by Ramy Vance
Petra saluted and plopped hard into her seat, heart thudding in her ears as she transcribed the commander’s message.
“One-One-Alpha-Nine-Mother-Whiskey-Halo-Echo,” the commander said. “Instructions: Come home.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Jaeger stood at the center of the newly repaired observation deck, hands clasped tightly behind her back as she stared across the starfield ahead of them. Seeker lifted his bound wrists to his face to rub the grit from his eyes, disbelieving what he saw arrayed before the Osprey. Two massive flying saucers, not even ten kilometers away, drifted idly in space. Large swaths of burns decorated the tilted underbelly of each. As Seeker’s vision clarified, he saw the pinprick lights of droids swarming across each of the alien ships.
“Are those our repair droids?” Seeker spluttered.
Jaeger turned to face him. She seemed to have aged ten years from the bright-eyed young woman in her fabricated manifest picture.
Beside her, Toner flung himself into one of the lounge chairs and took it for a lazy spin.
“Those are my repair droids,” Jaeger agreed, her voice tired but pleasant. “We’re assisting our new friends. Basic repairs are nearly over, and they’ll be on their way. After some negotiation, of course.”
Seeker shook his head and stared around the starfield. It looked oddly familiar—though it lacked one notable, very large feature. “The wormhole is gone,” he muttered. “God. How long was I out?”
“A few days,” Toner admitted. He cracked a can of seltzer water and watched, satisfied, as gas hissed out of the lid. Then he took a long drag. “We wanted to see how quickly you would heal yourself unaided.” He considered the drink for a moment, then wrinkled his nose and offered it out to Jaeger with a shake of his head. “Nope. This one sucks, too.”
Jaeger sighed and took the can.
“Your vertebrae were detached,” Jaeger told Seeker. “Medically speaking, you were beheaded. Everything but the skin itself severed.”
“The kid popped your skull right off the top of your spine,” Toner called.
Jaeger shot Toner a dark look. “You healed yourself,” she added to Seeker. “With nothing but time. You and I may look normal enough, but we’ve clearly been changed by the genetic artists as well.” Then she took a sip from the can, and her expression turned puzzled. “It tastes fine to me.”
“Yeah, Jaeger, I think sparkling water just sucks.”
Jaeger sighed. To Seeker’s baffled look, she said: “We’re trying to find him things to drink that aren’t booze or blood substitutes. Or, well, blood. For some reason, he insists plain water will not do, but I think that has more to do with the fact that he doesn’t like it than it’s bad for him.”
Toner made a dramatically loud gagging noise.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Jaeger asked quietly.
Seeker set his jaw and shook his head. Then he thought twice. “I’d take a cigarette.”
Jaeger laughed. “Me too. But I can’t find synthesizer patterns for any kind of cigarette at all. Trust me. We’ve looked.”
“What the hell is going on?” Seeker asked, and all at once, Jaeger’s tired good humor vanished. She sank slowly into a lounge chair and stared up at him, expressionless.
“We’re stranded,” she said simply. “The wormhole is closed. We’re cut off from our half of the galaxy and everything we’ve ever known.”
“If I remember correctly,” Seeker growled, “You gave that order.”
Jaeger nodded.
“You fucked us.”
A pained look flashed over Jaeger’s face. She shook her head. “No. The evil men who designed the Crusade Protocol and all of those mutation templates, they did that.”
“We are the Tribes. We have a mission. We have to work together. We have to stay loyal to one another. You think your new alien friends out there give a shit about us? They don’t. Do you know how I know that? Because ultimately any species, human, animal, or alien, is territorial. And we’re smack-fuck-dab in the middle of their territory.”
“‘Get thee glass eyes,’” Toner snorted, making another lazy spin in his chair. “‘And like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.’”
Seeker stared at him. Then he stared at Jaeger. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Jaeger frowned, puzzling through the quote. “That you’re…deluding yourself about the truth. I think.” She bit her lip and admitted, “It’s been a while since I’ve read Lear.”
