“Move it, John! You have to move faster!” Stephen Copley’s voice was a strained yell from the control room of the U.S. Space Station Majestic.
“I’m pushing this shuttle to 100 percent!” John Zepeda’s voice crackled over the comms. “Any more and the engines will tear themselves apart!”
“There’s damage to the Silo’s communications array,” John said. “That is why he isn’t responding to our hails.”
“That damn kamikaze. I knew it,” Stephen said, slamming his fist on the console.
Billy Wittenberg, standing next to him, shifted nervously. “Uh, Stephen… kamikazes were Japanese.”
Stephen glared at him with pure disdain. “Whatever, Billy. Have we killed him yet?”
Billy checked his own display. “Not yet. He’s on the far side of Earth. Tactical says we’ll have a clean shot in two days.”
“Good,” Stephen spat. “John! You have to get there faster! He thinks he’s the last man. He thinks he’s all alone. He’s literally killing them all!”
“There’s no more power, man!” John yelled back. “Unless… unless I shut down non-essentials.”
“Do it,” Stephen said, now yelling into his microphone.
“Stephen, that includes life support.”
“So put your suit on and do it!”
There was a pause, just the sound of John’s breathing. “Okay. Okay. Stand by.” John’s voice became muffled as he pulled the helmet over his head. “Suit’s on. I’m sealing it now.” A moment later, “Okay. Shutting it down. Rerouting everything to the main engines.”
Over the comms, they heard high-pitched alarms blare in John’s shuttle, then die. The background hum of his air scrubbers was gone, replaced by a much deeper, bone-rattling vibration.
“Hurry, John,” Stephen said, his voice quieter, desperate. “Get to him. Tell him there’s hope.”
******
The process was running. Darryl couldn’t stay in the cryo-bay. He couldn’t watch the bank of green status lights and wait for one of them to turn black. He especially couldn’t be there when Dawn’s light went out. He just couldn’t.
He needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
With the half-empty bottle of Macallan’s dangling from his hand, he made the long, lonely walk back to the bridge. The scotch hadn’t made him feel better. It just made his grief feel heavier, warmer, and somehow more real. It wasn’t numbing the pain; it was just marinating it. The ship’s corridors were just as silent as before, but now the silence felt different. It felt active. It felt like a countdown. Every quiet hum of the life support sounded like a clock ticking.
He got to the bridge and collapsed into the command chair. He didn’t bother with the lights. The only illumination came from the starfield and the faint, dirty glow of the dead Earth. He took another long sip of the scotch. It burned all the way down.
He just stared out the viewport, watching the stars. He was a caretaker. A shepherd. And he was culling the flock. He was a murderer. Ten thousand times over. He tried to tell himself it was mercy. He tried to tell himself it was the right thing, the only thing. But the word “mercy” felt hollow. It felt like a lie he was telling himself so he could live with the act, though he wouldn’t have to deal with it much longer.
Then, he saw it. A single point of light, bright and sharp against the black. But it was wrong. It was moving.
Darryl squinted, rubbing his eyes. “Too much scotch, old man,” he muttered to himself. “You’re drunk. Seeing things.” He’d been alone for days, grieving, drinking. It was a hallucination. It had to be.
But he blinked, hard, and the light was still there. And it was bigger. It was definitely bigger and was moving.
A cold, electric shock went through him, cutting right through the alcoholic fog. It moved closer and he was right, it wasn’t a star. It wasn’t a hallucination. That was a ship.
He stumbled to the window, pressing his hand against the cold glass. As it got closer, the shape resolved. It wasn’t an ark. It wasn’t a rescue cruiser. It was a shuttle. A standard, short-range transport. It could carry six, maybe eight people if they were desperate.
His heart sank even as it raced. It couldn’t take them all. It couldn’t save the ten thousand, but it was hope.
If there was a shuttle, there was a pilot. If there was a pilot, he wasn’t the last man.
“No,” he whispered, standing up so fast the room spun. He couldn’t kill them. Not if he wasn’t alone. Not if there was even a one percent chance he could save them.
He scrambled from the chair, the scotch bottle falling and rolling across the deck. He stumbled over to the command console, his hands shaking so hard he could barely hit the controls. “Sentinel! Stop! Stop the shutdown! Abort! Abort now!” he yelled, his voice cracking with panic.
“Protocol halted,” Sentinel’s calm voice replied, a stark contrast to Darryl’s terror.
“Status!” Darryl demanded, leaning on the console, his breath coming in gasps. “Give me a status! How many? How many are gone?”
