Welcome Home

Story about a starship crew that comes back to Earth after disease wipes out most of the planet.

Welcome Home

Date: August 4^th 2483

Captain Jeremy Decker woke up with the feeling he had only gone to sleep a moment ago. He had woken up like this dozens of times before but he never got used to it. As far as he knew, nobody did. Cryo was an unnatural way to pass time; crawling in a coffin sized tube knowing you would essentially be dead for an extended period of time and relying on computers to bring you back to life didn't sit well with anyone. Especially when that time period was 30 years.

“Good to know we made it in one piece.” the communications officer observed as he climbed out of his pod removing I.V.s from his arm.

“Yeah, so far as we know, Franklin.” the captain replied. “God, knows what kind of damage we have taken.”

“Well there aren't any alarms going off, I would put that in the 'win' column.”

“Fair enou-” the captain was interrupted by the ships computer announcing that they had half an hour before the ship would initiate an orbital insertion burn.

“Alright everyone!” the captain announced addressing the rest of the bridge crew. “I want everyone on the bridge in ten minutes.”

After receiving a round of acknowledgments from the crew, the captain got dressed and made his way toward the bridge, becoming weightless as he left the rotating section of the ship and towards the center corridor. He grabbed hold of a personnel sled and hit the controls that would glide him toward the front of the vessel where the bridge was. As he keyed the door he could hear the crew behind him. As he floated onto the bridge, the lights flickered on, displays warmed and the ship slowly roused itself from its three decade hibernation. He strapped himself in and waited patiently for the rest of his crew to do the same.

“Alright folks, you know the drill, get those diagnostics running.”

“Reports will be ready in about five minutes, Captain.” Mendez informed. The first officer proceeded to turn back to his console and give orders to the crew in the rest of the ship.

While the captain waited for his crew to get themselves up to speed on the status of their respective departments, he decided to use the time to check if there were any priority transmissions that had come through during their trip. There were always a few, but they rarely concerned him. This time however he noticed something that caused him a bit of concern. There were no transmissions received of any kind received in the last 25 years. Typically there were multiple per day, letters from family and friends, news from where they had come and where they were going, and other more inane business. He really hoped Franklin's diagnostic was done.

“Franklin, where are my transmissions? I don't see anything newer than 25 years old from either direction.”

“Long range comms are down sir.” he replied puzzled.

“What do you mean they are down? All three systems?”

“Yeah...the computer thinks it was micro meteoroids. Took out two of the three close range arrays too, though the diagnostics must be wrong because I am not getting any traffic whatsoever.”

The captain rubbed his face with one of his hands. It seemed triple redundant systems were no match for dumb luck.

“Fantastic.” The Captain exclaimed flatly. He turned to the engineering officer. “Clark, why didn't the computer wake us up after the meteoroids hit?”

“Software glitch sir, already corrected.”

“Any good news?”

Mendez piped up this time. “Yes and no, sir. Good news is that all other systems are at least functional, though some have major damage and are running on backups.” He started running down the list. “One of our four solar arrays are completely destroyed, others have minimal damage and are still producing, Hull integrity is complete, no breeches, all passengers on board are okay, as well as the rest of the cargo. The shuttles are both operational, 15 breakers were tripped and are being reset or bypassed. All but two external cameras are operational, the damaged ones being on the starboard side a, engines are undamaged, the reactor is operating at 100% . Everything else is green sir. Ready for orbital insertion.”

“Well that's something I suppose. Get those window shutters open and lets take a look.”

“Yes, Captain.” Mendez said tapping a few keys into the console.

Moments later large shutters over the bridge windows slowly opened revealing the day side of Earth, a planet most of the crew had never seen, and a few haven't seen in over half a century. Something an observer would note as obvious by the looks on everyone's faces.

“Hello beautiful.” the captain muttered under his breath as a smile crept into the corner of his mouth. He had originally grown up on Earth and thought it would be nice to trade in decades of cold and darkness in space for the warmth and sunshine of Texas. The thoughts of retirement got him antsy and impatient. He started to tap his fingers on his armrest watching the countdown timer on his display denoting the time until insertion burn. The station wouldn't like him showing up unannounced. Interstellar starships were a big deal when they arrived wherever they were going; large, unwieldy, and resource hogs, they are the bane of a station managers existence. More so when they showed up without sending status updates in advance. Not a whole lot that could be done about it but the captain knew he would get an earful nonetheless. The captain returned from his thoughts to focus on the monitor again.

The nav officer broke the silence and announced to the whole ship. “Orbital insertion in thirty seconds, strap yourselves in.”

The ship shuddered and groaned as the stress loads on the ship changed. The crew started to adjust their harnesses as the deceleration of the massive ship started to push them forward.

“Burn successful.” she announced after some time. “Station approach in twenty minutes, rendezvous in forty.”

