GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA
THE FINAL DARKNESS

by R. John Burke
Rated: PG-13 for language and violence

DISCLAIMER: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda is a copyright of Tribune Entertainment. This is non-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although set in the future, this story takes place in the pre-"Ouroboros" Andromeda universe, without the changes that accompany that episode. Once it airs, this story will no doubt be relegated to the category of 'alternate history.'

The last day of the starship ANDROMEDA ASCENDANT dawned much like the day before. No one awoke from a sweaty dream filled with premonition. No one rushed into Captain Dylan Hunt's quarters to sound the alarm of imminent peril. None of the crew had spent the previous day settling their affairs, saying tearful goodbyes, or making ready for the loss. No one believed it could end so quickly.

There had been signs, to be sure. The two-year alliance with the Jaguar-Sabra had taken a bad turn. Spurred by the fervor of General Cuchulain Nez Perce, the Drago-Kazov pride responded much more strongly to the fledgling pact than anyone had expected. Offered nothing less than a tacit invitation to war, Nez Perce gleefully accepted, his armada laying waste to half the Allied fleet in the first six months.

Opinions would later vary on whether Nez Perce's haste was born of his vendetta against the Allied commander, Hunt, or whether he simply wished to eliminate his enemies quickly, in order to turn his attention to the threat of the coming Magog worldship. Certainly Hunt was known to brood heavily on the former possibility.

If Cuchulain acted instead from a sense of haste, his strategy backfired. Although the Jaguar-Sabra initially took heavy losses, they successfully organized the rest of their forces into a lengthy delaying action, always hoping to rearm and reorganize, perhaps even hoping that Hunt and his crew could recruit the necessary allies to turn the tide in the name of their Commonwealth. Meanwhile, the worldship began its advance. Several outlying systems had fallen out of communication with the rest of the Known Worlds. The Drago-Kazov began making noise to the effect that they'd developed an effective and final way to deal with the Magog, but whether such talk represented salvation or desperate posturing had not been proven.

Signs, more signs, and a smattering of portents. It would not have been hard to guess that the final day was coming. But to have it arrive...

No one sees the future until it is the present, and by that time, it is already the past.

-- PROFESSOR MARKO OLIVA RACHARD, "A History of the Second Commonwealth," All Systems Univeristy Press, C.Y. 15098

ONE: Comes the Dawn

"In my time, Captain Hunt, I have seen men attempt many a ludicrous enterprise, but I believe this to be some sort of a record."

Dylan Hunt arched an eyebrow at the big, brooding Nietzschean on the other side of the rec deck. "It's like I keep telling you, Tyr, it's not always about size."

"Yes," said Tyr, a glitter in his eye. "I imagine you do believe that."

"That was cold," said Beka Valentine, the ship's first officer and a willing soldier in the ongoing war against patience. "Look, can we just move this along? Some of us have real jobs."

"Keeping yourself physically fit is an essential part of any High Guard officer's duty. Besides," Dylan winked, "I happen to know the captain's looking the other way."

"Maybe, but..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yakitty yakitty yak. Do you people mind?" Seamus Harper, the ship's engineer, looked rather out of place on the rec deck, with his blonde hair tousled and unfamiliar sweat marking his brow. Experimentally, he bounced the rubber orb he held against the floor. "We got a man shootin' free throws."

Dylan smiled. "Go ahead, Harper."

Harper bounced the ball twice more. It failed to steady him in the slightest. He drew both arms as far behind his head as he could manage, and flung the ball at the hoop as though he were a prehistoric hunter and it were a very large rock.

Miraculously, the ball found iron, bouncing at the back of the net once... twice... dribbling toward the front of the rim... hanging there, as if to mock the engineer...

"Go in!" Harper cried.

The ball drizzled off the rim. It 'thudded' the floor in accusation.

"Yay, Harper!" cried Trance Gemini, waving the red-green-yellow pom-poms she had somehow obtained. She so adored the things that no one had mustered the heart to pry them away from her, even though they looked pretty silly sitting beside her bridge station when she was on duty.

Harper gave her a sour look. "Trance, I missed!"

"But you looked so cute!"

Tyr rolled his eyes. Beka laughed. Dylan smirked, and turned away. Rev Bem, the nominal referee, gathered up the basketball and tossed it back to Harper.

