Kindling Across the Galaxy

An unknown being has bestowed two pieces of advanced technology upon humanity:

Dark energy absorption spheres (infinite energy) and life-extension pods (granting endless life).

Humanity's think tank has concluded:

If it can grant these gifts to us, it can grant them to countless civilizations.

A war between the races of the universe is bound to break out in the near future.

To prevent human civilization from being wiped out in one fell swoop,

Humanity's leaders have made a strategic choice:

Alongside the frenzied expansion of our home civilization's reach, we will scatter countless human seeds across the vast universe, so that human civilization may endure.

We will scatter life and civilization into the depths of the starry sea.

Intergalactic travel is not merely exploration,

it is also a desperate bid to spread our race far and wide to ensure its survival.

A random pairing brings together a widowed man nearing the end of his life and an elderly widow.

Together with an AI as their central controller, they form part of an intergalactic seed fleet,

setting out on an expedition to the Triangulum Galaxy, M33.

Departing from the Solar System, their destination lies three million light-years away.

They ask not when they will return, only that they preserve the seeds of human civilization in the depths of the universe.

There is no telling when they will return. By the time they see their homeland again, it may be thousands, or tens of millions, of years later...