* * *
On the surface, it shouldn't have been that exciting. Day after day—not that they held to human days, or stuck to a recognizable day/night cycle—they flew onward. Observing. Searching for a world that could be theirs.
Even so, no matter how many times Ness came to the observation rooms and looked out at the stars so many trillions of miles away, he was left breathless. Privately, even though he knew he was mentally and physically unfit to be an astronaut, he'd always wanted to see space. Back when, he thought he'd buy his way onto a commercial flight, but he'd always known that was a delusion. He'd never have had the money.
Now, he'd be the first human to feel the radiance of a sun that wasn't theirs.
When he got tired of stargazing, he studied. At first, the Dovon language. Once he started to pick this up, he moved on to xenohistory. The Dovon weren't that much older than humanity, cosmically speaking. In fact, from what he garnered, they'd gotten ahead of themselves, flinging ships beyond their solar system well before they were ready to deal with the moral consequences of whatever they might find out there. The Way was the Way, more flexible and moral than any human system he'd ever encountered, but even the Way could be corrupted by anyone who wanted to turn it to their own gains.
Maybe that was simply the nature of things. Whatever the case, he found Dovon history interesting in its own right. They'd had their share of wars, plagues, dark ages, and so forth. But once they'd hit on the idea of the Splice—a notion that had popped up during their own Information Age, and been realized a generation later—they'd set aside all differences and lifted their eyes to the worlds beyond their own.
"IT IS ALSO THE SPLICE THAT TAUGHT US TO GROW BUILDINGS RATHER THAN TEAR THEM FROM THE SOIL," Sebastian signed once Ness came to him with his thoughts. Since learning the Dovon script, he'd found that Sebastian's gestures were much more subtle than he'd understood before. "AND YET IN OUR ENTHUSIASM TO SHOW THAT LIFE IS THE ROOT OF ALL MEANING, WE CAME TO STEAL LIFE FROM THOSE WHO HAD NOT YET REACHED THIS SAME CONCLUSION."
Ness nodded, then signed, "What's Dov like?"
"I DON'T KNOW. FOR I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO DOV."
"But you always talked like you were born there!"
"I WAS BORN ON THE SHIP." Sebastian wandered toward the viewscreen and its thousands of stars. "IT LEFT MY WORLD LONG BEFORE EITHER OF US EXISTED."
"Do you think we'll ever see it?"
Sebastian reached out and touched the screen with a tentacle. "NO. OUR PURPOSE IS TO FIND ANOTHER. DOES THIS TROUBLE YOU?"
"I'd love to see your world," Ness signed. "But I'd love to find a new one, too. If we live that long."
"SOME THINGS LIVE BEYOND THE BODIES THAT CARRY THEM. IDEAS. LOVE. HONOR. IF WE REPRESENT THEM AS THEY DESERVE, THEN THOSE THAT COME AFTER WILL CARRY THEM AS WELL."
Ness laughed and moved to touch the screen. "From your tentacles to the universe's ears."
* * *
Raina stood on the hilltop and considered what she had wrought. Smoke rose from the city. Not the smoke of war, but the smoke of cooking. Axes rapped, but though they cut down trees and old houses, this was to provide lumber for the great hall north of the Dunemarket, where vast quantities of goods could be stored and swapped, and where the growing citizenry could meet under one roof.
More people came by the day. As the newcomers told it, this was in part due to the efforts of Mia, Mauser, Bryson, and Shana. But others had learned of the Dunemarket from unknown sources. It was as though the winds wanted to carry the rumor of the land where law existed again. And when people heard these rumors, they came to live beneath its peace.
But she thought they wanted more than law and order. As alone as everyone had sometimes felt during the plague, the collapse, and the wars, they had all been acting as a piece of the whole. Relying on each other through the struggle in ways they didn't understand until much later, or never at all. Take Walt: he'd stopped the first attack. This had planted the seed for Ness and Tristan to avert the second plague. In turn, this had cleared the way for Raina to build the nation that had stood against the second invasion. Every step of the way, brave warriors had sacrificed themselves to ensure that others would go on.
