There was a time when the world wasn't going to end. I wish I could tell you that it was a better time, that people were nicer then, that the skies were bluer and the water was cleaner. I really wish I could. But things just aren't that simple. The world has changed in that one, brief year. It's stayed the same, too. You know what I mean, right?

It's a planet that will do us in. Not Mercury or Venus. Not Jupiter. Not even Pluto, the almost-planet. The scientists call it XK-17664. The journalists have nick-named it Shiva, but probably not for any real reverence to the Hindu god. Most likely some poor intern did a Google search for "god of destruction" and took the first name that sounded frightening enough for the evening news.

I call it Timmy.

Timmy is a visitor from another solar system. It has been postulated that Timmy was ejected from his (not "its"; "Timmy" is a guy's name, after all) home in the early stages of system development billions of years ago, before he had been able to settle into a stable orbit.

He's fairly small for a planet, rivaling Mars in diameter. If he had been bigger, he might not have been tossed out of his solar system, and we humans would be happy here on Earth for millions of years. Or, at least until we destroyed ourselves with nuclear weapons or overpopulation or reality shows.

We've known about Timmy for about a year (the government probably knew for a while before then; just ask the conspiracy theorists). Everybody had their wild theories on how to save the human race. We could create a wormhole big enough to swallow Timmy and spit him out in some other solar system's backyard. (The Trekkie in me adores this plan.) Or how about building a force field so that Timmy will just bounce right off? (My guess is that this genius has never played billiards.) The military was gung-ho on sending a bunch of nukes to blow Timmy off the face of the planet. (Not enough firepower in the world, kiddos.) Oh, I know! Pray! (I'm not even going to touch this one.)

The most sensible plan involved building giant spaceships to shuttle us off to Mars, if it survives the destruction of Earth, and if it doesn't, to deep space. Generational ships? Sounds easy enough. Only a year to design and build them? Crap.

As for me, I grabbed my girlfriend and a year's worth of rations and headed to my family's cabin in the mountains, away from civilization and its inevitable collapse.

~

I can see the whole galaxy from my backyard. In the city, light pollution erases all but the brightest stars; I'm lucky if I can make out Orion or the Big Dipper. But here I can get lost in the universe and float up, up, away from this doomed Earth.

Sarah and I like to spread a blanket out in the meadow and huddle close together with a thermos of hot cocoa. We listen to the sounds of the forest as the stars drift by. Every once in a while there's a shooting star and we make a wish.

"For wish number eighteen-"

"Nineteen."

I look at her. "Are you sure?" She nods. "Number nineteen, then. For number nineteen, I beseech this fiery bit of extraterrestrial rock for a bag of marshmallows!"

Sarah turns to me, a smile playing across her lips. "Marshmallows, huh?"

"Yup. I'm having this urge to build a fire and roast marshmallows on sticks."

"It's 'toast' marshmallows, not 'roast' marshmallows."

"Okay then," I say. "I'm having this urge to toast marshmallows, Little Miss Nitpick."

She grins. "Aw, I love it when you give me passive-aggressive nicknames!" I tackle the little minx, and she shrieks with laughter.

Twenty minutes later, we lie back on the blanket and shiver in the crisp night air. It's a good night, until we realize the moon is gone. Our moon, yanked away by Timmy. We had our first kiss under a full moon. Sarah likes to take pictures of me with the moon like we're pals going for a hike. It's silly, I know. She gets so embarrassed when she asks me to pose with my lunar buddy. I act like it's a chore sometimes, but only so that she'll use her hands to bend me into place.

She won't take pictures of me with Timmy, and I never ask her to.

~

Timmy dominates the sky now. He looks bigger than the moon did, bigger and uglier. Already we can see the scars on his face, fresh and ragged, unweathered by oceans or atmosphere. One side of his face is marred by a giant gash thousands of miles long.

"He looks like Mars."

"He's black, not red."

Sarah rolls her eyes at me. "Because of the scar, not the color. Mars has a scar like that. The Valles Marineris."

I squint and turn my head to the side. "Yeah, I can see that. It looks like he's bursting at the seams."

"Maybe he is," she says. "Maybe Timmy is really an egg ready to hatch, and inside is a demon god."

"A hungry demon god."

"Very hungry." Sarah nestles her head into my chest.

"Mars' evil twin," I mutter. Sarah starts to cry. I hold her close, and we stay that way until dawn.

~

The earthquakes come every day as Timmy tries to rip us apart. An avalanche nearly destroyed the cabin last week.

Every time the ground moves I expect to go flying out into space. It's going to happen, I'm sure of it. I can already feel Timmy's gravitational pull canceling out part of Earth's. Or maybe it's all in my head. The first time I felt it - or thought I did - I acted like I was floating away. I hoped it would put a smile on her face. It didn't.

