Chapter 1
Dylan rushed Harper through the corridor towards the captain's office at a mad pace.
„Hey, slow down, will ya?" the shorter man complained, „one might think there is a crowd of Magog coming after us."
„Not one more word, Harper," Dylan hissed through his teeth, shooting a warning glance at the engineer. Outraged by the rude behaviour, Harper opened his mouth in protest, but another look at Dylan's grinding jaws made him rethink his intentions, and so they reached their luckily nearby set destination in silence.
The doors, however, had barely closed behind them, when all of a sudden the older man seemed to simply explode in an outburst of pure, hot rage.
„Andromeda, privacy mode engaged." And without waiting for his order to be confirmed: „Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Harper could only stare at him wide-eyed.
„I am the captain, you are a senior officer, as is Beka; they," he gestured towards the closed doors, that separated them from other crew memberes, „are new recruits. How dare you discuss my decisions – or for that matter Beka's absence – in front of them?"
„Sheesh, boss, I wasn't thinking..."
„No, Mr Harper, you quite obviously weren't thinking..." And from then on, on it went for the better part of the following 10 minutes. Protocole, standard procedure, regulations, military discipline rules were thrown at Harper's head in an uncontrolled, breathless shower of angrily uttered words. The engineer could only stand there and watch Dylan pacing back and forth as he continued his ranting, powerless to stop the man, who – for that matter – seemed himself rather powerless to get a grip on his temper.
„A fallen Commonwealth, the Abyss, Magog, Nietzscheans, collectors, Seefra... and me, right in the middle of this madness, trying for six years to make some sense of it while running a... a kindergarden of precocious genial individualists of which every single one could pose a threat to an entire galaxy all by himself. I've had it, Harper, I am sick and tired of it!" Dylan's voice, only a furious hiss at first, was getting louder sentence by sentence.
„The minute I let you out of my sight, you're off starting some genial advanced scientific experiment threatening the boundaries of time and space, while falling for some scheme set up by yet another gorgeous babe hired by some lunatic to either capture, torture or kill you, hereby also exposing yourself to all kind of dangers your – forgive me for stating the obvious – not very stable immune system is not up to. In addition to that, while doing so you never fail to let your mouth run loose on all kind of topics, without giving it a single thought. Would it kill you to just shut up every once in while?"
Harper looked offended.
„Why, no, of course not. It's just that back in the days before we rescued you, I didn't use to say much. And then Rev began to teach me, how..."
„Ah, yes, Rev!" Dylan interrupted him. „Mr ‚Let's make things better by talking to me about them' himself, provided of course he sticks around for long enough for one to do so, something he seems rather reluctant to do lately. Yes, I know, he's got planets to guard, peoples to save, a Way to find, the universe to take care of, and whenever things go wrong, there is always the possibility to call some friends, like say for instance the crew of the Andromeda Ascendant, to sort it out, while he can go on being pacifistic and pure and meditative."
„You make it sound like he abandoned us for some selfish reasons. That is not true, you know," Harper fell in, in a futile attempt to defend his absent friend. „Besides, we do have Trance..."
Again, Dylan prevented him from going on.
„But of course, you're right. We do have Trance, Trance with her little mysteries on the left, the bigger ones on the right, some in front of us, some behind us and – not to forget – all the other ones in between. You sort one mystery out, you can be sure that there will be two more to pop up right in front of you. And don't you start complaining, because if you do she goes tesseracting, or supernova or whatever, all the while she reassures you with this sweet little voice of hers: ‚Come on, Dylan, you can do it, you're Paradine – and no, I won't tell, what that means, you'll find out yourself, and if you don't, or make mistakes and kill someone or yourself in the process, no need to worry, because, you see, there are so many universes and possibilities and variations, and I can mess around with all of them as I please'. Ifthat ain't reassuring...?"
„Well, she messed around quite successfully, didn't she, Dylan? I mean, I can understand, that she is sometimes annoying, that we all are, but things turned out fine in the end, and frankly, although you sound right now as if you're sorry to ever have met anyone of us, I doubt it that you could have pulled it of without us." Meanwhile Harper sounded downright hurt. „Look, Dylan, even Rhade..."
„Now that you mentioned him..." Harper could hardly refrain from cursing himself out loud, seeing that throwing in Rhade's name only set Dylan off on yet another round of bashing. Finally, it ended after a quick run through the former lieutenant commander's and present Terrazed governor's drinking and mating habits along with a short characterization of his Nietzschean peculiarities that Captain Hunt had found interferring with their common goals in the past.
By that time, Harper resigned himself to simply glare at him, having figured out by now that, whatever bothered Dylan, it didn't have anything to do with him or Rev or Trance or the past. And as the captain came to a halt behind his desk, silence settled in between the two men. Wearily rubbing a hand across his face, the older one just sighed loudly and then seemed to finally come to a conclusion. "That's it, I've had it!" he then muttered. Straightening himself to stand as tall as he possibly could, yet avoiding to look into the engineer's eyes, he simply strode by him, throwing him a casual "I'll be in my quarters!" as he passed him by on the way out of his office.
