The next day, I completely rested. I thanked the universe for the miracle that was the anti-gravity bed. But today, there was something else. I was brimming with energy and couldn’t wait to get up and start the day. Even the silence of the station felt different. More alive than usual.

  I knew it was probably my imagination, but every little sound felt different. The occasional pipe clanging, the gentle hum of the life support pulsing breathable air. As if the station, sensing more than one occupant, was working harder and I could hear and feel it around me.

  I tried to stay in bed a little longer, reveling in the feeling. But the energy wouldn’t let me be still. Eventually, I gave up and left the bed.

  The shower was quick. I had things to do. I wanted to surprise Rosalia with a nice breakfast.

  I stood before the ChefPro. I scrolled through options, settling on a hearty English breakfast equivalent. Donovian Beans in sauce, wrong color, but I was getting used to that. I added sausages (white with black zebra stripes), eggs (cubes, for some reason), synthmeat bacon, starch-fruit potatoes. I started to whistle a joyful tune. I was living an adventure in another world, with the strangest food.

  I was re-arranging the plates for the third time when I was interrupted.

  “Good Morning. This smells divine.”

  Startled, I almost jumped, before turning. Rosalia stood near the entrance of the foyer, smiling at my reaction. Gone were the intricate clothes of yesterday. She was now wearing a more casual attire. Loose pants, subdued shirt, small boots. It looked a bit weird, like she was wearing a costume. She clearly had made an effort in selecting her attire, but she did not look comfortable in it.

  “Morning”, I said, gesturing to the table. “We have a long day ahead, so I prepared something filling. Well, The ChefPro did. But you know what I meant.”

  She smiled, a genuine expression that transformed her face. “That looks lovely.”

  She joined me at the table, sitting with an elegance born of years of practice.

  “I woke wonderfully rested,” she started. “The bed was as good as you had hinted. The amenities in my quarters are exceptional and well calibrated. This may have been the best sleep I had in years. At least since I graduated.” Her whole body was radiating joy.

  I felt absurdly proud. “I’m glad you like it. I poured a lot of time and resources into its construction and furnishing. The game devs knew their business. The environmental systems are doing a fantastic job. And most of the equipment is top craft or legendary drops.” I boasted. I was about to continue, but noticed a strange expression on her face.

  “Game developers,” she slowly said, as if testing the words. “I forgot this is all coming from a game, from your perspective.” She straightened in her chair, pensive, hand hovering over her fork, then relaxed. “I am not sure I will ever get used to the notion. But the results are undeniable. Many palaces do not have this level of comfort. You truly achieved something here.”

  “Thanks.” I said, lowering my head to hide my burning cheeks. I pretended to focus on my food and so did Rosalia, which I was grateful for.

  We started to eat, at first in silence, but the bacon was so good that I couldn’t stop myself and made a little moan of pleasure. Rosalia, who was eating with grace, stopped and looked at me, eyes wide.

  “Sorry. Sorry. But it’s so good I couldn’t resist,” I apologized.

  She chuckled and relaxed her posture. “Yes, indeed. It is absolutely delicious.” She said, with a grin. “I wouldn’t mind getting this every morning. You know that the ChefPro is very expensive. And very exclusive,” she added. “They are quite picky about who they sell it to. When I was in boarding school, which family managed to get one or not was very important when deciding on the pecking order.”

  She paused, laughed and, looking at the ceiling, added: “some would die of jealousy, if they knew I had access to one here.”

  I laughed too. “Feel free to use it as much as you want.”

  After that moment of bonding, we continued eating while talking about small things. Food is such an ice breaker.

  When the plates were empty, Rosalia pushed back from the table. “The medical pod prescribed a two-hour session every morning. I should not delay.”

  “Good idea. I’ll walk you down, then hit the gym.” I answered.

  The medical bay was quite a walk and that section of the station was labyrinthic. We walked there slowly, talking about this and that.

  “I travelled a lot, but most of it was in hyperspace and lived planetside all my life.”, she explained. “Even for me, this is quite spectacular. You chose your location well”

  “Ah, well. That one I can’t take credit for.”, I awkwardly said, scratching the back of my head. “In the game, Hyperion Deep was located farther away on a comet in the Oort cloud. I have no idea why the station is identical, but it is located in this planetary ring instead of where it was in Life Among the Stars. But I don’t complain. The view is amazing,” I added, grinning.

