Flash SF: The Last Bon Voyage

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I muttered, “leaving me so you can die in space.”

“Please don’t frame it like that,” the tremble in Phoebe’s voice exposed how traumatic this was for her too. “You know why I’m doing this. I want my children to–”

“Your great great grandchidren,” I spat.

“I want them to live in a solar system where there’s hope of visiting other worlds,” she sobbed once and my heart ached. “There’s no vision here.”

I knew she was making the right choice, the noble choice, and I was a bastard for making it so difficult for her. It’s just that she was so beautiful, especially with the streams of shuttlecraft lights behind her, all leading to and from the Intergalactic Ark.

The spacecraft practically dominated the starless portion of the sky where it orbited. A century in the making, for every year it did not depart three years were added to its voyage. I couldn’t believe the majority of our population would trust their lives to such a hastily constructed bureaucratic monstrosity, especially my wife.

Phoebe reached up with a tissue to dab at my cheeks. The cuffs of my sleeves were damp from pressing them against my eyes, and now my teardrops were outrunning my efforts to hide my sorrow.

“What are your ancestors going to do when this star fizzles out?” She asked. “Where will they go?” now there were tears in Phoebe’s eyes. “Where will you go for raw materials when you’ve used up this planet?”

“We’ll be a billion years dead before anyone here ever has to confront those realities. You’re just…” my voice failed then, spiting me.

The line moved, and we trodded slowly towards the docking bay. Suddenly Phoebe turned around, pulling herself into me. Trembling, I returned her embrace, all my resentment melting away. We stayed like that for some time, until it was her turn to board the shuttles.

Phoebe turned to me one last time, “Please come with us.”

I closed my eyes, squeezing more tears from them, and shook my head, “I can’t sacrifice the rest of my life to people who won’t be born for half a millennia.”

Phoebe nodded, “That’s why I have to leave you.”

I watched the shuttle doors slide shut behind her, and we stared into each other’s eyes through the window until it ferried her away. It only took a moment to disappear against the backdrop of the Ark now setting over the horizon.

The Milky Way was rising over the horizon behind me, and would vanish behind the imminent sunrise. There were over 100 billion stars in that warm spiraling cradle, and one infinitesimal blemish where our sun once nestled within it.

The rogue black hole that had hurtled our star out of the galaxy was invisible, but had left eddies in the cosmic dust. It scattered all the planets in our ancestors’ solar system and devoured enough of our star’s mass to halve the sun’s lifespan. The astronomical chances that our planet would survive such a catastrophic event only meant that it had to happen somewhere in the Universe.

A blanket of storm clouds were mercifully rolling in across the horizon. Hopefully they would settle in throughout tomorrow night so that I wouldn’t have to watch to Galactic Arc vanish into space with the one I loved. Either way, I would spend the rest of my days watching the starless skies from a lone planet orbiting a rogue star.