"So the Intergalactic News Service wants an interview with a survivor of Old Blue?" I asked the pushy female Vixari. "I'll only give it to you if it'll actually be aired." I said.

"Oh, it'll be aired for sure." she lied glibly.

I sighed, and said, "Okay. Whatever. Shoot."

"This is Knol Sark, Vixari reporter for IGN, interviewing Patricia Cloud, one of the few survivors of the destruction of the planet Earth, perhaps better known to many of our viewers as "Old Blue". She began.

"Tell me, Patricia, can you tell me why Earth has earned this Psuedonym, so much more widespread than it's actual name?" she asked me as I shook at every mention of the word, even after ten years.

"Because for a lot of us, the survivors, recalling the name of our dead homeworld is simply too painful to think about. We call it Old Blue, because it describes it well enough." I answered, not sure if she was intentionally being harsh or just tactless.

"That's very interesting Patricia. Can you tell us what you remember of the End?"

I gathered myself for a long, difficult answer.

"What do I remember about the end of the world? Mostly, how quiet it was, in those last moments." I said.

***

People in masses, as if accepting their ultimate fate. The brilliant, the needed, the specialists already evacuated. The rest prayed, or not, according to their beliefs, and made peace with what was about to happen.

Of course, not everyone was so content to take it quietly. I was one of those.

As the shadow of the planet buster eclipsed the sun, several hours before it would fire, I and some others, not friends per se, raced towards Colorado Springs and the ultra-secure military base there. If anywhere on the planet would survive, we figured it would be there.

"Step on it Carlos!" I told the boy driving, though we were already going 180 MPH. Nobody cared about the speed limits anymore.

"Shut up so I can focus on de road, bitch!" he had told me in his Latino accent as he managed a high-speed swerve around a crater in the pavement.

I fell silent as we sped through the false twilight, the last Earth would ever see, into a darkness that still seems unending.

Our objective was to seal ourselves in the bunker, make it airtight, in hopes that we'd survive and maybe be picked up afterwards. It was a desperate plan, not very well thought out, but then if we weren't desperate, who would be?

We reached the town in short order, and made our way to the base. With Carlos and I were a former soldier, Fred, and an aeronautics engineer, I don't think I ever got his name.

We sealed ourselves inside the base, and sealed it with duct tape. Wonderful stuff by the way, and so hard to find now.

So, I didn't actually see the end, the beams that cracked the planet into peices, boiled off it's atmosphere, ended it, and should have ended us.

***

"So, what happened after you sealed yourself inside?" the reporter asked, genuinely curious now, and barely remembering to hold up the microphone.

Smiling, I took a drink that someone had kindly provided me as I realized there were tears in my eyes and my legs were unsteady. "Before we go any further, can we find a place to sit?" I asked, breaking her trance.

"Oh, uh, sure" she said, unsure of herself as we made our way to a table, which happened to be for a restraunt, so we placed our orders on the menu screens. It was lunchtime, and there was now a small crowd eager to hear my story.

"Well, now we're sitting down, I'll answer your question." I told her, and began again.

***

You see, Carlos was pretty much our leader. He put us together, he made the plan, and he called the shots, or so he said.

Truth was, I had fixed his plans so they might actually work, and I had recruited Fred and the engineer. But we did need him, he was the only one who could have gotten us to the bunker before it was too late. As we sealed the room, what I remember of his attitude between flashes of guilt and prayer and preparing for the unthinkable makes me wonder wether I should have borrowed Fred's revolver and shot him when we got there.

For sure, it would have been more merciful than the way he actually died.

"Carlos!" I called to him, sealing down yet another door. It had been three hours since we entered the bunker. We all figured the end was nigh.

"Shut up! I'm working!" he had called back.

I had walked back into the back with Fred and the engineer guy.

And then, the beams fired.

All I remember of that was an unbearable noise, heat and darkness, then silence. When I woke up, I saw Carlos' body outside a window, dead and floating in the air, slowly burning from some intense source of heat. The engineer was sorely wounded, and he'd never have lived past a few minutes even were there adequate care.

in that darkness we floated, me and Fred watching him die slowly, hoping someone would rescue us before we ran out of air. I remember once he died... well, as far as I know we were the first humans to successfully do it in zero-g. What would you have done, you and a guy, for all you know the last of your kind, stuck waiting to die?

***

The reporter sat speechless, unaware I was finished with my answer. When the pause went on longer than usual, she said, "um, well, um, thats... Wow." and signalled to her camera crew to stop recording and rewind over that last bit.

"So, how were you rescued?" she asked me.

"A few days later, at least I think it was days, a crew from one of the remnant stations found us and rescued us. Shortly afterwards we surrendered, so that's the full extent of my experience," I told her.

"I have one last question for you. There's a Vixari out there sympathetic to the human race's hardships, by the name of Garig Grent. What do you think of him and how he's pushing the treaty by allowing such a large number of humans to live and congregate on board his private cruiser, the Neo Blue?" She asked me.

"Frankly, all us survivors want is to be together. If there's an alien willing to risk his neck and his fortune so we can gather, I'll be glad to take advantage of it. We fought that war because we wanted to be left alone, and that's all we want now." I told her.

"Very well. Thank you, Patricia." she said as she stood and faced the camera. "This is Knol Sark, interviewing Patrica Cloud, a survivor of the Planet Earth. That's all for this interview, and don't forget to watch IGN for all your galactic news!" she said cheerfully enough.

But when she walked away, she stumbled. They all ask, but none of them can handle it. I've given this interview five times to different reporters.

Funny, none of them ever aired.

End.