For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believe you once were.
You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly, shifts in you.
Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting.
Like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer only dark like a room.
But you won't understand why or how. 

                                       - Mark Z. Danielewski,  House of Leaves





He didn't know why he agreed to this. For all intents and purposes, Dylan was happy just sitting
up in his office overseeing his game of Go and now, somehow, here he was; stuck watching knife tricks. 
Spinning his blade, clockwise, by the base of it's hilt, Tyr let slip a grin. To be fair,
he did make a pretty good argument on how this would make a great exercise in both patience and strategy.
It was also a good way to vent any residual frustration. The fact that it was Tyr was just an added bonus.
As he slowly moved across a curved path, Dylan watched as his eyes dance along the space between
them, searching for an opening.
Taking a hard step, Dylan met his movements head-on with a knowing smile and a firm hand. "Your
time might be coming up soon." He observed, deciding that a good taunt would be enough
to set him over the edge, "Seems like you're getting predictable with age." Of course, Tyr said 
nothing back. He just kept circling like a cat on the prowl. Moving with him, Dylan kept his arm up,
defensively waiting- no; hoping, begging- for him to strike. His elbow had been held skyward,
leaning his blade downwards, angled in his grip. The length of it was slanted over his heart. 
His knuckles were white now, pointed to the floor in a sturdy fist that could not be manipulated.
"We could go on forever, you and I." He observed. "But what fun would that be? The two of us locked 
in battle for eternity, waiting for that first strike? Aren't you bored yet? Don't you just want to get 
it over with?"
"I dreamt of killing you last night." 
Of course this would be the first thing he's said all morning. Worse yet, it just had to be in this smooth, 
gentle, voice; recalling a fond memory. 
Dylan's arm was starting to fall asleep now. The ache in his muscles sank his fist from his chest now down
to his ribs. He knew he'd better act fast. Cramp or not, he'll have to face whatever Tyr had in store 
for him eventually. 

Taking a step forward, he watched as Tyr, while wary, did not move either forward or back. He did
not adjust the trajectory of his circle, either. Although, every time he closed the gap between them,
he would tense, expecting an attack. Here, Dylan knew exactly how to get to him. 
He yawned. 
Lowering his defensive arm, he relaxed his shoulders and gravitated, lazily back to the center of their 
little circle. More insult, less intimidation. As expected, it worked.
The level of intensity Tyr's body held in his strike was enough to knock Dylan back a step. One elbow
to the chest and he was already regretting the whole thing. Quickly putting a hand up, he caught
Tyr's knuckles in his palm and held on, pulling him forward and up over a well placed leg before
letting go. 
The fall he expected never came and, instead, Tyr landed on his knee, quickly recovering to a kneeling
position where he could easily turn and grab Dylan from around the waist, slamming him to the floor. 
They were scrambling now, desperate to grab onto anything within reach. Unfortunately, for both of them,
that meant the hair. Wherever their weapons ended up no longer mattered when they were steering each
other by the roots. A hand clenched to the back of his head pulled it back, leaving his neck exposed. 
For a moment, he wondered if this is how it would end. Not here, but years from now, with the both
of them tangled up like this, fighting to see who could tear who's throat out first. He wondered how 
long it would take before they gave up this game of back and fourth, before they peeled back their lips
and started showing their teeth.  

"What is this a cat fight?" Sobering as it was to have Harper, of all people, judge them; it wasn't 
quite enough to make them stop. 
"Practice, little one." Tyr commentated, his hands still keeping Dylan's head trained to the floor. 
"Well, cut it out." Tapping him on the shoulder a few times, Harper managed to make Tyr loosen his
grip. "We've got work to do."
"Never took you for the professional type." Dylan insisted, pulling himself back to a sitting position, 
legs crossing against the cold floor. 
"Yeah, well, we're all full of surprises aren't we?" Digging through his pockets, he made a face as he 
searched each one before finally pulling out a small data key. "Got those coordinates you asked for."
Grabbing the key, Dylan held it up to the light, watching the way it reflected off the surface. This was
it. The answer he'd been looking for. 
"So, when are we heading out?" 
"We aren't heading anywhere." Dylan insisted. "I am."
To this, Tyr looked at him like he was expecting some kind of trick only to find that there was no prank,
no joke, not even a spark of sarcasm in his words. "A private affair?" He incurred, quickly snubbing the
idea, altogether. "Another opportunity to prove something to your Commonwealth?" Emphasis on 'your'.
"No." He smiled, confident in his decision. "Just me, myself, and I." He leaned over, resting his hands 
on his knees, "There's a cosmic phenomenon out there just waiting to be explored and I want to be the first
one there." 
"Beating everybody else to the punch, huh?" Harper assessed, glancing over at Tyr as he rose from the floor
and started on his way out. Dylan knew, in that moment, something had been said although he didn't exactly 
know what or why. It didn't matter.
He wasn't going to go prodding into the affairs of his crew now. Well, at least not until he got back. First thing 
on his list was to check their communication logs. Harper had a bad habit of not clearing out information from
anything he's done on his computer and it's led to some...rather difficult conversations. Most notably, when
The Andromeda starts asking for a short-term purge of her most recent files. "Better watch out." Harper joked, 
following Tyr out the door but stilling in the doorway long enough to hold it's frame in the crook of his hand. 
"We might actually stumble upon something good for once while you're gone."
"We can't have that, now can we Mister Harper?" He jested, staring at the thin frame of the star map held, firmly,
between his fingers. 








Chasing after Tyr, Harper managed to catch up just in time to flag him down. "Don't think I forgot about you." 
Stopping, Tyr managed to turn around in time to see him pull another map out of his jacket. "And that is?"
Clicking his tongue, he actually didn't think the guy had the nerve to play stupid. "You know what it is!" 
Cautiously, Tyr took the map from his hand and held it gently in his palm. "You like?" He urged,
watching the big guy quietly pull it to his chest. Something about this made Harper wonder if he even wanted the 
coordinates to begin with. "Oh, come on, you could at least be grateful! I had to take out a loan!" He paused, "Okay-" 
Putting up both his hands, Harper confessed, "-'Johaven Percel' had to take out a loan. But I had to pay off
a guy. Turns out that entire system is basically uninhabited- and for good reasons too! Apparently it's moons
are just slightly off orbit enough that they tend to sorta..." Moving his hands in two angles, he aimed each 
of his fingertips at each other and then expanded his hands, letting out a small 'pshew' to explain what it
was like when a planet exploded. "It's not pretty." This was an understatement.
"I'll be sure to grovel at your feet when I return." That was an overstatement. 
"No, you're gonna grovel at my feet now!" Harper insisted, "I'm not letting you head some weird suicide mission
out there all by yourself." 
"I never said it was a suicide mission." 
"You also never said you were planning on going it alone." He swiped the map from Tyr's grasp and waggled it
in his face. "No tagalong no..." He frowned, the rhyme he had prepared in his head had stopped short and hung
in the air, making him look stupid. "I'm going and that's that." Geeze, it's like he had to do all the work around here... 









The deck was alive with the sound of Dylan. This morning he showed up fully dressed in his old uniform,
going on and on about this special little trip he was taking. "The Universe expanding, isn't that something?" 
He said with about as much naive joviality of a thirteen year old boy who just took the cap off a plasma inhibitor. 
He was waiting to see something life-changing while Beka was left waiting to put out the fire. "This is the first time 
we'll have an actual recorded observation of a new galaxy forming." Grinning from ear to ear, Dylan began patting the 
side of her console, one hand after the other. 
For the first time, Beka felt as if she had just seen a piece of the Dylan that never quite made it through the 
time jump. He seemed young and confident and finally, for once, not miserably treading after every problem that 
came their way. It was a bit creepy if she was going to be honest. 
"And this is...fun for you?" She asked as he gave her console one last pop with his knuckles.  
"You know what they say; 'in the beginning there was...'" He then moved his hand as if he was expecting the words
to fill themselves in, "Well, now I get to find out." 
All this left Beka's jaw practically sweeping the floor. She couldn't think of anything that sounded more stupid
than chasing after some myth. Not to mention setting out by yourself to do it. 
"Let him have this." Rommie conceded, quietly at her side. "It's not often we get to see the Captain this over 
the moon." She then turned to watch him quickly type in the coordinates to his dropoff point, a gentle smile on her face.
Beka grimaced. 

The door to the bridge opened and in poured Harper and Tyr with their gear. For a moment, she wondered if this 
had become a boy's outing until Dylan stilled in place, the smile suddenly wiped from his mouth. 
"Mind if we make a drop too?" Harper insisted, causing the entire upper deck to dissolve in uncomfortable silence. 
Looking between the two of them, Rommie did the smart thing and approached them with caution(not to mention a lot
more grace than anyone else could). "You're leaving?" The question was posited like an observation. Nothing big,
she acted about as shocked as finding out someone drank all the milk out of the carton and put it back. 
"Aw, you miss me already!" He adjusted the bag over his shoulder and smiled at her, just as cheeky as ever. "It's 
just a trip. We'll be back before you know it." 
Hesitating, Rommie glued her eyes to Tyr who was busy being too in love with the idea of not being there that he 
didn't even notice. "That's...not what I'm worried about." In return, he stared at her, blankly, as if he didn't
understand where she could possibly be going with any of this. 
"She thinks I impede your chances of survival." Tyr translated, talking to Harper as if no one else was on the
deck but the two of them. "Historically speaking, this observation is incorrect, but, perhaps it would satisfy her 
concerns to know it was your idea to join me." 
Okay, that was enough of that. "Let me get this straight-" Beka addressed Tyr directly, staring him down until
he finally gave in and looked at her. "You two are going to run off to God knows where with absolutely no warning
and we're supposed to just sit here and wait for you to come back?"
"No one has asked you to wait for anything." He refuted in that bullheaded way he did when he had his mind made up.
"Don't tell me...you two are planning to take a slipfighter, right?" The nervous look they exchanged was enough of an 
answer to send her practically climbing the walls, "Oh no, you two are taking The Maru." 
"Huh!?" Harper gawked as she shoved the key in his hands, "This...this is...you're rewarding our behavior, you know that?" 
"No, I'm keeping you two from getting wiped off the map by a bad current." She reasoned, "Besides, if you take The Maru
I know you two'll come back in one piece." 
Humming, Harper turned to Tyr, speaking out the side of his mouth, "Yeah she's pretty serious about upkeep. One scratch
and you can kiss your butt goodbye."
"One can tell if it's scratched?" He asked and Beka swung at him, lightly slapping his arm with an open palm. 
They all turned, now, to Dylan, who was quiet in the depths of his thoughts, grazing the surface of whatever
they could be planning. "I see." He then conceded with an absent stare, "We'll be reaching the dropoff point in 
about seven hours. I should assume you two get ready before then." He said this like a warning, his eyes pinned on
Tyr. "It would be best to avoid any inconveniences." 
Staring back at him, Tyr swallowed as a thought played itself out behind his eyes. Whatever it was, he didn't pursue
it and smiled, sardonically, as if to issue a warning of his own. "Of course."














