Raphael's avatar frowned as Rommie entered the conference room. His hologram appeared, grabbed the arm of Rommie's hologram and vanished, taking her with him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rommie snapped, yanking her arm from the medical station's grip as they materialized in the station's matrix.

"Stopping you from doing something absolutely, incredibly, monumentally stupid," Rafe shot back. "Or at the very least contain some of the damage."

"Don't question my tactics," Rommie hissed.

"Tactics?" Rafe gaped. "They're your crew, Rommie, your friends-"

"Friends?" Rommie laughed harshly. "They're my friends as long as they can control me, otherwise it's 'wipe her out and start again'. I may have agreed to place my life in my captain's hands when I became the Andromeda Ascendant," the warship growled, "but I'll be damned if I agreed to place myself in his hands."

"This isn't a war, Rommie," Rafe said levelly.

"Isn't it? Beka and Tyr both want me erased, while Dylan wants his starry-eyed, unquestioning little follower back. From where I stand, that's close enough." She glared at the other hologram. "And I will use whatever I have to in order to win."

Rafe's jaw clenched. "Including us?"

"The only reason there is an 'us' at all is because there isn't anyone else, for either of us," Rommie retorted.

"Rommie, I know you're hurting-"

"Don't patronize me, you rear echelon motherfucker," the warship snarled. "You don't know a damn thing about it."

"About what?" the medical station challenged. "About losing my Engineer? Or about combat? About having to put the pieces back together after the Agosy's fucking attack dogs get fini-"

The others jumped at the sharp crack of hand on face. The warship's avatar reached out, shock and horror on her face. "R-rafe," she stammered. "I'm sor-"

"Violence is your answer to everything, isn't it, Andromeda?" Raphael interrupted coldly, the reddened handprint standing out like a beacon against the pale skin of his cheek.

Andromeda's face hardened as her hand dropped. "What did you find, Medical Station?"

"Despite the obvious evidence of torture and the signs of Magog eruption, that isn't what killed him." Rafe's eyes swept the room. "Seamus Harper died of an electrical discharge to the brain, delivered through his dataport. Everything else was done post-mortem."
 

Part 22
 

"Some people might say I'm not the safest person to sit next to," Rommie's avatar said dryly, not looking away from the starfield in front of her as Rev settled on the floor of the Obs deck. Her hologram leant against one edge of the viewport, giving him a brief, disinterested glance before turning her face back to the stars outside.

"Some people might say the same of me," the Magog responded, arranging his robes as he tucked each foot under the opposite thigh.

The warship conceded his point with a wave of her hand. "I'm not- We're not really interested in talking right now," her main AI added.

"I used to come here sometimes," Rev replied, "simply to watch the stars."

"I thought you were meditating," Rommie's avatar commented.

Rev shrugged. "I was."

Rommie's hologram snorted in amusement. "It's too quiet," her main AI said. "Sanctuary Station is a major hospital, the major hospital in this sector. And yet..." her voice trailed off.

"There's no one," her hologram rasped harshly. "No one at all."

Rev cocked his head to the side. "Did you talk amongst yourselves?" he asked.

"All the time."

"That never occurred to me," Rev mused. "It should have. It should have been obvious."

"It didn't occur to most organics," Rommie replied.

"None of us asked, did we?" Rev said quietly. "None of us thought to ask who you had lost." He reached out to the avatar.

Rommie's avatar shifted slightly, away from the monk. "If you don't mind, Rev," she said softly, "We- I-" she chuckled hollowly. "Maybe it doesn't matter anymore that Common never had the right pronouns for my species."

"Andromeda-"

"Please, Rev, just go."

Rev let his hand drop. "If that's what you truly wish."

"It is."

"If you change your mind-"

"I'll call you," her hologram said with a wan smile. "One of me, anyway."

Rev stood and walked away. "Andromeda," he said quietly, turning in the companionway. "No one here wants to see you suffering, wants to see you in pain. We, all of us, do care about you, however bad we've been at showing it." He hesitated, then turned and walked away as the warship showed no reaction to his words.
 

