Archive of Our Own

"Hey, big man," a low sultry voice called from the depths of a doorway.

Dylan barely glanced towards her, shaking his head as he walked. "Not today thank you." He was somewhat taken aback when the slim, pasty faced woman skipped out of her doorway to block his path. Haunted brown eyes with dark circles stared up at him, completely at odds with the attempted sexy smile from bright red painted lips.

"So, when's good for you, big guy?" she asked, pressing into him.

Dylan gently pushed her out of the way. "I'm sorry but you're just not my type."

She grabbed his hand and, skipping backwards, tried to pull him down the alley next to the doorway she had been standing in. "If not me, then one of my, ah, sisters?"

Her persistence was starting to annoy Dylan, and he snatched his hand away, raising both in a gesture meant to stop her. "Listen, I'm kind of busy at the moment, I need to be somewhere. I'm. Not. Interested. Find someone else."

Again he started to walk away, but then she was in front of him again, hanging on to the front of his jacket, all pretence of seduction gone as she urgently begged him. "He, they'll beat me if I don't bring someone, please, please…"

"Who will?" he asked, exasperation mixing with the need to help.

"Um," she kept a hold of his jacket with one hand, while she chewed on the nails of her other hand and cautiously peeked past Dylan back towards the alley. "Um, him." She pointed and he looked to see a thin, pale man looking around the corner at them before ducking back into the alley.

Dylan sighed, and disentangling the pale woman from his clothes, strode back to the alley. Beating up on a pimp wouldn't really accomplish anything, but it might make him feel better, and might buy her some time to run away or something. As he stepped into the alley, a glint of metal out of place was the only warning he got.

If his reaction times had been any slower, he would already be twitching on the ground from the force of the taser pointed his way. Several white faced and skinny individuals were scattered about the alley, the nearest one armed with the crackling taser. Dylan hopped back and picked up a barrel, throwing it at the taser man. The barrel smashed into crates, sending up clouds of white flour, but when the dust settled, the skinny individuals had gone, along with the woman who had accosted him.

"That was weird," he muttered to himself as he brushed the worst of the dust off his sleeves and he headed towards Harper's bar with just a quick, curious glance back at the alley.

XXXXX

Beka and Trance walked towards the bar together, the avatar laughing in her childlike manner as Beka cracked a joke. They reached the door as it slammed open, and Beka had to hop back to avoid having her nose broken. Somehow, she wasn't surprised when Rhade came staggering out, each arm around a different woman and all three of whom were clearly happily and extremely drunk.

"I take it you're not stopping to see what Dylan wants?" Beka called casually.

In a class of movement normally reserved for large unwieldy vehicles, the Neitzchean managed to swivel the three of them around in an uncoordinated circle to face Beka. "Today," he informed her, extricating one arm from the pouting blonde and wagging a finger at Beka, "is a celebration. I am celebrating. I haven't decided exactly what yet, but I am." The other woman, tall and dark, whispered something in his ear and he snorted. "I'll celebrate that!" he laughed, clearly distracted by her cleavage, and manoeuvred them around to stagger towards destinations unknown, presumably somewhere with a bed.

"Have fun, see you later." Beka rolled her eyes and held the door open for Trance who stood staring at Rhade with that puzzled expression she wore when considering something that might happen in the future, or not.

"You okay?" Beka asked.

"I'm not sure," said Trance. "That which doesn't kill him can only make him stronger and if he leaves now, they will surely try and kill him." She paused, and then suddenly smiled brightly. "I don't know why I said that."

"Um, you mean that those two, ah, ladies, will try and kill Rhade?"

"No, silly," Trance giggled. "They just want sex."

Beka looked after Rhade, and briefly wondered if she should be worried. But, he was a big boy, could look after himself and besides, if he was this drunk at lunchtime, then he'd be sure to turn up in the evening pretending not to be hung over and ready to hit the next bottle. Anyway, she had priorities; Dylan was about to sell her a proposition he couldn't pay for. Again.

XXXXX

"Mr Harper tells me that to make Andromeda achieve slipstream, he needs a… what did you call it?" Dylan asked the engineer.

"It's a phase inducing parasilicoid ignition coil with trans – "

"A glorified inductor coil." Beka interrupted. "I have spares on the Maru, can't you jury rig one of those?"

Looking quite put out at being interrupted, Harper assumed his most patronising tone. "Well actually miss smarty-pants the answer to that would be no. Not even my genius intellect could transform a rusty old inductor coil from an old salvage scow. Even a beautiful old salvage scow like the Maru," he added hastily, as Beka gave him a look to kill. "As I was saying not even the Harper could transform a, uh… standard inductor coil into a phase inducing parasilicoid ignition coil with trans-ferrous anodyne…" Dylan stared very hard at him. "For those of you not familiar with the term, an inductor coil for very large spaceships. The bit that makes the slipstream drive go Pow!" he finished off quickly.

"And this has exactly what to do with me?" Beka asked.

"Well, we've managed to locate one," Dylan said lightly.

"And this has exactly what to do with me?" Beka repeated.

"The current owner would like to trade for it." Dylan replied.

"I repeat-" began Beka

Harper snorted, impatient with the game between Dylan and Beka. "The old man won't give us the coil unless we find his son, who could be lost anywhere in the Seefra system, kinda like a needle in a haystack if you get my drift, impossible and unlikely to succeed. I think we should just steal it. Er, and give him some of Dylan's money later."

"And you want me to run around all the planets looking for him?" Beka asked. "I hope not, because that really is going to cost you. A lot. And your credit rating isn't the best."

"Not so much running around actually," Doyle spoke up. "Alec Althazar is pretty certain that his son is on Seefra 6 and that he will have got there by shuttle along with his crewmate."

"So you want me to cruise Seefra 6 at low level to try and pinpoint the shuttle." Beka's expression was still one of disbelief.

"Or yours truly can sweep for residuals that might indicate where a shuttle's crashed, landed or otherwise hidden away from prying eyes," Harper said.

