After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set

by Charlie Dalton

  There were five flight simulator machines, only one of them bobbing and weaving, bucking, and diving. Fatty really was setting it through its paces. Through the screen, Jamie could make out his best friend at the controls, hard at work concentrating and defeating whatever invisible enemy he was fighting.

  The ship bucked one last time before settling down into its resting state. Jamie approached the door and knocked. It opened, revealing Fatty at the controls.

  “Hey,” Fatty said. “What’s up?”

  “I brought you some toast,” Jamie said.

  He wasn’t much of a chef but even he could handle toast.

  “Peanut butter and jelly,” he said. “The way you like it.”

  “Thanks,” Fatty said, biting into it.

  “You know what?” Jamie said. “I think you’ve lost weight.”

  Fatty’s eyes shot up and locked on Jamie.

  “Really?” he said. “You think?”

  He checked himself in the reflection in the front windscreen.

  “I thought I had too,” he said. “But I didn’t want to mention it. I thought it might have been my imagination.”

  It wasn’t a lot of weight, Jamie conceded. Slightly less flabby jowls and his pants weren’t straining so much to contain his great girth. Only someone who’d known him a long time would have even noticed but it made Fatty happy all the same.

  “We’ll have to stop calling you Fatty soon,” Jamie said. “Come up with a new nickname.”

  “Not So Fatty?” Fatty said. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? I’d prefer to be thin and everyone call me Fatty anyway. That way, I’ll always remember I was fat once.”

  Jamie nodded at the various buttons and dials on the dash.

  “You really love this thing, don’t you?” he said.

  “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” Fatty said. “Even more than eating. Though it’s close.”

  He took another bite, spilling crumbs over his jumper.

  “I guess we don’t have much time left, do we?” he said.

  “No,” Jamie said. “Not long now.”

  “And we still don’t have any idea what we’re going to do to keep the Bugs from destroying us?” Fatty said.

  Jamie shook his head lightly.

  “Anywhere we go, they’ll destroy us the moment we arrive,” he said.

  “Bummer,” Fatty said. “I guess it had to come to an end eventually, right?”

  “We did our best,” Jamie said. “That’s all anyone could ever ask of us.”

  Fatty nodded. A smile spread across his face.

  “Want a go on the simulator?” he said. “You’ll soon forget about dying when you’re figuratively passing away.”

  Jamie didn’t really want to. He didn’t get the same enjoyment out of it that Fatty did. He’d prefer to spend his final few minutes with Lucy.

  “How long does it take?” Jamie said.

  “Not long,” Fatty said. “One mission is about five minutes. I’m stuck on the current level. I can’t get through their defenses.”

  Jamie checked his watch. Still twenty minutes to go. He could have one game with Fatty, then hop on the elevator to the deck and be with Lucy.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He climbed into the simulator and got into the co-pilot seat.

  “Put the helmet on,” Fatty said. “You’ll get a bunch of information flashing up on the inside but don’t worry about that. Concentrate on what you’re firing at.”

  “All right,” Jamie said.

  On the main screen, Fatty cycled through the various options.

  “Wait,” Jamie said. “What are these things?”

  “Various game modes,” Fatty said. “I’ve tried them all but this one is the best.”

  He selected ‘Break The Zone.’

  “Break the zone?” Jamie read.

  “Yeah,” Fatty said. “The enemy has a protective area around it. You can’t destroy a whole planet but that’s not the objective anyway. You want to cross that line so backup comes and helps you defeat the bad guys.”

  Jamie felt the simulator fall away from him. Fatty’s words floated off somewhere else, into space. Jamie was no longer there as the words tumbled through his mind.

  “Understand?” Fatty said, voice fading back in.

  Jamie turned to look him in the eye.

  “I know what to do,” he said.

  “Huh?” Fatty said. “Of course you do. I just told you how to play. Hey! Where are you going?”

  Jamie had taken his helmet off and dumped it on the seat. He opened the door and hopped outside.

  “What’s going on?” Fatty said.

  “Turn the simulator off and join us on the deck,” Jamie said.

  “What about the game?” Fatty said.

  Jamie turned and began to run.

  “Jamie?” Fatty said, shouting. “What about the game?”

  107.

  THE ELEVATOR door opened. Jamie jogged onto the deck.

  “Jamie,” Lucy said with a big smile on her face.

  Then she noticed his look.

  “What is it?” she said, fearing the worst.

  “I called the others,” Jamie said. “They’re coming now.”

  “Jamie, what’s going on?” Lucy said.

  “I had an idea,” Jamie said. “Computer, bring up all information we have about the Covenant on the main screen.”

  “Confirmed,” Computer said.

  “Now search for how the Covenant protect each other and evidence of how their defensive systems work,” Jamie said.

  The elevator door opened. Donny and Isabelle joined them.

  “What’s going on?” Donny said to Lucy.

  “I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Jamie said he had an idea.”

  “An idea for what?” Isabelle said.

