Part 1

Dylan's vision was blurry, eyes swollen and gritty as he blinked several times to try to clear his sight. For a time, he hung blank-minded, vaguely conscious of the pain in his shoulders, wrists and ankles but not enough aware to wonder about its source.

Soon enough, though, the pain broke through his fog, its talons raking through his consciousness, dragging him to a reluctant awareness. A groan gritted its way out of his hoarse throat as the full mark of his agony made itself known to him.

More urgently, Dylan strained blurry eyes, trying to make sense of the sensations around him. Gradually, he realized that he was more or less upright, held relentlessly by bindings. Groaning again despite himself, he staggered in place, working to get his feet under him and relieve the tortuous pressure caused by his hanging from bindings at his wrists and ankles. Bumping his head painfully against the wall at his back, Dylan Hunt, High Guard Captain and the last of the Argosy, finally gained his feet to look about him with an incredulous, pain-filled gaze. He was chained against rough walls underground, and he was entirely alone.



Tyr's return to consciousness was even less pleasant. They had beaten him savagely before chaining him up, and the swimming of his head was so severe that getting his weight on his feet took considerably longer. As one of his legs was broken, success at this effort did not turn out to be an ultimate victory; as soon as he tried to stand the limb collapsed, throwing him against the chains again. He felt the resulting anguish for only a moment; then darkness mercifully took him again.



But it was Beka's plight that was the most perilous, and the most potentially disastrous. She'd been restrained but basically unharmed, watching horrified as they had beaten Dylan - and mauled Tyr in proportion to his massive resistance. Screaming at their aggressors, she'd fought as hard as she could to get free and help them as her friends were systematically leveled. She could still see the trail of blood where they'd dragged Tyr and Dylan off.

Unwillingly, her eyes followed that grisly path, then returned to contemplate the horror just before her. What would she do? She'd been through a lot, but how could she possibly survive what seemed to be in store next? Her entire body thrilled with terror as her mind fought for a way to remove her from this trap.



On board the Andromeda, Harper, Trance and Rommie surveyed the stubbornly blank viewscreen. The Maru was missing, nowhere to be found along the course it had originally taken, and Dylan, Tyr and Beka had vanished along with it. Where could they be? They were now more than two standard days past the rendezvous time, and there had been no message, no sign from them.

Rommie felt a familiar sinking feeling as she looked into the near-frantic eyes of her Commander in residence, Harper. Harper was a great engineer, and she cared a lot for him, but his grasp of command tactics was less than stellar. Rommie had protested privately to Dylan that he should at least leave Tyr behind when he'd left, but Dylan had been adamant that Harper could handle it. For a moment, Rommie lost herself in remembering the last moment that Dylan was standing before her, safe and healthy, until Harper's voice snapped her back to the present.

"Trance, what should we do now?" Harper's voice had the whiney edge that came along with stress, and Trance looked reassuringly at him before she answered. The old Trance would have smiled at Harper, but new Trance was more sparing of her smiles.

"You've checked all their likely trajectories from the point at which you lose them on Wormhole?"

"Yeah, and there's nothin' anywhere. No sign."

"This is not good, Harper." Trance was silent for a moment, fingertips drumming on the railing. "Let's try heading toward the Saskillion Nebula. Maybe we can pick up something there."

Without a word, Harper turned to key in the course. "Transiting to Slipstream in five." With the usual unearthly burst of light the Andromeda disappeared into Slipstream.



Beka watched with horrified fascination as they readied the medical apparatus in front of her. She'd tested her bonds again and again, and the blood oozing from under them testified that she could not break free of them no matter how she tried. Still, she mounted an enormous struggle as they came towards her with injector in hand. The last thing she knew was the sting of the needle in her neck.



Several hours passed, and Dylan's various aches had not improved. The addition of hunger and a growing thirst made his situation even less pleasant, so it was with some relief that he heard a rattling in the lock of the chamber's door, a relief that lasted until he met the coldest eyes he had ever seen.

