After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set

by Charlie Dalton

  “Boo,” Fatty said. “I was enjoying that.”

  Lucy checked the cameras mounted inside and outside the ship. She paused when she saw the camera looking back. She had to show this to the others. She transferred the image to the overhead windows, which were also a kind of screen. The others calmed—even Fatty—when they saw the planet they were leaving behind. Not the entirety of it yet. They weren’t yet that far from their homeworld.

  The continent of the former United States (although no one had officially taken away the country from them there was no national leadership to claim it either) loomed large, the sunlight glimmering off the Atlantic Ocean. The darkness of night was already beginning to sweep across the planet as the Earth showed its back to the Sun.

  The guys were silent, watching as the ship they rode gradually pulled away from everything they had ever known—and would never know. Lucy wondered what the world looked like before the Fall. An overlay was placed across the planet. Beacons of light shone bright, large sections of the planet taken up with artificial light.

  “Is that. . . ?” Jamie said.

  “The world before the Fall,” Lucy said. “Yes.”

  “It’s so beautiful,” Fatty said.

  “The Bugs took everything from us,” Lucy said.

  She couldn’t conceal the anger in her voice, the utter desperation.

  And she saw, flitting through her mind, and on the screen so the others could see, images and videos and words and people—like the presentation Dr. Beck had given them in the cinema what felt like a lifetime ago, but much faster. Too fast for them to process the details but it didn’t matter. The important thing was they understood what they were fighting for.

  Lucy needed them as much as they needed her. She could think of no others she would prefer to have at her side.

  “They took everything,” Lucy said. “I think it’s time we took it back.”

  “Let’s do it,” Fatty said.

  Shocked looks all around. Fatty had said that?

  “I’m in,” Jamie said.

  “Whatever you need,” Donny said. “Tell us, and we’ll do it.”

  Lucy smiled. She was glad she wouldn’t have to do this alone.

  31.

  LUCY REMOVED the images from the screens and replaced them with a live feed of their destination.

  The moon. Huge, bulbous and round with deep craters tinted silvery blue.

  “I never thought it would look like this,” Jamie said. “Up close, I mean.”

  “Nothing ever does,” Donny said. “I can’t say I ever gave the moon much thought.”

  The ship used the moon’s gravitational pull to slightly alter its trajectory, propelling itself around the moon to the ship nodes that would be docked on the other side.

  Lucy couldn’t detect them yet. According to her sensors, there was nothing there. The Cities had long ago disabled communications systems for fear the Bugs might pick them up, destroying any chance they had of a successful mission in the process.

  She felt nervous. What if none of the other Cities successfully launched? What if they had already been spotted and the Bugs were prepared, ready for them on the other side of the moon? What if. . . ?

  A million situations might have happened, none of them pretty. Lucy let the automatic piloting system take them where they needed to go but she put the weapons system firmly in her control.

  She didn’t activate them yet. Again, she didn’t want to give any sign to the Bugs that they were there. She doubted they could sense the weapons if she unstowed them from their current locked positions anyway but she simply didn’t want to take the risk.

  She reached for the cameras on the right hand side of their ship. The sensors picked out the Bug ship sitting there. The regular view showed only the stars blocked out by the vessel’s massive girth.

  Flicking through the other camera views, she came to the night vision setting. Bright, glaring infrared. A ship so large it affected the gravity of nearby objects. The Earth’s second moon.

  The enemy.

  Reduce them to galactic rubble and their worries were over.

  They continued to drift around the moon, to the far side. Lucy shifted her view and prepared to fire at an instant’s notice. But there were no Bug ships here. There were no City ships either.

  There was nothing.

  32.

  THE RAGES were closing in fast.

  Donald and Dr. Beck ran in the direction of what remained of the Denver City mountain. Dr. Beck was limping, with no hope of matching Donald’s pace.

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t worry about my foolish pride and carry me!” Dr. Beck said.

  Donald didn’t waste a second, scooping the doctor up in his arms midstep and pumping his legs as fast as he could make them go.

  “Grab my bag!” Donald said.

  “Everything we need will be inside!” Dr. Beck said.

  “The axe!” Donald said. “Grab my axe!”

  Donald didn’t stop. He took a single bow, so low Dr. Beck thought he was falling over, but as they began to rise back up again, he realized he’d done it on purpose. He threw out an arm and scooped the axe up. He held it in both hands behind Donald’s back.

  “How are we doing?” Donald said.

  Dr. Beck had a clear view of the wide field behind them. The Rages raced across the vast expanse toward them, limbs flailing, flaps of skin flapping, the awkward stiff gait of the undead.

  “Just keep going!” Dr. Beck said.

  He didn’t need to tell Donald twice. He shifted direction slightly and slowed a little to ensure he could sustain the pace.

  Donald breathed hard, timing inhales between each stride. He didn’t have a stitch yet and wasn’t even close to exhaustion. He’d need to maintain some oxygen reserves in case the creatures got too close for comfort and he needed to fight them off. He couldn’t run too hard or risked taking too much time to recover.

