17. Vault of the Heavens

Complete story — includes the ending

While in command of the Andromeda during the night shift, Harper decides to initiate a little race with a friendly Nietzschean vessel to the nearest slip-point. When he tries a trick he calls "Harper's Afterburner" to beat his rival to the slip-point and into slipstream he causes a malfunction in the engine that could cause the destruction of the Andromeda. The Andromeda receives communication from a system thousands of light-years away, but the signal appears to be only a few days old. Dylan hears voices telling him to pursue the signal to its source on a planet of "Fire and Ice" and he takes the Andromeda to the source, traveling through hostile Nietzschean-controlled space to do so.