AfterLife

by BL Craig

  She had been able to grab a nexus from the Rannit guards in the hold. Swiping through the camera feeds Elva could see the Sarah waiting for her on the bridge, with a small lump that must be a Rannit at her feet.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  William turned left and headed down a small corridor. Freeman had opened a door at the end of the corridor and was sliding into the next room. William ducked to the side and hid, with his back to the wall next to the door. He waited there, afraid a Rannit would come strolling down the hallway and see him. It would be hard to miss the giant human trying to look discreet, hovering over a Rannit-sized doorway.

  “Yes, this is the right way. Go in and head to the right.”

  He followed her directions and came to a closed door.

  “Freeman is waiting for you inside,” Sarah said. “There are two Rannit in the next room. I think the room after that is engine control, the one with the wheel and the window. You might be able to dart past them. They don’t look armed.”

  William took a deep breath and hit the door-open toggle. There were in fact two Rannit working in the larger room. William would have to pass right by one to get to the door on the far side. The other was farther away, but turned, so it might notice William at any second. He ran as fast as the overhead and his frozen limbs would allow, the pen clutched in his hand. Freeman dropped from the ceiling on the first Rannit before it could alert anyone else to the rapidly approaching William. The little bot coiled its tentacles over the Rannit’s face, muffling its shouts. The sound of the thunk drew the other Rannit’s attention, but by then William was almost on top of it. He poked it with the pen and heard a sizzle as the little body stiffened and then slumped to the floor.

  William moved back to Freeman and the Rannit wrapped in its tentacles, with his pen in hand. The engineer’s eyes grew huge at the approaching giant. Smiling in what he hoped was more “reassuring” than “I want to eat you,” William stunned it and Freeman gently laid it on the deck.

  “No point in being rougher than we have to, right?,” he said to the little bot. “Odds are we’ll be stuck here, let’s not give them more reason to be mad.”

  William and the drone opened the last door and entered the next room. This door was also a wheel hatch, like the airlock. William cranked the hatch down tight. Some handy Rannit had left a wrench-like tool nearby, and William jammed it into the wheel and against the door frame as best he could. Then he turned around. It certainly looked like an engine room. Lots of panels, displays, pipes, and conduit. Freeman moved deeper into the room scanning the control panels.

  “I’m working on the translation,” Sarah said. “Looks like the emergency shut off is that lever and button to the right of the pinkish-colored panel.

  “I can’t see pink,” William hissed.

  “Oh right, OK, you see the display with the grid of lights that kind of looks like an H on it?”

  “Yes,” he said moving toward the display.

  “To the right about a meter and down about a half a meter. See the button and the lever.”

  “Yes.”

  “The VI thinks you pull the lever and push the button to kill the engines.”

  The Captain’s voice broke in. “Hold off a moment, Butcher. Wait until my signal. I’ve got a surprise for that cruiser.”

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  The large cradle prevented the Tilly from leaving the ship dock, but there were plenty of gaps in its skeleton. The Captain launched Edison from its tube, facing away from the patrol ship. She guided the missile-like probe around the ship dock hull and then set the sub-light drive to maximum. Between the black paint, the partial cover of the dock ship, and likely some inattentiveness on the part of the cruiser crew, the cruiser did not react to the probe until it was only a short distance away.

  Elva saw the rail guns turn toward the probe, but they were too late. It crashed into the cruiser, punching a large hole in the other ship.

  “Now, Butcher! Kill the engines!”

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  William pulled the lever and pressed the button. A Rannit voice, which must be a VI, began sounding an alert. The translation VI repeated in his ear. “Emergency Engine Shutdown.” He felt the slightest tremor of acceleration creep through the inertial dampeners as the ship began to coast. It had worked.

  William got back to the door to see through the hatch window another Rannit frantically trying to open it. The wrench was coming loose from all the pounding. William grabbed the wheel and held it firmly in place. He was not getting off this ship.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  The constructor ship drives were offline. “Shit,” John said. Rover 1 was nearly clear of the cradle, but the controls were terrible, and he needed to avoid hitting the cross bars. If he could just get it to angle in the right direction for a moment he could full-thrust out. The jump boosters were meant to give vertical height over crevasses and obstructions. Using them to pilot in space was causing the vehicle to tumble around.

  Once the Captain started up the Tilly’s drives, he wouldn’t be able to control the Rover and it might slam into the Rannit ship and burst open.

  “Just another second,” he breathed. “There!” The rover lined up and he hit the booster. He saw it clear the cradle and float off toward the Patrol ship just in time.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Elva was ready with the sub-lights. She set the Tilly, now dragging the dock ship on a steady burn away from the cruiser. “Addy, how much movement do you need to calculate the total mass?”