"Okay, that's better," Beka nodded thoughtfully then looked at Dylan. "Still gonna cost you lots though."

"I'll put it on the tab." Dylan scanned the room. "So where's Rhade? He said he'd be here and we could certainly use the manpower, there's likely to be quite a few possible sites to cover."

"With a client," Harper and Beka said in tandem and looked startled at each other.

"Really?" Dylan said. "Was he sober? Ah no, don't answer that, I already know."

XXXXX

The familiar nagging headache roused Rhade from his post-coital doze, and he opened one eye cautiously. Blinding pain assaulted his optic nerve from the sunlight filtering through the bedroom window and he groaned, bringing a hand to his sore head. A small moan of protest brought his attention the dark woman curled up to his left, and he smiled as he recalled her incredible… agility. The blonde had her head on his chest, gentle snores blowing softly across his skin.

It was a shame to leave these two beauties, but needs must and he had a client to see once he'd cleared up his hangover with a small hair of the dog. He'd have to go back to the bar for his hip flask and a change of clothes which was slightly inconvenient, and he wouldn't normally bother but he needed to sharpen his senses and lift the fog before dealing with this particular client.

Levering himself off the bed, he paused to give each of the two protesting women a kiss and a word of appreciation, "… if beauty be the food of dreams, this feast must last a thousand nights…" before quickly dressing and sliding out of the door.

The suns were too bright and people too loud as he strode along the dusty road towards the bar.

Hey, big guy," a low sultry voice called from the depths of a doorway.

Rhade barely glanced towards her, shaking his head as he walked. "Later maybe."

But the slim, pasty faced woman hopped out of her doorway to block his way at the head of an alley. Haunted brown eyes with dark circles stared up at him, completely at odds with the attempted sexy smile from bright red lips.

"So, when's good for you, lover?" she asked, pressing into him.

"I told you," he pushed her firmly to the side by the shoulders. "Later."

She raised a hand to finger the bone blades on his right arm. "Special discount for Neitzcheans," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Really," he said, not making any effort to disguise his impatience. "I'll bear that in mind."

He started to walk past the alley, but she gave a sharp cry. Reflexively he turned back towards her, his back to the alley.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, he would never have been so careless.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, his senses would have seen and heard the attack coming before the taser had even been drawn.

If he'd hadn't been hung over, his reflexes would have easily taken him out of danger and enabled him to take them down.

Before he could move, electricity shot through him, stopping him in his tracks, shocking muscles into uncontrollable rigours; eventually it stopped with shocking suddeness and his legs now incapable folded involuntarily beneath him to leave him shaking on hands and knees, trying to pull himself together.

"Well, hell," said a male voice somewhere above and to the left. "Will you look at that, he's still conscious."

Another male voice spoke up. "We'll see about that." More electricity stabbing eyeballs and eardrums, beating veins and arteries into submission and he could only stay on his knees and take it.

"Don't kill him!" shrieked the woman's voice, "We'll be well sorted if we take him alive!"

"I'm not going to kill him," the taser man said. "Just knock him out for a bit." And the shocking didn't stop until he did.

XXXXX

"This is a waste of time!" Beka complained yet again. "This planet is a junk heap and that's what we keep finding; junk heaps."

"One man's junk heap is another man's paradise," replied Harper watching the screen in front of him intently. "Just think of all the things I could do with this junk, I saw what looked like a telep – "

"Don't go there, Seamus!" Beka snapped. "You and junk are always trouble. And don't think I haven't noticed the bits you've been sneaking on board when you think I'm not looking."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, always on my case, but I don't see you complaining when it's the Harper has to pull your ass out of the fire again, with bits of junk cobbled together in ingenious ways."

XXXXX

Through his throbbing head, Rhade tried to focus all his concentration on his lower arms. He was blindfolded and gagged, his feet hobbled, but he only needed his arms to be free as he'd estimated the length of rope between his feet to be around shoulder width apart. His kidnappers had tied him up with rope, which when done as badly as this was completely ineffective. Bone blades were not designed for slicing, but with patience, he could work the points of his lower blades through the knots.

There was an anger inside him on a long slow burn and he fully intended to use it against the little bastards. With two men and a woman, all three of them skinny little Kludges by the sound and smell of them, the only problem would be the taser. He would just have to take them by surprise and act fast.

He didn't know where he was, but the stench of the place was overpowering to his sensitive nose, full of mud and unidentified chemicals. Without knowing how long he'd been out, he had no real estimation of how far they could have travelled. He'd come to when he'd been thrown into what had to be some kind of space transport, which had smelled strongly of fear, and played dead so far even when they'd landed and thrown him none too gently on the floor where he was now.

The ropes were loose about his wrists when he heard the footsteps coming in his direction, so he gathered them together in his hands, pulling them tight against his wrists so that it would seem he was still secure.

"See?" a voice he recognised as the woman said. "A Neitzchean! You always said they made the best Rush. You said there'd be a bonus if we got one. You said we could get first dibs on its Rush if we got one. You said they take longer to die. You said – "

"Shut up!" A new voice snapped, silencing the woman, for which Rhade was grateful; her shrieking tones were cutting through his headache and not in a good way. "You'll get your reward, don't worry. Is he still unconscious? Good. Take off the gag and blindfold, I want to check his eyes and teeth."

By the sound of feet and breathing there were probably four of them; the woman, a new man and presumably the other two men who had kidnapped him, one of whom was in front of his face. He kept perfectly still and hoped there was enough length in the rope between his feet to at least maintain balance.

The instant his eyes were clear of the blindfold his arms were shedding the ropes, hands clamping either side of the head of the man who was untying him. A quick turn, a snapped neck and the man dropped lifeless to the floor as Rhade rolled to his feet. He quickly noted the rough walls, the lack of windows and the fact that he was furthest from the single door. The other three spaced out around them, the woman and the new man who, with his decorative staff, was clearly in charge, stood set back slightly, leaving the man who had taken pleasure in electrocuting him to take the lead.

