programming trying to keep the virus contained. Damn!"

"It’s not your fault," Tyr said.

"Yes. It is. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in me, me, me, this wouldn’t have happened."

Harper reached over for his jack and Tyr grabbed his hand. "You’re not going back in there?"

"Just into Rommie. I think that’s the key to getting this out of the main AI: this thing has been sitting in Rommie for three days. It’ll have left footprints all over the place trying to hide. I’ll get a better idea of what to expect when I go after whatever the Hell it is."

"Your neck is burned."

"I’ll live. See you soon." Harper flashed Tyr a quick grin and plugged back in.

Tyr caught Harper as he slumped over and held him carefully. Tyr decided that he wasn’t going to think of this as hugging…he was just making sure that he was close enough to help if there were any more problems with the virus. The fact that there was almost exactly nothing he could do to help if anything went wrong was not something he was going to waste time considering.

Dylan’s voice boomed over the com, "Tyr to command now! We have multiple enemy ships incoming."

Tyr cursed, gently laid Harper down on the floor and ran for command.

Dylan swore as the image from the viewscreen faded. Another system shut down in a shower of sparks as Tyr entered the bridge. "Check weapons," Dylan said to Tyr as Beka wrestled with the piloting controls. Sounds of missiles impacting the hull shook the deck

"I’m losing control here," Beka said, "I don’t think we’ll be able to hold onto…anything much longer. Not that it matters since we can’t see where we’re going any more anyway."

"I wouldn’t be so sure about that." Harper’s voice came from the com system. "They left a *huge* mess in Rommie’s memory which was practically a blueprint on how to get rid of the virus and I’m stamping it out now. Targeting should be back right…about…now!" Tyr’s station flickered back to life. "And here come weapons. Am I good, or am I good?"

"Propulsion would be helpful," Beka said as the ship lurched to one side due to another impact.

Rommie appeared on the viewscreen. "Propulsion will be back on line in approximately 20 seconds."

"Too slow," Beka gasped as she checked the sensors, "there are five Dragan ships on the way that will be in range…well, they’re in range…and they’re firing."

"Countermeasures deployed," Tyr said calmly, "Drones launched."

"Yes!" Beka crowed as Andromeda’s defensive and offensive weaponry obliterated the incoming missiles and got to work on the Dragan vessels.

"Propulsion back on baby!" Harper said, "That was just too easy. The Dragans really *don’t* breed for brains do they?"

"Don’t get too cocky," Dylan growled, "I want to know how that virus got into Rommie’s systems."

"I’m sure the boy would have checked the data once he’d recovered from his shock on the planet. I believe you were the one that wanted the avatar to see the data immediately," Tyr said, as he launched another stream of missiles towards the retreating ships.

"The Drago-Kasov ships are going to slipstream, do you want to follow them?" Rommie asked from the screen.

"No, we have to make sure that virus really is out of the system."

"I’m on it boss." Harper’s voice drifted down, he sounded a little subdued. "On the upside the damage sustained to the hull is minimal and if the memory core checks out okay, we should be fine in a couple of hours. I’ll need to replace some wiring and stuff, that’s all."

"Fine," Dylan said, his attention returning to the sensors.

"If you don’t need me?" Tyr asked and left the room as Dylan nodded.

<><><><><>

Harper had left the floor and was now plugged into a wall socket. Tyr walked over and crouched in front of him. Hesitantly he reached out one hand and traced the line of Harper’s neck, feeling the light, rapid pulse under the skin. Tyr pulled back quickly as he felt Harper’s awareness return to his body.

Harper groaned and opened his eyes. "Uh, hi," he said, surprised as he saw Tyr in front of him. "I want you to know that I never fucked a Dragan for fun. I may have low standards but they’re just too damned inferior even for me."

Tyr’s laughter filled the room and echoed out into the corridor. "Glad to hear it," he said and pulled Harper into a rough hug. Afterwards neither of them was sure who had made the first move; their lips came together and it felt like the most natural thing in the universe. Harper moaned into Tyr’s mouth and Tyr took advantage of the slightly parted lips to flick his tongue lightly across Harper’s. Harper’s hands tightened in Tyr’s braids and Tyr slid his hands down
to cup Harper’s ass.

They broke apart, breathless and a little shocked at the intensity of the kiss. "Wow," Harper breathed, "Where did that come from?"

"I have no idea." Tyr replied, squeezing Harper’s ass. Harper leaned forwards to kiss Tyr again when a muted thump drew their attention to Rommie lying on the floor behind them. She was moving jerkily and her eyes were unfocused.

Harper leapt off Tyr and rushed over. "Shit, Rommie…are you okay? Tyr, throw over that jack will you?"

"You’re not going back in are you?" Tyr scowled, "You just fought off a computer virus and I know you haven’t slept for twenty four hours, you need to rest."

Harper started at the commanding tone in Tyr’s voice and frowned. "Yes, I’m going back in. This is my mess and I’m going to fix it. Jack please."

"I’m not going to let you put your health at risk just so you can tinker with your toys. Your neck is burned and who knows what sort of damage was caused when that thing sparked."

"*Let me*? And what makes you think it’s your business what I do?" Harper said quietly.

"Harper…" Tyr said.

"No, really. Do you think because we kissed that gives you the right to order my life? I’m not your possession. I’m not interested in being the great Alpha Tyr’s mate, fuck toy or whatever the Hell you call your pets. I do what I want. Maybe what I want includes sex with you, but it definitely doesn’t involve you telling me what to do."

Tyr growled, threw over the jack and stalked out of the room.

"Tell the boy he needs to rest." Tyr stood in front of Dylan with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

Dylan sighed, "Tyr, I know Harper needs to rest but we need to be sure the ship isn’t going to shut down again. As soon as the essential systems are checked out I’ll make sure he gets some sleep."

"He’s not working on the essential systems," Tyr shouted, "He’s trying to mend that avatar because he feels guilty. Guilt…towards a machine."

Beka slid down from the slipstream station and headed for the door; to Dylan she said, "I’ll talk to Harper, you calm Tyr down?"

"Good idea," Dylan said studying Tyr carefully. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"No."

"I know I asked you to keep an eye on Harper, but don’t you think you’re going a little overboard?"

"We’ll all suffer if he gets sick and the ship gets six new Magog crewmembers."

"And that’s all you’re worried about?"

"Of course."

"You and Harper have gone through a lot together since he was infested."

"We were *both* infested. And the fact that you keep throwing us into potentially lethal situations says more about your mental state than mine or Harper’s."

"Ah, well…"

"I don’t have time for this: I need to make sure the weapons systems are functioning correctly." Tyr turned his back on Dylan and walked out.

<><><><><>

Beka found Harper sitting next to Rommie, soldering something in her side, while he scanned the ship’s systems via his ‘awake’ interface.

"Want to tell me about it?" Beka sat down next to him.

"Nothing to tell."

"Like Hell, Seamus. You’re working yourself to death on the tesseract generator and whatever else you have stashed in machine shop five while ignoring the rest of your duties. The Harper I know would never have let something like this happen. And now Tyr is all wound up. What did you do to him?"

Harper sighed and laid down the soldering wand. "I kissed him. Or he kissed me. I suppose technically I kissed him first, but I wasn’t in my right mind at the time. And then just now he hugged me and…"

"You kissed Tyr? And you’re still alive. You *kissed* Tyr?"

"And then I freaked out and yelled at him."

"About the kissing?"

"No. Well, not directly. He said he wasn’t going to *let* me go back in to fix Rommie. Like he had a say in what I do." Harper shifted and pulled out the jack from his neck. "Just because I’m willing to have sex with the guy doesn’t mean I’m willing to let him make my decisions for me."

"Harper, if Dylan or I had said that what would your reaction have been?"

Harper sat and thought about it for a moment. "That’s different."

"How?"

"You’d just mean that you were worried about…ah shit!"

"Yeah. He wasn’t trying to assert his dominance over you; he was just worried. Like I am, like Dylan would be if he took his head out of his ass long enough to see what’s going on." Beka looked around her. "Is there anything here that you absolutely have to do right now?"

"I’ve checked the memory core and it’s clean. I’ll have to clean out some crap but that can wait, it’s partitioned off and can’t do any harm right now. There’s just Rommie…"

"Rommie can wait."

"But…"

"No buts, you get Trance to look at your neck and then you go to bed. And if you see Tyr on your way to bed, apologize."

Harper sat quietly, picking up and playing with the soldering wand. "Do you think I’m making a horrible mistake?"

"In what way?"

"Lusting after Tyr?"

"You’re asking *me* for dating advice?"

"Hmm, good point. But at least I know you date. As far as I can tell no one else on this ship does."

"Harper, I’ve flirted and made passes at Tyr and he’s never taken the slightest bit of notice. If you can get him to kiss you with little or no provocation I think you’re doing okay. As to the advisability of getting involved with another species…you’re going to have to work that out for yourself.

"Thanks." Harper smiled wryly.

"All part of the service. Now go see Trance about your neck."

<><><><><>

"Tyr?" Harper stood at the door to Tyr’s quarters. "Tyr…sorry okay? I was freaking out and I don’t have good judgement when it comes to Nietzscheans. Are you going to open the door?"

The door stayed firmly closed. Harper stared at it for a few moments before walking away.

Tyr stood on the other side, confused, annoyed and a little sad.

"Ow! Oh shit…ow!"

Harper sucked down another dose from his inhaler, aware that one more would tip him over into unconsciousness. The pain in his guts intensified and he hunched over with a cry.

"Dammit, not now…" Harper looked over at the tesseract device he’d been working on almost non-stop for the last three weeks. He’d almost cracked it…so damn close. He was glad he’d made lots of notes: maybe Hohne and the others would be able to finish it so no one else would have to…

*Hohne*!

Harper was vaguely aware of Dylan and Trance standing over him with concerned expressions, but it wasn’t until the pain block kicked in that he realized he must have asked Dylan to take him to Sinti. Actually Dylan looked really freaked out.

"Hey, I’m feeling a lot better now. I should really get back to work," Harper said, sliding off the bed.

"No! No more working. I should have listened to Beka and Tyr about your overworking in machine shop five."

Harper scowled. "Dylan, right now the only thing that gives me even a chance of surviving to see next week is that tesseract generator. I need to make sure that Hohne gets all the latest calculations so we’re not playing catch-up when he gets here. Right now I don’t think overworking can make things any worse."

"Alright, but I want Tyr in there with you. Tyr does any fetching and carrying that needs to be done. And I know he’ll alert Trance if you get worse."

"Uh, not Tyr okay? How about Beka?" Harper said cautiously. "Tyr and I aren’t really talking at the moment."

Dylan raised his brows. "No?"

"My fault, I suppose. I screwed up a couple of weeks ago and haven’t had a chance to apologise properly yet."

"Well, this will be a perfect opportunity won’t it? A couple of weeks?"

Harper shifted uncomfortably. "I’ve been busy. And he hasn’t really been in a very receptive mood."

"Too busy for a couple of weeks?"

"It took a long time to get Rommie back in action. And she’s still not completely right."

"I don’t think the blue hair suits her either but it’s her choice."

"Do you know why she did it?"

"No."

"She told me that she wanted something about her appearance that was under her own control. She said that I’d made her to be like I wanted and that she’d rather look less attractive than be my fantasy-made-flesh."

"Ouch." Dylan winced.

"That’s not the Rommie I know. Ever since the Dragan virus she’s been different…more aggressive."

"Harper, she’s a warship. She’s supposed to be aggressive. I’m sure she’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about, are you going to let me send Tyr in to do your heavy lifting?"