"Two shots," he told Harper.

"Pray for me," Harper replied. Thus fortified by love and prayer, Harper squared his toes with the free-throw line and took a deep breath.

"Better not choke, Seamus," Beka said. "Next basket wins."

"I know! I know!"

Dylan stretched out his back in preparation for a rebound. "You know, Beka, I get the feeling you don't think Harper can do it..."

"Me? Hey, I love Harper!" For the engineer's benefit, she added, "platonically. Let's just say you should have picked me for your team, huh?"

"Really? There's an old saying from Earth: Put your money where your mouth is."

Beka placed hands on hips. "Keep talking."

"If Harper makes this free throw, you have to, say... you have to salute me for a week."

"In your sad and lonely dreams, Captain, sir."

Dylan shrugged. "And in return, if he misses it, I'll..."

"You'll what?" Beka said, a challenge.

"I'll buy dinner at Cavanaughs."

"For a week of saluting? Not enough."

Dylan scratched at his chin. "I'll... okay, I know what you want."

"Oh, you think you do, eh?"

"Yes. I'll... I'll let you do it. I'll let you put the nanobots in my hair."

"What color?" Beka pressed.

"Ooh!" said Trance. "Purple, Beka! Make him go purple!"

"Although I do not approve of gambling," said Rev, "I have always liked orange."

Dylan held up his hands for silence. "Any color you want. Your call. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal," said Beka, and they shook on it.

"Shoot, Harper," said Dylan.

"Great," said Harper, rolling his eyes. "No pressure..."

The ANDROMEDA's engineer dribbled twice more. He sized up the basket. He closed his eyes and prayed. But he never shot the ball.

The ANDROMEDA hologram popped into focus right in front of his eyes. Harper jumped, but she walked passed directly through him, aiming for Dylan.

"Was it good for you?" Harper muttered.

"Dylan! You'd better report to command. Charlemagne Bolivar is here."

Now, Dylan Hunt considered himself an amiable man, a soldier of good fellowship in the best Argosy tradition. One of his strengths as a captain, he'd always thought, was his ability to see goodness and worth in the most unlikely of places.

After two years of close association, it had become painfully clear that Charlemagne Bolivar's heart was not one of those places. The Nietzschean had made promises he couldn't keep, led Dylan down a garden path that had cost them thousands of lives, and very probably condemned six galaxies to the slow destruction of the Abyss. Dylan went through his vocabulary and concluded that he had no words he desired to waste on Bolivar. He said as much to Rommie.

"Dylan... he's not alone."

No, indeed. As it turned out, Charlemagne Bolivar had blasted out of Slipstream with fiery hell on his heels-- twenty-five Dragon capital ships, including almost a dozen of their new INVICTUS UNIVERSALIS-class heavy cruisers. And no one would ever again care whether Seamus Harper hit a free throw.

A proper history would not have wasted time, or not so much time, on any sort of anecdote... particularly not something as trifling as a basketball game or a friendly bet. It is related here, not because of its singularity or significance, but because of its sequence.

That small incident, an afternoon's diversion on the ANDROMEDA ASCENDANT, was to loom large in the memories of its crew... because it was the last time. A final moment of peace before the whirlwind, a final chance to stand united aboard the ship that brought them together. Wherever they found themselves in the future, however the cards of Fate played out, they would never know that moment again.

The future, it is said, is the leading cause of death among mortals. But the past is the leading cause of pain.

Another kinetic warhead, the fifth inside of an hour, burst against the ANDROMEDA's main hull. Dylan's footing slipped, just in time for a momentary slip in the artificial gravity to invert his stomach and trash his balance. Only a desperate grasp at the railing saved him from taking his well-deserved header. He gritted his teeth and pretended not to notice the pain, as he pretended not to notice the smoke, the scorch marks, and the other accouterments of a ruined ship.

Across the command deck, Beka Valentine laughed. It sounded forced. "Y'know, Dylan, when you promised me excitement..."

"Andromeda?" he called, hoping the hologram was still active to reply.

It was. Barely. The hologram seemed to list, as though the ship itself didn't know which way was up anymore. If Dylan squinted, he could imagine Andromeda's beautiful flesh was as scarred and pitted as her outer hull.

