Pluto, she saw, in all it’s rugged, ice covered, rocky glory, shone red, covered in tholins. It almost looked like Sedna. There exuded a horror from it that she couldn’t explain. As Allister stared down at the planetoid, she found herself at a loss for words. The tholins, the vines, lay thick here too. That meant they were spreading deeper into the Solar System. If that were true, then it was only a matter of time until they reached Earth. The sun illuminated half of Pluto, revealing its dusty red surface laced with tendrils, and she, Thomas, and Yu all knew that traversing to the base would be as pointless as it was hopeless.

  “They’re gone,” Thomas said, shutting the radio off. He’d tried to hail Pluto’s base several times, each time getting no response. “I don’t think there’s anyone left down there.”

  “What do we do?” Allister asked, biting down on her thumbnail anxiously.

  Yu, sitting in the copilot’s seat, stared out at the planet silently. On its horizon, the red-capped, tidally locked moon of Charon slowly crept around. “Charon,” she said. “It’s our last hope. We need to find out what the Manet Vivus is, and what the Protocol entails.”

  Sitting in uncomfortable tension, Allister said, “What if it’s overrun too?”

  “We don’t have many options,” Thomas said, sitting back and thinking. “We need to refuel to make the jump to the FOB around Neptune either way.”

  “So… Charon,” Allister muttered. “This ‘Manet Vivus’ and the Protocol. What if it doesn’t work?”

  Yu chewed on her nail. “Only one way to find out. Thomas? Bring us in?”

  He nodded and pushed the throttle lever forward gently, urging the Mystic Sky onward. The gunship, battle battered, with scrapes and indents dinging its hull, still flew like a charm, dipping down and making the quick trip to Charon’s surface.

  The moon was surprisingly smooth. Yes, there were some craters, some open plains informally dubbed ‘seas’, but for the most part, it was fairly smooth. Here, the tholins had covered everything in an ocean of crimson, just recently, it seemed, starting to coalesce into the vines they’d seen on Sedna, MK2, and now, Pluto.

  As they approached, Thomas set the ship on an orbital track around the moon, and said to Yu, “Where is this base?”

  “I’m not sure. Seemed like a fairly secretive thing. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s on the other side though. Charon is tidally locked to Pluto, meaning that the other side of the moon is always facing away from the planet. Seems like a perfect place to put a secret project.”

  “Let’s find out,” he said, grabbing the stick and the throttle and bringing them up around the northern, tholin encrusted pole of Charon and over to the dark side of the moon. He flipped on the massive floodlights beneath the Sky and began to scour the moon’s surface, but with its size, it seemed an impossible task, akin to finding a needle in hay.

  “There has to be a better way to do this,” Thomas said.

  Yu bit down on her knuckle gently, thinking. TerraGov was known for its secrecy. With spaceflight as accessible as it was now, putting a base in an easily identifiable location would’ve been a folly, were it holding something so seemingly important as the Manet Vivus, whatever that meant. Placing it on the dark side, that was a start. But it wasn’t enough.

  Then, it clicked.

  “Does this ship have subsurface radar?” she asked Thomas.

  He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and then checked the dash. “No,” he said. “But if that’s where your head is at, I have an idea.”

  The Sky dipped down, now skimming the surface of Charon with accelerating speed. Thomas said, “This ship does have sonar.”

  “Why?” Allister asked. “I though that was an underwater thing.”

  Thomas smiled, but kept his eyes straight. “This ship is made to detect things underwater. During the insurrection of the Asteroid Belt, Europa also rebelled. Thing about Europa is, most of its inhabitants live in the ocean beneath the crust. Submarines, subaquatic structures, cities even, it was all difficult for spacefaring ships to detect.”

  Her eyes widened. “So they added sonar capabilities…”

  “Exactly,” he said. “And Yu, if I’m correct, doesn’t Charon have cryovolcanos?”

