CHAPTER TWO

SERAPHIM'S FALL

"My heart shall ever be yours,

through light and darkness,

warfare and peacetime,

when the stars are all burned out

and life turns its great wheel once again."

—Wedding vow made to the Pax Magellanic


"Carl! Pyrrhus!" The elderly Magog panted as he leapt behind a beam, then ran onwards as an energy beam scorched his fur. That was too close! "Trance! Somebody, please respond! I'm under attack!"

Reverend Behemial Far Traveller had never been quite so terrified in all his long life.

When he had nearly been lynched on Rothesay Drift, when he had been trapped on the Mytosian mining outpost during a Magog attack and been caught between the Magog and the colonists, even when a Gynt'a'rn cult had kidnapped him with the intent to sacrifice him, he hadn't felt quite such fear.

This was different. They had all been dangerous places to begin with, rife with hostility and tension at the best of times. This ship had been the pride of the Systems Commonwealth, supposed to be one of the safest havens that had ever existed.

And it was shooting at him.

"Emergency venting in sixty-five seconds," Andromeda announced.

"Hang tight Rev," Carl's voice crackled over his headset. "Me and Andromeda's skipper have the same problem. Pyrrhus? Trance? You two alright?"

"I'm fine," the mercenary calmly reported, despite the sounds of intense weapons fire in the background of his transmission. "I have a fix on your position Reverend—I can be there within two minutes—"

"Ah, that's a nix on that mate," Carl interrupted. "Seems the ship's chief engineer is in the medical centre, someone's needed to find him and help him out and you seem to be the closest. Rev, can you get Trance whilst Captain Valentine and myself get to the command centre? Trance? Trance, do you copy?"


Several decks above, Trance handed her headset to the impassive android. Carl's voice was cut off as it closed its hand, crushing the little device.

"Pilot," Andromeda commanded from the largest screen in the command centre. "I require an organic pilot to navigate the slipstream; you will be provided with co-ordinates."

Trance nodded, blinking back tears and briefly closing her eyes as the android behind her pressed the muzzle of a force lance into her lower back, propelling her forwards. A support descended from the cavernous ceiling, supporting her back, armrest controls extending around from it.

"This is your slipstream objective." Andromeda stared coldly at her. "Visualise and execute."

"But—"

"Now!" A force lance pressed against Trance's temple.

She gulped, breathing heavily and slowly to keep from hyperventilating. "All right. Visualising. Honest."


It usually took a lot to shake Seamus Harper. It was a fact that had been a constant source of banter with his engineering teams.

Andromeda declaring him to be an intruder and trying to kill him was one such situation.

He plunged through cyberspace, into her mind. She lashed out with her defences—defences, he noted, that were weaker, far older than those he knew she had. He'd helped her to design them after all.

He dodged them easily, though he knew he could have destroyed them. He didn't want to risk hurting her after all.

"Intruder! Halt! Surrender yourself immediately!" A hologram arose, booming within the matrix like a goddess' declarations of wrath.

He ignored her, eliminating a defensive virus even as it sought to pierce him and shatter his consciousness, disperse it throughout of the matrix.

Plunging ever deeper, he halted at last, thrusting his hands into the glittering flow of datastreams—

Yes! He whooped triumphantly even as Andromeda's defences finally threw him out.

He winced as he returned to the aches and pains of his body, and yelped as a surge of electricity was discharged into his dataport.

A lopsided grin still adorned his face as he reached for a communications panel, removing the jack from his neck. "Ship-wide. This is Chief Engineer Harper to all personnel. Emergency venting has been prevented, but I can't guarantee it's permanent. Andromeda has no control over environmental systems, but she still has internal defences so watch your step." He grimaced as a brief surge of pain stabbed into him from his injured arm. "I'm working on that one, though. Hang tight."

He whirled at the sound of a door opening, a crescendo of weapons fire echoing briefly throughout the medical deck before the door whined shut again. He instinctively reached for his force lance, then grimaced as he found it missing from its holster, and stared at the newcomer.