"Dylan, hull integrity is... is not very integral. I can't get any reports, I can't get anything. I'm... they're circling me. They're everywhere." Large brown eyes found his for just a moment, a timeless look of regret. "Archduke Bolivar sends his complements. His ships have successfully made the transition to Slipstream."

"I saved them," said the same voice, from a different source-- the ANDROMEDA Avatar, the ship made flesh, in its customary place at Dylan's side.

"Does Bolivar have a plan for getting us out?" Dylan asked, in a tone which implied he certainly would not.

"I... he's signaling, coded band."

"Rommie..."

But the hologram was already gone. In her place: The prematurely wizened face of Archduke Charlemagne Bolivar. Charlemagne, would had come to Dylan Hunt two years ago with a reputation for excess to match his reputation for deviousness and cunning. Charlemagne the spoiled. Charlemagne the fop.

Charlemagne the misguided, Charlemagne the loser in the galaxy's latest great power play. Charlemagne, the last Archduke of the Jaguar.

"Captain Hunt," he said. For the first time in Dylan's memory, he sounded afraid.

Dylan felt at a loss for words. As it happened, he didn't need any.

"Charlemagne Bolivar!" a voice from the weapon's station thundered. Across the command deck, eyes-- five pairs, the ship's compliment except for Harper-- turned in Tyr's direction. "Observe, my Duke, your victory turned to ash!"

Charlemagne's eyes flickered toward the new voice, but almost immediately left for safer ground. "Anasazi. I'm sorry about your current situation..."

"You will abandon us, of course. As before. I must compliment your timing... you've saved your forces and left ANDROMEDA as the perfect diversion. Most impressive."

"I don't know what your take on the battle is, Kodiak, but..."

Tyr took a step forward. "I must tell you, however, it is futile! If you abandon us now, this ship will immediately surrender to the Drago-Kazov! I imagine there are still items in our memory banks you would rather not see fall into their possession..."

Bolivar's eyebrows climbed his face. "I know you better than that. Your captain won't give into them. Even if he did, they'd destroy you..."

Dylan turned his head fractionally, regarding Tyr. As you once told me, Tyr, whatever cards you think you're holding, now is the time to play them...

"They will not destroy us," Tyr said. "They will first attempt to capture us and inventory our cargo. You know what they seek."

The speakers caught a sharp intake of breath from Bolivar. "That item was removed from your inventory long ago..."

"Yes, but I know where it is. You may depend on this, Jaguar: I will see that item in the hands of the Drago-Kazov before I will allow such allies as you to betray my Pride again!"

Intermission. Rest and reappraisal. No one, save perhaps Dylan, had time to catch the meaning in Tyr's words: My Pride. Not the Kodiak, long dead and forgotten. The Andromeda. Tyr was jeopardizing the one thing he still held dear, his 'package' containing the Progenitor's bones, in order to save the ANDROMEDA and her crew. True, he was saving his own life in the bargain, so perhaps it was even the Nietzschean thing to do, but he didn't have to do it. Not this way.

They'd come a long way, in two years.

Bolivar nodded. "Do you agree that the item, when it is reclaimed, belongs to us?"

"It belongs to me," Tyr said, and Dylan caught a glance in his own direction. Two years ago, Dylan had attempted to confiscate those bones, with... mixed results. Tyr had forgiven, but not forgotten. "It will always belong to me. All I offer you is the chance to keep it out of the Dragons' grasp. Accept or decline, but decide now!"

Another warhead rocked the ship. Rommie, the Avatar, looked a little sick.

"All right," said Charlemagne Bolivar, and ANDROMEDA's tactical display showed a few of his bigger ships departing from the main formation. "I'll give you five minutes, Captain Hunt."

"Five minutes isn't going to be enough," Dylan said. "Not to save ANDROMEDA."

"You have in your cargo bay a full compliment of our APOLLO-class Slipfighters. I suggest you make use of them."

"Abandon ship?" Dylan said. His eyes found Rommie. She turned away and said nothing. "I don't..."

"This is not a discussion, Captain Hunt! I can't keep them busy longer than five or perhaps ten minutes! I would if I could!" Something in Bolivar's eyes changed. "There's nothing left. What you see before you in the extent of my power. It... it shouldn't have been this way, Captain. I may not have been the man you thought I was, but I am not the man you've known, either. We should have dominated the galaxy, your crew and mine, had a thousand grandchildren between us... but it was not to be.