Sarah took a picture of us today. Indoors and away from the windows. Away from Timmy, and away from the sky that no longer looks like sky. She developed the picture and put it on the kitchen counter.

"No more," she says. I kiss her cheek. She looks at me like I'm not here. She turns away and gently places her camera in the trash can.

I'm floating, I swear it.

~

Today, I think. Today he comes, Timmy, Mars' evil twin, or Shiva, god of destruction. The sky is dark with the angry face of a primitive world. The ground shakes all the time. There's smoke in the air, and the valley below is filled with lava.

Sarah and I hold each other in the backyard and watch as the air starts to burn. The black planet roars with the voice of a thousand dragons. The Earth rises up to meet it.

And then it's over.

My memory has been fading. I don’t remember my childhood anymore. The name of the first girl I kissed. The street where I grew up. I want to remember, I strain and push and try, but the noise of all the other voices, the screaming and the begging, it’s all too much.

There is one thing I do remember, however. Vividly. We all remember, and it will probably be the last thing to go.

We remember the invasion.

I was arguing with my fiancée Joanne in our apartment in St. Louis. Something about plates for the wedding. Or cakes. Or something, I can’t remember, but we were arguing. And then the sky went dark, as something indescribably huge blocked out the sun. It wasn’t an eclipse. It didn’t have that kind of slow majesty to it. It was something else, something we wouldn’t fully understand until it was far too late.

It was a ship. A spaceship. An honest-to-god alien vessel, bigger than the planet itself, which had come to visit the Earth with unknown intentions. In the first few hours of its arrival, the TV news was devouring itself, trying to get information on the ship. Politicians came out and gave speeches, they interviewed every scientist who would talk to them, and flashed every amateur cell phone video that was sent to them. All they knew was what we knew too: It was big.

Its arrival caused chaos everywhere. Joanne left me in tears to go to her parents’ home in Nebraska. I tried to get her to stay with me, but she wouldn’t have it. “Family is everything,” she’d always said. I guess I just wasn’t family enough yet.

All around the city, people were going mad. Breaking windows, stealing televisions, as though there would be anything to watch after this. Cars were jacked and joyridden, and people stole jewelry by the armful. To look pretty for the little green men, I supposed. I wanted to laugh at myself for not joining in. Here was the end of the world and I was still worried about being arrested. As though this would turn out to be some big mistake and the police would show up and tell me, “An alien invasion is no excuse for stealing an XBox, son.”

I called my mother in Fenton, just to see if she was okay. She told me to be careful. “There are a lot of crazy people out there, Charles,” she said. “I saw on TV that New York City is burning.”

“St. Louis isn’t New York, mom,” I told her.

“And there have been earthquakes happening everywhere, because of the gravity.”

I wanted to laugh. “Mom, that thing’s gravity can’t be…” I had to pause while the building trembled.

“Still, you mustn’t -"

The phone cut out. My apartment was completely disconnected as the cable service died. No TV, no phone, no internet, all in one terrible moment. I paced around the apartment for an hour, aimless and blind. There was no news, no updates, and for the first time in my adult life I felt truly alone.

Out on the street, people were running through the city. They were crying. They were laughing. They were drunk and sober and horny. I sat in my window and watched them until I couldn’t take it anymore, and I went to the roof.

The ship filled the sky from horizon to horizon. Lights traced paths across its dark surface in amber and blue, great straight lines and slow curves that seemed to go on forever. I wondered what we all wondered, once we took the time to think about it. Who were they? Why were they there? What did they want from us? The movies and TV shows I grew up on gave me two options: they wanted to invite us into their great galactic federation, or they wanted to invade and take over. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that humans were important enough for either.

My question was answered the next morning. With the probes.

I woke at 6:00 AM. The streets were dead. There were cars on fire and garbage everywhere, and people lying on the sidewalks. I chose to believe they had passed out. The ground rumbled under my feet as soon as I stepped outside, and I dove against a building for cover. Masonry fell from the roof, missing me by inches. When the quake was over, I thought I heard drums, of all things. I followed their sound as far as I could.

Tower Grove Park was full of people. Tents, lean-tos, people wrapped in blankets and parkas and big blue plastic tarps. There were people cooking and playing, staying together through the long night and trying to keep spirits up. When I ambled into the park, a guy in a beat-up business suit greeted me. “Welcome to the party,” he said. “Feel free to camp out wherever you like, and if you have any food we’d all appreciate it.” He shook my hand and then hugged me. Then he jogged away to somewhere else, and I never saw him again.

