"What is it now?" Beka had entered Command to see Dylan looking unusually grim and Telemachus simultaneously annoyed and determined. Annoyed at whom and determined to do what?

Rommie, quickly becoming an integral part of the Command crew, answered when it was obvious that neither her captain nor the admiral wanted to talk about it. "It's Tyr. Somehow-"

"I'd give my blades to find out how," Telemachus muttered, slipping into rare slang.

"…Somehow, he found out about my… temporary loss of control and left a very inflammatory message before disappearing with his top generals." She quieted and gave Beka a long, searching look the latter was at a loss to explain.

She blinked. "Disappeared? Um, then who's in charge of the mass of will-to-power mad Nietzcheans just around the bend? Do we know if he's informed the Charlemagne?" And why was Rommie staring at her so intently?

"As to the latter, we don't think so, and as to the former, that's what I'd like to know," Telemachus replied, grimacing. "While the captain and Andromeda try to discover where he's gone, I believe a more immediate concern lies with the Nietzschean fleet, apparently leaderless for the time being." He flicked his eyes over her with the same curiosity – and was that suspicion? – she had noticed from Rommie.

"Okay, before anyone else looks at me like I've turned green or sprouted an extra head, can someone please tell me what Tyr's little huff has to do with me?"

Dylan exchanged glances with Rommie and Telemachus before clearing his throat. "He left a message encrypted to open to your vocal command and yours only."

"Oh. Well, in that case, open sesame."

Tyr's familiar features were hard and his voice cold from Andromeda's main viewscreen. "Captain Valentine, upon learning of such astounding incompetence from an ally, I generally drop the partnership and disavow all knowledge of such. Most importantly, my associates soon learn that I am not in a state to tolerate mediocrity. However, if the afore-mentioned ally should continue to search for me and tell me a sufficiently interesting story, I'm careful to consider all angles of a situation before acting rashly. Anyone do determined is advised to begin a search with third parties acquainted with both the ally and myself."

He couldn't mean the nothing planet she'd dropped his son off at with the Matriarch; that would be far too dangerous for everyone involved. Then who?

Telemachus frowned. "How good of him to decide to give us another chance. He will come running back to us when he learns of the approaching Magog horde."

"If we ever find the chance to tell him," Dylan added unhelpfully. "He's still part of the alliance until he formally renounces it, so we can't cut him out just yet." Judging by his tone, he would be happy to do just that if regulations allowed. "Beka, do you have any idea what 'third party' he's talking about? Could it have anything to do with your, ah, trip recently?"

"I doubt it. If I think of anything, I'll let you know."

At three a.m., she did think of something. It did have to do with her "trip", and she was stupid for not having thought of it earlier. She shed the tank top and boxers she slept in and threw on clothes she barely noticed. Her mind was racing.

"Beka?" Andromeda's hologram materialized in front of her.

A muffled 'rmph' was her reply as a startled Beka, pulling on a shirt, got stuck halfway. Soon, her head popped through the correct opening, blond hair all askew.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Just had a revelation. Gonna have to ask you for permission to disembark and no, can't tell ya where I'm going. That cool?"

"Does this mysterious destination concern Tyr's message?"

"Check and check. Whaddya say?"

"Dylan ordered me to give you any help I could, so I suppose this counts."

Beka looked around her quarters, satisfied that she had everything she needed with her or on the Maru. "Thanks. I'll try to bring back good new this time." She hurried through Andromeda's corridors and barely avoided running into Admiral Rhade, who was looking thoughtful before she burst around the corner.

"Captain, going for a midnight jog?" he asked mildly.

"You could say that. A midnight jog, followed by a midnight flight and, if I'm lucky, a midnight rendez-vous with a certain co-signatory of your treaty."

His eyebrows rose. "I see. I suppose it would be a waste of breath to ask where you're going."

"You got it."

He nodded. "Your efforts to maintain our alliance are admirable." She wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

A moment of silence passed, Beka impatient to be on her way. "Okay, if there's nothing else, I'm outta here." She had started to leave mid-sentence, but Telemachus reached out a hand and lay it firmly on her forearm. She tried to not to sigh. "What is it?"

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. When he spoke, it was simply to tell her to be careful. Then he turned and left in the opposite direction.

"Damn complicated Nietzcheans," she muttered as she dashed to her ship. Who knew what they were ever thinking anyway? They made deadly enemies and decidedly uncomfortable allies.

She slipped for several hours straight before dropping out of slipstream at her destination. When she landed, she realized how tired she was and found her annoyance with Tyr growing steadily. It took her nearly an hour to hunt down the small business operated by the man who'd relieved her of the cloak, as she could hardly tell people she was looking for a guy who held secret packages for Nietzscheans.

It turned out that the man owned a posh little café that looked out on a stunning nebula, the sort of place Beka could afford if she saved up for a year and lived on bread and water, and only if it was a really good year. Unfortunately, she was informed, the owner was not in. She yawned, thanked the server, and returned to her ship to catch some sleep.

