*          *          *

Harper smoothly flew the Eureka Maru through space. He passed an asteroid and then flew through a dazzling cluster of stars.

He smiled briefly. Space really was beautiful. He had never understood Beka’s fascination with space. All he had ever seen in it was a vast emptiness, all she ever saw in it was beauty and freedom.

Staring at the stars he flew through, he thought he was beginning to understand. They were really kinda pretty.

He glanced over at one of the panels beside him.

He had been flying for over an hour.

He quickly calculated in his head and determined that Rommie wouldn’t start detecting his absence for about another twenty minutes.

Maybe longer.

He’d scrambled her internal and external sensors really badly. He almost felt guilty about doing it, since she wouldn’t be able to detect any hostile vessel which approached her, but Harper quickly pushed those thoughts aside.

Now was not the time to start feeling guilty.

He looked out at the stars again.

He knew that they’d never find him. Or, at least, find him quickly. He’d started zipping all over the place as soon as he’d left the hangar deck. Flying between two large planets so that his gravitational pull was evenly distributed and harder to trace, slipstreaming from one system into another, and constantly changing direction.

He had no idea where he was going. It didn’t really matter, just as long as they didn’t find him. Or, at least, find him quickly.

As he quickly did a U turn and started heading back the way he had come, he started thinking about what they would all do when Rommie fixed her sensors again.

At first they’d all be pissed that he’d messed around with her sensors. Beka would mutter about firing him and Dylan would sigh and shake his head and Tyr would probably punch some wall somewhere.

Then they’d discover that he’d left. Beka would hit the roof as soon as she found out he’d taken her ship. Tyr would roll his eyes and mutter something about him being an idiot. Dylan would immediately tell Rommie to look for him.

Harper smiled as he turned the ship around again and continued his previous course, but this time flying in a zig zag pattern. Rommie would have one hell of a time trying to unscramble his real course from his fake ones.

Trance would probably help them out somehow. Dropping those subtle hints of hers about which ways she ‘thought would be the prettiest way to go’. Harper knew that Trance knew exactly where he was. Somewhere in that little purple mind of hers, she knew.

Maybe she even knew what he was going to do.

Maybe she would even tell everyone else. But thinking about it, Harper doubted that she would. Trance never revealed anything about the future to them directly. She did it subtly, with small little hints and innocent comments. But never directly.

But maybe this time she would. Maybe.

He shrugged. Oh, well. Even if she did and Rommie would be able to trace him quicker, he doubted that they’d find him. Or, at least, find him quickly.

That was all that mattered.

Them finding him in time.

He wanted them to find him. Of course he did. After all, he couldn’t stand the thought of Beka not having her ship because of him. She’d done way too much for him for him to repay her by his last act as her engineer and friend being that he stole her ship.

No way could that happen. Of course they’d find him.

He knew they would. Even if it killed them, he knew that Beka and Rommie wouldn’t stop looking if they had to look until they were both a hundred years old. Sitting in rocking chairs and becoming wrinkled and old, they’d still look.

He chuckled as he remembered that Rommie would still look the exact same in a hundred years. Yeah, trust him to imagine an AI growing old.

He laughed.

He started wondering if Trance would ever grow old. Or if she would live forever like Rommie.

He looked at the time again. Ten minutes left. He had to hurry.

Time to slipstream again.

He turned the ship around, looking around for an entrance to the stream. He squinted through the black space surrounding the ship. Except for a few stars and piece of metal which slowly floated by, Harper couldn’t find one.

He swore under his breath. He glanced at a screen beside him.

“Computer, find me the nearest slipstream entrance pronto.”

Seconds later, a red dot appeared on the screen. Harper looked up and stared out of the windshield. It was dead ahead.

He squinted again. Yeah, he could see it now. Quickly, he opened up the stream and clutched the controls. The thick cords of electricity flickered around him as the stream reached out and grabbed the ship. The stream pulled him inside with such force that his head slammed into the back of the piloting seat.

Ignoring the bump on his head, he started guiding the ship through the channels of the stream. He ducked in and around the cords, not taking his eyes off the flickering maze of electricity he was riding through.

