Intersections at Right Angles

By Verbosity

Chapter 1

All appropriate disclaimers apply…I don't own the setting or characters involved in the story. I make no profit off this nor do I intend to detract from anyone elses profit, this story is merely intended for entertainment purposes. 

So…enjoy!

"How does that feel babe?" Harper asked as he sealed up the opening in her synthetic skin.

Rommie's gaze seemed to turn inward for a moment, then returned to rest on him as a small smile quirked her lips. "Like a new power cell."

"Ha ha. Very funny. I mean how does the power flow feel?" He put the sealing tool away."

"Stable, no glitches that I can detect, though…the flow seems more energetic than my old model" She looked up at him. "Are you sure the current matches my specs?"

"Of course babe. You know I wouldn't make a mistake like that." He gave her a cocky grin. "I did build that gorgeous body of yours after all and I know it inside and out." He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

"Harper…" There was a distinct warning in her voice.

"Here, here, look…" He picked up a diagnostic scanner, waved it at her and then turned the display toward her. "See, current, voltage, et cetera… all within acceptable parameters." 

"Humm…alright, I've also been meaning to ask you about the repair nanobot upgrade you gave me last week. I think you went a little overboard. I'm all for this body being able to repair itself, but my hair was actually growing."

"What?" He gave her an innocent look, "Don't you want the whole human experience. I mean hey, I've designed your bodacious bod to experience the whole enchilada. Take advantage."

Rommie looked at him and one eyebrow raised. "Some parts of the human experience I can do without."

"Okay." Harper put up both hands. "Nix on the hair. I'll take out that section of the nano's programming. Give me just a second." He moved over to the computer console and picked up the wire interface for his neural port.

Andromeda watched as he jacked in, and then as he interfaced with her ship-self's main computer she initiated her own connection, opening up her new programs to the virtual matrix for him to work with. She watched for a few moments as he tinkered with the code, cutting out a part here and a bit there, when she felt the presence of her main AI.

"He does good work." Her main AI said on a level Harper couldn't perceive. "He has unusual ways of getting it done at times, but his programming is the equal of almost anything at the institute on Sparborth IV."

Rommie Projected her amusement to her counterpart. "Well, he likes to tell us he's a super-genius." She observed as he manipulated a particularly recalcitrant piece of code with a ease she found startling in an organic, "and there are moments I'd believe him."

*          *          *

A short time later Rommie walked into command, where Beka Valentine was standing watch as the ship hung silently in their current location in a blue-white star system.  

"Hello Beka."

Beka glanced up from the computer console. "Rommie, how did it go? Is the new power cell working?"

"It went fine, Harper does good work"  She cocked her head at her hologram which appeared next to the slipstream station. "I think the specifications exceed what we originally expected."

The holographic Andromeda nodded, "The total power capacity is 12% higher than we anticipated, and the maximum output can exceed the old model by a factor of three."

Beka crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the console, "You know, Harper never did tell me exactly how this power cell was different and why it was such a great thing."

"My old power cell was a standard electro-chemical model. It would only allow me to function for a few days at a time away from a method of recharging."

Beka gave a little shrug," Couldn't you use a nuclear cell?"

Holographic Andromeda shook her head, "No, in a power cell that small a size you can't get enough shielding and there are problems with radiation."

Beka looked at her and then back at Rommie, "And Harper found a way around that." She guessed.

"No, actually. He used antimatter."

"The first officer's eyebrows shot up, "Antimatter. In a power cell that small? Is that…" She gave a hesitant pause. "…wise?"

"Don't worry," Rommie grinned. "With the right type of antimatter the dangerous radiation is negligible, but the real genius of his idea was in the containment problem."

"I hope so," Beka shuddered. "I hate to think what would happen if you took enough damage to make the containment on that thing breach."

Rommie shook her head, "It can't happen. Physically speaking it's impossible for the power cell to breach. The antimatter is entrapped within quantum wells in a crystalline structure. It gives an extremely high energy density while providing a safe long term storage method." Sounding extremely pleased she said, "It should allow me to go without a recharge for decades."

