They're not mine.
Set before the last scene of "The Torment, The Release".
Leap of Faith
He knew that he had left him unconvinced.
"Why?"
Hunt's question had taken him by surprise. Did he really not understand? He had tried to answer as honestly as possible, throwing just about everything – even his own pride – overboard.
"Why?" he had asked back. "You're my hero."
It had been the captain's turn to be surprised. Tri-Lorn noticed the puzzled, inquiring expression in Dylan Hunt's eyes. And as he turned away to walk out of the office of the Andromeda's captain, he saw an ironic, incredulous look replace it.
It saddened him. He understood, he could relate to the officer's mistrust, still: it worried him, for he knew that what he had offered Hunt was the man's only option, his last way out of this. If he didn't take, if he didn't trust him the fate of the New Commonwealth's founder was sealed. History would be moving on, and not in the right direction, Tri-Lorn feared.
They had put Dylan Hunt under accusation, the gray eminencies behind all political machinations of the new superpower that had emerged only a year before, growing out of the ashes of the Old Commonwealth, rekindled through sheer determination of the senior crew of the ship he walked through. They were a bunch of misfits, but they had been convinced by the man Tri-Lorn had just left to give it a try, to make a run for the impossible. They did – and they won their bet. But then one had defected – for reasons unrelated to the rest of his crew-mates. His schemes with the Collectors, the powerful secret order, that had accumulated over the past centuries all power and all knowledge the Commonwealth once had without being subjected to any kind of control, had been unveiled and stopped; Tyr Anasazi died, but his partners kept all their old positions, more powerful, more secretive – and a lot more vindictive than ever.
There was but one thing standing between them and their goal, the complete control of the Restored New Systems' Commonwealth – the flag ship of its fleet, the Andromeda Ascendant and its senior officers, said bunch of insubordinate, genial and daring individuals under their fossil commander, captain Dylan Hunt of the Old High Guard, the only one who remembered, who knew the way things used to be done under the ancient, ideal rule of the Vedrans. Assuming that by chopping off the head of the unruly crew the Andromeda would become a ship like all the others, the Collectors went for Dylan Hunt, determined to see blood.
Tri-Lorn had known of their plotting, but he had come to power too late to neutralize the traps laid out for Hunt. And truth be told, the captain, after years of struggling on his own, with his crew's judgement as his only guide and no longer used to unquestioningly obeying each and every order, had made himself an easy enough target.
As he walked down the corridors of the Andromeda Ascendant, the most influential individual of the Commonwealth looked anything but that. Lost in his thoughts he almost bumped into the slender figure barring his way to Hangar Deck 12, where the ship meant to take him back to Terrazed was waiting for him.
"Captain Valentine!" he exclaimed, recognizing the flag ship's first officer.
Cool eyes measured him from head to toe, as she stood there in front of him, with wide-spread legs, hands on her hips, occupying as much space as possible, every bit as imposing as a Nietzschean fleet marshal. In fact, she was quite scary.
"Anything I can do for you?" Tri-Lorn politely inquired.
"You can tell me what you are here about."
"I came to inform your captain that we have reached a verdict," he quietly replied.
There was only a tiny flicker in her eyes, quickly to be replaced by an even colder, but no less direct gaze.
"He has been found guilty." It was not a question.
"There really wasn't anything I could have done about it – officially."
"Officially?" Rebekkah Valentine's tone was biting, matching the sardonic expression displayed on her face. "And unofficially? Let me guess: you're deeply sorry, shattered, wishing there were something – anything you could do for the Commonwealth's greatest hero, but alas... If you were to help him you could lose some of your political allies or – even worse – your privilege to free transportation..." Her tirade ended in a contemptuous laugh.
Completely still, his eyes searching her face and weighing every tiny twist, every minuscule twitch, Tri-Lorn returned her furious gaze with unperturbed calmness. For a brief moment they just stood there in silence, facing each other like two large cats ready to do battle for their territory.
"Captain Valentine, I'm not your enemy. Nor am I Captain Hunt's enemy, you know."
"Well, you're not exactly our friend, either, are you?"
"What if I was?"
Beka's eyes narrowed. Lifting her chin up a bit, she scrutinized him sharply.
"Andromeda, Tri-Lorn and I have left some important... things on the Maru. We will retrieve them now, so please inform the Triumvir's guards that the flight to Terrazed has been postponed until further notice. We'll be on my ship. Engage privacy mode."
With a swift move, the Andromeda's XO stepped aside, allowing the dark-haired man to follow her.
"Shall we?" she asked, strolling ahead without awaiting his answer.
The triumvir complied.
-
"I take it that you can't offer any proof whatsoever, no guarantee that you won't go back on your word?"
"I can tell you only what I already told your captain. If the Andromeda moves, I'll have the fleet stand down to let you pass. With you – and Captain Hunt – out of the way and safe from the Collectors' wrath, I will try to get some house cleaning done back on Terrazed. But no matter how we call this plan of ours or how valid a reason we think to have for it, it is a coup d'état, and nothing will change that. What guarantees do you want me to offer you? That I will succeed?"
Seated at the small bar of the Eureka Maru, the blonde woman was slowly sipping on her water. She shook her head thoughtfully.
