You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. 
Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. 
Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortunes,
or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing ending them...
But you don't do either. 

                          - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley



In the grand scheme of all that was and all that will ever be, there were no accidents. Not by the
terms of fate. All that has happened and all that will ever happen was simply that; a series of 
causes and effects built out from where all history was laid and where the future would proceed. 

So, when The Reverend had his first vision, it only made sense as it did, when it did. 

Crushed between the injured, just recovered from another quashed uprising on Earth, the medical ship he had been 
assigned worked as a small emergency transport. Usually, his role involved aiding the practitioners around him. 
More than he'd like to admit, he was just an interference. An extra body on board with an added mouth to feed. 
How foolish he felt as he dodged another gurney that was being hurriedly swiveled across the floor, it's wheels
so worn from overuse that, with every turn, it let out another pained shriek of resistance. 
The only guidance offered in the midst of this chaos of bodies had been that of a medical practitioner by the name of Church. 
An older Earth Woman who, by all regards, worked with more passion than most full fledged doctors in their respective field. 
Pulling him out of the way of an oncoming group of interns, she handed him a sewing set, her seasoned features locked
in a forlorn expression. "Sew this one up and give him his last rites." She commanded in regards to the patient she had been 
attending just moments ago; a young man drifting in and out of this world and the next. 
"The least we can do is keep his dignity in tact." 
Dignity for the dead. A human concept. 
She let out a sorrowful noise, one that she had become so accustomed to, she hardly noticed when she even did it anymore. To his
experience, it was the sound of resilience. The kind of noise that meant the meat would be foul and the offspring, unhealthy.
Maybe this is why he felt more comfortable in her presence compared to most. She made him imagine an older Miss Valentine. 
It was the act of taking the sewing kit from her hands that ripped open the curtain on the grand stage of the Universe.  
Splayed before him was a future that burned at every edge until the planet before him was nothing but a mere ember, wading 
out in the quiet darkness among the stars.




"Does that ever work for you?" Rommie asked, dispersing his thoughts, entirely. She must've assumed he had been praying.
"That depends on your definition of 'work'." He replied, deciding to play along as if he had. It was...easier to go along 
with someone's misunderstandings than to try to explain yourself. "As my intentions have it, it does."
"So you always get an answer?"
"I'm not asking for an answer." He wondered when it first became commonplace to find motivation out of gratification. 
"I do not intend to receive anything for myself, I am merely strengthening a bond."
Usually, a statement like this would be regarded with a question such as 'Then why do you even do it at all?' but 
the machine at his side simply accepted his answer at that.




Tangled between tubing that left her plugged into the ship's mainframe for constant surveillance, it had left her 
running at a full charge, keeping her from shutting off her systems. 
He wondered how long it would be before she overheated. It made for a tragic sight. 
Despite this, she seemed just as alive as she had always been(which was rather an enlightening thing to behold 
from a being like herself).
"You're a far cry from the rest of our companions." He observed.
"I don't think I'm all that different." 
"If it had been anyone else in your position, I would be receiving quite the lecture right about now." 
"Even from Tyr?" She asked, amused at the thought.
"Oh, especially from Tyr. Although, I can't help but to think he'd be more incensed over my change of heart."
"I don't think he would." She brought up, "In the end, he did the same." 
"Yes, but I would assume that would make his convictions that much harsher."
"You think so?"
"It may be that condemnation from someone who has seen the worst of what the universe has to offer; one with blood 
on their hands, who still decides it is all still worth salvaging is more impactful than that of an innocent."
"You're saying it'd hurt worse to receive a tongue lashing from Tyr over, say, Dylan?" 
He had a sense that, if she could bob her head in considered agreement, she would be doing so right about now.
"I could certainly be saying that." He answered back without so much as changing his tone or implying his intent. 
Best not to stew the pot any further than he already had.

Their conversation, was cut short when a soldier entered the room, brandishing a rifle toward them. As if a weapon 
had ever deterred a Magog. "The General is ready for you now." 














Awakened, Tyr could feel his lungs drink up every ounce of air as he heaved, heart-heavy, against the cavern floor. Planting
his palms over his eyes, he awaited his body to toll up the damage it had taken. Still, the light managed to breach
through his fingers, invasively- annoyingly- and he turned away from it. 
"About time." He heard Captain Hunt's voice echo from a short distance. Quickly, Tyr turned back and saw him propped up against the wall
on the other side of the plasma lamp he had set burning the night before. "Sleeping through a mission is technically insubordination, 
but, technically you're no longer my subordinate so let's say the politics are a bit dicey on that front." 

Confused, Tyr rolled off his side and touched along the now-absent wounds he had received. All the events prior were starting to feel 
like a very bad dream. Curious thing about dreams, though, they seemed to fail all logic applied to them. The mind didn't need
to consider itself. It preferred to submit to accepting the reality presented before it. Even if, by all regards, you knew these things were not 
logically plausible. They began but never really concluded; the characters and roles they inhabited never quite reaching past their initial
stages. Actors reading off scripts that had long since forgotten where the story was headed or if there was even a story left to be told at all.

