So, here it starts, in Med Deck with Harper talking to himself
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"Oh damn, you drank all my beer. Now what do I have to life for? A big fat nothing."
Harper points the gun at himself
"Alright Stinky, Turdbrain, up against the stomach wall!"
Rommie walks into the room and sees Harper with the gun pointed at his own stomach. "Harper! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!"
But Harper never replied. He pulled the trigger. Rommie rushed over to him, but he was already dead when she got to him. Trance tried for over an hour to bring him back, but to no avail. He was gone.
*****
"I don’t believe he’s... How could he have done that, right in front of me? Didn’t he know?" Rommie took a long pause, clearly not wanting to say that last thought.
"I know it’s sad Rommie, but being infested was Harper’s greatest fear. He lived all of his life in fear of being infested, he was raised with it. And after he became...he thought he didn’t have anything else in the universe to live for." Trance was trying to console Rommie, but she could see she wasn’t becoming anymore at peace with this. She looked...she looked worse than she did when Gabriel died. "Rommie, what are you feeling? Please, you’ll feel better. Tell me." Trance was genuinely concerned, it didn’t matter at all if Rommie was an AI, she was sentient, and she was in pain.
"He...he created me. I know he didn’t think so, but I loved him. I would never have existed without him. What is I’m like him. What if one day...I just miss him so much." And for one of the few times in her short life, Rommie began to cry.
Trance wrapped her arms and her tail around the crying avatar, pulling her to her own shoulder. Then she whispered in her ear "he knew Rommie, he knew you loved him." And then Trance just held her, held her there for over half an hour before the hologram appeared.
HoloRommie: "Uh, Trance...the Maru just came out of Slipstream."
*****
Trance and Rommie both stood on the hanger deck, waiting expectantly for the airlock to open. When they did, and Dylan stepped out, he saw something on Rommie’s face and immediately asked what was wrong
"Captain...it’s...he..." Rommie started stammering, and she fell apart. She turned to Trance again and got another hug.
"Dylan, Harper died." Trance said, whispering, trying not to hurt Rommie with much more then that. "He killed himself." She looked at each of them.
Rev looked thoughtful as always, although there was a sad reflection in his eyes.
Tyr looked stone-faced, cold, emotionless...Tyr. She was sure that there was something going on inside, but she knew he wouldn’t ever show it.
Dylan looked...sorrowful, but not truly upset. He was quite sad and he hurt, but loosing so many before had prepared him for this. He walked over to Rommie and gave her his shoulder, giving Trance a break.
And Beka...at first it was easy to see she didn’t believe it. But as it started to sink in, Trance rushed over to her, and grabbed onto her before she fell to the floor. She started crying uncontrollably, more then Rommie had been. Of everyone, Beka was the closest to him. Beka had pulled him off of Earth, given him a job, a chance at a new life. And no matter what he had done, he never made her regret it. And now he was gone, and she was falling apart.
"Please, please tell me you can do something, tell me you can save him," she moaned in between sobs. She was being ripped apart inside, her heart hadn’t felt this horrible since her father died, and she was reaching for anything, anything that would bring him back to her.
"I’m sorry Beka, I tried everything, everything. There was nothing anyone could do, he was too badly hurt. I’m so sorry." Trance said, trying to comfort Beka by just simply being there. She knew there was nothing else that she could do, except just be there, with her. Trance started walking Beka to her quarters, she didn’t think Beka could take being with the others for much longer.
Tyr stormed off, heading for his quarters alone. There was something in his stride, he didn’t look upset or saddened...more like angry. He would never show his emotion, but much less his sadness. He thought he was mentoring the child, he tried to get him as perfect as his possible, even if he could never reach any normal Nietzschean standard. And he had just thrown his life away
Rev Bem pulled away from the group too, after going and laying his hand over Rommie, and then Dylan. He decided to head to the observation deck and meditate, to pray for his friend.