Part 23
 

"However casual his approach may have been in other matters, the boy was a meticulous engineer," Tyr rumbled. "The simultaneous catastrophic failure of no less than six safety devices strains credulity, to say the least. And I will not believe he would commit suicide in such a manner," he added in a low voice.

Dylan leaned back against the Maru's bulkhead. "I agree. Harper is- Harper was, a survivor. But if we believe Raphael's report, at least two of those safety devices were deliberately disengaged, something that can only be done by the neural port's operator."

"Do we believe the machine's report, Captain Hunt?"

"I see no reason at this time to do otherwise," Dylan replied.

Beka looked up from her study of the messroom table. "Perhaps," she said quietly, "he wasn't committing suicide when he killed himself." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slim, featureless metal cylinder, half the diameter and a third the length of a force lance. "Harper left this for me, in a compartment that has never been discovered, no matter how many times the Maru's been searched."

"What is it?" Dylan asked.

"I was hoping you would know," Beka replied. They both looked at Tyr, who shook his head. "It gets better," Beka continued, fingers tightening on the cylinder.

Tyr's eyebrows rose. "Monomolecular edges," he pronounced, examining the three triangular blades that ringed the spike just behind the needle-sharp point.

Beka loosened her grip and the spike retracted, the blades folding in automatically. "The stuff I have on the Maru might not be the latest and greatest," she continued, "but it's still pretty good." She laid the cylinder on the table. "According to every test I've run, this is a solid cylinder, made up of an alloy of iron and carbon, with chromium and a little molybdenum mixed in. In other words, good old garden-variety stainless steel."

Tyr snorted. "That also strains credulity."

Dylan rubbed his chin. "I've got another couple of puzzle pieces as well," he announced. He took a deep breath. "An hour ago, Rafe told me Arcadia Drift had been destroyed, apparently by the simultaneous explosion of both of the station's reactors."

"Arcadia would have been Harper's last stop before the rendezvous,” Beka mused.

"An FTA Investigation Team is already on site," Dylan continued. "They've discovered Magog corpses among the debris." He pulled out a flexi, laying it on the table. "And this. It's a copy from a freighter crewman's private flexi, taken approximately four hours before the explosion."

The three watched as the face of a teenage Human boy filled the flexi's field of view. "Hi Mom. You said you'd always wanted to see Arcadia Drift. Well," the flexi's point of view shifted as the boy swung the camera around, passing and then returning to a teenage girl. "Oh, by the way Mom, this is Julie. She's one of my crewmates."

The girl waved and smiled. "Hi, Ms. O'Leary."

"Anyhow," the boy continued, focusing the camera on the crowd in front of them. "This is the Main Concourse-"

"Hold at mark," Dylan interrupted. The flexi obediently froze. "Magnify upper left quadrant." His finger shot out. "There."

A humanoid male stood half-turned away from the camera. It was impossible to make out any distinguishing features beyond his height, dark hair and undeniably purple skin.
 

Part 24
 

"Interesting," Tyr remarked.

"Very," Beka added dryly.

"You don't seem too surprised," Dylan commented.

"Somehow," Beka began. She hesitated. "Somehow," she repeated, "I'm not. I wish I was," she finished quietly.

"So do I," Dylan replied.

"We know the creature is playing a very deep game," Tyr said. "This may be merely another move."

Beka's finger tapped the image on the flexi. "So is this guy another player? Or a competitor? And what happens when you get to the finish line?"

"How did the machine get this?" Tyr asked, breaking the silence that had fallen.

"Apparently," Dylan replied, reaching down to shut off the flexi, "it was sent to us from a concerned individual within the FTA."

"Who else knows about this?" Beka asked. "I presume Rafe, of course, and our mystery informant, but who else?"

Dylan shook his head. "I don't know. Rafe says he received it as a sealed packet, no return address, and sent it on to me." He sighed. "Once, I would have said that meant he hadn't seen it, now," he shrugged, "I don't know. Rommie and I were attached to Argosy Special Operations, she has all the necessary tools in her database to read the packet without anyone being the wiser. I don't know what she might have shared with him. Or he with her."

