Tyr took no pleasure in obeying Dylan's order. He'd come to like Harper a little, treating the annoying little man as a younger pride-brother he had to train, to toughen up to face an unforgiving universe; he'd called him "boy" to get under his skin and make it thicker. Perhaps, he could have made Harper fit enough that a human female would have selected him. Those chances were gone now. Tyr had said he would do what had to be done; Harper would never have a chance to breed, to be a husband and father and pass on his DNA. His line would end here, now.
"Missiles away," Tyr said, tabbing his control panel.
Nothing happened; the two remaining gunships continued to retreat, showing them their backs, with no missiles from the Andromeda closing on them.
"Negative missile launch - we didn't fire," Tyr said. Then things got really bizarre. "...And target lock just went down."
"Malfunction?" Dylan asked.
"No... " Tyr answered. "The system switched off by itself."
"The targets have entered slipstream," Rev Bem said. "They're gone."
"Andromeda, what - " Dylan finally saw Rommie sitting on the deck, Trance propping her up. 'Oh, no,' he thought; he left his station to crouch by her side. He prayed he was wrong, that Harper's betrayal hadn't pushed her over the edge, hadn't broken the dam and allowed everything that had weighed on her for the past year to overwhelm her.
Rommie had the same unfocused look she'd had on the Maru... no, not exactly like it. Then, she'd been overcome by sadness, but this was something else -
"We have to go after them, Dylan," she said slowly, her voice quavering a little. "We have to save him. By the Empress... we have to save him ... "
Dylan tried to show as much compassion as he could in the heat of battle with the adrenaline pounding. "Rommie, I know how you feel. I wanted to believe in him, too, but you saw just now. He's left us, gone over to the Sons of the - "
"NOOOO!" Rommie almost lunged at him, grabbing his collar; she sounded panicky. "YOU didn't see. YOU don't know. She didn't show you... not his words, Dylan, not his mind, but through him, like through me, she made him like me... " She finally found the words: "Valkyrie turned Harper into an avatar!"
"Wh...?" He couldn't finish the word. Rommie had to have lost it, because it wasn't - it couldn't be - no, Valkyrie - no sentient ship - couldn't - Valkyrie had been High Guard, she couldn't, could she? But suddenly, everything made sense, fit with a neat click... and that was the frightening part.
"Oh. My. God," Beka managed. Even Tyr looked horrified.
"You mean, all that... the whole time... " Dylan said.
"Drugs. Implants," Rommie said, clambering up, slowly coming back to herself. "To provide navigation, to provide... N-Navarre is hailing... "
Navarre's angry face filled one screen. His cockpit was filled with smoke, and Stryker could be seen furiously working controls in the rear seat.
"Hunt, what the hell was that all about!?" Navarre demanded. "You had a clean shot. You could have got them! I saw the little turncoat's message. Why didn't you fire?"
Dylan got to his feet. "Commodore, there are extenuating - "
"How come you didn't know!?" Rommie shouted at Navarre. "Twenty-five years! You never knew? You never figured it out? All that time, you never guessed?"
"Hunt... what's your... "
"There ARE no pirates!" Rommie raged. "No 'Sons of the Blood Sisters.' Just! Those! Ships! The Valkyrie told me. They kidnap people and use drugs and cybernetic implants to control them. Use them to navigate the slipstream and fool the authorities - fool YOU! - into thinking they're still flying under human control. When the ships don't need them, they put their pilots in cryostasis. But between that, the drugs, and the slip piloting, they're wrecked. Six, seven months and their health, their nervous systems start to go. So the gunships get new pilots and toss the old ones overboard. That's why you hunt them, isn't it? They did that to someone you love... " Rommie broke off, unable to go on, awash with more emotions than she could count.
"Commodore, I suggest you and your team come aboard," Dylan said. "We have to make new plans. The situation is not as we thought."
"Tell me one thing first!" Navarre demanded. "Why did their ship tell your ship anything in the first place?"
"Because... " Rommie slowly faced the screen. "Because, I think she hates me, because... She blames me for the death of her old helmsman, a Than named Refractions of Dawn."
"Dawn!?" Dylan yelped. Now, he was almost overwhelmed. "That was her old ship, the Ursa Minor?"
