I should feel proud. I’m the youngest First Class in the program. I’ve logged more EVA hours than anyone under forty. My mother sends me photos of my old bedroom, which she’s turned into a yoga studio. My father still calls me “the astronaut” like it’s a cute phase I’ll grow out of.
Because I’m First Class. And First Class means you go first, yes. But it also means you go alone. Every other human being is down there, under that blanket of atmosphere, breathing real air, feeling rain on their faces, arguing about stupid things that don’t matter. And I’m up here, touching a scorch mark on a dying machine, wondering if I’ve forgotten what it feels like to want something.
There’s a spot on the station’s hull that I’ve passed a hundred times before. It’s a small scorch mark, about the size of my palm, where a micrometeoroid hit two years ago. I remember the night it happened. I was inside, drinking rehydrated coffee, when the whole station shuddered and alarms blared. We thought we were dead. Turned out to be a fleck of paint traveling eighteen thousand miles per hour. firstclass pov
Halfway there, I stop.
“Good work, Saito.”
“Good. Ease on back to the airlock. We’ve got a supply drone docking in four hours, and I need you on the grapple.”
I’m projecting. Obviously.
I’ve done this exact repair twenty-three times. I could do it blindfolded, which is good, because the sun keeps sliding in and out of my peripheral vision like a migraine waiting to happen. The station’s rotation means I get sixty seconds of blazing light, then sixty seconds of absolute black. Like a celestial interrogation lamp.
