RATING: PG.
SPOILERS: "Angel Dark, Demon Bright" and "The Unconquerable Man."
SUMMARY: Gaheris Rhade is the last of his kind, alone.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first. If you've already asked before and I said yes, it's good.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things _Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda_ belong to Gene Roddenberry's estate, Tribune Entertainment Company, and Fireworks. No infringement intended.
NOTE: I wrote this after reading the Rhade ficathon: http://www.livejournal.com/users/maryavatar/420428.html

Having heard something, Rhade asked, "Andromeda, what's going on in the hall?"

The hologram popped into appearance and answered, "Trance is running through the hallways yelling that Harper is trying to kill her. She has now stopped at your door."

"She's still yelling." It seemed that she expected him to open the door. He would find out what was going on faster if he let her into his office. Annoyed, he opened the door.

"He's trying to kill me!" she yelled as she ran in, clutching some kind of computer board. Rhade didn't even see Harper yet.

He'd been aware for some time that Trance played games. Her act of coy innocence and ignorance grated on his nerves, and he could foresee a time when he'd tell her that she could accomplish more without the attempts at manipulation. That time might be soon, since she'd "accidentally" flown them here, to this particular time, for this event. There had to be a reason why.

Harper finally ran into the hall, out of breath. Rhade caught Trance smirking before she changed her expression to one of "fear." At the very least he should tell her that she wasn't as good an actress as she thought herself to be.

"I can explain," Harper gasped.

"Do so," Rhade answered.

"Harper's trying to blow up the whole nebula," Trance said suddenly.

"Trance!" Harper yelled.

"I told Harper to explain, but that would be a good place to start."

Harper's expression shifted back and forth, back and forth, from bland subservience to hard, cold determination, probably as he tried to decide what would serve him better here. Rhade had noticed before that Harper had compartmentalized his personality, perhaps as a survival technique on the enslaved Earth he'd come from. Harper chose a cool, hard voice. "I don't want to blow up the nebula."

"But you might!" Trance said.

"It would be worth it to destroy the Nietzschean fleet."

Rhade had received opinions from Tyr, Beka, Andromeda, and Rev on what they should do in their unprecedented opportunity to affect the history of the war and the Long Night but had missed Harper. The willingness to destroy 500 ships carrying 5,000 lives and perhaps the High Guard fleet with them showed something almost Nietzschean in Harper's character. The willingness to die himself in the effort, not so much.

He could understand how someone who'd lived under the Dragans would hate Nietzscheans so much. More than any other Pride, the Dragans showed the degeneracy contemporary Nietzscheans had fallen into. A race meant to be warrior-poets had become bullyboys, thugs.

"Explain how this would work," Rhade said.

"After blinding Andromeda's internal sensors, I made modifications to key systems of her power core that will allow me to cause a single cataclysmic explosion in the nebula. I'm using the Maru's database to find the exact time the Nietzschean fleet will be in position for me."

Andromeda's hologram reappeared and asked in a dangerous tone of voice, "You blinded my sensors and tampered with me?"

"While you guys were frozen in a black hole, the rest of us had to live through Nietzscheans and Magog attacks and shit like you would not believe. I may not know exactly what future I might be creating here, but it has to be better than what Earth went through over the last few centuries." Harper's eyes nearly blazed in his zeal. "I can't believe we're just going to take off when we have the opportunity to fix something that went wrong. It goes completely against my nature."

Will to Power.

But it wasn't Harper's decision to make. "Andromeda, confine Harper to his quarters and prevent his access to any systems. We'll be leaving here as I originally planned."

Harper made a sound of protest but said nothing, sensing when he'd lost.

"Yes, Commander," Andromeda said, and an electric charge zapped Harper, who yelled.

"He has internal hardware. Don't damage him."

She made an annoyed sound of assent but chased Harper down the hall to his quarters with more zaps.

"I'll take that device," Rhade said to Trance, and she handed it over with a bright smile and an unintelligent look. As she started to leave, he asked, "Is there any intelligence you want to share with me, Trance? I'm a much better ally when I'm informed."

The look she cast back at him was almost nervous. "Not at all. Everything is fine."

Once she departed, Rhade said, "Andromeda, show me Harper and Trance as Trance took the device away from him." He wanted to see how she'd gotten it and what she'd said to him.

"My sensors were blinded at that time. I don't have a record of it."

A shame. "Thank you."

Once the 1,000 extra Nietzschean ships arrived and destroyed The Renewed Valor, Rhade understood why Trance had brought the Andromeda Ascendant back here. Those 1,000 ships hadn't been here in the history, because if they had been they would have wiped out the High Guard and brought about a very different 300 years hence. Unfortunately, the holographic Dylan was correct about what that victory would lead to. There would be no enlightened Nietzschean Empire emerging from this battle even if the Nietzscheans won. They would merely turn on one another and pillage and destroy anyone else nearby. Those 1,000 ships needed to be destroyed to bring about the future status quo Rhade had wanted, and he even had someone who could design a weapon to do it with.

Of course, he considered that this Dylan had been created by Harper and might endorse Harper's plan for exactly that reason. But the thinking behind the plan as presented by the hologram had been sound. The holographic Dylan was harder and more practical than the actual one had been. Almost Nietzschean, just like his maker. How ironic that an engineer twisted and forged by decadent Nietzscheans would be used as a weapon against them.

It was a kind of justice. A bitter kind.

"You find betraying our people, *all* our people, funny?" Tyr asked.

As if this decision hadn't cut Rhade to the heart. They'd slaughtered at least 10,000 Nietzscheans. Even Harper had been appalled. Yet the truly appalling thing was that it had been *necessary*.

Rhade had killed his best friend and betrayed the Commonwealth to bring about a golden age managed by enlightened Nietzscheans. Seeing what the Nietzscheans had become and done instead galled. Dylan had died for nothing. Countless people across the galaxies had suffered and died for *nothing*.

Rhade didn't have to justify himself to Tyr. He simply wanted Tyr to know. It might be too much to expect him to understand. "Our people," Rhade said derisively. "Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, *not* cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so... inferior.

"I didn't betray our people. They betrayed themselves. You know this better than anyone."

A *Kodiak*, the last survivor of a Pride betrayed and murdered by the Dragans, had to ask him why he'd done this?

Tyr looked like he understood a little now. Maybe. He left without another word. Rhade would have to kill him someday but not yet.

Trance entered. "You wanted to see me?" Some people would look at her attitude and hear her light voice and think her cute.

"Did I do what you wanted me to?"

She widened her dark eyes. "I'm sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't you?"

"If you're playing a joke, it's not very funny." Her attitude and voice bespoke a surprise and sadness that he would pick on an innocent bit of fluff such as herself.

He felt tired. Of everything. Someday he would force her to stop playing these games, but today would not be that day. A Nietzschean constantly assessed himself, and he knew that he was not at his best right now.

"If you ever feel the need to confide anything, consider me," Rhade said.

For a second her face took on a shrewder look, then she smiled brightly and said, "That's a very nice offer for you to make. 'Bye!"

He would have to be more wary of her secret plans as well as Tyr's. And apparently Harper's at times. Perhaps his holographic Dylan's as well. Considering, he might as well wonder more often what Beka might be up to. He was a Nietzschean, so he was accustomed to such.

Tomorrow he would probably find the challenge invigorating.

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