Species Showcase #3: continued

The prophecy of the end of the world was understandably damaging to the Tol's orderly society, and there was nearly a civil war before neural groups of scientists were able to confirm that changes in the suns activity over the last century would actually be explained by the prediction. Some groups wished to escape their doomed planet, but others saw it as their destiny to remain on the world that had spawned them, and to die with it.

A massive effort was put together to build a fleet of ships that would carry them away from Basar, and out of the radius of the supernova that their sun would become. Over five hundred ships were built, dubbed Sunriders, for the solar sails that would use the massive energy discharge of the supernova chasing them to propel them faster through the wormholes they opened before them to exceed the light barrier. They would ride the shockwave of their dying sun to their new home.

The project was completed mere weeks before the predicted date of destruction, and the sun had grown noticeably in the sky. Even the night side of the world was bathed in twilight from it's glory. Every night ships launched, until the final few set off for a new world. Three days after the last refugees fled, Basar fell into it's expanding sun, the Tol raising a planetwide symphony to greet it.

The sunrider fleet struck out among the stars, fire lapping at their heels, in search of a new home.