Remove Failed Here

On her wrist, the device flickered. Then, a new line:

Elara smiled, blood on her teeth, and watched the stars spin. She had failed to remove. But she had not failed to save. remove failed

Remove failed. The message wasn’t an error. It was a verdict. On her wrist, the device flickered

She wired the core to the monolith’s base. If you won’t be removed, she thought, then you’ll be moved. But she had not failed to save

She set the timer for ten minutes, climbed back into her ship, and fired thrusters at maximum burn. The asteroid lurched. The monolith screamed—a psychic shriek that made her nose bleed. But the rock began to turn, its new course set not away from the sun, but toward Earth.

She closed her eyes. Seventy-two hours became seventy-two minutes of oxygen. The asteroid was tumbling toward the sun. If she left without the relic, Earth burned. If she stayed, she burned with the asteroid, and Earth still burned.