Disclaimer: Tribune owns Andromeda and all related characters. No copyright infringement intended, and I'm not making a penny off this.
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We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams, wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams, world-losers and world forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams, yet we are movers and shakers, of the world forever it seems. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy)
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Sterility, Tyr Anasazi despised it, in every form.
Flexing a bloodied hand and shifting his head slightly, the Nietzschean took in his surroundings once more, a low grunt his only acknowledgment of the pain he felt. With effort, he pushed the optical distortion away, gaze centering on the sole other occupant of the room, sprawled against the opposite wall.
Rebekah.
She lived, eyes shut against pain, shoulders balled, flesh bruised and bloody, but she lived. He was not wholly certain how, but then, nor was he wholly certain how even he had survived. Harper's obstreperous creation had been dropped, successfully taking out the alien armada and their wormhole as well. Before the end, however, all fury had raged through the Maru, fire and space and all manner of evil in between.
In the end, the Maru had been left behind, no doubt battered and split open to the ravages of space, and he and her captain...
Perhaps someday he would stop expecting the universe to make sense.
Turning his head back, he met the gaze of savior and captor, the ugly little alien standing only inches away. "You will kill her mercifully."
"Of course, if you wish." The Kalderan agreed, stance reflecting anticipation, voice filter lending a shrill crescendo to the word.
"I will do as you like, then." Thoughtfully, the Nietzschean bent to meet his companion's eyes, uninjured hand reaching out to grip a shoulder and squeeze, painfully. "Now release me."
"Tyr, I don't know what it is you think you're doing..." Valentine's voice was raspy, cracked, as she pushed up into a sitting position, head swinging, sole good eye glaring at him. The gaping absence of the other behind the layers of stitched fat and makeshift bandage repulsed him.
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again." Anasazi schooled his tones to emptiness, focusing on a position above her head, adrift from her gaze.
"Tyr, don't you leave me, damn you!" Beka's voice rose as he stepped towards the barred door, and she scrambled halfway off the deck before biting back a moan, a hand cupping the blood pouring wound in her side. The other arm hung limp and useless against her side. He suspected that saving it was hopeless. In their few conversations, she had refused to look at it, much less entertain the idea of amputation.
"The woman, she is...captain of the vessel you were on, and second-in-command of the High Guard ship. She must be of great worth to you." The alien interrupted his thoughts, no doubt set on making an even better sale, perhaps, the freedom of a battered female kludge for what?
Turning, Anasazi met the gaze still leveled at him. Valentine's breathing was labored, sketched with pain and near delirium. She still bled, and was weak, such a pitiable hindrance. He turned away. "No. Not now."
The door clanged shut behind them. Beka Valentine lunged upward from the wall and slammed against the shut door, screaming.
Tyr Anasazi did not look back.
*
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again."
...please...
"Again, Rommie. Trance, adjust the field magnification to..." Hunt's voice faded in and out, riding tidal waves of pain in her mind.
Flinging her palms away from the operations console, the avatar shunted the unpleasant dialogue recording back into her hidden memory core, focusing her attentions and her glare on the louder, presently speaking voice. "Dylan, this is pointless. We've searched fruitlessly for hours. They weren't on the Maru, they aren't out there." Jabbing a thumb at the view screen, she frowned more heavily as her ships persona claimed attention.
Andromeda appeared on the screen, brows burrowing. "My avatar is correct, Captain. This is fruitless."
He cast them both frigid looks. "We'll give it another hour."
"Another hour and our resources will be exhausted. Repairs are needed. Putting them off could permanently damage ship systems and, in the event of another battle, cripple us." Rommie crossed her arms, stepping back from the console. "Which, I need not point out, we cannot afford. Dylan, we've been here for days. There is nothing. Do you think Tyr and Beka would want to be responsible for the second fall of the Commonwealth?"
Her captain managed a wry grimace. "Damn right he would. And Beka...I owe her too much. We are not abandoning hope. Now, scan again."
