"The hero may find an interval of rest
on the island of the nymph,
forgetting comrades and ship and home.
Until, recalled to his great quest,
he puts again to sea."

Aimelin Zol
"Tropes of the Ancients"
CY 9857

[Corridor]

(We are treated to a swaying trip through some deserted corridors until -)
HUNT: The closer Trance's sun gets to the Seefra system the uglier things are going to get.
DOYLE: And it won't take long either. The transit portal's fourteen kilotrons wide and growing.
HUNT: We're already getting a solar flare from the other corona.
DOYLE: Soon there'll be a full blown third sun coming right at us, wiping out the system planet by planet.
(Another sway down a corridor to view Harper from behind a stanchion.)
HUNT: I know this is hard for you, Doyle. Seefra's all you've ever known but I need you to be strong, okay?
DOYLE: I keep hoping we're wrong about the Methus diagrams, but the evidence is undeniable. The outer planets are starting to feel increased temperatures and radiation, people losing crops, hoarding water.
HUNT: Well, what little there was to begin with.
DOYLE: On the bright side, at least the positive side, Harper's absolutely unflinchingly certain he has an answer.
HUNT: Of course. Harper has an answer for everything right or wrong.
DOYLE: He's onboard working on it so there's reason to be optimistic. All is not lost.
HUNT: That's right Doyle. We never give up without a fight.

[Machine shop]

(Harper gets caught by a spark from his gizmo. Someone is watching him from behind a stanchion.)
HARPER: Ow! Why is it always the pinky finger? The little guy. The runt of the finger litter.

[Corridor]

HUNT: Wait.
DOYLE: What's wrong?
HUNT: Well, I was headed for Command, but now I'm a little curious about this plan you said Harper's working on.
DOYLE: I think he wanted it to be a surprise.
HUNT: Yeah. Not when there are millions of innocent lives at stake.
DOYLE: He might get mad at me for telling you.
HUNT: He'll get over it.

[Machine shop]

HUNT: Mister Harper.
HARPER: Who told you? Doyle. I should've known that
HUNT: There's no such thing as a secret on Andromeda? Yes, you should've known.
HARPER: Ah well. What the hell? Since you're here anyway, I'll give you a preview. This is the most brilliant solution to an absolute no way out certain death situation that I've ever come up with, although it's temporary. You ready?
HUNT: I'm all yours.
HARPER: It's based on a powersail I'm building.
HUNT: So it's a giant reflector?
HARPER: Giant parabolic reflector. It's solar charged obviously, so it's self-sustaining obviously and
(Hunt turns as if he saw something out of the corner of his eye.)
HARPER: Hello? I lost you. I know that look. You're thinking pie in the sky right? It's a giant pie plate, right?
HUNT: No. No, it's er, something else. Never mind. Just keep going.
HARPER: Oh. Okay. Momentary lapse of insecurity on my part, I guess. It's an alternating positron electron net based on a collapsible silicate framework.
HUNT: So you want to put up an umbrella over the whole Seefra system.
HARPER: Exactly. Trance's sun is still on a crash course to a rendezvous with Seefra One and the Vedran suns, the twin artificial suns, are supposed to power the braking system.
HUNT: But with one of the suns malfunctioning there's not enough power to activate the brakes.
HARPER: Right. And we all know I can't fix a sun, therefore our problem comes down to time.

[Corridor]

