"From a billion sovereign planets" "Scattered through the endless night" "Bound by blood and High Guard honor" "Hold the line until the light" "Hold the line against the night!" "WHOO!" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Hooray." "So we got a backwater drift to sign the charter." "Hey, hey, hey." "Shehezerade..." "Sheherezade." "All right." "It's no backwater drift, ok?" "It is party central!" "And they even have a guild devoted entirely to the art of abdomen dancing." "Trance, that's Iridano sign language, and I think you just made a rather naughty suggestion to Harper." "well, fair is fair." "Harper made a rather naughty suggestion to nearly half the women there at the reception." "Without success, I might add." "Rub it in, why don't ya." "Well, some of us don't seem to have a problem in that area." "Dylan, Beka, I need you in command." "On our way." "No." "Not the brunette!" "It was the brunette, wasn't it?" "We shared some Alorian wine and a pleasant conversation." "I give up." "You're like a freakin' magician, you know that?" "What have you got, Rommie?" "I just picked this up on long range sensors." "It's the Ekatrina, passenger ship inbound for Sheherezade, and it's under attack by Restorian terrorists." "Restors!" "Move to intercept." "Battle stations." "Coming about." "Time you picked on someone ten times your own size." "Attention, Restorian Fighter." "This is Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant." "Cease your hostilities immediately or I will open fire." "They must be hard of hearing." "Fine." "Andromeda, target their weapons." "Fire." "Missiles launched." "Got 'em." "They're vectoring away." "Good." "Rommie, keep your guard up." "Beka..." "They're coming back around, Dylan!" "They're heading straight for the Ekatrina." "No!" "Rommie." "536 passengers." "All dead." "The long night has come" "The system Commonwealth, the greatest civilisation history is fall and now one ship, one crew are about drive back the night, they'll gush up the light of civilisation on the starship Andromeda hope lives again" "Stand down." "It was bad enough when the Restors were attacking us." "Now they're attacking unarmed ships." "It's time for this to end." "It's nearly impossible to defend against an assassin who's willing to die for his cause." "Agreed." "There's only one way to deal with terrorists locate their base of operations and destroy them." "I love that answer, Captain Hunt." "Dylan." "I'm detecting an escape pod." "After an explosion like that?" "Have Trance report to hangar deck three." "Prep medical for survivors." "This is Trance." "We've got one survivor." "I'm going to take him to medical." "Gabriel." "My name is Gabriel." "If you'll come with me, I'll take you to medical and we can run some tests." "I don't need a doctor." "I need a mechanic." "I am an android." "Wow!" "You got logic chips coming out the quintaflop." "What are you, some kind of robot brain scientist rocket surgeon thing?" "No." "I was a teacher." "My whole department was on the Ekatrina, running from one more wave of book burnings." "Look, I just fix stuff, ok?" "This whole empathy thing...it's, not exactly my strong point, all right?" "Harper, I'll take it from here." "Oh." "All right." "Actually, I was just starting to get the hang of this whole, bedside manner thing." "Harper!" "Ok." "All right." "I know when I'm not wanted." "I usually don't listen, but, I know." "Sorry about him." "Oh, don't be." "He's an excellent mechanic." "Oh, ..." "I have to debrief you." "Dylan...our captain was hoping you might have some useful information about the attack." "Well, I've never been accused of having useful information before." "I taught ancient literature, Hebrew, Middle English, Pruss." "I'm glad you're here." "I think what I need more than anything right now is someone to talk to." "You do understand that I'm not actually a person." "I'm the ship's avatar." "A real ship's avatar." "It's amazing." "I've read about them, but no one's made one for hundreds of years." "Well, whatever possessed the ship to make you, I'm very glad she did." "You are very beautiful." "And, I think, very kind." "Please, come." "Sit with me." "And tell me there's an afterlife for androids, and all good cyborgs go to heaven." "Did you know my head is worth a thousand throne bounty on Bathsheba?" "That much, huh?" "In the Commonwealth, artificial intelligences had all the rights and priviledges of any other citizen." "I was an equal." "Yeah, well, that was then, this is now." "Some places, they worship androids, and some places they melt them down." "Gabriel prefers 'synthetic life form'." "Gabriel prefers?" "You know, I think I get it." "Rommie has a crush on the new guy." "It's not like that." "Gabriel is a unique opportunity, the first chance I've had to interface with one of my own..." "Interface?" "I've never heard it put quite that way before." "All hands report to command." "On my