Tears of the Many
Title: Tears of the Many
Author: Erin_Cale
Disclaimer: Andromeda isn’t mine, though I (and, most likely, a thousand others out there) would really like it to be. The only things that are mine in this story are Beloff’s Tears and Natalie.
Author’s Notes: I wasn’t planning on writing a sequel, but I found some things that just made me write this story. 1) I couldn’t seem to make the Secret Santa bit into a story by itself so I had to fit it somewhere. 2) I really wanted to do something with Beloff’s Tears.
Warning: Character death. I wasn’t planning on it, but that’s how it came out.
Beloff’s Tears drifted quietly in a nebula, still repairing some of the damage and processing the information he had gathered about the ships that had attacked the Andromeda. They had been the typical build for a Freedom-class craft, the class that he belonged to. And the signals that they gave off resembled the signals given off when he and Natalie were within communications range. It was disturbing to know that they had been attacked by ships like them.
I have to warn Natalie.
***
“Secret Santa?” Tyr asked skeptically.
“Why not?” Harper answered. “It’s a perfect activity for the holidays. And even if somebody doesn’t celebrate it, they can think of it as a well deserved reward for a hard year’s work.”
“What about me Uncle Harper?” Natalie asked. “Would I get to play too?”
“Of course.”
“Yay!” The little girl clapped excitedly.
“Here are the rules. All our names are put on separate flexis. We each pick a flexi at random and the name you pick is the person you have to get a gift for.”
“What about everybody else?” Rev asked.
“Well, since every name is picked, everybody will get one gift. And if you want to give somebody else a gift as well, you’re welcome to, just in private.”
Rev nodded, considering whether or not he would participate in Harper’s ancient holiday.
“Is there a cost limit?” Beka asked.
“Well, you shouldn’t go out and buy the Hegemon’s Heart...” The crew laughed a little at the mention of the crystallized ventricle that had cost them so much trouble. Harper continued, “Other than that, just don’t get too expensive.”
“So, when do we get to pick names?” Trance asked.
“They’re right here.” Harper waved some flexis in front of the crew so that they could see the names printed on each. “Trance, can I borrow your pouch?”
“Sure. Why?” Trance held out the purple pouch wearily.
“To put the flexis in,” came the reply.
“Okay.” Trance shrugged her shoulders as Harper took the pouch from her hands and placed the flexis inside it. He shook it up a little and handed it to Dylan. “Here you go, Boss.”
Dylan reached his hand in and pulled one out. He took one look at the name, then covered it up so that nobody else would see it. Trance was next and her eyes widened as she saw the name on the flexi. And on it went until everybody had picked a name.
“Okay, so we have a month or so in which we have to get one present for the person we picked. Any questions?” Nobody had any. “Good. Dismissed.” Harper started laughing but when he saw the looks on the others’ faces, he stopped. “I always wanted to say that.”
The others sighed and went their separate ways. Beka picked up Natalie and headed with Dylan to his quarters, where they had been promised a wonderful dinner. But as they stopped in front of his quarters, Dylan stopped them from going inside.
“Just give me a couple minutes to get it all set up,” he said a little nervously.
“Okay. We’ll wait right here.”
Dylan smiled and disappeared into his quarters. Beka and Natalie just looked at each in confusion. A little more than five minutes later, the door opened and they were allowed inside.
“Dylan, you didn’t do all this,” Beka said as she looked at the plates of food that were laid out on his table.
“I cooked everything this morning then had Andromeda keep it a constant temperature for me,” Dylan replied. “Please sit.”
“What’s that?” Natalie asked as she sat down, pointing to a dish with noodles in it, scrunching up her nose in disgust.
Dylan laughed at the look on the little girl’s face. “It’s a Vedran dish. It looks disgusting but it is really good.” He took one of the three empty plates and put a little of the food onto it. “Try some.” He knelt down in front of Natalie and handed her a fork.
With a dubious look at Beka, Natalie carefully picked up some of the noodles with her fork and put it in her mouth as if she were being forced to eat poison. However, her eyes widened as she got her first taste of it.
“Wow! This is good!”
Dylan chuckled. “Of course. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Uh huh.” Natalie nodded enthusiastically. “May I have some more please?”
“Sure.” Dylan sat down and started to put some more of the noodles on Natalie’s plate. “Have all you want.”
“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, Dylan. I never knew you could cook.”
“I can do a lot more than cook,” he replied, giving her a crooked smile.
“Really?” Natalie asked. “Like what?”
Dylan and Beka exchanged a glance that promised to save that discussion for later. “Like... balance my fork on my nose.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yes I can.” Dylan took his fork, leaned his head back and put his fork on his nose. He managed to balance it for a minute or so before he started to sneeze and the fork fell to the floor.