The brawny Nietzschean leaned against the doorframe, gauss rifle held loosely but ready in one massive hand as he ran the other over his eyes. Although Harper had only known a few Nietzscheans, he knew his guest to be breathing heavily for one of his kind.

"Lieutenant…Harper, yes?" The new arrival ran a weary hand over his face, shaking off a few stray, sweat-soaked dreadlocks. "Pyrrhus Anasazi. It's a very long story, but it seems your captain and my employer decided you needed someone to aid and guard you, and so here I am."

Braced as he was against the doorframe, Pyrrhus was most fortunate when the deck seemed leap out from beneath him as the walls vibrated with the throb of a ship entering the slipstream.

Harper was not quite as lucky, and was sent sprawling by the violent jump. A powerful arm swiftly yet carefully wrapped itself around his uninjured shoulder, bone blades laid as flat as possible and turned away from him.

He nodded his thanks as he regained his footing and he was released.

"I…I need to get to a conduit," he winced through the pain. "I can get control of the internal defences from there."

Pyrrhus nodded curtly, slamming home a fresh clip of ammunition into his rifle. "I spotted a hatch less than thirty metres from here. Will that do?"

Harper grinned as he leaned over to swipe his toolbelt from a nearby table. "Sounds perfect. Ready when you are."

A powerful hand slapped the door control, and the Nietzschean charged out into the corridor, blazing away. His lips parted, and a great roar arose from deep within his broad chest as he darted and danced through the hail of weapons fire.

Harper licked his lips nervously, then hurled himself out into the firestorm.


"Dammit." Carl gave up retuning the headset, a gauss pistol smoothly appearing in his hand too fast for the eye to follow. Sheltered as they temporarily were in the conduit, he had to admit he found it far more cramped than was to his liking, even considering some of the confined spaces he'd been in. "No contact. If your ship's harmed her in any way—"

Beka snorted. "Is that a threat?"

"Too sodding right." His eyes seemed to flash in the relative darkness, like light from a blade. "She may be capable of wiping out entire star systems, but when someone, anyone, messes with my friends and my crew, they go down. Hard."

She stared at him, eyebrow raised in disbelief. She could tell he meant what he said. His body language all but screamed it.

What was more, he actually believed himself capable of it, and she knew full well such conviction often was the vital difference between someone's success or failure.

She slowly nodded, bracing a hand against the hatch release mechanism, readying her force lance in the other. "You ready?"

His teeth glittered in the gloom as he grinned broadly. "Let's kick some arse, shall we?"


Trance sagged at the piloting controls as they emerged from slipstream in exhaustion.

"This is your third objective. Plot a course to the jump point and take us into slipstream," Andromeda ordered impatiently.

"I can't," she groaned. "I'm sorry, I just can't. I'm not very good at navigating the slipstream anyway, and I can't keep on doing it like this."

A hologram materialised beside her as an android approached with an extended force lance. "Very well. You have ten minutes to prepare yourself for the next slipstream jump. If you are incapable of making that jump, you will be eliminated and I will be forced to locate another of your group to pilot me. Now step away from the console."

Trance nodded, blinking to ward off the tug of sleep. She stumbled back from the console as the control support rose back into the ceiling. If it hadn't been for the android she would have fallen to the deck. Prying herself from the android, she slowly tottered over to the wall and slumped down against it.

Andromeda's visage upon the screen narrowed her eyes. The screen adjacent to hers sprang to life, displaying a sensor contact.

"Interesting…I've located an Argosy Special Ops assault transport. It's broadcasting a red-nineteen priority code. We must retrieve it at all costs." She eyed Trance curiously, inclining her head slightly. "Perhaps this delay will prove useful."

"The transport has taken heavy damage," her hologram noted. "No atmosphere. One life-sign…it's in stasis. I'm detecting a High Guard communications implant. The A.I. … the A.I. is deactivated. No escape pods have been launched."