Dylan decided to just stay there and hold Rommie. They had already been through the most together, he had the special connection to her that no one else on the crew had...and then he realised why she must be hurting so bad. Harper created her, and she loved him. Not in love with him, and not like a father and his daughter, more like siblings. The crew had become a family over the last year, and Rommie and Harper were like a younger brother and older sister. And she had just lost her brother. He pulled her closer to himself and just let her cry.
*****
It had been three days travel through Slipstream to get to Infinity Atoll. Beka had pushed herself harder then she had ever done before, Dylan got so worried, and he even had her checked for flash, without her noticing of course. She was completely fine, and pushing herself harder then she ever did.
Dylan had decided that he would put Harper’s body in obs deck before they sent it into the sea on Infinity Atoll. It would give everyone one last chance to say goodbye, something he thought they all needed.
*****
Rommie walked into obs deck, almost afraid of what she knew would be there. She carefully walked towards him, lying on a pier just behind the window into space, now in view of the planet below them. She walked up until she was beside him, and she found that she had to kneel down, as if she was too heavy to stand up. She leaned over him, and whispered, as if she was being watched and couldn’t let anyone else hear. "You didn’t have to go Harper. You made me, I would have found a way to save you, I really would have. I swear," she started to break down, "Why did you leave me, why couldn’t you just have trusted me? I miss you so much." She just stayed by him and cried for a while, then she realised that there was nothing else to do. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, and walked out of the room.
Beka was the next to come in. She didn’t even make it pass the door before she started crying again, and she hadn’t stopped for that long before now. She went over to him, and just started rambling. "Harper...I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault," she spouted out, like a dam being breached. "If I hadn’t been so protective of that stupid ship, if I had just stayed here with you...I should have known that it was hurting you more then I thought. I’m so sorry." Beka just crumbled on the floor beside him, sobbing and shaking. Rev came in a bit later, and saw Beka lying there. He ran over to her and held her, while she barely acknowledged his presence at all. He looked over at Harper, but he had been praying for days, he would pray for days still, but there was nothing more he had to say. Beka was the one who needed him right now.
"Beka, it will be alright. Harper will always be with you. He is with the Divine now. Come on, My pain is of the Divine, it is like the air, it is like the water." Rev tried to calm her down. All Beka did was look at him and grab him tightly, hugging him as if he were her childhood teddy bear and this was just a nightmare. He just held her, stroking her hair and saying "It is alright, it will be alright" over and over again, until it started to sink in. He slowly led her out of the obs deck towards her quarters.
A few hours later, Tyr showed up. While he still showed no emotion on his face, he spoke softly. "You could have been a good human Boy. You could have lived long...at least longer than this. You might even have had offspring, yet you threw it away. I’ll never understand it." And Tyr turned around and walked out, not angry, nor confused, just Tyr.
Then Trance walked in. In the last few days, she realised she hadn’t been consoled, she hadn’t allowed herself to feel everything that she wanted to, she was busy helping Rommie, then Beka. And now, she walked, not quite sure what to say. Dylan walked in at that moment, deciding to leave her alone, to finish what she needed
Trance bowed down over Harper, whispering things she never meant anyone else to hear. Then she wrapped her arms around him, hugged his body one last time and said, "Goodbye little brother, I’m going to miss you." Then she turned around with tears welling up in her eyes and saw Dylan. He held out his arms for her, and she ran towards him. As she wrapped her arms and tail around him, and as he held her there, she started to cry for the first time since he died. Dylan didn’t say a word, just rested her on his shoulder and let her let everything that she had been bottling out.
*****
They all stood on the beach, everyone but Beka, who wouldn’t leave her quarters anymore. Dylan knew she was a wreck, and hated to leave her alone right now, but there was this one last thing he had to do. As he started the pyre, set to go for 100 miles and drop into the bottom of the ocean, he paused, trying to think of something to say. He realised, in helping everyone through on the way here, everything that could be said had been. So, as softly as possible, he nudged it, slowly beginning it’s departure, carrying the best engineer he ever had on his final trip. He bowed his head in respect, while Rev chanted "Eternal life grant onto him, and may perpetual light shine upon him. For the first time, Dylan thought about how he was going to have to find a new Engineer. But first, he would deal with Beka, he would find a way to make her better.
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