  They closed on the boulders that had fallen from the mountainside when the ship had shed its outer skin. Donald negotiated a path through random avenues. He pulled to a stop at a dead end and retraced his steps, heading down another alley. A fresh dead end.

  “I can see the entrance from here,” Dr. Beck said, pointing to a gap between two large boulders.

  It was far too narrow for either of them to fit through. So close, and yet so far. Donald turned. He’d have to double-back and find another way through.

  “Throw me,” Dr. Beck said.

  “What?” Donald said.

  “Throw me,” Dr. Beck said.

  “Why?” Donald said. “I’ll find a way.”

  “Get me on top of one of these boulders and I’ll start working on accessing the City while you figure a new route to get there,” Dr. Beck said.

  “You can’t defend yourself,” Donald said.

  “Let me worry about that,” Dr. Beck said.

  “All right,” Donald said, shifting his hold on the doctor.

  He braced the old man’s weight and hefted him up. Dr. Beck stretched and grabbed onto the edge of the boulder with both hands. He pulled himself up, weak arms shaking. Donald raised his hands to push on the soles of the doctor’s boots. It was no good the doctor trying to lift Donald up. He wasn’t strong enough.

  Dr. Beck got to his feet and peered at the maze, looking for a clear way through. He saw it.

  “There,” he said, pointing. “Go that way. Go back two turns and hang a left instead of a right. You need to hurry. There’s a lot of them out there. And they’re getting close.”

  “You get that door open,” Donald said. “I guess I’ll see you on the other side.”

  He took off. Dr. Beck hoped it wasn’t the other side of life he was referring to.

  33.

  “I DON’T understand,” Jamie said. “Where are the other ships? Aren’t they supposed to be here?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said. “They’re supposed to be.”

  Their node sailed forward, toward the location where the
other ships were meant to be. Like a bird returning home to the nest to discover its fledglings had already taken flight.

  “How are we going to defeat the Bugs if we don’t have a complete ship?” Fatty said. “We can’t attack them like this. They’ll destroy us for sure!”

  “Docking engaged,” the voice in Lucy’s ear said.

  There was nothing to dock with. Only open space.

  Lucy flicked through the other cameras, peering around at the emptiness around them. Nothing blocked the stars like the Bug ship had. Even infrared revealed nothing of interest.

  Their ship locked onto something, something real, with weight. Gentle but firm. They were docking with something they could not see.

  Then the hatch door hissed, depressurizing. Lucy quickly checked to ensure the system was working properly and this wasn’t an error that would jettison them into space.

  The hatch door opened. Through the cameras, Lucy made out the inside of another hatch, on the opposite side, a mirror image of the one on their own ship.

  “We’ve docked,” Lucy said.

  “Docked with what?” Donny said. “There’s nothing here!”

  “No,” Lucy said. “There is.”

  “It must be the cloaking system Dr. Beck told us about,” Jamie said.

  “It’s really effective!” Lucy said. “I couldn’t pick it up at all on my instruments. An improvement over the one we currently have. One of the other Cities must have found a way to upgrade the system, keeping it invisible to anyone who might come here. Let me try something.”

  She accessed the cloaking controls and deactivated them for the entire ship. One node at a time, the entire mothership came out of cloaking mode.

  “Woah,” Jamie said.

  His opinion was reflected by the others. Wide mouths, bulging eyes. The mothership was huge. They couldn’t even see all of it or even most of it. They were located in a crevice, tucked away between a handful of other, much larger nodes.

  Dr. Beck had understated the truth. This was the greatest undertaking the human race had ever made by far. Other sections of the ship were at least ten times the size of the one they were currently riding.

  Lucy didn’t yet know what their individual purposes were. She refused the information the computer fetched for her. She was looking forward to finding out when the time was right.

  A shred of doubt slithered up her spine. Could she really do this?

  “Now what do we do?” Jamie said.

  “We check out the rest of the ship,” Lucy said, more than a little excited.

  If they were lucky—very, very lucky—they might have a chance of success after all.

  34.

  DONALD HEADED back down the route he thought he’d taken. It was hard to remember. It wasn’t like he’d made a detailed plan of which way he’d go next.

  Two turns. Was this the place the doctor was referring to? There were so many rocks and potential avenues. And they all looked the same.

  Donald heard them. Their jostling, clattering bones rubbed together as they ran. Their stink already burned the hair in his nostrils.

  He’d been bitten by them once before. He sure as hell didn’t want to tempt fate a second time. He’d hardly be quite so energetic with his throat torn out.

  There were two routes before him. Left and right. He did as the doctor suggested and hung a left.

  “Please be right,” he said to himself as he took off down the narrow corridor.

  35.

  DR. BECK peered over the side of the boulder. It was a big drop, bigger than he’d thought. He’d hoped there’d be a ledge or something he could step on to help reduce the fall, but there wasn’t. Time was of the essence. He needed to get down on the other side now.

  He said a quick prayer and began to lower himself down. He knew he didn’t have the strength to hold himself there for long. That might actually work in his favour. He couldn’t change his mind because he couldn’t hold on very long.

