Andromeda

Battle stations. Battle stations.

All crew, man your battle stations.

Three minutes five! Three minutes six! Three minutes seven!

MOVE IT, THOMPSON!

I wish you wouldn't do that.

What if your anti-grav harness failed and I couldn't catch you in time.

Oh, Andromeda, you wouldn't let that happen, because then you'd have to break in a new captain.

Starboard Point Defense Station Five, manned and ready.

Report.

Captain, all stations manned and ready.

Elapsed time, three minutes twenty-seven seconds.

Too slow!

Too loud.

Thompson,

you forgot to activate the secondary battery. Andromeda had to do it for you.

Yes sir.

I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again.

It better not.

All hands, stand down!

All crew, stand down from stations.

- Ship-wide, Rommie. - All crew, stand down. End of drill.

This is the captain. Not bad, people, but I'm not doing any cartwheels.

Team-leaders, coordinate additional sessions. You know what to do. Let's get it under three minutes.

Dismissed.

We suck.

Thompson. That unavailable battery compromised his entire sector.

He's a bright kid. He'll learn.

If he lives long enough.

Ever the cynic. You know, I can't wait to hear your toast at my wedding.

"To Dylan and Sarah. I'm sure you'll have a long and happy life together. Unless you die."

Nietzscheans don't believe in optimism. It inhibits survival.

So does pessimism.

I'm glad you're getting married. You may not be properly engineered, but your genes are sound. You should reproduce.

Thanks, I hope Sarah agrees with you.

I'm sure she does. As the great philosopher wrote : "Man is for woman a means. The end is always a child."

I take it back. You're not a cynic, you're a romantic.

Captain Hunt, we're receiving a hail from a Systems Courier ship. It's indicating a stellar level emergency.

On our way.

Captain on deck.

As you were.

Status.

A courier just transmitted to normal space. We're moving to intercept.

Are we close enough for real time?

Range is one light second.

Establish communications.

This is the Systems Courier ship Alacrative Missive. Do you copy?

Go ahead, Missive.

It's a rogue black hole! Hephaestus system. They're trying to evacuate, but there aren't enough ships.

Hephaestus has a population of nearly half a billion sentients.

You're the first ship I've contacted.

Plot a course to Hephaestus.

Plotting course.

Keep moving, notify everyone you can. Dispatch our own couriers. Tell them to spread the word.

Ship-wide. This is the captain.

All hands, prepare to receive refugees. Rig the ship for maximum capacity.

Ejecting cargo from bays one through five.

Approaching transit point.

Brace for slipstream. Dawn, transit to slipstream on my mark.

Three

two

one

mark

Transitting back to normal space in three, two, and...

We're receiving over a thousand distress signals.

Reading a powerful singularity in the outer solar system.

Mass : three times ten to the thirty-first kilos. Range: one-point-two light minutes.

Hephaestus's population is over 70% Nietzscheans. If my people are running, the situation must be desperate.

We'll take on as many people as we can. Deploy outrunners.

If there are any orbital habitats near the singularity, we've got to evacuate them immediately.

A contingent of ships is closing on us, aft and port.

Tell them we'll get to them as soon as we...

They're firing on us!

It's a trap.

Battle stations!

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

Battle stations. Battle stations. All crew, man your battle stations.

Tell me this is another drill.

It is no drill.

I was afraid of that.

All battle stations manned and ready.

Two minutes, forty-one seconds.

Deploy combat drones.

How many ships are we up against?

I'm detecting over ten thousand enemy vessels.

What?

Five hundred are already within combat radius. All of them appear to be of Nietzschean design.

Ten thousand ships? It must have taken years to gather a force this big.

Sir, I recommend we deploy Nova bombs.

This system is inhabited! I will not use strategic weapons, no matter how many ships we're up against.

As you wish.

More ships are closing.

We have to warn the rest of the High Guard.

You think this is some kind of Nietzschean conspiracy against the Commonwealth?

They're Nietzscheans. They're shooting at us.

Given the circumstances, I should be confined to the brig, along with the other Nietzscheans in the crew.

