Well here we go, last chapter. I'll squeeze as much as I can out of my head.

Funny thing happened to me when I was in work today. A bird flew into the restaurant I work in, flew around a bit and pooped on me. Not very funny at the time. But it is now. Really, I'm laughing (through the tears...) oh well.

Enjoy! Oh, and I don't own Andromeda.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"Check where Gwin is at the moment, Harper." Trance looked over her shoulder, checking no-one was following them as they sneaked along the corridors.

Harper checked his sniffer. He frowned, "Well I can't find her specifically, but I am getting some strange readings from Command."

"That'll be her." Damn it, thought Trance. She had been hoping she could corner Gwin in an empty room somewhere. It looked like she'd have to do something she had only ever done once before in her life. Successfully that is.

They climbed up one more ladder, till they were standing only a few metres from command.

Trance turned to Harper, "Right, I need you to go and act like nothing has happened."

"Is that all?" Harper asked, slightly mystified.

"Yes." Trance replied.

"Well, okay then. You do what you have to do." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek then turned round and walked into Command.

Trance touched her cheek tenderly, then realised she didn't have time to waste.

She closed her eyes, concentrated, then put her arms out in front of her. Slowly she raised her palms so that they faced forward. Her head started to hurt, she was concentrating so much, but she moved pat the pain, concentrated even harder.

"Stop." She whispered.

She found the courage to open her eyes. Desperately hoping it had worked, she walked through the open door of Command.

"Yay me!"

Trance had successfully stopped time. None of her crewmates moved a muscle. Harper was frozen mid chat with Rommie. Beka and Dylan were frozen looking at a Flexi and Tyr was frozen, leaning on a wall. As usual.

"You didn't seriously think that would work on me did you?" Gwin said from behind her.

Trance turned round slowly to face her. "I knew it wouldn't work you. You're like me."

Gwin put her hands on her hips and glared at Trance, "Why did you have to go ruin everything?" she sneered.

"Because you stole my friends!"

"NO! They're MY friends now!" Gwin screamed, "I HATE YOU!". She pulled a gun from her pocket and pointed it with a shaking hand at Trance.

Fear coursed through Trance's vains, but she was determined not to let it show on her face.

"You don't want to do that!"

Gwin burst into laughter, "Why don't I?"

"Because you can be better than this. You'll make your own friends in time, but give back mine. They aren't toys for you to play with."

"I don't want anybody else. I want your friends!" And without warning she leaped through the air towards Trance.

But Trance was quicker. Before Gwin reached her, Trance whipped her tail round and wrapped it round Gwin's neck.

Both of them fell to the floor, but Trance squeezed tighter.

Gwin clawed desperately at Trance's tail, but she squeezed and squeezed every last breath out of her.

Gwin stopped clawing and her hands fell limply to the floor. Trance unwrapped her tail and sat back on her legs. She felt awful, but her job wasn't finished yet. Gwin would only be dead for a couple of hours. She had to get rid her and get the Andromeda a far away as possible.

She never wanted to run into Gwin ever again.

She lifted Gwin up underneath her armpits and dragged her out of Command. Finding the nearest escape pod, she chucked Gwin in and launched it on a trajectory towards her home planet.

She pushed one last button and watched the pod float into space.

When she reached Command, her crew-mates were looking befuddeled. And groggy.

Beka saw her come in and walked slowly over to her. She paused for a second.

"Did something happen Trance? I can't remember the last few hours, and I don't like that."

"Oh, not much happened, you were all just being controlled by Gwin for a while. But I sorted it out. Nothing to worry about." She chirped, walking over to where Harper was working behind a panel.

"Just one more connection..." he muttered.

"Trance!" exclaimed Andromeda.

"... and there it is!" he finished, tilting his head up to see Trance and giving a lop-sided smile. She smiled back down at him.

"Thanks!"

"It wasn't that hard to do. All the files were still there. She just bypassed them. Amature!" he joked.

"Not just that. Thanks for finally believing me." She ruffled his hair and he shook her off in annoyance.

Dylan stared at her from the other side of the room, confused, "So what happened to Gwin?"

Ugh thought Trance. "I'll tell you later. But how about we get as far away from here as possible?"