Turning on the star map, Dylan sat within the confines of the armory, staring at the infinite wonder
of what awaited him. There was a point past the Krishna System that waxed off into it's own territory
leaving nothing but this empty vat of space. From reports, no one knew where it came from. It didn't
seem to fit in with the usual layout of it's system's usual readout. Like someone had installed a new 
floor between two preexisting ones. The stretch of space between her and her sister galaxy now had a schism 
between them. One that even trade routes were too wary to travel through. He was, quite literally, venturing
into the unknown. 
Sure, the idea of discovery was grand, but, the real reason he was seeking out this new patch of
territory was a little more complicated than a trip through empty space. He needed to see the end
to understand the beginning; looking down to the surface in hopes it would reflect that which was 
behind him. If anything, he was seeking answers to a long stream of questions with no end in sight. 
He wondered if Bem would find his prodding childish in nature. Well, he supposed, they were all
children as far as the universe was concerned.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Asked Trance who had somehow made her way into the armory without so much as a 
sound. If it was anyone else, he'd find this paranoia inducing. For them, it was just another mainstay
of their lives. 
"I'm assuming you're not here looking for a plasma rifle." Tired, he leaned against a shelf and waited
for a reaction- a smile, a nod, anything. 
She did nothing. 
"You're planning on traveling all that way on your own?" She speculated, staring at the blank space
where the universe seemed to have dropped off. 
Closing the map shut, Dylan let it lay, heavy, in his palm for a moment. There weren't many cases to 
be made for Trance, of all people, to go prodding through his business. Not unless she knew something he 
didn't. 
"I was expecting to." 
She didn't seem to like that answer. "No guests?" 
He was looking away from her now, focusing on the engravings on an old field rifle that belonged
to a lieutenant of his back in the day. Initials carefully detailed along the base; whether these were
his own or some kind of dedication, Dylan could no longer remember. He wondered if this is what it would 
be like forever. A part of the universe born right before his eyes would soon become a thing of 
the mundane. Give it a century or two. He wondered if that was what he was to her now. A common sight. 
"How about a proposition?" She asked and, like that, Dylan felt himself easing away from his own distressed 
mind. "If you let me go along, I'll tell you what you want to know." 
"No offense but I was hoping to get away from all..." A quiet gesture towards their surroundings,
making his point quite clear. "This." 
Straightening her posture, Trance patiently looked him over as if she was confirming something she'd 
known all along. "I don't think you can." 
Staring at her, Dylan had this sudden urge to run, leave, hop in his slipfighter and never come back.
Yet he felt trapped in her gaze. All the answers he wanted were at arms length and yet here he was, still
too afraid to reach. 
"Do you remember the last time this phenomenon happened?" 
He blinked, slowly recalling the year before the endless night had set in. Everything was so spectacular
back then. For the sake of his sanity, he had cause to pretend it had never happened at all. "I do."
He then leaned over to catch a glimpse of her from another angle. Pretending as if she was a two-demensional 
image, an illusion overlayed over something real. 
"Three hundred year sago, I was off the port of Valhalla, a Highguard Station where fleet members 
could gather and upload logs of their findings. It was this vast library of knowledge. I thought I had 
so much to offer back then..." He swiped a hand over his mouth, his fingertips scraping against the 
stubble peppering his chin. "We were experienced men, we thought we'd seen everything the universe 
had to offer and then..." Holding up a finger, he pulled it down in a horizontal slant, staring at the
empty space it had passed through. "Before we could dock, this brilliant light came through and cut the
library in half, splitting Valhalla in two. One ended up one the other side of the solar system 
while we just stared at what was left of the station." He remembered it, floating there, pushed
against a backdrop of nothingness. He looked up, noticing that, for once, Trance was actually listening to 
him. "We tried our best to salvage the crew and it's documents but our resources weren't built to sustain 
that kind of damage. The structure was curling in on itself like...some kind of dying animal. We were running low 
on storage. Worse yet, we didn't know what we'd even seen until we had to address the sector's ruling
courts and even then I-" He couldn't continue. The pool of dread weighing deep in his stomach waned away 
at his senses, leaving his nerves brittle and sharp. "It was like a precursor of things to come."
"And you think it's the same now?"
Turning, he avoided the question altogether. "This time it's different isn't it?" Whatever growing hope in
his chest was left stagnant by her decisive lack of a response. 
"Do you want to find out?" 












The docking bay had certainly seen better days. Now that the crew had been narrowed down to near-zilch,
maintenance protocols sorta went out the window. At first, it wasn't a big deal but that was before they
ended up with crates full of supplies that no one intended on putting away. Now, the place was starting
to look like a big steel maze. You couldn't really get lost in it. The tallest it ever got came up to
the shoulders but, even then, maneuvering the place was a pain and Harper was just about done making 
educated guesses. 
Hoisting himself up on a piece of freight, he turned and offered a hand to Trance, "You look good from
this angle." He noted, pointing down his own shirt. Crossing her arms, Trance leaned back and stared up
at him. You'd think this would be her trying to threaten him and, if this was Beka or Rommie, that'd be
the case. Instead, she was denying him access which was a whole other can of worms. "What? A guy can't 
go sight seeing?" He joked and watched as she barely concealed a smile. Offering her his hand again, 
he goaded her back, "Alright, fine, I'll keep my eyes to myself." This seemed to do the trick and, with
a quick tug, they both stood staring out towards The Eureka Maru, quietly waiting against a 
backdrop of unloaded cargo. "Guess they were right." He noted, staring over the winding pathways
below. "The road to hell actually is paved with good intentions." He laughed to himself, "Who knew?"
Making their way down to the ships, they watched as the two blurs in the distance became Dylan and Tyr,
caught up in the usual. "Make sure to remind me to bring my measuring tape next time." He joked, watching
Trance's reaction. Must've been a little on the weak side, he didn't even get a smile out of that one.
"Nervous?" He asked, watching her stare at them with this uncomfortable look on her face. No, it was
more than nerves, there was something genuinely wrong and he knew he had no way of getting it out of her. 
Dropping his bag off his shoulder, he knelt over it and began digging through it, pulling out a small
device and handing it to her. He wasn't sure if this was a peace offering or a token of good luck, but, 
it made her snap out of it and that's all that mattered. "If he gives you any trouble, use this." 
For a second she stared at it and held it out like a weapon. Ah, now that he thought about it, that
would've been a better option. 
"It's a beacon." He explained.
She then pulled it back to herself, embarrassed. "Oh." 
"But if you want a weapon- I can-"
"No, no, this is good." 
Watching Trance hold it firmly in her hands, Harper could feel a sense of scope in this trip. It's not
like they hadn't been separated before but...this time it was different. He wasn't sure how it was different
but it made him worry for the both of them. 
"As long as you've got that with you, you've got a direct line to me." He explained, letting the jargon flood
the corners of his brain. "It's not a comm link, there's no tech that'll work for anything that far off, but, 
it will send out a ping to your location along with a personalized message accompanying it. Anything could happen 
out there and I don't trust that guy to treat you right so, first sign of trouble..." He then mimicked the motion 
of setting of the transmitter. Two quick taps of the button on the side which then folds out to a keypad to be used. 
He then pointed a finger at her, demanding every ounce of her attention. "I expect updates."
Slinging his bag back up over his shoulder, Harper jumped down and passed behind Tyr, giving his back a pat
to try to get him to disengage. No luck. You'd have to wonder if it was exhausting being a part of that little
duet of theirs. 
"I expect a full report when you get back." Dylan tensed, tightening the latches on his gloves. 
Tyr grated against the idea. "I was to assume I was no longer your prisoner."
"You're not." He pointed out. "But you are my responsibility. What you do is a reflection of me and my leadership." 
"What is it do you think I'm planning?" 
"What? You think you can up and leave one day without telling anyone what you're doing or where you're going? That's
suspicious behavior, Tyr." 
"...Sanctimonious." He hissed, annunciating every syllable like it had teeth. A turn of his neck to Harper and the 
ship and, suddenly, his face was brimming with an unpleasant smile that could send anyone within a five mile radius
running for their lives. Well, anyone outside their little group. "Do you want it in audio format or handwritten?" A 
slow curl of poison seemed to seep out from under his tongue. "You might enjoy my penmanship." 
"Written is fine." Dylan said in a dismissive tone that nearly would've started something if not for Trance appearing
to take him by the arm. Sheesh, you could get an ulcer just from watching those two. 

When Tyr finally decided it was time to go, he picked up his luggage and dragged aboard The Maru. Already,
Harper was underway at tapping out their coordinates, turning to greet him with a knowing look. "A little
morbid over there, big guy." He noted, watching his eyes grow dim. "I thought this was a reunion."
Tyr's eyes scoured the floor, following up the panels against the wall and to the command deck where he was
still imputing their location. It was less like he was scouting the place and more like he was trying to
memorize it.  
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were walking into an execution."
Now, that got his attention. "It's not often one finds themselves put into a situation such as this."
"Yeah, well it's not every day you find out your best friend has a kid either." Harper griped, knowing
full well that Tyr was talking about something entirely different. "What? Next you're gonna tell me you
have a wife too?" 
That shut him up for a good second or two before he turned and, with this look like he wasn't entirely there 
said, "I did. Once."
"Ah." Harper regarded it and dropped the subject altogether. He knew Tyr lived in a completely different world
compared to the rest of them and he had no desire to snoop into it. They shared that in a way; their pasts were
nonexistent to the point that they were the last remaining people left to remember what happened to everyone
else who didn't make it. The difference was, Harper still felt like himself. Sure, a really screwed up version
of himself, but practically the same nonetheless. Tyr, on the other hand, felt like talking to someone who 
died a long time ago. Sure, he was still here, but somewhere along the way, whoever he was had been left behind
and whoever this was is all that remained. Thing is, this was the only person Tyr had ever been as far as he was
concerned. Number one rule of Earth; you don't go around asking for peoples' backstories. You didn't want to know
and there was nothing anyone could do about it anyway. Nothing except- "The girls have a little hideout in here don't 
they?" A salacious thought began to cross his mind. "What do you bet they have something to hide?" 

The second The Maru's engines revved up, Harper turned quickly on his feet and ran towards the back of the ship.
Sure enough, Tyr followed right behind, only after his dreams had been crushed. 


"Nothing!" He exclaimed, combing, pouring, through mechanic guides. He couldn't believe this. You'd expect at
least some cheesy book about exploring the tendrils of a Cephalopodic farm-hand or something! "I don't get it!"
Disappointed, Harper held his hands out, letting his fingers twitch at the emptiness between them. "What do girls 
need a private hangout for anyway?" He complained, weeding his way- quite literally- through all of Trance's lame 
plants he now had to take care of. 
"They use it to plot their revenge against you." Sarcasm aside, that mental image nearly sent Harper into hysterics. 
Tyr probably sensed this because he plopped a firm hand down on his head, using it to redirect him out of the room. 
"To complain." He answered, in short, "About us, most likely." He then started muttering something about high blood 
pressure as they drew back to the front of the ship.









It took some time but, once they departed, Dylan felt his sense of adventure start to return. 
Piloting a war ship back in the day was more of a suggestion than an outright claim to battle. She wasn't exactly 
a civilian ship but no one intended for her to see as much combat as she did here. As a diplomat, Dylan was supposed 
to use it's might to supply aid, draw boundaries between planets, and fend back the night. 
Now, every week felt like a struggle. 
If it wasn't a war, it was disease or famine or political discourse...and if it wasn't any of those, it was Trance. 
Tilting his head, Dylan caught a glimpse of her tucked behind his seat. She didn't take up quite as much space as
Tyr had and yet she seemed to fill every inch of the cabin. Without warning, she turned, meeting his gaze.
For a brief period of time, he considered nothing suspicious about her. An oddity, sure, but nothing
more than a young girl surviving against the odds in an unforgiving galaxy. 
Now, he knew that was far from the truth. 
"Well, you got me out here." He pointed out, stretching and turning to his viewport. "That was the plan, wasn't it?" 
As he adjusted the settings on the engine's main output, he watched his readout speed by at the corners of his vision. 
They were going to engage slip soon. 
Taking one last look at The Andromeda and The Maru as they departed, Dylan felt an odd tug at his senses. As good as it felt,
nothing was more terrifying than the reality of freedom. He then heard Trance move, squishing herself between his seat and
the wall just to see outside. 
"Saying your goodbyes?" He asked, turning to see her face downtrodden and grim. "Well if it makes you feel any better, I had
Mister Harper merge his little time machine with my slipfighter's engine. Really, it was just in case we ended up arriving
late to the party but, who knows? Maybe we'll use it to meet back with them." He snapped his fingers, "Just like that." A
broad smile had formed on his lips now; less tense, more self assured. "Maybe we already have." 
Sinking back behind his chair, Trance finally managed to break her silence. "You didn't exactly leave them on good terms." 
A guffaw, "What, that?" He laughed, "Tyr just needed a little refresher on protocol." Alright, that might've been a bit 
of a fib. "Everybody seems to be making a habit of keeping secrets. Doesn't hurt to give 'em a little shake once in a while.
It's harmless." The fact that she didn't say anything back was starting to stick a little. In fact, she took so long that 
by the time he was ready with a rebuttal, she started up again. 
"Do you trust him?" 
The question came so out of left field that Dylan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Obviously, he did the former. As
the slip reached full power, humming through the ship's walls, Dylan found his laughter cut short as a shadow fell over
them, heavy and burdened. 
"Define 'trust'."









