Chapter 9

By: Nevermore

"If I had a nickel for every time I had to make some kind of annoying, minor repair…" Harper griped.

"You'd be a very rich man?" Rommie guessed, answering from a viewscreen just a few feet behind the engineer.

"I don't know about that, but I'd sure have a hell of a lot of nickels," Harper shot back. "Any idea how this happened?" the engineer asked as he prepared to plug into one of Andromeda's interface ports. The climate controls had somehow returned to their default positions, which meant that it was three degrees cooler on board than Dylan liked it. I can't believe bad-ass Dylan can't get used to a three-degree difference, Harper mused. What a wuss. Predictably, Harper had immediately been sent to fix the problem.

Harper jacked in and started looking around, searching for the climate controls. It only took a few seconds to realize that something was not at all right. An image of Rommie appeared before him, and she didn't look well.

"Harper… what are you doing?"

"I'm not… oh, crap." The engineer booted himself out of the ship's system, wincing in pain but hoping that he had acted quickly enough to prevent any major damage. As he opened his eyes to look around, he dared to hope that all was well. From where he was sitting, everything looked fine.

"All crew prepare for slipstream," he heard Dylan's voice announce over the com system.

"Dylan, no!" Harper shouted too late. Andromeda shook slightly as she entered slipstream, and then shuddered with a deafening slam as she dropped back out almost immediately. Harper was thrown from his feet, almost getting knocked unconscious as he slammed the back of his head against the floor.

"Mr. Harper?!" Dylan roared over the com. "What just happened?"

"I'm on my way to the bridge," Harper replied, walking as quickly as he could, his hand rubbing the back of his head as he wondered how big his latest lump would be. Once there, Harper met three pairs of eyes staring at him angrily. Dylan, Tyr, and Beka seemed less than thrilled to have been shaken up like they were.

"What's the problem?" Dylan asked evenly, his voice seeming quite calm despite the situation. Within moments, Beka turned away to examine the navigational sensor data and Tyr began running a weapons system diagnostic, leaving Harper alone to face the captain's sudden foul mood.

"I think Rommie caught a virus," Harper said quickly, "but I can't be sure just yet."

"How exactly did Rommie get a virus?" Dylan asked. Not only was Andromeda equipped with some of the best anti-virus programming available at the height of the Commonwealth, she was also a sentient AI that was capable of coming up with creative defensive procedures of her own. The only way to get a truly destructive program into her system was to do so directly, and that could mean only one thing.

"I did it," Harper admitted. "Or at least, I think I did," he amended. "All I know is I jacked into her system to fix the climate controls-"

"- It's still cold, too," Dylan pointed out. Harper thought he caught a quick, amused smile from Beka out of the corner of his eye, but he dared not take his gaze off of Dylan to see for sure.

"I'll be happy to adjust the temperature just as soon as I figure out what else is wrong," Harper replied. At that moment, Rommie walked onto the bridge.

"The negative axis on my slipstream drive has been polarized," she reported. "I'm afraid we're going to have to replace it."

"How long will that take?" Dylan asked.

"Where exactly are we?" Harper inquired in response.

"Give me another minute," Beka replied. "I'm figuring that out right now."

"See boss, the thing is that we don't happen to have a spare power coupling on board," Harper said.

"Why not?" Dylan asked. "It's an important part. If we lose that, we can't go to slipstream, and that means we could get stuck in the middle of nowhere."

"Like we are right now," Beka chimed in. Everyone's head turned toward her. "From what I can tell, at 30 PLS, we're about twenty years or so from the nearest shipyard large enough to do us any good."

"Twenty years?" Dylan asked. "Harper, you have to be able to fix it."

"Well, we used to have two spare power couplings," Harper explained, "but we dropped one off with the Perseids so they could rebuild it for us, and the other one sorta got traded away last time we needed some other parts."

"We traded away our only spare power coupling?" Dylan asked, hardly able to believe the situation. "I hope we got something worthwhile in return."

"We got a new tactical sensor array," Tyr said. "As we wouldn't last more than twenty seconds in a firefight without one, I would say the trade was well worthwhile."