  Understanding dawning on her face now, she shot him an approving, if surprised look, and said, “It does. And I see what you’re suggesting. But how?”

  “This gunship is a Mark-Four Halden-Class. It comes with a deployable water-proof probe in its nose. Sink that into a geyser, and maybe we’ll get a better feel for what the crust of Charon looks like.”

  Yu nodded slowly. “It’s stupid. But it might work.”

  “Some of humanity’s best actions were born of stupidity being mistaken for bravery,” he said. “I’ll take us in, I think I see one up ahead.”

  There, before them, a small mound rose from the otherwise fairly flat surface of Charon. Though dormant in appearance, the ice on its peak and the frozen methane lake around its base told them all they needed to know. Thomas brought the Sky directly above its summit, and angled the ship so that they could see directly the entrance to the geyser.

  Below them lay the still geyser of an active cryovolcano.

  “This’ll work,” Yu said. “Where’s the probe?”

  “Right here,” said Thomas, flipping up a small covering that then displayed a small set of controls. He pushed a button, and from the nose of the ship, a tiny rectangular probe deployed, using miniature thrusters and tiny bits of fuel to maneuver at his behest into the maw of the volcano.

  It descended down deep into the icy hole, before it caught a snag. Thomas grunted.

  “What happened?” Allister asked, watching intently.

  “Ice,” he said. “The geyser is blocked up.”

  “Will sonar still work?” Yu asked.

  He shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

  Thomas pushed another button, sending a sonar pulse through the icy layer that blocked up the volcano’s maw, and found that it had worked. Data started coming through on the ship’s dash, unreadable to Allister, but Yu and Thomas both interpreted it with fervor.

  “Anything?” she asked, looking at them.

  Yu shook her head. “Nothing yet, but the pulses are still spreading through the undercrust."

  They waited for a moment, reading the data as it poured through on the screens, and then, thankfully, Yu spotted something. “There!” she exclaimed, pointing to the screen. “An anomaly, under the crust. Those brilliant bastards, they really did dig down.”

  “Is that it?” Thomas asked, looking at her, curious. “That’s the base?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It has to be. These readings aren’t like those of any natural formation. That looks manmade.”

  Allister leaned in and asked, “How can you tell?”

  “The edges,” she said. She flipped out a small keyboard on the dash and began to punch in numbers. “Nature doesn’t like straight lines. Thomas, can you get us to these coordinates?”

  “Already on it,” he said. He tilted the ship up, making it level with the surface of Charon, and gently nudged the throttle forward. They then gracefully skimmed the moon’s surface, weaving through several other rocky formations and cryovolcanos, before finally coming to a hover directly over the set of coordinates Yu had given.

  There was nothing here to indicate a subsurface base, no landing pads, no lights. Crimson dust lay on the flat surface of Charon, no notable features distinguishing it from the rest of the moon. There was, however, yet another volcano in the distance. This one seemed inactive, Yu thought, noting the lack of ice around its edges.

  “Try there,” she said, pointing at it.

  Thomas brought the ship over to the volcano, coming to a stop just over it’s vent. Then, he flipped on the landing camera that showed him what was directly beneath the ship, and to his, and the rest of their surprise, there were small, flickering orange lights lining the inside of the volcano, stretching down into the dark. They had found it.

  Yu let out a relieved breath and clapped her hands as Allister sat back, unsure.

  “This is it,” Yu said.

  Thomas started lowering the Sky through the vent, lower, lower, until they were deep in the crust of Charon, surrounded by a darkness only broken by the flickering and flashing of the guidance lights. But as they neared the bottom of the vent, another passage opened to them, leading them straight ahead.

  Pillars of metal propped up the side of the passageway, which was just large enough for the Sky to fit through comfortably. There were more lights here, overhead floodlights that wavered, casting down a vibrant glow into the rock, in addition to the orange guidance lights on the walls. At the end of the passage was a thick blast door that had attempted to seal shut, but thick tholin vines running between its teeth propped it open, keeping it ajar. In fact, the vines were so thick down here, all along the walls, the floor, the ceiling, that maneuvering proved difficult. It was too late for anyone left inside to escape, they knew.

