Loved it, great piece!

It would have been simple, you know?

If not for one, tiny detail.

We answered two questions at the same time, when they figured it out.

Is reincarnation real? Yes, irrefutable.

Are we alone in this universe? No, we are not.

There's a lot of things out there. Lot of species. And apparently there's no real rules about what you come back as. You might be a human today but that doesn't mean you'll be a human after that ends. That's where the complication lies. Sometimes you come back as something else. More often than not, you come back as something else.

Well, you know the morality arguments and philosophical debates that come up once you have those two answers? We aren't alone and we keep coming back for round after round of life, just in a different suit.

"Farrell." My vid screen comes to life, a crystal clear picture of my boss. Or rather, my handler. I'm my own boss.

"Well howdy there, boss." I say, feet up on my console. I still call her boss, even though it's not real accurate. Just felt right.

"Yeah, right. Contract for you. Details incoming."

I lift my feet off and my boots thud against the heavy metal floor of my ship. It's small, it's cozy, and it's floating in space right now because I have nothing to do and no interest in changing that. The contract flashes across my screen and my eyes open wide.

"Nope." I say, shaking my head and leaning back. "No way. Not a chance. Never."

"No one else wants it." She says. "It's double your usual rate."

"Yeah, for five times the risk. Let the feds take this one, let them send a cruiser or something, or a special ops team." I say, shaking my head again. "This one ain't for me, boss."

"Five times your usual rate." She says, after a pause. "I'll break even, you'll make a year's worth for one contract."

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

I lean over the screen again and look at the contract.

Mass murderer. Extremely violent. One hundred and thirty seven life sentences, forty two death sentences. Of which less than half have been carried out. Now the Federation wants to continue their streak and they've put out the call.

"And on Terminal Station, too. Of course." I mutter.

"That's why I'm offering so much. Farrell, you might well be the only guy on my payroll that can pull this off.

I look at the picture. I sigh.

This time the bastard came back as a Brox. Because sometimes you come back as a cicada and get stomped just through a freak accident, and sometimes you come back as a four armed member of one of the most violent races in existence. And here he is, running a gang of arm's dealers out of Terminal Station.

I sigh again.

"I get it, Farrell, you can quit with the sighing." She says. "Finish putting up your fake fight about taking the contract and say what I need you to say."

"I'll do it." I say, standing and walking to my locker. I plant my hand on the pad and it slides open to reveal my suit. And the badge.

"You were always going to take it." She says, from the screen. "You can't help yourself."

"Probably." I say, removing my tarnished badge from the locker and rubbing my thumb over it. Then I grin, looking at the arsenal there.

"Who doesn't like a challenge?"

The ship is quiet.

Always felt to me like a tomb. It doesn't help that there are about three thousand bodies aboard, lining the walls of three equally large rooms. They stare out from behind frosted glass, sightless and silent. Not dead, never dead, but not quite alive.

I sip my coffee and put my feet up.

I always get a little...morbid, about four months into my shift.

Two months to go. By the end of my six months on duty I will be downright terrifying. That's how it goes, when you're alone in space with nothing but a couple artificial intelligences to hang out with. You start going a little crazy.

Our job is to ferry a colonization crew out to a habitable planet. Thousands of years, each year divided into two shifts. Two hundred and fifty ship's crew, paid a fairly enormous bonus for each shift, watching over cold semi-corpses. We will each lose seventeen years of our lives. Each of us medically checked, each of us under the age of thirty-five. Each of us bored out of our minds while we watch the infinite nothingness pass us by.

At least the coffee is good.

Every five years we wake up a cadre of scientists. They review the collected data from our trip, long range scans and information gathered up by a half dozen AI systems. Apparently they made some big discovery on the last one, a whopping three years back now, and sent a pile of information out home. It would have reached home about a month or two ago, by my math.

They were very excited but very hush-hush.

But, if you get a scientist drunk, they tell you everything.

With the data they had, they'd figured it out. The thing that keeps us out here. FTL travel.

That was the good news.

The bad news was we couldn't make it work with what we had here. The scans revealed material sources that could be used. If the scientists at home could find those, or replicate them, they could do it. They could get there before us, and that is entirely unfair.

I'm shocked we didn't have the materials. We have almost everything.

Our colony ship is a behemoth. Stuffed full of the bodies, but also modular habitats and all the supplies we'll need to manage the start up. I will be forty by the time we arrive. Hell of a thing. It will be very cool to be one of the first to step onto an entirely new planet. So there's that.

I sigh and rub my hair. I've already lost four years. Eight shifts and just like that, I'm a different person. Sure gets boring, even with a library as stuffed with books and movies and music as the one the ship has.

"Sir. We have a contact." The voice breaks me out of my thoughts and I start up from the chair, spilling coffee everywhere. The voice is one we're not supposed to hear. Not ever. It's a rough, military voice. Reminds me of my drill sergeant.

"Contact?" I shout, leaning over the console. I see it. It's on approach and it looks big.

Very big.

"Who is it?" I ask.

"I have no identifying information. It appears to be seven kilometers in length and vaguely humanoid in construction. I suggest arming the proximity cannons, sir."

"Yeah, sure. It won't make a difference, but do it."

