TITLE: Andromeda: Final Conflict
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa (originally published under MikeJoe)
SYNOPSIS: In search of a cure for Harper, the crew is drawn into the last battle of Earth's Final Conflict
CHARACTERS: Supposed to be a Beka Story, but everyone's involved
DISCLAIMER: GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA and GENE RODDENBERRY'S EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT are both owned by Tribune. I am not making any money off this, so please don't sue me. This story and... MOST of its guest characters are mine, so please ask before archiving it.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When Andromeda was first on the air, I thought that there would be a crossover with Earth: Final Conflict, and that might be how E:FC's story was resolved. But as Andromeda's second season began, I realized that wouldn't happen. So I decided t do it myself. I hadn't followed FINALE CONFLICT very closely and I wrote this only knowing how their last season started, so it's kind of an AU. It's also an AU for Andromeda in that I made up my own origin for Harper's data port. That said, I hope you like it. Let's bring it!
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"...and we shall march to do battle in the dark'ning lands, pledging our lives to defeat evil and defend the realm... "
- Oath of the Shadow Cavalry, CY 57
Rommie, the beautiful android avatar of the *Andromeda Ascendant,* and the tall, slim, black robot, circled each other, arms raised in guard positions, watching for openings, moving lightly and quickly. Her brain's many processors calculated possible attacks, made contingencies for responses, estimated timings, and evaluated her enemy's body language (such as it is for a machine).
Finally, she attacked, flashing across the gap and delivering a furious combination of kicks and punches. Any other adversary - even a Nietzschean like Tyr - would have fallen, but the ebony mechanism evaded her attack as if she were standing still and countered with a backhand to her head that knocked her off her feet.
The robot advanced on the fallen android. Though totally mechanical in nature, it still seemed to be gloating.
"Poor little avatar," it said. "You're not as good at this as you think you are, are you? Maybe you should forget this 'embodiment of a warship' game and find employment more suited to your talents. Say, in a cyberbrothel?"
Rommie's anger flared, and she directed it into action: Her legs scissored through the air, catching one of the robot's legs and taking it to the ground with a crash. Then she leapt on top of it and, screaming out her rage, rained punches down on its head until there was nothing left but a small pile of parts in a dent in the metal floor.
She'd won, but she didn't feel like celebrating.
"Am I interrupting?" Dylan Hunt said from the door of hydroponics. The *Andromeda's* captain was dressed in shorts and a tank top (emblazoned with the High Guard Academy team insignia), a basketball under his arm.
"No," Rommie said quickly, getting to her feet. "No, I was just done."
"I see... " Dylan said, his gaze sweeping over hydroponics as he advanced into the huge room. The deck was littered with the twisted, bent, shattered, and otherwise thoroughly destroyed bodies of her black, faceless maintenance robots. "Some would call this masochistic behavior, Andromeda."
"It was intended to be just the opposite. I've noticed how you and Tyr use physical activities to vent your frustrations. I engaged in hand-to-hand combat routines to see if that could work for me."
"Oh. Has it?"
"No."
"Uh-huh... Talking about a frustrating problem is another time-tested method of working through them, and would do a lot less property damage to my ship." (Although other robot bodies had already entered the room and were cleaning up the mess.) "Want to give that a try?"
"Well... " Rommie said. "It's about Harper."
"What's he done this time?" Dylan asked.
"What? Oh, nothing. Well, nothing he shouldn't be doing. In fact, he's directing his energies towards something constructive. He and Trance are in my VR matrix, investigating the Magog larvae. He seems truly committed to finding his own solution to his infestation."
"Then what... "
"It's about me, Dylan, and what I've done for him, or to him."
Dylan had been expecting this; he was surprised it hadn't come up sooner. "No one blames you for his being infested, Rommie."
"I do."
"It's not your fault. Harper was the one who activated that old personality... "
"I authorized that repair, Dylan. I should have known there would be risks involved. I should have taken precautions." She started pacing back and forth. "And then, what did that old persona - what did *I* do? Did it occur to me that there was something odd going on with a full crew vanishing and six strangers replacing them? Did I even think that maybe I should ask the one in the High Guard uniform what was up? NO! Complete the mission! Activate internal defenses! Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!"
"Rommie... "
"And when the Magog came aboard... I still see it, Dylan, Tyr and Harper's last stand, back-to-back with just those two little knives against a whole hoard. Even if I could have stopped it, I didn't want to!" She stopped pacing; she was crying. "Why couldn't those monsters have just killed him and got it over with?"
Dylan moved to her side and put an arm around her shoulders. "And that's why you came down here to... beat up on yourself."
"No."
That caught Dylan off guard. "Then what?"
"I've been watching Harper and Trance work together over the past week. She not only helps him, but provides emotional support and empathy when he needs it."
"Of course; they're friends."
"Exactly."
"Jealous?"
"Oh, no, no, of course not. I'm glad she's there for him. But then it occurred to me, what if something happened to her? Could I fill her role, and provide him with the empathy she does? So I ran 127,814 simulations on just that question. The answer came back the same every time: NO. It's an unmitigated disaster no matter what variables I change."
"And this frustrates you because... "
"Because Harper and I know each other so well and in ways few other sentients can, so there should be *something* there, some basis for a genuine bond, but there doesn't seem to be anything. I yell at him, I threaten him, but I can't talk *to* him. Hell, I can count the number of times I've given him a compliment over the past 15 months without running out of fingers and toes. It's bad enough I almost got him killed and he's living his worst nightmare, but I can't even do something for him as simple as being a friend."
"Rommie... " Dylan said. "Life isn't a simulation. There's no equation for how things work between people. If you really want things to be different between you and Harper, you have to go in there and *do* it. That's the only way."
"You're right, Dylan. Thank you. I'll start right now."
And that was how the whole mess started.
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Harper jumped when Rommie materialized next to his liver.
"Whatever it is, I didn't do it," he said quickly.
"No, I'm not here to accuse you of anything, Harper," the A. I.'s aspect said. "I just want you and Trance to know I'm available if you need help."
"Oh, thanks, Rommie," Trance said.
"Yeah," Harper said. He and Trance were surprised at Rommie being so forthcoming; they all seemed a bit awkward. Still... "Why don't you come over here and help me?" Harper asked.
"Sure." Rommie moved to Harper's side. They were standing in a giant, transparent, colored image of Harper's body, the six remaining Magog larvae standing out in stark relief, a red aura encircling each of the little parasites. Rommie put her hands in the air; virtual displays, like the ones Trance and Harper had been manipulating, appeared in the air in front of her.