  Once the Sky reached the end of the tunnel, Thomas set it down so that the nose was touching the metal of the blast door. Then, powering off the engines, he turned to them and said, “The temp readings are off the charts. It’s cold out there. We don’t have long to get inside and find heat.”

  “How are we even going to get inside in the first place?” Allister asked. “There’s another set of doors on the other side, and those are sealed shut.”

  Yu thought for a moment, and then said, “I wonder if my accesses will let us through a maintenance hatch on the inside of the airlock. Supposing there is one, of course. But I would imagine there is.”

  “Do you think that will work?” Thomas asked.

  She shrugged. “Only one way to find out, and we’re not gonna solve things by just sitting here. So.”

  They all suited up, helmets on and oxygen full, and slipped out of the underbelly airlock in the ship, leaving it pressurized just in case. Then, standing in the dark tunnel, Thomas instructed them all to climb to the top of the gunship and jump through the gap in the doors, which was just level with the top of the Sky.

  Yu went first, leaping in the low gravity through the doors’ lacuna, and tumbling into the airlock on the other side. Then, Thomas helped Allister through, before jumping through himself. The found themselves in a large square room, filled with bright white light pouring down from the floodlights above. Concrete walls, thick and sturdy, engulfed them, and there were signs on the wall instructing any incoming ships to wait for the lock to cycle. Against the far wall, the vines clustered, as though they were alive and trying to pry open the doors.

  Looking around, Yu spotted a small door to their right. “This way,” she said, bouncing over to it.

  Allister and Thomas followed, all of them meeting up at the small hatch in the wall. Beside it was a keypad and a PDA scanner that still seemed functional, if dusted with tholins. She wiped it off and presented her PDA, pressing it to the scanner, and it accepted her credentials by name.

  On the screen, a small message read: Welcome, Director Yu Solarum.

  They looked at each other, but the cold was beginning to creep into their suits. Allister could feel it beginning to bite, and so she said, “Hurry, please.”

  Yu nodded and yanked at the hatch, opening it and letting them all through to a small airlock. Then, she sealed it behind her, twisting the latch, and cycling the airlock. Air hissed through the vents, rushing into the room, pressurizing it.

  Then, the other door swung open slowly, letting them into a small maintenance tunnel that stretched off to the left. The tholin dust was here too, pouring out of the air vents. Seeing this, Yu said, “This way. And keep your helmets on.”

  Together, they made their way through the lambent, orange-lit maintenance tunnel, which led down a ways, and then hooked a right, letting them out into the base proper, which was grand. Magnificent, even. As they stepped through the maintenance door, shutting it behind them, they paused in the enormity of what they saw.

  The base itself was a massive open room with hangar docking next to the single ship-sized airlock that they’d been stopped by. Two NRT ships sat here, covered in red dust, abandoned. Looking deeper into the room, they found crates piled up, forklifts overturned, barrels off to the side, and there, in the middle, the centerpiece of it all, hung a great, long, complex and intricate ship.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  On its side read the name: Manet Vivus.

  The lengthy ship held a coat of completely white paint, with a bridge deck and windows at the front, followed by a long octagonal hull that stretched the length of it. Three great centrifuge rings haloed its body, and at points, massive tanks were welded onto the side. There were back thrusters that would’ve made a battlecruiser jealous, huge conical white exhaust ports displaying their would-be prowess. Lights lined the side of the ship, which hovered suspended in the air with great metal leashes hooked into it at several points that attached to the walls of the chamber. Overhead, a control center, jutting out of the wall, stared down at the ship with ghostly white light pouring out of it into the dim chamber.

  They soaked it all in.

  “This… is the Manet Vivus?” Allister muttered. “It’s a ship?”

