It has been a harrowing month, and I needed a break. My accounts linked to my family, in any way, are going to be frozen tomorrow. But it won't matter, I'll be in interplanetary space, and nobody can take this cruise away from me; it's already paid for.

Grandma passing away suddenly got the whole family riled up, fighting over her trinkets. I didn't care about the trinkets as much as I wanted her back. The reading of the will took nearly nine hours; and made some insane demands. Most shocking was that all of us were required to change our names, and grandma had already chosen what they were to be.

A month ago, I was Ashley Sullivan; heiress-apparent of grandma's multi-trillion dollar a day trading empire. I had helped her run the company behind the scenes for the last eight years, and even the investors thought I had been groomed to take over.

I knew that wasn't the case, grandma saw me as a freeloader, even though I put in hundred hour work-weeks just to keep Sullivan Enterprises competitive, and in the black. Yeah, I lived on grandma's couch, and ate her leftovers, and other than a three hundred dollar a week allowance for clothes, makeup, and hygiene needs, I got nothing more from her. Not even the right to keep my own name.

"Your suite is this way Miss Biggs." The attendant said after looking at my ticket. A week long cruise of the stars, just what I need to clear my head.

Perhaps when I get back, I can apply for one of the temporary positions on the ground floor. I know how to do all of that stuff, I might get hired on full time if I do good enough at the ground floor.

"Your Suite, Miss Biggs. Tonight's Dinner service will start at 6pm local time, and coincides with our extra-orbital burn. Please avoid wearing clothing that you do not wish to damage." The man tells me as I walk into the room he had put my only suitcase in.

It was common practice to have the first dinner service at the same time as the burn to leave the planet's orbit. This way, most passengers would be in the center of the ship, and if something went wrong, we would be closer to the escape pods, all located behind the walls of the dining hall.

At a quarter till six, I entered the room, and took a seat that had my nameplate on it. As a single woman, I would be at a table with other singles. The old style oak wood table was refreshing, it's dark polished luster giving a warm charm to the cruise liner designed for ten thousand guests. A few minutes later all the tables were filled, and the ship's staff began bringing out salads. The large thrusters would fire for thirty minutes as soon as the last salad was delivered. The two other women and three men at my table seemed apprehensive, and not talking with each other. Of course, I wasn't helping to break the ice, either.

The last waiter went back into the kitchen, and a few seconds later the smooth, calming, music stopped, and the ship felt as though it lurched. The thrusters were firing.

the fifty gigaton ship needed a lot of force to break orbit, but it was expected.

Most of us started eating our salads, and conversations began cropping up. It was a common belief that the first three minutes of the first burn are the most likely to have a malfunction.

we were wrong. So very wrong.