Final chapter, the usual disclaimers apply. May I also add that I am
English, my spelling is English and my grammar style is English. This
would appear to be very different from the American style. I say this
because I had a review for another of my fics that said my grammar was
pitiful and my spelling was atrocious (
With a shudder the Maru was deposited in what looked like a very ordinary cargo bay. Rommie quickly ran some checks and declared that the air was fit to breathe. The three stood by the view screen, watching and waiting for someone, something to enter the bay.
Dylan's face was etched with worry as he checked and rechecked his force lance. Harper's whole body language showed how fatigued he was. He too clutched a force lance. He refused to sit down, despite Rommie's pleading.
"Rom doll, I can't sit still, not when we're so close."
A movement at the far end of the containment area caught his attention. He brought the force lance up to a fighting position. "Someone's out there, I just caught a glimpse." Despite his haggard appearance he was more than ready to put up a fight.
The figure approached the Maru, it appeared to be male and humanoid, its features were strangely blurred as if a child had painted a face and then smudged it. No weapons could be seen, but then not all weapons are immediately visible.
A voice came over the ship's communication system. It sounded weary. "We have failed again. You will leave your weapons behind and come outside, there is no point in resisting me I can hurt you in ways that you cannot imagine."
Harper shook his head. "No way, I ain't going out there without a weapon."
As he spoke his force lance suddenly became red hot; he dropped it with a yelp. A large blister appeared on the palm of his hand.
Dylan and Rommie put down their weapons as the airlock door opened.
"You will leave your ship now." The voice was full of authority and the three crewmembers obeyed it without question.
They were soon standing in front of the alien. "I should kill you now," it said. "But you may yet prove useful."
He made a complicated pass with his hands and Dylan and his crew were paralysed, able to breathe but unable to make the smallest movement. They fell to the deck and lay there helpless.
Three more aliens appeared and picked up the Andromedans. They were carried to a room and left there.
After a few minutes the paralysis wore off. Harper groaned loudly and Rommie rushed over to check on him. "How do you feel?" Her voice was full of concern.
"Not good Rom Doll." He whispered weakly.
She sat down on the floor beside him and cradled him in her arms. All she could think of to do for him was to stroke his hair. The effects of the medication that Trance had given him would not last for many more hours and he was going to feel a whole lot worse when it wore off.
Dylan was pacing the room checking walls, ceiling and floor for any way out. The room appeared to be seamless. Although he could make out a very faint line where he thought the door might be.
He placed his hand against the door and was surprised to feel a handle and a lock. He could not see either and when he took his hand away there was no sign of anything marring the smooth surface.
The room was an illusion. He started to feel his way around the walls, trying to find anything that could be useful to them. Harper and Rommie looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.
He explained quickly what he was doing and Rommie left Harper to help with the investigation.
Suddenly Dylan let out a shout. "Yes!" He punched the air in triumph. "Harper I've found a data port of sorts, do you feel strong enough to try and jack in to it?"
Harper grinned weakly. "Yeah Boss, I'm good to go."
Rommie helped him to his feet and he felt around the data port to see if it was compatible.
"I think I can do something with this, give me a few minutes." He wasn't sure why but the aliens hadn't taken his tool belt or his link cable. He made a few modifications and without any hesitation jacked in to the alien port.
He felt the familiar rush as his virtual body took over and entered the computer. It was wonderful to be entirely pain free for the first time in days. He didn't have time to enjoy it though he was too busy searching for some clue to Tyr and Beka's location and a way to escape from their captivity to go and find them.
It took him a very long while to make his way through the maze that was the alien ship's brain. It was very different from any virtual environment that he had ever visited. There was a refreshing shortage of booby traps and dead ends. These beings had obviously never come across anyone with a data port before.
Outside in the real world Rommie was becoming very concerned. Harper was slumped against her, his eyes shut. He was very pale and there were dark smudges below his eyes. His skin looked almost transparent. Rommie knew in her 'heart' that he was very near death.
Dylan stood by helplessly, a situation he was not used to. He hated feeling so useless but apart from trying to break the lock on the door there was nothing he could do. He'd tried his hardest to get the door open but he had failed dismally.