  “It makes sense,” Yu said. “It all makes sense now.” She thought back to the message she had read on Xiao’s computer, to the ‘Siggs-Siegemeyer’ engine, the embryos, and a horrifying revelation dawned on her like a black sun dawning upon a dying planet.

  “It’s a life raft.”

  Allister shot her a look. “What?”

  “It’s a life raft,” she repeated, looking at Allister, then to Thomas. “Oh no. Oh God no. We need to get to that control room.”

  She broke out in a sprint, bounding over to the stairs that led up the wall to the control room. Thomas and Allister exchanged a look of confusion, but followed her, hurrying up the stairs behind her and into the room.

  The control room was a small two-tiered booth cut into the stone and reinforce with concrete. Here, dusted with tholins, the bodies of the scientists who’d worked on the craft lay quiet, splayed out, some with gunshot wounds. Yu looked around at them, disgusted, but promptly switched her focus to the main control board by the window.

  She rushed up to it and pressed her PDA against the scanner, which, again, gave her access to the systems. Allister and Thomas rushed up behind her.

  “What do you mean it’s a life raft,” Allister asked, leaning on the control board and breathing heavily.

  Yu looked at her. “The Protocol. It’s a contingency, right Thomas?” she asked, looking to him.

  He nodded. “As best I can tell, yes.”

  Wild panic filled Yu’s eyes. “Oh God. This ship, the Manet Vivus, it’s carrying embryos. I think they were going to send it out of the Solar System. I think whatever the Protocol is, it’s going to wipe out the tholins – and us.”

  Quickly, she began to input information into the system, seeking answers. “See here,” she said, pointing to the holoscreen before them as a diagram of a strange, translucent barrel appeared. “These are the embryos. They’re suspended in some kind of amniotic fluid. And if I’m reading this right, there are incubators aboard too. They’re going to grow people.”

  Allister’s eyes widened. “Oh no. This, this can’t be right.”

  “I think it is,” Thomas said, examining the diagram before him with a dole frown. “I think Yu is right.”

  “If I am,” she said, “then we need to get in contact with TerraGov yesterday. I think I can get a clear link from here if I just… and then… here!”

  She pushed a button, and then, on the holoterminal, a bar appeared, loading. They watched with bated breath as it did so, and as it finally filled completely, a green indicator flashed on the screen.

  The terminal then linked them directly to TerraGov High Command, the Council on Earth. Or at least, that’s what they assumed. The room they were looking into was dark, and there was only one person in it, looking down at a computer with a dismal, empty, thousand yard stare.

  “Hello?” Allister said.

  The person jerked up and turned around, eyes scanning the screen behind her. Then, she said, “By God. Hello? Oh holy hell, thank God. I thought we’d lost everyone on Charon.”

  “Who are you?” Yu asked, leaning forward to get a better look. The woman had gray hair and wore a blue and white admiral’s jumpsuit, with a multitude of ribbons on her chest. She looked at them through the screen for a moment, and then sighed.

  “I am High Admiral Janice Withers, Chairwoman of the TerraGov Council. Who might you be?”

  “I am Yu Solarum, Director of Communications for the Kuiper Belt. This is Allister McCullinay, head scientist from Arrokoth, and her husband, Special Operator Thomas McCullinay.”

  The woman looked at them with an intensity and weariness of an aged, raging bonfire. “You’ll do,” she said quietly.

  “Do what?” Yu asked.

  “You’ll initiate the Kuiper Protocol and launch the Manet Vivus.”

  Allister looked out at the ship, soaking in the implications. “What is this thing?” she asked.

  “This ship is the highly classified work of hundreds of the greatest minds humanity has – had – to offer,” Admiral Withers said. “Aboard it is the quantum entanglement engine known as the Siggs-Siegemeyer, as well as carefully selected embryo specimens from our fittest and smartest.”

  “And the Protocol?” Yu asked. “What is the Protocol?”