Harper grimaced. "Fine, but I’m getting pretty tired of you assigning Tyr to be my minder. Just because I look weak and pathetic doesn’t mean I am. I’ve got the survival instinct of a Nietzschean, I had to or I wouldn’t be alive today."

Dylan smiled. "Noted."

<><><><><>

Harper was lightly linked to a small data recorder when Tyr arrived. Harper gave him a hesitant smile and continued running thin strips of super-conductive polymer through a scanner.

"This wasn’t my idea. Dylan thought I needed a keeper."

Tyr snorted and leaned against the wall. "Dylan isn’t usually that perceptive." Harper sighed and winced as a particularly vicious tug in his guts got past the pain block. Tyr frowned, "Is it bad?"

"What do you think? You know what it feels like to have these bastards chewing on your guts. Now imagine they’re four times the size."

"Ah."

"Actually, come to think of it, by now they’re probably five times the size." Harper ran a hand over his abdomen which, to Tyr’s eye, was slightly swollen. "They’re making a Hell of a mess down there. My stomach looks like raspberry ripple ice cream."

"You’re very calm about this."

"Yeah, well, I’ve had six months to get used to the idea haven’t I? Bring that bench over here would you?"

Tyr and Harper worked quietly beside each other, neither wanting to get tangled up in more emotional matters. Tyr made his excuses as soon as Hohne arrived on board; he’d realized with mounting horror that he could hear the larvae inside Harper. Tiny squeaks and sounds of movement; it was a relief to escape.

Tyr entered his quarters and tossed his shirt to one side before making his way to the bathroom. He splashed cold water over his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. "Pull yourself together man," he said, scowling, "becoming emotionally attached to a dead man…" Tyr dried his face and walked back to his bedroom.

Only his bedroom wasn’t there.

Tyr looked around in confusion and saw Harper, Hohne and the other one..Rekeeb or Reekeb or something similar. Tyr’s mind insisted on categorizing him as ‘the sidekick’. Tyr’s first thought was that Harper was using his new technology to play one of his pranks. Tyr strode over and grabbed Harper by the back of his head. He ignored the soft tickle of Harper’s hair on the palm of his hand and the flushed nervous look on Harper’s face. Harper wasn’t lying about the disturbance not being caused by him: this close Tyr could read the minute fluctuations that betrayed a liar. The only signs that Harper was sending out were pain and desire-tinged nervousness.

The events of the next few hours seemed blurred, as if his perceptions were fractured as well as time and space. Tyr’s emotions too, seemed to be out of his control. The shock of seeing Trance, transformed and so much more sinister was nothing to the shock of hearing Harper volunteer to die so that the Perseid could live again. Anger, fear and frustration boiled inside him…how *dare* Harper sacrifice himself?

The relief that flowed through Tyr when Trance took the decision away from them all and removed Harper’s larvae was huge, enormous. Seeing those *things* come floating out of Harper was truly one of the happiest moments of his life.

Harper was free. Harper wasn’t going to die.

Harper sat in hydroponics, staring at the plants.

"You don’t seem happy to be alive." Tyr sat down beside him.

"I am. I just wish…"

"Your Perseid friend hadn’t had to die? That Trance hadn’t changed?"

"Yes."

"You don’t react well to change do you?"

"Are you surprised? Apart from Beka taking me off Earth and finding the Andromeda pretty much every change in my life has been bad. You think when you live in Hell things can only get better. Wrong: things can always get worse."

"And you think your survival makes things worse." Tyr shifted closer, into Harper’s personal space.

"Not for me, obviously. For everyone else."

"In what way does the universe become a darker place because you’re still in it?"

Harper turned and smiled sadly. "Hohne was a great mind."

"So are you."

"Only in my dreams could I ever hope to be a Hohne. The Perseids are not pleased about what happened here. They could pull out of the Commonwealth, that’s not good. The new Commonwealth doesn’t look so stable at the moment. You know the Castallians aren’t happy about the Sabra-Jaguar Pride joining up. If we lost the Perseids the fish people would probably leave too. I’d hate to be the cause of the second fall of the Commonwealth."

"I’m sure Beka could get them to see sense."

Harper laughed a little at that. "What about Trance? Our Trance I mean. What happened to our Trance when she walked through that portal? Did she die? Did she cease to exist?"

"She volunteered for that. There has to be a very important reason for her to have done that. She must have known that the Universe needs you."

"She…went so I could survive. Too much sacrifice has been made to ensure that I live. I’m not sure that I can ever make enough difference to balance the scales."

Tyr reached out and slid his arm around Harper’s shoulders. "And I’m sure you will." Harper relaxed and let Tyr draw him into a tight embrace. They sat for a long time, not saying anything, just holding each other shadow of an apple tree. Finally Tyr tilted Harper’s face up and said, "I’m sorry."

"For what?"

"For backing away from you after the Dragan attack. It wasn’t because you lost your temper: it was because I realized how much you meant to me. I knew it was going to hurt when you died and I didn’t want it to hurt worse. I should have had more faith in your ingenuity."

Harper grinned. "Yes, you should."

Slowly Harper reached up and pulled Tyr’s face down. The first kiss was light and testing. Harper drew back and licked his lips. "You mean a lot to me too. You have for a while, don’t ask how long: I don’t know. It sorta snuck up on me."

The second kiss was slow and sensual; they explored each other’s mouths and used their hands to explore everywhere else.

Eventually though, reality had to pierce their little island of peace. They heard Trance enter the room; Harper tensed up and pulled away from Tyr. "I don’t want her to know."

"She probably already does."

"How? I died in her reality, remember."

"And I’m sure she noticed what effect your death had on me."

"Oh." Harper grinned happily. "Want to show me your quarters? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them."

"There’s no hurry you know," Tyr smiled, "you have a whole lifetime now."

"A lifetime. I have a lot of things I want to do and only forty to fifty years to do them all in. I don’t want to waste a second. C’mon." Harper stood up and tugged Tyr to his feet. "I hope your bed is bigger than mine."

Tyr laughed. "I’m sure it is. The standard issue was too small so I ordered another. We could fit the rest of the crew in and still have room to play."

Harper smirked. "Well *there’s* an interesting mental image. Could you picture Dylan’s face? Beka would be cheering us on and Rommie would be trying to get us to provide scientific commentary."

Tyr laughed and noticed Harper hadn’t mentioned Trance. Deciding that this was the wrong time to talk about their new/old crewmember Tyr allowed Harper to drag him down the corridor to the crew quarters.

"Oooooh, nice!" Harper said, climbing onto Tyr’s bed. It wasn’t quite big enough for the whole crew, but not far from it. Harper piled the pillows up behind him and kicked his boots onto the floor. "Comfy too."

Tyr grinned. "I’m glad you approve. What were you expecting to do on there?"

"Hmmm." Harper ticked off on his fingers: "One, watch you strip. Two, watch you strip me. Three, bite you a lot. Four, get fucked into this nice soft mattress. Five, nap a bit. Six, more of numbers three and four. Why, what were you expecting to do?"

Tyr’s gaze had turned dark and smoldering. "Something very similar." Tyr hesitated. "You know I’ve never done this with a man before?"

"Oh, I forgot about that." Harper smiled and held his hand out.

Tyr held Harper’s hand and sat down on the bed. He unfastened his boots and slid down, beside Harper. "I’m concerned I might hurt you."

"Nah, we’ll be fine. You just have to remember that this *is* an ‘unnatural act’ and although our bodies can do this, they aren’t exactly designed to do it without help. Speaking of which, do you have…um"

Tyr opened up a drawer and pulled out a tube. "I did some…research."

Harper burst out laughing and threw himself on top of Tyr. "Oh good." Harper bit down lightly on Tyr’s earlobe. "So, do I get to watch you strip or am I going to have to do it myself?"

Tyr growled and rolled over so he was straddling Harper; he sat back and rubbed his ass over Harper’s crotch before slowly pulling his shirt over his head. "Better."

"Uh huh." Harper’s breathing had quickened and his hands stroked up and down Tyr’s leather-clad thighs. "Still too many clothes though. These need to come off." Harper reached out and unfastened the catch at the waistband of Tyr’s pants. Tyr’s cock throbbed as Harper let his fingers slowly trail across it.

It was all too much for Tyr: he leapt up, tugged off his pants and almost ripped Harper’s clothes pulling them off. Once they were both finally naked Tyr pushed Harper down and began to kiss him hungrily, one hand roaming over Harper’s chest while the other gripped Harper’s right hip.

Harper wriggled. "Mmmm, nice, but a bit heavy."

Tyr gasped at the hot sensations caused by Harper’s body squirming under him but slid to one side so he and Harper were lying facing each other. He put his hand back on Harper’s hip and stroked the line of his pelvic bone with his thumb. "You’ve got very soft skin there."

"Makes up for the scar tissue and calluses elsewhere I guess," Harper said, reaching out and winding his hands into Tyr’s hair. Harper tugged a little, Tyr moved closer and they kissed again. Harper moaned as Tyr’s arm tightened pulling them together, cock to cock. "Okay, I don’t think either of us is going to last long. Roll over onto your back."

Tyr did as he was told; Harper quickly uncapped the lube and stroked it over Tyr’s cock. Tyr groaned and bucked his hips up. Harper reached around and prepared himself before throwing one leg over Tyr and lining up.

"Now!" Tyr said, grabbing at Harper’s hips and pushing up. Harper pulled away a little. "Don’t tease me!"

"I’m not teasing: you’re wriggling too much. Hold still for a moment and don’t move until I say so."

Tyr threw his head back against the pillows and sighed. "Are you always this bossy in bed?"

"No, not usually. Are you always this difficult?" Harper gripped Tyr’s shaft and slid slowly down onto it, wincing slightly. He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, blowing it out hard before sinking further down.

Tyr wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hold back until Harper was all the way down: he never imagined that this could feel so good. The urge to thrust up hard and let go was almost irresistible. He bit down hard on his lower lip as Harper slid the final few inches down.

Tyr looked up at Harper’s sweat-soaked body. "Please," he whispered, "Please move." Tyr reached out and wrapped a large hand around Harper’s cock. Pumping it hard he gasped as Harper raised himself up and plunged back down. Tyr sped up the movement of his hand, knowing he was about to come.

Tyr managed to hold out until he heard Harper whimper and came hard; screaming,
stars in front of his eyes and the feeling of shooting months of worry and frustration out of his cock, he almost passed out.

"Uhh, Tyr. Tyr!"

"Mmmm?"

"You can let go now."

Tyr looked up, Harper was sprawled over him and he realized that his fist was still wrapped around Harper’s cock. It was obvious that Harper had come too, and Tyr was rather annoyed that he’d missed it. "Can we do that again, or are you too sore?"

Harper laughed weakly. "Can you wait a few minutes until my central nervous system grows back?"

Tyr chuckled. "You have ten minutes."

"Fine. I’m just going to nap for a few minutes, wake me up when you want me to do something." Harper slid off onto the bed and curled up, looking very much like he was going to sleep.

Tyr lay and watched him. Harper’s skin was a little flushed and Tyr could see the fading bruises on his stomach where the larvae had done subcutaneous damage. Tyr reached out and stoked the soft skin just above Harper’s hipbone. On impulse Tyr slid down the bed and gently pressed his lips to Harper’s stomach.

"I thought I got ten minutes." Harper said, opening one eye.

"Ten minutes until you have to do something. Go back to sleep, I’m just learning you."