"Ok, kiddies, say cheese," Harper sneered.
"Beginning scan," Rommie said. They manipulated their ethereal control panels; the red auras glistened, gleamed, and filled with static.
"It's not clearing up," Trance said.
"More power to it," Harper said.
"Harper - !" Rommie started to raise her voice but forced herself to calm down. "Harper, you have the scanner's beam at dangerous levels as it is. Going any higher risks injury or radiation poisoning."
"Like I'd mind Stinky and T. B. glowing in the dark?" Harper shot back. (Rommie cursed herself quietly - this was not going well.)
"Why not increase the resolution on the sensor?" Trance asked.
"Yes," Rommie said. "Trance, you calibrate the beam. 5% higher, no more. Harper, you calibrate the sensor array. And now that I think about it, I'll load in some enhancement subroutines, to make the best of the returns we do get."
They worked their displays, and the auras began to change; letters and numbers began to float in the air around them. But suddenly, an alarm sounded, the larvae blazed red, and Harper doubled over, screaming in pain as his virtual self vanished.
"The larvae - they're sensing the beam!" Trance said. "They're attacking him!"
"Terminating scan," Rommie said. "... Patient life signs returning to normal."
/
/
Still rubbing his stomach, Harper unplugged the jack from the connector in his neck. At a nearby table, Trance took off the VR headset as one of Andromeda's holograms appeared next to the exam table he was lying on.
"Feel better?" Rommie hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.
"As good as I can be with six monsters in my gut sending me hate mail," Harper said, slowly sitting up.
Trance passed a medical scanner over his stomach. "They've settled down again - don't bother with the inhaler."
"Still, is investigating the larvae's interface with your physiology worth the risks?" Rommie asked.
"It's gotta be - look at how they reacted!" Harper said. "I mean, c'mon Rom Doll, Magog biology is totally different from human - or from anybody's - so they shouldn't be able to infect me like I'm from the same biosphere, but they do. It would be as if I replaced your slipstream cores with the internal combustion engines off some '67 Chevys - old Earth calendar - and you could still access the stream."
"Hmm... " Rommie said thoughtfully. "What if someone else had solved that problem?"
"That's the first thing we checked, Rommie," Trance said, "but no one has."
"No *Commonwealth member* has," the hologram mused, "so maybe the answer lies beyond the Commonwealth. And I can do the search much more quickly than you. May I... ?"
Trance nodded; Rommie's eyes turned inward, searching...
...and suddenly she looked surprised!
"What?" Harper said.
"A hit," Rommie said, smiling. "And if my data is correct, one very close to home."
A control panel screen lit up. Harper crossed to it and read it. His jaw dropped. "And you mean... this could... "
"Looks like it," Rommie said.
"Where's Beka?"
"Aboard the *Maru.* Do you want me to contact her?"
"No, I'll do it. I love ya, Rommie. I owe ya one, big time!" He blew the hologram a kiss with a huge sweep of his arm.
"No charge," Rommie said as Harper almost fell over himself racing out of the diagnostic room.
"Rommie, show me that file again please?" Trance said, crossing to the same monitor. It lit again; she read the same information Harper had... but with a different reaction.
She frowned.
"Is there a problem?" Rommie asked.
"Not yet," Trance answered.
/
/
"Beka!?" Harper slammed against the counter in the *Eureka Maru*'s galley, trying to catch his breath. For once, his "kids" didn't make him pay for exerting himself.
"Up here!" Beka's voice came from the ship's cockpit. As Harper went forward, he saw that a section of the floor grating had been removed. Harper dropped down through the hole and found Beka Valentine, the ship's blonde captain and pilot, working on some of the equipment there.
"Hey, Tiger," she said, turning towards him with a smile. "What's up?"
"Oh, Beka, let me express my gratitude and appreciation to all Valentines ever, anywhere." He bowed several times, arms outstretched. "I will remain your humble and obedient servant forever!"
"Slow down, Harper - what's this all about?"
Harper stopped bowing, but his excitement was unabated. "I'll boil it down to one word, Boss - Taelons."
Beka recoiled as if that one word had hit her in the stomach. "Taelons?"
"Yeah. They did it, Beka! They elevated biotechnology to an art form; they engineered living creatures into weapons that could be integrated with human physiologies even though they were alien creatures from alien planets. Sound familiar?" Harper pointed at his stomach.
"Yeah," Beka said cautiously, "but the Taelons have been extinct for centuries. Any goodies they'd left behind probably got snapped up by Vedrans a long time ago."
"So everyone believes. But you know as well as I there are stories that the Taelon Mother Ship still exists, right? And according to Rommie, one Captain Ignatius Valentine - your proud poppa if I'm not mistaken - came as close as anyone did to finding it. This could be the end of the road, Beka! All we gotta do is look through your dad's logs, figure out where that puppy is, and go get it! Whaddya say?"
Beka didn't answer right away. She fidgeted, apparently distracted. Harper hadn't been sure what to expect, but it wasn't this, and he got a little worried.
"Beka?" he asked. "What's wrong? What's - ?"
"I need some air." Beka roughly pushed past Harper, climbed up the ladder to the deck, and hurried down to the galley where she paced back and forth, hands opening and closing.
Taelon Mother Ship, Taelon Mother Ship... why in the name of the Galactic Prime Meridian had he brought up the thrice-damned Taelon Mother Ship?
But it would be just like him, wouldn't it?
"Boss?" Finally catching up with her, Harper entered the galley. "Rebecca? Look, if I've upset you, I'm sorry. But at least tell me if- "
"No!" Beka snapped, finally stopping in her tracks. "I'm sorry, Seamus, but I can't help you."
"You sure? 'Cause Rommie says - "
"She's wrong."
"Rommie's never wrong," Harper said in a small voice, puzzled at the fury he seemed to be the brunt of.
"Oh!" Beka shouted. "So now you believe her instead of me?"
"What - I - uhh - "
"Or maybe you just prefer brunettes to blondes?" A thought, and the nanobots in Beka's hair changed it from blonde to Rommie's shade of black. "Is this it? Or do I also need big brown eyes and pouty, red lips, too?"
"BEKA! Wha'd I do? I just want to know - "
"Now you listen, and you listen good," Beka snarled, getting nose-to-nose with Harper. "There will be no more talk of the Taelon Mother Ship while you are a member of my crew, do you hear me? It stops now! Not another word."