The park was a party. A celebration. People were drumming by the dozens, dancing and spinning across the grass. There were groups telling stories to each other, reading and singing songs to each other and to the ship. If you ignored the sky, it was a festival. The smell of food filled the air, from dark, spicy chili to hamburgers and hot dogs. Not everyone was afraid, it seemed.

I didn’t join in the dance circles or the drum tribes or the poetry readings that were going on all around us. I gravitated towards others, huddling by their fire with the look of people whose entire world has been dismantled in front of them. I sat shoulder to shoulder with an older Mexican lady and we stared at the fire. We didn’t talk at first. Then she told me about her son, who was living in Los Angeles and wanted to become a teacher. I told her about Joanne and how we were planning to spend our honeymoon in Las Vegas and never leave the hotel. For a moment, I almost forgot what was hanging above us.

Then the screaming started.

The probes swarmed towards the park in the hundreds, great jellyfish made of plastic and steel. They had blinding white lights that swept the crowd, and whip-thin tentacles that trailed in the air behind them. As soon as they appeared, people panicked into the darkness. Most of them were caught immediately. What happened to those who were caught, what would happen to all of us, is the most vivid memory of all.

The probe would ensnare a person, lifting and immobilizing them in the air. Then it would slice away the top of their skull and, in one swift movement, scoop out the still-living brain. The body would then drop to the ground and the brain would be put into a fluid-filled sac that hung below the probe. Soon, each one was carrying five or six human brains dangling pendulously below its body. Some of them, having reached their limit, would glide off away from the crowd, only to be replaced by another.

I didn’t see the probe that got me. The Mexican lady prayed and ran as my arms and legs were pinned by unbreakable cables. I opened my mouth -

That’s where my memory ends. There is a blackness there, a period of infinite time in which I sensed nothing. I thought nothing and knew nothing. How those things kept us alive is something I’m not sure I want to know. What I do know for sure is that I would rather be dead now. Any death, any hell would be better than this, and I know the billions of others on this ship would agree with me.

The great, amnesiac blackness ended with awareness. First I knew myself, and then I knew the others. All the others. The noise was deafening, billions of voices full of fear and confusion. In an instant, I knew where I was and what I was. What we all were.

The brains of humanity had been networked. We had been connected together into a huge organic processor aboard the ship, and what the ship knew, we knew. We knew so much, right then, that it was hard to comprehend what we were seeing.

The Earth, hanging perfectly still in space. The mother ship disgorged thousands of smaller ships, harvesters. Some began to spray the surface with a compound that reduced any organic life to a slurry of amino acids, which was scooped up and brought back to the ship. Other vessels collected water and ice, drained the oceans and rivers and lakes, broke up the glaciers and then returned with their prizes. Some large ships brought back mountains, hewn from their roots. They tore up the continental shelves to get at what lay underneath and siphoned off the sluggish, red-hot magma that lay just under the paper-thin surface of the Earth. The process took… days? Months? Years? There was no way for us to tell in in there. In time, though, everything else was gone, leaving only a white-hot spinning iron core surrounded by the detritus of the operation.

Special ships were dispatched. They hovered by the core and primed their great engines before laying down drag hooks in order to slow it down. Slowly, slowly, for the first time in billions of years, the Earth stopped turning. The ships clamped down on the core and dragged it into the main vessel to be melted down and used as raw material.

And that was it. Where once there was a planet teeming with life and intelligence there was now a field of debris that would orbit the sun for as long as the sun shined. Another traveler here might wonder what had been there, but they would never know. Far off, the moon drifted away into other realms of the solar system, having been deemed less useful than its mother planet. Perhaps another world would take it in.

An order shot through our network, and the ship turned. Our sun swept through the ship’s field of view, and then there were nothing but the stars we thought we knew. Humanity howled in grief and pain, and another order brought us to heel. We turned away from our sun, our home, and started to move to the next world, an impossible distance away.

... found in a remote location in the Rural Municipality of Norway the tree is perched part way down a cliff overlooking a fjord. Scientists suggest that despite its small size, it may be the oldest complex organism left on the planet. The discoverer of the tree is refusing to give an exact location citing concerns ....

Louki tapped his tablet and closed the article. It was the same as all the others. Full of speculation, but short on real facts.

"Fen," he called and held out the tablet. His executive assistant took the tablet and put a cup in its place. Louki frowned at it, but he knew that Fen would stand there all day waiting for him to drink it. Sometimes being rich and powerful was just no fun. It could have been worse though. At least the Singularity never materialized, so he didn't have to worry about machines telling what to do. Instead this genetically enhanced canine stared at him with those deep brown eyes.

