Chapter 11

"A journey of a thousand miles beings with a single step."

-Lao-tzu


"As we all know, Tyr is dying because he was infected by one of Machello's creatures. What's the difference between him and the Limvris? Anyone? You, the tall one in the front row."

Dylan crossed his arms. "I'm not following you, Harper."

Harper raised a finger. "He's not dead."

"Obviously," Dylan conceded.

"Why?"

Hunt narrowed his eyebrows in thought. "Stronger resistance to the creatures?"

"Different pride?" Trance offered.

"Ah hah! Now we're getting somewhere. Sorry, Dylan, but I'm going with Trance's answer. Tyr is dying, yes, but he'd going a lot slower than our other Niet friends probably did. I've been thinking about it though and it doesn't make any sense. If you're going to kill someone in this manner, why give them time to gradually get ill and leave the option open for someone to find a remedy before they kick the bucket? Machello hated the Nietzscheans, but I can't see him making them suffer just for the pleasure of it if he knew there was any possibility of his creatures being stopped. He'd want it to be fast and deadly, killing them within minutes of their infection. That's how any good assassination works."

He began to pace, his exhilaration swirling higher and higher.

"So I started thinking about why Machello's bugs haven't succeeded in killing Tyr and something occurred to me. What if he had his creatures, devices, whatever the hell they are, programmed to inflict damage on certain prides? All Nietzscheans are genetically similar, like humans, but each pride have different genes and protein markers in their DNA to separate one group from another. These little bugs were probably designed for Lynx DNA. The creatures find this certain trait, and boom… they get to killing."

Harper walked around Dylan and Trance, their eyes glued to him. "But Tyr, as he loves so often to tell us, is Kodiak. His DNA is a little different. The creatures are still reeking havoc on his system, but they are having to adapt to his different genetics and it's taking longer."

"How does this help us?" Dylan asked, intrigued but skeptical.

"Here's the complicated part," Harper explained. "We need to somehow trick the creatures, and this is where you come in Trance."

"Me?" she asked curiously.

"I need your medical knowledge to pull this off. Remember Rommie's method of removing the creature? What if we used a similar technique, just minus the ice pick."

He smiled over at the still imprisoned Rommie. The android shrugged silently.

"What if we can manufacture something… I don't know, possibly nanobots… with Lynx DNA," Harper continued. "We inject them into Beka and Tyr, tricking Machello's devices. They come to it like moths to flame and when they get to the opening, we, metaphorically speaking, stick an ice pick in them."

"Let me get this straight," Dylan replied. "We create something with Limvris DNA to inject into Beka and Tyr. The creatures are attracted to the DNA and we remove it through some kind of… open wound?"

"Something like that."

"Trance, can that be done?" Dylan asked curiously.

"Well," the alien began, "DNA is made up of chromosomes found in the nucleus of all of the body's cells, except red blood cells and platelets. Frequently, DNA samples are taken from blood. The white blood cells in these samples are usually where it's obtained."

Harper ran a hand over his chin. "Could we synthesize some kind of white blood cell with Lynx DNA?"

"It would take time to grow one, but we might be able to," Trance answered. "The Andromeda isn't equipped with the appropriate technology for such activities though."

"Would Sinti have the proper facilities?" Hunt asked.

She paused, but soon her eyes lit up. "Most definitely," she answered. Trance looked over at Harper in what he could only describe as surprised awe. "This… this might work, Harper."

Seamus smiled reluctantly. "Might being the keyword," he said, mirroring Dylan's earlier remarks. "Boss, we need to get cracking as soon as possible. We should call H'toh for the Limvris DNA."

Dylan nodded, moving towards the door. "I'll contact him about the samples. Luckily we haven't moved far from the Kabelan system."

Hunt disappeared into the corridor and the entryway sealed behind him. Harper felt his heart speed up. This could be it. This could be their answer.

He looked over towards Rommie. The avatar was still standing near the force field but Beka had moved away. She now sat with her back to one of the equipment drawers, knees drawn up.

"Did you hear, Bek?" he asked, really noticing her for the first time since he'd come back into the lab. He'd been so excited earlier about his proposal that he'd just starting talking. Now that he was actually paying attention he saw that she was slightly shaking and even from behind the force field he could see the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. It was starting.

"Beka?" he tried again, hoping to catch her attention. Rommie and Trance were also now aware of the blonde woman's sudden change.

"It's too hot," Valentine murmured to herself. She began to pull on her clothing and her voice became louder. "It's too hot. They're… they're trying to suffocate me!"

Rommie, being the only one able to, moved towards the Maru's captain slowly. "Beka?" she called gently.

Valentine looked up at the approaching figure and her eyes widened. "Stay away from me! You're… you're one of them!"

