by BL Craig
The door opened on another long, curved corridor. He took a soothing breath (not as effective as he hoped) and headed off down the corridor. He heard a voice. He could not make out the words, but the tone had the familiar pattern of authority, giving instructions. He wondered if he could park himself on the floor and refuse to budge until his many, many remaining questions were answered. What could they do if he refused to comply? Kill him again? Maybe? Still, it was less the fear of reprisal than his Navy ingrained need to follow orders that kept him going.
A figure appeared around the curve. She had the stature and bearing of, well, come to think of it, an Aztec death goddess—minus the whole fleshless skull bit. Her long black hair was pinned up neatly in a swirling twist that was both elegant and no-nonsense. She wore a more formal and better-fitting version of William’s outfit. The gold bars on her shoulders were not on boards the way he was used to, but there was no question this was the Captain of a ship. Everything about her, from the pinned hair to her bearing in the strange uniform, suggested to William that she was post fleet. It was almost unheard of for Navy personnel to have SecondLife Mortgages. William had never met anyone else in the Navy with an AfterLife contract, his own circumstance being the one in a billion exception. He wondered what had brought such a competent looking officer into the grip of AfterLife.
She was addressing a service bot that carried an overstuffed seabag. William had carried exactly the same type of giant duffel all through his academy years. “Thank you,” she said to the bot as she glanced in William’s direction. “It looks like you’ll be free to return to your duties shortly.”
William halted a respectable distance away, at attention. She turned to him. “At ease, Mr. Butcher. We don’t use military custom in Hades fleet, but I do run a tight ship and expect respectful demeanor from and toward all crew members. I’m Captain Elva Diaz,” she said holding out a hand. William noted her firm grip. She was tall, standing eye to eye with him. Her eyes were green, with slight crow’s feet at the edges and thick, expressive brows. Her features were handsome—she had an almost patrician nose, and high cheekbones. He caught only glimpses of the spiderweb watermark on her medium golden skin. She looked like she could have been anywhere between 40 and 60, but William suspected she was much older. “Grab your bag and come with me. Corporate wants us out of here yesterday.”
William shouldered his heavy bag and fell in beside the Captain.
“The Tilly has a crew of six, three command crew and three engineers. As the most junior crew member, you are technically the lowest ranking. However, as helmsman, you are command crew with myself and Nguyen. In matters of ship integrity, you can override the orders of non-command crew. I don’t recommend it. The rest of the crew know their jobs very well, and we all double up to some degree. We work 12 hour shifts during transit and however long we need to when we’re actively surveying. You have your own quarters, but we need to get underway, so that will have to wait. I’ll brief you in more depth later.”
He noted her correct terminology for the position of a pilot on a naval vessel. The Earth Naval Defense Forces pulled most of their customs and courtesies from old Earth’s seagoing navies. On aquatic vessels, pilots were special navigators, familiar with local terrain, who would guide ships safely past hazards and into harbors. The person who actually held the wheel and steered the boat was a helmsman, usually a job of lower enlisted personnel who received their directions from the officer in charge. Over time, the term “pilot” had been adopted for aerial vehicles and referred to a much more skilled individual trained to handle both navigation and the physical demands of flight. The modern space-going Navy had adopted the term “pilot” for anyone trained to control vessels in flight. The position however was still referred to as the “helm” staffed by a helmsperson.
As they rounded a corner, William could see a pair of legs emerging from a duct at floor level.
“Clarke, you need to put that back together and get ready for burn.”
“Just about done, Captain!” called a woman’s voice, tinny from the reverberations in the ducting.
“Butcher, leave your bag here. Clarke, please stow Butcher’s bag in his quarters on your way to engineering.”
“Got it, Captain.”
William set the bag down, “Um, nice to meet you . . . or meet your feet, I guess.”
She bent her knees, bringing her feet upward, and wiggled them in his direction. “My feet are glad to meet you too. The rest of me will catch up later.” Then she grunted and shifted a bit cursing low when something in the duct thunked.
The Captain took off down the hallway. “Clarke is our environmental engineer and all-purpose biologist. You probably haven’t noticed, given the rush, but we don’t actually need to breathe as much as living humans do. We keep the oxygen content lower in most areas of the ship but there are a few spaces where an oxygen rich environment is advantageous.”
“Does the ship have algae vats?” He was rapidly becoming confused. A crew of six seemed wildly inadequate for the vessel he was walking through, but from the outside view, the ship looked too small for the kind of space that the little oxygen-producing bugs would need to effectively filter air. Only the really big ships used algae vats, and even then, only as a back-up or supplement.
“Not as such. The bugs and plants that Clarke keeps are for our survey duties. They are handy for cleaning and processing some samples. The bio lab also looks for evidence of biologicals on samples. You can ask her all about it later if that sort of thing interests you. And it probably should, since right now there’s no one else to back her up.”
“Um, ok.”
“Right now, I need someone at the helm who is more than a back-up engineer. We need to burn far enough out of Neptune’s pull for FTL jump.”