  “A few moments,” the engineer replied.

  “Can we even do this?” she asked.

  “Normally the safeties wouldn’t allow it, but I disabled them all before the Rannit boarded. We will either enter slip stream with the ship dock in tow or blow up magnificently. I’m curious to see which it will be.”

  Elva heard a commotion from William’s com.

  “Captain, I’m trapped here. You’re going to have to leave without me.”

  “Sorry Butcher, that was never the plan. We’re all getting out of here. Is that enough, Addy?”

  “Just a little bit longer, Captain, I’ve got the drives spinning up. The mass calculations are coming through, but we need to even out. The constructor ship’s mass is causing us to travel off of the Tilly’s usual forward thrust vector.”

  Elva could see that the cruiser was getting under control and training guns on the Tilly. She plotted a simple single light year jump on their current trajectory.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  John heard the conversation on the bridge over the com. He’d been tuning most of it out, trying to get the Rannit to safety.

  “Captain, no,” Butcher pleaded over the comms. “The Rannit can’t survive FTL. Just give me a little time. I’ll figure out how to disengage the cradle.”

  “We can jump now, Captain.” Addy confirmed somberly.

  “Do it,” the Captain ordered.

  John heard Butcher whimper, “I’m sorry,” and felt the world judder.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  William looked out the window in the hatch door at the little Rannit crewperson. Other Rannit had poured into the room, running to the aid of the stunned engineers or joining in at the door.

  The Rannit did not simply drop as soon as FTL engaged. For just a moment they all stiffened and twitched in unison. Then they fell down dead.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Sarah found the Rannit engine room. She’d been watching William through Freeman’s eyes as she made her way between the ships. She gently pulled the Rannit bodies away from the door. She turned the hatch wheel. It stuck for a moment, like it had been over-tightened, but broke loose with a little extra force. Freeman slipped out of the door, and
she tasked him with laying the deceased on their backs, arms crossed over their chests.

  “William?”

  She stepped in and caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting, his back against the wall by the door, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. His face was buried in the hollow formed by arms and knees. She had a vision of the Rannit on the floor of the Tilly distressed over the poor spaced human.

  She bent down, gently touching him on the side of the head. “William, I’m here. It’s going to be OK.”

  He looked up mutely, the tracks of dried blue-grey tears ran down his face.

  “Come,” she said.

  He turned his wrist up to her, a red warning light glowed through his skin. “I think I broke it,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “It’s OK, I can fix it.”

  “There’s no fixing dead-dead,” he said glumly.

  11

  Your SecondLife, Again

  “Twenty-four, Captain,” John said over the com. “We’ve swept the other ship. Unless one of them was hiding really well, that’s all of them.”

  He looked down at the furry bodies, limbs akimbo, sprawled around the constructor ship bridge. They had managed to get 14 of the boarders off of the ship in Rover 1. Hopefully the cruiser had picked them up in time. The remaining Rannit had no such chance.

  He heard the Captain sigh over the com. “OK, get them into stasis crates and securely stowed.”

  John used his nexus to signal the loaders to start delivering stasis crates to the Rannit ship. They were parked just over a light year from the K-type star. John could see it clearly through the windows of the constructor ship, the brightest dot in the sky. The Rannit might as well be a million light years from home, now. Who knew if their bodies would ever make it back.

  A drone came with the first crate. John picked up the nearest tiny body and packed it as respectfully as he could in the crate. They were small enough to fit three more in before he had to switch to another crate.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Elva walked down the corridor toward the med bay. AfterLife would consider this a massive success. They had lost nearly half of Tesla’s data, but what they had would still be incredibly valuable. The constructor ship was a goldmine of logs and technology. It might even have information about the Rannit plans for Mirada. Since they had not died on the first jump with the larger mass attached, Addy was confident that they could make it all the way back home with the other ship still wrapped around them.

  The crew had different opinions about the success of the mission. They were not military, and they had no training for this. William in particular was not going to be pleased with her. It was time to bring him in on the crew’s secrets.

  “John will not like this. We can wait until after the mission is over,” said Alex from Elva’s shoulder.

  “We cannot function as a divided crew with secrets from one another. He was prepared to stay behind and die slowly to save the rest of us. I think we can trust him.”

  They turned a corner and headed toward the med bay. The door was open. Elva could hear Sarah’s voice inside. Then lower, she heard a response from William, but could not make out the words. She strode purposefully into the room, Alex trailing slightly behind.

  William looked up from the table where he sat, his face expressionless. Sarah was holding his left hand, no doubt examining the fingers for frostbite.

  “How is he?” she asked Sarah.