Beka smiled at her enthusiasm, "And with the repair nanobots Harper gave you earlier, your body is able to repair itself. So…"

Rommie was nodding, "If it becomes necessary I can operate independently of my ship-self indefinitely." She frowned, "Not that I particularly want to."

The voice of Andromeda's main AI broke into the conversation. "Beka, I'm reading increasing instability in the star's corona. The activity suggests the approach of a massive stellar event. It would probably be best if we left the system immediately." 

"Alright," Beka moved toward the slipstream station. "Andromeda, if you would alert Dylan…"

"Already done."

"…and prepare to enter slipstream." She hit several buttons and the slipstream controls glided within reach.

Rommie took hold of the railing to steady herself just as Beka said "Transiting."

Reality gave a weird lurch that always accompanied transit into that other-spatial dimension that was known as slipstream.

As Beka piloted through the quantum probabilities that comprised all slipstream routes Dylan Hunt strode onto Command.

"Status?" He asked coming up beside Rommie.

The holographic Andromeda  replied, "All systems normal. Expecting to exit slipstream in two minutes and…" She stopped suddenly.

The main AI's voice sounded throughout the bridge, "I'm detecting an unstable resonance in my slipstream core." The eyes of the image onscreen widened, the voice suddenly becoming urgent, "Core failure imminent! Initiating emergency shutdown!"

Moving with inhuman speed Rommie grabbed hold of both Dylan and Beka and anchored herself to the railing as best she could. An instant later her ship-self cut power to the slipstream drive. Transition to normal space was no gentle lurch this time, but a jolt that snapped them around like rag-dolls in the grip of a giant.

Keeping hold of her captain and first officer, Rommie winced, as through her connection with the main computer she felt systems blow out all over the ship. In moments, the shuddering of the vessel began to subside and as Rommie let go of the other two her ship-self began to give damage reports. Reaching through her connection to the ship she searched for her other crewmembers. Harper was still in the machine shop where she left him, now picking himself off the floor, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead. Trance was in medical and did not seem any the worse for ware, in spite of the violent shaking around. And Tyr…

"Ship! What in the progenitors name was that?!" Tyr's irritated voice came through her sensors on the observation deck.

Tyr was Tyr she thought with some amusement even as she gave a sigh of relief at the safety of the crew. She gave an internal shudder as she remembered the last time a Highguard ship had been forced to shut down the slipstream drive in mid-transit; what had happened to the crew didn't bear much thinking on.

*          *          *

A half hour later all the crew was in Command to review the situation.

"Stop scratching the patch Harper." Trance said in exasperation.

"But it itches." He said his hand still on the bandage over the cut on his forehead. He tried to scratch it again but trance caught his hand.

            "Let the medical nano's do their work and it will stop itching sooner!" Trance said as she put his hand back on the table.

            "Mr. Harper, what is the situation of the repairs?" Dylan tried again to get his engineer's attention.

            "Well boss, Andromeda really did a number on herself yanking us out of slipstream like that. The sub light drive system is functioning at about 15% capacity, while the slipstream drive is totally offline. The artificial gravity and inertial compensation systems on the weapons deck are fried." He looked up from the flexi he was reading from, "So be real glad nobody was on it when came out of slipstream like that or they'd be a molecule thin paste on one of the bulkheads."

Beka gave a little shudder at that.

"To add to that, when Andromeda cut power to the drive, the feedback blew half the power relays on the ship, so I wouldn't recommend re-initializing the main reactors until we get most of those fixed." He grinned at Dylan, "If you didn't have a super genius like myself on board you might want to get worried. However…" he raised his hands to indicate himself, "…me being moi, I can fix all this."

"What about the slipstream drive," Beka interrupted. "What caused it to malfunction like that?"

"At a guess?" Harper threw up his hands, "I have no clue. I've never seen a slipstream drive behave like that."

"I have." Rommie's statement caused the crew to look at her, "It happened to another Highguard ship about five hundred years ago, but no one ever figured out why." In good part because the crew was killed and the AI half scrambled, she thought to herself.

"So," Tyr said in his quiet, intense voice. "We are without an effective drive and on emergency power until you get us fixed." He fixed Harper with a look. "I suggest you get started, I don't like being a sitting target."