TRANCE: Someone's here. Someone who doesn't belong.
DOYLE: I hope you didn't mean me.
TRANCE: No. God, no, of course not. I'm sorry. I'm just feeling a little weird lately with my sun approaching and everything. Do you know where Dylan is?
DOYLE: With Harper. Do you know where Beka is?
TRANCE: She's collecting some parts for something Harper's building.
DOYLE: Thanks.
TRANCE: Be careful. It's always good to be careful, you know.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: The closer Trance's sun comes through that pinhole in the sky, the more hellish it gets down here on Seefra One. Sooner or later it's going to be completely unliveable, not that it was ever liveable in the first place. Now, I think positioned just right, this parabolic reflector could
HUNT: Reflect the incoming radiation back toward the pinhole.
HARPER: Slowing the sun down and buying us time.
HUNT: Odds?
HARPER: Sixty percent chance of success, I'd say.
HUNT: Well, we've worked with worse odds and less material.
HARPER: I've got scrap silicate left over from my last guild job. I've got the featherlight conductors and I've got power panels and routers and Beka's out hustling to harvest the rest.
HUNT: Which brings us to the delivery system.
HARPER: Right. Someone's going to have to tow it into place with a jetcraft.
HUNT: Meaning someone has to fly dangerously close to that solar plume?
HARPER: Well, hey, Beka and I flew dangerously close to that nasty black hole to steal you out of it, and it was a happy ending right?
HUNT: Right.
(The watcher is there.)

[Control area]

(Beka is packing a bag.)
BEKA: Rhade. Great. Want to help here?
RHADE: What are you doing?
BEKA: Harper's project.
RHADE: I'm taking a day off from helping the little one.
BEKA: Come on, don't be like that. Just give me a hand. Come on, Rhade. Rhade, don't make me do it.
RHADE: I'm busy.
BEKA: You know I will play the Matriarch card. Rhade? Help me. Now. Good boy.
RHADE: Sorry. My Nietzschean loyalty is running just a little low today.
BEKA: Ah, cute. Very cute. Nice jumpsuit by the way.
RHADE: Thank you.
(Rhade walks round the corner towards Command, reading a flexi, then senses something and pulls his gun. There is no one there.)

[Corridors]

BEKA: Harper! Do you think you might want to help me with this two hundred kilo bin of space junk that you requested for your project? Harper? Do you think you want to answer me? No, I didn't think so.
(The watcher sees her pass. In another corridor -)
TRANCE: Andromeda, tell me I'm not imaging things.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: There is an unusual energy reading on deck seven sector sixteen.
TRANCE: Oh, my powers are back. Oh no, Beka's there.
(Trance climbs a ladder. Meanwhile, Beka has delivered her bag of heavy bits and is walking back, when the watcher sends energy from her hand to open up a hole in the corridor. Air rushes out as Beka clings on to a ladder.)
BEKA: Help! Help! Help!
TRANCE: Beka? Beka! Beka? Beka!
(Just as the pull is getting too much for Beka to hang on, Trance runs up. The watcher stops the hole and Beka's feet return to the deck.)
BEKA: Trance. Just in time. What the hell was that?
TRANCE: I have no idea. Whatever it was, it's gone, for now.
BEKA: Andromeda, why did a gaping hole open up in the sector sixteen corridor?
ANDROMEDA [OC]: Insufficient data available.
BEKA: Of course.
TRANCE: Dylan is not going to like this.
(Elsewhere -)
HUNT: Andromeda, talk to me.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: There has been an isolated gravitational incident of great magnitude, possibly a naturally occurring magnetic monopole transiting my conduit.
HUNT: I doubt there's anything natural about this.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: It is the only known phenomenon that can account for the damage I experienced.
HUNT: Well then I'd say we're looking for an unknown phenomenon. I got a hit.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: Someone is attempting to access my mainframe memory bank.
(Around the corner.)
HUNT: Step back.
MARIDA: It's not what you think.
HUNT: I think my ship is under attack, so if you don't mind, I'd like you to step back.
MARIDA: I mean you no harm.
HUNT: You were accessing the mainframe memory bank.
(The watcher turns around. She looks just like the Pax Magellanic avatar.)
MARIDA: My name is Marida.
HUNT: How did you get in here? And how do you know your way around my ship?
MARIDA: I'm searching for my husband. He is my heart, my soul, my world. When he was taken from me, all that I was was taken with him. I've searched all the known universes for him ever since.
HUNT: And you think he's here?
MARIDA: I know he's here. You are my husband, Dylan Hunt.
HUNT: It is beyond imagination that I could have been married to you and not know it.
MARIDA: You really don't remember. I, I was so afraid of that.
HUNT: What kind of game is this?
MARIDA: What we had together is locked away in a time you've forgotten. That's why I was accessing the ship's mainframe. To find some record of our time together to prove to you you were my husband. You were my lover. Search your heart and you will find that you belong to me.
HUNT: It's strange but, I do feel like we've met before.
(He gets visions or memories of the pair making love.)
HUNT: We were together.
MARIDA: That's all I want.