"Beka, please - "
"NOT. ANOTHER. WORD."
"Just let me look at your dad's logs, see if it confirms - "
"FINE!" Beka shouted. She grabbed Harper by the shirt and flung him towards the airlock door. He almost lost his balance.
"That's it!" she yelled. "Harper, *you're fired!* Now, get off my ship!"
"WHAT!? Beka - "
"Go! Go and play I dunno what you play with your windup girl friend but go."
"Boss... " Harper was crying.
"I won't ask you again," Beka growled. She drew her pistol and flipped the safety off with her thumb as she aimed it at the ceiling.
"Ok... " Harper blubbered. "I'm going."
Only after the airlock doors had closed behind him did Beka turn off her pistol and holster it.
/
/
The *Andromeda* knew there was something seriously wrong the instant Harper stepped away from the *Maru.*
When he was part way across the hangar, one of her holograms appeared in his path. "Harper! What happened in there?"
Harper tried to control himself long enough to speak. "Rommie... I... I'm out of a job."
"What do you mean?"
"Beka fired me."
"WHAT!?"
Harper explained what had happened as he tried to calm his tears; Andromeda, for her part, found herself wishing her hologram could hold him.
"Harper... will you be all right?"
"I dunno... I guess so... It's just, I wish I knew... "
"Why don't you go to the officer's mess? I'll prepare a snack for you. Ok? A made-to-order-Seamus-Special, whatever you want."
"Yeah, sure. Sounds great."
"I'll talk to Beka. I'm sure this is all an unfortunate misunderstanding and we can sort it out. Don't worry about it... "
/
/
Beka, her hair once again blonde, blew steam off her tea and took a sip. She had finally calmed down, with a lot of effort, and realized she had been a royal Vedran's behind with Harper. She hoped to talk with him, apologize, and set things right... later, after she had her wits about her, after she could explain without going through the roof. All she needed was time to heal.
It didn't look like she was going to get it. The airlock doors opened and Rommie entered. The android avatar of the larger ship the *Maru* was birthed in took a few paces into the galley, agitated as she shifted her weight from one foot to another, an unreadable expression on her face.
Beka turned back to her tea. "Go 'way, Rommie."
"Or what? You'll shoot me, too?"
"Huh?"
"Harper told me everything. I couldn't leave him alone until I was sure he wouldn't try to kill himself. How could you, Beka? Do you know what you mean to him? Do you realize what you've done to him?"
"Rommie, please - "
"He told me, not so long ago, he wouldn't know what to do if something happened to you, and you just go and treat him like a pile of Magog poop you found on your shoes. Why!? In the name of the Vedran Empress, WHY?"
"I have my reasons. I don't want to discuss them right now. Give me some time, Rommie, please."
"Ok, I think we can table that issue for now. Can you answer some questions? I'll leave if you answer all of them."
Beka thought she could handle that. "All right."
"Did your father look for the Taelon Mother Ship?" Rommie asked.
"Yes," Beka answered.
"Did he find it?"
"No."
"Is there information in his logs that can helps us find it?"
"I dunno. I was barely up to your knee at the time. Maybe."
"Will you help us look for the Taelon Mother ship now?"
This was the hardest one of all: "No. Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"I have my reasons."
"Which are?"
"None of your business."
Rommie slammed her hand down on the counter, leaving an impression, and started pacing her cage, while Beka hoped to ignore her by focusing on the tea.
It didn't work.
"I don't understand you," Rommie said, visibly upset. "If it were Dylan - "
"I'm not Dylan."
"Harper's your engineer! He's your friend! Hell, he's practically family! Why won't you do what you can to save him?"
"Rommie - "
"DAMN YOU, BEKA VALENTINE!" the android raged. "WHAT KIND OF A STARSHIP CAPTAIN ARE YOU!?"
Beka slammed down the tea, jumped off her stool, and got in Rommie's face. "Don't you DARE take that tone with me, missy!" she snarled. "I'm a damn good captain. I was saving my crew's necks long before I found you and that overgrown bellhop, and I'll be saving them long after the Magog blow you and him to hell!"
Rommie just stared at Beka, stunned.
"Beka?" Trance said from just inside the airlock. Neither she nor Rommie had heard her come in. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Rommie said. "I'm done here." She pushed past Trance and left the *Maru.*
"Hello, Trance," Beka said. "Goodbye, Trance."
"Beka - " Trance started.
"Trance. In the last twenty minutes, I have almost shot Harper and had a shouting match with a warship. Please, I don't want to throw down with you, too."
"Fine," Trance said with that level, even, penetrating stare of hers. "Don't shoot me and don't yell at me. Just tell me - what happened when your father went looking for the Taelon Mother Ship?"
Beka wandered towards the bunk area. "Trance, please - "
"It's very important, Beka," Trance said.
"Know something I don't?" Beka asked.
"I know it is very important we find that ship." Still that penetrating stare. "I know we will need you to do it. But you need to get past what happened the first time."
"Will it save Harper? Really?"
Trance shrugged, but her gaze was unrelenting.
"Yeah, right," Beka said, sitting down on one of the bunks. Trance came over and stood opposite her.
"What happened was, Mommy was sick," Beka said. "I don't remember what was wrong with her, just that she was sick all the time and she wasn't getting any better. We spent most of the money we made on salvage and hauling jobs and... other things... and used it to pay for all these doctors we kept chasing down, but you know how it is? None of them helped.
"Then Daddy started hearing all these miraculous stories about the Taelon Mother Ship and its wondrous biotech. He changed, he... I was too young to understand obsession, but that's what happened, it became his obsession. All I heard about, morning, noon, and night, Taelon Mother Ship. I began to hate it, and I wasn't the only one. Uncle Sid got tired of hearing of it, and they went their separate ways until... well, until we stopped looking for it. But worse - I realized this when I looked over his debts - we turned down several good jobs just so he could stay on his mission to find that bloody mother ship. It explained a lot. Times were always hard, but then, they were *really* hard." She shook her head.
"So, what happened?" Trance asked, sitting down on the opposite bunk.
"What you'd expect," Beka said. "We were racing from place to place again, but instead of chasing doctors, we were chasing leads. Any scrap of information, any hint of a rumor, anything he heard from a drunk in a bar or a bum begging in a street on some backwater world, we went after it. For months. No money, Mommy getting worse every day. And no magical Taelon Mother Ship, either. Every single lead was a dead end. EVERY ONE." She stopped and looked down at the floor.
