2. A Doomed Shuttle
A DOOMED SHUTTLE
ELENA - NEW TERRA
My spine slams into the wall as the shuttle shifts direction. My vision whites out. For a terrifying second, all I can taste is blood.
But the hull holds.
Outside, the light shifts from apocalyptic orange to blinding white. Then, for one suspended instant, everything turns black.
The good kind of black. The kind that means space. Through the streaked windows, we watch New Terra fall away, layer by layer. This is nothing like the recruitment videos. No gentle gliding. No soft ballet of solar sails. Just nausea. Sweat. That awful taste in the back of my throat.
Quinn gasps. “We made it.” She left her sarcasm back on the launch platform.
“Don’t jinx it,” Tessa fires back. “We’re stuck in orbit until the ship reaches the transfer coordinates. Elena, how long?”
“It’s still calculating. The AI keeps restarting,” I answer.
We cling to the interior like shipwreck survivors on driftwood. Fingers tight on the crash bars and netting. One breath at a time.
For three heartbeats, that’s all there is. No war. No planet. Just the sickening intimacy of being too close to too many other bodies in air that’s already been exhaled too many times.
We’re lucky we’re all women. Male soldiers would’ve taken up more space, more oxygen. I just hope some of the men got out. Smart ones. Someone who might find us again. Because we don’t have weapons. And we’re headed toward who-knows-what.
But we’re not out of immediate trouble yet. We have to make it past all the planetary defenses. They’re under enemy control now, they’ll be aimed at us.
We should’ve left sooner.
We’re basically every doomed expedition rolled into one. Pick a historical disaster, and we're probably living the remix. With our luck, we'll end up a footnote about preventable failures, or land somewhere worse than dying in orbit.
The console’s voice command system crackles to life.
—sys…tem… re…boot—
Sloane lifts her head. “Is that the AI?”
“Allegedly,” I say. It’s too slow. “What’s our trajectory? We’re under fire and we need out now.”
—cal…ibrat—ing… within acceptable… para—meters—
“Define acceptable.”
—surviv—al prob…ability… twen—ty… percent—
“Twenty percent?” Dana says. “That’s not acceptable parameters under any safety regulations.”
—no viable alter—native—
“Reroute systems to shields. Calculate fastest orbital trajectory exit to a designated evacuation planet,” I tell the AI.
—complying—
—warning—pressure malfunction—
“Critical to life?”
—negative—
A pipe overhead drips. Something pink and viscous splatters on my thigh. I glance up, then over at Maya, who’s already glaring at it.
“If the coolant gets into your bloodstream,” Maya says, “it’ll scramble your synapses. Just FYI.”
“Great,” I reply. “At least we know where the pressure problem is.” I swipe at it with my multi-tool, sealing it fast.
Dana barks a laugh. Across from me, Lila’s shaking hard. Dr. Patel, still spotless, peels a med patch and slaps it on Lila’s wrist. She murmurs something too quiet to catch, but it works. Lila’s eyes start to unfocus in a way that says the worst of the panic is receding.
It’s wild. Everything’s gone sideways, and Dr. Patel still looks like she could walk into a boardroom and shame a bureaucrat into compliance. Her braid hasn’t slipped. There is not a stain on her jumpsuit. I’m relieved, and not just because I need her.
We’re all here because we were trained for this. Not like this, maybe. But this. I was meant to be on an evac shuttle—just not one leaking its way through near-orbit.
Behind me, Tessa has covered her face with her hands. At first, I think she’s praying. Then she looks up with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I want to go home,” she rasps. Her voice is shredded. “I had a cat. She’s still there.”
Tessa’s cat is not there. Nothing is there. But I don’t tell Tessa that.
Quinn, composed as ever with her signature don’t-look-at-my-panic ice queen energy, doesn’t even flinch.
She just tilts her head back against the bulkhead and says, “The best we can hope for is to preserve what we know of New Terra, and make a new home somewhere else. If we can find other escaped New Terrans on an unclaimed world, we can rebuild our society. The way we were taught.”
No one talks about the mathematical odds of that. To us, it’s a hundred percent. It’s happening. It has to, or New Terra died for nothing.
“Announce computer navigation,” I say, trying to wake the AI.
There’s no answer.
Sloane is curled next to me, probably running the same odds we're not talking about. I reach past her and brace on the wall. "How's the nav?" I ask. She's in place to check it manually. I've got to let her do her job.
Sloane blinks hard. “I… I loaded the exodus protocols, but there are so many warnings flashing, and the real pilot’s dead, so…”
So, it’s on me to patch it up before we hit the planetary defenses.
I slide along the wall and pop the relay panel with my multi-tool.