"Ok, Fen," he said, "I'm drinking it already!" He gulped down the vile liquid that contained everything he needed to live another day, then swapped it for a tiny glass of Macallan 100 that washed away the taste.

"Thank you," Fen said and retrieved the glass. He would go to the galley and clean and polish the glass to perfection, but only after licking out the last of the whisky taste. There were some things you couldn't breed out of the anicits. He didn't care, at least Fen had good taste in whisky.

He moved the joystick to guide his chair up to the Bridge. Fen wanted him to install direct mind control, but Louki liked the feeling that there were a few things he could do for himself.

"How long to Norway?" Louki demanded as soon as the chair crossed the threshold.

"An hour, a day, a week." The pilot shrugged his shoulders. "It depends on traffic. I think longer is possible. Everybody is floating to Norway."

"Can we move higher and get above them?"

"We could, but we would need to cross three bands to get to a place where we'd have enough space to make a difference. It would likely be just as quick to follow traffic."

"We should never have let them up here." Louki said.

"So you have said, sir."

"And as always, Toppu, you are too polite to argue with me."

"Too well paid, sir."

"And if I paid you to argue with me?"

The pilot tilted his head while he thought it through. Then he clacked his beak.

"I would need assurance that you would not tire of argument and fire me."

"I promise I will tell you when I want you to stop."

"Very well," the uplifted parrot said, "if I was going to argue with your statement about letting them up here, I would have to ask who you thought would stop them."

"Us, the rich, the hoi polloi." Louki said, "There was a time when I could look out this window and not see another airship between me and the horizon."

"You miss the view, sir?"

"Of course, I just said so."

"Would that be the view of the desert or the endless barrios. Perhaps the view you miss so much is the one of the plastic Atlantis."

"No, bird brain," Louki said, "The view of the sun on pristine clouds."

"Even you, sir, are too young to remember pristine clouds."

"I think I have had enough arguing, Toppu."

"As you wish, sir." the parrot-cit turned back to the controls. "You will send the usual?"

"I will," Louki said and drove the chair toward the door. "I'm sorry I called you bird brain."

"I know, sir."

Louki wondered if his pilot really meant it. Even after all the years since uplifting other species, they never really understood each other. Hathia kept telling him he was the last of the romantics. He didn't really understand her either, though she was his own flesh and blood. Well mostly anyway. It was hard to tell these days

He wheeled down to the lounge and watched the jam of airships. It would be hard to say that there was any order or sense to them, but Toppu insisted that there was and was able to navigate through it.

"Should I send the usual?" Fen said.

"Thank you."

"I would argue with you for free."

"You are very bad at arguing."

"Too true."

"See?"

Fen grinned and nodded. He padded off to take care of Toppu's fee. Hathia told him he was too easy going with his anicits. She was probably right. She usually was. But Louki thought his staff were happier when he allowed them to be themselves. What was the purpose of uplifting them if they were never going to be allowed to forget it?

"Sir?" Fen was standing beside him. "She's on the phone."

"I'll take it here, Fen."

The cannid-cit handed him a phone and left.

One of these days Fen was going to be wrong about what Louki wanted and he would die from the shock.

"What do you want?" he said at the phone. Hathia was a feline this week and her smile was full of pointy teeth.

"Is that any way to treat your daughter on your birthday?"

"Is it my birthday?" Louki stared out at the endless airships jostling in the currents. "I've had so many I don't keep track any more."

"I have a present for you."

"What do you want?" he said again.

"You know what I want." She smiled her pointed tooth smile again. She really did make a good cat.

"And what are you offering?"

"I know where the tree is."

"I'll ask Fen."

"You give your cits too much leeway."

"Don't you remember what cits is short for?"

"What of it?" She shrugged, "So I'm specist. Who cares?"

She clicked off and Louki looked out at the airships.

"The clouds looked pristine."

"I'm sure they did, sir." Toppu stood beside him. "I have been sent coordinates. Shall I follow them?"

"Please do."

"Very well, sir."

"Do you miss flying?"
"I fly every day, sir."

"I mean out there."

"I never had wings." Toppu stayed silent and stared out the window until Louki thought he wasn't going to say anything else. "I dream about wings you know." He turned and walked away. Louki wondered what it would be like to dream of wings.

The crowd of airships grew thicker, but then gradually thinned out as they travelled further and further north. The sky grew empty, then dark. Two days after Hathia's call he saw lights ahead. Toppu dropped them down to ground level and moored them beside Hathia's airship.

"I have prepared your outdoor chair."

"I have an outdoor chair?"

"Now you do."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Fen just shrugged and led Louki to the hatch.