[Machine shop]

RHADE: What are you, insane? Anyone towing that thing would be surfing right on the edge of the pinhole's Schwarzschild radius. It'd be practically impossible not to be pulled in.
HARPER: You're right. You're absolutely right. That's why it would take an extremely skilled pilot
RHADE: Don't play me, Harper.
HARPER: Okay, why don't we talk profit motive? Once we get the thing up and running we charge the entire population a subscription fee. Er, take a little off the top for our troubles and I cut you in for say thirty percent.
RHADE: If it doesn't work?
HARPER: So you're out some time and fuel. And you get to break my arm.
RHADE: Hmm. Fifty one percent.
HARPER: Uh, uh.
(Rhade turns away.)
HARPER: No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Okay, I'm in.
RHADE: I like the way you think.
HARPER: Thanks.

[Corridor]

ANDROMEDA [OC]: Data sweep at eighty seven percent. I find no record of Marida in personal files, mission records, or correspondence.
HUNT: Keep checking. She was here. She knows you too well.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: The human condition is subject to unpredictable output.
HUNT: Don't go all android on me. I know what I felt, and somehow we know each other.
(Marida is exploring Hunt's quarters.)
TRANCE: Dylan? That danger I felt, it is somehow connected to this Marida. And then there's the question of how she got onboard without anyone even knowing.
HUNT: Maybe she's from an alternate timestream. You know, someone from my future or my past.
(Marida turns the picture of Hunt and Sarah face down.)

[Command]

HUNT: Andromeda, check outside your mainframe memory, in peripheral storage, damaged files, corrupted data.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: Searching.
TRANCE: What are you thinking?
HUNT: That not everything this ship and I have been through can be neatly cataloged.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: I have located a partial file dated CY9787. I am unable to unlock or authenticate it. It is not my standard practice to store damaged files.
HUNT: Well, it wasn't a standard situation.
TRANCE: Dylan, my powers are getting stronger the closer my sun comes to that pinhole but, I feel bad. I don't remember much of what happened.
(Because you weren't there.)
HUNT: Well, let me fill you in. We'd been ambushed by the Nietzscheans. We were under attack and completely outnumbered. There was only one possible escape route, straight toward a black hole.

[Under the Night - Command]

HOLO-ROMMIE: Dylan, are you sure about this? I can't guarantee I'll have enough power left to pull us away from the singularity.
HUNT: We're not strong enough to fight our way free. We've got to use the black hole's gravity to slingshot us away from the Nietzscheans. It's our only chance.
HUNT [OC]: It might have worked if my First Officer hadn't betrayed me.
DAWN: Commander?
(Gaheris Rhade shoots the pilot, and the shooting match begins.)
HUNT: Rhade!
RHADE: I tried to warn you.
HUNT [OC]: I didn't have a pilot and I was busy fighting for my life. The ship hit the event horizon and couldn't pull out.
HUNT: What was that?
HOLO-ROMMIE: A temporal distortion. Our artificial gravity must be amplifying the time dilation effects of the black hole.
HUNT: No!
(Hunt kills Gaheris Rhade.)
HUNT: Gaheris, what have you done?
RHADE: I'm proud of you. You should be
HUNT [OC]: And it all seemed to happen in an instant. For more than years Andromeda and I were outside of linear time, until Beka and her crew found us and towed us out with the Maru.