*
"Hey." Ducking her head to slip into the engineering conduit, Trance Gemini stared at the figure hunched against a bulkhead.
"Hey." Seamus Harper turned his head, lips lifting in what was for him a pitiful attempt at a smile.
The golden alien reached forward to touch his cheek, smiling briefly. "They're alive, Harper. We will get them back."
"You see that possibility?"
"I see a lot of possibilities. The only thing that matters is that we can create our own."
"So we didn't get them back in any of those other possibilities."
"I didn't say that this happened in any of those other futures." Sitting, she rested her head against the bulkhead, eyes darkening thoughtfully.
"But it did, didn't it?" Quietly, quickly, he broke through her veiled defense. "And things are just as likely to go wr
ong this time as they did the rest. It's always substituting one bad thing for a worse one. I don't know, Trance. I think I might have been better off dead, if my survival is gonna mean this bull...I mean, Beka's like a sister to me, or a mother. Tyr..."
"I know, Harper." Snuggling close briefly, a gesture she hadn't pulled in years and realized sharply that she'd really missed, Trance sighed. "I'll make it better. Trust me."
"Sure, Mama Honey Bear." His laughter tickled her neck. She smiled. Peace. It was so much more fragile than any of her friends had even begun to think.
The intercom trilled, and they moved apart as Dylan's voice cut through, sharply reigned anticipation mingled with something more restrained, darker. "This is the Captain, everyone to the hanger. Mr. Anasazi has returned."
In complete agreement, they pushed off through the open hatch and ran.
*
Thud. Hiss. Shout. More shouting and more thudding, no doubt of boots.
Tyr Anasazi shoved the noise away with profound annoyance, disentangling himself from the piloting restraints of the small alien craft that had proven a worthy ride home. If only it, and he, were temporarily invisible as well. Reaching out, he touched the button that would release the airlock, and watched it slowly grind up, standing and nursing his injured arm.
Four sets of eyes stared directly at him; four sets of questions poised on lips, etched into tired, dejected eyes, even the avatar's, oddly enough.
Anasazi pushed past them all, ignoring the little alien's brisk but nervously chattering attempts to survey his wound, ignoring Dylan Hunt's probing command gaze, ignoring the avatar's crossed arms, Harper's pleading eyes. He ground regret down to nothing, turning away from them all, gaze as dispassionate as he could make it.
"Beka is dead." Harper broke the silence, voice cracking.
The Nietzschean met the gazes head on, shoulders lifting. "Alive last I saw her. I do not expect that she remains so."
Silence trailed his aching departure.
"Trance." Hunt finally spoke, swinging his force lance up into a palm. "You're with me."
"What do you think?"
Only moments afterward Dylan Hunt stood from his desk, staring across the room at his life support officer.
"What do I think?" Trance Gemini wheeled, meeting his gaze with abject but entirely unconvincing bewilderment.
"Throw off the schoolgirl act." Her captain suggested.
She sighed. "Can't we just leave the possible futures alone?"
"I wish we could, Trance." Moving around the desk to grasp her shoulder, he stared grimly downward. "But if you think you know anything..."
"I don't…what I do know is that nothing we do now, at this moment, will change anything. We need distance from this place, Dylan, I need distance, and then maybe I can sort through it better. Right now I just don't know what to tell you. Please, just get us away from here."
A deep, faintly frustrated breath was her only response for a long moment, before he moved away, shaking his head. "Trance, I…fine. We do have delegates to check up on and diplomatic duties with Bolivar. Then we come back. I'm not giving up on her, and I suggest you don't either."
"Believe me, Dylan." Her tones lowered to soft pique as she spun out the door. "That isn't something I do."
The walk to the cargo area was anything but calm. Stepping through the bay doors, the alien crossed her arms, staring at the man not yards away. He was such a dangerous enigma.
"Don't drop that."
Tyr shifted the bulk of his cargo to a better position, glancing over his shoulder. "I won't."