  When we arrived, she studied the pod’s interface with a clinical expression.

  “Two hours,” she confirmed, reading the display. “It says I am healing adequately, but continued treatment will prevent future complications.”

  “No rush,” I said. “Take all the time you need. We have time and a lot to do. A couple hours a day for a week won’t change much.”

  “Thank you for… everything,” she replied, voice gone soft.

  “We’re partners.”, I said, embarrassed, then, turning to leave the room, “I’ll give you some privacy. I’ll hit the gym. See you in two.”

  I quickly exited and made my way to the gym.

  I changed into my exercise clothes and activated the personal trainer app on my holobracer.

  “I want new exercises, give me new stuff and make it a challenge,” I ordered, full of confidence and excitement.

  The 3D projection explained the new exercises and I started my workout. It was hard. While traveling I did lighter exercise for short periods and when I got back, I had not exercised at all. I was disappointed with myself and wanted to get right back into it.

  The trainer followed my request and delivered new, harsher exercises. After just five minutes, I was groaning in pain, trying to lift small dumbbells while bent over a bench. Thankfully, every exercise was gamified.

  One more push and you get the silver medal, Nico. Come on. And I’m sure you can do gold too.

  Deep in training, I lost track of time and was startled by a laugh coming from the door. I finished my series and turned to see Rosalia, hands clutching her ribs, as if she was laughing so hard it hurt.

  “Am I bad at it?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” she managed to say between laughs, “do you transform everything into a game? I never heard a trainer tell someone that ten more reps will earn them a silver medal and fifteen additional ones a gold medal.”

  I stood up, grabbed a towel and started to dry myself, while making my way to the door.

  “It may just be me and my gamer mind, but if you try, I’m sure you will fall for it too.” I answered. “Back on Earth, it was a huge thing. Gamifying everything. To help motivate people, to trick them into buying more. It’s based on some psychological trick, I guess.”

  She nodded slowly, her face deep in concentration. “It makes sense. I never thought about it like that?”, she said, slowly, deep in thought.

  “Anyway, how are you feeling?”, I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Oh, I am doing very well,” she answered. “Tissue regeneration is improving faster than anticipated.” She took a more pensive face, “although it warned me to eat less fat and easier to digest food for a few days, as I had severe liver and kidney injuries.”

  We left the gym, still talking. The conversation shifted to food and nutrition as we walked.

  “It is rare to see someone so interested in food and so adventurous,” she stated. “I am used to food being viewed as simple sustenance, nothing more. Or as a way to impress, not because the food is good, but because it was made from expensive materials, or crafted by a gifted chef we had to head hunt, or by a high-end synthesizer like your chefPro, a sign of wealth and status.” She paused and added: “I think I like it.”

  “If you want a new life, you kind of have to figure out who you are when nobody’s watching. Food’s a good first step. You get to experiment and ask, ‘Do I like this?’ Not ‘is this expensive enough’ or ‘would my family approve.’ Just you.”

  We reached the foyer. “I need a quick shower,” I said. “Meet you in the lounge in ten?”

  She nodded, heading toward the ChefPro. “The pod recommended a health blend.”

  “Good luck,” I replied. “From experience, those things taste like dirt at best,” I added as I was leaving the room.

  Ten minutes later, we were lounging on opposite sofas and, sure enough, Rosalia was making a face while sipping from a large bottle.

  “We should plan the day,” I proposed. “Figure out priorities.”

  “Agreed.” She sat with a perfect posture, elegantly reaching for a tablet. She opened it and started to enumerate. “The cheatlight drive needs to be fixed and tested. Everything else is moot if we cannot repair it.”

  I waved dismissively. “We will be able to fix it. I have a solution for every missing part. It will just require time, but the engineering VI is confident we can do it.”

  “Okay.” She sounded dubious, but went on. “We need to decide what we will do with the bodies of the crew. They are still in their emergency coffins in the Reizen.”

  “Do you want to send them back to their families?” I asked.

  “I was considering a sun-burial. It is a long held tradition in the Empire. Those who die in space are sent on a trajectory that will bring them to the closest star. We are star dust, they just go back to that state of matter.” She said, carefully.

