You finish tightening the last bolt on the panel in front of you, wiping a streak of sweat from your brow with a gloved hand. The hum of Sagitta’s engines softly drones on, reminding you of how vital your work is in keeping the ship operational. As an engineer, you spend most of your time ensuring the systems run smoothly—because if they don’t, survival isn’t guaranteed. You, and your fellow engineers, are the backbone of the crew, ensuring daily processes continue on without a hitch.

The Earth is gone. The rogue debris cluster that ripped it apart came faster than expected, and the evacuation was chaos. Only four ships managed to launch before it was too late—Sagitta, Galatea, Astralis, and Halcyon. Everything humanity once knew is gone, now reduced to the survivors aboard these four vessels. The year is 2097, an infamous time that marks the start of humanity's greatest struggle yet.

Sagitta drifts southward, away from the other ships. Each one took a different direction in the hope that at least one would find a future somewhere out in the stars. For now, you can still communicate with them—the distances are close enough that signals pass through without delay—but every day, the gap widens. Once the coming years pass, you expect that the only voices you’ll hear will be those of the crew beside you.

You make your way to your private quarters, the cold, metallic walls of Sagitta closing in on you. Your job is to keep everything running—hydroponics, life support, the fusion reactor—so that Sagitta can continue its journey into the unknown. You know the importance of every rivet, every system check. The ship depends on you, and so does what’s left of humanity.

You sit down, your eyes tiredly scanning your small quarters. Your laptop buzzes atop your desk, waiting for you. You reach up to your temple and carefully remove the small, sleek chip that houses Cirrus, your trusty AI companion. The device clicks softly as you slot it into the port on your laptop, and within seconds, Cirrus flickers onto the screen.