He and Ray had the equipment was set up and ready to go, Enzo had gathered everyone, and it was time to gear up for war.

Fun.

In the truly sarcastic sense, of course, because they were basically going in to fight a war that had already been lost.

"C'mon, ladies and sprites and gents. Time for your own personal digital revolutions," Harper said, affecting a vaudevillian snake-oil salesman sort of voice. "Anyone in need of digitization? Over there. It doesn't hurt, uh, too horribly we've heard, and we have a means of undigitizing you afterwards, don't worry. Gotta work out a few kinks first, though. Ahem. It should be primed and ready to turn you back as soon as you're all out." A pause. "Hopefully."

Another pause and redirect.

"Anyone that's going to be monitoring the others, or analyzing code samples or sending a digital avatar, go over there. We've digitized some equipment already that'll allow people to send back analysis of the virus from inside."

They shot out into the normal part of the slipstream now, where it was much calmer, gliding along the rails gently.

"We're in my 'verse now, but it's gonna be a few minutes until we reach the slip-point near the Andromeda. This is just normal slipstream travel."

So it's Christmas right? Not even the big honkin' rats are running around in the woodwork, we had the nobbly socks by the radiator--

Wait lemme start over. So it's Christmas. Plump turkey and a tree and the whole shebang. The kids are zonked--probably got into the egg nog when mommy and daddy weren't looking.

There I am on the couch with a half-empty bottle of bear.

Lo! There's something clattering around on the hull of the ship and through a plasma conduit comes this cheerful fat guy--

No. Wait.

Even better, it's this complete and total babe of the scorchingly hot variety in a teeny tiny red Santa outfit with a six pack danging from each hand.

(She's got somethin' shakin' and jiggling and it's not a bowl full of jelly, let me tell ya'!). She's checking her list--no, checking me out twice, and Harper's been a good boy this year.

And...I really gotta stop this story before it gets X-rated, and think up a kid-friendly alternative to tell the munchkin later. Something involving wizards and possibly dancing cats. She'll love that.

Harper felt a bit like...like everything was fuzzy. Voices were muffled. Sweat was clinging to his palms and making them slick. His guts were starting to squirm.

He had to find Sokka. God, he had to say goodbye to Beka again. He had to find Natalie.

But something caught his eye and stopped him from doing all that, when he saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes still in the ship--the only one that hadn't left it yet. The kid was weird. Harper'd seen him during the fight, flying through the air like some kinda superhero, going through walls like a ghost.

Right now he looked exhausted, and like a light wind could take him down.

Harper stepped closer, slowly. "Kid, uh, we have doctors here, yanno. Food. New clothes. Running water, even. You ought to get inside."

The boy just sat there, next to the basket, clutching a grimy poncho in his fist. He didn't say anything.

"Kid...you okay?" said Harper, stepping closer.

The boy looked up, then looked down at the poncho. "She tried to protect me from them once. She almost got killed for it. Almost." He blinked hard a few times and looked away.

Harper took a deep breath. There was a girl he'd remember seeing, Sokka holding onto her, the new doctor cutting her. He'd figured that she'd been bitten and they were just...

He swallowed.

"M'sorry." He took a deep breath. "You have no idea how sorry I am."

"What do you know?!" the boy suddenly shot at him angrily. "You guys were all holed up here, with food and clothes and each other, you didn't have them, you didn't--!"

"I grew up with them," Harper cut in. "They're from the same universe as me. I lost people." A pause. "I lost a lot of people." He held up his arm. "This time, I even lost myself, and it's not even the first time I've been infested."

The boy looked up with an apologetic expression now. "Sorry," he said, his voice cracking, looking away. "I didn't--"

"You didn't know," Harper said gently, or at least gently for him. "It's okay, kid. C'mon, you need to get inside, get cleaned up. What's your name?"

"Danny."

"Danny, I'm Harper. C'mon."

Danny stood, still clutching the poncho, and as he walked along, he said, "I couldn't save anybody. That's my job--that's what I'm supposed to do, and I couldn't--"

"Kid, what are you, twelve? Thirteen? Nobody expected you to save anybody. The sheer fact you got your own ass outta there is pretty damn impressive, and I saw you helpin' people into the basket. You don't have any reason to feel guilty, believe me."

It was then that Harper felt the kid grab his uninjured arm. He turned to look at him, and saw that he had an utterly serious look on his face, far too intense for someone his age.

