SPLINTER

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It was hell outside. Smoke choked the air, mixed with some deadly concoction of radioactive fallout and contaminated moisture. The fire we'd outran after escaping the ruined city of Morris was a mere twenty kilometers away from the launch site; hundreds of other fires burned in every direction, all of them slowly eating up any unburnt land or forests that were left.

The radiation would have blanketed most of the continent by now, with some of it already being carried out to the Atlantic Ocean. Six hours outside was enough to give a lethal dose; as such, the lot of us were wearing bulky environment suits nearly identical to the ones astronauts wore in orbit. They were pressurized, shielded, and rather difficult to move in.

The moment we opened the door, a faint cloud of dust filled the air. The three of us stepped out onto the long crawlerway, the Neptune-B sitting a kilometer in the distance. A haze hung in the sky, dimming our view of the rocket beyond and darkening the sun.

I wiggled in my suit, already sweating profusely. "Alright, guys. Let's get off this rock." We awkwardly clambered into a dusty van and drove in silence down the crawlerway, until the large concrete structure of Launch Pad 3 filled the windshield.

We didn't know exactly how many bombs had been detonated. The fiery craters initially left by the explosions had spawned all sorts of firestorms across the continent, making it impossible to accurately see each nuclear hypocenter from orbit. As such, no one knew how long it would be so radioactive outside. Trace has estimated that it would be anywhere from three weeks to three months before the fallout had decayed enough for it to be even remotely habitable outside of a bunker.

By then, the contaminated smoke and radionuclides high in the atmosphere would have circled the globe. The sheer amount of fallout would quite possibly cause mild radiation sickness as far away as the Dead Zone, on the other side of the League of Eastern Nations throughout Asia. In the best case scenario, the prolonged, unending exposure would kill millions by the end of the year. In the worst, the death toll would be in the billions. The LEN was in a mad dash to shore up as much as it could, but the reality was they couldn't shelter their population from what was coming. Just as a volcanic eruption could color sunsets purple around the globe, the smoke and dust from the bombs would envelope the planet whether it was ready or not. The LEN's highways were packed with millions of people all fleeing the western coast as the smoke cloud drew nearer every day, hoping to find sanctuary in the eastern cities...but in truth, there was nowhere to run. There was no country on the planet that could hide. The smoke would keep coming and coming; as the American continent burned, bits of fallout that had settled to the ground would be swept back up into the air by the updrafts of superfires, renewing the contamination endlessly until there was nothing left to burn.

Raine put the van into park, and we stepped onto the charred concrete of the launch pad. I drew my gaze up, admiring the rocket from down below. The vehicle was clamped in place at its base, with three massive metal arms locked against the bottom along with a half-dozen large shear pins holding it tight. Three black engine bells protruded three meters each out of the bottom of the rocket, with thin wisps of vapor pouring out their bottoms. Frost and ice dotted the rocket's entire length, a product of the super-cooled oxygen housed within. Vapor clouds rose from the side of the rocket as some of the ice sublimated directly into fog, shrouding the Neptune-B briefly before the wind gently carried it away.

Standing at fifty-seven meters tall, the monstrous machine was so quiet it was eerie, like a sleeping dragon just waiting to wake. There were over 300,000 kilograms of fuel in its first stage alone, ready to be burned in a matter of minutes. The rocket was old, bearing a patchwork of replacement plates on its exterior and overhauled engines that had made dozens of flights over the years. The three colossal landing legs of the first stage, while folded tightly against the sides of the rocket, bore scuffs and scratches from years of service and hard landings that were visible beneath the fresh coat of paint they wore.

We walked to the elevator waiting at the bottom of the launch tower and closed the cage around us, beginning our ascent. My stomach flipped as the metal cage elevator began to rise. Oh... A fear of heights I'd never known hit me like a brick, and my teeth began to chatter together, the sound echoing through my comm's microphone.

As we ascended, I eyed the side of the rocket just eight meters away. Frost glistened on its sides, a few pieces occasionally breaking free and falling to the ground. As we passed the middle of the first stage, I caught sight of a pair of thick, insulated hoses plugged into its side. A pair of solenoids in each hose connector lay ready to fire at a moment's notice, separating them from the launch vehicle itself.

The Neptune-B had been bright and clean when we'd first arrived at the launch complex, but now it was slowly getting covered in soot as all of the smoke in the atmosphere deposited tiny particles of ash everywhere. My stomach turned over again--what if the ash clogs something important? I doubted that any rocket had ever been launched with atmospheric conditions remotely similar to what they were now.

It really doesn't matter. We couldn't stay here. Raine and I would eventually die of radiation sickness, be it in a couple of weeks or a few months, and Marcus wouldn't be far behind if we stayed. Even if we ended up surviving our initial exposure, the contamination everywhere would eventually kill us. It would poison the ground and water, seeping deep and festering for decades.

The elevator lurched and stopped, holding the three of us at the top of the launch tower. A tunnel extended from the elevator to the side of the capsule sitting atop the rocket, and Raine slid the elevator door open.

Wind whistled through the tunnel, and I grabbed the railing tightly. I could almost feel the launch tower swaying to and fro, ever so slightly in the wind.

"Nik?"

The rocket thumped loudly as various systems worked through their sequences. I pressed my eyes shut, feeling my teeth rattle together faster as the nervous habit my species was known for manifested loudly on the comms. I was about to be launched into orbit, for the first time--if the rocket didn't fail. It had been my goal for years; leaving the planet had been my driving force since I was twenty. I felt numb inside; somehow, it didn't seem real that it was finally happening.

"Nikolai."

I'd spent my life down here. I'd never been to any of the orbital habitats, I hadn't worked in the orbital shipyard like Ash had--hell, I'd only been in an airplane a handful of times. Everything I'd ever known--or what was left of it--was here, in Eska. My mother. My father and sister's graves were here. My home was here.

I slowly opened my eyes, standing in the middle of the tunnel, still grasping the railing as hard as I could. The Eskan hills were in the distance, casting long shadows across the launch complex. The air was thick and acrid, choked full of smoke and ash. Through the haze, I couldn't make out the familiar green colors that had draped the countryside all my life. Everything was painted sickly shades of orange and grey, from the sky to the ground.

"Hey."

It was hardly fair! Why should I have to leave? I hadn't done this to the world. Nobody in my country had! Hell, the majority of the planet's population hadn't even been involved in the war, but now we were all paying for it. I'd lost everything--I didn't even have my dufflebag with me. I was taking literally nothing with me.

"Nikolai!"

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned around to see Raine waiting expectantly behind me. She cocked her head--I was blocking the tunnel.

"Are we getting off this rock or what?"

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A/N: another snippet for people here to enjoy. I'm hoping to finish the book soon!