Husk - a short story
Husk The cored husk of the world had fallen, a blackened beating heart eviscerated under the thunderous chorus of a thousand megaton bombs. I watched the Earth shiver from orbit, packed away in a cryogenic pod. As I watched from the singular frosted window allotted to my temporary resting place, I waited for the nitrous to kick in. Lucky. That’s what command had called us. We were lucky to be chosen by Central Command. We, the chosen few, had been spared the certainty of nuclear annihilation for uncertainty among the stars. As I watched my city burn in the cold absence of space, I felt nothing. The barren metal skeleton had once housed parks and coffee shops I’d frequented between extended shifts at the corporate embassies. My life had been one endless delegation hearing that rolled over from one day to the next. Lucky. Thousands of years of human tenacity and innovation amounted to this. My eyes grew heavy. If I ever awoke, it would be on alien soil untold ...