Finally he spied the ending of a channel. He forced the ship to pick up speed and reached the end of the stream. The slipstream abruptly threw him out, the silver cords letting go of the old ship and pulling themselves back into that hidden dimension which serves as everybody’s highway.

The slipstream reminded Harper of Trance.

So mysterious, so hidden and  secretive, but whenever you needed it, it was always there to help you.

He smiled.

He thought back to the last memories he had of his best friend.

*          *          *

 She had been on Med deck, talking to Dylan. Harper had been crawling along the air ducts, fixing some leaks which Rommie had been complaining about.

He’d been crawling around for hours, getting covered in dust and dirt, when he had passed the Med deck.

He was about to knock on the grid which covered the opening of the air duct, but when he heard Trance talking to someone, he abruptly put his hand down and squinted through the grid.

Trance was talking to Dylan. Harper shrugged, realizing that their conversation was none of his business and was about to keep on crawling, when he heard them say his name.

They were talking about him.

All thoughts of leaving disappeared, as did Rev’s reminders that eavesdropping was unethical.

Harper leaned in closer, his hands on the grid.

“Are you sure you ran through all the possibilities?” That was Dylan.

“Every one I could think of.”

“Rommie’s medical archives, the medical records we kept from the University, other planet’s medical archives—?”

“I checked everywhere, Dylan. Rev asked at all of his retreats, and they didn’t have anything. I even went to that—that—what do you call that huge medical conference again?”

“The annual Intergalactic Medical Conference of the Known Worlds?”

“Yes, that one. And they didn’t even have anything.” Harper could see Trance throwing up her hands. “I mean, those guys are the top doctors in the known worlds. In medical matters, nobody is smarter than them. And if they didn’t have anything, then…” Her voice trailed off.

Dylan bit his lip. “So, what you’re saying is is that there is nothing we can do.”

Harper saw Trance nod.

Dylan muttered something that Harper couldn’t make out. He guessed that it was a curse.

“How long will the medication still work?”

“A few days. A week at most. Already the larvae are getting edgy. They’re starting to fight the medication now and within a few days, they’ll have built up a resistance to it.”

“And then?”

“Then Harper will die.”

Both of them fell silent.

Finally Trance spoke up. Her voice was filled with such despair that Harper hardly recognized it.

“Dylan, I just wish there was something we could do.” She said, sounding close to crying.

Dylan nodded. “Me too.” He said quietly.

*          *          *

Well, he had to agree with Dylan. He wished that there was something they could have done too.

He flew through another cluster of stars.

But, since they couldn’t do anything, Harper figured it was up to him to find a way out of this mess his body had gotten itself into.

He glanced at the clock again. Rommie would have just finished fixing her sensors. She’d probably already told Dylan that he and the Maru were missing. They’d start searching pretty soon.

It was time.

He cut the engines and unsnapped the seatbelt and pulled it off himself.

He pushed himself off the chair and stretched.

He went over to a small bag he had brought with him from the Andromeda. He unzipped it and pulled out a bundle of wires and a long metal connector.

He quickly grabbed the bundle of wires and the connector and walked down the long, familiar corridor until he reached the engine room.

He dropped the bundle beside a large control panel. Small lights blinked up at him, flashing in bright colors and colorful buttons covered the rest of the silver panel. Here was the Maru’s brain.

Harper quickly set to work untangling the wires.

He pulled them apart and started plugging them into the panel in various outlets. He sat down and pulled open a small door underneath the panel. Sticking his hand in, he rummaged around until he found the outlet he was looking for. Grabbing a wire which lay beside him, he plugged it into the outlet.

He stood up again and started quickly connecting the ends of the wires to each other. The panel and the floor of the room were covered in a maze of twisting and tangled wires, all leading to different parts of the panel.

After he had connected the last wire to the long, metal connector spike, he stood and surveyed his work.

He smiled. Everything was perfect and ready. The pure work of a genius.

He had connected wires to all of the Maru’s major systems which were constantly fed by a large supply of electricity. He had taken those wires and connected them all to a main wire, to which he had attached the metal connector.

As soon as he would turn the engines of the ship on again, all of the electricity which fuelled the ship’s systems would be diverted from the systems to flow through those wires and to finally end up in the connector.