Growling deep in his throat, Rhade grinned nastily at the man, revenge clear in his expression. He feinted forward and all three leapt backwards. They were scared of him. Good. That gave him enough space to crouch down and feel through the dead man's clothes for a weapon whilst never breaking eye contact.

The taser man though, found some courage as his captive crouched and threw himself at Rhade. His intention was never clear and the taser never made an appearance, but one swipe upwards and bone blades tore through the man's guts and chest cavity leaving him to try and hold his own innards in while he finished dying.

Quickly finding a knife on the first dead body, Rhade sliced the hobbling rope and advanced on the woman. The man in charge had disappeared and the woman seemed torn between fight and flight, her head swivelling as she licked her lips and divided her attention between Rhade and the doorway.

The decision was made when it became clear that the third man had gone for reinforcements. "He's mine!" she screamed over and over as a score of thin pasty men came pouring through the door. Adrenaline kicked in and Rhade felt his blades virtually singing in anticipation; he was not in a mood to take prisoners.

The first two fell instantly with their throats ripped out, another two with their skulls cracked together and yet another jumped on Rhade's back and he used that one to shield himself. More arrived bringing home made weapons, clubs and frying pans, all determined to take him down and none caring for their own lives. There seemed to be no end to his attackers, only bodies piling up around him, until a pinprick barely noticed at his neck and the world slipped sideways, his attackers drawing away.

As he fells to his knees he sneered up at the man who seemed to be in charge, staff still in hand. He couldn't speak, his tongue frozen by the drug but his eyes promised death to any that touched him once the drug wore off.

The man with the staff watched him as he battled the chemicals that tried to draw him down. A battle of wills that was hard fought and not easily lost, but the outcome was inevitable. Rhade slumped fractionally and the man with the staff smiled faintly.

"This mustn't happen again," the man said calmly. "I want those inbuilt weapons gone. Cut them out at the root and bring him to me alive."

"No!" Rhade tried to protest, find someway out of this, but the word came out as meaningless noise and he could do nothing, as the pasty men pinned his arms and set about hacking his bone blades away, but scream.

XXXXX

They were milking him like a stinking cow.

Just the concept made Rhade feel ill and he probably would have been if hadn't done that already. If he'd thought he couldn't sink any lower before, now he'd discovered a whole new basement level that these people were only too happy to drag him down into.

He was lying on his left side, facing the wall of a smallish hot room that smelled of rot and decay and tied into place on his cot with copious quantities of rope and leather straps. From the little he could see and the much he could hear, there were three or four more cots, some of which were occupied by others in the same predicament. He was fully aware that his arrival had meant the execution, or perhaps it had been a mercy killing, of a man who was at death's door, simply because they didn't need him anymore.

For the longest time, the fire in his arms had blinded Rhade to anything else that might have been going on, but then they'd given him a pick me up. As the pain had become a little more manageable and adrenaline had surged through his system increasing his awareness, he'd thought it was to counteract the sedative, but he'd since been enlightened as the shaking throughout his body now attested.

He'd been stripped to the waist, for which he'd been initially grateful as it helped with the heat, but in fact it was to make room for the tubing that had been inserted into his flesh somewhere above his right kidney. That they wanted him alive was clear in their endeavours to wrap his broken and bloody arms in rags that had been dipped into a pungent disinfectant.

He tried not to think what that might mean in the long term, for those blades were far more than just in-built weapons. If he was lucky he'd be dead long before the long term came about, but for the moment, he tried to concentrate on keeping his arms perfectly still, keeping the fire banked, under control, even though that was becoming increasingly difficult as the shock wore off and he began to lose any hope of controlling his own body.

Sweat poured off him as the shakes grew in intensity and he could feel the strength in his muscles growing with the familiar angry high that he normally used to serve him in a fight. But unlike those fights, he had no control, and there was no coming down because the second line that ran to his neck, was feeding him the drug that was stimulating the adrenaline they were harvesting.

XXXXX

Beka sighed and leaned back, taking the Maru up through the atmosphere. "I'm giving up, this is getting us nowhere; we've covered the entire planet and it's just a waste of time."

"I agree," said Dylan coming into the cockpit from the living area with Trance. "We need to go back to basics, find out what made Althazar believe Seefra 6 was the place to look and get more information."

"What?" argued Beka, "You're still going to continue this crazy quest? I'm with Harper, grab the junk and pay him for it later." She shook her head, "All this for a lump of worthless metal."

"Which will help get us out of the Seefra system," Dylan reminded her.

"So you keep saying," Beka muttered as she steered the Maru on her way.

XXXXX

His arms screamed in agony at every twitch, hot and cold sweats alternating suddenly and violently, muscles cramping from head to toe, heart pounding in his eardrums and blood fizzing through his veins. Rhade could virtually feel his enhanced immune system trying to heal him, but it simply couldn't keep up.

With only the wall to look at and no response from anyone in the other cots, there was almost nothing to distract him from his suffering, other than the occasional ministrations of a young boy. To avoid ghosts and unwanted thoughts he tried to recall poetry and literature from home, silly rhymes and little ditties when the pain was too much to concentrate on the epics or the philosophical. Sometimes he didn't know whether he recited them out loud or not, but when he knew he did, they came out in harsh bursts of breath, halting and raw with neither tone nor rhythm, and often broken by a bitten back scream.

The boy smiled sometimes at some of the simple rhymes, and Rhade tried to make him laugh when he was able to form any thought. It seemed that the boy's job was to keep applying the disinfectant to his arms, and the kid took great pains to do so carefully, seemingly fascinated by the remains of his blades. In one of his more lucid moments, he tried to strike up conversation with the boy, but only received a scared look and a whispered, "shhh!"

Periodically, the man with the staff, Lord Barle, he overheard once, would come and change the little collection vial and check his eyes and teeth. Rhade kept trying to bite Barle strictly out of principle rather than any real hope of doing damage and every time, Barle would calmly press down on the splintered remains of his bone blades until the pain couldn't be held inside.

As soon as he'd gone, the boy would immediately tend him, trying to pick out splinters and dab away the blood.