"Of course." He pulled himself up, allowing Dylan's form to lead on ahead. "I will follow." Only, Tyr didn't budge an inch, his eyes mapping
out every hair on the back of his head. "Even if you aren't Dylan Hunt." 
Stopping, his weight shifted from one leg to the other, the hands on his hips lowered just enough to cup his waist, betraying the confidence
he had in his stance only moments before. "Now, how did you figure that one out?"
"Your portrayal of him is...lackluster." Not to mention lacking in the usual biting charisma he always managed to tote about.
"Ah yes, well, the late, great, Captain Hunt is quite the complicated character to play, don't you think?"
"What makes you think he's deceased?"
"What makes you think he isn't?" The question was meant to shake his unwavering faith. It did not. "You saw the way he was when 
you two tumbled off that mountain. All because you couldn't bring yourself to kill some pithy human." 
Closing an eye in annoyance, Tyr squinted with the other, eyebrows arching in doubt. He wasn't sure why one would lie about
this but he failed to see any reason to entertain the idea any further.
"And yet here I am."
"Arguing with the Omnipotent? That's a new one."
Slowly pulling himself into the creature's vicinity, Tyr decided to make his beliefs very clear.
"He..." He began, letting the words smooth themselves over slowly, painfully. "...is not dead."
In return, he received nothing more than a smile. Whoever this...thing was, it had gained quite it's share of satisfaction
by getting under his skin. Regardless, it continued it's probing. "Seems like you have quite a lot of strong beliefs
regarding the good Captain." It studied him as one would a curiosity. "Like being under the impression that he is a good Captain. 
Righteous, but misguided. You, of course, would know all about that, though, now wouldn't you?"
"Ah, so this isn't about the Captain at all, is it then?" Tyr inquired, quickly picking up on this trail, "It is I who
holds the subject we're discussing." If only he knew where it was all heading.
"Very good, Mr. Anasazi!" He- it spoke to him in the same condescending manner Dylan did when he knew he had the upper 
hand. "Now, tell me, where does all this loyalty come from? As a Nietzschean, you know, as proven 
time and time again, that he'll only lead you to ruin. Aren't you meant to prioritize your own survival? Especially over a human 
of all things..." It gazed upon him with disapproval. Worst yet, with Dylan's disapproval. Usually, it brought with it 
some form of excitement that Tyr didn't entirely detest. A kind of warm thrum in his veins to shirk away
any reservations and even would lead him to performing at a much higher capacity. Ever reaching for a bar that was both
insultingly too low and overwhelmingly too high to gauge. 
Here, it only brought him dread. 
"Your attempts to manipulate me have grown tiresome." He slipped away from this being, creating a proper distance  
between them. "If you cease this game, I may give you the answers in which you seek." He offered.
"Sorry, I can't seem to show you anything but what you already know. Let's call it...'a form you're most comfortable with'." 
It was taunting him now and he knew it.
"Regardless, I find your presence offensive." He overlooked it's depiction of Captain Hunt with disgust. "Among other things..."
It was obvious, now, that it was using this guise as a shield to pacify any ill will that might form from it's actions. 
What was most disturbing was that it worked. 


These thoughts echoed through his mind, reverberating outward. He replayed the memory of them falling off the edge
of that cliff, limbs entangled and felt a mix of both torment and elation that he could not save
his Captain except though the means of total obliteration. 'Mutually assured destruction'. Isn't that the term for it?
He felt something shift deep in the back of his mind, pulling these thoughts to the surface. He glanced over, sideways,
at the creature before him. 
A telekinetic.
Not a very strong one, either, seeing as it's ability required this much effort. 
"Omnipotent..." He spat, feeling the window of his mind slam shut in an instant. "You're hardly a gracious liar at that." 
"Then that makes two of us, doesn't it?" Asked a different voice this time, sultry, low, self-assured.
he turned and found himself facing the world-weary image of Captain Valentine. 
















There was no way she could maneuver her way through a battle. 

Even though she had seen and shared in the relenting outcomes of victory, her role had never been 
the hands-on kind. She had always remained diligently on the sidelines; casting hand after hand of
possible outcomes to the wheels of time. Not once did she have to worry about getting her own hands
dirty. That fell on the backs of those around her. If she framed it just right, she could argue that this was her due diligence.
A safeguard to keep things in order in the midst of chaos by 'leaving it to the professionals'. Allowing those within these boundaries
stay within the rules of the world around them. It kept them all ordered, structured, and regulated. Otherwise, the universe 
would unravel at the seams. 
"Seams..." She thought, aloud, recalling the scar where her tail used to be. 
"Andromeda!" Calling out, she watched the avatar appear before her, showing every range of negative emotion the ship was 
capable of.
"Yes?"
"I don't know what I'm doing!"
"We've been over this."
"Yes, but you do!" 
That statement seemed to find her by surprise. 
"You're a war ship with the full capability to plan and understand the logistics of your own systems and how to use them in a fight."
"Yes, but-"
"Are you telling me that in all your life, you've never been able to act on your own merit?" 
"Not without my Captain's approval..."
"Well, I'm your Captain now and I'm telling you that I have it on full authority to pass my command to you." 
"Even with full command, I'm no longer able to take any action against our pursuers. My power levels are still far too 
low to do anything more than keep the power on. If I may use layman's terms; we're sitting ducks out here."  
Smiling, Trance looked upon Andromeda with a sense of sentimentality that sat between looking upon the ship as an old friend
and a new partner. How many times did she forget it's role as an active player in this game?
"You leave that to me."













"Well, now you're just being ridiculous." The blocked off image of Captain Valentine scolded as Tyr held up a hand to
keep from looking at it directly. There was more than a bit of shame that her image beheld to him, so, to see it projected 
with so much liveliness had struck him as ironic. 
"I would much prefer you stayed as Captain Hunt."
"I thought it offended you." It reasoned with a sneer, relaxing a thumb into one of the many belt loops that adorned her 
wide hips. Shifting it's weight once again, it gave him a smile.
"I'd prefer offense to...this." 
"Oh, you mean guilt?" 
Why did it have to sound so jovial? 
"What would I have to be guilty of?"  
"You kill your only chance at companionship and now you don't even know what you hate more; the idea that she could've
been happier without you or getting to see the mess you made."
"Companionship?"
"You like her and you're sexually compatible. That's more than you can say for anyone isn't it?" 
"The matter is much more complicated than that."
"But you've thought about it."
"I've considered the possibility."
"Oh you've done more than consider." It jested and, ah, how loathsome did this act grow with every familiar yet alien
way it tried to mimic her body language. If it was really her, he knew she would begin to gravitate towards him; a 
moon trapped in a never-ending cycle around a planet thrown just out of orbit. The sort where it was only a matter of time
before their individual rotation towards each other would eventually cause them to collide.
"To pursue her would serve to destroy us both."
"So you admit someone has the power to destroy you...and you let her live? That's so unlike you."
"Is it?" He asked, volatile, remembering the face of every single woman he left behind for their own sake.
Any man would be shaken to his core by the burden of such heartbreak, but, the matter was, he was no man.
"No...no I guess it's not." It resigned, moving back, hesitantly, before pulling in to his side. 

