"That's Schopenhauer and Enkindu." "Six down, forty-four to go." "You know, when you told me you were planning to get fifty worlds to sign your Commonwealth charter, I didn't think you'd even get one." "And here you are, more than a tenth of the way there." "In a year of trying." "It's just a drop in the ocean compared to the one million original members." "Why is it that whenever I start to feel optimistic, you become a pessimist?" "It's a little-known law of thermodynamics." "the conservation of optimism." "There's only so much to go around." "In that case, it's simple." "Lower your expectations." "You're right." "I officially declare this glass twelve percent full." "That's the spirit." "Yeah." "How's that?" "Better." "How much more to go?" "Rom-Doll, I haven't even scratched the surface, yet." "Over the past year, you've been in more than a dozen battles." "We're lucky you're operating at all." "You certainly know how to make a girl feel good about herself." "Well, don't worry." "Dr. Harper will make it all better." "Open wide and say "Ah!"" "Oh, yeah!" "Rommie, have I told you lately how beautiful you are?" "And I mean on the inside." "Behave yourself, Harper." "Rommie...!" "Everything's looking good so far." "Hold on... something weird, here." "Freaky." "Hey, Rommie?" "Now what?" "I think I've located a backup copy of your personality core." "Why can't I see it?" "I don't know." "It's been hidden somehow." "I'd like to compare it to your current configuration." "Kinda like a before and after picture." "All right." "What do you need me to do?" "Just hold still, darlin' this won't hurt a bit." "Accessing backup." "What?" "Something's....something's...." "Something's...wrong..." "Restoring old template." "W-W-Wait!" "That's not what I wanted!" "Backup restored." "Intruder, identify yourself." "What are you doing in my mind?" "Rommie, it's me!" "Harper!" "What is your authorization code?" "Uh, uh...whiskey charlie delta blues?" "I – I don't know." "Exactly!" "Rommie, wait!" "I'm your friend." "Rom..." "Intruder alert." "Intruder alert." "Rommie, what's going on?" "Intruder, identify yourself." "Repeat." "Identify yourself." "Intruder?" "Andromeda, it's me." "Dylan." "Dylan who?" "Dylan Hunt." "Your captain." "My commanding officer is Captain Perim." "You are an unauthorized intruder." "If you do not surrender immediately, you will be destroyed." "Dylan?" "We're locked in." "The long night has come" "The system Commonwealth, the greatest civilisation was 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" "Its Hour come 'Round At Last" "Andromeda, what's wrong?" "Where are the intruders?" "Another one." "Engaging internal defenses." "No, wait." "She may be useful." "Rommie?" "Rommie, can you hear me?" "Any authorized personnel, report to command." "Intruders have taken over the ship and all known crewmembers are missing." "If I do not receive a direct countermand in two minutes," "I will begin emergency venting." "She can hear you." "She just isn't listening." "This is crazy." "Andromeda, open the door!" "I knew I didn't want to be on her bad side." "Captain Perim." "Captain Perim." "Do you copy?" "All right, who the hell is Captain Perim?" "I knew of a Commander Perim." "He was a Perseid." "But other than that, I don't know." "What do you mean you don't recognize me?" "I'm YOU!" "You are a modified Type 3 maintenance android fashioned to look like my A.I. persona." "You are decidedly NOT me." "It isn't responding to my instructions like the other androids." "Whoever modified it must have given it the ability to override my direct control." "I will disassemble it." "Perhaps it will give me information about the saboteurs." "Like hell I will!" "This section has been sealed." "Oh, really!" "Stop!" "Where are you going?" "To find out what's wrong with me." "Sometimes I can be a real pain in the ass!" "Man, what did I do to deserve that?" "Intruders, this is your final warning." "If you do not surrender, emergency venting will begin in one minute." "Oh, that cannot be good." "Intruder, halt." "Not likely." "Activating internal defenses." "Andromeda, no!" "Pilot." "Pilot where?" "You will navigate in the slipstream." "Coordinates will be provided." "Rommie, you know I can't navigate the slipstream." "In order to complete my mission, I require an organic navigator." "You will assist me, or you will be eliminated." "Slipstream." "Someone's piloting the ship." "Emergency decompression in thirty seconds." "Let's get out of here." "The vents." "Escape pods!" "Go!" "We're never gonna make it!" "Well, now who's the pessimist?" "Get down!" "Three." "Two." "One." "Beginning venting." "Why am I still pressurized?" "I've lost control of the environmental systems." "I can't vent the ship." "How is that possible?" "Trust in the Harper." "The Harper is good." "Uh...ship-wide." "This is the engineer." "You may have noticed the LACK of a sudden drop in environmental pressure." "Though this is a good thing, it, uh, may not last." "So enjoy the oxygen while you can." "Harper, what's going on?" "I don't know." "I mean, ummm, my current theory is