Dylan's Office
After he dismissed Lt. Haeyu Dylan watched Admiral Tanaka's message once more. When the message finished he still felt that he was missing something important. Finally he decided that he would give it a rest and go talk to the Lancer's who had been assigned to help him get through the upcoming inspection. With that thought he remembered he still had the problem with Beka to take care of. He wondered how could he could solve that problem and salvage his friendship with her. As he thought about that problem remembered his discussion he had with Andromeda about it.
"Is there anything that I can do to fix this problem?"
"Yes there is."
"Well what is it, what do I need to do?"
"Dylan I think you already know what you need to do."
"No, I don't know what it is, if I knew I wouldn't be asking."
"Dylan, it wouldn't do any good for me to tell you what it is, you have to figure it out for yourself. I can tell you that it is something you should have done a long time ago."
According to what he had been told by Andromeda the solution was easy and he already knew what it was. Plus she thought that he should have done it long ago. Although it seemed like that discussion took place days ago it had only been at lunchtime earlier that day. Now it was dinner time already and he still wanted to talk to Sgt. Samuda, Sgt. Haulder and Lfc. Dow before it got to late. At least he knew exactly where the Lancers would be at chow time. "Andromeda I am going to the enlisted mens mess and I don't want to be interrupted unless it is an emergency or news about a change in Harper's condition."
Enlisted Mess
When Dylan entered the mess hall he decided that he might as well get something to eat while he was there, so he went to the end of one of the two chow lines and waited his turn. As he stepped in line he heard the chatter of the people nearest him stop and the tone of the rest of the people became a little more hushed and apprehensive. The lines moved steadily and quickly so it wasn't long before had shown his id to the clerk who recorded it as required by High Guard regulations. This simple process brought back memories of when he had been an enlisted man before the fall of the commonwealth. "Some things never change," he said quietly as he finished getting his meal and he looked around the busy chow hall. It didn't take long to spot the lancers he was looking for. As Dylan got closer he noticed that one of the tables near them was empty and not easily visible from where they sat. So he sat there and began to eat his meal of SOS and vegetables while listening to what they were talking about.
Dylan heard Sgt. Samuda say "Well what ever happened to Mr. Harper it better be resolved and have him back on duty before they dock at Terazed." Samuda paused long enough to shovel the last of his food into his mouth. "That is the kind of thing the inspectors will be looking for so they can take his command from him," he said, his voice slightly muffled by the food in his mouth.
"Damn it Samuda didn't your mother teach you any manners." Haulder complained jokingly.
"Nah, she figured it would just be a waste of her time."
"Well whatever happened to Mr. Harper I hope I get a chance to thank him personally for what he did on Arzawa III before we are through here." Dow said emphatically. "You know as well as I do that if it hadn't been for the Bugsquashers he invented we most likely would have had our asses kicked by the bugs . Heck we probably wouldn't even be here if it hadn't been for him. I also know that he isn't High Guard and that is the reason most of the brass won't even acknowledge what he did let alone give him the credit he deserves."
When Dylan heard that he thought about the events in the Arzawa system. He was well aware that on Arzawa II his victory was due to the fact that he had had superior weapons and the advantage of a larger force of trained troops. He had simply outclassed his opponents in every way. From what he knew of the situation on Arzawa III the mission would have been considered a success if they had just managed to hold the Replicators there and keep them from advancing any further until reinforcements could arrive. Harper had changed all that when he made the Bugsquashers, he had made a victory over the Replicators possible without having to wait for reinforcments.
When the battle for the system was over Dylan had received many commendations and compliments on a job well done by himself and his crew. Afterwards he had spoken to a number of the Lancers from his command who had been involved in action on Arzawa II passing on to them the compliments and the credit they deserved. He had even awarded some of them citations and medals. But now that he thought of it he had not done any of those things with his command staff and he couldn't even recall if he even complemented them for a job well done. Beka, Trance, Tyr and Harper had all done outstanding jobs, each of them going well beyond the call of duty. Not just then but many other times as well and always with little or no recognition of their contributions. Each of them had more than earned the recognition that they might have received had they been High Guard Officers instead. Dylan wondered if he was just as prejudiced against them because they weren't High Guard just like so many of the other high Guard officers were.