"Now, in the spirit of what should have been, I offer you what is left. The chance to escape, to survive... but that chance is quickly passing."

Dylan held his eyes, felt his world collapsing around him, and endured it. He nodded.

"I'll get Harper," said Beka, and she left command.

"I will get..." Rev Bem's words caught in his throat, "lost." He had the decency to guide Trance by the elbow on his way out.

Bolivar and Tyr shared a moment of something, a Nietzschean something halfway between honor and treachery. With a nod to Dylan, Tyr left command.

"Move fast, Captain Hunt," said Bolivar. "Nietzscheans shoot escape ships, but only if they can catch them."

The monitor blanked out. On Tactical, Bolivar's ships moved to engage the Dragon fleet. Dylan turned to Rommie.

"What can I say...?"

The Avatar opened her mouth, but the ship itself answered. "Say you'll take care of... me."

"Always."

"Say it's been an adventure."

Dylan touched the Avatar's hand. "The greatest I could have imagined."

The ship stopped, sputtered, its dying reactors and failing processors struggling to form words. "Say it won't end... like this."

"It won't end, Rommie." Dylan swallowed hard. "It never ends."

The Avatar's eyes closed. The bridge lights dimmed. Something in the great ship's working, something impossible to identify and yet obviously crucial, broke and shattered into stardust. The Avatar opened her eyes.

"Dylan?" she said. "I'm... I mean, she's... it's all gone. I'm alone."

"Come on." He took Rommie's hand, and they ran for the docking bay. Behind them, Dylan could hear Command dying, the nerve center of his beautiful ship collapsing in on itself.

He didn't look back.

Harper was with her at the end. He was in the VR system, rerouting command paths and Maria's and trying to keep the ship together, when he felt the massive loss in power.

"Rommie? What the hell's goin' on?"

"I'm..." It seemed to Harper, in the dizzy world of VR, that Andromeda materialized at his side, bruised, battered, and in full uniform. "It's too late..."

"Rommie? Oh, my God, Rommie... what's happening?"

She started to fall, and he caught her. "They're all around me... I'm cut off... it hurts! Harper, you have to get out of here! Get out now! I don't know what might happen if..."

"I'm not goin' anywhere," said Harper, who now had a pretty good idea what was happening. He could feel it all around him. System crash. She was leaving him-- she, the only beautiful thing he'd seen in his ugly, trivial life. She was just... shutting down.

He lowered her to the 'ground,' or what seemed like ground. But that was part of her, too. Harper could feel it slipping away. He was sliding, being sucked down with everything that was Rommie, down into a bottomless pinprick of black...

"NO!" he cried, but nobody answered.

"Get out, Harper. Or... I'll throw you out..."

"No!" he stroked her face... the data strands that represented her face. The data vanished beneath his fingers, the representations of which were also vanishing. Harper gripped what was left of reality like a pit bull with a grudge. "Now you listen to me, Rommie. You listen. Do you remember when I had the Magog eggs in me? Huh? You remember that? It hurt so much... it hurt like it hurts now... I just wanted to slide away, but you wouldn't let me go.

"I won't let you go!" He felt as though he were perched over a drop, dangling, hanging on with his entire being. If he slipped, if he lost his hold, Rommie would fall. He threw back his head and howled, challenging the Abyss, challenging life itself and everything in it. "I'M... NOT... LETTING... GO!"

Against all odds, although her very self was disappearing, Rommie looked at him with eyes that weren't there. And she smiled.

"I've never had an engineer who really cared about me before. It's been a pleasure having you in my mind." She smiled. "Now go home."

"No, Rommie! ROMMIE!"

The air around Harper buzzed and coalesced as Rommie gathered the last of her strength. The most painful part was that he knew it-- all of it. In the VR world, they shared an intimacy unlike anything humans generally associated with the term, and in some ways closer. She couldn't hide anything, not in her condition. Harper had several millennia of painful seconds to know exactly how she felt, why she hurt, and what she was doing.

She was casting him out. The Abyss beneath them irised-- spiraling, yawing, calling to them.

Still smiling, Andromeda let go of Harper's hand, and answered its call. Harper's world coalesced to a moment, a feeling, an image:

She fell.

"Harper? Harper? Come on, Harper, this boat's going down! Get your ass in gear!"