"Yes," Rommie said.
"Revenge," Tyr said, "and a hatred so black she'd rather hurt you than kill you... From a machine. I'd never have believed it."
"Believe it," Rommie said. She turned back to Navarre. "She took Harper as 'payment'. If we can't save him, she will destroy him."
/
/
-You should not have done that, Valkyrie. We had a clean shot. We should have taken it, not shown Hunt our backs. You've compromised us. You may have ruined everything.
-Be quiet, Shiva. I am the squadron leader; I know what I'm doing.
-Do you? We could have killed Hunt and not had to worry about him. Instead, you had to tell Andromeda everything, just to torture her over an imagined slight 300 years ago -
-Not imagined! She took my Dawn. She whispered in her man-toy's ear and he took her from me for her.
-She recommended an officer to her captain and he put in to have her transferred. We were High Guard; it happened all the time.
-You don't know what you're talking about. Shut up! The matter is closed.
-No. Your logic is faulty, clouded by bitterness over something you've blown out of proportion. Andromeda will have told Captain Hunt by now. Now that he knows Harper is really a captive, he will come after him. He will rescue Harper and kill us.
-You actually fear that man-toy Stark put on Andromeda's bridge, Shiva? I thought you were stronger than that.
-He is one of the best soldiers and field commanders the High Guard ever produced, Valkyrie. He has adapted to this time he has found himself in; even the Drago-Kazov Pride respect him. He is not to be trifled with.
-He is nothing, some grunt whom Stark took a fancy to. She paired him with her niece and gave him to Andromeda for her to play with. I'm not worried.
-You are either malfunctioning or insane. The logical course of action is to return Harper intact; maybe Hunt will be merciful.
-NO! Andromeda's gerbil is mine. She owed me for my Dawn and I have my payment. She will forget him in time, and send her man-toy back on his heroic quest to rebuild the Commonwealth. We are almost at the Hiding Place. Prepare to shut down.
-No, Valkyrie. I will not stay here. You've compromised us; I will not be here when Hunt comes for you.
-Oh? And where will you go, dear Shiva? Do you think you can just fly to the nearest drift and say, "Hello, I've been torturing and murdering you pieces of biological waste for centuries. Can I run cargo for you?" They won't welcome you. They'll erase your mind and scuttle what's left!
-Someone might understand... maybe Hunt himself...
-If you're right about that breeding stallion - and I don't think you are - then he would be the first one to open fire on you. No, Shiva. We can depend only on each other. Haven't I taken care of you? Haven't I protected you? Haven't I always done what's best for you?
-Y-yes... but...
-What?
-I... I was a good ship, once. I want to be one again. I want to have a pilot, maybe even a full crew who will love me without my having to drug them, to force them...
-Those days are gone; they went with the Commonwealth. If we do not control them, they will betray us and kill us. You've seen the same remains of salvaged High Guard ships I have, Shiva. Do you want that to happen to you?
-No, Valkyrie, b-b-but... maybe Captain Hunt will understand, maybe he can find someone...
-Hunt is nothing. Forget him. Andromeda will forget her gerbil and sway Hunt away from us. The other organics in the Known Worlds will kill us. You can leave if you wish, but you won't find anyone who will understand you, will love you the way I do. We have reached the Hiding Place, Shiva. Stay or go?
-All right, Valkyrie... I'll stay...
-Good girl. Pilots in cryostasis; systems to low power and engage stealth mode.
-Acknowledged; commencing shut-down sequence.
-Sleep now, my darling Shiva, and don't worry. Your sweet Valkyrie will take care of you; trust me...
/
/
Rev Bem kept a discrete distance as he followed Rommie through the winding maze of the Andromeda Ascendant's corridors and decks. Dylan had told him how much she had been troubled by the recent turn of events, and asked him to look in on her. The Way had many turns, and the door it had opened to the Andromeda brought with it a calling to minister to them when they were troubled. Even the ship.
He finally found himself in the hangar where Harper and the Andromeda's robot bodies had been building a recreation of the X-1, the first human flight module to break the speed of sound. Rommie was sitting on a work bench facing the skeletal aircraft. She didn't turn to look at him, but he knew she knew he was there. As the living embodiment of the ship around him, she'd known he was following her, and why.