"No, it's me, it's Rommie," the android soothed. "Look at me Beka, I'm you're friend."

"NO!" Valentine screamed as she slid along the side of the drawer to distance herself. "You're… you're… dead… you're…" She wrapped her arms around herself and tucked her chin into her chest. "Stay away, stay away, stay away…" she babbled.

Rommie backed away, giving her friend the space she seemed to want. She glanced up at Harper and Trance but neither could do anything but stare in dismay.

Finally Harper had to turn away from his friend, unable to face what he was seeing any longer. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest. They were slowly losing Beka and it was like a knife to the heart to watch. He knew from personal experience what his friend's waking nightmares would soon contain. Knew all too damn vividly.

"Hurry Dylan," he whispered. "Hurry."


Dorran councilman H'toh was more than eager to help his new friends upon hearing about the Andromeda's predicament. Fortunately, even though the Limvris bodies had been already cremated, samples of their hair and skin tissue had been saved for later analysis.

H'toh himself greeted the Maru as it landed on Dorran. The only passenger aboard the salvage ship was Seamus Harper and the engineer came bounding out into the falling snow to meet the Dorran councilman, eager to get back to Andromeda and then on to Sinti.

"Hey, H'toh, how are you?" Harper asked, extending a hand.

The other man seemed unsure of what do to with the appendage being offered to him, but mimicked Harper's moment and the two clasped hands briefly.

"I am very well Mr. Harper," H'toh replied. "I was told by Captain Hunt that you had recently been sick. I do hope you are getting better."

Harper shrugged. "Yeah, I'm okay, it's just Beka and Tyr we're worried about now."

"Ahh," H'tho murmered, "Tyr is the Nietzschean aboard your ship, yes?"

Harper knew from experience how people, especially those like the Dorrans, felt about Nietzscheans. Enslaved worlds never took kindly to any of them, no matter the pride. It had been hard to accept working with a Niet at first, but over time Tyr had grown on him. Sometimes as a friend, or sometimes like a bad disease, and the feeling was mutual. He wouldn't trade the Kodiak for anything and he had the distant feeling that Tyr wouldn't either, not that he would admit that to anyone.

"Tyr's a friend," Harper said. "And an Uber. Two words I thought I'd never say after growing up on Earth. He's cool though. Saved my life countless times and vice versa. He's big and sometimes a little menacing, but really, just a soft, cuddly teddy bear at heart."

"If you say your friend is good," H'toh offered, "than I shall take your word. Perhaps not all Nietzscheans are like the Limvris." The councilman reached into his robes and produced a small wrapped package. "Here are the samples your captain requested. I hope they can be of use to your friends."

Harper nodded. "I hope so too. Thanks." He turned back towards the Maru and ascended the ramp.

"Mr. Harper?" H'toh called as the engineer was about to enter the ship. "I meant to ask, and forgive me if this is ignorant on my part, but why are you wearing dark eye protection? It is night and there is no sun. Is it some Earth ritual?"

Harper grinned and pulled his sunglasses off, holding them up by the earpiece. "Ah, no," he answered. "The last time I was here I had a run in with a little bastard snowflake. Thing nearly took my eye."

H'toh tilted his head in puzzlement as Harper smiled and turned away, boarding the ship and closing the bay door behind him.

Moments later the Maru was soaring over the Dorran mountains and up into the atmosphere, heading back to the Andromeda Ascendant.


When Harper was young, maybe five or six, his parents had taken him on a boat ride down from Boston Harbor to a small town along the bay, charmingly called Oceanview. They'd been going to visit a great aunt Seamus had never met, and to this day, he still couldn't really remember her name. Ruth he thought, but he wasn't for sure. She'd kinda had a little beard if he was remembering it right, and when she'd kissed him it had felt… itchy.

However, even that wasn't the worst part of the trip. It was the journey itself. The boat ride hadn't taken terribly long, but to little Harper, it was the never-ending voyage. He had felt like he'd been stuck on that boat for days, when in fact it had probably been only two or three hours at most. He remembered whining, a lot, and he also remembered his mother yelling at him for being obnoxious. Today he still recalled that trip, if only for the unending hours stuck aboard a rusty ship that smelled like dead fish and cigars.

The Andromeda's journey to Sinti was starting to feel like that trip. Logically his brain told him they'd be there in two hours, tops, but the other part of him just wanted to run up to Dylan begging to know, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Harper was an adult now, but the urge to do just that was stronger than ever. At least the Andromeda didn't smell like fish. And its captain wasn't a creepy guy with an eye patch and three teeth.

Unintentionally, Harper giggled at the thought of Dylan in an eye patch, smiling toothlessly up at him. At least with that look the man's uncanny ability to snag a girl on every planet might go down.