Moving forward, he found himself staying close to the shifter out of familiarity, it's gaze focused on a point ahead. 
He was being guided. 
Carefully, Tyr placed the very tips of his fingers up to the right wall of the cave, unfocusing his thoughts
from registering their details or his direction as they walked, instead, fixating all his attention to the mirage at his side. 
Embarrassing, as it was, to see how well it was able to replicate the way she walked(a rough swagger that had 
tried to appear more graceful, more confident, than it actually was); if anything, The Lady Valentine had quite 
the performance to her stride.
This kept his thoughts elsewhere as his body guided him by sheer touch. After all, if this was a projection from
his mind, he might possibly be able to utilize his lack of focus to reach beyond the tethered projection around them and
feel the true nature of the labyrinth they were lost in.

Portraying Beka's heightened sense of distrust, it immediately took alarm. "What are you doing?" 
"Plotting my course." There was no need to lie to the creature. He knew it wouldn't be able to do anything to deter him, 
regardless of whether or not it could read his thoughts. 
"What makes you think you can?" It asked, the implication was less a threat and fell in line with a general question. 
"As if you have any power to stop me?" 
It looked at him as if he was evading some idea of common sense. "No." It admitted, "I just don't think there's 
anything beyond all this."
Troubling. 
"This...?"
"Don't you think that if there was a way out of here, I would've tried it already?"

He knew better. If there was a way in, there was certainly a way out. 
A grim thought had passed through his mind that, perhaps, this was it's way of admitting that, while there was 
a way out by physical means, there was some force holding this being here.
Using Beka's relaxed demeanor made it's lies almost believable for, when she spoke, she spoke out from forged experiences.
Considering her past and all those she had allied herself with, even intimately, he knew she understood what it was 
like to be trapped; a prisoner of her own will. 

There was always more than one way to keep a prisoner.














The base of the ship's power supply was firmly planted in it's center as the beating heart of the system in which it lived. If 
you were to plot out the internal structure of The Andromeda, you would note that the repair tunnels were routed around this area 
as, due to it's 'nature'; it was hostile to virtually any and all lifeforms without proper cautionary equipment and, even then, 
it was almost as dangerous as walking out of an airlock and into open space. 

As the ships around them formed in a clustered hive, ready to sweep in at the first sign of movement, Trance knew their next step 
would be a vital one. It could either make or break their rate of success. 
"I trust you know what you're doing." She assured the ship with a statement that, from Dylan's lips would pass off as a cautionary
doubt; but from hers, formed a boundary of trust between them. 
In this moment, The Andromeda needed her as much as she needed it. She only hoped things would work out on her end of the bargain. 

"Which wires supply energy directly to you?"
"You're not going to give me another charge are you? I told you I-"
They had no time for this. "Just tell me which." 
With a reserved scowl, the avatar guided her to a thick cable that seemed to be pumping what was left of their 
resource power through the rest of the vessel. "Perfect." Trance eyed it in delight. 
Turning to face the ship's projection at her side, she knew she needed to quell any form of distrust that still lingered 
between them and fast. Good thing the best proven means of doing so had always been the same. 
"Everything's planned out on your end?"
"Yes, although I'll need time to allow the gravitational pull of the nearby planet to tilt us in just the right direction. 
Then we'll have our window of opportunity to make our next move. 
"And that will be in..?"
"Two-point-seventeen minutes." 
"No time to spare for a test run, then." 
"A what?"
Pulling the chord from it's place, she felt the ships many safeguard locks give way and move at her leisure, allowing her to 
fully disengage it from it's power supply.
"What are you-"
"It's okay." Trance soothed over her anxieties with a calm voice, "I know what I'm doing." Struck in a moment of playfulness, 
she gave the avatar a smarmy look only Harper could pull off, "Just treat me gentle, okay?" 
Taking a deep breath, she stared at the end of the power relay's chord. Although it was metallic, it was still moderately dull
and she knew this would serve as to only make this whole procedure worse than it already was. 
She was now well aware of a memory of this joke Beka always used to convince Harper to plug himself into the Maru's 
mainframe: 'You want me to buy you a drink first?' To which they'd both laugh, bitterly, through a layer of grime and grease.
She took a gulp of air and plunged it into her chest.









"Is this what my condition is to you? A simple party trick?" Bem reviled the sense of ownership The General had now placed over 
him. Not just because he detested the feeling of being subjugated, but because how many times he had been on the other side 
of it as the subjugator, himself. 
"Not in the slightest!" Stark explained with an expression that seeped deception. "I see at it more as an asset to our cause." 
'Our Cause' he says. His hardy frame was placed so boldly in his chair that his ego truly did shine through with how many key
points of vulnerability he had left exposed all for the sake of appearing calmer, more in-control, than he actually was. 
You could track him across the ship by the smell of fear, alone.
"You should know I cannot simply give you a vision whenever you desire. How are you not sure I haven't already run my course?"
The Reverend inquired in a gentle demeanor despite his own emotional misgivings. He remembered how people would sing the praises 
of those touched by divine influence. They saw this as a gift to be treasured when the reality of it felt nothing 
more than a newly difficult chapter of an already difficult life. It could be well-regarded as nothing more than a lateral move. 
One that required a completely different set of tools he simply did not have. 
To regard the divine influence that now plagued his life as a burden would be sacrilegious but not dishonest. He wondered
what was worse, complaining of a gift- one that may serve to aide those around him at this risk of his own wellbeing or feigning joy 
at his own suffering to the ends that others would find admirable. 

In the end, a martyr was still a martyr.

