Elder Isis wanted everything locked down—no one in or out. So there I was checking the airlock security, when the breach sirens start going off. I'm not fast enough to open the inner airlock door before it locks. Curse the security protocols Damian and I wrote that keep the inner airlock door always closed. I couldn't get out.

I picked up my laptop, slid down the wall to the floor, and tried to use the connection to get out. That's when I realized this was Damian's work. Damian's forever damned back door that he puts in everything. Something happened and I missed it.

Again.

Then there was an entreat.

I thought I would have heard from him by now. He always does this: runs off, keeping me home. Safe. Always the backup, never in on the adventure.

Then the emails start.

Three days stuck in an airlock, ten days getting past Damian's handywork, and then he contacts me while I'm angry eating.

I ignore it.

One email, then another, and another.

Fourteen emails, all with massive attachments before the email I'm actually looking for comes in. The subject is simply "I'm Sorry."

Sure you are.

I pour another blood packet into a cup and heat it up.

I want to ignore it. I want to walk away. I want to be petty and delete it.

I can't.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

My Dearest Heista,

I'm sorry. So sorry.

I know you love adventure. If I had come to you, you would have dropped everything and come with me in a heartbeat.

But I needed you there. The stakes have never been higher. This isn't a life or death mission. This is a life or death of the species mission, and I needed you somewhere safe where you could run the data campaign.

You have every contact in the academic world, and I need you to use every one of them. If we can not advance the humans technologically by ten to twenty years in the next few months, we will all die.

There is no one else who could succeed at such a feat.

I'm sorry, I missed our date. I know it was going to be special, the news you wanted to tell me. I can never get that back.

Usually I see a path to the end, one that doesn't end in my demise. For the first time since I was a child, I'm not sure such a path exists.

If the stakes were lower, I would not have left. I would have sent someone else. But I can't do nothing and have our child live through our genocide.

I love you. Take care of yourself and our baby. I will do everything I can to get home to you.

All my love,

Damian

He knew. He knew and left anyway.

I will never get to tell him. Never get to see his surprise and delight. He figured it out all by himself and left me here to protect me. To protect us.

Ass.

I start going through the other emails. Written up research, suggested people to present it. No fewer than twelve dissertations. They are detailed, feathering them in in a way that will seem natural will be difficult. But, of course, he has given me papers that step up to the big reveals.

I need space.

I shut the laptop, pop in my earphones, blast my favorite thinking music, and go for a walk around New Eden. Walking always helps me think. I close my eyes, visualize all the information, and start mapping out the release of necessary information. Which universities I should use, which people. Do I need to deploy or move anyone. People stay out of my way while I walk. They are used to this particular idiosynchronicity.

I process for a few hours. By the time I make it back to my laptop, I'm ready.

It takes thirteen hours of work before everything is in motion. By the time I'm done, I'm exhausted. Rung out. Hollow.

I need to feed. Pregnancy sucks that way.