milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: Harper talks to his cousin's crewmate and finds out something that even surprises him.]

***

forlorn
life fades
no dreams left
even in the womb I knew

--Charles Chaim Wax, bleak

His plan went off without a hitch. There was crawling through ducts and guerilla tactics and bravery and gunfire, and they did it. No casualties on their side, every Earther got into their ships, Harper stayed behind to set the self-destruct sequence. It worked. It all worked.

Except...when he got to the docking bay, to fly away on the last ship, his Slipfighter, he found a little surprise waiting for him.

When they'd first brought him on board, they'd mentioned something about bucky cables and repairs, and now, as he looked at the gaping hole in the cockpit window, he knew what they'd been talking about.

He also knew, that with the self destruct set--and no way to reverse it, as he'd made sure of that, since the Nietzschean captain was still alive somewhere on the ship--that he was dead.

Even if one of the ships came back for him, they wouldn't be able to clear the minefield before the destruction of the Slaver ship set off the massive mine and sensor field surrounding Earth in a massive explosion.

That was it. He was done. As such, he grabbed two very small things from the slipfighter, and got dressed into a change of clothes, as he didn't really want to die in his boxers.

Then he made his way back to the cockpit of the Argos, sat carefully in the pilot's chair, clutching at the few small possessions he never went anywhere without, and tapped the comm, putting it on audio only.

"This is Seamus Z. Harper, of The Eureka Maru, contacting all Earther ships." His voice cracked and he paused for a moment, cleared his sore throat and went on. "You did good, people." He rubbed his hand over the stubble around his mouth and closed his eyes.

"You showed them what we're capable of. You showed them that we aren't slaves, we aren't livestock that can be shuttled around and sold. Nietszcheans believe in survival of the fittest--well, look who survived.

Most of all, you made it so there's one less slaver ship out there to capture innocent people, take them away from everything they care about, and force them into a life of poverty and cruelty. To force them into a life with no hope. I've set the self-destruct. The little, tinny voice is telling me the ship's got ten minutes left."

He paused. "The reason I can, eh, hear it, is because I'm a bit stuck here. Apparently, my ship's cockpit window was smashed in when they brought my ship into the docking bay." Quickly, he went on, "If anyone comes back for me, they're gonna die, because there's no way you can get back here and escape the minefield in...nine and a half minutes and that's why you damn well had better not."

He took a deep breath. "I'm blocking off all communications except for those from one ship, and that's Sam's. He and I...we go way back."

A pause.

"Eh...that's it, I guess." Another long pause. "It was an honor fighting alongside all of you." He swallowed. "I'm really not a hero, really I'm not, y'know. All of you are the heroes. Harper out."

Almost immediately, the comm lit up as an incoming transmission came in, and Harper tapped the button. He saw the cockpit of Brendan's ship, Cheline in the pilot's seat, Brendan leaning over her shoulder, his expression frantic.

"Seamus, you idiot, I'm having Cheline turn around!"

"No, you aren't, Brendan," Harper said, shaking his head slowly and resting his forehead in his hand.

"I am. We can make it. We can--"

"Cheline, you gotta keep him from doing something stupid," he said the the wide-eyed, worried woman he screen. "You'll never make it." He listened. "You have eight minutes."

He coughed into his hand, and leaned back in the pilot's chair, weak.

"Wouldn't matter if you got me anyway," he said, wiping sweat off of his brow again. "I don't think--" He hacked and coughed, gasping for air, until he caught his breath. "I'm thinking this ain't the Vedran flu I've got here."

Brendan looked away for a moment, looking pained. He looked back, eyes watering, "You're all I've got left, cuzzo, you know that? When I'd heard you died..."

Harper almost laughed at the bitter irony of it. But he didn't.

"You've got more than me," he said, nodding toward Cheline, and Delphine, who was standing behind them, looking sad. He grinned. "You got a lot more than me in Cheline there, Brendan. Uh, much as I love ya', there are some things she can provide you I can't and am not willing to provide."

Here Brendan laughed a bitter laugh.

"That's it," Harper said. "Laugh. That's what we always did, right? Laugh. Drink. Find girls--and you got a nice one there, Brendan."

