Noah'nal watched as Mars burned. The destruction had been prompt, on schedule, and as promised: total.
For six days, he hadn't left his command console, orbiting the planet, watching in abject sadness as his homeworld was destroyed. He ate and drank listlessly. His pressure suit had attended to the obvious necessaries.
Three weeks on orbit. Two weeks to get his family oriented, trained, and into their coldsleep berths. He looked over at them, sleeping peacefully. Behind them, row upon row of genecubes, each storing enough genetic material to birth a stable, genetically diverse population of each Martian species.
The message had come a year ago, as his ship, Mars' first colony vessel, had neared completion: "The prophet brings damnation. Take your people and go." It had been signed with nothing but a date and time. He had told no one of the missive, but had continued his project. A brilliant astrophysicist, the ship was his dream. His wives, both outstanding geneticist, made them prime candidates for the mission. Their destination was twenty two light years distant, his new drive able to make the crossing in a fraction of the time.
He thanked the prophet that his family had already been asleep when they'd uncoupled from Aaal'nal, the orbital shipyard. They'd been spared the horror of seeing it explode as he'd pulled the ship away, an antimatter bomb the size of his finger placed somewhere aboard the vessel. His ship recorded in grim detail the fate of each orbital platform and science station, as they met with similar fates. He thanked the prophet that his family had been spared.
The prophet. Why was he thanking him? Habit? This was no mercy. Millions of people, burned alive as their civilization devolved to nothing around them. He'd never been told why. He'd never been able to ask. He'd taken the warning for what it was, but the cost was, would be great. He'd carry this secret with him until he died.
A day later, his console warbled, warning him of unexpected relative acceleration. It pulled him from his.. he couldn't describe his state. Somewhere between catatonia and marvel, awe and.. funk. His orbit was decaying, but in reverse. If he remained in orbit, he would eventually be thrown loose, his relative speed sufficient to cast him into space as Mars continued to convert mass to energy, the atmosphere burnt away, the oceans evaporating to fill the void. But Mars was past the point of no return, the sun would continue to heat the southern hemisphere, the oceans would give up mass to fill the space that was once a mass of atmospheric pressure, keeping it all neatly organized into biomes and jetstreams and weather patterns. The gravity well had already decreased by a measurable 4%, an incredible feat to his scientist's mind. A complete horror, to anyone else.
He paused, to consider his detachment. Something had broken within him, surely. He looked down at his console, opened the navigational plot. Months asleep to populate a distant star. He flipped the display mode, came back to his own solar system. The third planet was days away, and viable, but already possessed of a nascent sentient race. Sentient. He hardly thought they qualified, living in trees and caves, hitting each other with the dead droppings of local flora. They hadn't even mastered fire. Mars governing body had caved to the biologists, saying we mustn't corrupt their fledgling world, the prophet wouldn't approve, an appeal to both science and emotion.
Damn the prophet. Noah'nal replotted his course. His wives would surely recognize that world for what it was, but he'd have to tell them what happened. Never about the warning, though. They may never forgive him that foreknowledge. His children were still young, they would have a chance to run and play again, within sight of their old home, under a sun they already knew.
He looked at his new plot. Too close for a superluminal drive, but sublight systems would work well enough. Forty days, given their relative positions. Yes, this would work. He issued the commands, broke orbit, and began a gentle but steady acceleration toward his new home. He would bring knowledge to that world, they would know the name of the red planet that tracked across their sky.