Earth 2

In deep space, God only knows where floated Earth 2. A miraculous piece of handiwork and ingenuity. From the outside, everything looked calm and almost serene as the ship drifted slowly through the vast empty space. You would have no idea the chaos that was going on inside.

Inside the hull of the ship, two men were pulling on a large lever. The larger of the two was practically on the floor, trying to use the artificial gravity to his advantage. The veins on his arms looked ready to burst and his knuckles were ghost white. The smaller man was on top of the lever, trying to use his body weight to pull it down, the sweat from his brow dripping on the man below.

"It's no use!" the smaller one yelled, his voice barely able to be heard above the large whirring of the engines at full power.

"Keep...going," the larger one pushed out between breaths.

"You have to let them go, Rothan!" the smaller one tried yelling back, but his shout was drowned out by the loud blaring of an alarm. The lights turned from the bright white they once were into a deep red, blinking to the sound of the siren. This only lighted Rothan's fire as he began to use every last ounce of his energy on the lever. It moved downward, slowly but the movement was apparent. Just as he almost pulled it into place, the lever shot back into the upwards position, causing the small man to fall to the floor.

The whole ship shook beneath their feet. Rothan flew backward, crashing into the metal engine head-first. The smaller man watched as the beast of a man fell to the floor, limp. He forced his way over to him, nearly falling with every step. Despite being mere inches from his face, the man still had to yell to be heard. "Rothan? Rothan?"

The large man stirred slightly, but his eyes remained closed. Happy with the sign of life, the man gently set him back on the floor and made his towards a control panel across the room. He climbed across the floor, the ship's movements trying to throw him off the path. A large jolt sent him flying into the panel, forcing him to grab it tight to prevent him from moving past it. His muscles strained as he had to pull himself towards the center on the console, the ship still trying to sabotage him. Taking a deep breath, he launched himself at the array of controls, his hand landing firmly on a large button.

The sea of chaos calmed instantly. The ship stopped trembling and the alarm turned off. The lights turned back into a blinding white, forcing the man to close his eyes due to the sudden shift. He fell into the chair behind him, letting out a small laugh of relief. To his right, Rothan began to stir. He sat up, rubbing his head, scanning his surroundings trying to catch up on what he missed. It was barely a moment before he launched himself towards the small man by the console.

"What did you do?" he screamed, his voice echoing through the metal room, "What did you do?"

"I did what I had to!" the smaller man yelled back, standing up in a sad attempt to look tough. Rothan didn't flinch at his movements and rammed straight into him, knocking the man to the floor. He grabbed him by his shirt collar and hoisted him above the ground. The toes of his shoes were barely able to scrape the floor.

"Rothan!" someone shouted, causing the beast to drop the man. "What is going on here?"

"Nothing ma'am," the small man choaked out as he stood up. In front of the two men stood a line of guards, their guns all pointed at Rothan. In the center of the line stood a woman dressed much differently than the guards around her. She wore all back in stark contrast to the white uniforms surrounding her.

"Why did you attack Dalen?" she inquired, her head tilting as if it were a playful question. Then men knew better.

"Honest, ma'am, it was nothing. It's been high stress down here with only the two of us and tensions got a little high, that's all," Dalen insisted, attempting to swallow his fear.

"Just the two of you? What happened to the other engineers?" the woman asked as if she didn't already know the answer.

"Dalen just doomed them to death," Rothan growled, his deep voice shaking the air. Unsatisfied with that answer, the woman turned her gaze back to Dalen.

"The Chief took them to Sat 2 to try and fix the issues," he informed her.

"Ah and you just ejected Sat 2 is that correct?" she taunted, a small smirk forming on her face.

"Yes," he sighed, feeling Rothan's anger.

"Wells congratulations! You have been promoted to Chief engineer! Thank you for saving the human race! Humans will reign forever!" she cheered.

"Forever we will reign," Dalen and Rothan mumbled half-heartedly. Satisfied, the woman turned and walked out, the guards accompanying her.

"You killed them all," Rothan barked as soon as the doors closed.

"What did you want me to do?" Dalen argued. "The mission failed! I had to let them go."

"You ejected hundreds of innocent people!"

"And thousands more would have died if I didn't!"

"The Chief would have fixed the problem! He just needed more time!" Rothan insisted.

"We didn't have any more time! I waited as long as I could. The port was compromised and if I didn't eject that sector the whole ship would have gone down!" Dalen barked back, ready to fight with his words. Much to his surprise, Rothan slumped to the floor.