"I don't think I've been on the ground in fifty years." Toppu drove the tractor through the hatch and out into the white snow. When he looked closer it was really more grey than white, but it would do. The tractor kept him warm and Toppu was as good a driver as he was a pilot. Fen walked ahead dressed in a ridiculous set of furs that made him look more like an animal than a citizen. Fen was almost bouncing in excitement.

"You can go for a run if you want," Louki said.

"Later, sir."

Hathia was waiting at the edge of a cliff. Toppu drove them to the edge and Louki felt the slight shudder of anchors burying themselves in the frozen ground.

"I didn't think there was any land let without inhabitants."

"Don't show your ignorance," Hathia said, "There aren't really that many people left on the ground since people moved to airships. It's just cits now and a few luddites."

"Maybe I should move back to the ground."

"Don't be a fool," Hathia said and drifted her vehicle over the edge and lowered it with a hum of fans. "Aren't you coming?"

Louki looked up at Toppu and the cit nodded.

"The anchors will hold, sir. You can trust Fen."

Louki just nodded and Toppu drove over the edge. Louki could feel his heart pounding. As old as he was he had never seen a real tree.

It was a tiny splash of green against the black rock.

"This is it?" Hathia said, "You wouldn't believe the favours I had to give out to get this location."

Louki just stared in wonder. It was tiny, true, but it twisted and gripped the rock as if it had been there forever.

"What kind of tree is it?"

"Yggdrasil," said Toppu.

"Don't be stupid, bird," Hathia said. "It's a pin or something."

"Why Yggdrasil?"

"The people who used to live here had a story about a tree that held the world together."

"Well pin or Yggwhatever grab it and let's get out of here. It's depressing."

"I'm not taking it. It belongs here."

"Don't be stupid," she said, "It's yours, I gave it to you. Get it."

"No," Louki said, "It belongs here."

"Well then, I'll get it myself."

"Touch it and our deal's off."

Hathia looked at him and licked her lips, then shook her head.

"There are other dogs, but only one tree." She manoeuvred her craft to the cliff and reached out with its grippers. The tree was stubborn, but it was easier to survive aeons of ice and snow than Hathia in one of her moods.

"I can't believe how deep this thing goes into the rocks," she muttered.

"All the way through the world," said Toppu sadly as she finally pulled the tree away from the cliff.

The ground shuddered and the tractor swayed on its cables. Hathia didn't notice as she brought the tree up to the glass of her craft to examine it. It crumbled in the wind until she was left with nothing.

"What a waste," she said as the shuddering grew stronger. Louki never learned what she was going to say next as a massive boulder smashed through her machine and carried her down to the ocean far below.

"I think it is time to fly." Toppu said.

"You don't have wings!"

"I would have argued with you for free." Toppu said, then he leaped from the tractor. Louki hoped the shriek was ecstacy not fear.

"Sir?" Fen said through the phone. "The whisky is in the glove box. I'm going to run now."

Louki pulled out the bottle and took a drink. He could see huge chunks of rock pulling loose and floating away.

"Yggdrasil," he said, "So this is how the world ends." The sea boiled and frothed. "I should have enough time to finish the bottle," he said to himself as the crack widened and the earth began to crack in half.

Ewig slipped into her sister’s laboratory and shuffled through the stacks of universes that were kept there. Siorai had them labeled meticulously, so it wasn’t difficult to find the one she was after. It was the one Siorai was most proud of - her greatest achievement, she kept saying - and the only one Ewig had never been allowed to look at.

Ewig and Siorai had competed with each other from the first moment they blinked into existence. Their latest quarrel had been whether or not peace was possible. Momentary peace, sure, but Ewig maintained that sustained periods without some sort of conflict were impossible even among the most simplistic of lifeforms. Siorai had set out to prove her wrong, by creating thousands universes on flat bits of crystal, which she would then spend hours projecting and magnifying to observe.

Ewig and Siorai had worked together at first, just learning how to create these models. It was Ewig who had finally come up with the method for creating complex systems, which could be magnified billions of times. Siorai had at first been content to work harmoniously with Ewig, until the first five universes were destroyed by the life-forms within them. Since then, most of Siorai’s time was spent in the lab, trying to perfect the model that would prove Ewig wrong. Siorai had recently begun bragging about her latest universe, and that she was certain that it was the one that would “prove peace.” Ewig, however, had her doubts. Why else would Siorai be so content to show off every failure, but would not allow even one tiny peek at her first success? Ewig slipped the flat crystal in the magnifier and fiddled with the zoom controls, until finally, a swirling ball of blue, brown, and white came into view.