This ship has some defences, but they're meant to shoot down stray rocks and incoming projectiles that might pierce the hull, not defend the ship from a boarding. It's not that kind of ship.

There aren't any of that kind of ship.

"I have a visual." The AI says. I inspect it and my heart beats hard in my chest. I tilt my head and squint, just because I might be seeing it wrong.

There's no way.

It's impossible.

It's huge. It has a sloping nose and hundreds of compartments that line the sides and top. Heavy guns, smaller guns, what look like hangars. A command superstructure rises up nearer the back, multi-tiered and sleek. It's something out of a fucking movie.

I should wake the crew but I've forgotten myself.

I've forgotten everything.

Because that ship that came out of nowhere, the military looking thing that is bearing down on us, it's from home.

It's from Earth.

And I know that because the video screen reveals a message. It's written in block gray letters on the front of the ship. They must have worried they wouldn't be able to hail us. They're not wrong, we have lots of tech but our channels out are limited.

We weren't ever supposed to talk to anyone. We were supposed to be alone.

My heart is still pounding and I re-read the message. Then I re-re-read it.

Mayday

Trouble Ahead

Earth Sent Us

Mayday

I bet you didn't know that gods die.

It's true.

I mean, who wants to live forever? Right?

Well, it turns out that when gods decide they're ready to hang up that infinite power and turn in their lifelong place in mythology, they get to make a choice.

And that's how a mere mortal, like me, gets the chance to become something else.

So one day when I woke up to a note that gave me twenty four hours to set my affairs in order, I brushed it off. What kind of affairs does a guy like me have to put in order anyway? Twenty five hours later, I was imbued with unnatural power.

By whom, you ask?

Thor? Jupiter? Anubis?

No, not for a guy like me. The big guns don't come out for me. Oh no, someone else had their eye on me. That would be Hypnos. The god of sleep.

Sounds sweet, doesn't it? God of sleep? Who doesn't want that?!

Turns out that no one knows the god of sleep. They pray to mighty Melatonin, the amazing Ambien now. Not that many people pray to any of the gods. But it's nice to be known and aside from about a dozen professors who teach me for a half hour to classes of hungover college kids, no one knows. Or cares.

A year.

It's been a year and it's easy to remember that, cause I had twenty four hours from the morning of Christmas Eve to put my affairs in order.

I woke up on Christmas in the realm of the gods, never to see home again.

I never really thought I would miss it, you know? Why would I? I don't think you get picked by the god of sleep because you're living your best life. Not sure it's a badge of honor. The way everyone in this place looks at me, it definitely doesn't feel like it.

So today I wake up as this god of sleep, as Hypnos. I open my eyes and stare at the black stone ceiling of my cave, that's right, a cave. I sigh and rub my face in the darkness. Another day. Why Hypnos doesn't like light, I will never know. Seriously, I won't. Cause he's dead.

And I'm him.

That still doesn't sit right.

I sit up in the bed, you think it would be more comfortable for the god of sleep, and swing my legs off the edge and plant them on the cool stone floor. What I wouldn't give for a rug. I stand and take a tentative step forward and I kick something. It skids across the floor and I'm confused.

I don't have anything to kick.

Just an empty room with a bed.

I stumble around until I find the one cord that hangs from the rock, and I tug it. It opens a series of horizontal hatches, almost like blinds, with mirrors that allow light in, the one thing I actually like about this cave. It's a very cool setup to get light in.

It reveals a bare stone room with a bed and a pillow, and a small wardrobe that holds all of my two changes of clothes.

And a present.

A brightly wrapped, red and green present. Tied with a silver bow. It gleams in the light and I stare at it. Yeah, it's Christmas morning, but I haven't had a present that I didn't buy myself in years. So...where the hell did this come from?

I pick it up and turn it over. Feels heavy. And there's a tag on the top, attached to the bow.

From Santa

I laugh. Someone is pulling my leg. Alright. That's better than total indifference, which has been the usual from the rest of the gods in this realm. I sit on the edge of my bed and tear at the paper and bow, revealing a book and a handwritten letter. And a small tin of cookies.

I blink at the pile of goodies. I open the letter and see beautiful, spidery writing.

Welcome to the family.

Everything is what you make of it.

-Klaus

Alright.

Now I have questions.

For the first time, I have an interest in this realm. There's something to figure out. I mean, it was quick enough to find out that Odin and Thor are real, and both of them are real assholes. Zeus? Even worse. Turns out infinite power and infinite lifetime does not do favors for personality.

But Santa, Santa is real?

Now that, that I gotta learn more about.

I pick up the book and turn it over to the spine.

Myths and Legends, Gods and Greatness

S Klaus

That does not answer any questions, it only leaves more. There's a connection to the mortal realm and that means...maybe I can get back there.

I never thought these words would be in my mind in this particular order, not ever in my life.

But, this god needs to track down Santa to get some answers.

And maybe I can return the book and he can gift me a mattress. I grab a change of clothes and dress myself, something bland, just like my little cavern of darkness. I stop at the entry and steel my nerves to go be amongst actual gods, while I look for the one god I used to believe in.

And I know one thing for sure.

I'm keeping the cookies.