Prologue ii

T-minus 517 days

A chill ran down Mara's spine. The cold emptiness of Cell 117 lay before her; two beds occupied the most space while a short wall blocked off the steel toilet from the view of the door, a small oval window hung between the beds but sat so high in the wall that Mara would have to stand on one of the beds to see out. From where she stood at the locked door, she could tell that her assigned bed would be uncomfortable. The pillow bulged in places and sunk in others and the blanket covering the wafer-thin mattress was torn and stained.

The other bed in the cell was occupied by a girl at least five years younger than Mara. The pointed toes of her left leg dangled off the end of the bed and skimmed the floor, her toenails were long and made a screeching sound when they met with metal. She was holding a datapad in her hands, her fingers tapping an unknown rhythm on its back, and Mara could not see her face. The girl's nails were ragged.

Mara didn't know what to do. Guilt weighed heavily on her heart and the image of her mother's face swam before her eyes. She could see the dark bags under Madeline's eyes deepen with disappointment and she knew that Logan would find some way to blame himself.

She stood in the entrance to the cell afraid to take the next step as if that would confirm that she was a criminal and not the aching of her wrists from the handcuffs and her ID permanently stamped with 'Prisoner F.079'.

"Hey," Mara's cellmate finally spoke with a voice like burning coal: warm and soothing but with danger lurking in its depths.

"Hi," Mara floundered, her hands self-consciously reaching up to play with the ends of her hair.

The girl lowered her datapad slightly. Mara could see the top of her blonde head and her wide brown eyes. The young girl's hair was braided away from her face and tied at the end with a piece of string. Her clothes were worn and faded at her knees and elbows. She had placed her jacket - blue with a patch of brown fabric hastily sewn onto the shoulder - over her lap, and Mara was struck by how young the girl looked.

Not knowing quite where to look or what to do with herself, Mara finally began to descend the three steps into the main area of the cell. Taking that final step felt like the end, the end of her former life, the end of everything she had ever known, and she wanted nothing more than to reverse time. She perched on the end of the bed, which she would have to actively make the effort to call her own, and clasped her hands over her knees.

The guards had let her keep her own clothes. She had had visions of dull uniforms and white orthopaedic shoes, of children and teenagers transformed into clones and marching to the beat of some invisible drum. But instead, she sat in her black trousers and cream sweater covered by her green jacket, the only thing that had been taken from her had been her datapad and ID card. She was no longer Mara Gorman. She was Prisoner F.079.

She heard her cellmate sigh - and the word cellmate caught her off guard for the first time, and her mind reeled at the notion that she was no longer a normal Factory girl - and watched as the other girl finally clicked her datapad off. Mara did not know the girl, but she felt like she knew everything that had happened in the other girl's life the minute she saw her face in full. Her cheeks were round and blemish free; her pink lips were chapped and she nibbled at the inside of her cheek. Yet, her eyes betrayed the innocence of her face; she was angry and more than a little terrified.

"I'm Mara," her name felt foreign in Cell 117.

"Charlotte," the girl offered a half-smile and Mara knew that no one as young as Charlotte belonged in a place like this.

T-minus 460 days

The visitors' room was sweltering from the number of bodies the guards had managed to squeeze in. Each table was occupied, some by more than one family, and the noise level only seemed to increase with every passing minute. Mara sat in the centre of the room. A large fluorescent light beamed down on the top of her head and sweat began to bead on her top lip. Her hands rested on the table.

Madeline and Logan sat across from her. Logan's hair had sprouted a new patch of grey above his right ear and hadn't been cut in a while; he kept brushing strands out of his eye over and over until the oil in his hands began to seep into his hair. Madeline's collarbones jutted out more than the last time Mara had seen her. Her lips were pale and thin.

Madeline was once a tall woman, enhanced by the posture that had been drilled into her from a young age. Her mother, a bright mathematician and avid reader of science fiction, had insisted that Madeline hold herself with utmost importance.

"This place won't be kind to you," her mother had once said, "but don't ever let it make you small."

Now, Madeline sat hunched over in her chair and her knuckles jutted out under the thin skin of her hands. Her cheeks were drawn and gaunt and looked as if all of her blood had been drained.

