Yuri continued to follow the green floor light through the empty halls of the ship to a waiting elevator, doors open. As the doors closed, He felt his mind grasping for hope. What if in the 1500 years since the Collective had left, robotic technology and artificial intelligence had advanced to the point where a single captain could operate an entire ship on his own with an army of robots doing the work on the ship? But Yuri knew, if that were the case, the ship wouldn’t be this big, with so many doors. There were many people here at one time. There were no longer. Yuri forced himself to face the reality that the chances he'd meet an actual person were slim.

The elevator opened onto the bridge. Yuri followed the green light into a large room with a half circle terrace of desks and chairs around a central, large desk. Above the desks, the ceiling opened up to reveal a circle of windows looking out to blackness of space. Behind a terminal at the central desk, sat a corpse in an EVA suit with the visor up.

There was no visible decay, but the corpse's face had a hard, glassy appearance. Maybe a week of facial hair remained attached. The frozen but calm expression left no doubt that he’d been dead for some time, and probably expected it. Rather than be disturbed by the corpse's presence, Yuri felt a sense of relief and connection to it. He wasn't sure there was anyone, dead or alive, in the whole solar system. Now at least there was someone.

Yuri was startled to hear a voice, but it was only the captain’s assistant. “In front of you, Yuri, is Captain Washington. You could try to talk to him if you want, but he hasn’t been all that talkative lately. However, he did leave you a message. It’s a long message, you may want to grab a seat.”

How long had the captain been sitting there? Yuri wondered. In the vacuum of space, a thousand year old corpse is indistinguishable from one an hour old. He sat at one of the empty chairs at the captain’s desk. He then realized that like Peace, the Valkyrie had gravity - even though it was much smaller and wasn’t spinning. Had they developed a way to manipulate gravity directly?

The assistant began. “The message reads as follows:”

Greetings Collective Pilot. I have the honor of informing you that you’re now the most important person in the solar system. And the misfortune of informing you that you’re also the least important. So we have that in common. I was the most important person in this system too, once.

Yuri by now had figured as much: the whole system was lifeless. He continued to listen intently.

Our simulations foretold that the wormhole lock would be cracked in about a thousand years from the writing of this message. I’m sorry about the situation back home. I know that you must be running low on resources, and that the Collective would send you alone on a mission to make contact. The timing is actually intentional. We wanted you to return just in time to be in a state of desperation, so that you’d need to sue for peace. Of course we also imagined that we’d be here to accept your surrender.

But we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, shall we? So I made sure to set things up so you’d be able to come aboard and we could meet in a setting comfortable for you. I suppose you may be wondering where Earth and Mars are. I guess there’s no way to say this that isn’t awkward. But if you’re hoping to know what’s it’s like to live on land, I have some bad news for you.

Yuri could see that the Earth was gone, but he hadn’t even thought to consider Mars. He found the captain’s sense of humor strange, and different from the unbroken sobriety of communication in the Collective's military. The recording continued.

I guess I should start at the beginning. I’m not sure what they taught you in your Collective schools, but at the time of the Collective’s exile, Earth and Mars were mostly of the same mindset. You had some Martian factions supporting your side, but following the Collective’s attacks on Martian civilian convoys, the whole red planet united and shifted decisively to the Sol Alliance.

When the Collective was defeated and exiled to the other side of the wormhole, there was hope that it was the end of history. That we’d all, finally, have peace throughout the solar system. It was not to be.

What it came down to was a simple fact: Mars would never be on Earth’s level. It was an asteroid processing colony, not a place to live a happy life. The lack of sunlight, high radiation, and low gravity had a wide array of negative health effects, and having to limit time outside and being far from the center of human life on Earth made for a miserable existence. So over time, Mars became populated almost exclusively by the downtrodden and the desperate, those who needed to make a buck very badly. You had a few who controlled the space elevators - they were rich, everyone else was poor. So you have a powerful few with a strong desire to protect their own interests, and you know where that leads – dictatorship.

At first we worked with the dictators, because they were friendly to Earth and its economic needs. But Earth’s tendency to influence Martian dictators demonstrated the power imbalance between the planets and steadily added to resentment among the Martians. It all reached a boiling point when an Earth-friendly dictator were overthrown, and a hostile Martian populist took his place. It was only a matter of time before hostilities ensued.

Despite its overall poverty, Mars was not without its military advantages. It had the location and the infrastructure to mine asteroids for rare materials, and its lower gravity provided a significant advantage in getting materials and equipment to orbit.

To the Martians, it seemed all they needed to do was enter Earth’s gravity and drop kinetic impact weapons from the from the sky. It was relatively cheap and easy, and it made them feel powerful. I mean sure, the bombs were simply dropped somewhere in the direction of a city, killing a lot of civilians on Earth. But for Martian dictators, it was a way to show strength - a willingness to do what was necessary, to be unafraid. The worst thing a man can be is unwilling to do what’s necessary, don’t you think? No one will ever say that about me.