“Yes, ma’am. You know I’ve never flown an FTL ship before? Where are we headed?”
“Of course, you haven’t. Brooks will fill in as navigator until you learn the finer points of FTL travel. He’s got all the jump points plotted and programmed. I just need you to get us out of traffic in one piece. We’re headed to Mirada.”
William stopped involuntarily, “Mirada?”
The Captain turned to him with an appraising look and sighed. “Look, Butcher, don’t think about the destination right now. Just get us away from Neptune. Brooks will take care of the rest. I don’t expect we’ll be at Mirada for very long.”
“Why aren’t we using the gate? It’s faster.”
“That’s what the Navy told you, and it’s not wrong, but you’re going to need to learn quickly that much of what you learned in fleet is heavily biased and incomplete. To answer your question, the gates are faster, but only if you can get through traffic without a wait and a lot of hassle. Fleet’s got the space around earth all jammed up. Hades Fleet never gets high priority. They don’t like us using gates. We, in turn, take pride in not needing them. Gates only exist because we make them possible. Fleet’s always had a chip on their collective shoulder about it. Surely you know that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” William said softly.
“Come along, Butcher,” she said, “You’ll do just fine. I’ve seen your records. You’re a well-trained pilot. You’ve helmed just about every kind of ship. This will be nothing for you.”
* * *
…
* * *
William looked over the controls. The ship was old, but it seemed to be in excellent condition, and had been updated in all the ways that mattered. Getting out of port would be simple.
“Nguyen, did you by chance get all the new media packets downloaded?”
“Yes, Captain, Simms bumped us up the queue given our tight turn around.”
“Excellent. The next book in the series I’m reading should be out by now.”
“Captain,” said Nguyen, “I’ve got Mictlantecuhtli actual.”
William recognized the name: the Aztec lord of the dead, husband to Mictecacihuatl. Captain Diaz selected something on her c
onsole. “Mikki actual this is Tilly actual.”
The voice that came through the speaker was low and sardonic. “Looks like this is bienvenidos, mi amor. You’ve got your pilot?”
“That’s a roger. We’re off to Mirada and I don’t know where after that. They’re not giving me any timeline. Not sure if we’ll be able to rendezvous with you at Keppler-1632.”
“Sounds like we’ll be doing double duty on the Mikki, for a while. Don’t watch the latest series of Mi amor colonial without me.”
“Please, do watch it without me. I don’t know how you can stand those telenovelas.”
“You know you love it.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. I’ve got traffic control on my ass. They’ve made a hole for us, so we’ve got to go. See you when we get back, mi alma. Tilly out.”
“Good hunting. Mikki out.”
“Mr. Butcher, you have departure vector confirmation?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
William wondered what kind of organization let a man who was literally dead a few hours ago pilot an expensive vehicle through a busy traffic area with multiple massive gravity wells. At the same time, he was grateful. This task was the most familiar and comfortable challenge he had encountered all day.
He guided the Mictecacihuatl around the station and past Proteus, perpendicular to the stellar disc. He consulted the programmed course and adjusted the attitude along the plotted path. “We are in position, Captain.”
“Very good, Mr. Butcher. Brooks, please confirm course. Nguyen, give the alert.”
Nguyen opened the ship intercom and announced, “All crew prepare for FTL transition.”
“Course confirmed, Captain.”
“Alright Brooks, engage FTL drive when you are ready.”
“Engaging drive in 3 . . .2 . . .1.”
The lurch that William felt was unlike the gate transition, which always left him queasy. This was more like a slight judder. The exterior display showed stars drifting by just like in sub-light. rather than the shifting grey of wormhole travel.
“We are in the slipstream. We’ll exit at jump point one in 47 hours 36 minutes and 7 seconds,” said Brooks.
“Nguyen, please show Butcher to his cabin. Butcher, get your gear stowed and meet me in my office at 11:30.”
* * *
…
* * *
Elva watched Nguyen and Butcher leave the bridge. So, this was the Hero of Mirada? He looked like a shell-shocked kid, hardly the monstrous boogie-man the undead feeds had presented following the conflict at Mirada. Ten thousand dead reanimates laid at the foot of one junior naval officer. Of course, the vitriol on the feeds was hyperbolic nonsense. She had never believed one man was responsible for all that death and destruction. She knew how the Navy operated far too well.
All of the undead had followed the developments on Mirada closely over the last few years. Humanity’s first contact with an alien species was a huge development for the living and the dead. The colony had been open a few scant months and was still sparsely settled when the alien ship dropped out of FTL towing pre constructed parts for a massive wormhole gate. The Cosi, it turned out were one of dozens of loosely allied galactic species—but they were unique in being the only species that could safely travel FTL. Their biology made them impervious to the exotic radiation that defied shielding and killed most other kinds of higher biological life. The human dead were no longer alone in their ability to travel FTL.
The Tilly had been using Mirada as a base for survey arcs looking for systems with resources and other inhabitable worlds, during construction of the gate. The gate at Mirada was half of a pair that would enable rapid, safe transit between the new planet and Earth. Once both gates were constructed and brought online living humans began the colonization effort.
