"The soul is larger than the sky Deeper than the ocean, Or the abysmal dark Of the unfathomed center." "Enoch Vere de Vere, "Lamentations Sous-terre" [C.Y. 9734]" "Who the hell are these guys?" "Nietzschean Pride markings." "Tyr?" "That's Mandau Pride." "They're parasites slavers." "I hate to break it to them, but I don't plan on spending the rest of my life in a uranium mine." "They're still behind us." "What the hell?" "Another one!" "Twelve o'clock!" "We're in need of assistance." "I'll contact Andromeda." "No!" "She's still dead in space." "We're losing engine power." "Tyr, Rev, assess the damage." "The starboard thrusters have gone critical!" "I'm shutting it down!" "No, no, no!" "Not the AP tanks!" "Beka, we're losing containment!" "Rev, vent the tank now!" "We've got no reserve fuel!" "It's either that, or turn into a fireworks display." "Do it!" "Venting!" "Thank the stars for momentum." "They're still on us." "If we keep this up, they're bound to find the Andromeda." "Slipstream?" "It's our only option." "You got it." "Beka!" "Life support is failing!" "We've got to land now!" "Now he tells me." "Bailing to the nearest system." "Objects in motion tend to stay in motion." "Where to?" "Detecting an ice-world in the third orbit." "Any sign of pursuit?" "That's a "Yes"." "Do we run, or do we land?" "We land." "Going in." "Venting O2 tanks for deceleration." "We're going too fast!" "Brace for impact." "He is the last guardian of a falling civilization," "A hero from another time, faced with the universe and chaos." "Dylan Hunt recrutes an unlikely crew and sets out to re-unite the galaxies." "On the starship Andromeda, hope lives again" "[b]EXIT STRATEGIES[/b]" "Well, at least this is the last of them." "Or so I hope." "I can't believe it's taken us three weeks to clean up all these bodies." "Harper, we could use a little help, here." "Help?" "You want a little help?" "Fine, I'll help." "I'll get 'em all." "You want some?" "You like that?" "Huh?" "How's that?" "Harper, stop it!" "Harper, I need you to concentrate on your work." "Oh, you just want me to sweep 'em under the rug and forget about it, is that it?" "Forget that I was swarmed by dozens of Magog and my guts infested with parasites?" "I think what she's trying to say is, you know, the medication we gave you has put the larva in a dormant state, so..." "Well, gee, great." "I hardly even have to think about 'em." "I'm just saying that you should try to move on." "Oh, like Rommie's supposed to just forget about being impaled, right?" "Is that it?" "Or like how you can just forget about your entire original crew being wiped out by Magog." "Or seeing your Perseid captain's guts ripped out." "You can just put it all behind you and move on and concentrate on your work." "Is that it?" "I can when I need to." "It's called compartmentalization." "Compartmentalization?" "More like schizophrenia." "Guess we'll be a little late getting back with those parts." "Snow." "Blood." "Yeah." "I'll be fine." "What about the others?" "I'll check." "Just hold still." "You're, uh, you're dripping on my ship." "Reverend Behemial!" "You dead?" "Tyr Anasazi of the Kodiak Pride." "Clearly I am not in heaven." "Hey!" "Are you two ok?" "Sonic boom." "The Nietzscheans?" "Oh, yeah." "They're still looking for us." "I always thought slavers were lazy." "Heh." "Beka, the emergency locator transponder is no longer functional." "And even if it did work, it would only help the Nietzscheans to find us." "Well, on the bright side, we are covered in highly reflective, heat-dampening snow." "It makes us harder to find." "On the not-so-bright side, we have no fuel, no heat, and minimal GFG." "All right, then let's mobilize." "Tyr, Rev, fix the engines." "Cannibalize parts if you have to." "Beka, you and I will take..." "Yeah." "My first job is to repair your forehead." "I'll be fine." "Yeah, ok, tough guy." "Hand me a laser torch." "Do Magog get concussions?" "Your health affects my health." "I need to know your condition." "Then I must confess." "I am a little light-headed." "I have been fasting a ritual purification for those I so viciously killed." "For the Magog that boarded the Andromeda?" "Yes." "And others on the world-ship." "How long since you've eaten?" "Since we left the world-ship." "Three weeks." "I had intended on breaking my fast when we returned to the Andromeda, but apparently it is the Divine's will that that is not to happen." "I don't suppose you could eat the emergency rations?" "No." "A Magog must kill its prey to begin the digestive process." "On the Andromeda, I keep a supply of live salmon in the hydroponics garden." "But we're not on board the Andromeda." "You honestly don't expect him