A/N: I know. I really do have reasons: vacation, laptop malfunction and then a new harddrive. But I'm properly ashamed.
B.L.A the Mouse – I swear, I meant it in the most positive way. The sun would shine a little dimmer if I didn't hear from you. I'm glad you enjoy it, and "not just as a shipper" is high praise indeed!
Artemis1000 – I must admit, I did not write enough pursuing into the upcoming chapters. But shippiness is there, I promise!
iilex – Sorry to have kept you (and the rest of my readers) waiting so long. I'm especially flattered that you're reading this despite your dislike of one of the main characters!
-o-
Before the end of their first year together, it had become a tradition that Tyr gave Beka a spa-quality neck rub after someone tried to kill her. For that half hour or so, all she had to do was relax and let her bodyguard and, as time went on, professed paramour work out the tension in her muscles. It was therefore exceedingly appropriate that their first kiss should occur during one of these massages. As Beka had predicted, an assassin bearing an FTA pilot's license they were supposed to see and traces of juice from a variety of peach her people smuggled to Chirew they were not supposed to notice had shown up as a candidate for her bodyguard.
Beka had to hand it to Charlemagne, he hired competent people. Better at killing than at removing all traces of their origin, but she thought Tyr might actually have broken a sweat this time. Figuratively speaking. He assured her that the man was planning for a long-term assignment, that he would not have killed her in the next five minutes, which impressed Beka even more. Impressed her and worried her more. Charlemagne was not going to send a thug, and judging by his determination to sneak a spy and eventual assassin into her innermost circle, he was not going to give up after a single failed attempt.
Well, assassination attempts kept life interesting. Beka made a mental note to up the black market shipments to Chirew. Just because she was deputy to a notorious crime lord did not mean she could not have pet causes. Black market sales were always profitable, of course – she was not exactly giving away fruit and vegetables and small arms – but she liked the idea that fewer slave kids were suffering from scurvy as a result of her incursions into Jaguar territory.
All this was passing through Beka's mind as she lounged in the Maru's pilot chair. The ship would have been almost unrecognizable now to River Runs Sun Bright, that bug who had confiscated him. Tyr's hands worked small miracles on her neck and shoulders while another bodyguard, determined not to be in the employ of anyone with a vested interest in Beka's demise by their extensive background check, stood at the portal. What precisely Skarynet was looking out for in the middle of space, Beka could not say for sure, but she admired the woman's enthusiasm.
"You smelled the peach on him? That's amazing. I'm surprised StellaNova studios hasn't approached you yet to be the subject of an epic biopic or something." She was barely aware of what she was saying, as was usual during these soothing interludes. "I can testify to your prowess as an actor, you know." Oh damn, she thought, and hoped Skarynet had not heard that or at least not thought to make anything of it. "But even just the storyline would make for prime viewing."
"Rebecca, there are a very few episodes in my life to which I have not made you privy," he replied in a low, amused tone. "It is entirely possible that I have been approached and entirely possible that my main source of income for a time when I was unemployed was royalty payments from just such a venture."
Beka craned her neck up to look at him, unsure if he was kidding. The expression on his face did not help her any. It never did. "Hmph. Well, let me see if I've got this right. Born to a Kodiak alpha, Barbarossa, and his favorite wife Victoria. The relationship between them was… complicated, as Nietzschean marital relations tend to be. I mean, moreso than usual. Not that I would know. Um. Orphaned when the Drago-Kazov Pride broke the peace of… of…" She waved a hand around, but Tyr was evidently not interested in enlightening her.
"Well, the peace generally agreed upon by the Prides for the keepers of the bones of Drago Museveni. Another reason to wish a black hole would swallow the Dragan homeworld, as if the universe needed another. Teenage… no, pre-teenage Tyr was orphaned and later enslaved. He escaped slavery when the mines collapsed around him, and he struggled his way out of the mine, then out of the surrounding desert. And then he killed the overseer who not only neglected his concerned comments about faulty safeguards but cut his rations in half for doing so. Am I getting this right?"
He gently pushed her head forward again and slid his hands from the curve of her neck to her biceps. As he did so, he bent down so he was speaking directly into her ear. Whispering, actually. The brush of his warm breath on her ear made Beka shiver. "You are, and I think that's enough for now."
Right. Skarynet. Well, there was not much in that narrative that was not available to interested parties. It was after he had escaped slavery and established himself as a mercenary that things got really exciting.
But he was not finished. "I have heard a rumor of late, involving an enterprising Nightsider and a High Guard starship supposed to be abandoned in the Hephaestus system. If I were not in your employ, madam, it is quite possible I would have answered his request for a team of mercenaries to supplement the unsuspecting pilot he has pulling the ship from the event horizon."
Beka chuckled. "If I were not in Darjella's employ, I might be that unsuspecting pilot. Are you making a suggestion?"
"I'm engaging in idle gossip and speculation."
"And I'm a vestal virgin."
"How promising."
Oh, he was funny. "So is this talk of a High Guard ship. What's her name?"
"The Andromeda Ascendant." He was working his way down her arms, making her alternately wince and sigh when he found and working out tension she had not even known was there.
"But Tyr," she said in a much too innocent tone of voice, "if this Nightsider finds the ship first, well, you know the saying. Finders keepers. And we certainly don't want to go chasing after an elusive fossil of bygone days."
By now he was on her hands, shifting the small bones until her hands felt almost liquid in their new-found relaxation. "So we let him find it… and then we find him. And keep everything, unless he proves uncooperative." In which case he take a long walk out the airlock, Beka finished mentally.