Boots tapping a muffled but steady trail to his side, Trance stared around. Most of the delegates were safely...if grumpily...home, and they were down to loading what luggage and such had been left behind in the haste of battle. And seeing Tyr shed his pride to carry it all was just outright unnerving.
"I find that the labor relieves stress." He said tersely, as if reading her mind, and briefly, very briefly, she wondered. She wondered.
"I always preferred a good wrestling match."
His glare was sharp, stripped of all amusement. "You seem versed in higher arts of warfare now."
"I had the best kind of teachers…my enemies. Don't presume to think you can hide it all from me, Tyr. You may be Nietzschean, but I am more than any of you could guess and I have suffered injuries you will never, in any reality, come close to."
"You would seem to make a formidable foe." He granted, disinterest rife in his tones.
"And I make an even more formidable friend." Stepping forward, she touched his shoulder, and the crate crashed to the floor.
"Remove your hand." He gritted out, straightening and locking his eyes with hers.
Do I frighten you, Tyr? Or is it my own fear I see reflecting back upon me? Lifting a hand, Trance brushed her own questions away and cupped his jaw. Rough, hard. He was so very angry at the universe. "Don't you want a friend, Tyr, someone willing to risk all and watch your back? Cover your deceptions? Further your causes?"
Tones lowering to escape sensors, he grasped her arms, shaking for measure. "You have no idea what my causes are, little girl..."
"You address the wrong Trance." Chin thrusting up, she glared in turn. "And I have every idea, if not the proof. I also know that only I can save...let me work with you, Tyr. I'm far from inferior."
"What do you have to offer?"
"For now only a little advice…simply tell Dylan what it is you did. I'll ask him to keep it from Harper and Rommie, you don't want them interfering, and they'd be very mad."
"He would never agree with your well-intent." Dismissively, he turned back away, lifting another crate into the open shuttle.
"Nor would he easily forget my actions. Dylan would only prove a complete hindrance to my...causes, as you so gently put it."
"Dylan can only be what I allow him to be." Crossing leather clad arms, she stared at him. "You hate them, is that it? You hate yourself as well. The Kalderans used you, made you an offer you could not refuse, and all to get what they wanted. Like any of your kind, you took the offer, but you aren't completely like your kind any longer. The part of you that Beka made so human hates them and hates yourself even more. You want revenge, and you want your Nietzschean worth back. How long will it take to unify your prides and destroy the Kalderans, Tyr?"
"Is your loyalty that easy to earn? Do you realize…even begin to truly realize…what it is I did?"
"I realize what it is you think you did. I also think that Beka Valentine's determination to survive is greater than you could begin to understand. Don't beat yourself over a kludge that likely isn't even dead, Tyr. Just look to the future, your future, Tamerlane's future...and tell me how much time you need."
*
"You wanted to talk to me?" Dylan swept into the observation lounge, taking in the two figures silhouetted against the view port. "Tyr, Trance?"
"Tyr shared something with me." Gemini faced him, brows drawn together, lips firmed. "And he wants to share it with you now as well."
"Captain Hunt." Anasazi over rode her and greeted him grandly, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back. "I understand that you've been expecting something of a tactical advisement from Gemini. I intend to save you the trouble. Rebekah Valentine was facing immediate execution last I laid eyes on her."
"You told us..."
"I lied to you. I killed her. Or, at least, I marked the line for her death. There was an offer made key to my survival. I accepted it. Captain Valentine was the barter, and the victim."
"That's only if they killed her. We don't know for sure..." Rommie pointed out curtly, moving to stand directly before him, glaring upward.
"She is gone. It is that simple."
"Tyr, it's never that simple." The ship's avatar frowned at him. "You can't wish things away."
"If that is your belief, by all means...." He crossed his arms, staring back. "…then go search for her, Ascendent."
"Oh, no." Hunt stepped in at last, tones laced with soft fury. "I'm not that gullible yet, Mr. Anasazi. Trance and I will pursue your latest misstep. Rommie will keep the ship in order, and you as well."
"You are an insufferable little man." The curse was light, steely.