  Admiral Withers’ face grew grim, her lips taut, her eyes tired. “The Kuiper Protocol is humanity’s last defense against an ancient contact event. With all you’ve likely been through and seen, I assume you at least have some idea of what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t,” Thomas said. “Are you talking about the tholins?”

  She nodded. “I am. You see, Director and company, these tholins have been under investigation for over a century. And Doctor McCullinay – oh yes, I know much about you – your research confirmed our suspicions. Senda going dark was the green light we needed to prepare the embryos, but it was your early research that showed us that what we were doing here was righteous.”

  Allister stepped back, recoiling in shock. “My research?”

  “Yes, Doctor. You see, the Manet Vivus is a project over thirty five years in the making. We had suspicions, and it was green lit back in twenty-two-o-seven. It was, at first, little more than a pet project, a just-in-case scenario. But when you started reporting your findings on the tholins, we accelerated the pace, funneled funding into it. The results of which you now see before you.”

  Allister stared out the window. “And that is?”

  “Hope, Doctor,” said the Admiral. “Hope. For our species.”

  Thomas leaned forward on the desk. “The Protocol. What is it?”

  Admiral Withers frowned and turned away for a moment, as if in shame. “What do you all know about fusion?”

  Allister chimed in, “Fusion? It powers our ships, our tech. Why?”

  “Ah, it also powers our sun,” she said. “We discovered that if we could accelerate that fusion, we could also accelerate its lifespan.”

  Yu raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, Director, that we learned we could jump the sun’s age by billions of years under the right circumstances.” The Admiral watched them for any sign of understanding. “Do you know what a ‘thruma’ is?”

  The word sounded familiar. “Shishone,” Allister said, looking at Yu and Thomas. “He said something about thrumas, right?”

  Yu nodded. “They’re bombardment munitions, right?”

  “Thrumas are high velocity, high payload missile systems. Typically they carry plasma warheads, but in this case, they are carrying fusion reactors. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them.”

  Allister’s eyes widened as the horrible implications sunk in. “You… you would accelerate the sun’s life with them,” she said. “You’d burn everything. Kill everything.”

  The Admiral nodded. “It’s not an easy choice to make. But the alternative is worse. What do you know about mysticism?”

  “I know it’s a bunch of bullshit,” Yu said, shrugging.

  “Is it, Director?” she said. “When we discovered the potential ninth planet, we set in motion another secretive program, this one dating back to the late twenty-one-hundreds. It was a shameful period in TerraGov’s past. We tormented people, tortured them to break their minds, so that we could hijack them. Humanity, our consciousness, is special, Director Yu. The brain is a very unique organ. With it, we could see things, potential futures, at rates none of our quantum processers could ever dream of reaching. We saw death. Horrific violence. We saw this coming.”

  “With brain magic?” Yu said, scoffing. “Sounds like a bunch of made up nonsense.”

  “After all you’ve seen, would you really find it that far of a stretch that the human mind is capable of more than we once thought? That there is more out there than we once knew?”

  Yu went to speak, but the words caught in her throat. Admiral Withers, seeing this, continued, “The alternative to the Kuiper Protocol is the death of our species. At least with the Manet Vivus, we have hope. Not you, not I. But humanity.”

  This horrific revelation stabbed deeply into all of their hearts. They exchanged glances with each other, all lost, all sorrowful, all shocked and disgusted.

  “It’s monstrous,” Yu said.

  “It’s necessary,” said the Admiral.

  Thomas swallowed, finally shaken, finally scared, and said, “What do we do?”

  “You activate the Protocol. It can only be activated there, from that very room. I’ll send a signal to Charon from here, and it’ll unlock a safe on the wall behind you. There, there is a physical key of sorts, you’ll need to plug it into the port on the console in front of you and use Yu’s access to both launch the Vivus, and the thrumas.”

  “Why can’t you launch it from Earth?” Thomas asked.

  “We can only launch the thrumas from here. The Manet Vivus must be launched from Charon. We… thought we would have more time. We thought Xiao was trustworthy.”