Warning lights flashed; the deck shuddered. "Harpoons have connected." The hologram smiled proudly. "Bringing it in."

Trance forced an exhausted smile.


Harper was already opening pouches in his belt and plugging in equipment as the Nietzschean leapt into the conduit and hastily sealed the hatch. He worked frantically, adjusting and hacking through security software. Once again, the countermeasures that faced him were woefully out of date, and his programs and commands effortlessly slipped past them.

"Now, in a bit less than a minute the internal defences are going to shut down," he explained. "As soon as that happens, you've got to get out of this conduit and find gunnery station nine—it's three decks down the nearest ladder, take first left, second right, should be visible from in that corridor. Get there and hold it, I'll be right behind you. Just don't bust up any androids too bad—I'm gonna be patching them up again when all this is sorted."

"What purpose does the gunnery station serve in your plan?"

Harper grinned. "Anyone else would simply shut down the internal defences and hope for the best. I," he tapped his chest proudly, "am not 'anyone else'. What I'm doing is rerouting control of the defences to the gunnery station where they can be operated manually. That way, if we get some hostile intruders then we can still use 'em, but Rommie won't be shooting at us anymore."

Pyrrhus nodded, then looked questioningly at the engineer. "'Rommie'?"

Harper shrugged. "Yeah, Rommie. Short for Andromeda. She likes it well enough. Come on, come on…YES!" He clenched a fist in victory as the internal defences shut down. "Go for it, I'll catch up, don't worry about me!" he shouted even as the Nietzschean sprang from the conduit and ran off, boots pounding heavily against the deck.


Two pairs of boots hammered against the deck plates; two captains breaking into a run as the internal defences ceased fire.

"What the hell!" Beka looked down at her wrist monitor in surprise, coming to a halt.

"Another problem?" Carl asked.

"Andromeda's…she's brought another ship into the hangar. A wrecked High Guard ship with Argosy Special Operations transponders."

"Eh! Another one?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as the deck shuddered and they entered slipstream once more. "Could be worth having a dekko at, that."

"You might have a point," she nodded appreciatively, turning about and leading the way to the hangar. "Sounds like a plan Captain Forbes."

"Carl, please." When she looked at him in confusion, he clarified. "My name. The only buggers who call me 'Captain Forbes' are new clients, posh clients, the authorities, the snarkier variety of Nietzscheans and people I'd much rather riddle with gauss rounds than talk to. Since you have smooth forearms, are not part of any recognised authority or nobility, are not attempting to hire me and I have no real reason to dislike you, call me Carl."

She blinked. "Okay…thanks."

He grinned broadly, waving a finger in mock-admonishment. "Don't think for a minute I'm going to start saluting you or running flags up poles Captain Valentine."

"Beka."

"Come again?"

"'Beka' will do fine. And the saluting isn't necessary."

He laughed silently. "Glad to hear it. Rev?" He keyed his headset. "Rev, the Andromeda's captain and I are heading for one of the hangars—seems Andromeda's recovered a ship. Can you carry on the search for Trance?" A static-ridden reply hissed from the earpiece, indecipherable to Beka, and her companion unconsciously nodded. "Ta."

The deck ceased shuddering as they leapt from slipstream once more, and Beka instinctively leapt down a ladder shaft, engaging her anti-gravity harness to slow her descent. She looked up even as her boots met the deck. She'd forgotten, albeit for an instant, that Carl was not equipped with such a device.

This failed to deter him. Reaching into his pack he donned a pair of thick leather gloves and attached a climbing piton to the ladder. Threading the end of a rope through the eye of the piton, he strapped a harness about his waist, clipped the rope to the harness and leapt into a freefall. Beka stepped back a pace as he plummeted, to land neatly, nimbly dropping into a crouch to discharge his momentum before rising once more.