Without warning Harper opened his eyes. He was shaking, and very close to tears.
"They're dead, they're both dead. I found them in the computer; all that's left of them is their brain patterns. They've gone Dylan, I'm so sorry we're too late."
His eyes rolled and he collapsed into Rommie's arms.
Dylan and Rommie looked in horror at each other. "It's not true." Dylan shouted at the unconscious Harper. He shook the engineer trying to wake him. "Tell me it's not true."
Rommie laid a restraining hand on the Captain. "He can't help you Dylan, I don't think he'll come round again."
Dylan was ashamed of himself, how could he justify attacking Harper when the boy had been through so much.
They made the small human as comfortable as they could and sat down to wait.
Eventually the door opened and what looked like the alien who'd first spoken to them came in.
Dylan jumped to his feet. "What's behind all this, why did you take our friends and what reason did you have for sending back those poor creatures to replace them?"
The alien looked at the angry Captain. "I am Clar, I do not owe you any explanation but I will tell you of the dreadful thing that you and your crew did to my people."
"We've never met your people." Rommie was puzzled.
"You never will," said the alien. "But you are still responsible for the destruction of my entire race. Only the crew of this ship survived and we have made a vow to avenge the rape of my planet."
"I don't understand." Dylan was confused. "How did we destroy a race we've never met? We're trying to restore the Commonwealth and bring peace back to the Universe."
"My planet existed in your future, many years into your future. You are due to meet with a group of aliens who want to sign up to your Commonwealth. Because they join with you they will gain access to your technology and in time they will become power hungry and use Commonwealth terra forming techniques to change my planet and make it impossible for our people to stay alive. We've come back to stop you before all this even starts."
Dylan looked defiantly at him. "Well if you just kill us all now it will never happen so why are you keeping us prisoner?"
"Oh it isn't any of you who are instrumental in persuading these murderers to join. It's the crewmember that you left behind on board Andromeda who manages to do that. I believe she calls herself Trance Gemini in this time zone."
"Why don't you just go to the meeting place and stop the meeting from taking place?"
"We have already tried that and it doesn't work. We have to totally discredit you and your crew and most of all that evil gold creature. We can't change the future any other way."
"We'll never lead you to the Andromeda." Dylan was adamant.
"Oh you will." The alien was equally adamant. "When my medical crew have finished you'll do anything I want you to."
Two aliens appeared behind him carrying conventional weapons. Their leader spoke briefly to them in a language that sounded like the chiming of bells.
Dylan and Rommie were taken away at gunpoint. Clar walked over to Harper and kicked him behind the knee joint. Harper didn't stir. Clar left the room convinced that the badly injured human was no threat.
Minutes, hours later, Harper opened his eyes. He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying on the floor. He'd been semi conscious during Clar's explanation, although he'd lapsed back into darkness shortly after the alien had left the room. He stood up slowly, working his way painfully up the wall until he reached the computer access port. He was sure there was something inside the ship that he could use to stop this nightmare.
He jacked in and once again felt the blessed relief from pain that accompanied his virtual existence. His first task was to search for Dylan and Rommie. He found them quite quickly. They were in some sort of medical facility. Wires were attached to Dylan's shaven head. Rommie was lying on a bed. Technicians were working on reprogramming her.
He began to search in earnest for the area within the ship that he'd briefly noticed earlier. Clar's explanation had answered some of Harper's questions about it and he thought that the key to stopping the aliens lay there.
He finally found the location that he was looking for. He stopped for a brief moment to admire the beauty of it. In the computer it looked like the inside of an iridescent seashell. Harper probed it gently. It seemed to be some sort of temporal drive. It was a little like the slipstream drive in construction and he began to feel more and more confident that he had found the solution.
He summoned all his strength and started work. He was so near completion when the door to the room opened with a jolt and two of the aliens ran in. They began to kick the engineer's helpless body. Harper was aware of what was happening although he couldn't feel the pain from the attack. He plunged both virtual hands into the centre of the glowing mass and in the last few seconds before his life ended he destroyed it.