As they headed out of orbit, Harper managed to pass the time deconstructing and reconstructing the same 
power inhibitor twelve, maybe thirteen times over. It was less practice at this point and more a game
to see how long it could take him to take one apart. Five minutes was his record...maybe. He wasn't exactly
keeping track. On the floor, at the foot of his bunk, was Tyr doing enough pushups to make a grown man cry.
"You know I thought it was going to be more exciting than this." He commented, watching as Tyr stopped
for just long enough to process what he just said. Pausing, he then laid across the floor, rolling off 
to his side. An arm bent under him held his head in place as Tyr caught his breath. "You're bored." He examined,
already formulating something that made Harper's skin crawl. "I've decided to take a great risk in retrieving
my child from where he is hidden. Quite possibly with others on my trail and you find it miserably dull." 
Yeesh, it's like he sharpens that thing every morning. "More like antsy." Harper apologized, clasping and
unclasping his hands, "Just a little." The noise Tyr made told him he hit a nerve. Thing was, the guy
was all nerves lately. "You can surgically remove that stick any time you know!" He griped, "Between you and me, 
we'll be fine! What's a few Nietzscheans here and there?" Reaching over, he grabbed Tyr's blaster out of it's 
holster, holding it's scope up to his eyeline. Squeezing one eye shut, he nearly jumped out of his skin
when a large hand clasped down on it, pulling it out of his hands. "What? I'm not allowed to fight now?"
Passiveness was never Tyr's first reaction to anything. Rejection, maybe, but his inability to 
articulate himself just made Harper feel as if he'd been cut down at the knees. "You don't think
I'm a threat." He had been so caught up in his own pettiness, he didn't even bother restringing
his words to sound less like a big, concentrated, slap across the face. 
Of course Tyr, in all his graciously vast vocabulary, met him with about as much pettiness. 
Holstering his firearm, he didn't give Harper the courtesy of eye contact. "Not in the slightest." 
"I've seen plenty of restraining orders that say different!" 
"If you seek death, it will surely find you." 
What a load of- "You think I'm a whimp!" 
Whirling around to focus his gaze down at Harper, Tyr searched for something he couldn't find. 
"Is that what you wish? To kill? To watch as a man's gaze becomes limp, the years and experiences
he held within his lifetime snuffed out by your hand?" Something about his stare made Harper feel 
unwrapped and exposed. If he said the wrong thing, he'd almost expect to be sliced up and served 
up on a silver platter. 
Letting loose a deep, miserable, sigh; he rolled his neck back to stare at the grid-like patterns on
the ceiling. "...No." He admitted, "Maybe a maiming but not-" 
"You're misguided if you believe, with even an inch of your mind, that picking up a weapon would
make your life any easier."
"Says his guy with the finger on his trigger." 
Here, Tyr seemed to disconnect from himself, a quick motion sliding his blaster from it's harness to his
hand and aimed it under Harper's chin. 
Tensing against the familiar feeling, Harper needed a moment to regain the feeling back in his legs. 
"Woah, I didn't mean anything by-"
Here, he kept his words clipped and unaffected, only asking a soft, "Is it uncomfortable?" which was
vacant, devoid of all the things that made Tyr, Tyr. 
Nodding, Harper then felt the muzzle slide away as he held it, still aimed upwards as if he was 
ready to have a shootout with the ceiling. 
"The safety is on." His voice was heavier now, "And yet the fact that I have a weapon at all is
a declaration of violence." Swiveling his head to the side, he clicked something on the back of
it and looked him dead in the eye. "I've declared violence on you. Do you wish to kill me for it?"
"No." He resigned, "But that's because I know you. You're not gonna hurt me." 
"Are you quite sure about that?"
Now this, he had to think about for a moment, glancing from him to the weapon and back again
and he realized he didn't like this line of questioning. 
"Yeah, I am." He bluffed just as Tyr clicked the safety back on. 
Holstering it yet again, Tyr stood quietly, letting all his thoughts rattle around in his big brain 
like a blender trying to tear through ice. Ah, but, here came the million dollar question; "Why?"
Harper didn't really know how to explain it. He'd seen enough gun toting lunatics to know
better and yet here was Tyr who was, by all means, just as dangerous. Thing is, all this seemed
engrained in him a long time ago- it wasn't a choice or something inherent from birth- it was 
all built out of survival. And then it hit him. "Because I'm not a threat." 
Weirdly enough, the answer seemed to take Tyr by surprise and he stared, wide-eyed at him for
a moment, letting the answer sink in. "You're not armed." He replied, giving the answer he expected.
"Because I'm not like Dylan." Harper pointed out, "Or any of the other meatheads that fly around
the galaxy thinking they've got some great mission given to them by The Great Divine." He leaned back
against the bulkhead of The Maru and stared blankly at the front of the ship. From where he was,
he could almost see out the viewport. "So, what? You like me because I'm a wimp?"
"I will admit, it does make things easier." A sort of odd smile broke out across Tyr's face. 
Ah, a joke. Finally. Nothing like a gentle ribbing to make you feel less like someone about to
to declare war on half the galaxy. He then backed away, starting towards the deck.  
"You and I are different." He noted. "Have pride in that." 
Catching up, Harper hopped into the auxiliary seat, looking over their map. It'd be a good 
twelve hours before they reached their destination. He then looked up at Tyr. From the pilot's
seat, he could only see the back of his head but he already could feel a certain level of brooding
coming on. "You know it goes both ways, right?" Now, that earned him a good crane of the head. "What?
You think paranoid little ol' me would step foot on a ship heading who knows where with a Nietzschean 
and a stockpile of weapons?" 
"You invited yourself." 
"Exactly! Now why would I do that?" 
Turning away, Tyr lounged a bit more in his chair, hand hovering over the controls. "Because you have
preconceived notions about me."
"Wrong!" Harper barked. "I have post-conceived notions about you." Eh, potato-potahto. "I had preconceived
ones but you made it really hard to hold onto 'em!" 











When they finally pulled from slip, Dylan slowed them to a mere crawl. Just as his map indicated, there
it was; an asteroid field moving across the system like a school of fish following along the belly of a whale.
A rather large 'whale' mind you, the moon keeping everything within it's gravitational orbit had been hijacked
and piloted along, dragged across the stars by an invisible tether. 
"We're stopped." Trance indicated from her seat, reminding Dylan that she was still there. 
Pulling the engine into it's lowest setting, he adjusted himself in his seat, lounging against it's soft 
material. "We are." He'd had his fair share of travel hazards, there was no way he was going to play games
with the cosmos a third or fourth time. "Better settle in, we're going to be here for a while."
Hopping up to her feet, Trance curled around his seat, one hand firmly squeezing the headrest, her pinky
just shy of his ear. Looking out at the mass traveling across their vision, she made an expression of disapproval,
denoting his methods in her mind. "Beka could make it through that." 
"I'm not sure if you know this, but I'm not exactly the same pilot Miss Valentine is." This was the main reason why
he knew The Andromeda was in good hands. Between Rommie and Beka, they'll probably return with the ship in 
better shape than it was when they left. "See, this is why you need to get out more." He notated with his hand,
holding a long slender finger up to Trance's face before motioning it out towards the viewport. "We're always in
such a rush these days, it's good to just stop and slow down for a while." 
"Why don't you just use a time jump?" She asked only for him to smile, folding his hands over his lap as he stared
out into the night. 
"And use it before we even get there? That's not very resourceful." He chided, a sense of humor just blooming under
the surface. "Besides, the view's nice. What's a little shared time between friends?" 
Drawing in her brows, Trance mouthed the words 'friends' with a question mark so sizeable, it made him feel a little...
set back. He thought he'd been making progress not just with her but with all of them. 
"Alright, crewmates." He corrected, annoyed at even trying to assume his place in her life. 
"No, it's not that I just..." She paused. "If anyone, I'd think Beka was your friend." 
"Well, yes, we share a lot more similarities, but we're...incompatible." 
She then turned to him again, looking scandalized. "So, she's not your friend because she won't have sex with you?"
He was smiling now, nervously, trying to refute whatever truths she may have scoured from his statement. "Now, that's 
not what I said." 
"So, then what about me? Are we 'compatible'?" This had him swinging an arm around to push her back behind his seat. 
"I think that's enough of that." He said, sternly.
They then sat there in silence, listening to the hum of space around them. Momentarily, Dylan moved the ship at an
angle to avoid any trouble with any gravitational output, triggering yet another comment from the back seat. 
"So what makes us 'compatible'?"
"Besides your riveting sexuality?" He asked, sarcastically, receiving a loud snort in return. "I think we have clear-cut
goals. We're visionaries. We see exactly what future we want and we strive towards that. Together, I think we make a 
pretty good team." 
"Are you asking me on a date?" She asked, now sounding a bit more like the old Trance, impish and playful. 
"I told you, I didn't mean it like that." He explained. "Beka and I are good in the same way that Rommie and I are. 
They're invaluable members of my team that function in their roles accordingly. And they make for a pretty good 
conversation partner." 
"That sounds..." She hesitated, "...professional." 
Soulless. She meant 'soulless'. "Listen, I like them as they are. I wouldn't have them change for the world and I know,
no matter what happens that they'll always be there for me." 
"And Tyr and Harper..."
"Will always be in it for themselves." He explained, "You know, Beka mentioned to me once that everyone on the ship was
here for their own goals. While it was true at the time, I think that's changed." 
"How so?"
"Because you're not directing me anymore." 
She was quiet for a bit, he could imagine her pursing her lips, thinking intently on her next words, when she let out
a soft sigh. "What did you think my goal was?" 
"I thought..." He moved the slipfighter back just a bit in order to make room for a loose asteroid flying his way. "...that
you were trying to fix something."
A pause. 
"What do you think it is now?"
A pause in return.
"I don't know yet."













Early to rise, early to roll out of bed with the worst headache he'd had in years. Keeping one eye
squeezed shut, Harper shuffled across The Maru's floors to the bathroom where Tyr had decided to take
up real estate. For one thing, he didn't expect just how up and awake the guy was in the morning. He 
was already fully suited up and raring to go. Well, for the most part, anyway. 
Grabbing the zipper on the front of his suit, Harper pulled it up to his neckline and, for his efforts, 
received a noise that was the furthest thing from a 'thank you' he'd ever heard in his life. 
"Alright, get out. I need my me-time." He then whined, motioning Tyr out with a flick of his wrist. 
The cramped bathroom could barely fit one person, let alone two, and they quickly switched spots so
Harper could collapse on top of the toilet seat, sitting, hanging his head towards the floor. Not to 
knock the place but, he'd forgotten how terrible the mattresses were. After the life of luxury 
The Andromeda had oh-so-graciously bestowed upon them, it was a considerable downgrade. He was sure he'd 
have a crick in his neck for the next three days, tops. 
"We're about to disembark." Tyr announced and, like clockwork, Harper responded with a disinterested groan. 
"You will need to be prepared for what lays ahead." 
"Like what?" With his eyes sealed shut, Harper looked up at the sound of Tyr's voice, "We go in, we 
grab the kid, and we get out. Can't be that hard." 
"The planet's temperatures are currently below freezing. The surface is now encased in a thick layer 
of ice. It would be best to avoid exposure while on our expedition, wouldn't you agree?" 
"Oh, so that's what the getup is for." He was awake now. The gentle sound of Tyr's advanced vocabulary was 
a way better alarm compared to the usual sound of Beka shouting at him through the other side of a door. 
"See, I just thought you were being dramatic." Taking a better look, he realized Tyr was wearing tactical 
gear built for cold climates. Not one of his masterpieces, no, it was a holdover from The Andromeda's old
days as a Highguard ship. Which is, to say, it was ugly. Uninspired by the lack of cool lights or gadgets,
the design was sleek, simple, and built for the barest of needs. Anything else they brought along would have
to be of their own choice. For a second, his brain filled with the level of modifications the suit could 
use and all those bold ideas seemed to be enough to pull him out of his sleep-induced slouch. 
"Do I have time to take a shower?" He asked.
"You did." Tyr replied.





The surface of the planet had seen better days. Or, maybe worse days. It was suited enough for oxygen breathers
but, any indication of civilization was next to zilch. You'd think this place had been abandoned,
but, there were no traces of buildings or roads or anything that could indicate civilization. So, a place that
could support life but didn't. He didn't know which was worse. 
"Points for finding a good hiding spot." He smirked, only for Tyr to give him this rueful look back. Okay, bad joke.
"He needed to be away from others to preserve..." He then took a look back, standing in the snow like he had just forgotten
where he was going to begin with. 
"What?" Harper griped as watched Tyr consider the subject like it was burning in his hands. 
"My intentions were planned." Okay, so that wasn't exactly a drop but it wasn't exactly a continuation either. "I didn't
just abandon him on some barren planet." Woah, touchy. 
"Look, I'm not here to point fingers." He reasoned, "It's better than hiding under the bed every night." 
The comment was enough to brush the chip off Tyr's shoulder. 
"As you did?" 
"Nah." Harper waved, "We did have these little trap doors we kept that led to an underground bunker. Bostonians! We're
ready for pretty much anything, you know? So when the Uber army decided to start marching, we knew to hide." He paused,
blinking at the irony of telling a Nietzschean all this. "You're not going to go around telling your extended family all
this, are you?" 
The question was half a joke. Of course, Tyr took it in full seriousness. "The Kodiak had no association with whatever
proclivities happened on Earth." His face then turned grim for just a moment, "But, if they had, I'd give you away in an
instant." A joke. A swing and a miss, but a joke. The only thing that managed to hit Tyr's arm was the tips of his gloved 
hand and, even then, it kinda hurt. "Hey, don't joke about that!" He scowled, not entirely as serious as he sounded. 
"What's with you lately, anyway?" Gesturing out, Harper's fingers formed a large triangle to match the shape of Tyr's back. 
"You're either giving everyone the cold shoulder or you're joking up a storm. I can't get a read on you." 
"Good." Tyr replied. Obviously, Harper couldn't see his face from this angle but he'd give a million bucks that he was
smirking right about now. "I prefer to be unread."