After a few moments thought on that possibility Dylan said in a soft but hopeful tone, "Andromeda, do you think that I am prejudiced against Beka, Harper, Trance and Tyr because they are not High Guard officers?"
At that moment on the medical deck Trance's assistant medical technicians saw a faraway look come over her face. If any of them had been close enough they would have heard her say quietly "If he could only set aside his pride and eliminate his prejudice altogether. He could truly become the captain he imagines himself to be."
As Dylan posed the question, Core said to Logic in the VR matrix "At least he is finally starting to ask the right questions."
"Yes," replied Logic, "But will he understand what he needs to do before it is to late for it to do any good.?"
"I certainly hope so since all of them really working together the way they should can be so much more than they have been."
"Indeed, but Dylan keeps making the same stupid mistakes over and over which keeps them from becoming the team that they could be."
On the mess deck a miniature Logic appeared on the table in front of Dylan and said "Dylan why don't you tell me; are you prejudiced against them because they aren't High Guard?"
After pondering the question for almost a minute Dylan looked at Logic and said "I don't know how to answer that. I thought that I was above that kind of thing but now I am not sure anymore."
"Then perhaps you should think about it some more", said Andromeda's holographic image just before she winked out.
Immediately after that Dylan heard Samuda belch loudly and say "I would like to have more but three servings of SOS is my limit cause I gotta watch my figure or I won't be able to get lucky when in port." Dylan heard the two women groan in response to that statement. Then Dylan saw Samuda stand and pick up his tray. When Samuda turned to leave the table he saw saw the Captain, smiled and said "Hello Captain Hunt, would you care to join us?"
Before he could respond Dylan heard Haulder laugh and say, "Pay up Dow."
Back to Harper's Nightmare
As the world came back into focus the women found themselves on the cat walk in the portside reactor core room of the Andromeda. They heard the piercing cries of the Magog that had forced their way through the two doors that had sealed off the control room from the rest of the ship but were giving way to the efforts of the numerous Magog behind them. At the reactor control panel, Harper was disconnecting himself from the VR matrix while Tyr was standing guard shooting the Magog forcing their way in. Harper sees that Tyr is being overrun pulls his Gauss pistol out of his holster and shoots a Magog that is about to attack Tyr from behind. He looks at Tyr and says, "Lucky shot."
"Are you through?" asks Tyr.
"I've started the reintegration of Andromeda's memories, but if I can stay here and monitor it, I may be able to speed up the process."
Tyr turns to shoot at a Magog coming from behind them then says, "Or you might die. Now we run."
As they watched the events Beka said softly "I should have known that this would be one his nightmares. Even I have nightmares about this day and that wasn't nearly as bad as what they went through." pointing to Tyr and Harper as she said that.
"Why do you say that?" asked Evie.
"Because this is when Harper got infested with Magog larvae." answered Rommie.
As soon as Tyr and Harper exited the reactor core control room the scene shifted again blurring and then reforming into on of the onboard machine shops. As the women oriented themselves one of the two hatches leading into the compartment opened and Tyr and Harper scrambled into the room firing at the horde of Magog chasing them. As Tyr locked the hatch shut Harper checked his guass pistol.
"I'm out. Typical." said Harper.
They start to leave by the other door, but that one had Magog outside it, also.
"I don't suppose you have any ammo left." Harper said to Tyr.
Tyr checked his weapon's magazine then said "I've got one round."
"One round. One round is good. One round is good." Harper said in a scared tone.
He stood up and squared his shoulders determinedly.
Tyr looked at him then asked "Would you like to close your eyes?"
Harper nodded and closed his eyes, but as Tyr starts to aim at him, he appeared to reconsider and said "W-W-W-Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. I was thinkin'. Maybe they're not so tough, you know? Maybe, uh, maybe we can, uh, take 'em in hand-to-hand combat." Then laughing a little hysterically he continued to say, "What do you think?"
Tyr grinned and said "That's my BOY!"
