Survivors
Just days after celebrating the anniversary of the first colonization mission, the control room watched the destruction of Earth with all the instruments at their disposal.
Telescopes, radios, antennas, everything pointed at that pale blue dot in the distance.
The whole colony watched.
In terror.
The distance made it difficult to assess the extent of destruction and whether there would any be survivors left on the surface.
On the wall, there were still posters of that very first mission, and there was an improvised sculpture of the man who had convinced the whole planet to embark on interplanetary colonization.
The posters and the sculpture were currently being ignored, all eyes on the screens.
Some of the instruments were looking for signs of escape, signs of ships leaving Earth.
It seemed that some of them had made it.
Some of those in the room considered how awful it must had been to depart in those ships; how had they chosen who’d go aboard and who’d stay behind taking care of launch procedures?
How many people would there be in each ship?
Would they have gotten enough time to gather provisions for the whole journey to the colony?
Or were some of the ships practically empty and their passengers doomed to die during the journey?
Had any of them had to fight their way into the ship?
Would they make it here?
In the back of the room, someone turned their eyes to the sculpture, to the person responsible for the human race still having a future.
Had he made it to one of those ships?