“Thank you, Leeds. Any luck on the radio yet, Franklin?”

“Still nothing, I've reset the diagnostic software and ran it three times, It still thought we had an intact close range antenna. I tried sending on every frequency and listening on every frequency. No replies and no hails. I figured the diagnostics were still wrong so I sent someone to run a manual diagnostic at the antenna itself. The short range comms are functional, it's just that it seems nobody is talkative today.” The captain noted he looked worried, and he too was starting to sense something was very wrong.

“Well keep trying, maybe the relay satellites are down. We may have more luck when we get a visual.”

“Will do, Sir.”

He heard a gasp. The captain looked over to see Lieutenant Leeds with a hand over her mouth staring out the front window. The captain started to ask what the problem was, but he realized what it was before he finished his sentence. The ship had passed into the dark side of the planet.

“Oh my god.” she said barely audible. “Where are the lights?”

The continents, normally covered coast to coast in the lights of countless cities, were completely dark. The bridge was silent as the crew contemplated what it meant. Whatever theories they were forming quickly adapted to include the visual they saw next. The station they were to rendezvous with, and by far the largest structure in orbit started to come into view. Only a small speck off in the distance glinting in the sunlight, the view screen automatically zoomed in on it to reveal a grainy image of a ring shaped station with massive sections of it destroyed, and slowly rotating in a direction other than it was supposed to.

“That explains the comms I guess.” Franklin said in a tone which the captain could not tell whether or not was a joke.

“Quite.” he said tersely.

After what seemed like an eternity of trying to figure out what it was exactly it all meant, Jeremy snapped back into reality.

“Leeds, get us in a lower orbit and try to stay out of that mess. We don't need more craters on this than we already have. Clark, get someone in the cargo bay and see what kind, if any communication equipment we have. I don't care if it's a HAM radio, I want to hear somebody's god damn voice. Mendez, get with all departments and find out how much loiter time we have before we can absolutely no longer remain aboard this ship, when you are done get Clark, prep one of the shuttles and let me know when it is ready.”

After a round of 'yes sirs' the captain went back to the last transmissions the ship received before the comms arrays were destroyed, looking for any clue as to what may have happened.

Thirty minutes later and a dozen letters later, he had no clues and decided to turn his attention back to the station. Finally being close enough to make out real detail added another layer of heaviness to the situation. The debris field was much more extensive than he had previously thought, and along with the station it was now clear there were the wrecks of a dozen odd interstellar ships in the vicinity as well, some of which he recognized, none showed any signs of life.

“Anything Franklin?”

“Still nothing. Nothing human anyway. We are getting a weak handshake signal from a comm relay that is somehow alive in the debris field, but its not validating us and it isn't forwarding the signal anywhere.”

“I guess it's good to know something is alive out there.” the captain mused.

He keyed the comm for Clark.

“Clark almost done down there?”

“Yessir, not much of use, some hand held sets, that's about it.”

“Alright. How about you Mendez? What's the story. “

“Ten minutes captain.” he replied tersely.

Jeremy turned his attention back to the debris field contemplating the situation. He spotted his first command, the Ascension; one the first ships to leave the solar system. It was broken in half and the bow was embedded into one of the newest ships, the Northwest Passage. Seeing humanity’s greatest creations reduced to scrap made the captain wish he had his survey ship more than anything. Nothing on an interstellar ship was geared for aiding in unknowns. The cameras were good for not running into things only, the communications equipment was only good for a narrow range of frequencies, the ships broke a lot, and when not hibernating between stars, were resource hogs. And while he wished for his survey ship, he realized virtually any other kind of ship would have been better to find out what was going on. His thoughts were interrupted by Leeds.

“We're in a stable orbit at five-hundred kilometers. Radar, doesn't pick up anything big in our way, but based on that debris field, there could be a lot of stuff out there smaller than what the radar can pick up that can still do a lot of damage.” she stated without emotion.

“Right.” the captain replied. “When the resource reports come in, let me know if we have the power to move into a polar orbit that stays away from this mess. In the mean time keep the window shutters closed on this sid-”

“We have something!” Franklin interjected. Leeds knew what he was saying and proceeded with her orders.

“What is it?” the captain asked. He leaned forward in his chair.

The main view-screen shifted to show the relay satellite that was giving them the handshake signal. “That satellite is sending a signal to one of the ships around here, at least it's attempting to. I don't know what the authorization code is for though.”

“Can you track it?” the captain asked, leering at the screen as if he could actually see the signal going to and coming from the satellite.

“Not really.” Franklin replied, cringing somewhat knowing that’s not what the captain wanted to hear. “The best I can do is give a general region.”

The screen snapped to the Earth below and Franklin circled an area roughly a thousand square kilometers.

“Well it's something.” the captain said to nobody in particular.