"A High Guard ship," she said dreamily. "If I had a High Guard ship in my hands..." Just in time did she remember the presence of her new bodyguard. Skarynet might not be actively gunning for her, but Beka would wager money that someone in her retinue would be reporting back to Darjella.
Tyr gripped her hands, bringing Beka a little more awake. "If we had a High Guard ship, my dear lady…" he began before pausing to lay a kiss on her neck, which woke Beka up even more. "… there is no telling…" Another kiss, a little higher. "… what we could accomplish." He kissed her again, just below her jaw.
To her delight, and probably Tyr's, Beka distantly heard the sound of shuffling feet. By tomorrow, news of those kisses would start reaching a select few exceptionally sharp ears. Beka figured she might as well give the gossips masquerading as spymasters for the rich and powerful something to keep them atwitter all morning, so she twisted her head to face Tyr. She gave him a wide smile and then tugged him closer for a real kiss.
Skarynet shuffled some more. Beka tried not to laugh and only succeeded because Tyr was managing to fog up her brain quite effectively. After a moment, she was not sure why she had wanted to laugh in the first place.
They were keeping a safe distance, out of sensor range, behind a smattering of rubble the Maru's computer claimed would actually work its way out of the singularity's orbit in a decade or so. She could not imagine how that was possible, but the Maru and his familiar masculine voice had never lied to her.
Beka wished she could see the Andromeda Ascendant. The specs of Glorious Heritage class heavy cruisers made them out to be gorgeous ships, even to a relative engineering neophyte like her. When the Maru had first entered the Hephaestus system, she had released a quiet little problem, unlikely to register on even the Andromeda Ascendant's sensors as anything more than errant space junk. It should begin transmitting at any minute now; Beka fairly itched with impatience.
Skaryent had devised a complex encryption for the transmission which would mask its origin, destination, and content, but the tiny computer on the probe needed a few minutes to work through the intricate programming. The woman was busy at a console now, accompanied by a sleek Makra, Virrt, a specialist on short-term assignment here solely for this occasion. They conversed in low tones which Beka was sure Tyr understood. He stood ready at the weapons console, prepared to fire to Maru's PDLs and any one of the guns at his belt alike.
"Something's coming through," Skarynet announced as Virrt chattered excitedly in his own tongue before switching to Common.
"It's beautiful!" He pressed his controls, and a silver ship, all curves and firepower, replaced the image of rubble on the viewscreen. Beka gazed in awe and heard Skarynet echo her. Only Tyr seemed unmoved.
To pilot a symbol of light and life like that would be a profound joy, one Beka intended to experience as soon as possible. Lately she had been considering that perhaps Darjella could be persuaded to step aside a bit sooner than planned, not that Beka would do much more than discuss the matter with her. Impractical as it probably was, she retained a strong sense of loyalty and would not turn on her mentor unless it became necessary.
"The Tamidan," Virrt announced as the ship belonging to Gerentex's hired crew appeared on the screen, "is leaving the Andrrromeda's hangarrr deck in a hurrrry."
The little ship – little next to the Andromeda Ascendant, a bit larger than the Maru – sped away from the High Guard warship like an unwieldy bullet.
"She is headed towarrrd the singularrrrity!' Virrt exclaimed.
Beka could not believe it, but the data at her console confirmed the Makra's information. "Are they insane?!"
And then she saw starlight twinkle on the bucky cables the Tamidan's pilot had used to drag the Andromeda Ascendant out of the black hole's grasp.
"Son of a bitch!" she hissed.
The Andromeda was falling back into the event horizon, but not before she came alive. Beka's console came alive with data from the probe – the warship's weapons ablaze, as if they would do any good. It would be another minute or so before the Tamidan achieved sufficient distance from the gravity well to open a slip portal. In what she assumed to be a moment of rage, bright green dots on her screen she took for missiles flared and blasted the Tamidan. Sparks flew, but the small ship managed to disappear into the whirling maw of a slip portal.
"That must have been the ship's A.I.," Beka said faintly.
"I realize you're reluctant to use the A.I. eraser," Tyr said from his post, lounging as usual and looking half-asleep, "but this display demonstrates the necessity of subduing it before it subdues us."
Virrt's head jerked up. "Errrase it?? The Andromeda Ascendant's A.I. is a sentient being! Surrrely we can worrrk something out to everrryone's benefit."
"She might once have been sentient," Beka said gently, "but she's been stuck there for three hundred years. She'll probably fire on us the moment she sees us."
Virrt smoothed his short fur in a manner Beka had come to understand expressed frustration or vexation. "After the Tamidan's crrrew trrried to salvage herrr and then thrrrow herrr back into the singularrrity, it's no surrprrrise!"
Virrt was right, but so was Tyr. Beka was not going to risk her life and her ship in interest of A.I. rights. The eraser they had procured was a blunt instrument, a last resort; it would completely erase the computer's personality core, possibly shut it down completely. It was entirely within the realm of possibility that the ship would never function at optimum capacity again, but Beka could live well for the rest of her life on the profit from the nova bombs alone.
Tyr gave Skarynet a look, bland to anyone who did not know him. She nodded and turned to Virrt. "Perhaps you should wait the rest of the mission out in your quarters. You've been very helpful so far, and we'll call you again if you're needed."
"You'rrre going to use it, arrren't you?? I must prrrotest, Captain, that ship is a sentient being, and…" Virrt's words were cut off when he noticed Skarynet pulling her gauss gun.
"Don't play the wounded idealist, Makra," Tyr drawled. "You knew how this would end. Your greed for Captain Valentine's well-known generous recompense outweighed your lofty morals, which shows the strength of those convictions."
Virrt's catlike eyes narrowed, but he did not argue.