Through the Looking Glass

Chapter 13: Impressive

"There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential."
-Rusty Berkus, Ancient Earth

"Stupid ubers...think they're so good...I coulda shown them..."

Muttering as he worked, Seamus Harper continued to get as many systems as he could back online. He had managed to get the engines working again but the normal space trek to Talikov Drift was still not going to be fun. Hopefully he wouldn't have to leave his beloved engine room for anything now that...he shuddered.

Now that a Dragan was on board.

Not only Nietzschean but Drago-Kazov. Drago-Kazov.

The Pride who had ruled Earth for as long as he could remember. The Pride who had laid waste to his home. The ubers who slaughtered his friends, family, and fellow humans just because they could. The ubers who once killed millions after a revolt of their hostile rule.

The Nietzscheans who had made his life a living hell, the bastards who beat, spit, laughed and jeered as they killed his parents.

They were worse than the Magog.

With the Magog you could predict everything they were going to do to you. They'd either claw you to death, eat you, or paralyze you for infestation. The Dragans on the other hand, no matter how much more "superior" they were or how much stronger, or faster, or genetically inbred they were; deep down, they were still human. Of all the travesties in Earth's history the worst of it was always done by people killing people. And you could always trust a Nietzschean to come up with a painful and creative new form of torture while they just laughed.

A Drago-Kazov Nietzschean aboard the Maru.

Harper threw his nano-welder in frustration. He knew Beka had no choice, not really. It was either take this one on or they'd all be in slavery. And for the second time in his life he found that Beka had once again saved him from that life.

Go figure.

Oh well, maybe the Nietzschean would leave him alone. Ignore him like they usually did because of his size. A short and adorable looking kludge wasn't that much of a threat, or at least that's what they thought before they'd met his home made shrillers which were pure hell on the uber's oversensitized hearing.

Harper shuddered again.

A day ago it felt like they were never going to get away. When the Maru lost all power and he couldn't fix anything fast enough, he had been struck by the feeling of sheer helplessness that he had often got back on Earth. Watching a friend who was slower get dragged off by the Dragans as he watched from the other side of a fence or on top of a roof, unable to help.

There was nothing he could do in the short amount of time that he had.

And then the boarding party had started. He had heard Beka and Emily shouting as they were carried off, like so many others were. He had wanted to help, he really did...but what could he do?

Harper had hid himself inside a conduit and watched a Nietzschean come to inspect the engine room before he left and everything went dead silent. Nothing moved. After what seemed like hours to him, the tiny engineer had crept out and checked the situation.

He was alone on the Maru, his boss and little buddy were gone and the ship was bucky cabled to the Nietzscheans'. The only thing he could do was start to work on getting engines and weapons online while trying to come up with somesort of...something...as he worked. The work had calmed him somewhat as it usually did in hopeless situations but not enough. Harper found himself jumping at every little noise and tensing up in fear that the Nietzscheans would come back and do a follow up check. But nothing happened.

Nothing until he had actually heard the sound of footsteps and tried to run as quickly as he could to the ladder and into his hiding spot when Beka had walked through the door.

He had never been more happy to see anyone in his entire life and may have violated a lot of her personal space as he wouldn't stop hugging her. He was elated and hoped his boss had stories to tell of how she had kicked some serious uber butt and that they were all strewn bloody across their cockpit. The story he got instead made his stomach drop.

A deal with the devil, as he called it.

Which led them to having a Nietzschean on board.

And not only a Nietzschean, as Harper was soon informed of who he actually was, and why the deal was even offered.

He was Emily's father.

And Harper did not like that one bit. It just gave him one more thing to hold over Beka and Emily.

He worried for them and he worried for himself. In the past short while those girls had become his family, and he didn't like his family being hurt, especially by some Nietzschean jackboot.

"Damn Nietzscheans." Harper turned around to search for his dropped nanowelder and screamed.

The corner of the Nietzschean's mouth twitched up.

"So you're the engineer."

"Um, yeah...um...so?" Harper stumbled out. He'd been caught completely off guard and it looked as though all of his escape routes were cut off as well. He watched worriedly as the Nietzschean straightened. Comparing him to Bobby, he was slightly taller and a bit more broad, less bulky but with the whole Nietzschean thing it just meant that he was faster and stronger regardless.

Why'd Beka have to attract them so big?

"So, rumour is you're from Earth."

"What about it?"

Telemachus shrugged and walked forward as Harper stepped back. "Just...curious really. You wouldn't have gotten a ride off of it if you weren't valuable to someone. What camp?"