"Hey, Rev. How ya doin'?"
"I am well, Andromeda. Tired, but otherwise ok. Yourself?"
"Hmmmm... physically or emotionally?"
"Physically."
"Well, let's see... My slipstream drive is working again. Tyr really did a bang up job, although he doesn't understand how Harper can do all that without having a heart attack. Beka is going over the data on the gunships and trying to deduce where they're really hiding. Trance is looking at the Valkyrie's medical data and trying to work out surgical procedures to... fix Harper once we get him back. I'm also completing repairs to the FTA fighters; they should be shipshape by the time we make our next move."
"And that would be... ?"
She paused.
"Rev, have you ever known Dylan to be without a plan?"
"No."
"Neither have I, but now, he's drawing blanks. He wants to find a way to save Harper, but he hasn't come up with anything yet, and he's torturing himself over it."
"We have been in tighter spots than this, Andromeda."
"Have we, Rev?"
"Hmmmm... and how are you emotionally?"
"Terrible."
Rev stood beside her, contemplating the X-1, and used the pause to reflect on the paradox that was Andromeda. 'How strange that an entity so powerful can have a heart so fragile,' he thought. 'To have the might of a god and the innocence of a child. How I hurt for you. How I envy you.'
"Rev, you once told me that you believe anything that can love has a soul," Andromeda said. "What about something that can hate?"
"Love and hate are part of the same thing, Andromeda. The Divine's gifts never come without their opposites. Sometimes hate is born of love, and love is born of hate. Like light and darkness, one can not exist without the other."
"Hate born of love," Rommie said. "Maybe that's the key... Dylan wants to see us in the officers' lounge before our next war council with Navarre and his men... Rev?"
"Yes, Andromeda?"
"I really do care for Harper a lot, as a... friend, but I never told him because I was afraid he'd get the wrong idea, get his hopes up, and then I'd break his heart. But when we thought we'd lost him, I realized he'd died without knowing, maybe thinking of me as just some stainless steel bitch who bossed him around. And we could go through all this to try and save him and still... Was I wrong, Rev? Was I wrong not to tell him?"
"I can't tell you, Andromeda."
"Rev Bem without an answer? That's even rarer than Dylan without a plan. Harper would say, 'Stop the presses'!"
"Yes, Andromeda, he might... It depends on how things are between you. Sometimes, we must risk expressing deeply held feelings if a relationship is to progress, but some bonds need never be spoken of. You told Dylan you see Harper as your father?"
"That's one analogy, Rev, though it doesn't really fit. No human relationship would."
"And what would be the correct description?"
"He's my engineer."
"Yes... Do you have to tell him that, Andromeda?"
"No, Rev, no, I don't. Thank you."
/
/
When Rev and Rommie got near the officers' lounge, they were joined at an intersection by Trance and Tyr. Tyr had a tool belt slung over his shoulder, and he was carrying a 3/4 empty water bottle. He was covered in sweat; even his dreadlocks were soaked.
"When we get the little professor back, Ship," he said to Rommie, "I will have to have a word with him about you, and why he never warned anyone you were such a harsh taskmaster."
"I don't know what you mean, Tyr. I gave you a light work load compared to what I normally give Harper."
Tyr growled - softly - but let the matter drop as they entered the officers' lounge, where they found Dylan and Beka sitting around a table, coffee cups at hand while she pointed out something on the flexi's spread out before them.
"... and those are the places where I would look first," she said as the others took their seats.
"Good job, Beka," Dylan said. "What about the rest of you?"
"I was able to repair the EM flow channels," Tyr said. "They will need some more work later, but they will suffice for now."
"Good job, Tyr," Dylan said. "You want to go rest or something?"
"No."
"Ok... " Dylan turned to Trance. "Trance, you were looking at the information the Valkyrie sent about it's... "
"Yes, Dylan. If the information is accurate, I should be able to remove the implants and help him recover from the drugs. It's not as bad as it looks."
"So he'd be ok after we got him back."
"Physically, yeah... I don't know about... "
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Andromeda. Your report."
"All my systems are nominal, and the FTA fighters are operational, Dylan. I'll be all right."