****

Emma shook her head sadly at the images on her TV. Over and over she watched the planes hit, the towers fall. Smoke and rubble and screams filled the screen while a voice over reminded the viewer that no matter what the government said, the attacks that had happened ten years ago could still happen. Every September, the day would be replayed, lest anyone alive at the time forget, and every September, new threats arose around the impending anniversary.

Emma was still staring at the TV when her sister slipped in behind her and wordlessly plucked Emma’s six week old son from her hands. “You’re obviously distracted," Lisa said. “Let me take Evan for you." Emma flashed Lisa a smile of gratitude, and gestured at the TV.

“No matter how many times I see it, I just can’t turn away."

“I know," Lisa said. She rubbed her face on Evan’s hair and inhaled deeply. It had taken then years to save up the money for the IVF to have him. Both of them had squirreled money away since that fateful day when Emma’s husband had been carried out of the rubble of one of the fallen towers, barely alive. His final request had been that doctors preserve some of his sperm, so that someday his wife could have the son or daughter they’d just begun to discuss having. It had taken eight years and three attempts, but finally, Emma had given birth to her little miracle. Lisa had been by her side the whole way, mourning the loss of her own partner, and vowing to help her sister raise the new love of their lives.

“Do you think the threats are valid this time?" Emma asked.

Lisa closed her eyes for a moment and let the weight of Evan’s body settle her. Then she sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. I’m not sure I’m strong enough for another day like that."

Emma wiped a stray tear from her cheek and then took her son from her sister. “Then let’s not think about it. It’s a nice day out. Let’s take Evan to the park."

Lisa gave a shaky smile, and said, “Sure. Let me grab my jacket while you get Evan’s stroller ready."

*****

Ewig watched the bizarre scene before her, then replayed it. She zoomed in, until she could make out every hair on the infant’s head, and back out again until all she saw was an apartment building in a row of apartment buildings.

This was the peace Siorai had claimed to create? She studied the images in the box the two women had been so fascinated by. Death, over and over again, and all of it caused by war. She’d seen similar acts in other universes, but it was especially jarring to see it here, in the universe where Siorai had claimed she had finally achieved peace. Ewig zoomed out and found another group of the strange hominids to observe, and saw the same scene, over and over: people looking at images of death, and then going on with their lives as usual. Many seemed to be particularly fixated on spending time with others of the same genetic line. Even on different continents, the pattern was much the same. In fact, almost every part of the world that had access to the strange image-boxes had at least a handful of people replaying the scenes of death. Ewig was still trying to find evidence of the peace Siorai had bragged about when Siorai herself came sprinting into the laboratory.

“What are you doing?!" she asked, horrified.

Ewig spun around to confront her sister. “You lied."

Siorai shook her head. “No. I didn’t. There’s peace. What did you watch first?"

“Two women, with a baby," Ewig said.

“Tiny apartment, on the continent they call North America? City called New York City?" Siorai asked.

“Yes. They were called Emma and Lisa."

“I know them well,” Siorai said with a faint smile. “I’ve set the magnifier to go to them first. They’re my proof, see. So much pain, so much loss, and yet they are so happy, so content."

“They’re fixated on war," Ewig argued.

“They’re proof that there’s something stronger than war. They are peace."

Ewig gestured at the disk and said, “That’s not peace. That’s one set of sisters. Do they never fight?"

“No," Siorai admitted. “But they forgive each other, and move on. They might have conflict, but they always return to peace."

“I thought the challenge was for sustained peace. I still maintain that you’ve failed."

“They’re the first universe with a planet where the people keep trying."

“What about the other planets in this simulation?" Ewig asked.

Siorai blushed. “Don’t bother with those; they’re just like all the rest I’ve made."

“So what’s so special about this one?" Ewig gestured again at the magnifier, which had now zoomed out to show the swirling ball once again.

“They keep trying," Siorai said.

“And failing," Ewig finished for her.

Siorai turned and faced the projection screen, with the white swirls of clouds so similar to the smoke from the towers that had almost prompted her to scrap the whole project. She sighed sadly. “Isn’t it enough that they keep returning to peace? If they don’t have conflict, they can’t appreciate it."

“You’re making an argument for war, now?" Ewig asked.

Siorai sighed. “You’re right." She zoomed back in on the sisters with the baby. They were chatting happily while the baby dozed in his stroller. There was so much this world had accomplished. So many things they’d taught her, about learning and innovation and perseverance. Unfortunately, the thing they seemed to be most determined about was creating conflict between their periods of rest.

She plucked the crystal from the magnifier and studied it cool black surface.

“They’re not even pets, you know," Ewig reminded her.

“I know," Siorai said. “And you’re right - they’re not my greatest success. They’re my greatest failure."