The threads of time began to unravel and reform. Galaxies were born and died. The Commonwealth ended again. Five years before a group of unlikely comrades rescued a High Guard ship from a black hole two Perseids completed a very profitable trading run and celebrated their success by entering into a lifetime bond.
On board the Andromeda a battered Eureka Maru sailed into the docking bay. Two life pods containing the injured but still living forms of Beka Valentine and Tyr Anasazi followed it shortly after.
When the celebrations were over and the two were restored to full health the crew of the Andromeda carried on with their lives.
Dylan assembled the crew on the observation deck one morning. "I've had a message from a planetary system, a couple of jumps away. They want to join the Commonwealth but they're unsure about signing a treaty. They're asking us to go and negotiate with them." He looked round his crew. "I know that I said that once we'd 50 worlds in the New Commonwealth we would back down and let the leaders carry on, but what do you all think about one more mission?"
"Aw Boss." Harper did not want to go through all those boring diplomatic events again. He thought quickly. "The slipstream lens really needs calibrating and I've still got a lot of work to do on the Maru."
Beka grinned at her engineer. "Nice try shorty." She smiled at Dylan. "Why not, we are good at it after all."
Tyr stood with his arms folded. "I have no preference either way. I will abide by the majority decision."
Trance had become very thoughtful as Dylan spoke. She looked at the Captain, her face expressionless. "I'm not sure about this. I do not want to be involved."
They all looked at Rommie. The avatar shook her head. "It would not be appropriate for me to have the deciding vote."
Harper smirked. "As usual your resident freakin' genius has the solution." He rummaged in his tool belt and produced a coin. "Heads we go, tails - he winked at Trance - we don't."
He flipped the coin in the air and deftly caught it, slapping it down on the back of his other hand. He kept the coin covered tantalising them all. Trance shut her eyes briefly. She gently tapped the back of her own hand.
Harper uncovered the coin. "Tails it is," he crowed.
The crewmembers of the Andromeda went about their business. The planet was somehow forgotten about and was never contacted again. Mysteriously the slipstream routes to it disappeared, its inhabitants never joined the Commonwealth nor did they desire to do so.
The End
With a shudder the Maru was deposited in what looked like a very ordinary cargo bay. Rommie quickly ran some checks and declared that the air was fit to breathe. The three stood by the view screen, watching and waiting for someone, something to enter the bay.
Dylan's face was etched with worry as he checked and rechecked his force lance. Harper's whole body language showed how fatigued he was. He too clutched a force lance. He refused to sit down, despite Rommie's pleading.
"Rom doll, I can't sit still, not when we're so close."
A movement at the far end of the containment area caught his attention. He brought the force lance up to a fighting position. "Someone's out there, I just caught a glimpse." Despite his haggard appearance he was more than ready to put up a fight.
The figure approached the Maru, it appeared to be male and humanoid, its features were strangely blurred as if a child had painted a face and then smudged it. No weapons could be seen, but then not all weapons are immediately visible.
A voice came over the ship's communication system. It sounded weary. "We have failed again. You will leave your weapons behind and come outside, there is no point in resisting me I can hurt you in ways that you cannot imagine."
Harper shook his head. "No way, I ain't going out there without a weapon."
As he spoke his force lance suddenly became red hot; he dropped it with a yelp. A large blister appeared on the palm of his hand.
Dylan and Rommie put down their weapons as the airlock door opened.
"You will leave your ship now." The voice was full of authority and the three crewmembers obeyed it without question.
They were soon standing in front of the alien. "I should kill you now," it said. "But you may yet prove useful."
He made a complicated pass with his hands and Dylan and his crew were paralysed, able to breathe but unable to make the smallest movement. They fell to the deck and lay there helpless.
Three more aliens appeared and picked up the Andromedans. They were carried to a room and left there.
After a few minutes the paralysis wore off. Harper groaned loudly and Rommie rushed over to check on him. "How do you feel?" Her voice was full of concern.
"Not good Rom Doll." He whispered weakly.