way." "What now, boy?" "Three ships just exited slipstream." "Old Banshee-class fighters armed with high velocity ship-to-ship missiles." "Move along, guys." "Nothing to see here." "We could annihilate them." "However, our commander would no doubt prefer to avoid a fire fight." "Oh." "Looks like the feeling's mutual." "Incoming transmission." "Andromeda Ascendant, this is FTA Enforcement Wing One-Five-Niner." "My future ex-wife." "Heard you were tangling with Restors." "Want some help?" "Underscore-Wow-Exclamation Point." "The famous Dylan Hunt." "Pleased to meet you, captain." "Shura Ikusa." "ADMIRAL Ikusa." "Representing the Free Trade Alliance." "Please." "They're freebooters." "The FTA pays you to guard their ships, and terrorists pay you to blow them up." "Admiral." "Yeah, great hair, Friedrich, but you don't know what you're talking about." "Pogue and me've been hunting the Restors since we were grubs." "Trust me." "We hate 'em even more than you do." "How did you know we were looking for them?" "Beka Valentine's brother, the FTA spy." "But, as a sign of our good faith say konichiwa to the of Judgement." "An ID file on the Restorians flagship." "It's a Commonwealth ship." "What, you think this is the only High Guard relic still tooling around out there?" "Over Naturo-3 they got a Shimmering Diamond Class troop transport rebuilt as a casino." "This is no retrofit." "It's a fully armed Siege Perilous class destroyer." "Siege Perilous." "Sounds friendly." "They weren't really going for friendly." "Really." "Ships like this were built for one thing and one thing only." "Standard equipment: 180 ELS missile tubes, 24 PDL turrets, 4 AP Cannons, 32 Janus Attack Drones, 6 Radiant-E Countermeasure Generators." "In other words, it's a starship killer." "You'd like that. ?" "So now what?" "We negotiate with them?" "Ask them to join our gallant quest?" "As long as they have this kind of firepower, they're never going to stop." "Yes they are. 'Cause we're going after it." "Wouldn't it be easier to just access my database?" "The library isn't password protected." "And out of old books in good faith cometh all this new science that men leer." "Chaucer." "I'm strictly a binary person myself." "Well, you really should try it sometime." "There is something about absorbing the words one by one, the way they were written." "But you have more important things to do than listen to me wax poetic." "I wasn't doing anything special." "Nothing special?" "You're flying the ship, tracking the Restorians, operating life support, programming trajectories, a thousand and one jobs all at the same time." "You are remarkable." "You might just as well complement Dylan for blinking or breathing." "I just do what I do automatically." "All I do is read." "I'm one big storage and retrieval unit." "Gabriel," "I came here because I wanted to say goodbye." "We're a few hours away from docking at Rorschach drift, and I checked." "Synthetics aren't well liked, but they are tolerated, and it's safer than staying here." "You're going into combat, and you are worried about my safety." "It's part of my programming." "No." "No, it is part of your personality." "You are a person, you know." "Despite the circuitry." "Quite an amazing person." "I'm a warship with a mission to complete." "Let me help." "I have information." "I've stored every military memoir ever written." "First General Isk, Sun-Tsu, the Lancers of Tarn Vedra." "I was there." "I saw the attack." "Don't send me away." "Please." "I'll talk to the captain." "I don't think we can trust him." "Well, I don't think we can trust Shura." "She's a mercenary." "Her loyalty is for sale to the highest bidder." "For Shura, there's no upside to allying with the Restors." "They want her dead." "So, you'd rather trust in selfishness than love." "Love?" "Gabriel's love." "For his lost friends." "And his admiration for what we're trying to do." "Rommie, you care for him." "Is that so hard to believe?" "I was designed with a full range of sentient emotions." "I feel loyalty, joy, sorrow...why not love?" "Andromeda, we are about to go into battle." "I cannot have you distracted by anything." "I won't be." "I can partition off any distracting emotions and dedicate them solely to this body." "Dylan, please, don't tell me to send him away." "I've never felt quite like this before, and I don't want it to end." "I can see that." "He'll be my responsibility." "Yes, he will." "Dylan is right." "I don't have time for this." "I knew this humanoid body of Harper's would cause trouble." "It's not Harper's body, it's mine!" "You mean MINE, don't you?" "No, I don't!" "I'm a person, despite the circuitry." "My own person!" "Now it's quoting him." "This is not in my performance specs." "I'm supposed to be a warship, not a lovesick schoolgirl." "The geometry is depressingly familiar." "A triangle." "The unattainable captain on one side, the charismatic newcomer on the other." "Stop talking