"I do," he said. "I could've...I gave up, and if I hadn't, I could've done more."

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and then Harper felt as if his stomach had disappeared, that he was icy-cold and lighter than air--he felt it blowing through him.

Then, he was normal again.

Perfectly normal, that is. No squirming. He looked down at the ground at his feet and saw ten Magog larvae squirming there.

"GAH!"

His big boots went to work and he squished the ever-lovin' crap out of them.

Then he turned back to the kid, eyes wide.

"They infested me twenty-three times," the kid said, furiously. "Twenty-three times."

Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out, falling forward. Harper caught him before he hit the ground.

"Jesus."

Gathering him up into his arms, he made his way to the infirmary, talked to the doctors, and put him in a bed, hoping he waked up so he could ooze gratefulness at him, but no dice.

Beka was sleeping again, so he couldn't talk to her, but he stayed by her bedside a bit anyway, just because.

Eventually, Harper made his way out, to find Zuko and Natalie and tell them he was okay, and see how Sokka was.

Not once, during all of it, did the kid let go of his death-grip on the poncho.

The adoration of his heart had been to her only as the perfume of a wild flower, which she had carelessly crushed with her foot in passing.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

***

After tucking Alessa in, Harper snatched his duffel bad from the living room, where the droid had stashed it, and started unpacking in his own room. There wasn't much to unpack. His "I love hentai" t-shirt from Laini, the Hawaiian shirt with the rockets that Duo had given him, his DVD of "It's a Wonderful Life" from Ray, and other assorted Christmas gifts he'd been given. Some clothes. His toolbelt.

His dog tags he was wearing, as usual, and had his penny whistle and rabbit's foot stashed in the inside pocket of his jacket, which he laid over the back of his chair.

After everything was tucked away as tidily as was possible for Harper, he flopped on the bed, kicking his boots off over the edge, and picked up a few flexis that had been left there for him, undoubtedly by Andromeda. System reports, schematics of newly installed systems, basically all he would need to once again know Andromeda inside out, better than the back of his hand, et cetera, et cetera.

There was light near the foot of his bed and he looked up to see Andromeda's hologram there.

"It seemed like you two needed a moment alone," she said.

Harper sat up in his bed, his back to the wall. "Yeah, it's all kinda emotional for her. She didn't...I mean you seen the condition she's in. She isn't used to having a parent actually looking out for her instead of winning the Nightsider Award for Screwin' Your Own Kids Up."

"She obviously has quite an attachment to you." It was said with a measure of...concern.

Harper picked up on it, and his eyebrows raised slightly. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Harper, I know your heart is in the right place, but both Dylan and I have...concerns about your capacity to care for a child, especially one with needs like Alessa's. As for youe claims where she's come from, even, they are , to say the least, dubious. A multiversal bar?"

"Look, Dylan already talked to me about your concerns, which you know since you hear every conversation that goes on onboard. Conversation's over." He narrowed his eyes. "I know I was messed up when I left--and I still kinda am--but I'm serious about this, okay? I mean, she's just...she's like a little ray of sunshine, and see, that's an easy thing to be when you've had a good life, but she hasn't. She hasn't, and still, she's sweet as Sparky Cola."

He passed his hands through his hair, his face softening, "I mean, she loves bunnies, and stories, and the Wizard of Oz, and she doesn't like dogs--they scare her--and she loves, absolutely loves coloring. You can't get the crayons out of her hands--look at this, Rommie."

He went for his jacket and took out the picture she'd drawn, of him, spiky hair, a grey blob where his eye should be, all sketchy with a big smiley face.

"Just look at that."

"She drew a picture of you."

He looked at it. "Yeah, she did." He looked up at her. "I don't even have a fridge and I wanna stick it up on one, yanno? All that, all that she went through and she still likes rainbows and unicorns and she's so different from me. I went through less and was more of a little snot."

A pause. "I know why you're worried. You think 'cause when I left I could barely take care of myself, that I won't be able to take care of her, but that's why I'm back here. I'm doin' the counseling and everything, just so I have a good job, and so she's got a safe place to live and tutors and doctors and Hydroponics--"

"What I still don't understand is why. I understand caring about Alessa and wanting to help her, but this sudden surge of parental love is...unusual."

Harper thought about it. He really thought about it. Then he took a deep breath and said:

"I grew up on Earth, Rommie. I was an orphan, too. Then--" His mouth quirked into a little half-smile. "--then this crazy cargo captain decided to take me in and give me a place to stay and decent meals and--gave me chance, yanno? I guess...I'm just doin' the same thing." The smile widened. "Difference is--" He gestured in the direction of Alessa's room. "--she's a sweetheart where I was a little snot. So I actually like havin' her around."