  He fully extended his arms. Glanced down. The ground spiralled and pulled away from him. Suddenly he felt like he was a hundred feet up. A fresh wave of perspiration on his forehead. Gotta love vertigo.

  His arms were already shaking. He clenched his eyes shut and let go, dropping ten or so feet.

  There was no show of surprising acrobatic skill, no soft landing and accompanying roll. He dropped like feces out the ass of a large animal. Plop. To the ground. In a heap.

  Dr. Beck lifted his head. Graceful it was not, but he was still alive. He got to his feet.

  His right ankle—his good foot—had now become his worst foot. He limped forward, edging toward the entrance doorway embedded in the mountainside. It was slow, painful work.

  He dropped to his knees and crawled instead. Less painful and he travelled at about the same speed.

  He got to the door, stood up, and accessed the terminal. This, at least, was something he could do with some dignity.

  36.

  DONALD DIDN’T dare turn to look back over his shoulder. He was certain they would be right there, hot on his tail.

  He followed his chosen route. So far, there had been few forks in the road. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was heading the wrong way, like the corridor he was heading down had turned back on itself somehow. Was he closing the gap with the Rages?

  The corridor walls were too high for him to climb, the boulders large enough to be hollowed out and converted into a family home. He could live as one of the Flintstones. And drive a foot-powered car. What he wouldn’t give for one of those right now.

  Raaw.

  Donald skidded to a halt. He was right. He was heading in the wrong direction.

  Malformed shadows danced on the rock walls around the next blind corner. Lurching, looming. Hideous.

  Donald turned and ran back down the same corridor.

  He was lost.

  37.

  DR. BECK smashed the console with a handy rock and lifted up the dented keypad to access the wires inside. He pulled them out. All neatly organized.

  He bit at the plastic casing and spat it out. He dug in his pocket for his trusty pocket knife. He held the wires in a fist and sliced the wires he thought to be the right ones. He was a scientist, not an engineer, but he’d seen enough schematics to know engineers were usually very consistent with the wire colours in their systems. It made fixing them easier no matter where you were. Or hijacking it.

  “Please work,” Dr. Beck said under his breath.

  He crossed the wires. After a moment, the door opened.

  “Yes!” he said, replacing the busted keypad.

  They would need to fix the keypad later to avoid letting any Tom, Dick, and Harry from gaining access to the facility. He stepped inside and placed his hand on the button marked CLOSE.

  He looked out at the newly-constructed museum of rocks and the entry Donald should have been emerging from.

  Where was he?

  38.

  WHERE AM I?

  Donald had no idea. When he turned to glance up at the mountain behind him it was obvious where his rough general vicinity was. But he couldn’t for the life of him (literally!) figure out how he was meant to get through this damn maze.

  A groan. To his right. A Rage had spotted him. And its excited shrieks would gain the attention of others. Might as well ring a damn dinner bell. As his location was blown, he might as well make the most of the locale’s advantages while he could.

  Donald stepped onto a short rock, then another, and another, his perspective rising each time.

  The Rages were jampacked, clogging up the maze’s arteries. The closest ones reached up, scrabbling at his boots for a taste of his soft flesh.

  Donald took two steps, jumped, and made it to the next boulder. He did it again and again, hopping one rock at a time. The Rages crowded, following his every move.

  He jumped again, landed badly, and lost his grip on the axe. It skittered across the boulder top and over the side. He reached out to sna
tch it up but was too late. The Rages were on it, grabbing and biting at the gorgeous metalwork. Ruined. But they were distracted. Perhaps he could use it to his advantage.

  He could make out the open passageway that led to the entrance. Dr. Beck was already standing there at the open door, waiting.

  The next rock was tricky. A wide open space yawned on all sides, a single large rock in the middle. He’d need to quickly jump down and run around the rock to the open passageway. He needed his luck to hold out just a little longer.

  Donald jumped down. The fall was further than he thought. He was going to hurt himself he thought as the ground neared. He hit the ground with both feet, rolled and came up into a standing position. The Rages weren’t more than three yards behind. He ran for the opening. . .

  Another gang of Rages cut him off. No way he could get through. No other route so far as he could see. He turned back to the rock in the middle and scrambled up its surface. Almost no handholds for him to make use of, but his desperate mind found the indentations that were there, no matter how small.

  On top of the rock, he could see thousands of Rages vying to be first in line, surrounding him. Those closest—and those not so close—reached for him with clawed hands. Just an eyeball or an earlobe. They were easily pleased.

  Gazing across the dusty boulder tops, he could see Dr. Beck standing in the City’s doorway. Waiting. For him. Donald could also see the route he should have taken. One, two. . . three. Three turns he’d made before the one he got to the dead end that saw him split from Dr. Beck. Not two. Three.

  For a next-level genius mathematician, you would have thought he could count to three. And now look where he was. Trapped here. On a rock. Surrounded by Rages. About to be served up as the next entree.

  Thanks, Doc.