"It doesn't seem so right now," Dylan returned. "Exactly how did this happen, again?" Dylan asked his engineer.

"I'm not entirely sure," Harper replied, "but when I jacked into Rommie, she got all wonky. Since it's almost impossible to get a virus past her screens unless you do it personally, I can only assume it's my fault."

"And I assume you didn't do it on purpose," Dylan surmised.

"I'm not entirely happy with the idea of being stranded in the middle of nowhere for the next twenty years," Harper responded. "I was sort of in the middle of something," he added needlessly, knowing the crew was probably starting to notice his increasing obsession with finding Trance.

"Of course," Dylan muttered. "Any idea where the virus came from?"

"I can only guess that it's a thank you gift from our Noddian guest," Harper answered. He saw the curious stare from Dylan, and concluded that the captain suspected something more happened in Harper's cabin than he had initially let on. "And it's probably nothing like you're thinking," he added. "I was jacked into that gunstar of hers… I can only guess that the virus was downloaded into my cyber-matrix then, purposely or not I can't tell."

"So I guess the first order of business is to take care of the virus," Dylan decided.

"I've already done that," Rommie announced. "It wasn't anything too impressive, actually. It was a simple program specifically designed to polarize a power coupling."

"That's a stupid virus," Tyr interjected. "Battles are not fought in slipstream. She would gain no tactical advantage by downloading that into a possible enemy."

"Unless she was just using it to make sure she could get away if we became hostile," Dylan replied. "Most ships would have at least one spare power coupling on board. It's not like what she did would be permanently destructive, at least not in most instances. It would only allow her to escape."

"Only now we're pretty much screwed," Rommie commented, drawing stares from everyone but Harper.

"We're screwed?" Dylan asked with an amused expression.

"Oh, I meant to tell you about that," Harper said. "I relaxed some of the restrictions on Rommie's language database. She's a little more free to say exactly what she wants to now."

"Thank you, Mr. Harper," Dylan said, his tone making it plain that he was not very thankful at all.

"Maybe there's an upside to being stranded for a bit," Beka said.

"I don't see how," Tyr replied in that even, slightly condescending tone that only a Nietzschean could ever properly muster. "We're stuck in the space between planets, twenty years from the nearest port where we can get repairs, and our ship's AI is trying to get the hang of using slang and profanity. About the only bright side I can see is that the only Magog anywhere within five light years of us is Rev."

"All valid points," Beka conceded, "but we've been running dangerously low on weapons every time we engage anyone. This'll give us a chance to do a little stockpiling."

"Agreed," Dylan said immediately. "Tyr, you and Beka reprogram a bunch of the droids to build offensive and defensive missiles. Harper, you and I will try to see if there's anything we can do with that power coupling, and we'll have Rev check over the slipstream drive to make sure it wasn't damaged when we were knocked back into real space."

"And what the hell should I do?" Rommie asked. Dylan turned to his ship's avatar with a blank expression on his face.

"First, you'll either wash your mouth out with soap or reset your language database to its default settings," he instructed. "Then, please, for the love of God, turn up the damn heat."

-------------------------------------------------

This has to be the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen, Trance thought, once again sitting at the top of Sunrise Bluff, only a few feet from where she had spent a night speaking with Ali. Somehow, despite its beauty, this sunrise was just not as wondrous as the one she had seen that morning.

"You might want to think about having your father build a large, comfortable chair for you out here if you plan to continue showing up for sunrises," Trance heard Ali's familiar voice comment from behind her. She whirled quickly, shocked that she had not been able to hear, or even sense, his approach. He almost seemed to have appeared out of thin air, as if by magic. To seem like that to a human would have been no large feat, but Trance was surprised that she had felt that way.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to sneak up on people?" she asked with a friendly smile. Though she would not admit it to herself, she had secretly hoped that Ali would show up.

"Hmm… I'm not certain about that," Ali replied with a mischievous grin. "If anyone did ever tell me that, I must not have been paying attention."

"Well, you should have," Trance shot back. "It's important to be proper."

"Like you, you mean?"

"Yes," Trance answered.