There was silence, broken only by the voice of the Argos' computer, chiming in:

"Self-destruct in seven minutes."

Brendan stared Seamus in the eyes and it felt like he was standing right in front of him.

"I love ya', cuzzo."

"Gay," Harper shot at him, and Brendan laughed again, tears visibly in his eyes. Then, grinning dizzily, Harper said, "You take care of yourself, alright? And you take care of you're lady-friend's there. And don't be a stubborn bastard, and let them take care of you."

Brendan could only nod.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Seamus Harper," said Cheline, her eyes looking a bit watery too.

"Make sure my cousin is less of an idiot, willya'?"

Brendan turned away to face the back of the ship, and Delphine went over and placed her hand on his elbow, and her tail on his shoulder, comforting him.

She turned back to Harper, eyes amber and so, so familiar, and nodded. He just nodded back.

It was then that he noticed the date on the commscreen, and he almost laughed. Almost.

Tears pricking his eyes, he said raggedly, "Merry Christmas, Brendan."

The he cut off the message, blocked all communications, and collapsed back in the pilot's seat, his eyes stinging almost as much as his back.

***

"Self-destruct in four minutes."

He clutched his recovered belongings, tucked on the inside pockets of his jacket, to his chest--his rabbit's foot, his tin whistle, his two tiny Commonwealth medals, his nanowelder. It was as if they could root him down somewhere, keep him from floating off, which is what he felt like was happening. He was cold and hot and cold and hot, and he was going to float away.

Through his blurry eyes, he looked out at into space, at the torrid tumble of rocks and dust.
revolutions of the second hand
The stars were the same as ever. Little pinpricks of light in a very dark universe--as if pinpricks could make a difference.
innumerable to the watchful eye
It was like a dance. Stone bouncing against against frozen stone, dust swirling, it was still moving, still trying to live.
has not comforted this bruising
Sweating, and aching, he lay in the pilot's seat curled up under a blanket, his dim eyes half-blinded and filmy. The coughing wouldn't stop.
nor can this heart run far enough
Sweat dripped down his face and he looked out on the long night--the long night that was never lifted from his home--that he'd spent the last five years of his life fighting against.
away from the pulsing gangrene
He could've sworn he heard whispers, or singing. Children singing, he could hear children...
when off the darkest mile it tread
In Dublin's fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheel'd her wheel barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow

Crying "Cockles and Mussels alive, alive O!
Alive, alive O! Alive, alive O!"
Crying "Cockles and Mussels Alive, alive O!"

in the cooling of a fading day that
They whispered to him, sang in small, quiet voices that echoed in the endless dark.
gentle crushing fixed completely
Maybe Seamus Harper was a bit insane, but he looked out of the viewscreen on the ruins of Earth, a cold, dead spacecape half-lit by the far-off sun, and he whispered back:
drowning in despondent smiles
She was a fishmonger,
But sure it was no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they each wheeled their barrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
And they each wheeled their barrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
wafting wavelets forlorn, wailing,
Home floated in front of him, crumbled and lifeless, drifting.
whispering affections now silent
She died of a fever
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone;
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow.
a happier more innocent time wanting
There's nothing really quite like the sting of tears to a person's eyes.

"But her ghost wheels her barrow," he sang in a cracked voice, in between coughs, "Her ghost wheels her barrow, through streets broad and narrow."

Her ghost wheels her barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow

"Through streets broad and narrow."

Poor Molly Malone could never go home.

"Never go home."

"Self-destruct in three minutes."

He didn't hear the cockpit door slide open, or the heavy footsteps on the deck. He was too out of it.

It was then that two things happened at once. First, the door to the cockpit opened to a place that neither Harper nor the Nietzschean captain who'd just walked in through it, expected it to--a certain bar at the end of the universe.

Secondly, the bloody, completely furious Nietzschean started strangling Harper to death with a piece of wire, dislodged from somewhere during the fight, lifting him right up from his seat as he gagged and started to turn blue.

"Gack!"

"You kludge crotch dropping! We have three minutes left, but I'm going to make sure they're the most painful three minutes of your miserable life!"