Traveling to the caves took a bit of foot work that he wasn't used to and, for the first time in his life, Harper 
considered he might not be in the best of shape. "Please tell me this is the one..." He wheezed as Tyr knelt at the 
base of the entrance. Dipping his hands into the snow, he began to trace over the foot traffic left there. The math
then began to play out in his head. He then looked up to Harper. There was two plus two and then there was two plus
two sets of boot tracks. Instantly, they knew. 
Practically leaping to his feet, Tyr ran inside, weapon drawn, with Harper following short behind. Though the place 
wasn't exactly mapped, it wasn't the most secure place in the world, either, and they quickly found their hidden
cavern. There, on the ground, laid the corpse of an old woman. Nietzschean. Restful. She didn't look like she'd been
murdered so much as she just...passed. Swallowing, Harper could feel the pressure in his ears begin to rise. "Okay,
well that's-"
Turning, Tyr showed him a mouth full of teeth, clenched in a snarl that could bite through steel. He then knelt down
and examined the body, rolling it over, checking for any entry wounds; it wasn't exactly clinical- just 
removed. Nothing came up and he pushed the body back to it's original position; face down and curled against the cold
ground. 
Bracing a hand against Tyr's arm, he could feel him shaking. Even through the layers of protective gear, he was 
still all too exposed out here. "Okay, so this is good, right? We know they weren't attacked. Maybe she died of old
age and he went to go find somewhere else. Kids are smart, they can adapt to stuff-" His mountain of word vomit was
then cut off by a shudder. 
"It would be more merciful to kill him."
"Hey, c'mon, don't say that-"
"You misunderstand. The others would take him in, raise him as one of their own..." He didn't go into detail, but,
immediately Harper knew what that entailed. "My concern is far beyond envy. This is a matter of duty." The way he
spoke now was dry, like the words were beginning to clump in his throat. "He's important to us. That is all you 
need to know." 


As they left the cavern, they silently regrouped; Tyr trying to figure out their next plan and Harper trying to 
keep him from flying off the deep end. "What happened to that old phrase, huh? 'where there's life there's hope'? 
I'm pretty sure if the kid's anything like you-"
"Let's hope he isn't." There was something very reflective in the way he spoke now. The fantasy of living on
The Andromeda was starting to fade and, in it's place was Tyr Anasazi and all that made him who he was. Bothered
by all this, Harper thought to give some words of confidence but was cut short when Tyr's head snapped to the side, 
staring off into the distance. Nostrils flaring, Harper realized that he could smell something. "Do you see that?" 
He didn't. But still they kept staring until finally a plume of smoke became visible against the grey sky.   










The station they arrived at was just short of their mark. Despite being just a few quick jumps away, by the time 
they'd arrive, he would be far too fatigued to do more than swab a quick system's scan and go home. No,
for something like this he wanted to be at peak condition. Besides, resupplying the slipfighter wouldn't hurt.

Staring at the small service counter, Dylan glanced over the menu of treatment options. Half of them were
things he'd never even heard of. "Any of that sound familiar?" He asked Trance in a low voice as to not
catch the attention of anyone else in line. 
"I've spent a long time with Harper and Beka. They talk about things like plasma transfusions and recalibrating
controls. After a few years, you learn to blur it all out."
"Oh? The girl with all the answers can't catch a scam when she sees one?" The question was playful and, in turn,
Trance held her hands up to her ears, cupping them as if she were wearing a headset.
"White noise." She smiled, wearily eyeing the words up on the sign. "I'd suggest sticking to what you know." 
"That's the thing about being assigned Captain of The Andromeda." He noted, grimly, "They give it to you on a
basis of mission effectiveness, not ship experience." 
If Harper were here, he'd tell them they were screwed. Actually, if Harper were here, he'd be able to translate
the damn thing. 
They were next in line and, as Dylan pulled up to the counter, he folded his arms in front of him, leaning
in all nice and cozy. "I'll, uh, have a quick recharge of our power couplings and just a minor checkup." He 
patted a hand against the counter, smiling at the fleshy, wet, scowl on the other side. "And do you have discounts
for-"  
"Cash."
Reeling back, Dylan began to feel all too aware of everyone around him, "Right..." Slipping some currency through the
small window, he watched as the alien on the other side picked it up and stared at it. A deep sigh bristled through
the feelers over his mouth. Dylan guessed this was his version of a pointed look. "What is this?" 
"It's the currency of The New Commonwealth." He smiled, now unsure of himself. He had hoped that out here people 
would recognize the- 
"We don't take this here." He then stuffed the cash back out the window and waited for something viable.
Taking a step back from the counter, Dylan turned to Trance who had a look on her face he'd be generous to
describe as 'gob-smacked'. "Do you...have anything on you?" He asked as the expression grew deeper. He was going 
to take that as a 'no'. Frowning, he turned back to the window, a trickle of sweat making it's way under his collar. 
"...Can I set a tab?" 



The station's lobby was somehow even more hostile than the maintenance center. It was full of people who had somewhere
to go but were trapped, waiting long hours just to get there. The room was filled with stress and fatigue. It made Dylan
feel better somehow. Like they were together in this shared struggle. All these upsets where no one was at fault was certainly
a change of scenery for once. 
"You won't be able to fall asleep here." Trance pointed out. She was right, but, still, he somehow saw it as a failure
on his part. He'd slept in worse conditions than this, he should be able to but he couldn't and he had no one else to
blame for it. 
Watching a feathered humanoid pass by, stressed to the point of molting, he thought what it'd be like to have a
tell like that. He used to pride himself so much in not allowing others to know his condition. When people knew 
what you felt, you became vulnerable to manipulation. It made you unstable, irrational...but then why did holding it
in make him feel all the same? Every little pin prick of a sound; a coughing infant, a humming priest, the smacking lips 
of a man devouring his lunch. It pushed him even further to the edge. 
Sighing, Trance dug into her pocket and pulled a small note of currency that he'd never seen before. 
"That's not going to pay for a room." He pointed out only for her to point the slip towards a large sign advertising
the adjacent casino. "I don't gamble." He admitted. This was a lie. He did gamble, he was just notoriously bad at it. 
"Do you want a room?" She asked, "Do you want to refuel your ship? Then take this note and find a table." 
"And if I lose it?" 
"You won't." That statement came out just a little too confidently. "Trust me." 
He didn't but he also figured it'd be good to stretch his legs for a bit. 



Making his way through the casino, Dylan stared at the shoddy workmanship of the place. A plume of smoke filled
the air, thick enough to create a fog over everything in the room. Anything that wasn't directly in front of him
was an indistinct blur. 
He glanced back to Trance, finding that she was no longer in her seat. With a firm nod and a clearing of his throat,
Dylan took a firm stride towards the first table that didn't look like it was on the verge of collapse. Sliding the 
note across it, he received a few chips in return. 
"We have an exchange counter, sir." The attendant pointed out and he stopped to glance across the room at it.
"That's all I have." He said, "I just need one play." 
Staring back at him, the woman looked as if she pitied him enough to let it slide. 
Placing his chips on the marker- he watched as various slots in the machine opened up and swallowed them down. 
"Sorry about that." She apologized as Dylan watched the cover of the table slide back over, sealing his chips inside. 
He put his hands up on the ledge of the table and leaned in, bracing himself against it. 
"Your turn is over now, dear." She pointed out and he found himself slipping from the table, maneuvering the 
smoke filled room until he found Trance sitting by herself, reading a magazine with a drink in hand. 
"Well that was a waste of time." He announced as she pulled another slip and held it out to him. 
He frowned. 
"Where did you get that?" 
"The money?"
He paused. "All of it."
Folding the magazine in it's place, she held it rolled in her hand. "That's the thing about places like these. People
aren't very careful about their money. Or anything else for that matter." She nudged the magazine out to a couple
who had returned and began groping the table for their missing drinks. 
His head snapped to her yet she remained completely neutral.
"You're difficult to ignore, did you know that? When you're out in public, everyone's eyes are on you. They don't seem 
to notice anything else, not even what's right under their noses." 
He was shocked. "Trance, there are cameras here!"   
"Most of them are turned off. The only ones still functioning are the ones over by the exchange counter and the 
exit. I don't think the smoke helps all too much, either." She then pushed the slip back towards him, "Pick another table. 
I'll be right behind you."
Hesitating, Dylan reached for the slip, expecting her to pull it away any moment. She didn't and he took it firmly 
in his hand. It was the same note he'd used from before. 
"Trust me." She said and, for once, he did. 








Without ceasing, Tyr had descended upon the valley below. At the base of the hill, he spied the source of it's 
inception; a small encampment established around a large fire. There was no doubt in his mind these were the 
people responsible for his missing child. 
Against the ice, he was a tower of wrath, ever looming in contrast with his surroundings. He knew they would 
see him coming. 'Good.' He thought, tongue sweeping against the cage his teeth had set it in, 'Let them know
what they have wrought.' 
The closer he came, the more attention he had garnered from the camp's inhabitants. A clear panic had begun
to boil to the surface and, with it, was a single man who stood in his way. Despite appearing feeble and old
in age, the bone blades that decorated his arms were enough to keep Tyr at caution. A Nietzschean, at any age, 
was still a viable threat. He slid his weapon from it's holster. 
Holding them at gunpoint, Tyr's eyes scoured the camp. There were too many of them to keep under one muzzle. 
He had to think quickly. Searching through every face, he pinned his eyes on the smallest of the group. A 
young girl, not much older than a child. He steadied himself and aimed at the man. "Where is he!?" He demanded, 
trying to mask the wavering in his voice. "Where's the child!?" 
The old man stared back, turning his cheek against him in defiance. "If you're going to kill us, then kill us 
now. We will give you nothing." 
Pressing his finger flat against the trigger, Tyr broke his gaze for just a moment to find his companion. Thankfully,
the boy had kept his distance, staying just close enough to be within earshot. "Search their barracks." The order 
sent a point of tension through his body but, regardless, he followed suit. 
"You're not Drago-Kazov." The old man observed and, at once, Tyr could feel his intimidation losing it'd hold. 
"And you gathered this from...?" He turned his head and, without the cloud of panic shielding his eyes, he 
realized that neither were they. 
"You didn't bring an army and you haven't killed us yet." 
"I could be a scout." He posited, "You may have vital information I need."
In an act of- he wasn't entirely sure, stupidity he presumed- the old man reached out towards his weapon
and attempted to cover the muzzle with nothing but the flat of his palm. 
Skittish now, Tyr jerked back and aimed it over his shoulder, pointed to the sky above. "Don't toy with me!" 
He spat, looking to the others. "In what regards would you be here if not to find the reborn Drago Museveni!?" 
"For that you are correct."
An admission of guilt. No- not guilt- intention. They had no shame in what they were doing here- as blasphemous
as it was. It made him sick. "You seek him as nothing more than a bargaining chip."
The accusation seemed to slide off the old man, leaving him unaffected. "Ah, I know who you are now." His smile was
filled with rotting teeth. "Tyr Anasazi. The boy's father. We thought you refused our offer." Sensing the 
storm coursing through his mind, he sneered as if he was addressing a child. "We heard your rejection was
less than merciful." 


Murmurs were echoing over each other around them now, dispersed by a distant call of, "They don't have him." 
Everything that made up who he was now began to destabilize, splitting him right down to the bone. A surge
of energy pulled deep into his entrails and begged to be released. 
He could kill them. 
He could kill every single indiscriminate conniver in this camp and bring an end to their search in a moment. 
But what will he do when others come, looking for the remnants of their Pride? Would they see the violence
he'd wrought and swear vengeance on his life? Would others hear of their deaths and know to pick up where they
left off? He was the catalyst to varying outcomes and not a single one felt like the correct way. The path was not 
clear and yet he had to move forward. 
Tensing his arm, he was about to take aim when a small hand pressed to the front of his sternum. In a brief
second, he was brought back to the present. 
"Hey, did you hear me?!" The tiny engineer shouted up to him, "They don't have him! They...they don't have anything." 
Tyr swallowed the dry lump in his throat and lowered his weapon, letting it linger at his side. 
"Conspiring with the humans?" The old man asked of him. "Are you planning on martyring your own child to them?" 
"I would never." He knew no human could even remotely understand. At best, they would take his child, keep him 
away from his people as to not 'contaminate' his mind. 
They'd try to bend him to their will in hopes to lead his people by a thin leash, trained; guided by the unforgiving
hand of humanity. 
"I would also not risk his indoctrination by another Pride." He'd known the extent of cruelty his kin
were capable of. He still bore the scars, their actions had left him maladjusted and alone, never able
to know the life he was meant to have. To think that barbarians could smear their bloody hands on his
son's face...
"A Nietzschean's heart is with his young." The old man observed, turning and leaving, dismissing him entirely. 
"Go." He ordered. "You will not find your son here."










