Captain Matthew Gideon stood on the bridge of the Excalibur, gazing at the swirling red of hyperspace that filled the screen.

So far so good. A whole week had gone without any major trouble. It had to be some kind of a record. Following an apparently mistaken lead from yet another ruined city, they had found a corner of space so remote that there just wasn't anyone there, no long-lost cultures, unknown aliens, mad cultists or runaway techno-mages. Thinking of which, it had also been another week without any sign of Galen. It wasn't unusual in any way, and Gideon wasn't particularly unhappy about it. Perhaps, he thought, Galen's absence was the reason for this relative calm.

Galen had the knack for coming in when he was the least expected - or then at the exact moment when Gideon thought of him. Gideon shook his head as he saw a small ship emerge on the screen, a dark, sharp-edged triangular vessel. A techno-mage ship. He knew they always looked pretty much the same. He also knew that there was hardly any chance of them randomly running into an unknown techno-mage in hyperspace, at a time when the techno-mages were supposedly hiding from the rest of the universe.

Gideon walked to the comm console and hailed the approaching ship. "How nice of you to stop by."

There was no answer. He waited for a good while before hailing again. "Galen, there's no point playing hide and seek, we can already see you well enough."

Silence again. "Does the ship match the data we have on Galen's vessel? And is the connection working properly?" he asked the officer at the comm station.

"It's an exact match, sir. And there's nothing wrong with the connection, just the usual little distortion caused by hyperspace."

"All right. I guess he has his reasons, as usual..." Gideon muttered, mostly to himself.

"Captain," the comm officer interrupted him. "I'm only getting very faint lifesigns from the approaching ship."

Gideon nodded, frowning. He had a hunch that the ship was partly organic, so faint lifesigns might just mean that there was no one aboard. Still, he was getting worried. Usually the ship was so well shielded that they got no readings from it at all, and never even saw it unless Galen wanted them to. And why would Galen send an empty ship to hyperspace and have it locate the Excalibur? To warn them about something? Why not just send a message through the regular comm channels, or through some of his magical techno-mage means?

"The ship is setting on a course to come in, sir."

"Let him come," Gideon replied.

He left the bridge, heading for the flight deck.

The sleek ship landed slowly. Gideon thought it looked hesitant, somehow. As soon as it had touched down and come to a stop, a hatch opened in its side, forming a ramp leading up to an entrance.

Gideon waited. Nothing happened. Nothing came through. The ship seemed to be waiting as well.

Gideon had been in Galen's ship once, long ago, when Galen had saved him after the Cerberus was destroyed, but he hadn't seen much of it. Cautiously, Gideon walked closer. The entrance was dark, and he could not see what was inside. He called security for a backup team in case something unexpected came up, and walked up the ramp, into the ship.

He nearly tripped over the dark figure splayed on the floor, right inside the entrance. A humanoid form in an odd posture, limbs sticking into different directions at strange angles. It was wearing a black coat, and a staff lie next to it.

Once again, Galen had managed to make an entrance that was different from anything Gideon had expected. Only this time it was probably unintentional.

"Gideon to MedLab," he called on his link. "Send a team to the flight deck. Take hazmat gear. I'm not sure what we've got here. Galen's down."

As far Gideon could see, there was no blood about, no visible injuries, which of course didn't rule out serious internal damage. Galen was lying partially on his side, unmoving and silent, his head turned away from Gideon. Gideon knew there was the risk of infection, of yet another virus, nanotechnological or bio-engineered, or something even more alien. He couldn't be sure. He should probably wait for the med team. But he couldn't.

Gideon knelt next to Galen and carefully turned him around. Galen's face was frozen in an agonized frown, and his lips had a bluish tinge. Fearing the worst, Gideon sought for a pulse. To his relief, he found one - just in time to feel it flutter weakly, twice, and then disappear.

Doctor Sarah Chambers didn't know what to expect as she ran down the hall towards the techno-mage ship, several paces ahead of the rest of the hazmat-suited team. She had extensive medical files on all the ship's crew, and she and her staff carefully updated them all the time. Galen, however, wasn't a crew member. He visited the MedLab often enough, but always because of someone else, something else, that needed his attention. Only once had he been in because he himself needed her attention, and it had been an awkward moment for both of them. Chambers had seen that Galen had some sort of implants on his back, even though he hadn't been willing to let her know. Of course, Chambers had tried to record and monitor him as much as she could ever since. She hadn't been the least bit surprised when all the scans showed static, and files turned out empty or missing. He wanted to keep his secrets.

The entrance to the ship was dark, and not too wide. She motioned for a nurse to follow her and told the rest to come in if and when she called for them. She climbed up the ramp, took one step inside, and stopped there, since there was no room to move forwards, nor any need to.

Captain Gideon was crouched over Galen's still form, keeping up the age-old, yet still widely known emergency first-aid routine of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth.

"It's all right, captain, we'll take over from here," Chambers told him, placing a hand on Gideon's shoulder and guiding him away.

When he stepped away and she took his place, she couldn't keep from scolding him a bit. "Captain, if I may remind you, you're breaking our own safety protocol. In unknown medical emergencies, all possible measures must be taken to prevent any chance of contamination."

Gideon nodded. "I know. But this is my ship and my crew, and it was my choice. He's not been out for long - I felt his heart stop just moments before you got here. I decided to do what I could to make sure he'll survive."

"I hope it was the right choice," Chambers said, looking up from her preliminary scan results. "It should be safe to move him. Let's get going."

The three of them - Gideon, Chambers and the nurse, who had staid back at the doorway, started lifting Galen - or his lifeless body - down the ramp.

Chambers called out to the med team that was waiting with a gurney, "I don't know the cause yet, but he's in v-fib. Get ready to shock him as soon as we set him down. And someone hand a mask to the captain - he has to stay in quarantine until we're sure there's no contamination."

They rushed towards the MedLab. As Doctor Chambers sent another jolt of electricity through Galen's body, trying to restore the rhythm to his uselessly quivering heart, she couldn't help wondering and doubting if this was the right thing to do. Shewassurehe was basically human, but she knew hardly anything about those implants. Would they be sensitive to such electric shocks? She supposed that they were extremely advanced technology, and, as such, well protected, but she had no way of being certain. She didn't know if damaging the implants would damage him, or if it would only prevent him from casting firebolts and holodemons. One thing she did know for sure: he would be dead within minutes if she stopped trying.

After the third shock, the medic who was monitoring him gave the victorious news. "We've got a rhythm."

That was one right choice to begin with, Chambers thought.