Toner tossed her a thumbs-up.
“You’re all crazy,” Seeker said, amazed. “It wasn’t just the cat. All of you. Fucking crazy.”
“Yeah, but really…” Toner gestured from himself to Jaeger. “Between us and Sphynx, which crazy would you rather work with? At any rate, he’s super dead. If you pick him, you’ll have to reassemble him from Baby’s shit. Or grow a new one, I guess.”
“If humankind can’t save itself through honor and goodwill, then it doesn’t deserve to be saved,” Jaeger added gently. “At the very, very least, humankind should be able to save itself as itself. Not as these…twisted things they’ve made of us. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
“The point is that it’s a big ugly galaxy out there and you have to fight to survive,” Seeker snapped. “And when you’re on the back foot, you take every advantage you can get. You stole one of mankind’s last chances when you stole this ship from the fleet. You think I should be ashamed of being able to re-grow a snapped spine? No. Take your feel-good hippy bullshit somewhere else.”
For a long moment, Jaeger sat frozen, motionless, as if he had pierced her through the heart. Then she set her jaw and nodded. “Yes. That is exactly what I did.”
She pushed herself upright, stiff as a board and intensely formal as she met Seeker’s stormy gray eyes. “I see I haven’t persuaded you to join me in my bullshit hippy quest,” she said.
“You’re goddamned right.”
She nodded again.
“So what, then?” Seeker asked. “You waited for me to heal myself to execute me for being a traitor? Maybe hand me over to your new friends in an exchange of hostages?”
Jaeger’s eyebrows jumped. “What? No. Haven’t you been listening? We’re going to try to do things the right way. The honorable way. And, if possible, the peaceful way.”
“Then what are you going to do with me?”
“I suppose we’re going to stick you in the brig and talk at you until you change your mind.”
Seeker’s eyes bulged out of his head. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You sadistic bitch.”
She smiled. “I didn’t say it was going to be a pleasant way.”
She was young and golden in her gingham dress, her face shining like the sun. She rocked on the porch swing, legs kicking wildly through the air as she laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
A woman Jaeger didn’t know, a woman Jaeger saw every time she looked in the mirror, wrapped that little girl in a warm embrace, and held her close, held her tight. Jaeger could almost smell the coconut oil in her tightly curled hair.
Or maybe it was only a fantasy.
And I would fly five billion miles, they sang together.
And I would fly five billion more, they promised each other.
Just to be the one who flies a billion billion miles to fall down at your door.
“Or a thousand light-years,” Jaeger whispered into her cupped hands. “Or a million. God, it could take so long.” She felt tears on her cheeks. “But we’re going to do it right. I promise. I am going to build you a home and write you a story you can be proud of.”
Then Sarah Jaeger curled up alone in her bed and wept.
The Story Continues
The story continues with Shattered Lamps, coming soon to Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
Author Notes Ramy Vance
July 19, 2021
Vampires Colonizing Space – that was the original idea behind this book. I wanted to write a straight-up story about a bunch of v
ampires leaving a war-torn, dying earth to go find a new home and new, fresh, alien blood to drink. Originally Jaeger was meant to be a vampire, too, and the fleet was going to be a coven of their own.
Jaeger was to rebel – like in this book – but she’d rebel against her fellow vampires because she found her humanity and realized that unleashing her kind on an innocent planet was too much.
Then I started getting down to telling the damn story and, as I often find to be true, the characters started to do their own thing, completely taking me (and themselves) off-script.
And that’s how we ended up with what we ended up with… The eggs, Baby, Occy, Sphynx – none of that was part of the original plan. Instead, I found Virgil being a fairly difficult AI and Jaeger being far more ‘human’ than planned.
The result was this book. And I’m so glad for it. This space romp turned out way better than I could have anticipated. I could have planned.
As I gain more experience in this whole writing game, I find more and more that outlining is like following one of those old-school paper maps. They kept you on course, helped you when you were lost, but ultimately were more of suggest than anything else, because, whenever you got lost and unfolded that monstrosity on the hood of your car, you’d realize things like: Holy guacamole – the world’s largest ball of yarn is only a few miles out of our way. Let’s go check it out.
