After Ivan the IV defeated the Tar Tars at Kazan, he rode on horseback to survey his conquest and wept at the sight of the heaps of slaughtered women and children. He said, "they may not be Christian, but they are people like us." Today distant and detached commander in chiefs view the results of the mechanized slaughter they unleashed through the sterile medium of field reports and they dehumanize their victims with the clinical term "collateral damage."
The fleet of ships that now held what remained of humanity inside their titanium hulls hovered at the edge of space. The mood was somber as everyone waited in a quiet tension pendulating between despair and mind-shattering terror. The powering up of the colossal nuclear engines sent gale force winds ripping across the planet. This was the beginning of their latest exodus, just another jump on their way to the last.
Human civilization's only hope rested with an asteroid that was hurtling in their direction. The appearance of this interstellar ballistic was heralded as a miracle, and indeed it was their only hopes of escaping the world they devoured. When it screamed past the desolated little planet, they would launch themselves at the oncoming cosmic projectile it in a desperate attempt to cling to its jagged surface. It's projected trajectory was set to take it just outside the orbit of a small planet dubbed Toba. An infinitesimal but livable planet.
There wasn't enoug…