.
"The
High Guard blesses you Mapes and you...Gando. Bring us peace."
Beka
Valentine:
Just
what the hell was he thinking?
Was
he thinking?
Maybe
the black hole warped his brains as well as his time frame?
The
way he floundered around that Guard station, GS9whatever, it's amazing we got out alive. This doesn't bode well for the restoration of the Systems
Commonwealth if he gets stumped by a bunch of sickly screwed-up kids. Second
thoughts? Hell, I'm having fifth and sixth thoughts! Babe, or no Babe!
If
it hadn't been for Little Miss "I am a God" and Harper...well, I
wouldn't be sitting here on the command deck watching the stars go by, that's
for damn sure.
Bless
Harper's twisty little mind.
And
that's another worry.
It's funny in a not-funny-at-all way.
You think you know someone, then they turn
around and blow you out of the sky with a totally unexpected opinion. And you realise
you really don't know them at all.
Gods,
to see that happen to your family...
Harper's
so breezy and irreverent all the time, it's easy to forget where he comes
from. And when you ask him outright, he's as uninformative as Trance. At least dragging up bad
memories doesn't seem to have damaged his relationship with Rev.
And that was also too damn close for comfort!
What was Dylan thinking? Letting Rev
walk around that station by himself? Idiot! I'm beginning to wonder just how
deserved the High Guard's reputation was. Maybe he just landed the job on his
looks, 'cos if this is one of their leading captains, I'd hate to see one of
their screwups!
Dylan
Hunt:
.
Stupid!
Stupid! Stupid!
And just which of my many stupidities was the worst? Let me count the ways.
My gullibility? My
underestimating them because they were only children? My endangering
the life of a member of my crew? Heck, of all my crew? My lack of a back
up plan? My lying? My giving up?
If
I'd pulled this kind of stunt back in the Commonwealth, I'd have been busted
down to captaining a garbage scow. Justifiably.
I've
just felt so off-centre, so on the back foot, this past week.
I still can't grasp it's all gone. What my crew have told me of this new universe is not just appalling, it's tragic. Civilization has degenerated into a cold hard nasty place. It's too soon for it to have completely sunk in however.
Their past is still subconsciously my present.
But
if I don't pull myself together, we're not going to make it. Beka and Tyr are
already looking askance at me. That's going to be a problem I know.
Damn
it! How could I have been so stupid? I blundered around like a green
ensign. We're lucky we aren't dead. Thank god for Rommie. And Harper. Seems he
is an excellent engineer after all. And Rommie's avatar is surely one heck of a piece
of...No.
<sigh>
"Commonwealth
protocol prohibits anything other than a purely professional relationship."
She's right. I've made enough mistakes these past few days. That's one I'm not
going to make.
Andromeda
Ascendant:
.
**Evaporation
Systems check complete. 98% efficiency. Within required parameters**
**position
of Avatar: Deck 12, Section A6.**
**Personal
observation:
My
body feels...warm.
Two
amazing things. To feel. To feel warm.
It
is also anomalous to be in two places at once.
In
the old quarters of the Comms Officer, my holographic form is now speaking with
Harper. If he continues to experience nightmares I may have to report it to
Captain Hunt. The contact with GS92196 disturbed him greatly, more than his
crewmates realise.
When
he was creating my avatar, how much of his frenetic pace was fixation with
building my body as soon as possible, and how much was desire to hide away and
avoid having to publicly take a stance on the Magog genocide, I am unable to
determine. Although the former was obviously an obsession, I suspect the latter
occupied a larger portion of his motivation than was obvious from his demeanour.
I
am not ungrateful however. To finally see and hear and touch. To be corporeal.
It is beyond anything I ever could have synthesised.
If
I am capable of awe, then that is what I must be experiencing.
end
Personal observation**
**Component
failure: THX-3811, section B2, deck 3**
Harper:
.
I wake up screaming again.
I
kick the tangled sweaty blanket away, trying to calm the frantic huffs of air
wheezing in and out of my lungs. Trying desperately to not think of the
kaleidoscope of rushing fur and claws and glittering eyes chasing me through the
ghoststreets of a long erased refugee camp. Eventually my breathing stills to
rough gasps and I whisper,
"Computer.
Lights fifty percent"
The
lights rise from the fifteen percent I always leave them on, pitch blackness
holding too many graphically unpleasant memories for me to endure it willingly.
A crackle and visual distortion coalesces into the Andromeda Ascendant's
holographic form, concern etching a small frown between her eyebrows.
"Are
you all right, Harper? Do you require medical assistance?"
I
reach down and drag the blanket up around my chest. I'm not body modest, but
just at this moment I feel too naked.
"I'm
fine babe, it was just a dream."
Rommie
regards me silently for a few seconds.
"My
logs indicate you have woken four times this week in a distressed state. If
there is a problem, you should let me know."
Rather than answer I struggle upright, pick up the glass from the bedside table and take a long swallow. Then lean back against the pillows and consider her carefully.
