Description: Chapter One ANOMALY Do not go gentle into that good night. ---Dylan Thomas A better idea than that: don''t go there at all. ---Dylan Hunt It was, Captain Dylan Hunt thought, downright pleasant to, for once, be able to actually relax a little, settling back peacefully in his command chair. It was the first time in...however long it had been...that he''d had a chance to do this. A long time since he''d been able to acknowledge that, aside from it being a captain''s command chair, with all the emotional impact that came with that status, the thing was actually rather comfortable. All around the Andromeda Ascendant there was nothing but nothing, a nice, empty patch of space. It was the type of utter emptiness that was (assuming that your ship was in excellent working order and you had plenty of oxygen and other necessary supplies) downright peaceful in its lack of anything or anyone else. For a short time at least, Dylan thought with an inner smile, there was no one to fight, no one to attempt to befriend, no one to debate or otherwise try to persuade to join them or, for that matter, to leave them alone. There was just open space, Andromeda Ascendant, and her small crew, who for once were not even arguing with each other. Beka and Rommie---the latter there as a shimmering image "standing" next to Beka''s console---were carrying on a quiet conversation that sounded as if it were about ancient and modern methods of navigation. Seamus Harper, off with no one but a few bots in the Machine Shop, was happily working on a new, improved star analysis device with all the eager enthusiasm he always put into a new project. Tyr Anasazi, completely alone and apparently liking that fact very much, was just as happily working out in Hydroponics, aka (to him at least) the shipboard gym. For all Dylan knew, the Nietzschean was even trying once again to figure out what Dylan saw in that old Earth game basketball. Rev Bem was on the Observation Deck, lost in a tranquil Wayist series of meditations and, as far as the monk was concerned, not alone at all. He was at one, presumably, with the universe. And Trance was doing, well, whatever it was that Trance was doing wherever it was she was doing it. No telling with her. Just one big family, Dylan thought with a touch of wry humor. That''s us all right. One big, really weird, really dysfunctional family. Still, it wasn''t a bad idea for everyone to have a few moments of downtime. Good for morale. Including mine. And of course the downtime couldn''t last. Without any warning, Trance came rushing onto the Command Deck, her eyes wide and wild and their vision not quite focused, clearly seeing more than one level of existence or probability. "Something''s wrong!" she cried. "Almost wrong! Something is going to be wrong!" Well, that was perfectly clear. For Trance. "Could you be a little more specific?" Dylan began carefully. But then Rommie broke in over his voice, starting up almost exactly at the instant that Trance finished. "Dylan, there''s a good and immediate reason for her warning. My sensors are picking up something..." She paused, clearly making some swift analyses, then shook her head in an almost human fashion. "I don''t know how to put this into words. I''ll just say that we are about to get caught up in some truly strange disturbances in the space-time continuum." So much for peace and quiet, Dylan thought. All around the ship, what had been open space a moment ago suddenly exploded into a wild swirling of colors and patterns---red-violet, electric blue, green, gold, and colors that made no sense to human eyes, everything flashing, blazing and changing---fractals, spirals, eerie pinwheels of matter and glowing space dust. There should have been sound; the human brain wanted sound, maybe even some grand, cymbal-crashing music, to go with all that sudden chaos. Beka summed it up for them all. Staring at the suddenly bizarre region of space erupting around them, she said, "What the hell is that?" But without waiting for an answer from Rommie or anyone else, Beka sent Andromeda into a sharp banking turn to the left, so suddenly and with such force that Dylan just barely clamped his hands down on both arms of his chair in time, fighting to keep from being hurled right out of his seat. "And what the hell was that?" he asked. "Sorry. Didn''t want to run us into...whatever that was." "Anomalies." Rommie''s voice was filled with static, and her formerly steady image rippled wildly in the air in front of Dylan, breaking up and reforming again and again. There were times when Dylan forgot that Rommie wasn''t