Years ago, Beka had asked him what he would do with the money from the salvage of the Andromeda. ("Lemme guess. A little cottage by the lakeshore, a white picket fence, dog? All the traditional mudfoot accessories.") He hadn't wanted it then, but he wanted it now. Wanted all of it: wife, kids, everything.

Now he had the kid, and it filled a little hole inside him, something deep, a part of him that wanted to look after someone else rather than be looked after.

Andromeda seemed to be satisfied with his answers. Until...

"Plus, the chicks can't resist a caring, sensitive, single dad."

"Harper..."

"Kidding, kidding!"

But Andromeda smiled at him. "Since you've been gone, I've been less than satisfied with the performance of my engineers."

"Which in Rommie-language means, 'Oh Harper, how I've missed you so, how I've longed for your skilled touch and your nanowelder in my deepest, most sensitive--"

"Harper."

He just grinned. "I missed you too." He admitted, "You're home."

Andromeda smiled back at him, just a little bit. "I have missed your...touch--" A slight eyeroll, and she said before he could cut in. "--in the purely professional sense."

He still waggled his eyebrows at her.

"If at all possible, I would appreciate if you could start working on my plasma lines, they're a bit--"

Interrupting her, he held up two fingers, "Two weeks."

He looked slightly apologetic, but not as much he might've in the past. "Two weeks leave and then I start. No work until then. Sorry, doll, but I gotta make sure the munchkin's all taken care of."

"Understood." She understood the logic of that. She did.

...She just wasn't used to not being first in Harper's eyes.

"She comes first now."

"I never implied that I wanted you--"

"You never did imply it, but it was always there."

Andromeda, Rommie, they'd always come first. Out of love. The love of an engineer for his ship and the love of a man for a woman all bound up into one. First admiration--of the technical and everything else--and a puppy crush and over time...over time it had become something different. Deeper. Less pushed by lust and more...selfless.

He'd done so much for her, on Seefra--during the accident, he'd even died for her.

It had become deep, and swept him off his feet, but of all the things it was, it was never, ever, reciprocal.

He wasn't going to do that anymore.

He had a kid to look after, and a red-head who danced with him.

No more.

Say sorry.

Andromeda, if possible, looked a tiny bit dejected. "Also understood." A pause. "Regardless, it is good to have you back."

"It's good to be back."

With that, Harper got back to looking over the flexis, and the hologram disappeared, even if Andromeda herself didn't. She was always watching.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears: they cannot utter the one, nor will they utter the other.

--Francis Bacon

***

The wonder on Alessa's face had been priceless when Harper and Beka took her down to the garage and showed her the Maru.

Harper'd had to explain how a spaceship was different from a sailing ship, because of the vacuum of space, but how that difference could be wonderful because it meant that things like stars and nebulae could exist, and how being protected by a little boxy clunker like that Maru meant you could get up right close to them.

Then there was the Slipstream. Bright colors, swirling threads connecting all things. Beka rode the rails like a pro and it was like gliding on tracks of ice.

Harper held a hand on Alessa's shoulder.

"This is the Slipstream, munchkin. Connects everything together."

A pause, and he knelt down so he was at eye level.

"There's even some that say there's little strings just like that connecting people. So that means there's one between me and Beka and me and my other crew, and you and Hank..." He pointed to himself and the to her. "...and between you and me."

He beeped her nose.

Music echoed across the lake. It was rough in some spots, but whoever was playing the old tin whistle had obviously known their stuff once, even if they were a little rusty now.

It took nearly all night to make it--not because it was hard to make one--it was easy as your standard Earth pastry. What took so long was the selection; there were so many to choose from, so many that could be put in it, so he took a while figuring out what to use, arranging them.

In the meantime, he was vocally making love to the classic (bad) oldies of the twentieth century:

Spring was never waiting for us, giiirl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages
And were pressed in love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

His nanowelder flared, making the same little kzzack! kzzack! noises it always did.

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the raaain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to BAAAKE IT
And I'll never have that recipe agaaaain
Oh, nooo!

Then he loaded the data into the processor and it was finished.

He grinned. All he had to wrap it was some slipstream coil insulation wrap, which was kind of shiny and a bit more like tinfoil than wrapping paper, but it was better than nothing.

