Meanwhile, Harper is in engineering geek heaven. Using the Perseids’ black hole data, he has built a working teleporter. One exploded plant later, he is forced to admit it’s only a mostly working teleporter.
After 11 attempts, Dylan finally figures out what he wants to say. He can’t say good-bye to Sara. "No matter what happens or where I go," he says, "a part of you will be with me."
In the past, Sara stares at Dylan’s message. Somehow, it’s being reflected out of the black hole.
Soon, it’s Dylan’s turn to stare in shock. Sara is broadcasting a response.
Monkey see, monkey hit "reply"
Aboard the Starry Wisdom, Sara and the crew are wondering if Dylan’s message is real. Their confusion is resolved when Dylan makes contact again.
When Dylan asks what they’re doing, Sara tells him, "We’ve come to rescue you, you big ape."
They bring each other up to date. On Sara’s end of the phone, it’s been a year since the Andromeda was trapped. She fled Tarn-Vedra just before it was cut off from the slipstream, learned the Andromeda’s location, and called in every favor she had to launch a rescue mission.
The inevitable cunning plan
Later, Rev explains Sara’s plan to Beka and Harper. The Starry Wisdom will use anti-gravity probes to lighten the Andromeda and speed its climb to a safe orbit.
Beka not only thinks the plan is crazy, but, from her perspective, it has already failed since Dylan was still there to be rescued by the Eureka Maru 300 years later.
The fact that Dylan won’t be snogging his fiancée back in the past saddens Harper, but then he has an inspiration. He dashes down to the hangar deck to do mad science.
An hour later, Dylan watches skeptically as a melon with a smiley face on it explodes. Harper explains that the exploding melon isn’t the impressive part of his achievement. He marks a melon with a smiley face and teleports it.
Dylan gets it. Harper sent the melon into the past. He can send Dylan into the past, too – all the way back to the Starry Wisdom.
Harper calls it a "one way ticket to love." Another melon blows up on the stage, and Dylan stares at the remains.
"Yeah, one way is right," he says.
Don’t help me, Sara Wan Kenobi
Not yet ready to explode with love, Dylan transmits a hologram back to Sara. He shimmers into her cabin to convince her that her rescue attempt won’t work and the past can’t be changed.
Sara insists that the math doesn’t rule out saving him. She’s willing to gamble on creating an alternate future or a divergent reality.
Seeing that she can’t be dissuaded, Dylan transmits to the bridge. He asks his friend Khalid to keep her safe if the rescue attempt fails.
The rescue begins. Dylan comments, "I can’t wait to see the look on my face when they pull me out of there."
Hey! This rescue is invitation-only!
The crew energizes the generators, charges the pods and thinks happy thoughts. The Andromeda begins moving but a Nietzschean ship zooms around the black hole and attacks.
Khalid is injured pulling Sara away from an exploding panel. Dylan takes command, ordering the crew to send the anti-gravity pods towards the Nietzschean ship.
Sara objects, but Dylan tells us "You can’t free me if you’re dead." The pods change the mass of the Nietzschean ship and it is sucked into the black hole.
However, the Andromeda has settled into a new orbit, and it will be twelve hours before they can try again. Sara stomps off the bridge in frustration.
A crewmember gives Dylan more bad news. A Nietzschean destroyer will arrive in less than 11 hours.
Another cunning plan
Dylan again tries to convince Sara to abandon the rescue. She’s now considering Plan B: follow Dylan into the black hole.
"It was a fluke I made it through," Dylan tells her. "Your life can be a good one. You don’t have to end it here."
She refuses to become a bitter old woman who lost her true love. "Choose to be someone else," Dylan says.
She won’t. Remembering Harper’s device, Dylan tells her they might have one other chance to reunite.
"A good chance?" she asks.
"A chance," he replies.
Fountainhead of wisdom
Tyr looks up from his book – Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead – as Dylan enters the bridge. "Rumor has it that you intend to use the little professor’s machine," he comments. "Suicidal."
Nevertheless, Tyr approves since, as he puts it, "Genetic propagation is one of the few endeavors worth the risk of death."
He’s also interested in what will happen if Dylan gets killed. Dylan tells him that Beka will take command of the Andromeda, and asks Tyr to stay and protect the ship and its crew.
Seamus outlines the plan to Dylan, doing his best to make it sound safe. "Oh, who am I kidding?" he laments. "I have a 50 percent chance at best of pulling this off."
And you thought Sara was stubborn
As Dylan prepares, Andromeda tells him the time journey is "not your best idea." He’s the best hope for a restored Commonwealth, and risking himself for Sara is foolish.
"I can’t be objective about this," says Dylan. "I’m not a machine."
The Perseids are excited by Dylan’s devotion to science. Beka is not.
"The truth is, " she says, "you feel guilty. You survived the war and Sara didn’t. Well, join the club. All of us feel guilty about something."
Dylan climbs into the teleporter. "Let’s do this," he says. Harper activates the machine and Dylan disappears.
He reappears on the bridge of the Starry Wisdom. The reunion is interrupted by another Nietzschean attack.
More party-crashers
The Starry Wisdom isn’t the only ship under attack. A Nietzschean ship is also closing in on the Andromeda, and most of her computing power is still tied up in the Perseid experiment. She’s sluggish at best.
Dylan tells Tyr, "You know what to do. Do it!" Then he asks Khalid what the status of the frozen Andromeda is.
Khalid reports that they can’t free the ship, but they can give it a nudge. "Maybe that’s enough," Dylan says.
Beka has no intention of leaving Dylan behind. She and Tyr nearly shoot each other before he makes it clear he agrees with her.
The crew of the Starry Wisdom creates a transmission that will seem to come from the frozen Andromeda. Dylan tells the Nietzscheans, "Withdraw or be destroyed."
The Starry Wisdom energizes the anti-gravity pods around the Andromeda, nudging it.
In the future, the Andromeda launches a feint, enticing the Nietzschean ship closer. "Welcome to my ambush," Tyr says, and his fighter squadrons inflict fatal damage on the Nietzschean ship.
In the past, the Andromeda moves. The Nietzscheans flee.
We’ll always have Paris
After a time-out for smoochies, Dylan gives Sara a signal booster and suggests eloping to the future. Harper does his magic, and they vanish.
Moments later, they return to the bridge of the Starry Wisdom. Harper tries again and fails again.
"I can’t do it," he tells them. Two people are too much information for his systems to process. He can only bring Dylan back.
Captain Khalid clears the bridge, giving Dylan and Sara a moment alone.
Sara doesn’t want to give up, but Dylan won’t risk her life and he can’t stay. His only chance to change the fate of the Commonwealth lies in the future, and the Commonwealth is more important than either of them.
"We had our time together," she says. "This isn’t your time anymore." They are both crying.
He holds her hand, and tells Harper to bring him back. He vanishes, leaving her alone on the bridge.
Beka welcomes Dylan back to the Andromeda. He walks out of the room. The Perseids are thrilled at the success of the experiment, but Beka tells them to leave Dylan alone.
The Andromeda pulls away from the black hole. Andromeda tells her captain that the Perseids are pleased, and that they will sign Dylan’s charter to restore the Commonwealth. Dylan agrees that a celebration is in order.
Andromeda has one word of comfort for Dylan. Sara may not have rescued them, but she did put them in the orbit that allowed the Eureka Maru to rescue them 300 years later.
"She saved you after all," Andromeda says.
"Isn’t that what people who love each other do?" Dylan asks.
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