Midknight-kat01: thank u! I soooo love Telemachus, but I am being soooo mean to him in this chap! update after the interval! PLEASE!!!!!

Oenone: whaz the Manchurian candidate?

Silver Spider: no way! that's awesome! no offense to anyone not lucky enough to live in PA, but are all good fanfic writers form PA? (not counting me. I think I suck!)

Iara: as usual, your wish is my command. :P

Rommies voice: thanx!

prin69: evil rhade! YAY!!!!

DancingQueen: I can't wait 2 see him in S5!!!! (can I add that every time I see your screenname the song 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA always gets stuck in my head?!?!?)

In celebaration of Season 5 premiring tomorrow, I proudly present-

Chapter 11

Three days later

The Andromeda jumped out of Slipstream. "The Hashae Nebula," Rommie announced.

"Beautiful," Harper said sarcastically. It was a roiling mass of hot gases and radiation.

"We have precisely three hours and twenty-two minutes before radiation reaches critical levels," Rommie said.

"All right, this will be an in/out operation," Dylan said. "Beka, Trance, Harper, take a Slipfighter, sneak in, and bust Rhade out."

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"Why aren't there any guards?" Beka asked as the trio walked down hall after empty hall.

"Once again, trust in the Harper, the Harper is good," he said smugly. "I initiated an emergency shutdown. Everyone is confined to quarters."

"For how long?" Trance asked.

"Long enough," Beka said. "Are we homing in on Rhade yet?"

"Dylan put trackers on everyone?" Trance asked.

"Harper nodded. "We should be able to... there we go." He pointed at a steel door set in brown stone, unremarkable from all the rest.

"You sure this is it?" Beka asked.

Harper nodded, keying open the door.

Telemachus stood with his back to the door. At the sound of the door hissing open he turned and leveled a forcelance at them.

"Hey, Rhade, it's us," Beka said. "C'mon, we gotta get outta here." She flinched, seeing red muscle showing through on his face, skin half eaten away.

"Intruders," Telemachus said coldly, flatly. Emotionlessly. "You must die."

"Rhade, we don't have time," Trance said, taking one step forward.

Telemachus leveled his force lance and shot her. The gold whatever-she-was flew back, a burning hole in the middle of her chest. Trance slumped against the wall, motionless.

"Rhade!" Beka shouted in shock as he leveled the weapon at her.

The force lance wavered. "Beka?" Suddenly the Nietzschean's eyes crossed, and Telemachus fell forward, revealing Harper standing behind him, having hit Rhade over the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

"How'd you get-"Beka started. "Never mind." She turned to Trance, slumped dead on the floor. "Wake-up, dammit!"

Trance flinched and opened her eyes, breathing heavily. She stood up and saw the crumpled Nietzschean on the floor. "Poor Rhade," she said softly.

"What do you mean, poor Rhade?" Beka demanded. "He shot you, for empress's sake! I knew he had a secret agenda he wasn't telling us, dammit!"

Trance shook her head sadly. "You don't understand, Beka. Didn't you hear it in his voice?"

"Yeah, sure as hell I did," Harper said. "He was going to kill us, ungrateful Nietzschean bastard." He kicked the motionless form at his feet.

Trance shook her head. "He's been indoctrinated," she said, tears of pity in her eyes.

"So he's brainwashed?" Harper asked incredulously.

Beka expressed her thoughts in a single, sarcastic word. "Wonderful."