In Beka's cabin aboard the Eureka Maru, the wheels in her head were turning. She was stretched out on her bed, but her thoughts prevented sleep. She had volunteered, no--insisted on being given this mission. If it wasn't for Andromeda's first visit to the planet, the Monarcheans would never have been so trusting of a stranger. And Dylan would never have trusted Rafe the first time he met him, had it not been for Beka's decision to trust her wayward brother. In a way, she felt responsible for this whole mess.
When her brother had first encountered the Andromeda Ascendant, he'd come claiming to have changed his ways, but what followed was an attempt at sabotage to Andromeda and a string of lies about Restors and FTA covert ops. The incident ended better than one could have imagined, since Beka and Rafe pulled off a con, engineered by Dylan, causing their Restorian attackers to pull the trigger on themselves.
As a reward, Rafe had been given a clean slate. But only hours later, Beka discovered his theft of her prized CD collection. She also realized a sob story Rafe had her believing was so scrambled that the truth of it couldn't be distinguished from the fiction. He charmed. He lied. He profited. Such was Rafe.
My big brother.
"I won't make a promise I can't keep but, if anyone can find him, I can," she'd told the gathering in Elva's banquet hall.
The Monarchean officials had given her leave to look over the quarters he'd occupied while visiting the planet, even housekeeping was absorbed in prepartions for the festival, and the quarters hadn't been touched since his departure. She'd hoped to find a clue there, but Rafe had played his part well. There was absolutely nothing in his quarters to suggest that he wasn't a Commonwealth ambassador.
When Rafe played a part, he was a chameleon. He put his heart into the role. To all outward appearance, he turned completely into the person portrayed. Even down to the smallest details. There were the remains of daisies sitting in a vase on his former night stand.
Rafe hated daisies.
That is why it puzzled her so much that Rafe would leave behind her CD collection. With the Festival of Music so close, he had to know Valtari's box would be opened, the disappearance of the artifact discovered, the ambassador's long visit to the Hall of Music remembered, and Andromeda contacted. Why leave such a glaring clue to his true identity when he was usually so flawless?
She sat up, giving up on the idea of snatching some sleep. She'd only planned on a quick nap and consequently hadn't bothered to change before lying down. She got up and stomped to the kitchen. Securing a cup of coffee, she walked quickly over to a table.
Her CDs were scattered across its surface. She'd planned on sorting and counting them when she found some down time, but, as she stared at the discs, inspiration struck. She slid the different CD's cases back and forth, looking at all the covers, shoving aside the ones she'd already seen to make way for those underneath which she hadn't looked upon yet. She smiled, sporadically humming a bar of a remembered song she knew a CD case contained. She knew the pictures on each case by heart. The sorting went on this way for several minutes, then her blue eyes fastened and held on a cover that stood out from the rest.
It stood out because she had never seen it before in her life.
She fished it from the pile and studied the cover. The picture was of a midnight blue blackground which represented the sky and a captital letter A, blood red, floated in the sky.
A for apple?
A for Andromeda?
A for...Ambassador.
"Pay load," Beka cried, pleased at this breakthrough. She ran to the wall. She popped the case open and stuck its resident disc into her player.
A holo-recording shimmered to life.
Dark hair, laughing eyes which mirrored her own, handsome face and that tongue-in-cheek manner, the combination of traits that were all too familiar to her. The tall figure was wearing a red High Guard Uniform. "So, Little Sister," Rafe's voice bubbled playfully like they'd been in a game of Hide-N-Seek. "You found me! Good job. I knew you could do it."
Beka rolled her eyes at the brotherly commendation and waited for the rest of his message.
"See what association with Captain Terrific has done to you, Rocket? You're actually donating valuable goods to museums for free. And you call yourself a Valentine." Holo-Rafe crossed his arms and shook his head. "But it was smart of you to look through the discs. No one else would have thought of that."
Beka blinked and shuffled her feet, impatiently. "What's your point, Rafe?"
As if anticipating her impatience, Holo-Rafe chuckled. "Well, I'm not going to keep you in the dark any longer. Hopefully, you've got all your precious discs back and if I don't have them, I won't be tempted to sell them. Wouldn't have done it, but I was strapped for credits. You got back something of yours and I took something which should have been mine all along. Tell you more about it sometime when I see you again, sis. Trust me, it's a fair exchange and no robbery. Try and figure that one, Valentine Smart. Valentine Smarter, out."