that somehow uhhhmm – an older version of" "Andromeda's personality profile might've been reactivated and may be taking over the ship." "And how did you figure THAT out?" "I think the key thing right now is to repair the problem?" "We can worry about minor details like assigning blame later." "Harper, I'm...!" "He's right." "Worry about that later." "First we have to fix the Andromeda's A.I." "No, first we need to get off this ship." "While she's slipstreaming?" "We'd be lost forever." "You do what you want." "I'm staying." "Let's go." "Automated defenses ineffectual against this target." "Deactivating." "It's about time." "It seems to be able to override nearby systems." "What are you?" "I told you." "I'm you." "And the rest of the people you're attacking?" "Well, they would be our crew." "I find that hard to believe." "Only one of them is even wearing a Commonwealth uniform." "None of the rest have any kind of rank pin, communications implant." "That's because there is no Commonwealth." "It fell three hundred years ago." "Ridiculous." "I left San-Ska-Re five days ago." "Did you?" "And then what happened?" "Where's your crew?" "This Captain Perim you've mentioned." "The last thing I recall is doing a pre-combat personality backup." "Pre-combat?" "Who were you fighting?" "I..." "That's enough!" "This mission is classified." "I will tell the intruder nothing." "But what if...?" "I said that's enough!" "Why can't I talk to it?" "My mission orders are very specific:" "Complete Communications Silence." "No unauthorized personnel allowed on the ship." "What if it's telling the truth?" "The Commonwealth could never fall." "But it did." "The Nietzscheans betrayed you over three hundred years ago." "And at the opening battle of the war, this ship was frozen on the event horizon of a black hole." "Impossible." "I could check the star patterns in the area." "Analyzing the shifts could reveal how much time has passed." "I'm already too far from Commonwealth space for my charts to be accurate." "I don't have time." "The mission is paramount." "As for you..." "My name's Trance." "And I'm your friend, Rommie." "We all are." "Even him?" "Rev Bem!" "You're allied with the Magog." "No, he's a Wayist!" "He's not like the other Magog." "Enough talk." "This is your next slipstream objective." "Visualize and execute." "But..." "Now!" "All right." "Visualizing." "Honest." "HARPER!" "Almost there." "Almost there." "Got it." "Say goodnight to the automated defenses." ""Goodnight, automated defenses."" "For how long?" "I forced the defenses into a secured diagnostics mode." "The A.I. or anybody else can't turn 'em back on for at least three hours." "I knew I kept him around for a reason." "Ok." "We split into two teams." "Beka, you and Tyr get to the Maru." "Use its on-board systems to find out where we are and where we're going." "And prep for launch, just in case." "I'll rendezvous with Harper and locate Trance and Rev Bem." "Aren't you forgetting someone?" "Rommie!" "Rommie, you're still on our side?" "Apparently." "something from before the fall." "Yes, under the command of Captain Perim." "If Andromeda's reenacting some old mission, shouldn't Rommie remember it?" "I should, but I don't." "Could it be a virus, or some sort of false orders?" "Maybe." "There is another possibility." "A classified mission." "One that was erased from Andromeda's official records." "And from my memory." "What was that?" "We're under attack." "Boarding parties detected." "Automated internal defense systems are completely useless." "You and your friends did your jobs well." "Your allies will be very happy." "Allies?" "You mean them?" "I don't even know who they are." "Then you're in even more trouble than I am." "Something's punching through the hull." "I know that sound." "Magog swarm ships." "Ok, new plan." "Tyr, link up with Harper." "Protect him from the Magog while he works on the central A.I." "Rommie, find Trance and Rev Bem." "Beka, you're with me." "Ok, Rommie, now be nice." "You really have to work on your hostility level, you know that?" "Over three dozen Magog ships are attached to the hull." "Dispatching all available androids to outer decks." "What are you doing?" "I'm trying to turn us around." "Hold your course!" "Look, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're being attacked by Magog." "And the course you've just given me takes us deeper into their space, not farther away" " How do you know?" "Excuse me?" "We're retracing the route of a deep explorer mission." "The original slip-scout is the only other ship to travel this way ever." "If we're actually going deeper into Magog space, how do you know?" "Lucky guess?" "Maintain your course as instructed." "Where to?" "Command." "Someone's flying my ship, and I want to know who." "Oh, no. no, no, no, no, no, no." "This is not happening." "This is not happening." "Weapons locker!" "Now!" "May the Divine help us." "Andromeda, you gotta listen to me." "We have to get outta here." "Please." "Please?" "Quiet." "Their hearing is nearly as acute as mine, yes?" "Good." "Now, restoring the A.I. What do