Project Panspermia had a simple goal: ten ships, loaded with a generational crew and a large number of technical experts in stasis, each set on a trajectory toward a habitable world identified by radiotelescope. They would arrive, begin their colonization efforts, and ensure the survival of the human race in light of an increasingly uncertain outlook on Earth.

The seventh ship, the Hanalaanui, was just like the others, save for one thing. One of the original three hundred crew members that embarked was ill with a respiratory virus which mutated into an extraordinarily virulent strain not long after departure. In the ensuing outbreak, all but two members of the crew, including all of the senior command staff and engineers, perished.

And those survivors? They did not much care for one another.”

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