"Then what?" Trance asked quietly. "Beka - "
"Mommy died." Beka looked up, tears rolling down her cheeks. "A good part of a year looking for a miracle cure and she still died. Her funeral was an open cargo bay door during a waste dump; we couldn't afford anything else. And Daddy... changed again. He seemed all right; he patched things up with Sid and we got some good jobs again. But that's when it started to go wrong. I think, that's what planted the seed... it just grew and grew and consumed him. And eventually, he died."
"And you blamed the Taelon Mother Ship?"
"Childish, I know, but yeah. I never wanted to hear of that thing again, and I promised myself I wouldn't come within an A. U. of it except to ram a nuke up its tail pipe... if it has one." She sniffled. "Poor Harper, comes in happier than I've ever seen him, like he just found the cure in a tech manual he just didn't bother to read too carefully the first time, and with three little words, brings it all back. And I come down on him like Magog on a puppy farm. Maybe Rommie had a point; what kind of captain am I?"
"A good one; you care."
"Yeah. I think I gotta tone down the tough love thing, though, don't you?"
"Beka... " Trance said. "What happened to your dad, I'm sorry. I feel bad for you, really I do. And I understand why you might not want to help this time. But Harper is very much alive. He's nowhere near terminal yet; there's still time if we start NOW. Please, for his sake... look at your dad's logs. See what's there."
"I can look," Beka said. "I think there was one or two more places we were going to try, but after Mommy died, we didn't bother. And I was glad." She smiled. "Maybe two more blind alleys, but what the heck, worth a try, huh?"
"It'll work out," Trance said. "I have faith in you."
"That makes one of us. And Trance, if you see Harper... ?"
"I'll tell him, Beka. Don't worry. I'll tell him."
/
/
Beka cautiously emerged from the *Maru's* airlock, a flexie in her hand, and descended the steps to the hangar floor.
Nothing happened.
She took a few steps forward and stopped.
Still nothing.
"Ok," Beka said, "not fried as soon as I leave my ship. Good sign, yes?" She took a deep breath. "Andromeda?"
Rommie's hologram blazed out of scan lines in front of her. "Yes, Beka?"
NOT 'Captain Valentine.' Another good sign? Beka hoped so.
"I, uh... " Beka said. "Rommie, I just want to say... I'm sorry, for what I said earlier. I just, uh... "
"Trance has informed me of what happened to your family. My sympathies."
"Thanks."
"And I feel I owe you an apology, too. You and the others... you're all I have left, after... I suppose I get a little bloody-minded about what I have left."
"No problem." Beka forced a smile and raised the flexie. "Anyway, some good came of it, I hope. There was one more lead my dad was going to try. It may be another dead end and the trail's probably gone cold, but I can show it to Dylan... "
"I want you to do more than that, Beka." Now Rommie had the penetrating stare, as forceful, in it's own way, as Trance's. "I want you to promise me you will continue the search for the Taelon Mother Ship until you find it, or until you have proven every lead to be a blind alley. For Harper's sake, if not for mine." Andromeda knew what she was asking.
So did Beka.
"All right, Rommie," Beka said. "I promise."
/
/
Dylan leaned back in his office chair and took a long look at Trance, Beka, and the *Andromeda's* humanoid avatar.
"The Taelon Mother Ship," he said. "Have you all gone completely insane?"
"I know what I have is thin - " Beka started.
"Try impossible," Dylan said. "Even in my day, most serious scholars said it was most likely that the TMS had been towed to Tarn Vedra and dismantled three thousand years ago. So even if there's anything left of it, we can't get to it. Has academia changed that much during the Long Night?"
"What's left of it, no," Beka said. "But I can point you to some serious scholars - including a Perseid who has a whole university named after him - who believed that it was most likely that you and Rommie went over to the Nietzscheans three hundred years ago, and the stories about you being frozen in time were High Guard propaganda. Or didn't you wonder why no one else found you?"
"And I think that Perseid still says you're a fake," Trance said.
"And on a related point, Dylan," Rommie said, "we *are* talking about the Shadow Cavalry. They were doing black ops and disinformation campaigns when humanity still had bronze swords. It's not unlikely that they could have encouraged the belief that the TMS no longer existed while it had been stashed somewhere else."
Dylan sighed. "Let me see your information again."
Beka handed him the flexie; he read it and sighed.
"'Thin' would be a complement," Dylan said. "This is barely above a rumor."
"I know," Beka said.
"And the assertion that this individual met - "
"*I know.*"
"I don't know, Beka. We have too many prior commitments - our meeting with the Shipper's Guild, for one. And then there's our summit with -"
"Dylan, right now we're only three jumps from Infinity; I can be there and back in under a day if I give myself a coffee I. V."
"I don't know if I can spare you for that long. Are you *sure* this isn't a dead end?"
Beka paused, then turned to Trance and Rommie. "Guys - give us a minute?"
"Privacy mode engaged," Rommie said. She and Trance left.
"What is it?" Dylan asked.
"Dylan, Rommie - "
"ROMMIE instigated this?"
"Yes. Trance said she's got very interested in helping Harper lately."
"Me and my big mouth."
"Sorry?"
"Nothing," Dylan said. "You were saying?"
"Yes," Beka said. "Rommie made me promise to search for the Taelon Mother Ship, no matter what."
"I see."
Seconds crawled by as they looked at each other.
"Well, Captain Valentine," Dylan said. "You leave me no choice. Andromeda! Disengage privacy mode."
One of Rommie's holograms appeared next to Beka.
"Send a courier message to the Shipper's Guild," Dylan instructed the A.I.'s image. "Tell them we will be unavoidably detained and will have to reschedule our meeting."
"No - wait - " Beka said. "Dylan, just let me go in the *Maru.* I'll take Trance and Rev with me - "
"You heard Rommie," Dylan said, standing up. "If this lead of yours has even a chance of panning out, then most likely you'll be following in the footsteps of the Shadow Cavalry. That's not where angels fear to tread, Beka; that's where any angel with more than half a brain doesn't even bother to find a map for. Your best bet will be if we all go with you."
"And if it's another dead end?"
"Then we get an unscheduled beach party." Dylan flashed a smile.
"Embarrassing."
"Not as embarrassing as letting you go off alone, and having a courier inform me they need to have a mutilated body identified. No arguments, Beka. We're going."
"Damn. Now I know how people feel when I get pigheaded."
"Andromeda," Dylan said. "Alert the crew. All hands, report to Command."