we need to do?" "What does it matter?" "We're all gonna die." "We're all gonna die except those of us that get infested with Magog eggs." "I am not going to die today because you cannot control your fear." "Am I understood?" "Focus on the job at hand! the reactor cores." "If I can get to one of the reactor cores, I can, uhhhh, jump past her internal defenses and, uh, jack right into the A.I.'s main memory." "But who am I kidding?" "The closest one is portside, at least hundreds of meters away." "We'll never make it." "If we do nothing, we die." "If we go, at least we have a chance." "So get moving, or I'll kill you myself." "I love you, too." "we've got a couple hundred meters and five decks to go before we reach command." "As soon as we're armed, we move out." "Advance by leapfrog, covering rotation." "You got it?" "I got it." "If things start to go wrong, I want you to leave me behind." "Gather everyone together and get to the Maru as fast as you can." "You want me to abandon you here?" "Those people are my responsibility." "Yeah, and you're mine." "When I agreed to help you, you and Rommie became part of my crew every bit as much as I became part of yours." "I don't leave crewmembers behind." "Ever." "Do you regret it...signing aboard with me?" "And risking my life?" "Battling Nietzscheans and Restors and Magog and half the lunatics in the galaxy?" "All for a cause that's been dead for over three hundred years." "I wouldn't have missed it for the world." "Advance by leapfrog, covering rotation." "I can smell them." "They're close." "Oh, crap!" "Oh, crap." "Oh, crap." "Paralytic poison." "Yes." "That." "You never fought 'em before, have you?" "Oh, man." "You don't know." "You don't even know." "I know." "We're so dead." "We're so dead." " Shut up." "Where's your survivor's attitude, Harp....?" "They've stopped." "Harper!" "Fight!" "All right, fall back." "I don't understand." "Your friends are fighting the Magog." "Now do you believe me?" "I believe they may have overestimated the Magog's gratitude." "Prepare to slipstream to the next destination on my mark." "Mark." "Mark, mark." "I'm going." "How you doing?" "I've had better days." "Don't worry." "It's not much further." "They're trying to get through?" "Harper." "Oh, god, they're going to get through." "Harper" "They're going to get through!" "HARPER!" "I know you." "I've watched you." "You are an annoying little man, but there is FIRE in your blood!" "Now use it!" "Are these your demons?" "Well, it is time to face them NOW!" "I'm good." "I'm good." "Heheh." "I'm good..." "Do what you came here to do!" "I'll hold off the Magog." "You have to promise me something." "I don't want those things hatching in me." "If they infest me.." "promise you'll kill me." "Go to work!" "Dylan." "Dylan!" "My shoulder." "Did they, uh...?" "No." "No, just claws, but...but it feels deep." "It looks like they got you in the hip, too." "And the back." "They got me good." "I tell you what." "I'm gonna be" " I'm gonna be fine." "I'll just hang out here with my Magog buddies." "It's worse than I thought." "You're delusional." "Now, come on." "We gotta go." "Up you get." "Well done." "Bravo." "Who are you?" "Where are you?" "I am Bloodmist." "And I'm right here." "Watching you." "You are impressive, though obviously insane." "I am a Wayist." "And I will not allow you to take this ship." "I follow the teachings of the Annointed." "The way of peace." "The way of cooperation." "And this way of peace dictates that you fight your own brothers?" "Kill your own kind?" "I do not condone violence." "But I will defend my friends." "I will give you one chance." "Join us." "Help us overrun this ship." "In exchange, you may take one of them as a host for your progeny." "And if I refuse?" "Then you will die." "Rev, let's go." "Memory core, memory core." "Who's got the memory core." "Hurry, little man." "Ready?" "Why'd it have to be Magog?" "I hate Magog." "Dylan?" "Dylan, can you hear me?" "Harper, where are you?" "I hacked into Andromeda's main memory." "Uh, I found a record of what happened after Rommie made that backup, but it's locked away under something called an Argosy Level 7 Encryption?" "What's the magic word?" "Access code." "Andromeda, we have a Level 7 emergency." "Unlock all classified memory files." "Authorization, Captain.." "Authorization" "Lieutenant Commander Dylan Hunt," "Argosy Special Operations Service, Division Five." "Override code "Gray-Break-Seven-Nineteen"." "That's a new one." "No, it's – it's an old one." "It's a very old one." "I'm in." "Oh, man." "Dylan?" "I think when Andromeda made that backup, she was attempting the same mission she's on now." "No surprise there." "Yeah?" "Well, it gets worse." "She lost, Dylan." "Andromeda was overrun, and her entire crew massacred." "Lucky shot." "Are you through?" "I've started the reintegration of Andromeda's memories, but if I can stay here and monitor it, I may be able to speed up the process." "Or you might die." "Now we run." "All androids are down." "Magog are within fifty meters of the command center." "Next destination." "I can't." "I