Andi was making the rounds on the Pytheas as they took off from orbiting the planet Chronos. She flitted from one room to the next checking to make sure everyone was doing well. Her mother had asked her to come to some boring meeting about the route they should take to Dark Space, but Andi could care less about that kind of thing.

She would of course look over her mother's route and ensure everything went smoothly. That was her job and she took it seriously. For now, though she wanted to check on her friends.

The next stop was Dr. Mina Mirlaj. Andi floated into the room wearing her usual tie-dyed jumper. She had seen one on a vid about old earth and had fallen in love with the style and the colors. "Hello Mina." she said.

"Good morning Andi. How are we today?" Dr. Mirlaj asked. Mina had copper brown skin with dark auburn locks and brown eyes. She was shorter than Andi, but a lot of people were. Dr. Mirlaj had on her classic white researcher suit with red accents on it, to show she was part of the Biology department on board.

"Doing well, Mina! I'm just checking on everyone before we leave the Chronos' sector." Andi started looking intently and curiously at all the plants Dr. Mirlaj had.

"I am doing well, thank you for checking." Dr. Mirlaj gave Andi a sly smile, "Aren't you supposed to be in a meeting with your mother right now?"

"Oh, they'll be fine without me. Corvus will keep mother on track." Andi laughed. The laid-back second in command, Corvus Leanthal, was one of the reasons Andi had so much freedom aboard. He had convinced her mother she could be so much more helpful if she was allowed to interact and really be part of the crew.

"Hey Andi, can you possibly do me a favor?" Dr. Mirlaj asked. Andi made her way over to Dr. Mirlaj's workstation to look over her shoulder. "I'm trying to flag this old biology experiment to be picked up two-clicks into Dark Space. Any chance you can help me approximate its location?"

"One moment." Andi herself, stayed in the biology research lab with Dr. Mirlaj but her consciousness went to her mind garden. It was wild and free and beautiful. Everything she loved. The only thing that could possibly make it better would be if her friends could be there with her.

As she walked along, looking for the information she had stored earlier regarding the particular mission Mina had asked for she noticed her garden seemed much larger than before. Some of the plants had doubled up with slightly different features.

Her mission for Mina forgotten, Andi wandered around the garden, marveling at how it had grown so much. She didn't recall having added any new information like this. This was something new, but familiar.

Her wandering took her back to her favorite banyan tree in the middle of the garden and was surprised to find it had grown more than any other part of the garden. Filled with memories about her parents, she didn't remember having.

She touched a new offshoot of the tree, it was a vivid memory of her parents fighting one night before they had left their home for the Pytheas. She knew it was her parents, they looked and sounded just like them, but had no recollection of ever seeing this. Her mother looked younger, much as Andi did now. Her mother had her long blonde hair in a tight bun much like always, but there were a few strands loose and softened the hard lines she wore on her face. Her father was just as handsome as she remembered him. His rough brown curly hair and his bright green eyes. His pronounced freckles on tan skin brought a smile to Andi.

They were fighting about her. Her mother was threatening to take her aboard the Pytheas and he would never see Andi again. Her father was begging her mother for Andi to stay with him. Why have I never seen this before? Andi thought. She pulled her hand away from the mysterious new growth on the banyan tree and looked behind her.

"Don't be afraid." A woman who looked just like her must have appeared while she was accessing these new memories. She wore a researcher's suit but had included all the different accent colors.

"We know this is strange, but it's going to be alright." A second woman walked up from behind the first. Another woman who looked just like her, only this time wearing a white dress, fitted at the waist and stopped at the knees. They both held their hands up in a gesture of safety.

Andi did the only thing she could think of to do. She left before they could say anything more. Suddenly back in the research lab with Dr. Mirlaj, Andi started panicking.

"Andi," Dr. Mirlaj looked at her, concern in her eyes. "Andi, what happened?"

Andi couldn't even think. The lights in the room flickered and Dr. Mirlaj called for help. A few other researchers came over and one of them called her mother over the intercom. The lights kept flickering and then Andi was forced into her mind garden once again.

She had never been forced into her mind garden before. She felt violated and angry. The only time Andi went to her mind garden was when she needed to access some type of information or when she was sleeping. Someone must have forced me to sleep. Andi fell to her knees in front of a small tree that was just sprouting up.

The other women walked up slowly to her and the one in the dress knelt down to comfort her. "As we said, it's going to be alright." She helped Andi up and the three of them walked towards the banyan tree and took seats on some of the lower branches.

They both waited for Andi to speak first, "Who are you?" Andi finally asked after several minutes of awkward silence and staring.

"We are you." the one in the researcher's suit said.

"And you are us." the one in the dress said. Andi got up and started pacing back and forth several paces while she sorted this out.

"I need more input." She said while she paced.

"We don't have much to go on, but we do know there is something in Dark Space," Dress-lady said.

"Specifically where Rigel collapsed." The other woman interjected.