The screen snapped back to the debris field and the bridge crew all leaned forward, straining to see if anything had changed. A minute passed.

“There!” Leeds yelped, pointing to the top left.

Barely visible, were a string of escape pods streaming out of one of the ships. Jeremy counted eight of them. Leeds kept the camera on them as long as possible as everyone watched without saying the word everyone was thinking: survivors. Survivors of what though, the best answer anyone thought up was 'something'. Survivors of something. The pods flashed as they entered the atmosphere and soon disappeared from sight. It was clear they were headed in the direction the signal came from.

Jeremy suddenly remembered the shuttle. “Mendez, Clark, please tell me that shuttle is ready.”

“Yeah, five minutes ago.” Mendez replied.

“Why didn't you tell me?” the captain said.

“I did tell you.” Mendez said, a slight note of annoyance on his voice.

The captain had completely tuned out everything watching the pods.

“My apologies. I'm sending you some coordinates to check out. Get that thing launched as soon as we are over the area again.”

A pause over the open mic. “That's a really big area sir, we don't have the fuel to do a good job and cover the whole thing.”

“Understood, do the best you can though. That's the only lead we have at this point. One of the ships jettisoned escape pods after receiving a signal from that area, and as near as we can tell, that's also where the escape pods were going as well.”

Another pause over the mic. “Well that some good news then. You want Clark with me or back on the bridge?”

“Send him back up please, and wake up someone relevant for your flight.”

“Relevant sir?”

“Anyone with good vision.” the captain replied unsure if he had made a bad inadvertent joke.

“You got it, Clark is on his way.”

“Thank you.” The captain turned back toward Leeds. “Leeds, if you have made any changes to our orbit since those pods launched, unmake them. ”

“Of course, though I haven't made any changes, I figured you would want to stay over the area as much as possible. I've been talking to Clark as well, we don't have the power to make any major orbital corrections anyway. We're pretty much stuck where we are.”

“Good work. Give both myself and Mendez a shout when we are half an hour out from the area again. “

“Yes sir.” she chirped.

The screen now indicated they were back on the day side of the planet and Leeds again opened the shutters. A moment later Clark glided back onto the bridge and strapped himself back to his station.

“I'm guessing you want a sit-rep captain?” he said entirely too cheerfully for the what the situation called.

“You guessed right.” the captain said, slightly unnerved by Clark's tone.

“Well.” he began, “The good news is, our current orbit is good for years before it decays and we have full chemical thruster tanks so we can maneuver somewhat. The bad news is, naturally we are out of nuclear fuel by this point, and the damage to the solar arrays mean we only have power for a few days. More or less depending on what we shut down and keep running.” In that same cheerful tone, he added. “Obviously, I recommend we shut down some stuff. These systems ought to give us an extra day.” He sent the list to the captains display.

“Thank you, how much pow- what put you in such a good mood?” the captain asked.

Clark turned around looking somewhat confused.

“You just told us there's people still down there. Why wouldn't I be?”

The captain gave cocked his head a bit in a 'fair enough' gesture. “Well I guess that's looking on the bright side for you. I guess we need all the cheer we can get right now. Carry on.”

“Sir? You were asking?” Clark replied.

“Oh right, God I'm getting too old for this. How much power do we need to thaw everyone out?”

“A lot, about a day's worth, that said, the pods all have emergency power just for that. It's a non-issue.”

“Good. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

The captain cursed his lack of knowledge on his ship. Submitting as an emergency replacement with the promise of earlier retirement sounded good to him then, it didn't seem like such a good idea now. Especially now.

***

First Officer Armando Mendez took the look on the pilots face as a sign he didn't really comprehend what was going on. He had started unfreezing him a few hours ago but only woke about half hour ago. As they were back on the dark side of the planet, he gestured to the window. Being in the rotating part of the ship, the young pilot stood up from the couch and walked over to the window. The look of sudden understanding took over his face.

“S**t. Well, look at that.” he replied entirely too calmly.

“Yeah, you about ready? We have about ten minutes to actually get this bird out of the hangar.”

Almost on cue, the captain's voice crackled over the speaker.

“You guy's about ready? We're ten minutes to the release point.”

“Yes sir, we were just about to strap in.”

“Good, and what's the name of the guy you thawed out?”

Mendez had to think for a second. He was terrible with names. The pilot spoke up before Mendez could answer.

“Sean Neil, sir. I'm one of the shuttle pilots.”

“Well then Mr. Neil, I apologize you had to wake up to this, but I'd like to wish you and Mendez good luck. Try to come back in one piece.”

“Yes sir, this ain't my first rodeo.”

The captain killed the comms.

“Shall we?” Neil gestured to the ship.

They climbed in and strapped in. The countdown timer was already on the heads up display along with the route down to the planet. Neil halted as he was about to start flipping switches.