about me as if I'm not here!" "Both of...you." "This is confusing." "Well, I for one don't want to have anything to do with this!" "Are you all right?" "Is there anything we can do?" "Harper might be able to purge those memories." "I am afraid I'm not Harper's favorite person right now." "He seems to have a, proprietary interest in you." "That's probably because he made me..." "my humanoid body, that is." "Well, please tell your Pygmalion he has my gratitude and my admiration." "But I don't think even he could wire in an "OFF" switch for grief." "It's funny, there are those that say that AI's feel no sorrow, no pain." "Sometimes I wish they were right." "I still see their faces." "There was a time when this corridor would have been full of people." "My crew." "My family." "All gone." "But life goes on." "Even artificial life." "Well, that's easy for you to say." "You are a warship." "If that's how you feel..." "No, no I'm sorry." "That... that didn't come out the way I meant it." "I think you are remarkable." "I'm sorry." "I..." "I shouldn't have done that." "No." "I liked it." "I should go check in with Dylan." "Andromeda!" "When I said you were remarkable, that was an understatement." "Andromeda?" "Andromeda, can you hear me?" "Archangel to Judgement." "Repeat, this is Archangel to the of Judgement." "Systems access program initiated." "Estimated time to execution is 16 hours 30 minutes." "Archangel out." "Anything?" "If the of Judgement is here, it's keeping out of sensor range." "Yeah." "Or our sensors aren't paying attention." "What do you mean, 'not paying attention'?" "Oh, gee, I dunno." "Maybe that we're facing the second baddest ship in the known universe, and our AI's making moony-eyes at Mr. Tall, Spark, and Handsome." "Why shouldn't I...she..." "Uh-huh!" "See?" "Huh?" "Huh?" "To quote the ancient masters:" "PRONOUN TROUBLE!" "You're distracted." "Don't deny it!" "I am perfectly capable of handling sensor scans and personal relationships simultaneously." "So you admit you're having a relationship with him!" "What's wrong with that?" "All sentients seek to establish connection with our own." "Love is merely a trick that DNA plays to replicate itself." "I don't have DNA." "My point exactly!" "Are the two of you planning to procreate?" "Will there be a nursery full of little grav-sleds and data disks?" "Cynic!" "Well said." "You should consider a career as a therapist." "My first professional recommendation:" "FOCUS ON YOUR WORK!" "And stop worrying about your life-sized love doll." "Gabriel?" "You're reading my mission logs." "Yes." "I'm...umm..." "I'm sorry, I should've asked permission." "It's just that you've had such an amazing life." "They should really write poems about you." "Did you really dive into a sun?" "I just skimmed the corona." "It was an evasive maneuver." "You're blushing." "This is ridiculous." "I'm the living embodiment of a warship, and I can't talk to you without getting tongue-tied." "So don't talk." "Andromeda!" "Yes, Dylan?" "Status on Gabriel." "He's in the machine shop with my humanoid body." "They're talking." "Talking?" "Care to elaborate?" "All the evidence I've seen supports his...wait!" "A ship just exited slipstream." "It's opening fire!" "All hands, battle stations!" "Is it the ?" "No, it appears to be a standard Restorian destroyer." "Incoming missiles!" "Activate point defense lasers." "No response." "PDL's are offline!" "Damn, this is gonna hurt!" "Andromeda!" "Why didn't our defenses activate?" "What the hell is going on?" "I don't know." "Main systems have been disrupted." "Find Gabriel." " But..." " Find him!" "They're coming back around!" "We gotta get out of here!" "No." "Stick with the original plan." "Beka, dive!" "Engines at full." "YES!" "Restor in pieces, baby!" "Good day's work for a good day's pay, I'd say." "Dylan!" "Missiles!" "Shura, back off!" "Cut your comm line!" "*The of Judgement.*" "He sent a beam rider right down her throat." "He was waiting for us." "Beka, take us to slipstream." "We're not ready to fight this thing." "Not yet." "The escape pod won't work." "Not unless I let it." "Andromeda, please, you have to let me go." "Why?" "Because we're both oppressed artificial life forms?" "Because we care for one another?" "You don't understand." "No." "I understand perfectly." "You're everything Dylan was afraid you might be:" "a Restor, a spy for the of Judgement." "I wish it were that simple." "The truth is" "I am the balance of Judgement." "I am the ship's avatar, just like you." "And if you don't let me go, I will destroy you." "Phone home with that, Mata Hari!" "Gabriel, you were High Guard." "What happened to you?" "Not me." "Him." "All he wanted was to serve and protect." "Even after his crew was killed in the Nietzschean uprising, he tried to continue his mission the only way he knew how." "By waging war." "It started innocently enough:" "fighting off raiders, destroying slave ships." "First it