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Chapter 8 Chapter 10

Alternity - Chapter 9

An Offer They Couldnt Refuse

"You do appreciate the irony of the situation, don't you?" said Beka to the room in general and no one in particular.

"You mean the fact that three years ago we were going to salvage this very same ship from a black hole and now here we are, only we're the ones being rescued by it?" asked Harper. He was propped up in a bed with bandages around his chest and arms and an intravenous drip tube in his wrist.

"Exactly."

The crew of the Maru was in what had once been the weapons officer's stateroom. It was one of the largest of the officers' staterooms but it was crowded with the addition of an extra bed and chairs, yet compared with the furnishings and cramped conditions of the Maru the room was palatial. They were there as a compromise between Beka and Andromeda. The ship had wanted Harper to remain in sickbay for observation, while Beka had wanted the crew to remain on board the Maru. Andromeda had eventually proposed a compromise where the crew of the Maru stayed together in one of the staterooms, suggesting that Trance could monitor her husband yet they would still be close to sickbay should complications arise. The fact that they had agreed to the compromise was because holographic Andromeda had explained what really happened at the battle of Hephaistos IV. She had noticed her guests' agitation in the presence of her captain and had inquired about it.

"It would be nice to know what Captain Hunt's intentions towards us are," said Trance. She was sitting in one of the extra chairs, with Aurora at her breast, getting her mid morning meal.

The air shimmered and the hologram of Andromeda appeared in the stateroom. "Why don't you ask him yourselves?" she said. "He's on his way to talk to you even as we speak." With that she blinked out of view and the door to the stateroom opened.

When Dylan entered he was treated to an unexpected domestic scene. Trance was still nursing Aurora. He was not sure he approved of the relationship between the girl and the young man. She seemed far too young to be a mother, but as Andromeda had reminded him earlier, things had changed greatly in the past 300 years, and not for the better. He took some consolation in the fact that she was married and there was an older woman present to give her guidance.

The girl, completely nonplussed by Dylan seeing her nurse her child, and his consequent embarrassment, closed her blouse, stood up and presented the baby to him saying, "Will you hold her for just a minute? She needs changing."

Dylan automatically reached out and found himself, for the first time in his life, holding an infant. The baby definitely needed a new diaper. As he struggled to hold the squirming child, her mother began rummaging around in a duffel bag.

"You don't hold her like that," Beka.said "Hold her like this." She rearranged the child in his arms.

Aurora, seeing that she was being held by a stranger rather than one of her family, began to cry and increased the intensity of her squirming. Dylan realized that he was rapidly losing control of the situation. Over the personal communications link he shared with Andromeda he heard her chuckling. Fortunately, by this time Trance had found a diaper and, much to Dylan's relief, retrieved her daughter.

"I have a few things I wanted to talk to you about," he said. "Firstly, Andromeda thinks that your ship can eventually be repaired." First put out a little bait to get their interest.

"What?" exclaimed Harper.

"How long?" asked Beka.

"Months unfortunately, perhaps as long as a year. Your ship's propulsion systems were severely damaged. And that's if you and the Maru stay on board. Which brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk about."

"I knew there was going to be a catch," said Beka bitterly. "We're being shanghaied."

"No, not shanghaied, hired on as crew. I have a proposition to make to all of you. Andromeda's told me that she's talked to you and explained what we, she and I, would like to do."

"Recreate the Systems Commonwealth," interjected Trance.

"Yes, but I can't do it by myself. Miss Valentine, Andromeda inspected the Maru's flight recorder. You are the equal to any of the High Guard's pilots and superior to most of them. Mrs. Harper…"

"Trance," said Trance interrupting him. "My friends call me Trance."

"Trance, the fact that you were able to keep your husband alive after he had been injured in the attack on the Maru speaks highly of your skill as a medic. And Mr. Harper, are you as good an engineer as Andromeda thinks you are?"

"Better, I'm a freaking genius."

Dylan smiled at the young man's confidence in himself. They seemed to be taking the bait.

"That's all well and good, but why should we even care if the Commonwealth is restored? What's in it for us?" asked Beka.

"For the three of you the best I can offer is, as they used to say, three hots and a cot; and maybe the possibility of an early grave."

"That's not much of an incentive," muttered Harper.

"This isn't about you, or me for that matter" said Dylan. It was time to clinch the deal. "It's about her," he pointed to Aurora. "It's about giving your child, and any others you have, the chance to live without fear of being killed by pirates or dying of a disease that should have been quick and easy to cure. About giving her the chance to have a life that isn't a constant struggle for survival or to simply get enough to eat, about letting her grow up in peace and to grow to her fullest."

In a flash of insight, Trance understood. The perfect future she had always been seeking had never been for her; it was for her children, their children and all the other children of the galaxies.

"I think we should take him up on his offer." She turned to look at her husband, her eyes silently imploring him to agree.

"Well the coffee's good," agreed Harper. "and there's no shortage of water. We could take a shower whenever we wanted."

They both turned to look at Beka; they would abide by her decision.

The older woman considered the matter for some moments; she didn't do causes and this one sounded like a lost one, yet what choice did they really have? If she refused, the captain would undoubtedly leave them on the nearest inhabited planet and she and her family would spend the rest of their lives planet bound. She would rather die than suffer such a fate. If they accepted the offer they could repair the Maru and maybe resume their old life again. And in the meantime, as Harper said, the coffee was good and they could take a shower whenever they wanted.

"All right," she said. "But we don't come to attention when you walk into a room and we don't call you 'sir.'"

"Agreed, and welcome aboard the Andromeda."

They talked for a few minutes about berthing arrangements and repairing the Maru until Trance chirped in.

"Since Aurora is going to be living on board, we're going to have to obtain some new supplies. We need diapers, lots of them and she's starting to eat solid food so we need baby cereal, and can we get a crib, and how about some nice clothes for her, and…"

Dylan's mind started going into overload. When he had made the offer, he hadn't really thought through the implications of having children on board

"You think this is complicated now, wait till she gets older," said Andromeda over the personal communications link. Then pitching her voice higher she continued, mimicking a teenaged girl. "Unka Dylan can I borrow the slipfighter tonight?"

With Andromeda laughing evilly in his ear, Dylan had another and even more frightening thought. What if the Harpers wanted a large family?

Chapter 8 Chapter 10