Chapter 2
The unnerving silence in command was finally broken with a groan originating from the large Nietzschean. He quietly pushed himself up with much effort and then surveyed his surroundings.
The bridge was still an eerie shade of purple from the now normal nebula. What few internal light that were on, were flashing in such a way to raise one's blood pressure by simply being in their presence. Luckily, besides for the lack of power, there was no other damage. Looking around for his comrades he found them all slowly stirring back to life. All save the annoying engineer and the android. The first was missing, the second was just a mass of collapsed metal still smoldering on the ground, unmoving.
The captain was the second to rise. Like the others, his ears had stopped bleeding but the dried blood lingered on his head and neck; a sign that not all was right. Dylan bent down to help up his second in command, who stood up with a groan.
The strange gold alien had already picked her colorful body off the cold grated floor from the back command. She was now making her way up front with Tyr to join her other crewmates.
The crew of the Andromeda Ascendant were unusually quiet. They all were just staring at the nebula. All had a longing look in their eyes. The same look you see in wary travelers once they finally spot their long sought after destination. The usually quite Try was the first one to break the almost religious silence.
"So that is what our home looks like. Wow, it's beautiful." More emotion filled his voice than had ever been heard before in public.
But the others were not surprised at his out of character behavior. Instead, Beka walked up next to the Nietzschean and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Yes it is quite a sight, but we have more important things to do than stare at our home." Beka then moved in front of the group, commanding their attention. "If you haven't guessed already, I'm Velac. Get used to me in this body from now on," she spoke with the grace of a leader. "I need to know where everyone ended up. All report."
The alien controlling Dylan's body made him step forward. "Fex here." His usually calm and collected voice was filled with anger and defiance. "The vessel I'm in is under my complete control now."
Next to step forward was Trance's body, but her body seemed to hesitate. Her legs shook and fought as her alien invader forced it forward. "Nixic here," came out Trances voice, quite and subdued. "I'm having a bit of trouble controlling this one. She has a quite strong and unusual mind. What we learned from the simulations don't seem to be working on her." The last part was said almost with a quiet panic.
Beka's commanding voice replied, "Well then try whatever you can. I can't have one of you failing. You know what will have to be done if you can't get control."
Trance's eyes filled with horror from both minds trapped within the body. They both shared each other memories and knowledge. They both knew what Beka/Velac was referring too. If any of the bodies could not be controlled, than that body, with it's new alien owner, must die. The other's would not take any risk of the mission failing. It was too important to them to let one weak link ruin it for all the rest. "Don't worry Velac. That won't be a problem." she quietly replied. Trance's mind had let Nixic take over to save both of their lives. Trance felt some goodness in Nixic and did not want either to be harmed.
Tyr was the last one to step forward. "Stolic reporting." His voice was full of false bravado. "This one's mind was strong, but I've got control now. No one is a match for the great and powerful Stolic of the Tolken Nebula!" he shouted out the last part as he raised one of his newly acquired powerful arms in the air.
Dylan/Fex rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath, "Tell me again how we got stuck with this child?"
"I"m not a child!! I'm almost an adult!" rebutted the childlike Tyr.
Beka again stepped up to take control of the situation. "Fex, we all know why the Ruler's nephew is here. It is because that is how he wanted it. We have no say in the matter, so DEAL WITH IT!!! And Fex, if you cause us any problems, don't think just because you are royalty the same rules don't apply to you. If you, by any means, endanger the mission, I will slit that nice new throat of your with my own nice new fingernails! Understand?"
"Yes sir" Fex answered as he forced Tyr's head down.
Beka/Velac grunted with approval and started to look around the dimly lit command. Her eyes stopped when they caught the still form of Rommie on the floor. Velac ordered Beka's body to cross to the back of command and to knell down next to the still form of the android. Beka/Velac then ran her hand across the surface of the motionless being. It was smooth, cold, and hard. Velac could sense no life force radiating from it.
"Well?" asked Tyr/Stolic impatiently.
"It seems to be an artificial life form of some sort. It looks like the power from our transfer overloaded all of it's circuits. It's out for good." Beka/Velac replied with a cold matter of fact tone. There was no hint of Beka Valentine in that tone, only the actually sound of the voice was hers.
Dylan's body was forced to move up next to Beka's. "If that's not the fifth life form we detected than where the hell is it and where is Melak?" spoke an agitated Dylan/Fex.
Beka's head dropped with a sigh as her eyes rolled upward. "I"m surrounded by idiots," she mumbled. "Fex, moron, use the host's memory, that's what it's there for!" she emphasized her point by smacking the back of Dylan's head.
"Ouch!" reacted both Dylan and Fex.
Beka/Velac started pacing in front of the others while she searched Beka's memories to find what she needed to know. "The fifth life form was that of the engineer, Seamus Harper. He was last on level 12, in conduit 23," she paused as she formulated a plan. "Let's get the power back on-line, then deal with Harper and the AI."
The others silently nodded in agreement. Velac then commanded Beka's body over to one of the computer consoles. Velac placed the first officer's hand on to the cool smooth surface of the console. Energy rushed through her body and flowed out of her hand and into the computer. A nano-second later, the lights in command flashed back on. Computer stations roared to life and the engines could be heard to be powering back up. Life flowed once again through Andromeda.
"Now we are enlightened," joked Tyr/Stolic through blinded eyes.
"Idiot" mumbled Beka/Velac and Dylan/Fex in unison.
"Can we please get back to work now?" Dylan/Fex sarcastically asked as he gave Tyr's body an evil glance.
Tyr looked down and gave a small nod.