A spark arcs off the power regulator, kissing my wrist with a blue-white snap. I jerk back. The sharp stink of scorched hair hits my nose. So much for staying whole.
The inside of the panel is a full-on oven. That might be my fault for rerouting power to the shields. I bite my lip, grab a strip of thermal insulation, and jam the fried relay back into place. The nav screen above me flickers, then holds steady.
No one cheers.
We’re all too scared to tempt fate.
Then Tessa breaks. Voice shaking. “We’re all going to die.”
Shut up, Tessa, I think. I’m in the middle of trying to keep us alive. But I’m not mad at her. I just hate that she said what we’re all thinking.
“Not before I kick someone’s ass,” Piper mutters. She doesn’t even look up. “I call dibs on whoever designed this tin can.”
“This bucket’s so old, you’ll have to punch whatever’s left of his skeleton,” I say.
Quinn sighs. “Focus, please. The priorities of humanity, everyone.”
Dr. Patel doesn’t look up from Lila’s vitals. “We survive. We rebuild.” Her voice is flat. Worn out from carrying all of us. She’s triaging the future in her head already. But she’s planning for us to find a safe place to land.
So am I.
A hit to the hull knocks the breath from my lungs. The shuttle bucks hard, nose down, and I get a noseful of Piper's perfume. It's the good kind, probably rationed for emergencies. The world tilts. Someone whimpers, high and helpless.
It’s Reema.
She’s clutching her seed samples so tight her fingers have gone pale. She’s not even trying to brace. Just holding on to them.
She’s planning on survival. Dead people don’t need to grow food.
“Hey,” I call out, not loud, just firm. “We’re not dying. Not today. This ship is programmed to get us past the planetary defenses. It’s probably just debris. That’s what shields are for. Launch is always hell.”
Reema doesn’t answer, but her breathing slows. That’s good enough.
At the front of the cabin, Sloane taps the nav screen again. Her hands aren’t shaking as much. “If the programming holds, we’ll get through the defenses in five minutes. After that, the AI handles the rest. It will find a suitable course to a new planet.”
There’s another jolt. Dana swears. We slam into each other again. My knees knock hard against a bracket.
That’ll bruise.
My own hands are trembling now. Doesn’t matter. I keep checking the panel, listening for changes in the engine’s rhythm. It’s not good. But it’s not terminal. Yet.
Time slows.
Lila's ragged breathing. The scrape of Dana's bitten nails on the wall. Someone’s wrist pops as they flex numb fingers. All of it undercut by the dying-giraffe wheeze of the air scrubber.
Then Maya speaks.
“Anyone remember the first meeting?” she asks, voice dry as recycled air. “That speech they gave?”
Tessa groans. “‘You are the last line of hope for humanity.’” She says it like she’s quoting a B-grade movie she regrets watching.
"Yeah." Maya's voice drops. "Wonder if any of them are still alive."
Dana shifts, trying to unfold limbs that have nowhere to go. “If they are, I’d like to speak to the cruise director. This is the worst sail-away party I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even get my welcome champagne.”
Another shudder rocks the frame, along with a burst of light. It’s not debris. We’re being fired at.
Sloane mutters, “They spent all the money on fireworks.”
The red hazard strobes slice through the dark, painting our faces in flashes of ghost white and sharp shadow.
Sweat cools against my spine.
Then Tessa starts laughing. For a second, it catches. That hysterical edge that jumps body to body. We laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because we’re not dead.
Then silence again.
We all turn.
Outside the port, New Terra burns. Clouds of shrapnel swirl. Lightning forks through the upper atmosphere. There’s no time to mourn it, because the stars are strobing now.
White, then blue, white again, and then everything tilts.
“Gravity assist in three,” the shuttle AI says, so calm it makes me want to punch the speaker. At least it’s back on. “Brace.”
Then the deck lurches.
My ears pop. The hull lets out a long, metallic groan. Somewhere behind us, a bolt snaps like a gunshot.
The ship rotates. The viewport spins. New Terra slides into frame as we slingshot away.
And—wow. They upgraded this ship for speed, if nothing else.
I press my hand to the nearest console and whisper, “Just hold together. Just a little longer.”
We just need enough time find a place to land. Wherever that is.
And not run out of oxygen. Or food. Or sanity.
“Status?” I rasp.
The ship’s AI doesn’t respond. Then text runs across the screen by Sloane.
“Sloane, what’s it saying?” I ask.
Sloane reads it out loud, voice trembling. "Life support: marginal. Shields: eight percent. Hull integrity: sixty-two percent.”
It’s a mess. “Hey,” I say. “Not bad for a ship that could’ve exploded at launch.”