by BL Craig
* * *
…
* * *
The crew of the Tilly watched the fleet regroup at a respectable distance and hold a defensive position. The Rannit vessels still in the field rejoined the screen and waited. After a long and tense waiting period, the transports rose back up through the atmosphere and headed through the gate. The screen ships disengaged in orderly waves and followed. The battle was over, though William had a strong feeling that the fighting between the living and dead had just begun.
“Does AfterLife have courts martial?” William asked the Captain.
“No, nothing so democratic,” she replied. “They just reassign you.”
“Are we all getting reassigned?” he asked, looking at Perlin.
“Not just now, Mr. Butcher.” He turned to Elva, “Captain, I believe I have things in hand here. Please return to your ship and work with traffic and the deck officers to get the Tilly out of my shuttle bay.”
* * *
…
* * *
William stood at the door to the bay. “How are we supposed to get back in?” It turned out, he had not quite gotten the Tilly all the way into the bay. The outer doors were stuck open. “I’ve been told that exposing oneself to hard vacuum is a bad idea.”
“We can always borrow a rover from the station,” said Addy, maniacal grin firmly in place.
“Not with you driving. I’ll take the long cold walk barefoot, thank you,” said William.
“You have heard of space suits, right? You should really get checked-out on one, Butcher,” John suggested helpfully over the com.
“I know how to use suits.” William snapped, knowing he should simply ignore John’s baiting. “You guys said I would be fine without one.”
“I think we just implied that,” said Sarah.
“You might have made assumptions from facts not in evidence,” added the Captain.
“I gave you 70/30 odds against,” Addy shrugged.
“Didn’t care,” concluded John.
* * *
…
* * *
In the end, they took a page from the Rannit and used a dozen constructor corvettes to gently extricate the Tilly from the shuttle bay and move it around to a proper dock. The ship was going to need to get some serious repairs before they went anywhere far, but she could still fly.
William directed the drone ships from the bridge and felt a sense of anti-climax. It was like mental and emotional whiplash. They had stopped a war, maybe. Or at least saved the Rannit civilians. Or maybe they had just made it easier for the Rannit to invade without their own people in any more danger? William doubted that. The Rannit just did not seem the invader type. Not to mention that their relationship with humans had soured because they thought the undead were being coerced. Which to be fair, they were.
What about AfterLife? The company that routinely kept billions of undead enslaved had stepped in to save a handful of aliens from the Navy. Why? And why was Admiral Shen so hellbent on taking out the Rannit? Was the Captain right? Were the Navy just delusional war hawks looking for glory? He had no answers.
* * *
…
* * *
Elva snuggled next to Jason, combing through his overgrown beard with her fingers. They had decided, given the complexity of the situation, the two commanders needed to confer in person, for the purpose of reporting and answering questions from their superiors. The conference had gone on for several hours and the Captain found it highly productive.
“Any trouble getting Leyla to Tartarus?”
“We dropped her off safe and sound. Getting the encryption keys is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Only the factory techs would have those. She’s working with resistance hackers trying to come up with a work around, but it doesn’t look good. We’ll distribute the info more widely as soon as we can. There are plenty of hackers out there. One of them might come up with a solution.”
“We could kidnap Perlin and take the fleet. Go rogue, become space pirates. I’ve got the beard. He’s got to have the keys.”
Elva laughed at the thought of her husband, space pirate. “No, I don’t think he does have the keys. He just has the shut off code.”
“The resistance is going to want to do something.”
“Do what? To do something requires getting close enough to AfterLife facilities that an administrator can shut them down.”
“Carver and his crew are getting more radical. They’re talking about blowing up drone facilities. They want blood, and visibility. The want to force the company’s hand.”
“It’s stupid. They’ll sacrifice everything we’ve built and kill drones doing it.”
“They’re tired of waiting. They’ve already been making moves. I think they had your Mr. Butcher murdered as a warning to the company. A first salvo.”
* * *
…
* * *
“So, this is what it’s all about?” John sounded disappointed.
“I don’t think we’re seeing it at its best,” Sarah replied.
The encampment was a hodgepodge of modular pods and tents that looked a lot like a mobile military base. There was trash and debris everywhere. The exodus had been hasty and messy. The AfterLife drones had been through the camp to recover bodies and the few stragglers who had not made it to the transports. They had clearly not been concerned with the mess as they searched. Crates and tents had been casually ripped apart, their parts scattered about.
“They’re sure they got all of the missing?” William asked.
“The drones are very thorough, William,” Alex replied. “They found all of the remaining Rannit and took them to Mirada station. AfterLife is caring for them until a return can be arranged.”
“What does it say about the state of affairs in the human worlds when a mercenary corporate behemoth that keeps billions of people enslaved is the only one who can be trusted to safeguard the victims of a pointless conflict?” Sarah mused.
William wandered into the camp. This was not the settlement he had overrun with the drone army during the 1st battle. This was a dumping ground where the colonists had kept the defeated Rannit during the months after the 1st Battle of Mirada.
Perlin had not even blinked when the Tilly’s crew asked to borrow a shuttle from the station to visit the surface. He had merely given them a perfunctory admonishment not to go into any human settlements before returning to the mountain of paperwork he was dealing with in the fallout of the 2nd Battle of Mirada.
