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Disclaimer:
I do not own Andromeda or any part thereof. All rights to these properties are retained by their respective owners.

Note:
Don't worry if this is a little confusing in the beginning. It should start to make more sense as more of the plot is revealed.
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Dreams are like building blocks. They aare nothing more or less than what you make of them.
- Ryan Greene, CY 6584

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Tyr could feel the heat of two other bodies in the room. He could smell their hormones. Two Neitzchians, a male and a female. Even when he slept, he was careful to have enough light in the room so that he could barely see, giving him an advantage over anyone with less acute eyesight.

In a single fluid motion, he leapt from the bed, spun to face the intruders, and drew a knife that he kept concealed under his mattress. In the darkness, he could make out the male Neitzchian, even larger and more muscular than him. Before Tyr even felt anything in his hand, he heard the sound of the knife skidding across the deck plates.

"Ship! Activate lights and internal defenses!" Tyr shouted, and as illumination filled the room his anger turned to utter shock, "You…you're dead."

"Hmph," Victoria responded, "If we were dead, we couldn't be here."

"This is a trick," Tyr stated, "I watched you die."

"At least you're still a cynic," Barbarossa commented, "But that's the only Neitzchian trait you have left. You've gone soft Tyr. We should have drown you when you were born."

"Suppose for a moment that I did believe you, what do you want from me?"

"We were hoping that these kludges hadn't deluded you beyond help," Victoria answered, "You have to get out of here. No self-respecting Neitzchian would do this, not after your ancestors shed blood destroying the Commonwealth."

"Our ancestors were fools to take part in the tactical offensive. We could have found another way to get revenge."

"Fools?" Victoria shot back, "We would have won, if you and your ship hadn't shown up in the moment of triumph and ignited the nebula. You should have killed that annoying little human a long time ago. Now, because of you, our pride is gone and our civilization is a shadow of what it could have been."

"What makes you think I was involved in that?" Tyr responded, trying to sound as though he had no idea what they were talking about, "It was three hundred years ago."

"Even when they were killing us, you stayed on the ship," Barbarossa accused.

"What should I have done? Staying here was the best thing for me at the time. If I had left, the Neitzchian fleet would have attacked me."

"You couldn't have found something to sabotauge? You couldn't have found some way to send a message to the Neitzchians?" Barbarossa demanded, "I was wrong about you Tyr. You're not soft, you're stupid."

"You always were the inferior one in the family," Victoria smirked, "If you had held your position like we told you to, the Kodiaks would be the pride that brought fear into the eyes of its enemies, not the Dragons."

"I was only a child," Tyr responded defensively.

"You were old enough," Victoria stepped forward, "When Shiva was that age, she could decapitate a full-grown Nightsider, blindfolded and unarmed."

"Look at you," Barbarossa cut in, "You're a full grown man. You could have been an alpha, but now what have you become? You have no children, and you're surrounded by kludges that you actually respect."

"I had a wife…" Tyr tried to explain, but Victoria stopped him in mid sentence.

"Freya. How could we forget. You honestly think she went through with the pregnancy? I've met Perseids with more common sense than that. Can you give us one good reason not to kill you now, and cover it up so no one else has to hear of our disgrace?"

"I'm… your offspring."

Victoria raised a gauss gun level with his chest, "I asked for a good reason."

***

The monk slowly made his way down the halls. Aside from the soft padding of his feet, the corridor was silent. Normally, Rev found moments like these peaceful, but something set his nerves on edge. He felt a very odd sense as though something were terribly wrong.

Then, he smelled it. It was coppery and acidic: Human blood, or possibly Neitzchian. Then, the familiar hormones, followed by some unfamiliar ones, reached him, and he immediately broke into a run.

As he came around the corner, the first thing he saw was the blood. The pool was already starting to dry, and the walls were dripping with it. He was horrified as he walked closer, waiting to see where it had all come from. Then, he saw the body lying on the floor. It was Tyr.

***

"Can't sleep?" Beka asked, taking a drink of her coffee.

"The work of a captain is never done," Dylan smiled as he sat next to her.

"So, I was really impressed by the way you handled those Neitzchians. I thought they had us."

"It's an old trick I learned back home. I've done simulations, but I never had a chance to use it until now," Captain Hunt paused, "Beka, I couldn't have pulled it off without you. That was some great flying."

Beka moved her chair slightly, and leaned closer, "Dylan, I've been wanting to thank you for everything you've done for me. I know my family hasn't exactly been easy to get along with, and honestly… I'm not sure that I had much of a future before I came here. And on top of that, you've always supported me. I don't know how I can repay you."

"Beka, you don't have to thank me, I was…" Dylan trailed off as Beka moved closer. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his mouth. At first, he wasn't sure how to respond, but instinct quickly took over as he placed a hand on her back to draw her closer.

"I see you've decided to relax High Guard protocal a little further."

Dylan spun around, "Rommie, I…"

"What? You forgot to engage privacy mode?" The android retorted.

Dylan stood up and walked towards Rommie, while Beka tried to appear as though she weren't at all embarassed by the interruption.

"Don't you remember what happened to the Pax? Do you think only AIs go insane?"

"Rommie, that was a freak incident. Love can be a beautiful thing."

"Oh, so now you're in love? You just lost Sarah less than a year ago. What happened to mourning?"

"I didn't mean…"

The avatar didn't wait for him to finish. She turned her back on him and left. Dylan walked quickly to catch up with her, but a familiar sound stopped him in his tracks.

***

"Harper, hurry," The hologram urged.

"I've got it; it's cool," Harper assured her as he frantically tried to rewire the fused parts.

"Hostiles are closing," Andromeda stated.

The sound was unmistakable. The hull was being pounded so rhythmically that only one thing could produce it.

"Fifteen Magog swarm ships have impacted on the hull," Andromeda said, "Activating internal defenses, dispatching drones, and evacuating air from all uninhabited sections…"

Suddenly, there was a short circuit under the slipstream chair. Sparks illuminated the bridge in a massive chain reaction. Both the holographic and on-screen images of the ship's AI flickered momentarily.

"Harper, what did you do?" Andromeda demanded.

"I don't know," Harper was panicking, "I've never seen anything react like that before."

"My internal sensors are gone. If I can't see, I can't use my internal defenses, and I can't decompress uninhabited parts of the ship without knowing where the rest of the crew is," The hologram noted, giving Harper a withering look.

"It's all happening again," Andromeda added as Magog began to bang out a funeral march against the ship's bulkheads.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Harper blathered uncontrollably, "I didn't mean it."

"Harper get ahold of yourself," The ship admonished.

"You have to fix my internal sensors, or you and everyone you care about is going to die."

"I…I can't. I don't even know what went wrong."

"In that case, I suggest you get to work writing your will."