One of the doors started to opening, and Tyr fired his last round at the Magog that was trying to squeeze through, then threw the gun after it and said "Now I've got none."
Then as both doors started to be pried open Harper and Tyr stood back to back. Tyr pulled out a dagger and offered it to Harper.
As he did that Tyr said "Sire." and while Harper took the dagger he continued to say "Shall we dance, Master Harper?"
"You do care."
Moments after that Magog started to pour in quickly overwhelming the two.
"This was a real good idea." Harper said with sarcasm dripping from his words.
"Where there is life, there is hope!" Tyr replied defiantly just before the two of them were pulled down by the horde of Magog.
Abruptly the women were no longer on the Andromeda but on a planet with hoards of rampaging Magog all around them. As they watched they saw scores of people being infested with Magog larvae or being killed and eaten. After a few moments Beka said "Rommie, does this seem familiar to you?"
"Yes it does, this is the file we saw of Brandenburg Tor. In fact this is the same file and not just a memory of it." replied Rommie.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, I just checked and this is definitely a data file and not Harpers memory of the file. It shouldn't be here though because I know that Trance deleted it along with all the other files that were downloaded into him. Both Trance and I checked to make sure nothing was left behind."
"Damn it, Harper." Beka exclaimed in frustration. "You know what this means. It means that he downloaded it into his brain again, along with who knows what else."
A few seconds later the recording of the Magog attack at Brandenburg Tor ended to be replaced not by another memory but by a series of incomprehensible mathematical equations and symbols The symbols bobbed and wove past the women like a school of fish swimming in the current of a river. Puzzled, but at the same time amused Evie reached out a hand to touch one of the symbols as it passed near her. There was a musical tone much like the purest of all chords. The musical tone faded from hearing and as it faded the women heard a voice coming from all around them saying "In the place where the ancients of old once dwelt lies the means to bring to pass your fondest dreams. It needs only determination, knowledge and guidance to do so." As the voice spoke the symbols shrank to a myriad of stars which coalesced into an image of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The image of the Milky Way faded and transformed; they were now onboard the Maru near the airlock. Harper and an image of Beka were carrying a badly wounded Perseid out of the airlock.
"Come on. Ok, Ok, down we go." Harper said as they set him down on the deck to tend to his wounds.
"Ok, keep pressure on the wound." Beka told Harper as she sealed the airlock hatch. "We gotta get him back to the Andromeda." Moments later the Perseid regained consciousness. "Hey, who shot you?" Beka asked him.
"Save. Must save." the Perseid replied weakly.
"We're doing the best we can, pal. Hang in there." Harper told him.
While Harper was speaking the PPerseid stared at the dataport in Harpers neck then abruptly lunged forward grabbing him around the neck and they fell in a tangle onto the deckplates. Beka's image immediately tried to stop him, but was knocked backwards.
Evie rushed forward to help Harper but as she came near the struggling pair she noticed a small emblem on the forefinger of the Perseid's left hand. It was a small equilateral triangle above two larger triangles; in the center of the small triangle was a stylized eye. An image of the Perseid researcher Tamenot, who had come to Evie on the Ever Vigilant Eye filled Evie's mind. The image of Tamenot was replaced by an image of a book with the same symbol on the cover as was on the Perseid's forefinger. When she saw it she stopped as if she had hit a wall.
"Hey!" exclaimed the Beka memory bringing Evie back to what was happening, but not before Rommie noticed that Evie appeared to be in a trance for a few moments.
It looked like the Perseid was trying to bite Harper but as he opened his mouth there was an energy discharge from his mouth into Harper's dataport. When the discharge ended the Perseid collapsed onto the deck.
"Harper!" cried out the image of Beka.
"I'm on fire! I'm on fire! I'm on fire!" Harper screamed out in panic as he writhed in agony.
"No. No. No fire. No fire. You're ok. You're ok." Beka's image consoled him trying to calm him down.
As the Perseid died on the deck the scene changed once more. When their surroundings finished transforming the women found themselves in large cavern. Harper and Tyr were stuck to a cavern wall by some sort of sticky substance.
"Oh, man." Harper said groggily almost groaning out the words. TThen he looked around noticing where he was and saw Tyr stuck to the wall beside him.
