Enter Tyr.

[kodiak]

There was a stillness in battle that Tyr knew as deeply and perfectly as he knew the flex and coil of his muscles, or the action of his most favorite assault rifle switching to automatic fire. It came when he let the details wash over him, when he saw his target and had already visualized the outcome. And it moved through him as he carried out the inevitable. But that tranquility was not with him in the Eureka Maru.

It had started well enough, about to embark on a desperate last bid bombing run. The thrill of a formidable foe and a daring plan to master them thrumming adrenaline through his system. The dimensional tunnel pouring a new menace into an already cutthroat universe, Tyr, nevertheless could not have quelled his confidence had he tried. With Beka at the helm, Harper's invention ready to cut short this new danger, and his Gauss Guns well maintained, stocked with ammunition and at the ready, Tyr had smiled so wide and full of promise as if to yell into the storm, Do your worst, for I shall do mine.

In that brief moment of anticipation, Tyr could not have cared less about the number of the ships pouring out of the tunnel before him. He saw only the achievement this would be, heard only the legend of Tyr Anasazi of Kodiak Pride, who stepped upon the very threshold of another universe, who met the dangerously advanced race that thrived there, and slammed their door back in their faces.

When the first creature stepped out of the very air beside him, and grappled with him, thoughts of his reputation gave way to the fight. However this did little to sully his mood. Here was a real test, a chance to stretch himself and know his limits, and he poured himself into rebuffing the assault, not three feet from the woman he was here to protect. Her focus, he knew, was on wresting this piecemeal cargo ship through the wake of alien vessels and the gravitational pull of the tunnel to the point where she might deliver the bomb. A formidable task in itself, and one he meant to leave her to.

But as time went on, as one alien became more, and the Maru sparked and shuddered, taking damage from he knew not which source, Beka yelled his name, then screamed it. Tyr, his arms locked in the leathery grip of these strange creatures found himself abruptly stumbling forward, as an elbow that hit like a brick drove into the back of his skull just as a white light burst before his eyes.

Against all possibility, his forearms landed first, catching the majority of his weight as he hit the floor hard. Even landing awkwardly half atop his own gun. At once, Tyr became aware that he was no longer being held and he was no longer on the Eureka Maru. The peculiar background hum of the ships instruments were gone, replaced by a much less discordant murmur of well-maintained and properly repaired circuitry. The flat gray of the brightly lit hallway he found himself seemed almost a shock to the eyes, and Tyr pulled himself warily to his feet as his eyes darted the length and breadth of peculiar corridor.

"Beka?" he called loudly, pulling his assault rifle up after him. Pausing to listen a moment, he readjusted his grip on the weapon, maneuvering the thing as if was not the considerable bulk it truly was. He didn't call again, either satisfied that she was not close enough or not in a position to respond, or not inclined to draw further attention to himself. Instead, Tyr started down the hallway, a wary eye always on his surroundings.

[ooc: So a heavily armed Tyr is now wandering the halls. Feel free to run into him in the hallway, at the turbolift, Ten Forward, or in any likely public room. I promise he doesn't shoot before he asks questions, especially when the other party is unarmed. Security or any ship personnel are also welcome to disarm him or stun him or put him in the brig, etc. He's big, his gun is big, he may growl or yell; but, he's more interested in information than a gunfight.]

Comments

[kodiak]

"Dylan." It's not without a note of confusion. Tyr has never quite understood the turn of phrase that the devil was in the details. Frankly, he'd be more inclined to say that survival was in them. And the details had been throwing up alarms ever since he's found himself on this Enterprise. But the ship herself felt almost subtle in it's strangeness when compared with the sight of Captain Hunt, who was not wearing the same variation of uniform he'd last seen him in, and it was possible his hair was a different length, certainly not by much, but a bit less grown into. All this Tyr would have dismissed as irrelevant if he had not stood and watched Hunt say his reluctant goodbyes to Beka what felt like moments ago. But who knew when an inter-dimensional tunnel was involved.

"What are you doing here?" Even with all of those superior senses, Tyr does ask the obvious questions now and again.

[dreams_dont_die]

Last time he saw Tyr, he'd sent him to Command to let the Than know about the successful resolution of the crisis with the Bokor and get the Andromeda moving again. He definitely wasn't carting his assault rifle, which would have done nothing against the Bokor. They'd all been armed with lances.

So. That makes Harper, Dylan, and Tyr all here from different times, though there's no telling from a glance just how different Tyr's time is. It could be days. Weeks, like Harper's. It could be a lot more.

This whole situation just keeps getting weirder. And from the unease in Tyr's voice, that hasn't been lost on him.

"That, Tyr, is a very good question. Unfortunately, I don't think it's one I have an answer to."

