She’d never trained for anything like this. Three days after the end of the world, and she was the nominal captain of an inter-island ferry. She’d seen the detonations in her figurative rear-view and gave the full-steam ahead.

Now they were stopped, husbanding the fumes that remained in the tank while her engineer Kaplana figured out if they could scavenge gas from the tanks of boarded cars. No one had protested. She thought they were all still in shock from the blinding lights and the horizon-swallowing clouds. Hell, so was she.

At least Kaplana had an idea of what to do. Her training included useful skills. Not so, the captain. All she knew was how to drive a boat and log her hours, and now this group of two thousand waited on her decisions on where to go, what to do.

“Captain,” came the radio, “looks like the car fuel will work. We have about 200 miles before we’re dead in the water. What do you want to do?”

Cry. Give up. Put you in charge. Anyone, just not me. I’m not remotely qualified for this, or anything like this.

“Where are we going, Captain?”

Neither is anyone else.

“Alaska.”