"Learning me huh? Carry on." Harper shut his eye again and lay back with a soft sigh. Tyr kissed the fading marks on Harper’s stomach before moving up and running his tongue around Harper’s left nipple. Tyr grinned as he heard Harper’s breath catch and did it again, this time brushing his lips over the tip. Tyr continued to work his mouth over the hardened nub until he felt Harper’s cock thickening and pressing into his stomach.

Tyr reached over and pinched Harper’s right nipple firmly and laughed quietly at Harper’s yelp. Soothing the hurt with his tongue, Tyr then kissed back down Harper’s body to rub his face over that patch of soft skin again. Harper’s cock brushed Tyr’s chin and Tyr licked the head.

"Ooooh-kay, I think that’s ten minutes," Harper breathed.

Tyr was always wide awake as soon as he woke. There were none of those fuzzy, wondering-what-was-going-on, half-awake problems that unaltered humans suffered from. Which was why, when he was woken up by Harper climbing over him and sprinting to the bathroom, he jumped up and followed him instead of going ‘what the fuck?’ like anyone else would.

Harper was throwing up. A lot.

"I could choose to find this rather unflattering," Tyr said casually. "I’m sure you weren’t drinking last night. Well, not alcohol anyway."

"Uhhh Tyr, it’s way too early to deal with your idea of a sense of humour, even if I wasn’t sick to my stomach."

"Do you normally vomit after sex?"

"I don’t normally vomit at all. Twenty years of nearly starving to death tends to make your body want to hang onto anything even remotely like food," Harper said, resting his head against the bowl as he triggered the refresh cycle.

"Will I call Trance here or do you want to go to med-deck?"

Harper groaned. "I’ll be fine once I eat something."

"No," Tyr said looking more closely at Harper, "you won’t. You have an elevated temperature and you’re shaking."

"Crap! Perfect time to get ill. Did you notice I didn’t get ill when I was infested? The larvae gave me some sort of immunity. That was the longest I’ve ever gone without getting sick y’know. Every silver lining has a cloud: now I get to be ill all the time again."

<><><><><>

"You haven’t caught anything," Trance said.

"Then why am I sick?" Harper scowled at Trance. "I don’t throw up without a good reason."

"You’re in withdrawal."

Harper went white. "Are you telling me that my body *misses* the larvae?"

"No, it’s the serum that’s causing the problems. It was pretty toxic stuff so your body had to adapt to it. Now your body is adapting back. It’s going to be rough but you don’t have to stay in sick-bay."

"Good, what else can I look forward to?"

"Apart from the nausea…hot and cold flashes, shakes, mood swings and irrational behaviour."

"How long is this going to last?" Tyr asked, rubbing the back of Harper’s neck.

"I don’t know."

Tyr frowned. "I thought you knew everything?"

"Too many variables. Harper will get better faster if he eats well: lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, drinks a lot of water and does some light exercise. Trance tilted her head to one side. "Although I think you two have the ‘exercise’ part down already."

Harper scowled and hopped off the bed. "Great, can I go now?"

Trance smiled slightly. "Yes, just…"

"…take it easy and behave myself," Harper interrupted, "I know."

Harper wobbled on his way out of the door and Tyr caught his elbow. Harper snatched it back and scowled. "I’m fine, don’t fuss." Noticing Tyr’s blank expression Harper sighed. "Sorry. It’s just…I thought it was all over. Goodbye Magog, hello fun and junk food. I forgot that life before the Magog wasn’t perfect either."

"I could make some soup?"

Harper swallowed and then went white again. "Please don’t talk about food."

"You still feel nauseous?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe we should go back and get more anti-emetic?"

Harper shook his head, realized his mistake and rushed for the nearest men’s room. Tyr sighed and followed him.

<><><><><>

Harper sipped watered-down apple juice and chewed on dry toast as Tyr did something fancy to the pile of vegetables Trance had left in the kitchen. Harper didn’t even recognise most of them, but Tyr apparently knew exactly what to do with them all. Some had been put away in various storage cupboards and refrigerators but most were being turned into Harper’s lunch. Harper’s stomach lurched again and he sipped more juice to calm it, noticing as he put the glass
down that his hands were shaking.

Beka breezed into the room and raised an eyebrow at the sight of Tyr preparing food. Seeing Harper sitting watching him she grinned and went over to tease Harper.

"What the Hell?" Beka almost shouted as she saw Harper’s white face and shaking body. Whirling around to face Tyr she yelled, "What did you do to him? If this is your fault I’m going to kill you!"

"Beka, it’s not Tyr," Harper said, noticing that his voice was rasping. "I’m withdrawing from the meds."

"Withdrawal?" Beka looked shocked and Harper remembered that she’d had her own experience of coming off drugs.

Harper nodded. "You think this is bad you should have seen me before Trance dosed me up."

Tyr came over and refilled Harper’s glass. "He vomited three times on the way to med-deck. And that was after emptying his stomach in my bathroom when he woke up."

Beka looked concerned and amused at the same time. "Why was Harper waking up in your quarters?"

Tyr grinned and looked embarrassed. "He took a nap."

"After." Harper added with a grin, suddenly feeling a little better.

"Well it’s about time!" Beka said, grinning and punching Tyr lightly on the arm.

"What’s about time?" Dylan asked as he walked in.

"Um, Tyr’s sharing his culinary skills," Harper said quickly, giving Beka a ‘shut up’ look.

"Food prepared by an assassin? Sounds like a dangerous way to get a good meal."

"He’s not an assassin any more," Harper said, and cringed as his voice cracked and wheezed on the last word.

Dylan looked at Harper. "What’s wrong with you?"

Harper rolled his eyes and thankfully Beka answered for him. Dylan frowned at the news that his engineer would be out of action for a while. "And Trance didn’t say how long this would last?"

"She didn’t know," Tyr said, placing a bowl of clear vegetable soup in front of Harper.

Harper took a careful mouthful and smiled. "Nice. I think this might stay down. Thanks Tyr."

<><><><><>

There wasn’t much that stayed down over the next few days. Harper spent most of the week either throwing up or being served bland but nutritious food by Tyr. They were both getting a little frustrated by Harper’s illness. Harper because he didn’t want to be ill, he wanted to be having fun, and Tyr because Harper kept sneaking off to drink beer and trying to get Tyr back into bed.

The mood swings didn’t help either.

"No!" Tyr said pushing Harper away.

"Why not?"

"You’re ill."

"You can’t catch anything you know." Harper pouted.

Tyr tried not to look at Harper’s lower lip. "That’s not what I’m worried about and you know it."

"I’ve never puked while performing a blow job. Well, once…but that doesn’t count: I was drunk and in zero-g."

"You’re drunk now," Tyr said, smelling the alcohol on Harper’s breath.

"One beer! I had one beer! I’m not drunk; I’m not even buzzed. And guess what? It settled my stomach. I thought you’d be happy that I was ready for some action again."

"I will be when you’re really better."

"Maybe I’m better now?"

"Hold your hand out."

"I don’t need to prove anything."

"Hold your hand out."

Harper held his hand out and pulled it back quickly as it shook. "Big deal, I have a few tiny shakes. You might enjoy the vibrations."

"No."

"Fine, me and my shaky hand will go have fun together." Harper stormed out of Tyr’s quarters and Tyr sat down with a sigh. He hoped this would be over soon.

<><><><><>

Harper woke up and stretched. For the first time in a week he’d woken up without feeling sick. Holding his hands out he smiled: no shakes. Harper decided that as soon as he’d had breakfast he was going to march up to Tyr, plant a big kiss on him and hold out his hands. Harper was fairly sure that as soon as Tyr saw the shakes were gone there was going to be a *lot* of fun.

Harper was whistling as he made his way up to command, when he heard a gun power up behind him. Turning suddenly he saw Rommie pointing a Gauss rifle at his head.

Rommie smiled icily. "You’ll do."

<><><><><>

Tyr checked his readout again. "Dylan, did you authorise Harper to take the Maru out?"

"No. He’s taken the Maru? What’s going on?"

"I have no idea."

Dylan turned to the main screen and blinked as the lights began to fade.

"The Maru is going into slipstream." Tyr said as the last of the readouts failed. "And we’re dead in space."

"What the fuck is going on Rommie? What’s wrong with you?" Harper asked as he saw her activate a link to shut down the Andromeda.

Rommie brought up some co-ordinates on the screens. "Take us to slipstream."

"Not a chance."

Rommie poked Harper in the stomach with her gun. "Now."

"You can’t shoot me, I’m the only one of us who can pilot slipstream."

"And I’m sure you can still do it with only one foot."

Harper took the Maru into slipstream.

The slipstream transfer was shaky and Harper realised he wasn’t entirely over his withdrawal. "I have to throw up." Harper tried to get out of the chair.

"Stay." Rommie barked and pulled a med-spray out of her pocket.

"No way." Harper pulled away but Rommie pressed the spray to his neck.

"Anti-nausea meds."

"Uh, right." Harper felt the nausea recede a little.

"Do you want to tell me what’s going on?"

"New co-ordinates."

Harper looked down at the screen. "That takes us into Drago-Kasov territory."

"I know."

"Oh shit! Why are we going into Dragan space?"

"You remember that Dragan virus I was infected with about a month ago?"

"Yes, how could I forget? The Dragans attacked and I got one Hell of an electrical discharge from you."

"The virus and the attack were a decoy. This is the real plan."

"Huh?"

"You were supposed to find that virus and neutralise it. The Dragans have extensive files on you, you know. They were aware that the chances of hiding a virus from you were very small and you were likely to find anything they left in the Jay’s World files so they made a big showy obvious mess for you to find. And you fell for it. Although, if they’d known you were going to be so sloppy, I’m sure they’d have had a bigger strike force ready."

"Oh crap. There’s no way I’m going into Dragan space. Forget it." Harper suddenly felt queasy again.

"You *want* to lose a foot?" Rommie powered up her rifle and aimed it at Harper’s left foot.

This time he did throw up when they exited slipstream. Rommie let him clean it up and then tied him to the pilot’s chair.

"Rommie, c’mon…it’s me here. Do you really want to do this? Think about it. Nietzscheans are bad news. And Dragans are the worst of the lot. They’re going to kill me and disassemble you. You’re an AI: you have intelligence. It this intelligent behaviour?"

"I am acting on my orders. I am now a Drago-Kasov covert operative. Having an AI who so closely resembles a human is an asset they won’t waste. Particularly when they know that I was a trusted member of the inner circle during the uprising on Earth."

"Oh crap. You can’t tell them about that. They’ll send you in to kill everyone. You aren’t an assassin."

"I can be if that’s what’s needed."

"Rommie, this is wrong…can’t you see that? Your other self is hanging dead in space and the Dragans are going to kill all your friends. You can beat the programming. You have to try. Please Rommie, get us out of here before the Dragans arrive."

"I don’t have friends: I have functions and protocols and orders. The Drago-Kasov are on their way here now and you are going to shut up."

Harper glared. "Make me."

"If you insist." Rommie lifted her rifle and brought it down on Harper’s head. Rommie checked to make sure there wasn’t any permanent damage and sat in silence waiting for a signal from the Dragans.

They didn’t have to wait long. Two hours later, and half an hour after Harper had woken up and decided to stay silent, they were hailed. Rommie punched the screen up and smiled at Cuatemoc. "Authorisation code ‘rom/833/4/beta’."

Cuatemoc smiled. "Do you have the item?"

"I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t."

"The Andromeda is out of action?"

"Yes. You can find her at these co-ordinates." Rommie sent a file over.

"Excellent. And I see you brought me a little gift too." Cuatemoc leered at Harper who froze suddenly and tried to shrink further back in his chair.

