Hawkes stared at Swansea and Daisuke as they sat across from him, right outside of the Divinity Chamber. Anya's revivification was being prepared, and the crew was getting exhausted from kneeling for so long so they were taking a short break.

It felt more than a bit awkward staring at the two of them. Swansea had not once taken his eyes off Daisuke, who was eyeing the environment with a budding curiosity and a substantial terror ever-present in his eyes. Hawkes had to suppose that the last thing he saw before today was an axe to the face, so the ever-present terror was kind of a given.

Hawkes cleared his throat, trying to break the ice.

"So-"

"Daisuke, please listen to me." Swansea whispered, almost broken. "There's nothing in the world I can say to make what I did right. There's nothing I can do to make it right. If you don't forgive me, it's okay. But I wanted you to hear me for just a minute."

Daisuke's eyes, while still filled with budding insanity and that gripping terror, focused momentarily on Swansea.

"Y...Yes?"

Swansea broke down in tears as he spoke to Daisuke. He could barely hold it together before, but now he was just letting go of his composure.

"Kid, I don't know how we got here. I'm so fucking scared this is just a wonderful dream. I'm so scared to look away from you, because I can't bear to look back and not see you, right here, next to me. I'm terrified, and I don't know why. I can't make sense of anything, right now, and I don't think I will be able to for a long time."

He placed one shaky hand on Daisuke's shoulder, which seemed to center Daisuke back to the real world a bit more.

"But if there's one thing I can see, it's that you and me... we're alive. We're out of that hellscape. Those feelings, that despair, the clawing of death, the ache of knowing we were gonna die in that piece of shit in the middle of nowhere... It's gone now. And now all I wanna do is spend every waking moment of my life with you, with Curly, with Anya. I wanna take this second chance, if that's what it is, and I wanna experience life with you all. I want to introduce you to my family. I want to bring you over for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning. I want to take you to the aquarium, go for a walk, head to a concert or a baseball game."

Swansea looked him square in the eyes, the light of a flaming, fiery hope ignited within him permanently.

"Just stand by me, kid. I can't lose you again. I'm not losing you again. And we're not taking a fuckin' shitty job at that piece of shit company ever again!" He laughed in between streaming tears. "You hear me, bud? We're going to live again!"

That terror in Daisuke's eyes seemed to die down, bit by bit, as he began to comprehend Swansea's words and gradually depart from the hellish memories of the past.

"Yeah... yeah." Daisuke muttered. It had barely been any time since Daisuke was resurrected, the same for Swansea. Hawkes knew they needed a lot of time to recover, but now was barely the time. They only had one more resurrection left before he could give them recovery time.

Jimmy's resurrection didn't need love. It just needed a lot of yearning for revenge.

"Anya's revififi- ya know what, I'm never saying that fuckin' word ever again. Anya's gonna be revived soon, I'd like for you two to be present so her chances of returning are greater."

Both Swansea and Daisuke snapped their heads towards me as if I'd announce they'd won the lottery. Without saying a word, they scrambled into the Divinity Chamber, re-donning their tunics and kneeling on the floor as if they'd been devout their whole lives.

Again, failing to notice the quivering Curly in the corner. Hawkes had noticed he'd remained unmoving in the corner ever since Swansea's revival. He wasn't sure how to help him deal with the trauma, and so decided to leave him to his own devices for a while. Out of all the crew, Curly had undoubtedly suffered the most. To go from a crippled burnt chicken nugget to a fully restored human being, then to add the revival of his closest friends who he felt he'd betrayed, with the cherry on top being the hellish memories he'd suffered on the Tulpar...

Yeah, Hawkes felt the need to leave him alone until at least Anya was brought back. At this point, Hawkes didn't have any sense of anxiety about these resurrections. He was beginning to see the formula, and it was a deep relief to know that there was a solid rate of resurrection for the dead.