"Is that why you're out here all alone, probably without having told anyone in the palace that you were sneaking out… again?" Ali's silver eyes twinkled with amusement as he made his friendly accusation.

"Oh, that," Trance responded awkwardly. "Well, no one's gonna miss me."

"Of course not," Ali agreed. "It's not like there was any large costume ball last night that people would want to talk to you about this morning."

"Uh-oh," Trance said, suddenly realizing that she was probably about to land herself right back in her father's bad graces. And after I spent so much effort making last night perfect so that he would finally be proud of me…

"Yep, uh-oh is probably right," Ali agreed. "But as long as you're here, you might as well enjoy yourself."

"And how, pray tell, do you expect me to do that?" Trance asked.

"Did you have fun the last time we spent the night together here?" Ali asked, his smile not fading in the least.

"Don't say it like that," Trance replied.

"Like what?" Ali responded, looking as innocent as possible.

"When you say 'we spent the night together' and all like that," Trance replied. "You almost make it sound like we were up to something."

"Weren't we?"

"What do you mean?" Trance asked, suddenly very much aware of how alone and vulnerable she was.

"Weren't we up to something?" Ali asked. "I mean, you were out here pretending to be refreshingly normal, and I was letting you. We traded wonderful stories and felt the night fly by. Sounds to me like we were up to having a good time. Or was I wrong?" Despite the fact that his words indicated he felt unsure, his demeanor spoke of a confidence that was unusual even for a faerie.

"No, not at all," Trance said hurriedly.

"So you enjoyed spending time with me?"

"Of course," Trance assured her secret friend.

"Is that why you're out here again?"

"What?" Trance asked, feeling like she had once when she was a child, and was caught eating tarts in the palace bakery.

"I mean only what I said, Trance," Ali said smoothly. "Did you come out here so you would be able to relax again? Don't get me wrong or anything, I'm not trying to imply that you ran out here in the darkness of night so you could have some forbidden rendezvous with me. I'm not completely daft, you know."

"Not completely daft," Trance agreed.

"Hey now," Ali chided, "I don't know that you know me well enough to make fun of me like that."

"I'm sorry," Trance apologized quickly, wondering if Ali was joking or not. She just couldn't read him at all, and it was starting to drive her crazy.

"No need," Ali replied. "I understand how it is. You just can't help but look down on the commoners." He wrinkled his face up into a thoroughly pitiful grimace, and started wracking his body with faux sobs. With a slight giggle, Trance punched him softly on the shoulder.

"Do you take anything seriously?" Trance asked, surprised that the words escaped her lips. The first time they had met, though Ali was fun, there seemed something almost earnest in his personality. Now he was as lighthearted as he had once been serious.

"I can take a lot of things seriously," Ali replied, but it seems now that you need a smile more than you need a sympathetic ear."

He can read me like an open book, Trance mused. It's almost eerie… and extremely unfair. "So what else do I need?" she asked.

"Well, you need some advice on a large problem, but only once you lighten up enough to know the world isn't about to end," Ali answered, his smile vanishing as he once again became as serious as Trance had seen him before.

"And what do you think I need advice with?" she asked defensively.

"I don't know; you tell me," Ali retorted.

"Everything's fine with me," Trance lied.

"Oh, you mean you have no problem marrying someone you don't love?" Ali asked.

"What?" Trance asked. "How dare you?"

"A thousand apologies, your highness," Ali said smoothly, not seeming to be in the least perturbed by Trance's reaction. "I assumed you did not love Randex. Obviously I was mistaken."

"What? No, you're not," Trance said quickly.

"So you don't love your fiancé?" Ali asked.

"I didn't say that," Trance replied, suddenly very confused as to how she had gotten herself into this situation.

"Yes, you did," Ali corrected her.

"Not in those words," Trance shot back.

"Use whatever words you like, your highness, but your meaning was quite clear," Ali said. "You don't love Randex; and of course how could you? You don't even know him."

"I know," Trance replied dejectedly. "Not that my father cares."