Harper looked at him like he was crazy, "We're in the middle of nowhere, there isn't a star for light-years in any direction. I doubt anyone has been in this spot since the universe was created, and you're worried about being attacked?"

Beka looked at Tyr, "You think whatever knocked us out of slipstream was artificial?" 

Tyr shrugged, "It would make an excellent trap. Eliminate the crew, take the disabled ship intact."

Harper looked back and forth between them, "Isn't that a little paranoid?"

Beka looked at Harper a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, "He's our weapons officer, plus a Nietzschean,  he's supposed to be paranoid."

"Well big guy," Harper said. "If it makes you feel any better the weapon systems and sensors were basically unaffected. So, we may be sitting, but we're not defenseless."

"Alright people," Dylan took control of the conversation. "One person will stand watch in Command while the others assist Mr. Harper in repairing the vital systems." He turned to Harper, "Alright Mr. Harper what do you need us to do?"

"Well…"

*          *          *

            Sixteen hours later…

            The servos in Rommie's arms began whine as she pushed them to their limits, and the piece of conduit began to bend back into place.

            "O.K. Rommie, stop right there," Harper held up his hand.

            Andromeda stepped back away from the conduit as Harper took out his nano wielder, and then turned as Dylan climbed down the ladder to the deck.

            Observing what Harper was doing he asked, "How is it going?"

            "Good so far." She gestured at the conduit, "We've repaired 81% of the damaged conduits. So we should be able to bring the reactor online soon. Once that's done I can bring the rest of my auto-repair systems online as well. After that, the repairs should be much faster."

            "Excellent…" He stopped abruptly as Rommie's head jerked up just before an alert klaxon sounded throughout the ship.

            "Something just entered my sensor range." She said her eyes focused off somewhere beyond the bulkhead. Tyr is in Command and has just initiated an alert."

            "Mr. Harper, I want the reactor online as soon as possible!" He took off running for Command with Rommie following.

            "Tyr, report!" Dylan's voice was strident as he came into command.

            Tyr was intent upon the view screen, "We've been drifting since we came out of slipstream, and this just came into sensor range. It looks like a station of some sort, but no design I've ever seen. "

            The main AI appeared on screen, "It masses about three hundred million metric tones, the surface seems to be composed of a diamondoid composite. I'm not reading any power signature."

            The hologram appeared a few feet in front of Dylan, "Captain, main power is coming back on line."

            "Excellent timing Mr. Harper," Rommie heard Tyr mutter. 

            "What's up." Beka asked as she strode into Command, "Oh." She saw the view screen and scrutinized the image on it for a moment. "Whatever that is it looks old."

            "It is old." The ships AI replied from the view screen, "Judging from its movement, the density of free-floating stellar matter and the wear on it's hull, it's been out here for more than a million years."

            "A million…" Beka paused then started again, "Wow, none of the known races come even close to that."

            Dylan turned his head from the view screen to glance at her. "The Vedrans are among the oldest known races and their history barely goes back twenty thousand years."

            "That would seem to indicate that whoever put this here is long gone." Rommie said.

            "Perhaps." Tyr said looking at the Captain, "But it is unknown and therefore dangerous, I suggest we keep our distance."

            Dylan frowned a little in thought, "For the moment. Once we complete repairs we'll go take a look, the Sinti council will be salivating over a find like this."

*          *          *

            "Tell me again why I'm doing this?" Tyr asked as the Eureka Maru approached the ancient station.

            Rommie glanced up at him as he stood in his pressure suit, holding the helmet under one arm, beside the pilots chair. "Because aside from myself you're the most durable person on board."

            "Aren't you forgetting Trance?"

            "No, not really. She may die and come back, but you can survive things that would kill her." She turned forward again, "And in an emergency I might need a live body and not a corpse."

            "Very reassuring." His tone was mildly sarcastic.

            Rommie ignored it. "Besides, she says that something about this station is interfering with her ability to sense probability. It might affect her other abilities too."

            She pretended not to hear him as he muttered, "That should be warning enough."

            "Approaching within three hundred  meters." She announced, and reached out to flip a switch, turning on a set of floodlights aimed at the object.