/
/
Beka and Dylan were almost at Command when Harper popped out of an intersection in their path.
"You go ahead, Dylan," Beka said. "We'll catch up."
Dylan's gaze traveled between his first officer and his engineer, but he continued on the way to the bridge. When he'd vanished 'round the far corner, Beka found she couldn't ignore Harper any longer.
"Hi," she said.
"Hey," he answered.
"Harper... I'm sorry."
"It's ok, Boss."
"No, it's not ok. I completely lost it, and I shouldn't have, not with you, not after what you've been through."
"Yeah, well, I figure if you came running to me, telling me it would be really great if we went back to the Magog World Ship, I'd be less than thrilled."
"I guess, but still, I really am sorry, Harper... " Her voice broke a little - just a little - as she hugged him. "And I'll make it up to you. I promise."
They held that pose for a few moments, for a lifetime, both sniffling as they finally disengaged.
"So, ah... " Beka said. "I have an opening for an engineer on the *Maru.* Want your old job back?"
"I dunno, Beka," Harper said in a teasing tone that relieved her more than any words. "I was kinda getting used to the idea of being able to devote ALL my genius, energy, and attention to Andromeda, Beloved Goddess of the Spaceways."
Beka playfully arched her eyebrows. "Oh, really?"
"Of course. After all, Rommie's a brunette."
Beka swatted him on the back of the head with her flexie.
/
/
Tyr and Rev were the last to straggle into the bridge, at which time Dylan explained to his little crew that they would be searching for the Taelon Mother Ship... and why they would all be going on the trip.
"What is the Shadow Cavalry?" Trance asked. "I mean, if they were all Vedrans, they'd all be dead by now, right?"
"Probably, yes," Dylan said. "But that doesn't make this situation any less dangerous.
"The Shadow Cavalry was an all-Vedran intelligence gathering and clandestine operations organization attached to the Vedran Royal Family. They pretty much were High Guard intelligence until Humanity entered the Commonwealth. The story goes that Vedran Nationalists in their ranks opposed admitting humans to the Cavalry, so the Argosy Special Operations Service was formed. Officially, ASOS supplanted the Cavalry as the Commonwealth's main intelligence gathering arm, and they assumed a ceremonial role on Tarn Vedra. Unofficially, they gave ASOS chief Admiral Stark the creeps... and *nothing* gave Admiral Stark the creeps.
"The important thing here is that, despite what is written in the All Systems Library, the Shadow Cavaliers were Earth's true first contact with the Commonwealth. No one knows why they were hunting the Taelons, but that lead them to arrive roughly one hundred years after the Atavus had conquered the planet. They backed what resistance there was still left, and engineered the rebellion that unseated the Atavus and their allies and paved the way for the Mentoring mission that is officially regarded as first contact. That means the Shadow Cavalry got a hold of whatever the Taelons and the Atavus left behind, including the Mother Ship. Whatever happened to it, you can bet it was heavily guarded, and maybe even booby-trapped."
"Now, you'd figure that the Vedrans would have taken all their toys back to Tarn Vedra," Beka said, "taken them apart, and we'd be lucky if we found an invoice for the removal of the scaffolding, right? But there've always been stories that the Vedrans, never wanting to think in straight lines..."
"And the Shadow Cavalry thought in Slipstream Routes," Rommie put in.
"…That they took the Mother Ship and hid it somewhere else," Beka went on. "No one knows where, and no one ever found it, but the stories never went away. And that's where... my father came in." She kept it together as she again recounted her father's ultimately fruitless search for it.
"...and that means we have really only one lead left," Beka said at length, " - and anyone who says this is the great grandmother of all long shots would be right."
Beka tabbed a control panel, displaying her flexie's data on one of the huge main screens. Everyone focused on the portrait of a young white man, about Harper's age, with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, a wreck of a nose and a penetrating stare, but no one noticed that Harper seemed particularly interested.
"His name is Bill Beckett," Beka said. "Seems he traded in a Wayist Monk's habit for life as a beach bum on Infinity Atoll, or he had as of thirty years ago, anyway."
"Thirty YEARS?" Tyr said. "Granted, I am not the resident expert on the Taelon's conveyance, but based on the... limited experience I have had in locating people, would I be wrong to assume the trail may have gone cold by now?"
"No you wouldn't," Beka said. "And it gets worse." She tabbed more controls and another portrait appeared on another large screen, this time a hairless humanoid with light, almost reflective skin, deep blue eyes, and an almost placid expression.
A Taelon.
"On top of supposedly *seeing* the Taelon Mother Ship," Beka said, "our Mr. Beckett is supposed to have actually met this gentleman... or whatever... Da'an, one time known on Earth as a Companion."
"Wait a sec," Harper said. "Wasn't he, I dunno, killed or something?"
"He met his fate when the Atavus arose," Tyr said.
"And that's why Daddy saved this lead for last," Beka said. "'Cause you have to believe *two* 'impossible' things for this to work - that the Taelon Mother Ship is still in one piece *and* one of the guys who rode it to Earth is likewise."
"He was a being of energy," Rev Bem said. The Magog monk pondered for a moment. "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. He could still be alive."
"He would be very old, though," Tyr said. "Even the Taelons died of old age."
"Look, I said this was a long shot, and I wasn't kidding," Beka said. "But I... made a promise I would find it, and that means, going to talk to this guy, if I can find him."
"Sounds like fun," Trance piped up.
"But how do we begin to find him?" Rev asked.
"That's not the question we should ask," Harper said. "The question is, can we get a group discount on lunch?"
"Excuse me?" Dylan said. "You know something about this gentleman, Mr. Harper?"
"Know him? Dylan, I'd know that face anywhere! That's Big Bill Beckett, owner of Big Bill's Diner, THE primo surfer hangout for *serious* surfers on Infinity Atoll." Harper smacked his lips. "I can almost taste one of his grease burgers. Classic Terran cuisine! And just half a klick away from some of the best waves ever seen. If we can't find the Taelons, at least we can get some good eats outta this. I'm sold, Bek! Are we there yet?"
/
/
Allowing an extra day so Beka could be rested on arrival, the *Andromeda* was in orbit of Infinity two days later. Dylan decided Harper would be the one to make first contact with Mr. Beckett... and not say too much over the com.
"C'Mon, Boss," Harper said. "Who could be listening?"
"Exactly."
"I have Mr. Beckett," Rommie said.
"Close on Harper," Dylan said.
Bill Beckett's face filled one of the big main screens. The face was the same as in the portrait, but obviously, older; the dirty blonde hair had grayed and was much thinner on top.