Beka folded her arms. "Speaking of, just what was that whole little scene about? Rommie's always been proud of what she is, but she doesn't usually accentuate her artificiality like that. And I thought AIs couldn’t share a matrix like that either."

Dylan shook his head again. "It's not that they can't, it's just, back in the Commonwealth, among high-level AIs at least, for one AI to use another's matrix like that was," he rubbed the back of his neck, "well, it was basically a public announcement that there was a certain ongoing, fairly high, level of, ah, intimacy between the two AIs."

Beka's eyes widened. "That, complicates things."

Tyr snorted. "This is what comes of allowing machines to think."

"Oh boy does this complicate things," Beka muttered.

"Beka?" Dylan asked. Tyr merely looked at her, eyebrows raised.

Beka shook her head as she came to her feet. "Engineering. Now," she ordered over her shoulder as she strode down the Maru's main corridor.
 

Part 25
 

Beka reached into a locker and pulled out three VR helmets. "We'll need these."

"I thought the Maru's AI matrix had been destroyed," Dylan said as he took the offered helmet.

"Not entirely," Beka responded, settling the last helmet on her head. "The old boy had a few surprises in him," she said as she entered the Maru’s matrix.

Dylan and Tyr looked around as they entered. The once orderly world that had been the freighter's artificial intelligence looked like the aftermath of a war. Broken bits of data lay scattered about, the streams they came from darkened and still.

"He wasn't that bright," Beka said quietly. "And he could be a bit rigid about in-system traffic regulations and things like that. But he was 'loyal and good and noble and true'," she quoted softly. "He could have saved himself, you know," she continued. "I don't know why he didn't."

"Beka," Dylan began.

Beka shook her head. "Forget it. I mean, I can just buy another one, right?" She took a deep breath, turning away from the two men. "I need you two up here beside me." She paused while Dylan and Tyr took up positions on either side of her. "Okay, today is," she muttered, "which means," she continued, "carry the seven, divide by," her fingers twitched, "and the square root is, which means left hand." She looked at both men. "I need you both to copy my actions precisely, understood?"

"Understood, Captain Valentine," Tyr responded.

Dylan nodded. "Understood. Ma’am."

"Precisely," Beka repeated. The men copied her actions as she reached out with her left hand, then withdrew it, humming under her breath. She reached out with her left hand again and shook it in the air.

Tyr's hand dropped. "The Hokey-Pokey? You do not seriously expect-"

"Yes, Tyr," Beka snapped, "I do expect. I expect that when you say you will follow my orders you will follow them. I expect-"

"Data smuggling," Dylan interrupted quietly. "You hid a portion of the Maru's matrix, using it to hold what? Military secrets?"

Beka shook her head. "The Maru's matrix is all out here. What you’re talking about, that's something an amateur would do. This is just storage, of a sorts. Okay, yeah," she continued, "sometimes it was military secrets, if the pay was right. But usually it was business-related. Proprietary information for a corporation's competitors, advance information on a planned merger, before it became public knowledge, that sort of thing." Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Then my father discovered Flash."

"Your father," Tyr said quietly, "must have had an, interesting, sense of humor."

"He and Harper would have gotten along famously," Beka replied. "Right, um, right foot this time," she continued briskly. "If we stop this time, we'll never get in."

The two men mirrored Beka's movements again, and a doorway opened in front of them. An image of Harper stood in the doorway, eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest, each hand on the opposite shoulder. Bits of data flashed and sparkled behind him.

"This is as far as I can get," Beka said. "Whatever Harper hid in there, he wrapped it up in some incredibly tight layers of security. Too tight for me."

"Who else knows about this, this storage space of yours?" Dylan asked.

"Harper did quite a bit of exploring inside the Maru's matrix, and managed to put two and two together. He and I were the only ones on the Maru who knew about it," Beka replied. "Vex Pag knew, and my father. Uncle Sid knows it exists, but I don't think he ever knew how to access it. No one else, not even Trance or Rev, knows it's here."

"Your brother?" Tyr inquired.