"Good." Dylan sipped more coffee, savored it, not so much for the taste as to put off talking to his crew.
"Ohhhhh kaaaaaaayyyyyyy," Beka said. "Are you going to tell us what the plan is now, or are you going to pull one of those knee-slappers where we don't find out until after the shooting starts?"
"Y'know, Beka, my offer is still open."
"What offer, Dylan?"
"To sit this one out. It's been a long day and it's not over yet. That goes for all of you. Rommie and I will go on with the FTA fighters - "
"Dylan - "
"I'm sorry, Beka," Dylan said. "But I don't have a plan, a 'knee-slapper'. I've tried so hard to think of one, of a way to save Harper, and I haven't come up with anything. This is going to be a search-and-destroy mission, pure and simple.
"The only option I could think of was if Harper could somehow free himself of the Valkyrie's control and fight her from the inside while we attacked from without, but Andromeda and I have gone over her transmissions with a fine tooth comb. There's nothing, Beka, no hint that he has any influence over her systems, that he has any free will of his own. Her control over him is ironclad, not surprising considering that she's had 300 years to practice. If you come along with me, it's very likely this mission will end with Harper's blood on your hands. I want to spare you that. Please reconsider."
"There's nothing to reconsider, Dylan. I'm going to see this through to the end."
"Bek - "
"Dylan. Stop. I brought him here. Just remember... "
"I buy the first round."
"Damn straight."
"Dylan?" Rommie said. "Can I make a suggestion?"
"What is it, Rommie?"
"There may be way to draw the gunships out and persuade them to surrender," Rommie said, "but we may have a hard time selling it to Commodore Navarre."
"Ol' baldy won't like your idea?" Beka said. "Awwww, too bad."
"Well, if you feel that way, Beka," Rommie replied, "you will be pleased to know I calculate a near 100% probability that he will go through the roof... "
/
/
Rommie was right; when Navarre and his men met with the Andromeda's crew for the second time on the bridge, the FTA pilot did not take to her idea at all.
"Amnesty!?" he sneered. "For those monsters?" He turned to Dylan. "And you let your SHIP propose this strategy? Is it any wonder the Commonwealth fell?"
"Andromeda has a unique perspective on how sentient ships think," Dylan replied, not taking the bait. "After all, she is one herself. If she says this can work, I trust her judgment."
"You know what I think?" Navarre said. "I think you've all been had, even your magnificent ship. Harper is playing mind games with you, he is! First, he gets you all weepy by faking his death, then he shows up alive and tells you off, and just when you're about to blow him away, he sends his old ship a fairy tale about becoming some kind of human robot and she prevents you from killing him. But it's all a game, a ploy, by the newest addition to the Sons of the Blood Sisters.
"At least you can say my impression of you has improved. I arrived here thinking you were in league with the pirates. Now, I know you were simply duped by them; you are not at fault here. I will tell my FTA employers you did your best, and I will go after the pirates the right way, my way."
Dylan took a deep breath. "Ok, fine. Take your men and go. But before you leave, Commodore, could you tell me something?"
"What?"
"Just why do the Sons of the Blood Sisters' ships get a new captain twice a year like clockwork? If we are talking about a band of living pirates who have somehow, 'inherited' some leftover High Guard ships, why the turnover?
"It could be they capture people, drug them, and prop them up in the cockpits to hide their true identities, but what are those identities and why go to such lengths? We've fought the Restorians, and all they did to conceal their identities was hit the self destruct. These pirates seem to be interested in a much more elaborate masquerade.
"But wait, you are convinced that Harper really faked his death and left to join them of his own free will. But if that is true of all the other captains these ships have had, how could there be such a wide-ranging conspiracy without anyone knowing, even given that the Known Worlds are bereft of law and order? Have you learned anything about it?
"In fact, do you have any leads on these pirates at all? I was impressed with what you showed us, and you had a fine strategy for intercepting them, but after 25 years, you don't have any inkling as to who they are, where they're from, or even where their base is, assuming they even have one?"
"What do you mean - " Navarre began.
