I briefly wondered if I was hung over. Then I dismissed the idea: what I felt was nothing like being hung over. More like…being hit by a Nova bomb.

I know I was laying down on something soft, so I figured someone must of moved me while I was unconscious. I tried sitting up, and asked where the hell I was.

"Mmghumaghmm?"

All right, I guess the coherent speech thing was beyond me for the moment. I was beginning to like that Nova bomb theory more and more.

I felt a hand on the back of my head gently raise me up. The double vision cleared slightly, so I was able to see the concerned – and very purple—face looking down on me.

"Here," she soothed. "Have some water."

Now unless I had been out for a really long time, and I had some weird dream where Trance had traded places with herself and was now a bronzy spooky person, something told me there might be a problem with the purple girl tending me.

"Trance?" I managed to slur out. "What? How…?"

"Well," she said carefully, recapping the water bottle with that cute frown I forgot she had had, "When two Hydrogen atoms love each other very much, they bond with an Oxygen and –"

"No, Trance, not that," I mumbled. Carefully, I eased myself up and propped myself up on my elbow, grabbing Trance's wrist with my other hand. "You're purple again?"

She pursed her lips. "Yes. I was forced back into my younger form by the beings who caught us."

Yes, Harper is genius. Brilliant is in my being. But at the moment, this was just a bit much to digest. "What? Who? Why?"

Trance gave a small smile at my incoherent string of questions, as she gently passed cool fingers over my temples. "I can't answer your questions right now, Harper, but I think it might be necessary that I do so soon. It may be the only way we can succeed."

Hmm, so Trance looked like her purple self, but acted like her future self. I was planning on making a suitably witty and yet thought-provoking remark, when I heard Beka's voice behind me.

"So our Sleeping Beauty's up and moving now, is he?"

I grimaced and rolled myself off the raised, padded dias. It looked something like the patient chairs in the med decks, but it was made of a substance I have never seen before, a kind of transparent air cushion. Fairly cool, actually, if you ignored the fact that the thing was in a room with no doors or obvious routes of escape.

"So, ahhhh…" I rubbed my temple as I tried to get out a coherent thought. The decks on the Andromeda were made of some tough stuff. "Is anyone willing on filling in everyone's favourite engineer on exactly what happened after Trance had that showdown with that cloud of spiteful fairy dust?"

"We were boarded by the strangers who attacked us," said Rhade from where he was sitting against the far wall, elbows on his knees. "To those of us who were conscious, the beings…breathed on us, and we were unable to prevent them leading us from Andromeda onto their ship."

"They breathed on you?" Beka asked, raising an eyebrow. I guess she had been unconscious, too.

"It appeared to be a pheromonal substance," Rommie commented. She was walking the perimeter of the room we were in, occasionally tapping a knuckle on the walls. "From what I was able to analyze of it, it contained a muscle relaxant and a mild sedative. The substance didn't work on me, and two of the beings had to drag me off by force."

"Sorry, Rommie, I didn't hear that right," I said, sticking a finger in my ear and wiggling it around. "I could have sworn you said it only took two of them to drag you off, and I know that can't be right because you, Rommie, have taken on over two dozen soldiers armed to the teeth all at once with nothing more than your own beautifully shaped hands, and won. So obviously, my hearing was affected when I hit my head, and I'm not going to find out we were captured by a group of super beings that can effectively grind our faces in the dirt without a second thought."

I was met by silence until Dylan looked up and answered for the first time. "They're a bit more difficult to deal with than what we first thought." He gave a crooked grin, finding a bit of his old humor. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't think there's any dirt here that they can grind our faces into."

See, this is what you get when you start thinking positively.

"Are you telling me that we're being held captive by some aliens I didn't even know we had made enemies of, that we have no hope of fighting against, and who may not let us back to the Andromeda alive?" Beka demanded. "Am I the only one that has a problem with that? I say we break out of here, find our weapons, or at least some of theirs that we can use, find our way back to the Andromeda and hightail it out of here. And Dylan, if you say anything about trying to get these guys to join the Commonwealth, I just might punch you."

"I don't like the idea of running, but I agree with Beka," said Rhade. "None of us will be able to accomplish anything if we're dead."

"Escape from this room would be very hard," Rommie said. "From what I can tell, the wall is only three inches thick, but the density levels are about 520 thousand trillion molecules per cubic centimeter."

"And that means….?" Dylan shook his head.

"That the thickness of a four foot thick lead wall has been compressed into three inches." I said. "Making trying to punch our way out of here a not fun experience. In fact, it would end up being very painful, something that I am very adverse to." I looked at Rhade. "Unless you're packing a few Nova bombs you forgot to tell me about, not even Neitzschean brute force can get past that wall. We need a different plan."

"I can get you out," Trance said quietly. "They have what they want, so if you let me talk to them, and we play our cards right, you guys can probably be allowed to go."

I rounded on Trance. I had been hanging around her too long to not catch how she had said that. " 'You guys'? Not 'us'? Were you planning on staying behind?"

Just then I noticed the metal collar that was now on her neck. It was thick, but plain, with only three small lights on the front: blue, green, and white. The white one was the only one glowing; the other two were dim. I slowly reached up to touch it and yanked my hand back at the electric charge that ran up through my arm.