“You already made sure everything works right?”

Pilots had a reputation for wanting to check things themselves rather than heed diagnostics.

Mendez gave him a stiff acknowledgment and proceeded to continue his procedures. A few minutes later the only thing holding them back was the centripetal force from the rotating section keeping them on the deck. Neil informed the bridge they were ready to depart. They felt themselves getting lighter as the ships rotating section slowed down to a stop, allowing them to depart. A quirky design feature the first officer never liked. It seemed an afterthought of engineering, something that always caused them delays when docked. Mendez turned his thoughts of how the ship should have been designed to the task at hand as Neil gently eased the thrusters on the shuttle and silently glided it out of the airlock. A minute later, and clear of the massive ship, Neil turned the ship around and fired the engines. The two men were squeezed to the back of their seats as the craft decelerated and began to drop. A few minutes later, the pilot flipped the ship back around as they prepared for re-entry.

“I never liked this part.” Mendez said tersely.

“Sorry sir, but it looks like the elevators broke.” Neil joked, pointing to the station in the distance. “I thought you can fly one of these though.” he said.

“I can, doesn't mean I like to. It's a crude way to move between ships and the ground that hasn't changed in four hundred years.”

“Think of it this way, they have had four hundred years to work out the bugs.” Neil said with a bit of a smirk.

“That doesn't make me feel better.” Mendez replied tersely.

“Tough luck I guess.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Moments later the air around the craft began to glow. Neil switched to what Mendez referred to as his 'pilot voice'. That dead calm and clear delivery that couldn't be shook even if they were experiencing engine failure and imminently about to crash.

“Reentry blackout estimated at eight minutes.”

The next eight minutes consisted of Mendez religiously scrutinizing the ships systems making sure everything was working. As the plasma enveloping the ship dissipated, the ride smoothed, Mendez relaxed. They were now flying rather than falling. They could also now tell they were now in the day light.

Neil hit the com in his pilot voice as before. “Righteous Path, this is shuttle craft two.”

A pause and Leeds voice came through over their headsets; same tone Neil was using.

“This is Righteous Path, go ahead shuttle craft two.”

”We just came out of reentry blackout and are over the target area. I'm feeding you our telemetry, radio feeds, and video feeds....” He pressed a few buttons. “...Now.”
“Feed reception confirmed.” she replied. “The captain wants you to start on this area here, and proceed in a standard search grid. He wants you to cover the whole area, at least that way we can look over the feed if you fail to find anything by the time you have to come back.”

“Understood. Shuttle craft out.”

Neil gently banked towards the starting nav point that popped up on his HUD. Somewhere in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.

Neil dropped the pilot voice. “We looking for anything in particular?”

“Just anything that would indicate recent human activity.” Mendez replied absentmindedly, absorbed with the horizon and his camera feeds.

“Roger that.”

Neil keyed in a path for the autopilot and joined Mendez at scouring the landscape for anything that looked promising. They didn't have to wait long. Half an hour later they saw it. They said it simultaneously.

“Smoke.”

As they closed in on the location, it was apparent that the smoke was actually that of three separate fires; massive slash piles atop adjacent hilltops. Neil reduced speed and altitude circling the area. No people were apparent, nor were any structures. That quickly changed.

An unprofessional voice came over the headsets. It wasn't anyone from Righteous Path.

“Hello? Is this the aircraft flying around the fires?”

Mendez and Neil were not ready for that. It seemed nobody on the Righteous Path were either as evidenced by the dead air. A minute passed and the captain came on.

“Make contact but do not set that shuttle craft down yet.”

“Understood.” Neil replied.

He keyed the frequency the inquiry came from.

“This is shuttle craft two of the Righteous Path. To whom are we speaking.”

Whoever was on the other end of the frequency left the microphone on and Mendez and Neil could faintly hear them in the background.

“....the f**k is Righteous Path? ….Dawn? Bullshit, no way.”

The two gave each other a glance. Thirty seconds later the voice came back.

“Goddamn, we didn't think anyone else was en route still, you guys are the first ship to arrive in six years now. Name is Dave.”

“Interesting.” Mendez muttered to himself. He keyed the mic. “You know what happened here, Dave?”

“You mean you don't know?” He replied with a distinct note of incredulity.

“No we've had our-”

Neil interjected. “We have about fifteen minutes of loiter time before we need to get back into orbit.”

“Apologies, give us a minute, we're running low on fuel.” Mendez informed the man identifying himself as 'Dave'.

“Take your time, we ain't going anywhere.”

The captain came on. “Have them send two people, unarmed to meet you. If they agree, pick em up and bring them back to the ship. You two have sidearms?”

“Affirmative.” Mendez replied. He keyed the frequency back over for Dave. “We have some instructions from our captain here if they are agreeable.”