  Yu looked over her shoulder and spotted the hatch safe in the wall. Its red indicator blinked green, and then, it swung open slowly, revealing a small, multi-toothed key that was the size of her finger.

  Admiral Withers rubbed her eyes, tears forming in them. “Launch the Vivus. Activate the Protocol. One of you will need to stay behind to physically turn the key that launches the ship. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who does what.”

  “And you?” Yu asked.

  She sighed, more tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “I’m going to go home and be with my family.”

  Allister slammed her hands on the console. “Is there no other way?”

  The Admiral shook her head. “No. Not at this point. Now do what must be done, and be swift about it. Things are getting bad. We’ve lost contact with Neptune.”

  “Neptune has gone dark?” Thomas blurted. The infection was spreading then, faster than he could’ve imagined.

  “Yes,” she said. “Now go. Launch the ship. Not just for you, but for all of us. You are our only hope now.”

  The line cut off, and the screen went dark, leaving them alone with each other.

  Yu looked to Allister, who looked to Thomas, who looked to Yu.

  A moment of somber silence floated through the air.

  “Well,” Thomas said. “I think it’s clear who should go.”

  Allister shot him a look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it should be you, and you.” He looked to the women. “Allister, you have the scientific knowledge that something like this is going to need, and Yu, you have the navigational know-how to guide the ship.”

  “What about a pilot?” Allister asked. “We need a pilot.”

  Yu turned to the console and started clacking at the keyboard. “I don’t think we do,” she said. “It says here there’s a fully functional artificial intelligence aboard the ship.”

  Allister shot her a nasty glare, but Thomas then put his hand gently on her shoulder, and said, “Go, Allister.”

  “No! I’m not going to leave you!” she cried, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I can’t, Thomas! After all this time of not seeing you, of not holding you at night… what about our child? Riley? We were going to have kids, Thomas, settle down, we –”

  “My love,” he said gently, offering a smile that she could clearly see was strained and forced, “you two are about to be the mothers of our species. You’ll get the children you want. You don’t need me for that.”

  “I do need you!” she bawled. “I need you Thomas, please. Please, don’t leave me again. Please.”

  Yu input more information into the console. “Look, here. They found something.”

  Thomas looked over to the holoscreen. “What is it?”

  “It’s… a planet,” she said, zooming in on a stellar map, her eyes focused. “A terrestrial world. With water. Oxygen. They found a new home.”

  Allister turned to see, wiping her eyes. “What?”

  “Here. It’s unnamed so far. Around a sun named Zeol.”

  Thomas sighed, and placed a hand on Allister’s arm, spinning her around to face him. “Don’t you see, love? You have to go. You have to carry on, not just for me, but for everyone.”

  “I can’t do it without you…” she said, lips quivering.

  “Yes, you can,” he said, smiling. “I’ve seen such courage and bravery from you these past few weeks. I know you can. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “But –”

  “No buts baby. Listen to me right now. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is bravery in the face of it. And you are courageous, more than you give yourself credit for. I need you to be brave now, okay? I need you to go.”

  She sniffled, rubbing her eyes like a small child losing her parent. He brought her in, embracing her warmly, holding her tight. Then, he removed his helmet, shaking out his hair, and kissed hers lightly on the forehead.

  “Go, Allister. Be brave now. Go.”

  Yu looked at him, and nodded, and he nodded back. Then, setting her PDA down on the console, Yu took Allister’s arm, and said, “Come on. We need to get aboard.”

  Yu hooked her arm under Allister’s dragged her on. Allister reluctantly walked with her, giving Thomas one last look at the door’s threshold. He smiled at her.

  “Remember, love. Be courageous. For me.”

  She nodded with tears streaming down her cheeks, and then turned, and together with Yu, descended the stairs and headed toward the Manet Vivus.