"Tyr? Tyr! Are you ok?" he said. He suddenly cried out from pain and looked down at his stomach. A horrified expression came over his face. "Oh, nonononono. No, not the eggs. They didn't infest me with Magog eggs. Help! Help! Somebody! Somebody help me! Oh, please…Help! HEEEEELP!" he cried out in horror as he realized that he had been infested with Magog larvae and that he was going to die by being eaten from the inside.
"Tyr! Oh, man, don't be dead. You can't be dead. I mean, crap, I'm alive. And, uh, I'm just a pathetic little kludge, right? I mean, you – you're a Nietzschean. You're an über."
"Don't ever call me that." Tyr replied
"Hah! I knew you were alive!"
"Yes, I'm alive. And attempting to make our opponents forget about us."
"Oh, you wanna make them feel over-confident? I got an idea. Why don't we let them paralyze us, bind us to the wall, and infect us with their Magog eggs? Oh, gee, we did that already. Boy, we got them right where we want them."
"Your little melodrama isn't making things any better."
"No, but it's not making things any worse. You know why? Because they
couldn't BE any worse."
"You could be unconscious, or dead. You're neither."
"So now we get to be awake when the eggs hatch and the little Magog larvae eat their way out through our guts. You're right, that is better."
"When your parents combined their DNA, the odds that they would create a person with your precise genetic pattern were on the order of ten million to one. Factor in the chance of your parents growing to adulthood, meeting, and actually bothering to procreate, and your very existence has all the likelihood of drawing three straight Imperial Courts in an honest game of Vedran Whist. You've already overcome those odds once. Who's to say you can't do it again?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where there's life there's hope – faint, infinitesimal, minuscule, microscopic, virtually undetectable hope – but hope, nonetheless."
"Please, SHUT UP and let me think." Tyr said and immediately after saying that the their surroundings changed again and the women found themselves back on the Maru standing in the bridge. They could see Beka seated in the pilots seat while Harper entered the bridge. Beka felt a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach hoping that this wasn't what she thought it was.
"Boss? I just wanted to come by and tell you I have the utmost, uh, confidence in your ability to sm...What in the name of the Vedran Empress?"
When the image of Beka turned to look at him, and her eyes were white from the flash, Beka knew it was what she feared it was.
"Walk away. You were never here." the other Beka snapped at Harper.
"You're doing flash. I don't believe it. Flash? Beka, come on. You know what that stuff does to people. People kill over that stuff – their family and friends. Did you know that 82 percent of people on prison planets are flash addicts?"
"Do you know what? They tell you that kind of stuff just to scare you."
"Sure. To scare you out of killing your neighbors."
"Look, I'm not gonna pretend this crap is good for me. I know first-hand what flash can...I'm using minuscule doses. For a limited time. It's medicine, and it's working. You saw – you heard what Dylan said."
"If it's such good medicine, why don't you tell Dylan?"
"Because Dylan is Dylan. Dylan wouldn't cheat on his FTA dues. Besides, it's none of his business what I put in my bloodstream."
"Fine. It's your brain. But I don't like to see you like this, Rebecca. I'm just trying to help."
"Then leave. Then just leave. Leave! And let me do my job! You know, Harper, I've saved your skin before, and I'll save it again. But you have got to get off my back or SO HELP ME, I will drop you back on the trash heap where I found you!"
When Beka heard herself say that she wanted to hang her head in shame. She wished that she could go back in time and stop herself from saying that to him.
"OK." Harper replied with a look in his eyes like his best friend had just ripped out his heart and thrown it on the floor.
As he turned to leave Beka involuntarily said to him, "Harper I am so sorry and I would never do that."
As soon as she said that Harper stopped then turned slowly, looking first at the spot where Beka was standing then turning toward the other Beka. When the other Beka noticed that Harper hadn't left yet she snapped at him saying "GO AWAY. Leave me alone if you know what's good for you."
After hearing her other self say that Beka thought for a moment then said to Evie and Rommie "Guys that isn't the way it happened before, that last part is different. Harper heard me apologize as he was leaving and that changed it."