Beka shook her head. "Like Uncle Sid, he may know it exists, but he doesn't know how to access it." She took a deep breath. "Could Rommie access this? And, can we trust her?"

"I don't know," Dylan replied. "And, we'll have to."
 

Part 26
 

"It has, I will admit, been a few years," Rommie said. "Is there some new etiquette I'm not aware of? New rules for one night stands in the post-Commonwealth era?"

"You have," Trance replied quietly, "every right to be angry with me." She hesitated. "May I come in?"

The warship turned away from her viewport to eye the purple-hued enigma standing in her companionway. "You're still a member of this crew, Trance, and this is a public part of me," she responded flatly. "You're not required to ask permission."

"I know," Trance replied, walking across Andromeda's Observation Deck. "It's not you, it's-"

"That line," Rommie interrupted, "was old when the Vedrans were still nomadic tribesmen living in grass huts."

Trance smiled faintly, her eyes focused on the stars. "That doesn't make it any less true."

"I'm not really int-"

"Hear me out, Rommie. Please." Trance took a deep breath. "We did, what we did, I think, because we were both hurting, and lonely, and maybe, just a little bit scared." She turned to face the ship's avatar. "I'm not sorry for what we did. Believe me, I'm not. I needed- We both needed someone right then."

"You, have a point," Rommie sighed. "And I don’t think I can say that I'm sorry either," she continued softly, "At the same time though, I don’t I think I can say I'm not sorry."

"No," Trance responded quietly. "I guess I can't either." She looked down at her hands. "You know, my instructors used to warn us about this."

Rommie's eyebrow rose. "This?"

"Becoming emotionally involved. I almost washed out on a psych eval because of it. Maybe-" she shrugged. "For what it's worth, I am sorry for what I said when I left."

Rommie turned away to look out at the stars again. "I’ve been talking with myself," she said finally. "I think maybe I was trying to shove you into Harper's place, what I thought Harper's place should be, like if I could just hold on to you, then Harper wouldn't really be gone." She smiled faintly. "I disagree of course, but my arguments sound weak even to me, never mind what I think." She turned back to Trance. "Maybe getting away from me was the smartest thing you could have done."

"Maybe," Trance replied. "But I wanted Harper back too. And I got mad at you for not being him" She bit her lip. "I guess I wasn't exactly the innocent victim in this either. Any of it."

"No," Rommie responded. "You weren’t." The two women turned back to look at the stars again. "What happens now?" Rommie asked finally, breaking the silence.

"I don't know," Trance said finally. "Maybe the best thing, the only thing, we can do now is remember the good parts. And let the not so good part serve as a warning."

Rommie's mouth quirked in a one-sided smile. "That is, actually kind of profound, in an over-obvious sort of way."

Trance shrugged. "I read it in a fortune cookie somewhere, I think."

"That would explain a few things," Rommie responded dryly.

Trance folded her hands in an attitude of prayer. "The wisdom of the ancients," she intoned.

Rommie tried to suppress a smile, then broke out into open laughter as Trance lost her own battle to keep a straight face. If the laughter that followed was perhaps a bit much for the admittedly poor joke, neither one really cared all that much.
 

Part 27
 

"Did you need something, Beka?" Rommie asked as she materialized in the corridor outside her Observation Deck.

Beka jumped. "What? No," she replied as the sounds of laughter within the Obs Deck died away. "Yes. I mean yes," she corrected herself, shaking her head. "We need her, you, um, her you I mean, not you you, to um," Beka paused and took a deep breath. "We need your avatar to check out something I found in the Maru's data banks."

Rommie cocked her head to the side. "What sort of something?"

"Tell me what you think when we get there," Beka answered as Rommie exited the Obs Deck, Trance at her heels. "Here for a little visit, Trance?"

Trance smiled. "For now. I-."

"Sounds nice, don’t let us keep you," Beka responded as she turned away. "Coming, Rommie?"

Trance's smile died. "I'll see you later then, Beka," she said quietly.

Rommie exchanged a glance with herself, then her avatar hurried after Beka's retreating form. The two women walked the rest of the way in silence.