  “I haven’t done a full assessment yet, but it looks like the standard exposure. He definitely has some frostbite and dehydration. I’m going to give him a fresh batch of Elixir and treat the frostbite. Then I can see if there’s any internal damage. It would be easier to assess if he had a more normal range of pain response,” she said, pointedly.

  “Yes,” Elva replied and turned to the hunched man on the table.

  “William,” she said. “You did far better during the ambush than I could have asked for. I’m sorry we had to FTL jump with the Rannit ship attached, but there was no way we could get free of the cradle before that cruiser turned us into powder.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “There are some things we have been keeping from you. I’ll let Sarah give you the details.” She nodded at the other woman, and curtly said, “Tell him. Then, come see me when he’s resting comfortably.”

  With that she turned on her heel and left. Alex gave Sarah a meaningful look and departed as well.

  William turned to Sarah questions on his exhausted face.

  “Ok, well, let’s start by getting this shirt off of you.”

  “You know,” he croaked, “if you wanted to get me out of my clothes, there are easier ways than blowing me out an airlock.” He was trying to be playful to distract from the horror, but it did not land at all. She humored him anyway.

  “I like to be unconventional.” Her smile took on a coquettish shape and she winked bawdily at him. “Now strip.”

  He could see relief in her posture. If he could quip, he was not about to melt down again.

  “I am sorry for blowing you out the airlock,” she admitted. “When you were out there, free floating in space. I just about lost my shit. Then when you grabbed onto Freeman, I just about lost my shit again.”

  He leaned forward pressing his forehead against her shoulder. “You’re forgiven. Just don’t do it again, please.”

  “Deal,” she let out a choked laugh.

  Sarah was tugging the shirt up and over his head. Once it came off, he looked back at her and said, his voice a little less shaky, “So you’re supposed to brief me? I’m sure afterwards everything will be crystal clear.”

  “Maybe lightly-muddy clear.” She was already attaching monitors to his chest. “You sure you don’t want a little more time to . . . I dunno, sit with all the crazy that just happened?”

  “No, I want answers. That’s all I’ve wanted since I got here.”

  “OK.” She said slowly folding his shirt and setting it on a nearby cart. He could see her eyes shifted up to the left as she composed her words. “Let’s start with the biggest items and work our way down.” She took a breath. "What I told you about Elixir and the NCMs and sensory degradation was an oversimplified distraction. You don’t have any degradation.” She picked up a diagnostic data pad and tapped a few times. “The NCMs are used to keep our emotional and biological responses under control. The pill I gave you was a breath mint. What I actually did was a temporary hack on the endocrine and sympathetic nervous system regulator from my nexus.” She waggled the pad in her hand for emphasis.

  “So, AfterLife is keeping me this way on purpose?” he asked confused.

  “Not just you,” she said. “All of the high functioning are regulated when they leave Elysium. AfterLife likes to keep us a little less than human.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well, I can’t speak for the motivations of the giant grinding machine that is AfterLife, but there are several theories. The most common one is that we’re easier to control if we’re less emotional. You got the extra shitty end of the stick. Normally, drones and atypes both spend weeks on Elysium acclimating and then spend a couple of years on a dead world learning useful skills they never acquired when they were alive. You got thrown right into the worst situation possible, on top of your, I’m guessing, untreated PTSD.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Other theories?”

  “Well, I can bore you with my view as a social anthropologist, but there’s more you need to know before we get into the weeds. I need your bottoms off as well. Stand up for a second.”

  He eased off the table and she took off his belt and pulled the slacks down over his hips. His shoes were already kicked to the corner of the room. He couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed at being undressed like a toddler. A memory of Sophie helping him put on winter boots and gloves floated to the front of his mind. She had bundled him up and sent him out to play in the snow. She had stayed inside,
watching from the picture window and exhorting him to make a snowman bigger than he was.

  “So, it gets worse,” Sarah was saying. “Also, you have frostbite, on almost every finger and toe, but I can fix that. Here, drink some more water,” she said handing him a bottle she materialized from underneath the table.

  “I thought drinking water gave you space gonorrhea?”

  “It would, but you lost a lot of fluid in space. This will just get absorbed into your tissue.”

  “OK. What else?” he asked, before draining the bottle.

  “The 1 in 10,000 atype thing. It’s bullshit. Might be the biggest lie in human history. I’ve been analyzing the demographics and running down data for over ten years. AfterLife is picking and choosing who gets to be high-functioning based on skills of the recently dead and the company’s current needs.”

  “So, they’re doing it on purpose? The drones are intentionally being kept, what, as emotionless puppets? And atypes are being kept these monochrome shadows of ourselves?”

  “Yes.” She plugged in the fluid line to his arm and began a transfusion.

  “Fourteen billion people.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So, the Rannit were right. We are slaves.”