"Yes." Hunt agreed. "But insufferably intent upon survival and the upkeep of this fine Commonwealth I've built. Your plan is probably pretty clear to any semi-intelligent soul, Tyr. Appease the Kalderans, get them on your side, ravage the prides, and reunify them under your gracious hand. It's also over with. Consider yourself lucky to have a home to lick your wounds aboard."
Tones low, amused, the Nietzschean watched ship and captain, words mocking as he strode away. "You do have no idea."
"Well, Trance." Hunt ignored the diatribe and slapped his life support officer over the shoulder with equal measures of anger and amusement. "Unless you've become better at finding things on the first guess, it looks like you may have quite a while alone with your captain to explain this latest excursion."
*
"He was a fool."
Stepping into the darkened observation lounge, Rommie crossed her arms, allowing the rich, angry male tones to lead her way. Tyr Anasazi rested against a bulkhead, eyes fixated on the table before him, fingers taunt around the weapon he held at waist level.
"He knew that." Pausing, she rested both hands on the shrouded figure that lay across the table. "Did you think moving this would escape my notice, Tyr?"
"Of course not, ship." He released the gun. "Only a fool would. No, I…expected you. In fact, I wanted you here." Waving his hand, he shook his head towards the bounty. "I do not need the remains of the Progenitor any longer. Its time they are returned to dust, as all things eventually are."
Watching him ready the weapon, she masked her tones to neutrality. "I decoded the last of the transmission. Dylan and Trance ran into some sort of mist. It…we'll never find them. It shifts through real space and the slipstream, they could be anywhere; they could simply not exist any longer. I…Andromeda…can't go into that sort of phenomena. We won't. And we're calling the search for Beka off as well."
"The boy cannot be pleased."
Briefly, sharply, the façade cracked. "Of course he isn't. Harper is devastated, and angry. I think he may leave."
"Hmm." The weapon discharged, light enlivening the room and vaporizing the mummy. When all cleared, Anasazi was glancing with good-humor at her over the ashes. "It would appear that you and I hold the cards now, Ascendent."
*
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We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams, wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams, world-losers and world forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams, yet we are movers and shakers, of the world forever it seems. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy)
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Sterility, Tyr Anasazi despised it, in every form.
Flexing a bloodied hand and shifting his head slightly, the Nietzschean took in his surroundings once more, a low grunt his only acknowledgment of the pain he felt. With effort, he pushed the optical distortion away, gaze centering on the sole other occupant of the room, sprawled against the opposite wall.
Rebekah.
She lived, eyes shut against pain, shoulders balled, flesh bruised and bloody, but she lived. He was not wholly certain how, but then, nor was he wholly certain how even he had survived. Harper's obstreperous creation had been dropped, successfully taking out the alien armada and their wormhole as well. Before the end, however, all fury had raged through the Maru, fire and space and all manner of evil in between.
In the end, the Maru had been left behind, no doubt battered and split open to the ravages of space, and he and her captain...
Perhaps someday he would stop expecting the universe to make sense.
Turning his head back, he met the gaze of savior and captor, the ugly little alien standing only inches away. "You will kill her mercifully."
"Of course, if you wish." The Kalderan agreed, stance reflecting anticipation, voice filter lending a shrill crescendo to the word.
"I will do as you like, then." Thoughtfully, the Nietzschean bent to meet his companion's eyes, uninjured hand reaching out to grip a shoulder and squeeze, painfully. "Now release me."
"Tyr, I don't know what it is you think you're doing..." Valentine's voice was raspy, cracked, as she pushed up into a sitting position, head swinging, sole good eye glaring at him. The gaping absence of the other behind the layers of stitched fat and makeshift bandage repulsed him.
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again." Anasazi schooled his tones to emptiness, focusing on a position above her head, adrift from her gaze.
"Tyr, don't you leave me, damn you!" Beka's voice rose as he stepped towards the barred door, and she scrambled halfway off the deck before biting back a moan, a hand cupping the blood pouring wound in her side. The other arm hung limp and useless against her side. He suspected that saving it was hopeless. In their few conversations, she had refused to look at it, much less entertain the idea of amputation.
