Pov: Firstclass

A crackle in my helmet speaker. “Saito, this is Solstice. Status report.”

Now I watch the same blue-and-white marble spin beneath my boots, and I feel nothing. That’s the part they don’t tell you about in the recruitment brochures. Not the danger, not the radiation, not the bone atrophy. They don’t tell you that the most terrifying thing in the universe isn’t the vacuum or the cold or the endless dark. It’s the boredom.

I’m First Class Engineer Saito, serial number 7783-K. I’m thirty-two thousand kilometers above the Pacific, and I’m supposed to be replacing a thermal coupling on Panel J-9. But I’ve been staring at my wrench for three minutes now, watching it float in front of my visor, because I’ve run out of reasons to turn it. firstclass pov

“Good work, Saito.”

That was six years ago.

“Panel J-9 is replaced, Commander. Thermal readings nominal.”

Halfway there, I stop.

Home.