Story B: Arrival
“Land ho!” The sailor in the crow’s nest sprang to life. The tower had been constructed with as much care as could be exercised on the open ocean, with tools limited to the selection of battery-powered implements that could be saved before Engineering went under. It looked absurd, masts erected on a sidelong piece of capital ship. A pride of human engineering once, now reflecting the toll of human pride. It had shattered so suddenly.
Cheering quickly took hold of the whole crew—even Captain Dutton’s face showed a smile. The remnants of the UHF Thunderous Coronation had been adrift at sea for the past 12 years. The captain’s hair was now gray, and his beard hadn’t been shaved the whole time. He had vowed to wait until rescue to shave, and he really hated the result over the last eight or nine years.
“What do you see?” Captain Dutton called up to the crow’s nest.
“Wrecked coastline, looks like a continent though. We have to get closer to know for sure.”
“Keep your eye out, Corporal. We don’t know what could meet us on the shore. It’s been a long 12 years for us, but it could’ve been longer for the world at large. We only saw the first 3 of what could be 15 years, and that’s when the nuclear treaties were broken. Who knows how many nukes went off soilside? There might’ve been developments the likes of which we couldn’t imagine. Drones are probably in even higher concentrations now, if I had to wager. They could come from any angle.”
Corporal Tkachuk nodded and went back to eyeing the horizon—previously bored, now stoic, concealing enthusiasm.
“Corporal?”
The 24-year-old turned towards the captain, at attention.
“Make sure you get down if you think shit’s gonna hit the fan, and let everyone know on your way. We need to keep our numbers up, so I don’t want any unnecessary risks or stupid hero plays. I’m going to be honest, you men are my family at this point, everyone that’s still left. I’ve felt so much loss that I don’t know how much more I can take. Uh, you don’t have to let everyone know that part.”
Tkachuk nodded once more and returned to staring. The horizon quickly revealed more and more, and soon everyone at the front of the world’s largest raft, searching for any indicator of where they were landing. This beachfront looked devastated, though. Captain Dutton was utterly shocked by what he was seeing. A city sprawled across emerald hills, replete with skyscrapers; however, the architecture was all ruined, abandoned, and overgrown. Mountains poked out at irregular intervals throughout the city, some smooth, some jagged, all coated with a thick layer of trees. The city looked like 10,000 monster trucks had gone on a rampage across the whole thing, but the damage was old. Nature had reclaimed everything she could get her paws on: billboards were totally covered in vines and large, droopy leaves. Trees were growing atop five-story wrecks of what could’ve been enormous structures once. Judging by the width, and the scale of this sprawl, accounting for the scale of destruction that was committed, Andrew Dutton furrowed his brow as estimates of the death count intruded on his mind.
“Captain, I reckon there were at least 10 million people in a city like this!” Someone yelled from close behind the captain. Most men would’ve been startled, but close colleagues of Ensign Cooper immediately relaxed at his drawl. He was tougher than rocks—killed hundreds in a mission to detonate a Chinese space station, only losing a couple toes.
“Volume control, for God’s sake, Ensign. I’m not on the shore, I’m right here with you. Now that’s a good estimate, mine would be in that range too. The real question is where on Earth are we? Everyone, look for any sign that could possibly tell us. Be ready for landfall too, it won’t look pretty.”
Less than an hour later, the once-grandiose spaceshipwreck crashed into the shore: it wasn’t moving fast, but the force of impact still tossed around the sailors, who had all strapped in. The shoreline held on, and the colossal hulk stopped just halfway up the beach. As men began to approach the edge, the captain held up a fist. A rope ladder was thrown down, securely riveted to the top deck, and Dutton made his descent. It was a fairly great height, but falling from space makes all other falls feel inconsequential. The captain slid down, almost reckless. He felt the sand beneath his boots, amazing. The wreck blocked a lot of the sea breeze, but its freshness permeated everything here.
“Get your weapons, we need to clear a perimeter. Light kit. Tkachuk, O’Donnell, begin setting up emplacements. This’ll be a temporary HQ. Cooper, you ready to roll?”
Ensign Cooper was already at the captain’s side. His weapon of choice was a bullpup .308, an AVP-35. Cooper slapped the side of the rifle and the bolt racked a round for him with a cold metal clink.
“Ready, sir!”
Dutton mulled over the situation. The city was in an advanced state of overgrowth, so he would have to find some monument that hadn’t been eroded or overwhelmed by greenery.
“Alright, no one venture into the city. Stay on the beach, within eyeline of each other. No clusters bigger than three, and get five sentries on the Coronation with scoped weapons. Turret emplacements are good cover, they should hold up to any firearms. Cooper and I are going—wait, did you see that?”
Dutton was pointing at a patch of undergrowth straight ahead. Cooper lifted his rifle, finger ready to pounce into the trigger.
“I saw it too, boss,” Cooper said disdainfully.
“Greetings!” The captain’s next word was cut off by a jovial, booming voice. The undergrowth was sundered, and a procession of—the captain couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Are those fucking capybaras?” A sailor voiced Dutton’s thought exactly.