  “I like it in principle, but if we send them from here, they will take decades to reach the star,” I said, uncertain. “I’m not comfortable with the idea of their bodies floating in the void for so long. I find it… creepy.”

  She sighed, eyes downcast. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “If we wait for the Reizen’s cheatlight to be repaired, we can do a quick hop to a position closer to the star. It is only five light-hours from here. We will do the sun-burial there. Does that sound good to you?” I proposed.

  She relaxed. “Yes, that would be perfect.” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. They were your people.”

  We stopped talking for a minute. Deep into thoughts. I hesitated. Unwilling to break the stretching silence.

  Finally, I cleared my throat. “What about the assassin's body? I put it in a coffin too. We should search it for any clue. But what do you want to do with it afterward?”

  “It depends on what we find.” She answered. “If there is any clue on his body, we should keep it. But I don’t think we will, in which case, we should also send it to the star. But without honors.“

  “Works for me,” I agreed.

  “After that, we should tackle cleaning the Reizen, making it shine.” She concluded. “We should be ready in two or three weeks.”

  I raised my hand in objection. She looked at me, surprise in her eyes. “There are other things. You should prepare your appeal for political refugee status and look at my cover story before we head out. I need to find a safe route to an imperial outpost.” I enumerated. “Also, we should do flight training. Whatever you think you know about flying, I’m pretty sure you are not ready for what it truly means to do combat flight in a ship like the Mahkkra.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” she assured me.

  I laughed. “The first full acceleration, I cracked some ribs.” I replied. “The mahkkra is made to fight. I can use it to pull crazy maneuvers that most ships can’t follow. But there is a cost. It’s not a comfortable luxury ship. Trust me, you will need practice. And you will need to be able to pilot it too. We never know.”

  “I know how to pilot a ship.” She seemed a bit offended.

  “I’m sure you do. But you probably have piloted ships with standard thrust and flight aid. The Mahkkra uses a Quillon drive and has no aid. You have to constantly adjust the thrust vectors and tune every system. There is no automation,” I explained.

  She looked shaken. “I thought that if you know how to pilot a ship you know how to pilot them all…”

  Rosalia looked at her tablet, pensively. I noticed she was rubbing her ear with her thumb and index while thinking, planning. This simple gesture made her appear more human. The facade of the trained ambassador had cracks. I considered it a good sign.

  “I propose we start by investigating the assassin and his equipment. I do not expect much, but it has to be done, and the sooner, the better. After that, we should continue your work on repairing the Reizen’s drive. Does that sound amenable to you?”

  “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.” I agreed, getting up. “Let’s go.”

  The walk to the hangar bay of the Reizen felt longer than it should have. Neither of us talked. I found myself reviewing the moment I killed him and how I had felt at that moment. The oppressing fear after seeing Rosalia, a blade sticking out of her body, clinging to life. I looked at her walking ahead of me, checking she was all well and healed.

  Looking at the body was disturbing. When we fought, he was terrifying.

  But now, he was just a body. Unmoving. With that unnerving stillness of death.

  He no longer looked scary. His form-fitting suit looked like a futuristic pajama, no longer the sleek embodiment of predator and danger.

  I touched the fabric. It was soft. The texture reminded me of velvet, with a metallic edge. It reacted to the ambient light. Sometimes shining under it, other times almost absorbing it.

  We had to struggle to undress him. He was naked under the suit and had several connection ports on his body where the suit attached itself.

  “This is definitely much higher tech level than what the kingdom had access to.” Said Rosalia.

  “Does it tell you anything else?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Not much.”, she replied, with a defeated expression. “It could be imperial military technology smuggled in. It could be proof that someone in the Empire was involved. But at this point. It is only conjecture. We have no proof of anything.”

  I examined the body attentively, scanning it with my holobracer. Digital prints scrubbed. Dental implants to prevent identification. Traces of surgery to make his traits more generic. The scan also revealed traces of DNA manipulation to render any identification inconclusive.

  “Clearly, we’re not going to learn much from this guy,” I complained, while standing.

  With a sigh, Rosalia agreed and re-activated the coffin.

  “Let’s get back to the drive. I’m sure we’ll make progress there” I said, trying to put a positive spin.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I shouldn’t have. The work on the drive turned out to be slow and exhausting.

  "The primary challenge," I explained as we worked, "is that the manufacturer used proprietary components. Everything is custom-fitted. I cannot just swap in standard parts."