to starve himself to death, do you?" "He's a Magog." "Tyr, this is Rev we're talking about." "Rev and I have been shipmates for seven years." "I trust him with my life." "You weren't on the Magog world-ship." "You didn't look into his eyes." "He was just like all the others feral." "Then our first order of business is to find food for him." "There are no live prey animals on this planet so far as we know." "Which means the only viable food source for him right now is us." "We should lock him up." "Rev Bem has more self-control than anyone I've ever met." "Then let him practice it in chains." "If Beka trusts him, I trust him." "Besides, we're gonna need all hands to get out of here." "What's the status on the engines?" "The engines will be fine." "What we need is fuel." "Look, where there's snow, there's water." "And where there's water, there might be settlements." "And where there's settlements, there's fuel." "I'll go outside and see if I can spot any heat signatures on the horizon." "I should go as well." "I'm the best suited for hostile environments." "Thanks, but no thanks." "Having a Nietzschean along may cause problems with any potential allies." "Captain Hunt!" "In the past few months, you've been placing yourself in a number of very risky situations." "It's not a healthy trend." "Thank you, Tyr." "I didn't know that you cared." "Maintain radio silence." "We don't want to give away our position." "You got it." "And what does the captain expect me to do in his absence?" "I expect the acting weapons officer to help Beka and Rev fix the ship." "And protect them if necessary." "From what?" "From whatever." "I thought you were helping Rev." "I thought you told me he could help himself." "He can." "And so can I." "You may dislike my concerns about your Rev Bem, but they're valid, nonetheless." "And if you've misplaced your trust, your life is forfeit as well as mine." "You wanna talk about misplaced trust?" "Who were those Nietzscheans?" "I've told you." "Slavers." "Slavers are nine-to-five bad guys." "When the going gets tough, they find easier marks." "They wouldn't care enough to chase us through slipstream." "Then who are they?" "Why don't you tell me?" "When we first saw them, after Topeka Drift, they were flying past us going the other way." "Then they doubled back twice, like they recognized us... like they recognized the Maru." "So?" "So, what did you do that time you took off in my ship for three weeks?" "As I recall, when we found you, you were being hunted by the entire Drago-Kasov Empire." "Nietzscheans!" "Great!" "Another one." "Rev, did you hear that?" "Rev?" "I..." "I'm sorry my...my focus seems to be elsewhere" "Would you please excuse me?" "I seem to be in need of some private contemplation." "Dylan's been gone too long." "He's in trouble." "I don't doubt it." "What would you like me to do?" "He insisted on going out there alone." "Tyr, if it weren't for Dylan, you'd be back on the world-ship getting your guts eaten out by Magog larvae." "But you're right." "Why should you care?" "That's a good shot." "Hey." "How you doing?" "Hungry." "I hate planets." "The dirt, the unregulated temperatures, and the water, which I also hate...unless it comes in bottles." "Water turns into snow and ice, which I also hate..." "like I hate pretty much every kind of weather." "I hate weather." "Have I mentioned that?" "Rev, you're a monk." "Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the Divine had wanted us to suffer through weather, he never would've given us space travel." "Am I right?" "So, now you believe in the Divine?" "Let's just say that sitting on a crashed starship, freezing to death I'm open to the idea." "But even if I don't believe, I believe that you do, and that your belief is so strong that it can overcome your...other nature." "I guess what I'm trying to say, Rev, is that I trust you." "Then I shall fervently pray that I do not betray that trust." "This way!" "Follow the tree!" "They're low on ammunition." "Tyr Anasazi!" "We know you're out there." "Give up!" "Maybe we'll let you live." "Get him!" "Anything you want to tell me?" "No." "Not particularly." "We'll save that conversation for later." "I thought you were supposed to be working in the engine room." "I know." "I know." "All right, fine." "It was kind of you and Trance to exempt me from clean-up." "Thank you very much." "You can go now." "Harper, I need you in there." "I think there might be a leak in one of the AP transfer lines." "I've shut them all down, but there's too much rad interference for me to find the leak." "Oh, a ruptured transfer line." "Yes, Harper." "I need you to find the leak before the mag bottles start to overload." "Look!" "I