Any conception of time skipped away from him, but he had to keep fighting constantly. His jacked up system would not let him do anything but fight or give up and he already knew what giving up in spirit was like, to give up in body was unthinkable.

XXXXX

Alec Althazar was a serious looking older man of tall and stocky proportions, basically quite fit although the cane supported a heavy limp. Bryal was his only son and although he openly admitted that he and Bryal often disagreed, they were close; had been ever since Elspeth Althazar had passed away, leaving them with only each other. Bryal never went more than a few days without at least a short message to say he was doing well and ensure his father was all right.

One of their disagreements, however, was Bryal's decision to join the repo cops. Alec liked technology and thought that it could have many applications that would ease some of the suffering in the system. Bryal disagreed, opining that whilst technology could be good, in the wrong hands and the uneducated majority, technology was just too dangerous.

At the time of his disappearance, Alec believed Bryal to have been involved in something, an investigation perhaps, but had no idea exactly what. He was certain it would have been above board because Bryal had always been a good boy and had always wanted to be a hero. Alec was, however, disapproving of Bryal's work partner, a young man by the name of Lan, who seemed nice enough, but entirely too reckless for Alec's peace of mind.

Bryal had been out of touch for nearly a month now, and when Alec had contacted the repo cops all they'd said was that Bryal and Lan had gone AWOL with one of their flight craft. The last message that Alec had had from Bryal was that he was going for a trip to Seefra 6, hence his assumption that this was most likely.

"We can't search the whole damn system," Beka objected. "It would take forever!"

"I know," nodded Dylan, "But we really need that coil. We could sweep Seefra 6 again, but I'd be lying if I said there was much hope."

Althazar nodded with a sigh. "I understand. You tried, and for that I thank you. I will have the coil delivered to you tomorrow."

"Well," Dylan was caught by surprise, already planning his next words in order to try and barter for the coil. "Uh, thank you. If we find anything, we'll be certain to let you know."

"Sure," Althazar replied without any conviction, and turned to walk away.

"You know," remarked Dylan, "I think that man could be the only genuinely honourable person I've met in all the nine planets."

"Maybe," said Beka. "Or maybe he's got an ulterior motive, or maybe he's a mug. Most likely though, you're the mug. Ten to one that coil won't get delivered."

XXXXX

Elsa sighed as Jason tried to have her come with him to work today.

Her grandson had been trying to get her to come to the caves with him everyday for the last couple of weeks, telling her she absolutely had to see one of the patients in the clinic, something about the man being like Jason was. She was quite certain that she knew what Jason as getting at, but did not want to be involved in the local politics any more than she already was.

She never went to the caves, as she wasn't welcome, although Jason tended to be fussed over by the people there. Mostly, she suspected because he was, in principle, Barle's son. Elsa was certain that Barle suspected otherwise and knew for a fact that her daughter had conceived by another man. Fortunately, Barle had not been there at the birth, or he would quite possibly have destroyed the boy then, not only for killing his mother, but also for the freak he was. Elsa had spent the past eleven years caring for Jason and ensuring that no one ever discovered his little secret.

She was, however, aware that the secret must out some time, but hoped that he would grow into manhood enough that he could find himself a new life before Barle found out. And the important thing was that, with no other offspring in sight, Barle at least gave Jason employment food, and status as his son, if not any semblance of love.

With a natural talent for healing, Jason's job was normally to look after the patients in Barle's clinic overnight, and although she knew that it was usual for patients to go in whole and healthy and came out drained and dead, it was none of her concern. The fact that she disapproved had forced her exile and she counted herself fortunate that Barle had needed her for Jason, or she would have been drained and dead by now.

Jason was becoming more insistent now, emphasising his urgency with sharp choppy motions. "Please grandma, you need to see this man!"

Finally, she capitulated, nodding her assent and was rewarded by Jason's bright smile. Hoping that she wasn't too easily recognised, Elsa wrapped a cloak around her and accompanied Jason to the caves.

It was an hour's walk through the sunset and dark when they arrived. Jason lead the way into the cave system and, although she knew the route perfectly well herself, into the clinic.

The clinic was simply a term used for the laboratory and its attached patient room, and at the time of their arrival, there was no one there, no doubt gone to get food and Rush from the communal cave. Barle would be there too, dishing it all out.

They entered the patient room where there were only two occupants. One was almost a corpse, wrapped in blankets and clearly emaciated. The almost empty vial connected to the tube that disappeared under the blanket was dusty and probably hadn't been changed in some time. It was the other patient that Jason was urging her to see though. Shaking and feverish, this man was not nearly as far down the path as the living corpse.

"How long?" she asked Jason, as the boy unwrapped the bandaged arms.

"A couple of weeks," he replied.

She nodded, her suspicion almost confirmed. She checked the man's eyes and teeth, jumping back as he suddenly tried to bite her, snarling when he missed. If he were a normal human, he would have been suffering from mouth ulcers and swollen veins in his eyes by now. With a life expectancy of 6 weeks, this patient was remarkably healthy, although she was quite sure that he didn't think so.

Jason directed her to the unbound arms, and through the badly healing mutilation, she see where there by all rights have been bone blades. She hadn't known there were any Neitzcheans in the Seefra System and had only heard rumour of one in the ten years since they had been there.

Back in the days before Seefra, Barle had been her laboratory assistant and they'd run a small chemical research laboratory for commercial sectors. When they'd tried live experiments, Neitzcheans had always yielded far better results.

She caught Jason looking at her just then. He was touching his own wrists, tugging gently at the long sleeved shirt, and she knew what he was trying to say. "No," she tried to tell him. "Please don't ask me to do this, honey."

But Jason's big blue eyes beseeched her. "I need to know," he said quietly. He looked like his mother just then and she remembered the last words her daughter had said, begging her to make sure her baby survived, that he knew who he was. She'd forgotten about that last part over the years, but here was an opportunity and Jason wanted to know, deserved to know.