There was still plenty he hadn't told the Tulpar crew, but he was planning to wait until they'd all come back and could celebrate in the terrarium before taking questions about the new age.

"Only one more to go..." Hawkes muttered tiredly. He would certainly be looking forward to the liquor at the terrarium after this exhausting ordeal.


4 hours ago...

"So, you called me here?" Hawkes inquired as he approached the surgery table. Head Surgeon Faulkner looked up at him with a face mask and goggles.

"Yes, Captain." He replied, unfurling the cover from Anya, who was stripped of clothing for an autopsy of the body. "We've found an... issue with this corpse."

Captain Hawkes shrugged indifferently.

"Speak it." He said. Faulkner, almost in embarrassment, gestured to Anya's genitalia, where a streak of old, matted blood was stained on her thighs and lower abdomen.

"Even though she overdosed on painkillers, she was leaking blood from her womb. After inspection of the inner passage and outer area of the genitalia, we discovered bruising indicative of..."

He hesitated to speak the next words. Hawkes, who was normally very observant and calculated, lost his sense of intellect regarding females. Frequently. In every area of life.

"Well? Indicative of what?" Hawkes asked, getting irritated with the lack of response.

Faulkner knew about the Captain's vices when it came to sexual offenses. Hawke's mother had been repeatedly raped and abused by his father. His best friend in military college was violated by a prominent naval officer in their department. His young love had been captured by pirates and trafficked for months before he located her- dead in a cell. His life was a constant deluge of tragedies, horrors and soul-withering experiences.

In short, Hawkes would lose his shit if Faulkner spoke the next words- and Faulkner certainly did not want to be in the crossfire when Hawkes detonated.

So, instead of owning up to what was gonna happen and accepting the potential backlash from his Captain, Faulkner did the most pragmatic thing he could.

He delegated the responsibility onto his assistant.

"Jeremiah, would you mind delivering the assessment to the Captain? I have to attend to the restroom momentarily."

"Of course, Doctor Faulkner!"

You poor, poor child, Faulkner thought in deep guilt as he scurried out of the autopsy lab.

"So then," Hawkes insisted. "What the hell happened, Jeremiah?"

"Oh, right," Jeremiah began. "She was raped and forcibly impregnated!"


"What were you thinking when you said that, Jeremy?"

Jeremiah stared at the grassy floor of the terrarium, wondering where he went wrong. His friend, Roble, a new security officer on the ship, was snickering at Jeremiah's recent tomfoolery. Jeremiah certainly didn't feel this 'shenanigans' vibe that Roble was playing on. His face was welted in multiple areas, and his ribcage was slightly bruised from the repeated punches delivered, courtesy of Captain Hawkes.

"How was I supposed to know about his rape PTSD?!"

"That's a fucked up way of putting it." Roble guffawed. "And he'd give you a second round of beatings if he heard you shout that. But I'm confused. Your boss didn't tell you about it?"

"No!" Jeremiah huffed in frustration. He felt betrayed by his boss, and a bit of resentment toward the Captain. "What the hell was I set up for? What did I do, huh? I just... carry the fuckin' tools and type up the reports! And I get my ASS beat for it!"

Roble sighed in empathy, leaning back against the wall as he contemplated.

"You know I'm your senior, right?"

"You sure you're not the Captain? Captain Obvious?"

"When I was as new as you, Jeremiah," Roble began. "I was working as a General Intern, delegated to clean and maintain the garrison's weaponry. I learned a lot about rifling, my boss was super chill, and we after a hard day's work, we'd go to the terrarium with the other crewmates and drink until we were dog-sick. It was fun as hell, and every day was a blast compared to the industrial hellscape I'd come from."

Jeremiah, by this point, was listening intently to the story. He wasn't so crass as to ignore his friend when he was talking about something important to him.

