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“Don’t,” she said. “It’s not worth all the fuss. You’re going to get out of here. You’re going to have this child, and everything is going to be fine. I’m dying, Mia, and frankly, I feel pretty damn okay about it.”
“You can leave with us. We have the necessary med-kits. You heard Talis. He has an AI operating system that’s probably a hundred times more advanced than ours. You need to leave with us. I can’t do this without you. I can’t...”
I tried not to get emotional, but everything was coming at me at once.
There was life—my baby. There was death—Juliana. My crew. Earth.
“Thirty seconds until detonation...”
“What else do I have going for me? I miss my home. Miss my family. I’m staying, Mia. This is my sh
ip, and it’s my job to lower my head and drown,” she said.
I must have cried for only a few seconds, because it all seemed to happen so fast. Entropy was following our every move. The clock was always ticking. The ship was going to blow, but our goodbye was so important to me. I wanted to let her know how much she meant. “Six years,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. We knew the risks.”
I saluted her. “My pilot.”
She threw her arms around me, holding me until I felt the blood soak through my clothes. Then, she pushed me away. Like that, she sank back, ready to die. Ready to go back to wherever we came from.
I prayed for the impossible. I hoped she could see her family again, hoped that Earth could be restored.
Was it all for nothing?
“Twenty seconds until detonation...”
Talis’ hands circled underneath me. He cradled me in his arms as I struggled to reach for Juliana, screaming through the burn in my throat, screaming until I fell catatonic. My baby was taking the life from me, and my friend was leaving me for good. I tried to be resilient, but it was so difficult to hold on.
Juliana was out of view now. We lowered into his ship, and the lights were fading out. The engine powered on, and all I could think about was Juliana and the crew, and how sorry I was for everything.
I was so sure we could save our planet’s memory. I was sure of a lot of things...
“Ten seconds until detonation...”
Talis engaged the system, and a wide variety of shapes and signals appeared on the wall. He pressed one of the middle ones and quickly latched me in. “Hold tight, little fawn.”
“One second until...”
Our ship tore through time and space. I turned to see the explosion, but I was only able to see the beginning flames of destruction. My life’s work was ruined. Everyone I had come to know had died. My life, my home movies—all of my memories were gone now. No trace of us existed anymore.
We were both aliens now.
I was moving into unknown territory. The ship came to a halt, and Talis came to my aid. My eyes were heavy, and he kept telling me to keep them open. For him and my child. Just do it for my daughter, he said.
Every word echoed in my ear, but I didn’t have control anymore. My daughter would come into this world without me in it.
“Just keep her alive,” I whispered.
Talis strapped himself into the robotics suit and fired up the system. “Gonna need you to stay with me here, doll.”
“Gonna need you to... stop ... calling me ... doll, doll.”
I was fading like the stars past our window. And all I could do was smile.
15
Talis
