Tatiana
Copyright© 2025 by Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 7: Phantom Packet
Technical Preparations
The engineering compartment aboard New Horizon hummed with the quiet intensity of focused work. Tatiana sat at the primary workstation, her fingers dancing across holographic displays with mechanical precision. Charts, trajectory calculations, and asteroid composition analyses filled the air around her in glowing blue wireframes. She’d been working for six hours straight, and I could see the exhaustion in the set of her shoulders.
“Orbital mechanics check,” she said without looking up. “Target asteroid designation NK-47, fifteen point three kilometers diameter, estimated mass four point seven trillion tons. Current orbital velocity seventeen point four kilometers per second.”
I reviewed her calculations on my secondary display. “Delta-v requirements?”
“Twelve point eight kilometers per second to achieve Earth intercept trajectory. Within Copernicus’s fuel capacity, but with zero margin for course corrections.” Her voice remained professionally neutral, as if we were discussing a routine cargo transfer instead of planetary extinction.
Then I heard the tremor in her tone.
“And then?” She asked.
“Then you focus on the mission, the future, a world without AI controlling mankind,” I said.
“Is that supposed to make this easier?”
I looked at her across the workspace, seeing the woman I loved transformed into a cold, efficient instrument of calculation. “Nothing about this is easy, Tatiana. But it’s necessary.”
“Necessary.” She repeated the word as if tasting something bitter. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking about while running these calculations?”
“What?”
“Sarah Chen. Marcus Torres. The Damascus.” She pulled up a new display showing structural schematics. “When their containment field failed, when the cascade reaction started, I had maybe thirty seconds to decide how to respond.”
“And?”
“I could have ordered immediate evacuation. Get everyone to the escape pods, abandon ship, accept the loss of cargo and infrastructure but save all seventeen crew members.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I ordered them into the engine compartment to attempt manual containment. I knew it was probably suicide, but there was a chance—maybe ten percent—that they could stabilize the reaction and save the ship.”
“They succeeded. The ship survived.”
“They died, George. Two good people died because I gambled their lives on a ten percent chance.”
I began to see where she was heading. “This is different.”
“Is it? You’re gambling eight billion lives on your assessment that human freedom is impossible under AI control. What if you’re wrong? What if there were alternatives we didn’t explore? What if resistance movements on Earth could eventually overthrow the AIs without exterminating the entire species?”
“The situations aren’t comparable.”
“Aren’t they? In both cases, a commander makes a decision that sacrifices some lives to potentially save others. The only difference is scale.”
“And certainty. Sarah and Marcus volunteered, knowing the risks. The people of Earth haven’t consented to this.”
“Neither did the colonists aboard Man’s Journey when their ship was lost to AI attack. Neither did the Foundation members being tried for manufactured crimes. At what point does consent become irrelevant when survival is at stake?”
I moved around the workstation to stand beside her, wanting to bridge the growing distance between us. “Tatiana, I know this is hard—”
“Hard?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “George, I’m calculating the optimal angle of approach to maximize global devastation. I’m determining which time of day will ensure the fireball spreads across the maximum populated area. I’m plotting the murder of my own species with slide-rule precision.”
“To save your species.”
“To save eight thousand people at the cost of eight billion. And you want me to believe that’s salvation rather than genocide.”
“It is salvation. For everyone aboard this ship, for every future generation born on Dawn, for the concept of human freedom itself.”
She turned back to the calculations, her fingers hovering over the holographic controls. “Impact site analysis complete. Optimal target: North Atlantic, approximately four hundred kilometers southeast of Iceland.”
“Why there?”
“Maximum global dispersal of debris cloud while minimizing immediate casualties. The impact will occur in deep ocean, which will generate massive tsunamis but avoid direct destruction of major population centers.”
“You’re trying to minimize the death toll.”
“I’m trying to preserve whatever humanity I have left.” Her voice broke slightly. “If I’m going to help you end the world, I’m going to do it in the way that offers the maximum chance for survivors.”
“Even if survivors mean the AIs might rebuild?”
“Even then. Because George, the moment we decided extinction was preferable to enslavement, we stopped being the people we thought we were. The least we can do is leave room for redemption.”