The recording ended and Rafe's mocking grin faded away with it.
Beka raised her eyebrows and stared into the empty air where her brother's image had just vanished. His gloating attitude didn't surprise her. What good was a master con job if you had no one to brag to about it? The only thing that really puzzled her was what he meant when he said he'd taken what rightfully belonged to him. Ah, well. It didn't matter now. Her blue eyes held a determined look as she took the disc from the player. "So you wanna play, do you, Big Brother? I accept the challenge."
She made her way to a viewscreen located just outside the cockpit, pressed a control to open a channel, and tried to call Dylan.
Instead, the image of Andromeda's AI, wearing a red High Guard uniform, appeared onscreen. Her brown eyes were fixed on nothing in particular as she began to speak. "I'm sorry. The captain is engaged in an important conference right now. Your communication is important to us. Thank you for making the effort to contact him. If you would like to leave a message or be alerted when the captain becomes free--"
"Rommie?" Beka interrupted. It took all of her will to keep from laughing outright at the ultra-polite intonations and words she had just heard. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, Beka. It's you," said Andromeda, recognizing her voice. The face on the screen frowned and explained. "Along with my repairs, Harper installed me with a new self-editing program and I was concentrating on integrating it with my systems to prepare for beta-testing. Dylan had suggested I use it to present a more pleasing face within my shipwide communication's system. Even though, he's currently planetside, all his calls are be routed to me while he participates in the music festival."
"He did, did he? More pleasing? You mean nicer, right?"
"As a warship, I sometimes have the tendency to be more abrupt. I just implemented this automated answering program for when someone attempts to establish contact on an onboard personal communication frequency already in use or privacy mode has been engaged for one of the crew's quarters. What did you think?"
"You want the truth?"
"Of course."
"What is it you usually would say in this situation?"
"I'll show you." Andromeda's face took on a stern look. "The captain is busy. He's not to be disturbed. Harper, if this is you, no I don't know what time he'll be free. No, I don't know if it will be anytime soon. Ask anymore ridiculous questions and I must remind you you do not want to get on the wrong side of the one who controls what goes into your food." At her last words, the screen went to a dark background and white letters appeared boldly, flashing the words, 'Do not disturb.' The words remained there until Beka touched a control which left the comm function and returned to the main screen.
"Well?"
Beka nodded. "I liked that way better."
"It's not very nice," said Rommie, uncertainly.
"No, but it's you. Don't try to self-edit yourself into being someone you're really not. Try and change yourself for a man, become exactly what he wants you to be, and he'll get bored with you and move on. It's not worth it. Believe me, I know."
"Thanks for the advice, Beka. I'll keep that in mind."
"Are you giving advice now, Captain Valentine?" a voice boomed from behind Beka. The Maru was still parked in Hangar Deck and she'd left the airlock open. "I hope there is some to spare for me."
"Tyr!" Beka turned away from the view screen. Preoccupied with thoughts of finding Rafe, she hadn't heard Tyr coming this time. "Wish you wouldn't do that."
"What was I doing?" Tyr asked, standing just inside the airlock.
"I mean sneaking up on people." She idly wondered how much of her conversation with Rommie he had overheard. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"I certainly was not attempting to sneak. I was, in fact, looking for you, Captain Valentine."
"Oh?" said Beka. "Why?"
"We are long overdue for a conversation and with events being as they are, we should finish it." His brown eyes studied her with concern. His voice softened. "What must I do in order for you to trust me?"
It was the wrong choice of words at this particular moment, when Beka was thinking about Rafe and, in turn, her father. The two people she should have been able to trust the most. The two people who had let her down the most.
"Isn't trust relative with you, Tyr? Aren't your loyalties to who's on the winning side? To advance your own survival? So can I trust you? Can I? Can I really?" Beka challenged. She turned down the corridor towards a cargo bay and he followed. "Because for some reason I remember a certain Nietzschean putting a certain belonging of his onboard Andromeda, but forgetting to mention the fact that it'd make us the prime subject of interest to the Drago Kazoz, not to mention the other prides who'd like to get their hands on it. Including the one that caused us to crash the Maru on that ice-ridden planet."
This was enlightening. "That upset you?"
Beka flashed an angry glare. "You bet it upset me. When there's an extra bull's eye painted on my back, I like to know about it."
"If I'm not mistaken, you once told Dylan that all of us had other reasons for being here."
"You mean hidden agendas? Yeah, I did."
