”Hope… can drown lost in thunderous sound…
Fear can claim… what little faith remains”

„But I carry strength from souls now gone...
They won't let me give in...”

„I will never surrender...
We'll free the Earth and sky
Crush my heart into embers...”

„And I will reignite...
I WILL REIGNITE!”

Sa inceapa jocurile

There was something eerily beautiful about the giant blue globe filling his field of vision. Dimmed somewhat by the helmet’s polarizing filters, it was still bright and teeming with unseen activity, with the white swirls of clouds on their endless journey through the atmosphere, with large patches of green where the forests still bloomed, and the neverending expanses of blue ocean where all life came from; all as picture perfect as ever. Nothing could humble a man more than such a view, slowly growing to engulf his entire sight.
With great effort, and the last of his suit’s propellant reserves, he turned his back to the globe as it rose to meet him. If his life were to end then, he preferred to be watching the stars that he tried so hard to reach, rather than his home that he would never embrace again.
“They shine so brightly…” he thought.

Life on the station never could be classified as uneventful or stagnant. Yet, nonetheless, he felt stuck in a rut. The space faring population increased tenfold in only the past couple of years and the once empty station was teeming with activity. From research to operations controls to medical procedures and even space tourism, there was more activity than ever before. They had even begun constructing new modules to accommodate the sheer number of people coming up after the energy breakthroughs that solved so many problems.
“Fine economics was all they needed to want to reach the stars again.” Johan always said at the end of the shifts, as they met in the overcrowded lounge. Bryan agreed, of course, but he didn’t have to like it as well.
With such an influx of scientists and technicians, his job there, once a great point of pride in his life, now felt menial and unimportant. Not that it could actually be called that – the security of more than a thousand souls was his to safeguard against any structural weaknesses in the outer hull – but it still rattled him that more important, more interesting things were going on all around him.
And he was left out of them, as if cast out of the making of history itself.
He watched his monitor as he slowly scanned the surface of the station, taking in the familiar readings, depression seeping deeper as he kept thinking of the bigger pictures that went on without him, when the light blinked red. It snapped him out of his funk. Finally, something to feel important for; a loose plating maybe, or a fissure or an air leak somewhere. He almost smiled as he checked his instruments, until he noticed that the irregularity was just another person in a space suit, on the surface.
Whoever it was, it was holding one of the new cameras adapted for outer space work, large and bulky, so it could be operated by the suit’s thick fingered gloves.
“Odd…” he thought as he checked the records and couldn’t find anybody scheduled for outer vehicular work that day except for himself. He maneuvered the small surveillance craft closer to the figure and donned his own suit’s helmet and tether before depressurizing the cabin and exiting. Whoever it was, it did not answer any radio calls.
He walked slowly over the surface of the ship, his magboots holding him in place securely. The other person did not seem to notice him as he came close and placed a gloved hand on its shoulder. That did the trick however as the stranger visibly jumped, startled. That at least alleviated Bryan’s fear that it may be just another tourist that had wondered from some tour and hyperventilated himself into a in-suit faint. The visor was covered with the antiglare filter and he couldn’t see who was inside.
“Are you ok in there?” he asked as he touched his helmet to the other’s. A few moments’ pause and the answer came, a woman’s voice.
“You’re not supposed to be out here.” He continued, while checking if there were any problems with her suit. She had her radio turned off, but nothing else came on the readings.
“You startled me…” came the answer “and I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“Miss, you are not scheduled to be out here. It’s very dangerous for yourself to have gone out without any proper clearance.” Now he was certain it was just another adventurous tourist that had slipped out some unguarded bulkhead. The camera trained on Earth should have been his first clue.
“But…it’s so beautiful. Don’t you agree?” She gestured in a slow arc towards the bright planet bellow. “Why must people abandon it for this black abyss?” She had a soft voice, almost pleading even through the helmets.
“I don’t know about that miss, but please come with me.”
She left herself be tethered to him and be guided to the vehicle. Bryan noticed she at least had the presence of mind to don a suit equipped with magboots. It didn’t look like the new, fancy ones that the tourists kept bringing up with them, but rather very much like a station one. He’d have to enquire about that.
He signed out of the maintenance shift and called in Johan to replace him as he took care of his straggler. As the vehicle docked he found out her name was Naomi and she was on a paid station tour, financed by one of the media conglomerates that kept buying advertisement space there.
“I hate it here.” she confessed, as they were helping one another out of the suits. “Man should stay where he’s been put, not wander these Godless places.” Bryan couldn’t remember the last time he’d met a religious person, much less around the station and was surprised that there were people that felt that way about space exploration, especially after all the good that had come from it.
“Man’s curious by his born nature miss Naomi. And my superior will be curious as to why you were out there. I’ll need you to fill in these forms.” He slipped a couple of documents with a pen attached towards her.
She read them for a moment and then handed them back. “Could we please not do this? I wasn’t hurting anyone.” She watched him with big, dark eyes, looking suddenly shy. “I merely wanted to see the Earth without being ever rushed by that horrible guide.”
Bryan felt like insisting but he had had enough to think about for one day and didn’t much feel like writing reports for one romantic, religious nut. “Just don’t do it again please.” He made a mental note to check up on how she actually got hold of a station space suit…but that was quite simple for anyone with a bit of cash really.
“Would you join me for lunch?” Her question was sudden and took him by surprise as they floated out of the maintenance offices. “I’d like to treat you for being such a gentleman about this. I really did not intend to cause anyone any trouble.”