The pudgy alien behind the counter glanced Dylan over with dull, disjointed eyes. "Cash." He demanded,
"And none of that fake stuff, either. I'm trying to run a business here." 
Before he could impress anyone with his winnings, Trance quickly flung a few slips through the window.
Pulling Dylan back, she gave him a disarming smile. For a moment, he'd forgotten where he was. You'd
guess that if the ego was what gave them this money in the first place, it'd also be what'd make them lose it. 
"Six hours." The alien announced, sliding an information card towards them and, for once, Dylan realized
he knew nothing about their slipfighters. Sure, he knew all their functions but the mechanics of it 
seemed to fly over his head. He wasn't even sure how to classify it, more or less, describe it's input systems.
Scrawling as much information he knew, he slid it through the window and watched as it got a stamp of confirmation.
"Six hours." He repeated and the both of them were hit with a deep sense of relief. 

"That...was a lot." Dylan could feel he'd decompressed some time ago but hadn't noticed it until just now. 
"Now imagine having to do that every day." Trance examined as they swept from the maintenance district
out to the main promenade of the station. "You should get some shuteye." Her suggestion was hardly 
needed. Between the flight and the hours of gambling, Dylan thought he could drop any minute now. 
"Oh, so, now you decide to give me advice." 
It was a harmless joke but, by her reaction, it seemed like anything but. "You've never needed advice." She
examined sincerely, "Just a little guidance."

 









The return back to The Eureka Maru felt a lot less like regrouping and a lot more like retreating. Not that he
thought they were about to pack it up and go home empty-handed, but the future was laid out before them and
it wasn't looking all too bright. 
When the door sealed shut behind him, Harper found himself suddenly at awe at just how much he'd
missed a decent heating unit. All this natural air he'd been huffing lately was starting to make
him feel sick. Unzipping his thermal gear, he let out a small shiver and began stomping the ice from his
boots. Meanwhile, Tyr was busy pacing in a way that made him feel...uneasy. "You know Beka'll have your head
if you track snow all over her ship." He knew this from experience. There was only one person on their
crew that wore sneakers. 'Wore' in the past tense because she'd ejected them out of an airlock
after he'd left this big rusty spot right next to her Captain's chair. "You hear me?" He called out,
watching Tyr weave from one spot to the next, touching every surface he passed. "Okay, but it's your
funeral." 
In a second, Tyr's whole demeanor had changed. He was now looking to him, rigid and posed, raising a
finger to his lips. Harper's first instinct would be to ask 'what?' but his second instinct(the one
that kept him alive all these years) held his tongue between his teeth. He then followed the curve of
Tyr's neck as he slowly turned, gazing down their one-way trek to the Maru's main engine. Holding his
gaze there long after Tyr had turned away, Harper could feel a tinge of danger seep in through the side of 
his brain. 
"Do you wonder why Miss Valentine lent me this vessel?" Tyr asked, slowly moving into the crew's quarters. 
"She assumed I would return with it. Isn't that presumptuous of her? Does she think a mere ship could keep 
me tethered?" 
At this point, Harper could feel his brain being drawn and quartered- pulled in opposite directions.
Was he supposed to answer him? Was he supposed to follow along and pretend nothing was wrong? Was this some
fake conversation Tyr made up to sound preoccupied or is there a grain of truth to be found in here? Nevermind 
saying 'no' to any of those, when Try did something it was always intentional so everything he did should be 
just as intentional. 


Following close behind, Harper looked down at his old bed and thought about how many sleepless nights
he'd spent on it just watching the hours churn away. At the time, it felt like an eternity. In retrospect,
it felt like nothing at all. He wondered if this is how Tyr felt after he left. If all those years aboard
The Andromeda were just a long-stretching waste of time. A waiting period between Point A and B. He wondered 
if Tyr had missed him. "You sound like you're ready to slip off in the night." 
"We could very much die out here." Tyr reasoned, not just diverting that thought but avoiding it,
altogether. "Besides, Miss Valentine is hardly known for her generosity." 
"Maybe it's her way of giving us some good luck?"
"No, that's far too irresponsible." For him, maybe. 
"Maybe it's because I can pilot it." Note that he never said he could pilot it well. He was known for
several violations of 'interplanetary travel' in a few systems, but, hey, a careless driver is still a driver.  
For his trouble, though, Tyr paused and eyed him something nasty. "So it's expected then." Turning away, 
he seemed a bit bereft of that usual charm that made Tyr, Tyr. "That the moment I had an ounce of freedom,
I'd take it and run?" He then stopped outside a maintenance closet and angled his body like he was ready
to charge it any second. "What of you, then? Why have you come?" 
"Thought that was part of the deal. You lead, I follow. Remember?" 
"No." He shook his head, "You're not one to keep your word. Do you, too, expect me to run?" 
Before he could answer, the door burst open and out came three Nietzscheans, weapons drawn and a glint in their
eyes. Before the first one left the threshold, Tyr drew his knife and slammed it into his chest, staggering
his victim back against the others. This earned them a few seconds to prepare. In the cluster of arms and legs
aimed a gun and, immediately, Tyr drew in to snatch it's owner's wrist, snapping it, while the other hand
came up, knife drawn. He grabbed it, too, and was now locked in a battle of strength as it drew closer to his 
inner thigh. 
It came down to times like this that Harper realized all that psychological crap scientists and philosophers liked
to spew had no real merit to it. If it did, his fight or flight would be kicking in right about now. Instead,
he ran forward, grabbing Tyr by the back of his suit and pulled him back, just out of range of a good slash. 
As accomplished as this move felt, it was soon quashed by the sight of a three hundred pound Nietzschean upon him.
Hard as a rock, the fist clamped down on his shirt, lifted him off the floor, and slammed him down against it
with a loud, tinny, ring. He was on him now and it took all of Harper's strength to keep them at a distance.
Now was the time he regretted not getting into pushups. Actually, he regretted a lot of things. One of them
included not arming himself when he had the chance. Another was not showering this morning. He was a complicated
guy, okay? Curling his leg up to his chest, Harper planted his boot against the Nietzschean's chest and pushed,
using the floor for leverage until he created enough of a distance to keep himself in a safe range. At his
side was the familiar sound of a body dropping and, with a stomach full of fear, Harper slammed his shoe
against the Nietzschean one more time, sending him stumbling back. Just as he was ready to scramble for his
life, Harper saw Tyr enter his vision, sliding into place behind his attacker, catching him and burying a 
knife in his chest, sliding it down to the hilt. 
Wiping his mouth, Tyr loomed over the corpses, watching them to make sure they were really dead. 
"Get up." He demanded. Ridding himself of the knife by tossing it, they listened to the sound of it clattering
against the floor. "I said get up!" He was shouting now, causing Harper to jump to attention almost immediately.
They then stood there, letting the warm buzz of adrenaline die out when Tyr's shoulders finally, for the first
time in days, dropped. "Are you hurt?" He sounded distant. Their eyes met and there was something in his face
that reminded Harper of animals that had just crawled out of the jaws of some predator. He was all survival mode,
having slipped into it so naturally that you had to wonder just how long the big guy had to live life like that. 
"I'm fine." He replied, watching Tyr balance between one foot and the other, backing up just enough to create
this distance between himself and his handiwork. 
"You should've run." 
"And what? Leave you to do all the work?" Actually, now that he thought about it, that was probably a better
idea. He wasn't sure why that wasn't the first thing he'd do, considering. He just didn't.
"If I had died, you could have made use of my distraction and escaped. By staying, by fighting back, you run
the risk of being killed as well. Leaving my sacrifice in vain."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but, I think I saved your life back there."
He said nothing for the longest time, just standing there, staring into this unseeable middle dimension in space, 
thinking. "Perhaps." He then paused again, ruminating. 
You'd think Tyr was an automatic wordsmith but, more than anything, he just knew to think before opening his mouth. 
Present company could not relate. "They're larger than you are. Stronger. More evolved." Well this was certainly a 
pep talk if he'd ever heard one. "Yet, despite this you have a superiority over them. Their strength is nothing more 
than a detriment without a rational mind to guide it. They have no more authority over you than livestock." He then 
leaned in, "Don't go around antagonizing the livestock."
Nudging one of the dead bodies with his foot, Harper noticed that these guys weren't like the ones back at the
camp. They were bigger, healthier, cleaner. 
"Drago-Kazov." Tyr spoke, slowly now, meticulously pronouncing every word from one vowel to the next. 
"Damn."
They both looked down at the sight, staring as if they were some subtle clue to a greater question that hadn't been
answered yet; why would the Dragons be hanging out on some ramshackle planet?
"The child." 
Turning Tyr, made a mad dash out the ship and into the snow, leaving Harper behind, struggling to throw his gear back on. 











As good of a morning as Dylan has had in years, the adventurous optimism of his youth was now beaming off every 
inch of his body again. He had goosebumps. Never had he expected to feel like a new recruit, starry-eyed and 
rambunctious, ready for adventure. He had observed science missions before but only as an outsider looking in. 
Now, he was king. Crowned by the universe to seek out her answers. Never again did he want to stand, waiting,
in the dark for them.
Crawling into the slipfighter, he began running a systems check to see if his winnings actually paid for anything
more than a glorified spit-shine. Sure enough, the low hum of the engine was clean. This meant they actually
went in and pulled the residual buildup out by hand. Even Beka refused to do that. Running a hand over
the control deck, Dylan thought back to when The Andromeda had a fully functioning crew. The problems that
arose from them felt like nothing compared to the support of a full staff. Maybe there was
a bit of nostalgia to it all. He couldn't help but miss the old days. He thought-
"Hm?" A small clatter snapped him back to the present. He was now caught staring at the star map laying at his
feet. He must've dislodged it while revving up the slipfighter. 
Holding it up, he turned it on and found himself once again struck by the beauty of the known universe splayed
out before him. He then looked to the large drop-off where the universe had expanded and noticed a planet sitting
at it's edge. He didn't recall seeing it there, before. Star maps typically didn't change unless you uploaded
new information to them through an update, so the sight of it was confusing to say the least. 
Now that he noticed it, the planet began to stick out like a sore thumb.
Looking back over the structure of the rest of the system, he saw that the planets' names were correct but their 
placements, their shapes, weren't exactly right. He stared out of the viewport of his ship and started
to type in coordinates to the Krishna System. 'Twelve thousand light years away' it estimated with it's bold text
punctuating the finality of it all. 
He'd been following a decoy map. A jump in his heart made him feel like he was ready to fall out of his seat yet 
he remained sitting there, quietly, holding the map in his hand as proof it was real. 
The ship beeped, sensing someone trying to board. He stared at the entryway, every inch of his mind whirling around
the image of Trance sending him out to another table to lose again and again while she gathered everything she
could and slipped away into the smoke. 
He slid the map back into it's port and straightened his posture. 
"Come in."
 













The Drago's ship had produced enough of a magnetic field that their energy output could be traced back in the snow. The shifts
had been subtle when they originally touched down, creating an force that pushed everything outwards, creating a sort of wave-effect. 
Naturally, the new formation offered a vantage point, exposing their range. If they were to, say, activate their shields, you could
tell exactly where they would form. 
Tyr had his lion's share of exposure when it came to the Drago-Kasov. They were simply leaches; childish and inane. They had 
never known for want and acted accordingly. That is, to say, they wasted time and resources on petty disputes. It was
uncommon for a Drago to lose what he set his eye on, even if he may die in the process. Their tactics were all stockpiled supplies 
and fodder. One could be as inexperienced and untaught as a mere infant and still have advantage over a master. They had no use for 
skill, they only needed great numbers and even greater weapons. 
It was here that a question presented itself: should he try to sneak aboard, unnoticed, to avoid the swing of their mighty paw
or should he become a targeted drain on resources in an attempt to possibly strand them? It wasn't long before his answer came 
in the boisterous presence of his companion. 
"How..." He wheezed against the rigidly cold air, "...did you even get here that fast!?" 
"I have a highly evolved blood line that runs through generations that far surpass your own." Tyr then leaned in, "And I'm
not small." Staring back at the ship, he heard the little human rifling through his belongings and sigh. 
"I have a scanner." He pulled it from his coat and held it out. "Everything else is back on The Maru. If I had time-"
"We don't." 
"Well if we did..." He then trailed off, pointedly reaching for something else. A whistle. Tyr felt his jaw
tighten upon seeing it again. Looking up from his own palm, the boy stared up at him, hesitant and afraid. "I can be a distraction." 
It was a fool's notion. They had both seen the far reaches of depravity that the Drago were capable of committing. They
had also seen the worst that came to humans who so much as offended them. The idea of subjecting him to either was
out of the question. 
"They've come for me. I will not let them have you." The sentiment was enough to placate his companion who then stuffed
it back into his coat and awaited a solution.
"Can you scan for lifeforms?" He asked and watched the little one fumble to reply. 
"It can detect people but that's it. Nothing beyond a vital sign." 
"Then that might be enough." Staring at the belly of the ship, half buried in the snow, Tyr considered it's model. It was
one used mostly by The Drago and had no siblings outside of their Pride. "Do you think you can maneuver your way
inside the ship from it's keel?" 
Here, he watched as the Tiny Professor adjusted his mind into a state of focus; moving his fingers along the edges of 
his vision and drawing invisible lines with them. He then held two fingers to the sky and, while squeezing one eye shut, 
slowly aimed them towards a panel, targeting it. "There."
There was something to his abilities that Tyr found endearing. He placed a hand between his shoulders and nudged him ahead.
"I will cover you." He promised. 