Headbanging a bit, he sang:

"'Cause it took so long to BAAAAAAKE IT!"

Harper hadn’t expected the huge, honking load of gifts to appear when he ordered a drink at the bar, mainly because he’d had so many things on his mind since he’d gotten back from his world.

For instance, almost dying, getting his new eye, being pulled into a horrible zombie hellhole world of death, being threatened by yet another evil overlord (did he have magnets in his pockets or something?), and following up with the kid.

He hadn’t expected it at all, when he asked for a beer, and not only did Bar turn up a Neubayern Weisbrau with a little, red bow, as if She was wishing him a Merry Belated Christmas, but a heaping pile of packages. Dumbfounded, his fingers freeling numb, he tored the paper from each, his heart caught in his throat. He got the Best Hawaiian Shirt He’d Ever Seen from Duo, a t-shirt and some very interesting porn from Laini (what was hentai?), tea from Wash, a few gifts from the Endless, and he already had gotten the movie--the holy grail of Christmas movies--from Ray.

The last Christmas present he had ever gotten was a nobbled sweater his mother had made him right before he turned twelve. It was almost blue. Almost. Mostly, it was grey, because where the hell could you get dyed cloth or yarn in the Boston ghetto? But there was a little bit of blue you could see through that, in patches.

By the time he hit fourteen, it didn’t fit him anymore, and it’d damn near disintegrated. He’d been disappointed, but then it had irritated him that he’d never been able to get out his parents’ bloodstains anyway.

Still a bit numb, he gathered up his gifts and went off to hoard them in his room. It was so rare that he got stuff that he felt very protective of it, and had this irrational fear that someone would try to lift something.

***

His room was not really a room. It was more a temporary workshop and storage area for junk that wouldn’t fit on the overloaded Maru, but it was there he hooked up a monitor to an old disc-player and watched It’s a Wonderful Life.

This movie he had to watch alone, mainly because he didn’t want anyone--not even Beka--know that he was a secretly a huge sap. Event though it’d been years since he’d seen it, at times he was whispering the words under his breath.

“I wish I had a million dollars. Hot dog!”

“What do you want, Mary? Do you want the moon? If you want it, I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you. Hey! That's a pretty good idea! I'll give you the moon, Mary.”

“One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole.”

And his favorite line, just because...just because. Every time he’d said it, when his family watched it ages ago, Liam Harper would punch his fist into the air and thunder “Damn straight!”

"Just remember this, Mr. Potter! That this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?”

Young Seamus always wished he had a bath. It would’ve been nice to know what one was like.

Then the movie drew to the part that the old, static-ridden holo cut off at when he was younger:

"Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence. Get me back. Get me back. I don't care what happens to me. Only get me back to my wife and kids. Help me, Clarence, please! Please! I want to live again! I want to live again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.

And he did. Harper watched, as Bert came to get him and George realized that he was alive again.

“My mouth's bleeding, Bert! My mouth's bleed...Zuzu's petals! Zuzu's... they're...they're here, Bert! What do you know about that? Merry Christmas!”

“Hello, Bedford Falls!”

“Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas, movie house!”

“Merry Christmas, emporium!”

“Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!”

“Mary...Well, hello, Mr. Bank Examiner!”

“Mr. Bailey, there's a deficit!”

"I know. Eight thousand dollars.”

“George, I've got a little paper here.”

“I'll bet it's a warrant for my arrest. Isn't it wonderful? Merry Christmas!”

Harper watched, and he laughed.

“Mary! Let me touch you! Oh, you're real!”

“Oh, George, George!”

Harper watched, and he remembered. His mom and dad had loved each other that way. His mom and dad had loved him the way George loved his children, picking them up, gathering them in his arms...

And despite how heartwarming it all was, here, here Harper expected George to be given matching bracelets and hauled off to the slammer.

That’s what happened in real life. That’s what always happened. The little guy never won. The little guy never got what he deserved--he always got screwed over by the Mr. Potters of the universe.

But instead:

“Come on in here now. Now, you stand right over here, by the tree. Right there, and don't move, don't move. I hear 'em now, George, it's a miracle! It's a miracle!”

Harper watched as they came pouring in, baskets and collection jars, all overflowing with money, crowds of them, heaping it up.

“Mary did it, George! Mary did it! She told a few people you were in trouble and they scattered all over town collecting money. They didn't ask any questions--just said: ‘If George is in trouble--count on me.’ You never saw anything like it.”