"Who's this, then?" Beckett said in a deep, gravely voice. "Seamus? Seamus Harper? Is that you?"
"The one, the only," Harper said.
"Not like you to come to Infinity off season, Lad."
"Well, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd stop by. You open?"
"For Infinity's favorite Super Genius, I, of course, am always open. Come on down, son!"
"I'll see you then." The screen blanked.
"Nice guy," Dylan said.
"And cute, in an older-grayer-growly sort of way," Trance put in.
"Beka, Harper, Rommie, with me," Dylan said. "We'll go down in the *Maru.* Tyr, Trance, Rev - "
"Protect the *Andromeda,*" Tyr said, "watch your backs - as if we can do much from up here - and hope that things work out very improbably and not come to a bad end."
"That's the spirit," Dylan said, "good ol' Nietzschean optimism."
/
/
As the *Maru* circled to find a spot to land next to Big Bill's Diner, Beka couldn't help but notice how far off the main drag it was. It was on a plot of land at the end of a dirt track, facing the ocean, the beach on one side and grasslands on the other.
"And you said this guy's popular?" Beka said. "How do you get to it?"
"Swim or walk down the beach," Harper said. "Like I said, it's popular with *serious* surfers."
Beka landed the *Maru* next to the diner, and they left the small freighter and walked across the grass to the front door. (Dylan noticed several skimmers coming along the dirt track in their direction. A lot of off-season business? He alerted Rommie to watch it.)
Harper was first to the front door of the rectangular building that looked like it had been fashioned from a cargo container. The door opened as they reached it, and Big Bill stepped out. He was just a hair shorter than Dylan... and a bit wider. Too many "grease burgers" had left their mark.
"'Ello, 'ello," Big Bill growled, shaking Harper's hand vigorously. "Well come in, come in!" (Dylan noticed those skimmers were encircling the building as they went in; he nudged Rommie and whispered that it might be a good idea to secure the *Maru* by remote control.)
"Glad you're open, Bill," Harper said.
"Aw, no trouble," Bill said. "I'm always open - I don't mind the quiet when all you young hell-raisers go back to your lives. So, who're your friends?"
"Big Bill Beckett," Harper said, "owner of Big Bill's, *the* primo eating establishment in known space, allow me to introduce Captain Beka Valentine..."
"Hi," Beka said.
"Heard a lot about you," Bill said, shaking her hand; "pleasure."
"...Captain Dylan Hunt... "
"ANOTHER Captain?" Bill said, reaching to shake Dylan's hand. "Must keep the lad busy, eh?"
"We try," Dylan said. (And he noticed several individuals in suspiciously long coats, some of them red, entering the diner and quietly taking seats at booths. Other individuals were wandering around outside.)
"...and last but NEVER least," Harper said, "Andromeda."
"What, like the ship?" Bill asked.
"Exactly," Rommie said. "I *am* the ship."
"A ship's avatar," Bill breathed. "Crikey, I feel like I'm in the presence of royalty. You got the Vedran Empress in the *Maru,* too?"
"Mr. Beckett," Dylan said. "I'm afraid this isn't a social call. We came here to ask for your help."
"Whatever I can do, Captain, for king and country and all."
"Actually, it's for Mr. Harper. Recently, he was infested with Magog eggs."
"Really!?" Bill's head snapped to Harper.
"Yeah," Harper said, pulling his inhaler, on a chain around his neck, out from under his shirt. "I've been taking this stuff to control 'em, but who knows how long it will work?"
"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Lad," Bill said. "But what can I do?"
"That depends on whether this is true," Beka said, handing him a flexie, a little nervous. If this had all been a wild goose chase...
Bill read the flexie and looked up with a serious look on his face. "Yes, it's true."
"It is?" Beka yelped.
"It is," Rommie said. "I knew that when we walked in here. There's a residual Taelon energy signature all over him."
"'S'what happens when you spend a lot of time with one of them gentlemen," Bill said. "And Da'an and me, we had some long talks, we did."
"So you'll help us?" Dylan asked. This was going almost too well...!
"Captain Hunt, if it were anybody else, I'd tell them to stick their heads in the ocean and even help. But for my friend Seamus, yes, Iwill help you."
"I am so glad to hear you can be so accommodating, Mr. Beckett," said a woman's voice from the booths behind them. They all spun to see the suspicious individuals Dylan had noted earlier had stood up. One of them, a woman in a red long coat, was apparently their leader. But that wasn't what got their attention: With shoulder-length black hair; deep brown eyes; pouty, red lips; and olive skin...
The woman in the red coat could have been Rommie's twin.
"So, you are the *Andromeda's* famed avatar," the woman said; even her voice was a lot like Rommie's. "Tell me - have you always had that appearance?"
"Yes," Rommie said.
"Indeed? Shame." Her eyes flicked in Harper's direction. "I'd thought someone was flattering me. Ah, well."
"Hello, Lizzie," Beka said. "I didn't see any rocks when we landed, or did I miss the one you and your posse crawled out from under?"
"Bekaaaaa. I'm disappointed, truly I am. I have always tried to respect you as a member of our profession, even if we are competitors. Don't I get a nice introduction to your new friends?"
Beka inhaled; she hated it when Lizzie was right. "Captain Dylan Hunt, Captain Elizabeth Loveless."
"The Red Lady," Dylan said; he didn't sound flattered to be in her presence.
"Mistress of the ship by the same name," Elizabeth said with a smile. "I'm pleased my reputation has preceeded me."
"And let's not forget Lizzie's cybernetic right-hand-man and go-go dancer, Rutger," Harper said, indicating the attractive, middle-aged man with high cheekbones on Elizabeth's right, sporting his own red coat. "How's it shaking, Rut?"
"I am seeing to my lady's needs, Master Harper," Rutger answered. "*All* her needs. Yourself?"
"Ok - fine," Beka broke in. "Old home week's over. Somehow, Lizzie, I don't think you dropped in for coffee and a grease burger."
"No, although someone once sang the praises of this place's Terran cuisine." All business, she turned to Bill. "Mr. Beckett. I, too, am interested in the information you possess. Not only does my original offer still stand, but I am in a position to double it, or triple it, if you wish."
"I told your errand boys my answer already, Red Lady," Bill growled. "What part of 'no chance in hell' do you not understand?"
"Shame."
"Y'know, it sounds like we all want the same thing here," Dylan ventured. "So why don't we just all put aside our differences and work together?"