"In the grand scheme of things, you could do far worse," Ali said sympathetically. "I mean, at least it's not like you love another." Even as he spoke, his eyes bored into Trance's, seeming to search for any reaction to his words. Despite her best attempts to keep her feelings hidden, though, she knew Ali saw the truth. "Or maybe you do love another after all," he added softly.

"I don't see that it's any of your business," Trance commented. "I don't see why you can't simply leave well enough alone."

"Well I'm not the one that sneaked out of my father's castle to spend the morning on a cliff, talking to someone my parents have never met," Ali said. "I wonder how Randex would feel about this…"

"Oh, you can't tell him," Trance said quickly.

"Tell him what?" Ali asked, once more seeming as innocent as a lamb. "That you sneaked out here to see me, or that you're in love with a human?"

"Who told you that?" Trance asked.

"No one had to," Ali answered. "I'm not exactly dim, you know."

"Oh," Trance replied, afraid that saying anything more might betray another secret she thought no one would ever guess at.

"So what's his name?"

"Harper," Trance muttered, speaking the name she had not spoken since she had returned home. "Seamus Harper." Just saying his name was enough to bring countless memories flooding back into her mind. In her stomach she felt a little tingly, and her breath seemed a little shallower as she became slightly excited. She wanted to say his name over and over again, wondering if that would make the wonderful experience she was feeling even that much more enjoyable. She restrained herself, however, and instead vowed never to speak his name again… not until he was finally standing before her once more.

"It's a very human name," Ali replied, closing his eyes as if he was trying to imagine what a human named 'Seamus Harper' would look like. "He suits you, I think."

"What do you mean?" Trance asked, wondering at the meaning of her friend's words. He doesn't know Harper, she thought angrily. Who in hell is he to make that kind of a comment?

"It's something about the name," Ali said with a subtle wave of his hand. "You look like someone that would fall for a Seamus."

"What?" Trance wasn't sure what to make of that comment, but she was reasonably certain that she didn't like it.

"It's not something I can really explain," Ali responded, a faraway look in his eye. "Perhaps I have a bit of seer's blood somewhere in my family history. I guess it's as possible as anything else, since I am a bastard, after all."

"You are?" Trance asked sympathetically, knowing the social stigma that was attached to bastards in her people's society. The only worse thing was being kith - a human/faerie half-breed. And that's what my children would be if I ever married Harper, she realized. I'd be condemning my children to a lifetime of scorn if I ever brought them back here.

"Nothing wrong with being a bastard, Trance," Ali said, "it doesn't bother me at all. My parents were young and consumed with an irresistible passion. It's almost like I was conceived in fire, so to speak. How many other people can say that? Take your fiancé, for instance. You think he could ever lay claim to having been produced by the heat of lust?"

"No," Trance said immediately, reminded of the way Randex's parents had been so distant during the ball. She was certain that they had had a child for one reason - because it was expected of them. The more she thought about it, the more piteous it seemed. "I never looked at it that way."

"That's too bad," Ali replied. "You should always look at everything in every way possible. For example, why do you like humans?"

"I don't know," Trance said, curious as to how she couldn't answer such a simple question. It wasn't like she had needed to make a decision whether or not to like humans, it was just something that had happened. It seemed natural that she should befriend people that had good character. "My friends are nice people," Trance tried to explain. "They would be there for me if I ever needed them."

"That's very nice," Ali commented, "but you couldn't really have known that until you got to know them. What was it about them that made you interested in getting to know them?"

"I don't know," Trance admitted. "It just seemed right at the time."

"I don't understand why you would become close to someone that was going to die within only a few brief decades," Ali added. "And even more than that, though - you fell in love with one of them. Why would you do that?"

"It's not like I just woke up one morning and decided to fall in love with a human," Trance replied. "It doesn't work that way."

"But in the whole scheme of things, could you have found a worse possible match?" Ali asked, his eyes inquisitive without being judgmental. "He's human, which means his lifespan is but a wink of an eye compared to ours. Even worse, though, he's human. Do you realize how most of our people feel about humans? Do you know how your father feels?"

"They're wrong," Trance said through gritted teeth, not bothering to conceal her rapidly growing anger. She did not care at all for Ali speaking poorly of humans, not when she had spent so much time amongst them.