            The surface of the object was black, with a hint of what appeared to be iridescence, but only a hint, as the surface had long ago been dulled by the slow inexorable wear of the years. The overall shape was amorphous, not any one particular geometrical form, seeming to flow from one to another depending upon what angle you looked at it from.

            AIs don't normally have hunches or feelings that many organic species are prey to, but even so, Rommie could feel the sense of tremendous age and patient waiting the object seemed to exude. She had the sudden utterly illogical impression that somehow the object was waiting for her. She sat staring at it for a moment, when she felt a mental nudge from her ship-self and shook the feeling off. According to her sensors there should be some sort of hatch right about… "there it is." 

            "Where?" Tyr leaned forward a little, peering at the structure, trying to locate the hatch.

            "Forty degrees down from the center and thirty starboard." She took hold of the maneuvering controls again, "I'll bring us around to dock with it. Get on the sensors and give me a detailed scan of it."

            As she brought the Maru up next to the station Tyr frowned down at the console. "From the damage to the hull in the area I'm guessing the opening mechanism is nonfunctional. We'll most likely have to burn through. Not such an easy thing considering the strength of the materials."

            "Well," There was a hollow boom that echoed through the Maru as the airlock connected with the object, "we're here, so we'll give the airlock a chance to anneal to the surface and then let's get started."

*          *          *

Even with the high temperature plasma cutting tool it took nearly an hour to cut through the hatch.

            "It wouldn't have taken half as long to burn through my hull." Rommie commented as they were nearly done. "Commonwealth material science could learn something from these people."

            "The fact of their more advanced science just makes this mission more dangerous." Tyr said as he shifted his grip on the cutter. "it means we have no idea of what to expect within."

            "All gloom and doom Tyr? Where's your sense of adventure?" Beka's voice came across the communications uplink to Andromeda.

            "A sense of adventure is a very bad survival trait, it tends to engender a very brief lifespan in those who posses it, and I intend to live a very long time." He shot back. "There, done. A little pressure on this point and it should fall inward."

            "Alright, get your helmet on Tyr." Rommie turned and picked up the kit containing the medical pack an various other supplies. "I am reading an atmosphere on the other side but the readings are indeterminate, I'm not sure what it's composed of, and it has been sitting in there for a very long time."

            "Just make sure it's not something that will do any damage to you, Rommie." Dylan ordered over the comlink.

             She heard Harper's voice pipe up in the background, "Not to likely boss, her synthetic skin is pretty tough"

            "Here goes." As she moved toward the door she noted Tyr had readied his Gauss gun and had moved to get a clear shot at the hatch. She put her hands on the hatch and pushed. There was a moment of resistance and then it fell back into the interior.

            Rommie scanned ahead, her sensors sampling the electromagnetic spectrum gathering information on the environment within.

            "That's odd. The atmosphere is totally inert gasses, Krypton, Argon, Xenon. No active elements at all. It looks like their might be an active energy source too; the temperature is well above absolute zero." She remained poised on the threshold.

            "What is it?" Tyr asked growing impatient.

            "Just a thought." She looked back at him, seeing his raised eyebrow through the clear helmet. "The type of environment inside is what I would build if I were creating an place friendly to mechanical life. No active agents in the atmosphere, about the right temperature."

            Tyr raised the other eyebrow.

            Rommie shrugged, "Of course it's wild speculation." Then she turned and slipped inside.   

            Tyr stared after her for a moment, "This is a very bad idea." He muttered, and followed.

*          *          *

            The next hours were spent wandering strangely featureless corridors, all composed of the same material as the outside hull. Yet where the outside hull was pitted and scarred by long ages of time and environment, the inside was pristine. The walls shimmered with opalescent fire as the lights moved across them. The effect was hypnotic and Tyr, much to his disgust, found himself just staring at the play of light in the walls for long seconds.

            After yanking his attention away from the walls he growled in disgust, "There is nothing here. At least not that we can find now. Let's simply put a beacon on it and let a Sinti exploration team return to it. They will be much better equipped to do this than we are."

            Andomeda's main AI cut into the 've been analyzing the layout of the corridors and I think there is a pattern."