The aliens that had attacked them were unusual. Tall and deceptively slender, the bipedal beings had violet skin and dark, coarse hair growing in roughly humanoid patterns except for the triangle of hair growing down on their foreheads, like an exaggerated widow's peak. Their teeth, however, were needle-sharp and narrow, and their eyes an unusual, glowing amber. From what Dylan had seen of their hands, they had claws rather than fingernails, and though their feet were encased in boots he suspected, from the way they moved and the size of the toes boxes on their footwear, that they had articulated toes with similar claws. They were dressed in sophisticated, skin-tight suits of shiny materials in various rainbow colors, with strategic cut-outs to display patches of skin. Their gender was not obvious from any characteristics he could see.

The first person into Dylan's chilly cell resembled the other aliens he had fought earlier, except for hair color. This individual's hair was a screaming red, somehow suggesting the color of human blood. Dylan's eyes widened a little as he looked at it, and then he met the creature's eyes, eyes devoid of any feeling or spark of life. Dylan had the distinct impression that the alien thought it was looking at a lower-level animal when it regarded him, and a fairly unpleasant animal at that.

With the lead alien came two of the number that had defeated him earlier. These were on either side of a fourth figure, a woman. With a shove, one of the aliens pushed the human toward Dylan, and a sharp burst of incomprehensible speech from the leader accompanied the woman's stagger forward.

Dylan saw the woman brace herself, setting her shoulders and straightening before she turned to look at his body. Not meeting his eyes, the woman walked up to Dylan and, removing a medical scanner from a pouch near her waist, began scanning him for injuries.

"Hey! Hello?! Who are you and why am I chained up?" Dylan's voice was full of rough demand, but the woman never even looked up. Muttering to herself, she took an injector from her pouch and, easily following his limited move to avoid it, gave him a quick injection in his shoulder. Dylan felt a flood of pain relief as whatever drug was in the injection took effect.

"What was that?" he asked sharply. Still ignoring him, the woman turned to the alien leader and spoke in the language that Dylan did not understand. Despite the gravity of his situation, an absent corner of Dylan's mind noted the musical sweetness of the woman's voice, slightly husky and strained though it was. In response to her speech, the alien leader barked out another sentence, and its two followers came forward to Dylan.

Dylan tensed at their nearness, fearing another attack, but instead one of them trained a weapon steadily on him while the other bent to fasten yet another fetter to his ankle, this one with a much longer chain. Dylan watched this procedure, puzzled, until they moved next to undo the other bindings on his ankles.

At this point the woman interjected something again, and Dylan didn't have to speak the alien language to understand the leader's exasperated reaction. The woman apparently stood firm, however, because the leader made a rough gesture that Dylan took to be acquiescence to the alien working on his bindings. The alien left off what he was doing and disappeared out of the cell for a moment, returning with a rough pallet that he put near the captain's feet. The alien also brought a carafe of liquid, and despite his anger Dylan eyed it with a hopeful look. Then the purple-skinned being looked at the woman as though waiting for something.

"Do not try anything, or you will be rebound." The woman spoke with an unusual accent, and she was finally meeting his eyes with a stern look in her own - which, Dylan noted with a tiny corner of his mind, were a striking grass green. Dylan nodded and used the opportunity to speak back to her as the alien unfastened the bindings around his wrists.

"My friends? What have you done with them?" Dylan's voice was sharp with concern.

The alien leader spoke in a harsh voice, and the woman hesitated before answering him. Then, again avoiding his gaze, she said, "I am sorry, but they are dead." Turning quickly, she left the room with the aliens following her, leaving Dylan alone with the beginnings of a tearing sorrow.

"No!" he said, his pain-filled voice dying away in the empty room as he collapsed onto the pallet at his feet. Only the lock turning in the door opposite him answered his agonized protest.



In another cell, the tall, dark Nietzschean was still crumpled in place, bound and hanging from his wrists and ankles. Another pallet was brought, and at a gesture from their leader, the aliens unbound the lifeless man and laid him on the pallet. They fastened another cuff around his sound ankle as the woman, brow creased, ran her scan over his powerful body. What she saw apparently concerned her; she shook her head and administered three injections. With a gentleness that betrayed her, she also set his leg, securing it with a careful bracing and adding a fourth injection at the site of the fracture. At a barked inquiry from the alien leader, she shook her head again and spoke gravely, green eyes slightly hazy from unshed tears.