"One day, I'm cleaning a Gauss twin-barrel in the hangar bay, and I make a casual joke about a celebrity girl back home who got exposed for getting taken advantage of by an executive to get a top actress role. I didn't think anything of it when I cracked the joke. Next thing I knew, I felt the back of my head smacked by an empty oil canister. Looked up to see Captain Hawkes raging at me like I came after his family."

Roble took a swig out of the beer he'd set aside.

"I'd been spending all my time at the armory my first weeks, smoking dope and chatting it up with the other crewmates assigned there. Even found a girlfriend with benefits -to this day, heh-. But after I got smacked around, I was angry at the Captain and couldn't focus on my work, so I took a break to walk around the ship. And..."

He huffed in disbelief, as if revisiting the memory for the first time.

"In the first hours I walked around, I saw Caz and Wally get in a brawl because Caz spoke condescendingly of child soldiers; Wally was a former child soldier. Two months later, I went to the cafeteria and saw Elise threatening Lon with a fork because Lon had a strong argument against abortion; Elise had been a sex slave under a warlord for 5 years and was forced to conceive children. Three months after that, I passed by the fitness area and saw Ben casually one-handing a 160 pound bench weight over Jazz's neck, after Jazz had tried to persuade Ben that all fates were predetermined; Ben's only child had died from cancer at the age of 8."

Jeremiah contemplated Roble's words, thinking about the implications of what he said. Roble turned to him to speak directly- but not before taking another swig of his beer.

"I've been on this vessel for 2 years. You've been here for half that time. And in the last two months, I've seen more violence between the crew than in the last 2 years combined. And I've come to realize something: People are fragile, especially now that they have proof of spirituality, of some kind, whatever it may be. Humans are externally strong, but they can crumple very easily on the inside if it's the right person saying the wrong things to them. Our Captain is an accomplished, decorated, tried-and-true war veteran with decades of experience behind him. At the same time, he is an eccentric, bizarre, short-tempered, socially-volatile maniac who beats on people who even mention sexual assault or rape. Time and time again, he's saved our lives, made calls that saved our lives, and helped us back on our feet when we were down. He's obviously a bit psychotic (or a lot), but I can't point you to a more reliable and trustworthy person to follow."

Roble scooted in, laying his hand on Jeremiah's shoulder to reassure him.

"We just discovered that resurrection is possible. Maybe to you and me, that's a reality we can cope with easily because we just started out in this world and we have time and normal responsibilities, so adjusting to it isn't as harsh. But to a 40 year old like Hawkes? With all the things he saw? All the terrible shit he had to live with, every day and night? All the responsibilities and duties he has now, to his crew, to the crew he just saved? Do you think he's able to wrap his head around this and not lose his shit sometimes?"

"Wait," Jeremiah interrupted. "Hawkes is 40? What? I thought he was 50."

"Nope," Roble responded- followed by another swig o' the beer. "He's 40 years old."

"How the hell does he have three decades of battle experience if he's 40? That would make him ten years old."

Roble said nothing, just stared at Jeremiah.

"Are you serious?" Jeremiah muttered. Roble nodded his head.

"Ayup. Hawkes was a child prodigy, and 30 years ago that was grounds for immediate conscription. He worked as a junior tactician first, but after he figured out the enemy fleet was planning a retreat followed by ambush, he was promoted to admiral at the age of ten and a half years old. So technically, twenty-nine and a half years of admiralty experience."

"How? Literally how?"

Roble shrugged. "When I say child prodigy, I mean child prodigy. He ended the Siege of Korres at the age of seventeen."

"No, I mean how the hell was this legal, or allowed?! Our military was just cool with having ten year old admirals?"

"Eleven."

"You know what I mean, jackass!"

Roble raised his hands in the air, as if deflecting accountability.

"What do you want me to say, Jeremy? I just told you about child soldiers. Our nation was fighting half a dozen wars less than 30 years ago. They probably were losing admirals left and right and needed to fill those replacements quickly. Ever heard of 'scraping the barrel'?"

Jeremiah sat back and exhaled in disbelief.

