"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Elysia "Ellie" Jobs whispered, pressing her face up against the cold window. Her breath fogged up the glass and her heart beat faster.

     Her partner floated up alongside her and stared at the beautiful glowing marble that was planet Earth. It was shrouded in clouds and the ocean glistened with the reflection of the far-away sun. It was hard for either of them to imagine that the planet held all of humanity. It was like a basket, carefully holding its precious eggs.

     "It takes my breath away, every time," Gabriel Monroe sighed, putting a hand on Ellie's shoulder.

     Ellie smiled and could see herself in the reflection of the window. Her blonde hair floated up around in a mass and it looked kind of funny to her. She giggled at the sight before giving the wall a light push so that she turned away. Gabriel continued to float by the window, observing Earth with a profound interest.

     "Careful," Ellie teased, "don't use up all the oxygen."

     Gabriel shook his head, smiling, "Yeah, like I could honestly use up six months' worth of air in a few minutes."

     Ellie laughed and "flew" through the large corridor that was filled to the brim with advanced technological equipment. The weightlessness was exhilarating, and if Ellie closed her eyes she could imagine herself flying high over mountains, rivers, streams, and the Earth. She was lighter than a feather, her body gliding through the weightless expanse with ease. Around her beeped hundreds of lights, switches, and dials that were monitoring the life support in the most advanced space station ever constructed.

     The A.O.S.S. (Above Orbital Space Station) floated hundreds of miles above the shimmering Earth's surface. It was constructed in a fashion similar to that of the I.S.S., but with a certain level of technological flare in mind. Solar panels lined the outside of the expansive base that was nearly 1,000 feet long. Various windows dotting the exterior allowed breath-taking views of the surrounding space. At night, millions of stars, more than a man could see on the clearest night on Earth, would speckle the heavens with their tiny pinpricks of light. Ellie would sometimes lay awake and gaze out at the vast expanse that was the Universe, dreaming of worlds far away filled with exotic creatures.

     Ellie grabbed a bar and was able to stop her movement through the station. A computer buzzed with activity and was littered with numbers: the results of hours of monitoring. Ellie flicked through a couple of channels, eager to see what information would hold.

     "Any other signs?" Gabriel asked, floating up next to Ellie.

     She shook her head, "No, perhaps what the other two astronauts saw really was just a light anomaly...still, it's weird that it just came and went like that."

     Gabriel pushed himself to another monitor and flicked through some channels, "When you're alone up her, you start to see things...that's all."

     Ellie sighed, "It's just...he was so adamant about it. Did you see the way his eyes lit up when he was talking about it?"

      Gabriel turned towards Ellie, his black hair oddly floating a little in the weightless environment, "Look, Ellie, I understand that you want something to happen. You want something exciting. But, just remember that it's perfectly okay to be normal."

     "Normal is boring," Ellie responded, closing the laptop that was strapped to the wall with Velcro. "I came up here so I wouldn't be normal. Is that so much to ask?"

     Gabriel put his hands on Ellie's shoulders and the two hovered in nothingness, "Sometimes, if you just look around, you can see that normal things are the most intricate, interesting aspects there are to the world."

     Ellie smiled, "Well, you certainly seem all right about everything."

     Gabriel smiled a broad grin, "Ellie, we're aboard the A.O.S.S.! Only twenty astronauts in history have ever had the privilege of working aboard this technological masterpiece! Just...enjoy the moment."

     Ellie looked away, "All right...let's just get ourselves ready for the classroom shift."

     "That's the spirit," Gabriel chuckled, hovering over to the main control center. "Now, let's go inspire some future explorers of humanity."

**

Earth

     "All right class," Mrs. Sanders said to her class, "now today, we are getting a very special visit. Does anyone remember who our special visitor is?"

     A small child raised his hand, "The astronauts!"

     Mrs. Sanders smiled, "Yes, that's right Charles. Today, we'll be getting a special message from two astronauts aboard the A.O.S.S.! Does anybody know what that is?"

     Another child, a small blonde girl of six, raised her hand, "I do! The A.O.S.S. is the world's first space ship to be located above the Earth's gravity pull!"

     Mrs. Sanders laughed a little, "Miranda! You sure seem to know a lot about the ship!"

     The girl smiled, "My dad was on the last shift. He said he saw a shooting star from Earth!"

     "Alright Miranda," Mrs. Sanders answered. "Now, let's get ready for our visitors!"