"All right," she said, "But no one must ever find out. Go and fetch some painkillers from the laboratory, the strongest you can find."

As Jason disappeared into the other room, Elsa clasped the patient's head between her hands, looking at him upside down and slapping his face until his pain filled eyes slitted open. "Listen to me. Do you want to live? Do you want to survive?"

The slight nod had to be good enough.

XXXXX

"I am so sick of this planet," Beka grumbled. "Sand, sand and more sand."

"Same as all the others," Harper remarked as he concentrated on a reading one of his gadgets was throwing up. "Here's a residual trail!"

Beka noticed that even Harper's natural ebullience was lacking with the sheer fruitlessness and boredom of what they were doing. "Going in," she sighed. "And if this another bush hunter that's going to get uptight with us trampling all over his hide, I will personally ram that inductor coil where it won't be of any use to anyone."

"Aw, boss, you're such a caring and giving kinda gal," Harper grinned as they landed.

Within half an hour, they were both back on board the Maru with another bush hunter hurling abuse at them.

XXXXX

The journey to wherever he was now had been mostly in haze. Rhade knew he'd lost control sometime after his legs started working again. He'd done as the old woman said right up until they'd left the room and entered the place with all the tubes and bottles and generators. It was all processing fluids milked from his body and it was obscene and he hadn't been able to stand it, attacking it all with uncaring disregard for anything other than the need to destroy and vent just a tiny bit of all that pent up anger.

No one had come though and the boy and the old woman had both urged him to come with them. The boy had found a cloak and thrown it over Rhade, for what reason he wasn't quite sure at the time, but was grateful for through the long trek to wherever they'd come to. He wasn't supposed to feel the cold but somebody had forgotten to remind his body of that fact, and the desert was very cold once the sun went down.

It had been a monumental effort to keep upright and move one foot in front of the other, but both boy and old woman kept telling to him to keep going. They tried to half carry him, but neither stood a chance of being strong enough. Only once they entered the threshold of the hut did the boy and old woman let up and let him fall to the floor.

Instinctively he sought the nearest corner to give him protection at his back, sitting as far into that corner as he could and raising his arms defensively. The shocked sight of his ruined flesh and bones though, was enough to send him spiralling back into the flames of agony.

XXXXXX

Deep in the bowls of Andromeda, Harper tested the coil in situ. Nothing happened and he cursed. He'd already tested the coil separately, but it wasn't fitting in to Andromeda's slipstream drive even with his modifications.

He took it back out with the conclusion that it needed to be opened up and tweaked a little more. There was no doubt an energy differential that needed to be compensated for, which he thought he'd done with the power converter, but perhaps there were some more adjustments he could make to the coil itself.

After he'd prised open the casing, he stared at the mechanics inside. He could see exactly the adjustments that needed to be made. He could also see exactly where the coil had come from.

"Where's Beka?" he asked Andromeda who flickered to life on the view screen. Dylan was off somewhere with Trance, probably Seefra 1.

"On the command deck," Andromeda told him and switched view to Doyle and Beka deep in conversation.

"Beka, I think we have a problem," Harper's voice caught Beka's attention.

"What's up?" she asked.

"This coil," he hefted it up so the camera could see it, "is from a repo cop shuttle."

"So?" said Beka. "Althazar could have had access to spare parts through his son."

Harper sighed. Sometimes it was hard work being a genius. "No, no, no, remember how I said that Andromeda needed a highly specialised coil? These don't just fall out of passing ships, they don't even hang around ship shops or storage rooms. Besides, what reason would Althazar have for keeping a spare that no one would ever use? This had to come from a ship, which means that either Althazar keeps a repo cop ship in his garage, or he's salvaged one, or he knows where one wrote itself off, or…"

"I get the picture," Beka said raising a hand. "Now I wonder what businesses Althazar runs."

"Well let's find out shall we?" Doyle said.

XXXXX

Rhade surveyed Elsa's home, noting the chaos of bric-a-brac that littered the place. It was small, albeit managing to boast three rooms plus bathroom, however his own sprawled form took up the majority of the living area. Elsa herself was old and gnarled and tiny, but with a commanding voice although the sparse grey hair worn long and loose gave her the look of a madwoman.

The grandson Rhade remembered seeing as part of his hallucinating dreams, and thought he was child bordering on manhood, perhaps twelve years of age, blond and blue-eyed. His memory was born out when the boy came in from work, but those blue eyes were far older than they should have been.

"Jason, this is Rhade," Elsa said. "Perhaps you'd like to see to his wounds. You'll need to prepare as I'm sure you can see the patient has an infection."

The boy nodded and Elsa explained, "Jason is a healer, very talented, but still young and learning, and those arms of yours need seeing to. He doesn't know enough about your physiology though, so you're going to have to help."

Rhade wiped at the sweat dripping down his face and pushed greasy strands of hair out of his eyes. "I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be," he said, blinking through a sudden bout of double vision.

"Your loss," Elsa shrugged, and for the first time, Rhade really considered the damage to his arms.

"My loss, my sorrow," he muttered to himself and then drew up his best grin for Jason as he came in with a bowl of hot water. "Let's see the damage," he said jauntily, belying the dread building in his stomach as he held his arms out.

Jason was deft and thorough, needing little guidance from either Elsa or Rhade. What help he did need was prompted by Elsa with Rhade answering in monosyllables as the full extent of his wounds was revealed.

That all six blades had been snapped off was not news and wasn't much different from snapping a fingernail, barely felt. Blades were often lost in both love and war, and quickly regrown. That the bones in his arms were not broken was a pleasant surprise. However, the severe bruising and lacerations around the blade areas was only the outward manifestation of fact that the roots of the blades had been gouged out. The pain he'd been suffering was that of fingernails or teeth being brutally ripped out, except on a much larger scale."'He called for help and then stood silent, shivering in the cold night. He had slim hope, withering between great despair and deep sorrow. He was like a bird with a broken wing, who fell in a stream whose whirlpools carried him down to the depths.'"