Trance would have him believe that this is a learning experience for him, an opportunity to further his mission through an unforeseen chance.

He's had to learn to trust her when she says things like that, but he's pretty sure that's not the answer Tyr is looking for. Or the reason the omnipotent alien playing this game has brought them here.

"Apparently there are creatures playing games with time and space."

[kodiak]

Oh, Tyr has his force lance, just as he has two smaller gauss guns, but each of them are holstered. He's most definitely arrived straight from a combat situation -- or maybe cleaning them. Tyr lowers the assault rifle, letting it hang idle off of its shoulder strap. The peculiarity of the situation prompts him to explain his circumstances.

"Beka and I were aboard the Maru, we were about to deliver Harper's invention into that tunnel and then... then all was light, and beyond the light darkness, darkness deeper than imagining." He hesitates, not a simple pause for thought, but almost as if there's something he can't or won't bring himself to say in that pause.

"And when I came to myself again, there were no creatures. Beka was gone. There was only..." His hands have lifted, and he taps one to his chest to finish that sentence, me, before dropping them to readjust the strap on his shoulder.

There have been times, few and far between, in which Tyr was this unsettled. But it's a glimpse, and he pulls himself together quickly.

"And you? Were you fool enough to take the Andromeda in, or did you try a slip fighter?"

[dreams_dont_die]

Dylan usually carries the same weapon whatever the fight he's facing, even if he's facing no fight at all: his force lance, because to him, it's all the weapon he needs, except in very particular circumstances like any occasion he doesn't want to look like a High Guard officer. Tyr, though, does not make a habit of wandering the Andromeda with half an arsenal strapped to him.

Arriving in this place is unsettling enough without being apparently prepared for a hell of a fight and suddenly ending up on another ship with no enemy to face.

Stranger than the sight of Tyr looking, if only for a moment, uneasy in a way that is completely unlike the usually deeply self-possessed Nietzschean, is the tale Tyr tells.

It's completely unfamiliar, and Dylan's expression must betray that fact for an instant before he masters it.

"I didn't take the Andromeda anywhere. I ... have no idea about sending you and Beka and the Maru into any tunnel with any invention of Harper's." His brow creases, his expression slipping into unease again.

"Last time I saw you, you were on your way to send a message to the Than about not killing us to wipe out the Bokor." He lets out a long, tired breath.

Why couldn't they at least be here from the same time?

"I'm guessing that happened sometime in your past."

[kodiak]

"That was weeks ago," Tyr confirms, his shoulders drooping faintly. He follows up, sarcastically, "I suppose I could claim to have returned from a bad future, but the truth is it seemed rather like we had things figured out. So if this is some cosmic ploy to save us, I haven't the faintest idea how it's supposed to work."

The lot of it is matter of fact, nevertheless, and whatever unsettled note had touched his tone and expression is already smoothed over. He's standing at ease now, and though there's no pretending he isn't armed from head to foot, Tyr is once again just as calm and collected as if he wasn't.

"That said, kicking down doors and demanding answers seems to be an option." Calm and collected enough to defer to Dylan's judgment for the time being, at the very least.

[dreams_dont_die]

Tyr looks about as impressed by the temporal mess the Andromeda's crew seem to be in as Dylan was when he first worked it out, talking to Harper. That makes Harper from weeks in his past and him from weeks in Tyr's. That's not going to be great for the timeline, surely.

(Harper must surely have messed it up already, by being cured of the Magog infestation here, instead of on the Andromeda by Trance and the tesseract device

"Well, that's something for me to look forward to." He gives Tyr a look that his crewman should recognize; eyes rolled a little, lips thin and tight, and very little patience apparent. It's a silent statement of annoyance with the situation, and he'd given a very similar look to Tyr back on the Andromeda as things started to go to hell with the zombies.

Weeks ago, for Tyr.

"As cosmic rescue plans go, I've seen better," he agrees. "I didn't need saving." Maybe Tyr's assessment is wrong and he did. Harper didn't; Dylan's seen how that played out, and Harper survived. Harper, though not everyone.

Tyr's suggestion brings the hint of a smile to his face, but he dismisses the idea with a brief shake of the head.

"Belay that. You won't get many. I've been asking questions since I got here, and it seems like nobody has much idea why we're here."

[kodiak]

Though not prone to broadcasting his deferment to Dylan's command, Tyr offers him a bare nod of understanding. Already, Tyr can read Dylan's frustration in the man's tone and his bearing, to say nothing of the look Tyr does recognize. In truth he'd already dismissed what little value knocking down doors might have as negligible through those others he had run into before Dylan. The nod is a simple concession he makes for Dylan's benefit.