  "Naturally," Rosalia said dryly. "My father preferred exclusive contracts. Status over practicality."

  "So we have to rebuild the damaged sections using components from Hyperion Deep's storage. It's like... like trying to fix an Apple product using Android parts."

  She blinked. "I do not understand that reference."

  "Right. Uh, think of it as using imperial technology to repair kingdom technology. The fundamental principles are the same, but all the connectors and interfaces are different."

  "Ah. Yes, I understand now."

  “The last remaining issue is when I assembled the components to create a brand new drive. It does not fit in the dedicated compartment on the Reizen.”

  The new system, a mishmash of spare parts from several manufacturers, was slightly bigger than the original one.

  We spent hours in the engineering bay. Testing configurations, running simulations, hitting dead ends. My back ached from leaning over components. Rosalia's precise annotations became gradually less precise as fatigue set in.

  "I think we should stop," she finally said, setting down her datapad. "We are not making progress anymore."

  I wanted to argue, but she was right. We were just spinning our wheels.

  After that, we shared dinner in the station's main lounge. Simple food, eaten while watching the asteroids drift past. I was exhausted and frustrated.

  "We should celebrate properly once the drive is complete," Rosalia said. "You prepared such an elaborate meal yesterday. We should mark our progress with another."

  "Deal." I paused. "Though tonight, I was thinking we need to just... relax. Watch something."

  "The shows you mentioned?"

  "Exactly." I pulled up the entertainment system. "I need to convert you to the genius of Chester and Frilda. We will start at the beginning, although season one is not the best. They clearly were still searching for their voice and still feared censure by their broadcasting network. Frilda’s moments truly become unhinged after season five."

  I loaded up the episode. Despite not being the best, it was still one of my favorites. A ridiculous adventure involving a space casino and a series of increasingly improbable coincidences. Chester and Frilda stumbled through the plot with their characteristic combination of accidental competence and genuine heart. Hired to investigate if the casino cheats its customers, they prove its innocence while uncovering the crimes of an imperial governor.

  Rosalia watched with an expression of polite skepticism. But when Chester delivered a particularly absurd line about "negotiating with quantum probability," I caught her hiding a smile.

  "The narrative structure is entirely implausible," she said during a dramatic moment. "No legitimate diplomatic envoy would ever behave in this manner."

  "That's the point. It's fun."

  "Fun," she repeated, as if testing the concept.

  The episode ended. I queued up another, but she held up a hand.

  "I would like to offer an alternative. There is a series I enjoyed at the academy. 'Nth Dimension.' It concerns a group of mercenaries exploring the outer regions."

  She loaded it up. I watched the first few minutes with growing recognition. It was basically an inferior version of Star Trek. A competent crew, episodic format, and moral lessons wrapped in space adventure. Well-made, but formulaic. Safe. And a bit forceful on morality. Like a Public Service Announcement.

  "It's... nice," I said diplomatically.

  "You find it dull."

  "No! It's just... well. A bit unimaginative? And quite formulaic?"

  "Unlike your Chester and Frilda, which is complete chaos."

  "Exactly."

  We ended up watching another episode of each, trading commentary. Rosalia pointed out technical inaccuracies in Chester and Frilda. I noted plot holes in Nth Dimension. It was comfortable. Easy. The kind of friendly argument that had no real stakes.

  When we finally called it a night, we walked to our quarters still talking about the shows. The station felt like a home.

  The next day, I woke to the unfamiliar sound of movement in the corridor outside my cabin. Rosalia, heading to the kitchen. I checked the time. She was up early.

  I threw on clothes and followed.

  She'd beaten me to the ChefPro and was studying the interface with intense concentration, her brow slightly furrowed.

  "Morning," I said.

  She jumped slightly then composed herself immediately. "Good morning. I was attempting to determine how to prepare tea."

  "Here, let me."

  "No." She held up a hand with surprising firmness. "I wish to learn. If we are to be partners, I should be able to manage basic food preparation."

  I stepped back, hiding a smile. "Okay."

  She managed to produce something that was probably tea. We sat together at the breakfast table, and I couldn't help but notice that she'd already set out plates, arranged the table with almost military precision.

  "So," I said, "I was thinking we should establish a routine. Make things predictable."

