"We are just deorbiting now. We'll be back on Earth soon," I replied. All very true.
Below me, the clouds were starting to part and I could see where I was headed, a tiny dot of cleared space marked with a blue navigation marker courtesy of Brick.
"I'll instruct the defenses to stand down on your approach. Once you're here we can have that chat. I'm so looking forward to hearing your story."
"Yes, it'll be great," I said, only half-listening. The ground was approaching fast.
"In position," Marty said.
On the ground below I almost certainly looked like a meteor streaking in. Time for my grand entrance.
"Meredith, hold on a second, would you?" I asked, and without waiting for her response shunted the call into the Union version of hold. Her figure disappeared.
"Brick, you're up!" I ordered. He didn't acknowledge, but I knew he'd do what was required.
I was diving headfirst toward the ground at high speed. A hundred feet above the ground and less than a second before impact I flipped over and decelerated, all five grav plates working hard to devour my momentum. That was well within their capabilities, but I didn't bleed off all of my velocity. I landed hard, a perfect three-point superhero landing. It was hard enough to make a loud boom, but not so hard that it would destroy the stage below me. Everything had been carefully calculated.
I stood up and stepped forward, my helmet retracting into a ring around my neck to expose my face.
The carefully seeded crowd of press and True Believers all around the stage were gasping in awe, and hundreds of cameras were pointed at me.
I smiled. Thanks to Brick and his army of communications satellites my entrance had been seen by the whole world, and my words would be heard by them as well. My voice filled the space, thanks to the same Union projector tech we'd used to fake the saucers. It was mounted on the Redemption somewhere in the sky behind me, invisible.
"Hi, I'm Jake Monde. I'm here to tell you about the alien threat to Earth, and what we're going to do about it."
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The afterlife isn't always what you think...
A LOVING FATHER OF three children, Albert lived a life of few regrets. He served his country far from home. He outlived his soulmate. He died alone.
However, his assumptions about a peaceful eternity, reunited with his wife, are thrown out the window when a meddling god digs his fingers into Albert’s afterlife.
The positive? He will have a chance to see his wife again.
The negative? He has to survive the dangers of the legendary World Tree for the next three hundred years. He’s been reincarnated into a world full of magical evolutions, monstrous deer, sassy ten-year-old elves, and untold hidden dangers. It won’t be easy, but if life has taught Albert anything it’s this: If something is worth having, it's worth fighting for. And he intends to fight.
Prologue
HELLO, EVERYONE. MY name is Albert and well... I died. Not in some fantastical way, mind you. I died in my sleep. I lived a good, long life. Far longer than I realistically had a right to. I had children that I loved very much. A wife that passed far too soon. And a home in the southeastern part of the United States of America.
When I finally died, it was an easy death. It was easy to head into the light because I didn't have any true regrets. I was old, tired, and ready to see my wife again.
But fate... it had other plans for me. After I died and went to wherever it is souls go, I met... I hesitate to call it God as it didn't claim to be such. But I cannot for the life of me think of another way to describe it.
It was composed entirely of golden energy and lacking features that would denote a gender. It didn't so much speak, as it projected its thoughts into my head.
"Your wife isn't here," it said, its voice echoing through my mind like a gong.
"Did she... She’s not in hell, is she? If so, there must be some kind of mistake. My wife was a kind, gentle woman. Always putting others above herself. If she’s in hell, then why—"
"She’s not," it interrupted.
Hope flooded through me. “Then where? Where is she? Can I see her?”
"No."
“What? Why not?”
“As I said. She’s not here. She’s far, far away on another world.”
I was rendered silent by that statement. My mind raced as I considered the possibilities. “Is that where heaven is?”
“Heaven?” Its gong-like voice softened to that of a wind chime. “No, she was chosen for a different path.”
"Chosen for what, exactly?"
"To become a hero. To save the universe from a growing darkness that would otherwise swallow it whole."
“A hero?” It did make sense. Sarah—my