There had been no foreshadowing of this situation; no sense of impending doom in Beka's invitation. In fact, there'd been the possibility of fun, Dylan ironically recalled. Beka had walked onto the Com deck with a flexi in her hand, eyes dancing at the message on it. "Hey, Dylan, get this. They're having a salvager's ball on Wormhole Drift next month. I don't know why I haven't heard anything about it, but anyway, I'm invited. Is it OK if I go?"

"Can you bring guests?"

"Umm," the lanky blond looked puzzled for a moment. "Yeah, I guess."

"Then I'm in."

"Dylan," Beka protested, laughing a little, "that wasn't an invite!"

"Yeah, but I'm the captain," he said smugly.

Beka rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, and rank has its privileges. Hmmph."

"Hmmph all you want but I've wanted to go to a salvagers' ball ever since you told me that story about -."

"OK, OK, we don't need to go into it. You can come along - if I can go."

"Of course you can go."



Tyr had added himself to the party later. "I understand," he'd said to Dylan on the Com deck, "that you and Captain Valentine are taking a little outing to Wormhole Drift? Since it seems a time for frivolous side trips, I have an errand on that Drift and would like to accompany you."

Dylan had looked at Tyr for a moment, weighing it. "And the Andromeda?"

Tyr had shrugged. "Harper and Trance can stay behind for a change. With the ship's help they can probably handle it."

Briefly, Dylan considered asking Tyr for details about his errand, but he had to concede that, aside from the disastrous outing to Enga's Redoubt, Tyr had not requested any personal time in more than a year. Not that he'd requested that, exactly. But still, he was due some time, no doubt about that. And this quadrant of space was pretty safe, so Harper and Trance probably could handle it. With a shrug of his own, Dylan gave in. "OK, Mr. Anasazi. Join us."

As he lay on the rough pallet, shivering a little from cold and pain, Dylan regretted giving that permission. If he had not been lied to, that invitation had cost the Kodiak his life. Dylan was surprised at the sorrow that washed over him with that realization. And if he thought about Beka. So he didn't. With a steely resolve, he didn't think about Beka being dead. Not at all.



Beka came to gradually. Her vision was fuzzy, and she didn't seem to be able to turn her head at all. Eventually, she figured out that her head was braced in one place, and her whole body was completely immobilized. She also realized that she had an odd collection of very painful spots on her forehead and scalp, but she couldn't lift her hand to figure out what was going on up there. She moaned a little, her fear growing at her complete immobility.

To her surprise, her moan was answered. A face swam into her view, a human woman's face with amazing green eyes. Unwilling compassion seemed to flicker in those eyes, and a gentle hand checked at the sources of Beka's pain. Flipping a switch, the unknown woman managed to elevate the head of the bed to which Beka was secured, making drinking a possibility. Abruptly, Beka realized her mouth was completely dry, and she accepted the straw offered her with relief.

When she had drunk her fill, she let go of the straw and immediately asked, "Where am I, and what have you done with my friends?" Silence answered her, and her inability to turn her head became infuriating. "Damn you, what's going on?" Her ragged voice was fierce, but she received no answer. Soon a flood of sleepiness took her; drugged was her last thought before she lost consciousness again.



Andromeda transited into normal space in a minor system near the Saskillion Nebula. She scanned the system carefully, searching not only for traces of the Maru but also for potentially hostile parties. Space where they had been waiting for Dylan was relatively safe, but space here was considerably more risky. Pirates, scavengers, rogue Nietzscheans, and other unsavory characters were known to linger around here, and Andromeda did not want to be taken unaware.

But she found nothing, neither a threat nor any sign of the Maru.

"Trance, the Maru is not here."

"No, I know it's not."

Harper sounded more than exasperated. "Well, why did we come here then, Trance?"

"Because I think Dylan might be. Head toward that second planet, all right? I want you to monitor the broadcasts on its surface."



The woman with green eyes turned her head to the side to avert her gaze as the aliens struggled with the heavy body bag, an experiment that had gone horribly wrong. She hated to see things end like that, but there was nothing she could do. For the millionth or so time, loathing, sorrow, terror and hatred washed over her. How could they have taken Ian? And how would she ever get him free? Even the fact that they let her live with him did not lessen the terrible tragedy her life had become.