The connector would be filled all the electricity which normally went to power the entire ship.

Harper smiled. It was such a genius plan.

It would be painless and fast and would guarantee that Trance wouldn’t think up some small miracle on how to bring him back, and the best part was that he wouldn’t be damaging the Maru at all. All that Beka would have to do was to pull out the wires, and the power would once again flow to the systems and the places it was supposed to go.

Harper couldn’t stop smiling. It was the work of a genius.

Suddenly, he remembered the time.

“Computer, what time is it?”

A short pause and then: “1305.”

Harper nodded. Rommie would just have started being able to dig out the beginning of his course from the jumble of dead ends he’d left behind for her.

It was time.

He dropped the connector and ran out of the engine room to the front of the ship.

There was one more thing he had to do before he revved the engines.

He pulled open a drawer and pulled out a flexi. Sitting down on the step before the piloting chair, he bit his lip, mulling over what to say.

He had already said goodbye to everyone else. He’d prepared a message for everyone, saying goodbye and thanking them for all that they’d done for him over the years. He’d hidden it in the Maru’s files and told the ship not to release it until Rommie had found the ship.

He’d told the ship to send it directly to Rommie as soon as one of the crew stepped onboard the ship. That way, as soon as they went back to the Andromeda, his message would be waiting for them.

He thought that he had done enough, but then he started thinking about Beka.

Out of everyone on the crew, she meant the most to him.

Over all the years, she’d been the only one who had always been there for him. She’d been his boss, his friend and the mother he never truly had.

No matter what he did, no matter what he said, she would always know what to say and what to do. She’d never yell, never tell him to get off her ship, never dump him on some planet somewhere and leave him. No.

She not only put up with him year after year, but she’d always save his sorry little neck when he got himself into a mess somewhere.

He’d never asked her for any of that. Never asked her to take care of him, to save him, to talk to him, to support him. No. He’d never asked for any of that. But she still gave it to him. Everyday. No matter how bad things go, she still cared.

Harper had never had anybody in his life like her.

He smiled. And never again will he have another person like her.

Leaning against the wall, he started writing on the flexi.

Beka,

I wasn’t going to leave you a separate message, but I figured that you deserved something more than that sappy mess I left behind for everyone else.

I know that you’re probably really pissed off at me for what I did. And you have every right to be. I would tell you why I did it, but I know that after you’ve vented your frustrations on a wall somewhere, you’ll sit down and realize why I did what I did. 

Beka, I want to thank you. For everything. The past five years had been the best years of my life. And I mean that honestly. You’ve given me back everything that I had lost while growing up on that hell hole. You gave me back laughter, hope and most of all, you gave me a reason to keep on fighting, even when the entire universe wants to kick me down.

Beka, I didn’t give up. Please don’t think that. I did what I did because I simply wanted the easy way out. Tyr will probably call it cowardice, but I call it being reasonable. Why dwell in hell when you can cheat and take a shortcut to heaven?

I know that you understand why I did what I did.

Anyway, Beka do you remember what Brendan called you? When you said you’d buy me and take me off of earth? Do you remember? He called you an angel. A blond haired angel with a rust bucket for wings.

Well, that’s what you are, Beka. Honestly. You’ve risked your neck for me so many times, and no matter what I did, you never threw me out like everyone did, but you would always yell at me for a bit and then hug me and tell me it’s okay and that we’d fix the mess together.

You really are an angel, Beka. And no matter what anybody else tells you, I want you to never forget that. Promise me that.

Seamus Harper

Harper glanced over the flexi, wondering briefly how on earth he had managed to churn up this much sappy crap within only minutes. Oh, well. Although it sounded sappy, it was still true. Every word of it. Beka was an angel. No matter what anybody else said.

He slowly got up and stretched. He glanced at the clock again. It was really time now. Rommie would be on top of him any minute.

He quickly ran to Beka’s old quarters. He stuffed the flexi under her pillow, knowing that she’d find it there.

After adjusting the pillow, he quietly made his way back to the piloting chair.

It was time.

Leaning over, he pushed a button. He felt the engines starting to hum as they started churning thousands of volts of electricity to the Maru’s systems.

Or rather, to his wires.