"How're you doing, baby?" Madeline asked, reaching over a shaking hand but retracting it at a guard's coughed warning.

Mara sought for the right thing to say. She couldn't tell her parents the truth: that she was absolutely miserable. There were no sounds of soft snoring or of her parents shifting in their sleep to distract her from the darkness of her cell. Instead, she was forced to listen to the sound of her own breathing, of her blood pumping when she pressed her ear to the pillow. And the shadows, cast by the dim blue light above the door that never turned off, were long and scared her.

Charlotte had terrible nightmares that woke her up every other night. The young girl would shoot awake screaming at the top of her lungs. Mara would sit up with her until she fell asleep again leaving Mara suspended in a constant state of tiredness.

"Fine," she said instead. "I've got work duty in the archives."

"That's great!" Madeline smiled.

Mara wished that it was. She sat behind a screen downloading books to datapads and sliding them through a little opening to the waiting prisoner. Sometimes they stayed to talk to her for a bit and she was finally able to abate the loneliness, but most of the time they took their datapads and left without a word.

"Yeah, mom, it's great."

T-minus 231 days

"Here," Mara said, throwing the datapad in her hands onto her cellmate's bed, "you can't get onto the hub, but it's got three books downloaded onto it."

The door to Cell 117 slammed shut behind her as she shrugged off her jacket; the green faux-leather slid down her arms and pooled at her feet. She kicked it under the bed. It would lie there, undisturbed and half-forgotten, for another seven days when Mara would be allowed to return to the Sky Box archives for her work duties. She would not need it before then, for the temperature in Cell 117 fluctuated so sporadically that it was an annoyance to have to take it off and put it back on again. Mara much preferred the comfort of her scratchy bedsheets.

"Cool, thanks!" Charlotte said, picking up the datapad and clicking it on.

Mara sighed as she settled down on the edge of her bed. At least, it was intended to be a bed. It was hard, and lumpy in uncomfortable places, and had little yield like lying on a sheet of corrugated iron. Her pillow, encased in a threadbare off-white case, was little better. On her fifth night in the Sky Box - when she had been lonely and scared of the creeping shadows in the corners of her cell and irritated by the scratching of her sheets against her arms - she had discovered that the pillow provided more comfort if folded in half.

Cell 117 was little more than a closet, with five paces between the beds and twelve from the door to the opposite wall. Above the door hung a bare light bulb which never truly switched off. Instead, it continuously cast a dim blue light which made the cell seem cold and even more uninviting. It transformed the shadows in the cell into menacing fingers reaching for Mara and threatening to grab her.

Mara untied the laces of her black boots and kicked them off. She pulled her knees to her chest so her feet wouldn't touch the rough metal floor and leaned back to rest her head against the wall. She rapped her knuckles against it, listening to the bangs echoing around the small room. Her cellmate never looked up.

Three sharp knocks sounded back to her from the adjoining cell.

"Hey," a male voice spoke from the other side of the wall.

"I have news," Mara said, turning her head so that her mouth was slightly closer to the wall. "Apparently some kid's been arrested for going on a spacewalk."

"Yeah, I heard he wasted a month's worth of oxygen," the voice responded.

"Shit," Mara breathed, then, realising her mistake, cast a wincing glance at her cellmate. "Sorry, Charlotte."

"I don't care," Charlotte shrugged, her wide chestnut eyes never leaving the datapad.

"What does that mean?" Mara asked, tugging the sleeves of her holey cream sweater down over her hands.

"Population cull, probably," the voice said straight but without malice.

"Nathan," Mara scolded him anyway, "don't say that."

"It's true," Nathan defended himself, "the Ark has to run out of oxygen eventually. Just makes sense."

Mara played with the frayed sleeves of her sweater. She tugged at one particularly long strand, feeling the cuff tighten around her wrist until she released the string and the sleeve relaxed once more.

She did not know the details of the Spacewalker's arrest, having only overheard snippets of conversation while working in the Sky Box archives checking out datapads to the delinquents who had been granted access. She did know, however, that going on an illegal spacewalk was incredibly dangerous. Each spacewalk required a team of mechanics and engineers to ensure that all equipment was operating correctly and a doctor was put on standby in case of an emergency. Going on a spacewalk alone meant a waltz with death.