Trance/Nixic quietly broke in with some information, "Communications are back up, and the ship's AI is partially back up. Luckily, it's control of the internal defenses and many other internal systems are off line." Trances' fingers punched some more commands into the console she was standing at. "And it's not responding to my orders. It might know that something is wrong and is not taking our commands, or it's sensors are off line and it can't register my orders. Either way, we need to hurry to get it off line."
Beka/Velac took command and started to bark out orders, "First, let's see if we can find out what's happened to the fifth one. Fex, do your thing,"
Dylan's eyes went off of Beka's curvy frame and focused on thin air in front of him. Fex was trying to conjure up Dylan's personality to use over the comms. "Harper report," he finally said.
"......."
"Mr. Harper, come in."
"......." Still nothing.
"Are you sure the comms are working?" Dylan/Fex asked to no one in particular.
Trance/Nixic looked at the display to double check the information, "Yes, it's working."
Dylan/Fex stood up straighter and held his head up high. "Mr. Harper, you better answer now or I will come down and throw your skinny ass in the brig!!!"
"........"
"What the hell was that!!!" screamed the leader of the aliens in Beka's body. "That IS NOT how Dylan Hunt talks! Idiots!" Beka's legs started to amble around command. Her body was tense and filled with frustration. "Damn, something must have gone wrong. Melak should be in control of Harper's body by now." Beka stopped walking and faced the others. "Nixic, come with me. We must locate the engineer and find out what happened. Fex and Stolic you get the AI off line before she gains controls of more systems. Oh and don't kill each other." she added with a sigh. She then headed off with Trance towards Harper's last and current location.
Meanwhile, the dim, small conduit they were heading for was still quiet and motionless. The blonde engineer laid on the hard metal grid. The normally clean metallic disk on his neck was now coated with blood. The skin around the port was already starting to blister and swell. Fortunately, Harper felt nothing and saw only blackness.
"Harper."
A sound had broken through into his dark, peaceful world.
"Harper, come on, wake up."
The voice was getting louder and pulling him away from his nice quiet void.
"Come on Harper. If you wake up now I'll let you interface with me."
That offer finally force the horny little mudfoot out of the dark and back to the painful blinding light. "What, uh?" he managed to get out as he shot up from his previous prone position. Which, as an afterthought, was a very bad idea. His raw port felt like it was on fire, covered in acid, with millions of nano-sized magog feeding on it. His head felt like each synapse were being sucked down a black hole while being shot at by Drago Kazov
ships. He now very much missed the darkness.
"Harper....focus. It's me, Andromeda." instructed the painfully loud voice from nowhere.
"Ooohhh, man.....what happened?" he asked as he mistakenly reached for his data port. The second he touched it, he regretted ever having lived. Pain, ten times of that of before, shot through his neck, up to his brain, and out through his eyes. He groaned and curled up into a ball with his back against the conduit's cool wall.
The familiar voice continued. "Harper, are you with me?" Even with being a machine, Andromeda still felt concern for her favorite engineer. His port looked awful and his complexion was paler than normal, but they had bigger problems to deal with.
"Yah," he groaned out warily.
"We have a serious problem." she stated as sternly as possible. She needed him to focus. She didn't have much time and he was their only hope. We're all dead she thought to herself.
"I really don't like the sound of that. Spit it out Andromeda," Harper said as he adjusted himself into a more comfortable sitting position.
"There was a blast of energy .... or something from the nebula. It went through the whole ship, even my main frame. It caused a massive power serge through all of my systems. That is what kicked you out. But I'm more concerned with the effect it had on the rest of the crew," she paused to make sure Harper was still focusing and listening. "I was off line for a while, I'm not sure how long, but as soon as I came back on-line, I knew something was wrong with everyone else. They were all on command, all acting very unlike themselves. The first thing I heard was Tyr making a very bad joke, a pun even."
At that Harper's head shot up, his blood shot eyes filled with concern and worry. "Tyr?...made a.....joke?? Ok, now I'm worried and scared."
Andromeda continued to explain how bad the situation really was, "I kept quiet and just kept watching them, I'm not sure if they know I know something is wrong. My current theory is that somehow aliens from the nebula have taken over the other's bodies. They are even calling each other by different names."
"Great, invasion of the body snatchers, just what we needed ....... Andromeda? Are you sure about this? Are you sure some of your sanity systems are not malfunctioning?" asked Harper as he raised an eyebrow in question, which, he really shouldn't have done seeing that moving his eyebrows even hurt.
Andromeda didn't have time for this, "Yes Harper, I'm sure. Now please shut up and listen, we don't have much time."
Harper was taken aback by her forwardness, but shut his mouth and listened.
"The more urgent problem is that the aliens are trying to shut me down. It feels like they are just going for the AI core, not ship operations." Andromeda finished. She could feel parts of her being erased. Fear was racing through her circuits.
"Shit," spat out Harper. "Wait, what about Rommie? She shouldn't have been taken over like the others." Hope filled his face. He didn't want to face this alone.
"She's out cold. The energy wave fried all of her circuits. I'm not even sure if you could fix her," she answered with sorrow laced in her voice.
Harper' head dropped. Tears built up behind his eyes. This was just not going to be a good day. "Andromeda," he paused, "Do you have any more info?"
"Just that everyone's energy readings are higher than normal. The extra energy must be coming from the aliens in their bodies. Harper, you have to find a way to........."
Silence.
Harper straighten up through the pain. "Andromeda?" fear filled his voice.
".........."
"ANDROMEDA!!!" he screamed, hoping beyond hope for a response but only unnerving silence answered him back.
Harper's blood shot eyes were now as wide as they could possible get. What little color that was left in his face drained out.
"Andromeda?" he whispered right before he buried his painful head in his shaking hands.
TBC