can't go in there, all right?" "I..." "I can't deal with being in the engine room, or anywhere else where I was attacked." "It stinks like Magog and I'm feeling a little Magog-ophobic, ok?" "Don't look at me like that, Rommie!" "I can't!" "I wanna help." "I wanna fix the ship." "I just I can't." "We lost them about a kilometer away." "If they don't follow your tree markings back here." "Well, I ran out of bread crumbs." "Overshot by over a hundred meters." "At least they're bad shots." "It may not matter." "Sinkholes." "The bedrock in this area's unstable, and if they keep shelling us, it could..." "Beka." "Oh." "I didn't think you went in for hugs." "Oh, I, uh, I love hugs." "It's the kissing that freaks me out." "I realize we are all fallen angels, but twice in one day?" "Tyr, status." "This entire area is riddled with tunnels." "Must be an old mining planet." "How far down are we?" "Seventy-three meters below the surface." "It's ok, baby." "You'll be all right." "Let's spread out and inspect the damage." "Considerable damage in the aft section." "Right." "Come on." "We're not dead yet." "I have a suggestion." "Assuming the Nietzscheans are still looking for us..." "You mean looking for YOU." "Like I said, a conversation for later." "What's your plan?" "We lure them to the Maru." "We blow it up." "They're dead." "We commandeer their ships to get home." "Beka?" "No one's blowing up my ship." "Tyr?" "It is precisely because this ship is perceived as our only means of escape that it makes the perfect trap." "No!" "I don't care if the Maru is buried beneath a thousand kilometers of rubble, or roasting in the heart of a sun, or up on blocks in the Imperial Museum of Tarn Vedra." "No one's blowing up my ship." "How would you propose to get us home?" "This *is* my home." "It was my home before I met you, it's my home now, and when the Andromeda has been blown to hell by the Magog, and each and every one of you is dead it'll still be my home." "Sorry, that was a bit much." "No, no." "That's, uh, that's ok." "I'd be upset if someone suggested blowing up the Andromeda." "Maybe there's an alternative." "I mean, we're inside a system of mining tunnels, so let's see what's out there." "What'd they use to mine in here, anyway?" "Well, whatever it is, we're stepping in it." "This is squorm refuse." "Squorms..." "Everyone back to the Maru." "Now." "Squorms are genetically engineered macro-fauna that tunnel through ore-laden earth the perfect biological miner." "They process the ore internally..." "They process the ore internally and excrete it as refined metal." "Not to mention that they're huge and extremely bad-tempered." "How huge?" "I once Please, excuse me." "I got him." "How huge?" "You saw the diameter of the tunnels?" "Mmm-hmmm." "That huge." "And they only eat ore?" "As long as there's plenty of it." "If not, and they bump into, say, the, uh..." "The Maru." "Yeah." "Then we become food for the squorms." "Yeah." "Rev!" "Rev, what are you doing?" "!" "You can't digest this!" "Beka, without food, a Magog's body my body will ravage itself." "I will begin to digest my own intestines, muscle, bone, nerve ending." "Well..." "I fear the process has already begun." "Then, uh, we'll just have to get you something to eat." "How does Nietzschean au jus sound?" "Beka, do not even joke!" "I will not kill!" "Not even my enemies." "Not even to survive." "You did it before, on the world-ship." "Yes." "Much to my never-ending shame." "If I was truly of the Divine," "I would have let them kill me, and yes, even you, before I took a life." "I was weak." "I chased my prey." "I smelled their blood and I relished it." "And I recognized something..." "it completed my creation." "Beka, I liked it." "How's it goin', fellas?" "Comfy?" "Getting enough beer, hmm?" "What about you, turd-brain?" "What's that?" "Oh, no?" "Well, here." "How about some more?" "You're not satisfied, are ya?" "That's not what you're looking for." "I give you freakin' thieving' little parasites a home, food, conversation... and what do you give me in return?" "Grief." "Oh, damn!" "You drank all my Neuverin Weisbrau." "Now what have I got to live for?" "A big fat nothin'." "All right." "Stinky, Turd-brain, up against the stomach wall." "Harper!" "What are you doing?" " Wha..." "Rommie, go away." "Rommie, go away." " Harper, put the gun down." " Go away!" " What are you thinking?" "!" "?" "I'm thinking I got a situation here, and I gotta fix it!" "Trance has worked medical miracles before..." "Oh, give me a freakin' break!" "There's no cure for this, and you know it." "I got an irrevocable appointment with a painful, horrible, violent death, and no one can fix me, Rommie." "No one can fix