He watched detachedly as Jason pulled all the splinters from his skin, cleaned the shallow bloody sockets of accumulated pus and dressed his arms. The sweat felt ice cold now, and his vision was dimming, his stomach rebelling against the food that filled it.

A bucket appeared by his head just in time, and the force of his nausea dulled his vision altogether.

XXXXX

When the very tall and well built Dylan Hunt came to the caves, Lord Barle was over come with gratitude to the Divine and greeted the Captain and his strange companion with the utmost charm and hospitality.

Barle led Dylan and Trance into a curtained off area that was, whilst modest, significantly more comfortable than the rest of the cave system.

Using his staff as a pointer, Barle bade his guests sit on the floor cushions as he himself did around a low metal table.

"Water?" he offered a pure crystalline jug with clear water.

"Oh, thank you," breathed Trance with a bright smile, reaching for it. "Shall I be mother?" She poured water into Barle's glass and her own, but then the jug slipped, cracking the jug on the edge of the table and shattering it, water spraying everywhere. "Oh!" Trance, wide eyed, put her hands to her mouth. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I'm so clumsy, I'm sorry, that water must have been so expensive and I'm – I'm so sorry!"

Barle looked outraged for a moment, but his charming smile was soon back in place. "That's quite all right my dear," he leaned towards Dylan. "Such a beautifully unusual child," he said. "Here, have mine."

"No," replied Dylan, "I couldn't. Please."

"I insist."

"No, really, I mean it, I couldn't. But thank you, your hospitality is appreciated and I would be insulted if you pressed the point."

"As host, I would think it was I who should be insulted." Barle offered the glass once more.

Dylan took it and put it on the table. "Maybe later."

Barle looked for a moment like he'd eaten something sour before smiling again. "To business then. You say that you're here on behalf of Mr Althazar?"

"Yes," replied Dylan. "As I'm sure you're aware, his son seems to have disappeared and we're making enquiries on his behalf."

"Ah, I heard. Went off to arrest some tech outlaws and vanished as I understand it." Barle's expression was of sincere concern.

"Quite, but Mr Althazar wants all the loose ends tied up, you understand. Have there been any strangers around here?"

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand where you're going with this?" Barle looked vaguely suspicious.

"And I'm sorry too," replied Dylan. "I can't divulge my sources, but suffice it to say, I have my reasons for asking these questions. Mr Althazar wants us to be quite thorough. So have there?"

Barle appeared to think for a moment. "Yes, yes there have. Two girls were here yesterday. They came looking for a friend who passed through here a couple of days ago. Other than that, no one, I'm sorry."

"What about repo cops?"

"No, we never have any of those here. Why would we with one of their own being the owner's son?"

"That's all I needed to ask you," Dylan said, "but would it be possible to look at your facility? Mr Althazar suggested it might be a good idea for me to do a spot inspection while I was here."

"Certainly, certainly," Barle said, getting to his feet. "Come right this way."

He led them through the communal hall where Dylan was surprised to recognise the people that had tried to attack him in the alleyway.

Being a medic, Trance asked to see the medical facilities but Barle declined on the grounds of contagious patients. Eventually, they came to the last part of the tour; the mines. They were poorly lit and filled with crevasses, mostly crossed by short rickety bridges, and the tunnels were held up my ragged planks of wood and metal.

They passed through many caverns with Barle pointing out the digging sites, where they washed the minerals out, the hoist system that got everything up to the surface and so on.

Somewhere in the bowels Barle was leading them through a particularly narrow tunnel when it all fell extremely abruptly on Dylan's head.

XXXXX

It was well into the night that Rhade groaned his way free of the shocked stupor that had gripped him, but he wasn't left in peace to sort through the implications of his predicament as Jason virtually pounced on him the instant he moved. It was unnerving to have the blue-eyed boy gazing so intensely at him, especially as Elsa had apparently retired to bed.

He needed to get out of here, away to somewhere he could think, away from those piercing eyes. "Okay, well," Rhade awkwardly clambered to hi s feet, and took a moment or three to steady himself against the dizziness. Then, "as I was saying, you'll excuse me, but I have to leave." He eyed the doorway on the far side of the kitchen. If he focussed on that, he should be able to make his way over there eventually.

"You can't," said Jason, firmly. "I need you to help me." As if that explained everything.

Rhade looked down at the boy who was suddenly standing stubbornly in between him and the kitchen. The Neitzchean didn't recall seeing Jason move, but wasn't entirely certain whether that was Jason's speed, or his own failure to see him.

"Need…? Don't talk stupid. Just let me go." Rhade felt his temper building. He didn't need to ask a kludge to let him past, much less a child and he wanted to knock the brat aside. But then, the boy did something that made Rhade sit down again, quite abruptly.

Staring at Rhade with increased intensity, verging on the pleading, Jason rolled back his sleeves and unbuttoned the tight, long sleeved undershirt to reveal small, underdeveloped, but still neat and distinct, bone blades. "I need you to help me understand who I am."

XXXXX

"One mine, two bars, two vehicle repair shops, a textile factory and he sponsors a doctor's surgery." Doyle announced.

"Impressive," said Beka.

"Thank you," Harper replied and Doyle shot a hard glare his way.

"I meant Althazar. He's made a bit of a career out of this pit."

"Vehicle repair shops sound promising," Doyle said. "But we could always just ask Althazar where he got the coil."

"We could," agreed Beka slowly, "But I think knocking a few heads is more fun."

"True," replied Doyle. "Do you think we should inform Dylan of this development?"

Beka thought for a second. "Probably. Dylan? Dylan?" Beka paused, waiting for a reply. "Trance, are you listening?" Still nothing could be heard. "Andromeda can you find Dylan?"

There was a slight hesitation. "No, I cannot," she informed Beka. "The signal was lost when they entered the mine."

XXXXX

Elsa didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she couldn't sleep and had to know what was going on. For the longest time there was silence and she eventually gave in to her curiosity and peeked into the living area.

Jason was in one corner, his bladed arms hugging his knees, uncertainty in his eyes while Rhade sat cross-legged, staring at Jason with that cold calculating look she had long associated with Neitzcheans.

