The bar wasn’t really a bar. It had been a staff cafeteria on the boat three months ago, before someone dragged in colored lights, a cheap speaker system, and a karaoke machine that only worked half the time. Now it was the closest thing the Hail Mary Project had to morale. Scientists, engineers, and technicians filled the room all of them pretending this wasn’t the last year of Earth as they knew it. And then there was you. You stood near the wall with a drink you hadn’t touched. You were a scientist, a teacher, a reluctant participant in the biggest gamble in human history.

“You look like you are attending a funeral,” You didn’t have to turn to know who it was. Eva Stratt. She stood beside you now, holding a glass of something clear, watching the crowd with analytical calm.

“I can’t sing,” you said.

“I did not ask you to sing.”

“You’re judging me though.”

“Yes,” she said plainly. “You are standing in a corner at a party designed to improve morale. That is objectively poor morale participation.”

You huffed a quiet laugh despite yourself. “That sounds like advice from someone who runs the apocalypse.”

“I run the logistics of preventing the apocalypse,” she corrected.

Stratt was always five moves ahead of everyone else in the room. But tonight, under the dim colored lights, she looked tired. Not weak. In a way only someone carrying the weight of eight billion lives could be.

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying this either,”

She watched the room quietly for a moment. “I am observing,” she replied. “People work better when they occasionally forget they are saving the world.”

“That’s very romantic.”

“It is extremely practical.”

Before you could respond, she stepped up to the mic Half the room cheered immediately. Some joking, some serious. She stared at them for a long moment, completely expressionless. Then she sighed.

“This is a terrible idea,” she said.

To your absolute shock, she handed you her drink and walked toward the microphone. The room quieted as she took it. People expected a joke, a speech, something administrative and awkward. Instead, she selected a song. ‘Sign of the Times’ as soft music started, she stood there, one hand lightly holding the microphone, posture still perfectly straight, but her voice when she began singing. Not showy. Just honest. She didn’t look at the crowd. She was singing for one person in the room. You. Her voice is warm and beautiful. The song was about distance, and time, and loving someone you might never see again. About choices you don’t want to make but make anyway. Suddenly the mission wasn’t theoretical anymore. It wasn’t equations or astrophage or propulsion systems. It was her. And the way she was looking at you like she had already said goodbye but hadn’t told you yet. Someone shouted, “Director Stratt has feelings!” which she ignored completely as she handed the microphone back. She didn’t return to the crowd. She walked straight back to you. Much closer than she usually allowed herself to stand.

“You just sang a love song while staring directly at me,”

Her eyes flickered, not denial, not confirmation. Just calculation failing for once.

“That was coincidence,” she said.

“That was not coincidence.”

She stepped closer then, close enough that you could see the tiny tension in her jaw, the tiny crack in her perfect composure.

“There are probabilities,” she said quietly. “There are outcomes. There are necessary decisions.”

“That doesn’t sound like karaoke talk.”

“No,” she said softly.

She didn’t look like the most powerful administrator on Earth. She looked like a woman who had already made a decision she hated. She reached out and adjusted your collar slightly, her fingers lingering just a second too long.

“You should try to enjoy tonight, there will not be many nights like this left as you know.”

She was close enough now that if you moved even slightly, you would be touching. She didn’t move or give an order. For once in her life, Eva Stratt left the next decision to someone else. To you.