It turned out that Naomi would be on the station for a week more and they met again. By happenstance at first, then on lunch and a simile of dates; Bryan found himself endeared to the dark haired, dark eyes little Asian girl. She was perhaps too slim and had a figure too girlish for his tastes, but he nonetheless enjoyed her company, especially as she kept asking to be shown around. For someone that hated it up there as much as she did, she was awfully curious of everything going on.
It made him feel important for the first time in months as he showed her research wings – “I can’t take you further than Access Level 2”, he confessed to her “which is much further than civilians usually can go. Further there are biological experiments of one nature or another.” – and even recreational areas for the staff and scientists. She was interested in his work and that broke up his routine. In spite of regulations, he even invited her with him on his outer space rounds. She may not have shown much interest in the mind numbing reading of sensor data, but she would spend her time reading in the cramped interior, the light of the world beneath spilling through the small ports.
A week came and went and she didn’t yet leave, much to his relief. On the final day he got the news that she’d be staying a week longer, having informed her employers that she needed a bit more time to finish her assignment. They apparently were more than happy to oblige.
That very same day they became lovers. “Zero G love making is like nothing you’ve ever felt before.” He told her as they half floated, half stumbled towards his small suite, kissing and undressing.
And it wasn’t.
As they floated, naked and embraced, she curled up in his arms and kissed his neck slowly. “I want to go out.” She whispered in his ear as she continued to caress his back, from the back of his neck, to his shoulders and his lower back, making him shiver slowly.
“You want to go out NOW?”
“Yeah. What other way to top off this beautiful day?” She untangled herself from his arms and pushed herself to the small window overlooking the stars and a bit of the Moon, obscured though by one of the large solar panels. “I want to sit with you and watch the Earth for a while. Please.”
He watched her in the dim light, her face clad in the soft glow of the Moon, and could only concede to her request. They were dressed in mere moments and met outside the airlocks. She insisted they would not use the surveillance vehicle, it would be better for them to be alone. He noticed she had once again procured a station suit, though he didn’t much care to know where from, tired and eager to please her as he was.

The tether kept them close to one another as they made their way across the handholds on the station, to the planetside. The Earth shone brightly, half clad in darkness with a myriad of lights scattered on its surface. Naomi reached him as he settled in the crook between two modules, offering him support to hold her, clumsily, in his arms. Time passed and the Earth spun on, careless of two observes in space.
She turned slowly towards him and touched her helmet to his, her hand going up to his side. “They really should make a suit for two.” Bryan said as he tried to discern her features through the visor.
A moment of silence passed.
“No…they shouldn’t.” was her answer. His hearing filled with painful static as something burned the side of his helmet, destroying the radio antenna. He pushed her arm aside and saw the concealed laser cutter protruding from a pocket in the wrist. “No…” he thought as she severed his tether. “No…no…Naomi.” He tried pushing her away but she was stronger than he had believed. She grabbed his arm and pulled, kicking his leg from beneath him. For a moment he hoped the magnets would hold.
But they didn’t and he found himself raised effortlessly by his arm and flung to the side into nothing.
The side thrusters of the suit wouldn’t obey him in his panic and he only managed to give himself a rotation as the station went further and further away from him. With great effort he managed to steady himself and try to look back, to signal somehow. He saw the small figure of Naomi as she made her way across the surface, cutting in sections, following his own maintenance path.
He thought himself an idiot and cursed at his own folly, tried to get back until the suit’s reserves were almost dry, but could manage nothing. And all the while, her words came back in his head, a litany of horror: “Man shouldn’t come up here. It’s not his place. Not his place. Not his place”

He fell through nothing, watching in horror as what meant most to him, now more so than ever, was to be so endangered by his own folly and all he could do was scream inside his helmet until his voice grew hoarse and his visor fogged up.

Behind him the Earth grew ever larger.