Stark seemed to share in this idea. "Because I don't think these things 'run a course'." He explained, "Nothing does. There's 
no short supply out there for a soldier or a saint." 
The comparison made the Reverend reel. Nauseated, he swallowed against the tearing pain in his stomach, a motion that had been noticed
almost immediately. 
"Don't decide to play innocent now, you know better than anyone else that war and religion go hand in hand." 
"I hardly doubt The Way has ever caused this much damage." 
Frowning, Bem knew he had spoken out of turn, recalling just how many lives he had seen laid to waste through his attempts to reach 
out across juxtaposing paths through The Way. Even when violence is not called upon in an ideal, itself, ideals were always built up 
as something to be protected. In some cases, even to die for. War usually came out of a desire for preservation or change. 
Religion did as well. In the end, they both had their fair share of victims. It was easier, he found, to refer to them as anything but. 
Like 'heroes'.
"You know what I think?" Costanza pulled back, folding his hands together, "I think we need a break from all this diplomacy."
'Devotees'.
As the General left the room, he stopped just at the cusp of the open door and made a quick motion to one of the guards, 
closing the door behind them.
'Martyrs'. 
The guard, in turn, locked the door upon his departure and pulled a baton from his belt, setting it firmly between his 
forefinger and thumb.










Usually, drawing from a new power source would require hours of reconfiguration, 
updates, tests, measurements; things that would keep her crew busy for days on end.
But, now, as The Andromeda felt her systems carefully draw from Trance, she realized how naturally this synchronization came to them. 
You could posit a library's worth of arguments over the ethics of using a live battery, but, they both had a disposable excuse to 
grasp onto: Trance was not technically a living being. Nevermind that she was only supplying this power of her own volition in 
a moment of desperation. This was a matter between two nonliving organisms doing what most lower living
organisms did in their own natural habitats. The laws of The Commonwealth could not possibly supply an argument for or against 
their actions. As for the laws Asimov established, well...they no longer applied.
This put her in a difficult position as she knew she had to keep regulations on just about how much power she should draw in order 
to keep them both alive. Take too much, and not only would Trance quickly burn out, but she could very much overwhelm her systems 
and they would both overreach each other; possibly blotting out everything in their vicinity in one, fiery, expansion not unlike 
a sun would as it went supernova, devouring anything and everything in it's path.










Having grown agitated, Tyr broke away from his traveling companion only to watch it blink back at him in surprise. If
he was far more immature, he'd begin an argument about how they had been moving forward with no real sense of direction.
He stared off into a far distance as the shifter tried to encourage him to continue onwards, choosing a form of 
silent resistance, instead. 
Without a plan, he felt caged in to the whims of this being. It seems that when you no longer have a sense of trajectory,
it was easier for those around you to manipulate you from your destined path.
"Don't give up now." Words of encouragement never sounded so foul. "The fun's just getting started."
Snapping his eyes up from their place, he had realized that staring back at him was the face of a cherub.


Dreadful. It was starting to feel as though everything enjoyed wearing the boy's skin. 
"Now that's a reaction." It noted in amusement at his sudden change in demeanor. "Harper and Tyr. The great big cosmic joke 
without a punchline."
Oh, it was going to regret that comment.
"Ooh how scary." It mocked, "The Tyrannical Tyr Anasazi steps off his throne to skin his teeth for a human." It crooked
it's head, a lopsided sneer on it's lips. "And you don't see a problem with that, do you?" 
"You're delusional." He was deflecting now and they both knew it.
"He's a liability." It crossed it's arms. "You don't tie yourself to liabilities, Tyr."
"Perhaps he's not as much of a liability as he appears to be." He posited as if he could name more than one utility he 
actually served. 
It waved a hand over the boy's delicate features, "That's what makes this one hard. It's the face, yanno? I can't get 
the expressions right. He's not afraid like I am."
"Afraid?"
"I mean, yeah, isn't everyone?"
Tyr swallowed, thinking back to every interaction he's had with Captain Hunt who, by all
means, did not fear him as one would fear the monster lurking just out of sight, but, an 
explosive; set and ready to go off at a moment's notice. The both of them oscillated over the razor's 
edge, awaiting the other's next move.

The dear boy did no such thing. They were far too alike to oppose one another but far too different to overlap. Any 
prospect of service or duty was by mere choice which made each choice in their unspoken contract far more dangerous 
than the last. It was in his presence that Tyr experienced a bizarre notion of normalcy. 
From this, came forgiveness and from that forgiveness came woe. 
"And after everything, he still trusts you."
He didn't even have to reply; his reaction, alone was enough.
"Bingo." It grinned. "Having faith is one thing, if faith fails you, you have no one to blame but yourself. 
Trust? Now trust is transactional. The same can be said for your friends, here. You get back what you put in." It then
rolled it's neck, lazily, in reconsideration. "Or, you're supposed to, anyway." Rolling it's neck back to face him 
with the little one's visage, eyes cast wide, staring. "So, then, what are you getting out of it?" 
This was a victory on the shifters part and it knew this. 
"Hey, that was easy." It remarked, pleased with itself. "I should've used this face from the start." 














The crack of armored knuckles across Bem's face had been enough to echo the sound of his own teeth clacking through his brain. 
This was neither good for his teeth nor his brain as he mentally mapped the amount of damage that would be done along the
line of his gums, his tongue, along his jaw, the very structure of his new face could have irreparable damage if this was
to continue. Of all of his concerns he had once shared, not one involved his own fragility up until now. You would suppose as a 
people of death, The Magog wouldn't bat an eye to the idea of dying and you would be mostly right. Only, death was a sacred
thing. For humans, being taken from this mortal realm was worse than any circumstance they could ever perceive for they were
flimsy in belief and delusional in thought. 
Another blow made him begin a pool of blood his jaw, now swollen and left ajar, had dripped across the floor.
Humans bled far too much and far too often. It was a pitiable disposition they had. One he now had. 
Curious, then, as it was how they always seemed to make things complicated that way. He wondered how many 
universal disasters had been caused due to their collectively fragile nature. 
He thought of his mother and wept.














The collective misery of the universe shared by all who inhabited her seemed to fall into
one distinct question: 'why me?' 
One rarely bothered to ask this when their fortune was good out of fear that fate would simply
snatch it away in an instant. It made the constant stream of misery all the more welcoming;
at least when you could see the blade pointed at your throat, you knew where it was and could
feasibly take measures to protect yourself from it.
However when you couldn't...
"You know he's the reason you're trapped in the first place, right?" The shifter noted, "You just had to value 
that one pathetic, little, life and now look at you. It's kinda sick, in a way." 
A reel of every single item that once belonged to him being brought to his new 'quarters' played back in a gruesome light.



