When the alien commanders and human military crew of Earth Mercenary Corps Pufferfish succumb to a bioweapon that reverts (reverted, because, after the apocalypse, humanity was reduced to shambling ferals, until an alien race cured a few to fight for them) the humans to their feral state, only Mops and her crew of cleaners stand in the way of galactic genocide. Billed as a “hilarious sci-fi” adventure, Terminal Alliance does have a lot of humor built into the setup, but there’s also a savvy piece of space opera in here, along with a cast of engaging characters, and a hero worth following In Marion/Mops Adamopolulos.

After the standard plague-borne zombie(ish) apocalypse, the alien Kraku came to Earth and found a way to turn the drooling shambling hulks that had been human into rational beings, more or less approximations of what they had been originally. The process isn’t quick and reeducating them takes time, so of the billion or so remaining humans, only about 10,000 have been “reborn”.

Some things are universally constant, so when Marion Adamopoulos (they get to name themselves after humans in the heavily edited historical archives) showed rare intelligence (for a human) she naturally got shunted to the janitorial staff. Which is how she got the nickname “Mops” and sent to do Sanitation and Hygiene duty on the EMC Pufferfish, a starship commanded by Krakau, with a human complement of soldiers and staff.

Mops and her team were in full biohazard kit cleaning up after a battle when the boarding party sent out to clean things up came back carrying a bioweapon that resisted normal decontamination procedures. Shortly after that Mops found her access codes upgraded to equal the highest-ranking human on the ship because, in fact suddenly she was. More than that, she and her team were the only non-feral humans left after the bioweapon turned the rest back into the ferals they’d been uplifted from.

All too soon the cleaning crew had to face the enemy in battle on a ship they had no idea how to run. Fortunately, they had three things going for them. 1) lots of tutorials with an animated and annoying pufferfish, 2) “Doc” Mop’s personal AI has lots of non-standard upgrades, and 3) Marion/Mops, was born to lead.

When they finally manage to contact command, the good news is that the Admiral who responds is someone who had taken Mops under his wing. The bad news is that his orders are to bring the ship in so the feral crew can be “put down.”

Not if Mops has anything to say about it.

What ensues is a race against time as they try to track down the source of the bioweapon in the hope there’s an antidote. What they get is to be stuck in the middle of a clash of civilizations and the only hope of stopping a new genocide.

Like all of Jim Hines’ books, you’ve got a mix of plucky but unlikely heroes thrust into situations that are both comic and tragic. Also, like his other books, he pulls off the combination. Despite the humor, this plot is more like Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) than an episode of The Orville. Mops is the sort of leader you want to follow, and her ragtag crew cleans up nicely. This may be Hines’ first foray into science fiction as opposed to fantasy, but he’s got a good handle on what it takes.

As for the crew of the EMC Pufferfish, they may not know much about running a starship or interstellar combat, but they’re quick learners and really good at cleaning up other people’s messes.

Here’s the review of the second book in the series:

Mops and crew are back to clean up the galaxy!

Terminal Uprising (Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse Book 2) by Jim C. Hines – Having survived the first book Mops and her team are non a mission of her own to find proof of the Krakau’s role in the apocalypse, a hidden prison planet for the remaining Rokkau, who inadvertently started the whole mess, and just maybe a way for humanity to survive. That mission, along with the covert assistance of a Krakau admiral who isn’t any happier about his race’s role in the near genocide of humanity, takes the crew of the Pufferfish to the last place in the universe they want to go…Earth.