A Plane Scraped Its Belly on a Sooty Yellow Moon: Chapter 2

New York, New York, I won't go back
Indelible reminder of the steel I lack
I gave you seven years, what did you give me back
Jaw grind, disposition to a panic attack
-Soul Coughing `The Incumbent'


Harper awoke slowly to the feel of soft sunlight on his face. No nightmares. Clear blue sky. Maybe he was still dreaming.

He was lying on sand. Ah. Maybe he was on the beach. No. He listened, and could hear the distinct sounds of a crowded city. Oh. He leaned over on his right slowly. A girl was lying next to him. Oh. A beautiful girl.

Oh. It was Sakin.

Jeez, where are we? He wondered as he sat up slowly. He looked around him. They were in the middle of what could have been a park, but was really an expanse of sand and dirt, in the middle of the city. There were a few people at the edges of the `park', staring at them. Huh.

"Sakin?" he muttered blearily. Oh, his throat hurt. He needed water. He shook the young woman's shoulder gently.

"Hnn? Harper?" She squinted up at him. "Where are- oh no." She sat up quickly, like a bolt, shaking the sand out of her dreadlocks. "Oh, no. Shit!" She glanced around herself, quickly. "Those fucking pigs!"

"What?"

"Don't move! You'll step on one."

"One what?"

"This place is covered in landmines. This is insane."

"Huh?" Harper stared up at her incredulously. "How? What?"

"Just calm down. Stay still. This used to be a playground. Gangs would buy mines from the Dragons and plant them here. More, uh, entitled people would die and then jobs would be free. Now it's all just mines. Dammit!"

"Well how in the hell did we get here?"

"Cops. Dammit." Sakin took off her jacket and brushed sand off her shirt. "We must've fallen asleep on that bench, and they carried us in. They do that occasionally. Shit, and they covered their tracks. They know where they are, see, they just won't demine or mark them. Says it'd cost danger pay. Fuck." She took a deep breath and that seemed to calm her. "Okay. They're usually bouncing mines so they won't blow until you step off them. Do you feel like you're sitting on anything?"

"No."

"Okay. Stay where you are." She inched around on her hands and knees, blowing sand away. Eventually she had uncovered six mines around them in a circle, and they marked them with their jackets and boots. They sat back to back in a circle of mines.

"This is insane. You're serious, hey? That there's lots of parks like this and the government won't do anything to clean them up?"

"Yeah." Sakin shielded her eyes against the sun and peered out at the people on the edges of the park peering back. "And the townspeople just watch you get desperate and blow yourself up."

"That's insane. Everything you've told me is insane. Dylan should know."

"Dylan? Who’s Dylan?"

Harper didn't answer her.

"Dylan Hunt? `Cause that's the only Dylan I can think of, but that can't be it. Can it?"

"…maybe."

"Is it? You know Dylan Hunt?"

"I…I'm the Andromeda's mechanic."

"You're fucking with me. And to think I was going to sleep with you."

"What? You were? And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Yeah. Sure. I thought that was the deal. Gods, the Andromeda. Dylan Hunt. I mean, restoring the Commonwealth's all well and good, but there's so much more he could be doing."

"Huh? How?"

"Like cleaning up the slave planets for one. He has the guns. Fuck."

"Yeah. Well. It's not like I didn't try to get him to."

There was a moment of silence. Sakin looked over her shoulder at Harper. "Really? You did?"

"Yeah. A couple of times. But, well, it wasn't really on his agenda. So you were actually going to sleep with me, huh?"

"You're amazing. Un-fucking-believable. I mean, escaping Earth is one thing, but the Andromeda. You're unreal. How'd you do it?"

Harper didn't answer right away.

"Oh come on, man." Sakin said. "We need to talk about something else if we're going to figure out a way out of this, and the only thing I can talk about right now is those fucking pigs and how much I fucking hate them. I mean, they do this all the time, and they still can't come in here and mark-"

"Okay, okay, calm down." Sakin was thrashing about a little too much and it was making Harper nervous and panicky. "I'll tell you, okay? I was working with this girl Beka Valentine on the Eureka Maru when we found the Andromeda. All right?"

"But how'd you get off Earth?"

Harper sighed. "I…Beka…well she saved me. From…Dragons."

There was no reply, but Harper knew from Sakin's stilled back that he had her attention. "When I was ten, my, uh…my parents were killed by Nietzschean slavers. I got away, but…well, they got me eventually anyway. My cousin, his name was Brendan…he thought I had just run away but they got me." He swallowed, hard. He hadn't told anyone this, not even Beka. "They…they put on this ship. The New Yorker."

Oh, god. The memories came back and out of Harper like a bat out of hell. Suddenly he could remember everything, the sounds and the darkness in the hold of the New Yorker, where they invaded his brain and stuck the port into him. Where he did the most meaningless of jobs for hours on end. Where his soul died and almost never came back to life.

"The worst…the worst part was that there was this girl," Harper's eyes were full of wetness, and his voice was shaky and cracking, but he refused to let go. "I don't know if…I knew her from before or what, but she was always there and she was always so good to me. When I had a chance to get off, with Beka, I…I promised her I'd take her with me, but I didn't. I just didn't. I got scared and I just ran off. And I…and I can't even remember her name." The weight of his entire unhappy past settled on him and the seriousness of his present situation hit Harper in the face and the tears came, for the girl, for the first time ever. He had never been touched by these memories before, and that had always scared him a little-but this scared him even more.