For a moment she sat and trembled, overwhelmed by the emotions. Then, a thought gradually found its way through the emotional storm. Even incarcerated on this backwater planet, she had heard of Dylan Hunt, the same man, unless she was much mistaken, who had taken up unwilling residence in the cell block down below. If this Hunt character was such a hero, might he be able to help her free her son and escape the horrid servitude she'd been forced to? For the first time in a long time, Galil felt a very faint stirring of hope. It felt so good she clung to it, fanning the irrational flicker with every ounce of her formidable will.

When she was called to her loathsome duty again, to the horrible perversion of the training she had struggled for, she went willingly despite the vows she had foresworn. If she could convince Hunt to help her, maybe she had a chance to escape the hell her life - and her son's - had become.



Galil carefully added sedatives to Beka's injection, working to keep her quiescent until the wounds in the blonde's head - wounds that she had made - had healed enough so that it was safe to free her hands. She gave Beka the injection and set up a fluids IV. She did not want Beka incapacitated permanently. Not if she was to win the cooperation of her Captain. Ignoring the hostile scrutiny of the guards, she carefully worked to help Beka heal as quickly and comfortably as possible.

When Galil finished with Beka, she went to check on the other two. The tall Nietzschean was still unconscious, but his color, she was pleased to note, was better and his breathing less labored. Unless he suddenly took a turn for the worse, he was on the road to recovery. For a second, she marveled at the formidable response of his healing system, then she moved on, always with her alien guard shadowing her.

On to Hunt's cell. She was going to have to play her cards carefully here to communicate anything to the handsome captain without arousing the suspicions of her escort. As she entered his cell, she met the captain's keen eyes meaningfully.

"Time for your exam. Please don't react - I have things I need to tell you. Lie down."

From his sprawled position on the pallet, Hunt met her eyes for a startled moment then turned and lay flat.

"I am pretending to examine your limbs," she said as she got out her scanner. Your friends are alive, I was lying before." She finished the sentence with an inquiring lilt, as though it was a question, while gesturing to his right leg. "Please say 'yes.'"

"Yes," he replied after a startled moment. "They will expect me to ask you about them. What do you mean?"

Galil shook her head as though refusing to answer. "The Niet was badly wounded and. and so was your other friend." Again her sentence ended with an inquiring lilt, and this time she gestured to the other leg.

"No," Hunt responded, playing a part.

"The Szezhume have captured my son." This time the 'question' was directed toward his arm, which Hunt, she noted with approval, obligingly flexed for her.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked demandingly, as though pressing her for further information.

"Help me rescue him, and I will help you free your friends." The other arm, which Hunt moved again.

"Yes," he responded with a fervor unrelated to their pretense. At her warning look, he subsided, feigning resentment. He turned his face away from her.

"Be ready," she cautioned as she rose to leave him.

"Always," he retorted, very much in character.



But later, when the key turned noisily in Dylan's lock once again, instead of the rescue he was hoping for he was stunned to see the woman, bruised and bleeding, tossed into the cell with him. He braced himself to try to catch her, but she was hurled to the floor.



Tyr awoke, finally, to find himself much improved. Still in a lot of pain, he was relieved to be lying down and also to have had his leg bound and hopefully set. His brow creased as he worried for a moment about the bone healing unset, but then he put that thought aside. Moving around, he was distracted by the clinking of the chain links attached his ankle. He stretched out his leg to survey the cuff on his ankle. He believed he could break it, but as this set up was much preferred to hanging from the wall he decided to forgo that pleasure for a while.

Tyr was silent, listening. Despite his enhanced metabolism, the room where he was imprisoned felt chilly and dank. Windowless, it was also dark, with walls of rough-hewn stone. The door was the only fixture in the room; massive steel, it looked formidable.

Brow still creased, the Nietzschean reflected on the chain of events that had brought them to this pass.



Beka had seemed unusually fussy as she was getting ready to depart for Wormhole. Tyr had watched, amused, as she'd made no fewer than three trips back to her quarters on the Andromeda, to fetch items she needed for the next week. Harper and Trance had been carefully briefed, and Dylan had swung onto the Maru right on time, his possessions packed in a neat bag by his side.