Then his brother came, and...

Good idea, Ernie. A toast... to my big brother, George. The richest man in town!

And George, still holding Zuzu in his arms, glanced down at the pile of money on the table, and his eye caught something on top of the pile, and he reached down for it. Clarence's copy of "Tom Sawyer."

Dear George,

Remember no man is a failure who has friends.

Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence.

"Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

“That's right, that's right...Atta’boy, Clarence.”

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of Auld Lang Syne.
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear, for Auld Lang Syne.
We'll take a cup of kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne.

*** And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp
He sat at the star-watching rock, because even though Lady Selae had threatened him here, even though it was the place he’d been forced to write a suicide note, he wasn’t afraid.
And surely I'll be mine
Seamus Harper sat and looked up at fake stars that might as well have been real ones, one tiny human in a vast, unforgiving multiverse.
And we'll take a cup o kindness yet
He uncrumpled the fake suicide note, which was still in the pocket of his leather jacket.
For auld lang syne!
'i am sorry i realy am cuz of all i put you all thru. to have dun all that and hav it end lik this...'
We twa hae run about the braes
It would’ve been cruel, if it’d been a real note. He saw that now. It would’ve been one of the cruelest things he could do to the people that cared about him--however inexplicable it was that they cared in the first place.
And pou'd the gowans fine,
'but i'm not afrade. and if im not afrade then what the hells stoppin me?'
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit
But that is something that he wondered. It wasn’t that cruel, was it? What was stopping him?
Sin auld lang syne.
'i miss my family. ive done pretty well for a pahtetic littel mudfoot you now? why push my luck?'
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Why push my luck? Really?
Frae morning sun till dine
'One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole.’
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
‘No man is a failure that has friends.’
Sin auld lang syne.
It was corny. It wasn't real life. But under his jacket, he was wearing Laini’s t-shirt, under the Hawaiian shirt Duo had given him. When he got back to the bar, he was going to have some of Wash’s tea, rather than his regular coffee, for once, and maybe see if he could find Beka and Trance and get them to join him. Then maybe he’d dabble around with some schematics on the computer Hank had given him a month or so ago.
And there's a hand my trusty fiere
The words bouncing around in his head at the moment were from Ray.
And gie's a hand o thine
Reaching into the pocket on the inside of his leather jacket, he took out something that he’d thrown away years ago; thrown it away into his parents’ grave only to have it fished out again by a cousin he’d just found out was still alive.
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught
Still alive and thriving.
For auld lang syne
Starlight glittered in Harper’s eyes, but unlike many in the bar, it wasn’t because he was magical or a god or something, and therefore had eyes that shone with starlight and a voice like bells. He was just an annoying little guy that was too short to get onto some rides in drift amusement parks and had a voice that was whiny and annoying; and a dull, blue eye that only ever sparked with a bit of intelligence sometimes.

(“Here ya’ are. Made it from a bit of old pipe. Perfectly in tune, son.”)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
(“Lemme hear ya’ play, Sparkplug, while I do the laundry. You’ve gotten so good; sounds like God himself is whistlin’ a tune.)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of Auld Lang Syne.
(“Seamus, don’t--what’re ya’ doing? Your da made that for you! What’re ya’ doin’, throwin’ it away?” "He’s dead, Brendan! They’re both dead! I ain’t ever playin’ it again!"
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear,
for Auld Lang Syne.
“Ain’t nothing to sing about, anymore, Brendan, ain’t no reason to play anymore!”)

The last strains of Auld Lang Syne echoed across the lake, played by an instrument that hadn’t been played in twenty-two years.
...

A Ray of light
Gently touches my face
I look up
at a vast expanse of cosmic fires
a feeling of hope pulsates
through my soul
I feel now, I am whole.

--Silvedra Casseaus, High Bard of Oridian, I Walk With Night

***

Seamus Z. Harper would be damned if he’d let himself rot in a slave mine or camp for the rest of his life.

No way. No freakin’ way. I have had enough crap, he mentally broadcasted to who or whatever was always flinging said crap his way.

He decided to started dealing with the shackles first. There was no way they could pull this off without freedom of movement. Grunting a bit, like an old man getting out of bed in the morning, he got up, and with Brendan steadying him, made his way to the center of the hold.

The hold didn’t even have a grid on the floor with sewage sluices underneath—he could tell from the putrid stench and how his bare feet squished nastily on the metal floor. And from the festering infected wounds and skin infections many had.