Rommie paused before answering. "I needed him to pilot slipstream. We don’t need him or the ship any more."

"I’d like to keep them around anyway…for entertainment value, if nothing else. The kludge belongs to the Drago-Kasov anyway and…"

"I don’t *belong* to anyone," Harper growled.

"Not even Tyr?" Rommie asked.

"Tyr?" Cuatemoc asked.

"He’s Tyr’s lover."

Cuatemoc beamed. "A wonderful bonus! For that I think I’ll keep you assembled. You really are a marvel of modern engineering."

"Thanks." Harper said sarcastically.

<><><><><>

"Well?" Dylan said impatiently.

Beka pulled herself out of auxiliary power converters and scowled at Dylan. "I’m not Harper, I can’t fix this in minutes. I can give you minimal power now, so go read the sensor log and quit bugging me."

"Harper and the avatar are both missing." Tyr said, looking worried.

Dylan looked up from the records he was examining. "The shut down codes are all classified. I can’t cancel them."

"You are the highest ranking High Guard officer alive. How can they be classified?"

"Rommie has codes dating back to when I was just another captain in a fleet of millions. They were all sitting there in her memory waiting to be accessed, or hacked."

"You think Harper had something to do with this?" Tyr asked.

"Who else?"

"The avatar has been behaving strangely recently."

"I’d point out that Harper hasn’t been very rational over the last week or so either." Dylan scowled.

Tyr growled and started towards Dylan.

"Uh guys?" Trance asked. "Have you seen this?"

<><><><><>

Harper felt the bump as Cuatemoc’s ship attached itself to the Maru and gave in to a moment of despair before gritting his teeth and making a few dozen escape plans. Rommie untied him and pulled him over to the docking port. It opened and Cuatemoc walked in.

"Welcome to the Maru sir," Rommie said, saluting.

Cuatemoc gestured to his men to enter the Maru and they headed back to the cargo area. "It’s nice to meet you Andromeda." Cuatemoc walked over to Harper and grinned. "Very nice, I understand what Tyr sees in you."

"Go to Hell, Drago-Jerkoff."

Cuatemoc’s grin widened and he punched Harper in the stomach. "I don’t think much of the Kodiak’s training. Still, breaking you should be fun."

Harper choked and wheezed on the floor and decided that, if there was any possible chance of killing Cuatemoc before he escaped, he was going to take it.

"Bring him." Cuatemoc said to Rommie who hauled Harper to his feet and dragged him back to the cargo area where four Dragans were using sophisticated equipment on…

"Hello," Harper rasped, "that’s Tyr’s box."

<><><><><>

Dylan and Tyr looked down at the empty space where the progenitor’s coffin had been left.

"Tyr, I’m really sorry," Dylan said.

Tyr turned. "At least now we know it wasn’t Harper who shut us down."

"We do? How?"

"Harper wouldn’t have taken this box," Tyr said with a feral grin.

<><><><><>

"Tyr’s box? He told you about it did he?" Rommie asked. "Pillow talk?"

"More like ‘holding my head as I puked’ talk but yeah," Harper said.

The last of the lights on the equipment turned green and the Dragans stood back. Cuatemoc marched forward and opened the lid.

To reveal a blow up sex doll, complete with faux bone blades and a crude double helix made from electrical wire.

Harper stifled a laugh. "Everyone…I’d like you to meet Miranda."

"Let me get this straight. You got Harper to break in here and then the two of you sto..."

"*Reacquired* the Progenitor’s remains. Yes," Tyr interrupted Dylan.

"I am not happy about this, but under the circumstances I suppose it was a good idea." Dylan ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Where is the body now?"

"Do you really expect me to tell you?"

Dylan shrugged and tried to get through to Beka. "Beka? How are you doing?"

There was the sound of muffled swearing and mechanical noises from the com channel before Beka replied, "I’ve screwed around with this as much as I can. We have life support and minimal internal power. No weapons, no slipstream drive and unless we turn off life support no sensors or engines. The good news is that Harper installed a back door to fix this very problem."

Dylan looked a little aggravated but relieved. "And the reason we haven’t used it yet?"

"It’s protected and he didn’t tell me the passwords. Or rather he did, and then changed them after I…freaked out on flash."

"Ah, Tyr?"

"Harper has enough loyalty to you that he would never reveal such a gap in your defenses to me, irrespective of our relationship."

"Relationship? Did you say that the way I thought you did?"

"Harper might have told Trance or the Magog about it."

"He did," Trance said, from the doorway. "He told me that he was the only person who knew the passwords but if we really needed to know then we could find them written on the base of a statue in the Chichin Museum of Art."

"How very Harper," Beka drawled through the com system. "I bet I know which statue too."

"The pink one," Trance and Beka said together.

"Great, whatever. Beka, take a slipfighter and go find that password," Dylan said.

"There may be a bigger problem," Tyr said.

"The Dragans," Dylan replied. "They’re on they’re way here."

"The Andromeda is too great a prize for them to pass up, and once they find out what’s in the coffin they’ll be here in force."

"Beka, if we take down life support in all areas except command and engineering do we have enough power to go anywhere we can hide?"

"Uh, yeah. There’s an iron and transuranic-rich asteroid belt on the edge of this system. If we hid in there they’d never find us. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to see out either. Or move fast enough to avoid impacts. It’ll be nasty."

"We don’t have a lot of choice. Beka, you’ll be needed here to pilot and make sure there’s a minimum of damage. Tyr…"

"I’m going after Harper."

"I don’t know that that’s a very good idea at the moment Tyr. Once the Andromeda is…"

"I’m going after Harper," Tyr said again. "A slipfighter can penetrate Drago-Kasov space far more discreetly than the Andromeda can and I have contacts there I can use."

Dylan thought for a moment and nodded. "Go." Tyr left for the hangar bay. Dylan’s gaze fell on Trance.

"Don’t look at me," Trance said. "You’re the best person for the job. Trust me." Trance smiled and Dylan saw the ‘I can see the future, so do as you’re told’ look in her eyes.

"Great. Please don’t wreck my ship while I’m gone," Dylan sighed.

<><><><><>

"Concussion, a broken arm and five broken ribs."

Harper heard the words somewhere off in the distance. His reality was focused on the huge pain he was in. Cuatemoc hadn’t appreciated Harper’s little joke and had kicked him around the cargo hold until he’d started throwing up again.

"Nanos?" the voice said.

"Nah, let the little shit suffer." A deeper voice, further away.

*Oh I hope you die a horrible death*, Harper thought at the second voice.

"Cuatemoc said he wanted him able to answer questions and um…"

"Cuatemoc won’t be back for days. You can heal him then. I don’t think he minds a few bruises on his toys."

*Toys? Oh shit. Still, if Cuatemoc isn’t here that gives me time to escape*…I hope.

Harper heard footsteps fading and a door slamming shut and tried to move. He gasped at the pain in his head, side and left arm. Escape was going to have to wait. He tried to open his eyes and realised that they were gummed shut with his own dried blood. Once he’d rubbed his eyes clear he looked around his cell: a small, plain, featureless room. Harper was lying on a narrow bunk and there was a sink and toilet against the opposite wall. Harper was very thirsty so he
tried to get up again with little success.

There wasn’t anything in the room for Harper to use as a splint, so he improvised by tearing up his outer shirt into strips and binding them as tightly as he could around his arm. Harper was pale and sweating and thanking the Divine that the break hadn’t been displaced by the time he was finished. There was no way he would have been able to endure the pain of setting it.

There wasn’t much he could do for the ribs, but Harper knew from experience that ribs healed fast and all he’d have to do was be careful moving around for a while. The pain in his head would hopefully fade once he got a drink. Harper hoped it was partly due to dehydration and not just the concussion. Slowly and painfully he shuffled the two steps over to the sink and took a few mouthfuls of stale, coppery water. It tasted great.

Tyr was loading up the slip fighter when Beka appeared beside him. "I know Harper is your priority now but bring back the Maru and Rommie too."

"I can understand you wanting to retrieve the Maru, but why a faulty piece of equipment like the avatar?"

"Because it’s Rommie."

Tyr sighed. "I’ll try. But if it comes to a choice between risking my life and leaving a homicidal AI behind, I’ll choose the safer path."

"Just as long as you try. And Tyr?"

"Yes?"

"If you come back without the Maru I’ll flay your hide right off and use it as a bathmat."

Tyr laughed. "Yes Captain Valentine."

"Good luck." Beka looked like she wanted to hug Tyr so he swung up into the cockpit and mock saluted.

"You too, the Dragans are going to be hunting this area and you’re going to be flying blind in an asteroid belt."

"Aw, piece of cake." Beka grinned and backed away.

<><><><><>

Harper wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the cell. The light stayed on all the time and food arrived at irregular hours in the form of basic battle rations. Harper estimated that it had been three or four days since he’d been shut in here: the headache had faded and his ribs no longer grated against each other so much when he moved. His arm was swollen and hot though and caused him a lot of pain.

It was almost a relief when a couple of guards came in to get him.

"I don’t know why we’re bothering to take him to medical first; the mood Cuatemoc’s in he’ll probably be dead by tomorrow," One guard said, hauling Harper to his feet and pushing him towards the door. Harper tried not to scream as his bad arm was jostled but a whimper escaped anyway.

"What’s up with Cuatemoc?"

"He went to pick up that High Guard ship and it wasn’t there."

Harper gave a mental cheer and concentrated on not bumping his arm into anything. As they lead him through the corridors and Harper realised they were on a space station or drift. All the people he saw were either Nietzscheans or battered looking slaves. He opened his mouth to ask a question but decided against it when one of the guards shot him a venomous look. Finally, just as Harper thought he was going to pass out from the pain of his infected arm, they arrived at a medical facility. Harper was handed over to a nervous looking young orderly with a slave tattoo.

"This way," the orderly said, leading Harper to a small room. "Med tech Halsey will be here soon."

"Thanks," Harper said, sitting down on the metal bed that was the room’s only furniture. "You can go now."

"I should…"

"Scram!" Harper growled and the orderly fled. As soon as the door shut, Harper leapt up onto the bed and pulled a grill away from the ceiling. Climbing up into the space above was tough with only one arm but Harper had the advantage of not weighing much and a huge adrenaline surge.

Harper had gone about 100 metres when he found a maintenance box. Rummaging around he found an interface jack and hurried further along, checking the rooms below for computer access. Finally, tired, sweating and faint he found one. Harper spent ten minutes on the floor sobbing in pain after he dropped to the floor, his arm was a huge mass of hot needles and the jolt from hitting the floor had sprung his ribs again.

Eventually he managed to drag himself over to the console and jacked in. The pain faded and Harper slid into his element.

<><><><><>

Rommie’s eyes opened and she looked down at herself in the dark. Her memory core was intact and plugged into the central computer, but parts of her body were spread out over the table she was lying on. Her jerky movements became smoother as she began to reassemble her body.

<><><><><>

Despite the worry over Harper and Rommie, Dylan couldn’t help but chuckle over Harper’s choice of passwords and their novel location. He’d almost got himself arrested lifting up that hideous pink marble statue, but a few fast words and some name-dropping had got him off with a warning. Dylan was on his way back to the spaceport when he saw a familiar face sitting slumped over a drink in an open-air cafe.

*Alvarez*.

Dylan sat down in opposite the man and asked, "You’re the captain of the Nocturne aren’t you?"

"Uh yeah, do I know you?"

"No, but you warned us about the Magog raid on Jay’s Mining Colony."