Beka had eyed the bag with a flick. "Black tie?"

Dylan nodded, and with a disbelieving quirk to her brow at the paucity of his luggage, Beka had returned to prepping the Maru.

"You guys ready?" she'd asked, moments later.

"Yup," responded Dylan, taking up the place behind her in the Maru's command area. Tyr had lounged further back, near the weapons station, as Beka requested that Rommie open the landing bay doors.

"That's a big 10-4, Eureka Maru," had come Harper's cheerful voice over the comm.

Beka exchanged a mystified look with Dylan. "Huh?" she queried the exuberant engineer.

"Ancient Earth for 'affirmative,' Beka," Harper had sounded resigned as he explained yet another piece of slang. "Y'all have a great trip now."

"Harper," Dylan had said, predictably, "don't break my ship."

"Aw, g'wan Boss. Nothing's gonna happen here. It'll just be boring." Famous last words, Tyr had thought as the Maru lifted out of her home on the Andromeda and headed into space.

"Streaming in five," Beka had chirped, and they were off.

Arrival at Wormhole had been remarkable only for its ease - at first. Wormhole was a busy drift at the slowest time; with the added traffic generated by the ball they had all expected to have to shuttle down to the Drift rather than docking at the spaceport. But when they appeared in normal space and hailed the Portmaster, they'd been pleased to be directed to a regular dock - albeit one on the farthest side of the Drift.

After Beka had effortlessly lined up the Maru, slipping her ship into place, they'd gathered their belongings and prepared to depart. Dylan had shouldered one of Beka's bags amid some serious teasing about her inefficient packing. Tyr had been in the lead, turning to bid the others farewell, when the unmistakable sound of weapons being drawn had jerked him around, into a ready crouch.

But it had already been too late. "Ambush," was the only thing Tyr had been able to think before the sizzling fire of a nerve disruptor had engulfed him. Tyr had known nothing more until he had come to and tried to fight for liberty, some hours before.

Where was he, Tyr wondered, and where were Dylan and Beka? Who had been lying in wait for them? What was going on?

Tyr's musings were suddenly disrupted by the clanking of a key in his cell door. His heavy brows snapped together as Tyr saw the door opened by an alien carrying his slender blonde crewmate carelessly over his shoulder. Tyr braced as the alien flung Beka's lifeless body onto the floor. Sparing not a glance in the Nietzschean's direction, the alien withdrew, locking the door behind him.



Dylan quickly crawled over to the green-eyed woman sprawled on the floor. Moaning, the woman opened those extraordinary eyes - eyes glazed, at the moment, with pain and fear. Blinking in an obvious effort to clear her vision, the woman looked around, then focused on Dylan with a dawning terror. Wordlessly, she met his worried gaze, then closed her eyes with her face twisted. She averted her head as though she could deny the truth of where she was by looking in another direction.

Politely, Dylan cleared his throat. "Um.hi," he offered, voice low and quiet.

For a short while the woman ignored him, then, with a palpable effort, she turned back to him. Dylan's eyes traced the path of the tears that had forced their way out of her closed eyes, then returned to meet her gaze.

"Hi," she answered, hopelessness in her tone.

"I'm guessing this wasn't part of your plan?" he asked.

She sighed deeply, then answered, her musical voice even hoarser than before. "No."

Dylan waited for more, then spoke again. "I'm Dylan Hunt."

He met those green eyes again as she said, "Galil Lundergan. I'd said 'nice to meet you,' but in this setup, I'd be lying."

Dylan smiled a little. "Can you sit up?" At her nod, he dragged the pallet over next to the cell wall and helped Galil to sit on it with her back leaning against the wall. He dropped to a seat beside her, then said, "Can you fill me in? What's going on?"

With a brief nod, Galil began. "I guess they became suspicious when I spoke so much to you, and then when I freed your woman friend."

"Beka's free?" Dylan asked sharply.

She sighed again. "Not any more. And Dylan - I don't know what kind of shape she'll be in anyway."

"What do you mean?" No trace of the affable captain was left in his tone.

Galil darted a look at him, then said, "Maybe I should start at the beginning."

"Please do." Under the politeness rang the steel of command.