"No, Naomi, I command you to…"

Emma shut up as she saw a light flashed in Naomi's eyes. [That's not a hallucination.] Emma gulped. [That's Naomi's threatening signal. Red light means 'last warning'.] Emma retreated as Naomi stood up and entered runner stance.

"Wait, take this." Emma put the dark energy manipulator into Naomi's hand. She took out a multitude of programming chips in different colors and stuffed it into the girl's pant pocket.

Emma wiped her tears.

"Plug your ears".

She readily obeyed.

A sonic boom ensured that knocked Emma and objects in the room away. When Emma came to, Naomi had already disappeared.

A lonely feeling immediately dawned on her.

However, it was shaken out of Emma's head as soon as it came. "I can't leave just yet". Emma thought as she left the engineering bay and bolted to the engine bay next door.

"Alexa, display a timer on my retinal." Emma said as she ran at top speed. A small countdown to the milliseconds emerged at the corner of her field of view. "4:23." It read.

As she arrived at the jet engine room, she plugged Alexa to the control panel on the humongous jet engine. "Alexa, program the jet engine to fire at the very last moment possible to evade the torpedo." She fiddled with the control panel.

Emma had to save the ship.

This was her last hope of ever returning. The ship might be non-operational, but as long as it survives, she had a miniscule amount of chance to fix it. "Set the course for the planet below, try to make it loosely follow the trajectory of my escape pod. Account for course correction in case the torpedo hit the ship."

"Notification, programming completed."

3 minutes remaining.

***

"Alexa, prepare a radio S.O.S message." Emma returned to the engineering room, where the escape pods are located. "Not for the escape pod, for the ship."

Emma hoped that everybody will survive, and get united at the ship crashing site.

She opened the lid to an escape pod, jumped into the open spacesuit inside. She waited anxiously as the suit clicked around her.

"Mayday, mayday, this is Alexa Corp mining vessel number 4210, we are crash landing on the third planet from the sun, requesting assistance from any vessel in the vicinity of the Cesari system. Predicted landing coordinate is 53.273, -7.778. Beware of hostile spacecraft of unknown Type III civilization."

"That's good". Emma connected her Alexa to the control panel on the escape pod. "Allow broadcast." She commanded. As per regulation, any communication from Alexa to others had to be confirmed by the user.

One minute remaining.

Emma anxiously waited in her escape pod.

There was sound of two inhumans running from outside the door.

Naomi emerged, holding Andrei on her arms, while the doctor also appeared a second later. She looked flabbergasted at Emma sitting in her escape pod. "Why are you still here!" She shouted.

50 seconds.

"There is no way I'm leaving without you! Hurry!" Emma beckoned. Naomi threw Andrei into an escape pod, rather violently, then went into an escape pod herself. Emma was sure she was just in a hurry.

The chitauri doctor also entered an escape pod, designed specifically for chitauri people. All the pods' lids closed at the same time.

40 seconds.

Emma pulled the ejection handle on the lid. Nothing happened. "F*ck! Aren't escape pods supposed to be emergency last resort? How the f*ck would such a system fail? F*ck f*ck f*ck!" Emma cried as she pulled the handle again harder, then harder. Alexa told her that other pods also failed to launch.

Emma's brain was working at high speed. "The ship wouldn't be able to fully evade the torpedo. Once it hits, there is no telling if we could survive. This is bad, this is so bad. What's to do? What's to do?!"

Emma kicked and punched the escape pod lid in frustration.

Tears dripped onto the floor.

In the end, she could not save anybody.

Emma suddenly heard a knocking on the pod's lid. She looked up to see Naomi's beaming smile on the outer pod's camera. Naomi saluted at the camera, then bent her waist, a common gesture of Japanese people to express gratitude.

"Naomi, what are you…"

Naomi inserted the red chip into the dark matter energy manipulator. It was then turned on to become a cutting device that resembled a laser sword. She cut at the clamps that were holding the escape pod in place. She then kicked at the escape pod.

Emma looked as Naomi and the ship moved further and further away.

10 seconds.

The 2 other pods were also released one by one.

5 seconds.

The jet engine ignited as programmed. The torpedo could be seen on camera at that moment, closing in at breakneck speed. The torpedo seemed to have realized that its supposedly stationary target, was moving out of the way. It took a few milliseconds to reignite its own rockets and stabilizing.

However, as it was flying too fast and was too close now, it could not adjust itself to hit squarely onto the target anymore.

The torpedo glanced at the side of the ship, exploding in a small, quick fireball, breaking apart 3/4 of the ship and sent debris flying everywhere. The ship swiveled as it plunged down towards the planet.

"Naomi… no…" Emma moved slowly away from the outer pod camera screen. "Alexa, did she survive?"

The robotic voice in her head sounded softer than usual.

"Alexa is sorry, Alexa does not know. The explosion scrambled Alexa's scanning. When Alexa recovered, the ship was out of range."

The voice suddenly regained its sharp demeanor.

"Warning, concentrated heat ray detected aiming at escape pod of human Andrei."