She sat down on the floor beside him and cradled him in her arms. All she could think of to do for him was to stroke his hair. The effects of the medication that Trance had given him would not last for many more hours and he was going to feel a whole lot worse when it wore off.
Dylan was pacing the room checking walls, ceiling and floor for any way out. The room appeared to be seamless. Although he could make out a very faint line where he thought the door might be.
He placed his hand against the door and was surprised to feel a handle and a lock. He could not see either and when he took his hand away there was no sign of anything marring the smooth surface.
The room was an illusion. He started to feel his way around the walls, trying to find anything that could be useful to them. Harper and Rommie looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.
He explained quickly what he was doing and Rommie left Harper to help with the investigation.
Suddenly Dylan let out a shout. "Yes!" He punched the air in triumph. "Harper I've found a data port of sorts, do you feel strong enough to try and jack in to it?"
Harper grinned weakly. "Yeah Boss, I'm good to go."
Rommie helped him to his feet and he felt around the data port to see if it was compatible.
"I think I can do something with this, give me a few minutes." He wasn't sure why but the aliens hadn't taken his tool belt or his link cable. He made a few modifications and without any hesitation jacked in to the alien port.
He felt the familiar rush as his virtual body took over and entered the computer. It was wonderful to be entirely pain free for the first time in days. He didn't have time to enjoy it though he was too busy searching for some clue to Tyr and Beka's location and a way to escape from their captivity to go and find them.
It took him a very long while to make his way through the maze that was the alien ship's brain. It was very different from any virtual environment that he had ever visited. There was a refreshing shortage of booby traps and dead ends. These beings had obviously never come across anyone with a data port before.
Outside in the real world Rommie was becoming very concerned. Harper was slumped against her, his eyes shut. He was very pale and there were dark smudges below his eyes. His skin looked almost transparent. Rommie knew in her 'heart' that he was very near death.
Dylan stood by helplessly, a situation he was not used to. He hated feeling so useless but apart from trying to break the lock on the door there was nothing he could do. He'd tried his hardest to get the door open but he had failed dismally.
Without warning Harper opened his eyes. He was shaking, and very close to tears.
"They're dead, they're both dead. I found them in the computer; all that's left of them is their brain patterns. They've gone Dylan, I'm so sorry we're too late."
His eyes rolled and he collapsed into Rommie's arms.
Dylan and Rommie looked in horror at each other. "It's not true." Dylan shouted at the unconscious Harper. He shook the engineer trying to wake him. "Tell me it's not true."
Rommie laid a restraining hand on the Captain. "He can't help you Dylan, I don't think he'll come round again."
Dylan was ashamed of himself, how could he justify attacking Harper when the boy had been through so much.
They made the small human as comfortable as they could and sat down to wait.
Eventually the door opened and what looked like the alien who'd first spoken to them came in.
Dylan jumped to his feet. "What's behind all this, why did you take our friends and what reason did you have for sending back those poor creatures to replace them?"
The alien looked at the angry Captain. "I am Clar, I do not owe you any explanation but I will tell you of the dreadful thing that you and your crew did to my people."
"We've never met your people." Rommie was puzzled.
"You never will," said the alien. "But you are still responsible for the destruction of my entire race. Only the crew of this ship survived and we have made a vow to avenge the rape of my planet."
"I don't understand." Dylan was confused. "How did we destroy a race we've never met? We're trying to restore the Commonwealth and bring peace back to the Universe."
"My planet existed in your future, many years into your future. You are due to meet with a group of aliens who want to sign up to your Commonwealth. Because they join with you they will gain access to your technology and in time they will become power hungry and use Commonwealth terra forming techniques to change my planet and make it impossible for our people to stay alive. We've come back to stop you before all this even starts."
Dylan looked defiantly at him. "Well if you just kill us all now it will never happen so why are you keeping us prisoner?"
"Oh it isn't any of you who are instrumental in persuading these murderers to join. It's the crewmember that you left behind on board Andromeda who manages to do that. I believe she calls herself Trance Gemini in this time zone."
"Why don't you just go to the meeting place and stop the meeting from taking place?"