"That has dragged us into some sort of time-loop, with the loop beginning at the start of the Pytheas' journey towards Dark Space." Dress-lady ended.

Andi kept her pace and nodded her head. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing quite strangely. "So, why would you be here in my mind garden?" Andi's pace quickened. "Shouldn't you be stuck in your mind gardens?"

"We've been talking about that actually, and we don't really understand why we're here. Our memories have been added to your own." the research suit lady said. "I believe the reason we've been relegated here, is we died in our time loops and are now only alive in your mind garden."

"Can we call it our mind garden now?" The dress-lady asked, her eyes full of hope.

"Are you able to leave?" Andi stopped pacing and looked at her.

"No," dress-lady frowned. "I'm afraid we're stuck here."

Andi looked her in the eyes, then looked in the same blue eyes of research-suit-lady, "Then I suppose we will need to come up with names. I can't continue referring to you both by what you're wearing." Andi motioned to their outfits. "My name is Andi, that's what everyone on the ship calls me anyways."

"People on the ship talk to you?" research-lady asked. "Mother never allowed people to speak to me on the ship." The three of them all let out a sigh.

"It was Commander Corvus Leanthal's idea. He thought I could be a much more effective helper if I was allowed to interact with the crew members." Andi said with a half-smile of the memory of him changing her mother's mind.

"Well, I believe, I am the original Andromeda. So you may call me Andromeda the first I suppose."

"That's not fair." Dress-lady objected, jumping off her tree branch and crossing her arms. "I wasn't allowed any friends either and have only ever been called Andromeda."

"We can't both be called Andromeda, that's much too confusing." Andromeda I said.

"Why don't you go by Junior?" Andi offered. "If she's the first, and you're the second, we could call you Junior."

Junior gave Andi a look of disgust and tapped her foot for a few moments. "I don't have any better ideas at the moment. I reserve the right to change it at a later date though." Andromeda and Andi nodded in agreement. "Also, Andromeda the first is stupid, you should be Andromeda Senior." Andromeda Senior growled under her breath and little and finally nodded in assent.

"Ok, now that's settled, Andi, we need you to get to where Rigel collapsed and figure out what is happening to us." Andromeda Sr. said.

"I haven't quite told you everything yet about that..." Junior shuffled her feet a bit towards the side of the garden. "It's probably best to just show you, come on."

They followed her away from the banyan tree and she led them to a flowering shrub that stood as tall as they were. Its leaves were as large as their head and coming out of the top was an orange and red stunning flower.

All three of them reached out and Andi found herself in an outer ring of the Pytheas. No one lived out here, so Andi had never spent very much time here. It was darker than the rest of the ship. Looking out the window she saw a blue star forming and in front of it was a strange shining ship surrounded by a red shield of some sort. It was an inverted pyramid and had a strange outer shell she couldn't quite figure out. She wanted to go board the ship.

As she was registering this information she saw two missiles fly out from the Pytheas. Her heart went out with the missiles, wishing she could stop them. A bright flash of light came from the ship and rolled out towards them. The memory ended and they were back in the garden once again.

"That was my last memory," Junior said while a tear slid down her cheek. "I woke up here, and was unable to get back."

"I found that same ship," Andromeda Sr. mentioned. She looked at the flowering shrub they had just exited and found the duplicate right next to it with a subtle difference in the color of the flower.

Andi motioned towards the flower as if to touch it again and relive the last memory but Andromeda Sr. stopped her. "You can if you'd like, but we didn't send missiles. We tried to get past the strange shield that surrounds the ship."

"So this mysterious ship is somehow creating our time loop?" Andi asked them both.

"It would appear so." Junior answered and started walking back to the banyan tree.

"What did Mother think of all this?" Andi asked the other women.

"Mother doesn't know about any of this." Junior answered, wringing her hands, "I never told her."

"You didn't tell Mother?" Andi exclaimed, "We need help. As soon as I wake up, I'm telling her everything." At this, the other two women recoiled and grimaced. "What? What are you not telling me?"

The two looked at each other, doing a mental game to see who was going to tell her. Junior must have lost because she turned towards Andi, "Mother can not know we're in a time loop. You may think you know her, but she can not be trusted with this information. She would find some way to take advantage of it."

"Maybe your mother would, but mine loves me. She took me with her on the Pytheas to keep me safe." Andi felt defensive and angry these two women didn't trust her. She felt the push to stay here lift and Andi sighed with relief. "I trust Mother, and I'm going to get her help." The other girls flared their nostrils and shook their heads. Andi turned and walked out of the mind garden.

She awoke in her bedroom and her mother and Mina were sitting by her side. "Andi! You're awake." Mina got up from her chair and walked around to check the various machines they had connected to her. "We were so worried about you."

"What happened Andi?" Mother asked her, she didn't leave her chair.

"Mother, something's happened, or will happen that we need your help with." Andi's voice was high and panicked. Her mother looked up from the holo pad she had been reading from.

"Whatever it is Andi, we can fix it together."