Are you telling me I can't trust you?

I'm saying you can't afford to take any chances.

Sergeant,

take Commander Rhade to the brig. See to it that the other Nietzschean crewmembers are releaved of duty.

Aye, Captain.

We can't maneuver. There are too many of them.

We've lost over 70% of our drones.

Can we transit to slipstream?

Not here. The gravitational pull of the black hole is too strong. We're trapped.

Thompson! Thompson!

Hull breach on level 8, section 3. Evacuate immediately.

Thompson.

I've lost connections with the lower decks.

We've had multiple hull breaches. Life support is failing.

How long to transit?

We need ten more minutes to get past the gravitational distortions.

We're not gonna make it.

How many of your androids are still functional?

Twenty-nine. Fifteen others are still on-line, but I can't...

It'll have to do. Man the critical systems.

Give me ship-wide.

Ship-wide.

This is the captain. All hands abandon ship. Repeat. All hands abandon ship.

Use every available escape pod and drone.

Get away from the Andromeda as fast as possible, then scatter.

Make your way to Starport and warn the High Guard what's happened here.

What about you?

I have an idea.

You always do. You're gonna need a good pilot.

I ordered you to abandon ship.

Let the record show that First Lieutenant Refractions of Dawn respectfully refuses to comply.

If we live through this, you can court martial me.

You are one stubborn bug.

What's the human expression? Guilty as charged.

Abandon ship.

All crew, abandon ship. Proceed to escape pods.

Shuttles available on Hangar Deck Three.

Abandon ship.

Abandon ship.

Abandon ship.

This way, sir.

Keep training better.

Seal off command and control.

Vent the rest of the atmosphere. We need to make the ship as light as possible.

The rest of the ship's been depressurized.

Set a course. Heading zero-nine-zero by negative fifteen.

But sir, that takes us right

I know where it takes us. straight into the black hole.

Dylan, are you sure about this?

My connections to the rest of the ship are shot. We're leaking anti-protons from the port reserve tanks.

I can't guarantee I'll have enough power left to pull us away from the singularity.

We're not strong enough to fight our way free.

We've gotta use the black hole's gravity to slingshot us away from the Nietzscheans. It's our only chance.

Course laid in.

All forward, lieutenant.

All forward. Aye.

I, ..., didn't catch that last part.

My life. My soul. For the hive. For the hive.

Or as you apes would put it, BANZAI!

Gravity fields are holding.

We're heading straight at it. When should I vector away?

Not just yet. Let's build up some speed first.

We're at 25 PSL. 26. 28. Thirty!

The main energy grid.....I'm losing power...

We've lost all power.

Going to reserves.

Andromeda! Ship! Are you there?

The AI network's been disrupted.

How could that happen?

Stay focused, lieutenant.

Aye-Aye.

We can still make it. One thing's for sure. There's no turning back now.

Rhade?

Ten light seconds away.

Divert all power to starboard engine and plot a hyperbolic fly-by. But keep us at least a half light-second away from the event horizon. Got it.

Dylan! Sabotage!

Sabotage.

Captain! The starboard engines are off-plane.

Rotate ship to compens....

Commander?

Rhade!

I tried to warn you.

What are you doing?

Ensuring the survival of my people.

The Commonwealth is weak. It bargains with its enemies, it compromises.

My people are engineered to be perfect! And the Commonwealth is no place for the strong.

So the Nietzscheans decided to destroy it.

We spent years preparing, waiting, arguing.

For a long time, I opposed the destruction of the Systems Commonwealth. So did many others.

The Treaty of Antares changed all that.

The Magog.

Yes! The Magog.

Savages. Predators.

They eat sentient beings.

They reproduce by rape. They killed over a billion people on Brandenburg Tor.

They destroyed the Nietzschean colony on Hawking. And what did the Commonwealth do?

We made peace with them!

You compromised with monsters!

The blood of over a billion people cried out for vengeance, and you made peace.

You have sown the wind. You shall reap the whirlwind.

You know what your problem is, Rhade? You talk too much.