“That was good,” Beka commented, smiling.
“I’m glad I got a smile on your face.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s just that I think your smile is beautiful and that you smile far too little. Although that situation has been improving since Natalie came onboard.”
“Nice save, big guy.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
Natalie yawned, her spoon clattering to her plate as she stretched. This disturbance in their conversation caused both Dylan and Beka to look down at the now cold food.
“I guess we talked too much.”
“Such a shame. All that food gone to waste,” Beka said, looking down at the food sadly.
“I guess we should both make a promise that next time we won’t talk at all next time,” Dylan said with an evil gleam in his eye.
“I’ll agree to that.” Beka answered his look with one of her own. When Natalie rubbed her eyes, Beka looked down at her charge in a protective manner. “I suppose I should be getting the little squirt to bed.” She got up and gently lifted Natalie, who was now asleep, into her arms.
“Goodnight.” Dylan stood up and took one step towards them. He reached out and brought Beka’s head closer to his own. He kissed her gently, making sure not to disturb the sleeping child in her arms. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight,” Beka replied. The door opened and she left, but she kept looking over her shoulder at him until she was out of sight.
When the doors had closed again Dylan pulled the flexi out of his pocket. Natalie. “Now what can you get a kid who’s just gotten everything she could ever want?”
***
Nearly two weeks later Beka was on Command preparing for slipstream, when suddenly Natalie came running into the room.
“Don’t slipstream!” she yelled.
“Why?” Beka asked, motioning to Andromeda to power down the slipstream drive.
“I can hear him again!”
“Who?” Andromeda asked.
“Beloff!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Beka turned to Rommie, who was standing towards the back of the room. “Maybe we should get Dylan and the others up here.” Rommie nodded and instructed her hologram self to tell the others.
“Do you know where he is?” Beka asked, hoping that Natalie had actually heard Beloff and that it hadn’t been a hallucination.
“Somewhere nearby. I heard him for a moment. He said he was trying to find me. Then he said that he’d be back and his voice disappeared.”
“How could that be? I thought that you two were always in contact.”
“I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t like this, Beka. It sounds like somebody is trying to trap us.”
The first officer didn’t have any time to reply as the rest of the crew ran in. Rommie explained the story as Dylan watched the little girl.
“Rommie,” Dylan said after a minute. “Is the nebula that we lost Beloff’s Tears in far from here?”
“No. By slipstream, it would take a few minutes.”
Dylan looked at Beka. “We have to go. If it’s a trap-”
“It’s not a trap!” Natalie insisted.
“On the off chance that it is, somebody wants Natalie very bad and we’ll have to face them sometime. If it isn’t a trap, then we’ll be able to get Beloff back. Beka, take us to that nebula.”
***
The Andromeda Ascendant neared the nebula cautiously. Except for Natalie, the crew suspected that the whole situation was a trap. The moments passed by in tense silence, the adults waiting for weapons to start firing and the child waiting for her best friend to appear.
“I’m detecting a ship leaving the nebula,” Andromeda reported.
“Can you identify it?”
“Not yet. In a few more seconds, however, I should be able to,” the warship replied.
The girl answered the question just before Andromeda came within range. “It’s Beloff!” she cried. “I can hear him!”
“He’s damaged,” Rommie added.
“But he survived!” Natalie exclaimed, almost running out of Trance’s protective grasp.
“Can you bring him in?” Dylan asked.
Before Rommie could answer Tyr yelled, “Sensor drones are picking up five slipstream portals opening up, none more than a light second away.”
“Rommie, bring Beloff in and...”
The ship rocked under fire from the closest ship. At the same time, Rommie reported, “He’s refusing to be brought in. All he wants is to see that we get some information that he’s gathered on the attackers.” Rommie looked at Dylan sadly. “Then he has an idea how to get rid of them for good.”
Andromeda’s hologram stated, “He’s transmitting the information... He’s pulling away.”
Trance yelled, “He’s overloading his energy circuits.”
“Pull away!”
The crew watched the battle monitor as the blue blob that represented Beloff’s Tears blinked, then disappeared. One by one, the ships that surrounded him blinked out of existence as well until only one remained.
“The one that attacked us,” Tyr said, “That’s the only one left.”
“And I can take care of that one,” Rommie added, a revengeful look to her usually passive features.
A brief fire fight and the last of the attackers had also been reduced to space debris. The command center was silent, as if waiting for something to happen. Beka immediately leaped out of her chair to picked up Natalie, hugging her and whispering, “I’m sorry.” The little girl didn’t resist the crushing hug but just kept staring at the front screen.
“He’s really gone this time isn’t he, Beka? There’s no way for him to come back.”
“I’m afraid not,” Beka said, a lone tear slipping off of her cheek and into Natalie’s hair.