Dragging Harper right out of the pilot's chair by the wire, he released him on the deck and kicked him in the side. There was little Harper could do but gasp and choke, keep himself from blacking out, and cover his chest and stomach with his arms.

"You fucking filthy, little mule!"

It was in clean view of whoever in the bar happened to be looking through the front door, open into Harper's ever-so-pleasant universe.

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Laini and Duo, sitting at a table near the door, both look up with a start. Spotting Harper and his assailant, they ditch their table and book it towards the Bad Guy.

Duo has two knives out before he's halfway to the door.

Laini- eh, not a fighter. But she has many tricks, and is not about to sit back while a friend of hers is getting beaten to a pulp. Her clothes change to a shifty black jumpsuit as she runs after Duo.

The captain was in too much of a rage to see that the door was not exactly normal, and Harper was barely able to even see. The Nietzschean pulled something out of a pouch in his belt and it crackled as it turned on.

There was an electric crack and Harper cried out in pain as the neural whip struck the arm he'd flung over his face.

"That's just a taste," the slaver snarled, red in the face, teeth showing, raising his arm again to strike.

"Fuck you!" Harper spat out. "Fucking coc--AAAURGH!"

Duo soars through the door with a flying kick, slamming the slaver in the kidneys. One knife cuts a chunk out of the Neitzchean's arm before Duo lands on his feet between his friend and the enemy.

"Hi there, ugly! You need an attitude adjustment. You're slacking, Harper!"

"Better taste in friends, usually." Laini chips in, catching Harper and pulling him back away from Duo and the Big Ugly.

"And as for you-" Ears flattening, she looks at the Neitzchean, "I've seen prettier trolls with leprosy. Go fuck a warthog- or do you have a problem with incest?"

The Nietzschean recoiled, dropping the neural whip, cursing and clutching his bleeding arm. It was obvious that he was completely bewildered about where the hell Laini and Duo had come from.

But he didn't linger back for long.

He didn't have a knife or any other weapon, but he didn't need one.

Extending the bone claws on his forearms, he moved to slit Duo's throat, growling.

In the meantime, Harper groaned, blinking his remaining eye blearily up at Laini.

"...There's...hot chicks in hell," he mumbled.

He had to be in hell, after all, as he was a bad person, he was still in agony, and he was burning, burning up.

Knives and bone blades meet with a screech and Duo is driven a step back.

"Grab him and let's hit the road, I got a big one, here!"

He ducks another swipe and kicks his opponent sharply in the shin.

"Hotter chicks in life, though." Laini murmurs to Harper, one arm under his, and trying to circle around the fight to the door.

"Gotcha, Duo- Let the back up deal with him!" Laini motions with her head to the opposite side of Big Ugly, where there are three muscle-bound Guards each easily the size of her, Duo and Harper put together.

Any resemblance to an oaf-ish hunter from a certain fairy tale is pure coincidence. Cracking knuckles, or holding knives and/or guns, they eye the Nietzschean.

The Nietzschean tried to tear into them, as they were assuredly a more dangerous threat than Duo in his mind.

"One minute until self-destruct."

"Watch the back, watchtheback!" Harper gasped, cringing, barely able to get his feet to move. He was mostly dangling from Laini.

The illusions move back and away- but they are light and sound, no substance. Distraction only as Laini drags Harper for the door.

Her ears flatten, hearing the computer announcement. "... Lovely. So not good. What's the back??"

"From the pretty whip our friend was sporting a minute ago. TIME TO GO, KIDS!" Duo darts forward and scoops up Harper, hefting him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. Grabbing Laini by the hand, he pulls towards the door.

"Thirty seconds until self-destruct."

Away- far away, is good! But Big Ugly is too close for comfort. Laini lets Duo pull her along, but with her other hand she un-clips something from her utility belt, triggers, and tosses.

One directional flash-bomb, along with a directional blare of sound, aimed right for the Nietzschean. Macarena probably had been long lost in Harper's time- well, there was a reintroduction to it.

~HEEEEEEEEY MACARENA!~

And the three of them stumble through the doorway to Milliways.

The door was slammed shut, and a little less than thirty seconds later, it shook its frame, as if there had been a massive explosion on the other side.

"Boom," said Harper happily, from where he'd fallen to the floor of the bar. With a great deal of effort, he rolled on his side to face Duo and Laini.

