Going Everywhere

It had taken thousands of years, but for the first time since the birth of human civilization: silence had fallen over the Earth. Anticipation filled the atmosphere, more potent in its effect than oxygen as they waited on the enemy. It misted the skin like a waterfall crashing down, the inevitability of its gravity pulling each man into its orbit.

Leo sat out by the ship's hanger bays, watching the slow trickle of people’s last-minute decisions fill the stomach of the Lucky Rabbit like a litter of kits. He sighed, searching the crowd of grumblers for the one that he wanted to be there. He saw people with carriers full of things they wanted to save, mementos of a planet that had once been home; that still held them close as they were preparing to abandon it.

No luck. His heart was evenly beating in disappointment as he realized that Lukas wasn't there. He turned his head up, the top of the bay window coated with sensory mechanics. The encrusted lines of metal reminded him of the old council meetings, intersecting thoughts. Caught in the memory, he walked through the bay, the procession of additions welcomed with great enthusiasm as they skirted past the various pods and scout craft of the island-sized colony ship.

Each of the 5 factions had taken decades to form. Wars and conflict had scarred each of them, internal and external. The outcomes had led to a leadership of survivors, the best of the best. People who were dreamers when opportune, realists when necessary. They had all come to the table willingly, their irrevocable differences known and understood, their groups familial as blood.

Leo looked across the table. There, opposite him was Lukas, his pale frame standing resolute beside the man called Arthur, who led the remaining members of ronin and P.M.C left in the scramble away from war and into escape velocity.

Leo wanted to kiss him. It had been a year. 365 days of worrying while in labs and shipyards, terrified that a drone or mine or stray rocket would take Lukas away, when they were so close to the solution. He stared back, his brilliant blue meeting luminous grey, the mirroring emotion in his love's eyes so hidden that Leo almost missed it.

Each leader was speaking about the problem, and each wanted a solution that the other knew wouldn't work. Everything had been set in motion before their births, and the flow of it swept all their ideals under its tide.

Aliens were coming, and they weren't nice aliens. The fact that they were coming, that this knowledge had been circulating for decades, was what had created the factions to begin with. Unity could only come about when a threat to the whole was discovered, and it had been a horrifying, existential threat that unity might not be able to beat. A godhead of aliens, an empire that required nothing of humans save their cessation of breathing.

Their technology was better, their species already united from beyond when we could see them. They were coming here to destroy us, for the most silly and understandable reason possible.

"There can only be one."

Years of fear, followed by decades of squabble. How best to fight? How best to talk? All of it wasted. Information was gathered by minds smart enough to know that either approach would fail.

"It's one ship. They made everything into one ship. Granted, it's a big ship, but how hard would it be to fight?" Heather, the leader of the Agri-Collective stared over to Arthur, the gruff blonde man scowling horribly. Lukas and Leo were still staring at each other, a silent conversation.

Would he fight if he was ordered to? Would he throw his life away, no matter how hard Leo cried for him not to?

"Impossible. No 6th generation weapon would stand a chance against a planet-sized warship." Lukas’s commander poured a glass of water, looking at the center table. "The rapid de-militarization put the nail in the coffin for fending it off, there's not even impossible odds against the enemy now. We'd all be turned to ash if we resisted."

There was a scoff. "Then the solution is obvious. It's the same one we've been lobbying you all for decades. Freely distributing printer codes for, building archival resources for." Nathan, sitting just in front of Leo, spoke now, authoritatively. No one liked them. Among the five, Outpour was the most hated faction. It was hard not to when they were so infuriatingly right.

"Its one ship. And it's slow as a rock. Even with their FTL technology it took them over a hundred years to reach us.”

"You still want to run? Like a coward?" Arthur crumpled his cup in his calloused hands.

"Run? No. We're going to piss them off and scare them by doing this. And they should be scared. Give us enough time? Eventually it won’t matter how big a ship they build at all. We’ll be everywhere." Nathan crossed his arms.

Leo pursed his lips, the grey eyes sharp like steel, cutting him as they narrowed. There was betrayal there, and Leo realized that he had made the right choice, even if this meant they were over. Lukas would have fought, would have killed himself against the rock of this problem, because he wanted to. He wanted to fight the aliens, not for any other reason than he liked it. Maybe even more than he had ever liked Leo. The hurt he returned to him was genuine.