“Termination sequence aborted at user command. Total units processed: Ten.”
Darryl’s stomach dropped. “Ten…” He felt sick. Ten lives. He’d been too late. “Dawn… what about Dawn Malone? Pod 1138! Check pod 1138!”
“Her pod is unaffected, Darryl,” Sentinel replied instantly. “Pod 1138, Dawn Malone. Status: nominal. Stasis is stable.”
He sagged against the console, a wave of relief so strong it almost buckled his knees. Not Dawn. He’d stopped it in time. But ten people… ten innocent lives he’d just snuffed out because he thought he was alone. Ten families, ten futures, just… gone.
He stared out the viewport. The ship was close now, slowing down, its docking lights flashing. This was real. He wasn’t alone. And he’d just murdered ten people.
He ran from the bridge, leaving the spilled scotch to pool on the floor. He headed for the main docking airlock, his mind racing. Who was it? What did they want? Was he about to be killed? Or worse, judged?
He stood by the inner door as the ship’s computers confirmed the docking. He heard the metallic clamps engage, the long, loud hiss of the pressure equalization. He waited, his whole body trembling, bracing himself for anything.
The heavy airlock door slid open.
A figure in a simple flight suit stood there, helmet under his arm. He looked tired, older, his face etched with lines Darryl didn’t remember. But it was a face he knew as well as his own.
“John…?” Darryl whispered. It was impossible. “John Zepeda?”
“Hey, Darryl.” John’s voice was rough. He stepped forward and pulled Darryl into a hug. It wasn’t a shuttle hug; it was a real, desperate embrace.
Darryl just clung to his old friend, his mind completely broken and unable to process. “You’re… how? Earth is… Stacey… I saw the videos… it’s all gone, John.”
John pulled back, his hands on Darryl’s shoulders, grounding him. “Darryl, listen to me. Breathe. Earth is gone. You’re right. But we’re not. Not all of us. Stephen and Billy… they’re on the space station. We made it. We have a ship, Darryl. A real one. An interstellar ship.”
“For them,” John said, pointing back down the corridor toward the cryo-bay. “For all of them. For everyone on all the arks. We’re going to find a new home, Darryl. A new Earth.”
The words hit Darryl like a physical blow. A new home. Hope. A plan. A future. And he realized what he’d done. The hope made his actions a thousand times worse.
“Oh God, John,” Darryl choked out, stumbling back, his hands flying to his face. “I… I started it. The shutdown. I… I didn’t know. I thought… I thought it was a mercy. I thought they were all that was left, and they’d wake up to… to that.” He pointed toward the viewport. “I killed ten people, John. I just… I killed them.”
John’s face softened. He stepped forward and gripped Darryl’s arm, hard. “Darryl. Listen to me. You didn’t know. You thought you were alone. You thought there was no hope. It’s not your fault.”
“But I did it! I pushed the button!”
“And you’re not the only one,” John said quietly, his eyes dark with a sadness Darryl recognized. “We’ve… we’ve been to other arks, Darryl. We’ve seen… things. Arks that are just dark. Empty. We’ve seen pods that were vented to space. You stopped. You saw me coming, and you stopped. You saved the rest.”
Darryl couldn’t speak. He just shook his head, the sobs tearing through him. Ten people. But nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety… were alive. He had to think about them, the other nine hundred and ninety, most of all the one in Pod 1138.
“Come on,” John said gently, putting an arm around his shoulder. “We’ve got to go.”
Darryl let himself be guided, but he stopped and looked down the hall, toward Dawn’s bay. He had to go. He had to leave her again. But this time… this time was different.
“Goodbye, Dawn,” he whispered. “For now, at least. I’ll… I’ll be back for you. We’re going to find a place. I promise.”
He still felt sick. He still felt like a monster. But as he turned his back on the ten thousand sleeping souls and followed his old friend into the shuttle, he also felt a tiny, flickering spark of something he hadn’t felt in days. Hope.
There was one last thing he had to do. “Sentinel,” he croaked.
“I am here, Darryl,” the AI replied.
“New directive. Maintain current orbit. Divert all available power to cryo-stasis.” Darryl took a shaky breath. “Keep them safe. That is your only priority. Do you understand?”
“Directives confirmed,” Sentinel replied, its voice calm and reassuring. “Power rerouted. I will watch over them until you return, Caretaker.”
“Okay,” Darryl whispered. “Okay. lets go.”
They left the Silo Endurance 15 floating in silence, a graveyard that had just, impossibly, become an ark.