We had to leave once the oceans died.  We put too much carbon dioxide in the air, we over-fished the waters, and the oceans just couldn’t handle it anymore.  They just suddenly stopped, and Hetra stopped with them. 
            The world governments went into panic mode as all the worst predictions of the scientists came true.  Rain stopped falling, clouds stopped forming, and the wind didn’t blow.  There was no more lightning, no more thunder, no more weather, really.  Animals stopped breeding because there wasn’t any food.  The animals got too tired and too weak to continue the life cycle.  We tried feeding them genetically engineered food, but their bodies just wouldn’t process it.  And as the animals died, so did our food supply.  We all converted to vegetarianism, but plants stopped growing.  We were able to subsist on genetically engineered fruits and vegetables, but ever since Hetra died, it had been getting hotter.  It had been getting much, much hotter.
            Thus began the exodus from Hetra.  Space travel had been going on for a few centuries, but it just recently became commercial as a result of scientific developments which made the development of inter-galactic speed engines affordable.  While there weren’t a lot of ships that could take passengers very far, there were a lot of people willing to wherever the ships could take them. 
            We lost nearly 625,000 that way.   The number would have been much, much higher had more people been able to afford it, but 625,000 is a lot when the survival of an entire species is at stake.  There were small bases on the three Hetran moons, but those filled up quickly.  Government and military personnel were first in line, and that caused riots all across the Hetran continents. (1)   The people couldn’t understand why the same leaders who didn’t see the disaster coming and didn’t have a plan to deal with it once it came got first priority when it came to staying alive.  The Riots spread like wildfire across the Ten Continents.  All (10) felt the anger and rage of the dying, the desperate, and the damned.  It took (3) weeks, but the militaries put the Riots down.  We lost 750,000,000 that way.  When the survival of a species is at stake, 750,000,000 is a lot, lot more than 625,000.
            Perhaps I should rephrase that.  The official records state that Hetra lost three-quarters of a billion people to the Riots.  The official records, though, don’t include the number of scientists murdered by the military.  As soon as the oceans died, the governments viewed the scientists as a threat.  The scientists had predicted a disaster like this for almost 1,000 years but had been routinely dismissed by world leaders.  Now, when the scientists’ worst predictions came true, the people rallied around them.  The people looked at the scientists as you would a God, and the people wanted the governments to listen to them, to take the action that the scientists had suggested for a millennia. 
            But the governments couldn’t do that.  To do that, the governments would have to admit that they were wrong, and not just once, but for well over 1,000 years.  It would also make the governments look weak, and that would mean a loss of power.  And people who have power are terrified to lose it.  So, doing what the scientists wanted was something that the governments would just not do, which left the governments with a debate as to how to solve the problem of the scientists.  But then the Riots occurred and the governments suddenly didn’t have to worry about what to do.
            While there are no official records, it is believed that 18,000,000 scientists were slaughtered during the Riots.  Those killed included physicists, botanists, astronomers, chemists, sociologists, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, meteorologists, and climatologists.  Anyone at a research institution, anyone who taught at a college or university, and anyone who had ever published an academic paper or had a Ph.D. was fair game.  The killing was indiscriminate and senseless, and it left the governments without those it needed the most, the ones who could think of a way to solve the problem of the dying planet.
            But life, as it always tend to do, found a way.  The bases on the moons were expanded and became temporary colonies.  The nearby asteroid belts were turned into mines, and space became the new Hetran shipyards.  It wasn’t much, but it was life.
            At first, we listened to the radio at night.  We never got a station, though.  Well, that’s not exactly true, we did get a station, but it wasn’t broadcasting anything.  It was nothing but white noise, the microphone was on, but it wasn’t being used to send anything.  It was just the noise of nothing, and we listened to it, we always listened to it.  But after eight months, the station died.  And with it went our last hope of actual contact with the people on Hetra, our last hope of hearing a family member or a friend who could let us know if anyone else was still alive.   

            At some point, the governments united and began to work together.  No one bothered to ask why, but that was the one question that should have been asked.  The governments of the Ten Continents had been enemies since recorded history, but now they were suddenly united.  The people who survived, though, were too afraid to ask why.  They had lost their planet, their homes, and most of their loved ones and family members to the Riots, they knew better than to ask “why”.  The people just accepted what happened and decided to make the best of it. 
            Slowly, the dockyards started to turn out ships capable of deep space exploration.  The now-united governments decided that it was time to travel to the farthest reaches of the space, if necessary, in order to find a new planet capable of sustaining life.  The people didn’t ask why, they just accepted.  Perhaps they secretly longed for a new home like Hetra, perhaps they just wanted to get off the moons, but whatever the reason, they followed the governments’ plan.

            Thus began the search for a new planet, and the start of travel deep, deep into the Galaxy.  I hope that we find a planet, and I hope it is close enough to Hetra to make me forget the planet that we killed and left behind.  I hope that this planet will be my people’s home forever, and I hope that we don’t make the same mistakes we made with Hetra.  I hope that it will have grass, tall grass like Hetra had.  I hope that it will be long enough for a dog to jump through, just like the dogs did on Hetra. 

It’s amazing when I stop and think about it.  After all that I’ve been through, after all that we’ve all been through, all I really miss are the little things.  I don’t miss the people, and I don’t really miss Hetra, but I do miss the little things.  I miss sitting on a porch and drinking on a hot summer day, I miss watching the rain fall, I miss lightning strikes in the middle of the day, I miss reading at night before I go to bed, and I miss seeing my dog jump through the high Hetran grass.