"Nice gizmo," he observed as he removed the harness and replaced it in his pack.


Rev checked his scanner once again, following the last signal Trance's headset had emitted before being silenced.

He worried about her a great deal. She could take care of herself, with the exception of a few past incidents of decidedly unusual circumstances.

This situation counted as having unusual circumstances. They should never have come here.

His eyes widened and he halted. He looked up and all about him, scenting the air.

Nothing new—just the grease Pyrrhus and Carl used to service their weaponry, the Nietzschean and human themselves of course, his own scorched fur—he would need a good wash after they got out of this situation—and two unfamiliar scents whom he supposed were the High Guard captain and engineer.

Of Trance, there was no trace. But then, he sighed as he wound the scanner's strap about his wrist and climbed a ladder, he had never been able to pinpoint her scent—

He sniffed deeply as the ship left slipstream once again.

And snarled at what he sensed.


Two shapes burst through the doors, an extended force lance and a pair of pistols snapping about the hangar bay beyond.

"What the bloody hellfire happened to them?" The hauler captain's voice was a whisper.

Great holes peppered the hull plating. A long, smooth slash ran the length of the once sleek-lined craft, penetrating the cockpit. As they advanced and clambered inside through one of the gaping maws, a thin layer of ice was clearly visible, coating every surface.

They crunched their way through the deserted hulk, placing their feet carefully. A pistol whispered its way back into a holster; the force lance collapsed, so as to afford themselves a slightly better measure of balance.

Still wearing his rope jumping gloves, Carl brushed ice from a console surface. "Odd," he mused.

Beka looked over at him. "What?"

"There's still power in some of the systems—emergency manoeuvring thrusters, PDLs…" He frowned, looked up and stared her straight in the eye. "Unless this widget's on the blink, there's an operating stasis pod on this wreck. Fully sealed, life support—the lot. Someone's alive on this thing."

Beka glanced down at her force lance, scanning the area. "This way." She indicated one of the corridors.

"You sure?"

She grinned confidently at him. "My force lance is."

He groaned at this and followed her. "Primitive sense of humour…" he muttered under his breath.


Ice crumbled, snarling and creaking as the pod's door opened.

Clutching at a wrist, wincing from cold and pain and loss of blood, the pod's occupant staggered out. He shivered, clutching his cerise jacket closer about himself, and noted with sorrow that the other pods were just as badly damaged as he remembered.

He was alone. He was most likely not in his time anymore, and he could be anywhere in or beyond the Known Worlds. But he was alive.

He leaned heavily against a wrecked console, ignoring the cold that seeped from the ice into his forearm. He closed his eyes, a tear welling, as he forced back the memories that spilled forth.

Memories of screaming, and death.

Of his failure.

Wiping away the stray moisture even as his tears started to freeze, he checked his equipment—just as stark and miniscule as he remembered it, unfortunately—and drew his force lance, flexing his bone blades to check that they still heeded his call. He smiled grimly, finding the muscles to be as responsive as ever.

He straightened, flinching as flickers of pain shot from his damaged wrist, and headed off into the ship's icy interior, one stumbling step at a time.


Harper winced slightly then sighed as he sank into the gunnery seat, carefully adjusting his injured shoulder as he did so. "Hel-looo internal defences!" he winked at the Nietzschean mercenary whilst accessing the relevant control systems.

Pyrrhus frowned, sniffed the air. "Odd."

"What?"

He shrugged, slowly shook his head. "It's—don't worry. I'm sure it's nothing."

Vibrations and metallic-sounding thumps resounded throughout the corridor, growing progressively louder.

"That's not 'nothing'!" the engineer shouted over the din, scrolling through readouts from the internal sensors. "We're under attack!"


Like a swarm of insects, they poured from the inky blackness of space, raining down on Andromeda's hull.

Andromeda glared at Trance from the screen. "Boarding parties detected. Your accomplices have seized control of my internal defences—they've done their job well."