"Hey, Charlotte!" Nathan called.

Charlotte finally looked up, her blonde braids flopping over her shoulders.

"Three...two...one…" Nathan counted and together he and Mara shouted:

"Happy Birthday!"

Charlotte laughed, light and carefree for the first time since she had watched her parents' executions, and clambered over to Mara's bed.

Mara wrapped an arm around Charlotte's shoulders and pulled the girl into her side. Charlotte's button nose rubbed against Mara's collarbone and Mara pulled her tighter. Charlotte was twelve years old.

T-minus 219 days

A million thoughts swarmed around Mara's head - a myriad of incensed scorpions lashing out behind her eyes - each more troubling than the last. It took nearly all of her energy to stop her hands from shaking in their metal restraints as the sound of her boots clanging against the steel walkway echoed back to her. Something was terribly wrong.

The guard before her - back stiff, head high, shoulders set - marched swiftly on, leading her past locked cell door after locked cell door. Down a set of stairs. Along a corridor of cells. Sharp right. Sharp right. Squeeze past the janitor mopping the floors. Insert a six-digit combination in a heavily guarded door. Slip through the opening and - the guarded door slammed shut behind Mara and she snapped her eyes closed to shield them from the sudden intensity of The Ark's mainland. She knew that she was imagining it but, as she took a deep breath in, she believed that the air smelled far sweeter outside of the confines of the Sky Box.

"This way," ordered the guard.

Had the guard looked at her, she would have seen a hateful wildfire blazing behind Mara's eyes. Yet, she did not look and Mara dutifully followed after her. Their footstep rang off of each other, colliding together in an offbeat rhythm that mirrored the pounding of Mara's heart in her chest.

They passed the corridors that Mara had only ever seen as she was marched into the Sky Box the day of her arrest. Her handcuffs burned into her wrists as she met the eyes of each person she was marched passed; she could see the judgement in their eyes ('Another waste of space', 'Just float her and get it over with', 'Why waste resources on scum like her?') but refused to back down from their stare. If they would paint her as a good-for-nothing then she would prove them all wrong and refuse to cower. She would not be weak.

Yet, the longer they walked the harder Mara found it to keep her hands still. Her fingers were desperate to clench, her nails begging to dig red crescent moons into her palms, but she could not let them. She would be strong. For, whatever awaited her at the end of their journey, Mara knew that she would need all the strength she could muster.

"Are you gonna tell me where we're going?" Mara asked, her petulant tone hiding her building nerves.

The guard remained silent.

The air grew colder the further they walked, and Mara began to recognize her surroundings. She did not, however, recognize the hallways from having seen them first hand. Rather, she was overwhelmed by the feeling of Deja Vu from the stories her friends had whispered to each other as children. Dying screams of innocent criminals; tragic lovers compressed by space's atmosphere forever; a birthplace of vengeful ghosts and vicious executioners. Mara did not need to have walked these hallways before to know exactly where she was being marched.

"I'm seventeen!" She blurted, picking up her pace to stand shoulder to shoulder with the guard.

"Your point?" The guard stared straight ahead, her hair flashing white as they passed under a light fixture.

"And I haven't had my review yet." Mara had to match each of the guard's steps with two of her own.

"Again: your point?"

"What do you mean 'what's my point'? My point is that you can't float me!" Mara rounded in front of the guard, ever aware that the guard had a foot in height on her and that her hands were tied behind her back.

"You're not being floated," said the guard in the same monotonous voice.

"Then why the hell are you bringing me here?"

The guard did not need to answer, for they had rounded the final corner and Mara discovered the truth for herself. Once sweet air turned sour, leaving a putrid taste in Mara's mouth, and her steps faltered when she was confronted by a hallway filled with Med Bay patients. They were all dressed in their best clothes - ironed shirts, pressed trousers, crease-free dresses - yet the smell of disinfectant clung to their skin as if it oozed out of their pores. Medical tags hung limply from their wrists.

"What's going on?" Mara asked, her voice cracking with the knowledge that she didn't truly need an answer.

At the end of the short hallway sat a set of glass doors through which Mara could see the Chancellor and Marcus Kane surrounded by three guards. A chill ran down Mara's spine and the hairs on her arms stood on end for, in front of Chancellor Jaha and Kane, stood her parents.

A separate room loomed behind the group, sealed off by a pair of scratched glass doors. This room was completely empty, for nothing could be stored in it lest it is inadvertently sucked out into space. A yellow sign above the door warned 'Caution: Air Lock' in bold black writing.

"Please don't make me go in there," Mara pleaded, but her traitorous feet kept up the slow pace set by the guard.

Madeline Gorman stood stooped over, clutching her silver necklace to her chest and leaning into her husband's side. The slightest tug would have broken the chain, but the harsh overhead lights bounced off it and straight into one of the guard's eyes; he squinted in the uncomfortable light and shifted out of formation.

Logan had his arms firmly wrapped around his wife and, as Mara found herself waiting for the automatic doors to slide open, Mara could see tears sliding down his cheeks.

The doors slid open with a fatal whoosh and the guard stood to the side to let Mara pass.

"Take the handcuffs off," Chancellor Jaha ordered, but Mara couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Someone needs to tell me what's going on," she demanded as her wrists were finally freed from their metal restraints.

Her wrists ached from the tightness of the cuffs, but she no longer cared as her feet carried her into her mother's outstretched arms.

"It's okay, baby girl," Madeline whispered into Mara's hair as she tucked her daughter's head under her chin.

Mara wrapped her arms around her mother's waist, feeling Madeline's bones bulging out of her skin. She wanted to hold her mother forever, to bury Madeline in her chest so she could live for eternity in freedom from sickness and death.

"Please don't do this," Mara begged, her voice muffled by the softness of Madeline's patchwork dress and her cheek pressed against a little white button.

"It'll be okay. Everything will be okay," said Madeline in a voice that sounded like every parent lying to protect their child.

"It's not fair." Mara's eyes smarted with tears that would not fall and she clutched onto her mother tighter. If she didn't let go they couldn't take her.

"Look at me, baby." Madeline pulled away, resting her hands on Mara's shoulders and smiling so gently that Mara felt her heart cracking in two.

The softness in Madeline's honey eyes spoke of bedtime stories and kisses to scraped knees, of arguments that never needed to be forgiven, and an unconditional love that burned brighter than a thousand brilliant suns. Yet, Mara could see through the love in Madeline's eyes to the pain buried beneath and the longing to be free from an agonisingly slow death.

"It's not fair."

Mara's eyes blurred and she felt the first tear fall. It slipped down her cheek and caressed the corner of her mouth before dripping from her chin, but she did not take her eyes off Madeline.

"I chose to do this." Madeline tucked Mara's hair behind her ears before cupping her daughter's reddening cheeks in her hands. "I love you so much, baby."

"It's time," Chancellor Jaha ordered.

Mara had always found the Chancellor's voice calming whenever he spoke over the tannoy system or she heard him speak in person. His deep melodic voice ebbed and flowed with humble authority but now, with her mother having moments left to live, Mara couldn't think of a more grating sound.

She pulled out of Madeline's embrace to face the Chancellor; the shadow he cast was long and imposing but Mara planted her feet and stared him down.

"This isn't right," said Mara with all the power a seventeen-year-old can summon in the face of authority.

"It's necessary," Kane stepped in, the three guards behind him standing up straighter like identical robots.

"Necessary!" Logan Gorman sprung to life, his voice caked in pained anguish. "Nothing about this is necessary!"

"Mr Gorman-"

"No! You are forcing her into this!" Logan roared, interrupting Jaha, and pointed an accusing finger in the Chancellor's face. "You never gave her a choice!"

"Logan," Madeline's voice was quiet but, like a threatening storm, commanded attention. "I can't do this anymore."

Her skin was greying and she almost blended into the monotone colours of her patchwork dress. Her legs were trembling, and she would have been able to hide it had the hem of her dress not been shaking against the floor. The dress was frayed and marked here and there from years of use. It was too big for her now and hung off of her like a child wearing adult clothing. It was Madeline's best dress.

"Mom-"

"Madeline-"

Logan and Mara spoke at the same time, moving as one to wrap their arms around the most important person in their lives. They stood like that, three people transformed into marble statues, cast in their grief and cursing their fate.

Madeline was the first to pull away with difficulty. She held her small family at arm's length and sighed - a trying task as her lungs struggled more than they should have.

"Here," Madeline said, reaching up to unclasp her necklace. "I want you to have this."

Mara took the necklace from her mother, her fingers tracing over the steel hammered into the shape of a star and she wrapped the chain around her fingers. The metal was old and dull and worn from years of use. One of the points was slightly bent and thinner than the others from Madeline's constantly playing with it.

"It's time," Chancellor Jaha said, holding out his hand to Madeline.

Madeline took the outstretched hand and one of the guards began typing a password into a panel next to a set of glass doors. The rhythmic beeping of the panel matched each shaking step Madeline took as Jaha led her to the doors, which opened with a mechanical whoosh when they reached them.

Mara watched as Madeline dropped Jaha's hand and took a final step forward. She landed on the other side of the doors and Mara wanted nothing more than to run to her, to bring her back and never leave her mother's side again, to reverse time and never have stolen the morphine, to have spent the last year of Madeline Gorman's life with her.

The doors slid shut. Mara's eyes blurred her mother's figure into one thin assortment of grey, and she blinked and blinked but could not regain her focus. She wanted to look upon her mother's face one last time, to memorise the pattern of freckles across her nose, to map the speckles of green in her amber eyes, to smell the synthetic roses of her perfume, but she could not; her mother was further from her than she had ever been.

"In peace, may you leave this shore," Jaha began, his voice grave and unnervingly steady. "In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground."

A sob broke forth from Mara's mouth and her feet carried her forward, tripping over themselves in their haste to reach the doors. She began to fall, her hands reaching out in front of her to slam into the wretched glass separating her from her mother. The star charm of Madeline's necklace pinged off the glass, adding another scratch to the already marked surface.

Madeline stumbled forward, her arms reaching out to embrace her daughter, but neither mother nor daughter could make contact. They stared at each other with eyes full of unbearable longing and heartache.

"May we meet again," Madeline said, her hand flattening against the glass.

Mara felt her father's arms wrapping around her shoulders, but she didn't want him.

"Say it," Madeline whispered.

But Mara couldn't do it. The words stood on the tip of her tongue waiting to be released but her lips would not part.

"Please," Madeline pleaded.

The metal doors behind Madeline opened.

"Mom!" Mara screamed in agony as Madeline was pulled from her feet and sucked out into the blackness beyond.

The doors slid shut and where Madeline had stood mere moments before was painfully empty.

"Take her back to the Sky Box," Kane ordered as if Mara hadn't just witnessed her mother's death.

Mara's original escort grabbed her arm and attempted to pull her from her father.

"Let go of her!" Logan shouted, tugging at Mara's other arm.

Mara could not pull her gaze from where Madeline had disappeared. As her arms were tugged in each direction and her feet began to slip from under her, she blinked and blinked and each time she opened her eyes she expected to see her mother still standing in front of her.

Blink. Nothing. Blink. Nothing. Blink and maybe this time Madeline would be back, maybe this time she would be safe and Mara could tell her how much she loved her. Blink. Nothing.

Her feet slipped from under her and she fell through both the guard's and her father's grasping hands. She clattered to the floor, her arms jutting out the break her fall and the metal points of the star broke the skin of her right palm.

She blinked but she could not see, and she did not know that she was crying until her eyes cleared and she could see her tears mixing with the drops of blood by her hand.

Logan was shouting, but she did not know what he was saying. Someone was trying to help her to her feet, but she did not want to move. She could have stayed on the floor forever.

The hand on her shoulder gripped her tighter though it did not hurt her and she finally looked at who was helping her. Jaha was crouched beside her, his eyes full of sorrow and the burden of power. Mara held his gaze as best she could. Her reflection stared back at her; a scared and broken girl.

She did not know why she spoke to him. Jaha did not deserve to know her private thoughts or the agony beginning to weave spiked tendrils around her heart, but she could not stop the traitorous words spilling from her lips.

"I didn't say it...I didn't say it back."

T-minus 199 days

Grief is made of monstrous things. It settles into bones quietly and without fuss or mercy. For Mara, grief made her world slow to a crawl and muted her senses; food had lost its taste and every sound echoed from the end of a very long tunnel.

Jaha's face flashed before her eyes morning and night. The longer she thought of his face the more it twisted in her mind until she was quite sure that the image in her head was nothing like the real thing. In her nightmares, Jaha and Kane dragged Madeline away to her death and no matter how fast Mara ran she could never catch up with them. She woke in a sweat every night gasping for breath, her hair plastered to the sides of her face and filled with the feeling that she would never forget the fear on Madeline's face.

She had not spoken more than a few words in the days that had passed since Madeline's execution. Execution. She could not reconcile her mother's death with any other name.

Her throat was warm like the beginning of a cold, and her eyes were hot and heavy. But she did not feel sick. Instead, her bones had settled into a state of numbness. Strangely, she felt both heavy and light at once as if she were frozen in a moment of time waiting to be unstuck.

The cell was empty. Charlotte had left thirty minutes before for her work assignment. She worked in the canteen scrubbing the floors and worktops until they sparkled. The pads of her hands had toughened and Mara had noticed the red patches on her knees when she readied herself for bed at night.

Mara, for her part, had refused to let Charlotte see her gradually breaking down. Madeline's death had only fueled Charlotte's nightmares of the joint deaths of her own parents and she screamed herself awake at least twice a night.

Charlotte's brief absence had turned into a blessing and Mara let her grief consume her. She huddled under her scratchy blanket with her knees pulled up to her chest and her forehead pressed against the wall adjoining her cell to Nathan's. She could just hear him breathing, a soft and welcome comfort, and she knew that he was replicating her position.

Nathan knocked gently against the wall...once...twice...three times. Mara copied him and spread her hand flat against the wall. The metal was cooling against her palm and she wished she could push her hand through the wall and reach out to him, to twine their fingers together and have him hold her. She didn't know what he looked like, only the comforting sound of his voice.

"They floated my mom, Nathan," she whispered, and her voice cracked from disuse.

"I know," he said not unkindly.

Mara shifted in her bed, her hand slipping from the wall, and she turned her gaze to the small window at the bottom of her cell. Inky blackness stretched out beyond her and she wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to look at a sky; to see blue stretch above her was something that she could only imagine. Maybe the Earth would be soft to her. Maybe she could live in peace. She could plant flowers, grow crops, raise animals. Her mom and dad could live in a little hut beside her own - and Nathan and Charlotte could live nearby - and a stream would run behind their homes. They could fetch fresh water and catch fish from it. They would cook at night over a bonfire and count the stars in the gentle night sky. Her world would be warm and happy. The Earth would keep her safe.

Her dreams and grief walked hand in hand: ever-present and unshakeable. She began to speak, in low tones and a quiet voice. She told Nathan of her thoughts of Earth, or her plans for a simple life, of her mother safe and well.

"We'd be happy," she said at last, the weight of her mother's necklace heavy against her throat.

"Sounds nice. Too bad we're stuck up here," Nathan replied, shifting in his own bed to lie on his back.

He was right, she knew. Earth would only ever be an unattainable dream, for Madeline could never be brought back to life or her family reunited and safe. Mara could only dream, but the more she dreamt the angrier she became.

"It's not fair," she said, her grief finally finding relief through anger.

"Nothing is," Nathan said in the pragmatic way he always spoke.

"I mean it, Nathan. Why should my mom have to die just because someone decided to waste our oxygen?"

She couldn't lie still any longer and clambered up from her position and onto her knees. Her heels dug into the tops of her thighs and she began to pick at a loose thread in the blanket in her hands.

"I'm gonna kill him." The finality of her statement would have shocked her had the imagined world she had just conjured not still danced before her eyes.

"You don't even know who he is," Nathan reasoned.

"Once I find out who it is, I'm gonna do it. I'm going to kill the Spacewalker."

Thank you to everyone who has favourited, followed and reviewed! I really appreciate it and hope that you enjoyed this chapter!

This was the last of the prologues so the next chapter will start following along with the events of season one (with a few big changes to look out for).

Thanks again and I'll hopefully see you soon with the next chapter!