Oh well. It wasn’t like he’d never had to live in filth before, and if his plans went off without a hitch, he wouldn’t have to for long.

“Listen up, folks,” said Brendan to the crowd, as he’d been the group-appointed leader so far, for the most part. “This is Seamus Harper.”

There were gasps and looks of wonder from quite a few of the people there. It astonished Harper, to get that sort of reaction instead of the outright loathing he had expected.

“Yes, that Seamus Harper. You need to listen to what he says, and we might just all make it out of here in one piece.”

Brendan nodded to Harper, and he took a deep breath and said six words. That’s all it took for the enslaved human cargo of the Nietzschean slave ship, the Argos, to care again and get ready to fight. Ripples of rebellion made their way through the crowd and as he spoke quietly, his plans were passed along in a complex game of Whisper Down the Alley. The eyes of every grimy, injured, defiant being in the hold were on him, as he said:

“This is how it’s goin’ down...”

Pulling together the plans in his head, Harper said, “First thing’s first, I need fiber wire, and something that can be used as a basic input and output wire. Look along the walls, see if there are any panels we could crack open to get them from. Also, start looking for an access port. Two, I need somebody to tell me the layout of the ship if they’ve seen more of it than I have. We’ll need access to a weapons locker.”

“I’ve seen it,” said an old man, hobbling over. “Sumbitches wanted me to show them how to get pas the auth code scrambler on my ship. Seen their whole damn ship, the docking bay, spotted where they stashed the weapons, everything.”

“Good. I’m gonna need you to describe it in as much detail as possible, especially any ductwork and access panels you noticed,” Harper answered.

“Looks like there’s a panel over here,” a woman said over the lull of the crowd, her cuffed hands probing a recess in the wall.

Harper slid his hand up to push the little button hidden in the prosthetic skin of the crook of his elbow. His arm slid open, revealing the mechanical workings within, and some of the people gasped.

Usually cyborgs tended to creep people out.

“You’re a cyborg?” Brendan gasped with wide eyes. “When the hell’d that happen?”

“Ah, little while ago. Engineering accident,” Harper said distractedly, fumbling with something in his arm.

“Why didn’t you just wallop them up there then?” asked the hot dark-haired babe who’d been with Brendan. What was her name again? Deena.

“Cut me some slack, lady, I’m nearly hacking up my lungs here. I can hardly stand, and my very organic other parts could’ve easily been splattered by any smart bullets they decided to shoot at me.”

Squinting a little and gritting his teeth in strain, he wrenched two flat, thin pieces of metal free. Then he pushed the button to close his arm again.

“Rotational positioning joints. Not really essential for it to work, thankfully. It’ll just be a little clunkier until they’re replaced.”

“What’re those for?” asked a woman in the crowd, who seemed to be having trouble standing. Her leg was bloody and bandaged—it looked horribly infected.

Harper just grinned as he dug one piece of metal into a little cavity in the cuffs, still clasped around his one hand and after a moment of concentration, the sensorcuffs clicked and fell to the floor, still glowing as if they hadn’t stopped broadcasting the signal that they were clasped and functional.

Harper twirled one of the impromptu lock-picks in his hand and a small, determined, sinister-if-you-were-an-Uber grin turned up at the corners of his mouth.

“Now we’re cooking with fusion, ladies and gentlemen,” Harper said to the crowd. “So...who wants their cuffs off next?”

There was gonna be hell to pay.

The Nietzscheans were the ones that owed.

***

“Alright, so we have a group of five—”

“Shouldn’t it be seven?” pointed out a red-headed, bearded man—he was a rather grizzly old cargo captain named Dietrich.

“Five, man, gotta keep it small or they’ll hear us,” said Harper. “Uber hearing.”

“But that just leaves three, because the other two are gonna grab the weapons and take them back through the ducts—” said the fierce older woman with the injured leg, a Captain Susandi.

“I’m telling ya’, a small group’ll be better—we’re going for stealth here--and believe me, Bre—Sam here, and I are good shots, alright? We get somebody else who’s a good shot and we’ll be fine.”

“Five of us, we get to the weapons locker, two go back with weapons in case they try to pull anything funny and grab hostages,” reiterated Deena.