"This is a lot to take in."

"Yeah, now try being the Captain and dealing with ten times that stress."

"I get the point."

The two sat in silence for a bit, quietly enjoying the calm atmosphere.

...

...

...

...

...

"You know," Roble said. "I can't imagine what he felt when that first guy came back to life. I could hear him putting on a front with his sarcasm and brashness, but I could tell he was hurting inside."

"Hurting?"

"Yeah. Hurting. It's a double-edged sword, man. You helped bring back someone whose life was snuffed out in a bad way, but it reminds you of all the people you never got the chance to resurrected. Reminds you of the people you killed, the people you couldn't help. It's... maddening, I bet."

"Yeah..." Jeremiah mumbled. This conversation had given him more insight on the crew than he'd expected. "So, what? Do I just take the beatings as I go?"

"Jeremy, if the cost of being on this ship, being able to smoke dope, drink beer, make friends, have a purpose, find love, get freaky, help others, and give the dead a second chance is getting smacked around every so often, that's a cost I'll bear every single time." Roble said firmly. "You can feel free to go back to the indentured servitude on agrarian planets or industrial planets, or maybe you'll get lucky and find a job as a menial servant on a luxury colony. But for me, this is the best it gets. And I'll die on here if I have to."

"You do realize other worlds exist than agrarian, industrial and luxury colonies?"

"I'm making a point, wise guy. This is a great place to be. No doubt dangerous, no doubt risky, but nonetheless a place I feel like I belong."

Jeremiah nodded slightly. He couldn't deny that feeling. Being on this ship, seeing all the vibrant people, experiencing the Divinity Chamber and the connection to God... it was just indescribably marvelous. It was a fact that every human across the galaxy, without exception, had felt the connection on the day of the Second Resurrection.

Yet it was an odd, inextricable feeling. There was a noticeable discomfort to that feeling; as if an imbalance in the universe had caused this event to occur. Jeremiah had his theories; that the Great Terror and its consequences had created a downward regression to humanity's progress, and needed to be corrected; or that the cynicism and grim outlook of humans galaxy-wide was cause for God to provide solace through this event.

Whatever the answer, Jeremiah knew that, ultimately, humanity was entering an era unlike any it had ever encountered before. And if there was one place he wanted to be for that kind of awakening, it was on this massive, powerful, friend-filled military vessel.

As for Anya...

Jeremiah thought back on the events an hour prior...


"She was raped and forcibly impregnated!"

The eagerness to which Jeremiah had said that to Hawkes, no matter how unintended it was-

CRACK!

Jeremiah fell over a tray of surgical tubes, left in terror as Hawkes hulked over him, expressing pure abject rage.

"WHO?!"

CRACK!

"I-I don't know, Captain!"

"W-H-O?!"

"I-I DON'T KNOW, CAPTAIN! Bu-But, the good news is, the fetus died from the painkillers, so there's no need to worry about pregnancy-!"

CRA-A-A-ACK!

Hawkes, in a blind rage, slammed his fist into Jeremiah's ribcage, causing him to flip multiple times across the room. After a few seconds, Hawkes returned to coherency. Immediately, his thoughts went to-

"JIMMY... That... that motherfucker..."

Hawkes stormed out of the room-

I'M GONNA RIP HIS LIMBS OFF AND BEAT HIM TO DEATH. I'LL GOUGE HIS EYES OUT AND SHOVE HIS TESTICLES IN THEIR PLACE. I'LL HANG HIM OVER A VAT OF BOILING OIL AND DIP HIM SLOWLY-

Calm down.

Hawkes stopped in his tracks, realizing he could hardly breathe. He recentered himself, placing his hands on his knees. He felt nauseous. He felt wrathful. He wanted to kill that scum of the earth as soon as he could.

But he couldn't do that. Not now. Not when he almost had him back to life. He needed to bring him back, so he could take his time with him. So he could delegate the suffering that was most needed for this... this... ill-bred shitheel.