"Oh, Harper, I…" Sakin was suddenly, for once, at a loss for words as she turned and cradled Harper in her lap.

"Why? Why didn't I take her with me, why did I go free and she didn't?" Harper's chest convulsed as he struggled for breath. "Why…and…and after, I…I mean, I got infested by Magog for Chrissakes, and just when I thought I was gonna die, I get them out, and now I'm stuck here in the middle of a freaking minefield! It's like death is fucking teasing me!"

"Harper, Harper, shh, calm down," Sakin hugged Harper too her and tried to calm him, quickly getting as scared as Harper was, staring across the minefield to the spectators far away. "That's over now. Hey. Hey. Tell me about the Andromeda, hey?"

Harper closed his eyes and wiped his face and tried to control his breathing. "Okay…" he said slowly, after a long pause.

--

Tyr was annoyed. Harper, of course, hadn't returned to the ship this morning like he was supposed to, and he had been sent to go look for him while the rest of the crew prepared to leave.

He was sure the boy would still be asleep in his room at the inn, but when he arrived, he wasn't there, and the innkeeper said he hadn't returned at night. Tyr sighed, and went back out, armed with a flexi photo of the boy, to look. No point in worrying the captain about it, Harper was probably just passed out in some strip joint or brothel.

--

"So…this Tyr is…Nietzschean?" Sakin and Harper sat close, facing each other. Harper's eyes were still red and his face still dry from tears, but he had calmed down considerably in the last hour. Talking about his friends had helped him immensely, but neither of them had yet formulated a plan to get out of the minefield. "And…you're okay with this?"

Harper shrugged. "Yeah."

"And you're in love with him?"

Harper stared at the ground. "Look, I haven't said this out loud before. To anyone. So I'd appreciate it if-"

"Yeah, yeah, sure. I know how you feel. I mean…I take it you haven't told him anything?"

"Jesus, no!" Harper stared at her, incredulously. "Do you know what he'd say?"

"Well, no. I've never met this person."

Talking with Sakin was strangely like talking to an old friend over drinks. "I don't know what to do about it. Nothing. I think he hates me. He makes me so nervous, you know? But…well, sometimes he's nice to me. He's saved my life before, but then he makes it seem like such a chore, you know?" Harper sighed. "I mean…I'd love to be with him. He spars with me sometimes, right? And that's the greatest thing in the world. And when I had the Magog, I mean…it's like he was taking care of me. But other than that, well…he makes me feel like shit. I mean, why would he be attracted to me anyway? It's pointless. I'm pathetic and useless and scrawny and…well, look at me!"

"Hey. Stop that," Sakin said calmly. "You're not useless or pathetic. You survived Earth for fuck's sake, and a slave ship after that. I think as a Nietzschean, he should be able to appreciate that. And you're not unattractive. You're anything but." She reached out and stroked his face softly. "I think that if this Tyr person can't see that, then he doesn't deserve you." She leaned in to kiss him.

Harper smiled against her lips and kissed her back, even if he was secretly pretending she was Tyr.

--

Tyr's search had led him to the steps of the Sugar Free Jazz. A bartender there told him that the boy had gone north with this Sakin girl, but who knows where that Sakin girl took off too.

So Tyr headed north, and was content to continue and brood when he saw a gathering of people around a square park. He pushed his way through them and his superior sight allowed him to glimpse the boy in the center with a local young woman draped across his lap.

"Of all the inappropriate…" Tyr sighed and stepped into the sandy park, ignoring the cries of the people around him.

"Hey, man, you shouldn't go in there-"

"Dude, shut up. This'll be great."

Tyr rolled his eyes at the banter behind him and strolled towards Harper and his latest conquest.

--

Harper hadn't had this much fun in a long time. Despite the fact that he was sitting in the middle of a minefield, and the fact that a crowd of people was watching, he was able to forget his troubles and lose himself in Sakin's kisses. Or maybe it was the exhibitionism and sense of danger. Whatever. It worked.

Sakin broke free of his mouth and smiled at him. "Do me a favour?"

"What?"

"When we get out of this…will you tell your captain the things I told you? About the Dragons? Get him to talk to our leaders?"

"Yeah. Yeah I will. Do me a favour first."

"What?"

"Keep kissing me."

Sakin smiled and leaned in from where she sat on his lap, kissing him gently and lovingly.

She had a tongue stud. Oh, god, Harper figured he was already blown up by mines and in heaven.

No, heaven would have Tyr there with a tongue stud.

"Harper?" Speak of the devil! Harper twitched quickly at Tyr's voice, jolting Sakin off his lap. She fell into Tyr's legs, sideways, and it actually surprised him. Tyr lost his balance.

And fell.

Onto Harper's jacket.

Tyr rolled his eyes and suppressed a growl and moved to-

"Don't get up!"

Tyr looked up warily at Harper and the local girl, who were both staring back at him apprehensively. Then he realized that he felt something digging into the middle of his back.

Oh, for fuck's sake.


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