"Oh, right. Nasty that."

"Did you see anyone else there?"

"Yeah, my sensors were shit so I didn’t see anything wrong when I came out of slipstream. I just carried on and wondered why I wasn’t being hailed by the defence system. By the time I noticed it wasn’t there anymore there were two Niet fighters damn near sitting on me. I thought I was a goner, but they just showed me some footage from the attack and told me to warn everyone on the Reol, Shantii, Wyrin trade route." Alvarez shuddered and took another sip of
his drink.

"They told you to go to Shantii’s Drift?" Dylan asked.

"Uh, yeah, I usually do the Sheal, Gael-Ket run but they said that was covered. Why?"

"No reason, thanks anyway." Dylan got up and left. *We were set up*, he thought.

<><><><><>

Harper pulled himself out of the Dragan mainframe and back into pain filled reality. He knew exactly where he was now: a space station orbiting one of the Dragan slave worlds. If he could get to the Maru, three levels down he had a good chance of getting away from here.

Unfortunately his luck didn’t hold out: he managed to get back into the ductwork, but when he dropped back out everything went black. When he came around he was strapped to a table and was being injected with nanobots.

The med tech was human and gave him a pitying look. "You punctured a lung with that stunt, kid. You’re lucky it was one of us and not an Uber that found you." Harper pulled against the bonds and winced at the tenderness in his arm. "Ease up on that arm: it’s not completely bonded yet. The nanos got rid of the infection and all your broken bones are fused, it’ll take a few days for the damaged muscle to heal but I’ve given you pain block for that."

"Let me loose. Please, I just need a chance."

"Sorry I can’t do that."

"I don’t have a few days. Cuatemoc is going to kill me."

The tech winced. "No, I don’t think he is."

"What do you mean?"

"I got word to send you to the whoremaster as soon as you were fit."

"Oh crap."

"Better than death."

Harper scowled up at the man. "Oh, I’m sure I’ll get the death too, I just get the ‘fate worse than death’ first."

A battered slave transport docked with the Dragan space station. It got a berth at the darker, shabbier end of the docking ring. No one noticed a member of the crew slipping away into the main thoroughfare.

<><><><><>

Harper sat on the bed, washed, waxed, dressed in just a pair of thin cotton shorts and fastened to the headboard with a thin, but unbreakable cord. Harper tugged at the collar around his neck and hoped his body hair would grow back.

The way he saw it, right now he had three options. Number one: fight until he was beaten up and raped. Number two: go passive and pretend it wasn’t happening. Number three: Put up a token resistance and then play slut. None of the options were very appealing but two and three offered the chance to lull Cuatemoc into a false sense of security.

Harper fiddled with the locking mechanism on his collar; he was fairly sure he could pick it if he had something thin and metallic to slide into the casing. There wasn’t anything like that around here. Yet.

The door opened and Cuatemoc strode in. Harper flinched back and tried to look scared and helpless, which wasn’t much of a stretch, because he *was* scared and helpless.

"Tell me…was Miranda your special friend?" Cuatemoc asked.

"Trust me, it could have been worse: Tyr wanted to put in sixty pounds of explosive. That joke saved your life. Hey, that’s good…I saved your life. That’s got to be worth something?" Harper let himself whine.

"Hurmph, maybe a slightly less painful death." Cuatemoc slipped his coat off and walked over to the bed.

Harper cringed back. "Please don’t kill me, I can be useful. The port means I can do a lot of stuff in the computers and…" Harper gave a hesitant smile and stretched out on the bed with a sensual wriggle, "I have other talents too."

Cuatemoc licked his lips and grabbed Harper’s cord. Pulling it towards him caused Harper to slide over until his face was inches from Cuatemoc’s. "We’ll see," Cuatemoc said and crushed his lips down on Harper’s.

Harper tried to return the kiss, wrapping his arms lightly around Cuatemoc and stroking his back as Cuatemoc’s tongue demanded entrance into his mouth. The kiss was hard, brutal and Harper whimpered in fear, not all of it pretend.

Sirens started blaring. Very *loud* sirens.

Cuatemoc threw Harper back down on the bed, cursed and ran for the door, slamming it behind him.

Harper bounced back on the bed, grinned and pulled out the knife he’d lifted from Cuatemoc’s belt. "Dragans, dumber than shit."

<><><><><>

Rommie dropped down into the hangar bay where the Maru was berthed, quickly and efficiently snapped the necks of the two guards on duty and entered the ship. Quickly powering up the systems she scanned the area, waiting for Harper.

<><><><><>

Tyr wasn’t sure why certain areas of the station were venting out into vacuum, but he was sure Harper had something to do with it. Making his way to where his source said the Maru was being kept he didn’t notice a ceiling panel was missing until two very hard knees landed on the pressure points in his shoulders. Landing face-first on the floor, he flipped around, gun in hand.

Harper and Tyr stared at each other and grinned. "I gotcha, didn’t I?" Harper asked.

"I’d have shot you before you had time to use that knife."

"Really? How do your arms feel?" Harper’s grin widened.

Tyr flexed his arm muscles and winced.

"Sorry about that. I didn’t realise it was you. Old Earther trick, get a Niet in the muscle bundle on the shoulders and they can’t raise their arms up properly. It’ll wear off in a few minutes. What are you doing here anyway?" Harper asked getting up and holding out a hand to pull Tyr up.

"I came to rescue you, but I’m beginning to think that was a waste of time: you seem to have everything in hand."

Harper shrugged. "Another gun can’t hurt. C’mon, Rommie should have the Maru fired up and ready to go by now." Harper started to run lightly down the corridor.

"Rommie?" Tyr asked as he caught up.

"Yeah, this is my second escape attempt. During the last one I hacked the station mainframe and set up this scenario just in case plan A didn’t work. I also hacked Rommie and sort of fixed her."

"Sort of?"

"I’ll still need to do some work on her when we get back. She’s pretty basic at the moment, but she won’t try to kill us or turn us over to the Dragans."

"You’re sure about that?"

"Hey, I don’t question you about your big guns, please don’t question me about programming."

Tyr could hear a patrol coming up behind them and pulled Harper forwards, "Take this," Tyr said, thrusting a gun into Harper’s hands as the alarm rose. They managed to get to the hangar doors before the Dragans found them and started shooting. Tyr fired back as Harper jacked into the door controls and jammed the locking mechanism so that once they got the doors shut they’d stay that way.

The doors slid shut and Harper turned to run to the Maru. Tyr grabbed him and placed a hard kiss on his lips then jerked back. "Why do you smell and taste like Drago-Kasov?" Tyr growled.

"Uh, can we talk about that *after* we escape, please?" Harper asked, wriggling out of Tyr’s embrace. Tyr growled again and they headed for the Maru. As they approached the air-lock cycled open and a battered Rommie waved then in.

"Rom-doll, am I glad to see you!"

Rommie looked a little confused. "I’m not sure that question is within my capabilities to answer."

Harper’s smile faded. "Don’t worry Rommie, we’ll get you home and fixed up soon."

Tyr was strapped into the pilot’s chair and starting up the engines. "Harper!" he yelled, "I assume you have some way to get the doors open?"

"Yeah, sure." Harper grinned and transmitted a code to the hangar doors. "Hang on, I didn’t have time to hack the whole thing so this is just going to vent through the space-doors."

"What!" Tyr shouted as the doors opened and all the air, loose objects and the Maru were sucked out into space. The Maru tumbled for a moment before Tyr regained control and shot away from the station.

"Tyr, there are Dragan fighters powering up on the docking ring. Can you go a little faster?"

"I can do better than that," Tyr said, "You aren’t the only one with contingency plans." Tyr pulled a control out of his pocket and pressed a button. Half the docking ring was disintegrated as a shabby little slave transport exploded. "The ship I came in on. I just wish I’d been able to get a more powerful bomb." They watched debris shoot out, blocking the space behind them and destroying more than a few of the ships behind them.

"Fuck Tyr, there are slaves on that station!"

"I doubt if there were many in that area: the ship was empty, and from what I saw it was a rather deserted area of the station. And weren’t you venting parts of the station?"

"Not parts where there might be slaves."

Tyr shrugged. "Would you rather have been blown out of the sky by those fighters?"

Harper scowled. "No…but…"

"No ‘buts’, we got away. I suggest you get cleaned up and dressed while I get us out of here." Tyr glared at Harper’s skimpy clothing.

Harper glared back and stomped off to the crew quarters.

Dylan exited slipstream and had to make a sharp turn as something pinged on his proximity sensors. Suddenly the slipfigher shuddered as an explosion rocked the ship. Dylan killed the engines.

"Oh shit, the Dragans mined the asteroid belt." Dylan scanned the area, it seemed clear around him: the slipstream portal had detonated all the mines behind him but Dylan knew mines were easily hidden from sensors. The only way he was going to be able to avoid them was to use his eyes. Dylan sighed, looked out of the window and slowly maneuvered the asteroid belt to the rendezvous site.

<><><><><>

They had transited slipstream five times to lose the Dragans and Harper was working on Rommie when Tyr came back to the crew quarters. "We've shaken off any pursuit."

"Okay," Harper muttered, clearing another connection.

"We can wait here to rendezvous with the Andromeda or we can go back and meet them; we weren't anticipating your rescue to be so speedy. They're probably still hiding in the asteroid field, waiting for Dylan to get back with your passwords."

"Whatever."

"There really weren't that many people in that part of the station Harper."

Harper sighed. "Yeah, okay. It meant we got away; I just wish there had been a way for us to escape that meant only Dragans had to die."

They sat silently for a moment before Tyr asked, "Rommie, would you take watch please?" He turned to Harper. "She is capable of that?"

"Yes I am, thank you Tyr," Rommie snapped, standing up and making her way forwards.

Harper smirked. "She's in better shape now, not back to normal but pretty good."

Tyr sat down next to Harper and ran a finger around the collar of the green shirt Harper had pulled on. "Who did I smell on you?"

"Cuatemoc, but nothing happened. The timing was perfect. I'd like to claim that as my genius but that's just the way it turned out."

"If nothing happened why could I taste him in your mouth?"

"Dammit Tyr! I was trying to escape. If I had to, I'd have done whatever it took, up to and including spreading my legs for Cuatemoc. Fortunately all I had to endure was a kiss and a little groping."

Tyr's hand was resting on the back of Harper's neck now and felt very warm. "I'm going to kill him."

"Good, can I come too? I'm not very kindly disposed to him after the treatment I got when he met Miranda."

"I still say explosives were a better idea. Cuatemoc would be dead now if we'd followed my plan."

"Hey, I'd be dead too if we'd put a bomb in there; I was eight feet away when they opened that up."

Tyr slid his arm further around Harper and pulled him close. "I wish I could have seen his face when he opened up the coffin."

Harper snickered. "Oh it was classic. I thought his head was going to explode. He went purple, and not the good kind of purple either."

"He took it out on you?" Tyr leaned down and kissed the curve of Harper's neck.

"A few broken bones. Nothing serious." Harper's breath caught as Tyr found a sensitive spot. "They filled me full of nanos. Eventually."

"Where were you hurt?" Tyr asked, scowling at the thought of Harper injured.

"I had a concussion, but I'm fine now." Harper replied.

"A concussion?" Tyr cupped Harper's face in one hand and gently kissed along Harper's hairline.

"Uh, my left arm was broken," Harper said. Tyr slid his sleeve up and ran his thumb up the skin of Harper's arm. Harper shivered and watched as the hairs stood up. Tyr lifted Harper's arm up and kissed the inside of his elbow. "Ohhhh." Harper sighed, his cock filling at the gentle caresses. "A couple of broken ribs."