“We're listening.”

“He'd like to pick up two of your representatives, unarmed, to come back with us to our ship. You have five minutes to decide. You need to be inside five minutes of these fires you lit.”

A minute passed.

“You got it, we'll be in the clearing near the northernmost fire in fivish minutes.”

“Affirmative.”

Neil banked gently and headed toward the large meadow near the fire. A few minutes later they were on the ground and two figures strolled out of the forest toward the craft. Mendez grabbed a gun and met them outside. Making sure they were unarmed all three walked back and strapped in.

“Neil, this is Dave...” As he gestured toward the man. “...and Petra.” As he gestured toward the woman.

“Pleasure.” Neil replied curtly while shaking both of their hands. He noted that while their fashion was different than he was used to, their appearance was clean and well kept with the exception of a few notable bruises. “Every one buckled in?” A round of acknowledgments and he lifted off. “Rightous Path, this is shuttle craft two.”

Leeds quickly replied. “This is Righteous Path, go ahead shuttle craft two.”

“We have the two representatives and are en route. ETA...roughly half an hour.”

“Acknowledged. The bay will be primed by the time you return, head right in and the captain will meet you there.”

“Received, shuttle craft two out.”

Neil pulled back on the controls and applied the copious amounts of throttle. A few button presses later, he announced the boosters were primed and would be at altitude in two minutes. He looked around. Mendez and the two passengers were gripping their harnesses tightly and looked very uncomfortable.

“You two ever been in space?” Neil asked returning his attention to the instrument cluster. A 'no' nervously came out of Petra's mouth. “Well you two are in for a treat. Keep an eye on the altitude indicator here.” He gestured. “If I remember correctly, 100km is the magic number on Earth.” The two looked at the gauge and kept staring at it. “Booster ignition in thirty seconds.” He announced without fanfare. “Twenty....ten...five, four, three, two, one. Mark.” Neil pressed a prominent button on the console and everyone was immediately slammed into their seats. “Booster ignition successful.” Neil announced. He put the craft nearly vertical and watched the sky quickly turn from blue to black. Minutes later he announced to the two guests they were now in space. A few more minutes later he eased off the throttle and performed a few corrective burns to put them on an intercept course for the Righteous Path. The nervousness on the faces of Petra and Dave were replaced with that of being awestruck as they all but plastered their faces to the glass.

***

The shuttle eased into the airlock and settled as the rotation of the section resumed. Jeremy eased his grip on the handrail as the sensation of gravity returned and composed himself. Moments later the inner airlock door opened and four figures stepped forward. While he had never met Neil in person, it was immediately obvious just by the expression on his face compared with his two young looking guests who he was. After introducing himself and settling formalities he gestured to a nearby table.

“So, what happened?” Jeremy asked flatly.

“What do you mean?” Petra asked.

“To the planet...what happened to the planet?” Jeremy replied, with a hint of incredulity.

“Oh, of course.”

“A virus.” Dave interjected.

“Nasty one too.” Petra continued. “They wound up calling it the Komodo Virus. Killed off most of the population and poor survival skills killed off most of the rest. It reached everywhere in the solar system and a vaccine was made, but not before it was too late here and everywhere else in the solar system. I think they tried to send the data on it to the colonies, dunno if any of it got through.”

“You get anything on your way here? Dave asked.

“No, long range communications went down a long time ago.” Jeremy confessed. A silent minute passed as everyone chewed on what they had learned for a minute.

“How's life on the surface?” he asked. “Power, running water, communications?”

“I dunno about the rest of the planet, be we have some power, clean water, and obviously some rudimentary communications but you are the first people we've talked to in a few years.” Dave said.

“How many of you are there?”

Dave looked at Petra. “About 100?” She agreed.

Petra understood where this was going. “I take it you need a place to settle down. We might be able to let you and your crew live with us, at least for a while.”

“We do, sooner rather than later, this ship doesn't have a lot of power left.”

“How long until you have to be down?”

Jeremy looked at Mendez; Mendez keyed his mic. “Clark, how much power do we have?”

“One second, let me check...at this rate, 32 hours.”

“Can you meet with our dad within that time? He'll want to talk to you, on the ground” Petra replied.

“I think we can do that, not like we have much of a choice.” Jeremy replied somewhat dismissively.

“Great!” Dave said. “He's already expecting you. I'll warn you though, he's...unstable.”

***

The shuttles engines whined down and the Captain, Mendez, Neil, Dave and Petra all stepped off the ramp and onto the same field where they had landed before, nobody was waiting for them this time and the signal fire was still billowing smoke into the sky. Jeremy just started to take in the planet he hadn't seen in decades and was quickly interrupted by Dave.

“This way.” he motioned, and they were off.

“How far? Neil asked.

“Not too far, two or three kilometers.” Petra replied.