“Dylan,” Rommie spoke softly. “I’ve analyzed the information that Beloff’s Tears was able to transmit to us. Apparently, the ships that attacked us were made by the same people who made Beloff. They were assigned to track the signals given off when Beloff communicated with Natalie and they had sensor drones in over 100 systems, scanning for that signal.”
“Which explains how they got here so fast,” Tyr growled.
“Anything else, Rommie?”
“The knowledge that the ships Beloff just destroyed were the last of their kind. The people running the experiments eliminated the majority of the other ships in order to prevent any of them escaping.”
“Was there a location?” Dylan asked.
“Beloff didn’t find any.”
“Rommie, did Beloff find anything that explained why the scientists started these experiments in the first place?” Beka asked.
Rommie’s voice was, if anything, softer than before. “No.”
“What a wonderful Christmas present,” Harper muttered, looking at Natalie.
“Poor thing. She’s lost her best friend twice in two months,” Trance said.
“Let’s get out of here.” Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan saw Beka reluctantly let go of Natalie and start heading towards the slipstream chair. “No. Beka, it’s all right. I’m not that great a pilot but I think I can get us to another system.” Beka gave him a small smile in gratitude and returned to Natalie. Dylan strapped himself into the chair and took the handles. “Brace for slipstream.”
***
The next day, Natalie looked a little pale, so Beka took her down to the med bay to see if Trance could find anything wrong with her. After the results were processed, Trance pulled Beka aside.
“She’s dying, Beka.”
“What?!”
“Apparently, whoever created the connection between her and Beloff put something in that chip in her head just in case either of them should escape.”
“What is it Trance?”
“Well, her neural pattern is intertwined with the chip that connected her to Beloff. When he was destroyed, the last thing that his connector did was to send a signal to Natalie, which caused the chip to stop working. Without that chip, she’s going to die.”
“Couldn’t we get another one?” Beka asked, desperately trying to find a way out of this.
“We couldn’t remove the one in her head now without killing her.”
“No! I won’t accept it!” Beka returned to Natalie, took her hand, and led her out of the med bay.
Finally, Trance was left in the room by herself. She leaned back against the wall, her eyelids closed as she tried not to cry. She had seen so much death and she didn’t want to see this girl to die as well, but as the finality of the situation sunk in, she pulled her knees to her chest and placed her chin on her knees.
***
On Christmas Eve, Natalie wouldn’t wake up and Beka, knowing immediately what was happening, picked up Natalie’s limp body and ran to the med bay. Inside, Trance, having been forewarned by Rommie, was already waiting for them. The others arrived a few moments later.
Trance was a blur as she raced around the room, trying to get everything she needed. Finally, she walked over to the little crowd and whispered, “She’s awake, but she doesn’t have too much time left.”
Beka wiped a tear from her face, forced herself to smile, and walked over to the Natalie’s still form. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Her voice was weak but she managed to accompany it with a smile. “Don’t be afraid Mommy.”
“Mommy?” Beka’s voice cracked and she moved a hand over her mouth to try to stifle the sobs that she felt welling up inside her.
“I’ll be all right. I’m going to see Beloff.”
Beka hugged Natalie as tight as she could. “I love you sweetheart,” she whispered. “I always will.”
“I love you too.” Natalie hugged Beka back weakly. A moment later, the tiny arms around her went limp and Beka started to sob harder. The others bowed their heads and left. Only Dylan stayed behind, making sure that he’d be there when Beka finally let go.
***
Epilogue:
The next morning, Dylan brought a cup of coffee to his first officer. When he entered her quarters, he saw that she hadn’t touched the food that he had brought her earlier and instead was looking through the small pile of belongings that Natalie had managed to collect since coming onboard. A picture of her and Beka, several toys, some outfits... Beka gasped as she found a drawing in the pile. As Dylan sat down beside her, he got a look at the treasure that Beka had found.
At the top, it said, “To Rev, from Natalie. Merry Christmas.” The drawing itself showed the crew standing together with Andromeda floating in space as the backdrop. The figures in the drawing looked remarkably like their living counterparts and it made Beka start crying again.
“Dylan, what have I done?” she sobbed.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“But if I hadn’t piloted Andromeda to that nebula, she’d still be alive now.”
“When you look at it that way, if those scientists hadn’t created her in the first place, she wouldn’t have died. Besides, how do you know that Beloff hadn’t decided to leave before we got to that nebula? If he had already done that, they would have found him and destroyed him and we would have lost Natalie anyway.”
“I still feel guilty.” Beka leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I know, but you don’t have any reason to.”
“I miss her, Dylan.”
“I do too.” Together they sat, staring at nothing, thinking about the little girl who had brought the crew closer together and would surely never be forgotten.
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