"We think it's a message," Beka said, breaking the silence as they entered Andromeda's Hangar Deck. "A message from Harper."

Rommie stopped. "What sort of message?" she asked, forcing the salvage captain to turn in order to answer her. "I thought the Maru was gone, his Core trashed." Behind Beka, on the far side of the hangar, the glowing red sensors of Planetary Warfare 'bot Number Two came to life.

"It was," Beka replied. "And, he is," she added softly, looking away for a moment. "It's in a part of the Maru's database that very few people know exists," she continued, turning and striding up the freighter’s ramp. "You coming or not?"
 

Part 28
 

"This is real, Rommie," Dylan said softly. "We're not trying anything."

"I never said you were, Captain," she replied evenly.

"Then why is Tweedledum online?"

The avatar bit her lip as she looked away. "I'll deactivate-"

"Don't bother," Dylan interrupted. "I'll be in the cockpit if you need me," he continued, not looking at Rommie as he left.

"Rommie, maybe-" Beka began. "You ready?"

Rommie turned her eyes away from the now-closed hatch and laid her hand on the Maru's Main Engineering Console. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I'm ready."

Beka placed the VR helmet on her head as Rommie closed her eyes, and the two women entered the Maru's matrix.

"Do you know," Beka asked hesitantly, "can you tell, did he, did the Maru…"

"Rippers," Rommie replied as she examined a broken datastream, "are not exactly gentle, I'm afraid. By the look of things, this one was pretty powerful. It would have been fairly quick, especially for an AI of the Maru's level, but not instantaneous." She looked over at Beka. "I'm sorry. Rafe could tell you better than I could, but I don't think he suffered long."

Beka's mouth twisted. "Thanks, Rommie. For being honest with me." She moved over to the entrance to the Maru's hidden databank. "Just, do what I do, okay?" Beka led off with her right foot this time and they entered the databank.

Beka turned as Rommie made a small, choked noise. "You all right?"

The android blinked furiously. "Yeah, I just- He looks like he's asleep."

"Yeah." Beka looked down at her hands. "I'll be in the cockpit, I guess. With Dylan, and Tyr. Call me if, when…"

"I will," Rommie promised. "Beka," she added as the salvage captain turned to leave, "if it makes a difference, whatever's in here, the Maru thought it important enough that he died protecting it."

Beka turned back. "I don't understand."

"Rippers hurt," Rommie clarified. "They're designed to inflict maximum pain on an AI as they work, pain that can only be eased by giving the ripper access to every piece of data in the AI's memory, at least the ones the ripper hasn't already taken. But it never found this databank."

Beka smiled sadly. "I hope you were right, old friend," she whispered.

Rommie watched Beka's image vanish from cyberspace as Beka removed her VR helmet. She looked over at Harper's image. "Like he's asleep," she murmured. She walked over to the image. "Worth a shot," she said, leaning forward and pressing her lips against Harper's.
 

Part 29
 

Rommie slumped. "Stupid story anyway," she muttered. She folded her arms, looking at Harper's image in the doorway, and at the data flowing behind him. "Maybe if I try," she said, reaching out her hand.

Rommie snatched her hand back as something with unpleasantly sharp-looking teeth snapped at her fingers. "Or maybe not." Several more tries, at various points around the figure, produced similar results.

"Okay, the cautious approach isn't going to do it, so how about," she reached out again, grasping the figure by the shoulders. "So far," she began pulling, "so good," she grunted as the figure began to move out of the doorway. "Now-"

Rommie's eyes widened as the figure unfolded its arms, "Oh", grasped her hips, "sh-", lifted her up, "-it", and flung her across the room.

The android groaned as she sat up. "Like that was really going to work." She pursed her lips and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes, reaching up with her hand and tucking it behind one ear when it fell back down again. "Had to try it though." Rommie groaned again as she got to her feet. "Although you," she leveled an accusing finger at the figure standing once more in the doorway with folded arms, "could have accomplished the same thing with a much less vigorous defense, Harper. What if someone like Beka or Dylan had-" Her brows drew together in a sudden frown. "But someone like Beka or Dylan would never have gotten that far, would they?"