He slowly made his way back towards the engine room. On the way, he stared at the walls and wires and pipes he passed by, trying to engrain them into his memory.

If the last thing he saw before he died wouldn’t be his friends, then it would be his adopted home.

He smiled. Growing up, he had never had a home. Always being pushed from camp to camp, occasionally to the city and then to jail, and then back to a camp, he had never called any of those places home.

But now, he had two homes. One of them a rusty, creaky old mess of a ship which only stuck together with the help of sturdy cables and propellers, and the other one was a polished, powerful High Guard Starship.

How different they were. Just like his friends.

He shook his head. His mind was rambling on and on  into such useless directions.

He reached the engine room and walked inside.

He sat down, leaning against the giant panel, which was heating up and vibrating from the enormous effort it took to direct so much power into one little wire.

Harper reached over and carefully grabbed the connector. Sparks were flying off the tip of it and it was so hot he nearly dropped it.

He stared at the little connector.

This was the end.

After all the suffering, all the heartaches, and all the pain his short life had inflicted upon him, this was finally the end.

A smile tugged on the corner of his lips. He had never believed in the Divine, or fate for that matter, but if he pretended for a moment for either of them to exist, he believed that the Divine had always shoved him into those small spaces in life which nobody else wanted to be in, or had forgotten about him altogether.

On the sidewalk of life, he’d always either been stepped on or pushed out of the way, or had fallen into cracks of the cement, and nobody had ever bothered to pick him up or help him.

His life had been one long drawn out pain. He had always been dealt the crappiest cards. Always. At least, until Beka came along.

He smiled again. The last five years of his life had been bliss. He was convinced that the Divine had either gone insane by giving him these few good cards, or had run out of crappy cards to give him.

It was hilarious in a way. No matter what he did or how hard he fought, he always stayed at the bottom of the barrel. He was convinced that the past five years had been a complete accident. But now, it didn’t look so accidental anymore. After all, he had been dealt one last crappy hand.

And this hand would not only kill him, but would torment him and make him suffer.

He nearly laughed. So damn ironic. Just when he thought he’d made it to the top, life turned around and bit him in the ass one last time.

Well, he was sick of always fighting it. Them. Whatever it and whoever them might be. He was sick of never getting to make his own choices and of always having to live off the cards everyone  else threw down.

This time, he’d make his own decision. Nobody was there to stop him, nobody was there to force him to die the way he was meant to die. No. This time, he was taking control for once.

He softly asked the Maru what time it was. It was twenty minutes later than it had been the last time he’d asked.

He glanced around the engine room one last time.

He was ready.

He carefully lifted up the connector, sparks still flying off the tip. The panel behind him was shaking, and the connector looked like it was glowing.

His mind was surprisingly blank. He was done thinking. He was done hurting and trying and living.

He was finished. This was the end.

He slowly lifted up the connector to his neck. As he brought it closer to his port, he could feel the electricity heating his skin.

Quickly, he shoved the connector into his port.

For one second, time itself seemed to freeze. He was aware that he dropped his hands and that the connector felt like a burning torch in his neck.

The last thought that crossed his mind was that he had won. In an ironic, sad way he had won. No matter what anybody else thought, he had won.

A small smile formed on his face as he realized that. He had won.

That thought stayed in his mind as he felt his port starting to melt. For one second, he felt it all at once. The heat of the connector, the shaking of the panel he was leaning against and the smile on his face.

But only for a second.

Then, the electricity slammed into him and he couldn’t breath anymore and his mind erupted into a dazzling cluster of sparks.

He thought they reminded him of the stars.

For the first time, he truly understood why Beka thought of those stars outside as beauty and freedom. Staring at the sparks which clustered around his mind, Harper knew that they were not only beauty, but they were freedom too.

Then, slowly, his mind was engulfed by a darkness which swallowed the stars and all of his thoughts.

And slowly, there was nothing left, except for the darkness.

*          *          *

The Eureka Maru hung in space, slowly floating through the darkness, her engines and systems all dead.

That was how Rommie saw her as she approached the dead ship.

An old, rusty ship hanging suspended in space, quietly drifting along and surrounded by hundreds of sparkling stars.