The Price of Winning
by Calliope
Usual Disclaimers apply
Author's Note: I was going to post this later, but decided to just add it with Chapter 10. I hope you liked this story!
Enjoy
The Price of Winning
Epilogue
"Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not
learned its nature; it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Captain Dylan Hunt sat in his dark quarters, musing. His thoughts strayed to a subject he hadn't contemplated in months.
Rahde. His second-in-command. It had been over two years since they'd fought, but he could still remember it clearly- the odd behavior, the shot gone awry, and Rahde's last words.
They'd emerged from the event horizon seconds before the nietzschean died. "You won," Rahde had whispered, acting surprised, but not really seeming surprised. "And you...you played fair."
What had he meant by that?
Nothing about those few moments in time made any sense. In the end, Rahde had looked to be fighting someone else, some phantom that Dylan had never seen. How else could Rahde's final shot, the one that never even got close to Dylan, be explained? Despite the grave wound Rahde had suffered, Hunt refused to believe it was simply bad aim.
But why would a nietzschean fire a weapon at a phantom?
Shaking his head, he tried to clear his mind, then looked around his quarters. He had darkened them on purpose, to feel alone with his thoughts. He wanted out now.
He exited the room, walking through the corridors to the bridge, and when he reached it, only Rommie was there. The sight of her stilled him; for a second, as he looked at her, he thought he saw her differently. The familiar features of his ship's A.I.- and of his friend- were at that moment altered, turbulently changed in to a sad, haunting vision that he couldn't bear.
Then the avatar looked up, and he saw her for the person he knew. Dylan shook his head bemusedly, while the spectre in his mind retreated.
Rommie smiled, then went back to her tasks- but when he turned away again, her eyes followed his movement, an automatic reaction on her part that she didn't really understand. For some reason, she found herself constantly glancing at him, in an impulse to make sure he was safe.
But she waved away her concern. Her captain was fine.
* * *
Across the ship, a golden Trance Gemini suddenly stopped pruning the shrub she was currently working on. "Well I think it all worked out perfectly," she said, before adding thoughtfully, "so far. Don't you think so, Albert?"
She smiled at the plant like a dear friend- which, of course, he was- then continued her work.
END.