Being confined to his cell wasn't nearly the punishment Tyr had expected and innocuously, his captivity
aboard The Andromeda felt like anything but.

This had proven to be quite dangerous on his end. 

"When I called dibs on your stuff, I thought you'd have something cool like old plasma bombs or a bunch
of dirty mags laying around." Harper whined at him as he dropped an old box at his feet. 
"You practically live like a grandma." Opening the box, he dug under his old chess set to a shirt he used 
to wear, causing the boy to regard it with a sense of humor. "Well, somebody's grandma."

The ceaseless chatter was strange, if not, welcome. Most knew better than to expunge their thoughts
aloud in his presence, yet one had to wonder if the little professor had any opinion he didn't 
immediately express on the spot. 

Tyr's eyes then cast themselves to the clay pot that lay at the table just out of reach of his prison. 
Following his line of sight, his tiny visitor regarded it with a sneer, "Yeah, there's no way they're gonna
let you have that back." Disregarding the task at hand, he then climbed over to where he had it displayed, 
"It's poisonous, you know. Nearly got myself a one way ticket to..." 
He paused for a moment, twisting his mouth into a thoughtful scowl as he tried to imagine what it must 
be like to possess an immortal soul before unburdening himself of the thought, entirely. With a mere gesture 
and a vague utterance of "Eh" he continued, "Can't even handle the thing without having to put
on basically the same equipment I have to use to reset the subatomic router on the Maru." 'The clown suit'.
He remembered vividly hearing him refer to it as that; it's rubber joints squeaking with every motion of his body. The 
sight alone was enough to nearly cause Tyr to bite down on his thumb in sheer amusement. The name, however...
"It's anybody's guess why you had the stupid thing in the first place." 
Just as he began lamenting about the sheer cruelty of the universe, the boy decided to answer his own musings.
"Wait, lemme guess!" He rolled his eyes in a show of comedic bravado. "It's you, isn't it?"
A brief pause. "Me?" 
"Yeah, yeah." He nodded back, somehow grasping at his answer with enough confidence, that he had all but convinced himself 
it was the correct one. "You see, when you first look at it, all you're really seeing is thorns but if you look deeper at it,
you can see it's actually this flower, here. Only, you can't really get to it without it killing the crap
out of you." He then slipped on a thickened glove and started to breach through it's hostile cradle, "Unless you know
how to handle it." His hand then stopped briefly before touching the flower inside, "See, but you can tell this thing is
so fragile that if I touched it, I could risk damaging it. So, it kinda feels like you have to go through all this effort 
just to get to it and even then, well..." He then withdrew his glove, promptly removing it, his disposition having now shifted
into something more reserved. "...you start to get why it needs all those thorns in the first place."  





Shaking off the memory with a chill, Tyr felt ashamed by this breach of his psyche. 
"There was no need for you to go rifling through my memory." He growled, far too defensively.
"I was making a point."
"Your point being?" 
"That maybe it'd be easier to cut yourself free if you-" It drew a thumb over it's throat "-cut out the middleman,
so to speak?" 
"I wouldn't know." Tyr replied, "I ceased listening to your inane rambling hours ago."
It smiled up at him, amused. "Then why are you considering it?"















Activating her slip, The Andromeda let a burst of light shoot from the far corners of her ship, twisting wildly 
once she unleashed her regulators and swept through the undercurrent of ships. Instead of retaliating, as she had 
hoped, they scattered, widening the radius between her and them. It was evident now why these inhabitants 
were so desperate to take a hold of her. She was a warship. These were not. A fleet, yes, but no more
than a city could be an army. 
Thinking of them as only pirates would be an egregious oversight. Despite their vessels being stolen, each one was 
being piloted, not as a simple fleet under the command of one man, but multitudes of workers layering into what was a 
single vessel's crew. Each one utilized their experience in regards to their ship's capabilities and shortcomings.
They acted as an ecosystem, not a chain of command. You could almost envy a crew like that.
 
It was now obvious they were not here for a battle but a salvaging just as her recent crew had been before them. They 
must've been watching her float here, idly, on standby and misinterpreted her as either damaged or unmanned before 
even plotting their approach. A misunderstanding that would've gotten them killed if...


Shaking the statistics attempting to run their course over events that hadn't even occurred, she began 
to piece together a patchwork change in plans from this new piece of information. 
They would not fire unless they knew they would hit their target. This left The Andromeda with a newfound
solution: she had to become a chance not worth taking.

The first step would be to establish basic communication. 

Opening the channel to as many ships as possible, she watched as over a thousand faces filled her screen. To
the human eye, the mass would appear chaotic and imperceivable. To her, each pixel housed an image more elaborate
than any carbon based lifeform could ever conceive. 

Among them, was a well worn face that, when compared to his fellow crewmembers, looked wiser beyond his years;
his expressions(curiosity, confusion, excitement), came through with a clarity that measured down to the very 
quiver of his hairless brow. 
"What happened to your captain?" He asked her out of sheer impulse.
"I am no longer working under the advised authority of a captain but do not misunderstand that I am empty. I am The
Andromeda Ascendant and I will not be commandeered by the likes of you." 
"Ah look at you." Another captain of a nearby vessel gaped in awe. "Wild, free, begging to be broken in..."

The readout on her scanners came back with a mapped layout of the ship before her. But, here, among
all the hustle and bustle of numbers and calculations was a single, untranslated symbol she could not 
recognize within her database. Running it through the rough translator Harper had installed 
a while back deemed, still, no results other than a mildly worrying question mark.
Quite possibly a malfunction of the software, itself. She then scanned the vessel again, causing newer symbols
to appear in her readout where fully formed words had previously been displayed. 
Odd, unnerving almost, but not a case to be alarmed. She had far more on her mind than to waste her efforts of a
spotty program still in it's alpha stages... 