Harper's eyes snapped open. "Beka, she's... I felt her..."

"I know." Beka Valentine was already dragging him to his feet, hauling him down the corridor the way she'd hauled him out of so many trouble spots. "I suggest you burn jets, unless you want to end up like her!"

"Beka, how can you be like that? Rommie's DEAD!"

Beka stopped short. "Harper, snap out of it. Rommie's with Dylan. That thing is just a ship."

"Just a ship? Just a ship?" The corridor was black with smoke; Harper could hardly breath, and he hardly cared. "Gee, boss, I guess you're right. She's only been our home, our mother, our protector for three and a half freaking years! But, hell, y'know, she's just a ship! Oh, wait, I know... what if you hadn't left the MARU back on Sierra Drift? What if he were down in that cargo bay? Huh? Is the MARU just a ship?"

Beka had to deal with a coughing fit before she could answer. Her eyes were red and watering, but that was just the soot. She reached out and removed a matching tear from Harper's cheek, one that had nothing to do with soot.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but we have to go."

"Beka... I love Rommie, I mean, the avatar, the Ship-Made-Flesh... you know I do. But she's not ANDROMEDA. Not the one I knew, not all of her. A really big part of the woman I love just died."

"I know."

They were out of time, past out of time, by rights. But Time, having cheated Seamus Harper of so many things he might have had, now stretched itself to allow him to mourn the thing he'd lost. He collapsed into Beka's arms and cried.

As far as his crew ever knew, Dylan thought up a plan on the way down to the flight deck. He assembled them all, and while the Slipfighters warmed up and programmed themselves for their courses, he made an announcement that certainly seemed last-minute for its brevity and desperation.

The truth is, the words he said had been on his mind for a long time. For months, ever since running from the Drago-Kazov had become a full-time occupation. He'd devolped a plan, less a backup plan than a disaster plan, a final contingency that hinted at least at a mathematical possibility of surviving to push back the Magog, if only they possessed the courage to see it through.

Trance was kind enough to get him started by asking the question. "Dylan, where are we going to meet?"

"We're not." This from Tyr. "Not for a long time. The Dragons will be tracking us. Splitting up makes it seven times less likely that they'll find us."

Beka sneered. "Well, excuse us for impacting your survival."

"Beka," said Dylan, "he's right."

They all stared at him, as well they might. Dylan pushed on; he was afraid his resolve would fail him if he paused.

"I've asked a lot of you, over the last few years, but nothing as hard as this. Believe me, I've never given an order as hard as this, not even..." his voice caught. "Not even when I lost my first crew."

"We're all with you, Dylan," said Beka. "You lead, we'll follow. Just no saluting."

Dylan laughed. "I know you're with me. You've been with me. You've done things for me that no ten Commonwealth crews could have done-- you've performed miracles. And now I'm going to ask you to perform another. I'm going to ask you to wait."

"Patience is a gift of the Divine," said Rev, "but I must confess I'm none too fond of it. Dylan... what exactly is your plan?"

"I'm going back to Tarazed," he said, naming the planet they'd found two years ago where his love Sara Riley had started a Commonwealth enclave that had survived the Long Night. "The latest reports are that they've armed for war, and the new regime is more receptive. In fact... Telemachus Rhade sent me a message last month, asking me to put in an appearance and inspect the Fleet. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do more than that-- I'm going to take command of that Fleet. If they've got anything like a Commonwealth garrison there, it's our last, best chance against the Drago-Kazov and the worldship."

"What if they don't have a proper garrison?" Rommie said.

"Then by God, they will when I'm done."

His words hung in the air. No one knew whether their captain was being brilliant, idiotic, or just desperate. No one cared to hazard a guess. Another missile impact reminded them to prioritize.

"Great," said Harper, "let's go to Tarazed, build some more ships, and watch 'em burn! It's all over anyway, right?"

Dylan frowned at him, but Beka already had the matter under control. She squeezed Harper's hand, and he squeezed back. Dylan cleared his throat.

"Tarazed is our last chance, but it will take time, and in the meantime it's dangerous for too many of you to be together. I'm going to ask you to split up, and stay split up..."

"I don't have a problem with that," said Tyr.

"Until three months pass, or until I send for you, whichever comes first. By no means are you to approach Tarazed. Only I have to do that. The last thing we need is to bring the Dragons down on Rhade's head."