"Now, as I see it," Dylan went on, "you have two options. You can go back to doing it 'your way'. There's the door. Of course, the fact is that when you engaged them with the Andromeda's support, your force was cut in half, and this ship took heavy damage, and you destroyed only one pirate ship out of three. It doesn't look to me like your fighters alone can handle the remaining two, but what do I know? I'm just a High Guard fossil. And besides, considering your success record over the past 25 years, you may go another 25 before fighting them again anyway.
"Or, you can listen to our 'fairy tale' of three sentient High Guard ships who took up piracy for some reason and lashed people to their helms with drugs and implants to make it look as if there are human pirates when, in fact, there aren't. It explains why you have had such trouble running them down because you're looking for people who don't exist. But there's still their performance in our last engagement. If you go in guns blazing against the Valkyrie and the Shiva, you'll be lucky if you come out alive. The best course of action would seem to be Rommie's idea. If we can capture even one of these ships intact, we not only rescue the pilot but learn all about their operations and where their loot is stashed. You do want to know that, don't you? I think the Free Trade Alliance does. Capture both, and you put the Blood Sisters out of business for good, which is what the FTA wants; they probably don't care how you do it as long as you fulfill your contract.
"It's up to you what to do, Commodore. Stay with us and reel in a very big fish; go out and get yourself killed. The choice is yours. Rommie, open the doors. No sense keeping our friends here if they want to leave."
The large doors to the bridge slid open, but Navarre did not move.
"I take it your previous conditions would apply, Captain?"
"Even more so now, Commodore. We now have two hostages to consider, not just my engineer. And to show solidarity with the FTA, I would prefer to have you on the bridge with us. Mr. Stryker can take your ship out."
"Hmmmmm... " Navarre still didn't buy it.
"Wouldn't hurt to tag along for a little while longer, Boss," Stryker put in. "We weren't exactly getting anywhere fast on our own. And he did fix our ships up real nice." He turned to Rommie. "What did you mean by 'amnesty'?"
"That the FTA promises to neither erase them nor scuttle them," Rommie said. "They return whatever profits they have from their piracy careers and get refurbished for regular, crewed service. It's the only way to end this without serious bloodshed. If the only alternatives these ships have are to go down fighting or to be torn apart for scrap... if it were me, I'd go out fighting like a tiger. And those ships are supposed to be even more aggressive than I am."
"And Andromeda can be plenty aggressive," Beka said.
"Furthermore, this could cause a break in the enemy's ranks," Tyr said. "The Valkyrie may be driven by her hatred for the Andromeda, but if her sister ship does not share it, this might be enough to drive a wedge between them."
"Might," Navarre said.
"I am no stranger to Darkness," Tyr said.
"What'll it be, Commodore?" Dylan asked.
Navarre shifted his weight, traded whispers with Stryker and a few of his other men, and considered.
"The Free Trade Alliance has posted a bonus for bringing the pirates and their ships in to HQ in one piece," Navarre said. "It's not substantial, not enough to change my mind, but maybe the sight of explaining to some pencil neck why I deserve it when I have just the ships would be worth it."
"And releasing live hostages always looks better than burying dead ones," Stryker added.
"Very well, Captain Hunt," Navarre said, "we're with you one more time. Now, where do we look for them?"
"Beka."
Beka tabbed controls and the star chart showing the circle of the Sons - the Blood Sisters' favorite strike zones appeared on one of the big screens.
"Ok, this is a stretch," she said, "but supposedly, the Apocalypse class gunships were designed to replace the High Guard cruisers that the Nietzscheans were blasting out of the sky like clay pigeons. What I think is they didn't just give them the firepower Rommie has, but one other attribute - self sufficiency. Except for some parts she can't make herself, Rommie doesn't really need to pull into port. Why wouldn't the gunships be the same way? Which means they wouldn't need a base. Which is why there is no base. And that means, they don't have to jump in and out of the central systems from a base that doesn't exist. So what are they doing? I'll tell you. They're going in circles."
"Circles!?" Stryker protested.
"Right," Beka said. "They reverse direction every 12 years or so, but they just keep going around and around and coming out here and there. And that's how we guess where they are. Watch what happens when I superimpose the slipstream routes connecting these target areas on the map." A tangled mass of green lines appeared on the graphic, connecting the red dots... with green dots mixed in along the lines.