"The woman, she is...captain of the vessel you were on, and second-in-command of the High Guard ship. She must be of great worth to you." The alien interrupted his thoughts, no doubt set on making an even better sale, perhaps, the freedom of a battered female kludge for what?
Turning, Anasazi met the gaze still leveled at him. Valentine's breathing was labored, sketched with pain and near delirium. She still bled, and was weak, such a pitiable hindrance. He turned away. "No. Not now."
The door clanged shut behind them. Beka Valentine lunged upward from the wall and slammed against the shut door, screaming.
Tyr Anasazi did not look back.
*
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again."
...please...
"Again, Rommie. Trance, adjust the field magnification to..." Hunt's voice faded in and out, riding tidal waves of pain in her mind.
Flinging her palms away from the operations console, the avatar shunted the unpleasant dialogue recording back into her hidden memory core, focusing her attentions and her glare on the louder, presently speaking voice. "Dylan, this is pointless. We've searched fruitlessly for hours. They weren't on the Maru, they aren't out there." Jabbing a thumb at the view screen, she frowned more heavily as her ships persona claimed attention.
Andromeda appeared on the screen, brows burrowing. "My avatar is correct, Captain. This is fruitless."
He cast them both frigid looks. "We'll give it another hour."
"Another hour and our resources will be exhausted. Repairs are needed. Putting them off could permanently damage ship systems and, in the event of another battle, cripple us." Rommie crossed her arms, stepping back from the console. "Which, I need not point out, we cannot afford. Dylan, we've been here for days. There is nothing. Do you think Tyr and Beka would want to be responsible for the second fall of the Commonwealth?"
Her captain managed a wry grimace. "Damn right he would. And Beka...I owe her too much. We are not abandoning hope. Now, scan again."
*
"Hey." Ducking her head to slip into the engineering conduit, Trance Gemini stared at the figure hunched against a bulkhead.
"Hey." Seamus Harper turned his head, lips lifting in what was for him a pitiful attempt at a smile.
The golden alien reached forward to touch his cheek, smiling briefly. "They're alive, Harper. We will get them back."
"You see that possibility?"
"I see a lot of possibilities. The only thing that matters is that we can create our own."
"So we didn't get them back in any of those other possibilities."
"I didn't say that this happened in any of those other futures." Sitting, she rested her head against the bulkhead, eyes darkening thoughtfully.
"But it did, didn't it?" Quietly, quickly, he broke through her veiled defense. "And things are just as likely to go wr
ong this time as they did the rest. It's always substituting one bad thing for a worse one. I don't know, Trance. I think I might have been better off dead, if my survival is gonna mean this bull...I mean, Beka's like a sister to me, or a mother. Tyr..."
"I know, Harper." Snuggling close briefly, a gesture she hadn't pulled in years and realized sharply that she'd really missed, Trance sighed. "I'll make it better. Trust me."
"Sure, Mama Honey Bear." His laughter tickled her neck. She smiled. Peace. It was so much more fragile than any of her friends had even begun to think.
The intercom trilled, and they moved apart as Dylan's voice cut through, sharply reigned anticipation mingled with something more restrained, darker. "This is the Captain, everyone to the hanger. Mr. Anasazi has returned."
In complete agreement, they pushed off through the open hatch and ran.
*
Thud. Hiss. Shout. More shouting and more thudding, no doubt of boots.
Tyr Anasazi shoved the noise away with profound annoyance, disentangling himself from the piloting restraints of the small alien craft that had proven a worthy ride home. If only it, and he, were temporarily invisible as well. Reaching out, he touched the button that would release the airlock, and watched it slowly grind up, standing and nursing his injured arm.
Four sets of eyes stared directly at him; four sets of questions poised on lips, etched into tired, dejected eyes, even the avatar's, oddly enough.