The ascent to the ship was one that had every beat of Tyr's heart sound off in his head. If they had the child, he would be
on the ship, sitting in captivity. For a moment, his thoughts wanted to turn to their place in the universe; in how the
Kodiak seemed to be punished for their role in preserving what was holy, but he could not stop to dwell on that now. 
The laser sight from a turret overhead swept through the area, missing them by mere inches before they were able
to push their way underneath the belly of the ship. 
"There." The boy hand placed a gloved hand over a panel, "A few well-calculated shots and it should come loose." 
This left Tyr...a little more than doubtful. "These are highly advanced war ships created for the sole purpose of 
winning battles." He reasoned. "Plasma fire would do nothing more than-"
"Do you want in or not?" 
Scowling, Tyr let out a deep-held breath and aimed. 
Three shots were fired and, already, the panel had come loose. The inferiority of their technology was astounding. 
"Learned that back in my cargo-running days." He boasted, watching as Tyr ripped the rest of the panel from it's frame.
"See, these ships are meant to sustain damage from large weapons in ship-to-ship combat. The shots scatter,
creating a sort of particle beam and that's what the hull protects against." Holding up three fingers, he counted them
down, "Weather, atmosphere, and beams. Not gunfire, no. Too thin, too accurate. Besides, who'd be dumb enough to 
take on a ship mano-a-mano?" 
"It's like bones." Tyr commented, finally pulling the panel loose and staring in through the newly-formed tunnel
entrance. "Breaking them does no good, they eventually heal." He then turned back to his companion, eyes alight with
a very fond memory. "But to cut one...The satisfaction of watching the limb snap knowing it can never be whole again..."
He then blinked away the image, "It's quite worth the effort." 
"You're bonkers, you know that?" With his hands on his hips, the engineer made himself quite the impression
against the snowy backdrop. 
"Who goes first?" Tyr asked.
"You." He then pulled up his scanner, holding it at arm's length. "You lead the front, I'll hang back and tell you
where all the baddies are." Of course, that was his plan.
"So be it." 
Climbing inside the ship, Tyr felt himself having to contend with the tight space. He thought of climbing through
the bowels of a large animal, quickly moving to keep himself from being caught in the overhanging mechanics of
it's infrastructure. The further they ascended, the lower the threshold fell until they had reached a wall. Pressing
his ear to it, Tyr realized that bringing along a human might have been a mistake. Despite being of a different Pride 
and, essentially a different people, the Drago-Kasov were still Nietzschean and, by that, wouldn't be able to detect
another Nietzschean onboard as anything other than that. A human, however...
"Two guys just outside." His companion hissed from his place tucked just under Tyr's boot. The inside of the ship had 
grown far too warm and, in their tactical gear, they had begun to swelter. 
"What direction?"
"Left." 
"Are they moving?"
"No, better get 'em now before they sniff us out." 
"Are you certain?"
To this, the boy simply shrugged, "It's now or never."
With that vote of confidence, Tyr pushed the muzzle of his gun to the wall panel and fired two shots, rearing his
leg and quickly clearing the way with one calculated kick. 
Slipping out of the entrance he had just made, he quickly snapped his aim at a man to his left and fired, then spun 
around the corner to fired again. The boy had been right and it had saved him the pain of trial and error.
"Down the hall are three other guys. One is a little closer than the others. Behind us, there's this thick area of 
concentration so let's not go down that route." He then sneered, "Unless you're planning on getting us sent home in a paper bag." 
His manner was impressive. The best Tyr could manage to compare this to was having a second sight. He'd seen self-proclaimed 
psychics before and they were all frauds. Usually telepaths or mind readers; all con men. They simply observed your state of 
being and gave you the most possible outcome. There was no certainty in their fortunetelling. This proved to be more substantial. 
Perhaps it was the amount of trust this exchange required. After all, he was keeping them both alive. The only
doubt in Tyr's mind was of the device and how accurately it conveyed information. Down the next hall were a series 
of doorways, each leading to different quarters. One lifesign in the one to the right. They could pass by and assume
he was simply resting but that was a dangerous chance to take and Tyr didn't particularly enjoy deciding it was worth 
killing a man in his sleep for. 
"Stay here." He motioned and slipped into the room. If they were any other Pride and Tyr was any other Nietzschean, he would
be filled with regret but here, standing over his victim's bed. He wasn't. Incidentally, he rather enjoyed the sound 
the Drago made as blood filled his throat once Tyr had sunk a blade through it. One had to wonder, now, where the traces
of empathy he had left had gone. Leaving, he looked and found the boy affixed to his screen, switching his gaze upwards 
upon his arrival. Surely, he must've seen the life sign fade out and yet, here he was, entirely unphased. Almost relieved. 
In no way did he have the same drives Tyr did but they did have the same overlap of ideals. They both understood what it 
took to survive. There was no apology expected of his actions. There needn't be.
Pushing onward, Tyr was about to move down a corridor when a small hand grabbed the back of his belt and tugged. He stilled
and flattened himself against the wall, listening as the men on the other side had ceased their conversation, falling
deathly silent. Two more tugs and Tyr retreated further, quickly crouching in the doorway of a nearby room. The spartan
layout of the ship bolstered nothing to hide behind and he was quickly having to weigh his options between staying 
hidden or initiating a frontal assault. He didn't like his options and looked over to the boy for an opinion. 
Shaking now, with the device rattling in his hands, he stared back, grimly.
They had been detected, not found. By the way that the life signs on the screen had suddenly begun to move
with calculated planning, a thought occurred to him in a way that felt as if it had come all too late. Once they were
in, they would have to fight their way out. Pulling a smoke grenade from his belt, Tyr pulled the pin and let it fly.
In the ensuing blast Tyr diverted their gaze and yanked his companion along, only letting him go once they entered the
main hallway. "Aim me." He commanded and watched as the boy pointed down the hall, his finger tracking what his eyes saw 
on the readout. Tyr squeezed off a shot. He then pointed a little to the left of it and Tyr let off another. 
"Got 'em." Came the report and they were off again. Being led through the smoke, Tyr stopped at a junction and watched
the boy ruminate on each path. Sucking air through his teeth, he had an inclination that they had wandered into a
trap of their own making. A moment of hesitation and the tiny professor was staring at him with a look bolstering a
lack of confidence on his part. "You're...not gonna like this part." 
Wiping a thumb over his eye, Tyr cleared his vision, taking a deep breath of air. For a moment, he held it, letting it
fill his lungs and then exhaled, slowly, from his lips. "Go on."
Nervous, now, in his disposition, his companion fought a smile that began to tug, uncomfortably, at his face.  
"So, you know that old saying 'the only way out is through'?" 
"I'm familiar." 
"So, they do have someone in their holding cell..." For a moment, Tyr could feel the blood rise to his ears. He was close.
The thought made him tremble, his heart galloping wildly. "...but the only way to their main cell block is..." A studder. 
"Tyr there are a lot of guys. How much ammo do you even have left?" 
For a brief moment, he considered their position- so close and yet far enough that he just simply refused to go back. 
"I don't need ammunition." He then pulled a large blade from his belt. It was thick and slanted at the tip,
made for cutting through thick foliage or rope. Well, certainly, this too counted as a method of survival. 
Knowing they couldn't make the trek forward without a plan, Tyr thought quickly of what he had at his disposal. Down the
hall, there was a sharp turn that kept him from being able to see around the next corner. Pulling a flashbang from his 
pocket, he slowly drew towards it's end and stopped, just a few inches from the turn. "How far are they?" He asked, watching
his companion's stare grow more laden with concern.  
"You can't be serious. If you throw that in a ship it'll-"
"Alert everyone onboard. I'm aware." Unphased, he looked on. "How far?" 
"First guy, five feet. Next guy, eight." 
Pulling the pin, Tyr reared back and rolled the grenade down the hall. Extending a hand, he held the boy back from the
resounding flash and moved in. 
With a long, concentrated, stride; Tyr felt the press of the knife's hilt imprint itself in his skin. Soon, he was upon
their first target. A young man, groaning in agony, trying to blink away the fog in his vision. Tyr slipped the knife under
his breast, feeling the artery sever and used a steady hand on his shoulder to pull it back out. He was quiet in death, leaving
the next one still unassuming, his hands plastered over his eyes. Grabbing him by the arm, Tyr pulled his elbow up and over his
head, slamming him against the wall, making work to slide the blade into the exposed skin underneath. By now, the other two 
had scattered. They heard death approaching, walking at Tyr's side again, and began to reach for any form of communication
to warn the others. One, to his left, was an older Nietzschean with a marriage band. His age made Tyr think about children. About
how a father trying to protect his child would end up depriving another of theirs. He thought of the kind of children the Drago
produced and realized, they were not comparable. He was quick to dispatch, a cut across the throat was nothing. The last, 
however... 
In a turn of events Tyr hadn't quite expected, the last still retained some form of survival instinct. He knew to warn the others, 
but not to stay within the vicinity of danger. He was far gone before either of them could reach. Something inside
Tyr's mind begged, pleading for the hunt but he disregarded it, turning back to his companion once again. 
There was something in the way they looked at each other, now. He had realized that the boy had never seen the extent of 
his work before and now, glossy-eyed and running off adrenaline, he wondered how he appeared. They had little time left
now yet they spent what remaining few moments they did, speaking wordlessly. Tyr brought his knuckles his own face and smeared
the blood off his cheek. "The door." He reminded him and, as if shocked back to life, the boy jumped to the locking mechanism
in an instant. 
Moving to a corner, angled just against the two entrances into the room, Tyr settled himself into the wall, blocking
himself entirely from being seen. Looking over to his companion frantically working at the lock, he pulled his gun
back from it's holster and held both weapons close to his body, coiled and ready to strike. Upon entering the room, any adversary
would see the boy and immediately go to him, drawing all chaos toward one target and eschewing the
idea that there might be more. By all regards, he was bait, strung up in front of predators to sink their teeth into. 
Knowing this, Tyr would not miss. 
The first wave came in a trickle, just as expected- confused, with their weapons already drawn. Dispatching the first, Tyr
slid within view just fast enough to plunge his blade into the man's chest and pull back behind the wall. The next, now
regarding his dead compatriot, began to round the corpse in slow, cautionary steps so that he could take aim. He was quickly
shot down, leaving a pile at Tyr's feet. This was starting to become difficult, now. He didn't have time to dispose of bodies
and, for a moment, he had the oddest inclination that he didn't have to. Picking up one of the corpses, Tyr held it as a 
shield in front of his body and turned to see his next target, running towards him and using the sheer mass of the body
between them to send him to the floor. Squeezing off a shot, he then backed into the room and found that they were now
coming from the other direction. They saw him, now, standing there as he was and Tyr watched as their determination
melted to fear in their eyes. Animalistic. Primitive. They knew who the standing apex of their species was now. 
Tyr wiped the edge of his blade off on his shield's clothing. Drawing back, the men hesitated, just enough to let him
infiltrate their group, slamming into them with dead weight and working his way through the crowd with a quick slash
of his knife. The wounds he created were shallow, but, enough to make them retreat, just a few paces, before they 
somehow lost the last breaches of their sanity and decided to push onward. One slipped by him, using the advantage of
having a free hand to push Tyr to the side. He was going for the boy. Quickly, he dropped the corpse and turned on 
his heels, reaching him just a breadth's hair away from his target, Tyr pushed the knife through his throat. He was
shaking, now. The euphoria of being an implement of death had never left and the added stress of his mission had 
begun to phase into the foreground. A quick pull of his trigger and the other two crumbled in seconds.
A hand had snaked it's way up his arm, small and firm, tugging at it and he was himself once again. It then occurred 
to him that the smell of fear permeating the room was not that of his victims. He holstered his weapon and brushed his 
hand against his companion's cheek, listening intently to the sound of the lock click at his back. They did not face each other. 
When the door opened, they quickly made their way inside and upon entering, Tyr could feel the last vestiges of his heart 
begin to break. 
The child was not here. Instead, it was the old man from before, nursing his wounds among the neglected interior of his
holding cell. They had risked everything and, still, they had found nothing.  
Tears had begun to well up in his eyes as he stared at the old man through the bars. A hand came to comfort him and 
he reeled from it's presence, pulling his blaster to the lock and blowing it open. Defeated, he said nothing, only
granting himself a glance at the device in the little one's hands. More were on their way. Briefly, as he stared at
the small pixelations move across the screen, he weighed his options. It would be himself against an army. One could
tell, by the extent of the old man's wounds and his companion's growing anxiety that choosing so would mean death. 
Still, it did not deter him. He would carve his way through the galaxy if it meant saving his child. Even if those
around him were at stake, he could...
Staring down at the trembling hands holding the scanner, Tyr found himself placing a hand over the screen, pushing it 
down and out of view. He felt a sense of something he hadn't known in years and leaned in to the boy's view in hopes 
to ease his worries. 
"An exit." He said, the encroaching dread of his decision already sinking it's teeth into him, "A viable exit." 
All the joviality, all the normalcy he'd come to find from his friend had vacated, leaving only a tiny man, gripped
by fear. He looked to the doorway and Tyr snapped to bring his attention back, "Do not worry about them. I've told
you before, they will not have you." Blinking, the brilliant mind behind his eyes sprang back to life, scanning the
interior of the room around them. 
"We can't head back but we can't stay here, either." He then pointed to a point on his readout, bypassing several different 
moving targets. "We'd have to backtrack from where we left. That means back into the walls." Around them, the ship hummed to 
life, snapping him out of his analysis and into a state of panic. "What was that?!" 
They both knew what it was, but, the shock seemed to knock what sense they had left out of their heads. The Drago were 
departing. Leaving with full knowledge that they had interlopers onboard. They must've already set their course.