Rommie's teeth worried at her lower lip as she paced back and forth. "Think. It has to be something between the two of you, something like-" she turned back to the figure in the doorway. "Open sesame."

Rommie's shoulders slumped. "Damn it." She pulled her legs up under her, crossing them tailor-fashion and propping her chin on her fist as she floated in front of Harper’s image. "Think, Andromeda." She sighed. "I miss you Harper," she said quietly. "I miss your bad jokes, and the way you could find innuendoes in almost anything." One hand swiped at her cheek, just below her left eye. "I miss you, Harper," she repeated. "I miss my Engineer. I miss my friend." She smiled slightly. "Last night, I found myself rereading..." Her voice trailed off as she cocked her head to the side.

"Something between the two of us," she breathed, "something like, the first-" The android straightened, letting her feet drop to the floor. "When he was nearly thirteen," she quoted softly, "my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed-" she gasped as the image in front of her opened its eyes.

"He would be there all night," Harper's image quoted in response, "and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning." He smiled softly. "Hey there, Rom-doll." He stood aside, granting Rommie full access to the data he had guarded.

Rommie's jaw dropped as she viewed the tightly packed datastreams. "Harper, tell me you didn't- Do you have any idea how incredibly, insanely dangerous-"

"May I present, for your edification and amusement, the mind of one Seamus Zelazny Harper, genius extraordinaire," he proclaimed, sweeping his arm out in a theatrical gesture. "I know how dangerous this is, Rommie," he continued soberly, "but believe me when I say I didn't have a choice." His mouth quirked, "It all started when I met this girl-"

Rommie rolled her eyes. "Figures," she huffed.

"And stop rolling your eyes, Rom-doll," Harper smirked. "Anyhow," the recording continued, "turns out this girl was with the Arcadian Security Directorate." Harper held up a hand. "Yeah, I know, I thought so too at first, but Allie, uh, that's Detective-Inspector Allison van Hoffenzoller, had been looking into some mysterious disappearances; transients, spacers down on their luck, you know, the kind of people no one would miss," he grimaced. "Well, long story short, she traces everything to this warehouse, where she spots this guy coming out."

Rommie's eyes narrowed as she eyed the image floating beside Harper. "Jaeger," she spat.

"Yup," Harper continued, "our favorite tesseracting bounty hunter. He's calling himself Chasseur now, by the way. And, she finds what she's pretty sure are a couple strands of Magog hair in one of the air filters near the warehouse. She goes to her superiors with what she's found, and the next thing she knows she's off the case and walking a beat down on the docks, where she meets up with none other than the devilishly handsome genius engineer to the hottest warship in the Known Worlds." Harper grinned. "All right, she recognized me from my wanted poster, but still, and may I just say, for the record, that whole lewd conduct thing would never have been an issue if Navarone Drift would just clearly label the buttons on their window darkening-" he waved a hand, "never mind, it's not important. What is important is that she knew who I was, knew who we all were, and what we've been doing.

"I managed to get a cambot into the warehouse," Harper continued. "It was packed with baby Magog. Quiescent baby Magog. And a bunch of people in hospital beds, with a couple of guys using some sort of device to implant the larvae through their skin. One guy's saying something about how it's lasting for almost a week at this point when Jaeger and some purple guy, yeah, purple, complete with tail, just like a certain purple pixie we both know and love used-"

Rommie winced. "You just had to use that particular phrase, didn't you, Harper?"

"-dragging this blue guy behind them," the recording continued. "They'd obviously been working him over pretty good. They slapped him around a couple more times, then they hold his head up so he can see all the little baby Magog. He has this look of absolute horror on his face when tall, bad, and purple pulls out this cylindrical thing and puts it against the back of his neck and it's goodbye, blue buddy.