  “How to survive,” Jamie said, turning to them. “And maybe win. I need confirmation from Computer.”

  The elevator door opened. Fatty joined the others, puffing and panting, the same look on his face.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes left,” Donny said. “We don’t have enough time to—”

  Computer spoke.

  “The Covenant utilize a protective zone around each member’s homeworld,” he said. “Once the zone is breached by an unknown enemy ship, a signal is automatically sent to the other members. Covenant members are obliged to send ten ships from their fleet to defend and aid the breached member’s homeworld.”

  “Thank you, Computer,” Jamie said, a grin spreading across his face.

  It was what he’d been hoping for.

  “I’m lost,” Isabelle said.

  “I think I understand,” Lucy said. “We go and break this defense zone on a homeworld planet and the Covenant automatically respond. It’s the only way for us to send a message to the Covenant.”

  “But the Bugs will destroy us if we create a wormhole,” Isabelle said. “Isn’t that the major flaw with this?”

  “Right,” Jamie said. “But there’s one place they might not shoot and destroy us immediately. The one place they could miss us and instead harm themselves.”

  “Where?” Donny said.

  “Their homeworld,” Jamie said.

  108.

  YOU COULD have heard a pin drop.

  “Attack the Bug homeworld,” Donny said. “That’s your plan?”

  “A blaze of glory,” Isabelle said with a smile. “We take the fight to them. I like it.”

  “It’s suicide!” Donny said.

  “This whole mission had been suicide,” Isabelle said. “We might as well do what’ll give us the best chance of taking some of these things with us, don’t you think?”

  Donny shook his head.

  “I can’t agree with this,” he said. “How do you know the Bug homeworld won’t have a massive defense network that’ll destroy us?”

  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Jamie said.

  Donny continued shaking his head.

&
nbsp; “This isn’t our decision to make,” Jamie said. “It’s Lucy’s. She’s Mother. This is her ship. She gets to decide what to do with it. But you’ll have to hurry, Luce. There’s not much time left.”

  Lucy didn’t need to think about it. They had no other plan.

  “We do it,” Lucy said. “I can see from the documents that it doesn’t need to be a large ship, anything alien and unregistered with the Covenant.”

  “You’re saying any ship will do?” Isabelle said. “Even one small drone?”

  “In theory, yes,” Lucy said. “We don’t have all the details but it sounds right.”

  “How much time do we have?” Fatty said.

  “Eleven minutes, forty-eight seconds,” Lucy said. “Why?”

  “Because we’ve got a lot to organize,” Fatty said. “We need to cross that defensive line and if it doesn’t matter which of our ships does that, doesn’t it make sense for us to divide up our force as much as possible? Break up the nodes, each section from each City, and send out the drones—everything we have—to get across that line as fast as possible.”

  “He’s right,” Lucy said. “The more we spread out, the better chance we have. I’ll divide up the drones and store them in equal numbers in each node.”

  “Us too,” Fatty said. “Lucy can’t control every node effectively when we’re spread out across the planet like that. We should each take a node and race to get across the line.”

  Jamie hadn’t considered breaking their team up. If he had, he wasn’t sure he would have shared the idea in the first place. He didn’t much like the idea of dying alone. Then again, he liked the idea of dying at all even less.

  “Let’s do it,” Lucy said.

  She turned and headed away.

  “Where are you going?” Jamie said, taking Lucy’s hand.

  “To put on my command suit,” Lucy said.

  Jamie’s eyes moved to the platform and glass tank where Lucy would be plugged into the mainframe.

  “It almost killed you last time,” he said. “If this plan means you might die, we’ll call it off.”

  “I second that motion,” Donny said.

  “Overruled,” Isabelle said.

  “If we’re going to do this, we need to give it the best chance we’ve got,” Lucy said. “And that means me being in the tank.”

  “Forget it,” Jamie said. “It was a bad idea.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Lucy said. “And it’s the only one we’ve got.”

  109.

  THE GANG took the same elevator out of the deck. They reached the bottleneck where the elevator split off and headed in different directions. They stepped out.

  “Anyone have any preferences?” Donny said.

  “Engine,” Fatty said. “I want the engine.”

  “Fair enough,” Donny said. “Anyone else?”

  “Shields,” Jamie said.

  “Engineering,” Isabelle said.

  “I guess that leaves me with weapons,” Donny said. “Good luck out there.”

  He held out his hand to do a team drill. The others looked at him dubiously.

  “Don’t be a complete fool,” Isabelle said.

  Donny, crestfallen, lowered his hand.

  They broke apart, each heading for a different elevator. Jamie gave one last look back over his shoulder at the deck where Lucy was. The elevator doors shut and he zoomed away.

  110.

  FATTY GOT to the engine node first and ascended to its own private deck. It was smaller and less developed than the main deck. There was no platform or glass jar for Lucy to step into and take control. This was his ship now. He took a seat and felt right at home.

  111.

