TITLE: Chapter Five - Time Will Tell

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Andromeda series, I'm just borrowing.

NOTES: Cheers for the reviews they make me smile :)



CHAPTER FIVE - Time Will Tell



"90% of the time, the most likely answer is the right one. The other 10%? Good luck."

- Captain Tersjii Dinjin of the Credus Imperial Fleet

CY 8776

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"Behind you!" Tyr shouted as he went for his weapon. Dylan ducked out the way and did the same.

Rommie's force lance was aimed perfectly at Tyr's heart. Suddenly the ship shuddered and Rommie was caught off guard. Tyr, never missing an opportunity, immediately attacked. Dylan didn't know what frighted him more, Rommie's sudden appearance or Tyr's deafening battle cry. He did know that whoever transited into Slipstream did them a favour. Tyr wasn't putting up a bad fight, but Dylan decided he should probably help out anyway.

Rommie fired off a few shots but missed thanks to a sharp kick to her arm which loosened her grip on the weapon. Rommie turned her attention to Dylan after throwing Tyr across the room. Dylan ducked several swings from the avatar but a right hook connected with his jaw and sent him flying. Rommie picked up the force lance again and aimed it at him. She fired - and missed. For some reason the weapon backfired. Rommie was hit in the chest, she fell to her knees and deactivated.

Confused, Dylan got to his feet. "What the hell happened?"

"While you were keeping her entertained I set the force lance to backfire." Tyr told him, also getting to his feet.

"How did you know I wasn't going to use it myself?" Dylan asked.

Tyr shrugged. "Didn't." He replied.

"You could have got me killed!"

"She's disabled isn't she?"

Dylan sighed. "You know what, forget it. Let's just get her to machine shop."

^~*~^

Beka took the Andromeda out of Slipstream just as Trance entered. "Harper is secure. Why did you enter Slipstream?" She asked.

"Andromeda was going to destroy the escape pods." Beka told her.

"What?" Trance said, shocked.

"Tell me about it. If Rommie could attack her own crew, she could attack anyone."

Trance stood at the weapons console and tried to deactivate them. She failed. Andromeda had already restricted access to them. The communications, however, were still online. "There's an incoming communication. It's from a Commonwealth ship."

"Put it on screen." Beka ordered.

A blonde woman appeared on the monitor. "This is Captain Elissa Dumont of the Ethereal Light. You are ordered to stand down and prepare to be - "

"Andromeda's firing on them!" Trance suddenly exclaimed.

The Ethereal managed to evade the weapons fire, and returned some of it's own, taking out Andromeda's main weapons ports. This was most definitely for the best.

"Dylan?" Beka called over the com.

"I'm here, what's going on?" He returned.

"There's someone here you should talk to." Beka said, and nodded to Trance, who patched the line through to Dylan.

In machine shop Tyr had just lay Rommie on a table when the room shook from the attack. A few seconds later Captain Dumont appeared on the screen.

"Captain Hunt you have destroyed two colonies and launched an unprovoked attack on Commonwealth vessels. Stand down immediately." She ordered sternly.

"Captain, the Andromeda has been compromised by unknown forces. We are no longer in control of the ship. You must fall back to a safe distance."

"Acknowledged." Dumont said. On the screen another crewman leaned in and whispered something to her. "Captain, you have forty-eight hours to fix your ship, or we will have no choice but to destroy her, whether you are onboard or not. If the Andromeda attacks anyone else, I'm afraid that time will have to be cut short."

Although Dylan didn't like having a time limit, he understood why it was for the best. Andromeda was capable of killing more innocent people, and that must not be allowed to happen. "Acknowledged." He conceded.

The Ethereal and the two ships accompanying her fell back until they were out of weapons range.

"Dylan, the Ethereal took out Andromeda's main weapons but she still has secondary weapons." Beka said over the comm.

"Understood." Dylan replied. "Get down to machine shop 4, we've disabled Rommie. Trance, stay in Command, inform us of Andromeda's movements."

"I will." Trance replied. Soon she was left in Command, with only a web of possibilities to search keeping her company.

^~*~^

Beka slid down the ladder so quickly none of the internal defences had time to register her presence. She stopped at deck 6 and was pleased to discover Dylan and Tyr had taken out all the guns.

"Beka. We're just about to scan Rommie's systems." Dylan said when she entered the machine shop.

"Don't let me stop you." She responded.

Dylan hit the switch and the scanning light went over Rommie's body. Moments later images appeared on the monitors. It was plainly obvious, even to the untrained eye, that something was wrong.

"That damn program has taken over almost every part of her systems." Beka said, astonished.

"What exactly is it's purpose?" Tyr asked.

"From what we've seen so far, I'd say, kill everyone in sight and bring to the Commonwealth crashing down?" Dylan tried.

"I'll go with that." Tyr agreed.

"There's a sub-file. There." Beka noticed, and opened it up. All it read was the date the program was installed. That should at least tell them who the suspects were.

"Wait a minute....that's the date Rommie was first built." Beka said, getting more and more confused by the second.

"No-one had contact with Harper when he was building Rommie. No-one even knew what he was doing."

"Harper wouldn't have done this. Maybe it was an accident...."

"Maybe the date is false, to throw us off."

The possibilities were mind-boggling. As each of the three people tried to work things out in their own heads, their concentration of the world around them fell.

On the table, Rommie's systems began to reactivate. She silently awoke and opened her eyes.

^~*~^

End of chapter five

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