Each piece relied on every other. People yearned to be a part of this whole, to be relied on and to be able to rely on their neighbors and friends. To find community. It was this yearning that brought them to the Dunemarket like moths to the flame.
She kneeled in the dirt, running her fingers through it so that she would always know its feel. Once upon a time, she had thought she might unite the entire world under her thrall. Now, she knew that could not be. The world was too wide and too fractured for any one person to claim every one of its corners. To reach for more was to lose hold of what you'd started with. And what you'd started with was most precious of all.
You couldn't have it all. But you could light a spark. And tend to it, sheltering its flicker until it took on a life of its own. Once it had done that, if it was strong enough, it could spread to everything around you, and the light and warmth that came with it would summon others to you—and grant them the strength to help you protect it.
The aliens were gone. Humans remained. At last, the city was hers—and if she held fast to it, she knew that the flame of those who had first built it would be kindled anew.
* * *
Ness' palms were sweaty. Weird. The Dovon preferred it chilly. Most times, he wandered around the ship wearing a synthetic sweater that almost but not quite felt like wool. Honestly, he'd been feeling out of sorts for days. Anxious. Maybe it was just a mood that would pass on its own soon enough.
In the meantime, though, everything felt gray. Like a fog that wouldn't lift. He found himself less interested in studying. There were so many details and so few of them seemed to matter.
Sebastian gestured, "IS SOMETHING WRONG?"
The two of them were alone in the observation room. Ness had been staring blankly, tablet in his lap. "What do you mean?"
"YOU LOOK ILL AT EASE. TODAY, IT IS TWO YEARS SINCE WE LEFT. ARE YOU STILL SAD FOR HER?"
Ness took a moment to answer. "No. I can't be sad about that. She did what she had to."
"BUT WHAT SHE DID PAINED YOU. EVEN IF SHE IS BLAMELESS, YOU MIGHT STILL HARBOR ITS HURT."
"The wars made all of us do things we wish we hadn't had to do. Stuff we regretted even when it was the best decision we could make. We were all so afraid. So stressed out. So lonely. It weighed on her more than most of us. If she needed my forgiveness for anything, I gave it a long time ago. Anyone who can't forgive someone else for screwing up is deluding themselves. Because we've all made mistakes every bit as bad. And we're each praying we'll be forgiven, too."
"THIS SEEMS WISE. YET IF IT IS NOT HER, THEN WHAT? DO YOU MISS OTHER HUMANS?"
"Not often. I knew what I was signing up for. But sometimes, it would be nice to hear another human voice."
"I TOO KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE ALONE AMONG STRANGERS." Sebastian's next motions were oddly deliberate. Almost anxious. "WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THERE WAS A WAY TO GROW NEW HUMANS?"
Ness cocked his head. He signed, "Through the Splice? That would never work. You've only got my DNA to work with."
"THIS IS NOT TRUE. BEFORE THE DEEPFINDERS LEFT, THEY TOOK MUCH HUMAN DNA FOR STUDY. THEIR CATALOGUE IS WIDE. IT HOLDS ENOUGH TO BEGIN ANEW."
His scalp tingled. "You're saying we could start a new colony."
"THE DOVON HAVE ALREADY AGREED THAT SPREADING HUMANITY BEYOND EARTH WOULD BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WAY."
"So the question is, do I want to?"
"THEY WOULD NOT DO THIS ON THEIR OWN. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS THE WAYS OF YOUR PEOPLE."
Ness stood and moved closer to the view of the stars. "Not yet. I'm not ready for that."
Sebastian nodded. "I UNDERSTAND."
Was the alien disappointed? Ness narrowed his eyes in thought. "But if we find a new world, I think I might change my mind. It would be a great thing if the Dovon and humans could
grow up together."
A grin spread across his face. Like that, the fog was gone. And it revealed possibilities he'd never dreamed of.
* * *
The wind riffled his hair. Being on the bow of a ship, Walt couldn't see himself, but he imagined it looked dramatic as hell.
He grabbed hold of the rigging and grinned back at Carrie. "Well?"