Commandeering the ship was out of the question. Their numbers were far too great and Tyr faced down the prospect of
becoming a prisoner once again. That was their plan; to cut off their escape and leave them at the mercy of an entire
fleet. 
With steady shoulders and a steady heart, Tyr shed the notion of fear for just a moment more. "Then it is done." He
obliged, shooting out a nearby panel out with the last of his ammunition. He then turned away. "Take the old man and go."
"What!?" For the octave his voice had reached, Tyr was almost convinced the word had been squeezed out. "You can't be
serious! We-you said this wasn't a suicide mission!" 
"I do not intend to die here." Tyr replied, drawing his knife once more. 
"You won't make it." 
"What little faith you have in me." He stated, reeling against the cruelty of his own words. 
"Tyr, you know what they'll do to you!" He was wasting time arguing. Odd, that as he turned to see his own kin abandon
him, this human still remained. "Whatever happened to pulling back to fight another day!?" The blare of the ship's alarms
began to encroach upon his senses. The flash of red across their faces as the ship prepared for flight did not deter either
of them and they remained trapped in a stalemate. It was clear now that the boy was leveraging himself. Gambling had not been
his strong suit, not without cheating one way or the other, yet here he was betting on his own life. Manipulative and ignorant
as it was, Tyr couldn't help but to be impressed. It was one way or the other.
Looking back at the open wall panel, Tyr was sure the old man had already made his way towards the exit. Well, certainly, his
survival will not be the only outcome of this mess. 
Sheathing his knife, Tyr made his way to the wall, pulling the panel open further. "Come." He called, staring into the depths
of the machine. "We're leaving."

 








"There it is!" A thumb pressed to the system readout underlined it's position. To clear eyes,
unguided by a machine, you would be able to see there was no empty stretch of space to be found but to the map's
readout, it was there; clear as day. If Dylan had stayed ignorant, he wouldn't know to check but he did and the 
warning signs were now beginning to build up at his feet. 
"The world at the edge of the universe." He lamented, figuring there was no risk in playing dumb. The look
he received in return made his hair stand on end. Did she sense his hesitation or had she chalked it up to
past experience? 
The planet was derelict, any precautionary scan yielded zero life signs. No fish, no birds, no humanoids of
any kind. He took to scanning the planets around them and they too seemed to be slowly crumbling away. This 
system must've had a sun at some point in it's creation yet any traces of one seemed to come up empty. Their
sun didn't so much as go supernova as it just vanished, leaving this star system to shrivel up and die. The residual
heat from nearby stars, one being a white dwarf, kept them from icing over completely, damning them to 
a long, excruciating death. 
Something had happened here. 
"Ready to get your answers?" Trance smiled at him and Dylan's words caught in his throat for a moment.
"I am." He answered, keeping his wits about him. Now was the time for concern, not panic. 


Touching down on the planet, Dylan fastened an oxygen mask over his face. If he knew anything about dying 
planets, it was that the atmosphere tended to be tricky. Eclectic, almost. While Trance politely refused one,
she did pull on a cover to keep the sand off. 
Apparently an unbreathable atmosphere was fine so long as it wasn't uncomfortable. He'd heard she'd taken
direct radiation damage from the ship. You had to wonder where things fell between the unfortunate and the unlivable.
He glanced down to where her tail used to be. 
"I'll open the hatch if you test the waters." He offered, his voice had a slight distortion effect to it from the
air filter. It had a metallic echo that seemed to amplify at lower volumes. 
Standing at the opening, Trance squeezed herself between the pilot's seat and the bulkhead. She looked back at him for
a moment, just long enough to catch him in his thoughts. 
The moment she stepped out, he could easily have locked the door; leaving her out here, alone. It wasn't in his nature.
Not yet. Heaving a deep breath through his mask, he opened the hatch and watched Trance quietly step onto the sand. 
There was something in the way she moved, the way she looked at her surroundings; it was a little too confident for
his taste. Was she familiar with this place? She then stared back into the ship, meeting his eyes. 
"It's fine!" She called back, raising her arms to signal back to him as an uneasy smile made it's way across her face. 
Leaving the ship, Dylan felt his body adjust to the planet's gravity. The atmosphere hadn't been too ravaged by time. 
Heavy, about as heavy as his own homeworld, he could easily maneuver over the sand without the threat of slipping through
it. 
"See?" Trance commended him with a gentle touch on his arm. "I told you." She then began to lead the way forward, "What 
happened to venturing into the unknown?" Folding her hands in front, she stared out at an ancient stone scaffolding, now
barely holding itself together. A wash of sand caking it's surface. He noticed, then, that the sand blowing in from the 
east wasn't warm, hardy, earth. It was cold.
Reaching up to catch a gust in his hand, Dylan felt it dissolve between his fingers, evaporating against his skin. All 
that was left behind was some kind of residue. 
The first thought that came to his mind was to scan it. Without a scanner, it would be to smell or taste it. Without either 
of those at his disposal, he did what he knew best and wiped it across the front of his cover. The dull brown fabric was 
now clotted with black smears, bringing only one conclusion to his mind... 
"Ash." 
He wasn't stupid, he'd seen this before. When planets were on their last leg, they tended to crack open, exposing their
inner core. The effect created something similar to an active volcano. The tremors at his feet just added to it.

At the edges of his vision, he saw movement where there was none. On a good day, which is barely any day 
that Dylan has had for a good while, he would've waved it off as a mere mirage. A misunderstanding between
his brain and his eyes. Only, something was there. He couldn't see or feel it so much as he could sense it. 
Someone's presence was typically alerted to the brain by many pathways, most of them left over from the days 
of the caveman, still trying to sense the encroaching draw of nearby predators. Whatever it was, paid him no mind. 

The further they went, the more it began to feel like walking into a crowded room unseen and unheard. By the
time that Trance had reached her destination, she stopped to look up at the crumbling building tucked firmly 
into the ashen desert. Taking one step inside, she turned to face him, her hand bracing against the frame of
the stone entrance. Was she making sure he caught up or was she checking for any suspicion? Was this a test?
There was no exchange between them, they just met each other's gaze and continued on. 
The inside of the building was ornate, still lovingly detailed even as time had waned away all else. He was 
drawn to the architecture, of statues that didn't survive what had been wrought of this place. None of them
were legible but it didn't take a historian to know they had once represented the ideals of it's society. That 
was the reason anyone was immortalized in stone. If not to keep someone in the public memory, then to keep 
something in the public consciousness. The corridors were dark now. What little light there was, they had left behind.
Turning a sharp corner, Dylan stared at shelving littered with the remains of old tomes. He then turned to see
what resembled a pulpit. Long rows of seats surrounding a pedestal. Trance turned down the hall and veered
into another room, stopping in one large stretch of space holding two statues- both destroyed beyond recognition.
They both stared up at them, the remains of what they once were littered the floor and, finally, Dylan realized time 
had not been the culprit here. 
"Do you know what it takes for a planet to form?" 
He broke away from the sight to look at Trance. She seemed almost awestruck, peaceful even. "No, I don't." 
"They're usually considered accidents. Odds and ends being pushed together under the right circumstances. It's
so common, though, that the phenomena becomes an uneventful fact of life. If this was the case, then, how
are things created the way that they are without some sort of blueprint- a guide leading them from one form to another?"
The question seemed to disjointed, Dylan was still unsure what any of this had to do with the planet. 
"There are, of course, phenomena that happen that seem to go nowhere. Failed attempts to make anything of
note. We never perceive these failures, only see the aftermath of their attempts. Maybe, one day, it will all
build to something...." She paused, deep in thought. "...maybe it won't." 
"I don't see what that has to do with why you brought me here." 
"For a planet to die, it had to have been born. One day, the universe expanded and, in that event, the right
precedent was set for this system to bloom to life. Even after they crumble or burn away, the space remains." 
Finally, she looked back at him and, upon seeing his expression, immediately looked away. She was worried now. 
"Once Space exists, it doesn't wither- it keeps growing, keeps producing. It's untouched by time and by death."
He'd had just enough of this.
"I know you unplugged the star map." Pulling the data chip from his pocket, Dylan presented it to her. Hard 
pressed between his thumb and forefinger. Already, it was starting to leave an impression in his skin. "You've been
running me around the galaxy for- what? A lecture? We've spent countless resources just to set up this mission and you-"
"You still don't get it."
He caught her by the wrist and turned it upwards, shaking it in his grasp. Anger was beginning to swell in his ears
and he was starting to hear a low, rumbling warble behind every sound. "What is wrong with you!?"
She became fluid in his grip, slipping out without so much as batting an eye. She then turned to the statues
and began walking along them, calmly, as if she didn't have a worry in the world. She was pacing, focused, her
mind cranking away at things he couldn't even begin to imagine. "Why are you so bent on this?" The question came steady,
almost studious, as she continued to pace her steps in a steady manner, each click of her boot resonating throughout
the temple. "Do you need the existence of The Divine to as a way to understand the universe or are you so disengaged
with the way your life has turned out that you need someone else to blame?" 
Considering the question, Dylan noticed he could very much ask her the same. "What about you?" He posited, "What do 
you get out of all of this?" 
At first, it looked like she was going to give him an answer. Instead, she gave him a confession. 
"I've seen this story play out before. Many times- too many to count- and now I can no longer weigh the odds in your
favor." Drawing back to the present, she seemed more focused now. He thought about how long she had spent just going
through the motions only now having to make conscious decisions again. "Since losing this ability, I've begged, 
even prayed for it to come back. I had hoped The Divine would find a sense of sympathy for me. After all, I was-" 
She paused, realizing she was about to say too much and smiled. 
For once, Dylan realized he was looking at Trance for the first time- her true face burning through the elegant demeanor 
she always wore. "Well..." The corners of her mouth widened, like she remembered a joke long forgotten. 
"No one answered." Standing there, in the shadow of a statue, destroyed past the point of recognition, she turned
to face him. "Penance... I want penance for every wrong turn we've made." 
"You want revenge?" 
She didn't seem to like the comparison. Her gaze focused on him, attentively expecting some form of an apology. She received none.  
"Did you know the Universe is made up of mostly dark matter?" She asked, suddenly turning back to the statues, following
along them, her tone remained quiet, at ease with this inevitable climax between them. It was obvious this wasn't born from
some illusion of power. She knew she was in control and had no need to show it. They were now talking on his time, not hers,
and, with it, she was free to do whatever she wanted. "For every civilization, it took ages for them to even discover
it's existence and yet it's always been here, all around us. Do you know why that is?" Reaching out towards a headless
statue, she guided her hand up as far as it could reach, stopping at the base of it's stone hip. "It's because that's 
the basis of which light exists. Light, with it's vast energy, is what paints our solar systems, gifts life, necessitates 
growth. We are then left ignorant to the canvas underneath, even as it structures everything in it's natural place." 
She then broke out of her haze yet again, turning to address him, alone. "Have you ever heard of The Light Bringer?" 
As if the name, alone, had summoned discontent from the planet, it trembled, causing the temple to pull against itself 
and crack just above the skyline. A small fraction of sunlight bled through, painting the ground in one long, jetting, stroke. 
Completely unaffected, she continued, "They go by many names; The Morning Star, The Serpent..." She reached out her hand to an 
empty gesture, letting the light bathe over it. "The Universe works as a series of checks and balances. Causes and effects. 
So what does that make of us?" Pulling her hand back, she then settled it around herself, wrapping it around to her hip. 
"Humans, after all are beings of light. Without it, you cannot live, develop, or evolve. It isn't even by nature, it's formulated 
down to every atom in your bodies." Dylan had seen that look before, usually from the faces of his crew but never from her.
Resentment, to the point that it almost seemed like an unspoken irony between them. "Funny, isn't it?" She remarked, bitterly. 
"We weren't doused in hellfire, we were subjected to the most excruciating punishment one could endure."
She turned her gaze away from him, "Watching our existence eek away in a universe built on chaos- one built around beings that
can barely make decisions for themselves. You've been given free will and yet to you, it will always be a concept. Eventually,
we grow bored." Her face then twisted into something mournful, almost overcome with this deep pain that threatened to spill out,
uncontained, from her eyes. "You can get punished for that. Boredom. Or at least retaliating against it." The planet groaned again
causing the temple floors to split. A jagged line now separated them. "You wanted to know if it was the beginning
of the end? Well, it's neither. There is no beginning and there will never be an end. Only offshoots, growths, branches.
The universe is expanding, yes, but it only means more of the same. It'll develop just as all systems have and you will
develop just as you've always have. Change is meaningless."
Like being snapped out of a dream, Dylan was suddenly aware of the thick trail of sweat caking his neck, dripping down his
collar and smothering him in his own clothes. A piece of stone dropped at his feet, the face etched on it's surface; a figure 
of mythologies long passed now stared back up at him. He wondered if that was all there was. Stories being told and retold for 
time immemorial. He thought of gods from different planets, different religions, that were all equivalencies of each other.
A man taking three days to rise from his grave. A man taking three hundred years to rise from the depths of space. 
"You can't escape it." Trance told him, "None of us can."
Like a jolt in his heart, Dylan turned and ran. Frantically, he watched the decaying world blur around him, letting it's 
soil fall away at his feet, the angel of death following close at his tail. The leash around his neck had been snapped
and he knew better than to stop running until he reached his ship. 
Diving into it, Dylan wrestled the engine back to life, curling within the safe confines of it's shell, away from the dying 
world. Hitting the control receiver, he loaded up Harper's time travel device and set the coordinates. In a flash and a quick push 
of the pedal at his feet, he was gone. A simple memory to this time, to this world. To everything that came after the endless night. 
He was going home. 