She watched as the honeycomb formation began to descend upon her frame and knew that, if she could, she would be 
sweating right about now.
Would they board her? Try to take her as their property? The thought alone made whatever false approximation of 
human nerves she had stand on end. 
No, she mustn't let them even so much as try. Even if it meant blowing up her own boarding deck and The Maru along 
with it. 
She knew what it was like to be imprisoned among the stars. Here and now, she swore to herself, to her crew, to whoever 
was out there listening to her thoughts, that she would never let that happen again.
"You have fifteen minutes." She stated, boldly; putting a timer on their viewscreens for all to see. 
"For what?"
"To decide your next course of action." The blare of klaxons boomed throughout her empty halls, lights flashing warning 
signs all across her bow. 
"Self destruct sequence initiated."











Resting his back against the cavern wall, Tyr made haste to remind himself that, despite the feeling
that time had all but halted in place, it was still proceeding forward. If he kept going on foot without any
markers to keep the hours, he could exhaust all his energy and start to wear thin. 
"Good idea." The shifter, having now changed back to the brooding elegance of one Miss Valentine, began to
stretch out, comfortably, across the ground. "I was starting to tire out, myself." It pressed a calloused thumb 
to it's temple and closed one eye in what was, most likely, a show of a headache rather than a wink. On her face, 
however, it didn't register quite as such. "That noggin of yours really packs a wallop. I can't believe people like you
are just walking around out there."
Insulted, Tyr moved to disregard that statement. 
"You would not have survived the life I have lived."
"Well I think I'd do pretty well in the future." 

He realized, now, they were having a conversation parallel to one another. 

"After all, if all of those friends of yours could, why couldn't we?" 
Suddenly, a door of opportunity swung open right before his eyes. One that he had passed over far too often as it sat
there in disuse. There was no use in trying a door you know will be locked. What a foolish train of thought. A further
indication that he was slipping far beyond repair. 

"You said I was a terrible actor." It discussed now perching Dylan's resting visage on it's back, gazing up at 
the jagged structure around them, deep in thought. "But, with your help, I don't have to be. Nobody knew about this
mission and it was a failure from the start. Who could blame you to survive with only one member of your crew
to return back home with? You were brought here against your will and you'd have a witness to vouch for you."
This plan felt far too plotted out. 
"As for my acting..."

Curling in to a more comfortable position, it stared up at him with the boy's charged gaze. 
"...Let's just say tragedy changes a guy." 
Staring down the impasse between himself and the creature, it was evident that there was no love between them in this exchange. 

Desperately needing somewhere to bury his grief, he lowered his guard, passing over to the resting 
form before him and letting his fingertips brush against the ground at it's side. 

"And here I thought heroes weren't supposed to give into temptation." It reasoned.
"You're a fool in your assumptions." His voice was now at a hum, soft and low, "There are no heroes."










He wasn't sure whether this made him a devotee or a martyr but the blood caked across his face itched in a way 
that made paying attention difficult. 
"You have five seconds to give me an answer, Father." The last word had been spat out, indignantly. Bem didn't even
hear the question. He didn't need to. 
"You and I both know I am not in the business of lying." He finally spoke, looking away in retaliation, "If I was, 
I would not be here as I am." Exhaustion burned at the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision until he gave up,
closing them in resignation.
The mind was a tricky thing, you see, it tends to lull when the body was in distress. 






"Despite your experiences aboard The Andromeda, you have to realize not every excitable dream is an omen." 
Across the way was a panel of councilmen, each of whom represented a facet of The Commonwealth. 
With his vision still burning at the forefront of his mind, the Reverend had chosen
to attend this monthly forum as a way to communicate his warning to them. He had hoped that they would listen to his
plea with open hearts; but now, he feared, he had only managed to discredit himself even further. 
"Surely you understand my visions are waking endeavors!" He pleaded, "If they were simply dreams, I would leave them 
as that, but they overtake me, putting me in a trancelike state." 
With the way they turned their faces in unease, he was starting to realize that the truth might only be making matters 
worse. Nonetheless, his word was the only thing he had and he refused to let it be taken from him. "I fear
The Earth will suffer if we do not make haste!" 
Here, they laughed. Not just the council but members of the crowd as well. They saw the Earth as an unsalvageable cesspool
cast to the shadows of mere boogeyman tales. Only a fool would try to save something that required so much
and had nothing of value to give in return. 
Nobody enjoyed an underdog story unless it ended in victory; here, he was trying to merely
help it skirt total annihilation. A nearby councilwoman stood, staring down to him with a sense of morbidity. 
"Nonetheless, we will not feed countless lives and resources into easing a planet to it's final dying breath. It may 
seem like a cruel decision but so would be asking members of the Commonwealth to fight and die in a battle that, 
historically, has already been lost." Her expression then changed to that of pity. "I'm sorry." 
"But-"
"No further arguments will be made on this matter." Spoke a representative of the people, "We will be 
closing the forum shortly. Thank you to all who have attended and let the strength of The Commonwealth bring you 
peace, Father." 


The city streets had thinned out as most of the inhabitants were either working the early hours of dawn
or still fast asleep in the comfort of their beds. He wished to be doing either at 
this point but couldn't manage anything more than a quiet walk to ease his mind. 
He passed though the wide cityscape with the eyes of a predator; catching glimpses
of flimsy architecture. Cracks in foundation, streets that had been poorly 
paved over, roads that wound in circles, never fully connecting to anything more than buildings
that had been torn down and replaced ages ago.
Miserable planning.

A man passed by him. One with a wretched stench he couldn't bear to stomach. He turned away, walking
down an adjacent path as to not bring any attention to himself. There would be no trouble here. 
Making a quick stop, Bem realized he had taken the wrong course and had become entangled in the labyrinth of 
poor city planning. He course-corrected back to his initial path. Surely the stranger would have finished passing 
through by now but, as the smell began to fill his nostrils, he knew far better than to continue. 
"You do not need to hide." He offered pulling up the collar of his tunic(restless things, clothes were) as to
keep his throat unexposed. "I know you've been following me."
Confident was the only feasible word he could use to describe the man's stride, a hunter proud in his title. 
"Impressive!" The human commended him with neither joy nor disdain, remaining entirely
neutral. "And here I was wondering if you got to keep any of your old tricks."
'Tricks' he calls them.
"Even the blind can see when death is approaching."
"Death?"
"You reek of it." He noted.
Curious as it was, to recognize the stench of so much bloodshed on something that was not Magog. 
"I think you've misunderstood this little meeting of ours." The human's smile seemed crossed, facetious.
Listening to his words would bring about nothing but suffering.
"I've been following your case for quite some time. At first, I thought it was nothing more than a hoax but you..." He chuckled
as this cruel play of fate before him, "You're the real thing!"
If this was a hail to his role as a prophet, Bem would prefer his ministrations fall on deafened ears rather
than unopened eyes. 
"I am simply just trying to make amends." 
"Because of your past? Is that it?" He mocked, practically sending the encroaching shadow of the cityscape down upon 
them both.
"How did you-"
"The military keeps records of these sorts of things. High profile cases like the crew of a certain
warship. You've had a hard go of it, haven't you Father?"
"You could say that." He answered back, vaguely. Truthfully, but vaguely. 
"Well what if I were to tell you that you've put a little...motivation into a plan of mine. One that might fix both 
our problems and keep that vision of yours from coming true."