"Everyone is wrong?" Ali asked. "You're the one that's right, while everyone else is wrong? Do you know how that sounds?"

"Do you know how much I don't care?" Trance asked in reply. "I can count on one hand the number of our people that have left Avalon within this particular human generation. If those few have an opinion, I might listen. As for anyone else, you might as well start giving me advice on seducing a Magog, since you'd probably know just as much about that as you would about humans."

"Point taken," Ali returned. "I'm not trying to be judgmental, though. I just want to understand."

"Understand what?" Trance asked, suddenly feeling as if she was being drawn in to another debate.

"I want to understand why you would allow yourself to fall in love with a human," Ali replied. "It's only going to end up bringing you pain."

"How do you figure?"

"You're immortal,' Ali pointed out, "or at least as close to it as any being is likely to get. Harper will die in a short time."

"And then I'd be alone," Trance said, finishing Ali's sentence for him. "I've already considered that."

"And?"

"And there's this old saying," Trance replied, "that the light that burns twice as bright only lasts half as long. So yes, I might only have a few decades with him… if I could be with him… but they would be some of the most wonderful decades anyone had ever had. His light does burn twice as bright - no one else anywhere is like him."

"Perhaps."

"And what else would you have me do?" Trance asked. "Would you have me marry Randex? I ask of you, what's worse - being with your true love for a few decades and then being alone for the rest of your life, or spending eternity with someone that, at best, you can only coexist with?"

"Why limit yourself to only those two options?" Ali responded, evading Trance's question. "You could always try to find someone else, maybe another one of our people… someone you get along with and with whom you could even find happiness. Not just happiness for a few decades, but for an eternity." He looked deeply into Trance's eyes, and she saw the suggestion that was there.

"Oh, please," Trance muttered in reply.

"What?"

"Are you coming on to me?" Trance asked.

"And what if I am?" Ali asked innocently. "Would that be so terrible a thing?"

Trance felt extremely awkward all of a sudden. Part of her felt guilty for having the conversation, but at the same time, she had to admit that it wasn't like she was cheating on Harper. She was simply talking, nothing more. But you're not just talking, a meek voice in the back of her head said. You're actually considering this. "Oh, what a terrible time for a bout of conscience," Trance muttered.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," she replied quickly, hoping Ali hadn't heard her. "Look, I'm really flattered, Ali, but I'm in love with Harper. I can't even think about being with someone other than him."

"I'm not asking you to run away with me or anything," Ali said. "I would only hope that, if Harper does not come for you before your wedding, that you consider me as an alternative to Randex."

"Meaning I'd have to run away with you," Trance replied, not seeing how else she would be able to defy the marriage that her father had arranged.

"Umm, yeah," Ali responded hesitantly, "I guess you would. So I was wrong, I am asking you to run away with me, after all."

"Ali…" Trance muttered, her mind racing at a mile a minute. She hoped against hope that Harper would come for her, but she had doubts. What if he can't find me? What if he doesn't want to find me? What if my father takes steps to make sure he doesn't find me? Given the alternative, Trance would choose Ali over Randex in a heartbeat, but that didn't mean she was just willing to run off with him and give up on Harper. Though the idea of being with someone… the right someone… forever is definitely appealing…

"I should probably get going," Ali stated as he rose to his feet. "I apologize if I made you feel at all uncomfortable."

"You didn't," Trance assured her friend.

"So you will not feel uneasy if we run into each other again for another sunrise?" he asked smoothly.

"I look forward to it," Trance assured her friend.

"Good," Ali said with a wink. Without another word, he set off on foot, walking toward the Barrow Road.

Great, now I have three men after me, Trance mused. As if I didn't already have enough problems. There's a mortal that makes me feel wonderful, an immortal that would drive me to drink, and an immortal who I totally click with, but who just doesn't make me feel the way Harper does? None of the three was completely perfect, but Trance couldn't see why a lack of perfection was a reason not to continue to hope for Harper. True, he would die soon, but until that day he would be the best that Trance could ever hope for.

Chapter 10 coming soon...

Jaimi/Nevermore Copyright@2001