She held loosely to the rope dangling from the mainmast, bending her knees to the swells of the waves, but not so much that a sudden upthrust would send her flying. "Well what?"
"What do you want to do with our booty? This is twice as much sugar as the last trip. Not to mention the rum. If we fetch the same price as last time, we'll be rich."
"We're already rich."
"I mean more rich. Enough to think about a voyage to Portugal. Or Morocco."
Carrie brushed a strand of hair from her face. "We don't even know if anyone's alive there."
"Finding that out is the whole point. What else do you think we're doing this for?"
"So you can live out your dream of being a swashbuckler?"
"I'm not the pirate. I'm a simple merchant. The guy who needs to exist before the pirates can. If we get to the point where pirates are back in business, I'd say we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."
He turned his back face to the wind. It had been three years since they'd visited Los Angeles and its inaugural Alone Day. From there, they'd sailed through the Panama Canal on their way to Barbados, which was every bit as beautiful and green as Hawaii had been.
In contrast to the Big Island, however, Barbados boasted a number of communal farms. As well as the village of Pie Corner, where they produced rum in great quantity. They proved highly enthusiastic about trading liquor, sugar cane, coffee, and everything else they grew with those to the north. It was like they'd been waiting for a good ship to come along and reconnect them to the colonies of the Americas.
Walt had been happy to fill the void. Now, he wasn't just a captain, but the admiral of five ships, which made regular trade between the former lands of Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Texas, and the Eastern Seaboard. He was hoping to add Europe and Africa to the roster soon.
"We've already met my dreams," Carrie said. She jerked her chin at the bright blue sea. "I could do this forever. But it would be special to cross the Atlantic, too."
"Every trip makes us better at this. This year or the next, we'll be ready."
"And then will you be happy?"
He let go of the rope and stepped further up the prow, gripping the railing as the yacht plowed down the backside of a wave. "I've been happy every day since I got you back."
Her shoes clunked as she made her way to join him. "Me too."
"But I'll be even happier once we've sailed to every corner of the world."
Carrie laughed. "Me too."
He reached for her hand. It felt even better than the Caribbean breeze and the beat of the sun. Abruptly, he knew that he would do it. Reconnect a world that had been cut apart by the Panhandler and the six-year war that followed. Some of his crew dismissed his ambitions as silly hope. But it wasn't a matter of hope any more than he'd hoped to be able to walk from New York to Los Angeles. Or to knock down the first ship. Or take care of the second.
It was only a matter of doing.
"This is nothing like I imagined my life would be," she said. "But I wouldn't trade it for anything."
He gripped her hand tighter. "Neither would I."
Wave by wave, they sailed on.
AFTERWORD
First, let me get my spiel out of the way: if you made it this far, please consider leaving a review. Those are a big help. Second, while this is the final Breakers book, I'm going to keep writing for a long, long time. Including stories set in this world's future. If you'd like to hear when I have a new book, please sign up for my mailing list.
Okay, spiel over. Now, if you're interested, I'll tell you where Breakers came from.
The first piece of the puzzle came almost twenty years ago. I was a teenager reading all the science fiction and fantasy in our house. One day, I picked out my parents' copy of The Stand. It was huge, but it looked cool. The cover had a dude with a sword fighting a weird bird-devil. Sounded like a great story.
It was. I've never been more engrossed in a book than I was during the first third of The Stand, when Captain Trips was racing across the country and everything was falling apart. A thousand pages later, I was mildly disappointed that there was never a scene where the swordsman battled the demon-bird. But the story struck something in me that few books have since.
It was still with me in 2011. I'd wanted to be a writer all my life. At that point, I'd written four books. All rejected by publishers. Discouraged, I thought back to all the books I'd loved. I remembered how awestruck The Stand had left me and how I'd never run into anything like it since. I wanted to recapture that. To be as excited writing my book as I'd felt reading that one.
So I knew I wanted my fifth book to be a plague novel. But I didn't want to just regurgitate The Stand—logically, even if my version was any good, it would never compare to its inspiration. Besides, as much as I'd loved the book, I'd enjoyed the first third much more than the rest. I wanted to take it a different direction. And I needed to put my own spin on it.