"So, do you think you managed to convince Dylan?"
"No," the triumvir sighed, admitting defeat. "No, I don't think that I convinced him. But maybe you could."
"I already tried."
"I know. But that was before I joined you in your support for a... strategic withdrawal."
"You mean defection... Mutiny, in fact. Let's not hide behind words, Tri-Lorn."
"I'm not. I do mean strategic withdrawal. Right now the New Commonwealth is betraying your commanding officer, not the other way around."
Beka nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving the face of the man seated across the small space on a chair clearly too small for him.
"What if I can't convince him either?"
"Captain Valentine!" Tri-Lorn briefly pressed his lips together tightly. "Beka..." he then continued, urgency in his voice, "if you can't convince him, he's dead, it's that simple. Pish, Tri-Jema, they don't want to replace him – they want his head on a plate. And if he doesn't take the way out I offer, they will get their wish. I can't guarantee that you will really make it, that this will really work, but at least it's a chance. Make him take it."
She had bowed her heard listening to him, but now Beka looked up, mustering the first triumvir's serious features for one more time. At last, she got to her feet, and then she slowly nodded with an almost imperceptible motion of her head.
"Very well, Tri-Lorn. I'll trust you. And I'll see to it that – if Dylan's to go down – he won't do so without putting up a fight first."
"I would be most thankful if we could keep the blood-shed at a minimum, please."
"I'm not sure though, that I can convince him to simply run away. It goes against just about everything he believes in. As does mutiny. Refusing orders, running... that's not him. That's me."
-
"Beka, do come in!"
"Am I interrupting something important?"
"Actually yes. I'm trying to bring some order into these."
"Clearing your desk, are you?"
"I see you have already heard about the verdict."
"Yes, I have. It would have been nice though had we heard it first from you, Dylan."
"I know, I know, I was going to... Look, Beka, I'm sorry! Maybe if you could ask all of the old crew to meet me in about one hour..."
"What's to change in just one more hour?"
"Nothing. But by then I will be ready with this and... I'll tell them."
"Tell them what?"
"Well, that I've been convicted and..."
"And that you give up?"
"I tried all options, Beka. It's not as if there still is anything that I could further do about it."
"Well, that certainly isn't what Tri-Lorn just told me."
"Ah!"
"Yes, Dylan. Ah!"
"Beka, what do you want?"
"I want you to start talking to us, right here and now. You've been in here for hours. And we've been out there, waiting. Since this whole thing started we've been... dying out there, Dylan, bit by bit."
"Oh yes, tell me about it!"
"I know."
"If you know, then what do you still want from me, Beka?"
"Not that much. Only a little smile; one of those smiles telling me 'You're crazy!', telling me that if I dare, you dare... That we all still can..."
"Can what?"
"Everything."
"I can't risk you all..."
"You can't? Why not? How many times have you told me that I need to take chances, that if I want to win, I have to be willing to risk it all in just one game of madness? How many times? 7000? More? 8000 times... a day?"
"Beka, I..."
"No. NO! We all had our hearts, our minds and souls broken, when we first met you. And you picked up the pieces and put them back together, showing us that you were not afraid of anything, that you didn't care about the odds, choosing life and hope above all... And now that you've brought us all to walk down this path with you, now you're telling me that you won't follow it any longer?"
"Beka, this is not about hope or life. This isn't about fears, it's about rules we follow, about dreams that I obviously was wrong to pursue the way I did."
"You mean dreams like rebuilding the Commonwealth?"
"That was something different and you know it."
"It always is. Because this rebuilding – it's never done. Once you think you've succeeded, there always are those gurus, all those know-all fellows, who could've done it better had they been willing to do anything at all. The false prophets, all standing in line and ready to take over, to change the story-lines for their own benefit, to wipe out the memory of what's really been done and by whom. It's them I'm afraid of, not of taking my chances with you."
"Beka, I don't believe..."
"In me? Well, that's too bad."
"That's not what I was going to say."
"What then? That you no longer believe in yourself? That is even worse – for you and for us."
"Beka, the Commonwealth..."
"The Commonwealth, Dylan, is falling prey to the Collectors, while there is a worldship full of Magog out there, breathing down its neck. But that won't matter, really, because if Pish and his pals get their way with it, it will get strangled long before the Spirit of the Abyss arrives to deal with it."
"So?"
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Why don't you tell me, Beka?"
"Okay, I am. Get moving. Get off your butt and fight... before they chain you down... Before we all end up in places we don't belong. What's holding you back, Dylan?"
"Beka, I swore an oath..."
"Yes, to honor and defend the Commonwealth. I'm asking you to do this. Will you?"
"You think it's that easy?"
"It's never easy, Dylan. But onboard this ship, with us all where we belong, it's at least easier."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Walk with me – to Command, preferably."
-
He stood with his back turned to the rest of his crew, staring eyes opened wide at the stars ahead. And then he took a deep breath and turned around to the slipstream station, broadly smiling at Beka.
"We're crazy. You know that, don't you, Valentine?"
"I'm a pilot, Dylan. I was born to be crazy!" she told him, grinning back.
"I still think it's madness..."
She shrugged.
"Give me the word, Dylan – and I fly you out of this. I want to get moving. I need to get moving. Move along with me."