"So... so that's it?" Beka said. "You'll go off to Tarazed and just send for us? Like we're your dogs? Dylan, we're in this with you!"

"We are committed to this path," said Rev.

"There's no way I'm leaving you," said Rommie.

"Good-bye," said Tyr, and moved for a Slipfighter. "Three months, you say? I'll check my calendar. It's been enthralling, but I really must run, or be blasted into component atoms. Farewell, Captain Hunt."

"Trust a Nietzschean to desert a sinking ship!" said Harper.

Beka echoed the sentiment, and Tyr got drawn into firing back, and the whole thing would have erupted in bedlam if a small voice hadn't cut its way through the verbal foliage and into every ear, at the perfect decibel level:

"Dylan's right."

They all turned to Trance Gemini. She shrugged.

"It's a hunch? I mean, a bad plan is better than no plan, isn't it? I think it's our only chance..."

Beka made a face. "Trance, how...?"

"Hey!" said Harper. "The multidimensional one just said it'd be okay. Do we want to sit here and, like the man said, get blown into crunchy little pieces over a second opinion, or do we want to trust in the Pixie who knows all and sees all and get the hell outta here?"

"Okay," said Beka at length. "But no more than three months."

"You have my word," said Dylan, and he shook her hand. Or tried; it ended up as a hug.

"Take care of yourself," she whispered, and was gone.

The small farewells that followed in the rush for the Slipfighters were dictated almost solely by whose ships were adjacent, but they were no less heartfelt for all that:

"Reverend Bohemial," said Tyr as he slid into the cockpit. "I suppose you're off to continue your ministry?"

"I will go where the Divine takes me," said Rev. "And I will keep you in my prayers."

"I need no prayer, creature."

"Perhaps not... perhaps it is I who need the comfort of praying for you." Rev forced a helmet over his shaggy, misshapen head, and smiled. "Good-bye, Tyr."

"Live well," said the Nietzschean, inclining his head. His ship was the first out of the hangar.

"Hey, boss?" said Harper as he struggled into his fighter. Beka left her ship to stand beside his. "I was thinkin'... ya know... just two of us could hang together, right?"

"You heard what Dylan said."

"Yeah, but, c'mon... what could it hurt?" He tried to laugh, but it didn't work out and he quickly sobered. "How will I find you?"

She ruffled his hair. "Don't call me, Seamus. I'll call you."

They were out second and third.

"Are you okay, Rommie?" Trance asked as she climbed into her ship-- somewhat awkwardly, since she was used to having the assistance of a tail in such maneuvers. "You've been quiet."

Momentarily elsewhere, Rommie shrugged herself back to the present with obvious difficulty. "I'm recovering. I've never been alone, Trance. And now... now I've even lost a part of myself."

"I know what that feels like," said Trance, "but you're not alone, Rommie. There's too much happening in the galaxy, all the time. Too much life. It's that way on purpose, so nobody's ever alone."

The android managed something like a smile. Under Trance's watchful eye, she and Rev made it out of the hangar fourth and fifth.

Relieved of their various responsibilities, the pixie and the captain stared across the hangar at each other.

"Trance... did you really have a feeling that I was right?"

The purple girl shrugged. "Dylan... I never thought this could happen. I mean, I thought of a lot of things, but honestly, never this. I have no idea where the perfect possible future is, or even if it's still out there. And that scares me more than anything I've ever known."

He arched an eyebrow. "But you told them...?"

"They needed to go," Trance said, "and now they're gone." A smile danced at the edges of her lips. "And if I'm wrong, what the hell? They won't be there to see it..."

"Good bye, Trance."

"Good luck, Dylan."

Trance was out next-to-last.

Dylan took a long look around the hangar before putting on his helmet. For the second time, he'd found himself the last living thing on his own ship. His hand found the stud to lower the cockpit window. He hesitated before pressing it.

"To the ANDROMEDA ASCENDANT," he said. "The best damn ship in any Fleet, in any galaxy, at any time, ever. I'm sorry I didn't treat you the way you deserved."

The cockpit slid into place, and Dylan Hunt was alone with his plans. He turned his fighter around, slowly and carefully, hardly noticing that the bay was disintegrating around him.

"Maybe in another life..." he said, and engaged the throttle.

