The first few rudimentary cabins were complete. More structurally stable wooden constructs than proper buildings. Empty doorways, no windows. Roofs thatched with leaves. A firepit had been constructed. The evening was dark, the stars dotting a heavy sky amongst the two bright moons.

  I sat on an emergency blanket stretched along the beach. The fire roared, meters tall, the flames clawing at the sky.

  Tobias plucked one of the sticks out of the ground and inspected the small animal that had been roasting. Nicole had likened them to a kind of mollusk, yellowish green, protected by a hard carapace, with fleshy offshoots to explore the shore

  The atmosphere was tense. Doubly so now that Tobias had begun to ration the nutrient brick. They needed enough food to make it back to the Euphorion after all.

  “Make sure it’s well charred," Tobias announced. “Better for it to taste bad than to get some alien pathogen.” He held out the stick, and Nicole limped over to take it.

  She tore off a piece of soft tissue and pressed it to her tongue. She then tossed it into the fire, making it spark. “It is not safe for consumption, not without buffering the high acidity.”

  Tobias sighed.

  My stomach rumbled. Darn, I was looking forward to real food. Or well.. realer food.

  Nicole had informed me that a healthy person could go about three weeks without food. I was not healthy. And despite still eating nutrient bricks, after a few days, I couldn’t imagine three weeks of nothing.

  “Fuck,” a man snapped, tossing his stickand mollusk thing into the fire. “We have what? Six days, maybe, until we’re entirely out of food, even with the rationing. What are we supposed to do?”

  “With over a hundred people, it will be chaos,” another officer nodded. “There will be riots.”

  “Let them riot,” Tobias snapped. “It will do them no good.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  “Are the cabins watertight?” Tobias asked.

  “We won’t know until it rains,” someone said.

  “Lord Barrick,” Nicole spoke. “We need to leave for the Euphorion. Some are sick and injured already. What little medical equipment we have is rudimentary. And your wife needs urgent care I am not equipped to provide,” she added quietly.

  Tobias nodded. “Who is willing to stay behind?”

  “Are all shuttles launching?” A woman asked anxiously, inspecting her mollusk.

  “The bridge is incapable of flight,” Nicole supplied. “But all shuttles will launch.”

  Tobias glared at her for butting in, but continued. “We need as much space as possible for cargo. I am holding out hope there will still be cryogenically frozen livestock. That and the farming equipment will take up most of the space.”

  I pulled the blanket around me, protecting my back from the wind. Moments like these were perhaps the worst. Where I was present but utterly ignored. I didn’t understand how Nicole could prefer it.

  “No one wants to stay behind, Baron,” the captain spoke up.

  “The majority of you will have to,” Tobias frowned. “You are all trained for this. The civilians are not.”

  “What about her?” Someone asked, pointing to Nicole. “She should stay right? The shuttles are safe. She would be more useful here.”

  “I am capable of functioning in a vacuum,” Nicole said flatly. “And I am far more useful salvaging the Euphorion than remaining here.”

  Tobias waved at her approvingly.

  “Your wife will also need to accompany us,” Nicole added.

  Tobias finally looked at her. “Absolutely not. She is in no condition to travel.”

  “I agree,” I forced myself to speak up. I couldn’t bear the thought of more space flight. “I’ll be okay here.”

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  Nicole glanced in my direction, her expression blank, but I knew her well enough to know she was not happy with my decision.

  She rolled her neck out. “Very well. I am merely concerned for your son, Lord Barrick. He would receive care in half the time.”

  Tobias nodded. “Then Elizabeth comes.”

  I stared at Nicole in disbelief and a little betrayal. She had lied to him. She had fully lied to him about the baby to ensure I was forced to get back on a stupid shuttle. I closed my mouth and glared at the fire. I didn’t want to stay behind after, but our arrival had been so horrible that I couldn’t handle doing that again. At least here I was on solid ground.

  The officers continued to bicker back and forth, discussing and dismissing options.

  “I am going to bed,” I announced, stumbling to my feet.

  “I’ll accompany her,” Nicole reassured Tobias before turning to follow me.

  That only made me angrier. I walked faster.

  “Elsy,” Nicole called gently.