Outpour was taking that away from him. Leo was taking that away. He felt a pang of guilt, shame, and fear at knowing this might be it. It was overshadowed by the relief of knowing that Lukas would live. Despite the hate, he would live.

Nathan had finished the whole argument with a single maneuver: "We scatter to the wind, an invasive species that they'll never be able to catch up to."

Now, nearly half a decade later, the Lucky Rabbit was ready alongside the slew of other generation colony ships; for the fifth wave and final launch. Only the most stubborn and strange were left now, the Earth abandoned to their natural wilds for the aliens to muse over when they arrived next year. Thousands of ships littered the stars even now, in the time between the approaching monster's final FTL jump; where their sensors did not work.

Maybe Lukas was already gone? "That would be just like him." Leo rubbed the tail fin of the scout craft. It was one of these where he'd confessed. The two had been on a mission together to gauge ocean pressure, the calm dark of the watery void below the Earth bringing out their emotions after months of working together at the research base. They’d fought over who should be piloting the scout, and had only stopped when they’d hit the very bottom.

It had been magical there, so deep that it felt the cosmos couldn't reach, the bio-lights of jellyfish prismatic as they'd held each other close, naked. Alone and together.

Lukas had been fighting every day of his life. Drone swarms leftover from 5th gen warfare alongside the gravity weapons of the 6th. Fighting had been his first love, and it was one that stalked their relationship up until the split. So many fights. Stupid fights. Petty fights. Fights that led to screaming. Fights that led to crying. Fights that led to sex.

"I'm fucking tired of fighting. I'm tired of you! If it's so important to you, just stay behind and die! Let them tear you out of the sky and die for nothing!"

The ugly words were ones he regretted every day now. He thought about them before bed, and in the morning at lonely breakfasts. He'd broken first of course, he always did. He sent apologies and messages, but nothing had come back.

In the solid blue chrome of the scout ship, the moments with Lukas that had lasted forever stretched like in a mirror.

A sudden claxon drilled the air. He knew this sound, it was an early warning system. They were no doubt testing for-

"WARNING WARNING WARNING" it repeated in monotone. "Emergency early warning system activated. This is not a drill. Alien signature detected on the outskirts of Pluto station. Estimated arrival within three days. Prepare 48 hour emergency jump start up sequence. All passengers are to report to their stations and be ready for FTL transit."

He was frozen. The sounds of the trickle outside became a stampede as panicked colonists ran inside, the bulkheads beginning to seal as the final people made it inside. No one left behind. No one…

Leo shook with fear. Was Lukas here? He searched the influx of the crowd, shouting his name, searching desperately. His grey eyes, his thin body. He wasn’t there.

He collapsed against the side of the ship, crying. He was never ready for it to be over.

The two days passed with agonizing slowness. No one was ready to leave, not really. Who could possibly imagine saying goodbye to Earth, forever? People crowded the windows, trying to take in the pale blue dot from the exterior, the walls like an impossible distance that the human race could no longer summit. Some decided they wanted back out, but the bulkheads were closed. No one could leave anymore, not even if the highest command wanted it.

Leo had stayed in bed all day yesterday, and now, all day today, he sat at his table, silent. He knew he would never love again. That knowledge crushed him like the atmosphere of a hundred trenches, and as night turned to day, he realized he hadn’t slept. He was so sick with love and loss that he felt like he couldn’t walk, but he still did. The wide and open halls of the ship would never feel like home, the planters and artificial sunlight hollow, the meeting halls an echoing sadness even while full. He sobbed in every silent moment.

Why had he pushed him so hard? Why was he always letting him push the fight? Part of him knew, in a way, it was just how they knew to communicate. Fighting each other, being together, finding middle ground, it was all the same. If they hadn’t taken things this far, would he have been able to hold back? Would they still be together, here and now?

The day arrived, the engines whirring to life with a furious jump start. The world shook as the Earth held onto them one last time, the love of a mother world that had given them everything. It rose away, further and further, the forests and oceans and empty cities becoming blips on an impossible landscape that was no longer theirs. Children waved goodbye, their parents waving with them; tears in every eye. Leo turned away, the pieces of his soul left behind, somewhere else.