They'd seen Harper at his worst once, and today he barely looked different, what with the black hole gaping where his eye had been and the clotted blood. His hair was plastered to his forehead with blood and sweat, and sweat was pouring down his face. Heat was radiating off him. Despite it, however, he was shaking and his teeth were chattering as if he was caught outside in the Scottish winter. With eyes slightly glazed, he looked at them, trying to get his vision to focus. For a second, it seemed he was going to say something significant, but he wound up coughing a horrible, wet, hacking cough, and he wheezed for air. His face was pale, almost translucent, and had a sickly bluish tinge to it. His lips were blue, too, and so were his nails.

He giggled, not insanely, thankfully, but more deliriously, his mind foggy from the fever, and said, rather breathlessly, "You both look like girls."

Then the expression on his face changed a little, as air became more and more elusive to him, and he whispered again:

"I want Beka."

"Beka ain't here, you..." Duo trails off, obviously supremely worried and frustrated. "Letting someone else knock you off still counts, you know! Up!"

He hefts Harper up again, heading to the infirmary. "And I do not look like a girl," he mutters.

"Super Genius, we've got to stop meeting like this, y'know?" Laini helps steady Harper, letting Duo carry him, and fretting as they start for the infirmary. Ears perked- first doctor spotted is getting grabbed.

"... Though your hair is longer than mine, Duo. So-"

Well, she was no doctor, but it was still Trance who got grabbed by Laini. Possibly because Trance was entirely aware that, upon entering Milliways, she would be grabbed by Laini and needing to help Harper.

But it's only a possibility, after all.

"What does hair length have to do with whatever the trouble is?" Trance asked, still smiling cheerily despite already reaching a hand toward Harper's not-eye.

"Harper thinks I look like a girl," Duo replies, still making way for the infirmary. "The trouble is he got in a fight with someone bigger than him, after already being hurt, but I have no idea how or what. Trance, right? Harper, you wanna talk to the pretty lady and tell her what's what, huh?"

"It's just my old buddy, your purpleness," Harper said raggedly, a thin smile on his face. "Who comes and leaves phlegmy presents nearly every time I get sick."

By this, he meant it was pneumonia, which he had gotten time and time and time again, nearly every time some other primary illness had affected his chest, in fact.

Coughs wracked his body, and when he was finished, he managed to gasp out, "No antibiotics since it started--got picked up by Nietzschean slavers. I met one of your siblings."

"Well, that wasn't very smart of you, silly," Trance teased Harper, clicking her tongue and swishing her tail. "Don't just let people pick you up like that, you know? And I hope she helped you. Which sun'd you come across?"

More likely than not, Trance Gemini was already entirely aware.

"Oh, and yes, braided one who is not a girl, I'm Trance, and I need some cephalosporin for him, want to get some for me?"

Someone came up behind them.

"So I go back to our universe, chasing after my wayward and easily lost engineer, and hear this message over the comm saying that the great Earth legend, and hero of the human rebellion, Seamus Zelazny Harper, died, taking out a Nietzscheans slaveship with him. As I couldn't believe that, here I am."

What a relief. She'd hoped, when she heard the message, that maybe, just maybe the universe had shown just a little bit of mercy.

She paused, and a flustered expression came over her face as he saw the purple girl there. "...Okay, I hoped I'd find Harper here, but this is a whole new level of weird. Trance."

Beka shook her head, placed the back of her hand on Harper's forehead, cussed quietly.

"Sidesucker! You've got pneumonia again?" and grabbed a hold of the arm Laini was holding to help carry Harper into the infirmary.

"C'mon, infirmary, now," she commanded, quickly taking over.

"Not dead, but if we don't get our tails moving- well, he almost looks as bad as the last time we dragged him to the infirmary." Laini shakes her head, hurrying along with the rest, to said infirmary. (http://www.livejournal.com/community/ways_infirmary/10047.html)

"If you guys can start getting the various life-saving goodies and gadgets, I think I can get Super Genius here cleaned up in one fell swoop." She grins a bit, flexing her hands like a piano player warming up. "Should at least get Harper a bit more interested in staying in the world of the living, by any rate."

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