"Nothing would make me happier - Dylan, is it?" Elizabeth said, " - but in my line of work, you don't attain what I have by cooperating. Furthermore, my employer and I believe that the phrase 'live witness' is an oxymoron. Sorry." She turned to her men. "Take the proprietor alive; kill the others."
"Great!" Dylan said, he and his shipmates drawing their weapons and firing as they grabbed Bill and dove for cover. They made it around the luncheon counter and into the kitchen (where Bill grabbed a gauss rifle propped up near the door) barely ahead of a hail of smart bullets.
"Harper, Bill - cover the back door!" Dylan barked.
"On it!" Harper said. He and Bill went to the back and began moving tables and chairs in front of the back door.
"Is it always this exciting with your friends?" Bill asked.
"Are you kidding?" Harper said. "This is a slow day."
Meanwhile, Dylan and Beka were firing back at Elizabeth's "posse" through the kitchen door.
"Rommie," Dylan said, "can you raise... ?"
"I'm sorry, Dylan; they're jamming my transmissions."
"Any way around that?"
"Maybe. Harper! Loveless' cyborg second - what's his strength level?"
"Up there, Rom-Doll - H2 or H3."
"Perfect." She turned to Dylan and Beka. "Cover me!"
With Beka and Dylan providing cover fire, Rommie charged out of the kitchen. She soaked up effectors like they were so many bee stings and made straight for Rutger, jerking him to his feet and nailing a punch to his face.
Rutger acted almost as if he hadn't noticed. "Is that the best you have, little machine?"
"I was going to ask you the same question, Big Fella. C'Mon, show me what ya got!"
It was bizarre - an android and a cyborg having a fist-fight while a gun battle raged around them. And Rutger was strong enough he could have broken Rommie in half... if she was actually playing to win, instead of for an opportunity. She let Rutger force her back towards the windows lined up with the *Maru,* and saw her chance when he fired off a powerful kick to her chest. She rode its momentum and sailed backwards through the window, shattered glass falling around her as she turned the fall into a series of increasingly larger somersaults that carried her towards and over the skimmers.
"Well, Rommie's away," Beka said. "I hope she knows what she's doing."
"Hey, she thinks like me," Dylan said.
"So you see our problem," Beka and Harper chorused, but the need to cover from a renewed hail of gunfire cut the levity off.
The gun battle raged on. Dylan and Beka really couldn't see to what extent they were hurting their adversaries, and the bullets raging thought the air were taking their toll on Bill's beloved diner - pots and pans crashed to the floor, light fixtures were blown out, and Harper immediately worried when it sounded like the gas range was taking hits. Then someone began to push the back door open. Harper and Bill had barely time to train their guns there when two big men in black coats forced it open. More combatants were coming around the counter, towards the kitchen. Dylan and the others were pinned down and out-flanked...
...and a new storm of bullets streamed in through the back door, cutting down the new intruders and forcing the men in front to back off. Dylan and the others could just see the *Maru* hovering behind the diner, bobbing back and forth as it sprayed the area with rounds from two nose-mounted machine-gun turrets.
"C'Mon!" Rommie's voice sounded over the ship's external loudspeakers, an emergency hatch under the nose opening. Dylan, Bill, Harper, and Beka raced across the gap, the *Maru's* machine guns keeping Elizabeth's men from getting new shots off, and they made it up the emergency hatch; the ship began to peal off as the hatch began to close.
Inside the diner, Rutger digested radio reports through his cybernetic implants. "They are getting away my lady; apparently, the android tipped the - " He broke off. "My lady - gas!"
Elizabeth, Rutger, and their remaining men raced out the diner's front door barely moments before it went up in a huge explosion. But that barely distracted the Red Lady; her attention was focused on the point of light in the sky that was the *Eureka Maru.* "Our associates are in pursuit, Rutger?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Then summon the ship; I would be there for the kill."
/
/
In the Maru's cockpit, Rommie back flipped out of the pilot's chair, and Beka fell into it, strapping herself in and assuming control of her ship. "Someone please tell me that from here on in, things will go- "
The *Maru* rocked as it came under fire.
"Ok, scratch that," Beka said. "Anyone know who our new dance partners are?"
Harper consulted his control panel. "Looks like Nissari frigates and fighters, Boss."
"Nissari?" Dylan said. He was aware of the small, largely human dictatorship in the Milky Way Galaxy, if only because he had passed it over as a candidate for Commonwealth membership. "What do the Nissari want with Mr. Beckett... ?"
/
/
"Obviously, access to Taelon technology, though not for so altruistic a purpose," Tyr said. Manning the command podium on the *Andromeda's* bridge, he had heard Dylan over the com.
"Whatever the motive," Rev Bem said from the sensor station, "we have Nissari frigates closing on us."
"We could use a little help," Dylan said, "if you can manage it."
Of course, Tyr could manage it.
"Ship!" he said. "Deploy electronic countermeasures to confuse the incoming frigates. And fire missiles on the ships pursuing the *Maru.* Make ready the slipstream drive."
/
/
Andromeda's missiles took out some of the *Maru's* pursuers, and the survivors pealed off... but not before scoring some direct hits.
"Crap!" Beka said.
"Let me guess," Dylan said. "Main power out, slipstream drive gone..."
"No, those things are ok, but *sublight* power has been cut in half. I can't get us back to the *Andromeda,* unless... " She pulled back on the controls, and the Maru pitched up, sharply. "Tyr? Rommie? I'm putting everything we've got into a ballistic trajectory almost straight up. You guys will have to catch us before we hit the atmosphere again."
/
/
"Beka, it's too dangerous!" Trance turned to Tyr. "We won't get to them before they reach apogee; we'll be flying down at the planet by the time we catch up to them... "
"Then I suggest you do what you can to ensure a perfect, possible future in which it works out," Tyr said, programming the *Andromeda's* flight controls.
/
/
Between missiles and electronic countermeasures, the *Andromeda* had insured none of the Nissari ships were in a position to interfere as the *Maru* arced out the atmosphere... and began to descend again. The *Andromeda* caught up with the smaller ship, and Beka skillfully manipulated the docking thrusters to put them down relatively smoothly in the hangar.
Dylan lead Beka, Harper, Rommie, and Bill on a race to the bridge. "I could use some good news," he called as they surged through the big doors.
"The good news is our pursuers are not giving chase," Tyr said. "The bad news is we built up too much momentum catching you - if they think we are going to crash, they are probably right."
