I pounded the sealed door as the pod shot away from the ship. My husband ran out when the pods wouldn't launch and he didn't come back. The rest of the passengers peeled me from the door and strapped tightly into a seat. The whole pod rattled, red lights were blaring, and the mothership faded behind the orange glow. We were entering the atmosphere and my mind was racing with all the horrible possibilities.
It took an hour after we landed before the pods cooled down enough for us to exit and I wasted no time trying to find him. Our new sun was beginning to set but I couldn't find my husband anywhere. It was night when the crew finally organized everybody and started distributing supplies. I asked them but they haven't seen him.
Then out of nowhere, my name was called from the crowd. My heart furiously pounded as I shove through the people. Then I found who called me. One of the ship's crew who had cobbled together a communications array. I looked at the screen and was instantly flooded with relief. I knelt closer to the screen and it slowly dawned on me. My husband is still in the mothership.
It took what felt like hours before I could stop my torrent of tears. The ship's captain consoled me as he was speaking to my husband. Turns out he had overridden the pods' emergency protocols and rerouted our landing to a more favorable location. Without him, we would've scattered all over this planet. All while the mothership uncontrollably zips past into oblivion. He was proclaimed as a hero and our first settlement was to be named after him.
We continued our communication over the next few days. He investigated the exact cause of the delayed emergency launch, but we all knew the mothership was falling apart all along. It cannot slow down, hence why we had to launch at the next habitable planet. Most of the day he was talking with the crew, technical jargon I don't understand. The ship was estimated to be able to support him for 7 months with the resources that were left.
During the night he would talk to me. He admitted that I was the only thing in his mind when he ran out the pod and told me to stay behind. He had to make sure I made it out the ship and landed safely. He even admitted that he chose this spot near the beach because I've always wanted to see the ocean. I berated him for making these decisions, but the anger never stayed. As long as I'm alive, he said, he has no regrets. I felt the half truth in his statement which faded each time he repeated it.
We maintained contact over the next few weeks. By then I was assigned to forage around our camp. I grew busy to the point that we could only talk at night. I'd show him the new plants I found and he'd show me the little things he built and programmed using the ship's extensive archives.
I've lost count of the weeks but I still update him about how the settlement is going. Soon he was too far for synchronous communication. The delay between messages took minutes, then hours, then days. He showed me how far the new sun is from his ship, just a small bright star among many. He urged me to live a life of my own, then his messages grew shorter and shorter.
It don't know how long it has been since his last message. He told me he built a cryostasis but he wasn't sure if he built it right. He's content with whatever the outcome. I'm not sure if he even recieved my reply. Everyday I watched his ship's signal grow weaker and weaker until it was barely detectable. Today his signal has fully faded among the radiation of space.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