About an hour later the party reached their destination. If it weren't for the fire, it would have been completely missed. In a heavily wooded area, it was little more than a group of buildings in a small valley. The buildings were surprisingly well made for being made after the end of the world. A clearing provided an spot for solar arrays and a few wind turbines. Vehicles seemed to be non-existent. There were however a stable of horses and some other livestock. The paths between houses were paved with stones, and a stream through the center provided water. Not a bad setup. There was only one person in sight. He approached Jeremy and extended a hand.

“You must be the Captain.” he said warmly.

“Jeremy.” the Captain replied reciprocating the handshake.

“Well, you all must had quite the rude awakening. Come inside and we'll discuss what's what over some food, I suspect you all haven't had real food in quite some time.”

“Very true.” Neil admitted.

“Name's Mack.” the man said as he turned and led the party into a nearby building.

The party found themselves in a building furnished as well on the inside as it appeared to be constructed on the outside. A central table held a well proportioned feast; corn on the cob, bread various fruits and a pile of unknown meat. A place was set for each person in the party. Mack motioned for everyone to sit.

“Well, God seemed to vacate this planet so I see no need to pay homage if you don't, dig in.” Nobody hesitated.

Mack turned to Jeremy.

“So I take it you all are looking for a place to live.”

“That about sums it up, yeah.” Jeremy said with his face in some corn.

“Well long story short, there are more than a few ...colonies? ...towns? I don't know what the hell you call them.

He paused as if trying one more time to come up with a better word. He didn't.

“Anyway, there are places ranging anywhere from a few dozen people to the largest which is some few thousand. God knows how many people are actually left on the planet. We don't leave our area much but what little we have seen and heard; most places don't have it as nice as we do.”

“How'd you manage that?” Mendez asked offhandedly.

Dave and Petra looked at each other.

“Some...extreme measures early in our history gave us a bit of an edge.”

“Oh?” Jeremy said without looking up from his plate.

“It's something I'd rather not discuss at this time.”

He changed the subject.

“Long story short, we can accommodate your crew. I've been told you number around 30 correct?”

“38 crew.” Jeremy corrected.

“Well, that shouldn't be a problem eith-”

“7069 Passengers in cryo.” Jeremy interrupted looking up.

Mack met his gaze.

“Which means they're as good as dead.” Mack said.

“Only if nobody pops the pods.” Jeremy said with a somewhat confused look on his face. Cryo and how it worked had been common knowledge for decades.

“Yeah well, waking that many people has problems. We tried it. We don't have the resources to accommodate that.” Mack said matter of factly.

“Even waking them up incrementally, like you are doing?” Jeremy said returning to his steak. It was quite good.

“I don't get your meaning.” Mack said stoically.

“We found you by tracking cryo pods from one of the ships in orbit. They landed in this vicinity.” Jeremy replied. “You mean to tell me that wasn't you?”

Mack put his silverware down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Petra and Dave also stopped eating and looked at Mack.

“Those extreme measures we had to take, we're still taking them, and the people in those pods are part of it.” Mack said deliberately.

“What do you mean?” Neil piped up. “Are you having problems getting them to integrate into your little utopia here?”

“Dad, no!” Petra hissed at Mack.

“They aren't stupid Petra.” Mack dismissed. He turned to Neil. “No, integrating them is easy, it is the method that is the problem.”

“Which is?” Jeremy insisted.

Mack nodded to the table.

The crew looked puzzled and looked at each other for a few seconds. Suddenly, Neil's eyes grew impossibly wide and the color drained from his face. A second later he threw up.

“The f**k is wrong with you people?!” wiping his mouth.

Mack remained calm. Mendez realized this wasn't the first time the upcoming speech had been given. Despite the revulsion that washed over him, he somehow managed to maintain the decorum of spitting his mouthful out in a napkin.

Mack started. “You don't know what we've been through...what we're still going through. This is the only way we have made it as long as we have.”

“Sounds like you shouldn't have made it this far in the first place.” Jeremy retorted angrily.

“We're not the first or the last to have to have resort to this.” Mack said angrily.

“Yeah well, whether or not you had to resort to it in the past; it doesn't look like you need to resort to it now.” Jeremy said gesturing to the livestock pens outside.

Petra and Dave remained silent but fidgeted uncomfortably.

“We can't raise livestock fast enough to feed us all.” Mack said flatly.

Neil spoke up again.

“Did you ever think of...oh I dunno..f*****g farming? You know, that s**t humanity has been doing for thousands of years in order to avoid the exact s**t you are pulling now? Did it ever occur to you that one of these poor f***s knew a little something about farming or ranching?”

“We looked at the manifest. Nobody useful.” Mack said.

“That's a good justification you have there.” Mendez said dripping with sarcasm.

