>It was always our intention. But we needed you to be involved and aware enough in order for us showing up to not create massive fear and panic.
But it did create massive fear and panic!
>And in the end you, as a civilization, prevailed.
Molly snorted lightly. I don’t know what I look like, but I know I got blown apart. Doesn’t feel like we prevailed.
>Ahh but you did. And for your efforts and sacrifice, we are incredibly grateful. You have changed the course of history in this entire galaxy. Your reward is life: another chance to spend it how you will. But for now… Rest. There will be plenty of time to figure everything out soon.
Molly found herself becoming drowsy, her consciousness drifting from her once again.
Safe House, Gaitune-67
The safe house was dark. Dust had already begun to gather and settle on surfaces. It had been several months since the base had been fully operational: the busyness and activity of the Sanguine Squadron now just a distant memory in the minds of those who had been left behind.
All essential systems had been shut down, including life support. What was left of the air would likely be gone in a matter of weeks, replaced by vacuum as it escaped through the unmaintained seals around the doors.
With the processors turned off, there wasn’t even a heat signature in the building. The only remaining systems left on were the security ones that protected what was left of the base downstairs. But now, just as before the base was resurrected by Molly and the crew, it lay dormant. Silent. Unnoticed. Forgotten.
Neechie appeared just outside of the Daemon door. He looked up at the camera that monitored the access to the base. If anyone had been watching, they might have seen how he looked intently right into the camera as if trying to tell them something.
Unacknowledged by the system on the other side of the camera lens, Neechie turned on the spot and paced quietly through the darkness that was once Brock’s workshop. Slowly and deliberately he padded up the steps through to the main safe house. He paused briefly in the foyer, glancing at the now decommissioned airlock. Then he wandered over to the sofa, turned to face the door and sat down to wait.
***
The next time Molly stirred again, she felt different: strange. Like she wasn’t at home in her own body.
If it was even her own body…
She became aware that she was lying on something hard. And cold.
She shifted her arm to her head and rolled over, feeling the cold, hard surface beneath her. There was a light on the other side of her eyelids. Slowly she peeled them open, squinting into the light.
“What the fuck?” she breathed. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she was able to make out shapes. And those shapes told her that she appeared to be lying on the cockpit floor… on the floor of The Empress.
She blinked, allowing her eyes the chance to adjust.
Oz, are you there?
I’m here.
Oz? What the fuck?
I know.
Are the others okay?
The last I spoke to the ARs, they were going through the same process as you.
You spoke to the ARs?
Molly pushed herself up off the ground and swiveled around on her hip bone to see Joel nearby. She was vaguely aware of the others around her too. They were all starting to stir.
“Joel,” she hissed, scampering over to his side on her knees.
“Fuuuuuuck…” he rasped.
She looked down at him as he slowly started to open his eyes. “You’re alive! I can’t believe it, we’re all alive!”
We are alive aren’t we, Oz? I’m not hallucinating?
Yes, we’re alive.
She watched the others come around, dazed and confused by their new status.
“I thought we bought it,” Joel grunted, sitting up on his elbows. “What on Sark happened?”
Molly smiled. “I do believe we’ve been rewarded for our sacrifice. Life after death, as it were…” She chuckled.
“But how?”
“The ARs,” she said simply, piecing together what she had thought was a dream with their new reality.
By now the others started to comprehend what had happened and were listening intently to anything Molly could tell them. “I guess their tech really is light-years more advanced than ours. Somehow they were able to take a snapshot of who we were and teleport us out of the situation… And then… rebuild us.”
Sean gingerly tapped at his knee. “Well at least they rebuilt us as we were. I couldn’t tell you how much all my enhancements cost, and no way I’d get Lance to spring for a new set after all this…”
Karina snorted lightly in both amusement and disbelief. She pulled herself upright against the wall she and Sean had been thrown against during the explosions. “We’re alive! I can’t freaking believe it!”
“Believe it, baby,” Sean said, crawling over to her. What he said next was indeterminable and morphed into a series of kissing noises.
“Ugh! Get a room, guys!” Pieter scolded them from across the cockpit floor. Everyone chuckled.
Crash remained silent, taking it all in, pinching himself… and then pinching Brock to see if it was true.
Brock sat up next to him inspecting his hands as if they might hold clues as to how this was possible. “I just… I just can’t believe it…” he muttered to himself, shaking his head, and then swatting Crash away as he pinched him a little too hard.
Molly scooted across and sat up against the wall, where Joel joined her. “A lot to process,” he commented dryly.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Molly agreed. “Should we, erm, have some kind of procedure that we should follow? You know, to help the team process any possible trauma and whatnot?”
Joel rubbed his face as if seriously considering the question. “Personally I’d prescribe a crate of beer and a couple of pizzas to help with this little conundrum.”
Molly narrowed her eyes. “You’re joking, right?”
“Actually, I wasn’t. As far as what the Federation would want us to do… fuck knows. I’m not sure how many cases they’ve ever had of this… People coming back from the dead. Hey Sean?”