Anasazi pushed past them all, ignoring the little alien's brisk but nervously chattering attempts to survey his wound, ignoring Dylan Hunt's probing command gaze, ignoring the avatar's crossed arms, Harper's pleading eyes. He ground regret down to nothing, turning away from them all, gaze as dispassionate as he could make it.
"Beka is dead." Harper broke the silence, voice cracking.
The Nietzschean met the gazes head on, shoulders lifting. "Alive last I saw her. I do not expect that she remains so."
Silence trailed his aching departure.
"Trance." Hunt finally spoke, swinging his force lance up into a palm. "You're with me."
"What do you think?"
Only moments afterward Dylan Hunt stood from his desk, staring across the room at his life support officer.
"What do I think?" Trance Gemini wheeled, meeting his gaze with abject but entirely unconvincing bewilderment.
"Throw off the schoolgirl act." Her captain suggested.
She sighed. "Can't we just leave the possible futures alone?"
"I wish we could, Trance." Moving around the desk to grasp her shoulder, he stared grimly downward. "But if you think you know anything..."
"I don't…what I do know is that nothing we do now, at this moment, will change anything. We need distance from this place, Dylan, I need distance, and then maybe I can sort through it better. Right now I just don't know what to tell you. Please, just get us away from here."
A deep, faintly frustrated breath was her only response for a long moment, before he moved away, shaking his head. "Trance, I…fine. We do have delegates to check up on and diplomatic duties with Bolivar. Then we come back. I'm not giving up on her, and I suggest you don't either."
"Believe me, Dylan." Her tones lowered to soft pique as she spun out the door. "That isn't something I do."
The walk to the cargo area was anything but calm. Stepping through the bay doors, the alien crossed her arms, staring at the man not yards away. He was such a dangerous enigma.
"Don't drop that."
Tyr shifted the bulk of his cargo to a better position, glancing over his shoulder. "I won't."
Boots tapping a muffled but steady trail to his side, Trance stared around. Most of the delegates were safely...if grumpily...home, and they were down to loading what luggage and such had been left behind in the haste of battle. And seeing Tyr shed his pride to carry it all was just outright unnerving.
"I find that the labor relieves stress." He said tersely, as if reading her mind, and briefly, very briefly, she wondered. She wondered.
"I always preferred a good wrestling match."
His glare was sharp, stripped of all amusement. "You seem versed in higher arts of warfare now."
"I had the best kind of teachers…my enemies. Don't presume to think you can hide it all from me, Tyr. You may be Nietzschean, but I am more than any of you could guess and I have suffered injuries you will never, in any reality, come close to."
"You would seem to make a formidable foe." He granted, disinterest rife in his tones.
"And I make an even more formidable friend." Stepping forward, she touched his shoulder, and the crate crashed to the floor.
"Remove your hand." He gritted out, straightening and locking his eyes with hers.
Do I frighten you, Tyr? Or is it my own fear I see reflecting back upon me? Lifting a hand, Trance brushed her own questions away and cupped his jaw. Rough, hard. He was so very angry at the universe. "Don't you want a friend, Tyr, someone willing to risk all and watch your back? Cover your deceptions? Further your causes?"
Tones lowering to escape sensors, he grasped her arms, shaking for measure. "You have no idea what my causes are, little girl..."
"You address the wrong Trance." Chin thrusting up, she glared in turn. "And I have every idea, if not the proof. I also know that only I can save...let me work with you, Tyr. I'm far from inferior."
"What do you have to offer?"
"For now only a little advice…simply tell Dylan what it is you did. I'll ask him to keep it from Harper and Rommie, you don't want them interfering, and they'd be very mad."
"He would never agree with your well-intent." Dismissively, he turned back away, lifting another crate into the open shuttle.
"Nor would he easily forget my actions. Dylan would only prove a complete hindrance to my...causes, as you so gently put it."