"I'm a...it was...Boston..."

"Mmmmhm, never been up there. They had me stationed down in Colorado doing supply runs, I was a pilot. Two weeks down there was more than enough. They make everyone do it, it's only the sadists that stay really."

"Well lucky us then."

"Good ol' Earth, the origin of all humanity crushed under the thumbs of a race they gave birth to."

"More like a crack pot scientist with the same delusions of grandeur that you all seem to have inherited."

Telemachus raised an eyebrow. "You sure got over your shyness."

"You know, you touch me and Beka throws you out the airlock."

"I'm not going to bother with threats, that's not why I'm here and I'm sure that you've heard them all before. They're all the same really, thought being Nietzschean you'd think we'd be able to come with something a little more creative then 'do it or else'."

"Well with the size of your uber brains not likely. The overcompensation of muscle probably decreased your brain size tremendously."

Harper tried to bite his tongue but he couldn't. Why did this always happen to him? Why'd he always have to start insulting people who could snap him in half when he got scared? It was a habit with him, a bad one, one that escaped his mouth faster than he could process that it was happening again. His heart was already pounding in his chest and he was sure that the Dragan in front of him could hear it clear as day. It was probably the reason why he was laughing and moving closer to him once again. Harper's mind was working in overdrive and his eyes were searching for any route of escape that he had missed half of what Telemachus was saying.

"...from Earth, it's no wonder the engine room looks like a rat's nest."

"Yeah well...it's my rat's nest so you can leave and never come back if it's not up to your uber standards."

"That's the fifth time you've insulted me during our little conversation. Hasn't anyone told you that's it's hazardous to a human's health to insult a Nietzschean? Especially for one so itsy bitsy."

"Beka will..." Harper backed away nervously and jumped when his back unexpectedly hit the wall behind him. Had he moved that far back already?

"Beka this, Beka that. Beka's human...but that's not why I'm here."

Telemachus now stood only inches from Harper, staring down at the slightly shaking human as the engineer seemed to be torn between looking him in the eye with his new freedom to the old Earth standby of never look a Nietzschean in the eye.

Telemachus remembered that.

Those who were taken from the camps to be slaves and even those too frightened to fight back took the same submissive stance. Look away, bow your head, 'yes m'lord, of course m'lord'. So close to him now, the kid was fighting to assert himself on a ship that until his arrival had been Drago-Kazov free; which had meant no hiding, no scavenging, no fear.

And that was something.

"Actually..." Telemachus slammed his hand against the metal beside Harper's head, causing they boy to flinch and close his eyes tight, losing whatever semi-confidence he had and to wait for the standard beating. Telemachus laughed, "Actually I'm impressed."

Harper's eyes flew open, "You're what?"

"It's impressive. You're a short, weak, and pathetic little kludge from Earth, of all places, yet you've somehow managed to acquire a knack for engineering. So much in fact, that you've been keeping this piece of junk called a ship up and running, and actually in better running order from before you arrived. And unless I'm mistaken Earth doesn't really offer any form of higher education. Coupled with that you were able to get off that trash pit, you survived Nietzschean raids and Magog attacks, by your size alone I would have thought that you'd've been one of the earlier ones to die off. Survival and talent. That's very rare in your position so as I said: I'm impressed."

As Telemachus finished his speech he backed up to give Harper some room only to have him continue to gape like a fish.

>>>

Did he just...had he...shellshocked as Harper was his mind was still trying to comprehend what he had just heard. Had a Nietzschean, a Drago-Kazov Nietzschean just been impressed by...him.

There was no way that that was what just happened. Harper was sure that this was all just a crazy dream inspired by the morphine that Beka had to be pumping into his bloody limp body that lie broken in pieces somewhere on the floor. This was the result of painkillers.

Because there was no way in this universe or the next that a Nietzschean would say something nice to him without sarcasm, condescension, mockery, and the list went on. It couldn't happen.

Somehow, he managed to raise one of his hands to his arm.

"Ow!" jolting himself out of his thoughts, Harper rubbed the sore spot where he had just pinched.

That had hurt! So if it had hurt...wait...

Looking back up to where Telemachus had stood he found nothing but empty space as the Nietzschean had his back turned and was walking out of the engine room.

Harper made a mental note to call up the video feed later in the evening to see if the words he thought he heard were the ones actually spoken.

If they were, then...then it had to be some sort of trick. It had to be. No Drago-Kazov would ever say something like that to a kludge.

No Dragan would ever say something like that to him.

No way.

Minutes later, Harper was still standing in the exact same position.