Children of Sol

I. An Ending

Shards of glass hit the scorched earth like the fragments of a broken heart, falling freely from the picture frame as it was lifted. Above, jagged plunging stars screamed across the sky like banshees heralding a final end. Red fires danced where there once were cities, cavorting obscenely in the blackened remains of buildings that only yesterday scraped the sky unafraid, shrouded then in their fragile illusion of invulnerability. In the distance, great mushroom clouds sent plumes of noxious dust up into the atmosphere where they formed a sickening haze. It rained thick and oily droplets, black from polluting poisons.

It was over.

The last woman on the planet stood watching from a hilltop. Visions of the destruction danced across the mirrored visor of her armored environmental suit, masking pained eyes. On the inside of her helmet, dull red notifications and script flashed as she scanned through different sensor arrays that were reporting back to her heads-up display. The HUD occasionally flickered in time with the impacts of the closer bombs. Most of the planetary arrays had gone dark, but a few were still reporting in despite the damage. Their mournful notes were a swan song of radiation and flame, a whisper in the darkness. Her suit was the only thing between her and death.

Her eyes were as blue as the Terran sky was once. Now, the clouds were either black or reflecting back the dull orange light of fires as it echoed with the last gasps of a dying world.

A metallic—not deafening, but certainly obnoxious—squeal of interference broke the pall of silence next to her ear, an indication that she was no longer alone with her thoughts. She slapped the side of her helmet forcefully to clear it up enough to distinguish voices. The electromagnetic pulses from the nukes were playing merry hell with even hardened military systems. Once the bombardment stopped, communication would be crystal clear, though she wasn't certain there would be a planet left by that point.

"Zho'zhala Shay, are you there?" The voice was synthesized and jarringly pleasant.

"Yes." She set the broken picture frame back down on the desk in the abandoned house, the echoes that lingered with those smiling faces fading as she removed herself. Shay turned and started to make her way back towards the hill and the streamlined dropship waiting atop it. It was a wedge-shaped, matte black ship that weighed probably a hundred tons. A blue flicker was visible as the engines roared to life.

"You need to return. Departure in four standard minutes."

Shay checked her suit's chronometer with a wordless command that brought the counter up on her HUD. It was off as far as the hour due to the bombardment, but the count of minutes was still accurate. "Ayo." Her walk turned into a lope. Phantom eyes watched her go, faded hands reaching out to touch her arm, voices a whispering shadow at the edge of her mind. Shay could feel the black chill of the grave in her bones, but kept moving. Behind her, ravenous tongues of flame began to lap up the house's frame. The structure was already severely damaged by the shock waves that had ripped through the area before the dropship touched down.

A figure in an environmental suit just like hers waited for her in the decontamination chamber of the dropship when she stepped in. They were both blasted with ultrasonic vibration and a cleaning solution to wash away any radioactive or toxic materials, which were then funneled from the floor of the chamber to the exterior of the hull. He was shifting almost impatiently in his suit, though he did turn his mirrored visor towards her and speak. His voice came through his external speaker crackling, but clear. "You took your time."

The internal door opened and Shay took off her helmet. There was a hiss as she undid the seal around her neck. She sighed in relief as the cool air of the ship's interior hit her sweaty face. Running in full gear up a steep hill for three and a half minutes was not too unusual or beyond the parameters of her training, but it was still a workout. "I was...thoughtful." Supposedly, zho'zhalai did not experience the world as others did. They spent a lifetime cultivating a mind as smooth and flawless as a still pond, their thoughts a suggestion of current that moved placidly beneath. The surface was a delicate barrier that walled off the constant cacophony that was the competing emotions and sensations of others. Not that she had ever managed to fully attain the serenity that her mentors had achieved—Shay struggled with her own atavistic nature, the impulses and emotions bred into her over millions of years of evolution.