For Tyr, it was not long ago that he had admitted his faith in Dylan Hunt aloud, even if Beka was the only one there to hear it. It was not long ago that he had staked his very life on Dylan Hunt. Again. And if there was any fool with the will to bend this universe into such a shape as to return them unscathed from whatever corner or whatever galaxy they had arrived in, it was Dylan.

With no small help from Tyr Anasazi, of course.

"And where 'here' is? You must have discovered that, at least."

[dreams_dont_die]

He has.

Or at least, if not enough to map it on a star chart, enough to know the gravity of the situation. Trance doesn't seem bothered, but he's not Trance. However reassuring her insistence that this is something he needs to do, somewhere he needs to be, might seem, it doesn't change the fact that they're thousands of years in the past in a universe that's not their own.

At that point, their actual physical location matters little.

"We're aboard the Starfleet ship USS Enterprise, which serves the United Federation of Planets."

He pauses, for a moment, but there is no point in trying to wrap this up in niceties. Not for Tyr. Especially not when Tyr already knows something beyond strange has happened to them.

Was perhaps, more prepared in the moment he'd arrived here for this sort of news than Dylan was, based on his description of what had been happening aboard the Maru.

"We, Tyr, are in an alternate universe where there was never a Systems Commonwealth. And as best I can work out, we're almost three thousand years in our past."

If Tyr had any doubts just why Dylan is edgy and frustrated with his temporally scattered crew, with this place, with this situation, that should set them to rest. One thing everyone on his crew knows about him is that service to the Commonwealth and the values it represents has been his life.

And that suddenly being jolted out of his time and everything he knows has happened to him before.

[kodiak]

An alternate universe was certainly what he first expected, unceremoniously dumped in these halls. Commonwealth in this universe also seemed a given the propensity for conquest among the aliens who had poured through the tunnel. But that doesn't explain the lack of the aliens that had so ruined Dylan's own ceremony, nor the disappearance of Beka and the Eureka Maru. And that there was never a Commonwealth to begin with is difficult for Tyr to wrap his head around as well.

No matter his opinions on the subject, the Commonwealth has always been a presence both historical and immediate. It is as intrinsically shaping to the Known Worlds as were the classical philosophers of Ancient Earth, the scientific treatises of the Perseids or the advent of Drago Museveni himself. Tyr has not live among the grandeur of the Commonwealth anymore than he carries the cause to restore it as his personal burden, so he knows that he cannot approach Dylan's feelings on this, but he knows the uncertainty of having the carpet pulled from beneath his feet as it were.

It's in light of this, and in light of a conversation about loss that he and Dylan shared not long ago that Tyr claps a hand on his shoulder, in a grip that would be painful to any ordinary human, but that he knows Dylan will not have too much trouble enduring. The line of his mouth pulls into a serious set and he looks Dylan dead in the eyes.

"Then it seems you have your work cut out for you, to proselytize your egalitarian brand of insanity across dimensions now, instead of only galaxies." Tyr's only barely begun to speak however when the smile he's trying to hold at bay touches his eyes, and he's forced to let out a laugh. It's not that he's mocking Dylan, or that he doesn't believe Dylan could and would do just that. It simply seems too perfect to him, that Dylan finally assembles his Commonwealth only to be whisked away to do it again, as if he was some sort of messiah.

[dreams_dont_die]

Dylan and Tyr have had their issues over the past months. Tyr's painted a target on himself, the Andromeda, and her crew with his actions and his plans. But for all the accusations, the sometimes too frank discussions of Dylan's choices, for Tyr's reaction when Dylan locked him out of the storage area that holds the Nietzschean progenitor's stolen corpse, they're friends, a friendship forged in countless battles fought together, in Dylan risking his life to pull Tyr out of danger and in Tyr doing exactly the same for him.

It's their friendship, their shared experiences, the fact that Tyr is on his crew that mean Dylan knows Tyr will understand, without being told, just what that particular piece of news means. The heavy hand on his shoulder, fingers pressing hard, is enough to tell him the unspoken part of the news has been as clearly understood as if he'd expressed it outwardly.

When Tyr meets his eyes, Dylan's caught for a moment, unable to quite keep his expression from showing a little of the sense of being adrift this place gives him.

Tyr's laughter, though, breaks through the unease, and Dylan lets out a deep breath that shakes with a suggestion of laughter of his own.

"They actually seem to be doing okay on their own. This ship serves a federation of planets with 150 member worlds."

Three times as many as the Commonwealth charter needs to be ratified.

"When I first got here, I found Trance waiting for me. She thinks this is a learning experience."

Whatever the reason behind it, Dylan plans to find out exactly what he can learn from the Federation and how it was founded.

Tyr and Harper, though, don't need the lessons Dylan would learn from the Federation. If Trance is right -- and she is, more often than not, when she offers that sort of opinion on events -- that still leaves plenty of questions for the rest of them.

Like how they're getting home.