"This is bad, very bad," Beka said, taking her place at the flight controls, "unless... Rommie, full AHEAD!"
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Dylan said.
"Hit the atmosphere at the right angle, skip off like a stone," Beka said.
"Hit at the wrong one, we fry," Harper said.
"In that case, Mr. Harper," Dylan said, "perhaps you would care to configure the external AG field to protect us from atmospheric heating?"
"Already on it, Boss!"
/
/
As they watched *The Red Lady,* a red, sleek, delta-winged starship almost three times the size of Beka's *Eureka Maru,* hover over a spot next to the remains of Big Bill's Diner and prepare to touch down, Rutger digested more reports for Captain Loveless. "Our friends have broken off their pursuit, my lady."
"What! Why?"
"They say the High Guard ship is out of control and on a death dive into the atmosphere."
"Show me!"
Rutger held his hand out, palm up, and a hologram depicting the *Andromeda's* course appeared in the air above it.
Elizabeth turned livid. "The fools! Why am I not surprised they don't see it?"
/
/
The buffeting got worse and worse, the red glow of atmospheric entry heating filling the big main screens, and Harper could have sworn it was feeling warm on the bridge.
"C'mon, c'mon!" Beka urged. "Skip already."
"AG field near overload," the ship's voice said. "Outer hull temperatures entering red zone."
"Still praying there, Rev?" Harper said; the magog monk nodded.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Beka said, but she was too busy with the controls to smile.
"AG field... Hold... " the ship said. "Atmospheric stresses leveling off - correction, falling. Calculating new vectors... hull temperature dropping... "
"YES!" Beka said. "Ok, Rommie, full power to sublight engines! Make for the nearest slipstream portal."
*Andromeda* surged away from the planet. The Nissari warships, caught with their pants down, did their best to catch up, but Dylan ordered missiles fired from the rear batteries. The ships that weren't disabled couldn't catch up.
"Brace for slipstream," Beka said as the slipstream flight controls folded around her. The ship lurched into the tangled web of the faster than light realm... and kept lurching.
"Beka - " Dylan said.
"Don't worry - " Beka said. "Just using a few tricks to make sure we lose anyone who jumps in after us."
Several nerve-wracking moments later, the *Andromeda* emerged from the stream. They waited for any of their pursuers to appear, but none did.
They were safe... for the moment.
"Good flyin', Boss!" Harper said. "I knew you'd get us outta that. Never doubted ya for a second!"
/
/
When she had *The Red Lady* safely in orbit of Infinity Atoll, Elizabeth Loveless pushed her pilot's chair back from the ship's controls and swiveled to her first mate. "All right, Rutger, what news? Is any of it good? Please say yes."
"Yes, some. Our friends were not too badly damaged in this encounter. And our employer has transitted from the slipstream."
A screen lit up, showing a squadron of Nissari fighters flanking a small, nondescript courier ship, closing on *The Red Lady's* position.
"That's not good news given that we are empty-handed, Rutger."
"No, my lady, but this might please our employer... " He handed her a flexie and explained the significance of it.
"Yes," Elizabeth said, "yes it might."
/
/
The fighters pealed off as the courier closed for a nose-to-nose docking with *The Red Lady,* and seen together like this, the difference between the two ships could not have been more striking. The *Red Lady* was larger, gaudier, and in terms of its armament, more lethal than the small, nondescript courier; if not for the fighter escort, the tiny starship would not have been noteworthy at all. But appearances can be deceiving; because of whom it carried, the courier was, in fact, the more dangerous of the two spacecraft.
When the ships had connected, Elizabeth, Rutger, and a handful of the mercenaries who were her crew gathered at the docking airlock one level below her ship's bridge. The ship's computer narrated the equalization of airlock pressure, the inner hatch slid open, and Elizabeth Loveless' employer stepped onto the deck.
Like the courier he'd arrived in, he was almost unremarkable, on the brink of unassuming - a small, Eurasian man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a black suit of conservative cut. Yet two things kept him from vanishing into a crowd: one was his right eye. It was completely white, with neither iris nor pupil, and even glowed slightly; hair-thin tendrils could be seen pulsing under his skin above and below it. The other was the air about him. This was a man with oceans of blood on his hands, and no compunctions about shedding more. Even Elizabeth was a touch nervous around her benefactor. But the potential for incredible wealth and power the man brought with him excited her. And for the Red Lady, excitement won every time.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain Loveless," the man said in an almost polite voice.
Elizabeth took a half a step forward. "Permission granted, Mr. Sandoval. It is once again my pleasure to welcome you aboard *The Red Lady.*"
"Pleasure," Sandoval said; though his voice was still pleasant, only a fool would not have recognized his anger. "What about this situation is pleasurable, Captain? My captains - my *surviving* captains, I should say - tell me they have just had an encounter with the *Andromeda Ascendant,* and they have custody of the man you came to Infinity for. I do not recall paying you a considerable amount of money for that. Please, enlighten me as to the benefits of the mess we are in."
"If the *Andromeda* was here," Elizabeth explained, hoping she did not sound as nervous as she felt, "it was because Beka Valentine was following the same lead we were, so it must be good."
"Beka Valentine, Beka Valentine." Sandoval consulted a small computer woven into the sleeve of his suit. "Ah, yes, a former salvagier who is now Dylan Hunt's first officer. You are more concerned about her than her commander?"
"In this instance, yes. I'm sure Captain Hunt is hell on wheels when the *Andromeda* is going into battle... "
"I think we have had that demonstrated to our satisfaction."
"...but if you've studied how he handles negotiations, you'd know he's very uncomfortable doing anything else. This, interstellar salvage, is most definitely *anything else.* It's not Hunt's game. It's Beka's. And mine. If she isn't in command, she will make sure he does things her way. Count on it."
"I see. And what is Captain Valentine to you? You seem to know a great deal about her. A rival? A, what was the term, an 'arch enemy'?"
"A competitor. Not a threat to my position, but still very good at what she does, almost as good as me."
"Interesting. So, the vast sums of money I have paid you AND the damage to or destruction of a half a dozen of my ships in exchange for a competitor at the helm of one of the most powerful ships in the Known Universe validating 'our' lead. You will forgive me if that sounds like a very expensive second opinion."
"There's more; I thought you might find this interesting." Elizabeth handed Sandoval the flexie Rutger had shown her.
Sandoval stroked his chin as he read it... and then smiled. "I take it back, Captain Loveless. This has been a very profitable day. Very profitable indeed."