The months after that are still kind of a blur. I remember the call, when I found out my mom never made it to the bunker I had secured a spot for her in after it was evident she wasn’t going to make it to the exodus shuttles. I remember unloading those same shuttles full of civilians we didn’t actually have room for. I remember sitting on the floor of the control room while SOL was pushed to its limit, and scanned every damn inch of Earth looking for survivors. Each tick on the whiteboard marking the dead.
I mourned those black marks, because they weren’t only lines. They were graves we’d never dig. They were bodies that had simply—gone. Disintegrated. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, children…
Death did not discriminate, and apparently neither did we.
After that, it didn’t matter what color your skin was. What language you spoke. What class you came from. Which political party you identified with. Not anymore. Now it was survival, and as much as I hated humanity some days, I had to admit something: we managed to pull our shit together long enough to try to live.
I hated putting on the stupid uniform, eating the same slop, and walking the same sterile hallways every day—
They need me and they need SOL, which happens to be the only way I know how to honor her.
I dragged myself off the bed and shoved my pants into my boots without bothering with the laces. “How late am I?”
“Seventeen minutes and forty-two seconds,” SOL replied. “If you leave now, you will arrive in exactly sixminutes and thirteen seconds, making you twenty-three minutes and—”
“Enough, SOL.” I grabbed my badge and stepped through the oval door, where it hissed shut behind me.
From orbit the planet looked sleepy. After seven years it was still dark and patchy, but some of its brilliance peeked through depending on where you observed it. It was a shame SOL said the atmosphere would kill you in under four minutes.
When the bombs hit, they didn’t only destroy cities. They ruptured chemical plants, storage facilities, and experimental top secret labs worldwide. Among them was a classified compound: aerosolized reactive silicate. ARS-7. Or better known as the Haze—which would fill your lungs with toxic fluid until you choked on your own death. It was an atmospheric catastrophe and if I was being completely honest…
Was planned.
Even if you survived the blasts, there was still nuclear winter to contend with—and the diseases that slipped their cages when research labs were torn open.
I tore my gaze from the only window in this corridor and followed the path of orange arrows. The artificial gravity in this ring was only partial once you stepped foot out of your quarters—just enough to keep people from drifting into the ceiling—so every step had a buoyant bounce to it. My boots thudded against the metal floor in slow rhythm as the station hummed around me: life support, engines, circulation. The sound never stopped. Up here, silence meant something had gone very wrong.
The hallways of Station Seven curved gently with the spin of the ring. There were no other windows in this section, only white panels broken by warning stripsand maintenance hatches every few meters. Peculiarly, a botanist from Station Eight floated past the intersecting corridor with an armful of clipped greens, her hair tucked into her dark cap. She wore the standard station blues—loose flight pants and a fitted thermal shirt with the insignia patch at the shoulder. Everyone wore some version of it now, even the civilians on Echelon One. Two mechanics were arguing beside an open wall panel, tools magnetized to the metal beside them.
Nine stations and one command habitat orbited what used to be home. Ten fragile rings of steel and recycled resources holding the last of us together with math, science, and the stubborn will of life. The governments of the world had apparently been planning for the Scourge for much longer than anyone realized. The stations were once intended as research and climate monitoring hubs, where earth's scientists would gather information and knowledge in case of environmental catastrophe.
Station Eight was set up with agriculture, and thanks to a few successful missions, already growing food. Every other station quickly found specific missions in keeping our surviving population alive, and at our center floated Echelon One. The hub of what was left of us.
Thirty-seven thousand humans managed to make it into space. Meanwhile, it had been seven loops since the Scourge and we still did not have an accurate count of who managed to survive on earth. That was my job.
I pushed through the hatch to the command ring and nearly collided with a group of ensigns getting ready to drift through the low-g corridor, their tether cords trailing behind them like comet tails. “SOL, time.”
“Twenty-one minutes and nine seconds late.”
“Fantastic.” The command deck doors were already in sight and lucky for me, Commander Zhang hated when people were late.
Ducking inside, I let out a sigh of relief. The command center was dark, the only bit of light shining on Commander Zhang who stood in front of the monitor that stretched wall to wall barking out orders. She paused, hands clasped behind her back.
“You’re twenty-three minutes late, Captain. Sleep well?” she asked, cutting a sharp glare toward me.
“Fine.” I straightened my jacket and strode through the sea of uniforms to take a seat at the front.
“Captain Ransom reached REM sleep at 03:12 station cycle,” SOL chimed pleasantly. “Total rest duration: three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Elevated heartrate recorded during dream state. Cortisol levels remain slightly above baseline. Sleep quality rated—”
“Mute,” I snapped. A few heads turned, and Commander Zhang arched a brow.
“Bad dreams, Captain?”
I shifted in my chair, glaring at the blank screen beside me as if the orb could somehow feel my displeasure. “Nope,” I said.
“Mmh.” Zhang tilted her head slightly.
“Nothing worth the briefing time, Commander,” I said, gesturing politely toward the massive display behind her. “Please, go on.”
