She stared at the words, her gloved hand still pressed against the cold, black monolith in the asteroid’s core. Her mission was simple: extract the relic, jump home, and save the solar system from the solar flare that would sterilize Earth in seventy-two hours. The relic was the only thing that could absorb the flare’s energy.
The device on Captain Elara Vane’s wrist blinked red. remove failed
Remove failed.
She set the timer for ten minutes, climbed back into her ship, and fired thrusters at maximum burn. The asteroid lurched. The monolith screamed—a psychic shriek that made her nose bleed. But the rock began to turn, its new course set not away from the sun, but toward Earth. She stared at the words, her gloved hand
She closed her eyes. Seventy-two hours became seventy-two minutes of oxygen. The asteroid was tumbling toward the sun. If she left without the relic, Earth burned. If she stayed, she burned with the asteroid, and Earth still burned. The device on Captain Elara Vane’s wrist blinked red
Elara sat down next to the monolith. She pulled off her helmet—a quiet act of defiance—and let the thin, cold air kiss her face. Then she drew her sidearm, not to fire at the rock, but to break the seal on her ship’s emergency reactor core.
Static hissed. Then, a voice she didn’t recognize, low and calm: “Captain, Control is gone. A pre-flare surge hit the orbital relay. You’re the last voice in the black.”