Sean peeled himself off Karina and sat back on the floor so that he could see everyone else. “Yeah?”
“You ever heard of people coming back from the dead? And like… the protocol for that?”
Sean racked his brain for a few moments. “Well I’m sure something similar has happened at some point. Heck, I’ve even known a few people to fake their deaths over the years…”
Karina eyed him warningly, willing him not to get into that right now.
Sean continued. “But as for what we’ve been through… I’m not sure. Although,” he added, having another thought, “I think our interaction with the new species, and a highly evolved technological one at that, might be worth mentioning at some point. In a report.”
“Or not,” Jack added, rubbing subconsciously at her arm almost to comfort.
“What do you mean?” Molly asked.
“I mean, if the Federation finds out what we’ve been through, what are the odds of them letting us just go back to our lives. Surely they’ll want to prod us. Study us. You know…”
Sean screwed his face up. “You’ve spent too long in the Estarian army, m’lady. The Federation would recognize we’re people, not lab rats.”
Molly shot Sean a look. “You sure about that?”
Sean scoffed and waved his hand in Molly’s direction. “Well sure. You’re a case in point… A rare cornucopia of new technology and unexplained abilities, and what did they do? They let you carry on running one of the most delicate operations in the entire Federation. Unsupervised. Unmonitored. With no checks and balances…”
Molly stared at him in stunned silence.
Joel interjected on her behalf. “I wouldn’t say unsupervised… After all, isn’t that what your job is?”
Sean shot him a look, which softened into an amused eyebrow
shrug, almost admitting to the charge.
Molly found her tongue. “Nice to know what you really think, Royale. Would you rather they had locked me up in a lab and run tests on me all these years?”
Sean lowered his eyes. “I’m not saying that…”
“Good,” Molly and Joel said at the same time. They exchanged a brief glance of surprise.
“The point is,” Molly continued, having found her equilibrium, “we need to think long and hard before we let anyone know that we’re alive. So let’s just take some time, get our bearings, figure out where the hell we are, and come to terms with our new status.”
“The undead!” Pieter chuffed.
“Quite,” Molly agreed. “Hang on…” She scanned the room with a quick, concerned glance. “Has anyone seen Ben’or?”
There were mutters and shakes of heads around the cockpit floor. Molly scrambled to her feet. She noticed her legs were wobbly, like they weren’t used to being used. “I’m going to look for him,” she announced, heading out of the cockpit door. “Don’t turn on any of the computers!” she called over her shoulder as she staggered out.
Stepping tentatively down the steps from the cockpit, she held the banister as she had hundreds of times before. It felt strange in her hand. Though, she couldn’t tell whether it was because her hand was new… Or perhaps the banister was new. Distracted by wanting to find Ben’or, she subconsciously clocked that some of this color scheme looked different too.
She hit the button to enter the lounge. The door swooshed open, allowing her passage through. The lounge felt strangely familiar. Yet different. She made a note to check for the slight stretch in the material of the seats next to her normal seat where she would often dump her bag. Her eyes at this moment were busy scanning for her friend and colleague.
“Ben’or,” she called softly.
There was a groan from further down the aisle. She caught sight of movement and started scrambling towards it. “Ben’or? Are you okay? Where are you?”
She stopped in her tracks, his big blue mass catching her eye from between two rows of seats. He seemed to be just coming to his senses, holding his head and trying to get up. Molly offered him a hand. “Have you just woken up?”
“Yes, although given I thought we were all dead, I’m somewhat confused…”
Molly grinned up at him. “You and the rest of us included,” she agreed. “But it’s a happy result, you got to admit.”
Ben’or started to chuckle. “Well you could say that indeed… A happy result. Arlene will be pleased.”
Molly’s smile faded as she considered the possibilities.
What if we can’t go back?
Why wouldn’t you?
Well, like Jack was saying. What if we are turned into experiments? What if we’re a security risk now? What if they won’t let us go?
I think that’s unlikely, but we need to consider possibilities.
Besides, how long have we been gone?
I haven’t connected up to the computer yet. I’ll know soon.
Emma? What about Emma? Can you see if she’s here too?
Sure. But I’ll also stop any signals being sent out until we know a little bit more.
Cool. Make sure the guys in the cockpit know that as well. Last thing we want is them making our presence known before we know what to do.
No problem. I am all over it.
By now Ben’or was nearly on his feet. “I must say, this death thing has certainly weakened my posture.” He steadied himself by grabbing the back of a chair. “I take it everyone else is okay?”
“They are,” Molly confirmed softly. “Thank goodness. Oz is just seeing if Emma is still functioning. Once we know that, we can start figuring out how long we’ve been out, where we are, and of course what to do next.”
“Get us back to Estaria, is my vote!” he exclaimed jovially.
Molly smiled and said nothing, realizing that she’d had vital few minutes more to process everything, and the implications.