"Your allies will be most pleased," her hologram growled.

"Allies?" Trance stared at a screen displaying the boarding craft tearing their way through Andromeda's hull, shaking her head slowly in confusion. "Them? I don't even know who they are."


A silhouette stumbled out of the shadows, and two weapons snapped up, training on the survivor.

Beka's breath caught about a lump that had appeared in her throat, her eyes growing wide with shock.

With recognition.

"This is Captain Forbes of the salvage vessel Quicksilver Arrow! Identify yourself!"

The challenge echoed throughout the dead ship.

Her force lance sank to her side as she shook her head in disbelief and denial, hoping against hope that the wraith would leave.

"Admiral Gaheris Rhade of the High Guard. Commander-in-chief of Argosy Special Operations." His own force lance remained aimed squarely at them.

"Friend of yours?" Carl idly asked, as calmly as one might when out for a stroll by a river.

"Admiral…I'm Captain Valentine of the Andromeda Ascendant." He stared at her in surprise that was clearly visible for a fleeting second. "You've been missing for…for quite some time."

He was so very like her first officer. In features, in build and demeanour.

So very like the man who had sought to kill her. The man whom she had killed.

Carl's pistol slid back into its holster, and Gaheris lowered the force lance. "You alright Beka?"

"Just…it's complicated. We don't have the time right now."

"Fair enough. In case you're wondering Admiral," he turned to face the High Guard legend, "Andromeda seems to have hit upon the idea that we, including her own captain and chief engineer, are all intruders and is heading to anyone's guess where. She also seems to have abducted one of my crew, so haste is rather important right now."

Gaheris nodded wearily. "Lead the way."


Fingers flying over the controls, Harper groaned as he realised another group of Magog had slipped past his defences. There was, he decided as he gunned down another group six decks above, a very good reason why A.I.s were supposed to do this sort of thing and not humans or other organics—their minds were much faster and they weren't encumbered by the delays of flesh and muscle.

A gauss rifle barked behind him, and a single yowling Magog tumbled from a nearby conduit.

"I can't keep doing this!" he shouted as he activated a weapons battery at the other end of the corridor, blazing away at another group. "We need Andromeda!"

"In case you've forgotten, she isn't that kindly disposed toward us right now!" Pyrrhus swiped at another furry body as it struggled from the conduit, snarling as he disembowelled the Magog with his bone blades and kicked the hatch closed.

"Take over the weapons! I'll go in, maybe I can change her mind!"

The Nietzschean shrugged expansively as he slid into the adjacent seat and took control of the weapons. "In all honesty, I hope you succeed."

Harper nodded shakily as he inserted a cable into the console. "So do I," he muttered, as he slid the other end into his dataport.


A volley of effectors and gauss rounds ripped through the teaming horde of Magog, pitching them from their feet.

"Weapons locker! Now!" Beka shouted, extending her force lance and charging around a corner, smashing the weapon into the snarling features of another of the furry creatures.


Rev howled as he fought before the doors to Andromeda's command centre, driving his claws into the gut of another Magog. Another of his own kind fell, dead at his hand.

He howled again. Not from rage, but sorrow and loss.

The loss of a piece of himself.


"Your friends are fighting the Magog." Andromeda was confused as she stared at her purple captive.

"Now do you believe we're not intruders?"

"No. I don't even have your species on file, and most of your friends are most certainly not High Guard personnel. Prepare to slipstream to the next destination on my mark. Mark."

"Going, going," Trance mumbled, glancing at a screen. Rev was definitely trying to help her, and she knew that Carl and Pyrrhus would never abandon her. A smile crept onto her face as she remembered how the now-elderly Magog priest had always been there to offer advice and comfort in the darkest of her days, the feel of his soft fur the times he had wrapped her in a warm hug. They would all go through hell itself if only to try and aid one of their own.

She only hoped they would not be too late.