[Under the Night - Eureka Maru]

BEKA: The bucky cables are holding.
TRANCE [OC]: And I was there, right?
HUNT [OC]: You were my good luck charm, even then.
BEKA: Ladies and gentlemen, the Andromeda Ascendant.
HARPER: Okay. I would just like to say for the record, we rule.
HUNT [OC]: And when normal time resumed my life was about to change forever.
HOLO-ROMMIE: Captain Hunt? Captain Hunt, are you all right?
HUNT: I'll live.

[Command]

HUNT: Andromeda was forced to make hasty repairs. Some pathways were rerouted through time paradoxes, leaving areas of memory that we haven't searched.
TRANCE: Marida was here while you were caught in the singularity.
HUNT: It would mean that all those years I lost, some part of me wasn't frozen in time. I actually lived them.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: We're set to go. Just waiting on your okay to launch.
HUNT: What keeps Rhade from being pulled off course?
HARPER: True, it's a tricky manoeuvre. He loses the line, he's fusion fuel, but Rhade's a good pilot.
HUNT: He's a great pilot, but unexpected things can happen to even the best.
MARIDA: I can help.
HUNT: I guess a locked door is no obstacle for someone who can sneak onto a warship.
MARIDA: I couldn't wait any longer.
HARPER: Okay, er, this is?
HUNT: Marida. This is Marida. She's a visitor. Marida, Mister Harper.
HARPER: No offence, and although I could think of a hundred ways, how can you help?
MARIDA: By creating an anchor point for your friend. A pinpoint of gravity to counteract the gravitational force of the pinhole.
HARPER: Cute! However, an AG generator that could do that hasn't been built.
HUNT: She wasn't planning on using a machine, were you. Andromeda, status on that file decompression I requested.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: File expansion complete.
HUNT: That's perfect timing. Transfer to monitors please.

[Under the Night - Command]

(The famous fight between Hunt and Rhade, again.)
HUNT: Gaheris, what have you done?
RHADE: I'm proud of you. You should be
(Time stops. Then Marida walks onto Command.)
MARIDA: Dear one.
(A duplicate Hunt turns and stands up.)
HUNT: I don't belong here.
MARIDA: You've come home.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: She was there? She was, when Andromeda got caught on the event horizon? How? Who are you?
HUNT: There's only one answer that makes sense. Every celestial body has its avatar. Beings who command the power of suns, moons, collapsed stars.
HARPER: You're an avatar of a black hole?
HUNT: The black hole, Mister Harper. The one that I was trapped in for over three hundred years before you and Beka salvaged me.
MARIDA: We were together for a fraction of a moment. Longer than you might have liked, too brief for me.
HUNT: Please understand. I, I know it happened but I don't remember.
MARIDA: We can start over. Let me begin by helping you.
HUNT: All right. I can work with that.

[Corridor]

TRANCE: You believe you can trust her?
HUNT: She has something we need. She can create a point of intense gravitational force and Rhade can use that as an anchor to keep from being sucked into the pinhole.
TRANCE: Well, that certainly has its value, but do you know its price? Dylan, it seems you have spent three lifetimes with this woman. You must have loved her, but you don't remember any of it.
HUNT: That doesn't make it less real.

[Command]

BEKA: Come on, you rotten bucket of. Useless. This thing's full of holes. No offence to present company.
MARIDA: None taken.
RHADE: Don't mind her. She's never met the avatar of a black hole before.
MARIDA: And you have? I believe the ideal anchor point is located right here.
RHADE: That will give us enough clearance to protect Andromeda.
BEKA: I still think you can make an eighteen degree turn and save six minutes off your final arc.
RHADE: You would, wouldn't you. I'm the one playing slingshot between a temporary point singularity and an unstable pinhole. Crashing into just four percent of the sun is still one hundred percent fatal, so I'll take the extra six minutes, thank you.
BEKA: Suit yourself. (cough) Wuss.
RHADE: I heard that. I'm just trying to get my ass back in one piece.
(Electricity from Marida runs down the railing and zaps Rhade.)
MARIDA: Are you okay?
BEKA: Wuss.
RHADE: I'm fine! Thank you. Ow.