  "I agree entirely." She pulled out, and I had to blink, an actual printed schedule. On physical paper. Or whatever the space-future equivalent was.

  "You... made a schedule?"

  "Naturally. Structure promotes efficiency." She slid the schedule across. It was blocked out in precise increments: breakfast, medical pod, gym, repairs, lunch, more repairs, flight training, dinner, recreation. She had even included bathroom breaks.

  "This is..." I struggled for words. "Very thorough."

  "You find it excessive."

  "I find it very *you*." I grinned. "But yeah, this works. Though maybe we don't need to schedule bathroom breaks?"

  "Structure prevents waste," she said primly. But I caught a hint of self-awareness in her eyes. She knew she'd gone overboard.

  "Tell you what," I said. "Let's try it for a week. See how it feels."

  "Acceptable."

  The schedule immediately felt natural. Breakfast, then our separate morning activities: her in the medical pod, me in the gym. By the time I'd finished working out and showering, she'd be emerging from treatment, and we'd reconvene in the engineering bay.

  The cheatlight drive slowly came together. We worked well as a team. As I already knew the pieces and the plan, I focused on assembly and she managed diagnostics and keeping us on tracks. In less than one hour, she had understood all the work that needed to be done, why and how. I don’t know what her education really was like, but she dove into every problem with a dedication and focus I could only envy.

  "You're good at this," I told her during a break.

  “You think?” She was tense. “We are partners, I don’t want to hold you back.”

  I laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that. You mastered engineering concepts in less time than it took me to ask the VI to repeat. Very slowly. And with diagrams.”

  We had a good plan for the cheatlight drive. I found a configuration where it would partially fit. The Reizen would gain a small bulge on its belly but we decided to transform it into a precious ornament. I had so much precious metals in storage that I could make it so gaudy that any rich noble wanting to impress would welcome the new hull shape.

  Of course, it probably meant an additional week of work, but we were in no hurry and the prospect of actually increasing the sale value of the ship motivated us even more.

  Later that afternoon, we had scheduled flight training. I'd planned some light maneuvers. Nothing intense, just basic evasive flying around asteroids with all the safety systems active.

  Rosalia took her position at the sensor station while I settled into the pilot's seat. This was the first time and she was surprised by the ship’s configuration.

  “Use your neural connection.” I told her. “You need to feel the ship. Don’t worry, I will do all the piloting. It’s just to get you accustomed to the systems. Today, you just observe.”

  She nodded in understanding and brought the connection jack to the port below her ear.

  I watched her face change. First disorientation, then wonder as she took in the sensation of feeling the ship instead of reading screens, and then confusion as she tried to process the vast quantity of data the ship was sending.

  “Relax.” I said. “I know it’s a lot at first. This is a combat ship, it’s not trying to coddle you. Everything has to be constantly manually managed.”

  "Ready?" I asked, when I felt she was starting to relax.

  "Proceed."

  I eased us away from the station. At first I just did a few turns. I explained everything to her as I was doing it. I saw the amazement in her eyes when I showed her how the Quillon drive was creating thrust channels on the fly, allowing for precise thrust control. I then started threading between asteroids at a gentle pace. Then I saw a perfect opportunity: a narrow gap between two tumbling rocks that would require a nice roll and dive to navigate cleanly.

  In the game, it would've been rated "moderate difficulty." Here, with all the safety systems limiting my maximum acceleration and the computer ready to take over if things got dicey, it was basically a theme park ride.I executed the maneuver. A smooth roll, diving beneath one asteroid while the other passed overhead. Beautiful. Clean. Perfect.

  Rosalia made a sound I'd never heard before. It was somewhere between a shriek and a gasp.

  I leveled out, confused. "What? That was barely."

  "Pull over." Her voice was tight.

  "What?"

  "Find a stable position and stop the ship. Immediately."

  I did as she asked, matching velocity with a nearby asteroid and engaging the position-hold system. Rosalia unbuckled with jerky movements and headed toward the back of the ship.

  "Rosalia?"

  "Do not follow me."

  I waited in the cockpit, bewildered. After about five minutes, she returned. Her face was flushed, her composure cracked.

  "You fly like a madman," she announced.

  "What? That was nothing! The safety systems were."

  "I do not care about your systems. You rolled the ship ninety degrees while diving toward a massive rock."