“Look, you aren't the paragon of all that is good and holy. Humanity? You, me? We're all just animals. There is no inherent right or wrong, good or evil. Just actions. A pack of wolves has no qualms ripping apart a deer, and no need of a moral framework to justify it. Neither do we. Human's and indeed all living things have but one right. The right to try and survive. Not a right to life, or an even playing field; but a right to try for that life. Failure means death. Everyone fails at some point.” Mack gestured to the table. “These poor folks just had the misfortune of failing first.”

“How long did it take you to manifest that logic?” Jeremy asked, emotionless.

Seeing his words landing on deaf ears, Mack gave up. A twisted smile crept over his face.

“Soon after I started enjoying the taste.”

Jeremy was surprised to see the faces of Dave and Petra both display the look of horror. He suspected they hadn't heard this version of the speech. Mack quickly realized he had overstepped.

“How long?” Petra asked. Dave put a hand on her sisters shoulder. “How long has this, all this, been unnecessary?” Their naivete baffled the crew. Jeremy suspected they had been in denial a long time, and faced with the blunt truth both literally and figuratively on the table, had finally come to grips with their situation. It was clear this family had issues stemming way beyond cannibalism. Mack, now showing his forewarned unstable side replied; same smirk on his face.

“You know how I'm always telling you how sweet your mother was? I wasn't talking about her personality.” Petra burst into tears and collapsed. Dave looked as though he were about to throw up.

“We're leaving.” Jeremy said, barely audible. “They can come if they wish.” He gestured towards Petra and Dave, unblinkingly staring at Mack.

“I don't give a s**t, they aren't useful to me anyway.” He casually popped a piece of meat in his mouth.

“I wasn't asking permission.” Jeremy hissed.

Mack shrugged and sat back down.

“Good luck with your little colony. It won't be long till you wind up like me. I won't say I told you so.”

The crew, along with Petra and Dave left before Mack decided they would be better off on his plate. They shoved through the crowd that had started to gather upon hearing raised voices. All of them gave dirty looks and nobody seemed concerned about the departure of Dave and Petra. The hike back to the shuttle was utterly quiet, even the woods. The only noise came from Petra's unabated sobbing. Upon entering the ship, the crew sat down and for fifteen minutes did nothing. Finally, Neil commenced the start-up sequence.

“Righteous Path, this is shuttle craft two.” He said, utter exhaustion in his voice.

“Go ahead shuttle craft two.” Leeds said.

“We are performing pre-flight and will be en route imminently.”

“Acknowledged. How did it go down there?” She asked cheerfully.

Neil paused.

“Not good.”

“Oh. I see.” Leeds said cheerfulness gone.

“You have no idea.” Neil said and started up the engines. “Shuttle craft two, out.”

***

“We've only got eight hours to figure out what we are going to do.” Clark reminded them. “We need to pick a spot and make preparations as soon as possible.”

“And what are we going to do about them?” Mendez asked.

“We're going to do nothing, we don't have the time. We will just have to make sure we land a long way from them.” Jeremy said.

“What about the thousands that are still in cryo on those ships.” Mendez replied.

Petra said something for the first time since they all entered the shuttle.

“We have something for you on that. We were the ones usually tasked with commanding the pods to jettison and where to put them. We can give you all the codes and instructions to reprogram whichever pods are still functional to receive them. You can send the pods wherever you want.”

“How many ships are operational?” Franklin asked. “The only activity we saw was from the ship you jettisoned those pods out of earlier?”

“None of the ships are operational, but seven of them have operational pods. We think.”

“What I don't understand is how the ships didn't automatically eject everything when they ran out of power.” Clark half asked and stated.

“There was no homing signal from the planet for them to lock on to. The ships won't drop pods without that.” Dave said.

Jeremy was impressed with how much the siblings had figured out over their short years. He looked at them.

“Good. How many pods are still operational across all the ships?”

Petra replied. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000. Not including yours.”

“Christ. Okay, as soon as this meeting is over, you two work with Franklin on getting everything set up for the location we come up with.”

Clark piped up again.

“So the way I see it, we have three options. Eject pods at...whatever chunk of people at whatever interval of time at one location, we can drop them all at once at one location, or we can scatter them around the planet in groups and drop them at the same time. Now, most of these pods will have three days of food in them, so that buys us a bit of time with whatever we choose. Honestly, if we had the manifests for all the ships and the time to go over them, I think the best choice would be to group everyone up based on their skill sets and scatter the groups around. We don't. The second best option is to land everyone in the same spot in increments, but the longer they stay in orbit, the more likely we are to lose them entirely.”

“Its true.” Petra said, “More and more pods go offline every year.”

“Right, so our only real option is to drop everyone at once. The only way we are going to be able to pull this off without everyone immediately starving is if we land somewhere fertile, with a lot of water for fishing drinking and irrigation, and likely has crops already growing on their own.”