A few hours later, the Maru awoke her with an alert that someone was trying to break in. Beka rolled out of bed onto her feet, gun near the bed soon in her hand. Heart pounding, she padded to the airlock. Whoever was out there was good; she barely head a sound where most burglars would be raising a racket to raise the dead. She powered up her gun, flipped a switch, ducked behind a corner, and prepared to fire.

"It would be a monumental waste of your valuable time, Captain, if you came all this way to find me and proceeded to shoot me, in which case I would be much less amenable to a reconsidering of my severance with you and your alliance."

The bastard had the nerve to sound amused at the situation. She emerged from the airlock glaring. "You'd be more convincing if you weren't trying to break into my ship. What, are your people never taught to knock?"

He almost smiled. "Depending on the Pride, we're taught to break it down with a battering ram or enter through a window."

"And you're a window man."

"If I had truly wished to break and enter, I would be inside your ship at the moment."

Beka scoffed. "Not likely. One of these days we'll have to make us a little wager. That is, if First Regents are permitted to gamble with lowly kludge allies."

"The status of that alliance is pending." He leaned against the hatch. "And so we come to the purpose of this visit."

"You noticed my clever segue, I see. All right, well, there isn't much to say. We promise it won't happen again."

He shook his head. "Not good enough. I have no reason to believe that you won't lose control of your ship again during combat or another crucial moment."

Time to bring out the big guns. "Fine, let me put it this way. You have three choices as I see it, Tyr. You can hook back up with Captain Valentine and her Commonwealth friends, ally yourself with the Genites, or find yourself all alone when about a trillion Magog come eating their way through the Known Worlds in less than a year."

Tyr looked rather less than impressed. "Yet you've kept this valuable information to yourselves for… how long?"

"Well you know, we planned to have a big party on the Andromeda and throw it at you and Charlemagne when you were as well-fed and as relaxed as you can be, but you spoiled all that. Andromeda was really looking forward to breaking out the good silver, too."

"Any proof of this Armageddon fantasy of yours?"

"On the Andromeda, sensor data up to your eyeballs and an interesting memory archive. Oh, and a witness who saw the Thing first-hand and only managed to survive to tell about it due to her cool head and amazing piloting skills and."

But Tyr would not be convinced. As Telemachus had pointed out, data like that could be faked. What was more, he might be walking into an ambush if he stepped foot aboard the Andromeda, she imagined he must be thinking. Not even veiled reference to the service she had recently performed for him could persuade him that she was telling the truth.

So that was why they were both in the Maru's cockpit now, Beka's heart lodged somewhere in her throat. Tyr Anasazi and his fleet had better be worth it, she repeated both aloud an internally. He assured her he was.

She retraced her route, more afraid of what awaited them than of not finding her way. "Okay, so the Genite's still on my tail, and I'm getting worried. Do I try to outrace him in slipstream or do I try out the Maru's new toys in normal space? The other guy's getting tired of this made up as I go slipstream route, but so is the Maru." There it was, the turn-off. She couldn't say how she recognized it, but recognize it she did.

"So I decide to turn around and face the guy." She dropped out of slipstream. "But whaddya know, the guy takes one look at this place and bolts like all the demons of hell are on his ass. Can you guess why?"

Tyr had stationed himself at a sensor console, reading the data that the Maru picked up from its surroundings. He found something strange but claimed he didn't have enough information to determine what it was and asked her to move closer."

This was were Beka put her foot down. "Oh no, buddy, this is the end of the ride. You're going to have to wait till we get back to the Andromeda and compare what you did get with the stuff we have on board. There's no way in hell – and it's not looking too far away right now – I'm getting any closer."

"Very well. After we return to my ship, I'll consider your offer."

"You really are too good to us lowly mortals, Tyr."

They returned to the drift without incident and went their separate ways. When Beka landed back on Andromeda, she refused to answer any questions before a shower and a nap. Dylan and Telemachus tried to wait patiently and delayed their barrage of questions until the moment she entered Command.

She had just started her story when Andromeda interrupted with a communication from Tyr. "Speak of the devil," Beka murmured.

"Captain Hunt, your first officer informs me that you have sensor data and a memory archive I may be interested in viewing, assuming I believe them to be genuine."

Dylan shot Beka a sharp look. "How generous of her. Perhaps said first officer should be reminded that certain sensitive matters are to stay classified until we decide how to proceed on them."

Onscreen, Tyr burst into a shocking laugh. "Captain Valentine's memory may have failed her in this instance, but she understands Nietzscheans better than you. Empty assurances are nowhere as convincing as concrete threats to survival. Out of the two cases she made, I believe you can deduce which brought me here."

Beka couldn't help looking a little smug as Dylan granted Tyr permission to come aboard.

As to the mysterious memory disc, that was actually a cliffhanger I hadn't intended to set up at all. It's the copy of Andromeda's first mission to stop the Magog, which was what triggered her memory in the previous chapter. Blood and guts galore, plus unrefutable proof that the Worldship is moving steadily towards the Known Worlds.