Then his pager bleeped. He checked it. They needed him on the command deck. He shuffled there while listening to the ship; the roar of the engines, the cry of goodbye.

On the deck, Nathan had a furious scowl on his face. He pointed to their sensors and told him to sit down at his station. He did, putting his headset on. Then he heard it.

“Check in Lucky Rabbit. Check in!” The voice over the radio was unmistakable. He was completely quiet. “I’m coming your way outside of the gravity, would like clearance for my landing in your bay after.”

“Lukas?” His voice cracked, and he shouted, “Lukas?! What are you doing!?”

“I had some unfinished business before I said goodbye to Earth, Lucky Rabbit!”

He shook his head while laughing, this was just like him! “What might that be?!”

“I had to dump the last bits of rockets into a site to complete the last bits of de-militarization. I figure I get to designate the site, so I chose that big old planet ship up there as a target!”

Terror filled him, “Lukas you can’t fight it! Don’t, please-”

“Now, now, keep your head on Lucky Rabbit. After all, what’s the point of rockets if they can’t reach their target far off? I’m finishing it up right now!” Leo watched on the monitor as tiny sparks denoting weaponry emptied off into the dark, where in the depths the mighty alien mother-ship approached. The line stopped, fireworks sent screeching in the vacuum while Lukas’s voice bled back in, “There! Now that that’s finished up, may I be offered a spot aboard your vessel? I think mine is too far away to make it back before the jump!”

“Absolutely no-Hey!” Nathan was pushed over as Leo ran out of the chair and into the elevator down, other people shouting after him. None of them had the cruelty in them to try and stop him.

“Thanks!” Lukas shouted back while not waiting for the answer, the ship shaking. Inside the scout, he was putting the pedal to the floor. In front of him, still some miles away, the Lucky Rabbit was like a skyscraper given wings, the blinking lights greater than stars. The grey stone of his gaze traveled over that vast distance to meet the blue hidden inside, and his heart hammered as the symbols of his life before slunk deeper into space, behind him where they belonged.

He needed Leo to know that he didn’t need to apologize. He needed them to know how much they meant to him. He cursed himself for waiting so long, for taking so much time. It was just like him to be dramatic.

Around the colony ship, the telltale signs of FTL travel started to spark. He was close, so close. Pulling alongside the Lucky Rabbit, he suddenly felt his ship begin to buck and shake, forcing him to use every bit of his expertise just to stay stable. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He repeated over and over as he tried to override the safeties, to push his way through the soon-to-vanish ship. It wasn’t working. “No!” He slammed the console in panic.

Then the console blinkered as remote control was enabled.

He smiled, stating aloud, “I won’t fight this.”

The ship sped off, rolling across fields of debris and ancient satellites as it maneuvered down towards the bay.

“I trust you.” He closed his eyes, placing his arms behind his head.

“Took you a while.” Leo said back.

He just laughed, then braced as Leo rammed the ship down through the bulkhead doors! The explosion of metal shards and sparks cut in through the rush of vacuum, the fail-safes closing back over the wound as the craft skittered to a stop, spinning through the air with a screech!

It smoked for a few minutes. Then the emergency hatch on the ship opened. Lukas didn’t climb out. Leo climbed in.

Inside, the two sat in the shaken cockpit together, embracing. The scout had landed facing the windows, which had been covered by metal slats as burn crews rushed about, panicking as they put out minor fires. They executed the jump, the pull of everywhere rushing through them as they were spat far away from aliens and Earth. Not even minutes to spare.

“They’re going to chew us out so bad for this.” Lukas laughed. Leo held him tighter.

“I missed you.” He whispered. Like a spell, the words sent them to a magical place, and the moment began to stretch, as though the universe thought it should last forever.

“I just needed to let it go.” Lukas halted. “I-I don’t ever want to fight like that again.”

“We won’t have to.” He held him by his cheeks. The fear was gone.

Behind Leo’s face, the windows past the bay opened again, the dark twinkle of the stars like the jellyfish, their kiss long as they sped away, to all the places that could not be caught.

All across the universe, that same human love would come to every corner, where nothing, no singular threat could ever challenge.

The blue and grey melded together.