In other words – let’s have an unscripted adventure.
I look forward to getting the rest of this series out. Well, that’s not quite the whole story – I look forward to seeing where Jaeger, Toner, Occy, Virgil and Baby take me… I look forward to getting lost in their story.
Author Notes Michael Anderle
July 20, 2021
Thank you for not only reading this story, but these author notes as well.
My compatriot in crime (well, not real crime) Ramy mentioned something I want to talk about.
In his author notes, he said, “In other words, let’s have an unscripted adventure. “
Really, that is a LARGE part of what building a few hundred stories does to a person. I can’t speak for others who have been a part of so many tales, but for me, I can’t dictate a total story.
I outline. I provide stopping points on a map for the characters to accomplish, and many times, that is enough to get the party going.
Many of my friends LOVE the world-building aspect of creating stories. I’m meh about the whole effort. I want to get just enough of the world built so that I can put my toys into it and start playing.
If the world was a sandpile, I just need a hole to claim I had a dungeon in a mountain and the intrepid heroes are going in.
Unfortunately for the heroes, my ability to safely engineer a cave system is shit. Usually, within seconds of placing my characters in the hole in the side of the sandpile, it collapsed, and they all die of asphyxiation.
Not to mention, one is usually lost to stay in the sandpile for weeks, rusting after the rains damn near soak everything in the sand.
It was tough being one of my toys.
Right now, that is like how I feel about my publishing company, LMBPN—it’s an unscripted adventure.
Back at the end of 2016, I had intended to “do this publishing thing” for about two more years and then call it good. I’d have enough money to go part-time and retire down to Cabo San Lucas. For those who have followed my efforts to build a house in Mexico, you know I STILL do not have the house.
It’s finally built. I have been in it, but what we don’t have is the document to say we have title.
So, we haven’t taken possession yet.
(To give you some idea of an author’s mind. When I typed “possession” in the line above, my brain started spinning a story idea about ghosts and possessions, etc., and I had to stop it.
I’m working on author notes, not another set of stories.)
So, I’ve failed miserably with the “three years and stop” effort. This November marks our sixth year since I released my first book, and I don’t see LMBPN stopping for a long time (assuming you, the readers, stick with us.)
We shall see.
Either way, stick around, and let’s find out what adventures we can get into—and out of—together!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Other books by Ramy Vance
Other Middang3ard Books
Never Split The Party (01)
Late To the Party (02)
It’s My Party (03)
Blue Hell And Alien Fire (04)
Death Of An Author: A Middang3ard Novella
Dark Gate Angels
Dark Gate Angels (01)
Shades of Death (02)
The Allies of Death (03)
The Deadliness of Light (04)
Dragon Approved
The First Human Rider (01)
Ascent to the Nest (02)
Defense of the Nest (03)
Nest Under Siege (04)
First Mission (05)
The Descent (06)
Sacrifices (07)
Love and Aliens (08)
An Alien Affair (09)
Dragons in Space (10)
The Beginning of the End (11)
Death of the Mind (12)
Boundless (13)
Die Again to Save the World
Die Again to Save the World (Book 1)
Die Again to Save Tomorrow (Book 2)
Other Books by Ramy Vance
Mortality Bites Series
Keep Evolving Series
Books By Michael Anderle
Sign up for the LMBPN email list to be notified of new releases and special deals!
https://lmbpn.com/email/
For a complete list of books by Michael Anderle, please visit:
www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/
Connect with The Authors
Connect with Ramy
Join Ramy’s Newsletter
Join Ramy’s FB Group: House of the GoneGod Damned!
Michael Anderle Social
Website: http://lmbpn.com
Email List: http://lmbpn.com/email/
Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/LMBPNPublishing
https://twitter.com/MichaelAnderle
https://www.instagram.com/lmbpn_publishing/
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/michael-anderle