me." "He's so weak already." "We have to do something before he starves himself to death." "Yeah, but we still need fuel." "It sure would be nice to find some friendly locals." "The only people on this rock are Nietzscheans." "Hey, maybe we could feed them to Rev." "Uh already suggested that." "Huh." "Tyr, any ideas that might change their minds about killing us?" "Killing them first?" "All right." "We split up." "Scout the tunnels." "The first one to find a way to the surface calls the others." "What about Rev?" "He'll stay and preserve his energy and pray hopefully for all of us." "Beka." "Coming." "Well, I'll be damned." "A magnetic accelerator." "They must've used this to launch the refined metal into orbit." "Is it functional?" "Well, all it needs is power." "These squorm tunnels lead right to it." "Tyr, come in." "Tyr?" "There's probably too much rock between us and him." "Too bad." "He might've been forced to smile." "Ok." "So, we hook this thing up to the Maru's auxiliary power unit, use our GFG to lower our mass to nothing, and, uh...crap." "How do we get the Maru up here?" "Extend the coil this way." "Float it up the tunnel to the mouth of the accelerator." "Power it up and shoot the Maru straight into space." "Just like a bullet out of a gauss gun." "Yep." "One problem." "What do we use to extend the coil?" "When you have lemons, you make lemonade." "When you've got metallic squorm dung, you make you make metal wire." "Yes." "Nice." "Tyr." "Tyr, are you reading me?" "Tyr?" "Squorms." "They're homing in on the magnetic field of our weapons." "Turn them off." "It's not the guns." "The Maru!" "Squorms, from every direction, closing in." "Weapons locker." "It's empty." "Figures." "There." "I've discharged the Maru's magnetic field." "That should hold off the squorms for a while." "Rev?" "The guns?" "Tyr took them while I was in the engine room meditating." "And you didn't stop him?" "Well, I..." "I'm sorry." "I assumed it was all part of your plan." "Yeah, it's all part of a plan, all right." "It's just not ours." "Kiama?" "Hafiz!" "Can you hear me?" "I know some of you are out of ammunition." "You'll need these." "Kiama, I know you're out there." "I can hear you breathing." "You think you can buy us off with trinkets?" "You used your last credit on Enga's Redoubt." "I wanted to come back for you." "I was shot down by Dragons." "You know, that's funny." "Because the last time that we saw you, you weren't exactly making an heroic attempt to rescue us." "In fact, if I remember correctly, you were dashing off in the Maru while we got shelled by an entire Dragon security division." "I couldn't risk them recapturing our prize." "Drop the mask, Anasazi." "You never planned on ransoming back the bones at all." "You were always gonna keep 'em for yourself!" "If I did!" "?" "Whoever possesses the mummified remains of Drago Museveni controls the fate of the entire Nietzschean people." "And right now right now, that's Tyr Anasazi, the Kodiak!" "It's ME!" "You can cooperate with me and stand by my side, or you can fight me and they'll be lost to you forever." "Make a decision." "Well, we're almost there." "I'm sure it'd be easier with another helping hand." "Yeah." "Unfortunately, one of them is slowly starving to death, and the other one's out betraying us." "We don't know that." "Well, somehow, I don't think Tyr took all of our guns for Nietzschean show-and-tell." "With Tyr, you never know." "Still, he's been gone a long time." "I'm gonna go find him." "And if he's betraying us?" "Then I'll be the first to know." "Those are two fully charged gauss guns." "Consider that compensation." "Where's Hafiz?" "Covering us." "Oh, please." "I've demonstrated my good faith." "It's your turn." "Hafiz, show yourself!" "No, Hafiz is quite comfortable where he is." "That's the key to happiness, isn't it?" "Knowing what you want, sticking with it?" "I'm offering you a chance to shape the fate of the Nietzschean people." "We don't care about the Nietzschean people." "We just wanted the ransom." "Kiama, Kiama, Kiama, Kiama." "Would you like to know the real reason I left you behind on Enga's Redoubt?" "Yeah." "Because you're just so uncompromisingly INFERIOR!" "Reactor overload." "Power Reactor One going critical." "Unable to vent due to damage in the AP line." "Harper, if you don't get in there and fix that line, we'll blow up!" "Do you hear me?" "You're going to die!" "Good. 