            Rommie nodded, "I was noticing that too. Take the first right, then straight along the corridor to the second left?"

            "Exactly." Andromeda replied.

            "Would either of you mind filling the rest of us in on the conclusion you have come to?" The Captain's voice sounded over the

            "Sorry sir," Andromeda apologized. "The pattern of the corridors indicates a chamber of some size at the end of the route my avatar indicated."

            "Hunh…then by all means proceed."

            They had moved a short distance down the second corridor on the left when it simply ended. One moment they were in a small corridor and the next a large chamber. The walls of the room were black, not the shimmering black of the corridors, but a deep jet that seemed suck up light that fell upon it, giving nothing back.

Rommie looked around at the color of the walls, "Black, black and  black…I'm sensing a theme here."

Tyr just snorted.

Also unlike the corridors the room was not empty. There was a semicircle of pedestals in the center of the room and upon each as a simple stone tablet with words carved into them. Tyr and Rommie moved cautiously to examine them.

"Can you read what's written on them?" Beka's voice came clearly across the

"I'm getting some strange energy readings from the tablets." Rommie said looking at Tyr, "Don't touch anything."

Tyr glanced back at her. "Do I look stupid?"

Rommie moved up to the first tablet. "No, I can't read it Beka. The language doesn't resemble anything in the Commonwealth database. No surprise really…"

"I can read this one." Tyr's statement interrupted her, but it was more the odd note in his voice that caused her to stop and look toward him.

He was standing in front of the pedestal midway through the arc staring down at the tablet.

"Well, what does it say Tyr?" Beka's voice came over the comm's. Tyr didn't reply. Her voice became a little more concened, "Rommie, what's going on?"

As Rommie came up beside Tyr he turned his head toward her and said, "It's in English."

Rommie stood silently staring at the writing on the million year old artifact of a long vanished civilization, and looking down at that single line, felt a sensation it took her a moment to identify.

"It says…" Tyr continued. "…Welcome, Andromeda."

So that's what they mean when they say someone has walked over your grave, she thought.

 There was silence on the other end of the

"Something is not right here." Tyr said his hand going to his weapon. "Lets get back to the ship."

"For once I'm in agreement. Lets go." Rommie began to move away from the pedestal.

In years to come Rommie would never entirely understand what happened, but one thing of which she was certain was that the floor had somehow…shifted underneath her when she started to move away, becoming almost fluid and throwing her toward the pedestal.

The moment brushed the tablet there was a soundless detonation of force. Her sensors were instantly knocked off line as were her servomotor controls. She hit the floor unable to move as a void opened in the center of the room and the pressure of the atmosphere rushing out through it began to pull her toward the hole.

Desperately she tried to reinitialize her systems. Every attempt failed. This is it, she thought as she neared the rift. I…a hand clamped onto her ankle…Tyr!

The Nietzschean had an arm wrapped around one of the pedestals and the other had her ankle in a crushing grip. She could see his arms quivering with the strain of holding her against the atmosphere screaming through the room.

He can't hold me for long. Even as she watched his grip on the pedestal began to slip. The Tyr of a year ago might have simply let go, she was after all merely an avatar of the ship, and Harper could always build a new one. This Tyr, however, would not abandon a member of his crew and maintained a death grip on her ankle even as his grip on his anchor began to slip. I can't let this happen. Tyr is not expendable. In that moment she made her decision. Her link to her ship-self was still active, thankfully, and in a matter of milliseconds she sent everything she was, everything she wanted to say to her crew, to those who had become dear to her, to her main AI.

Goodbye, she thought…and cut the link.

In the chamber she met Tyr's eyes silently pleading with him to let her go.

"No!" He snarled, his voice roughened with the strain, even as his grip slipped another inch.

Rommie couldn't move, but she could still reroute power. She shunted power from other systems to the surface of the ankle. Tyr's hand spasmed with the sudden electrical discharge releasing his grip…and the wind snatched her away.

As she plunged headlong into the abyss she heard him cry "Andromeda!" Her last thought was; I think that's one of the first times he's actually used my name, and then all thought was swallowed in darkness.