"We have already tried that and it doesn't work. We have to totally discredit you and your crew and most of all that evil gold creature. We can't change the future any other way."
"We'll never lead you to the Andromeda." Dylan was adamant.
"Oh you will." The alien was equally adamant. "When my medical crew have finished you'll do anything I want you to."
Two aliens appeared behind him carrying conventional weapons. Their leader spoke briefly to them in a language that sounded like the chiming of bells.
Dylan and Rommie were taken away at gunpoint. Clar walked over to Harper and kicked him behind the knee joint. Harper didn't stir. Clar left the room convinced that the badly injured human was no threat.
Minutes, hours later, Harper opened his eyes. He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying on the floor. He'd been semi conscious during Clar's explanation, although he'd lapsed back into darkness shortly after the alien had left the room. He stood up slowly, working his way painfully up the wall until he reached the computer access port. He was sure there was something inside the ship that he could use to stop this nightmare.
He jacked in and once again felt the blessed relief from pain that accompanied his virtual existence. His first task was to search for Dylan and Rommie. He found them quite quickly. They were in some sort of medical facility. Wires were attached to Dylan's shaven head. Rommie was lying on a bed. Technicians were working on reprogramming her.
He began to search in earnest for the area within the ship that he'd briefly noticed earlier. Clar's explanation had answered some of Harper's questions about it and he thought that the key to stopping the aliens lay there.
He finally found the location that he was looking for. He stopped for a brief moment to admire the beauty of it. In the computer it looked like the inside of an iridescent seashell. Harper probed it gently. It seemed to be some sort of temporal drive. It was a little like the slipstream drive in construction and he began to feel more and more confident that he had found the solution.
He summoned all his strength and started work. He was so near completion when the door to the room opened with a jolt and two of the aliens ran in. They began to kick the engineer's helpless body. Harper was aware of what was happening although he couldn't feel the pain from the attack. He plunged both virtual hands into the centre of the glowing mass and in the last few seconds before his life ended he destroyed it.
The threads of time began to unravel and reform. Galaxies were born and died. The Commonwealth ended again. Five years before a group of unlikely comrades rescued a High Guard ship from a black hole two Perseids completed a very profitable trading run and celebrated their success by entering into a lifetime bond.
On board the Andromeda a battered Eureka Maru sailed into the docking bay. Two life pods containing the injured but still living forms of Beka Valentine and Tyr Anasazi followed it shortly after.
When the celebrations were over and the two were restored to full health the crew of the Andromeda carried on with their lives.
Dylan assembled the crew on the observation deck one morning. "I've had a message from a planetary system, a couple of jumps away. They want to join the Commonwealth but they're unsure about signing a treaty. They're asking us to go and negotiate with them." He looked round his crew. "I know that I said that once we'd 50 worlds in the New Commonwealth we would back down and let the leaders carry on, but what do you all think about one more mission?"
"Aw Boss." Harper did not want to go through all those boring diplomatic events again. He thought quickly. "The slipstream lens really needs calibrating and I've still got a lot of work to do on the Maru."
Beka grinned at her engineer. "Nice try shorty." She smiled at Dylan. "Why not, we are good at it after all."
Tyr stood with his arms folded. "I have no preference either way. I will abide by the majority decision."
Trance had become very thoughtful as Dylan spoke. She looked at the Captain, her face expressionless. "I'm not sure about this. I do not want to be involved."
They all looked at Rommie. The avatar shook her head. "It would not be appropriate for me to have the deciding vote."
Harper smirked. "As usual your resident freakin' genius has the solution." He rummaged in his tool belt and produced a coin. "Heads we go, tails - he winked at Trance - we don't."
He flipped the coin in the air and deftly caught it, slapping it down on the back of his other hand. He kept the coin covered tantalising them all. Trance shut her eyes briefly. She gently tapped the back of her own hand.
Harper uncovered the coin. "Tails it is," he crowed.
The crewmembers of the Andromeda went about their business. The planet was somehow forgotten about and was never contacted again. Mysteriously the slipstream routes to it disappeared, its inhabitants never joined the Commonwealth nor did they desire to do so.
The End