[right][img]https://i.imgur.com/05ACUy1.png[/img][/right][hr][img]https://i.imgur.com/R9bjhlz.png[/img]ois was making rounds--again--on both the Hydroponic Center and Eden. While all the reports had repeatedly come back pristine, she needed something to do to distract her from the reality of the situation that she was leaving behind everything that she had come to know in the past twenty-eight years. So she would check it all again... and again... and again. From the current stocks of manure to the already budding fruits and vegetables. They couldn't very well leave Earth--her stomach lurched again at the thought--without already producing a steady gross of foods and herbs for the working crew. What they brought fresh would only last so long and the reserves were for emergencies, not because she couldn't get the botany team together.

Thankfully, the gardens had been seeded several months ahead of the intended launch date to ensure everything would be going strong from the start. She had nary a problem to truly concern her, since she had not only the best technology at her disposal but also the best teams of scientists and botanists she had ever had the pleasure of meeting. It was astounding what the Genesis Project had been able to do with everyone working together. She wondered that it had taken nothing less than the threat of humanity's total extinction to bring everyone together. She didn't understand people most times and she wasn't sure she ever would in her lifetime. Especially now that the majority of them would seen be wiped out--

[color=orangered][i][b]Just stop. Stop thinking about it, before you drive yourself insane.[/b][/i][/color] It always came back around to that. She was already struggling with the survivor's guilt and the deed had yet to be done. But she [i]knew[/i] that it would come to pass. They made sure that everyone knew this wasn't a drill. This was actually happening. No one was going to wake up tomorrow, back in their old lives. None of her brothers or sisters or the kind couple who had cared for her back on that small farm would be joining her. Who was left to care for the orphans created from the Devastator's first contact with humanity? The Holts had been one in a million as far as Rois was concerned; that's one reason she took their last name as her own when she came of age. Nevertheless, she hadn't been able to bring them with her on this trip. They didn't meet the requirements.

Moving away from one of the monitors that listed the approximate moisture and nutrients present in the current subsection of the garden, Rois moved to gaze at the apiary. It eased her mind to watch the bees buzz from bud to bud, and before long her mind was drifting off into nostalgia of her time growing up. She would always be grateful to them for getting her here. There weren't many in her situation that had been given the opportunities in life that she had, and she knew it. She'd taken every chance and ran with it. As fast and as far as she could, and look where she was now. The head botanist for the whole Ark. She knew they were proud of her, and that helped get her through it. She had to focus on the positive because it was too easy to let the negative become overwhelming.

It wasn't long before the sounding of the ship's alarm brought her back to the crushing reality. Rois was confused as the red lights shown around the room, and she ran to access one of the nearby consoles only to find that they were locked. She heard the call overhead. [b]"...battlestations..."[/b] and her eyes went wide. They weren't supposed to be here yet, not unless Mars had fallen. At least, that was her limited understanding of the military's strategy for all the Arks. A force was sent to be a distraction while the Arks made their way to the Eye of Thea. Could the Devastator's have broken through their line already?

No satisfactory answer would come, so all Rois could do was seek the nearby designated shelter positions or a bunker. She ran through the rest of the labs at hydroponics, making sure all personnel heard the call and left the areas. She couldn't save anyone not already on the Vitae, but she would damn well take care of her own people. With the areas emptied, she'd follow and take her own shelter in place at the designated spot. After securely strapping herself in, she nervously began to whisper out all of the names of every type of fungus known to man in the hopes of keeping her disquieted mind preoccupied while whatever was happening... happened.