She took one final look at the darkness pulsed and throbbed within the crystal, and then sighed. She clenched her fist around it, and watched as the dust sifted through her fingers to the ground. As the last bits fell and then winked out if existence, she turned to her sister and grinned.

“So ”" what’s your next challenge for me?"

Lucinda Jackson sat down in the observation lounge with her cup of steaming hot coffee after a particularly long and tiring shift. She looked out across the unending darkness of the galaxy broken only by the occasional passing star or nebula, sights that at one time would have been the source of amazement after ten years in space were somewhat ordinary.

Ten years. Lucinda thought back to the day that they left the space dock, she thought back to the last time she had seen her husband and daughter. It had been a heart wrenching decision to leave her family behind on Earth, knowing that her seven year old daughter Alyssia would almost have reached adulthood when she returned, knowing that she may never see her ageing parents again, and not knowing if her beloved Louis would still be waiting for her, but this had been a once in a millennium opportunity, one that as a scientist and explorer she simply could not miss.

With less than twenty four hours before finally reaching Earth, Captain Lucinda Jackson stood up to return to her cabin for one last time.

A computerised voice sang out across the intercom system, "Captain Jackson, please report to the bridge." Lucinda sighed. This shift might be longer than she had expected.

The automatic doors swung open and Lucinda Jackson walked out onto the bridge.

"Captain, we are receiving a distress call," Lieutenant Mike Adams looked worried as he spoke, "It appears to have emanated from Earth."

The Starship Discovery had been travelling in an area of space that radio waves could not penetrate, thus the ship had been out of contact with the Earth for several weeks.

"Are we in communications range?" asked the captain.

"Not for another hour at our current velocity. Would you like me to play it back for you?"

Lucinda Jackson nodded resuming her place in the captain's chair while the Lieutenant busied himself at his station and the viewing screen flickered into life. She could make out familiar figure of Admiral Yang amidst the interference.

The Admiral's audio message was more distorted than the visual picture, "… any ships … sector of space … assistance required … under attack …"

"I can probably clean it up a bit," Ensign Max Jefferson stuttered nervously.

"Thank you, Ensign." The captain turned to First Officer Zhiou Chen, "Have you scanned for other ships?"

"Affirmative, there are none in range, Captain, but there is an unusually high concentration of radiation, I have not been able to ascertain the source."

Captain Jackson could feel the tension on the bridge, she fought to supress the apprehension she was feeling. All of the crew were just as excited as her to be finally in touching distance of Earth; Zhiou Chen had a son who he had never seen, Mike Adams had a fiancée waiting for him, Max Jefferson carried the burden of returning the body of his father home to be buried. Lucinda felt the weight of everyone on board's hopes and dreams resting on her shoulders.

The bridge was filled with an eerie silence punctuated only by the agitated pressing of buttons and the harmonic noised of the ship's engines for what seemed like hours.

"Captain," Lieutenant Adams was the first to break the silence, "We should be coming into communications range in one minute, 50 seconds, 40 seconds … Opening a channel."

"This is Captain Lucinda Jackson of the Starship Discovery, do you read me?"

Silence.

"Starship Discovery to Earth, do you read me? Lieutenant Adams, are you picking up anything?"

"Negative, the only thing I am picking up is the distress signal."

"Chen, have you located the source of the radiation?"

"Just scanning again now … the radiation seems to be emanating from a debris field, but Captain, the debris field is not on the charts on the ship's computer."

"Can you identify the cause of the debris? Is it the remains of a ship? Admiral Yang seemed to be saying that Earth was under attack."

"We are not close enough for me to confirm the cause. I am trying to get it on screen."

Once again the view screen flickered, but the Admiral was replaced by a black void. The bridge crew stood and watched as the screen began, slowly at first, to be filled with unrecognisable objects.

"That's not a ship. That looks like a whole planet," Max Jefferson spoke the words that the assembled officers were all thinking, but were afraid to say.

"That's all that remains of planet Earth," First Officer Chen spoke quietly and sombrely. The crew were once again silent.

***

The crew of Starship Discovery gathered on the observation deck and looked out across the remains of what they once called home, now nothing more than a collection of inter-planetary flotsam and jetsam.

"We have recovered the communications satellite from which we received the distress signal. It also contains Admiral Yang's personal logs," Captain Jackson addressed her crew, "This may be distressing, but I think we all need to hear it."

A distinguished looking man in Admiral's dress robes appeared on the screen.

"3rd March 2452. We have been tracking an unknown spacecraft for 12 hours. Detailed scans of the vessel have confirmed an energy source more powerful even than the sun. At the heart of the ship there seems to be some kind of singularity akin to a black hole. All attempts at communication have failed."