     The T.V. in the classroom had been configured by specialists to have a real-time conversation with astronauts aboard the station. When she flipped it on a slightly-blurry image of a young woman with waving blonde hair came into view. The classroom erupted in excitement as another astronaut floated right behind her.

**

A.O.S.S.

     "Hey!" Ellie said, excitedly, into the monitor. "How are you all doing there on Earth?"

     She heard the classroom crackle with laughter and Ellie couldn't help but smile. It was one of the rare times she felt like she was actually making a difference. It was a time when she felt that her life wasn't...ordinary.

     "Does anybody have any questions about space?" she asked.

     On the monitor a child raised his hand and the teacher called on him, "Um, how do you go to the bathroom?"

     The classroom erupted in a laughing frenzy and Ellie smiled, "Well...that's an interesting question!"

**

     Meanwhile, while Ellie talked to the students, Gabriel was making some last-minute checks on a nearby monitor. He was monitoring the external region for any unknown anomalies; a routine procedure. As he checked the numbers, though, the screen seemed to glitch a little.

     "Hm?" Gabriel said to himself, waiting for the screen to normalize.

     The numbers fluctuated a little before replacing themselves with a glitched barcode-like line running down the screen.

     "What the hell..." Gabriel breathed as he checked the numbers. "My God..."

     He pressed buttons and double-checked the computer's calculations.

     "That...can't be possible," he whispered to himself.

     Quietly, he opened a channel to the main headquarters. Gabriel put on a pair of headphones and spoke into the receiver:

     "Headquarters?" he asked.

     There was nothing but static.

**

     "...and that's how we typically dispose of our waste, here on the A.O.S.S.," Ellie concluded to a bunch of astounded kids. "Any other questions?"

     There was a tap on her shoulder, it was Gabriel.

     "We need to cut this short," he said, seriously.

     "What, why?" Ellie whispered in response.

     "There's--" he began, but an alarm immediately cut through his words and the screen in front of them went black.

**

Earth

     "Oh!" Mrs. Sanders exclaimed as the feed with the astronauts was suddenly cut short, "I guess the astronauts are busy with some work now. Well, I suppose it's time that we go over some math homework children!"

     There was a unanimous groan within the child audience.

**

A.O.S.S.

     "What the hell?" Ellie whispered, quickly navigating her way through the emergency interface on her computer.

     "We have several anomalies inbound," Gabriel stated, strapping himself into his seat. "Houston? This is Gabriel Monroe to Houston. We have a problem. I repeat, we have a problem." 

     Ellie switched on emergency shields and came to the interface detailing what was happening. Through a radar-like screen she could observe hundreds of tiny dots heading toward the station. They were moving at incredible speeds, and the monitor seemed to be glitching in and out as they got closer.

     "My God," Ellie whispered.

     "Houston?!" Gabriel yelled into the microphone. "T-The line's dead, we're on our own."

     The dots were getting closer, and panic set into Ellie's heart.

     Gabriel looked out of the observation window, his face already lined with sweat, "Hang on to something!"

     Something enormous smashed into the outer hull and it echoed throughout the interior corridors of the ship. The monitors fizzed out and some of the lights flickered. Somewhere, an alarm blared.

     "Gabriel, get to the pods!" Ellie screamed, another bang sending sparks flying at her.

     She unclipped herself from her seat.

     "Ellie, no!" Gabriel screamed.

     Another crash and the monitors exploded in a hurricane of fireworks. Ellie screamed, seeing cracks spiderweb their way along the observation window. Objects flew off of the wall and soared at dangerous speeds around the cabin.

     "Ellie!" Gabriel screamed.

     Ellie was flung against the wall, a utility booklet smacking her in the head. Gabriel unbuckled himself from his seat and jumped towards her.

     "Ellie, take my hand!" he ordered.

     "Gabriel!" Ellie screamed as the spiderwebs worsened.

     "Ellie!" Gabriel yelled.

     The window smashed and Gabriel was sucked backwards out into the vacuum. Ellie screamed but there was no sound. Her blood seemed to boil, and her body was violently jerked in the direction of the smashed window.

     Luckily, the emergency vents closed around the broken structure. Ellie's body smashed into the wall of the station with an extreme speed, immediately rendering her unconscious. Around the ship, the power sources were either cut or destroyed. A lethal radiation spread throughout the interior, immediately killing off all biological organisms. Life support failed in the station and various structures were entirely broken off by the oncoming barrage of extraterrestrial objects.

     Within seconds, Ellie was dead.