'Cause in case you didn't notice when I had that gun shoved into my gut," "I WANT to die." "I don't wanna live another day with these freakin' monsters inside of me." "Harper, look." "I know how you feel." "Hah!" "What have you been drinking?" "You don't know how I feel." "What about inside of me?" "The only reason we encountered the Magog world-ship in the first place is because some backup copy inside of me a me I didn't even know existed came out!" "Came out and started shooting, tried to kill us ALL of us." "What else is there inside of me?" "What other demons do I have to worry about?" "Reactor critical in seventy seconds." "That's why you can't die, Harper." "Because I need you." "And if you're gone, who's going to fix me?" " Sixteen seconds." "Fifteen." " Come on!" "Fourteen." "Thirteen." "Twelve." "Eleven." "Ten." "Nine." "Eight." "Seven." "Gotcha." "Hah!" "Ahhhh..." "You did it." "You fixed me." "Yeah?" "Well, tell ya what." "From now on, let's fix each other." "Rev." "Rev?" "Beka, please." "Shoot me." "You know, I'm not exactly an expert on spirituality, but I do know that just letting yourself die is a sin... a sin against nature, against the Divine, and most of all, against us." "Rev, we're your friends, and we need you." "You can't just give up." "Beka, please." "Rev, you remember, uh, back on Tesla Drift, after they repo'd the Maru and Bobby had left me for the last time?" "I felt like my world was crashing in on me." "I just wanted to check out." "I remember." "You asked me one question :" "How dare I presume to know what the Divine had in store for me?" "You said that somehow all my anxiety, and all my pain, and all my despair had a purpose, even if I couldn't see it." "So now, Rev, what about you?" "Beka, I was not created by your Divine." "I was created by the Spirit of the Abyss as an instrument of fear and destruction." "That is my purpose." "How could my death not be moral?" "You're a great man, Rev, but I still don't think you can know the Divine's plans for you, even if it didn't create you." "Beka, please, forgive me." "Rev." "Well, I'm good to go." "Hello." "How you doin'?" "Good to have you back." "You still owe me that conversation." " Let's go." " Yes." "Let's go." "Well, it's about time." " Hi!" " Hi." " Found Tyr." " Good." " We can leave now." " Moving us to the launcher." "Magnetic coils?" "Those things'll attract ever squorm on the planet." "We'll be long gone by then." "Let's bring it." "We're blocked." "Slow down." "With GFG on, we don't have enough mass to ram them." "Too late." "No breaks." "No problem." "Kiama!" "And here comes its mother." "Bon appetit." "We're at the launcher." "Hit it!" "We're escaping the atmosphere." "Let's hope we've got enough momentum to slingshot the sun and scrape up some fuel." "Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, don't they?" "And they want to blow you up." "Bring us home, Beka." "Hey, Rev. How you doing?" "I heard things got, uh, a little rough down there." "Yes." "They did." "But things seem to be better now." "And you?" "Oh, phfft..." "I" "I'm just peachy." "It was a cake-walk up here." "I'll keep you in my prayers." "Thanks." "I really mean that." "You wanted to see me?" "The travelers-aid database we downloaded on Glitterdust." "I found this." "It's a nice photo." "And, hey, they want you alive." "Ten million Dragon Eagles." "I'm flattered." "I'm tempted." "I could do a lot with that much money." "I'm sure." "Still, somehow I doubt you're truly prepared to turn me over to the Drago-Kasov Pride." "Give me one reason why not." "Your extracurricular activities have put my ship, my crew, and my mission in jeopardy." "You are becoming a liability, Tyr." "A liability." "Am I so?" "Well, I also happen to be the best" "I, I am the ONLY soldier you have." "I personally delivered Enkindu and Schopenhauer into your alliance." "I have saved your ship, your crew (such as it is), and your mission on many an occasion." "And while I may have earned the wrath of the Drago-Kasov Pride, they wanted to kill you long before they ever heard of me." "Oh, then I guess that makes it all right." "If you would like me to leave, sir you have but to ask." "One question, Tyr." "One simple question :" "Why are you on my ship?" "To be perfectly honest?" "At first...at the very first" "I thought there might be a way to take it from you." "And it made an ideal platform while I planned my extracurricular activities." "But then, well, something happened." "Enlighten me." "Then came a ship the size of a sun, filled with five trillion septic, hungry Magog, coming our way" "MY way." "Something like that will make a man rethink his priorities." "Yes." "Especially an ambitious man with ulterior motives who wants to live long enough to see them through." "Whether I like it or not, I need you sir." "And I shall be so bold as to say you need me, as well." "So." "Shall we have a game?" "Your move." "synchro : jrzac acknowledgment:" "SUBEDIT / YOJIMBO [BST]... / X-TEAM"