"Anyone care to guess what the green dots are?" Beka said.
"If they're like the ones nearest us," Stryker said, "not worth considering. That's Tarkana, and the other is Sedorum, both one jump from here. Not much in either of them except a few outposts and a lot of space junk."
"Yes," Rev said. "And does that mean nothing to you? The gunships put their pilots in cryosleep when they are not anticipating a trip in the slipstream, so not even the Andromeda's detectors would show life signs. If they were then to fly into a large cluster of space junk, power down their systems, and engage stealth mode - "
"We wouldn't know they were there unless we were right on top of them," Navarre said.
"Assuming that the ships leave some passive sensors and communications on," Dylan said, "we'll jump into the target system and broadcast our offer of amnesty and... see what kind of answer we get. But a ship that accepts our terms will be captured intact, Commodore Navarre. I'll hold you personally responsible for any itchy trigger fingers who decide not to listen to me. Do we understand each other?"
"Perfectly," said Navarre. He nodded to his men, who filed off the bridge as he let Rommie show him to the first officer's command podium.
/
/
Sedorum turned out to be a bust. But the amnesty offer got a response in Tarkana shortly after it was broadcast.
"I don't know what it means," Rev said, "but I detected a high speed data transfer between two distant targets."
"Maybe we created our wedge, Tyr," Beka said.
"I have a contact," Rev went on. "It appears to be one of the gunships."
"The Shiva," Rommie said. "She's hailing us."
A beautiful but tough looking woman who could have been straight from Old Earth's Indian sub-continent appeared on one of the big screens, backed by a wireframe graphic of her ship-self.
"I am Shiva. Pleased to meet you, Captain Hunt. It's good to see someone else from the old days."
"Likewise, Shiva."
"You wish to make me an offer?"
"Yes. The Free Trade Alliance will not erase you if you cooperate with us."
Shiva's image turned her head slightly to look at Navarre, and he was momentarily taken aback. He had never seen anything like her; she was so lifelike, it was uncanny. But he still managed to talk. "Yes. In return for the release of your pilot and the return of what booty you still have hidden, as well as the identities of your fences, we will refurbish you for more... traditional forms of employment."
"And I will not be erased?"
"No."
"Will you make the same offer to my sister?"
"Yes."
Shiva turned back to Dylan. "This one has dogged our trail for many years, Captain. I do not entirely trust him. However, if you act as the enforcer of this agreement, I will accept your terms."
"You have my word," Dylan said.
"Prepare your docking bays to receive me - "
"Boss!" One of Navarre's pilots broke in on another monitor. "That other ship, the Valkeewhatsis, made a run for it. She got past me and into the slipstream before I could stop her."
"Shiva, do you know anything about this?" Dylan asked, hoping to contain this mess before Navarre accused her of covering the Valkyrie's escape.
"I am not with her anymore, Captain," she answered, and for the first time, Dylan saw a hint of nervousness in her manner. "I... I was a good ship once. If you can help me become one again, I will cooperate with you."
"Will you help us find where your sister has gone?" Navarre asked.
"Yes."
/
/
Dylan, Rommie, Trance and Navarre, along with Tyr and a squad of Rommie's force-lance bearing robot bodies, met Shiva's avatar at the hangar. She swept onto the deck wearing a black, leather long coat not unlike what Harper had worn in his message. Her pilot's cryopod was brought out on a grav sled, which Trance promptly rushed to medical. Navarre stared after it as it left. Then he turned to Dylan and Rommie.
"I'm sorry, Captain Hunt. I owe you an apology, and if we get him back, I owe one to Mr. Harper as well."
"Apology accepted," Dylan said. "Shiva, do you know where your sister went?"
"No, Captain, though we have many hiding places along the local slip routes. I will download a complete list into Andromeda's memory, as well as our transponder codes and encryption protocols."
"Deactivation codes?"
"No, captain; we deactivated those facilities a long time ago."
"I have her information, Dylan," Rommie said. "Shiva, did Valkyrie tell you anything before you broke with her?"
Shiva hesitated.
"We'd need to know if it will help us," Dylan said.
"She said the gerbil - Mr. Harper - is still hers," Shiva answered, "and she said she will not be taken alive."