Tyr grinned, pulled Harper's shirt off and pushed him back on the bed. Harper wound his fingers in Tyr's hair as Tyr licked and kissed his chest. Tyr's mouth traveled all over Harper's chest until finally he started to concentrate on Harper's nipples, licking and sucking at them as Harper lay whimpering underneath him.

"I'm pretty sure I got kicked in the happy sacks too," Harper gasped out.

Tyr chuckled and slid one finger into the waistband of Harper's pants. Harper groaned as Tyr slowly teased his way along the soft skin of his stomach to the button. Flicking it open, Tyr fended off Harper's attempts to help him with one hand and snaked the other in to cup Harper's balls.

"Oh fuck Tyr, stop teasing me. Please."

Tyr pulled Harper's pants and underwear away from his cock and kissed Harper's balls. "Interesting," Tyr said. "I think I preferred you the way you were before."

"Me too. They just waxed it off instead of lasering me so it should grow back."

"That's going to itch." Tyr licked Harper's cock, making Harper jump and gasp.

"Mm hmm. Tyr, please."

Tyr wrapped his lips over the head of Harper's cock and swirled his tongue around it. Harper bucked up, trying to bury himself in Tyr's mouth but Tyr pulled back and continued his slow torment. Harper reached down and Tyr caught his hands, twining their fingers together as he reduced Harper to an incoherent mess on the bed.

Harper yelped as, without warning, Tyr sucked hard and slid down Harper's shaft. It went fast after that: Tyr's head bobbed up and down as Harper thrust up and all the adrenaline that had been coursing through Harper's body for the last few days fizzed in his blood and finally caused a massive orgasm. Harper screamed and came, shooting into Tyr's mouth before collapsing on the bed in a daze.

Harper was vaguely aware of Tyr climbing off the bunk to strip and he felt Tyr remove the rest of his clothes. He didn't really register what was happening until he felt Tyr slide his legs apart and bite down softly on the skin of his inner thighs.

"Mmmm, Tyr. What are you doing?" Harper asked.

"I want to be inside you."

"Mmmmm, yes please." Harper sighed and lay back, spreading his legs further and pulling his knees up. Tyr made a sound that, to Harper's ears, was something between a growl and a whimper and slid a spit-soaked finger down the crease of Harper's ass. "There's lube in the drawer," Harper said.

Tyr yanked the drawer right out of its tracks and spilled the contents all over the floor. He managed to snatch the lube out of the air and slicked up his fingers, quickly returning them to teasing Harper's anus.

Harper wriggled and pushed at Tyr's hand, his cock was showing signs of interest again and Tyr slid two fingers inside him. Harper hissed and winced, then relaxed and pushed down again as Tyr paused. "Don't stop Tyr, c'mon."

Tyr pushed another finger and plenty of lube in and stroked deep. Tyr smiled as Harper gasped and his cock swelled. Tyr reached down and thickly coated his own rock-hard erection before pushing it carefully against Harper's entrance. Tyr sank in slowly, sweat running down his back as he fought for control. Slowly he pumped in and out, moving slightly deeper with each thrust. Once he was fully embedded Tyr rocked quickly, trying to be gentle so as not to hurt Harper, but ended up pounding him back into the mattress as Harper pulled his knees up further, allowing Tyr deeper access.

Tyr came quickly and, before collapsing on the bunk, wrapped his slick hand around Harper and pumped hard until Harper came again.

Tyr pulled a blanket down off the top bunk and covered them both before falling asleep.

***

Dylan swore as he avoided another mine. The Dragans must have filled this area of space with everything they'd had. He swung the slipfighter past another asteroid and gave a sigh of relief as he saw the shape of the Andromeda in the distance. Gliding up close enough for communications to work he transmitted the passwords directly to Andromeda's core memory and watched in joy as he saw his ship light up.

Beka's face appeared on the screen in front of him. "Welcome back Dylan. Just in time too: it was getting damn cold in here."

"Damage report?"

Beka grinned. "Almost none. Trance had a few 'suggestions' on how to avoid impacts. Strangely most of them worked."

Dylan smiled. "Good work ladies. I hope Trance has a few suggestions on how to avoid the Dragan space-mines that are littering this asteroid belt too."

"Mines? Crap." Beka scowled. "How did you get through them?"

"The slipfighter is small enough that I could avoid them. They don't show up on sensors so I had to spot them visually."

"Fun," Beka grimaced. "We can't do that in the Andromeda."

"No, we're going to need a plan; probably we'll have to detonate a path in front of us until we can slipstream, but that's going to be time-consuming, a waste of weapons and it's going to alert the Dragans to our position."

"Well that sucks."

"Yes, any ideas you may have or some of Trance's 'suggestions' would be appreciated," Dylan said, as he maneuvered the slipfigher back into the hangar. I'll see you both in command in ten minutes. If Tyr, Rommie and Harper try to get back here they'll be blown to pieces by those mines."

Beka nodded. "I hate to wish for Harper and Rommie to stay prisoners any longer but it'll be safer for them to met us at the secondary rendezvous point."

Part Twentyone

Tyr woke feeling relaxed and refreshed. Harper was curled up, asleep in his arms and the Maru's systems hummed comfortingly around them. Tyr lay reveling in the feeling of contentment for a few minutes before carefully unwrapping Harper and climbing out of bed. Harper made a few grumpy noises and went back to sleep. Tyr grinned as Harper unconsciously wound the blanket around himself until all that was visible was a tuft of blonde hair and an eyebrow.

Tyr was shocked to realize he'd slept for over seven hours: he never slept that long. Tyr went forward to check on Rommie and found her sitting in the slip-chair. "Did anything happen while I was asleep?"

"No."

"Any messages from the Andromeda?"

"No."

Tyr frowned. "Dylan has had plenty of time to get the passwords. They should be here by now."

"They might have been here and left before we arrived."

"If they'd done that they would have left a message buoy. They must still be in that asteroid field. Perhaps they encountered difficulties."

"It's possible. Although Harper told me that the Dragans found no sign of Andromeda when Cuatemoc went to capture her." Rommie looked a little confused.

"You're completely severed from your main AI aren't you?" Tyr asked.

Rommie nodded. "I'm still me, I just don't have... This is impossible to explain to someone who only lives in one body." Rommie shook her head, "What do you want to do?"

"If we slipstreamed into that area of space couldn't we get Harper to transmit the codes directly to the Andromeda?"

"Yes, but I'm sure the Drago-Kasov left some ships in that area, we'd be walking into a very dangerous situation."

"Once the Andromeda was active again I doubt we'd have too many problems with Dragan ships. We could transmit the codes as soon as we exited, I'm confident that Beka and Trance could scare off the Dragans. I'll go and wake Harper."

<><><><><>

Beka carefully maneuvered the Andromeda to the edge of the asteroid belt. "That's as far as we can go without becoming visible on Dragan sensors. As soon as we leave we'll be visible and in danger from the mines."

Dylan studied the chart on the viewscreen. "How soon can we slipstream after leaving this position?"

"Not soon," Beka sighed. "There are odd gravity wells all over this area because of all the heavy metal."

"We will have to get completely clear of this system before I'm able to slipstream." Rommie replied, shimmering into view. Even if we could fly straight it would take us two hours to get there. Blasting a route through the minefield will, no doubt, take much longer."

"And while we're blasting that route we're visible to the people who have a map of the minefield and God knows how much weaponry. They'll be able to come at us from all angles and we won't be able to take evasive action."

"We don't have a lot of choice though do we?" Trance asked. "If we stay here the Dragans will destroy the Maru."

"The Maru might not be coming back," Dylan said.

"Yes, it will." Beka glared at Dylan. "Do you really think the Dragans are a match for Harper and Tyr? Individually they've got the better of the Dragans before, together nothing will stop them."

Dylan sighed, "Yes, you're probably right. Rommie: I'll need high-resolution sensor sweeps and calculations on blast patterns, Trance: bring weapons on-line, Beka: take us out of the asteroid belt.

<><><><><>

Tyr woke Harper by playing with his hair. It was soft and freshly washed and Tyr tugged lightly on one of the spikes, it was soft and smelt like whatever made it stand up.

"Uhm....What?" Harper murmured from under the blanket. One eye appeared and focused blearily on Tyr.

"Wake up, you've been asleep for almost eight hours."

"Wow." Harper sat up and grinned. "I never sleep for that long, you must have really tired me out." Harper stretched and the blanket slid down and puddled on his lap. Tyr gazed for a moment at Harper's naked torso and then climbed onto the bed, pushed Harper down and kissed him hard.

Drawing back slightly Tyr said, "We're going back to find the Andromeda. There will probably be Dragan ships patrolling the area so we need you to transmit your codes directly to the ship as soon as we exit slipstream."

"Okay." Harper rolled them over so he was lying on top of Tyr. "Are we going now, or do I get breakfast first?" Harper slid slowly down Tyr's body until his head was level with the catch on Tyr's pants.

"I was planning on going now," Tyr said, aware that it wasn't going to take much for him to change his mind.

"But I'm hungry," Harper said, then lightly grazed his teeth across the leather covering Tyr's rapidly growing erection.

Tyr caved. "Breakfast?" he asked, gasping as Harper tugged open his pants.

"Yep," Harper licked Tyr's balls, "Two eggs," his tongue moved up onto Tyr's cock, "sausage, and to finish up....a protein shake."

Tyr didn't know if he was going to laugh or groan. He ended up gasping out a strained growl as Harper went to work on his 'breakfast'.

Part Twenty Two

"There are three Dragan ships on an intercept course," Trance said.

"Andromeda, log all Dragan flight paths: if we make them hop about enough, they might show us a way out of here."

"Launching missiles," Trance said.

They watched as all the missiles they fired at the approaching ships exploded short of their destination.

"Crap, how many mines do they have out there?" Beka said.

"Too damned many. Trance, keep trying to hit the Dragan ships, Rommie....blast us a tunnel out of here."

The Andromeda inched out of the asteroid belt, firing continuously.

<><><><><>

Rommie raised one eyebrow as Harper appeared, grinning, from the crew quarters. "Tyr went to wake you over half an hour ago."

"What can I say? I'm a heavy sleeper." Harper sat down in the pilot chair and shivered.

"What?" Rommie asked.

"Uh, nothing. It's just the last time I sat here about to go into slipstream you were holding a gun on me."

"I...don't remember."

"I know. I wish I didn't."

"I don't like having my memory wiped, Harper."

"This isn't like the worldship thing. You can have the memories back once I fully purge the Dragan virus out of your system."

"Is that wise?" Tyr asked, emerging from the crew quarters and standing behind Harper.

"It'll be fine. Rommie'll be as good as new once we get her back and hook her up to her main AI. Speaking of which."

Harper engaged the slipstream drive and they leapt forwards. They barely had time to catch their breaths as they transited to normal space before the Maru was rocked by an explosion; the lights and gravity went off and they felt the unmistakable tug of air that signed a hull breach.

"Hull integrity is compromised in all compartments," Rommie said as Harper frantically tried to get the computers back up. "The automatic seals have taken care of the rest of the ship but we've still got a hole in here.

Tyr pushed himself off and followed a floating flexi until he found a small hole, the size of his fist in the bulkhead... Covering it with a piece of deck plate he caught the welder Rommie threw and set about sealing the breach.

"Got it!" Harper exclaimed as the computer system flickered into life. Low lights and half gravity returned. "Oh crap."

"What?" Tyr asked.

"That was a Dragan mine. The bastards have mined this whole area."