  JAMIE TOOK the captain’s seat in the middle of the floor—where Lucy’s tank was on the main deck. He hoped he would get to see her again. He hoped they would get through this final mission without any problems.

  He hoped.

  112.

  LUCY SHUT her eyes as she stepped onto the platform. The glass jar began to lower. The event was made worse this time because she knew exactly what was about to happen. She prepared herself for it, expecting the pain.

  She saw in the reflection of the glass the snake tube rising up behind her, splitting off into its separate parts and finally, thrusting inside her. She grunted but this time pressed back against the connectors as they slipped deeper into her bones. She gritted her teeth and gasped. Then the cool thick liquid began to fill the tank from the bottom. It was meant to improve connectivity. She wasn’t sure it did.

  As it overtook her, she smiled. This was who she was, who she was meant to be. She might die, but at least she’d gotten a taste of her true purpose in life.

  She wasn’t only connecting to the mainframe. She was dressing for war.

  113.

  OUT IN the coldness of space, the Mothership began to unfold. The nodes that had been created and built in disjointed Cities across the planet Earth unfolded like the blocks of a Rubix cube. They floated away from each other, forming a rough line.

  114.

  DONNY SAT in his own comfortable chair and felt a little lost. He moved to the terminal where he’d normally sit on the deck. This was better. He pressed the buttons and got the hang of the various controls. He moved the node side to side slightly and noted how reactive the ship was to his every touch.

  It was actually pretty fun.

  115.

  THE ENGINEERING node also housed the private quarters—where Humperdinck currently was. Isabelle could never leave her best friend behind.

  “Computer,” she said. “Put me through to Humperdinck, please.”

  “There is no crewmember with that name,” Computer said.

  Isabelle rolled her eyes. Computers could be so dumb.

  “The horse,” Isabelle said. “Connect me through to the horse.”

  She waited but nothing happened.

  “Did you connect me to Humperdinck?” she said.

  “Confirmed,” Computer said.

  “So next time tell me, asshole,” Isabelle said.

  “Settings adjusted,” Computer said.

  “How are you doing in there, Hump?” Isabelle said.

  Humperdinck neighed softly.

  “We’re about to do something very dangerous,” Isabelle said. “We might not come out of this alive. I want you to know I love you very much.”

  Humperdinck whinnied back. There was a soft tapping noise. He was digging his front hoof on the metal floor. Isabelle rolled her eyes again.

  “I know it’s dangerous, Hump,” she said. “I just this second told you as much.”

  As their argument continued, the nodes took their final position, like racers on the starting line.

  116.

  “CAN YOU all hear me?” Lucy said.

  They answered to the affirmative.

  “There are just two minutes to go before the hyperjump engine is fully charged—both ours and theirs,” Lucy said. “I’ve input our coordinates already. We’ll each be arriving at a different random location around the planet. The goal is the same: to reach that defensive line. When your shield reaches zero, the ejection button will automatically be triggered. Don’t throw away your lives. If one of us makes it across the line, we can come back for you later.

  “I’ve drawn the defensive line on the maps on your screens. That’ll be what you’re aiming for. Donny’s right and there could well be a strong defense system set up around the Bug homeworld. I’ve already upgraded your shields and weapons systems but I’ll be unable to help you more once we pass through the gateways. You’ll be on your own.

  “We’ve only got one shot at this. We need to make it count. Use any and all strategies you can think of to get across that line. Remember, drones can be defensive as well as offensive. I want to thank you all for being here with me. I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

  “And we wouldn’t have this chance if it wasn’t for you,” Isabelle said.

  “Thank
s, Lucy,” Donny said.

  “Yeah, thanks Mother,” Fatty said.

  Jamie was the only one who didn’t thank her. If he spoke, his voice would have cracked and given him away.

  “Engaging drones now,” Lucy said.

  The drones filed out from the hatches beneath each node and formed a writhing, spinning sphere around them.

  “Hyperjump engine fully charged in five, four, three, two, one. . .”

  Miniature tears in space opened in front of each node. At the same time, one large gateway tore a hole in space behind them. Only one frigate. Evidently, the Bugs didn’t feel the need to send three ships after them. The smartest decision was to hang back with the other two ships so if they jumped the Mothership to another part of the galaxy, the Bugs could send a second frigate after them. No way for them to escape.

  The frigate opened fire. The drones fell like flies, absorbing the blasts. The forward-facing drones passed through the gateway into Bug homeworld space, quickly followed by the nodes.

  The race was on.

  117.

  FATTY WAS the fastest off the start line. He was riding the largest engine ever built by man, so that fact perhaps wasn’t surprising. His drones struggled to keep up with him as he tore forward.

  Fatty, fully in control after his countless games on the simulator, confidently held the controls and guided his ship forward. It wasn’t the same as the simulator, he thought. The simulator had been built with random issues and problems but otherwise worked perfectly. The node was a real machine, with potential mechanical issues. A single bolt zipping out from its holdfast could be a real problem.