The End - Visions of Apocalypse

Vera closed the outside door and returned to the controls of the ship — her ship now. She couldn’t decide which of the two had been worse, the pig or the idealist. The pig had tried to kill her the moment she was no longer useful, but he’d been honest. The idealist thought they could work together and come out ahead; but she had seen that “repopulating the species” look in his eye when he thought she wasn’t looking. Staying in a small ship with him for more than a year would have been hell.

She had been watching Timo very closely. There were individualities to every ship, an order to the controls that only the pilot would know. The controls were basic; it wouldn’t take her long to get the feel of it.

“What was it you did every time you sat down?” She asked herself. Perhaps she would spend a few days talking to the ghost of Timo. It was the only way she’d let him keep her company.

She strapped herself in, like he always did. Then he would reach up and turn a knob on the far corner of the panel.

The knob wasn’t there. There was a nondescript hole with no label. Vera was sure there had been something in there before.

Maybe it was important; maybe it was just an idiosyncrasy. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be that hard to pull the control panel and figure out what it was, and replace it if she had to.

There was a tool kit somewhere around, she’d seen it.

Vera didn’t know it was a timing knob, and that the ship was set to explode when it reached zero. As it turned out, an hour and fifteen minutes after she sent Timo out of the airlock.

* * *

The Mars colony — they still called themselves a colony — started out as a few temporary shelters put in place for the year-long exploration of the planet. The time frame had changed when the Earth died. They had spent the first few years finding ways to make the colony sustainable with the materials at hand. It had not been easy.

Even so, their population had doubled every year for the first three years.

“Some kind of comet, I guess,” Sandy said as they sun rose opposite a bright sphere which had appeared in the night sky. They had noticed it half an hour before, and it would be setting within a minute or two.

“I’ll set up the telescope for tomorrow night. We’ll get a good look at it and see if we can figure out where it’s going.”

There was only one telescope in the colony and Sandy had it. She spent as much time teaching people the use and care of the telescope as she did actually using it herself. The colony had learned to share; it was a matter of survival.

“Maybe one of the guys found another comet for us,” Gene said, taking a last look. “We’ve been asking for almost a year. If it is, we’ll have lakes by next month.”

Sandy was out early that evening. As the sun set, the bright sphere came up above the horizon, brighter than it had been the night before. Sandy got it in focus. She looked for a moment, and then pulled her phone out of her pocket. She almost dropped it as she dialed. The governor would want to hear this.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Sandy said.

Word spread quickly. The Martians spent the week celebrating. It was the Moon, and it was on a course which would put it into a workable orbit around the planet. They would be able to make a few adjustments after the scientists made detailed calculations, and it would be perfect.

Only a few people noticed the increase of shooting stars for a few days after the arrival of the Moon. No one realized they were bits of metal.

The metal from three ships.

NORMAN GRAY Relapse

Norman Gray is a 24 year old aspiring author from Toronto, Canada. He began pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a science-fiction/fantasy writer in 2010, when he joined the sffworld.com writing forum. Norman attributes most of his knowledge of writing to this forum, and the invaluable wealth of expertise possessed by its members.