By : Nevermore
Co-Author's Note (from Nevermore): First of all, thank you for all of the positive feedback that you have all provided to Jaimi and me. Please continue to do so by either posting a review here (Jaimi gets the review alerts, but I check the reviews here once in awhile to see who's been reading), or email either her or me (obinorm@netscape.net). I also wanted to say that I originally intended this chapter be longer (I was going to combine this chapter and the next one), but since it'' been awhile since anything's been posted, I figured I'd send this along to Jaimi now so that you can all see an update before you completely forget what it is we're writing about. Thanks for your patience.
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Trance walked slowly through the halls of her father's palace, thankful that she was finally alone again. It had been bad enough when one of her father's search parties had found her and she had been forced to face the sarcasm of the men in the band. Leave it to a woman to get lost only a few miles from her own home, they had whispered amongst themselves, as if she couldn't hear them. Just remembering the scene sent flashes of anger through Trance's body. Then she had finally gotten to the castle, and the courtiers had reacted similarly. Of course, they had treated Trance not with the impatience of the guardsmen, but with the mixture of pity, disdain, and amusement that only a royal courtier could ever properly muster. It had been infuriating. It had been degrading. It had been all too familiar. I can't believe I'm actually one of these people, Trance fumed. If I wasn't purple with a nice long tail, I would swear I was actually human. And to think that my people actually look down on-
"Hey Trance," a familiar voice called out happily from a shadow. It was Jasmine, one of Trance's childhood friends. Though her parents were also some of the courtiers that Trance had grown to despise so much, Jasmine had always seemed somewhat unscathed by the haughtiness of her people. Many pitied the child for being so detached, and saw her personality as a sign that she was obviously deficient in some way. Trance had always found Jasmine's well-grounded personality to be endearing, though.
"Wow, how are you?" Trance asked with a smile, appraising the childhood friend she had not seen since before she had left the planet. "You look so great."
"So do you," Jasmine commented, her bronze skin seeming to ripple with waves of color, much like gasoline on the surface of a puddle. Trance could tell her friend was genuinely pleased to see her. "So I heard you got lost last night." Trance's heart immediately sank with her friend's words, and she braced herself for the poorly disguised condescension she knew would be coming. "Did you have fun?" her friend asked with seemingly genuine interest, catching Trance off guard.
"Uh, yeah," Trance answered awkwardly. "Why?" Her instincts, honed around the oh-so-perfect ladies of the court, warned her to keep her guard up. She doubted that Jasmine could honestly be interested in anything but finding some way to poke fun at her.
"It sounded like a great adventure," Jasmine said with the same old pleasant smile Trance remembered. "You have to tell me everything, but make it fast."
"Why?" Trance asked, seeing a hint of the mischievous gleam her friend's eyes had always held. How could I have forgotten how much fun Jasmine was? Trance wondered.
"Well, there's a new guy who just arrived at court," Jasmine explained. "Apparently his father is some bigwig from one of the outlying northern provinces, and he sent his son ahead to prepare quarters for them here at the palace."
"And you already have a crush on him," Trance surmised, remembering yet another one of her friend's nasty habits - she had always fallen for the new guys.
"Well, actually, no," Jasmine said almost sheepishly. "I sorta thought you might like him."
"What?" Trance asked. "You have to be joking."
"Not at all," Jasmine replied with a twinkle in her eye. "His name is Robin, and he's actually been off-world before, just like you. He even spent some time around humans. I thought you'd like to talk to him."
"I think I would," Trance answered.
"Well, let me just ask this quickly, though, before you meet him," Jasmine said hurriedly.
"Ask what?"
"Well, I don't have an escort for the Ball yet, and I was wondering if you would mind if I ask Robin to go with me, since you already have a date and everything. I mean, not that you would be jealous or anything, since you haven't met him yet, but, you know... am I babbling again?"
"Huh? What?" Trance had no idea what her friend was talking about. Forget any of the babbling at the end of her question, I don't even know what she was talking about to begin with. First Jasmine seemed to be setting up Trance with the new guy, then she was planning on taking to him a Ball herself. And what Ball is she talking about, anyway? And who's my date?
"The Ball to celebrate your betrothal, silly," Jasmine said pleasantly. "You don't have to play it down or anything. It's ok to be happy about it. So do you mind if I go with Robin?"
"I didn't know about it," Trance answered, ignoring Jasmine's concerns about Robin and once again becoming irritated with her father. It was just like him to throw a party for her without bothering to mention to her that he was having it. He likely already ordered a beautiful gown that would no doubt match perfectly whatever it was that Randex would be wearing. The Ball would be perfect, and Trance and Randex would be perfect, and the illusion that the king's house was in absolute harmony would also be perfect. The absolute perfection of it all made Trance want to gag.