  I spun around just to see her slowly hobbling after me.

  “No, I am angry,” I announced. I had never expressed that aloud before. Still, I waited for her. Angry, I still waited. “You did what he does,” I accused, forcing myself not to shout. “You-You made decisions for me like I wasn’t there. Then you ignored what I wanted and lied to his face to make him do what you wanted,” I deflated. “You did what he does…”

  “I did,” Nicole nodded. “But I had to, you cannot stay behind, and that was my moment to convince him of that fact. Yet I am sorry, it was wrong of me to treat you as he does.”

  “He is not a nice man,” I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself. “I just… you’re good to me. And that hurt… in the back of my throat, in my heart. Especially when I spoke up like that.”

  “I will not repeat my mistake. I knew it was unfair, but I could not allow him to leave you behind,” Nicole said, brushing out a wrinkle in my jacket absently. “I apologize.”

  I gave her a small smile, trying to let go of the tight feeling in my chest. “Okay. Nicole, I really don’t want to spend any more time in space,” I admitted. “Can you cure brain cancer with what’s on the Euphorion? Best case scenario, if everything is perfectly functional.”

  Nicole rubbed my shoulders and gently nudged me towards the bridge. “No. But it is plausible I am overlooking something. If you die and there was something I could have done, I will carry that with me for the rest of my existence.”

  I grimaced. “Nicole, I don’t want to die in some cold metal place. That’s where I was born. I want to die with my fingers in the dirt, surrounded by flowers.”

  Nicole nodded, but her frown didn’t ease. “Even if it is brain cancer, treatment could turn weeks into months. I desperately need to try, because when you die, I will still be here. And there are very few with whom that premise is so crushing.”

  I didn’t know how to make this decision. Was the control better? The acceptance of the end. Or was it better to desperately cling to hope when it could all be for naught, that control stripped away?

  Pressing my hand to my stomach, I felt desperately for any movement as we climbed up the stairs to the bridge. All felt so hauntingly calm inside my body. I knew it to be a lie.

  Nicole opened the sliding door for me, and we entered through the airlock.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I sighed, shuffling to my familiar closet hideaway.

  “I will respect your decision, but I feel the need to share more information without you,” Nicole admitted.

  “What is it?” I asked, lowering myself onto my makeshift bed with a grunt of effort.

  “I suspect that Tobias will have to stay behind,” Nicole replied, hurrying to ease my descent.

  “Why?”

  “Because while he is a decent ruler, he is not well-liked. Captain Tameron has the loyalty of the officers, not Tobias. Without a strong presence, I could see a mutiny occurring. His soldiers are dead, the civilians are panicked, his title means rather little at the end of the day out here,” Nicole grimaced.

  Oh,” I muttered. I hadn’t considered that. Though that wasn’t particularly new when it came to me. I always missed important things.

  “Additionally, Tobias is self-centred. I would feel much better retrieving my equipment myself. Lest he return with the wrong thing, or God forbid, forgets something. He is obsessed with growing food, as if you will not starve before that can happen,” she muttered.

  I adjusted my shoddy pillow and lay back. “How long does it take to grow food?” I asked.

  “Well, it depends, but… it is a slow process, months rather than weeks,” Nicole shortened. “With the number of people we are trying to keep alive, industry would be required.”

  I appreciated the brevity. “Is there any way to make those mollusk things safe to eat?” I ventured, letting my eyes flutter closed.

  “Without space to experiment, I cannot say for certain. Potentially soaking them in fatty liquids could allow the acid to bond to proteins, allowing for potentially safer consumption. But sourcing milk, or blood… that is a whole other challenge, and largely it would be unreliable,” Nicole explained gently. “Or… while it would likely take weeks, depending on the composition of clay on N7, it could potentially bind reactive molecules. Encase the meat in clay and let it sit and dry…

  “Sounds complicated,” I mumbled.

  “Ash could potentially be used thanks to the alkaline minerals, but again, that would be slow. Or… maybe salt,” Nicole added, considering.

  I meant to respond, but I was already drifting off to sleep.

  “Good night, Elsy,” I distantly heard Nicole whisper. “I will do everything I can to fix this. Sleep tight.”