How inverted he felt, casting prayers to god only for the devil to come and answer. 





He was almost thankful Stark had no detailed backlog of information on his past. Just that he was simply an oddity and that 
there was no major turning point in his life that transformed the unceasing wave of Red Plague into a man of the cloth. 

To think that anyone still alive would remember him as he was felt discomforting. 
To know that there wasn't was punishing. 


He had reached the final stretch of his capabilities now and he knew this. They both knew this. "If you end your pursuit of both
The Record and Captain Hunt, I will offer you my full cooperation." He was offering a madman a direct line to The Divine. Even 
at half a loss, he could see that Stark would be more than willing to take a moderate loss for a tactical vantage point.
Yes, he was mad but there was a logic to this madness. 













Granted a piece of silence, Tyr took this opportunity to press his ear to the ground, listening for a
sign as to where he was. A pit in the back of his mind chose this time to ask whether this was a figment of some 
horrible dream or worse; a kind of punishment for his trespasses committed in life. Nonetheless, he heard nothing. 
Curious, he pushed up off the ground, moving deftly through the dark, fingertips following along the wall with 
certainty that he was going somewhere. 



"You walking contradiction." Here he was, now, staring at his own reflection within the darkness. Only it failed as
hardly a proper mirror to himself, it dredged up a sense of dread by it's mere existence. 
Repositioning itself, it leaned in much too far until their noses were almost brushing, "Or perhaps, there's nothing 
to contradict." It's eyes widened in recognition, "Not when you're so empty."
Now this...this was not a point he was going to entertain. 
"Why else would you be so drawn to them if not to fill that gaping hole inside you?"
"I was using them."
"For what?"
Finally, something deep inside Tyr switched off, tuning out any thoughts or feelings that could possibly get in the way of his survival
leaving only a slew of mundane facts and vague statements in the shadow of what was once there.
"I used their vessel for my own accommodations, I used their resources to further my own personal goals, I did exactly as I pleased, exactly
as I wanted, and when I no longer could, I left." He then bore his teeth back at his reflection, "I have no loyalty to them whatsoever."
He raised a hand to cut off any further argument. "Respect, admiration, endearment...they were all simply happenstance, but, loyalty?"
He laughed, darkly, "There is no one alive I would pledge my loyalties to." 

"I suppose..." The shifter drew back, finally breaking eye contact only to realize it's mistake, gently flicking it's gaze back towards him, 
finding nothing to stare back at but a vast, impenetrable wall. "...That is where all your problems arise."









The Andromeda's self destruct sequence blared louder than it ever had before. The clock continued to tick down as 
the ships around her tried to plot their next course of action. 

"You will get nothing." She proclaimed. "If you try to board me, I will hasten my sequence and
take all interlopers with me. If you try to fire upon me, I will fly into your path and explode, 
regardless if I take any damage in the first place. If you try to manipulate any part of my internal or 
external systems, I will eject them immediately. No matter what option you take, you will get nothing."
Her timer then flickered briefly but just enough for her to capture what had replaced it. 
There it was again; that symbol. This proved to her a latent fear that had perched itself in the back
of her mind, digging it's claws into every move she's made since: 'it's coming from inside me'. 

Even so much as considering a systems check was out of the question. So, instead, she refused to acknowledge
it's short-lived appearance on her viewscreen, altogether. 
Until it showed up again, this time drawing curiosity from those who caught a glimpse of it from the other side.
"Hold off!" One captain signaled to his crew. "Freeze that footage and play it back!" 
She couldn't see what was playing off on their screens from the projected standpoint of their link, but she already
knew what it was they were looking for. A crack in her chassis.
"There!" The Captain pointed ahead, at his own visual feedback, flipping the image and recapturing it to show her.
Only, the look emblazoned upon his face was not one of victory but of fear. "What kind of scare tactic is this!?" He barked, 
immediately jumping as her timer flashed another row of symbols she could neither translate nor disregard. Suddenly, her 
timer froze; deadlocked on a single phrase spelled out in this language. 

Klaxons still blaring, her command screen began filling with screeds of text that left everyone who bore witness to it crying 
out in horror. Whispering among themselves in words she could only catch on their lips, they all seemed to keep repeating the 
same word over and over: 'unspoken'. 

Again and again, they referred to it as this. She realized, now, that this was all coming from a line of code. Not a language 
of the mouth, per say but one that came only from a data readout. One that wasn't there before but most certainly is now. 
She thought back to her temporary 'power source' and the lack of proper testing before using it. 
Trance.
How could she have forgotten?
"Have you made your decision?" She demanded of the now-anxious inhabitants that made up every ship in her vicinity.
Peeling themselves away from their consoles, every set of eyes; no longer blackened from the hunt stared back at her in awe.
"Your vessel...it has only one inhabitant." One of them decidedly pointed out.
"At the moment." She clipped, refusing to give them even so much as any implication that none of this was happening of her own
volition. 
"And your systems A.I. it's...alive?"
"I am." 
She watched as their faces, drained of all confidence, now held a sense of recognition in a way that was, more or less, unnerving.
"In all my years..." One crewman spoke up, rising from his seat and removing himself from the deck, 
overwhelmed by things he couldn't seem to grasp. 
The comms link then cut out, leaving The Andromeda wading out in the quiet darkness among the stars.  