As he threaded his way through the mess, William heard the familiar harsh “caa-caa” of corvids. They had caught sight of the reanimates and were sending up a warning. William knew that cry well. It meant, “stupid humans are coming, quick, get the food, keep an eye out in case they get too close.”
William fingered the old blue nexus in his pocket. It was full of the ugly but expressive cries of various Terran corvid species. Crows’ cries were surprisingly easy for humans to interpret, if they bothered to try. The two species had been so thoroughly intertwined for so long they could read one another quite well, despite the differences in their biology.
He moved toward the sound of the warning caws, curious at what they were guarding. They were notorious carrion eaters, and this had been the site of death, even if it was not the original battle ground. Despite Alex’s assurances, he half expected to find them feasting on Rannit bodies. He rounded a pod housing unit and came upon them in a small open-air mess. They had found a cache of ration packs and were gleefully tearing the wrappings apart to get at the food.
He watched them for a few minutes, idly twirling the nexus in his hand. Then, without warning, the murder took flight as one, vaulting skyward on black wings. He watched them rise and let the nexus slip through his fingers to the ground. Once they were gone, he turned back toward his crew and left.
* * *
…
* * *
Later that day, William sat on watching Sarah fill in the details o
n his cabin mural.
“Penguins?” he asked.
“Hmm, yes, flying penguins. Like your dream.”
“Pretty on the nose,” he chuckled.
“I’m not a subtle artist. Do you not like it?”
“I love it.”
The bullet-like penguins flew on tiny wings in perfect formation across blue skies. Below, the sea roiled with all manner of life. Giant octopus, whales, schools of fishes, and crustaceans vied for space in waves reminiscent of Japanese wood block prints. The painting took up a large chunk of the cabin wall. William sat on the bed watching and smiling.
“What should I call it,” she said looking back over her shoulder?
“Home.”
15
Conditions of Employment
“Well, administrator Perlin. It sounds as though your team has performed admirably. The Rannit exodus has opened up options for diplomacy. Hopefully, the human government can be guided to negotiate something favorable. So far, our first interactions with alien civilizations have been less than ideal,” said the Board Director.
He continued. “Our analysis of the transmissions collected by the Mictecacihuatl probe and data from the captured Rannit vessel are in alignment with the assessment that the Rannit incursion into Mirada was intended solely as an evacuation. No evidence was found for further plans to invade. We will emphasize that in our communications with our government contacts.
“They may not listen,” said Perlin. “From what Mr. Butcher tells us, the Navy are hot to get their hands on reanimate marines. Mirada demonstrated to them the value of our personnel in combat.”
“Yes, that whole situation is unfortunate. We need to be more diligent in the future. We cannot allow the living to keep making such rash decisions. The loss of so many technicians, so unnecessarily, rankles everyone. Let’s make sure that AfterLife is properly represented in any diplomatic interactions with the Rannit or the Cosi. I think the Mictecacihuatl can continue to be of use in this vein. See that Dr. Clarke is provided all of our information on the Rannit.”
“I will arrange that,” replied Perlin.
“The confirmation of our scientists’ theoretical surmises that gates are not bound by the same parameters as real space was illuminating. Though I’m sure it was quite terrifying watching that asteroid barrel through the gate in real time. If the Rannit were a bloodthirsty people, they could have obliterated all life on the planet,” said the Board Director.
“Of much greater concern is the exposure of the Cerberus Fleet. AfterLife has always maintained that we are not a military organization. There will be controversy. Some of the Living will want us to use our military advantage to humble the other races. Some will demand we disarm immediately. We need a deflection.”
“It might be useful if Admiral Shen’s conspiracy with the governor of Mirada were to come to light. Their instigation of the colonists’ first assault on the Rannit might shift popular opinion toward peace,” suggested Perlin.
“Good thinking, Administrator. The Navy have been stepping up their efforts to infiltrate AfterLife holdings. Perhaps it’s time we pushed back.”
Author’s Note
The original idea for this book originated around 15 years ago when Lorne and I wanted to write and illustrate a graphic novel. We fleshed a lot of the world out then. But it turns out, I’m just good enough at drawing to know that I suck at drawing. Well, at least the kind of drawing you would expect in a serious graphic novel.
The slender green binder that housed the drawings, world-building notes, and first episode script sat on the book shelf next to a bunch of texts on public administration and statistical modeling. Then in February of 2021 when it looked like COVID might actually end some time in our lives I said, “Hey, let’s write AfterLife as a book.” We spent an evening sketching out the plot and then in a few weeks we had a very rough first draft. The final version is different but also a lot the same.
We’ve grown quite fond of these characters and look forward to writing more about them. As I write, the second book, AfterDeath, is about to go out for beta reading and we’re starting in on book 3. I’m especially excited to dive into Alex’s past, but that’s going to have to wait for a prequel book after the trilogy is finished.
Many thanks to our friend Erik for his excellent feedback on the early drafts. Also, to our wonderfully supportive editor Kerry Cullen. I would say thanks to our ingrate son, James, but he still hasn’t read the book. Slacker.
Lastly, a shout out to Gilda, the best robot car driving rat in the known universe. She was the softest, fuzziest, sweetest, chonky girl ever, and we miss her dearly.
