'Mother'

From above, the dropship looked no more than a comet as it sped silently towards Earth. The trail of space dust left in its wake heralded the Ark's only hope. Mankind's only hope. She strained her neck to watch its descent from the tiny porthole set too high in the wall, following the glittering trail until it dropped completely out of sight. Her very heart went with that vessel, and she hastily brushed away a tear as she heard someone enter the room.

"Julia? They're waiting for you."

With a creak of her wheels, Julia turned her chair, donning a deliberate smile to greet her husband, Kevin, and his usual stern expression. If he was at all affected by the events of the day, he wasn't letting them show. He bent down to kneel at her side and take her hand in his. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She nodded, sweeping her long hair back behind her ears. "We put our own names to the Earth mission. For my own peace of mind, I have to do something."

"Where's the Chancellor?" Kevin's thick eyebrows – now streaked with grey over these last few stressful years – knitted together. His mouth was a hard line of suspicion.

"Hiding out in his quarters, I expect," she answered with a soft shake of her head. "I'm sure most of the parents on the Ark are out for his blood."

"Well they shouldn't have to settle for yours."

She let out a gentle laugh at her husband's dark humour. Though they were both prestigious members of the council, Julia was one of two next in line for the Chancellor's position. Kevin was always her most steadfast supporter, even against myriad others who worked for nothing but her failure. And that was why, no matter what awful decisions they had been forced to make, she had to keep her chin up, for him.

"You should go," she told him gently.

He nodded brusquely, brushing his dry lips against her brow before leaving through the quieter rear door.

Julia wheeled her chair over to the opposite door, the exit that lead to the much less private corridor. She took a slow breath before reaching up to activate the door's controls. As it slid aside, the clamour from the crowd was deafening.

"What's going on? What's happening to our children?"

"I saw a ship launch!"

"Let me see my daughter, please…"

"You make me sick!"

Julia held up her hand for silence, and after a few tense moments, the chatter guttered out. The crowd towered above her, but she lifted her head high to look them all in the eyes as she said, "There has been a quarantine situation in the prison. It's an illness that's easily treatable, but we need to contain the spread. Your children are safe."

"What about that ship? How do you explain that?" shouted a furious man wearing the overalls of the factory stations.

"The ship you saw was a test launch of an old escape pod, entirely unrelated," Julia explained, delivering the lie without flinching.

"When will you increase the oxygen supply to Walden again?" asked a pallid young woman at the front of the crowd.

Julia hadn't been prepared for the question, but her responses were rehearsed well enough by now. "Oxygen levels will be restored once air distribution has been stabilised throughout the Ark. We are doing all we can to monitor and-"

"Is that extra oxygen on the back of your chair?" She couldn't see where the voice came from, but the comment hit its mark.

"It's… I have to have this in case-"

"If you weren't on the council, they'd have floated you long ago," a woman near the back called out, and the rest of the crowd roared its agreement.

"How much medication have you taken from medical in the last few months?"

"My mother is in lots of pain, they won't give her anything to help her."

"You're a waste of resources!"

Julia's chest tightened painfully. "I have to go. Excuse me," she said through a burning throat, before unlocking her wheels and pushing herself away from the ravenous crowd. A few of the braver protestors tried to block her path, but the guards soon forced them back into line. Moving between the ranks of armed men and women, Julia pushed herself far enough out of sight before launching into a vicious bout of racking coughs. Each one felt like a wound in her chest, and her eyes welled over with bitter tears. She fumbled behind her headrest for her oxygen mask.

One of the guards must have seen her struggling, and put it into her hand. "Ma'am? Do you need to go to medical?"

She shook her head rapidly and sucked in that first blessed lungful of oxygen. Her throat freed and her breathing steadied. "I'm going… to see the Chancellor," she said, between inhalations.

"Would you like me to push you there?"

"No," she answered, a little too sharply. "No, I'll be… fine. Thank you."

She didn't want to spend a moment longer gasping for air in front of all those people, and she wheeled herself away perhaps sooner than she would have liked to. Fortunately, the journey to Chancellor Dawson's quarters was mercifully short. She went in alone.

Nathaniel Dawson stood at one of the wide windows on his office, dark eyes cast Earth-ward as though he had been watching the dropship's descent himself. An open bottle of ancient whiskey sat on his desk.

"A toast to the travellers?" Julia asked, feeling more human now she was behind closed doors.

Nathaniel turned to face her, looking almost surprised that she was there. He shook his head solemnly and resumed his melancholy stare out of the window.

She let him have just a heartbeat of silence before she said, "The people have questions. Apparently the dropship's launch didn't go unnoticed."

"I trust you to deal with them, Julia."

"I have tried to deal with them, Nathaniel. It degraded into name-calling, yet again. You really need to speak to Luther about keeping his personal grudges to himself."

"Luther is a member of this council. He is free to do as he please," the Chancellor responded in a monotone voice.

"Even if that includes jealously slandering his fellow council members?"

He turned to look at her then, deep lines wrinkling his forehead. His salt-and-pepper hair was a shock against his nut-brown skin, and his back was bowed no matter how straight he stood. But despite the toll time had taken upon him, he was still the most dignified man on the Ark. The look he gave her was one of disapproval. "Don't we have more important things to deal with right now?"

"Yes, and some of us realise that more than most."

"I have a son down there, you know," he rebutted.

"One of your many wild oats, yes. I do feel for you, but come and talk to me about loss when the person you're grieving for is your only son."

"The last I heard, you were denying that he was even your son at all."

The silence lay thick between them. Julia had no fear in meeting his judging gaze, and eventually, he relented, walking slowly back to the seat behind his desk. "What would you have me do?"

"Your people – talk to them. They deserve to know the truth, the parents especially. It can't come from me, or Kevin, or even Luther. It's to you they look for answers, and this… this is heavy news, for every citizen of the Ark. Just tell them the truth, that's all I'm asking of you."

As she spoke, he refilled his glass with whiskey – a luxury more precious than oxygen these days. He watched each amber drop hit the glass, and when he drank, he did so intensely. "That's all, hm?" he said eventually, placing the empty glass back on the desk. "Give me a day. I'll think on it."

"As you wish, Chancellor," Julia said, frustrated but willing to concede him that much. She released her brakes to leave, but she only managed one full turn of her wheels before he called out to her.

"Your son," he said, and a pang went through her. "He'll be fine. He's with the girl, isn't he?"

She let out a long, painful breath. "That's what I'm worried about." She reached the door and remembered herself. Beyond that door, she had a façade to wear, and she would wear it at her husband's insistence. She cast one last look at Nathaniel over her shoulder before she left the room. "Besides, it's just as you say: he's not my son any more."