Atalanta: Well. At least we’ll have a bit of time on Cavendish before they arrest us. That’s something. It was worth being a part of the resistance.

Whoever crewed the new ship would likely put the women’s skills to work once they arrived. The five of them were still valuable. But they’d be punished, one way or another, to set an example. Cavendish would become their prison.

The word “resistance” stared at her from the screen, worming its way into her mind. A tiny fraction of the spirulina she had on board was probably resistant. The crew of the Atalanta were only five women out of all of humanity, but they could still found a whole new place for humans to flourish. Sometimes you only need one tiny proportion of the population to enact change.

Earth: I’m sorry, for what it’s worth, though I know that’s an empty thing to say. How are you doing? I mean, no bullshit. Is outer space what you thought it’d be?

Naomi hated it when he tried to be nice.

Atalanta: I’m fine. Send through the stuff when you have it, and thanks for the help. I might have an idea of what could work. Goodnight.

She didn’t want him to keep talking. To risk him bringing up their last conversation on Earth and all the baggage that came with it. Plus her mind was buzzing. Resistance.

Mutations and evolution. She might not even need to bioengineer the algae. It might have already started solving the problem on its own. Life was stubborn.

His message snuck through just before she shut down the console.

Earth: Good night, Naomi.

She finished her cooling coffee, mindlessly scrolling through the various VR locations as she kept thinking. Her fingers paused on somewhere she’d been, interrupting the flow. She bit back a curse. It’d take her ages to pick up the edges of it again. She stared at the words: the Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. She tapped it.

She’d camped there, her freshman year at Stanford, for a weekend trip called Living on the Edge for geo-sci class. The teacher and a few older students from Earth, Energy & Environmental Science acted as guides, taking them around local beaches to point out landforms and illustrate how the Earth had folded upon itself, the history fossilised in layers of rock. She’d known Evan had chosen Stanford too—with a delayed start after travelling the world on a gap year funded by Valerie—but she hadn’t expected him to show up as one of the guides, since he was only a sophomore. She’d been so successful at avoiding him those first few months.

They’d chosen a campsite near Natural Bridges, under the juniper trees, and everything smelled like sharp berries, badly barbecued veggie burgers, and smoke.