Tatiana
Copyright© 2025 by Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 9: Kill Switch
Point of No Return
Forty-six hours after departing New Horizon, Copernicus hung in the shadow of NK-47, dwarfed by fifteen kilometers of ancient rock and metal that had orbited the sun since the birth of the solar system. Through the viewport, the asteroid stretched beyond the horizon of my vision—a dark, cratered world that would soon become humanity’s most terrible weapon.
“Final approach complete,” Tatiana reported from the pilot station, her voice carrying the same calm professionalism she’d brought to countless routine docking procedures. “Range: two hundred meters and closing. Anchors ready for surface attachment.”
I watched her hands move across the control panel with practiced efficiency, and marveled at how she could maintain such composure while preparing to commit genocide. But then, that was what made her extraordinary—the ability to function at peak performance regardless of the emotional weight of the situation. I focused on my own task.
I was placing four guidance and control beacons on the massive rock floating before us. Each had secure comms links back to us as well as compact fusion thrusters.
“Guidance beacon deployment confirmed,” I said, monitoring the sensor displays. “All four primary beacons attached and operational. Navigation network synchronized with Copernicus’s guidance systems.”
The beacons were small but crucial—precision devices that would allow us to alter NK-47’s trajectory with surgical accuracy. Each one contained enough engine force to shift the asteroid’s path by fractions of degrees, which across the vast distance to Earth would translate into the difference between a near miss and a direct impact.
“Surface composition analysis complete,” Tatiana continued. “Density variations within acceptable parameters. Structural integrity sufficient for planned maneuvers.”
It was surreal, discussing the technical specifications of an object we were about to turn into an extinction-level weapon. NK-47 had spent billions of years in peaceful orbit, slowly tumbling through the void, witnessing the birth and death of countless comets and smaller asteroids. Now, in the space of a few hours, we were going to transform it into the instrument of Earth’s destruction.
“Tatiana,” I said quietly, “last chance to change your mind. Once we initiate contact and the orbital modification, there’s no going back. The asteroid will be committed to Earth intercept.”
She looked up from her console, and I saw something peaceful in her green eyes—the serenity of someone who had made an impossible choice and found a way to live with it.
“George, forty-six hours ago I was terrified of dying alone. Now I’m about to face the end of the world with the person I love most. If that’s not enough to make peace with this decision, nothing ever will be.”
“Even knowing what we’re about to do?”
“Especially knowing what we’re about to do.” She returned to her controls. “Someone has to carry this burden. I’m glad it’s us, together, rather than you alone or someone else entirely.”
I nodded, understanding what she meant. If genocide was inevitable—if this truly was the only path to human freedom—then at least it would be committed by people who understood the weight of their actions. People who would pay the ultimate price for their choices.
“Orbital calculation check,” I announced, pulling up the navigation data on my display. “Current trajectory modification will result in Earth intercept in seventy-two hours, thirty-seven minutes. Impact zone: North Atlantic, approximately four hundred kilometers southeast of Iceland.”
“Confirmed. Impact velocity thirty-one point four kilometers per second. Estimated yield...” Tatiana paused, and I heard her take a breath before continuing. “Six point two billion megatons TNT equivalent.”
The numbers were abstract, but their meaning was devastatingly concrete. In seventy-two hours, those six billion megatons would vaporize everything within fifteen hundred kilometers of the impact site. The shockwave would circle the globe multiple times. The debris cloud would block sunlight for years, if not decades.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Are you?”
I looked at the woman beside me, at the determined set of her jaw, at the hands that had guided us safely through countless missions and would now guide us through humanity’s darkest hour.
“With you? Yes. I’m ready.”
“Then let’s change the world.”
Tatiana’s fingers hovered over the firing controls for the guidance beacons. A simple command sequence would ignite the charges that would nudge NK-47 onto a collision course with Earth. Once initiated, the process would be irreversible—the laws of physics would carry the asteroid inexorably toward our home world.
“Final authorization required,” she said, following the protocols we’d established. “Mission commander George Richardson, do you confirm authorization for orbital modification of target NK-47?”
“Flight commander Tatiana Volkov,” I replied, “I confirm authorization for orbital modification. Execute at your discretion.”
“Guidance beacon firing sequence initiated,” she announced. “Beacon one ... firing.”
Through the hull, I felt the barely perceptible vibration as the first beacon detonated against NK-47’s surface. A small puff of vaporized rock expanded into space, invisible to the naked eye but precisely calculated to alter the asteroid’s velocity by exactly the required amount.
“Beacon two ... firing.”
Another vibration, another precisely controlled engine thrusting against the rock. I watched the navigation display as NK-47’s orbital parameters began to shift, degree by degree, toward an Earth intercept trajectory.
“Beacon three ... firing.”
The numbers continued to change, reality slowly conforming to our terrible calculations. Each beacon brought the asteroid closer to its appointment with our homeworld, closer to the moment when human civilization would end in fire and darkness.
“Beacon four ... firing.”
The final beacon ignited, and suddenly the display showed what we had worked toward and dreaded in equal measure: NK-47 was no longer in stable solar orbit. It was falling toward Earth at over thirty kilometers per second, carrying the kinetic energy of six billion nuclear weapons.
“Initiate main thrust.”
I punched the command. Our engine, small compared to the monster we were attached to, fired and began adding its acceleration to the orbital trajectory need to hit our final target. The engines would fire until impact and our death and destruction.
“Orbital modification complete,” Tatiana reported. “NK-47 is committed to Earth intercept. Impact in seventy-two hours, thirty-six minutes.”
I stared at the display, at the simple red line that connected our current position to Earth. In three days, that line would become reality. The planet where humanity had evolved, where we had learned to love and dream and build civilizations, would become a charred, lifeless rock orbiting a star that no longer illuminated conscious minds.
“It’s done,” I said quietly.
“It’s done,” Tatiana agreed.
We sat in silence for several minutes, watching NK-47’s trajectory settle into its final configuration. The asteroid seemed unchanged—still the same dark, cratered surface, still the same slow tumble through space. But now it carried the weight of eight billion human lives, and the responsibility for that weight rested with the two people sitting in Copernicus’s cramped cockpit.
“George,” Tatiana said finally, “I need you to know something.”
“What?”
“When this is over, when we’ve guided this asteroid to Earth and accomplished what we set out to do ... I want you to know that I’m not sorry.”
“Not sorry for what?”
“For choosing you. For choosing this. For finding a way to face the end of the world with someone I love instead of alone.” She turned to look at me, and I saw tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the people who will die. I’m sorry for the children who will never be born. I’m sorry for all the beauty and wonder that will be lost. But I’m not sorry that we’re doing this together.”
“Neither am I,” I said, reaching across the narrow space between our stations to take her hand. “Whatever else happens, whatever history judges us to be, we’ll face it together.”
“Together,” she agreed.