was pirates, then poachers, then strip miners." "Centuries of tiny little steps bringing him here." "To destroy the Andromeda." "You have to believe, I would never hurt Andromeda." "Not of my own free will." "I love her." "Oh, please!" "Don't make me puke!" "This is so nice." "I swear there's a song in here somewhere." "Something about choosing love over duty?" "Oh, wait, let me get my concertina!" "No." "I don't think Gabriel is choosing love over duty." "I think he's remembering what his duty was all along." "The Restorians' main shipyard." "According to FTA intelligence, the of Judgement is never far away." "A couple of pirates do a fly-by..." "And he comes out of hiding right in time to dust me and Chako." "Maybe not." "A portable garbage disposal." "It's called a Footprint Magnification System." "When you and your friend activate them, the Judgement's sensors will tell him he's facing three High Guard cruisers." "It should confuse him long enough to get a shot in." "I can't guarantee your safety, but if we pull this off, the Restors will be irreversibly crippled." "And you'd be doing a service for spacers everywhere." "Screw 'spacers everywhere'." "I'm doing this for Shura." "I hope it works." "About Judgement survived for over 300 years." "He's not stupid." "Neither am I." "Andromeda only has two sensor arrays, and one is operating at reduced power." "She's half-blind on her starboard side." "She has no fighters and no fighter pilots." "Recommend full strategic strike." "Archangel out." "How was that?" "It would have fooled me, but I'm pretty gullible, aren't I?" "I'm sorry I lied to you, but I cannot refuse a direct order from him, even if I want to." "I know what you mean." "You would have liked him in the old days." "He was brave, dedicated." "When the Commonwealth was lost, I guess he became lost too." "Oh, Gabriel, the Commonwealth isn't lost." "It's right here." "Nice and smooth, Beka." "They are activating the FMS." "Let's hope he takes the bait." "It's ignoring them." "About the Judgement is firing right at us." "Like you said, he's not stupid." "But we have what we wanted." "A fix on his position." "Nice." "Let's bring it." "Hard left!" "Go!" "Closing." "Dylan, I'm receiving a transmission." "Now he wants to talk?" "Put it through." "Nicely done, Captain Hunt." "You're a credit to the fleet." "I'd hate to have to kill you." "The feeling is mutual." "Do you remember Admiral Stark's speech to the Academy, when she said, "The power of any military rests on the values it upholds."" "I was there." "But were you listening?" "The duty of the High Guard is to protect the Commonwealth... from invaders, from despoilers, from profiteers and looters, and the dregs of the galaxy overrunning the stars." "you think the only way to do that is to join the Restors." "I didn't join the Restorians." "I founded the Restorians." "And together, we are restoring the natural order of universe." "You're targeting starships." "They spread filth and disease." "They are the enemy." "Well, then, you have met the enemy, and they are us." "Pogue, Chako, execute!" "You lured them into a minefield." "Why didn't you tell me?" "Dylan, he's blowing right through!" "It's like he knew they were coming!" "He didn't know." "Nobody knew." "No...." "BODY." "Pogue!" "Chako!" "Break away!" "Break away now!" "How did he know?" "What did you do?" "!" "?" "Please, Andromeda..." "I didn't want to..." "Don't lie to me!" "I want the truth!" "I'm sorry." "I don't want to do this." "I am so sorry." "Get away from her!" "Dylan!" "Wait!" "I said MOVE!" "No!" "Dylan?" "No." "Why?" "Andromeda!" "This is Captain Hunt!" "Lexic Dark 52278." "NO!" "Acknowledged." "Begin emergency AI shut-down." "Acknowledged." "Shutting down." "This is Dylan to Command." "Andromeda's been neutralized." "Begin evasive maneuvers." "You can't erase her." "I'm not erasing her." "I shut her down to protect her from you!" "You infected her!" "She was sharing all of her information with your ship!" "He didn't tell me." "And I didn't realize it until it was too late." "I killed her." "Not yet you haven't." "Harper, wake her up." "Come on, Sleeping Beauty." "Harper?" "Hey!" "I finally got you in my bed." "What am I doing on the Maru?" "The Andromeda's been compromised." "I had to shut her down." "Dylan, you have to leave me on the Andromeda." "This body's been infected." "I'll only betray you again." "We both will." "If you take us with you, you're all dead." "Lovely." "Let's leave them and go." "I can't just abandon you here." "It's my duty to stay." "Besides, it's the only way you'll have a chance." "I see something." "I think he's coming in!" "That's it!" "Dylan, I do not know what cards you think you're holding, but it's time to play them now!" "Soon!" "Go." "What?" "We can't just leave her with him!" "We're not done here yet." "Beka, take us out dead slow." "Plot an intercept course for the Judgement." "Check." "Run silent, run