Author's Notes: I do have Chapters Four and Five reasonably finished, but I'm still going through, making a couple of last-minute adjustments here and there. Six is still a work-in-progress though. On another note:

Shelly, Shelly, Shelly. A few things in reply to your review. I take your point about the first part of Chapter One being a rehash of "Under the Night"—but that was intentional. And I did mention it in advance. Allow me to explain my reasons for this:

First, the Gaheris/Telemachus situation. There are quite a few Andromeda viewers who maintain that Telemachus could never have made the same mistakes as Gaheris. Fair enough, it's an interesting view, but to be honest I don't subscribe to that theory myself. I was trying to show that under similar circumstances, Telemachus could make exactly the same mistakes as Gaheris.

Second, you criticise the originality. How else could Andromeda start but with the Fall of the Systems Commonwealth? Seriously? I wanted to cover as much as necessary to make for a smooth read. Even at the end of Chapter Three, this fic will barely have started warming up—the pace is barely beginning.

Third is an objective I have with this fic. The average fanfic is written in the assumption that the reader already knows a great deal about the fictional milieu; I wanted LKF to be accessible to anyone, Drom fan or not. Ideally, I'd like it to be accessible to people who've only seen a couple of episodes, or maybe none at all. Starting this way shrugs it seemed like a good way at the time.

But with regards to originality you seem to have ignored the little hints that have been laid down as groundwork in Chapter One. The destruction of the Balance of Judgement at Hephaestus for example—this means no Restorians. The reference to Tyr being a captain, and Andromeda being—technically speaking—related to his genetic reincarnation. The Quicksilver Arrow and Carl Forbes, the first time that I know of that someone's actually done a character who didn't have an American accent (the English have landed! Whey-hey! About time my people got in on the act)—yes, okay, purple Trance is still around (was there ever anything said to indicate that she could age at the same rate as humans?) as is Reverend Behemial, (the Magog showed up three hundred years later, ergo he was born three hundred years later) and okay, Pyrrhus used to be a mercenary—more on that in later chapters. Yes, there are similarities, but then, if there weren't links to the series, it would be original fiction, not fanfic and wouldn't belong on this site. Shelly, I really don't mean to be patronising, but you need just a little more patience with this fic.

The first three chapters (which I've already got typed up) set the basic groundwork for this fic—who everyone is in this AU, and establish a few plot threads, and Three introduces a new faction or two (and an old one made new again). Chapters Four through Six (Four and Five are almost ready to go, I'm still working a swarm of bugs out of Six) establish a lot more of what this new future is like, set up more plot threads and introduce some of the myriad factions I'll be using—and believe you me, some of those make the Restorians look as dangerous as a book club. After that, there may be the occasional reference to the series (such as Andromeda's delight in formal meetings, diplomatic receptions, ceremonies etc., Trance will still be cryptic, Harper the resident grease monkey and Dihedra is visited in Chapters Four and Five…but there won't be any Magog there. Much worse than that) but beyond that there will be significant differences. Stick around, and I'm sure you'll see what I mean. I'm an avid reader of Johnny "Two Combs" Howard's novels and Warhammer 40,000, so these will influence my writing style. There's a short scene in Chapter Four that my beta compared to a snippet of "The Lord of the Rings"—I can't say I was consciously influenced by the scene, but there are some remarkable similarities.

I appreciate your honesty Shelly, and okay, maybe the first chapter doesn't really suit your tastes. But if you stick around, I think you'll find this fic will get quite interesting and unusual. Originality, by Chapter Eight at the latest, will not be a problem, unless readers feel that the fic is departing too much from the series. After all, Dylan won't be around, and one golden rule of thumb I'm using is this: no character, canon or original, will be unnecessarily attired in such a way purely for exploitative purposes. (E.g. Rommie's skimpy prison garb from "A Rose in the Ashes" – that just ain't happening.) Please remember though, there are more polite ways of giving constructive criticism, hmm? looks over glasses and grins Anyway, thanks for the review.