  "Well, yeah, but."

  "A gentleman would, at the very least, pretend not to notice when a lady is in such a state."

  It took me a second. Then I understood. "Oh. Oh, you."

  "We will never speak of this again."

  I wanted to laugh, but I could see she was genuinely embarrassed. And scared. She probably had never experienced that kind of flying before. What felt routine to me was legitimately terrifying to her.

  "I'm sorry," I said seriously. "I should've warned you better. Gone slower."

  She took a breath, composing herself. "I... overreacted. But please understand. I am accustomed to diplomatic shuttles that prioritize comfort. This was..."

  "Different."

  "Extremely."

  I thought for a moment. "Look, I broke my ribs on my first real flight with the Mahkkra. Spent weeks wearing diapers during training because I kept blacking out or worse during high-G maneuvers. It's normal to need time to adapt."

  She blinked. "You wore..."

  "Yeah. Still got a box in storage if you want to, you know, prep for next time. No shame in it."

  For a moment, she looked mortified. Then, slowly, her expression shifted to something like gratitude. I wasn't mocking her. I was admitting my own struggles.

  "I will... consider it," she said quietly.

  We didn't do any more combat maneuvers that day. The rest of the afternoon passed quietly—cleanup work, system checks, simple tasks that didn't require thought.

  That evening, we watched another episode of Chester and Frilda. Rosalia laughed at a joke I wasn't sure she'd have found funny yesterday. Small progress.

  The third day followed the pattern we had established. I had teased her on the detail level of her daily schedule, but we were on the same page. We both liked having a clear schedule for the day. During breakfast we talked about her past. Jokingly, I told Rosalia about my work, back on Earth. We had a morning ritual called “stand up”, where every member of the team would stand up, tell what they did on the previous day and what they expected to do in the coming day. I regaled her with tales of weird habits of coworkers. “I assure you, he was always saying: ‘well, hum, yesterday, I did, .. well that’s too much detail, so, in summary, I, well, I worked on my tasks’. E-ve-ry time. He spent three full minutes muttering and in the end, no one had any idea what he had worked on”

  Rosalia was laughing so hard she had to hold her ribs in pain. Seeing her in that state, I could not stop laughing too and ended up falling from my chair.

  It took a few minutes to recover. When we finally checked the time, we were already fifteen minutes behind schedule.

  "Worth it," I managed, still grinning.

  She nodded, wiping her eyes. "Indeed. But we should start."

  We split up. Me to the gym, her to the medical bay. Both still smiling.

  After that, we started the real work of the day: installing the new cheatlight drive on the Reizen. We were confident and excited. While suiting and reviewing the technical details, we kept joking.

  Full of confidence, we started the work. Everything went smoothly at first.

  Rosalia was checking the wires and fuel lines inside the ship while I was outside, marveling at the practicality of my personal shield doubling as an EVA suit. I was setting up new anchor points for the hull addition. The work itself was straightforward: drill holes, smooth the edges, coat with nanites, insert the anchor point, send an electric jolt to activate the nanite and merge the anchors with the hull, then repeat, twenty centimeters farther. I was getting into a rhythm. The repetitive work was almost meditative.

  Maybe that’s why I got careless.

  I was halfway through when I thought: I can get a better angle if I just...

  I unclipped the tether. Just for a second. Just to rotate myself for better leverage.

  That’s when Rosalia’s checks triggered a small gas venting from one of the pipes. A gentle puff of thrust. Barely anything. In an atmosphere, it would've been a light breeze. But in the vacuum, with no tether, it was enough.

  I drifted. Slowly, almost lazily. Away from the ship.

  For a second, my brain didn't process the danger. Then reality hit: I was moving away from the Reizen. The station. Everything. Drifting into open space with no way to arrest my momentum.

  "Shit. Shit shit shit." I fumbled for my suit thrusters, but they were meant for minor adjustments, not serious maneuvering. I managed to slow my rotation but not my overall drift.

  "Nicolas?" Rosalia's voice crackled over the comm. "Your vitals just spiked. Is something wrong?"

  "I'm..." Deep breath. Stay calm. "I'm drifting. Unclipped my tether like an idiot and got pushed off by a venting test."

  Silence. Then, in that perfectly controlled voice: "Please explain why your current trajectory is away from the station."

  "Because I'm an idiot?"

  "That was established. I am launching a rescue operation. Stand by." I heard her moving through the comms, then: "I'm taking the Mahkkra—"

  "NO!" The word came out sharper than I intended. "Sorry, but please don't. You're not ready for the Mahkkra. Please don’t try to fly it, you’re going to crash against the hangar ceiling or tumble around because you can’t control it. Please. I beg you, don’t take the Mahkkra." My voice was frantic. I was begging.

  "Then what do you suggest?"

  "The Rochefort. The old cargo hauler. It's slower but has standard controls. You can handle it."

  Another pause. Then: "Very well. Remain calm. I will retrieve you."

  I watched through my helmet as the Rochefort undocked from the station. Rosalia flew it with careful precision. She performed slow, methodical approaches, constant micro-corrections. It took her ten minutes to reach me, ten minutes during which I had plenty of time to contemplate every stupid decision I'd ever made.

  When the cargo hauler's loading drone caught me, I had never been so happy to be grabbed by rusty mechanical claws.

  Rosalia cycled me through the airlock. I stumbled into the cockpit, still shaking slightly from adrenaline.

  She sat at the controls, her posture perfect, her expression calm. But her hands trembled slightly on the flight stick.

  "Thank you," I managed.

  "You are welcome." She didn't look at me. "In the future, please endeavor not to die in such an... undignified manner. It reflects poorly on both of us."

  "Noted."

  She finally turned, and I saw amusement mixed with genuine fear in her eyes. "Also, you begged me not to pilot the Mahkkra. You are remarkably overprotective of your 'toy.'"

  I laughed, slightly hysterical. "It's a very nice toy. Besides, you will understand when you try to fly it."

  "Yes. Well. Perhaps keep yourself tethered from now on."

  Back on the station, I couldn't settle. My hands still shook slightly when I tried to work on calibrations. After the third mistake, I gave up.

  I ended up in the lounge, head in my hands, running through nightmare scenarios. What if Rosalia hadn't reacted so fast? What if she'd panicked? What if?

  "Nicolas." Her voice, quiet. "It is time for lunch."

  I looked up. She was standing in the doorway, expression carefully neutral.

  "I'm not really hungry."

  "Nevertheless." She made a small gesture toward the kitchen. "Come. I am preparing something."

  I stood up to join her, my steps were steady, but I kept my gaze down.

  “You’re in no state to cook. Go sit at the table, it will be ready soon.” She said, making a hand gesture to shoo me away.

  “You’re just ordering on the ChefPro. That’s not real cooking. I can help bring the dishes to the table,” I retorted, a bit too aggressively.

  She looked at me, cocking one eyebrow disapprovingly.

  I felt my body deflate. I sighed. “Sorry. That did not come out well,” I apologized. “I think you're right. I’ll go sit at the table.”

  We started eating in uncomfortable silence. The food was very good and, mid-way through the meal, I realized she had cooked my favorite dishes. The ones I had shown her in the ChefPro’s interface, bragging.

  “Thank you,” I said, softly.

  She said nothing, just smiled and continued to eat.

  “This is good,” I added, “your cooking is the best.” That was an olive branch, she recognized it and took it.

  After that, we started talking. Small talk. Color of our clothes, the previous day's episodes of Chester and Frilda. I started to feel better.

  We lingered over lunch longer than usual. When Rosalia finally checked the schedule, we were technically supposed to be back at the drive installation.

  She looked at me, assessing. "Do you want to continue working on the drive?"

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Tomorrow. But not right now. How about we do a longer flight training instead?” I proposed. “Flying always cheers me up.”

  She agreed and we had a good time. I was careful not to do any scary maneuvers. Well. Not too scary anyway. I was sure she had taken my advice and worn diapers and I needed the adrenaline. To fly the Mahkkra a bit recklessly. To feel like I was on top of the world.

  Rosalia screamed, but not too much. But she also laughed. We joked and after the session ended, we finished the day without any incident.

  That night, lying in the anti-gravity bed, I expected to replay the accident. The drifting. The helplessness.

  Instead, I found myself thinking about Rosalia's hands trembling on the flight stick. The way she'd cooked my favorite dishes without asking. The way we'd laughed during the flight training.

  We were building something here. A friendship.

  I fell asleep feeling, despite everything, grateful