And above everything else, he wanted the Tulpar crew to get their due justice.

He resumed his walking, this time at a brisk and fuming pace. Kill. Kill.

Ki-


-ll. Kill. Kill. Kill-

"Captain."

"Huh?" Hawkes responded in a haze. Ramirez was trying to get his attention.

"It's almost prepared."

"Oh... right... right."

Hawkes absentmindedly shuffled up beside Swansea, who glanced back at Curly and probed Hawkes with a question.

"Who's that guy curled up in the corner back there?"

"Oh, uh... that's Curly."

"...What?"

"That's Curly. We reformed his body."

Swansea was speechless for a moment, looking between Hawkes and Curly in the corner. Moments passed, and still he was left silent and unable to render words. Meanwhile, Jezarit came forward, placing the communion wafer in Anya's mouth and gently pouring the wine down the wafer's surface, allowing it to cascade down her esophagus.

"O Lord Almighty," Jezarit began, gesturing around the room as the hundreds of crewmates fervently prayed in silence. "Anya Musume was an aspiring young medical professional, hailing from a humble family that wanted the best for her. She spent much of her youth studying diligently, and most of her young adulthood working diligently on her licensing!"

"Wha..." Swansea muttered, looking back at Curly as if his eyes deceived him. He rubbed them. Curly was still there, motionless in the corner. "What..."

He stood up in a daze, stumbling over to Curly and towering over his huddled figure.

"You're the cause of all this.. you... you... demon. Curly. How could you? Why? Why did you doom us to be stuck under that flailing psychopath?!"

Curly was in a perpetual state of shock, simply unable to process his surroundings. Enraged by his lack of response, Swansea grabbed him by his collar and slammed him against the wall.

"WHYYYYYYYYY, CURLLYYYYYYYY?!"

Hawkes tried to separate the two, but was promptly thrown back by Swansea in his outrage.

"I want the answer outta YOUR fuckin' mouth, CURLY!" Swansea demanded, slamming Curly against the wall once more. "YOU DOOMED US! WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR IT?!"

"Jimmy."

Swansea turned to glare murderously at Hawkes.

"What did you say?"

"It wasn't Curly that crashed the ship. It was Jimmy. Put some thought into it and you'll figure out that this makes more sense than your long-beloved Captain deciding to take a nosedive for no reason."

Swansea's face was swamped with uncertainty and doubt, eventually clouding over with blind rage. He turned back to Curly, this time gripping his hand around his throat and tightening it.

"So not only did you defend a rapist, you gave that same worthless thug the keys to the ship?"

Swansea leaned in, sneering with a mountain of contempt and loathing behind his every syllable.

"You aren't my Captain any longer."

Swansea tossed him to the ground with disregard, as Curly coughed, choked, and sobbed silently. Hawkes wanted to pity him, but after hearing that he had defended Jimmy...

"Ugh." Hawkes groaned in loathing. What a messy situation. A perfect demonstration of how the world wasn't just black and white. He leaned down and grabbed Curly's hand, pulling him up onto his feet. He was slightly disappointed when Curly's knees buckled and he crashed to the floor, unmoving and drained of energy.

"Well, sh- dang."

Hawkes couldn't help but fall in love with this crew. Not romantically, obviously- but in a familial sense. He had just brought them back to the land of the living. He had given them a second chance to live out their life to its fullest, to renew their relationships with their crew and others, and to have a new outlook on the beauty of life.

He, a shitty decorated mass-murderer, had saved these people. Saved them.

Could anyone find words to describe what that feels like?

What that feels... like?

He couldn't give up. Not on any of them. Only one needed the punishment that was deserving from all of this unnecessary suffering. Of course. A living Rachel. A Rachel he could exact justice upon.

A J-i-m-m-y.

