The situation was so familiar; he reacted out of pure instinct. He had stood on his bridge, in this same spot, with these same people, with this same key in his hand enough to know where every crewmember was at this very moment. The Captain had been given orders nearly forty years ago, and now it was time to execute them. Execute... that term had always seemed so distant. Standing here now with his thumb on the key it was suffocating him. They had been sent out on a search and destroy mission, and the searching was over.
His isolation had given him his greatest strength coincident with his greatest weakness. He needed no one, but now he stood wishing a thousand people would take his place. Powerless to find him an unachievable goal, his superiors gave him the simple task of saving humanity at the cost of an entire alien race.
The Captain's memory echoed of the moment the ship had been pushed back from the Jupiter space dock. It was tucked away so far into Jupiter's moons that it went unnoticed as the invaders battled the main fleet at Mars. If only they had known it was a distraction, Earth may not have been sliced with a scar that stretched from the Australia to Norway. Nearly two-fifths of the population had already perished before the main fleet was able to reposition from Mars. The resulting chaos ended with the loss of eighty five percent of the fleet, but at least the invasion had been halted. It was an easy decision by the counsel to send the device so painstakingly hidden from the invasion fleet.
The device was built to halt the largest of the invasion ships. Had it been finished on time, the battle would have ended much differently. After the invasion, the device was changed into the atmospheric incinerator it was now. Their mission became so top secret, they didn't know what it was until they left the space dock. The forty-year flight there and back meant the crew knew it was effectively a one-way trip. The Captain knew there was never a plan to return. The device had originally been built to destroy space ships, but the redesign meant his entire ships core would be needed.
Simulations had been practiced, the crew never faltered. For twenty years the ship drifted silently to its target. Everyone knew their place. He would wake up in raw sweat, dreaming of the moment his key would make it's deafening 'click', and the ship would be engulfed.
But this was different than the simulations. Forty years ago, when the simulations were started, families and children weren't added. It had always been part of the plan, in case the ship was sent to the wrong location, or needed to wait. There had to be replacements for the original crew. Except no one expected the Captain to find a wife. Nobody expected the Captain to need a replacement.
His father told him of the world he never knew, and the terrible war that scarred the earth. His father, the Captain, told him of the device, what it was meant for, and the terrible secret he had to bear. He knew the only way to save them. Standing here now, with his thumb on the key, he unleashed its final click.
