Author: Lachlan Bond

I watch on, as the sun begins to expand before my eyes.
Slowly, at first, its pulsating shape growing ever-so-slightly behind the Vintusian glass. The radiation waves shake the station, solar winds battering our rapidly failing shields. Alarms blare, but I can hardly hear them over the slip disks firing at full force, every spare ounce of power poured into our drive system, one final, desperate attempt to flee the system before the star engulfs us.
I know it won’t work. I know we’re doomed. But I don’t say that. I don’t hang my head and cry. I don’t mourn my death.
Because I’m ready. I’ve been ready for this day for so long. Ever since the helio-satellites fell from their orbits. Ever since the hydrogen-fuel ran out in the star’s core.
I tried to warn them, all those years ago. I begged and pleaded for someone to listen, anyone. Some did, to their credit. The very young, and the very old, and the very wise all saw the signs. But not the senate. Not the leaders or the generals or the dukes.
They were far too busy, feasting and making merry.
Two billion years, the wise-men of old warned us. That’s all the time we have left. It sounds like far too long, but between the time-slips, the hyperdrives and the relativistic dopler-shifting, two billion years really sneaks up on you. Now it’s arrived, it almost doesn’t seem real.
The best we can do is burn our engines, warping space around us, speeding up time in the hopes that the sun will collapse again before it reaches our orbit.
It won’t. I ran the calculations, dozens of times. This is happening.
So now all there is to do is watch as the star that gave us life grows to swallow the system. It expands before us, swallowing the inner planets in a matter of moments. Outside our little bubble of time, that would’ve taken millennia.
We watched it in a blink.
The sun glows red now, no longer its brilliant, radiant white. I think of all the creatures through all the years that looked up at that white, beautiful orb. Soaring high in our blue sky as waves crashed along serene shores.
My great regret is to have never seen a proper sunset. Not a projection, not an artistic rendition, but a true, honest sunset. With my own eyes.
“Drop the bubble.” I command. “Drop the bubble and shift us three million macro-grades negative along our three-axis.”
“B-but sir!” Foreman cries. “Without the bubble, the solar winds will rip us apart in minutes!”
“With the bubble we’ll be engulfed in flames within the hour.”
He looks at me, fear dripping from his brow.
“Aye sir.”
The station shakes as we drop our bubble, finally re-joining the proper flow of time. The solar winds sunder our lead-lined shields, scraping away layers of amour in seconds. We do not have much time, but I only need a few minutes.
Our thrusters rumble, vibrating my legs as we move downwards.
“Have you ever seen a sunset, Foreman?”
“Sir?” He stares, dazed.
“Do you even know what a sunset is, son?”
“N-no, sir.” He admits.
“You’re about to.”
The light of the dying sun fades slightly, as we pass behind the Earth.
We float, for our last few seconds, and watch the blazing sun set behind the blue rock that we once called home.
The last sunset.
I close my eyes, and breathe out a ragged breath.
I let go, and the station is taken by the winds.