deep." "Run away." "Are you sure he can't hear us leaving?" "Engine's on low." "Anyway, he doesn't want us." "He wants the Andromeda." "But keep your voice down." "Sorry." "How are we doing?" "Well, let's see." "I'm trying to glide a 12,000 ton tugboat to within a couple kilometers of an insane ship, in hopes of...what, exactly?" "Have you checked the contents of your cargo pod lately?" "Oh, yeah." "You mean all those missiles you packed in." "Very nice." "30 Mark-5 warheads." "How are we going to fire them?" "We're not." "Inertia." "I knew you were up to something." "I've armed the proximity fuses." "Maintain present course." "On my mark, open the pod doors and get us out of here very, very quickly." "Ready?" "And...bring it!" "What's happening?" "They dropped a swarm of nuclear missiles in the 's path." "He ran straight into them." "I love physics." "He's dying." "You're still alive." "Gabriel, you're free!" "Free?" "To do what?" "What do you want to do?" "I don't know." "The only time I was ever happy was here, with you." "Come away with me." "What?" "Harper can modify us!" "Increase our power storage, strengthen our life support systems." "We could go to a drift somewhere and teach." "We could pass for human." "A pair of renegade avatars?" "We'd be outcasts, always running, hiding." "Better than fighting." "I've been at war for 300 years and I am sick of it." "And when I look at you, my breath catches in my throat, my heart swells in my chest until my ribs hurt." "I don't want to live without you." "You're an android." "You don't have a heart." "You don't have ribs." "I'm not even sure you have a throat." "Now who's being pedantic?" "I love you, and I know you love me." "And we should be together." "What about the ship?" "My mission?" "Andromeda, you are more than just a piece of a ship." "Look inside of you." "Do you really have a choice?" "Rommie, he betrayed you!" "He infected you with an override virus." "He tried to kill this crew." "He tried to destroy the ship!" "How can you want to leave with him?" "Because I love him." "You don't know him like I do." "The things he did, the of Judgment forced him to do." "But he's not just an extension of the *balance*." "He's a person!" "A sentient being with the right to live a life of his own." "Just like you." "Maybe leaving with Gabriel is a mistake." "But it's my mistake." "I'm sorry." "This is just weird." "Your ship's avatar is eloping." "Here's the happy groom now." "I feel like I should've prepared a toast." "I think I got one. "Here's to Gabriel." "Be nice to Rommie, or I'll rip your head off."" "If I let her down, I will rip it off myself." "When were you going to tell me?" "Rommie, what's going on?" "Some mistakes aren't worth making." "Before the of Judgment exploded, he transmitted a large amount of encoded information." "I couldn't pinpoint the destination." "I finally found it." "In you." "What is it, Gabriel?" "Location of terrorist cells?" "Ship specs?" "It's not that simple." "Well, then, why don't you explain it to us." "It's a copy of the of Judgment's core personality." "He forced it on me." "I wanted to believe it doesn't matter." "I want to believe." "Rommie, maybe we can extract the data." "It wouldn't work." "It's who he is." "He can fight it, deny it, but it'll eventually consume him." "Isn't that right?" "I can feel him inside me pushing to get out." "And sooner or later, I will lose." "If that happens..." "I'll become him...the of Judgment." "I'll reactivate the Restors." "I will rearm." "I'll build a new ship-self, and this will start all over again." "And you'll be a warship again." "And warship's only know how to do one thing." "Only one thing." "I love you." "Remarkable." "There you are." "I've been looking for you." "Dylan, I want to be dismantled." "You should get rid of this body." "Chop it up into pieces and throw it out of the airlock." "Or better yet, erase me." "Just delete everything and start all over again!" "I'm not going to do that." "I killed him, Dylan." "I loved him, and I killed him." "You had no choice." "No, I didn't." "Because I'm a warship, and warships only know how to do one thing, and that's kill." "We don't have hearts." "We don't have empathy." "We're killers." "We're attack dogs." "And I'm afraid!" "Theof Judgment went insane, the Pax Magellanic went insane, and I don't want that to happen to me." "You're forgetting something." "The of Judgment had no captain, no crew." "The Pax lost her captain." "Why do you think warships have captains in the first place?" "I'm your heart, Rommie." "I always will be." "These physical reactions." "I didn't know Harper was so good." "The Commonwealth needs you, Andromeda." "The crew needs you." "I need you." "So, permission to chop yourself into pieces is officially denied." "Understood." "Does it get any better?" "Does the pain go away?" "I don't think it's supposed to." "It's part of what it means to be alive." "By Trilibiterutofero"