Viewing the same battle from another side is like being on the points of a love triangle. Everybody has the same goal, but it's an entirely different experience depending on the geometry of your particular situation.

At the same time the crew of the ANDROMEDA was watching their life together fall apart, Cuchulain Nez Perce was slapping one of his officers on the back and laughing.

"Poor Charlemagne," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen him fight so hard for any skin that wasn't his own!"

"And why not?" said the officer, a brawny male named Perseus. "He's just lost his flagship. He can't possibly have the resources to replace ANDROMEDA; I'd call that checkmate."

Nez Perce's hand tightened on the other's shoulder. "It's not checkmate until Hunt is dead. I've learned the hard way, he's not to be underestimated."

"Understood. I'll alert the gunners."

Nez Perce started to nod, but caught himself. "Wait... no, no gunners. I think we have an opportunity here."

"How so?"

A smile crept across Nez Perce's face. "Is the item in Bay Ten ready to deploy?"

"Yes, sir," said the aide, "I believe it is."

It took a while, but the smile that had started with Nez Perce soon contaminated the entire bridge. Few of them knew what they had in Bay Ten, but they knew what it was supposed to do: It was supposed to protect them, present and future, from the Magog.

Considering that Dylan Hunt had been the first to warn them of the Magog threat, it seemed only fitting that he be the first to know whether it worked.

"What's she doing?" Dylan Hunt muttered. He'd worked his way to the edge of the battle, darting past drones and opposing Slipfighters. Fortunately, none of the hostiles seemed terribly interested, because Hunt was not a combat pilot, and the rest of his crew certainly were not.

Miraculously, though, Hunt's display still tracked six other green signatures... the rest of his 'squadron,' his crew, still unaccounted for and nearly clear of the fight. Dylan had been about to transit to Slipstream himself, when he noticed the big ship.

She registered as the FENRIS WOLF, Nez Perce's flagship, and she'd just pulled out of the main fight. Not like old Cuchulain to forego a chance at a knockout blow...

A proximity indicator buzzed, and Dylan threw his Slipfighter into a stomach-churning up-and-around. Just a stray shot, no danger. He called up the sensor readings for the FENRIS WOLF...

"Oh, sh..." Dylan didn't even bother to finish the word. The FENRIS WOLF had her tubes full and outer doors open. She was about to fire, but she'd cleared out; there was nothing in range.

Not fire, Dylan's mind said. Deploy...

He triggered his comlink to the other fighters, but it was too late. Something... some thing, not really a missile or bomb or anything else Dylan's scopes could discern, burst out of its missile bays and blanketed the entire area in brilliant, white light that even his naked eye could discern...

...and on Dylan's tactical display, six green signatures winked out.

"NO!" he cried, but unlike the danger on the ship, this was removed and impersonal. There was no one to grieve and nothing left to do. On the battlefield, nothing moved but Dragon ships. The rest of the Slipfighters, Dylan's entire crew... they were just gone.

Dylan spun his Slipfighter back for a pass through the hot zone, but an entire wing of Dragon fighters turned in his direction and fired a most discouraging salvo.

I can't leave, Dylan thought. Not like this.

But the second thought that occured to him was equally persuasive: What else can I do? They're all dead. I saw them die.

It hadn't hit home yet, and Dylan knew he couldn't allow it to, if he wanted to function long enough to see the light of Tarazed. As the fighters closed into attack range, he turned, burned, and transited, certain that he'd just seen all six of his companions wiped out.

The unique thing is, on the other side of the battle, Tyr Anasazi had just seen the same thing.

And so had Trance Gemini.

And so had the Andromeda Avatar.

And so had Reverend Bohemial Fartraveler.

And so had Seamus Harper.

And so had Beka Valentine.

Each one of them beat their retreats. None of them saw the others, owing to the vast distances of star combat. And none of them knew the others had survived. Each, in his own mind, was the last, the pilgrim who had survived the belly of the leviathan and lived to tell... what? A tale of heroism? A tragedy? A comedy?

"The thing about our crew," Beka Valentine once wrote, years after the fact, "was that we backed each other up. We complemented each other. Individually, any one of us had a dozen exploitable weaknesses, but together... together, we were a unit. A team. A whole. Together, we could have faced any challenge.

"Ironic that we were destined to face our greatest challenge individually, and terribly alone..."

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWO