Author: Jadelyn Tate
Story: Stages
Characters: None in particular
Disclaimer: I own no one.
Summery: What do you do when your entire world is destroyed?
Author Notes: This is a one shot. In the future, it may be expanded, but that's not today.
We lost.
Watching from the ship she'd been teleported into, that simple fact kept repeating in her head.
We lost.
Every animal, insect, plant, man, woman, and child was dead but for those who'd been saved at the last minute.
We lost.
The good guys hadn't won; the rangers hadn't saved the day in the nick of time.
We lost.
There was no going back. The planet she'd been born on, raised, fought for, was just…gone. And she hadn't been able to do anything about it.
We lost.
There was no clever time machine, no loophole that would allow her to re-write history, to change her mistakes.
We lost.
Everyone, everything she had ever known, was no more.
We lost.
The sounds of those who, like her, had been saved drifted across her senses. The smells of burnt skin and clothing, the cries of children who would never again see their parents, the bitter taste of ashes coating her throat, the press of two hundred bodies crammed inside one of the ships that had survived the destruction. Each held the same amount of people, theoretically.
Six hundred survivors out of six billion.
We lost.
"This can't be happening," someone whispered nearby.
The disembodied whisper was right. This couldn't be happening. The Rangers didn't lose. They always won. They always pulled some tricky maneuver, some insane plan, out of the air and won, damnit! This wasn't possible.
We lost.
"It happened, we can't change it," another voice, another whisper.
NO! NO! How can you accept this?! This isn't the end! We have so much still to do! They can't do this to us!
We lost.
I'll do anything, can't you stretch it out? Can't you send me back, back to make it all right? I'll give up everything, change my decisions, give my life for theirs. Please, God, can't we make a deal?
We lost.
"What's the point?" another voice, older, tired, spoke.
What was the point? Destruction for destruction's sake? What did they have? Three ships and six hundred survivors. Who would take them in? Who would feed them, clothe them, protect them? They didn't have the resources to colonize a new planet. They barely had enough fuel to get away from the memory of their home. They were all going to die.
We lost.
"We need to make plans, prepare," a solid voice, strong, willing, not desperate like everyone elses.
Home may be gone, but we're still here. We can still go on. We can remember those who died needlessly and honor their memories by not giving up, by not giving in. We may have lost this battle, this war, but we're still standing.
We can move forward. We have to move forward.
We lost.
Yes, we lost. But we're not dead yet. She turned to face the crowd, most still in shock, many too young or old to do anything around the ship. Those who could didn't have the knowledge needed to face this. Her eyes sought out the man who had spoken before, the strong one. They stared at one another, teammate to teammate, friend to friend, brother to sister.
"What can we do?" someone whispered in hopelessness. He nodded in acknowledgement. She stepped forward.
"We live."