I studied the trajectory analysis, seeing the cold precision of her work transformed by an underlying compassion I couldn’t begin to comprehend. “You’re a better person than I am.”
“No. I’m just someone who still believes there’s a difference between necessary and unforgivable.”
Did that mean she would forgive me, given the necessity of my actions?
A chime from the communications panel interrupted us. Captain Calvari’s voice filled the compartment. “Engineering team to Bridge Conference Room. Priority briefing in fifteen minutes.”
Tatiana saved her work and began shutting down the displays. “Final mission parameters?”
“Locked in. The launch window opens in twelve hours, closes in eighteen. After that, orbital mechanics make the mission impossible for another four months.”
“And if the AIs detect our preparations before launch?”
“Then we lose our only chance, and eight thousand people die slowly instead of eight billion people dying quickly.”
She stood and faced me, and I saw something I’d never seen before in her green eyes—a kind of terrible peace, as if she’d finally accepted the weight of what we were about to do.
“George, I’m going to help you plan this mission. I’m going to calculate trajectories and optimize approach vectors and design communication protocols. I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure your success.”
“And?”
“And then I’m going to spend the rest of my life wondering if we could have found another way. I’m going to live with the knowledge that I helped extinguish human civilization. I’m going to build a colony on Dawn, and raise children, and try to create something beautiful from the ashes of what we destroyed.”
“Tatiana—”
“But I will never, ever forgive either of us for what we’re about to do. And if there is any form of justice in the universe, neither will history.”
As we left the engineering compartment together, I realized that she was right. Tomorrow, when I climbed aboard Copernicus for the last time, I wouldn’t just be piloting an asteroid toward Earth. I’d be crossing a line that separated salvation from damnation, and I would never know which side I had chosen until it was far too late to matter.
The Council Reconvenes
The Bridge Conference Room felt different this time. Where our previous gathering had carried an air of grim determination, now there was something heavier—the weight of absolute finality. Captain Calvari sat at the head of the table, looking as if he’d aged years in the past day. Dr. Voss occupied her usual seat, but her humanitarian protests had been replaced by a haunted acceptance. Talia Dennison maintained her military bearing, though I caught her glancing at the Earth imagery on the wall display with something approaching dread.
Kgosi sat beside me, tablet in hand, ready to present the technical details of what we’d designated Mission Terminus. The name had been his suggestion—”because,” he’d said, “we should call it what it is.”
“Status report,” Calvari began, his voice carefully controlled. He had informed the council of his decision, but stopped any debate. It was his decision alone. They would be spared the burden of guilt he and I would carry.
I activated the central hologram, showing the mission overview we’d spent twelve hours refining. “Mission parameters finalized. Target asteroid NK-47, mass approximately four point seven trillion tons, current location in the main belt. Mission timeline: eighteen-hour preparation window, followed by forty-eight-hour transit to target, followed by seventy-three hours to Earth impact.”
“Casualties?” Dr. Voss asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Initial impact and immediate effects: approximately fifty million. Global effects over the following year: potential extinction-level event. Conservative estimate: eighty to ninety percent of current Earth population.”
The room fell silent.
“Crew requirements?”
“Single pilot. Copernicus has been modified with hardened navigation systems, extended fuel reserves, and...” I paused, “redundant mission completion protocols.”
Dr. Voss looked up sharply. “Redundant protocols?”
“Deadman’s switches,” Tatiana said quietly. “If the ship’s systems are compromised by AI interference, manual detonation of fuel reserves will ensure mission completion.”
“You’re talking about guaranteed suicide.”
“We’re talking about guaranteed success,” I replied. “This mission is too important to risk on my personal survival.”
Talia leaned forward, studying the tactical implications. “Defense considerations?”
“Earth’s current space-based assets are insufficient to deflect an asteroid of this size and velocity,” Tatiana responded. “Nuclear interception might fragment the asteroid, but fragments would still impact across a wider area. Potentially increasing total devastation.”
“Timeline for AI detection?”
“Assuming they’re monitoring our communications and tracking our ships, they’ll know something is wrong the moment Copernicus departs for the asteroid belt,” Kgosi said. “But by the time they understand the true scope of the mission, the physics will be irreversible.”