In the course of writing Terraformed Earth – New Millennium I wrote several chapters before the main action starts. I realized this was deferring the real story too long. so I cut the first four chapters. I rewrote them as a standalone short story. Mirabile dictu!, I sold it to a Canadian publisher for inclusion in Unbound III- Goodbye Earth, an anthology where it goes it goes by an earlier title, IX – Departure. I just reread it and was really happy with the story. You might be as well.
Since it’s been a couple of years since Departure appeared, I’ve published it as a standalone Kindle story under the title Terraformed Earth – Departure.