Calm Inside Chaos

It took her thirty microseconds to realise the core had entered into cascade, and another ten for her to create the time bubble around us. But that wasn’t enough, and after a few minutes inside the bubble (5 microseconds outside it) we realised that the ship was lost.

Since I had nothing better to do, I looked at the laser.

“I’m sorry.”

She glared at me.

“You did this?”

“No, no… I meant, about us. I’m sorry I ruined it.”

She shook her head.

“You’re forgiven.”

I only lived, relatively, another forty microseconds. But at least I was happy beforehand.