Elva remembered the shock of dropping out of FTL to see the second massive gate nearly assembled by a truly alien ship. The Cosi with their lizard-like faces and rows of sharp teeth were right out of a science fiction movie about alien invaders. Despite their intimidating appearance, they proved to be friendly and eager to meet new species. As it turned out, they functioned as the glue that held the vast network of alien worlds together. They served as surveyors and gate builders for the other races. They used their position and substantial diplomatic skill to allocate worlds to the various species in a manner that kept everyone reasonably happy—or at least not disgruntled enough to fight about it.
Mirada had been scouted by the Cosi nearly a century prior and allocated to a race called the Rannit. They claimed to have left a beacon announcing the ownership of the system. It was later found out of position and malfunctioning. The government, eager to meet other species, but cautious and territorial, politely invited the Cosi to hold off on activating their gate until an arrangement could be brokered. The colonists adamantly claimed ownership of the bountiful new world and wanted the Cosi gone. The Navy were equally insistent that an unknown alien species in an Earth system was a threat and urged the government to demand that the Cosi leave with their gate.
The Cosi, explained to the humans that they had been the arbiters of where gates were placed for millennia and had no intention of ceding that role. After some time, the Cosi declared that the Rannit, a gregarious people who peacefully shared a few different worlds with other species, would generously agree to share Mirada with humanity. The Cosi activated the gate, and the Rannit came streaming through to establish their settlements.
Living humanity was divided. Many said the settlers should just leave the system to the Rannit as a sign of good faith. Forming good relations with their first galactic neighbors was far more important than building a new colony. Humanity did not need any more worlds. The 12 billion living humans could comfortably be housed on Earth alone but were by then divided among the home world and four thriving colonies at Eden, Arcadia, Xanadu, and Babylon.
Others argued on the basic principle of finders-keepers. No one had been in residence when the humans had found Mirada. What message would it send to their new neighbors if they simply rolled over? Mirada was the first Earth-like colony around a sol-like star, which appealed to humans who wanted to pioneer a new life but were also nostalgic for Earth. The other colonies were situated either in red dwarf systems or on the moons of gas giants.
The dead were equally ambivalent and unsettled, though for different reasons. On that first day when they arrived back at Mirada to the surprise of the alien presence, Elva had wondered what it would mean for the dead? Humanity was already firmly divided between the living and the dead. What would another species in the mix mean? Would the dead be kept away from the aliens as they were from the living? Or was this the dawn of a new age for dead?
The gate to Earth at Mirada had already been activated. Once a gate had been activated there was no known way to shut it down, and to try could cause an explosion on par with a super nova. If humanity abandoned Mirada they would be leaving their homeworld exposed. The Admiralty insisted that leaving Mirada to the Rannit posed a threat to all of humanity. Therefore, the Navy and colonists must maintain a presence in the system to guard against the threat.
After much discussion between ambassadors from both sides, the human government reluctantly agreed to share the planet. It helped that the Rannit looked, to human eyes, like adorable short fuzzy elves. They were friendly and seemed to take the contested ownership of their new world in stride. Just a hiccup in the bigger picture.
At first, humans found the Rannit amusing. Their high-pitched sing-song voices and excited, prancing gait were thoroughly unthreatening. Linguists, xenobiologists, anthropologists, and many more -ologists flocked to Mirada to learn more about—and from—the Rannit. For a few years, things seemed to go alright.
The Tilly had been on a survey arc when the conflict broke out. They returned to the dead world of Tlalocan to find their fellow reanimates angry and mourning. The news feeds of both the living and
the dead were full of rhetoric and short on details.
The Rannit had forcibly ejected all humans from their settlements and were holding the deputy ambassador hostage. The Rannit were arming their colonist and soon the human settlers found themselves surrounded by hostile aliens carrying superior weapons.
When the colonists had called for help, the larger fleet was days away by gate from Earth and would not have done much good anyway. Humanity had no army or marines, having not needed either in centuries. The Rannit had very little in the way of a military presence in the system. It was easy for the Navy’s small fleet at Mirada to herd the Rannit ships back through the gate. That still left nearly 112,000 Rannit on the surface, and 25,000 were estimated to be armed. Unless the fleet wanted to bomb the enemy from orbit, which would involve bombing the colonists as well, they were helpless.
But someone in the fleet had stumbled on a brilliant idea. There were bodies that the humans could throw at their enemies on the surface. Thousands of them in fact. The great AfterLife gate building ship Yan Luo was still in system. The gate had been online for several years, but the Yan Luo was still working on building up the remaining orbital infrastructure needed to sustain a colony.
The siege lasted for seven days, and when the dust settled the Rannit had been over run and disarmed. The officer behind the strategy that won the day was one, Lieutenant William Butcher.
The living news outlets glossed over the role of the undead in the assault merely noting that William had, in terrifying and deadly conditions, effectively organized the reanimates through sheer brilliance and bravery.