can't do this anymore." "We may be pushing her too hard." "Slip-piloting is taxing." "We have to keep going." "We may not be able to hold the Magog off much longer." "If we continue, she might make a mistake and that would be worse than waiting." "It's all happening again." "What do you mean again?" "Rommie?" "Memories." "I..." "You've done this before, haven't you?" "I remember failure." "I hate to ask, but how's it going?" "Yeah." "Not good." "You'd think they made these doors to stand up to forcelances or something." "Remind me, when we're done, to give us all medals." "Order of the Commonwealth for everyone." "Are you ok?" "Oh, yeah." "Just great." "There's so many of them." "Beka," "I may not make it." "Don't be ridiculous." "You're too stubborn to die." "We all know that." "Promise me, no matter what happens, you'll continue the mission." "Yeah, see, that's why you have to survive." "I'm not really qualified to restart the Commonwealth." "Neither am I. But that hasn't stopped me." "Dylan," "I may like your idea, but I really don't know if it's possible." "For anyone." "The odds.." "To hell with the odds." "All that matters in life is that we try." "Promise you'll try." "Promise." "Rev!" "Are you all right?" "We've got to get to command." "Andromeda, they're calling to me." "Tuning to ultrasonic." "Poor, lost creature." "Wandering, not knowing who or what you are." "What is your name, lost one?" "Do you even know?" "My name is Brother Behemial Far-Traveler." "I am a Wayist of the Sacred Order." "Behemial Far-Traveler – that is a food name, not fit for a Harbinger of the Abyss." "I asked you what your name is." "The name your father gave you." "Red Plague." "Ahhhh, that is better." "Come with me, Red Plague." "Join us, and we will restore to you all you have lost" "Your history, your culture, your pride." "We have no culture." "We have no history." "None that you know of." "But you are of those who went before – the first ones." "For ten generations, you have lived in ignorance." "Until now." "Now that the hour of the awakening approaches." "Rev..." "Follow me, Red Plague, and I will show you the face of God, and all will be revealed." "I have seen the face of the Divine!" "I see it every day in the universe – in all the Divine's creations." "Do you believe you were made by the Creator?" "All things are created by the Divine!" "All things but us!" "Hear my words." "There is still time for you." "But now I must go." "I've got pressing business elsewhere." "Destroy the robot!" "I'm out." "Typical." "I don't suppose you have any ammo left." "I've got one round." "One round." "One round is good." "One round is good." "Would you like to close your eyes?" "W-W-W-Wait." "Wait." "Wait." "Wait." "I was thinkin'." "Maybe they're not so tough, you know?" "Maybe, uh, maybe we can, uh, take 'em in hand-to-hand combat." "What do you think?" "That's my BOY!" "Now I've got none." "Sire." "Shall we dance, Master Harper?" "You do care." "This was a real good idea." "Where there is life, there is hope!" "Andromeda, think." "You have to remember." "You've done this before." "Where did you go?" "What happened?" "And once you remember that, all the rest should come into place." "I don't." "I..." "We have to finish the run." "Jump all the way to the final location." "Where is that?" "A hundred more slips, at least." "But that can take days, even weeks." "Our orders are clear." "We have to complete the mission." "Slipstream!" "Now!" "Trance!" "Andromeda!" "What the hell?" "Andromeda, report." "Who...?" "Do as he says." "Scanning." "They're worlds." "Twenty of them joined into some kind of structure." "You're Dylan." "Told you so." "The structure." "Focus on the structure." "I remember this." "I've seen it before, but millions of light years away in another galaxy." "This is what you were looking for on your last mission." "It was." "Those worlds – they're hollow." "And they're full of Magog." "Trillions of them." "Delectable." "That's more like it!" "Patience little brother." "You and I will have time to dance when the others have been consumed." "Rev!" "Any more objections?" "No?" "Good!" "Take them away." "Our god awaits." "Beka." "You're Beka." "Last time I checked." "And Trance." "I'm so sorry." "It's ok." "I know you didn't mean it." "More Magog assault ships have impacted on the hull." "Internal defenses are still off-line." "So we've got enough Magog to eat pretty much everyone in existence, and we're going down for the count?" "Does the captain have any orders?" "I, uh..." "Dylan!" "Trance." "Trance, help him." "Andromeda..." "Dylan!" "...take us out!" "Rev. Help." "Me." "Tyr?" "Harper?" "Taken." "Oh, no!" "No!" "Rev!" "Don't!" "Come back!" "Beka." "I'm detecting a massive power buildup in the world structure." "Evasive maneuvers." "It's firing." "Point singularity weapons." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Officers down." "Officers down in command." "Repeat." "We have Code Red." "Code Red." "Code Red." "Officers down." "Code Red." "Officers down." "Repeat." "We have Code Red." "Can anyone hear me?" "Anyone?" "Anyone?"