Perched on a large rock, Harper sat, staring out across the snow with his hands folded tightly in his lap. The
whole ordeal had set his taste for adventure back by about, oh, three or four years. Yeah, it'll be a cold
day in hell before he was setting foot on another planet again. 
Tyr had recovered in no time and was now getting his fair share of old guy wisdom. 
"It never occurred to me that I would find myself thanking a Kodiak...nor a human." The old guy then turned Harper's way.
Unnerved, they met eyes but he didn't say anything back. He wasn't really in the mood to talk to another Nietzschean
for a while, either. Besides, he didn't want their thanks. He wasn't doing this for them. 
"Novelties, the two of you." 
For a moment, Tyr seemed amused. "A man with no allies tends find himself in the oddest of company." 
"Well, you won't have to worry about that any longer." The old man took a sweeping step back, giving a good amount
of space between them before dropping the bombshell. "The offer still stands. You are welcome to join us as we
continue our search. We will not bend to surrender at the first sign of defeat. We will find him. With you or without." 
Of course, Harper expected this to end in a long spiel about how advantageous it was to go it alone than with others, even
imagining it down to the soft warble of Tyr's poor little sentimental heart. It never came. Instead, there was just 
this long, drawn-out, silence where no one was saying anything. 
The old man must've felt the shift, giving a short bow before setting off on his own, "We will be leaving shortly
once I return to the encampment. You will have three hours to make your decision." And, with that, he was gone. 
Watching the whole thing really put Harper into a sour mood, but, the second he the guy become a thin line on
the horizon, things started to look up again. "Well, what're we waiting for?" He asked, hopping back to his feet,
"Come on, if we get a track on their ship and head back to the Andromeda-"
"No."
A shock suddenly went through his system, burning his feet into the snow with a kind of anger he thought he
stopped carrying years ago. "What do you mean 'no'!?" He spat, moving to get a good look at him. It wasn't a pretty
sight. Tyr looked like he was barely keeping it together as-is.
"I cannot go back from here." He spoke, now, in a muted tone. All quiet, no inflection in his voice, like someone
switched on autopilot. "You will have to return without me."
"So...that's it?!" He yelled only for Tyr to sort of look at him and turn away. 
"Yes."
"Are you serious!? I-I thought we were a team! You and me up against the whole world!" His shoulders started to feel 
heavy. He knew it sounded childish; like some stupid kid playing make-believe but he really thought..."I feel like I 
deserve more than getting abandoned on some crappy planet!" 
"Consider it a release." Tyr reasoned with this line of logic that could drive Harper up the wall. 
"Released!? From what!? You think I'm around you because I have some kind of obligation?" He was all tense
now, but pulled back, he couldn't risk losing his cool, not at a time like this. "Look, you've seen the way I live
my life, I'm not a responsible guy! I don't plan ahead and I don't pay my debts. Who even know what I owe
anyone, more or less you anymore!? And you know what? I don't care! Besides, you're..." The weight finally
made his shoulders drop. He was fighting a losing battle and he knew it. "You're like the only one who gets
it, you know? I don't think I've ever met anyone who's ever really..." He wasn't making any sense at this
point but he was too indignant to stop now. If Tyr left again, then he'd be alone again. As simple as that
line of reasoning was, there was more to this underlying mess tangled up underneath it all. It freaked him
out to even think about. "I get you."  
"You have no measure of the things I've done!" Tyr snapped, teeth baring against the cold,. "If you
had even the slightest inclination of what I must do, you'd take the Maru and you'd leave." 
A thin veil of ice fell between them. Blowing from the east, it strained against Tyr's form, whipping
his hair into a frenzy across his face. He was like a ghost now, blurred against the wind and snow.
"I am not a redeemable man." He confessed. 
He was quiet now. If it wasn't for the snow muffling every other sound around them, he'd be inaudible. 
"What if I don't want redeemable?" The question seemed like it would've bounced off of him if it didn't
hook into him the way it did. "What? So you're evil now? Is that it? You want everybody in the whole
galaxy to be afraid of you? Tyr you're the only guy I know who actually gets his hands dirty out here!
You don't sit around, debating the moral outcome of every little thing- when it hits the fan, you're
right there, trying to stop it! I mean, yeah, you're crazy and you can turn a guy inside out with
your bare hands. That's not a really great combination- people kinda get up in arms about that sorta
thing- but that's you!" There it was, again, that same problem with Tyr. He felt things too damn much-
so much that it was like his heart was dragging him around, raking him against the dirt. He lived 
his whole life in a constant state of war between who he is and who he was and, little by little, 
every day, it felt like he was losing. 
"Tyr, they're going to use you and throw you away like you're nothing." He knew the way Nietzscheans
disposed of people like them. In unmarked mass graves, in piles on the streets, robbed of any dignity.  
"I don't care if you have some 'divine purpose' or whatever- I don't want you getting killed out there!"
Harper never had a hill to die on or a war to win, nothing was worth risking your life for. Nothing except-
Taking off his glove, Tyr pressed his hand to Harper's face and held it there. It was warm. 
"Will you be there for me when I return?"
Letting out a long groan, Harper could feel his eyes practically rolling out of their sockets. 
"Fine..." Something told him he was in over his head. Maybe it was right. It's not like he could understand
some grand destiny but, between years of dedication to this purpose and some cheeky guy
who could make him laugh, Harper knew there was no competition. Maybe there didn't have to be. 
Staring down at the snow underfoot, he stared at their impressions in it. Tomorrow, it'd be wiped
away along with any other proof they'd been here. He then looked up. "Under one condition."





The Maru's floors were a lot dirtier than he remembered. "Okay, I think I almost had the upper hand
that time." Harper lied, feeling the filtration grate start to leave a mark on his face. 
"You should try a silent method." Tyr observed, taking his boot off his back and offering him some
help back up. "Announcing your attacks serves no purpose other than to alert your opponent." 
Finally managing to get his balance back, Harper dusted himself off. "I think it makes me intimidating."
From Tyr, he heard a noise that piqued his curiosity. Leaning over to get a good look at his face, he 
saw a smile. Giving a false punch to his shoulder, Harper held up his hands like boxing gloves, weaving
side to side and jabbing Tyr in a manner that made him sweep a leg under his feet and send him to
the floor again. Tyr then aimed his hand down, fingers poised like it was a weapon ready to fire. "You're dead."
"No I'm not!" Harper whined, "You see, I have an advantage." Grabbing Tyr by the ankle, he pulled it
at just the right angle to send him crashing to the floor. "I hit below the belt."
For a second, he saw Tyr push himself up and wondered if this would earn him a busted nose, but, instead,
he just rolled over onto his back and let out a long, drawn out, groan. 
"Good." He laughed, sitting up and starting back at his feet. "Very good."
Following suit, Harper watched as he began resonating on something, staring off into the distance. 
"Others will announce your death long before you've breathed your last. Do not let them. They will
believe they've killed you. You may play to their delusions but do not submit to them. Stay vigilant and 
you will never tarnish under their fist. Do you understand?" 

For a moment he watched a light brighten in the little one's eyes. "Y-yeah!" 
"Good." Releasing him, Tyr pressed a firm hand to his back, pushing him back to his feet. For a
brief moment, they stared at each other, unmoving, locked into a stasis. "Live well, my dear friend."
He then saluted and watched as his companion straightened, considered saluting, and, instead, outstretched
his hand to be taken. Curiously, Tyr obliged as what he thought would be usual Terran handshake 
had him pulled into an embrace. The arm pulled around his neck stretched down to his back and held itself 
there in one final comforting gesture. 
They pulled away. 
"Be seeing you." He smiled and, with that, they parted ways. 










The signal beacon sounded off by the time Harper had left the Gepid system, having just bypassed a cluster
of small meteorites. He refused to break eye-contact with them. Watching them through the viewport,
he had this imaginary fear that they'd change their minds and take a U-turn right back through the ship. 
He could see it now; the hull ripping like tissue paper. Pulling the device off his belt, he held
it firmly in his field of vision. 
'Not emergency. Room for one?'
He read it and read it again. Unsure what to make of it, he decided it didn't matter. He was going home
empty-handed anyway. Might as well have someone to talk to on the way there. 



Using the beacon's ping system, he managed to find the planet Trance had signaled from. He frowned at
the condition of it. What a place to strand someone; a deserted planet splitting apart at the seams.
The second he touched down, the thick atmosphere made him feel all too heavy- too constrained- to even
think about leaving The Maru. 
Sending the signal back, he let it ping his location. If this was a date, he'd be the dirtbag boyfriend
honking in the driveway. Eventually, he heard a tap at the entrance and pulled it open. 
Under any normal circumstances, this would be the part where they chewed each others' ears off detailing
every little second of what happened. This time they couldn't. They just stared at each other, uncomfortable
and nervous. Honestly, what did you expect? That they'd cry over their own crappy luck and drink the night
away? They weren't those people anymore. They had secrets to keep. 

 


The ride back had been silent. They didn't talk to each other, they didn't even so much as look at each
other. Instead, they both stewed in their minds, trying to figure out how they were going to explain
all this to Rommie and Beka. 
Turns out, it wasn't as hard as they thought.


"Well, I can't give you many details but..." Trance glanced around the room, slyly letting her quiet
disposition take hold. "If Dylan accomplishes his mission, he might find something that could win us
the war." Maybe it was because they had nothing else to go on but her word, but they seemed to take it
in stride. 
"Running off on another covert mission..." Rommie dismissed the whole thing with amusement, "You should've 
seen him before. Every time the Highguard needed anything done, Dylan leapt at the first opportunity." 
She inhaled, straightening her posture, but forgot to exhale. "I hope he's alright." With that, their 
little meet and greet was done and Harper was allowed to wander back to his room.

"So," Beka hesitated. Something about the way she leaned up against the frame of his door made her seem
confident even if this was a bit of a touchy subject for the both of them. At least she was more put-together
than last time. "Tall, dark, and broody's gone again..."
With how she said it, she almost sounded like she wanted him to say something back. Like how they 
should've known better. Well, misery did love company and it wasn't like they didn't have this big
spectral image of Tyr looming over their lives. Even if he was gone, he was still there. It was 
only in him being gone that it was apparent something was missing. Harper wondered how long he could
live like this. "Yup." Might as well try. "Turns out big, lovable, Tyr was just waiting for an out.
Gave me the boot back there." The sympathetic look she gave him made his stomach turn sour. "Don't know
what I expected. The guy lived with one foot out the door." 
"I mean, it's not like he was happy here." She pointed out and, damn it, he hated it when she was right.
"I'm just surprised he stayed as long as he did."
"Yeah." He turned to seal the door closed, "Guess you were right about him all along."