[Hunt's quarters]

HUNT: It's minor nerve damage. His hand'll be fine in two to three days.
BEKA: Well, he won't be flying this job. Not with impaired motor control.
HUNT: Yeah, it certainly was an unlucky break.
BEKA: Hello?
HUNT: Hmm?
BEKA: So let me fly it in the Maru. Come on. I have two good hands, and I'm a better pilot than you know who.
HUNT: True but, I think I'll fly this mission myself.
BEKA: Okay.
(Beka leaves.)
MARIDA: Dylan, please don't. Let Beka do it.
HUNT: Why?
MARIDA: Well, I just found you. The thought of having you out of my sight so soon.
HUNT: With you to anchor me, Marida, I know I'll be safe.

[Corridor]

TRANCE: She won't ever let go of you. She'll do anything to keep the two of you together.
HUNT: I'm counting on it. That's why I'm flying this mission. Whatever else Marida's up to, she won't harm me.
TRANCE: Well, if she thinks she's lost you, there's no telling what she'll do.
HUNT: Yeah, there's that, but we're running out of options.

[Maru crew area]

(Beka goes through the ship, convinced someone is there, then suddenly -)
MARIDA: That eighteen degree turn, you think you can make it?
BEKA: I know I can make it. The Maru may not be as pretty as a slipfighter, but she flies true.
MARIDA: Then why not do it?
BEKA: Well, if I were flying, I would.
MARIDA: Well, you should be the one. Even Rhade said no one's a better pilot.
BEKA: He did? Well he's right about that.
MARIDA: And you have the better ship.
BEKA: That's right. Two for two. I'm starting to like you. But Dylan wants to do it. Who am I to argue?
MARIDA: The most important thing is that the job succeeds. No one's better than you.

[Machine shop]

(Doyle carries in a large pile of metal parts, then drops them on the floor.)
HARPER: Easy!
DOYLE: That's the last of it. It is a scorcher down there, all right.
HARPER: I could adjust your internal cooling systems to compensate.
DOYLE: Or I could bag you again.
HARPER: Okay. Okay. Never mind. It's too hot anyway. Besides you got more work to get out of the way.
DOYLE: What?
HARPER: Or not.
DOYLE: I'm sorry, Harper. I think the heat's getting to me. I mean, I've been having the craziest thoughts about you lately.
HARPER: Thoughts about me? Like what, dreams?
DOYLE: No, not dreams. It's like, it's like I'm burning up just thinking of all things I want to do to you. Fantasies. And I can't get them out of my head, and each one is different, but they all end the same.
HARPER: Oh yeah?
DOYLE: Mmm.
HARPER: Like how? A happy ending?
(Doyle takes hold of Harper's throat.)
DOYLE: They end in pain. Off the meter, unrelenting, oh I want to die, kind of pain. Do you understand that, Harper?
HARPER: It's clear. Painfully clear.
DOYLE: All right, then.
(She releases him.)
HARPER: On the other hand at least you're thinking about me, even if it is sadistic.
DOYLE: Don't start Harper. It's too hot.
(Doyle leaves.)
HARPER: You're telling me. Fine. Go ahead. Suffer like the rest of us.
(The Maru launches.)
BEKA [OC]: Harper, come in. Harper!
HARPER: Harper and Sons mech work and sandwich shop, everything from soup to nuts and bolts.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: I'm headed for the drop point for your electron parasol. Parabolic shield ready to receive instruction data upload and be deployed in
HARPER [OC]: Beka?

[Machine shop]

HARPER: I thought Dylan had that gig.
BEKA [OC]: Change of plans.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Just tell me when you're sending the data so I can tell you if the thingy's receiving it.
HARPER [OC]: Okay.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Dylan?