“Yes, yes we are. It would do you well to put some respect behind your words, man.” The capybara at the front of the procession spoke with remarkable eloquence. Dutton blinked furiously—rubbed his eyes. The capybara’s mouth was indeed moving.
“I am The Sixth King Amaziah. And this is Argon, my glorious kingdom.”
Ensign Cooper scoffed, “You named your kingdom after an element?”
The capybara procession turned their heads up, staring at Cooper. Measured malice lurked on their faces.
“It’s hard for you to talk when all of your kingdoms are gone. But, you see, it’s much more than a primitive pun. Human empires were cyclical, a futile rat race at their best. To force a naturally violent, cunning, and sinful creature into an orderly, carefully structured society—folly, folly! Argon requires nothing. It is content on the cosmic scale, just as I am. In any case, you should be able to tell that I didn’t name the kingdom, since I am the son of my father, and he the son of his, and so on to the First King. May all their souls rest peacefully. They laid down their lives in horrible war, the worst our species has ever seen, so that I may rule over a kingdom that is unmarred by it.”
Captain Dutton’s jaw dropped. “The war? The war is over?”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Dutton swore that Amaziah’s little rodent mouth curled in a smirk. “There was the Fourth Gulf War, the Unification Wars, the Indo-China War, World War Three, the Capybara War for Independence. There might still be one going on, somewhere beyond my purview, in the chaotic wastes still under man’s control.”
“World War Three, that’s obviously what I mean!”
“You guys are really out of the loop, so to speak. What were you even doing the past ten years?” The king’s tone felt like abject mockery.
Captain Dutton snapped. Over a decade spent on a stinky, wet, cold piece of metal, literally sitting atop the shattered remains of everything he had worked for in his whole career.
He howled, “You are a fucking capybara, so you should put some respect on my name! I fought for humanity, dammit! I risked my life for three long, hard years, worked up to a capital ship position, ready to make a decisive, game-changing strike—just to get nuked out of orbit. I thought I died, but instead I get sentenced to aquatic purgatory, and now a goddamn petting zoo! If you don’t start complying now, I will start blasting your little potato heads with the same mercy I give the shit in my toilet.”
The capybaras recoiled, except for Amaziah. He stamped his right foot once, and the captain’s ears were immediately assailed by a tremendous ruckus. Like a million cicadas, swarming overhead. From behind the trees of the city rose a carpet of gleaming black. The soldiers stared in awe as hundreds, no, thousands of attack drones assembled into formations, surrounding the meager chunk of beach that the humans had claimed.
“If you don’t start complying now,” Amaziah barked, “I will ensure that every last one of you has the same pulse as my toilet. Your struggle means nothing to me; in fact, you should be thankful for my mercy. The previous kings would have had your heads on stakes by now, strategically placed so that scouts from the neighboring city of men will have a lovely view.”
“So what’s—” Ensign Cooper tried to squeeze out a sentence.
“No talking over me either! Your whole species is such a massive test of my patience, why can’t you be more like canines?” The capybara king punctuated this sentence with a nod, and Dutton heard a pop. Sand sprayed up into all the soldiers’ faces. Dutton could feel the distinctive whizzes of bullets past his head. He looked around, but no one was lying dead. The beach looked like the aftermath of a sand castle building competition now though.
The captain thought very hard for a couple extremely long seconds. His gun thumped into the sand beside his foot as he raised his hands.
“We surrender,” he said.
The humans cried out in surprise. Cooper stared at his captain with gun still aimed. He grimaced and lowered it, then let go. It thumped into the fine, clear sand. The rest followed almost instantly, a coordinated drop.
“Well done!” The Sixth King sounded giddy. “You are the first soldiers to pass the test. I’m sure you all need a fine meal right about now, yes?”
The soldiers forgot all about their firearms as an array of robots emerged from the undergrowth behind the capybaras. It was a veritable armada of small platforms on tracks. Each one carried a plate with some kind of fruit or vegetable. The captain noted lettuce, melons, broccoli, and even seaweed. The capybara stomped his left foot, and one of the platebots rolled forward. It carried a large, unlabeled pill bottle. Inside was an abundance of green capsules.
“Just swallow one before beginning to fill up. Now, enjoy, my guests!” King Amaziah took a seat, and his own platebot approached. He began to munch on a whole head of romaine, crunching away blissfully.
The captain felt disappointed by a lack of meat. He looked at the still-menacing attack drones, took a pill, and took a bite of watermelon to wash it down. It tasted remarkable: he finished the whole slice of delicious red flesh within a few seconds.
By nightfall, the captain felt satiated. He had spent the time telling tales to the giant rodents, easily the size of him, but strangely trustworthy. Warm, comfy creatures, with good taste in food.
When he woke up the next morning, there was nothing disconcerting about the fact that Tkachuk and Cooper were now furry, with little black eyes and cute snouts. Even the fact that Dutton himself was now a capybara caused no negative emotion. He felt more at home than ever before, like he had completed a journey which he never recognized starting.