"Dylan can only be what I allow him to be." Crossing leather clad arms, she stared at him. "You hate them, is that it? You hate yourself as well. The Kalderans used you, made you an offer you could not refuse, and all to get what they wanted. Like any of your kind, you took the offer, but you aren't completely like your kind any longer. The part of you that Beka made so human hates them and hates yourself even more. You want revenge, and you want your Nietzschean worth back. How long will it take to unify your prides and destroy the Kalderans, Tyr?"
"Is your loyalty that easy to earn? Do you realize…even begin to truly realize…what it is I did?"
"I realize what it is you think you did. I also think that Beka Valentine's determination to survive is greater than you could begin to understand. Don't beat yourself over a kludge that likely isn't even dead, Tyr. Just look to the future, your future, Tamerlane's future...and tell me how much time you need."
*
"You wanted to talk to me?" Dylan swept into the observation lounge, taking in the two figures silhouetted against the view port. "Tyr, Trance?"
"Tyr shared something with me." Gemini faced him, brows drawn together, lips firmed. "And he wants to share it with you now as well."
"Captain Hunt." Anasazi over rode her and greeted him grandly, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back. "I understand that you've been expecting something of a tactical advisement from Gemini. I intend to save you the trouble. Rebekah Valentine was facing immediate execution last I laid eyes on her."
"You told us..."
"I lied to you. I killed her. Or, at least, I marked the line for her death. There was an offer made key to my survival. I accepted it. Captain Valentine was the barter, and the victim."
"That's only if they killed her. We don't know for sure..." Rommie pointed out curtly, moving to stand directly before him, glaring upward.
"She is gone. It is that simple."
"Tyr, it's never that simple." The ship's avatar frowned at him. "You can't wish things away."
"If that is your belief, by all means...." He crossed his arms, staring back. "…then go search for her, Ascendent."
"Oh, no." Hunt stepped in at last, tones laced with soft fury. "I'm not that gullible yet, Mr. Anasazi. Trance and I will pursue your latest misstep. Rommie will keep the ship in order, and you as well."
"You are an insufferable little man." The curse was light, steely.
"Yes." Hunt agreed. "But insufferably intent upon survival and the upkeep of this fine Commonwealth I've built. Your plan is probably pretty clear to any semi-intelligent soul, Tyr. Appease the Kalderans, get them on your side, ravage the prides, and reunify them under your gracious hand. It's also over with. Consider yourself lucky to have a home to lick your wounds aboard."
Tones low, amused, the Nietzschean watched ship and captain, words mocking as he strode away. "You do have no idea."
"Well, Trance." Hunt ignored the diatribe and slapped his life support officer over the shoulder with equal measures of anger and amusement. "Unless you've become better at finding things on the first guess, it looks like you may have quite a while alone with your captain to explain this latest excursion."
*
"He was a fool."
Stepping into the darkened observation lounge, Rommie crossed her arms, allowing the rich, angry male tones to lead her way. Tyr Anasazi rested against a bulkhead, eyes fixated on the table before him, fingers taunt around the weapon he held at waist level.
"He knew that." Pausing, she rested both hands on the shrouded figure that lay across the table. "Did you think moving this would escape my notice, Tyr?"
"Of course not, ship." He released the gun. "Only a fool would. No, I…expected you. In fact, I wanted you here." Waving his hand, he shook his head towards the bounty. "I do not need the remains of the Progenitor any longer. Its time they are returned to dust, as all things eventually are."
Watching him ready the weapon, she masked her tones to neutrality. "I decoded the last of the transmission. Dylan and Trance ran into some sort of mist. It…we'll never find them. It shifts through real space and the slipstream, they could be anywhere; they could simply not exist any longer. I…Andromeda…can't go into that sort of phenomena. We won't. And we're calling the search for Beka off as well."
"The boy cannot be pleased."
Briefly, sharply, the façade cracked. "Of course he isn't. Harper is devastated, and angry. I think he may leave."
"Hmm." The weapon discharged, light enlivening the room and vaporizing the mummy. When all cleared, Anasazi was glancing with good-humor at her over the ashes. "It would appear that you and I hold the cards now, Ascendent."
*