"Now we know why the Andromeda was late. Can you see it on sensors?"

"Uh....yes! She's out of the asteroid field. Dylan must have got back with the codes."

"Hailing," Rommie said.

"She's under attack from a Dragan fleet," Harper said, scowling. "Oh fuck....there are two ships breaking off and heading this way."

"Can we go to slipstream?" Tyr asked.

"Not a chance in Hell. The rest of the ship is still venting out into vacuum, there's a hole the size of a slipfighter in the rear compartment and I'm pretty sure half the slipstream drive got sucked out." Harper slumped back in the chair. "We're screwed."

"Weapons?" Tyr asked.

Harper checked. "Yeah, we still have weapons. Not that they'll do us any good: as soon as those ships are in range they're going to blow us out of the sky. Those are Dragan fighters, they out gun us by over 80%."

"They aren't going to fire on us," Tyr said.

"I think they will; Cuatemoc may want a more personal revenge but those guys are the 'blow stuff up, ask questions later' type."

"Trust me." Tyr grinned.

"Oh I *really* don't like the sound of that. Care to let me in on your little scheme?"

<><><><><>

The Andromeda had cleared a few thousand more kilometers and left the asteroid field far behind when a slipstream portal opened up. "Captain, the Maru just arrived."

"Shit! Can you warn them about the mines?" Dylan asked.

"Too late: their exit from slipstream detonated a mine. It wasn't very close but they're damaged."

"What?" Beka punched the sensors up on the main screen. "What's happening?"

"The main structure is intact, but they're venting atmosphere and they've lost power. We're too far away to sense lifeforms," Rommie said.

"Shit Dylan, we have to get over there."

"Two Dragan fighters are closing on their position," Rommie said.

"Time to intercept?"

"The fighters will be there in seventeen minutes."

"How long until we can get there?"

"If we take the most direct route and fire continuously as we travel at the highest safe speed, it will take us twenty eight minutes."

"What if we go faster?" Beka asked.

"We might miss a mine and blow ourselves up."

"It's worth the risk," Trance said, looking up from the tactical display.

"We'll still get there five minutes too late," Rommie said.

"We have to *try*," Beka argued.

"I'm receiving a transmission from the Maru," Rommie said.

Dylan blew out a sigh of relief. "They're okay?" Avatar Rommie appeared on the screen and they all blinked in surprise at her partially exposed wiring. "Rommie, what happened?"

"We've been damaged but no one is hurt, we're venting atmosphere and the engines are off-line. We still have minimal life-support and weapons."

"You'll have two Dragan fighters breathing down your neck in fifteen minutes," Dylan said.

"I know. Tyr says he has a plan that should prevent them from blowing us up."

"I hope it works; we'll be there as soon as we can."

"Did you get Harper?" Beka asked, a worried frown creasing her face.

Rommie smiled. "Yes, of course. Do you think Tyr would have got *me* out on his own?"

"He's all right? The Dragans had him for days."

"They mended all his broken bones and apart from some minor weight loss he seems to be fine. I have to go now: Tyr needs the com." Rommie flickered out.

"Broken bones?" Beka looked bleak. "How many ships have you shot down, Trance?"

"Three, so far," Trance said, looking up with a frown.

"Shoot more,"

<><><><><>

Tyr gave Harper's shoulder a squeeze as they switched places. Settling down in the pilot chair Tyr opened communications with the advancing Dragan fighters.

"This is Tyr Anasazi of the Kodiak Pride. You will not fire on us."

A Dragan appeared on the screen. "I am Cassius Lemarch of the Drago-Kasov Pride and I *will* blow you into you component molecules once I'm in range. You have three minutes to reflect on your inferiority before you die."

Tyr sat back, the picture of relaxation. "I suggest you do a detailed scan of the infrastructure of the forward port bulkhead of this ship."

"And why would I want to do that?"

"Because you will find a stasis pod. It contains the Progenitor's remains."

"WHAT!" The Dragan choked.

Tyr smiled. "Ironic, isn't it? Cuatemoc had the bones all the time, he was just to *inferior* to find them."

"You're lying."

"Scan me and find out."

"Those scans can be faked, and even if you do have a stasis pod there, there's no way to know what's in it."

"True, but do you want to risk it?"

"We can take you anyway. Return the bones to their rightful place."

"Their 'rightful place' is with Kodiak Pride," Tyr scowled.

"The bones belong to anyone strong enough to hold them. It won't take much to capture that pitiful little cargo ship. More or less intact." Lemarch flicked off his com.

"His weapons are powering up." Rommie said.

"They won't risk damaging the bones. Harper, I trust there are two *working* suits on board?"

Harper grinned and pulled open the storage area. "Always. Well, always from now on anyway." Harper tossed a suit to Tyr as the Maru rocked with another impact.

"We've lost weapons on the starboard side," Rommie said. "Returning fire with the port batteries."

The next hit blew another hole in the command section. Tyr grabbed Harper and slammed him down in the pilot chair, strapping him securely in. He sealed his helmet, checked Harper's and pulled up another deck plate to block the hole. Another blast rocked the ship and Tyr was thrown across the room, impacting heavily on the bulkhead as the gravity cut out again. Tyr didn't move.

"Tyr!" Harper shouted, trying to unfasten the chair's harness. Rommie put out her hand and stopped Harper, pushing herself over to Tyr. She nodded reassuringly at Harper, indicating that Tyr's suit seals were intact. Harper sighed in relief and ceased struggling.

Rommie frowned: the seals were intact but Tyr wasn't getting any oxygen. She saw the mess the back of the suit was in and quickly secured Tyr to the deck. Returning to the controls she was about to fire on the Dragan ships when first one, then the other exploded spectacularly.

"Ah, Andromeda," Rommie sighed. "Perfect timing as always."

Part Twenty Three

"They're in. Beka, take us to slipstream," Dylan said as soon as the grapples had pulled in the battered Maru. "We're going to need to shake the Dragans off, any suggestions?" he asked as another Dragan missile got through to hit the hull.

Beka grinned. "Four jumps and we're into FTA space. The Dragans probably won't follow us: they've been negotiating with the FTA for control of a large piece of disputed territory. If they *do* follow us the FTA will probably drop out of negotiations. Plus, the FTA are kinda on our side, they might help.for a price."

"Do it," Dylan said and they entered slipstream.

<><><><><>

"You should have told me," Harper scowled, tugging off Tyr's helmet.

"There was nothing you could have done," Rommie replied. "The controls are damaged beyond repair. It would have just upset you."

"Dammit Rommie! I should have known. He was lying there suffocating and I didn't know!" Harper was shouting, red in the face and his hands were shaking as Tyr's helmet finally came off. Tyr wasn't breathing; his skin looked grey and his eyes were half-open. Harper swallowed a sob and bent forward to blow into Tyr's mouth.

"Harper, Nietzscheans can survive for a long time without oxygen and his heart is still beating. He'll be fine," Rommie said gently.

Harper ignored her and continued his attempts at resuscitation. "Do something useful." Harper snapped, yanking the oxygen tube out of his suit, "Blow pure oxygen over his face. It might help when he starts to breathe again."

Harper could feel the life returning to Tyr's body even through the thick material. Suddenly Tyr was breathing and colour was returning to his skin. "Tyr." Harper whispered.

Tyr reached out suddenly and grabbed the back of Harper's head, pulling him into a hard kiss. "Harper, do you have any idea what breathing pure oxygen does to a Nietzschean?" Tyr's voice sounded rusty.

Harper jerked back and pulled the oxygen tube away from Tyr's face. "No. Is it bad, are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

Tyr raised himself up on one elbow. "I'm fine, I'm just very.stimulated right now."

Harper blinked. "You get turned on by oxygen? You weren't even breathing five minutes ago! I guess you really *are* a superior being."

Tyr gave a low chuckle and lay back down. "I'm assuming we stalled the Drago-Kasov long enough for the Andromeda to ride to the rescue? What exactly happened to me anyway? I remember the gravity going off-line and that's it."

"You were knocked unconscious and your controls were smashed to Hell. You only had the oxygen that was left in your suit until the Andromeda pulled us aboard and we repressurised."

"That explains the headache. The Drago-Kasov?"

"I don't know," Harper said, "Getting you revived was my main priority. We've slipstreamed twice since we came aboard."

"The Dragans are pursuing us," Rommie said. "Beka has a plan to lose them in FTA territory."

"Rommie!" Harper said sharply. "You shouldn't link to your main AI until I check you out."

"Sorry, it's just.I'm glad to be home."

Harper grabbed onto Tyr as the transited to slipstream again. Tyr's arms slid around him and they sat holding each other until they returned to normal space. "I need to get you to sick bay," Harper said, squeezing Tyr.

"I'm fine."

"Humour me."

"We probably still have Drago-Kasov to fight. Trance may have gained warrior skills in the future but I'm still the fire control officer on this ship."

"They've managed fine this far," Harper growled.

"Was I this annoying when you were ill?"

Harper's face lit up. "Much, much worse. For instance: I'm unlikely to pick you up and carry you kicking and screaming to medical."

Tyr grinned at the memory and pulled Harper down into another kiss. "Are you going to take advantage of me in my 'weakened condition'?"

Harper recalled Tyr pushing him away when he was in shock after the incident on Jay's World and again when he was suffering from withdrawal. "It would serve you right if I said 'no, you're ill'. I don't think I have that much self-control though."

They kissed again as the ship shuddered through another slipstream. Holo-Rommie was beside them when the finally broke apart. "We've lost the Dragan ships. Dylan wants to see both of you in medical right away." Holo-Rommie flicked a glance at avatar Rommie and shimmered away.

"You heard the Captain." Harper grinned, jumping to his feet.

"Fine," Tyr grumbled, following him.

<><><><><>

"You seem to have returned a slipfighter short Mr Anasazi," Dylan said as Tyr pulled his shirt back on after Trance had given him the all clear.

Tyr raised an eyebrow. "We can collect it whenever you want. I didn't *lose* it."

"There are bits of the Maru scattered for kilometres in every direction."

"I'm sure you're glad that Mr Harper is here to repair it." Tyr shrugged, waving at the bed where Trance was checking Harper's healing injuries.

"I'd be happier if we were on our way to meet you at the rendezvous point like we agreed."

"You were late, we thought you might have had difficulty retrieving the passwords."

"How did you stop the Nietzscheans from destroying the Maru? They had all their weapons set to cripple. Do the Drago-Kasov want you alive?"

"I bluffed them into believing that the Progenitor's remains were on board the Maru."

"And are they?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it's impossible to tell when you're lying."

"Thank you."

Trance finished her scans. "Well the tissue damage is nearly all healed and the bones are fused very nicely. There are a few residual traces of serum withdrawal, but not enough to show symptoms. You just need a good meal and some sleep Harper and you'll be fine."

"Great, so we can get out of here?"

"Yes, just remember: food and rest. No repairs, Rommie can wait until tomorrow."

"I slept for eight hours on the Maru."

"And your body needed it. You've taken a lot of damage over the last few weeks. Give your body a chance to adjust."

Tyr moved over and gripped Harper's shoulder. "I'll make sure he does as he's told."

Trance smiled. "Good."

Tyr wrapped one arm around Harper and pulled him out of medical. "It's over, Harper: the Magog, the withdrawal, the Drago-Kasov, for the moment. Now it's just you and me."

