"This way," she said, turning a sharp left. "I know a shortcut."

I followed her, having no problem trusting her, but just to make sure, I asked, "Know the place well?"

Trance gave a quick smile over her shoulder at me. "You could say that."

I nodded, having no problem with her answer. "So what's this whole Game thing? Are we going to have a Pong showdown to the last man standing?" I paused. "Or whatever you call the male half of your population."

Trance slowed, and frowned slightly. "I…don't know. Before, when we had the Game, the players were moved to a game field where nothing could interfere. But if it's now in virtual reality…" she shook her head. "It becomes a lot easier for someone to change the rules, and that's not very fair at all."

"Let me guess," I said, "The candidates most likely to change the rules would be your father and the punk ripped-off version of me?"

"Harper," Trance said, "Zelazny isn't a copy of you. He is you. From another… reality. Another possibility of what could happen. I think he's you from before you joined Beka on the Maru."

Still walking beside her, I frowned. "So if he's from another universe, what's he doing here in mine?"

"He's not," Trance said simply, without a pause.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "What? Trance, what are you –"

"We're here," Trance announced, grabbing my hand and going around a corner.

We stepped through a giant marble opening, and I had to stop to stare in awe. No wonder Trance loved being in the 'ponics garden so much. Maybe she was always in there trying to get it to look like this place. We were on the edge of a massive garden, that stretched out further than I could see the end of, so green my eyes hurt. The grass-type stuff felt springy under my feet, as if I wouldn't crush it by walking on it, it'd just pop back up right after me. There were flowers everywhere, bright and colorful and full of life. Off to the side you could hear the distant roar of an enormous waterfall, hundreds of feet tall, flowing into the sparkling river right by our feet. Giant trees rocketed up to the sky, some hanging with fruit and others there simply to provide shade. But it was the sky that got me. It was gorgeous, a pale purple with random green and blue streaks. It wasn't artificial, and that could only mean one thing.

"We're outside?" I demanded. "I thought we were on a ship!"

Trance gave me a quick look, but said nothing and just pulled on my arm, leading me down the river bank to where Dylan and the others were sitting, Flux standing stiffly behind them. Rommie was sitting there with her legs crossed, her eyes traveling everywhere as she studied the surroundings. Beka was sprawled out, propped up on her elbows, and grinned as came closer.

"Hey, Trance," she said. "This place isn't half bad. I wouldn't mind staying here for a while longer if it's like this everywhere."

"Where ever 'here' is," Rhade muttered darkly. I guess he had caught the implication of the fact that we were now groundbound on a planet, far, far away from Andromeda.

"Well, we'll all be staying here a lot longer than I think anyone would like if we lose this game," Dylan said, getting right down to business. "We need to figure out the game plan."

"Not lose?" Beka suggested.

Trance flashed Beka a quick smile as she knelt down beside Rhade. "A lot of this game is strategy," she said. "Who can cope with and improve on each of the different positions and limitations the best." She paused, then turned to frown at Flux. "At least, that was how the game was before."

Flux shrugged, and flicked a spec of dust off his shoulder. "The rules of the game do not change."

I guess Rhade remembered as well as I did Trance's outrage at the mention of the game being in virtual reality, because he added with a form of scorn only a Neitzschean can perfect. "You keep the rules the same to respect what you call tradition and change the entire way the game is played to respect convenience?"

Flux glanced over in Rhade's direction, saying nothing

Dylan cleared his throat. "Well, then, let's hear what these positions are, and decide who should be what."

"About time," Flux muttered, and tossed a little clinking bag of something in the middle of our little pow wow circle. It really bugged me that I had no idea – and I still don't – where he kept that freaking stupid hidden pocket. I tried asking Trance about it later, but, well, you know how she answers questions.

Rhade had picked up the tiny bag and carefully dumped out its contents, six little disc things in all sorts of different colours. "What are these?"

"They're to distinguish what position you play in the game." Trance said, leaning forward and sorting through them with a finger. "They attach to the inside of your wrist, and light up when you have active status."

" 'Active status'?" Beka asked. "I thought the whole point of this game was to not be inactive."

"Each position is only allowed a certain number of moves before they become non-active," Flux said to her, enunciating slowly and carefully. "You can only get points while you're active, and you need points to win. Can you understand that?"

The thing is with Beka, she's not an idiot. She couldn't have been to have survived in the big bad universe this long. Thusly, treating her like she is one is not the brightest thing to ever do. It makes her grouchy, and when Beka's cranky, something always ends up in itty bitty pieces. Namely, who/whatever it was that raised her ire. It's not a pretty thing to see, and naturally any kindhearted and sympathetic guy would warn Flux of his upcoming dismemberment.

