The ship is leaving, with half your world on it, and half staying behind. Time to choose.
Naoko watched the last exodus ship climb on its pillar of flame, struggling to escape the gravity well of their doomed planet. They'd dug too greedily, too deep, and now what used to be their world was tearing itself apart from the inside, at an ever increasing rate. Her fingers splayed against the safety glass, as if to touch her departing wife one last time.
At least Julia would be safe now.
When they got the news from a terrified steward, at the eleventh hour, the choice had been easy. Their daughter Hikari had somehow slipped out of the boarding zone – Humanity's last still secure, rapidly shrinking foothold. Left a note. She'd gambled everything on a madcap idea that would save the planet, or so her and her friends thought.
Teenagers.
There'd been no choice, Naoko and Julia had both agreed – and they both knew who had the greatest chance of surviving this mess, too. No tearful goodbyes between them, only a promise.
Naoko checked her helmet seal and oxygen levels one last time, before turning towards the nightmarish hellscape outside the boarding zone, no longer secure. She clicked the safeties off.
She would find her daughter and her little friends, and get them off this dead rock, no matter the cost.