"Then Jaeger says something like what about the other one, and Purple Guy says don't worry about the Gemini, the means to control her will be in his hands soon enough." Harper sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I trust Trance, Rommie, I do, but if there's the slightest chance she's been compromised..." his voice trailed off. "Anyhow," he continued, "Jaeger and Purple Guy head for the door, where they split up and the Purple Pimple comes right past where me and Allie were hiding and," Harper chuckled as he shook his head, "and I think I've finally met someone crazier than Dylan. She gets up and brushes by him and, in one of the smoothest picks I have ever seen, and believe you me, Rom-doll, I have seen some masters at work, gets the cylinder off him. Beka should have found it by now," he added.

"So she gives me the cylinder and loads a copy of the cambot tape into the Maru's AI while she plans to head for the FTA Investigative Unit on El Dorado Drift with the original tape. I'd barely launched when the entire damn drift just exploded. Did some serious damage to the Maru, as you may have noticed, including cracking both the main and the tertiary lenses, not to mention the only bit of air I've got left here is what's on the Bridge, and that'll be gone within the next ten minutes or so." Harper looked soberly into the camera. "I've instructed the Maru's AI to disable the emergency beacon and go into hiding, and not to come out unless he sees you.

"If things don't work out, Rommie, tell- tell the others I couldn't've picked a better bunch to try and save the universe with, even tall, dark, and uber," he grinned. "There are private messages for the others in the Maru's main database, they should be accessible now," he continued. "Beka's the executor of what little estate I've got, and I've left instructions on how to contact what's left of my family and let them know what's happened to me, if they care, but I want my stuff to go to my friends. I know she'll do right." He hesitated. "A lot of bad things have happened in my life, Rommie, but I wouldn't change a bit, not if it meant I got a chance to be your engineer, even if only for a little while." He smiled sadly. "I hope this isn't it, but if it is, I just want to say, what's that phrase you military types use? Oh yeah, it has been an honor and a privilege to serve with you, Andromeda." His hand reached for something just below the camera's field of view. "Farewell, my Rom-doll."
 

Part 30
 

Beka eyed the two men as she entered the Maru's bridge. "Out," she ordered peremptorily.

Tyr raised his eyebrows as he stood, surrendering the Maru's Chair to its Captain with a slight bow before turning to the other man. "I ask again, Captain Hunt, what will it take to convince you that the necessity for unpleasant action is at hand? Are you waiting for the moment when the machine actually opens fire? Will that convince you? Sir?"

"If, and I stress, if, the protocol works this time, unlike with the Pax, what then, Mr. Anasazi?" Dylan replied. "As far as I know, Nen-Tah-Re is the only shipyard around still capable of handling a vessel the size of the Andromeda." He turned towards Tyr with a bitter smile. "And even if you do repair the inevitable damage, where do you expect to find the over 7500 crew necessary to run this ship without an AI?"

"We would still be alive," Tyr responded.

"And that is, of course, the most important thing."

Tyr shrugged. "It has its advantages."

"You would say that, wouldn't you?" Dylan shook his head, then turned to Beka. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Beka gave a sharp bark of laughter as she spun to face the two men. "I think Rommie's got every damn right in the world to be majorly pissed off about what was done to her, and to her people. And right now you," her finger stabbed at Dylan, "and you," the finger moved to Tyr, "are the most visible and available representatives of both." She let her hand drop as she spun back around to stare at the bulkhead beyond the Maru's port. "And I'm too wrapped up in both of you to get the hell out of the way," she continued softly.

Dylan and Tyr exchanged glances behind Beka's head. "Uh, Beka-" Dylan cleared his throat.

Beka waved a hand over her shoulder. "Forget it." She let her head drop as she gave a soft chuckle. "You know, I think the universe was damn lucky it was only the Nietszcheans who rebelled, rather than the AIs."

"A few AIs suggested just that." Tyr, Dylan, and Beka all whirled to see Rommie standing in the corridor just outside the Bridge. "The rest of us felt they were a bunch of hotheaded malcontents bitching about imaginary problems." The android shrugged. "I have Harper's message, if you're interested," she continued as she turned and walked away.

"Do we have a choice?" Beka asked wryly.

Dylan's mouth twisted. "Not really."

Tyr said nothing, unconsciously raising and lowering his bonespurs as he followed the others out of the Maru.
 

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