What was another liftoff?

This was the last one, you fool!

Nikita held a small ball in his hand--he had bought it before he had boarded; it was blue and green, with indiscriminate shapes running ragged across the sphere. It was the Earth. As he held the Earth in the palm of his hand, Nikita knew the Earth would disappear beneath him as the behemoth vessel lifted into the air, into space, into the cold blackness of oblivion. There were so many people in here... all of them cramming their faces onto the portholes to get one last glimpse of the world before its inevitable demise. Mars was gone--or at least soon to be gone--this world wouldn't be any different.

"The Last Russian," he laughed softly, looking at his pale fingers. It was strange to contemplate that this language that he spoke would be dead in a few days. To even think about that... 'twas strange. No Russian ever accomplished much... so what was the point in saving them? No, Nikita alone had shown that he was worth keeping. Now that he thought about it, not too many Europeans--the ones that were left anyways--had been selected for the Project. 'Twas an effect of The War, he supposed. 

[i]"...I have faith now. Action Stations. All hands prepare for lift-off."[/i]

Faith...?

Nikita looked up at the speaker through which the crackly voice spoke. It was a voice of authority, if nothing else could be said--the Rear Admiral certainly acted the part well if he was acting--but something in that dragging tone suggested the pain of the mission. They were, after all, running away with their tails between their legs. Off and off and by and by and bye! Fare thee well, you rapscallion Earth...

Nikita looked up into the clouds, watched the desperate cotton claws ready attempt to hold [i]Vitae[/i] back. It was as if Earth herself could not bear to die like her people were about to do. Until the darkness of space reached him, the Russian could convince himself he was thoroughly safe. But as he thought, he grew cold. Funny thing about being in space, he thought to himself, was that the stars don't twinkle anymore. There's no atmosphere to distort their light. They're just millions of unblinking eyes billions of lightyears away, probably already dead, belonging to a different eon than the one the humans claimed.

This was the age of man! And we fled!

Nikita admired the Admiral for that, however. The bravery to leave, knowing that you're dooming the human existence on Earth, is not a decision that he could have made. It meant that the leadership was strong at its head. All that remained to be seen was whether it also possessed a conscience, or if this was just another machine that worked and slaved for no purpose other than the purpose for which it had been constructed. It was existence, but a callow existence at that.

When Nikita slipped away from the windows, he went unnoticed down the corridor, past rows of silent, awestruck, (frightened) people, all staring into the blackness, darkness that they were about to plunge into. A few of them were crying--quite a few--but Nikita was not. It was what was to happen. Such an outcome was a logical conclusion to a ten-thousand-year race. What was it to be replaced with? Another man? A hominid? Nikita did not know, but he did hypothesize that the psychological state of these "people" on board could not be sustainable. Such things require energy, and the lack of a source would only start to diminish the effectiveness of everything...

"We are headed for total collapse!"

Strangely, Nikita did not utter these words. Rather, it was some frantic fellow scraping at the glass like a caged ferret, screaming incoherently and more or less causing those around him to be quite disturbed. Nikita quietly stepped forward and procured a syringe from his satchel. Catching the man by the arm, he found a vein in no time at all--that wasn't hard anymore--and jabbed him. The man dribbled onto the ground instantly, blubbering as Nikita set him on one of the benches to lie down. 

"Ssh, comrade. To scream would be to upset the mind of the ship itself, and that's what's keeping us alive," Nikita said in a gravel whisper. The man stared up at him with such distraught eyes that Nikita couldn't help but empathize with him. He clutched the man's hand and gave him a touch on the shoulder: "We're all together now. As a race. We couldn't more together, comrade. We are more than family. We are each other."

Nikita didn't know if that calmed him down or if the drug had been especially potent, but the man fell unconscious soon after. A small crowd watched him with grave stares, dead eyes not interesting themselves not so much in him but in their own greater situation. Nikita smiled and looked at one woman in particular, with eyes so bright and orange they could not be anything else but enhancements. Must've been born blind, he thought. Now, she must see.

He stood and walked through the crowd who lifelessly moved back to the windows, staring as their world, their home began to fall away from their pale feet.