Her daughter had lain with a Neitzchean, only the once, and for reasons Elsa had never known, other than her daughter had seemed to care for the Neitzchean more than she did her own husband. Whatever the issues between his parents however, Jason had not deserved to be abandoned by them and Elsa carried the guilt of them all.

She was taking a gamble here she knew, but she was confident that whatever kind of man Rhade was, the fact that he was Neitzchean would drive him to give Jason what he needed. She remembered her daughter telling her that Neitzcheans valued children like no other race. She knew a little of the Neitzchean culture herself, knew that Father and Husband were the two titles that every Neitzchean male aspired to, and hoped that Rhade would recognise that Jason needed the guidance of a father figure, a mentor, alpha or whatever the correct Neitzchean term was.

That hope soon crashed and burned.

"Go to bed," Rhade commanded Jason softly and the boy obeyed, his eyes not leaving the Neitzchean until he passed Elsa to go into the bedroom. "Elsa," Rhade acknowledged her before she realised he knew she was there. She stepped around the doorframe to see brown eyes, unfathomably hurt and angry, looking at her. "I can't be what you want."

"What do you think I want?" she asked cautiously. She was on new ground now. Before, she had been the one in charge; now, he was the one who commanded his audience, even with the sweat and pallor of sickness.

"Jason already has a father," Rhade told her in clipped tones.

"A selfish dictator who barely acknowledges him," Elsa retorted. "Barle doesn't even know Jason isn't his son."

"Better that Jason has a father who is what he is, than I." Rhade replied. "I need to leave this place. Before Jason wakes up."

"He's not asleep yet," Elsa replied, "he's used to working nights and this is the middle of the day for him. I've no doubt he's listening to every word."

"No doubt," Rhade agreed. "But the fact remains that I must leave."

"And where will you go?" asked Elsa folding her arms as she felt the balance shift again.

"It doesn't matter." Rhade wouldn't meet her eyes, but she saw the look in them and the realisation dawned on her.

"You want to go and find somewhere to die," she whispered. "But, how can that be? Survival is everything."

"I do not want to go and find somewhere to die. That would be non-productive." Turning his face away from her, Rhade explained, "I have no blades. Without roots they will not regenerate. A Neitzchean without his or her blades is… isn't…" he stuttered to a halt and took a deep breath. "A Neitzchean without blades can never be an Alpha. Or even a Beta. It is almost unheard of that such a thing would happen, but it is… accepted, that such a mishap be rectified in a glorious death. An early glorious death."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly do you plan to do that here? No glory in this pit."

Rhade glared at her. "Vengeance. I shall take down those that did this to me."

Sighing, Elsa stood in front of the Neitzchean, drawing herself up to her full diminutive height. "And how will you get there when even my front door is a thousand miles away for you right now? I'll make you a deal," she said. "You teach Jason everything you can about his Neitzchean heritage and in exchange and I will help you towards your glorious death."

Rhade laughed without humour. "You drive a hard bargain old mother, and I am certain your words are double edged. But for now, I accept."

XXXXX

Dylan shook his aching head clear of the cobwebs. There was a lump above his right ear and when he touched it, his fingers came away sticky and red in the dim light that filtered through the rock fall.

He looked around and it only took a moment for him to spot Trance. She was just a few feet away, lying on her back, her face serene. Pulling himself over to Trance, he could not see whether she was still alive although with her unique physiology, 'dead' was a relative term.

Forcing himself not to worry, Dylan explored his surroundings. The glow coming through the fallen rocks came from one of the wall torches still alight just on the other side of the cave in.

He called for Barle, but there was no reply and, without knowing how long he was out for, had no way of knowing if Barle had abandoned them, or gone for help, or was even buried under the rocks.

He looked at the rocks speculatively and considered whether his heavy-worlder strength might get them out of there.

XXXXX

So the big question is," said Harper as he and Doyle made their way into the first of Althazar's vehicle repair shops, "does Althazar know where that coil came from?"

"Harper, we don't know that it came from his own son's ship," cautioned Doyle.

"I know that, but come on, coincidence, much? I mean it's not like the repo cops actually let people go around salvaging bits of their ships, you know."

"Well, let's find out shall we?" Doyle smiled evilly before leading the way inside.

"I love a woman that takes control," Harper sighed wistfully and followed her in.

Ten minutes later, Doyle stepped back out dusting herself off with Harper hot on her heels, his hands and pockets stuffed with bits of machinery that he thought could be useful.

"Unhelpful bunch of sub-humanoid guano masticators!" he called back to the occupants of the shop.

"I thought they were very helpful," countered Doyle. "We now know that the coil didn't come from here."

"True, but that does not make them helpful," Harper disagreed as he examined some of his finds. "I mean not one of them helped me find all these parts, I had to do all the work myself. As usual."

"That's called stealing, Harper." Doyle said.

"I call it liberation. After all, what use are these babies going to be to those brainless Neanderthals? They belong to someone who will use them for purposes over and beyond what they were designed for."

"Sure," said Doyle, noncommittally.

Harper rolled his eyes. "Come on, we've got a ways to go to get to the other place."

XXXXX

The following morning after breakfast, when emotions were less fraught than they'd been the night before, Rhade began to tell Jason about his Neitzchean heritage.

He explained about the survivalist culture. He went through the different Prides. He shared some of the key philosophies and laid out exactly how important it was to reproduce. He did not hold back, telling the boy how and why the Neitzcheans' were superior to all other races, how a half-breed could never be an Alpha and would never likely be acknowledged, as he did not have pure genes. And in a suspiciously flat voice, he explained that winning was everything and that to fail, was to become nothing.

Jason took it all in eagerly, asking questions here and there and considering everything Rhade said with much thought.

Rhade took pains to emphasise that he was only giving the boy an overview, barely scratching the surface of what it was to be Neitzchean, and Jason in turn assured Rhade that a basic understanding was all he needed.

