Waters as far as the eye could see began to wash over Aio. This wasn’t Neo-Kamakura, nor the Fringe, and as much as he knew about the planet Shin’ensei, there wasn’t anywhere he knew of that had this level of water.

  It tasted…salty, and he began to drift off deeper into its abyss.

  A light began to shine within his eyes, followed by silence. He was neither here nor there, as no sound reached him, nor could he make any sound. His eyes tracked the blackness, seeing the faint light as it began to sweep across the floor of the vast abyss. Silhouettes of what looked to be buildings, covered in strange fauna, and rusted beyond repair, sat quietly in his vision.

  As he turned to look at the source of the light, he noticed a strange device, similar to some of the older drone designs of the Night Market, except upon closer inspection, it was much larger than the ones he knew, and appeared to be hovering within the abyss, propelled by some strange spinning blades.

  He blinked, and within the next instant, he was inside some kind of strange assembly room. Men and women donning uniforms of unfamiliar design lined the seats which circled around this vast room built upon wood and drywall. Wood was such a dwindling resource, hardly seen in the city, so why are they using it so frivilously here? Upon closer inspection of the stands and tables, the craftsmanship of the wood was exceptional, carved intricately and of a variety of red coloring he could not recall being attributed to any of the trees he was familiar with.

  A man who looked to be in his 50s occupied the podium in the center of the room, surrounded by uniformed officers with a variety of strange metals pinned on their chest. Aio attempted to move closer from the top row, but found he couldn’t move. And like earlier, he could not speak, nor did it appear that anyone could see him.

  “We have reconvened with the final reclamation team and have been informed that the island city of Lazarus has officially fallen…”

  Murmurs began to spread incessantly amongst the assembly.

  “But fear not, though the last of the great cities are gone, the 12th reclamation Division has managed to extract the last of the cores and resources needed to finalize project Exodus. The project begins within the week and we estimate completion of the great colony ship by the end of the decade.”

  “But what of the insurgents?” one lady asked. She donned a dark green suit and spoke with a harsh accent of unfamiliar origin. “We barely have enough munitions to keep them at bay for the next year, let alone the next ten.”

  “And what of the takeover of the Island chains off of the coast of the United Frontier, Mr. President?” another older man spoke. “We are losing more and more ground to the rebels each day which passes. We can’t afford to spend more resources on your little spacefaring project here. Where do you expect us to go? To some unknown planet out in the middle of the Hoshiko system? Our satellite images show nothing but wastelands and debris out there, and you expect us to give up our home of Onyx for that?”

  Onyx…Aio thought.

  The President spoke up, “I would like to address Ms. Amaris’ and your concerns, Mr. Liu. We will provide the necessary reinforcements and support to help drive away the insurgents, but you must know at this point that we’ve reached a point where none of Onyx’s resource would be able to sustain our species in the long term. Your scientists confirmed it, mine did as well, and as far as I’m concerned, lest we escape this hellhole and give ourselves a fighting chance, we will not survive.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You’re planning on joining the expedition team aren’t you? Leaving us behind to fend for ourselves?” another assembly member accused.

  The crowd erupted in cries of complaint.

  “Order, order!” a podium member shouted, voice amplified a strange black device. “We bicker like children in the face of humanity’s last stand. Have we not learned from our mistakes? War got us here in the first place! We have no one to blame but ourselves. President Kamakura has been doing nothing but –”

  The President put up his hand, cutting off the man speaking to his right.

  “I understand your concerns everyone, but this isn’t about me. This is about the future of humanity. I…will not be joining the expedition.”

  The crowd silenced, and their eyes quietly rested on the aging man who seemed more important than anyone else in the world at this moment.

  “Instead, I will be assigning Fleet Captain Kamakura to lead this expedition into this unknown new planet. We have all but verified its habitability, and will send the brightest minds of the future to join him on the Exodus starship as well as the most experienced starship pilots. As for the assembly members here today, that includes your sons and daughters.”

  Ms. Amaris nodded, as if understanding, “That’s what the learning facilities in Kamakura city were used for. You intended this colonization project since the first satellite landed on that desert planet.”

  “Yes,” the President replied. “And I believe that unlike the prior expeditions, we won’t get another chance like this again. With the last of the falling glaciers, the radiation, and the dwindling resources we have, we won’t be able to last for another half-century. I won’t give up on Onyx – a sentiment I’m sure many of the assembly here share – but I won’t pretend that our homes are anything but lost at this point. To spare ourselves that inevitability, we will give our future sons and daughters a chance for something more…so please, I ask that you lend me a hand once more. I will do my utmost to defend the borders of this United Frontier, and though all of the great cities have fallen, I will make sure the remnants of humanity live for as long as we breathe on this beautiful planet.”

  Mr. Liu stood up, and sighed, “Though I often disagree with your policies, I will admit that I am not so blind to what’s been happening that I would forego everything in my stubbornness. My son is part of your most trusted,” he said, looking at a young man sitting in the outer seats or the podium row where the President was standing. “If you’re planning on sending Cain on this journey, then I know you aren’t going into this with ulterior motives. You have my support.”

  “And mine,” another voice said.

  “And mine.”

  “And mine.”

  And with that Aio witnessed the consensus of a hundred men and women, all gathered for the sole purpose of keeping humanity alive in the wake of a dying planet.

  Visions after visions passed after.

  Aio saw a warfront filled with death and starvation, noxious fumes and the absolute death of nature and life. Breathing in the gas, Aio felt a pain that he had never experienced before. It ripped away at him inside and for the first time in his life, he thought this must have been his death.

  Corpses after corpses swam through his visions and clouds of light and fire filled the skies. It was a scene he’s never before witnessed. It was…primordial.

  Moments later he was inside an antechamber, metallic walls of silver surrounding him. The pain passed as if it had never existed and Aio stood once again, watching as a large set of double doors began to open. Steam hissed from its hinges and beyond the room he saw a large control center lined with machinery and devices never before seen.

  Next to the antechamber he saw silhouettes of people walking out from the dark edges of the hall. In it, a much older version of the Fleet Captain arrived with a dozen other armed men with varying devices strapped onto their sides, and…

  Are those the sons and daughters?

  Children and teens of various age groups smiled and began to run into the control center, running around and towards the large window which surrounded half the room’s edge. Faces plastered against it, Aio realized he was looking into something that he only ever read about in the past…

  Deep space. This was space.

  It clicked for him. A ship that travels the stars. Was that even possible? He’s never heard of any such feat in his life.

  As his shock grew, he froze, looking at the last of the children slowly walking out from the antechamber and into the control center, and realized though her features were much younger than he remembered from the history books, there was no doubt about who he saw in front of him.

  Alyssa Kamakura…