Rommie Stared at the estimated reports with a frown before heading towards the repair bay.
As she stepped in she looked up at the almost complete Xander as he hopped around on one leg and shook her head at the horrible shirt he was wearing /Probably stole it from Harper./ she thought before looking down at the report again. "Alex…" She stopped at the look he sent her and realized her mistake. "Xander." She corrected before continuing. "I've been looking over the report Beca, Harper and Rev Bem have sent me about you." She said as Xander just stared at her for a second before turning away.
"You don't want to know Rommie." He said simply before going to work on a leg that was sitting on the repair table.
Watching the Android work for a moment Rommie stepped around him and set the data pad in front of him. "One AP Cannon, Three missile ports and a single mine-deployer." She said as Xander glanced at the pad before looking back down.
"Two ports, port seventeen was open when I hit the Rad-cloud, it reads as ready but it's non-functional." Xander said a she tried to avoid answering the question he knew was coming.
Finally growing tired with his stall tactics Rommie grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "How did you beat that fleet with only two missile ports?" She demanded as Xander tried to avoid her glare before turning away from her grip.
"You really don't want to know." Xander said as he tried to find something, anything to focus on besides his sisterships glare.
Rommie finally nodded as she stepped in front of him again. "I believe you Xander, there are a lot of things I don't want to know, I Don't want to know the most miniscule details of Aparan breeding habits, I don't want to know how the Nietzschean's won the battle of Nera 4 by wearing the skins of our fallen soldiers to fool the auto-defenses and I don't want to know about the Magog Worldship that is on it's way here." Rommie said before swallowing at the memories of the worldship before straightening again and forcing the memories away. "Unfortunately as a Highguard Warship I don't have the option to remain ignorant." Rommie said as Xander finally looked up at her.
Taking an unneeded breath Xander let out a sigh. "Lifepods." He whispered before explaining at Rommies confused look. "The lifepods contain enough fuel to slow them down from anything below the speed of light, if you expend that fuel in one burst while traveling at just below Cee they can break the light-barrier by almost fifteen percent, the pod itself will disintegrate in a little under two point three seconds, but at one point one five the speed of light that gives them plenty of time to hit there target." Xander said before looking up at the shocked expression on Rommies face as she tried to calculate the damage potential of such an impact.
Finally coming to the conclusion that being hit by something moving that fast would be bad Rommie nodded "You where right, I didn't want to know." She said as she tried to imagine the desperation required for a mind to come up with such a tactic. Feeling vaguely sick Rommie looked at Xander before slipping the pad into one of her uniforms pockets. "Let's keep this to ourselves." Rommie said as she prayed to whatever was listening that none of the crew would ask the same question she had.
Nodding in agreement Xander turned back to his leg "We seem to be keeping a lot to ourselves." He said as Andromeda's Avatar finally left.
--
'Alexander' smiled as the last of his internal sensors came back online. Looking over at the person that made it possible he shook his head at the arrogant grin on harpers face. "Yeah yeah, you're still short though." Alexander said before disappearing with a laugh at Harpers indignant shout.
Wading through the mountains of data he had set up and collected from the Dim-World he had created for Xander the smile slowly started to fade away as he realized his program had been tampered with. "Where did you come from." He asked as a program file he had NOT created floated before him.
With a frown he finally activated the illegal program and stared in shock at the amount of energy it took to compile. After several seconds of rising power signatures he reached for the termination order when a surge of power ran through his system knocking Alexander out and forcing him to reset his cognitive functions.
On the Eureka Maru Seamus Harper screamed in pain as the energy ripped through his data ports surge protectors and started burn through his mind with the power of a small sun.
He was barely conscious as a pair of hands pulled the probe out of his neck and let him collapse into unconsciousness.
--
Alexander blinked as he came back online and heard several voices yelling for his attention.
Projecting himself into the docking bay he tried to calm everyone down as he ran a scan of all his systems looking for any new damage.
Holding his hands out to forestall anymore yelling on Beca's part he tried to allay any fears. "Mister Harper was connected to my systems when an information surge happened, it was a substantial surge but fortunately it was a subsidiary data surge, very painful for organics." He said as he made a note that it wasn't pleasant for AI's either. "But there has never been any lasting damage from one." He explained as he finished scanning the Data and turned to the physical scans for damage. "He will wake up with a headache and the urge to recite the Alphabet or his multiplication table's both will fade in an hours time as his mind processes the data, he will be fine I…" he trailed off as his scans reached the bridge. "Have a new passenger?" he asked in confusion before disappearing from the docking bay, leaving a very confused crew behind.
--
In the great darkness of space a vessel moved, slowly taking hundreds of years to reach its destination.
In the deepest pit of the Magog worldship a shadowed form stared into the abyss of time and swelled with rage at it's failing.
A hundred years earlier it held the Avatar of its greatest enemy in the palm of its hand, and it had let its enemy slip away.
Xander had escaped its trap with nothing more serious then missing a virtual eye.
If he had managed to kill the brat he would have been able to take over the avatars mind and eventually the 'Alexander' itself.
Thinking of the ship brought back memories of the first time he had gone up against the Highguard cruiser and how it had managed to help a select few of the Solar Avatars to escape his trap.
Throughout the worldship the Magog cowered at the inhuman scream that echoed through the massive vessel as the shadows rage finally boiled over.
--