Still staring into the space left vacant by Dylan's frame, Harper cleared his throat.
„Rommie, locate Beka for me, please." There was no response. „Rommie," he began again, but then remembered that Dylan had engaged privacy mode upon entering his office. „Andromeda," Harper requested, „privacy mode disengaged, authorization lieutenant commander Seamus Harper."
„Privacy mode disengaged," he heard the ship's pleasant voice responding to his order. A fraction of a second later, the Andromeda's holographic persona materialized in front of him. „Harper!" she exclaimed, a friendly smile on her beautiful face. „What can I do for you?" A small frown appeared between her brows as she took a closer look at him. „Harper, what happened? You look like something's bothering you."
„I need to talk to Beka, Romdoll, can you locate her for me?"
„Actually, I... can't?" the ship replied, the puzzled tone of her voice matching the look on Harper's face.
„What do you mean, you can't?"
„Well, Captain Valentine's vacation ended 48 hours ago. She seems to have reported in after that, but then Captain Hunt cleared her and the Maru for a not nearer specified mission, and they left yesterday."
„That's funny," Harper stated thoughtfully, „because you see, I clearly remembered Beka to be back around this time, yet when I asked Dylan, he told me that she had applied for a three-, not a two-week leave. When I checked on her whereabouts yesterday, however, I found out that she had been back around the time I was expecting her originally. I found it strange that she hadn't come to say hello, but then I thought her busy. I was on my way to see her, yet with all those new people on board, something just kept coming up, and then this morning Dylan just scheduled slipstream training. It didn't go smoothly, as you know," Rommie silently acknowledged his statement by vigurously pressing her lips together, "and I found out that Dylan was actually the one supervising the whoile damn thing instead of Beka. Now, I believed this to be one of her main duties, but then... I... I simply thought that I was wrong, but now..."
„Now you start wondering..." The hologramm nodded in agreement. „So do I, Harper, so do I."
„Check her schedule for me, will you, Romdoll?"
„You know, this is highly..."
„I know, I know, unusual, but nonetheless..." The hologramm briefly shut her eyes; and when she opened them again, the puzzled look on her face was back in full force. „Harper," she said in a crisp tone, „my avatar is on her way to see you." She had barely finished, when the avatar of the Andromeda Ascendant entered the room.
"Okay, Romdoll, spit it out, what's the matter?"
The beautiful humanoid looking ‚ship made flesh' seemed upset.
„Harper, I thought we had an agreement that you wouldn't mess up with my sensors and files anymore without giving me further notice."
The young man frowned at this opening.
„We had, Romdoll, I mean, we have..." he quickly hurried himself to an answer.
„Then why do I trace erasures and changes in my data concerning Beka's activities during the last couple of days?"
„I... don't know?" Harper hesitantly offered.
„You mean, you didn't have anything to do with it?"
„Exactly. So let's find out, who has." Harper pulled a thin cable out of one of his numerous pockets and sat down at Dylan's desk. Without further delay, he simply inserted it into the small plugging device in the panel behind the table, then connecting his own dataport with it.
„Okay, Rommie, I'm in," he let the ship know as soon as he found himself within the matrix of the Andromeda Ascendant.
„Harper, I can detect you, you don't have to tell me," Andromeda answered him ironically, while she materialized next to him.
Harper rolled his eyes.
„I know you know. I was just being polite. So, show me."
Nodding in agreement, the ship immediately answered his request by displaying multiple files in front of them. „Here, take a look," Andromeda told him. „This is Beka's request for a two-week vacation, here the permission to do so; then the protocol of the Maru leaving for Infinity Atoll, and here," she pointed to another data field coming up, „her last message from Seneshall Drift dating two days prior to her estimated time of arrival. It was addressed to..." a frown appeared on her face, „to you!" she then exclaimed. „Harper?" Her eyebrown rose inquisitively.
„Oh, that," Harper exclaimed. „She was just telling me that she was having a great time and would possibly be a couple of hours late, as she got a chance to meet with Rafe. That was all, Rommie, I swear."
„Yes, I can see that," the ship slowly replied, her thoughts obviously elsewhere already. „However, as you can see here, and here," her finger pointed to some messages encrypted in the files, „the protocol of the Maru's landing two days ago is somehow scrambled, as seems to be the case with its departure shortly thereafter." Harper acknowledged with a nod, scrutinizing the indicated spots. „And the mission Beka took off on is classified."
A thoughtful expression appeared on Harper's face. „Someone went through a lot of trouble to cover up for Beka; and he seemed to have been in a bit of a hurry. Okay, I think I'm done here." And with that, the engineer jacked out.
„Sheesh!" he exclaimed, as soon as he opened his eyes seated on Dylan's desk.
The avatar of the Andromeda was expectandly looking at him, arms crossed on her chest.
„Well?"
„Well," Harper replied, „I think, Rommie, that we both know that there are but two persons with either the skill or the authorization to do this. And as it wasn't me..." he left the rest of his sentence open.
„Why should he do that, Harper?"
„I haven't got a clue. But we can always ask, can't we?"