The Family Plan 123 -

Mira’s breath caught. The thumbprint on the second authorization slot was her father’s—partial, degraded, but matched at 94%. The system had accepted it from his last logged biosignature before the tether snapped.

That left her. One family member. Not enough.

In the low-lit control room of the Odyssey , a generation ship bound for the Tau Ceti system, fifteen-year-old Mira stared at the blinking red notification on her family’s central console. the family plan 123

She paused, then added:

“Mira,” Leo said finally, “if we don’t… the algorithm will just re-queue it under Emergency Collective Directive 7 . That means the whole crew votes. And you know what they’ll choose. They’ll choose survival.” Mira’s breath caught

“Then we change the plan,” she said.

Static. Then his voice, tired, rough from the vat work. “I saw it.” That left her

Proposed Alternative: Long-term embryo storage. Expanded recruitment from Tau Ceti signalback colonists. Voluntary, non-mandated surrogacy. And—