But as popular as the attacks were to the Martians, as Terrans we felt very differently. Seeing the images of our women and children being slaughtered, we were determined to get revenge. While we attempted negotiations before the attacks began, afterwards the only way forward was to totally subjugate the Martians. We came up with different ideas, and ran simulations. An invasion was ruled out – if we attacked the elevators directly they could be isolated and destroyed, and trying to conduct a landing via atmospheric invasion would require rebuilding ancient tech we haven't used since the NASA days, among other issues.

It became apparent that we’d need to revolutionize interplanetary warfare. We created two ships – one of which you’re on now. The primary weapon on this ship is the last surviving example of the most destructive machine humanity ever created – a graviton generator.

How does it work? Well, I don’t really know, as it was highly classified and my need to know was pretty small. I tried to have one of the eggheads explain it to me once. My basic understanding is that it generates gravitons by manipulating quantum fields, then sends two beams of those gravitons towards the core of a target of any size. The gravitons can pass through almost any matter, but where the beams intersect, the gravitons interact and form a gravitational field. Keep it up, and that field can get strong enough to make matter collapse in on itself – forming a micro black hole. Keep it up a bit longer, and the hole will grow, sucking in additional matter. At that point it will grow until it sucks in everything in its vicinity. It works on any object – a ship, a planet, we could even make it work on the sun if we wanted to.

But as far as I’m concerned, I press a button to start the charge time, then I press another button to fire when the charge is ready. The charging process doesn’t take very long at all - a second for a ship, a minute for a mars-sized planet.

Oh, and by the way, the same technology allows us to generate a gravity field for ships too, which I’m guessing you’ve noticed by now. You can tell your Collective buddies that graviton generators are a great fit for all of your apocalyptic and practical needs.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But anyway, as you may imagine, the graviton generator changed things with the Martians. Now we didn't need to worry about invasion, we could simply threaten to annihilate them. We demonstrated it on Phobos, that was enough to convince them. The Martian dictator changed his tune very quickly when he realized his only choice was to work with us and do what we say. The Martian people still rose up from time to time, but we helped put them back down. All the dictator needed to do was keep the precious metals flowing and keep the terrorists from operating, using whatever methods he felt appropriate, and he’d get weapons in return. So the Martians were subjugated once again. Just as our simulations foretold.

The recording paused. Yuri wondered if it was done as he looked at the Captain’s glassy blank face. Surely that couldn’t be all. But then the Captain’s voice sighed, and continued.

Or so we thought. Things were peaceful for years, but one day a truly unexpected event happened. Our sister ship, the Peacemaker, suffered a mutiny. It turned out a group of Martian extremists had infiltrated the crew, and with the element of surprise was able to kill off the Terrans on board, including the captain. They took over the ship and sent it to Mars. Absolutely no one saw it coming. That’s always been the weakness of simulations – they tend to have trouble anticipating the actions of individuals, small groups, and people who have just plain had enough.

It was a shock on many levels. It was a shock to me as the captain of the Valkyrie, and immediately I ordered anyone recently added to the crew locked in the brig as a precaution. Of course it was shock to Earth, now under the very threat they created to terrify others. But it was also a shock to the Martians, who didn’t waste much time celebrating. They took advantage of the moment to once again overthrow and execute their Earth-tolerating dictator, replacing him with the leader of the mutiny. He called himself "Al Khabir". He claimed to the see the future and know all. And the future he saw was one where Mars would rule Earth, and control the whole solar system “from the sun to the heliopause” as he liked to say.

Well I can see the future, Collective Pilot, at least relative to then. Does it look like Mars is ruling the solar system? Very arguably they ruled it for a couple of hours perhaps. But it was I who watched Al-Khabir’s dream die. And now it is you - the Collective Pilot, our true king, who rules all you see.

But back then the future was uncertain. Al-Khabir’s demanded we pay for centuries of oppression of Mars. He demanded we give them the Earth to rule themselves, just as we ruled them. Or face annihilation. So what would you do?

Yuri thought for a moment. He felt for the Terrans – Yuri was used to the ever-present threat of annihilation, but the Terrans weren’t. They went from comfortable to terrified very fast. They would negotiate, Yuri figured. Maybe that was the smartest thing, after all. Buy time, let passions cool. To not at least attempt even the unlikeliest peaceful settlement and risk annihilation was rationally indefensible. But then again, Yuri wasn’t there, in the moment, feeling what they felt. So who knows what they would actually do? The recording continued to the answer.

If you think we'd negotiate, Collective Pilot, then what you might not understand is the degree to which we were insulted. There’s nothing more offensive than someone who’s beneath you trying to threaten you. Threaten not just your own life, but your loved ones, everyone and everything you know. Only the worst, most murderous people would threaten to annihilate the Earth, and it verified everything many were saying about the violent nature of the Martian people. We never even bothered to run simulations of what would happen if we accepted Al-Khabir's demands or tried to negotiate. Instead we saw really two options – annihilate Mars immediately, or eliminate Al-Khabir and give them a chance to choose a better leader.

