TITLE: Run for Life
AUTHOR: Michael J. Gallagher ( mikejoe@odyssey.net)
SUBJECT/SPOILERS: Dylan's POV on the season finale, "Tunnel at the End of the Light"
RATING: Same as the TV series I should think
DISCLAIMER: GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA is owned by Tribune. I am not making any money off this unauthorized manuscript. i am just having ..... I was going to say "fun," but would Dylan agree with me?
+++++++++++
I run harder and faster than I have ever run before, my footsteps echoing down the long, empty corridors; for the first time in twenty years, I push myself so hard my heart pounds and my chest begins to ache.
They're all right. Beka and Tyr. They have to be.
At the end of the corridor, I snag a ladder and drop twelve decks -- a shortcut. I block out what Andromeda says about life signs; her sensors have been messed up before.
I hit the deck and start running again.
Beka and Tyr have to be all right. They're, they're unconscious, that's it. Concussions, head injuries. Beka set the *Maru's* controls to return to the *Andromeda* on autopilot before she passed out. But we'll get them to the infirmary and fix them up. We cured Harper of the Magog infestation, for crying out loud, we can fix some bumps and bruises. That's all it is. It has to be.
I round the last corner to hangar two to find the door shut. Andromeda reports the ship has landed but the hangar is still repressurizing. I don't let her tell me anything else as I catch my breath.
I have that sick feeling again, that sick twisted feeling in my stomach when Andromeda told me that we had been frozen in time for 300 years, that got worse when Harper told me that Commonwealth had fallen.
That everyone and everything I had ever known and loved was gone.
Slipped through my fingers in the time it takes to take a breath.
I force it down. Beka and Tyr are unconscious. They're all right. I won't face THAT again. Not again. They're all right.
The hangar doors open and I'm off again. The *Eureka Maru* looks more worse for wear than normal, but she made it. She's a tough little ship, a survivor, like her captain, like Tyr. They're all right. I'll find them and we'll patch them up.
The steps are hot when I climb to the airlock. The outer door is sprung open, and I have to force the inner door.
"Beka!" I call. "Tyr!"
There is no answer but the snap of sparking wires, the rattle and creaking of the ship's frame. I enter the main passageway and creep forward, almost afraid of what I'll find.
"Beka? Tyr?"
I enter the cockpit; the place is a disaster area, signs of a firefight mixed in with the structural damage.
The pilot's chair has been wrenched from its place and thrown across the deck .....
.... to be wedged into some struts right in front of a gaping hole in the port side of the cockpit.