Stark Truths
They are several billion of light years from Earth, and they're all going to die.
Those facts are simple, stark. They're on a crash course with a star, and Destiny's only shuttle has flown away into space, flying towards a planet that may not even be habitable. But at least they – Riley, Matt, T.J, Brody and the others – at least they still have a chance of survival. Destiny doesn't, and nor do its passengers.
Eli casts his mind away from these stark truths, and concentrates on the Kino. It shows them the spaceship from the outside, a streamlined bow flaring outwards in an elegant mass of ancient metal, with a stern like an oversized whale's tail. It wasn't what Eli had been expecting, and Rush, for one, seems pleased by this final discovery. But his delight is tinged with the dreadful knowledge of death, just like Eli.
Yet when the scientist apologises for dragging him into the mess, Eli surprises him by brushing it off. He surprises himself, in fact. Of course he doesn't want to die. But to die here, on the observation deck of an alien spaceship, watching solar flares illuminate the dark universe, after travelling to another planet, meeting Chloe, trekking through an alien desert... images race through his head, and it occurs to Eli that they're not going to have any more adventures. He breaths. Asks "we don't have that long, do we?" and then listens with closed eyes as Rush elucidates upon their fate for Chloe. Turbulence, and heat, and G forces. Eli could have told her that. He understands the maths, and turns towards it, staring out at the magnificence of the universe that will kill them all.
Rush leaves. Chloe and Eli settle themselves on a couch. They can't hear anyone else; the others have chosen to spend their final hours in the bowels of the ship. So they wait. There's a lingering sadness, but Eli pushes down thoughts of his mother, of his old friends, and holds Chloe tight. Together, in silence, they watch the star loom through the windows of the observation deck.