Being he was the only one of the bridge crew that had actually come from Earth, Clark looked at Jeremy.

“Any ideas?”

Jeremy leaned forward.

“First thing that pops to mind? Anywhere along the Mississippi, Missouri or their larger tributaries anywhere in the Midwest.” He pulled up a map on the screen and pointed out what he thought were good areas. They finally settled on a spot in Arkansas along the Mississippi River.

“Alright, Clark, figure out what we have that could be useful down there and have Neil help you out. Essential stuff, put it in the shuttles, we'll have to jettison the rest, we lucked out on most of the cargo being designed for that anyway. Mendez, inform the rest of the crew of what we are doing and get them back in their pods. Franklin, you already know what to do, and Leeds, make sure this is in a stable orbit, we don't want this to fall on someone after we leave.”

A round of acknowledgments and 'yes sir's' and everyone went to task. Four hours later and everyone was in the hangar and ready to go. Jeremy had everyone change into their dress uniforms. He made the excuse it would help the passengers recognize the crew, but secretly, he wanted to give at least some ceremony to the last journey of the Righteous Path. He motioned for everyone to board the shuttles without a word. He stayed a moment and looked through the window, hands behind his back, just taking in the view.

“We're going to miss our window if we stick around much longer.” Leeds shouted from the pilot seat. “I don't really want to stick around and wait for another hour and a half.”

Jeremy wished he could. His entire career had been in space, and he realized he was likely the last person to captain a starship for a very, very long time. He sighed, entered the shuttle and buckled up.

“Ready when you are, Leeds. Take us out.”

The gravity eased, the airlock opened and the shuttles silently glided away from the ship.

***

It was now night. The crew was gathered on a small hill, covered in green wheat. They got some wood from the nearby forest and built fire near the shuttle. Aside from Franklin looking at his console inside one of the shuttles, everyone was looking up at the perfect night sky.

“Pods away!” Franklin shouted from inside the shuttle.

Minutes passed; then a streak in the night, then another, soon there were hundreds. All of them headed their way. Twenty odd thousand groggy and confused people finally found themselves assembled around the shuttle and crew. Petra and Dave looked extremely uncomfortable. Questions and shouting started in earnest. Luckily Mendez found a PA system for Jeremy to use to address the crowd.

“I understand you all have questions. I only have some of the answers. What we do know is this: A virus wiped out most of the planet. The status of the outer colonies is unknown, but those in the solar system have also been affected.” The crowd murmured. “Many of you were expected by loved ones, the hard truth is that they are most likely dead. Those of you who want to leave and search for them will not be stopped. Those of you who stay, we have a long and very difficult road ahead. Your pods have food for three days as you know; the ship we came with doesn't have much beyond that. What, we do have are seeds to sew crops, water to drink and irrigate, rivers to fish, forest to build, a mild climate, fertile soil, and the same mettle that allowed man to traverse the stars. This is not the situation any of you wished for or expected, but it is the situation in which we find ourselves; and we will overcome. Welcome home.”

The crowd was silent as the crew dispersed among them and issued more detailed instructions they had been given prior to them going back in their pods. Jeremy turned back to his bridge crew as they congratulated him on his little speech. Dave spoke up.

“We can't stay here, Petra and I. These are all people we would have killed had you not come, and I'm sure if they ever found out, they would would kill us and I would understand that. We don't fit in here and we never will.”

“I understand.” Jeremy replied. “It wasn't just our world that came crashing down today. I'm sorry yours did as well.”

“It was a good thing. Mack isn't even our real father. He just kept us around to garner sympathy votes from everyone to show what a great guy he was. Reality was he beat us when we were kids, still beat me, and had other people beat Dave when he defended me. Once we were grown up, he didn't really need us anymore and just had us do all the menial crap nobody else would do and talk s**t about us to everyone else. It has always been miserable. But now it will be miserable away from him.” Petra said.

“Well I suspect his world will crash down pretty soon when he realizes he doesn't have anything in his freezer anymore.” Neil stated.

“Hopefully.” Petra said meekly.

“If not, we're going to make sure it does.” Dave said.

Petra perked up a bit at the idea, as if she now had real purpose.

“Well I wish you both luck in whatever you wind up doing and I can't thank you enough for getting all these people here.” Jeremy said extending his hand. Dave and Petra both reciprocated.

“Take a few guns and some food on your way out. You earned them.”

“Thanks.” Said Petra, for the first time with a smile on her face.

With that, Petra and Dave departed after shaking the hands of the rest of the bridge crew. Jeremy turned back to the crowd, watching as they went about starting their new lives. He mused to himself, not unhappily about how it looked like he wouldn't be able to retire.

Author's Note

No idea how to format this. Just copy/pasted it from Open Office. Apologies if readability is poor.