human. And times when he was starkly reminded that she wasn''t. Like right now. "What kind of anomalies?" he prodded. "They..." There was the pause that meant Rommie was going through all her computer data. "There are numerous wormholes and...other, more unknown phenomena." Through the static, she managed to sound, well, almost embarrassed at having to admit that she didn''t know what they were. "Some of the wormholes are merely pinholes, but others could swallow us if we make a mistake. And none of them are stable." "''We'' meaning ''me,''" Beka said under her breath, just loudly enough for Dylan to hear. Rommie ignored her, smoothly continuing, "What''s more, there is no predictable pattern to their appearance or size." "Yeah, right," Beka muttered. "I know the drill: Activate Live Pinball in a Pinball Machine Maneuver." That was, a stray wisp of memory told Dylan, an archaic game from old Earth, one that was still found in some spaceport bars---which was presumably where Beka had learned about it. An archaic game, maybe, but he got the point. "Hang on, everyone!" Dylan broadcast. Over the next few minutes, Dylan silently agreed that, yes, being a Live Pinball in a really warped Pinball Machine really was what it felt like, with Andromeda twisting and diving and all but tying herself into knots without warning. Hanging on for dear life like everyone else, Dylan found himself suddenly wondering what would happen if only part of the ship, say maybe one of Andromeda''s engines, slipped into one of those constantly opening and shutting wormholes. Not physically possible. I hope. "Ships," Beka said suddenly, her voice tense with concentration. "Off starboard. A fleet of them." "Rommie, report," Dylan ordered. "They are unfamiliar ships," Rommie added after a pause as she put their images on-screen. "I have nothing on them in any of my databanks." She sounded a bit embarrassed about that, too. Dylan frowned. "Beka?" She spared them a quick glance, and then returned to her grim-faced "pinball" piloting. "New to me." "Anyone?" Trance shook her head. "No''s" came in from Rev Bem, Tyr, and Harper. The ships didn''t look like any that Dylan had ever seen, either. Of course, that in itself wasn''t very alarming, or even very surprising. Space was, to put it mildly, big, and there were many space-faring races out there, more than even Rommie could have cataloged. She could, however, do a lot with what was available. After a few seconds, Rommie began efficiently rattling off statistics for the other ships, almost as though trying to make up for her previous lack of hard data: relative speed, relative size, relative weaponry. She, Dylan thought, staring at the images on the viewscreen, could have added "relative beauty or lack thereof" to her categories. Granted, starships didn''t have to be streamlined, not as long as they stayed safely out in the frictionless vacuum of space and didn''t enter any planetary atmospheres. But even allowing for that fact, the six vessels making up the approaching fleet could only be called one thing: downright ugly. They were as graceless and bulky as cargo freighters---but their engines looked alarmingly powerful, far more than any normal freighter would need. And those were definitely gun ports on their dull gray hulls. Dylan frowned. "There''s no reason to think them hostile, not yet. They''re probably just caught up in the same rough patch of space---" "They''re powering up weapons," came from Tyr, who had practically dived for the weaponry console. "---and then again," Dylan continued, "maybe not." How they hoped to hit anything, let alone a ship moving as swiftly and unpredictably as Andromeda in all this chaos... "Hold your fire, Tyr." "But---" "Hold your fire! You''re not going to be able to hit them any more than---" He broke off abruptly as a blast of red fire shot from one enemy ship...and missed them by so wide a margin that it looked like a distant comet. "Any more than they can hit us," Dylan finished levelly. "Get my point? Rev, you there?" "I am," came the calm answer over the comm. "See if you can open up any sort of communications with them. Find out who they are. And why," he added as another blast was fired off...and once again missed them completely, "they seem to hate us so much." Meanwhile Beka was continuing her fierce swoops and turns of Andromeda without a second''s hesitation, her lips back from her clenched teeth in a silent, determined snarl. At least, Dylan thought, they didn''t have to worry about her being distracted from her work, even by unknown enemies with lousy aim. She was a pilot first

Please Wait