"4th March 2452. Communication with the alien vessel has still been impossible. Sensors show the weaponry capability of the ship as sufficient to destroy a planet the size of Earth. All weapons worldwide and on all space stations are tracking the vessel."

"5th March 2452. The Scout-ship Minerva is on course to intercept with the unknown vessel. At current velocity it should rendez-vous with the vessel in 6 hours …"

"There has still been no communication from the enemy vessel. The Global Council have now categorised this as an 'Act of War' against humanity and a State of Emergency has been declared."

"6th March 2452. The Minerva has been fired upon by the enemy vessel and destroyed with the loss of 4 lives."

Captain Jackson pressed a button to pause the playback of the Admiral's message. The crew of the Discovery sat in silence. "The rest of the recording is not in the form of log entries, but a live report on the situation."

As she resumed playback, the familiar sight of the Global Council boardroom appeared on the screen albeit with unusually dimmed lighting and the flashing red glow of the State of Emergency beacons. Admiral Yang stood at the centre of the room which was a hive of activity.

"Admiral Yang to approaching vessel, please state your intentions. Earth to approaching vessel, please respond."

"No response, Sir," came the reply from Admiral Yamamoto, Lucinda's predecessor as Captain of the Discovery.

"How close are we to dispatching the fleet?" Yang spoke again.

"The first wave of battleships is leaving Space Dock 4 as we speak," Yamamoto replied, "The rest of the fleet should be ready within the hour."

"Sir, should we begin evacuation of the civilians to the underground holding units?" A third Admiral, Joseph O’Neill, asked.

"Affirmative. How long for complete evacuation?"

"Two hours, Sir, and I daresay there will be those who'll want to remain on the surface, that will make it longer."

"I hope that we have that long. Get as many people as you can into the units, in two hours we will erect the force fields."

Lucinda Jackson again stopped the playback. I think I can advance the recording; this part is audio only."

"Admiral Yang, the enemy vessel has opened fire on the fleet."

"Status?"

"The Australia has been destroyed with the loss of 137 lives, the Magadan has suffered heavy damage, scanning for life signs now."

"Admiral Yang to approaching vessel, please hold your fire, we are a peaceful race."

"Sir, the front line has gone and we are relying on the reserve forces."

"Erect the force field now!"

"Reserve forces have been destroyed; the enemy ship is on an intercept course with Earth."

"Ready all planet based and orbital weapons."

"Targeting. Standing by, waiting for your order."

"Fire orbital weapons!"

"No effect."

"Fire everything you have left!"

"Some damage to the outer hull of the vessel, but it is still approaching."

"Energy discharge from enemy vessel. Force fields are holding."

"What was that?"

"Force fields over Southern Hemisphere are failing, rerouting power."

"How long before weapons are ready?"

"30 seconds and counting, twenty nine, twenty eight …"

"How big is that thing?"

"Force fields failing."

"Reroute power to the holding units."

"Force fields are down."

"Firing all weapons!"

The voices gave way to screams, harrowing screams of fear and of pain. The screams gave way to the sound of breathing, the sound of breathlessness, and finally the sound of silence.

Captain Jackson switched off the big screen.

A state of shock filled the room. Ensign Jefferson was the first to speak, "But our life goes on. Has the ship gone? Are we in danger? Have you scanned for life signs? Have you scanned for alien debris? Have we found the source of the radiation?"

Lucinda Jackson smiled for the first time in hours. Max Jefferson had boarded the ship all those years ago as a child accompanying his father. She had seen him grow, seen him learn, she had seen him mourn when his father had been lost in a tragic accident and seen him mature into the strong young Ensign who now spoke with what seemed like full control of his emotions. She realised that in their grief they must not neglect their duties.

"We will hold a Memorial Service at 18:00. Please return to your stations." The captain spoke and the crew slowly dispersed.

***

The observation deck was filled with the crew, along with a hundred men, women and children who had taken refuge in the only one of the underground holding units that had remained intact.

Captain Lucinda Jackson stood at the front of the room. She stared at the Earth flag, the Global Council flag and the flag of the Starship Discovery that decked the wall.

"This is the saddest of days. We have all lost not only loved ones, but also our home. Upon our shoulders rests an enormous burden, and we must carry the flag of humanity onwards. In this time of need we must pull together, we must help one another through our grief, and we must help each other to rebuild a society in which we can live and prosper. I had a husband and daughter. They will live in my heart forever, but we must go on or their lives and deaths will have been in vain. I will live the rest of my life and I will fight for Louis and for Alyssia and for all of humanity."

The gathered crowd began to applaud, slowly at first, then louder until everyone in the room was standing. This may have signified the end of the world, but it was also the beginning of a new fight.