Me, I just sat back and prepared to enjoy the show.

Dylan gave a small cough, tapping Beka on the shoulder at the same time. "I think we should move on, and choose positions." He turned to look at Trance, who was still sorting through the discs.

"Aha! Here it is!" She pulled up a dull blue one. "Here Dylan, you need to use this one."

"I don't get a choice?" he asked, taking the disc and looking at it.

"It's the leader position. You can get the most points during play."

"So what's the catch?" I asked. If the rest of these reject smurf people were anything like Flux, there would be a catch. I wouldn't trust these guys as far as I could throw them.

Actually, check that. I wouldn't trust these guys as far as I could shoot them.

"Er, well, it also marks you as the target for the other team to focus their attacks on," Trance said, with an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."

Dylan sighed. "Well, it's not like I haven't been someone's target before." He tried carefully holding the disc above his wrist, but it jumped out of his fingers and attached to his forearms just below his palms with a slight shlucking sound. We all watched, silent, as the little disc-thing gave two little beeps and started glowing blue.

Dylan shook his head. "That was…odd." He looked up and cleared his throat. "So. Who's next?"

Trance reached over and picked up the dull red one. "Vanguard. Whoever has this position has to lead in all attacks and defenses. They can't get as many points as Dylan can, but they'd be active for the whole game."

"Rhade," Dylan said without hesitation, taking the disc and tossing it to the Neitzschean. Rhade accepted it with a nod, holding it to his wrist until it beeped, shlucked, and glowed.

"Hey, are there any positions for those of us who are smart enough to not want anyone shooting at us?" I wasn't really liking how the parameters for all these positions were being laid down. There was a lot of talk about "Target" and "attack", and I think I was the only one who remembered that we were still weaponless after our "unhostile" takeover.

Trance gave a small smile and picked up the grey disc. "Logistics. Whoever has this will get another disc with all the rules and the points system in it. They'd have to be able to calculate the current score and how much each move would add or cost in points fast enough that it won't get in the way of play."

Dylan gave a shrug in my direction. "Sorry, Harper, I know you wanted a safer position, but this looks like one for Rommie."

"That's fine," I said absent-mindedly. I didn't really notice what he was saying, because I was trying to study the expression on our little Purple Pixie's face. Basically, any interpretation of it was not good. "Trance? What's the 'but'?"

"But…" Trance bit her bottom lip, "Whoever does logistics has no active status. At all."

"I'm sorry, Trance," I said, holding up both hands and trying to ignore the little siren that went off in my head, blaring 'PANIC! PANIC! PANIC NOW!' "I'm sure I'm mistaken here. Are you saying that if Rommie does logistics then she won't have active status? As in she won't be able to make any moves? As in she won't be able to come and save our sorry little behinds when G.I. Joe and Captain Sitting Duck here are three seconds shy of getting us smushed into teeny tiny and conveniently portable little bits? Are you kidding me!"

"Well…" Trance said, fidgeting, "no."

"Sorry to interject here," Beka said, "But I'm going to agree with Harper. We need every advantage we can get, and purposely putting Rommie in a position where all she is a spectator doesn't really seem like much of an advantage."

The AI in question was frowning. " I don't like the idea of standing on the sidelines either. I'm a warship. I don't do passivity: I protect my crew."

"If you would like," Rhade added, "I would do Logistics for you, and Rommie could be Vanguard. My mathematic skills are quite refined, and she does have a partial advantage in combat situations."

Trance suddenly sat up just a little bit straighter and she got tiny little worry lines right around her mouth. I knew that look, and I knew exactly where it was going, and I was not happy with it.

Dylan caught it loud and clear, too. "Rommie needs to do Logistics, doesn't she?" he sighed. "I'm sorry, Rommie, Rhade. We can't risk having someone else doing it slower and not even calculating it right. We'll just have to take care of ourselves. Besides, if Rommie says it's too much of a risk, we won't do a move."

"Fine, Boss, feel free to kill us all! You may think you're some immortal hero, but I've gotten kind fond of this whole living thing!" I let myself fall back on the annoyingly springy grass and glared at the annoyingly real sky and unleashed my Harper Patented Grimace #1 (Dylan's-gone-nuts-and-he's-taking-us-all-down-with-him). It didn't use to be that commonly used, it was just one I made up as a joke for Beka when we first joined his freakishly noble and honorable cause. But over the years, it's slowly and steadily worked its way all the way up to the front of the roster. If it weren't for the fact that in only comes out when we were facing certain doom, I'd have been kinda proud of that little grimace.