"Well, now you know about it," Jasmine said with a shrug. "A big costume ball, probably the biggest celebration in decades."
"And I get to go with Randex," Trance said, her voice completely devoid of any hint of enthusiasm. Why him? she wondered again. I'd so much rather go with Ali. The thought had come without warning, and she caught herself quickly, shocked that she had even pondered the possibility. I mean Harper, she corrected herself quickly. I want to go with Harper. She looked out the window and turned her eyes toward the sky, imagining she could see the darkness of empty space. He's out there somewhere. I wonder what he's doing right now.
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"All crewmembers to the bridge," Dylan's voice called out over the intercom system.
"Well, I guess I'll finish up on you later," Harper said with a shrug, turning his back on the maintenance droid he had been working on. The work helped him settle his thoughts. He had spent the past three hours sifting through Trance's journals, trying to make heads or tails of what he assumed was her native language. First he had taken two days to break the encryption code that she had used to safeguard her journal. Harper would never have guessed that his friend, always so at odds with anything technological, could have come up with such efficient security measures. He could only assume that Rommie had helped her. Once he had gotten in, though, he was faced with a language that he could find no extensive record of. Harper had spent countless hours searching Andromeda's alien language databases for any clue as to the language, but found none. It was only when, in a fit of desperation driven mainly by sleep-deprivation and caffeine withdrawal, he had searched a human database, that he had found a clue. The characters coincided perfectly with an ancient Irish language known as Ogham, which Harper discovered predated the arrival of Greek and Latin in the British Isles. Apparently Trance had been writing in a human language that pre-dated Goidelic, which was one of the earliest known precursors to Gaelic. Harper had no idea why an alien species would have chosen an ancient human language as a written word, but the fact provided yet another infuriating clue to Trance's people - and every answer he got only raised a slew of new questions.
Pushing Trance's situation from his mind for the moment, Harper walked onto the bridge and saw a small, very unfamiliar looking freighter on the screen. "What's the situation, boss?"
"That ship sent out a distress signal and we responded," Dylan explained. "The pilot says she needs help."
"So let's help," Harper replied. "The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can get out of here."
"It's not that simple," Beka interjected. "The pilot claims to be Noddian."
"What?" Harper asked with a gasp. "The Noddians are all dead."
"So we thought," Dylan said.
"So what now?" Harper knew the stories as well as anyone else on the bridge. The Noddians had been a powerful race that had been out among the stars when humans were still trying to figure out fire. They had initially opposed the building of the Commonwealth, but then came around and became one of its greatest supporters. They had fostered younger species, and had even been the ones that handed over the technology that eventually led to the creation of the Nietzcheans. Fifty years before the fall of the Commonwealth, the Noddian sun had gone nova without warning. Virtually the entire race was thought to have been wiped out. Those few that had been off-planet and survived had died off over the following decades, bringing to a complete end one of the greatest civilizations within the Commonwealth.
"Now we talk, I guess," Dylan said. "Patch her through." A faint click could be heard, and Dylan switched from the voice of 'Dylan the guy who was sorta in charge of Andromeda,' to 'Dylan Hunt, Highguard bad-ass.' "This is Captain Dylan Hunt of the Commonwealth Starship Andromeda Ascendant," he stated formally.
"Will you assist me?" a strong, feminine voice interrupted, not wasting time with any formalities.
"Of course," Dylan replied, though his eyes turned meaningfully toward Tyr. The Nietzchean would be expected to keep an eye on their visitor. We're sending in one of our drones to assist in docking. Our chief engineer will assist you with any repairs you need."
"Thank you, Captain Hunt," the woman replied.
Once the channel had been closed, Dylan turned to Harper. "I'm sorry we're taking a short detour from you quest, but this is the kind of thing we have to do."
"I know," Harper said evenly. "To be honest, though, it's not like I really have any solid leads to follow up on yet, anyway. Maybe getting back into the routine will give me some kind of strange inspiration." He kept to himself the fact that he was curious about their guest. He always wondered what kind of people would actually give away the means to making a race like the Nietzcheans.
"Thank you, Mr. Harper," Dylan said with a smile. "I suppose our guest will be needing you in the docking bay. We'll be shutting it off from the rest of the ship, but Tyr will be nearby if you need anything. Understood?"
"No problem," Harper said with a grin. He then went down to the docking bay, allowing his mind to ponder another legend about the Noddians. He wondered as he walked her people were as beautiful as he had always heard.
Chapter 7 coming...when we feel like posting it. Muhahahahahahaha.
Jaimi Copyright@2001