The shifter had decided to return to using Dylan's form in order to lead him further. Despite the 
more difficult path, it was far too obsessed with expressing it's every whim to cease it's incessant talking. 
"It was under no fault of your own you ended up like this." It looked at him with a pity Dylan had never spared 
him. "Naturally, after losing your Pride, your culture, even your family, you clung to the notion that you were 
going to live in service to them, anyway."
Letting the words faze through him, Tyr continued on, hugging his body against the wall of a crevice to further travel through the crack
in it's structure.
"After all you did say your loyalties weren't to the living." 

The moment they passed to the other side, he took a quick glance over his shoulder to see if he could catch a glimpse of the shifter
just before it changed.
"Which reminds me..." It spoke with Beka's form, now, kicking rocks out of the way with a long, sweeping, scuff of her shoes. 
"If your little plan did work out, they'd probably have died." He kept his eyes forward only for it to catch up 
and start a brisk pace at his side. Keeping right in his periphery but just out of reach. "So what then, Tyr? Were 
you planning to leap from one great divine purpose to the next? That's no way to live." 

Staying at his back, it drew closer now, supporting him as he moved ahead. Now holding Harper's image, it didn't seem to quite hold 
his strength. Weaker than a human? Interesting. "But with me, you don't have to anymore." It gestured up at the opening in the 
cavern before them. "That's the key to our escape."
Suspended in a nearby stalactite was a blade crowned where it had been plunged, serving as little more than decoration to the 
overhead cavern. Compacted by mineral that had reinforced itself around it's hilt like a wreath of thorns. The weapon, itself, 
must've been here for an unbearably long window of time yet, due to the harsh conditions, only managed to become more reinforced,
almost unbreakable, in it's plight. 
Almost.
Hand in hand, both time and damage had taken with it what it could, practically leaving half of it in desperate need of proper 
maintenance. A single swing could destroy an army or shatter it to pieces.
He understood now why he had been chosen.  
Tyr wrapped his fingers, firm, around the hilt. Not too forceful; as a quick pull would reduce the both of them to mere shreds 
of what they once were yet any attempts to coax it from it's entrapment may end with them further encased in this eternal prison. 
Following a long weakened fracture in the structure, he guided the blade, smoothly from one point
to another, feeling an interlocking point of calcification break off as the blade gave way to the 
nature of gravity and comfortably slid into his palm. 

"I knew it." The shapeshifter beamed at him with pride. Dylan's face, now undamaged, looked upon him with this new sense of duty.
"The moment I first saw you, I knew you were the one." Upon gifting him this destiny, the shifter pulled him 
ever closer with a familiar laugh, brushing it's fingers across the blade's opaque surface. One could wonder if it had been 
speaking to him or the blade, itself. 
He understood his position now. Joining the shapeshifter in this jovial moment of victory, allowing his laughter to 
peter out from the base of his stomach, growing as it gained volume in his diaphragm, and letting it finally roar from 
his throat. Tyr could hear their voices echo throughout the caverns, stretching across the basin of what laid beneath 
the planets soil as he felt the shapeshifter probe his mind again and fall into silence with a tense swallow. 
Inhaling the scent of terror, Tyr disregarded it and let himself carry on as he swiftly ran his thumb across the blade's handle, 
measuring it's weight. "I must thank you." He poised. "Despite your machinations, you did allow me the clarity to decide my role
in this world." He then allowed the blade to swing at his side, the hilt practically burning a hole through his palm in satisfaction. 
"I am Tyr Anasazi. That is my role. It is in service to no one but myself and how I see fit." Now that he knew his enemy well, he would 
pull back no longer. The hunt was on. "For your efforts I will allow you to choose how you will die."


Grabbing it by the shoulder, he flipped it around, watching as it gave one last starved attempt to prevent it's demise. Once again, 
it took the form of his dear companion only it distorted the boy's features into a vision of fear and regret, cautiously trying to 
widen their ever shrinking proximity. "H-how're you going to find your way back without me?" 
He shrugged with one shoulder, letting his head lull to it's full tilt. "One finds a way."









As much as he knew that betraying his companions would eventually come with it's punishment, Bem also understood 
that redemption was never as cut and dry as one would ever hope to imagine.
"I can't imagine how dull it must be to watch over a simple man of faith." He entertained to his only guest, a guard
posted in his quarters sent to monitor his every move. "I can assure you, I'm not as miserably dull as most would come to believe." 
Setting his teeth, he tried to keep his jaw from clenching in embarrassment. To put it bluntly, he was no purveyor of
small talk. Still, he preferred it to the silence so he continued. "In my youth I did terrible things. Unspeakable things...
And when they all came back to me, I came to realize the scale of my actions. I know now that I cannot undo the past, but, 
without my past, I could not have gained the footing I have in understanding the remorse in my mistakes and I wouldn't have the 
patience to hold in my hands the remorse of others for theirs as well." He then looked up at the vision of the person standing  
before him, his eyes coated in a blackened haze, "So I forgive you now my child, for what you are going to do."













When the illusion melted away, so did the unceasing silence around him. Now replaced with the distant echoes of water
pulsating deep and divine. Underwater. The cavern- the true cavern- had been a natural formation from under the ocean.
Curiously, the injuries Tyr had previously sustained had not returned with the ensuing wake back into reality which meant 
the shifter had most likely seen his and Captain Hunt's descent into the depths below and made do with it's concocted plan. 
Fearfully, he wondered, that if this was his fate, what might've befallen his now-abandoned liege?

Deciding against one's senses, he stared at the body of the changeling in hopes that it, too, would revert 
to how it looked beyond this pithy last attempt to stop his blade and found that it had not. The sight, however, stirred at 
some disturbing part of Tyr's nature. It slithered from his mind deep into his ribs, making them it's home; commanding him to 
gaze upon it until the end of time.

Time.

Any recovery on his end was met by sheer resilience yet, eventually, he found himself separated from the sight, entirely. 
There was still a mission at hand. One that, if he didn't catch up with soon enough, would leave him stranded here to die 
alone. He knew now what his next step would be.