"A restraint collar?" I whispered in shock. Trance looked up, and I noticed that the usual brightness of her eyes were severely dimmed.

"It was me they wanted, after all, " she said, valiantly trying to work up a cheery smile. "I doubt they would let me go now that they finally have me. But there's nothing they would want any of you for, so they might as well let you go."

I ducked my head, not wanting to keep looking in her eyes, and it was only because of that that I noticed her crossing her fingers.

I jerked my head up and was about to say something when a wall disappeared.

No joke. You were there, Dylan, and I don't know how it looked to you, but one second it was there and the next it wasn't. And I know it didn't just go transparent either, because it was the wall Rhade was leaning against and he nearly fell through it before he managed to scramble up.

Looking past it, I only caught a glimpse of a giant room, artfully covered with intricate paintings and wall hangings with dozens of people with skins in every colour imaginable walking around, before a blue-silver man walked through and the wall appeared again.

He was slightly shorter than Trance, and blue, but had the same curled horn hair thing that Trance had when she was bronze. At the sight of him, Dylan stiffened and Beka snarled, automatically reaching for the weapon that wasn't there anymore.

Trance pulled away from me and faced the new guy. She frowned at him at the moment, then forced up a bright smile. I would have almost been stunned by the sudden change, if it weren't for the fact that her eyes now had a wary, dangerous glint to them.

"Hi, Flux! It was so nice of you to drop in to visit! It's been so long! Why I bet Beka and Dylan have missed you so much!" She determinedly ignored Beka's most pointed Death Glare. "But really, we can't stay too long. Dylan here has quite a lot to get around to doing, and he's going to need a bit of help finishing it. So why don't you just let us go? We promise to be very good until then!"

This Flux character gave a cold smile. "Now, Trance, rushing off so soon? Your brothers and sisters have all been so excited about your return. Surely you can't leave without letting them find out what's happened to their estranged sibling? And your father! Why I bet you can imagine how… overjoyed he is that you're back under his care."

Trance's smile faded, and I figured it would be a nice time to show my support. Stepping up behind her, I faced the blue man and smiled my Harper Patented Smile # 42 (Of-course-I'm-hot-but-if-you-mess-with-my-friends-you're-so-seriously-screwed) "Hey Mr… What was it? Flux? As in the emissions that result when ships release their waste bins? Well, my name is Harper, Seamus Harper. I'm a friend of Trance, here, and usually I'm a great guy when it comes to adverse situations. Hey, I've even been captured by Magog, filled to the brim with their wormy, parasitic eggs, and even after they've tried to eat me alive, I still don't have too much of a grudge against them. But see, what you're doing to Trance here is not cool. She's one of my closest friends, and if everyone's so happy that she's back, I don't see the need to lock all of us in a room and stick a restraint collar on her. I've seen more love among Nightsider families. And in case you didn't know, they eat their own young. I say you should start showing some respect here, buddy, 'cause every single one of us here is more than willing to help you take a nice long flying leap into a swarming magog pit if you keep treating Trance here like trash. She can probably manage it herself with her unfathomable powers, but she's usually too nice for that."

"Harper….." Trance whispered, placing a restraining hand on my arm.

Flux laughed and I swear, Dylan, I nearly decked him right there. "Oh, good job! You always had a talent of inspiring loyalty, Trance. And don't worry, Mr. Harper." He turned to look me right in the eye. His eyes were creepy. Much creepier than Trance's. "You didn't need to introduce yourself. I know who you are. We all know who you are. You are very… popular among many important people here."

Beka blinked. "What now? Harper famous? Does this involve any bounty hunters?"

Flux brought his hands together on his chest. "Now, now, it wouldn't do to ask too many questions too soon! I just came to tell you that you will be making a appearance in the great chambers of Sigma Orion in …Let's see… half of your human hours."

" 'Our human hours'? " Rhade growled. Trust a Neitzschean to get offended.

"Dearie me, hasn't Trance told you how we see time differently than you? Miss Gemini, you're just keeping secrets from everyone these days, aren't you?" The stupid blue alien feigned exaggerated shock, and I contemplated ripping off his arm and shoving it down his stupid blue throat. I have no idea what it was, but something about him rubbed me the wrong way.

Apparently Beka shared my sentiments. "If that's all you wanted to say, why are you still here?" she demanded.

"Ah! Nearly forgot!" Flux pulled – from, as far as I could tell, nowhere – out a package of what looked like large rectangular cookies, wrapped in the same kind of clear stuff that covered the chair I woke up on. "I brought you food. You really all should eat. The great Sigma Orion doesn't like compensating for any human fragility."

He brought the package over to Dylan, who took it suspiciously.

"How do we know it isn't poisoned or something?" He demanded.

"It's not," said Trance, with a hard look at Flux. "The people here have no need for poisons."

Flux bowed in acknowledgement to her, then walked over to the wall he had come in through. After he nodded to it, it disappeared again, and he prepared to step through.

Quick as thought, Rommie bolted to run through. Now, Dylan, you know how quick I made her. Warships-made-flesh kinda need to be. But I swear, no matter how fast she was going, it didn't seem like she could bolt across the ten feet of space between her old spot and the open wall before Flux slowly, casually stepped through and the wall snapped back into place, an immovable object for Rommie's unstoppable force.