Hello?' Doyle calls. 'Is anyone here?' She is the only one on the command deck of a High Guard cruiser. The consoles are all much like the *Andromeda's,* but they are slightly different-what would be on one side of the deck is on the other side. A display on the pilot's right hand is on the left. Subtleties like that. Everything is familiar and slightly off at the same time.

'Hello-' Doyle brakes off when she spies her reflection in one of the big main screen. Her clothes have changed: The black leather long coat and black BDU vest remind her of Dylan's High Guard gear but wilder, less disciplined, as if Beka had helped pick it out. She looks down at herself and sees the force lance on her hip where there should be a gauss pistol.

'Weird,' Doyle mutters, then sees something out of the corner of her eye. She turns and sees someone who was not there before, a figure standing at the bottom of one of the ramps. Though dressed head to toe in a blue hooded cloak, its face obscured, she can tell that whoever the visitor is, it is female.

'Who are you?' Doyle demands. 'Where am I? What's happening?'

The strange woman does not answer. She turns and heads up the ramp, a purple tale dragging on the floor behind her from under her cloak.

'Hey!' Doyle calls. 'Come back here.' She goes up the ramp and out the door, just in time to see the woman go around the first turn at the bottom of the gangway.

'Fast,' Doyle says and jogs after her. She rounds the first turn and the corridor changes around her. The familiar hexagon is now a metal rectangle, but the wall plates do not always fit properly and she can see exposed components. Along the length of the wall is a dark plastic panel. A red light blinks behind some sections, but others show nothing. One stretch does not fit the wall properly and sparks flow from underneath it.

A woman comes down the hall from the direction Doyle is headed. As the woman passes, Doyle sees that what appeared to be a young Asian woman has metal and wiring exposed at her neck. Wires dangle from under her clothes, and she has a mechanical left hand. Doyle passes a robot whose armored head is marked by a horizontal slot with red dots haphazardly blinking in it and a human chest visible under the metal.

Doyle enters a room with wires, cables, and exposed machinery visible where wall panels are missing or don't fit correctly. The place is filled with robots/androids as haphazardly built as the ones she saw. In the middle of the floor, a woman - no, another android - is lying in a pool in the floor.

Footsteps sound from a passage on the opposite side of the room. Two columns of Vedrans march in, all dressed in black armor, holding deployed force lances in their left hands but aiming them at the ceiling. Doyle recognizes the blue-skinned, four-legged humanoids from Andromeda's records, but she has never seen images of Vedrans in black armor. They take up positions around the room, but remind Doyle of an honor guard. =But for whom?= Doyle asks herself.

The hooded figure comes in behind the last of the Vedrans and kneels by the pool. She pulls back her hood. Doyle recognizes the face at once. 'Trance!?' Doyle yelps. But Trance's skin is purple, not gold, and long gold braids fall around her shoulders. She does not hold herself the way the celestial avatar Doyle knows does; this purple-skinned Trance has a more regal bearing, and the look in her eyes seems cold, calculating.

'Trance, is that you?' Doyle asks. 'Where are we? What's happened to you? What's going on?'

Trance does not answer - does not even acknowledge Doyle - and dips her hand in the pool. Her hand glows with purple light, and the pool's fluid begins to glow. The android arches her back and opens her mouth, but then the light pours out of her eyes and beings to radiate from the eyes of all the robots in the room and the exposed panels in the wall. Doyle feels something shock through her …..

…then Doyle is standing in a parade ground, surrounded by silver quadruped robots, all holding force lances at their sides, standing at attention. Gigantic High Guard warships float in the skies above her; all attention is focused on the stage before them.

A voice booms from speakers: 'All hail the Vedran Empress!'

A Vedran takes the stage, Trance - still in her hooded cloak - behind and to one side. The Vedran is wearing gold, bejeweled armor decorated with ornate carvings; what Doyle first thinks is a deployed force lance looks more like a scepter (assuming it's not both). The robots around Doyle heft their force lances and shout.

'Trance?' Doyle breathes. 'What have you done?' But surprise starts to give way to anger. 'You … you lied, you betrayed-'

Luna is in front of her. 'Doyle?' Luna shakes the android. 'Doyle? Wake up, honey, snap-'

"-out of it," Luna said, shaking the android.

Doyle came to. "Luna?" She took in her surroundings: They were outside, in the desert near the city, behind a rock with three of Luna's armored men. Effectors hit the rocks around them.

"We followed her," Luna explained. "We had two vehicles and she took out one of them, but we got you away from her-"

"I need a weapon!"

Luna fished a spare gauss pistol out of her belt. "Here-"

Doyle spun, peaked over the rock, and saw the android she'd fought, aiming a force lance at them. Doyle squeezed off three shots. The android sparked and fell.

"Doyle, wait!" Luna called, but it was too late. Doyle ran over to the android who looked line an Asian woman and grabbed her collar, lifting her off the ground.

"What did you do to me?" Doyle yelled. "Who are you? What was-" She broke off. "Energy building - she's overloading her power core." Doyle spun back to Luna and her men. "Get to cover!"

They made it behind rocks and overturned vehicle just before the android exploded.

"Everyone ok?" Doyle asked.

Luna looked over her men. "We're ok, I think. I'll call for another ground vehicle to get us home. What about you?"

"I don't know," Doyle said, her voice shaking with…she couldn't sort out her emotions. "She showed me things…images."

"What?"

Doyle tried to remember the visions, but they had faded; she couldn't recall anything about them. Had there been something important in them? She wasn't even sure of that anymore.

"I-" Doyle started, but they turned at a noise. An engine. A slip fighter rose from behind an outcropping a kilometer away and ascended into the sky.

"Can you get the defense grid-" Luna started.

"I know!" Doyle snapped. "I'm linked to the defense grid, but it can't read the fighter. It must be loaded with stealth technology. I'll get some fighters scrambled, but I'm not optimistic. The android does the grunt work again," she added derisively.

"Hey…." Luna said. "Are you ok? You started to say…"

"I don't remember what was in those visions or files, whatever. But I've been left with the ugliest feeling, as if I've been betrayed."

"Well, I didn't do it," Luna quipped.

Doyle scowled at Luna. "Didn't you?"

"Doyle…" Luna was half sympathetic and half nervous. "It's me. I'm your friend, remember?"

Doyle blinked. "Yes, you are."

"I think whatever she did, she was messing with your head. Y'know, some kind of cybernetic head game. Don't let it get you."

Doyle smiled. "Yes, of course, that must be it." But even as Doyle said it, she realized she didn't believe it.