With great mercy, we chose the latter. Our simulations only gave it a low probability of leading to peace, but we expected that if nothing else we might be able to use the resulting chaos to destroy or recapture Peacemaker.

Yuri realized the Earth’s leaders would look like weaklings and fools if they tried to negotiate with a violent psychopath like Al-Khabir. It was politically impossible, perhaps even emotionally impossible on an individual level. The only path available was an angry one.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. We went with a kinetic strike from orbit. We wanted it to be swift and unpredictable. But Al-Khabir was, admittedly, very crafty. Based on what we now know, it seems he anticipated the assassination and arranged for a loyal follower to martyr himself in his place. There was a staged funeral. A new leader. A peace deal. The purported new Martian dictator arranged for the Peacemaker to be returned to Earth. One again, it looked to us like we'd finally subjugated Mars, but it wasn't the case.

Of course we were cautious and tried to be ready for anything. Our fighters escorted Peacemaker back to Earth and were ready to fire if they detected the graviton generator charging. However, such an attack was considered only a remote possibility, so little thought was given to ensuring effective firepower. After all, the real deterrent was what it always has been – mutually assured destruction. We figured if the Martians were going to try anything, they’d come for Valkyrie first, so we prioritized defending this ship. We were kept away from the Peacemaker return operation with plenty of fighter escort. But as it turned out, we were only a secondary target for Al-Khabir. After all, if you see the future, you don’t need to worry about loose ends, do you?

Or maybe, Yuri figured, Al-Khabir feared humiliation more than annihilation.

Of course, as it entered Earth’s orbit, we watched to our horror as Peacemaker started charging its weapon. So our fighters attacked it and destroyed it – just not in time. It took about five minutes for the escorting fighters to break through its shields and destroy the ship. In that time, it had fired its main weapon on not just Earth, but Luna as well. As the ship disintegrated, Al-Khabir himself revealed that he was on board and organized the whole operation. He cursed the Earth to his last breath. "You will burn in hell!" he shouted over and over until the feed cut out.

I was on Valkyrie, in opposition from Peacemaker on the other side of Earth, watching the feed of the operation. At first, you couldn’t tell anything had happened. Everything looked normal. Someone on the radio said it looked like the weapon didn’t work. But I knew it did work – it was Peacemaker that did the test on Phobos. It took a minute for the collapse to reach the surface there too.

But my mind was on my duty. I ordered my crew to set course for Mars, and for our escorts to do the same. To be honest, I had no orders but to protect my own ship. But everyone knew what had to be done.

As the engines fired, I saw tiny cracks appear on the Earth’s crust. I should say tiny to us, undoubtedly giant on the surface. There was one running right down the middle of Africa, several across Eurasia. Then rifts appeared in the ocean, like they were being parted...then it all just collapsed into an imploding cloud of dust, leaving just the halo of the atmosphere behind...but soon that would be gone too. And all that would be left was a black hole, orbited by another black hole.

The Martians did put up some resistance, but it was futile. Our fighters were far superior to theirs. Their weapons did get through on occasion and exploded against our shields, but there was never a need to deviate from our course.

As I mentioned, it took a minute to charge the graviton generator. There was no thought of stopping it. As soon as a minute was up, I did what was necessary. I didn’t stick around to watch Mars disappear, I ordered a return to Earth’s orbit – or what was left of Earth’s orbit, as soon as we fired. I imagine the collapse on Mars looked a lot like it did on Earth.

Soon we were alone. The various space ships in the former orbit of Earth fell to infighting and piracy for the last of available resources and didn’t last, but no one could approach our warship. Our ship, we knew, would not last long. The solar power will keep the lights on until the sun goes out. But the hydrogen and oxygen is finite.

Some of the crew killed themselves right away instead of waiting for a slow death. The remainder of the crew agreed that I should be the last survivor to write an account of what happened. They locked off the main deck with just, and stayed together in the crew compartment. I watched their oxygen levels decline to the point of hypoxia.

And now there's just me. As I write this, the ship has almost run out of oxygen entirely, and I'm sitting here in my EVA suit so I can use its oxygen for however long I need to finish this recording. With no one to maintain the ship, pressure will be lost and the air will escape by the time you get here, and the ship will be filled with the void.

Until I was by myself, I really didn’t have time to think. I didn’t even have time to think about my wife and kids, who died in the collapse of Earth without a word. I wonder what it was like for them. It's probably better not to think about it.

My greatest regret is that sitting here alone, I have no one to share my thoughts with about all that just happened. But I suppose, in a way, I’m not really alone after all. I have one companion left, a nameless pilot from the long-forgotten Collective Union has paid me a visit. Would you like to hear my thoughts, Collective Pilot?

There was a pause. Yuri felt a bit as if he woke up from a dream. He reminded himself that he was really there, and the glassy-faced corpse in front of him was too. He felt the coldness of the decompressed oxygen under his visor. He felt the stillness. He felt the emptiness of the ship, and of human existence. He felt the distance, across time and space, between himself and any other living beings. He wanted, more than anything, for the recording to continue.

It did.