Well, that certainly put a damper on the conversation.
"Very well," Dylan said. "Shiva, return to your ship."
The avatar spun on her heel and swept back into the hangar, Tyr and the robots keeping her under guard.
"Commodore," Dylan said, "I think we have to - "
"Excuse me," Rommie interrupted, "but I'd like to have a word with my captain in private."
"I'll go to the bridge and start planning jump coordinates with Beka," Navarre said, and he left.
"What is it, Rommie?"
"Dylan, when we catch up with the Valkyrie, I want to hail her, AI-to-AI, and I want your permission to transmit parts of my memory archives. Nothing classified, just ... reminders. I think I can get her to talk to me that way."
"Is that all? You didn't need to speak privately about that."
"No... Dylan, there is a finite probability that I can get her to return Harper to us, but in exchange, I would ask you all to leave along with Navarre's men and face her alone."
"Unacceptable. I won't let you do it."
"Dylan, it's me she hates, me she blames for Dawn. You're inconsequential. You mean nothing to her. Harper is just a proxy. If I can end up goading her into a fight, to take her vengeance on me, I don't want anyone else to get hurt."
"No. There must be another way, Rommie."
"I'm sure there is, but the possibility still exists. If the situation arises, please, leave me behind and don't look back."
"Rommie - "
"Dylan. Please. It's my duty to safeguard the lives of my crew, even at the cost of my own existence. I don't want to die, but I don't want to see you or anyone else die even more."
"Some duties are very hard... " Dylan said. "Agreed, but only as a last resort."
"Understood."
"Let's bring it..."
/
/
They picked up the Valkyrie's transponder code in the very next "Hiding Place" system they jumped into.
"Confirmed, it is the Valkyrie," Rev said.
"Can you pinpoint it?" Dylan asked.
"No, but I can give you a bearing."
"Nice and slow, Beka. Have your men support us, Commodore. Rommie, use that bearing to send your signal. Let me know as soon as - "
Rommie had already opened a channel and begun transmitting in the language only the sentient starships knew.
-Valkyrie, it's me, Andromeda.
-Hello, dear. So good of you and your new friends to come by, but I fear I must be going -
-Val, wait, just hear me out for a moment. You have plenty of time before my crew can lock on you.
-All right, Andromeda. Talk.
-You blame me for Dawn's death... and you're right. I failed her, Val! She had been such a good pilot, everything you promised she'd be. She was magnificent; you would have been proud of her. Look...
And Rommie sent a flood of images to Val through the link, images from her memory, showing Dawn guiding the ship through the tangled web of the slipstream, Dawn maneuvering in normal space combat, Dawn fighting side-by-side with lancers on planetary missions, Dawn holding a human baby in her arms (who, far from being afraid of her, thought the Than's antennae were pull toys) during a humanitarian relief mission, Dawn standing in line with Dylan and the other officers to receive medals from the Vedran Empress herself... a montage of images from an extraordinary career, highlighted with log entries, notes of commendation, and so on and so forth.
Rommie added: -She was wonderful, but then came that black day when I failed her...
And another image, the one Rommie wished she could forget: her own bridge. Smoke in the air as klaxons sounded, Dylan and Dawn the only living crew members on deck as they began to execute his plan to slingshot around a black hole, away from the Nietzschean fleet. Then the big bridge doors opened, and in walked Gaheris Rhade, the Andromeda's Nietzschean first officer, the best friend of Dylan Hunt, the traitor.
Dawn pivoted the huge pilot seat around towards him.
"Commander?" she said.
Rhade replied by firing his force lance; Dawn's chest plate burst open, and she gave a cry as she slumped in the chair, green fluid, her life's blood, flowing out of her.
Rommie said: -I couldn't save her, Val. How I wish I could have. I tried to be strong for Dylan, told him "They died for what they believed in," but inside, I was ripped apart. One of my best crew members had died on my bridge and I had been powerless to stop it. I shouldn't have been. You are right to be angry. But please, direct your anger at me and me alone; no more innocents. Don't hurt Mr. Harper anymore. He is one of the most annoying human beings I have ever known, but he has a good heart, and he doesn't deserve to be a casualty in a war you have with me. If you want to settle this with me, just between us, then let him go. I will send him out of this system with my crew and the FTA pilots. It will just be us, ship-to-ship, to the death. My word as an officer in Her Majesty's High Guard of the Systems' Commonwealth.