[Command]

HUNT: I'm already on it. I just got the word. Beka, I told you I was doing this.
BEKA [on viewscreen]: No offence to your piloting, Dylan. I just felt that I had a better shot of pulling it off. Look, the most important thing is making sure this job succeeds.
HUNT: This is your doing.
MARIDA: I am providing an anchor point to stabilise her course.
HUNT: Beka, abort this flight. I am ordering you.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: She's not going to like that.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: You're ordering me? That's cute.

[Command]

HUNT: Fine, I'm asking you.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Well, I'm pretty much committed now.

[Command]

ANDROMEDA [OC]: The Eureka Maru is approaching point of no return.
TRANCE: We have to do something.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Her acceleration's too hot.

[Command]

HUNT: Beka, pull out!

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: No, I can hold it.

[Command]

ANDROMEDA [OC]: She is off course by two degrees seventeen minutes.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: I don't get it. I hit that turn perfectly, eighteen degrees off the anchor point.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: She needs more drag or the momentum's going to carry her right in.

[Command]

HUNT: You fix this now.
MARIDA: I'm doing what I can.
HUNT: I don't think you are. I think your anchor point is just a little weaker than Beka calculated. And don't pretend that you didn't arrange this. You wanted Beka out there.
MARIDA: Now why would I do that?
HUNT: Because you're a woman who doesn't let go of what she thinks is hers, and Beka's the one who took what was yours, didn't she? When she salvaged Andromeda and took me away from you?
HUNT [memory]: I don't belong here.
MARIDA [memory]: You've come home.
BEKA [Under the Night]: The bucky cables are holding.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Braking thrusters are not going to cut it. I'm caught in the pinhole's gravity field.

[Command]

TRANCE: Soon she'll be burning up.
HUNT: Just like Trance said, there's nothing you won't do to keep us together.
MARIDA: All I want is to be with you again.
HUNT: If you do that by hurting Beka then I swear we are history.
(Marida kisses Hunt.)
MARIDA: I could never deny you.
(Marida vanishes.)
ANDROMEDA [OC]: AI mainframe intrusion. Intrusion. Intrusion. Intrusion. Intrusion.
TRANCE: You have to stop her. She's in the AI mainframe.
HUNT: I know. Get Rhade up here right now.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Er, hey, what about me?

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Hold on, Beka. I'm doing the best I can. I don't know. Maybe you'd better drop the shield to stabilize the Maru.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: And scrap this whole thing after all that work? No thanks. I'd rather deep fry than slow roast any day.

[Machine shop]

(Hunt enters.)
HARPER: What's going on, boss? What happened to Beka's gravity anchor?
HUNT: Marida jumped into Andromeda's AI. I'm going in too.
HARPER: To do what? Kill her? Stop her? How do you get rid of an avatar?
HUNT: She's data right now. Destructive code to be exact. That we can get rid of.
HARPER: It's dangerous boss. You could die in VR too.
HUNT: Come on, Harper. You're better than that.
HARPER: Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment.
HUNT: Take that as an order.
HARPER: No pressure.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA; Oh, me and my big mouth.

[Machine shop]

HUNT: All right, let's get this thing over with.
HARPER: Okay. Enjoy your date with data. Don't forget to use a conduit.
HUNT: Ha.
(Harper jacks Hunt into Andromeda' virtual reality.)

[Virtual reality]

HUNT: Marida.
MARIDA: Your home is with me. You are my other half.
HUNT: You know, I may not remember it but I know who I am, and I, I was never your husband.
(Hunt takes hold of a floating ball and expands it into lots of data files that follow on from the Under the Night extra scene.)
HUNT: Watch.
HUNT [on screen]: It's happening. Someone's pulling the ship free.
MARIDA [on screen]: You can't leave me!
HUNT [on screen]: I never agreed to stay.
MARIDA [on screen]: Here with me you're free from time and gravity. Part of the universe itself. Don't you want that?

