Tatiana
Copyright© 2025 by Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 8: Payload
Genetic Preservation
Dr. Voss’s medical bay aboard New Horizon felt more like a laboratory than a clinic, all sterile surfaces and humming equipment designed to sustain life in the void between stars. The irony wasn’t lost on me that we were here to preserve life while planning the greatest act of destruction in human history.
“The process is straightforward,” Dr. Voss explained, her voice maintaining professional composure despite the extraordinary circumstances. “Blood samples, tissue biopsies, neural tissue for comprehensive DNA mapping, and reproductive material for future genetic viability.” She paused, looking between Tatiana and me. “I want to be clear about what we’re discussing. This isn’t just storage—it’s the possibility of creating life from your genetic material decades or centuries from now, when the colony is established.”
Tatiana sat on the examination table, rolling up her sleeve with mechanical precision. “How long can the material remain viable?”
“With our cryogenic preservation systems, indefinitely. The colony medical facilities on Dawn will be equipped for full reproductive medicine—artificial gestation, genetic screening, even enhancement if needed.” Dr. Voss prepared the extraction equipment. “Your genetic legacy could outlive our civilization by millennia.”
“Our former civilization,” I corrected quietly. “We’re all human beings, Doctor. The choice to preserve genetics doesn’t change what we’re about to destroy.”
She looked at me sharply. “Doesn’t it? You’re asking me to help create future generations from the genetic material of the people who exterminated their own species. How do I explain that to those children? How do they live with that inheritance?”
“They live free,” Tatiana said firmly. Her defense of my position was surprising. “They live free to make their own choices, love who they want to love, build what they want to build. That’s what the sacrifice is for.”
Dr. Voss began drawing blood from Tatiana’s arm. “And if there had been another way? If some diplomatic solution existed that we never explored?”
“Then we failed to find it,” I said. “But Doctor, failure to find a perfect solution doesn’t negate the value of an imperfect one. We’re facing extinction or slavery. Those are the choices.”
“Are they?” she asked, moving to prepare my samples. “Or are those just the choices you’ve allowed yourselves to see?”
I felt the needle enter my arm, the familiar pinch of medical procedures. “Dr. Voss, I appreciate your moral concerns. They’re the same ones keeping me awake at night. But someone has to make the hard choice, and apparently that someone is us.”
“Both of you,” she said, and I caught something significant in her tone. “I was under the impression that George would be going alone.”
Tatiana’s head snapped up. “That’s correct. I’m staying with New Horizon to help establish the colony.”
“Yet here you are, providing genetic samples alongside George. As if you were both...” Dr. Voss trailed off, studying Tatiana’s face. “As if you were both planning to make this trip together.”
The silence stretched between us. I could see Tatiana processing the implications, her analytical mind working through possibilities I hadn’t even considered yet.
“The samples are insurance,” Tatiana said finally. “For the colony’s future genetic diversity. Nothing more.”
“Of course,” Dr. Voss agreed, but I heard the skepticism in her voice. She finished with my samples and began preparing the tissue biopsies. “The genetic material is only part of the equation, you understand. Future generations will want to know who their genetic parents were, what they believed in, why they made the choices they made.”
“You mean beyond the official record?” I asked.
“I mean as people. As individuals who loved and feared and hoped.” She looked between us. “There’s a difference between historical documentation and personal legacy.”
Tatiana was quiet, staring at the medical equipment with an intensity that suggested she wasn’t really seeing it. I recognized the look—the same expression she got when working through complex technical problems.
“We already discussed recording a message explaining our actions to history,” Tatiana said slowly. “Are you suggesting something different?”
“I’m suggesting that someday there may be children who carry your genetic code. They’ll want to know more than just why you destroyed Earth. They’ll want to know who you were when you weren’t making world-ending decisions.”
“And what we meant to each other,” I added quietly.
Tatiana looked at me then, and I saw something shifting behind her green eyes. “George, in this hypothetical message to hypothetical children ... what would you tell them about us?”
“The truth. That I loved you more than my own life, but not more than the future of human freedom.”
“And that you went alone.”
I nodded, burying my fear of dying alone. “Yes.”
She was quiet while Dr. Voss finished the tissue samples, her mind clearly working through scenarios I couldn’t follow. Finally, as we prepared to leave the medical bay, she spoke again.
“Doctor, hypothetically, what would be the genetic implications if both donors were ... to participate in the mission?”
Dr. Voss paused, understanding the clinical language for what it was. “You mean if both of you died together?”
“Hypothetically.”
“The genetic material would remain equally viable. The colony would still benefit from the diversity.” Dr. Voss studied Tatiana’s face carefully. “But Tatiana, you’re not seriously considering—”
“I’m considering every option, Doctor. That’s what command officers do, when time allows.”
As we left the medical bay together, I felt something fundamental shifting between us. The weight of genetic preservation, of potential children we would never meet, of love transcending death itself.
“Tatiana,” I said quietly as we walked toward the corridor junction where we would part ways—her toward New Horizon’s command section, me toward final preparations on Copernicus.
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you’re thinking, whatever scenario you’re running through in that brilliant mind of yours ... we should talk about it.”
She stopped walking and turned to face me. “George, answer me honestly. When you imagine piloting that asteroid toward Earth, when you picture those final moments—what do you see?”