“Exactly, babe. Then I jack in and hack into the internal sensors to see where they are—and if I can, shut ‘em off in different compartments. The other three get up in the ducts over the cockpit and drop grenades, and take ‘em out with gunfire if necessary. Then we get everyone out of the hold, get all the ships up and running, I set the self-destruct sequence, and our little fleet hauls ass for the nearest Commonwealth ship or outpost, in case our Uber buddies have any friends nearby. Then bim-bam-kaboom, bye bye slaver ship. The explosion will take out their mines and their little sensor net, too.”

“They’ll know something’s up, though, won’t they?” asked Brendan. “As soon as they’re locked off?”

“Not if I make the sensors as if the ship’s having a secondary bipartic functions glitch.”

“Perfect,” Susandi said. “The compartments locking down fits right in with that. Happens all the time in my damn ship.”

“Our big problem is keeping quiet in the ducts,” said Deena. “Also, how are we gonna avoid them smelling us coming, anyway? We all reek here.”

“If I can get into that reinforced panel in here, I’m gonna jack in and shut off the life support fans to everywhere but the hold.”

“Which means we’re gonna have to move fast,” Brendan cut in. “Everyone in the hold’ll be fine, but the five that go for the weapons locker are gonna run out of air after a while. The Ubers will, too, but they’ll last longer than us.”

“That leaves the teams—Brendan and I are on point. He’s most able-bodied outta everybody here and while I’m not, you need me to jack in out there—we’re not gonna have access to primary functions like the slipstream drive from a duct in here. They’re stupid, but not that stupid. Dietrich, are you willing to go?”

“Damn straight I am.”

“Okay, that leaves the two to bring the weapons back.”

“I’d go, but I’ll just slow you down, and they’ll probably smell the blood,” said ruefully.

“I’ll do it,” volunteered a Than. Grey Skies Watching, or something, his/her name was.

“I’m in,” said Deena.

At that, Brendan, who’d used men and women equally in his tactics back in Bunker Hill, whined slightly. “Deeena.”

“Sam Adams, don’t you even start this with me. I’m a grown woman.”

“But it’ll be dangerous. You’d be better off here.”

Harper leered.

Deena and Brendan caught him leering.

Deena rolled her eyes and Brendan shot Seamus a dirty look, but continued pleading.

“Deena, please, just stay here, and—”

“Bre—Sam Adams, you damn well better back off and let me do what I want to do.”

Harper kept leering. Brendan sighed and gave up, but he looked miserable about it, as Deena walked away and continued giving orders to the crowd.

There was silence between the two cousins as Brendan watched her go, frowning. Harper continued to leer.

Brendan’s glare was near-on murderous. “Don’t you even start...”

Harper held up his hands, in a ‘What? Me?’ gesture. Brendan inhaled deeply, and as he turned, the singing started, very quietly, but annoyingly:

“Brendan and Cheline. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G...”

“Shut up!”

Some classics were never forgotten.

***

In the lull, as several people fiddled with the wires in the panel they’d managed to pry open on the other side of the hold, Harper took a break. “Sam” was going over tactics and giving orders, and “Deena” was still arguing with him about her role in the plans—mainly because he didn’t want her in them.

That left Harper with a much-needed moment of rest, where he sank to his knees on the filthy floor and closed his eyes, head bowed, trying to keep himself from hawking up his lungs. So far he hadn't managed to keep himself from hawking up quite a bit of phlegm. Rust-colored.

“Fan-freakin’-tastic.”

He hoped whatever he had wasn’t contagious or everyone in the hold would come down with it. They were Earthers, nearly every one of them, and that meant that they didn’t have immune systems much better than his. So far he’d managed to keep from coughing on any of them, thankfully. That was something.

“You’re very sick,” said a pretty, feminine, girly voice, and he looked up to see Delphine kneeling next to him. She was rather beautiful, he couldn’t help noticing. He looked quite a bit like Trance, golden skin and all, but her golden tail was wrapped around her waist to keep it from dragging on the filthy floor.

“You’re a quick one, aren’t you,” Harper said hoarsely and sarcastically, rubbing sweat out of his eyes.

The girl frowned. “I was just trying to make conversation.”

She looked away, her jaw set, the tip of her tail flicking around somewhat impatiently. Harper knew what she wanted.

“You wanna know what I know, am I right?” he asked unflinchingly. “And if I’m gonna tell my cousin what that is.”

She bit her lip and looked back at him. “Maybe.”

Harper shook his head. “You guys can never give straight answers, can you. Can’t ever say yes or no.”