That's where the second piece fell into place.
At that point in time, I was a movie critic for my hometown paper. It paid very little, but at least it was fun. And as I was noodling about plagues, just about every movie I was going off to see had an alien invasion in it. Stuff like Cowboys & Aliens, Battle: Los Angeles, Skyline. It felt like something was in the air. Should I write an alien book?
Then, out of the blue, I knew: I'd write both.
As it turned out, all those alien movies were pretty bad. The fad was extremely short-lived. But it was too late. I had my idea. And I thought it was pretty cool.
So I sat down. I started to write. And within days, I was convinced I'd made a huge mistake. I knew people liked plague novels. I knew they liked alien novels. But there was no way anyone was going to like a book that smashed those two things together.
But whatever. I liked the idea. Aliens conquering the world with a virus actually made more sense than trying to take it over with a bunch of ships. Besides, I had no career. What did I have to lose? Worst case, it was another manuscript in a dresser in my closet, or slowly collecting electronic dust on Amazon.
Meanwhile, my life, in many ways, stunk. The year before, I'd moved to a new state with my fiancee and hardly knew anyone. She found a job, but lost it six months later. We were soon extremely broke. It was the summer of 2011; the economy was still pretty bad. I'd been scrimping by on freelance writing, movie reviews, and the occasional sale of a short story to a magazine, but my savings were shrinking month by month. We lived cheap, but we had about six months to figure something out.
As a result, at the same time I was writing about Raymond and Mia starting their new post-plague life together, starting their garden and finding their chickens, I was taking seeds from the produce we'd bought at the store to plant in our own yard. I wasn't much of a gardener, but I figured if I could save us forty or fifty bucks a month in groceries, that might be enough to get by. Every bit would help.
And while Walt was taking his long walk across the country, witnessing the chaos of the Panhandler, I was feeling the same confusion, paranoia, and fear. Maybe it was time to give up writing, or at least backburner it for a few years while I found a steady job of some kind.
Problem was, I had no qualifications. I had a degree in fiction writing, of all things. I might as well have a degree in baton twirling. My previous job experience included UPS Store clerk, data entry at a bookstore, and feeding ads into newspapers hot off the printing press. Having held such jobs, I knew exactly how hard it was to make a living from them. I was screwed. Everything was coming to an end.
My life, as it turned out, was in the perfect place to tackle the apocalypse.
Judging from some of the reviews, I certainly succeeded on that front.
But I also stumbled onto the most vibrant character I'd ever written. One who made me want to write more books for him. By the way, have I ever mentioned Breakers was supposed to be a standalone novel? Yep. One and done. But after it came out, a lot of people seemed to like it. I'd certainly gotten a huge thrill from writing it. Even so, it took the encouragement—some might say the browbeating—of several much smarter authors before I decided to jump into Melt Down. With the sequel, I decided I'd had so much fun blowing up the world the first time, I should do it all over again.
From there, I knew I wanted to write more, but for a while, I didn't know where it was leading. I tried to think about what the Dovon would be up to. How humans would be reacting to the aliens and to each other. Along the way, I stumbled onto several more great characters, especially Raina, who jumped off the page at me the instant I started writing Knifepoint. Lucy's voice came to me the same way. There are times I feel like Reapers is a bit of an odd duck that doesn't fit in as well as the other books, but at other times, I love that Lucy inadvertently saved the world from the second virus that was to appear in Cut Off. A part of me wishes I wish I'd kept her alive and found a way to have dragged her off to L.A.
(Then again, she probably would have stabbed Walt for looking at her funny, caused a civil war between Raina and Mauser, and umbrella-blasted the second mothership out the sky the second it showed up.)
These are the risks of flying by the seat of your pants, but I like to think that having the freedom to explore helped keep the series fresh. Even so, during Cut Off, I could feel that it was time to start drawing the storylines to a single conclusion. At that point, I figured out how I wanted the series to end, planned which characters I wanted to revisit, plotted out a few key twists (Mia in disguise! Anson's secret alliance with the Swimmers!), and buckled down.
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