"You should've let this ship die," he whispered, pulling a heart-shaped locket out of his pocket. He opened it, a single tear running down his cheek. "The human race doesn't deserve to live after what we've done."

"Everything we have done was so that we can survive. Earth is dead. I know you may not like the Mistress but at least she united us so we could live. It's more than I can say for you," Dalen sighed, sitting in the console chair.

"Why do you still buy into their propaganda? We got to stop taking the Injection when we became engineers. You know the truth," he insisted, looking up at his coworker.

"Did you ever think that maybe I agree with them? That I believe that the human race deserves to live," Dalen hissed. Rothan just stared at him for a second before nodding.

"Fine," he sighed, rising to his feet and walking away.

"Where are you going?" Dalen yelled after him. He didn't answer. "I'm your boss now! You can't just... oh for Mistress's sake."

He got out of the chair and chased after him. The two men entered into a dark corridor, the door to it hidden behind the engines.

"What is this place?" Dalen asked, looking around for a light.

"You're new responsibility as Chief," Rothan answered, flipping the switch next to him. The whole hallway lit up, but not by lights hanging from above. The whole corridor was lined with chambers that were now glowing. Most of which were blue and a few red.

"What is this place?" Dalen whispered, fearing the answer.

"I think you already know," Rothan responded, motioning for him to take a look. Hesitantly, Dalen stepped forward and looked into the nearest chamber. Inside was a creature, unlike anything he had ever seen. Its skin was a dull green, its top half was covered in wrinkles and it had tentacles that were curled into a ball. It didn't move at all. The red light shining on it made it even more horrifying. Inserted into his body were dozens of empty tubes leading to the ship.

"They're disgusting," he groaned, taking a step back.

"Yes. Once they're mutilated like this. Chamber 17 is the most recent prisoner, go look at him," Rothan insisted. Dalen didn't want to but the fear of looking weak was too strong. He strut over to the chamber and couldn't help but gasp at what he saw.

It looked like a completely different creature. The skin was such a vibrant green it was almost glowing. There was not a single wrinkle on its skin and the tentacles were moving at a rapid pace, feeling the environment. The same tubes were attached to it, but these were clearly draining something from it.

"It's Chief's job to clear out the dead ones and hook up tubes for the new one," Rothan informed as Dalen touched his hand against the glass.

"Won't they hurt me?" he whispered.

"No. The Feed are peaceful and trusting creatures. They never fight back or try to escape. You would think the Injection would make us more like them, but humanity is far beyond saving."

"We...we don't need this much blood," Dalen whimpered, empathizing with the creature.

"We do for the Injections. How else would the Mistress keep society from revolting? And besides, the extra blood is used as fuel. It lasts a lot longer than our basic garbage," Rothan mocked. Dalen said nothing in response, he was stuck staring at the creature. "Humanity deserves to die."

With that, Rothan turned and left the hallway, locking the door behind him. This snapped Dalen out of his trance. He turned and ran towards the door, trying to open it. No use. He swiped his key card and the mechanism unlocked. Dalen shoved the door but it hardly budged. Rothan had barricaded the other side. Cussing under his breath, Dalen used every ounce of strength he had to push whatever it was out of the way with the door.

After a minute of struggling, he finally had opening it enough for him to wiggle out. Running out from behind the engines, he found Rothan sitting at the console, pulling levers and pressing buttons.

"You'll kill them all!" Dalen yelled as the engines around him started to get louder. "They're not all guilty of this! The Mistress is the one you should kill!"

"Humanity has killed too many innocent lives!" he shouted back.

"And so you want to be one of those humans? You'll kill so many innocent people and you're fine with that?" Dalen had no chance at overpowering the man; words were the only way to go.

"You were fine with murdering my family ten minutes ago!" Rothan snapped as the lights turned to a deep red yet again. The alarm was almost as loud as Dalen's heartbeat.

"I...I thought they were in Sat 3!" he insisted.

"We moved. Last week," Rothan said quietly but Dalen could still hear him.

"I'm sorry! But you don't have to kill everyone else!"

"We were the best of humanity!" Rothan yelled, standing up. His hand was hovering over a button. "We were the best and look what we've done! If humanity continues to live then this cycle won't end. Even the best fall Dalen!"

"Rothan what did you do?" Dalen screamed, but his question was answered as his hand pressed down on the button.

Earth 2 was a beautiful piece of human engineering. If you watched it from the outside, you would have no idea of the horrors that happened inside. Everything would seem so peaceful as it floated silently across the stars.

That would only make it more surprising to see it explode.