“Sometimes we can,” said the girl, quickly. Then she bit her lip again and added, “although sometimes we can’t.” She went on, “Sometimes the answers aren’t definite, aren’t a yes or no. Sometimes they flow, like water, and sometimes even we don’t know them.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, well, I know one answer, babe and it’s the one to the Million Dollar question: ‘what are you.’” A pause. “Bodies for stars, because the stars are alive. Trance told us about you, about what she is. You know her?”

The girl looked worried at his answer, but nodded. “She’s my sister, as much as she can be. She’s older than me. A lot older than me.”

“So you’re a young one, huh? Any star I’m familiar with?” he asked.

She stared at him with those knowing, golden eyes, but didn’t say anything other than, “You know me very well, Seamus Harper.”

It was his turn to tilt his head at her, and he shook it, uncomprehendingly. “How?”

At this, Delphine was quiet. After a few moments of silence, she said slowly, in a very quiet, sad voice—the voice of a little girl that’d seen far too much:

“I miss it, too, you know. That’s why I wanted to help your cousin. I wanted to help there be another one, even if it wasn’t mine. I liked all of you. There was order and they started to form around me, these huge things, and I didn’t like that, but then...it was different. First, it happened on the fourth one. There was volcanic activity and air and then life. But it was too small. There was order too soon and it formed too small, and it couldn’t keep the air, and so it leeched away, and the whole planet died. But it also happened on the other one, closer to me, order and volcanic chaos, and the chaos and order called life—the first one-celled organisms and then the multi-celled ones and then the plants and fishes and amphibians and reptiles and birds and mammals, and then...well, it got interesting. It was never predictable, and we’re very good at predicting things. I liked it. There were all those years that wars were fought and there was life and death and chaos and order, but it was all chaos in the end, really. Then there was too much order, when they came and took over, the ones you all hate so much. Then it got even worse, because of the Abyss, and I fought It, but It fought me back, and I tried--I tried to fight It off, really I did, but It was too strong. Too strong for me.” Her voice sounded pleading, as if she was trying to defend herself. “I could only save myself, and the other planets, but It wanted the one, the third one from me, and I couldn’t stop it from taking it. I tried, but I wasn’t strong enough.”

She bowed her head, tears welling in her eyes, some of them spilling over onto shimmering cheeks.
“I really miss it a whole lot.”

And at that Harper knew. He knew her, just as he’d known her since he was born, just as every Earther in the hold knew her.

Helios. That was Greek. A name the Greeks has for the god of one particular star, one very important star...

“Sol,” he whispered, awed.

She gave him a tiny, watery smile. “I always liked your kind. You were very smart and adaptable, and I liked how you worshipped me a lot, when you were young.” She went on, admitting, “I don’t really agree with Trance’s vision of things, and I didn’t want to get involved with ...It any more than I had to. But I wanted to honor Earth’s memory, so I looked ahead, and found what could happen, and searched for your cousin. He’s important. I’ve been helping him in the way only my kind can, to form his Alliance--”

“—By manipulating him and his crew,” Harper said, eyebrows furrowed.

She looked down, the looked Harper straight in the eyes frowning. “Trance did that to you, and you’re alive. All of you. And the Abyss is gone.”

A deep breath. “I want what’s best for Earth. For what’s left of it—its people, scattered all over the universe. I want what’s best for Brendan and Cheline, too. I’m going to try to get all those things if I can. Like Trance did. I’m going to try not to hurt them.”

She looked up, a determined angle to her jaw. “I know you must hate how the Lightbringers work, Seamus Harper, but some of us do care for you. Yes, we do...influence more than you’d like, but Trance and I and others like us don’t do it, thinking you’re only things. Some of us understand the value of your lives. They’re so much shorter than ours and that makes it even sadder when your light goes out too soon.”

Harper inhaled deeply, just looking her over. He was shaking a little now, from chills; his fever must’ve been astonishingly high by now.

“I guess if you’re like Trance, you’re alright,” he said grudgingly, and she, the Sun, his Sun, smiled at him.

“You humans are alright,” she told him. “That’s why I’m here. They’ve been trapping people in their nets and mines, when they come back to Earth, to see if it’s really gone, to mourn, to pay their respects.” She paused, and a light in her eyes flared slightly, and her whole tone and air changed, becoming something that, quite frankly, horrified Harper.

“They’re very bad people,” she said in a much harsher voice than she’d used before. “I may not have been able to save Earth, but I won’t let them dishonor its memory.”

As Harper listened to her say that, he was very, very glad she—like Trance—was on his side.