[Cut to command deck.]
ANDY: Rose! Where are we?
ROSE: Sensors show we're on the far end of the Andromeda galaxy, at the limits of known space.
NINA (smiling): I followed the slip currents to my favorite hiding place from my smuggling days.
[Lights and monitors flicker on and off erratically.]
ROSE: Weapons and hull are intact, but navigation and comm are off line.
ANDY (turning to face Ephram): I thought I told you to fix the comm system! What have you got to say for yourself?
EPHRAM (raising voice and looking into Andy's eyes): You know, people say you're crazy, and news flash, you are! You take us to the middle of nowhere, you grow this ugly-ass beard, and every night you talk to holograms of your fiancee, who died two centuries ago on some hidden planet! Yeah, I've seen you, and so has Delia! So what have I got to say for myself? What have you have to say for yourself?
ANDY: You think my beard is ugly?
EPHRAM (shouting and pointing at Andy): I wish you'd died, instead of her!
ANDY (shouting at Ephram): Yeah, well so do I! What else you got?
EPHRAM: I HATE YOU!
ANDY: I HATE YOU RIGHT BACK, YOU LITTLE BASTARD! Now get back there and fix that comm system! [Watches Ephram stalk off command deck.]
AMY (facing Andy's back): Best captain in the Commonwealth … what a joke!
ANDY (turning to face Amy): Excuse me?
AMY: Our enemies just destroyed the fleet … and you ran away and let them!
ANDY: There was nothing we could do to save them … or save Bright, or the Koma-Kastoffs for that matter. I tried!
AMY: Well, you didn't try hard enough, did you? [Shouts:] Did you!
ROSE (scowling): Amy Nicole, you stop that this instant, or I'll put you in diagnostic mode! And don't think I can't keep you there for a long time!
AMY (storming off command deck, without looking back at Andy, no longer shouting): Where was your faith?
ANDY (turning to Rose, head down): I've failed. I tried to restore the Commonwealth, and I failed. I'm going to my quarters to sulk. How many channels do we get out here?
DELIA (looking at Rose and shaking head): It's sad.
ROSE (to Andy): Don't you dare! I'm detecting an opening slip portal.
ANDY: We've been followed here?
NINA: Incoming courier ship at extremely high speed. One life sign, engines dead.
ANDY: Open the docking bay and prepare to receive - [Ship shudders.]
NINA: Received.
ANDY (to Nina): Dispatch droids to docking bay. [To Delia:] Meet me on med deck.
***
[Cut to med deck. Delia stands above bed, looking down at patient in courier's uniform. Door opens. Andy walks in. Patient looks up, holding message disk in right hand.]
WENDELL: Fleet Courier Wendell at your service, Captain Brown! [Pauses and looks at ceiling, dazed.] It's for you.
ANDY (taking disk from Wendell): You risked a great deal to find us.
WENDELL (looking at Delia, smiling faintly as she takes his left hand in her right hand): You're warm.
DELIA: You're weird.
ANDY: Delia!
DELIA (ignoring Andy, placing left hand on his chest): Take my light.
[Glow floods Wendell, who smiles broadly, then slumps as monitor makes flatline sound.]
***
[Cut to conference room. Andy, Nina, Ephram, Amy, and Delia sit around table, with message disk at center.]
EPHRAM (quietly, to Andy): I … said some things I didn't mean.
ANDY: We all did. [Looks at Amy.] Although only one of us has an excuse.
AMY: It won't happen again. [Ephram rolls eyes. Amy looks sideways.] I saw that! [Delia stifles laugh.]
EPHRAM: I'm just tired of getting our asses kicked all over the universe.
NINA: We all are. But we're still with you. [All nod.]
AMY: The message appears to be from the last known Commonwealth chief of security. Who may or may not still be alive. Somewhere.
DELIA: Wendell came from wherever he was. And he was tortured. For stuff he didn't even do. [Pouts.] It's not fair.
[Andy reaches to disk and presses ID plate, displaying hologram in uniform vaguely similar to his, but grayer … with plaid sash across chest. Could it be? Oh come on, who else?]
HOLOGRAM: My name is Haroo, and I knew everything. I was in charge. I set the tinderbox and watched the bonfire. The Commonwealth is in irreparable, undeniable, irredeemable shambles. And you, Andrew Brown, are to blame. And. I have the triumvir. With me. Don't even think about coming to get her. [Shakes head.] Nutbag. [Stops.]
AMY: Based on the apparent course of the courier ship and the strange … sounds and sights in the background … he appears to be at the All Forces Nullification Point, where the gravimetric forces of the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum galaxies cancel each other out.
ANDY (puzzled): But nothing could exist there. I thought that point was only legend.
EPHRAM: Legend? Try nightmare! It's the hole of hell, the fjord of fruitlessness, the nadir of nothingness! No one comes back from there!
ANDY: We're dealing with someone who doesn't care if he loses as long as we lose too.
NINA: But if he has the surviving triumvir of the Commonwealth …
DELIA: We were taking my bonsai to a place where it can protect the future. If the future holds going to rescue the triumvir, then maybe that's where the bonsai is supposed to be. Besides, I can always whistle a happy tune! [Sees puzzled looks.] Like in my song in the play?
[Cut to commercial.]
***