Music played through the terminal sitting in front of her. It was an old song,
really old but she had found it in the archives and had taken a shining too it. It was fitting at least for what they were going through, it wasn't happy but it wasn't quite sad either. It was a goodbye, as she browsed through images of Earth on her terminal she realized something. She had never known Earth, not the same as the Federation or Conglomerate had. Her home had always been the stars, and now she was trusted to looking after
thousands of people on their journey to a foreign planet. Part of her wished she had spent more time on Earth while she had had the chance, now she never would. She sighed as she closed the pictures on Earth, she had a feeling that the movie theaters in the Hub that showed documentaries would be the most popular, this wasn't going to be an easy journey.
She scrolled through the status screens on the different cryo-trays, each holding a thousand people. A single error, or a single misstep could cost them thousands of lives that they could not spare. She thought back to her parents, being younger and fitter as well as engineers they were qualified for the project. They had refused out of stubborn pride, claiming that they wanted to help give their daughter the best chance they could at getting away from the
Devastators. She slammed her fist down on the console, the screen flickered slightly as she did so. They had already lost everything, why couldn't they come? Why did they have to be so noble and stubborn? She stood up to take a walk around the vault. A couple of techs scurried around ignoring her, busy with their duties. It sometimes helped her to walk these giant halls when she got like this. All of this had been so trying ever since she was enlisted.
"What do you mean
no? Don't you understand what this means? There's no survival, the Arks are the only way out of this. They're the only way to live." Loretta stood on front of the door, she wasn't letting her parents out of this easily. After all, with ships taking off all over the place there was no telling where they'd be in the next half hour as Armani engineers were in high demand these days since most of them were wiped out. "You're going, if you're not smart enough to make the decision for yourselves I'm going to make it for you. This is your last chance, I'm not going to leave you to die like the rest." By this point tears were beginning to well in her eyes.
Her dad just sighed and put his hands on her shoulders, her mum was beyond words at this point. "Loretta, no. We've had long full lives, we may be
qualified to go on the ship but so are thousands of other people. We're proud of you, and if we die know that we'll die happy knowing that you're going to survive."
"But Dad-" He raised one of his hands to silence her.
"No, listen honey. We're proud of you, we couldn't be more proud of you if we tried. Though we can't leave, this is our home and we're going to fight for it. More importantly we're going to fight for
you." He used his right hand to lift her chin so he could see her face. "We are so, so proud and we love you more than anything. Though your mother and I, we have to do this. Let us, for you."
"Oh Dad-"
She shook her head, this little re-enactment wasn't exactly doing much to settle her nerves. She sighed as she heard the engines beginning to power up, the low hum created tiny reverberations throughout the hull. To a planet-borne such a feeling would likely take some getting used to, but for someone who had spent the majority of her life on ships it was reassuring. It was the most like home she had felt ever since she had come aboard. She smiled a sad smile, at least her parents would die doing what they loved. Working with machines aboard a ship, machines were always so full of life despite them being constructs.
Resting her hand on one of the cryo-trays she realized that was why she was so invested in cryogenics, the perfect symbiosis of life and machinery. The only way to make it more perfect were if the occupant were able to interact with the machine though all tests people had performed in those fields had failed miserably. Closing her eyes she allowed one of her neural implants flood her mind with images from her past, her and her parents. Even the bad moments were cherished. The scoldings and the jokes, all signs that they loved her more than everything they had ever known. She would take those memories out into the void, further than her parents had ever been. Humanities survival would be her monument to them.
She would not fail.
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