"That sounds familiar," Dylan says, a spark of amusement in his eyes. Not the precise situation with the chips, but things needing to be held together because a refit's not practical even though things blow out?

He knows that one. He even knows the frank discussions between the captain and the crew members involved it can cause.

Dylan, like all High Guard officers, had started out in the Home Guard on his homeworld. That meant Tarn-Vedra, where the Home Guard were charged with the protection of the heart of the Commonwealth itself. Then he'd had a year on a High Guard ship as a spacer before he'd made it to the Academy and graduated into the officer corps.

Dylan watches Terzen at work, recognizes the easy way his hands work the console, just like Dylan's would on the controls on the Andromeda. He's familiar with the functioning of all the consoles in her Command Centre, and in these times of running a ship with a complement of over four thousand with a crew of six, he regularly has to operate any or all of them himself.

"She's my home," he says, his gaze dropping back to the console under his hand, though his fingers don't activate any of the controls there. He glances back up, at one of the screens rather than at Terzen. "The only one I have now. And ... she's my ship."

That means more to him than Terzen or anyone could understand, because she's all he has left of his world.

Dylan glances back across at Terzen, a little curious about just what he means about sensing missing the Andromeda. It's hardly difficult for anyone who knows him -- or who knows many starship captains -- to work out, but sensing it implies something different.

"You pick up a lot," he says. It's not a direct answer to either of Terzen's suggestions, but it's close enough.

He has been through a lot. And he misses his ship in a way he could never explain.