STARGAZING - 20105

For as long as we have lived, we've looked up at the night sky.

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11 seconds

And while I'd like to say it was a result of our sheer captivation of its beauty, our fixation on the above, a result of our innate curiosity and appreciation for the world around us, the truth is...

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28 seconds

...we looked up in fear.

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56 seconds

It has been one year since the war began. One year since the starless night destroyed my home.

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1 minute, 2 seconds

And since then, every night, missiles from the north make their great voyage over the intercontinental ocean, coming to cause more destruction.

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1 minute, 13 seconds

Now, almost every coastal and high-population city has been reduced to rubble. Hundreds of millions have died and another billion have been displaced.

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1 minute, 25 seconds

As missile technology progresses, less and less of the continent is out of range, and more and more cities become targets.

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1 minute, 33 seconds

And so, we move down.

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1 minute, 36 seconds

Down as far as the living body can allow, in government-protected living facility 9212, a bunker, safe from the cold and safe from the bombs.

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1 minute, 49 seconds

It is a nice place that has good view of the local city, once a small fishing town that relied on the summer thawing of the lake for sustenance.

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1 minute, 57 seconds

Now, of course, it's almost always frozen. But the city's population has tripled in size  since the beginning of the war.

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2 minutes, 4 seconds

It is about the only place out of range of the Novan missiles.  It may be cold and lifeless, but it is safe.

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2 minutes, 14 seconds

Well, they said it was, until Orsan state correspondents put out a warning a few days ago: something about a thermobaric bomb.

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2 minutes, 22 seconds

They said it could be carried by planes and that no city was out of range. T: Ensis 28, this is Tebellio 112. Do you receive?

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2 minutes, 34 seconds

E: Affirmative, Tebellio 112, we do receive. T: Ensis 28, you're next in line for payload  distribution.

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2 minutes, 44 seconds

E: Understood, 112, we are on standby.

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2 minutes, 51 seconds

When the world feels like it's ending, it has been a long pastime of Niveans to stargaze;

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2 minutes, 57 seconds

to be captivated by the tapestry above that never fell from its perch in the sky: the stars that enveloped our world.

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3 minutes, 8 seconds

We wondered if the stars held something better for us, something more, if they could be our saviour.

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3 minutes, 17 seconds

And, to an extent for those back then, they were; the small thing to obsess over to keep you going from day to day, even when the world we inhabited was one we were no longer suited for.

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3 minutes, 30 seconds

I guess that we're still like that, carried by our hopes and  dreams, when it seems nothing is going right.

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3 minutes, 38 seconds

T: You may break from your place in formation to enter firing position. E: Understood; manoeuvre underway.

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3 minutes, 51 seconds

That's Russus. Her red surface reflects the light of Praeclara onto Niveus' night side.

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3 minutes, 57 seconds

On nights like these, when she's shining bright red, it's considered a sign of good luck. T: Maintain a cruising altitude of one strike three procul above sea level.

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4 minutes, 9 seconds

E: Understood; manoeuvre underway. And that's Annularis, the ring planet.

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4 minutes, 16 seconds

Every few years, when an eclipse happens, she can become a small ring in the sky, like a tiny eye looking down at us.

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4 minutes, 24 seconds

It must have made some kind of impression on the ancients because they told many stories about her, about rises and falls of Annularan empires,

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4 minutes, 33 seconds

about wars and heroes and deities, about life on her surface. However unlikely it may be.

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4 minutes, 44 seconds

One day, I wish I could see Annularis up close, walk on its soil. But of course, you can't; it's not possible.

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4 minutes, 54 seconds

The gravity of Niveus is too strong. No rocket could be sent upwards without running out of fuel before escaping the atmosphere.