Stray Bullet

A stray projectile from the depths of space declared the end of human physics.

The object speeding toward Earth at the speed of light was undetectable, incomprehensible, and impossible to intercept.

In their despair, humanity built two paths forward:

One would send nine billion people and their consciousness-storage devices to a space station, gently telling them, “These are the seeds that will preserve civilization.”

The other path, one that would push Earth forward, would lock the people who would decide the world's fate inside Earth's last glass fortress. It was called a voluntary stay, but in truth they were hostages of civilization.

Notes:

1. A short story, pure science fiction. The blurb makes it clear that it borrows from the relativistic-kill-vehicle and Dark Forest attacks, as well as The Wandering Earth.

2. The main characters in this story are all women. However, since the protagonist is married, Jinjiang's classification system left me no choice but to list the protagonist's spouse in the protagonist field.

3. The countries in the story have no connection to real-world countries. I only used real countries as references because I was too lazy to build a world from scratch.

Theme: The right method is just as important as the right conclusion.