Captain Hawkes silently cackled to himself, enjoying the depths of his own niche humor, much to the disturbance of Caz and Ramirez standing right behind him. They, of course, said nothing- it wasn't their place to request the Captain take a mental evaluation.

Nonetheless, Captain Hawkes was resolved. He still didn't have every part of this story, only the major elements. He needed to unravel the whole story, to understand the motivations and how this catastrophe ever got started. And it all traced back to Jimmy.

"Ceremony's beginning, sir."

"Set reminder for 6 hours."

"...I'm not an AI, sir."

The preacher walked forth to the body of Anya, proclaiming the eulogy further. I noticed, however, that he seemed to be off in his tempo and speech; as if he had just lost the script for his performative ritual.

"Anya was... a friend, a confidant, an advisor and a mentor. She... was bold, strong-willed, a mediator amongst her peers. She did not give ground when challenge met her in the field! When the perilous journey of the Tulpar took place, she was the first to... take charge! Her peers respected and revered her, as the vital medical officer that rose to the occasion. She did not cow to threats, nor lose her nerve when tough times arrived-"

Whoosh.

Hawkes felt Curly's presence storm past him, and sorely wished he had popcorn on hand.

The preacher, Jezarit, was unaware of Curly up until the moment his eyes perceived a fist-

WHAM!

The preacher stumbled and fell to the floor, holding his nose and wincing in pain. He glared upwards only to be met with shuddering indignance spewing from every pore of Curly's body.

"You will not SIT HERE and desecrate the memory of Anya, you fucking bastard! Don't you dare LIE about her so boldly!"

Curly shuffled up to Anya's lifeless corpse, sobbing without making a sound as he traced his hands along her arms, face and hair.

"Look at her. Look at her, you idiots." He sobbed inconsolably. "I have my eyes back. I have my hands, my feet, my skin and normalcy. But all I can think about is how much I let down the woman I loved most in the world- the crew who looked up to me. All I can think about is how I was so disgusting, so cruel to give even a thought towards protecting that unspeakable monster... And I couldn't even see what was right in front of me, the treasure of my whole world..."

Curly collapsed to his knees, crying over Anya's body. His wails echoed throughout the massive chamber, leaving the air solemn and grim. Nobody wanted to interrupt such grieving; it was inhuman to even consider it.

"She was timid. She was anxious. She didn't like confrontation. She was lively, but nerdy and inquisitive. She failed her medical exams eight times and got a job on my freighter because it was the only place she could practice medicine. She loved reading about psychology. She was an expert on the safety manual. She wanted to visit Terra one day to see her ancestral homeland. And she relied on me. What did I do for her...?"

He cried. And cried. It was all he could do. He knew who was responsible for their torment, but he was the cause of it all. He was the one who brought that psycho onto the freighter; he was the one who ignored Anya's cries for help, the one who handed those fucking keys to Jimmy.

At every point where he had the opportunity to turn away from disaster, he failed completely.

For God's sake... he had to watch Anya commit suicide right in front of him.

"Anya, please. By God, please. Forgive me. Forgive me. I can never apologize enough. There is nothing in the universe I could give to free myself of what I did. There's no punishment worse than this feeling of regret and guilt. I don't want to exist. I can't bear this p-a-a-a-i-n. I can't let it end like this. The universe can't be this cruel..."

His eyes stung; he was utterly exhausted, but nothing except the drowning waves of regret and all-consuming guilt was there to accompany him. He felt alone in the world. He felt rejected by the universe. He felt rejected by... by...

In a sheer act of desperation, Curly lowered his head to the floor, bowing himself so low that he had practically meshed with the floor. His tears pooled around his forehead, dampening his hair and clouding his vision with particles of acute sorrow.

"Please, God. Let her live again. You may have whatever you want of me. You may take whatever you want. If I can see her again, I will never be so foolish and blind for the rest of my life. I will value her. I will love her. I will cherish her. And I will die for her. She will be my everything. My crew, and my Anya.

-!