Elsa of course disagreed; muttering about the boy needed a firm hand to guide him and chuckling when they both turned similarly petulant glares upon her.

XXXXX

Hands bleeding from the rough rocks, Dylan cursed Barle, Althazar, Rhade and anyone else he could think of for getting Trance and himself into this predicament. He was so focussed on tunnelling his way out, that he almost missed the supporting brace. The piece of wood that held the ceiling up, which would logically have snapped or perhaps slipped. Yet, it was nowhere near the point of support.

The only possibility was the one he already suspected; Barle had pushed the support out of the way. Presumably it had been set up at some unknown point in case of fire or some such disaster where it would be a quick job to save the rest of the mine. But Barle had put it to a much more murderous use. The only question was, why?

One more large rock hauled out of the way, and Dylan was free. He went back for Trance who lay exactly as he'd left her. He didn't even know if he could touch her, let alone carry her out of the mines and in any case, debated moving her in case of aggravating any injuries.

But, she had come back from the dead before, and did not seem to obey any of the normal rules of biology. Tentatively, he touched her neck and despite the fact that there were no signs of life, her skin was pleasantly warm to the touch. He lifted her in his arms, wincing as his blisters and abrasions scraped across cloth. The hot and heavy air in the mines increased the throbbing in his head, but by taking it slowly and steadily, he made it to the top.

It was there that he met Barle and some of his men making their way back down. Barle's face was a picture of surprise. "I, ah, I was just bringing a team to dig you out!" he exclaimed. "Such an unfortunate accident, I'm so sorry."

Dylan did not believe him for a moment, but he decided to go along with the pretence. "My friend is hurt," he said. "I have need of your medical facilities."

Barle's face broke into a genuine smile. "Of course, of course. We had an accident in the clinic, but if you'll excuse the mess, I'm sure we can help."

"I'm sure you can," Dylan murmured as he followed the other man.

XXXXX

When Jason went to work that evening, Rhade insisted on helping Elsa about the place. He was healing swiftly now that he was receiving proper care, his enhanced immune system having almost eradicated the infection, and while his arms still bore the wounds where his blades once were, they were basically sound, enabling him to do some of the lighter heavy work. When Elsa asked why he wanted to help his reply was that it was not to help her, but to ensure his own fitness did not suffer.

Elsa, for her part, used his strength to get chores done and listened quietly when he talked with Jason. She was pleased that her grandson was coming out of the quiet shell he'd been living in and felt that, through pure chance, she had found the right Neitzchean to teach him.

She knew very well that while it seemed that Rhade was sharing everything Neitzchean, he himself was not of the same culture that he spoke about. A real Neitzchean would not have allowed a kludge like her to speak to him as she did. A real Neitzchean may have demanded obedience, but would never have simply accepted help. A real Neitzchean was full of arrogant pride; Rhade was full of self-destructive anger. But from the point of view of Jason's education, that all gave the boy a more rounded view as to his father's people.

There were many more differences between this Neitzchean and those she'd encountered before, and the scientist in her was curious as to the reasons. She would find out sooner or later.

At that moment, Rhade was taking a break from reinforcing the back wall, standing and staring out at the sunset horizon. Elsa noticed him absently rubbing at the bandages on his arms.

"Have Jason look at those again," she told him. "You've been doing that a lot." He seemed startled by her presence and frowned at his arms.

"They just ache," he shrugged, "it's nothing." He paused, and then turned to look at her. "I'll be leaving soon."

"I'm surprised you stayed so long," Elsa replied.

Rhade smiled. "Only long enough to repay the debt."

"Jason has a lot to think about. I'd rather you stayed until he sorts it all out. I wouldn't want him doing something silly."

"Like what?"

"He's virtually a teenager," Elsa sighed. "He's wise for his years, but it all has to come out one day and the raging hormones of puberty could be… interesting."

"It'll be an… interesting… time for him in any case," Rhade told her. "And I have things to do."

"Like go and get yourself killed?" Elsa said sharply.

"Were you not listening when I explained it all?" Rhade shook his head. "There is no tolerance for failure."

Elsa thought she'd misheard. "You call having your bones involuntarily ripped out being a failure?"

Rhade laughed bitterly. "If I hadn't been dr… if I'd been as strong as I used to be, I would have been able to prevent that. I should have been able to prevent that. And it's just the last in a long line of failures."

"How so?"

Rhade looked at her, the pain in his face raw and she knew this was something the man had been carrying alone for far too long. Why he now chose to tell her was something she would never know, but perhaps it was because she had already seen him weak and therefore could not think any less of him.

"Once upon a time," he said, looking back at the setting sun, "I had a wife and I had three little children. There was an accident that I survived, and they did not. Later, there was another who chose me, who would have taken me as husband. She died in my arms. There was even someone when I first came to Seefra. She was murdered while I was held down and made to watch. Three times I have failed to protect those who would be my family."

Rhade raised his hands to each side of his head in a gesture symbolic of blocking the sound of screams. "I didn't – with no other Neitzcheans in this system, I couldn't see how to, how to thrive, but even in the darkest times I held on to the hope that those whom I had called friends before Seefra would provide escape back to the universe. And eventually one of them did come, but he couldn't escape this place any more than I, and I realised then that the one hope I'd carried had been a fallacy, that there was nothing for me here. And now, with these," he thrust his bladeless arms at Elsa, "even if I got back to Terazed, to the real universe, no Neitzchean woman will ever choose me. I, I am in my prime, yet these tell the universe that I am… emasculated." He spat the last word out with revolted vehemence.

"How about a plain human woman?" Elsa asked, expecting derision, but needing to know for Jason's sake.

"You don't understand," Rhade growled. "Unenhanced women cannot normally bear part Neitzchean children. That Jason was conceived is unusual, that he survived is a miracle. Not unheard of, but so rare as to be almost mythical. It ensures the purity of the genetic line, and the continuation of that line is paramount. Perhaps I could find love again, but if I cannot reproduce, then there is no point to my continued existence. I can only live in shame, or die with honour."

XXXXX