It just isn't a conversation I'm interested in having. There's no
point to it. I'm not going to get any 'closure' (or whatever warm fuzzy claptrap
Rev Bem or Trance want to call it) from discussing either passed nightmares or
my nightmare past.
"It's
nothing important. Just happens sometimes, ya know? So," paste on a sudden
grin, "You've been watching me sleep, huh? Something you're trying to tell
me here?"
Rommie
looks blank for a nanosecond before catching the inference.
"No,
I am currently monitoring the physical state of all the crew."
"Aw,
and I thought you liked me."
I
do my best hurt kid impression. Rommie smiles.
"Of
course I like you Harper."
"Wow,
and I didn't even have to rewire you to get you to say that!"
My
grin's spoilt by a jaw-splitting yawn.
"Are
you are sure I cannot get you a suppressant?"
"No,
no. The Harper is fine. Go back to bed. Count electric sheep. Or whatever it is
you do to relax when the rest of us are comatose."
"Good
night Harper."
Her
hologram vanishes.
Rommie
has already acquired that exasperated maternal tone women always seemed to adopt
towards me. Oh well, just have to work a little harder on 'irresistibly sexy
Harper' with her android.
And
as for the other...
Well,
maybe I'll avoid my crewmates for a couple of days. Rev will understand. I've
done it before. I just don't feel like dealing with Magog at the moment. Or
Nietzscheans for that matter.
Yeah,
just take me a coupla days to clear out the cobwebs, sink some of that Neu
Bayern Weissbrau and everything'll be back to normal...
Rev
Bem:
.
I believe that this has been one of my most rewarding undertakings.
To
know that I have helped institute changes in an entire society that will help
lead it away from the darkness of violence and hatred to the path of
enlightenment, is a blessing that will warm me all my days. The pain those
misguided children inflicted on me is but a small price to pay. Any reservations
I might have had regarding our joining Captain Hunt's mission have now been put
to rest.
I
fear this incident has instilled some self-doubts in Captain Hunt however. It
may be that I can give him some small reassurance and counsel in his hours of
trouble, and perhaps it is for this purpose I have been directed here. Yet he is
not the only one perturbed by misgivings.
Captain
Valentine is angry. She has always taken her responsibility for her crew most
seriously, and expects Dylan to do the same. His misjudgements, though
understandable, have made her question
her decision to pledge us to his quest. His failures are her failures. Beka does
not like to fail. She fears for our safety. So she is angry.
And
her attraction to Captain Hunt exacerbates the emotion.
The
appearance of the AI's android was most fortuitous, surely the Divine smiled on
our engineer's creation. To judge from Captain Hunt's reactions to her however,
this avatar of Andromeda may inject another element of instability into the
relationship between himself and Captain Valentine.
Andromeda's
claim to be a god on board this ship I shall take as aggrandizing rhetoric. One
hopes she meant it as lightly as when Harper makes such statements.
And
Harper. Harper is avoiding me. It saddens me, but I do not hold it against him.
Though he has spoken only briefly on this matter, I know he has lost family to
the depredations of my people. In this instance I think it would be best to
allow him time to regain his composure. I shall however pray that his inner
balance restores itself quickly.
Trance
Gemini:
.
Well it all turned out all right in the end. Mapes is going to make a excellent
leader I just know it. And Rommie's new body is wonderful though I don't think
Beka is too happy about it. Nor is Tyr. But not about that. Actually the only
ones who are happy at the moment are Rev and Harper and me. And Harper is
unhappy too. If you can be happy and unhappy at the same time that is. Well, if
anyone can, Harper can. I'll have to do something nice for them all. Maybe
they'd like plants in their cabins? I think it would do them all good to have
something living with them.
Tyr
Anasazi:
.
I
am not impressed.
Captain's
Hunt's first mission, whilst of moderate success, also incurred unnecessary
risks. His naivety and underestimation of his foe almost led to our deaths. I
must seriously consider whether joining this endeavour is a survivable decision.
I
must also question if Dylan will be able to cope with this modern world? If the
ideals and assumptions of his past will become too big a liability?
As
Nietzsche said, man cannot learn to forget but hangs on to the past, and however
far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
The
question is whether the chain of Dylan's past will hang us all, and if I will be
unwise enough to allow it to do so.
The
Magog has turned itself into his lapdog. And how quick Dylan is to trust it!
One hopes that the good Captain doesn't find he has nurtured a sheep-killer
instead of the sheep-herder he thinks he has.
Captain
Valentine is as disturbed as I am by the events on GS92196. I believe she was
also somewhat annoyed by Dylan's reaction to the android, an opening I may be
able to take advantage of. And whilst as a man I can understand Hunt's
attraction to "Rommie", for her physique is indeed magnificent,
she has no appeal to me other than as a beautiful piece of sculpture. She is,
ultimately, just a machine inhabited by an electronic construct.
That
Harper could create the android in so little time, and, judging from the Maru,
with what I doubt was much previous experience with that level of technology,
says much for his intellect. I doubt few of my own people, even those in the
hi-tech clans,
I
must admit however, I am impressed.