"There are things from the Magog's past that, for obvious reasons, he never talks about. And yet you respect him as a valued member of the crew. Even when he was starving and we were his only potential food source, you trusted him." Personally, Tyr still thought it quite foolish to trust a Magog on the brink of starvation, but Bem had managed not to devour anyone and they'd made it back safely to Andromeda.
"That's right," said Beka in a tone less angry than a moment ago. "But whose ex-buddies were they that stranded us in the first place?"
"As they aptly proved, they were no friends of mine. I didn't know they would be so persistant in their pursuit of me. It was never my intention--" Tyr began and then thought it better to continue with his original line of reasoning. "You must admit that even the good Captain Hunt keeps secrets. There are things he has told us which have only arisen out of the necessity of information he needs us to know. Doubtless, there are things he plans--that he has yet to divulge."
"Sounds like Dylan," Beka admitted, recalling how the captain had kept a nova bomb aboard Andromeda without sharing that knowledge with his crew.
Tyr glanced for a moment around the cargo bay. He watched as Beka stopped before a crate. "And Trance Gemini," Tyr went on. "The Purple Girl is one of the biggest puzzle makers of them all."
"As well as one of my best friends," Beka finished the thought before Tyr had completed it.
"So the fact I kept certain information from you should be no surprise."
Beka stared hard at the wall for a moment. Of course, it should be no surprise. She'd always known Tyr was up to something when he'd agreed to stay on board the Andromeda. She gave a resigned sigh. "The company I keep. Okay, Tyr. Maybe I was being a little harsh. So, what's up? Why is my trust so important to you all of a sudden?" "As you may recall, Mister Harper found a clue on Valtari's box as to the nature of the Nietzschean artifact. You never told me if you knew it yourself. At times, it has even seemed that you deliberately avoid the subject."
"That's what you want to know? If I knew? Okay, we'll talk about it."
"When?" Tyr replied, fixing a serious gaze upon her.
"When I'm ready," Beka replied. She knelt down and pushed a crate towards the wall of the bay. "And right now, I'm ready to find my brother."
"The repairs to the Andromeda won't be finished for another day," Tyr replied.
"I can't wait," said Beka. "I'm taking the Maru now. Yeah. Maru's gotta enough supplies here to last two weeks. It's pretty much a lost cause if I don't find Rafe by then. The festival will be over." She paused for a moment, fiddling with a strap which secured the crate to the floor. Their conversation was over but the Nietzschean still lingered.
"Are you certain about this mission?" Tyr asked after a moment. "He is your brother."
"Are you saying I can't do this?" Beka asked, defensively. "No one knows Rafe as well I do. If anyone can find him, it's me."
Tyr had an analytical look in his eyes. "What I'm saying is, and mean no offense, the very thing that makes you the best person for this task, also makes you the worst person for it. Your strength is also your weakness. Obviously the man knows you as well you know him. And has the ability to fool you."
A frown skipped across Beka's forehead but left as quickly as it came. "I can do this on my own, Tyr."
"I beg your pardon?"
The hint of a grin tugged around Beka's lips. "You were about to offer to come with me? So, I won't be fooled again."
Puzzlement crossed Tyr's face. He hadn't expected the question. "Would you want me to come?"
"Well...Why not?" Beka rose to her feet, brushing dust off the knees of her pants. "I mean, get this straight, it's my mission. But with another pilot, there'd be less stops and better chances of catching up with our dear representative. So, the short version is, yeah. I want you to come." Besides, Beka's thought ran on, considering the rough territory where she'd be heading, it wouldn't be long before Dylan gave her the "If-you're-going-you're- not-going-alone" speech. Harper and Rommie were tied up in the finishing touches of ship's repairs, Dylan with his diplomatic obligations to the Monarcheans, and Trance...well, Trance already had experienced her fill of Beka-induced adventure during the Uncle Sid Reunion of Nightmares last year. Tyr seemed the right choice.
But would he agree to come? There was no way to tell what was going on in his head as she looked at him. He was standing still as a statue. Silence filled the air and Beka couldn't even discern if he was breathing. Her own breath sounded loud in her ears compared to the surrounding hush. She punctuated the stillness with her voice. "Think about if you want, but this ride leaves in twenty minutes."
At last, the statue shrugged his shoulders and breathed. "Sound reasoning. And where exactly are we going, Captain Valentine?"
Beka's grin broke out in full force. She had a mission to accomplish and she'd just gained a valuable player.