"What do you think Beka?" he asked, glancing over at his friend who now lay across from him separated by the force field.

He'd been telling his boat story to Beka because he'd had nothing else to do while the Andromeda raced towards the Perseid hospital. Trance was off in Med Deck getting some data together about the possible solution and he knew he couldn't really contribute to any of that at the moment. He could sit with his friend though, even if she didn't seem aware of his presence.

Rommie was still locked away with Beka, but the android had found a free console and disappeared into Andromeda's matrix for the time, probably talking to her sister about hair, or boyfriends, or maybe the newest proton missiles on the market. Whatever sexy warships actually talked about he'd never be sure.

Beka seemed indifferent to his ramblings, too caught up in her own mind to realize what was going on. He recalled the feeling all to well.

"So I guess my boat story was kinda boring," Harper went on, not sure what else to talk about. "I only have a handful of normal childhood memories that don't contain death or blood or all those other lovely bits of gore. Did I ever tell you about my dog Maggie? I got her when I was ten. She was this lab mix, chocolate brown with the biggest eyes I'd ever seen. I used to throw balls for her in the fields near my house."

Harper paused, realizing this wasn't one of those aforesaid normal memories. Maggie had died when he was eleven, accidentally trotting into a newly planted mine field by his neighborhood. It had not been pretty.

"Um…" He coughed to clear his throat. "Maybe now's not the time for that story. So… Hey! Remember the time we scammed those thugs on Hegar? That was frickin' brilliant."

The memories of Beka and his many infamous adventures with her were easy to fall back into. The Hegar con had been one of the first things he and Beka had done together after she'd rescued him from Earth. Rev had been off on some retreat, Vex had gone visiting an old girlfriend on Pelx-3, and Beka had decided to take the newly-christened Maru engineer to the Hegar System for a little gambling and booze drinking vacation.

They'd only been at the main port a day when they ran into a pair of drunk mafia thugs who had told them, in complete confidence, that they were getting an entire shipment of Ems crystals from a job they had pulled two systems over. A cargo transport would be landing with the packed crystals and deliver them to their own ship, and because they would soon be rich, the thugs were looking to spend some money.

It had only taken Beka and her new cohort a few moments to come up with a scam to get the crystals. After all, stealing from thieves in order to get some vitally needed cash wasn't hurting anyone.

While Beka had distracted the three thugs with a high priced, high paced game of cards, Harper had hacked his way into the docking station's mainframe. With some quick finger work and a little help from his port, the destination of the cargo transport's delivery was moved to the ship in port 4M-52. Twenty minutes later the transport was delivering its load without a hitch, no one aware that anything had been tampered with.

Five minutes after the shipment, Beka Valentine casually walked back to her ship, and within another ten, had taken the Maru out of the Hegar system and disappeared, never to be heard of again by four luckless goons. Because of Harper's fast work on the mainframe, no ship, especially not one named The Eureka Maru, had ever been parked in port 4M-52, giving the thugs nothing to go on but the intoxicated memory of a redheaded woman and the pale boy who trailed behind her.

"I would have loved to see their faces," Harper continued. "I bet they were pissed. We got 5,000 thrones from that haul. I know most of it went to fixing the Maru, but we got a nice meal and a case of liquor out of it, didn't we? I don't think I'd ever been so drunk in my life."

He smiled to himself and massaged the back of his neck. "Rev was less than pleased of course as you probably remember. His lecture about 'thou shalt not steal' was pretty funny. And Vex was just ticked he missed out on the action. I liked those years, Beka. You taught me a lot."

He glanced across the force field to see that Valentine's mumblings had stopped. She now lay on her side, curled up in a kind of semi-fetal position with her arms wrapped around her knees. Beka looked better than she had before, and Harper figured that a part of her had been calmed by his story. The memories of their escapades had given her something to focus on, blocking the nightmares for just a few moments.

"Beka," he called gently, sitting forward a bit, "if you can hear me, I just wanted to say that we have an idea. As soon as we can we'll get those things out of you and Tyr, I promise."

Harper wasn't sure if anything he was saying was getting through to her. Maybe he'd just been imagining seeing a change earlier and it was just his mind hoping for the best. "Beka?" he tried once more.

Painstakingly slow, Beka's head moved in his direction, and for an instant her eyes met his. There was clarity in that gaze and Harper grinned like an idiot when he realized he was looking at his friend.

But to his disappointment, the lucidity didn't last long. In the blink of an eye Beka was once again curling up tighter into herself, her body already beginning to tremble.

Not really sure of what to do, Harper decided to settle back for the rest of the ride and keep talking. If his stories helped her, well, he was more than happy to oblige.

"So Beka… you remember that run on Ran'du Drift?"