Slowly and casually the pair of old friends picked their way back through the sea of chairs in the lounge to the cockpit to reunite with the others.
“At least we weren’t put back naked,” Molly commented dryly as they walked. Jack looked at her in horror as they came through the cockpit door.
“Oh yes,” Molly continued, “Oz tells me that when we were in the capsules being rebuilt, we were without clothes. Obviously. But then somehow they magically dressed us with some kind of clothes in the teleportation machine. Go figure.”
Her comments were mostly lost amongst the excitement as the crew said their hellos to Ben’or. It seemed that in the few minutes that she was out of the cockpit, hugging and crying, and life reflections had begun.
Joel sidled up to her.
“Tell me,” she said to him quietly, “is there like a five-step process to go with realizing that you’re alive…? You know, like there is one for when someone close to you dies?”
Joel chuckled. “I really don’t think there have been enough instances for anyone to recognize the patterns.”
“Hmm, maybe that’s something that we should document. You know, for future generations that are brought back from the dead.”
Joel rolled his eyes. “I think we have more important things to consider,” he said, pulling her away from the group. “Are you ready to talk about next steps?”
His face was serious. Molly felt her heart sink. This was the bit where she had to make the difficult decisions.
Couldn’t she just revel in the relief of being alive before she had to get all serious? she wondered, sighing despondently.
“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly, allowing him to lead her back out into the corridor again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bailey Residence, Spire, Estaria
Anne was lying on the bed, scrolling through media on a locked-down holo that Arlene had organized for her in recent weeks. She still wasn’t allowed one of her own on account of it being traceable, but this was a compromise of sorts. She scrolled past some more boring news videos, noticing idly that there was very little chatter about the avoided war and the memorial service now that it was all over with.
She rolled over onto her back, trying to avoid the heaviness inside of her by distracting herself with more scrolling.
Just then she felt movement on her bed. She lowered the holoscreen in front of her to see Neechie walking lightly towards her.
“Oh, you’re back, are you?” She scoffed at the catlike creature that had heartlessly abandoned her.
Neechie didn’t reply. Instead he just snuggled up to her chest and tucked his head under her chin.
Anne didn’t cuddle him back. “I bet you only came back because you are hungry,” she jibed.
The sphinx still didn’t respond. Rather, he just lay there comfortably against her, almost as if he were comforting her. Anne tried to go back to scrolling through recent media reports but found it awkward to rise on her back, hold her wrist up and scroll with Neechie in the way. She gave up and relaxed, allowing the holo screen to close down.
The sphinx didn’t move. Anne’s hand fell onto him, and subconsciously she started petting him. He smelled musty. As if he had been somewhere that was shut down. Somewhere that she recognized.
She sniffed at him, trying to place the smell.
A second later she sprung from the bed and ran through to Arlene’s room where she was lying on a bed scrolling through things on her holo too.
“Arlene, what did you say about sphinxes knowing things, and trying to tell us stuff?”
Arlene looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Neechie has just come back,” she explained. “He smells of the safe house. I’d recognize that smell anywhere!”
Arlene went back to reading her holo. “Is that so?” she responded with an enigmatic smile.
“Yes, that is so. So that’s it?” Anne asked. “You don’t think we should get up there and investigate? You even said
he knew things that we didn’t…”
Arlene appeared strangely serene. “Let’s just wait. All things will become apparent in time.”
Giving up, Anne grunted and flounced back to her own room, this time to interrogate Neechie directly.
Aboard The Empress, Location Unknown
“Okay, what do we know?” Molly asked, putting her brain in gear. The door swished closed behind them, enclosing them in the cone of silence that was the corridor between the lounge and the cockpit.
Joel shrugged. “Not much. We are alive again. What else do you know?”
Molly pressed her lips together, her gaze on the floor as she searched her brain. “I seem to remember having a conversation with the ARs sometime before we woke up. They basically said, well, what I’ve already told you…”
She tilted her head up to the intercom. “Oz? Is there any way of figuring out a few things without powering up all the systems and giving away our location?”
“Yeah, working on it now… I haven’t been able to locate Emma though,” he reported back to both of them.
“Okay, keep trying. In the meantime what can you tell us?”
“Well, there are no signs of the ARs, at least in the immediate vicinity. I’d need to power up the radars and long-range sensors to know more.”
“Any idea where we are?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It seems we are pretty much where we were when we took the fire.”
Molly exchanged a concerned look with Joel.
“And what about the two fleets?” she pressed.
“Neither here. Which brings me onto my next deduction. I think it’s safe to say that it’s been some time since we disappeared. Background radiation is consistent with the missile fire that we were experiencing, and the explosion of our fuel core.”
Molly’s breath caught in her throat.
Joel took over what they both wanted to ask. “And can you use the decay curve to tell us how long it’s been since we exploded?”
“I can. Give me a few seconds.”
While they waited, Joel poked his head through the door of the lounge, as if it might give him some important clues about when they might be. “New color scheme,” he noted.
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