Earth Station SixCommander Rosa Vishnu watched explosions flowering across the face of the Earth. London, Paris and Berlin in a neat triangle over in the east. Boston, New York and Washington directly below the station. Then LA, San Francisco and Vancouver on the western limb of the planet. She'd watched the recording so many times but still she picked out new details, like the way the cobweb of lights – highways and urban sprawl – flickered out just before each warhead struck. The power grids had been the first thing to go, plunging the Earth into its final darkness.
She thought, as she always did, about Ravi, her last sight of him waving goodbye at Kennedy as the transporter took her off to the rocket. Clever, handsome Ravi and the life they'd planned together. She'd wanted four childre
