The rain ran up along the window, leaving behind dotted trails. It had been so long since she'd seen rain that it took Lillian a few minutes to realise what it was she found peculiar. Space was once a novelty, but it was so common to her now that the particulars of the terrestrial had become unknowns. Even then, there was something beyond the novelty that she still couldn't place, and instead watched the rain trickle up along the window. The shuttle rattled as it continued its plunge through the atmosphere, sending vibrations through the hull that continued on to her harness frame.

She clenched her hands against the cylindrical metal and pulled until her palms began to ache, and it carried through to the expression on her face.

"Relax."

She jolted her head to the side, still focused on trying to keep the harness steady, but distracted by the sound enough to see the source of the voice was wrapped up in a security uniform.

"It's not supposed to rattle. It's not set right and it's rattling," were her words, somehow making it past her locked teeth.

"Always feels like that, Doc. You're safe. Relax. Even blink."

She turned her head a little further, until she could see the face of whoever seemed so casual about what felt like the annihilation they'd been expecting. He had the name Franklin stitched into the left side of his chest, and even it didn't seem as permanent as the toothy smile painted on his face. It was a familiar one, meaning she'd passed him in the Asimov's corridors at some point, but that was the extent of the familiarity. She looked him over, committed the name to memory, and turned her head back to the window- all without a single flicker of her eyelids.

"Arvuna, right? You ever been, Doc?"

"No."

In sixty seconds, she'd had a different answer.

She knew nothing of the moon beyond what was in the briefing- a handful of settlements spread across what little surface Avuna held, and the rest besides was water. Setting foot on to the brimming green plain at the edge of one settlment, the grass compacted half an inch beneath her foot, and he muds beneath could have held on to her shoe if she'd given them the chance.

It smelled differently to what Lillian expected - the masses of water on Earth had pushed her instincts toward the salted sprays that were a constant by the sea, when the composition of Avuna's environment brought the smell closer to rain after a hot day. She smiled and looked back toward the shuttle. Roy was doing it too, snorting balls of air into his nose, and did it with his eyes kept narrow - a window into the slow churn of his thoughts.

"God... that's what comin' for us, isn't it."

She frowned, and juked her head to the left. "Water's... coming for us?"

He shook his head and continued the march forward, until he came alongside her. "This won't be fun, yeah? We've room for thirty, maybe fifty at a stretch, and there's still a hundred in this settlement. Take it."

Lillian glanced at Roy, then at the arm he held out toward her, and finally at the pistol in his grip. She laughed in staccato, and added, "No, no... no."

"They're people, Doc. Tired, hungry and scared. And we're leaving most of them here."

She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from the weapon, "Right, and I'm a doctor. What am I going to do, shoot them?"

"Hey, I just wanna be ready. How it plays out is up to them."

The dropship lifted from the surface without any noticeable slowness, though it wouldn't have been a surprise, due to the number of passengers they'd taken on board. There were only fifty-three of them, all they'd been able to get aboard before the call came.

Something's wrong with the comms.

The words were devoid of clarity, refusing to specify what the something could be, even though both Lillian and Roy had guessed at the cause - if only in name.

Just get us back. We'll come back if we can.

She mouthed the words again, these ones hers, feeling the bitterness of the syllables as her tongue flicked against her lips.

"How long?" she blurted out.

"Asimov in a hard three."

Her eyes went to the window, wanting to shut it out and hope it would make it all go away, bu it was there and it was coming. Roy looked at her, then followed her gaze to the window.

"Shit... is that a reaper?" asked Roy.

She watched at the light coursed through the black of space, engulfing their sight of the stars until every way they looked was filled with a tidal wave of colour. It was impossible to be sure, but it felt to them both as though the light was surging toward them, and expected it would soon crash against their dropship.

"I don't know," she answered.