How I Got Here: "Re-Animated"
02 Jan 2023Columbuss
Commander Justin Estok. Stardate 2-JAN-3309."My advice? Move on."
Coming back from the dead, in my case, wasn't as exciting as you might think. There wasn't any medical equipment or life saving close calls. No doctors pinching veins together to keep the blood in. There wasn't a room full of lifelong medical professionals scrambling to keep my heart beating. It was paper. Mountains and mountains of paper. It takes a lot of paperwork to give someone their life back. If I'd have known just how many times I'd have to sign my name to verify that I was still alive, I would have probably just stayed dead.
My "doctors", they didn't wear medical scrubs and face masks. They didn't use sterile equipment and beeping life support machines to keep me going. Save for a little hand pump labelled "sanitizer" that sat next to a cup filled with pens. My "doctors", they wore ties. They sat at desks behind windows with little holes cut through the glass to pass documents back and forth. My "life saving operation", it wasn't done with a scalpel. It was done with a stamp.
The subsequent press conference was a morbid affair. I felt like an exhibit. An object. Something to be paraded around for the public to see while the fastidiousness of the Federal bureaucracy patted itself on the back. I shook hands with people I didn't know, all vying for their moment in the spotlight. All of them, gripping my hand and smiling for the camera to put their name on the affair, before turning away without ever looking me in the eye. For them, it was just another credential for their resumes. Something to point to when the next opportunity to climb over the pile for a promotion came due.
One of the owners of a hand I'd shaken was a man named Jarrod Barret. He was the security advisor to Vice President Erin Lane of Federal Liberal Command, which oversaw operations in the section of Federation space loyal to Felicia Winters. With the handshake, he slid a card in my breast pocket for his office on Sharp Dock, located in the Andel system, with instructions to come see him if I felt inclined.
Jump forward to me sitting in silence at a desk across from Jameson Pierce while he turns the pages of my file scrunching his face every so often. Each time, absent mindedly reaching up and adjusting his glasses. A cloud of steam was rising up between us from a cup of coffee sitting on the desk. In front of it was a picture frame holding a photo of Pierce shaking hands with someone he thought could further his career at the time.
"Well, everything looks to be in order! Congratulations Mr. Estok. Welcome back to the land of the living! We've petitioned The Al Minaan government for your ship. The Chelsie Grinn is it? They weren't exactly thrilled to release it." Pierce says, leafing through a handful of forms without looking up. "You must have really made an impression with them."
"I guess you could say that," I reply.
"The situation being what it is, they don't want you back. Probably best to avoid that system moving forward for... legal reasons. There's some good news though. Whatever bounty you had with The Empire, the one that got you into this situation in the first place, it's been resolved. It looks like, legally, your bounty with them died when you did. So," He says, finally looking up and removing his glasses, "You're free to go."
"What about John?" I ask.
"Mr. Grayson has been extradited back to The Al Mina system," he says, removing his glasses and dropping them on his desk along with my file. "Certain... compromises, had to be reached to bring you back to life. The Federation can't be seen harboring political fugitives, especially in uncertain times like these. I'm sure you understand. My advice? Move on. Forget Al Mina. You've been given a tremendous gift and opportunity here. Don't waste it."
With a reluctant handshake, Pierce left and I was officially plugged back in. A card carrying Federal citizen once again. I'd come to find out, the only reason I wasn't returned to Al Mina with John, was for the press. Hudson's Proactive Detection Bureau, employed in the wake of the Nine Martyr's, hadn't been received as smoothly as he'd hoped. So my "return" from the dead, was a bit of positivity his PR team desperately needed. A plus for Hudson I would only be too happy to undermine.
Sitting in the cockpit of the Chelsie Grinn, I scroll through my navigation menu, searching for somewhere, anywhere, to go. I chart a course for Al Mina, just to count the jumps, before clearing the jump coordinates. Pierce's words kept replaying in my mind. "Move on. Forget Al Mina." I couldn't do that. I couldn't abandon John so easily. If the roles were reversed, you can bet John would be doing whatever he could to get back to me. I had to reach back out. I had to find out if John was okay. Unfortunately, they'd be monitoring my comms from here. Any transmission would undoubtedly be picked up. Without thinking about it, I pull out the card still in my breast pocket for Federal Liberal Command at Sharp Dock.
"The Andel system," I say out loud, before charting a course in the navigation computer and shooting out, back into the void.