Part Twenty Four

Harper lay drowsing, Tyr's arm curled around his waist. It felt good to just lie there: no worries about the larvae, no feeling sick, no impending torture hanging over his head. Just a full stomach, a warm bed and good company. Harper smiled in the darkness at the feel of Tyr's breath on the back of his neck. If someone had asked him a year ago how he'd feel about a Nietzschean breathing down his neck, he'd have said 'freaked'.

This Nietzschean was different, Harper thought, then frowned. Tyr wasn't really different at the core. Okay, so he didn't torture people for fun but his goals were.

Harper sat bolt upright, cold sliding down his spine.

"What?" Tyr murmured, trying to pull Harper back down.

"It wasn't a bluff."

"What wasn't?" Tyr said warily.

"After we retrieved the bones you moved them again, didn't you? You didn't trust me enough to let me know where they were. They really *are* on the Maru."

"No they aren't."

"I'll bet they were when we got back here. You've moved them again, haven't you?"

Tyr rolled over onto his back and sighed. "Maybe."

"You weren't coming to save me. I didn't notice before with all the shooting and trying not to get blown up, but you weren't heading to the slave pens or Cuatemoc's quarters when we met up. You were on your way to where the Maru was berthed."

Tyr was silent for a moment too long.

"Damn you Tyr! Were you planning on leaving me there?"

"Not if I could possibly help it."

Harper climbed out of Tyr's bed and pulled on his pants. He suddenly felt sick. "If I hadn't jumped on you when I did, if I'd been even fifteen minutes later than I was, you'd have taken the Maru and my escape route."

"That didn't happen."

"It could have though. You making a corpse your priority could have got me killed. God, I'm so stupid: I keep forgetting you're a Niet." Harper yanked his shirt over his head and glared at Tyr. "You don't see anything wrong in putting a dead guy over your lover do you?"

"The Progenitor is a symbol of Nietzschean power. The remains are mine, Kodiak Pride's, they are more important than my feelings."

"Yeah, thought so." Harper said sadly as he turned and left.

<><><><><>

"That's my whisky." Dylan said, sitting down in the access tunnel next to a morose Harper.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"No you're not."

"No, I'm not. I felt the need for some oblivion. Beer just wasn't poisonous enough."

"So what's up?"

"Were in space; everything is 'up'."

Dylan grinned. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Nietzscheans suck."

"No arguments from me."

"Tyr's a jerk."

"Quite frequently."

"He doesn't trust me, and I don't trust him."

"I said once I trust Tyr to be Tyr."

"Yeah, to do what's best for him to get what he wants."

"And what does he want?"

"The same things all the Ubers want: power, wives, kids.prestige, fear from the huddled masses, grinding the less 'perfect' out of existence." Harper took another slug of whisky. "Fuckin' Ubers."

"I'd agree that the first three are typical Nietzschean characteristics, but the last three.don't sound like Tyr. Or many of the Nietzscheans I knew back in the Commonwealth."

"Yeah well, say you were a Niet. You get a choice: save your lover or save old Musoveni's corpse. Which would you pick?"

"So the bones *are* on the Maru?"

"Not any more apparently. If you want to know where he hid them I'm sure I can hack any privacy protocols he used to disguise his movements."

Dylan thought about that for a moment. "It's tempting, but I think that might cause more problems with the crew than we already have. Have you talked to Tyr about this?"

"Sort of. I talked, he listened. He said the Progenitor was more important than his feelings. Which means me: a dead guy is more important to him than me. I know that's just the way Niets are; and I know I should have thought about that before I got involved with Tyr, but I don't think my head has been working right since Jay's World."

"You've gone through a lot, maybe you need some space to sort out your feelings. I hear the waves on Infinity Atoll are nice this time of year."

Harper turned and grinned at Dylan. "Are you giving me shore leave?" Dylan nodded. "How long?"

Dylan shrugged. "Until you want to come back."

"That might take a while."

"Ha!" Dylan laughed, "I don't think you'll be able to stay away from Rommie's engines as long as you think you can."

"Hmm, you could be right about that. It *would* be great to just kick back and not have anything to worry about for a few weeks. No Magog, no Niets, just me and the waves." Harper sighed and pictured himself basking in the sun, a fruity drink in one hand and a hot babe in the other. "Can I go now?"

"Sober up first. And tell Tyr you're going: I don't want him tearing the ship apart when he finds out you're gone."

"Done." Harper handed the bottle to Dylan and jumped unsteadily out of the tunnel. "Sober up first I think. I'm going to need my brain working if I want to tell Tyr I'm leaving without him getting all Alpha on me." Harper stopped for a moment. "I can't go. I have to fix Rommie and the Maru."

"We'll manage."

"No, I have to."

"We'll *manage*, Harper."

<><><><><>

"No." Tyr glowered down at Harper.

"I don't recall giving you a say in the matter," Harper said, stuffing an untidy handful of shirts into a bag. "In fact I don't think you have any authority over me at all. I need a holiday away from all this shit and I'm taking one"

"The presence of the Progenitor on Andromeda gives us a huge advantage when dealing with the other Nietzschean prides. It's probably the primary reason the Sabra-Jaguar Pride joined. Every time the Drago-Kasov Pride fail to retrieve the remains we are perceived as stronger and their power base diminishes."

"True, but that's not why you did it. All these benefits to the Commonwealth are just incidental. You got the bones because you wanted them, not because it would benefit anyone except yourself."

"The ends justify the means."

Harper sat down and sighed. "I'm not leaving because of this. It has nothing to do with you.Well, not much anyway. I haven't been able to catch a breath since the freak out at Jay's. Magog, viruses, Dragan attacks, repairs, the tesseract generator, Hohne's death, getting rid of the larvae, withdrawal, kidnapping, Cuatemoc and his goons, sleeping with you.I just need to get away. To try to work out how to feel normal again."

"What's normal?"

"For me? Who knows? Let me go find out.please?"

Tyr growled and strode out of the room. Harper picked up another shirt, swore softly to himself and continued packing

Part Twenty Five

*Three weeks!* Tyr paced the length of his quarters like a caged lion; it had been three weeks since Harper had taken off for who knew where. Tyr wasn't taking the separation well. The first week he'd read, the second, he'd worked out in the gym to near exhaustion every day. Week three.pacing, swearing, and an urge to kill Dylan for approving an open-ended shore leave.

The sexual frustration was just adding to Tyr's temper. His nights were full of images of Harper: not just sex, but companionship, closeness, a feeling of *joining*.

The door chime sounded. "Go away," Tyr shouted at the door.

"No." Tyr heard Trance's voice.

*Trance*? Despite himself Tyr was curious; Trance had barely said two words to him since she came back gold. He opened the door. "What?"

"Harper likes to surf you know."

"I know. Your point?"

"If you wanted to see him I'm sure he wouldn't be hard to find." Trance smiled and turned away, walking off down the corridor and leaving a confused Tyr standing in her wake.

<><><><><>

The sun was setting when Tyr found Harper sitting on a sandy beach on Infinity Atoll. The light caught Harper's hair, making it shine. Tyr stood and studied him for a few minutes before walking over. Harper's hair was sun-bleached and his skin was tanned. Tyr realised how tense Harper must have been before now that he could see him relaxed. Suddenly he wasn't sure if he should be here. If Harper needed more time.

"Beer?" Harper asked without turning around.

"How did you know I was here?" Tyr asked, sitting down on the sand next to Harper and taking the offered beer.

Harper shrugged. "You pick up a sixth sense about approaching Nietzscheans when you grow up on Earth."

They sat in silence watching the sun slip below the waves.

"So, how's everything on Andromeda?" Harper finally asked.

"We have a new member of the Commonwealth."

"Great. How are everyone?"

"Beka has been in a bad mood since you left. She blames me."

Harper snorted. "Sounds like Beka."

"She mended the avatar almost as well as you would have. She didn't change the hair though. I think the avatar decided to keep it as a reminder."

"Uhm." Harper grimaced, the blue hair wasn't popular with him.

"She sent you a message."

"Rommie?"

Tyr nodded and handed over a flexi. Harper activated it and Rommie's face appeared.

"Hello Harper. I hope you're feeling better. I wanted to apologise about...everything that happened. Beka repaired the damage, and the anti-virus program you left cleaned out the last of the Dragan influences. I remember now how I felt and what I did to you. I'm so sorry Harper, please come home."

Harper turned off the flexi and asked Tyr, "Is she all right?"

"She's a machine. She appears to be functioning normally."

"Tyr."

Tyr sighed, "She had a few difficult days: I think the other two versions of her were annoyed with her, and she was.upset about knocking you unconscious. You didn't tell me about that by the way."

"I wonder why?" Harper said wryly. "What about Trance and Dylan?"

Trance is as enigmatic as usual. She told me to find you."

"Told you?"

"Hinted, made cryptic comments."

"Hmmm, I guess she was right."

Dylan is.Dylan. He's negotiating with a few of the smaller Nietzschean prides at the moment."

Harper turned and tried to make out Tyr's expression in the darkness. "Shouldn't you be there?"

"I think Captain Hunt in all his regalia will be enough to impress them; particularly when he allows them to view the Progenitor's remains."

Harper choked on his beer. "Dylan got the bones back? How?"

"I returned them to his.safekeeping. They still belong to me, but since Kodiak Pride is a member of the Commonwealth, he has access to them."

"Oh boy. I think the universe shifted."

"If the Commonwealth is to succeed it needs the Nietzscheans. The Persieds have the technology and the knowledge, the FTA have the money, the resources and the connections throughout space. The Nietzscheans have warriors and battleships. We need all of these if we're going to rebuild the Commonwealth. Particularly since the World Ship is on its way."

Harper shivered. "Yeah, I suppose so. Still feels like dealing with the Devil though."

They sat in silence for a little longer, their arms just brushing against each other.

"Charlemagne Bolivar has contacted me; apparently his sisters want to meet me. If I am chosen to become a husband and father by one of them it won't change what is between us."

"Yeah it will."

"It won't change my feelings for you."

"I know. It won't change mine either. I was probably a little insane when you and I got together y'know." Harper dug his toes into the sand. "I'm going to want kids of my own someday, and human women don't really like to share."

"Is it over?"

"No. But it is.difficult. We're very different people, with different values and goals. I don't know what we'll be to each other in the future."

"The future is fluid. It can be what we make it."

"Heh, the future is fluid. Like the sea: mysterious, unforgiving of mistakes and fatal if you spend too long in it."

"That's very cynical."

"Too much beer."

"Do you want to find out what the future holds with me?" Tyr asked, reaching out to stroke the side of Harper's face.

"I live in the now. Always have. Right now I have a room in that hotel over there," Harper said, standing up and brushing sand off himself. "Care to explore the now?"

Tyr dropped his beer in the sand and followed Harper up the beach. It might not be forever, it might not be what was best for Kodiak Pride, but Tyr didn't care. Living in the now had one great advantage: it was *living*.

The End

END NOTE: Oh I loved typing 'the end', I think it's going to be quite some time before I write another story this long. Sorry to everyone who was expecting a big sex scene at the end. I was going to write one but it just didn't happen. I kinda like this the ending better. Yeah, I know... me going for romance over nookie...the sky is falling, the sky is falling! I will be back to your regularly scheduled PWPs shortly. :)

Big thanks to everyone who sent me feedback, listened to me moan about how long this was and reassured me that I was capable of finishing it. Extra big thanks to Zion's Starfish for beta reading it, making sure I didn't go off on any weird side-trips and putting the correct punctuation in.

Andromeda Uncovered http://www.anzwers.org/free/andromeda/
Moonloon's SeaQuest Slash http://www.geocities.com/maryavatar/
Twilight Slide http://www.sphosting.com/vesper/