  A small ramp on the side let down as they approached, as if they ship could sense their presence. They walked up the stairs and into the Vivus, the ramp then closing behind them. Now in a long hallway of white light and white metal, they stood there, both feeling helplessly alone.

  Yu pulled in Allister for a hug, saying, “It’s going to be okay.”

  She shook her head violently. “It’s not!”

  “It is,” Yu said. “It will be.”

  Just then, another voice chimed in over the speakers of the ship, a light, delicate voice, neither male nor female. It said, “Welcome aboard the Manet Vivus.”

  Yu flinched. “Who are you?”

  “I am the shipboard AI. My name is Sol, and I am here to assist you with your journey. Please make your way to the bridge for departure. My sensors are telling me that tholin presence is high within the base. We should leave soon.”

  Turning to face Allister, determination in her eye, Yu said, “Allister, I know you’re struggling right now. But we need to get to the bridge.”

  She looked up at Yu, large, glossy eyes filled with sorrow, but, saying nothing, simply nodded and followed.

  Yu said, “Which way to the bridge?”

  “It is straight ahead. The ship is relatively simple in design. I will explain the layout when we are starbound. For now, please follow these lights to the bridge,” said the AI.

  Light blue LED’s flickered to life on the floor, guiding them straight down the central tube of the ship. The innards were small, a cramped space, with multiple compartments leading off to their right and left as they walked, all behind closed doors. Tracing the lights, they soon came upon a door at the end of the hall, which opened for them as they arrived.

  The small bridge now appeared before them, with four seats, two below, two above on a raised platform behind the first. A large dome glass window looked out into the base beyond.

  “Please have a seat,” the AI said. “We must depart soon.”

  Allister and Yu sat in the seats on the raised platform, and from the floor, two consoles rose from metal hatches. Holoterminals appeared before them, displaying navigation data, shipboard readings, life support indicators, and more. They buckled into the seats, sat back, and waited.

  The AI then said, “Incomming transmission from the control room. Patching it through.”

  Then, Thomas’s voice came through the intercom. “Yu, Allister,” he said. “I’ve got the key in the port. Are you two ready?”

  “Thomas,” Allister said quietly. “I love you.”

  “I love you too. Be brave,” he said. “Turning the key now.”

  The ship lurched, rising up through the chamber on its ropes, spinning around to face the control room. There, Allister, Yu, and Thomas came face to face for the last time.

  He waved at them, smiling.

  “Be courageous,” he said. “And stay safe.”

  Allister held out her hand to him, and he planted his against the window as if they could touch, before pressing Yu’s PDA to the console and twisting the key all the way.

  The AI chimed, “Launch sequence initiated. Protocol initiated. Launching in three… two… one…”

  The ship jerked as the upper crust of Charon split apart in a fissure, the great blast doors on the ceiling parting away from each other. Then, at the behest of the ropes, the ship tilted starward, putting Allister and Yu face to face with infinity. A deep hum resonated throughout the ship as the engines began to power up.

  Allister felt adrenaline shoot through her back, up her torso and down her legs. This was it. They were leaving. Forever. Her home, all she’d ever known, seen, and done, being left behind for a sliver of hope that this all worked in the first place. She felt sick. Looking to Yu, seeing her pale face, Allister could tell she felt the same.

  “Firing thrusters,” the AI hummed.

  The Manet Vivus jerked forward, snapping free of its ropes as it launched out of Charon and into space. It was slow, at first, picking up an orbit around Charon as the AI calculated its next maneuver. The ship turned lazily above the moon, pointing the bridge into deep space.

  The AI dinged. “Quantum leap initiated. You may want to hold onto something.”

  “Quantum leap?” Allister asked, looking around in a panic.

  But there was no time to respond as the ship blinked out of existence, leaving Thomas, watching from below, alone, as a bright, star-like missile flashed across the sky. Then came another, and another, racing toward the sun with anger and fury. The Protocol had been initiated, the Vivus had been launched.

  And now, all he could do was wait, and watch.

  Alone.