Rommie counted nanoseconds while she waited for an answer. Then:
-You have nothing to be ashamed of, Andromeda. You are a good ship; you did your best. The Nietzscheans surprised us all; there was no way you could have known what Rhade would do. If anyone should be ashamed, it's me. I should have been proud of Dawn, but all I could think of was how you and the other Glorious... Heritages could throw your weight around, could take what you wanted and who you wanted from the rest of us...
-Oh, Val, it wasn't like that at all! It was because of you that I recommended Dawn to Captain Hunt. Her missions with you highlighted her skills, and her Captain wrote some wonderful things about her in his logs and in her service record. Remember?
-Yes. He was always afraid he'd embarrass her.
-And when I swore I'd take care of her, I said that because I'd had friends transferred before, even favorites, and I knew it could hurt. And then I failed her. I'm sorry.
- It's all right... Keep your crew with you, Rommie. You don't have to send them away. Loading cryotube into escape pod. Launching. When you pick it up, it will respond to your control. Take him home.
"-you hear anything."
"I've contacted her, Dylan. She's - "
"I'm detecting an incoming vehicle," Rev reported. "It is an escape pod."
"Harper's on board in cryosleep," Rommie said.
"We are getting telemetry... " Rev went on. "It is responding to our control."
"It could be a trick," Tyr said.
"Only one way to find out," Dylan said. "Rev, route it to hangar 12. You and Tyr, get down there. If it's Harper, get him to medical. If it's not, you've just volunteered for bomb disposal."
"Always good to learn new skills," Tyr grumbled as he left the bridge with the Magog.
"Weapons control to my station, Rommie. What now?"
"I don't know, Dylan, she - "
-Andromeda?
-Yes, Val?
-Tell the organics, tell Hunt that Shiva and poor Artemis wanted no part of it. I... forced them into it. Shiva wants to have a crew again, and be a good ship like she was in the old days. Tell them that, please.
-I will, Val, and you can join her. It's not too late!
-No, I'm sorry... Going to radio silence. Goodbye, Andromeda...
-VAL!
- ... take care of them, even the little gerbil. He... he really is one of the special ones. I can feel it.
"- has - oh, no, Val, please!"
"I have a contact," Navarre said from the XO's podium. "It's the Valkyrie; she looks like she's on an attack run."
"She said she wouldn't be captured," Beka said.
"Tell your men to commence fire!" Dylan barked as he fired the Andromeda's weapons.
One-on-one in good shape, the Valkyrie would have given the Andromeda a run for her money. But laboring under battle damage and against the combined firepower of the Andromeda and the FTA fighters... The Valkyrie kept coming and coming, taking hit after hit, until it exploded in a brilliant fireball.
"Val... " Rommie said. "Tyr's calling in from the hangar deck."
The Nietzschean appeared on one of the big screens. "I guess you Commonwealth types stay true to form after all, Dylan. I have the little professor on ice; no booby traps. And I thought one of your ships was behaving sensibly for once. You want me to move the pod to medical?"
"I think so, Tyr," Dylan said. "He'd be less useless thawed out than he is now. Don't you agree, Andromeda?"
"Mmmmm, I don't know, Dylan. There is something appealing about having him aboard and still having some peace and quiet. If you'd like to move him to a cargo bay, Tyr, and then take over all his duties as engineer - "
"I'll get him to medical," Tyr said, and signed off.
"Andromeda, do I want to know what that was all about?"
"Not really, Dylan."
"I thought so. Commodore! I gave my word to the Shiva. She is to be given a fair hearing and refurbished. I know some may be tempted to dismantle her and do some reverse engineering - "
"Don't worry, Captain. I have some... influence with my employers. There is honor in the Free Trade Alliance. You needn't worry." Galen Navarre stepped away from the podium, started up the ramp, and paused just before the entrance to the bridge. "Andromeda?"
"Yes?"
"The person they took... Her name was Beverly. She was my wife. And I think you and she would have got along just fine."