[Under the Night command]

HUNT: I have a Commonwealth that I have sworn to protect as long as I live. You know that.
MARIDA: I know that you belong here with me.
HUNT: Marida, I was born into linear time, and this existence, watching life unfold from the outside instead of living it, it wasn't meant for me. They are here to give me back my life. I cannot refuse, even if it means giving you up.
(The Maru tows the Andromeda out of the event horizon.)
HOLO-ROMMIE: Captain Hunt. Captain Hunt, are you all right? 
HUNT: I'll live.

[Virtual reality]

HUNT: You have to let me go. Again.
MARIDA: I can't. I won't.
HUNT: You're not my home.
MARIDA: No one leaves me.
(She uses a VR monofilament lash to chop his VR forcelance in half, but he puts it back together again.)
HUNT: Now Marida

[Command]

RHADE: How bad is it?
TRANCE: Well, Dylan is in the mainframe and the AI is down. It's hard to tell how bad the damage is.
RHADE: Andromeda, status. (silence) This may be it.

[Virtual reality]

HUNT: Marida, listen to me!
(The end of her lash wraps around the forcelance, and he pulls it out of her hands, then grabs her.)
HUNT; Come on! Stop this! Stop it right now!
MARIDA: No! There's nothing else! Stay with me, please. Please, stay with me.
HUNT: Shush. It's all right. It's all right. What we had was a dream. It was a beautiful dream.
MARIDA: It was beautiful, wasn't it?
HUNT: Yes. It's going to be okay.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Dylan, you've got to let her go.

[Virtual reality]

HARPER [OC]: Get out of there, boss. She's trying to take you with her.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: You've got to let her go now. Boss, let her go now! You've got to get out of there. There's no time!

[Virtual reality]

(Hunt releases Marida.)
HUNT: Now!
(Marida disappears.)

[Machine shop]

HUNT: Andromeda, status.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: My systems are back online.
HARPER: Excellent work, boss. I'm detecting a massive new memory cache in Andromeda's central processors.
HUNT: Isolate.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: Isolated. Should I delete it?
HUNT: No. We're going to use it to save Beka.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Did someone say save Beka? That's music to my burning ears.

[Machine shop]

HUNT: Andromeda, attach new memory cache to parabolic reflector data and send.
ANDROMEDA [OC]: Attaching. Sending.
HUNT: Hang on, Beka. We've got a hitchhiker coming your way.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Upload received. How come people make fun of my relationship choices?

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Well you're the one that picks them. Just deploy the reflector, please.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: Off you go.
(The deflector launches from the cargo pod, then spreads its sails in the middle of the plume still streaming out of the Route of Ages gateway towards Trance's coalescing sun, reflecting it back.)
BEKA: And stabilising.

[Command]

RHADE: The Maru has achieved equilibrium point.
TRANCE: Beka's going to be okay.

[Machine shop]

HARPER: Reflector's responding to RMF control. Approaching final position. Radiation reflection better than eighty percent! Yes! So maybe I underestimated by about twenty. Looks like Marida's gravity trapped in that reflector should keep it in place nicely.
HUNT: All right, Beka. You're free to fly back home. You can thank me later.
BEKA [OC]: And you can thank me now.

[Eureka Maru]

BEKA: I told you. I had the best shot of pulling this off.

[Machine shop]

ANDROMEDA [OC]: Mission assessment, Captain?
HUNT: Well, we're er, still alive, so I guess we could call that a success.

[Command]

TRANCE: The news isn't so good here. Sending Marida up with the reflector caused stress on the pinhole. It's been enlarged.
HUNT: Meaning your sun'll be coming through even faster.
TRANCE: You'll find a way to stop it.
HUNT: Yeah. You know, Trance, it was strange, seeing glimpses of a relationship that must have meant something to me.
TRANCE: Something, but not everything. That's what she couldn't accept.
HUNT: Oh, Trance, she could have done so much damage. Now at least she won't be able to hurt anyone.
TRANCE: It should be about a thousand years before she figures out how to get out of the reflector's data node.
HUNT: By then she should be over me. Maybe.