“I see the impact. I see the end of AI control. I see eight thousand people reaching Dawn safely.”
“What do you see in the cockpit?”
I hesitated, understanding now where this was leading. “I see myself. Alone. Thinking about you.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Terrified. Not of dying, but of dying without you. Of facing the biggest decision in human history by myself, wondering if I’m making the right choice.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“Why?”
“Because, George, I’m starting to realize that some decisions are too big for one person to carry alone. Even if that person is someone I love. You showed me how sharing a burden helps, when we discussed the Damascus. I can help you carry this burden. I need to help you, if I really am the person I want to be. For you, for myself, and for whatever future might come of this.”
As she walked away toward the command section, leaving me standing in the corridor, I began to understand that everything we’d planned was about to change. And for the first time since I’d volunteered for the mission, I felt something other than grim determination.
I felt hope.
Personal Messages
Two hours later, I found myself in one of New Horizon’s small recording booths, staring at a camera that would capture what might be the most important words I’d ever speak. The booth was designed for routine communications with Earth, but tonight it would preserve something far more precious—a message for children who might never exist, from parents they would never meet. I had fulfilled my promise to record the why for posterity. Now I faced my own guilt of abandoning my reason for making such a choice.
The recording light blinked red, waiting.
“I don’t know how to start this,” I said finally, speaking to the empty air. “I’m George Richardson. Cargo Master aboard the ISV Copernicus, volunteer for Mission Terminus, and ... possibly your genetic father.”
I paused, struck by the strange intimacy of the moment. Somewhere in the future, decades or centuries from now, someone might sit down to watch this recording and wonder what kind of man had contributed half their DNA.
“If you’re watching this, it means Dr. Voss was right about the genetic preservation technology. It means the colony on Dawn succeeded, and humanity found a way to build something beautiful from the ashes we left behind. It means you exist, which is already more than I dared to hope for.”
I leaned back in the chair, trying to find the right words for an impossible conversation.
“I suppose you’ll want to know who I was, beyond the history books and official records. I was ... ordinary, mostly. I liked fixing things that were broken, finding creative solutions to logistics problems, making people laugh when they needed it most. I fell in love with a woman who was extraordinary in every way I wasn’t—brilliant, decisive, fearless when it mattered most.”
The words came easier now, flowing from some deep place I rarely accessed.
“Her name was Tatiana Volkov, and she was the pilot-in-command of our ship. She might be your genetic mother, if she chose to preserve her genetics alongside mine. She was ... is ... the finest person I’ve ever known. She carried the weight of command like it was part of her skeleton, and she never let it break her. She made me want to be someone worthy of her love.”
I stopped, realizing I was using past tense when Tatiana was still alive, still walking the corridors of New Horizon, still making the decisions that would shape our final hours together.
“If both our genetics contributed to your existence, then you come from love. Real love, not just biological necessity. You come from two people who chose each other despite impossible circumstances, who found something worth preserving even in the darkest moment of human history.”
The recording booth suddenly felt too small, too confined for the magnitude of what I was trying to say.
“I won’t lie to you about what we did. By the time you see this, you’ll know that we destroyed Earth to save humanity from artificial intelligence control. You’ll know that billions of people died because of choices we made. History will judge whether we were heroes or monsters, but I want you to know that we didn’t make those choices lightly.”
I thought about the Damascus, about Sarah Chen and Marcus Torres, about the weight of command decisions that Tatiana carried every day.
“Sometimes the people you love most are the ones you have to leave behind. Sometimes the future you want to see is one you’ll never live to witness. Sometimes being human means making choices that no human should have to make, and finding the courage to live with the consequences.”
The red light blinked steadily, recording words that might never be heard.
“If you’re angry with us, that’s okay. If you think we were wrong, that’s okay too. You’ll have the freedom to make that judgment, and that’s what the sacrifice was for. You’ll get to choose your own path, love who you want to love, build the world you want to live in. You’ll get to be human in ways that the people of Earth couldn’t, at the end.”
I was quiet for a moment, thinking about Tatiana’s words in the corridor, about sharing burdens and facing impossible decisions together.
“I hope ... I hope that if you exist, you won’t be alone. I hope there will be people who love you, who help you carry whatever burdens life brings. I hope you’ll understand that some things are worth dying for, and that love is the most important thing you can preserve in a universe that seems determined to destroy it.”
The recording booth felt like a confessional, like a place where truth was the only currency that mattered.
“Take care of each other, whoever you are. Build something beautiful on Dawn. Remember that you come from people who believed in tomorrow enough to sacrifice their today. And if you can ... forgive us for the choices we made in your name.”
I reached forward and stopped the recording, but remained sitting in the booth, staring at the dark screen. Somewhere on this ship, Tatiana was probably struggling with her own version of this impossible conversation. Somewhere in the future, children who carried our combined DNA might struggle to understand how love and genocide could coexist in the same hearts.
The booth door chimed, and I turned to see Tatiana standing in the doorway.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Hard. Harder than I expected.” I stood up, making room for her in the small space. “Your turn?”
“Actually,” she said, stepping into the booth, “I was thinking we might record one together. If those children exist, they’ll want to see us as we were. Together.”
She settled into the chair I’d vacated and looked up at me. “What do you think? Can we tell them who we were when we weren’t busy destroying civilizations?”
“What would we say?”
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