Requiem
Summary: One shot lamentation of things passed.
Disclaimer: Don't own it, wish I did.
"Andromeda, privacy mode." Seamus Harper looked around the observation deck, it looked barren and empty since Trance had removed all her plants down to Seefra I, now called Tarn-Vedra again mainly to honor the Vedrans.
"Privacy mode engaged" The Andromeda Ascendant was crawling with an army of New Commonwealth engineers repairing the damage suffered during the final showdown with the Spirit of the Abyss.After having been Andromeda's chief,and only, engineer for these past five years it had been a real shock to be pushed out of the way so quickly when Rhade's small convoy of ships had arrived in system after the battle.Dylan's suggestion that he treat it as a well earned vacation had hit him like a Dragon security team on an after curfew patrol.He didn't need a vacation from doing the only thing that gave his life any meaning since watching Earth die at the hands of the same people that had tortured, murdered and enslaved her people.No matter what was being said about Beca taking her place as the Matriarch of all Nietzchians after their crushing defeat at the battle of Terazed, he wasn't planning on getting chummy with the Ubers anytime soon.He wandered over to the bench under the large observation port while these thoughts ran through his head. As he sat he felt something shift in his jacket pocket and with typical absent minded curiosity he reached in and withdrew a thin metal rod.It was hollow with four holes drilled in the surface, a diameter of a little less than half an inch and was made from salvaged scraps of tin.It was the flute he had made more years ago than he really wanted to think about.. He sat in the light reflected from the surface remembering the day his father had guided his hands in the first simple tune.His father had loved music, so had his mom, sometimes it was all the beauty that they had had in the ruins of mankinds homeworld. Without concious thought he began to finger an old, old song he had learned for his parents funeral.Now as he watched Tarn-Vedra with its blue oceans and the brown and green landsape spinning below he felt the pain of that day as if it were all happening again, but this time it wasn't his parents death at the hands of the Ubers ,it was his entire world's.Suddenly the quiet that he had come here looking for felt as if it were pressing in on him.A feeling of deep rage and sadness abruptly brought the flut to his lips,suddenly the thin sharp sounds began to attack the silence the way his soul wished he could attack those that had destroyed his world over and over as he was growing up and finally had destroyed in permanently.The melody was fierce and melencholy,born from a warior people for whom the pain of loss was a constant companion.
"Harper?" Andromeda's holographic projection interrupted his focus.
"Yeah Rommie?" Even though Rommie was technically the name reserved for the the ship's avatar Harper had gotten into the habit of referring to all of the AI's incarnation's by that name.
"What are you doing?"
"Playing my flute." He was starting to feel the AI's presence as an intrusion and fought to hold his temper.
"I know that" Andromeda was using her "I am the most powerful machine ever constructed by any know species so stop treating me like an imbecile" tone.
Finally Harper took a deep breath and slowly let the frustration out."Ok what are you asking"
"I want to know why your playing that song."
"It's something my dad taught me was I was just a kid, he said it came from the same place as our family way before the Commonwealth came to Earth."
"I believe I have heard that song before but I didn't know the cultural signifigance. Would you mind if I joined you?"
Harper shrugged " I guess not."
"Then please continue."
Harper raised the flute to his lips again and played a couple of experimental notes to get the feel of the song back.
"Ok here we go." He began the song again this time paying closer attention to his playing.He wasn't playing from anger or sadness now, now he was playing for the memory of a people and place that would never be again.
As he started he could hear Andromeda's accompaniment piping over the Ob's deck intercom.First it was a flute,though deeper and fuller than his,then came the violin,slow and sad,and at last a sound not like any other in the known worlds, a skirling, crying sound that was sad and triumphant all at once, a sound that had taken men into battle and brought them, alive or dead, back home again.In the emptiness between world's, two refugees, one a being of flesh and blood born of a people and planet now dead, the other a living machine crafted by alien minds in a time long since gone shared a song, and as it had so many times before "O Danny Boy" carried the ghosts to rest.